AMD Athlon MP 2200+ Server Roundup - September 2002

Gaining access to the inside of the 1124 is a very easy task; the top of the case is split up into three sections, two of which are accessible without the use of a screwdriver. The rearmost section covers the motherboard, the middle section covers the cooling fans and the front section covers the drives.

In order to get to the motherboard you simply unscrew the two thumbscrews at the rear of the chassis and slide the cover off. Underneath you'll see a small portion of the Tyan Thunder K7X exposed but mostly a large black duct that helps channel air from the blowers over the CPUs.

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The plastic duct can be lifted up to reveal the two Athlon MP 2200+ CPUs covered by low-profile heatsinks designed specifically for the 1124. The duct channels air from the three blowholes that separate the motherboard from the center of the chassis. A fourth blowhole can't be seen but it sends air through the power supply adjacent to the motherboard. The plastic duct is a much more elegant solution than Appro's original setup which featured cardboard cutouts to channel air across the CPUs' heatsinsks.

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Being a 1U solution, it's not surprising that there's only room for one PCI expansion card. The 1124 comes with a PCI riser card that allows you to install one PCI card in the system; with dual LAN, SCSI and video on-board the only real use for the expansion slot is for a RAID card.

Upgrading memory is a simple process; after removing the large duct you have full access to the DIMM slots. It's a bit difficult to get to the bank closest to the CPUs if a heatsink is installed but that's more of an issue with the Tyan layout than anything else. In general, access to the motherboard is made extremely simple due to the screwless design of the primary panel of the 1124.

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The biggest maintenance downside to the design of the 1124 is that there is no provision for a redundant power supply nor is the built in power supply removable without tools.