Dell OptiPlex SX270

Dell OptiPlex info on Wikipedia

  • box: desktop, Ultra SFF chassis
  • cpu: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz (2593.51-MHz 686-class CPU), hyperthreading
  • memory: 2 slots, type PC-2700 / PC-3200, 2048 MB (2 x 1 GB, PC-3200, max 2 GB)
  • disk: 2.5 inch - ad0: 38154MB at ata0-master UDMA100
  • optical drive: none
  • video: Intel 82865G (865G GMCH) SVGA controller - 82865G Integrated Graphics Device
  • video out: only DVI connector, needs vga-to-dvi adapter to connect vga-only monitors
  • sound: snd_ich - Intel ICH5 (82801EB) - 815B104D multimedia audio device (codec AC97) SoundMAX or VIA
  • network - wired: em0: - 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller
  • media bay: floppy drive (can hold cd / dvd drive)
  • boot: from usb is supported (press F12, select from menu, press Enter).. Boot from usb hard drive and usb flash drive works. Boot from usb CD-ROM drive does not work.
  • acpi seems incomplete. How do I read temperature and do thermal management?
  • bios: version A06, release date 09/29/2004.

More info: DragonFlyBSD, FreeBSD, Xubuntu on SX270.

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event log

2021-08-18: I re-created this page on my self-hosted web server.

2009-07-08: The machine failed a while ago (crashes and reboots), so I opened it up, cleaned and checked it. There were a few (about four) electrolytic capacitors that had "popped" (leaked). I cleaned the cpu and the heatsink, applied new cooling paste and reassembled the machine. Alas, it still crashes. I don't think I will replace the capacitors or the mainboard. This machine is retired.

2008-07-21: bought a new hard disk drive for the machine, a Samsung SpinPoint M5 80GB, model HM080GC.

2008-07-20: the internal hard disk drive (ad0) a Hitachi Travelstar model HTS548040M9AT00 died by "click-of-death".

2008-06-08: upgraded memory from 512MB to 2 GB using 2 x 1GB PC-3200.

2008-05-13: it seems that the A06 bios (from 2004) is the newest bios available for this machine.

2008-05-12: I got the machine. Since it didn't have a cd-rom or dvd drive, I had to use usb to install from.