agh! server from hell...

[PoweredByDodge]

If it's not one thing, it's another...

Day after christmas, smokey smokey... poof goes the power supply in the main desktop.

So I decide, "eh, I'll do a little revamping".

Bought new matching cases for the server and main desktop and a new keyboard, mouse, etc... dropped about 150 bucks.

painted everything Midnight Blue and gave it a nice clear laquer top coat... looks good.

Reassemble - SMOKE - goes the AMD Athlon XP Barton.

Processors hate me.

Thank God everything is swappable between the two - dumped the desktop's Sempron processor into the server, and I was back up.

Later realized that the power supply smoke-age in the desktop also killed the mother board.

So now I'm waiting on a replacement motherboard from NewEgg costing me about 38 bucks (ya I know its cheap, but socket-A boards aren't plentiful anymore --- they only had 5 to choose from and the most expensive was 70 bucks with bad reviews... the 38 dollar one had 100% good reviews and all the features I needed... It's ****ty PC-Chips brand, but I'll give it a try)... and I'm gonna have to wait until AMD RMA's my processor because I'm not buying another one. I've got a backup here, but its only 1.5 Ghz... the Barton was 1.99 ... I could get up and running, but I'd rather wait until i get the new processor.

Here's hoping it didn't kill anything else.

I friggin hate computers -- I was internet-less for days. I refuse to use the server to web-browse, that's just asking for trouble. So I'm on the bloody laptop - and while its good for a laptop, it sucks ass compared to the desktop.


Anyway - on a car audio note... I just put a system in a Toyota Tercel circa 1990 over the weekend, little starter one... 4 speakers and a head unit.

Turned out allright... doors were a living nightmare... they have these little cheapy plastic mount rings... much like many foreign cars, but these were even thinner and more "wobbly" than anything else i've ever seen inmy life. Not to mention the dept space allowed due to the window rail is virtually zero.

Real pain in the butt.

But it turned out good - sounds good for what it is... As far as 4 speakers and a deck setups go, I was a lil impressed.

Anyway - get this...

After doing the job, the radiator's electrical fan won't shut off... I don't get it.

We didn't go into the climate control harness or anything... just hacked into the speaker wires and the deck power, which is on its own harness, not in the same harness as the climate stuff...

Fromwhat I understand - the radiator fan has a heat switch (like a ported vacuum switch, but there are 2 electrical contacts inside -- when the motor gets to a certain temp, contact is made between the two tabs and power is supplied to the fan)... also, when the AC i turned on in the car, it supposedly kicks in that fan as well, in correlation with some other stuff.

So thats why I was wondering abotu climate controls - but we never touched that stuff.

I don't get it.

It could and probably just is coincidence, but I hate when **** like this happens... you work on a dude's car and then all of a sudden something unrelated to what you did doesn't work, and you feel like a total ******* because it looks like its your fault and you have no idea what the hell is causing it to not function properly.

[Jstas]

If the AC is triggered to the ON state by a lever or dial and not a button, check if any cables, arms or a hose is pinched, binding up or over-stretched. I had the same problem in an 86 Nissan Sentra. It turned out that when I had shoved the head unit in the dash, the new harness wires were pulling on a hose that was causing the AC to be switched on in a sense. The compressor never kicked on because the electrical connection completed by the AC button on the dash was never completed but the vents all went to teh AC mode so it didn't blow any heat.

I figured it out when I pulled the head unit and heard the "KSSSSSSSSSSHHHHH...PLUNK!" of the blend door closing and sealing off the heater again. I pushed the head unit back in and I heard "KSSSSSSSSSSHHHHH...THUNK!" as it opened back up. I found a 1/8" hose getting caught by the wires and tugged on to a point where it was getting in the way. When the head unit was slammed home, a corner of the back of the head unit was grabbing the hose and causing the pressure in the hose to drop which caused the door to open.

Oh, one other thing, make sure that in your reassembly, you didn't accidentally crack one of the plastic vaccum manifolds that connects to the back of teh selector switch on the HVAC controls in the dash. If it is cracked, it could be leaking. If that is the case, there isn't much you can do but try to reseal it unless Toyota can get you the manifold. I wouldn't get one from a junkyard though. It will be just as if not more brittle than the one in the car.

[PoweredByDodge]

i too had done similar stuff with vacuum climate controls before. cut clean through a vac hose one time, and having had no experience with such things, thought it was the end of the world. got a tubeing couple from the fish tank i had at the time (same basic stuff i now realize) and it was ok after that.

thing is though - the controls are all electrical. i didn't see any hoses at all in the area i was working in, nor connected to the controllers. not any levers either... i know what you mean though, the 88 has a lever / cable setup... i had to take the dash back off to tie up all the wires that were laying on top of those levers and keeping them from moving properly... didn't htink of it at first.

but this blasted car's all electrical... the knobs are just htat, knobs that you dial like clock arms... but that is what triggers the AC ... and with the extra bulk of an aftermarket deck and wirining behind there, maybe one of those wires in the heater control harness got kinked on something, god knows there's enough sharp metal brackets. i mean if the AC is triggered by a connection to ground at the dial, and the wire is getting kinked and picking up ground, that would be the answer.

i'll keep ya posted. thanks dude.

[michael_w]

What's the server for? (just curious)

Maybe you should give yourself a break from anything electrical for a while :p

[cam5860]

PBD there's no way i would try to repair a computer if the power suppy failed cheap as new computers are now. It don't make much since in trying to repair one. Besides you will have more money in parts trying to fix it than you would to just buy a new computer. Plus look at all the down time you have in between not being able to use your computer.

[skydeaner]

buying a new computer with cheap foxxcon and other junk parts in them is not the way I would go. All things considered, if it had a quality motherboard in it inthe first place it probably wouldn't have fried the processor.

[nadams]

PBD there's no way i would try to repair a computer if the power suppy failed cheap as new computers are now. It don't make much since in trying to repair one. Besides you will have more money in parts trying to fix it than you would to just buy a new computer. Plus look at all the down time you have in between not being able to use your computer.

What? You have got to be kidding me... The PSU is about the cheapest and easiest thing to replace in a computer.

The problem with computer components these days is the rampant use of cheap, faulty capacitors. Head on over to www.badcaps.net for the full story. I've got two desktop boards waiting for me at work to be recapped, because all of their crappy GSC caps blew their tops off. I just had an Antec PSU fail (a large brand name for those who are uninitiated), due to bad caps. Those PSUs cost twice what the other guys do. Companies get greedy and buy the bargin bin components, and we suffer. I don't buy Antec PSUs anymore.... Fortron is actually a better brand (FSP group... they make many different brands, including Fortron), and they're usually about half the money.

[cam5860]

Computers are not worth fixing unless you have a good computer with hardware in it like a dual core processor, 1GB of memory and a 250GB hard drive.

[nadams]

You must have one hell of a disposable income, friend.

[cam5860]

Nah I don't have money just to throw away. It's just I don't believe in keeping junk.

[nadams]

Okay, lets revisit this...

I have the following in my home computer:
Athlon XP 2200+ 1.8ghz processor
1gb DDR memory
200gb Maxtor HD
GeForce NX6600GT AGP card
Gigabyte motherboard of some description... I forget

So, the other day, I find that my power supply is dead. "Nuts", I say, as I order a new one for $35 from Newegg... Yeah, $35... what a waste to put into this crappy machine, right? I should've just gone out and blown $600 on a new machine...

But instead, I'll be stuck living with this computer for another 2 years at least...

My life, and living, is based on repairing computers. Your mentality is rediculous. Just because one cheap part dies in a mediocre (or "crap", as you say) computer, it's time for a whole new one? Tell 'ya what... next time that happens to you, send me your junk computer and I'll dispose of it for you.

[cam5860]

Hey check out this desktop background. It's about time I get a background worthing looking at.

[cam5860]

Look man your processor is suck. Man do you realize how long it's been since amd had the athlon xp processor. I thought my processor was way behind time. My computer is two years old and i have the athlon xp 2800+ 2.1 ghz and i thought that was bad. Everyone is going to the dual core processor now. Slow as your processor is a dual core processor would be equal to four of your processors in terms of processing information.

[michael_w]

I work with computers all day at work but I still can't get over the whole idea of having the latest and greatest stuff. I personally get more satisfaction in owning older technology at a substantally reduced price of what it was when it came out.

The fact that he wants to get the most out of his computer before he bites the bullet and has to upgrade is fine. Unless he plays the newest games and has to be "teh pwnzor" there isn't really much need to have a crazy computer.

[nadams]

Shows a lot about your character right there, cam....

I know what my processor is, and it does what I need fine. I can't justify paying the money for an upgrade (which would actually entail a new processor, motherboard, and video card due to my system being behind the "bleeding edge"), especially when dual core procs are still running $322 at the bottom end of the line. I like to let the people who "have" to stay on the bleeding edge do my hardware testing for me, then I buy tried-and-true combos for 1/4 what the above people paid for theirs.

[cam5860]

I mean don't get me wrong you have decent hardware in your computer. But your processor is lacking and to me thats the most important thing in a computer. I like to get online and get what i need to do done without having to wait on a slow processor to process the information. A slow processor is as bad as having dail up internet if you ask me. A slow processor and dail up internet have a lot in common, both of them will piss you the hell off.

[michael_w]

What exactly do you do with your computer cam?

[cam5860]

Look at naked women!!

[PoweredByDodge]

fact
-------

[The following does not apply to hardcore gamers who require specific hardware to run specific games]

unless you are encoding audio or video files 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, or using Autocad rendering 24 hours a day, 7 days a week... you will not notice the difference between a 1.5 gHz processor with a large cache and substantial front size bus, and a 3 gHz processor.

My server
----------

runs 24-7, hosts my email server, my FTP file sharing server, my http web server, my telnet remote program running server, and a few other goodies. i don't pay for email - i have 100 gigs of space at my disposal - or more if i give it another hard drive for just email. i dont pay for web space - i have as much as my hard drives can hold - i don't pay for movies or music, since the rule on the ftp is that for every 10 things you copy, you must add at least 1. etc etc etc...

The server currently runs
-------------------------

Soyo Dragon KT6000 Ultra Motherboard

(two in raid mirror) - Western Digital Raptor 10k rpm 37 gig SATA main OS and program drive.

Four (two sets of raid mirrored pairs) - Western Digital 200 gig IDE hard drives (JD special editions)

1 gig of Crucial PC3200 (DDR400) Ram

Powmax 550 watt power supply.

AMD Athlon XP Barton 1.583 gHz w/ 333 mHz FSB, and 256k L1 and 256k L2 cache.
--- that's the one that smoked, replaced with Sempron 1.67 gHz with the same specs. The Athlon XP socket A and Sempron socket A are basiscally clones of each other.

D-Link NIC

Nvidia 16 meg ancient video card (just needed something because the board doesn't have onboard video - its a server, I look at the screen once a month just to make sure it's alive... don't care what it looks like - besides, smaller video card = less heat).

120 mm 80 cfm rear fan intake
(two) 80 mm 40 cfm front fans exhaust
(one) 80 mm 40 cfm fan exhaust in PSU

Zalman copper heatsink

and an old phillips 4x cdrw and 3.5" floppy so that i could load windows and burn a backup file if i need one.

I dare you to build a better server for less money.

And if you really thing some store bought piece of **** for 600 bucks - regardless of its specs - is going to out-do this machine, you're insane.

I've got less than 1,000 bucks in this... if I add it up, maybe less than 900, but I'm not totally sure... you're not going to get a total of 860 gigs of space, a gig of good ram, a good reliable processor, and a motherboard that's not gonna let you down for less than double that.

((( ps - my internet connection is a pitiful 750 down / 75 up ))) as soon as verizon fiberoptic internet is here - i'm on the bandwagon

why it failed
--------------

the power supply in the desktop was one of those "get a free processor with the purchase of this case" deals... piece of junk, thats why it went.

When i re-did the cases, i am betting i didn't seat the heatsink properly on the server, and thats why it smoked.

the bad power supply in the desktop smoked the good motherboard. (it was a Shuttle M series - cost me a buck and a quarter a year and a half ago).

The desktop was similar to the server, by design...

Shuttle M series micro atx board.
western digital caviar 40 gig JD special edition IDE (dont need space - everything is on the server, they're linked - just need enough space to compress / decompress audio and video files).
Gig and a Half of Crucial PC3200 DDR400
AMD Sempron 1.67 gHz (overclocked to 1.99 ghZ) -- NOW that's in the server, and I'll put my backup processor in the desktop (had one on hand in a box brand new - I've got backup parts of just about everything that is system critical - a stick of ram - processor - power supply - ****ty 8 meg video card to just get goin - old optical drive)... so now it's a 2.0 gHz Sempron socket A that I'll overclock to around 2.4 gHz most likely --- have to get a friggin board in the mail first though.
had the ****ty power supply that came with the case - got a Thermaltake for it now though.
Ugh - what else - Nvidia FX5200 256 meg video card
Sound blaster Audigy
Asus TV / FM tuner card
Toshiba DVD +/- RW
Pioneer DVD reader

little bastard hauled ass for me.

head to head testing - i timed on a wrist watch how long it took my buddy's 3.2 or 3.3 (whatever it was) Pentium 4 with hyperthreading and all that **** to decode / rip a DVD and then compress and burn it to another dvd blank disc. used the same store bought video each time. this was against the 1.67 sempron (aka athlon xp old school) overclocked at 1.99 (with nothing more than changing the FSB frequency from 333 to 400 - that's all, one jumper, no playing, no heat sink change, nothin -- it NEVER got hot). I don't remember the exact times, but i was only a few minutes behind him... it was less than a 10 percent difference...

double the processor.... only 10% improvement for the task we were doing... why?

because optical drives can only scan so bloody fast... and hard drives can only seek/read/write so fast... and ram can only dump memory so fast.... there comes a point when unless you are doing nothing but straight encoding - 100% encoding - then you don't need anymore damn processor speed.

Why do you think that AMD is still making 1.5 Ghz processors??? The new line ranges from 1.5 gHz up through the high 2's I believe... but i don't think they hit 3 gHz yet --- and it's not becuase they can't. It's because it's pointless and a waste of money.

Sure, I've seen a Pentium 4 extreme edition overclocked to 5.5 gHz ... but they needed PC6700 ram to do it, and it fried in about 5 minutes. Not to mention that it would never have been stable enough to load an operating system.

The key is to increase cache, and up the bus speed to its limit... hence the new Opterons with FSB = CPU frequency... and 1 Mb cache's.

The first Opteron - which came out I think only 1 year ago... was what---- 1.4 gHz ?

Now, you would think a company would want to make money right? -- make a sale if htey could?

I was tlaking to the AMD tech / warranty dude on the phone - because of hte holidays, I guess they had the actual techs who do repair or declare something scrap also answering the phones...

So I asked him flat out - "look dude, be honest with me - since I have to buy a new board for the desktop anyway - should i even bother sending this Barton backto you guys for warranty? or should i just scrap it and the dead board too and get something like an athlon 64 (amd's newest general consumer processor that you're seeing in dell's and gateways and all that other ****)?"

without a hitch he's like "why bother? you're not doing anything intense... even for heavy gaming the processor and board class are fine. it's the other parts of the system that you would upgrade if you wanted to, but you sound like you've already got your bases covered."

in closing
---------------

i hate stupid people

i have seen many people scrap good computers.

i have also seen many people spend big bucks on dog **** computers by jerks like compaq, dell, gateway, HP, and now alienware (who used to build wickedly high end machines at prices that were fair - they were high but very fair for what you got - now they're rapists too).

so go buy you're $299 Dell with monitor and printer -- and enjoy it -- i'd rather piddle along with newegg's latest special -- an AMD Duron 800 mHz Mobile processor on a 400 mHz socket A board... its naturally overclocked... runs at 1.3 + gHz -- just need a nice good heat sink... cost is $59 .... and its an MSI board. you're not going to get any better than that... for 59 bucks a pop, you could build a whole home network with that **** and still have money left for a wicked server and central high end desktop station.

[cam5860]

PBD far as the processor yeah thats true that there's a lot more to a processor than the ghz's that it run's at. But you also have to look at this too the old Athlon xp processor's had a small front side bus.

Take for instance I have a Amd Athlon xp 2800+ 2.1 ghz with only a 333 mhz front side bus. That was pretty much standard for the xp processor's. Now you take the new Athlon 64 processor the smallest front side bus I have seen on them is 1600 mhz.

Now you tell me there's not a lot of performance difference there. Plus the cache is a good bit bigger now than it used to be. Like on mine I only have a primary cache of 128 and a secondary cache of 512 compared to the 1mb cache Amd makes in there processors these days.

You are not going to tell me Amd processors are not better today than they were two years ago. Thats good enough reason to upgrade right there.

Oh yeah and by the way man that Amd Sempron processor thats cheap **** man. They were puting those processor's in those 300 dollar HP computers they were selling at walmart over the holiday's.

Who ever told you there was not that much difference in the sempron processor and the athlon 64 processor don't know what they are talking about there is a huge difference.

The old school athlon xp processor's were better than the sempron. I mean both have a L1 cache of 128kb but the athlon xp has a L2 cache of 512 where as the sempron only has a L2 cache of 256kb.

[michael_w]

Of course processor technology gets better but is it really worth spending a couple hundred on the cpu then possibly having to upgrade the mobo as well? If all he's doing is running a simple server then no he will be just fine with a sempron for now.

[cam5860]

Yeah I understand what your saying. I just like to own top notch products. One other thing is in the next few years a lot of people are going to be switching over to 64 bit systems also. So your going to have to upgrade unless your planning on staying 5 years behind time.

[nadams]

Okay... so my work system is an Athlon64 3000+, single core. When we purchased it with a motherboard I think it was around $400 for the bundle. I notice NO difference between that system and my home system for what I use them for.

You know, for someone with "latest and greatest" syndrome, you haven't really kept up with the times with your crappy old Athlon XP, have you?

[cam5860]

The only reason I have been holding off from upgrading my computer is im waiting on the new operating system to come out by microsoft called windows vista.

It is coming out late summer I hear around september. Now it would be kinda stupid don't you think to buy a computer now with windows xp which is 6 years old.

And then have to turn around and buy windows vista which will probally be 200 dollars just for the home version.

[PoweredByDodge]

windows 64
------------
windows vista is the new name for windows longhorn... and it's nothing special.
i got a prelimary release candidate version of longhorn a while back and it was scrap. virtually no different than the 64 bit edition of XP Pro. the windows media management system (or whatever they call it) had to be removed from longhorn/vista because it was causing problmes -- without it, its windows xp with a twist, nothing more.

PS - You can just wait till the day after Vista comes out - and then download it off Ares, Limewire, eDonkey, BitTorrent, etc etc etc --- or get into a rip group and have it before it even hits the shelves at the stores... check out www.mscracks.com and www.freeseriels.com for the cracks and keys.

Athlon XP Socket A versus Sempron Socket A
----------------------------------------------
the same processor. with a new name.

Athlon XP socket 754 and 940 stuff
-----------------------------------------------
new technology... 90 nanometer versus 130 nanometer process types... the old socket A gear is a different breed --- Athlon XP socket A and socket 754/940 stuff should not be confused with each other. a lower process has allowed increased FSB speeds, matching processor speed even.

64 bit
----------

useless until a true 64 bit OS comes out (and it will nto be microsoft who does it first)... and until true 64 bit apps come out in a wide enough array to cover all our needs. you're looking at 10 years before everything is "truly 64 bit good to go" --- what you'll see i the mean time is individual 64 bit apps that run on 32 bit OS's.

however, the current atlon xp and sempron 754/940 socket processors - which start at 60 bucks each in retail box, are all 64 bit processors that are backwards compatible with 32 bit.

buying versus building
---------------------

you're insane to buy a pre-built computer... propriety tech means difficult if not impossible upgrades... and the quality of parts is pitiful at least.

regarding the sempron
-----------------------

"Oh yeah and by the way man that Amd Sempron processor thats cheap **** man. They were puting those processor's in those 300 dollar HP computers they were selling at walmart over the holiday's."

the AMD socket A sempron is cheap because socket A was just discontinued. Its cheap because there are a lot of parts laying aorund to be had at low cost -- its cheap in price, not in build. The Socket A Barton, Morgan, Palomino, Thoroughbred, and Thorton core processors were and are all disgustingly solid processors. The price slash is only due to the introduction of new 754/939 and now even 940 stuff and they want to get rid of the previous stock. By the way --- I can get an opteron right now - Operton Dual Core (Italy Core) 1.8 gHz 1 gHz FSB -- its a $500 OEM chip -- almost 7 in the retail box... just because i found a place to get it to me at $225 doesn't mean its suddenly not still worth 7 bills. If I had a board to put it on, or the money to afford it, I'd probably get it, just to say I have it... but what's that prove? nothing. i do not need that much processor with today's technology... when tech catches up with processors, maybe I'll get something bigger and better, but right now... hell no.

So go keep up with the next best thing, waste your money, and have a good day.

[Jstas]

64 bit
----------

useless until a true 64 bit OS comes out (and it will nto be microsoft who does it first)... and until true 64 bit apps come out in a wide enough array to cover all our needs. you're looking at 10 years before everything is "truly 64 bit good to go" --- what you'll see i the mean time is individual 64 bit apps that run on 32 bit OS's.

however, the current atlon xp and sempron 754/940 socket processors - which start at 60 bucks each in retail box, are all 64 bit processors that are backwards compatible with 32 bit.

What's all this hoo haa now? "unless a true 64 bit OS comes out"? What on God's green earth are you talking about? MacOS and even the new versions based on BSD have been, are and always will be true 64 bit. Sun Microsystem's Solaris is a true 64 bit OS and every Linux kernel out there from Mandrake to RedHat's Fedora Core have true 64 bit kernels. You can get any Linux and hell, damn near any UNIX at all on an X86 kernel/platform. In 32 bit or 64 bit. Hell, my parent's house has an AMD Opteron 64bit processor on an ASUS board running a 64 bit Linux kernel for the AMD Opteron as a firewall/router/file server.

Dude, the true 64 bit OS'es are out there. Just because the blind-lemming PC world doesn't have anything with real guts behind it doesn't mean it isn't out there. Hell, I have a 260 node Beowulf cluster rolling in to work this week. Each node has two, dual-core, 64 Bit AMD processors in it. That makes 4 processing cores per box for a total of 1040 processors. Add that to the 720 processors we already have and we are almost at 1500 processors in a clustered server that will be running 64 bit Solaris 10. All that has 4 file servers and roughly 40 terabytes of dataspace all running through a Cisco 4300 series Catalyst switch. That's some serious processing hardware being run on a true 64 bit OS. And I get to play with it ALL DAY LONG! WOOHOO! It's a tweaker's dream! Then I get to integrate an Oracle 10g RAC server into the mix. What fun!

[nadams]

And where do you work, now? I want to visit...

[Jstas]

It's been mentioned several times before. It was even brought up at PolkFest.

[nadams]

My apologies for not hanging on to every word you say. In the time it took you to type your post, you could've just told me.

[PoweredByDodge]

he's a mad scientist doing research for Strong Bad's "Crazy Go Nuts University".

nah, he works for one of uncle sam's big boys... and he's more than qualified for whatever they throw at him.

re: 64 bit OS's.
---------------

I had known about Sun-Solaris, but not about any of the others. Being that solaris is (to my understanding) an OS that has few end-user-friendly applications (mainly server station applications, which are greatly useful for that purpose, but for joe-schmoe who's trying to burn cd's and run a home network, its not really practical).

i had switched over to Red-Neck Linux (a derivative of Red Hat Linux) maybe a year or so ago,but with very limited success... I just plain couldn't get used to it - and haveing to hunt for the apps I needed made me wacky in the brain.

i guess when i said "until a ture 64 bit OS comes out", i failed to realize that the more 'high end' OS's have already probably done that (and as you state, they in fact have).

Mac-OS, however, is a "no-go" for the discussion because you can't load Mac-OS or Panther onto a standard machine (anything running an AMD, Intel, or Via processor). (can you? --- They've got that 'virtual machine' stuff where you can load an operating system from inside of another operating system - like VM-ware - but i am not aware of anybody doing a true load).

I guess my whole point with all of that was that just because better stuff has come out doesn't mean the socket-A platform is all of a sudden scrap. it may be "ancient" by computer standards, but it's really not that old... and its still very very very useful and worth maintaining as long as its cost effective.