New Uber Box
 

Alright. I know a lot of people out there are interested in building kick-ass systems. I'm not sure how many of them read The Cellar, but they should, dammit. And when they do, here's some information that's helpful to them (and maybe you, too!).

I am building a new system to replace my current workhorse. Said workhorse will become a development machine.

I will, for the rest of this post, write mostly in lowercase, because that is my general style and that's how I wrote this.

At the bottom, you will find a link to a page with actual pictures of the construction work. Yay!

I will, of course, post here again when new updates are made.

Those with suggestions (not likely I'll take them, 'cause I've thought this through a lot - but make them anyway, I might, and even if I don't, someone else might find them useful) are encouraged to post them. Questions are welcome. General praise is encouraged. Flames are too, unless they're from jaguar, because we already know how he feels about me :)

All that having been said, let's get this show on the road...

<hr>
first, let us state our goals.

<ul>
<li>to have an obscenely fast computer
<ul>
<li>processor speed is important
<li>the amount of ram must exceed all rational bounds
<li>the storage system must be sizeable enough to store all my data, yet FAST.
<li>the video card must be capable of giving me the best possible performance, both in 2d graphics drawing as well as 3d game rendering
</ul>
<li>to have an extremely well assembled machine
<li>to be able to operate two machines (syphon and the new machine) from the same desk
<li>the case, as well as all of its externally-viewable components, must be black
<li>to have deafening audio
<li>to operate with the other computers on the network seamlessly
<li>to be able to watch dvds, if i so desire
</ul>

this is a fairly long list. fortunately, with adequate research, i am absolutely confident that this can be accomplished.

it should be noted that money is no option. no expense will be spared. this computer should last me for at least a year. the only upgrades that will be allowed: added storage space and increasing the amount of ram (more on this later).

having the components already selected, i think it's time to get down to business.

<ul>
<li><u>operating system</u> - debian gnu/linux. as anyone that knows me is aware, this is the single most important part of the setup. it's the biggest pain in the ass to put in the box and without it, everything else is worthless. i choose debian for a number of reasons. it's easy to administer. it's easy to install new applications. it's easy to perform a system upgrade. its filesystem layout makes sense. it's rock solid, so i won't need to worry about rebooting when i don't want to. in short, debian makes sure that my computer is ready for me when i need it.

<li><u>case</u> - lian li pc12. this case is all aluminum, save the black plastic front bezel. the construction is sturdy, yet it is light. the aluminum will act as a large heatsink for the warm components on the inside. two fans are included on the front and one on the back (though we will replace these with panaflo premium fans, for added reliability), so this will keep air moving. the motherboard tray slides out wholly intact, meaning that i can remove it with the add-on cards still in place. nearly everything comes off with a thumb screw or four. the hard disk mounting area, in the front behind the fans, is easily removeable for future additions. all in all, this is one of the very best mid tower cases that can be bought today. it is, of course, black.

<li><u>motherboard</u> - tyan tiger mp (s2460). tyan has a reputation for excellence and stability, and this board stacks up. it is capable of holding three gb of ram. four ide devices with full support for ata/66 & ata/100. four usb. amd 760mp chipset for dual athlon processor goodness. and, of course, six pci slots & one agp for my video card. very nice motherboard.

<li><u>processors</u> - amd athlon mp 1800 x2. can't possibly waste such a motherboard with only one processor. the athlon mp 1800 is currently the fastest on the market. that makes it the easy choice. heating problems with amd processors should not be a problem - adequate steps will be taken to ensure good airflow in the case, as well as to ensure that the heat of the processors is dissipated thoroughly. both of these running in tandem should guarantee that i have one of the fastest personal computers in the world (at least for a week or so).

<li><u>ram</u> - crucial 256mb pc2100 x 4. while 1024 isn't as high a number as i would like (2048 was the intended amount of memory for this computer), crucial is not producing 512mb dimm's at this time. this is unfortunate, because crucial is the best memory manufacturer and i will not buy from anyone else. fortunately, the price of the ram is, as of current, only $140, so this is a cost i can afford to eat - i'll put in the 512's when they come out, or shortly thereafter.

<li><u>power supply</u> - eg465p-ve 431 watt psu. 431 watts is important because i'll be running a dual processor configuration. this guarantees a high power draw. this, combined with the rest of the components in the case, guarantees that i will need 431 watts. enermax makes solid products, and their power supplies are certified to power amd products. plus, with an intake fan on the bottom of the power supply, airflow in the processor area will be increased. this makes the choice of power supply fairly easy.

<li><u>video card</u> - leadtek geforce3 titanium 500. 64 mb of ddr ram. 10-12% increases over the geforce3. and a lower initial price tag. very nice. this will keep my frames per second very high in quake3, and it will be able to drive my monitor at the highest resolution, color depth & refresh that it can support. because nvidia has released drivers for linux, their cards tend to work very well under my operating system of chice. this is an easy pick too.

<li><u>sound card</u> - creative sound blaster live. we need something that will offer four channel output, but it also must be well supported in linux. thankfully, the sound blaster live does work well in linux. it's not as easy to set up as its older brethren, but it will do the job quite nicely.

<li><u>network card</u> - 3com 905cx model. any one of the derivatives of this line will work very well. the main consideration here is linux support. fortunately, solid drivers do exist for this card, so support is not an issue.

<li><u>main hard drive</u> - seagate cheetah 36gb ultra 160 scsi. 36 gigs will be plenty to house the operating system and my apps. ultra 160 scsi is important because it helps us in meeting the goal of overall system speed. scsi drives will copy, read & write data faster than their ide counterparts. scsi drives are also generally better constructed, as scsi is understood to be the basis of many mission critical applications. therefore, scsi drives are generally engineered properly. i should never suffer a system crash because of this drive, and the system will run faster because everything is being read from an 10,000 rpm, ultra 160 drive. it's all good.

<li><u>scsi controller</u> - adaptec 19160. it's not too expensive and will do what i need it to do. adaptec makes the best scsi products. there really is no choice here.

<li><u>secondary hard drive</u> - ibm 60gxp 61gb ata/100 ide. at 7,200 rpm's, this drive is pretty quick. it's also noted to be a solidly engineered drive. this is important, because it's going to be storing all my data - mp3s, videos, pictures, etc. 61 gigs is spacious enough that i'll have room to grow for a year or two.

<li><u>dvd rom</u> - samsung 19k1504. 8x dvd playback, 40x cd. it's black. it looks good. it will be the second and probably last device on the ide bus. it also offers me the ability to watch movies in linux. whether or not i do this shall be seen at a later date - i didn't put a dvd player on my 27" tv so i could watch movies on my 19" monitor. but i'm leaving the option open. i also chose dvd because an increasing number of software vendors are releasing their products on dvd now - including suse and debian. note that last one there - very cool.

<li><u>floppy drive</u> - panasonic ju-256a226p. what a model number. but anyway, it's a black floppy drive. this is important, as i have said. there's not really much else to write about the flopy drive - i'll probably use it once, to boot the install routine. otherwise, bfd. normal floppy.

<li><u>keyboard</u> - despite the fact that i am not a fan of microsoft, they happen to make excellent input devices. the microsoft natural keyboard is really the only way to go for me. i am so used to typing with the split keyboard that it's a pain to use anything else. i had my company buy me one for my office, and it's all i use at home.

<li><u>mouse</u> - razer boomslang 2000. i already have this, and it's staying. the mouse is ultra responsive, large, heavy, and fits my hand well. it also boasts a 2000 cpi, or coordinates-per-inch, which makes it the most precise mouse on the market.

<li><u>mouse pad</u> - func surface 1030. this matters to me for a number of reasons. i need something that's easy to clean, offers a good tracking surface for my mouse, and doesn't move around all over my desk. i don't like fabric mouse pads - they tend to make the mouse dirty. i opted for the func because it has two sides that can be used, as well as a mouse cord clip. this works by making a loop of your mouse cord, ensuring that it doesn't get snagged on the end of your desk or whatnot. this works surprisingly well. i will continue to use func mouse pads as long as i can buy them.

<li><u>monitor</u> - sony fd trinitron f400. 19 inches of flatscreen love. .24 aperture grille. it just looks good. what can i say, i love the trinitron picture tubes. i will continue to buy sony monitors. simply put, this is one of the best monitors on the market.

<li><u>speakers</u> - klipsch promedia 2.1 x2. these speakers are absolutely incredible. they sound amazing, even at high volume. their subwoofers produce this rich, deep bass that can only be appreciated by feeling it. it's hard to sum up how good these speakers are by saying anything other than "these are the best computer speakers that money can buy." two sets of them will give me four satellites and two subwoofers for a pretty amazing sound experience.

</ul>
<p>
now, i should explain something. i am going to use the new computer, currently under the working title "das tier" (german for "the beast"), right along side my current "main" box, <u>syphon</u>. i am not buying a new mouse, mouse pad, speakers or monitor. i already have these, and they still work perfectly. syphon itself will remain intact, but its external peripherals (the ones stated above) will be shared with the new machine via a kvm switch. so...
<p>
<ul>
<li><u>kvm switch</u> - belkin soho f1ds104t kvm. this is consistently reviewed as the best kvm switch on the market. it supports up to four computers, switched between either by buttons on the front of the unit or by simple keyboard commands. it has an upgrade-able firmware, meaning that bugs can be fixed without the need for an exchange. it features a cable management system, where all the cables flow neatly out of the back of the unit. it also features speaker switching, so a single set of speakers (or headphones) can be used on multiple computers, one at a time. it also features support for usb peripherals. this is highly desireable because it means that i can later use my current mouse and keyboard on a usb-only computer, such as the sun blade 100 that i plan on purchasing some time in the not-so-distant future. belkin even offers support for mac & sun, which is good. the switch also stands upright, so it takes up little desk space. this is definitely a bonus.
</ul>
<p>
<u>other considerations</u>: cooling is an issue. with a 10,000 rpm drive and two hot processors in the case, the temperatures are bound to rise. fortunately, by taking a proactive measure against overheating, i expect this to be a non-issue. first and foremost, airflow inside the case must be good. ribbon cables will be folded along the sides & bottom of the case whenever possible. this means, for example, that I will likely place the scsi card in the bottom pci slot on the motherboard, as that will allow me to fold the cable along the base. since the hard drives will be stored in the bottom, this is convenient. another option is rounded cables, which, by taking up less space, allow a greater air flow. these are expensive, however, and possibly unnecessary. so, they will not be purchased unless my cabling solution is not adequate.
<p>
there will also be a blowhole in the top of the case, with a 120mm fan blowing air up & out. the purpose of this is to act like a chimney, so that the air over the processors keeps moving. with two fans sucking air in through the bottom front of the case and three sucking air out (1 x 120mm in top, 1 x 80mm in back, 1 x 80mm in power supply) and one sucking air up from the card area (in the bottom of the power supply), air will definitely be moving. this is a wholly good thing.
<p>
i also expect to disassemble the computer every 3-4 months and remove the dust from the inside. dust can make a sizeable difference in the temperatures inside the case, so i plan to keep the inside rather clean.
<p>
of course, by having an all-aluminum case, i am already conducting heat away from my peripherals and out into the bedroom. all around, i don't expect heat to be too much of an issue.
<p>
and that's pretty much that. all of these components should work well with linux as well as each other, and will stack up to be the fastest computer i've ever owned and one of the faster personal computers around (that is, of course, until intel releases a 4 ghz processor). the listed components, combined, will meet the above stated requirements, as well as providing me with a very productive corner in my bedroom.

<hr>
Alright. Now. I actually need to build this thing. To do that, I need components.

Here's what I've got so far:

<ul>
<li>case
<li>all fans and mounting accesories
<li>floppy drive
<li>dvd rom drive
<li>sound card
<li>network card
<li>power supply
<li>RAM
</ul>

What I do not yet have: U160 card, KVM switch & cables, motherboard, hard drive, video card, processors.

I will buy these parts in that order, just as I have bought everything in a specific order: from parts that are least likely to significantly decrease in price to parts that are likely to decrease in price. That's why the processors are last.

Anyway, I actually started construction on this. There isn't so much I can do without some of these pieces (namely, a motherboard would be great so I could actually mount the cards I do have and whatnot). But I have done a fair bit of work, and here's a link to a page with pictures:

http://www.digipulse.org/images/dastier/dastier.html

That includes installation of the power supply and front and rear fans, as well as pictures of the completed mini-projects, the case itself and the top blowhole. Fear the pictures - they're ~500K for most of 'em. But they're fairly good shots and show how this is turning out. This is the kind of thing I'm interested in, and I thought some others might be as well.

I will post updates here when I get the new parts and install them. I expect this project will be completed by the end of December or so.

Enjoy.

I love it! Thoughts:

- What about the rounded cables from Thinkgeek and elsewhere? I've put them into two machines and they've worked well.

- The real advantage of SCSI is when you put multiple devices on the chain, isn't it? If price is not an option, and you're already committed to two disks, why not go with a RAID?

- No mention of any backup solution...

This is already a help to me as I think about maybe building another box for myself. Thanks for posting it! Will enjoy the updates.

I find two big advantages to SCSI. They are:

1) Speed. Yes, they're fuckin' fast. But so are the newest IDE drives (well, sorta, anyway).

2) Reliability. SCSI drives are, plain and simple, engineered better than IDE drives. This is one of the big selling points to me, and I probably didn't note it well enough. But SCSI products are superior to IDE in nearly every single way possible (with price being the big downside). Hence, SCSI for the main disk.

I know I mentioned rounded cables in there, Tony :) Like I said, they're definitely an option, but I'm going to see how it goes first. I'm pretty good at making ribbon cables move the way I want them to, especially in a tidy setup (like this box will be). I'm not overly concerned about it, but they're definitely a possibility. I'll almost certainly use a rounded cable for the floppy, and I'm still debating over whether or not to use them for the hard drives & DVD-ROM. We shall see. :)

As far as backup, this is something that will come in the future. Basically, I'm going to do RAID mirroring, but I'll need a card that will do both IDE & SCSI. Then I'll just buy dupes of my drives and set that up. This is one of the planned upgrades - probably taking place around next fall. In the mean time - I tend to live my computer life stupidly dangerously. I have no backup on any of my machines. Beat that. :) Though I used to ghost my hard drives back in the Windows days. Oh well.

BTW, the place to get rounded cables is http://www.pcmods.com - they have them cheaper than ThinkGeek (TG is just a reseller for PC Mods anyway :) ).

[edited to remove typo]

Love your OS choice. :)

Question is, are you going with Potato or waiting for Woody to go stable? Assuming you are not going to unstable, of course.

"stable" debian is usually so far out of date its only useful for servers.

What can i say? You have far too much money =p

Rounded sables? Make them yourself! Its not hard jsut make a iny cut at the end of every bunch of 2-5 wired and rip along the length. As for cooling in general concentrate on the heatsink iwht dust removal, particualry if its one tht blows out and try making a windtunnel of the case. 2-3 fans at the back blowing out, 1 fan + a fan bay if you have the space at the front sucking in. Or visa versa.

Probably woody. It's "testing" - aka, pretty stable, with maybe a few bugs here and there, but will be called "stable" in the next few months anyway.

I have another monster post in "Poll: Linux - Viable Desktop?" that you might wanna look up as well. It's in the Technology section, but you'll have to set it back to probably 60 or 90 days to actually get it. It more explains my reasons for liking Linux, as well as my preferences to the setup and whatnot.

Heh. I have far too much money because I have an addiction for computers :) You certainly remember the laptop I just bought, the Dual PowerMac G4 800MHz with 1.152 gigs of ram and a GeForce3... and now this :) Then after this, I really just want to get a SunBlade 100... and then I just want a simple little command line box with a flat panel maybe mounted on the wall or something so that I can IRC in with BitchX while doing other shit on the main box. Having IRC open at all times is definitely very useful :)

Anyway. I have definitely explored the option of making round cables myself, and as you can probably tell (if you looked at the pictures and read what I was up to), I'm definitely a hands-on kinda guy. But to make really nice rounded cables, I would need to cut the connectors off (or at least the end ones - the middle could stay), do the trick and then re-crimp on new connectors. It just doesn't seem worth it *for me* to save $20. That's pretty much where I draw the line - "Okay. Here is how I want it to end up. Now, that being the case, what is the most cost efficient way to achieve this? If I do it myself, is it a pain in the ass? Is it worth it for me to do it myself?" Sometimes the answer is "Yes." I removed the back fan grille on the case and put in my own setup (and MAN does it look good :) ). I replaced all the fans on the inside myself. I did the blowhole myself. But. Sometimes the answer is "No." I had the blowhole cut from the place I ordered the case for an extra $11. To me, risking screwing up the case, plus the time it takes to dremel that big fuckin' hole and drill it, is enough to make me shell out the $11. So it really all depends. Anyway. As far as rounded cables go, this machine is pretty much my "this is going to look spectacular on the inside and outside" box, and for the cables to have the look I'd want them to, I'd want to properly heat-shrink the cables and whatnot (what I'm doing anyway with other cables). I'd probably just buy them. I might do that anyway now, because the more I think about it, the more I think that ribbon cables look fucking stupid.

As for the current airflow inside the case, it's like this: I have 2 80mm Panaflo fans as a front intake. Each of these moves about 40 CFM of air (cubic feet/minute) - about 1.48 cubic meters/minute. So that's 80 CFM intake. The monster Panaflo 120mm in the top will be sucking out about 103 CFM (3.8 cubic meters). The Panaflo 80mm in the back will be pulling out another 40 CFM, and the fan in the bottom of the power supply will probably be moving about the same. So, all in all, I think the air will be moving quite nicely. One thing that I am concerned about is the front of the Lian Li case - I'm not convinced that it will allow good airflow. It's for that reason that I've been toying with the idea of putting in 2 80mm fan ducts in the front (cutting away the case) to allow free movement of air in. I'm delaying because I want to make some measurements before commiting to anything.

I'm also toying with the idea of adding another intake fan or 5. I'm not sure exactly where I'd put them. That's why I'm considering doing 3 or 4 60mm fans in varioius spots or maybe in a vertical stack along a front side. I'm not sure yet though. We'll see.

As for HSF's, I'm still looking at those, which is why I neglected to mention them in the post. Since I'm not overclocking, the ones that come with the processors should theoretically do the trick, but I'm not trusting the usefulness of the system to that. There are a few very nice ones that I'm checking out. I will definitely add a separate post when I decide on those and the direction I'm going to take.

Yeah, I read that thread when it started (I've been here that long, I just don't post that much). My current project with Debian (Potato, 2.2r4) is figuring out why I'm having trouble mounting my hard drive that has Windows on it. Having to burn a CD/use floppies is very annoying. I'll try asking for help here if the next idea I want to try doesn't work.

I'll be building a new computer eventually...probably middle-late next year. Nice to see what you are doing though. Gives me some ideas for when I do get to it.

Yeayea quit rubbing it in =p

What IS a sunblade 100?

FUCK!

I just had this fucking monster post written about the SunBlade, Sperlock's problem and coolers. And then I accidentally clicked a fucking favorite on the toolbar and BAM! GONE!

FUCK!

mkdir /mnt/wintest; mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/wintest

replace hda1 with whatever it actually is. But it's probably hda1. I had this written out better, but SEE ABOVE.

FUCK!

Jaguar -

Imagine a 500MHz 64-bit ULTRA II-based system. Imagine 2 Gigs of RAM and 20 GB hard drive standard. Love.

Imagine that it takes standard PC-133 RAM, so you could buy some from Crucial and slap it in. Imagine you could pop in another 40 gig drive and have 60 gigs of Solaris goodness. Imagine that it would work with your KVM switch. LOVE.

Imagine that you could add a Sun PCI II card to the system, which would allow you to run Windows and Solaris simultaneously, on the same system, and even CUT AND PASTE between the two. Imagine two computers in one case. Imagine it was the size of an Ultra 5. LOVE!

Imagine $995 including shipping.

4 computers on my desk in 3 cases. All using the same monitor. Different mouse & keyboard for the Windows/Solaris box. But still pretty fucking great. And the SunBlade will go right under my monitor, so I don't even need to clear any space - it's a desktop system. Very cool.

http://www.sun.com/desktop/sunblade100/

I should have a Windows box at home, 'cause it'd be a good idea. I can put SODIMM's on the Sun PCI II card, so that way I can upgrade it as I please. Give Windows plenty of memory. It would be a hell of a setup. Hell of a setup. I need to learn Solaris better anyway. I know some of its specifics, but not as many as I should, considering I write software for Solaris.

Anyway. Back to the Uber box.

I'm 99% sure that the heatsinks I'm going to use are the Thermalright SK6 with 38 CFM Delta fans. They're gonna cost me $41 each, but they should certainly do the trick. I'm not ordering them yet - gonna wait a bit. But they should definitely keep the processors nice and cool :)

Actually, the blade 100 uses USB
 

The Blade 100 is the first Sun to use a USB Keyboard and Mouse, apparently.

This means that the new USB KVM switches can be used with Macs, PC's, and Sun Workstations.

The build of Solaris 8 that's on it will support it just fine.

I like.

Mitch

Uh... who said any different? :)

That is correct though, the SunBlade 100 *does* use USB keyboard and mouse. So it'll work just fine with the KVM I've ordered (yeah, I bought it).

The SunBlade 100 is a *very* attractive option for those that want a full-blown UNIX workstation in the house but are low on budget. And having just bought an Xbox, extra controller, Halo and Dead or Alive 3 last night, I appreciate saving money where ever I can :)

Updates: KVM & HSF's
 

Alrighty. Time for the first round of updates.

I ordered the KVM switch. I got the model I listed above, and it should be here tomorrow. I plan to set this up in my bedroom, at first sharing the mouse & keyboard I use on my main box (syphon) with the pimpintosh (Dual 800MHz G4, 1.152 GB of RAM, 120 GB HD, GeForce 3). I will use separate monitors, so I can see what's going on with each box at the same time.

When das tier is built, I will put it on the same monitor as syphon is currently on, so that I will have 2 monitors & 3 computers centered around my desk. Yes, this is absolutely ridiculous in every way imaginable.

Secondly, I just placed the orders for the HSF (HeatSink Fan). I got two (2) ThermalRight SK6's with two (2) 60mm 38CFM (Cubic Feet/Minute) fans. The ThermalRight SK6's are all copper and have 70 fins each, which basically leads to superb cooling. The price was right @ $25 each for the heat sinks and $9 each for the fans ($34 each total). The heatsinks themselves generally go for as much as $40, so this was a steal. I will use Arctic Silver III thermal paste to keep the heat moving away from my processor core and into my heat sink, where it will be blown out very rapidly by some ridiculously high powered (and noisy) fans. That warm air will, of course, be quickly sucked out of the case by the 120mm Panaflo fan in the top and the 80mm Panaflo fan in the back.

You can read a review of the SK6's right here: http://www.gideontech.com/reviews/trsk6/

Since AMD just today release 1900+ Athlon MP processors, the price on my processors should be falling quite nicely in the days to come. I am currently looking at other motherboard solutions, as the upcoming ASUS dual Athlon board looks quite promising. Time (and lots and lots of reviews) shall tell. However, the box is that much closer to being complete.

In other news, the power supply fan in my current main box (syphon) has taken a turn south, following the long-dead CD-ROM drive, which in turn had followed the even-longer-deceased floppy drive. This being the case (and also, the fact that I did a shitty paint job), all three will be replaced, along with the case. I have all but settled on the Antec SX1030-B, which is a nice black tower. It has 2 fan holes in the back, 2 in the front, a locking door on the front (keeping ugly beige drives hidden) and an easy-access side panel. It lacks a removeable motherboard tray, but this is alright, as I don't plan on being in this box too often. It's pretty spacious inside, and is actually a nice case (my friend in Mississippi had one of his boxes built into one). Since I know that syphon will run fine in a P.O.S. steel box, I don't have any reservations about putting it in a nice steel box. I found the case, with a 300W power supply, at Page Computer for $77, which is cheaper than anywhere else I looked. You can view that here. A nice review of the case is available at http://www.virtual-hideout.net/revie...0b/index.shtml

I'll keep you up to date :)

Re: Updates: KVM & HSF's
 

There is only one specification that is appropriate to heatsinks. Degree C per watt. Number of fins, material, CFM on the fan, all this is irrelevant since only the bottom line applies. If they make a decent heatsink, the first number provided is Degree C per watt (and not CFM).

How to measure CPU fan/heatsink quality. Any properly machined heatsink can be applied to the CPU without thermal compound. The experiment is quite simple and decades old. Attach the heatsink without thermal compound, test the system using standard programs, and measure the CPU temperature. Now repeat the same test with thermal compound applied. If CPU temperature drops by more than single digit degrees, then the heatsink was machined inferior.

Despite all the hype with more Cubic Feet per Minute of air and high tech thermal compound, little has changed in 20+ years. Thermal compounds have the same thermal resistances of past decades. Heatsinks have only gotten bigger meaning that 1950 machine processes are no longer acceptable for current heatsink manufacture. For all the hype associated with heatsink fans, why is the Degree per watt number so hard to obtain? It is the first number an engineer uses for his thermal design.

BTW, any engineered system into the 700 Mhz range could cool just fine without heatsink fans. Passive cooling is preferred in more reliable systems of that time. Today's 1 ghz CPUs can be cooled with passive heatsinks, but there is less room for error. Among factors so critical to passive cooling designs is Degree per watt (CFM of the fan is a useless number). So why is that number so difficult to get from so many hyped CPU heatsink manufacturers? Maybe the above simple experiment could provide answers.

You're definitely invited to buy me the stuff to test with, tw. :) Honestly, everything you say is absolutely correct. I simply do not want to take any risks with my setup, so I'll be using good thermal paste.

As for CFM and the like not mattering - regardless of anything else, the fact remains that if I blow lots of cold air on the heatsink, it will help to dissipate the heat (er, this is a fact, right?). If I'm putting plenty of cool air on it (and getting rid of the warm air), I'm helping to keep it cooler and thus prolong the life of my processors.

My Dual G4 800MHz doesn't have a fan on the heatsink - just a pretty good-sized heatsink. Passive cooling. Works rather nicely, and the heatsink just gets "warm" - not "hot". I suppose it's all just a matter of chip design, though. AMD is racing with Intel, and so they put forth technologically inferior designs that consume more power and thus produce more heat. IBM & Motorola are competing with no one, so they take their time and design low-power processors that are still quite zippy.

Regardless, I think that what I have ordered will do just fine, so I'm not too worried about it. My concern is keeping the box running, and these should do just that.

Well, I've done it. I have stupidly gotten frustrated with waiting so long and bought most of the components for the system. I think mostly it was waiting for the new wave of motherboards that got to me - I have all this money and it's just sitting there. I like having money, but I hate waiting when I know what I want to buy. So, I figured, I might as well quit procrastinating with this and go ahead and get most of the stuff. Today I ordered...

<ul>
<li><b>Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite</b> - $18 and worth every penny. My old one is getting worn out, and Newegg.com had it at a decent price.
<li><b>Rounded IDE cables</b> - x2, one for the DVD drive and one for the IDE hard drive.
<li><b>Rounded Floppy cable</b> - for, uh, the floppy.
<li><b>IBM 60GXP 60 GB hard drive</b> - the price is down to $117 from Newegg, and I had originally priced it at $135, so this will help make up for the other shit which hasn't fallen in price. :)
<li><b>Tyan Tiger s2460 Motherboard</b> - I couldn't wait any longer. I had to get it and put it in my system.
<li><b>Visiontek Xtasy 6964 GeForce 3 Ti 500</b> - I really debated here. Should I just get a GeForce 3? Fuck it. $60 difference isn't that much.
</ul>

The total came to a whopping $707.41, including shipping. That's a lot of money. The video card is nearly half of that - super!

I said I would have this goddamn system done by the end of December, and I'm definitely on track for that.

Now, I have made some concessions. I don't think I'm going to do SCSI right away. I am not comfortable with the 19160's support in Linux, and I haven't even gotten the drive repaired yet. So this is a coming addition. I'll add the SCSI probably by June or so - or maybe I won't. I'm not sure right now. Paying $180 for a SCSI card just irked me, for some reason. I'm going to wait a bit on that.

So, the only thing I need to get now are the cables for the KVM and the processors. The KVM should be here today (this place took forever to ship the damn thing), so I'll probably order cables later. I'm still going to wait a few days on the processors, and then I'll buy them.

I need to go back and look at my total investment in the box so far. It's certainly a pretty penny, and I'll post it here when it's finished. I just don't feel like going back and looking at all the charges right now. But I'll let you know :)

Total So Far
 

Okay. I lied. I had to go tally it up.

So far, I have spent on this system:

$1,618.27

That includes most of what I want.

I will probably spend, on processors and cables, an extra $500, including shipping. This brings my grand total to $2,118.27, including shipping. My original estimate was about $2,000 without shipping. I've done more to the system than I originally planned, but it cancels out the lack of U160 SCSI for now. So, all around, I'm still pretty on-budget. Word.

P.S. - I just got the KVM switch. Word again.

i like the "over-the-top-ness" of this. sounds like just the absolutely absurd kind of thing i'd do.

as for the scsi... you know, in my experience, mixing scsi and ide just ends up being a pain - i tend to prefer a system to be one or the other. and while on a server the difference might matter, on a home box i don't really think it does. here's some comments on ide raid. i mostly buy 'em (bought my last box there a year ago - i like it still <g>). all fwiw.

question - no dvd writer, huh?

No. DVD writing isn't quite there on Linux yet, I think. Plus, the lack of a standard means I should wait. I took the DVD writer *out* of my PowerMac G4, and I'm definitely leaving it out of this box. Am considering putting in a CD-RW drive, but I'm not sure yet.

As for mixing SCSI/IDE - I don't figure it really matters as far as UNIX goes. /dev/sda3 is mounted to / and /dev/hda1 is mounted to /dave and it's all good :) Some drives are faster, that's all. I'd like my main drive (operating system + programs) to be as fast as possible, but I'm willing to live with IDE for now (and maybe forever, we'll see), as explained above. :)

yeah, that's pretty much what i'd figured you'd say. i can't see spending 599 on a drive that doesn't hit all the standards 'cause they're still in flux.

and you're right about the ide/scsi mixing thing under *nix - hadn't really thought about that.

what i was thinking back to subconsciously now that i think about it, where it's a pain is on something like nt. (gotta boot from the ide, but you want your system and paging on fast scsi.... yada, yada, yada). i did that on an nt box some years ago, and it ended up being a real pain in the pecker, in the long run. of course, it's windows, so it's gonna be a pain in the pecker no matter what you do.

plus they got lvm for linux now. i keep meaning to do that at home, but i been lazy and we be goin' into party season.

Too bad I got here so late, you bought the stuff, so I'm now moot. But I'll yap anyway.

- Athlon 1900 MP just released, good catch. I think the XP chip works in a dual board, if you wanna save some more bucks.

- Get a small 15k SCSI, and drop the IDE drive. For most work, low ms's is better than high MB's. And since you're keeping the old machine, 18 or 36 GB will do nicely til you can get a 120 or 160 GB drive cheap. Or if you like hacking, you might try an IDE RAID setup with mirroring, and see if that cuts the ms's.

- DVD - I love slot-load drives. I have the old Pioneer 6x SCSI, and it works great. Too bad they're not black.

- Speakers - I don't understand the obsession with so-called "computer speakers." I got one of those shelf-system stereos for my computer, and the quality is WAY better than any computer speaker. Plus I can listen to radio and tape, even when the computer's off or rebooting.

-B

Well. As far as speakers go, my Klipsch ProMedia 4.2 setup sounds *incredible*. Does it beat a nice high-end stereo? Probably not. But man... seriously, you have to experience it to truly appreciate it. They sound better than I thought they could. When I look back, $300 for this setup was a bargain.

I still haven't bought the processors, but it's a spot of some concern for me. Two of my friends built systems after I wrote this up; they both went with dual Athlon XP's, and now one of them is having serious troubles. The system won't boot anymore. The MP's do have some added stuff to make them work better together in an SMP setup. Which doesn't mean you can't do the dual XP's - it just means that it probably won't work as well. I'm still researching.

As for the drives... IDE are getting much better and much faster. The low seek on SCSI does matter to me, but as I explained above, for some reason it's just not sitting right with me now. We'll wait and see how that plays out. :)

Well, DUH! Of course IDE is getting better and faster, but SCSI is getting better and faster too. And if you want the fastest possible drive, SCSI is the only way to go. (To be fair, I personally think SCSI, like Rambus, is a scam. It's the fastest available, but the price is WAY out of line for what you get.)

I almost forgot - the WD brand 100 GB 'special edition' with 8 MB buffer got good reviews - very fast.

I don't mean to argue so much, but when you announced a cost-no-object machine, then put 'only' 60 GB in it, it just seemed incongruous to me.

I'm curious - what other reasons do you have for avoiding SCSI on this machine? You mentioned the Debian drivers, and the cost/benefit thing is obvious. Are there other reasons?

-B

I'm not avoiding it. I'm avoiding it for now. There is a difference. First, I want to get the system built, and I still haven't gotten the drive repaired (it's damaged). Secondly, the whole driver issue. Third, for some reason, it didn't sit right with me.

Cost is no object, but it doesn't mean that I need to go balls-out either. I set out to achieve certain goals, and they're being met. If you'll notice, I've left room to allow myself two upgrades: memory and hard disk. Guess what? It'll happen :)

The reason only 60 gigs is coming right now is because it seemed like a good number for now. I simply don't need more than that at the moment - I have 120 gigs in the computer I'm currently on (Dual G4 800MHz PowerMac), 34 gigs in my current "main" box (syphon), 60 gigs in a file server that serves my mp3s and to be honest, I really don't *need* more than 60 gigs. Especially not right now. Will I eventually put more in there? Yes, and probably in a RAID mirroring setup. In the mean time, I went with 1 x 60GB. It should be sufficient for the time being. 60 gigs is still a lot of pictures or mp3s. I'm not into watching DivX's on my computer - if I couldn't afford DVD's in the first place, I wouldn't be buying this system, and my TV is a hell of a lot larger than my 19" monitor. I really don't have much that's going to eat up 60 gigs of space for the time being. Note that my objectives were *not* to be stupid with my money, and *not* to get the biggest thing possible. I'm still meeting my goals, and I'll continue to do so.

Okay. So I spent a better part of this afternoon rearranging my computer setup and making way for das tier. I think it'll eventually go on a shelf on my upper-right. Or maybe not. I'm still thinking about that one. If it were to go up there, I would put in reinforcements to make sure it wouldn't fall off. Anyway. Here's the page I made for the new setup:

http://www.digipulse.org/images/new_setup

I'm pretty pleased with the improvement. I still need to clean up the rest of the room, but the computer part is done.

Wowee zowee. Where shall we start?

As we all know, yesterday my UPS died. Well, when I got home, my internet access wasn't working. I tried to ping "router" - an entry in /etc/hosts that points to 192.168.1.1, which is the IP address of my Netgear RO318 "Security Router". Nothing. I went and checked to see if Jenni's internet access was working on her cute little iMac. Sure enough, it was. Hmmm. So now we know that the switch is working, since all the computers (under my control) in the basement go through a single 8 port switch (Jenni's, an older Windows box and the Xbox go through a 5 port which THEN goes into the 8 port, but it's all the same - they all hit the 8 port). Point of failure could be one of three things now. In the order that they would piss me off, from "most" to "least":

<ol>
<li>Network interfaces in the computers
<li>Network cables
<li>Ports on the switch
</ol>

See, I hate re-running cables, and I'd hate even worse to have to swap hardware or, in the case of my PowerMac, take it to get it fixed. Anyway, I knew that I had to get this fixed (one like myself cannot go without Internet access for long, unless one is very much occupied with other things, which one was not, because Jenni was still on her way home from school). First, I just tried switching ports. I moved the pimpintosh and syphon from ports 7 & 8 (respectively) down to 4 & 5. This is important. Anyway, at this point, I was on the pimpintosh (syphon was turned off, because I had a lack of available power connectors because my goddamn UPS died - see previous). The pimpintosh, in port 4, did not work. Okay. So it's probably not the ports. I whipped out the trusty ol' iBook and crawled under my desk. I reached around back to the PowerMac, pulled out its Cat5 cable and plugged it into the iBook's integrated NIC. Then I (get this) clicked the Apple menu, rolled my pointer over "Location" and selected "home ethernet". This automatically disabled my Airport card and attempted to bring up the iBook with IP address 192.168.1.165 (I keep all of my personal computers in the 192.168.1.160+ range, it's easy for me to remember). I gave it a second to do its thing, then I tried to ping "router"..... Nope. Okay. So we haven't ruled out that the NIC is shot, but, we know that there's another point of failure. Cable? Maybe. So, I pulled out a new cable (us geeks have this shit just laying around), plugged it into port 8 and tried with the ol' iBook. Nope. Damn. Well, I know this cable is good. I know the iBook is good. It must be the switch. Must be. So I put the iBook in port 7. No. Port 6.

Pong!

Woah. Hey, port 6 works. What about port 5?

Pong!

Uh. Port 4?

Pbbbbbbbbbbbbttttttttttttt.

Well, I figured that. Port 3?

Pong!

And port 2 is where the 5 port switch comes in, so I know that one's good.

The final verdict? Ports 4, 7 & 8 on my switch are somehow magically dead at the exact same time as my UPS. Argh. Now I have to get them both replaced. How spectacular.

Anyway, I'll take care of that later. As in, after I get off work. Buying hardware that you shouldn't need and have already bought is spectacular, dontcha think?

So. All that having been taken care of, it's time to start constructing das tier. I have everything except for the processors, which I'll probably order today or tomorrow (likely get Athlon MP 1600's, since I've now heard problems about Athlon XP's in this motherboard - from a good friend, no less). That doesn't stop me from building up the rest of the box, though. Of course, the beautiful motherboard goes first. Then the RAM. Then the GeForce3, SBLive! and 3com NIC. I mount the hard drive. Everything is going well, until...

Well, okay. It doesn't really stop going well. It's just not quite as well as I had hoped. See, I forgot that most of the fan headers on the motherboard are near the "bottom" of it. This is a problem. I have the rear 80mm fan hooked up where it should be - a fan header that's right near it. Then there are 2 for the CPU fans, which I will use them for. Then there are 2 at the bottom. One for my power supply fan (since there are 2 fans in the PSU) and 1 for the 120mm beast in the top. Well, there's a problem - the 120mm beast in the top has a shorter fan tail and won't reach. I didn't try, but I just know. So, I'm still working out a solution for this. I'm sure you'll read about it soon. :)

The other is that the rounded IDE cables are rather bulky and too long. I find myself needing to stash them. Now, I've come up with a pretty good way of doing it - the air should still move pretty well and they're making connections. It's just that they don't look as good while they're doing it. I'll probably leave them as they are, but I'm not as happy about doing it. Oh well.

Anyway, the system is nearing completion. I will take more pictures and post here when I get it done (most likely this weekend). Then I need to make room for it in my bedroom. :) As I said, I will probably build a shelf for it - I just need to put a lot of thought into that shelf, 'cause it's going to be housing one very expensive box of electronics. And I don't want that very expensive box of electronics falling, but especially not on one of my grossly expensive monitors. I didn't originally plan on having the PowerMac in the bedroom, so this has lead to a kind of funny situation. :) Again, I'll let you know how I manage to work it.

I did not follow the details, but were Ports 4, 7, & 8 connected to equipment when the whole system died?

Ports 7 & 8 were connected to the pimpintosh and syphon, respectively. Port 4 was not connected.

NICs on the computers both function properly. It's obviously related to the UPS, but I personally don't know how. 7 & 8 would make sense - they were connected. But 4? I dunno. Maybe it was bad anyway and I'd just never used it.

Doesn't change the fact that I need to buy a new switch tonight. I'll just make sure to submit the bill to Rayovac, since that UPS carries a $150,000 insurance policy.

"Need"?? What's that got to do with anything? You now have 4 major computers with 274 gigs online, and you're worried about NEED? Sheesh, geeks these days ...

As for the network blowout, does anyone here know how ethernet is wired electrically? We had a t-storm roll through, and at the time my cable modem was connected directly to a card in my main machine. The card blew out, but the modem survived. Very strange..

-B


P.S. Actually, that is pretty funny -- not long ago, we couldn't get enough storage, and now dhamsaic is complaining about TOO MUCH storage. Fun.

:)

The plan is still to put the SCSI in. I'll then have 2 hard drives, totaling 96 GB, and room for 3 more. That's a pretty comfortable position to be in. :)

Plus, like I said - the goal wasn't to waste a ton of money - it was to be smart in my purchases, but not let money get in the way. Which it hasn't. That's why my friends aren't getting Christmas presents this year. :)

(Actually, they are. And after I'm done that, I really won't have a lot of money to spend on shit. :))

It's ALIVE!
 

Well. I'm posting this from das tier. Yep. No joke. First, a couple notes:

-Debian did not like SMP. So I switched to Red Hat 7.2 and did a custom install. It's worked out pretty alright, and though I'd very strongly prefer to be running Debian (it's what I run on my other boxes, for God's sake - why not this one?), Red Hat will do quite nicely.

-It is fast. I know you expect that, but seriously. Know how Mozilla usually takes a few seconds to start up? Not here - I click it and it's open. even when it's totally unloaded from RAM and whatnot (i.e., right after I book up and do a startx). Compiles also go way way faster. I use GKrellM to monitor my CPU usage, and it's making good use of both CPUs. Very cool.

-GRUB is nice. It's the default with Red Hat now, and although I've been using LILO for 5+ years, I thought I'd switch it up. Well, I'm glad I did. GRUB is very very cool.

-I'll post more later. Jenni and I are damn hungry. :)

Well, das tier is, by and large, done. Some minor changes (and one rather large one) were made along the way, but in the end, I have the fastest computer I have ever used. If I had to describe it in one word, the word I would pick would be:

Amazing.

Since this is pretty much the "let's tie up my main part of this thread by describing how it all went" part, I should go ahead and get started - this will take some time. :)

First, let's talk components. What did I settle on?

<ul>
<li>Lian-Li PC-12 Aluminum Case
<li>Enermax EG465P-VE Power Supply
<li>Tyan Tiger MP S2460 Motherboard
<li>Athlon MP 1600+ x2 Processors
<li>Crucial PC2100 256MB DIMMS x4 RAM
<li>Thermalright SK6 x2 Heat Sinks
<li>Delta 60MM 38CFM x2 Fans
<li>Visiontek Xtasy 6964 64MB DDR GeForce3 Ti 500 Video Card
<li>Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Value Sound Card
<li>3Com 905CX-TXM Network Interface Card
<li>IBM 60GXP 60GB Hard Drive
<li>Samsung 19K1504 Black-bezel DVD drive
<li>Panasonic JU-256A226P Black-bezel Floppy drive
<li>Panaflo 120MM High output case fan
<li>Panaflo 80MM x3 High output case fan
<li>Generic chromed 120MM Fan grille
<li>Generic crhomed 80MM x2 Fan grille
<li>6 feet of C-strip Edge-covering rubber
<li>Panaflo fan tail x4
<li>Rubber washers x16
<li>Fan screws x16
<li>Microsoft Natural Elite keyboard
<li>Belkin Soho F1DS104T KVM switch
<li>2 sets of Belkin KVM cables
<li>1 A-B USB cable
<li>Belkin F5D5130-5 Network switch (my old one died!)
<li>Rounded IDE cables x2 from NewEgg
<li>Rounded Floppy cable from NewEgg
</ul>

Okay. So that's what I bought. The case came with the hole pre-cut in the top, so I put some C-strip in there, followed by the fan, fan grill, some rubber washers and the massive screws I bought for the job. Of course, I tacked on a Panaflo fan tail so I could hook it up to my motherboard. :) Bare wire leads are great and all, but they're not so useful when you're trying to hook a fan straight up to the motherboard. I also installed the two fans in the front, as well as the Panaflo fan in the back. That required some work, as I covered previously. With the DVD and floppy drives installed, there wasn't really much else I could do until I got the motherboard. Once I had everything (this past weekend), I began doing the real assembly of the system. Everything went pretty much how I expected it to - I put the motherboard on the slide-out motherboard tray, placed the cards in their slots and installed the hard drive. I dropped the processors in their spots and then went to work on smoothing out the bottom of the SK-6 heatsinks. Lemme tell you, it took some doing. You need to be careful doing this if you choose to, because you don't want to make it un-flat. It needs to make a good connection with the processor core, and should be smooth. Well, after probably 20 minutes of work with some steel wool, I had it looking pretty good. So I dabbed some thermal paste on those processors and put the heatsinks on. Lo and behold, I didn't crack the processors. :) So that's definitely a good thing. Anyway, I slid the motherboard tray back in, wired everything back up, hooked the system up to my KVM setup and prayed. Now comes the moment of truth: does it work? Will it POST?

I pushed in the power button and... it did. :) No problems whatsoever. Everything was recognized and I was happy. So I started booting Debian's install disks - gotta get this thing set up? By now it's about 1 AM Saturday morning/Friday night. I was pretty tired. After getting a base Debian system installed with no hassle and getting nVidia drivers installed with little hassle (some, but not too bad), I could not get the system to recognize both processors. Recompiled kernel with different settings. No luck. One processor, it said. "Screw you", I said. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed. I spent about an hour trying to get it to work and it didn't. So, I started downloading RedHat ISOs.

Saturday morning came and I installed. Wow! System won't boot. Okay, so far, I'm not too impressed. Let's try this again. Install.... system won't boot! Alright. Third time better be a charm. Install... boots! With SMP, no less. I was tickled. No hassle getting nVidia drivers installed. No hassle getting anything installed, actually. So, I said to Debian, "I love you, but I will keep you for single-processor boxen." I began moving my home directory over to das tier. This took quite some time, just like copying 10 gigs of data normally does. I was also very careful about what I backed up - for example, my .gaim, .xchat & .licq folders came over (as well as my .q3a, hehe), but my .gnome and the like stayed - there were only certain settings I wanted to move over. I spent considerable time re-building my desktop, making Sawfish and GNOME work exactly the way I wanted them to. I installed a lot of programs that I have come to rely on, such as ntpd and the like. I tried to stick with RPMs only (the best way to make a RedHat box hate you is to compile everything from source! I found this out the hard way.), and I succeeded. Anything that I need to compile myself (things like MPlayer, for example), I will compile, then make an RPM of and install that. I really do not want to break this box at all. The thing with RPMs is that you really can't do half & half - either you're all RPM, or you're all source. RPM's dependency checking and whatnot really really suck, and I think it's an inferior packaging system, but if done correctly (that's the pain in the ass!), it works. So that's what I'll stick to.

So, here it is Wednesday afternoon. I've probably put 20 or so hours into configuring the box the way it needs to be and making sure everything is good. Last night, I moved syphon out from under my desk and put das tier in its place. That's a pretty big switch, considering that syphon has been my main computer (upgraded, of course) since 1998. das tier has huge shoes to fill, but so far, it's filling them nicely. syphon will be kept in its current state for a few months (to make sure I haven't forgotten anything) and then will have a completely new install of some flavor of Linux (I might dual-boot it with BeOS too, or maybe triple-boot it with BeOS & Linux & Windows 2000 - I'm not sure yet). Anyway, syphon is also slated to receive a processor upgrade relatively soon, probaby to 1.2 GHz. That way, it'll be a nice little box for Jenni to learn Linux on. Aren't computers fun?

So. Now, the last part (I guess) - unresolved issues. Yes, I don't have SCSI in the system yet. That will be coming (I think), but I'm not sure when. Luckily, because of the way I'm building the system, a transition to a main SCSI hard drive would be relatively painless, so I'm not real worried about it - when I feel like it, I'll do it. Until then, I'll focus my money on other things.

The other issue is with the front bezel. As it is, it doesn't allow enough air intake. I questioned this previously, and my dad said "it'll be fine". Well, it's not. It's definitely keeping air from getting into the front of the case, and that is not good. The system still runs well with the front bezel on, but I have very high standards for this system and a front bezel that restricts that much air (I can feel a very noticeable difference in the amount of air getting sucked out the back & top whenever I put the bezel on or remove it) is absolutely unacceptable. So, I'm going to install 2 fan ducts in the front, which will allow for free air flow into the case. Currently, the system is sitting bezel-less and the processors are running at a cool 33º C (well, warm, but not in the world of Athlon processors). So while I'm fairly happy with the cooling, the front bezel issue is definitely a significant one and is something I need to take care of.

Overall, I have spent almost exactly $2,100 on the parts and shipping (and occasional tax). When you look at some other "over the top" computers, this is still pretty cheap, especially for everything that I've gotten (did I mention that it's fast?). I consider it money pretty well spent, and I'm definitely very happy with it so far.

I'll conclude this later by posting pictures of the new setup, the innards of the box, etc. I hope you've at least sorta enjoyed watching me blow tons of cash. :)