New Uber Box

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.

[alleycat]

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.

[alleycat]

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.

[Bitman]

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.

[Bitman]

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.

[tw]

Originally posted by dhamsaic
As we all know, yesterday my UPS died. Well, when I got home, my internet access wasn't working. ...
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.

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.

[Bitman]

Originally posted by dhamsaic
I really don't *need* more than 60 gigs. Especially not right now.

"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. )

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.