The Kind Healer

It’s been a bone-chilling, mind-numbing couple nights (with the ‘wind chill’ numbers in the single digits F) and I’m finding myself happy that tonight, it’s actually going to be slightly above freezing. Sheesh.

Anyway, I’ve been following the discussion on the MO forum that was sparked by Whilyam’s initial post (which I originally read on his weblog via MystBlogs). I will probably weigh in (both here and there) shortly Real Soon Now, as I’m now finding both extremes to be rather tiring.

Whatever I end up writing, the more expansive (and possibly meandering) version will appear here.

–TSK

I have finally gotten PSP9 back on the PC, and after some pic shrinkage I can post the new PC:

The new desk layout – The Cosmos case is down on the right, and the pic helps to show its size but he’s still a bit of a beast compared to the old Shuttle (sitting between the chair and left monitor!). You can also see the new router sitting on the wood frame just left of the Cosmos – with the exception of the corporate web-VPN only working for one of us at a time, it’s been a beautiful treat.

Main interior shot – basic system, nothing fancy really. Classic (read – no LEDs!) fans, even on the video cooler. That was not as easy as I’d like, unfortunately. *sigh*

Secondary interior shot – The CPU fan really is not spinning, even with the system on and idle. It’s one of those ‘thermistor’ models; You can see the wire circling around the fins. This was originally an asset, but I’m not liking this anymore, and will probably go get a normal version of this fan in the next few days (reason coming up).

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HDDs – All five of my prior SATA disks are now up and in service in some form on the new system. Only the first two (a 500 and 320) are doing anything major right now, but disks 2-4 do have small swap/temp slices that I stuck various files on for load-balancing in games. ;) The smallest disk (a 120) has been placed in an external chassis for anything ‘big’ I need to deal with elsewhere (and my thumbdrive won’t cut it).

The hardest part was something I didn’t really need to do – running a DoD-style wipe of the old disks prior to bringing them in service. After MUCH searching around I eventually found eraser, which uses a system I’m happy with and is also free.

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CPU: For the very first time (really!) I’m overclocking the CPU. Currently, it’s bumped from 2.4 to 2.66 and 55-57C at idle (very slight, but proving the reviews that say the Q6600 can do this in its sleep – even on air). I had it running on 2.8 for awhile, but the ‘heat’ stress test of Prime95 ramped the core temps at 78C, and very noticeable heat out the back. Fan is not spinning nearly as fast as advertised based on temp ranges, so my need for a ‘normal’ one if I want to try 2.8 again.

Settings for this motherboard (Gigabyte P35-DS4 Rev 2):
-> Default (2.4 Ghz): 300 FSB, 8x
-> 2.66 Ghz: 333 FSB, 8x
-> 2.8 Ghz: 350 FSB, 8x

These were done manually, overriding Gigabyte’s in-built system on the BIOS as it was not working. No voltage changes were needed that I know of, and I’m not willing to push past 2.8 since that should be just fine for now, thanks. ;)

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OK, going back to my prior post – why make such a fuss over an nLite CD?

Primary reason is simple – minimal memory use at boot for the most needed features. That means (with Ghost 9, Defender and the sound control daemons running) about 240 Meg.

Next reason was the ability to boot just from the CD (integrating needed drivers for this mainboard’s RAID controllers), selecting a partition, and having a system that I can do basic operations with work (including a web-based VPN) within 40 minutes. Of course, I also have Ghost, but this also allowed a bit of customization built-in as well (saving an untold number of hours on both initial install and any emergency re-install *knock plastic*).

So far, the only mistakes in the ‘final’ CD were:

1) Removing XP’s calculator (thinking my handheld ones will do fine). NOT!
2) My choice of certain ‘modules’ which pre-installed apps for me. So far I’ve since removed a freeware VM product (don’t ask, it sucked), an IRC client (again, sucked) and the original Bittorrent (only because I was not happy about the DNA daemon running all the time – probably replace with uTorrent for a revision of this CD). I also shutdown the auto-start for YIM – lord that’s annoying.

With this PC, I’m revising my list of ‘payware’ in use (to make up for the cost of the hardware). I’ve re-added GameDrive (now absorbed for good into VirtualDrive), tossed out SecureCRT (putty has matured well enough at this point), and am contemplating an upgrade for PaintShop Pro. OpenOffice is next up for install (I’ve not installed M$ Office in YEARS on the home PCs).

That’s pretty much it; Last up for this little saga is how SL, Oblivion, and GT/MOUL are on the poor thing.

/salute
–TSK

The good news: New PC has POSTed clean, CPU is happy, and (using my nLite automated ‘barebone’ CD) I was running XP within 30 minutes.

The bad news: The original DIMM pair (from AData) was *also* DOA; Well, one DIMM is shot anyway. I gave up and got a pair of OCZs from Microcenter instead, and I’m back to 4G memory.

I’m also very saddened to see that Gigabyte’s additional (motherboard) software is now utter crap. I used to love EasyTune too. *sigh*

So, what’s next?

-> Get the current drivers for the motherboard from Gigabyte and integrate them into a new nLite CD. Drop the stock downloads on the CD just in case.

-> Grab my nVidia ForceWare driver (84.25 aka ‘Oblivion release’) and drop it on the new nLite CD, but only so I can install later. I know that’s old, but it’s worked for my 7800-GT card. I’ll also have a newer FW driver dropped in, if I decide for that one instead.

-> Update a few ‘software install’ plugins for nLite as well, like FireFox. Maybe look over the list again and add a few more.

-> Final XP-side updates and burn-in (1-2 days). Probably grab a few pics by then.

That should take me to about Wednesday… *headdesk* Thankfully Craig should be away for a few days so I can also begin re-wiring the modem/router setup.

But first, Brunch. :)

/wave
–TSK

Yesterday was, of course, this insane ‘Black Friday’ thing – the beginning of what may be another wild run of traffic woes for me (as I drive at odd hours).

Since there was a good chance I was going to end up sitting in traffic trying to get home yesterday (since my workday – worknight? – *ends* at 8 AM) I decided to head west to Microcenter instead and browse for an hour or two. By then, most of the Lincoln Tunnel traffic has subsided enough that I can get home within reason.

Amusingly enough, that worked out well; I walked out only spending about $50, including some rubber grommets for Craig’s upcoming attempt to add proper water holes to his case. I almost spent the money towards a water solution myself (explanation here), but decided to hold off and learn more (while getting a cheap alternative air cooler for the CPU).

As for the new PC, status so far:

HDD – Microcenter had a 500 gig SATA-II drive for $110 last week (OEM of course), so that ended that. ;)

Mainboard – *should* have arrived back yesterday. With the holiday on Thu, apparently UPS decided to drop it off on its intended delivery day, which is this coming Monday. Oh well.

Cooling – Air, either stock fan or the OCZ Vendetta I got (probably with a replacement fan). Still investigating water, but that is a long-term research project (which is normal for me, whenever I could potentially drop over $150 on something that may be short-lived). I’m looking at potential alternatives for cooling the HDD cage on the Cosmos case; Their in-built solution uses up two of their five 5.25″ bays and the third is restricted to something ‘small.’

So, in theory, I’m all set to go. Just still waiting on a critical part. *headbang*

/wave
–TSK

After the previous rant, I decided to bring up Fantastico for the first time in almost a year and have it update WordPress.

Boy, was THAT a mistake (Upgrading 2.1.3 to 2.3.1); Implosion-city, a first in two years with the site. Thankfully between Fantastico’s really good backup facility and my having access to a shell, I rolled everything back quickly enough.

With me though, that kinda thing provokes a challenge in me – What’s going on? So I spent the last day and half poking at the WP release notes in my spare time. And the culprit is:

Special note for Fantastico Upgrades

When using the Fantastico upgrade process to upgrade from a pre-Version 2.2, Fantastico will use the wp-config-sample.php file to regenerate a new wp-config.php file. By doing this, two new values, DB_CHARSET and DB_COLLATE, are placed into the wp-config.php file. Those lines should be deleted from your wp-config.php if you are upgrading from a pre-Version 2.2 (like 2.0.10 or 2.1.3) to Version 2.3.1.

Figures. Anyway, I’ll do a manual upgrade this time (TS_Journal will be taken down entirely once I’ve done full backups of it). Using the opportunity to check and get updated plugins, or download/replace for features that I really wanted but had issues with. No ETA of course. ;)

/salute
–TSK