Ratdude's Main rig V2

[Uranium-235]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

should of shot for a cheap core 2, would of beat the pants off that system :P

[c_hegge]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

$98 is great for that PC. I'd have sold a similar PC for at least 3 times that.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

should of shot for a cheap core 2, would of beat the pants off that system :P

The old board was a Core Board (I used a PDC with it)... But "cheap" is what I didn't want for this system. I was tired of kicking around a slap-together Job that was built using the cheapest parts I could get to make it run. Getting that System out of the rut it was in would have taken a New CPU, RAM, GPU, and perhaps mobo. I did by chance find a better GPU for that board and the parts are slated to be put in an HTPC.

As for the performance, I'd beg to differ. My xeon rig has 2 HT CPUs (4 virtual cores) and L3 cache. For my purposes, as a power-user (esp once I have a second LCD to use with it), all the Core would have going for it is x64.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

I ran two 3ghz xeons /w xp and the performance tanked (poweredge 1800). just saying. maybe cause it was a dell, I tried hacking a gf 8400 down to an 8x slot but never got it fully working (did get it booting)

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

Mine are 3.2GHZ Gallatin core 1M units. I would have run 2M units but supermicro said that they didn't work with the 2M Gallatin. Aside from issues related to the lack of RAM (1gb), it has more kick than the PDC did.

Not to mention that I now have most of the parts to make an HTPC leftover after the switch to xeons... If I just upgraded the CPU I'd be out of luck for that project.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

Nice project! Lookin' forward to the pics when you get a chance!

^ was from the Intel BGA thread. And as per request, here's a fresh set of pictures for y'all.

An overview:



In the way of 3/5" externals, It has a floppy and a sony card reader. I may swap those for silver/gray units to make it match (and so I can move the reader to another rig).

Behind the 5.25" doors we have:



Both are lite-on drives: the upper one is a semi-high speed DVD-RW lightscribe unit. I still have all the goodies it came with new and given the crappy linux support for lightscribe, I may sell the drive (it is barely used, PM me for details). The lower drive is a 48x CD-RW that I've had for many years (it was a gift from a family friend for one of my first computers, 2 yr before I joined).

On the bottom there is a door with more ports:



There have been some changes in the back of the unit:



Mainly, I added my new I/O shield (not a perfect match label wise, I don't give a ****) and Aluminum taped over some open holes.

An overview of the inside:



The first change in here was that I used a wire button to tie back the ATX and 12V cables so they no longer are blocking the CPU fans. This created a lot of space:



Here's the cards I installed:



Wait? Not enough detail? Let's look at it card by card, starting with the upgraded GPU:





Yay! 512mb GPU! (yeah, I know they make 1gb ones for AGP, but I didn't have $80+ to drop on one. This one cost me less than half). It runs pretty well... not a lot of heat output, but a decent amount of kick. When I got it, it had a bunch of KZG's that I swapped for some Rubys... there also are 2 noname 470uf 16V caps that will get swapped once my order gets processed and shipped (Topcat, I'm looking at you )

The 1394 and audio cards were unchanged:



Just as a refresher, I picked these cards since they both had headers for those front ports (finding such cards are a PITA, esp. the audio). In addition, the audio card was fully recapped by the PO/seller, yyonline He replaced every little cap with a panny, it sounds great, thanks again yyonline!

The RAID card hasn't changed either:



With all the cards removed, the rest of the mobo is visible:



Side note- as shown, the CMOS batt is a sony... I never did change it . I'll have to buy a fresh one and try again... (see the X5DAL-TG2 BIOS issue thread)

Something else I found while shooting these pics:



I found the manu date! It appears to be a September 2003 production... IIRC my CPUs are newer than that (the ones it was used with back in the day are different and IIRC up for sale from topcat)

Here's where the next upgrade to the system will be:



As shown, we have room for 3 SATA drives (and 3 SATA power plugs), yet we are only using one and we have a ****ing 3ware card. I'm not sure if I'll find a mate for the existing 320gb drive or (IMHO better yet) find a trio of smaller SATA drives and RAID 5 the mofo. Another rig could also use the 320gb drive, so that's another reason the trio option sounds better.

I'd also swap the SATA cables for really short ones if I could get them short enough... the drives would be so close to the card...

---

So, on a 1-10 scale, how does this iteration of the main rig stack up?

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

So, on a 1-10 scale, how does this iteration of the main rig stack up?

I'd say it stacks up pretty good....but maybe I'm biased.

BTW, that system originally had a pair of 2.4GHz CPU's in it. They got up'd to the 3GHz back in like 09.

[momaka]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

So, on a 1-10 scale, how does this iteration of the main rig stack up?

ZERO! Too neat for my taste
lol, j/k. Great rig RD! Now you need to start putting a few good POH on it .

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

ZERO! Too neat for my taste
lol, j/k. Great rig RD! Now you need to start putting a few good POH on it .

POH?

It does have F@H... as long as it is online its runnign it.

[momaka]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

Power-ON Hours.

I don't know about F@H, though. Seems like a waste of CPU cycles (and thus electricity) to me. When I'm done with my computer, OFF it goes.

[shovenose]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

F@H is fun

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

I ended up turning off F@H... my CPU temps were a tad sketchy (up to 61C on one of them) and I was losing performance over thermal throttling as a result.

Besides, the F@H concept has been more or less replaced by a better concept: folding gaming. They made folding into a flash game, and what takes 6 months F@H style took 3 weeks (since brains are better at that sort of thing than a computer is).

Not to worry, my two other rigs (a p4 HT 2.8 and a PIII 800MHZ) still fold... for now...

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

In the way of 3/5" externals, It has a floppy and a sony card reader. I may swap those for silver/gray units to make it match (and so I can move the reader to another rig).

Well, I've taken care of the card reader. I won this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121035773578...84.m1439.l2649

Not only is it silver, it also is vey well made. Same OEM as my case (they also make the card readers used in photo kiosks, beefy stuff).

I' haven't had much luck on a silver floppy... I'll probably end up spray painting an old yellowed panasonic or something.

I'm also thinking of getting 3 of these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-inside...torefresh=true

One for each cooler plus one for the front. Since my case is a mac clone, I thought it would both look cool and be funny to put a logo on the cooler (like the "G5" logo on powermac coolers). I've made a few offers on it to try to talk down the price by a few cents or so... If period Xeon badges weren't such a **** to find.

[TELVM]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

... Get a latex glove and spread that small dab evenly and thinly and as evenly as you can across the surface. I've found this the most effective way ...

Please see this video.

Spreading can be counterproductive by fomenting air bubbles. Adequately sized pea is better. 'X' is the best.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

I decided to tackle the floppy painting job today.

(i'll spread this over 3 posts to help reduce page load times. Plenty of inline attachments!)

When I went to remove the floppy drive, I hit a snag:



Not quite enough room...

From here, I had 4 choices:

1. Quit here and keep the yellowed drive in the machine
2. Remove the front bezel and slide the drive out the other way
3. Remove the offending heatsink
4. Remove the mainboard

Option 1 didn't sound good; I already dropped $2.50 on a spraybomb can . How lame.

Option 2 would have been a colossal PITA; I've done it before when dremel modding. It looks easy but it sure ain't. #$%^!

Option 3 was too risky; I've pulled that kind of heatsink w/o issues, but this board is too special to risk that... It's both rare, valuable (ever price one of these on ebay? $$$!), and historic (after all, it was BCN's 1st server back in the dark ages).

Option 4 is also a PITA, but to a lesser degree than #2. It also allows me to inspect the amount of board flex caused by my new cooler mounts:



Not very much flex at all... it think it had that much to start with before attaching coolers.

Yet another close up of one of the standoff stacks:



Since chegge asked awhile back, here's a shot of the coolers' fins:



A mostly empty case:



The metric crap-ton of junk I had to remove just to pull the floppy drive:



Sorry about my sty of a desk... I actually use it.

In my next post... Floppy drive details and painting.

[c_hegge]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

Since chegge asked awhile back, here's a shot of the coolers' fins

As I suspected. They're a bit too tightly packed for good airflow. I have an identical cooler (except, for s478), and the only airflow you can feel is through that small gap in the side, and it only works well with Northwood CPUs. PressHots run very hot with it.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

As I suspected. They're a bit too tightly packed for good airflow. I have an identical cooler (except, for s478), and the only airflow you can feel is through that small gap in the side, and it only works well with Northwood CPUs. PressHots run very hot with it.

Nah, plenty of air comes out. Before I installed the I/O shield you could feel a jet of air coming past the ports off the coolers (not off the 92mm fan nearby). There's more gap there than you think. You could probably fit a US penny in between the fins.

With F@H off the highest temps I've seen were around 45C, and that was while gaming.

Granted, my CPU's are essentially 2nd Gen Northwoods with L3 cache added. Then again, they are 92W a piece IIRC.

Not even the gpu gets that hot, max is maybe 53C, and that is under load.

Part two of 3 is coming soon btw...

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

Part two!

Here's my model floppy drive (actually, a less yellowed clone):



They are very unique drives that I am very fond of. First, the power and floppy conenctions are reversed, making the layout similar to a HDD (makes power wiring cleaner in many cases). Also, like some TEAC drives, they have solid cast frames:



They also are IMHO easier to work on. To prep it for paint, I first removed the faceplate screws:



Which leads to:



The button is held on by the metal tang at the back of the button. The faceplate has no annyoing clips to deal with, just two screws (very easy).

The door also has a both easy to remove/install and very robust hinge setup:



The green piece is held on by plastic welded rivets, easy to undo (I just popped it back in when I was done, if it was loose I'd use some glue to hold it).

All of the parts separated:



At this point I'd show some painting pics. However, due to the small size of the parts and some poor judgement/handling, the paint was a total fail:



A lot of drips as well... it took a lot to de-gum it enough so the door would go back in and turn freely. Putting it in the case made it look a little less hideous:



I'm not happy with it at all. What an epic fail! Lesson: spray paint floppy bezels at your own risk!

Silver floppy drives do exist... but the only one I saw on ebay was down under and like $15 AU + ungodly international shipping.

Maybe I'll post it in looking to buy... in the mean time, if you have a silver (or light gray) floppy drive that runs, PM/email me.

Next in part 3: system reassembly with some cable routing mods.

[lti]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

Those heatsinks look a little lame for a 92W TDP CPU. You might be able to use thicker and more powerful fans (25mm thick instead of 15mm), but I wouldn't expect it to work much better. The thicker fans would at least be quieter.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V2

Those heatsinks look a little lame for a 92W TDP CPU. You might be able to use thicker and more powerful fans (25mm thick instead of 15mm), but I wouldn't expect it to work much better. The thicker fans would at least be quieter.

They were actually designed for a 110W CPUs (they were pulled from an irwindale based HP rig). They came with faster PWM fans that I swapped for some slightly slower and much quieter non-PWM fans (since my board has no PWM support).

The existing bolts IIRC are too short to use thicker fans... I didn't even know thicker fans existed. I'd have to get fresh bolts at the least if I were to do another fan swap. If you know where I could get such fans at a decent price, please do tell.

edit- never mind on the thicker fans... thicker fans would block and interfere with the two mount screws on that end. I think I'll keep what I have, since my temps are A-ok as long as I don't Fold with it.