Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

I was wondering about that myself....and I will never stop building them. Some of the hardware I tinker with is slightly newer, but that is irrelevant. When you stop by this spring, you're goiung to get a crack at another one too! Enjoy your hobby!

You mean RD main rig 5.0 may exist someday?

(I do have another AFT XM-5U card reader that I nabbed for peanuts a few months ago which is slated for such a main rig. )

[chowder]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

I solely use "old" hardware, I have no need for anything more modern. The number of people who get sold what are essentially gaming rigs and then spend all their PC time on Facebook is just stupid. I have useable Socket A systems running as general web browsing machines, use a first gen i5 laptop as my main system, and a Core 2 Duo E8500 based Shuttle XPC as a desktop PC. With an 8500GT graphics card, it even plays older games well.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

in defense of topcat, ratdude and myself. its always better to repurpose old, still working hardware than to toss it away into a landfill and pollute the earth and generate e-waste unnecessarily. we have said this many times. the power efficiency argument is unrelated and does not hold water as it is a separate and different issue altogether.

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

(gee, you guys never tell topcat to junk his workstations, and he builds more of them than I do!)

I was wondering about that myself....and I will never stop building them. Some of the hardware I tinker with is slightly newer, but that is irrelevant. When you stop by this spring, you're goiung to get a crack at another one too! Enjoy your hobby!

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

That don't make sense for an AMD 64 processor to be Kentucky-fried!
Even some socket 462 motherboards had thermal shutdown!

As did mine, set at 75C IIRC. Strange, all I know is I fried CPU1 and the cooler bracket also happened to be loose.Maybe the thermal shutdown wasn't quick enough?

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

-One of the KZG's has bulged...

Son of a bitch! KZGs seem to often last for a good while then suddenly bulge!

My KZGs bulged out of the blue!

I still have KZGs that are visibly fine on a 2008 or 2007 motherboard and they should be fine, knock on wood... I'm investigating to see if post-2006 KZGs do better...

My KZGs I believe are from 2004 and it seems a lot from near that period and up to 2006 bulge... (at least)

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Apparently AMD still didn't have thermal throttling by the time the opteron came out. The athlon XP didn't and they liked to fry:

That don't make sense for an AMD 64 processor to be Kentucky-fried!
Even some socket 462 motherboards had thermal shutdown!

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Don't bother mentioning that. He'll just go on about the old stuff is "higher quality" than that "new crap"... in other words, I wholeheartedly agree.

Edit: lol, I posted a tad too late.

I will say this; what I think about the hardware quality is irrelevant. It's a hobby. It's like telling an gun enthusiast to play with with a paddleball instead of a pistol; you may have a point in terms of expenses, but you've failed to see the forest for the trees in terms of why one has such a hobby (I.E. they like guns). I like my workstations. If I tell you "no thanks" to the idea of swapping them for generic low-end muggle desktops, please don't take it personally and instead relize that I enjoy my hobby and intend to keep it.

(gee, you guys never tell topcat to junk his workstations, and he builds more of them than I do!)

[shovenose]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

True, there is some savings, but 170W (combined) for slightly less performance than a single 53W Haswell Pentium still hurts. If power in your area is cheap it may not matter, but if power in your area is expensive (it is where I live), the power savings alone would pay for newer/more efficient hardware pretty quickly (especially once you factor in the video cards as well, as a single R7-360 or gtx 750 will outperform the old 250 GTSs while using a fraction of the power).

Don't bother mentioning that. He'll just go on about the old stuff is "higher quality" than that "new crap"... in other words, I wholeheartedly agree.

Edit: lol, I posted a tad too late.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

True, there is some savings, but 170W (combined) for slightly less performance than a single 53W Haswell Pentium still hurts. If power in your area is cheap it may not matter, but if power in your area is expensive (it is where I live), the power savings alone would pay for newer/more efficient hardware pretty quickly (especially once you factor in the video cards as well, as a single R7-360 or gtx 750 will outperform the old 250 GTSs while using a fraction of the power).

You already know my answer (if not, look in this thread and my others, it's been brought up many times before). That's an old discussion that I'm not going to restart. My point was more of a "hey look, a fringe benefit", not "look at me I'm using no energy!"

[dmill89]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

However, there still is another way to go. There also were only two listings for the 285, and both happen to be a better version. For some reason AMD originally released a stepping that was 95W TDP. That is what my old ones were. They later came out with a stepping that was only 85W TDP. That's what the two listings are for. Not much different, but 20W (between two CPUs) is 20W.

True, there is some savings, but 170W (combined) for slightly less performance than a single 53W Haswell Pentium still hurts. If power in your area is cheap it may not matter, but if power in your area is expensive (it is where I live), the power savings alone would pay for newer/more efficient hardware pretty quickly (especially once you factor in the video cards as well, as a single R7-360 or gtx 750 will outperform the old 250 GTSs while using a fraction of the power).

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Well shit.

These have gotten a bit scarce (the dual core ones that is). The 290 sells for $120 a pair , although that was for two NOS ones still in box (no other US listings, china had singles for $80 a pop ).

However, there still is another way to go. There also were only two listings for the 285, and both happen to be a better version. For some reason AMD originally released a stepping that was 95W TDP. That is what my old ones were. They later came out with a stepping that was only 85W TDP. That's what the two listings are for. Not much different, but 20W (between two CPUs) is 20W.

So, one was single CPUs for $20 shipped, the other was $30 for a pair. To avoid mixing steppings, I'm going to go for the pair:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MATCHED-SET-...0AAOSwS7hW~-Nk

I'm not the keenest on the background in the picture (static?), but return shipping is cheap enough that I feel OK taking a slight risk.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

BBQ'd a CPU today

One the new coolers came undone. RIP CPU1. While moving CPU2 to CPU1's position got it to boot, with half my RAM, half my USB/gigiabit ports, and one GPU non-usable, I'm considering it out of service until I can get 2 working CPUs.

One the bright side, I now have an excuse to get some faster CPUs. There is one faster model that will work (the 2.8GHz Opteron x2 290, which my old K8W's weren't compatible with), and unless they are really expensive, I'll nab two of those and upgrade it. Otherwise I'll get another 285 to replace the dead one.

Apparently AMD still didn't have thermal throttling by the time the opteron came out. The athlon XP didn't and they liked to fry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y39D4529FM4

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

I swapped the coolers awhile back, and finalized the setup last night:



Those are Cooler Master TX3's with added fan grilles.

Before I was running them turned 90 degrees with the front cooler's fan moved to the back and flipped as I didn't have enough HDD clearance with the fan in the front. While it did cool OK, it looked funny and I wasn't happy with the result. This I think works well as the fans are still blowing in the correct direction. They only run at 1600RPM and are very quiet (the only fan at all audible is from the GPUs).

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Made another change... I swapped the TV tuner (which wasn't seeing much use) for a modified Creative X-Fi SB0770 (recapped and dell header swapped for intel HDA) due to my new speakers w/o volume control (it used an inline remote control which I do not have) picking up tons of noise from the onboard. Also, the case's AC'97 header isn't true AC'97; HDA works much better. I'll miss the tuner but hey, I wasn't using it, and eventually I may use it in some sort of HTPC or the like.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

You could use some grills on those cpu fans otherwise bye-bye fan blades if wires got snagged.

I know, But since I'm probably going to put in a pair of cooler master TX3's (or some other quieter cooler), no sense in spending money on that now.

Also, the cabling is maybe 0.75" away (in a thick and somewhat stiff bundle), the picture's lack of a 3rd dimension doesn't show that. Very low danger

[Sparkey55]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

You could use some grills on those cpu fans otherwise bye-bye fan blades if wires got snagged.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

funny, they show up on the computer I uploaded them on... WTF?

(they didn't on my laptop)

edit- must be hosts thing or caching... as they aren't show as attached to the post. I'll re-upload them to this post.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

since I had to reload my browser when writing the post I bet the pics got erased awhile after I posted them. I'd fix it if I still had mod powers... but I don't, so there isn't jack I can do other than reload them (which I will in a bit).

[shovenose]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Who suggested 608? Such a random number. Using one of those stupid online calculators?
that PSU is probably fine...

Pics don't load btw :'(