A good choice??

[tazwegion]

Re: A good choice??

Only Nurofen Plus has codiene, much like Panadeine Forte and pharmacy extra strength Paracetamol variants... Nurofen's primary ingredient however is an anti-inflammatory called Ibuprofen (also marketed as Act3, Brufen & Advil etc.), IMHO Panadol remains very effective for pain originating in bone (and thus for treating dental pain) but I still prefer the anti-inflammatory properties of Ibuprofen

Additionally, when nocturnal pain exists... try sleeping with a hot water bottle under your face/chin/head works wonders!

BTW How's your Linux system project coming on then?

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

Only Nurofen Plus has codiene, much like Panadeine Forte and pharmacy extra strength Paracetamol variants... Nurofen's primary ingredient however is an anti-inflammatory called Ibuprofen (also marketed as Act3, Brufen & Advil etc.), IMHO Panadol remains very effective for pain originating in bone (and thus for treating dental pain) but I still prefer the anti-inflammatory properties of Ibuprofen
Additionally, when nocturnal pain exists... try sleeping with a hot water bottle under your face/chin/head works wonders!

I use an ice pack when I go to bed, because it reduces swelling. I'm not sure if a heat pack will increase swelling.... but it may be worth a try. An Ice pack being used in Winter is a real pain....

BTW How's your Linux system project coming on then?

I'm about a quarter of the way there with the Linux project. Right now I have an ECS 661FX-M motherboard, 52X BTC CD-ROM drive (Black), a beige coloured case which fits an mATX board and a Deer PSU....

The Case may have to go, I need a black coloured case that can hold more than 2 hard drives.
The "400W" TT (Deer rebranded) PSU will have to go too. I'm looking into some better PSUs, maybe Antec Basiq or Thermaltake Toughpower 430W.

As for the CPU and RAM, ebay is my way of going. I'll probably buy a Celeron 2GHz or similar and a stick of 512MB Kingston DDR400 RAM.

The Hard drive will have to be a SATA one. I'm going with the Seagate 160GB SATA HDD for $65AUD.

[tazwegion]

Re: A good choice??

I use an ice pack when I go to bed, because it reduces swelling. I'm not sure if a heat pack will increase swelling.... but it may be worth a try. An Ice pack being used in Winter is a real pain....

The hot pack approach is most effective with pain originating from a dental cavity/nerve

I'm about a quarter of the way there with the Linux project. Right now I have an ECS 661FX-M motherboard, 52X BTC CD-ROM drive (Black), a beige coloured case which fits an mATX board and a Deer PSU....

The Case may have to go, I need a black coloured case that can hold more than 2 hard drives.

Have you considered painting the case and using a 5.25" hdd mount (or alternatively DIY mounting arrangements) to increase your cases' drive capacity? (see pic below)

[linuxguru]

Re: A good choice??

Funny thing is happening locally (maybe the same in other geographies also) - prices have crashed for certain specific items, while certain other items are unobtainium:

Coppermine P3 800EB FCPGA CPU: Easy availability at about $8 per unit
Copermine P3 CPU, any speed, 100FSB: Unobtainium - only choice is to buy a 133FSB unit and underclock to 100.
Copermine Celeron FCPGA CPU, any: Most are ~$1 per unit
Tualatin P3: Unobtainium
Any S478 CPU, Northwood or Prescott: Unobtainium
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200/250 GB PATA drive: Easy, $50 per unit.
Seagate Momentus 5400.3 120GB PATA 2.5" drive: Easy, ~$90 per unit.
Any slim notebook drive below 8 GB: Unobtainium.
SDRAM 128 MB: Easy
SDRAM 256/512 MB: Hard
DDR2 256 MB: Easy
DDR 256 MB: Hard

Anyway, I'm not complaining - prices of DRAM are about the lowest I've seen in years, post-dotcom crash included. Prices on PATA drives are also unbelievable.

[tazwegion]

Re: A good choice??

I obtained 2 Tualatin CPU's & a 2.1Gb lappy HDD, while s478 Prescotts along with 128/256/512Mb DDR modules are available locally on Flea-bay

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

Here's the PC that I'm currently using. It was proposed for Linux but.... the CPU but the motherboard has issues with rebooting.... right now it runs on Windows 2000 Pro.

This is what it has inside it:

AMD Duron 750MHz CPU
Jetway V266B Motherboard
384MB SDRAM (1x 256MB Nanya PC133, 1X Generic 128MB PC133)
32MB nVidia TNT2 AGP graphics card
2.0GB Seagate HDD (Yes.... 2GB)
Samsung CD burner
Delta Electronics 40X CDROM drive
400W Deer (TT) PSU

This computer is the noisiest one I have.... I can hear it in the Kitchen which is at least 5 metres away....
The Deer PSU is still running fine for now, but I don't know how longer it will hold up for.... It's being scrapped when I build the new Linux PC....

The case is very good actually.... I think it's a generic case.... not sure though. The steel is 0.8mm thick and all the side panels come off which is very good when I install extra devices. So I'm not going to spray paint the case.
I have a fear that the paint will start peeling off after a while.... i've tried it before and it started peeling....

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

Have you considered painting the case and using a 5.25" hdd mount (or alternatively DIY mounting arrangements) to increase your cases' drive capacity? (see pic below)

I have those drive rails here.... I used to use them.... I think they came attached to another case I bought....

[tazwegion]

Re: A good choice??

Longer miniture bolts is an even cheaper option which allows for better airflow around the drive

AFAIK automotive paint is more robust than your regular off-the-shelf supermarket/hardware variety, thus being a better choice

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

I am wondering if Linux will work with a PC I currently have. The PC i'm talking about is one that has a Gigabyte GA-8SG800 motherboard, Celeron 2GHz CPU, 512MB Kingston DDR RAM.
This PC used to BSOD on me, so I gave up on it. After I got my new PC, this one stayed by itself in the corner.
Everytime I run something that requires a lot of CPU power, the PC BSODs. The motherboard has all Rubycon caps.... so i've ruled out bad caps.
I re-formatted Windows too and it's still there!.

If only I could fix this problem, I'd be able to turn it into a Linux PC. I am not very fond of building a new PC....

I actually need about $400 in cash to upgrade my P4 CPU to a C2D CPU. With the $100 remaining, I can't build a reasonable Linux based PC with that....

I also figured out it'd be a better investment to upgrade the Multimedia PC since it won't require upgrading for a longer period....

The PSU in the Gigabyte GA-8SG800 system is a generic one, "400W" Tsumori brand. It can power a P4 3.2Ghz without issues.... but for some reason I have this very strange feeling that it's the cause of all the issues.
I haven't got a spare high quality PSU around here to test it either.

[WNG]

Re: A good choice??

Ummm, try a another better PSU.
If the temps aren't high, you can rule out cooling.
BSOD can be caused by bad RAM or driver conflicts too.
Run MemTest86+ for 24 hours to rule out the RAM.
Run a cpu burn-in app to test the cpu.
Lastly, Windows sucks. It's the main game in town, but Linux is now a real alternative to MS.
Try running a Linux LiveCD.
Most come with Memtest86+.

As for painting the case....
It's a good rugged thick steel case. I usually don't molest good cases. They are rare.
Painting can leave residual fumes that will sicken you from its stink.
And if you don't know how to prep and paint, it'll look like ass.
The exterior needs to to sanded to adhere to new paint. The plastic face too.
And that requires special paint to be used. An automotive vinyl/plastic trim and bumper paint will stick. And details like keeping buttons working freely is tough.

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

------> *UPDATE TO THE LINUX PROJECT* <------

Today I bought a Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra rev.1.0 motherboard.
The motherboard has 4x IDE ports and supports RAID. It also has an in-built card reader interface, all I need for the card reader to work is a card reader connector. It runs on the Intel 845PE chipset and it even has 6x PCI slots (very hard to find a board with 6X PCI slots these days).... but the AGP slot is only a 4X slot, but that doesn't really matter for a Linux based PC. This board also has an Intel 10/100VE chip inbuilt to it so there won't be a need for extra network cards like the Jetway PC that I'm using now....
The Gigabyte board also looks higher quality because it uses all Sanyo, Nichicon and Rubycon caps

Now that the motherboard part is crossed off my list.... I only have a few more parts to buy....

I'm also thinking of using a 512MB module of RAM for this Linux PC, to save some cash of course.

Remaining parts:

* CPU
* Hard Drives
* Case

As for the CPU, I am buying a second hand Celeron 1.7GHz one for $30AUD. The case is an easy choice, I'm thiking of buying an X-Blade case for $70AUD, the X-Blade case has a clear side panel and also an LCD temperature controller.

Hard drives will prove a bit of a challenge though. I have no idea what IDE type hard drive to buy....

I'm also planning for little additional things like a SATA RAID PCI card on ebay for SATA capability and maybe an extra 10/100 PCI LAN card to run this Linux PC as a file server.
Thanks.

[starfury1]

Re: A good choice??

IDE well price wise not too bad but the range is getting a little limited....lots 80's I see and 200's GB
As to whats most reliable no idea really my segates WD's still going strong
(think SATA might even be cheaper then IDE's now)

I dont know if they have totally stopped making them yet but guess it will happen soon.

price wise probably around the 200gb best against space I think
Id buy a new one and hope it lasts....they are mechanical so sooner or later will drop there bundle so really I think new is best way to go (just hope you dont get a dud)

anyway just my thoughts....good luck with the project

[willawake]

Re: A good choice??

IDE well price wise not too bad but the range is getting a little limited....lots 80's I see and 200's GB
As to whats most reliable no idea really my segates WD's still going strong
(think SATA might even be cheaper then IDE's now)

I dont know if they have totally stopped making them yet but guess it will happen soon.

i doubt that. there is still market for them.

[starfury1]

Re: A good choice??

Oh sorry will miss read your post
yeah there is but there doesn't seem to be the range around that there was.

I have heard talk of the production being cut....to what extent don't know
but Sata seems to be what being pushed

I think prices of IDE will go up not down like everything that goes obsolete ok some what obsolete

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

Today i went out and bought a new case for $40AUD.
As for $40, it's a generic one, but it's OK, not flimsy or easy to bend and it has a decent design. The corners on the inside are rounded off so I can't get cuts when I'm working in there. It's also very roomy in there and I can fit this huge Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra motherboard and the Optical drives won't touch it like my other cases.

I couldn't find the X-Blade case that I liked, the closest thing to that was a clear ATX case with some form of fish compartment on the side.... filled with fake plastic fish and water. Looks nice though, but really expensive.... it was $150 for the case alone.

For the components, I took an Intel Celeron 2GHz CPU and a stick of PNY 512MB DDR400 RAM out of my Gigabyte GA-8SG800 to cater for this system.
I'm running it off my old Deer PSU just for the next few weeks.... hopefully nothing bad will happen.... For now I won't use it a lot.... maybe just to download a few programs off the net and that's about it.
I have a Hipro that's going through a recap job right now and when I'm done with that, its going into this PC.
As for the Gigabyte GA-8SG800 motherboard. I'll get an old socket 478 CPU and some RAM off eBay just to make it come to life.
I'll also buy a new hard drive for this PC sometime soon.... maybe a second hand 40GB or 80GB?
It's currently running off an old 20GB Seagate HDD.

[Paul S]

Re: A good choice??

My GA-8PE667 Ultra only uses DDR-333 RAM. I guess the DDR-400 is backwards compatible, but DDR-333 is cheaper.

Does yours run at the faster bus speed? I could not find a newer BIOS to upgrade things like that, or to allow USB booting. Which BIOS version do you have?

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

My GA-8PE667 Ultra only uses DDR-333 RAM. I guess the DDR-400 is backwards compatible, but DDR-333 is cheaper.

Does yours run at the faster bus speed? I could not find a newer BIOS to upgrade things like that, or to allow USB booting. Which BIOS version do you have?

I use a DDR400 stick of RAM, but in the POST screeen, it only shows DDR266.... I think it is because my CPU only has a 400MHz FSB. I will check what version of BIOS I have later when I boot that PC up.

[Paul S]

Re: A good choice??

The last BIOS version that I can find is F3. You may still have the original F2.

Here's a link to the web site for that mobo, in case you have trouble finding it (I did!)
Gigabyte GA-8PE667-Ultra

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

I just found out that my new case is made by DEER.... model PC-194. the box that it came in didn't say that though.... it said something compteley different....

http://www.deer-group.com

I read through thier website and they say that they test thier power supplies with loads of 150W to 400W.... makes me wonder
They are also a part/ alliance with Foxconn?
Anyway, this case made by DEER is of a nice decent quality. Not too bad. My Thermaltake looks better in design though.... and probably has thicker metal because it's heavier.
Oh, and I still haven't checked out what BIOS my Gigabyte board uses yet.... I will sometime this week....

Thanks.

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

The last BIOS version that I can find is F3. You may still have the original F2.

Here's a link to the web site for that mobo, in case you have trouble finding it (I did!)
Gigabyte GA-8PE667-Ultra

I just booted the PC up and on the POST screen, it says BIOS version F3. Looks like I have the latest version....