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May 31, 2006
Narrow escape, or a sign....
A weird thing happened to me today that made me stop and think.
When your numbers up.. It's up. Ya just never know how rapidly things can change in a split second.
I was bringing my Truck in for inspection. It was actually due 6/12. I've been trying to get off from work for the past 20 days, but some heavy duty project occured and I became the candidate for support. I guess that's why they pay me the big bucks
Fortunately the project is winding down and I was able to delegate ot off my plate. So lo and behold I worked from home today and brought the truck in.
Feeling more relaxed then usual (probably due to valerian and kava kava) I casually glided the truck along it's merry way to the service center. I was driving at a snails pace (for no good reason) People are honking me and I'm just chillin along. I even stopped and thought to myself why am I driving so slow. so.. I pull it in, leave the keys and walk about 2 miles home from the service center awaiting the call to pick up.
So Al at the service center calls and says "we got a problem" Your brakes just failed on the Dynamo and we can't stop the truck. The brake cylinder snapped and the brake fluid leaked out all over the place. All I could say was" wow, good thing it happened there..." Al replies, "Yes, that's for sure.. you would have crashed. "
All I could think of is.. Had I been on the highway (the belt parkway or cross island parkway) I'm sure I would have smashed up.
Hmm, So.. Narrow escape or a sign of things to come ?
Phew...
Posted by Me at 01:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 30, 2006
Kitty Computer
Made this kitty computer for a friend. Ain't it cute. LOL!
Click for a larger image
Posted by Me at 06:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 22, 2006
Tentative Kurobox Specs
There's talk about a new Kurobox III.
The tenative specs are not too shabby.
Just when I was thinking of jumping ship for something with 2 in board drives for mirroring.
* Kuro 3 Update: Tentitive HW specs:
o PPC proc TDB (400-667Mhz)
o 16 (maybe Cool MB FLASH
o 1X MiniPCI slot
o 1X internal SATA
o 3X external ESATA
o 2X USB
o 2X Network (probably Gigabit)
o 1X SODIMM slot (memory not included)
o Universal Power Supply like HG-WR
o U-Boot bootloader
http://www.kurobox.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=951
Posted by Me at 11:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 21, 2006
Radiobot/Gatekeeper gets a Fanlift
Silverstone SST-FM82's.
This weekend I embarked on s'more surgery for Gatekeeper (My front face to the internet & Radiobot machine). The Imetus behind the change was the failing exhaust fan in the back. It's been spinning for a few years and starting to make noise. Considering the machines position (at my upper right) any noise from this machine is too much. I also wanted more control over fan speed and more ooomph for those hot days in the summer ahead.
Normally I use the Thermaltake Smart Fan II's. 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835999111
These are really great fans for the price. Highly adjustable with FULL speed, Manual or thermal control. It comes with mounting hardware and even a grill.
It moves alot of air too! My only beef is the whine. At high speed they have the classic fan whine, at low speed they have a bit of a grrrrrrr.
A lil research turned up The Silverstone SST-FM82
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811999345
I wasn't actually looking for a new fan for this case. I was looking for a fan for my new SI-9XV XEON heatsink.
So after some research I realized the SST-FM82 was an ideal candidate for Gatekeeper. Wide Blade excursion (90MM) in an 80MM mounting. WOW, I could push more air or the same air with less noise. This version also had a 3.5" mounting for control! A lil further research around the net showed this to be a perfect fan if you have the extra room.
I created a Pictorial of Installation process for this particular case.
Woke up early sunday morning and decided.. I'm going drilling!
I modded the front of the computer case to house the two fan controls rather then use up a 3.5" drive bay. Hey. you just never know when you'll need'em.
Overall performance of these fans is excellent.
The speed adjustment is smooth.
They move alot of air and at 2500 RPMS, they are silent.
This installation brought about an interesting learning experience.
I figured I would turn up the exhaust fan a lil more until I just barely heard it.
The prior exhaust fan was at 2200RPMS and this was around 2600 RPMS.
So front and back fans were spinning around 2500 RPMS.
This seemed to make the motherboard temperature go up.
I couldn't believe it my once 38c temps are now 40c. WTF!
I turned up the volume, but the noise was just unacceptable.
So I started adjusting all day to find that the system stayed cooler when the exhaust fan was lower then the intake fan.
Meanwhile I had always been under the impression negative or equal pressure was best.
After all said and done the system worked best with 1800RPM exhaust and 2400 RPM intake.
CPU temps are now a cool 34c&35c and system temp is 38c.
Not too shabby.
My next mod is a Thermaltake Ducting Mod. which will supposedly get more air into the center core of the heatsink where it really matters.
Hercules also need this piece of plastic to help cool off the motherboard at strategic parts. Seems air blows over the mobo, but really past it. In my case, I want to mount it on one of the intake vents and aim the fan directly at the motherboard. We'll see what the future brings.
Posted by Me at 06:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 12, 2006
RadioBot scheduled for surgery
The aging radiobot computer for seismicradio.com is scheduled for surgery.
This baby has been running on a PIII BX-133 MoBo for the last 3-4 years now.
Power measurements show it drawing about 120 WATTS.
Although it's been a great performer over the years, my planned projects of automated jukebox and FTP server will require just a wee bit more horespower. Plus it's my backup computer to hercules and if I'm doing so much with VMWARE, I need the emergency horsepower.
I thought about going to a P4 with hyperthreading so I have smoother opertion, but the thoughts of power utilization & heat production for the Preshott CPU's have held me off.
I've also considered AMD, yet there's still more research for me to do on my end.
I even considered using a Mobile processor which uses only 30watts of power
That is... until recently when I discovered Low Voltage XEONS.
After a bit of hunting, building and testing it seems that LV Xeons is the way to go.
(for now anyway, We'll see what the future brings with DUO-CORE or AMD technology).
So I snagged a pair of 2GHZ 1.3V (Low voltage) XEONS on eBay the other week.
Sold off my higher voltage (1.5) XEONS for a price close to the ones I bought.
Installed them into an ASUS NCCH-DL MoBo with a pair of Swiftech MCX603-V Heatsinks and Wala!
We have achived success.
I like the board itself, although I'm not happy with the heatsink mounting process.
It requires you stick certain plates onto the Chassis and screw the CPU fan onto these plates.
This required going back to the internet for special screws on the heatsinks.
After some consideration I also purchased some aftermarket plates and rigged my own set up.
It all worked out good. If you click on the image above, you will see pictures of the process (Which I took for 2CPU.COM)
These CPU's are supposedly very overclockable.
I'm a moderate overclocker so I elected to only overclock the bus a bit. Reliability and low power/heat production are my main concerns. Right now this puppy only runs an EGGDROP bot for seismic and is my gatekeeper for all incoming connections. So, instead of running the CPU's at 20X100MHZ bus, I'm running them at 15*133MHZ.
This seems to yeild a slightly faster response time. I still have more benchmarking to do.
What really amazed me is these CPU's only pull about 35 Watts each when they are running flat out on a high stress load. Something that I do not reach very often.
So with this upgrade I get dual hyperthreaded processors, and it draws about the same power as my current PIII system which is about 120 WATTS. The 2 Xeons are currently drawing 100 Watts on idle. (.7 amps)
In addition, the heat produced by these is very low. They average around 35c and when they hit 40c the fans whir up to wisk the heat away.
Some of the utilziation could also be the new Seasonic S-12 power supply. This has Active PFC which is far more efficient (at a cost) then regular power supplies. So when I run the CPU's flat out the power will spike to about 160 WATTS. (still not bad).
Overall I'm pretty pleased, yet we'll see how well the fans and heat handle the summer.
Posted by Me at 10:30 AM | Comments (1)
Glitterama Lamp from the UK
The newest addition to my Vintage Lamp collection. A rare glitterama lamp from the UK.
In Ruby Red Glitter. can't wait to fire it up!
This puppy uses the out of production lunar globe size and stands almost 3.5 feet high.
Posted by Me at 10:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack