On Monday, January 02, 2012 02:50:10 PM Kent A. Reed did opine: > On 1/2/2012 2:06 PM, gene heskett wrote: > > On Monday, January 02, 2012 01:47:39 PM gene heskett did opine: > > > > [...] > > > >> With regard to a bad hal file killing the machine, I am now beginning > >> to lean toward a flaky psu, its not liking 50F ambient temps in the > >> shop, and has crashed with grand and goriously colored confetti on > >> the screen within 20 minutes of the last 3, fully powered down > >> reboots. gkrellm says the 5 volt line is sagging and I say 4.87 > >> volts once. That psu is about a year old. I have a 2 or 3 year old > >> HiPro that is a tad undersized in this box, still holding its 5 volt > >> line at 5.05. But nobody has any more HiPro's. All the rest seem > >> engineered to sag& go out of tolerance about 2 weeks after the end > >> of the warraty, worst offenders are Antec. > >> > >> Maybe I'll even buy a whole new box. If I could find one of those > >> compact models with a usable parport& no built in video. > >> > >> Is anyone actually selling that intel board that has been discussed > >> here in a ready to go package? I'd drop the card for one of those > >> in a heartbeat. > > > > I've found a barebones box with a D525 board in it, for $120, claims > > to have the lpt on the back panel already. Needs a couple sticks of > > ddr2, a smallish sata drive and a dvd reader. > > > > <http://www.outletpc.com/rj3658.html> > > > > $120 kit > > $ 29 ram > > $ 80 500G sata3 drive > > $ 40 laptop style dvd drive, don't see how desktop would fit > > $ 24 keyboard/mouse with usb rf dongle > > _____ > > $293 + whatever > > > > Looks like it would be a ready to install 10.04 on. > > > > What do the folks here think of this kit? > > > > Cheers, Gene > > Gene: > > First thoughts > > 1) what motherboard is it, actually? We've been talking mostly about > Intel motherboards containing Intel Atom D510 and D525 processors. I > also have an ASUS AT5NM10-I motherboard (with Intel Atom D510 cpu) that > seems to be comparable to the Intel D510MO motherboard I used to have, > if perhaps just a tick slower on the latency test (I believe both of > these boards are now out of production). Don't know about other > makes/models. > The one I quoted says its a foxconn with the same chipset the real intel board has.
> 2) why are you willing to trust new power supplies any more than the old > <grin> They just keep getting more "cost effective." Tell me about it, these guys are surviving on the replacement market, so they are carefully engineered to fall over a short time after the warranty expires, and of course the warranty is subject to all sorts of fine print provisions so they can wiggle out of it. I would just get in the truck & run up to staples and get another, except the only thing on the shelf is 3x what I need, and says Antec on it, sure fire indication of the crappiest PSU around. > 3) why do you need the dvd drive? Seems irrelevant in a machine > controller. To install from the cd/dvd. Than it can go away, but first the bios must be able to boot from a usb drive, none of mine are capable, hence the requirement for internal sata dvd's in this box, & internal pata drives in the other 3 around here. To say my hardware is getting ancient is a given, but then so am I. :) > 4) how much RAM are you talking about? I wouldn't settle for less than > 1GB. Neither will I, but since 500Megs has dropped off the radar, its now 1Gb minimum, and 2 of them because that sets up the crossfire access making the box 2x faster, so today, 2Gb is minimum. > 5) not a knock against this particular combo, but am I the only one who > is leery of USB keyboard/mouse connections? Unfortunately, I didn't keep > good notes, but I've noticed in playing with odd computers that come my > way that some disrupt the latency test when I move the mouse, more so > with USB mice. If I ever get some time I'd like to do some experiments. > Obviously, it may be dependent on the motherboard, the cpu, the south > bridge, the bios, etc., so nailing down definitive guidelines may be > difficult. And expensively arbitrary. Buy & try IOW. OTOH, ps2 stuff has largely turned into Dodo birds, extinct for the most part. I did, at big lots, find a rubber (comes rolled up in a tube) keyboard with a usb connector on it, but haven't actually plugged it in. The basic idea is a sealed and swarf-proof keyboard. I short out or stick a key about 2x a year here it seems. :( Interestingly, it hasn't crashed in a bit over an hour now, so while I am ssh'd into it, I'm running latency-test. Since its video isn't doing anything but refreshing the stationary local screen, I've got a solid 17.5 u-secs out of a 25 u-sec base thread on that box. But that will triple and throw its one error about 20% of the time just starting emc. But I haven't ever heard its effects in the form of a rough tone from my steppers, so I've not been overly concerned with trying to throw money at it and fix it. Humm, something tickled it, its now up to 18.2 u-secs. For that mobo, that is good. But it took the 4th video card in it, an ATI X1650, to get it that way. Running on the ati/radeon driver of all things! > Good luck. Thanks, I'll likely need it, Murphy being the perverse jerk he is. :) Half tempted to go see what staples has in cheap mini boxes. Last time I looked, I wasn't impressed. $695 minimum. Sigh. One of the prices one pays to live somewhere enjoyable. Oh, that Clipper I mentioned? The front deck has picked up an inch at least of that white, shovel able stuff in the last half hour. Cheers, Gene -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene> The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -- Niels Bohr ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ridiculously easy VDI. With Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, you don't need a complex infrastructure or vast IT resources to deliver seamless, secure access to virtual desktops. With this all-in-one solution, easily deploy virtual desktops for less than the cost of PCs and save 60% on VDI infrastructure costs. Try it free! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Citrix-VDIinabox _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
