Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

2012-12-17 Thread Robert Walker


On 14/12/12 22:03, fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
A friend suggested a big lightning storm a month ago might have 
temporarily scrambled something. It tripped breakers in the house and 
blew out a battery in the standby generator shed, but I've rebooted 
twice since that storm without any problems. I guess it will remain a 
mystery. 


OT...

@Felix,
I amused to read this thread. I've an old dual-Opteron box that I'm 
still using. It was my first watercooling experiment. Apart from the 
complete lack of power management support (the system sucks down a 
continuous 300+Watts) and no Vt-d hardware virtualisation support it's 
quite a pleasant rig to play about with :-)


One thing I swear by is my big-ass APC 3000 UPS. I spent as more on my 
UPS than my current laptop (and it wasn't a cheap laptop!!) Gradually 
switching over to Season-X series PSU's as well. Clean power and good 
cooling is a mantra I swear by... I rarely ever have an act of god 
hardware failure (touch ground)... :-)


Bob




Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

2012-12-17 Thread felix
On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 10:10:30PM +, Robert Walker wrote:

 I amused to read this thread. I've an old dual-Opteron box that I'm 
 still using. It was my first watercooling experiment. Apart from the 
 complete lack of power management support (the system sucks down a 
 continuous 300+Watts) and no Vt-d hardware virtualisation support it's 
 quite a pleasant rig to play about with :-)

Mine is also my first water cooled rig, but I'm not sure I'd do it
again.  It's certainly quieter, but it has given me several surprises
in sudden warm weather, changing the fluid every couple of years is a
major pain, and retubing it is a several day headache by the time I
add in cabling problems.  Having to blow out the dust perdiocially is
probably less hassle since there aren't fans to blow the dust around
so much.

-- 
... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
 Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman  rocket surgeon / fe...@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o



[gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread felix
Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64 system last 
night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up yet, but I may have to 
buy a replacement system.  I have external USB drive backups, but the only 
other computer I have right now is an old Mac laptop which can't read Linux LVM 
partitions.

Questions:

1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor flags I 
emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How compatible could that 
be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel adopted the extra registers of the 
AMD64 instruction set, but are there other differences which would prevent an 
Opteron system from running as is under an Intel processor?  Maybe AMD still 
sells Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.

2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an Intel 
processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console boot?  I don't 
give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even Internet is not the 
problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can import the source files for X 
and Ethernet and other peripherals via USB stick.  But SATA drivers ...

3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as modules, 
an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like crazy.  I don't 
remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and how many are modules; if 
the commodity box needs SATA drivers which aren't built in, that could get 
tricky.  Are there boot command line options to preload certain modules?  Might 
not do me any good.  I think I could scrape by with USB modules, but not SATA.

For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night, the USB 
keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB devices, and the 
system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.

A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.  But the 
USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select a new 3.7.0 kernel 
(had been running 3.6.8).

A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I had 
never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all the way up to 
ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to boot even this far 
since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There was a 5 second or so delay 
between these errors, making me think the ATAnn designator might not be 
different drives, just retries.

It booted a rescue DVD, but without the keyboard it was kind of pointless, 
and it hung after showing two lines which I believe are unrelated other than a 
place marker (generating xxx key, generating RSA key).

The keyboard wasn't even recognized by the BIOS.  I finally disconnected 
every USB device, all the ubs, and then the keyboard worked.

But when I left it last night, it wouldn't even bring up the grub screen.  
All the BIOS screens show the usual disk drives.

The system was working perfectly fine before all hell broke loose.  The 
keyboard was recognized during grub the first time, but after that only if all 
other USB devices were disconnected.  The disk drives acted funny during the 
boot, first with the unknown root- device error, then with the funky ATA 
errors, and finally with not even bringing up grub.

I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile to 
see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks and 
keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 3.7.0 is 
what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad firmware, or 
3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something unrelated to 
3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk working, then boot 
with 3.6.8.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Michael Mol
(Admittedly quick and dirty response)

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:18 AM,  fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
 Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64 system 
 last night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up yet, but I may 
 have to buy a replacement system.  I have external USB drive backups, but the 
 only other computer I have right now is an old Mac laptop which can't read 
 Linux LVM partitions.

 Questions:

 1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor flags I 
 emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How compatible could that 
 be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel adopted the extra registers of the 
 AMD64 instruction set, but are there other differences which would prevent an 
 Opteron system from running as is under an Intel processor?  Maybe AMD still 
 sells Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.

I'm not aware of any currently-sold AMD or Intel x86 processors
(except, *maybe* Atom) which don't handily support x86_64. You should
have no problem here.


 2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an 
 Intel processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console boot?  
 I don't give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even Internet is 
 not the problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can import the source 
 files for X and Ethernet and other peripherals via USB stick.  But SATA 
 drivers ...

Depends on if you have the necessary drivers installed, but yes, it's
a recoverable scenario. You might need to boot a live CD and compile
and install a kernel with the right drivers. It'd be like installing
Gentoo fresh, but skipping 95% of the handbook.


 3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as 
 modules, an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like crazy.  I 
 don't remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and how many are 
 modules; if the commodity box needs SATA drivers which aren't built in, that 
 could get tricky.  Are there boot command line options to preload certain 
 modules?  Might not do me any good.  I think I could scrape by with USB 
 modules, but not SATA.

NAFAIK. I'd just use the Gentoo live CD image.


 For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night, the USB 
 keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB devices, and the 
 system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.

 A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.  But 
 the USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select a new 3.7.0 
 kernel (had been running 3.6.8).

 A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I had 
 never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all the way up 
 to ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to boot even this far 
 since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There was a 5 second or so delay 
 between these errors, making me think the ATAnn designator might not be 
 different drives, just retries.

 It booted a rescue DVD, but without the keyboard it was kind of 
 pointless, and it hung after showing two lines which I believe are unrelated 
 other than a place marker (generating xxx key, generating RSA key).

 The keyboard wasn't even recognized by the BIOS.  I finally disconnected 
 every USB device, all the ubs, and then the keyboard worked.

 But when I left it last night, it wouldn't even bring up the grub screen. 
  All the BIOS screens show the usual disk drives.

 The system was working perfectly fine before all hell broke loose.  The 
 keyboard was recognized during grub the first time, but after that only if 
 all other USB devices were disconnected.  The disk drives acted funny during 
 the boot, first with the unknown root- device error, then with the funky ATA 
 errors, and finally with not even bringing up grub.

 I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile 
 to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks and 
 keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 3.7.0 is 
 what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad firmware, or 
 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something unrelated to 
 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk working, then 
 boot with 3.6.8.

Pull out an old PS2 keyboard. Sometimes, that's the easiest way to get
things going.

--
:wq



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread felix
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:28:41AM -0500, Michael Mol wrote:
 (Admittedly quick and dirty response)

Much appreciated.  Gives me some hope ...

 Pull out an old PS2 keyboard. Sometimes, that's the easiest way to get
 things going.

I thought of that -- don't have any.  They all got recycled a few years back :-(

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Florian Philipp
Am 14.12.2012 17:18, schrieb fe...@crowfix.com:
 Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64
 system last night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up
 yet, but I may have to buy a replacement system.  I have external USB
 drive backups, but the only other computer I have right now is an old
 Mac laptop which can't read Linux LVM partitions.
 
 Questions:
 
 1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor
 flags I emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How
 compatible could that be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel
 adopted the extra registers of the AMD64 instruction set, but are
 there other differences which would prevent an Opteron system from
 running as is under an Intel processor?  Maybe AMD still sells
 Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.
 

I guess your Opterons used -march=k8. Except of 3dnow, this should be
compatible. You might be lucky.

 2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an
 Intel processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console
 boot?  I don't give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even
 Internet is not the problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can
 import the source files for X and Ethernet and other peripherals via
 USB stick.  But SATA drivers ...
 

Yep, SATA drivers will be the biggest issue. Hope you had and will have
AHCI.

 3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as
 modules, an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like
 crazy.  I don't remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and
 how many are modules; if the commodity box needs SATA drivers which
 aren't built in, that could get tricky.  Are there boot command line
 options to preload certain modules?  Might not do me any good.  I
 think I could scrape by with USB modules, but not SATA.
 

Not possible. You need an initrd or a new kernel. How about compiling a
new kernel on a different box and using a memory stick for grub + /boot?

 For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night,
 the USB keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB
 devices, and the system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.
 
 A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.
 But the USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select
 a new 3.7.0 kernel (had been running 3.6.8).
 
 A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I
 had never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all
 the way up to ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to
 boot even this far since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There
 was a 5 second or so delay between these errors, making me think the
 ATAnn designator might not be different drives, just retries.
 [...]

Could be your south bridge. If you want to keep the system, try a
different board.

Regards,
Florian Philipp



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Description: OpenPGP digital signature


Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Volker Armin Hemmann
Am Freitag, 14. Dezember 2012, 11:18:21 schrieb fe...@crowfix.com:
 Something went haywire with my 8 or 9 year old dual Opteron ~amd64 system
 last night.  I may have a bricked system.  I haven't given up yet, but I
 may have to buy a replacement system.  I have external USB drive backups,
 but the only other computer I have right now is an old Mac laptop which
 can't read Linux LVM partitions.
 
 Questions:
 
 1.  I don't remember, and can't look up, the make.conf processor flags I
 emerge with.  But it is dual Opterons, and ~amd64.  How compatible could
 that be with modern Intel CPUs?  I know Intel adopted the extra registers
 of the AMD64 instruction set, but are there other differences which would
 prevent an Opteron system from running as is under an Intel processor? 
 Maybe AMD still sells Opterons, and I will be stuck with building a system.
 
 2.  Is it feasible to buy some commodity box, like from Dell, with an
 Intel processor, and plug in my two SATA SSD drives and get a console boot?
  I don't give a fig right now about any GUI interface, and even Internet is
 not the problem.  If it will boot and run emerges, I can import the source
 files for X and Ethernet and other peripherals via USB stick.  But SATA
 drivers ...
 
 3.  My kernels always have just about every driver compiled in as
 modules, an old habit from when I used to swap in PCI cards like crazy.  I
 don't remember now how many SATA drivers are built in and how many are
 modules; if the commodity box needs SATA drivers which aren't built in,
 that could get tricky.  Are there boot command line options to preload
 certain modules?  Might not do me any good.  I think I could scrape by with
 USB modules, but not SATA.
 
 For the curious, here is wat happened.  When I left off last night, the USB
 keyboard was only recognized when I unplugged all other USB devices, and
 the system hung at the grub point, with a blank screen.
 
 A reboot failed because it couldn't find the root=/dev/sde drive.  But
 the USB keyboard was working because I used it in grub to select a new
 3.7.0 kernel (had been running 3.6.8).
 
 A second reboot ignored the USB keyboard and generated an ATA error I
 had never seen before for every ATA drive and some I don't have, all the
 way up to ATA13 before I rebooted it again.  I haven't got it to boot even
 this far since, so I can't regenerate that error.  There was a 5 second or
 so delay between these errors, making me think the ATAnn designator might
 not be different drives, just retries.
 
 It booted a rescue DVD, but without the keyboard it was kind of
 pointless, and it hung after showing two lines which I believe are
 unrelated other than a place marker (generating xxx key, generating RSA
 key).
 
 The keyboard wasn't even recognized by the BIOS.  I finally disconnected
 every USB device, all the ubs, and then the keyboard worked.
 
 But when I left it last night, it wouldn't even bring up the grub
 screen.  All the BIOS screens show the usual disk drives.
 
 The system was working perfectly fine before all hell broke loose.  The
 keyboard was recognized during grub the first time, but after that only if
 all other USB devices were disconnected.  The disk drives acted funny
 during the boot, first with the unknown root- device error, then with the
 funky ATA errors, and finally with not even bringing up grub.
 
 I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile
 to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks
 and keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting
 3.7.0 is what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad
 firmware, or 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something
 unrelated to 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk
 working, then boot with 3.6.8.

how about a more stable kernel - like 3.4.X?

and yes, a confused bios can do a lot of strange things. One thing you might 
try: disconnect your box from the main for several minutes, reset bios...

had to do that dance A LOT with a costly POS asus board...

-- 
#163933



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread felix
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 06:22:10PM +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

 how about a more stable kernel - like 3.4.X?

It was running 3.6.8 fine, and ~ kernels for ages before that.

The paranoid in me thinks it was 3.7.0, but I really don't know.

 and yes, a confused bios can do a lot of strange things. One thing you might 
 try: disconnect your box from the main for several minutes, reset bios...
 
 had to do that dance A LOT with a costly POS asus board...

I unplugged it last night, tried again half an hour later, no joy, so I 
unplugged it again and have been eating breakfast, got osme errands to run, and 
then I will try again.

What's so frustrating is that the box was working fine, including the keyboard, 
until that first boot into 3.7.0, where it couldn't find the root drive, and 
then the keyboard stopped working, even with the BIOS, almost as if 3.7.0 did 
something nasty and clobbered everything it could get its hands on.

Well, I'll try again in a bit.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:18:21AM -0500, fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
 
 I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile 
 to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks and 
 keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 3.7.0 is 
 what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad firmware, or 
 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something unrelated to 
 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk working, then 
 boot with 3.6.8.

Whatever you think of logic, it is entirely illogical that a kernel could kill
your BIOS, or any hardware ... at least, just booting into it.

The southbridge is a good thing to look at, esp for a burned spot/pit.

My suggestion is http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

Our Gentoo images have been broken lately, and are short on tools always.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   ')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread felix
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:16:46PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:
 On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:18:21AM -0500, fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
  
  I will try some more desperate tricks today, like reconnecting the USB pile 
  to see if it at least boots the disks again - is my choice between disks 
  and keyboard?  I will find out.  My best guess right now is that booting 
  3.7.0 is what clobbered things; whether I added a option which loaded bad 
  firmware, or 3.7.0 is broken, I have no idea.  It could well be something 
  unrelated to 3.7.0.  My goal for today is to try to get keyboard and disk 
  working, then boot with 3.6.8.
 
 Whatever you think of logic, it is entirely illogical that a kernel could kill
 your BIOS, or any hardware ... at least, just booting into it.
 
 The southbridge is a good thing to look at, esp for a burned spot/pit.
 
 My suggestion is http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

That's what I've been using.

But the hardware failure is illogical too; why would USB and SATA fail at the 
same time?  Or why would southbridge fail when it had been running perfectly 
fine?

I don't really think it was 3.7.0, but who knows, did I answer some config 
question incorrectly and tell it to load some firmware?  Without access to the 
disk, I can't tell.  I don't remember any question about loading BIOS firmware, 
and can't see why the kernel would even care about that.

The whole mess makes no sense.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 01:24:10PM -0500, fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
 
 That's what I've been using.
 
 But the hardware failure is illogical too; why would USB and SATA fail at the 
 same time?  Or why would southbridge fail when it had been running perfectly 
 fine?
 
 I don't really think it was 3.7.0, but who knows, did I answer some config 
 question incorrectly and tell it to load some firmware?  Without access to 
 the disk, I can't tell.  I don't remember any question about loading BIOS 
 firmware, and can't see why the kernel would even care about that.
 
 The whole mess makes no sense.

Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?

If you do, do you have internet access once you're there?

If neither, take a photo and post a link to a *clear* snapshot.

Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the southbridge
that failed so you lost both, basically.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   ')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Volker Armin Hemmann
Am Freitag, 14. Dezember 2012, 12:16:46 schrieb Bruce Hill:
 Whatever you think of logic, it is entirely illogical that a kernel could
 kill your BIOS, or any hardware ... at least, just booting into it.

emm, not, it isn't.

-- 
#163933



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread felix
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:34:49PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:

 Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?

Currently can't even boot -- it hangs wit a blank screen at the point grub or 
the rescue DVD would take over.

 Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
 time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the southbridge
 that failed so you lost both, basically.

Then my natural naive question is, can this be readily replaced, or is it 
soldered in and/or obsolete?  It is about 8 years old.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Michael Mol
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 1:43 PM,  fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
 On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:34:49PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:

 Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?

 Currently can't even boot -- it hangs wit a blank screen at the point grub or 
 the rescue DVD would take over.

 Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
 time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the southbridge
 that failed so you lost both, basically.

 Then my natural naive question is, can this be readily replaced, or is it 
 soldered in and/or obsolete?  It is about 8 years old.

Almost certainly no. Not unless you take the part numbers in question
and hit ebay.

--
:wq



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus

2012-12-14 Thread Bruce Hill
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 01:43:01PM -0500, fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
 On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:34:49PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote:
 
  Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt?
 
 Currently can't even boot -- it hangs wit a blank screen at the point grub or 
 the rescue DVD would take over.
 
  Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at the same
  time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both on the 
  southbridge
  that failed so you lost both, basically.
 
 Then my natural naive question is, can this be readily replaced, or is it 
 soldered in and/or obsolete?  It is about 8 years old.

An 8-year old consumer class mobo begs replacing. I think the way to replace
the southbridge chip (if that's it) is called floating point solder, or some
such. Hardware fails, and just a new kernel for your present drive will get
you up and running on a new board.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers   ')
126 Fenco Drive   ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801   ^^
supp...@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

2012-12-14 Thread felix
I finally ran out of excuses to not reboot after a night powered off, and it 
did.

It's all running normally now, but I think it's time for me to take the hint, 
grab a clue, and start researching a replacement.

-- 
Felix Finch, a la mode



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

2012-12-14 Thread Michael Mol
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 2:51 PM,  fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
 I finally ran out of excuses to not reboot after a night powered off, and it 
 did.

 It's all running normally now, but I think it's time for me to take the hint, 
 grab a clue, and start researching a replacement.

I think you'll find the power consumption of modern systems absolutely
delightful compared to 8yo systems. I was amazed to see that
server-grade xeon CPUs can be had for ~250USD, with a 77W TDP. 5-6
years ago, my Phenom 9650 was a 120TDP part for almost that much when
not on sale. (Yes, I know Intel and AMD don't calculate their thermal
data quite the same way, but it seems comperable enough.)

--
:wq



Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

2012-12-14 Thread Dale
Michael Mol wrote:
 On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 2:51 PM,  fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
 I finally ran out of excuses to not reboot after a night powered off, and it 
 did.

 It's all running normally now, but I think it's time for me to take the 
 hint, grab a clue, and start researching a replacement.
 I think you'll find the power consumption of modern systems absolutely
 delightful compared to 8yo systems. I was amazed to see that
 server-grade xeon CPUs can be had for ~250USD, with a 77W TDP. 5-6
 years ago, my Phenom 9650 was a 120TDP part for almost that much when
 not on sale. (Yes, I know Intel and AMD don't calculate their thermal
 data quite the same way, but it seems comperable enough.)

 --
 :wq




I agree.  My old rig, AMD 2500+ CPU with about 2Gbs of ram, a couple
hard drives and a FX-5200 video card pulled about 400 watts or so, not
counting the monitor.  My new rig, AMD 4 core 3.2Ghz CPU, 16Gbs of ram,
4 hard drives and a GT-220 1Gb video card and it pulls less than 150
watts and just barely over 200 watts when compiling something and using
the drives a lot while doing it.  That includes a LCD monitor too.  My
old rig had a CRT monitor.  Power hog big time which is why I didn't add
it to the power being pulled. 

I did some math, my new rig is almost 8 times faster/powerful than my
old rig but pulls much less than half the power even when fully loaded. 
I might add, I think the old rig was idle when I measured that. 

I bet you could find some really old and cheap mobos, say a year or two
old but still new out of the box, and build a cheap system and have a
lot more powerful system that pulls less power from the wall.  I saw a
Gigabyte mobo the other day on newegg for like $40.00.  I'm sure the
model is a year or two old but still, its better than a 8 year old. 
Also, memory is cheap for those too.  Most likely the CPU would be too. 

Sure is a weird problem tho.  Sounds like something I would run into
myself.  ;-) 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how 
you interpreted my words!




Re: [gentoo-user] ~amd64 compatibility with modern cpus -- REBOOT OK THIS A.M.

2012-12-14 Thread felix
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 03:19:53PM -0600, Dale wrote:

 I did some math, my new rig is almost 8 times faster/powerful than my
 old rig but pulls much less than half the power even when fully loaded. 
 I might add, I think the old rig was idle when I measured that. 

My next box will be a commodity box.  This one is a big tower because
I wanted compute power for pictures I was generating, lots of them,
and I wanted lots of storage room.  Now with 4TB drives so cheap and
USB 3 for speed, the storage can all be done by external drives, and I
don't need the compute power any more.  I do like building computers,
in a way, but I don't like the idea of being rushed into building a
replacement, and I don't need any custom features.

A friend suggested a big lightning storm a month ago might have
temporarily scrambled something.  It tripped breakers in the house and
blew out a battery in the standby generator shed, but I've rebooted
twice since that storm without any problems.  I guess it will remain a
mystery.

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 Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman  rocket surgeon / fe...@crowfix.com
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I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o