Jun 19
Hellkeep Upgrades
This site may experience downtime in the near future. I am going through component upgrades throughout hellkeep.
Citadel is being completely rebuilt on AMD’s new AM2 platform. I actually considered Intel Pentium D, but still think that the on-die MMU will pay off in the long run. I’ll also have to switch to PCI-X graphics card because AGP is all but dead. I won’t jump on the DDR2 bandwagon until the price is comparable to today’s DDR. I am going to try and keep the old case and see if it can sustain the new parts. Otherwise, I am contemplating switching to water-cooled system (nonconducive liquids only, of coarse).
Erebus, which is the file server and webserver is getting a rebuilt from the old Citadel machine. It will take the Asus A7A motherboard, processor and memory. This is a minor upgrade from a 733mhz Intel Dell machine to a 950 AMD custom. The case and power supply have become horribly outdated. The power supply is only 200W and barely powers the 4 harddrives I have plugged in. Thankfully, the motherboard and video cards draw very little power so they seem to be sustained fine but this is likely to not be the case if/when I add a new drive. I purchased a Thermaltake 430W power supply from Fry’s only to find out that Dell motherboards use a proprietary ATX auxilary connection. One more reason to hate Dell. The old Dell case lacks room for all of the harddrives I have in use right now (I hate vertical storage), so I purchased a sweet rackmount case for a mere $80! This fileserver is going to be worth its salt soon enough.
Eventually, I would also like to replace the 200mhz router with a 1U Mini-ITX machine. Once I have done this, I will finally weld together a custom rack.
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Three things:
1. I’m impressed that you’re going with modern hardware.
2. Rackmount case? Do you have a rack or is it just going to sit on the desk?
3. Can I have my old Dell back that I GAVE to you?
Jokerr,
Why are you impressed that I am building a new machine? This is the desktop being replaced, so it needs to be powerful enough to withstand 5-6 years of abuse like the current machine. Server hardware can be old and cruddy because they have relatively specialized task that usually does not require serious horsepower.
For the time being, it will sit on the desk instead of underneath it (which is annoying as hell).
I tell you what, you can have the dell you gave me (sans the hdd) if you drive to Dallas and pick it up for yourself. Not until I finish rebuilding the desktop though because that machine will replace the Dell you gave me.
Damn, you mean that I have to drive to Dallas to pick up the old Dell?! In response to why I’m impressed, since I’ve known you, you’ve never been interested in new technology. Now to be fair that was mainly due to the fact that you were a “poor hungry college student” followed by “newly wed”. Have fun with your new box.
Well technically you did give it to me and since it no longer holds any value to me, it is not worth the gas money for me to drive it down there to give it to you. In fact, I can’t thing of a good use for it as I would rather use the motherboard from an old HP of mine over this Dell board.
Besides, why do you want that hunk of junk. Remember that you gave it to me as you found no need for it. Now that I have used and abused it for over 2 years, you want it back? What for? Hell, I’ll throw in an old 17″ CRT and some more old hardware if you want to drive up here and get it.
The reason why I never vocally cared about hardware is because I’m not a PC gamer so I don’t start acting like a rabid lan-party fanboy when I think of my machine not being the highest end on the market. I like my machines to last for years before they need upgrading. It just so happens that my 950 Athlon running Gentoo is more powerful/responsive than a 2 GHz Windows machine so I haven’t really seen the need for an upgrade until recently.
Sarcasm man, its called sarcasm. [Permission for a fly-by. Permission granted. WOOSH!] You’re free to do what ever you want with that old Dell. After all, as you put it, I gave it to you. Have fun with your new hardware. You’ll need to let me know how the AM2 works out. I’m thinking about upgrading my box to either an AM2 or one of the X2 processors. Still a few months off but I’m interested to hear how it performs.
X2 is a product line, AM2 is the slot type. The AM2 “platform” adds support for DDR2 memory to the 64-bit processors. I am looking at getting a 3800+ (or 4200+) AMD Athlon 64 X2 Slot AM2.
The AM2 differs from the 939 and 940 because the pinout was changed.
My mistake, I should have clarified more. The