Comments | pragma_x: Computer Over = Very Yes

pragma_x

Computer Over = Very Yes

Feb 19, 2009 18:54

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software, hardware, programming

Comments 15

karnak February 20 2009, 00:07:45 UTC

sorry to see it man.....

pragma_x February 20 2009, 00:22:20 UTC

I am too.

But now I get to justify buying new stuff.

plsurkity February 20 2009, 01:12:37 UTC

is there some part that you might need? our house is a graveyard of spare parts.

pragma_x February 20 2009, 01:41:22 UTC

Oh no, there's no need for that. But thanks.

Nope, this is that old workhorse telling me it's time for a new machine.

plsurkity February 20 2009, 00:08:15 UTC

i have no idea what that means, but it does not look happy.

pragma_x February 20 2009, 00:21:48 UTC

In a nutshell: my computer has trouble remembering things, and forgets spontaneously and unpredictably.

plsurkity February 20 2009, 00:24:12 UTC

heh. i can't help but see a bit of personal irony here.

and now for something completely rediculous... nixer February 20 2009, 00:10:29 UTC

1 bit *does* make a difference

Re: and now for something completely rediculous... pragma_x February 20 2009, 00:20:47 UTC

It could be that portion of the RAM, but I think the bus is flakey. I've had it spaz out during a session in every concievable way, including the ATI driver dropping the whole mess into a lower resolution and dutifully reporting that "the card stopped talking correctly."

It is also much more stable after it warms up. I'll be happy to get my hands on something a bit more rugged and thermally sound. I have a sneaking suspicion that it cooked itself to death.

Re: and now for something completely rediculous... nixer February 20 2009, 00:37:59 UTC

Is it open to air or is it enclosed? Hrm depending on the architecture you might be able to patch what initial BIOS/loading code is going to run could remap the memory depending on if a paging system is available. This sounds like an interesting problem if I can assist.

Re: and now for something completely rediculous... pragma_x February 20 2009, 00:46:41 UTC

I appreciate the concern - and while I would normally throw my weight behind this, the machine is underpowered and doesn't even have a PCIe bus on board. I plan on doing some experiments in the near future with vector processing on GeForce cards, so I'm actually looking well past this.

That said, this little Shuttle case was a great bargain at the time, and I abused the hell out of it. In someone else's hands, it probably could have lasted much longer.

However, some parts will live on. I'm considering salvaging the capacitors and LEDs for other projects, and the PSU is probably going to become my new bench power supply since it's so small.

rainingdays February 20 2009, 05:30:40 UTC

*hug* losing a computer is always sad. i hope you had a current backup.

pragma_x February 20 2009, 14:57:54 UTC

Work provided me with a laptop that I've been using heavily since day one. At this rate, I might just get a lappy of my own... we'll see.

oldsmobile_mike February 20 2009, 08:56:18 UTC

Feh. New memory? Or a new motherboard? From what I see of the rest of the specs, it's probably not worth investing much in it, though. One thing to check - are you sure the chips on the motherboard are cooled sufficiently? Not hot to the touch, are they?

pragma_x February 20 2009, 15:02:52 UTC

Who knows; It's a five year old machine, so I'm not looking into reviving it, since I suspect it's the bus and not necessarily the RAM.

And there is some dust contamination, plus the heat-pipe/fan arrangement for the CPU never sat all that well with me. It's a really compact case, but the other chips just have passive cooling; so maybe the north-bridge just baked itself?

Plus it sports an Nforce2 chipset that is an integrated "everything not on the CPU die". It's total garbage; no good Linux support and the built-in firewall caused me nothing but trouble.

I'm tempted to get a multi-core 1U server with a high end PCIe graphics card and call it a day.