HDD Killers

Ah, isn’t it fun buying stuff that you don’t really need. (The answer is yes.)

Someone at the Compter Society who goes by the name of otispunkmeyer (lucky git) managed to snaffle himself a new MSI K8N SLI Platinum motherboard and TWO XFX 7800GT’s, all in all about £600 worth of kit, FOR FREE. He knows a lot about graphics cards and spends a significant amount of time at a forum, he got spotted and now he’s beta testing new nVidia drivers and stuff (or at least he will be when he gets all setup).

Anyway, what does this have to do with me you ask? Well, since the new motherboard is PCI-Express, he needs a new power supply, so his old PSU is for sale. And since it’s a socket 939 motherboard as opposed to a socket 754 motherboard he needs a new CPU, and obviously he also has his old motherboard, CPU cooler and graphics card going spare aswell.

So I decided to snaffle his old motherboard, CPU, CPU cooler and PSU for £140. I intend to use the new stuff in my main PC, except for the PSU, I’ma put that in my server, I’m going to put the mobo/CPU/CPU cooler from my main PC into my server, and when I get home I’ll make a new PC for my dad that will also be a server for streaming DivX fims downstairs to a MediaMVP for watching on TV. All I need is a DVD-ROM drive and some RAM (I already have a case to put it all in). I was also looking at some RAM for the server, I think I’d like 2GB (2*1GB DDR400) but it looks to be a tad expensive, so I’ve been having a nose around on eBay.

If I get my way then the specifications of my PC’s will be as follows:

RED-WAX (main PC):

• ASUS K8N-E Deluxe, Socket 754, nForce 3
• AMD Athlon 64 “Newcastle” 3200+ 512KiB L2 cache 2200MHz (11×200)
• Zalman CNPS7000cu CPU cooler
• BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MiB
• Geil Ultra Platinum 2 * 512MiB PC4200 DDR533
• Creative Audigy 2 ZS
• Q-TEC 650W PSU
• 80GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 7200rpm ATA-133
• 160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm SATA-150

BLUE-WAX (file server):

• DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B, Socket A, nForce 2
• AMD Athlon “Barton” 3200+ 512KiB L2 cache 2200MHz (11×200)
• Coolermaster Jet 7+ CPU cooler
• MSI GeForce 5200 128MiB
• 2 * 1GiB PC3200 DDR400
• Enermax 470W Noise Taker PSU
• HighPoint RocketRAID 1820A
• 40GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 7200rpm ATA-133
• 8 * 300GB Maxtor MaXLine III 7200rpm SATA-150 in RAID-5

BLACK-WAX (will be dad’s PC):

• MSI KT4AV-L, Socket A, nForce 2
• AMD Athlon “Barton” 2500+ 512KiB L2 cache 1833MHz (11×166)
• Coolermaster Jet 7+ CPU cooler
• Chaintech GeForce Ti4800SE 128MiB
• Kingston Value 3 * 256MiB PC3200 DDR400
• Q-TEC 550W PSU
• 120GB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm Ultra ATA-100

CLEAR-WAX (formerly STUDY, my mum’s slightly upgraded PC):

• MSI MS-6385, Socket 423
• Intel Pentium 4 “Willamette” 1.7GHz 256KiB L2 cache 1700MHz (17*100)
• Akasa Unknown Model, socket 423, rated to 1.8GHz
• Hercules GeForce 3 64MiB
• Samsung 2 * 128MiB PC800 RAMBUS400
• Generic 300W PSU
• Western Digital Caviar 60GB 5400rpm ATA-100

Anywho, all of this depends on a couple of things. I have to find some RAM for my server (I’ll probably end up settling for just the 1GB in the end) and I have to buy back a GeForce 3 from Kermit (which I know for a fact he’s not using, but I’m not sure whether he’d be too keen on parting with it). As I mentioned before, I would also need to get a DVD ROM drive for the PC and I was also considering getting a Western Digital Raptor drive for RED-WAX’s OS drive. I still don’t trust them because they spin at 10,000rpm, but SCSI drives spin at 15,000rpm and they seem to be OK, plus the Raptors have a 3 year manufacturers warrenty, so I may aswell give ’em a go. They are pretty expensive though.

I also want to get my file-server all setup and get that back at home, then I can actually use it for something, and my KVM switch can go back home too and will be used to switch between 3 PC’s; BLUE-WAX, BLACK-WAX and my dad’s really old P166 computer that runs Windows 3.11. It could be networked in, but honestly, what’s the point. I think I’ll also have to put the UV cathode into BLUE-WAX, because it has blue UV-reactive cables and it’ll soon have a UV-reactive motherboard, it’ll be fantastic with a UV cold cathode! 😀

All of this moving and shaking now means that I have to get a job, therefore I’ve headed back to ScriptLance to try and pick up some work. Last time I was on there I got many repeat-projects from one or two people, hoping to be able to do that again, could make myself a nice bit of cash on the side and then blow it on more mindless upgrades later.

By the way Antony, if you ever manage to get one of those PC’s, could I still nab one? I think I might just use it as a Linux box to experiment on, could be very useful for this course.