V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 Well, it was due, I s'pose. I can't really remember for sure when I put this system together. I think it was in 2010 or so. The three hard drives and other components in it (ZIP, floppy, DVD burners, vid card, etc.) were from an even older system that I built in 2008, I think. Anyway ericsbane05 is kaputski, zip, boom, bang, all over but the cryin'. It started out with a hard drive that's been acting up over the last year. It kept dropping sectors. It was just a data drive, though. My OS was on another of the three drives. I tried to save the data on the failing drive by rsyncing it to so newly made partitions on my second data drive. In the process, of this, that, and the other, I seem to have developed an issue with no boot at all. My main hard drive had done this to me once before. It was caused by a sloppy, weakened power supply/SATA connector. I had it rigged with duct tape, believe it or not. Worked fine for a couple years that way. Figures this would happen on the one month in the past year that I did not do any backups on the 1st of the month, as I usually do. I lost some data and emails and such; nothing that my life hinges on, I assure you. I'm using my office ericslaptop01 (thanks, Josh!) right now. I had ssh'd and syncd my /home and Mozilla profiles here on 1 October, so I lost a little over 30 days' worth of data all told. The real sad situation is that I can in no way afford to put together another system at this time. It may be a very long while, too. So, I'm limited to the ericslaptop01(fully loaded Slackware14-64/KDE), jenslaptop (Slackware14-32/Xfce), and ericsshop02 (Slackware14-64/Xfce). The shop system is an older dual core AMD system. It's probably the most capable thing in my inventory right now, but it has a bad PCIe socket, so onboard vid only. No gaming for me for a while. Guess I'll be catching up on my reading. And that's the way it is, folks. I probably won't be as active online because of all this. The little laptops are fine for checking the emails, job hunting, online bill pay, etc. However, I don't know that I'd want to sit in front of this little screen and play on the Internet for long periods. I'm out... ~Eric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 Well you could hook your monitor (and possibly kb/mouse if usb) up to one of the laptops and have a fully working "desktop" system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 BTW I am sorry to hear that your rig died Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 14, 2013 Author Share Posted November 14, 2013 Why are you sorry? Did you come by my house when I was out today and break my system? I've got that cool little wireless trackball mouse that Frank Golden gave me, so I'm covered there. I've got a vga port on the side of this laptop, but I'm not so sure how that carpy Radeon card with generic drivers is going to look on my 1680X1050 monitor. I might hook it up tomorrow and have a looksee. I don't have a vga cable in here. There's a bunch of them out in the shop, though. I already have my 2.1 speaker system hooked to the headphone out on the lappy. Sounds pretty good, too. I've been listening to Enigma's first album for the last 1/2 hour or so. It lowers my blood pressure. Later... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 Well I mean't that I feel bad that your system went kaboom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 14, 2013 Author Share Posted November 14, 2013 I knew what you meant, brother. I appreciate it. Feces occurs, you know. I'll get some scratch together soon and put together a nice new system. I might even invest in a Win 7 Professional 32/64 so I can play my games on that instead of needing to have an old XP installation on the new system. Actually, I just read that my Win 7 Enterprise edition can run in XP mode. Unfortunately, it's only a 32 bit version. Once I hit that lottery, I'll get this all squared away. Good night... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 Hello, Which parts still work? Which parts do not work? Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Athlon%2064%20X2%204800%2B%20-%20ADO4800IAA5DO%20%28ADO4800DOBOX%29.html I have one of these you can have if it helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 Maybe a bad power supply? If the connector was broken maybe there were other issues. Unless there was catastrophic shorting out, I can't see a 3 year old mobo/CPU failing. Will the machine boot from your DVD-ROM or from a USB stick? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 14, 2013 Author Share Posted November 14, 2013 My drives are shot (2 out of 3, anyway). I have others outside in the "maybe/might be good" pile. I'll check. There are other issues here and there. I have some salvaged hardware outside in the shop. I may see if I can put together a "Frankenputer" today. At the least, I may invest in a $30-$40 Coolermaster or some other brand of case. I don't need a PSU or a mobo/CPU. I think my vid card is still OK. Anyway, I'll post some updates later... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amenditman Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 My drives are shot (2 out of 3, anyway). I have others outside in the "maybe/might be good" pile. I'll check. There are other issues here and there. I have some salvaged hardware outside in the shop. I may see if I can put together a "Frankenputer" today. At the least, I may invest in a $30-$40 Coolermaster or some other brand of case. I don't need a PSU or a mobo/CPU. I think my vid card is still OK. Anyway, I'll post some updates later... I have a fairly nice case you can have. I built a gaming PC in it for my brother-in-law, he traded it in for a monster CoolerMaster HAF case and water cooler I had and needed to sell (there was some cash inside when he did, but it's empty now ). As far as parts for that frankenputer, you know I am the Tampa King of the FrankenPuter, so let me know what you lack and we'll have you up and running in a day or two. Sorry to hear your box blew itself up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted November 15, 2013 Share Posted November 15, 2013 So sorry to hear that Eric! I too recently had two different computers die; one after the other ... both were older ones; one with overheating issues and the other with motherboard issues. I now have a third one up and running and hope it doesn't die on me LOL! It has an AMD Single Core Athlon 3500+ which is the slowest of the three computers but this one works! So I know what you mean Eric. Life happens sometimes. Hope you can pull some stuff together too with some help from your friends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 15, 2013 Author Share Posted November 15, 2013 Well, I spent half the day putting together a really nice unit with miscellaneous hard drives, DVD burner, fans, and my mobo and PSU from the unit that just crashed. It came out so nice, too. I even have external USB floppy and ZIP 100 drives to use with it. I had 250G, 160G, and an 80G SATA drives installed. The 250G was the one good drive from the other system. It has XP Pro on it and a mirrored version of my primary Slackware, plus all my data backups. Unfortunately, after all that work, the system will not initialize. The fans all spin up, but no video, BIOS screen, or drive activity. Either the mobo is not switching on the PSU or the PSU is shot. I don't have mobo or PSU to swap out to eliminate, so... I'm screwed for the time being. While looking closely at the mobo, I noticed a slightly bloated electrolytic cap and a burned choke (coil) in the PSU input circuitry. I have another scraped mobo that I may cannibalize these parts from tomorrow. I'm wondering if this all happened because of my extreme overheating of my CPU the other day whilst playing a poorly coded mod to the STALKER Clear Sky game. MS WIndows did a critical shutdown because of the excessive core temp. There have been other buggies happening since that time. I may have cooked my mobo. As far as the drives going bad goes... I knew there were issues there. My #3 hdd had numerous bad sectors... more new bad ones every week or so. It was only a data storage drive. I have backups of the data that was on it. No loss there. My main hdd (#1) had my Slackware primary OS and some archived data on it. I have backups and a mirrored sync of all that, so no loss there either. The problem with this drive was the SATA power receptacle had worn out from vibration or whatever and it did not make good connection anymore. I had actually re-soldered all the connector's pins onto the main drive board a year ago or so. I had it reinforced with duct tape so that its power cord would not come lose. I think it finally gave up the ghost, though. When it rains, it pours... The front wheel bearings on my truck are getting ready to disintegrate any day now; not to mention that I'm driving around on Bridgestone Dueler A/T tires that have excellent tread, but were installed on the truck in 1995. My baling wire/chewing gum maintenance practices with my truck, my home, my power tools, etc. over the last 5 years are going to catch up with me someday. Right around now would be appropriate timing. Life likes to kick you in the arse when you're already down. Thankfully, I still have my two laptops and my shop system. I'm not completely computerless. Although, there are times when I wonder if that might not be better. Life seemed so much simpler before computers, cable TV, cell phones, i-Baloney, etc. In the S. King book I recently read, a character in the story has the opportunity to step through a time anomaly and come out back in 1958. It was a different world back then, but hot dogs really had meat in them, a pack of smokes was 15 cents, and baseball was the National Pastime. What could be bad about that? I'm out.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 16, 2013 Author Share Posted November 16, 2013 OK, well... I eliminated everything except the mobo or the CPU. I'm leaning toward the mobo, though. I saw my mobo on sale on eBay for $75. If I want to use the same CPU, I'll have to go with this or some other AM2 socket mobo. They're not that easy to find. They're only a couple years old, but mucho obsolete already. For the kind of money it's looking like it's going to cost me to replace this mobo, I may as well just go ahead and get a newer mobo/CPU combo, and a couple new hdds. Unfortunately, it's going to be some time before I can afford that. In the meantime, I'll just make do with my little laptop. I have my favorite Trackball mouse, HP printer, and 2.1 sound system hooked to it now. I can do everything I need to do computer-wise with this set up. So, that's the way it goes... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Ah yes, but when it rains it pours. And making do does catch up with us all. It is what it is. You don't even want to hear about the car situations Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 16, 2013 Author Share Posted November 16, 2013 Well, I have my health, anyway. I'll get a system put together one of these days. Until then, I can do just about anything I used to do on the main system on this little Dell Inspiron 1521, except game playing. I can live with that. I'll just catch up on my reading instead. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 (edited) A person I know on another forum just rebuilt his system and went with one of those AMD FX8350 eight-core monsters with water cooling. However he does massive photo edits on his panorama photos and (for his work) econometric modeling so he multitasks like crazy. It would seem to me that an FX6300 would be a good choice for pairing up with a video card. If you don't game with the machine the A8 APU works well. Right now AMD is a great choice for Linux as the FOSS video is really good (and improving with each new kernel release.) @Eric your experience has gotten me paranoid about cooling. I just added a back case fan to my Acer desktop. For some reason Acer didn't think it was necessary, but I have a video card in there now that's pretty hot. Edited November 17, 2013 by raymac46 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 17, 2013 Author Share Posted November 17, 2013 I wouldn't worry too much about cooling issues in your systems, Ray. AMD processors are very efficient and rarely succumb to temperature spikes. In my case, it was a poorly coded game modification that overheated the system. My processor is OK, actually. I confirmed today that my mobo is the cause of the failure. I most likely heated up that southbridge chip (manages PCIe buss and other things) along with the processor playing that game. I've seen this happen before. I installed a known good CPU onto that mobo earlier today; same issues were still present. Oh well, I guess I'll be hunting a new mobo/CPU combo, a couple new hdds, and some new RAM to get a main system up and running again sometime in the near future. The good news is that I fixed two systems today for customers (one family member, one close friend - deep discounts), so I'm holding onto $110 with my formerly nicotine stained fingers. I'll put it into the cookie jar, and if no other pressing issues come up that require it, I'll have it for the new system parts. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted November 18, 2013 Share Posted November 18, 2013 Well the Acer actually has an Intel i5 Sandy Bridge processor but I don't overclock it and right now it seems cool enough. I got an Antec Tricool fan and just put it on the lowest setting. The Acer had only one cooling fan and that was on the CPU with a big funnel shaped intake pulling in air from the side. It also had the power supply fan but that doesn't cool the case. Probably OK as the system was designed but after putting in a beefy video card that was dumping warm air into the case as well I thought a little extra warm air extraction wouldn't hurt. I run my Train Sims on that machine and that'll get the GPU working a bit. The AMD system is in a nice case with good cable management, has only an APU generating heat, the power supply draws in cool air from outside the case so it's relatively isolated. Besides there are two 120 mm fans running so it's like a refrigerator inside there. The HDD is at about 26 C (80 F) all the time. I have the stock AMD cooler on the processor and it's loafing a lot of the time. No need for a fancy cooler there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 18, 2013 Author Share Posted November 18, 2013 Oddly enough, I've only had one main system that ran an Intel CPU; ericsbane01 with a Pentium I @166Mhz. My system naming scheme pretty much is self-explanatory... bane --> a source of persistent annoyance or exasperation. HA! I've always leaned toward AMD CPUs because of the graphics handing capabilities. They were much favored over Intel chips back in the late 90s and early 00s. Graphic artists and commercial Photoshop techs raved about AMDs graphics back then. Since I basically build gamer's rigs for myself, even though gaming is only a small part of what I do, AMD was the way to go for me. I'm starting to do my mobo/CPU research now (any suggestions are welcome). Intel has come a long way graphics-wise. I wouldn't mind trying a nice Intel multi-core CPU this time around. They tend to cost a bit more than comparable AMD cpus, so I'll have to take that into consideration, as $$$ is definitely an issue for me at the moment. Myeh... we'll see. I can't be in any hurry about this. I don't have the funding, so the research stage my be ongoing for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted November 18, 2013 Share Posted November 18, 2013 Right now Intel has the edge in CPU performance and die shrink technology, and AMD leads in graphics performance - IF you want integrated graphics and no discrete video card. That said, either one should be fine unless you are into heavy multitasking or video rendering. The Intel Haswell chips are great for laptops and tablets but if you're doing a desktop the Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge CPUs are cheaper and do the job. Personally I like AMD because they are the underdog, and for the money I think they deliver excellent performance. I have an older AMD laptop and it has ugly battery life, but I don't use it much apart from its charger. http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_available.html# Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 18, 2013 Author Share Posted November 18, 2013 Right now Intel has the edge in CPU performance and die shrink technology, and AMD leads in graphics performance - IF you want integrated graphics and no discrete video card. That said, either one should be fine unless you are into heavy multitasking or video rendering. The Intel Haswell chips are great for laptops and tablets but if you're doing a desktop the Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge CPUs are cheaper and do the job. Personally I like AMD because they are the underdog, and for the money I think they deliver excellent performance. I have an older AMD laptop and it has ugly battery life, but I don't use it much apart from its charger. http://www.cpubenchm...available.html# I always run discrete video hardware, so what's onboard doesn't really matter to me. I've always wanted to try ATi Radeon vid hardware, and was thrilled when AMD bought them out. Unfortunately, I just don't see the performance or support (for Linux) with Radeon as I do with Nvidia. Just my personal choice, though... probably not something that should be written in stone. Josh has excellent performance with his multi-headed monster and Radeon graphics. HA! I also like AMD for their "underdog" status, as you call it. It's always been one of the reasons I've stuck with AMD. And you're also correct about "bang for the buck" with AMD. They're processors are usually quite a bit cheaper than Intel's and performance is very satisfactory, for my purposes anyway. Hey! I have an older laptop with an AMD processor... this one that I'm using right now. It's a Dell Inspiron 1521 with an AMD Turion64 CPU. It gets the job done. Battery life on this thing is about 1hr and 45mins, if I'm lucky. I run it with power supply almost all the time. I don't even keep the battery in it... paranoid about all those burning Dell batt stories and pics online. My other lappy is an even older Dell Latitude 610 w/ an Intel Pentium M processor. This thing is a Sherman tank workhorse. My niece gave it to me last year. She bought it brand new and used it for home, work, children, etc. The thing just doesn't stop. It's like the little Energizer Bunny. Unfortunately, it's not to good with battery efficiency either, but that's OK. When I was using it in CCNA class earlier this year, all the desks in the classrooms had power strips on them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 18, 2013 Author Share Posted November 18, 2013 After a bit of research the past couple days... ericsbane06 (tentative parts list) AMD FD6100WMGUSBX FX-6100 Processor $120 Asus AM3+ Motherboard M5A78L-M/USB3 $80 Kingston HyperX KHX1600C9D3/4G 4GB $48 X 2 Western Digital Blue 250 GB WD2500AAKX $52 X 2 Sub Total: $400 Tax (7%): $28 Total: $428 Maybe Santa will help me out here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 I read an article about how after the ATI acquisition, AMD was convinced that the future of computing lay with the APU. Unfortunately putting a GPU and a CPU on the same die is the fab equivalent of mixing oil and vinegar. They had their top geeks working on it for years while Intel was eating their lunch on CPUs and Nvidia doing the same on GPUs. It was tough for them to stay in business even though they had a real good vision and strategy for the future. I guess they have been partially vindicated with the business they got for all the next generation game consoles. In spite of all that, I think for gaming you are still smart to go with discrete Nvidia as you'll still get the best proprietary driver support that way - both Windows and Linux. However I am really impressed with the way AMD has stepped up to the plate with their FOSS Linux drivers. Maybe not good enough for gaming but smooth and powerful for everything else - and you never have to worry about them dropping FOSS support for any video card. After all these years of being an Nvidia fanboi I have come over to the dark side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 Yeah, I have to give ol' AMD a pat on the back for their support of Linux for their graphics cards. The nouveau opensource drivers for Nvidia are OK, but I sure ain't going to see 22,000fps frame rate from them any time soon. I was routinely turning 22K fps on my GeForce GTS 450 card with the proprietary Nvidia provided Linux drivers. I don't play games in Linux, so drivers don't really matter. I s'pose I could just run the nouveau drivers. I actually am out on my shop system and my Dell Latitude 610. This lappy (the Inspiron) has a Radeon card, though. Makes a big difference in gaming; realistic lighting effects and smooth movement are extremely important in immersion type 1st person shooters like the ones I play. In Windows, where I play these games, I definitely need the Nvidia drivers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 (edited) Yea! Back to dual core AMD again! The single core one had issues I had mentioned earlier (it was a temporary replacement that had problems after the previous AMD X2 died a fate worse than death). The single core was getting worse and worse like there was some issues with the motherboard tripping over itself. Here's the new to me one I just installed Debian Wheezy on last night: Gateway Windows XP Media Center PC - Debian Wheezy & Windows XP Media Center Edition CPU: Athlon X2 64 4800+ C51 Chipset RAM: 2 GB Video: nVidia built-in NVIDIA Corporation C51G [GeForce 6100] (rev a2) Sound: NVIDIA Corporation MCP51 AC97 Audio Controller (rev a2) HD: 250 GB and 350 GB CD: DVDRW/CDRW NIC: Integrated Intel Pro built in Other: SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro, CF reader, Firewire Of course also USB ports... 7 of them (between front and back and card reader has one) I was fortunate to get this replacement over the weekend. Hopefully this one which didn't have any issues to start with (just was replaced by a Windows 7 computer), will last a while running in Linux. It's not as nice as the one you want to build Eric, but will suit my needs fine. Edited November 19, 2013 by LilBambi updated info on chipset and sound Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 That is a nice system. It's very similar to my previous main system ericsbane04, which became my ericsshop02 system after I made a few changes. ericsbane04/ericsshop02: Generic case Antec 450W PSU GigaByte GA-M55plus-S3G socket AM2 motherboard AMD Athlon64 X2 4000+ Nvidia chipset: GeForce 6100 Northbridge, nForce 430 Southbridge 2Gig Minix DDR2 800 PC-6400 RAM DDR 666 (slots 3 & 4) IDE 0 Master: Western Digital 250Gig IDE 0 Slave: Western Digital 250Gig IDE 1: LG CDRW/DVDROM GCC-4481B Standard 3.5" floppy Six (6) cooling fans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 You know, this gives me AN IDEA!!! I can run my Phenom 9700 quad-core on ericsshop02's Gigabyte mobo. I have enough DDR 2 memory for 8 Gig, I think. I have a pile of usable EIDE and SATA hdds available. I also have an EIDI and a couple SATA DVD burners. I think I might re-purpose ericsshop02 into a temporary main system for the house. I can always take my lappy out to the shop if I need to use it for something out there. I won't be able to play games on this Frankenputer, though. The Gigabyte has a worn out PCIe socket, unfortunately. Interesting, though. Very interesting. I may have to go out to the shop a tinker a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 Sounds like a great plan for now to have a machine for the house ... at least until something comes up better. Great idea, Eric! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Dual-Core 2.5 GHz ADO4800IAA5DO SOCKET AM2 Free Shipping - eBay I just searched for AMD X2 4800+ on eBay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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