9 posts tagged “home computers”
Cost effective and low power home network server
Up until a few months ago, we'd been using a tower system as our network server. Not only was it too loud, it ate a lot of power.
This is our solution:
- Notebook computer with energy saving maximized
- USB external drive with sleep enabled
- Laser printer with sleep enabled
- Energy Star router and ethernet switch
Merry Christmas to me ..
It was time for a new computer. My last computer purchase was a Toshiba notebook, but it just couldn't handle most of the new apps or any new games (necessary for being a good father of a gaming son). The old notebook's fan siezed, its hard drive is too small for anything, and the battery lasts for exactly 18 seconds before dying. So, we replaced its groaning fan with one from eBay for $20 and retired it to the role of print server. It is handling that job fine, so I'm thinking of setting it up as a VPN portal for our LAN.
However, the fact remained that I didn't have a computer, besides the work-provided notebook. I like my work notebook, but the last thing I want to do is sit behind the same computer I use while I am at work.
While I was a systems analyst for the University of California, I was responsible for making purchase decisions on computer hardware. I was going to be purchasing over 100 desktop computers, so I wanted to be sure I was making the right choice. I ordered one Gateway and one Dell, both equipped identically, and evaluated them for suitability with my needs. The Gateway won out on several points, so from then on I was a 'Gateway person'.
Then one of my co-workers pointed out the new Dell Inspiron 531 system. My notebook is a Dell, and since its been a reasonably good system I figured I would give Dell another chance.
I was really impressed with both the features and the value, so I ordered one. From the moment I clicked "Build my system", I was pleased with my choice.
Originally, the system was to be delivered on December 3, which would have been one week from when I ordered it. However, the system arrived at my door on November 28 - five days ahead of schedule! Now that I've had it for a few days, and have upgraded the RAM and video (onboard just doesn't cut it), I have to say that this system has officially turned me into a 'Dell person'. Other than the value, what had really sold me are:
- The optical drive is a DVD +/- RW, which is fairly standard, but what is really nice is that its SATA like the hard drive!
- Excellent flat panel standard in the package.
- 2GB stock RAM and 320GB hard drive (more than others in this price bracket).
- Absolutely silent.
- Decent onboard video (GeForce 6150 - plenty of power for Aero).
- Windows Vista Home Premium (rather than Home Basic).
- 80MM fan on the CPU heatsink.
Specifications (after upgrades):
CPU: AMD X2 Dual Core 5000+ 2.6GHz
RAM: 4GB (not '4MB' as originally posted) DDR2 667MHz (originally 2GB)
Hard drive: 320GB SATA
Optical drive: DVD +/-RW SATA
Video: GeForce 8600 GT PCI Express (originally GeForce 6150 on board)
Power supply: 450 W dual rail 12 V with 120mm fan (originally 300W with 80mm fan)
Networking: 10/100 onboard
Memory reader: 25-in-1 flash reader (originally none provided)
Keyboard: Dell USB
Mouse: Dell optical USB
Display: 19" Widescreen Dell Flat Panel
Speakers: Rocketfish 2.0 (originally none provided)
Lighting: Rear fan and front bezel (originally non-lit rear fan and 'standard' front power light)
Price as upgraded: $786.00
Bottom line: Decent system out of the box, and with a few aftermarket upgrades is a powerful and very cost effective system!
Our main desktop PC finally had its much-needed upgrade. We added another GB of RAM, a new video card, a new CPU and some extra cooling. Jeremy is a budding "computer guy" and so he did all the work in getting these new parts installed.
Planning our attack.
Popping the old CPU out.
We needed to upgrade our Windows 2000 Professional system. I'm not what you could say "in love" with XP, so I thought Vista was worth a try. Getting it up and running was a brutal nightmare. It took an entire day, mostly because it didn't support our SATA drive on the first installation. This required us to bulldoze over Vista and re-install Win2K, back up our data, and once again install Vista.
The installation wasn't extremely long, as other Windows installations have been, but once it was going all the "Allow/Deny" confirmation started to make me really twitch. Finally, we disabled all the crap (like the sidebar nonsense and the user controls), which made it almost tolerable.
Still, however, the display has gone just plain blank (the app is still running, because I can hear it) and several times the browser has shut down in the middle of reading a page, and even worse near the end of a giant download. How has Microsoft not figured out how to resume downloads??
More to the point, why does Microsoft still get away with releasing marginal software?
Our system has 1.5GB of RAM, 180GB of HDD space and a really fine video card. And still, it chugs and groans. I still haven't figured out how to share out our big SATA drive so we can access it from all our PC's. I would happily trade in Vista for Windows 2000 Professional, but those rat-bastards have us over a barrel: every app we want to run requires at least XP and one actually requires Vista.
Very dismayed.
This is some of the fun things Laurie, Jeremy and I have done in his first few days here..
We had a "late" Father's Day extravaganza! He gave me a new photo-mug from our New Years '07 party, Forza 2 and Call of Duty III for XBOX 360!
Jeremy installed a new CPU and a new video card into one of our computers! This was, of course, required in order to play the hoard of high-tech games he brought with him!
Riding in Battleground Park
Stompin' up the hill.
Checking out the "six-pounders".
Yeah, I'm 41, big whup.. wanna fight about it?!?
This should serve as proof that with enough top-shelf margaritas, I'll put anything on my head for a laugh.
Battlefield 2142 - Its not just a game, it's a way of life!
Huge thanks to my son who knew exactly what to get me: my own copy of Battlefield 2142 so I don't have to borrow his, anymore. "Die, scumbags!"
..and no, I'm not going to tell you my IQ except that it starts with a "1".
And I'm pretty sure it can solve global warming.
Nah, not really. For almost 12 flippin' hours I've been getting my laptop back to a clean slate so it won't crunch and complain every time I ask it to do something challenging (like turn on). After running the restore disks through it, it had to install over 100 updates, MSIE 7.0 (twice..), Direct X and Media Player just to get to a baseline where I can make a DVD image of the drive before installing my applications. Why is this such a chore? Why is it so slow? Why does it even need to be done at all? It pretty crazy, is all I'm sure of. But, its done. Time to make a DVD backup so next time it won't take all day.
On another note, while it was downloading MSIE 7, I was able to get on my stationary bike and have a killa' workout. Had my heart rate up to a buzzing 182BPM. That made me happy.
What's on your holiday wish list?
Meet "Albert 2".. okay, its not the most exciting name for a computer, but man would it compile my Java apps quickly!!
It can perform "12,288,000,000,000 arithmetic operations per second" and it measures "nine metres long and weighs 21 tonnes", according to the Formula 1 Website.
Its current role: Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) calculations for the Sauber F1 racing team.. BORING!
Specifications:
- Intel Xeon 5160 Dual-Core based
- 256 Nodes
- 2 CPU's per node
- Total cores: 1024!
- Main RAM: 2,048 GByte
- Maximum computing power: 12,288 GFlops
"I program my home computer"
- Kraftwerk
How many computers in this house? It may sound a little nuts: Seven! The breakdown on them: 3 regular use desktops, 2 laptops and 2 servers. We also have a managed switch and two routers (one wireless). We have five users but we're not greedy, we just use them a lot as two of us are computer programmers and one person here is a network specialist.
Other stats on them: 5 on Windows XP, 1 on Windows ME, 1 on Windows 2000 Server.
Firewall and antivirus software: McAfee
Server technologies: Apache Tomcat and Microsoft ASP.NET
