$ cdrdao drive-info /dev/scd0

Cdrdao version 1.2.2 – (C) Andreas Mueller <andreas@daneb.de>
SCSI interface library – (C) Joerg Schilling
Paranoia DAE library – (C) Monty

Check http://cdrdao.sourceforge.net/drives.html#dt for current driver tables.

Using libscg version ‘ubuntu-0.8ubuntu1′

/dev/cdrw: LITE-ON DVDRW LH-20A1S Rev: 9L02
Using driver: Generic SCSI-3/MMC – Version 2.0 (options 0×0000)

Maximum reading speed: 8467 kB/s
Current reading speed: 8467 kB/s
Maximum writing speed: 8467 kB/s
Current writing speed: 8467 kB/s
BurnProof supported: yes
JustLink supported: no
JustSpeed supported: yes

Maybe I like it because it’s in my price range (unlike that 108″ LCD they keep showing off), but the new Antec Sonata III (pic) case looks like a stealth fighter compared to my aging Sonata I. I’ve grown tired of my current case, but it is quiet. This may get me to upgrade. Or I’ll go with the Antec Nine Hundred.

Sweet.

Here’s my history of processors I’ve owned in my primary computer. This does not count second, third, or fourth computers, laptops, servers, media, or Seti/Distributed machines. Only computers which were used as my primary machine count.

1. IBM 486SLC2 66 MHz
2. Intel Pentium 166 MHz
3. Intel Pentium 2 266 MHz
4. Intel Celeron 300A 300 MHz @ 450 MHz
5. AMD Athlon 500 MHz
6. AMD Athlon 1000 MHz
7. AMD Athlon XP 2100+ 1733 MHz
8. AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 1833 MHz
9. AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 GHz
10. AMD Opteron 165 1.8 GHz @ 2.2 GHz
11. Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz @ 3.0 GHz

Creating a system guide appears to be popular these days, with my favorite guides coming from Ars Technica, The Tech Report, and Anandtech. I thought I’d throw another guide on the net with the main focus being price, with usability and upgradability coming in a close second. Several notes about this guide, everything is from Newegg, because they have a great reputation and ship quickly. No refurbished/open box items are considered, and I have not actually build this machine, these are just parts which look like they would work well together.

• Motherboard/Video/Sound/Network: ECS C51GM-M Socket AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard – $60
• Processor/Heatsink/Fan: AMD Sempron 64 2800+ Manila 1600MHz HT Socket AM2 Processor Model SDA2800CNBOX – Retail – $50
• Memory: OCZ Value Series 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Unbuffered System Memory Model OCZ26671024V – $69 (after $8 MIR)
• Hard Drive: HITACHI Deskstar T7K250 HDT722516DLA380 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 8 MB Cache Hard Drive (3 Year Warranty) – $54
• Optical Drive: NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model ND-3550A – Retail – $36 (same price as OEM w/shipping)
• Case/Power Supply: Antec NSK 4400 Black/Silver 0.8mm cold-rolled steel construction ATX Mini Tower Computer Case 380W Power Supply – $72

Total: $349 + $26 Shipping = $375 ( -$8 mail in rebate)

(read more below the fold to see the reasoning behind my choices)

(more…)

My first attempt at creating a backup server left me with a dead motherboard. I replaced the motherboard with an old but reliable socket A EPoX board I had been using in my HTPC. After booting and changing eth0 to eth1 in my network config, the server was ready to go. I started the backup and everything looked good. It ran overnight and got about 500 GB off the server. I then started copying about 250 GB of data from the server to another computer. After a couple hours of this, my server went offline, and I was left sitting at work wondering why. I was hoping for a power outage, but when I arrived back at home, I discovered only the networking on the file server had gone out, leaving thousands of these lines in dmesg:

NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out

I’m not yet sure why my network card stopped working, Google or the Ubuntu forums should help, or I could just refer back to my pre-rma’d motherboard and remember that the Marvell skge network controller died on that motherboard completely, and move to other built in network card on the mobo, by NVIDIA. If all that fails, dropping some money on a quality Intel NIC will solve the problem. Unless the problem exists in my switch.

Update: Switching the the integrated NVIDIA network interface appears to have fixed this issue. Hooray for workarounds.

It appears that my 1 GHz Athlon mobo died in the middle of building a backup server. This happened at the end of the entire build, while I was performing my first backup, and is going to force me to tear apart 3 machines in order to have working HTPC and Backup computers without buying anything extra. Looks like I’ll have an extra Antec Overture case with 380w PS. I’ll sell if anyone wants to make me a reasonable offer.

Today AMD cut the prices of most all their consumer CPUs. The previous low-price leader went from $300 to $160 overnight, which is great for when I want a faster computer, but for now, I’m fine. My Opty 165 running @2.2 GHz is doing great, no stability or heat issues (actually ran the entire last month without the CPU fan because I forgot to plug it in), and it is still around the price I paid for it. If the quad cores come out before 2007 like the rumors say, that will be my next upgrade.

Received my Opteron 165 and Scythe Ninja heatsink last night. It didn’t take long before my system was torn apart and the new parts were installed. Installation was straigtforward, but damn, that heatsink should not be advertising that it has easy to use clips.

So is there an improvement moving from a single-core 2.0 GHz chip to a dual core 1.8? I definitely saw it. The entire system feels smoother, and I can continue to use my system while performing heavy tasks. I’m sure I’d see even more improvements if I were compiling stuff in Gentoo, but for now, the ability to continue working as normal while playing with 4 GB ISO images, running Qemu, and burning stuff, makes it a great upgrade.

Next up in the performance upgrade pipeline is some DDR500 memory. With some simple overclocking this CPU can run like an FX60!

Received my shiny new 1 GB stick of memory for my Mac Mini today. Installing it probably took the longest of any memory install I’ve ever done, but only because I wasn’t able to get the damn case open. The problem was tools, I didn’t have the required sharpened putty knife, but in the end, a regular knife allowed me to get a regular metal spatula in the case and pop it open. In the range of computers which suck to work on, old HP cases still win, because they take longer to open, and the design has no redeeming qualities.

The original 512 stick from the Mini moves to my old Shuttle SN45G, and my 1 GB memory purchase just got me another operational computer.