I think it was before Ziggy's plastic 478 heatsink/fan bracket broke when I put the old full-copper Thermaltake heatsink Ziggy used to use into the VAIO to make the cooling a bit better (least I think it's better). The mobo gave me trouble though because the fan was spinning under 1000 RPM and the mobo kept giving me the "Plug in CPU fan" error even though it was plugged in. What I did to solve that was to modify the fan from the stock heatsink (of the VAIO) to stand at an angle and use an extension cord to plug it into the CPU fan jack; the stock fan blows on the Radeon 9550 SE card (fanless, and used to be Ziggy's original card), so it works out. I connected the Thermaltake fan to the remaining fan controller (the Zalman 9700s are the only ones with them) so I could tweak the fan speed better so it's not as noisy, but also efficient at cooling.
I removed the DVD-RW (it's not compatible with +RW), DVD-ROM, and floppy drives as they were kinda useless (especially the DVD-ROM and floppy), and it sat for a long while.
When I wanted to test out 32-bit openSUSE 13.1, I decided to use the VAIO as a testbed, but for some reason, the installation hung on bootloader installation, forcing me to pull the plug. Ziggy turned out just fine, so I figured it's probably the crappy proc or something (it's a 3.2Ghz Pentium 4, but has a smaller cache and slower bus speed than Ziggy's P4, which is a bit funny because Ziggy's P4 is only 2.8Ghz).
A couple days ago, I decided to get the installation DVD image of 32-bit 13.1 to see if it would make any different (and to just possess), and finished downloading it yesterday.
When I tried installing this morning, the hardware probing hung on the Linux partition search, and when I tried using Gparted in Parted Magic, it also hung. I opened up a SMART utility and saw some unknown drive, which I thought to be the front-panel card reader, so I unplugged it and rebooted back into PMagic with the same results. At a closer look, I noticed the "fd0" designation and realized it was actually the floppy drive I took out, so I painstakingly put it back in (after checking that it was impossible to disable the floppy), then rebooted into PMagic again. This time, I was able to get into Gparted just fine, so I reboot into the installation DVD of 32-bit 13.1, and the probe didn't hang at all. When it was installing the bootloader, I was watching closely, since I was worried that it might hang again, but it didn't. After finishing the installation, 13.1 seemed to work just fine, so I shut it down and put the DVD+RW drive back into the Dell before cleaning up the VAIO to put away.
While I was thinking to use it in place of Sae-chan for writing, I'm thinking it would be a better idea to pair it with the Yamaha keyboard, as the keyboard has a floppy drive. The only thing is that the keyboard use is very seldom as well. Now that I think about it, I can also use it to pull things off of the floppies I was using for the ancient Performa 550, but we'll see what happens.
30 June 2014
Dell 1
Besides putting up with it for quite some time now as a test-bed, I feel at a loss trying to fill its history even though it doesn't really have much. It doesn't have a name right now, and I usually refer to it as "the Dell".
A couple days ago, my best friend received some old video cards (nVidia 9960 GT and Radeon X1950 GT) and at first I kinda poked at it a bit before letting him put it away. After a couple hours I realised I could use the X1950 GT for the Dell, seeing the video card that was in the Dell was really basic (Radeon X300 SE; I'll elaborate on this a bit more later) and needed some sort of upgrade. He asked about the old X1650 I had, and reminded him that it went into my parents' computer (Intel build). After taking it home (at about midnight), it was hard for me to sleep because I wanted to tinker so badly, but eventually I got 4 hours of sleep and had to get moving.
I took the Dell's original video card out and plugged in the X1950 and calculated the wattage before continuing, to make sure the PSU wasn't going to be underpowered. I had to choose a slightly random processor since I couldn't remember what was in there, but it worked just fine anyway.
To my surprise, the long delay between when I pressed the power button to when it actually booted was a lot shorter than I was accustomed to. With the X300, I had to wait at least a couple minutes (I thought the PSU was on its way out and had to charge the capacitors or something) and this became commonplace, so I just dealt with it.
But after that, everything seemed to be faster... Maybe it was just an illusion, but at the least the Dell became that much more reliable.
While I was trying to get to sleep after getting the card from my friend, I poked around on the net to see if the socket 775 processor that my friend had was going to be compatible, and after testing out the X1950, I double-checked my results, as browsing the net on a phone can get kinda awkward and/or frustrating. I'm not able to as the processor that he has is a Core 2 Duo and the Dell can't handle anything more than a Pentium D.
This kinda leads back to when I was going to upgrade the Dell to give to my parents. Back then, I only found that it wasn't compatible as the BIOS was locked to certain processors. When I did my research yesterday (which feels hard for me to believe), I learned that it was because one of the pins for the socket doesn't output enough power for the socket 775 series Core 2 processors.
Eventually, I decided that I wanted to upgrade the Dell a bit to serve as a better test-bed and maybe find a use for it. I researched what the possible processor upgrades are, and I found the Pentium D 960 to be the highest, but with the power supply calculator's results, I'm better off sticking with the Pentium D 945, which I found surprisingly cheap on Amazon (after skimming the reviews, it's a refurbished processor).
The only thing was that I'd have to upgrade the BIOS for it to allow the processor to work, and luckily, I found the highest revision on Dell's support site. The only problem was that windows wasn't installed, there wasn't a floppy drive, and that I didn't have a working external floppy drive to use. After a tad bit of searching, I found Rufus which was a USB-bootable DOS that I can use to run the BIOS update program (.exe). While the update process was in progress I was a bit edgy the entire time as sometimes BIOS updates fail and/or kill the chip, but everything turned out fine.
But now as I think about it, I'm not entirely sure if it's necessary to upgrade the processor. I'm sure as I use the Dell for more testing I'll find the answer.
While I was making sure the new video card was okay to use, I looked up the part number to the X300, as I couldn't remember what it was when I did it a long while back, and the results looked familiar. When I originally got the Dell, the video card seemed to be fine, but over time, I had the problem of it causing a long boot time. If that wasn't bad enough, at some point while I was testing, the screen locked up and the on-board speaker started screeching. I don't remember how I narrowed it down to the X300, but eventually I put an exhaust slot fan above the X300 (Dell's motherboards are backwards, so the heat-sink is on top of the video card instead of the bottom) to pull the air off of the dinky little heat-sink and immediately blowing it out. While the intake to the slot fan only covered half the heat-sink, it seemed to have worked well enough.
I may upgrade the ram from 2gb to four, but again, I'm unsure if I really need to.
A couple days ago, my best friend received some old video cards (nVidia 9960 GT and Radeon X1950 GT) and at first I kinda poked at it a bit before letting him put it away. After a couple hours I realised I could use the X1950 GT for the Dell, seeing the video card that was in the Dell was really basic (Radeon X300 SE; I'll elaborate on this a bit more later) and needed some sort of upgrade. He asked about the old X1650 I had, and reminded him that it went into my parents' computer (Intel build). After taking it home (at about midnight), it was hard for me to sleep because I wanted to tinker so badly, but eventually I got 4 hours of sleep and had to get moving.
I took the Dell's original video card out and plugged in the X1950 and calculated the wattage before continuing, to make sure the PSU wasn't going to be underpowered. I had to choose a slightly random processor since I couldn't remember what was in there, but it worked just fine anyway.
To my surprise, the long delay between when I pressed the power button to when it actually booted was a lot shorter than I was accustomed to. With the X300, I had to wait at least a couple minutes (I thought the PSU was on its way out and had to charge the capacitors or something) and this became commonplace, so I just dealt with it.
But after that, everything seemed to be faster... Maybe it was just an illusion, but at the least the Dell became that much more reliable.
While I was trying to get to sleep after getting the card from my friend, I poked around on the net to see if the socket 775 processor that my friend had was going to be compatible, and after testing out the X1950, I double-checked my results, as browsing the net on a phone can get kinda awkward and/or frustrating. I'm not able to as the processor that he has is a Core 2 Duo and the Dell can't handle anything more than a Pentium D.
This kinda leads back to when I was going to upgrade the Dell to give to my parents. Back then, I only found that it wasn't compatible as the BIOS was locked to certain processors. When I did my research yesterday (which feels hard for me to believe), I learned that it was because one of the pins for the socket doesn't output enough power for the socket 775 series Core 2 processors.
Eventually, I decided that I wanted to upgrade the Dell a bit to serve as a better test-bed and maybe find a use for it. I researched what the possible processor upgrades are, and I found the Pentium D 960 to be the highest, but with the power supply calculator's results, I'm better off sticking with the Pentium D 945, which I found surprisingly cheap on Amazon (after skimming the reviews, it's a refurbished processor).
The only thing was that I'd have to upgrade the BIOS for it to allow the processor to work, and luckily, I found the highest revision on Dell's support site. The only problem was that windows wasn't installed, there wasn't a floppy drive, and that I didn't have a working external floppy drive to use. After a tad bit of searching, I found Rufus which was a USB-bootable DOS that I can use to run the BIOS update program (.exe). While the update process was in progress I was a bit edgy the entire time as sometimes BIOS updates fail and/or kill the chip, but everything turned out fine.
But now as I think about it, I'm not entirely sure if it's necessary to upgrade the processor. I'm sure as I use the Dell for more testing I'll find the answer.
While I was making sure the new video card was okay to use, I looked up the part number to the X300, as I couldn't remember what it was when I did it a long while back, and the results looked familiar. When I originally got the Dell, the video card seemed to be fine, but over time, I had the problem of it causing a long boot time. If that wasn't bad enough, at some point while I was testing, the screen locked up and the on-board speaker started screeching. I don't remember how I narrowed it down to the X300, but eventually I put an exhaust slot fan above the X300 (Dell's motherboards are backwards, so the heat-sink is on top of the video card instead of the bottom) to pull the air off of the dinky little heat-sink and immediately blowing it out. While the intake to the slot fan only covered half the heat-sink, it seemed to have worked well enough.
I may upgrade the ram from 2gb to four, but again, I'm unsure if I really need to.
Mei-chan 6
Actually I found that I did write about the case swap, which was hidden in the first round of upgrades, but nothing new if you know me in real life, as I have a slight tendency to repeat myself (though I'll ask first if I feel funny about it).
Well, now that I read the beginning, I didn't really go into too much depth during the "Updates" post, so I guess it's okay.
Also, I permanently solved the voltage leak noise problem. The USB ports are always on even if the computer's off, so that might have caused it (PSU might not have been designed for it maybe?). What I did was plug my old Nexus 1 phone into the rear USB port to stay powered and also ran an extension cord to charge my Galaxy Nexus. That's it, nothing else. [Awkward silence]
Well, now that I read the beginning, I didn't really go into too much depth during the "Updates" post, so I guess it's okay.
Also, I permanently solved the voltage leak noise problem. The USB ports are always on even if the computer's off, so that might have caused it (PSU might not have been designed for it maybe?). What I did was plug my old Nexus 1 phone into the rear USB port to stay powered and also ran an extension cord to charge my Galaxy Nexus. That's it, nothing else. [Awkward silence]
Sae-chan 2
I got around a couple weeks or so ago to take better shots of Sae-chan's light mod. Yes the shell looks yellow, but it's probably from the reflection of the sandy colour of the wall paint (you can see that the mouse is just fine) and the colours actually look correct now.
Also, I ended up finding a use for her, which is for typing as the most updated LibreOffice for her works quite flawlessly (the save time's a bit slower than I'm used to, but it doesn't bother me that much).
Light off and light on.
Also, I ended up finding a use for her, which is for typing as the most updated LibreOffice for her works quite flawlessly (the save time's a bit slower than I'm used to, but it doesn't bother me that much).
Intel Build
I don't really recall the reason why I didn't want to write about this computer (maybe because it's not mine?), but I figured I might as well, as I did build it after all.
I ordered parts to upgrade the Dell into a dual-core to replace my parents' VAIO computer, but the day after ordering it, I decided (for whatever strange reason) to see if the processor was compatible -- which it wasn't. I ended up having to RMA the RAM and build a rig around the Core 2 Duo E4500 series.
I assembled it and put it in the Raidmax Thunder case -- even though I didn't want to use that horrid case, it was the cheapest option -- and used the stock heat-sink.
When I upgraded Mei-chan's CPU cooler to the Zalman CNPS9900 Max, I put the Zalman CNPS9700 that she had into this computer with the fan controller for better cooling.
When I upgraded Lie-chan's video card to the Radeon HD 6450, I put the Radeon X1650 Pro into this computer, and to my surprise, it seemed like I didn't have to install the legacy AMD driver (version 10-something of Catalyst), but I did anyway. Luckily my parents had gone out shopping and returned a short while after I was done, so they haven't any idea.
Besides the Logitech illuminating keyboard and the wireless mouse, there's nothing to really say about it.
I ordered parts to upgrade the Dell into a dual-core to replace my parents' VAIO computer, but the day after ordering it, I decided (for whatever strange reason) to see if the processor was compatible -- which it wasn't. I ended up having to RMA the RAM and build a rig around the Core 2 Duo E4500 series.
I assembled it and put it in the Raidmax Thunder case -- even though I didn't want to use that horrid case, it was the cheapest option -- and used the stock heat-sink.
When I upgraded Mei-chan's CPU cooler to the Zalman CNPS9900 Max, I put the Zalman CNPS9700 that she had into this computer with the fan controller for better cooling.
When I upgraded Lie-chan's video card to the Radeon HD 6450, I put the Radeon X1650 Pro into this computer, and to my surprise, it seemed like I didn't have to install the legacy AMD driver (version 10-something of Catalyst), but I did anyway. Luckily my parents had gone out shopping and returned a short while after I was done, so they haven't any idea.
Besides the Logitech illuminating keyboard and the wireless mouse, there's nothing to really say about it.
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