Ziggy 3

The metal bracket is a bit wider than the plastic one (the plastic one was able to fit in between it), but luckily, it wasn't that much of a problem. The metal bracket's holes were about 1-1.5mm too short, and I couldn't fit one of the sides of the socket 478 adaptation bar though the hole. At first, I was going to file it down, but since I would have to get rid of 1-1.5mm of metal, I thought it would be easier to just cut it out.

Boy was I wrong. The steel was too hard for the blade to cut into it (it was slowly doing something, and though I was using a dull blade, I'm sure a new blade wouldn't have helped any). I decided to modify the adaptation bars instead, as it's made of "structural" aluminium (I don't know how to call it). I filed down enough of the top tip (as it doesn't contribute to structural integrity) of one side for each bar so it would fit through the hole and have enough left to hold the bar in place.

Installing the Zalman CNPS9500 back on was annoying as hell, even with the motherboard out of the case. I first started with the non-fan side, then quickly realized that wasn't a good idea. After getting the screws to keep the 9500 harness in place, I used a pair of pliers to slightly bend the bracket a bit, so the adaptation bars would seat properly (I tried by hand, but it was too hard). Besides exerting a lot of pressure to get the screw to the bar to screw in, the metal bracket lowered the bars a bit more than the plastic one, so I decided to not screw the 9500 harness down all the way and left about 3-4 mm between the harness and the adaptation bars.

I decided it was enough pressure, and I was already a bit edgy with how much pressure there was, but I was also uneasy with the screws not being in all the way; I also wanted to use longer screws to kinda ease all that, but I didn't feel like undoing the screws, since I used quite a bit of energy just to get them seated and such.

If all goes well, the metal bracket should last for quite some time.

New metal bracket and old plastic bracket.

I also got a chance to replace all the motherboard stand-off screws while I had the motherboard out (when I got the case, the company decided to short me 2 stand-off screws, but I adapted with some weird plastic things that was the same height), and the other stand-off screws I had weren't the same height, but I had enough to replace them all, so for once, the motherboard is fully screwed in.

Don't remember when, but I took the IDE DVD burner from Lie-chan (the other one in her is SATA), and put it in Ziggy, since Ziggy would benefit more from it than Lie-chan.

I've also put 13.1 on Ziggy without any problems, but might have to reinstall once I find a real use for him

Things I've learned from this escapade:

• Intel sucks at CPU cooler mounting ideas
• Zalman CNPS9500 installation for socket 478 sucks more than Zalman CNPS9900 Max installation
• Ziggy can handle openSUSE 13.1 just fine

Melty 2

I decided toward the end of December that I'll keep my fix and not get the 7770 since the 6770 does just fine, but I'll be changing out the blue LEDs for red ones, as Melty has a red front fan and a Zalman 9900 Max that lights up red, needless to say, better to stick with the theme than to have an unusual blue glow for the bottom half of the inside of the case. I haven't looked at the LEDs on the PCI fan card properly, but I'm hoping it's not horribly hard to swap the LEDs.

Ziggy 2

So I pulled Ziggy out to test Parted Magic and Gparted Live, and I decide to open Ziggy up to see exactly what he had in him.

[Sharp sigh]

The CPU cooler mounting bracket broke in 1 of 4 of the spots; the pressure from the Zalman CNPS9500 mounting kit (probably coupled with the natural heat/cool cycle, and maybe some jostling from moving Ziggy before today) must have been too much, and so the plastic gave in.

At first, I was thinking of taking the VAIO's bracket, and then using the Thermaltake cooler I was using before the 9500, but it seemed like too much work I didn't really want to do (Not to mention, I hadn't a clue where I put the screws to mount the fan to the heat-sink, and the fact that it'd leave me with one operable computer instead of two.).

Luckily I found a metal replacement bracket online, so I'm expecting good things from it once I get it and install it.

I removed and cleaned the 9500 and the processor, then, against better judgement, I decided to remove the bracket and rear mounting plate without removing the motherboard; I'm sure it'll be fine, but I didn't really feel like leaving the broken bracket in there for whatever reason.

Obviously, I'll actually take the motherboard out when installing the new bracket and reinstalling the 9500 (the socket 478 kit makes installation annoying unless it's outside the case).

Parted Magic 2 / Gparted Live

Yesterday, I thought of getting the newest version of Parted Magic since the version of GParted in the version of Parted Magic that I have is 0.8.x, and the version in openSUSE 13.1 is 0.16.x.

To my frustration, Parted Magic is no longer free, as you have to pay $5 (USD) for it. Luckily, you're able to download it 9 times (equating to about 56 cents per download) before you have to pay again (there's also other price points that includes more downloads).

Luckily, I found a slightly older version being hosted somewhere on the net, and downloaded it this morning. I then burned it to a disk and first tested it out with the VAIO (would have been Ziggy, but you can read that other entry about him).

When it started up, I was greeted with a GRUB-like menu (GRUB1 not 2) that displayed a few options: the first two being the default 32 or 64 bit versions for computers with over 1GB of RAM (copies the entire live session to the RAM), the second two being the default 32 or 64 bit versions for computers with under 1GB of RAM (runs off of the disk), and then some other options I don't recall (there were language options after the first and second set of options, but I didn't think it was worth properly listing them).

I chose the first default 32-bit option and once it was doing copying to the RAM, it spat the disk out, which was a bit strange to me at first, but made sense. I tried opening up GParted, but it was taking far too long, as it might have been trying to scan the card reader (I'm not entirely sure, but I was too disheartened from Ziggy to do a proper testing).

I then tested in the Dell (64-bit this time) and everything worked just fine. It was nice to see it be quite snappy since there's no real lag reading from the RAM.

With this, it'll probably be the last update of Parted Magic I use. I'm not exactly sure why they decided to make the move to have users pay, but it certainly isn't something I'm happy with.

Also, I tried using MuliSystem Live (version r6) to put it on my Linux USB drive, but it gave me the same "This ISO is not supported at this time" message as I got with openSUSE 12.x and 13.1 ISOs. I'm going to download the latest version (Though I think another one comes out on the 14th? Could have also been something else I looked at.) tomorrow and see if that changes anything. If not, then at least I have the latest version.

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I also decided to update Gparted Live at that same time as well. Nonetheless, there's really not much to say about the new version, since not a whole lot has changed... All the text-based setup (keyboard/language/video) is still there when booting into Gparted Live, and the desktop is still pretty basic, but they do their best to make it look decent. I tested on the VAIO (again, would have been Ziggy) before testing Parted Magic, since I downloaded the i686 version after researching that I wouldn't need the i486 version. There was also a 64-bit version, but I didn't bother with it, since I wanted to test out Parted Magic first to see if my hypothesis about it being a "hybrid disk" was correct (and it was).

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I may have to go with Gparted Live if I want an updated version of GParted, but I might also just buy Parted Magic (and save the other 8 downloads for future releases?) since it's cheap enough. We'll see what happens.

Mei-chan 3

I realize after going back to read a couple of the posts that I never said anything about Mei-chan's case upgrade/swap (happened before I put the Zalman 9900 Max in.

The case I got was the Cooler Master Elite 335U which is a mid-tower, bottom-mounted-PSU (in either fan-up or fan-down configurations) case (and comes with a rear 120mm fan).

I bought a couple NZXT 140mm fans (one for the front and one for the lower side) and they work too well, to where they create positive pressure in the case (air escapes from wherever it can find), the good thing about that is that I won't have to worry about the USB ports or the card reader getting dirty (XD). After I upgraded to the Zalman CNPS9900 Max, the two fans are the loudest now, but it's not as bad as the Zalman CNPS9700 on full speed.

The front-panel USB isn't fixed into the case, and it's defaulted to the bottom 3.5" external slot, but due to the length of the PCIe power cord and the slight lack of space, I moved it to the top 3.5" external slot. The front panel has a "punch-out" outline for a Firewire port, but I covered it with the Phenom sticker (XP).

Behind the mesh grille front is some foam, which is restrictive enough to trap dust, but not enough to keep air from flowing (finer dust can still get in however).

The real reason for me talking about Mei-chan is that the fan for the Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 sounds like it's kinda doing the same thing as the HIS Radeon HD 6770, but only really does it when I boot her up, as it goes away after having her on for a bit. I will eventually do the same thing I did with Melty just to be safe and have cooler temps (though there isn't really any way for me to see the temps).

openSUSE 13.1 Part 3

I forgot to mention all the shared programs (VLC, Filezilla, and such) ended up with weird themes after I installed KDE. I found that it was, for some reason, partly using KDE's theme for certain spots of each affected program, so I found a KDE theme I liked, then modified the colour values to match the GNOME ones. I found the colour theme file, so it'll be easier to reset it when necessary.

And now, I'm trouble-free XD

openSUSE 13.1 Part 2

I searched for the error a bit ago to find a few people having the same problem with Rhythmbox (in Arch Linux), and the solution was to view the album art; it worked for me. It's kinda stupid that it was something simple as that, but it does make sense, since all the songs that it crashed on had album art. I'm so glad to have Rhythmbox back, since I never really felt right with Amarok.

One thing though is after installing the restricted format support, it splits off the shared libraries between KDE and GNOME, meaning without installing the KDE desktop, I can't use K3b and Filezilla (Amarok used to count XD). Filezilla was weird though, since I installed it before I installed the KDE desktop, and it got kinda weird. Luckily, I thought of reinstalling Filezilla, and it worked!

I don't think I'll have any other troubles, since those were really the only ones. (I really ought to start dating my edits...)