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]
30 June 2014
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.
04 March 2014
Mageia 4 and Korora 20
For short, both are rough, but might become something nice.
Had a friend talk about Korora and looked it up on DistroWatch to find out that it was built off of Fedora, and I almost disregarded it until another of my friends say that it wasn't as evil as Fedora (specifically having to
I did a bit of testing the live version of Mageia on the Dell, but didn't feel like actually doing a whole lot, and Korora ended up erroring out and looping at it, so I had to give that up.
I tested both earlier with a spare drive and Triela.
Installed Mageia first, and everything works well, but repository is limited and doesn't include VLC. Network was managed by Mageia's control center (kinda like Yast) instead of Network Manager, which was a tad annoying, but at the least, it let me specify static IP before it connected to it.
Korora was interesting, but seemed slow to load (even after installing it). The default GNOME extensions make it look like it would be good for a tablet or convertible laptop/tablet (there's a "Places" file menu thing next to the Activities to open the file browser, and then a "weather" thing next to the clock). VLC is installed by default and the hot keys work on the video window. The problem I had was that the package manager gets stuck when trying to update... I selected all the packages, then clicked apply, then it tells me that YUM is locked by
I'll eventually test some later versions of these, but as it is now, they're both not something I'd want to use.
Had a friend talk about Korora and looked it up on DistroWatch to find out that it was built off of Fedora, and I almost disregarded it until another of my friends say that it wasn't as evil as Fedora (specifically having to
sudo while already using "su"). While I was at DistroWatch, I saw that Mageia 4 was out and I was wanting to test it.
I did a bit of testing the live version of Mageia on the Dell, but didn't feel like actually doing a whole lot, and Korora ended up erroring out and looping at it, so I had to give that up.
I tested both earlier with a spare drive and Triela.
Installed Mageia first, and everything works well, but repository is limited and doesn't include VLC. Network was managed by Mageia's control center (kinda like Yast) instead of Network Manager, which was a tad annoying, but at the least, it let me specify static IP before it connected to it.
Korora was interesting, but seemed slow to load (even after installing it). The default GNOME extensions make it look like it would be good for a tablet or convertible laptop/tablet (there's a "Places" file menu thing next to the Activities to open the file browser, and then a "weather" thing next to the clock). VLC is installed by default and the hot keys work on the video window. The problem I had was that the package manager gets stuck when trying to update... I selected all the packages, then clicked apply, then it tells me that YUM is locked by
packagekit and it stays like that; I looked in system monitor and it's not even open (even tried killing it in terminal, and it says it's not found). I tried again and it did the same thing, so I just gave up after that.
I'll eventually test some later versions of these, but as it is now, they're both not something I'd want to use.
Lie-chan 2
About the day after the fan incident with Mei-chan, I put in the upgrades for Lie-chan, which was the PCIe Wifi card from Mei-chan, a Radeon HD 6450, a USB header hub, and a Vantec Spectrum Fan Card.
When I built Lie-chan, the graphics I chose was the Radeon X1650 Pro. About a week before I had these upgrades, I got a dead X700 card from my friend with an interesting looking cooler, which still worked just fine. I looked at the X1650 card and it had the right mounting holes for it, so I decided to swap it, seeing as that the stock X1650 cooler was kinda small and crummy. Cleaning up the cooler from the X700 was easy, but the stock thermal grease from the X1650 was not at all; I ended up pushing around weird flake things until I finally got them off the video card. The X700's heat-sink draws heat away from the GPU better, though the fan spins a bit slow, but enough to push air through the heat-sink. With doing some heat tests, it seemed to cool better than the stock cooler alone (I don't recall the temps I had when I had the intake duct fan underneath it), so it seemed to work better.
The 6450 replaced the X1650, and the X1650 went into my parent's computer (Intel build). I was originally going to get a 6670, but the prices were a lot more than I wanted to pay for, and since Mabinogi is the only GPU-intensive program that Lie-chan would run, I figured the 6450 would be enough, considering it's almost the same GPU as Triela (Triela has the mobile 6450). The card has a DVI, a VGA, and an HDMI connector (this was the other reason for buying this one and not the 6670), which is nice since I don't need any adapters for the TV (connected via HDMI) or the secondary screen (connected via VGA).
The fan card was placed under the 6450 for additional cooling (the 6450 only has a heatsink), and keeps the heat at satisfactory temperatures at minimum speed while playing 1080p video. I'll test with Mabinogi when I have the chance as it's a bit more GPU intensive than 1080p video.
Lie-chan's case came with two sets of USB ports - one set on top and the other set on the front - and along with that I added a USB card reader, raising the total to three USB header plugs. Lie-chan's motherboard only has two USB headers, so I opted out of the set of USB ports at the top, since it wasn't easily accessible when Lie-chan was the workhorse computer. When Lie-chan became the media PC, I used her card reader for Melty and plugged in both sets of USB ports, but eventually I found out that card reader wouldn't read SDXC and had to get a new card reader for Melty. After giving Lie-chan her card reader back, I unplugged the top set of USB ports again (in honesty, I actually removed the panel from the case, and put it elsewhere).
I also got a Logitech Unifiying keyboard and mouse to use, and unfortunately, I couldn't have it plugged into the rear, since the case interfered with the signal, so I used an extension cord to bring it around the case for better reception (I wanted to keep the front USB ports open). After a while I also used the keyboard in the Xbox 360 a bit (since there's no other readily available keyboard around), and it was a bit annoying to unplug it from the extension cord and back in. I decided to modify the drive bay cover to accommodate the extension cord end, and put a tie down point on the optical drive. I used a zip tie to attach it to the tie down, so that when the receiver's plugged back into the cord, the strain relief pushes on the zip tie and doesn't travel into the case (I also had to use a screw to keep the cord end from moving upward). I ran the cable inside, and was hoping to use one of my USB expansion cards, but with no avail; I was forced to connect the USB extension cord to the rear USB ports of the motherboard through a PCI slot cover stripped from an old PCI ethernet card.
While I was digging around on Newegg for 140mm fan filters, I also saw some weird USB thing, and after looking at it, I found that it solved all of the USB problems I had with Lie-chan, since it takes up one motherboard header, but provides three headers and two USB ports. After remounting the top USB ports; I looked at where I wanted to have the hub at, and what orientation; then mounted it and plugged the top USB header plugs into it, the card reader, and the extension cord for the receiver (the front USB ports are plugged into the other motherboard header because it's part of the front panel wire tie downs). The only problematic thing with it was that the power cord for the hub was short, about 4-5cm, and I didn't take that into account when I was finding a position for the hub, but was lucky that there was a molex connector just about that distance away.
Later on, when I have a separate keyboard for the 360, I'll fully enclose the receiver.
At one point while I was using Lie-chan as the workhorse, I had the headphones connected to the speakers, and when I came back to sit down, I brushed by the headphones and discharged static to one of the sides to the headphones. I played music and the sound wasn't working on that side, and I think I tried a different pair just to confirm it was not the headphones. I rush out, without thinking, to buy a sound card from Circuit City (when it was still open where I live), and then set it up when I got home. I don't remember when I realized it, but I eventually realized I could've just remapped the jacks to compensate for the problematic port; I decided to not do anything, since I was liking the CMSS3D feature (puts out stereo sound as surround for music and such). The ESD probably killed part of the onboard sound chip or a resistor or something.
When Lie-chan became the media PC, I think I was using that sound card for Melty until I got a PCIe one for Melty. I just had stereo output for a while (via headphone to RCA cable), since I wasn't picky and didn't really need surround sound. I kept that sound card in an anti-static bag for a while since all the PCI slots were blocked off until this set of upgrades. I was also thinking of using the PCIe sound card that Melty was using (the PCIe x16 slot I had it in eventually made the sound card glitch out eventually) because it had an optical out port, which I was going to use, but had to scrap the idea because I had troubles figuring out how to get digital out to work in openSUSE (I think the optical out was unsupported); I decided to use her original sound card instead. I start thinking of another way to connect surround sound to my receiver/amplifier thing, and looked through the manual a bit and found there's a set of RCA jacks that enable me to do so (but the receiver/amplifier doesn't process the sound at all, just outputs them on the corresponding speakers.
I had enough headphone to RCA cables to do it, but they were only one meter in length, so I almost gave it up until I remembered about the sound switching box I made (when I got the PCIe sound card, it didn't work in openSUSE because there weren't drivers for it at that time, so I made a box with switches to switch between the PCIe and the onboard) that I could use as an extension cable (originally, when it was stereo, I had a couple RCA couplers and an RCA-RCA cable, but I didn't have enough of those). It worked, and it came out louder than I was used to, which was nice, since it always seemed kinda annoyingly quiet. I also tested out the surround sound and it definitely worked like it was supposed to.
So even though optical out doesn't work, I still have surround in some other fashion.
When I built Lie-chan, the graphics I chose was the Radeon X1650 Pro. About a week before I had these upgrades, I got a dead X700 card from my friend with an interesting looking cooler, which still worked just fine. I looked at the X1650 card and it had the right mounting holes for it, so I decided to swap it, seeing as that the stock X1650 cooler was kinda small and crummy. Cleaning up the cooler from the X700 was easy, but the stock thermal grease from the X1650 was not at all; I ended up pushing around weird flake things until I finally got them off the video card. The X700's heat-sink draws heat away from the GPU better, though the fan spins a bit slow, but enough to push air through the heat-sink. With doing some heat tests, it seemed to cool better than the stock cooler alone (I don't recall the temps I had when I had the intake duct fan underneath it), so it seemed to work better.
The 6450 replaced the X1650, and the X1650 went into my parent's computer (Intel build). I was originally going to get a 6670, but the prices were a lot more than I wanted to pay for, and since Mabinogi is the only GPU-intensive program that Lie-chan would run, I figured the 6450 would be enough, considering it's almost the same GPU as Triela (Triela has the mobile 6450). The card has a DVI, a VGA, and an HDMI connector (this was the other reason for buying this one and not the 6670), which is nice since I don't need any adapters for the TV (connected via HDMI) or the secondary screen (connected via VGA).
The fan card was placed under the 6450 for additional cooling (the 6450 only has a heatsink), and keeps the heat at satisfactory temperatures at minimum speed while playing 1080p video. I'll test with Mabinogi when I have the chance as it's a bit more GPU intensive than 1080p video.
Lie-chan's case came with two sets of USB ports - one set on top and the other set on the front - and along with that I added a USB card reader, raising the total to three USB header plugs. Lie-chan's motherboard only has two USB headers, so I opted out of the set of USB ports at the top, since it wasn't easily accessible when Lie-chan was the workhorse computer. When Lie-chan became the media PC, I used her card reader for Melty and plugged in both sets of USB ports, but eventually I found out that card reader wouldn't read SDXC and had to get a new card reader for Melty. After giving Lie-chan her card reader back, I unplugged the top set of USB ports again (in honesty, I actually removed the panel from the case, and put it elsewhere).
I also got a Logitech Unifiying keyboard and mouse to use, and unfortunately, I couldn't have it plugged into the rear, since the case interfered with the signal, so I used an extension cord to bring it around the case for better reception (I wanted to keep the front USB ports open). After a while I also used the keyboard in the Xbox 360 a bit (since there's no other readily available keyboard around), and it was a bit annoying to unplug it from the extension cord and back in. I decided to modify the drive bay cover to accommodate the extension cord end, and put a tie down point on the optical drive. I used a zip tie to attach it to the tie down, so that when the receiver's plugged back into the cord, the strain relief pushes on the zip tie and doesn't travel into the case (I also had to use a screw to keep the cord end from moving upward). I ran the cable inside, and was hoping to use one of my USB expansion cards, but with no avail; I was forced to connect the USB extension cord to the rear USB ports of the motherboard through a PCI slot cover stripped from an old PCI ethernet card.
While I was digging around on Newegg for 140mm fan filters, I also saw some weird USB thing, and after looking at it, I found that it solved all of the USB problems I had with Lie-chan, since it takes up one motherboard header, but provides three headers and two USB ports. After remounting the top USB ports; I looked at where I wanted to have the hub at, and what orientation; then mounted it and plugged the top USB header plugs into it, the card reader, and the extension cord for the receiver (the front USB ports are plugged into the other motherboard header because it's part of the front panel wire tie downs). The only problematic thing with it was that the power cord for the hub was short, about 4-5cm, and I didn't take that into account when I was finding a position for the hub, but was lucky that there was a molex connector just about that distance away.
Later on, when I have a separate keyboard for the 360, I'll fully enclose the receiver.
At one point while I was using Lie-chan as the workhorse, I had the headphones connected to the speakers, and when I came back to sit down, I brushed by the headphones and discharged static to one of the sides to the headphones. I played music and the sound wasn't working on that side, and I think I tried a different pair just to confirm it was not the headphones. I rush out, without thinking, to buy a sound card from Circuit City (when it was still open where I live), and then set it up when I got home. I don't remember when I realized it, but I eventually realized I could've just remapped the jacks to compensate for the problematic port; I decided to not do anything, since I was liking the CMSS3D feature (puts out stereo sound as surround for music and such). The ESD probably killed part of the onboard sound chip or a resistor or something.
When Lie-chan became the media PC, I think I was using that sound card for Melty until I got a PCIe one for Melty. I just had stereo output for a while (via headphone to RCA cable), since I wasn't picky and didn't really need surround sound. I kept that sound card in an anti-static bag for a while since all the PCI slots were blocked off until this set of upgrades. I was also thinking of using the PCIe sound card that Melty was using (the PCIe x16 slot I had it in eventually made the sound card glitch out eventually) because it had an optical out port, which I was going to use, but had to scrap the idea because I had troubles figuring out how to get digital out to work in openSUSE (I think the optical out was unsupported); I decided to use her original sound card instead. I start thinking of another way to connect surround sound to my receiver/amplifier thing, and looked through the manual a bit and found there's a set of RCA jacks that enable me to do so (but the receiver/amplifier doesn't process the sound at all, just outputs them on the corresponding speakers.
I had enough headphone to RCA cables to do it, but they were only one meter in length, so I almost gave it up until I remembered about the sound switching box I made (when I got the PCIe sound card, it didn't work in openSUSE because there weren't drivers for it at that time, so I made a box with switches to switch between the PCIe and the onboard) that I could use as an extension cable (originally, when it was stereo, I had a couple RCA couplers and an RCA-RCA cable, but I didn't have enough of those). It worked, and it came out louder than I was used to, which was nice, since it always seemed kinda annoyingly quiet. I also tested out the surround sound and it definitely worked like it was supposed to.
So even though optical out doesn't work, I still have surround in some other fashion.
Mei-chan 5
I had a feeling I forgot to write...
I wasn't paying too much attention, so I glued the fin a bit angled than the other ones, but it still works, just slightly unbalanced. I also had to put the filter on the exhaust side of the fan since the fan was rubbing against the filter mesh.
While I know it'll hold, I think I want to perhaps replace the fan when I'm able to, just so I have some piece of mind.
I also found a different fan filter that has a cross frame so the mesh doesn't get sucked into the fan, wish I saw that earlier, since I would've bought that instead. But I'll eventually get one to swap that one out with (putting it on the intake side, obviously) and then using the filter to cover the PSU, since I dropped a screw into it once.... and had an annoying time getting it out.
I wasn't paying too much attention, so I glued the fin a bit angled than the other ones, but it still works, just slightly unbalanced. I also had to put the filter on the exhaust side of the fan since the fan was rubbing against the filter mesh.
While I know it'll hold, I think I want to perhaps replace the fan when I'm able to, just so I have some piece of mind.
I also found a different fan filter that has a cross frame so the mesh doesn't get sucked into the fan, wish I saw that earlier, since I would've bought that instead. But I'll eventually get one to swap that one out with (putting it on the intake side, obviously) and then using the filter to cover the PSU, since I dropped a screw into it once.... and had an annoying time getting it out.
18 February 2014
Sae-chan 1
Sometime ago, when Shizuma was being used as an FTP server and bound to the laptop cooler I made (I didn't want to carry her around because of the heat issues) and after I got rid of the netbook I had (the original Triela, but tbh, Triela didn't really fit as a name for that netbook), but before I got Triela, I was using Sae-chan for when I went over to my best friend's place. I was using the Bluetooth mouse that I was using with Shizuma (Shizuma had a different mouse) for Sae-chan with a bluetooth dongle.
At some point, I was poking around the internet to see if I was able to buy the Bluetooth adapter for Sae-chan, and found a way to solder a Bluetooth dongle to a wire harness and plug it into the jack where the Bluetooth adapter would connect to (turns out the jack is just a USB port). At first I had a bit of extra wire, but that caused some sort of problem, so I soldered the run of wire of the wire harness to the dongle itself.
It worked decently, but I had a very limited range, since the dongle was encased in metal and couldn't really send/receive though it very well. Late last year though, I looked up a way to boost the range and found that soldering a wire to the antenna run on the PCB helps. I pre-ran the wire to the screen bezel to get an idea for the length that I'd need (plus a bit of extra, just in case), soldered the wire to the antenna run on the Bluetooth dongle, then set the dongle in and ran the wire.
I decided to ditch the plastic housing because I didn't want to waste time drilling a small hole and feeding the wire though it, so I just encased the dongle in electrical tape to prevent any short-circuits.
The wire follows some of the cords that go into the screen/lid area and tucks to the front/side corner inside it (I don't have a picture of this, unfortunately). Now the range is a lot better and I don't have to use the mouse on top of the keyboard for best reception (sad but true XDD).
While the lid was off, I decided to modify the colour of the apple. I used some cut squares from thick, pink anti-static bags, which gave it a nice light pink colour, and was okay when the light was on and shining though, but it wasn't what I had in mind. The picture with the light on didn't turn out well because the phone used it as the reference for white balancing.... -_-;;
Originally, I wanted to use some red wrapper stuff I saved from Valentine's day long ago, but I couldn't find it (I think I tossed it, thinking I'd never use it), and so that's why I settled with the anti-static stuff... But I recently got more of the red wrapping stuff, and tested it out with my best friend's iBook G4.
It turned out well; the colour is more of a hot pink, which is a lot more noticeable. I then cut out a proper square for Sae-chan and installed it (after taking the old stuff off, obviously). When the light is off, it shows up red, but turns hot pink when the light is on.
My best friend was surprised how it turned out.
I don't use Sae-chan much, but I don't have a good reason to retire her XDD
At some point, I was poking around the internet to see if I was able to buy the Bluetooth adapter for Sae-chan, and found a way to solder a Bluetooth dongle to a wire harness and plug it into the jack where the Bluetooth adapter would connect to (turns out the jack is just a USB port). At first I had a bit of extra wire, but that caused some sort of problem, so I soldered the run of wire of the wire harness to the dongle itself.
Dongle soldered to harness, black stuff is liquid electrical "tape".
It worked decently, but I had a very limited range, since the dongle was encased in metal and couldn't really send/receive though it very well. Late last year though, I looked up a way to boost the range and found that soldering a wire to the antenna run on the PCB helps. I pre-ran the wire to the screen bezel to get an idea for the length that I'd need (plus a bit of extra, just in case), soldered the wire to the antenna run on the Bluetooth dongle, then set the dongle in and ran the wire.
I decided to ditch the plastic housing because I didn't want to waste time drilling a small hole and feeding the wire though it, so I just encased the dongle in electrical tape to prevent any short-circuits.
Dongle plugged in and set in place; the black rectangle is the electrical tape-encased dongle, and the yellow wire is the wire that's soldered to the antenna run on the dongle.
The wire follows some of the cords that go into the screen/lid area and tucks to the front/side corner inside it (I don't have a picture of this, unfortunately). Now the range is a lot better and I don't have to use the mouse on top of the keyboard for best reception (sad but true XDD).
While the lid was off, I decided to modify the colour of the apple. I used some cut squares from thick, pink anti-static bags, which gave it a nice light pink colour, and was okay when the light was on and shining though, but it wasn't what I had in mind. The picture with the light on didn't turn out well because the phone used it as the reference for white balancing.... -_-;;
Mod with the light off.
Originally, I wanted to use some red wrapper stuff I saved from Valentine's day long ago, but I couldn't find it (I think I tossed it, thinking I'd never use it), and so that's why I settled with the anti-static stuff... But I recently got more of the red wrapping stuff, and tested it out with my best friend's iBook G4.
It turned out well; the colour is more of a hot pink, which is a lot more noticeable. I then cut out a proper square for Sae-chan and installed it (after taking the old stuff off, obviously). When the light is off, it shows up red, but turns hot pink when the light is on.
Light off and light on. (Again, the phone failed balancing the white correctly, so the pink's actually darker than in this picture)
I don't use Sae-chan much, but I don't have a good reason to retire her XDD
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