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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 547 responses total. |
aruba
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response 127 of 547:
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Apr 23 19:41 UTC 2003 |
I hit a little snag trying to order from NEwEgg - they won't ship to a P.O.
Box or to an address that's not registered with our bank. Unfortunately the
address registered with our bank *is* our P.O. Box, and they tell me they
have no way to add another address to our account. I wrote to NewEgg for
suggestions on how to get around the problem.
I'd handle this by putting things on my credit card and then reimbursing
myself, but then we would technically owe use tax on what we buy, whereas if
the money comes directly from Grex we don't.
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aruba
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response 128 of 547:
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Apr 25 17:43 UTC 2003 |
I spoke with Monique at NewEgg just now. I'm not convinced she knew what
she was talking about, but when I suggested sending a check with a letter
giving an alternate shipping address, she said that would work. So I'll do
that. I'm waiting now to hear back from STeve on whether we should get the
memory from NewEgg now too, 'cuz I don't really want to go through the
process of sending them a check and waiting for them to deal with it twice.
Can anyone explain to me the way memory is defined these days? Our
motherboard has this in its description:
3 x DDR DIMM PC3200/2700/2100/1600 (DDR400/333/266) non ECC SDRAM
(Note: PC3200 Max. to 2 banks only)
which I think tells what type of memory it will accept. Can someone
decipher that for me? In the memory aisle, I see stuff like this:
Crucial Micron 512MB 64x64 PC2100 DDR RAM, 184-Pin, CL=2.5-Unbuffered 2.5V,
6-Layers
CT6464Z265 Requires DDR supported Motherboard - Lifetime Warranty. Model#:
CT6464Z265 -OEM
But there are lots of other options for 512MB as well, with different
numbers and different prices, and I don't know which we want.
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aruba
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response 129 of 547:
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Apr 25 18:41 UTC 2003 |
OK, Steve says to get the memory from Crucial, not NewEgg, so I went ahead
and ordered both of our disks from NewEgg. $212 for the 18GB SCSI, $96
for the 80GB IDE. Total $308.
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cross
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response 130 of 547:
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Apr 25 18:55 UTC 2003 |
Did the SCSI controller get ordered, too?
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aruba
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response 131 of 547:
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Apr 25 19:53 UTC 2003 |
We ordered the processor, motherboards, and SCSI controller from Leeron.
He's going to deliver them to me this weekend.
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cross
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response 132 of 547:
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Apr 25 20:02 UTC 2003 |
Cool....
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tod
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response 133 of 547:
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Apr 26 01:11 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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mdw
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response 134 of 547:
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Apr 26 01:19 UTC 2003 |
I hope we got something that does ECC. STeve was having trouble
locating this, and the description above has me slightly worried. The
PC and macintosh world think ECC is unnecessary; in the "server" world,
ECC has been pretty much universal for at least a decade.
3x = 3 times
DDR, SDRAM = different memory bus chip interfaces
DIMM = physical package style
PC3200/ etc. == probably different PC world standards for memory;
in this case, sounds like there's a collection of related
standards that probably only differ in speed.
banks = in this case, probably slots. More generally, a section
of memory that is addressed and reponds as one unit.
6-layers = number of layers in PCB - not generally important
except as a measure of the cost and engineering in the design.
184 pin == # of conductors in a connector. The "pins" are more
often pads or fingers in modern designs.
unbuffered = no drivers. Generally faster but less fan-out.
ECC = error correction code. Generally such memory can
fix single-bit errors and detect double-bit errors.
parity = error detection. Can detect single-bit errors.
virtual parity = memory that lies and says it never has an error.
no parity = memory that can't detect any errors.
But I'd let STeve tell you what to get rather than spending too
much time trying to figure out what all the ciphers mean. As long
as the computer and the memory like each other, it's not really
important whether they measure things in terms of pins and banks,
or squirrels and pints. They'll have a different set of ciphers
next year anyways.
The number of memory slots has been declining in recent machine
designs - 2 or 3 slots is pretty common. This maybe an indication
of where "unbuffered" becomes important; to get more slots they'd
probably have to add additional buffering which might slow things
down.
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aruba
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response 135 of 547:
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Apr 26 03:34 UTC 2003 |
Thanks Marcus. Here's the full description of the motherboard that STeve
picked out, and we ordered from Leeron:
ASUS A7V8X 1000Mb/s LAN, Firewire IEEE1394, Serial ATA DDR400 AMD
Athlon/Athlon XP/Duron Socket A, Processor Mother Board
Specifications:
Socket A - AMD Athlon/Athlon XP/ Duron
Chipsets: VIA KT400/8235
FSB: 333/266/200 MHz
3 x DDR DIMM PC3200/2700/2100/1600 (DDR400/333/266) non ECC SDRAM
(Note: PC3200 Max. to 2 banks only)
Serial ATA
Firewire IEEE1394
LAN BroadCom 1000Mbs Network card
Ports: 1 x AGP, 6 x PCI, 6 x USB 2.0
Realtek 6-channel CODEC
ATX form factor
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cross
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response 136 of 547:
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Apr 26 06:27 UTC 2003 |
NON-ECC? Hmm, why? And why bother with firewire and all the USB
interfaces? Man....
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gull
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response 137 of 547:
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Apr 26 12:38 UTC 2003 |
I'm a bit disappointed we didn't go with ECC, too, but it probably won't
matter.
USB and Firewire are almost impossible to avoid; they're built into most
motherboards now. You can disable them in the BIOS if you need the
interrupts for something else.
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aruba
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response 138 of 547:
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Apr 28 00:59 UTC 2003 |
Leeron didn't receive the shipment in time to get it to me this weekend, but
if all goes well his partner will drop it off with me tomorrow.
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aruba
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response 139 of 547:
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Apr 28 17:29 UTC 2003 |
Leeron's partner should be bringing the motherboards, SCSI controller,
processor, and floppy drive by this afternoon.
I ordered the memory from Crucial. Since our motherboard can apparently
only handle 2 of the really fast memory chips at once, I ordered 3 of the
next fastest. Here's the description:
Module Size: 512MB
Package: 184-pin DIMM
Feature: DDR PC2700
Configuration: 64Meg x 64
DIMM Type: Unbuffered
Error Checking: Non-parity
Speed: 6ns
Voltage: 2.5V
SDRAM Timings:CL=2.5
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keesan
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response 140 of 547:
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Apr 28 18:12 UTC 2003 |
Enjoy the chocolates ;)
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aruba
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response 141 of 547:
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Apr 28 18:40 UTC 2003 |
OK, I am now in possession of
/------------------------------------------------------------\
| 1 AMD Athalon XP 2800, with a big honkin' heatsink and fan |
| 2 Asus A7V8X motherboards with consecutive serial numbers |
| 1 Adaptec 29160 SCSI controller card |
| 1 Sony floppy drive |
\------------------------------------------------------------/
Courtesy of Leeron and his partner Matt. No chocolates were included,
though I did get some bubble wrap.
I also ordered, at STeve's request, a 3-CD copy of Open BSD 3.3. It will
ship Thursday, which is the release date. ($40).
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aruba
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response 142 of 547:
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Apr 28 18:48 UTC 2003 |
STeve would also like to get a special OpenBSD keyboard - does anyone have
one they could donate? I'm not sure exactly what's special about it - I
asked STeve to explain it here.
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aruba
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response 143 of 547:
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Apr 28 19:45 UTC 2003 |
Here's what STeve says he wants:
They're USB keyboards, as in universal serial bus keyboards.
These are new, which is why I think we'll wind up getting one
ourselves, but its always possible I suppuse that we'll get one
from someone. The older ibm at standard keyboards are just
about a buck each, used, but usb keyboards are a different
beast. And unforunately, the most common usb keyboards
are made by Apple, and they're really pretty bad (the one
bad thing about the new macs of the last couple years).
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glenda
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response 144 of 547:
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Apr 28 21:54 UTC 2003 |
Has STeve said anything about when all of this is going to invade my house?
(He says I get to help play with it and I need to figure fitting it into my
schedule.)
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steve
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response 145 of 547:
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Apr 28 22:09 UTC 2003 |
No, I haven't, but thats because I don't know when all the parts will have
straggled in. I think we're pretty close now.
Re #142, 'tis USB keyboard, not OpenBSD. I wonder what an OpenBSD keyboard
would look like? Would it be sutable for blowfish? ;-)
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aruba
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response 146 of 547:
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Apr 28 22:25 UTC 2003 |
Ah, I see I misread the email. Why do we need a USB keyboard?
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mary
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response 147 of 547:
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Apr 28 23:05 UTC 2003 |
STeve, do you have the time to work on it at this point?
Originally you said you'd be busy starting May 1. If you
can get to it, great. But if you think it will have to
be fit in around a very busy life then I'd like to look
and maybe another volunteer, like dang, taking this part
of the project on.
It needs to go forward.
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glenda
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response 148 of 547:
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Apr 28 23:18 UTC 2003 |
That's partly why I get to play. :-) It will get done!
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steve
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response 149 of 547:
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Apr 29 00:09 UTC 2003 |
I'm at the end of the academic year, and thats going to make a HUGE
difference for me. Yes. This will be the fun part...
We need a USB keyboard because the asus motherboard doesn't have
much in the way ot "legacy" I/O devices. For instance, it has none
of the old ISA cards, only PCI slots. This makes the board faster
since it doesn't need any glue logic to handle the old style 8MHz
286 AT-style cards. We need a USB keyboard since it doesn't have
an old style keyboard port.
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mdw
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response 150 of 547:
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Apr 29 03:13 UTC 2003 |
There's a big push in the PC world to get rid of "legacy" 8-bit devices.
That includes serial ports, floppy drives, and of course keyboards &
mice. Pretty much everybody (apple, sun, ibm) supports USB - this is
clearly the wave of the future, and AT keyboards will soon be about as
obselete as appletalk keyboards are today, or 8" floppy drives 15 years
ago. Basically, having to get a USB keyboard is a consequence of trying
to get new high end hardware.
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cross
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response 151 of 547:
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Apr 29 04:08 UTC 2003 |
Get a Happy Hacking Lite 2 keyboard with a USB interface; it's about the
best Unix keyboard I've ever used. And doesn't have any extra and useless
keys. And it's tiny and only takes up a real small amount of space.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/pfuca-store/haphackeylit1.html
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