January 30, 2005
Case and cooling
Going Simple
I'm going to submit another stipulation, "go with the silencing/cooling systems suggested by endpcnoise.com". I want a cool, silent pc setup, and they specialize in designing those systems. I'll follow their advice.
The reason this stipulation is possible is that I was very lucky to find a Singapore distributor for Nexus, which endpcnoise recommends. The store is Advance PC #05-43 Sim Lim Square +65 6338-3717 (They recently moved downstairs from #06-26).
I think I'll just incorporate the entire nexus line of products:
- Breeze Case $185SGD
- NX 4090 400w Power Supply $200SGD (need to check that this PSU is compatible with the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum)
- AOP 6400 CPU Fan/Heatsink $85SGD
- Disk Twin Hard Drive Dampers $35SGD per set
This solution overlooks the stock northbridge cooling fan on the motherboard. However, since there is no tidy solution, I'll wait till the system is built to identify the remaining worst offender.
oops, this thread implies that the nexus 4090 isn't strong enough for the Neo2, in fact I found several messages saying the Nexus couldn't produce enough. I found this recommendation:
Well, the 4090 doesn't provide enough juice: +3.3v 28a, +5v 28a, +12v 16a according to these specifications, so it should be no suprise ther are problems. Ok, find something else.
EndPcNoise has some other suggestions:
Silent Server 550 Watt Quiet PSU Fail: +3.3 27a +5 29a +12 18a
Fortron Blue Storm 500 Watt Quiet Power Supply Fail: +3.3 30a +5 28a +12 15a
QUIET POWER Zalman Power Supply 400 Watt B Pass: +3.3 28a +5 40a +12 18a
So I guess the revised choice is the Zalman 400w. I'm pretty sure this will be available in Singapore -- see a lot of Zalman heat sinks and fans and things already.
Graphics Card
Rough draft notes only.
- If you want something quieter and are willing to lose the dual-DVI and factory overclock options, MSI makes a very good 6600GT card that is near-silent in comparison.
Endpcnoise suggestion is a g-force fx 5200 solution FX5200 TD128 although Anandtech disparages it as a "Personal Cinema" card, and not suitable for gaming. I'm not sure, however, whether it is suitable for me.
CPU
Choosing an AMD CPU 64 takes three parameters: availability, price, and performance. Browsing through price flyers I collected last week, it was pretty obvious that AMD 3500+ is approximately the fastest cpu commonly available. 3800+ are occasionally listed. 64FX are only listed under the "ask" or "N.A." descriptions. Ok, so it's a question of a 3500+ or a 3800+.
Xbitlabs compared the 3500+ and 3800+
- In photoshop the 3800 is 8% faster than 3500
- In the Winstone 'multimedia creation' benchmarks, the 3800 is 7% faster than the 3500
- In the Winstone 'office' benchmarks, the 3800 is 2% faster than the 3500
Ok, so that max improvement is something like 8%? Say I'm off by a factor of two, and actually I'd enjoy a 16% performance advantage with the 3800+, how does it look economically?
Here is one set of price points:
- AMD 64 3500+: $509SGD
- AMD 64 3800+: $1190SGD
Ok, so I pay 134% extra for only a (optimistic) 16% performance advantage? Fuck. That.
So I guess I'll be going with the 3500+
Background reviews:
Comparison table of several top-of-line CPUs
Techreport compares (Socket 939) 3500+ and (Socket 754) 3400+
January 23, 2005
Motherboard, chipset, memory, heat
My two-year old desktop PC recently committed ritual seppuku. I hate even thinking about. I'm quite dissatisfied with its performance. In building my next desktop system I have decided on a number of design principles that it must hold to:
Stability
I want a rock-solid configuration. 'Glitches' are unacceptable. My last desktop suffered everything from a flaky keyboard connection that usually required several cold starts before the keyboard was recognized to the eventual Heaven's Gate-style mass suicide of three of my four harddrives. I cannot deal with these issues. They send me into purple rages and leave a permanent taint on the system (if it can be recovered at all). I want a system made of components that are high quality and have had all the 'kinks' worked out of them.
Stamina
This pc needs to last three years and still satisfactorily run all my applications. I'm not a gamer, so I don't need to continually surf the edge of technology. A modern system assembled today should be able to handle all the apps I'm likely to run for the next three years. (photoshop, flash, simple video editing are the highest-demand things I might do). This characteristic also implicitly says, "I don't care at all about upgrading." I will never add a new processor, more memory, or any other material change. Thus I don't care if I build a pc that is an evolutionary dead-end.
Completeness
Another way to slowly deteriorate the stability of a system is to add various components on an ad-hoc basis, a dvd-writer here, a sound-card there, etc. etc. Why? When I buy these things on whims, I don't do enough research and wind up buying whatever rubbish at the local Mega-PC store. When I build this system, I am going to figure out all the components I need, research the best of them (Stability Principle) , add them, and then the hardware configuration goes on lockdown -- nothing added nothing removed.
Data Segregation
Even though I am trying to build a stable hardware system, I've still got to realize this is Windows system, which makes it inherently unstable and guaranteed to eventually die. My data is my life's work, so it needs to be better protected. As proven by my last desktop, the motherboard-based RAIDs are little more than toys. The only real solution, 31die and I have decided, is to build a separate linux file server with true hardware raid technology. Thus my desktop will only host program files. When it crashes, all I lose is a Windows installation. Data will be safely kept on a bulletproof network file server.
Silence
I never appreciated how awful a noisy computer is before I had my last desktop wheezing away 24/7 with four harddrives, a number of noisy, wheezy fans, and one dud fan that often howled in pain. My new design will be finding parts that minimize noise.
Documentation
When you research and build a pc, everything is at the front of your brain. But after it's all built and installed, you forget all the subtleties of its assembly and a shoebox gets filled up with piles of loose manuals, errata, and warranty cards. This time I'll more carefully file the documentation and note the special circumstances and configurations.
This blog article is a lot of thinking-out-loud. So what am I going to build? Start with the motherboard. 31die provides the basic first assumption, "if you want stability, you need stable drivers and parts that get along." Who writes the best drivers? nVidia. Ok, good start. nVidia seems to only make chipsets for AMD CPUs. I can live with that, AMDs seem to be better regarded every cycle.
CPU Socket 939 AMD 64
AMD 64
AMD 64FX
AMD 64 Naming convention
Explanation of how the Socket 939 succeeds the older Socket 754 and Socket 940 versions of the Athlon 64, as well as the difference between the 64 and 64-FX
Ok, so I am looking for a Socket 939 motherboard with an nVidia chipset. What nVidia chipsets can I choose from? Well the current best set is the nForce4 chipset family. Essentially the nForce4 (lowest range) is for low-end board. The nForce4 Ultra is fully featured. The nForce4 SLI is an Ultra with the ability to use two graphics boards simultaneously for high speed graphics. Seems like the Ultra model is my sweetspot. I do emphatically not need such high performance graphics provided by the SLI.
msi forums
Alright, now I've narrowed it to Socket 939 motherboards with nVidia nForce4 Ultra chipsets. There are a number of them available, however practical availability in Singapore is limited. I did a sweep around and it looks like there are only three available in Singapore:
Unfortunately the 'reviews' suck. TomsHardware is a lame site -- their reviews are little more than spec-sheets-in-prose, macro shots of colorful motherboards, and mind-numbing benchmarking tests. I don't care how many fucking triangles it renders. I want to know how stable and reliable the board is. Unfortunately this is simply not going to tell me.
Usenet comments from 2003 saying Asus makes quality boards is fairly useless because, well, you're only as good as your last series. I have serious trepidations about buying another Gigabyte product -- the GA-8PE667 Ultra is the chief culprit in my recent PC meltdown. I dread remarks like those I find in a few forums: " not really, my neo 2 board will not even post now..... it may be a good board as long as you get one that works."
Anandtech has some reservations that also scare me. They seem somewhat concerned that PCI-Express motherboards are still bleeding edge technology, and as such it's fairly inevitable that there will be 'teething problems.' For me, 'teething problems' is a an unacceptable situation. Stable systems do not have teething problems.
So what does this mean? Is this nForce4 chipset and PCI-E motherboard combo just too new to ever meet my stability concerns? Should I be looking at AGX, nForce3 chipset solutions that have been around for year instead?
I spent several long nights this week reading through myriad hardware forums. Overall it was a discouraging process. Every board was criticized and every manufacturer disparaged. Several themes emerged. BIOS updates fix a lot of problems. This tells me that an nForce3 board has had time to work out lots of kinks while and nForce4 hasn't. I think I'll follow Anandtech's advice and not be an early adopter of nForce4 technology. A very large percentage of problems were due to subtle incompatibilities of components (mostly memory) and the motherboard. That tells me that if start with a sound motherboard and use the forums to identify the most stable components, then I've eliminated my problem risk by eighty-plus percent without even working too hard.
So what are my options?
nForce3 option overviews:
nForce3 Motherboards:
- Asus K8N-E Deluxe 'Flagship'
- MSI K8N Neo Platinum [Socket 754] [Anandtech review] [NeoSeeker review] [faq]
- MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum [Socket 939] [faq]
- MSI K8N Neo-FSR [Socket 754]
- nForce3 Ultra Gigabyte boards (939 Socket)
- GA-K8NSNXP-939
GA-K8NS Ultra-939 [Complaints]
GA-K8NS-939
- nForce3 250 Gigabyte boards
- GA-K8NSNXP
GA-K8NS Pro
GA-K8NS
I really wasn't joking when I said I could find evidence for whatever outcome I wanted.
I'm predisposed to choose something other than Gigabyte.
This message from the forums at anandtech:
But then gee, readers overwhelmingly vote for MSI over ASUS in this forum. It's probably worth listening to -- the writers have broad backgrounds and refer to relatively recent models. While that forum thread promotes MSI for its stability and reliability, Anandtech promotes the MSI for its performance and quality:
But, as I said before, nothing is clear cut, MSI having its own share of common problems, including some very odd, irritating things like often failing if you use PS2 mice or keyboards.
So what am I going to do? I think my highest percentage bet is to get the MSI Neo 2 Platinum. I dq'd the Gigabyte lines, a lot of people raised serious concerns about ASUS, and the problems with MSI are in the open and in fact a large FAQ discussing best practices for the Neo 2 is available. At worst it will be an evil I know.
Well this is irritating... somehow I never found this link to MSI's compatibility table. I think I have purchased some things not on this approved list. ugh.
January 15, 2005
Bayesian Danger Token: 'Homeland Security'
Locksmithing is a trade similar to magic -- all their tricks and secrets were guarded carefully from outsiders. These guilds' security has broken down in the face of the Internet. A computer science professor wrote a paper describing similarities between computer security and physical safe security. One of the important demonstrations was that common safes are quite susceptible to 'manipulation' openings. If you understand the lock mechanism, you can find that sloppy mechanical tolerances and linkages in the safe can betray the combination. It doesn't look impossibly hard -- I had the general idea of it after twenty minutes of reading. I'd bet I could learn to do it in a few hours of practice. If I still lived in the US, I would buy a safe from Ebay to play with.
You can imagine the uproar among the locksmithing community over this article. It explains what they do and it betrays most safes as not nearly as impregnable as you'd imagine. Of course these guys are just trying to protect their livelihood and their knowledge monopoly. Bruce Schneier compares them to the folks who think that when researchers discover security flaws in software those flaws should remain unpublished.
I followed a USENET discussion on this report. There were all the standard arguments about why this paper is so terrible but perhaps the most repugnant and cheap came from 'Ed "Lockie" NYC Locksmith, Retired':
- There are steps being taken to deal with this through proper channels, but we need your help and support. We doubt that his university would appreciate their resources being used for this kind of activity, but they may not be aware of it or of the negative impact that his so called work has on our industry. With concern for homeland security so important, we belive[sic] that your voice will be heard.
The phrase 'Homeland Security' has nothing but enormously negative connotations for me now. It's the crypto-fascist's favorite trump card to play. It's meaningless term that panders to the fearful ignorant. The only purpose it serves is to set off danger alarms about anyone who uses it in any sort of argument, defense, or justification.
I am delighted that this report is published and all the locksmiths' base attempts at reburying it will be totally in vain. I hope more of these things happen.
January 09, 2005
Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle
Tidy hair is important in repelling the enemies' manoeuvres to infiltrate corrupt capitalist ideas and lifestyle and establishing the socialist lifestyle of the military-first era.
January 08, 2005
More Christmas Day Beagle Photos
Mister looks deceptively innocent, but this is really just a pause before another run at Mona
Mister in the 'inviting play' posture, as the Dog Trainers call it
