Posted by me on Thursday, the 6th day of April, anno domini 2006 at 12:07 AM, local time.
So, my case, motherboard, processor, DVD player, and 1GB of RAM arrived now. I put them all together and didn’t run into many issues at all. The documentation for the case is slightly out of date, I believe, as some connectors aren’t exactly as pictured, and some are preconnected. Another slight “issue” is that the case has a USB connector needed for the front panel, and 4 headers (in double header sets) for the 4 USB front panel ports, for a total of 5 USB headers. But, the motherboard only has room for 4 header connections inside. I decided the best route for me was to connect all the front USB ports onto the motherboard directly, and take the front panel display USB and plug it into a USB port on the back of the motherboard. Not a perfect solution (since I now have a USB cord sticking out of a hole in the back of the case and then plugged into a port in the back), but it appears to work just fine, and leaves all 4 front ports usable as well.
Another issue I encountered was the huge number of power cables and connectors in the case. Lots of cables, not a lot of room. It all fits, but air flow could be a little better. Of course, there is also a lack of a couple specific cables. The second case fan has no control inputs, so its always on (or always off). In theory, I could whip up a little circuit to control it from a serial port or something, but that might be a bother. Currently I just don’t have it plugged in at all, and that seems to work fine under current situations (with no harddrives and no tuner card yet). I also wish that the power supply had a temperature sensor and a fan control input, so that those fans could be controlled as well. There are inputs on the motherboard for them, but no cables from the power supply box (I think… there might be a few connectors that I am not sure about yet). Right now, they are always on, but they aren’t too loud.
The next minor issue I had was with the DVD drive and the case. When first installed, the drive’s open button was wedged too closely to the case’s drive open button, so it was always depressed, which causes lots of POST issues and whatnot. But, with an exacto knife, the case-to-drive-button interface was slimmed down a bit to a perfect fit for the drive. Other drives might not have as big of an issue with this out-of-the-box, but even so, it was easily fixed.
So, thats pretty much where I’m at. I can boot live-linux CDs just fine and everything seems to work ok. Havn’t tested the remote control or the front panel display yet fully, or the digital audio yet. The gigabit ethernet ports appear to work just fine (in 100mb mode, of course :). TV out worked instantly, and the thing has only booted with TV as display so far. Wireless keyboard/mouse over USB also just worked, too.
The two hard drives are on their way and when they arrive, work will really get under way. I think with the hardware RAID, they should work just fine. We’ll see. Then there is lm-sensors and fan control, the front panel display, the remote control, the digital audio, cpu throttling, dvd/cd burning, etc. all to get working with the hardware, and mythTv to get working in software, all before the final part arrives, the tuner card. Most of the hardware stuff above I am currently hopeful that it will just work. We’ll find out, I guess. I might be lucky.
Tags: computers, dvd, linux, mythtv, raid, ram, usb
From "That which must be said"
Posted by me on Friday, the 10th day of March, anno domini 2006 at 5:54 PM, local time.
I’m convinced it was all the beer. I mean its a well known fact that beer is good for you. Finally, anecdotal evidence that it works!
Tags: anecdotal evidence, beer, food, pubs
From "That which must be said"
Posted by me on Wednesday, the 8th day of March, anno domini 2006 at 10:25 PM, local time.
For your consideration:
One misty, moisty morning,
When cloudy was the weather,
I met a little old man
Cloaked all in leather.
Well, he began to compliment,
And I began to grin:
“How do you do?”
And “How do you do?”
And “How do you do?”, again.
That’s all I have to say.
Tags: nursery rhymes, rain
From "That which must be said"
Posted by me on Tuesday, the 27th day of December, anno domini 2005 at 10:48 PM, local time.
Not even 10 minutes go by and up pops an IM window: “So you think I’m stupid?” I would just like to point out at this time that, regardless of how I feel about the level of Patrick’s intellect, there will often be made on this blog comments which are not meant to actually be derogatory to anyone, rather, just harmless jibes and sarcasm.
So, please, don’t assume I hate you because it seems to imply that on my blog. Come ask me first :)
Tags: patrick, sarcasm
From "That which must be said"
Posted by me on Thursday, the 15th day of December, anno domini 2005 at 8:14 PM, local time.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: Only the second or third day in, and already he’s out of things to say. It’s sad really. But, mostly it’s cause I’m lazy. I might have things to say. Really. It could be possible…
But, really, I blame work. For some reason I stayed a bit late today. I actually got things done, since everyone else left, ya see. Though some of that time was spent eating various food things since it was the area’s “Goodie Day” (I hate the word goodie…) and then there was cheesecake…
To meander back to the topic for which this post was supposedly written, I don’t have a lot to say. Or rather, I have lots to say, but just very little of it can actually be said, for a variety of reasons, which I won’t go into here. I’ll save that for some other time when I have even less to say.
As a final note, please bear with me as I rip this blog’s theme apart and reconstruct it more to my liking. Until then, the place will be pretty much the very minimum required to still convey information.
Tags: cheesecake, laziness, theme, working
From "That which must be said"
Posted by me on Wednesday, the 14th day of December, anno domini 2005 at 10:12 PM, local time.
It’s snowing! Itsn’t it wonderful? I love snow…. It’s so white and fluffy and purty. It makes me so happy.
I know that not everyone agrees with me, but who cares?!?! It’s snowing!
Tags: happiness, snow
From "That which must be said"
Posted by me on Wednesday, the 14th day of December, anno domini 2005 at 12:31 AM, local time.
Well, as sad as it is, I have succumbed to the pressure (mostly of the passive sort) of my peers and started a blog. Now, first, let it be said that I really never liked the word “blog,” as it seems to me a horrible corruption of English (not that English isn’t already corrupted, or is uncorruptable, but still). However, with this in mind, I do like to talk a lot about things of little to no importance, and The Blog is certainly the best venue for that sort of monologue.
So here it be.
Since I am by nature a lazy person, I can’t say for certain the frequency with which I shall be updating this site, but one hopes that it will be at least quasi-regularly.
Tags: blogging, english, laziness
From "That which must be said"
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