Hi,

Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard
to computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've
brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers,
all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the
feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other
way, once you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems,
the only thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb
stick of ram. Until the other day...

I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard
and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard
drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD
utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on
it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" -
just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to
restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do. Long
story short, this drive which I couldn't even complete any kind of
diagnostic test on previously, I was now able to load Ubuntu on, and I
used it for 3 days in a row for my usual news-gathering activities.
Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain-
dead on me.

Of course, the first thing I suspect is the HD. I shut the system
down and let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes, then checked to make sure
there's no lose connectors or the like, nothing is unusually warm, and
then unplug and replug everything (possibly the stick of ram wasn't
quite seated right, everything else seemed OK) and started it back up
- booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, I let it idle awhile then shut it down
for the day. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow may bring 8^).

Just wondering if any one had any info or thoughts on why the HD was
seemingly revived by the 'install EZbios' and 'restore track zero'
moves that I put on it, and also what I might do to make a more
effective repair to this drive, or at least a diagnostic that will
tell me if something's wrong with it - I really think it would benefit
from a low-level format but I don't have a program for that at the
moment. The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error-
free.

Thanks,
Mike

On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700, mike wrote:

Hi,

Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard to
computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've brought
home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers, all of
which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the feeling
that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other way, once
you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems, the only
thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb stick of
ram. Until the other day...

I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard and
landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard
drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD
utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on
it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" -
just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to
restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do. Long story
short, this drive which I couldn't even complete any kind of diagnostic
test on previously, I was now able to load Ubuntu on, and I used it for
3 days in a row for my usual news-gathering activities. Then, this
morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain- dead on me.

Of course, the first thing I suspect is the HD. I shut the system down
and let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes, then checked to make sure there's
no lose connectors or the like, nothing is unusually warm, and then
unplug and replug everything (possibly the stick of ram wasn't quite
seated right, everything else seemed OK) and started it back up - booted
into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, I let it idle awhile then shut it down for the
day. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow may bring 8^).

Just wondering if any one had any info or thoughts on why the HD was
seemingly revived by the 'install EZbios' and 'restore track zero' moves
that I put on it, and also what I might do to make a more effective
repair to this drive, or at least a diagnostic that will tell me if
something's wrong with it - I really think it would benefit from a
low-level format but I don't have a program for that at the moment. The
Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error- free.

Thanks,
Mike

The problems and solutions may be coincidental. There isn't much you can
do to make the repair more reliable nor are there consumer grade
diagnostics that can pinpoint problems.
I revived a 120 gig Maxtor a week ago by swapping the electronics with
an exact twin I had in the scrap box. The drive just quit. Made no noise,
platters didn't spin. Replaced the electronics board, problem solved
and friend didn't lose his OS or data.

Hi Mike,

mike wrote:
Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard
to computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've
brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers,
all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the
feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other
way, once you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems,
the only thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb
stick of ram. Until the other day...

eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard
and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard
drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD
utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on
it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" -
just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to
restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do. Long
story short, this drive which I couldn't even complete any kind of
diagnostic test on previously, I was now able to load Ubuntu on, and I
used it for 3 days in a row for my usual news-gathering activities.
Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain-
dead on me.

What machine did ou have this running in?

I think drive manufacturers cite something like 40% (? more?)
of drive returns have "No defect found". (something to keep in
mind).

The first thing I would do is move the drive to a known
*reliable* machine (perhaps on the secondary controller
or as a slave, etc.) and see how well it runs. You
may discover that the machine you were having problems
with was the problem! (bad caps, bad power supply, etc.)

Of course, the first thing I suspect is the HD. I shut the system
down and let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes, then checked to make sure
there's no lose connectors or the like, nothing is unusually warm, and
then unplug and replug everything (possibly the stick of ram wasn't
quite seated right, everything else seemed OK) and started it back up
- booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, I let it idle awhile then shut it down
for the day. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow may bring 8^).

Just wondering if any one had any info or thoughts on why the HD was
seemingly revived by the 'install EZbios' and 'restore track zero'
moves that I put on it, and also what I might do to make a more
effective repair to this drive, or at least a diagnostic that will
tell me if something's wrong with it - I really think it would benefit
from a low-level format but I don't have a program for that at the
moment. The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error-
free.

On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike
wrote:

brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers,
all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec

e-Machines are not the best quality. The power supplies and fans are
the first to go. CDROM and floppy are next. After that, the
motherboard.

I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard
and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard
drive,

Model number? Series?
The Protege series were tolerable. Protoge would last about 4 years
and blow up. The Caviar series would last perhaps 2 years and blow
up. About 1/3 of the pile is WD, mostly 40GB but some 80 and 120GB.
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/disk-drives.jpg
(New drives, boxed drives, and SCSI arrays are buried elsewhere).

Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain-
dead on me.

What does that mean? Did the drive fail, or was there some other
problem? It's highly likely that the drive failed.

- booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine,

Ummmm.... Ubuntu 10.04 is the current version.

The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error-
free.

The WD diagnostics will pronounce a failing drive to be good. What
did you expect? Fire up SmartMonTools in Ubuntu and extract the
S.M.A.R.T. statistics. You'll find one of three possible results,
depending on WD drive model:
1. Lots of errors and pronouncement of imminent failure. This is
what you get with the later drives. I don't think any of the 40GB
drives are late enough to produce an honest result.
2. Absolutely perfect drive with no errors. This is what I usually
see. WD lies on its S.M.A.R.T. stats.
3. Can't obtain S.M.A.R.T. That's what I see when someone has
juggled controller cards. I also see that when there's a controller
failure.


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558
# http://802.11junk.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

On May 28, 3:16*pm, D Yuniskis wrote:
Hi Mike,

mike wrote:
Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard
to computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've
brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers,
all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the
feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other
way, once you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems,
the only thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb
stick of ram. *Until the other day...

eMachines are... well, we won't go there! *:-/


They are made to sell at a low price point, like the Yugo.

On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike
put finger to keyboard and composed:

I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard
and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard
drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD
utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on
it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" -
just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to
restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do.

You can use MHDD to test each sector:
http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

AIUI, MHDD measures the time required to retrieve data from each block
of sectors. Any bad or weak sector will require one or more retries.
Each retry requires an additional revolution. At the end of the test
MHDD reports the number of 5ms, 15ms, 50ms, 150ms, 500ms and 500ms
blocks.

Here is a screenshot:
http://www.techmaniacs.net/files/tank_mhdd/mhdd_3.jpg

MHDD Documentation:
http://www.bandwidthco.com/whitepape...D%20Manual.pdf

EZ-bios is a disk drive overlay (DDO) which loads a small TSR program
into memory to allow a PC to overcome lack of BIOS support for LBA
mode. It was used to overcome BIOS limitations such as 528MB and
28-bit LBA (128GiB / 137GB).

EZ-bios works by overwriting the boot code in sector 0 of your HD with
its own MBR code. The remainder of the TSR code is stored within track
0.

D Yuniskis wrote:


eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.


What machine did ou have this running in?

A Franken-machine, with an Asus MB that I recently replaced some bad
caps in; all the other components have been sitting around, salvaged
from other broken systems for long enough that I no longer know what
their origin is.


I think drive manufacturers cite something like 40% (? more?)
of drive returns have "No defect found". (something to keep in
mind).

The first thing I would do is move the drive to a known
*reliable* machine (perhaps on the secondary controller
or as a slave, etc.) and see how well it runs. You
may discover that the machine you were having problems
with was the problem! (bad caps, bad power supply, etc.)

Yeah, definitely a possibility...

Thanks,
Mike

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike
wrote:


e-Machines are not the best quality. The power supplies and fans are
the first to go. CDROM and floppy are next. After that, the
motherboard.

The first one I owned had been a neighbor's that got blown up when
their incoming power lost the
nuetra at about age 3 - I replaced the PSU and the modem and used it
for another 3 years, Prior to it failing I'd noticed that some of the
caps on the MB were starting to bulge, and about six months or so
later it finally just wouldn't start one day. I'm glad to hear that
about the cd drives, I've got plenty of spares, I think even a burner
or two. Floppies in working condition are becoming much less
prevalent these days (my source always being the scrapyard, of
course


Model number? Series?

Caviar, can't get a look at the model # right at the moment, but if it
quits again I'll write it down.
The Protege series were tolerable. Protoge would last about 4 years
and blow up. The Caviar series would last perhaps 2 years and blow
up. About 1/3 of the pile is WD, mostly 40GB but some 80 and 120GB.
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/disk-drives.jpg

Wow, nice collection!

(New drives, boxed drives, and SCSI arrays are buried elsewhere).

Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain-
dead on me.

What does that mean? Did the drive fail, or was there some other
problem? It's highly likely that the drive failed.

Well, I had several browser windows open and of a sudden the bowser
was stuck viewing the last one I'd been looking at - the mouse cursor
would still move around as it should but clicking on stuff had no
effect. Couldn't close any browser windows, couldn't start up any
other programs, couldn't shutdown the machine, except by pushing and
holding down the power button.


- booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine,

Ummmm.... Ubuntu 10.04 is the current version.

I haven't tried anything newer than 9.10, after I tried and failed to
figure how to get my modem working with it I went back to 8.04, which
seems much more intuitive to me.

The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error-
free.

The WD diagnostics will pronounce a failing drive to be good. What
did you expect? Fire up SmartMonTools in Ubuntu and extract the
S.M.A.R.T. statistics. You'll find one of three possible results,
depending on WD drive model:
1. Lots of errors and pronouncement of imminent failure. This is
what you get with the later drives. I don't think any of the 40GB
drives are late enough to produce an honest result.
2. Absolutely perfect drive with no errors. This is what I usually
see. WD lies on its S.M.A.R.T. stats.
3. Can't obtain S.M.A.R.T. That's what I see when someone has
juggled controller cards. I also see that when there's a controller
failure.

Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04.

On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:18:18 -0700, mike �ʇoɹ�:

D Yuniskis wrote:


eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.

I own a 2005 eMachine, 2.0 ghz AMD Athalon64. It's now a Windows 7
machine and does its job flawlessly. Just like any other brand you need
to know what you are buying within the brand name. Being semi-retired
from the IT world now since 2008 I've seen plenty of junk out there
with Compac, HP, Sony, Toshiba badges on them. One thing you need to
understand is not many if any make 100% of their own components. So you
should not make global statements condemning the badge name without this
knowledge.

On Fri, 28 May 2010 19:04:22 -0700, Jeff Liebermann �ʇoɹ�:

e-Machines are not the best quality. The power supplies and fans are
the first to go. CDROM and floppy are next. After that, the
motherboard.

Geez you've just described about every computer out there.

2005 emachines T6216

Original power supply, Check!
Original mainboard, Check!
Original fans, Check!

LiteOn DVDRW failed year number 2. So did it's LiteOn replacement last
year.

Now have 16x16 Pioneer DVRW I bought in 2004. Still works well.

Moral of story, if you buy cheap stuff it will fail. Too bad that's
pretty much what you will find OEM-wise in this throw-away world.

On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:52:45 -0700 (PDT), mike
wrote:

The Protege series were tolerable. Protoge would last about 4 years
and blow up. The Caviar series would last perhaps 2 years and blow
up. About 1/3 of the pile is WD, mostly 40GB but some 80 and 120GB.
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/disk-drives.jpg

Wow, nice collection!

I buy piles of them from the local recyclers. Those are the ones that
work. You should see the piles and piles that didn't.

Well, I had several browser windows open and of a sudden the bowser
was stuck viewing the last one I'd been looking at - the mouse cursor
would still move around as it should but clicking on stuff had no
effect. Couldn't close any browser windows, couldn't start up any
other programs, couldn't shutdown the machine, except by pushing and
holding down the power button.

Basically, the operating system got lost. That could be anything. Bad
motherboard, flakey IDE device, flakey plug in card, or even a bad
keyboard/mouse can hang the machine. However, it also can be a bad
sector on the HD. If you can get it to boot, try scanning the HD for
bad sectors and disallocating them. Then, keep track of the number of
bad sectors on the drive. Any increase, and it's eWaste.

I haven't tried anything newer than 9.10, after I tried and failed to
figure how to get my modem working with it I went back to 8.04, which
seems much more intuitive to me.

What's a modem? Is that like dialup? I use those when desperate or
visting stone age retro enthusiasts.

Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/smartmontools

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
mike wrote:

D Yuniskis wrote:


eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.


With all the HP computers that were built with the same motherboards
and power supplies?

HP's used Bestec too? damn, that's too bad. Back in the eighties when
I worked on medical gear it seemed that HP's equipment was some of the
most robust (but of course, usually more expensive, too).


I had someone bragging about how much better his HP computer was,
than the eMachines computer sitting by my bench. I opened both. They
were both shipped with the same motherboard and power supply. The same
brand of CD-ROM drive and amount of RAM. Both had a 3.5" floppy drive.
Neither were cheap crap. He paid over twice the price of the emachines
computer for the same hardware.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

�oןd ʇ��ɯ wrote:
On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:18:18 -0700, mike �ʇoɹ�:

D Yuniskis wrote:


eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.

I own a 2005 eMachine, 2.0 ghz AMD Athalon64. It's now a Windows 7
machine and does its job flawlessly. Just like any other brand you need
to know what you are buying within the brand name.

I've yet to buy new, so I'm always stuck with whatever is already
there. However, it always cheers me to find inside a MB made by Intel
and a PSU with a name like Astec or Antec, or even John Deere, I've
had pretty good
service out those.

I bought an LG dvd burner a couple years ago from a former IT guy and
it is really phenomenal at reading dvds even when they're covered with
finger prints and scratches (like a lot of the ones at the local
library have), whereas, none of my previous burners (grand total of 2)
would be able to read 'em, at least not error free.

Being semi-retired
from the IT world now since 2008 I've seen plenty of junk out there
with Compac, HP, Sony, Toshiba badges on them. One thing you need to
understand is not many if any make 100% of their own components. So you
should not make global statements condemning the badge name without this
knowledge.

I had pretty good service with a T1742 that a neighbor gave me, it had
an Intel MB, and didn't have a Bestec PSU.
The 3 I found at the scrapyard all had failed Bestec PSU's, which
became notorious for not having a crowbar circuit to shut down the
outputs if they went over-voltage. Maybe they started using a better
PSU, the last blown up one I found was a T2862 or something like that,
I suspect a few years older than your 2005 model.

On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:55:56 -0700, mike �ʇoɹ�:

�oןd ʇ��ɯ wrote:
On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:18:18 -0700, mike �ʇoɹ�:

D Yuniskis wrote:


eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.

I own a 2005 eMachine, 2.0 ghz AMD Athalon64. It's now a Windows 7
machine and does its job flawlessly. Just like any other brand you need
to know what you are buying within the brand name.

I've yet to buy new, so I'm always stuck with whatever is already there.
However, it always cheers me to find inside a MB made by Intel and a
PSU with a name like Astec or Antec, or even John Deere, I've had pretty
good
service out those.

I bought an LG dvd burner a couple years ago from a former IT guy and
it is really phenomenal at reading dvds even when they're covered with
finger prints and scratches (like a lot of the ones at the local library
have), whereas, none of my previous burners (grand total of 2) would be
able to read 'em, at least not error free.

Being semi-retired
from the IT world now since 2008 I've seen plenty of junk out there
with Compac, HP, Sony, Toshiba badges on them. One thing you need to
understand is not many if any make 100% of their own components. So you
should not make global statements condemning the badge name without
this knowledge.

I had pretty good service with a T1742 that a neighbor gave me, it had
an Intel MB, and didn't have a Bestec PSU. The 3 I found at the
scrapyard all had failed Bestec PSU's, which became notorious for not
having a crowbar circuit to shut down the outputs if they went
over-voltage. Maybe they started using a better PSU, the last blown up
one I found was a T2862 or something like that, I suspect a few years
older than your 2005 model.

The 6212 was the first and only eMachines so far I've owned. MSI mobo,
nVidia Nforce chipset. Came with XP. I replaced the 160 gig PATA drive
with a 320 gig SATA and was just going to reinstall and keep the original
but I'll be damned if i could locate the correct chipset drivers and I'm
no neub at searching for stuff like that. I ended up cloning the 160 to
the 320 with Acronis Easy Migrate or Migrate Easy or whatever they call it
cuz it had a 15 day fully functional trial. Worked like a charm. Set the
160 on the shelf in case of catastrophic failure. Then I wanted an
external so i bought a WD 500 gig USB. The case failed after a month so
out came the drive and into the 6212 case it went. Bought Win7 a while
back, nuked XP (well Win7 nuked it) and that's what I use for some
specialized stuff. Most of the internet is on this Toshiba 1905 laptop
with Mandriva 2010 linux installed.

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:52:45 -0700 (PDT), mike
wrote:



I buy piles of them from the local recyclers. Those are the ones that
work. You should see the piles and piles that didn't.

Hmm, you must work on 'puters alot! One of my favorite places to hang
out up till a couple years ago was the local 'puter recycler - I'd go
there at least every other week and end up spending all my disposable
income for the week (all 2 dollars of it . When the bottom dropped
out of that market they had to close since none of the outfits they'd
been sending the stuff to would give them any money for it any more.
I miss that place, the guy who ran it was formerly a corporate IT
guy, they always had some kind of great deals going on.


Well, I had several browser windows open and of a sudden the bowser
was stuck viewing the last one I'd been looking at - the mouse cursor
would still move around as it should but clicking on stuff had no
effect. Couldn't close any browser windows, couldn't start up any
other programs, couldn't shutdown the machine, except by pushing and
holding down the power button.

Basically, the operating system got lost. That could be anything. Bad
motherboard, flakey IDE device, flakey plug in card, or even a bad
keyboard/mouse can hang the machine. However, it also can be a bad
sector on the HD. If you can get it to boot, try scanning the HD for
bad sectors and disallocating them. Then, keep track of the number of
bad sectors on the drive. Any increase, and it's eWaste.

OK, now I've got a couple new programs to learn, I'll be setting up a
spare-parts machine so I can dig into this
further, maybe restore some of the older pieces of hardware I've got
hanging about, or at least classify as to whether I need to hang onto
or not.

I haven't tried anything newer than 9.10, after I tried and failed to
figure how to get my modem working with it I went back to 8.04, which
seems much more intuitive to me.


What's a modem? Is that like dialup? I use those when desperate or
visting stone age retro enthusiasts.

Yeah, I know, I seem to keep slipping back into the stone age, been
that way since 1993, one step forward, etc.. There's DSL at work
so at least I'm getting a little familiar with that - kinda makes
surfing at home at 56K a bit of a drag though...

Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/smartmontools

Ah, thanks for the link!

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

I had someone bragging about how much better his HP computer was,
than the eMachines computer sitting by my bench. I opened both. They
were both shipped with the same motherboard and power supply. The same
brand of CD-ROM drive and amount of RAM. Both had a 3.5" floppy drive.
Neither were cheap crap. He paid over twice the price of the emachines
computer for the same hardware.

Hmm, I wonder when they started doing that, that's good to know! What
kind of MB's do they have?

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

On Sat, 29 May 2010 14:27:24 -0700 (PDT), mike
wrote:

Hmm, you must work on 'puters alot!

I try to avoid computahs whenever possible. However, they do pay for
my decadent and lavish lifestyle, so they're difficult to avoid.

One of my favorite places to hang
out up till a couple years ago was the local 'puter recycler

The local senior citizens group runs a recycling operation.
http://www.californiagreybears.org
http://www.californiagreybears.org/images/computer.jpg
The computer part was profitable when China was buying everything.
These days, it's borderline. There also was a recycling operation at
the local dump, but that went away about 3 years ago:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/e-waste/index.html (kinda old)
The problem is that I can't return anything for credit or refund. I
have to make an astute guess as to whether I can fix it, how much it
will cost to fix, who I could sell it to, and whether I can make a
profit on the repair. It's speculation at it's worst. My guess is
that I lose money on all the computer rebuilds, but do fairly well on
the HP printers and plotters.

OK, now I've got a couple new programs to learn,

MHDD is a good program for testing hard disks. That's one that I use
when I get a pile of drives to test. I use the "magic-boot" version.
The only catch is that I once wiped a drive by accident. Be careful
with live data.

Yeah, I know, I seem to keep slipping back into the stone age, been
that way since 1993, one step forward, etc.. There's DSL at work
so at least I'm getting a little familiar with that - kinda makes
surfing at home at 56K a bit of a drag though...

Locally, the monthly price of a DSL account is only slightly more than
a dialup. When I had the only DSL in the neighborhood, most of the
neighbors were "borrowing" my bandwidth (with my permission). You
might ask around to see who's got a cable modem (faster than DSL)
that's willing to share.

Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/smartmontools
Ah, thanks for the link!

The hard part was trying to remember the strange names of the various
distributions. 8.04 was Hardy Heron, a truly memorable name that I
can recall for about 10 minutes.


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

I had someone bragging about how much better his HP computer was,
than the eMachines computer sitting by my bench. I opened both. They
were both shipped with the same motherboard and power supply. The same
brand of CD-ROM drive and amount of RAM. Both had a 3.5" floppy drive.
Neither were cheap crap. He paid over twice the price of the emachines
computer for the same hardware.

Hmm, I wonder when they started doing that, that's good to know! What
kind of MB's do they have?

They were made by the company that started eMachines. I haven't seen
many newer HPs. (Not ones worth fixing) They similar designs were more
common between 2000-2005. I've seen more bad power supplies in HP
computers than any other brand I've worked on. When I get time, I will
log the brands and models in the 20 or so banana boxes of bad power
supplies I've pulled from computers over the last few years.




--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
I've seen more bad power supplies in HP
computers than any other brand I've worked on.

Well, HP bought Compaq, so I suppose it shouldn't
surprise me then that the PSU in that box went tits
up after about 2 years.

Jeff



--
“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
Frank Leahy, Head coach, Notre Dame 1941-1954

http://www.stay-connect.com

Hi!

I get the feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and
run the other way, once you see the 'Bestec' name

Their 230/250 watt PC power supply has no overvoltage protection
circuit. If something goes wrong, the motherboard usually gets it. I've
found that nearly everything else (optical drive, hard disk, etc) survives.

The later 300/350 watt supplies are better and do appear to have an OVP
circuit.

I think the often-highly-questionable wiring that some people have in
their homes only serves to accelerate the demise of these supplies. Some
of the wiring messes I have come across while servicing computers are
dangerous. I'm not an electrician, so I can't fix it for someone else,
but I do strongly suggest that they have it fixed ASAP.

Out of the ones I have, some of which run 24/7, I have never lost one.

As to your hard drive, perhaps they had a virus that was resident in the
MBR or a similarly difficult-to-eradicate location? Or perhaps it really
has been damaged and is not reliable.

William

Jeffrey D Angus wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
I've seen more bad power supplies in HP
computers than any other brand I've worked on.

Well, HP bought Compaq, so I suppose it shouldn't
surprise me then that the PSU in that box went tits
up after about 2 years.


I bought a new Compaq computer in 1999. It didn't make it through the
warranty because of fake low ESR electrolytics on the motherboard. I
called for a warranty repair and told them it was rebooting constantly.
They told me to make sure the video cable was connected, and if that
didn't fix it, to take it to the nearest Radio Shack store. They told me
to copy my data from the computer, but if I opened the case the warranty
was void. I told them to stuff their company up their ass and bought a
new eMachines with Windows ME. That motherboard died after five years.
The power supply was still good and went into another model emachines
that needed the same odd shaped supply. I had installed a larger hard
drive before it died. That drive, with the original install of ME is now
in the fifth motherboard and works great for scanning photos and old
manuals.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

"William R. Walsh" wrote:

Hi!

I get the feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and
run the other way, once you see the 'Bestec' name

Their 230/250 watt PC power supply has no overvoltage protection
circuit. If something goes wrong, the motherboard usually gets it. I've
found that nearly everything else (optical drive, hard disk, etc) survives.

The later 300/350 watt supplies are better and do appear to have an OVP
circuit.

I think the often-highly-questionable wiring that some people have in
their homes only serves to accelerate the demise of these supplies. Some
of the wiring messes I have come across while servicing computers are
dangerous. I'm not an electrician, so I can't fix it for someone else,
but I do strongly suggest that they have it fixed ASAP.

Out of the ones I have, some of which run 24/7, I have never lost one.

As to your hard drive, perhaps they had a virus that was resident in the
MBR or a similarly difficult-to-eradicate location? Or perhaps it really
has been damaged and is not reliable.


Sometimes you get lucky and can fix an infected drive with the
command 'fdisk /mbr'. You have to boot with an emergency startup or
diagnostics disk with a copy of fdisk. You can run the command
manually, or run it from an autoexec.bat or other .bat file.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

William R. Walsh wrote:


Their 230/250 watt PC power supply has no overvoltage protection
circuit. If something goes wrong, the motherboard usually gets it. I've
found that nearly everything else (optical drive, hard disk, etc) survives.

Huh, they're still in business? That's a surprise...

The later 300/350 watt supplies are better and do appear to have an OVP
circuit.

I think the often-highly-questionable wiring that some people have in
their homes only serves to accelerate the demise of these supplies. Some
of the wiring messes I have come across while servicing computers are
dangerous. I'm not an electrician, so I can't fix it for someone else,
but I do strongly suggest that they have it fixed ASAP.

Good point, a lot of people don't know they need electrical work until
after a problem has already cost them money.

As to your hard drive, perhaps they had a virus that was resident in the
MBR or a similarly difficult-to-eradicate location? Or perhaps it really
has been damaged and is not reliable.


Hmm, I hadn't thought to do a virus scan on it, if that's what it was
I hope it's gone.
Thanks,
Mike

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Jeffrey D Angus wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
I've seen more bad power supplies in HP
computers than any other brand I've worked on.

Well, HP bought Compaq, so I suppose it shouldn't
surprise me then that the PSU in that box went tits
up after about 2 years.


I bought a new Compaq computer in 1999. It didn't make it through the
warranty because of fake low ESR electrolytics on the motherboard. I
called for a warranty repair and told them it was rebooting constantly.
They told me to make sure the video cable was connected, and if that
didn't fix it, to take it to the nearest Radio Shack store. They told me
to copy my data from the computer, but if I opened the case the warranty
was void. I told them to stuff their company up their ass and bought a
new eMachines with Windows ME. That motherboard died after five years.
The power supply was still good and went into another model emachines
that needed the same odd shaped supply. I had installed a larger hard
drive before it died. That drive, with the original install of ME is now
in the fifth motherboard and works great for scanning photos and old
manuals.

I bought a used Compaq Evo once, I'd seen 'em in use at all kinds of
different businesses so figured they must be
'pretty good'. I had it a couple months and one day i left it powered
up while I went to do some errands. Came back after a couple hours
and immediately smelt that burned electronics smell as I walked in the
door; there was also an odd sound recurring in a steady rhythm coming
from the 'computer room'. I found that the power supply had smoked,
but didn't shut down completely, so it would bog down the UPS, then
the UPS would start to come back up and the smoked PSU would try to
start again which would again bog down the UPS - no telling how long
it did this before I got back. I immediately scrapped that effing
EVO.

The next morning when I turned on the main computer the UPS went out.
It was a shame, as it's an industrial quality NCR 1 kw unit from the
80's. Reading up on those EVO's after the fact, I came to agree with
one denizen of the web who proposed that EVO's are evil...

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Jeffrey D Angus wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
I've seen more bad power supplies in HP
computers than any other brand I've worked on.

Well, HP bought Compaq, so I suppose it shouldn't
surprise me then that the PSU in that box went tits
up after about 2 years.


I bought a new Compaq computer in 1999. It didn't make it through the
warranty because of fake low ESR electrolytics on the motherboard. I
called for a warranty repair and told them it was rebooting constantly.
They told me to make sure the video cable was connected, and if that
didn't fix it, to take it to the nearest Radio Shack store. They told me
to copy my data from the computer, but if I opened the case the warranty
was void. I told them to stuff their company up their ass and bought a
new eMachines with Windows ME. That motherboard died after five years.
The power supply was still good and went into another model emachines
that needed the same odd shaped supply. I had installed a larger hard
drive before it died. That drive, with the original install of ME is now
in the fifth motherboard and works great for scanning photos and old
manuals.

I bought a used Compaq Evo once, I'd seen 'em in use at all kinds of
different businesses so figured they must be
'pretty good'. I had it a couple months and one day i left it powered
up while I went to do some errands. Came back after a couple hours
and immediately smelt that burned electronics smell as I walked in the
door; there was also an odd sound recurring in a steady rhythm coming
from the 'computer room'. I found that the power supply had smoked,
but didn't shut down completely, so it would bog down the UPS, then
the UPS would start to come back up and the smoked PSU would try to
start again which would again bog down the UPS - no telling how long
it did this before I got back. I immediately scrapped that effing
EVO.


One of the computers I refurbished for my 'Computers for Veterans'
project was a small HP. I had everything ready, and turned it on one
last time to run Belarc Advisor to print out the system information. As
soon as I turned it on, flames shot out through the fan. I scrapped
it. In fact, I scrap more HP computers than any other brand.


The next morning when I turned on the main computer the UPS went out.
It was a shame, as it's an industrial quality NCR 1 kw unit from the
80's. Reading up on those EVO's after the fact, I came to agree with
one denizen of the web who proposed that EVO's are evil...

I get free, used UPS fairly often, all with bad or missing
batteries. One early unit had eight missing gel cells. they guy who
gave it to me took them out and didn't make a note of what was there, or
how they were wired. His excuse? "I thought all UPS used the same
batteries." The guy is a broadcast engineer. He should klnow better.
The OEM was out of business, so I have a large, heavy rack mount UPS on
the shelf waiting to be scrapped. I am thinking about turning it into a
rack mount server case.

I got another rack mount UPS the other day. It is an Alpha Ali Plus
700xl The batteries are missing. The OEM doesn't support it. They may
be 12V 7.2AH but I'm not sure. That's too bad, because I picked up a
free Dell 4350 server that I would like to put into a rack with the
UPS. I want a shop server to hold all the drivers and other programs I
use to repair computers, and to learn to administer Apache Server.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

Michael A. Terrell wrote:


One of the computers I refurbished for my 'Computers for Veterans'
project was a small HP. I had everything ready, and turned it on one
last time to run Belarc Advisor to print out the system information. As
soon as I turned it on, flames shot out through the fan. I scrapped
it. In fact, I scrap more HP computers than any other brand.

You say a small HP, was it the kind that allows only one hard drive
and one CD inside (no room for anything more )? If so, it sounds like
a re-badged EVO - seems like a lot of 'modern' mfgs. just change the
name of their crap these days, rather than fix the problem...

I get free, used UPS fairly often, all with bad or missing
batteries. One early unit had eight missing gel cells. they guy who
gave it to me took them out and didn't make a note of what was there, or
how they were wired. His excuse? "I thought all UPS used the same
batteries." The guy is a broadcast engineer. He should klnow better.
The OEM was out of business, so I have a large, heavy rack mount UPS on
the shelf waiting to be scrapped. I am thinking about turning it into a
rack mount server case.

What with the cost and low capacity of the correct replacement gel
cell battery/-ies for most UPS's, I found it works pretty good on the
higher capacity ones to make a hole in the side of the UPS and extend
the battery cables out to some wet cell deep cycle batteries (the 3
UPS's I've got all use 2 12v ones in series). Since the ones I'm
using now aren't industrial quality, I make sure the batteries are
fully charged before initially hooking them up. You need to make sure
there's good ventilation as a hydrogen gas build up could become a BIG
problem.

I got another rack mount UPS the other day. It is an Alpha Ali Plus
700xl The batteries are missing. The OEM doesn't support it. They may
be 12V 7.2AH but I'm not sure. That's too bad, because I picked up a
free Dell 4350 server that I would like to put into a rack with the
UPS. I want a shop server to hold all the drivers and other programs I
use to repair computers, and to learn to administer Apache Server.

What is the difference between a server and a 'normal computer
anyway? I've got a Compaq Proliant DL 380 rack-mounted server (no
rack to mount it in though) I've been hoping to figure out how to use
it like a PC, just out of curiosity as much as anything else.

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:


One of the computers I refurbished for my 'Computers for Veterans'
project was a small HP. I had everything ready, and turned it on one
last time to run Belarc Advisor to print out the system information. As
soon as I turned it on, flames shot out through the fan. I scrapped
it. In fact, I scrap more HP computers than any other brand.

You say a small HP, was it the kind that allows only one hard drive
and one CD inside (no room for anything more )? If so, it sounds like
a re-badged EVO - seems like a lot of 'modern' mfgs. just change the
name of their crap these days, rather than fix the problem...


No, HP construction is obvious. Their part numbers are stamped into
everything.


I get free, used UPS fairly often, all with bad or missing
batteries. One early unit had eight missing gel cells. they guy who
gave it to me took them out and didn't make a note of what was there, or
how they were wired. His excuse? "I thought all UPS used the same
batteries." The guy is a broadcast engineer. He should klnow better.
The OEM was out of business, so I have a large, heavy rack mount UPS on
the shelf waiting to be scrapped. I am thinking about turning it into a
rack mount server case.

What with the cost and low capacity of the correct replacement gel
cell battery/-ies for most UPS's, I found it works pretty good on the
higher capacity ones to make a hole in the side of the UPS and extend
the battery cables out to some wet cell deep cycle batteries (the 3
UPS's I've got all use 2 12v ones in series). Since the ones I'm
using now aren't industrial quality, I make sure the batteries are
fully charged before initially hooking them up. You need to make sure
there's good ventilation as a hydrogen gas build up could become a BIG
problem.


The battery cables would have to be 20' long to put car batteries in
a safe location.


I got another rack mount UPS the other day. It is an Alpha Ali Plus
700xl The batteries are missing. The OEM doesn't support it. They may
be 12V 7.2AH but I'm not sure. That's too bad, because I picked up a
free Dell 4350 server that I would like to put into a rack with the
UPS. I want a shop server to hold all the drivers and other programs I
use to repair computers, and to learn to administer Apache Server.

What is the difference between a server and a 'normal computer
anyway? I've got a Compaq Proliant DL 380 rack-mounted server (no
rack to mount it in though) I've been hoping to figure out how to use
it like a PC, just out of curiosity as much as anything else.


A server is designed to run 24/7, and should have at least two power
supplies. They generally have three or more hard drives for a small
RAID array. They are better built than a consumer grade computer. You
can use them as a regular computer, but it my not have a high resolution
video card. A consumer type OS may not support multiple processors.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

A server is designed to run 24/7, and should have at least two power
supplies. They generally have three or more hard drives for a small
RAID array. They are better built than a consumer grade computer. You
can use them as a regular computer, but it my not have a high resolution
video card. A consumer type OS may not support multiple processors.


Huh, I had a feeling there was a reason I wouldn't be able to do
anything with it when I bought it.
Thanks for thew info.

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

A server is designed to run 24/7, and should have at least two power
supplies. They generally have three or more hard drives for a small
RAID array. They are better built than a consumer grade computer. You
can use them as a regular computer, but it my not have a high resolution
video card. A consumer type OS may not support multiple processors.

Huh, I had a feeling there was a reason I wouldn't be able to do
anything with it when I bought it.
Thanks for the info.


Doesn't it have at least one empty slot where you can install a
better video card? You can use multiple drives without installing a
RAID driver. Don't pitch it out, if it works. Play with it. Install a
version of Linux or use it for a test bed computer. You can remove the
rack mount brackets on a lot of server cases and use them as a big
desktop computer, or you can use some scrap lumber an made a crude rack
for it. Hand it under your computer desk if it is a one or two unit
size. Be creative. If all else fails, sell it on Ebay or Craigslist.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

I buy piles of them from the local recyclers. Those are the ones that
work. You should see the piles and piles that didn't.


Damn, that can be time consuming, for sure. I'd like to compare notes
on using mhdd, but I didn't take any notes, so probably would get a
bunch of stuff wrong if I tried to recollect correctly; plus, I
discovered issues with the test machine's that I used, the 1st one I
think is a MB problem and the 2nd one a cdrom that was causing the MB
to misbehave. However, after getting familar with the program, I do
feel that it does a pretty good job of pointing out a hopeless drive.

On a slightly different subject, when I got curious about the
definition of 'low-level format', I did some googling on the subject
and checked out the Wikipedia for a bit and now I don't know whether I
even did any low-level formatting in the last few days, though I do
know that I used to in the early 80's - oh, well I guess that's
"progress' for ya.

Anyway, of the 3 hard drives that had been trashed by E-machines PSU
failures, the WD 40Gb one is still working fine ( it's in the machine
I'm posting from) so, after scanning it once and not seeing anything
suspect I figure I'll just keep using it unless it starts acting up.
Theres' also a 40 Gb Seagate that used not to be able to pass any of
the mfg's utilities which, after running a few of the operations in
mhdd now passes muster with the mfg's utilities, so I loaded ubuntu
onto it and will start using it sos I can see whether or not it's a
lasting fix. There's also an 80Gb Seagate drive which was not even
addressable by any means, and mhdd was not able to address it either
so I guess it must be totally screwed, forever, no matter what, it's
still just an inert lump...had hopes of making it ert, but so it goes
sometimes...

Thanks for the help,
Mike

Michael A. Terrell wrote:


Doesn't it have at least one empty slot where you can install a
better video card? You can use multiple drives without installing a
RAID driver. Don't pitch it out, if it works.

Oh, no, I'd never pitch anything out, (unless maybe I tripped over it
and broke a toe or somethin')

Play with it. Install a
version of Linux or use it for a test bed computer. You can remove the
rack mount brackets on a lot of server cases and use them as a big
desktop computer, or you can use some scrap lumber an made a crude rack
for it.

I guess that the main obstacle is I don't know anything about scsi;
there are no drives in the drive bay, and there's a scsi bus but I
don't know jack about scsi. I've got a 2.1 Gb scsi drive, and some
kind of scsi controller card, but just haven't spent much time looking
into it yet.

Thanks,
Mike

On Wed, 2 Jun 2010 12:24:19 -0700 (PDT), mike
wrote:

I'd like to compare notes
on using mhdd, but I didn't take any notes, so probably would get a
bunch of stuff wrong if I tried to recollect correctly;

We'll, I wouldn't mind, but there's a problem. I don't keep any
obviously defective drives and only save the paperwork on the good
drives. The ones in between are kinda arbitrary. I'll keep results
on the newer and better drives, but not on the older marginal junk.
It's really not that much of a time burner. I have several test
machines and boards, and usually let them run overnight.

However, after getting familar with the program, I do
feel that it does a pretty good job of pointing out a hopeless drive.

My rule-of-thumb is that if the diagnostic says it's bad, it's almost
certainly bad. If the diagnostic says it's good, it might be, but
might also be bad due to some reason that wasn't obvious or tested. I
once tested a drive (with a different program) that had obvious
bearing spin (very noisy), but tested good.

On a slightly different subject, when I got curious about the
definition of 'low-level format', I did some googling on the subject
and checked out the Wikipedia for a bit and now I don't know whether I
even did any low-level formatting in the last few days, though I do
know that I used to in the early 80's - oh, well I guess that's
"progress' for ya.

Low level format is usually done by the factory, and never again. It's
places the sector numbers and servo tracks on the platter. There are
programs that plug into the diagnstic port of the drive that will
recreate the sector numbers, bios preload area, diagnostic tracks, and
landing zone allocation, but not the servo tracks. If the drive seems
to require a new primary format, give up now.

Hint: I have a 15 year old Conner CP1060S 1GB drive sitting in my SCO
Unix 3.2v4.2 server. It's been running continuously since about
1995(?). Three mother boards (486DX2/66), one video card, and one
Wangtek tape controller card have blown up during this time. The
secret to long HD life is leave it running all the time and protect it
from power and static electricity glitches. I have other servers that
have done almost as well, but this one is my oldest.



--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:43:41 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Hint: I have a 15 year old Conner CP1060S 1GB drive sitting in my SCO
Unix 3.2v4.2 server. It's been running continuously since about
1995(?). Three mother boards (486DX2/66), one video card, and one
Wangtek tape controller card have blown up during this time. The
secret to long HD life is leave it running all the time and protect it
from power and static electricity glitches. ...

ditto for heat.

I've had setups where I've had drives run hot; however I know they can't be
expected to last 4 years under such conditions and that they not for storing
anything of value. For example, I have 3 WD raptors in a raid-0 configuration
burning away at 50-55 degC in my desktop. I don't give a **** because all they
have on them is the OS, applications, and temporary video work files. Anything
of value is on a seperate file server which is designed for the task and
runs very cool with both onsite and offsite backups.

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Doesn't it have at least one empty slot where you can install a
better video card? You can use multiple drives without installing a
RAID driver. Don't pitch it out, if it works.

Oh, no, I'd never pitch anything out, (unless maybe I tripped over it
and broke a toe or somethin')

Play with it. Install a
version of Linux or use it for a test bed computer. You can remove the
rack mount brackets on a lot of server cases and use them as a big
desktop computer, or you can use some scrap lumber an made a crude rack
for it.

I guess that the main obstacle is I don't know anything about scsi;
there are no drives in the drive bay, and there's a scsi bus but I
don't know jack about scsi. I've got a 2.1 Gb scsi drive, and some
kind of scsi controller card, but just haven't spent much time looking
into it yet.

Thanks,
Mike


Then stick an IDE or SATA controller card in there. They don't have
to run SCSI drives. You may have to change some settings in the BIOS,
but that isn't difficult.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
m...

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Doesn't it have at least one empty slot where you can install a
better video card? You can use multiple drives without installing a
RAID driver. Don't pitch it out, if it works.

Oh, no, I'd never pitch anything out, (unless maybe I tripped over it
and broke a toe or somethin')

Play with it. Install a
version of Linux or use it for a test bed computer. You can remove the
rack mount brackets on a lot of server cases and use them as a big
desktop computer, or you can use some scrap lumber an made a crude rack
for it.

I guess that the main obstacle is I don't know anything about scsi;
there are no drives in the drive bay, and there's a scsi bus but I
don't know jack about scsi. I've got a 2.1 Gb scsi drive, and some
kind of scsi controller card, but just haven't spent much time looking
into it yet.

Thanks,
Mike


Then stick an IDE or SATA controller card in there. They don't have
to run SCSI drives. You may have to change some settings in the BIOS,
but that isn't difficult.


Or Just throw a scsi drive in there and play around with it. They're not
that complicated. Don't run away from something just because you don't know
how it works. Use it as an opportunity to broden your knowledge.

Mike

Michael Kennedy wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
m...

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Doesn't it have at least one empty slot where you can install a
better video card? You can use multiple drives without installing a
RAID driver. Don't pitch it out, if it works.

Oh, no, I'd never pitch anything out, (unless maybe I tripped over it
and broke a toe or somethin')

Play with it. Install a
version of Linux or use it for a test bed computer. You can remove the
rack mount brackets on a lot of server cases and use them as a big
desktop computer, or you can use some scrap lumber an made a crude rack
for it.

I guess that the main obstacle is I don't know anything about scsi;
there are no drives in the drive bay, and there's a scsi bus but I
don't know jack about scsi. I've got a 2.1 Gb scsi drive, and some
kind of scsi controller card, but just haven't spent much time looking
into it yet.

Thanks,
Mike


Then stick an IDE or SATA controller card in there. They don't have
to run SCSI drives. You may have to change some settings in the BIOS,
but that isn't difficult.

Or Just throw a scsi drive in there and play around with it. They're not
that complicated. Don't run away from something just because you don't know
how it works. Use it as an opportunity to broden your knowledge.


He didn't say what type of SCSI drive he needed. He may be missing
the trays to hold a SCSI drive, as well. I was just offering a way to
get it running, if everything else was good. The used Dell Power Edge
4350 I picked up for free last week works, and had three 36 G hard
drives and a gig of RAM. The OS had been wiped, but I plan on using it
as an Apache and Leafnode server. I installed Win 2000 to test the
hardware, but I won't be using that OS.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
m...

Michael Kennedy wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
m...

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Doesn't it have at least one empty slot where you can install a
better video card? You can use multiple drives without installing a
RAID driver. Don't pitch it out, if it works.

Oh, no, I'd never pitch anything out, (unless maybe I tripped over it
and broke a toe or somethin')

Play with it. Install a
version of Linux or use it for a test bed computer. You can remove
the
rack mount brackets on a lot of server cases and use them as a big
desktop computer, or you can use some scrap lumber an made a crude
rack
for it.

I guess that the main obstacle is I don't know anything about scsi;
there are no drives in the drive bay, and there's a scsi bus but I
don't know jack about scsi. I've got a 2.1 Gb scsi drive, and some
kind of scsi controller card, but just haven't spent much time looking
into it yet.

Thanks,
Mike


Then stick an IDE or SATA controller card in there. They don't have
to run SCSI drives. You may have to change some settings in the BIOS,
but that isn't difficult.

Or Just throw a scsi drive in there and play around with it. They're not
that complicated. Don't run away from something just because you don't
know
how it works. Use it as an opportunity to broden your knowledge.


He didn't say what type of SCSI drive he needed. He may be missing
the trays to hold a SCSI drive, as well. I was just offering a way to
get it running, if everything else was good. The used Dell Power Edge
4350 I picked up for free last week works, and had three 36 G hard
drives and a gig of RAM. The OS had been wiped, but I plan on using it
as an Apache and Leafnode server. I installed Win 2000 to test the
hardware, but I won't be using that OS.



Good point. I forgot that servers have those trays to hold the hdd's..
I've been out of the PC game going on 2 years now. I really miss working on
anything. Time for a job change. My passion is building and repairing
things. When I finally get back to Florida maybe I can.

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:





Then stick an IDE or SATA controller card in there. They don't have
to run SCSI drives. You may have to change some settings in the BIOS,
but that isn't difficult.

Excellent idea, guess I was suffering from some mental blockage; it
would just take some creative cable routing to get to the drive bays.
I was just looking at it and now recall that I'd figured the memory in
it justified the cost of it even if it didn't run, but it does start
up and I've looked around in the bios a little bit. However, it only
has one processor installed, which is a PIII-S SL5PU. Kind a doubt
that it's available any more, guess I'll have to check the docs and
see what kind of processors will work in it.

Michael Kennedy wrote:


Or Just throw a scsi drive in there and play around with it. They're not
that complicated. Don't run away from something just because you don't know
how it works. Use it as an opportunity to broaden your knowledge.

Mike

The scsi I have has a different connector than the ones in the drive
bay. It has a cdrom (it's kind of odd, looks like a laptop cd-drive)
that has a connector that's the same as well as a back-plane
connector that would fit it,

Thanks for the suggestions, I guess I was in need of a push to get
around to doing something with it.

Another Mike

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

He didn't say what type of SCSI drive he needed. He may be missing
the trays to hold a SCSI drive, as well. I was just offering a way to
get it running, if everything else was good. The used Dell Power Edge
4350 I picked up for free last week works, and had three 36 G hard
drives and a gig of RAM. The OS had been wiped, but I plan on using it
as an Apache and Leafnode server. I installed Win 2000 to test the
hardware, but I won't be using that OS.

You scored big time for sure. The Proliant came with 512 Mb, and
trays that say '36.4 Gb 10K Ultra Scsi'. Unfortunately all the trays
are empty
The connector that the drives plug into are wider than the one on the
scsi drive I've got.

Thanks for the ideas,
Mike