…that I may have taken step 19 a little too seriously… :)

The parts for my new server, as well as the new power supply for my desktop PC all arrived last week… and there was much rejoicing and much tinkering… Well, rejoicing might not be eitirely correct… there was rejoicing… the frustration… then confusion… then gnashing of teeth and harsh words… then deep breaths… then realization… then more rejoicing…

Long stroy short, I ran into a few problems with both installs…

With the new server, the issues were mainly due to what I consider some rather poor documentation on several of the parts manufacturers…

After getting the new PC completely assembled I tried to power it on… I say tried, ’cause, frankly, it didn’t… power on that is… or maybe it did, but then powered itself right back off again… I don’t quite remember… Anyway, I did some searching and finally discovered that I needed to change a jumper on the motherboard from the default setting (FSB multiplier of 133) to a different setting (FSB Multiplier of 166) to work with my processor…

After that change, things got a little better… I got the system up, installed Fedora Core 3, and all seemed well… I say seemed because, I would discover, all was not well… After heading to be that night, I noticed, about 10 minutes after I turned out the lights, that BAM, the PC had powered itself off… I did some more testing the next evening and sometime it would come on and run, some times it would only power on for a few seconds… sometimes I had to pull the plug to reset it before it would come up again…

My gut told me it was a memory issue, and I was beginning to think I’d gotten some bad DIMMs when I discovered a post on the forums for the manufacturer saying that for this particular brand, you needed to change the DIMM voltage in the bios to 2.7 volts… I checked, and mine was defaulting to 2.5…

After making that change not only did things say on, but things speeded up as well…

I’m happy to report that, at this point, the new server (I’ve christened it “Niflheim” after the mythological norse realm of ice and cold) is up and running… and currently serving this web page to you… :)

My desktop PC is another matter… I was expecting the power supply replacement to be fairly cut and dry… he…he…he… right… :)

Swapping out the parts was pretty easy… I mean, heck, you unplug things, unscrew 4 screws, swap it around, and BAM, done…

I also decided to swap out the heatsink and fan on the chipset because the stock one had become clogged with dust and would no longer spin… That was a litte frustrating because of the proximity of the chipset heatsink to some other components, but it wasn’t too bad, all in all…

The chipset heatsink had some old, cheap looking thermal compound on it, so I cleaned that off and replaced it with some of the good stuff… For a long time, I thought this step was my undoing…

After getting everything back together, I tried to power the PC back on… again, I say tried because it didn’t… power on that is…

When I flipped the switch on the power supply, the lights on the MB glowed and all looked well… when I hit the power button, again, lights came on, drive spun up… but no video and now bios beep… hmmmmm….

I thought first it was a video card issue, so I borrowed one from work and swapped it out… still nothing…

Then I began to worry that I had seriously messed something up replacing the chipset heatsink… I popped it off and noticed that the thermal goop had oozed out and onto the motherboard… I don’t think the stuff is electrically conductive, but I wasn’t sure… Anyway, I cleaned that up and put the heatsink back on… still nothing…

I disconnected everything but the bare essentials… still nothing…

I finally, at that point, decided I had somehow killed the motherboard… so I did a little searching and found a new one that looked pretty cool and only moderately streatched my budget beyond what I wanted to spend on this project…

So, in preparation for that, I pulled everything out of the case and decided to do a bit more tinkering… I pulled the motherboard out, and decided to pull of the processor too and make sure everything was well there… When I did I noticed that the old thermal goop was more rocky than goopy… So I cleaned that off, and put everything back together nicely… Just for kicks then, I hooked power and the other essentials to the board outside of the case and powered it on… and, low and behold, it worked… Apparently, when I pulled the power supply, I must have nudged the processor heatsink just enough to make the processor not make a good connection…

Sooooo… Now I had a delima… Do I just put everything back together and send the new stuff back when it arrives? Probably the frugal thing to do, and probably what I should have done… but, it just didn’t feel right…

So I decided to go the other way… I ordered a new processor to go with the new motherboard… So, here’s the current, newly revised plan:

• Old motherboard and processor go in spare case (from Whei’s exploding PC of death in the preceeding post) along with the old power supply, 2 spare TV tuner cards, and the video card out of my old server (once Scott gets the new box configured as a backup MX for techie.net)
• Desktop case gets modified so that the powersupply will mount in the correct direction… Why the case manufacturer decided to mount it upside down I have no idea.
• New motherboard and processor go in the new case, along with the new power supply and all the old pieces and parts that were formally in there…
• Desktop gets a nice fresh install of Windows XP SP2
• The other PC gets a nice fresh install of Fedore Core 3 and with some luck and, I’m sure, and lot of tinkering and gnashing of teeth and harsh words, will become a MythTV box…

So yeah… that’s about where things stand computing wise…

Actually, one thing that is kind of neat, is that, for the past week, I’ve been using the new server as my primary desktop… and I must say, since the last time I tried linux as a desktop, things have come a long way… I mean, I was actually able to change the resolution of my screen and get the sound working without consulting a single man page or doing a single google search… :)

Anyway, that’s enough rambling for now… maybe soon I’ll have a post that’s not all about computer crap… :)