[conspire] Last Year's Supercomputer

[Rick Moen]

[No offence intended to the good folks at SVLUG, but I'm not
continuing your cross-post to svlug at lists.svlug.org .]

Quoting Mark S Bilk (mark at cosmicpenguin.com):

> Seduced by the Friday Fry's ad, I'm planning to spend 
> my last $300 on upgrading my pentium 133MHz/64MB computer....

Yeah, it's time, isn't it?  ;->

> Below is a list of the pieces I've chosen (Fry's prices good 
> through Tuesday 6/10).

You know, they're been offering some good deals.  Bear in mind that it's
difficult to even approach whole-system pricing when assembling a system
from parts, though.  I like to do the latter because I can control parts 
selection and quality, but am aware there's a substantial premium.

> One problem is no memory ECC.  ECC adds little to the cost 
> of the memory sticks, but only the $180+ motherboards support 
> error checking, adding about $160.

Well, the good news is that Linux, like Unixes generally, will tell you
very clearly that you have a RAM-defect problem through continual SIG 11
errors and segfaults.  If you know what that means, then you use
memtest86 to confirm your suspicions, and then you swap out the
offending stick.  Because Linux has this (sort of) built-in RAM-defect
alarm system, I don't consider it cost-effective for that OS.  The
systems that get benefit from it are those that run Win32 operating
systems or Novell NetWare, because, on those, you might not know you
have bad RAM until you've corrupted a few months' worth of data on your
backup tapes, which is a _very_ unhappy situation.

> $100 AMD Athlon XP 2400+ CPU 1.93GHz, 266Mhz bus, 
>      128KB L1 cache, 256KB L2 cache.

God knows this is a fast enough CPU, and then some.  I'm sure you know
that Linux is _not_ a CPU-intensive operating system, and for general
computing purposes, I'm still perfectly happy with my PII and K6 systems.  
The general run of Intel-style hardware tends to be system-limited in
other areas like RAM, I/O, video speed, and mass storage much more than
it is CPU-bound, because the units are system-tuned to match the heavy
CPU demand of Microsoft OSes.

>      ECS K7S5A Pro motherboard, SiS 735 chipset
>      http://www.ecsusa.com/products/k7s5a_pro.html
>      5 PCI, 2 DDR -- total 1GB RAM, 266 MHz FSB, AC'97 sound, 
>      10/100 NIC, 4 USB 2.0, UDMA 100 IDE, 4X AGP.  

What stands out to me about this is the 266 MHz front-side bus (memory
bus).  There are much, much faster memory buses available.  I remember 
recently seeing at _least_ 800 MHz buses.  No idea what sort of price
premium applies for that and the matching RAM, but traditionally that's
been where the biggest difference in effective computing performance has 
occurred over the last decade -- that and video performance.

Note that your system doesn't have a lot of RAM sockets.  You'll want to
select carefully whatever RAM you put in them, because expansion may
be problematic.

The four USB 2.0 sockets are a nice touch.

The built-in ethernet is a RealTek RTL8201BL.  For that, I believe
you'll use the 8139too driver, though that's just a guess off the top of
my head.  RealTek chipsets aren't great, in general, but they're OK.

The sound chipset is not known to me:  C-Media CMI9738/4CH AC'97 CODEC 
You may or may not have an easy time with that.

>   50 512MB 266MHz DDR memory stick (guessing on Fry's price)
>      http://www.pricewatch.com/

I personally don't feel happy with Fry's RAM.  I'd get RAM (and CPU, for
that matter) from SA Technology, www.satech.com .

>   21 Tekram DC-315U Ultra-SCSI/SCSI-2 controller PCI card
>      with internal and external connectors.

Very nice.

>   67 Power supply - PC Power & Cooling 
>      Turbo-Cool 350ATX/ATX12V noise 42dB(A), or
>      Silencer 275 ATX/ATX12V noise 34dB(a)
>      http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com
>      Can these be bought locally?

Yes.  Excellent choices, and your motherboard & hard drive will thank
you.  Central Computer, Santa Clara.

>   ?? Case
>      Will a current ATX motherboard and power supply fit in a 
>      1997 ATX case?

Yeah, probably.  I'd use a tower case for heat dissipation, but that's
me.

> or   
>   60 Enermax case and 330W power supply, four 5" & five 3" bays

I'd want the PC Power & Cooling power supply.  

Some people become real case-selection fetishists.  To date, I haven't
cared much as long as it's big and has lots of room:  The open space and
the quantity of metal helps conduct and radiate heat.  The two things
that tend to cause early parts failure are heat buildup and/or stressed
power supplies.  By going with PC Power & Cooling for the power supply,
you've prevented the latter problem and helped fix the heat problem,
too, but a careful choice of system case will also help.  

Of late, I've also been won over by the argument that you can make a
huge difference in ambient noise through careful system design.  Some
cases and fans help; others hurt.

>   20 (after rebate) Pacific Digital Mach52 CD-RW 52x24x52 IDE
>      http://www.pacificdigitalcorp.com/products/522452ide.htm

Gee, I wouldn't.  I'd get a SCSI CD-RW from Ricoh, Yamaha, or Toshiba.
Yes, I know I'm a notorious SCSI bigot.  However, I keep reading
people's complaints about their entire systems freezing up just because
of a media problem during CD burns.  This is because of the way the
ide-scsi shim driver operates:  If it has a problem while in
I/O-addressing mode, your operating state is toast.  (Also, software
setup for SCSI burners is dead-easy.)

>    8 50 CD-R blanks, 52X, GQ brand
>      Are these reliable? 

God only knows.  But blanks are so cheap, who cares?

> Various AGP 4X video cards are available for $25, but for now 
> I'll keep the RIVA TNT PCI card with the fan blowing on it.  
> Is AGP 4X faster than PCI anyhow?

As always, it depends on what you're doing.  Obviously, you're not one
of those 3D gamer guys, or you'd have said other things entirely.  ;->

Me, I'd probably just look around for a used Matrox G400 AGP.  But I
don't do anything video-intensive.  (There's nothing wrong with your
RIVA TNT, thougn.)

-- 
Cheers,                            Ceterum censeo, Caldera delenda est.
Rick Moen
rick at linuxmafia.com