[conspire] & now ive gone nuts + 64x2

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bruce Coston (jane_ikari at yahoo.com):

> Actually , I'm responding to your explanation in Dec. and the fact its
> still down. - Hope alls well at your place.

Ah.  The post in December was about debugging a hardware problem in the
_candidate_ server, a slightly less ancient VA Linux Systems 2230 box
with 1.5 GB RAM.  It turned out that 2/3 of that RAM was subtly
defective -- and I got to the bottom of _that_ problem late last year.
However, that had nothing to do with BALE.

Truth to tell, even the ancient VA Research model 500 (PIII/500, 256MB
RAM, 2 x 9GB SCSI HDs) that runs this site would still suffice if
Karsten and I were not both GNU screen addicts.  We're both in the habit
of leaving multiple screen sessions running, which chews up a fair
amount of that 256 MB system RAM, and occasionally starves other things.


> Bought the 64x2 3800+ amd cpu w m/board combo at Fry's for $90 and the
> x-y = $99 for 2g of 667 ddr2 ram. 

Coolio.  Here's something that you're well advised to try on new-ish
CPUs, preferably before buying:

Boot a Linux live CD, then check the CPU flags line in /proc/cpuinfo.
We're checking for two things:  (1) x86_64 support.  (2) virtualisation 
support. 

The virtualisation information won't be accurate unless your kernel
revision is at least 2.6.15 for Intel CPUs,or 2.6.16 for AMD ones.

o  Flag "lm" (long mode" proves that the CPU is x86_64-capable.
o  Flag "vmx" on Intel CPUs or "svm" on AMD CPus proves full virtualisation.

Full hardware support for (Xen, KVM) virtualisation requires that the
CPU support the "VT" instruction extensions on Intel, or the equivalent
"SVM" (aka "AMD-V") extensions on AMD.

In 2007, I would not buy an x86 CPU failing either of those two
criteria.  That is, I'd made sure /proc/cpuinfo showed _both_ "lm" and
also either "vmx" or "svm".

> Guess I'll finally do emulation for my w98 legacies. Looks like the
> am2 socket version of cpu for this ecs 6100sm-m m/b wants ram one
> level slower than 667 - how likely will this cause trouble ?

If in doubt, I'd ask the guys at http://www.satech.com/ .

> If I do both optical and hd on the only ide connector will it likely
> work ? 

Yes.

> Will the funny interface material on the included heat sink /fan
> really work out ok now that i mounted it, it was easy ?

Sorry, can't parse that.  Be careful about any thermal-coupling goo or
sheets between the CPU and heat sink:  You want a very thin layer with
maximal surface contact to both pieces.  Screw that up, and the CPU can
literally char itself.