A 'puter in your shop?

[Silvan]

Not really the other way around. I just wasn't quite clear. The power supply got hot enough to fry an egg on. I mean that thing was *hot*. I'd say not much below the temperature at which the paint would have cooked off.

I have no idea if the CPU would have kept going without that fan or not, but I was glad it had one. That box still runs. It's been a diskless workstation for a couple years now. Sort of like that thead about the old tools that just refuse to die. :)

Or a winter day. It's probably hot. My pathetic little ancient 1 GHz puts out enough heat to keep this room about 10-15 F warmer than the rest of the house all year round. I especially notice this in the summer, when the central air just doesn't seem to be doing anything for me out here.

[mrdancer]

Sound is a pretty subjective thing when it comes to computer systems. For most folks, integrated sound, or a $15 soundcard would suffice. For most of us geeks, a $50 - $200 soundcard would suffice. For the sound engineers, they need a professional soundcard, like Echo, Lynx, Roland, etc. Knowing that it takes a $500 set of computer speakers to match a $100 soundcard, I think you're pretty safe. =)

Yeah. Actually, I can't build a machine to match the price of the cheapest retail machines, unless I lost all my scruples and used the cheapest parts I could find. But I would never do something like that. Even my 'cheap' computers have quality parts.

KVM switches are getting pretty cheap. You can hook up four computers to one keyboard, mouse and monitor for less than $100:

[mrdancer]

I open up dead ones all the time - they have some cool magnets inside 'em! :þ

[Mike in Mystic]

Actually, I run just one box, but with 2 monitors (a 20" LCD and 19" CRT at the moment). I was thinking of running a third monitor with a second PC for less intensive applications (word processing, email, internet browsing, etc.).

You're right about the low end systems being tough to match cost-wise - that's why I was pretty stoked about the system I bought. Parted out it would run about $3000. Retail normally would put it at about $4500, but I got it for right at $3300, so I feel pretty good about it.

Do you build systems for a living or part-time work? Sounds like fun. Building 12 rigs in a year, if just for yourself or friends, sounds pretty ambitious. Have you tried any cryogenic or other super-cooling equipment?

or

>>>

[Greg G.]

Everyone's a comedian... You are not allowed to open working drives that might be sent back for warranty repairs or those that you want to remain working. Yea, there is some interesting hardware inside. I have stacks of dead hard and floppy drives. Used to repair computers for Forcecom / military. I use the stepper motors, rails, and magnets in projects.

Greg G.

[mrdancer]

I build them just part-time, mostly a hobby. For a typical system (sans KVM), I can order the parts from newegg.com, get them via FedEx in about 4-5 days, put together the system in a few hours, then add software. Adding software takes the longest time. :(

When you build them frequently, it's easier to keep up with what works well together. After building 5 or 10 machines, I usually have enough scrap parts to put together a Frankenstein machine. :-)

The most ambitious I've gotten cooling-wise is building a water-cooled system a coupla years ago. It worked very well, but made it a hassle to move the computer around. Air coolers have advanced enough lately that watercooling only really pays off w/ extreme overclocking (as does cryogenic cooling).

Some decent air coolers available now are the SP97 from ThermalRight

with incorporated heat tubes, and Swiftech's new MCX462-V 'm using a few coolers just a few steps below those. They are ThermalRight's SLK-900 w/ 92mm fan and Alpha's PAL8045T. Vantec Aeroflows make for good cheap coolers, but some of their TMD fans can be noisy.

All of these are plenty good enough to overclock an AMD 1.83Ghz (Barton

2500) at levels equivalent to a P4 3.2Ghz chip. Just gotta up the vcore a little..... :þ

[Silvan]

I got gypped. I have an old, original (non-MMX) Pentium 166 in a mobo that can run the CPU at up to 200 MHz. I figured I'd give that a shot, so I cranked it up. It wouldn't boot. I tried some in between speed too, maybe

180 MHz or so, and had the same result. So it's still running at 166.

[Silvan]

They're really hard to open too. We took one apart for the hell of it, and it was really challenging.

For the next one that died, I came up with a neat idea though. Worried about people recovering personal data off your crashed hard drive? Cut the sucker in half with a metal-cutting bandsaw! :)

[Nova]

Nope, they are hermetically sealed and filled with an inert gas. See:

Novak Buffalo, NY - USA (Remove "SPAM" from email address to reply)

[Greg G.]

referring to. Perhaps you should read your own posted PDF. To quote from page 2, top:

"While some OEMs tout magnetic hard disc technology as ?sealed?, it is sealed from a contamination perspective, but not sealed from a humidity perspective. Air is allowed to exchange through a breather filter to accommodate pressure changes due to thermal and atmospheric pressure variations."

The PDF you refer to is for a specific vendor's new line of particularly high-end ($$) drives, not the common $100 hard drive found in your 5 year old PC. Additionally, I have disassembled dozens of these things for data recovery and disposal, in addition to using parts from the internals. So far, they have ALL been vented.

Not to be difficult...

Greg G.

[Greg]

I have a Western Digital Caviar with a .380 cal dent in it. I really expected a hole.

[Silvan]

LOL! You'll shoot your eye out, kid!

[Mark]

No Kidding??

I guess they really are bullet proof. (I have 3 WDCs, So far they haven't let me down.)

[Greg]

They may be bullet proof but this is the second one that has not held data for me. One was less than a week old. This one came from a guy on Ebay and may have been bad when I bought it. Both failed the same way. Won't come ready and get stuck in a recalibrate. The new one had an error that was well documented on the web site. I got my money back.

[Dave Mundt]

Greetings and Salutations. Many interesting suggestions here, so I thought I would toss in one more. Consider picking up a tablet computer. slightly older models are pretty inexpensive, and, most of them will live happily in a dusty environment without complaint. It is also possible to get them "hardened" and designed for use in an industrial environment, which, I suspect, is harder on them than ANY home shop would be. Regards Dave Mundt

[Greg G.]

I've had less than satisfactory results from some of them as well. Never had a Maxtor drive fail, some of the are 8 years old, but 30% of the WD drives I have installed have failed within 2 years. Maybe it's the humidity here in the South...

Greg G.

[Larry Blanchard]

FWIW, I've also had no problems with any of several Maxtor drives I've had. To the point that when I buy an upgrade drive, I always get a Maxtor.

[Rejnold Byzio]

"Silvan" :

Ever heard of dust explosions?

[Charlie Self]

Rejnold Byzio responds:

How is that relevant? Dust explosions in hobby woodshops are pretty much non-existent. I've never seen a citation that proves a dust accumulation was the cause of any such explosion. Vapors from finishes and glues, yes, but dust, no.

Charlie Self If God had wanted me to touch my toes he would have put them higher on my body.

[Andy Dingley]

There have been a few. The _classic_ one is to throw a shovelful of MDF router dust onto a woodstove. I'll light a pile of it, or I'll throw a wrapped newspaper of it in there, but I'll not tip it in gradually from a shovel.

Another one is vacuuming the workshop with a cleaner that has sparky motor brushes.

It's true enough that you'll not get a static electricity dust explosion from a DC, because the spark energy doesn't reach the ignition energy of the dust, but there are plenty of ignition sources around that are capable.

-- Do whales have krillfiles ?