From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Thu Dec  1 04:19:13 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:27 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Seagate ST650211CF (ST1 5GB CFlash) 1" Hard Drive
Message-ID: <1133428753.5126.7.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

Seagate's 1" hard drive in 50-pin CFlash Type II format, available from
Computer Geeks for $99:  
  http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ST650211CF&cat=FLM  

I picked up one of these for some stuff I'm doing at work.  Sadly
enough, it doesn't work well with some of my XP Pro and XP Embedded
systems.  I tried an assortment of hardware, and it's clear it's more of
an OS support issue -- loading the HP CFlash software for Windows seem
to fix it on some of the hardware.

But I came home and popped the sucker into my $18 Floppy+9-in-1 reader
drive on my Linux system and _bam_!  Not only did a cool looking hard
drive with USB symbol icon labeled "5.0G Removable Media" pop up on my
GNOME 2.8 desktop (Fedora Core 3/x86-64), but an empty window with
"4.6GiB available" as well.

It is a fat32 filesystem (which can be confirmed a number of ways in
Linux -- both GUI and CLI), the device was auto-assigned /dev/sdc (no
partitions -- just one partition).  I can just right click / umount on
the icon on the desktop to safely remove the device (without having to
go through any multiple menus like Windows makes me from the taskbar).
[ And as always, eject/umount from the command-line do the same too. ]


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Thu Dec  1 11:48:35 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:27 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Review of new Geforce 6150-based motherboard
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19A2@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2626
A review of the Asus A8N-VM CSM, one of the first motherboards to use
nVidia's integrated 6150 chipset.
 
-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Thu Dec  1 12:49:23 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:27 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] 6-pin SSI EEB WS and 6-pin PCIe Power are NOT the same
	(and can destroy hardware!)
Message-ID: <1133459363.5126.33.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

Same on the PCI-Express working group!  This is the _stupidiest_ (and
_most_avoidable_) thing I've ever seen!
  http://thebs413.blogspot.com/2005/11/6-pin-ssi-eeb-ws-and-6-pin-pcie-power.html   

They should have keyed differently!


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Thu Dec  1 14:23:54 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:27 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] 6-pin SSI EEB WS and 6-pin PCIe Power are NOT the
	same(and can destroy hardware!)
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19A6@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

> Same on the PCI-Express working group!  This is the _stupidest_ (and
> _most_avoidable_) thing I've ever seen!

<smacks forehead>

I wonder if anyone has made something go *boom* because of this?

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Thu Dec  1 16:34:02 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] 6-pin SSI EEB WS and 6-pin PCIe Power are NOT the
	same(and can destroy hardware!)
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19A6@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <20051201213402.67597.qmail@web34115.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> <smacks forehead>
> I wonder if anyone has made something go *boom* because of
> this?

Probably not too many until just recently.  For the most
part, most mainboards that needed the SSI EEB WS connector
were using EPS12V power supplies which had it.

But now that there are these "universal" EPS12V/ATX12V 2.0
power supplies, it is probably damn easy to do!  Especially
as the PCIe connector is becoming commonplace.

Stupid PCI SWG!  They should have known _better_ than to
reuse the exact, same configuration that the SSI was already
using.  I still can't believe they didn't key it
differently?!?!?!

In reality, it's probably not deadly to plug the SSI EEB WS
connector into a PCIe.  It only delivers +3.3V to lines that
want +12V and attempts a +12V to GND.

But going the opposite, a PCIe into the SSI EEB WS, is going
to try to deliver +12V to the +3.3V lines, and utterly blow
the mainboard -- as in the case of the Tyan.




-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Thu Dec  1 17:39:07 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] PCI audio card recommendations?
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19B9@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

Anyone have any recommendations for a PCI audio card that supports
hardware-accelerated 3d sound and low CPU usage?  Thanks.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Thu Dec  1 17:39:19 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] 6-pin SSI EEB WS and 6-pin PCIe Power are NOT
	thesame(and can destroy hardware!)
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19BA@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

> Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> > I wonder if anyone has made something go *boom* because of
> > this?
> 
> Probably not too many until just recently.  For the most
> part, most mainboards that needed the SSI EEB WS connector
> were using EPS12V power supplies which had it.

Care to give a quick explanation of what the SSI EEB WS is for?

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Thu Dec  1 19:18:34 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] 6-pin SSI EEB WS and 6-pin PCIe Power are NOT
	thesame(and can destroy hardware!)
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19BA@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <20051202001834.25725.qmail@web34113.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> Care to give a quick explanation of what the SSI EEB WS is
> for?

If you blog it, they will come ... (i.e., I updated the entry
with such):  
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/2005/11/6-pin-ssi-eeb-ws-and-6-pin-pcie-power.html



-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Thu Dec  1 19:32:54 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] PCI audio card recommendations? -- SB0350 Audigy 2 ZS
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19B9@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <20051202003254.72703.qmail@web34109.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> Anyone have any recommendations for a PCI audio card that
> supports hardware-accelerated 3d sound and low CPU usage?
> Thanks.

Continued, personal experience over the last year causes me
to highly recommend the Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS. 
The SB0350 (stock Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS) can be
had for $50 and it's worth every penny IMHO.  I see there is
a new "value" version for SB0400, but I can't attest to how
good it is.

The SB0350 works in Linux perfectly with the Emu10k1 driver,
including _all_ the goodies (including 3D spatial audio).

BTW, I have two of the Platnium versions with the 5.25" bay. 
I actually paid under $100 for both of them after rebate (one
was only $129.99 out-the-door before rebate), both last year
and mid this year.  It's all about timing your purchase ;-).


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From jasonb at edseek.com  Thu Dec  1 21:25:20 2005
From: jasonb at edseek.com (Jason Boxman)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] PCI audio card recommendations? -- SB0350 Audigy 2 ZS
In-Reply-To: <20051202003254.72703.qmail@web34109.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20051202003254.72703.qmail@web34109.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200512012125.20505.jasonb@edseek.com>

On Thursday 01 December 2005 19:32, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> > Anyone have any recommendations for a PCI audio card that
> > supports hardware-accelerated 3d sound and low CPU usage?
> > Thanks.
>
> Continued, personal experience over the last year causes me
> to highly recommend the Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS.
> The SB0350 (stock Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS) can be
> had for $50 and it's worth every penny IMHO.  I see there is
> a new "value" version for SB0400, but I can't attest to how
> good it is.

Good to know.  I might be picking up a sound card to augment my on-board sound 
since it seems somewhat flaky at times.  I was going to use the 2 ZS for 
microphone duties in BF2 and figured an actual gaming card would be best 
suited for that as opposed to my on chipset sound.  I haven't actually tried 
using the on chipset sound, though, so it might work okay too.

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff


From philb at philb.us  Fri Dec  2 02:20:45 2005
From: philb at philb.us (Phil Barnett)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities
Message-ID: <200512020220.45385.philb@philb.us>

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm
-- 
"In communism, man exploits man. In capitalism, it's the other way around."

From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Fri Dec  2 09:08:56 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19BE@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

After the shenanigans earlier this year with a dead PCI-Express card,
another one has died on me.  This time I didn't do anything funny with
it at all, I simply turned off the PC last night and this morning it
refused to turn on until I had removed the card (and inserted a POS PCI
video card).  So another RMA on its way to NewEgg :-(  This time the
card was an ATI X700Pro that I got just when the prices on them was
coming down.  Darnit.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Fri Dec  2 09:10:47 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] 6-pin SSI EEB WS and 6-pin PCIe Power are
	NOTthesame(and can destroy hardware!)
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19BF@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

> Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> > Care to give a quick explanation of what the SSI EEB WS is
> > for?
> 
> If you blog it, they will come ... (i.e., I updated the entry
> with such):

Thankee kindly sir!

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>

From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Fri Dec  2 10:22:40 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19C8@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

OK, here's the question: given that power shouldn't be a problem anymore
thanks to the 500W Antec beasty, could it be possible that the
motherboard is killing the cards?  It just seems to strange for it to be
working fine last night and this morning give up the ghost.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Fri Dec  2 11:54:36 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities -- PC_Support
	wiki?
In-Reply-To: <200512020220.45385.philb@philb.us>
Message-ID: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Phil Barnett <philb@philb.us> wrote:
> http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm

I've been meaning to suggest this for some time, but I wanted
to wait until I saw a good avenue to do it.  Especially since
your server and your time is not "our bitch" to do with as we
please.

But have we considered setting up a wiki for PC_Support?  I
remember we did previously (still available?) with LEAP?  I
didn't take interest, so I don't know, but now I think we
have enough content that a PC_Support wiki would be ideal.

I know I'd definitely like to take some of my blog entries,
make them more "formal/finished," and put them somewhere --
so a PC_Support wiki would be great!  Especially for letting
others modify them (which they can do little more than
comment on them in my blog).


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Fri Dec  2 11:59:42 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19BE@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <20051202165942.86358.qmail@web34111.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> After the shenanigans earlier this year with a dead
> PCI-Express card, another one has died on me.  This time I
> didn't do anything funny with it at all, I simply turned
off
> the PC last night and this morning it refused to turn on
until
> I had removed the card (and inserted a POS PCI video card).
> So another RMA on its way to NewEgg :-(  This time the
> card was an ATI X700Pro that I got just when the prices on
> them was coming down.  Darnit.

How are you delivering power to it?
That might be the reason more than anything?

I know my GeForce 7800GTX ran with my 300W ATX 2.0 power
supply, but I upgraded to a 500W Seasonic S12 ATX 2.0 with a
PCIe connector because I wanted to ensure adequate power
without any under-voltage as a result of increased current
draw.  Over time, that can really kill electronics.



-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Fri Dec  2 12:07:21 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19C8@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <20051202170721.45643.qmail@web34101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> OK, here's the question: given that power shouldn't be a
> problem anymore thanks to the 500W Antec beasty,

Again, how are you connecting any additional power outside of
the slot?

> could it be possible that the motherboard is killing the
cards?
> It just seems to strange for it to be working fine last
night
> and this morning give up the ghost.

Other than mis-alignment of the 25mils (IIRC?) connections, I
don't know.

PCIe defines a maximum amount of power it can deliver -- at
least on PCIe x16 slots that are designed for video.  But
PCIe may not be as good as AGP / AGP Pro was in this regard.

In fact, the recent PCI WG v. existing SSI specs (which
covered AGP Pro) makes me wonder if this yet another AGP 1.0
type mechnical/power debacle -- someone the new, at the time,
SSI group quickly and independently addressed with AGP Pro
slot for workstations.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From damien at mc-kenna.com  Fri Dec  2 13:03:12 2005
From: damien at mc-kenna.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
In-Reply-To: <20051202165942.86358.qmail@web34111.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20051202165942.86358.qmail@web34111.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <43908C60.1000100@mc-kenna.com>

Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> How are you delivering power to it?
> That might be the reason more than anything?
>   
It didn't have a special power connector on it so it was only drawing 
the standard 16x PCI-E power.

Damien

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Fri Dec  2 14:38:46 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
In-Reply-To: <43908C60.1000100@mc-kenna.com>
Message-ID: <20051202193846.72123.qmail@web34114.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Damien McKenna <damien@mc-kenna.com> wrote:
> It didn't have a special power connector on it so it was
> only drawing the standard 16x PCI-E power.

Yeah, I'm thinking AGP.

PCIe is supposed to provide up to 100-150W, although some of
the GeForce 6600GTs can come very close to 140W.  So maybe it
is the mainboard.

I've also been using GeForce 6800/7800 cards, so the Molex or
PCIe connector has been required -- regardless of PCIe or AGP.

-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Fri Dec  2 15:34:51 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F19DC@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

> Damien McKenna <damien@mc-kenna.com> wrote:
> > It didn't have a special power connector on it so it was
> > only drawing the standard 16x PCI-E power.
> 
> PCIe is supposed to provide up to 100-150W, although some of
> the GeForce 6600GTs can come very close to 140W.  So maybe it
> is the mainboard.

<grumble>  I think just about all of the <$150 cards use the mobo power.

> I've also been using GeForce 6800/7800 cards, so the Molex or
> PCIe connector has been required -- regardless of PCIe or AGP.

Guess I'll try looking for one with the Molex.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Fri Dec  2 17:10:10 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] [OT] Extra lower-bowl,
	35-40 yard-line ticket for Conference USA Championship
Message-ID: <20051202221010.80735.qmail@web34107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

If anyone wants to go, I had a cancellation in my party, so I
have an extra, lower-bowl, 35-40 yard-line ticket (sitting
next to yours rowdy ;-) for the Conference USA Championship
game at noon tomorrow.

Let me know if you're intersted in going.

-- Bryan
   (407) 489-7013  (Mobile)


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From philb at philb.us  Fri Dec  2 21:04:20 2005
From: philb at philb.us (Phil Barnett)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities -- PC_Support
	wiki?
In-Reply-To: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200512022104.20687.philb@philb.us>

On Friday 02 December 2005 11:54 am, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> Phil Barnett <philb@philb.us> wrote:
> > http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm
>
> I've been meaning to suggest this for some time, but I wanted
> to wait until I saw a good avenue to do it.  Especially since
> your server and your time is not "our bitch" to do with as we
> please.
>
> But have we considered setting up a wiki for PC_Support?  I
> remember we did previously (still available?) with LEAP?  I
> didn't take interest, so I don't know, but now I think we
> have enough content that a PC_Support wiki would be ideal.
>
> I know I'd definitely like to take some of my blog entries,
> make them more "formal/finished," and put them somewhere --
> so a PC_Support wiki would be great!  Especially for letting
> others modify them (which they can do little more than
> comment on them in my blog).

Stay tuned for further details. I'll be adding some features to Taz4 in the 
very near future.

-- 
"In communism, man exploits man. In capitalism, it's the other way around."

From damien at mc-kenna.com  Tue Dec  6 07:57:00 2005
From: damien at mc-kenna.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Windows qns: dynamic disks reimage,
	dynamic software RAID?
Message-ID: <43958A9C.6080505@mc-kenna.com>

I've got two quick Windows (XP) questions for the experts:

* Is it possible to create a dynamic disc on a clean drive then copy an 
existing partition onto it?

* Is it possible to add mirroring to an existing drive or does it have 
to be set up when the drive is first partitioned?

Thanks.

-- 
Damien McKenna, husband, father, geek.
damien@mc-kenna.com - http://www.mc-kenna.com/


From damien at mc-kenna.com  Wed Dec  7 01:40:59 2005
From: damien at mc-kenna.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Anandtech vs Antec & Tyan
Message-ID: <439683FB.3020901@mc-kenna.com>

http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=25402

-- 
Damien McKenna, husband, father, geek.
damien@mc-kenna.com - http://www.mc-kenna.com/


From philb at philb.us  Wed Dec  7 02:11:13 2005
From: philb at philb.us (Phil Barnett)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities -- PC_Support
	wiki?
In-Reply-To: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200512070211.13999.philb@philb.us>

On Friday 02 December 2005 11:54 am, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> Phil Barnett <philb@philb.us> wrote:
> > http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm
>
> I've been meaning to suggest this for some time, but I wanted
> to wait until I saw a good avenue to do it.  Especially since
> your server and your time is not "our bitch" to do with as we
> please.
>
> But have we considered setting up a wiki for PC_Support?  I
> remember we did previously (still available?) with LEAP?  I
> didn't take interest, so I don't know, but now I think we
> have enough content that a PC_Support wiki would be ideal.
>
> I know I'd definitely like to take some of my blog entries,
> make them more "formal/finished," and put them somewhere --
> so a PC_Support wiki would be great!  Especially for letting
> others modify them (which they can do little more than
> comment on them in my blog).

Ok, I can offer the following software.

Which would you prefer? And on what domain?

CMS

Mambo
Postnuke
Wiki

Blogging

b2evolution
phpbb (hard to say if this is more blog or CMS)
plog

Other

openbiblio
wordpress

-- 
"In communism, man exploits man. In capitalism, it's the other way around."

From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Wed Dec  7 09:06:32 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities --
	PC_Supportwiki?
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A4A@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

A little bit of filler from someone who has wasted way too much time on
this junk in the past.

> CMS
> 
> Mambo
> Postnuke

There are a ton of *nuke clones to choose from.

> Wiki

Which wiki?  There's phpWiki, Twiki, TikiWiki, PmWiki, DokuWiki, Wikka
Wakka Wiki, etc.

> Blogging
> b2evolution
> plog

> phpbb (hard to say if this is more blog or CMS)

phpBB is a bulletin board app.

> Other
> openbiblio

> wordpress

Wordpress is a blog.

You also forgot some good ones:
- MediaWiki (used to run wikipedia.org)
- Instiki
- Drupal
- eZ Publish

You can test a whole bunch of them at this great site:
http://www.opensourcecms.com/

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Wed Dec  7 12:27:57 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] PCI-Express SATA RAID cards
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A5A@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

Some PCI-Express SATA RAID cards new to the market.  Unfortunately I
only have two PCI-E x2 slots, no x4's, so I can't use them :-\  Too bad
the second PCI-E x16 can't be made to run as a regular x8 or x4 slot
when not in SLI mode.


http://www.cwol.com/serial-ata/rocketraid-2320-pci-express.htm

HighPoint RocketRAID 2320 PCI Express SATA II RAID Host Controller 

 * PCI Express x4 Card 
 * SATA II and SATA I hard drive support 
 * Up to 300MB/s for each SATA II drive port 
 * Supports RAID level 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD 
 * Online Capacity Expansion and Online RAID Level Migration (OCE/ORLM) 
 * Native Command Queuing (NCQ) 
 * SAF-TE enclosure management 
 * Hard drive activity and Failed LED support 
 * Staggered drive spin-up support 
 * Hot swap and hot spare 
 * Write-through and write-back cache support 
 * Quick and Background initialization for quick RAID configuration 
 * Online array roaming 
 * BIOS booting support (INT13) 
 * Single RAID Cross Adapter Support 
 * 64bit LBA for over 2TB support 
 * Automatic RAID rebuild of failed drive 
 * S.M.A.R.T drive monitoring for status and reliability 
 * Browser-based RAID management software 
 * Command Line Interface (CLI) 
 * SMTP for email notification 
 * Operating system support for Windows, Windows x64 Editions, Linux
(open source), FreeBSD (open source) and Mac OS X 


http://www.topmicrousa.com/arc-1220.html

Areca ARC-1220 8 ports PCI-Express to SATA-II RAID 6 Adapters

Areca services customers with a complete spectrum of SATA-II RAID
adapters that support 4, 8 or 16 SATA-II devices on a single host
adapter with today maximum I/O performance PCI bus interface, PCI-X and
PCI-Express. Unparalleled Performance The SATA-II RAID controllers raise
the standard to higher performance levels with several enhancements
including Intel high-performance I/O Processor (500 MHz), a new DDR
memory architecture (DDR333) and high performance PCI-Express bus
interconnection. Unsurpassed Data Availability The SATA-II RAID adapters
with extreme performance ASIC RAID 6 engine installed provide the
highest RAID 6 feature to and delivers RAID 5 Tekram services customers
with a complete spectrum of SATA-II RAID adapters that support 4, 8 or
16 SATA-II devices on a single host adapter with today maximum I/O
performance PCI bus interface, PCI-X and PCI-Express.



-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Wed Dec  7 17:50:16 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] PCI-Express SATA RAID cards -- HPT=FRAID?
	Areca=X-Scale
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A5A@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <20051207225016.77401.qmail@web34107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> Some PCI-Express SATA RAID cards new to the market. 
> Unfortunately I only have two PCI-E x2 slots, no x4's,
> so I can't use them :-\

You sure your slots are PCIe x2?  Or x1?

You _can_ use a PCIe x4 in a PCIe x1 slot, it's just going to
be a bottleneck.

> Too bad the second PCI-E x16 can't be made to run as a
> regular x8 or x4 slot when not in SLI mode.

Some PCIe x16 slots become PCIe x1 slots when not in SLI
mode.

Furthermore, have you tried putting it in SLI mode so x8
channels  are redirected?

>
http://www.cwol.com/serial-ata/rocketraid-2320-pci-express.htm
> HighPoint RocketRAID 2320 PCI Express SATA II RAID Host
> Controller 

Know that RAIDCore (now Broadcom) made *F*RAID PCI-X cards
that cost $200+.  You were paying for the intelligent
software, which _did_ integrate into Linux's LVM.  They had
massive overhead in RAID-5, especially rebuilds (like 5x as
slow as a 3Ware Escalade 9500S).  LSI Logic is getting into
this "Software RAID as a profit model" following Broadcom's
lead.

This is _great_ for dedicated storage subsystems.  But it is
_not_ great for end-servers, because all that redundant I/O
traffic to do the RAID falls on the CPU-memory-I/O
interconnect.

I'm trying to see if it's one of the first cards to use the
new Broadcom BCM8603.  That actually has on-board hardware
RAID, SAS/SATA support, and supports up to 768MB DRAM buffer.
 But I don't think it is.

But I think it's one of the Broadcom BCM4000/5000 series, and
still very much FRAID.  No intelligence, no SRAM or DRAM
other than the basic SRAM used for the nominal SATA (think in
the low KiBs ;-).  I think that's what this card is -- an
_expensive_ *F*RAID card with software under  license from
Broadcom or LSI Logic.

HPT has _never_ produced a non-FRAID card.  They are a 100%
FRAID product line.

> Areca ARC-1220 8 ports PCI-Express to SATA-II RAID 6
> Adapters

Now the Arecas are Intel IOP33x X-Scale (superscalar ARM)
based and kick serious butt.  The work most excellently in
Linux.  Well worth the price!



-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From philb at philb.us  Wed Dec  7 22:46:54 2005
From: philb at philb.us (Phil Barnett)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities --
	PC_Supportwiki?
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A4A@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
References: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A4A@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <200512072246.54594.philb@philb.us>

On Wednesday 07 December 2005 09:06 am, Damien McKenna wrote:
> A little bit of filler from someone who has wasted way too much time on
> this junk in the past.
>
> > CMS
> >
> > Mambo
> > Postnuke
>
> There are a ton of *nuke clones to choose from.
>
> > Wiki
>
> Which wiki?  There's phpWiki, Twiki, TikiWiki, PmWiki, DokuWiki, Wikka
> Wakka Wiki, etc.
>
> > Blogging
> > b2evolution
> > plog
> >
> > phpbb (hard to say if this is more blog or CMS)
>
> phpBB is a bulletin board app.
>
> > Other
> > openbiblio
> >
> > wordpress
>
> Wordpress is a blog.
>
> You also forgot some good ones:
> - MediaWiki (used to run wikipedia.org)
> - Instiki
> - Drupal
> - eZ Publish
>
> You can test a whole bunch of them at this great site:
> http://www.opensourcecms.com/

The packages I'm offering are part of the Application Vault that LEAP 
purchased and applied to our Plesk server. It makes installing an entire 
range of preconfigured applications a button push away from installing on any 
site on the server.

So I went through the list and listed the most likely candidates.

The Wiki is phpWiki. The rest of the packages are the specific ones that Plesk 
now supports through the application addon license.

I'm really not interested in trying to make other applications work since I 
don't have time to hack on it.

This makes the applications I mentioned above install, guaranteed to work 
already set up correctly for my server in less than two minutes. There are 
others that I didn't mention because I didn't think they were applicable, 
like OSCommerce and others.

If you are interested in the entire list, you can go to the Plesk site. I'd 
guess there's a listing there on which applications are in the Application 
Vault.

-- 
"In communism, man exploits man. In capitalism, it's the other way around."

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Wed Dec  7 22:46:21 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] How badis doeth thy GeForce FX sucketh?  Yea,
	'dat badis ...
Message-ID: <20051208034621.87365.qmail@web34113.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Tom's Hardware Guide put up their latest VGA Charts VIII a
few days ago.  This one is pretty complete, and the Quake 4
benchmarks were not surprising:  
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/02/vga_charts_viii/page11.html
 

Yes, that is the "high-end" GeForce FX 5900 128MB that is
_losing_ to a $50-60 GeForce 6200 TC 256MB (64MB on-card). 
You have to jack the card up to 1024x768 at 4x Full Screen
Anti-Aliasing (FSAA), 8x Anti-isotropic Filtering (AF) and
ultra-quality for the 128MB on the GeForce FX 5900 to
overtake the only 64MB on-card in the GeForce 6200 TC 256MB.

Damn, that's sad!

Now consider the GeForce FX5800/5900 are a far better GPU
design with a much higher clock than the FX5700, of which the
common FX5700"LE" is 40% slower clock-wise, and the GeForce
FX5700 is still crapload better than the FX5200/5500
ultra-bottom feeder that can't even run much.

Yeah, that's the crap Best Buy and CompUSA are still trying
to sell you!

Now I'd _really_ like to see how the on-chipset GeForce
6100/6150 compares to a GeForce FX 5500 or even a 5700 LE. 
I'm sure the GeForce 6100 would still beat them handily,
which makes you wonder if you're not better off buying a new
GeForce 6100 mainboard for $55 and entry-level Sempron 64
2800+ CPU for $60 instead of buying a GeForce Fsck'ing
Xcrewed (FX) 5500 or 5700LE for a few bucks less.  @-ppp



-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Thu Dec  8 09:25:33 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] PCI-Express SATA RAID cards --
	HPT=FRAID?Areca=X-Scale
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A6F@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

> Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> > Some PCI-Express SATA RAID cards new to the market. 
> > Unfortunately I only have two PCI-E x2 slots, no x4's,
> > so I can't use them :-\
> 
> You sure your slots are PCIe x2?  Or x1?

Typo, they're x1.

> You _can_ use a PCIe x4 in a PCIe x1 slot, it's just going to
> be a bottleneck.

Ah, cool, didn't know that.

> > Too bad the second PCI-E x16 can't be made to run as a
> > regular x8 or x4 slot when not in SLI mode.
> 
> Some PCIe x16 slots become PCIe x1 slots when not in SLI
> mode.

I need to check my manual again.

> Furthermore, have you tried putting it in SLI mode so x8
> channels  are redirected?

Nopers.  Then again, I don't have a PCI-E card anyway (besides the video
card, that was RMA'd).

> Know that RAIDCore (now Broadcom) made *F*RAID PCI-X cards
> that cost $200+.  You were paying for the intelligent
> software, which _did_ integrate into Linux's LVM.

Urk, forget that.  Might as well just get a $20 card and use the Windows
software.

> I'm trying to see if it's one of the first cards to use the
> new Broadcom BCM8603.  That actually has on-board hardware
> RAID, SAS/SATA support, and supports up to 768MB DRAM buffer.
>  But I don't think it is.

None of the PDFs or anything mention what chip it is, which kinda sucks.

> > Areca ARC-1220 8 ports PCI-Express to SATA-II RAID 6
> > Adapters
> 
> Now the Arecas are Intel IOP33x X-Scale (superscalar ARM)
> based and kick serious butt.  The work most excellently in
> Linux.  Well worth the price!

I'll keep my wye on them then.

Thanks for the details, Bryan.

Damien

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Thu Dec  8 12:06:33 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Windows qns: dynamic disks reimage, dynamic
	software RAID?
In-Reply-To: <43958A9C.6080505@mc-kenna.com>
References: <43958A9C.6080505@mc-kenna.com>
Message-ID: <1134061593.4915.7.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 07:57 -0500, Damien McKenna wrote:
> I've got two quick Windows (XP) questions for the experts:
> * Is it possible to create a dynamic disc on a clean drive then copy an 
> existing partition onto it?

Er, maybe.  If the geometry matches, you might be able to use dd in
Linux to do such.  Linux kernels can read LDM Disk Labels.

Otherwise, a 3rd party disk manager might be able to.

It gets interesting because LDM disk labels store extra info outside the
partition.

> * Is it possible to add mirroring to an existing drive or does it have 
> to be set up when the drive is first partitioned?

I think if it's already a LDM Disk Label, you can create a mirror set
from a standalone partition.  Don't quote me.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Thu Dec  8 12:09:52 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] PCI-Express SATA RAID cards --
	HPT=FRAID?Areca=X-Scale
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A6F@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
References: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A6F@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <1134061793.4915.12.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 09:25 -0500, Damien McKenna wrote:
> Typo, they're x1.
> Ah, cool, didn't know that.

You can use any larger PCI x# card in any lower PCI x# card.  The
problem is if it doesn't physically fit.  Most cards will fit in a PCI
x1 slot.  But beyond that, they typically won't.

> I need to check my manual again.

Some are disabled, some become PCIe x2 or x4, but most become PCIe x1.

> Nopers.  Then again, I don't have a PCI-E card anyway (besides the video
> card, that was RMA'd).

Oh, then you should be able to use the PCIe x16 slot directly.  About
the only different for video slots is that they can deliver extra power
-- IIRC (don't quote me).

> Urk, forget that.  Might as well just get a $20 card and use the Windows
> software.

Again, I haven't verified, but the card looked rather simplistic (no
RAM).

> None of the PDFs or anything mention what chip it is, which kinda sucks.

Yeah, I know.  So I can't give you an exact answer.

They claim Linux support, but both Broadcom RAIDCore and, more recently,
LSI Logic now sell a sprawling set of software RAID functions to OEMs.

> I'll keep my wye on them then.
> Thanks for the details, Bryan.



-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Thu Dec  8 12:11:32 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] PC locking up after installing new memory
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A84@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

Here's the story.  Have a HP 1.3ghz Celery PC running Windows XP Home
(SP2) that had 128mb of RAM in it.  I installed 2x 256mb PC133 sticks in
place of the one 128mb stick (unsure what speed) and since then it
randomly locks up.  It's a lightly used machine, nothing more than AOL 9
and MSWord (with Symantec Corporate Antivirus 8 in the background) so it
isn't like the system is overheating from playing Quake42.

The problem is that three times in the past three days it has just
halted - the mouse freezes and within a moment the screen goes black.
One time it halted when the owner was in MSWord, the other two times in
AOL writing an email.

Apparently the PC is only compatible with certain types of 256mb strips,
two sided ones that have lower capacity chips, so we made certain to
order the type that the memory manufacturer said were compatible
(Corsair CMSS256MB-133), but obviously this may still be the problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could try?  I'm going over
later to do a MemTest86 test on it, I'll see if it can uncover anything.

Thanks.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Thu Dec  8 13:06:42 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Windows qns: dynamic disks reimage,
	dynamic software RAID?
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A92@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

Kind of moot questions, Windows XP Home supports neither dynamic discs
nor software RAID.  Now to work out what to do to get RAID working
without buying XP Pro.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From glaiacona at aikencountysc.gov  Thu Dec  8 13:27:01 2005
From: glaiacona at aikencountysc.gov (George Laiacona)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] PC locking up after installing new memory
Message-ID: <s39834c2.062@mail.aikencountysc.gov>

Probably the only thing left to try is get a recommendation for RAM from the manufacturer, whether that be the PC maker or Motherboard manufacturer. Sometimes, in my experience, the RAM manufacturer and PC Maker differ on their opinion of what RAM to use. More often than not, the memory will cost more (go figure) from the PC Maker, but it will work.

Sometimes you get shipped a bad stick. Has happened to me several times, though considering just how much RAM has passed through my hands that's a very rare occurrance.

There's a really, really small chance, however, that something else failed, such as a HDD is going bad, that just happens to coincide with your RAM upgrade. Again, a very tiny possibility, but there.



George A. Laiacona III
Systems Manager
Aiken County Government
803 642 1594

>>> dmckenna@thelimucompany.com 12/08/05 12:11 PM >>>
Here's the story.  Have a HP 1.3ghz Celery PC running Windows XP Home
(SP2) that had 128mb of RAM in it.  I installed 2x 256mb PC133 sticks in
place of the one 128mb stick (unsure what speed) and since then it
randomly locks up.  It's a lightly used machine, nothing more than AOL 9
and MSWord (with Symantec Corporate Antivirus 8 in the background) so it
isn't like the system is overheating from playing Quake42.

The problem is that three times in the past three days it has just
halted - the mouse freezes and within a moment the screen goes black.
One time it halted when the owner was in MSWord, the other two times in
AOL writing an email.

Apparently the PC is only compatible with certain types of 256mb strips,
two sided ones that have lower capacity chips, so we made certain to
order the type that the memory manufacturer said were compatible
(Corsair CMSS256MB-133), but obviously this may still be the problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could try?  I'm going over
later to do a MemTest86 test on it, I'll see if it can uncover anything.

Thanks.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com 
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>

_______________________________________________
Pc_support mailing list
Pc_support@matrixlist.com 
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From glaiacona at aikencountysc.gov  Thu Dec  8 14:07:19 2005
From: glaiacona at aikencountysc.gov (George Laiacona)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Windows qns: dynamic disks reimage, dynamic
	software RAID?
Message-ID: <s3983e23.095@mail.aikencountysc.gov>

Going to have to be a hardware RAID. Nothing I have found will tell me how to RAID XP otherwise. I'm guessing you'll have similar results.

George.

>>> dmckenna@thelimucompany.com 12/08/05 1:06 PM >>>
Kind of moot questions, Windows XP Home supports neither dynamic discs
nor software RAID.  Now to work out what to do to get RAID working
without buying XP Pro.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com 
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>

_______________________________________________
Pc_support mailing list
Pc_support@matrixlist.com 
http://lists.matrixlist.com/mailman/listinfo/pc_support


From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Thu Dec  8 15:11:03 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] PC locking up after installing new memory
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A9F@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

Thanks for the thoughts, George.  I'm starting to think it *is* a memory
timing issue.  While Corsair's site says that PC133 is ok, Kingston's
recommends a specific PC100 stick to use instead.  I'm going to do a
MemTest later to see if that causes any problems, I've contacted Corsair
to see what they have to say for themselves and I'm intending contacting
ZZF, but most likely at this point we'll RMA it.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Thu Dec  8 16:50:17 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] PC locking up after installing new memory
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1A9F@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <20051208215017.18781.qmail@web34109.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the thoughts, George.  I'm starting to think it
> *is* a memory timing issue.  While Corsair's site says that
> PC133 is ok, Kingston's recommends a specific PC100 stick
to
> use instead.

Might be more of a chipset support issue of newer memory
technology, and not signaling.



-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From jasonb at edseek.com  Thu Dec  8 17:31:53 2005
From: jasonb at edseek.com (Jason Boxman)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] RE: 3DM and Intel Chipsets with PCI-X/64 -- WAS:
	3ware RAID controller scripts
In-Reply-To: <1133254740.5023.486.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
References: <ac8199760511271810j3eac8295o6a6dbd1fa640a4b8@mail.gmail.com>
	<ac8199760511280017x783c2abem19157a618ce2fec1@mail.gmail.com>
	<1133254740.5023.486.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
Message-ID: <200512081731.53586.jasonb@edseek.com>

On Tuesday 29 November 2005 03:59, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
<snip>
> If cost is really an issue, consider either an older Pentium III
> mainboard with a ServerWorks ServerSet III mainboard, or an older
> (possibly used) Socket-603 P4-Xeon mainboard with a ServerWorks GC-SL
> chipset if you can find one cheap (most new are $350-600!).  I
> personally have a ServerWorks ServerSet IIILE at home and my 3Ware card
> is in a 64-bit PCI slot (although the slot is capable of 64-bit @ 66MHz,
> the card is an older 3Ware that runs 64-bit @ 33MHz).

I did the same on your advice and the card screams in a 64-bit @ 33MHz.  I am 
very pleased with it over operation on an old Socket A board in a 32-bit @ 
33MHz slot on what was essentially a low end desktop mainboard.

I find an old ServerWorks IIILE board is plenty for a small network with a 
couple of users, at least.  With one of those ServerWorks III HE-SL (?) 
boards I imagine you could do gigabit, too, on a dedicated channel, and still 
be affordable.

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff


From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Thu Dec  8 17:35:24 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] RE: 3DM and Intel Chipsets with PCI-X/64 -- WAS:
	3wareRAID controller scripts
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1AB2@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

On a related note:

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=9550sx4lp

A review of the 3Ware 9550SX-4LP PCI-X card which compares it to several
others, including Areca's PCI-E card.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Thu Dec  8 20:55:23 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] RE: 3DM and Intel Chipsets with PCI-X/64 -- WAS:
	3wareRAID controller scripts
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1AB2@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <20051209015523.84619.qmail@web34106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> On a related note:
> http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=9550sx4lp
> A review of the 3Ware 9550SX-4LP PCI-X card which compares
> it to several others, including Areca's PCI-E card.

Yeah, seems like 3Ware/AMCC is still working out the bugs in
their firmware -- the card was almost brand new back when the
September review hit.  It's good to know that the 3Ware
9550SX controllers support PCIe, so we should see such a card
in the future.

Areca uses the Intel IOP331 (PCI-X) and IOP332 (built-in
PCI-X to PCIe bridge) for its products.  I wonder where they
get their firmware from (Broadcom? LSI? Intel? Their own?). 
Anyhoo, it's hard to compete with that XScale at RAID-5.

On a related note, did you see the earlier article comparing
hardware v. southbridge?  Look at the absolute _crap_ the
Intel ICH7R and nVidia MCP-04 southbridge RAID-5 is at write
speeds (even worse than the others in 32-bit@33MHz PCI
slots):  
 
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=raid505&page=9
 

It's interesting to note that the Broadcom 4852, which is
largely a host (software) RAID solution, is well designed
enough at the integrated SATA controller to perform well
enough.  But I sure wish they'd get their new 8-channel
SAS/SATA RAID BCM8603 chips in products soon.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From philb at philb.us  Thu Dec  8 22:55:35 2005
From: philb at philb.us (Phil Barnett)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:28 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities -- PC_Support
	wiki?
In-Reply-To: <200512070211.13999.philb@philb.us>
References: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<200512070211.13999.philb@philb.us>
Message-ID: <200512082255.35883.philb@philb.us>

On Wednesday 07 December 2005 02:11 am, Phil Barnett wrote:

> Ok, I can offer the following software.
>
> Which would you prefer? And on what domain?
>
> CMS
>
> Mambo
> Postnuke
> Wiki
>
> Blogging
>
> b2evolution
> phpbb (hard to say if this is more blog or CMS)
> plog
>
> Other
>
> openbiblio
> wordpress

I ask again. Bryan, do you want any of these installed, and if so, on which 
domain?

-- 
"In communism, man exploits man. In capitalism, it's the other way around."

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Fri Dec  9 04:17:37 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities -- PC_Support
	wiki?
In-Reply-To: <200512082255.35883.philb@philb.us>
References: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<200512070211.13999.philb@philb.us> <200512082255.35883.philb@philb.us>
Message-ID: <1134119857.4899.2.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 22:55 -0500, Phil Barnett wrote:
> I ask again.
> Bryan, do you want any of these installed, and if so,
> on which domain?

Oh, I didn't note you were asking.  I though you'all were still
discussing what the options are, what would be feasible for you to do,
etc...  I would go with what you are familiar with.

I really just think a wiki for any PC_Support/LEAP member usage would
do.  I don't want you to have to put in a lot of time on this, just
something that allows multiple people to collaborate.  Just one on the
Matrixlist.COM domain for all would do.

I leave it up to you, but don't put a lot of time into it.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From philb at philb.us  Fri Dec  9 08:27:38 2005
From: philb at philb.us (Phil Barnett)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities -- PC_Support
	wiki?
In-Reply-To: <1134119857.4899.2.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
References: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<200512082255.35883.philb@philb.us>
	<1134119857.4899.2.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
Message-ID: <200512090827.38658.philb@philb.us>

On Friday 09 December 2005 04:17 am, Bryan J. Smith wrote:

> I leave it up to you, but don't put a lot of time into it.

All of them cost me the same amount of time. One Click.

It's more a matter of what you want.

-- 
"In communism, man exploits man. In capitalism, it's the other way around."

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Fri Dec  9 16:37:11 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Retail SB Audigy 2 ZS for $82 - $40 rebate = $42
Message-ID: <20051209213711.58770.qmail@web34102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Although you can get bulk OEM/card-only SB Audigy 2 ZS cards
for $50-60, Zip-Zoom-Fly has the retail box with all the
software/goodies for $81.99 - $40 rebate = $41.99 after
rebate:  
 
http://dealnews.com/deals/Sound-Blaster-Audigy-2-ZS-Sound-Card-for-42-shipped-after-rebate/103288.html
 

Just remembered someone was asking about a sound card not too
long ago.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Fri Dec  9 17:30:18 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Retail SB Audigy 2 ZS for $82 - $40 rebate = $42
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1AE6@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

> Although you can get bulk OEM/card-only SB Audigy 2 ZS cards
> for $50-60, Zip-Zoom-Fly has the retail box with all the
> software/goodies for $81.99 - $40 rebate = $41.99 after
> rebate:

Thanks!

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>

From jasonb at edseek.com  Fri Dec  9 19:02:43 2005
From: jasonb at edseek.com (Jason Boxman)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Retail SB Audigy 2 ZS for $82 - $40 rebate = $42
In-Reply-To: <20051209213711.58770.qmail@web34102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20051209213711.58770.qmail@web34102.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200512091902.43285.jasonb@edseek.com>

On Friday 09 December 2005 16:37, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
<snip>
>
> Just remembered someone was asking about a sound card not too
> long ago.

omg don't make me do it... ;)  Took me a month to stop playing BF2 after you 
posted a link to it here...

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Fri Dec  9 20:25:58 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Retail SB Audigy 2 ZS for $82 - $40 rebate = $42
In-Reply-To: <200512091902.43285.jasonb@edseek.com>
Message-ID: <20051210012558.17511.qmail@web34105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Jason Boxman <jasonb@edseek.com> wrote:
> omg don't make me do it... ;)  Took me a month to stop
> playing BF2 after you posted a link to it here...

I sure wish I had the time!

Heck, a few guys over on the CentOS list are trying to get me
to join their UT2004 clan.  I just don't have time.

I've played BF2 maybe 10 hours total -- and haven't played
any games in the last month or so!

Yeah, that GeForce 7800GTX just sits in my system as a
glorified 2D video card.  Oh the waste!

All the meanwhile "Scroll" could use it instead of that
measty 6600GT.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From jasonb at edseek.com  Fri Dec  9 21:53:36 2005
From: jasonb at edseek.com (Jason Boxman)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Retail SB Audigy 2 ZS for $82 - $40 rebate = $42
In-Reply-To: <20051210012558.17511.qmail@web34105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20051210012558.17511.qmail@web34105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200512092153.36854.jasonb@edseek.com>

On Friday 09 December 2005 20:25, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
<snip>
> All the meanwhile "Scroll" could use it instead of that
> measty 6600GT.

laff.  You're just lucky you haven't had that arse kowned. ;) [knife owned]

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff


From m9u35g at gmail.com  Fri Dec  9 22:04:03 2005
From: m9u35g at gmail.com (Justin M. Keyes)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities -- PC_Support
	wiki?
In-Reply-To: <200512090827.38658.philb@philb.us>
References: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<200512082255.35883.philb@philb.us>
	<1134119857.4899.2.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
	<200512090827.38658.philb@philb.us>
Message-ID: <46f680d0512091904l28403a6pcdf631c57db099be@mail.gmail.com>

On 12/9/05, Phil Barnett <philb@philb.us> wrote:
> On Friday 09 December 2005 04:17 am, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
>
> > I leave it up to you, but don't put a lot of time into it.
>
> All of them cost me the same amount of time. One Click.

I've heard good things about Mambo. (My preference is plone, but I'm
guessing Plesk doesn't have that).

--
Justin Keyes

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Sat Dec 10 07:48:08 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities -- PC_Support
	wiki?
In-Reply-To: <46f680d0512091904l28403a6pcdf631c57db099be@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<200512082255.35883.philb@philb.us>
	<1134119857.4899.2.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
	<200512090827.38658.philb@philb.us>
	<46f680d0512091904l28403a6pcdf631c57db099be@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1134218888.5853.108.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Fri, 2005-12-09 at 22:04 -0500, Justin M. Keyes wrote:
> I've heard good things about Mambo. (My preference is plone, but I'm
> guessing Plesk doesn't have that).

I'm too ignorant to recommend anything.
Whatever goes on, I'll learn it.

And I won't be saying, "Oh, we should have gone Y because it has this
feature that our X doesn't" after-the-fact.

I don't second-guess charity.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From philb at philb.us  Sat Dec 10 18:33:52 2005
From: philb at philb.us (Phil Barnett)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities -- PC_Support
	wiki?
In-Reply-To: <1134218888.5853.108.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
References: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<46f680d0512091904l28403a6pcdf631c57db099be@mail.gmail.com>
	<1134218888.5853.108.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
Message-ID: <200512101833.52459.philb@philb.us>

On Saturday 10 December 2005 07:48 am, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-12-09 at 22:04 -0500, Justin M. Keyes wrote:
> > I've heard good things about Mambo. (My preference is plone, but I'm
> > guessing Plesk doesn't have that).
>
> I'm too ignorant to recommend anything.
> Whatever goes on, I'll learn it.
>
> And I won't be saying, "Oh, we should have gone Y because it has this
> feature that our X doesn't" after-the-fact.
>
> I don't second-guess charity.

Ok, then. Do you want a blogging too, a wiki or a CMS?

-- 
"In communism, man exploits man. In capitalism, it's the other way around."

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Sat Dec 10 20:06:35 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities -- PC_Support
	wiki?
In-Reply-To: <200512101833.52459.philb@philb.us>
References: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<46f680d0512091904l28403a6pcdf631c57db099be@mail.gmail.com>
	<1134218888.5853.108.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
	<200512101833.52459.philb@philb.us>
Message-ID: <1134263195.5853.127.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Sat, 2005-12-10 at 18:33 -0500, Phil Barnett wrote:
> Ok, then. Do you want a blogging too, a wiki or a CMS?

Most of us already have our own blogs, so that's redundant.

Not sure where a CMS or Wiki might be a better fit, but in my limited
understanding, I think a Wiki would be more appropriate.  IMHO, I don't
think we need any strict CMS/delegation control -- just a site free-for-
all for everyone, after they are logged in (and verified not to be just
another Joe defacer).  So I assume a Wiki will do.

Again, don't go through a lot of trouble.  If this is something
easy/cheap to setup, then great.  If not, forget I suggested it.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From jasonb at edseek.com  Sat Dec 10 21:36:23 2005
From: jasonb at edseek.com (Jason Boxman)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] I love this, sound skips on browser loading
Message-ID: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>

I just love this.  Apparently my Biostar has crap on board sound or the driver 
just stucks.  In either Firefox or IE, rendering a page often results in my 
2.x version of WinAMP skipping to the next song.  Yes, that's right, it 
skips.

That's about the strangest thing I have ever seen.  It _only_ happens when 
browsing the Web so far.

I guess I should've bought that SB card linked earlier.  Maybe I still can.

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff


From m9u35g at gmail.com  Sat Dec 10 21:49:46 2005
From: m9u35g at gmail.com (Justin M. Keyes)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities -- PC_Support
	wiki?
In-Reply-To: <1134263195.5853.127.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
References: <20051202165436.24479.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<46f680d0512091904l28403a6pcdf631c57db099be@mail.gmail.com>
	<1134218888.5853.108.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
	<200512101833.52459.philb@philb.us>
	<1134263195.5853.127.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
Message-ID: <46f680d0512101849r2591dd49x73e26a6dee45a25@mail.gmail.com>

On 12/10/05, Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org> wrote:

> understanding, I think a Wiki would be more appropriate.  IMHO, I don't
> think we need any strict CMS/delegation control -- just a site free-for-
> all for everyone, after they are logged in (and verified not to be just
> another Joe defacer).  So I assume a Wiki will do.

I agree, a wiki would be best for our purposes. A mailing list is like
a wiki without diff technology.


--
Justin Keyes

From wam at HiWAAY.net  Sun Dec 11 08:36:21 2005
From: wam at HiWAAY.net (William A. Mahaffey III)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Oddball TAR (1) behavior ....
Message-ID: <439C2B55.9030405@HiWAAY.net>


.... I have several SGI Octanes on my LAN, along w/ 2 Linux PC's & 1 
Win2K Box. 1 of the Linux boxen (2.4 GHz P4, 2 GB RAM, SuSE 9.2, all 
stock) has a largish HDD (160 GB Samsung EIDE 100 HDD, Reiserfs (3.6), 1 
big partition) which I use to back up several of the other machines by 
creating tarballs across my LAN. I have been having problems with that 
process for a couple of weeks, which I *think* I have traced to an 
obscure error (?) message during the process. That message follows:

    .
    .
    .
    .

-rw------- wam/users   1478527 2004-12-28 11:41:42 
test/OUTPUT.MachNoNewLU.2400P4a.gz
tar: test/OUTPUT.MachNoNewLU.2400P4a.gz: File shrank by 479103 bytes; 
padding with zeros

    .
    .
    .
    .

A few dozen entries later, the tar process error-exits with the following:


tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors


The tar process is executing on the Linux box, which has CD (1) 'ed to 
the other box (an SGI Octane, IRIX 6.5.20f) for the backup. The Octane's 
partition is accessed by automount over NFS V3 (both SGI & Linux box) by 
the Linux box. This error seems to cause the Linux box to hang & 
sometimes crash (several times / month). Besides the Rube Goldberg-ish 
nature of this whole process, are there any other known problems w/ 
interactions of tar/NFS/FS-differences which could be causing me 
problems here ? TIA

-- 
	William A. Mahaffey III
---------------------------------------------------------------------
	Remember, ignorance is bliss, but
	willful ignorance is LIBERALISM !!!!


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Sun Dec 11 11:47:50 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] I love this, sound skips on browser loading
In-Reply-To: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>
References: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>
Message-ID: <1134319670.4895.0.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Sat, 2005-12-10 at 21:36 -0500, Jason Boxman wrote:
> I just love this.  Apparently my Biostar has crap on board sound or the driver 
> just stucks.

High CPU utilization.  Yeah, my nForce4 is the same, it's a Realtek
ALC65x I believe.  The newer 88x is supposed to be much better.

> In either Firefox or IE, rendering a page often results in my 
> 2.x version of WinAMP skipping to the next song.  Yes, that's right, it 
> skips.

Try turning off all 3D audio settings.

> That's about the strangest thing I have ever seen.  It _only_ happens when 
> browsing the Web so far.
> I guess I should've bought that SB card linked earlier.  Maybe I still can.

I finally went back to one and I'm very glad I did.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From m9u35g at gmail.com  Sun Dec 11 14:25:50 2005
From: m9u35g at gmail.com (Justin M. Keyes)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] I love this, sound skips on browser loading
In-Reply-To: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>
References: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>
Message-ID: <46f680d0512111125q2e8c8478ia82e95c7db88797d@mail.gmail.com>

On 12/10/05, Jason Boxman <jasonb@edseek.com> wrote:
> I just love this.  Apparently my Biostar has crap on board sound or the driver
> just stucks.  In either Firefox or IE, rendering a page often results in my
> 2.x version of WinAMP skipping to the next song.  Yes, that's right, it
> skips.
>
> That's about the strangest thing I have ever seen.  It _only_ happens when
> browsing the Web so far.
>
> I guess I should've bought that SB card linked earlier.  Maybe I still can.

I've read a lot of bad reviews about Biostar on newegg.com, I'm
beginning to think I should avoid them...

--
Justin Keyes

From wam at hiwaay.net  Sun Dec 11 15:20:26 2005
From: wam at hiwaay.net (William A. Mahaffey III)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] I love this, sound skips on browser loading
In-Reply-To: <46f680d0512111125q2e8c8478ia82e95c7db88797d@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>
	<46f680d0512111125q2e8c8478ia82e95c7db88797d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <439C8A0A.9010507@HiWAAY.net>

Justin M. Keyes wrote:

>On 12/10/05, Jason Boxman <jasonb@edseek.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>I just love this.  Apparently my Biostar has crap on board sound or the driver
>>just stucks.  In either Firefox or IE, rendering a page often results in my
>>2.x version of WinAMP skipping to the next song.  Yes, that's right, it
>>skips.
>>
>>That's about the strangest thing I have ever seen.  It _only_ happens when
>>browsing the Web so far.
>>
>>I guess I should've bought that SB card linked earlier.  Maybe I still can.
>>    
>>
>
>I've read a lot of bad reviews about Biostar on newegg.com, I'm
>beginning to think I should avoid them...
>  
>

I 2nd the motion on Biostar. I bought 1 last ~March, NewEgg, built a 2.4 
GHz P4 Linux box, had various seemingly random stability problems. Tried 
Memtest on the RAM, which eventually showed RAM OK, Mbd fried w/ more 
than 1 stick of (brand-new, DDR400 Geil) RAM onboard. NewEgg swapped it 
out for a FoxConn & no problems (w/ Mbd/CPU/RAM) since. I haven't seen 
many Biostars on NewEgg anymore, I thought they might have dropped them 
over warranty problems ....

-- 
	William A. Mahaffey III
---------------------------------------------------------------------
	Remember, ignorance is bliss, but
	willful ignorance is LIBERALISM !!!!

-------------- next part --------------
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From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Sun Dec 11 18:33:27 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] I love this, sound skips on browser loading
In-Reply-To: <46f680d0512111125q2e8c8478ia82e95c7db88797d@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>
	<46f680d0512111125q2e8c8478ia82e95c7db88797d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1134344008.4895.5.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Sun, 2005-12-11 at 14:25 -0500, Justin M. Keyes wrote:
> I've read a lot of bad reviews about Biostar on newegg.com, I'm
> beginning to think I should avoid them...

I've had a lot of success with Biostar, at least older versions.

However, there are some reports that the nForce4 series (just about
everything except maybe the Pro) has some acute bugs.

I haven't had anything seem wrong my with Foxconn nForce 4 [standard]
yet.  Of course, I'm in Linux a lot and the few things I've seen have
been all under XP.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From jasonb at edseek.com  Sun Dec 11 14:01:43 2005
From: jasonb at edseek.com (Jason Boxman)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] I love this, sound skips on browser loading
In-Reply-To: <1134319670.4895.0.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
References: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>
	<1134319670.4895.0.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
Message-ID: <200512111401.43225.jasonb@edseek.com>

On Sunday 11 December 2005 11:47, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-12-10 at 21:36 -0500, Jason Boxman wrote:
> > I just love this.  Apparently my Biostar has crap on board sound or the
> > driver just stucks.
>
> High CPU utilization.  Yeah, my nForce4 is the same, it's a Realtek
> ALC65x I believe.  The newer 88x is supposed to be much better.

Yes, exactly.  I have that same ALC65x in my system.  I had recently turned up 
the acceleration to highest from second highest, but didn't make the 
connection.  I think it might have done it even before.  I guess I'll just 
lower the sound acceleration one level at a time until it works properly.

<snip>
> > That's about the strangest thing I have ever seen.  It _only_ happens
> > when browsing the Web so far.
> > I guess I should've bought that SB card linked earlier.  Maybe I still
> > can.
>
> I finally went back to one and I'm very glad I did.

Can I use it in a PCIe 1x slot?  Would it be an issue to buy this now for a 
PCI slot and later upgrade to a PCIe system?  It is $40, after all...

Thanks.

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff


From wam at HiWAAY.net  Sun Dec 11 15:31:40 2005
From: wam at HiWAAY.net (William A. Mahaffey III)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Generic Linux question ....
Message-ID: <439C8CAC.1000807@HiWAAY.net>


.... Several years back (late '90's) I had the impression that SuSE was 
somewhat disdained by some geeks for their practice of making 
alterations to kernel (& possibly other) code in their distro. I *think* 
that most of the other 'big boys' (RH, Mandrake, maybe others) now do 
this as well. They are mostly back-porting newer stuff from newer 
kernels, as I understand it, but their kernels are nonetheless not 
identical & possibly incompatible with other binary packages because of 
these alterations. It is also considered unwise to try to use "vanilla" 
kernels from kernel.org with these distros because of possible/likely 
incompatibilities. Does anyone have a quick synopsis or a link on who 
does what to their kernels, distro-by-distro ? TIA :-).

-- 
	William A. Mahaffey III
---------------------------------------------------------------------
	Remember, ignorance is bliss, but
	willful ignorance is LIBERALISM !!!!


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Sun Dec 11 21:54:07 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] I love this, sound skips on browser loading
In-Reply-To: <200512111401.43225.jasonb@edseek.com>
References: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>
	<1134319670.4895.0.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
	<200512111401.43225.jasonb@edseek.com>
Message-ID: <1134356047.4895.20.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Sun, 2005-12-11 at 14:01 -0500, Jason Boxman wrote:
> Can I use it in a PCIe 1x slot?

Actually, PCIe x1 audio cards just came out.

> Would it be an issue to buy this now for a PCI slot and later
> upgrade to a PCIe system?  It is $40, after all...

The I/O interconnect used by the SB Audigy2 makes it fine for PCI.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Sun Dec 11 21:57:28 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Generic Linux question ....
In-Reply-To: <439C8CAC.1000807@HiWAAY.net>
References: <439C8CAC.1000807@HiWAAY.net>
Message-ID: <1134356248.4895.25.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Sun, 2005-12-11 at 14:31 -0600, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
> .... Several years back (late '90's) I had the impression that SuSE was 
> somewhat disdained by some geeks for their practice of making 
> alterations to kernel (& possibly other) code in their distro.

SuSE vehemently protected its trademark, something that Red Hat didn't
and ultimately paid the price for.  It's about trademark, first and
foremost, everything else is just looking at the details.

> I *think*  that most of the other 'big boys' (RH, Mandrake, maybe others)
> now do this as well.

Red Hat is the one that came to a point where, because of what Sun did
(based on Cobalt), Microsoft would have legal rights to use Red Hat(R)
had Red Hat not moved to finally protect it.

It didn't matter how many times Red Hat revised its guidelines to allow
duplicators to continue using their name -- Cheapbytes.COM being an
explicit one -- they were demonized by the same.  Which is why I no
longer buy from Cheapbytes.COM, they were very political in the non-
sense they did, after Red Hat explicitly granted exceptions on the
trademark for duplicators.

> They are mostly back-porting newer stuff from newer 
> kernels, as I understand it, but their kernels are nonetheless not 
> identical & possibly incompatible with other binary packages because of 
> these alterations. It is also considered unwise to try to use "vanilla" 
> kernels from kernel.org with these distros because of possible/likely 
> incompatibilities. Does anyone have a quick synopsis or a link on who 
> does what to their kernels, distro-by-distro ? TIA :-).

Nope, because it varies widely.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From jasonb at edseek.com  Sun Dec 11 22:45:31 2005
From: jasonb at edseek.com (Jason Boxman)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] I love this, sound skips on browser loading
In-Reply-To: <1134356047.4895.20.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
References: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>
	<200512111401.43225.jasonb@edseek.com>
	<1134356047.4895.20.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
Message-ID: <200512112245.31173.jasonb@edseek.com>

On Sunday 11 December 2005 21:54, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-12-11 at 14:01 -0500, Jason Boxman wrote:
> > Can I use it in a PCIe 1x slot?
>
> Actually, PCIe x1 audio cards just came out.
>
> > Would it be an issue to buy this now for a PCI slot and later
> > upgrade to a PCIe system?  It is $40, after all...
>
> The I/O interconnect used by the SB Audigy2 makes it fine for PCI.

Do you mean legacy PCI or PCI Express?

At 11:59 I'll be out of time to order. ;)

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Mon Dec 12 00:03:23 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] I love this, sound skips on browser loading
In-Reply-To: <200512112245.31173.jasonb@edseek.com>
References: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>
	<200512111401.43225.jasonb@edseek.com>
	<1134356047.4895.20.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
	<200512112245.31173.jasonb@edseek.com>
Message-ID: <1134363803.4895.30.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Sun, 2005-12-11 at 22:45 -0500, Jason Boxman wrote:
> Do you mean legacy PCI or PCI Express?

Legacy PCI is the SB Audigy2 ZS.
It won't taxi your PCI interconnect at all.

Most sound cards don't taxi too bad -- well under 10%.
*UNTIL* you start doing 3D audio.

That's what separates the boys from the men in sound cards.
Whether the sound card is relying on 20+% of the CPU's time to do
computation -- and worse, sending back the multi-MB stream of encodings
to various channels.
Or whether the sound card's IC does it, as with the Audigy.

> At 11:59 I'll be out of time to order. ;)

I haven't personally used any PCIe x1 sound cards, so I can't vouche for
them.

But the SB Audigy2 ZS does the job fine, without killing your legacy
PCI.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From jasonb at edseek.com  Mon Dec 12 00:48:33 2005
From: jasonb at edseek.com (Jason Boxman)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] I love this, sound skips on browser loading
In-Reply-To: <1134363803.4895.30.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
References: <200512102136.23863.jasonb@edseek.com>
	<200512112245.31173.jasonb@edseek.com>
	<1134363803.4895.30.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
Message-ID: <200512120048.34042.jasonb@edseek.com>

On Monday 12 December 2005 00:03, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
<snip>
> > At 11:59 I'll be out of time to order. ;)
>
> I haven't personally used any PCIe x1 sound cards, so I can't vouche for
> them.
>
> But the SB Audigy2 ZS does the job fine, without killing your legacy
> PCI.

Oh well, too late to order.  I need the cash right now anyway.

Since I stopped reading dealnews I think my technology spending has been zero, 
with the exception of the dedicated gaming system I built in August.

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff


From pberry2 at cfl.rr.com  Mon Dec 12 10:15:09 2005
From: pberry2 at cfl.rr.com (Whaxiac Patrick)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Generic Linux question ....
In-Reply-To: <439C8CAC.1000807@HiWAAY.net>
References: <439C8CAC.1000807@HiWAAY.net>
Message-ID: <200512121015.10033.pberry2@cfl.rr.com>

On Sunday 11 December 2005 15:31, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
> .... Several years back (late '90's) I had the impression that SuSE was
> somewhat disdained by some geeks for their practice of making
> alterations to kernel (& possibly other) code in their distro. I *think*
> that most of the other 'big boys' (RH, Mandrake, maybe others) now do
> this as well. They are mostly back-porting newer stuff from newer
> kernels, as I understand it, but their kernels are nonetheless not
> identical & possibly incompatible with other binary packages because of
> these alterations. It is also considered unwise to try to use "vanilla"
> kernels from kernel.org with these distros because of possible/likely
> incompatibilities. Does anyone have a quick synopsis or a link on who
> does what to their kernels, distro-by-distro ? TIA :-).
There are some 420 monitored, reviewed, OSes, at Distrowatch.
Then, there are some 301 LiveCDs monitored, reviewed, at LiveCDlist.

There are about 30 of them, that are proprietary to the state of what you 
describe, AFAIK.  Some Proprietary versions that I have tried out: LinSpire, 
Libranet, BearOps, Suse, Red Hat, Mandrake don't make the grade for my 
personal preferences of what can be updated, upgraded, quickly and with 
little conflict.

In my many trials, since 1997, I have noted that the most problems I ever had 
were with the proprietary distributions.  Too few inputs, single point of 
control of the choices of the apps, and thus, the functionality.  

But, I don't know of a standard or maintained, list of all the changes.  I try 
to use OSes that accept the official kernel from kernel.org.  Tons less 
headaches... and, I desire to never be 'locked-in' to some upgrade 
subscription plan that enriches the coffers of a proprietor, while not 
actually contributing a lot of money to the total effort by all the people.

So, I have prchase a lot of retail boxed sets from all of the above, plus, 
done direct donations to some contributers, my personal goal is to stay open 
source, in it's true sense.  

Hope that all gives you a bit of insight about part of the concept.    

Proprietary vendors seems to do weirdness to give out some eye candy, to hype 
and market their products, but, seem to have natural limits upon the number 
of contributors (usually on the payroll- so, limited in number). whereas the 
free distros seem to either be excellent, have many contributors, or, fail 
due to lack of support.   

Sort of a natural law of survival.   
-- 
http://livecdlist.com  http://distrowatch.com  http://yolinux.com
http://safeharbordome.com  http://minidome.net  http://monolithicdome.com

From wam at HiWAAY.net  Mon Dec 12 11:16:50 2005
From: wam at HiWAAY.net (William A. Mahaffey III)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] [OT (for Linux)] DDS tape question ....
Message-ID: <439DA272.1040701@HiWAAY.net>


.... what is the nominal expected lifespan of DDS-2/3/4 tapes in terms 
of # of times recorded ? I have some that are acting up sooner than 
expected ....

-- 
	William A. Mahaffey III
---------------------------------------------------------------------
	Remember, ignorance is bliss, but
	willful ignorance is LIBERALISM !!!!


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Mon Dec 12 11:10:33 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Generic Linux question ....
In-Reply-To: <200512121015.10033.pberry2@cfl.rr.com>
Message-ID: <20051212161033.79587.qmail@web34103.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Whaxiac Patrick <pberry2@cfl.rr.com> wrote:

> Some Proprietary versions that I have tried out: LinSpire, 
> Libranet, BearOps, Suse, Red Hat, Mandrake don't make the
> grade for my personal preferences of what can be updated,
> upgraded, quickly and with little conflict.

Please don't label Red Hat as "proprietary."

It is not in the least bit.  100% of what Red Hat does and
releases is open source, an overwhelming majority is GPL --
to an anal power.  Otherwise, projects like CentOS -- which
is RHEL only without the Red Hat(R) trademarks, could not
exist.

As far as the inflexibility and rigid/fixed nature of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux (RHEL), that's the technical design and
focus of the product -- especially considering that Service
Level Agreements (SLA) are the major driver.  You do _not_
want to use it when you need flexibility, non-certified 3rd
party apps, etc...

As such, I suggest you not differentiate it as "proprietary"
but another term -- such as "enterprise."

> In my many trials, since 1997, I have noted that the most
> problems I ever had were with the proprietary
distributions.
> Too few inputs, single point of control of the choices of
the
> apps, and thus, the functionality.  

I can't speak with regards to the other distros, but both Red
Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Novell/SuSE Linux Enterprise
Server (SLES) are purposely designed to be inflexible and
fixed in configuration.

> So, I have prchase a lot of retail boxed sets from all of
> the above,

Chump change.  The economies-of-scale involved mean that even
if you sell 1M copies, you have to charge 100x what Microsoft
does to see just the same revenues on Windows.  And God knows
Microsoft's profit is not from Windows, but from applications
like office.

Red Hat got completely out of it, and Novell is largely
following their lead.

> plus, done direct donations to some contributers,

That's more effective.

> my personal goal is to stay open source, in it's true
sense.

I have no problem with Red Hat in that regard.  They produce
Fedora Core, which only lacks 3rd party certification and the
Red Hat(R) trademark that even Microsoft was free to use
under the old distribution model (thank you Sun!). 
Everything else is as it was with Red Hat Linux (including
the promised support duration -- which has always been only 1
year**).

[ **NOTE:  And much like Red Hat Linux before it, Fedora Core
often gets supported much longer than 1 year.  But it's not
an official policy -- just like the Red Hat Linux days. ]

> Proprietary vendors seems to do weirdness to give out some
> eye candy, to hype and market their products, but, seem to
> have natural limits upon the number of contributors
> (usually on the payroll- so, limited in number).

You obviously don't know the first thing about the Red Hat -
Fedora symbios.  ;->

I guess with regards to the other vendors, this is true.  But
not Red Hat.

> whereas the free distros seem to either be excellent,
> have many contributors,

Why do you think Novell is switching SuSE to a Fedora-like
model?

Again, labeling "Brand Names" as "proprietary" is rather
ignorant of how the development models actually work --
especially in the case of Red Hat.

> or, fail due to lack of support.   

"Lack of support" is subjective.

The reality is more like the fact that if you have a "kitchen
sink" and you cater to "any 3rd party application," it's
impossible to deliver Service Level Agreements (SLA).  That's
why features/leading-edge and stability/trailing-edge will
always be conflicting.

Red Hat solidified the 2-2-2->release, 6-6-6->enterprise
model long ago.  The problem was that the single product line
did not satisify either solution -- the people bitching for
more apps and the people bitching for less change.  The issue
that finally forced everything was the trademark, once Sun's
lawyers asserted they didn't have to pay Red Hat a dime and
could freely abuse it like Cobalt did, it meant Microsoft
could do the same thing.

The result is that the former got the same 2-2-2->release
model, while the latter still has the same 6-6-6->enterprise
model.  Ironically enough, the model is now becoming more of
a 3-3-3->release and 9-9->enterprise now -- we're actually
getting one "flaky" Fedora Core release followed by one
"solid" Fedora Core, which is the foundation of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From wam at HiWAAY.net  Mon Dec 12 11:20:10 2005
From: wam at HiWAAY.net (William A. Mahaffey III)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Generic Linux question ....
In-Reply-To: <200512121015.10033.pberry2@cfl.rr.com>
References: <439C8CAC.1000807@HiWAAY.net>
	<200512121015.10033.pberry2@cfl.rr.com>
Message-ID: <439DA33A.6090805@HiWAAY.net>

Whaxiac Patrick wrote:

>On Sunday 11 December 2005 15:31, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
>  
>
>>.... Several years back (late '90's) I had the impression that SuSE was
>>somewhat disdained by some geeks for their practice of making
>>alterations to kernel (& possibly other) code in their distro. I *think*
>>that most of the other 'big boys' (RH, Mandrake, maybe others) now do
>>this as well. They are mostly back-porting newer stuff from newer
>>kernels, as I understand it, but their kernels are nonetheless not
>>identical & possibly incompatible with other binary packages because of
>>these alterations. It is also considered unwise to try to use "vanilla"
>>kernels from kernel.org with these distros because of possible/likely
>>incompatibilities. Does anyone have a quick synopsis or a link on who
>>does what to their kernels, distro-by-distro ? TIA :-).
>>    
>>
>There are some 420 monitored, reviewed, OSes, at Distrowatch.
>Then, there are some 301 LiveCDs monitored, reviewed, at LiveCDlist.
>
>There are about 30 of them, that are proprietary to the state of what you 
>describe, AFAIK.  Some Proprietary versions that I have tried out: LinSpire, 
>Libranet, BearOps, Suse, Red Hat, Mandrake don't make the grade for my 
>personal preferences of what can be updated, upgraded, quickly and with 
>little conflict.
>
>In my many trials, since 1997, I have noted that the most problems I ever had 
>were with the proprietary distributions.  Too few inputs, single point of 
>control of the choices of the apps, and thus, the functionality.  
>
>But, I don't know of a standard or maintained, list of all the changes.  I try 
>to use OSes that accept the official kernel from kernel.org.  Tons less 
>headaches... and, I desire to never be 'locked-in' to some upgrade 
>subscription plan that enriches the coffers of a proprietor, while not 
>actually contributing a lot of money to the total effort by all the people.
>
>So, I have prchase a lot of retail boxed sets from all of the above, plus, 
>done direct donations to some contributers, my personal goal is to stay open 
>source, in it's true sense.  
>
>Hope that all gives you a bit of insight about part of the concept.    
>
>Proprietary vendors seems to do weirdness to give out some eye candy, to hype 
>and market their products, but, seem to have natural limits upon the number 
>of contributors (usually on the payroll- so, limited in number). whereas the 
>free distros seem to either be excellent, have many contributors, or, fail 
>due to lack of support.   
>
>Sort of a natural law of survival.   
>  
>

I *QUITE* agree w/ all of your observations. I am using SuSE at the 
moment (8.2 on a 933 MHz PIII, 9.2 on a 2.4 GHz P4) & like it OK, but 
have noticed problems w/ other packages not being available or not 
working unless specifically compiled for SuSE, thus the question. I knew 
about distrowatch, will look at livecdlist, thanks.

-- 
	William A. Mahaffey III
---------------------------------------------------------------------
	Remember, ignorance is bliss, but
	willful ignorance is LIBERALISM !!!!

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From pberry2 at cfl.rr.com  Mon Dec 12 11:28:59 2005
From: pberry2 at cfl.rr.com (Whaxiac Patrick)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Generic Linux question ....
In-Reply-To: <20051212161033.79587.qmail@web34103.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20051212161033.79587.qmail@web34103.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200512121128.59335.pberry2@cfl.rr.com>

On Monday 12 December 2005 11:10, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> Whaxiac Patrick <pberry2@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> > Some Proprietary versions that I have tried out: LinSpire,
> > Libranet, BearOps, Suse, Red Hat, Mandrake don't make the
> > grade for my personal preferences of what can be updated,
> > upgraded, quickly and with little conflict.
>
> Please don't label Red Hat as "proprietary."
>
> It is not in the least bit.  100% of what Red Hat does and
> releases is open source, an overwhelming majority is GPL --
> to an anal power.  Otherwise, projects like CentOS -- which
> is RHEL only without the Red Hat(R) trademarks, could not
> exist.
>
> As far as the inflexibility and rigid/fixed nature of Red Hat
> Enterprise Linux (RHEL), that's the technical design and
> focus of the product -- especially considering that Service
> Level Agreements (SLA) are the major driver.  You do _not_
> want to use it when you need flexibility, non-certified 3rd
> party apps, etc...
>
> As such, I suggest you not differentiate it as "proprietary"
> but another term -- such as "enterprise."
Egads, it's a jungle out there!  But, the definition smear could be attributed 
to the Microsoft FUD and Hyper marketing by the Microsoft Promotion team of 
big mouth Ballmer.  

The term Enterprise seems to be used flexibly by Microsoft in one instance, to 
define their attack on the server market, whilst being used to define all 
business usage on the other.

I did not mention, but, should, that I was running RedHat 9.0 when the free 
update and user networks were shut down with a short warning.  That served as 
a notice to the 'free' users, who were the beta test group for RH products, 
that we were no longer necessary to the great commercial enterprise that Red 
Hat wanted to become.  

A year later, Fedora Core was released.  But, once burned, twice shy.  
Thousands of beta testers/contributors to the RH bugtrack made the same 
decision.

I was already gone.  And, won't be back.  Too many other fantastic options, 
more closely suiting my personal needs in computers. 

But, thanks for your definitions, and the descriptions.




-- 
http://livecdlist.com  http://distrowatch.com  http://yolinux.com
http://safeharbordome.com  http://minidome.net  http://monolithicdome.com

From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Mon Dec 12 11:59:20 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1B0B@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

A short time ago my wife called to say that the computer wasn't turning
on.  I turned it off last night and when she attempted to get it going
today she said it came on but that neither the mouse, keyboard nor
monitor were working ... which actually means that it wasn't booting.
I'm going to do some diagnostics tonight but my guess is the mobo has
given up :-(

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Mon Dec 12 12:08:00 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Generic Linux question ....
In-Reply-To: <200512121128.59335.pberry2@cfl.rr.com>
Message-ID: <20051212170800.47757.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Whaxiac Patrick <pberry2@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> I did not mention, but, should, that I was running RedHat
> 9.0 when the free update and user networks were shut down
> with a short warning.

Red Hat did _not_ "shut down" free access, despite what most
people believe.  Red Hat _continued_ to provide updates
through the Red Hat Network (RHN) through the end-of-life of
Red Hat Linux 9.0.  Further "legacy" updates for Red Hat
Linux 9.0 are now located on a different server.  It takes 1
configuration change to the Up2Date service to target this
new server.

The RHN servers still provide 100% *FREE* updates to current
Fedora Core relases via Up2Date.  YUM is the preferred
method, especially starting with Fedora Core 5 because the
Anaconda installer now allows you to dynamically add Internet
repositories during install.  But Up2Date was and still is
offered for legacy RHN access.

> That served as a notice to the 'free' users, who were the
> beta test group for RH products,

Red Hat has a 2-3 month cycle of each:  
- Rawhide (now known as Development)
- Beta (now known as Test)
- Release

That goes into building a new revision.  The early revisions
that adopt new versions are very unstable and flaky.  The
latter revisions that include more stable versions of the
same relases are definitely less buggy.

So after 2-4 revisions, a "fixed" Enterprise version is spun.

The old golden rule was _never_ atop a ".0" revision of Red
Hat Linux -- trust the first .1 revision.  In similar
fashion, Fedora Core has basically become _never_ atop an
"even" version (e.g., 2, 4) of Fedora Core -- wait for the
next "odd" (e.g., 3, 5) version.

> that we were no longer necessary to the great commercial
> enterprise that Red Hat wanted to become.  

Again, _false_.  Red Hat had been offering an "enterprise"
distro release since Red Hat Linux 6.2 "E".

The second release was Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1 (later
known as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1) based on Red Hat Linux
7.2.

The 3rd was RHEL 3 based on Red Hat Linux 9.

The 4th was RHEL 4 based on Fedora Core 3.

Red Hat no longer charges for Red Hat Linux because it was
chump change.  The name change was because of trademark. 
They don't certify applications against the 6 month revisions
because most vendors stopped doing such once Red Hat
Enterprise Linux came out, released every 18 months.

Make no mistake, Red Hat employees who work on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux _also_ work on Fedora Core because there is
a 1:1 package relationship.  Without the creation, regression
testing, integration testing and roll-out of Fedora Core
packages, there are *NO* equivalents in Red Hat Enterprise
Linux.

> A year later, Fedora Core was released.

Huh?  Red Hat Linux 10 became Fedora Core 1 after the first
beta.  It was only 8 months after Red Hat Linux 9's release
-- on target for a 6 month revision, but Red Hat took 2
months

> But, once burned, twice shy.  

Huh?  How were you "burned"???

Red Hat's _formal_ and _official_ policy since Red Hat Linux
7.2 was that Red Hat Linux releases would _only_ be updated
for 12 months.  Red Hat actually had a similar policy since
versions earlier, but during Red Hat Linux 6 and early into
7, they supported a few versions as long as 3 years.

Fedora Core today has a similar policy that results in about
12-15 months of "current" support before going "legacy." 
E.g., Fedora Core 3 is over 13 months old and still supported
as "current" (although that should change within the next
month).

> Thousands of beta testers/contributors to the RH bugtrack
> made the same decision.

Not true!  There is *MORE* support for Fedora than there ever
was with Red Hat Linux!  In fact, Fedora Core _formalized_
how non-Red Hat employees could have a say in Fedora Core's
development.  A number of Debian maintainers are now involved
in Fedora's development.

But make no mistake, although there is a meritocracy-based
leadership steering committee, Fedora Core has and will
always exist to set the technology for the next Red Hat
Enteprise Linux release.

> I was already gone.  And, won't be back.  Too many other
> fantastic options, more closely suiting my personal needs
> in computers. 

That's fine, but just don't get your facts on Red Hat so
_wrong_.

Just because it doesn't have the Red Hat(R) trademark on it
doesn't mean it's not every bit as Red Hat Linux was.

> But, thanks for your definitions, and the descriptions.

I'm just sorry they went so ignored.



-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Mon Dec 12 12:10:39 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] [OT (for Linux)] DDS tape question ....
In-Reply-To: <439DA272.1040701@HiWAAY.net>
Message-ID: <20051212171040.49823.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

"William A. Mahaffey III" <wam@HiWAAY.net> wrote:
> .... what is the nominal expected lifespan of DDS-2/3/4
> tapes in terms of # of times recorded ? I have some that
are
> acting up sooner than expected ....

Typical 4mm DAT lifespan is (from my memory):  
- 1,000 passes
- 100 "full backups"
- 10 year shelf-life



-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Mon Dec 12 23:06:44 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2
Message-ID: <1134446804.4829.15.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

I'm getting a pair of these this week, one for my parents, one for my
best friend.  They run about $60.  I'll let you know how they work
out ...

Product page:  
  http://www.asrock.com/product/product_K8NF4G-SATA2.htm  

Manual:  
  http://www.asrock.com/Drivers/Manual/K8NF4G-SATA2.pdf  

Essentials:
- Socket-754 with ATX12V 1.0 (20-pin + 4-pin P4)
- nVidia GeForce 6100 + nForce 410 combo
- (2) 184-pin DDR DIMM slots
- (1) PCIe x16 slot
- (2) PCI 32-bit@33MHz 5V slot
- (1) PCIe x1 / AMR slot
- RealTek ALC850 (7.1 output, 6 jacks)
- RealTek RTL8201 PHY 10/100
- (2) SATA-II channels (SATA-IO/300?)
- (2) ATA-133 channels
- (8) USB 2.0 (4 back, 4 header -- how many EHCI?)
- PS/2, Parallel, Serial (Serial on separate bracket)

FYI, I'm trying to find if anyone sells a DVI PCIe x16 output for the
GeForce 6100 -- if even such a thing is standardized.  The board only
has VGA15 out.

-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Tue Dec 13 09:16:15 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1B43@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

My wife tried turning it on again and it worked.  I turned it off again
last night then this morning it took three attempts for it to turn on.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Tue Dec 13 09:30:50 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:29 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1B43@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
References: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1B43@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <1134484250.11335.5.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Tue, 2005-12-13 at 09:16 -0500, Damien McKenna wrote:
> My wife tried turning it on again and it worked.  I turned it off again
> last night then this morning it took three attempts for it to turn on.

Okay, that's definitely sounding like a power issue.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From hescominsoon at emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com  Tue Dec 13 09:48:50 2005
From: hescominsoon at emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com (William Warren)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
In-Reply-To: <1134484250.11335.5.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
References: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1B43@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
	<1134484250.11335.5.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
Message-ID: <439EDF52.7020800@emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com>

I am thinking along the same lines.  Power supply problems.

Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-13 at 09:16 -0500, Damien McKenna wrote:
> 
>>My wife tried turning it on again and it worked.  I turned it off again
>>last night then this morning it took three attempts for it to turn on.
> 
> 
> Okay, that's definitely sounding like a power issue.
> 
> 

-- 
My "Foundation" verse:
Isa 54:17  No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and 
every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt 
condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their 
righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

-- carpe ductum -- "Grab the tape"
CDTT (Certified Duct Tape Technician)

Linux user #322099
Machines:
206822
256638
276825
http://counter.li.org/

From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Tue Dec 13 10:21:18 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1B46@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

> Okay, that's definitely sounding like a power issue.

Here's what I have:

500W Antec PSU, only a few months old:
http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=26500
Gigabyte nForce4 SLI mobo
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-K8NXP-SLI.ht
m
PCI video card
PCI SCSI card
160gb Seagate SATA drive
160gb Maxtor IDE drive
80gb Maxtor IDE drive
Internal DLT7000 drive
LG GSA4183 DVD burner

I replaced the old 400W PSU with the 500W one when it wasn't strong
enough to power the DLT drive.  Should I just give up and move the DLT
drive to an external bay?  I'll try disconnecting the drive for a while
to see if that makes a difference.

This is sure giving me the humbugs :-|

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Tue Dec 13 11:03:41 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
In-Reply-To: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1B46@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>
Message-ID: <20051213160341.18915.qmail@web34106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Damien McKenna <dmckenna@thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> Here's what I have:
> 500W Antec PSU, only a few months old:
> http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=26500

Yeah, that should be more than enough -- ATX 2.0 and
everything.

> Gigabyte nForce4 SLI mobo
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-K8NXP-SLI.htm

That's gotta be where the issue is.  The GeForce 6600GT
really pushes up against the 150W limit of a PCIe x16 video
designated slot.  I'd contact Gigabyte and tell them your
repeat issues.

> PCI video card

Is this in addition to the PCIe?
I've had trouble with a 2nd video card on the PCI.

> PCI SCSI card
> 160gb Seagate SATA drive
> 160gb Maxtor IDE drive
> 80gb Maxtor IDE drive
> Internal DLT7000 drive
> LG GSA4183 DVD burner

That's a lot of devices, but other than the DLT7000, I don't
see them overloading the +12V.  But it _could_ be that --
you're pulling too much +12V from the primary +12V rail.

Are you running all of the drives off of the same Molex run? 
If so, try using a couple of others.

> I replaced the old 400W PSU with the 500W one when it
> wasn't strong enough to power the DLT drive.  Should I just
> give up and move the DLT drive to an external bay?

Yeah, that's a bad sign.  I have an extra, 5.25" full height
external SCSI bays (HD50) if you want to try one.

> I'll try disconnecting the drive for a while
> to see if that makes a difference. 
> This is sure giving me the humbugs :-|



-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Tue Dec 13 11:19:58 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1B49@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

> > 500W Antec PSU, only a few months old:
> > http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=26500
> 
> Yeah, that should be more than enough -- ATX 2.0 and
> everything.

That's what I was hoping.

> > Gigabyte nForce4 SLI mobo
> http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-K8
> NXP-SLI.htm
> 
> That's gotta be where the issue is.  The GeForce 6600GT
> really pushes up against the 150W limit of a PCIe x16 video
> designated slot.  I'd contact Gigabyte and tell them your
> repeat issues.

I've been using a single ATI X700 Pro card in the machine until a week
ago when it died.

> > PCI video card
> 
> Is this in addition to the PCIe?
> I've had trouble with a 2nd video card on the PCI.

I'm only running the one PCI card, no PCIe right now.

> > PCI SCSI card
> > 160gb Seagate SATA drive
> > 160gb Maxtor IDE drive
> > 80gb Maxtor IDE drive
> > Internal DLT7000 drive
> > LG GSA4183 DVD burner
> 
> That's a lot of devices, but other than the DLT7000, I don't
> see them overloading the +12V.  But it _could_ be that --
> you're pulling too much +12V from the primary +12V rail.
> Are you running all of the drives off of the same Molex run? 

Nope, this PSU has all separate power connectors so I've got at most two
drives on each one.

> > I replaced the old 400W PSU with the 500W one when it
> > wasn't strong enough to power the DLT drive.  Should I just
> > give up and move the DLT drive to an external bay?
> 
> Yeah, that's a bad sign.  I have an extra, 5.25" full height
> external SCSI bays (HD50) if you want to try one.

I think it's a 68pin device.

Thanks, Bryan.

I'll see about doing the enclosure first, then contact Gigabyte.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>

From dmckenna at thelimucompany.com  Tue Dec 13 11:24:50 2005
From: dmckenna at thelimucompany.com (Damien McKenna)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Why me?  Another dead PCI-Express card
Message-ID: <5C9DC445A45FEC4185D272DAF6AF37D19F1B4B@tlc001.tlcusa.thelimucompany.com>

On a related note, has anyone ever tried simply plugging an internal
SCSI device to an ATX PSU and stringing a long cable to it?  I've got
the 400W PSU I'm not using anymore, have a long cable and could just get
an el-cheapo case to house them.  Worth trying?

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna@thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>


From whittake at sbaflorida.com  Tue Dec 13 14:31:20 2005
From: whittake at sbaflorida.com (Homer Whittaker)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2
In-Reply-To: <1134446804.4829.15.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
References: <1134446804.4829.15.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
Message-ID: <439F2188.9020707@sbaflorida.com>

Bryan:  What cpu are using with the boards and how much are they?
Guess my main interest is are they any better than the Asus K8V SE 
Deluxe that I currently have installed on a machine?
Homer Whittaker


Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> I'm getting a pair of these this week, one for my parents, one for my
> best friend.  They run about $60.  I'll let you know how they work
> out ...
> 
> Product page:  
>   http://www.asrock.com/product/product_K8NF4G-SATA2.htm  
> 
> Manual:  
>   http://www.asrock.com/Drivers/Manual/K8NF4G-SATA2.pdf  
> 
> Essentials:
> - Socket-754 with ATX12V 1.0 (20-pin + 4-pin P4)
> - nVidia GeForce 6100 + nForce 410 combo
> - (2) 184-pin DDR DIMM slots
> - (1) PCIe x16 slot
> - (2) PCI 32-bit@33MHz 5V slot
> - (1) PCIe x1 / AMR slot
> - RealTek ALC850 (7.1 output, 6 jacks)
> - RealTek RTL8201 PHY 10/100
> - (2) SATA-II channels (SATA-IO/300?)
> - (2) ATA-133 channels
> - (8) USB 2.0 (4 back, 4 header -- how many EHCI?)
> - PS/2, Parallel, Serial (Serial on separate bracket)
> 
> FYI, I'm trying to find if anyone sells a DVI PCIe x16 output for the
> GeForce 6100 -- if even such a thing is standardized.  The board only
> has VGA15 out.
> 


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Tue Dec 13 14:52:55 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Re: ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2 -- Socket-754 (1600/400),
	Sempron 64 2800+ (1600/1600/128/256)
In-Reply-To: <439F2188.9020707@sbaflorida.com>
Message-ID: <20051213195255.56471.qmail@web34107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Homer Whittaker <whittake@sbaflorida.com> wrote:
> Bryan:  What cpu are using with the boards and how much are
> they?

AMD Socket-754 (HT1600,DDR400).  I'm putting an AMD Sempron
64 2800+ (1600Hz, HT1600, 128KiB L1, 256KiB L2) processors
which are the "best bang for the buck" at around $75.

Note the "rating" of a Sempron is against a Celeron.  So an
AMD Socket-754 (1600/400) Sempron 64 2800+
(1600/1600/128/256) will not nearly as good as a Socket-939
(2000/2x400) Athlon 64 3000+ (1800/2000/128/512) which seems
to be barely any faster in rating.  I personally have an
Athlon 64 3200+ (2000/2000/128/512) in my home desktop cube.

I'm continuing to build MicroATX+ATX-PS cubes using the
Chenming 118 series 9" (H) x 11" (W) x14" (D) enclosures --
especially since they will fit even full 500-600W power
supplies.  For more workstations/servers, I'll use an
EATX/SSI-EEB enclosure (which varies).  For more embedded
work, I like the 2.7-5" (H) x 7" (W) x 7" (D) Mini-ITX
enclosures -- short of a custom, 3.5" SBC (think 3.5" disk
drive size -- 4" x 6").

For more on the Chenming MicroATX cube and Mini-ITX Travla
cases, search for either at the top of my blog front page.

> Guess my main interest is are they any better than the Asus
> K8V SE Deluxe that I currently have installed on a machine?
> Homer Whittaker

I have both personally and professionally avoided ViA for AMD
Socket-754/939/940.

I, however, love ViA's C3 (both older CLE266 and newer CN400)
platform in Mini-ITX and 3.5" SBC form-factor (more
embedded).  I've been able to drive 480p HDTV on the
CLE266/1.xGHz C3.

I've also adopted Intel Pentium M using the i915G chipset in
a Mini-ITX form-factor when I've needed to drive 720p HDTV. 
Of course, that's a bit more expensive (over $800).

My big constraint is that I need CardBus for our radios. 
E.g., Boser HS-2606 (3.5" SBC Via CLE266/C3) and Commell
LV-673 (Mini-ITX Intel i915/P-M).  Not cheap ($300+ board --
another $200+ for the P-M).


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Tue Dec 13 15:05:44 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] [Revisited] PCI-Express SATA RAID cards -- HighPoint
	RocketRAID 2320
Message-ID: <20051213200544.73238.qmail@web34113.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

I was just doing some further research on the HighPoint
RocketRAID 2320 (PCIe) and 2220 (PCI-X) versions.

Apparently, in addition to the Marvell 88SX6041/81 (4/8 SATA
to PCI-X -- not sure about PCIe), there is a HighPoint HPT601
controller.  It seems to be an XOR ASIC and capable of other
operations.

I'm not sure how it overall affects RAID-5, let along RAID-0,
1 or 10 -- and if the ASIC is completely controlling.  I have
no idea how much SRAM (if any) is in the IC either (or on the
Marvell chip).

But it's clear from the limited I/O benchmark in Tom's
review(s) (no DTR) that the HPT601 approach isn't as bad as
the Intel ICH7-R or nVidia MCP-04 southbridges at ATA RAID. 
It actually is fairly competitive with the Broadcom (and the
3Ware 9550SX, although I'm sure that's more about the
9550SX's firmware maturity at this point).

So, since the 4-channel PCIe x4 card is sub-$200, it might
not be a bad option to look into.  It claims Linux support,
but I'm not sure how "open" that support is.  Does it hide
the SATA channels?  I don't think so, because the PCI-X/PCIe
arbitrator is on the Marvell chip.  But they claim the HPT601
allows hot-swap and off-loading from host -- so I don't know.

Supposedly the 3Ware 9550SX's 2 PowerPC 400 series
controllers have PCI-X to PCIe bridges on-IC, so hopefully
we'll see a 9550SX for PCIe soon.  But how much it will
compete is anyone's guess, I think AMCC needs to "shakedown
time" in its PPC400 architecture before we'll see the
9550SX's full potential (right now, even on PCI-X, it's very
good, but not good enough to push me towards it).


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Tue Dec 13 15:09:44 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] [Revisited] PCI-Express SATA RAID cards -- HighPoint
	RocketRAID 2320
In-Reply-To: <20051213200544.73238.qmail@web34113.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20051213200944.35054.qmail@web34103.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

"Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org> wrote:
> So, since the 4-channel PCIe x4 card is sub-$200, it might
> not be a bad option to look into.  It claims Linux support,
> but I'm not sure how "open" that support is.  Does it hide
> the SATA channels?  I don't think so, because the
> PCI-X/PCIe arbitrator is on the Marvell chip.  But they
> claim the HPT601 allows hot-swap and off-loading from host
> -- so I don't know.

FYI, I'm not sure a PCIe x4 card will physically fit in a
PCIe x1 slot, even though it would work electrically.  I
think it's one of those things that the slot should be
physically the same as or bigger than the card to fit.

That's why you're seeing a number of PCIe x4 slots on
mainboards that are electrically only PCIe x1 (or x2 in a few
cases).  Electrically, PCIe cards automatically "downgrade"
themselves.  But physically, that damn edge on the slot will
make things difficult (unless you break off the end -- which
I wouldn't do unless you don't care about the warranty.  ;->

BTW, I've also noticed the PCIe x1 is 0.25GBps/direction, not
0.125GBps like I previously stated.  So even x1 would be
better than nothing (or using the PCI channel).


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From jasonb at edseek.com  Tue Dec 13 15:31:18 2005
From: jasonb at edseek.com (Jason Boxman)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Re: ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2 -- Socket-754 (1600/400),
	Sempron 64 2800+ (1600/1600/128/256)
In-Reply-To: <20051213195255.56471.qmail@web34107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20051213195255.56471.qmail@web34107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200512131531.18253.jasonb@edseek.com>

On Tuesday 13 December 2005 14:52, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
<snip>
> My big constraint is that I need CardBus for our radios.
> E.g., Boser HS-2606 (3.5" SBC Via CLE266/C3) and Commell
> LV-673 (Mini-ITX Intel i915/P-M).  Not cheap ($300+ board --
> another $200+ for the P-M).

What radios?  What functionality do these expensive Mini-ITX and whatnot 
devices buy you?

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff


From jasonb at edseek.com  Tue Dec 13 15:31:18 2005
From: jasonb at edseek.com (Jason Boxman)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Re: ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2 -- Socket-754 (1600/400),
	Sempron 64 2800+ (1600/1600/128/256)
In-Reply-To: <20051213195255.56471.qmail@web34107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20051213195255.56471.qmail@web34107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200512131531.18253.jasonb@edseek.com>

On Tuesday 13 December 2005 14:52, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
<snip>
> My big constraint is that I need CardBus for our radios.
> E.g., Boser HS-2606 (3.5" SBC Via CLE266/C3) and Commell
> LV-673 (Mini-ITX Intel i915/P-M).  Not cheap ($300+ board --
> another $200+ for the P-M).

What radios?  What functionality do these expensive Mini-ITX and whatnot 
devices buy you?

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Tue Dec 13 16:39:05 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Re: ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2 -- Socket-754 (1600/400),
	Sempron 64 2800+ (1600/1600/128/256)
In-Reply-To: <200512131531.18253.jasonb@edseek.com>
Message-ID: <20051213213905.8801.qmail@web34113.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Jason Boxman <jasonb@edseek.com> wrote:
> What radios?

http://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/specs.aspx?EDC=831368

Although ours are a little different (long, long story).

> What functionality do these expensive Mini-ITX and whatnot 
> devices buy you?

Size, primarily.  Especially when it comes to Mini-PCI and
CardBus on-board.

6.7" x 6.7" -- let alone a 4" x 6" 3.5SBC -- is still a lot
smaller and far more integrated than a 9.6" x 9.6" MicroATX
-- let alone before we have to put slots in whereas we don't
for the integrated Mini-ITX, or 3.5SBCs.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From jasonb at edseek.com  Tue Dec 13 19:18:55 2005
From: jasonb at edseek.com (Jason Boxman)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Re: ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2 -- Socket-754 (1600/400),
	Sempron 64 2800+ (1600/1600/128/256)
In-Reply-To: <20051213213905.8801.qmail@web34113.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20051213213905.8801.qmail@web34113.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200512131918.55355.jasonb@edseek.com>

On Tuesday 13 December 2005 16:39, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> Jason Boxman <jasonb@edseek.com> wrote:
> > What radios?
>
> http://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/specs.aspx?EDC=831368
>
> Although ours are a little different (long, long story).

You need a wireless card of sorts to drive your home entertainment system?  
That must be quite a setup (cool, strange, or both).

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff


From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Tue Dec 13 20:07:48 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Re: ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2 -- Socket-754 (1600/400),
	Sempron 64 2800+ (1600/1600/128/256)
In-Reply-To: <200512131918.55355.jasonb@edseek.com>
Message-ID: <20051214010748.10689.qmail@web34114.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Jason Boxman <jasonb@edseek.com> wrote:
> You need a wireless card of sorts to drive your home
> entertainment system?  
> That must be quite a setup (cool, strange, or both).

;->

No, I was sharing what we're using for SFF.
Some of this stuff operates outside.
Others operate in malls.
Etc...




-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Tue Dec 13 20:17:58 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Re: ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2 -- Socket-754 (1600/400),
	Sempron 64 2800+ (1600/1600/128/256)
In-Reply-To: <20051214010748.10689.qmail@web34114.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20051214011758.17271.qmail@web34105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

"Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org> wrote:
> ;->
> No, I was sharing what we're using for SFF.
> Some of this stuff operates outside.
> Others operate in malls.
> Etc...

Although you never know.

We keep half-way joking / half-way serious at work that we're
going to put a 40' pole in the back of my yard and see how
much bandwidth we can get between my home in Oviedo to our
sprawling Lake Mary - Heathrow - Altamonte Springs mesh
network.

Some of our stuff can do 25Mbps up to tens of miles.  ;->


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Wed Dec 14 01:16:02 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Mini-ITX 2677/2699 set-top case for $79 -- WAS: ASRock
	K8NF4G-SATA2
In-Reply-To: <200512131918.55355.jasonb@edseek.com>
References: <20051213213905.8801.qmail@web34113.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<200512131918.55355.jasonb@edseek.com>
Message-ID: <1134540963.4890.31.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Tue, 2005-12-13 at 19:18 -0500, Jason Boxman wrote:
> You need a wireless card of sorts to drive your home entertainment system?  
> That must be quite a setup (cool, strange, or both).

CaseTronic/CaseOutlet offers a 2677R or 2699R case for $79 that looks
like a nice set-top.  Dimensions are 2.5" (H) x 11.50" (W)  x
10.75" (D).  They'll take (1) 5.25" slim, (1) 3.5" slim and (1) 3.5"
internal, in addition to the mainboard.
  http://www.caseoutlet.com/shopexd.asp?id=137  (2677R)
  http://www.caseoutlet.com/shopexd.asp?id=138  (2699R)

[ NOTE:  They have White as well, but I assume you want Black ]

If you hit Froogle, you can find other resellers offering them for as
low as $60.

As far as mainboards, any ViA will work, although I recommend at least
the CLE266 for MPEG-2 decoding acceleration (don't know about in Linux
-- I need to research mplayer's support).  That's the EPIA CL, M[II] or
PD.
  http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/mini_itx/epia_m/  
  http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/mini_itx/epia_m2/  
  http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/mini_itx/epia_cl/  
  http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/mini_itx/epia_pd/  

Configuration pages with mainboard/CPU are here at
CaseTronic/CaseOutlet:  
  http://www.caseoutlet.com/shopexd.asp?id=203  (2677R)
  http://www.caseoutlet.com/shopexd.asp?id=200  (2699R)  

The M10000 is probably your best "bang-for-the-buck" to start.  Ignore
the MII unless you need CardBus and CompactFlash (which isn't bootable
on that board, it's connected via the CompactFlash, not an ATA channel).
The CL and PD add various features (e.g., dual LAN).  Coincidentally,
CaseTronic/CaseOutlet doesn't seem to offer the CL10000 on those pages,
but it's priced similarly to the M10000 at around $150 (for just the
mainboard+CPU+cooling).

The new CN400 chipset adds MPEG-4 decoding acceleration (again, I need
to research mplayer), DDR400 FSB/memory support, SATA and other goodies,
and is in the EPIA SP (will work in that case) and the new dual-
processor DP using NanoBGA C3 processors (but won't work in that
case):  
  http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/mini_itx/epia_sp/  
  http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/mini_itx/vt_310dp/  

Intel will require a bit more clearance, cooling and power (even for
Pentium-M, and definitely Pentium-4) -- let alone they cost a buttload
in Mini-ITX.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From b.j.smith at ieee.org  Wed Dec 14 01:29:45 2005
From: b.j.smith at ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith)
Date: Tue Oct 31 13:17:30 2006
Subject: [Pc_Support] Re: Mini-ITX 2677/2699 set-top case for $79 -- WAS:
	ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2
In-Reply-To: <1134540963.4890.31.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
References: <20051213213905.8801.qmail@web34113.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<200512131918.55355.jasonb@edseek.com>
	<1134540963.4890.31.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>
Message-ID: <1134541785.4890.38.camel@bert64.oviedo.smithconcepts.com>

On Wed, 2005-12-14 at 01:16 -0500, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> CaseTronic/CaseOutlet offers a 2677R or 2699R case for $79 that looks
> like a nice set-top.  Dimensions are 2.5" (H) x 11.50" (W)  x
> 10.75" (D).  They'll take (1) 5.25" slim, (1) 3.5" slim and (1) 3.5"
> internal, in addition to the mainboard.
>   http://www.caseoutlet.com/shopexd.asp?id=137  (2677R)
>   http://www.caseoutlet.com/shopexd.asp?id=138  (2699R)

Actually, Directron offers both for $64 and $62 ...
  http://www.directron.com/miniitx.html

They also offer a 3688 for $70 that is smaller (2.5" x 8" x 10.5"), if
you don't mind putting in a 2.5" HD:  
  http://www.directron.com/cubid3688bk.html  

Kicker with that case is no riser.

But they have the CL10000 for $148:  
  http://www.directron.com/epiacl10000.html  

I'm seriously considering a Mini-ITX for a firewall, but I just can't
bring myself to spend the dough just yet.  I'm still running with a
Pentium MMX and 32MiB RAM, and IPCop hiccups when I enable Snort as well
as Traffic Shaping.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."



From b.j.smith at i