Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Dan Penoff via Mercedes]

I had an issue with my dual 30” Cinema displays where the internal USB hub 
prevented one from coming on. It was when I moved last time - I connected 
everything up and only one of them would come on. I poked around and couldn’t 
figure out what was going on. I had the USB hub in that monitor connected to a 
USB 3.0 card in the machine (Mac Pro 5,1) and when I disconnected the monitor’s 
USB cable the monitor worked.

Not sure why the USB hub would have effects on the monitor itself, but that’s 
what fixed it.

-D

> On Aug 4, 2020, at 8:53 AM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes  
> wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>> Maybe you can tell me why my Mac occasionally wakes from sleep and the 
>> machine’s monitor won’t come alive but the external monitor does. I have to 
>> reboot it(unplug it plug back in) and it will work ok again for some random 
>> number of sleep wakes. 
> 
> Every once in awhile my main 30" monitor turns off, though the secondary 
> monitor is
> fine, as is the computer.  I just power-cycle the monitor (via its side power 
> switch) a time
> or two and it's back in the saddle.  Never understood it, but that's what you 
> get sometimes
> when buying used gear.  It did it with both computers, I don't think they're 
> at fault.
> 
> The weird thing I get is that the 2,1 unit awakened nearly instantly.  Always 
> did.  Ready
> to work within a second of sitting down, guaranteed, and much faster at 
> awakening than
> our newest 2018 laptop.  This 4/5,1 unit is extraordinarily slow to awaken, 
> taking nearly
> a minute sometimes.  Tres irritating.
> 
> I have an older Macbook Pro that has become unreliable at sleep/wake.  
> Basically
> you can't trust it, because it will crash while sleeping and halfway wake up, 
> with the
> CPU burning power and getting very hot.  The fans end up on full, etc.  I 
> think it's
> solder joints on the GPU failing, that series is very prone to that.  Only 
> cure is to
> fix the solder joints.  As these are BGA packages, you can't do this without 
> special
> equipment.  I've baked the life back into one of these using the oven.  I've 
> also
> slaughtered one the same way.  (Full disassembly is required, you bake ONLY
> the CPU board, all soft plastic removed.)  I've opted on this one simply to 
> not use
> sleep.  It has an SSD, so booting from scratch for every session is fairly 
> quick.
> These problems usually get progressively worse until the machine is no longer
> usable at all.  Thermal cycling is the driver behind the failure mode.
> 
> This problem is why my son's 'new' Macbook Pro, the one he's taking to 
> college,
> is the mid-2012 13" model, said model being one that does NOT have an 
> auxiliary
> GPU.  Said model thus being notoriously reliable in consequence, though not 
> favored
> by gamers.  (It's also the last model Apple made that can have both RAM and 
> disk
> upgraded, which I have done.  It's also the oldest Catalina-capable laptop.)  
> If he
> wants to play games at college, he can buy his own damned machine.  And good
> luck to you, sonny.  The college career of gamers is usually short and 
> undistinguished.
> 
> I don't know enough about your machine to make any kind of guess. iMac?  
> Laptop?
> 
> -- Jim
> 
> 
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

> Maybe you can tell me why my Mac occasionally wakes from sleep and the 
> machine’s monitor won’t come alive but the external monitor does. I have to 
> reboot it(unplug it plug back in) and it will work ok again for some random 
> number of sleep wakes. 

Every once in awhile my main 30" monitor turns off, though the secondary 
monitor is
fine, as is the computer.  I just power-cycle the monitor (via its side power 
switch) a time
or two and it's back in the saddle.  Never understood it, but that's what you 
get sometimes
when buying used gear.  It did it with both computers, I don't think they're at 
fault.

The weird thing I get is that the 2,1 unit awakened nearly instantly.  Always 
did.  Ready
to work within a second of sitting down, guaranteed, and much faster at 
awakening than
our newest 2018 laptop.  This 4/5,1 unit is extraordinarily slow to awaken, 
taking nearly
a minute sometimes.  Tres irritating.

I have an older Macbook Pro that has become unreliable at sleep/wake.  Basically
you can't trust it, because it will crash while sleeping and halfway wake up, 
with the
CPU burning power and getting very hot.  The fans end up on full, etc.  I think 
it's
solder joints on the GPU failing, that series is very prone to that.  Only cure 
is to
fix the solder joints.  As these are BGA packages, you can't do this without 
special
equipment.  I've baked the life back into one of these using the oven.  I've 
also
slaughtered one the same way.  (Full disassembly is required, you bake ONLY
the CPU board, all soft plastic removed.)  I've opted on this one simply to not 
use
sleep.  It has an SSD, so booting from scratch for every session is fairly 
quick.
These problems usually get progressively worse until the machine is no longer
usable at all.  Thermal cycling is the driver behind the failure mode.

This problem is why my son's 'new' Macbook Pro, the one he's taking to college,
is the mid-2012 13" model, said model being one that does NOT have an auxiliary
GPU.  Said model thus being notoriously reliable in consequence, though not 
favored
by gamers.  (It's also the last model Apple made that can have both RAM and disk
upgraded, which I have done.  It's also the oldest Catalina-capable laptop.)  
If he
wants to play games at college, he can buy his own damned machine.  And good
luck to you, sonny.  The college career of gamers is usually short and 
undistinguished.

I don't know enough about your machine to make any kind of guess. iMac?  Laptop?

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Buggered Benzmail via Mercedes]

Maybe you can tell me why my Mac occasionally wakes from sleep and the 
machine’s monitor won’t come alive but the external monitor does. I have to 
reboot it(unplug it plug back in) and it will work ok again for some random 
number of sleep wakes. 

--FT
Sent from iPhone

> On Aug 3, 2020, at 9:23 PM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes  
> wrote:
> 
> I've periodically reported on my various Adventures in Computing, and I
> thought I'd check in again.  As some may recall, I upgraded my main
> desktop home/work (now) system from a Mac Pro 2,1 to a Mac Pro 5,1
> (both were common firmware upgrades from the immediately preceding models,
> followed by CPU upgrades), and I had a LOT of trouble trying to run a pair of 
> spendy
> 3.46 GHz processors. These were unreliable in a pair, but either would work 
> great
> in a single-CPU card.  I finally gave up and put in some cheaper, slower 2.93 
> GHz
> processors, a speed that matched what it had in its 4,1 state, and the thing 
> hasn't
> hiccuped since.  I booted it on May 28, the morning I installed the 
> stock-speed but
> upgrade CPUs, and it's been running nonstop ever since.  (Yes, "who -b" says
> May 28.)
> 
> I run Mac OS High Sierra, almost the newest it will take.  I also run, via 
> VMWare 11,
> Windows 10 and Linux.  I also run Raspbian via Qemu, since I'm developing for
> Raspberry Pi as well.  (For use in the Theme Park augmenting coin slots with
> the Park's cash-equivalent cards.)  All of these work flawlessly, and 
> simultaneously,
> using multiple desktops to keep the mess contained on the 30" main monitor.
> It never even breathes hard, it has 48GB of RAM.
> 
> It has been an exceedingly painless and highly effective and satisfying time
> since I got off the Gigawagon.  Nothing I do is even remotely CPU-bound, 
> except
> the ARM simulation.  And that is about the same speed as a Pi 1B, so it's not
> horrible.
> 
> -- Jim
> 
> 
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

> What do you mean by "de-lidded"?

Some systems, for thermal reasons, use Intel CPUs that do not have the 
integrated heat spreader,
a.k.a. 'lid', on them.  This includes the Mac Pro 4,1 dual-CPU.  Intel would 
make them for you this
way, but that is not the normal product.  You can remove the lids yourself, if 
you're bold, for a
considerable cost savings.  In fact, if you do it right, it's not even that 
hard.  Any warrantee,
of course, is toast.  (I destroyed the first one figuring out what not to do, 
but it was a $6 practice
CPU.)  Good luck getting 8-year-old lidless CPUs from Intel.  Any on the market 
now were
probably de-lidded by somebody else.

See: https://www.ekwb.com/blog/what-is-delidding/ 


To upgrade the CPUs in a dual-CPU Mac Pro 4,1 you need to procure lidless 
newer/faster
(ideally both) CPU devices.  For these machines getting the new CPUs is the 
hard part, installation
is easy.  Every other cheese grater Mac Pro, including the single-CPU 4,1 
machines, uses
regular CPUs with lids.

-- Jim

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Allan Streib via Mercedes]

Jim Cathey via Mercedes  writes:

> Some may recall that I recently upgraded to a MacPro 4,1 machine, and
> I had upgraded its CPUs to dual X5690s, which I de-lidded myself.

What do you mean by "de-lidded"?

Allan


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

Some may recall that I recently upgraded to a MacPro 4,1 machine, and I had
upgraded its CPUs to dual X5690s, which I de-lidded myself.

Unfortunately it turned out not to be reliable, and would crash periodically 
with
an internal OS synchronization problem.  Either X5690 would work OK by itself
in the dual CPU card (in site A), but put them both in and not so good.  (I 
tried
the two CPUs in both permutations, no difference.)  With only one CPU, though,
the machine goes into full hovercraft mode and so is not really usable.  Also, 
you
can only put in half the RAM.  The machine continued to work fine with the 
original
X5570s in it, the CPU card was not damaged.

I red-herringed for awhile by trying dual X5667s, which are 3GHz Westmere quads
and only $6 each, but with two of them in the machine it would never boot, but 
either
was fine alone.  Suspecting that (in spite of the experts' reports that X5667 
were
OK in a 4/5,1 machine) this was not a viable configuration, I splurged on a 
pair of
X5670s, which are hexes but not faster than the original X5570s.  This set me
back ANOTHER $39, and I installed them this morning.  (I've de-lidded quite a
few CPUs now, it's actually pretty easy and doesn't take that long.)

The machine is running happily right now.  No faster than before, 2.93 GHz,
but with hex-core 2-hyperthread CPUs that will run the current version of 
VMware.
Time will tell if it's reliable.  If not, I've got the single-CPU tray to fall 
back on; it
has been flawless all along running a slower X5650.  I could try a pair of 
X5680s,
but that's even more money in a pursuit of CPU speed that I don't really need.
(Only one Raspberry Pi simulator is clearly 'too slow', and I don't think even 
the
5690s would be good enough.)  That's why I forced myself to accept the X5670s.
Dumbass, it's GOOD ENOUGH, just stop dicking with it and wasting money and
get back to work.

So, either my $150 non-returnable X5690s are flakey, or the dual CPU card is
simply not that happy at 3.46 GHz, or???

Recently my company discarded a Mac Pro 5,1 machine.  I may try to re-lid the
X5690s and put them in that to see if that'll work.  It would be nice to 
salvage the
$150 I spent on them.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

> I'm not willing to try and delid CPUs. I’ve read and seen too many horror 
> stories about the process going wrong.

Having been through it, it's easy.  There are just a few mistakes to avoid.
I learned what not to do on a $6 X5650, which I destroyed.  You could, too.
Or, learn from my mistakes and get it in one take.

You need:
4) single-edged razor blades
1) wide-jaw clamp or vise, not pliers
1) propane torch.

Using one blade, carefully cut through the glue that's holding the lid on, going
around all four sides.  Don't go too deep, there are surface-mount components
in there.  This is not too hard to do, and sounds much scarier than it is.

Push all four blades in around the edges.  This will heat-shield things, and 
also
apply a bit of spring pressure to the lid, which is also soldered to the die 
inside.
The result is a CPU with razor-blade 'wings'.

Drop the CPU into the clamp (or vise).  I used a wooden screw clamp, with
aluminum foil around the jaws to protect the wood from the heat.  Tighten the
clamp/vise onto the CPU's PCB by the edges, much as you would grip it in
your hand when inserting it into a system.  You don't need a lot of pressure,
you're only holding it.  Firmly.

Turn the clamp/vise over so that the CPU's lid is facing the ground.  I crouched
outside in a fireproof place, so that nothing had too far to fall.

Wave the propane torch flame over the lid.  This will take 10-15 seconds.
The lid will let loose with a CRACK and throw itself onto the ground, taking
four hot razor blades and some molten metal with it.  Not an issue at all if
you're prepared for this.

Let things cool a bit.  Don't pick up the lid for awhile, it's heavy and holds 
a lot of heat.

Using one of the razor blades, carefully scrape the solder off the exposed die,
and generally clean up the area.  After I was done I used alcohol on a bit of
paper towel to clean everything, top and bottom.

Put the newly-delidded CPU into the system as you would any other.  There is a
plastic thingy in an Apple that you want to move from the old CPU to the new.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

> I bet I could heat my house with that setup.

The 4,1, according to my calibrated feet, puts out less heat than the 2,1 did.
It's not that much.  My work on the 2,1, when trying to get its power draw down,
had a minimal system drawing about 100W.  Even fairly loaded up it was still
only about 350W, more than half of that the video card.

The max rating of each CPU is 130W, there are two, but you'd have to have
them loaded up with rendering or something to even go near there.  The things
idle at 8W or something.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

> Am I to understand this involves cutting off/removing the metal can
> covering the CPU's chip?

Yes.  Some people use a vise and extreme force.  Others, including me,
use heat to melt the solder.  There is a low-temperature indium (?) solder
used to solder the top of the die directly to a heavy copper heat-spreader
plate that's formed into the lid.

> How does that improve things?

I can only assume that it's getting a bit of series thermal resistance out
of there.  And that eliminating that was helpful to get the desired thermal
margins for the forced-to-be-smaller heat sinks used in the duals.  I'm guessing
that the Apple sinks are high-efficiency, so that the heat spreader plate
was doing no good, only a bit of harm.

Clearly not 100% necessary, as I believe the dual 5,1's went back to
the regular lidded processors.  It might just be that the later silicon was
a bit lower in power draw, so that the could go back to normal and not
worry about it.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Dan Penoff via Mercedes]

Not unless he’s doing some rendering or ripping video. For my regular day to 
day stuff my machine is rarely ever above 2%-4% utilization. I hear my hard 
drives more than I hear the fans.

You want heat you should see one of the forensic workstations we have at work. 
We call it the “space heater”. We’ve considered bringing in some marshmallows 
to roast over the back of it.

-D

> On Apr 4, 2020, at 3:58 PM, Greg Fiorentino via Mercedes 
>  wrote:
> 
> I bet I could heat my house with that setup.
> 
> G.
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Mercedes [mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com] On Behalf Of Jim Cathey 
> via Mercedes
> Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2020 12:34 PM
> To: Mercedes Discussion List
> Cc: Jim Cathey
> Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers
> 
> Recently I had purchased a dual-CPU MacPro 4,1 (flashed to 5,1) to upgrade 
> from
> my 2,1 running El Capitan.  I had to have High Sierra in order to run my 
> work's
> VMware tasks, and the 5,1 is capable of this.  (Not, however, without the 
> 6-core
> CPU's.)  I'd bought a low-speed 4,1 single-CPU tray, cheaply, one that had 
> been
> upgraded to a 6-core X5650 device.  This was 'slow', at 2.66GHz, but honestly
> it did a fine job as it was.  (This was for interim use while I collected 
> upgrade
> parts, and for testing and as a backup.)
> 
> I, however, was determined to upgrade the dual-CPU card to the max, just as I
> had done its 2,1 predecessor.  I bought two X5690's, these are 6-core 3.46GHz
> devices.  Nothing better is available for a dual-CPU configuration.  That was
> about $150 right there.
> 
> For thermal reasons, though, the heat sinks are different on the dual-CPU 4,1
> machines.  There isn't enough room to fit two of the single-CPU sinks, so 
> Apple
> spec'd de-lidded CPUs for the duals, and those are a bit hard to come by.  
> They're
> also more expensive.  But, you can de-lid them yourself.  (The aftermarket 
> attempts
> to try to fit lidded CPU's in these is pure butchery, and I want no part of 
> it.  Especially
> since they've done nothing to cure any thermal problems that were the reasons 
> for
> using lidless CPU's to begin with.)
> 
> I did this.  Paranoid, though, I'd bought another X5650 to practice on, $6.  
> Good
> thing I did, I managed to destroy it, two different ways, while de-lidding 
> it.  Having
> learned what NOT to do, though, meant that the de-lidding of the expensive 
> X5690's
> went smoothly.  I'm typing this on the newly-upgraded machine.
> 
> 12 total 3.46 GHz Xeon cores; 24 hyperthreads.  48GB of 1,333 MHz DDR3 ECC 
> DRAM.
> SSD for booting, terabyte spinny disks for data storage.  Blu-ray and DVD/CD 
> optical
> drives, both can burn.  It should be good for several years of use.  The 2,1 
> predecessor
> served me for 4 years, and only its inability to run my work VMware prompted 
> the
> upgrade; everything else worked great.
> 
> -- Jim
> 
> 
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Dan Penoff via Mercedes]

Jim,

You are a far braver man than I. I have both a single and dual CPU tray for a 
4,1. My current cheesegrater (flashed to 5,1, of course) is running the dual 
tray but with two quad core Xeons running at 2.26 GHz. I would love to do a CPU 
upgrade just for grins and because it’s a huge bump in processing power for 
relatively little $$, but I'm not willing to try and delid CPUs. I’ve read and 
seen too many horror stories about the process going wrong.

-D

> On Apr 4, 2020, at 3:33 PM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes  
> wrote:
> 
> Recently I had purchased a dual-CPU MacPro 4,1 (flashed to 5,1) to upgrade 
> from
> my 2,1 running El Capitan.  I had to have High Sierra in order to run my 
> work's
> VMware tasks, and the 5,1 is capable of this.  (Not, however, without the 
> 6-core
> CPU's.)  I'd bought a low-speed 4,1 single-CPU tray, cheaply, one that had 
> been
> upgraded to a 6-core X5650 device.  This was 'slow', at 2.66GHz, but honestly
> it did a fine job as it was.  (This was for interim use while I collected 
> upgrade
> parts, and for testing and as a backup.)
> 
> I, however, was determined to upgrade the dual-CPU card to the max, just as I
> had done its 2,1 predecessor.  I bought two X5690's, these are 6-core 3.46GHz
> devices.  Nothing better is available for a dual-CPU configuration.  That was
> about $150 right there.
> 
> For thermal reasons, though, the heat sinks are different on the dual-CPU 4,1
> machines.  There isn't enough room to fit two of the single-CPU sinks, so 
> Apple
> spec'd de-lidded CPUs for the duals, and those are a bit hard to come by.  
> They're
> also more expensive.  But, you can de-lid them yourself.  (The aftermarket 
> attempts
> to try to fit lidded CPU's in these is pure butchery, and I want no part of 
> it.  Especially
> since they've done nothing to cure any thermal problems that were the reasons 
> for
> using lidless CPU's to begin with.)
> 
> I did this.  Paranoid, though, I'd bought another X5650 to practice on, $6.  
> Good
> thing I did, I managed to destroy it, two different ways, while de-lidding 
> it.  Having
> learned what NOT to do, though, meant that the de-lidding of the expensive 
> X5690's
> went smoothly.  I'm typing this on the newly-upgraded machine.
> 
> 12 total 3.46 GHz Xeon cores; 24 hyperthreads.  48GB of 1,333 MHz DDR3 ECC 
> DRAM.
> SSD for booting, terabyte spinny disks for data storage.  Blu-ray and DVD/CD 
> optical
> drives, both can burn.  It should be good for several years of use.  The 2,1 
> predecessor
> served me for 4 years, and only its inability to run my work VMware prompted 
> the
> upgrade; everything else worked great.
> 
> -- Jim
> 
> 
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Greg Fiorentino via Mercedes]

I bet I could heat my house with that setup.

G.


-Original Message-
From: Mercedes [mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com] On Behalf Of Jim Cathey 
via Mercedes
Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2020 12:34 PM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Cc: Jim Cathey
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

Recently I had purchased a dual-CPU MacPro 4,1 (flashed to 5,1) to upgrade from
my 2,1 running El Capitan.  I had to have High Sierra in order to run my work's
VMware tasks, and the 5,1 is capable of this.  (Not, however, without the 6-core
CPU's.)  I'd bought a low-speed 4,1 single-CPU tray, cheaply, one that had been
upgraded to a 6-core X5650 device.  This was 'slow', at 2.66GHz, but honestly
it did a fine job as it was.  (This was for interim use while I collected 
upgrade
parts, and for testing and as a backup.)

I, however, was determined to upgrade the dual-CPU card to the max, just as I
had done its 2,1 predecessor.  I bought two X5690's, these are 6-core 3.46GHz
devices.  Nothing better is available for a dual-CPU configuration.  That was
about $150 right there.

For thermal reasons, though, the heat sinks are different on the dual-CPU 4,1
machines.  There isn't enough room to fit two of the single-CPU sinks, so Apple
spec'd de-lidded CPUs for the duals, and those are a bit hard to come by.  
They're
also more expensive.  But, you can de-lid them yourself.  (The aftermarket 
attempts
to try to fit lidded CPU's in these is pure butchery, and I want no part of it. 
 Especially
since they've done nothing to cure any thermal problems that were the reasons 
for
using lidless CPU's to begin with.)

I did this.  Paranoid, though, I'd bought another X5650 to practice on, $6.  
Good
thing I did, I managed to destroy it, two different ways, while de-lidding it.  
Having
learned what NOT to do, though, meant that the de-lidding of the expensive 
X5690's
went smoothly.  I'm typing this on the newly-upgraded machine.

12 total 3.46 GHz Xeon cores; 24 hyperthreads.  48GB of 1,333 MHz DDR3 ECC DRAM.
SSD for booting, terabyte spinny disks for data storage.  Blu-ray and DVD/CD 
optical
drives, both can burn.  It should be good for several years of use.  The 2,1 
predecessor
served me for 4 years, and only its inability to run my work VMware prompted the
upgrade; everything else worked great.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Craig via Mercedes]

On Sat, 4 Apr 2020 12:33:57 -0700 Jim Cathey via Mercedes
 wrote:

> For thermal reasons, though, the heat sinks are different on the
> dual-CPU 4,1 machines.  There isn't enough room to fit two of the
> single-CPU sinks, so Apple spec'd de-lidded CPUs for the duals, and
> those are a bit hard to come by.  They're also more expensive.  But,
> you can de-lid them yourself.  (The aftermarket attempts to try to fit
> lidded CPU's in these is pure butchery, and I want no part of it.
> Especially since they've done nothing to cure any thermal problems that
> were the reasons for using lidless CPU's to begin with.)

Am I to understand this involves cutting off/removing the metal can
covering the CPU's chip?

How does that improve things?


Craig

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

Recently I had purchased a dual-CPU MacPro 4,1 (flashed to 5,1) to upgrade from
my 2,1 running El Capitan.  I had to have High Sierra in order to run my work's
VMware tasks, and the 5,1 is capable of this.  (Not, however, without the 6-core
CPU's.)  I'd bought a low-speed 4,1 single-CPU tray, cheaply, one that had been
upgraded to a 6-core X5650 device.  This was 'slow', at 2.66GHz, but honestly
it did a fine job as it was.  (This was for interim use while I collected 
upgrade
parts, and for testing and as a backup.)

I, however, was determined to upgrade the dual-CPU card to the max, just as I
had done its 2,1 predecessor.  I bought two X5690's, these are 6-core 3.46GHz
devices.  Nothing better is available for a dual-CPU configuration.  That was
about $150 right there.

For thermal reasons, though, the heat sinks are different on the dual-CPU 4,1
machines.  There isn't enough room to fit two of the single-CPU sinks, so Apple
spec'd de-lidded CPUs for the duals, and those are a bit hard to come by.  
They're
also more expensive.  But, you can de-lid them yourself.  (The aftermarket 
attempts
to try to fit lidded CPU's in these is pure butchery, and I want no part of it. 
 Especially
since they've done nothing to cure any thermal problems that were the reasons 
for
using lidless CPU's to begin with.)

I did this.  Paranoid, though, I'd bought another X5650 to practice on, $6.  
Good
thing I did, I managed to destroy it, two different ways, while de-lidding it.  
Having
learned what NOT to do, though, meant that the de-lidding of the expensive 
X5690's
went smoothly.  I'm typing this on the newly-upgraded machine.

12 total 3.46 GHz Xeon cores; 24 hyperthreads.  48GB of 1,333 MHz DDR3 ECC DRAM.
SSD for booting, terabyte spinny disks for data storage.  Blu-ray and DVD/CD 
optical
drives, both can burn.  It should be good for several years of use.  The 2,1 
predecessor
served me for 4 years, and only its inability to run my work VMware prompted the
upgrade; everything else worked great.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Craig via Mercedes]

On Wed, 18 Mar 2020 14:22:41 -0400 Dan Penoff via Mercedes
 wrote:

> I bought a new enterprise grade HP Ethernet switch when I set up
> networking in the new house. It’s a fan-less 24 port model that even
> has a couple of ports for multimode fiber transceivers, which will
> never be used, I suspect. It’s so much better than the Linksys 16 port
> switch I had before, which did have a fan. I’m very pleased with it.

What model is it?

Where did you buy it?


Craig

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Dan Penoff via Mercedes]

I have a Mac Mini 2009 (3,1) on a shelf in my rack in the utility room that 
runs my Plex media server. You wouldn’t know it was there unless you looked. 
The DVR for my camera system makes more noise.

I bought a new enterprise grade HP Ethernet switch when I set up networking in 
the new house. It’s a fan-less 24 port model that even has a couple of ports 
for multimode fiber transceivers, which will never be used, I suspect. It’s so 
much better than the Linksys 16 port switch I had before, which did have a fan. 
I’m very pleased with it.

I’ve got a 3,1 and a 4,1 cheesegrater in storage as backups. The 3,1 I retired 
from service, and the 4,1 was a previous machine I was running until I stumbled 
across the one I currently use. They take a fair amount of space in the guest 
room closet, but it’s nice to know they’re just a few steps away and ready to 
go should something happen to this machine.

-D

> On Mar 18, 2020, at 2:14 PM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes  
> wrote:
> 
> I have two active cheese graters in my little work-from-home office, close 
> enough
> to touch, and with the exception of the 'bad RAM' episode they never make any
> significant noise.  (Some RAM went bad, causing the thermal management 
> subsystem
> to decide to try to eject the RAM from the box via increased airflow, or so 
> it seemed.
> They get LOUD when in thermal distress, either real or perceived.)
> 
> Of much greater impact was replacing my hovercraft-ey gigabit Ethernet switch 
> with
> a fanless 24-port model, followed by replacing the G4 (sawtooth) with a 2014 
> Mac Mini.
> The G4's fan was nice enough as fans go, but it was always running.  (The G4 
> doesn't
> have fan-speed adjustments, and everything newer does.)  The G4 performed well
> as our backup and web server, for years, but it's now in storage.
> 
> -- Jim
> 
> 
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> 
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> 
> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

I have two active cheese graters in my little work-from-home office, close 
enough
to touch, and with the exception of the 'bad RAM' episode they never make any
significant noise.  (Some RAM went bad, causing the thermal management subsystem
to decide to try to eject the RAM from the box via increased airflow, or so it 
seemed.
They get LOUD when in thermal distress, either real or perceived.)

Of much greater impact was replacing my hovercraft-ey gigabit Ethernet switch 
with
a fanless 24-port model, followed by replacing the G4 (sawtooth) with a 2014 
Mac Mini.
The G4's fan was nice enough as fans go, but it was always running.  (The G4 
doesn't
have fan-speed adjustments, and everything newer does.)  The G4 performed well
as our backup and web server, for years, but it's now in storage.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[OK Don via Mercedes]

Free enterprise at it's best - maximize $s once you have a virtual monopoly
on the market. I also will not buy subscription software from Adobe.

On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 8:48 PM Jim Cathey via Mercedes <
mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:

> > The point of virtualization is to fully utilize hardware.
>
> ONE point of virtualization is to fully utilize hardware.  That's not what
> I'm using it for, though.
> I'm _simulating_ what would be independent boxes in production within my
> development environment.
> I don't care much about the performance, just the functionality.
>
> The trash (Parmesan?) cans have not (yet) been abandoned by any software,
> and all of them are fully
> capable of running any (new-end) software on the market.  This includes
> VMware.  The cheese
> graters have all been abandoned by Catalina (except for the brand-new
> reissue, of course.)
> Most are also abandoned by Mojave, and the ones that aren't need a video
> card upgrade.
>
> High Sierra runs everything I need, and probably will for years.  I am not
> too interested in Metal/Mojave,
> and I particularly don't like 'dark mode', which to me is a throwback to
> the wretched video of the 70's.
> With High Sierra and 5,1 CPU's I can still run DxO and VMware 10/11, and
> everything else I need,
> and continue to run older purchased 32-bit apps (like CS3 and Photoshop).
>
> At such time as it might become necessary I'd similarly upgrade my wife's
> 2,1 (El Capitan); her main tool is
> Adobe InDesign CS3, which will NOT run on Catalina (for example).  If you
> want to do high-end graphics
> on a new-ish Mac, you MUST use their foul subscription ransomware, and pay
> each and every year
> whether you are doing much work or not.  Profitable work or not.  (Hers is
> non-profit.)  You MUST buy
> new computers on THEIR schedule, and pay any and all necessary costs just
> to continue to use the
> product.  You working on a deadline and they announce a new version,
> abandoning the one you are
> using?  Fuck you customer, buy new software, and if necessary also a new
> machine, before you can
> continue working.  You were hoping to be finished by Friday, maybe making
> a few hundred dollars
> on the job?  Bwa-ha-ha-ha!  This makes me livid.
>
> My wife was doing volunteer graphics work for her local symphony, on her
> now-dated high-end Mac
> hardware.  The symphony management decided to 'standardize' on new Adobe,
> and offered to let
> her use their license.  Well, that software simply refuses to run on her
> hardware, not for any functional
> reason but just because it's unsupported due to its age, and I'm not
> dropping thousands of dollars so
> she can VOLUNTEER her time.  They didn't even consult us on this change,
> and now they don't have
> her contribution any more.  Too bad, because she was a professional and
> has a good eye, and made
> by far the best-looking material they've ever had.
>
> One of the tenets of personal computing was that they'd ALWAYS do whatever
> you bought them to
> do, for so long as that task was what you wanted done.  With the
> subscription model this is no longer
> true.  An older computer is not just a bit dated and/or slow, and maybe
> missing some NEW features
> you'd like, it instead is truly useless.  Retrocomputing in a subscription
> world?  Not even possible.
>
> I intend to avoid ALL subscription software like the plague that it is.
> Just as I avoid the cloud.
>
> -- Jim
>

-- 
OK Don

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to
pause and reflect." Mark Twain

"There are three kinds of men: The ones that learns by reading. The few who
learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence
for themselves."

WILL ROGERS, *The Manly Wisdom of Will Rogers*
2013 F150, 18 mpg
2017 Subaru Legacy, 30 mpg
1957 C182A, 12 mpg - but at 150 mph!
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Curt Raymond via Mercedes]

 Back in the '90s if you were doing digital video you were using a Mac. Windows 
options were slim.Today its shifted the other way, if you're not in LA you're 
probably using a Windows machine. Apple has shafted the Pro video market so 
regularly that they've finally come to their senses.
For example, until fairly recently if you had a Mac, and it failed, you made an 
appointment and went to the Apple store at the mall. Your Mac would then be 
gone for days while it was repaired. In comparison HP had a person on-site the 
next day...
The new, highly touted Mac Pros have just caught up to the HP Z series 
workstations. The next series from HP will again eclipse them, for less money...
Apple is for hipsters, not real high end pro work. When my current MacBook Pro 
needs replacing I'll be looking to HP.

-Curt

On Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 11:26:24 AM EDT, Dan Penoff via Mercedes 
 wrote:  
 
 Nice.

I did some work in that building in the late 90s, and the guy who liased 
between our distributor and NBC took us around and showed us the studios and 
writer’s rooms for SNL. It was off season at the time, so there wasn’t anyone 
around to speak of.

I noted that they had all Mac based hardware, mainly iMacs. If you see photos 
from that time period of their writers there’s usually an iMac in the 
background somewhere.

-D

> On Mar 18, 2020, at 11:17 AM, Curt Raymond  wrote:
> 
> I don't know if I've told you guys this story before but if I have feel free 
> to delete.
> 
> Back around 2006-2007 I was teaching at NBC News in 30 Rock. One of the guys 
> I was teaching was ex-Saturday Night Live staff and asked me if I wanted to 
> eat lunch on the SNL set. Well duh...
> After lunch we went and looked at the (then) 30 year archive of SNL which was 
> on XServe RAID. I've got to hand it to Apple, those old RAID chassis looked 
> great,  brushed aluminum and blue blinky lights, great look.
> Anyway I'm being all positive about a competitor's storage "I bet this thing 
> is easy to use."
> To which they replied "Yeah, not so much."
> So I tried "Well, I guess its really powerful."
> They replied "Not really."
> Oky,  "Well it must have been really cheap."
> "Nope."
> "So there must be a lot of space?"
> "Oh no, theres more per chassis in your arrays."
> 
> "So why do you have it then?"
> "Well, you guys don't support Mac." Which had been true but had recently 
> changed and I told them that.
> 
> "Great, this piece of *&^% is OUTTA HERE!"
> 
> So we sat down and mapped out what they needed to replace what they had with 
> a 40 or 50% increase in space. We really did it up, figured out all the 
> cables and servers and UPS units, the whole bit. Turned out to be around $2 
> million, give or take a bit.
> 
> At that time NBC had a deal for 50% off, no matter what our price was, they 
> paid half. Except I didn't know that so the quote I made was full price. They 
> took it to their sales guy and said "We want this (I'd even included part 
> numbers) and this is what we'll pay." with my prices which were, in fact MSRP.
> 
> About 6 months later I'm at a big work dinner at a trade show and somebody 
> calls out to me. A guy standing near me says "You're Curt Raymond?" I allowed 
> that I was "The guy who sold SNL their new storage?" I didn't sell it, I 
> architected it, but whatever. He says "I bought a boat on the commission from 
> that sale, let me buy you a drink."
> 
> He bought a boat, I got a beer...
> 
> -Curt
> 
> On Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 11:06:16 AM EDT, Dan Penoff via Mercedes 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> I rarely hear my fans unless I’m rendering video, and even then not that 
> much. As Jim said, I hear my hard drives more than my fans.
> 
> There were rack mount versions sort of until 2010 - the Xserve products, but 
> I don’t think any of them were as powerful as the cheesegraters. At least not 
> past the 3,1.
> 
> I had a couple of these and an Xserve RAID in my garage some years back. They 
> were horribly inefficient and produced massive amounts of heat as one would 
> expect from an enterprise grade server. However, I did like the 14TBs of 
> storage on the Xserve RAID! That thing was a beast.
> 
> I retired them and sold them off. It was a silly exercise on my part, 
> fortunately, I got them cheap as working pulls from a local parochial school 
> that was upgrading their infrastructure so I didn’t lose any money in the 
> deal.
> 
> -D

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Dan Penoff via Mercedes]

Nice.

I did some work in that building in the late 90s, and the guy who liased 
between our distributor and NBC took us around and showed us the studios and 
writer’s rooms for SNL. It was off season at the time, so there wasn’t anyone 
around to speak of.

I noted that they had all Mac based hardware, mainly iMacs. If you see photos 
from that time period of their writers there’s usually an iMac in the 
background somewhere.

-D

> On Mar 18, 2020, at 11:17 AM, Curt Raymond  wrote:
> 
> I don't know if I've told you guys this story before but if I have feel free 
> to delete.
> 
> Back around 2006-2007 I was teaching at NBC News in 30 Rock. One of the guys 
> I was teaching was ex-Saturday Night Live staff and asked me if I wanted to 
> eat lunch on the SNL set. Well duh...
> After lunch we went and looked at the (then) 30 year archive of SNL which was 
> on XServe RAID. I've got to hand it to Apple, those old RAID chassis looked 
> great,  brushed aluminum and blue blinky lights, great look.
> Anyway I'm being all positive about a competitor's storage "I bet this thing 
> is easy to use."
> To which they replied "Yeah, not so much."
> So I tried "Well, I guess its really powerful."
> They replied "Not really."
> Oky,  "Well it must have been really cheap."
> "Nope."
> "So there must be a lot of space?"
> "Oh no, theres more per chassis in your arrays."
> 
> "So why do you have it then?"
> "Well, you guys don't support Mac." Which had been true but had recently 
> changed and I told them that.
> 
> "Great, this piece of *&^% is OUTTA HERE!"
> 
> So we sat down and mapped out what they needed to replace what they had with 
> a 40 or 50% increase in space. We really did it up, figured out all the 
> cables and servers and UPS units, the whole bit. Turned out to be around $2 
> million, give or take a bit.
> 
> At that time NBC had a deal for 50% off, no matter what our price was, they 
> paid half. Except I didn't know that so the quote I made was full price. They 
> took it to their sales guy and said "We want this (I'd even included part 
> numbers) and this is what we'll pay." with my prices which were, in fact MSRP.
> 
> About 6 months later I'm at a big work dinner at a trade show and somebody 
> calls out to me. A guy standing near me says "You're Curt Raymond?" I allowed 
> that I was "The guy who sold SNL their new storage?" I didn't sell it, I 
> architected it, but whatever. He says "I bought a boat on the commission from 
> that sale, let me buy you a drink."
> 
> He bought a boat, I got a beer...
> 
> -Curt
> 
> On Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 11:06:16 AM EDT, Dan Penoff via Mercedes 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> I rarely hear my fans unless I’m rendering video, and even then not that 
> much. As Jim said, I hear my hard drives more than my fans.
> 
> There were rack mount versions sort of until 2010 - the Xserve products, but 
> I don’t think any of them were as powerful as the cheesegraters. At least not 
> past the 3,1.
> 
> I had a couple of these and an Xserve RAID in my garage some years back. They 
> were horribly inefficient and produced massive amounts of heat as one would 
> expect from an enterprise grade server. However, I did like the 14TBs of 
> storage on the Xserve RAID! That thing was a beast.
> 
> I retired them and sold them off. It was a silly exercise on my part, 
> fortunately, I got them cheap as working pulls from a local parochial school 
> that was upgrading their infrastructure so I didn’t lose any money in the 
> deal.
> 
> -D

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Curt Raymond via Mercedes]

 I don't know if I've told you guys this story before but if I have feel free 
to delete.
Back around 2006-2007 I was teaching at NBC News in 30 Rock. One of the guys I 
was teaching was ex-Saturday Night Live staff and asked me if I wanted to eat 
lunch on the SNL set. Well duh...After lunch we went and looked at the (then) 
30 year archive of SNL which was on XServe RAID. I've got to hand it to Apple, 
those old RAID chassis looked great,  brushed aluminum and blue blinky lights, 
great look.Anyway I'm being all positive about a competitor's storage "I bet 
this thing is easy to use."To which they replied "Yeah, not so much."So I tried 
"Well, I guess its really powerful."They replied "Not really."Oky,  "Well 
it must have been really cheap.""Nope.""So there must be a lot of space?""Oh 
no, theres more per chassis in your arrays."
"So why do you have it then?""Well, you guys don't support Mac." Which had been 
true but had recently changed and I told them that.
"Great, this piece of *&^% is OUTTA HERE!"
So we sat down and mapped out what they needed to replace what they had with a 
40 or 50% increase in space. We really did it up, figured out all the cables 
and servers and UPS units, the whole bit. Turned out to be around $2 million, 
give or take a bit.
At that time NBC had a deal for 50% off, no matter what our price was, they 
paid half. Except I didn't know that so the quote I made was full price. They 
took it to their sales guy and said "We want this (I'd even included part 
numbers) and this is what we'll pay." with my prices which were, in fact MSRP.
About 6 months later I'm at a big work dinner at a trade show and somebody 
calls out to me. A guy standing near me says "You're Curt Raymond?" I allowed 
that I was "The guy who sold SNL their new storage?" I didn't sell it, I 
architected it, but whatever. He says "I bought a boat on the commission from 
that sale, let me buy you a drink."
He bought a boat, I got a beer...
-Curt

On Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 11:06:16 AM EDT, Dan Penoff via Mercedes 
 wrote:  
 
 I rarely hear my fans unless I’m rendering video, and even then not that much. 
As Jim said, I hear my hard drives more than my fans.

There were rack mount versions sort of until 2010 - the Xserve products, but I 
don’t think any of them were as powerful as the cheesegraters. At least not 
past the 3,1.

I had a couple of these and an Xserve RAID in my garage some years back. They 
were horribly inefficient and produced massive amounts of heat as one would 
expect from an enterprise grade server. However, I did like the 14TBs of 
storage on the Xserve RAID! That thing was a beast.

I retired them and sold them off. It was a silly exercise on my part, 
fortunately, I got them cheap as working pulls from a local parochial school 
that was upgrading their infrastructure so I didn’t lose any money in the deal.

-D
  
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Dan Penoff via Mercedes]

I rarely hear my fans unless I’m rendering video, and even then not that much. 
As Jim said, I hear my hard drives more than my fans.

There were rack mount versions sort of until 2010 - the Xserve products, but I 
don’t think any of them were as powerful as the cheesegraters. At least not 
past the 3,1.

I had a couple of these and an Xserve RAID in my garage some years back. They 
were horribly inefficient and produced massive amounts of heat as one would 
expect from an enterprise grade server. However, I did like the 14TBs of 
storage on the Xserve RAID! That thing was a beast.

I retired them and sold them off. It was a silly exercise on my part, 
fortunately, I got them cheap as working pulls from a local parochial school 
that was upgrading their infrastructure so I didn’t lose any money in the deal.

-D

> On Mar 17, 2020, at 10:04 PM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes  
> wrote:
> 
>> I wouldn't keep a cheese grater around for what I do, they're too big and 
>> noisy.
> 
> They're big enough, but mine never make noise unless they get hot, which they 
> don't.
> The hard disks inside make more noise seeking than the fans do.  The all-metal
> case is probably my favorite of all the computers they've ever made, and I 
> love
> the drive sleds.
> 
> Apple SHOULD have made a true rack-mount version, but they did not.  Well, 
> they used
> to, but I think sales were so flat that they decided not to any more.  Can't 
> really blame them
> for abandoning products that didn't make money.
> 
> -- Jim
> 
> 
> ___
> http://www.okiebenz.com
> 
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> 
> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
> 


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

> I wouldn't keep a cheese grater around for what I do, they're too big and 
> noisy.

They're big enough, but mine never make noise unless they get hot, which they 
don't.
The hard disks inside make more noise seeking than the fans do.  The all-metal
case is probably my favorite of all the computers they've ever made, and I love
the drive sleds.

Apple SHOULD have made a true rack-mount version, but they did not.  Well, they 
used
to, but I think sales were so flat that they decided not to any more.  Can't 
really blame them
for abandoning products that didn't make money.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

One of the major assets of the cheese graters is the internal drive bays.
(Here I'm disregarding the G5's, and the newest re-issue of the form.)
All of them support 4 SATA drives with ease.  All of them support 6 SATA
drives, with varying amounts of fiddling around.  The oldest ones support
8 internal drives, if two of them are IDE, with even more fiddling around.

That's without even touching the expansion slots.  With those you can do
SATA/eSATA out the wazoo, or add ultra-speed SSD resources.

Internal expandability is where the trash cans fell flat.  If you think of them
as fat Minis (Maxis?) that's a pretty good description.  Not really "pro" at 
all,
and why Apple seems to have returned to the form.  I think the newest one
looks even more like an actual cheese grater!

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Curley McLain via Mercedes]

+1    Amen

Jim Cathey via Mercedes wrote on 3/17/20 8:47 PM:

I intend to avoid ALL subscription software like the plague that it is.  Just 
as I avoid the cloud.

-- Jim



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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

> The point of virtualization is to fully utilize hardware.

ONE point of virtualization is to fully utilize hardware.  That's not what I'm 
using it for, though.
I'm _simulating_ what would be independent boxes in production within my 
development environment.
I don't care much about the performance, just the functionality.

The trash (Parmesan?) cans have not (yet) been abandoned by any software, and 
all of them are fully
capable of running any (new-end) software on the market.  This includes VMware. 
 The cheese
graters have all been abandoned by Catalina (except for the brand-new reissue, 
of course.)
Most are also abandoned by Mojave, and the ones that aren't need a video card 
upgrade.

High Sierra runs everything I need, and probably will for years.  I am not too 
interested in Metal/Mojave,
and I particularly don't like 'dark mode', which to me is a throwback to the 
wretched video of the 70's.
With High Sierra and 5,1 CPU's I can still run DxO and VMware 10/11, and 
everything else I need,
and continue to run older purchased 32-bit apps (like CS3 and Photoshop).

At such time as it might become necessary I'd similarly upgrade my wife's 2,1 
(El Capitan); her main tool is
Adobe InDesign CS3, which will NOT run on Catalina (for example).  If you want 
to do high-end graphics
on a new-ish Mac, you MUST use their foul subscription ransomware, and pay each 
and every year
whether you are doing much work or not.  Profitable work or not.  (Hers is 
non-profit.)  You MUST buy
new computers on THEIR schedule, and pay any and all necessary costs just to 
continue to use the
product.  You working on a deadline and they announce a new version, abandoning 
the one you are
using?  Fuck you customer, buy new software, and if necessary also a new 
machine, before you can
continue working.  You were hoping to be finished by Friday, maybe making a few 
hundred dollars
on the job?  Bwa-ha-ha-ha!  This makes me livid.

My wife was doing volunteer graphics work for her local symphony, on her 
now-dated high-end Mac
hardware.  The symphony management decided to 'standardize' on new Adobe, and 
offered to let
her use their license.  Well, that software simply refuses to run on her 
hardware, not for any functional
reason but just because it's unsupported due to its age, and I'm not dropping 
thousands of dollars so
she can VOLUNTEER her time.  They didn't even consult us on this change, and 
now they don't have
her contribution any more.  Too bad, because she was a professional and has a 
good eye, and made
by far the best-looking material they've ever had.

One of the tenets of personal computing was that they'd ALWAYS do whatever you 
bought them to
do, for so long as that task was what you wanted done.  With the subscription 
model this is no longer
true.  An older computer is not just a bit dated and/or slow, and maybe missing 
some NEW features
you'd like, it instead is truly useless.  Retrocomputing in a subscription 
world?  Not even possible.

I intend to avoid ALL subscription software like the plague that it is.  Just 
as I avoid the cloud.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Curt Raymond via Mercedes]

 It is. I wouldn't keep a cheese grater around for what I do, they're too big 
and noisy.
I never liked the cheese grater case and in particular I loathed Apple's answer 
to how to mount them in a 19" rack which involved a hacksaw on your $5,000 
computer...
-Curt

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 9:15:09 PM EDT, Dan Penoff via Mercedes 
 wrote:  
 
 Sounds like you’ve got the “trash can”, not a cheesegrater.

-D


> On Mar 17, 2020, at 9:11 PM, Curt Raymond  wrote:
> 
> With all this talk I had to go check what I've got.
> 
> Mine is apparently a 6,1. Quad core 3.7Ghz, 32GB of RAM. IIRC its only got a 
> 256GB internal drive. I've got a 4TB external drive I move between it and my 
> Macbook Pro for video editing.
> 
> Mostly this machine gets used for watching Amazon prime and Youtube on the 
> 26" monitor or 32" TV.
> Its super handy for video crunching though, way faster than the laptop.
> 
> -Curt
> 
> On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 5:12:00 PM EDT, Dan Penoff via Mercedes 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> Good point, but I don’t run VMware on my cheesegrater so it’s not an issue. 
> The few VMs I run on occasion I’ll do on VirtualBox. Since swapping CPUs on 
> these means taking them apart (de-lidding) I’ll stick with what I’ve got.
> 
> My 4,1/5,1 came with an Apple RAID card and four 800GB 15k iSCSI enterprise 
> grade drives. It puked about a year after I got the machine, so I gutted it 
> and went back to regular SATA drives.
> 
> I like the belt and suspenders approach to backups, so I just recently 
> snagged the 6TB drive to do a local TM backup which gets mirrored to my 
> FreeNAS box with six 2TB hard drives hosting an 8TB ZFS volume. It’s in 
> another physical location in the house, which is good enough for me. I also 
> run separate backups of each physical drive in the cheesegrater weekly using 
> SuperDuper. Those got to a separate partition on the 6TB internal drive and 
> also get mirrored to the FreeNAS box in a separate partition in the ZFS 
> volume.
> 
> I see some people’s eyes glazing over as they read this, but I can’t 
> emphasize enough how important it is to BACKUP YOUR DATA! I got burned many 
> years ago and swore never again. Removable storage is cheap.
> 
> -D
> 
> > On Mar 17, 2020, at 3:03 PM, Jim Cathey  > > wrote:
> > 
> >> I’ve toyed with the idea of upgrading processors, but for what?
> > 
> > VMware Fusion 10 & 11 will NOT run on your E5520 (?) Nehalem CPU's, just as 
> > they do
> > not on my X5570's.  That's what prompted my push to putting in two X5690 
> > Westmeres;
> > if I have to do surgery anyway, I might as well put in the fastest ones.  
> > (Still pending.)
> > 
> > My Time Machine backups go to another 1,1 cheese grater that has a 2TB RAID 
> > in it.
> > There are 10 machines (including itself) aimed at that RAID.  The mirrored 
> > RAID has
> > four 2TB slices, two of which are always offline/offsite, in rotation.  All 
> > four are NEVER
> > physically in the same place at the same time.  It'd take something like an 
> > asteroid strike
> > to get them all in the same disaster.  In which case, I doubt I'd care.  
> > The cheese grater's
> > drive sleds make quarterly RAID rotation nearly trivial.  (Power down, swap 
> > one drive,
> > power up.  The RAID rebuild is automatic and currently takes about 8 hours.)
> > 
> > 2TB is getting a little tight.  But, I have to buy 4 identical drives at a 
> > pop, so I like to wait
> > until I HAVE to upgrade, so that the prices have fallen as far as they 
> > will.  The 2TB's have
> > served for nearly six years already, and only now have I had to trim off 
> > some of the oldest
> > backup sets.
> > 
> > -- Jim
> > 
> 
> 
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Curt Raymond via Mercedes]

 Well, Jim was talking about running VMware. The point of virtualization is to 
fully utilize hardware.I've never used Fusion for any serious virtualization 
but I've got some dual 8 core machines in the office with 320GB of RAM each 
that we do student systems on.
Its amazing that with 4 servers I can have each student build 5 separate 
Windows Server 2016 installs, build a Windows Cluster and install our software. 
For a 10 person class those 4 machines replace 50 individual boxes...
-Curt

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 5:42:44 PM EDT, Craig via Mercedes 
 wrote:  
 
 On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 10:56:13 -0700 Jim Cathey via Mercedes
 wrote:

> This tower can hold much more RAM and disk than I can use with
> the new-ish laptop I've been using.  And, the 30" monitor is pretty
> nice. When I'm done I should have a 12-core (24-thread) 3.3GHz CPU
> array, 48GB of RAM, 3TB of disk, plus a small SSD for the OS and apps.

Are all those cores (and threads) really helpful?

In keeping an eye on what my four-core processor does with CentOS-5.11,
I don't see even four cores being used.

In looking at the new AMD Ryzen processors, I see 6-, 8-, 10-, and
16-core processors. Unless you have software designed to use all of
them (multi-threaded and multi-tasking), what use are they?


Craig

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Dan Penoff via Mercedes]

Sounds like you’ve got the “trash can”, not a cheesegrater.

-D


> On Mar 17, 2020, at 9:11 PM, Curt Raymond  wrote:
> 
> With all this talk I had to go check what I've got.
> 
> Mine is apparently a 6,1. Quad core 3.7Ghz, 32GB of RAM. IIRC its only got a 
> 256GB internal drive. I've got a 4TB external drive I move between it and my 
> Macbook Pro for video editing.
> 
> Mostly this machine gets used for watching Amazon prime and Youtube on the 
> 26" monitor or 32" TV.
> Its super handy for video crunching though, way faster than the laptop.
> 
> -Curt
> 
> On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 5:12:00 PM EDT, Dan Penoff via Mercedes 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> Good point, but I don’t run VMware on my cheesegrater so it’s not an issue. 
> The few VMs I run on occasion I’ll do on VirtualBox. Since swapping CPUs on 
> these means taking them apart (de-lidding) I’ll stick with what I’ve got.
> 
> My 4,1/5,1 came with an Apple RAID card and four 800GB 15k iSCSI enterprise 
> grade drives. It puked about a year after I got the machine, so I gutted it 
> and went back to regular SATA drives.
> 
> I like the belt and suspenders approach to backups, so I just recently 
> snagged the 6TB drive to do a local TM backup which gets mirrored to my 
> FreeNAS box with six 2TB hard drives hosting an 8TB ZFS volume. It’s in 
> another physical location in the house, which is good enough for me. I also 
> run separate backups of each physical drive in the cheesegrater weekly using 
> SuperDuper. Those got to a separate partition on the 6TB internal drive and 
> also get mirrored to the FreeNAS box in a separate partition in the ZFS 
> volume.
> 
> I see some people’s eyes glazing over as they read this, but I can’t 
> emphasize enough how important it is to BACKUP YOUR DATA! I got burned many 
> years ago and swore never again. Removable storage is cheap.
> 
> -D
> 
> > On Mar 17, 2020, at 3:03 PM, Jim Cathey  > > wrote:
> > 
> >> I’ve toyed with the idea of upgrading processors, but for what?
> > 
> > VMware Fusion 10 & 11 will NOT run on your E5520 (?) Nehalem CPU's, just as 
> > they do
> > not on my X5570's.  That's what prompted my push to putting in two X5690 
> > Westmeres;
> > if I have to do surgery anyway, I might as well put in the fastest ones.  
> > (Still pending.)
> > 
> > My Time Machine backups go to another 1,1 cheese grater that has a 2TB RAID 
> > in it.
> > There are 10 machines (including itself) aimed at that RAID.  The mirrored 
> > RAID has
> > four 2TB slices, two of which are always offline/offsite, in rotation.  All 
> > four are NEVER
> > physically in the same place at the same time.  It'd take something like an 
> > asteroid strike
> > to get them all in the same disaster.  In which case, I doubt I'd care.  
> > The cheese grater's
> > drive sleds make quarterly RAID rotation nearly trivial.  (Power down, swap 
> > one drive,
> > power up.  The RAID rebuild is automatic and currently takes about 8 hours.)
> > 
> > 2TB is getting a little tight.  But, I have to buy 4 identical drives at a 
> > pop, so I like to wait
> > until I HAVE to upgrade, so that the prices have fallen as far as they 
> > will.  The 2TB's have
> > served for nearly six years already, and only now have I had to trim off 
> > some of the oldest
> > backup sets.
> > 
> > -- Jim
> > 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Curt Raymond via Mercedes]

 With all this talk I had to go check what I've got.
Mine is apparently a 6,1. Quad core 3.7Ghz, 32GB of RAM. IIRC its only got a 
256GB internal drive. I've got a 4TB external drive I move between it and my 
Macbook Pro for video editing.
Mostly this machine gets used for watching Amazon prime and Youtube on the 26" 
monitor or 32" TV.Its super handy for video crunching though, way faster than 
the laptop.
-Curt

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 5:12:00 PM EDT, Dan Penoff via Mercedes 
 wrote:  
 
 Good point, but I don’t run VMware on my cheesegrater so it’s not an issue. 
The few VMs I run on occasion I’ll do on VirtualBox. Since swapping CPUs on 
these means taking them apart (de-lidding) I’ll stick with what I’ve got.

My 4,1/5,1 came with an Apple RAID card and four 800GB 15k iSCSI enterprise 
grade drives. It puked about a year after I got the machine, so I gutted it and 
went back to regular SATA drives.

I like the belt and suspenders approach to backups, so I just recently snagged 
the 6TB drive to do a local TM backup which gets mirrored to my FreeNAS box 
with six 2TB hard drives hosting an 8TB ZFS volume. It’s in another physical 
location in the house, which is good enough for me. I also run separate backups 
of each physical drive in the cheesegrater weekly using SuperDuper. Those got 
to a separate partition on the 6TB internal drive and also get mirrored to the 
FreeNAS box in a separate partition in the ZFS volume.

I see some people’s eyes glazing over as they read this, but I can’t emphasize 
enough how important it is to BACKUP YOUR DATA! I got burned many years ago and 
swore never again. Removable storage is cheap.

-D

> On Mar 17, 2020, at 3:03 PM, Jim Cathey  wrote:
> 
>> I’ve toyed with the idea of upgrading processors, but for what?
> 
> VMware Fusion 10 & 11 will NOT run on your E5520 (?) Nehalem CPU's, just as 
> they do
> not on my X5570's.  That's what prompted my push to putting in two X5690 
> Westmeres;
> if I have to do surgery anyway, I might as well put in the fastest ones.  
> (Still pending.)
> 
> My Time Machine backups go to another 1,1 cheese grater that has a 2TB RAID 
> in it.
> There are 10 machines (including itself) aimed at that RAID.  The mirrored 
> RAID has
> four 2TB slices, two of which are always offline/offsite, in rotation.  All 
> four are NEVER
> physically in the same place at the same time.  It'd take something like an 
> asteroid strike
> to get them all in the same disaster.  In which case, I doubt I'd care.  The 
> cheese grater's
> drive sleds make quarterly RAID rotation nearly trivial.  (Power down, swap 
> one drive,
> power up.  The RAID rebuild is automatic and currently takes about 8 hours.)
> 
> 2TB is getting a little tight.  But, I have to buy 4 identical drives at a 
> pop, so I like to wait
> until I HAVE to upgrade, so that the prices have fallen as far as they will.  
> The 2TB's have
> served for nearly six years already, and only now have I had to trim off some 
> of the oldest
> backup sets.
> 
> -- Jim
> 


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

> What is a cheesegrater?

Every Mac Pro except the now-superseded round 'trashcan' model, and including
the first G5 PowerMac.  So named because of the strong resemblance the
front of the case has to the common kitchen tool.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Dan Penoff via Mercedes]

Sorry. Mac Geekspeak:

https://512pixels.net/2017/04/the-cheese-grater-mac-pro/

-D


> On Mar 17, 2020, at 5:55 PM, Allan Streib via Mercedes 
>  wrote:
> 
> What is a cheesegrater?
> 
> Allan
> 
> Dan Penoff via Mercedes  writes:
> 
>> Nice.
>> 
>> I’ve got a 4,1 flashed to 5,1 with dual quad core Xeons running at 2.26GHz, 
>> 28GB of RAM, a GTX680 flashed with Apple firmware, 500GB SSD for the boot 
>> drive, two 1TB hard drives for file storage and a 6TB hard drive as an 
>> internal Time Machine backup that I mirror to my FreeNAS box daily. I’ve 
>> toyed wit the idea of upgrading processors, but for what? I don’t really do 
>> anything that stresses the ones I have now.
>> 
>> There’s nothing I can’t throw at this box that it can’t handle. I love 
>> transcoding video with Handbrake, as it zips through files in no time flat.
>> 
>> I just recently upgraded to High Sierra from El Capitan because I could. No 
>> noticeable improvement, but probably more secure.
>> 
>> I loves my cheesegrater.
>> 
>> -D
>> 
>> 
>>> On Mar 17, 2020, at 1:56 PM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes 
>>>  wrote:
>>> 
>>> I'm in the middle of upgrading my tricked-out Mac Pro 1,1 to a
>>> tricked-out Mac Pro 4,1.  This is essentially for work purposes,
>>> and when I'm done it'll be running High Sierra instead of El Capitan,
>>> and as a result capable of running the latest VMware and DxO packages.
>>> 
>>> This tower can hold much more RAM and disk than I can use with
>>> the new-ish laptop I've been using.  And, the 30" monitor is pretty nice.
>>> When I'm done I should have a 12-core (24-thread) 3.3GHz CPU array,
>>> 48GB of RAM, 3TB of disk, plus a small SSD for the OS and apps.
>>> 
>>> Total cash outlay was a little higher than I'd like, some $800, but you
>>> can't touch anything new-ish for that kind of money, and this should
>>> serve well for several years.  I checked, and I've used the 1,1 for four
>>> years.  Performance of the 1,1 has never been any kind of issue, and
>>> I expect the same of the 4,1.  (Neither machine is considered 'fast'
>>> today, but a lot of that is just skewed expectations.  They both ARE
>>> fast, just not AS fast as some newer machines.  But, unless you're
>>> doing work where that matters it's a non-issue.  This 4,1 can process
>>> my typical photos at about 1 per second, which is plenty good enough,
>>> and I don't even have the new 5,1 CPU's in it yet.)
>>> 
>>> -- Jim
>>> 
> 
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

> Unless you have software designed to use all of [the cores] what use are they?

None whatsoever.  DxO PhotoLab (current name) _is_ one of the things that
will make good use of all available cores.  This program is what prompted my
move to a cheese grater to begin with.  This after processing _one_ batch of
photos on my MBP laptop took pretty much all weekend.  The cheese grater
did it in an hour or two.  Much faster CPU's, faster (and more) RAM, and eight
cores instead of two.  The upcoming 5,1 configuration will have 24 threads,
each 10% faster than today, and a faster RAM bus.  I expect it to really scoot.

Anybody doing photo/audio/video work _is_ using software that will make good
use of multiprocessing.

Build servers also can make good use of this.  Also rendering farms, cloud 
service
providers, etc.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Allan Streib via Mercedes]

What is a cheesegrater?

Allan

Dan Penoff via Mercedes  writes:

> Nice.
>
> I’ve got a 4,1 flashed to 5,1 with dual quad core Xeons running at 2.26GHz, 
> 28GB of RAM, a GTX680 flashed with Apple firmware, 500GB SSD for the boot 
> drive, two 1TB hard drives for file storage and a 6TB hard drive as an 
> internal Time Machine backup that I mirror to my FreeNAS box daily. I’ve 
> toyed wit the idea of upgrading processors, but for what? I don’t really do 
> anything that stresses the ones I have now.
>
> There’s nothing I can’t throw at this box that it can’t handle. I love 
> transcoding video with Handbrake, as it zips through files in no time flat.
>
> I just recently upgraded to High Sierra from El Capitan because I could. No 
> noticeable improvement, but probably more secure.
>
> I loves my cheesegrater.
>
> -D
>
>
>> On Mar 17, 2020, at 1:56 PM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> I'm in the middle of upgrading my tricked-out Mac Pro 1,1 to a
>> tricked-out Mac Pro 4,1.  This is essentially for work purposes,
>> and when I'm done it'll be running High Sierra instead of El Capitan,
>> and as a result capable of running the latest VMware and DxO packages.
>> 
>> This tower can hold much more RAM and disk than I can use with
>> the new-ish laptop I've been using.  And, the 30" monitor is pretty nice.
>> When I'm done I should have a 12-core (24-thread) 3.3GHz CPU array,
>> 48GB of RAM, 3TB of disk, plus a small SSD for the OS and apps.
>> 
>> Total cash outlay was a little higher than I'd like, some $800, but you
>> can't touch anything new-ish for that kind of money, and this should
>> serve well for several years.  I checked, and I've used the 1,1 for four
>> years.  Performance of the 1,1 has never been any kind of issue, and
>> I expect the same of the 4,1.  (Neither machine is considered 'fast'
>> today, but a lot of that is just skewed expectations.  They both ARE
>> fast, just not AS fast as some newer machines.  But, unless you're
>> doing work where that matters it's a non-issue.  This 4,1 can process
>> my typical photos at about 1 per second, which is plenty good enough,
>> and I don't even have the new 5,1 CPU's in it yet.)
>> 
>> -- Jim
>> 

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

> It’s in another physical location in the house, which is good enough for me.

My brother suffered a catastrophic house fire.  It got his primary computer,
a new-to-him cheesegrater, and its backup drive.  It also got his former
primary computer, an XP machine of some sort which had not yet been
demoted to storage.  (Where it would have been safe.)  He lost everything,
nothing was left but a handful of crap from one corner of one closet.  He
lost ALL of his data, which primarily meant photographs, including those
from his marriage to his wife, who was also lost in the fire.  We had talked
about some kind of non-colocated backup as the next reasonable step,
but had not gotten there yet.

That kind of thing is why I have implemented my 3-level backup system.
His misfortune just hammered home the necessity of doing more than
most people do.  I do not trust 'the cloud', so I'm doing it myself the
old-school way.

ONE failure, no matter what it is nor how severe, can NOT cause us to
lose everything.  Even the most virulent seek-and-destroy virus cannot
touch the offline/offsite copies, which is part of why offline/offsite is an
important component of our defense in depth.

There are from three to FIVE copies of ALL of our data:

1) The original, on one of our ten desktop/laptop machines;
2) Copy #1 in the mirrored RAID server;
3) Copy #2 in the mirrored RAID server;
4) Copy #3, one/two quarter(s) old, offline and in a Diebold fire safe,
   itself inside a six-faced mostly underground concrete structure;
5) Copy #4, two/one quarter(s) old, offsite.

This is all 99% automatic, nobody has to do anything special except for
me swapping two cheese grater drive sleds every quarter.  (Alternating
which of the two I grab each time.  I bought extra sleds for the RAID slices
to make this very easy, no screwdriver required.)

The phones are backed up to the computers, the computers are backed up
to the RAID, the RAID is backed up to offline/offsite media.  We are as covered
as covered can be.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Craig via Mercedes]

On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 10:56:13 -0700 Jim Cathey via Mercedes
 wrote:

> This tower can hold much more RAM and disk than I can use with
> the new-ish laptop I've been using.  And, the 30" monitor is pretty
> nice. When I'm done I should have a 12-core (24-thread) 3.3GHz CPU
> array, 48GB of RAM, 3TB of disk, plus a small SSD for the OS and apps.

Are all those cores (and threads) really helpful?

In keeping an eye on what my four-core processor does with CentOS-5.11,
I don't see even four cores being used.

In looking at the new AMD Ryzen processors, I see 6-, 8-, 10-, and
16-core processors. Unless you have software designed to use all of
them (multi-threaded and multi-tasking), what use are they?


Craig

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[M. Mitchell Marmel via Mercedes]

On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 4:11 PM Dan Penoff via Mercedes <
mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:


> I see some people’s eyes glazing over as they read this, but I can’t
> emphasize enough how important it is to BACKUP YOUR DATA! I got burned many
> years ago and swore never again. Removable storage is cheap.


Yep.  I got two separate drives doing Time Machine backup in my
cheesegrater.  One is a USB external, which I use to take my data with me
on road trips, etc...

-MMM-
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Dan Penoff via Mercedes]

Good point, but I don’t run VMware on my cheesegrater so it’s not an issue. The 
few VMs I run on occasion I’ll do on VirtualBox. Since swapping CPUs on these 
means taking them apart (de-lidding) I’ll stick with what I’ve got.

My 4,1/5,1 came with an Apple RAID card and four 800GB 15k iSCSI enterprise 
grade drives. It puked about a year after I got the machine, so I gutted it and 
went back to regular SATA drives.

I like the belt and suspenders approach to backups, so I just recently snagged 
the 6TB drive to do a local TM backup which gets mirrored to my FreeNAS box 
with six 2TB hard drives hosting an 8TB ZFS volume. It’s in another physical 
location in the house, which is good enough for me. I also run separate backups 
of each physical drive in the cheesegrater weekly using SuperDuper. Those got 
to a separate partition on the 6TB internal drive and also get mirrored to the 
FreeNAS box in a separate partition in the ZFS volume.

I see some people’s eyes glazing over as they read this, but I can’t emphasize 
enough how important it is to BACKUP YOUR DATA! I got burned many years ago and 
swore never again. Removable storage is cheap.

-D

> On Mar 17, 2020, at 3:03 PM, Jim Cathey  wrote:
> 
>> I’ve toyed with the idea of upgrading processors, but for what?
> 
> VMware Fusion 10 & 11 will NOT run on your E5520 (?) Nehalem CPU's, just as 
> they do
> not on my X5570's.  That's what prompted my push to putting in two X5690 
> Westmeres;
> if I have to do surgery anyway, I might as well put in the fastest ones.  
> (Still pending.)
> 
> My Time Machine backups go to another 1,1 cheese grater that has a 2TB RAID 
> in it.
> There are 10 machines (including itself) aimed at that RAID.  The mirrored 
> RAID has
> four 2TB slices, two of which are always offline/offsite, in rotation.  All 
> four are NEVER
> physically in the same place at the same time.  It'd take something like an 
> asteroid strike
> to get them all in the same disaster.  In which case, I doubt I'd care.  The 
> cheese grater's
> drive sleds make quarterly RAID rotation nearly trivial.  (Power down, swap 
> one drive,
> power up.  The RAID rebuild is automatic and currently takes about 8 hours.)
> 
> 2TB is getting a little tight.  But, I have to buy 4 identical drives at a 
> pop, so I like to wait
> until I HAVE to upgrade, so that the prices have fallen as far as they will.  
> The 2TB's have
> served for nearly six years already, and only now have I had to trim off some 
> of the oldest
> backup sets.
> 
> -- Jim
> 


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey via Mercedes]

> I’ve toyed with the idea of upgrading processors, but for what?

VMware Fusion 10 & 11 will NOT run on your E5520 (?) Nehalem CPU's, just as 
they do
not on my X5570's.  That's what prompted my push to putting in two X5690 
Westmeres;
if I have to do surgery anyway, I might as well put in the fastest ones.  
(Still pending.)

My Time Machine backups go to another 1,1 cheese grater that has a 2TB RAID in 
it.
There are 10 machines (including itself) aimed at that RAID.  The mirrored RAID 
has
four 2TB slices, two of which are always offline/offsite, in rotation.  All 
four are NEVER
physically in the same place at the same time.  It'd take something like an 
asteroid strike
to get them all in the same disaster.  In which case, I doubt I'd care.  The 
cheese grater's
drive sleds make quarterly RAID rotation nearly trivial.  (Power down, swap one 
drive,
power up.  The RAID rebuild is automatic and currently takes about 8 hours.)

2TB is getting a little tight.  But, I have to buy 4 identical drives at a pop, 
so I like to wait
until I HAVE to upgrade, so that the prices have fallen as far as they will.  
The 2TB's have
served for nearly six years already, and only now have I had to trim off some 
of the oldest
backup sets.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Dan Penoff via Mercedes]

Nice.

I’ve got a 4,1 flashed to 5,1 with dual quad core Xeons running at 2.26GHz, 
28GB of RAM, a GTX680 flashed with Apple firmware, 500GB SSD for the boot 
drive, two 1TB hard drives for file storage and a 6TB hard drive as an internal 
Time Machine backup that I mirror to my FreeNAS box daily. I’ve toyed wit the 
idea of upgrading processors, but for what? I don’t really do anything that 
stresses the ones I have now.

There’s nothing I can’t throw at this box that it can’t handle. I love 
transcoding video with Handbrake, as it zips through files in no time flat.

I just recently upgraded to High Sierra from El Capitan because I could. No 
noticeable improvement, but probably more secure.

I loves my cheesegrater.

-D


> On Mar 17, 2020, at 1:56 PM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes  
> wrote:
> 
> I'm in the middle of upgrading my tricked-out Mac Pro 1,1 to a
> tricked-out Mac Pro 4,1.  This is essentially for work purposes,
> and when I'm done it'll be running High Sierra instead of El Capitan,
> and as a result capable of running the latest VMware and DxO packages.
> 
> This tower can hold much more RAM and disk than I can use with
> the new-ish laptop I've been using.  And, the 30" monitor is pretty nice.
> When I'm done I should have a 12-core (24-thread) 3.3GHz CPU array,
> 48GB of RAM, 3TB of disk, plus a small SSD for the OS and apps.
> 
> Total cash outlay was a little higher than I'd like, some $800, but you
> can't touch anything new-ish for that kind of money, and this should
> serve well for several years.  I checked, and I've used the 1,1 for four
> years.  Performance of the 1,1 has never been any kind of issue, and
> I expect the same of the 4,1.  (Neither machine is considered 'fast'
> today, but a lot of that is just skewed expectations.  They both ARE
> fast, just not AS fast as some newer machines.  But, unless you're
> doing work where that matters it's a non-issue.  This 4,1 can process
> my typical photos at about 1 per second, which is plenty good enough,
> and I don't even have the new 5,1 CPU's in it yet.)
> 
> -- Jim
> 
> 
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> 
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> 
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Re: [MBZ] OT computers...

[Tom Hargrave]

No jars needed, I have a kegerator (photo attached).

Thanks,
Tom Hargrave
www.kegkits.com
256-656-1924
 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of E M
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2008 10:28 AM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT computers...

I say we all head over to Tom's house to continue this debate over a few
jars of his 14% brew ;-).

Ed
300E

On 17/02/2008, Royce Engler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Jim said...

  I thought the first true computer was build by the British...

 Not talking about the _invention_ of the computer, that can
 serve as a point of contention among all who care to debate
 it.  (Fun over beer.)  Talking about the explosive proliferation
 of same.  That's quite clearly a US thang.


 The inventor of the computer is generally agreed to be Alan Turing, a
 Brit,
 who was the one who led the team that broke the Enigma code in
 WWII.  Still
 worth drinking a beer over...

 Royce


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Re: [MBZ] OT computers...

[Royce Engler]

Jim said...

 I thought the first true computer was build by the British...

Not talking about the _invention_ of the computer, that can
serve as a point of contention among all who care to debate
it.  (Fun over beer.)  Talking about the explosive proliferation
of same.  That's quite clearly a US thang.


The inventor of the computer is generally agreed to be Alan Turing, a Brit,
who was the one who led the team that broke the Enigma code in WWII.  Still
worth drinking a beer over...

Royce


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Re: [MBZ] OT computers...

[E M]

I say we all head over to Tom's house to continue this debate over a few
jars of his 14% brew ;-).

Ed
300E

On 17/02/2008, Royce Engler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Jim said...

  I thought the first true computer was build by the British...

 Not talking about the _invention_ of the computer, that can
 serve as a point of contention among all who care to debate
 it.  (Fun over beer.)  Talking about the explosive proliferation
 of same.  That's quite clearly a US thang.


 The inventor of the computer is generally agreed to be Alan Turing, a
 Brit,
 who was the one who led the team that broke the Enigma code in
 WWII.  Still
 worth drinking a beer over...

 Royce


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Re: [MBZ] OT computers...

[E M]

Wow, perfect, we're on our way over!!  ;-)

Ed
300E

On 17/02/2008, Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 No jars needed, I have a kegerator (photo attached).

 Thanks,
 Tom Hargrave
 www.kegkits.com
 256-656-1924



 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 On Behalf Of E M
 Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2008 10:28 AM
 To: Mercedes Discussion List
 Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT computers...

 I say we all head over to Tom's house to continue this debate over a few
 jars of his 14% brew ;-).

 Ed
 300E

 On 17/02/2008, Royce Engler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  Jim said...
 
   I thought the first true computer was build by the British...
 
  Not talking about the _invention_ of the computer, that can
  serve as a point of contention among all who care to debate
  it.  (Fun over beer.)  Talking about the explosive proliferation
  of same.  That's quite clearly a US thang.
 
 
  The inventor of the computer is generally agreed to be Alan Turing, a
  Brit,
  who was the one who led the team that broke the Enigma code in
  WWII.  Still
  worth drinking a beer over...
 
  Royce
 
 
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  For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
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 --
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Re: [MBZ] OT computers...

[Tom Hargrave]

Long drive..

Tom
www.kegkits.com

- Original Message -
From: E M [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Received: 2/17/08 2:47 PM
To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
CC: 
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT computers...

Wow, perfect, we're on our way over!!  ;-)

Ed
300E

On 17/02/2008, Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 No jars needed, I have a kegerator (photo attached).

 Thanks,
 Tom Hargrave
 www.kegkits.com
 256-656-1924



 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 On Behalf Of E M
 Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2008 10:28 AM
 To: Mercedes Discussion List
 Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT computers...

 I say we all head over to Tom's house to continue this debate over a
few
 jars of his 14% brew ;-).

 Ed
 300E

 On 17/02/2008, Royce Engler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  Jim said...
 
   I thought the first true computer was build by the British...
 
  Not talking about the _invention_ of the computer, that can
  serve as a point of contention among all who care to debate
  it.  (Fun over beer.)  Talking about the explosive proliferation
  of same.  That's quite clearly a US thang.
 
 
  The inventor of the computer is generally agreed to be Alan Turing,
a
  Brit,
  who was the one who led the team that broke the Enigma code in
  WWII.  Still
  worth drinking a beer over...
 
  Royce
 
 
  ___
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  For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
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Re: [MBZ] OT computers...

[Ed Booher]

On Feb 17, 2008 3:12 PM, Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Long drive..

 Tom
 www.kegkits.com


How long?

EdB

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Allan Streib]

Ed Booher [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 (Note I'm not saying it can't be done on Windows, but I know from
 exp. that it takes a heck of a lot more work to get it happening
 than it should on modern hardware with a modern OS, and UNIX was
 built in the 70's.)

It's klunky on windows, I think you have to use Citrix or some such
software, whereas X11 allowes remote display natively, very easy to
mix and match local and remote apps seamlessly, you can secure the
remote ones over SSH if you need to, etc.

Allan
-- 
1983 300D
1966 230

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Ed Booher]

On Feb 1, 2008 10:55 AM, Allan Streib [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 If you don't use a GUI you can do a surprising amount of business
 computing on very modest hardware.

 Allan


Even if you do use a GUI you can do a surprising amount of business
computing on modest hardware. You wouldn't see a TRS-80 in deployment today,
per se, but I've got an old P75 system that runs some modern software with a
very light weight X11R6 implementation and using WindowMaker as a light
window manager that runs as snappy *feeling wise* as my BW G3 running
Tiger. (OS X 10.4)

A company does *not* need Vista on a corporate wide desktop system to be
able to perform work functions. As late 1996, 1997, the Sun Microsystems
office here in Indianapolis was still using a SparcStation IPX on the
receptionist's desk.

That's one of the greatest assets of any UNIX based system anyway. It was
designed as a mainframe to terminal system. So computation was done server
side. Today you can still set up a UNIX environment to run heavy apps on the
newest, fastest hardware money can buy and have far older systems running
light weight desktop feature sets with light apps running local and make it
all look like it's happening on the user desktop easier than a Windows
environment.

(Note I'm not saying it can't be done on Windows, but I know from exp. that
it takes a heck of a lot more work to get it happening than it should on
modern hardware with a modern OS, and UNIX was built in the 70's.)

Ed

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Alex Chamberlain]

On Feb 7, 2008 10:46 AM, Ed Booher [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 (Note I'm not saying it can't be done on Windows, but I know from exp. that
 it takes a heck of a lot more work to get it happening than it should on
 modern hardware with a modern OS, and UNIX was built in the 70's.)

And the end product is, in my observation, slower and clunkier than it
should be, too.

I really detest the fact that every large organization I have to deal
with these days seems to run Windows Terminal Server.  I lost 20
minutes of my life yesterday at a hospital, for example, waiting for a
nurse to update my girlfriend's patient records through a clumsy
point-and-click database interface running on some kind of diskless
thin client equipment.  I could see, reflected in her glasses, how
slow the screen was redrawing every time she clicked to go to another
window.

It doesn't have to be this way, but it's going to get a lot worse
before it gets any better.  These kind of systems are only going to be
installed in more and more places from now on.  People think
computerized interfaces to cars like Mercedes' Comand and BMW's iDrive
are bad now---just wait until they're all built on Microsoft embedded
OSs.

Alex Chamberlain
'87 300D Turbo et al.

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Ed Booher]

On Feb 7, 2008 2:48 PM, Allan Streib [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Ed Booher [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

  (Note I'm not saying it can't be done on Windows, but I know from
  exp. that it takes a heck of a lot more work to get it happening
  than it should on modern hardware with a modern OS, and UNIX was
  built in the 70's.)

 It's klunky on windows, I think you have to use Citrix or some such
 software, whereas X11 allowes remote display natively, very easy to
 mix and match local and remote apps seamlessly, you can secure the
 remote ones over SSH if you need to, etc.

 Allan


Well yeah, but I didn't want to start a war by saying how slow it is on
Windows :) Seems I tried too hard and have inadvertently started a small one
the other direction.

Ed

-- 
I'm a Night Elf Mohawk! - Mr. T.
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[R A Bennell]

Yes - to this Q and a later one. I have a tube tester that I would part with. 
If you want further info let me know
and I will dig it out and provide more details.

Second Q related to building your own. I have an old book that provides some 
info on building test equipment and I
think there is info about a tube tester. If you want to know more, let me know 
and I will dig it out too and see if
my memory is as good as I think it is.

Randy

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jeff Zedic
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 11:00 PM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers


I could really use a tube tester. Any idea where to get a decent one for a
good price? Ideally it would be multiple voltage for when I go back home.

Thanks
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jeff Zedic]

Hey Randy! That would be great. I'd appreciate any info you may have!

Thanks,

Jeff Zedic
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[R A Bennell]

OK, I will take a look tonight if I remember. I know where the book is on the 
shelf. The tester is also on a shelf
in the basement I think. I will check to see exactly what it is. I think it is 
a reputable brand. However, you may
need to know what you are going to use it for and whether it will work for you. 
Some were mostly intended for tv
tubes I think and might not do you much good as I doubt you are into repairing 
old tube style tv's. I got it a few
years ago from a friend who was interested in old tube radios. He was getting 
out of it and I got a bunch of stuff
from him because I thought I wanted to do some of this stuff too. He has now 
got interested again and I have sold
much of the same stuff back to him for about what I paid him for it. At one 
point I had several hundred tubes but
he got those back. Mostly what I have from him now are a VTVM, the tube tester, 
2 of the Heathkit Signal Tracers
and a box full of resisters, capacitors etc. I have done nothing with this 
stuff and may never - we always think we
can do more than we can. Also have an old oscilloscope. Unfortunately, it is 
heavy and would need careful packing
so it probably is not worth what it would cost to ship it anywhere.

Randy

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jeff Zedic
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 12:05 PM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers


Hey Randy! That would be great. I'd appreciate any info you may have!

Thanks,

Jeff Zedic
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey]

 Does a VTVM still have the highest input impedence, therefore the
 least effect on the circuit it's measuring?

I think the 10MOhm/V figure of the basic VTVM was the figure
to beat when they designed the FET-input (and subsequent)
meters, and so they did.  (Or at least meet it.)

It's awfully hard to kill a vacuum tube, though, so I still
like the VTVM when generally poking around.  Mine's still on
the original vacuum tube.  We built it in what, about 1975?

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jeff Zedic]

Gents,

How difficult is it to build a tube tester? I run a lot of tube audio
equipment and have LOTS of tubes I'd like to match up with regards to plate
rating.

Any schematics/plans you could point me to?

Thanks,

Jeff
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[OK Don]

Mine is more like 1963 or so --- still one the same tube also.
As the old saying goes, Real radios glow in the dark.


 It's awfully hard to kill a vacuum tube, though, so I still
 like the VTVM when generally poking around.  Mine's still on
 the original vacuum tube.  We built it in what, about 1975?


-- 
OK Don, KD5NRO
Norman, OK
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
-Benjamin Disraeli and/or Mark Twain
'90 300D, '87 300SDL, '81 240D, '78 450SLC, '97 Ply Grand Voyager

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Bill]

When I was in Havana in the mid 1980's the travel bureaus there were using
that 'Trash-80' in their offices. 
BillR

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Jim Cathey
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 1:34 AM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

 My buddy had a PET with 4 kb of memory...

Little known fact: the PET was designed for Radio Shack, but
Tandy thought it so nasty that they designed the Trash-80 to
deploy instead.  Commodore decided to sell it themselves.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Mitch Haley]

Allan Streib wrote:
 
 Bill  [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 
  When I was in Havana in the mid 1980's the travel bureaus there were
  using that 'Trash-80' in their offices.

The only reason I quit using my 8mhz Zenith notebook was that it refused
to power up one day, even after I took both batteries out for an hour.
It wasn't suitable for web browsing or windoze, but worked fine with
wordperfect and lotus for DOS. I should prowl eBay for a replacement,
they are probably worth about $10 now. 

Mitch.

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Allan Streib]

Bill  [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 When I was in Havana in the mid 1980's the travel bureaus there were
 using that 'Trash-80' in their offices.

If you don't use a GUI you can do a surprising amount of business
computing on very modest hardware.

Allan

-- 
1983 300D
1966 230

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey]

 Any one else here ever built a Heath Kit ??

Yup.  Re-built a couple my dad built too, now they
work correctly!

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[George Larribeau]

Zenith

Any one else here ever built a Heath Kit ??

George Larribeau
Dallas Texas


 
 The only reason I quit using my 8mhz Zenith notebook was that it refused
 to power up one day, even after I took both batteries out for an hour.
 It wasn't suitable for web browsing or windoze, but worked fine with
 wordperfect and lotus for DOS. I should prowl eBay for a replacement,
 they are probably worth about $10 now. 
 
 Mitch.



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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[R A Bennell]

Several but not computers. Way back when, I did a VTVM, Tube Tester, RF 
generator etc. Should have kept them.
People now collect this stuff.
A time gone by I guess as modern electronics have become too complicated. I 
enjoyed playing with that stuff and
would probably do it again if they were available.

Randy

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of George Larribeau
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 10:42 AM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers



Zenith

Any one else here ever built a Heath Kit ??

George Larribeau
Dallas Texas



 The only reason I quit using my 8mhz Zenith notebook was that it refused
 to power up one day, even after I took both batteries out for an hour.
 It wasn't suitable for web browsing or windoze, but worked fine with
 wordperfect and lotus for DOS. I should prowl eBay for a replacement,
 they are probably worth about $10 now.

 Mitch.



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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Bill]

I don't think about that much anymore with all the heavyweight home
computing power, but in the early 1970's my buddy took the 4kb PET computer
I mentioned awhile back and had it run a design program off of a name and
birth date [or any series of numbers and letters] using a four pen plotter
to create frame worthy unique color designs. He was in discussions with a
national chain to put them in all their stores when one of those minor
market fluctuations stopped most expanding for awhile. Getting rid of the
extra stuff in our modern programs would sure whittle them down a lot.  All
I need is word processing, spell check and a few fonts.  How big does MS
Office Enterprise need to be to just do that?  Of course email is nice, and
I don't mind having spreadsheet capability [though I haven't touched such
for years], and on occasion I do some layouts ...h.
BillR  

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Allan Streib
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 10:55 AM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

Bill  [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 When I was in Havana in the mid 1980's the travel bureaus there were
 using that 'Trash-80' in their offices.

If you don't use a GUI you can do a surprising amount of business
computing on very modest hardware.

Allan

-- 
1983 300D
1966 230

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Alex Chamberlain]

On Feb 1, 2008 10:23 AM, Bill [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Getting rid of the
 extra stuff in our modern programs would sure whittle them down a lot.  All
 I need is word processing, spell check and a few fonts.  How big does MS
 Office Enterprise need to be to just do that?

A lot of people have thought the same way, but none of them have
managed to create a commercially successful product.  Read about Jef
Raskin's Swyftcard and the Canon Cat for one especially interesting
example.

Alex Chamberlain, wannabe HCI guru
'87 300D Turbo et al.

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[LWB250]

I still have my first one - an LED alarm clock.  Sits right on my bedside table 
and has been waking me up consistently for close to 30 years.
   
  I built a bunch of HK stuff.  Anything in particular you were wondering about?
   
  Dan

Jim Cathey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   Any one else here ever built a Heath Kit ??

Yup. Re-built a couple my dad built too, now they
work correctly!

-- Jim


   
-
Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey]

 I did a VTVM, Tube Tester, RF generator etc. Should have kept them.
 People now collect this stuff.

I still use the VTVM, every time I need to measure something
on the bench.  The fluke gets used too if I need more accuracy,
or current.  I collected two more of the same model at the
thrift shops, so now I have three.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jeff Zedic]

I could really use a tube tester. Any idea where to get a decent one for a
good price? Ideally it would be multiple voltage for when I go back home.

Thanks
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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[OK Don]

Does a VTVM still have the highest input impedence, thereofre the
least effect on the circuit it's measuring? My Knightkit VTVM is in
the attic - need to get it down and fire it up again. I last used the
Tektronics scope (all tube) to measure the distributor pickup coil
output on the SLC a couple of years ago. I also still have the Heath
Tunnel Dipper - still a good tool.

On Feb 1, 2008 9:56 PM, Jim Cathey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  I did a VTVM, Tube Tester, RF generator etc. Should have kept them.
  People now collect this stuff.

 I still use the VTVM, every time I need to measure something
 on the bench.  The fluke gets used too if I need more accuracy,
 or current.  I collected two more of the same model at the
 thrift shops, so now I have three.

 -- Jim

-- 
OK Don, KD5NRO
Norman, OK
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
-Benjamin Disraeli and/or Mark Twain
'90 300D, '87 300SDL, '81 240D, '78 450SLC, '97 Ply Grand Voyager

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Fmiser]

It seems than at Fri, 1 Feb 2008 23:28:18 -0600, OK wrote:

 Does a VTVM still have the highest input impedence, thereofre
 the least effect on the circuit it's measuring?

No. A good modern digital meters have a 10M ohm input impedance.

VTVM is about the same, if I'm remembering correctly.

A DVM is much more likely to stay calibrated though.

--  Philip

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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Bill]

You guys are way young.  Mine was a Commodore 64 bought with a student loan 
near the end of my doctoral work.  That was the big one for home users at the 
time - complete with a cassette player for storage.  The word processor would 
handle as much as 20 pages of text at a time.   My buddy had a PET with 4 kb of 
memory, and with that much power [!] and a 4 pen plotter [leased] he started a 
business.  
BillR


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: 1/30/08 10:17 AM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

 My first computer, a PC with a 40MB HD  purchased in 1990 was $10K,

Mine was an 1802 single board computer with 256 bytes of RAM.
It was $99, as I recall.  Gobs of fun at the time.  I still have
it, it worked the last time I fired it up.  Its special talent
was its video output port.  (Block graphics, not text.)  I
think I might have 4k of RAM in it now, I'm forgetting details.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Harry Watkins]

My first computer was a Sinclare (sp).  You had to plug it into a tape
player for storage.  I built a Heath Kit all-in-one for my second.  Enjoyed
building it more than using it.

Harry

On Jan 30, 2008 9:17 AM, Jim Cathey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  My first computer, a PC with a 40MB HD  purchased in 1990 was $10K,

 Mine was an 1802 single board computer with 256 bytes of RAM.
 It was $99, as I recall.  Gobs of fun at the time.  I still have
 it, it worked the last time I fired it up.  Its special talent
 was its video output port.  (Block graphics, not text.)  I
 think I might have 4k of RAM in it now, I'm forgetting details.

 -- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey]

 My buddy had a PET with 4 kb of memory...

Little known fact: the PET was designed for Radio Shack, but
Tandy thought it so nasty that they designed the Trash-80 to
deploy instead.  Commodore decided to sell it themselves.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT: Computers

[Jim Cathey]

 My first computer, a PC with a 40MB HD  purchased in 1990 was $10K,

Mine was an 1802 single board computer with 256 bytes of RAM.
It was $99, as I recall.  Gobs of fun at the time.  I still have
it, it worked the last time I fired it up.  Its special talent
was its video output port.  (Block graphics, not text.)  I
think I might have 4k of RAM in it now, I'm forgetting details.

-- Jim


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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[George Larribeau]

Kaleb if you have ever tried to repair it with the windows CD make sure that 
you check out ...Rick Knoble's post


If you repaired the copies of Windows XP from the Windows disk, there are 
DLL's that need to be re-registered. Here is the fix that I used when I had 
that very same problem on my kids computer.

http://windowssecrets.com/2007/09/27/03-Stealth-Windows-update-prevents-XP-repair

Rick Knoble
'85 300 CD
'87 190 DT

- Original Message - 
From: Kaleb C. Striplin [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 5:23 PM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


 thanks dude, I will give that a try.

 George Larribeau wrote:
 Kaleb, I am assuming W2K or XP. Try the 'custom button after it 'thinks'
 for a while you will get a list with the 'critical updates on it (there
 is also lists for 'optional software and hardware(driver related) ignore
 these lists for now. again here I am assuming that you are getting hosed
 on a critical update. Now at this point if this dribble is useful try
 this:
 make a list of the critical updates it wants to load, they will have
 descriptive names maybe with a cryptic number that will start usually
 with KB(something)the KB numbers are useful. You want to keep a list of
 them with the 'English descriptions ' One way to do this is to paste a
 bunch of it into note pad an save it somewhere handy to get to it later,
 if it is long printing it might help.
 Now that you have a list check to see which ones are selected, usually
 this will be all of the critical updates but some times there are
 updates that need to be installed by them selves. Hit the install
 selected updates button and watch, this can get boring and tedious. It
 will first down load the whole list then it will try to install them one
 at a time. You need to note the first one it tries to install by the KB
 number, this should be the one that it is chocking on, the one that
 gives the message update failed. Now more dribble ..after it fails
 reboot the 'favorite expletive here 'and rerun updates this time
 un-select the problem update and see if other updates will load.
 hopefully some will.
 If this is working then try google searching on micro$haft update
 KB fails to load and see what you get. updates can alsoe be found
 on the M$ web site by KB number as stand alone exe files. They can be
 tricky to find google usually can do a better job of finding them than
 the search box on the MS web site , but some times not ...
 Good Luck hope this can help.

 George Larribeau
 where abouts secret,
 just put on my tin foil hat ..

 oopps I did mean microsoft ...




 On Mon, 2008-01-28 at 20:58 -0600, Kaleb C. Striplin wrote:
 speaking of windows update, I have 2 different computers that I do the
 windows update, it downloads them but wont install any of the updates.
 AFter it goes thru its deal, says update failed.  Anybody got a clue
 about that?

 Allan Streib wrote:
 LarryT [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 I upgraded from Win98 to XP home and there's no comparision - XP was
 a major leap forward. Stable, faster, easy to upgrade the OS and
 other stuff in the puter.
 Good grief yes that would be an improvement.  Win98 was still mostly a
 graphical UI over DOS.  When I used 95/98 I had to reboot generally
 twice a day due to memory leaks or blue screens.  With 2000/XP I only
 reboot after Windows Updates (which seems to be every week, but I know
 it's not quite that often).

 Allan


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 -- 
 Kaleb C. Striplin/Claremore, OK
  94 E420, 92 300SD, 92 300D, 92 250D Turbo, 92 300E 4Matic,
  91 300D, 90 420SEL, 89 560SEL, 89 260E, 87 300SDL, 85 380SE 5.0 Euro,
  84 190D, 84 300D euro manny, 81 240D, 81 380SLC, 80 240D, 76 240D,
  76 300D, 72 250C, 69 250
 http://www.okiebenz.com

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Gary Hurst]

dickie swears by BSD and we all know, um, just how reliable his stuff is.

On Jan 27, 2008 9:32 PM, Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 The last time I Looked at Redhat Linux, their software was not free. Their
 licensing model requires an annual subscription that can easily cost more
 than Windows in the long run.

 Thanks,
 Tom Hargrave
 www.kegkits.com
 256-656-1924


 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 On Behalf Of Wonko the Sane
 Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 8:14 PM
 To: Mercedes Discussion List
 Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

 If current XP is stable then things are worse than I thought.

 Our corporation doesn't have an IT guy, so I get tapped for that role
 almost
 every day at work because everyone knows I used to work as an IT guy. The
 Director I work for has made a policy -- I am IT support for her computer
 and for the computers of my two peers. Everyone else can sort of chill and
 hope for the best.

 They are going to make an IT position next summer -- and I want nothing to
 do with it unless it means a $10K/$15K salary increase.

 Not my job, man!

 In fairness to XP, the issue might be our server (maintenance contracted
 out) that is also Windows.

 I've already told them that if they offer me the job, WinDoze is going
 away
 and we will have a Linux-everywhere corporation. The CEO sort of likes the
 FREE part of it. (I talk to him on a daily basis about this sort of
 thing.)

 On Jan 27, 2008 7:58 PM, Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  I still have clients running Win 2000 but XP Pro is much more stable,
  secure
   faster.
 



 --
 LT Don
 http://don.homelinux.net/~don/ http://don.homelinux.net/%7Edon/

 apt-get update
 apt-get upgrade
 The following packages will be replaced
  Prez
 Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
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 3:45 PM



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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Allan Streib]

Gary Hurst [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 dickie swears by BSD and we all know, um, just how reliable his
 stuff is.

Wasn't all his hardware cobbled together from discarded salvage
though?  As I recall most of the problems he had were disk drives
failing and not having proper backups.  The OS can't really help you
there.

Allan
-- 
1983 300D
1966 230

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Ed Booher]

BSD is one of the most reliable subversions of UNIX. OS X is based loosely
around BSD, and Solaris is a BSD kernel. Just because Dickie doesn't know
how to tune his systems doesn't mean the engine is bad.

Ed

On Jan 30, 2008 12:27 PM, Gary Hurst [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 dickie swears by BSD and we all know, um, just how reliable his stuff is.



-- 
I'm a Night Elf Mohawk! - Mr. T.
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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[LarryT]

As far as the heat, would it be permissable to leave the side panel off to 
pull extra air into the box?

Looks like I can mix the HDs as long as I can live with performance issues.

Thx -
Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
.

- Original Message - 
From: Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: 'Mercedes Discussion List' mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 9:12 AM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


 Larry,

 SATA is only the interface and the drive mechanics are exactly the same as 
 a
 standard ATA or SCSI drive. That's not to say that SCSI is not faster. The
 mechanicals in a SCSI drive are usually faster but these are also more
 expensive, commercial drives.

 You will get a performance boost because cache reads will be much faster.
 Hopefully your new drive also has a 16 MB cache which will also help with
 performance. Also, you need to look at the drive jumper settings. Some of
 the SATA/300 drives ship pre-jumpered for the SATA/150 standard.

 The heat issue from some newer drives comes from the continuous push for
 performance. Decreasing seek time (increasing head travel speed) and
 increasing platter RPM all add up to more heat being generated by the 
 drive
 motor, the linear head motor and the drive circuitry. In other words, the
 same mechanics behind any interface causes the same issue.

 SCSI drives get hot too and for the same reason. But commercial SCSI drive
 bays are designed with plenty of air circulation and the heat is pulled
[SNIP]_okiebenz.com 


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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[LarryT]

Hi Philip,
Thanks for the info -- I can pull the info about my mobo - but is it safe to 
assume, since there is a power and data cable from the mobo the SATA is 
supported?  I better pull the manual -

Thx agn -

Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
.

- Original Message - 
From: Fmiser [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 5:01 PM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


 It seems than at Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:39:37 -0500, LarryT wrote:

 Is it a problem using a SATA HD as a slave to a ATA HDs --

 That doesn't apply.

 The slave master designation is for the two devices allowed
 on a ATA channel.

 The term slave drive no longer applies when using another
 SCSI, SATA, or ATA on another channel.

 This also means that you will need SATA controller to use an
 SATA drive. It can be a separate card or built-in to the
 motherboard.

 --  Philip

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Tom Hargrave]

Computer cases are designed to cool better with the cover on. That's why
the power supply is mounted in the top rear - heat rises.

Install a case fan instead of removing the cover.

Tom
www.kegkits.com

- Original Message -
From: LarryT [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Received: 1/29/08 12:25 PM
To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
CC: 
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

As far as the heat, would it be permissable to leave the side panel off
to 
pull extra air into the box?

Looks like I can mix the HDs as long as I can live with performance
issues.

Thx -
Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
.

- Original Message - 
From: Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: 'Mercedes Discussion List' mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 9:12 AM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


 Larry,

 SATA is only the interface and the drive mechanics are exactly the
same as 
 a
 standard ATA or SCSI drive. That's not to say that SCSI is not faster.
The
 mechanicals in a SCSI drive are usually faster but these are also more
 expensive, commercial drives.

 You will get a performance boost because cache reads will be much
faster.
 Hopefully your new drive also has a 16 MB cache which will also help
with
 performance. Also, you need to look at the drive jumper settings. Some
of
 the SATA/300 drives ship pre-jumpered for the SATA/150 standard.

 The heat issue from some newer drives comes from the continuous push
for
 performance. Decreasing seek time (increasing head travel speed) and
 increasing platter RPM all add up to more heat being generated by the 
 drive
 motor, the linear head motor and the drive circuitry. In other words,
the
 same mechanics behind any interface causes the same issue.

 SCSI drives get hot too and for the same reason. But commercial SCSI
drive
 bays are designed with plenty of air circulation and the heat is
pulled
[SNIP]_okiebenz.com 


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-- 
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.15/1248 - Release Date:
1/28/2008 9:32 PM



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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[LarryT]

I have a case fan and the PS has a variable speed Smart fan.  Also, the 
processor has a fan mounted on it.
Thx -

Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
.

- Original Message - 
From: Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


 Computer cases are designed to cool better with the cover on. That's why
 the power supply is mounted in the top rear - heat rises.

 Install a case fan instead of removing the cover.

 Tom
 www.kegkits.com

 - Original Message -
 From: LarryT [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Received: 1/29/08 12:25 PM
 To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
 CC:
 Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

 As far as the heat, would it be permissable to leave the side panel off
 to
 pull extra air into the box?

 Looks like I can mix the HDs as long as I can live with performance
 issues.

 Thx -
 Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
 www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
 Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
 PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
 Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
 .

 - Original Message - 
 From: Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: 'Mercedes Discussion List' mercedes@okiebenz.com
 Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 9:12 AM
 Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


 Larry,

 SATA is only the interface and the drive mechanics are exactly the
 same as
 a
 standard ATA or SCSI drive. That's not to say that SCSI is not faster.
 The
 mechanicals in a SCSI drive are usually faster but these are also more
 expensive, commercial drives.

 You will get a performance boost because cache reads will be much
 faster.
 Hopefully your new drive also has a 16 MB cache which will also help
 with
 performance. Also, you need to look at the drive jumper settings. Some
 of
 the SATA/300 drives ship pre-jumpered for the SATA/150 standard.

 The heat issue from some newer drives comes from the continuous push
 for
 performance. Decreasing seek time (increasing head travel speed) and
 increasing platter RPM all add up to more heat being generated by the
 drive
 motor, the linear head motor and the drive circuitry. In other words,
 the
 same mechanics behind any interface causes the same issue.

 SCSI drives get hot too and for the same reason. But commercial SCSI
 drive
 bays are designed with plenty of air circulation and the heat is
 pulled
 [SNIP]_okiebenz.com


 ___
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 -- 
 No virus found in this incoming message.
 Checked by AVG Free Edition.
 Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.15/1248 - Release Date:
 1/28/2008 9:32 PM



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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[LarryT]

Thanks Tom!!
Very helpful - Now I understand.

Take Care --

Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
.

- Original Message - 
From: Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: 'Mercedes Discussion List' mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 9:12 AM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


 Larry,

 SATA is only the interface and the drive mechanics are exactly the same as 
 a
 standard ATA or SCSI drive. That's not to say that SCSI is not faster. The
 mechanicals in a SCSI drive are usually faster but these are also more
 expensive, commercial drives.

 You will get a performance boost because cache reads will be much faster.
 Hopefully your new drive also has a 16 MB cache which will also help with
 performance. Also, you need to look at the drive jumper settings. Some of
 the SATA/300 drives ship pre-jumpered for the SATA/150 standard.

 The heat issue from some newer drives comes from the continuous push for
 performance. Decreasing seek time (increasing head travel speed) and
 increasing platter RPM all add up to more heat being generated by the 
 drive
 motor, the linear head motor and the drive circuitry. In other words, the
 same mechanics behind any interface causes the same issue.

 SCSI drives get hot too and for the same reason. But commercial SCSI drive
 bays are designed with plenty of air circulation and the heat is pulled
 away. This is one reason most servers have the drives mounted out front 
 room air is pulled past the drives on the way through the case. The other
 reason is to give the ability to hot swap a drive.

 Problems occur when you install higher performing drives in a desktop
 because they usually sit behind the front cover where there is poor air
 circulation. And it does not help that some cases pull their CPU cooling 
 air
 in from the side cover, making up for all of the air being pulled out of 
 the
 case by the power supply and completely eliminating any airflow through 
 the
 front cover.

 But the solution is really simple. Most if not all good cases come with
 mounting holes in the front for a fan and you just need to mount a fan
 there, pointing to the drives. Pull the front cover off your box  I 
 suspect
 that you will find 4 small mounting holes punched in the front sheet 
 metal.

 Thanks,
 Tom Hargrave
 www.kegkits.com
 256-656-1924


 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 On Behalf Of LarryT
 Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 7:16 AM
 To: Mercedes Discussion List
 Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

 Thx Tom,
 I presently have 2 HDs in my desktop - last time I opend the sace I saw 
 the
 Mobo has power/data cables for a SATA drive - which makes adding another 
 HD
 easier since the mobo supports SATA.

 I bought a 350gb SATA for a external encl for less than $60 recently - I 
 may

 do something similar in my desktop.  FOrtunately my desktop has lots of
 cooling fans - 3 IIRC - 4 counting the one on the processor.  (2 in the 
 PS,
 1 in the back of the cab) so I hope heat will not be a problem.  My PS is
 Smart in that it monitors the temp and changes the speed of the fan when
 needed.

 Any downside to a SATA?  Does it have slower seek speed, for instance?

 Thx for the info - appreciate it -- 

 Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
 www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
 Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
 PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
 Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
 .

 - Original Message - 
 From: Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: 'Mercedes Discussion List' mercedes@okiebenz.com
 Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 8:02 AM
 Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


 SATA is a different interface but they support 100% of the ATA command
 set.
 And because they use a different interface, you will not be able to plug
 one
 into a ATA drive cable.

 But you can buy a SATA card  cable if you are looking for a data drive.
 Look for a drive that supports the SATA 2 (SATA/300) standard with a 16 
 MB
 cache for best performance.

 Thanks,
 Tom Hargrave
 www.kegkits.com
 256-656-1924


 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 On Behalf Of LarryT
 Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 6:40 AM
 To: Mercedes Discussion List
 Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

 Is it a problem using a SATA HD as a slave to a ATA HDs -- trying to
 understand the difference between the 2 although I have gone to a 
 computer
 glossary - it won;t tell me what it is/is not compatible with.  Presently
 I'm using a 350 GB SATA as a external data storage drive for my laptop --
 works great although it puts out a lot of heat.

 Any comments?

 Thx -- 

 Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
 www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
 Test Results http

Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[R A Bennell]

And the best thing is that they are about as quiet as one will find. If you 
have the box sitting beside you all
day, quieter fans is something you have to appreciate.

Randy

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Fmiser
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 10:52 PM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


 The Antec cases are the way to go. They might be more
 expensive, but you have something you'll be happy with.

 Craig

Yup.

And they have good service. The power supply fan fail in my
Sonata.(extra quiet) I called them up to see if it was a special
fan I should get from them or just get a generic.

The fellow said, What's your address. We'll ship you a new one
free. I was willing to pay - but they wouldn't let me.

I've worked with a couple more. I see no reason to use anything
else. Good case, good service.

--Philip

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Fmiser]

It seems than at Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:24:20 -0500, LarryT wrote:

 I can pull the info about my mobo - but
 is it safe to assume, since there is a power and data cable
 from the mobo the SATA is supported?  I better pull the manual
 -

If there is a place for the data cable to connect to the
motherboard, it should work.

 As far as the heat, would it be permissable to leave the side
 panel off to pull extra air into the box?

Generally that is not a good idea. With decent case, the airflow
has been planned. If you leave the side of, the airflow has a
short circuit and usually only some parts will be cooler.
Others will actually be hotter with the side off.

But without temperature gauges, it's hard to tell for sure...

--Philip

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[LarryT]

There should be a phone or email contact for MS so  you can contact them.

Good luck - 

Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
.

- Original Message - 
From: Kaleb C. Striplin [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 9:58 PM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


 speaking of windows update, I have 2 different computers that I do the 
 windows update, it downloads them but wont install any of the updates. 
 AFter it goes thru its deal, says update failed.  Anybody got a clue 
 about that?
 
 Allan Streib wrote:
 LarryT [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 
 I upgraded from Win98 to XP home and there's no comparision - XP was
 a major leap forward. Stable, faster, easy to upgrade the OS and
 other stuff in the puter.
 
 Good grief yes that would be an improvement.  Win98 was still mostly a
 graphical UI over DOS.  When I used 95/98 I had to reboot generally
 twice a day due to memory leaks or blue screens.  With 2000/XP I only
 reboot after Windows Updates (which seems to be every week, but I know
 it's not quite that often).
 
 Allan
 
 -- 
 Kaleb C. Striplin/Claremore, OK
  94 E420, 92 300SD, 92 300D, 92 250D Turbo, 92 300E 4Matic,
  91 300D, 90 420SEL, 89 560SEL, 89 260E, 87 300SDL, 85 380SE 5.0 Euro,
  84 190D, 84 300D euro manny, 81 240D, 81 380SLC, 80 240D, 76 240D,
  76 300D, 72 250C, 69 250
 http://www.okiebenz.com
 
 ___
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 For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/
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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Curt Raymond]

Usually no, especially if you've got a good case with well designed airflow.

The airflow in the case should be pulling air across the components and out the 
back. If you leave the side off the air will just sneak in to the fans. The 
powersupply will still be adequately cooled because its got its own airflow 
design, as will the processor, everything else will start to run hot.

-Curt

Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:24:20 -0500
From: LarryT [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again
To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1;
 reply-type=original

As far as the heat, would it be permissable to leave the side panel off
 to 
pull extra air into the box?

Looks like I can mix the HDs as long as I can live with performance
 issues.

Thx -
Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs

   
-
Looking for last minute shopping deals?  Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.
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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Mitch Haley]

I had some trouble and had to reformat my XP hard drive again. 
I've still got the SP2.cab file from the Service Pack 2 I downloaded
last weekend. Is there a way I can install sp2 from the cabinet file
without running windows update and downloading for seven hours again?

Mitch.

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Rick Knoble]

 speaking of windows update, I have 2 different computers that I do the 
 windows update, it downloads them but wont install any of the updates. 
 AFter it goes thru its deal, says update failed.  Anybody got a clue 
 about that?

If you repaired the copies of Windows XP from the Windows disk, there are DLL's 
that need to be re-registered. Here is the fix that I used when I had that very 
same problem on my kids computer.

http://windowssecrets.com/2007/09/27/03-Stealth-Windows-update-prevents-XP-repair

Rick Knoble 
'85 300 CD
'87 190 DT

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Kaleb C. Striplin]

thanks dude, I will give that a try.

George Larribeau wrote:
 Kaleb, I am assuming W2K or XP. Try the 'custom button after it 'thinks'
 for a while you will get a list with the 'critical updates on it (there
 is also lists for 'optional software and hardware(driver related) ignore
 these lists for now. again here I am assuming that you are getting hosed
 on a critical update. Now at this point if this dribble is useful try
 this:
 make a list of the critical updates it wants to load, they will have
 descriptive names maybe with a cryptic number that will start usually
 with KB(something)the KB numbers are useful. You want to keep a list of
 them with the 'English descriptions ' One way to do this is to paste a
 bunch of it into note pad an save it somewhere handy to get to it later,
 if it is long printing it might help.
 Now that you have a list check to see which ones are selected, usually
 this will be all of the critical updates but some times there are
 updates that need to be installed by them selves. Hit the install
 selected updates button and watch, this can get boring and tedious. It
 will first down load the whole list then it will try to install them one
 at a time. You need to note the first one it tries to install by the KB
 number, this should be the one that it is chocking on, the one that
 gives the message update failed. Now more dribble ..after it fails
 reboot the 'favorite expletive here 'and rerun updates this time
 un-select the problem update and see if other updates will load.
 hopefully some will.
 If this is working then try google searching on micro$haft update
 KB fails to load and see what you get. updates can alsoe be found
 on the M$ web site by KB number as stand alone exe files. They can be
 tricky to find google usually can do a better job of finding them than
 the search box on the MS web site , but some times not ...
 Good Luck hope this can help.
 
 George Larribeau
 where abouts secret,
 just put on my tin foil hat ..
 
 oopps I did mean microsoft ...
 
 
 
 
 On Mon, 2008-01-28 at 20:58 -0600, Kaleb C. Striplin wrote:
 speaking of windows update, I have 2 different computers that I do the 
 windows update, it downloads them but wont install any of the updates. 
 AFter it goes thru its deal, says update failed.  Anybody got a clue 
 about that?

 Allan Streib wrote:
 LarryT [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 I upgraded from Win98 to XP home and there's no comparision - XP was
 a major leap forward. Stable, faster, easy to upgrade the OS and
 other stuff in the puter.
 Good grief yes that would be an improvement.  Win98 was still mostly a
 graphical UI over DOS.  When I used 95/98 I had to reboot generally
 twice a day due to memory leaks or blue screens.  With 2000/XP I only
 reboot after Windows Updates (which seems to be every week, but I know
 it's not quite that often).

 Allan
 
 
 ___
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 For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/
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-- 
Kaleb C. Striplin/Claremore, OK
  94 E420, 92 300SD, 92 300D, 92 250D Turbo, 92 300E 4Matic,
  91 300D, 90 420SEL, 89 560SEL, 89 260E, 87 300SDL, 85 380SE 5.0 Euro,
  84 190D, 84 300D euro manny, 81 240D, 81 380SLC, 80 240D, 76 240D,
  76 300D, 72 250C, 69 250
http://www.okiebenz.com

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Kaleb C. Striplin]

I have always been told that leaving the side off actually reduces airflow.

LarryT wrote:
 As far as the heat, would it be permissable to leave the side panel off to 
 pull extra air into the box?
 
 Looks like I can mix the HDs as long as I can live with performance issues.
 
 Thx -
 Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
 www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
 Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
 PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
 Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
 .
 
 - Original Message - 
 From: Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: 'Mercedes Discussion List' mercedes@okiebenz.com
 Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 9:12 AM
 Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again
 
 
 Larry,

 SATA is only the interface and the drive mechanics are exactly the same as 
 a
 standard ATA or SCSI drive. That's not to say that SCSI is not faster. The
 mechanicals in a SCSI drive are usually faster but these are also more
 expensive, commercial drives.

 You will get a performance boost because cache reads will be much faster.
 Hopefully your new drive also has a 16 MB cache which will also help with
 performance. Also, you need to look at the drive jumper settings. Some of
 the SATA/300 drives ship pre-jumpered for the SATA/150 standard.

 The heat issue from some newer drives comes from the continuous push for
 performance. Decreasing seek time (increasing head travel speed) and
 increasing platter RPM all add up to more heat being generated by the 
 drive
 motor, the linear head motor and the drive circuitry. In other words, the
 same mechanics behind any interface causes the same issue.

 SCSI drives get hot too and for the same reason. But commercial SCSI drive
 bays are designed with plenty of air circulation and the heat is pulled
 [SNIP]_okiebenz.com 
 
 
 ___
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 For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/
 For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
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-- 
Kaleb C. Striplin/Claremore, OK
  94 E420, 92 300SD, 92 300D, 92 250D Turbo, 92 300E 4Matic,
  91 300D, 90 420SEL, 89 560SEL, 89 260E, 87 300SDL, 85 380SE 5.0 Euro,
  84 190D, 84 300D euro manny, 81 240D, 81 380SLC, 80 240D, 76 240D,
  76 300D, 72 250C, 69 250
http://www.okiebenz.com

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Curt Raymond]

At one point I had access to a hardware qualification lab that had some pretty 
cool temp tracking probes that could be put in the computer case.
The Mac G4 had what I consider to be the best case design ever where you could 
fold one side down. I theorized that the mainboard and cards would be cooler if 
the door were open.
Surely convection would carry all the heat away. That was a big concern on that 
particular machine because it had an overclock chip in it that tended to run 
hot.

BZZZT wrong! In fact almost every component (especially the processor) ran 
hotter when the door was open than when it was closed.

Finally I ran it open with a table fan pointed across the components, that did 
the trick everything cooled right down. As far as I know that system is still 
in use compressing video files for the web. Its got a drop box the editor puts 
files to be compressed in, when it sees a file it grabs it, compresses it and 
spits a finished file out. One of my better low buck projects.

-Curt

Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:32:00 -0600
From: Kaleb C. Striplin [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again
To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

I have always been told that leaving the side off actually reduces
 airflow.

   
-
Looking for last minute shopping deals?  Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.
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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Kaleb C. Striplin]

Well, what happened was I had an old cracked version of xp installed, 
but got a legal corporate copy from my brother who is in the computer 
business and did the upgrade option to install it so I could use windows 
  update.  Before, with the old copy, it would say I did not have a 
genuine copy.  Now it works fine but will not install them once 
downloaded.  will check out your link.

Rick Knoble wrote:
 speaking of windows update, I have 2 different computers that I do the 
 windows update, it downloads them but wont install any of the updates. 
 AFter it goes thru its deal, says update failed.  Anybody got a clue 
 about that?
 
 If you repaired the copies of Windows XP from the Windows disk, there are 
 DLL's that need to be re-registered. Here is the fix that I used when I had 
 that very same problem on my kids computer.
 
 http://windowssecrets.com/2007/09/27/03-Stealth-Windows-update-prevents-XP-repair
 
 Rick Knoble 
 '85 300 CD
 '87 190 DT
 
 ___
 http://www.okiebenz.com
 For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/
 For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
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-- 
Kaleb C. Striplin/Claremore, OK
  94 E420, 92 300SD, 92 300D, 92 250D Turbo, 92 300E 4Matic,
  91 300D, 90 420SEL, 89 560SEL, 89 260E, 87 300SDL, 85 380SE 5.0 Euro,
  84 190D, 84 300D euro manny, 81 240D, 81 380SLC, 80 240D, 76 240D,
  76 300D, 72 250C, 69 250
http://www.okiebenz.com

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Kaleb C. Striplin]

WOW, that fixed my problem.  These OT questions are great!!  This list 
is more helpful than just for MB problems.

Kaleb C. Striplin wrote:
 Well, what happened was I had an old cracked version of xp installed, 
 but got a legal corporate copy from my brother who is in the computer 
 business and did the upgrade option to install it so I could use windows 
   update.  Before, with the old copy, it would say I did not have a 
 genuine copy.  Now it works fine but will not install them once 
 downloaded.  will check out your link.
 
 Rick Knoble wrote:
 speaking of windows update, I have 2 different computers that I do the 
 windows update, it downloads them but wont install any of the updates. 
 AFter it goes thru its deal, says update failed.  Anybody got a clue 
 about that?
 If you repaired the copies of Windows XP from the Windows disk, there are 
 DLL's that need to be re-registered. Here is the fix that I used when I had 
 that very same problem on my kids computer.

 http://windowssecrets.com/2007/09/27/03-Stealth-Windows-update-prevents-XP-repair

 Rick Knoble 
 '85 300 CD
 '87 190 DT

 ___
 http://www.okiebenz.com
 For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/
 For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
 http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com

 

-- 
Kaleb C. Striplin/Claremore, OK
  94 E420, 92 300SD, 92 300D, 92 250D Turbo, 92 300E 4Matic,
  91 300D, 90 420SEL, 89 560SEL, 89 260E, 87 300SDL, 85 380SE 5.0 Euro,
  84 190D, 84 300D euro manny, 81 240D, 81 380SLC, 80 240D, 76 240D,
  76 300D, 72 250C, 69 250
http://www.okiebenz.com

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Rick Knoble]

 WOW, that fixed my problem.  These OT questions are great!!  This list 
 is more helpful than just for MB problems.
 

Glad it worked.

Rick Knoble 
'85 300 CD
'87 190 DT

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Craig McCluskey]

On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:40:08 -0500 Mitch Haley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 
 I had some trouble and had to reformat my XP hard drive again. 
 I've still got the SP2.cab file from the Service Pack 2 I downloaded
 last weekend. Is there a way I can install sp2 from the cabinet file
 without running windows update and downloading for seven hours again?

If you have the update file on your disk, Windows Update should not
download it again. At least that's what happened on my winders system at
worked.


Craig

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Luther]

My shopping is based on the warranty and quality. 
Antec cases and power supplies-some have 3 year warranties, lower quality have
1year warranty. 
AMD-get a processor that is boxed with heat sink and fan, they have a 3 year
warranty. 
ASUS motherboards have 3 year warranties, most other brands have 1, a 
few have 2
both ATI and NVIDIA video cards have 1 year warranties

Kaleb, you'll love this advise, you just need to sit there on your lazy 
butt and
comparison shop.  Use Google, Tigerdirect, Newegg, and Zipzoomfly (my personal
favorite for price/shipping/customer service), and others you feel comfortable
doing business with.  Just browse, read reviews, and make your decision that
way. 

My recent upgrade was:
Asus M2N-E SLI MoBo (3 yr warranty)
Corsair TWIN 2GB memory (lifetime warranty)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core running at 2.0Ghz (3 yr warranty)
That cost me about $260 shipped. 

I already had:
80GB Western Digital SATA hd (5 yr warranty)
HP DVD+/-RW (out of warranty)
Antec Case/power supply (out of warranty)
monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc (out of warranty)

I still need to upgrade my video card.  I'm watching eBay for a NVIDIA SLI
8500xxx PCI-E card with 512MB ram.  Might even add a widescreen LCD to 
that 

Luther, all about warranty


-- 
Luther   KB5QHUAlma, Ark
'87 300SDL (272,xxx mi) head case
'85 Ford F250 6.9 diesel (x58,xxx mi) BioBeast
'82 300CD (176 kmi)
'82 300D  (74 kmi) getting donor engine-sold
'85 300D (280,176) parts car sans engine



Quoting Kaleb C. Striplin [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Been looking into the computer upgrade thing. As I posted before, I
 always custom ordered what I wanted as far as processor, memory etc then
 just transfer my other hardware over.  Im getting a big headache trying
 to figure out what processor is what, what memory is what etc.  Ran thru
 a few options and it seems its as expensive if not more than what is on
 sale at best buy or whatever.  So would it seem I am better off just
 buying whatever is on sale that fits my needs?  Any certain brands to
 look for?  Do they sell them at the store that do not have a bunch of
 crap preloaded on there?  I hate buying those computers that already
 have half their space used up by preloaded crap I will never use. 
 Another aspect I like of not buying the store computers is the fact that
   the cases etc are not always standard.  With the custom ordered
 barebones deals, you can swap whatever you want at any point.  Power
 supplies are standard, drive bays, etc.  Stuff like that.  Anyway,
 enough rambling, thoughts?  Most of these store bought systems come with
 Vista now.  Is that a good thing or should I just look on ebay and buy
 something there that may or may not have an OS installed?
 --
 Kaleb C. Striplin/Claremore, OK
   94 E420, 92 300SD, 92 300D, 92 250D Turbo, 92 300E 4Matic,
   91 300D, 90 420SEL, 89 560SEL, 89 260E, 87 300SDL, 85 380SE 5.0 Euro,
   84 190D, 84 300D euro manny, 81 240D, 81 380SLC, 80 240D, 76 240D,
   76 300D, 72 250C, 69 250
 http://www.okiebenz.com




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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Tom Hargrave]

Luther,

You may be touting warranty but you have been doing what I've been advising
all along. You have been shopping from at least mid price range - up and you
have been buying quality product. And I bet you have not had to take
advantage of one of those warranties yet.

Shop the bottom end of the hardware market to piece one together or shop the
bottom end of the assembled PC market  the story is completely different.

My real issue is that most of the local integrators are putting together
machines from the cheapest parts they can find. Then some of my clients buy
them to save money and I have to deal with them later.

Thanks,
Tom Hargrave
www.kegkits.com
256-656-1924
 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Luther
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 5:27 AM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

My shopping is based on the warranty and quality. 
Antec cases and power supplies-some have 3 year warranties, lower quality
have
1year warranty. 
AMD-get a processor that is boxed with heat sink and fan, they have a 3 year
warranty. 
ASUS motherboards have 3 year warranties, most other brands have 1, a 
few have 2
both ATI and NVIDIA video cards have 1 year warranties

Kaleb, you'll love this advise, you just need to sit there on your lazy 
butt and
comparison shop.  Use Google, Tigerdirect, Newegg, and Zipzoomfly (my
personal
favorite for price/shipping/customer service), and others you feel
comfortable
doing business with.  Just browse, read reviews, and make your decision that
way. 

My recent upgrade was:
Asus M2N-E SLI MoBo (3 yr warranty)
Corsair TWIN 2GB memory (lifetime warranty)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core running at 2.0Ghz (3 yr warranty)
That cost me about $260 shipped. 

I already had:
80GB Western Digital SATA hd (5 yr warranty)
HP DVD+/-RW (out of warranty)
Antec Case/power supply (out of warranty)
monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc (out of warranty)

I still need to upgrade my video card.  I'm watching eBay for a NVIDIA SLI
8500xxx PCI-E card with 512MB ram.  Might even add a widescreen LCD to 
that 

Luther, all about warranty


-- 
Luther   KB5QHUAlma, Ark
'87 300SDL (272,xxx mi) head case
'85 Ford F250 6.9 diesel (x58,xxx mi) BioBeast
'82 300CD (176 kmi)
'82 300D  (74 kmi) getting donor engine-sold
'85 300D (280,176) parts car sans engine



Quoting Kaleb C. Striplin [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Been looking into the computer upgrade thing. As I posted before, I
 always custom ordered what I wanted as far as processor, memory etc then
 just transfer my other hardware over.  Im getting a big headache trying
 to figure out what processor is what, what memory is what etc.  Ran thru
 a few options and it seems its as expensive if not more than what is on
 sale at best buy or whatever.  So would it seem I am better off just
 buying whatever is on sale that fits my needs?  Any certain brands to
 look for?  Do they sell them at the store that do not have a bunch of
 crap preloaded on there?  I hate buying those computers that already
 have half their space used up by preloaded crap I will never use. 
 Another aspect I like of not buying the store computers is the fact that
   the cases etc are not always standard.  With the custom ordered
 barebones deals, you can swap whatever you want at any point.  Power
 supplies are standard, drive bays, etc.  Stuff like that.  Anyway,
 enough rambling, thoughts?  Most of these store bought systems come with
 Vista now.  Is that a good thing or should I just look on ebay and buy
 something there that may or may not have an OS installed?
 --
 Kaleb C. Striplin/Claremore, OK
   94 E420, 92 300SD, 92 300D, 92 250D Turbo, 92 300E 4Matic,
   91 300D, 90 420SEL, 89 560SEL, 89 260E, 87 300SDL, 85 380SE 5.0 Euro,
   84 190D, 84 300D euro manny, 81 240D, 81 380SLC, 80 240D, 76 240D,
   76 300D, 72 250C, 69 250
 http://www.okiebenz.com




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-- 
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.13/1246 - Release Date: 1/27/2008
6:39 PM



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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[LarryT]

Is it a problem using a SATA HD as a slave to a ATA HDs -- trying to 
understand the difference between the 2 although I have gone to a computer 
glossary - it won;t tell me what it is/is not compatible with.  Presently 
I'm using a 350 GB SATA as a external data storage drive for my laptop --  
works great although it puts out a lot of heat.

Any comments?

Thx -- 

Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
.

- Original Message - 
From: LWB250 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 8:05 PM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


I typically recommend Dell to any consumers that ask
 me about computers.  Mainly because it's highly
 unlikely they will care about upgrading, and Dell's
 customer support is still waayyy up the charts
 compared to anyone else.

 For $1000 you can get a really nice Dell configured
 the way you want it.  As far as major component
 standardization, like motherboards, if that's a
 concern for the future, you have no business buying a
 consumer machine.

 I would caution the average computer user to stay away
 from enterprise grade stuff, like older servers.
 They're large, consume massive amounts of power, and
 aren't always easily upgradable if, for example, you
 need an extra hard drive sled for that RAID array.
 Memory is often weird, as well (the Dell 220/2400
 series is a good example of that.)

 We still have boatloads of Compaq servers running in
 the school district, and while they are truly
 workhorses that just churn away day after day with
 minimal attention, they're no the sort of box I would
 want next to my desk at home.

 And Tom - if I had $10 for every Dell 2200/2400 I
 retired in the last year, I would have a nice load of
 cash.  These used to be our standard for member
 servers at our sites, but have been getting replaced
 with HP Prolineant ML150s and blade servers.  Blades
 are slowly taking the place of most of our enterprise
 level stuff.

 MacDan


 -- Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 All depends on what you are going to use the system
 for.

 I always buy Dell mid grade machines loaded with XP
 Pro for my clients. I
 know that there is a lot of anti-Dell sentiment our
 there but of the 100s I
 have turned on, I've had one DOA and no failures
 during the first year. At
 least none that were not operator error! I have had
 issues with RAM  drives
 later but these can't be blamed on dell. They are
 using the same plug-in
 parts as everyone else.

 As far as servers go, I buy Dell or HP. But these
 are true servers, not
 desktop machines running server software. They are a
 different class of
 machine, ultra reliable  very fast.



 
 
 Looking for last minute shopping deals?
 Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. 
 http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping

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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[LarryT]

I upgraded from Win98 to XP home and there's no comparision - XP was a major 
leap forward. Stable, faster, easy to upgrade the OS and other stuff in the 
puter.

Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
.

- Original Message - 
From: LWB250 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 9:30 PM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


I would agree with Tom.  We have nearly 100,000 nodes
 now, about 90% of which are running XP, and we have
 almost no problems.  We're running an enterprise
 version of SAV and everything is locked down courtesy
 of Active Directory and group policies applied both
 globally and to individual OUs.

 I am one of the team leaders for the AD rollout, and
 it has taken us nearly three years to get everything
 locked down.  As we do the final batch over the next
 month or two I expect any problems to pretty much
 disappear.

 Dan

 --- Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I have clients running XP with zero problems, but
 these are behind managed
 servers with sound security policies in place.

 Then I have one client with endless issues 
 complaints. They refuse to let
 me lock down the server  the owner lets his local
 expert solve issues 
 configure machines  set up new users to save
 money. My last visit
 consumed 2 very long days  cost them $1600 in labor
 alone.

 If you are having issues with XP, it's not XP, it's
 somewhere else. Possibly
 hardware or the domain security policies are not set
 up properly.

 Thanks,
 Tom Hargrave
 www.kegkits.com
 256-656-1924




 
 
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Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

[Tom Hargrave]

SATA is a different interface but they support 100% of the ATA command set.
And because they use a different interface, you will not be able to plug one
into a ATA drive cable.

But you can buy a SATA card  cable if you are looking for a data drive.
Look for a drive that supports the SATA 2 (SATA/300) standard with a 16 MB
cache for best performance.

Thanks,
Tom Hargrave
www.kegkits.com
256-656-1924
 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of LarryT
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 6:40 AM
To: Mercedes Discussion List
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again

Is it a problem using a SATA HD as a slave to a ATA HDs -- trying to 
understand the difference between the 2 although I have gone to a computer 
glossary - it won;t tell me what it is/is not compatible with.  Presently 
I'm using a 350 GB SATA as a external data storage drive for my laptop --  
works great although it puts out a lot of heat.

Any comments?

Thx -- 

Larry T (67 MGB, 74 911, 78 240D, 91 300D)
www.youroil.net for Oil Analysis and Weber Parts
Test Results http://members.rennlist.com/oil
PORSCHE POSTERS!  youroil.net
Weber Carb Info http://members.rennlist.com/webercarbs
.

- Original Message - 
From: LWB250 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 8:05 PM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT, computers again


I typically recommend Dell to any consumers that ask
 me about computers.  Mainly because it's highly
 unlikely they will care about upgrading, and Dell's
 customer support is still waayyy up the charts
 compared to anyone else.

 For $1000 you can get a really nice Dell configured
 the way you want it.  As far as major component
 standardization, like motherboards, if that's a
 concern for the future, you have no business buying a
 consumer machine.

 I would caution the average computer user to stay away
 from enterprise grade stuff, like older servers.
 They're large, consume massive amounts of power, and
 aren't always easily upgradable if, for example, you
 need an extra hard drive sled for that RAID array.
 Memory is often weird, as well (the Dell 220/2400
 series is a good example of that.)

 We still have boatloads of Compaq servers running in
 the school district, and while they are truly
 workhorses that just churn away day after day with
 minimal attention, they're no the sort of box I would
 want next to my desk at home.

 And Tom - if I had $10 for every Dell 2200/2400 I
 retired in the last year, I would have a nice load of
 cash.  These used to be our standard for member
 servers at our sites, but have been getting replaced
 with HP Prolineant ML150s and blade servers.  Blades
 are slowly taking the place of most of our enterprise
 level stuff.

 MacDan


 -- Tom Hargrave [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 All depends on what you are going to use the system
 for.

 I always buy Dell mid grade machines loaded with XP
 Pro for my clients. I
 know that there is a lot of anti-Dell sentiment our
 there but of the 100s I
 have turned on, I've had one DOA and no failures
 during the first year. At
 least none that were not operator error! I have had
 issues with RAM  drives
 later but these can't be blamed on dell. They are
 using the same plug-in
 parts as everyone else.

 As far as servers go, I buy Dell or HP. But these
 are true servers, not
 desktop machines running server software. They are a
 different class of
 machine, ultra reliable  very fast.



 



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