Excellent, You're Computer Junkies Too!

[travis]

I just started coming here yesterday and have already determined that this is the place I've been looking for - planted tank fanatics and computer junkies too! I see you've been posting pics of your systems (at least GDominy anyway) so I thought I'd throw up a few of my own hand-built system. I'm having some trouble getting my camera to adjust to the cold-cathode UV lighting so they're a little over-exposed. Great pics btw GDominy! That system looks smokin'.

[GDominy]

NIce LCD on that Black tower there... Looks like you got the Audiodrive for an Audigy as well... And is that a homemade fanbus? nice work...

What Cisco router is that? I have been Ebaying for the last few weeks trying to get a decent deal on a 2611 or a 2621...

[GulfCoastAquarian]

Nice setup, Travis! That case is awesome. Please tell me you're a bachelor, though. My wife would never go for a baker's rack loaded with tech toys like that in the kitchen!

[travis]

Thanks guys! The router is a Cisco 3700 series found on Ebay for a steal. It's hooked through a Cisco 2924XL switch which is bridged through the big DC server box to a Gigabit SC Multimode fiber switch which connects all of the local boxes. Makes for great gaming ping times and video streaming

The case is an aluminum Lian Li full-tower that is without a doubt the most well-put-together case I have ever owned. Everything is machined to exact tolerances and fully modular. The bus is for the cold cathodes. I've got six of them inside the case. My fanbus burned out, now things are very loud. It's running five 80x38mm high speed Delta's along with several other fans and they are not throttled now that the fanbus is toast. I have to keep it in the other room if I want to sleep I've got it overclocked so I really need them though. It keeps me warm in the winter

And yes, I am a bachelor. And with a rack like that will probably remain one for a while *heh* I just got a 19" aluminum server rack that is waiting for some rackmount components. Time to start checking Ebay . . .

Here's a pic of the switch stack:

[MentaldisordeR]

LIAN-LI!!!!! omg i love those cases, but too pricey...is that the mid or full size? looks like the full...sweeet lcd, i think itll be awhile before i get one of those suckers another pricey bit...are those possibly 2 raptors you got in there....possibly in RAID ?...ha sweet man how much of an OC did you do?

[travis]

Nice spot on the Raptors man! Yep, they're first-gen 36 GB 10K Raptors in RAID 0. Smokin' fast but still not as fast as the single Seagate Cheetah X15 SCSI drive hidden behind them I run my OS on the Cheetah and use the Raptors for video capture and fast local storage. Since it's connected via gigabit fiber to the file server, I can easily capture over the network too. Nothing like the speed of light

I got the FSB up to 187 from 166 (it's an older Athlon 2700) so it's not great. My next mobo will likely be a P4 board with a P4 Mobile 2600 OC'd to the moon in it. I've never seen anything OC as easily as those P4 Mobile chips.

[GDominy]

Originally Posted by travis

Nice spot on the Raptors man! .

Holy crap.. how did you spot those? I have a raptor and totally missed it.... sheesh

[travis]

OK, I think I see it now. He saw the SATA cables on two drives, but how did he know they were Raptors?

[GDominy]

Ok I gotta ask.. what do all these computers do.. if you've checked out my site you can see that my boxes all have purposes...

I'm guessing that you have a box for a PVR, a main box for everyday stuff..

What are the rest? Common man.. geek out ;-)

[GDominy]

By the way... Your pics are over exposed because you are pointing the camera right at the Cold Cathodes.. it will be tough to balance the light levels of the shot with this config.. my pics turned out cause I hid the cathode tubes and lengthened the exposure time (on a tripod)

By the way.. what Corsair Dimm is that? I love Corsair memory

[travis]

I'm always willing to talk about computers, it usually a problem finding someone who wants to listen

If you look at the bottom shelf of the server rack the big black double-wide Antec full-tower case (Dark1) is the primary Windwos 2K3 domain controller / file server. It's running a dual-processor mobo, a six drive (80GB each) 400GB RAID 5 array and a Cheetah SCSI OS drive and serves as the fiber bridge to the copper switch. That array can easily max out the fiber bandwidth *grin*

The next white Antec full-tower case (Primitive) is the secondary 2K3 domain controller / SQL server / backup image server / update server. It's running a four drive (60GB each) 120GB RAID 1 array for secure storage and backups.

The next black Antec mid-tower case (Pagan) is the internal game server running XP and a two drive (120GB each) 240GB RAID 0 array. No real need for it but the drives were just sitting around, so what the hell.

The next shorter box is an extra just sitting there in case we need to throw something on it. I think someone left it at the place. Can't really remember.

The identical boxes on the middle shelf are all DMZ servers. The left box (FW1) is the firewall box running Checkpoint FW1 (shhh . . . I didn't say that). I love Checkpoint. Makes me sort of want to post my IP on the 2600 forums with a note saying "Bring it 1uz3rz"

The second box (Sketchy) is the Exchange 2K3 server. I'm still new to Exchange but it integrates well with a Windows 2K3 domain architecture and I'm beginning to really like it.

The third box (Bulletcatcher) is the OpenBSD DMZ web server. Totally nukeproof. If you've ever used OpenBSD you know what I'm talking about. 'Secure by Default'. My roommate put it together - I don't really know a lot about any of the flavors of BSD, but for the low-end hardware it's running it still shows some good speed and, to the best of my knowledge, is virtually unhackable.

And the stack of Compaq boxes on the top aren't running anything right now. I bought them from a hospital for $10 a piece with the idea of putting them into a Beowulf cluster but the damn drives are so small (<2GB each) and Compaq has this ass-backward method of storing the mobo BIOS on a custom partition on the hard drive (don't ask me why - total pain in the ass) so I can't easily reformat the hard drives to put a new OS (some flavor of Linux) on them. I'm still working on it though.

There are three other systems throughout the house that are all connected in to the fiber switch for gaming and speedy file transfer / video-streaming purposes. Unfortunately the Cisco 2924 switch is dying a slow death of port rot. If you look at the pic of the switch stack you can see several port lights lit up in the emergency orange color with nothing plugged into them - dead ports. Just need to get another one and throw this one out.

Well I'll bet that's enough geeking out for you. Thanks for asking

[travis]

Looks like we've got something in common there. I only buy Corsair memory. Nothing touches it IMHO. That's just a standard XMS 3200 512GB dimm. I had to pull the second one to replace a stick in the secondary DC.

All of the PVR stuff is done on my personal box (the one in the pics above) and my roommates box in his room. We're both running ATI All-in-Wonder cards. I wouldn't be without one. Just capture it across the network to the file server and we can get to it from anywhere. Who needs a Tivo?

[GDominy]

heh heh.. your server farm sounds like my old appt... I had 13 servers running. Now I have 3 boxes, and everything I need runs on them. I refuse to run an E-mail server for my domain because I just can't handle blocking all the spam. My connection is just 2.5mbit in and 1mbit out so Spam can totally kill my connection if I"m not carefull (last time I ran an E-mail server I pegged over 500gig in a month... 400gig was E-mail!!!!).

I love Corsair memory.. I dont think I"ll buy anything else .

I'm actually upgrading my main box again, and moving the old parts into Slave2... I am picking up an Athlon 64 4000+ (rebranded FX-53) so I can put the 3500+ on a new board. I"m holding off on this untill DFI comes out with a Lanparty board for Socket 939 so I can set up the 160 SATA drive I have as the primary, with the 2 x 80 Gig drives set up in a raid (mirrored) for secure data.

[GDominy]

Originally Posted by travis

And the stack of Compaq boxes on the top aren't running anything right now. I bought them from a hospital for $10 a piece with the idea of putting them into a Beowulf cluster but the damn drives are so small (<2GB each) and Compaq has this ass-backward method of storing the mobo BIOS on a custom partition on the hard drive (don't ask me why - total pain in the ass) so I can't easily reformat the hard drives to put a new OS (some flavor of Linux) on them. I'm still working on it though.

Funny you should mention that.. I sold a 32 node Beowulf cluster to the local university a few years ago :-)

For the compaq's.. you can get a floppy from them that will reinstall the bios on a new HD. I"ve done it.. alternately.. you can convert the partition to another type.. ghost it... then convert it back...

[travis]

Originally Posted by GDominy

Funny you should mention that.. I sold a 32 node Beowulf cluster to the local university a few years ago :-)

Wow, I'm impressed. Did you build it or are you in sales? Now I know who to talk to when I do get those Compaqs running I started with a stack of 10 of them which spent some time acting as a makeshift table leg until I started giving them to friends who didn't have systems and needed a way to access the internet. They also make good paperweights and hotpads.

Originally Posted by GDominy

I'm actually upgrading my main box again, and moving the old parts into Slave2... I am picking up an Athlon 64 4000+ (rebranded FX-53) so I can put the 3500+ on a new board. I"m holding off on this untill DFI comes out with a Lanparty board for Socket 939 so I can set up the 160 SATA drive I have as the primary, with the 2 x 80 Gig drives set up in a raid (mirrored) for secure data.

It's been a while since I've bought any new hardware - wasting all my time with my tank lately. But I'm definitely taking the 64 bit plunge when I do. How would rate the Athlon 64 with recent P4 CPUs? I'm not really a big fan of Intel so I always try to purchase AMD procs. Gotta love the price to performance ratio.