Entries tagged with geek

Entry tags:

geek,
tech

Cloning a Drive

I'm using Seagate's free software to clone a drive. It runs in dos, sigh. If I had my druthers, I'd druther use Samsung's software, but it demands you have a Samsung drive in the process. It runs in Windows though. Seagate just wants to find a Seagate drive in the computer, and is perfectly happy if one is plugged via USB.

Entry tags:

geek

Somewhere

The last time I upgraded the firmware in the wireless router, it apparently went awol. I screwed around with it today, going so far as to switch out the cable that connected the router to the main router, and switching the internet connection, all to no avail. I finally upgraded the firmware, first to the wrong version, which crashed, and then to the right version. Suddenly, it works.

Entry tags:

geek

Winter's Here, and It's Time for Overclocking!

(Although it looks like Spring is staging an early offensive today.) I ran the Asus utility to automatically overclock the system. The CPU has been running around 45C, but no heat crashes so far (since this morning).

Entry tags:

geek

Aqua

I tossed in the towel and put water cooling in this box. Bolted a radiator onto one of the case fans, which I'd reversed, and clamped a heat exchanger/water pump on the CPU in place of the Intel fan that ustta be there. The CPU's running about 5 degrees Celsius below the motherboard and ten degrees below what it's been running. Plus, I've cranked down the hard drive fans to slow. Of course, I'm not doing anything that requires much CPU power right now either.

Entry tags:

geek

Living in the Future

Last night, I switched the boot drive to a WD 1TB 6GB/sec SATA drive (which we're not supposed to call SATA 3, although it is the third generation) from a 1TB 3GB/sec Seagate drive using Seagate's software to clone the drive. (It took about twenty minutes and seems to have worked.) I also added a 2TB WD green 3GB/sec SATA drive for some, err, projects. (Green in this case means it's got a green label, revolves not at a high rate of speed, and shuts itself down when it's not being used.)

This morning we switched out the touch panel on the dishwasher for its replacement, which caused me to notice that the PC's PC has been added to the stack in the basement, which made it impossible to unplug the floor light I wanted to use to see what we were doing after shutting down the power to the DW shut down the kitchen lights.

Entry tags:

geek

Online Backup?

Asus unlimited backup is $40 a year. http://news.eeestorage.com/20090201/en_US/

(I don't own a netbook, but I do own several Asus motherboards.) Like Mozy, you have to specify which folders/files to backup.

Entry tags:

geek

Somehow

I'd convinced myself that I needed a new network switch. My eight port was full, and I was missing a connection or two, not counting the six jacks that cover various parts of the house, the servant's quarters, the sunroom, somebody's office, the basement, and two that I no longer remember where they turminate. After I unplugged the no-longer used DSL router and the currently used wireless modem, I had two free ports! After I realized the black network cable was the internet connection, I plugged it back in and I was back on the internet. I moved the wireless router up to the servant's quarters so that it would be closer to the TV and the DVD player in the Batcave.

Entry tags:

geek

I can haz overclocking but still no overthrusters

The new motherboard comes with a little utility that boots, incremements, crashes; boots, increments, crashes; boots increments crashes; and then declares a successful overclocking rate, plus there's a wired remote thingie plugged into the MB which allows me to do all sorts o' things, why there's even a Turbo Key button and a Bus Speed rocker switch -- I'd like to see 'em get a bus down my street fast these days! But, sigh, still no overthrusters.

Entry tags:

geek

RAID

All rebuilt, as I'm sure you're all just dying to hear...

Entry tags:

geek

51!

And rebuilding!

Current Location: Casa Dinh

Entry tags:

geek

RAID

Thirty percent.

Entry tags:

geek

Not that I'm paranoid or nothin...

But I'm moving everything off the baby RAID 5 drive to a backup drive, and then I'm going to yank the two partitions, repartition it as one large partition, and then format it. I've got backups. I was looking at partition software last night, but I've had some unintended fun with Norton's software (which says in really fine print that it doesn't work with RAID drives -- they ain't kidding, by the way). I noticed last night that the drives I based it on, Maxtor 120 GB drives appear to have gone to the obsolete junkyard in the sky. They wuz the sweetspot in that sweet by and by when I first built the RAID. Nowadays, motherboards with RAID controllers are cheaper than most of the RAID controllers out there. Go figure. And Serial ATA (SATA) has pretty much wiped the field. Parallel ATA (PATA or IDE) drives are still around for legacy hardware. But like all hardware, what's old is old, and this electronic hardware turns not to antiques, but to junk for all the junkyards of Asia.

Entry tags:

geek

Running on Empty...

I'm running low on space on my main computer. I'm sure it's my packrat mentality and a taste for video. I was looking longingly at a Staples deal for 200 GB drives, when I realized that I had a Maxtor 120 sitting in reserve in case one of the three other Maxtor 120 GB drives died in the RAID array. Wait, I thought... can I migrate the array from three drives to four? I signed into the control center, and, the answer is Yes. It's sitting at a 3% right now. WoW, it adds another 120 GB!

Hmm, is that what's called pulling a rabbit out of the hat?

At some point, I've developed multiple copies of files across multiple drives. Mostly I did it intentionally as a backup system in case one of the drives went down. Now I'm trying to recombine the files back into one, and move the video onto the RAID.

Current Location: CasaDinh

Entry tags:

geek

EEK!

There's only 922 GB free on my RAID drive...

I just replaced the old 30 GB PATA (probably 66) with a 500 GB PATA 100, using the Seagate software to clone the drive from 29 GB to 465. Slick, smooth, and fast. 1.825 TB on this computer. I just hope I don't hafta back it up, or I'm sunk.