• Welcome to BellGab.com Archive.
 

FUNCTION RANDOM - All Things Technological On Your Mind

Started by Camazotz Automat, August 17, 2012, 04:04:35 AM


area51drone

Nothing like staying up all night transferring one server to a new one, that's running Vista as opposed to the old one running XP.  LOL.  Thank god bellgab keeps me entertained.


zeebo

Dude isn't a Vista server kinda like a 1-wheel bicycle?  In any case your 4am post gets you this week's system admin award.   :D

wr250

Quote from: zeebo on October 11, 2014, 03:13:58 PM
Dude isn't a Vista server kinda like a 1-wheel bicycle?  In any case your 4am post gets you this week's system admin award.   :D

its like a one wheeled bicycle that has a square wheel and a flat tire. that said,  it was marginally better than windows ME.

zeebo

Quote from: wr250 on October 11, 2014, 03:29:51 PM
its like a one wheeled bicycle that has a square wheel and a flat tire. that said,  it was marginally better than windows ME.

I think it would have been funny if ME was actually a later version of MS Bob.  Then if someone asked you what OS you're running, you could have answered "It's Me, Bob".

b_dubb


area51drone

Oh, I'm suffering alright.  Come to find out my .net software that runs my business runs very slow on vista 64.   Extremely painful.  I would say 50% slower than the xp home box it currently runs on, and believe me, I made just about every tweak I could, disabling any non essential services, etc etc.   Recompiling for 64 bit didn't even help much, and introduced huge problems with the painting of the datagridview in the main application I need to use.   Because I don't want to waste any more time trying a vista 32 install, I'm going to redo the server as a xp pro box now...   god what a waste of time.    At least the "new" server will be running this stuff on it's own box now, previously my dev environment and production environment had to share the same machine.   The only reason I went with Vista is that I have two copies of ultimate sitting around, and the needs of this machine don't really justify going out and buying win7 or win8 (which who knows if they'd even work given the issues I saw).   I did not expect to see those kinds of performance hits.   Maybe a little slower because originally it was compiled for 32 bit but jesus fucking christ.   

zeebo

Just wanna say how pissed I am at HP, who are no longer releasing BIOS updates to my 4-year old machine. 

Thus, although there's absolutely no reason my new video card shouldn't work with my hardware, friggin HP's planned obsolescence model has intentionally scuttled my machine on the reefs of time.

HP has now been added to my they-suck-do-not-buy-from-ever list.

wr250

Quote from: zeebo on October 12, 2014, 02:01:32 PM
Just wanna say how pissed I am at HP, who are no longer releasing BIOS updates to my 4-year old machine. 

Thus, although there's absolutely no reason my new video card shouldn't work with my hardware, friggin HP's planned obsolescence model has intentionally scuttled my machine on the reefs of time.

HP has now been added to my they-suck-do-not-buy-from-ever list.

if you knew the motherboard manufacturer, you might get a bios from them. asus builds many hp boards.

zeebo

Quote from: wr250 on October 12, 2014, 02:15:48 PM
if you knew the motherboard manufacturer, you might get a bios from them. asus builds many hp boards.

Thanks for the tip, I'll take a peek at the mobo.

cweb

Ah, to be young and foolish. And buy a Dell.

My old XPS Gen 4 rig was making a lovely symphony of beeps upon startup, then failing to output video.
(I've relegated it to running my bowling league software and minor office tasks, with frequent backups.)

BIOS lights say memory issue. Pull out the RAM modules, reseat them. Voila. Works. How annoying!

Reminds me of the frequent issue's we'd have from Optiplex 980/9010 machines at work. Except instead of reseating memory, we would have to reseat the darn video cards.

Quote from: cweb on October 15, 2014, 07:39:57 AM
My old XPS Gen 4 rig was making a lovely symphony of beeps upon startup, then failing to output video.
(I've relegated it to running my bowling league software and minor office tasks, with frequent backups.)

Yeah, mine is hosting my Twilight fan fiction site.

Quote from: Mind Flayer Monk on October 15, 2014, 07:51:30 AM
Yeah, mine is hosting my Twilight fan fiction site.

I should have known you guys would let this one stay at the top for a while.


MV/Liberace!

My main machine at my office is an old eMachines ET1331G which I bought in 2010.  The motherboard is an MCP61PM-GM made by ECS. 

I've recently decided to put a little money into this computer, and my first major move was to put in a new CPU, which has always been the biggest bottleneck in this machine (aside from the obvious drawbacks of on-board video).  It shipped with an AMD Athlon II X2 250u 1.6GHz.  Absolute rubbish.  After much research, I found this motherboard is capable of handling a far better CPU than is listed in the specs provided by the dummies at eMachines (thanks for nothing, assholes).  So, I've upgraded it to an AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz.  The difference is profound.  Here is a detailed comparison of the old and new CPUs.



For just around a hundred bucks, a real shit-box of a computer is now a totally different machine.  For another $30, I'll be doubling the RAM from 4GB to 8GB.


The new CPU:
[attach=1]


Hopefully someone attempting the same upgrade on this particular motherboard will stumble on this thread via the Googles and save themselves a lot of research.  From everything I've found, this is the best CPU this motherboard can handle.

area51drone

Quote from: MV on October 20, 2014, 04:00:35 PM
My main machine at my office is an old eMachines ET1331G which I bought in 2010.  The motherboard is an MCP61PM-GM made by ECS. 

I've recently decided to put a little money into this computer, and my first major move was to put in a new CPU, which has always been the biggest bottleneck in this machine (aside from the obvious drawbacks of on-board video).  It shipped with an AMD Athlon II X2 250u 1.6GHz.  Absolute rubbish.  After much research, I found this motherboard is capable of handling a much better CPU than is listed in the specs provided by the dummies at eMachines (thanks for nothing, assholes).  So, I've upgraded it to an AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz.  The difference is profound.  Here is a detailed comparison of the old and new CPUs.



For just around a hundred bucks, a real shit-box of a computer is now a totally different machine.  For another $30, I'll be doubling the RAM from 4GB to 8GB.


The new CPU:
[attach=1]


Hopefully someone attempting the same upgrade on this particular motherboard will stumble on this thread via the Googles and save themselves a lot of research.  From everything I've found, this is the best CPU this motherboard can handle.

Nice move.  Makes me wonder how the couple of the emachines I have lying around might be improved simply by putting in a faster processor.

What are51drone said.  Nice move on the CPU.  Checkmate, even.

eddie dean

Quote from: MV on October 20, 2014, 04:00:35 PM
My main machine at my office is an old eMachines ET1331G which I bought in 2010.  The motherboard is an MCP61PM-GM made by ECS. 

I've recently decided to put a little money into this computer, and my first major move was to put in a new CPU, which has always been the biggest bottleneck in this machine (aside from the obvious drawbacks of on-board video).  It shipped with an AMD Athlon II X2 250u 1.6GHz.  Absolute rubbish.  After much research, I found this motherboard is capable of handling a far better CPU than is listed in the specs provided by the dummies at eMachines (thanks for nothing, assholes).  So, I've upgraded it to an AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz.  The difference is profound.  Here is a detailed comparison of the old and new CPUs.



For just around a hundred bucks, a real shit-box of a computer is now a totally different machine.  For another $30, I'll be doubling the RAM from 4GB to 8GB.


The new CPU:
[attach=1]


Hopefully someone attempting the same upgrade on this particular motherboard will stumble on this thread via the Googles and save themselves a lot of research.  From everything I've found, this is the best CPU this motherboard can handle.

Can you do the same thing for my old 386 PC from the 90's please.
There's 5 bucks in it for ya!


area51drone

Quote from: MV on October 20, 2014, 05:27:49 PM
why would you expect it to be so expensive?

I don't know how much you were joking, but you wouldn't believe how much stuff goes up in value once it's that old.  I had to buy a 5.25" disk drive in order to get access to some really old stuff I had on old floppies that couldn't be found online.  Thing cost me something on the order of $35 shipped - you'd think someone would just give it to you.   But look at all those old old trash 80's, vic 20's etc.  They're not exactly going for $0.01 plus shipping.    There's still some value in them.    I had this old 8086 GRID laptop that was monochrome when I was a teenager.  I used it for nefarious purposes that I won't go into.  I don't know why I searched it recently, but similar models are going for $150+!   Amazing...

zeebo

My bro's got an old e-machines box.  He got a nice boost in peformance by doing a simple RAM upgrade.  I think it had something tiny like just 1Gb and he upgraded to 4Gb or such.  A CPU swap is probably more than he wants to deal with.

But I'm thinking of trying a solid-state drive swap for his system drive.  I've seen this article where you can supposedly clone your old drive/partition to accomplish this.


MV/Liberace!

Quote from: area51drone on October 20, 2014, 06:05:51 PM
I don't know how much you were joking, but...

I was joking entirely, but you're right.  Some of that stuff, despite its obsolescence, falls under the law of supply and demand.  There's just not much of it floating around out there any longer, so some of it is shockingly expensive when you actually start looking into it.

Quote from: zeebo on October 20, 2014, 06:16:38 PM
A CPU swap is probably more than he wants to deal with.

The most difficult part about dropping in a new cpu is finding the right one for your motherboard.  Once that's figured out, a monkey could do this.  Step one is to install CPUZ (be sure to run it as administrator) which will tell you everything you want to know about your current setup (motherboard make/model, RAM, CPU, etc.).  Once you know what motherboard you have, you can figure out what CPUs your motherboard supports.  When you figure that out, you can get a nice comparison between the prospective CPU and your current one here.  After that, there are a zillion videos on YouTube that will show you how to swap a processor.


Quote
But I'm thinking of trying a solid-state drive swap for his system drive.  I've seen this article where you can supposedly clone your old drive/partition to accomplish this.


I didn't look at the article you linked to see what they recommended, but I always use Acronis True Image to clone drives.  However, when you're going from a conventional hard drive to solid state, I'd recommend you consider a clean Windows (if that's what you'll be using) install.  You might get better performance out of the SSD by doing so as opposed to cloning a Windows install configured for a mechanical drive.  Also, there's just nothing better than a fresh OS install.  But, yeah, a nice SSD usually makes a huuuge difference. 

area51drone

Well, on one of my emachines, I can go from a Celeron 2.8ghz to a P4 3.4ghz.  Probably double the processing power, but I don't think it would be worth it.   I don't think the rest of them have any better chance of doing such a great upgrade like yours, MV.   I'd be better off throwing in an old MB I have that supports a phenom ii and throw that in instead.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: area51drone on October 20, 2014, 10:58:32 PM
Well, on one of my emachines, I can go from a Celeron 2.8ghz to a P4 3.4ghz.  Probably double the processing power, but I don't think it would be worth it.   I don't think the rest of them have any better chance of doing such a great upgrade like yours, MV.   I'd be better off throwing in an old MB I have that supports a phenom ii and throw that in instead.

What motherboard is it?

You have to watch the wattage of the new CPU, too. For instance, the Phenom II 955 I bought comes in both a 95W OEM only variant (which I bought) and a 125W retail version (which draws more power than my motherboard can handle).

area51drone

Quote from: MV on October 21, 2014, 12:03:04 AM
What motherboard is it?

You have to watch the wattage of the new CPU, too. For instance, the Phenom II 955 I bought comes in both a 95W OEM only variant (which I bought) and a 125W retail version (which draws more power than my motherboard can handle).

It's an ASRock K10N78M Pro.   I have 3 machines running that motherboard - I usually buy a spare motherboard or two as insurance since in my experience that's the only thing that becomes difficult to replace on a computer.  It can handle both versions, I believe.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: area51drone on October 21, 2014, 10:39:14 AM
It's an ASRock K10N78M Pro.


According to this, that mobo is capable of running this.  Which is nice.  What I meant to ask, though, is what mobo do you have which can only upgrade to a P4?


area51drone

Quote from: MV on October 21, 2014, 12:31:12 PM

According to this, that mobo is capable of running this.  Which is nice.  What I meant to ask, though, is what mobo do you have which can only upgrade to a P4?

It's a PC Chips 963GV v5.0...    I might actually upgrade it to a P4 anyway just because I realized today I need another computer for the holidays.    The manual says "P4 Series" so I'm assuming I can maybe do the P4 3.4ghz, which undoubtedly faster.   But then again, wasn't there something out there about the P4's not actually being faster than their predecessor, or was that the P3 or something else?


MV/Liberace!

Quote from: area51drone on October 21, 2014, 06:06:26 PM
...wasn't there something out there about the P4's not actually being faster than their predecessor, or was that the P3 or something else?

hmmmm, not sure.

I had a Pentium 4-E Prescott which was really something of a bohemeth -- a complex design that used a lot of power for marginal gains.  It was still top of the line when released, though.  I looked to upgrade it to a faster processor or Pentium D dualcore, which used the same architecture, but the benefits weren't really worth it.  Instead I got a cheap AsRock crossover board on eBay so that I could use a Core 2 processor with my old memory, drives, and video card.  Mine's actually a quad core and its performance has been pretty good, but the board only holds 2 gigs of RAM which is limiting me more and more.  The Core 2 were a simpler design than the P4s, but much more efficient.  A 2 GHz Core 2 would probably outperform a P4 that was closer to 3 GHz -- I don't remember the spread so that might be a bit exaggerated, but it was dramatic.

area51drone

You guys see this?  Amazon is offering unlimited storage included with your Prime account.     It says it's for photos in the article, but I wonder if it's for anything:

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/04/technology/amazon-prime-storage/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Powered by SMFPacks Menu Editor Mod