Breathe new life into an old(ish) rig.InThrees @ September 7th, 2006, 04:35 am view this post only
So my last post was about my adventures in overclocking a Northwood-core Pentium IV 1.8a. The day I took it out of my machine, it was running 18x175mhz @ 1.65 volts, for an effective 75% overclock.
I took it out because I had procured a SL6Z3 2.4c with HT, another monster overclocker. Before I even booted into windows after installing the new processor, I was in the bios of my trusty abit AI7, hammering this processor to see what it could do... and I wasn't dissapointed.
First overclock was 12x250 (12x200 is stock) with the ram running 1:1 with the fsb. That's an effective FSB of 1 ghz, since Intel uses some crazy quad-pumping bullshit AMD needs to figure the hell out. However, it wasn't exactly... stable. After determining that this fsb didn't immediately choke the box up, I booted into windows and decided to stress test (and upgrade-test) the new proc and oc with a session of Stronghold 2. SH2 is very processor-intensive. Every unit (including wildlife, it seems) gets CPU time for awareness and movement checks (I.E., is there an enemy in range of an archer? CPU is thinking about it. Does this group of rabbits feel like moving somewhere else? CPU is thinking about it.) so I figured it would be a good comparison of before and after. I was pleased with the result, but I was noticing artifacts, and then oh noes, the game crashed!
Back to the bios. I decided to see if running the ram at 4:5 with the system bus would help. While I was at it (and this isn't very smart) I decided to see if the processor would handle 266x12. The smart plan is test these things 1 at a time, but I had an afternoon to kill and I figured I could fall back on empirical testing if need be. Turns out the 5:4 and 266 combo worked out fine though, so that's what I'm running now - 12x266, with the ram running 4:5 to the fsb at a nominal 212 mhz. I have some room to pump voltage into the ram and jack it up, since it's DDR466 and a quality part to begin with... I intend to fool around and experiment more this week, to see what this combination can really do.
FSB of 1.066 ghz is pretty phenomenal - I can feel the responsiveness difference. The machine is snappier, quicker to do the mundane every day things I normally do, and gaming performance is noticeably better as well.
And the cost of this 'upgrade' was about $65.
Many older rigs have this same sort of potential, even if you're leery of overclocking. For a small investment you can substantially improve the performance of an aging machine - and the good news is aging machines generally use common hardware that isn't that expensive now. Maybe replacing your ram with bigger modules (hitting 1gb or even 2gb) is right for you, or maybe dropping in a new processor is the way to go. Or, consider hitting up ebay for a used video card that is significantly better than yours, or even getting a new-in-box 'older' video card from a place like newegg. An AGP 6600GT can be had for $125, and the 6600GT still has a lot of life left in it.
If you can't foot the bill for a complete kit replacement (mb, cpu, ram, video card), switching from AGP to PCI-e, then maybe replacing a few key components is what's needed to ramp up your machine's performance.
Hit us up on the forums at the DOC Forums to find out if we have some ideas, if you're not sure of the possibilities.
Also consider visiting the forums at http://www.overclockers.com - they're a helpful bunch with loads of experience and good suggestions.
Internet Printing Web Page Reduxclme @ June 21st, 2006, 11:56 pm view this post only
The ipp_0001.asp web page on windows 2003 turned out to be a little different than the windows 2000 version. Because of this I have modified the instructions for sorting the data on those pages.
Thanks to those of you that notified me of this error.
For Win2k: Click Here
For Win2k3: Click Here
Once again, if you notice any errors or issues please let me know at clmeSPAM@penismightier.com. Thanks!SSH....we're hunting wabbitsDave @ March 28th, 2006, 10:00 am view this post only
speaking of SSH, there's a new article about how to setup an OpenSSH server on Windows running as a service.
Discuss in the forum or FreeBSDWiki or Your Command Line WikiTunneling over SSHDave @ March 17th, 2006, 10:48 am view this post only
In a stunning flurry of posts to DoC, here's a new article about how to tunnel your browser traffic over SSH.
See also the forum post for more discussion.Sorting Printers on the Internet Printing Webpage ( ipp_0001.asp )clme @ March 12th, 2006, 08:34 pm view this post only
With the advent of win2k Microsoft introduced its Internet Printing Project. Basically this was a default webpage built around a protocol that would allow people to print documents over the internet. It seems like a strange idea, but I've found it useful in a LAN environment. This feature is built into IIS with win2k and win2k3, and I've found it useful for helping my users print from whatever location they end up working at. Its enabled by default when you set up IIS on win2k, but you have to enable it seperately on win2k3.
Anwyay... some background: I have a single print server that serves 12 offices and have a link to the http://printserver/printers webpage for that server on every desktop. The problem I had with this initially is that the printers by default show up in the order they were set up on the server rather than alphabetically or allowing me to choose the sort order. I had somewhere around 80 printers set up on this print server, so I wanted to be able to sort it.
After some intense digging (especially since my web scripting skills are very weak) I found some code I could insert that would allow me to alphabetize the printers by the printer name on the page. The original source of that page is gone, and I cant find anything resembling that now. Since we dont use printer names that contain the citys location in an obvious format I had to do some experimenting with the code I was using in order to find out how to sort by location.
This problem came up again when I was replacing the old, overworked win2k print server with a slightly more robust win2k3 server. Thats when I realized that its STILL not easy to find a way to sort the ipp_0001.asp output, since its assumed that if you open an asp page you understand everything within already :-) So I'm reproducing the code here.
If you are interested check this out:
ipp_0001.asp modified to sort by location
By the way: It should go without saying that I would never turn on internet printing if this machine were actually hooked directly to the internet :-)
If you notice something wrong or if I forgot a step somewhere please let me know at clmeSPAM@penismightier.comcall this number...for another data date...another data dateDave @ March 12th, 2006, 07:28 pm view this post only
so over in the forum one of our regular slackers, j33r, contemplated on building a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) to rip straight from the box. A while ago another regular, Wedge, was asking for DVD ripping suggestions, and it occurs that this might be a good time to point out a program I heard about (but haven't used yet) that might appeal to others doing the DVR thing: TED (link to lifehacker.com) -- Torrent Episode Downloader. Enjoy your stupid boob-tube, guys.Minesweeper Supportclme @ January 31st, 2006, 01:02 am view this post only
Jimbo on the DoC forum recently posted the following comment:
Actually to be honest I've learned [...] WHENEVER someone says "my email doesn't work" to ignore the "email" part of it until I've looked more deeply into the problem - email is the single most important use for the internet to most people, and since it's what's important to them, they say "my email doesn't work!" even when they don't have any internet access at all. Hell, I've even had people say "I can't send email" when their entire COMPUTER was bluescreened or otherwise b0rk3d.
His comment really struck a chord and brought to mind countless conversations about 'email problems' I've had in the past.
User: "My email doesn't work!"
Helpdesk: "Ok. What error message do you get?"
User: "I'm not getting one, the email just doesn't work!"
Helpdesk: "Ok. What happens when you click on the OUTLOOK icon?"
User: "What? The email just isn't working!"
Helpdesk: "What do you see on your screen right now?"
User: "The screen is just black"
Helpdesk: "Ok. Do you have a laptop or a desktop workstation?"
User: "Can I get a laptop?"
Helpdesk: "No. What color is your workstation?"
User: "The computer is black but the Hard Drive is that dirty yellow color"
Helpdesk: "... *sigh* Ok. Is the light on the front of your 'computer' blinking right now, or is it off?"
User: "Its blinking."
Helpdesk: "Ok. On the right side of your 'Hard Drive' there is a button and two lights. Are either of the lights on?"
User: "No."
Helpdesk: "Great. Can you hit that button for me?"
User: "Ok. OOH! The lights are on!"
Helpdesk: "Ok. Now can you..."
User: "Hey! Email works again! Thanks!"
Helpdesk: "Um... ok."
User: "Gee that was easy. I wish I had your job!"
Helpdesk: "Thanks. I bet your job is really easy too."
User: "No its n.."
Helpdesk: *click*
If you have your own tech support questions (or even tales of your own tech support exploits) please feel free to post them in the DoC forums. Our forums are active even when our site is not!
Alas, poor SETI@home. I knew him, Horatio.Dave @ November 23rd, 2005, 09:22 am view this post only
SETI@home goes bye-bye. A sad day for the DoC crew that did SETI@home.Internet Explorer DestroyerDave @ November 10th, 2005, 01:06 pm view this post only
No, reallyRocking the Apple //c like it was 1987 againDave @ October 5th, 2005, 11:53 am view this post only
Want to play a game?