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Old October 22nd 11, 03:13 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.arch,nl.comp.hardware,sci.electronics.design
Skybuck
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Posts: 363
Default DreamPC 2006 ready for it's grave...

I am not yet ready to give up on my DreamPC2006 (updates along the
years), mostly because I don't really believe in other systems from
HP,Dell,Media Markt, Apple and so forth... For example they sell
desktops/midtowers too mostly so that changes little, also I am not
yet sure what the exact cause of death is of the harddisks and other
equipment. So far my DreamPC2006 is still alive and working quite well
from Knoppix DVD which is quite amazing... just browsing the internet
does not seem to need a harddisk a nice lesson for Microsoft/IE to
learn !

Sigh... so anyway I am going to make a list of most likely possible
causes of death for all failed hardware components to make up my mind
later:

Motherboard 1 dead/fried, cause: overheat, obstructed airflow, bad
chieftec case, two gtx 7900 sandwhiched with soundblaster. (mb
replacement?) (1400 bucks wasted on gtx's) (200 bucks wasted on
chieftec case)
Motherboard 2 dead/fried, cause: overheat, obstructed airflow, antec
1200 case dust filters preventing airflow, gtx heatsink full with
dust. (200 bucks)
Motherboard 3 dead, cause: electric shock, not earthed, connecting
devices caused shock. (100 bucks)
Memory chip bit corrupted, cause: overheat, scythe zipang obstructing
airflow, heatpipes causing overheat of memory chip. (almost free
replacement, 8 bucks shipping or so)
Blue led on case, dead ?, cause: unexplained, perhaps faulty
connecting, perhaps electric shock related.
AMD Heatsink fan pins/holes broke off, still usuable, cleaning
related, dust related.
Old harddisk 1 (2006), bad sectors/file system corruption, vibration/
physical shock related ?! - Could be caused by midtower, or fan
vibration, or not equipting screws to fasten drive bay, could also be
age related. (200 bucks)
New harddisk 2 (2011), bad clusters, bad sectors, strange/unexplained,
perhaps power less related/reset because of impatience/freeze, could
also be electric shock related, could also be windows 7 file system
corruption, could also be bad motherboard controller. (100 bucks)
Creative X-Fi Elite Pro, death unconfirmed, could also be because of
missing system files, could also be dead. Could be dust related,
perhaps under control by setting fan inlets to minimum. (200 bucks)
Additional power supply, wasn't really necessary but ok was needed for
antec 1200 (200 bucks)

Estimated money sort of wasted or half in use: 2600 bucks wasted.

^ That's a lot of money wasted, though the gtx's are still usuable but
then again, also overheat-prone so not really worth it.
These bucks are estimated numbers and might be a bit on the high
side... but it still illustrates nicely how much money was wasted.
For that ammount of money I could have bought 3 or 4 dell's or so, or
some hp's or whatever. Though they have limited harddisk space and
such. It's not really about money efficiency I just want my systems/
data to last, especially my data.
So far this wasted money is not a too good sign, but I have already
learned from it somewhat, so that lesson is already learned. The
purpose of this posting is to focus on most likely causes of death and
what to do about it.

From surveying the web, it seems SSD is too unreliable, so it cannot
be used as a replacement for physical shock protection/absorption. My
guess is SSD could probably fail because of electrical shock, or most
likely overheat. Though my system is now pretty well cooled, but could
have electrical shock related issues, perhaps hard resets, or "dirty"
wall power Perhaps electrical fluctuations. Some people do report
some success with SSD but perhaps those people only browse the web and
do very little with their SSD, the heavy users report massive
failures. I do wonder how SSD would work in my system, so perhaps I
give a cheap version a try to see how it works and it could allow my
system to go back up a bit from a HD so I can run windows again But
ofcourse it could also be a further waste of money and it's kinda
tiny, but maybe for 100 bucks max I would be willing to give it a try
for a few months or so... I am mostly concerned about my data, I want
a safe solution for it, SSD is not it. I also though about "encrypted
cloud" but my data is well within the 10's of GB's and cloud probably
too small, and transferring data at 1 MB/sec or 400 KB/sec doesn't
sound like a lot of fun to me, so cloud is out, plus disconnect risk.

I have also been thinking about a "remote storage device" somewhere in
my apperement in another room far away from me, but only 2 kinds of
electric systems available in my appertment, it would share it's
powersupply with was machines and dryiers, that doesn't sound to safe
to me, and then I would have cable running through system, and
wireless is a no-no in my book, too scared of radiation which
might be a bit silly because PC's give off radiation as well, but
maybe not as much as wireless signals ?!?

Another possible cause of harddisk death might be: cold related,
perhaps they ran too cold. Since the fans are now on low, perhaps this
will not be an issue anymore, and I will fasten any new harddisk.

So for now I think my best option is:

1. Buy one, two or three new harddisks.

It's tempting to buy three new harddisks in case another one fails,
but what if the cause of failure is the motherboard/controller ?!?
Maybe it's bios had bugs or so... I should investigate that somewhat
more closely because I can remember reading about problems with it.
Though to me it seems unlikely that bios bugs would cause bad sectors,
unless those reports are somehow fake/unreliable, for now I will have
to assume the bad sectors or real for safeties sake... buying another
motherboard sounds really tiring to me.

However for that kind of money I could also buy a new cheap personal
computer with new motherboard, new processor, new memory, new harddisk
(much smaller but ok), new case. It would not be as great as my antec
1200 which has huge storage space for harddisk and doesn't vibrate
sound-wise... I do kinda like my antec 1200 I will admit to that
However perhaps it's a killer-dust-wise.

Getting a new processor for "free" in the process sounds kinda fun,
then I can try it out, but it also sounds kinda ****ty, it would not
be a real/dream system, I would probably not want to use it much
because of it's tiny harddisk, however perhaps I can replace it's
harddisk with a bigger harddisk or the old ones. But perhaps the case
will be too ****ty space-wise. The new system could also be a disaster
heatwise, or it might not.

Also where would I put new system... hmm... not that much space,
cables kinda short so it would need to be near me... I am not yet
ready to ditch antec 1200, also too much dust on ground... not good
idea on ground, so maybe a special little table for it... that would
be nice... so I should probably first buy or find a nice little table
somewhere to place it on, away from the ground, and it should be large/
deep enough to contain the pc. Also fridge probably has to go, it
causes electrical shocks on the power grid it seems... blue light
spark coming from wall sockets when sticking plugs into it slowly or
skewed - maybe me should not do it too slowly lol kinda fun
watching the blue light sparks... I like nice light show it should
not cause damage anyway, better to loose ****ty hardware immediatly
then to build up on it and then later loose it

Perhaps I should consider my DreamPC to be an "evolutionary"
project... throwing out the junk/dead crap... keeping the good stuff
lol... perhaps the antec1200 is the crap... who knows So far I like
this blue light giving, somewhat dust sucking sturdy beast

At least the cd/dvd/floppy disk/card reader is still working for
now ! AMD cpu working too, CORSAIR memory chips working too.
ASRock motherboard working too, but I have my doubts about it
somewhat... it does react very slowly to pressing F11 during boot so
could be an indication that it's programming is somewhat shaky.
Status of soundblaster is unknown at this point, motherboard probably
has audio chip could try that... still have to figure out if video
cables can be used to connect it to receiver.

I also have my doubts about the receiver, perhaps coffee was spilled
on it by the store where I bought it... perhaps that has something to
do with it... but so far it seems to be working ok, so that hypothesis
seems unlikely. I should examine those pictures a little bit more on
my skydrive, and if I do ever get an electrician in house, maybe he
can measure it or something, but probably not so that idea can go out
the window.

For now I should probably figure out if it's possible to mount VHD's
somehow in linux/knoppix that would be nice.

I also wonder if Knoppix is maybe trying to use Nvidia audio device
which is something weird ?!? What the hell is that ? Does the GT 520
have some strange audio device onboard ? or is it perhaps some strange
nvidia chip on the motherboard ?!? It's quite weird how Knoppix
believes there is an nvidia audio device in it... windows 7 saw it
too... I should look into that... hmmm... So perhaps knoppix defaults
to using that instead of creative, but the creative is probably first
in list... I haven't tried to use soundblaster yet, too fed up/lazy
with it sound is not a priority for now...

For now I think I will probably buy a new hd first, so I can get
windows back up and running and from that point I will see what I do,
though I am also a little bit fed up with windows but I also need it
to get more easily to me files and data, I think it's good idea to get
a second drive sometime and install a different operating system like
linux on it as a backup operating system and booting device. I dislike
how flash is missing from knoppix though, that's my dislike about it.
The web is not as much fun without flash. No flash, no fun ! =D

I do like Knoppix though, it feels more like Windows XP then Windows 7
does ! How about that ! And the browser feels almost exaclt the
same as IE ! So for web surfing Knoppix is almost fine, except
for missing flash support ;(

For now I am going to enjoy knoppix a bit more though I do keep
worried about my data drive... hmmm...

Bye,
Skybuck.