Research Notes
|
| Asetek is headquartered in
Denmark. |
| Innovatek is headquartered in
Germany |
| ATi is headquartered in Canada |
Aqua Computer is headquartered
in Germany
|
Brandon @ Netgear wrote back
to me on 7/17/2005 to say that the
Netgear
FVS124G is not rack mountable, throughput
will be 12.5 Mbps without VPN use, and the internal Gigabit switch does
not support Jumbo Frames. |
| Thermaltake
AquaBay M2 2U Bay Radiator
(w/ 120mm fan) only has connectors for
1/4" ID and 3/8" ID tubing |
Dillard @ Asus wrote back to
me on 7/28/2005 to say that the
Asus A8N-SLI Premium supports 2 x16
PCIe slots and 1 x1 PCIe slot, which did not answer my question. |
Administrator @
Keyspan wrote back to me on 7/28/2005 to say that the
Keyspan
4-port USB Print Server only supports Windows XP and Mac OS X, and
does not have any Linux support |
| GigaFast
EE171-PR Print Server
supports 100MBit Ethernet, USB 1.1 & LPR |
3Com 2816-SFP Plus does not
support Jumbo Ethernet frames
|
| Gigabyte GA-K8N51PVMT-9
Motherboard has a Vitesse Gigabit copper ethernet NIC
(unknown chipset) |
| NetGear WPN824 MiMo Wireless
Router has severe connectivity problems |
Gigabyte GV-3D1-68GT Dual nVidia
6800GT video adapter will only work in a Gigabyte brand motherboard
|
| Plextor
PX-716AL has serious reliability issues according to a number of
reviews on NewEgg and Amazon. |
| Icy Dock MB911B does not support
SAF-TE & is the manufacturer is headquartered in England |
Matsushita (Panasonic) never
releases updated firmware for their optical drives, their onboard
firmware also explicitly disallows regional code bypassing
|
Arctic Cooling is headquartered
in Switzerland
|
| Logitech is headquartered
in Switzerland |
PowerFile R200DL
is similar to the Sony VGP-XL1B2, but is considerable too expensive.
~$7800.00 (MSRP $8999.00)
Dimensions:
5U
8.75" x 17.00" x 20.00" (Height by
Width by Length)
EMC ArchiveXtender
(ARCX) is one Jukebox control package that works with this
system. It runs on both Windows and Linux.
Pricing for ArchiveXtender is
unknown. (Level A, B, C,
D, & E are the pricing "levels". A
starts at around $900.00 PowerFile C200E is a level "F" device)
|
Acronova Dupliq
DVD robot is a
25 Disc capacity robot ~$700.00
Connection: USB 2.0
Power Requirements: 100-240VAC 50/60Hz, External
Adapter
Warranty: One year
Removable USB cable
Arm duty cycle is unknown
What backup software can be used, how does it span
backups
across more than one piece of media? Can it write unchanged files
to media, while preserving directory structures? What is the
restore
process
like? QQboxx may
support data backup to the Duplix. Acronova may have written
QQboxx |
Fujitsu 6GB 15K SAS Hard Drive (MAX3036RC) with Dual Port SAS interface
has seriously reliability issues
|
- Asetek
12V Pump/Reservoir physical dimensions: 4.803" x 1.968" x 6.102"
(Height by
Width by Length). WaterChill
Xtreme [12V] Base Pump Unit includes 1/2" OD connectors and grey
parts; part number 03-L-1254 [1/2" OD fittings]. LCD Display
Black part number 03-L-1270. Asetek WaterChill "Xtreme
edition"
Pump/Reservoir supports controlling two separate fan banks (3 fans in
each bank, up to
8W power usage per fan)
|
| - Intel Pentium D is a
dual-processor CPU, it connects via a LGA775
socket. |
| - Belkin
2-port USB Print Server (F1UP0301) has 16MB of RAM and supports
100Mbit Ethernet, USB
1.1 &
LPR |
| - The Aspire
X-QPACK-AL/420's power supply, while labelled as being 420 watts, is
actually
considerably lower than 420 watts. Expect to replace it with a
different power
supply. If a standard size ATX power supply is installed in the
case, a standard-length optical drive can not fit in the top
5¼"
bay. Lite-On's shorter length optical drives will fit according
to a few people. N.B. Lite-On unit quality is terrible. Use
a laptop drive in a 5 ¼" adapter bay instead. |
| - The MF Digital Baxter
DVD robot is a
rebranded version of the Acronova Dupliq (CD&DVD version) |
| - The Giga-Byte GH-WIU01
watercooling kit is made of very fragile
plastic. Both the CPU water block and the reservoir are prone to
cracking and leaks. |
- Tripp Lite PowerAlert software
does not properly share the USB
connection with
Window's APM. After about 2 days, the UPS' battery status can not
be
read by either the PowerAlert software or Window's APM. An
uninstall/reinstall of the UPS software is required to fix this error
condition; rebooting does not resolve the problem.
|
- nVidia
7950 GX2 [image]
is not a viable video card for Odin and HPC Slave
It only works in motherboards where the motherboard
BIOS has been updated to
recognize the card.
An nVidia 8800 GTS card gives approximately the
same, or better, performance. The boards support "Quad" SLi, but
software
support for that feature is untested & incomplete as of February
22,
2007. Approximate length is 9".
nVidia's list
of compatible motherboards N.B. Odin's planned motherboard does
not have the BIOS required to operate this card.
|
- Video adapters for HPC Slave
OEMs: eVGA
(640-P2-N821-AR, has HDCP),
XFX (has HDCP & is ugly), BFG (has HDCP & is ugly), MSI (NX8800GTS-T2D320E-HD OC, ugly),
Asus (has HDCP & is ugly), FoxConn GeForce 8800 GTS OC (Ugly), PNY (VCG88GTS32XPB, has
HDCP & references consumers on their website) |
-
Research the MSI Geminium-GO
upgradeable graphics card.
An updated
version of the card was displayed at Computex 2006 on 6/8/2006.
The length of the card was shortened by placing one
MXM slot on the back of the PCB.
Per glossy materials: "Performance is directly dependent on the
video chip
modules installed onto the board." and
"Power use and fan
noise are diminished when compared
to dedicated "desktop" video cards when the same video chipset."
The board, in
its current state, may be too long to physically fit inside of a
Micro-ATX case.
MSI has a reputation for demonstrating products that
will never be sold to customers. |
- Linksys 24 port smart switches
have serious reliability problems. Since Cisco now controls
Linksys, they are probably making them build rejects
|
Livescribe Pulse "Smart Pen"
Specifications
The technology is from Sweden.
|
Stardock Systems Samurize
is not a potential secondary display information tracker
It only works on Windows Operating Systems.
There
is no Linux support. |
- PC Power & Cooling 1200W
ESA Power Supply is not a viable power supply for HPC Slave
Turbo-Cool 1200 ESA (T12W-ESA)
PC Perspective preview
The power
supply's fan is much too loud.
|
| - Research VScape
as a potential local MMO engine |
nForce 9400 chipset does not
support ECC Memory
|
- Search for a motherboard
for Androcles that has one PCIe x16 slot and onboard video.
mATX can have a maximum of 4 expansion slots.
[A] Asus M2N-VM
HDMI is a potential motherboard for Androcles. It has socket
AM2+ Phenom support, Onboard Networking: 1
GbE [unknown chipset], Video chipset nVidia GeForce 7050P, Maximum
memory: 4 @ 2GB DDR2-533/667/800/1066 ECC DIMM [image].
It has multi-video out via D-SUB, DVI, and HDMI connectors, S/PDIF
audio connector support, 1 @ PCIe
x16 slot
and 1 @ PCIe x1 slot located south of the PCIe x16 slot.
After-market heatsinks can be mounted to the southbridge chip.
Crucial Memory
Selector. The
motherboard does
not have a connector to display network activity on an external LED.
|
- Research the Intel EXPI9404PT
4-Port Ethernet adapter for Zeus
[Froogle]
$450.00
|
- Research the possibility of
replacing the 40mm fans in the
Enlight
SCSI drive bays with ones that are quieter
Onboard diagnostics will sound a fan failure alarm
if either fan's speed drops below approximately 5500 RPM
IPMI management software may allow the RPM alarm
threshold to
be modified.
Research if the modified value persists across a
power cycle.
Linux comes with a command-line IPMI interface |
- Research the nVidia MCP78U /
MCP78S / MCP78H chipsets for Odin
MCP78U: GeForce
8300 video chipset and nForce 730a motherboard
chipset
Target market: Performance users, release date is
unknown
3DMark06 rating: 327 marks (per this
site)
Raven's Radeon Mobility 9700 3DMark 06 rating: 280
marks (per this
site)
MCP78S: GeForce 8200
video
chipset and nForce 730a motherboard
chipset
Target
market:
Cheapskate users, release date is unknown
MCP78H: nForce 730a
motherboard chipset - By itself, it does not
have an onboard
video interface
Target
market:
Cheapskate users, release date is unknown |
- Software-based
Linux firewall
IP
Cop has a built-in DHCP server that can serve:
1) static IP addresses based upon the
MAC of the client
2) a boot image via DHCP
3) It does not have built-in support for
an LCD status display, but a third party Linux plugin named LCDProc
provides this
LCDProc
VFD interface
NetLCDClient
plugin for LCDProc
CheckConnect IPCOP network reset script
cron
instructions
4) Support for Crystalfontz LCDs USB
models
I will
need to update the 'CFontzPacket_output()' function in CFontzPacket.c
to add side LED intensity control.
Binary-only (ON/OFF) control of the Red & Green LEDs is already
supported via an 8-bit integer
First 4 LOW bits are the green LEDs, and the last 4 HIGH bits are the
red LEDs
E.G. 0x1016 = 000100002 LED 0 Red
E.G. 0x0116 = 000000012 LED 0 Green
E.G. 0x2216 = 001000102 LED 1 Yellow
E.G. 0xDD16 = 110111012 LED 0 Yellow LED
1 Unlit LED 2 Yellow LED
3 Yellow
Page 39 in
the manual describes how to modify PWM intensity for the LEDs
Notes: LED
Hardware uses a 100 Hz PWM signal to control LED intensity.
I will use
3 bits to set intensity. 000: Off - 0% (0x0) 001: 14% lit (0xE) 010: 28% lit (0x1C) 011: 43% lit (0x2B) 100: 57% lit (0x39)
101: 71% lit (0x47) 110: 86% lit (0x56) 111: On - 100% (0x64)
A 24-bit wide bitfield to control all 4 LEDs would work best;
6 bits per LED - the low bits control green intensity and the high bits
select red intensity
It will convert Integer data to the bitfield
E.G. 1677721510 = 2 ^
24 - 110 = 1111111111111111111111112
= 0xFFFFFF16: All 4 LEDs lit Yellow
E.G. 0: All LEDs off
Prefix the data, using either a Decimal (base 10) or a Hexidecimal
(base 16) number, with an negative sign ( - ) to indicate the alternate
output format?
Data format:
|
LED 3
Red
GPO[6]
0x6
|
LED 2
Red
GPO[8]
0x8
|
LED 1
Red
GPO[10]
0xA
|
LED 0
Red
GPO[12]
0xC
|
LED 3
Green
GPO[5]
0x5
|
LED 2
Green
GPO[7]
0x7
|
LED 1
Green
GPO[9]
0x9
|
LED 0
Green
GPO[11]
0xB
|
|
0 0 0
|
0
0 0
|
0 0 0
|
0
0 0
|
0 0 0
|
0
0 0
|
0 0 0
|
0
0 0
|
Color
legend:
LED Unlit [000 000]: Interface not
physically available
LED Red [111
000]: Interface available, but not physically connected
LED Orange [111
010]: Interface available, physical connection works, but not
configured (includes no IP address assignment failure, & DHCP
failure)
LED Yellow [111
111]: Interface available, physical connection works, configured, but
uplink router reports blocked
LED Green [000
111]: Interface available, physical connection works, configured,
uplink router works
LED Blinking Green
[000 000 & 111 000]: Activity
5) IP Cop does not have built-in support
for
status LEDs, but a third party Linux utility named CIFLED
provides this |
- Firewall computer
should also be the network monitor
|
- ASUS GeForce 8800 GT 1GB video
card
The
RAM chips on the reverse side of the card can not be liquid
cooled. They need to have heatsinks installed for cooling.
|
- Research NetQoS Netcosm
graphical network monitor
It isn't
commercially available as of 1/18/2008 and was nothing more than viral
marketing to attract attention
It aggregates data collected by NetQoS's SuperAgent
software
YouTube video 1
YouTube video 2
(simulated slashdotting)
|
| - XtremeSystems Forums: Radiator
Cleaning |
- Yahoo Zimbra
Collaboration Suite is not a viable IMAP mail server
Distribution license: Yahoo Public License
The Free Edition is crippleware; Reviews suggest
that only the pay-for Network Edition is usable.
Avoid it like the plague because Microsoft wants to
buys Yahoo. |
