What drives WWW.GTI-R.COM?
OK,
time to put the hurdy-gurdy* to rest – for me at least. Who knows what
revitalising someone else can do. I’m talking about my old PC, of course!
Here’s how I’m adding 2.1GHZ of processing power to maintain www.gti-r.com.
First,
what was in the old machine …
·
QDI Titanium IB original m/b, original BIOS vintage 1997. Yep, a baby AT board!
Regularly vacuum cleaned, polished & cuddled.
·
Evergreen 400 CPU (an AMD K6-2 350 o/c via a 5*75mhz PCI bus speed
for a blistering 357mhz)
·
256mb PC133 DRAM (now running at a mere 22% bandwidth – even at 75mhz
– due to the load on the PCI bus – see next four items)
·
SIIG ATA/133 PCI board for the IDE Mode 4/5 disks (it’s a SCSI board
that converts to IDE – smart!)
·
Sweex PCI 5-port PCI USB card
·
Adaptec PCI SCSI card (for my solid HP scanner)
·
GeForce 2 MX400 128mb PCI graphics card
·
USB panel cable (for the 802.11G w/lan to my other, less-ancient PC’s) fitted to a modified “B” diskette drive blanking plate.
·
AT case – a full tower 5 external 5 1/2”, 3 internal 3 1/4” bays
with a 250 watt AT PSU, one extra exhaust fan.
·
3 UDMA HDD’s with a total of 100gb capacity (6 partitions, triple-boot
Win 3.11, NT4 SP6 & XP Pro SP1)
·
16x CD-ROM
·
Oh, and the original 1.44mb diskette drive.
What
I’ve got to replace it …
·
Abit
IC7-Max3
·
P4C
2.4/800 (HT)
· 512mb generic PC3200 DDR (2x256mb for dual-channel performance) now 1gig***
· Full tower ATX case (coz size always matters) with 5 external 5 1/2”, 3 internal 3 1/2” bays with an alloy 550 watt PSU that has some flashing lights & neon cables - but that’s another story, 4*rear & 4* front 2.2 USB
· 16x dual-layer whizzything - for backups
Plus
all the good bits from the hurdy-gurdy, like all the hard drives, the Adaptec SCSI
card and the graphics card (who has the time to play PC games? And once you’ve
raced a fully-loaded GTI-R on NFS everything else is easy.)
That
means a reasonably specc’d, expandable** PC for around 300 smackers and lots of
classic Pentium/AT-oriented bits left over to sell because I have to finance the
GBP19 serial-to-USB converter for … yes, the old 56k modem – the Abit has no
serial ports, aargh. Bring it on, Ebay!
Progress
at 15 June 2004 – the new m/b, CPU, memory & case have met each other.
I’ve added a 5-bay front USB panel and ordered case fans, 90cm IDE cables (always a problem with
tower cases), a 25 pin serial-to-USB convertor and (blush) a big window kit. The
latter because the new case weighed a ton when it was delivered. I removed _all_
the superfluous metal blanks from the case and it still weighed loads. Empty
& stripped the case chassis seemed relatively light so I checked the weight
of each of the two side panels and they came in at over 2kg’s!!! Thinking ahead I
decided that the fully loaded case would be pretty difficult to manhandle in the
future i.e., for maintenance/upgrades. The windowed case will pretty well remove
1.5kg’s from one panel. I have other options on the opposite side panel
because it’s already perforated - and the roof panel might get some attention
if I get bored.
FWIW the old AT tower case skin is made up from a one-piece metal inverted “U” formed from MUCH thinner steel – probably less than 2kg’s total.
Progress at 21 August
– The new PC is complete and working. I had a huge problem getting from the
old serial (again) COM port for the printers to USB. Bought a very cheap USB
adapter but it terminates in a (very old-school) Centronics adapter - that was
unclear from the ad on Ebay. Curses - my printer switchbox is DB25 (female)! So,
I needed a Centronics (36 female) to DB25 (male) adaper. Scoured the UK for days
on Google. Even ordered from two online stores but they had no stock and
didn’t expect any in the future. (One even asked me to check did I really have
a Centronics). I knew I could get one of these adapters from the USA because
Google showed me loads available from over there and “in stock”. Still I
tried UK-based alternatives – Maplin’s solution was to sell me a new
all-Centronics printer switch box & cables – cost around 23 pounds.
Anyway, I went US and got an adapter for $10 delivered – about 5 pounds fifty
pence – in 5 days by USPS.
Conclusions –
running the upgraded PC with a single stick of 256mb DDR400 (PC3200) memory
as a non-Dual Channel comparison with the same amount of memory as the old PC
running PC133 @75mhz.
Strangely, some things are as/nearly as slow or unreliable compared to the old PC;-
· Windows XP Pro is quicker to start up but not by much – it shuts down a lot quicker
· Disk benchmarks are barely 1% better now at 66mhz than they were at 75mhz on the old PC – just shows how good the SIIG Ultra ATA/133 controller card does with the old motherboard!
· Graphics: latest driver works but actually slow the results compared with the original driver supplied with the card, so I backed the new drivers out
· Printing is no faster (or not noticeably so)
· Lockups – I’m guessing that the cheap serial/USB modem adapter is a bit unreliable based on usage. It’s meant a few reset’s that I didn’t have before. I’m running more than one unsigned driver due to these cheap add-on’s. They were all tested as working on the old PC before I upgraded.
· The upgraded PC demands virtual memory more frequently than the old PC running the same O/S, same tasks. This is very strange!
Most other things are better/faster, as expected. Some results are even more unexpectedly good;-
· 56k modem via USB adapter is faster – I can’t explain why such a slow device improved so much. My guess is that it runs 10% faster but I have no proof. I noticed the same result when connecting through my other 1.7/400 P4 PC & 1.7 P4 laptop via 802.11b wireless sticks. Results were very much quicker than on the serial link on the old PC!
· Printing & scanning are smoother – draft colour printing is especially quick and scanning software loads/processes quicker. Nothing dramatic – and some big scans still take a long time.
· All graphics, especially video, are excellent. Fast, no problems with pixellation, no lockups and sound is in-sync whereas before it would all get mashed. I have yet to try video editing although my (cheap) software which barely worked on the old PC seems to work far quicker than even the 1.7 machines – which did have their bad moments processing big (50mb) files. May update this … if I’ve got results to compare before I publish this.
· Most Microsoft Office 2000 apps are quicker – FrontPage is very quick, specifically, the "View/Reports" option is no longer a no-go zone. It means that I can fix broken links etc on gti-r.com without feeling my eyes harden-up during the process!
· I’ve had to press the “reset” button more than once (see below). XP seems to quiesce quickly after an application freezes on the new PC so that re-setting no longer causes a blue-screen disk check on re-boot as was necessary on the old PC (which was hardly ever, but worth mentioning).
· Virtual memory demands are now much quicker. The new PC slows but then gets on with it – the old PC used to almost grind to a halt. Having 512mb via 2x256mb dual channel is a big improvement I will go to 2x512mb as soon as it's cheap enough - once again, size matters.
. This entire comparison would not have happened if my second 256mb stick had worked (it was dead on delivery). Every cloud has a silver lining!
Final Conclusions on the new PC
Ok, I was very cautious doing this upgrade. Installing new stuff on the old PC that I could simple plug into the new PC when the time came. But I had a lot to lose if the new PC didn't work - I mean years of effort. As for the time involved at the point of upgrade, it was more than I thought, some small problems, some "un-necessary-ness" etc. The payback was No Big Surprises.
Overclocking - I've played about but only the CPU is reliable, the unsigned drivers/cheap USB peripherals object to any deviation from 66/33mhz. I have no need to overclock, so everything is back to standard.
Some notes on upgrading under XP Pro
· You will probably have read that if you have XP installed and you then upgrade your processor and/or motherboard XP will object. This is not a big deal. First I upgraded the old PC from a Pentium 233MMX to a Performa/400 (AMD) along with a new PCI card or two. I had to re-register XP Pro but when upgrading to the new PC (motherboard AND processor) I also had to do a repair install in order to rebuild XP’s HAL. (There is much EXCELLENT advice in this on the Internet so no need here to repeat here.) The good news now is that Microsoft have automated their XP re-registration process so you don’t have to mumble on to a sleepy MS rep about what you’re doing & why.
· McAfee Virus Scan plays silly-billy with your WinSock settings – it’s especially awkward when you have a network. It can lose all Internet & network connectivity. I have recorded elsewhere on the ‘Net how to restore connectivity so, again, no need here. One new thing I learned - rather than reinstall MAV (from the original CD) then re-download 100’s of DAT file updates only for it to fail (I guess the fail was due to me asking MAV to not change my registration details and subsequently found they were empty!?!!) just re-install and immediately download/install the latest superDAT. I know it says not to do this if you’re a subscriber (which I am) but – it worked for me, first time. And since the superDAT can be downloaded as a file so you can re-try if necessary – I didn’t need to. Especially useful if you have a 56k modem!!!
· I was VERY careful to get all my drives replicated on exactly the same cables/IDE number on the new PC. This paid off with 100% error-free start-up. I had/still have 3 HD’s with the same 6 partitions, the old 16x CD and the 1997 vintage diskette drive. I kept the floppy because it is STILL the quietest drive I have ever used. It’s virtually silent, even when doing complex WinZip processing. Newer floppy drive noises are alarming in the extreme (I have three other drives to compare it with – these others are, frankly, coarse.)
Some thoughts on the upgrade
· Would I go back to the old setup – No Thank You. It needed too many add-ons to get reasonable performance in current day-to-day usage and some peripheral (like USB) dragged the overall performance way back – kind of like a balancing act. Hard drive ATA & USB 2.0 peripheral performance via benchmarks are roughly the same on old & new. A credit to the PCI bus & adapter cards used on the old PC.
· Was the old setup good – yes. Especially stable, upgradeable (from a 75mhz to the final 350+mhz cpu), overclockable and quite quick with the many upgrades I fitted. More demanding graphically intensive applications like Windows(!) weren’t good. The latter situation is becoming the norm. I wholeheartedly agree with the person who recently commented about website content “the unnecessary use of [e.g., Flash etc] effects is unwelcome”.
· Future upgrade options were severely limited on the old PC – the UDMA & USB cards helped enormously but each detracted from overall performance. Especially, RAM bandwidth - that dropped like a stone.
PS;-
I still use a number of peripherals that require unsigned drivers – I honestly think this should be avoided if possible but XP Pro + upgraded PC seem to cope pretty well.
Aargh the new front 5-bay USB panel is 1.1, so that has to go! (It’s OK for most things as I’m in generally in no hurry. It’s fine for 802.11b wlan.) OK, it's now a 4-bay 2.2-happy unit and it flies.
After about a month’s use, the new PC has proven to be very stable, quick and reliable. I can now face doing backups more regularly. Defragmenting is a breeze and I can just get things done more efficiently i.e., I can get on with work without waiting for the PC to catch up. For example, I used to sit, sometimes many seconds, after finishing a task for the PC to get itself sorted. Now, it just happens and I’m onto the next job. If it's any measure - I run Seti as a screensaver. It now takes 3h 50sec vs 40hours on the old PC for one work unit ...
*see www.music.iastate.edu/antiqua/hurdy.htm …”There is evidence of the hurdy-gurdy in Europe in the twelfth century.” Which is nice.
**Yes I know about BTX, PCI Express, SLi & DDR2 etc etc but I should get my third 7 year stint of Personal Computer use from this new kit. Eh? Third? Didn’t I tell you about the still-working maxxed-out 4mb Atari 1040 STE with case mods like a ... fan, AA battery-powered date/time keeper, a heeeuge 512mb hard drive. Vintage 1986 with a stable pre-Windows graphics o/s (GEM) in ROM? Ah, that’s when games were games (Lemmings 2 – aargh*999). only the brave used GFA Basic – complied, of course. and madmen used STOS, Desktop Publisher, GEM & Wordperfect 4.1 complete with plastic keyboard shortcut template.
*** no special reason, just that I was updating another PC from PC133 RDRAM and um, er, it was cheap, dear. Honest.