Adamant IT: Consultancy, Maintenance, Support

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© 2010
Idle Entity
Graham Lord



Laptop


    MacBook Pro 3,1

  • - 15" LED backlit glossy display
  • - Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 2.4GHz
  • - nVidia GeForce 8600M GT 256MB
  • - 4GB Crucial DDR2-667MHz
  • - 320GB Toshiba 5400rpm
  • - Mac OS 10.6
  • - VMware Fusion 3

Notes

My general use computer, this laptop follows me around everywhere.
It functions as my office machine, media storage, web development platform, and a bit of gaming here and there. Between OS X, Windows XP, Windows 7, and a Ubuntu install, there's pretty much nothing beyond this laptop.
It gets backed up religiously via Time Machine, and is also set up with a mobile broadband tether to my mobile phone.


Server


    MacMini G4 1st Gen

  • - Power PC G4 1.42GHz
  • - ATi Radeon 9200 32MB
  • - 512MB Samsung DDR-400MHz
  • - 60GB Hitachi 7200rpm
  • - 160GB Toshiba (Backup)
  • - Mac OS 10.5

Notes

First of the first Mac Minis, Yuki was pre-ordered in 2005 with all the trimmings, and hosted Idle Entity until early 2010. Now it functions as a simple file and internet server.
It's on it's second hard drive, and the combo drive is kaput, but considering it's run 24/7 in a dusty corner all it's life, it still feels pretty snappy when I check in on it.
Yuki runs Mail Serve for Leopard for SMTP and IMAP, SSH for SFTP and remote access, Apache 2, PHP 5.2.8, and MySQL 5.


Gaming PC




    Project Reki

  • - AOpen H360A SFF Low-profile
  • - AMD Operton 175 Dual Core 2.2GHz @ 2.43GHz
  • - nVidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB @ 760MHz / 1GHz
  • - 3GB OCZ / Corsair DDR400 @ 2.5-3-2-5
  • - Gigabyte GA-K8NMF-9 mATX
  • - 250GB Western Digital 7200rpm
  • - Windows 7 Enterprise

    • Custom Modifications

  • - Black & Pearlescent Blue paint, Case window, Blue status LEDs
  • - Nexus SAP8024 Low-profile CPU cooler, aircooled by 120mm Blue LED fan
  • - Akasa Twin-heatpipe VGA Cooler, Flex PCI-E ribbon cable and custom mounts
  • - DVD drive window and internal Blue status LEDs
  • - Braided power and internal data leads, 12v / 7v stealthed fan speed switch
  • - AcustiFan DustProof 92mm PSU fan, connected to motherboard thermal control

Notes

Reki is an on-going project that started in early 2006. The original intention was to build a PC themed on the anime Haibane Renmei, hence the name. But I couldn't design the main aspects of the theme to my liking, so they never made it to the actual build.
Although it's current mod-list was planned from the start, it was only late 2009 that I actually completed the list, the DVD drive bringing the most trouble; I had ruined two previous drives attempting the tricky window mod, before I settled for a simpler version.
The main cooling system and case window also deviated from plan, after failing to work out a sufficient cold-air intake, the window plastic was removed altogether and the current cooling system fitted to run open.
The system now serves as my main gaming rig, and also streams movies from my laptop onto the TV. To save on needs to maintenance and anti-virus, Reki is never used for general use.

Tuning Notes

Reki has previously run a stripped out version of XP Pro, but since upgrading to Windows 7 for the benefits of DirectX 10, I found that Windows 7 doesn't seem to benefit from cutting down background processes. The RAM timings have been tightened to 2.5-3-2-5, but again, this has very little real-life impact.
The main performance boosts on the system come from the graphics card overclock, which currently runs at 760Mz core, 1GHz VRAM, up from 625MHz core and 900MHz VRAM. Since this BFG version is factory overclocked, it didn't have a great deal more to give, but the tweaks have made visible differences in frame-rates and benchmarks.
The CPU has been a harder job, because the motherboard doesn't support overvolting, which is strangling the CPU while overclocked. Highest stable speed is 2.45GHz, but after extended play, it occasionally locks up, so I've pulled it back slightly. I have run tests with the CPU multiplier down to 10.5 and the FSB ramped up, but even at the same CPU core speed, this seemed to hurt benchmarks more than help them.


Testing Rig




    Project Eimi (Redux)

  • - Cooler Master ATCs 201b v2
  • - Dual AMD Opteron 146 2.0GHz
  • - ATi Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB
  • - 2GB Crucial DDR400 ECC
  • - 80GB Seagate 7200rpm (System)
  • - 200GB Maxtor 7200rpm (Data)
  • - Windows XP Pro

    • Custom Modifications

  • - UV Cold Cathode lighting effects, Blue LED PSU fan, Blue LED VGA fan
  • - UV reactive fans and accents, black vinyl interior
  • - Custom Japanese window decals and front panel mod
  • - Twin 80mm exhaust mod, custom VGA cooler, Innovatek 4-way fan controller
  • - Custom fitted Matrix Orbital 20x2 line alphanumeric front panel LCD

Notes

Project Eimi was originally built back in 2001 as a gaming rig, and under went numerous upgrades and theme changes.
At it's best in 2003, it was a highly-strung Athlon XP based machine, with custom Danger Den Maze 3 watercooling; but due to it's high maintenance requirements, it was downgraded to aircooling shortly after I built Reki.
I gave it a fresh work over in spring 2009, re-building it with the wreckage of a dual-opteron workstation I had built for work, but had suffered acute mobo failure.
It now serves as a testing rig for hard drives, and occasionally video encoding.