This is Vic.


gamer \| doofus \| engineer \| weirdo \| lover \| fighter \| writer \| coder \| wit \| twit \| nerd \| canadian
index about faq life artbook autoshow2k3 bigswords chowdown2k2 chowdown2k2-2 chowdown2k3 dbfestival2k3 ea-xmas2004 gradball0t4 ironring0t4 montreal0t4 mvp2005-elfin ottawa0t4 roadtrip2k2 skule van2k4-01 wwmc ydsquare2k3 games code techlog links	"Chowdown" is the name I've given to the small LAN parties I've hosted over the past three years. For the unaware, LAN parties are essentially a a small gathering of people who bring their computers to a location, hook them up, and have a blast playing games, games and more games. Chowdown2K2 Time for another. For the first time in over two years, many people were available. It wasn't going to be an overnight gaming fest -- just a time to play games until late at night then return home. However, we had the ultimate weapon this time around -- a dedicated server. The Usual Information Date: Sunday June 30, 2002 Time: 2pm - 2am+ (no overnight) Place: My place Setup: BYOC; no speakers or watt suckers Food: Out for burgers Games at CD2K2 Serious Sam SE (6 player co-op; serious difficulty) Soldier of Fortune II (3v3 team deathmatch) Ghost Recon (3v3 match; cooperative) Unreal Tournament (5v5 assault; god-like bots) Stories of note We had some interesting times. Some side-stories I will write about later, but explain briefly now: Building the server Wayne's system blowing up (literally) Wayne's computer droppings (gross) Stephen's computer seemingly overheating Tony's 5-second system startup+shutdown Vic's PSU blowing up afterwards Building the MGS - Mobile Game Server Tony conjured this great idea - make a small, dedicated server from new and spare components. It was strictly a game server so it wouldn't need big meat. We also wanted it portable so we could potentially carry it to other LAN parties should we get the opportunity. All we had to do was slap on a small 10/100 switch. Days were spent communicating over ICQ, planning this little baby out taking cost, performance and feasibility into account. For about $480 bucks, split between us, this is what we formed: CPU: AMD Duron 600 HSF: Thermaltake Chrome Orb M/B: ECS K7SEM MicroATX SiS730S/PC133/ATA100 MEM: 256MB PC133 Infineon SDRAM VID: Inno3D Geforce2 MX400 64MB AGP MON: 15" AcerView 56e (optional) SND: Onboard SiS7018 (unused) NIC: Onboard RTL8139 HDD: 40GB 7200RPM Maxtor ATA100 FDD: Generic 1.44MB CDR: 24x Panasonic/Matsushita CASE: Inwin L545 slim case PSU: Standard 180W ATX NET: Ovislink SM500 10/100 5-port mini-switch OS: Win2K Pro Sounds simple enough -- little did we know building it would be a long and adventurous journey. Problem 1: We suck Getting most of the parts was no problem. Putting it together took a lot longer than we expected. We never dealt with a small case and MicroATX board and we had difficulties putting the board into the case. We were also somewhat paranoid about AMD HSF application (I still am, dunno about Tony) and my older brother did the job for us as well as spending some time thermal greasing the contact point. That, combined with my overly-cautious habits tacked on a couple hours. Once it was all done, we plugged in the power cable and awaited the birth of a new machine... Problem 2: The power switch No juice, no use. The power switch did nothing. The PSU was warm, but NONE of the fans were spinning. We metered the switch - contact was good. Everything on the motherboard seemed perfect. Our conclusion: fubared PSU. We decided to exchange the case as the store we purchased it from was still open for another hour. So we disconnected everything, packed it up and grabbed the bill... Problem 3: No bill! "Where's the bill?" "I thought I put it in the case." "Yeah I saw you do it..." "Then where is it???" So now we thought we were stuck with a broken PSU and no bill for exchange! Damnit. We searched all around my basement for the piece of paper with no success. Desperation: just bring the case back and hope they remember us. Or, give the slim chance of finding the receipt back at Tony's place. At the street intersection, we decided to dash for Tony's pad and while he was inside ransacking his house for the paper, I was waiting in the car hoping he would find it... Problem 4: Good news, weird news... Tony triumphantly returned outside with the flimsy (and small) receipt. It was immediately stored in my wallet for safekeeping. With over 35 minutes before the store closed, we finally breathed a sigh of relief. The drive was uneventful and once we got to the store and requested an exchange, a dude said "take it to service." We did, and the large tech guy hooked it up for testing. click "It works..." Problem 5: We suck 2 We were shocked to see the PSU running, and the tech guy gladly demonstrated with a monitor and spare motherboard. He advised us to hook up just the bare minimums and try it again. After getting back to my house, we hooked up the CPU, motherboard, video and a stick of RAM to the PSU, completely disregarding mounting procedures. Without surprise, the system booted. All was well and we spent time properly mounting the motherboard and hooked up the remaining devices - hard drive, front USB ports... Problem 6: CD-ROM, you're not clear for landing CD-ROM drive. It didn't fit. Our present HSF (not the Chrome Orb) was too tall! There was no way we could fit the drive. We were forced to switch to a "cheaper" but smaller HSF we had on-site. No problem. Tony hastily put the HSF onto the CPU and we plugged everything in hit the power switch again... no fans went on. 'WTF'-deja vu hit us. However, Tony had a bright idea and just said "unplug the front USB ports." Immediately after disconnecting them, the system booted up! SUCCESS. Now to enter the BIOS... Problem 7: Warm and cozy I spent some time configuring standard BIOS features and I wanted to see how well the HSF was performing. The CPU was already over 63C! I knew the fan didn't perform too well, but this was ridiculous. 65C. It was still rising. 67C. This made absolutely 69C no sense. We began to 71C panic as it was reaching critical 73C core temperature (85 - 90C). I shut down the system and we were once again baffled. We finally decided to try the old HSF again and see how that turns out. Problem 8: Cool runnings, but no drives, fool! The original CPU HSF worked wonders. The core stayed at 30C and we looked at our cheap HSF to figure out what was wrong with it. It seemed like the edges of the HSF were raised higher than the contact point and it was resting on those instead of the main surface. Bad design. Anyhow, we were now stuck with a running system but no way of installing an operating system. My CD-ROM drive was b0rked (as I previously suspected) so it was up to Tony to bring in an old drive for our use. In the meantime, he went back and ate dinner while I ate mine and researched low-clearance HSFs. Clear at last The rest of the night went uneventful. The replacement CD-ROM drive was hooked up (though resting on the case) and Win2K was installed flawlessly. Tony and I decided to make a trip to another computer store tomorrow morning prior to the LAN to pick up a low-clearance HSF (the Chrome Orb), floppy drive and keyboard. The CD-ROM drive cleared the fan by a little more than 5mm. The CPU was running at 38C - but stable and well below the critical temperature. We installed everything and closed up the system. It was finally finished, and only 30 minutes later, Wayne showed up first with his computer. End I'll post up the photos eventually, but otherwise I think it was a fun day. The system-building side is always a learning adventure in itself and yes, I'd do it again (because it's always fun to kill electronics with ESD and not feel it :) ). Watch out for CD2K2-2! Chowdown2K2 Photos Click the image below to check them out. Like the RT2K2 page, I just pumped them through Photoslop's web gallery generator. Text file with photo captions (opens a new window).
© Copyright 2002-2005 Victor Chow.