Adventures in LINUX - Building a linux server on the cheap..

[haywire]

I would like comments or suggestions on building a linux combo server/workstation on the cheap..

http://haywirepc.homestead.com/index.html


Also does anyone know where I can order some extra long IDE cables? I'm kinda stuck there now because the cables won't reach to the hard drive mounts really, which are way up the case. Tomorrow is another day. This may take awhile. Why do we always think a project will be easy before we get into it? I mean this isn't hard so far...

Just a bit aggravating but I think I can manage to get this going. Lots of stupid roadblocks I didn't even think about...

Thanks in advance for any comments or suggestions. I'm all ears. I'm glad for the help. Please chime in if you've built some boxes like this or know how.

Steven

[retired1af]

Already replied in your other thread with a source for some 2 footers.

[GrannyGeek]

According to the ATA spec, cable length should not exceed 18 inches. You can find longer cables and people do use them successfully, but you also risk data corruption with a cable longer than 18 inches.
--GrannyGeek

[haywire]

retired1af, Those will work, but for the time being I will pile the hard drives that will be connected to ide ports on top of the power supply... At least I can get it going for now then mount the drives properly once the longer cables arrive.

Granny,

Really? I never heard that before. I don't think adding a bit of length them would cause any problems, I've done it before in a monstro case like this, with no problems...

Steven

[haywire]

Going to try and power the beast up for the first time tonight... This should be interesting...

Steven

[retired1af]

Just make sure you don't let the smoke out of the wires. Once you let the smoke out, things don't work for some reason. 

[MikeCindi]

Hopefully we'll hear from you again...soon. 

[retired1af]

Did someone just hear a "boom"? 

[GrannyGeek]

Granny,

Really? I never heard that before. I don't think adding a bit of length them would cause any problems, I've done it before in a monstro case like this, with no problems...

Google on
ide cable maximum length
and you'll get lots of hits on the spec. Or go to
 http://www.buildorbuy.org/cabling.html
and you'll find explanations and links directly to the standards.

Of course, numerous people have used longer cables with no apparent problems. I read something that compared using longer-than-spec cables to overclocking. It often works but there are no guarantees.
--GrannyGeek

[haywire]

I'm very happy to report there was no smoke let out of any boards or wires.

In fact, I know very well that once that smoke comes out, the magic is gone, so I try to always be careful
so the smoke stays in. I learned this by letting smoke out of many computers on accident. Once the smoke
leaves, your right, its really all over!

Also, there was no BIG BOOM, well actually in a way there was a small boom. I have a BIG monster old 21inch crt monitor (which I love even though its ancient) When the computer powers up, it sometimes makes a boom or bam while the screen goes on and adjusts. This happened on first power up and I almost jumped a mile.

So the computer powers up, but I have now changed back to a better nvidia video card. I forget what I had in this machine but it needed to be low profile
and while using compiz, the cpu usage jumped to 90%. With my other video card, it has 512megs and a better gpu I suppose so performance should be
much improved. I really missed using compiz more.

I'm going to go see what happens if I plug the boot drive in. Will also order those longer cables, but for now I will just stack em up while I work.
Thanks for everyones help and support. ITS ALIVE...!
Steven

[haywire]

Now its definitely alive, first post from frankenstien. I put the boot drive in, and my desktop came right up. I can honestly say I've never been so happy to see my desktop in my
entire life... Tomorrow is another day, I think I have to reconfigure the video card drivers and also, I forgot I have to put the pci ide controller in and see if vector will work with it.

My previous linux box was an generic whitebox with an intel desktop board that this additional pci ide card wouldn't work at all well, either linux or windows.
If I can get that working, it will dramatically reduce the # of USB to IDE adapters I need for the rest of the hard drives. So far, I have 9 hard drives that I am aware of that I would
like to put in this beast. The built in ide controller can do 4 and this card can do 4. The ide dvd rom will take one spot, so 7 hard drives should work if I can get this card working.

The last bunch of usb hard drives will use USB adapters but will stay inside the case.

I should mention, that most of this project will be made just from junk I've collected over the years or parts from upgrades people gave me and so on.

I am ordering cables and a few odds and ends. I will be also adding a few power splitters, but other than that and nightflier kindly sending me the power supplies...
Its all from my junk piles.

I will be so happy If I can get the beast working well...

Thanks again will post some more pics when its relevant to do so. Right now, looks like something blew up inside the case. Once I can properly mount some stuff, I'll post more pics.

Steven

[GrannyGeek]

Congratulations! I'm glad it's going so well and am looking forward to seeing the photos.
--GrannyGeek

[haywire]

Looks like the bios on this board dosn't see or allows the pci ultra ide controller add on card to work or find the drives attached to it, then proceeds to boot to vectorlinux. No sign of the drives being there in vector...

I think I give up on that card. It worked great in older pc's but I haven't had any luck with that or another kind like it I bought.

So today, I just worked on mounting the drives I could, now 3 hard drives and one cd-rom which are running from the motherboard ide controller.
I think I'm just going to use the usb to ide adapters for the rest. I have two now, and I'm ordering 6 more I guess.
Also ordering those extra long cables so I can put it all together. This is turning into a much bigger PITA than I'd hoped.

Will post new pics after something worth showing happens. Right now... STALL.

Steven

[retired1af]

Is it possible to update the BIOS?

[MikeCindi]

Does lspci show the ultra IDE card or was there any reference to in in dmesg? Does the bios require the card to be in a particular PCI slot (usually the second one as the first is occupied by a graphics card)?