My webserver seems to be having a hard time keeping up with demand. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I could have had my preferred low-end motherboard for about $33, but I was able to come up with about 10 reasons not to buy it at that time and tackle the project. I can get an Asus Socket 775 board and a 2-core Intel CPU to put on it locally for around $90-$100 total, which will give me a four-fold increase in available CPU power and RAM, not to mention a newer and better-known chipset to work with. But I had several things come up this weekend that kept me from making that trip. Studying, of course, but also a family matter.
My server managed a not-exactly-heroic uptime of 3 days on this last reboot. If I can swap the board for something better this week, I’ll try. And if it dies again before I’m able to do that, I’ll have to see if I can remember to put some more memory in it. I just found a half-gig PC3200 DIMM that will fit, assuming I have a slot available.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
