intel

I rebuilt a Dell Dimension 4100 last night

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , , , , , ,

So, I rebuilt a Dell Dimension 4100 last night. I didn’t make any hardware changes other than replacing the Western Digital hard drive inside, which was on its last legs.

Along the way, I learned a few things.I won’t say much about the WD drive except to say it’s the most recent in a long line of bad experiences I’ve had with the brand. I don’t know anything about current WD drives. But this one was loud and shrill, Windows bluescreened when I tried to install to it, and when I tried to run SpinRite on it, it said it would take 140 hours to test. A drive that size (20GB) should take 8-10.

In its defense, that drive was five years old. But I replaced it with a Maxtor drive that’s almost eight years old. SpinRite processed that Maxtor in 3 hours and found nothing worth commenting about. (Just because SpinRite didn’t say anything doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t do anything.)

The Dell Dimension 4100 does have a proprietary power supply (although it looks like an ATX). If you work on Dells, I suggest bookmarking PC Power and Cooling’s Dell cheatsheet. PCP&C power supplies are expensive, but they are reliable, and their prices are comparable to what Dell would charge for a replacement and they are higher quality than what you would get from Dell–assuming Dell will even sell you the part (they’re in the business of selling computers, not parts). I believe newer Dells use standard power supplies.

If you buy a Micron, you can punch in a serial number and get drivers for the machine. With a Dell, you just get guesses based on the options that were available for the machine.

Download the chipset drivers and other low-level stuff from Dell’s support site. Windows 2000 didn’t completely recognize the system’s Intel i815 chipset and I get better performance afterward.

Nlite offers a lot of promise–automating the Windows install, removing components, etc.–but I had trouble getting it to work with the OS recovery CDs I had. I didn’t have enough time (or blank CDs) to figure out how to get it to work for me. I’m sure it works better with a plain old Windows 2000 Workstation CD, but of course I can’t find mine. But if you have a CD that works with it, it’s nice even if you don’t remove the stuff Microsoft doesn’t let you remove, since it provides a nice interface for slipstreaming service packs and hotfixes and removing all of the prompts during installation.

The tricks in Windows 2000 with 32MB of RAM work pretty nicely, even when you have more than 32 megs. Of course, if you’re ruthless with Nlite and can get it to work for you, you probably don’t need that bag of tricks.

I didn’t try to install it without Internet Explorer. I’d love to try that sometime but I didn’t have time for that. At least disabling Active Desktop (see the link in the paragraph above) gives most of the benefit you would get from smiting IE.

The quality of the Dell hardware is reasonable. It didn’t floor me, but I didn’t see anything that made me cry either.

Upgrading my mother in law’s Compaq Presario S5140WM

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , ,

About the time my wife and I started dating, my mother-in-law bought a new computer. With an Athlon XP 2600+, that Compaq ought to be faster than anything I own. Even though it’s almost three years old now, it ought to still be pretty good.

It wasn’t. I fixed that.It has the Compaq name on the front but anymore that doesn’t mean much of anything. It’s a clone made in the Far East, with bog standard parts inside. When I visited earlier this month, she complained about its speed. I couldn’t find anything obviously wrong, but I checked the memory usage. It was over 250K with nothing loaded. Not good.

I happen to know the F-Secure-based security suite her ISP issued her can use nearly 256 megs all by itself sometimes. Not good.

So I paid Newegg.com a visit and ordered her 512 megs of memory. For 35 bucks, shipping included, why not? It’s overkill, but memory requirements are going to go up before they go down, and there was little point in buying half as much memory for 10 bucks less.

I bought Viking. I prefer Crucial or Kingston, but in my days doing desktop support, the people who insisted on Viking did OK, and it was cheaper the week I ordered it, so I got it. Don’t buy the cheap and nasty no-name stuff; the failure rate on no-name commodity memory has always been very high–somewhere near 30 percent, in my experience, and computers are more sensitive to memory today than they were in 1995 when I got my first job doing desktop support.

When I got the computer open, I saw it has an AGP slot. I really should get an AGP video card to put in the computer. Built-in video steals some system memory, which isn’t a big deal when you have 768 megs, but it also steals memory bandwidth. It’s like that bridge I cross over every day to go to work–it’s normally three lanes, but they have it closed down to two or even one lane some days. So it takes a longer time to get over that bridge. If I put a video card–even my old Nvidia-based card I bought back in 1997, if I could find it–with its own memory in her computer and disabled the onboard video, it would be like reopening that lane, and her CPU would have a full three lanes to work with when accessing memory.

I just checked Ebay, and found an Nvidia TNT2-based card for 99 cents Buy-it-now, with $9 shipping. The shipping is a ripoff, but the seller is probably paying a couple of dollars for the card and making $4 on shipping. At $10, the card is more than anyone needs for word processing and Internet use, and it’s probably better than the built-in video would be for light gaming. It’s a cheap way to soup up a computer like this.

If you can’t afford to buy any memory for this or any other computer with built-in video, but you’re running short on memory, here’s a free upgrade: Go into the BIOS, and set the amount of memory dedicated to the video card as low as you can. In this case, I can go to 8 megs. You won’t be able to run high colors at high resolution after doing this, but if you’re happy with 1024×768, it’ll give your system some memory back and make it a little more peppy.

I sure wish Intel or AMD would steal the old Amiga concept of chip memory, which was a bank of memory that could be used by either the video chip or the main CPU, at the expense of speed of course. But slow memory is still way faster than the swap file. The system just gave priority to the main memory (called fast memory) when it was available. It’s amazing how many good ideas were out there 20 years ago, some of which we’re enjoying today but some of which are sadly lost to history.

And, as always, a newer, faster hard drive is a good way to hot-rod an aging PC if it feels a bit sluggish.

But, $35 worth of RAM and a $10 video card goes a long, long way.

Windows for Morons

Dave Farquhar Windows ,

Microsoft is considering a numeric ratings system for PCs for the upcoming version of Windows–The Operating System Formerly Known As Longhorn, that is. I believe it’s going to be called Windows LH.

I smell marketing.Basically the idea is that a PC will be assigned an arbitrary numeric rating between 1 and 5, based on how much CPU power, memory, and potentially how powerful the video card is. Then a piece of hardware will have a number on it, and software will have the same number. If a piece of software has a "5" on it, don’t expect it to run well on a $399 Emachine with a rating of "1".

The problem with this idea is that capabilities change. This year’s "5" PC is 2006’s "1" PC. Granted, PC capabilities aren’t growing by leaps and bounds the way they have for the past few years, and maybe this is an admission that CPU power has leveled off, but memory requirements aren’t going to level off, and hard disk speeds are doing anything but standing still. So this is still a system with built-in obsolesence. And it doesn’t even take into consideration the speed of the disk drives, which to me is still the most underrated component of system performance. If you’re not a gamer, you’re much better off with the cheapest PC you can buy, hot-rodded with the fastest hard drive you can find and some extra memory, than you are with a system with a fire-breathing CPU and the hottest new video card. Or just put the same drive and memory into your old one and keep it for another three years.

Old-fashioned system requirements are still the way to go, I believe.

But I suppose if this rating system goes through–which really should be conducted by an objective third party and not by the collusion of Microsoft and Intel–it’ll give me a chance to write a new book. So I guess I should be happy, eh?

Microsoft buys and then discontinues Linux/Unix antivirus products

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking , , , , ,

First GeCAD, now Sybari.

Microsoft has been buying smaller anti-virus firms and discontinuing their Linux and Unix product lines.

Trust, schmust. When your god is Big Business, that means Big Business can do no wrong, so when you’re the U.S. government, you let companies like Microsoft do whatever they want. The problem is that Unix antivirus products are extremely useful, especially in Microsoft shops. Unix viruses are rare, and the heterogenous nature of Unix–never knowing much about the underlying hardware, binary incompatibilities between various dialects even when running on the same hardware, and never knowing for certain which libraries are installed–creates a hostile environment for viruses anyway.

So what good is a Unix server that detects viruses that can’t survive in Unix anyway? It makes a great buffer between the hostile world and the soft and chewy Windows boxes inside corporate firewalls, that’s what.

I love to put Unix boxes in between the world and mail servers that may be running Windows. Just set it up to relay mail to your Exchange or Domino server, but have it scan the mail first. Better yet, have it running on weird hardware. A slightly elderly Macintosh or Alpha or Sun box works great. Since the Intel x86 instruction set is the most common, most buffer overflows use it. While non-x86 processors aren’t immune to buffer overflows, an overflow using x86 instructions will appear to be gibberish and it won’t run. It’s like telling me a lie in Japanese. You won’t fool me with the lie, because I don’t speak Japanese, so I won’t understand a word you’re saying.

Fortunately, there are still antivirus products for Unix and Linux out there. And once Microsoft establishes its antivirus product, it will be more difficult–I hope–for it to simply continue buying antivirus firms and discontinue their products, since now they would be buying off competitors, rather than just attempting to acquire technology that they don’t have the ability to develop internally.

And even if they do buy and discontinue everything, there’s always ClamAV.

Cheap hardware won’t stop software piracy

Dave Farquhar Software , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Who’s to blame for rampant software piracy? According to Steve Ballmer, AMD and Intel. Oh, and Dell. Charge less for the computer, and there’ll be more money to pay for Windows and Office.

Steve Ballmer doesn’t know his history.

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The almost-was Bill Gates

Dave Farquhar Software , , , , , , , , , , , ,
The almost-was Bill Gates

Finally, a little bit more detail on the haziest (to me) story in my controversial Why I Dislike Microsoft has appeared: Gary Kildall’s side of the CP/M-QDOS-PC DOS 1.0 story.

The story corroborates what I said, but I wish the story answered more questions.

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Intel scraps its 4 GHz P4!

Dave Farquhar Hardware ,

Intel has announced it’s scrapping its 4 GHz P4. That’s a big turnaround.Intel got where it is today by cranking the megahertz, and then the gigahertz, just as high as it could and as quickly as it could, hoping competitors wouldn’t be able to keep up, and trumpeting clock speed as the only thing that really mattered.

When it designed the P4, it extended its pipeline to ridiculously long lengths, allowing it to pump up the clock rate, but the efficiency was so low that Intel had to be ashamed of it. The last of the P3s cleaned the P4’s clock. As did a number of AMD’s chips.

Now Intel is having difficulty reaching 4 Ghz. AMD still has room to ramp up its speeds, but it hasn’t even reached 3 GHz yet. They’ve been taking other approaches to increasing speed.

Now Intel’s taking yet another page from AMD’s book. First, Intel clones AMD’s 64-bit instruction set, next, Intel replaces clock speed with model numbers, and now it throws in the towel on the gigahertz race.

It’ll be interesting to see how Intel’s marketing adjusts. And while I don’t expect AMD to topple them any time soon, if ever, it’ll be interesting to see if AMD manages to turn this into another opportunity.

Pretentious Pontifications: Raunche sells out

Dave Farquhar Humor/Satire ,

Raunche interrupted my presidential campaign today by coughing up some bile about the prototype for his new computer.

I had to remind him that there are two hardware companies to trust: Intel and Microsoft. This computer incorporates neither. And multiple G5s does not a supercomputer make. Especially when it runs a second-rate operating system, which means anything but Windows, of course.What multiple G5s make, regardless of whose name ends up on the front, is nouveau riche computers suitable for aristocracy that wears high heels. (My evil twin, David, asked me if he also wears suspendies and a brar. I almost laughed.) I do hope IBM had the good sense not to put it in a translucent case with blue polka dots, but I will not hold my breath.

As for my adoring fans, you may catch a brief glimpse of me at the Scottish Festival in St. Louis at Forest Park on 9 September before I resume my run for the presidency.

Is this Apple a surprise to anyone?

Dave Farquhar Macintosh , , , , , , , ,

So, Apple unveiled its new Imac today. (I’m sick of improper capitalization. We speak English, not C++.) To no one’s surprise, I’m sure, it has a bigger screen. And I’m sure it’s not too surprising that they crammed everything into the unit next to the screen. It’s the next logical step, after the lamp-shaped Imac.

So how’s it gonna do?I think it has potential. Do people really want laptops because they can carry them everywhere they go, or do they want laptops because they can move them about the house freely and don’t have to have a dedicated “computer room”?

I suspect to most people, the latter is more important. Most people have better things to do with their lives than surf the ‘net at Starbucks or Panera Bread.

This new Imac can go on a small desk in a study or spare bedroom and not take over an entire wall the way computers have been doing since the late 1970s. As long as there’s a way to add some memory, and there are ports for people to plug in their digital cameras and their portable MP3 players and a printer, they’ll be happy.

Who knows, maybe demand for wireless printers will increase too.

Some analysts have said they don’t think all-in-one is the slam dunk it was in 1998. I agree it isn’t, but small is a slam dunk. Witness the explosive popularity of cube PCs. Yes, it flopped for Apple, but Apple’s cubes lacked the flexibility, there was too much confusion about their expandability and what exactly they were compatibile with–I designed a Mac network for a client right around the time the Cube was released, but the rumor was it would only work with Apple monitors. That alone killed the deal. They bought G4 towers instead, which would work with NEC and Viewsonic monitors.

But the other problem with the Cube was the price. Yes, it was cheaper than a G4 tower. But the price difference wasn’t enough to make people willing to take a chance on it. And besides, if it was cheapness you wanted, there were at least four companies willing to sell you a PC for half the price of a Cube. Emachines would even sell you a PC for half the price of an Imac.

And that’s the biggest problem I see with this new Imac: price. $1299 gets you in the game. Ten years ago, that was cheap. But this isn’t 1994. Emachines didn’t exist in 1994, and while a Mac would cost you more than a Packard Bell, there wasn’t much price difference between a Mac and a Compaq or an IBM. Compaq or IBM usually had one model that sold for a hundred or two less than the cheapest Apple, and Apple usually wouldn’t give you quite as much CPU speed or quite as much disk space, but if you walked into the store with $1500 in your pocket, which was pretty much the selling price of an average PC, you could walk out with a Mac just as easily as you could walk out with something that ran Windows.

What will Dell give you today for $800? 2.8 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB hard drive, CD burner, printer, 17-inch monitor, and some software.

For the same money, Apple gives you 1.25 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB HD, CD burner, and a 17-inch display. No printer.

For $1,299, the price of the new Imac, Dell gives you twice the CPU power and twice the memory. Just not as much wow factor.

Yes, I know the Pentium 4 is a horribly inefficient processor but the design does scale surprisingly well, and efficiency alone won’t make up a 1.6 GHz speed deficit. Besides, if you’re willing to spend four figures, you can get an AMD Opteron. Just not from Dell.

Will this Imac sell? Yes. Will it do much to increase Apple’s 2.2 percent market share? I doubt it. The main audience is going to be people with aging CRT-based Imacs who’ve been holding out for something with a G5 in it. They’ll buy it, find it’s a lot faster than their old one and takes up less space. Of course they’ll like it. But it’s still the Amiga problem. The Amiga didn’t take over the market because it it only sold 6 million units. The Amiga was a commercial failure because those 6 million units sold to 1.5 million people.

People will ooh and ah over how little space this new Imac takes and how convenient its wireless keyboards are. But most of them will buy a Dell because it’s faster. Or cheaper. Or both. Maybe they’ll complain about how much less convenient it is, but it’s just as likely they’ll forget about it.

It happened with the first Imac and it happened with the Cube and it happened with the dual G4 and it happened with the G5. Who are we kidding? To some extent, it’s been happening since 1983 when the Lisa came out. People see the machine and it knocks their socks off until they see the price tag. The classes buy it anyway, while the masses figure out how to get by with something cheaper.

History is going to repeat itself one other way too. Somewhere in the Far East, I guarantee you a no-name maker of whitebox PCs is designing a box that puts the brains of the outfit behind the LCD, just like this Imac. Maybe the thought didn’t occur to the designer until this week. Maybe the designer has been working on it for months already.

It will look a lot like this new Imac, only it will have an AMD or Intel processor in it, and it will run Windows. It might be three months before we see it. It might even be six. But it will appear, and it will be priced under $1,000.

It will sell. And within another six months, everyone will be doing it. This new form factor may not come to dominate the market, but it won’t take much for it to outsell this new Imac. A small percentage of 97.8 percent is likely to be a lot bigger than even a large percentage of 2.2 percent. Compared to the new Imac, these clones will look like a runaway success.

And Mac fanatics will be screaming about another Apple innovation stolen by someone else.

VMWare’s P2V is mildly disappointing but can still save the day

Dave Farquhar Software , , , ,

The order came from higher up: Migrate these seven servers to VMWare. That would be easy if you were running Linux, FreeBSD, OS/2, or basically any operating system not made by Microsoft. Give me an OS/2 hard drive out of a 386 with Microchannel, and I can have it booting on a P4 in a matter of minutes and probably have it operational in half an hour.

But Windows ties itself to the hardware too tightly. So you need a $10,000 software package to migrate it. That package is P2V, which stands for "PC to VMWare." I assume.Actually it’s a $2,000 software package with $8,000 worth of training. Whether you need that training, well, that’s another story.

P2V advertises that it’ll take an image of a server, replace all of its hardware drivers with drivers for the hardware VMWare emulates, and off you go.

It does the most critical part of it just fine. It doesn’t matter if the original server was SCSI, IDE, or something nasty like RLL or ESDI–unlikely, but I’ve seen what desperate times sometimes cause to be put into a production server–and it’ll get it booting on VMWare’s emulated LSI Logic SCSI card.

The biggest thing it doesn’t do is migrate your TCP/IP settings to the new network card. If you happen to have an AMD PCNet-based NIC in the server you’re migrating, you’ll have no problems, but the chances of that are slightly better than my chances of finding an 1897 Carlisle & Finch train set at that estate sale on Itaska Street this weekend. More likely, you’ll have a 3Com or an Intel card in your source server.

That may not be a problem for you. But if you’re migrating a web server that’s hosting twelve dozen sites, each with its own IP address, you’ll be stringing together some curses after paying that kind of money.

Worth it? It is in the sense that a telephone saves you thousands of dollars in travel costs, so you could justify paying $600 for it. If you’ve got a fleet of aging NT4 servers and an expensive maintenance contract to match, and it’s over someone’s dead body that the applications they host will go away, you can save that 10 grand in a fiscal year, get those servers moved to newer, better hardware that’s cheaper and easier to maintain, and get them moved in less than a week. It could take you nearly that long to get NT4 running on brand-new hardware. Once.

So, yes, you can justify it to your accounting department.

As far as the time involved, there’s the time it takes to image and re-image the server. That depends on how fast your network is. There’s the time it takes to build a helper VM that P2V runs on. It’ll take you about 5 minutes per server to set up the VMWare instance. If you’ve got new hardware, it’ll only take a few minutes for P2V to run. Then you have to boot the VM, reconfigure anything that needs reconfiguring, boot it again, and repeat until you fix everything that’s broken. Sometimes that’ll be nothing, and sometimes it might be a lot.

I budgeted 4 hours per server. A couple of them took less than an hour. A couple took 8.

Do I wish it were a better product? You bet your boots I do. Was I glad to have it at my disposal this week? You bet that Carlisle & Finch train set I’m not gonna find this weekend I am.

Thanks to P2V, I get to do something fun this weekend instead of building servers.