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Decomissioning Defiant

So this morning I tried to revive Defiant at least for a few months to be able to restart working on Catalyst. Unfortunately as I suspected, the CPU fan was dying too, and this means that I’m unlikely to use that box again. Well, I did know the box wasn’t totally sane when I started, because I actually changed it last year, right before joining Gentoo, after another HD died, and the CPU fan started giving strange noises. If I continued using it as my main box, it would have died already now.

This (bad) photo was taken with the new phone, and shows the current Defiant, you can note the missing third slot, that is where the old HDD was (in a removable rack). Of course, it’s likely that this is also the same appearance that the new G/FBSD box will take, most likely.

For small Gentoo/FreeBSD things, I can use Farragut, as I did before, that is the one in the back on the photo, the green ominous led, but if Defiant took one day and a half for building the stages with Catalyst, Farragut would easily take me 3 days.

Now I do have two ways to come out from this mess, the first is to find a secondhand box, 1GHz or more, it’s likely I can find, through my usual local contacts, some 1.2 or 1.4 box, and hope that it will stay in a working state long enough for Gentoo/FreeBSD to be completed; the second is to put away some money in the next months and try to buy the needed components to upgrade my workstation, and use the old pieces for a Gentoo/FreeBSD box.

In the latter case, I’d be reusing the chassis of the current Defiant, and and this starts a problem for me: would the name Defiant stick to the chassis or to the motherboard? 🙂 Most likely the motherboard for me tho, so it would be moving Enterprise as Gentoo/FreeBSD box, and find a new name for the new box.

Anyway, for the moment I’ll be working on other issues than Gentoo/FreeBSD, I have a long enough list to take care of, that I won’t be slacking at all. And I’ll try to coordinate with Javier and Timothy to handle the important stuff.

Comments 3
  1. If you want a 3.0Ghz AMD64 chip for free, I could be your man.I’m happy to send it to you, if it’ll be used for Gentoo :DSend me an email if interested.Mike Arthur

  2. Are all your computers named after starships from Star Trek? If so, for the next one, I vote Yorktown, Grissom, or Equinox.

  3. If you use some box in that role (=”fire it up and forget about it” ), then you would be wise to:-replace that fagotty vents on graphic card,CPU etc with some beefed up larger ones. While doing this, put a bit of vaseline on the vent’s bush/bearing.- COOL YOUR HD WITH AN EXTRA VENT !HD shouldn’t be even warm to the touch- EVER. Place a vent close to it and check that it does not cause any perceptible vibrations while working. After a while, when dust accumulates on its blades, it will cause vibraions, so HDD must be firmly screwed-on the case and tha vent shouldn’t be in touch with the drive nor the case without some kind of plastic or rubber holder.-HDD bays are a bad idea in general, because HDD heats intensely in such cases. Yes, some models have built in small vent, but its airflow capacity is a joke.-same goes for the vent in PSU. Clean it and grease the bearing in it. If you don’t have cats or other animals or small children in vicinity, it’s generally good idea to cut off the grill in front of it, as it restricts airflow and causes perceptible hiss.- maybe it wouldn’t hurt to lift the box off the ground as it would lessen dust accumulation. Every inch/centimeter helps…- every six months or so blow the dust off the box. Best way to do this is with air exaust pipe on strong vacuum cleaner. VERY effective, but it generates a F*CKING CLOUD of dust, so it’s best done outside… ;o)

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