Clan x86

Member Forums => Joe's Bunker of Pie => Topic started by: Joe on February 13, 2007, 11:51:30 PM

Title: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on February 13, 2007, 11:51:30 PM
So, in Comp Sci, theres one kid (herein, Logan) and I who are more-than-averagely knowledgeable. The teacher saw this quick (of course she did, she's had us both before) so instead of grading us for our lab performance (which is basically reading info from My Computer's properties pane, thusfar) we're charged to assimilate two (or more) lab machines into one, for those with broken essensial parts.

Afterwards, theres a ton of leftover pieces from the now even more dead "piece" computers, so with those we're upgrading a single machine into the ground (and back).

Average specs, starting out:
128MB RAM
8MB Video Card, AGP
4GB Hard Drive
Pentium II, 400-something MHz.

Current specs on our "retrofitted" machine:
256MB RAM, two sticks
8MB Video Card, AGP
2x 4GB Hard Drive
Same processor

So far I've got the following parts lined up for introduction into the system tomorrow:
30GB Hard Drive (knocking one of the 4GB's out)
3x Only-God-Knows-What-Specs PCI video cards

I'll probably salvage another stick of RAM tomorrow, and then find a way to fit all three video cards in at once. From there it's just getting kids out of a row of computers and sticking all their monitors together.

Also, it's a non-OEM mobo, so we're going to look into overclocking. It's not like we don't have another P2 to stick in if we launch one out of the case.

Wish us luck and no fatalities. :)

EDIT -
Logan registered on these forums as Zagaroth. :)
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Zagaroth on February 14, 2007, 12:46:49 AM
yeah... im the one crazy enough to work with him.... so what...
crazy makes stuff work... if we dont blow it up first.................
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on February 14, 2007, 12:48:41 AM
Speaking of which, I couldn't find my grounding strap today. Oh well.

EDIT -
(23:51:52) [x86] Joe: I just had an idea
(23:52:04) [x86] Joe: which could be either very good or very bad, depending on how you look at it
(23:52:15) [x86] Joe: I found an old electric train controller
(23:52:24) [x86] Joe: works as a neat dimmer-switch type thing
(23:52:31) [x86] Joe: We can run fans at varying speeds, lol
(23:53:02) [x86] Joe: We could daisy-chain all the extra fans together, glue them to a piece of paper, and make it take off and fly.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: d&q on February 14, 2007, 01:09:04 AM
lol@daisy chain.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Zagaroth on February 14, 2007, 01:30:02 AM
we are definitly gonna blow something up with you thinking like that Joe..... Lets try it :D
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on February 14, 2007, 01:32:08 AM
Note to self: OpenSourceMark.

EDIT -
I need to see how many spare fans I have laying around though.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Zagaroth on February 14, 2007, 01:50:26 AM
heh lets have fun blowing up the lab... maybe take out some of the noobs in our class with our computer...
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on February 14, 2007, 01:53:24 AM
What.. shooting stuff out of it? :-\.

That was awesome when I set the fan in backwards and annoyed the crap out of everyone until the teacher told me to knock it off. She's a bit of an ass. Minus the part about a bit.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Zagaroth on February 14, 2007, 01:56:23 AM
well we get a normal teacher to annoy tomarrow...well today... w/e yeah lets see if things can explode and break and fly around the room... maybe hurt someone.... idk how but maybe overclock the CPU to like 1.5 Ghz heh...
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on February 14, 2007, 02:20:23 AM
You're a little weird.

I think we should start out with overclocking with current speed x 1.5. That way it can not be quite as painful when it blows up, and has a slight chance of working. We should probably glue those extra fans to the processor, though...

EDIT -
I've got some heatsinks in my box in the front of the room, too.

Yeah guys, I'm cool enough to have my own box in the CS classroom to put stuff in, lol.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Zagaroth on February 14, 2007, 10:35:40 PM
i say we get  a cold heat solder thing and solder some sticks of ram up so they can both run on one port and do the same with the CPUs heh

and then we make the case into solid heatsyncs and fans

other than that i think we would get shot we should try anyway
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Zagaroth on February 14, 2007, 10:37:03 PM
o yeah and you should get yourself on IRC.... irc.reality-irc.com  #partychat
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Newby on February 15, 2007, 12:03:45 AM
Quote from: Zagaroth on February 14, 2007, 10:37:03 PM
o yeah and you should get yourself on IRC.... irc.reality-irc.com  #partychat


#partychat. lol.

irc.b3t4.org #beta

Only channel worth chilling in.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on February 15, 2007, 12:25:58 AM
Quote from: Zagaroth on February 14, 2007, 10:35:40 PM
i say we get  a cold heat solder thing and solder some sticks of ram up so they can both run on one port and do the same with the CPUs heh

and then we make the case into solid heatsyncs and fans

other than that i think we would get shot we should try anyway

I don't know about soldering the extra ram together (K might kill us..), but if you can find some kind of processor board to allow two P2 chips to be placed on one board, let me know.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: corndawg on February 27, 2007, 01:58:20 AM
you two freaks at it again eh? :P zag and joe


Network Admin for the Reality-IRC network
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on February 27, 2007, 02:00:15 AM
It's following me! :)
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Sidoh on February 27, 2007, 02:05:57 AM
Quote from: Zagaroth on February 14, 2007, 10:35:40 PM
i say we get  a cold heat solder thing and solder some sticks of ram up so they can both run on one port and do the same with the CPUs heh

That doesn't make any sense.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on February 27, 2007, 11:22:26 AM
Nope, but it'd be fun to do.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Zagaroth on February 27, 2007, 11:27:51 PM
it makes sence in my head so it "can" work. not gonna say i have the crap to make it work
but it is possible
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Sidoh on February 28, 2007, 12:54:25 AM
Quote from: Zagaroth on February 27, 2007, 11:27:51 PM
it makes sence in my head so it "can" work. not gonna say i have the crap to make it work
but it is possible

Disclaimer, if any of what you said was a joke, read no further.

I have no doubt that you (or anyone with any amount of cognitive skill) could solder two sticks of RAM together and figure out how to attach it to the port.  That's not the problem.  Unless you have a degree in computer engineering or some related field, I'm inclined to believe you haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.  If it were so simple to branch a RAM port, why do you think that there aren't devices on the market that make this possible?

I'm not sure if you're trying to sound intelligent by trying to invent activities that are beyond the scope of the other members' experience, but just in the case that this is true, I'll give you a warning: we have some wildly intelligent and experienced people here.  Don't misunderestimate (yes, I know that's a Bushism) us. :P
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on February 28, 2007, 02:04:56 AM
He knows it won't work. He's a pyromaniac and insists on blowing things up. :)
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: d&q on February 28, 2007, 02:17:38 AM
What stuff has he blown up?
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Sidoh on February 28, 2007, 03:01:23 AM
Quote from: Joex86] link=topic=8597.msg110687#msg110687 date=1172646296]
He knows it won't work. He's a pyromaniac and insists on blowing things up. :)

That's just asinine.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on February 28, 2007, 11:27:37 AM
Quote from: Deuce on February 28, 2007, 02:17:38 AM
What stuff has he blown up?

We tried to overclock a Pentium 2 to faster than the speed of your mom, but it's on an Intel mobo, so obviously it didn't work.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: d&q on February 28, 2007, 08:58:44 PM
How is that blowing anything up?  ???
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on February 28, 2007, 11:09:36 PM
Sidoh's mom is pretty bright. Faster than 300MHz, at least.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on March 03, 2007, 12:34:19 AM
"You know, I still think it's possible to do that with the RAM. Everyone's just too lazy to try it."

--Zagaroth
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Sidoh on March 03, 2007, 12:41:30 AM
Quote from: Joex86] link=topic=8597.msg110982#msg110982 date=1172900059]
"You know, I still think it's possible to do that with the RAM. Everyone's just too lazy to try it."

--Zagaroth

I'm convinced he's technologically incompetent.
Title: Re: Operation: Retrofit.
Post by: Joe on March 05, 2007, 12:38:34 AM
So am I. :)