pelligrini
15th September 2001, 12:34
Days in the life of a scatterbrained geek.
It all started Thursday, when I picked up another Abit VP6 mobo and another cable TV box to hook up to my G450-TV in my office so I could watch the news in my playroom…. er.. office.
I started by running some new coax for the cable connection. I crawled through the 114 degree f attic, over to my office wall, easy to spot because of the blue CAT5, phone lines, coax lines, and speaker cables. I stuck my foot with the point of the spade bit when it slid off of the A/C duct I was traversing, also putting a knot on my head from one of the rafters as I raised up trying to get out of the way of the falling drill. Drilled the hole, and fed the cable and fish down. Got back down into my office after stopping to clean and dress the wounded foot. Drilled a hole through the sheetrock straight into a stud, damnit. Moved over and made another hole, couldn’t find the fish, got pissed and made a bigger gaping hole, still no cable or fish. Cursed more, knowing that I ended up drilling the hole in the top plate on the wrong side of the stud. Crawled back into the attic after re-dressing the foot, fed the cable. Back in office, found the fish easily, not too difficult when you can reach into the wall cavity through a big hole.
Started hooking up all the video and audio inputs and outputs. Finally got the video to work, turned out to be a bad patch cable. Still no audio, jacked around for hours with the software and cabling. Not easy because of the virtual spiders web of analog audio, digital audio, CAT5 , kVM, Parallel, SCSI, Coax and power, to the three machines beside my desk. Got really frustrated at one point and sat up really fast. Not a good idea when working under a desk. Smashed the same spot on my head from the rafter into the keyboard drawer, sending it speeding out and making the keyboard, mouse and pads go flying when it reached the end of it rails. Went outside for a smoke, and the neighbor asked what all the loud cussing was about. :D Went back in and finally got a distorted, garbled signal, never could get the digital AC3 to work. Took the new box out and hooked it up in place of an existing one, same screwed audio. Relieved that it wasn’t me, but still pissed that the new box is bad. The new box is working well, but there is still some awful ground hum, the cooling fans drown it out though. It must be all the EM fields in my office, because any audio or video signal coming into, or out of my office has it.
The video capture on the Matrox card is really good when recording. The CPU usage on just watching the TV feed is really low too. Pretty slick stuff.
It’s way late so I tried to get some sleep, besides my head was starting to pound from the bumps it took.
Woke up early to get the VP6 up and running. Pulled the old stuff from the Antec case and slapped the new board, HD, video and nic. Hooked up the KVM cables and powered it up waiting for a POST. No life signs shown on the monitor. Reseated everything, still no POST.
Dug up a speaker to listen for post codes. WTF, it would give the standard single beep, but no video. Unhooked HD, CD, floppy, still a single beep, no video. Tried another PCI video card, no go, tried a G450 AGP, nope. Switched out RAM, then CPUs, still no video. More and more cursing. Checked out Abit site and the newsgroups for some info, couldn’t find anything. Out of desperation I pulled the chips and video from my existing VP6 to try, F’n A… no video. Pissed, I sat down real hard into my chair, not realizing that some idiot left a video card in it. Jumped up cursing a blue streak with the card still literally embedded in my cheek. Cleaned and dressed my wounded pride, and went back in to pack up the mobo for return. Got everything pulled and re-packed, not too happy because I had a long drive back to Fry’s and I purchased the last one they had in stock. Then I noticed it…. Some idiot was using the wrong port on the KVM. Bent over to tap my head on the desk as punishment, and hit the same knot, really smart… Put everything back into the respective machines. Set the KVM correctly and saw the much worked for POST. Hurray!!
I am proud to report that the VP6 is running a P3-700 @ 1032 being cooled by a Thermaltake Volcano 6cu w/ the 4500 fan I picked up at Fry’s. Surprisingly it’s at 40c, I have a little more respect for Thermaltake now. I still need to get another 700.
I think I am going to take this weekend easy, certainly no playing around with computers, it’s too hazardous to my health. I certainly won’t be in the woodshop as I intended, I am too fond of my appendages. :D
It all started Thursday, when I picked up another Abit VP6 mobo and another cable TV box to hook up to my G450-TV in my office so I could watch the news in my playroom…. er.. office.
I started by running some new coax for the cable connection. I crawled through the 114 degree f attic, over to my office wall, easy to spot because of the blue CAT5, phone lines, coax lines, and speaker cables. I stuck my foot with the point of the spade bit when it slid off of the A/C duct I was traversing, also putting a knot on my head from one of the rafters as I raised up trying to get out of the way of the falling drill. Drilled the hole, and fed the cable and fish down. Got back down into my office after stopping to clean and dress the wounded foot. Drilled a hole through the sheetrock straight into a stud, damnit. Moved over and made another hole, couldn’t find the fish, got pissed and made a bigger gaping hole, still no cable or fish. Cursed more, knowing that I ended up drilling the hole in the top plate on the wrong side of the stud. Crawled back into the attic after re-dressing the foot, fed the cable. Back in office, found the fish easily, not too difficult when you can reach into the wall cavity through a big hole.
Started hooking up all the video and audio inputs and outputs. Finally got the video to work, turned out to be a bad patch cable. Still no audio, jacked around for hours with the software and cabling. Not easy because of the virtual spiders web of analog audio, digital audio, CAT5 , kVM, Parallel, SCSI, Coax and power, to the three machines beside my desk. Got really frustrated at one point and sat up really fast. Not a good idea when working under a desk. Smashed the same spot on my head from the rafter into the keyboard drawer, sending it speeding out and making the keyboard, mouse and pads go flying when it reached the end of it rails. Went outside for a smoke, and the neighbor asked what all the loud cussing was about. :D Went back in and finally got a distorted, garbled signal, never could get the digital AC3 to work. Took the new box out and hooked it up in place of an existing one, same screwed audio. Relieved that it wasn’t me, but still pissed that the new box is bad. The new box is working well, but there is still some awful ground hum, the cooling fans drown it out though. It must be all the EM fields in my office, because any audio or video signal coming into, or out of my office has it.
The video capture on the Matrox card is really good when recording. The CPU usage on just watching the TV feed is really low too. Pretty slick stuff.
It’s way late so I tried to get some sleep, besides my head was starting to pound from the bumps it took.
Woke up early to get the VP6 up and running. Pulled the old stuff from the Antec case and slapped the new board, HD, video and nic. Hooked up the KVM cables and powered it up waiting for a POST. No life signs shown on the monitor. Reseated everything, still no POST.
Dug up a speaker to listen for post codes. WTF, it would give the standard single beep, but no video. Unhooked HD, CD, floppy, still a single beep, no video. Tried another PCI video card, no go, tried a G450 AGP, nope. Switched out RAM, then CPUs, still no video. More and more cursing. Checked out Abit site and the newsgroups for some info, couldn’t find anything. Out of desperation I pulled the chips and video from my existing VP6 to try, F’n A… no video. Pissed, I sat down real hard into my chair, not realizing that some idiot left a video card in it. Jumped up cursing a blue streak with the card still literally embedded in my cheek. Cleaned and dressed my wounded pride, and went back in to pack up the mobo for return. Got everything pulled and re-packed, not too happy because I had a long drive back to Fry’s and I purchased the last one they had in stock. Then I noticed it…. Some idiot was using the wrong port on the KVM. Bent over to tap my head on the desk as punishment, and hit the same knot, really smart… Put everything back into the respective machines. Set the KVM correctly and saw the much worked for POST. Hurray!!
I am proud to report that the VP6 is running a P3-700 @ 1032 being cooled by a Thermaltake Volcano 6cu w/ the 4500 fan I picked up at Fry’s. Surprisingly it’s at 40c, I have a little more respect for Thermaltake now. I still need to get another 700.
I think I am going to take this weekend easy, certainly no playing around with computers, it’s too hazardous to my health. I certainly won’t be in the woodshop as I intended, I am too fond of my appendages. :D