Unlimited Funds

If I had money, I would get myself a new computer. I'm a little tired of the noise of my machine, and it's been having climbing temperatures. I'm not sure why, but a graph over the past couple of months shows it's been climbing. I suspect the thermal grease on the CPU, silicone, has leeched out leaving uneven particles smushed against each other. And dust building up in the heatsink, along with dust gathering around the CPU which is causing air flow problems. The CPU/HSF assembly has been undisturbed for about 10 months, at which time I just replaced the failing fan on it. The actual interface between the CPU and HSF has been untouched since 2001.

But it's also partially my fault. I've got LOTS of components in my system, and air flow is pretty poor. I have an 80mm intake in the front that's covered by bezel because I can't figure out how to cut it open and have it look nice. There's a filter on that fan, to prevent incoming dirt. Actually, no, that filter is gone. It was inhaled by a vacuum cleaner during an accident. Now there's a thin piece of styrofoam in there.

Now, the balance isn't really there, because then I've got two 80mm fans on the back top pushing hot air out, but the hot air doesn't really get there because I've got 2 optical drives, 1 hard drive in an external enclosure, and that power supply netting of cabling. The air coming out of the top exhaust fans is considerably cooler than the air coming out of the PS. The PS has an intake fan under it drawing hot air from the HSF. All that CFM of air with a 80mm intake. Oh, and a 40mm intake on the hard drive rack.

And the bird's nest of cabling blocking that intake.

In total, I've got 9 fans spinning around like idiots in there. Among them, a loud 7k Delta.

System stats for those interested:
AMD 1.4GHz 266MHz FSB + Thermalright SK-6 + Delta 7K
512 MB Kingmax SDRAM PC-150 RAM running as CAS-2 (I screwed up a trace on my MB and can't fill up the other two banks)
Lightly overclocked FSB to 136MHz, only because that trace also prevents it from running stock speeds.
Geforce 3 w/ 64 MB RAM w/ VIVO. It was overclocked for a while but I installed new drivers and forget what it was stable at and I'd have to do it again and havn't felt like doing it again.
SB Live! w/ the old Live Drive. Not Audigy. Not 5.1. Rock on.
ATI TV Wonder
(10/100 NIC)
56K Hardware modem... not hooked up to anything but since I have no place to put it outside my case, might as well leave it in.
SCSI controller.
2 primary hard drives, one 60 GB, one 120 GB. Both 7200RPM Maxtors.
1 hard drive in a removable rack, 60 GB 7200RPM Maxtor. I <3 Maxtor.
1 Plextor Premium CD/RW 52x24x24 drive. It totally rocks. Plextors support Gigarec, which lets you burn nearly a GB of data on an 700MB disc. Compatibility dips like a stone with it, but I can manage 1.2x the space on a cdaudio disc and still use it in my car CD player.
1 REGION FREE DVD-ROM drive. It's the only SCSI drive I've got left, and the only reason why I havn't moved it out is because A. I've already got 4 IDE devices, and B. REGION FREE BIYOTCH. Yes, I do have foreign DVDs. Don't ask which ones, I'll cut your eyes out.
1 flash card reader, that's unhooked and I'm using only for the external USB port. It was conflicting with just about every device I've got.
1 Floppy drive.
420W Vantec power supply.
3 Sunon 80mm fans.
in a REALLY OLD KS188 case from Antec. The case is literally from 1998 and used to house my Pentium II 450 machine, currently issued to my brother in another much more modern, albeit smaller, case.

My case is really cool because I *could* prop the hard drives in a cage above the power supply, which is where they should go. But I can't find 80-pin drive cables long enough to reach. It would really help air flow though. Maybe someday.



Now, if I had unlimited funds, I can build a computer that will make people shit themselves to be in the presence of. Except for me, because it'll be my creature that will follow my bidding and mine alone. Well, not exactly unlimited funds, just about $11,500.

Wanna see? This computer would leave me with everything I would want. I couldn't see myself wanting anything more.

IWILL "DK8X" AMD-8000 Chipset Server Motherboard for AMD Opteron CPU
(uh oh, you know where this is going...)

2x AMD Opteron Model 250, 1MB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor
(YES, dual CPU baby)

8x CORSAIR 184-Pin 1GB ECC REG DDR PC-3200, Model CM72SD1024RLP-3200
(YES 8GB of MEMORY)

XFX nVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra Video Card, 256MB GDDR3, 256-bit, TV-Out/Dual DVI, 8X AGP, Model "PVT40FUD"
(OH YES)

2x ViewSonic VP201s 20.1" LCD Monitor w/ USB2.0 Hub
(*squirt*)

4xFUJITSU 36.7GB 15,000RPM SCSI HARD DRIVE, Model MAS3367NP
(*smoke*)

Adaptec 64-bit Ultra320 SCSI RAID Controller Card, Model "2130SLP"
(gonna need some hard-core SCSI solutions. 36.7 is pretty small, so lumping them together in one mega-drive sounds fun. Either that or maybe RAID 0+1. I'd figure it out if I got this hardware in my lap)

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro PCI Sound Card, Model "SB0380"
CREATIVE GigaWorks S750 7.1 Speaker -RETAIL
(make the neighbors cry)

Vantec EZ Swap 3.5" SATA Removeable Hard drive rack Kit, with LCD display, Model: MRK-200ST-BK( BLACK )
Vantec EZ Swap 3.5" SATA Removeable Hard drive rack(Cartridge only), with LCD display, Model: MRK-200ST-BK( BLACK )
2x Hitachi 400GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model HDS724040KLSA80 Part# 0A30229
(for backup purposes, you see)

2x Plextor 12X DVD+/-RW Drive, Black, Model PX-712SA/SW-BL
(more backing up and production)

Thermaltake Silent PurePower 680W Power Supply, Model "W0049 RUD"
(gotta power this bad boy SOMEHOW)

APC Beige 1500VA Back-UPS RS, Model "BR1500"
(because I like being able to recover from a disaster)

Atech USB Digital Card Reader/Writer(Black) INTERNAL/EXTERNAL, Model PRO-9 Black
(one that works, preferably)

Samsung Black 1.44MB 3.5inch Floppy Disk Drive, Model SFD321B/LBL1
(I still need one)

Microsoft Optical Desktop with Fingerprint Reader
(It'd be cool to login with just touching my finger on the pad)

Logitech Laser Cordless Mouse (Blue/Black), Model "MX1000"
(Laser? Cordless? Li-Ion battery? Accuracy rivaling ball mice?)

WACOM INTUOS2 6" x 8" Serial Graphics Tablet, Model "XD68SER"
(just for fun)

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 version
(not released yet, but it's a must for a system with over 4GB of memory... besides, Server 2003 probably won't ever be supported by games, hey, it took about 2 years for Windows 2000 to be properly supported for fun stuffs)

And, the rockin' stuff.
Water cooled, baby!

PC3-720BK, Black
(drool drool drool)
Plus two 10mm CPU coolers for the dual CPU set up, a splitter and combiner so one 6mm channel can go through the two coolers replacing the heat sinks on the MB that probably need some air from the CPU to function well, and one channel to go to...
VID-NV1-L06 (Vid)
(:dance:)

If I had all this I wouldn't ever ask for anything more. Better start whoring myself now before it's too late.