Author: admin

Project General Melchett. Stage 1.

Boxes arrive

Project General Melchett is my own, roll your own, home built Intel Core 2 Quad box for home.

Ordered yesterday, and delivered in pieces yesterday. Started the build at 10.30am and completed major parts at 1.00pm.

Motherboard

A big part of the decision process was should I install a new 45nm Quad Core Extreme. The current price difference between processors is a massiveAU$1000. Whilst having a processor that knocks your socks-off benchmark did seem attractive the price difference is too massive.

Instead, purchasing a motherboard that could install a 45nm processor in the future seems like a better plan. When there are more choices.

Q6600

The build was easy: the Corsair modular power supply was an good choice; the hardest part of the overall install was (a) installing slippery screws whilst bleeding from the finger tips (b) snapping in the heat-sink fan into the motherboard with the right amount of pressure. The fans, once turned on, were relatively quiet. Many pieces of rubber insulated metal-on-metal vibrations.

Motherboard in case

The cables are not housed in their final positions. The video card and external SATA connections remain.

Tomorrow is Vista Ultimate x64 install and tuning/tweaking/right-clocking. And waiting for the rare-as-hens teeth 8800GT video cards.

On Being Disconnected from the Twitter Hive-Mind

For various reasons: some in my control, and many out of my control: I just decided to stop twittering for a week. Turned off any interruption based service: Live Messenger, Office Communicator 2007. Even restricting the outgoing emails.

A couple of days sick where I virtually disconnected. Then I went to Adelaide to visit the family. Friday and Monday I took as vacation and purposely left the phone on silent, and laptop in Sydney.

The hive mind still bubbled along. Emails went back and forth. People reached out to ensure I was OK. The world moved on.

It has only been the last hour or so that I’ve jumped back onto twitter.

I missed everyone. The friends, the collective thoughts. I didn’t die, but it’s good to be back. Virtually.

After the current MIX on Campus tour, the rest of 2007 will be spent absorbing learning. Skill up, not dumb down.

Let’s go!

How Windows Home Server Saved My Sanity

IMG_1281

The recent installation of the Windows Media Center has been an ongoing major project. Apart from the physical install, there has been a a few ongoing issues:

  1. High-Definition TV “green screen of death”.
    Thanks to the Vista and XP Media Centre forum, this is a known and fixed issue. The Microsoft Hotfix is available here.
  2. Electronic Program Guide
    Attempted to install epgStream. Will install ICE.TV instead (giving a referrer to PMM!) as epgStream isn’t working the way I expected. Could be user expectation error.
  3. Noise
    Once the processor gets going, fans go on. And never seem to turn off. This is probably a BIOS tweak fix, or turn down the processor a little. A PATA drive vs. SATA drive may also be an issue, too.
  4. IPtv
    So, where is Australian IPtv? What about Australian video downloads? For that matter, what’s the story behind episode guides? This should just work.

 

During tweaking the server on Tuesday, I de-installed Windows Live Onecare Family Protection. Installing it in the first place might have been my error. From what I can discern, after de-installation, the remnants of a firewall was left around. 6 hours of troubleshooting later, I decided to restore a previous working version of the Media Center setup.

Thankfully, Windows Home Server had an image of an automatic backup from Monday. Process to fix:

  1. Make a Restore CD from the supplied .ISO file
  2. Reboot with Restore CD
  3. Log into the Home Server
  4. Select the image to restore
  5. 18 minutes later, reboot
  6. Back to Monday night’s Windows Media Center

Rather than stuff around for another 6 hours, restoring a known-good backup saved my sanity.

Weekend Project, Tuesday Update: Windows Media Center

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Update from the Weekend Project.

Some more bits from AusPC Market arrived. We now have audio cable, correct short VGA cable and a new dual channel Hauppauge PCI based Digital TV receiver. Oh, and I applied the thermal grease to the top of the CPU.

A few little cables for internal wiring ease, and the machine is rocking. Even the blue blinkenlights work.

TV Cat is happy.