[tech] Proposed new parts to replace Porcupine
bob at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au
bob at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au
Mon Sep 10 20:28:13 AWST 2018
Duckduckduckfuckduck. It was the ducking DVI cable - one of the pins had
bent across and was sitting with another pin. Super-weirdly, things were
working fine at boot, and in software rendering mode. Massive thanks to
[TPG] for taking a look at the xorg logs and realising that it wasn't
detecting the screen. Porcupine is now running on mint 19 with the latest
drivers...and a DisplayPort cable.
Andrew Adamson
bob at ucc.asn.au
|"If you can't beat them, join them, and then beat them." |
| ---Peter's Laws |
On Sat, 8 Sep 2018, bob at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I spent a little time on Friday attempting to install mint on rebuilt
> porcupine. For some reason the nvidia drivers aren't playing nice with the
> graphics card, despite working before. The only way I could get the
> installer to even start without X glitching and the whole system hanging
> was to manually add "nomodeset" to the kernel boot options. I could then
> run the mint install using software graphics rendering, and finally
> install the nvidia-384 package, as is appropriate for a GTX960. Alas, this
> still doesn't work, and I'm not sure where to go from here.
>
> Since it was working before, I think we're looking at maybe some bios
> option that needs changing, or perhaps the latest versions of mint have a
> regression? I tried both mint 19 and 18.3 x64 cinnamon, both with the same
> behaviour. Maybe it's worth trying that card in another machine, just to
> be sure it hasn't been damaged in the transplant.
>
> If all else fails we could try another card. I don't think we can fall
> back to the "onboard" graphics, because even though the motherboard has a
> DVI port on it, I don't think the CPU itself has any sort of graphics
> built in - the whole thing sits there beeping if it doesn't have a
> graphics card connected.
>
> If anyone wants to have a play - go nuts, I haven't done any
> customisations on the current install, so feel free to blow it away and
> start again.
>
> Andrew Adamson
> bob at ucc.asn.au
>
> |"If you can't beat them, join them, and then beat them." |
> | ---Peter's Laws |
>
> On Sat, 1 Sep 2018, bob at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > The new parts have been bought and installed in porcupine. It wasn't noted
> > in the minutes but committee went with the AMD Linux build. I ran out of
> > time last night to reinstall the OS, and it won't boot off the old
> > spinning hard drive because the filesystem is unhappy. I left the spinning
> > disk sitting in it so that whoever sets up the new OS install can try and
> > grab the host keys off it, but after that it can be removed and disposed
> > of.
> >
> > As I was cleaning the case, I noticed that the front case fan was seized
> > and the rear case fan was non-existent, so I some replacements on order.
> > Otherwise everything appears to be happy.
> >
> > Andrew Adamson
> > bob at ucc.asn.au
> >
> > |"If you can't beat them, join them, and then beat them." |
> > | ---Peter's Laws |
> >
> > On Sat, 18 Aug 2018, bob at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Felix,
> > >
> > > Thanks for putting this together. To start with, it's great that we can
> > > re-use some of those parts. I do think the budget is pretty low for this
> > > though - we've previously spent around $1100-1200 on a machine, and given
> > > the current bank balances, I see no reason to skimp (even if we do end up
> > > replacing maltair). With a more reasonable budget, we can sit a little bit
> > > ahead of the curve with this machine, and it will hold up better over 5
> > > years.
> > >
> > > CPU first: The spec looked good, but the ebay item you linked has ended,
> > > and I couldn't see another for under $500. A $365 alternative could be an
> > > i5 which actually benchmarks slightly higher than the i7 anyway:
> > > https://www.ple.com.au/Products/629393/Intel-Core-i5-8600K-36GHz-Coffee-Lake-9MB-No-HSF-Retail-Box
> > >
> > > Is there any reason you didn't look at AMD? From what I can tell, the
> > > Ryzen 7 2700 is more powerful than either of the suggested intel chips,
> > > isn't susceptible to spectre/meltdown, and is in the same ballpark price
> > > ($379)
> > > https://www.ple.com.au/Products/631478/AMD-Ryzen-7-2700-32Ghz-20MB-AM4-Retail-Box---With-Wraith-Spire-LED-Cooler-
> > >
> > > RAM: ram is ram. Get whatever suits the mobo, but get at least 16GB, so
> > > $220
> > >
> > > SSD: tricky to decide this without knowing what machine this hardware will
> > > end up in. If linux, size is less of an issue, but it would be really nice
> > > to get a blazing fast M.2 SSD. If windows, it needs to be at least
> > > 1TB...and it would be really nice to get a blazing fast M.2 SSD, but that
> > > puts us over the $500 mark for one that is faster than SATA3. My M.2
> > > option is then $273 http://www.msy.com.au/waonline/m2-ssd/21322-samsung-970-evo-mz-v7e500bw-500gb-m2-ssd-solid-state-drive.html
> > > and my windows/SATA option is $309 https://www.ple.com.au/Products/630704/Crucial-MX500-1TB-SATA-25-7mm-SSD
> > >
> > > Mobo: I'm not sure what the issue with Realtek LAN is? I also went for
> > > something with a USB-C port (even my work laptop has it these days), $145:
> > > https://www.ple.com.au/Products/632874/ASRock-B450M-Pro4-AM4-mATX-Desktop-Motherboard-
> > > ...or an intel mobo to suit the i5, $129
> > > https://www.ple.com.au/Products/631567/Gigabyte-B360M-D3H-LGA1151-CL-mATX-Desktop-Motherboard
> > >
> > > Totals, keeping in mind the AMD benchmarks higher:
> > > Linux AMD total: $1017
> > > Linux Intel total: $987
> > > Windows AMD total: $1053
> > > Windows Intel total: $1023
> > >
> > > Andrew Adamson
> > > bob at ucc.asn.au
> > >
> > > |"If you can't beat them, join them, and then beat them." |
> > > | ---Peter's Laws |
> > >
> > > On Fri, 10 Aug 2018, Felix von Perger wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Dear tech and committee,
> > > >
> > > > Here is a quick parts list which I propose to buy to replace Porcupine (or to replace Cobra/Catfish and swap some bits around to eventually end up with a suitable replacement). This is
> > > > a fairly high end system using the latest 8th gen Intel CPUs and a reasonable quality motherboard.
> > > >
> > > > * Intel i7-8700T - $300 (https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Intel-Core-i7-8700T-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4-00-GHz/223089946483)
> > > > * ASRock B360M LGA1151-CL mATX motherboard - $110 (https://www.ple.com.au/Products/631588/ASRock-B360M-HDV-LGA1151-CL-mATX-Desktop-Motherboard)
> > > > + Note: cheaper motherboards use Realtek LAN
> > > > * 8GB DDR4-2666 RAM - $120 (https://www.ple.com.au/Products/632330/GeIL-8GB-Single-DDR4-Pristine-C19-2666MHz)
> > > > + if 8GB RAM is not enough, 16GB DDR4-2666 modules can be found for $220 (https://www.ple.com.au/Products/628441/GeIL-16GB-Kit-2x8GB-DDR4-EVO-X-RGB-LED-C16-2400MHz) however this
> > > > has the potential to go over-budget
> > > > * 500GB SSD - $170 (https://www.ple.com.au/Products/630702/Crucial-MX500-500GB-SATA-25-7mm-SSD)
> > > > * Power supply - use existing
> > > > * Graphics card - use existing
> > > > * Case - use existing
> > > >
> > > > Total cost for this build should be around $700, within the budget as proposed in the minutes here.
> > > >
> > > > Please provide feedback on any cost-saving measures, missing components, if this is under or over specced etc.
> > > >
> > > > - [FVP]
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
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