Archives March 25, 2006

Saturday, 25th March 2006

Chip

I now have two big black monoliths (Zagadkai l33t! ) and now a big stand to put them (and the other computer(s)) on.

The Server Stand is designed the way it is to make use of the materials I have available. The frame is made from pieces cut from old bed slats (90 x 35) from the spare room bed (now the Baby's room). The top will be 3 pieces of 305mm wide 5-ply Plywood removed from the old stand as will any pieces of 70 x 35 pine used in the design. 

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Sheets

I've been hard at work today. Thismorning I moved the chest of draws from our room into the baby's room and then assembled the cot in our room in it's place.

Later in the day I finalised the plan for the server stand, printed a copy and then set about marking out cutting lines on the wood I had. Next I cut all the pieces up. After that I marked out all the holes that needed to be drilled. I pre-drilled all of the holes where screws went. Each leg of this stand has 6 holes, two of which are bored out to 10mm dia and 35mm deep because the screw goes through the widest part. In total I used 40 screws long screws. The screws I am using are 75mm long so that I didn't have the problem I had fixing together the last stand where screws didn't reach and I had to bore a hole 80% of the way through to get enough thread in the other side. I chose Countersunk chipboard screws as they go in faster and easier, the cordless drill sure is getting a workout, bugger putting them in with a screwdriver! They are nearly 4mm in dia on the threadded part and 3mm thick on the shank. I still have the top and some other stretchers to put on yet!

The bottom shelf is designed to take two storage containers. The stretchers are spaced to retain them and the lower stretchers act as a rail for them to slide on. The containers have small wheels on them... The top shelf is where the computers go.

I will have to look at the remaining materials and work out how I am going to mount a shelf above the computers to put the scanner, printer and router on. The Power Supply and CRO will take their old positions leaving me a little more storage and some more desk space.

Monolith No. 2 Up and Running!

Chip

I managed to sort out the issues with the dell server. It involved re-organising the RAID array so that the 25GB RAID 5 array was the first logical drive and the 8.5GB RAID 1 logical drive was the second. I then re-installed Fedora Core 4. Fedora Core 5's MegaRAID driver no-longer covers the PERC2/SC SCSI Controller and Backplane.

Monolith 2 is up and running with two P3 550s! I made a special lead to power the CPU fans from a standard power connector as the mainboard uses custom 3 pin connectors to attach fans, so the standard PC style 3 pin fan connector won't cut it...

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CPUs and RAM