Linux Box Update
Last night I went out and got a Socket 755 motherboard, a chip fan, a P4-ready 400 watt power supply, and thermal paste. I made sure to buy a board compatible with the P4 CPU that had been given to me as a gift. You should have seen the salesperson when I proffered a static bag at him. "A friend gave me this P4 and put it in this busted mainboard." His eyes got big as saucers. After it became clear that he was not going to respond to this, I said, "Can you tell me what level of P4 it is so I know what motherboard to buy?" He said it would be etched on the back. As I moved my hand toward the opening of the bag he cried, "don't do that!" So I went out of his view and removed the board, carefully grounding myself, and made out the number on the chip.
While I was out computer shopping, tackled the challenge of installing Linux on The Ugly Board which I have been chronicling on this journal. I told him not to bother because I was getting a new computer anyway, but he did it on principle because geeks shall not be defeated by any hardware. He succeeded, with SUSE enterprise server. It detected that the 20GB Quantum Fireball drive had been used as part of a RAID array and been partitioned in a way that the desktop distros weren't expecting, which is why they hadn't installed. After using this computer for a few minutes, he liked it and asked that it not be dismantled, because Pentium 3 is really nothing to sniff at. So I gave it to him in exchange for another much larger case, into which we installed my Pentium 4, GeForce4, dual 200GB drives mirrored to each other, CD-RW and DVD-ROM.
Then we discovered the CPU appears to be non-functional.
All it means is that I was constrained in my choice of hardware, but I had made up my mind anyway that no matter the cost I was going to have a modern, fully-functional Linux computer worthy of running open-source desktop publishing and video-editing software. Choosing the motherboard to match the chip was a gamble to see if I could save costs, but really I'm not out anything. I'll go out tonight and... {gulp} buy a new P4 2.6Ghz CPU. Such is my commitment to Penguicon!
Comments
twoofdtm on Feb. 24, 2005 6:48 PM
I'm glad you're the one taking it for the team Matt! I can't imagine anybody else who would tackle that! *hands you a towel*
phecda on Feb. 24, 2005 7:49 PM
While there may be an issue with your CPU, I would suggest getting it tested prior to replacing it. To replace a 2.6GHz P4 is going to cost at least $150. And we need to go through some of the other components to ensure that they are functioning properly.
matt-arnold on Feb. 24, 2005 8:10 PM
How can the chip be tested? Micro Center seemed unwilling to do so.
thefile on (None)
thefile on (None)
thefile on Feb. 25, 2005 6:07 PM
Pricewatch lists links to P4 2.6MHz CPUs for $128, $150 and $165 depending on whether you need 400, 533, or 800 MHz memory bus.
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