Home IT upgrade season - anyone else?
 

Starting environment:
1. Win98 tigerdirect wintergreen sys 2000
2. Linux AMD tigerdirect 04/2002
3. WinXP AMD tigerdirect (2007 - prior one CPU died earlier this year so got a new case, etc.)
4. 19" Sylvania CRT
5. 15" emachines 15"
6. Intel hub, cable modem, router, wireless access point
7. Canon BJC 240 (yes it still works).
Environment: no AC in summer (two computers on all the time so computer room hits 105) winter: 50 degrees furnace setting.

Started when I got home on Monday (11/19/07) and as soon as I opened my computer room I could smell the burnt CPU silicon and it was quiet!

My Linux AMD tigerdirect machine died (never did figure out exactly what is was - tried new power supply but no luck). Machine lasted a long time considering it was never turned off (except reboots, etc.) since 2002.

Resolution:

Snagged Shuttle XPC from work but after two days realized the system fans never turned on (not a good idea in my room during summer) so after it 100C it would auto shutdown. Took me a while to figure out setting for trip_point settings, etc - never messed with that stuff before - ACPI.

Today -

1. Grabbed another Shuttle XPC from work - fans so far works great (system temp 36C)
2. Samsung 906BW LCD - great - it takes up ZERO space - my 19" CRT took up about 2 square feet on my desk. Wow what a ton of space now. Still trying to get used to the whole LCD view. Also it seems a bit lower on the desk (maybe buy a stand for it).
3. New: Nvidia 6200 256MB video card. So Thursday I am working on the Shuttle XPC issue and suddenly my ATI video card fan goes out (yes, that's two systems - very sinister) and it would only stay on for about 30 minutes before I could smell it starting to overheat. Ugh. This card was fairly new with 512MB so I'm not too pleased that I needed a new one.

Finally disassembled Win98 desktop and took out hard drives (20gb, 60gb) and network card, Pinnacle card, etc.

Anyone else have any big reorganize home computer systems plans?

Next goal for me: Get backups done and store offsite.

I've retired any drive smaller than 500Gb and replaced them with 1Tb drives. My personal desktop went from a Core2Duo to a Quad core chip and I'm about to upgrade to 8600GT 512Mb video cards.

I'd like to retire my 24" screens and get 30" but I don't think a bullet in the leg would feel very nice (aka I doubt I could get that past my wife :D)

I dont have any major overhauls planed, but I do have a few things I need to tackle.
First, I need to build a new linux NAS/server ... I bought a rack mounted supermicro box and promptly toasted the motherboard. I have all the parts to turn it into a nice c2d rig, except the motherboard. I ordered one from newegg and it was DOA and I haven't gotten around to getting another.

Next I need to move from Trixbox to Elastix ... I have it installed on a box and have played with it, but I have not actually migrated yet...maybe a project for the weekend.

I'd LOVE another Apple 24" monitor, but suspect that is going to wait.

Finally, I'm looking for another asterisk-like project...some kind of linux project to play around with for kicks... suggestions?

I looked around at all of the deals and realized that I didn't really need anything. I added a bit of storage last year and of my 2TB, I only use about 400GB, I just bought a new machine with 4GB RAM, a bigger monitor wouldn't fit my desk, I still have about 75 of the TY DVD blanks I bought last year, and at least 100 CD blanks laying around.

I'll probably spend the $50 on the new Samsung 20x DVD burner, and eventually replace the kids' Win98 machine (it still plays all of the Disney games without problems and my IRClone-MX software won't run on Vista), but there's not much else I need.

I did go through my periodic backup of everything to 2 sets of DVD's and 2 external drives. The in-laws are here so they take one set home to put in their safe, and one goes in mine.

How long have you had the 1Tb drives? Have they been reliable? I'm guessing you have Hitachi?

i will probably be upgrading to a new toshiba tablet pc.

I retired two older Pentium 4 boxes. (both were running Linux).

You can build a C2D quad-core box running linux for around $800 now with decent specs and nice components, but onboard graphics. If you need discreet graphics, add the cost of your graphics card.

-David

To me the best deal on BF was the $199 Quad Core Intel chip + board at Fry's... Then Dell started offering 8800GT512MB cards yesterday for $220, add in 2 packs of $50 DDR2 2Gb from Frys and you can build a blazing box for around $700

I'm probably not going to get to most of it until after the holidays, but I need to work mostly on peripherals. I am not using even a quarter of my 300GB hard drive as I don't store video.

The short term issues are
- an appropriate single portable backup scheme for three computers (my home desktop, my work laptop, and my parents' desktop)
- either an inexpensive light laptop for when I don't need to take the work Latitude with me, or biting the bullet and getting a MDA/Blackberry type unit for that type of thing.
- better integration with my TiVo (I already have a Slingbox, but don't use it enough).
- peripheral upgrades (laser printer, scanner, better camera/software, etc.)

Amazingly I've heard good things about this on www.slashdot.org:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=7754614

My next home IT project is getting a One Wire monitoring system in place for my climate control system. The kit from WEL looks interesting and easy or I might just try rolling my own with some of the One Wire projects on sourceforge like OWW and OWFS.

I really should finish my Trixbox install as well...

I probably should have been more specific... I have more spare hardware than any one person needs... what I was thinking about is something along the lines of what UAVirgin mentioned... maybe a whole house control system or something like that.... a project that uses one of the spare boxes I have laying around...

Those are great boxes for home servers. One error in the slashdot article is that it's really a Micro-ATX motherboard, not a Mini-ITX (unfortunately). I ordered one just because I'm a big fan of the VIA processor for its low-power consumption. Ubuntu doesn't need a lot of clock cycles to be a good server.

My "ok, I'm bored" project for the holidays is to write my own video frame-to-frame differencing algorithm for when I'm traveling. Setting up one cheapie webcam pointed at the front porch, one in the living room. Any major change will trigger a jpg upload to my server at work along with sending a SMS to my cell. Would be nice just to call a neighbor if UPS drops something off when I'm gone.

I use Activewebcam for that ;)

Monitors 9 network cameras at a time with motion detection, capture and email.