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Joined: 9/17/2006
Posts: 177
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It is unfortunate that I will not be able to crunch for a while. I do have one unit crunching and five more in queue, but that is going to be the last for a while. My once large and mighty fleet has slowly deteriorated down to one old machine that I have been running for this team. It is also having troubles and will not boot up at times. Hardware issues were causing my drives not to be recognized so I added in an IDE controller card. This worked but now I am having other problems with this computer. It could be related to the lightning strike that wiped out the majority of my other machines and my two UPS.
Then to make matters worse, a slip and fall accident at work broke three ribs and fractured my ankle and I was off of work for a while just after returning from layoffs.
Worker's Compensation denied my claim as they said I had a previous condition so I have not been paid. I am fighting this, but even if I do get anything back from them, it won't be for a long time. Now there are talks of my plant closing.
So with this being my last working machine, I am going to try to keep it going as long as I can so once these last WUs are completed, this machine is being shut down until I need it, and with the uncertainty of my job, I can not afford to buy any upgrades or a new system. My kids come first. In no way am I resigning from this team, I just have to take an undetermined amount of time off until things (hopefully) work themselves out and I can return to crunching once again.
I will still try to pop in every once in a while to see how you are all doing and to say hello.
Keep crunching!
Sheesh
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Joined: 7/9/2006
Posts: 1182
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Dang, Sheesh. Sorry to hear of your troubles. Really.
I had promised you at one point some parts I had retired, but to tell you the truth, it slipped my mind. I got into selling all of it on a forum, so I'm out of cpu's. But I do have everything else, and am in talks with the members in IRC to see if someone has an early B3 or G0 stepping q6600 they retired.
I'm going to step up and organize this to get you a newish cruncher. Anyone who wants to help, please PM me.
Over the years I've known you, never once have you had anything bad to
say about anyone. For that, I commend you. In my book, you're a standup
guy.
And here's hoping your plant gets spared the cutbacks...
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Joined: 7/7/2006
Posts: 2507
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Sorry to hear about your troubles and I hope things take a turn for the better! Might be time to think about heading west! [EMO]tonguestickout.gif[/EMO]
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Joined: 9/17/2006
Posts: 177
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Paul:
Hey Paul, It's true, I've never been one to gripe about anyone. Yes we did start to make arrangements in the past, but shortly into it I remember you having floods and other related damage coming in your way due to the excessive rainfall. Trying to keep everything in order while dealing with that and even after all was said and done is enough for anyone to deal with. I know that nothing was intentional that is why I just kept crunching away. I appreciate the way you offered to step up to try and help out. That is something that you have always done and I can't really see you stopping any time soon. I am also a give the shirt off of my back kind of guy, but I am just in a real slump right now. Hopefully things work out for us working for the Big 3.
Ron:
You never know. If things don't work out and they close our plant, I may have no choice but to move. Windsor will be a ghost town. So much of this city is built on the automotive sector. For every one person working directly in the automotive industry, there are over seven other jobs that are created. So if we close the plant with just over 5000 workers, then you figure another 35000-40000 jobs on top of that will be lost. So I may end up moving out west if things don't work out. Then I will have some real winter weather to try out my new winter boots. They are supposed to be good to -100c.
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Joined: 7/9/2006
Posts: 1182
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Joe, looks like we have a complete system sans case. We have a motherboard, Q6700, 250GB sata drive, 8600 video card and maybe some ram and PSU.
Others have offered to help with monetary donations for the kids or to help pay customs fees if you happen to get charged with those.
If anyone would like to donate something, please PM me or Joe and we'll get you set up.
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Joined: 9/17/2006
Posts: 177
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Thank you Paul, and thank you to everyone else who has offered to help out. I am deeply touched by the generosity of everyone on this team. I am, and always have been a proud member of Team Starfire and will continue to be a contributing member as much as I can.
Once again, thank you to everyone.
Sheesh
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Joined: 10/1/2006
Posts: 627
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Sorry to hear about your troubles, I hope you get it sorted out, it's never as dark as you think, you know !
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Joined: 8/24/2008
Posts: 36
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Embarrassment bump :(
Where are we at with this? what's been sent? what's still needed?
Let's put this one to bed :)
Fish
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself
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Joined: 7/9/2006
Posts: 1182
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hey Sheesh, the guys in the IRC asked if we ever got this sent out. I said oops, it slipped my mind again. I know Jack sent a cpu and video card, I had a mobo, there are offers this morning for other parts.
Apologies once again, I should have got this out months ago, I think at the time I was trying to scrounge up everything, mobo, PSU and memory, but didn't have all of it. But anyway, looks like we have more donors, so it should be all sent out this week.
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Joined: 9/17/2006
Posts: 177
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That is great news Paul. I can't wait to get this one up and crunching for the team. I will be sure to let everyone know what is going on and what stage of completion it is in.
Thank you to everyone who helped me out on this. My computer that I am using (AMD XP 3200) only starts up when it wants and frequently crashes with hard drives and DVD drive missing after rebooting. After a few more reboots after a power drain, it seems to start, but not all drives show up all the time.
I am on lay off this week coming, then go back for a week, then off again. If the parts arrive in the next couple of weeks, I will be able to build it on my week off.
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Joined: 7/9/2006
Posts: 1182
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Cool deal. nutcase stepped up with some ddr2 and a couple hdds. I now have a mobo, Coolermaster 600 psu and Thermalright Big Typhoon boxed up and will get it out to you on Monday. You'll be up and running in no time.
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Joined: 9/17/2006
Posts: 177
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Thank you everyone! You are all the best! I can't wait to get this built and crunching!
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Joined: 9/17/2006
Posts: 177
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Any word on this yet? It has been a little over two weeks now and I haven't heard or received anything as of yet. With my computer acting up as it has, I am not too sure how long it will keep running.
I already had BOINC Manager crash in a very strange way on that system. When I restarted my computer it lost all work units. That includes the bunch I had waiting to go up that were already completed and all the ones ready to be crunched as well. It then could not attach to a project and it acted like a new install. It would not let me do anything though because it said my password was invalid, but I didn't change it. I had to download a newer version and install it again. Then once I did that, it only allowed me to have one work unit at a time, even though I have it set to have a cache of days. Another thing is that it went from 5 hours per work unit to 15 hours per work unit. These are the same work units I had set for before. No AstroPulse units on my account, just Seti. Now after some maintenance on that system I managed to get the times down to between 7-9 hours per work unit, but it is still longer than my 5-6 hour times.
This computer also comes up as unknown in my BOINCststs, where as my others all show the processor they are using. Thi system is an AMD XP3200 1GB DDR400 SDRAM in dual channel mode on an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard. It is running Windows XP with SP3 and all updates. There is no viruses/spyware/etc. on this system as I had checked and checked for every possible problem. A fresh install of Windows may help, but with all the problems I am having keeping this system running, I don't think it is worth the time to do that. Besides HD space is running low since two of my drives died.
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Joined: 7/9/2006
Posts: 1182
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The p965 and epox NForce 2 mobos, 600W psu and thermaltake Big Typhoon are on the way. I really don't know how long it takes, but it did sit in my truck for a while until I got the $40 to ship it. Have you checked out your memory by letting Memtest 86+ run overnight?
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Joined: 11/12/2006
Posts: 182
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Whats the score here? I have quite a bit of older kit sat about, motherboards, PSU's, CPU's and tons of memory (plus HDD's) that frankly are doning nothing, I simply cannot run any more machines due to the cost and space so putting these machines back together is a pointless hope.
Joe, if you want to PM me, or email me (jim dot mfranklin at gmail dot com or use my work email which is james dot franklin at integral dot co dot uk) with your physical address I can sort some bits out to send over to the US. The CPU's are P4's,. P4HT's and I think a couple of 2.8GHz P4D. If anything I have sat about you can make use of let me know, when I get paid at the end of the month I can box it up and ship it out to you.
All the best
Jim
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Joined: 9/17/2006
Posts: 177
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My 3200 just started to go into an endless reboot. It would either keep rebooting, freeze during the booting process or do nothing at all, so that system is done for now. I am currently running Memtest86+ on it from a Linux CD. It has come up with 729 errors as this writing. It has been running for 46 minutes so far. I will let it run over night to see what else it comes up with.
Will keep this updated if any other problems arise and when the parts arrive. I will let you know when everything is up and running and crunching some WUs.
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Joined: 7/9/2006
Posts: 1182
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Don't bother letting it run overnight, if it has 700 errors then one or both of the modules have an error in them. Windows has some error corrections built in, but that's a bit much for it to handle. I've seen them post with thousands of errors in a couple minutes, though. You know you have it bad when it won't run memtest. Errors are errors, though. A handful or thousands, you won't be stable.
So. Anyone have any spare DDR laying around?
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Joined: 9/17/2006
Posts: 177
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I cranked the voltage on the DDR up by one. I have three choices and it was set to the first. Don't really remember what the voltages were, but it upped it to the next highest setting and it is running again. It doesn't seem to have any problems like it did before either. I will run Memtest on it again later on and see if that helped as much as it seems. At least is is up and running again. The last couple days it wouldn't even boot into Windows.
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Joined: 9/17/2006
Posts: 177
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OH!!! The wife just called me as I finished typing the last post. There was a delivery that just came and dropped off a rather large box of stuff! Your package has arrived Paul. I will go and check that out.
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Joined: 9/17/2006
Posts: 177
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I unpacked everything and did a test fit. First the CPU was installed in the motherboard. Felt good to plug that in. Next was fitting the CPU cooler. It took a little trial and error to get the Big Typhoon to sit on this board without pushing on any of the cooling fins on the chipset and other components on the motherboard. I found a perfect placement and tightened the base plate down, applied the thermal paste and mounted the monster of a heatsink.
Even though I don't have the ram and drives yet, I decided to do a dry run. I am glad I did. The power supply seems to work fine, but the fan did not. I opened it up and replaced the fan with a new one I had sitting in a box for some time now. Plugged it back in and still nothing. I tested the fan on the motherboard to see if the fan worked. It did. So thinking on what to do with a power supply with a dead header for the fan, I decided to do a little rewiring. I cut a length of wire and attached it to the fan inside the power supply and ran it out along the main power cables. I then attached a fan header plug to the end of the wire and plugged it directly into the system fan on the motherboard. It worked perfectly. Now I should be able to monitor the fan speed of the power supply as well. Things are looking good.
I am going to head off to bed now as I work midnights and have not slept yet. I will clear out my Antec case tomorrow and possibly mount the power supply and motherboard. Then all there is to do is wait for the memory and drives, install my OS and get crunching!
Can't wait!
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