May 22, 2005
by dhoytt
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Lesson Learned Blow Out Dust From CPU Fan to Avoid Over Heating

 Well this was strange. My main system I use kept
periodically shutting down for no apparent reason. I checked for the usual
virus, what was running on the system at time of shutdown etc…

There was no pattern to the
shutdowns. I had the latest virus protection and had upgraded my Windows XP Pro
to the latest levels of updates. I looked in the event logs and saw some
references to the video driver so I downloaded and started to update the video
driver. During the video driver update the system cut-off again!

 Well this time it would not boot
all the way back up but kept cutting off before the system could complete the
bios load. After a while it did not boot at all!! The system stopped even
powering up!

 I then went and got a spare power
supply I had not used in a while and that also failed to power the system up.
This is when I started smelling the aroma of burnt silicon. My next step was to
promptly unplug my system and power supply. I tried a few more items but since
it was late (3am) I went to bed.

Now this is what really threw me
down the wrong path is that when I woke up and came into my computer room My
hubs, routers and system in my 19” rack where down. My UPS I had bought at a
computer swap would not come back up! I unplugged everything and went to the old
standby surge protectors. My systems and hubs came back up.

Since I have had issues with power
the past few months and had moved things around and considerably reconfigured
the power structure in the room I figured this was a contributing factor to my
system failure.

That day at lunch I purchased
another 550w ATX power supply. Tracking down my power supply manufacture of the
power supply I thought had failed produced another side story. The company’s web
site listed on the side of the box was not active and they had no address or
other information about the company on or in the box! I had to go to the store
and convince the place I had bought the power supply from seven months ago to
call their buyers of the power supply and get the number to the company I had
bought the power supply from! Even the current boxes on the stores shelves had
the unreachable website and no other company information!! I called the company
and they had changed the companies URL but had no other information on the web
site listed on all their power supplies currently in the stores pointing to the
new site or anything about the company! More to come on this issue later!

Now the real craziness begins. I
took the power supply home and of course was met with the same results as
before. The system would chirp quickly not even spin the system fans one
revolution and quit!

            I then thought well
maybe it was some other device but after isolating the system to its barest
components just to see if the CPU fans would spin I thought I had either a
faulty mother board or a failed CPU.

A couple of days later I went and
purchased a new mother board & CPU along with memory. The new configuration
powered up fine with my power supply.  Problem solved correct?? Well during this
time I had decided to try and trouble shoot my old mother board again and see if
it was just bad memory since I felt maybe I needed to blow out all my part and
reseat everything and presto my original mother board powered up!! Ok I’m out of
a little money but happy. I started building up my old system in the case after
blowing it out with canned air. I then tried to power it back up and the thing
started cutting off on me again when I got into the OS. Then after a while each
time it would cut off a little quicker.

            Now I made sure that everything was properly
connected and seated in the case and in the respective connections and still the
system kept cutting off.  I again started isolating components to determine the
issue. I then noticed that I had failed to clean one item and since I had the
canned air I decided to correct this issue and buy me some time to think.

 I took out the CPU fan which
looked like it had a fine layer of dust on it off the CPU. I looked at the CPU
and noticed that in the fins of the heat sync with the fan on top was more dust
than I anticipated! I blew all of the dust out of the CPU fan and placed it back
on the system. Surprise of all surprises the system came up and has not shut
down since. This has only been 24 hours but it would not even stay up for all my
systems to load when it hadn’t been powered up after the system was cooled down.
When not cooled down it would not even power up!

Now I looked at the design of the
whole CPU cooling apparatus. Basically the CPU fan is drawing air to cool the
CPU into the heat sinks and if any dust particles are in the air it was getting
trapped against the CPU and motherboard! This is an Intel 3.2 GB P4 478 pin
system but I imagine this may happen to many other CPU’s.

Now I will build my AMD 64 bit
3200 system and move the 3.2 GB to one of my other systems as I said in the post
before eventually but now I can wait a bit and take my time and work on other
projects.

The lesson learned CLEAN and BLOW
OUT the CPU FAN otherwise it can cause your CPU to OVERHEAT!!

 

May 19, 2005
by dhoytt
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Main system bites the Dust!!

My system I built just in October bit the dust!! I cannot remember any of my dozens of systems I have built for myself or the 100’s I have built for others ever doing like this!! I knew an older hard drive I was using as a boot drive needed changing but a SCSI drive you can ride for a while since it will move the data off bad sectors.
What happened was the last week the system kept cutting off for no apparent reason. There were no error messages in the event logs besides some data referring to the video card. So in the middle of updating the video drivers the system bites it for good.
Well now I’ going for a screaming no holds bar system!! I already have the Adaptec 39160 and a Seagate SCSI 73GB 10k rpm hard drive for a boot drive. I will add a 146 GB 10k rpm SCSI HD.
This will go along with maybe another 36 GB and 50 GB SCSI hard drives already on the system and replace 2 other 36 GB drives and my 47 GB drive on that system.
I am going to go with a 64 bit CPU on this build. When I get my warranty replacement parts for what went out on the system I will use that to build and replace one of my Linux systems or it may become a windows backup music server or test windows system.
The data is good and in shape so no issues there. Now with the beauty of SCSI I can have all 8 drives connected while I transfer data. I need to reduce the number of spindles on this system any way. I was just hoping to save this task for later and also benefit from the new CPU’s coming out in a few months time.
Oh well another thing to accomplish in the long list that will push a few projects out a bit.

May 12, 2005
by dhoytt
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Still Down Sizing and Improving House

The computer room is totally reconfigured! I have two portable stations on wheels for my laptops and their peripherals. I moved my main system to one corner and consolidated my two racks into one and placed that in the closet and added the tape library in the rack as well. I placed one of my UNIX systems in the closet unracked to run the library since it has a nice differential interface but I may decide to run the library with Windows or Linux instead.
I also moved my large screen TV out of the living room into the den where it actually looks better. I think I will also move my bar into the den. I am thinking of having the living room host to my vinyl turntables since placing them on a table in the computer room ends up crowding the room. I’m also going to place the dart board in the living room and possibly a futball table. I moved the smaller TV and entertainment set into the living room and will move the bookshelf with my vinyl albums in the living room as well.
I am looking to place another couch and beanbag type seating in the den as well.
Then outside need to get the front garden in order and weed the vegetable garden I put in. Now the pool is in shape and I need to decide if I should start a pool service. I think I will since that will free me from that since I have so much to do now.
Well we will see how it goes since I have not had a day off since November except Christmas & New Years day.
I still then need to tile the kitchen and bathrooms and trim a few places of the hardwood.

April 12, 2005
by dhoytt
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Late Night Snack, Shrimp & Crab

Going to pick up a few items at the grocery and spotted snow & alaskan crabs and couldn’t resist making a late night seafood snack! Shrimp crabs boiled in red pepper seasoning and dipped in garlic butter!!! With slow/mellow jams playing in the ears and topped with a nice scotch!

April 11, 2005
by dhoytt
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Garden Ready, Test Server up

I have my vegetable garden ready to accept plants in the backyard. I went over the garden 3 separate times with a rototiller to get the ground ready.
The first time I ran the rototiller just to loosen the soil after turning over the soil with a shovel to find out the soil’s condition. The second time I turned the soil over again with a shovel trying to break the fine tree roots from the pine trees in my neighbor’s backyard. These roots were spread all over and turned my nice loose soil close to the consistency of clay. The second pass with a rototiller chopped up the roots I broke manually with the shovel. The third time I ran the rotoliller was to further break up the roots as well as mix in some new soil plant food.
I also went ahead and re-planted some strawberry plants I had removed and placed in planters to get the soil ready. I also planted some tomato plants, Ace Tomatoes & San Francisco Fog Tomatoes. I planted some cayenne & habanera peppers as well as cucumbers.
I still have some other plants to get and place in the garden.
In the midst of everything else I have going on have my new test server up and ready to test features such as the new scrolling play list etc for my music page.

April 6, 2005
by dhoytt
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Getting Busy In The Yard…

Did the work at home thing so that I could step right outside after work and get into the garden. Took the new rototiller out of the box and put it to immediate work in the vegetable garden bed. Did that and dug up around a young almond tree that I let stay in the vegetable garden bed as a separation point but needs to go now!
Besides the rototilling and digging I had to use my new weed eater as well to get the grass growing up along the planks of my raised garden. I then was able to trim along my west fence where the bushes and trees hang over from my neighbor’s yard with my electric hedge clippers. Now that my electrical issue is clearly solved I can get out there and get a few additional moments in the yard and see clearly in the kitchen!!
Yes, I was able to use my outdoor patio lights for the first time in a while thanks to my electrician former neighbor who returned from his trek overseas.
Didn’t get much done on the web site today except lining up music.

April 5, 2005
by dhoytt
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Spring Cleaning etc..

I am getting ready on the house ready for the warmer weather and streamlining some more as well. You know the saying “out with the old and in with the new”.
Well to some extent I am doing that as an ongoing process that was slowed by other events out of my control.
I am revamping the old computer room, the living room looks quite different already and the rest of the house is following along.
I still have my vegetable garden to get going as well as cutting down and hopefully re-planting some trees in the front and getting some ferns and other shade plants in my front gardens. This year instead of manual labor with the shovel as I usually do I am using a rototiller to save time since my weekends are not free at this point.
Once I have all changes made I will bring in home cleaning service/maid service and just start enjoying and traveling a bit. Then come on back and dive into my side businesses.

March 14, 2005
by dhoytt
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Misperceptions of People

Here we are in the so called “Age of Information” yet morally and intellectually we are still using variations of the same superstitions of the past thousands of years as evident by the perceptions and opinions we carry around. I will not use some of the phrases thrown around since it will directly offend some. You know the karma will get you! (oops)
We ignore facts and rely on perceptions borne of class and ignorance. We have the data at our fingertips but ignore the facts and stick to whim in all phases of life and all social and racial lines. The sad thing is people cease to hone the powers of perception beyond the formative years. We make some small adjustments but mostly make the same judgments in different arenas.
In other words we will not make the exact same mistake over again but will repeat the same error over and over. For instance when you were young you may have played a lot of childish games of some type and thought to try something daring but it didn’t work out and actually turned out to be foolish. Well you will never make that mistake again!
What if the same type of logic you used then to make that foolish error during the game leads you to do something even more foolish later in life? Yet your perception of yourself is because you have a job, children or other responsibilities is that you are more mature person. Yet your baseline logic and actions have not changed, you are making the same mistakes in a different arena. Have you actually matured or just gotten older?
Peope let’s use our powers of perception more fully and look at actions and facts not BS.
This category is for random thoughts for the main site. Random thoughts don’t mean they are not relevant!

February 24, 2005
by dhoytt
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Hitting The Weights In The Garage….Again

Once again as I moved items out of the house into the garage and then out of
the garage I cleared up enough space to get my weight’s out in position so I can
go from station to station and get my weight lifting routine in.

I usually hit my legs first doing "leg curls" alternating with "leg
press" on my leg press machine. I then hit my "leg extensions" for my
quads alternated with "seated toe raises".

Then I hit the upper body doing the "bench press" alternated with
"stomach crunches" on my "roman chair".

From there it alternates in order but I always get in the following:
– Pull downs for triceps
– Military Press for shoulders
– Dumbbell fly’s for the chest
– Curls
– 30 minutes of hitting the stationary bike and I don’t mean slowly
cruising!

Because I got a late start I didn’t hit the bike tonight. I had to set my
weights back up the way I like them so there was a lot of adjusting going on I
will not have to do the next time.

The reason I hit lower body and upper body on the same day is because on the
days I don’t hit the weights I really hit cardiovascular really hard.
This is how I have always worked out and it really is good for strength,
stamina and endurance.

Plus you really get good quick results if you can stand the initial hit your
body feels for 2 -3 weeks and tough it out! You have to eat well and at the
right times of the days when doing this at least 75% of the time. I know this
and still have a hard time because when hitting the runs I go on your legs feel
like lead and its a real fight making the last part of a 5 – 7 mile run or
finishing off a late night work out during those second and third weeks.

Later I mix some other exercises in when I hit a certain level and on the
days I do cardio I also do push-ups and stomach crunches right
after the run. This is also the time my allergies are at their
worst so that’s another foe to fight.