I’m so tempted to buy one of the barebones kits they have on Scan’s Today Only at the minute. So sorely tempted.

I want a spare machine that’s fairly up to date, and is reliable, unlike the one (George) which is currently in bits on the floor in my room.

If I do it, it’ll be some time today.

Technorati Tags: computer, impulse buying, new, ordering, scan

Thanks to one of the lads at work, I’ve managed to update Beastbits’s video card from a Geforce 4 to an FX 5200.

The reason I bought the GF4 in the first place, was to set up a PVR machine. Sadly, I became lazy, and abandoned the project in favour of setting up the Windowcam. Over the weekend, I decided to abandon the idea of a windowcam, in favour of something more useful. First it was just going to be a media server, so all of my music, etc. can rest on there. But, I got the video card, and I thought I might as well make use of the TV capture card, and the currently redundant GF4.

So, I’ll be clearing the machine of all of the Windowcam images, and seeing if I can get my hands on some decent software.

Bungle spontaneously rebooted on Sunday, losing the fantastic uptime it once had. Never mind, eh?

Technorati Tags: beastbits, computer, geforce, nividia, video card

Beastbits got a new HDD and caddy fitted. Oh what a carry on.

Received the parcel this morning. Realised I’d forgotten to order a SATA cable. Great start. So I had to get one from in town.

Fitting the HDD in the caddy was a piece of piss. And much easier than I thought it was going to be… exactly why I thought it was going to be difficult escapes me. But fitting the caddy to the case turned out to be a laughing matter.

Pushed it in first, and noticed it would only go half way. That was interesting. Why?

I examined around the case edge, in case there was something stopping it. And then I discovered what WAS stopping it… the motherboard, of all things. What a stupidly designed case.

So, I placed it in the slot above. And the power lead wouldn’t reach it. So at the minute, I’m left with the caddy sticking out of the case, with the motherboard stopping it moving any further. Not sure what can be done for that.

Now, time to attempt the data cable. What could be difficult about that, I thought? Famous last words. Two large capacitors on the TV card were blocking it. The first one was in use. So out comes the telly card. Too early to say if it’ll find a home in another machine.

The whole network got an upgrade, going from the 10Mb/s restriction the old hub had, to 100Mb/s. Definitely noticeable, and makes VNC pretty decent.

Technorati Tags: beastbits, caddy, hdd, new, sata

Complete software reinstall of George, currently serving as the Windowcam PC

Reason was that under Win ME, Tight VNC kept crashing

Ditched redundant Linux partition, drive is now entirely NTFS

Model number of network cards in there is DFE 528 TX. When going to the US D-Link site, it won’t pick up drivers. It’s only on the UK site.

Chipset is RTL 8139 so it’s piss easy to find drivers anyway.

George does have a problem though. Something’s loose. If the machine is moved, it’ll lock up totally (no mouse/keyboard movement)

Not a problem now, but something to note if it does fuck up in the future

Suspect video card to be honest

Technorati Tags: complog, computer, faulty, george, reinstall