Systems
From Terminal23wiki
So, what sort of systems do I have at my disposal?
spare parts
FrozenQ PC Mods Liquid Fusion Reservoir - UV Cathode - UV Blue Helix <-absolutely gorgeous! but I couldn't fit it in on this build
Danger Den / Laing DDC-12V Center Inlet 18 Watt Version 3.2 <-has 3/8" OD barbs, which is why this is now an extra part
1x Sapphire Radeon 9500 256MB AGP with heatspreader (no fan)
Swiftech MCR320 Triple 120mm Black Radiator <-not this exact one, but same brand/type
Swiftech MCRES internal resevoir <-not this one, but earlier rev with no bottom port and strange-sized thread on top port
various clamps, tubing, cables, screws, and all those parts you just accumulate over time
shared equipment
2011 workhorse laptop (IG88)
My aged Gateway doesn't get much use these days, and I'm not willing to buy into either tablet camp (Android/Apple) completely, because I don't trust either one with my privacy or security, respectively, so I figured I can pony up for a new laptop. I wanted a laptop that isn't a pushover like a netbook, but also isn't a desktop gaming rig replacement. Mainly, it can play games on the go if I want, but will last perfectly fine on a battery while doing generic stuff or playing bluray movies. So I settled for the perfectly positioned Sager NP8156 via xoticpc.com. I upgraded the basic stuff, so it came in at a respectable $1600.
15.6" FHD 16:9 "Matte Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Anti-Glare Screen
nVidia GT 555M 2048MB PCI-Express GDDR3 DX11 with Optimus™ Technology
6X Blue-Ray Read/8X DVDRW Super Multi Combo Drive
750GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache)
2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-2520M, 2.5-3.2GHz, (32nm, 3MB L3 cache) (PGA-988 socket)
8,192MB DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS)
2011 Nook Color x2
I have 2 Nook Colors at my disposal. One is auto-nootered which slips Android-like capability next to the default Nook software; most importantly it lets me install apps from the general Android market. Awesome! My second Nook Color is a stock system that I keep updated to see what B&N decides to open up on their own. Someday, I feel the Nook Color by default will be as powerful as a rooted Nook Color, but so far not quite yet. And at $250, it's a great buy, even for 2 of them for various purposes!
2010 gaming system (onyx)
Time for a new gaming system! Honestly, it's also time for a new day-to-day system, so my 2008 system will be dropped down to day-to-day. This year I've realized I don't really upgrade pieces in a system as much as I usually plan to do. I also find myself better off financially than in previous years, so likewise my build this year is a bit beefier up front. This will also mark my foray into Windows 7. Nonetheless, I'm still not totally breaking the bank, and I am leaving the easy parts upgradable, for instance I can always opt for more RAM or an SSD HD later on. This system is limited purpose and meant to be a gaming machine primarily, but also do some DVD/CD ripping/burning, online banking (but not general web browsing!), and even host some virtual machines for testing/research purposes. Any "always-on" VMs will still be on my dedicated VM box.
Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core CPU
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (dual-channel memory)
G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Memory
Corsair Obsidian 800D CC800DW Black Full Tower Case
SAPPHIRE 100281SR Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Graphics Card
CORSAIR CMPSU-850HX 850W Modular Power Supply
LITE-ON Black SATA CD/DVD Burner
LG Black 10X Internal Blu-ray Optical Drive UH10LS20
2x SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" HD
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
extras and water cooling parts
CORSAIR Cooling Hydro Series CWCH50-1 CPU Water Cooler
NZXT 9.84" 24 Pin Motherboard Extension Cable Model CB-24P
2x Scythe S-FLEX SFF21D 120mm Case Fan
XSPC Bay Reservoir Pump Combo <-tight fit, but not bad so far
Swiftech MCR220 "Quiet Power" Dual 120mm Radiator (MCR220-QP)
Danger Den DD-5870 ATI 5870 VGA Liquid Cooling Block (GPU-6897)
Koolance G1/4" Brass Inline Drain Valve Fitting (VLV-XTSPL) <-superb quality!
Stainless Steel Shielded Hose Clamp for 5/8" OD to 3/4" OD Tubing
PrimoChill Dye Bomb - UV Electric Blue
2x Black SATA III 24" Cable w/ Latch - Right Angle to Straight (SCIII-24A-BK)
2x 12" Cold Cathode Kit (Dual Ready) - Ultra Bright UV
Lamptron 4 Channel High Output Aluminum Cathode Inverter
2009 Asus Eee PC Netbook
Update 5/2011: Even knowing the role that a netbook plays, i.e. small footprint that you browse the web on and do other light tasks, I found myself not often turning to the netbook for a whole lot. If I knew I'd be waiting somewhere, I often opted for a handheld gaming system rather than a netbook. I upgraded the RAM and swapped in an Ubuntu build, but I still found it underpowered for web video (one of my bigger uses was to watch cooking videos in the kitchen). Now that tablets and smartphones have stormed onto the scene, I really don't see myself going back to heavily using the netbook for anything except maybe as a disposable kitchen aid/music player. Still, the device was fun and I really did/do like the form factor; only problem is tablets get just a tiny bit more portable than this, without sacrificing much performance/feature.
2008 gaming system (golem2)
This box has been designed to be upgradable for the next 3 years, and immediately DX10 compatible, without completely breaking my budget. Minus the toys and monitor, I'm spending about $1000 for the rest. I'll splurge on the motherboard because upgrading a mobo is just not cool. The motherboard will support quad cores up through anything Intel is putting out to date (or will for the next year), can use DDR2 1200, and supports dual ATI cards in Crossfire mode. I'll also be building my own water cooling system rather than a kit, since none of the kits seemed satisfactory enough for the price. This box is being built in anticipation of Starcraft 2. I also don't usually cheap out on the case, as I do like some frills and look (window, black lighting, etc). Currently I am running 32-bit WinXP, but plan to get hold of Vista 64bit to take full advantage of the hardware and utilize things like DX10. I may just dual-boot both with a second hard drive.
Update 5/2011: This box is now my daily Linux box after I built Onyx to be my current gaming system. This guy still works great, is well-powered, and quiet as anything else I have. Of note, StarCraft 2 took 2 extra years to come out, after I built this box.
Logitech G15 keyboard
Antec TPQ-850 850watt PSU
LG L226WTY-BF Black 22" 2ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor
Lian-Li PC-65B W Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower
Asus P5E LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard - up to DDR2-1200 1333/1600 FSB
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz 1333 FSB
Mushkin 4GB (4 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - 4s cas latency
Diamond Viper 3870PE4512SB Radeon HD 3870 512MB PCI-E 2.0
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA-300 Hard Drive
Lite-On Black SATA DVD Burner with LightScribe
Creative Sound Blaster SB0570 Audigy SE 7.1
AeroCool FP-01 55-in-1 Card Reader w/Flip-up LCD Screen
18" SATA II cable UV blue (locking latch would be tight on this mobo if more than 3 devices needed)
Logitech Rumblepad 2
Logitech Precision Gamepad 2
dual 12" cold cathode tube UV lights
water cooling parts
D-TEK Fuzion universal waterblock
EK-FC38770 GPU waterblock for ATI HD3870 (UV blue acrylic cover)
Swiftech MCR-220 resevoir
Swiftech MCP655 pump (aka Laing D5 Inline 12V pump)
Swiftech MCRES-micro resevoir
Arctic Cooling MX-2 thermal
some 7/16 tubing, clear
some 120mm fans (x2)
some coolant/dye additive
various fittings, fill port, grommets, and other stuff to support the water system
~2002 gaming system (golem)
This was my previous gaming machine, and has had an updated water cooling system installed, but has largely been switched off and unused. This was my first "real" gaming system that I built, which was later relegated to the role of daily Linux box until next to Golem2 for gaming. Since Onyx came on board, this box hasn't had a use.
AMD XP 2200+ CPU
MSI GeForce 4200Ti graphics card
200 GB HD
2 GB RAM
Epox 8K3A+ motherboard
vmware box
Got the core of this system cheap, so just kinda slapping parts around it and doing minor upgrades. The mobo is ATX and while it has an AGP slot, it is really just a modded PCI-to-AGP slot and not a real PCI-e slot, so using this for gaming is out. That's fine, and I think I might build this to be a dedicated vmware box. More about the mobo: Socket 939 (AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX), compatible with 3.3V graphics cards (Radeon 9500) but not newer ones like 1.5V (Radeon 9600), up to 2GB DDR400/333/266 RAM (2 slots).
1x ECS K8T890-A Socket 939 motherboard
1x Athlon XP 64 3500+
1x Samsung DVD-W/CD-RW w LightScribe SH-S182 (IDE)
1x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA drive (jumper switched from 1.5gbs to 3.0gbs position)
2x Kingston 1GB DDR400 SDRAM
1x Enermax 485W PSU
1x Diamond Radeon X550 256MB 128-bit PCI-E
1x Lian-Li black aluminum mid-tower case (had to repin the 3 pin Power LED connector to 2 pin)
1x 18" SATA II blue cable
1x 18" IDE 2 connector clear cable
Gateway M505B2, Pentium M 2.4Ghz, 512MB RAM, 100GB HD, ATI Radeon graphics card laptop with Ubuntu 6.06 and dual-boot into Windows XP Pro
This is my main laptop that I use daily, almost entirely in Ubuntu.
Dell Optiplex, 512MB RAM, 80GB HD with attached external firewire hard drives, runs Windows XP Pro
My main server and file storage box.
Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 333 (PC 2700) - Retail
Gateway Pentium 400Mhz, 256 MB RAM, 200GB HD, dual 100mbps NICs, running Ubuntu 6.10
My old server that I used for about 5 years to host my stuff. Has since been retired and dropped down to a less critical role and bitch box. Not really sure what I will do with it, but I might drop another hard drive in it and a NIC or two and turn it into a Snort or Squid firewall box.
Toshiba laptop running Windows XP Pro
Got this laptop in exchange for some WoW gold. Makes for an excellent Windows-only and livecd testing laptop.
Dell Latitude laptop, currently running BackTrack2 local install
Small latitude laptop that is about 4 years old but still works great. No internal cd, which makes the physical footprint of these older latitudes amazingly compact and small. Makes running a Livecd difficult on the road, but the low specs are perfect for Windows 2000 Pro or perm Linux installs. I love carting this laptop to hotspot with a PCMCIA wireless card due to the small footprint and light weight.
Dell Axim X5 PocketPC
An old PocketPC with AmbiCom wireless CF card; really flaky but can do some wireless scanning and analysis in a pinch. Otherwise that's all I use it for.
2x Dell Latitude laptop
Another older laptop in good working condition. I tend to use one as a network device console machine, and the other is more of a bitch laptop that I mess with.
Really old Dell Latitude laptop
This one is about 6 years old and is a bulkier black model where even the ethernet port is a PCMCIA card. I don't use this much now, but it can run Windows 2000 Pro and Linux stuff if I wanted it to. I am, however, running out of uses for it.
2x Compaq Precision small desktop machines, 500Mhz, 256MB RAM
These boxes tend to be test machines for various installs, or my "victim" machines when simulating a network or systems to attack or monitor.
HP something, 500Mhz, 128MB RAM
Another misc machine used just for testing or temporary things.
