Marginally OT: Gb SOHO switch recommendations

[attributions elided]

I had a nice laptop with built in AC supply that I *should* have kept for this sort of thing. My current laptops see so little use that it is a PITA to drag one out, etc.

The machine in question (a 1U server) is sitting on top of

*another* (different type) 1U server (that does work). So, what I typically do is just run a serial cable to the other server, boot *it* and use it to talk to the "reluctant" machine.

But, it's highly unlikely that I'll be able to *solve* the problem over a serial console. In which case, I may have to boot from a CD. Machine doesn't have provisions for a CD drive so this means opening it up and kludging a CD into the system.

Opening it up means removing the Unisite which sits on top of it. Etc.

(Did I mention how much I want a BASEMENT??? :> )

I used to wonder why small server farms were littered with monitors and keyboards (and KVMs). I now appreciate how much *simpler* it is to troubleshoot problems when you can just "power up" a KNOWN means of communicating with the machine!

Gives you lots of respect for folks who have to do all this remotely, lights-out-management, etc.

Ha! Yes, exactly! (though I regularly catch hell for it running down the hall -- "why can't you plug it in to one of these outlets you've got in the wall?") I used to use a pair of "PLC ethernet modems" to skip the long cable. But, the cable is just *so* much simpler (and more predictable!)

What the heck is up with your leg? It's been a "problem" for quite some time... (or, none of our business? Or, have I simply *forgotten*? :< )

Yes, but 3 ft "extra" leaves a big service loop dangling down onto is under the work table. I've already had problems arranging power cords, etc. (which are routed *up* to the underside of the tables for those devices under it) so that they don't interfere with the paper paths on printers, etc. And, trying to *work* on anything under there has you tempting your mortality! (I can see how firemen in collapsing buildings becoming entangled in wire/cable would be seriously at risk!)

That;s pretty respectable. I'll give it a closer look. I've got a call in to a local "broker" to keep an eye open for things like this for me.

I made an entertainment center based on a similar idea (all the interconnect cables hidden inside a false back -- along with power strips, etc.).

I just have too much "stuff" to support too many different sorts of applications. :< Things should get easier once I retire and can focus on a narrower range of projects!

Of course, moving to someplace with a basement (or two) would similarly solve the problem! :>

Tell me about it. I have a 1U Dell server with no CDROM drive or floppy. The IDE ports are all part of a RAID and that prevents you from using one bay, unless you want to run a smaller array of drives. Somewhere, I have a box of 'Promise' ATA 66 PCI interface boards that were sold to put larger drives in early Pentium systems and I need to find at least one of those cards. The other Dell server is 2U. It has a CDROM drive, and uses SCSI drives. I am going to use one for a shop server, and sell the other. I need a legal copy of Server 2003 & at least 5 CAL for the one I sell. I will be running a Linux server & Joomla on the shop server.

I also have a Dell 4U 3450 server and several old Dell desktop servers.

Maybe? :)

I use to use a USB wireless adapter, but it was a PITA to install & uninstall the software a dozen times a day. There is no one here to complain about loose cables.

I have Diabeties & circulation problems. A Samsung LCD monitor fell off my compuuter desk a couple years ago, and sliced most of the skin off the fronts of my lower legs. The idoit 'engineers' used a stamped piece of aluminum for trim on the bottom front, and it had a razor sharp edge.

The wonds on my right leg closed up a few months ago, but I still have a couple square inches of weeping sores on my left leg. I lost almost a square foot of skin that day, and it was almost two years that I couldn't wear the compression stockings so I had large patches of dark gray, lumpy skin. Now that i can, the VA doctor refuses to get me the type I need, becasue "Nobody likes that type". They worked, and these don't. :(

I screw the outlet strips under workbenches & desks to help keep the power cables out of the way. HF sells a nice steel 12 outlet strip for $25.

There are three of that model on Ebay, starting at $100 and going up.

Basements are very rare in this part of Floirda. That's why I bought a house with a 1200 Sq Ft detached garage. :)

--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

[attributions elided]

Exactly! IIRC, this is a Dell box as well.

This particular box has a single PCI slot intended for one of those *tiny* PCI cards -- like a tiny NIC or similar (I'm not fluent in PC-ese to know the various form factors). E.g., I have a 2port USB card in there (the "slot" is only large enough for two USB connectors -- to give you an idea of the size/shape of the card).

The box was initially designed to run some specific version of Windows. So, the documented mechanism for building it followed the typical MS style of "do this, this and this" with little explanation of what was actually happening.

I pulled the motherboard out of the case -- still connected to the power supply, etc. This allowed me to put a *small* PCI video card in that funky slot without having to worry about the mechanical interference issues that would have prevented this if the motherboard was still in place. Then, I could see what the machine was *trying* to do as it booted.

Eventually, I tricked it into accepting a CD-ROM using the same sort of approach. And, was able to get a *BSD installed on it.

I suspect something has gone wonky -- maybe fsck failed and it won't go to multiuser? Maybe the disk failed? Hard to troubleshoot something with just a front panel indicator lamp! :>

I just retired an old PE2500. Not very speedy but incredibly reliable. Over the years, I think it fried one power supply (triple redundant) but, aside from that, can't say I ever had any problems with the beast! I will miss all of its PCI slots...

Problem, here, is anything that is not in the "living area" gets eaten alive by the heat. And, the floorplan here is very "open" so there are few places to *hide* things :<

Less goes wrong with copper wire! You don't have to wonder if some piece of software got mangled, etc.

Yes, I recall that.

Ah, OK. That was the missing piece!

Bummer. A friend got her foot caught in the "retractable step" of a city bus. Essentially tried to cut it off at the ankle. Took her more than a year for the wound to close (they had seriously consider amputation on several occasions). She now has that behind her -- and a recurrence of lung cancer.

Getting old is not fun.

Yikes! "Sliced off" by the monitor? Or, just "damaged" in the accident?

And you can't use a different doctor? (or, buy them with your own cash?)

[good luck, regardless!]

Ditto. Mine are 6 outlets -- but I put two under each table. So, there are power cords heading *up* to things on top and *down* to things beneath.

We looked at a property with a nice, big detached garage (4 bay -- in addition to the 2 bay attached to the house). Would have been a great place to keep my "stuff" without worrying about household clutter, prying eyes, etc.

But, the property was too big (2-3 acres), too many things to maintain (pool, hot tub, 2 outlying buildings, etc.) and it was a bit too far outside of town to be convenient. We're currently about as far out -- not far at all! -- as we would care to be. We can still make it to a hospital in ~12 minutes OBEYING TRAFFIC SIGNALS whereas the other property would have added at least half an hour to that trip. In the years since we looked at the property, that commute has only increased for folks in that area -- with little chance of any "amenities" (hospitals, etc.) being developed out there.

I can understand no basement when water table is probably that high. But, here, it's just a silly choice. Basements (more specifically, "below grade living space") would

*dramatically* decrease cooling costs with little concern for frost heave, etc.

We'll keep that in mind as we look for our next "region" to settle in...

Gosh, 7k hours doesn't seem like much unless they are torturing the poor little beasties. My work colleague has a few Viewsonic monitors going for about 7 years, 24hr/day with no problems. I guess the Chinese have won out selling their defective electrolytic caps.

Are they *lit* for all those hours? Or, "sleeping"? In a business setting, 7KHrs is 2-3 years -- which is probably "enough" for most IT guys (they want to replace stuff every 3 years, anyway -- it's not *their* money! :> )

(Actually, that 2-3 yr estimate is probably a little low. Figure 30K PoHrs is 30000/(24*365) = 3.4 years so they are probably using them for 2000 hrs/calendar year (a nominal "work year")

PCIe

I formatted the drives in an external drive housing before installing them in the server.

The 3450 has three power supplies, but will run on one.

Or for sissies. :)

The skin was rolled off in large chunks. They seeped plasma for over three months before any part of it started to bleed. That's why it takes so long to heal.:(

The VA doesn't let you chose your doctor in a specialty clinic and they are $80 a pair, and yo go through six pair per year. :(

Thanks. :)

I also put outlet strips under shelves on workbenches, for my test equipment.

This is a half acre, with six buildings. I spent most of the morning working on my well. The tank was 'waterlogged', and there was no place to drain it so I removed the pressure gauge and connected a portable air compressor in its place to blow the water out of the 42 gal tank. It took a half hour to flush the tank from that 1/8" NPT port.

I wanted an abandoned missile silo but thanks to the latest treaties, any retired silos have to be filled with concrete. :( At one time, al they had to do was weld the launch doors shut & remove the hydraulics.

--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

I *think* PCIe is different (?). Dunno, too many different flavors of alphabet soup in the PC world :> This is an example of the form factor I'm speaking of. I.e., you can't

*fit* anything larger than this in the space provided:

Ditto the PE2500. Two power *cords*, three supplies -- but only one of each needs to be "functioning".

Unfortunately, it is a *big*/heavy beast -- too much fan noise, too much floor space, etc.

Yeah. I find the toughest part of getting old is "knowing dead people" :-/ Five or six last year. This year doesn't seem like its going to be much better...

(A friend is fighting ALS currently. )

Ick!

Ah, OK (I have no experience, there).

Yikes! What are they made of, gold?

I don't have any shelves. The tables are made from 2" thick solid core *doors* (i.e., you can sit on them without them sagging). Previously, I had a *pair* of 75 pound monitors on each table (hence the "heavy duty" nature)

I had thought of that at one time. And an old lighthouse at another. As well as an old *schoolhouse* (IMO, the *most* ideal! Imagine setting up a project in one of ~20 classrooms... then, moving down the hall 20 ft for *another* project in *another* classroom -- and, being able to leave each project "undisturbed" in the state it happened to be without having to make space to work on the *next*!)

(sigh) The real solution is to "have less stuff!" :-/

Yup. After ~48 hours moving looping packets at a good clip (just two nodes, though), no real variation in ping RTTs! definitely no outliers to suggest the switch was "reset" for a second or more!

I'll replace the remaining caps and consider this one "fixed"! If only *all* problems were this easy...

I would guestimate they are lit over 5000 hrs/yr. There's a lot of hours on those monitors.

Really? How so? That's ~15 hours per day, 7 days per week. Even if folks are glued to their machines (thereby not giving the screen saver/power down logic a chance to see it as idle), AND don;t turn off power to their machines at the end of the work day, I wouldn't expect to see more than 9 or 10 hours where the inverters are actually *powering* their CCFL loads -- more on the ~2000 hr/year range.

Even at home where (my) machines rarely are powered *off*, the monitors spend < 10 hrs "lit" per day (I have the sleep timer set pretty short so even a trip to the bathroom finds the monitor blanked on my return). Granted, mine see

365 day use (vs. ~220 days for most "offices") but that's still a far cry from 5000 hrs/yr.

"half-height" PCI

--
?? 100% natural

--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to news@netfront.net

You have the on times pin pointed pretty accurately. These computers and monitors don't sleep and see less than 4 hours of off time per day.

The idiots and fanbois tend to be the outliars.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Well first what exactly do you mean by "switch"? Would a store and forward hub do the job for you? Can you tell the difference?

?-)

the

after

like

expensive

Hmmm. Damn few SOHO routers actually can do port forwarding at all. So which model was it (i am assuming that they are no longer available now).

?-)

the

like

TEG-S80G

And both with seriously with "U" shaped distributions.

?-)