Charles Nadeau: My hardware

Continuing the conversion to Gentoo

Wed, 11 Jun 2003 04:29:43 GMT

I finished installing Gentoo Linux on 3 of my old Linux boxes (2 to go). It runs very smoothly. I am really impressed by Gentoo Linux. I am upgrading my OpenMosix kernel to 2.4.20-3 and I face some little quirks. Hopefully they'll be resolved soon.
I also finally configured succesfully distcc. Not every ebuilds use it: MySQL doesn't but ntp does. I guess it's a case-by-case type of thing. Hoepully X and KDE will take advantage of it otherwise it will take a week again to compile everything...
I'll get one more used PC tonight: an IBM PG300GL. It will likely replace one of my old Digital PC5100. Or it may be added to my cluster. I'll see...
I'll probably have to go on a business trip next week, to be confirmed.

Lilo.conf on an HP Vectra VL

Thu, 29 May 2003 10:24:47 GMT

I am having problem with lilo on an old HP Vectra VL. If anybody has a functional lilo.conf to share with me, let me know.

Benchmarking the SX6000 new drivers/firmware.

Tue, 20 May 2003 02:42:36 GMT

I did some tests using ATTO to check if upgrading the firmware/drivers on my SX6000 would speed up thing. The answer is yes! It improved the write speed a lot (700%) for small blocks and quite a bit (50%) for large one. The read situation improved a bit but not as dramatically as for
the write. This upgrade is advised!

Updated drivers and firmware of my SX6000

Mon, 19 May 2003 11:44:56 GMT

I finally upgraded the drivers and firmware of my SX6000. It seems stable. I am testing it now by moving 20GB of files from my RAID-5 array, controlled by the SX6000, to my software based RAID-0 array, controlled by my Adaptec 29160, over 1000Base-T. Data flows normally. I'll do some more formal speed test tomorrow. Preliminary test showed me that writing is a bit faster.

Upgrading firmware/drivers of my SX6000

Mon, 19 May 2003 06:02:02 GMT

I'll soon upgrade the drivers (version 1.10.0.41) and firmware (version 1.20.0.1b) of my SX6000. Anybody had good/bad experience doing it?

Edirol DR-7C with Adobe Premiere?

Mon, 19 May 2003 02:27:40 GMT

Is there a way to use the Edirol DR-7C controler with Adobe Premiere under Windows XP? If you find how, let me know...

A broken fan

Sun, 04 May 2003 11:26:42 GMT

Another hardware problem today: A fan on one of the SCSI hard drive of my RAID 0 array let me down. After two years of almost 24/7 operation, it's not that bad. I'll buy another one tomorrow morning.

I upgraded my network infrastructure

Thu, 10 Apr 2003 12:52:29 GMT

I finally installed my brand new Gigabit switch. It wasn't complicated in itself: I had to disable the onboard NIC of 2 of my boxes (my S2466N-4M and my K7SEM), remove the cross-connect cable linking their Intel 1000Base-T cards and add a network card to my old workstation (based on an Asus P2B-DS). The only problem I had was when I powered back the Asus one and tried to install the drivers. I couldn't because the card wasn't seated well-enough in its PCI slot. I re-installed it and everything was fine on the hardware side. On two of my machines I had to modify hosts and lmhosts and configure the drivers to use DHCP. After that it was up and running. Informal benchmark showed transfer speed around 240Mbps (when copying files from a RAID-5 to a RAID-0 across the network)
I also installed one more WD1200JB to my main workstation because of the strange noise I was hearing last week. I was hoping to mirror the disk I already have but I just can't. I followed carefully the instructions in the help file but when it says to right click the volume and select "Add mirror", the "Add mirror" is greyed. I tried through the command line utility (diskpart) but when I issue the command to create the mirror, it tells me that this functionallity isn't available for my version of XP (XP Professional). I am sure it can be done. If you know how to do it, let me know...

Gigabit switch

Wed, 09 Apr 2003 00:24:46 GMT

I bought a 1000Base-T switch yesterday. I'll be able to put my 3 fastest machine on this switch (the 4th port will be connected to my router) and speed up the data transfert. It's only a 4-ports but the price was right. I looked at 8-ports switch in January but the price was still a bit too high.
I'll install it tonight and will post my findings.

Failing disk?

Sat, 05 Apr 2003 03:37:03 GMT

Since Tuesday, one of my hard drive is making a funny clicketing noise. It is the one in my main machine (the Tyan-based one). It really freaks me out! Tomorrow I'll mount one more WD1200JB to mirror the (maybe) ailling drive just in case. I don't want this drive to crash. I do back up every night but still, re-mounting installing the whole system would take way too much time. To be continued...

Linux UDMA

Mon, 17 Mar 2003 02:23:25 GMT

Linux UDMA. hdparm -d1 /dev/hda turns on UDMA for /dev/hda. (It wasn't on by default for me).

To test to see if it's working, use hdparm -Tt /dev/hda. If you only get 3 megs/sec when reading, either UDMA is off or you are using a really old drive ;-)

Comment

[Second p0st]

Useful

CDRW under Debian Linux

Sat, 15 Mar 2003 10:09:53 GMT

Getting my CD writer working. The aforementioned nForce2 box has a CD writer. Finally got around to getting it going today. It turns out that to get it going under Linux, you have to fool the kernel into thinking it's actually a SCSI drive

If you have to do this, the following script will make life easier for you. Save it as /usr/bin/cdburn, and from now on use cdburn instead of cdrecord.

BTW try cdburn -scanbus first to make sure that it works. If you get an error about not finding /dev/pg* or you needing to be root, try rebooting or removing all the modules and running it again. It didn't work for me until I tried running cdrecord in the experimental ATAPI mode, which locked the system up, forcing me to reboot.

#!/bin/bash



# http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin/tips/src/debian-cdrw.html



rmmod ide-cd

rmmod cdrom

modprobe scsi_mod

modprobe sg

modprobe ide-scsi

modprobe cdrom

modprobe sr_mod



cdrecord $*



rmmod sr_mod

rmmod cdrom

rmmod ide-scsi

rmmod sg

rmmod scsi_mod

modprobe cdrom

modprobe ide-cd

Comment

[Second p0st]

Might be useful later on.

Sorting SCSI cables

Sun, 12 Jan 2003 09:44:17 GMT

While waiting for my auto-loader, I sorted out my SCSI cables. I was surprised by how many I have! I even teached my wife how to differenciate the various types of connectors... This site is especially usefull for this purpose.

I bought a tape auto-loader

Sat, 11 Jan 2003 10:00:17 GMT

I finally bought a tape auto-loader since a declared mine dead. I found an affordable one on Yahoo! Japan. It's a HP SureStore 24x6 DDS-3 External that I managed to get for 20900¥ (about about 176 US$). It should arrive next week. Too bad I'll be in Tokyo. I won't be able to give it a try. I'll have to wait until january 30th...

My network problem solved itself

Fri, 10 Jan 2003 23:40:10 GMT

I had a problem with the two network cards I have in two of my workstations. It seems it solved itself. I can see data flowing through both cards on my Performance meter. Great!

Is my tape back-up dying?

Thu, 09 Jan 2003 03:22:58 GMT

I came back from my Christmas holidays last Tuesday and none of my scheduled back-up has been done since December 23rd. I looked at my log and it said "Hardware failure" for all the missed jobs. I rebooted my machine and put another tape in the back-up unit (a Seagate Hornet 20GB, SCSI). Same strange noise and the tape can't be rewinded. I'll unmount it over the week-end to visually inspect it. If I have to replace it, I'll look at 3 options:

A new tape back up: I am tempted by this new Travan 40GB from Seagate but it is not available in SCSI, just IDE. I do not have any IDE connector available in the machine where my current tape back-up is. I always liked the travan technology. I had a Colorado 250MB, then a Travan 4GB and now a 20GB. The Travan tapes I had were always reliable and affordably priced.
A 120GB removable hard drive: This would be the "easy" solution. I still have 2 WD1200JB drives lying around. I could put one in a removable tray and back-up on it nightly. I could easily write a couple of batch file to take care of the file copying from all my machines to this drive. I couldn't put this disk in the machine where my current tape back-up is but I could easily put it in my workstation having still 3 IDE connector available.
A tape auto-loader: That't the dream solution but I can't really afford it unless I get one from E-bay. But the problem with E-bay is that a lot of seller don't want to ship outside the USA. It sucks! There is life outside the USA!
I looked at the Seagate one (Scorpion 240) and the HP (DAT 40x6). Any other brand you could suggest?

I'll be in Tokyo for almost three weeks starting next Monday. I'll take a day to shop in Akihabara. I'll see what I can find.

Another one with SX6000 problems

Thu, 19 Dec 2002 03:37:22 GMT

I received this comment to an earlier posting today:

I have a s2466n-4m bios 4.03d, 2 WD800JB mirrored I had a FT100 TX4 - I had LOTS of problems w/ it and finially got Promise to admit it is INCOMPATIBLE with the MPX chipset due to PCI bridge problems and RMA a SX4000 to me as a replacement. I am still unable to keep my array running for more than a week on WinXP Pro. I have the latest driver etc... Promise said not to use jumpers on the WD drives - I had that correct from the start. I have swapped out the cables 4 times - no luck. Now they suggest to get a new MB !!! all I can say is broken Promises... I have used data lifeguard tools v10.0 and the drives check out 100%. I CAN use and boot from them from the 768 IDE interface no problems. I am now going to pester Tyan to see what they know. Any help would be great!!! Thanks. Matt Johnston

The first thing I can tell you Matt, is that I never played with the TX4, therefore I can't help you for this one.
I too had to RMA my card before they admit that it doesn't work with the MPX chipset. I managed to make them work together but it wasn't stable at all and the SX6000 had to be the only card in the computer. Needless to say I was quite pissed. I considered buying an Escalade from 3Ware but I decided I would get more benefits from getting a low-end motherboard and build a diskbox.
On the drives I use with my SX6000 (WD1200JB) I didn't put any jumper and it works fine.
I probed Tyan and they said they will address the issue in an upcoming release of the BIOS. I am still waiting.
Good luck, don't give up! And keep us posted on whatever happen to you on this file.

Progress with my network cards problem

Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:13:56 GMT

Thanks to Ron Lowe I am making progress with my network cards problem. It works from the disks box to the workstation but not the other way around. I already posted a reply to Ron's message. We'll see if he can suggest a solution. Thanks Ron!

My newsgroup post about my networking problem

Tue, 19 Nov 2002 23:35:59 GMT

I posted a message on two newsgroups regarding the networking problem I had with my two computers with two network cards. If you have any idea, please let me know!

Routing problem with XP

Sat, 16 Nov 2002 14:18:36 GMT

I finally moved a 1000Base-T network card from my dual PIII-500 to my Disks Box containing my SX6000. I now have a 1000Base-T and a 100Base-T network cards in both my main workstation and in my Disks Box.
In order to force traffic from the workstation (192.168.0.4) to/from the Disks Box (192.168.0.7) to use the 1000Base-T cards, I had to add a route to my routing table on both machines. On my main workstation, I typed:

route add 192.168.0.7 mask 255.255.255.255 10.10.10.2 metric 1

On my Disks Box I typed:

route add 192.168.0.4 mask 255.255.255.255 10.10.10.1 metric 1

I tested this route by copying a 5GB file from the Disks Box to the main workstation while monitoring the data rate on the 1000Base-T card. I had a sustained throughput of about 22MB/sec, proving me the data was now flowing through the 1000Base-T cards (a 100Base-T card can't sustain this data rate). However this was not the end of the story...
Just to make sure everything was all right, I tried to surf the web. It still worked but it was slower and the navigation from page to page wasn't as smooth as before.
I tried to retreive my mail but Outlook kept on telling me that my mail server was unreachable. From another PC, I tried to ping my mail server: It was up. I tried to ping it from my main workstation: It couldn't resolve the name of my mail server. I then decided to create two new routes to my DNS servers and a new one to my mail server. It solved the problem but still I think there is a better way to do it. I don't think that simply adding a route from one computer to another can pertube the communication between the computer and the internet. If you have any suggestion please let me know!
Another weird side-effect is that I can't ping or tracert from my main workstation. And radiocan't get the news!
Bizarely I do not observe this from my Disks Box. Tomorrow I'll reboot my workstation and try other solutions.

Fujitsu hard drives and the importance of proper cooling

Wed, 13 Nov 2002 01:10:27 GMT

Have Fujitsu Harddrives Been Failing in Record Numbers?. Michael_Angel asks: "If your hard drive has started to show garbled characters in the BIOS at boot, or just does not pick up. You may be victim to what could ... [Slashdot]

I made two comments on this thread.

Massive crashes with Premiere and DVTools

Tue, 12 Nov 2002 07:54:51 GMT

I was working on my honeymoon video when it crashed as I was doing the gamma correction of a long segment. After rebooting I could resume my work and finally do my gamma correction.
Later I noticed that the audio/video synchronisation on this segment wasn't right. I decided to recapture it using DVTools (a software that came bundled with my DV500PLUS capture card). It would be a good test for my brand new WV-DR9 also. After capturing for a minute, crash! The system went down. I tried to reboot, didn't boot. I had to reset the power supply's switch before it could even boot again. I booted in safe mode but it froze as it was displaying the path to my agp driver. I tried 3 times and had the same result each time. Finaly I became impatient and decided to boot WindowsXP normally. It worked. However a window pop-up informed me that the crash had been caused by the driver of my GeForce4 Ti4200. I am using now version 3.0.8.7 of the drivers. I downloaded the latest version (40.72). I'll install it later today and will test it again to check if it solves my problem. This is not without bringing back to memory a similar problem I had before.

Result of the testing made with my new WV-DR9

Sun, 03 Nov 2002 03:58:06 GMT

I finally had time to play with my WV-DR9: It works great!

I captured with Adobe Premiere a couple of miniDV tapes I shot last summer. It didn't drop a single frame nor hanged. Premiere used to hang one time out of two when capturing with my TRV-20 connected to my new computer (based on a S2466N-4M)
I captured 2 VHS tapes of various shows we taped from the TV. Once again Premiere didn't hang but it dropped a few frames.
I also tried to output a video I am currently assembling onto a miniDV tape. It didn't work but I can guess why: I haven't set the clock yet. When I first got my camera, a Sony TRV-20, I forgot to set the clock. i couldn't record anything. The explanation for this is quite simple: The DV recording standard needs to have a clock set in order to associate a timestamp to every frame it records. When my wife will be back she'll tell me how to do that (the manual is in japanese only and my japanese isn't good enough to read it)... ;-)
Once the clock will be set, I'll also try to output to a DV tape just to compare the quality with a miniDV tape
Later today I'll try to output to a VHS tape to see if it works.

Just got my WV-DR9

Tue, 29 Oct 2002 02:22:06 GMT

I just received my Sony WV-DR9, I'll open the box after lunch!!!!