As some of you who have been Folding proteins may be aware, I have this "free" HP D325 minitower (2.3 GHz Athlon XP) that had some bad capacitors on the motherboard. I say "free" because this thing has turned into quite the money pit.
First, as I mentioned in the Folding thread, I was able to buy the replacement capacitors for under $10 and spent about two hours desoldering the bad caps, drilling out the holes on the MB, and soldering in the replacement caps. I then had a fully functional PC, so I put it to work Folding as a burn-in test. The PC did have 512MB of DDR333 RAM, so I got a 1GB stick of the same from Crucial for $80. So now this "free" PC has cost $90.
In this configuration, the HP Folded a little faster running the Linux client (booted via the Knoppix CD) than it had before adding the extra RAM. In this configuration, it lasted roughly a week before I found it frozen with a blank screen.
As I investigated, it became clear the the PC could not handle the stress of running the Stanford Folding@Home application and it would freeze-up anywhere from one to three hours after the Folding was started. I ran the Memory test that came on the Knoppix CD and the PC would run that for days, so it must be some thermal issue on the CPU caused by full-time Folding and 100% CPU utilization.
I set the machine aside as I wasn't too sure how I wanted to proceed. So, it's been sitting under the desk, but I will bring it out from time to time to run the Knoppix (I installed a little 122MB disk and configured it as a Linux Swap device, for example). The other day I found a 10GB disk in the discarded drive pile at work and figured I'd reinstall Windows XP Pro on the box (the license sticker is still on the box.) However, after I installed the drive and fired up the box, I found that the integrated MB video is now dead.
So, here I am with a FrankenPC, made up of spare parts and some new parts. Do I go out and buy an AGP video card to have video, or do I cut my losses and send it to the Big Recycling Bin in the Sky? I should add that this PC led a hot life buried inside a cabinet on the side of an industrial furnace. I should also add that I had to re-lube the bearings on the P/S and case fans to get them to spin quietly, so if I were to move forward, I really should replace the fans at some point. I guess it's safe to say that I'll never trust this PC 100%.
I'm leaning towards pulling the plug, but I'd thought I'd see if maybe someone here has a better idea on how to proceed.
First, as I mentioned in the Folding thread, I was able to buy the replacement capacitors for under $10 and spent about two hours desoldering the bad caps, drilling out the holes on the MB, and soldering in the replacement caps. I then had a fully functional PC, so I put it to work Folding as a burn-in test. The PC did have 512MB of DDR333 RAM, so I got a 1GB stick of the same from Crucial for $80. So now this "free" PC has cost $90.
In this configuration, the HP Folded a little faster running the Linux client (booted via the Knoppix CD) than it had before adding the extra RAM. In this configuration, it lasted roughly a week before I found it frozen with a blank screen.
As I investigated, it became clear the the PC could not handle the stress of running the Stanford Folding@Home application and it would freeze-up anywhere from one to three hours after the Folding was started. I ran the Memory test that came on the Knoppix CD and the PC would run that for days, so it must be some thermal issue on the CPU caused by full-time Folding and 100% CPU utilization.
I set the machine aside as I wasn't too sure how I wanted to proceed. So, it's been sitting under the desk, but I will bring it out from time to time to run the Knoppix (I installed a little 122MB disk and configured it as a Linux Swap device, for example). The other day I found a 10GB disk in the discarded drive pile at work and figured I'd reinstall Windows XP Pro on the box (the license sticker is still on the box.) However, after I installed the drive and fired up the box, I found that the integrated MB video is now dead.
So, here I am with a FrankenPC, made up of spare parts and some new parts. Do I go out and buy an AGP video card to have video, or do I cut my losses and send it to the Big Recycling Bin in the Sky? I should add that this PC led a hot life buried inside a cabinet on the side of an industrial furnace. I should also add that I had to re-lube the bearings on the P/S and case fans to get them to spin quietly, so if I were to move forward, I really should replace the fans at some point. I guess it's safe to say that I'll never trust this PC 100%.
I'm leaning towards pulling the plug, but I'd thought I'd see if maybe someone here has a better idea on how to proceed.
