Re: Elite Computers
Dave Marshall, Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:59AM

I just got all the components for my new system. The motherboard is so big I had to modify a standard ATX case just so it would fit. I had to cut out half the 5.25" mounting brackets, and move the hard drive bays.

Its a Tyan Thunder K7 motherboard. Dual AMD Athlon MP 2600+ 2.0Ghz processors. 266Mhz FSB, 4 DDR slots supporting 3GB of PC2100 (has 1.5GB currently, 1GB pictured). Its got an AGP Pro slot, but will have a standard 4x 256MB GeForce 4 card in it, single DVDRW drive, and currently has a 120GB primary disk, and 80GB spare, both 7200 RPM. Its got two SCSI interfaces on it, supporting either 16 or 32 devices total (cant remember which) but SCSI is a bit out of my price range right now.

Its actually a server board, and has two independant 100MBit network cards in it. One will be free for connecting to a hardwired network, the other will interface with a built in wireless router.

Power supply is a 550w server PSU, and additional peripherals are 4 x USB 1.0 (onboard), 4 x USB 2.0 (PCI) 2 x 1394 (PCI), and 1 serial port.

The case is going to be totally homebrew, its tough to find one for this sort of board. I needed it to be small enough to carry on to an airplane so it doesn't get destroyed while traveling. Its going to be a brushed or perforated aluminum shell over the steel frame pictured below. The theme is industrial overall, but it will be somewhat smooth and rounded. The only really spiffy 'mod' that I intend to include will be a small LCD screen on the front that outputs the load on the hard drive as a 4 digit number, instead of a blinking light. Eventually I'll probably add something like a 4x20 LCD screen to the front to display CPU temperature, power consumption, etc.

Dave

Re: Elite Computers
HV Enthusiast, Sat Feb 04 2006, 02:27AM

I just built a custom system to upgrade my old system for photoshop / image processing / CAD.

Its totally ghetto complete with a glowing blue Thermaltake case which is enormous.

Here is the link to the case i got. Totally ghetto, but pretty sweet looking. Of course, i don't have all the fancy add-on's like liquid cooling etc...


Maybe not the fastest, but it does boot to login screen in less than 10 seconds and loads photoshop CS2 in about 2 seconds (including all the plug-ins etc...) - my old system took about 20 seconds to load photoshop CS2.

Specifications:

- ASUS P5LD2 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 945P ATX Intel Motherboard
- CHAINTECH SE6600G Geforce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
- Intel Pentium 4 630 Prescott 800MHz FSB LGA 775 EM64T Processor
- 4 GIG PC2 5400 Ram
- 2x300GB SATA 3G/S drives (primary)
- 2x320GB ATA100 (storage)
- 80GB, 60GB, 40GB ATA100 drives (old drives for backup mostly)

Re: Elite Computers
Bjørn, Sun Feb 05 2006, 10:58PM

A Commodore 64 with 65534 bytes of RAM and an industrial strength microswitch reset button. You are not elite unless you know why two bytes of RAM are missing.

Re: Elite Computers
Simon, Mon Feb 06 2006, 05:28AM

Help me sleep at night and please tell me, Bjorn.

I like picking up old computers dirt cheap and tinkering with them. Therefore my computers have "character" rather than eliteness.

Re: Elite Computers
Bjørn, Mon Feb 06 2006, 03:21PM

The Commodore 64 uses a 6510 CPU that has an 8 bit I/O port mapped to address 0 and 1 so the RAM at those addresses are not available. This I/O port is used to configure the memory mapping so that a 16 bit address bus can access almost 2^16 bytes of RAM in addition to ROM and other devices.

Re: Elite Computers
Steve Conner, Mon Feb 06 2006, 05:09PM

Bjoern's two bytes of RAM are missing because I stole them to build this 8)

Re: Elite Computers
Simon, Tue Feb 07 2006, 11:30PM

!lol Steve!

So close, Bjorn! In my sleepless night I guessed that two addresses were used for tty input and output.

My least elite computer is a 286 with a limping motherboard. It refuses to connect with any IDE devices so it has no HDD and hence no OS.

To get it to do stuff I have to code boot floppies. I use it for testing any computer interfacing circuits I make before plugging them into a "real" computer.

Sort of like the food tasters some paranoid kings used to have: cheap and disposable.

Re: Elite Computers
Carbon_Rod, Thu Feb 09 2006, 07:30AM

iPod:
LiPol 8h battery
70-90MHz ARM cpu + copro
32MB RAM
20GB hd
Linux 2.4.xx
agetty login over RS232
network login over Firewire

Plays Doom, space invaders, pong, and plays music too.


Desk Case runs:
adaptec Ultra SCSI in Raid 0/1 mode (3x 40GB HDs)
e-GeForce 6600
2x5!2MB
Dual CPU ( 1.8 GHz AMD)
HBIB Card
HP DVD/CD Writer
(sounds like a jet while on)

BackUps UPS
3 Input select Switch for 20" CRT display
Audio out to home sound system.

Re: Elite Computers
, Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:10AM

For now the most elite computer I have is:
PIII 450MMX (100MHz FSB) Slot 1 CPU (will upgrade to 1GHz when I get a heatsing that fits with my mobo some time soon, FSB will also be set to 133MHz)
256MB PC133 ram (@100MHz)
32MB Nvidia TNT2 Model 64 Pro (@AGP 2x)
C: 9GB 7200RPM
D: Samsung Writemaster TS-H552 dual layer DVD+/- RW
E: 30GB 7200RPM
USB
10/100
Beige Box

Not exactly elite but donations for something better are gratefully accepted ;)

So where is the Fastload cartridge? :? A C64 is not Elite without a Fastload cartridge! ;)

Does a Sinclair ZX80 with the ZX81 upgrade chip and 16KB memory upgrade count as elite?

Re: Elite Computers
..., Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:43AM

I don't have a single elite computer, just a lot of them :) Admittedly they are not all 'mine' although they do belong to the rest of the family, and I do have complete control over them 8)
laptop1:
Inspiron 600m, 1.2ghz PM, 1.28GB ram, 60GB 10krpm hdd, dvdrw burner, 14.1" sxga, (that be 1400x1050 pixels @32bit) screen, integrated wifi, gigabit ethernet...
Laptop2:
Dell b210 laptop, .256GB ram, 10GB hdd, 14.1" xvga screen...
Laptop3
IBM thinkpad, p3, .128GB ram 20gb hdd, 12" screen, cdrw drive...
Laptop4:
Compac Contura 400c, 386 processor, .3GB hdd, .004GB ram, floppy drive, 8" vga screen...
Desktop1:
Dell desperon 4600, p4 2.66ghz, .512GB ram, dvd reader/cdrw drive, 30bg hdd, gforce4 agp8x video card with a 19" lcd and a 14" crt (Sony rack mount, dated 1994) runinng as a split desktop at 1280x2048 @32bit, gigabit ethernet, audio out going to stereo in my room,
Desktop2:
P4 2.4GHz, .512BG ram, 3x120GB maxtor drives in a raid0+hot swappable, dual layer dvd rw drive, raid cd burner and separate reader, and a normal cd rom drive1024x768 14" lcd, audio out going to a stereo and a 1watt fm transmitter so we hear the tunes all through the .7acre yard :)
Dsktop3:
P4 2.5GHz, .512GB ram, dual layer dvd rw, 100gb hdd, tv out going to 50" reverse projection wide screen...
Desktop4:
K6-550 athlon .550GHz, .192GB ram, floppy drive, cd rom drive, 3 a/d d/a din and dout cards (assorted types/ages), video capture card + wireless receiver + x-10 line interface to control the wireless x-10 cameras around house...
There are a desktop 6, 7, and 8 but they are not connected to the network/monitor so I am not counting them.

To top it all off I have a 2.4mb/s cable modem (measured, 300k downloads easy), a wtr-54g router+b/g access point next to the modem/desktop2, a wap54 b/g access point and a 5 port hub for the stuff in my room, (house is too big for a single access point !lol ), and a 5 port hub in the tv room for when you need ethernet next to the tv...

Can you guess the 3 comps in my room?

Re: Elite Computers
tecNik, Thu Feb 09 2006, 10:55AM

The LinkSys NLSU2 (Know as Slug) Is one of the most elite little machines I have ever owned IMHO. There is loads of information online about modding/overclocking and at the end of the day you have a tiny embedded computer running Linux.

I'm now modding my Slug. Its now overclocked to 266MHz, I've added a serial port for terminal access and I'm trying to enable the extra USB ports.

BTW, Its running UnSlung Linux 5.5.

Re: Elite Computers
Bjørn, Thu Feb 09 2006, 04:24PM

So where is the Fastload cartridge? A C64 is not Elite without a Fastload cartridge!

I use Pink Floyd, that is why I need a reset button since it will stay in memory. Cartridges take up too much valuable I/O.

Re: Elite Computers
Ben, Fri Feb 10 2006, 06:19AM

No you're not elite unless you know what a Guru Meditation error comes from.

Re: Elite Computers
McFluffin, Fri Feb 10 2006, 07:20AM

Dual 2.2 Xeon on a Tyan motherboard. Has two SCSI controllers plus standard IDE and floppy controllers. Up to 4GB of RDRAM, currently have only 640MB in it though. Missing a case...but loads games really quick! Runs Microsoft Server 2000, hoping to put Fedora 4 on a second hard drive. Uses GForce4 256MB Nvidea graphics card.
I have another 7 running computers at my house, but my pride and joy is my network. I also have my Linksys WRT54GS(and a WRT54G) which I'm proud of. Uses Hyper-WRT(if I recall...) and has two 9dbi antennas. Its a monster AP and is capable of knocking out all 2.4GHz phones in the area I am told. Runs Linux 2.8 I think. You can SSH, telnet, FTP and other fun stuff into it. Backed up by a Cisco 3810 T-1 router(alas, no T-1 line...) and a Cisco Catalyst 1900 switch. Have an older Linksys access point, 2 Linksys swiches/routers, 1 Linksys switch, a Catalyst 1700 switch, and 3 more Cisco routers all on the same network. Theres also 1 more Cisco router which doesn't have a power supply, so its not in use. I managed to make one for the others, so I'll eventually make one when I get a chance.
My TI-89 is my best calculator. Attached is a pic of some of my old computers.

Re: Elite Computers
Bjørn, Fri Feb 10 2006, 07:23AM

No you're not elite unless you know what a Guru Meditation error comes from.

Out of my memory I recall something about one of the Amiga developers sitting in front of the screen with crossed legs resembling a guru while debugging. So they started calling a crash for guru meditation and put it into the trap handler of the Amiga.

It never helped much since the trap number never told me something I did not know, the crash always happened in the code I changed last and most of the crashes seemed to involve runaway DMA that wiped out everything and locked it up solid.

Re: Elite Computers
Carbon_Rod, Fri Feb 10 2006, 07:40AM

No you're not elite unless you know what a Guru Meditation error comes from.

Or have RTFM.... he he he... goto programs are funny...

They used to send software over FM radio a few times a week :D
Now days some dudes hotwire the iPod to act as a tape drive.
The c64 can be modded to do a HPIB host device too.

You are only 3lite if you know why they used them in the first stealth plane.

Re: Elite Computers
Alfons, Fri Feb 10 2006, 10:55PM

My computers are not really that elite, but elite enough to post them anyway

• Desktop: AMD Sempron 2600+ with GigaByte K8VT800 motherboard, 512MB RAM, one 120GB HD and one 40GB HD
• Laptop: brand new Acer Aspire 3005WLMi featuring AMD Sempron Mobile 3300+, 512 MB RAM and 80GB HD (only 4800rpm )
• Attic-top : Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer 1

Re: Elite Computers
Maz, Sat Feb 11 2006, 03:15PM

my really nice computer for a few years ago

2.6 ghz celeron processor, 512k ram, 256k videocard (overclocked), an all in one dvd drive, and 200 gb of hard drive space (40gb filled with legal music)

one thing i can say is "always check your motherboard for screws before powering up"

there was one sitting right next to my bios...it ended up frying everything except for the psu.

Re: Elite Computers
Avalanche, Sat Feb 11 2006, 04:05PM

Ok, here's my 'elite' pc. It's getting on a bit now, it was a lot more elite a couple of years ago when new!

ABit NF7 Mainboard
AthlonXP 2600+ @ 2800+ (Barton Core)
200GB total storage
512Mb Kingston DDR memory overclocked to 356Mhz
Replaced northbridge cooler with a passive one (forgot the brand)
Tagan 350Watt SILENT PSU
120mm Antec fans x2
Antec QUIET case
GeForce Fx5200 passively cooled GFX
Creative 5.1 digital soundcard
Digital TV card
DVD/CD/RW combo drive (Sony)
DVD dual layer re-writer (LG)
Fan speed controller/temperate monitor etc

And that's about it. It is totally SILENT which was a big thing when I was building it. Literally you have to be less than a meter to tell if it's on or not! This was important at the time, so I splashed out for the quietest kit I could find (mainly the case, fans, heatsinks and PSU). There are 2 main case fans - 120mm ball race Antecs running at 1200RPM like windmills. If it gets warm, an alarm sounds on the front panel, and I just crank the fans up. Have never needed to though. I'm really reluctant to upgrade or change anything unless I'm absolutely sure it will remain silent - because I couldn't get used to a noisy PC again.

Re: Elite Computers
Wolfram, Sat Feb 11 2006, 04:55PM

Aside from these there's the computer I'm using now, a 866MHz PIII with 128MB RDRAM, a 2.8GHz Celeron and a 1.2GHz AMD Duron with 256MB RAM (I found this computer today). I also have three dell mainboards with 933MHz PIIIs, I don't know what I'm going to use them for yet.

I rarely do things that my PIII 866 can't handle, and it's conveniently placed, so it gets used quite a bit. It looks very ugly, I've managed to melt the side panel (plastic, placed it too close to the fireplace) and the only things still attached to the case are the floppy drive and the mainboard. I used to have a problem with the sound card falling out when I got my foot caught in the wire for the speakers.

Regarding the old computers, I think all of them work, the only one I've not tested is the apple II in the front. One amiga has an unstable floppy drive, and two of the commodores are missing their SIDs (I keep them in a Dallas/Maxim sample box, I don't want to blow them when I experiment with the C64s).

Re: Elite Computers
Eartaker, Sun Feb 12 2006, 10:03AM

SOYO mobo
P4 - 2.4Ghz 833FSB
512Mb DDR ram
100GB SATA HD
40GB UATA HD
ATI Radeon X850XT AGP 8X graphics
Soundblaster live audio
Uber cooling unit...... http://www.eartaker.co.nr
350Wpsu with added homemade ports

Re: Elite Computers
Nik, Sun Feb 12 2006, 04:56PM

My homebrew "server" and web terminal. Its really a junker but it does its job.

Suse10
350mhz P2
300mb ram
6gb hd for the OS
120gb drive for the FTP
Manualy rounded IDE cable. <<-- The only elite feature it has.

Re: Elite Computers
Steve Conner, Sun Feb 12 2006, 11:56PM

Woot! "Guru Meditation" Even has its own wikipedia entry


By the time I got my first Amiga, Commodore had got rid of it so the screen just read "Software Failure". The Amiga was a great machine even if it did have "requesters" instead of "dialog boxes" and "gadgets" instead of "drop-downs". I had an A1200 with a massive 40MB hard disk lying around until last month.

Re: Elite Computers
FastMHz, Fri Feb 17 2006, 07:44PM

Here's my video editing comp:

Link

The dual 1800mp is aging, but still fast...2gb RAM, 1TB+ hdd space.

And the case:

Link

An old favorite:

Link



My main system is a Athlon64 3700+ laptop.

Re: Elite Computers
Quantum Singularity, Mon Mar 13 2006, 12:46PM

Since none of my systems are on top of the PC world, I'll submit my entry for least Elite lol.

This is my junior project at college, an Intel 80188 microprocessor (8bit). My lab partner and I designed the schemitc from scratch and assembled via wire wrap (we each made our own physical project). Its pretty simple, has some menus, and keeps time (allows user to set). It has provisions to control what was going to be our senior project but I never got that far. I even overclocked this beast to 20MHz perfectly stable lol. All programming was done in assembly language (what a pain in the ___)



P.S. I bet some folks here can utilize a lot of ram... my system is running 512Mb and I have never exceeded it. I am a power user at times, I even have a screen shot running a bunch off apps: word, 8 browser windows, 3 explorer windows, front page, bryce 3d (rendering program), realplayer, adobe photoshop, and my tv capture viewer, all at once. I still have yet to utilize more than 450Mb of ram running all of this...

Re: Elite Computers
insomniac, Tue Mar 14 2006, 07:19AM

I have the original-gamer (OG) packard. side by side with my new box. She runs the original games. Warcraft, wolfenstien, DOOM I&II, Descent I&II. Overclocked stable to 166Mhz (pushing it further with an 80W peltier soon), shes a tough gamer for her age. 1Mb cirrus logic, onboard sound, USB, 16x cdrom.

Im also redoing my long-lost gaming website, back in the days of GTA 1 and 2. Naming it "Homie dont play that game", seeing how it wont play a darn thing aside from dos games. Figured the name would be unique and stupid enough to sound funny.

Re: Elite Computers
Part Scavenger, Wed Mar 15 2006, 05:28AM

Does an XBOX count? I hacked mine and I LOVE it. I'd kill anyone who tries to take it!

XBOX V1.6
733Mhz
upgraded to 160 gig HD
X3 chip with side panel, and X3 bois.
In game reset
XBMC installed
Linux soon if I get the time to figure out how to do the "blind install" because you can't see the install screen on a V1.6

EDIT=> Done! It now boots xDSL and Gentoox! Woot!

It's awesome, I have my entire CD collection ripped to it, all my XBOX games saved on the HDD, dosXbox(for the oldies!), over 1500 Mame games, Doom, Duke3D. I can even dump movies off the Dish DVR my dad and I hacked onto my HDD and watch in my room via the nifty network I've got with my computers. Even my DVD faves are on there. It even has modchip disable for xbox live, not like I can use it with dial-up, but hey. And because the X3 has SMT LED's all over it, the guts glow a cool blue color.

Re: Elite Computers
Paul Mataruso, Wed Mar 22 2006, 02:39AM

I have a Dell Inspiron B130 Laptop, AMD Duron based sever running Fedora Core 4 (ssh,ftp,samba,httpd,etc), 333 mhz genaric computer running fressco linux, 400 mhz based server for DNS and windows domain hosting, a Compaq Presario with an intel celeron procceser 900mhz, D-Link DI-524 wireless router, Linksys BEFSR11, Cisco 770 Seris Router, 4 Nortel Networks BPS 2000 Switches, 7 Accton unmanged 24 port hubs, 3 24 port netgear hubs, 1 Sega Dreamcast running knoppix with ssh,ftp,samba, hacked xbox with xbox linux running the Microsoft XDK. 7 computer beowolf cluster, 4 computer running Microsoft Windows Datacenter configured in a cluster, 1 Dell XPS for multimedia stuff. All the server are linked with 1000baseTX fiber optic cable and the rest are wireless at 54mbps or wired at 100mpbs to the main cisco catalist switch.

Re: Elite Computers
Steve Conner, Wed Mar 22 2006, 10:31AM

Oh man! Where do you keep all that stuff, and who pays the electric bill

Re: Elite Computers
Desmogod, Thu Mar 23 2006, 12:42AM


Define irony.

Re: Elite Computers
Steve Conner, Sat Apr 22 2006, 06:31PM

Hey, I only have three computers and one tesla coil just now

Re: Elite Computers
krenshala, Fri Apr 28 2006, 08:14PM

Depending on your definition of elite, two systems I have that qualify are:

* Amiga 500 (68k) with 512Kb of memory

or

* AMD 64 3000 with 1Gb mem, 160Gb SATA, 2 NICs, 64bit Gentoo linux in a Shuttle (mini ITX) case that is a firewall/router/webserver/mailserver

I've also got another AMD 64 3000 system, but I'm waiting to get the motherboard back from GigaByte (hardware problems ... thank the gods for warranties).

Then there is the wife's Athlon 2700 (win2k), the Gateway Solo 9150 P2-400MHz notebook (formerly win98se, now running Gentoo linux), the Compaq Armada P2-366 a friend found in a dumpster (complete with extra battery, cables, and leather carry bag) that actually works with XP (but really slowly), my dual P-166MHz Tyan board (still works, built it in Oct '96) and of course the Amiga 1200 with 128Mb hard drive.

Of course, i typically only run three systems at once: the shuttle (its the router/firewall), my system (once I get it rebuilt) and my wifes Athlong 2700 system.

Re: Elite Computers
Dr. Slack, Mon May 01 2006, 04:30PM

I feel my new PC is fairly l33t, but perhaps not for the most obvious reasons. It's only a modest 3000+, 1GB, 200GB SATA, but ...

a) it's built into an MDF box 1ft cube built round a uATX board, because I wanted a case that would fit on my 12" deep shelves (nothing out there that short commerically, not Shuttle, not QMAX, not anything else) . All the sides hinge out 'cos I *hate* dislocating my wrist to work inside

b) it has serial, parallel and 5v connectors on the front as well as USB and audio, as it's my workshop PC, to hook up to all my experiments

c) it's kept clean, the kids haven't put every game download known to man on it, so it's ready to cook in about 20 seconds

d) as it's my workshop PC, I cut a piece of Perspex(tm) to make a cover for the TFT, and two days later while carelessly handling a sharp-cornered metal box, I put a huge gouge into it (the cover, not the TFT). I went "Yessssss!", for once I had foreseen an accident, and did something about it beforehand, rather than regretted it afterwards.

Re: Elite Computers
krenshala, Sun May 07 2006, 07:15PM

That perspex cover is a really good idea, especially because cracked LCD panels are not normally covered by hardware warranties.