Merlin member of Ghostwheel
Merlin of Amber created Ghostwheel. Merlin was the main character in the last 5 of Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series. Merlin was a Prince of both Chaos and Amber and had walked both patterns. He studied computer science on the shadow of Amber which is our reality of present day, USA.

Motherboard MSI K7D Master-L
CPU Dual AMD 2.0GHz Barton 2600+ MPs'
HSF Two Taisol 60mm CGK760092 heatsinks w/ sunon 60mm maglev fans
HSF Two Akasa 60-80mm HSF adapters piggybacked to dryer hose ducted to the rear exhaust with two 80mm YS-Tech variable speed fans fans at the ends of the ducts.
RAM 3x512Mb + 1x256Mb PC2100 ECC Registered DDR
Video ATI Radon X800GTO 256Mb AGP Dual Head
Sound Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Network Netgear Gigabit NIC in 64 bit PCI-X slot
Network Shares Netgear GS108 Gigabit Switch
Network Shares D-Link DI-704P Ethernet Internet Gateway/Switch/Printserver
Network Shares LinkSYS WRT54G wireless router
Network Keyon Wireless Network provides internet access for $29/month
Network Cactus Computers provides ISP service; web hosting + 10 E-mail addresses for $59/year
SCSI Storage Controller #1 Adaptec 2230slp Dual Channel Raid Controller
Hard Disk Five 36.7Gb Fujitsu MAP3367NP SCSI U320 10,000rpm 8Mb cache in Raid 10 with hot spare
SCSI Storage Controller #2 Adaptec 3950U2B Dual Channel 64bit 33MHz Ultra2 SCSI LVD/SE Retail
Hard Disk Boot drive = 73Gb Fujitsu MAW3073NP SCSI U320 10,000rpm 8Mb cache
SCSI DVD SCSI Toshiba SD-M1401
SCSI MO Disk #1 External SCSI Fujitsu Dynamo 640SE
CDROM N/A
CD-RW N/A
IDE Hard Disk 300Gb Ultra ATA 100 Seagate ST3300631A 7200 rpm 16Mb cache
IDE MO Disk #2 Internal IDE Fujitsu Dynamo 640AI
IDE DVD-R/RW ATAPI Toshiba SD-R5112 DVD-R/RW
Case 20-bay CK2000S Server
Power Supply Two: PC Power&Cooling TurboCool 510 XE, Antec True430 (fans = 8x80mm + 5x120mm)
Monitor Dual Flatscreen 19" Hitachi CM752U Superscan
Speakers Altec Lansing ATP3
Speakers Grado SR60 headphones
Printer Sharing Networked Brother HL5170DN
Joystick Saitek Cyborg EVO Force feedback flightstick
Keyboard IBM Model M
Mouse Logitech Wireless Optical
I just (July 2002) built an IDE version of Merlin: Merlin-IDE for a friend now deceased.

Godel member of Ghostwheel
Godel is named for the famous mathematician who derived the Incompleteness Theorem. He proved that within any axiomatic rule-based system of mathematics, propositions can be formulated that are undecidable or undemonstrable within the system. Futhermore he proved that any such system is always Incomplete: even if an indefinite number of true axioms are added, there will always be further mathematical truths that are not formally derivable from the augmented set.

Motherboard TYAN Thunder K7X-Pro 2469
CPU Dual AMD 1.2GHz Palomino MPs'
HSF Two Taisol CGK760092 heatsinks
RAM 2x256Mb PC2100 ECC Registered DDR
Video ATI Radon X800GTO 256Mb AGP Dual Head
Sound Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
KVM shares IOGear MiniView SE 4-Port KVM switch model GCS84A
NIC on-board gigabit NIC
Network Shares Netgear GS108 Gigabit Switch
Network Shares D-Link DI-704P Ethernet Internet Gateway/Switch/Printserver
Storage Controller Integrated Highpoint 370 IDE-Raid
Storage Controller #1 Adaptec 3950U2B Dual Channel 64bit 33MHz Ultra2 SCSI LVD/SE Retail
Hard Disk One 9.1Gb SCSI Ultra3 160 LVD/SE Western Digital Enterprise 10,000rpm 2Mb cache
Hard Disk Four 9.1Gb SCSI Ultra2 LVD/SE IBM UltraStar 18ES 7200rpm 2Mb cache
DVD Toshiba ATAPI SD-M1612
CDROM N/A
CD-RW N/A
Case InWin IW-Q500A
Power Supply Antec Neo HE 550 ATX12V EPS12V
Monitor 17" Hitachi Superscan Elite 630
Speakers wired into Sony Stereo
Printer Sharing Networked Brother HL5170DN
Joystick Saitek Cyborg EVO Force feedback flightstick
Keyboard IBM Type-M
Mouse Logitech optical

Lanczos member of Ghostwheel
Lanczos is named after the author of a very useful book "Linear and Differential Operators" by C. Lanczos, 1961, D. Van Nostrad Co., Ltd., London, 564 pages. A very useful book if you want a comprehensible explaination of LDO's and their application to singular value decomposition (SVD).

Motherboard Abit KA7-100
CPU AMD K7 900MHz
HSF Alpha P7125 dual 22CFM fan
RAM 1024Mb as four 256Mb 3.3V ECC CL2 PC133 SDRAM 168-pin DIMM in a 32Meg x 72 bit configuration
Video Matrox G400 32Mb AGP Dual Head
Sound Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
KVM shares IOGear MiniView SE 4-Port KVM switch model GCS84A
NIC D-LINK DFE-530TX+ PCI
Network Shares D-Link DI-704P Ethernet Internet Gateway/Switch/Printserver
Storage Controller Integrated Highpoint 370 IDE-Raid
Storage Controller #1 Adaptec 3950U2B Dual Channel 64bit 33MHz Ultra2 SCSI LVD/SE Retail
Hard Disk Two 4.5Gb SCSI LVD IBM UltraStar 9ES
DVD Toshiba ATAPI SD-M1612
CDROM N/A
CD-RW N/A
Case InWin IW-Q500A
Power Supply Antec PP403X
Monitor Shares second 19" Hitachi CM752U Superscan
Speakers Shares Altec Lansing ATP3
Printer Sharing Networked Brother HL5170DN
Printer Shares Okidata 410E
Keyboard Shares $10 Memorex
Mouse Shares Logitech optical

Zelazny member of Ghostwheel
Zelazny is named after one of my favorite Science Fiction authors. Zelazny wrote Lord of Light, one of my most favorite books. I own and have read many times every book he wrote.

Motherboard TYAN Trinity 2Mb S1598
CPU AMD K6-III/450AFX, 2.2v core / 3.3 v I/O, B 9932EPEW, AMD 1998
HSF Alpha PAL 6035 heatsink
RAM 384Mb Mushkin PC150 HSDRAM
Video Matrox G400 16Mb AGP Single Head
Sound Creative Labs SoundBlaster AWE32 PNP
KVM shares IOGear MiniView SE 4-Port KVM switch model GCS84A
NIC D-LINK DFE-530TX+ PCI
Network Shares D-Link DI-704P Ethernet Internet Gateway/Switch/Printserver
Storage Controller Adaptec 2940UW SCSI RetailLoaned to Merlin at the moment
Hard Disk Maxtor Diamond Max 20Gb EIDE
MO Disk N/A
DVD N/A
CDROM Sun Microsystems SCSI CDROM
CD-RW N/A
Case Enlight mid tower ATX case
Power Supply Antec PP303X
Monitor Shares second 19" Hitachi CM752U Superscan
Speakers Shares Altec Lansing ATP
Printer Shares Okidata 410E
Keyboard Shares Focus FK-2001
Mouse Shares Logitech optical
Original components cost: $2000, Current Replacement cost: $900

Gollum member of Ghostwheel
Gollum redeemed himself in the end as the Ring Bearer who brought about the destruction of Sauron's Ring in the fires of Mount Doom, in the Land of Mordor, where the shadow lies.

Motherboard FIC PA-2013
CPU AMD K6-III / 450AHX, 2.4v core / 3.3 v I/O, B 9917FPAW, Malay
HSF Alpha PAL 6035 heatsink
RAM 384Mb Enhanced Memory Systems PC133 HSDRAM 322-46100, SM12808DT-7.5, PC22408-2300
Video STB Velocity 3D Virge/VX 8Mb PCI
Sound Creative Labs Soundblaster 16 Value
KVM shares IOGear MiniView SE 4-Port KVM switch model GCS84A
NIC D-LINK DFE-530TX+ PCI 10/100 base-T
Network D-Link DI-704P Ethernet Internet Gateway/Switch/Printserver
Storage Controller Legacy Qlogic SCSI controller
Hard Disk Maxtor Diamond Max 20Gb
MO Disk N/A
DVD N/A
CD-RW Top Glory Electronics model BCD 561G 52X CDROM
CaseGeneric ATX tower
Power Supply Antec PP303X
Monitor Shares second 19" Hitachi CM752U Superscan
Speakers Generic
Printer Shared Okidata 410E
Keyboard Shares Focus FK-2001
Mouse Shares Logitech optical
Original components cost: $1800, Current Replacement cost: $900

Libby member of Ghostwheel
Libby is named after the mathematician who invented the Libby drive in Heinlein's SciFi books.

Motherboard FIC PA-2007
CPU AMD K6-2 300MHz
HSF Global WIn FDP32 heatsink
RAM 64Mb PC100 SDRAM
Video Phoenix S3 Trio64 1Mb PCI
Sound Creative Labs Soundblaster 16 CT4170
NIC DEC PCI Ethernet DECchip 21041 10 Base-T
Storage Controller onboard
Hard Disk Western Digital IDE 1.2, and 0.85 Gb
MO Disk N/A
DVD N/A
CD-RW Toshiba XM5302B CDROM
CaseGeneric AT tower
Power Supply 250W
Monitor 15" MAG
Speakers Generic
Printer N/A
Keyboard Generic PS/2
Mouse Logitech three-button serial
Original components cost: $1300, Current Replacement cost: $500

HenWen member of Ghostwheel
HenWen is named after the talking pig in the book Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander.

Motherboard Gigabyte 586DX
CPU Dual Intel Pentium 133MHz
HSF Global WIn FDP32 heatsink
RAM 64Mb 60ns 72 pin parity simms
Video STB Lightspeed 128
Sound Creative Labs Soundblaster 16 CT4170
NIC DEC PCI Ethernet DECchip 21041 10 Base-T
Storage Controller Adaptec 2940UW onboard
Hard Disk Seagate Barracuda 4LP 4.1Gb SCSI UW
MO Disk N/A
DVD N/A
CD-RW Toshiba XM5302B CDROM
CaseGeneric ATX tower
Power Supply 250W AT
Monitor 15" MAG
Speakers Generic
Printer N/A
Keyboard Generic PS/2
Mouse Logitech three-button serial
Original components cost: $2000, Current Replacement cost: $375

Merlin-IDE Briefly a member of Ghostwheel Now shipped out
This is a PC I recently built for a friend. I've put costs in front of the components.

$215 Motherboard MSI K7D Master
$156 CPU Dual AMD 1.2GHz Palamino MPs'
_$30 HSF Two Taisol CGK760092 heatsinks
_$24 HSF Three Sunon 80mm 39cfm fans + 3 grills
$293 RAM 1024Mb PC2100 ECC Registered DDR
_$91 Video Matrox G550 AGP 32Mb
_$59 Sound Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
_$10 NIC D-LINK DFE-530TX+ PCI 10/100 base-T
__$0 Network N/A
__$0 Storage Controller N/A
_$97 Hard Disk MAXTOR Quiet Drive 60GB 7200RPM Model # 6L060L3 -D740X
__$0 MO Disk N/A
_$39 DVD TOSHIBA SD-M1612 INTERNAL EIDE DVD ROM, 16X DVD, 48X CD ROM
__$0 CDROM N/A
_$84 CD-RW TEAC MODEL CDW540E002 40X12X48 INTERNAL EIDE CD-RW
$135 Case ANTEC Performance PLUS Model PLUS1080B- with AntecTRUE430Watt PSU
__$0 Power Supply N/A
$254 Monitor 19" Hitachi CM721F Flat Faced
_$57 Speakers Altec Lansing ATP3
__$0 Printer N/A
__$0 Keyboard N/A
_$12 Mouse Logitech Optical
__$9 Matrox Millennium G550 Upgrade Bundle Kit
__$9 Teac Floppy Drive
_$12 Nero CD-RW software
_$12 WinDVD 2.6 software
$142 Windows 2000 Pro SP2
$126 Shipping costs from www vendors (about 7%)
$131 Missing Costs
Total Cost $1995

Motherboards

Merlin
The K7D Master-L Dual Athlon MPX chipset motherboard from MSI, has the following Bios messages:
Award Modular 6.00 PG BIOS version 1.1
W6501MS v1.1 030502 16:01:14
03/05/2002-AMD762-W83627-6A6S7M49C-00 This board costs $180-$225 new.

Godel
The Tyan Thunder K7X Pro (S2469) Dual Athlon MPX chipset motherboard Quoting the link... "Designed around the AMD-760 MPX chipset, the Thunder K7X Pro supports two Athlon™ MP processors, featuring a "convergence design" - an ideal layout that satisfies the capabilities of both servers and workstations. The Thunder K7X Pro features an AGP Pro110 slot, two 64/66 PCI slots, optional Adaptec dual-channel Ultra320 SCSI support, Gigabit and Fast Ethernet, ATX 12V/EPS12V universal power, and more. For maximum memory capacity in a space restricted environment, this platform also offers angled memory sockets."
The board has a Phoenix bios... Version SMBIOS 2.3.1 Release Date 04/14/2004 Thats the newest version 1.08 BIOS
Here's a link to the 2CPU review of the TYAN Thunder K7X Pro This board costs $450-$550 new. I paid ~$155 for this board from Monarch Computers. The board has some sort of problem with its memory controller. Its slower than the MSI K7D Master-L. Quoting Mr Bill (thats me) at 2CPU...

"I bought the refurbished K7X pro a while back. It runs OK but only with a maximum of two sticks of Crucial Tech approved (Reg, ECC, PC2100) DDR. Monarch makes it clear that refurb is cash and carry, so there is no recourse. Still, it makes two previously moldering 1.2GHz Palaminos productive for SETI and it can run games over the network. So all in all it was worth the money."

Lanczos
I have two KA7-100 raid Slot-A ATX motherboard from Abit, has an Award 6.00 PG BIOS ver 05/18/2000 8371-686A-6A6LKAIAC-00. Its based on the VIA VT8371(KX133) /VIA 686A chipset. The board has 6PCI slots, 4X AGP slot and 1 shared ISA slot, 4 DIMMS are buffered to support up to 2 Gb of PC100/133 SDRAM. Softmenu III lets you set all motherboard parameters in the CMOS. No need to move jumpers or toggle switches on the motherboard. There is also a 2 channel UDMA 100 IDE controller in addition to the 2 channel UDMA 66 controller supporting a total of 8 IDE devices. The UDMA 100 controller shares the IRQ of PCI slot 5 so thats one slight drawback. The latest official bios releases for the Abit KA7 are here. The latest and most stable officially released KA7 and KA7-100 bios is KA7_TY.bin. The KA7_RX.bin is unable to properly detect my SCSI drive controller. I am currently using the ka7_ty.bin bios. These cost about $170 new. The KA7 and one KA7-100 boh failed, Abit was good about fixing the KA7-100. All I had to pay was shipping one way. The KA7 still needs repair but I have no CPU for it so I'm letting it slide.

Zelazny
TYAN Trinity 2Mb S1598 "Super Seven" ATX motherboard, version 1.04A, 05/21/1999-VP3-686A-2A5LET5DC-00. Its based on the VIA MVP3 Northbridge and Super South Bridge 686A with an Award v4.51PG BIOS. A fast 4ns 2Mb cache makes it nice for multitasking operating systems such as WinNT, OS/2, and Linux. This board has no support for FSB speeds greater than 100 MHz. There is UDMA66 support and the motherboard can cache up to 512 Mb of main memory. The 256 Kb L2 cache on the AMD K6-III makes it possible for the system to cache up to 1 Gb of memory. The board physically supports 768Mb SDRAM. The latest bios releases for the Trinity S1598 are here. I got the memory information from this great TYAN Trinity 2Mb S1598 review by Josh over at Penstar Systems. The Abit hardware monitor utility for the KA7 motherboard works for this board also. Get the file from Abit here. Apparently it works just fine with the Via chipset on the Tyan Trinity. This cost about $150 new.

Gollum
FIC PA-2013 rev 2.0 "Super Seven" motherboard; Award 4.60PGA BIOS, FIC ver JI1538 based on the VIA MVP3 chipset. This board runs OK with a FSB of 112 MHz and the 1Mb cache makes it nice for multitasking operating systems such as WinNT, OS/2, and Linux. The latest bios releases for the PA 2013 are here. Cost about $170 new.

Libby
FIC PA-2007 This is an AT style socket-7 board that could support the AMD K6-2 300 but cannot supply the amps for higher clocks. Cost about $170 new.

I have others I built, now retired...
Here

Processor/CPU

Merlin
Two AMD Athlon 4 Palamino MP 1.2GHz CPU's (equivalent to a 1300+ PR rating). Review over at Lost Circuits. These run at Nominal 1.75V DDR/PCI=133MHz/33MHz, support an effective 266MHz CPU front side memory bus. A 9X CPU multiplier gives 9 X 133MHz=1200MHz. Its quite easy to overclock these CPU's to 1400MHz (equivalent to a 1600+ PR rating) at 10X and 140MHz/35MHz.
CPU#1... Name String: AMD Athlon(tm)
AHX1200AMS3C
AGKGA0138GPAW
Y6928980584
CPU#2... Name String: AMD Athlon(tm)MP
AHX1200AMS3C
AGKGA0138GPAW
Y6928980573

Godel
CPU by AMD Athlon K7900MNR53B A, 710021016681, 0.18 micron, Y2K, week 21, 1.80v core / 3.3v I/O. Fastest stable CMOS settings are PCI = 33MHz, HCLK = 100, FSB plus = +11, HSDRAM = 144 MHz, EV6 = 222MHz, CPU Command Decode = Fast, cache divider at default of 1:3 (cache running at 333MHz), CPU core voltage = 1.80 volts, VSRAM = 3.30 V, CPU running at 4.5 x 222 = 1000MHz. I have AGP 4X enabled and one waitstate on the AGP Bus.. This system is stable so far, at any FSB plus of +11 or lower at CAS3 but for mission critical work I only run CAS 2 at FSB plus of +0 because the system sometime hangs when overclocked doing large (2-3Mb) pastes in EXCEL97.Can do a SETI work unit in about 7 hours. I think I paid $300 for this in the fall of 2000.

Lanczos
CPU by AMD Athlon K7700MTR5 1B A, 0.18 micron, 1.6v core / 3.3v I/O. Running currently at 7 x 100 = 700MHz. Can do a SETI work unit in about 9 hours. I think I paid $300 for this in the spring of 2000.

Zelazny
CPU: AMD K6-III/450AFX, 2.2v core / 3.3 v I/O, B 9932EPEW, AMD 1998. Running currently at 4.5 x 100 = 450MHz. Can do a SETI work unit in about 11 hours. Cost about $200 in 1999. Note this is the lower voltage unit. Reviewed at Lost Circuits here K6-III 400 and here K6-2 or K6-III

Gollum

CPU by AMD K6-III / 450AHX, 2.4v core / 3.3 v I/O, B 9917FPAW, Malay. Running currently at 4.5 x 100 = 450MHz. Can do a SETI work unit in about 11 hours. Cost about $200 in 1999.

Libby
AMD K6-2 300 MHz Can do a SETI work unit in about 14 hours.

I have others, now retired...
Here

CPU Heat Sink/Fans

Merlin
TAISOL Processor Heatsink and Fan, For AMD & Intel Compatible with AMD Athlon (beyond 1.5GHz )and AMD socket 462, and Compatible with Intel socket 370 FC-PGA High Speed 2 ball-bearing fan (powerful, compact and quiet) Cold forged aluminum with impact forged CopperBase for enhanced heat transfer Fan Size 60x60x10mm, 2-Ball Rated Voltage 12 VDC Rated Current 0.18A (Max. 0.22) Input Power 2.16 W (Max. 2.64) Speed 4800 RPM Max. Air Flow 21.19 CFM (Min. 19.07) Fan Life 70,000 Hours Noise Level 36.5dB Connector 3-pin Molex 2695 or equivalent Approval UL, CSA, VDE, CE Heat Sink Material AL6063-T5 Finish De-greased Dimension 80x60x56.3 mm Weight 264 g Retail Bundle Model#: CGK760092

Godel
The Alpha dual 22CFM fan, copper embedded Alpha P7125 heatsink as sold by 3DfxCool (since renamed to1CoolPC). The Alpha P7125 has slight cut-aways to either side of the central portion of the heatsink which contacts with 4 small self tapping screws over the stock CPU heat sink.

Lanczos
I used to see a 20-23 C temperature rise over ambient with the stock single 12CFM fan Cooler Master DP2-5G52 heatsink.Update: When I got the New KA7-100 motherboard I decided I needed to tape the thermocouple to the Athlon heatsink (NOT to the Alpha heatsink) as close to the CPU as possible. This resulted in Athlon thermal plate temperatures 8-10 C over the system temperature.

Zelazny
Alpha socket 7 CPU cooler based on the Alpha PAL 6035 heatsink as sold by 3DfxCool. There is a decent review at Overclockers.com SHOOTOUT: Alpha Socket 7 vs Global Win FDP32. I'm only seeing a 4-6 F temperature rise over ambient at the base of this heatsink. I used to see a 4-14 F temperature rise over ambient at the base of the heatsink with the Global WIn FDP32 CPM25603-16.

Libby
Global WIn FDP32 CPM25603-16.

Memory

Merlin, Godel
3 256Mb and 2 512Mb sticks of Crucial Technology PC2100 DDR. These are 256Mb 2.3V Registered ECC CL2.5 SDRAM 168-pin DIMM in a 32Meg x 72 bit configuration.

Lanczos
Memory currently in use is 1024 Mb as 4 256Mb sticks of Crucial Technology PC133 SDRAM. These 256Mb sticks are 3.3V ECC CL2 PC133 SDRAM 168-pin DIMM in a 32Meg x 72 bit configuration. Current memory settings are FSB = HCLK + PCICLK, 4-way interleave, turbo, and CAS 2.

Zelazny
384 Mb as 3 128Mb sticks of PC133memory HSDRAM from Mushkin. Current memory settings are turbo, CAS 2, and FSB = HCLK + PCICLK. Its totally stable.

Held in reserve
384 Mb as 3 128Mb sticsk of PC133memory PC150 HSDRAM from Mushkin. Current CMOS SDRAM settings are: fast, 4-way interleave, CAS 3, FSB plus = +0, and memory clock of HCLK + FSB plus + PCICLK = 133MHz. Not many boards will overclock with three 128Mb Dimms inserted. This one does with the 900 MHz Athlon in Merlin (FSB +11 = 1000MHz) but not as well with the 700MHz one in Lanczos! I can go to FSB +7 (750MHz) but its not as stable. However, even though 1 stick of HSDRAM can run at CAS 2; three sticks of HSDRAM will not even post at Turbo or CAS2 on the Abit KA7-100 if the FSB is overclocked. This is an HSDRAM characteristic. I have 4 sticks of Crucial CAS 2 PC133 SDRAM that runs fine on the same Abit KA7-100 motherboard in Merlin. I would buy another stick of this HSDRAM but its remained too expensive relative to cheaper PC133 SDRAM. This cost me $170-180 per 128Mb stick. It currently (July 2002) cost $109/128Mb

Held in reserve
384 Mb as 3 128Mb sticks of Enhanced Memory SystemsPC133memory HSDRAM now owned by Mushkin. Current memory settings are turbo, CAS 2. This used to be pretty hot stuff and cost $150/128Mb but Its probably worth half or a quarter of that now.

Libby
64 Mb Mushkin PC100 basic SDRAM.

Reserved
128 Mb Mushkin PC100 SDRAM, 16x64, 4clk, SEC Korea 831, KM48s8030BT-GL. Hot stuff at the time I bought it. According to the BXBoards SDRAM Survey this SDRAM DIMM should be able to support a 112MHz frontside bus speed (they do). Formerly I could not overclock the motherboard due to overheating problems... ...of the VIA MVP3 Northbridge!!! A heatsink on the northbridge chip fixed my problems. Got the heatsink thermal epoxy from Computernerds. It works. All the system components run fine at the slightly higher FSB of 112MHz but is currently set at FSB of 100MHz for new CPU burn-in. It does run fine right now in turbo mode and CAS2.

Video Adapters

Merlin, Godel
Sapphire Radeon X800GTO

RADEON X800 GTO
AGP 8x interface, compatible with 8x 4x, 2x systems
400MHz Engine Clock
Memory Clock Speeds of 490MHz (256MB version),350MHz (128MB version)
FireBlade Edition offers possible memory clock speeds north of 560MHz (depending on system conditions)
256-bit memory interface
VGA + TV out + DVI
2048 x 1536 @ 85Hz (VGA)
1024 x 768 (TV out)
256MB GDDR3
DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2.0

The X800GTO supports "newer" video games and especially MS Combat Flight Simulator (Pacific Theater). I paid $130 for this new. Compared to the Matrox P750 its light speed faster in games and can actually support them. However, the 2D image is not as clear and the second monitor seems less clear than the primary.

Lanczos
Matrox Millinium p750 DualHead
Key features
64 MB of DDR graphics memory
AGP 8x interface, compatible with all 8x 4x, 2x and 1x* systems
DualHead up to 1920 x 1440 per display
DualHead up to 1920 x 1440 per display
Dual-DVI up to 1920 x 1200 per display**
Single-display plus TV output support
Advanced multi-display output modes:
- Dual-display plus TV output
- TripleHead Desktop Mode
Composite and S-video output (PAL and NTSC)
PureVideo Preview - for full screen video playback
Dual Hardware Overlay - gamma correctable
Glyph Antialiasing - for crisp text rendering
Adjustable proc-amp settings for TV and overlay video window: hue, saturation, brightness and contrast
Matrox DualHead Clone - to view a copy of one display on the other display
Matrox Multi-Display Zoom - to view a portion of one display full-screen on the other display
Easy to use PowerDesk-HF utility suite
OpenGL® and Microsoft® DirectX® compliant
Display drivers for Microsoft Windows® XP and Windows® 2000

I paid $220 for this new. This video card cannot support many video games. However, this card has the most stable image, clearest, cleanest, most acurate color, 2D graphics in dual monitor mode of any display card I have ever owned. DirectX support is spotty and does not go past 8, many games freeze.

Zelazny
Matrox Millinium G400Max DualHead 32Mb AGP video card. This card has an integrated 360 MHz ramdac to support high refresh rates needed for large monitors. The VGA BIOS rev 1.3.4 is flashable. I paid $220 for this new.

Others
Matrox Millinium G400 DualHead 32Mb AGP video card. This card has an integrated 300 MHz ramdac to support high refresh rates needed for large monitors. I think the VGA BIOS rev 1.3.4 is flashable but I'm not sure. Super easy installation in MSDOS, OS/2, WinNT, and Linux. The latest Matrox drivers are here.

The dual head design of the G400 Max lets me pipe DVD videos to my TV. I'm using the WinDVD player for WinNT. Playing from a SCSI DVD player (below) seems to work just fine without the chipset DMA drivers required for IDE systems. The dual head menu in "Matrox Display Properties" only becomes active when the system senses you have the second head attached to a TV. Set it up for "DualHead Clone or Zoom" then select "Use DualHead Clone" whenever you want the screen echoed to the TV. If you are using WinDVD software you must have a TV which can be switched between "TV" and "Video". WinDVD refuses to play to a "TV" but will play over a Dual Head to "Video". Something to do with copy protection I think but its hard to tell because InterVideo has snippets about such limitations scattered all over the place. I'm guessing that probably it was not intended that I be able to play DVD's through a TV monitor. The DVD-ROM plays fine on your desktop at 75Hz and 1600x1200, but at a maximum color depth of 16 bits. However if you want to echo it to the TV then the refresh must be 60Hz and the maximum resolution is 1024x768 and 32bit color. I got tired of rearranging the desktop icons every time I switched back and forth. So, I created a new user in WinNT. I gave the new user a black background and the resolution needed to play the DVD's to the TV. Then when I'm done I can go back to my regular user settings and not have my screen settings all messed up. I got these for $50-70 new at softwareandstuff.

Zelazny
Matrox Millinium G400 Single Head 16Mb AGP video card. I paid $30 for this new from softwareandstuff.

Gollum
STB Velocity 3D Virge/VX 8Mb PCI video card. it has 4MB EDO VRAM and 4Mb DRAM (8mb max), 20MHz Ramdac, S3 ViRGE/VX chip, 1024x768 @120hz, Lifetime Warranty. Easy installation in MSDOS, and WinNT, but a pain to get working in OS/2. Definately an older card. I paid $300 for this new. Those were the days, oh the pain. see how prices have dropped as performance increases?

Held in Reserve
STB Lightspeed 128. - 2.25mb MDRAM, 1024x768 @120hz, Tseng Labs ET6000 chip, No 3D acceleration. I paid $175 for this card new. Easy installation in MSDOS, WinNT, and OS/2. Definately an older card

Libby
Phoenix S3 Trio64 1Mb PCI video card. Really, most definately, an older card.

Held in Reserve
TV PCI Desktop TV- TV Tuner Cards, PnP PCI, 125 channel cable ready, Intercast with 99 channels, Stereo sound. A Bust! Never worked well in OS/2 does not seem to work in Linux or WinNT4. I have not tried it in Win98. Definately an older card.

Storage Controllers

Merlin
Adaptec SCSI RAID 2230slp
Two-channel Adaptec 2230SLP Ultra320 PCI-X SCSI RAID controller featuring Adaptec’s Seamless Streaming technology
High-performance, Integrated RAID On Chip (ROC) ASIC
Standard Features: RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, 50, JBOD, hotswap, hot spares, Online Capacity Expansion, RAID Level Migration, Optimized Disk Utilization and the
following Adaptec Advanced Data Protection Suite features: RAID 1E, 5EE, 6, 60 and Copyback Hot Spare
Remote storage management through Adaptec Storage Manager software
Low-profile MD2 form factor for high-density servers, PCI-X
Optional lithium ION battery
Intel EM64-T and AMD-64 ready
RoHS compliant

I have this running a RAID 10 with hot spare. So far, its much more stable than the Adaptec 39320-R Hostraid. I paid $150 for this used.

Held in reserve
Adaptec SCSI Card 39320A-R
"The Adaptec SCSI Card 39320A-R is a 64-bit 133 MHz PCI-X, dual-channel Ultra320 SCSI card with integrated HostRAID.
HostRAID RAID 0, 1 and 10 data protection (Windows and Linux)
Seamless Streaming technology
RoHS compliant"

I had this running a dual HostRAID 10 using 8 WD Enterprise 9Gb 10K SCSI drives. It worked for a while, then one fine day, It destroyed the drives due to firmware incompatibility. Even low level formatting will not restore functionality. The card is plenty fast. I made a new HostRAID 10 using Fujitsu drives and found the card could not recover from an episode of drive disconnection and I lost all the data in my array, very, very, annoying. I paid $250 for this new.

Merlin, Godel, Lanczos
Two Adaptec 3950U2 SCSI controller... Up to 160Mb/sec througput provided by two 20 mips PhaseEngine RISC processors which control two 80Mb/sec Ultra2 SCSI channels. Each channel can each handle 15 devices as either Low Voltage Differential (LVD) or Singled Ended (SE) devices. The latest EPROM/BIOS and drivers for the 3950U2 are here. This is actually a server card but I've had no problems getting it to support DOS, OS/2, WinNT4 and W2Kpro. However, Win98 chokes totally trying to install with this card present. I paid $400 for the first card and then bought a second oem card from softwareandstuff for $130. Here are some of the best features of this premium "old" technology:
# External Connectors
68-pin High-Density Ultra2 SCSI (Channel A)
# Internal Connectors
68-pin High-Density Ultra2 SCSI (Channel A)
68-pin High-Density Ultra2 SCSI (Channel B)
50-pin Ultra SCSI (Channel B) - for use when dedicating Channel B to legacy SCSI support
# Up to 30 devices (15 per channel)
# Up to 80 MByte/sec on each Ultra2 SCSI channel for total bandwidth of 160 MByte/sec
# 64-bit Bus Master DMA (backwards compatible w/32-bit PCI)
# Two 20-MIPS PhaseEngine RISC processors for fast SCSI command processing
# Two 512-byte data FIFO buffers for efficient PCI bus utilization
# Cache line streaming for improved PCI bus utilization
# Dual Address Cycle (DAC) provides greater system memory addressability
# Target mode for supporting clustering,bridge and RAID applications
# Multitasking operating system support (through scatter/gather, disconnect/reconnect, tagged command queuing support)
# Advanced multimode Ultra2 SCSI I/O cell for supporting Ultra2 (LVD) or single-ended (SE) devices
# Support for 255 simultaneous active SCSI commands per channel
# JTAG boundary scan to support system level interconnect testing
# 3.3V / 5V PCI interface for providing flexibility for designing high-performance, low-power systems
# Enhanced Logical Unit Number (LUN) supports up to a maximum of 32 LUNs
# I2O-ready system compatible
# PCI Hot-Plug compatible

Zelazny
Two Adaptec Adaptec 2940UW SCSI controller... Can usually handle both ultra wide devices and a narrow devices on separate connectors, without slowing all devices to the speed of the slowest device; but fails in the case of the Fujitsu MO device below (SCSI behaves badly but not the ATAPI version). The latest EPROM/BIOS and drivers for the 2940UW are here. I paid around $300 for this card new retail and bought the second one used for $20 (a steal!!).

Gollum
Old QLogic 50-pin SCSI-2 controller that I bought with my first SCSI drive, a Plextor 4PleX. i paid about $300 for the pair.

Monitors

Merlin, Godel, Lanczos
NSA-Hitachi SuperScan 752 19" monitor. This has a very fine 0.22 pitch (check out how at their web site) and it looks great at 75 Hz 1600 x 1200 x 32 bit color!! Settings are easy to adjust. The screen has a very fine appearance. Both images and text look very sharp. Get a video card with enough frequency headroom for this monitor. I paid $490 for one and $390 for the other as prices dropped. You can get the latest incarnation as the model CM721F for $300 shipped.

Zelazny, Gollum
NSA-Hitachi Superscan Elite 630 17" monitor. This has a very fine 0.22 pitch for a 17" monitor (check out how at their web site). I paid $340 for this monitor new.

Sound Cards

Merlin
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI soundcard. Here are a couple of reviews: here at PCAVTechand here at 3DSoundSurge. I got this card from Turtle Beach direct for $80 shipped. Its available OEM for about $60. This is a very fine sounding card. It runs fine in a duallie setup. Music and movies have a clarity and depth that I never had with my Soundblaster 32 PNP.

Lanczos, Zelazny
Two Creative Labs AWE32 PNP 16-bit ISA soundcard.

Godel, Gollum
Two Creative Labs Sound Blaster (16-bit ISA) and one Sound Blaster 16 Value CT-2770 (16-bit ISA) cards.

Libby
Two Creative Labs Sound Blaster (16-bit ISA) and one Sound Blaster CT-4170 (16-bit ISA) cards These are based on the Vibra16 chipset.

Network Hardware

Merlin, Godel, Lanczos, Zelazny, Gollum
Five D-LINK DFE-530TX+ PCI 10/100 base-T ethernet card. Works OK, very easy to install. Fast enough to make VNC work well with a good router. Check it out at CPUReview. You can get these for <$10 shipped. They cost $20-30 retail.

Libby
Three D-LINK DE-530CT+ Rev B4 PCI 10 base-T ethernet card. Based on the DEC 21041-PA chip. Compatible with Linux, OS/2, WinNT4. Works OK, very easy to install. A little slow for using VNC even with a good router. These used to cost $20. Now they are not worth buying.

Godel, Lanczos, Zelazny, Gollum
The friday night topic over at The Tech-Report got slashdotted when /. posted Tech-Report's USB KVM switch comparison. Reading that led me to Tech-Report's earlier four-port KVM switch comparison. Now I have been wanting a 4-port KVM switch and was sort of leaning toward the D-Link offering. The article and the reader comments convinced me to buy the IOGear MiniView SE 4-port model GCS84A on Thursday. It arrived Friday and it works as advertised and as reviewed. Its powered off the PS/2 ports. The 4 sets of included cables work great and I see no video ghosting at 1600x1200x24-bit@75Hz. Connections can be hot plugged without any problem and PC's can boot without being selected active. The weight of it is perfect so it sits level on a table and I like the yellow 'active' and green 'selected' LED's. It sure beats the manual 2-port KVM switch I've been using till now.

Merlin, Godel, Lanczos, Zelazny, Gollum
D-Link DI-704 4-port gateway/firewall/switch. This cost me $70 but they have since dropped in price. A review is here: Penstar Systems. I'm using a DI-704P at present because it is also a print server. I ordered it for a friend for $60 and I'm waiting to see if he will actually need it. A review of the DI-704P is here: Penstar Systems I use a Zonet ZFS3008 8-port 10/100Mbps switch hung off the DI-704P to get enough connections. The Zonet switch runs quite a bit hotter (>35-40C) than the D-Link router.

Speakers

Altec Lansing ATP3 speakers. A Review of the ATP3 speakers is here: 3D Sound Surge. These cost me $57 shipped.

PC Cases

Merlin
CK2000S
14x 5.25" visible, 1 x 3.5 visible, & 5 x 3.5" hidden bays
Includes Seven 8CM 2nd fans
Options: Eleven 8CM, one 12CM, & one 6CM 2nd fans
ATX 2.01 compliant case
Lockable steel front doors
Dimensions: 24"(H) x 16.5"(W) x 21.75"(D)
This server case, I purchased from Directron summer 2003 for $329 + $50 shipping. It is indeed spacious and the locking steel doors are very nice and easy to open. There is room for an extended ATX motherboard and 20 devices. Realistically there is room for about 15 hard drives a couple DVD/CDR and a floppy. I have more than a few criticisms of this case. The metal edges are often sharp and dimensions are just a little bit off. The ATX PSU mounting plate only lets you put in a single PSU. This plate perfectly illustrates the rest of the case. You can turn it around so its upside down so you could perhaps mount your PSU with the fan hole pointing downward. Surprise! The screw holes don't quite line up to let you do this. The motherboard tray slides out but very grudgingly. Its a very tight fit. Sliding in the tray blocks off most access for cabling from the other side. The side panels swing outward like those on a chieftec case but are hard to close and the hinges are wicked sharp. The supplied drive mount rails are very hard to insert after being attached to drive mounting kits (which you must supply yourself). Screw holes don't quite line up and are easy to strip. One would think that with 8 supplied fans and 11 additional fan mounting points that one could get adaquate cooling. The front grills are roughly finished steel plates drilled with holes that are hardly adaquate for good airflow over SCSI drives. I cut out the center of each plate and installed circular grills to solve this problem. This case cries out for a 12 cm fan on the motherboard side. The two 80mm fans are not adaquate and I will eventually figure out a way to do this. I rate this case as 3 out of 5. The tight and sharp scraping fits are the primary reason. This manufacturer could take some lessons from the construction of the Chieftec Matrix.
Chieftec Blue metallic Matrix MA-01BLD full tower ATX case (as seen here) and I bought an Antec True430 430W ATX12V certified power supply separately for $74. They have some nice internal and external pictures where I bought the case at Directron for $79. The case dimensions are 470x 205x 670mm(DxWxH)s 18.49" deep, 8.07" wide, and 26.36" tall. It has 6 x 5.25" plus 2 x 3.5" external drives plus 6 x 3.5" internal drives. The internal drives have heavy cages with quick release latches and fans in front of the cages. However, unlike the Antec version, there is no provision for an air filter screen in front of the fans. The case is heavy steel an nicely finished. The front is plastic and although attractive does not do much for security. Power and reset buttons are nicely recessed so they are not accidentally pushed. There are only power and 1 HDD indicator LED which is sparse for a case that can hold 12 hard drives. The side panels are very nicely hinged and the left side has a nice locking latch. The fron panel also has a lock but is not very substantial. There is no slide out mother board tray but there are abundant motherboard mounting points and they are accurately positioned with plenty of brass stand-offs and screws provided. the 5.25" drives are mounted by attaching side rails to the drives and then sliding them into the bays. Retention is by spring clip. Thus my concern over the plastic front of the case being relatively easy to remove. Nominally, the side pannels need to be removed before the front panel can be removed. This provides some security. But I liked the Antec 1080B SOHO server case front arrangement much better. The Matrix has three front and two rear 80mm fan peforations are open hexagonal honeycomb shape; very good for free air flow. The top rear 92mm fan vent is a poorly stamped out afterthought but is welcome and necessary to remove heat from a fully loaded system. For intake air flow I have installed three 80mm Sunon 35CFM fans in front of the case. For exhaust, I have one side 80mm Sunon 35CFM fan, two back 80mm Sunon 35CFM fans, and one top back Sunon 44CFM 92mm fan. I installed my own fan guards. The PSU has 12V plugs specifically for case fans and is supposed to control their speed. The default flow is very quiet and slow but seems to do the trick. I found I got a couple degrees C cooler by using the quiet controlled 12V power for the front inlet fans and full 12V power for the side and rear fans. This seems to result in the lowest component and CPU temperatures with acceptable noise.

Godel
In-Win IW-Q500A full tower ATX case (as seen here) with an Antec True430 430W ATX12V certified power supply. Ars Technica reviewed the IW-Q500A here. The case is 24.5" tall, 17" deep, and 7.5" wide. The width is fairly generous but would prefer just a bit more like that of the 8.1" wide Antec 1080B. Both side panel open, top slides off and the mother board tray can be pulled out the back. The Top piece locks in the the side panels which in turn lock in the motherboard drawer. A tab is provided on the back to allow addition of a padlock to secure the top cover in place which in turn secures the side covers which in turn secure the motherboard drawer. The front piece of molded plastic fits well and comes off to give access to the middle five 5.5" drive bays. The front piece cannot be removed if the side panels are secured. There are a total of one external 3.5", five external 5.25" and four internal 3.5" bays. No rail mountings but lots of convient holes. The motherboard rides in two tracks has an inch of clearance on the back side and holes in the steel help ventilate the motherboard. The clearance is also a nice place to route wires. Perforation for ventillation are along the bottom quarter of both side panels, as well as sides and back of the top panel. The front plastic piece is perforated for air access and several sets of perforations are present in the metal portions of the front. In the top of the back of the case are generous ventillation perforations. Holes exist for many fans. I installed two Turbo Fans from Radio Shack. One to blow on the video card heatsink, and one to draw air in and across six hard drives. I also I put two 80mm fans to exhaust from the top back of the case and one 80mm fan to draw in from the bottom front. I get a typical case temperature rise of 6 to 8 degrees C over ambient. There is no fan whine, but the low sound of rushing air is quite audible. This case cost me $68 and is still going for about the same price bundled with a cheap 300W PSU.

Update: I bought a second IW-Q500 in September 2000 which has now been changed to the IW-Q500N. I do not recommend this new design. This newer design is very nicely finished but has a different ventilation setup which (alas!) IMHO results in a hotter system. The older design had a better case lock. and room for two side by side 80mm fans above the power supply. The new design has two smaller fan mounting areas (shown here). 80mm fans cannot be mounted in either of the two perforated backplane areas. Note that two of the mounting screw holes for the lower fan are blocked off by the side panel. If you put use those mounting holes, then the side panel cannot lock properly. The mechanical drawing of the new design is linked here. Note the flat top with no side grills and that the large case side panels now have verticle grills rather than low horizontal grills. I'm using that case in a different PC. The IW-Q500A stays with Merlin.

For sale
Sky Hawk USA model MSR-4620SLF aluminum mini server case (as seen here) with an Antec PP403X 400W ATX ver 2.03 certified power supply. AMDmb reviewed the MSR4620EP(F) here. The review convinced me to buy this case. However, I am not pleased with either the design nor the quality of construction of this case. The case Dimensions: 490(D)x442(H)x208(W)mm, 19.5"(L) x 8.5"(W) x 18"(H) are good for width and depth but not for height. This case needs a fan or blowhole above the PSU. Both side panel open, top comes off and the mother board tray can be pulled out the back. Tiny finger screws are used throughout except for the front top panel (so I added two). These thumbscrews are too small to be convenient for finger snugging and a screwdriver is necessay. The PSU is mounted on an aluminum cutout which in turn is screwed into the back of the case. The alignment is poor and the PSU ends up being suspended above the superfluous support brackets. The front piece of curved aluminum siding molded plastic fits on the front of the case well and presents two 3.5" and four 5.25" drive bays. The front covers are aluminum plates easily dislodged by pushing into the case. There are a total of two external 3.5", 4 external 5.25" and four internal 3.5" bays. Three of the internal 3.5" drive bays are mounted in a nonremovable bracket just behind the front case fans. The external 3.5" drive cage is removable after removing the front fan filter covers. The clearance is very tight and any screws used to affix drives in this cage make the cage unremovable. The cage has three 3.5" bays with the bottom 3.5" suitable only for a harddrive while the other two external 3.5" bays are too narrow. Each of the external 3.5" and 5.25" slot has bottom supports as aluminum tabs and slots in the aluminum for mounting screws. Unfortunately the tabs are misaligned so its hard to get the mounting screws to fit without a little Irish engineering. The aluminum motherboard tray rides in two steel tracks and is fixed in by 4 thumb screws. There motherboard tray is aluminum with steel inserts for the screw holes. The hole alignment is adaquate and plenty of brass offets are provided. The depth of the case is excellent and there is plenty of clearance between the internal drive bracket and the motherboard. However, I think it should be offset more to the side of the case to leave a bit more room for the motherboard. The Motherboard tray has a brace to help with rigidity but is poorly assembled and has a permanant curve in the back tray plane. When assembled the top of the back plane tray does not quite fit and has to overlap the PSU bracket. In fairness I have to say its very very convenient for assembling the PC on the tray. On the downside, its very very convenient to steal any part of this PC. No provision is made for case security. Ventillation is via two front 80mm fans with filters, two side 80 mm fans and one back 80 mm fan. The fan perforations in the side and back of the case are very restrictive. The fans are loud and whine is quite audible. No fan guards are provided so watch those fingers and wires! Despite all the noise, the case does not cool as well as an InWin Q500A or the Antec 1080B. Either of those cases easily stays about 4C cooler and much quieter. The Sky Hawk MSR4620 cost me $135 and was definately NOT NOT NOT worth the money.

Lanczos
In-Win IW-Q500 full tower ATX case with an Antec PP303X 300W ATX 2.01 power supply. This is my second IW-Q500 which I bought in September 2000 which has now been changed to the IW-Q500N. I do not recommend this new design. This newer design is very nicely finished but has a different ventilation setup which (alas!) IMHO results in a hotter system. The older design had a better case lock. and room for 3" large fans above the power supply. The new design has two smaller fan mounting areas (shown here). 3" fans cannot be mounted in either of these holes. Note that two of the mounting screw holes for the lower fan are blocked off by the side panel. If you put use those mounting holes, then the side panel cannot lock properly. The mechanical drawing of the new design is linked here. Note the flat top with no side grills and that the large case side panels now have verticle grills rather than low horizontal grills. I'm using that case in a different PC. The IW-Q500A stays with Merlin. The case has a generous width. Both side panel open, top slides off and the mother board tray can be pulled out the back. A tab is provided on the back left side (not as nice as the one on the IW-Q500A) to allow addition of a padlock to secure the top cover in place which in turn secures the side covers which in turn secure the motherboard drawer. The front piece of molded plastic fits well and comes off to give access to the middle five 5.5" drive bays. The front piece cannot be removed if the side panels are secured. There are a total of one external 3.5", five external 5.25" and four internal 3.5" bays. No rail mountings but lots of convient holes. The motherboard rides in two tracks has an inch of clearance on the back side and holes in the steel help ventilate the motherboard. The clearance is also a nice place to route wires. Perforation for ventillation run from bottom to top at both sides of the case near the front bezel. The top panel no longer has any ventillation holes. The front plastic piece is perforated for air access and several sets of perforations are present in the metal portions of the front. In the top of the back of the case are ventillation perforations for a single fan. Also in the back above the ATX board outlets is a second set of perforations for a single fan. If one bolts a fan into these holes then the case cannot be closed properly due to overlap of the left side panel with the nut holes. A design flaw in my opinion. The Q500N case runs 5-10C hotter than the older Q500A case and has less places to mount case fans not to mention the missing extra harddrive bay in the Q500A. These also cost around $68 bundled with a 300W PSU.

Zelazny
Enlight mid tower ATX case with 300 watt power supply. Not a bad case. 4 internal 5.5" bays, two external 3.5" floppy bays, two internal 3.5" bays. It would be pretty cramped if fully loaded. There is a case fan for the lower front to pull air into the case. The case fan they provide is pretty lame and I replaced it after it failed with a 3" fan sold by 3DfxCool. I installed two Turbo Fans inside the case, to blow on my motherboard chipset and on the video card heatsink. This case costs about $50.

Recommended
I recently built a duallie system similar to Merlin (but all IDE) for a friend. I used the ANTEC Performance PLUS Model PLUS1080B- which comes with an Antec True Power 430W PSU. My only criticisms of this case are that it has no slide out motherboard. Otherwise I really like this case for holding a duallie motherboard with room to spare. It runs very quiet and cools very well with the 3 stock and two Sunon 39cfm fans I added in the front. The PSU has 12V connectors for case fans with speed thermally controlled by the PSU. Specifications:Antec Performance Plus SOHO File Server Case type: SOHO File Server Case Color: Antec Metalic Gray Case Dimensions: 20.6" x 8.1" x 18.6" (H/W/D) Drive bays: 10 Front accesible 4x 5.25, 2x 3.5" Internal 4x 3.5" Expansion Slots: 3 Short 4 Full Length 2 Rear Standard Fans 1 Side fan 1 Front (optional) 1 HDD (optional) Washable Air Filter in front Weight: 33.7 lbs.

Gollum
Generic ATX tower case with an Antec PP303X 300W ATX 2.01 power supply.

Libby
Generic AT case

Power Supplies

Merlin
Antec True550 PSU

Antec True430 PSU

Godel
Antec PP403X ATX PSU

Lanczos, Zelazny, Gollum
Antec PP303X ATX PSU

Libby
250W AT PSU

Hard Drives


Merlin
Four IBM Ultrastar 18ES DNES 3309170, 9.1Gb, 7200 rpm, 2Mb cache, 68-pin, ultra2 wide SCSI LVD/SE hard drives. These run very cool and quiet and rate about 18Mb/sec throughput. They make a nice fast system if you stripe set a partition across three of them together for the system swap files and other things needing quicker access. I see about 45-54 Mb/sec for the stripe set volume.
Ten Western Digital Enterprise WDE9150-0050, 9.1Gb, 10,000rpm, 2Mb cache, 68-pin, Ultra3 160 SCSI LVD/SE hard drives. These run cool and quiet and rate about 25Mb/sec throughput. I have two software raid0 stripe sets configured as follows:
Four drives are software raided together with two drive on each 80Mb/s channel of a dedicated dual channel 3950U2 controller. Identical logical drives T and U are The system swap files and other things needing quicker access are on these stripsets. IOMeter readings below (PCI latency 128) for the stripe set volumes. Drive U has identical performance to T when run alone but they necessarily step on eachother when run together.
Drive T read = 98.58Mb/s
Drive T write = 94.60Mb/s

Drives T+U read = 136.60Mb/s
Drives T+U write = 135.52Mb/s

Drives T+U+V read = 184.68Mb/s
Drives T+U+V write = 172.72Mb/s

Godel
Two IBM Ultrastar 9ES DDRS 34560 4.5Gb 7200 rpm 512K cache ultra wide SCSI LVD/SE hard drives. I have them configured as U2 LVD drives.These run very cool and rate about 9Mb/sec throughput. They make a nice fast system if you stripe set a partition across two of them together for the system swap files and other things needing quicker access. I see about 18 Mb/sec for the stripe set volume.

Lanczos
Storage is a 30 Gb, 7200 rpm, 2Mb cache, ATA-66/100 Maxtor Diamond Plus drive. Storage used to be all SCSI devices. Once you use SCSI you won't want any IDE devices on your system. However I have compromised (since I built Merlin) and put in a 30Gb Maxtor Diamond Max Plus, 7200 rpm, 2Mb cache, UDMA66 hard drive since the KA7-100 supports it.

Zelazny
Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 7200 rpm 2B cache, 20Gb UDMA66 hard drive since the Tyan Trinity supports it.

HenWen
Seagate Barracuda 4LP ST34371W 4.5Gb 7200 rpm ultra wide SCSI hard drive.

Gollum
Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 7200 rpm 2B cache, 20Gb UDMA66 hard drive.

Libby Western Digital 3Gb, 2.5Gb, 1.2Gb, and 0.85Gb EIDE drives

Godel, Lanczos, Zelazny
OK not a hard drive but just thought I'd put this in here. Iomega Internal EIDE ZIP drive. Convenient, because everyone has one. Works great in MSDOS and in OS/2 with fixpack 8 or higher. OS/2 even lets you format it as an HPFS volume.
Caveats: media is too expensive and IMHO too small to be used for backup. I'm not sure what is claimed about media archive lifetime. They make great installation disks for your legally entitled backup copy of software packages. If you put each set of multiple floppy disks into a its own directory on the ZIP, installation is a piece of cake from then on. They are more reilable in my experience than 1.44 Mb floppys. However, they are still allergic to magnetic fields and liquids. ZIP devices identify themselves as hard drives which leads to all sorts of headaches in multiperipheral SCSI systems.

Magneto Optical Drives


Merlin
Dynamo 640SE SCSI-2 640Mb magneto optical drive made by Fujitsu.

Lanczos
Dynamo 640AI ATAPI 640Mb magneto optical drive made by Fujitsu. I got mine for $136 shipping included from software and stuff. Its the first time I've used them so Caveat Emptor. I had no trouble with them this time. They specified: "new, factory sealed bags". The drive arrived with all parts intact but the electrostatic bag had been opened. The drive did appear new so I went ahead and installed it. I This drive is incredibly easy to install and hooks up just like an IDE hard drive but with the IDE cable backwards (red stripe away from power connector). WinNT recognized it right away without fanfare and away you go.

DVD ROMs

Merlin
Toshiba SD-M1401 SCSI 16X DVD-ROM drive. A review is here: Storage Review. I paid $85 for this drive. You can get the IDE equivalent for about $40. This is a very quiet drive and I recommend it highly.

I got the WinDVD software DVD player from InterVideo. This lets you play DVD's in WinNT4. The "free" version of WinDVD only plays 5 minutes of a movie. You can use to see if the software it works on your system. The full version was $30 and is now $50 for a downloaded version from their site. There is a fault in their download version in that it periodically (e.g. daylight savings time changes) requires you to go to their site and get a new activation number. This is a very annoying defect in otherwise superior software. I recommend this player over all others out there but you can find version 2.6 on the web for $12 with a permanent serial number and no annoying requirement for activation codes. Written back when Godel had the DVD player: Perhaps its the G400 MAX or the Athlon 1GHz (Godel, overclocked) but I don't see any movement artifacts. CPU utilization as measured by the WinNT task manager hovers between 40 and 60% as I write this with the movie in a window. It averages slightly higher full screen. Working with a music video in the background is now possible. The digital music out is very nice through a sound system. The AMD K6-III 450 systems can play DVD's with about 85% CPU utilization. I'll update this if I have any further observations. Update: Merlins' dual 1.2GHz Palamino's can play a DVD with less than 3% CPU utilization.

CDROMs


Retired
Plextor 4PleX and UltraPlex SCSI-2 CDROM. Reliable, fast, very well behaved SCSI-2 device works just fine on same controller (narrow device bus) with ultra wide devices without slowing them down. Update: The 4Plex drive cratered and I RMA'ed it back to Plextor with the understanding I could get an upgrade replacement 12/20PleX for only $45 but I have not received it. So, for now I'm using cheap Toshiba IDE CDROM's. Maybe this implies that Plextor is not as reliable as I once thought.

Godel, Lanczos, Zelazny, Gollum, Libby
Toshiba So, for now I'm using cheap Toshiba IDE 2X CDROM's. I would not bother buying a CDROM anymore. Just get a DVD-ROM. They play CD's just fine and you can also watch movies.

CD-RWs


Merlin
TEAC model 516EB CD-RW drive. See reviews at Storage Review and CDR-Info. I bought a copy of Nero 5.5 because the Roxio/Adaptec Direct CD 5.0 software is a drag on the system. This changed when I moved the CD-RW from the Abit KA7-100 motherboard in Godel to the MSI K7d Master-L motherboard in Merlin. The WinNT 4.0 support for the IDE chipset is faulty (good thing I'm mostly SCSI) and Nero runs very slow. However, when I put the same hardware setup with Win2K Pro then Nero burns a full CD is about 5 minutes. I'm keeping an eye out for new WinNT 4.0 IDE drivers for Merlin. I paid $155 for this CD-RW but now they are going for about $84 last I checked. You can get Nero 5.5 for about $12.

Printers

Okidata OL410e LED printer. The LED array makes this printer nearly bullet proof. Good, reliable printing. Toner cartridges not too expensive. They used to be $9 but now run me $30. You go through several toner cartridges before you need to replace the laser drum. Probably it will be cheaper for me to buy a new printer than buy a new laser drum. I'm still running on the first laser drum. I paid about $550 retail for this back in 1994.

My first printer was an Epson FX80. Its a tank and I still own it. I think it cost around $400 back in 1983.

Joysticks


Merlin and Godel
Saitek EVO FORCE
* Rapid-fire trigger
* 5 fire buttons
* 8-way ‘point-of-view’ hat switch
* 3D twist for rudder control
* Lever throttle
* 2 shift buttons
* 4 base buttons
* Single spring gimbal mechanism
* 3 position handle adjustment to suit all hand sizes
* Single spring action for use with non-Force Feedback games
Connectivity: USB 1.1/2.0
System Requirement: Windows XP & XP64 (This is bull, they work fine in W2Kpro systems)

These are very nice for MS Combat Flight Simulator over the network between Merlin and Godel.

Keyboards


Merlin
Keytronic Classic Wireless Lifetime series IR keyboard. Very convenient, nice feel, use up to 50 ft away. Easy to clear off desk if you need the space. Uses 4 AA batteries, which last a 2-4 weeks. I find that Ni-MH AA batteries work great and can be recharged in an hour with a Radio Shack Ni-MH/Ni-Cd charger (CAT 23-405).

Godel, Lanczos
Focus model FK-5001 keyboard. it has the 12 function keys to the left as well as across the top. Also it has a complete 9-key movement pad separate from the numeric keys. It also has a calculator but I've never used it.

Zelazny, Gollum
IBM model-M standard tank-like mechanical click keyboard. Nice feel.

Libby
Standard POS keyboard

Mice


Merlin
one Logitech wireless scrolling optical mouse. Uses two AA batteries; very nice tracking.

Godel, Lanczos
one Logitech scrolling optical mouse; very nice tracking.

Zelazny, Gollum
two Logitech three-button model M-C43 ball mouse, no scrolling.

Libby
Logitech three-button model M-MD15L ball mouse, no scrolling.

Components of the Ghostwheel

The Computers in the Ghostwheel

Geeks Corner

Take Me Home!