My computers

A short description of the computers that inhabit my home network follows.

Feena

Main workhorse

This machine was originally built in 2006 with radically different specifications. I've since sold the original mainboard (ASUS P5W DH), and the rest of the parts went into my FreeBSD server. The name comes from the famous goddess of the Ys video game series by Falcom Corporation.

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.46 GHz
• Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 motherboard rev 2.1
• Tuniq Tower 120 CPU cooler
• 8GB OCZ Platinum DDR2-800
• Gainward GeForce GTX 275 Golden Sample video card
• HDD: 128GB Crucial M4 SSD, 2TB Hitachi, 500GB WD, 750GB WD, 1.5TB Seagate
• Onkyo WAVIO SE-200PCI sound card
• Pioneer DVR-109 DVD-RW
• Lite-On LTR-52246S CD-RW
• Corsair HX-620W PSU
• Antec TX-1050B case
• 24" Dell 2408WFP monitor
• Filco Majestouch FKB108M/JB keyboard
• Microsoft Comfort 4500 Mouse
• Windows 7 Ultimate x64
• Debian GNU/Linux "wheezy/testing"

Nanoha

FreeBSD server

This machine was an upgrade using parts originally from Feena in 2008. Nanoha in its original form is now my router "Nagisama". The original Nanoha ran FreeBSD and Gentoo for a few years before being "retired" and eventually brought back into service as "Nagisama". I transferred most files from the original Nanoha so it felt apt to keep the machine name.

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
• Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 motherboard rev 2.0
• 16GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR2-800
• S3 ViRGE DX 4MB graphics
• HDD: 250GB WD, 1TB WD, 6x2TB Hitachi, 4x2TB Seagate
• Samsung 48x24x48 CD-RW
• Dell SAS 5/E 8-port SAS HBA
• Vantec ION2+ 450W PSU
• Intel Gigabit CT ethernet adapter
• Antec SX-1040B case
• FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE (amd64)

Chihiro

Home theatre PC

Built in 2008 to serve the new Sony BRAVIA television I had bought in the 2007 Christmas break. I originally envisioned running some form of Linux and XBMC on it but unfortunately bought the worst hardware combination possible for the job. Everyone knows AMD (ATI at the time) drivers are rubbish - god knows how it would perform in Linux. The other mistake was purchasing the Leadtek DTV-1000S TV card which also has spotty Linux driver support. Fortunately it has served me well under both Windows Vista and Windows 7. Underclocking and undervolting the CPU meant I could remove the CPU fan altogether as long as I was using one of the "chunky copper" Intel OEM heatsinks. The majority of the noise now comes from the hard disk which I might eventually replace with a solid state disk.

08/11/2011: The power supply blew up and I've had to replace most parts inside this machine. Specs below. The new system consumes slightly less power and is capable of 1080p software decoding at all resolutions, Hi10p or not. Not bad for a 50 dollar mainbooard and $70 CPU.

• Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 @ 2.00 GHz
• MSI P43 Neo-F mainboard
• 2GB Team Group DDR2-800
• Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD4550 graphics
• HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB
• Pioneer DVD-120
• Leadtek DTV1000 S TV tuner card
• Antec Smart Power 500 PSU
• Intel PRO/1000 MT ethernet adapter
• Silverstone GD01MX HTPC case
• Sony KDL46X3100 LCD TV
• Windows 7 Ultimate x86

New specs:

• Intel Pentium G620 @ 2.6GHz
• ASRock H61DEL mainboard
• 4GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 memory
• Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD4550 graphics
• HDD: Seagate 7200.10 320GB HDD
• Hitachi-LG BDROM Combo
• Seasonic SII Bronze 430W PSU
• Silverstone GD01MX HTPC case
• Sony KDL46X3100 LCD TV
• Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Miyako

Dell XPS M1330 notebook

Bought in early 2008 to replace my Sony VAIO which had definitely not aged gracefully. I've had almost 4 years of trouble free computing from it, bar the dying NVIDIA GPU which required a motherboard replacement in 2009. Fortunately it was a quick job and Dell sent a tech to my house to get things sorted out. Getting old but still fast and good, so I don't see myself buying a new one any time soon.

• Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.5 GHz
• 4GB DDR2-800 memory
• SSD: Crucial M4 128GB
• HDD: 500GB WD Scorpio Blue
• NVIDIA 8400M GS graphics
• LED-backlit 13" TMD LCD
• Windows 7 Ultimate x64
• Debian GNU/Linux "wheezy/testing"

Fate

Nostalgia box

Built from spare parts to cater for my DOS/Win9x gaming needs. The CPU is probably a bit underpowered for the Voodoo2 combination but it still runs quite well. Unbelievable cards for the time I'd say, considering the fluid smooth performance in Quake II and Half Life. I have OS/2 on there for when I want to "do work" :P

• Intel Pentium MMX 200 @ 250 MHz
• 128MB PC100 SDRAM
• HDD: 20GB Quantium Fireball lct20, 6.4GB Seagate Medalist
• 2D card: S3 ViRGE DX 4MB graphics
• 3D cards: 3dfx Voodoo2 1000 12MB SLI configuration
• Panasonic S110 21" CRT monitor
• Focus FK-2001 clicky keyboard
• Windows 98 SE
• IBM OS/2 Warp 4.52

Totori

Sun Blade 1000 workstation

Kindly donated by a friend. I'm still not sure to do with it but it currently serves as an on-demand Oracle DBMS server. I'm not too keen on running it 24/7 due to its ridiculous power consumption. I will try installing Linux/BSD one of these days but I've heard that the driver support is spotty at best, especially for the exotic framebuffer. I'm not against replacing it with something more conventional like a Sun XVR-100 (Radeon 7000). The FFB2+ has quite frankly, dismal performance.

Feb 2012 Update: I bought a new XVR-600 framebuffer for this machine and the performance is much better. The only downside to the new framebuffer is the limited open source support. The OpenBSD driver only supports it in 256 colour mode, and support in Linux is literally non-existant.

• 2xUltraSPARC III Cu 900MHz processors
• 8GB PC133 ECC SDRAM
• HDD: 36GB Seagate Cheetah 10K FC-AL disk
• HDD: 146GB Seagate Cheetah 10K FC-AL disk
• Sun XVR-600 Framebuffer
• Panasonic S110 21" CRT monitor
• 10x Toshiba DVD-ROM drive
• Intel PRO/1000 MT Dual gigabit server adapter
• "Oracle" Solaris 10 8/11

Ayesha

Sun Blade 2500 workstation

This is one of two Sun Blade 2500s that I trash picked from the University on e-waste collection day. It's significantly faster than the Sun Blade 1000 but the chassis is clearly built to a lesser spec. It has an overall cheaper feel - less substantial and weighs less. It looks and feels more like an x86 computer than a Unix workstation. The hardware underneath is still potent, however. These machines forgo the Fibre Channel interfaces of the SB1000 and take on traditional Ultra SCSI 320 disks. These machines also consume a hell of a lot less power than the SB1000 - about 120 watts at idle compared to 280. The machine is equipped with the best framebuffer you can get for SPARC systems, the XVR-1200. If only I could find some decent apps other than Quake III to run on it...

At the moment I have a 7TB Apple Xserve RAID connected via Fibre Channel. Performance is shattering with ZFS RAIDZ-1. The only thing is that the Xserve RAID sucks about 400 watts at idle. Too much to be running 24/7 so I'll be using it for archiving and backups.

• 2xUltraSPARC IIIi 1.28 GHz processors
• 8GB DDR266 ECC SDRAM
• HDD: 73GB Seagate Cheetah 15K Ultra320 disk
• Sun XVR-1200 Framebuffer
• 10x DVD-ROM drive
• Dual QLogic Fibre Channel adapters
• "Oracle" Solaris 10 1/13

Click here to watch a video of me booting the SB2500 and the Apple Xserve RAID. 

Snake

HP 9000 Model 735/125

A machine from the heyday of Unix workstations. This would have sold for over $30,000 new. I got this one for free :)

This particular beast sports a 125 MHz PA-7150 CPU and 176MB of RAM. To put this in perspective, the average high end home machine at the time (1994) would have had 16MB of RAM. In terms of performance, these chips were second only to the most torridly clocked Alpha AXP 21064 CPUs. The PA-RISC chips of this era easily smashed the IBM POWER, SGI MIPS and Intel x86. Way to go HP!

One thing that really strikes you is the sheer weight of the system for its size. It literally feels like it has lead weights inside. These machines are very solidly built.

For now I'll be fiddling around with OpenBSD/hppa 5.2 on it. I'll track down a HP-HIL adapter so I can use the graphics framebuffer instead of being stuck on serial.

• PA-7150 125 MHz processor 
• 176MB RAM
• HDD: 2GB Seagate Barracuda Narrow SCSI disk
• HDD: 1.2GB Seagate Hawk Narrow SCSI disk
• Unknown NIC
• OpenBSD/hppa 5.2

Click here to watch a video of me booting the machine on a serial terminal.

Other

Other machines that I didn't list above are mentioned here. They are mostly vintage machines that I've collected over the years.

• Apple Macintosh SE
• Apple Macintosh II
• Apple Macintosh Quadra 630
• Apple PowerBook 165
• Apple PowerBook 5300cs
• Apple Power Macintosh 8100/80
• Apple Power Macintosh G3/266
• Apple Power Mac G4 Quicksilver 733
• Sun Blade 2500 Red 1.28GHz
• IBM RS/6000 43P Model 140
• Lenovo Thinkcentre M55