Ok, so a few weeks ago ... my fileserver was finished. It didn't want to boot ... it would power on correctly maybe 1 out of 4 presses of the button. Nevertheless, once it booted, I got Linux installed, and my RAID set up. For those interested, it's a RAID5 setup, consisting of 4 320GB drives. Formatted ReiserFS, I ended up with 906GB of usable space. Roughly translated, that's:

* 1.8 years of MP3 (276,938 average MP3's)
* 110 days of straight DivX content (1,325 full-length movies)
* 196,555 full copies of the King James edition of the Bible

There's some serious storage on there. Well, the other day, it starts spitting a lot of errors from HDD#3. I power it down, replace the IDE controller, and power it back on. ................ it doesn't boot. Try again, doesn't boot. Again? Doesn't boot. PC #1 is down!

So, I tear it down again, and this time transplant an older Pentium3 motherboard into it. Well, now it boots (and well!), but it doesn't get very far after that. The Southbridge is shot, and the Linux kernel can't initalize it. So, option #2 is gone.

Aha! I just bought several Dell PC's the other day, AND even had a server donated to me! I crack open the server to find that it's a very nonstandard layout ... (stupid Dell), and definitely wont' even fit in my case. I look at the option of moving the hard drives over from the old case to the new one, While this would work, I lose my precious cooling. Without cooling, all of my drives die, and the redundancy of the RAID is moot. PC #3 is out.

I also have several Dell desktop machines. Each of them couldn't be more non-standard, in fact, and all are worthless for this case. They're great little desktops (anyone wanna buy one? $70, I'll linuxify it so you can at least use it, and it's yours), but the motherboard won't fit in my server case, and the desktops can't hold enough hard drives to make this work. PC's #4 and #5 are out.

So, I'm left with the last PC I have. It's a little 450MHz beige box. I open it up ... and the mobo is in about 4 pieces, each clipped at a weird angle to the rest of them. The idea that I can even remove it from the case intact is laughable, and so, yet again, the PC's win this round. #6 is gone.

Six computers ... and I still don't have a fileserver. So, PC's: fuck you . (for now. i take it all back when i get replacement hardware)

lol, dang.

Haha. :P I have a couple socket A's that may become donated to the collection if certain events work out in my favour. I'm not much good with fixing defunct hardware though, I tend to just find newer-ish functional pieces instead [and sell the old piece to some unsuspecting nub :P].

damn bryan...why'd you buy so many old PCs?

I collect them as I come across them. If I can get a 600+MHz for $20 or less, it's a good deal, and I'll put it to use for something. Having so many spare PC's around helped me get where I am with computers now ... having a few boxes to build for fun let me learn a lot about what computers do and don't like. Plus, a plethora of replacement parts on hand allows me to keep friend and family's PC's running for hella cheap.

Paul's kids all have "junkyard" PC's ... and last I heard, they love them

"e-penis" :P

Nothing wrong with having a pile o,computers nobody else wanted. I have less than 1k in my whole network that includes 6 operational pcs!

Computer lived thanks to the motherboard and processor I got from Jarred! Booted first try, 450MHz K6-2. Unfortunately, it's too slow ... I can only move data at 5.0MB/s ... can't even saturate the network card ...

Then while running a consistancy check on the RAID, mdadm got pissed and kicked one of the drives out. It even powered it down while the PC was running. RAID is toast, again!

New drive is in the mail ... along with a faster mobo/proc.