After about four hours of work today, the frame of Pandora's Box 2 was completed. The four sides were fit together, hinges attached, fan holes cut, and lid fitted with a lip inside. As a whole, the project wasn't that hard, but some compromises had to be made. I wanted all four corners of the cube to have mitred edges at 45 degrees so they'd fit together perfectly. Instead, two sides have notches where the other sides fit in. Below are some pictures of the box. Pictures of the computer during installation will be posted immediately after.





In the two pictures above, you can see the four sides of the cube with the hinges bolted to the bottom. You can also see the four fan holes - two will be intake, and two will blow air out.



Above you can see the box with two of the sides up. The hinges are great as they allow the bottoms of the sides to lie flush with bottom of the case without any hinge on the outside of the case.



Here you can see the eight eye hooks installed in the corners of the box. Two eye hooks are then anchored together with a little doo-hickey that can be tightened or loosened by twisting the doo-dad in the middle. They work perfectly to keep the four sides upright and snug.



Here's the cube together. The top has small pieces of wood inside that keep it in place atop the box. Works like a charm and is extremely sturdy. With the doo-hickeys tight and the top on, the cube is almost perfectly square and looks great.

Now to the hard part...installation of the computers.

URL: STEALTH-CASE FAN

This past week was my first week back at work after a couple weeks of vacation. And I'm not quite sure what it is, but work sucked more this week than it had over the past year. I don't know if I realized how stupid and pointless my job was, or if I was just annoyed that they would move one of our workers to a different location without giving us a replacement, or just the sheer fact that the pay is so horrible for a full time job with my skills that I'm just ready to give up.

Either way, I'm getting to the point where working at McDonald's would probably be more enjoyable for me. Heck, I'll probably submit an application to Fry's to see if I can get a job there. Working at a bank for a year should qualify me to work at the register - and my knowledge of computers should move me out into the rest of the store quite soon (one would hope). Though I'm still holding out for what would be one of my dream jobs - not a peace officer - but a job at a company which provides research for land developers. I had one interview there over my vacation and I fell in love. They've got all the latest toys - from computers to monitors - and what they do actually interests me. Even though I might not have the requisite Excel skills, I do learn extremely fast, so I'm hoping I can get the job (just need to somehow overcome my horrible interviewing skills).

To sum it up though - work sucks more than ever. The pay sucks, the people are starting to suck, and the repetitiveness is getting old even quicker now. Benefits be damned, I'll take any other job now.

Work sucks. // The Office Space Fanlisting

Yesterday, I made a couple of visits to Home Depot and I've pretty much got all I need from there in terms of building Pandora's Box 2. I got some nice unfinished pine for the main frame and some concealed 90-degree hinges for the four sides (the link below links to 170 degree hinges as the 90 degree hinges are not on Home Depot's website - but they look very similar). Today the big Fry's ad came out, so I'm hoping for a 4 computer KVM to be advertised - otherwise I'll have to spend $40 for one at Microcenter (Fry's usually has one for $20-$30 weekly).

Since I was excited about these cool hinges, I experimented with them on some 2x4's and they work perfectly. While experimenting, I also tried to figure out how to get my motherboards mounted to the pine. How else, but standoffs of course? I have plenty of motherboard standoffs from taking apart cases and such, but I wasn't sure if they'd work in wood. However, after drilling a pilot hole with a standard wood screw, I put the standoff in the drill itself and screwed it on into the wood. Surprisingly, it is extremely sturdy. The standoff will not give in any direction and will be perfect to hold the motherboard. Figuring out how to keep the wiring out of the way, but accessible is another challenge.

I also have to wait for the power supply splitters to come from Ateck.com. The store had good reviews on the net, so I figured they'd be reputable, but I haven't heard anything from them yet regarding shipment. The other store I was going to get them from has a backorder of a few weeks, so that doesn't work, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the time being.

Either way, I have a lot of time left in initial construction, but it would be very nice to have all the pieces in hand before putting the parts into the box so I can figure out where exactly parts need to go so cables have the correct reach.

URL: The Home Depot: Amerock BP4631-A14 170-Degree Concealed Hinge (1 Pr.)

Had a few spare moments this morning, so I figured I'd see how I could put together a Folding at Home box cheapest with the most amount of power. Quick and easy solution - on board video, LAN and audio. Newegg has a PC Chips Micro ATX board with support for 800 MHz FSB and PC3200 RAM for $42. Throw in the cheapest socket 754 processor - a Sempron 2600+ and 512 MB of cheap (but reliable RAM) and you've got a working board for $165. The price could be brought down by going with 256 MB of RAM and I could pick up a Sempron 2200+ at Fry's for $40, but performance would be hurt and large work units would take a little longer to complete with half the RAM. However, you do get the price down to $105.

Either way, I'm going to go out and get some parts for Pandora's Box 2 tonight. Just some hinges, wood, the basics to start construction (since the Angels game is a day game and won't occupy my time at night). Once I get Pandora's Box 2 up and running, I can then easily swap out whole computers for a new one from Newegg for $165 (or less as prices go down) that will easily double the power of a couple of the boards going into the box.

Current boards:
ECS K7S5A w/AMD Athlon 1100
ECS K7S5A w/AMD Athlon 1700
Soyo w/AMD Athlon 1600
Soyo w/AMD Duron 850
(2 with 256 MB RAM, 2 with 512)

So as you can see - dropping in a new board with a faster FSB and quicker memory access along with a faster processor and more RAM will speed up things considerably for a very cheap price. It'd be pretty sweet to eventually replace all 4 computers with identical boxes to keep things looking good. Now - to just find some cheap hard drives - as the ones I bid on on eBay were lost earlier this morning and I am not going to pay more (TXMicro, here I come).

Other plans for the boxes - a KVM switch to control all four if need be along with a small LCD monitor attached to the top of the box (trying to find one free at work). Also, a USB CD-ROM for quick and easy access if need be (though I'm not sure if I can install Windows off of a USB CD-ROM - in which case I'll just go with the PATA).

URL: Newegg.com - Once You Know, You Newegg

Just a few more pictures of Pandora's Box 1 now that it is done. Pandora's Box 2 coming soon.



Above, you can just see the side and part of the top of the box. Each side has an 80mm fan - one pulling air in, the other pushing it out. On top, there's fan grilles over the power supply outlets. I had to just cut holes for the power cables to enter.



Here's Pandora's Box's top. Two fan grilles, two ugly holes for power cables.



Here's the final shot inside Pandora's Box 1. On the very top of the picture, you can see a power switch just mounted inside. There's also one on the bottom side of the box, but it's hard to see amongst the other items. Also, you can see the two Airlink Wireless networking cards I installed. Both work flawlessly - so much so that I picked up two more today for $13 each for the two other computers I plan on putting in Pandora's Box 2.

Construction should start soon on that project. I have most of the pieces I need, but just need to do a bit more planning. My two ATX 20 pin power cable splitters are on the way, along with two 20 pin power cable extenders. Should be no problem to reach all four motherboards - though I had planned on having both PSUs mounted on the same side of the box - not sure if that can be done with the current config of the power cables - but I am going to try. I also bid on two cheap 30 GB hard drives on eBay - hopefully I'll be the high bidder when it ends and I will have most of what I need.

URL: The Legend of Prometheus and Pandora's Box

I know my stats below are pretty worthless to the rest of the world, so I guess I'll take up a topic I'm sick and tired of hearing about these past few days/weeks - Terrell Owens. I don't care that he was threatening to stay out of camp. I don't care that he wants a new contract. All I care about is what he does on the field next season.

Some say he's selfish for wanting to renegotiate after just one year and he should honor his contract. Others argue that since no contracts are guaranteed, he should be able to renegotiate whenever he wants. Both sides are somewhat right. Yes, he should probably honor his contract and play out the next 7 years at $49 million or whatever it is. However, the team can cut him at any time and not owe him $0.01. So, he probably should also renegotiate if he believes he should be the highest paid wide receiver in the league.

However, what most sides usually neglect to mention (I have heard it brought up though) - is that some of the contract is guaranteed - the signing bonus. He got a big chunk of change up front for signing with the Eagles. If he went down with an injury in week one and was cut, he still would keep that bonus. If he plays for seven years without renegotiating, he keeps that bonus. Is he selfish to want another bonus to play this year? Sure. But perhaps he has the right idea.

Perhaps those ultra-talented players should play season-to-season without a salary. What if they were only paid once a year at the start of the year? Or even better, once at the start, once halfway through, and then finally at the end of the year - so if you were injured, you just lose out (or get paid whatever the contract says). That way, the players who deserve to be paid the most will be paid the most. If they put up, the team owners will have to shut up and pay them each year. However, if they don't produce, they won't be able to demand the high amounts of money year to year and they'll have to perform year in, year out.

I know it's not perfect, but as we've seen with the threatened and realized hold outs this year, the current system doesn't work either for the upper-echelon players. The linemen who keep the defense and offense going will most likely continue to be happy with their arrangements, however, something must be done - not guaranteed contracts, and not hold outs every year - but something needs to change so we don't get the same thing next year that happened this year.

Since I want to keep track of my F@H stats, I'll just keep a quick listing here as work units are completed.

Date: Work Complete / Total Work / Points Completed / Total Points
7/29: 1 / 1 / 241 / 241
7/30: 1 / 2 / 241 / 482
7/31: 3 / 5 / 907 / 1389
8/01: 1 / 6 / 600 / 1989

Work units completed per computer (ETA to next completion):
ARION: 3 (12 hours)
BEHEMOTH: 2 (23.5 hours)
PEGASUS: 1 (14 hours if kept on)
EPIMETHEUS: 0 (2 days, 8.5 hours if kept on)
PROMETHEUS: 0 (No ETA - too early in processing)

We've continued the movie game strong over the past two days. And after watching Mallrats and Chasing Amy, it should be quite obvious where we're going next - the following list includes those films. Chasing Amy was the last film we watched in the game.

Jersey Girl (will have to go out and purchase)
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (Kevin Smith and John Willyung)
Dogma (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith)
Chasing Amy (Brian O'Halloran and Jason Mewes)
Mallrats (Jason Lee and Brian O'Halloran)
Enemy of the State (Alexandra Balahoutis and Jason Lee)
National Treasure (Don McManus and Alexandra Balahoutis)
Hannibal (Frankie Faison and Don McManus)
Silence of the Lambs (Anthony Heald and Frankie Faison)
Red Dragon (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Anthony Heald)
Almost Famous (Rainn Wilson and Philip Seymour Hoffman)
Galaxy Quest (Jeremy Howard and Rainn Wilson)
Men in Black II (Brad Abrell and Jeremy Howard)
Men in Black (Will Smith and Brad Abrell)
I, Robot (Simon Baker and Will Smith)
Shanghai Noon (Lucy Liu and Simon Baker) [50]
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (Chia Hui Liu and Lucy Liu)
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (Michael Bowen and Chia Hui Liu)
Jackie Brown (Laura Lovelace and Michael Bowen)
Pulp Fiction (Linda Kaye and Laura Lovelace)
Reservoir Dogs (Steve Buscemi and Linda Kaye)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Keith David and Steve Buscemi)
The Replacements (Faizon Love and Keith David)
Blue Crush (Michelle Rodriguez and Faizon Love)
S.W.A.T. (Benjamin King and Michelle Rodriguez)
Lethal Weapon 4 (John Harms and Benjamin King) [40]
Lethal Weapon 3 (Marian Collier and John Harms)
Lethal Weapon 2 (Patrick Cameron and Marian Collier)
Lethal Weapon (Paul Tuerpe and Patrick Cameron)
Maverick (Stephen Liska and Paul Tuerpe)
Conspiracy Theory (Christo Morse and Stephen Liska)
Hackers (Wendell Pierce and Christo Morse)
Ray (Rick Gomez and Wendell Pierce)
Three to Tango (John C. McGinley and Rick Gomez)
Se7en (Lennie Loftin and John C. McGinley)
The Sum of All Fears (Stefan Kalipha and Lennie Loftin) [30]
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Pat Roach and Stefan Kalipha)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Frank Marshall and Pat Roach)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Alfred Molina and Frank Marshall)
Ladyhawke (Ken Hutchison and Alfred Molina)
Straw Dogs (Dustin Hoffman and Ken Hutchison)
Rain Man (Ray Baker and Dustin Hoffman)
Without a Paddle (Bruce Phillips and Ray Baker)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Stephen Ure and Bruce Phillips)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Katie Jackson and Stephen Ure)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Viggo Mortensen and Katie Jackson) [20]
Crimson Tide (Gene Hackman and Viggo Mortensen)
Superman IV (Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman)
Superman III (Jackie Cooper and Christopher Reeve)
Superman II (Ned Beatty and Jackie Cooper)
Superman (Robert O'Neill and Ned Beatty)
Twelve Monkeys (Bruce Willis and Robert O'Neill)
Mercury Rising (Chi McBride and Bruce Willis)
The Terminal (John Williams and Chi McBride)
Star Wars: Episode VI (Anthony Daniels and John Williams))
Star Wars: Episode V (Peter Mayhew and Anthony Daniels) [10]
Star Wars: Episode IV (James Earl Jones and Peter Mayhew)
The Hunt For Red October (Stellan Skarsgård and James Earl Jones)
Ronin (Jean Reno and Stellan Skarsgård)
Godzilla (1998) (Ben Bode and Jean Reno)
Empire Records (Liv Tyler and Ben Bode)
Armageddon (Owen Wilson and Liv Tyler)
Permanent Midnight (Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson)
Keeping the Faith (Edward Norton and Ben Stiller)
Rounders (Edward Norton - Starting Film)

URL: Kevin Smith (I)

As I type right now, both EPIMETHEUS and PROMETHEUS are up and running in the magazine box without any video card, keyboard, or mouse plugged in. All I have to do now is just give them power and turn them on. Also, today I stopped by Fry's with the intention of picking up a five port switch to mount inside Pandora's Box version 2. However, after considering all the cables that would have to be run (ok, not many, but still...), I decided to go with wireless cards. So I picked up two cheap Airlink 802.11G wireless cards on sale for $13 a piece (I might go back and see if they're still on sale tomorrow as they both worked flawlessly). So both EPIMETHEUS and PROMETHEUS are now wirelessly connected to the network sending and receiving folding at home proteins.

However, some people in the [H]orde brought up that they thought my box could be a fire hazard. I don't really think that it is a fire hazard, but since the thought is now in my mind, I don't plan on running Pandora's Box version 1 unattended (though it has been working flawlessly for the past few hours). Both PSUs run cool as they have ample air flow as do the CPUs and hard drives. The two Vantec Stealth fans pushing air through the bottom of the case move A LOT of air and I have been thinking about adding a third fan to the top to blow even more air out (though at this point, it seems unnecessary).

As it stands now, Pandora's Box version 1 was more of a proof of concept than anything. Pandora's Box 2 will actually be used. Right now, I plan on having four computers inside the box with the dimensions about 16" cubed (though it could get smaller). Greg has kindly donated two motherboards to the project and I just have to pick up one processor (they have a very nice Sempron 3000 at Fry's boxed for $40 - so it includes a nice heatsink and fan). I also plan on purchasing two of the splitters linked below so the four computers will run off two power supplies. Should keep power costs down a bit to do it that way.

So now the cost of Pandora's Box 2 is growing out of control and there may be no stopping it. We'll just have to wait and see how it all comes together.

URL: Welcome to ATECK.com

I figured I might as well link to F@H since the whole Pandora's Box project came up because of it. See URL below (and for those new to the site, I always end each post with an interesting URL related to the story).



Above you can see Pandora's Box - almost completed. All it needs now is the top to be put on. I've got two cool fan grills that came off the original BEHEMOTH computer (from a very long time ago) that will look great on the top of the box where the two openings will be for the PSU fans. Then, we just need two holes for the power to enter the box and it's done.

I'll try quickly to explain the picture above. On the top side of the box is the old SERVER motherboard - now EPIMETHEUS. It's an ECS K7S5A (piece of crap). I'm not quite sure what processor is in it now - but it can't be any faster than an AMD 1600+. It has 512 MB of RAM and you can see the ATI Radeon 7000 graphics card and on-board LAN. The connectors for the keyboard, video and mouse come from my KVM switch, so I can play around with it all from one central keyboard, video and mouse (which also controls ARION and BEHEMOTH). The ECS motherboard is powered by the PSU on the right (as you can see that it's plugged in). Below the PSU on the right is a 20GB Maxtor HD that controls the motherboard on the bottom - an ASUS - which came from the MAME computer - now known as PROMETHEUS. It is running a AMD Duron 850 with 512MB of RAM. This computer is idle for the time being since Greg has my other graphics card which will provide the video for the ASUS. The ASUS motherboard is powered by the PSU on the left. Below the PSU on the left is the hard drive (30GB Maxtor) for the ECS on the top. It has a hard drive cooler attached which provides just a little extra cooling - I really wish I would have put a cooler on the other Maxtor, but it's too late now (or maybe not, but we'll see tomorrow).

As you can see, everything is held in place with zip ties. Every cable, every motherboard, every power supply, every fan. It looks great! (I love zip ties)

What you can't see is a new addition to the box - where the handles would be, I've enlarged the holes and added two Vantec Silent fans. One pulling air in and the other pushing it out on the other side. Should create a good amount of airflow in an otherwise cramped box.

And, since I had to get the picture for Pandora's Box off the camera, I also got pictures of the insides of ARION. So here you go:





I tried my best to keep the cables together out of the way (thanks, zip ties) and the power cables as hidden as possible. We've got 2 120mm fans (one in the front out of sight) pushing air through the case and this picture is before the installation of my Thermalright XP90, so there's only a stock heatsink on the AMD Athlon XP64 3700+. There is one optical drive (a BenQ DVD+-RW that you can't see in the top picture) and one FDD - a Western Digital Raptor 74GB drive. Video is provided via the eVGA 6600 GT card in the PCIe slot.

In the second picture, you can see the Antec NeoPower 480 power supply and the BenQ drive. Most of my cables are stored up there because the main concern for air flow is at the bottom - over the hard drive and up and over the CPU and the video card.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments below!

Quick update 1:00am - EPIMETHEUS continues to fold without problems. PROMETHEUS could be plugged in, however, my switch is maxed out, so I need to visit Fry's tomorrow to see if I can either a) buy two cheap wireless cards for the computers or b) buy a cheap switch for the computers. I'm leaning towards the wireless card option since that would enable me to drop Pandora's box wherever there is power rather than having to drop it where there is power AND a wired internet connection. However, it would be cool to mount the switch inside the box and run the cables internally with just one cable reaching out of the box for an internet connection (it'd also be cheaper to go the switch route as well).

URL: Folding@Home Distributed Computing

Today, I was a bit bored as it was my last day of vacation (oh, how nice those two weeks were), so I decided to break out my two older computers and retool them. Well, maybe not retool them per se, but rather, move them to a new case and have some fun with it.

So, MAME & SERVER were moved out of their boring beige boxes into a brand-spanking-new cardboard magazine box. Yes - a magazine box. It's about 16 inches long, 9 inches wide, and 12 inches high. So, we're not talking much space here (in fact, I just uploaded a picture so you can try and visualize what I'm talking about). Each computer is mounted to one of the long sides via zip ties. The hard drives are mounted to the bottom via zip ties, and the power supplies are mounted on the "width" side above the handles. It's a very tight fit (obviously), but it was a fun little project.

I really only ran into one problem while mounting them - the realization after the fact that I needed power switches to turn them on. The power jumpers were at the very bottom of each motherboard, and with the way they were mounted, I was unable to read the writing on the board, so very slowly, I tried each combination of 2. Then, on the ECS, I had to reverse the switch and try each combination over again. But, the switches are now installed (cannabalized from the two beige boxes) and both computers are up and running.

The computers have been rechristened PROMETHEUS and EPIMETHEUS - brothers from the Legend of Prometheus and Pandora's Box (get it - Pandora's Box?). Both will be stored in my closet running Folding@Home - a project I recently took up - at first to benchmark my new computer and then to gain in the ranks of the [H]orde at [H]ardOCP. I just started a few days ago, but I'm moving on up - PROMETHEUS and EPIMETHEUS will be boxes 4 & 5 I'll have running F@H here in the house. Other machines include ARION (my new computer), PEGASUS (my dad's computer I just built him - which is unfortunately not on 24/7) and BEHEMOTH (my old computer that ARION replaced).

So hopefully with these five computers, I'll move up the [H]orde charts a bit faster (though PROMETHEUS and EPIMETHEUS will move quite a bit slower because they have limited processing power). Greg has offered to donate two of his old motherboards with CPUs and RAM though, so Pandora's Box may be rebuilt in a custom wood box with a motherboard on each side - all hinged for easy access. I figure I can throw in four wireless networking cards and then I can store Pandora's Box anywhere in the house where there's power.

And, believe it or not, I've actually thought about building a farm of computers for a while now - I just never had the spare parts. Unfortunately, MAME & SERVER were destroyed in the process - but since neither was being put to good use, it's not such a shame. Pictures of Pandora's "cardboard" Box will follow soon.

URL: The Legend of Prometheus and Pandora's Box