Category: Build it yourself
March 26th, 2008
55W PC power supply powering the dual-core computer
Most computer builders in the world think I’m nuts for endorsing the use of 330 watt power supplies for a high-end performance computer. Conventional “wisdom” says that anything under 500 watts is inadequate for an enthusiast PC. “My power supply is bigger than your power supply” seems to be a typical mindset for many people but I’ve always had just the opposite desire to say that “my supply is smaller than yours and it works great”. So when I started building mainstream dual-core computers with 220 watt 80 Plus power supplies, people were shocked that I would even consider such a small power supply. But since I was able to build a 50W peak power dual-core computer, why not use an even smaller power supply in the sub-100 watt range?
Pictured above is the open frame fanless AC input open frame 55 watt FSP055-50LM power supply from Sparkle Power Inc with an MSRP of $39. Typically when power supplies are this small, people often use DC input power supplies with an external AC brick. Not so with this model as it’s an all in one with the standard AC power connector you get on a normal ATX PC power supply. It’s so small that it doesn’t even bother with a fan or metal casing; you have to a system-level fan yourself and provide the bracing and shielding in your computer chassis. The really nice thing about this solution is that the entire power supply including the AC conversion part is not much bigger than a DC power supply but you don’t need an external brick.
Using this 55W power supply, I took a dual-core Intel E2140 along with the bundled ECS945-GM motherboard I bought for $90 and built a computer with it using default clock speed and voltages. Unfortunately since it was missing a 4-pin power connector for the motherboard, I had to hot-wire a 4-pin CPU power connector from an older power supply to this unit to make it work. That means 2 12-volt yellow cables and 2 black ground cables had to be soldered in to place and taped up. Since these cables are safe for 10 amps each which translates to 120 watts per cable, I’m not even close to overloading the cables.
Once the computer came up, the power consumption at the plug peak out at 70W which means the output power is around 52W at 75% efficiency which is 3W under the peak output of the power supply. That is cutting it a bit close but it shows the extreme worst-case of what this PSU can handle.
In reality, the 55W PSU isn’t practical for a mainstream dual-core computer although it would be more than powerful enough for an Intel D201GLY with Celeron 115, D201GLY2 motherboard with Celeron 120, or the Via low-power ITX platforms. The upcoming Intel Centrino Atom platform with the Atom-Diamondville CPU peaks at around 4W TDP so they’re even easier to power.
The bottom line is that this is a nice little power supply for small embedded solutions but you’ll want to stick with the bigger 80 Plus closed-frame models like the Sparkle SPI220LE 220W or the SPI270LE 270W if you’re building a mainstream PC. Note that the SPI models are 1U power supplies so you’ll either need a very custom case or one that uses 1.75″ thin power supplies.
March 20th, 2008
HDMI survival guide for home theater
There’s a lot of money to be made in the HDMI cabling and switch aftermarket and unfortunately that means a lot of consumers are getting tricked in to paying outrageous prices. I’ve spent quite a bit of time helping my friends set up their home theaters recently and I thought I’d share that knowledge with my readers. If you’re tired of paying high hundreds of dollars for HDMI switches and HDMI cables, read on.
What is HDMI?
HDMI is a high speed digital interface for the transmission of high quality digital audio and digital video. So if you plug your DVD player, your PlayStation 3, your satellite or cable TV box, or even your computer up to a modern HDTV with a single HDMI cable, then the sound and picture will all work. The HDMI plug only has a single small connector so it’s nice and simple. Before HDMI, you had to hook up three separate connectors for just the video and two additional RCA plugs for stereo sound. Instead of the two RCA plugs, you could also use an S/PDIF optical cable for the sound but it still adds a lot of cable complexity and clutter compared to a single HDMI cable.
Why are there different HDMI types?
There are 4 basic versions of HDMI. You have 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 and you can get a quick summary of the capability of each version here. The easy answer is the higher the number, the better. If you’re shopping now, try to stick with the HDMI 1.3 devices if you can.
Do I need monster HDMI cables?
No, HDMI monster cables are simply a monster rip-off. If a cable is HDMI certified, it will by definition offer you a perfect digital signal. Despite the fact that the electrical signals traversing an HDMI cable degrade as a cable gets longer, it will still offer perfect digital transmission so long as the signal loss or distortion is within a certain tolerance. Analog cables might benefit from extra thickness and insulation because there’s not much you can do to fix analog signal loss or distortion other than to amplify and maybe filter the signal a little to mitigate the bad side effects. But when it comes to digital technology, the signal is either all there or it isn’t. There is zero measurable difference in the digital signal quality between the $6 HDMI cable and the $60 monster HDMI cable.
Where do I buy cheap HDMI cables?
There are lots of online vendors that can be found via a quick Google search of “HDMI 1.3 cable”. These cables suppliers have always been reliable in my experience and they’re many times cheaper than the local retailer. Here’s a few examples I compiled.
- 3 foot HDMI 1.3a cable $5
- 15 foot HDMI 1.3a CL2 rated cable $24
- 25 foot HDMI 1.3a CL2 rated cable $42
- 30 foot HDMI 1.3a cable $64 (bought for friend’s project)
- 60 meter (197 feet) HDMI 1.3a CAT5e extender kit $199
<Next page - Can I split or switch multiple input/output HDMI sources?>
March 11th, 2008
Building the 200 inch 1080p HDTV
Yesterday I helped my friend build his 200 inch 1080p HDTV for his entertainment room and it was a beast of a task. But when it was all said and done, I think he was quite happy. Pictured above and below is me standing in front of the display. [See gallery for larger images.]
In the photo above, you can see how I’m dwarfed by the characters on the screen by the life-like images from the movie “300″ (HD DVD format).
Using the $2700 street price Panasonic PT-AE2000U 1920×1080 projector, we worked hard to mount it on to the ceiling. Pictured above is the projector with the mount installed on the bottom. [Update 3/14/2008 - Note that the special paint used for the reflective wall and the undercoating used cost around 300 Euros. I would imagine that the prices in the US are a little cheaper though. I should also point out that the universal projector mount costs around $150.]
Pictured above is our handy work in mounting the thing. It wasn’t easy but we got it done. Drilling through that solid concrete material destroyed 2 drill bits and it wasn’t easy until we got higher quality drill bits and a powerful drill.
This is the front of the projector hanging upside down from the ceiling. You can use software control to flip the image upside down so it’s right side up.
On top of the projector (or below in this case) are two optical lens shift dials that allow you to optically shift left/right 40% and up/down 100% without any keystoning effects or resorting to ugly digital keystone adjustments.
Here’s the back of the unit with just the power cord and HDMI 1.3 cable plugged in. We purchased a good 30 foot long HDMI 1.3 cable off a Google search for $50 and it works quite wonderfully. Remember, digital is digital is digital so long as it works. Too many people spend $150 on even shorter cables and it’s a big scam.
March 2nd, 2008
Intel christens Silverthorne as "Atom"
Intel has officially announced its new branding for the “Silverthorne” processor and the “Menlow” platform. The Silverthorne processor will be called the “Intel Atom”. The Menlow platform will be called “Intel Centrino Atom”. The Intel Atom processor will be used in the Intel Centrino Atom platform. The new Atom logos are shown below.
Intel released technical details of the new Silverthorne processor last month at ISSCC 2008. This latest announcement gives Silverthorne and Menlow their official branding and their official logos. Intel also released high resolution die shots at the right hand side of their press release. A cut down rotated version of the die shot is shown below.
Here’s a summary of the new “Atom” processor:
- Equivalent on single-threaded performance to original Pentium M “Banias” processor. Faster if SSE3 instructions are used in the application or if multiple threads are involved.
- 0.6W TDP (Thermal Design Power) to 2.5W TDP
- Up to 1.8 GHz and DailyTech says sources inside Intel are saying that the 500 MHz version goes down to 0.6W TDP.
- Idle power consumption can drop as low as 0.01W to 0.1W
- Deep power down C6 state
- Optimized register-file and cache 6T bits cells
- CMOS mode on quad-pumped FSB IO
- Split IO power supply
- Single CPU core 2-issue in-order pipeline
- SMT (Symmetric Multithread) architecture
- 25mm^2 die size (2500 CPUs per 300mm diameter wafer)
- Can achieve 2GHz core frequencies at 1.0V
- Intel VT (Virtualization Technology)
- Intel 64 architecture (formerly EM64T and compatible with AMD64)
Intel’s press release also mentions the processor codenamed “Diamondville”. DailyTech reported some leaked information that Diamondville would be released in a single and dual-core version at 4W and 8W TDP. Diamondville will be soldered on to an Intel 945GSE chipset motherboard and judging from the photo, it looks to be a replacement for the D201GLY and D201GLY2 developing market platforms. The Intel D201GLY2 uses a lower power Celeron 220 (Core Solo architecture) with a TDP of 17W so Diamondville is a huge boost in energy efficiency. The current D201GLY and D201GLY2 also utilizes a third party SIS chipset which doesn’t support S3 sleep/suspend states while the Diamondville 945GSE platform will.
Given the fact that it’s highly unlikely (too expensive) that Intel would design a whole separate CPU for this type of a solution, it is very possible that Diamondville is simply a soldered-on-motherboard derivative of Silverthorne and the dual-core version is simply an MCM (Multi Chip Module) version of Silverthorne. AnandTech’s Anand Lal Shimpi seems to agree with this theory and goes on to explain that the slightly higher TDP with slightly lower 1.6 GHz clock is simply due to a higher voltage allowing for much higher yields. Since this is for the low-cost value market segment, that theory makes a lot of sense.
At present time Intel seems to be hinting that Diamondville will also carry the “Atom” branding but they’re vague on the specifics. What is certain is that the emerging market will enter in to a whole new level of energy efficiency and the appliance/embedded do-it-yourselfers like me are drooling over Diamondville’s power specifications.
February 15th, 2008
The $330 IPCop/Copfilter firewall 25 watt appliance
A lot of you probably already know my disdain for desktop anti-virus because of how sluggish it makes your computer and how it actually becomes more of a liability in terms of security. I’ve talked about how wonderful it would be if you could run your anti-virus at the gateway to protect all of your computers. The one thing I couldn’t really offer up until recently is how you actually implement this with a practical and relatively cheap solution.
One of the things a lot of people did was to take an old computer that made a lot of noise and probably takes a lot of power which adds up on the electricity bill. Another option was to buy a $600 embedded appliance which is too expensive. The third option which Justin James attempted was to order something all the way from China which took nearly 2 months along with a steep money transfer fee and shipping costs. I got so desperate that I even thought the Apple TV would make a nice low-power cheap appliance only to find out that the EFI BIOS was going to be a pain to deal with.
A year has passed and I’m happy to inform you that the bad old days are over and you can finally buy a low-cost low-powered x86 appliance for a little over $330 with no gimmicks or hacks. Enter Logic Supply’s Perimeter B4 appliance for $291 which includes 3 gigabit ports and 1 FastEthernet port as shown in the picture above and below which I got a chance to review. It’s an all metal chassis that can be mounted on the wall or just placed in the corner somewhere. [See gallery for a closer look.]
This particular model came with a 2.5″ hard drive and 512 MB RAM, but the current model being sold only has 256 MB RAM and 256 MB flash. I’m not sure why they no longer offer the hard drive and more memory option on their website but you might be able to custom order it. If not, you can buy 512 MB of DDR2-533 memory for $9 including shipping and a 20 GB 2.5″ hard drive for $29 including shipping. This is the recommended amount of memory you’ll need for running IPCop/Copfilter and the hard drive is perfect for transparent caching which speeds things up immensely. If you spend $14.38 including shipping for 1 GB of RAM, that would give you more room to grow.
The noise level in this device is moderate with the three small fans inside (1 for CPU and 2 for chassis). It’s a lot quieter than your 1U Cisco switch or router and quieter than some PCs, but it’s no silent enough for under-desk operation in my opinion and you might have to make some modifications to the fan to slow them down. You can generally replace the yellow wire leading up to the fan with the red wire which cuts the voltage from 12 to 5 volts and that will significantly slow down the fan. The temperature seemed to be low enough that you could reduce the speed of the fan. I did complain to Logic Supply that they should implement variable speed fans that only speed up and make noise when the system is getting too hot.
Inside the chassis you’ll find a standard mini-ITX Jetway J7F2WE-1G motherboard with 1 GHz Via C7 processor which is plenty of performance for a gateway device like this. Typical power consumption was around 25W so it should cost about $22 a year to operate 24×7 at 10 cents per kilowatt*hour.
Here I detached the hard drive and the Gigabit Ethernet daughter card. The hard drive is a standard 2.5″ PATA IDE hard drive mounted on a metal holder. There is only one DDR2-533 slot for memory so make sure you buy enough memory.
The system comes with a 10/100 FastEthernet interface on the motherboard and a 3-port gigabit Ethernet card which uses three Realtek RTL8110SC network processing chips all compatible with Linux and BSD. Note that the CPU in this appliance isn’t fast enough to turn this thing in to a gigabit router but it’s plenty fast as a gateway device. This particular daughter card actually uses the strange 120-pin plug (see gallery for higher resolution image) in the picture above.
IPCop and Copfilter are free Open Source applications and Justin James has a simple guide on how to install IPCop here if you want to get started right away. I’ll be following up with a more detailed guide.
February 6th, 2008
A dozen free & essential apps for Windows
Every time I build a new Windows computer, there are a dozen free and essential applications that I always install for other people. These applications all seem to fill essential functions and they all seem to be well-behaved installers and uninstallers, in other words it won’t crash your computer or drag it down with gunk. Since they’ve served me so well, I thought I’d compile the list here and share them with you. Without spending a dime of your hard earned money on software, you can now make the most of your computer.
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uTorrent - This is the BitTorrent client that is a must have for anyone who wants an effective file sharing application that allows you to download large files. It was developed by a lone old-school programmer Ludvig Strigeus who wrote a BitTorrent client in a few hundred kilobytes (yes, that’s not a typo) which is a real pleasant surprise in this age of bloated Java applications with 100 MB memory footprints. It was bought out by BitTorrent Corporation which raised some concerns among the user base but the client has retained all of its functionality and the new owners have done a good job of maintaining it.
Skype - This is another killer-app for the modern personal computer. If you haven’t already heard of it and installed it, go get it. It’s the first and one of the few VoIP applications on the market that “just works”. Couple it with a good analog microphone or something like the Polycom Communicator and you will be able to send superb wideband audio which is amazing compared to the normal narrow band audio you get on a telephone. If you add Whiteboard Meeting which has a free limited version, you now have a mission critical business collaboration application.
Add a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000, Quickcam Pro for Notebooks, or Quickcam Orbit AF for as little at $80 for the first two models and you have yourself a very high-quality 640×480 video conferencing solution. Skype’s HQ (High Quality) video conferencing is something you just have to see to believe. The only downside to the HQ mode is that Skype does not support IEEE 1394 camcorders so you have to buy those Logitech webcams if you want the HQ mode. The camcorder supporter would have allowed much longer zoom for use in the living room but unfortunately they don’t have that feature yet. Also note that you need a minimal of 384 kbps uploads to maintain HQ mode.
January 28th, 2008
Mac Pro is now the cheapest high-end workstation
Earlier this month I wrote “Build a Mac Pro equivalent workstation for 1/3 the cost” and the pricing didn’t look good for the Mac. Now that the new Mac Pro with updated specifications and a much lower price has come out, I figured it’s time to do an updated comparison. But during my research I came to a stunning conclusion: it’s the cheapest name brand dual-processor workstation on the market IF you know how to buy third party memory and storage. It’s not only cheaper than the slower $3817 Dell workstation I looked at earlier this month, but I can’t even build a cheaper generic PC clone unless I switched to a lower-end CPU. If you’re in the market for a high-performance Apple workstation, keep reading to learn how to get the best deal.
The new Mac Pro uses Intel’s latest 5400 series “Stoakley” platform with the “Seaburg” chipset. For the CPU, it uses the 1600 MHz FSB version of the 5400 series CPUs which have clock speeds of 2.8, 3.0, and 3.2 GHz. The graphics card has gone from AMD/ATI 1900XT to an NVIDIA 8800GT. The memory was upgraded from Fully Buffered DDR2-667 to Fully Buffered DDR2-800.
As configured in the screen shot to the left, the stripped down system is $2999 with relatively few memory DIMMs and two minimum hard drives. Since they’re only going to reduce the price by $500 if you only buy one processor and the fact that it would cost you $900 to replace that chip, it’s not worth buying one CPU from Apple. The memory and hard drives were still too expensive so I left them on the default settings but you will most likely have to take them out and replace them. The video card will also cost more to replace with a third party brand so it isn’t worth skipping either. It’s also possible that a third party 8800GT might not work so I wouldn’t even bother trying.
Now once you buy this system, you’re going to need to buy some fully buffered DDR2-800 memory which is still very hard to find at this time. I found some for $245 (vendor claims Mac Pro tested) which is way more money expensive than other generic memory but it’s way better than the $1500 Apple is asking for. A few other people in talkback posted this link for two 2GB DDR2-800 at $220. The price will probably drop $40 in coming months as these get more common but I think the price isn’t too bad at this point. You will need to buy two of these for $440 if you want the system to run with the max four-channel memory but be sure to populate each DIMM in a separate channel to get the maximum benefit. Note that CPU-Z for Windows will let you confirm how many channels you’re running though I’m not sure about a Mac equivalent applet but I’ll update if I find out.
The hard drives can be replaced with any 3.5″ SATA hard drive and you can usually buy two 500 GB Seagate hard drives for $240 and put them in a RAID-1 configuration. This does mean that you’ll either need to leave your OS on the single 320 GB hard drive or you’ll need to manually move the OS to the 500 GB RAID-1 volume which makes the OS boot faster.
Now you have a 2.8 GHz Mac Pro for less than $3800 with all the trimmings which makes it the cheapest high-end workstation on the market. It’s still possible to get a great PC 2.33 GHz dual-processor workstation for less than $2400 but the high-end belongs to Apple. However, it’s not really practical to build a lower-end Mac Pro since I’ve got it stripped down to the bone so Apple still has plenty of profit to make even if you don’t buy their outrageous components. The bottom line is that Mac users can get a much better deal on Mac Pros than at the beginning of this month.
Update 10:30AM
If you’re installing Boot Camp and Windows, do the installation after you set up the RAID-1 volume. You will need these drivers from Intel’s website for Windows XP, Vista, and Server. If you don’t want to spend $3700 and you can live with a perfectly good dual-processor 2.33 GHz workstation for $2370 which has the same 5400 series chipset. Apple seems to have figured out the perfect strategy to keep a high margin yet keep you from building a cheaper clone with exact specifications.
January 25th, 2008
Turning any monitor in to a 3D VR display
After seeing the above video sent to me by Justin James, I only have one thing to say: Give Jonny his PhD! Johnny Lee is a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University who took a standard Nintendo Wii remote and turned a monitor in to something special. You can check out the video above and actually find a sample program here on his website. You can find Wii Remotes for $40 at places like Amazon.com and you may also need a Bluetooth USB dongle for $10.
This is one of those things that you just have to see to believe, it is that amazing. Forget those silly looking 3D glasses that mimic stereoscopic vision, this is way better and I want it on all my computers yesterday!
One thing that I’d like to see is a webcam version of this and I’m going to send a note to Mr. Lee. My Logitech webcam already has software in it that can track bare eyeballs so it removes the need for funky eye glasses with infrared emitters and you can just sit in front of any monitor with a webcam and use it as a 3D portal. I just salivate at the mere thought of playing any 3D game in front of this thing but I’d love to be able to do it without wearing anything on my face.
If you check out some of Mr. Lee’s other projects, he has some pretty cool stuff in there like turning any display in to a multi-touch display. The man is now my new hero and he is a stud amongst geeks.
January 22nd, 2008
The polycarbonate all-in-one 22" LCD PC
The last time I built a wooden all-in-one 19″ LCD PC, my family wanted it in the kitchen and my mother wanted it in hers. To keep everyone happy, I built my mother another one (pictured above and below) out of 3/16th inch jet-black polycarbonate which makes the chassis look like the material from a grand piano. The result was something that was so glossy that I can probably shave in it, but I’m almost afraid to touch it and get finger prints all over it. Needless to say, she is very pleased with her new space saving computer. [See photo gallery.]
Cutting this material was fairly simple with wood-cutting and drilling tools. Just be careful to slow down on the table saw so you don’t chip the polycarbonate. I had initially avoided putting in vent holes in the back but the CPU fan and the PSU fan dynamically ramped up in RPM because of the increasing temperature and caused some noise. Once the 4 holes were put in the back, the CPU fan stayed at lower RPM and remained fairly silent even if I stress loaded the CPUs.
This time I mounted the on/off switch up top along with two USB ports which makes it easy to access and comes in handy for the webcam. I just wished I had a webcam that did away with the cable and just had a down-facing USB port so I can just plug it in right on top of the case. The other USB port is convenient for plugging other devices such as USB memory sticks or other devices I want sitting on top of the chassis.
As usual with these slim custom chassis, I used a slim 1.75″ 1U Sparkle SPI220LE 80 Plus 220 watt power supply. The idle power consumption on this computer is 43 watts and 63 watt under peak CPU loads generated by WPrime. The motherboard is an ECS 945GCT-M which came bundled with an Intel Celeron 430 CPU (Conroe-L 1.8 GHz single-core) I got at Fry’s for $70. I put in an Intel Core 2 Duo E2140 dual-core 1.6 instead and kept the lower-profile CPU fan which came with the Celeron 430. That lower profile fan came in real handy since it fit inside my 3″ thick chassis which is even less space inside because of the thickness of the walls. This chassis has plenty of room for additional devices such as a slim optical slot-loaded drive.
January 3rd, 2008
Build a Mac Pro equivalent workstation for 1/3 the cost
Conventional wisdom tells us that a digital content creation and CAD professional had to fork out $6000 to $10,000 dollars for a high-end 8-core dual-processor workstation, but this is Real World IT where I say screw conventional wisdom. I’ve put on my mad scientist hat again and brewed something up for $2311 with equal or better performance than a $6803 Mac Pro (as configured in Apple screen cap to the left). Now granted you can’t run Mac OS X so that might be a show stopper for a Mac user, but there are plenty of Windows users who want something that will run just as fast. If that’s you, then keep reading!
The Mac Pro is essentially based on an Intel 5000 series dual-processor chipset. At present time, it still only comes with 65nm “Clovertown” processors maxing out at 3.0 GHz and not the recently launched 45nm “Harpertown” processors and newer motherboard that use the Intel 5100 series “San Clemente” chipset. As I showed in my quad-core CPU comparisons, the newer 45nm processors costing $300 can rival $1200 65nm processors. Furthermore, the 5100 series chipset supports cheaper and more energy efficient registered DDR2 memory instead of the power-hungry FBDIMMs (fully buffered DDR2 memory) used in the Intel 5000 series motherboards.
My home-brew 8-core solution costs about a third of the price with performance equal or better than the fastest Mac Pro you can buy on the market. But when it comes to SSE4 optimized video encoding which nearly every video encoding software package is going to support, you can expect a massive increase in performance over the 65nm “Clovertown” quad-core processors. Other improvements in my solution is a 5-drive hot-swap SATA back plane which allows you to easily swap out up to five hard drives. The video card I used is an NVIDIA Quadro NVS290 designed specifically for the workstation market and it is also used in Sun’s single processor workstation.
Apple on the other hand uses the out-dated ATI Radeon X1900 XT which is actually a desktop gaming graphics card and not a workstation card. Below is the exact configuration and pricing for this system. I also threw in a cordless Logitech EX110 keyboard and optical mouse. Since Apple includes free shipping, my quoted prices (as usual) includes the cost of shipping. I also rounded to the nearest dollar and I do not include the effect of rebates in the quoted prices though I mention one rebate in the part description. I got these prices by roaming the search engines to find reasonable prices mostly from places that I have personally shopped before.
Updated 5:45PM - All Windows drivers for the Intel 5100 series “San Clemente” chipset have now been confirmed and can be downloaded here so both systems are confirmed to operate any x86 or x64 version of Windows XP, 2003, Vista. I have also verified XP and Vista x86/x64 driver support for all the other components.
Note that the use of FBDIMMs on the 5400 series platform adds about 7 watts of power consumption per DIMM, but the 5400 series ”Seaburg” chipset has the added benefit of a 50% larger snoop filter and official DDR2-800 support so it’s a higher end chipset. While the 5400 series chipset supports up to 16 FBDIMMs, the 5400 motherboard listed below has 4 DIMM slots whereas the 5100 series motherboard listed below has 8 DIMM slots. You can get higher memory capacity 5400 series motherboards but they cost a little more so it a toss up which chipset you should use. You can get a Supermicro X7DWN+B for example which has dual gigabit LAN and 16 FBDIMM slots for an extra $150 over the price of the Tyan S5392ANR.
High-end 8-core 2P Workstation (5400 series “Seaburg” version):
| Part | Price |
| Tyan TEMPEST I5400XL (S5392ANR) Intel 5400 series “Seaburg” | 408 |
| 8 GB fully buffered DDR2-667 ECC memory (2GB x 4) | 340 |
| Two Intel E5410 quad-core “Harpertown” 45nm 2.33 GHz CPUs | 616 |
| Seasonic 650W 88% efficiency “80 Plus” power supply | 160 |
| Cooler Master |
172 |
| NVIDIA Quadro NVS290 PCI-Express 256MB | 120 |
| Sound Blaster Audigy 7.1 | 36 |
| AMS 5-drive SATA hot-swap backplane (model DS-3151SSBK) | 102 |
| Two 500GB 7200RPM SATA hard drives | 200 |
| 18x DVD burner with SATA interface | 36 |
| Logitech EX110 wireless optical mouse and keyboard | 35 |
| Vista Business x64 edition OEM (dual-processor support) | 145 |
| Total (including shipping but not tax) | $2368 |
High-end 8-core 2P workstation (5100 series “San Clemente” version):
| Part | Price |
| 5100 series “San Clemente” dual-processor motherboard | 381 |
| 8 GB Registered DDR2-667 ECC memory (4 x 2GB) (4 slots open) | 310 |
| Two Intel E5410 quad-core “Harpertown” 45nm 2.33 GHz CPUs | 616 |
| Seasonic 650W 88% efficiency “80 Plus” power supply | 160 |
| Cooler Master Stacker ATX chassis (additional $60 rebate) | 170 |
| NVIDIA Quadro NVS290 PCI-Express 256MB | 120 |
| Sound Blaster Audigy 7.1 | 36 |
| AMS 5-drive SATA hot-swap backplane (model DS-3151SSBK) | 102 |
| Two 500GB 7200RPM SATA hard drives | 200 |
| 18x DVD burner with SATA interface | 36 |
| Logitech EX110 wireless optical mouse and keyboard | 35 |
| Vista Business x64 edition OEM (dual-processor support) ??? | 145 |
| Total (including shipping but not tax) | $2311 |
If you don’t know how to build a PC or you’re rusty, here’s a step-by-step guide. You can also have a local PC shop assemble the whole thing for around $100 or so and some will even install the OS for a little more money. Other shops may just sell you all the parts for a minimal markup with no charge on assembly if you take this parts list to them.
As for which LCD display to buy, make sure you buy something that isn’t a typical TN type panel with lousy viewing angles and lousy 18-bit color. Dell’s $700 24″ 2407WFP-HC is highly rated and it uses a high color PVA type panel with true wide viewing angles that don’t drastically drop in contrast ratio when viewed off center. The inexpensive $300 24″ Soyo (available at Office Max) is actually an MVA type panel with true 24-bit color and wide viewing angles. If you don’t need a super high color gamut, picking up two of the 24″ Soyos for dual-screens might be a great solution. For comparison purposes, the Apple iMac 20″ uses the lousy TN type display while the 24″ iMac uses the superior PVA, MVA, or IPS TFT technology.
Update 5:45AM - What about Dell workstations?
Larry Dignan asked me what about Dell solutions for the workstation market. That’s a great question and I just looked it up on Dell’s website. I configured a Dell Precision T7400 with identical CPU and GPU configuration but with the older Intel 5000 series chipset [Update 6:40AM - reader s_souche pointed out that the T7400 is actually based on the newer 5400 series "Seaburg" chipset which also uses FBDIMMs and has the highest memory capacity]. One problem was that it only allowed me to configure half the memory using 4 1GB FBDIMMs. This makes me wonder if there are only four DIMM slots in the entire system which would be rather unusual for a 5400 series motherboard.
It was also crazy that they charge an extra $350 to upgrade to a 500 GB SATA hard drive when those drives are barely worth $100 to begin with. The total price for the RAM deficient system was $3817. You will have to go out and buy your own 2GB FBDIMMs if you want to get up to 8GB RAM. That’s not as bad as the Mac Pro configuration above but it’s still far worse than my home brew.
December 19th, 2007
Hitting 50W peak on a dual-core desktop computer
The 50W no-compromise dual-core commodity desktop PC is now a reality!I have some great news for the green computing world. The 50W no-compromise dual-core commodity desktop PC is now a reality! It all started a few months back when I looked in to the possibility of building a main stream dual-core desktop computer that can drop under 50 watts idle but now I’ve answered that question beyond all expectations. Using a 220W Sparkle SPI220LE “80 Plus” efficient power supply, an Intel E2140 1.6 GHz dual-core CPU running at lower-than-spec 0.95 volts, and a Gigabyte G33M-DS2R motherboard, the system comes in just under 50 watts at *PEAK* CPU load generated by WPrime running 2 threads. If I could only find a smaller 100 watt 80 Plus power supply and hit the optimum 50% loading at peak power consumption, then it might be possible to get peak system loads down to around 45 watts.
At idle the system uses 41 watts which is actually one watt higher than my sub-$400 All-in-One LCD PC with an ECS 945GCT-M motherboard and an Intel E2180 2.0 GHz dual-core running at stock speeds and voltage. It turns out that this G33M-DS2R board with E2140 CPU running at stock speeds and voltage has an idle system power of 46 watts which is 6 watts higher than the ECS board with E2180. This was surprising to me since the new G33 chipset has a more energy efficient memory controller than the 945 chipset.
Possible explanations are the fact that the G33-based motherboard was running the memory at 400 MHz base clock (DDR2-800 memory) whereas the 945-based motherboard was running the memory at 200 MHz. One other factor is the fact that the Gigabyte G33M-DS2R Intel G33-based motherboard has a 6-port SATA ICH9R RAID controller along with a few more memory and PCI ports. This leads me to think that the combination 2x the memory clock and more components translates to an additional 6 watts of power consumption.
The following idle/peak power consumption charts are from data I collected.
* SPI SPI220LE 220W 80+ PSU
** No system fan which saves 1W power
Gigabyte with Intel CPU = G33M-DS2R motherboard
Gigabyte AMD CPU = MA69GM-S2H motherboard
MSI with AMD CPU = K9AGM2-FIH motherboard
November 29th, 2007
Updated sub-$400 all-in-one dual-core LCD PC images
I’ve put the top and bottom lid on my new sub-$400 all-in-one dual-core LCD PC and mounted an 802.11 b/g USB adapter to it so I can use the computer anywhere in the house. To keep the chassis cool, I drilled 5 large holes on the top board. I am still waiting for my female USB socket connectors that hook up to the USB leads on the motherboard so I’ve temporarily used one the venting holes to mount the USB Wi-Fi adapter. I also need to paint the thing black to match the color of the LCD and sand some things down. [See gallery, A computer's place is in the kitchen, for larger photos.]
The AIO computer is sitting on the corner of my kitchen dining table and there are no bulky ATX towers sitting on the floor or table.
This particular power strip is a bit bulky so I’m looking forward to finding something thinner that I can bolt to the bottom of the PC chassis. Having the extra power sockets right there on the computer is really nice to have.
When the computer isn’t being used or if it’s being used as a movie playback device, I can tuck the mouse and keyboard away taking up less room than a laptop sitting on the table.
To put this in to proper perspective, here’s the entire kitchen table with the AIO computer sitting at the edge of the table. It hardly takes any room and the table is wide open for eating. I finally had the kids eating at the kitchen table for once since I had a movie playing. Once I get an HDTV ATSC USB tuner dongle, this will also act as an HDTV with PVR capability along with wireless connectivity to a DVD library.
This is what the back looks like. It will be a lot less noticeable once it’s sanded and painted all black.
If you want to see what the insides look like, see the original image gallery.
Update 11/30/2007 - I’ve bolted a slimmer power strip to the bottom of the wood box and it’s a lot cleaner since I no longer have a loose power strip to worry about. It gives me extra AC ports for things like speakers or anything else that needs power.
November 26th, 2007
The $363 19-inch dual-core all-in-one LCD PC
Update 11/29/2007 - See updated AIO computer images
This is the new all-in-one Intel dual-core 2.0 GHz E2180 19″ LCD PC computer I built for the family. The shocker is that I did it for less than $363 in parts (not including keyboard and mouse). The 19″ LCD (1440×900 resolution) was on sale for $140 and the dual-core Intel CPU/Motherboard/graphics was on sale at Fry’s for an eye-popping $88 and I just couldn’t resist the temptation to build a nice all-in-one for the kitchen/dining area. I got a 300 GB hard drive for $50 and 1 GB of RAM for $30 (with an additional $20 rebate) and I used a $50 energy efficient “80 plus” 220 watt 1U power supply. For the chassis I used some scrap wood I had left over and spent 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon building this computer. [See image gallery.]
I haven’t made the top lid or bottom lid for this computer yet but this picture shows the full thickness of the computer bolted on to the back of the 19″ LCD display. The entire computer excluding the 19″ display consumes 40 watts in idle and 65 watts peak (WPrime with 2 threads). The 19″ LCD consumes 22 watts when it’s operating at full resolution regardless of the image being displayed. If the system is overclocked to 2.66 GHz, then the peak wattage goes up to 100 watts which is still well within safety margins. Note that this particular motherboard that came free with the CPU isn’t a stable overclocker so I don’t recommend overclocking on this system with this motherboard. For testing purposes, I loaded Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit edition and it booted up in less than 35 seconds (10 seconds due to BIOS post).
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With the top and bottom are sealed off (with some holes for venting heat), I wanted to make sure the CPU fan had a fresh supply of cool air so I cut out a hole in the back. I didn’t have one of those circular cutters handy so I had to freehand the hole with a jigsaw so I still need to sand it in to something smoother. I also didn’t want to make the chassis an extra inch thicker to accommodate the retail box fan that came with the CPU. To minimize cable clutter, I used 1 foot long power cords plugged in to a power strip. That strip also comes in handy for plugging in lots of other things.
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Unlike the VESA stand PC I built a few months ago, this computer uses the monitor’s factory stand which allows me the full range in tilt motion. Here in the photo you see that it’s tilted all the way back and it’s in no danger or tipping over.
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For the photo gallery, I used the Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop keyboard and mouse. Not shown is a tiny USB Bluetooth dongle in the back that connects the keyboard and mouse.
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This photo shows the inside of the system with the back, top, bottom covers off. The hard drive is bolted on to the side but I will need to put some rubber washers on to minimize hard drive noise. Wood has a nasty habit of amplifying sound which is great for musical instruments but not so good for computers so I’ll need to spray the inner walls with insulation foam to minimize noise. I’ll probably look in to plastic materials in the future.
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This is the back of the computer with the components exposed. As you can see, the box is not much bigger than the Micro ATX motherboard. The hard drive had to overlap the motherboard a little so that the entire box can be narrower than the 17″ wide 19″ diagonal LCD display. The LCD has a DVI input but the motherboard only had VGA out so a VGA cable was used. Wired Ethernet was used but I have enough room to plug in a PCI wireless LAN adapter using a 90 degrees PCI adapter. [Update 11:55PM - I'm probably going to go for a cheap 802.11g USB adapter since that saves me the trouble of using a PCI angle adapter. The fact that I can mount it on top means it will probably get better radio reception.]
This is the full profile view of my new all-in-one computer. Note that I made a mistake of not turning the bad side of the wood in so you can see some flaws in the wood. It’s not too late for me to unscrew it and turn it around though.
So the bottom line is that while it isn’t pretty from the side or the back, you won’t ever notice it from the front and it doesn’t take any more space than the LCD display would occupy by itself. The price tag is $1000 cheaper than commercial all-in-one computers from Apple, Gateway, and now Dell. Sure you can get a laptop but laptops don’t have 19″ displays and they can’t safely clock to 2.66 GHz like this one. Having a full size keyboard and a real mouse makes this computer as powerful as a desktop yet it’s portable.
[Update 11:59PM] - Instructions for making your own box
If you want to make your own box, you just need to cut 6 pieces of board. The dimensions for front and back plate are 17″ by 8.75″. Side plates are 8.75″ by 2.5″. Top and bottom are 17″ by 3″ (thickness of front and back added 0.5″). The top 2 VESA holes are 2.75″ from the top (not including thickness of top plate). The four VESA mounting holes are centered on the box and measure 100mm apart.
The box needs to be mounted to the LCD before the motherboard is installed. To figure out where to mount the motherboard, place the motherboard and power supply on the wood and mark where the mounting holes will be with a pencil.
My colleague Justin James suggested that I go to the auto supply store and buy some rubber underbody coating (spray or roll on) for spraying on the internal walls to dampen the noise. That should also pad the contact between the hard drive and the side wall so that the hard drive noise isn’t amplified by the wooden box.
[Update 11/27/2007] - A number of people in the talkback want to know about the RF interference characteristics and whether I will paint the box black or not. On the RF interference issue, all motherboards and electronic components are already FCC certified to be within limits of how much RF noise can be leaked and I haven’t had any RF interference issues running my over-the-air HDTV tuner in my home or radio close by to this computer. As for painting the box black, yes that is what I intend to do so that it will blend in with the LCD.
Update 11/29/2007 - See updated AIO computer images
November 21st, 2007
Best Black Friday 2007 blockbuster deals
Well it’s that time of year again to kick off the 2007 Christmas shopping season and it’s the best time to find the best bargains in shopping since retailers are desperately trying to get you in to the stores. Not everything will be available since some or many of these items sell out within the first few minutes to people who waited in line for as much as 20 hours overnight in front of the store. But many things are available if you show up an hour before the door opens (typically 5AM). You just need to be careful of your surroundings and avoid being trampled.
There are also plenty of online deals to be had where you can safely (and warmly) order from the comfort of your own home at 5AM in the morning. The down side is that you will have to pay for shipping and sometimes taxes too and if there is a problem with the product, you have to ship it back and wait for a repair unit.
Note: I will round to the nearest dollar and I will never quote rebate pricing. Pricing in (parenthesis) is the current price found on the website as of 11/20/2007.
Best HDTV deals
High Definition broadcasts with all local programming has been free for sometime and now is a pretty good time to be looking at a relatively inexpensive flat panel HDTV. Just 2 years ago these things cost as much as $10,000 but now they’re in the affordable $1000 range. With a $40 antenna on the roof you can get receive all the local channels and major networks for free in high definition or you can always pair it up with a computer, XBox360, Play Station 3, HD DVD, or Blu-ray player.I recommend 32″ to 46″ LCD HDTV models in the $400 to $1300 range with 1366×768 or 1920×1080 resolution. I’m not going to bother with Plasma displays since they’re power hogs that consume double the energy of LCD HDTVs and they’re not as bright and don’t look as good in a bright room. There is no way I can recommend a TV that hogs 500 watts of power. In the 32″ in to 46″ range, there isn’t even that much of a pricing advantage. Note that all models have HDMI input which can be used with the DVI output of a PC with a simple $10 cable.
32 & 37 inch 720P LCD HDTVs (1366×768) under $630
- Olevia 37″ 237T LCD HDTV - $549 at Target ($549)
- Dynex 37″ LCD HDTV - $630 at Best Buy
- Dynex 32″ LCD HDTV - $450 at Best Buy
- Olevia 32″ LCD HDTV - $420 at Kmart ($699)
- Element 32″ LCD HDTV - $400 at Circuit City ($550)
42 and 46 inch 1080P LCD HDTVs (1920×1080) under $1300
- Sharp 46″ LCD HDTV LC46D64U - $1300 at Circuit City ($2500)
- Sylvania 42″ LCD HDTV 42PC5D - $900 at Sears ($1200)
Best laptop deals
Laptops have gotten so cheap that it’s possible to get a great dual-core laptop with 15.4″ display for under $500 or even $300 if you’re willing to wait a long time in line. For those starving college students who have more time than money, it’s time to get out that sleeping bag and wait in front of the store for 20 hours so you can be one of the first 10 to 20 people in line.Dual-core processor laptops
- Sony VAIO VGN NR110 for $399 at Best Buy
(Intel Core Duo, 802.11b/g, 1GB RAM, 120 GB HDD, DVD/CD burner, Vista home premium) - Sony VAIO VGN NR123E/S for $499 at Best Buy
(Intel dual-core T2310, 802.11b/g, 1GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, DVD/CD burner, Vista home premium) - Compaq C717nr laptop for $449 (plus additional $150 rebate discount) at Circuit City
(Intel Core Duo T2310, 1GB RAM, 80GB HDD, Intel X3100 graphics, 802.11b/g, DVD/CD burner, Vista home premium)
Single-core processor laptops
- Acer AS3680 14.1″ Laptop - $300 at Micro Center
(Intel Celeron M, Wi-Fi, Vista Home Basic) - Toshiba Satellite A134-S7403 for $229 at Best Buy
(Intel Celeron M, 512 MB RAM, Canon AIO printer)
You can check out a full list of deals here.
Best computer LCD display deals
Computer LCD displays have gotten so cheap in the last 3 years that they have completely displaced the CRT monitor. This year they’ve gotten bigger and cheaper than CRTs have ever been and 24″ LCD displays have gotten affordable for the first time in history. 22″ displays are selling as low as $150 and 24″ displays are selling as low as $250. Note that 22″ displays have 1680×1050 resolution and 24″ displays have 1920×1200 and both of these are 16 by 10 aspect ratio.
- Samsung 245BW 24″ LCD display - $330 at Circuit City
- Samsung 22″ Widescreen LCD - $200 at Best Buy
- Envision G22LWk 22″ LCD display - $150 at CompUSA
- Acer AL2416WBsd 24″ LCD - $250 at CompUSA ($440)
For a full list of all kinds of Black Friday deals, you can check out this site which has a comprehensive list of all the stores and sales going on this Friday.
November 16th, 2007
More images and products from supercomputing 2007
The SC07 supercomputing conference was a very interesting show for me this year and it was my first time attending this conference. Here are some more interesting products that I haven’t covered yet all the way from the very high-end to entry-level HPC computers.
Sun’s 3456-node “petascale” constellation cluster
This poster showed a high-level diagram of how Sun’s constellation system uses a massive centralized InfiniBand switch to connect multiple blade racks.
This massive 3456-port 20 gbps InfiniBand switch from Sun is the size of a wide refrigerator and it provides 3:1 InfiniBand port consolidation.
This is one of the InfiniBand blades that plugs in to 3456-port switch.
This is the SunBlade 6048 modular blade system. It supports quad-processor quad-socket blade servers using Intel, AMD, and SPARC processors.
November 9th, 2007
24" LCD 1920x1200 displays now mainstream at below $300
I can still remember 1991 when I bought my first computer display for my first computer. It was $315 for a 14″ CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) non-Interlaced monitor that had an actual viewing size of around 13″ and the display was about as flat as a beach ball. Back in those days a 17″ CRT display cost nearly $1,000 or more and they were as deep as they were wide. It’s been about 3 years since LCD (Liquid Cristal Display) began taking over the computer industry and they’ve been dropping in price every year as they became more mainstream.
Now for the first time I’m seeing 24″ LCD displays like the Soyo 24″ LCD below the $300 mark and even below $250 on Black Friday. While this is a lesser known brand, it does signal the wide-spread production of 24″ LCD panels so they can be produced and sold at these prices. This will eventually lead to more companies hitting the $300 price point. This means we can build some fairly cheap computers with massive 24″ high-resolution displays and I’ll probably make it a project to build a 24″ all-in-one media center PC if I can get one of these Black Friday deals.
October 22nd, 2007
Build the $340 NAS for half the price but double the speed
The thing that has always bothered me with the NAS (Network Attached Storage) market for consumers is that it’s very high margin yet the products deliver very poorly on performance. While that might be great for the product manufacturers bottom line, it isn’t so great when you’re the consumer. Typical NAS devices that allow you to insert 4 to 6 drives cost anywhere between $500 to $1000 yet they only deliver between 15 to 30 megabyte/sec of performance when they imply gigabit (125 megabyte/sec) performance to the consumer in their advertising.
While I think most consumers don’t mind paying a small premium for something that is pre-assembled and easy to use out of the box, I don’t think they’re happy about paying a 100% premium while getting less than half the performance. I’ve come up with an alternative solution for half the price and more than double the network performance and you can have this solution so long as you’re willing to do a little PC building and you follow my parts list. If you’re not sure how to build a PC but you’re willing to learn, you can follow this step-by-step picture guide.
For $340 you will be able to build a NAS server running a free Linux server operating system from any of the major distributions like Ubuntu, SUSE, Red Hat, etc.
| Part | Price |
| G33 motherboard with ICH9R RAID controller | 141 |
| Intel 2140 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo | 75 |
| 1 GB DDR2-667 RAM | 30 |
| 300W 80% efficiency silent PSU | 43 |
| Cooler Master Elite 330 ATX ($45 pickup at Fry’s minus $20 rebate) | 51 |
| Total (shipping included but not taxes) | 340 |
With a slight upgrade to $442 you can get it with a 5-drive hot-swap SATA backplane cage which I reviewed here. Note that the SATA hot-swap cage requires some small modifications to the chassis since there is a small metal lip between each 5.25″ drive module.
| AMS 5-drive SATA hot-swap backplane (model DS-3151SSBK) | 102 |
| Total w/hot-swap cage (w/shipping) | 442 |
I do like the feature set and relative ease of use of Windows Home Server (for people not familiar with Linux), but I have been disappointed with the steep system builder price of $185 when the hardware is barely double the cost of the software. I’m sure the OEMs like HP are getting a much better price for Windows Home Server but that doesn’t really help the home system builders who buy one at a time.
| Windows Home Server | 185 |
| Total w/WHS and hot-swap cage (w/shipping) | 660 |
You could run Vista Premium which is around $110 OEM price and that will give you basic network file hosting capability along with the media center capability so this is a great option for people who want Windows. Linux plus MythTV will also let you do the network file sharing and TV recordings and that’s free if you can deal with Linux.
| Windows Vista Premium | 117 |
| Total w/Vista Premium and hot-swap cage (w/shipping) | 559 |
Double duty as a Media Center PC
Note that you’ll need to borrow a CD or DVD ROM drive to install the OS or you can just throw in a cheap DVD burner for $30. Having the optical drive might be useful since you can also stick in a TV tuner card and have this system perform double-duty as a NAS and Media Center PC which doubles your utility without spending a lot more money or using a lot more power. It makes little sense to buy a totally different system for the Media Center PC and waste the extra 60 watts of power to run a separate box. The nice thing about this arrangement is that you already have all the storage at your disposal for your video recordings and there isn’t a better place to put all your videos. The other great thing about having a system like this is that you can host additional virtual servers using free hypervisor software from Microsoft and VMware.
System power and performance specifications
This system without the hard drives will consume roughly 42 watts during idle and each hard drive you add will add roughly 9 watts to the idle power consumption. Peak power consumption in the system will be around 75 watts without the hard drives and each hard drive peaks at around 13 watts during busy read/write cycles. The peak power consumption fully loaded with 6 typical 7200 RPM hard drives is 153 watts during peak CPU and storage operation. During system power-up, each drive consumes up to 30 watts so it’s possible to see 200 watts of power consumption for a few seconds when the hard drives go from 0 to 7200 RPM so the 300 watt power supply (smallest ATX model you can buy) is overkill.
Note that Western Digital now sells hard drives with half the idle/peak power consumption and the 750 and 1000 GB drives are between $220 and $300. Compared to 500 GB drives you can buy for $110, the larger capacities are a bit expensive per GB.
Performance-wise you can expect to see about 70 megabytes/sec over a gigabit LAN which is twice as fast as the $1000 commercial NAS devices you can buy over the shelf. With the new ICH9R RAID controller you can actually expect to see close to 300 megabytes/sec of disk sub-system performance but you’ll be limited by the speed of the gigabit network when you factor in overhead to around 70 MB/sec. If you don’t have a gigabit switch, they’re as cheap as $36 with jumbo frame capability. For more on how to effectively configure and use all this capacity, you can read Best storage strategies for the multimedia PC.
October 16th, 2007
$60 router + DD-WRT = high-end wireless router and switch
Getting a high-powered wireless router with some high-end features is a lot cheaper than most people think. In fact it doesn’t cost any more than a regular router needed to connect to the Internet which allows the sharing of IP addresses between multiple clients. With the addition of DD-WRT, you can turn a cheap commodity router in to a high-end wireless router and switch. With the addition of a high-powered antenna located high up in the air which amplifies the send and receive capability of the wireless access point, anyone can set up their own wireless hotspot service with a massive coverage area.
Pictured to the left is the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 router that sells for as little as $60 at all the local electronics stores like Circuit City, Best Buy, and Fry’s or it can be ordered online. The WHR-G54 sells for as little as $50 and is virtually identical except for the fact that the WHR-HP-G54 has a receive side amplifier which helps the router hear faint laptops coming in on long-range connections. Both routers come with an RP-SMA antenna connector for external antennas which makes this router extremely flexible for wireless ISP and long-range bridging applications. The WHR-HP-G54 also comes with a wall mounting bracket so that you can mount the device up high.
This particular router can run DD-WRT using this specific upgrade procedure. DD-WRT can turn this cheap device in to an enterprise class product with enterprise features normally found in devices costing hundreds of dollars more. Things you often don’t get on your consumer routers are features like VLAN (Virtual LAN) support on the switch, Enterprise Wireless LAN security support, QoS (prioritization), site-to-site VPN tunneling and VPN servers, Hotspot, and advanced routing features like OSPF and BGP. You can see a full gallery here with all the important features of DD-WRT.
[Update 10/17/2007 - Readers have commented that the OpenVPN function is very nice too. I'll also be looking at adding FreeRADIUS to this device and will follow up on it.]
October 10th, 2007
The all-in-one dual-core VESA Stand PC mod
Can you spot the PC in this picture? It’s behind the 22″ LCD display and it’s actually holding up the LCD. [See my image gallery for more and larger photos.] There’s plenty of room under the display for all your important stuff. Now you can actually put your CENTER speakers in the center rather than off to the side because the LCD monitor stand is taking up center. The Polycom Communicator also found a home underneath the LCD taking center stage. There’s also a convenient power strip right under the display so you don’t need to crawl under the desk. There’s even flat space above the LCD for things like speakers and video cameras.
Last week I had The poor man’s all-in-one PC for $380 and The 22″ dual-core all-in-one game PC for $765. Last weekend I bit the bullet and labored 2 full days to build the all-in-one dual-core VESA Stand PC. This piece of oak board in the photo was sacrificed in the making of this PC because your’s truly is an absolute noob when it comes to wood working and thought he could do this project with a jig saw. I ended up buying a table saw and spent 6 hours assembling it (3 hours wasted because I got a defective unit). I had to exchange the table saw because the lifting/lowering mechanism was jammed. Once the saw was up and running, it didn’t take long to cut the wood.
After 6 hours of hard labor (most of the time figuring out what to do), I cranked out this box. I learned the hard way that this type of real birch wood is hard to work with and I used the wrong saw blade for it.
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I should have gotten a nail gun but those things aren’t cheap. I also didn’t counter sink the screws which made them stick out a little. I didn’t have enough clamps and I didn’t use them properly. Oh well, I did the best I could since I’ve never really done any wood work and next time I know better.
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This was a $20 VESA LCD mount that supports tilting and quick release. I had to get something that didn’t make the LCD stick out too much and tip the entire box over.
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Just finished mounting the motherboard and power supply. I screwed up the screw location for the PSU so I need to fix that. I haven’t decided where to permanently mount the hard drive yet so that’s just held there by tape and a single screw.
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The back plate was made of thin wood since it’s not load bearing. The fact that “1/4 inch” wood isn’t actually 1/4″ thick also threw me for a loop when this board was 1/16th inch shy of 1/4″.
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I used two one-foot long power cords to power both the VESA Stand PC and the LCD display. It certainly helps reduce cable clutter.
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Looking at the entire PC from the side, it really doesn’t take all that much room. While it’s certainly no work of art like the Apple iMac, I can load this thing up with inexpensive standard components with higher performance and I have more usable desk space.
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I’ve got a small Wi-Fi antenna hiding behind that LCD stub on the bottom (visible in first photo) that I’d like to get rid of but can’t thanks to Acer’s poor design.
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I probably could have made it cleaner if I used a Blue Tooth keyboard and mouse since that only requires a small USB dongle like this Microsoft Wireless Entertainment 7000. Those are a bit more expensive and they use 2.4 GHz which may degrade Wi-Fi because of signal leakage.
Well there you have it ladies and gentlemen, the all-in-one PC using industry standard components. The PC mod spirit is alive and well.
October 3rd, 2007
The 22" dual-core all-in-one game PC for $765
What started out as a roughly improvised poor-man’s all-in-one PC (See gallery here) hanging off the back of an LCD display has turned in to two detailed schematics painstakingly drafted with the proper measurements ready for the cutting table. Download the schematics below by clicking on the images.
The first one is a modification and refinement of the of the first VESA mount PC using the miniature Intel D201GLY motherboard/CPU. The second one is an all new version that features full size MicroATX support, dual-core processor support, and full-sized PCI-Express support using a 90 degrees angle adapter for a full blown gaming or professional workstation.
Note: This entry is also available as a TechRepublic PDF download.
Mini-PC box: D201GLY with 1 half-height slot and 3 hard drive slots
This box when loaded with 3 hard drives when the D201GLY2 arrives with two SATA and one PATA port and a $15 gigabit PCI adapter would make a killer NAS (Network Attached Storage) and general purpose server. The box with only one hard drive is ~$200 and it will run faster than most NAS devices on the market at less than half the price. Using a one drive version for a poor-man’s PC might be a little under powered and you may want to look at the much more powerful version below that only costs $200 more.
Professional or gaming workstation: Dual-core with discrete graphics
If you ever wanted a cheap powerful workstation that you can take with you without having to carry it separately from the LCD monitor, this is the box for you. This larger box will fit and hide behind a 20″ or greater LCD display without being visible from the front and will only add 3.75″ of thickness to the entire LCD. It will take any MicroATX motherboard with enough cooling for a dual-core processor and dedicated PCI-Express graphics card.
With the 220W SPI220LE power supply, you’re limited to using 65W (Thermal Design Power) processors and graphics cards that pulls no more than 100W. Not to worry because you can get very powerful processors within the 65W power TDP such as the Intel E6750 2.66 GHz dual-core processor and the NVIDIA 8600GTS graphics adapter. We can load 3 hard drives, 4 half-height PCI cards, and use the on-board video card or we can load 1 hard drive and 1 full-height PCI-Express adapter. On the motherboard front, I look forward to reviewing NVIDIA’s 7150 integrated graphics chipset with an impressive features list and price.
| Part | Price* |
| Gigabyte G33 MicroATX with HDMI/DVI HDCP | $126 |
| Intel E2160 dual-core 1.8 GHz (very safe clocking at 2.4 GHz) | $85 |
| SPI220LE 220W 1U compact 80 Plus power supply | $60 |
| 1 GB DDR2-667 (two 512MB DIMMs) | $41 |
| 250 GB Maxtor SATA hard drive | $63 |
| Sub total (before monitor and tax if applicable) | $375 |
| 22″ Acer DVI-D w/HDCP and D-SUB (*exposed* flat VESA) | $234 |
| Integrated graphics total (before tax if applicable) | $609 |
| NVIDIA 8600GTS | $156 |
| Dedicated graphics total (before tax if applicable) | $765 |
* Includes shipping cost
Well there you have it, you have a powerful all-in-one workstation or LAN party machine. Get out your drill and saw and get ready for some fun!
George Ou is Technical Director of ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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