Jkx@home » computer http://www.larsen-b.com Titanium Exposé Fri, 31 Oct 2025 02:15:37 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 My new silent computer (Intel Quad Core Q6600) http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/271.html http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/271.html#comments Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:46:31 +0000 admin Continue reading →]]> Ok, I decided to change my computer a couple of months right now. But as Intel is doing some strange stuffs with the prices, this took a little longer than exepected. Some friends asked me what I bought, so I decided to write this post.

My new box description:

Here a little photo:

http://jkx.larsen-b.com/photos/Computers/DSC02751.sized.jpg

So let’s take a look closer.. I bought the Q6600 because it has a good price right now.

For the motherboard I wanted to buy a serious brand (I had some bad issues with ASRock ..). And Asus build some good ones, but doesn’t have a PS2 keyboard plug. I choose the Gigabytes because the bridge cooler is on the right, so I can use a big fan in the case back (no cpu-fan) without the bridge fan issue.

For the harddrive, I already have this type of Seagate on another box (in ATA, not SATA), and it’s damn cool ! Low noise and great performances .. a substain 58Mo/sec (a little bit more than my previous LVDS-SCSI config at 10 000 rpm !)

The perfect box should have two 120mn fans. So this CoolMaster is fine.
I only use the front fan right now, but this may change in future. The case is quite big (too much for my needs), easy to mount, and serious quality. The hard-drive combo stuff, isn’t really easy to use but it does it’s job.

For the power-supply, after reading a lot of website, I bought the Seasonic. This stuff cost a little money, but it’s a really silent one, and seems to be robust.

As I bought a silent power supply, I needed a silent cpu cooler two. Everybody knows that default Intel fan are awfully noisy, so I decided to test this Freezer. And that was a good choice. On idle, the fan runs at 450 rpm, (hey that’s low!!) and CPU is at 31°. At full load, the fan runs at 1000 rpm (still really low!!) and the CPU is at 46°. My initial plan was to remove the fan on the cooler and to place a big 120 mn on the case back, but haven’t done this yet.

For the video card, I was looking for something with good bench on Linux, so ATI was a good challenger (beside it only works with the latest ATI binary shit). And finding a passive HD2600 is a bit hard.

For the DVD, I didn’t have any ideas. Most DVD players I used are noisy, have unstable speed. My previous Samsung was a real bullshit. I went to me local computer store, and bought the cheaper they have on stock. And this is a really good surprise. This DVD burner is really cool. So, if someone ask, give it a try :)

So, as you can imagine, this little stuff is quite silent and powerfull :)

I will upload some pictures soon …

Update: I took some photos

Enjoy cores

]]> http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/271.html/feed 13 2*PIII 600 on a dual Asus P2BD http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/219.html http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/219.html#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2005 21:53:05 +0000 admin Continue reading →]]> I have for a long time now, a Asus P2BD motherboard with 2 PII 350 on it. After googling a bit, I discover that I can put 2 Katmai PIII at 600Mhz on this board.

I have been looking at eBay for a while, I bought a pair of matched CPUs. Today, I received them. After a bios upgrade, I put the CPU “as is” on the motherboard. In fact, my motherboard haven’t the x 6 jumper settings.. but despite the jumpers settings are totally wrong, the CPUs work at 600Mhz.

Yes, I get 1200 BogoMips for 42 Euros :)

Thanks eBay ! and this faq !

]]> http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/219.html/feed 5 Shuttle ST62K (aka Zen) Fan issue http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/200.html http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/200.html#comments Sun, 17 Apr 2005 14:16:55 +0000 admin Continue reading →]]> Like a lot of users, i get an issue with my fan on the Shuttle Xpc. In fact, i found a lot of comments over the net, that Shuttle used some bad fan in this boxes. Some users decide to use the waranty, but i don’t want to send this back to Paris, just to have another crappy fan.

I decided to change it by myself. But finding the right fan is really hard, because it’s 80mn x 80mn x 1.5mn fan. After a long search i decided to go to a tunning shop. (They have a bunch of various CPU fan).. The guy said to me: Ok, No problem. We have a video card fan that can feet .. Oh really a video fan ?

He give me a Zalman ZM-OP1

Despite this fan doesn’t have the exact same caracteristics as the default one, it perform quite the same. And it does even less noise. So i’m really happy :)

Many thanks to the shop: Tuning Informatique (http://www.tuninginformatique.com/)

update: fix the Zalman URL

]]> http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/200.html/feed 30 Playing music on soundcard without locking http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/194.html http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/194.html#comments Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:06:24 +0000 admin Continue reading →]]> Why this soundcard allow me to play 2 mp3 at the same time while this doesn’t.. Hum good question. In fact to support this kind of stuff the sound card should support have some sub-device, to be sure .. simply aplay -l

Here on my shuttle .. not working

aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: IXP [ATI IXP], device 0: ATI IXP AC97 [ATI IXP AC97]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: IXP [ATI IXP], device 1: ATI IXP IEC958 [ATI IXP IEC958 (AC97)]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Here on another box (VIA C3 based)

aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: V8235 [VIA 8235], device 0: VIA 8235 [VIA 8235]
Subdevices: 4/4
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
card 0: V8235 [VIA 8235], device 1: VIA 8235 [VIA 8235]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

So yes the C3 can play 4 stream at the same time, while the AC97 doesn’t.

Another way to do this is to use software mixing

Update:

To use the software mix in Alsa: simply change the pcm.default to pcm.dmix

#pcm.default cards.pcm.default
pcm.default pcm.dmix

]]> http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/194.html/feed 1 What ‘s wrong w/ Sony Vaio K115S Designers ? http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/153.html http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/153.html#comments Sat, 28 Aug 2004 02:31:07 +0000 admin Continue reading →]]> Yes, i get another notebook on my desk. In fact, i buy a Sony Vaio K155S for a uncle. I won’t publish a long post about installing Linux on this, because he will use Windows XP. I spend some hours to install several things: OpenOffice, WinSCP, Mozilla etc etc ..

This notebook run really smoothly, it has great CPU, and video card. Playing RTC, is really fun!

It has been a long time since i played w/ XP. I now i’m remember why i don’t like it. I spend most of the time to ask me: my name, my company and my serial number. And yes, this is too intrusive for me… and I’m wasting my time! Every vendor, want to know everything .. my sex lenght? nobody ? :))

Anyway, despite I found this notebook really kool, I think the design is really bad:

  • Most of users are right hand mouse user? But Sony put the USB pub on left !!
  • Sony put the power supply connector on the right .. so the cable is under the DVD tray …
  • The battery capot sound cheap .. it make noise in fact :(
  • The PCMCIA seems to be cheap too, inserted card aren’t well lock ..

I’m currently writting a Knoppix DVD edition on this stuff to test :)

]]> http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/153.html/feed 0 Shuttle ST62K Zen Install Howto for Linux http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/132.html http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/132.html#comments Fri, 02 Jul 2004 14:55:56 +0000 admin Continue reading →]]>

Hardware

The Shuttle STK62K is a small XPC that use:

  • ATI IGP9100 video board
  • ATI IXP150 AC’97 Audio Controller
  • OHCI based USB 2
  • Realtek network card

As i run into different issue with that box, i decided to write a little howto. Look here for more infos

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5833 (rev 02)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5838
0000:00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4347 (rev 01)
0000:00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4348 (rev 01)
0000:00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4345 (rev 01)
0000:00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc ATI SMBus (rev 17)
0000:00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4349
0000:00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 434c
0000:00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4342
0000:00:14.5 Multimedia audio controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP150 AC'97 Audio Controller
0000:01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5834
0000:02:05.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
0000:02:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 80)

Issues

Caution, i run into weird issues at the first boot.. a lot of segfaults and other weird things. I spend a part of the night to discover that the main trouble isn’t Linux based, but a hardware issue. The ST62K seems to have a lot problems with cheap memory. My current install use two Elixir (CAS=3) 512Mo stick in dual channel. After a little test with memtest+ i discover that the memory should be downsized to 266MHz FSB (instead of the common 400FSB). I found severall other users with the same issue. So don’t expect to use a DDR400 at full speed on this box with cheap memory, or buy Corsair (CAS=2.5 not the CAS=3!).

Linux

I tried several kernels: 2.4.26 and 2.6.7 debian stock kernel, but i run into trouble with this meanly because the APM is set by default in .. so to run it i need to build kernel 2.6.7 from scrash.

Processor

My box run on a Intel 3.0C running at 3.2Ghz as this box support overclocking form +0 to +15 FSB, so (200 + 10) * 15 = 3.2 Ghz, i managed to overclock it to 3.3 without any trouble. In the kernel i set:

[*]   Symmetric multi-processing support
[*]   SMT (Hyperthreading) scheduler support

SMT is the new scheduler that support the HT processors

ACPI / APM

The main reason why i start with ACPI, is that the box do some really strange things if you have APM set. So you need to disable the APM, and set the ACPI in you kernel.

[*] ACPI Support
[*]   Sleep States (EXPERIMENTAL)
<M>   AC Adapter
<M>   Battery
<M>   Button
<M>   Fan
<M>   Processor
<M>   Thermal Zone

The Thermal Zone is the only import here.

Network

The ST62K use a Realtek nic, so just use the 8139too driver.

Hardrive / DMA

Recent kernel as support for ATI IXP chipset so ..

Device Driver > ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
<*>       Generic PCI IDE Chipset Support
[*]       Generic PCI bus-master DMA support
[*]         Use PCI DMA by default when available
<*>        ATI IXP chipset IDE support

Video

The embeded video card is IGP 9100. To have support for X you have 3 options:

  • use the ‘ati’ driver wich come with XFree. It’s works fine (without acceleration)
  • use the ‘radeon’ one, but this require a some kernel tweak
  • the ATI made drivers doesn’t seems to support the IGP card right now.

I now run the radeon on. To do this you have 2 options:
- use the stock kernel one
- use the DRI based one

stock kernel

Devices Drivers > Graphics support
<*>   ATI Radeon display support

Don’t use module if you want to have framebuffer support. You need to enable AGPGart too (i’m not really sure)

Section "Device"
#Driver      "ati"
Driver       "radeon"
VendorName  "ATI Technologies Inc"
BoardName   "Unknown Board"
BusID       "PCI:1:5:0"
EndSection

DRI

First you need to download the latest XFree86 binary (which is 4.3.99) and put this in the place of XFree binary. Next download the Radeon driver from the DRI website. Simply untar and install it. (You need to set the kernel drivers as module not built-in for that)

Which One ?

Right now, this doesn’t really change anything because the kernel base kernel doesn’t support DRI. And the DRI one, disable the DRI because it doesn’t find it as a AGP card, so disable the direct rendering. So don’t expect good openGL performance :( But the radeon driver is really punchy on X .. so as i don’t play game, this isn’t a issue. I think this gonna change soon anyway.

update: TV Output

For the TVout put, there is currently no options. The only way to have it works, is to configure the X server to use a vesa driver (instead of radeon) and 800×600 screen size. After that, plug the TV set and reboot to enable it. (Done thought the bios post), and enjoy. Thanks Per for the tips.

Sound

Again only recent kernel support this :)

Device Drivers> Sound > Alsa PCI devices
<M> ATI IXP 150/200/250/300

After simply load the ‘snd_atiixp’ module

Sensors

I read a couple of post saying that the sensors doesn’t work, but i managed to use it without any trouble, as it use a it87 isa based sensors.

I2C > Hardware Sensors Chip support
<M> ITE IT87xx and compatibles

Don’t forget to set i2c-dev Results:

it87-isa-0228
Adapter: ISA adapter
VCore 1:   +1.45 V  (min =  +1.42 V, max =  +1.56 V)
VCore 2:   +1.53 V  (min =  +2.40 V, max =  +2.60 V)   ALARM
+3.3V:     +6.40 V  (min =  +3.12 V, max =  +3.44 V)   ALARM
+5V:       +4.97 V  (min =  +4.72 V, max =  +5.24 V)
+12V:     +11.68 V  (min = +11.36 V, max = +12.60 V)
-12V:     -19.77 V  (min = -12.63 V, max = -11.41 V)   ALARM
-5V:       -2.38 V  (min =  -5.28 V, max =  -4.81 V)   ALARM
Stdby:     +5.02 V  (min =  +4.72 V, max =  +5.24 V)
VBat:      +3.16 V
fan1:     1795 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, div = 16)
fan2:        0 RPM  (min =  332 RPM, div = 16)
fan3:        0 RPM  (min =  664 RPM, div = 8)
M/B Temp:    +60°C  (low  =   +15°C, high =   +40°C)   sensor = diode
CPU Temp:    +44°C  (low  =   +15°C, high =   +45°C)   sensor = diode
Temp3:       +41°C  (low  =   +15°C, high =   +45°C)   sensor = thermistor

Some voltages seems wrong .. but not important. Yes this box have only one fan and the CPU temp is 44°. The 60° correspond to the RS300 chip but this seems to be broken (the bios show me the same values..). When overclocked and building the kernel, i managed to have 59° and a fan at 2300 RPM. (I tweaked the bios to start the fan at 55° instead of 65° default)

Additionnal

You can download my kernel config. I think this setting can be used on S62G4 too ..

]]> http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/132.html/feed 31 My computer burn in hell ! http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/131.html http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/131.html#comments Sun, 27 Jun 2004 19:38:05 +0000 admin Continue reading →]]> My K7S5A motherboard (w/ a Athlon on) burn on fire last week. I don’t know why, when i come back home (after work), i found a blanc screen, try to reboot but nothing.. Damm

I looked a this closer yesterday.. and yes some chipset on the motherboard have burn .. So i need to buy another one :(

I get a lot of trouble with this computer. 2 video card with broken cooler.. and now a motherboard death. I wondering what to buy right now. I won’t buy another Athlon since i get a couple of issues w/ the heatsink and temperature.

I know a lot of python guru works on MacOS right now, this kind of stuff is to expensive i think? I’m wondering if i should buy another notebook (mine is a bit old to use it for everything..) or by a cool small P4. I read a couple of article about the ST62K. This seems to be kool because it only use 1 cooler, and have a decent video card. A new notebook can be kool to, but the one’s i know you need to choose between power (goot lcd size) and their weight (most do 4/5 Kg .. to bad for a notebook)

]]> http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/131.html/feed 4 Linux APM (Suspend to disc) on a Dell Inspiron / Latitude http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/106.html http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/106.html#comments Mon, 22 Mar 2004 19:10:36 +0000 admin Continue reading →]]> This is a quick introduction to the Linux suspend to disc on Dell Inspiron / Latitude. This tips should work on Inspiron 3800 to 8200, and Latitude C serie. (all phoenix bios shipped w/ a Dell computer in fact)

There is two kind of suspend in APM:

  • suspend to disc
  • suspend to RAM

Suspend to RAM:

This is the easier thing to do: simply build your kernel w/ APM enable (as module or not). There is no other required option. To test: press Fn + Ecape

Suspend to disc:

  • This part is little more tricky.
  • First download http://support.dell.com/filelib/format.aspx?releaseid=r22768 > (Suspend to Disk Util for Dell)
  • This is a .exe ok .. but just unzip it (yes it’s a self-extractable zip file)
  • Take a empty floppy, run ./setup.sh
  • This will make a dos boot disk w/ all required tools on
  • So it’s time to reboot on this floppy
  • Here you will get a dos prompt
  • Run mk2sd.exe (this will make a special hibernation partition)
  • Important Note : This partition must be in the first cylinders of the hard drive. DOS has old restrictions about the partition size .. (I used partimage and parted to find the right place for this)
  • So that’s all
  • reboot Linux and press FN+A (Q on azerty keyboard) to test :)

– Enjoy hibernation …

]]> http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/106.html/feed 1 What ‘s wrong w/ Linux-Laptop ? http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/105.html http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/105.html#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2004 22:00:18 +0000 admin Continue reading →]]> I take a long time to write a article on the howto install a debian on a Dell Latitude D400 laptop. I submitted to www.linux-on-laptops.com/ a couple of weeks ago..

And no answer, not added yet .. i chat w/ another guy last week, and he has the same trouble.. but this is far more old than my post.

So what’s wrong .. should i need sexy links or ads on the page to be linked ?

Bye Bye

]]> http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/105.html/feed 3