Trash Project

[leecarver]

So last weekend while out for a walk, I found an old PC lying on the street. While I've been told not to bring home strays, I couldn't help myself. I picked it up and carried it back home to see what all was in it. I pulled off the fan and found an i3 2100, which I cleaned off and then reapplied thermal paste to. It's got two hard drives: an old IDE 120 GB (with SATA adapter) and a newer 2 TB SATA drive. It's missing an optical drive, but I can live with that. It's also got a wireless card in it, but missing an antennae. I'm guessing this was gutted because there is no memory or optical drive in it. I've also noticed the case is lacking fans, which may or may not have caused overheating. I'm crossing my fingers that it was just an old PC that someone didn't use very much and the parts are still good. If the machine really is kaput, hopefully at least the 2 TB is good and I can scan and clean it to add to my main system for additional storage.

My brother in law has a MSI R5770 Hawk and an Audigy Z5 sound card that I'm going to put into it. At this point, I'm just shopping for memory and an antennae with the intent of turning this into a Linux crunching unit and media server in the garage. It looks like the board takes DDR3 1333 memory. Am I ok putting server SDRAM in this or should I be looking at something specific? I was thinking of just getting 2 x 2GB or 1 x 4GB since I wouldn't be using this machine for anything to intensive. I'll probably also add an intake and output fan since this'll be out in the garage.

Any other thoughts on what to do with this setup?

[Alez]

Dont bother looking for an antenna, you can pick up wifi cards for less than a fiver on ebay. Google the main board and download it's manual. That will tell you which memory it can use and in what slots. If it's a pc board then it will need pc memory modules, server memory and pc memory modules are different and not interchangable.

[leecarver]

Ah - that I wasn't aware of. It's definitely a PC Board.

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8H61M/

[scole of TSBT]

Install linux and use it run goofy, lots of goofy. We can tell you how. Or put 8 GB of ram in it, and run some other projects that require or favor linux. Do you have any wanless credit or hours?

[leecarver]

Alright - I'm going to plead ignorance: what is goofy?

Fortunately, it appears 8 GB of memory isn't that much more expensive than 4, so I might pick that up: http://www.ebay.com/itm/8GB-2RX4-PC3L-1 ... Sw3YJZVyUs

I don't think I have any wanless credit. How exactly are those earned?

[scole of TSBT]

Wanless (aka wep) is a linux only project. Some question its usefulness but it's another WUProp app if can run linux. http://bearnol.is-a-geek.com/wanless2/

Goofy is now called Grid Computing Center. I think they're going to add some crypo currency apps eventually. Anyway, it's NCI app and there are techniques to run lots of instances of the project which earns big credits fast on it. http://boinc.gridcomputingcenter.org/

[leecarver]

I'm looking at these sticks of memory to get 8GB... will Non-ECC impact me in any meaningful way?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PNY-8GB-2X4GB-P ... SwgiRZxqii

[scole of TSBT]

ECC memory typically only works in server motherboards. Non-server motherboards usually only support non-ECC memory. If it's the ASUS P8H61-M mobo you linked to below, then it's specs say...
2 x DIMM, Max. 16GB, DDR3 1333/1066 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory

The auction says it only ships to US and Canada. If you are on this side of the pond, I might have 2x4GB sticks that will work which I'm glad to give you for the cost of shipping. PM me if that's the case.

[leecarver]

Awesome. I put in a bid for the sticks. If I don't get them, I'll definitely hit you up.

But yes, I'm on this side of the pond. In fact, I used to live not too far from you. Born outside of Charlotte, raised in Raleigh.

[leecarver]

It's alive! IT'S ALIVE!

Special thanks to scole for the spare parts.

Now I just need to order two fans for intake and exhaust, a power splitter for the fans, and a wireless card and I'm in business.

Didn't spend a lot of time going through the system, but there was a bootleg copy of Windows on there. Don't know what's on the storage drive. I'll feel less guilty about nuking the system and starting from scratch with Linux. I'm eyeing Zorin as the distro of choice.

[leecarver]

So I'm running into an issue with the old Trash Computer. It had an old 120 GB IDE HDD in it as well as a newer 2 TB SATA HDD. My plan is to format the 2 TB as NTFS and use for storage while the 120 GB is used for OS and Programs.

I installed Zorin on the 120 GB (to the best of my knowledge), but can't get it to boot. With everything unplugged but the 120 GB, I am able to see the disk in the boot list (called ubuntu) with a UEFI notation in BIOS. However, when the system tries to boot, it loads right back into BIOS. I'm not sure why it's doing this.

When I have both HDDs plugged in, it tries to boot from the 2 TB (which has the bootleg Windows installed) even though the 120 GB is plugged into SATA 1.

Curious if any of you have ever worked with these IDE-to-SATA adapters before? I can't find it on Sabrent's website, but I'm curious if a jumper setting needs to be maintained on the HDD or the adapter that I'm missing. My understanding is that SATA does not require the use of jumpers, but even with the jumper removed (single/master drive) or on cable select, it doesn't seem to do any good.

Any thoughts on troubleshooting this?

[scole of TSBT]

I would guess the jumpers next to the SATA connector control making the drive look like an IDE master or slave. Nothing in the BIOS to control boot options?

[leecarver]

Yeah - I'm thinking those jumpers might have some impact, but I can't find any technical documents on this piece to figure out what they are. The adapter doesn't have a S/N or P/N on it, so I can't look it up specifically and I haven't been able to find anything on Google (most of what comes up are the new adapters).

BIOS has boot options and it appears set to boot from the ubuntu drive, but it doesn't boot - it goes to a black screen for about 15 seconds before returning to BIOS.

[scole of TSBT]

The board doesn't have a M or S near the jumpers? What about the other side of the board?

This looks like it but no manual. Try putting a jumper on like the pic here...
http://www.cooldrives.com/index.php/ser ... apter.html

[Alez]

Forget the 120 GB, Install Lubuntu on the 2TB and use it as a single drive system at first.

[leecarver]

@scole of TSBT: No M or S near the jumpers. And nothing on the other side of the board that I can tell. I tried the jumper in all four locations (and without), but could never get it to boot.



@Alez: That's what I ended up doing last night after I gave up on the 120 GB and I was able to get elementary OS loaded without an issue. However, I learned elementary OS doesn't come with a lot of third party drivers preloaded, so there wasn't much I could do to further develop the system. Do you know if Lubuntu comes with wireless USB drivers? I'm trying to avoid dragging this rig inside for my wife's sanity.

[Bryan]

I'm pretty sure that Linux Mint does.

[Alez]

Lubuntu is a full system with everything you need without all the bloatware of the standard Ubuntu. Uses all the same repositories to. Trust me, fast , easy to use and fully functional. Any issues with it I can walk you through it. Simply do the install instructions for my Ubuntu post in the linux forum, except install Lubuntu instead. I have it on 6 systems, all running flawlessly. All my servers run Lubuntu and all my systems with nVidea GPU's.

[Dirk Broer]

Lubuntu is a full system with everything you need without all the bloatware of the standard Ubuntu.

I even have a Raspberry Pi 3 running the ARM version of Lubuntu, another runs Ubuntu Mate/ARM, both run fine.
Funny thing to have both a 64-bit Desktop x86 machine and a credit-card-sized ARM board running both the same OS, Lubuntu 16.04

[leecarver]

Good news everyone!

Lubuntu has been successfully installed on GUSBOX. After an hour of frustration, I was finally able to get the drivers for the USB Wireless adapter installed along with Teamviewer and BOINC. GUSBOX is now 'live' in the garage.

I'm curious: does anyone have a solution for remote accessing the system after it has been rebooted? With my PCs, Teamviewer begins running on startup, so I can access the system after it has been rebooted without being there to login for the first time. Apparently, Teamviewer doesn't work like that with Linux (or I haven't found the option for it). I want to be able to access this machine remotely so I don't have to keep a monitor out in the garage to restart it.

Additionally: the garage has me a little concerned. The case is open (it's missing one of the panels), but has two 80 MM fans (intake and exhaust). It's Texas, so the garage gets pretty toasty and stagnant in the summer. Is this machine going to burn up out there running BOINC/goofy? The wife refuses to let me have it in the house.

[Bryan]

I have no machines currently running Linux (so I can't look at one) but I can tell you how I solved the TeamViewer issue. Add the TeamViewer icon to your desktop and then you can look at the launch path info easily. In Mint and I asssume Ubuntu there is a place under "system" where you can see/create startup apps. Create one for TeamViewer and give the launch info you found in the one you added to the desktop.

When you start Linux it actually launches the TV panel. What I found was some TV installations worked fine all the time and some worked sometimes. After adding the launch info then they always work without fail.

Normally I would bring up a Linux machine and walk you through what I did but I'm leaving town in the morning (for 6 months) so right now I'm a little busy getting sutff ready :)

6 of my machines have 1 panel off ... not the one where you get to the guts. I have no problems with heat on either the CPUs or GPUs.

[Alez]

you could try doing this

or run sudo systemctl enable teamviewerd

[leecarver]

I tried adding "/usr/share/applications/com.teamviewer.TeamViewer.desktop" to the manual autostarted applications as well as the code provided by @Alez, but neither seem to load it at the login screen (TeamViewer now autostarts after login).

I've done a little digging and it seems maybe the most recent versions of TeamViewer don't play nicely with Lubuntu.

Any other suggestions?

[leecarver]

Also, now that I think about it, would the wireless network need to be in the startup as well?

[Alez]

Do you require login at startup ie. password ? I always set my systems to login automatically, only requiring the password for sudo use. That way on powerup everything runs automatically requiring no input from myself.
I've no experience of team viewer, I use Boinc Tasks to control all my systems running Boinc remotely from a single system.

[Bryan]

Do you require login at startup ie. password ? I always set my systems to login automatically, only requiring the password for sudo use. That way on powerup everything runs automatically requiring no input from myself.
I've no experience of team viewer, I use Boinc Tasks to control all my systems running Boinc remotely from a single system.

Ditto!

[Dirk Broer]

Didn't team viewer ran into trouble when logging in remotely to a GPU-cruncher?

[leecarver]

Do you require login at startup ie. password ? I always set my systems to login automatically, only requiring the password for sudo use. That way on powerup everything runs automatically requiring no input from myself.
I've no experience of team viewer, I use Boinc Tasks to control all my systems running Boinc remotely from a single system.

Ditto!

Ok. I set it up to autologin and we have lift off. :)

GUSBOX is up and running (Rosetta for right now). I'm operating it at 50% CPU to keep the cores from going into the 60s C.

I suppose now is the time to ask about setting up multiple instances of goofy or whatever makes the most sense on this Frankenstein's creature.

[Alez]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPQlXNH36mI No more crazy talk until after the Rosetta challenge and no I won't drink my milk, crazy fool.