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Vol. 3: May 1998
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05-31-1998: What's Up, HD Install Tips & New CDROM Review
Hello once again, faithful readers!
What have I been up to?
Well, all of this month, I have had a person renovating the interior of my
house, primarily painting and installing ceiling fans. My payment to him is
primarily in the form of a new computer. So, I've been ordering parts,
assembling hardware, installing Windows NT and then setting up the applications
etc. All of this takes a lot of time, including the time I need to move
furniture in and out of rooms etc. Both of my lawn mowers had died, one died of
gelatinous stuff in the carburetor (which could have been cleaned if I didn't
lose an important piece from it!) and the riding mower, of a broken steering
linkage. After fixing the linkage twice, I finally got that working. Then, the
drive belt snapped. After a few hours on that (no easy task!) the mower
started up, and died in less than a minute...out of gas! So it has been uncut
for several weeks as I keep putting time into getting one of my mowers working,
and will wait until tomorrow. I'm also doing a lot of cleanup work in the
yard.
Computerwise, while upgrading my Web surfing workstation to a new,
high-speed 4.5 GB HD, I encountered numerous difficulties that have consumed a
lot of time and neccessitated a re-install from scratch. It is operational in
a skeletal mode for now, and that and the painter's computer require tens of
hours of more work to the software still, so don't expect much in the way of
updates. :( In fact, read this:
Advanced Hard Drive Installation
Tips
First, treat the new HD like eggs. They may SAY that they
can withstand 200 G's of impact, but I would consider the drive long gone by
then! Even a minor bump can cause hidden damage, since all modern HD's remap
bad sectors unbeknownst to the user, from a hidden pool of spare sectors. So
you may have caused damage that isn't obvious! Keep it on bubble wrap of the
like, and handle it securely when installing it so as to not let it slip or
fall into place. Second, make sure you have an empty bay for it with metal
rails (for heat removal and grounding) and with plenty of room on all sides of
the drive for air circulation. Do not sandwich a HD between two other HD's!
In my case, my drive was a hot new 7200 RPM Seagate IDE drive and needed a
couple of fans blowing directly onto it, so beware the new-gen drives' heat
output, which in my case exceeds that of my CPU! Ensure that the mounting
screws you use are the correct thread pitch (fine or coarse) and are short: 1/8"
instead of 1/4" if possible, to avoid damage to the drive. Before you
actually mount the drive though, make a note of the jumper settings on a piece
of paper to avoid having to pull the drive back out later. Be sure any
brand-new drive you get, is used as the master/boot drive, if at all possible.
My new Seagate REFUSED to be slave to a 4-year-old master! This can get
tricky, but contact me if you need more details into how to move your OS etc.
Don't forget to demote the odl drive to it's slave jumper setting. The power
connector, if if fits too tight, can be gently filed on the outside of the
plastic of the power cable, for a taper. The master drive, or single drive,
should be at the end of the IDE cable, which ideally should be keyed (a bump in
the middle of one side) to avoid incorrect insertion. The cable also should
not exceed a foot and a half in length. Be sure to mark pin 1 on the rear of
the drive if it is not obvious, another rule is "red kisses power"
which means, the red wire, pin 1, almost always points towards the four-wire
power connector. After all is done, remember that upon first bootup, press the
delete key or whatever you need to enter your BIOS, and try an HDD
Autodetection. If this fails, manually enter the parameters for your HD. There
may be other relevant IDE adjustments elsewhere in the BIOS. All new HD's
support at least PIO Mode 4 (the higher the PIO mode, the faster), and many new
ones also support the UDMA2 or UDMA33 mode, so enable these modes for the new
drive. Leave the case off for 1/2 hour to ensure that the HD is not
overheating, you can feel if it is hot or not with your hand on it's case, and
if it is uncomfortable you may need an extra case fan etc. Enjoy your
upgrade, and as always, feel free to ask any questions!
Mini-Review:
Sony Slot-Load CDROM Drive
I'd also like to report that the newest
Sony Slot-Load CDROM drives are VERY nice! They are 32x speed, UDMA/33, 80mS
access time, and NO TRAY! You just stick the CD in, it grabs it and sucks it
in. The eject button pops it out 2/3 of the way so you can grab it and put it
away. No tray to break off or damage!
-Vince
05-15-1998: Column Update Frequency
Hello once again, faithful readers!
I apologize for the very
tardy updates to this column this month. I've been extremely busy, and it took
me taking 1/2 day off from work just to make time to get the Rants in order and
add some cool links in. I don't have much to add right now, other than that you
should visit my computer
links page to check out some cool new links there.
In the world of
computers, I'm waiting for a few things:
AMD to release it's
K6-3D CPU, which will run on a 100 MHz frontside bus and supposedly give the
fastest P2's a run for their money. I'm also awaiting Abit to replicate their
excellent BX6 mainboard in a
dual-CPU, onboard SCSI version
for servers, which, when it comes out, will be one of the fastest motherboards
in the world until Intel's
Xeon
comes out (Abit's competitors still have some problems in their dual BX boards,
especially those with AMI BIOS's, Abit uses Award and is also very
over-clockable). The most exciting development to PC users wanting a high-end
video card for under $200 will be Matrox's new
G200 based video
cards, with just about the fastest 2D AND 3D in the industry, in one affordable
card. You're probably thinking, "Wow, this guy Vince must have a killer
computer budget!" Actually, I have no current plans to buy any of these
cutting-edge items, but several folks I deal with will be potential buyers of
them, so I have to keep on top of the latest developments in hardware. The only
thing I'm missing, is the money to actually acquire them and test them
thoroughly, and while I'm at it stress them with the latest games. <G>
Until
next time, hang in there and let me know if you'd like to see anything here.
-Vince
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