Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Computers

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Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 07-19-2009, 01:23 PM:

Alright guys.

So my wife convinced me to check out an estate sale the other day (the line that won was she mentioned they were selling computers) so I picked up a batch of computers for about .01% of cost for the parts.

About half of them are old AT-based desktops, many with spare parts never opnened and in working order.

The other half are newer ATX-based systems from 700mhz to 2.4ghz.

Also got about $300 worth of new DIMMS never used and several spare SIMMS for the older systems.

I'm going to upgrade my desktop with parts from one or two systems and build a box for my niece and nephew to play games and do homework on and such.
But what should I do with the rest?

The hacker in me can't justify just tossing out working equipment but the practicality of keeping them is lacking.
So...any ideas?

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-19-2009, 01:41 PM:

Strip them for the parts you can use for your current computers. Build the rest up into as many working computers as you can. Load them with Linux (free vs. pay for Microsoft Windoze and/or Mac OS X) then turn them into servers and beat-around work stations.

If you, yourself, have no use for them donate them to a worthy charity. Be sure you get a letter from them stating the value. Come tax time, you get to use that amount as a deduction on your taxes.

Even if you only get a small deduction you'll still have the satisfaction of making a donation to a worthy cause. [Smile]

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 07-19-2009, 03:12 PM:

Also remember that the older ones will likely use a lot of electricity for the processing power you're getting.

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 07-19-2009, 03:19 PM:

Depending on just how old the parts are you might be able to get a decent return for them on Ebay.

Posted by Jarret Chessell (Member # 5077) on 07-20-2009, 12:41 AM:

Those AT power supplies and ISA video cards might be handy for people with DTS systems. The newer ones might be handy for putting on your network as mass storage for your LAN (a few 500 gig IDE's might be easy enough to find).
I use to have an old 233 I kept on the side with a separate monitor and keyboard for being able to access IP data while I used the better PC for handling surfing and GUI's and what not. You can also make those older machines run better for surfing by putting a light linux OS on them.

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 07-20-2009, 06:02 AM:

Older RAM is getting expensive, witnessed by a friend who just paid $50 a stick for 1G PC 3200. You could probably get a good return on Ebay if its not to old. You could also build a few machines from the faster components. The rest would make good recycle.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-20-2009, 07:29 AM:

I have had no problem getting AT powersupplies or older RAM
I deal with Steve at Above All Electronics Surplus in Toronto

Posted by Jarret Chessell (Member # 5077) on 07-20-2009, 08:04 AM:

oh oh, save one to stash your porn on [beer]

eeeerr..... i mean, a media PC...

I donate my old PC stuff to a guy who builds free computers for kids that normally couldn't get one.

Posted by Paul J. Neuhaus (Member # 3205) on 07-20-2009, 10:22 AM:

Jarret that is awesome. Everybody should donate what they can!!

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 07-20-2009, 10:53 AM:

quote: Jarret Chessell
I donate my old PC stuff to a guy who builds free computers for kids that normally couldn't get one.

...who especially appreciate the pre-loaded porn... [Razz]

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 07-20-2009, 11:51 AM:

I'm thinking they could be set up & used for a D.O.S. attack....

Err...no... you could donate them to a charitable cause.

[Big Grin]

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 07-21-2009, 12:27 PM:

Donating is great idea if you can find an organization willing to take them. That in itself could be a problem. In my area the county has a recycle center full of old computers and monitors.

Posted by Ethan Harper (Member # 472) on 07-22-2009, 03:38 PM:

Feed the parts to alien robots to keep their thirst for destruction at bay!

Posted by Andy Bajew (Member # 5330) on 07-22-2009, 04:09 PM:

quote:
...who especially appreciate the pre-loaded porn... [Razz]

Some projectionist years ago at my theater had child pornography on the work computer. The FBI came and arrested him and took the desktop--I don't think most work places have stories that include the FBI.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 07-22-2009, 04:27 PM:

quote: Andy Bajew
I don't think most work places have stories that include the FBI.

In the mid 1980's I worked at a film lab. One day several
FBI agents came in with search warrants to open one of
the lockers in the employee locker room.

It seems that one of our chemists was also running a
meth lab in his spare time.
(No, not in his locker! [Roll Eyes]

At home- - but they came
in to search/seize all his personal stuff)

Posted by Andy Bajew (Member # 5330) on 07-22-2009, 04:30 PM:

Queen to E5 - checkmate.

I think your story wins, Jim.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 07-23-2009, 09:32 PM:

Some good suggestions, thanks guys.

I yielded 4 pentium-class machines and 6 486's and a crapload of SIMMS and PC100/133 DIMMS.
Unfortunately only 2 hard drives.

Found a bin the second day but the guy said they were all headed for physical destruction. Drat!

Anyhow...Building routers out of a couple and selling them to work to further my own agenda of network domination [Wink]

Built a nice box for my niece and nephew to do homework on and place some old-school games.
The rest still need to be sorted and parts ID'd and tested.

I'm not the kind who puts stuff on ebay and just says "maybe it works, maybe it doesn't" for some reason...weird.

In other news, anybody ever have this problem:
remote connection into POS system (telnet (tcp) mapped to a nonstandard port) dies randomly especially if no input for a couple of minutes (other locations with same system stay alive until menu times out; ~10 minutes).
POS vendor blames ISP or local router and claims has no problem connecting and staying connected.
Swapped out router today (relatively new Linksys) for aforementioned router (Debian Linux) and it seemed to be fine for remote connection.
That is until INPUT, FORWARD, OUTPUT chains policy set to DROP.

Even though ports are allowed and forwarded (were working fine when in ACCEPT policy) connection still drops randomly.

Weirdest thing is no errors ever come up, the host just stops responding and quick peek at client system shows no connection to host.

Any ideas?

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 07-23-2009, 11:34 PM:

Dominic Espinosa wrote:

quote:
words...

Have you tried turning it off and then on again? [thumbsup]

Posted by Jarret Chessell (Member # 5077) on 07-24-2009, 12:06 AM:

Aside from perhaps accidently creating skynet... I always felt that turning pc's into a router is a great way to give you superior network control, but they're more complex than a cheap-o router, more likely to have hardware issues and they also consume a lot more hydro than a purpose built router. It's not a very green solution really, unless you need that control. (on the other hand, sniffing your bosses packets might get you some good blackmail material)

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 07-24-2009, 07:39 AM:

quote: Dominic Espinosa was the last to post
Any ideas?

Try a stare and compare with one of the other locations that works correctly. It sounds like there may be an option set incorrectly at your end. Another idea is to see if you have internet connectivity from another device when the trouble condition manifests itself. That would eliminate the uplink and customer end modem if you do have connectivity. The type of internet connection you have would drive the troubleshooting methodology if your internet goes dead at the same time. When you say the connection is mapped to a non-standard port, are other locations doing the same? Are you running the same S/W rev? Just some thoughts -- good luck.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 07-24-2009, 08:53 AM:

quote: Dominic Espinosa
That is until INPUT, FORWARD, OUTPUT chains policy set to DROP.

Even though ports are allowed and forwarded (were working fine when in ACCEPT policy) connection still drops randomly

Are you sure they aren't making some requests on odd-ball ports? And since you're dropping everything other than the ports you forwarded, it has issues?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-24-2009, 09:14 AM:

If you're using network address translation (NAT), there is usually a configurable parameter for "NAT timeout" (sometimes more than one) on your router (or computer acting as a router). You will need to configure this on both ends, if you are using NAT on both ends (e.g. home and work). The server may also have a connection timeout parameter that needs to be set.

Note that telnet is unencrypted and that using it for a POS system is a Really Bad Idea (tm). Tell the vendor that you want ssh (secure shell) support.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 07-26-2009, 03:37 AM:

Without going into too much of a rant, SSH would be great!

Anyhow, the service is telnet (one port for all traffic) on a non-standard port.

SSH into the router disappeared randomly as well during testing. The T1 we use for connectivity is pretty stable.
I'm thinking it's some issue inside the T1 "router". Only difference between this one and a sister site with a T1 from the same provider is this one's been installed longer.

Up until I replaced the router with my new Linux router all
locations were running various revisions of Linksys routers. Some even broadcasting wi-fi on the same LAN as the credit card gateway. We don't do that anymore.
Anyhow, I think I'll give the ISP a call next week and see if they have any ideas (likley not).

The main reason I installed this new box was because our new digital projection integrator requires their own static IP address. A commercial router that supports the features we need cost significantly more than building this little box.

Our configuration is basically that we have two public addresses.
One is mapped to eth0 and the other to eth0:1, a virtual port on the same MAC address.
eth0:1 is bridged to another NIC connected to our projection systems TMS rack. The other to a switch for our internal network.
Our integrator requires their own static address separate from other network traffic...Fine by me as I don't want their traffic clogging up my LAN anyway.

My ultimate goal is total network domination. I'd eventually like to switch to a new T1 provider with more reasonable rates and pay for straight data operating an Asterisk* box with T1 interface and convert the phones to VoIP.

In addition to dropping the inflated charges for managed service we'd have better control over traffic shaping and the features we like would be more affordable.
But that's another agenda for another time [Wink]

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 07-26-2009, 04:30 PM:

I assume you are running a clear channel T-1 and not channelized. Make sure the circuit and all intervening elements are provisioned for B8ZS and ESF. Its a long shot but I have seen when an element in a data T-1 circuit is provisioned for AMI and not B8ZS, data can get screwed up, largely due to the 1s density requirement of AMI. That would prove the trouble out of Layer 1. Just a thought...

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 07-27-2009, 01:19 AM:

I have my old 486 running Linux to run my HTTP, FTP, DNS, and Samba. It's Red Hat 9, in text mode. The 486 has a socket 2 and BIOS suitible for that pricey Pentium-83 overdive chip. Got one for cheap, so I can pick up that 586 compiled kernel and stuff. I hear the AMD 5x86 133 is actually faster, but it's basically an enhanced 486 133, and does not provide the 586(Pentium) instruction set.

So currently it's set up as a Pentium 83-on a 486 board, with 64MB of ram, a 8.4 GB hard drive (Remember when they were called fixed disks?), a Toshiba 4x-SCSI CD drive,and a TEAC SCSI CD-R + Adaptec SCSI controller taken from a DTS system. The DTS system had been "upgraded" by the chain's technical department and left sitting on the shelf for years before I was instructed to throw it out. I asked if I could keep it, and got a confused look, and was told "Go ahead if you can find use for it." It helps as this computer's IDE controller is only a single channel, so I only can use 2 IDE drives at any given time.

I was considering dropping in the 120GB drive I have just laying around as a sort of file dump. The BIOS can't recognize it, but once Linux boots, it overrides the BIOS and uses it's own detections. So it'll be fine. Incedentally, the BIOS misdetects the 8.4 GB as well, but I can specify parameters well enough for a /boot partition. [Big Grin]

Sees the full drive once Kernel is booted.

Why? Allows me to shut down my main PC, that just sucks down the juice. Why use a Formula 1 racer to do something a VW bettle can easily handle? And more efficiently.

Posted by Joe Elliott (Member # 4006) on 07-28-2009, 12:24 PM:

Another thing you can do with the older computers, is place them around in each room of your house, and run them as media machines, networked to your main computer with all of your music on it. I have a computer in each room, all of them 500mhz or less, and I run a very stripped version of xp with classic media player installed. Also have one with no hard drive, that I have Knoppix running off of CD. I've been thinking of installing LinuxMCE on them, but really don't have the time right now.