Warmer weather

Warm weather is back. I've been thinking about what I'm going to do to keep my folding machines running cool, especially when summer arrives. I bought watercooling gear last year, but haven't used it yet. I have an AquaXtreme CPU block and pump. Need a project to keep me busy later in the year. Watercooling one of my rigs may end up being that project.

Granddaughter

More granddaughter pics :)

Crunching

The Woodcrest system is fully operational and crunching work units full-time. The system was down for half a day because a fan blade on one of the HSF's broke off. This caused the case to vibrate, sometimes violently. The fan has been replaced and everything is working well. I set some personal bests in folding today, including most points in a single day.

The Supermicro X7DAL-E board that I'm using has no overclocking features in the BIOS. But using Systool in Windows allows me to raise the FSB. Right now, I have the CPU's crunching at around 2.55GHz. Load temp in a hot room gets up to 50C. If the weather cools down a little, I may raise the speed to 2.6-2.65GHz.

Case

Here are a few shots of the case. There are four 5000RPM fans blowing air. They are mounted in the blue enclosure you see to the right in the second photo. There seems to be a design flaw. The power connector for the top fan is not long enough to reach the header on the motherboard. There's an option to add two exhaust fans. I'm using Dynatron HSF's. Together with the case fans, they make a lot of noise. There aren't many options for replacing the Dynatron fans because they are an odd size, 77mm.

So far I've gotten the 5120 Woodcrests (1.86GHz default speed) up to 2.6GHz. I think I can push them a little higher. Load temps at that speed are 46-47C in a warm room.

Woodcrest

I finally got around to putting together my Woodcrest system. These are Xeon 5120's that have the BSEL mod. So the default FSB is 1333MHz and default speed is now 2.33GHz. At 100% load, CPU temps are 42-43C. I can use Systool to increase the FSB speed. But I'm leaving the system at 2.33GHz for now.

New Printer

Just bought a new photo printer, a Canon Pixma iP4300. Only $90 and the picture quality is very good. Figured I needed a new one since my old printer is four years old. Have not had a chance to test text print quality. But photos come out very nice. I also like how you can close up the printer when it's not in use. Helps keep the dust away. Even when opened, this printer takes up less room than my old one.

Spring

Spring has not officially arrived yet. But the weather in my area has warmed up. Time to start thinking about the garden which I neglected last year. One of my beloved peony plants died, probably because it didn't get enough water. My fault, of course. I will try to be more attentive this year.

Amara

My granddaughter Amara is growing up and turning into a fine young lady. She still lives in Australia with her mother. I'm told they'll be returning to the US in the next year. My wife will be happy because she can go visit her.

There isn't much new to report about my health. I'm still dealing with cramps, though they aren't as severe as they were before. It's frustrating. But I've learned to accept that recovery is a slow process.