My dad’s work got new computers, and instead of throwing them all out, I got two.
Pentium 4 @ 3GHz with HyperThreading
3 GB DDR 533 MHz
160GB HDD
I’m moving my graphics, sound, and Gigabit Ethernet card over to one of them, which is my new desktop. It’s not true dual core, but the clock speed increase alone is enough to warrant a move. I don’t have Windows on it yet, and I intend to get Windows 7 if my dad’s work isn’t able to loan me a CD to reinstall XP. Hopefully this machine will be able to handle Assassin’s Creed without stuttering. I plan to remove my 1.5TB external from its enclosure and mount it internally over SATA. That should fix the horrible latency and throughput issues I’ve had over USB. The other machine I have working as a Freenet node. I’m using full-disk encryption on both machines, and it’s cool. There doesn’t seem to be a drastic hit to performance, as I feared. The only issue is my own fault: I almost forgot the encryption passphrases, and actually forgot the root password on the Debian box. I remembered it, though.
The machines run fairly hot. I now have a mouse-hand heater. That doesn’t seem good. The room is warm, too, and I’m not sure how much of that is due to the sun, and how much is due to the three computers. My network architecture confused me by doing exactly what I told it to do. I set up static DHCP mappings based on MAC address, then DNS entries based on those IPs. This allows me to ping dad.asksteved.com and have it resolve locally to my dad’s machine. It didn’t occur to me as I moved my Gigabit card from my old box to this new one that the IP and DNS entry would follow. It took me a while to realize I was trying to log into myself, which was why the key wasn’t matching. It was pretty funny. The old box is going to work on MilkyWay@Home. My next step is getting the requisite power strips and Ethernet cords to put the two non-desktop machines in the closet. One of them could run the alarm songs in the morning so that I don’t have to keep my desktop on at night.
Homework’s going well. I have a small amount of additional Precalc studying possible, then AP English. Comp Physics is done.