SAVE ME, NASA system builder, from my DEAD WORKSTATION As I walked past one of the booths on the GTC’14 trade show floor, I suddenly had the nagging feeling that I had missed something. I couldn't figure out why, but this particular booth was familiar. On closer examination, I still didn’t see anything to explain my feeling. I didn’t know either of the guys manning the booth, and …
I used to do loads of soldering for a living, including SMD, so that sounds naive...
A track or through plated hole was probably cracked, so trying to replace the connector probably wouldn't fix it.
The most I'd try would be to desolder, and re-solder each connector pin with high wattage kit, flux, solder paste and solder, just-in-case it was a dry joint or a crack could be bridged; but I wouldn't have much confidence in the likelihood or reliability of a fix.
Snarky today, eh? That's ok, I can see how the article might read as an advertioral. But my intention was to highlight a company that is doing things right and willing to work with an increasinly small niche of the market - the power user.
Like many of you, I get requests from friends, family, and collegues to help them figure out what sort of PC or workstation they should buy. I'm geeky enough to enjoy this process, unfortunately. Over the last few years, I've been disappointed to find that fewer and fewer vendor configurator tools give prospective buyers a robust set of options. Sure, you can change the processor, amount of memory, or GPU, but fewer of them really give you the ability to configure everything - and fewer yet will take the time to either write up, or talk to you directly, about the best set of options. You used to be able to find these shops in years past, but not so much today - and I miss it.
Especially about niche markets, like "lab at home" machines with 2 or more sockets, unusual amount of RAM etc. or simply more robust built quality than "usual". That is market segment where desktopsworkstations still can do better than puny set top boxes, consoles or tablets.
Go on , Cadmonkey, give us the rest! Did you get one of those CAD video cards that cost more than my car? and can it play crysis?
U jelly bro? I thought that was suprisingly restrained myself. I've been using Scan for bits for a couple of decades now, so I can wholeheartedly recommend giving them a look next time you go shopping for an upgrade. The 2 RMAs I've had to deal with (out of maybe 18 years) were promptly and courteously dealt with, and they are the first place I look when the mood for some new toys takes me.
If you just want computer porn, a friend pissed away most of a redundancy package on a watercooled 5GHz i7 with 32GB DDR3 (2400) RAM, dual Titans and RAIDed SSDs. It can nearly play Crysis at max settings o.0
(I was very jelly)
same AC here,
no not jelly. my car cost about £400. I dont use my um, rig, for anything serious My last build, which i got half the gear from Scan cost about £450. the bestest bit i got was 16Gb ram so i can run a few virtual machines. and play Farcry. Cant believe the price of cases these days - i just stuffed all my new gear into a really old box.
Cant believe the price of cases these days - i just stuffed all my new gear into a really old box.
The expensive ones can last forever though; I'm still using a Coolermaster ACTS case I bought over 10 years ago. Cost me £70 at the time, but I can't complain about the longevity (the fans are still originals too, which is even more surprising).
We bought several systems from them in January and I was very displeased. Many of the parts I had selected for a personal development machine were not available (nothing unusual they just didn't have the stock), the person who phoned me was not able to recommend a suitable replacement and the order took weeks to be built and shipped. Despite telling them I wanted to RAID the drives they supplied a non-RAID capable motherboard. Then after less than 6 months one of the hard drives died. Thank god for backups.
I can only speak from personal experience, the 2 DoAs I've had were replaced by return post. I will admit I have only purchased parts though, so I can't comment on the prebuilt systems. I've always preferred to put the buggers together myself anyway ^^;
The article asked us commentards for ideas for a possible podcastabout system building. The discussion above between CADmonkey and others suggests that the Reg could have an article/thread about the pros and cons of buying a system versus 'rolling your own'.
I haven't used Scan myself, but I remember that they used to advertise heavily in the MCad magazine (dead tree).
The last time I helped buy all the components for a 'roll your own' system, we took ideas (and bought some parts from) QuietPC.com. Again, I can't vouch for their systems, but I have no reason to believe that they are not competent. Their systems are guaranteed.
The machine was 100% silent. Lovely. SSDs mean no disk noise. An i7 3770 S has a lower TDP than the K variant that overclockers like (and well within the 95W rating of the NoFan CR-95C fanless cooler we used - it's heavy and pricey). As it was a machine for audio and music, the Intel HD Graphics 4000 was more than good enough for purpose - so no discrete GPU to cool.
Here's the thing - the researching, choosing, ordering and building the components took some time, as did seeking out and installing the latest drivers and a little bit of troubleshooting. There is a fair chance that QuietPC's (or whoever's) complete system markup is good value compared to your time. (Though I enjoyed the project, working with my friend).
There are a few definitions of 'Workstation'. In CAD, for example, it would mean that the exact-same system had been tested by the vendors of your CAD software, and would likely mean a 'Pro' graphics card (even if it was the same silicon as a much cheaper gaming card, its drivers would be different - but I believe the silicon is a bit different these days). Mission-critical simulations would require ECC RAM and a compatible CPU, too.
Most of the time consumer parts (GeForce or Radeon instead of Quadro or FirePro, i7 instead of Xeon) will work well enough, but there is a business case for spending more to make sure problems don't arise at the worst possible moment.
The justification for building a machine to a Quality as opposed to a Price is that it will make money and not cost money. If the PC isn't working as fast as I am then I'm losing money.
Prior to this PC, I'd always built my own machines starting with a Celeron 300a (OC@450) and ending with a water-cooled Q6600 (OC@3000) with a 130W GT8800 consumer video card. Great fun was had over the years building and tweaking and fixing and swearing and not sleeping.
Originally, I was going to self-build once more and had an evolving shopping list for a month or two as I researched every last nut and bolt of it (Trusted Reviews, Hexus, etc.), eventually settling on an air cooled i7 3960x @4.4ghz. A chance phone call to Scan to check some detail or other led to them offering to build the system and charge me less than my day rate to do so. They would also warranty the build and (crucially) the overclocking. I'd used their configurators and the systems I could create there were almost, but not quite, what I was looking for. Once the sales guy had seen what I wanted, he said no problem. It took a few weeks to build and stress-test, and then when it was delivered it was unpacked and turned on before I signed for it. The peace of mind sealed the deal. A bargain.
I can wholeheartedly say don't use Scan. I have used them in the past but never again. We bought several systems from them in January and I was very displeased. Many of the parts I had selected for a personal development machine were not available (nothing unusual they just didn't have the stock), the person who phoned me was not able to recommend a suitable replacement and the order took weeks to be built and shipped. Despite telling them I wanted to RAID the drives they supplied a non-RAID capable motherboard. Then after less than 6 months one of the hard drives died. Thank god for backups.
My own self builds with components sourced from the best deals I can find are cheaper and more reliable.
Speaking of which I just priced up what AVA would charge for the gaming system I've just built myself. They have a pretty good selection but not many GTX970 cards so I had to substitute a different brand. At the end the cost was twice what it cost me to build myself and no doubt they would want p&p on top of that! So nice try but still way too expensive.
Scan provide support if they overclock your system. You won't get that from a box of bits.
And how did you manage to buy a Mobo without looking at the specs? Caveat Emptor. Was it a 'budget' board? 'cos I thought they all came with soft-RAID these days.
"Repairing the power connector didn't occur?"
Unfortunately I tried this a long time back, when various electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard failed. Sourcing replacement capacitors was a piece of cake, but soldering them in place cleanly after having carefully de-soldered and extracted the originals turned out to be a whole different matter.
The problem, it turns out, is that your average computer motherboard - unlike a hobby PCB - is actually a multi-layer affair. If you don't get every single solder joint absolutely perfect, the solder fails to connect one of more of the sandwiched layers and the system simply won't work.
"The problem, it turns out, is that your average computer motherboard - unlike a hobby PCB - is actually a multi-layer affair. If you don't get every single solder joint absolutely perfect, the solder fails to connect one of more of the sandwiched layers and the system simply won't work."
When I first started working on PCs, I replaced capacitors all the time on motherboards and other cards. My favorite solder job was an Intel 90Mhz Overdrive processor that had been dropped (not by me.) After straightening out all the pins, two had broken off, and the boss said to throw it away. I took it home and soldered pieces of a paper clip in place of the missing pins. That system ran without any issues for two years.
I was only making $8.00 an hour, and all my systems were built out of the trash as I couldn't afford parts at the time. That Overdrive chip cost $400.00 back then. I didn't have money, but I had time, so I built bad ass systems out of the trash. Time, solder, and ingenuity built me systems for free that would have cost many thousands of dollars if I had to buy parts instead of re-build.
Hey, I'm running my business on this system, so it was pretty damned important that I get a replacement. I did a bit of research into fixing the power connector however:
1) it wasn't totally clear that the problem WAS the power connector, as someone commented above, it could have been broken traces somewhere else in the board, but near the power connector
2) I'm not the most handy guy in the world. If I were to start soldering, what if I dripped solder onto other parts of the board? What if I slipped with the iron and melted something else? Scary stuff for a non-hardcore guy like me.
So tell me more about this Range Rover, my current car is dirty and the dealer told me the best course is to replace it....
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
