Re: Encounter Table for rec.games.frp.dnd ?

Bradd wrote:
>> More than you know! I suspect that I fried my web & mail server by
>> dusting it (or maybe just by moving it -- I hadn't touched the box
>> literally in years).

Rupert Boleyn wrote:
> Been there, done that. Fried a perfectly good TV and video player that
> way, and had a flatmate bust our microwave oven by moving it to clean
> it 'properly'.

This is the first major static incident I've had. However, a friend of
mine lost a big-screen TV to dusting. IIRC, his wife sprayed window
cleaner on the tube while it was on; the fine mist discharged the tube's
surface static, creating a power surge that blew the whole thing. After
hearing about that, I'm always careful to clean the TV while it's off,
spraying the cleaning solution onto a rag instead of onto the glass.

> My ex-flatmate had this thing for [Shuttle XPC "toasters]. I came to
> despise them - every one he got was as noisy as, and there's no room
> inside the things. Gimme a decent tower any day.

Ah, mine are super-quiet. For my Windows box, I got an Antec P160 case
with an Antec NeoPower 480W modular power supply (both of which I highly
recommend). The case is an aluminum "mid-tower" (actually the size of a
full tower) with rubber fittings for everything, smart fants,
front-panel temperature sensor, side-loading drive bays, etc. -- sweet,
but I digress. The Antec case and power supply are super-quiet, but my
two toasters are even quieter. Now, my wife's old laptop makes more
noise than all of my systems combined. If it weren't for the HDs, all of
these systems would be nearly inaudible.

When I first got the toasters, they were super-noisy, but a BIOS update
fixed that. My main complaint with them is that the BIOS sucks. I've had
occasional but bizarre problems with booting and shutdown. (And there's
a problem somewhere in the 3D graphics pipeline, but that could be my
drivers.) Luckily, they seem stable enough while they're actually
running, which is good enough for me given that they're supposed to run
24/7. Still, I just about threw them out the window several times when I
first got 'em.

I wouldn't recommend a toaster for hardcore gaming use, definitely.
However, if you have tight space & power consumption requirements, and
you don't mind on-board AV, it's a good option. Personally, I'd rather
use one of HP's slim-line machines, like the HP Compaq d530, but they're
a bit hard to find, and at the time I thought I needed a machine on
short notice.

>> Speaking of transitions, I highly recommend external HD cases when
>> building a new system. If your old disk is good, just pop it out of
>> the old machine, plug it in the case, and hook it up via USB2 or
>> Firewire. That's how I recovered (most of) the data from my old Linux
>> machines. If you need access to the data before you can build a new
>> machine, just find somebody with a port to plug it into for temporary
>> access.

> An external box is on my list of things to get. BTW, you can get some
> nice little boxes for laptop disks that are powered solely by the USB
> connection. Very portable.

Neat. I may need to pick one of those up in case my wife's laptop dies.
It's getting a bit long in the tooth, and we've already had to replace
the main exhaust fans once. (The replacement unfortunately wasn't much
better than the broken original. Lately, it's gotten quiet, and we're
not sure whether that's good or bad.)

>> And I do recommend building that Linux box.

> When I get some free space, it'll be happening. I just don't know if
> everything will go to linux or not. I don't play many games these
> days, so it's tempting, especially as my 'main' box is unlikely to cut
> it with the next generation of FPS games anyway.

I don't think I could give up my Windows machine entirely. I only use it
for a couple of things -- games and tax prep, mainly -- but I'm not
willing to give those up, and AFAIK there's still no Linux solutions
ready for prime time. Personally, I like the two-box setup: The game
machine is expensive but otherwise expendable, while the workstation is
cheap and isolated from Windows security threats.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd
.

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