Project Mango render

Render from Project Mango:

click for larger

They are really getting some amazing renders and shots!

If you haven't done so already, check out the update blog for the movie I'm working on at http://blenderproject26.blogspot.com/

We're not anywhere near the level of Project Mango, but we're getting some pretty decent results!

Now That's a Power Supply!

Serious overkill for any home computer:

4500 Watt power supply!

New CPU cooler!

I've been starting to overclock some recently, and was able to get my Intel Core 2 Quad (here's what it looks like by the way):

 up to a little under 3GHz, but with the stock cooler the temperatures were really higher than reasonable. During intensive rendering it would get to about 90 degrees Celsius, which is really just unacceptable. I looked around some, read a few reviews, went to the local Micro Center, and decided on the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus. The Intel Core 2 Quad has a LGA 775 socket, and this was listed to fit that socket (which helps ;) After unboxing I had some worries about it fitting into my case, it's much taller than the stock cooler, but it actually fit with room to spare, about an inch of clearance. Here's a photo of the stock cooler:

As you can see, it's pretty reasonable, but really unsuited for overclocking. Here's a photo of the current cooler:

Much bigger, better airflow, better cooling fins... But I'll get to that later.

First off, I had to remove the entire motherboard from the case. This pretty much involved unplugging just about everything. PCI-E cards, SATA drives, power cables, the whole lot. Once I had it out I noticed something unusual about the motherboard I hadn't remembered from when I installed it:

Yes, there are heatsinks on the back as well as the front, and yes, that heatsink is exactly where the CPU cooler mounting bracket goes. There's more though. I can't just take the big one off and let the improved CPU cooler take care of the excess heat, it's not quite that simple. Look below;

I don't remember if that heatsink is mounted on the northbridge or southbridge, for now I think let's say northbridge. Anyway, the heatsink on the back is what holds the heatsink on top down. Hm. Now it gets more complicated. I need to take the heatsink on the back off, because the large section is right where the CPU cooler bracket needs to go, but I can't remove the thing, because then the (northbridge?) would overheat. Some people would return the cooler. I decided to solve the problem myself. I have half of a heatsink that needs to be mounted, and half that needs to come off. The solution is obvious!

Yes, I really did, and yes, that was the heatsink on the back of my motherboard.

Above, the two halves.

It worked wonderfully! I mounted the small part, kept the large section for parts, and quickly and easily attached my new CPU cooler! I installed all parts, connected everything back up, and it worked, and well!

Here's what my computer now looks like inside:

That was a little more excitement than I had planned for just installing a CPU cooler, but lots of fun! (Hey, don't you wish at times that you could take a saw to your computer?) 

Currently:

Temps have only gotten above 60 C once so far (high of 61!) and it usually idles a little under 50 C. Temperatures usually vary less than 5 degrees from core to core, whereas before it might be as much as 10 degrees C. I'm very happy with it, it's working well, and not only is the cooling good, it's very quiet; it took me several days to get used to walking into the room and not being able to hear my computer when it was on!

Fun

Every once in a while I do something different...

Writing assignment May 9, 2012

Imaginary complaint letter...

24816 Numeric road,
Numberville AX, 32641

May 09, 2012

Hard Drives inc.

28256 Alpha road,

Silicon City AX, 51210

To whom it may concern:


The hard drive I bought from your company has ruined my entire computer. It was a very good computer too, its only faults were that it had a small case and your hard drive! My computer used to work fine, but it was running out of hard drive space, so naturally I bought a new one. As I said, my computer case is rather small, and so, being rather tight on space I installed it right next to my graphics card, being sure to mount it on the side with the fan, not the other side with the exposed circuit board. After all, I wanted to be sure that if it touched anything it wouldn't short anything out. Anyway, only a week later, I was playing BF3 on maximum settings, and my graphics card burned out. It literally blew a cloud of smoke out the back and stopped working! At that point, I didn't think to attribute it to the hard drive. If I had, I could have saved a lot of trouble. So, naturally, if my graphics card broke, I needed to update it, after all, it was somewhat outdated anyway, being already six months old. The new card, however, was much larger, requiring me to move the hard drive to install the graphics card. Since the hard drive didn't fit in its old location, I moved it to right next to the northbridge part of my motherboard, you know, the section (not the CPU) with the fan. Well, as I was running out of space and mounting options in my case, I strapped it to this heatsink/fan, figuring it could double as a standoff, so the hard drive wouldn't touch the motherboard and short anything out. (As you can see, I'm very conscious of safety precautions.) Well, only three days later, I was re-encoding a blu-ray video, and the motherboard died! I sent it back, and that company told me that the entire northbridge had melted, and that it would be cheaper to replace the whole motherboard. O.K., new motherboard. This one however, doesn't have a good place to strap a hard drive to though, so I started looking around for another place to mount it. Then it hit me. Of course! the CPU cooler! It strapped on very nicely, and fit perfectly over the air intake side, just as if it had been made to fit there. There was a problem though. Two days later, I was playing Skyrim on ultra settings, and the computer blew the circuit breaker. I opened it up to see what was the matter, and was greeted by a horrific sight! The CPU cooler had melted into a puddle of molten metal that poured over the CPU, motherboard, and memory, shorting out and ruining them. I was starting to get suspicious, but the new hard drive had all my data, so what was I to do? Well, I bought a new motherboard, CPU, CPU cooler, and memory. (By the way, the CPU was only overclocked to 4.8 GHz.) After installing the new components, I realized that the new hard drive wouldn't fit on the new CPU cooler. I took me a while to find a place for it, but I finally found the perfect spot. I was looking inside my case, wondering what could possibly be removed to make space for the hard drive (I have a small case, remember?) Then I spotted it. The perfect place! Right where the case exhaust fan was. After all, everything that gets hot has its own fan, so why would I need another, right? I removed the fan, and mounted the hard drive in its place. That same day, I was playing Portal 2 on max settings, and I noticed that my screen was going dim. I unplugged and re-plugged the monitor, but I was starting to notice that other things were going dark too. Suddenly my fire alarm went off, and it was the kind that calls the fire department. I calmly waited for them to arrive so I could tell them it was a mistake. It was starting to get dark too, night must have been falling--it must have been much later than I had realized. When the fire department arrived, I went outside to meet them, and suddenly realized that it wasn't night; there was so much smoke billowing from the windows of my house that I had thought it was night, The firemen went into the house. When they came out, they reported that there was no fire, only smoke, seemingly caused by an overheating computer. Ahem. However, they had thoroughly soaked it, and it was not a threat anymore. So now I'm stuck with a hard drive that has all my personal data on it, that I don't dare to plug in. My next hard drive will not be from your company!


Signed, Joe Dumbo, PhD in breaking computers.

Making Pancakes!

I think this was posted on April 1...

Titanic II?

There might be a reason this is a good idea, but I sure can't think of one...

http://www.marinelink.com/news/billionaire-australian344249.aspx

Let's hope they don't go for too much realism...

Woodworking

I got a drill press for my birthday! Hurray! Now I can start making the harp for my sister. I've got the wood and plans, and a new bandsaw blade just arrived today.

The drill press is a 10" Skill. It's got a laser to make lining things up easier, which is nice. One thing I noted was that while it is listed as a 10" drill press, the swing is only about 2", meaning the thickest thing I can completely drill through is about two inches. I guess that 10" is the maximum size it can work on. I can get around that, and I don't really need to drill through anything thicker than that anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem. Quality is very good so far, it feels quite solid. It has five speeds, changeable by moving the belt, (it's belt driven) to different speed pulleys. It also uses a chucked mount, which was interesting, because I hadn't used a chuck in a long time.

The bandsaw blade I got is a 1/4" skip tooth blade, 4 TPI (Teeth Per Inch), and it cuts amazingly fast. I have a Craftsman 10" bandsaw, 1/3 horsepower. The stock blade is pretty bad, it's 3/8, and I don't remember how many teeth per inch, but it was hook, and made a terrible cut. It had a wide kerf, cut as slow as a snail, and had a wide curve radius. The new blade has a narrow kerf, cuts nice and quick, and turns better. I didn't know it would make that much difference or I would have done it much before this! (If only I had had it for milling the cedar! Before one cut might have taken ten minutes instead of two or three -estimate-...)

Anyway, that's all for now because I have to get up at 0500 tomorrow for a swim meet. Hm... maybe I should do another paragraph on the wonders of swimming...