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Not fivemack's day for computers
I received an unexpected Christmas bonus this year, and bought a computer with it; as usual I ordered it as parts, and they arrived this afternoon.
It all went together fairly easily - SATA cables avoid the problem of wrestling with two-inch ribbon cables, the chip fits neatly into the socket, the Intel heat-sink attaches by simply pressing down push-pins, and on the whole it very much betrays the enormous effort that's been put into making computer assembly an occupation in which a Chinese former rice-farmer can be productive within the week.
The software, however. Intel's designers assumed, when they started designing this chipset a couple of years ago, that there would by now be no parallel IDE devices. Taiwan's low-cost manufacturers of CD-ROM drives noted that their devices didn't need SATA and would be made ninepence more expensive by incorporating them, so CD-ROM drives are parallel IDE devices. So motherboards need to have parallel IDE support even though Intel's integrated chipsets lack it. The cheapest form of parallel IDE support is a chip by Marvell. This chip is not supported by any operating system's install disc.
So you can try to install an operating system, and it will think for a few seconds, and then declare that the CD-ROM drive that it was loaded from doesn't exist, before vanishing in a puff of logic.
There is a way round this - you copy the CD onto a memory stick, basically. There are an unreasonable number of painfully exact refinements required before the process works, including three things which you have to get right without any diagnostic message if you get them wrong; http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~twomack/DG965WH.txt lists the necessary process.
I'd got about 90% of the way through the install before getting strange failures; it emerges that there are two areas of memory on my memory stick where, if you store some number, it reliably reads back an entirely different number; amongst other things it has a violent dislike of odd numbers, a strong fondness for exact multiples of sixteen, and a total disdain for all numbers between 239 and 255 inclusive. Unsurprisingly, operating systems are confused by this; Ubuntu very kindly does careful integrity checks on the files it's trying to install, so the result's a clear error message rather than a subtly broken operating system.
It is only from a suspicion that the memory stick might be within warranty, and my regrettable lack of a fourteen-pound lump hammer, that I have not released my frustrations on it with a fourteen-pound lump hammer.
Half an hour ago, as I was sitting with the computer turned off on the desk next to me, there came a large white flash, a bang, and a strong smell from the power supply unit. I am told that I'm entitled to send the whole assembled system back and ask for a refund; probably the right thing to do, one loses a certain amount of confidence in a device once it's exploded once.
It all went together fairly easily - SATA cables avoid the problem of wrestling with two-inch ribbon cables, the chip fits neatly into the socket, the Intel heat-sink attaches by simply pressing down push-pins, and on the whole it very much betrays the enormous effort that's been put into making computer assembly an occupation in which a Chinese former rice-farmer can be productive within the week.
The software, however. Intel's designers assumed, when they started designing this chipset a couple of years ago, that there would by now be no parallel IDE devices. Taiwan's low-cost manufacturers of CD-ROM drives noted that their devices didn't need SATA and would be made ninepence more expensive by incorporating them, so CD-ROM drives are parallel IDE devices. So motherboards need to have parallel IDE support even though Intel's integrated chipsets lack it. The cheapest form of parallel IDE support is a chip by Marvell. This chip is not supported by any operating system's install disc.
So you can try to install an operating system, and it will think for a few seconds, and then declare that the CD-ROM drive that it was loaded from doesn't exist, before vanishing in a puff of logic.
There is a way round this - you copy the CD onto a memory stick, basically. There are an unreasonable number of painfully exact refinements required before the process works, including three things which you have to get right without any diagnostic message if you get them wrong; http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~twomack/DG965WH.txt lists the necessary process.
I'd got about 90% of the way through the install before getting strange failures; it emerges that there are two areas of memory on my memory stick where, if you store some number, it reliably reads back an entirely different number; amongst other things it has a violent dislike of odd numbers, a strong fondness for exact multiples of sixteen, and a total disdain for all numbers between 239 and 255 inclusive. Unsurprisingly, operating systems are confused by this; Ubuntu very kindly does careful integrity checks on the files it's trying to install, so the result's a clear error message rather than a subtly broken operating system.
It is only from a suspicion that the memory stick might be within warranty, and my regrettable lack of a fourteen-pound lump hammer, that I have not released my frustrations on it with a fourteen-pound lump hammer.
Half an hour ago, as I was sitting with the computer turned off on the desk next to me, there came a large white flash, a bang, and a strong smell from the power supply unit. I am told that I'm entitled to send the whole assembled system back and ask for a refund; probably the right thing to do, one loses a certain amount of confidence in a device once it's exploded once.
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I think you should get different parts next time, maybe?
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It's actually many years since I last bought a complete machine in parts (1998, I think), although during that time at least one machine has had all its hardware replaced piecemeal, so I've not been entirely free of hardware pain.
Another option for installing onto uncooperative hardware is of course install onto the target disk using another machine's hardware and then transfer it across. Of course, this relies on having suitable hardware available and the operating system being willing to put up with this sort of thing (which Linux is but AIUI Windows less so).
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I couldn't face the potential hardware doom of linux and laptops so bought a powerbook.
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So I bought a 5 year old Sun a few weeks ago, with a SunPCI card in it. Shiny :)
And I've just put in my auction bids for peices of the telescope. Yum.