Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:32 am Post subject: Trinity's rebirth...
Trinity is getting rebuilt, one way or another. I figured I'd start a topic to keep track of my progress on how Trinity gets reincarnated.
For the uninformed, this started as I sat drinking gin in my sister's boyfriend's apartment and was surfing e-bay for a new server. Trinity is spread across three machines, and the existing bottlenecks can't be solved with those three. He offered to send me a server he wasn't using!!
Well, UPS is currently holding the package containing the new dual processor machine. It's raining here so hopefully I'm going to pick it up tomorrow and begin the work this weekend. It will consolidate trinity to one machine and should speed up page generation times and backups.
Getting the new trinity working is presently my secondary priority after native menu fixes for Neo/J. It will be slow going; I don't intend to swap servers until the new server is flawless (as best as I can make it) and is perfectly synced to the regular trinity servers. I am currently aiming for mid-November as the "switch-over" date between servers. Until then, hopefully everyone can live with the 3 second page generation times here under normal loads. I know in the world of CNN hosted on Akami servers nearest you 3 seconds of generation is a long time to wait, but hopefully you can deal for a while
Replying to a post or other transactional operations may take up to a minute (things not just doing viewing). Again, due to the three-machine split, and should be better after consolidation.
Keep pantyhose on. Our server should be getting better by the minute.
Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 10:26 am Post subject: Re: Trinity's rebirth...
Although it took about a year to post this reply...
YAY!
Thx, ed!
OPENSTEP wrote:
Trinity is getting rebuilt, one way or another. I figured I'd start a topic to keep track of my progress on how Trinity gets reincarnated.
For the uninformed, this started as I sat drinking gin in my sister's boyfriend's apartment and was surfing e-bay for a new server. Trinity is spread across three machines, and the existing bottlenecks can't be solved with those three. He offered to send me a server he wasn't using!!
Well, UPS is currently holding the package containing the new dual processor machine. It's raining here so hopefully I'm going to pick it up tomorrow and begin the work this weekend. It will consolidate trinity to one machine and should speed up page generation times and backups.
Getting the new trinity working is presently my secondary priority after native menu fixes for Neo/J. It will be slow going; I don't intend to swap servers until the new server is flawless (as best as I can make it) and is perfectly synced to the regular trinity servers. I am currently aiming for mid-November as the "switch-over" date between servers. Until then, hopefully everyone can live with the 3 second page generation times here under normal loads. I know in the world of CNN hosted on Akami servers nearest you 3 seconds of generation is a long time to wait, but hopefully you can deal for a while
Replying to a post or other transactional operations may take up to a minute (things not just doing viewing). Again, due to the three-machine split, and should be better after consolidation.
Keep pantyhose on. Our server should be getting better by the minute.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2004 8:33 pm Post subject:
Well, today i started work. Found a compatible video card and it booted. Then, I decided to install a new SCSI drive into the box. Bad idea. After the drive was installed, on the next power-up something arced inside the box. It smells like the power supply is fried. So rebuilt trinity may take a bit longer until I can scavenge a compatible power supply. The hard drive that arced was thrown with a wakefield-esque curveball grip and is now lying in pieces in the middle of valerio street.
Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 1:15 am Post subject: Re: SCSI hard drive frisbee
OPENSTEP wrote:
Well, today i started work. Found a compatible video card and it booted. Then, I decided to install a new SCSI drive into the box. Bad idea. After the drive was installed, on the next power-up something arced inside the box. It smells like the power supply is fried.
That's bad. I know I fried a SCSI drive once, but the funny thing it still works even with burnt out resistors (I don't know if I would trust the ability to store data though). I assume you made sure the cable was keyed in the correct direction.
OPENSTEP wrote:
The hard drive that arced was thrown with a wakefield-esque curveball grip and is now lying in pieces in the middle of valerio street.
An appropriate response. Just hope a car doesn't run over the pieces and cut down a tire.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 9:48 am Post subject: Re: SCSI hard drive frisbee
Terry Teague wrote:
That's bad. I know I fried a SCSI drive once, but the funny thing it still works even with burnt out resistors (I don't know if I would trust the ability to store data though). I assume you made sure the cable was keyed in the correct direction.
Yeah, I thought it was all in the correct direction and all, but space was tight in the case so it may have just been two components too close to one another. There's not too much room for full-height drives in the Dell server cases.
I think the power supply gave up the ghost before any of the remaining components since now it smells kind of like a mixture of burnt plastic and spoiled Thai food. A new power supply is on the way
Terry Teague wrote:
OPENSTEP wrote:
The hard drive that arced was thrown with a wakefield-esque curveball grip and is now lying in pieces in the middle of valerio street.
An appropriate response. Just hope a car doesn't run over the pieces and cut down a tire.
I was kind. I went and swept them up last night after I finished ranting to myself. Thankfully there's not too much traffic on a Sunday evening
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 10:05 pm Post subject:
New power supply arrived today and while watching the world series come to an end the server machine came to life again, one hard drive short For grins, installed BeOS and had fun playing with it for 5 minutes watching the onscreen meters for a dualie bounce around. Offhand seems much worse then my old BeBox, but that's probably because I really miss the blinkenlights. That BeBox still has class.
the last time i had a power supply fail i ripped it from the case in a fury of dust and held it over my head, the wires dangling down from my hand chanting and then crying out the scene from temple of doom.
it was probably the most rewarding computer repair experience of my life.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2004 9:00 pm Post subject: The litany continues
Well, OK, so last night I tried installing a real OS on the new server box. Turns out that I'm having a bear of a time...burned a "bootable" CD but, lo, the box doesn't want to boot off of its SCSI CD drive. Nor its SCSI burner. So I burn CDs at slower speeds...no dice. Then I go back to a venerable DOS floppy. Doesn't want to start. Doesn't want to boot off a floppy. Pop the case, floppy drive is all bent out of whack. Cannabilize the BeBox for its floppy, which I know is functional. Get it in. But the primary floppy is some strange laptop style slimline connector...doesn't want to boot off of secondary floppy. Shite.
Borrowed IDE CD rom drive from work, as I only have SCSI devices myself. Asked sysadmin for IDE cable, but he gives me a floppy cable instead. Double shite. Cannabilize BeBox for an IDE cable. Now the box boots! It may yet be useful
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2004 9:03 pm Post subject:
jakeOSX wrote:
the last time i had a power supply fail i ripped it from the case in a fury of dust and held it over my head, the wires dangling down from my hand chanting and then crying out the scene from temple of doom.
it was probably the most rewarding computer repair experience of my life.
UM NUM SHIVA!
If you really want, I can ship you a burned power supply with which you can re-enact your performance...
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. And don't worry about the pantyhoses 
