md0 : active raid5 sdd1[1] sdi1[0] sde1[5] sdc1[4] sdg1[3] sdh1[2]
      2441919680 blocks level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [6/6] [UUUUUU]

Originally published at Angrywaffles. You can comment here or there.

So far, the rebuild process is going along well.  Later on the 14th, I went through the hardware on the system, thinking perhaps a controller had died, or a power splitter had failed.  Neither was the case, as I had forgotten that I don’t have any controllers with only two disks plugged in, and the box isn’t actually using any splitters at all.  I went through the whole thing and cleaned it out and checked all of the connections, and swapped a few SATA cables that seemed to be iffy just to be safe.

Originally published at Angrywaffles. You can comment here or there.

Woke up this morning, and my fileserver had emailed me this:

md0 : active raid5 sdh1[6](F) sdd1[5] sdc1[4] sdf1[3] sdg1[2] sdi1[7](F)
      2441919680 blocks level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [6/4] [__UUUU]

Looks like I get a trial-by-fire of MD RAID recovery tonight, once I figure out what broke.

Originally published at Angrywaffles. You can comment here or there.

Not bad for an affordable motherboard (Gigabyte EP45-DS3L, $85 or so after rebate), some cheap Kingston DDR2-800 RAM, and a $30 heatsink.  Core voltage is only 1.28V - I’m not going to bother pushing it harder because at this point the RAM is already overclocked and I can’t run the RAM any slower than the current speed.  I’m happy with the speed, a 3.1GHz quad-core Core2 is quite the upgrade from my 2.5GHz dual-core Opteron.

One of these days I’ll probably slap a new video card in here (current one is getting a bit old, 7900GS) but I’m in no rush.  Probably when the next-gen midrange gets cheap.

Originally published at Angrywaffles. You can comment here or there.

Today, not long after getting home, the power blinked - just long enough to shut down the TV and a couple of computers, including the media center (which has a crappy power supply so that’s no surprise) and my desktop (which was a surprise).  Every desktop system I have aside from the HTPC uses relatively high-end power supplies, which I’ve noticed have the side benefit of keeping the system on a bit longer in the event of a short gap in AC power.

After quite a few futile attempts to get my desktop to boot again, I’ve concluded it has now developed a nasty hardware failure somewhere.  The random nature (it hangs anywhere from before POST completes to after logging into Windows) makes me suspect the motherboard, but I suppose the power supply could be at fault as well.

It’s really a pain because I really don’t have much time to sit down and diagnose why it’s broken, but at the same time I don’t have a ton of money laying around to throw at problems.  I’m actually somewhat tempted to just let the damn thing sit until I can afford to do the upgrade I was planning on - a Nehalem-based quad-core Intel setup.

Originally published at Angrywaffles. You can comment here or there.