[COLUG] Upgraded Hardware - Foreseeable Problems?

[Steve Roggenkamp]

I run a configuration somewhat similar to the one you propose in your email.

I built a computer in early 2005 consisting of an MSI K8N Neo2 
motherboard, an AMD 64 3000 processor and 1 GB of memory. I recently 
upgraded the processor to an AMD 64 FX 55 processor simply by switching 
out the chip and cooling fan.

Originally I ran a 32-bit version of Linux, but I changed to 64-bit 
version. The biggest problem I have with the 64-bit Fedora distro is 
that I can't seem to get Java to run as an applet within the 64-bit 
version of Firefox. I haven't spent a whole lot of time on it, but it 
would be nice.

I don't know anything about computational chemistry, but the advantage 
of a 64-bit system is that you can get around the 32-bit limit on 
process size on Linux, and it's fast.

The SATA drives are just a different interface and cabling for disk 
drives. I don't know all of the details, but it seems to be the 
interface used both for enterprise systems and desktop systems. If you 
use your system a lot, or want high reliability, you might look into 
using enterprise drives. They cost only a few dollars more, but they 
should offer higher reliability since they are designed to run 24x7. You 
can get an enterprise 500 GB drive for about $200 with a SATA interface.

Hope this helps
Steve

Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
> I am currently running SuSE v9.3 on an old, slow 32bit CPU and am 
> contemplating several upgrades in sequence.  I would appreciate some advise 
> as I am definitely not a hardware person and primarily run other folks 
> scientific software (I have a research program in computational chemistry) 
> rather than write my own.
>
> The CPU I'm looking at is the AMD Athlon 64 3500+.  The motherboard is a MSI 
> K9N Neo-F, MS-7260 Ver 1.0 K9N nForce 550 (I don't know anything about 
> hardware, but I can copy a label).
>
> The motherboard only has one PCI slot for a master and a slave.  My current 
> linux box has 3 HD's, but I'm prepared to give one up (keep it as a spare for 
> my Win XP machine).  There are 4 SATA connections, but I know nothing about 
> them.  I presume that any hard drive connected to one of those must be a SATA 
> HD, or is there some sort of adapter?  Also, what about DC/DVD drive how 
> would that be connected?  I have an old CD drive on the linux box now, but am 
> willing to upgrade it to a DVD.
>
> Sorry to have asked so many low level questions, but, as I said, I'm not a 
> hardware person.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>