mending things

Back in 2008, I started this blog with a post about how my son and I attempted to tweak a humble Dell Dimension 2350 computer for PC gaming. See  How to build a gaming PC from a Dell Dimension 2350 . By 2012 the PC was running very slow and was retired to the attic, being replaced with a mac mini for my son to use for schoolwork. I lamented the demise of this lovable old PC, and back then signed off with : Who knows, perhaps one day to return , in its current guise or perhaps running a flavour of Linux, which might be another way to give it a new lease of life While recently reanimating  another retired PC as a dedicated Folding server  - see  Building a Fold@Home dedicated PC server which is also a space heater , I spotted the old Dell and wondered if it too could be recycled doing something useful. I fetched it down, and acquainted myself with this old friend. My thinking was initially , that I'd redeploy it as another Fold@home server , running linux. It would be ...

Well the trusty old Dell Dimension 2350 is still going strong. I decided to replace the power supply with a more efficient one. If you've read my earlier Dell post you will know that the original Dell PSU started to fail some years ago and was replaced with a gold Sweex Brand 400 watt supply, which has worked well. I decided to replace the Sweex with a 400Watt AKASA AK-P040FG8 which is 80plus rated . This means it is more energy efficient. The Sweex was fine, but I didn't really do much research when I bought it, and I had another project in need of the Sweex , so it seemed like a good idea to upgrade the one in the Dell to a more energy efficient design. My Son had also seen the occasional lock up of the PC while running games and iTunes simultaneously, and I thought this might be due to PSU demand. However before replacing it I wanted to do some tests of standing and peak power consumption of the PC with both the Sweex and Akasa power supplies. I plugged the PC into an en...

"What a piece of junk!" "She'll make point five past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself." Luke Skywalker and Han Solo In 2002 I bought a Dell Dimension 2350 P4 2.6Ghz PC for my young son. His older brother had a PC, and it seemed right that he should have one too. I didn't know much about PC's at the time and assumed "Integrated Intel Graphics" meant that it might be a bit slower than a dedicated graphics card, but the price was good. Alas I learned the hard way that if you (or your kids) want to do serious gaming on a PC you need a dedicated graphics card slot , typically AGP or now PCI-Express aka PCI-E. The dimension 2350 did not have one, only 3 humble PCI slots . Thus began a long and enjoyable exploration of how far I could push this entry-level PC toward serious gaming , and along the way I learned a lot about PC's a...