AC/DC Review

Here's my more detailed account of this past weekend of AC/DC, the annual advanced & challenge square dance event in downtown Washington DC.

( Details, details... )

At this point, we don't have a space or hotel contracted for next year's event, but we do have dates --February 8-10, 2008-- and we have callers CJ Smith, Dave Wilson, Ett McAtee and Mike Jacobs.

AC/DC Review

Here's my more detailed account of this past weekend of AC/DC, the annual advanced & challenge square dance event in downtown Washington DC.

( Details, details... )

At this point, we don't have a space or hotel contracted for next year's event, but we do have dates --February 8-10, 2008-- and we have callers CJ Smith, Dave Wilson, Ett McAtee and Mike Jacobs.

Computer RAM Adventures Continue

Friday afternoon, the three pieces of RAM I ordered for various workstations arrived but since I was at AC/DC, I didn't get these until Sunday evening.

The 512 MB PC-133 DIMM I placed in the iMac worked flawlessly and continues to do so; as soon as the SoDIMM replacement arrived, the machine will be fully upgraded to its maximum 1 GB. The iMac is much happier with the 768 MB it has now... I'm looking forward to having it fully upgraded.

The 512 MB PC-133 DIMM I placed in my XP box didn't work out quite so well: the machine experienced various crashes soon thereafter even though the power-on self tests. Swapping back the original memory eliminated the errors. Further investigation is needed.

The 1 GB PC3200U DIMM for the Linux box didn't generate errors, but the machine refused to boot at all. Putting the old 256 MB DIMM back in allowed the machine to boot but the box started experiencing periodic spontaneous reboots from that time onward. Figuring the DIMM was faulty and not wanting my e-mail box to be down for an extended period, on Sunday we dashed out to purchase a replacement 512 MB DIMM at Circuit City but there was no joy: more errors.

Popping the 1 GB DIMM into kent4str's machine, the DIMM passed all memory tests. In fact, all of the PC3200 DIMMs I had on hand passed the memory tests on his box, leading me to believe it's the motherboard of the Linux box that's actually having trouble. Figures.

I've purchased an addition PC-133 512 MB DIMM on eBay to upgrade my XP box; the possibly-faulty 512 MB DIMM will be checked again and possibly replaced. Somehow, I will get that XP box upgraded.

As for the Linux box with a questionable motherboard, I've purchased a refurb 2.2 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM and no operating system on eBay this morning for $200. I'll keep the existing Linux box operating as best I can until the replacement arrives, then simply transplant the hard drives to the new box. And kent4str's machine now has an unplanned but welcome memory upgrade using the already-purchased chips. The whole adventure is turning out vastly more expensive than I had previously budgeted but it's still cheaper than the Mac Book I had originally considered purchasing.

Anyone have a use for some used but perfectly functional 256 MB PC3200U DIMMs?

Computer RAM Adventures Continue

Friday afternoon, the three pieces of RAM I ordered for various workstations arrived but since I was at AC/DC, I didn't get these until Sunday evening.

The 512 MB PC-133 DIMM I placed in the iMac worked flawlessly and continues to do so; as soon as the SoDIMM replacement arrived, the machine will be fully upgraded to its maximum 1 GB. The iMac is much happier with the 768 MB it has now... I'm looking forward to having it fully upgraded.

The 512 MB PC-133 DIMM I placed in my XP box didn't work out quite so well: the machine experienced various crashes soon thereafter even though the power-on self tests. Swapping back the original memory eliminated the errors. Further investigation is needed.

The 1 GB PC3200U DIMM for the Linux box didn't generate errors, but the machine refused to boot at all. Putting the old 256 MB DIMM back in allowed the machine to boot but the box started experiencing periodic spontaneous reboots from that time onward. Figuring the DIMM was faulty and not wanting my e-mail box to be down for an extended period, on Sunday we dashed out to purchase a replacement 512 MB DIMM at Circuit City but there was no joy: more errors.

Popping the 1 GB DIMM into kent4str's machine, the DIMM passed all memory tests. In fact, all of the PC3200 DIMMs I had on hand passed the memory tests on his box, leading me to believe it's the motherboard of the Linux box that's actually having trouble. Figures.

I've purchased an addition PC-133 512 MB DIMM on eBay to upgrade my XP box; the possibly-faulty 512 MB DIMM will be checked again and possibly replaced. Somehow, I will get that XP box upgraded.

As for the Linux box with a questionable motherboard, I've purchased a refurb 2.2 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM and no operating system on eBay this morning for $200. I'll keep the existing Linux box operating as best I can until the replacement arrives, then simply transplant the hard drives to the new box. And kent4str's machine now has an unplanned but welcome memory upgrade using the already-purchased chips. The whole adventure is turning out vastly more expensive than I had previously budgeted but it's still cheaper than the Mac Book I had originally considered purchasing.

Anyone have a use for some used but perfectly functional 256 MB PC3200U DIMMs?