I sold my soul to Microsoft - again.

Last fall, Microsoft offered a Windows 8 upgrade for $39.99.  "Great!", said I, because one of the IBM quad-core workstations in the house was getting rather long in the tooth with Windows XP, and I could either buy Windows 7 for a bunch of money, or simply jump to Windows 8 cheaply and be good for a while.

Yeah, right.  The DVD arrives, and I discover that the hardware of the IBM 6221 isn't going to cut it with Windows 8, because of BIOS, CPU, and IDE controller obsolescence. So that computer will get Windows 7, which has no such pretenses. In the meantime, what to do with this Windows 8 DVD?

My own workstation is an 8-core, water-cooled IBM 9228 with a couple SSDs and a huge spinning-platter HD for file storage.  It runs Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit perfectly, and does everything I could ask of it, lightning-quick.  That includes Adobe Creative Suite 6, SolidWorks, Fallout New Vegas, NOAA Weather Research Forecast models, anything I can throw at it. It would be silly to mess with it, no?

Silly, but I did, anyway.  That's me - if it ain't broken, keep fixing it until it is well and truly broken. Still smarting from the hardware issues that thwarted me from installing Windows 8 on the other IBM, I ran the Upgrade Compatibility Checker and found no issues.  That was a good sign.  I diligently backed up everything that meant something to my basement file server, then stuck the Windows 8 DVD in the big IBM, waiting for upgrade hell to break loose.  It didn't.

The upgrade went on without so much as a hiccup.  Since I really didn't want to spend a ton of money replacing my 28" LCD monitor with a touch-screen version of the same, I bought the Logitech T650 glass touchpad for the Windows 8 touch experience.  That was a good choice, considering the new Start Screen of Windows 8.

All my applications made the move ok.  All of my hardware made the move ok, from the HD TV tuner, to the USB Bluetooth dongle, and even the FireWire recording and audio interface.  Windows 8 attempted to create another pagefile on the main SSD drive, but I quickly relocated that to the second SSD drive where it belongs, no problem.

The old Windows Start Button and Start Menu is gone.  You have to use the pretty Start Screen to run things, or bring up the Desktop and use the old Taskbar icon trick to stash your favorite programs.  I'm getting better at all the touch gestures needed to run the system, and can actually do everything from the touchpad, including a touch keyboard.  I do still have my Microsoft Natural Keyboard and Logitech Trackball, because carpal tunnel.  Otherwise, the transition really isn't as bad as I though it would be.  Everything works, and Windows 8 does a better job of utilizing system resources, with
much lower CPU idle numbers than Windows 7.  Oh, and it's a lot more colorful!

    

Kinda pretty, ain't it?

 Microsoft is trying to force the PC world into adopting a tablet/smartphone mentality in how one accomplishes things.  My desktop display looks like a spitting image of my Windows smartphone, that much is certain.  How this desktop OS pans out for them is still up for debate.  Microsoft recently announced they're coming out with Windows 8.1 later this year, and it will be bringing back the Start Button, among other things. I questioned the wisdom of removing it in the first place, but chalked it up to Microsoft creating a paradigm shift in an all-or-nothing effort to transform personal computing. To me, it's basically a Windows 7 pickup truck with a spiffy new paint job. I upgraded because I didn't know what to do with the upgrade DVD.  If you have and like Windows 7, I'd recommend staying with it.  If you're adventurous and want to try something new and different, give Windows 8 a shot.  My 2009-vintage IBM is happy with it, purring (gurgling?) right along with nary a hiccup.

32 Degrees Celsius on a warm summer day - Nice!

Old meets New

I finally fixed the gremlins found lurking inside my antique Hickok Model 665 oscilloscope (O-silly-scope?) and returned it to service. For now, it sits in a place of honor to the right of my 2009-vintage IBM IntelliStation Z-Pro 9228, which takes the vacuum tube switching technology of the Hickok and multiplies it several millions of times.

True to form, this particular IBM workstation is water-cooled, to keep the dual Xeon 5160 (aka, Woodcrest) 3.0Ghz dual-core processors happy while playing Fallout New Vegas or running SolidWorks, Adobe CS5, etc. There are 10Gb of FB-DIMM memory onboard, a monster MSI TwinFrozr Radeon HD6870 1Gb video card to feed the monitor, a Western Digital Caviar Black 1Tb hard drive keeping the files in order (hence the Masscool blower keeping the HD temps down), and a Koolance Exos 2 running blue coolant through the gold-plated waterblocks attached to both Xeon CPUs. The operating system of choice to run this 64-bit beast is Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, which is pretty much a seamless transition from its 32-bit sibling, save for my Canon LiDE 30 scanner drivers.

The Hickok oscilloscope will soon be attached to the output of the computer's sound card, to give a visual representation of whatever music or Windows Media Center TV/DVD I happen to be enjoying at the given time. That, or I'll attach it to the output of the MGE Pulsar EX30 UPS to show the perfect 60-cycle power feed...

I Drink the IBM Kool-Aid

It never fails. Some time ago, I donated one of my spare IBM Intellistation M-Pro workstations to a worthy cause in Indianapolis. When the vinyl graphics business in our garage and my wife's new work-at-home job required hardware upgrades for their M-Pro workstations, I figured it would be no big deal. Unfortunately, the Intellistation M-Pro 6850 models have become more rare over the last year or so, something I hadn't really counted on. In the meantime, cannibalizing my own 3.0Ghz IBM Intellistation M-Pro for those badly-needed parts was just the opportunity I needed to find yet another orphaned corporate lease IBM and give it a loving home.

Mission accomplished. This rescued IBM Intellistation Z-Pro 6221 is slightly smaller in width and depth than the previous Intellistation M-Pro models, but packs 2 each hyperthreaded Xeon 3.2Ghz processors (4 logical processors in the Windows Task Manager), 4Gb memory, 320Gb HD, 8Gb SSD pagefile, and Radeon HD4670 video at 1920x1080 resolution under the sheet metal.

I'm pleased to report that the little fellow below is quite happy running Windows 7 Pro at a brisk pace, with blue (appropriate color for IBM!) antifreeze gurgling through its innards!

How to plumb an IBM...

Granted, this isn't a StarDrive with a water-cooled Klystron tube in the final output stage, but converting a multi-CPU IBM workstation to liquid cooling does require some planning and attention to details in assembly.

I had to remove the huge copper and stainless steel IBM heatsinks, then remove the metal heatsink mounting brackets from the motherboard. This allowed me to install the new metal waterblock mounting brackets for the conversion. Here's one mounting bracket and waterblock installed, with the remaining processor waiting for bracket replacement and waterblock installation:


Here are both waterblocks mounted sitting on an ultra-thin layer of Arctic Silver 5 with thermocouple probes attached via black wires, ready for plumbing:


The tubing attaches to the external cooling unit and waterblocks by means of well-designed compression fittings. That means no leaks, and no fiddling with hose clamps. I installed a drain valve in the radiator return line, and by cracking it in conjunction with the reservoir's fill plug, I was able to add the blue coolant with less air blocking the lines. Here it is, coolant running through the system for 12 hours as a leak test, using an external power supply to run the pumps:


My external power supply is a Gateway Core2Duo system running Windows Vista that I had sitting around. I knew it would come in useful for something eventually!


So far, so good. No leaks, although when I spilled a wee bit of the blue stuff while filling the reservoir, I could swear it was Prestone or Zerex thanks to the smell. So now I know that Koolance uses ethylene or propylene glycol in their coolant mix...