BW January 2015

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I began to study the resource monitor because there seemed to be too much disk activity on the computer next to the phone in lab 403.

Techrepublic Introduction

System Power States

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I tried to install Microsoft Office 2010 64-bit on the computer in lab 405, but the DVD drive would not work. Dr. Jones wiped the DVD with a handkerchief, but it still would not work. He said I would have to install Office from the computer next to the phone in lab 403, using the network to communicate with that computer. I shared the DVD drive with network computers and changed the network to a work network, but the shared drive folder was not accessible from the computer in 405. I turned on file sharing in 403, but that did not help. Then I realized that the computers in 403 and 405 had the same name, so I changed the name in 405 and added the computer to a new workgroup. I added the one in 403 to the same workgroup, and after restarting the computer in 405, the shared folder was accessible.

Dr. Jones showed me how to remove computers from their rack, starting with Geo 4 I think. But I probably started work on Geo 2 instead of Geo 4. He wanted me to remove and discard the motherboards of those computers but keep the memory. I started disconnecting cables from the motherboard and unscrewing it from the case, but I was not sure what to do about the PATA ribbon cables. In the computer in 405, I had tried to disconnect the ribbon cable from the motherboard, but it was too firmly attached to come loose. I thought it might not be meant to come off because it was an essential part of the motherboard. Maybe removing it would damage the cable or the motherboard. Then Brendan came and showed me what to do. He disconnected the ribbon cables and removed a bracket above the motherboard that would prevent it from coming out. After that, I knew how to remove the motherboard. I tried to remove one of the processor fans and its heat sink, but when they would not come off I decided to leave them on the motherboard and throw it away.

I vacuumed Geo 4 outside and inside before removing the motherboard. I had also vacuumed Geo 2 when I was working on it. When vacuuming, I kept my hand on the grounding mat to avoid any destructive electrostatic discharge.

Next Dr. Jones had me start working on node 22. He disconnected the power and Ethernet cables and we removed node 22 from the rack. This time because of my experience with the Geo nodes I had no trouble taking out the motherboard, memory, and expansion cards. The hard drives were more difficult to remove. There were four of them in two bays. One of the bays had been next to the motherboard and just had to be unscrewed from the case, but the other was linked to the bay for the floppy and CD drives. The other bay had to come loose before the hard drives could be removed.

When I finished emptying and cleaning the node 22 case, Dr. Jones showed me how to install the motherboard, CPU, CPU fan, and memory. Dr. Jones said the motherboard should remain in the anti-static bag as long as possible, and when it comes out it should be on top of the bag while you install the processor. He said it is important not to touch the pins in the place where the processor should sit. Also, I should hold the CPU by its edges, not the upper and lower surfaces. The arrow on one corner of the processor should be aligned with a similar marking on the motherboard. After installing the processor, he installed the CPU fan. The pins for holding the fan to the motherboard are difficult to work with. When one goes down, another one or two pop up. Dr. Jones said I should turn the pins in the direction opposite to the arrow before turning the way the arrow indicated. Finally he installed the memory, which is the most vulnerable to damage from electrostatic shock. I should avoid touching the contacts and hold onto the heat sink while installing it. The memory can go into its DIMM channel only facing one direction. The older memory cards did not have a heat sink, but the new 8 GB cards did.

Dr. Jones connected some cables to the motherboard and left me to work on nodes 21 and 24. I tried to imitate what he did and did it mostly right, but I connected the CPU fan to the system fan connector. When the hard drives came, I installed those and connected them to the wrong SATA port. I should have chosen SATA 0. Except for those mistakes, I installed the new hardware correctly.

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I started to put the motherboards from nodes 21 and 24 in the Geo 2 and Geo 4 computers, beginning with Geo 4. To do that, I had to move the power supply out of the way. Once the motherboard was attached, I could not screw the power supply in because the motherboard was in the way. When Dr. Jones saw that, he said we should just leave the power supply loose. There were other difficulties to deal with after that. I did not know how to connect the power switch, LED lights, etc. I wanted to find the motherboard manual, but it took a long time to find it. When that was done, I put the small connectors on the pins. I wanted to connect the ribbon cables to IDE channels, but the one I tried to connect was not wide enough. It turned out that that cable was for the floppy drive and the other fit in the IDE channel. Then it was time to install the graphics card and some kind of network card, but they were mounted on riser cards that would not fit into the motherboards from Geo 2 and Geo 4. Dr. Jones said I should try to install them directly on the motherboard. Therefore I had to remove the brackets from those cards. The brackets for the graphics cards were each secured by two screws, one on each side of the rear panel connector. I looked for a tool to unscrew them and resorted to a small wrench that loosened them enough to turn by hand. After removing the brackets, I omitted replacing the sleeves that had come off the graphics card connectors. The brackets for the network card were fastened on in a different way, with small clips that had to be bent back with a screwdriver. All the expansion cards went into PCI slots, though some were not easily pushed in.

When we turned on Geo 2, the power and hard drive LED lights did not turn on. Dr. Jones and Brendan found that the wires for the power light both went to negative pins, so Brendan switched one to positive. However, the computer could not find a hard drive. After some unsuccessful attempts to fix the problem we found that the ribbon cable had not really been connected to the hard drive. The cable had been connected to a green IDE channel, but Dr. Jones switched it to the red one.

Dr. Jones had me turn on Geo 4. Again the computer did not find the hard drive. I switched the cable to the red IDE channel, and it found the hard drive then. In the process I turned the computer on and off several times. I pressed DEL to see the BIOS settings but did not see any changes I knew I should make. When “Red Hat Linux” appeared on the monitor, I fetched Dr. Jones and he knew what to do. On Geo 4 he had to change the configuration of a jumper on the motherboard that reminded me of the master and slave pins on a hard drive.

In Geo 4 there was a loose fan on a small heat sink. I was not sure which way it was blowing, but the way I put it, it scraped against the heat sink. Dr. Jones cut a cable tie in pieces to make supports for it.

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I helped Jim discard the fish tank. I disconnected the hoses to take out the heaters and pumps, but one of the hoses in the right exclusion area (next to the sink) started to pour out water. I thought it was residual water at first, but it just kept coming, and it leaked out of the exclusion area into the compartment for bending the fibers. I reconnected that hose, but the water came from the other hose instead. Then I noticed an open valve at the rear of the tank on the left that appeared to control water flow through one of the pipes. It might have been valve 3. I closed that valve and the water flow from the hoses stopped.

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Temperature Control with LabVIEW

A Low-Heat Option