What operating system for the OCTITRON?

Glad to hear everything is still working - that must've been a good scare. And I have to agree, this is certainly the most interesting project on NBR!

 

i agree. definitely looking forward to this beast being finished.

 

Where's the blow by blow picture story of the build?

 

Silverstone has the most annoying RMA policy.
When the power supply was ordered, Newegg listed the item as a ST75ZF power supply on the invoice, which I didnt order. I received the ST75F which I ordered.
Well the difference in model number delayed everything. I had to call silverstone and speak to a manager who had me talking to him, while he had newegg on call.
We needed to match serial numbers and luckily it came through.
What a hassel. It took basically 2 weeks to get an RMA number.
It will be going out tomorrow
So hopefully they give me a new power supply soon,

There are no other updates, I cant really do much since I cant even power it up
I will not be able to make the case until I can get certified to use the Plasma 3arm mill. So that might be May when that happens.

K-TRON

 

So I got a quote for a block of aluminum to make the chassis out of.
I needed a block 22" x 16" x 4" thick
The price quote was $575
It doesnt look like I am making the shell out of a single piece of aluminum. Thats way too expensive for me. I would be machining 90% of it away anyways.

If anyone has a block of aluminum they would like to donate to the cause, shoot me a PM.

K-TRON

 

$600??? Dang I though you were making it out of aluminum, not solid platinum.

BTW, have you decided on an OS yet? I think that Windows 7 X64 will be good for this

 

aluminum is not cheap, it is very expensive. I cant imagine how much that block is going to weigh. Probably about 100lbs. Just to make a ~10lb case.

I think I am going to stick with server 2003 x64
It has been working fine for me

I have yet to try server 08. It may be better. I cant get anything higher than direct x5 to run on server 03.
It would be nice to be able to watch movies on my laptop. So I think server 08 is worth a try.

I havent tried windows 7.
My brother downloaded it during the free beta testing period. But neither of us tested it.

K-TRON

 

after solving the problems, how about trying vista again? if it works, it works great on your configuration. i have it on much lower end configurations and it works great, more than great. if vista doesn't work great so wont server08, or win7. they all use the same kernels, they all use the same drivers.

 

Windows 7 has greatly improved over vista. Don't get me wrong, Vista has been working great for the past year, but Windows 7 just feels quicker. Ask your brother if he still has that download, since MS has stopped offering W7 as a download.

 

and? win7 is beta, and runs only for some months till its get blocked. i have a much slower system than his, and win7 does not have any performance gain (nor usability gain, but thats an opinion of course (but baked by big names in the windows world)) over vista for me. so it should be of no difference on his machine.

and believe me, _when_ win7 fails, it fails much harder than vista (it could not recover after a bluescreen in my case once. normally, it has to repair itself after the reboot, which vista has no problem in. win7 was not capable to do that yet).

win7 is nice and works great, espencially impressive on older hw, but it's not yet an os for day-to-day use. really not.

 

I really wanted to use a ramdisc for the operating system. But my I-RAM is only 4Gb. My board only has one pci port.
I was wondering if I could just transform my 1gb cards into 2Gb cards by piggybacking the memory on top of each other.
I could probably do it if I was very careful, but I don't know if the actual card will read 8Gb.

How big is vista x64 installed,
and how big is windows 7 x64 on install?

K-TRON

 

I think there is more to it than that...

 

I think for Vista 64, it's a minimum of 15 GB, and Windows 7 is minimum of around 16 GB.

This is what I remember at least, so it could of changed, or I could be wrong completely.

 

4"
Are you crazy. Why do you need a 4" thick aluminium block? No wonder it's so expensive. Why don't you take a aluminium plate, cut it, bend it, and let it weld for you?

Off topic:
What's your goal? Your current case design you've posted a few posts before looks more like a horizontal tower than anything similar to a laptop.
Sorry, but I don't get it. You've bought server hardware and now you try to create a strange chassis for it, which isn't portable, has nothing to do with a laptop, will weight more than anything else, why?
Why don't you buy a 2U rackmount chassis? It's maybe thinner than your current, then add your 22" display to it and you have a server.

You don't even try to keep your chassis small, thin and compact. So I don't see what advantage your chassis has. You could try to "lie down" the graphics card with a 90 degree adapter, to reduce height, then remove the normal heat-sink from the CPU's and add a heatpipe assisted heatsink (self made) which is thin but still effective. Maybe use a watercooling instead, and add a slim radiator to one side. Anything which makes this project interesting and different from a normal server.

You also install a server OS on this machine, but run desktop software. You plan to run heavy CAD programs on it, but use Direct X optimized graphic cards. All this doesn't make sense for me.

 

aluminum would be nice due to it conducting and dispensing heat looks like your gonna need it

 

The aluminum is just to look nice, I wanted a seemless design but at the cost of aluminum I will end up making the shell out of a number of pieces.
The system does not get hot, it runs much cooler than any laptop I have ever had.
The server operating system is needed to recognize dual socket platforms. XP and vista are not going to be able to read the cpu's right.
Its kinda like a 1U server, but mine is 1 to 1.5U, with a lot of modifications.
The design has changed so dont go jumping the gun on me telling me I am stupid.

K-TRON

 

you are stupid!



but just for information, vista should be perfectly capable to recognize dual socket platforms. it may be (it was in win2000 days) that you have to manually enable the multiprocessor driver (just a blind guess), but it should easily work.

and for your ramdisk thing. just get a nice new ssd. it's not like you can't pay it, and the ramdisks currently available are slower in a lot of cases. as you want to use it for os only, you can go small, means cheap. i personally would go for a raid0, 2x 16gb mtron3500, that's 280$ in the end. would be faster than the iram and bigger and more cheap.

 

I never said that you're are stupid. I just said, that it looks for me, as if you just build a normal but expensive server and try to tell everyone that this is your laptop replacement. That's a server, no laptop! You won't even be able to use it withou an AC adapter. You won't be able to carry it around, because it's too large and too heavy.

I also just said that the project looks wow, but is still just a normal case mod. Nothing really "difficult" or interesting.
And it's normal that the system does not get hot with such oversized heatsinks you use, but a comparison with a laptop is out of place. For me it has no similarity with any laptop at the moment.
Maybe after you've posted the first real pictures I can understand you, but we will see.

 

ktron whhy dont you gust use desktop components and put them inside a custom made chasis.That would make everything easier for you.

 

Can that "sever/laptop" acually do basic task?I dont know much about servers or what they can do besides send data to others.

 

Servers are just regular computers. They're just usually higher end and often have redundancy levels not commonly present in desktops (dual power supplies, dual processors, etc)

 

So i can buy one and use it to play games on.They are reaally cheap.

 

I will be able to carry it, whats so heavy about it.
When I carried my D900K around, that thing alone weighed 26lbs, and the steel box I made for it out of stainless weighed 35lbs. So my laptop weighed 61lbs plus the 3lb power brick. Not a big deal.
This system should actually be lighter than the other one, and pack about 4x the power.
My backpack is huge, its military grade so carrying weight isnt an issue. The padded sleeves are much better than a normal backpack has, so you do not feel the weight as much.
I havent been convinced that SSD's are any fast, I have the Iram, and 5 second boots are not possible on even the fastest SSD's

I may just use my Hitachi Ultrastar's which are ridiculously fast anyways

K-TRON

 

60+ pounds Wow.

 

Sorry, you mean you plan to carry a more than 24" big, maybe 50lb heavy thing in your backpack? WOW!

What's so heavy about it:
24" display, power brick, battery pack, aluminium chassis, heat sinks, the HDD's. Just those little things.

Well, then, good luck.

HDD:
You could upgrade your RAM and use something like a RAMDisk to increase the system speed.

 

60 pounds? Holy hell I hope you don't have any textbooks in there with that "laptop"

 

He's buffing up for that midnight encounter with Shin.....................

 

BUMP for an awesome thread.
how's everything going

 

+1

Thats heavy

I wouldn't carry that at all.

 

60 lbs is not worth it, in any case.

The idea sounds good, maybe for a desktop, but I HARDLY consider a 60 lb computer a laptop, or anything close to being portable, in all practicality.

All in all, you're not making a laptop, IMO.

 

WOW
This sounds amazing!!!

Good luck!!!


Pssst *windows 7*



PS: Give him a break! This thing will be more powerful than ANY of our laptops until 2010
Not to mention this is PORTABLE super power

 

I was just guessing at 60lbs, it will probably be closer to 30lbs, which is still lighter than my other laptop.
Still have not heard from silverstone, but I am making the case anyways. I just hope they give me a replacement power supply, cause it is getting ridiculous. They had it for 20 plus days, and they do not answer to my emails or calls.

K-TRON

 

Do you have an estimated time for when you are going to finish this?

And have you contacted AMD and or ASUS and asked for a grant?

 

I have not asked for any grants

I am in the process of figuring out how to build the shell. I need to find a "MIG welder?" to weld some aluminum together. I have some aluminum panels a good 1/4" thick.
I am going to make the system taper outwards from 18" wide to 22" wide, so I can make use of my 24" screen. (my 24" screen is 18" x 22")
And I only have 18" x 18" metal sheets.

I think the actual palmrest is going to stay plexi, to keep the clear look, while the base will all be solid aluminum.

K-TRON

 

WHAT. THE. F.

LOL

I love you man, but you're on f'n crack.

 

FWIW, I used to weld...you want a TIG welder for aluminum, it does a much better job than MIG. MIG can do it, but you have to buy the welder and a special spooling gun to feed the alum wire. You also have to use a special (read: expensive) blend of argon for shielding gas. It is also easier to control the heat level with TIG, as alum melts really quick, as I'm sure you know.

You would probably be better off just taking it to a shop that does TIG welding and get them to weld it up for you.

Or buy a TIG machine, but they're not cheap, and are the hardest welders to learn how to operate well.

(TIG is like the welding that Jesse James, the West Coast Customs guy does)

I am loving this concept. Bada**.

 

If welding proves too difficult/expensive, you could always resort to using brackets and bolts to connect your pieces together. That's my fallback plan if this cheapo oxy/mapp welder I got at Lowes isn't going to do the job on some aluminum side panels (from leftover/unused computers) I was considering using.

 

Bump! after a week of receiving your PSU

 

How's everything K-Tron?

 

K-Tron, contact me if you want any.... and I mean ANY Microsoft OS.

I will get you the retail version of any Windows available.... on me.

So you will be using a nice and legit copy with a license just for the OCTITRON.

 

I think it would be best to use the OS that most servers around the world use... Linux. Whatever you decide on, though, Windows is just a waste for such hardware.

 

definitely wrong. windows is great for such hw. so is linux. but none is a waste, that depends on k-trons usage of the hw. an os is never waste or useful.

 

Hey K-TRON,

Did you try XP64 yet? It should recognize all your RAM and both your CPUs and all 8 cores.
I am also building a custom laptop using a mini-ITX 6.7x6.7 inch mobo, a GTX 275, a right angle PCI-E 16x adapter from here (compatible with all PCI-E16x mobos), and a polycarbonate case (lexan).
I'm running an overclocked Q9650, 4 GB dual channel ram, and the GTX 275 is overclocked very high.
My XP64 windows folder is about 5.5 GB.
Mine will be 18x14x2-2.5 inches probably not counting the 17inch WUXGA and 15 inch UXGA that I will be attaching to it. (about 1 inch extra thickness)
It will have a custom slide out mechanism for the 15 inch screen to slide it out on the right side.

I just got the computer up and running and all my games work very well in XP64.
(Crysis warhead I can run its highest settings at 1680x1050 and its very smooth, I'll hook it up to my 1080p homemade projector later to test that)
Anyway if there aren't any major set backs you guys should see my laptop completed in a few weeks.
The only major part that I don't have or haven't ordered yet is the hinges for the LCD bezel. I just have to figure out its final weight and then order them.
Polycarbonate is not very expensive and it is very strong and very easy to work with.
You could either see the parts inside your computer or you could paint it any color you want.

 

We need some updates on this! Looking forward to seeing both Ktron's and Bill F's custom machines, make sure to post a new thread with full details of each!

 

Maybe a small update, but I am not disclosing anything here yet.
Its 44.2lbs of muscle. It was actually finished at one point. Lid closed, battery worked, it was a laptop. But unfortunately my ASUS workstation motherboard died. I am still waiting on my new TYAN replacement motherboard. I have already rebuilt the fifth and hopefully final prototype rendition for my laptop, well as much as I can before I get the motherboard.
It is quite nice, extremely large, but nice. It has everything a laptop has, well maybe not exactly portable, but it can be if you needed it to be.

Those who are friends of mine have seen my project and think I am crazy. But well you know, I am.
People give you weird looks when in a public area with a 24" homemade laptop

There were three other members building there own laptops, but I know two of them quit there project. I'm not sure of what Bill F is doing. I havent talked to him.

K-TRON

 

Mine is getting pretty close to being finished.
I just have some custom wiring to do. (the only hard part is rewiring the atx psu)
I also have some lcd issues to work out. 1 of the LCD's controller boards needs to be sent back to get reprogrammed, and the other LCD I removed its old backlight. I have a new one sitting here that I finally got to light up properly but it still flashes. I need to try soldering it one more time then see if I can fit it in the 15 inch lcd. (its actually not the same length)

Anyway if this doesn't work I'll just get a new 15 inch UXGA for about $150.
I'm just trying to use this 7 year old one that still works nice. If I can get this new backlight installed it should have image quality pretty close to a new high end laptop lcd.

Of course even when I "finish" it I'll have more work to do. I'll probably add an lcd equipped microcomputer inside to control lights, fans, etc. I'll also eventually add speakers and a webcam I guess.
Right now between 6 channel analog, 8 channel analog, 8 channel HDMI audio, and 6 channel surround headphones I'm pretty much covered.

There is also the issue of batteries, I might design a custom PSU for this purpose.

I already essentially have the main chassis completed and I have the custom hinges installed. Once I get back into my friend's shop again I'll get the lcd assembly attached. It already has two seagate 500 GB laptop drives installed.
It will have room for 4x12.5 mm high 1 TB laptop drives. I could even install more or run 15 mm high 10k rpm drives or something if I wanted.

Edit: Here is a teaser for the dual lcds. (pre-backlight replacement) That day I also ran quad DVI/HDMI monitors, worked pretty nicely with the GTX 275 + Geforce 9300.

 

If these apps use Windows only, then Windows it is. Otherwise, the industry standard for CAD applications is typically *nix or Solaris.

 

Hi Bill,
are you using an integrated power supply in your build, or are you doing an external one?

Have you weighed yours at all?

I dont know about you, but I have a few hundred hours invested into my project. 4 prototypes currently made, and my 5th being finished

K-TRON

 

I don't know if this has been discussed, but if you plan on using ati + nvidia gpu's, then Vista is definitely out of the question because it only allows one video driver to be used at a time. Windows 7 does not have this limitation.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/multimonVista.mspx

 

K-TRON,
I admire your patience on working with these projects.
If you would spend your time on a real job, you definitely make a ton of money out of these thing.
Gud luck to you.