Posted by
Eric – September 30, 2008
I’m gonna give up on working with computer hardware. Certainly there are more ways to destroy a circuit board than there are grains of sand in the ocean. After buying my brand new Shuttle PC; I had the bright idea that I was going to install a second hard drive. After several minutes working on the machine with the case off I realized some metal shavings might have fallen on to the motherboard below. I turned the machine upside down to try and shakeout anything that might have fallen. I even retrieved my trusty can of compressed air to again blow out any foreign matter. I never did get that hard drive installed.
The next day I was rewarded when I booted the computer and the graphical grub splash screen failed to load. When I hit enter the computer booted normally except that the text was garbled for several seconds during the early stage of booting. With great sadness, I thought for sure I had shortted out the video permanently.
Wait one moment though! Most recently tonight, I again booted the computer and now the grub splash screen loads correctly. What a relief! I hope strongly that I didn’t do any permanent damage. I should know after working for a short time at the Computer Shop that I am no good at hardware at all.
Posted by
Eric – September 27, 2008
Moving right along, I installed lm_sensors and put the effort in to correct the readings I was getting. I wrote down the readings from my BIOS and matched up those with identical readings from lm_sensors. Then I stole the equations from the it8716 section of sensors.conf. In the end, I only have one sensor which is unlabeled. It is probably -5v but the equation from it8716 doesn’t figure to be close to -5v so it must be disconnected.
Contents of /etc/sensors.conf
chip “it8718-isa-*”
label in0 “DDR2″
label in1 “-12v”
label in2 “+3.3v”
label in3 “+12v”
label in4 “+5 VSB”
label in5 “Chipset”
label in6 “CPU”
label in8 “MB Batt”
label fan1 “CPU Fan”
label temp1 “Case Temp”
label temp2 “CPU Temp”
label vid “CPU volt”
compute in1 (1+232/56)*@ – 4.096*232/56 , (@ + 4.096*232/56)/(1+232/56)
compute in3 ((30/10)+1)*@ , @/((30/10)+1)
compute in4 ((6.8/10)+1)*@ , @/((6.8/10)+1)
set in0_min 1.8 * 0.95
set in0_max 1.8 * 1.05
set in1_max -12 * 0.95
set in1_min -12 * 1.05
set in2_min 3.3 * 0.95
set in2_max 3.3 * 1.05
set in3_min 12 * 0.95
set in3_max 12 * 1.05
set in4_min 5 * 0.95
set in4_max 5 * 1.05
set in5_min 1.5 * 0.95
set in5_max 1.5 * 1.05
set in6_min 1.2 * 0.95
set in6_max 1.2 * 1.05
set temp1_low 40
set temp1_over 70
set temp2_low 40
set temp2_over 70
set fan1_min 1400
ignore fan2
ignore fan3
ignore temp3
ignore in7
Output of “sensors”
ebrake@scanner ~ $ sensors
it8718-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
DDR2: +1.82 V (min = +1.71 V, max = +1.89 V)
-12v: -12.03 V (min = -12.61 V, max = -11.37 V)
+3.3v: +3.28 V (min = +3.14 V, max = +3.47 V)
+12v: +11.84 V (min = +11.39 V, max = +12.61 V)
+5 VSB: +5.16 V (min = +4.76 V, max = +5.24 V)
Chipset: +1.52 V (min = +1.42 V, max = +1.57 V)
CPU: +1.25 V (min = +1.14 V, max = +1.26 V)
MB Batt: +3.26 V
CPU Fan: 1638 RPM (min = 1400 RPM)
Case Temp: +57 C (low = +40 C, high = +70 C) sensor = thermistor
CPU Temp: +52 C (low = +40 C, high = +70 C) sensor = diode
CPU volt: +2.050 V
Just for fun here is the SMBus version from lspci
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
Posted by
Eric – September 26, 2008
The Shuttle PC arrived today! At this moment, I’m doing the Gentoo install. The first issue I had to figure out was the exact sequence to make the machine boot from my usb key. Pressing Escape during post brings up a screen to change the first boot device.
LS120
Hard Disk
CD-ROM
ZIP100
USB-FDD
USB-ZIP
USB-CDROM
LAN
None these options worked, however. The correct option was found buried deeper in the BIOS options.
- Boot the Shuttle PC with the thumb drive plugged in and press delete during POST to enter setup.
- Select Integrated Peripherals
- Select USB Device Setting
- Under the “USB Mass Storage Device Boot Setting” section there will be an entry for the USB thumb drive.
For my thumb drive I had three choices “auto”, “FDD only”, and “HDD only”. Choosing “HDD only” causes my thumb drive to show up as a standard hard disk in my boot options.
Posted by
Eric – September 22, 2008
Shuttle PC K4500
Today, I ordered a new toy for me. It’s a Shuttle PC model K4500 from Newegg. Actually, I want it to have a dual purpose. It’s primary purpose will be to operate the flatbed scanner when Mom wants to copy something. Right now, she depends on me to operate it for her but I plan to automate the process so she only has to type a few simple commands such as “scan” or “copy”. The second purpose will be a platform for my self-education. The various computers I have owned have all eventually become unusuable due to age. After, the previous computer’s video started to give out and it later died. I was in search of a replacement but I didn’t want to spend $500 to a $1000 on a normal tower PC. The K4500 model does not include a internal CD-ROM but for Mom’s use it isn’t neccessary to have one. I did confirm that the Shuttle PCs can boot from an external USB disk like a flash thumb drive. Which is all I need to install Gentoo.
Posted by
Eric – September 18, 2008
Posted by
Eric – September 16, 2008
Maintaining polite discussion on Internet forums is often a difficult task. For forum participants, it requires a concerted effort to avoid confrontational language, exercise personal self-control, and accept anger from others calmly. Oh, is that all? 
To illustrate, I’ll give an example of my own poor behavior.
Re: McCain Ad on Obama’s Sex Ed in Kindergarten
Obama’s policy decisions are based on the latest public opinion poll. I think you would fit into his cabinet as the Dept of Education director.
This is a mild personal attack against another user on HTH because there are any number of ways to reword this statement without pinning the target in a personal manner. As a general rule, I don’t believe it is ever neccessary to write the word “you” unless the writer has first-person knowledge about the target. Yet I have a bad habit of abusing “you” without enough thought given to what I’m saying. Here is a statement to make the same point without being aggressive.
Obama’s policy decisions are based on the latest public opinion poll. Now tell me why is it a good idea to move in any direction the wind blows.
Here this statement refutes the opposing argument without causing a personal attack.
