Merkli

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Motherboard

Base Board Information
        Manufacturer: MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD
        Product Name: MS-6570
        Version:  
        Serial Number:  

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/K7N2.html

Video

  • ATI Radeon 9800 SE AGP 8x
  • 128MB RAM
  • upgraded video to 1 x ($39.99) VGA XFX GF6200 256MB PVT44AWANG R - Retail AGP 8x Nvidia

CPU

AMD Athlon XP 2100+

  • cores: 1

RAM

2 GB

Replace with CORSAIR 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Desktop Memory. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145505&cm_mmc=CNETFindMEMUS-_-20-145-505-_-na-_-na should go up to 3 GB

OS

Ubuntu

Storage

  • 160 GB NTFS
  • WD 1600AVJB 1 x 40-pin Ultra ATA/100 (ATA-6) IDE/EIDE
  • PATA


  • Bogomips: 3461


Video benchmarks with compiz enabled

  • Glxgears fps: 2200


Video benchmarks without compiz enabled

  • Glxgears fps: 1540

merkli dmidecode info

merkli lspci info

bonnie on local disk

Version  1.96       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
Concurrency   1     -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
merkli           4G    58  76 78189  47 32216  20   680  92 79873  20 152.2  10
Latency               171ms   44400us     795ms   28096us     151ms     953ms
Version  1.96       ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
merkli              -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16 12200  64 +++++ +++ 19061  75 15494  77 +++++ +++ 19681  77
Latency              3228us    1549us   14250us    2193us     962us    3448us

upgrade to ssd

For $100 I bought a 120GB SSD and a SATA controller card that would plug into my old PCI bus. But oddly, my attempts to install ubuntu on the SSD have failed with an unknown error at the point in the install that it is copying files to the drive. I've tried Ubuntu precise and quantal, and they both fail in the same way at the same place.

In the hope that the problem is related to the firmware revision in the SSD, I'm prepping to upgrade it.

lshw says that my SSD is at revision 502A:

     *-scsi:1
          physical id: 2
          logical name: scsi2
          capabilities: emulated
        *-disk
             description: ATA Disk
             product: KINGSTON SVP200S
             physical id: 0.0.0
             bus info: scsi@2:0.0.0
             logical name: /dev/sdb
             version: 502A
             serial: 50026B7229018E8A
             size: 111GiB (120GB)
             capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
             configuration: ansiversion=5 sectorsize=512 signature=0007dfe7

The latest revision for this model is 503. But the web page says that I have to have AHCI enabled in the bios to perform the update. But this computer is too old for AHCI.

root@merkli:~# dmesg | grep -i ahci
root@merkli:~# 

I think I'm going to try to do the upgrade and see how it fails. As a last resort, I could try installing the drive in a newer machine and doing the upgrade there.

rday@potato:~$ dmesg | grep -i ahci
[    0.512666] ahci 0000:00:09.0: version 3.0
[    0.512838] ahci 0000:00:09.0: irq 40 for MSI/MSI-X
[    0.512846] ahci 0000:00:09.0: controller can't do PMP, turning off CAP_PMP
[    0.512903] ahci 0000:00:09.0: AHCI 0001.0200 32 slots 6 ports 3 Gbps 0x3f impl SATA mode
[    0.512906] ahci 0000:00:09.0: flags: 64bit ncq sntf led clo pio boh 
[    0.512908] ahci 0000:00:09.0: setting latency timer to 64
[    0.513560] scsi0 : ahci
[    0.513629] scsi1 : ahci
[    0.513672] scsi2 : ahci
[    0.513711] scsi3 : ahci
[    0.513749] scsi4 : ahci
[    0.513787] scsi5 : ahci

I tried using the firmware updater and it worked on my system without AHCI. It now shows the revision to be 503A:

        *-disk
             description: ATA Disk
             product: KINGSTON SVP200S
             physical id: 0.0.0
             bus info: scsi@3:0.0.0
             logical name: /dev/sdb
             version: 503A
             serial: 50026B7229018E8A
             size: 111GiB (120GB)
             capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
             configuration: ansiversion=5 sectorsize=512 signature=0007dfe7

ubuntu installer bug

Attempting to install fails even after upgrading the SSD firmware with the same symptoms. I now believe that this is the problem: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/968216 The workaround is to remove the slideshow before doing the install.