The Story of The Unloved 19" Monitor

You probably won't be surprised that I've recently made some changes in the monitor setup on my desk. Some of it has to do with the change in hardware resulting from the removal of a computer. Basically, "Mission Control" as my wife likes to call it, at one point was holding displays connected to 3 and sometimes 4 computers. One was of course my main workstation (the Blackbird), another was a box that ran Windows XP with a load that replicated what some of my clients ran, plus my wife's embroidery software, and of course, my Windows Home Server machine. All of the monitors could be switch between the Blackbird and their secondary usage (eg. server, XP box). This gave me 3 monitors to use on a day-to-day basis. Three is good. Given the high resolution of them, they gave me quite a bit of real estate to work with, even when doing lots of different tasks.

The whole rig was built around the ThinkVision L220x which I've described before, so I'm not going to repeat the details here. The main advantage of this screen is not only it's performance, but it's small (if you can call a 22" monitor small) size relative to it's resolution (1920 x 1200). The other monitors were a ThinkVision L200p (1600 x 1200) and a Westinghouse 19" TV (1440 x 900). All of these screens were high resolution for their respective sizes and gave me a good amount of desktop real estate to work with.

Some of you will remember that I ran across a Sony SDM-N50 for $20 in a pawn shop that came to live with me. This brought the monitor count up to 4, alleviating any of the 3 bigger screens from duty with the server or client PCs that I happened to be working on at the moment. This situation was all fine for some time; that is until I decided that I really wanted to replace my last CRT which was in the living room A/V system. It had been functioning as a display for the Integra receiver's and iPod dock's menu systems. Unfortunately, over time, this Amdek CRT had developed a horrible hum that was at a very uncomfortable pitch. Sooooo...... I started looking for another monitor to replace the Westinghouse 19" so it could go to the living room.

That's when I discovered the unloved 19" monitor. It's a sad, sad story, but I'm going to tell it anyway. Back in the old days, which means the time of the square (relatively speaker) displays (4:3 aspect ratio), the 19" was a popular large size. They were pretty expensive, but would take that 1280 x 1024 size of the 17" and make it big and vibrant looking. However, it's time didn't last, as the reign of the evil wide-screen (16:9, 16:10) came to pass and they took on an awkwardly large amount of space width-wise relative to their resolution which often were 1280 x 768 or even the higher res. 1440 x 900. They also suffered from the double-whammy of arriving around the time of the almighty HD!!! That's 1080p to you uneducated peasants. OK, what really happened was that manufacturers made the 1080 vertical resolution beginning with 20" or so.

In the meantime, corporations when right on ahead and kept buying 19" monitors by the tens of thousands. Why? Well, they don't care the least bit about HD and that size, especially in the 1440 horizontal resolutions...great for spreadsheet ya know! So, guess what? Lots of them coming "off-lease" without much of a market. Yup, like the kid who's always picked last in PE, they're always available. What does that mean to me? After a bit of research I found the following: we'll start with CHEAP, like less than $50 after shipping off of places like eBay, although I tend to draw the line at $40. And when found in the higher 1440 x 900 resolution, they really are a very nice size for things like explorer windows. Sometimes they can even be found at half that locally on Craigslist.

Although I can't afford to make my desk look like this with 4, 22" high-res displays, I can make my non-primary displays the smaller/cheaper 19". This works well for me, partially because I'm not a gamer, so I don't need for my side displays to be HD. In fact, the smaller physical size has allowed me to stack two of the 19s on my left side with one of them on the swiveling arm and the other below it on the desk. My preferred methodology in use of displays is as their own little single taks area, where each one is doing ONE thing only. Generally, I have browsers or major apps running on the two 22" screens in front of me, then the one(s) on the left as places were I keep explorer windows open and maybe a peripheral piece of software like a media player. At the moment, I have my L200p there with a resolution of 1600 x 1200, but I'm going to replace this with the two 19" L1940p screens at 1440 x 900 each, making a stack of 1440 x 1800, plus I can use them separately as their own space. That "stack" of configurable space will come at about an $80 investment. I know people who have more than that invested in cables!

The Alien Has Landed

 

After a lot of searching, researching, eBay messaging, Fedex package tracking, AND hand-wringing...... the Alienware Aurora 7500 has arrived from Oakland, CA. Now comes the hard part. The actual building of this older machine from what it is into a (relatively) up-to-date gaming computer.

Let's start with the model of Alienware that we're working with in this project. The Aurora 7500 was one of the last of the "classic" Alienware desktops. The kind with the smooth outer case that really started their well-know lighting effects. In reality, these cases were simply mid-towers of varying sizes with external plastic cladding made for them by Chieftec. Unlike today's (post-Dell) machines, they are actually very normal underneath with pretty regular drive cages, PSU locations, MB attachments and even cooling system. This make them almost ideal for updating and adaptation.

As you can see, the insides are VERY, very normal. They pretty much all take an ATX motherboard which we'll discuss later. As equipped from the factory, they generally had fairly stock, though high-end motherboard of the CoreDuo/Core2Duo generation. Depending on how the machine was configured, they had either a "tower"-style HSF (Heatsink-fan) or (for the desktops of that time), the more radical "closed-loop" water-cooling setup. Pretty much everything inside these things were fairly normal, albeit, highly spec for the time.

Despite it's age, in our situation, we're certainly not looking to just rip it's guts out and put in a bunch of new stuff.....not if we can help it anyway. This machine comes equipped with an E8400 "Wolfdale" Core2Duo CPU, which is well-known as having excellent gaming characteristics as well as over-clocking potential if we want to go in that direction. What this does is, buy us time. In all probability, we'll look to do a major upgrade on the machine in the fall by replacing all the "guts". In the meantime, what's in this box will allow my student to play games at decent frame rate set at low or medium levels.

Which leads us to the heart of the issue. The reason that the seller was getting rid of this machine was that it was giving him graphic artifacts on his monitor. From looking at the pictures he posted in his ad, it was obvious that it was a graphics card issue. There was of course the possibility that I'm wrong and it's the Southbridge chip on the MB, in which case, that's scrap and we go directly to ripping that out of the case and starting over. But as it turned out, I was right. After a quick graphics card swap on the bench, the machine came right up with a "clean" screen! We are going to approach this from a couple of different directions. First, we're going to try the "bake the graphic card in the oven" recipe and see if we can at least temporarily solve the issue by "reflowing" the solder of the BGA on the GPU.If that doesn't work, we can use one of the many random cards I have stashed away for a situations such as this. In the meantime, a new graphics card (one really for the rebuild) will become the first purchase.

Otherwise, for the duration of the summer, this machine will remain "stock". Then around fall, when enough money has been saved to purchase updated insides, we'll rebuild it into the new Super (yet frugal) Alien.

The Frugal Alien: Planing and Negotiating

When last we left off on the Frugal Alien episodes, we were examining the concept to see if there was a way to build a computer with an Alienware look, but not the price. My research into the subject has yielded 2 design "lines" within the relatively modern era. What we've discarded are the really ancient "tall tower" designs, and the current X51 shrunken mini-gamer chassis.

Unfortunately, I've also had to discarded my personal favorite; the Area-51 ALX chassis of 2009. They just didn't sell enough of them for very many to be out there in the market and therefore, simply too expensive. What we ended up with are the Aurora R1 through R4 of relatively recent vintage. That's the design with the sliding front drive cover (post-Dell buyout), and the iconic 7500 with the swinging drive-bay door. Although older and lacking in the really sophisticated LED lighting, these are considered to have the classic (pre-Dell) Alienware look.

Classic or next gen Cool? Weeeelll...... there's more to it than that. Oh yeah: they tend to run about the same price used. Soooooo......

 Aurora 7500

Aurora R4
If you'll take a minute and look at the insides closely, you'll see that the R4 (R1-4, actually) only has room for a Micro-ATX, motherboard. Duoooooohhhhh! Yes, I'm aware that there are several boards ranging from very decent to downright top notch in that form-factor, but there aren't nearly as many. And what does that translate to in the market? That's right......higher prices (on average). Sure, I'd be happy to build on an Asus Maximus IV or even the Gigabyte GA-Z77mx, but I can routinely find way more of the equivalent ATX sized boards at a generally lesser price-point. So there: decision made. 

Well actually, that wasn't all there was to it. There's the cool factor and the sliding door and Alien FX lighting has that in spades. However, not too long ago, I ran across a video where a guy "modded" an Alienware 7500 ALX case to a matte-black/carbon fiber look with paint and rubberized shelf-liner. Now, THAT'S COOL!!! So, this is the direction that we're probably going to go.

There's more of course. As a result of all this discussion, I've been keeping track of how much these cases cost on eBay (mostly). Besides learning that the 7500 and R1/2/3/4 cost about the same ($150-200 after shipping), I also learned that a careful shopper can sometimes get a machine with "issues" for about the same costs as just a bare case. This adds a new wrinkle to the situation, in that it allows for the possibility of being able to use the machine at minimal additional cost by replacing defective part(s) while accumulating funds for new ones. It started with a local machine on Craigslist, but it was sold before I could contact the seller. However, last week, I found an identical machine on eBay that was showing gibberish on the POST screen. Of course, it could very possibly be a major part such as the motherboard, but that's doubtful for this symptom. In all probability, it's the graphics card failing. Unfortunately, my student wasn't ready and didn't have the $200 it didn't sell at! So I contact the seller to see if he was going to relist it, consider having a "Buy It Now" price. And as is often the case, he answered back that he was going to relist it, but if he was to put in a BIN, was there a $$$ that I'd be willing to pay? At this point, we are going back and forth trying to get the "all-in" (including shipping) price below $200. That would be very cool and a good start to Project "Frugal Alien". So, stay tuned.

I Always Get My.....Lens

As you guys probably have already figured out. If I decide I have a use for something, I'll probably get it. It might not be immediately, but I'll snag it eventually....at my price. Now if I could just make this work for a Porsche..... Anyway, you've probably also figured out that I'm talking about the Nikon "E Series" 28mm/f2.8 lens. Yes, I'm aware that it's a 5 element optical formula that's decidedly inferior to the 6 or 7 element Nikkors, but hey; I'm not looking for perfection. It's as close as I could get with the list of compromises that I'm working with on this project.

You remember. It all goes back to my pancake obsession. I wanted a compact camera with a pancake lens for just about forever. Which over time has led me over a convoluted trail starting with an Olympus Evolt E-330, to the Micro 4/3rds Panasonic GF-1, to the Nikon D50, and finally now to the Nikon D40. The size and performance of which, I've decided makes a good solution for me.

And that landed me here; the Tamron Adaptall-2 28-50mm/f3.5-4 "Muffin", which is the "walk-around" lens that's normally mounted on to the D40. That doesn't mean that I've stopped coveting a smaller, lighter and faster lens for a "street-shooter" role. Yesterday, I snagged one of the "E" Spec, 28mm/f2.8s on eBay. I fully intend to attach a Dandelion chip on it and make it electronically compatible to the digital Nikons. That's to make it faster handling exposure-wise when it's used in that role, but also to give myself experience in mounting the Dandelion CPU on a cheap ($60) lens.

Is there anything else, that my scheming little brain has locked on to? Of course. It is me you know, the Dr. Gru of technology. Early this year, along with the D3300, Nikon released the 18-55mm VRII. This a smaller, lighter, collapsing version of their long-running "kit" lens. They've not only shrunken it, but also revised it's optics for better performance as well. Only issue? Brand-new, MSRP of $250, and research is showing that, that's what retailers are selling it at right now. So yeah, despite it's almost perfect feature set and size for the intended purpose, it'll be awhile before I'll be able to get my grubby mitts on one.

In the meantime, I might turn myself into a collector of Nikon "E Series" lenses. Why not, now that I've already snagged the worse performer of the line! It can only go up from here, right!?!