Bradster
07-23-2007, 04:10 PM
So Friday rolls around (I work 4 10hr days so I have off on Fridays) I wake up like a kid on Christmas all excited to get my new machines. I head out to the living room and discover my main machine that I had rendering video all night died during the night. Either motherboard or Power supply both are being sent. This is the machine I’d run my Priest on with my 4 warlocks. Also it being my main machine that everything hooks in to. This machine also has my UI, add-ons and everything I had ready for the project ><.
Few hours later I get my machines. I decided that I’d setup one machine with XP, Wow, BC, windows update, etc. Everything the way I’d want it then run sysprep and ghost the machine (make an image). Then all I’d have to do is cast it out to the rest of them, thus saving a lot of time!
Three hours later I got it all setup and imaged it, to find that sysprep completely borked over my setup and I could not image it. So the next few hours I unboxed and setup all the computers to the multiplexer. I spent the rest of the night installing the software, only using the multiplexer to do it all at the same time on the machines. Worked out really well.
Next day I continued to setup the rest of the hardware ran in to many problems, with cable lengths, not having enough cables, everything under the sun basically. After I got everything setup I ended up spilling tea all over my desk which went under all my monitor mounts. I had to take everything off the desk and unhook everything to clean it up. That took a while (just not my week!)
Then I ran across this network issue, no idea what the problem is. I have cable internet. A router with 4 ports on it. So I went out and bought a switch to connect to said router, then hook my new machines to the switch (I also used a patch cable to connect router to switch). Well on the switch side the PCs can see each other. But only one PC on the switch may get internet access at a time. What I mean is only one will connect to the internet, the rest of the Pcs will not. Which ever machine I turn on first gets the internet. Crazy I know. So here’s what I did to work around this issue for now. I hooked my main machine, wife’s Pc, and file server to Cable internet. I hooked up the rest of the computers to DSL (I have a router for both cable and DSL). Long story short I already had DSL, figured what the heck since its active.
I setup the accounts and activated. Made my toons. I decided since I really can’t get started because my main machine was down, I’d start making all the macros and key bindings. I worked on that for better part of the day.
I then decided to take my file server with only 256m of ram (it’s a really old system) with a PCI video card (ouch!) and set it up as my main machine to see if I could pull it off for now. Well it works. Going in to high pop areas takes my main machine forever, lots of frames being skipped, not fun when going to town. Other then that while running around, quest/instance it did fine. Between Saturday night and Sunday I reached level 16 on all of them. I wasn’t really rushing, I had stopped many times to make some adjustments and new macros, as I got a feel for what works.
I still have a bunch of kinks to work out. But it’s getting there. I ended up ordering a USB KVM to manual control each toon when needed. That and also a X-keys pro. For the first couple weeks I don’t expect to level all to fast. With redoing and changing things and fixing kinks. But once their all worked out I should really get moving.
I cleared RFC last night at level 15, with one wipe, but that was due to a server crash. Things will really change once I get the X-keys Pro. I really can’t do this without it.
I’ll post pics in a week or two once I get the wires looking neater. Once everything is together and working I’m going to go back and label each wire and wire tie everything up nice.
After today things are going to be picking up a lot at work (I have to image 300 machines ><) so I won’t be on here this week as much.
Few hours later I get my machines. I decided that I’d setup one machine with XP, Wow, BC, windows update, etc. Everything the way I’d want it then run sysprep and ghost the machine (make an image). Then all I’d have to do is cast it out to the rest of them, thus saving a lot of time!
Three hours later I got it all setup and imaged it, to find that sysprep completely borked over my setup and I could not image it. So the next few hours I unboxed and setup all the computers to the multiplexer. I spent the rest of the night installing the software, only using the multiplexer to do it all at the same time on the machines. Worked out really well.
Next day I continued to setup the rest of the hardware ran in to many problems, with cable lengths, not having enough cables, everything under the sun basically. After I got everything setup I ended up spilling tea all over my desk which went under all my monitor mounts. I had to take everything off the desk and unhook everything to clean it up. That took a while (just not my week!)
Then I ran across this network issue, no idea what the problem is. I have cable internet. A router with 4 ports on it. So I went out and bought a switch to connect to said router, then hook my new machines to the switch (I also used a patch cable to connect router to switch). Well on the switch side the PCs can see each other. But only one PC on the switch may get internet access at a time. What I mean is only one will connect to the internet, the rest of the Pcs will not. Which ever machine I turn on first gets the internet. Crazy I know. So here’s what I did to work around this issue for now. I hooked my main machine, wife’s Pc, and file server to Cable internet. I hooked up the rest of the computers to DSL (I have a router for both cable and DSL). Long story short I already had DSL, figured what the heck since its active.
I setup the accounts and activated. Made my toons. I decided since I really can’t get started because my main machine was down, I’d start making all the macros and key bindings. I worked on that for better part of the day.
I then decided to take my file server with only 256m of ram (it’s a really old system) with a PCI video card (ouch!) and set it up as my main machine to see if I could pull it off for now. Well it works. Going in to high pop areas takes my main machine forever, lots of frames being skipped, not fun when going to town. Other then that while running around, quest/instance it did fine. Between Saturday night and Sunday I reached level 16 on all of them. I wasn’t really rushing, I had stopped many times to make some adjustments and new macros, as I got a feel for what works.
I still have a bunch of kinks to work out. But it’s getting there. I ended up ordering a USB KVM to manual control each toon when needed. That and also a X-keys pro. For the first couple weeks I don’t expect to level all to fast. With redoing and changing things and fixing kinks. But once their all worked out I should really get moving.
I cleared RFC last night at level 15, with one wipe, but that was due to a server crash. Things will really change once I get the X-keys Pro. I really can’t do this without it.
I’ll post pics in a week or two once I get the wires looking neater. Once everything is together and working I’m going to go back and label each wire and wire tie everything up nice.
After today things are going to be picking up a lot at work (I have to image 300 machines ><) so I won’t be on here this week as much.