using old pc advice

I have 6 towers with tyan s1867 thunder 2500 mobos with 3dlabs oxygen gvx210 video cards and dual 850 PIII (less memory) in my computer junk pile. These were high end ProE workstations many years ago where I worked. Has anyone tried using these for Linuxcnc. I know I would be better off getting a newer system but this would be for a dedicated machine. Just wondering if it would be worthwhile to get registered memory and try. They accept up to 8gb.
Thanks
Tim

The best (and only) way to know, is to test them.

Initially just run the live CD, from a plug in USB DVD if necessary.
(if no USB and no CD-ROM, perhaps see if the local museum wants them and move on )

Run the latency-test, let things settle to rule out slow disc access etc, reset the counters and see what results you get.

Newer is not necessarily better with rtai, I get far better latency on a P4 with a uni-processor kernel than I can on anything newer since.

Regards memory, not sure if the Debian kernel is now actually pae now, wasn't to start with, but 4GB is probably the max you would possibly need.
Try it with what you have first, the last PIII I tried was painfully slow to work with and having more than one core or processor is not actually an advantage latency wise, quite the reverse.

Give it a go

regards

uname -r returns 3.4-9rtai-686-pae on my LinuxMint 2.7.3 machine.

If you have a CD drive try the Ubuntu 10.04 LiveCD.

JT

They all have cd & pci usb cards. Ive tried 8-10 p4 and athlon boards from 1-2.4 ghz out of my large stash of crappy old pcs all with bad latency.

64dodge wrote: They all have cd & pci usb cards. Ive tried 8-10 p4 and athlon boards from 1-2.4 ghz out of my large stash of crappy old pcs all with bad latency.

You need to run the 8.04 distro or use a home brew UP kernel as I did on P4s, 10.04 tends to produce rubbish latency.

The PIIIs will definitely need 8.04

regards

Ya I have been using 10.04 the computers seem to run the operating system all right. I didnt know each one would give different latency that seems strange. 10.04 Is what i am using now while typing on a asus k7vt mobo 1 gig amd 768 mb memory. I have 8 & 6 with emc2 downloaded just need to burn them to cd. Bought 4x512 mb reg memory off ebay for $9.95 should get here monday i hope.
Thanks for the replies
Tim

8.04 is usable with 512Mb, 10.04 at least 1Gb, debian wheezy hybrid iso is quite usable on a geode amd processor at 1Ghz with 512Mb of ram.
From experience i would use debian on your systems without a doubt, as for latency, try it with both processors and then remove one and test again.
Again from experience if they have an intel chipset, you are good to go, anything else and it's a hit and miss, and if by any chance they have ALI or OLI chipsets, proceed as ArcEye suggested.
Again, disable the serial ports and on some mother boards the sound card and modem, they can be very bad for latency on those systems.
Regards,
Tom

I just tried 8.04 and man what a difference. Exact same computer with no bios adjustments (athlon xp 1800+) and latency was a quarter of what 10.04 was. How can this be?

forum.linuxcnc.org/forum/18-computer/191...me-latency-solutions
I had read this before and didnt understand about how the different kernels work and smp but now I can see the light a little.

64dodge wrote: forum.linuxcnc.org/forum/18-computer/191...me-latency-solutions
I had read this before and didnt understand about how the different kernels work and smp but now I can see the light a little.

Glad you found the FAQ useful.

It makes a hell of a difference with the older uni-processor machines.

regards