Building Stuff

Calculator

By Henry, on August 13th, 2023%

As a computer engineer, I often do calculations with a mix of decimal and hexadecimal numbers. But I haven’t been able to find a calculator that can work in both bases conveniently. So I wrote one. . . . → Read More: Calculator

A Cardboard Haswell Box

By Henry, on December 3rd, 2018%

This post is about a cardboard computer I built in 2015. It served as half of my simulation cluster during the latter half of my Ph.D. work. This is a continuation of a series of cardboard computer cases I’ve built (2014/2012, 2010). Compared to the previous boxes, this one packs even more systems (8 quad-core Haswells) into a box, while still sharing one power supply. . . . → Read More: A Cardboard Haswell Box

ASRock H81M-ITX Overclocking

By Henry, on January 20th, 2015%

The ASRock H81M-ITX does support adjusting multiplier ratios for K series Haswell processors. Oddly, this works in BIOS version 1.90, but not version 2.00. My boards came with version 2.00, and I had to downgrade to 1.90.

The four-phase VRM does make a small amount of noise and gets rather hot. There are no heatsinks . . . → Read More: ASRock H81M-ITX Overclocking

More Cardboard Boxes

By Henry, on January 5th, 2014%

After having built small cardboard cases for single computers, I tried building single cases for multiple machines. The idea is to share the power supply between four systems to reduce cost and increase packing density. Here are some pictures of two such systems I built . . . → Read More: More Cardboard Boxes

JMicron JMB363 Add-on Card AHCI mode

By Henry, on August 26th, 2012%

The JMicron JMB363 is a 2-port SATA + 1-port PATA controller chip often found embedded in motherboards and in low-cost add-on cards. The chip supports operating in IDE, AHCI, and RAID controller modes. Motherboard BIOSes allow choosing the operating mode, but add-on cards are stuck in RAID mode. I attempt to solve this problem by hacking the JMB363 option ROM to put the card into AHCI mode . . . → Read More: JMicron JMB363 Add-on Card AHCI mode

Replacing VIA HD Audio Codec Chip

By Henry, on July 22nd, 2012%

Gigabyte’s new UEFI BIOS is particularly well-suited for building Hackintoshes. However, many of Gigabyte’s recent motherboards, including all of the MicroATX Z77 and H77 boards, use the VIA VT2021 HD Audio codec chip, which is not well-supported. Since I’m building a Hackintosh with a GA-Z77M-D3H with VIA VT2021 chip, I decided to work around the audio issues by swapping the VT2021 with a Realtek ALC885 chip. . . . → Read More: Replacing VIA HD Audio Codec Chip

Intel HD4000 QE/CI Acceleration

By Henry, on July 13th, 2012%

Graphics acceleration (Core Image, Quartz Extreme) for Intel HD Graphics 4000 (on Ivy Bridge processors) works in Mac OS X! Setting the AAPL,ig-platform-id device property is required to get the drivers to load. . . . → Read More: Intel HD4000 QE/CI Acceleration

Gigabyte GA-Z77M-D3H Motherboard

By Henry, on July 3rd, 2012%

Gigabyte makes several similar MicroATX motherboards with the Intel Z77 chipset:

GA-Z77M-D3H
GA-Z77M-D3H-MVP
GA-Z77MX-D3H

The first two do not have manual adjustment of VCore. This is a failed attempt at trying to use the GA-Z77MX-D3H firmware to enable them. . . . → Read More: Gigabyte GA-Z77M-D3H Motherboard

Cardboard Boxes

By Henry, on October 3rd, 2010%

Seeing as Engadget can get away with posting old news about computers in cardboard boxes, I will too 🙂
. . . → Read More: Cardboard Boxes

Teksavvy IPv6

By Henry, on September 4th, 2010%

Teksavvy now has a beta of IPv6 service over DSL. This is my configuration for a linux system serving as a router for a LAN. . . . → Read More: Teksavvy IPv6

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