This is a story...

...about MrVanes

	Wednesday March, 5th: The 1U casing for the MrVanes project arrived. I had already done some shopping (motherboard, memory and HD) but still missed the proc (Celeron 2G) and 1U cooler.

On my way back home from collecting the case, I checked out the local hardware store and guess what! Luck was on my side: the 2G Celeron had come in just that morning! :c) I thought it wouldn't hurt putting it all together, leaving the case open so the somewhat bulky supplied cooler would be able to do it's work in the meantime.

	It all fit together very well! Onboard LAN and Video made sure I wouldn't need to install the PCI riser card. This was in my opinion better, taking air-flow and case filling in consideration.

The 120G HD (WD) fitted well in it's place. I was a happy boy!

	Since I only needed the CD-ROM for installation, I decided to not include it in the package, but installed it temporarily, on top of the HD. Installation CD was Debian 3.0 net-install (Woody). Trusting the supplied kernel or modules (2.4.18) would recognise the onboard 3COM NIC.

This picture was taken with power on... Need I say more? Ok, so here's what happened: After trying everything, I ultimately subdued and went back to the store in order to have either the processor or the motherboard tested. After all, it couldn't be me! The guy at the store was very helpfull and promptly explained to me that a 478 pin pentium 4 motherboard does need the extra 12 Volt cable attached in order to boot correctly! *duh*

	Thursday March, 6th: After a fruitless search for a old-fashioned 5/12V to 4x12V volt y-cable I decide to wait for another Power supply since this was obviously a mistake on my side (I didn't check for P4 compatibility in the first place).

Friday March, 7th: I can not hold it any longer, and decide to check the power supply of my workstation. This is a AMD based work-horse and surprisingly doesn't use the available 12V motherboard connector. Eureka! :c) I have a spare connector, a steaming hot welding iron and an unstoppable urge to get the damn system running before Sundown! (Remember I have been working on this from wednesday and haven't seen it on since then!!)

	Tempted with the thought of a shiny new, humming server I cut the 4 wires leading to the 4x12V connector from my workstation power supply.

Although I'm as excited as a 5 year old kid awaiting his first day to the Zoo, I have the decency to cover the blank wires with shrink tubing...

	... and put everything back as if it had never been out of the supply.

In the new 1U case I sacrifice a 5/12V HD power connector and attach the 2 ground cables. Pay close attention to the shrink tubes again!

	It takes a bit more time, but in the end, it looks soooo much the better...

... untill you discover that the shrink tube does NOT fit around a y-junction for the 2 12V wires. Bummer!

	At this time my nerves were so tense, my ears were arching a perfect 180 degrees loop around my head, so I had to come up with this half-hearted solution: tape.

But eventually, kept together with some tie-wraps, it doesn't look that bad at all...

	And the connector fits! Ahh... the feeling of sliding it onto it's socket...

Does this look familiar to you too? Find the differences with this picture!

Well... I don't think I have to explain how I felt when I saw this picture. BIOS setup in it's full glory! The way it was supposed to be 2 days ago. After inserting the Debian net-install CD I quickly discovered the onboard 3COM NIC wasn't as standard as I had hoped it would be. After numerous attempts toying with the various available modules I decided to give up (again) and start with the known-good RTL8139 I had lying around in another linux system (not shown on the picture). With basic Debian installed, I called it a day and enjoyed my friday evening!

Saturday March, 8th: Time to put it all together. The 1U cooling fan arrived yesterday, so that being the last obstacle I sat down for the last time. Thermaltake has some very detailed installation instructions for their cooling systems, but forget to tell how to get rid of the pre-installed attaching system already on the motherboard. This turned out to be very easy once you know the white parts can be lifted out to release the plugs that keep it there on the underside of the motherboard (I don't think that makes anything clear, just take a close look at the picture and you'll understand what I mean).

	This is the complete Thermaltake 1U cooling set. The tube of thermal compound on top did not come with the package, but turned out to be not needed since the package itself came with an abundance of white goo

Because the Thermaltake 1U cooling fan has it's own attaching system, the whole motherboard had to come out again so the back clip could be mounted in the holes.

	Here, the clip can clearly be seen, peeping through the holes.

To minimize (or rather: prevent) damage to the processor, I had taken it out during the exercise and now it was time to put it back on it's place.

	Allways nice to put on the thermal compound... brings back memories! ;c)

Firmly attached and secured by 4 screws I see no reason it would run away and hide from it's job!

	This side view clearly shows the function of the back-clip and the total height of the new cooling unit. In the background you can see (the lid of) my laptop I forgot the put aside.

Finally putting it all together for the 3rd (and last) time it realy looks the part! (note the very subtle way the fan wires use the chipset cooling fan spring to lay low on the motherboard)

	After some searching over the weekend I finally found out that the onboard 3COM chipset (3C910) was known as the 3COMSOHO100B-TX and supported by a rare tulip kernel module. And then Wednesday March 12th, it's finally time to pick up the pieces and put it where it belongs: Co-Location TeleCity Amsterdam.

Internet Online rents some racks in their colo-space and sells it to private users for extremely competing prices! Hope they are able to stay in business and supply shelter to this humble but very satisfying little project called MrVanes!