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SAVE ME, NASA system builder, from my DEAD WORKSTATION

Anal-retentive hardware nerd in paws-on workstation crisis

HPC Blog As I walked past one of the booths on the GTC’14 trade show floor, I suddenly had the nagging feeling that I had missed something. I couldn't figure out why, but this particular booth was familiar.

On closer examination, I still didn’t see anything to explain my feeling. I didn’t know either of the guys manning the booth, and the products arrayed on their tables didn’t spark any memories.

As I walked up to talk to the booth minders, it all came back to me in a flash. These guys, AVA Direct, had bailed me out of a very bad situation four years ago.

My system philosophy & the Death of Hydra1

I’m sort of compulsive particular when it comes to my main system for business and home use. Since I use it for such a large portion of my day, I want to make sure that it can handle any combination of tasks I might throw at it.

At that time, my first home-built business/personal computer, a liquid cooled dual-socket system, had started to randomly shut down. Not hanging up, no blue screen, just a complete fail. A new power supply didn’t do any good. Finally, I realized that the power connector on the motherboard was the problem.

In order to get the system to work at all, I had to resort to exotic contraptions using paperclips, rubber bands and zip ties, to keep the power cable in exactly the right position. Finally, just before I left on a long business trip, it failed completely. Hydra1 was dead.

My search for perfection – at a reasonable price

I had to get a new system, pronto. And I wanted another powerful box, due to the increasing amount of video editing and other tasks I was handling. Surfing the web, it was becoming apparent that the usual suspect system vendors couldn’t help me.

Sure, they had two-way workstations, but there was always some “gotcha” that disqualified them for my purposes. The biggest problem was finding a system that had enough PCI2 x16 slots to handle dual video cards, as well as other slots for my sound card, RAID card, etc.

A couple of very high-end custom PC houses could put together what I wanted, but I’d have to pay through the nose for it – although, on the plus side, I’d get a special case with dragons on it. Yay! And it would only cost about double what I was hoping to pay…double yay!

Then I found AVA Direct. One look at their configurator hooked me. It gave me a wide range of motherboard, processor, memory, GPU, power supply, drive, and O/S choices. I locked myself in my hotel room and came up with what I thought was the perfect system for me.

Before pulling the trigger on my order, I sent their technical support an email asking them to give my configuration a once over. They replied with some notes and an invitation to give them a call to talk it over – which I did, from Boston’s Logan airport during a layover.

We banged out the configuration, placed the order, and asked them to rush it. I was more than pleasantly surprised at the reasonable price, and shocked that the box (and it was a HUGE box) was waiting for me when I returned home the next week. The system worked out of the box and has worked faithfully ever since.

All of these memories came back to me as I was introducing myself and shaking hands with Misha Troshin, one of the co-owners of the company. Misha was surprised when he heard my story, he seldom runs into individual purchasers and users of their equipment.

Obsessives welcome, but not target market

The bulk of the firm's business comes from government organisations and businesses like Boeing, NASA, CBS, the US Army and the like. Hardware-obsessed anal-retentive hardware nerds like me are only a niche, rather than a separate vertical market.

I had a great conversation with Troshin, talking about the business, how the firm builds systems, and other topics. Check out the video and see what you think.

Youtube Video

It also gave me an idea: would any of you be interested a podcast (or webcast) where Troshin and I would talk about PC and/or workstation design?

Possible topics include “the ultimate in workstations” or “10 things you can do with a mini-PC” or “what you need in a home theatre PC.” Let me know if you think these programs are a good idea, or if you have other ideas for potential topics. ®

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