Shadowing Practice: I’ve never seen this before (and it’s 20 years old.) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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1
This machine might be 20 years old, but if I were to tell you the specs, you'd probably think it was a perfectly modern PC.
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I'm talking 8 processing cores, 16 threads, 32 gigs of RAM.
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In this economy?
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Gigabit Ethernet, not to mention a terabyte of high -speed storage.
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In this economy?
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I know, right?
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But while its specs might be similar to a gaming PC, can your gaming PC do this?
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i just ripped out a quarter of the memory in this computer and
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if you want your mind really blown
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it is still running a computationally intensive load guys
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there's no movie magic here no computer behind the curtain okay there is one
12
but it's just capturing this madness that is insane and
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And I'm going to take it to another level by taking this and putting it right back in live.
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It never missed a beat.
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This blew my freaking mind when I saw it.
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I mean, if I pulled eight gigs of RAM out of your PC while it was turned on,
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well, I better hope I can run faster than you because you'd probably want to rearrange my teeth.
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And I just fixed them.
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but this is different this absolute unit of a machine from the early 2000s was built for resiliency
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and redundancy and
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when i say redundant
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i mean redundant four cpus hard drives in raid 5 complete with a hot spare hot swap pci cards
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and i don't think i've ever been hands -on with this before yes hot swappable ram
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you can just do this all day ram goes in ram
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goes out ram goes in ram goes out ram goes he's gonna be here a
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while while we wait why don't we segue to our sponsor
27
look at mark finally using odoo the all -in -one business app subscription he's loving how easy
28
it is to use too oh it's got all the apps i need just like i said i win mark craig
29
okay what exactly am i looking at here though this is
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an ibm x3800 series server from kind early 2000s uh
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it's powered by a bunch of intel zeons think uh pentium
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dual era pentium d okay sorry netburst architecture netburst at its worst pretty much yeah
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we got it from our pals over at disappearing inc shout out by the way definitely
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and uh pancarts has been fixing it up for us
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okay i think the first thing
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that we've got to address is how it's even possible
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that we can pull ram again no tricks out of a live booted system
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and it just keeps going memory mirroring basically raid one for your ram
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so these two banks and these two banks are paired together
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so if you pull one of them it doesn't matter the memory is still there we've got duplicate copies
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that are just across the memory and our memory controller supports that yep
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and you can change the sticks out put them back in to take care of errors all of
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that now there are reasons that you wouldn't be able to do this on modern systems
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and one of them is
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that memory controllers have moved from being off of the cpu
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on the north bridge to being directly in the cpu itself with all of the very low latency expectations
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that come with that see here we're paying a cost in terms of latency
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But, what we're gaining is, RAM goes in.
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Eh, eh.
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Oh boy.
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Eh, eh.
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RAM comes out.
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One thing we did cheat on a little bit is
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that we were already getting this error LED lighting up on the particular bank of modules that we pulled out.
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But, that's kind of the whole reason for the design
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and is exactly what we were trying to illustrate because
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if there's a problem these little blinking lights light up
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and tell us what it is there's even actually more leds
59
on the side by the ram module itself to tell you
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which particular stick is bad okay that's pretty freaking cool yeah
61
and the reason that they engineered this is high availability allowing most of the problems
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that could come up to be fixed on this server without ever interrupting its operations
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and as we go through
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and dig through it together we're going to see a lot of elements of this machine
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that are built to support this kind of use case starting with the fans okay yeah i mean right it's something that
66
You know, obviously we've seen before this type of hot swappable fanage, not to mention the adaptive fan control.
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That as soon as it detects that one of them has failed or missing, it ramps up the remaining ones.
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It's kind of mind -blowing to see that this was already a thing in like, what, 2003?
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2002, 2003, somewhere in there.
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What an incredible system.
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Let's take a closer look at this carrier board.
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I couldn't find any LEDs on the carrier.
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Oh, really?
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Yeah.
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Like the only way I was able to tell what slot it was was in the BIOS error messages.
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There aren't any LEDs there.
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It lied to me.
78
I think you pulled a bad one.
79
Uh -oh.
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Oh, you're probably supposed to do one at a time.
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I had kind of meant look at this one, not pull another one out.
82
Well, you know.
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I think these two are the redundant ones for each other.
84
It's got a little button on it.
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Oh, it lights up.
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That is so weird
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You know what?
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Okay, let's do power it down then.
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Okay, since it's like I'm gonna need a pancreas for that here
90
It's it's very recessed Nice.
91
Oh, whoa shut up.
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Wait, what?
93
Did you fix it?
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Oh, did it just go to sleep?
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No, it's unresponsive.
96
Yeah Wait, the numlock is wait wait, holy it's still working
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we did it oh yeah he turned it off shutting down it gracefully shut down wait what
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so so these two must not be the pairs for each other they must be
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because we're running in like effectively raid one on the ram
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so these two were backed up to these that's insane
101
so up here we've got like a almost like m .2 size looking heat sink um
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that's going to be cooling the mosfets
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so this right here is power delivery for these four modules
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and back then a two gigabyte module was a freaking lot like
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that was insane yeah on the modules themselves you've got another layer of redundancy
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and protection out of each typical eight memory packages
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there's an additional ninth that's going to handle you know any random bit flips
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that might occur that's part of building an ecc module
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now there's some extra chips here like in the spot where
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a ddr5 module would have a pmc for power do you have any idea what these are doing
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because they're also on these 512 meg ones they might be related to voltage drop regulation
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but i'm not 100 sure on that okay so
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but probably something to do with these high capacity and
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or ecc modules continuing to function this actually reminds me a lot of the interfaces
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that we still use for pcie like at the backs of servers very very similar style of pushpin interface
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you can see that some of the pins are a little bit longer this is to make sure
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that your grounds are connected before any of your data pins connect
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and start firing now before i put
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this back in would anything prevent me from putting different memory modules onto it
120
and like upgrading in place nope you can upgrade
121
and increase your ramp capacity once per power cycle oh okay okay
122
so you know we have incredible power but not immeasurable power yes
123
that might be os dependent as well okay right
124
while we're waiting for the system to fire up let's take a look at this front light indicator
125
and usb module check this out how cool is
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that light path diagnostics yeah so what am i looking at here power supply good
127
or bad power supply has been unplugged since it was last booted basically
128
we've got a built -in alarm yeah we've got a warning for over spec whatever
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that means warnings for raid pci fans I mean, hey, the system works.
130
Yep.
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How cool is that?
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You may have angered it.
133
Nah, she's good.
134
Oh, no, it's fine.
135
She's good.
136
It's just a fan.
137
That is so cool.
138
Another cool demo we can do is going to give us
139
a look at what server storage looked like back in those days.
140
Whoa.
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I think it literally has to initialize the three and you're pulling it out.
142
Well, if it can't handle that, then it's not a very good server, is it?
143
All right while this might look like a regular hard drive there actually is something special about it
144
that is apparent
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if you look really really close basically
146
this is spinning at about three times the speed of your
147
normal consumer hard drive even compared to the high performance drives of the time
148
that spun at 7200 rpm this is still more than double
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this spins at 15 000 rpm well past the red line of basically any consumer motor vehicle
150
and it does
151
that for a couple of reasons the faster the drive spins the faster you can get to where the data is
152
And at a time when storage wasn't solid state yet, that was a big deal.
153
The other difference is that these are SAS rather than SATA hard drives.
154
So while the interface looks very similar, and in fact, some controllers can address both kinds of drives,
155
they support additional functions like, for example, having a single drive be able to be accessed by two separate controllers
156
that also help increase their resiliency in mission -critical applications.
157
the one downside of these drives is
158
that their capacity is not nearly what you would get out of a regular consumer drive
159
that spins lower and doesn't have all these advanced features
160
but hey you can make up for it by just buying more of them
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i mean you got server money right
162
i figured out what over spec means oh yeah
163
it means the power supply is out of spec oh you're drawing too much power
164
or whatever so probably if i were to rip a power supply out
165
and it were to be relying on just that one yep
166
that light would light up probably this is yet another component of this system
167
that is designed to be entirely redundant
168
and hot swappable in fact it should be able to handle
169
this as gracefully as just sliding this back in plugging it in
170
and you should hear it pretty much settle back down in a moment
171
while you're waiting why not pull one of these instead
172
oh what am i looking at here oh that's filling the space where a power supply would go
173
but they filled it up with fans so it's not useless got it
174
so we could have up to four power supplies yes depending on what kind of a configuration
175
we were running say you know how many cpu cores we had
176
or how many expansion cards we were running yep let's have a look at these
177
This was early days for PCI Express, so this is Gen 1?
178
Yeah, this actually has PCI -X on it still.
179
Nice, solid.
180
So we're not going to be able to put, like, you know, modern, high -performance CUDA compute GPUs in here or anything like that.
181
Probably not.
182
Everything was still CPUs back then, but...
183
Let me make some visual room for you here.
184
It does have.. how many is this? one two three four pcie by eight slots i'm actually not sure
185
if these are going to run a modern card at all
186
because it specifically says on them
187
that each is rated to deliver up to 25 watts to
188
my knowledge the pcie spec has always called for up to 75 watts
189
that's what i thought through these front power fingers so
190
if we put a card
191
that's expecting to pull 75 watts what's going to happen fire explosions whatever it is will be exciting
192
but that means we're not going to do it till later yeah this is our raid controller yeah basically what
193
that does is it does all the calculations
194
that are involved in the parity bits
195
that are stored on your kind of your extra stripe whether that's a single parity bit for RAID 5
196
or two parity bits for RAID 6 and
197
that determines how many of your drives could fail before
198
you lose any data now in order to do those calculations
199
it has to actually hold the data as it's in flight before it's written to the drives
200
which means that if there was a sudden power failure oh no
201
that in -flight data is just sitting on the card not on your drives
202
that's where these battery backups come in they allow the card to maintain power throughout a power loss cycle
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and then write that data once the system fires back up
204
that is unless they've bulged
205
you're missing the best part though the leds back here look like a cylon
206
they do presenting his eminence our imperious leader all right this is our main io as well oh yeah
207
so we can talk about that and it's also the management card oh it's modular
208
so so you could swap that out too.
209
Yep, and look at the CPU on there.
210
It's got a power PC CPU.
211
That should be about the same as Dan's iMac, the blue guy.
212
So you've got a whole computer running inside your computer to manage your computer.
213
Yes.
214
It's even got fairly comparable I .O to a modern server.
215
Display out, couple USBs, Ethernet, management Ethernet.
216
Something you might not have noticed, there's no wires going from this card to your drives.
217
You're so right.
218
I didn't clock that.
219
It's all going through the bus to the management card here and then to the Super IO cable here
220
that goes to your SAS backplane for the first six drives.
221
Right.
222
So that's how important RAID functionality was to servers back then.
223
Nowadays, it's all done in software.
224
But back then, they would have considered, okay, there's no way this is running without a RAID card, so it might as well be completely integrated.
225
There actually is a RAID controller on this card as well.
226
just less advanced than this one so it can't run without this card
227
but in less configurations got it oh it's also adapt tech i see it it's right there yeah all right
228
and then if you want a second backplane you plug in here
229
and you have six more drivers at the bottom
230
and then this handles your five and a quarter base your floppy
231
and all the crappy crap right yeah tape drive whatever crap put my cd in my server
232
you could burn the cd off your server uh what's next i guess cpus
233
Uh, they're up there somewhere.
234
I'm not really sure how we get access to them.
235
There is one hint.
236
Yeah.
237
Pencracks pointed out to me that everything in here is color -coded.
238
Yes.
239
Stuff that you're meant to interact with is either this blue...
240
Yes.
241
...or this orange.
242
Right.
243
So if we just start ripping on everything that's blue or orange, we'll eventually make it to the CPUs.
244
Okay, but the orange is hot swap, the blue is not.
245
Right.
246
So we shouldn't mess with blue stuff.
247
Unless we turn it off.
248
Yeah.
249
Hang on, what's the number there?
250
Yeah, okay.
251
409 cinebench scores yep fun fact that's the exact same score my laptop gets really
252
and it's same number of cores same amount of ram same amount of hard drive
253
that right there oh geez wow
254
that was a good shot please tell me
255
you weren't rolling oh on the plus side
256
it's mostly old crappy ram yeah there's three two gig sticks in there that's fine that's still old yeah
257
if it had been ddr5 i would actually be very upset
258
that's 20 years of progress was what i wanted to say see this now the size of this got
259
this cool little unlock mechanism not color -coded blue
260
do better ibm just like we did better making a bolt action pen
261
that's super cool lttstore .com I would have failed screwdriver shafts no less that's true it's not blue but listen
262
Jordan come on man all right
263
we rip these open okay oh these are
264
color coded blue okay side tabs are wow
265
that is some serious connectage not
266
that Dissimilar to a modern server though where a lot of the PCIe will be handled in the same way
267
and you'll have like big like
268
Like almost like spade style connectors for power and stuff like that.
269
Mm -hmm prehistoric motherboard armor
270
Yeah, oh, yeah
271
That's pretty cool
272
Jordan weirded me out.
273
I was like where the heck are all the memory slots?
274
Right right here.
275
Yeah.
276
Yeah.
277
I found them.
278
I found them and these are the fan slots and look at this
279
This is fricking heavy because it's got about 1 ,000 pounds of copper coolers right here at the front.
280
Isn't that beautiful?
281
Each of those with a dual, that's right, deuce core CPU under it.
282
Do we have any idea?
283
Four holes reds.
284
Oh my God.
285
They're very loose.
286
They're very, yeah.
287
They just come off like that?
288
Whoa, they're hot.
289
Oh, it's hot, it's hot.
290
Watch out, watch out.
291
Okay.
292
hi there buddy how you doing that's a socket
293
that i don't think i have ever touched before what is this 604 uh -huh okay
294
and there it is it's kind of amazing how jank
295
and old it looks
296
because the consumer stuff from this generation did not look like
297
jank actually smd chips on there like i know right like look freaking look at this it's
298
so cute it's ridiculous and there it is
299
so here's all the laser engraved information where you've got your stepping
300
and your manufacturing location 667 megahertz front side bus so
301
that was what it used to communicate with memory um rather
302
than having memory controller built into the cpu fun fact that's a big part of why modern cpus have
303
so many flipping pins is because the memory
304
and pcie is routed directly to pins on the cpu speaking of adding two more cpus
305
this motherboard only included the vrms so like the power delivery for two cpus
306
if you wanted more you have to actually add check this out give me that before you drop it.
307
Thanks.
308
You have to add VRM modules over on this side.
309
How crazy is that?
310
It's worth noting that the specs for this are actually nothing special compared to consumer CPUs at the time.
311
3 .33 gigahertz, 667 megahertz frontside bus.
312
Okay, it's got a little bit more cache, 16 megs.
313
but what made these so expensive was the very fact
314
that you could use them in multi -way configurations enabling core counts that just weren't possible on consumer platforms
315
like we were limited to two or i mean realistically one yeah one mostly
316
eight cores think of the cores well yeah
317
you could totally see where like the vrms are on on the motherboard over there, and then they're just not.
318
Yeah, I think it's because they just didn't expect you to actually upgrade.
319
Yeah, who would need eight cores?
320
The CPUs were like four grand a pop.
321
What are they worth now?
322
We paid 500 bucks for the entire computer all in, with all of our upgrades.
323
Yeah, that's probably still too much.
324
Most of that was disappearing ink.
325
Okay, that's fine, they're pros.
326
Or maybe we didn't overpay.
327
I mean, if the recent tour at Hetzner was anything to go by, people are probably still rolling these machines.
328
If it's not broke, why would you replace it?
329
Then why would you replace it?
330
And IBM still provides the support that you need to find replacement parts.
331
Like these FRUs, these reference numbers, are still accessible on their site for a server that is 20 years old.
332
Yep.
333
Which is pretty cool.
334
So when Pancratz was trying to get those VRM modules, he was just like, type, type, type, type, type.
335
They're on eBay, buy, and or G2G.
336
That's pretty cool.
337
Yeah.
338
Is there really any deeper to go?
339
It's just hard drive bays and optical bays down there.
340
If you want to look at the back plane on the hard drives.
341
No, I think I know what I want to do.
342
Uh -oh.
343
This can't be good.
344
Thank you, Corsair, for sending over this PCIe riser to be savaged.
345
Let's plug a GPU into our server.
346
So fun fact, the difference between a PCIe by 16 riser
347
and a PCIe by eight riser is how many PCIe's it has.
348
So now it has eight.
349
We counted the pins and made sure that it's however many fits in the slot.
350
And then all of these pins are now just dead.
351
One of the coolest things about PCIe is depending how much bandwidth you need to your card,
352
you can use however many of the lanes you need.
353
So we need eight, apparently.
354
Ka -chunk.
355
There she is.
356
You're a madman.
357
I know.
358
Here's the power supply.
359
Frank Rats, you got a card?
360
I got a couple options.
361
All right, I'll take whatever's older.
362
Older, R9 390.
363
Thanks.
364
It's probably not hot plug this.
365
Right, right, right.
366
Okay, and then we'll just kind of, kind of give it the old, eh, bleh, so that, sure.
367
That seems totally safe.
368
You've never dropped anything before.
369
Editor, I forbid you to roll that footage.
370
He's already done it by that point, come on.
371
No, no, you're wrong.
372
Could have been a she.
373
Whoever it was, dude.
374
I'll just hold this here for like two hours while you're...
375
I have no idea if this is going to work.
376
In theory, generations of PCIe are cross -compatible with each other.
377
This is cool.
378
We took our memory out of mirrored mode, so we now have actually 32 gigs of addressable RAM.
379
Now we can pop open device manager and see if our display adapter.
380
Yeah, I don't think it did
381
And do an unknown device that was already there though.
382
I'm pretty sure yeah, that's it.
383
I'll be a monkey's uncle
384
Yeah, the unknown device was an ACPI controller of some sort memory module That's hilarious.
385
Okay.
386
Well, I don't know what I was expecting I suspect that 25 watts is a big part to do with it.
387
Yeah, or even just
388
the age disparity you know age gaps can be okay
389
but they don't always work out you know what does always work out though it's telling you about our sponsor
390
oh hello mark hello greg i presume you've transitioned your workflow in accordance with company policy
391
which was updated following my recommendation to management
392
that we switch to the one subscription that is every app we need to run our business.
393
Yep, I have, Craig.
394
Good.
395
Well, let me know if you need any tips.
396
Tip?
397
Excuse me?
398
Well, you know Odooz apps are easy to use, but it's also super customizable, and tons of stuff can be automated,
399
whether it's invoices, inventory, or sales.
400
There's a lot of depth here for power users
401
You know how to quickly format content using power box
402
Power Bob and how to create and save custom filters to save time.
403
I Was going to of course you know how to use dark mode
404
There's There's a dark mode.
405
I have ascended Craig my power now eclipses
406
Stop it back to work and use our code for a free 15 day trial with no credit card required
407
who are you talking to ah
408
if you guys enjoyed this video why not check out the time
409
that we worked with the folks at Disappearing Inc
410
and Reboot Rewind to get some incredible data storage units repaired and an old Canadian TV show restored to its former glory.
411
It was a pretty amazing adventure.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “I’ve never seen this before”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: drive, cpu, ram. This video has 411 sentences and 4060 words to shadow. The speech runs for 25:58. The speaker talks at a natural 156 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| server noun | /ˈsɝvɚ/ | A program that provides services to other programs or devices, either in the same computer or over a computer network. |
| module noun | /ˈmɑd͡ʒul/ | A self-contained component of a system, often interchangeable, which has a well-defined interface to the other components. |
| raid noun | /ɹeɪd/ | A quick hostile or predatory incursion or invasion in a battle. |
| controller noun | /kənˈtɹoʊlɚ/ | One who controls something. |
| pin noun | /pɪn/ | A needle without an eye (usually) made of drawn-out steel wire with one end sharpened and the other flattened or rounded into a head, used for fastening. |
| slot noun | /slɑt/ | A narrow depression, perforation, or aperture; especially, one for the reception of a piece fitting or sliding into it. |
| spin verb | /spɪn/ | To rotate, revolve, gyrate (usually quickly); to partially or completely rotate to face another direction. |
| speculation noun | /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/ | The process or act of thinking or meditating on a subject. |
| watt noun | /wɑt/ | In the International System of Units, the derived unit of power; the power of a system in which one joule of energy is transferred per second. |
| redundant adjective | /ɹɪˈdʌn.dənt/ | Superfluous; exceeding what is necessary, no longer needed. |
| insane adjective | /ɪnˈseɪn/ | Exhibiting unsoundness or disorder of mind; not sane; utterly mad. |
| upgrade verb | /əpˈɡɹeɪd/ | To improve, usually applied to technology, generally by complete replacement of one or more components. |
| plug noun | /plʌɡ/ | A pronged connecting device which fits into a mating socket, especially an electrical one. |
| disappear verb | /dɪsəˈpɪɹ/ | To vanish. |
| gig noun | /ɡɪɡ/ | Originally (music), a performing engagement by a musician or musical group; (by extension, film, television, theater) a job or role for a performer. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| light up verb | To illuminate, to bring light to something, to brighten. | |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. | |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| shut down verb | To close, terminate, or end; to stop operating, either permanently or temporarily. | |
| watch out | Used to warn someone of an imminent danger. | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
| back up verb | To move backwards, especially for a vehicle to do so. | |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Let's take a closer look at this carrier board.
- Did you fix it?
- Do we have any idea?
- If it's not broke, why would you replace it?
- Then why would you replace it?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If it's not broke, why would you |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | i've ever been · have moved · we've seen |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was turned · was built · are paired |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 77 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, they're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thread /ˈθɹɛd/, ninth /naɪnθ/, motherboard /ˈmʌðɚˌbɔɹd/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: speculation /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/, configuration /kənˌfɪɡ.əˈɹeɪ̯.ʃən/, subscription /səbˈskɹɪpʃən/, calculation /ˌkælkjuˈleɪʃn̩/, capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/
- Long words — get the stress right: speculation /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/, configuration /kənˌfɪɡ.əˈɹeɪ̯.ʃən/, ridiculous /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs/, architecture /ˈɑː.kɪˌtɛk.t͡ʃə/, regulation /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like server, module, raid.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.