Awake and awake.

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I kept fussing before going to bed earlier.  I was absolutely strung out into exhaustion, but I didn't want the geese to just sit on the porch.  Between it still being above freezing and raining off and on, leaving birds outside would not have been wise.  And it's a good thing I did force myself to stay awake.

When the geese arrived, I realized I don't have my freezer back in order!  Ah, but remember, I purchased that secondary fridge/freezer?  Yes.  It was still in the garage, in packing.  So... I had to, while still in pseudo epileptic fits from exhaustion, cart that thing through the cave, find a place to set it up, unbox it, and figure out the instructions.  UGH!  A beastly chore but I was not about to allow such precious gifts to go bad.

Relocating the thing was truly a beast.  Unpacking it was just as bad.  Some things, no matter how strong one is, are one-man jobs.  And, yet, that is what I had.  A woman can help on these sorts of things, because strength isn't needed for one part, just extra hands and at certain angles.  Anyway, I got it moved, unpacked, sorted the interior, plugged it in to get it going, then grabbed the instruction manual.  There wasn't much to the instructions, and yet there was a major point.  The "FF" (fast freeze), which I really wanted and needed, has a four hour use limit.  Ugh...  Which meant that, while I could use it to plunge the geese into a solid freeze to initiate the thing, I couldn't go to bed.  I figured about an hour up to let the freeze set deeply, then I could set the temp and go on to bed.  More than four hours of FF use could damage the cooling system.

After that, I checked on the geese.  Still frozen but just.  There was no more dry ice, or whatever they used.  They must set it to just exactly how much is needed to get to your door.  And just that.  How much longer it would have stayed frozen I can't say, but surely not through the afternoon.  Dang good thing I forced myself to stay awake, then pushed through the work.  I checked them, first thing, when I woke.  All good.  Probably a bit harder frozen than before, but they never even got actually close to feeling thawed.  Worry.  Those are a small fortune in foul.  Still... all good.

Since waking, and while waking, yeah... got to be ^this old to say that... I did a bit more research regarding the i/o connections.  I will check it, and the other connections, again.  I need to ensure that the power cables are in solid states.  Power being quarky is more than likely what will fry a machine.  The wrong connection, not all the connections, a short.  The wrong device connection could be a problem.  But those are pretty difficult to get wrong.  It's sort of like trying to use your foot to activate the turn signal.  Still, some go that extra mile!  Power, however... if it isn't even, and solidly attached, can smoke things.  And it can look good and not be good.  The again, too much pressure and you can snap boards, causing shorts and other problems.  Unlike, say, sockets that are pressure sensitive, there are not rated, controlled, power connection tools.  It takes experience, and that sort of experience can be very expensive.

Anyway.  I did figure out what I needed.  I will look over the connections.  And I did look for, and find, sata III pci-e cards.  They have them in the $30-$40 range, on up to dedicated raid boards at ten times that base range.  I'll be sticking with the $40, though I hope to sift through the offerings to find something that has decent reviews and fewer reported problems.  Many seem to have trouble being used for raid.  But they would do just fine with the disc players, leaving the native board sata III for the two raid configs I want to arrange.  Bleh... so much!  Oh, and I will need another couple of sata cables, perhaps a few extensions as well.  Baubles to be bought locally.  So close, so very close.

If I check the connections, and feel satisfied, I may well end up attempting a post tonight, and working with the bios.  Though I have everything needed for minor overclocking, I won't even consider that until I see that everything is running, and well, at basic settings, and for a while.  A burn in, benchmarking, OS install, and a few other things first.  In time, if all works, and after I have the system, software to hardware, all set up and arranged... and backed up twice over... then I might think about it.  That is a while off.  But a first stab at getting a solid post, and any troubleshooting, might happen yet tonight.

Later.