[X] My Assistant

I do need wifi, and having it on the mobo instead of a pci-e card is nice, but my picking for mobos with that chipset were very limited. Trying to finalize stuff, I was watching each model go out of stock in real time.

PSU is entirely overkill, again selection there were very limited to have a platinum- first couple choices all went out of stock, so it was that or a similar rosewill supply to pick from. That one was a bit cheaper+shorter lead time. Nothing wrong with a bigger one though, should stay cool and not be stressed.

Bluray reader is nice, and not much more to write it too in a 5.25" drive.

I don't like the shape of current logitech mice, just got another of what I have.

While I could cancel some of it, already ordered bits- ended up just pouncing before everything else decent ran out of stock.
Also note that bestbuy doesn't actually have inventory on any mobos, or none that they will ship. Also, their stores are just bad and I don't want to buy from them.

I just use a $5 garage sale blu-ray player's SATA connector whenever I need to rip BD's.
I would kind of like a burner though just since it might make it easier to do cheap irregular backups.

I don't have a desktop right now, or a set of peripherals worth using. Wasn't after a mechanical keyboard perse, but found the matrix and rollover count of my laptop one to be restrictive recently. That Cherry seemed to git the bill there, and actually look nice instead of 'gamer' and leds everywhere on it. I think I actually ordered the black switches version, in a black case.

I'd like the Unicomp buckling spring keyboards more, were I buying new. They finally have a new case tooling which should solve a lot of their quality control issues from using 25 year old moulds. I am using an old IBM board for the moment, though.
And I also like old Cherry black switches which feel a bit smoother than the current ones (cherry "clicky" and tactile switches are nothing to write home about compared to the ones ALPS electric used to make; the current black and red switches are still okay though).
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/e6wjRPAg.jpg)

I do use linears for anything pertaining to the radios, and either bench mount variable is a large linear. The variables have a getup with transfrmer taps and relays to reduce dropout and thermal dissipation- but still throw off some damn heat. Neat listening to the relays click as you spin a knob.

Ah, those are fun. I used a few myself at my first job repairing stereos and other audio equipment. Mine was heavy as hell though due to the transformer bulk. It was a very old one, though.

I did breifely think about the notion of a linear ATX supply. It'd end up being the size of a tower over again and entirely spendy and implausible. At a point, the motherboard makes more noise than the PSU does, and that plain case note covered in windows and random plastic grates should aid in that end.

Ah. My case only has a window because I got it free; I'd love to return to a faraday cage one but I don't want to spend money on it because I have more frequent problems with ground loops than I do with perceptible noise being picked up over the air. Using my old PCI sound card instead of integrated audio seems to have also helped on that front.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: May 15 2020, 17:17

Have a picture of 1600W of linear power supplies.
From top to bottom:
Tripp Lite PR50; 13.8V 50A continuous duty
Tek Power TP-3005D-3; Two linkable sections of 0-30V 0-5A and 5V 3A fixed
Tek Power HY3020; 0-30V 0-20A. I've retrofitted safety banana plugs, a 65C thermal snap switch, and a fan control switch.


First box already arrived, and next one is sceduled for sunday.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: May 15 2020, 21:42

Have a picture of 1600W of linear power supplies.
From top to bottom:
Tripp Lite PR50; 13.8V 50A continuous duty
Tek Power TP-3005D-3; Two linkable sections of 0-30V 0-5A and 5V 3A fixed
Tek Power HY3020; 0-30V 0-20A. I've retrofitted safety banana plugs, a 65C thermal snap switch, and a fan control switch.

First box already arrived, and next one is sceduled for sunday.

Good stuff; I should get around to adding recessed banana plugs to some more of my things.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: May 16 2020, 00:17

Those light blue filter fabric masks have no longevity and are way too disposable (flimsy). Annoyed.

More and more stores here require customers to also wear masks. Another local supermarket chain joined in and required customers to have masks. I will have to switch to the more durable washable cloth type masks that the CDC advises people make at home or buy from artisan shops.

Any strong weave cloth will do as a mask, filters don't really matter.

Ended up going with the 3700X in the end, and a faster/nicer asus monitor, still 16:10.

Did find a few catches, and ordered parts to fix them-
The serial card I had was PCI, not PCI-e, so a new one of those.
Between the motherboard and case, neither included a speaker. Mothorboard speakers seem to be 8z and 1/4w+ so easy enough. Found an arduino set for cheap with dupont conmecotrs are nice mountimg holes, to stick to a fan grate or something.
The thermistor cable from the motherboard isn't lomg enough to route sanely. Ordered some dupont extensions...
And finally, the motherboard included this awful sharkfin style wifi antenna.

I discovered that the space between the plastic and metal front panels would be the perfect place to stick it. Cut out between two slots in one of the vented PCI-e blanks, and routed the coaxes back through the chassis. I ordered some RP-SMA 90s to tidy up the outside more.

Inb4 'why put serial in so modern a machine', amateur radio invokes outdated hardware and busses, and I have room for something that works more reliably than usb adapters.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: May 19 2020, 06:28

I need a new micro usb cable cos mine is so worn out my wifi adapter loses connection to the PC.

Changing my computer helped a bit, but in the end, it's really the usb cable itself that is dying.
Tend to disconnect temporarily when I move around the keyboard and mouse on bigger distances.

My county's government has requested that everyone wear masks if they go out into any public areas. In addition to the stores and offices and certain buildings that already require all people wear masks, it looks like I'll have to wear masks all the time. Right now, the county has made it a request and not an order. It would probably require the governor to actually make a legally enforceable order, so for now, the county seems to be using peer pressure.

To conserve on formerly cheap (50 for $12.95) but now expensive disposable masks, I ordered a package of 5 washable cloth masks and they're already in the mail on the way says the USPS postal tracking website. If you're still looking for disposable masks, go to the GROUPON website and enter "mask" as the search item. It seems to be the lowest-priced disposable mask source.

I guess the new normal is for everyone to wear masks so that businesses and people can once again begin to circulate and have asymptomatic people spread the disease around. From talking to people, many young people are angry that the "Old People's Disease" is keeping the economy down. Some of them talk about "let the old people die off and we can inherit sooner". I guess that is their youthful regards towards having expedient impatient convenient fast solutions to all problems.

Ended up going with the 3700X in the end, and a faster/nicer asus monitor, still 16:10.

Did find a few catches, and ordered parts to fix them-
The serial card I had was PCI, not PCI-e, so a new one of those.

Last I checked Asrock still made a couple boards with regular PCI (via a bridge chip on the board).
My MOBO has two conventional PCI slots. I use one with an Audigy 2 ZS sound card, and the other one sometimes is host to a parallel SCSI controller.

Between the motherboard and case, neither included a speaker. Mothorboard speakers seem to be 8z and 1/4w+ so easy enough. Found an arduino set for cheap with dupont conmecotrs are nice mountimg holes, to stick to a fan grate or something.

You mean for a traditional style internal 'beeper?'
I have a header for one of those on my sound card I still use.

And finally, the motherboard included this awful sharkfin style wifi antenna.

That is indeed dreadful. Any reason you didn't just use some hacked router as a wlan bridge connected to the ethernet port?

Inb4 'why put serial in so modern a machine', amateur radio invokes outdated hardware and busses, and I have room for something that works more reliably than usb adapters.

I wasn't gonna ask that; I have (DB-25 style) RS-232 and parallel ports. Both are actually headers on my motherboard so I don't need a card - just breakouts (and I could theoretically use them in DOS if needed).
I program some microcontrollers using the parallel port occasionally. RS-232 is handy for my Amiga. The gameport is pretty much unused, although I do have a MS sidewinder force-feedback joystick that uses a gameport so maybe some day I guess.
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/GrL90gBg.jpg)
Should probably dust this thing. And make it not sit on my cables. It has been a few months.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: May 20 2020, 09:37

Wifi routing:
(IMG:[i.postimg.cc] https://i.postimg.cc/mRYLvLz7/20200520-213800.jpg)
(IMG:[i.postimg.cc] https://i.postimg.cc/HHDWvcxp/20200520-213907.jpg)

Signal cables:
(IMG:[i.postimg.cc] https://i.postimg.cc/Mqz6xCVN/20200520-213638.jpg)
(IMG:[i.postimg.cc] https://i.postimg.cc/mBVbrmSD/20200520-213736.jpg)

Motherboard speaker, above the bluray drive:
(IMG:[i.postimg.cc] https://i.postimg.cc/SmsmYcZG/20200520-213814.jpg)

Attempt at blocking side panel to keep airflow better:
(IMG:[i.postimg.cc] https://i.postimg.cc/xj20X77k/20200520-215209.jpg)

Hehe, clever. I've routed wires through the slots before in my case as well.

I dusted mine out today. Thought I was gonna choke on the dust. My computer doesn't run very hot (it's pretty economical), so it's easy to forget how much dust gets sucked up into it.

Also, a trip down memory lane as I started cleaning out my closet.
If this damn board didn't use a proprietary Dell heat sink I no longer have, I'd have a complete computer here. But I don't really want to run a Pentium 4 3GHz HT prescott without a heat sink.

Galaxy GT 630 card (Kepler), SB Live!, some random 160GB HDD from a 2006 iMac, 4x 1GB DDR2 sticks. No idea what speeds they are, but assuming nothing special since two are Lenovo OEM sticks. 305W PSU. Pentium 4 3.0GHz HT Prescott.
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/9x8MvUIg.jpg)
The blue capacitor on the SB Live card is also a replacement cap.
I remember that exact build (but with a heat sink and a case) could get 60FPS in minecraft, which I thought was incredible considering what it got with integrated graphics. It's not one of the 64-bit netbursts, either; it's ia32.

I noticed and fixed the bent pins on this shortly after taking the photo. Pentium 233MHz w/ MMX.
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/OWCODRQg.jpg)
Katmai Pentium 3 500MHz (SL35E) and a Mendocino Celeron 433MHz (SL3EH) in slotket.
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/0Dv9citg.jpg)
I have a Pentium 2 somewhere as well but can't find it. Wish I had a slot-1 motherboard I could use them in.

Two capacitors broke off my PCI-X SCSI controller in storage, but I think I remember their values because this isn't the first time. Hope I'm right because I can't find the originals this time around.
Card on far left is a Voodoo3 AGP. Big fat ATI/AMD card is a Radeon HD 5770 I think, from a Mac Pro. A relative upgraded cards because he couldn't get Mojave on it otherwise and gave me this. It's too huge and power-hungry for me to really have much use for though. SCSI card on top of the radeon.
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/6AQQAt7g.jpg)

Also also, I'm still working on an image duplicate finder/organizer thing based on pHash. It's slow going, primarily because I hate databases and sqlite programming (I just am not experienced enough with them to like them yet). I have the library itself working successfully, but my shell scripts I've been using to test it are incredibly inefficient so I'm trying to write a C program using sqlite3 to avoid redundant scanning. It's hard to keep motivated for long periods with the database part.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: May 21 2020, 07:26

"Jesus saves, but Buddha does incremental backups."

Power cabling. Could be neater, but it got to diminishing returns.
(IMG:[i.postimg.cc] https://i.postimg.cc/6BVzF6D2/20200521-134738.jpg)
(IMG:[i.postimg.cc] https://i.postimg.cc/699zKJXH/20200521-134839.jpg)

Mixed feelings about the Cherry keyboard. I don't like the feel (long key travel) and how loud it is. I added blue o-rings and filled all the air space in it's case with foam, which helped both a bit. I ordered some of the soft grey foam like gun and camera cases have. I think it'll dampen better than the charcoal grey plasticy foam the PSU was packed in. I also found a gaming chiclet style keyboard.
(IMG:[images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com] https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41ncizCqy9L._AC_SY400_.jpg)
The Redragon K502. It seems to be a not bad clone of MSI's DS4100, which is either discontinued, or not sold in the US- I couldn't find a new one for sale anywhere.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: May 22 2020, 06:37

Power cabling. Could be neater, but it got to diminishing returns.

Looks fine; I basically don't tie my cabling at all.

I'm not a huge fan of Cherry style switches either; they all feel more or less linear to me (when typing quickly the bumps on the supposedly tactile/clicky designs are much less noticeable). Alps switches and buckling springs both have much more solid tactility. Key travel doesn't bother me too much, although I sort of suspect Cherry switches have a little more travel than my Alps ones. They're probably actually closer to the same.

Not gonna lie, I kind of judge you for preferring chiclet boards though.

I streamed some movies off my desktop using a crossover-style connection in another room (just a straight through cable using MDI-X though). Worked quite well in a pinch to play some TV shows with friends.

I saw some PCIe 1000base-t cards in a discount ($1) bin at a local computer store today; I think I'll go back tomorrow and buy one so I've got an extra NIC to simplify things in the future.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: May 22 2020, 06:53

I've used primarily laptop keyboards, or a chiclet usb keyboard for years. Just what I'm used to.
Keyboard has MX black switches in it, I like the actuation force of it. I'm used to keyboards with quite low travel and all the keys in a flat plane.
Note that it was made in europe instead of china, that makes me feel better about the price, as well as a very clean look. Keys all seem to be double-shot molded with very slightly raised lettering.

I've finally started to try to adapt code from [github.com] https://github.com/simonlindholm/toggle-gifs into some javascript that can be used at the browser level through the userchrome.js trick.
Managed to make it give no error, but of course so far it has no effect either (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)
I hate web programming and it belonging to the "I error with passion, but I will give you no clue on where/why, nor give you any confirmation that I errored at all" kind. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

It's only mildly interesting, but I noticed today that the core temperatures on my desktop (i5-3350p ~3GHz (Ivy Bridge), H77 motherboard, stock Intel cooler (E97378-001) are much lower than on my laptop (i7-640LM 2.13GHz (nehalem), Thinkpad x201). ~36°C vs ~60°C.
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/omlmHs8g.png)
Laptop on left, desktop on right.

My heat sink says its part number is E97378-001, but I honestly don't remember if it had the copper core or not and it has straight looking fins like the all-aluminum E97379-001 supposedly has. I wonder if Intel rebadged an aluminum one. I've not taken the heat sink off in probably 6 years. This was Ivy Bridge era, when I thought all the i5 and i7's came with copper cored ones and only the i3's got the all-aluminum treatment. But my i5 was one of the lowest wattage 'mid-range or better' i5's of the ivy bridge generation, so maybe they cheaped out?
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/8b9qKVvg.jpg)

Edit:
Ah, looks like I have one of the better ones with the copper core. That sort of explains the temps.
Although I did notice that one of the locking tabs was badly bent unfortunately (bottom right). It seems to be holding now that I took some pliers to it, but I'm surprised that it was still getting those kinds of temps with the pin not even locked in.
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/1YXQ0g5g.jpg)

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: May 24 2020, 03:14

Updating a modded Switch is a bitch but what can you do.
It´s crazy how many home brew PC ports are now on the Switch.

I got an old used PCIe Intel 1000BASE-T ethernet NIC for $1 from a local computer shop's "$1 stuff" bin today.

And a brand new conventional PCI "C-Media CMI8768 7.1 Channel Sound Card" for another $1.

And a HD68 parallel SCSI internal IDC cable with an LVDS/SE terminator for another $1. Now I have everything I need to use my newer 10K RPM IBM SCSI drives with my Amiga.

So yeah, today was a pretty good day.