Author Topic: Bought any computing stuff today? (Read 129050 times)

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #600 on:** 06 January, 2020, 02:14:19 pm »

We got rid of it while I was there and filled the space with a VAX 8650 to run the library's cataloguing system.

Greenbank · « **Reply #601 on:** 06 January, 2020, 02:36:36 pm »

Quote from: Greenbank on 03 January, 2020, 02:12:30 pm

Got an APC C5-650 UPS from my dad when visiting last week, he'd rescued it from a skip so it was free. Battery looks in good condition so no idea why it was thrown away. Will test it out when I'm in long enough to keep an eye on it.

Works a treat and so NAS box, ESXi server and switch have been moved onto it. Should also put one of the monitors on it otherwise I have to open the laptop if the power does ever go and I want to log in and shut things down cleanly.

No idea how long it would last but it certainly lasted >30s whilst I was moving some cables around.

Also meant I could plug in an inline power meter to give me an idea[1] of the draw of the home office.

170W for two 23" monitors, work laptop, NAS box (nigh on idle), ESXi box (nigh on idle), speakers, HP OfficeJet printer, UPS keeping itself topped up, MSI min-laptop keeping itself topped up.

1. I am aware of their limitations due to power factor magic.

Jurek · « **Reply #602 on:** 06 January, 2020, 05:10:50 pm »

I bought a laptop today which runs Windows 10.
Will I die horribly?

TIA.

Canardly · « **Reply #603 on:** 06 January, 2020, 06:03:11 pm »

Powered usb hub which hopefully will replace the noisy current one.

ian · « **Reply #604 on:** 06 January, 2020, 06:26:02 pm »

Quote from: Jurek on 06 January, 2020, 05:10:50 pm

I bought a laptop today which runs Windows 10.
Will I die horribly?

TIA.

You'll probably die of slow frustration. In the meantime, Microsoft will farm and concentrate that slow seep of frustration and pipe it back to Redmond. It's not clear what they're planning to do with over a thousand gigatonnes (to date) of concentrated discontent, but there are rumours that the containment facility is already starting to leak.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #605 on:** 07 January, 2020, 12:34:07 pm »

Quote from: Jurek on 06 January, 2020, 05:10:50 pm

I bought a laptop today which runs Windows 10.
Will I die horribly?

TIA.

Install Classic Shell. It doesn't change anything under the bonnet but it hides the nasty Fisher Price GUI and makes it behave (mostly) like pre-hated versions of Windholes.

Jurek · « **Reply #606 on:** 07 January, 2020, 06:53:20 pm »

Quote from: Mr Larrington on 07 January, 2020, 12:34:07 pm

Quote from: Jurek on 06 January, 2020, 05:10:50 pm
I bought a laptop today which runs Windows 10.
Will I die horribly?

TIA.

Install Classic Shell. It doesn't change anything under the bonnet but it hides the nasty Fisher Price GUI and makes it behave (mostly) like pre-hated versions of Windholes.

I bought the Windows 10 machine to carry out a specific task.
Pippa (otp) had lent me a laptop which runs Windows 8, which unfortunately isn't up to the task as it is 32bit as opposed to the required 64bit.
However.
Windows 8.
Oh my.
What were they thinking?
No, really.
What were they thinking?

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #607 on:** 08 January, 2020, 02:08:26 pm »

All my Windows boxes run 10 but they all look like XP

SoreTween · « **Reply #608 on:** 09 January, 2020, 02:13:35 pm »

2 off Adaptec 6405T RAID controllers. These should speed things up but that's only a bonus, the reasons are:

1) Mint can't read my windows partition because it's a SATA RAID1 off the motherboard and there's no frikkin driver for Linux.
2) The sheer unmitigated abominable detestable nightmare I went through to set up a Linux software RAID1 for my Mint installation is the kind of horror story I wouldn't wish on anyone. I mean, to set up a Windows software RAID is a few clicks. To set up a chipset fakeraid at Windows installation involves popping in the floppy at the appropriate point. The instructions for setting up a Linux software RAID1 fill two sides of an A4 sheet. I need to migrate my mail server to Mint next and I'm not going through that again.

Jurek · « **Reply #609 on:** 11 January, 2020, 06:30:51 pm »

A filthy chicken and mushroom pasty from The West Cornwall Pasty Co (Who's HQ is in Long Crendon, Bucks

) in Victoria station.
Which, strictly speaking, isn't computing stuff by any stretch of the imagination.
But, it was immediately followed by a Macbook Air from Peter Jones in Sloane Square.
Which probably counts.

Jaded · « **Reply #610 on:** 12 January, 2020, 07:45:42 pm »

Dribbles.

(not over the pasty, you understand)

pcolbeck · « **Reply #611 on:** 20 January, 2020, 01:21:55 pm »

A Lenovo Thinkpad X230 with no keyboard or hard drive arrived today from eBay.

I was allowed to take three laptops from the recycling cage at a corporate I am doing some work for for free. They were three Thinkpads.
The X1 Carbon fired up first time, just had a Bitlocker issue and installing Arch Linux on it got rid of that. Its lovely, I can't believe it was getting thrown away.
The T420 is absolutely fine as well. Could do with another 4Gb of RAM and an SSD to replace the spinning rust but that's it.
The X230i though just beeps and has no display. Maybe no RAM I need to check but its only an i3 anyway. I bought the X230 i5 with no keyboard for less than the cost of some RAM (and it has 8Gb in it). I'll swap the bits between the two and hopefully make one good i5 X230.
The X1 Carbon will be my main personal laptop now I think and the rest will be in my lab.

T42 · « **Reply #612 on:** 28 January, 2020, 09:02:31 am »

A new power supply for my mini-tower PC. The old one still works but the fan bearings make 'orrible noises from time to time.

bludger · « **Reply #613 on:** 28 January, 2020, 09:56:22 am »

Appreciate this probably ought to go in the classifieds but I've got a bunch of computer components from a build I don't use (and haven't used for years) going to spare.

The graphics card is bust and the wifi card is soldbut everything else is on the market. They're obviously all out of warranty so I don't expect a fortune for them, pop me a message if you're interested. I still have the packaging for most of it.

Kim · « **Reply #614 on:** 28 January, 2020, 12:58:44 pm »

An APU4 to replace the VIA C3 something-or-other for pfsense duty.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #615 on:** 30 July, 2020, 05:43:43 pm »

Not exactly bought, but I have acquired a one-owner low-mileage iPad which will hopefully solve, at least for a while, the issues of glacial response to fingerpoken and apps not working because the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation of Cupertino, USAnia stopped updating the OS on this 'ere iPad Mini about three years ago. Now I just need to persuade FruitCo's SCIENCE that it is mine. Which could take a while, or Bad Swears.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #616 on:** 05 August, 2020, 10:52:48 pm »

Quote from: Mr Larrington on 01 August, 2020, 04:45:40 pm

The random whiny fan noises being emitted by that PC over there ^^^^ are slowly but surely making me Very Cross. Would someone please tell me that it would be a terrible waste of a thousand of Missis Kwin's pounds to buy one of Messrs Quiet PC's silent offerings?

Well, none of you lot did tell me so I ordered one. Which should have about twice the oomph of the noisy old bugger over there ^^^^.

ElyDave · « **Reply #617 on:** 04 September, 2020, 01:56:09 pm »

Not so much bought as acquired.

My old, no longer for sale, NVIDIA fondleslab has developed an alarming paunch in the battery area. After about 6 e-mail loops, asking for ever more evidence each time (why not just ask for everything in one go

) I received a message yesterday saying they'll be sending me a new one. Must have some old stock. Bonus really as I was expecting a slap in the face with a larhe haddock a la Fish Slapping Dance.

Only problem is now I've been online and seen nice shiney new fondleslab and have a bonus voucher burning a hole in my pocketses.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #618 on:** 03 October, 2020, 05:44:46 pm »

2 TB Samsung SSD for this 'ere machine so's I can finally consign internal spinning rust to the compost heap of history alongside the Kulaks and the Austin Maxi.

Afasoas · « **Reply #619 on:** 16 October, 2020, 06:36:47 pm »

For the first time in a very long time, a new lapdog.

Ashaman42 · « **Reply #620 on:** 20 January, 2021, 12:36:32 pm »

Bought Monday but arriving today - hopefully soon:

A Raspberry Pi 4 8GB starter kit.
An external 4TB hard drive.

Ultimately all intended to sit behind the TV and act as a media server (hopefully including Netflix (which I've heard can be a bit finnicky to get going on a Pi) as well as Prime, Youtube, etc) and backup server for photos and important files off both of our computers. With any luck even some sort of automatic regular backup rather than just when we remember to. Once I know how big the backup portion is I may get a couple big USB sticks so I can have one in the drawer at work and swap them out as and when is appropriate.

I've been lucky in the past with a PC failure in the middle of my OU degree being the motherboard rather than the harddrives and shouldn't keep pushing my luck

I don't quite know what I'm doing and I've only ever dabbled with a couple Linux live CDs in the past (Ubuntu vSome# and I can't remember the other) so I expect I'll have some very noobish questions in the coming days.

tiermat · « **Reply #621 on:** 21 January, 2021, 09:19:46 am »

I bit the bullet (and had a £25 voucher from those nice people that at ONS) and bought a Pi4/4Gb to act as the Kubernetes controller for my cluster, as the 3B+ really struggles (and indeeds give me a soft error during install about lack of male sheeps)

should be here today

ScumOfTheRoad · « **Reply #622 on:** 21 January, 2021, 09:26:58 am »

BTW, if anyone is interested in VMware the hypervisor now runs on Pi. Good for training and home labs.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/get-vmware-on-raspberry-pi/

(Full disclosure - I work for Dell)

mike · « **Reply #623 on:** 21 January, 2021, 09:39:10 am »

The new base level M1-chipped MacBook Air is astonishing. Much, much quicker than my 7 yr old MacBook Pro, probably 2 or 3x as quick when editing photos, and that's before adobe release software designed to run on it.

I just wish it had a few more ports - the dongle situation is getting out of hand...

Jaded · « **Reply #624 on:** 21 January, 2021, 09:56:34 am »

I've just ordered an OWC Thunderbolt 4 Hub Docking Station, which has three outgoing T3 ports, and lots of others. Not available until April but going to be great when it arrives.

Author Topic: Bought any computing stuff today? (Read 129050 times)

ian

Afasoas