Author Topic: Bought any computing stuff today? (Read 130353 times)

Afasoas · « **Reply #125 on:** 03 August, 2014, 12:06:50 pm »

I've been busy!

The NAS/Server parts acquired so far:

- mATX case
- CPU (Xeon E1220L v2 - only 17W TDP)
- ASUS P8B-X mobo - an actual bargain from eBay, fingers crossed it works
- 16GB low power ECC ram*
- 350w PSU (near silent/bronze rated)

That just leaves me to buy disks and a passive CPU cooler.
I'll probably swap out the stock case case fans for quieter alternatives.

This is all well overdue - my current NAS box is choc-full.

*I'm planning to use either XFS or BTFS which are memory hungry.

fuaran · « **Reply #126 on:** 28 August, 2014, 09:14:05 pm »

A new NAS, as the old one is 99% full. Old one is only 500GB, mostly filled with photos/videos.
Ordered a Buffalo Linkstation 210, 3TB. Should be plenty of space for the next few years, and hopefully a fair bit faster. The old NAS can be an additional backup of particularly important stuff.

Afasoas · « **Reply #127 on:** 02 September, 2014, 12:33:12 pm »

I just installed a Linkstation LS-WXL in a home network set-up for a friend. I hope yours is a bit better than that one.

Just procured a dual NIC atom mother board which will hopefully be the basis of a new firewall at home. On the hunt for a mini-ITX case to throw it into.

king boonen · « **Reply #128 on:** 02 September, 2014, 01:02:30 pm »

A 15" MacBook Pro from work, but it's on loan while they order me a 13" one. First time using a Mac properly, don't notice much difference to windows to be honest.

CrinklyLion · « **Reply #129 on:** 02 September, 2014, 10:30:24 pm »

A printer, two laptops, and 27 usb flash drives.

Hi ho, hi ho...

Afasoas · « **Reply #130 on:** 05 September, 2014, 09:00:42 am »

..sounds like a back to school purchase!

Biggsy · « **Reply #131 on:** 09 December, 2014, 02:53:52 pm »

Update on my Corsair Obsidian 450D case, with some complaints.......

I've given up trying to silence the case. It's just much too open with its numerous great big fan holes. To reduce noise with this, you need to reduce the amount of noise made in the first place, via quiet fans or fanless devices, and SSDs. It's water-cooling ready (and I'd need water cooling for any more overclocking of my CPU), but I'm not convinced that the water pump would be as quiet or pleasant-sounding as I want, even with a variable-speed model. My current CPU air cooling is practically silent at low load, and I run the machine at low load for 99% of the time.

You need a cable adapter (not supplied) to use the front panel USB 3 ports with USB 2 if you have a USB 2 header but no USB 3 headers on your motherboard or cards. Get an adapter (or PCIe USB 3 card) off eBay, and also a motherboard beeper if you want one, as there's no beeper in the case.

The reset button is ridiculously small and recessed, but you probably won't need it often (unlike me at one point, so I made a remote control - which was ridiculous).

It can't take more than two CD/DVD/BD drives.

The two SSD caddies in the back of the case (behind the motherboard) are neat, but it's shame they're made of plastic rather than aluminium. SSDs can run warm and there's little airflow there. I suppose they don't get hot enough for it to be a big deal, but still it would seem good practice to sink some heat. Alternatively, you can put SSDs in the air-cooled HDD cage (that takes up to three drives).

The quick-release front fan filter panel accidentally pops off too easily while handling the case.

Overall, though, it's a nice case, and exceptionally versatile for the size when it comes to fan options. Still recommended.

See the YACF Classifieds if you'd like to buy the Corsair fans that came with mine. (I'm using only-slightly quieter Noctua fans instead).

barakta · « **Reply #132 on:** 10 January, 2015, 02:16:45 pm »

A Kensington Orbit Scriollring Trackball which has a scrolling ring around it. I use a Logitech Marble "mouse" but lack of scrolling is a total pain and I can't mouse properly with my better right arm atm and my left arm/hand is functionally very limited.

The other day I bought myself the wireless version of my vertical grip mouse as the word on "ergo street" seems to be wireless is better for people with wrist issues. Can't tell the difference yet but I did injure my wrist on 1st Jan and mousing at all is still quite painful...

Biggsy · « **Reply #133 on:** 15 January, 2015, 02:46:14 pm »

Got a BlackGold triple Freeview HD tuner the day after ordering direct from BlackGold, despite the website implying a 7 day wait. No, I'm not sponsored by this company, although I reckon I deserve a few quid by now!

They still seem to be having problems with the quad version, which remains unavailable. I suspect the triple shares the same hardware with one tuner disabled or not working. Some buyers of the quad complained that only three tuners worked.

http://shop.blackgold.tv/epages/BT3159.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/BT3159/Products/BGT3655

Biggsy · « **Reply #134 on:** 18 January, 2015, 01:10:20 pm »

Update on the above: It's bloody not providing three HD channels at once without one breaking up (recorded with Windows Media Center). Could be an aerial signal problem, ~~but I've got a sneaking suspicion it's not~~. It's ok with two HD channels and one SD.

Biggsy · « **Reply #135 on:** 18 January, 2015, 01:27:37 pm »

Oh, it's all right now.

EDIT: It's not all right now. Seems to need an exceptionally good signal.

Afasoas · « **Reply #136 on:** 19 February, 2015, 12:38:19 pm »

A couple of Energenie power sockets and a RasbPi transmitter to turn them on and off.

Chris (was scych) · « **Reply #137 on:** 19 February, 2015, 05:18:06 pm »

Quote from: Afasoas on 19 February, 2015, 12:38:19 pm

A couple of Energenie power sockets and a RasbPi transmitter to turn them on and off.

Me too! Arrived today. Now to find some time to play them.

David Martin · « **Reply #138 on:** 19 February, 2015, 10:57:44 pm »

A PS3 Eye thingy webcam to use with the Pi 2

StuAff · « **Reply #139 on:** 19 February, 2015, 11:16:31 pm »

A TP-Link W9980 VDSL (does ADSL too of course) modem/router, thus ending several years of putting up with feeble ISP-supplied Technicolor TG585s and freeing up a socket on the power strip. Impressed so far, and great value (£70 delivered)- four Gigabit Ethernet ports, wireless performance pretty good (a massive improvement on the 585, not surprisingly), easy to configure, and speedtests showing results much the same as the Openreach box which it's replaced as well. Recommended if you don't want to spend the extra on the equivalent Billion model.

Afasoas · « **Reply #140 on:** 19 February, 2015, 11:23:36 pm »

Happy to report that the Energenie sockets and the Pimote play nicely. Took me a couple of hours but that included finding the Pi + gubbins, trying to remember my user name/password, giving up and re-imaging the latest Raspbian onto an SD card and setting it up from scratch. The Energenie bits themselves were working in minutes and I can now switch the big managed switch on and off from anywhere via the VPN.

Now I need to work out how to get the Dell Poweredge 2950 to respond to a wake-on LAN packet. It's not a BIOS option and possibly involves booting from a CD with the appropriate utility installed on it. Must take care to only enable it on one of it's NICs and ensure it's the right NIC as they are both in two different networks.

pcolbeck · « **Reply #141 on:** 20 February, 2015, 07:59:38 am »

The WOL is part of the Broadcom NICs firmware not the motherboards. When you boot the server it may display a post message about the NIC in which case hit "Ctrl S" at that point to get into the firmware for the NIC or if post messages have been suppressed hit "Ctrl S" lots of times as it boots and hope to do it at the correct point. The WOL is OS independent
You could get more control than WOL by using IPMI though..

tiermat · « **Reply #142 on:** 20 February, 2015, 08:26:13 am »

I received an invite to buy a OnePlusOne this morning.

So, of course, I took them up on it.

A 64Gb one, in black, is on it's way to me

Afasoas · « **Reply #143 on:** 20 February, 2015, 10:25:36 am »

Quote from: pcolbeck on 20 February, 2015, 07:59:38 am

The WOL is part of the Broadcom NICs firmware not the motherboards. When you boot the server it may display a post message about the NIC in which case hit "Ctrl S" at that point to get into the firmware for the NIC or if post messages have been suppressed hit "Ctrl S" lots of times as it boots and hope to do it at the correct point. The WOL is OS independent
You could get more control than WOL by using IPMI though..

Thanks Pat.
Actually I already tried that. There's no CTRL+S option presented whilst the box is booting, but I hit it several times regardless and no banana.
Using IPMI - does that mean fitting a DRAC card? I read a bit about the on-board BMC but I haven't quite figured out how to enable IPMI over LAN - I've hit CTRL+E in the BIOS and configured BMC IP address/netmask/gateway and I can now ping that IP address. I did a port scan on it and found all the ports scanned were filtered.

Obviously I'm new at this! I might just simplify things and buy a DRAC for it. It seems fairly trivial at work.

pcolbeck · « **Reply #144 on:** 20 February, 2015, 10:45:12 am »

Thats beyond me now Afasoas. I’m a network guy not a server guy, once you can ping something it becomes someone elses issue

I just know that all our server guys use the IPMI or iLO type stuff.

marcusjb · « **Reply #145 on:** 20 February, 2015, 02:22:35 pm »

One of these cute little chappies - just look at that ridiculous bezel!:

Always carried around huge Dell Precision workstation laptops, but more and more I do most of my commissioning work from home rather than having to be onsite (a little Intel NUC sat on site during commissioning phase with RDP). I have a excellent workstation desktop - so it seemed daft to have to carry a heavy laptop (and I cycle everywhere, so a 3kg laptop/psu is not a good thing!). I'd rather be sat at home with two massive monitors, a warm, comfy chair and a decent stereo.

It's a bit of a risk - but I think it'll work out. I've never had such a cheap laptop!

Should arrive early next week - it left China last weekend.

Excited.

Kim · « **Reply #146 on:** 20 February, 2015, 02:33:34 pm »

Gosh, that's cute.

marcusjb · « **Reply #147 on:** 20 February, 2015, 03:00:41 pm »

I know!

And it's a Dell!

Years and years of making the most visually uninspiring laptops going and they are suddenly on trend.

Genuinely tiny though - a 13 inch screen in the same chassis size as an 11 inch MacBook Air.

Biggsy · « **Reply #148 on:** 23 February, 2015, 01:53:05 pm »

Asus GeForce GT 730 - one of the most powerful fanless graphics cards. Only fifty quid from Amazon.

I'll have to get into a bit of gaming to justify the 2 GB RAM and 384 cores! Wonder what's suitable for middle-aged hand-to-eye coordination?

Biggsy · « **Reply #149 on:** 23 February, 2015, 01:58:52 pm »

...Was tempted by the GT 740, but it'd gobble a lot more electricity and be ridiculous for my typical usage:

^ heat pipe job