Subj : Re: Lacros To : Barry Martin From : Ky Moffet Date : Sun Aug 20 2023 14:07:00 BARRY MARTIN wrote: > Hi Ky! > KM> I had a couple of beige-box G3 systems come through the slushpile > KM> when I was the local user grope's hardware dude. I have never > KM> seen so much awful packed into such a small space. Two nominally > KM> identical systems were every which different inside, like Packard > KM> Smell run amok and then through a crusher to make it small. > > These were the 'pretty' ones -- the ones that came in blue, orange, > green, etc. I don't recall the vendor (owned a computer repair shop and > did the stores' stuff as a side) menioning that variable insides, but > then possibly not come up just because I was asking for improving my > sales and potentially buying one. Were those the fanless all-in-one? Have personally seen one of those catch fire... > Your 'different inside' comment reminded me of why I never bought a Dell > computer when I was buying refurbished computers: I never could get a > detailed answer on what was inside. I don't recall if down to the Um... open it up and look. :) > amount of RAM but do recall seemed I could never find if there were > available expansion slots. Is the video integrated or a daughtercard? > This was around 30 years ago so things probably have I don't know what they did before about 2000, but I've had several desktop Dells fall on my head since then. All you need do is pull on the latch (they have a latched side or top panel, not screws) and take a look. What the mainboard offers depends on which form factor and which grade. I have two Dells that came in a standard-enough ATX tower and they're basically what you'd build out of the scrap bin. Tinker (since died of the capacitor plague) was a P4-3GHz with 1 AGP and 3 PCI slots. Don't offhand recall if it had onboard video but you could add a card. 4 RAM slots. I think the mainboard was actually made by Intel, and the case is an Antec. (It was their most expensive model which came to me because it wouldn't run stable due to overheating. I ditched the Dell shroud, gave it a standard HSF, and it was fine.) Lightfoot is a Quad-core 3GHz with onboard everything, 3 PCIe and one PCI slot. 4 RAM slots. It came with some random vidcard along with the onboard video. It is the cheap consumer model. Here's the same board: https://www.ebay.com/p/98189154 This is the cheap consumer board, not expected to work hard for a living. Unlike some Dells, these both have standard power pin-outs, so any PSU will work. Lightfoot came to me "dead" and the problem was marginal PSU -- it works, but can't quite make enough output. Replaced with random PSU from the scrap pile and used Lightfoot for several years; only retired to the other room because I had more quad cores than I could use. But it still works fine. For a while the mainboard was in a different case because of reasons I've forgotten, and some other board was in Lightfoot's original case, but now it's all back how it started. And I have three Optiplex 9010 minis. This is a compact case that can sit desktop or tower. These came with i7-3770 CPUs. There is onboard video but they also came with a fairly decent vidcard (Radeon R7 350X 4GB). 1-PCIe16 1-PCIe4. 4 RAM slots, max 32GB. These were designed as business units. I don't know about the mini Optiplex pinout but the PSU is a long narrow thing like a server PSU. The other drawback is that there is only room for one 3.5" HD or two 2.5", but it's easy enough to get to. The larger size Optiplex (there are three sizes, one is smaller yet) may have a standard PSU and more slots and bays, I haven't checked. Well, this is the larger version of the same board: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813186233 main difference is having two PCI slots and more SATA ports. Anyway, I can firmly recommend a used Optiplex as a very inexpensive prebuilt that's often seen as a business discard (this model is commonly available for around $100, complete). They get along with whatever random OSs, have been very stable, and make a good Hackintosh. While the mini can't do much upgrading, they're good enough as an everyday usin' box. The other Repurposed NameBrand Core in my Closet is Fireball, who started life as a Lenovo Thinkstation S30. This is a very good quality X79 mainboard that takes a midrange i7 or Xeon. 3-PCIe16, 1-PCIe4, 1-PCI, 8 RAM slots (192GB max capacity, and can use the cheaper server RAM) and without opening it up to look I think it has 6 SATA and 4 SAS ports. However I would strongly recommend sticking to one that comes with its original case, because this will save you a lot of swearing as you figure out all the oddities of the front panel and USB connections (one of which needs an extra jumper shorted to work properly). Similar to this one, but mine has the SAS ports. (There are two models) https://www.ebay.com/p/1366285012 > changed, but at the time turned me off to Dells for personal use: I'm > not going to buy something if I don't know if I can do the usual > eventual upgrade. What sort of upgrade? I looked inside my Dells, saw that they were already maxed out for CPU, and at a minimal cost I maxed out the RAM. They are now as upgraded as they get. In this era of external drives and networked storage, I no longer feel the need to put six hard drives inside every case. In fact Silver has none inside the case; they're all in the hotswap bays. :) I may eventually get Fireball a faster CPU (it has whatever Xeon was available for $20, or was it $5... wasn't very much), as what's in it is toward the lower end. However it's performance-equivalent to Silver (i7-4820k) as it is. It already has 64GB RAM, filched from the server that's being gradually gutted for parts. The only other namebrand desktop I have now is an HP/Compaq, and the mainboard is an off-the-shelf Asus M2N68-AM with Athlon64 X2 DualCore 4200+ 2.2GHz. Except it's a second, as the BIOS is hardcoded to not accept a faster CPU (otherwise it could be seriously upgraded), and the Athlon64 it came with is not a true x64 CPU. Which explains the 32bit Vista that came on it. Oh well, it runs fine, and saves me the embarrassment of having Vista on a better PC. ;) > KM> First Mac I was ever called to repair... fan gave out in the > KM> power supply. Should be an easy replacement, right? Nope... the > KM> PSU was riveted together AND riveted into the case such that you > KM> couldn't get at the rivet heads to pop them loose. Owner ended up > KM> leaving the case propped open instead (probably better > KM> ventilation than the fan provided anyway). > > Could sort of see the inaccessible rivets: stuff's assembled > by robots and people, so if the power supply is inserted first nothing > is in the way until start adding the rest of the computer around it. > You'd probably have to disassemble the whole computer to get to those > rivets. Would have had to tear out metal. The joys of pop rivets. > > Sort of reminds me of a UPS I have. Decent one still. To replace the > two batteries take the insides out -- and greeted by a cage securely > holding the batteries inside and the UPS motherboard on top. > Essentially there is no way to get to the batteries without taking the > motherboard apart, which sounds like a simple step but is anything but. Ugh. I don't bother doing battery swaps on modern UPSs. The battery is $89 and the whole durn unit is $99 at Costco and comes with a 2 year warranty by Costco, which is a lot better than the replacement battery. > I remember checking on-line and just one person had managed to > disassemble and reassemble without damage to the motherboard. I ended > up leaving the dead batteries inside, routing the battery cables though > a hole and on to two external batteries. ...I'll admit that UPS now has > the fastst battery swap: seconds! HA!!! > KM> I have a G4 of the silver tower era -- it's much less awful, tho > KM> was highly amused to discover that everything inside, except for > KM> the mainboard and CPU, is an off the shelf PC part. At some point > KM> I borrowed the vidcard and have no idea if it got its original > KM> back, but it works. Also gave it RAM from the PC drawer, and an > KM> IDE SSD. Performance is now much better. Someone paid $3,999.99 > KM> for it in 2000... at the time it was performance-equivalent to a > KM> P2-500 from 1998 that sold for $600. > > Paying for the name are we?! I've upgraded several old computers with Apparently. :/ It came with all sorts of software (Photoshop etc.) but far as I can tell it was never used. > SSDs and it's amazing how fast they boot and react! I have one with a > BIOS displaying a copyright of 2009, 6 GB RAM, and it boots in probably > 15 seconds; Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish) and runs MythTV v31 quite > fine. Yeah, SSD does wonders. If I'm gonna keep using this durn Fedora it'll need to get one, because it's a good five minutes from power on to usable desktop. Tho a lot of that is gotta go check for updates BEFORE it'll do anything else, and updates are so freakin' slow via Discover that I do it via CLI instead. > > Google, Bing, etc. are your friends! > KM> Not me! Here it's DuckDuckGo, or less often StartPage or Yandex. > > Some of it is what one is familiar with, some may be how technical the > looks-ups are..... Or how few *&%#!! sponsored links you want in your way.... > KM> Picky, picky!! Well, the driver didn't change so why it worked > KM> ONCE but then never again is a total mystery. Mind you this was > KM> ONCE and then never again on the SAME DAY with nothing between > KM> but a restart. Power down did not fix. > > Booting killed it! Your WiFi dongle needed the generic driver which you > covered up with the new one! (semi-joking) No, this was onboard wifi.... it's a laptop.... > > .. You Matter. Until multiply self x speed of light ý, then you Energy. > KM> > > What happened to my 'squared' character?! Some people square the circle. You circled the dra-- er, square. þ RNET 2.10U: ILink: Techware BBS þ Hollywood, Ca þ www.techware2k.com --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com | 856-933-7096 (454:1/1) .