I opened a few heating meter units and found these 10 years old batteries, still reading 2.95V.
Are these any good to use in old PCs?

You'll need a really big hammer to fit them into CR-2032 holders.

Kinda kidding, but yah I don't know if you wanna mod boards too much to take them and then have to mod them back in a year or two if they didn't turn out to last all that long. What I might do is, clean up the -ve end so it will sit flat in the bottom of a 2032 holder, standing upright, then put an extended loop of wire on the +ve end that can hook the clip, then ziptie or hotglue in place.

edit: Another idea, insulating disk and conducting disk that add up to thickness of CR-2032, drilled like a big washer the diameter of a CR2032, actually a disk of single sided PCB might do it, glue them on the bottom of the cell so the -ve is centered over the connector and tack the +ve to the conductive side on top... possibly requiring a bit more edge exposure of the top disk to make sure the clip connects well with it.

My son is bugging me to learn VR development in Unity so that he can create a game. I watched a couple of Youtube videos that walk you through setting up basic things, but I don't feel they are sufficient to build a foundation of meaningful knowledge on the subject.

dr_st wrote on 2023-12-02, 15:44:

My son is bugging me to learn VR development in Unity so that he can create a game. I watched a couple of Youtube videos that walk you through setting up basic things, but I don't feel they are sufficient to build a foundation of meaningful knowledge on the subject.

ask him about augmented reality, seems like a pseudo holodeck fantasy to build stuff in front of you to place it in the room somewhere to scale

Just bought an HP T740 SFF/thin-client. 4 core/8 thread 3.25Ghz AMD APU/Ryzen graphics.

Going to make an all-in-one retro gaming box for the living room - Mame, Mednafen, Redream etc, probably running Emulation station front end on top of Linux.

Have done a couple of these over the years, but usually on Pi system, which always end up being sluggish, no matter how much you optimise them.

bakemono wrote on 2023-08-25, 18:55:

Made an .XM from some Chinese song I heard on Bilibili. Next I want to make one from a K-pop...

This one was too hard, but I tried.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-12-02, 15:27:

You'll need a really big hammer to fit them into CR-2032 holders.

Kinda kidding, but yah I don't know if you wanna mod boards too much to take them and then have to mod them back in a year or two if they didn't turn out to last all that long. What I might do is, clean up the -ve end so it will sit flat in the bottom of a 2032 holder, standing upright, then put an extended loop of wire on the +ve end that can hook the clip, then ziptie or hotglue in place.

edit: Another idea, insulating disk and conducting disk that add up to thickness of CR-2032, drilled like a big washer the diameter of a CR2032, actually a disk of single sided PCB might do it, glue them on the bottom of the cell so the -ve is centered over the connector and tack the +ve to the conductive side on top... possibly requiring a bit more edge exposure of the top disk to make sure the clip connects well with it.

Interesting. I'll try to do something like suggested.
Lately I'm trying to save or recycle everything I can. Salvaging is my motto!

I replaced the switches in one of my mice. I don't know if I ever said it on this forum, but every mouse I've bought in the past 6-7 years except one has had the switch for the left button fail after about nine months. The exception was a Microsoft Pro Intellimouse that had the scroll wheel encoder fail in a few weeks (I don't know what idiot still makes mechanical encoders - even a $15 Logitech mouse uses an optical encoder). My old mice lasted about 15 years, and then I cleaned or replaced the switches. I can only guess that the quality of the silver plating has gone down the toilet, combined with mice running lower current through the switches (simply using the weak pull-ups on microcontroller inputs).

Now I'm killing my Internet (DSL with 8Mbps download speed because nobody can have nice things where I live - nothing in this "small town" with a population of 32,000 makes sense) by letting my laptop update. I apparently haven't used it in three months. It's still nagging me to install Windows 11, and I haven't done that yet. I still haven't installed Linux because I doubt that a dual-boot setup would handle a downgrade to Windows 11 when Windows 10 support ends. I already know that some stuff won't work in Linux, so I need to keep Windows around (although some of that stuff probably won't work in Windows 11 - it isn't just 10 with a different UI like it's represented). I think Linux requires too much messing around to make it almost (but not really) work, but I'd rather use it than Windows 11.

On the subject of Windows 11, I learned that it includes its own version of Teams that only works with home Microsoft accounts. It doesn't work with work accounts, even though it's included with the enterprise version of Windows 11. Business users are required to install a "work or school" version of Teams, but that doesn't remove the unusable version of Teams that's bundled with Windows, which results in IT support calls from someone who opened the wrong Teams.

lti wrote on 2023-12-09, 20:25:

I replaced the switches in one of my mice. I don't know if I ever said it on this forum, but every mouse I've bought in the past 6-7 years except one has had the switch for the left button fail after about nine months. The exception was a Microsoft Pro Intellimouse that had the scroll wheel encoder fail in a few weeks (I don't know what idiot still makes mechanical encoders - even a $15 Logitech mouse uses an optical encoder). My old mice lasted about 15 years, and then I cleaned or replaced the switches. I can only guess that the quality of the silver plating has gone down the toilet, combined with mice running lower current through the switches (simply using the weak pull-ups on microcontroller inputs).

Now I'm killing my Internet (DSL with 8Mbps download speed because nobody can have nice things where I live - nothing in this "small town" with a population of 32,000 makes sense) by letting my laptop update. I apparently haven't used it in three months. It's still nagging me to install Windows 11, and I haven't done that yet. I still haven't installed Linux because I doubt that a dual-boot setup would handle a downgrade to Windows 11 when Windows 10 support ends. I already know that some stuff won't work in Linux, so I need to keep Windows around (although some of that stuff probably won't work in Windows 11 - it isn't just 10 with a different UI like it's represented). I think Linux requires too much messing around to make it almost (but not really) work, but I'd rather use it than Windows 11.

On the subject of Windows 11, I learned that it includes its own version of Teams that only works with home Microsoft accounts. It doesn't work with work accounts, even though it's included with the enterprise version of Windows 11. Business users are required to install a "work or school" version of Teams, but that doesn't remove the unusable version of Teams that's bundled with Windows, which results in IT support calls from someone who opened the wrong Teams.

try a population of 14-15000 and ill show you real problems. I kind of stopped using Win 10/11 for the time being, am on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and likely will stay there or on a debian derivative. Fedora is for the work environment and arch is for the underworld culture. I used to game heavily but now im too old to game

Me and the missus put on a compendium of crackin' tunes and finally finished the three ginormous puzzles we've been working on since August or September. We actually received the puzzles for Christmas last year and figured, well shit, we'd better finish them before the gift giver comes over again this year!

All three thousand pieces have been lovingly glued together, and I can say with utmost confidence that she's a brick....house.
We decided to showcase them in the basement, just above some of the old computers. 😀

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-12-16, 12:05:

Modern hardware acquired, time to get into some modern activities!

IMG_20231216_125947.jpg

Last week I've built the NAS I've been meaning to build for a while. An Intenso 128GB SSD for the OS, 3×6TB hard drives in RAID 5 for data storage on a Gigabyte GA-H61N-D2V with 8GB of DDR3-1600. All running OpenMediaVault 6.9

Initially I wanted to use a Celeron G550T, but ended up being underpowered so I intended to replace it with an I3-3220T. I just found one on a local trading site on Monday and arrived yesterday. Except the CPU I received was the plain i3-3220. Double checked the listing. It had the right model and the photos have also shown the T variant, so I issued a complaint. The plain variant I got has a 60% higher TDP and that matters when you run it 24/7 for years. The seller promised me a full refund, so we'll see what happens.

For the time being I'm using the i3 I got while keeping my eye open for a T variant.

Otherwise with the upgraded CPU performance it runs great and has plenty of power in reserve if I were to add features like cloud server functions, surveillance cams and smart home stuff.

megatron-uk wrote on 2023-11-14, 08:42:

Just bought a pair of Nvidial Tesla P4 accelerators to go in my Dell T430 virtualization box.

They are roughly equivalent to GTX 1080, but lower power (50-75w) and no video out.

Plan on using them in my HPC-cluster-in-a-box setup, specifically to test out OpenOndemand - i.e. for bookable GPU desktops on our HPC facility, which is normally only batch mode compute.

Im guessing you went for a custom cooler on one of them then?

Tested a 775 + DDR3 board.
Seller said that of the 3 he bought, 2 had issues with the SB. No wonders the one I bought months ago had the SB dead.

Budget is budget for a reason. Lesson learnt.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-22, 19:53:

megatron-uk wrote on 2023-11-14, 08:42:

Just bought a pair of Nvidial Tesla P4 accelerators to go in my Dell T430 virtualization box.

They are roughly equivalent to GTX 1080, but lower power (50-75w) and no video out.

Plan on using them in my HPC-cluster-in-a-box setup, specifically to test out OpenOndemand - i.e. for bookable GPU desktops on our HPC facility, which is normally only batch mode compute.

Im guessing you went for a custom cooler on one of them then?

Good point. These cards are designed to have strong airflow going through them in servers or they overheat quickly. Some ghetto cooling solutions exist, we have 3D-printed similar solutions at work for testing purposes: https://www.ebay.com/itm/313400264825

Some usefil commands for these cards:
nvidia-smi --loop=1
nvidia-smi -q -d UTILIZATION
nvidia-smi -q -d TEMPERATURE
nvidia-smi -q -d CLOCK
nvidia-smi -q -d PERFORMANCE (to see if there is a triggered Thermal Slowdown)
nvidia-smi dmon
nvidia-smi pmon

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-12-23, 08:39:

Good point. These cards are designed to have strong airflow going through them in servers or they overheat quickly. Some ghetto […]
Show full quote

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-22, 19:53:

megatron-uk wrote on 2023-11-14, 08:42:

Just bought a pair of Nvidial Tesla P4 accelerators to go in my Dell T430 virtualization box.

They are roughly equivalent to GTX 1080, but lower power (50-75w) and no video out.

Plan on using them in my HPC-cluster-in-a-box setup, specifically to test out OpenOndemand - i.e. for bookable GPU desktops on our HPC facility, which is normally only batch mode compute.

Im guessing you went for a custom cooler on one of them then?

Good point. These cards are designed to have strong airflow going through them in servers or they overheat quickly. Some ghetto cooling solutions exist, we have 3D-printed similar solutions at work for testing purposes: https://www.ebay.com/itm/313400264825

Some usefil commands for these cards:
nvidia-smi --loop=1
nvidia-smi -q -d UTILIZATION
nvidia-smi -q -d TEMPERATURE
nvidia-smi -q -d CLOCK
nvidia-smi -q -d PERFORMANCE (to see if there is a triggered Thermal Slowdown)
nvidia-smi dmon
nvidia-smi pmon

Yes, theyre also designed to fit nicely into a 2U server.
Something the full size 1060/1070/1080 isnt.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-23, 13:51:

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-12-23, 08:39:

Good point. These cards are designed to have strong airflow going through them in servers or they overheat quickly. Some ghetto […]
Show full quote

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-22, 19:53:

Im guessing you went for a custom cooler on one of them then?

Good point. These cards are designed to have strong airflow going through them in servers or they overheat quickly. Some ghetto cooling solutions exist, we have 3D-printed similar solutions at work for testing purposes: https://www.ebay.com/itm/313400264825

Some usefil commands for these cards:
nvidia-smi --loop=1
nvidia-smi -q -d UTILIZATION
nvidia-smi -q -d TEMPERATURE
nvidia-smi -q -d CLOCK
nvidia-smi -q -d PERFORMANCE (to see if there is a triggered Thermal Slowdown)
nvidia-smi dmon
nvidia-smi pmon

Yes, theyre also designed to fit nicely into a 2U server.
Something the full size 1060/1070/1080 isnt.

We use them (Tesla T4) in HP DL360 or DL325 servers, and had to push to UEFI settings to "optimal cooling" as a minimum to get them to work without thermal throttling. Dissipating 75W with the small heat-spreader these cards have requires quite some air to flow. Nvidia has increased the heat-spreader surface on the newer L4 cards that replace the P4 and T4.

Yeah not a lot of directed airflow in those servers.
In something like that you might indeed want to get the "fan made" 3D printed fan holder for them.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-12-22, 16:04:

Last week I've built the NAS I've been meaning to build for a while. An Intenso 128GB SSD for the OS, 3×6TB hard drives in RAID […]
Show full quote

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-12-16, 12:05:

Modern hardware acquired, time to get into some modern activities!

IMG_20231216_125947.jpg

Last week I've built the NAS I've been meaning to build for a while. An Intenso 128GB SSD for the OS, 3×6TB hard drives in RAID 5 for data storage on a Gigabyte GA-H61N-D2V with 8GB of DDR3-1600. All running OpenMediaVault 6.9

Initially I wanted to use a Celeron G550T, but ended up being underpowered so I intended to replace it with an I3-3220T. I just found one on a local trading site on Monday and arrived yesterday. Except the CPU I received was the plain i3-3220. Double checked the listing. It had the right model and the photos have also shown the T variant, so I issued a complaint. The plain variant I got has a 60% higher TDP and that matters when you run it 24/7 for years. The seller promised me a full refund, so we'll see what happens.

For the time being I'm using the i3 I got while keeping my eye open for a T variant.

Otherwise with the upgraded CPU performance it runs great and has plenty of power in reserve if I were to add features like cloud server functions, surveillance cams and smart home stuff.

IMG_20231216_141005.jpgIMG_20231216_141203.jpgIMG_20231216_141215.jpgIMG_20231216_174430.jpg

I need to get your attention:
Not supposed to spend using poor quality items for a data & VM server.

Intenso SSD is not good quality storage and cannot be trusted in your use case, these generic SSD in general fail often, performance issues. I always specify Samsung (not QVO), Micron, some Intel and Crucial and WD blue or black but not WD SA510 model (performance issues and poorly perceived quality.)

Yes, the Nvidia P4 needs medium air velocity and pressure, attached directly to the end of heatsink, not just blowing on it from a distance in open air. Basically noise maker. Do not use those small high rpm fans, the loud, noisy whine will drive you nuts.

Instead, good centrifugal blower around 97mm in size is just right, quieter and make a duct adapter from the blower to the P4 cards. Also adjust the voltage if blower does not have PWM, which is frequently don't feature a PWM. Nidec, Sanyo. Don't go any smaller, CFM and pressure suffers and more noisier. Centrifugal fans by nature do really well at build pressure even there is some backpressure that P4 heatsink creates to push air through.

Axial fans cannot build pressure very well at any rpm except top speeds which is very noisy. I tried my best already, even stacked two even stacked two fans with counter rotating spinning.

This why lot of issues to consider plus this NAS server case is too small due to 97mm fan blower needed, Nvidia P4 cards is long too. Easier to work with a real MATX tower such as Z240 and oh yes, will take 35W processors too.

This comes from experience working with computers and worked in shops for decades, Yes almost 4 decades and collected many type of fans and blowers and played with them and tried types of heatsinks. There are few best designs I discovered over the time.

Cheers,

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2023-12-19, 04:33:

Me and the missus put on a compendium of crackin' tunes and finally finished the three ginormous puzzles we've been working on s […]
Show full quote

Me and the missus put on a compendium of crackin' tunes and finally finished the three ginormous puzzles we've been working on since August or September. We actually received the puzzles for Christmas last year and figured, well shit, we'd better finish them before the gift giver comes over again this year!

All three thousand pieces have been lovingly glued together, and I can say with utmost confidence that she's a brick....house.
We decided to showcase them in the basement, just above some of the old computers. 😀 IMG_0735.jpg
IMG_0738.jpg

what is on that mac in the bottom left corner

twiz11 wrote on 2023-12-24, 21:25:

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2023-12-19, 04:33:

Me and the missus put on a compendium of crackin' tunes and finally finished the three ginormous puzzles we've been working on s […]
Show full quote

Me and the missus put on a compendium of crackin' tunes and finally finished the three ginormous puzzles we've been working on since August or September. We actually received the puzzles for Christmas last year and figured, well shit, we'd better finish them before the gift giver comes over again this year!

All three thousand pieces have been lovingly glued together, and I can say with utmost confidence that she's a brick....house.
We decided to showcase them in the basement, just above some of the old computers. 😀 IMG_0735.jpg
IMG_0738.jpg

what is on that mac in the bottom left corner

Looks like a MDD G4, maybe a 2002 or 2003 version.