The Solutor wrote on 2026-10-06, 19:30:

Yes, but, at least on Intel machines those things can be controlled easily using Throttle Stop under Windows or the power-cap ut […]
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ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-10-06, 19:14:

Regarding the power used on idle between the 35W and 65W TDP packages you are right, at idle they are basically equals, but the 65W ramp more aggressively, and the i7 over i5 even more so.

Yes, but, at least on Intel machines those things can be controlled easily using Throttle Stop under Windows or the power-cap utils under Linux (I use them for opposite reasons to decap my N100 from the ridiculous value of 6W (the CPU is rated for 35W)

On the AMD machines isn't that easy, even official AMD utils don't manage older gens Ryzen, whatever maybe the situation is evolving from the last time I looked at the matter

I almost bought the 2400GE CPU version just the other day but those systems just hold their price here in the UK. They are really popular on the home lab market.

Yeah, I got mine one year ago for 85 euro shipping included from the NL one year ago or so. But that was a machine w/o WIFI, HDD, and just 4GB of RAM installed, other than that it was practically a brand new machine, zero scratches, zero dust, perfect.

Yeah given the power of the Ryzen 2400G in both terms of IPC and electro energy I think Ill keep the 15W of the i5-7200U.
The services Ill be running will be basic!
The thing will be on idle most of the time and 15W CPU wont even register on my smart meter.
It will run headless to keep drivers to a minimum, and the IRCd if it even works is just as a whim! because nobody uses IRC these days.

I need a machine to tie in my VPN and run services like Unbound and Pihole and a 15W CPU seemed to me to fit the bill especially as it was £53 delivered.
I have a HP T630 doing most of that work right now. Its just the physically shape of the T630 no longer fits with what I want it all to look like.
Im sick of it all looking like Frankensteins lab.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-10-04, 13:37:

Shooting from the hip, I'd say the sell it quick low ball end is $500, and market could bear $800 if you are more patient.

Edit: yeah messing around with PCPartPicker choosing lowest "brand name you've heard of" components it's around a $1000 new build. I generally figure, few years old stuff, out of warranty is worth ~50% , quite new but used stuff max of 80%, NIB month old stuff, with receipts to be worth 90%. So my initial guesses pan out according to my logic. You'd have to make special cases or adjust for premium versions of components. But, say you'd got a cheap everything and somehow a $300 cooler, the value of the cooler is not gonna be realised to actually SELL the system, buyer is not gonna go even $100 over value of similar systems, it basically means he puts you first on the list at similar prices. In that sort of scenario, you'd do better to swap the halo product out for cheap generic and sell separately.

Unfortunately the ram is a single nice Corsair rgb stick out of a pair with a dead stick that was originally in another build, that I ended up buying another 32gb kit to replace . So I'll probably lean to the cheap side.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-10-06, 19:43:

Yeah given the power of the Ryzen 2400G in both terms of IPC and electro energy I think Ill keep the 15W of the i5-7200U. The se […]
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Yeah given the power of the Ryzen 2400G in both terms of IPC and electro energy I think Ill keep the 15W of the i5-7200U.
The services Ill be running will be basic!
The thing will be on idle most of the time and 15W CPU wont even register on my smart meter.
It will run headless to keep drivers to a minimum, and the IRCd if it even works is just as a whim! because nobody uses IRC these days.

I need a machine to tie in my VPN and run services like Unbound and Pihole and a 15W CPU seemed to me to fit the bill especially as it was £53 delivered.
I have a HP T630 doing most of that work right now. Its just the physically shape of the T630 no longer fits with what I want it all to look like.
Im sick of it all looking like Frankensteins lab.

Yea, perhaps many of such lower demand tasks can be even managed by a router, if moddable, or natively supported by OpenWRT (or by a miniPC using OpenWRT x86, which tend to be way less demanding than either Windows or a proper Linux installation)

The Solutor wrote on 2026-10-06, 23:52:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-10-06, 19:43:

Yeah given the power of the Ryzen 2400G in both terms of IPC and electro energy I think Ill keep the 15W of the i5-7200U. The se […]
Show full quote

Yeah given the power of the Ryzen 2400G in both terms of IPC and electro energy I think Ill keep the 15W of the i5-7200U.
The services Ill be running will be basic!
The thing will be on idle most of the time and 15W CPU wont even register on my smart meter.
It will run headless to keep drivers to a minimum, and the IRCd if it even works is just as a whim! because nobody uses IRC these days.

I need a machine to tie in my VPN and run services like Unbound and Pihole and a 15W CPU seemed to me to fit the bill especially as it was £53 delivered.
I have a HP T630 doing most of that work right now. Its just the physically shape of the T630 no longer fits with what I want it all to look like.
Im sick of it all looking like Frankensteins lab.

Yea, perhaps many of such lower demand tasks can be even managed by a router, if moddable, or natively supported by OpenWRT (or by a miniPC using OpenWRT x86, which tend to be way less demanding than either Windows or a proper Linux installation)

Repurposed chromeboxes, when those were still cheap, were another option.

darry wrote on 2026-10-06, 23:54:

Repurposed chromeboxes, when those were still cheap, were another option.

Yeah, HW evolved at a pace than soon we can use a pregnancy test for the scope 😁

UCyborg wrote on 2026-10-06, 19:25:

lti wrote on 2026-10-04, 16:02:

With all of the health stuff going on, I haven't had the strength or mental capacity to do much. I've even lost motor control, so it's difficult to type or use a mouse. Using touchscreens (such as my phone) is impossible. I haven't slept well in months either, and I think that's a symptom, not the cause of how poorly I feel. The doctors around here are idiots and just tell me that nothing is wrong with me, but they can prescribe sleeping pills for the insomnia.

That's awful...not surprised by doctors being useless, most of them shouldn't even be in that field.

Another problem is that those symptoms aren't constant. Sometimes I'm fine aside from some brain fog.

I probably overshared now, so I'll say that I did some cleaning and thinking that I should look into CPU/GPU frequency scaling while playing video (especially AV1) in Linux on Intel integrated graphics again.

I just swapped out a GeForce 1060 (6GB) for an Intel Arc A380 (6GB) and my system performance/responsiveness increased significantly. Something about the GeForce was bogging my system down. This definitely isn't a better gaming card, but something was going on and I had no error messages or anything to make me think something was amiss, just some clunkiness in my overall system experience.

lti wrote on 2026-10-08, 03:56:

Another problem is that those symptoms aren't constant. Sometimes I'm fine aside from some brain fog.

I probably overshared now, so I'll say that I did some cleaning and thinking that I should look into CPU/GPU frequency scaling while playing video (especially AV1) in Linux on Intel integrated graphics again.

I tend to vent too. At the end of the day, no one gives a shit. Maybe our parents wouldn't have had us if they did. But they were selfish so here we are.

My brain is far from working well. Work's a whole bunch of mundane pointless shit, jumping from one thing to the next and hardly getting anything done. I probably need to change the environment. A bunch of co-workers already left in the several years I've been there. But where am I supposed to go?
---
I compiled new SSE2 version of Pale Moon for use on my computer today. Not strictly needed, could've just used contributed build, but I like the idea of having a version with a better AV1 decoding library. Even though I tend to defer to other codecs when it comes to video in browsers. TBH I don't know much other sites besides YouTube that serve AV1 videos. Maybe Steam store?

And for what little use of YouTube I make, I started using web browser only to find the videos, but otherwise throw links to them to PotPlayer and let its extensions deal with it.

lti wrote on 2026-10-04, 16:02:

With all of the health stuff going on, I haven't had the strength or mental capacity to do much. I've even lost motor control, so it's difficult to type or use a mouse. Using touchscreens (such as my phone) is impossible. I haven't slept well in months either, and I think that's a symptom, not the cause of how poorly I feel. The doctors around here are idiots and just tell me that nothing is wrong with me, but they can prescribe sleeping pills for the insomnia.

The important thing is to keep going and not give up hope.

I am still recovering from a "health event" that happened in 2019, and it has (slowly) improved.
Short story - The Drs told my family that I was going to die (less than 2% chance of living), when it seemed I hadn't gotten that memo, they told them that I would never be able to talk again, walk, or even think! Now 7 years later, I am doing all of those things (there's sometimes a bit of debate about the "thinking" part 😀 )

Long story: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com/2019.htm

If yours is something serious, the medical people will figure it out. If it's not that obvious and they don't (in my case they had "given up" on me). The probability is HIGH that you will still improve (the body has an amazing capacity to heal) - but you have to give it time. I also very much believe that a big factor in "coming back" is to keep living/thinking ... do whatever you can, as much as you can!

I spent quite some time in hospitals for people with serious conditions... As I "returned" I saw many who had given up the fight! - and you could see the difference in those and we who were stubborn about "beating it".

During the first part of my recovery (when I couldn't actually do much at all) - I remember a couple times when I thought: it would have been better if I had just died. I never actually wanted to, but I do recall the thought that it would have been a better result. Where I am now, I know that I will never return to "what I was", but I also know that life is still worth living and I can still enjoy it (within the limitations of "the new me")

- Sorry if this is "hitting too hard" - one of the things I try to do now is provide encouragement to people who find themselves in a similar situation (and their families) - I'm up to (at least) 7 Drs who have said my recovery is a "medical miracle they don't understand" - and I want anyone having an experience like this to know that these "miracles" CAN and DO happen!
As noted above - keeping the brain working is a huge part!

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-10-10, 02:29:

The important thing is to keep going and not give up hope. […]
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lti wrote on 2026-10-04, 16:02:

With all of the health stuff going on, I haven't had the strength or mental capacity to do much. I've even lost motor control, so it's difficult to type or use a mouse. Using touchscreens (such as my phone) is impossible. I haven't slept well in months either, and I think that's a symptom, not the cause of how poorly I feel. The doctors around here are idiots and just tell me that nothing is wrong with me, but they can prescribe sleeping pills for the insomnia.

The important thing is to keep going and not give up hope.

I am still recovering from a "health event" that happened in 2019, and it has (slowly) improved.
Short story - The Drs told my family that I was going to die (less than 2% chance of living), when it seemed I hadn't gotten that memo, they told them that I would never be able to talk again, walk, or even think! Now 7 years later, I am doing all of those things (there's sometimes a bit of debate about the "thinking" part 😀 )

Long story: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com/2019.htm

If yours is something serious, the medical people will figure it out. If it's not that obvious and they don't (in my case they had "given up" on me). The probability is HIGH that you will still improve (the body has an amazing capacity to heal) - but you have to give it time. I also very much believe that a big factor in "coming back" is to keep living/thinking ... do whatever you can, as much as you can!

I spent quite some time in hospitals for people with serious conditions... As I "returned" I saw many who had given up the fight! - and you could see the difference in those and we who were stubborn about "beating it".

During the first part of my recovery (when I couldn't actually do much at all) - I remember a couple times when I thought: it would have been better if I had just died. I never actually wanted to, but I do recall the thought that it would have been a better result. Where I am now, I know that I will never return to "what I was", but I also know that life is still worth living and I can still enjoy it (within the limitations of "the new me")

- Sorry if this is "hitting too hard" - one of the things I try to do now is provide encouragement to people who find themselves in a similar situation (and their families) - I'm up to (at least) 7 Drs who have said my recovery is a "medical miracle they don't understand" - and I want anyone having an experience like this to know that these "miracles" CAN and DO happen!
As noted above - keeping the brain working is a huge part!

You and @lti have my heartfelt best wishes. I have had my share of challenges these last 2 years or so, which probably explains why I have been much less active here during that timeframe.

We can only strive to do our best. We will inevitably always lose our last battle, but valiantly fighting until then is nearly always worth it. I will defer to Kenny Rogers for the rest . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hx4gdlfamo

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-10-10, 02:29:

The important thing is to keep going and not give up hope. […]
Show full quote

lti wrote on 2026-10-04, 16:02:

With all of the health stuff going on, I haven't had the strength or mental capacity to do much. I've even lost motor control, so it's difficult to type or use a mouse. Using touchscreens (such as my phone) is impossible. I haven't slept well in months either, and I think that's a symptom, not the cause of how poorly I feel. The doctors around here are idiots and just tell me that nothing is wrong with me, but they can prescribe sleeping pills for the insomnia.

The important thing is to keep going and not give up hope.

I am still recovering from a "health event" that happened in 2019, and it has (slowly) improved.
Short story - The Drs told my family that I was going to die (less than 2% chance of living), when it seemed I hadn't gotten that memo, they told them that I would never be able to talk again, walk, or even think! Now 7 years later, I am doing all of those things (there's sometimes a bit of debate about the "thinking" part 😀 )

Long story: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com/2019.htm

If yours is something serious, the medical people will figure it out. If it's not that obvious and they don't (in my case they had "given up" on me). The probability is HIGH that you will still improve (the body has an amazing capacity to heal) - but you have to give it time. I also very much believe that a big factor in "coming back" is to keep living/thinking ... do whatever you can, as much as you can!

I spent quite some time in hospitals for people with serious conditions... As I "returned" I saw many who had given up the fight! - and you could see the difference in those and we who were stubborn about "beating it".

During the first part of my recovery (when I couldn't actually do much at all) - I remember a couple times when I thought: it would have been better if I had just died. I never actually wanted to, but I do recall the thought that it would have been a better result. Where I am now, I know that I will never return to "what I was", but I also know that life is still worth living and I can still enjoy it (within the limitations of "the new me")

- Sorry if this is "hitting too hard" - one of the things I try to do now is provide encouragement to people who find themselves in a similar situation (and their families) - I'm up to (at least) 7 Drs who have said my recovery is a "medical miracle they don't understand" - and I want anyone having an experience like this to know that these "miracles" CAN and DO happen!
As noted above - keeping the brain working is a huge part!

What you went through makes my stuff look like nothing.

I'm still going to work like this, so it might not be as bad as I feel like it is (except for earlier in the summer when I slept so little that I took a few sick days).

lti wrote on 2026-10-10, 16:34:

I'm still going to work like this, so it might not be as bad as I feel like it is (except for earlier in the summer when I slept so little that I took a few sick days).

i was aftaid that might have come off "too strong:".

it's not about magnitude, it's about: When things seem unblieveably bad and you feel like it's not going to restore - It can/will get better - you have to give it time and keep as busy as you can doing the stuff you love. I really mean it when I say keeping the brain bisy is a critical part! (at least that was my experience)

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-10-10, 17:32:

lti wrote on 2026-10-10, 16:34:

I'm still going to work like this, so it might not be as bad as I feel like it is (except for earlier in the summer when I slept so little that I took a few sick days).

i was aftaid that might have come off "too strong:".

it's not about magnitude, it's about: When things seem unblieveably bad and you feel like it's not going to restore - It can/will get better - you have to give it time and keep as busy as you can doing the stuff you love. I really mean it when I say keeping the brain bisy is a critical part! (at least that was my experience)

No, you didn't come off too strong. I grew up in a certain part of the country where you just tough it out and keep working through everything until you completely fall apart.

For what I did today, I finally got the networked printer moved to the new WiFi (cheap consumer printer that doesn't have Ethernet). One of the two Windows machines on the network picked up the different IP address, and the other didn't until the driver was manually reinstalled (just Windows networking things). Then I discovered that I had the Samba configuration on my Ryzen set to only allow connections from certain IP ranges. The shared folder on my main desktop still isn't accessible, and I haven't figured out why.

Then I got pissed at Windows using 5.7GB of RAM with no programs running. It's the same on two computers (one with only 8GB of RAM and the other being my laptop, which has lots of startup items disabled). Also, why are there two Copilots, and three OneNotes, and why does a fresh install of Windows 11 still come with the old Windows 10 Mail program that doesn't work anymore?

I might have figured out the performance problems with AviSynth. It's much faster if you let QTGMC run on the full video. Performance drops off when I trim out parts of the video in VirtualDub2. I also learned that FFmpeg compiled with --enable-avisynth is slower than Virtualdub (80fps vs. 70 - I haven't tried enabling multithreading again with the latest plugins). I haven't looked into doing those trims in either the Avisynth script or FFmpeg, but I wonder if it would be faster or slower to split the VHS captures (encoding to a lossless codec) and then run QTGMC on those clips.

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-10-10, 17:32:

It can/will get better - you have to give it time and keep as busy as you can doing the stuff you love.

And if there isn't much you enjoy? Plus working a pointless job you hate steals most of the time.

I got back into playing old CoD again, but I don't think it's much of an enjoyment rather than (failed) attempt to escape and forget about the reality, which remains binding.

Enjoy was perhaps a poor way of wording it.

I've always been very much about creatinh things. I am by no means what most would call an "Artist" in the traditional sense... But for longer than I can remember, I've always been putting things together. Seeing what I could make work. Seeing something "new" come to life in/because-of my own hands.

I think the "trick" in recovery is in keeping your brain busy - thinking about things. Solving puzzels is great, but as long as it's not something you "hate" I think it could help a LOT.

Every "system" in the body is controlled by/managed by the brain, and the last thing you want is for it to have incentive to "give up".

I'm no medical "unknown drip under pressure" ('X' marks the unknown - "spurt" is a drip under pressure 😀 ) - just preaching my (fairly in-depth) experience along the way to recovery!

Another thing is that I wasn't able to enjoy outdoor activities because it was unbearably hot this summer.

I finally got around to applying the undervolt on my Ryzen. MSI's BIOS is confusing because you have to set PBO to "Advanced" from the drop-down menu, and then it appears to increase CPU current and voltage limits unless you set "PBO Limits" to Disabled. According to the description in the BIOS, disabling limits actually means that you're using AMD's standard non-PBO limits, which I'm guessing are better when you're undervolting. I thought the SoC voltage reduced idle power consumption, but it didn't help this time.

darry wrote on 2026-10-02, 01:14:

In general terms, I would agree, with the exception of older 64-bit architectures like that of the DEC Alpha. […]
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myne wrote on 2026-09-30, 11:45:

I argue that retro = 16/32bit os, agp/isa, non-uefi
Any one of those = retro

64b,pcie,uefi can be old and slow but it's still contemporary enough.

In general terms, I would agree, with the exception of older 64-bit architectures like that of the DEC Alpha.

Assuming you were referring solely to x86-64 when you wrote 64b, then I absolutely agree.
😀

Yes. X86 opinion.

lti wrote on 2026-10-12, 02:56:

Another thing is that I wasn't able to enjoy outdoor activities because it was unbearably hot this summer.

Yeah, I see your profile sez "Colerado". My daughter lives near Denver and she says it's been so hot that she has to do anything outdoor early mornings.

But... It's not just there:

I was going to be on a river cruise now... but it was looking more and more that it would be a long drawn-out bus trip - the rivers in Europe are very dry this summer. Literally "mud flats" where even a rowboat couldn't sail.

Every time we contacted the company in the past few months (when we could have re-arranged our flights) ... they kept saying "there won't be any problem - It's going to go".

Then, literally one day before we were set to fly (Canada to Germany) we got notified that it was cancelled!

We came anyway, decided to explore some other new locations... currently in Amsterdam! - going back via a trans-Atlantic ship crossing an about a week - hopefully THAT water won't be too low! (but hey ... everyone known that climate change isn't real - right!)

Well, I forked Intel's wifi...

Backstory... Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today

So what is going on is that not a peep did I see out of the internal wifi card, it came with no antenna. Even so I thought it a little unusual, since you'd see the strongest signals occasionally, but not reliably on many internal cards without antennas. However, the position of this one is almost double Faraday caged, being between drive cage and motherboard backplane, then being inside a metal case with no significant openings. All I had for testing was a replacement wifi patch antenna for a laptop and didn't want to use it's sticky up on this, so left it on it's backing paper. Wanted to get it away from the crowded back panel, so why not stick it in the air? 🤣

Qualified, success, I am seeing a lot of signals now, my own and neighbouring houses, leading me to suppose that the antenna is antenning just fine. I get 90% signal level in the widget, which should be a stout connection. When it connects though, get about 200kbit throughput, nasty. That's like a quarter of pre b standards even. So I am thinking the wifi card is actually forked and I should try another one. Maybe why the antenna got robbed off this unit, it wasn't "using" it.

Scene of crime photo...

Heh, how much trouble can swapping a wifi card be? Some previous bitmangler had bottomed out a too long screw in the hold down standoff. Needed to get the high quality bit to it, was stripping the knockaround screwdrivers. It's a wonder it didn't spin the rivet. Well I guess that was why the thing was broke and still in there. Found a random Broadcom card and stuck that in. Back together, reboot, yay, actual useable wifi, speedtesting connection as fast as it should be.

Still gotta wire up the drive power, running off USB sticks is slowwww.