I just closed up the new file server in its Fractal Define 7 XL case. There was an extra filter that matched the Fractal Define R5 which is what I temporarily used for the 98 box. I'm about ready to kill off the old Windows 10 file server--just copying some files off it now--which lives in a Fractal Define XL R2. I'm going Fractal!!! (whatever that means) Didn't even realize.

I ordered two "Fractal Universal Multibrackets" that "Convert(s) a standard 120 mm fan slot to an HDD, SSD or pump mount..." Fractal first pointed me to <<that big online store>> but they only had 1 used. So I looked around for other converters, and there's all kinds of useful things. It seems to me, with a bit more hunting, there might be a way to do a conversion and get at least 2 drives in there on the bottom (or wherever) connected to use IDE 1, saving IDE 2 for the CD player (using that 18/24" ide cable). The rest might go on a couple of Promise cards... have to measure. Also, I wonder if it's possible to install both a Promise s150 tx2+ and a 100 tx2. One way to find out.

That Pop Air is really nice for a retro. Not beige, which I never liked, but all white, even inside, which I think is much nicer.

When I built those 3 computers (in the fractal cases) back in 2016 or so, I originally got a case that looked like it belonged in a stereo system, similar to what you posted, but probably larger and it had a bay for a bluray reader. That thing was so tight and hard to work with: the top flipped up and the drive bays mounted to that top. I cut so many knuckles on it and had such a hard time that I tossed it in the recycling bin and just used the mid size Fractal--originally meant for emby--to the living room. Its replacement was a Corsair Obsidian 250D, but I didn't need it and it sat for 10 years all ready to go but with no OS. The Obsidian is perfect for moving around a bit, but it's mini-Itx.

Anyway, I insist on having all 8 rear motherboard slots for the 98/DOS box.

SiBurning wrote on 2026-05-13, 20:09:

I just closed up the new file server in its Fractal Define 7 XL case. There was an extra filter that matched the Fractal Define […]
Show full quote

I just closed up the new file server in its Fractal Define 7 XL case. There was an extra filter that matched the Fractal Define R5 which is what I temporarily used for the 98 box. I'm about ready to kill off the old Windows 10 file server--just copying some files off it now--which lives in a Fractal Define XL R2. I'm going Fractal!!! (whatever that means) Didn't even realize.

I ordered two "Fractal Universal Multibrackets" that "Convert(s) a standard 120 mm fan slot to an HDD, SSD or pump mount..." Fractal first pointed me to <<that big online store>> but they only had 1 used. So I looked around for other converters, and there's all kinds of useful things. It seems to me, with a bit more hunting, there might be a way to do a conversion and get at least 2 drives in there on the bottom (or wherever) connected to use IDE 1, saving IDE 2 for the CD player (using that 18/24" ide cable). The rest might go on a couple of Promise cards... have to measure. Also, I wonder if it's possible to install both a Promise s150 tx2+ and a 100 tx2. One way to find out.

That Pop Air is really nice for a retro. Not beige, which I never liked, but all white, even inside, which I think is much nicer.

When I built those 3 computers (in the fractal cases) back in 2016 or so, I originally got a case that looked like it belonged in a stereo system, similar to what you posted, but probably larger and it had a bay for a bluray reader. That thing was so tight and hard to work with: the top flipped up and the drive bays mounted to that top. I cut so many knuckles on it and had such a hard time that I tossed it in the recycling bin and just used the mid size Fractal--originally meant for emby--to the living room. Its replacement was a Corsair Obsidian 250D, but I didn't need it and it sat for 10 years all ready to go but with no OS. The Obsidian is perfect for moving around a bit, but it's mini-Itx.

I originally got that Node 202 to house a i7-9700K + GTX 2080 Super and act as a roll-my-own XBox/HTPC. It was an absolute nightmare for thermals (tucked in that cubby), so that left it open to the silliness I've currently subjected it to.

(Its replacement, in the same pic I posted under the amp, is a much much larger Thermaltake case, chosen specifically to ensure I could get a couple fans pushing straight out the front. I may have gone a little overboard in my frustration to solve the thermal issue...

)

That pic of my old Slot 1 BF6 with 10 IDE hds absolutely had two Promise cards in it. Very likely even a s150 tx2+ and 100 tx2 as that would line up with my upgrade path at the time (I'd just moved in to a KT7-RAID for my primary system). So yeah, go for it!

Edit: ooh, that Corsair case really gives old Shuttle XPC vibes (if a bit bigger), loved that form factor!

Well, I made a gamble and so far it has been a failure, but I am hoping to salvage this.

I don't have much time at the moment so I can't get into too much detail but I picked up an "Untested" ASUS Z97-A/USB3.1 board in box with manual on ebay for a low price. I was hoping it would be okay and I could use it with an i7 5775C I picked up recently.

Needless to say, the board does not work (also, I just did my testing with some basic i3 and i5 chips). When I switch the power supply on the PWR_LED on the motherboard near the PWR_SW (button) flashes every second or two. I got out my thermal camera and I could actually see traces and some ICs lighting up very briefly and their heat dissipating... so I figured I was dealing with a short and a protection circuit was shutting it off before it caused any more damage. My thermal camera is very sensitive so the difference in temp was only like 1C, but it happens very quickly.

Anyway, long story short, I found that there is 6.8 ohms of resistance between 5v and GND at the ATX connector and it is basically like this everywhere on the board with 5v and GND. I tried pulling PQ301 (a P06P03G P-Mosfet) since it was one of the ICs that was heating up quick. After doing this, the PWR_LED stays on and doesn't turn on and off, and the rapid heating of those traces\ICs on the thermal camera stopped but the +5v to ground is still showing 6.8ohms and the system doesn't respond to the power switch. I found another identical P-Mosfet on another board and swapped that in and it is doing the same thing as before, so I think this is just a side effect of the actual problem. Interestingly, two of the ICs that seem to "heat up" (visible on the thermal camera, but they only go from 28 to 30C) when it is turning on and off are actually not even on the +5v circuit, they are on 3.3v or 3.3vsb. I won't pretend to know what any of this means. Just more data.

I tried looking for the lowest resistance component on the board, thought I found it and pulled a tiny cap off the board but that didn't change anything either. There must be something else still.

I'm at a loss at this point. I don't see any damage on the board at all. The pins in the socket are fine and not bent. Everything looks fine on the back too.

I found a boardview of a similar model that is mostly identical and have attached it to this post. I have also done tons of searching online with regard to this board or similar component failures, but nothing quite fits the bill.

I will get into more detail when I have time but if anyone has any ideas as to how I could track down whatever is causing the low resistance on the 5v rail to ground it would be much appreciated. I don't think this is normal because I have checked two other boards of this generation and both show roughly 1500 ohms between +5v and GND.

EDIT: Okay, unless I missed something I have now tested all of the components listed on the schematic that connect between +5v and GND. Only one cap (KC13) was measuring any lower than others and it was 6.7 ohm. I removed it just in case and it made no difference.

Anyway, if I am chasing a red herring here and it isn't the +5v circuit having some kind of failed component, then that means something has likely failed on the 3.3v circuit, and at that point I will probably just call it quits because that could be caused by basically anything, including the PCH itself.

It's the time of year when Windows ignores everything you do to prevent it from updating drivers and "updates" your graphics driver to a broken or incompatible one anyway. That isn't a recent "Microslop" thing. It also happened in Windows 10, and it happens in late April or early May every year.

Before anyone says it, hiding updates never stopped them from being installed in any version of Windows. All that ever did was hide the installation progress from you. That's the way it has been since XP, so that isn't new either.

The Internet and modern hardware and software still suck, and it will just keep getting worse. I'm having a four-day weekend, so I cleaned up my yard and put in some new sprinkler heads.

lti wrote on 2026-05-16, 00:50:

It's the time of year when Windows ignores everything you do to prevent it from updating drivers and "updates" your graphics driver to a broken or incompatible one anyway. That isn't a recent "Microslop" thing. It also happened in Windows 10, and it happens in late April or early May every year.

Before anyone says it, hiding updates never stopped them from being installed in any version of Windows. All that ever did was hide the installation progress from you. That's the way it has been since XP, so that isn't new either.

The Internet and modern hardware and software still suck, and it will just keep getting worse. I'm having a four-day weekend, so I cleaned up my yard and put in some new sprinkler heads.

I have never had this happen on my PC and I am using the same installation of Windows 10 Pro from December of 2019. I absolutely do not tolerate automatic driver installations on any system that I personally use. It also did not happen on Windows 7 Pro prior to my switch to Windows 10, or on any of my other machines (living room, laptops, etc.).

When I set up a system for use in my house I always use Winaero Tweaker to disable automatic driver updates. It can also be done manually, I just find this program a lot faster and more convenient to enable several tweaks and disable Windows features that I don't want. I believe I have been using it since the Vista days, so close to 20 years. I highly recommend it.

Rescued some files from a Lenovo Tab P11 Pro Gen 2 tablet with a busted screen.

The generic BKM for such endeavors, with Android devices whose screens are not working and are not responding to touch, is to have enabled USB debugging and permanently authorized your PC, ahead of time. Then you can pull whatever you want via ADB.

Needless to say that it wasn't done in this case. Fortunately, I remembered that these tablets are advanced enough to fully support USB OtG and USB-C peripherals. Also fortunately, I have a ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock Gen 2 which does perfect USB-C fallback. Simply plugging the tablet into the dock immediately enabled display, keyboard and mouse, so all the necessary PIN codes and authorizations could be entered.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-05-16, 04:07:

I have never had this happen on my PC and I am using the same installation of Windows 10 Pro from December of 2019. I absolutely do not tolerate automatic driver installations on any system that I personally use. It also did not happen on Windows 7 Pro prior to my switch to Windows 10, or on any of my other machines (living room, laptops, etc.).

When I set up a system for use in my house I always use Winaero Tweaker to disable automatic driver updates. It can also be done manually, I just find this program a lot faster and more convenient to enable several tweaks and disable Windows features that I don't want. I believe I have been using it since the Vista days, so close to 20 years. I highly recommend it.

I have one computer that does it exactly once a year. It's also running the Home version of Windows, so I don't have group policies. The registry entries work for a year. I had Windows ignore my registry entry to stop updating one specific device's driver, then the registry entry to stop all driver updates changed, and then the registry key got auto-deleted during an update. This year, I've read a lot of complaints about the same thing happening to other people, but I haven't booted that computer into Windows in a while. It's dual-booting with Linux, but it's also that one computer where every distro I install on it fails in a different way that makes no sense.

I first heard of Winaero Tweaker a few months ago. I haven't tried it yet because I'm honestly tired of running Windows on my main computer. Ever since Windows 10 launched, it has been a constant battle. Linux doesn't work either, so I don't know what to do now.

Not really a new thing for 10/11 either. Had an older machine that they kept murdering the sound drivers on annually. Well, at least 3 times in 3 years.

Who knows the logic of Microsoft...

I sure wish I did, particularly their actual Outlook Junk Email folder clearing policy, as opposed to the stated one ... makes me super nervous. There's one sender I need to see emails from and they keep ending up in there no matter how many times I mark them not junk. Just about every new contact seems to end up in junk first go these days. Now, if they stuck to actual 1 month expiry, that would be fine... however.. this seems to be very erratic... one time it didn't clear for 2 or 3 months, ancient shit sitting in there.... then lately... I am feeling suspicious because it's been empty every day for a month... this following where it seemed to delete some actual junk at only one week old... so between all those behaviours I am wondering if I have some email missing, that should not have been junk, and deleted really early from junk before I caught it.

lti wrote on 2026-05-16, 16:22:

I have one computer that does it exactly once a year. It's also running the Home version of Windows, so I don't have group policies. The registry entries work for a year. I had Windows ignore my registry entry to stop updating one specific device's driver, then the registry entry to stop all driver updates changed, and then the registry key got auto-deleted during an update. This year, I've read a lot of complaints about the same thing happening to other people, but I haven't booted that computer into Windows in a while. It's dual-booting with Linux, but it's also that one computer where every distro I install on it fails in a different way that makes no sense.

I first heard of Winaero Tweaker a few months ago. I haven't tried it yet because I'm honestly tired of running Windows on my main computer. Ever since Windows 10 launched, it has been a constant battle. Linux doesn't work either, so I don't know what to do now.

Sorry to hear it's been giving you such a rough time. Honestly, since Windows 10 stopped getting feature updates a few years ago it has been the smoothest, least problem free time I have ever had with an operating system. Turning off as many features that try to do things for you in the background makes all the difference and Winaero Tweaker makes that much easier. Also, since 10 isn't really changing anymore, the registry entries and tweaks should no longer get broken by updates. I intend to stick to 10 as long as there are ways to keep getting security updates (which there are).

Just to show I'm not making this up, here is a screenshot of the driver portion of my Update History.

I don't know what the ones were in 2022, but it was either from a feature update that changed something before I disabled auto driver updates again, or I had changed something on purpose. I can't remember.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-16, 21:19:

Not really a new thing for 10/11 either. Had an older machine that they kept murdering the sound drivers on annually. Well, at least 3 times in 3 years.

I can't say I've experienced the annual driver destruction thing, but I know that leaving auto driver updates on has caused issues on several machines I've worked on. That said, I believe Windows 10 was the first version that had automatic driver updates included with OS updates. I think 7, 8 and 8.1 allowed you to manually download drivers from the Windows Update servers but I don't believe that it was normal behavior for them to suddenly update if a device was already installed and working.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-16, 21:19:

Who knows the logic of Microsoft...

I sure wish I did, particularly their actual Outlook Junk Email folder clearing policy, as opposed to the stated one ... makes me super nervous. There's one sender I need to see emails from and they keep ending up in there no matter how many times I mark them not junk. Just about every new contact seems to end up in junk first go these days. Now, if they stuck to actual 1 month expiry, that would be fine... however.. this seems to be very erratic... one time it didn't clear for 2 or 3 months, ancient shit sitting in there.... then lately... I am feeling suspicious because it's been empty every day for a month... this following where it seemed to delete some actual junk at only one week old... so between all those behaviours I am wondering if I have some email missing, that should not have been junk, and deleted really early from junk before I caught it.

It's funny you mention that. I have been using Thunderbird as my email client for 15-20 years, but recently I have noticed something weird. I have more than one email account set up in it and my old ISP-provided email address that I don't really use anymore I used to get dozens of junk emails per week and I had them auto filtering into the trash or junk folders. For the past month I have been getting... zero. Like none at all. I tested it and it is receiving legit emails just fine. I also checked my ISP's webmail interface to see if they were doing some kind of overzealous mass deletion\filtering before they even reached me, and I can find no sign of this happening (though there is a setting that does this, it is not turned on).

I can't really explain what changed, but I have some junk mail from April 13th and that is the LAST junk I have received at that email address, period. It's crazy because I have had that address for close to 25 years, have barely used it over the last 10 and have always had the inbox (or trash\junk once I added filters) filled with junk mail.

Maybe something has changed with spam filtering in general and now we just aren't getting them like we used to?

RandomStranger wrote on 2026-05-12, 10:51:

I finally decided to upgrade the graphics card in my daily driver. […]
Show full quote

I finally decided to upgrade the graphics card in my daily driver.

The attachment IMG_20260512_123618_HDR.jpg is no longer available

AMD has cheated me twice. I owned a 9600 Pro back in the mid-2000s and at the HD7000 series when I learned they used up the 8000 series names for OEM cards I was hoping I can upgrade to an HD9600 series card. They skipped that and went with the R9/7/5-2xx series. Then now after the RX7000 they skipped the 8000 series again, instead of selling me an RX9600 they went with 9060. I guess it's still better than having a soft spot for the 8000 series which always gets skipped.

Anyway, it came with a free mouse which normally sells for around 80€. I'll be trying to sell it for 60 and consider it a discount. As for my old RX480, I don't know what to do with it. It has good Windows 7 era performance and maybe(?) still have driver support, while it's value on the used market is around 60€ where I live, which is not a lot of money for something that served me well for almost 6 years. But I have better chance at selling this than the mouse and currently I don't see myself doing a W7 nostalgia build.

This weekend I had the time to add the card. At first it didn't load the drivers. As it turned out, Linux Mint 21.3 wasn't supported with recent enough kernels to handle the card. LiquorX and XanMod were no-gos, so I just updated to LM 22.3. Only did some testing in Furmark so far. The frame rate went from an average of 68 to an average of 166 while the max temperature went from 81˚C to 59˚C meanwhile the fans are more silent. The card has the same TDP and it's significantly shorter.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-05-16, 23:39:

Sorry to hear it's been giving you such a rough time. Honestly, since Windows 10 stopped getting feature updates a few years ago it has been the smoothest, least problem free time I have ever had with an operating system. Turning off as many features that try to do things for you in the background makes all the difference and Winaero Tweaker makes that much easier. Also, since 10 isn't really changing anymore, the registry entries and tweaks should no longer get broken by updates. I intend to stick to 10 as long as there are ways to keep getting security updates (which there are).

Maybe I shouldn't have moved to Windows 11. It's too late now.

My other problem with Windows that nobody else seems to have (or notice) is having my CPU hit its power limit for a few hours continuously after booting while Task Manager reports 1% CPU usage. Even the per-core chart doesn't show enough usage to spike power consumption like that.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-16, 21:19:

Who knows the logic of Microsoft...

I sure wish I did, particularly their actual Outlook Junk Email folder clearing policy, as opposed to the stated one ... makes me super nervous. There's one sender I need to see emails from and they keep ending up in there no matter how many times I mark them not junk. Just about every new contact seems to end up in junk first go these days. Now, if they stuck to actual 1 month expiry, that would be fine... however.. this seems to be very erratic... one time it didn't clear for 2 or 3 months, ancient shit sitting in there.... then lately... I am feeling suspicious because it's been empty every day for a month... this following where it seemed to delete some actual junk at only one week old... so between all those behaviours I am wondering if I have some email missing, that should not have been junk, and deleted really early from junk before I caught it.

I'm still getting junk emails, but there are certain senders that always appear in my inbox, even if they're already flagged as junk. One of my reasons for switching from Outlook to Thunderbird (besides the ads disguised as unread emails in your inbox) was because every email from a sender I flagged as junk went to the inbox while addresses I marked as trusted got all of their emails sent to junk. Even after I switched to Thunderbird (and really should switch again because of Mozilla, but there's nothing else I know of for Windows), I had to create a filter to automatically move LinkedIn corporate spam to the junk folder. They were marked as spam, Thunderbird was configured to automatically move everything marked as spam to the junk folder, and every other sender I marked as spam got moved automatically. A couple weeks ago, that filter suddenly got set to only run manually, but I didn't touch anything.

I 3D printed some pen adapter bits for some knockoff Isomars nibs I got on sale.

I also replaced the inktanks that came with said nibs, because said tanks were trash. V5 liquid ink pens make FANTASTIC ink tank replacements. (that hold 3x as much ink, are much more durable, and hold on to the nib with greater tenacity and thus dont leak)

This goes with playing with my retro 1980s pen plotter.

I am in the middle of doing some tests, both with these knockoff technical pen tips, and with a novel medium-- Using forbidden highschool level chemistry skills, I isolated and (mostly) de-salted the pigments from some RIT fabric dyes, and then suspended them in alcohol as alcohol dyes.

These should be lightfast (made for dying fabric, after all) and dissolve very cleanly in alcohol. So far, they flow just fine in these nibs.

The retro activity is doing the plotting. The modern activity, is the 3D printing, and kitchen chemistry.

I got a free first-gen i7 laptop and tried to install Linux on it. Since I had a 2GB USB stick handy I went looking for an install image that was under 2GB. Q4OS Andromeda Plasma 64-bit seemed to fit the bill. Unforunately the laptop has an NVS 3100M or similar GPU and Nouveau drivers are super glitchy, making some programs unusable. nvidia-detect reports the last supporting driver version was 340 and this no longer works on current OSs. The laptop doesn't seem to have redundant Intel gfx, or if it does it isn't detected.

These days upgrading an old notebook an Acer 5741G version (unfortunately with the Geforce 320M, I'd have preferred the iGPU version for linux) to an i7-640M (2 x 3,4Ghz HT 4MB L3), 8GB DDR3 and SSD, main battery and few components (webcam module, wifi-bluetooth mini pcie card etc. I had to flash a modded bios for the Turbo boost bios option so I went from the i3-330M 2,1Ghz freq to the actual 3,2Ghz (lower in Linux than Windows cause the freq governor I think). Quite fast machine for how old it is as notebook. With this cpu and freqs it become hot soon but a good termal paste helped a lot. I can't use the Intel iGPU as said even with a modded bios it seems, probably the hw isn't designed for that switch.

SiBurning wrote on 2026-05-13, 10:28:

ubiq wrote on 2026-05-12, 20:23:

Heck yeah! […]
Show full quote

SiBurning wrote on 2026-05-12, 19:38:

"just a bunch of spare drives"
There's a name for that now, and a whole lot of fancy terminilogy and articles to make it respectable. JBOD! It's what I just built.

Heck yeah!

As for your Win98 machine, my solution to trying to find the perfect retro case, was to not:

The attachment IMG_3207.jpeg is no longer available

Instead, I built a Socket 7 (430TX, not super) P233 MMX system done up like a slick, modern machine. So like, hang on to that Fractal case if you ever move your server out of it...

Saw that case. Love it for the right build. It has the power supply behind the motherboard so no extension cable necessary. And I liked the white inside & out for a change. It was on my short list before I put the search off. Space for like 100 fans, but was it 2 hard drives and 2 SSDs? I want at least three 3.5" and a 5 1/4". I already installed the 98 stuff in the now empty (smaller) Fractal case, and it just needs long IDE cables. But it's big & heavy. Decided to look for something small & semi-portable so I can drag it into the living room when I want to use it late at night and hide it away otherwise. Or I could CLEAN MY ROOM and make proper space for stuff.

Retro, but...

Finally putting the finishing touches on that file server. Installed a 92mm noctua in a fan shroud for the HBA card, and waiting on 3 front fans to replace the noisy ones supplied by Fractal. Would prefer to move the hot air from the HBA out of the case through an expansion slot (there's 8 vertical spares) but can't find anything, so this will do for now.

So I went back to the Windows 98 box. Got a replacement power supply and put everything in the Fractal Define R5 case and got nearly everything working. Only issue is none of my IDE CD/DVD players work, and when I attach a SATA drive to the Promise s150 Tx2 Plus, it no longer finds the 120 GB IDE hard drive. It's annoying because the motherboard BIOS can only handle 30 GB drives. I'll try to pick up a (hopefully) working IDE CD drive and see where to go from there. Kind of pains me now, all the stuff I threw out over the years, including some Plextor SCSI drives, though I kept the Adaptec AHA-2940-UW pci card. The motherboard has a few slightly bulging caps, but that can wait until I clear the desk of these other projects.

My computer has been popping up "limited connectivity" notifications, even though my Internet still works. I think something broke in an update a couple weeks ago, or maybe even Linux developers can't believe that anyone still has Internet as slow as mine.

I had a flyer for fiber Internet on my front porch on Friday, and the first person I told replied with, "Why do you need that?" I'll have to look up the ISP to see how good they are, but they're listing 500Mbps for $60/month and 1Gbps for $95/month. That's cheaper than what I'm paying now for an inconsistent 5-15Mbps DSL connection (upload speed stays at a constant 1Mbps somehow while download speed is different every day).

lti wrote on 2026-05-31, 18:21:

My computer has been popping up "limited connectivity" notifications, even though my Internet still works. I think something broke in an update a couple weeks ago, or maybe even Linux developers can't believe that anyone still has Internet as slow as mine.

I had a flyer for fiber Internet on my front porch on Friday, and the first person I told replied with, "Why do you need that?" I'll have to look up the ISP to see how good they are, but they're listing 500Mbps for $60/month and 1Gbps for $95/month. That's cheaper than what I'm paying now for an inconsistent 5-15Mbps DSL connection (upload speed stays at a constant 1Mbps somehow while download speed is different every day).

Does fiber internet cost that much in the US?
I pay 16€ (like 20$) a month for 5gbit (divided into 3 lines: 1 + 2.5 + 1.5 for wifi)

Nexxen wrote on 2026-05-31, 18:36:

lti wrote on 2026-05-31, 18:21:

My computer has been popping up "limited connectivity" notifications, even though my Internet still works. I think something broke in an update a couple weeks ago, or maybe even Linux developers can't believe that anyone still has Internet as slow as mine.

I had a flyer for fiber Internet on my front porch on Friday, and the first person I told replied with, "Why do you need that?" I'll have to look up the ISP to see how good they are, but they're listing 500Mbps for $60/month and 1Gbps for $95/month. That's cheaper than what I'm paying now for an inconsistent 5-15Mbps DSL connection (upload speed stays at a constant 1Mbps somehow while download speed is different every day).

Does fiber internet cost that much in the US?
I pay 16€ (like 20$) a month for 5gbit (divided into 3 lines: 1 + 2.5 + 1.5 for wifi)

Cost of internet varies massively from place to place, with rural or less populated places usually having much more limited (and probably expensive) options. Even availability of broadband isn't universal, but we're talking almost 10 million square kilometers (~8 million for the contiguous states). To say it's a big area to provide access to would be an understatement.

Since Iti's profile says he is in Northern Colorado, there is a good chance that he's not anywhere near a big city.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-05-31, 21:47:

Nexxen wrote on 2026-05-31, 18:36:

lti wrote on 2026-05-31, 18:21:

My computer has been popping up "limited connectivity" notifications, even though my Internet still works. I think something broke in an update a couple weeks ago, or maybe even Linux developers can't believe that anyone still has Internet as slow as mine.

I had a flyer for fiber Internet on my front porch on Friday, and the first person I told replied with, "Why do you need that?" I'll have to look up the ISP to see how good they are, but they're listing 500Mbps for $60/month and 1Gbps for $95/month. That's cheaper than what I'm paying now for an inconsistent 5-15Mbps DSL connection (upload speed stays at a constant 1Mbps somehow while download speed is different every day).

Does fiber internet cost that much in the US?
I pay 16€ (like 20$) a month for 5gbit (divided into 3 lines: 1 + 2.5 + 1.5 for wifi)

Cost of internet varies massively from place to place, with rural or less populated places usually having much more limited (and probably expensive) options. Even availability of broadband isn't universal, but we're talking almost 10 million square kilometers (~8 million for the contiguous states). To say it's a big area to provide access to would be an understatement.

Since Iti's profile says he is in Northern Colorado, there is a good chance that he's not anywhere near a big city.

Missed that one on being far from a big network.
It's the same here then. Even where I live we have a provider that connects via FWA, using dish like technology for remote places (not satellite though).
Some places are still happy they have phone lines... or 8Mbit connections

I've watched for years video about rural depopulation.
I hope he can get the speed he was advertised.

Nexxen wrote on 2026-05-31, 18:36:

Does fiber internet cost that much in the US?
I pay 16€ (like 20$) a month for 5gbit (divided into 3 lines: 1 + 2.5 + 1.5 for wifi)

I don't know how much fiber costs on average in this country, but it's a lot higher than what you're paying.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-05-31, 21:47:

Since Iti's profile says he is in Northern Colorado, there is a good chance that he's not anywhere near a big city.

Fort Collins is as big as it gets here, but there are a lot of tech companies there (except that Intel left, AMD went full remote, and HPE was talking about downsizing by moving into the old AMD building). Where I live specifically is obsessed enough with keeping a "small town feel" without actually being a small town that they kind of artificially cut themselves off.