Although that card is adequate, thinking about putting a different one in. Forgot I had a bluetooth wifi combo card. Feeling like that would be a good idea given that the only way I can add anything to this box is USB and KB and Mouse need one each, unless I go to a PS/2 Y converter, then one, but that's still 20% of them. So using BT keyboard and mouse would get that back. Think it's an Azurus or something like that. Once upon a time I thought I had an intel combo card, but maybe installed it in something and forgot.

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-10-14, 17:40:

... going back via a trans-Atlantic ship crossing an about a week - hopefully THAT water won't be too low! ...

On our way now .. see attached

last 2 days I had tried to go back to windows 10 on my potato PC and failed.
It installed but for the extended security updates I used an alternative Microsoft account on a pc with a digital license already activated on my main Microsoft email address.
It said it was ESU enabled but still showed missing updates message after windows update.
I tried all the fixes nothing changed it was frustrating
It then got nasty.
Images vanished from folder.
Video games became laggy.
Please learn from my mistake if you already activated ESU with an email account do not use an alternative email address if you reinstall windows 10 and do the process again will fail internally and silently.
Maybe someone could verify this because I also thought i was hacked and changed every damn password I had on planet earth.

Is Win10 still 'modern' or already 'retro'?

I think it's modern. Anyways, I set up an old Toshiba Portégé Z30-C for my son to use in school.

6th generation Core i5, 13.3" FHD IPS screen, 256GB NVMe SSD, very light weight. I can upgrade RAM from 8GB to 16GB if I need.

Quite impressed with how Win10 just picked up all the drivers. I only had to install one driver for the Alps pointing device (trackpoint/touchpad) to get access to the advanced settings.

The only question is whether the battery life is going to be long enough. We'll find out.

Some argue by age.
In which case 6th gen + 10 is "retro"

I argue by any ONE of the following
* BIOS[1]
* ISA/AGP in use [2]
* 16/32bit OS [3]

[1] ie not uefi
[2] Yes, I am aware LPC(ISA 2.0 as it were) which existed up to s1151(v1) and AM4 does technically connect superios but unless it's actively running something else it's kinda moot
[3] I suppose you could count xp64, vista, 7, 8, 8.1 as retro if you really really wanted to but they're functionally degrees away from W11 and there's no particularly compelling reason outside of "it's old and slow" to run them when 10/11 will 99% of the time run fine.

Anything else is just old. I don't think old is retro automatically.
It's like pointing at a 95 Toyota Camry and saying "look it's retro!"
It's just a template car. There's nothing special about it.
No reason to buy or drive it except as transport because it exists at a price in your proximity.

6th gen running w10 would by some definitions be retro.
It's UEFI, PCIE, and running win64.
To me, it is simply old. Nothing wrong with it. It's contemporary enough.
Aside from artificial constraints easily worked around, you can do everything on it you can do on the newest. Albeit slower.

Adding a battery to the Super Station One today and I'm kind of impressed by the build quality. I like how everything is labeled on the PCB.

Woohoo, the improbable Ryzen system is alive, with motherboard from Amazon sale, rando loose cpu from FB rando, thrift store DDR4 kit AND 2023 pulls from an IT worker ddr4 kit freebie. Also tested a thrifted single 8GB crucial stick and that seemed good too. It's still just on the mobo tray with temp GPU while I screw around with testing RAM and making sure things fitted to case.

It's definitely working fine at 2133 lowest common denominator RAM speed, the highest JEDEC one in the Teamgroup pair, and the default of the Samsung/HP pair of "generics". What I am not sure of is whether settings are sticking or not, tried going up to 2800, because the XMP on the teamgroup is a long ways from X at 2600, default volts, and the Samsung chips appear to be the 4Gbit famed "B" dies that take all the volts and go to 3800 or more. Anyway if the settings stuck they did one pass of memtest86 like that. Wondering if I should find out which OC modules used Samsung and what their XMP is, and copy it.

But anyway, got Ryzen 5 1500X going on 32GB on a B550 mATX board and need to get it fully buttoned up into the case and Ubuntu Trashpanda installed.

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 00:45:

Woohoo, the improbable Ryzen system is alive, with motherboard from Amazon sale, rando loose cpu from FB rando, thrift store DDR4 kit AND 2023 pulls from an IT worker ddr4 kit freebie. Also tested a thrifted single 8GB crucial stick and that seemed good too. It's still just on the mobo tray with temp GPU while I screw around with testing RAM and making sure things fitted to case.

It's definitely working fine at 2133 lowest common denominator RAM speed, the highest JEDEC one in the Teamgroup pair, and the default of the Samsung/HP pair of "generics". What I am not sure of is whether settings are sticking or not, tried going up to 2800, because the XMP on the teamgroup is a long ways from X at 2600, default volts, and the Samsung chips appear to be the 4Gbit famed "B" dies that take all the volts and go to 3800 or more. Anyway if the settings stuck they did one pass of memtest86 like that. Wondering if I should find out which OC modules used Samsung and what their XMP is, and copy it.

But anyway, got Ryzen 5 1500X going on 32GB on a B550 mATX board and need to get it fully buttoned up into the case and Ubuntu Trashpanda installed.

Ryzen 5500 looks like rather sweet 125$ 6c/12t upgrade for that (the 1500X could probably be sold to recoup some $$$). Even a 5900 XT with 16c/12t is like 400$. That being said, if the objective is make it the best bargain bin/yard sale build (fits the origin story of the parts you mention) that you can, don't change a thing.

darry wrote on Today, 01:11:

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 00:45:

Woohoo, the improbable Ryzen system is alive, with motherboard from Amazon sale, rando loose cpu from FB rando, thrift store DDR4 kit AND 2023 pulls from an IT worker ddr4 kit freebie. Also tested a thrifted single 8GB crucial stick and that seemed good too. It's still just on the mobo tray with temp GPU while I screw around with testing RAM and making sure things fitted to case.

It's definitely working fine at 2133 lowest common denominator RAM speed, the highest JEDEC one in the Teamgroup pair, and the default of the Samsung/HP pair of "generics". What I am not sure of is whether settings are sticking or not, tried going up to 2800, because the XMP on the teamgroup is a long ways from X at 2600, default volts, and the Samsung chips appear to be the 4Gbit famed "B" dies that take all the volts and go to 3800 or more. Anyway if the settings stuck they did one pass of memtest86 like that. Wondering if I should find out which OC modules used Samsung and what their XMP is, and copy it.

But anyway, got Ryzen 5 1500X going on 32GB on a B550 mATX board and need to get it fully buttoned up into the case and Ubuntu Trashpanda installed.

Ryzen 5500 looks like rather sweet 125$ 6c/12t upgrade for that (the 1500X could probably be sold to recoup some $$$). Even a 5900 XT with 16c/12t is like 400$. That being said, if the objective is make it the best bargain bin/yard sale build (fits the origin story of the parts you mention) that you can, don't change a thing.

Yeah the original intent was to throw that $30 1500x on a $30 first gen board, but there's just none of those around, they all fried or something. Stupid market round here, I could literally see the board I got new off Amazon for $80 in some amazon days sale, get put up on FB marketplace for $130 well used. Then DDR4 price went cray cray, I was already sitting on that free pair of 8GB Samsungs, though if I had looked up about the chips back THEN, I would have asked him for more. He was saying he had a shoebox full he didn't know what to do with at that time. We were joking about he could have set himself up on a Caribbean island if he'd kept them. Though those specific HP/Samsung are supposed to be kicking around on eBay in quantity, around the same pricing as generic generics.

So 16GB was feeling a little tight and I lucked into the Teamgroup T-force Vulkan Z kit at a thrift store, suspiciously marked down to $50 from $79 so I wasn't expecting much. Turns out those are meant to have Micron 8Gbit "E" dies, which clock different than the Samsungs. Samsungs seem to be all about voltage and tight timings and clocks don't go amazing high, the Microns do loose timings and insane clocks and don't like so much voltage. It looks like the lines cross at about 3600 with prolly 16-18-18 timings on 1.35V or 1.4 if needed. However, if I come across a pair of either Micron or Samsung based modules cheap, I might go fully one way or the other, otherwise I'm holding my nose playing EB Games *badum tish*

Holding off on CPU buy unless one comes up real cheap. Missed a bent pin Ryzen9 for $50 in the middle of summer, damn thing had been listed weeks too, just discover it and it's gone in a day. Gonna be throwing AI loads at this thing and I want to see specifically how it struggles and does well. Maybe I'll decide to go nuts on CPU, 5800x3d or something or maybe I'll re-platform to get PCIe 4.0 for better GPU bandwidth. Those Memory Express combo deals looking tasty for current insanity.

Think I'm gonna boot Ubuntu off a shitty small SATA SSD and have a high speed data share partition with Windoze on half a 1TB m.2 drive. Got one earlier last year for what now seems the impossible price of $90. I was thinking about pairing two 250GB SATA SSDs in RAID 0, but since that would struggle to make a TB/sec and the m.2 should do 3Tb/sec on this interface (actually capable of near 4, but on PCIe 4.0 derived slot) there didn't seem to be much point. Guess the balls out haswell board gets those since it can't m.2.

GPU going in hopefully is a R9 295x2, it's a bit of a squeeze. Found a brute PSU, it says it's headline output is 750W but it can put 744W to single rail 12V so that should feed it okay. Corsair TX750M.

Edit: I should kind of admit I bought the wrong chip, I wanted one of the first tranche of Ryzen CPUs "for posterity" kinda because they were cool and significant, but I didn't realise the 1500x came out a month or so after the first, first Ryzens, so I messed that up a tad. If I'm gonna try again to get it right I might get a 1st gen 7.

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 03:57:

Yeah the original intent was to throw that $30 1500x on a $30 first gen board, but there's just none of those around, they all f […]
Show full quote

darry wrote on Today, 01:11:

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 00:45:

Woohoo, the improbable Ryzen system is alive, with motherboard from Amazon sale, rando loose cpu from FB rando, thrift store DDR4 kit AND 2023 pulls from an IT worker ddr4 kit freebie. Also tested a thrifted single 8GB crucial stick and that seemed good too. It's still just on the mobo tray with temp GPU while I screw around with testing RAM and making sure things fitted to case.

It's definitely working fine at 2133 lowest common denominator RAM speed, the highest JEDEC one in the Teamgroup pair, and the default of the Samsung/HP pair of "generics". What I am not sure of is whether settings are sticking or not, tried going up to 2800, because the XMP on the teamgroup is a long ways from X at 2600, default volts, and the Samsung chips appear to be the 4Gbit famed "B" dies that take all the volts and go to 3800 or more. Anyway if the settings stuck they did one pass of memtest86 like that. Wondering if I should find out which OC modules used Samsung and what their XMP is, and copy it.

But anyway, got Ryzen 5 1500X going on 32GB on a B550 mATX board and need to get it fully buttoned up into the case and Ubuntu Trashpanda installed.

Ryzen 5500 looks like rather sweet 125$ 6c/12t upgrade for that (the 1500X could probably be sold to recoup some $$$). Even a 5900 XT with 16c/12t is like 400$. That being said, if the objective is make it the best bargain bin/yard sale build (fits the origin story of the parts you mention) that you can, don't change a thing.

Yeah the original intent was to throw that $30 1500x on a $30 first gen board, but there's just none of those around, they all fried or something. Stupid market round here, I could literally see the board I got new off Amazon for $80 in some amazon days sale, get put up on FB marketplace for $130 well used. Then DDR4 price went cray cray, I was already sitting on that free pair of 8GB Samsungs, though if I had looked up about the chips back THEN, I would have asked him for more. He was saying he had a shoebox full he didn't know what to do with at that time. We were joking about he could have set himself up on a Caribbean island if he'd kept them. Though those specific HP/Samsung are supposed to be kicking around on eBay in quantity, around the same pricing as generic generics.

So 16GB was feeling a little tight and I lucked into the Teamgroup T-force Vulkan Z kit at a thrift store, suspiciously marked down to $50 from $79 so I wasn't expecting much. Turns out those are meant to have Micron 8Gbit "E" dies, which clock different than the Samsungs. Samsungs seem to be all about voltage and tight timings and clocks don't go amazing high, the Microns do loose timings and insane clocks and don't like so much voltage. It looks like the lines cross at about 3600 with prolly 16-18-18 timings on 1.35V or 1.4 if needed. However, if I come across a pair of either Micron or Samsung based modules cheap, I might go fully one way or the other, otherwise I'm holding my nose playing EB Games *badum tish*

Holding off on CPU buy unless one comes up real cheap. Missed a bent pin Ryzen9 for $50 in the middle of summer, damn thing had been listed weeks too, just discover it and it's gone in a day. Gonna be throwing AI loads at this thing and I want to see specifically how it struggles and does well. Maybe I'll decide to go nuts on CPU, 5800x3d or something or maybe I'll re-platform to get PCIe 4.0 for better GPU bandwidth. Those Memory Express combo deals looking tasty for current insanity.

Think I'm gonna boot Ubuntu off a shitty small SATA SSD and have a high speed data share partition with Windoze on half a 1TB m.2 drive. Got one earlier last year for what now seems the impossible price of $90. I was thinking about pairing two 250GB SATA SSDs in RAID 0, but since that would struggle to make a TB/sec and the m.2 should do 3Tb/sec on this interface (actually capable of near 4, but on PCIe 4.0 derived slot) there didn't seem to be much point. Guess the balls out haswell board gets those since it can't m.2.

GPU going in hopefully is a R9 295x2, it's a bit of a squeeze. Found a brute PSU, it says it's headline output is 750W but it can put 744W to single rail 12V so that should feed it okay. Corsair TX750M.

That R9 295x2 can draw up to 500W or so, so I hope that TX750M is close to peak health.

I'm replacing an i9 9900k + z390 MB with a Ryzen 9 5900 XT + Ebay sourced el cheapo Gigabyte Gaming X AM4 Motherboard (x570). I've got 4x16GB of Corsair DDR4 2666 RAM for it (2 are Micron, 2 are Hynix, AFAICR). As long as it runs at 2666, I'm not going to complain.

To complement that, I just got 2 Realtek RTL8157 based USB 5Gb NICs (30$ each) to link that and another PC in a point-to-point link for homelab use purposes. Not sure what I'll use for storage, but I do have a few NVME and SATA SSD drives that I had acquired (hoarded) in the before times, when storage was still cheap, to choose from.

On a side note, while Realtek based ethernet hardware might not be the fastest, most efficient or most reliable (that last point is debatable), it is unbelievably cheap and usually good enough after a few hardware revs and once the drivers have stabilized. They've come a long way since the rather abysmal RTL8129 (which still worked, albeit hobbled and with kludges)

Realtek is like Little Caesars, it's cheap and it's ready. Meaning you can pick one up about anywhere and don't have to hunt drivers too hard no matter what you want to run it on. Unlike if you buy some super speed fancy intel chip on a theoretically standard interface card thinking you're getting a deal and it works in one HP server period.

I gotta look into my NIC sitch not sure if I want to try having a 2.5Gbit segment. Maybe I've got enough hardware and fast machines coming up to justify, maybe not. Might just strugglebus the 1Gbit until 10Gbit stuff accumulates.

BitWrangler wrote on Today, 05:00:

Realtek is like Little Caesars, it's cheap and it's ready. Meaning you can pick one up about anywhere and don't have to hunt drivers too hard no matter what you want to run it on. Unlike if you buy some super speed fancy intel chip on a theoretically standard interface card thinking you're getting a deal and it works in one HP server period.

I gotta look into my NIC sitch not sure if I want to try having a 2.5Gbit segment. Maybe I've got enough hardware and fast machines coming up to justify, maybe not. Might just strugglebus the 1Gbit until 10Gbit stuff accumulates.

I recently bought a 2.5 switch.
For internet? 1Gbit is already enough, 2.5 gets it even better but I need to download to a Nvme to appreciate the speed. I have a 2.5 speed from my ISP, I decided to use it as it is there.
I have a PCIe card for it and one board that sports it. All other stuff has a USB dongle that I rotate if needed (rarely).

Local network? Old machine won't need past 1Gbit, 2.5 I need hardware capable of it. And I don't.

If you are wondering, unless you need the speed for work or specific uses, or upload speed for streaming, it isn't really worth it.
That's my 0.02.

Besides work or work-related stuff, faster than 1Gb networking is mostly pointless for the average joe, I absolutely agree.

It can be relevant or useful for people with
- faster than 1Gb Internet
- backups ( the spinning rust I currently run can mostly saturate a 2.5Gb link)
- a need for fast non local (LAN) storage for use cases like uncompressed or lossless video capture or recording

For my needs, one segment with 2.5Gb is plenty for now (most of my stuff is still 1Gb). I can always resort to link aggregation if I need more than 2.5Gb or 1Gb in whatever situation.

I have a specific use case that can benefit from a fast point-to-point connection over 3 feet. Getting 5Gb NICs for it, rather than 2.5Gb ones, increased the cost by about 10$. Other than that, the only (first) scenario that will eventually benefit from >2.5Gb or even >5Gb on my end is likely my NAS. When that becomes the case, switching it to 10Gb (my cheap switch has an SFP port) and clients nodes to 2.5Gb or 5Gb should suffice for a while.

It took me about 20 years to find >1Gb useful at home. Unless >5Gb Internet actually becomes available and useful sometime soon and/or local storage becomes both much faster and useful to me (and cheaper), I might not live to see a real need for 10Gb at home.