I got a Sparkle ECO Arc A310 and couldn't get it working on any of my retro PCs. I think it has to do with needing EFI boot.

I have a unique daily driver machine that has three VMs running off a single board so it is quite a pain to take down the host, install the card, configure passthrough, and reboot just to see if the card was RMA-worthy. Turns out the card is fine.

I will run the Kubuntu VM with this card and see if they are any better than the proprietary drivers I had to use with the previous 1030 which has less than 50% performance anyway.

Unfortunately, the Intel ARC GPUs have UEFI requirements and issues, even on newer motherboards from the 2010's that have UEFI/BIOS, which may require settings fiddling or firmware updates, which are obviously never going to come for older boards that are no longer sold. They are definitely not usable in the older PCIe PCs, but that might change with the second-gen ARC GPUs coming out later this year. Intel simply didn't - and wasn't able to - do much testing on a variety of older/newer hardware before the release and many older boards that have UEFI simply don't have UEFI implementation that is 100% compatible/sound and won't be updated.

I upgraded my openmediavault setup to the most recent version, 7.2.1-1 .
It was trivially easy.

Storage is still accessible.
My printer VM still works fine .

I tried to reflow, and when that failed, to remove a AM3+ socket.
Wouldn't come off as I don't have proper tools for such a feat.

I have to either give to someone that does know and have the tools or sell it for repair.
It's a nice 990FX board.

I booted an old version of Lubuntu (22.04) on my main computer, and there's no stutter when playing locally stored videos in VLC. I don't know if that's a problem with Celluloid in Mint or some kind of video setting. Lubuntu has screen tearing (but not in VLC, strangely), so it's possible that the video settings that fix tearing also cause the stutter. I'll have to switch back to Mint and run VLC.

Along with picking a distro, I also need to decide whether to downgrade to Windows 11 (turning on the TPM in the BIOS so my computer actually meets Microsoft's ridiculous eWaste-generating forced obsolescence system requirements), keep everything as-is (knowing that Windows 10 will go EOL in a little over a year), or get a second SSD for the recommended dual-boot setup (using the BIOS boot override to choose an OS sounds like a pain in the ass).

That reminds me that my mom still has my old Toshiba laptop that used to be my Linux box, and I never got the AC adapter replaced under that strangely late recall. I would still like to see the actual CPSC complaints and get a better idea of what's wrong to make them recall a 13-year-old power supply. This adapter always made an abnormally large spark when I plugged it in (the AC plug has pits blown out of the tips of the pins). I also remember that when I was in college, almost every student who had a Toshiba laptop had the AC (mains) power cord crack, leaving bare wiring exposed that was live at 120VAC. That never triggered a recall.

Just started a 8'ish hour print to test out some new "beige" filament I got recently. I wanted to see how close it was to classic "PC beige".

I'm not happy with the 5.25 SD to IDE bay adapter I have in my DOS system right now. The print just didn't turn out well, I did it a while back and I've since vastly improved my printers performance and know a lot more about tweaking it to get the best possible prints. I also modified the original design to I could make it look a little less plain.

I will be using it in my build, even though it's a black case, no matter how it turns out. I mean, I think we all mixed beige and black back in the day. Not to mention, the GoTek is also beige, so it will look right at home. 😀

Wish me luck!

I'm screwing around some more on the start of a "vacation" (forced time off, but I'll try to find something to do alone since nobody around me wants to do anything).

I switched back to Linux Mint (Cinnamon), and I don't see as much video stutter today in Celluloid (still some, but not totally unwatchable like last time). VLC is actually worse, especially if something moves on my other monitor. It actually seems a little choppy in general in basic desktop use, even when compared to Lubuntu (with screen tearing fixed) running on much slower hardware (that Toshiba laptop with Intel HD 3000 graphics). Maybe the Xfce or MATE versions would run better.

Apparently those Toshiba AC adapters have the barrel plug melt down and catch on fire like those molded SATA power cables. It's weird that they were made by three different companies (Delta, Lite-On, and Chicony), and only the ones shipped with Toshiba laptops had any problems. Toshiba must have requested ultra-shit grade plugs. That could also mean that there's a lot more stuff waiting to melt that hasn't been recalled yet or it's the jack on the laptop instead (which would potentially be a problem for other laptops made by Quanta).

Well, I think it looks good in beige!

The SD-IDE area will be LED backlit and the small inner photo are light pipes to carry the status LED light from the board to the front.

Now, I just need to install it. 😀

Last week I thought my desktop PC was off for no reason, then I noticed that it's just that the power LED wasn't working. It's a blue LED and upon closer inspection it looked like maybe it wasn't dead, but very weak.
That case is a nightmare to try to take the front off, so I just connected the HD led to the power LED's header, since they are both located behind the power button.
Now the button lights up red instead of blue, and there is no visible effect of hard drive activity, but I don't care.

Learning how to update Linux and get Bluetooth to work.

I had another flash drive fail. This one suddenly disconnected, and it is no longer detected at all. Sometimes dmesg will show that a low-speed device (it's actually USB 3.0) was connected followed by "device descriptor read/64, error -32," but it usually shows nothing. That was the Sandisk Ultra Flair that got too hot to touch (I think I said that before in another post - I had to unplug it by pulling on the plastic lanyard loop), so I was expecting it to have a short life.

I took it apart, and the construction is interesting. I was expecting a PCB with a single chip on it, but it's a black brick with the USB contacts, a ceramic cap, and a resettable fuse on one side. The other side just has a part number printed on it (ending in "32G," even though it's a 16GB drive - maybe it was already partially defective with half the capacity disabled). Here are pictures from someone else (mine is missing the larger cap) since my only camera is still a Galaxy S7:
https://ai4rei.net/hw/teardown/

Now I'm curious about why Linux Mint ran so poorly on my computer. Is Cinnamon too bloated for its own good, was it accessing the flash drive (the one that just failed) constantly, or did it not load a graphics driver?

I had a Sandisk USB 3.0 flash drive that got extremely hot from just being plug in, no need to read or write to it.

It was like that from purchase purchased new in 2019 or so). As it was very inexpensive, I either just stopped using it and chucked it in a drawer or actually got rid of it because it was very inexpensive and I had only needed it briefly at that time.

I don't know whether this was normal/as designed, but I considered it unacceptable. Since then, I have used various brands of flash drives, including Sandisk, and have never experienced something similar.

That very hot (finger burning) flash drive was purchased retail at my go-to local computer chain store location, so I doubt I got a counterfeit.

When I buy a flash drive now, I test for heat and real capacity. If I need something fast and/or reliable at larger capacities I get SD cards and a small USB reader instead.

darry wrote on 2024-06-26, 22:33:

I had a Sandisk USB 3.0 flash drive that got extremely hot from just being plug in, no need to read or write to it.

Was it one of these UltraFit ones? I have one and it gets hot from being plugged in, and extremely hot when in use. It's not surprising considering the size. I'm almost shocked that it can work and not fail during nominal use. I only use mine as extra storage for videos on an old laptop; wouldn't want to stress it as a daily driver or rely on its longevity.

lti wrote on 2024-06-26, 22:03:

I had another flash drive fail. This one suddenly disconnected, and it is no longer detected at all. Sometimes dmesg will show that a low-speed device (it's actually USB 3.0) was connected followed by "device descriptor read/64, error -32," but it usually shows nothing. That was the Sandisk Ultra Flair that got too hot to touch (I think I said that before in another post - I had to unplug it by pulling on the plastic lanyard loop), so I was expecting it to have a short life.

Heating/cooling cycles can eventually cause solder joints to break. Sometimes there can be other causes too. The Sandisk USB 3.0 Extreme is a very strong performing flash drive, at least some revisions of which have been plagued by early death.

I have one of these that I received as a freebie, so I couldn't take advantage of the lifetime warranty (or maybe I just thought I couldn't). When it started exhibited failure symptoms (it wouldn't work at all in USB3.0 ports, but worked in USB2.0 ports), I opened it up and this is what I saw:

Outside the case, the tension of the spring holds the connector at an angle to the board. In this state, the drive worked perfectly. When inside its case, the connector is pulled down, and the leg marked in red was disconnecting from the pad (insufficient solder?). Being a USB3.0 data pin, this explained the symptoms perfectly. The solution was to add a bypass directly onto the cap marked in yellow. The drive has been working ever since.

dr_st wrote on 2024-06-27, 09:01:

Outside the case, the tension of the spring holds the connector at an angle to the board. In this state, the drive worked perfectly. When inside its case, the connector is pulled down, and the leg marked in red was disconnecting from the pad (insufficient solder?). Being a USB3.0 data pin, this explained the symptoms perfectly. The solution was to add a bypass directly onto the cap marked in yellow. The drive has been working ever since.

i have one that only works when held at an angle, for same reason i guess. should fix it really. It is interesting when the outer shell of a usb stick falls off and everything still works.

over time i have known some fail, the least reliable and least robust physically seem to be the free promotional ones you get occasionally from companies and the ones that seem best are some all metal ones i have from kingston

dr_st wrote on 2024-06-27, 09:01:

Was it one of these UltraFit ones? I have one and it gets hot from being plugged in, and extremely hot when in use. It's not surprising considering the size. I'm almost shocked that it can work and not fail during nominal use. I only use mine as extra storage for videos on an old laptop; wouldn't want to stress it as a daily driver or rely on its longevity.

The little system-in-package in the Ultra Flair looks small enough to fit in that housing, so they might be the same thing.

dr_st wrote on 2024-06-27, 09:01:

Heating/cooling cycles can eventually cause solder joints to break. Sometimes there can be other causes too. The Sandisk USB 3.0 Extreme is a very strong performing flash drive, at least some revisions of which have been plagued by early death.

I might look at that. I did verify that it had 5V on both ends of the polyfuse, and the little cap has 3.3V on it (some internal linear regulator). It doesn't even warm up at all anymore.

The last flash drive that I had fail was a Transcend JetFlash 910 (an even faster drive than that Sandisk Extreme). It seemed like the NAND had a strangely low retention time (Transcend likes to use SpecTek chips, which are basically Micron's rejects - Micron isn't the best chip maker to start with, and now you're using their floor sweepings). It is impressive that they can almost saturate 5Gbps USB in something that small (obviously pseudo-SLC cache instead of DRAM due to space constraints). SpeedFan once showed the actual controller that Transcend used, but I don't remember what it was now (I think it was a Silicon Motion part).

I tried to capture some video, and I had to take apart my capture device and wiggle the connector for the external cables to get the audio to work. I'm still looking for something better (primarily to capture S-Video and composite in higher quality and with better modern OS support, but being able to capture 720p through component or HDMI would be nice for some other stuff I'm doing). I guess everyone converts analog video to HDMI these days, but I always cringe at the suggestions to "digitize" VHS tapes using a cheap Amazon/Aliexpress (the same thing, but Amazon charges 3-5 times as much) composite to HDMI scaler connected to an MS2109-based capture device (MS2109 chips have broken audio - mono and out of sync, and I kind of remember the sync varying during use before mine died with the MS2109 chip measuring 1 ohm between USB bus power and ground).

Also, I'm installing MX Linux on my desktop. I don't know why it's so popular in searches and so rarely used. I guess I'll find out what's wrong with it.

44 minutes later: GParted let me know that my SSD is failing. I went back to Windows to run chkdsk (which didn't leave a log for some reason), and the "Media and Data Integrity Errors" SMART attribute increased (it was already nonzero). If you read my previous rants, you'll guess that I got the "best" brand of SSD (the one that advertises a 5-year warranty, but then tells you that you only get a 5-year warranty if you bought it directly from them instead of an authorized distributor, and your warranty conveniently expired already *rubs nipples*).

Screwed up a 5.25 bay cover print for my DOS6.22/Win3.11 build, twice.

Whoops...

1. Failed to notice a small piece of black PLA on the nozzle before starting the print, in the "S".
2. Forgot to verify z-offset, hence the gaps in the print.

I'll still use it though. 😀

StriderTR wrote on 2024-07-05, 23:22:

Screwed up a 5.25 bay cover print for my DOS6.22/Win3.11 build, twice. […]
Show full quote

Screwed up a 5.25 bay cover print for my DOS6.22/Win3.11 build, twice.

Whoops...

1. Failed to notice a small piece of black PLA on the nozzle before starting the print, in the "S".
2. Forgot to verify z-offset, hence the gaps in the print.

I'll still use it though. 😀

That bay cover is awesome. I'd totally rock one of those

Did a ton of frontend work in my fork of the venerable Mozilla/SeaMonkey Internet Application Suite atop Goanna, NetFusion. At least the theme is Modern!
Next up: web infrastructure (basic info pages, FTP and Update service)

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2024-07-05, 23:27:

StriderTR wrote on 2024-07-05, 23:22:

Screwed up a 5.25 bay cover print for my DOS6.22/Win3.11 build, twice. […]
Show full quote

Screwed up a 5.25 bay cover print for my DOS6.22/Win3.11 build, twice.

Whoops...

1. Failed to notice a small piece of black PLA on the nozzle before starting the print, in the "S".
2. Forgot to verify z-offset, hence the gaps in the print.

I'll still use it though. 😀

That bay cover is awesome. I'd totally rock one of those

This one was modified to fit my specific case, and it worked out OK, but I am thinking of making 2 and uploading them as remixes on my Thinigiverse page. Both a single and dual tab versions since that will cover a wide rage of cases.

Even with the fact I messed up that first layer (especailly on the red inset), I like how it turned out. 😀