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Ziggidy

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Posts posted by Ziggidy

  1. Good morning LTT users, 

     

    I am looking to see if anyone can recommend an 80mm 12v 3 pin fan. It is for an application which cools a custom engineered (not by me) setup of 16 TO-3 transistors which are used to convert a PWM signal into straight DC. The transistors are mounted to 2 pieces of non-ferrous C-channel that I think is aluminum that is then held together with brackets to make a square tube. The 80mm fan mounts to one end of that tube to cool the transistors when they are in use. The current fan mounts to 1 end of the 'tunnel' to keep the components cool. The current fan has a 2 wire temp probe which connects to a 2 pin socket on the fan to vary speed. 

     

    Are there any quality fans that would fit the bill for a replacement? The existing unit is approaching 15 years old, and I don't plan to redeploy it when the unit is rebuilt for deployment.

  2. To be clear, uploading files to the cloud in an auto-backup fashion is a FANTASTIC thing to do, if a user is fully informed as to what is happening, understands what is happening, and you give them the option to keep or purge the orignal files. When it gets to a point where there is so much data that one-drive then (appears) to start auto-purging some of it, THAT is a problem. 

  3. Personally, I would so NO, but that is just me. My spouse somehow got their laptop upgraded to W11 but it wasn't clear (to me) if this was a personal whoops clicked the wrong thing, or if MS just forced the upgrade. It has been NOTHING BUT A HEADACHE. WiFi is completely borked on the laptop, it WAS fine for a year on Windows 10, upgraded to Win 11, and now every time after waking up it needs to reboot for WiFi to work. It REPORTS it is working, but sees no available networks. I have tried multiple fixes to no avail and honestly I just don't care anymore, just reboot the damn thing and it (usually) works. If not at first, try a second reboot. 

    The other new one, which was only discovered today, is that there are many HUNDREDS of Gigs worth of photos which appear to just be POOF GONE. Everything in Photos, desktop, documents, and a few others apparently are no longer stored locally, but sent to One-Drive, then deleted? I have only looked at the issue for about 2 minutes, and i have steam pouring out of my ears. What knuckle-dragging dickhead decided it would be a good idea to automatically force upload data to the cloud and delete the originals? Maybe I am talking out of my ass here and haven't figured out the issue yet, but with a cursory glance that appears to be the issue. Something I will need to look into when my spouse isn't actively using the laptop. 

     

    Personally, I won't be moving to W11, not anytime soon. 

  4. I had my backpack under the seat on a number of Southwest flights in the past year, no issues. I had it pretty full and it was close to the limit but was fine once I pulled out my Steam Deck. 

    I would imagine it wouldn't really differ between airlines so much as it would between different Aircraft. My experiences on all the flights I BELIEVE were on Boeing 737 Max 8 models. I imagine across the board the dimensions will be pretty similar unless you happen to be on a much smaller aircraft for a shorter flight. The model of aircraft is shown on some ticketing sites, or you might be able to look it up based on flight number and date.

  5. I can't help select specific LED strips for you, but I DID just complete an LED strip install in my daughters room this weekend, so I have some considerations to note. That said, I am NOT a subject matter expert in the area, just spent a few hours with the install and researching some different aspects of it.

     

    • LED strips come in various flavors. Some will do RGB, and all 3 are lit to go white. There are also RGBW that has (as I understand it) an individual white LED in the package along with te RGB LEDs. 
    • There are individually addressable RGB strips where each LED can hold a different color, or  strips where everything is 1 color.
    • LED density, or the number of LEDs on the strip per foot or meter. In the diffuser, the lower the LED density the more you will be able to see each individual LED. The higher the density, it will look more like a uniform glow. 
    • LED Strip Channel and diffuser
      • U channel or V channel are most popular, available in black or aluminum finish on Amazon
      • Diffuser comes in milky white for the most part, but saw some with a darker almost black diffuser.
      • Will need a hacksaw and metal file to install, unless you luck out and you don' t have to make any cuts. That said it is VERY easy and quick.

     

     

     

    This is the diffuser I went with. Was VERY easy to work with, but I did have some issues. Be VERY careful drilling the pilot holes for mounts if you do it close to a wall / ceiling border. I took out chunks of drywall with the drill in a few spots without noticing it. Use a thin piece of cardboard or something to prevent the drill from doing damage if it is close to the wall. I found that the diffuser was about an eighth inch shorter than the channel, and I was upset at first, then realized it was a non-issue. I HIGHLY suggest staggering the channel and diffuser joints like you would see in a brick wall where the edge of one brick is at the middle of the brick above it. I have a clown house where nothing is square and plumb, so there were small variations where the channel was off by a little bit. Not an issue if you use my recommendation, but if you line the edges it may appear uneven. If you have the joints in the diffuser in the middle of the channel pieces it can force the channel to appear to be straight, but that is assuming it install it level and well to begin with. Also, as a side note, I could NOT find any "OUTSIDE" corners  for the channel, only inside corners. If the room is a basic square or rectangle you won't have a problem.

     

    THMOOTHER 20-Pack 3.3FT 1Meter V Shape LED Strip Aluminum Channel Diffuser System, Extruded Alu Track Milky Cover with Corner Connector and Mounting Kit,Easy Cut and Installed Curved Lens Profile

     

     

     

    Good luck with your project!!

     

  6.  

     

    2 hours ago, Erioch said:

    I can guarentee you that the vast majority of Americans do not think this way.  Most of us get a credit card and then just buy a bunch of stuff.

     

    I agree here, as an American with just under $10k in credit card debt at the moment. The reason is poor fiscal responsibility. At the same time, there ARE fiscally responsible people that carry debt in the forms of loans in certain scenarios where it makes sense. Those are, as I understand it, in circumstances where a bukly loan at a few percent interest saves them money and they can invest the rest and get a rate of return which is more than the interest charged on the loan. That said, I don't live in that world, working toward fiscal responsibility and less frivolous spending.

      

    2 hours ago, Smugel said:

    But they can be used against you when you apply for a loan. Having 5 cards with a 5000 euro limit each, counts as 25,000 in debt.

    While it is possible things are different in Europe, I believe you used an incorrect term here. The LIMIT on a line of credit is the maximum amount you can use on that line of credit at any given time, and is NOT considered a debt. The BALANCE on a line of credit is what you owe to the creditor, and IS debt. If you have a $1000 balance on a $5000 line of credit, your total debt is $1000. 

     

     

    1 hour ago, micha_vulpes said:

    They have many merits, and when used wisely can be a great asset to an individual to extend purchasing power, level out recurring payments, and function as a instant buffer when needed. Many offer pretty good buyer protection clauses, instant refunds for fraud events, and so forth ( though my bank/credit union does this with debit cards to so it is not unique to CCs)

     

    That is pretty fantastic that your bank/credit union does instant refunds for fraud. I have had in the last 2 decades only 2 instances of trouble with fraud on my bank account related to my debit card. In the end I DID get fully reimbursed for the issues, but it took a few business days to get to where I was before the incident. As someone that still doesn't have an emergency savings, it was nearly devastating when it came to rent & mortgage.  Following that I ONLY exclusively use my debit card AT the bank in the ATM to get cash if I need it. ALL of my purchases are on credit cards which then get paid through the bank website. I have an absurd number of cards, and HAVE worked on better fiscal responsibility. At the moment I have several cards that have specific use cases, like a gas card that gets a discount at the gas pump, a few store lines of credit that give large discounts on purchases I would already be making at those stores, etc. Then I have just general cards which I have recurring payments hit such at streaming and gym subscriptions. Those then get paid off automatically monthly which keeps it interest free, keeps the cards active, and impacts my credit score that is actually QUITE good at the moment. I really only have a SINGLE card which is the one I carry around and make purchases on, and I recently moved the balance to a new card that had a 21 month balance transfer with 0% interest for that 21 months. I am only a few months in and I have already paid off $2500.

     

    1 hour ago, tkitch said:

    Boomers developed them in the 80's (because of stupid credit card companies fucking everything up) and now they're used to absolutely destroy a significant portion of the country. 

               

    Credit cards can be GREAT tools, the biggest problem is getting proper education out there to change the mindset of credit card users. It will be infesting toi see if anything changes in the future with credit spending, or education.

  7. As a fellow model railroader, I'm interested in seeing how this project panned out. Is the JMRI PC running a layout, or just a programming track?  I imagine that JMRI on that machine is QUITE responsive. 

     

    Personally all I have is an 8x1 foot shelf that has dual track main, a siding and a crossover. I went with a PiSprog 3 kit, and have to say, it DOES work, but it is DOG slow. I also forgot the password for it, so using RDP is no longer an option until I get that fixed (I'm lazy and haven't). 

     

    What Proto2000 is that in the photo, a GP30? And what is the unit on the other side? GP or SD? I want to say Soo or Pensy, but neither of those as the paint scheme doesn't look familiar. 

  8. Hello all, 

     

    I am working on a project installing LED strip lighting into a room but I am currently stuck. I am about to order the 4 conductor 22 awg wire [ Link - Amazon ] to get the controller connected to the light strip. The strip travels around the ceiling of a room and naturally the wires out of the controller are only a few inches long with an incredibly short power cable. I am wanting to make custom length extensions so that it is neat, but I am stuck with the female connectors. I know there are plenty of friction fit versions on amazon, but I am wanting to stay away from those. I'd like something I can solder on that will look nice. The ones on the example photo are great, but I can't for the life of me find anything similar to it as a DIY part you can purchase. Might anyone else have experience in using a similar product?

     

     

    4 Pin Connector.JPG

  9. Hey LTT!! 

     

    I have been having an issue lately with my playing VR games. Currently my Vive Pro 2 usage requires that I unplug one of my 3 monitors (2x 27" 1440p  & 1x 24" 1080P) or I get an error that I have exceeded the max number of monitors. I unplug one of the 27" monitors and all is fine and well. I have just set up a new VR play space that gives me more than twice the room I have in my initial space, but I want to connect the TV in that room via HDMI as well, which would knock me down to 1 monitor connected to the computer while playing VR. I know that a solution would be to just keep shifting cables every time I play, but I'd rather not to be honest, I'm more of a set it and forget type. 

     

    I saw the following post noting that adding in a GPU will get around that monitor limit, so I am thinking I can add a new GPU to my system as a solution. I haven't ever run dual GPUs before, so I am not really sure where to go from here. I anticipate that it would likely "play best" if I had another Nvidia GPU rather than an AMD offering to avoid drive conflicts, but at the same time don't know what vintage of card to go with from Nvidia to avoid similar conflicts. I have display outs on the motherboard also, but sadly can't use them as there is no APU in the 5800X.

     

     

     

    Vive Pro 2 with Valve Index Controllers

    AMD 5800X

    MSI 3070

    Seasonic FOCUS PX-850

    2x 27" Dell 1440p monitors

    1x 24" ASUS 1080p monitors (will have more in the future, as I repurpose my old 24" work monitors)

     

    The 2nd GPU won't need to do anything difficult, the extra monitors I usually use to keep Discord pulled up, then video services of some kind, Hulu, Netflix, Plex, YouTube, etc.

     

    What about for displaying the VR view on a TV, would that require much power, and be more beneficial to do that from the GPU which the VR headset is connected?

     

  10. Hey all! I am getting all geared up to roll out VR for the first time ever. My Valve Index controllers just arrived today, my Vive Pro 2 headset is pre-ordered, now I just need to get base stations. 

     

    As I understand it, the SteamVR base station 2.0 and the base station 2.0  which HTC sells is IDENTICAL, but $50 more per UNIT for HTC. Might anyone know if/when Steam will ever stock more in their store, or if there is anywhere else to source them new for $150 a piece? OR, are there other base stations I should look into? I have been building PC's since the late 90s, but am brand new to VR, any tips would be appreciated!

     

    It will be difficult to do, but I won't be using the VR setup until the first week of July. I am in a weight loss lifestyle change and am down 35 pounds since January, with my ultimate goal being down 40 by July 5th I believe it is. When I accomplish that goal and do my weigh-out, THEN I will be using the setup, that is my gift to myself. Normally I would have bought the headset after that point, but I couldn't pass up the $50 off pre-order. 

  11. I can speak from experience on this topic. I used to have my Minecraft servers running on a virtual machine on my NAS / Plex server. It had dual Xeons with lots of power, lots of RAM, but the clock speed wasn't great. I have since replaced it with a 1U Supermicro server running a cheap core-i3 (3.6 Ghz I believe), and 8 Gigs of RAM. I have 4x 120 Gig SSDs in RAID10 for the OS (this is WAAAAY overkill, only did it because I wanted to try it out, and i got a great deal on a purchase of 10 SSDs). I then run the game server off of a 250 Gig NVMe drive. It runs GREAT. For reference, this machine is concurrently running 2 Java, and 4 Bedrock servers. Generally only sees users on 1 at a time, my kids and their cousins, max of about 10 people usually. 

     

    All you really need is something that has good clock speeds, and 8 Gigs of RAM should be MORE than adequate for a vanilla Java, or Bedrock server. YMMV if you are planning to host something modded. I can't speak for that. I did on the dual Xeon platform, and it ran like hot garbage.

     

    All of that said, like you had mentioned that particular server chassis is out of date. If you are wanting to get something that is NOT end of support/end of life from a provider, you may as well put your money in a bag and set it on fire. As hobbyists, just about the ONLY equipment we (speaking generally here, I KNOW there are some whales out there that break the mold, and some that purchase uber high end for professional development at home) buy is the used stuff found locally, or on Ebay. Really though, cheap mobo, dual or quad core CPU with clocks 3.5 - 4 Ghz that is maybe 5 years old or less and you should be golden with minimal investment. 

  12. I was able to get the game, but I do play often. I actually just set up a dedicated server (dedicated physical 1U server in my basement), but it is an un-official one for some buddies and myself. We haven't started on it yet, just getting it prepped to migrate off of a buddies paid server rental. Can you give more info about the issue you are having? What options do you have in the start script? Here is mine for example. I have to update it as I noticed that the FearEvolved is still showing active.

     

    vi server_start.sh

    /home/steam/ARK/ShooterGame/Binaries/Linux/ShooterGameServer TheIsland?SessionName=<GAME NAME>?ServerPassword=<GAME PASSWORD>?QueryPort=27015?RCONEnabled=True?AutoDestroyOldStructuresMultiplier=1?AllowRaidDinoFeeding=true?RCONSer
    verGameLogBuffer=600?RCONPort=27020?MaxPlayers=10?ServerPVE=true?bDisableStructurePlacementCollision=false?AllowAnyoneBabyImprintCuddle=true?AllowFlyerCarryPVE=True?listen -port=7777 -PeerPort=7778 -log -servergamelog -NoBattlEye -ForceA
    llowCaveFlyers -game -server -ActiveEvent=FearEvolved -crossplay

    chmod +x server_start.sh
     

  13. Hey all, 

     

    I have a 2u Supermicro which I use as my NAS and it has a virtual machine running Plex on it as well. It has been nearly rock solid for 5 years now. I did make a mistake and used an old OCZ Vertex 60 Gig SSD when I initially set it up. I had a pair in there planning to have a backup of the OS on the 2nd drive but it failed before that was ever done. That was a few years back. More recently I acquired a pair of 1u Supermicro servers which I use 1 for Minecraft servers and the other for an Ark Survival server. I just completed an install of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on a 4 disk 120 gig SSD Raid10 array using each of the 4 3.5" hotswap bays on both chassis. At this point I am wanting (maybe NEEDING is a better way to put it) a solution for my NAS to avoid (or at least minimize) downtime on the Plex server. I am thinking I may do another Raid10 array with 4x 500 Gig SSDs, but not sure what I will go with.

     

    How do you guys handle your "roll your own" NAS OS setups for the eventuality of a drive failure?

  14. Hang on there a moment, you may want to re-address this. Some internet services that deliver fiber won't allow you to just convert it to Ethernet from fiber, you need to use their special box. Speaking from experience, I have 1 gig fiber from ATT. 

     

    Also, that media converter which was linked is FAST Ethernet, which is 100 meg MAX. If you have 1 gig service, the MOST you will get using that device, if it works, is 100 meg. 

  15. Personally, I will never use RAID 1 again. I used it thinking it was a means of backup, but it is only data redundancy. If you have a user error like I did, and you delete a file or folder from the drive, that is replicated to the other drive and the data is lost. I was fortunate and was able to recover most of my data the next morning. Then I changed my NAS setupt to JBOD at that point with an offline backup. 

     

    Now I use RaidZ2 with 6 drives in a vdev for ~14TB usable (6x 4TB WD reds), and tossed two x WD Red white labels in as JBOD for extra space for the moment. I also still have a bunch of 5TB external drives offline backing that all up. 

  16. Can you elaborate more on what this is for? It could be that the service itself hosting the server is having issues, be it congestion on their network links or server resource issues. As @beersykins noted it could also (very likely) be congestion at some peering point between providers which is common to those services you are reaching in the East. Have you tried contacting the provider of those servers to report your issues?

  17. Ok, so I am now posting this from the computer in question. 

     

    This has been the most strange series of events. While looking for a CMOS battery, I decided to clear CMOS settings with the jumper. Now, at this point, the board would NOT start up. The only activity I would get would be trying to update the BIOS with the BIOS flashback button. Other than that, it appeared that the board was fully dead. Anyhow, I move the jumper from normal position to clear CMOS position and it shorts out, I hear a tick then get fans, and the motherboard display is running through codes. Strange. Then I move the pin back to normal position, and everything shuts off and won't turn back on. I try this a few more times and same thing every time. At the clear settings position it tries to boot, at normal it completely shuts down. I am finally able to locate a CMOS battery, replace it, and now it tries to boot as normal. I toss everything back in, it boots to BIOS options where I have to go through boot settings again, then boots into windows with no issues. 

     

    At this point, I have learned 2 things. 1st, NO MORE removing this machine from power. shutting down is fine, just leave the juice on. 2nd, time to save up for a Ryzen build apparently. 

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