1963SS

Finally got my modem up and running but it seems a bit slow. I remember the excitement when the 56K video cards came out. Blazing speed. first pic. It could load a single low res pic in less than a minute. Then came by video cards. Radeon 6450, GeForce FX5200 (128 meg) NVidia Riva TNT2 M64, and the NVidia GEForce 2 MX400. One of the NVidia cards even had a fan, by God, and that was the hot rod. I've been around awhile. These cards all seem to be a bit "laggy" when playing 1080 video games. I don't think that one frame every 5 seconds is quite quick enough. Who else has a "Junk Drawer"? The struggles were real.

I'm a rookie at this stuff but I got a Logitech G512 SE from Best Buy. The ad says it normal price is $149.99 and it's on sale for $59.99. Very good feel and it's a "clicky" type.

Apple is necessary. Only if eaten once a day to keep the Doctor away.

Although I can't drive a train I am/was an engineer. Retired now. When ESD usage first started (Xerox, IBM and Texas Instruments I think) Their returned parts went down by about 40 percent and their reliability increased. All insulation has a breaking point whether it be mica, thermoplastic or an air gap. If I were to put 2400 volts into my house wiring, every wire would short through the insulation and probably explode. When you develop a static charge, even on a wooden floor, carpet or whatever you can and probably have sparked to a door knob. That's probably around the 2400 volts I referenced above. Moving your arm through dry air will create more voltage than our computers are comfortable with. Now take a circuit board or electronic component that is expecting to see 3-5 volts and zap it with 2400 doorknob volts it's not going to be happy. Our insulation is only a few nanometers on our CPU's, Ram, Motherboards and such..It will be degraded. Maybe not enough to fail but it will be hurt. It seems to be a very cheap insurance policy to get, at the least, a properly grounded wristband. Why gamble a 500 dollar processor on a 5 dollar wristband. Insulation does fail when too much voltage is passed through it. Our circuit boards are no exception. As always, IMHO.

The real reason for the Nest and other devices is......Because 'Merica…..that's why. We put a man on the moon using the length of the Kings nose, the length of his foot and the distance from his nose to the tip of his finger. It just works for us. At one point in our history most of us were from Yurp and other countries over there yet we use our measuring system. My Nest has saved me about 20 percent of my heating bills. My work hours vary so a programmable T-stat isn't really feasible for me. I just jump on my phone and tell the house to get warm for me. I'm old and for many years I had to heat my house with coal in a potbelly stove in the middle of the house.. I live in Appalachia and it's all we had. I killed pigs, cows, chickens squirrels, rabbits and deer. We grew our own corn, tomatoes, beans and then we canned it to use in the winter. We still do that around here. Yes, we're spoiled but most of us are not lazy. We're the most progressive and productive country in the history of the world. Hell, during World War 2 we sold or gave away most of everything that our allies were using. We could build it faster than Germany and Japan could blow it up. We built almost 3000 Liberty ships (big Sucker cargo ships) in 4 years. We were launching three ships every two days. Germany sinks 25 in a month and we'll build 45 more. That's hard to overcome. Wretched excess. It's in our DNA. I've been around for some 73 years and as an engineer I feel very comfortable with the Metric system but I still prefer to use a cup of flour and a 1/2 cup of milk. 2-4-6-8, I don't want to metricate. We don't have to and no one can make us. As a lifelong sailor I could argue that a Nautical mile is the best way to judge distance. One minute of arc on Earth is one nautical mile. If you'r sailing one nautical mile per hour you are travelling at one knot. Easy Peasy. And what the Heck is this meter or metre stuff. the distance light travels in 1/3000,000,000 seconds, give or take a bit. Who is going to measure that? My stopwatch struggles with hundredths of a second and I can't find where the end of the light is. My eyes must be getting old.. Every nation has their little quirks and idiosyncrasies. Please allow us to have ours also. We know that pickup trucks have very bad mileage and they're the #1 selling vehicle in 'Merica. No logic, just excess. It's what we do. There is no right and wrong. It's just what is right or wrong FOR YOU. Have a wonderful time in your country but if you ever want to cool down it the summer or warm up when it's cold just hop a plane and come rent an apartment a camper or a motorhome. They're air conditioned. My motorhome has an air conditioner in the cab and two on the roof. I could loan you one. We'll take care of you. It's what we do......for better or worse, but that's another story.

Hey Guys, what's going on with Logitech and Best Buy? I just bought a G512 keyboard for $49.00 ($100.00 off list), a G903SE mouse for $49.00, ($100.00 off list price) and a C922 Streaming Webcam for $69.00 or about $30.00 off list. Are these being discontinued or what. Most of the reviews that I've read say they are all decent products. Heck, I even saved so much money that I bought the Logitech wireless mouse charging pad. The pad was probably a waste because the wireless mouse lasts aver 30 hours on a charge and charge time is only about 2 hours. Enlighten me please.

The old standby, Fractal R6. Lots of room and has a 5 1/4 drive bay. I didn't use the bay because it seems that they're not used as much as I used to use them. I just got an external drive for the times that I need one.

As a retired Electrical Engineer I'll say reliability is an issue. I've been around and active in electronics since the 4004, 8088, 8086 processors were introduced. I've always heard about the increased reliability of electronics and it's true. With only a very few self-driving cars on the road we are hearing of accidents. Multiply that by a factor of one million and a lot more of them are going to be playing bumper cars. Commercial airliners have multiple redundancies built in along with every other safety feature we know of and they still experience electronics failures that are sometimes catastrophic. I made a real good living for a lot of years repairing electronics that weren't supposed to break. If we become complacent and allow electronics to drive our cars what will happen if our 70 MPH Electromobile XS gets hit by lightning. Something will likely go "Poof" and we may slingshot into oncoming traffic before we can take manual control. I have a small block Chevy car and also have a BMW 535i. The BMW blows electronic stuff up all the time just because it can. The Chevy keeps on running. If the Germans can't make electronics reliable then the rest of the world, except maybe Japan, is in a world of trouble. Talk about the ultimate distracted driving. Hell, we can't even drive to the store without checking our messages and writing a half dozen texts. I believe if self-driving cars were operated properly they could help reduce accident rates and be an added safety feature but we will become too complacent and take for granted that the car knows best...….until it doesn't. Human nature and not technology will be the biggest fault and no computer can know the endless possibilities of stupid that we are capable of. IMHO.

Have you guys got yours decorated yet. I know...….to much time on my hands but Merry Christmas anyways.

It cost a bit more than the woman thinks I paid for it and I'm really afraid to do the math. Maybe around $2500-$3000. She thinks I had a $1500 budget. I know I blew that. Yes, that's hard tubing. PETG I think. Hard tubing was pretty easy once I taught me a few tricks like the 1 1/4" thing with the bending tool. Thermaltake and Alphacool compression fittings. Thermaltake are bigger around and I couldn't get a pair of them on the video card. Only had one small leak on top of the reservoir. I didn't have it screwed into the reservoir enough. Rookie mistake. The little bit of water from the fill port fitting was just a few drops. You'll have a good time with the water-cooling. I think the fittings are a major cost.

Well, I was finally able to get my first build under my belt...……...at 73 years old. It's a time thing. I've probably made some mistakes but that's why I'm here. You guys know more that I ever will. I'll probably be giving tis to a family member for Christmas and would like criticism. The weak lind is probably the 1080ti that used to be a MSI Sea Hawk until the Corsair pump decided not to pump any more. Here's a few of the goodies. Fractal Define R6 case I9-9900KF (4700 clock) MSI Sea Hawk (kind of) 1080ti (Clocked a bit) (Sea Hawk Corsair pump died) Alphacool water block for the 1080ti Hardware Labs Nemisis 360 radiator Radiator fans 3x120 Cougar Vortex Thermaltake CPU Block Swiftech Maelstrom 200mm reservoir. (I wanted glass and not acrylic) Some kind of Swiftech modded D5 pump 32 Mb Corsair Vengeance 3200 RGB Thermaltake temperature/flow thingy with an alarm if temp gets high or flow gets low. Thermaltake Pure Plus14 140mm top fans Corsair RM850X power supply Noctua 140mm rear fan Samsung 970 Pro M.2 (500 GB) (2) Samsung 860 Evo SSD (500 GB each) I know the cable management sucks but even though I spent 50 years as an electrician you can only do so much without custom cables. I am getting a piece of 11 Gauge anodized aluminum made to cover up all the wires that I stashed behind the power supply. I got into the Christmas spirit with the RGB stuff. My first computer was an Apple 2C. They've come a long way. I guess it's time for a Benchmark when I figure that out.

Thanks. That helps calm my concerns. Quick response from a very knowledgeable forum.

Hey Guys, I'm building my first computer and I'm water-cooling rig. My goal is the most performance with the least noise. I'm using a Hardware Labs Nemesis Black Ice 360 radiator, Swiftech 200mm reservoir with some kind of modded D5 pump, a Thermaltake CPU block (I9-9900KF) an Alphacool Gpu block on a 1080 ti that used to be a Sea Hawk until the pump died. I installed a Thermaltake Temperature/Flowmwter gauge inline just before the radiator. I can't find any information on how many Liters per Hour is acceptable. My gauge says that the water temp is 27 degrees and the flow rate is 180 LPH. Does that sound about right? The CPU stress test with all cores was around 68 degreees at 100% load and overclocked to 4.9. The GPU never got above 30 degrees while running Kombuster. Those results sound about right but I was just curious about the LPH waterflow. Thanks for any advice from you pros. I'm just a 73 year old rookie.