Draeconix

Very cool video. I work in the mainframe world as a Systems Programmer specializing in Automation. I have been doing that for the last 9 years now. I was a Mainframe Operator for 6 years before that. There is very little in the server space that can compete with a Z series mainframe in terms of raw performance, compute power and redundancy. It is impressive technology. Most people don't realize it but almost every banking transaction hits a mainframe at some point in its lifetime and the up time is real. There are places that don't IPL (Initial Program Load - think "reboot") their mainframe for months and even years. It just sits in the data center calmly doing what it does. I was at Poughkeepsie, NY for some training and got a tour of the factory as well. We got to see how they put them together from the ground up. One thing the video didn't show is how heavy those drawers can get when fully loaded. In the assembly area instead of lifting the drawers into place they raise and lower the entire rack to the correct height so the technician assembling the machine never has to climb a ladder or raise a heavy object over their head. The rack will actually lower into the floor so the technician can reach the top. By the way, if anyone is looking for a good paying job in IT, definitely look into the mainframe world. Because people think that the mainframe is a "dinosaur" and "on its way out" the industry is somewhat hurting for people. I assure you the mainframe is going to be around for quite some time. The company I work for is definitely looking for people (PM me for more info) and will train you (they have a whole academy).

First thought was fans as well. My second thought, are there any mechanical hard disks in the PC?

Extension cables can help too. I am currently building in a Lian Li O11 Dynamic Evo and only about half of my RGB Fan cables reach the hubs with enough length to place the hubs in a decent place out of sight. Otherwise they are going to just be smashed somewhere in the back and end up with the rats nest. I just ordered up some extensions which should help hide things.

I have almost the exact same setup as the OP with a few tweaks mentioned in the post. AMD Ryzen 5600X 32 GB 3200MHz CL16 from Crucial Corsair SF750 Node 202 from Fractal Radeon RX 580 1 TB Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB Sabrent Rocket Gen 4 Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming I recently got my hands on a 3070 Ti to replace my aging RX580. Of course that meant a new case and new power supply. I went with the Lian Li O11 Dynamic Evo and a 1000 Watt PSU from Seasonic (overkill, sure but room for additions). My biggest issue is that I think my motherboard is too small for the case. None of the cables reach - well reach with slack. The AIO I bought, H150I Elite, doesn't seem to reach no matter what orientation I put it. So that said, I saw mostly 3080 and up for video card recommendations but looking at a 3070 Ti and 3080 on paper, it seems like they are just about the same but did I make a bad call going for the 3070 Ti. I have a 4K Samsung 65" Neo QLED TV and my RX580 did OK though it wasn't pushing 4K. I don't plan to play games at 4K but do consume content at high resolutions when possible. Should I have picked up a 3080 instead?

It would seem that this issue still persists into 2021. I have just started running into what appears to be the same issue. It usually occurs when I am watching a video so it may be unrelated. I have a 500 GB Samsung 980 PRO PCIe GEN 4. I saw the bad block errors and then ran all the previously mentioned tools and found nothing. Prior to running the tools the drive was not being detected by the motherboard but when I put it in an external enclosure it was fine. Even ran CHKDSK against it and it was fine. Since then I haven't seen the bad sector error but the issue has occurred again. I guess the next thing to do is a reinstall of Windows unless anyone has any other suggestions.

I have a Synology DS918+ with 4 x 6 TB Drives in it. I have them RAID'ed so I can loose a drive and still be ok. It nets me about 15TB and handles my back up and Plex server duties just fine, but then I am the only one in my household. If you have multiple people streaming from your Plex server, it is my understanding you will want something with a bit more CPU power. I had a Antec 1200 Tower that I thought about putting a bunch of drives in but the NAS was a much simpler set up and easier to manage. It also allowed me to connect my cloud accounts to the NAS so now I have my cloud drives on my PC, my NAS and in the cloud. In terms of expandability, there are NAS boxes out there with tons of drive bays. I know Synology has consumer ones going up to at least 12 bays and rack mounted, server style bays have even more. That said, if a NAS isn't to your liking and the second PC is really only going to be backing up and possibly running a Plex server, the specs really don't need to be that huge. My Synology for example is running a dual core Celeron and it is plenty fast for Plex. I am thinking along the lines of a Core i3 or a Ryzen 3. RAM might be a bigger concern and/or possibly the size of the C drive. When I ran Windows Home Server, it needed a larger area for the C drive to act as a sort of cache to be able to balance out the storage array and facilitate copies. If it didn't have the right amount of space, the process would be slow since it had to keep clearing out the space. My NAS has 2 x 512 GB SSD's in it for just that purpose. If you are running something in the Windows family, that is definitely something to consider. If on the hand you are going with another OS, I am not as well versed so I can't say for sure.

Have you considered a NAS as a backup solution?

There is a reason data centers are cool and dry and have environmental controls. Now several racks of servers chugging along all day versus a person computer or laptop are very different in tolerances but they are analogous to some degree. Computers in general don't like warm, moist environments. They may continue to work for a while but the longer you leave them there the more effect it can have.

I think it actually could be done but you may end up having basically two PC's on one board. I am thinking a scenario of having an Intel socket with it's own chipset and an AMD socket with its own chipset. You would have to figure out how to communicate to everything else on the board as well since they could possibly get instructions from two different chips. If you create a VM on an Intel Machine, can it emulate and AMD machine? That may solve the issue right there.

I wasn't quite sure where to put this since it kind of covers a few hardware categories so if this isn't the best place for it, let me know where it should go. I guess first I should describe what I have currently set up. I have a gaming/personal PC, a work laptop, a second work laptop and a personal laptop. I have triple monitors. The four PC's are connected to a IOGEAR GCS1904 KVM. The KVM has single displayport connections for the PC's and the output. To the KVM, I have added a Dell D6000 docking station connected via USB 3.0 Type A. This gives me two more displayport connections and is how I get my triple monitors for every PC. The real trick was getting the laptops to output a DP signal since both of them are Dell Latitude 7000 series and being business models, aren't that sophisticated so they only have HDMI. I have them connected via HDMI to DP adapters which are powered via USB. I also added some docking stations for the laptops so it was easier to connect and disconnect them back when I was going between the office and home. Everything was working just fine until recently, probably after an update, when one of my work laptops stopped sending a signal for my middle monitor. This monitor is chained from KVM DP to HDMI/DP Adapter to a USB-C docking station to the laptop. I played around with various connection configurations and got it working again but the connections weren't ideal and used components from my other PC's so I made some adjustments and now it doesn't work again. I have some more troubleshooting to do so the story isn't over yet. However, it got me to thinking that there HAS to be a better way to achieve the setup I want. I started looking around and so far all I can find for a triple display KVM is the IOGEAR GCS1964. It definitely looks like it would fit the bill though it is a bit pricy at over $800. The main issue would be the fact that my work laptops don't output DP, only HDMI. I could probably still use the adapters but the KVM is showing 3 DP for each PC. I am thinking that it is looking for 3 DP sources to be attached in order to do triple HDMI outputs. If so, then I need some way to get two more signals from my laptops to the KVM. Enter the D6000 dock again. They have three monitor ports, 2 DP and 1 HDMI. I could theoretically connect a D6000 to each laptop via USB-C and then run three monitor connections off of it including an HDMI to DP adapter. Now if you are thinking that that isn't much of an improvement I agree with you. It still has a bunch of moving pieces and would cost me another $300-400 for the extra D6000 docking stations. Another thought I had was to get an ultrawide monitor, 49" Odyssey G9 is awfully tempting but the CHG90 looks decent and may solve my issues for around $800-900 instead of $1200-1600. The only issue I have there is that I really like my current monitors and don't really want to part with them. The upside is that it would be one monitor with one DP connection which my current KVM can easily handle. So the question is which way should I go? Has anyone else set up triple monitors with 4 PC's via a KVM so that all 4 PC's could use triple monitors and if so, how did you go about it? NOTE: One of my work laptops I have authority to install software and the other one I don't. They are for two different companies and one has more stringent security than the other (long story).

Everything here is spot on. Convenience versus security. Always a balancing act. I personally use LastPass and it has been wonderful. Like KeePass, it lets you store passwords, randomly generate passwords, has browser extensions and has a mobile version. It can also be set up with multifactor authentication with various services like Google Authenticator, Okta and I think Yubikey but don't quote me on that. The nicest thing about it, though I think you have to pay for the feature, is being able to fill passwords on mobile apps and web pages. I run LastPass on my phone and it has been so convenient. I have it protected by biometrics on the phone as well.

PIA - Private Internet Access This being the LTT Forums someone had to suggest it. In all honesty, I have been using them and haven't had any issues with them.

Did a quick search on NewEgg.com to get started. I found some 27" Acers that would definitely fit the bill for your center monitor but they are 300+ Euro each. The 60 Hz 1440p search came up empty. I have three Asus MG248 which are 24" 1080 monitors with 1ms response time and 144Hz refresh rate. They aren't without bezels by any means but they aren't that big either. I like them a lot. I was actually just contemplating a monitor upgrade and one of the options I am considering is going 49" Curved. Unfortunately the Odyssey G9 from Samsung that Linus reviewed (and the one I was looking at) is having some issues right now. The Samsung CHG90 is pretty decent runner up and under $1000. The only downside is I really like my triple monitors as they are some of the best I have ever owned and I would actually loose a little screen real estate (about half a monitor) if I chose a 49" monitor. I think the bezeless requirement is going to hinder your search the most, hence the suggestion of the curved display. You might also think about going to 1080p instead of 1440p as I think you will have more options to choose from.