PC Community Thread

Started by the-pi-guy, Jul 31, 2014, 02:28 AM

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Legend

I just noticed my old computer monitor has burn in and I have no idea what caused it.

One part is very clearly "$2,700 => $8,000" in italicized text and I have no idea when that would have been on my screen. Maybe a youtube ad that was paused. The rest of the burn in looks very similar to a non full screen youtube page but things don't line up perfectly.

the-pi-guy


the-pi-guy

Half Life has been updated for the 25th anniversary, and also Valve is giving it away for free for the next few days.  

Legend

Half Life has been updated for the 25th anniversary, and also Valve is giving it away for free for the next few days.  
Thanks for the heads up. I've played the opening section of Half Life countless times throughout the years but I've never stuck with it. Having my own copy might change that.

the-pi-guy

Been looking into throwing together a server for cheap, mostly because I want expandable storage for cheap.  

Got a server with a bunch of HDDs that work was throwing away.

I think I'm going to throw out the server stuff, and keep the HDDs, wipe them.

Build a new server for ~$500.  

I've been looking into Unraid vs Raid 6.  

The nice thing about Unraid is that you can combine different sized drives. But you lose out on the speed that Raid has.

the-pi-guy


Legend

Do you need any specs or could any old computer do?

darkknightkryta

Both of my drives (DVD and Blu-ray drive) seem to be failing in one sense or the other

Blu ray drive still reads DVDs just fine, but I was having trouble reading a brand new Blu-ray of Avatar. Still kind of working, but not very well.  

The DVD drive was even worse. Immediately ejects any disc, asking for me to insert a disc. Seems to think a disc is some kind of foreign object or something.  

Kind of feel like the drives were tampered with, by a certain toddler...  

Replaced the DVD drive with a new Blu ray drive. Seems to be reading Avatar just fine now.  





On a related topic it is weird how difficult it is to play a Blu-ray on windows.

VLC Media Player, which is pretty proud of being able to play pretty much everything, requires a lot to play Blu-ray discs. Like 7 steps of adding different files to different locations.
My slim bluray drive might be failing.  There were a few DVDs that have issues.  When I open them up on MakeMKV I get a lot of scsi errors.  On my slim LG drive, the drive literally dies and I have to eject.  My external Pioneer UHD drive reads them fine, though it still gives the scsi errors.  I think it might be a power issue, but still.  

Been looking into throwing together a server for cheap, mostly because I want expandable storage for cheap.  

Got a server with a bunch of HDDs that work was throwing away.

I think I'm going to throw out the server stuff, and keep the HDDs, wipe them.

Build a new server for ~$500.  

I've been looking into Unraid vs Raid 6.  

The nice thing about Unraid is that you can combine different sized drives. But you lose out on the speed that Raid has.
I personally wouldn't Raid anything.  I like the advantage of just being able to migrate one drive to another.  Raid kinda kills that.  

the-pi-guy

Do you need any specs or could any old computer do?
Realistically any kind of old PC could do fine.

But I have some targets.

- transcode multiple 4K streams (CPU/GPU)
- hook up 10+ HDDs to the motherboard (PCIe Sata Expansion is totally fine).


I personally wouldn't Raid anything.  I like the advantage of just being able to migrate one drive to another.  Raid kinda kills that.  
I think my best option is to do an Unraid. Which has 2 parity drives.

I want:
- parity
- mix different sized drives
- with no read speed penalty
- with no storage penalty.

Major issue for me with RAID is that it treats every drive as if it were the same size.

Concerned about Unraid as it has read speed penalty. But this probably doesn't really matter.

the-pi-guy

PSUCorsair 850W - $135
GPUQuadro P400 - $100
RAM16 GB Corsair - $50
MotherboardASUS - $115
CPUAMD Ryzen 5 5500 - $90
Case$150
Total$640


Maybe I can do cheaper...

Ordered a PSU and the first HDD (which is not included in this pricing breakdown.)

Still have to figure out how I want to do this.

I'm leaning towards integrated gpus with Intel. I can potentially cut out the GPU costs.

It's a little funny, only 4 years ago, it seemed like the advice was "Do not try transcoding 4k under any circumstances". And now it's like "why would you get a dedicated GPU for transcoding, my integrated toaster can transcode a few 4k streams."


Although the Intel Arc A380 seems very interesting. It seems like it is excellent for transcoding, and yet terrible for gaming and anything else. Like doubles a RTX 2080 Super in encoding speed, while being a fraction in gaming.  

the-pi-guy

Been struggling to find a good motherboard that has the features I want. And now I found one for cheap at Newegg and wondering what the catch is.

And then I found a reddit thread where people were making fun of it for not having a lot of USB ports. *shrugs*

the-pi-guy

PSUCorsair 850W - $135
GPUQuadro P400 - $100
RAM16 GB Corsair - $50
MotherboardASUS - $115
CPUAMD Ryzen 5 5500 - $90
Case$150
Total$640


Maybe I can do cheaper...
The case I was looking at is $110 more now than when I started looking at it.

Legend

The case I was looking at is $110 more now than when I started looking at it.
And I thought regular inflation was bad  :o

kitler53

seems inline with current inflation numbers..


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