PC Builders

Are they POE? Didn't know Pi's could run like that, such a clean setup.

 

Yeah, RPi clusters are kind of thing. Really good, cheap platform to learn clustered services before spending big bucks in the cloud. I do prototype/MVP work, so this is fine for me. I don't need to support thousands and thousands of IoT devices.

But there has always been aftermarket modules for the RPi platform. Those are just PoE hats on top with another module on the bottom for NVMe M.2 drives. They're simple, reliable, and fast, when setup without any GUI.

 

Absolutely. My rig is up and running now. I use it mostly for work. But I play in the evenings, at times, when I get my son and wife down. Are you on Discord?

Yup! It is a pretty awesome event. The alt one is called Lan all night. Also in the DFW area. I havent been yet, but my friends go and one day I will make it back out for them both.

 

The fact that I only understand part of this fills me with dread. LOL

Part of why I am building a PC is to start the foundation for IT-ish stuff. I work at a telecom company and to diversify my resume (not looking to leave, but make myself more valuable) by learning some of the Network Analyst side of things. Possibly working toward my CCNA, but I have zero experience and generally hate computers. I'm forcing myself into it all, and using the excuse of playing an upcoming MMO to bait myself into it.

 

There is a whole world of activity inside the IT game that doesnt use all of what he talked about. You will learn. I am a closet nerd and know the second least out of my friend group.

 

Like any new field/topic/body of knowledge/whatever you want to call it, the entrance barrier is always the hardest to overcome; especially if it's your first foray to that niche's parent class. Building a PC really won't net you much in regards to networking, but understanding the components will help your general knowledge, which is worthwhile (especially when you realize how easy they are to piece together after being glued with drivers).

My background is in classical engineering fields. We built a house and I wanted to setup a self-contained networked surveillance system. Whoa, that took me forever to make sense of. Had no idea what a router actually did other than magically turn the ISP cable into "internet," or that switches were even things. Next I wanted to host a Docker container to run a local instance of an exercise software, Zwift, on my NAS. That about broke me for 9mo. Fast forward and I now am more of a software/devops/EE guy than I am any of my actual other degrees.

Point is, the stuff is definitely self-teachable. You'll figure it out.

 

Which one?

 

I have the perfect box for you

$190 AUDHEID K7 8 Bay NAS Case, Computer Enclosures Compatible Micro-ATX Mini-ITX Motherboard, 3 x Fans, 8 x 2.5/3.5" Tray, Network Attached Storage Server for Home(Diskless)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09QKMQ1B1?ie=UTF8

 

There are actually cheap 1U and 2U inserts for RPis which you can find on Amazon, though my favorite ones have been custom designed - something like: https://uplab.pro/2020/12/raspberry-pi-server-mark-iii/

My current 4 bay NAS will be relegated to my detached shop/lab space as "off site" backup and I'll swap in a 2U Synology. After that, I'd like to cram my PC into a 3U server chassis. My goal will be to get rid of standalone boxes once the cabinet is up.

My current tornado looking setup with wood shelves was one of those "temporary" solutions which turned a little too permanent. It's fortunately in a closet in the basement as that's where I had all ethernet lines routed to (effective thermal mgmt).

 

Same here I try to take time out in the weekends to decompress a bit if I'm not dying underneath my third gen lol. My discord is DoSiDos#9848

 

invite sent

 

Appreciate the encouragement.

I'm actually really looking forward to building a PC for the first time, and I have several guys at work that have volunteered to coach me if I have troubles.

One thing I keep seeing people recommend is downloading the BIOS before power on the PC so you can load them immediately. Trouble is, I don't have a computer to download it in the first place. How vital is this? Can I build and power up the PC, then get the BIOS onto it directly, or should I have one of these guys help me by downloading it on a USB stick first?

 

This is my hope. On nights at work I have been watching of NetworkChuck vids to get my head around it, and once I build the PC I plan to use it to learn alongside the gaming.

 

Don't worry about BIOS at first start-up.

Post the board, note the BIOS version, understand what improvements have been made to subsequent releases before updating. BIOS updates are not always beneficial for everyone. Additionally, there are instances where you must update to a median version before you can update to a more recent version.

Post, evaluate, then update as needed.

 

Some manufacturers have a utility software that let you update the bios from windows and it’ll restart automatically. I know asus, msi, gigabyte does this, you’ll see your bios update thread under support or downloads section from your motherboard website.

 

yup yup and yup...

My friend had me get the bios downloaded to a thumb drive to make sure I could boot from it. Then when I opened everything, MSI had a thumb drive in the MOBO box with the bios on it. So it was a waste of time. Modern solutions have been created for most things.

 

I'm pretty sure this MOBO has the drive, but I don't know if it's actually the most up to date when you get it or if it could be months out of date.

 

I forgot i posted in this thread. Pretty cool to be able to track upgrades.

Well the 3900x system looks like it lasted me a few years. I just upgraded to a new build:

Ryzen 9800x3d with Thermalright Peerless Assassin cooler
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite
32gb Corsair 6000Mhz CL30 ram
Crucial T700 Gen5 2TB drive
Still rocking the 3060ti
Fractal Torrent mid case.

Regarding my UnRAID server, that went through quite a couple evolutions. I got rid of all the small drives and went with 14/18/20tb drives.....up to 162tb useable (202tb RAW).
That system has a 12600k, 32gb ram, dual 4tb 990pro's in Raid0 as a cache drive all in a Fractal Meshify 2XL in storage mode.

At some point i made a backup UnRAID server....i think its somewhere around 100tb.
8700k with 16g of ram, no cache, in a Fractal Define 7xl.

Then i went down the Ubiquiti rabbit hole.

 

They all rabbit holes

I have 2 x UnRaid NAS with 100TB between the 2 of them and beefy VmWare SuperMicro server.
As for Unifi, I pretty much have their entire ecosystem Here is my Unifi porn LOL

 

Nice flex on the Shadow Mode SE's. And that's a shit load of dinero you have in cameras. I'm lightly thinking about migrating my Blue Iris camera server over to an UNVR, but i really dont want to spend an extra $700 on that AI key thing so i can get alerts with my Dahua cameras.

Here's mine....I'm happy to have some 2.5g ports now. I'll probably grab one of the Wifi7 AP's at some point.

 

I couldn't bring myself to spend the big bucks on Ubiquiti. Congrats to you both. However, def get off of Blue Iris. I'm using Synology's surveillance station and love having it there so much more than a dedicated BI box. My BIL has their 7 bay NVR (overkill for him) and it's sweet.

 

I’m officially up for adoption lol

 

^^^WOW!!!! Amazing!!

Any of you have just one machine fishing for bit coin just for kicks? The only thing I know about that is little from reading. Back in grade school when a couple of smart kids were learning fortran (long long ago) I was fishing, hunting, and playing sports.

I see places that have warehouses now with nothing but (bit coin chasing) here in Texas. In fact these such places are most of the biggest draws of electricity on the system. So much so ERCOT has paid them to shut down for periods of time.


When I see a screen like that above I just think about the amount of data space to run something like that.

 

Yes I have a small slot (100 nodes) in a big mining server farm in Poland as the electricity there is very cheap. Mining for the past 5 years and very lucrative but with violent ups and downs. Is all about timing when to cash in and out.

 

I lived that life, too lol. Got my start as well in '93. Dad was an engineer and brought home a PC (i386 DX) for auto-cad, and I was also in aerospace at the time hoping to follow in his footsteps. It wasn't 3 months before I had that thing torn apart and learned everything I could reading manuals and the like (no YouTube at the time), and it was then I found a passion for tech and got into IT. Worked out well because aerospace tanked. I eventually moved into app-dev as a career. But I do also have to thank gaming, as without that I wouldn't have gone to the lengths that I did to soup up the rig. Damn that 32-bit VESA LOCAL BUS!!

My kids also of course had their own rigs from parts that I kicked down, and I was also family/friend's tech support and seemed to always have 2 or 3 PCs in my office that weren't mine, someone's to fix of build. And of course I have/had multiple machines doing different things (file/media server, HTPC, etc.). Don't do much of that anymore, just mostly personal builds the last 10+ years or so, and once again for gaming purposes as I gotta have the pretty graphics and HD audio.

 

With @T-Rex266 's generous help I can now check 3 things off the list.

I venmoed the funds and he picked up the CPU to ship to me, because he is awesome like that.



The power supply showed up a couple days ago.



And the graphics card as well.

 

Nice! Also doing a 9800X3D build myself. Decided it was time to move on from my old 5800x.
I got lucky with the CPU and got it through Amazon with a small pricing mistake. Was supposed to arrive mid February but ended up delivered mid January, so got my RAM over that weekend. Motherboard was the last part I was waiting for but that got here today.
Should be tearing down the old build and putting the new parts in next weekend.

 

Nice! I tried Amazon but it was only available from a 3rd party seller with questionable reviews and a hundred bucks over what micro center had it for. Sadly, micro center won't ship them. In store only, so @T-Rex266 saved me 12+ hours driving to the nearest one.

 

Oh dude yea Micro Center is amazing, so much to buy lmao, luckily/regrettably it's 1.5 to 2 hours of a drive for me so that keeps me from going often.
When I got mine the Houston Micro Center was out of stock but Amazon, sold by Amazon, stock kept blipping in and out of stock. Now Microcenter has 25+ stock of it while amazon is all out.

 

Why not order from Newegg and keep a warranty?

Glad you got what you needed, but seems like you are including an needed middle man. What do.you do if you have problems and need to RMA?