computers | genuine grumpy old tin

As a result of my new porn addiction, thank you Mr. Matt Lee!

I have started watching PC building videos. They feature builds which are way out of any conceivable budget I my aspire to, but they are slick well produced videos. Moving expectations away from the beige boxes of the past towards more object d’art.

I have been looking at crafted wooden cases as well and if my skills improve this might be a route I might consider. Adding into the mix I have seen how old LCD monitors, which are now next to nothing or free second hand, are being used as a tranparent second screen.

Anyway this is a future project, nothing to get involved with just yet.

Back to my weak will being influenced. I liked my original case. But, it was too big and slightly in the way. Black Friday offers were popping up on my feed with some very enticing prices. There is a dead space on the left of my desk and there was one case which fitted exactly exactly AND it had the on/off switch on the side. No more fishing around under the desk to power on. Just reach forwards, no hassle. Six ARGB fans included. And with another silly price drop I got an upgraded CPU cooler as well.

Here is my little glowy set up.The last two items to add are a monitor light and a macropad.

Adding to the setup is a little footstool I just made. When I watch media ( Just finished “The Night Manager, just beautifully shot, very tense in places and Hugh Laurie plays a truly evil charactor) I can sit back with my feet raised. As advised by doctors.

Don’t worry, back on track with hobby related stuff. I am just about to finish the largest model I have ever painted.

This is something I keep meaning to post for several weeks. Motivation for anything is hard. I have my journal where I set myself daily tasks and that can be struggle at times. There is no sat around moping, I am constantly busy, but it seems so pointless. Mostly I have set myself the task of going through various projects which have been started and the abandoned as I get distracted by something new and shiny. Generally they seem to be scattered around in various boxes, so I have been compiling them into one box or actually trying to finish them. One project, some Ork barricades was started twenty years ago. I have now started slapping some paint on them. I need to reduce my clutter which can seem overwhelming at times.

Back on topic, my new computer. It was a budget build and some mistakes were made. But lessons were learned.The reason I needed a new computer was that my old iMac died (again), it was the graphics card. A known problem, Apple had used a cheap solder which degraded over time. I could have bought a new card for about 200 Euro but there were two problems. Firstly my clever neighbour who has helped me over the years with technical stuff had died. And secondly the iMac really struggled with with anything processor intensive like Blender or BambuLabs slicer.

In all I ended up spending around 1600 Euros, this included several bells and whistles. Knowing what I know now I wish I had saved up a bit more and bought some more advanced parts to future proof. As I said it’s my first time.

On to what I ended up getting.

I bought two parts second hand. The first was this case. The NZXT Phantom full tower. Originally from around 2010. I now regret this. It looks lovely but it is huge and not really up to the job with modern components. It cost just over 40 Euro, with P&P, another 30 or so and I could have got a modern case.

The next second hand part was a BeQuiet! 750W Gold PSU. It arrived boxed as new and at half the price I would have paid if I had bought it new. No complaints.

For the monitor I chose the ODYS i27 monitor with a fancy Monitor mount.

Motherboard is an ASUS TUF Gaming B550 with wifi. Processor is AMD Ryzen 7 5700. 32gb of Crucial DDR4 ram. 1tb ssd. The GPU is NVIDEA GeForce RTX 3050. I got roasted so badly online when I had posted my build spec. When I had been researching it had been recommended as a decent budget GPU. So I am not quite sure where all the hate is coming from about this.

I did spend, probably too much, a bit on a keyboard. An Epomaker Leobog Hi86 mechanical keyboard with a solid aluminium body. It weighs a ton and feels so lovely. This I do not regret.

A Samsung Galaxy Tab 6E was bought for use as a graphics tablet. So far I have spent over five hours with Technical Support trying to the registration sorted out. It requests that a verification code is sent to my phone. No problem. However the code takes upto twelve hours to arrive. The verification window is two minutes. The helpdesk people haven’t been able to sort it out. Maybe there is a problem with my network? Well how come we are communicating almost immediately? They refuse to stray outside their script and when I request an upchain I’m told that there are no supervisors. I can’t request an escalation as the ticket is open. I am promised call backs which never happen which means I have to repeat the problem again to another person. GRRR!

My old scanner finally gave up the ghost. It was an Epson with the ability to scan negatives. The replacement cost was eye wateringly expensive. So I have gone with a Canon.

Money was spent on various USB cables, velcro strips for cable tidying, desk light Mouse, Mousemat, influencer lighting strips and a USB hub.

For sound I dug out my old speakers.