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Workstations / Desktops / Servers

Discussion in 'Technical Board' started by Nettdata, Dec 1, 2009.

  1. Nettdata

    Nettdata
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    Mr. Toast

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    But yeah... just pop in a new network card and it'll be detected/installed by the OS... and it'll show up as a second network port that you can then use. You can disable the onboard and it'll treat the new one as the system default.
     
  2. Binary

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    The above posts are correct about this being a simple plug-and-play operation.

    But I want to highlight what Nett said. This computer is not to be trusted now. If you want to keep using it, cool, but make damn sure that versioned, off-site backups are taken. Versioning is specifically important because if something is wonky and your computer starts silently corrupting data, you're going to want to revert to a good version of your stuff.

    It's completely possible that your network card took the bullet, and everything else will be fine. Likely, even. But you should still be aware of the possibility, because you should definitely make sure your backups are in order.
     
  3. Rush-O-Matic

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    Thanks everyone!

    Indeed, I have already assumed "other shit be fucked, yo" and am working on replacing my desktop. I do have everything backed up off site (I use iDrive - seems to work for me) and I have a duplicate backup to a local external hard drive.

    In addition, my cable and power does go through a surge protector. My ethernet was not protected, but I mistakenly thought it wouldn't jump past the cable protection. Oops. Three offices in my building lost their modems, another lost their router, and the node(?) for the cable was fried and replaced. My A/C was also blasted, but it was a simple thermostat reset fix, but the office next to me lost their compressor.
     
  4. malisbad

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    Sweet baby Jesus, that new m1max is a sexy beast. For 430,000 JPY it damn well better be though. I really want a 14" m1pro to replace my stupid Surface Pro 7 that has been little more than a constant source of disappointment in my life.
     
  5. Nettdata

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    Yeah... I _JUST_ finished spec'ing out the 16" I want... $6.5k. Dayum.
     
  6. Binary

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    Just put in my request at work. 14", M1max 24-core GPU, 64gb.
     
  7. malisbad

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    I just ordered this for one of my employees! Seems to be a great option.

    I would also consider a Framework laptop. I'm linux friendly, and the upgradeability and "deep dongles" really works for me.
     
  8. Binary

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    To be honest, my existing laptop is fine. But it's still got those butterfly keys, which I've always hated, and I've been waiting for the smaller MBP to come in a full-power configuration. And it's not my money, so...
     
  9. Binary

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    I've been using the new MBP 14 for several days now. Yikes is it fast, and amazingly quiet. Tasks that got my 2018 15" MBP to sound like a jet engine on takeoff are now accomplished with zero noise. Even when I'm loading large libraries of my 45 megapixel RAW files, I usually only hear the fans kick on at their lowest speeds. Played "Portal" for an hour for grins yesterday.

    I always hated the touch bar, so having my full row of hardware keys back is awesome. Wakeup from sleep is so fast that I never see the black screen when I open the laptop - by the time I get the screen open, the login prompt is already there.

    I'm still not the biggest fan of MacOS, but it's hard to argue with the quality of this hardware. I think the notch is marginally stupid (why is it so huge? There's only one camera up there, and if it were half the width it would interfere less with the menus) but it's also not really noticeable in most situations. I love that they ported 100% of their best hardware into their smaller form factor; I've always hated making a decision between portability and performance.
     
  10. Nettdata

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    I ordered a new one that shows up in January due to the backlog. I can't wait to see how it handles things like Da Vinci. Apparently it's crazy fast compared to the Intel MBP. That's good enough for me.

    I've been playing with the new drone and its ProRes features, and that lights up the fans in no time on the current laptop. By all reports, it's easily twice as fast with the new hardware.
     
  11. Binary

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    I don't work much with video, but one thing that's been pretty interesting is that it doesn't seem to matter how much I have open, the responsiveness is the same.

    Click on Outlook first thing in the morning? It opens instantly. Click on Outlook at 7pm when I have three dozen website tabs, Excel, two communications apps, Parallels running a Windows VM, and Adobe Bridge with a large catalog of new images indexing? It opens instantly. My 2018 MBP had tons RAM and a six core i7 processor, so it was no slouch, but there was - as you expect - a big difference in responsiveness when you had a lot open in the background.

    Raw speed is great, but responsiveness counts for a lot, and they've done some impressive optimizing here.
     
  12. Jimmy James

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    I will suck on the genitals of the first person that can sell me a 3060ti for MSRP. I was on Best Buy's site for nearly an hour this morning trying to get through and nothing. I just want a single goddamn video card that wasn't released in 2014.
     
  13. Juice

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    Are you using any of the in-stock trackers? I have some friends that have had some success with those. I bit the bullet and bought a 3080 on eBay for well over retail a year ago. I thought I would regret doing so, but after another year of chip shortages, I'm glad I did. Microcenter is another place that typically gets card stock in on Fridays.
     
  14. Nettdata

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    I opted to buy a new system from a shop in Toronto that had inventory of high end cards for MSRP, but only for sale with a whole system. Figured it was time (my last linux desktop was a new Dell from about 6 years ago), so upgraded to a Threadripper and a 3090. It doesn't suck.
     
  15. Juice

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    Probably the easiest way. I know the high-end rig stores online like Falcon NW and System76 usually have them available.
     
  16. Jimmy James

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    Yeah, using all of the trackers. Unfortunately, there's no Microcenter where I live, and buying a brand-new computer just for the video card isn't in the budget. I might have to wait for store drop at Best Buy and camp outside like some kind of nerdy refugee.
     
  17. Juice

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    Got it. Yeah, it sucks. Tuesdays and Thursdays are allegedly when BB gets new stock, but you probably already knew that. Good luck.
     
  18. joule_thief

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    If you sign up for Best Buy's Total Tech membership program for $200, you get access to hard to find stuff first. I don't know for sure if it extends to video cards, but a friend signed up for it and was able to get PS5s for me and himself.
     
  19. redbullgreygoose

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    I know this is probably a looooong shot in the dark, but has anyone ever worked with Falcon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_(storage_engine) for DB storage?
    It's legacy and my company is finally dumping it after 20 years. We'll have epicor's CRM up and running by the end of the year and finally be done with this nightmare once and for all. Currently, end users are using telnet (!!) to create Falcon instances to manage sales/orders/invoices/customers etc. But, because there's almost no documentation, we're having trouble running queries all over the place. The lawyers and accountants want to make sure we pull all the relevant data, for the past 20 years, and preserver a digital copy in case we ever need it. This has to be completed before the Epicor deployment.

    Edit: Plan B (and the increasingly more likely scenario) is to use a third party data management software to run queries against and map the database. From there, we'll just catalog the query outputs.
     
    #299 redbullgreygoose, Jul 2, 2022
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2022
  20. malisbad

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    So, I bought a Quest 2 last winter, and I just pulled it out against because Immersed did a big upgrade, and there is no longer a need for a Facebook account. I figured it might be a good time putting it in for a spin to see how it would work for me as a productivity tool instead of a Beat Saber/Super Hot machine.

    The Bad:
    • Anti-aliasing is pretty distracting because I think eyes generally interpret it as movement
    • Sometime the controls get a little funky, but overall the experience is ok
    • The edges of your vision are always a little too blurry, like the sharpness is really tight in terms of a field of view
    • The quest still fails to fill all of your vision, so it's still kind of got that "keyhole" effect in your peripheral vision.
    • It's kind of a poor replacement since I use a 4k monitor and basically tile 4 x 1080p windows on it. If you're used to a single 1080p, or don't want a display at all, you're golden.
    • VR and Macs still isn't great. Maybe it'll be better on the M1 Pro/Max, but I think it still requires a fairly beefy graphics solution to render it well.
    The Good:
    • Some of the environments have nice sound effects. Right now I'm using the lodge "room" and it's got a really good rainy day environmental sound design to it.
    • Being able to move/position/scale screens infinitely is pretty boss AF. I can send the screen I'm typing on to a different distance to relieve eye strain.
    • 5 virtual screens is probably really good for someone with poor vision, especially because of the scalability.
    • The wireless connection is incredible. I can lie in bed and have the same work environment, same with being in the living room on the couch. I can also let my wife use the bench for something while I don't lose out on the "multi-screen" work environment.
    • Almost no perceivable input lag between the headset display and my keyboard
    All in all, I would definitely recommend you give it a whirl if you find that you lose your primary workspace a lot, just want to be away from the desk, or want to lie down and watch a movie while looking at the ceiling.