Computer Upgrades or lack there of.

[Tom]

At the recent gathering at Mr.As (june 24 2019) people seemed to wonder why I hadn't upgraded my PC yet.

Basically, It's still pretty capable. "8" core bulldozer based cpu, 32GB ram, TONS of SSD space, etc.

My main annoyance is that I have yet to have a completely stable motherboard for this platform. Every single one I've tried has had problems. Second most annoying thing is that new CPUs are just so much faster.

A brand new Ryzen 2700x is near 2x as fast per core. and can have TWICE the amount of /true/ cores. The soon to be released 3900x should be like at least as 2x as fast per core, and have 4x the number of true cores, and has 4x the threads. like WAT.

And as for why I haven't upgraded in the past couple years? Beween it being useable enough, and pure budget reasons. The past two years we have not had the 1-2k spare I need to build a decent machine to make the budget spend worth it.

The job I do can get done decently enough with my current desktop. I think cached build times for an Android ROM can be down arround 40min or shorter sometimes. So its not too terrible. A co worker has a ryzen 2, and its about 20min or so for him. so I'm not wasting that much more time. Also, I built a big server years ago that can do compile jobs as well. dual socket Opteron. 2x 16core, with 32 "cores", and 128GB ram. Its a bit faster for builds than my desktop in general but local dev tends to be more convenient.

So yeah.

My plan is, once we have regular income and moralle improves I will invest in a new workstation. Totally going down as a business expense. It will not be cheap. Who knows, maybe I'll lease the beast from some place. I have gotten tired of dealing with computer hardware problems in general. It'd be nice to just buy a GOOD box from some company with a decent warranty and they can effing deal with the problems I inevitably have.

Speaking of such things. This computer in all its various incarnations has had no end of problems. Most current and annoying is that my USB 2 ports have decided to stop working? It might be a linux kernel thing. I haven't tested in windows lately as I have two usb3 controllers (the built in one used to deffinitely have linux driver problems, but seems to work ok now?) and a 7 port hub I hang most things off of now. Motherboard before this one had its built in sound just stop working. Actually I think it may have never worked? I can't recall.

1st world problems man. 1st world problems.

As a side note, my brain is weird? I dunno. I still consider this workstation the same one it was before I upgraded it to the FX-8320, even though thats a completely separate motherboard and cpu. May have also been a DDR2 system so different ram as well lololol. But it was upgraded piece meal multiple times over a long period of time. Started out as a Phenom I 9550 or something around that, then I plugged a Phenom II 810 into it, and upgraded the mobo a bit later... then I grabbed the FX and a new mobo for that. Before my most recent AMD platforms it was a Intel Q6600 which funnily enough I bought and built at Fragapalooza back in the day. Basically I don't consider that the "same" machine since its an intel platform otherwise, it was more or less the same configuration. quad core, decent amount of ram... etc.

.. was about to continue my walk backwards... but lets instead just summarize my entire PC history shall we?

1st PC that was mostly "mine":

1. Packard Bell / NEC prebuilt from Staples back in 96ish
CPU: Intel Pentium 1 233mhz
RAM: 64MBish
Storage: 6GB HDD (Good for the time!)
OS: windows 95 OSR2 (for the usb support)
Other:
- winmodem,
- usb1!.
GFX: Built in ATI Mach 64

2. Self built #1 (98-99ish?)
CPU: Intel P2 Slot1 450mhz
RAM: 256MB (or so? cant remember what it started out as tbh, but I think it was mostly at 256?)
GFX: Nvidia Riva TNT2 side/down-graded to ATI All-In-Wonder 128 (or pro, can't 100% remember) for the tv tuner/tv-out (based on the rage 128 arch)
Storage:
- 6GB HDD from previous build till it failed, then:
- 20GB HDD perhaps upgraded to 40?
OS: Dual boot Windows 98 + Mandrake Linux (maybe debian too? can't recall)
Other:

Fun story, got this "upgrade" to play FF7, it wouldn't at all on the previous PC. Turns out the TNT2 was /too fast/ and FF7 also didn't directly support the TNT2, just the TNT1, so if I tried a hack to enable the hardware glide magic, the game would go ape and play at 2-4x the speed and glitch out.

3. Self built #2 (many different "small" upgrades done piece-meal from 2001ish on)
CPU(s): this one is a bit of a confusing mess. been so long and it had so many up/side-grades.
1. AMD Athlon (pluto/orion) @ 900mhz+
2. XP Thunderbird @ 1.1Ghz
3. XP ThroughBred 2200+ - 2400+ @ 1.8ghz ish
4. XP Palo/Barton 2800+ / 3200+ @ 2.1-2.3ghz
RAM: 512MB - 512MB-2GB. (may have topped out at 1GB, ram is a blur these days...)
GFX: I honestly can't remember exactly... but...
  - AIW from prev pc, then
  - ? something may have existed here? Not sure...
  - Radeon 9250 (I think?)
  - Radeon 9600xt (I think?)
Storage:
  - various HDDS. 40-80GB (I think I got it with 4x80 for bulk storage, and used older/smaller drive(s) for booting)

4. Self built #3 (at fragapalooza! 2007-2008ish)
CPU: Intel Core2Quad Q6600 @ 2.4ghz
Yes. I went from a single core Atlon XP to a quad core core2 Intel. No joke. The difference was astounding.
RAM: 2-4GB (can't remember exactly)
GFX: Nvidia GForce 8800GTS 320MB (not the great one, the "its ok" but decently priced one. iirc the 640MB and the other later released variants were a fair bit better)
Storage: um, heck if I know? Maybe a 120G-320G or smth? I'll have to go back and recall all of those separate upgrades.... sheesh

5. Self built #4-X?
CPU:
1. AMD Phenom I 9550 (iirc) @ 2.2Ghz
2. AMD Phenom II x4 810 @ 2.6Ghz (2010ish?)
RAM: 4G-8GB?
GFX: Same GF 8800GTS till it died and I replaced it with a "spare" 8800GTS I had gotten from Mr.A some time later. Had thought about SLI but never bothered and then the first one died. sigh.
Storage: erm... Buah? No idea what the boot drives might have been...

6. Self built #5 (kinda sorta mentally/emotionally consider this to be the "same" machine as the above, but meh, its different enough)
CPU: AMD FX-8320 @ 3.5-4Ghz (now OCed up to 4.4Ghz, could OC up to 4.8+ if I was better at OCing and had better cooling)
RAM: 8-16GB DDR3
GFX:
1. Replacement 8800GTS
2. Radeon HD 6850
3. Nvidia GForce gt 640 (not used much in my PC, but did for a time)
4. Radeon R9 390 (quite the jump...)

Laptops:

1. Something tam gave me, that was old then, but got much older! lol
2. Lenovo Thinkpad SL-500 (looks like a thinkpad, but is actually an ideapad inside... sigh. but I got a lot of use out of it. one of the first things i bought after getting my first real contract)
3. Lenovo Thinkpoad W-520/530? KICK ASS BEAST. Still good today. quad core intel, upgraded to 32GB ram, and 1+ TB ssd storage.
4. Lenovo X220 (bought used for travel). works well. even after I accidentally threw it across the airport securty checkout floor. whups. had to replace the hinge and back case since it was magnesium and the hinge mount snapped. magnesium is brittle af.



Soooo yeah. Thats my major PC history.

Mass storage went something like:
1. 4x80GB in raid0 (yeah, fast and loose. two were killed during a PSU malfunction so even if it was raid 5, it wouldn't have helped any)
1.5. may have had something here? 120-150s? dunno.
2. Nx320GB in raid
3. Nx640GB in raid
4. Nx1TB in raid (I think I had upwards of 5 1TB drives at some point at one time?)
5. Nx2TB in raid (4-7?)
6. Nx3TB in raid (I think it maxed out at 7 drives?)
7. 5x5TB in raid 5 (current, and no need to expand any time soon, still have 7TB free. maybe I'll start collecting stuff again, but for now I haven't even downloaded a movie or tv show in many moons/years)

I still have a lot of the larger drives. I eventually sold or got rid of the 320s and 640s. But I still have a bunch of the 1, 2 and 3 tb disks. There were a significant number of HD failures over the years, particularly in the Seagate arrays.

Failures:
- That first 6GB drive
- 2x80GB drives due to a psu /explosion/
- then some 320s failed, one was within a couple weeks of buying it, then the first replacement failed.
- may have had a 640 fail? though perhaps not, I don't have any particularly memorable memories of them.
- 1x 20GB OCZ Vertex1 eventually failed after several years of use
- 2+ 1TB drives failed
- 2+ 2TB drives failed (2 seagate I think, and one WD Green if thats the 2TB drives...)
- 2+ 3TB drives failed, ended up replacing them with WD Reds. No more plain consumer drives in my NASs. kthx.

At one point I had averaged about 1 drive failure a year over 10 years. I think that list isn't 100% complete, I had a 20GB and a 40GB drive at some point but i can't exactly remember what happened to them.

Now why I n the heck did I just spend the past hour or so writing this? I have no idea. If you made it this far, I salute you.

[Melbosa]

Salute received...

[Tom]

I totally forgot to also list the various motherboards, lol. I honestly can't remember all of them. but I have had more than I have had PCs. Had a few motherboard failures, and some not completely necessary replacements and of course the necessary upgrades for new cpu platforms.

[Lazybones]

That is a lot of text.

If you are thinking of building remember https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/ exists unless you are impatient and just plan on purchasing what is available at your local memory express etc.

You seem to have a lot of active systems for how few computer users you have, you may want to consider consolidating when it makes financial sense that is.. You may actually be incurring some substantial power bill costs with so much hardware running, at least for any persistently used systems.

[Tom]

That is a lot of text.

If you are thinking of building remember https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/ exists unless you are impatient and just plan on purchasing what is available at your local memory express etc.

You seem to have a lot of active systems for how few computer users you have, you may want to consider consolidating when it makes financial sense that is.. You may actually be incurring some substantial power bill costs with so much hardware running, at least for any persistently used systems.

Hm, well I have three computers on at any given time. I guess thats a lot.

My desktop/workstation, the NAS, and the big server box. That big list is just historical. Power use is relatively decent. I have my workstation go to sleep after an hour or so of no use. The NAS is pretty power efficient. And the server, well actually it's not terrible either when idle. But Yeah it all adds up and can add some amount to my bill but not a whole heck of a lot.

Our power use is somewhere around 1000kWh/mo. Or about $73 in electrical use charges. Total power bill last month was $153.49. not too bad imo. Living alone when I did my best to reduce power use as much as possible (power used to cost a lot more), I could only get it down to like 700kWh/mo. so 1000 for three of us? Not too bad.

[Lazybones]

My bill is every other month. Are you sure you are using 1000 kWh / mo?

Apr 5, 2019 to Jun 5, 2019 1,417 kWh used

Have been running AC in the master bedroom.

Apr 5, 2018 to Jun 5, 2018 1,230 kWh

AC/space heaters, laundry dryer and oven use make the biggest obvious swings per month however persistent power use can be significant if you have several things.

This is for a 1400sqf town house with 5 people living there. Gas heat / water heating and all electric appliances.

Your weather is more extreme however so I suspect AC/Space heater use to be more frequent than in my place.

At any rate it is a good idea to once and a while figure out what the power cost is of any persistent or heavy use items in the house.

[Thorin]

He has an electric water heater, that's probably chewing through a bunch of electricity.  I've averaged 892kwh per month with a natural gas water heater.

Jun 2018: 814
Jul 2018: 1092
Aug 2018: 912
Sep 2018: 805
Oct 2018: 875
Nov 2018: 957
Dec 2018: 1088
Jan 2019: 1042
Feb 2019: 704
Mar 2019: 859
Apr 2019: 788
May 2019: 763
total 10699 in a year

[Lazybones]

He has an electric water heater, that's probably chewing through a bunch of electricity.  I've averaged 892kwh per month with a natural gas water heater.

That would probably explain it.

However that still indicates I have a very energy efficient house hold but I would expect my use to be lower than yours Thorin, just surprised it is less than Tom's.

[Tom]

He has an electric water heater, that's probably chewing through a bunch of electricity.  I've averaged 892kwh per month with a natural gas water heater.

That would probably explain it.

However that still indicates I have a very energy efficient house hold but I would expect my use to be lower than yours Thorin, just surprised it is less than Tom's.

Yeah... I tried a long time to reduce my power consumption but nothing really saves much past about 700kwh. I'm surprised our power use wasn't higher after mila came ans then Xander was born to be honest. We use a lot more high draw things including more hot water, the stove, furnace fan is on more, etc.

From my last experiment with power monitoring my office area was showing 250watt including lights and monitors. So over the course of a month that's 182kwh times about 6c that's about $10 a month if it were all on 24/7. Which it isn't. PC goes to sleep after an hour or so, and lights are shut off regularly. I could probably save another 10/no by getting rid of the has and server... But then I'd have other problems.

Really though this wasn't about power. Just talking about why I hadn't upgraded my workstation yet.

[Tom]

If it helps, my hot water tank is rated for something like 4kw. I've actually measured that with my power monitoring stuff. But its not on for very long outside of laundry and showers. And its basically brand new and highish effeciency.

Basically between just before Mila came into my life, and now: the furnace, hotwater tank, washer and dryer all got replaced with high efficency units. The old furnace and washer/dryer were original to this place. early 80s vintage. Hot water tank was a late 90s or early 2000s vintage. So I did get a fair amount of benifit from that.

I could try and reduce power by doing clever stuff with the server and nas, but thats about the only place i can save power at this time. And that might get me 5-15$/mo. Depends on current numbers and just how i could reduce them without replacing everything, or moving to the cloud (which would cost more than I save in power).

[Thorin]

Really though this wasn't about power. Just talking about why I hadn't upgraded my workstation yet.

Fair enough, should a mod split the thread into "efficient electrical usage" or something?

...

Sounds like your higher-efficiency appliances offset the cost of more people using them.

[Tom]

Really though this wasn't about power. Just talking about why I hadn't upgraded my workstation yet.

Fair enough, should a mod split the thread into "efficient electrical usage" or something?

If people want to keep talking about it, sure

...

Sounds like your higher-efficiency appliances offset the cost of more people using them.

Seems so.