Mitchell Report

hardware

A distressed cream-and-black vintage-style poster with a rough inked border. At left, a worried, downcast man in a brimmed hat, jacket, tie, and trousers turns out the empty pockets of his pants. Large bold text across the top and center reads, “Opportunity BUDDY, CAN YOU SPARE A GPU?” At right, a fenced industrial complex of tall buildings is marked “AI”; in front of it sit three wooden crates labeled “GPUs,” “RAM,” and “SSDs.” Text along the bottom reads, “THE AI BOOM HAS BOUGHT UP THE SUPPLY. CONSUMER UPGRADES NOT AVAILABLE.” The illustration uses a monochrome, aged newspaper-print style.


I wanted to write this blog post earlier in October but got hung up with work last month. For some reason, work has been crazy lately. So Ed Zitron, Paul from Paul's Hardware, Steve Burke from Gamers Nexus and others beat me to this topic, and Vex, a YouTuber, does a great job explaining it too. Just as I was finishing this, Brennan published I Am Relentless and Undaunted. Go read it. It's worth your time.

So I don't have to make this a long post, sorry, just kidding, it will be very long. I have to get this off my chest and vent. I believe there's a conspiracy here, and it deserves some attention.

Read more...

This October has been an expensive one. First, our hot water heater went out. It was probably about 10 years old. Then, two days after our water heater went out, the refrigerator went out, and it was also about 10 years old. Fixing it would cost more than buying a new one. So off to Home Depot we went, and $1,900 later, we had a nice new refrigerator with a five-year warranty. It's bigger than the old one but more energy-efficient, and it has LED lighting, which is very bright.

Ten years for both appliances. That seems to be the norm now, though I would like to go back to the days when appliances lasted 20–30 years or more.

Speaking of appliances and household gadgets, can we get just a plain-Jane dumb TV? Nothing smart, just a TV where we can plug in a stick or a small box like an Apple TV, Fire TV, or Google TV. The dumb TV just needs a nice picture, good sound, and a digital tuner. I don't need smarts built into the TV. I would rather have those features separate so they're easier to upgrade and maintain, and cheaper in the long run.

This has been quite a year for major hardware purchases, both for computers and home appliances. Hopefully, that's it. One thing I don't want right now is any more hard drive or RAM problems, as computer hardware is almost as expensive as kitchen appliances.

There have been enough unexpected expenses this year, including a dead hard drive that, ironically, was over 10 years old. So this year, all the 10s died.

Praying that's it for the next few years when it comes to expensive household appliances or much-needed computer equipment.

#hardware #personal #technology

💬 Discuss... ✉️ Email 🦣 Reply on Mastodon

This has been some week for hardware and appliance problems in my household.

Thursday, I had a silent hard drive crash. It could have happened before then, but I didn't notice it until Thursday. The drive was there last week, but Windows 11 would not recognize it. I tried it in two different computers to rule out bad cables or a motherboard issue.

I didn't realize the drive was 10 years and 3 months old until I removed it and looked at it. It is kind of like a washer, you don't think about how old it is until something happens. I had a stale backup, so I probably lost 5 to 10 percent of the stuff that was not backed up.

Read more...

This weekend was quite productive for me! I managed to put together the Pironman5 Max and install a 16GB Raspberry Pi 5, and I also moved my 1TB NVMe drive from my old 8GB Pironman5, which served my homelab and home server for a year. I've owned the Pironman5 Max since June, but my ongoing health issues had left me too drained to assemble it until now. Thankfully, my new medication, Camzyos, has really helped me regain some energy.

A black, vertical standing computer case with a glossy finish and the word "PIRONMAN" embossed on the front, placed on a textured gray surface. The case features visible ports and a power button on the front panel.

Compact and mysterious, this sleek black box hints at high-tech secrets within, standing ready for its next mission.

I'm planning to repurpose the old 8GB Pironman5 for testing various operating systems. While I enjoy the Pironman5 series from Sunfounder, I'm not thrilled with their LCD and the software that comes with it.

I've also been busy loading more Blu-rays and DVDs onto my home Plex server, a task that is quite labor-intensive.

#hardware #tech-gadgets #technology

💬 Discuss... ✉️ Email 🦣 Reply on Mastodon