New Computer

[kennith]

Here's the worst case ever made, next to the case that will eventually house this machine once I get in there and cut some shit up:



I feel like I'm going to catch a disease going anywhere near that Antec 900.

This old project was briefly considered; a cancelled order a while back. I think I've still got all the parts... Might use it for the other machine:



That's a bad motherfucker. Well, it was. The case still is. That's one I was personally putting time into.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[kennith]

Nice!

It looks like I'll have the sound cards and a replacement card reader by Tuesday.

You can't see shit now with the side panel on, but I may do something about that. It was looking cool through the 140mm fan grille, but I decided to fit adhesive foam filters around the machine to keep out more dust. Oh, well. I've got some smoked acrylic I can use if I want to cut in a window.

The 2.0 ports on my old card reader are acting up. I tried everything I could think of within reason in a few machines, so I figure it's best to shove it in the old rig and just use the ESATA, card reader, and 3.0 ports for as long as they keep working. I'm using aftermarket drivers in that machine to get the Xonar card working, but I don't want that nonsense in this build.

It's getting to the point where I really should pick up more spares, because people are stupid, and cases are now glass and lacking 5.25 bays. Fucking idiots.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[kennith]

Holy shit. I don't know how it sounds yet, but damn they weren't fucking around with industrial design...



It's a computer part, so of course it has to have "gaming" written on it somewhere. In this event it makes sense, though. Some of the most asked questions initially were whether or not it would "work for gaming". Well, that's a legitimate question, and a very good one.

Not every audio device used to work with games. That's actually true, and some were objectively more compatible than others. It took Microsoft to really wrap it all up in one basket and leave the hardware to the card makers, and generally make sure all the software is compatible.

I think the buyers here are generally going to be more like me, who in the back of their head still expect to see "EAX" and all that on the box. If you don't know the hardware decoding isn't needed anymore, you might be prone to think this won't do the job of a Sound Blaster.

Hurts my soul that it's all entirely standardized now, but whatever. It's more convenient. I just remember when AdLib sounded one way, SB16 sounded another, Matrox gave me pretty clouds, and 3DFX gave me anti-aliasing. It was less convenient, but it was a more fun time.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[kennith]

A bit of a ghetto solution, but I'm testing the length of these spacers to clear the sound cards with the GPU braces. I'll do it better once I've got the wiring completely figured out. As noted, it's getting a different case anyway.



One thing about that Gigabyte board... The USB3 headers are in kind of a stupid place. I'd rather have one on the right side, instead of both on the bottom, as the terminals are fat and get in the way of longer cards. I was able to shave one cable end down a bit, but I wouldn't want to do that on a nice case.

It's different than using my own wire. When it's pretty much proprietary and stuck on the case, I don't like buggering them up.

This will take some screwing around to get it all right, but that's because I'm hell bent on using those braces and keeping the cards one slot away from one another. I may have to change something around a bit, but I'm just trying different things right now.

I really like that RGB strip on the braces, but if they just don't work, I'll make my own and back-light them.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[kennith]

Holy shit... If this sound card had balanced outputs, you could charge a thousand dollars for it.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[kennith]

Man, if I run into one more bad part... The new card reader is fucked.

This is what happens when you let yuppies do whatever the want. What you buy is my business because it affects what I can buy.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[DiscoHasBeen]

Man, if I run into one more bad part... The new card reader is fucked.

This is what happens when you let yuppies do whatever the want. What you buy is my business because it affects what I can buy.

Cheers,

Kennith

I've never had a internal card reader that lasted any meaningful length of time. Maybe I've just had bad luck but I just gave up on them.

 

[kennith]

I've never had a internal card reader that lasted any meaningful length of time. Maybe I've just had bad luck but I just gave up on them.

There used to be really good units available. Lian Li cranked out some solid card readers, Silverstone had a better OEM, HP and Dell sold them separately, Akasa had their own factory, and Matsushita/Panasonic as well as Teac and a few others were in the game.

The same goes for optical drives. They used to be built much better than they are now.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[kennith]

Hopefully I'll get this figured out later, but I'm going to have to pull the thing apart again one way or another. There's no other option.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[ERover82]

There used to be really good units available. Lian Li cranked out some solid card readers, Silverstone had a better OEM, HP and Dell sold them separately, Akasa had their own factory, and Matsushita/Panasonic as well as Teac and a few others were in the game.

The same goes for optical drives. They used to be built much better than they are now.

Cheers,

Kennith

There’s little market for optical drives outside of legacy support. Solid state storage is superior in nearly every aspect except coffee coaster use. With USB3/WiFi connected cameras and other devices widely available, the market for card readers has shrunk as well.

 

[kennith]

There’s little market for optical drives outside of legacy support. Solid state storage is superior in nearly every aspect except coffee coaster use. With USB3/WiFi connected cameras and other devices widely available, the market for card readers has shrunk as well.

They're still used in music, film, and secure storage, right alongside floppies and hard drives.

It's getting tough, though.

Floppies are used in quite a bit of production gear that people still have, as well as in "security via obsolescence" scenarios. Contrary to common (and earned, to a degree, as a result of the explosion of cheap floppies in the '90s) belief, floppies are actually quite good at holding data over time; much longer than optical discs, actually. They just don't hold much.

Optical discs are the fastest way to ensure someone can screen an edit when you don't know who's going to end up doing it, or you just need to shoot a cut over for preview. I can fire up things on wireless or USB here all I want, but nine times out of ten, someone wants (or needs; whether they know it or not) a disc. I've become rather fond of M-Disc for that purpose, because they can always go back and have a look later.

Hard drives are pretty obvious. The thing is, they'll last for forty years; just like floppies. Conventional optical discs become a crap shoot if not carefully stored after ten (you're player does a good job getting past errors). Bluray discs hold much longer, but when they do degrade it's a drop rather than a roll off given the HDCP nonsense.

Card readers, though...

It was indeed always a bit of a pain, but better stuff was available than now. I think only three OEM lines have survived, and they're not the ones I'd have picked given a choice. The unit I'm about to pull and examine was causing failures to post with the USB 3 header connected. I'll need to check that header, as well, but still... Annoying.

I've been having a rough time lately, and here I wanted to slap together a nice machine as a bit of a present to myself, and I couldn't even get that right.

For the most part the computer is fine, and an absolute BEAST. It feels tight as fuck.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[ERover82]

For the most part the computer is fine, and an absolute BEAST. It feels tight as fuck.

Cheers,

Kennith

Like an old Landy project. Imperfect despite considerable and continuing effort, but capable and enjoyable nonetheless.

 

[kennith]

Like an old Landy project. Imperfect despite considerable and continuing effort, but capable and enjoyable nonetheless.

Yup.

That's most of my personal rigs, though, and I'm trying to do better on this one.

I found broken solder joints on the case USB hub. Fixed that and now the 2.0 ports on top work fine. It must have been almost popped when delivered, because I didn't stress those cables at all. I had them strain relieved, as always. Oh, well. It works now.

Diagnosing the card readers... Yup. Both have fucked up USB2 PCBs. One I can't identify the issue with, but it must be one of the ICs, as everything else reads fine and there is no damage or poor connections. I wish they'd bin that stuff better. I'd pay $200 for a solid card reader.

Regardless, it's a mess again, but here's the rig:



One arrow is pointing toward a loose bit of cable, but I just untied it for access. If you look closely, there is a SATA power plug facing directly outward at a 90 degree angle. Normally I'd hard mount it on a plate, but I ALWAYS do that one way or another unless I'm building a secure machine.

This allows easy testing of new components, and simple connections if required without buggering up wires or cursing the time you put everything back in the box and put it halfway across town in storage. It's just a nice thing I used to do for the end user. One day, they all appreciate it.

For my own purposes, I'm happy with the wiring. Seasonic uses outstanding wires, and as cool as they look, the custom stuff usually isn't so hot unless you actually break down and make them yourself, which is actually surprisingly expensive to do properly. I like Cablemod as much as the next guy, but their cables aren't actually all that great. They're just pretty.

That rat's nest in the bottom right will be cleaned up when I get another card reader, I promise; and yes, I'm going to get some lighting back in there.

I can't help but pimp that audio card solution again. It's basically an internal USB DAC, and it fucking shows. Connected to my studio monitors, it's absolutely blown me away. You'd have to pay close to three times as much to match that quality even with an external unit. As noted; with balanced outputs, they could charge a grand for the thing.

I've already suggested to them that they ought to consider a $150-$200 daughter card for balanced outputs, or a $300 card with balanced outputs and MIDI I/O.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[kennith]

Well, I figured out how to solve this problem.

The card reader on my old unit works just fine and is well made. It's the other stuff that's dead. So, I've taken that apart again, ordered a different unit that has the slots arranged in the same manner, and will combine them to get reliable USB and card reading functionality all in one unit. Problem solved.

Cheers,

Kennith