On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 1:00 PM Evan Leibovitch via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On Fri, 17 May 2019 at 11:59, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
| I'm looking to upgrade my PC that's served me well for about 8 years, but | it's starting to be unreliable and I can't upgrade the RAM beyond 4GB.
Unreliable: probably not worth the effort to diagnose.
Can't upgrade beyond 4G: Really? My 8-year-old desktop computers can do a lot better than that. What model is it?
It's an old AMD-based ASUS mobo that's supposed to take more. I bought upgrade RAM according to the docs, it was seen in the BIOS diagnostic but the OS refuses to see it. I'm tired of throwing good hours after old ones after reading and following every possible remedy. Enough.
I like these little computers. There's not a lot of reason to add PCIe cards or optical drives to a computer these days. The one remaining need is for graphics cards.
There is an HDMI port to the Intel one as well as a Thunderbolt port to handle Displayport video. I'll need to read up and figure what equipment I'll need to split out 5.1 audio (with is currently done using an optical cable).
Check your device logos. Both devices need to be specifically enabled for Displayport over USB-C. (SS) with the usb trident for Displayport.
Wasn't Thunderbird an Apple thing?
- often only room for one "disk", 2.5" SATA, but sometimes also m.2
(SATA or NVMe). I like having both: a fast SSD and a larger capacity spinning disk.
I already have a 2.5 SSD ready to be used.
The new Intel NUCs have a capacity for something called "Optane", which looks like fast NVRAM (16 or 32 GB) used as extended cache. I have a choice of installing one of those, or using the M.2 slot for a conventional SSD to hold the OS.
Optane was intended to be a cache memory to increase the performance of conventional spinning HD's under Windows OS. However, I've been booting Fedora from both a 500gb SSD and 32gb Optane Nvme as I tinker with my own desktop. Most certainly booting to a login prompt is fractionally quicker on the Nvme than on the conventional SSD. However recently I up-sized my Nvme and have populated my M.2 slots with a 250gb WD black Nvme for boot and now added an additional 1TB to the second M.2 slot with F29 still on the SSD. Copying a 100gb image to the 1TB drive really hit performance tho and that was probably due to the lack of a decent heat sink. I just ordered a hteatsink fro the internal 1TB and an external USB-C enclosure for the 32gb drive. Perhaps with the NUC form factor heat might be a problem on a larger sized Nvme but with USB-C you have wiggle room for adaptation.
There are or were other brands of NUC-like computers. Gigabyte's BRIX,
MSI Cubi, and who knows what else.
I've looked at/for many of these brands as well as the category-creator, Shuttle. The Intel and Zotac still look best. Thanks for your help!
- Evan
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