Coconut Monkey Cornerclub

[Colif]

Semi-retirement after tomorrow!

eyes not working right, I read this as semi transparent and had to read it again.

 

[Frag Maniac]

All my cords are behind my PC desk in a corner. At worst I only bash my head every now and then when I'm crawling under the desk to vac around the cords. I even run my surround speakers out by the walls of my living room so there's no wires to trip over/damage, as I did in the prior place I lived at. Sorry to sound like I'm not accident prone at times, because I truly am anymore at 68 after a workout especially. A tip is better than a 1000 trips though I guess.

On the subject of speaker wires. I'd thought my left front HT speaker was on the fritz when my AVR showed all speakers connected, but the LF was not audible in tests. Then I found out just having the wires a bit too loose was causing it. I wish the backs of my front speakers had banana plug jacks like my AVR. I should probably at least coat the tips of the speaker wire with solder and use a socket wrench to tighten the terminals. It's on my to do list along with all the other things I should do but haven't gotten around to.

 

[BeardyHat]

Since Zed doesn't want to TMI anymore, looks like the crown falls to me. And since I know you're all interested in my personal laptop saga, I've got some thoughts about this Surface Book 2 after using it for a few hours:

Dislike:

• Ctrl and Fn are swapped for me. Technically, this is Lenovo's fault, given I've been using their laptops for the past decade or so and they're the ones who buck the trend and swap Fn and Ctrl.
• I'm not too sure about not having my precious red clitmouse to use. Having the Trackpoint on a Thinkpad is a killer feature to me. I use it constantly and it turns out to be excellent for faster paced action games.
• Proprietary charging connector; I do like that it's magnetic, so it'll detach if I'm dumb and trip over it again. Plus my old Thinkpad had a proprietary one too, given it was a higher power machine and couldn't draw 230w from the USB-C
• The tablet is comically large. It's 15" when detached and it just feels a little absurd to be holding in my hands.
• Older and thus lesser power than my old machine. Not the computer's fault though.

Like:

• I actually like the tablet functionality. I'm not sure how much I'll use it, but actually where I had issues with the 12" Surface Pro as a tablet, the 15" is so large that I can rest it on my belly and use it comfortably.
• I appreciate that this machine has the CPU in the tablet portion and the GPU in the base. Keeping them separated actually seems to keep the machine noticeably cooler than my old Thinkpad. I can actually use the machine on my lap without feeling like I'm getting burned.
• Following that, it's nice that it has no intake vents on the bottom of the machine. It means I don't need to prop it up for it to intake properly, which means I can use it on my bed or just flat on my laptop tray without a problem.
• I kind of like that it's a sealed product. I can't repaste it, I can't change the SSD, I can't replace the battery. I could, but there's a high likelihood I'd break it trying to get it apart, which I think will encourage me not to mess with it and just live with it as is.
• It feels premium as hell. Which I guess it should; I think this particular configuration was something like $3000 in 2017. The keyboard is nice, the screen looks good, everything feels solid.

Playing Pillars of Eternity last night, I was feeling like the performance was pretty middling. Even on low settings at 1080 (screen is 4k), it was hitching a lot and running in the mid-40's with frequent drops to the 20's as far as FPS goes. Which is significantly worse than the old MSI laptop with much worse specs running Linux. Then I remembered I need to go into the Windows Performance Settings and make sure it's set to "Best Performance". After doing that, I'm getting a solid 60FPS at 4k. It drops periodically due to a little bit of throttling here and there, but overall not bad.

Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with this for $120. Need to figure out what my plan is for the old machine though.

 

[Zed Clampet]

CivitAI accidentally un-blacklisted me when they did their site conversion. See, I was a top 50 creator (I posted that here when I broke the top 50). Suddenly, none of my trainings were indexed. They didn't show up in the site search engine or Google. There was no way to find them. They also blocked the pictures I post. You look at a page of pictures and every one of them has 100's of views--except for 1, mine, which had 1 or 2 views which I'm sure was me. They won't bother to blacklist me again because I stopped publishing anything. I don't need their money anyway. I mostly just thought it would be cool to get paid for making loras.

 

[Colif]

Smelly new UPS forced me to do something I haven't done in about 3 years... opened my window

According to web, new UPS can have a smell that should go away within a week. So its got a few more days. Its not a burning smell, nor rotten eggs. I can't really describe it.

I read after setting it up that advice was to let it run in an open ventilated area for 48 hours... I would if I could. Wish I had known before I started using it. I read the sticker on unit that said to charge for 8 hours before turning on, and did look through the book but I didn't see mention of run in.

It seems like most of the smell is just lingering as if I smell the unit itself, I can't smell anything. But I can in other areas of the room. I know its from the UPS as I have never smelled this before. I didn't think of it at first and cleaned up other things thinking they were cause.

I think whatever is burning off in the unit, stays at ground level as I can only smell it if its stirred up. It doesn't help my room is a shoe box. It probably doesn't help my UPS is between me and UPS but I can't fix that. And I have too much furniture that traps air. I already noticed that in summer.

Really need to move one cupboard away from me. Not sure I feel like doing that today. It would allow air to escape my room

 

[Colif]

Chest of drawers now moved, door doesn't open fully but I prefer that. Hardest part was squeezing one of the bottom drawers back in, not a big gap between it and bed. I don't really use the drawers very often, 3 of them full of PC stuff.

Hopefully PC can get fresh air still. It has room on the box I sit it on. I may not notice any ill effects until Summer... so 7 months time. Should have new windows by then.

I have my doubts that chest of drawers would support my PC. Probably easier to lift off its current box. Main reason I didn't swap their locations is the monitor cable I have may not reach. Until I get the Asus monitor, I won't know how it will go together. It reaches now, but not sure how well it would go with the chest of drawers behind it.


It doesn't seem to have reduced the smell. But It was something I wanted to do. Need to work out where to put my amp now, my headphone cables are just a little too short to reach me from there... its pretty sad my new DAP can run all the headphones it can. So maybe I leave it unplugged for a while.

Room in a state of flux, might change more. Next move a bit easier... maybe tomorrow. It will give UPS more space to vent into... but that should end this week.

if I wasn't used to having my monitor on the left hand side of me, I could put PC on the right hand wall and put screens over that side instead. I may just rotate the bed and face another wall. I have to be careful not to have a window behind me (fairly easy with only one window in room) as new monitor doesn't like windows in front of it.

UPS is okay, I just live with smell

 

[BeardyHat]

That's interesting, I've never smelled any of my UPS' in the past. Just recently got a new one, which is sitting directly on my PC case, but yeah, no smell there either. Maybe it's the brand I buy though, which is APC; not terribly impressed with the brand, but they're about all I can find around here. The software to monitor the unit is deprecated, so I can't use that and I've had multiple of the batteries crap the bed on me.

Is the smell like that "Ozone" smell you often get from those ionizing air purifiers? That's kind of what I'm imagining it as.

 

[Colif]

Is the smell like that "Ozone" smell you often get from those ionizing air purifiers? That's kind of what I'm imagining it as.

it isn't ozone or electrical, smelt chemical... I guess. I hadn't smelled anything like it before. Its not rotten egg.

I hadn't needed a UPS before so this is my first. Up until now I have mostly used surge protectors. Just unplug from wall and sit out thunderstorms. It doesn't normally waste that much time in summer. We were meant to have storms last night, I left UPS on but I did unplug the network switch as I didn't connect its cable onto back of UPS yet, need to buy another cable first.

The number of times we normally have power outages can be counted on one finger per year... if that. The last time I recall us not having power for more than 24 hours was 23 years ago when it was shut down due to bush fires damaging lines. Its not normal. Most times its only a few hours at most, and normally we are told about it before it occurs. Unplanned outages are rare.

We don't get brown outs.

I did find results on Google saying the smell can be normal. But the smells mentioned were mostly electrical or burning plastic... maybe 2nd is what it is.

Its not so bad today but I left my window and door open all night so it didn't get a chance to build up. I was about to say I can't smell it at all now but it comes and goes. That and having the chest of drawers on far wall now opened room up and less places for smell to linger. The tall brown one would also trap hot air in summer so I don't mind it gone.

leaving next reorganisation of room until I get a new monitor, and I also need two extension cords with piggyback ability, as I need a flat plug to put into wall behind my bed, and most Australian power plugs look like this

and stick out from wall too far for me to be able to have bed close enough to wall behind, for pillows to not fall down the gap constantly. That has stopped me using two layouts for ages. Both outlets in my room suffer from the same problem. Placement.


Same thing happens in the spare bedroom. That factor also means I have to move the UPS as I can't run it off the cable as its wrong gauge wire. Also could mean PC needs to move as well. Really, only thing that doesn't move in that reorg is the brown chest of drawers. Its staying over there now.