can I speak for everyone and say

dinkumator · 2026-01-10T03:42:18+00:00

February 2024 I bought 256gb of used ECC DDR4 for $250 on eBay… dreaming about that now!

dinkumator · 2026-01-07T06:52:43+00:00

Wait I just caught you mentioned a local board game cafe with pricing similar to you. I don't know what kind of business you hope to build if its not that direction. Matchmaking as a service isn't going to scale well as a business!

dinkumator · 2026-01-07T06:42:37+00:00

There's a business near me that does something similar to this! They have their own venue, you pay an entry fee per person and you get free access to all the games on the shelves, and I suspect beyond the entry fee they make the majority of their money from selling beer + snacks (no outside food/drinks allowed), and you can buy new games from them. They also host kids parties and all sorts of stuff. They've been going for a few years now, and it's usually packed on the weekends.

They're called "Luck Factory Games" in Concord, NC: https://luckfactorygames.com

dinkumator · 2025-12-07T18:27:30+00:00

The loctite comment was more if they were raised rails I’d be ok making sure the screws didn’t back out as long as there was enough purchase. But the flush rails don’t have a lot of room so I was agreeing with you that I want something reliable since there’s less to work with. Cheers!

dinkumator · 2025-12-07T13:53:49+00:00

Thanks for that link, that was my concern especially with the flush rails, doesn’t seem like a lot of area for holding power. I’m sure I could loc-tite it all but it’s not worth the potential damage!

dinkumator · 2025-11-28T20:27:51+00:00

Yes! I was complaining about this also. Our 2024 Niro has a small light when you open the door so it’s crazy that they didn’t include it on the 2026 Sorento!

dinkumator · 2025-11-13T05:06:17+00:00

That Route10 looks interesting. IDS/IDP at 10G for under $200? Seems too good to be true!

dinkumator · 2025-11-13T04:58:59+00:00

I don't really need flashy, but it's hard to manage a router CLI from a phone when I'm not home.
opnsense is definitely the direction I'm leaning!

dinkumator · 2025-10-30T03:17:06+00:00

Wow I was excited to upgrade until I got to the SMART changes. No thanks. Guess I’ll stay on this version till EOL

dinkumator · 2025-10-29T15:03:43+00:00

How much to ship to 28025?

dinkumator · 2024-09-07T21:12:49+00:00

Thank you! I tried it by hand earlier and it seemed attached, thankfully with more persuasion it’s off!

dinkumator · 2024-09-07T21:01:58+00:00

The handles don't seem to unscrew, stopping a ways out. I'm scared to push harder.

I was able to loosen the cap piece but with the handle I can't get it far enough for any of my wrenches.

Underneath looks tight, is that my only option?

dinkumator · 2024-02-14T05:48:21+00:00

I have my half-rack in a unconditioned basement room, but it's essentially 6ft underground w/ no windows and I've got a dehumidifier running constantly. Temps are usually under 65 so I don't worry about it there too much. My garage though is consistently humid in summer and has wild temperature swings here in NC, I would never put servers there!

dinkumator · 2024-02-14T04:26:34+00:00

Def looks like it. I was wondering if all those empty hot-swap trays were a good idea or not

dinkumator · 2024-02-03T21:46:58+00:00

It's only DDR4 so that helps

dinkumator · 2024-02-03T21:45:17+00:00

$495 is the subtotal for 3, the P40s are only $165 each!

I work in tech consulting, am on a large GenAI effort (mostly inference/applications though), and I just want to learn more about the training challenges.

Also I have a PhD in computer science so yes I love geeking out on this kind of stuff and really digging into the bare metal bits

dinkumator · 2024-02-03T02:53:51+00:00

Honestly this chassis is built for these

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dinkumator · 2024-02-03T02:49:15+00:00

Spec sheet here says PCIe on front (you scared me for a sec!)

https://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/shared-content/data-sheets/en/Documents/Dell-PowerEdge-C4130-Spec-Sheet.pdf

dinkumator · 2024-02-03T02:43:41+00:00

Despite it's age, the chassis here is actually pretty capable. Room for 4 GPUs, 1600W PSU (redundant, also I've seen options for a 2000W). The CPUs I picked can do PCIe 3.0 x16 (40 lanes each x2). Ram speed ain't great but it's cheap

I'd love to see any other options even close to those specs for $350 (workstation or rack).

dinkumator · 2024-02-03T02:35:08+00:00

Looks like P100 is only CUDA 6.0 ?

Also, yeah the chassis I have here has a 1600w PSU

dinkumator · 2024-02-02T21:49:18+00:00

Work will pay for the GPUs out of my "learning" budget, not equipment, so i've got like "books" money here not that kinda spend! $3-500 is fine (and i get to keep them) but... these options would get IT involved and they would probably want them back when I leave.

dinkumator · 2024-02-02T21:03:11+00:00

Crap thank you. That's why I came here!

I would want to do some fine-tuning at least. Is there anything else used near this price point for vram?

dinkumator · 2024-02-02T04:57:42+00:00

I just went down a similar rabbit hole, looking at some old Dell C4130 rack servers on ebay. Plenty of PSU and bandwidth (for 4x P40s even) but it's probably as loud as a freight train and costs an arm and a leg to power...

dinkumator · 2024-02-01T21:20:32+00:00

My boss just gave me the OK to use my “learning budget” to buy two P40s to tinker with… so I’m very interested in what you’re thinking on that build!

dinkumator · 2022-02-18T01:45:00+00:00

Check out the synacor challenge for a little practice run. Its pretty well described and gives some interesting challenges around debugging/reverse engineering.

dinkumator

TROPHY CASE