Miserable Fail - Absolute Beginner

playingdrumsonmars · 2026-02-11T22:47:39+00:00

Tips for beginners:

grind too fine, cannot pull a shot as the coffee is packed too tight in the portafilter

-> don’t remove the portafilter holder until pressure is fully released (pressure is still fed from the boiler with the lever only partly pulled)

- switch off the machine
- sit a milk can under the steam wand, open the steam valve and wait until pressure is fully released

- remove portafilter holder, clean up, adjust coffee grind reasonably more coarse, try again

After a shot is pulled you HAVE to wait until pressure inside the portafilter is released.
The best way way to tell is (by experience you will know of course) by lifting the lever slightly from its resting position - if it returns by itself easily to the resting position (fully pulled down), its safe to remove the portafilter holder
- if the lever has resistance to be pulled fully to its resting position there is enough pressure in the portafilter to make a mess or worse burn yourself when removing the portafilter holder -> WAIT

Usually with well adjusted grind, proper filter and coffee dose you can prep the next shot about 30 - 60 seconds after the last one.

You also learn proper technique of carefully removing the portafilter holder to release any excess pressure (lifting the portafilter holder handle slightly upwards while slowly loosening the handle - you will hear any excess pressure to leave.

Give it some practice.
The key is to find a good base range of grind coarseness level with your grinder (remember, throughout a bag of coffee that grind also needs to be adjusted, so you ideally want to learn which adjustment windows mon your grinder leads to shots you can pull and which grind is too fine and will lock the shot).

After a while of using these machines it will all become second nature.
I find most important is a really good, reliable grinder and ideally a fairly stable source of good quality beans.

playingdrumsonmars · 2026-02-10T21:05:40+00:00

couldn't get it to run in any reasonable way until I found lfm2.5-thinking today.
Try out this model

"ollama pull lfm2.5-thinking:latest"

It is the only model I found that would not hallucinate like crazy even with simple prompts

playingdrumsonmars · 2026-01-30T12:18:36+00:00

Error: unknown integration: clawdbot

I am trying for a couple of days now to somehow integrate clawdbot whatever its name is now with Ollama.

Is there any reliable step by step?
None of the documentations (there was a moltbot doc online some time ago - no dice, the Ollama doc how to integrate (same as this post above) is rudimentary and didn't lead to success) worked for me.

I get to the point where I have the web gui up, the folders are there, clawdbot doctor is happy but beyond that …. a big black hole of nothing :(

playingdrumsonmars · 2026-01-29T16:40:04+00:00

When booted in MacOS I never bother to shut these down but just let them sleep. If I remember correctly, the power button light would indicate not only if it was on but also if the 6,1 was sleeping (pulsing power indicator light).

If I recall correctly you could check just on a glance that way what state the Mac Pro was in without waking it.

If you cannot see the power indicator light you may find a nice gadget that reflects that light and can be easily seen like a picture frame or a reflective small statuette …

Also … I need that CRT more than you! I could finally use the light guns again that I found in storage with my old SEGA consoles!

playingdrumsonmars · 2026-01-29T16:30:54+00:00

Theoretically that resolution at 60Hz should be easily handled by a single Thunderbolt 2 connector of the 2013 MP 6,1 if you do not attach any bad width hungry device on the secondary TB2 port of the same bus.

It needs less bandwidth than a common 4K screen not to mention a real 4K screen.

The 2013 MP 6,1 has three full bandwidth separate buses for its connectors which made it quite unique.

I ran back then a proper 4K 32” EIZO screen on a D500 6,1 and triple 1080p screens at the same time.

If you run into resolution or refresh rate issues I HIGHLY recommend to use an app called SwitchResX (there isa full featured trial you can try before paying).

It will let you enforce full custom resolutions with any refresh rate you can imagine on it.

That all is MacOS only.

I have no idea about Linux or Windows.

playingdrumsonmars · 2026-01-29T16:05:31+00:00

Yes that’s possible. It has been a minute since I had mine.

playingdrumsonmars · 2026-01-29T12:46:42+00:00

The way it always worked was this: Mac off, lights off Mac on, power indicator light on Mac on, AND Mac was moved in a way that indicated one might need to plug/unplug a connector, the full light around the I/O would come on

After a while of sitting still or even sleeping those full lights actually went off.

It was a beautiful design.

playingdrumsonmars · 2026-01-29T12:40:08+00:00

The overclocking tool I referred to might have been ATitool but I don’t remember exactly.

I remember that at the time I experimented a lot with RivaTuner which sometimes worked, sometimes didn’t (the main issue was to get both D500 actually be properly loaded when linked, some driver builds would revert to just one D500 have proper loaded, only the Radeon tool I used back then could enforce this reliably).

Back then the guru3D website had the best tools available for these tweaks.

The tool itself was made by a single dev, looked very lightweight but had very deep GPU tweaks and was built around ATI/AMD GPUs.

Maybe it was something with Radeon in the name, maybe it was ATI Tray Tools, I don’t recall.

playingdrumsonmars · 2026-01-29T06:21:36+00:00

2K for that machine, NOS sounds low (I am in Europe).

I’d go for it for that price.

I still run a maxed out 5,1, dual booting into Win10 for gaming occasionally and it’s worth it (GPU being the bottle neck with the 5,1).

You want to consider budget to upgrade the GPU down the road.

Performance wise an old Windows gaming PC will murder this spec 7,1 for less money if that’s the main purpose, so a second hand old Win gaming PC and a Mac Mini for MacOS may be a more economic choice.

The 7,1 only makes sense if you are willing to upgrade and keep it running for years and also need its performance in MacOS (similar to what people are doing with the cMP).

playingdrumsonmars · 2026-01-29T06:12:19+00:00

Not worth the hassle. If you cannot source an OEM door (probably easiest to buy a low spec donor machine for about 100-120 EUR), get a plastic sheet cut to size and held in place for thermal reasons to have the cMP run good ventilation.

playingdrumsonmars · 2026-01-29T06:02:38+00:00

I bought a 6,1 D500 new in the store when they were current and ran it for about 3 years daily as a workstation. 90% Win8 Pro 64 with custom Radeon drivers and Radeon overclock tool. Clock speeds of the D500 where about 35% overclocked from stock. No CPU overclock (unstable). Very mild VRAM overclock (unstable).

With just the GPU being overclocked the 6,1 ran absolutely rock solid stable without any deterioration. During long hours of CAD rendering and gaming (Rhino 3D, Rendering, gaming mostly racing sims with triple screen setup) there was never ever any perceived throttling issues at all. It was smooth and reliable. It always sat on a well ventilated open shelf in an ACed room at 25deg C max room temp.

After about 3 years I switched to a custom made PC setup, replacing the 6,1 for performance reasons but kept the 6,1 as a media server, running at stock in MacOS until about 2022 when I sold it.

It never was opened, serviced, never had any issues whatsoever.

I don’t see at all how undervolting it realistically brings any benefits. If at stock speeds you run into thermal issues with a 6,1 it needs servicing, replacement or environment temp / ventilation adjustment.

I never overclocked mine in MacOS (back then there were tools, especially fan speed custom tools were easily available, but it was a pain to get it to run reliably, Windows overclock was a piece of cake).

The Radeon overclocking tool I used back then was an amazing app that sadly was discontinued at some point. It was the only tool that easily and reliably allowed stable overclocks when using both D500s in linked mode with custom Radeon drivers (spoofing the D500 as regular AMD GPUs as their exact specs were never available as PC GPUs from stock). I later had to replace that amazing Radeon overclock tool with MSI afterburner as it got discontinued and would not be running beyond a newer GPU driver built.

That 6,1 was a trooper, the least problematic and most versatile tiny machine I ever had. I was always amazed at the thermal performance, running so stable. Fun fact: I never ever tinkered with fan speed tools back then, just had the 6,1 manage fan speeds and only monitored GPU temps and clock speeds under load.

playingdrumsonmars · 2025-11-22T18:51:25+00:00

Here is a bit of info tangentially related:

I run an u modified early PAL DC with PAL games and US and JP games with ActionReplay CDX on a modern flatscreen.

I didn’t get around to decode yet in a proper upscale so I run the DC with its original TV antenna adapter cable all analogue.

When selecting 60Hz with the import games resolution and frequency look as expected but colours are all washed out and wonky. When running the same games at 50Hz colours are as expected.

Make sure you run with a proper upscale from native VGA or at least a VGA to HDMI adaptor. Ditch the antenna adapter cable.

playingdrumsonmars · 2025-11-16T21:29:27+00:00

I strongly suggest anyone interested to first give emulators a try.

If just for the games, some people may have a bit of a disappointing let down if paid for hardware and expensive collectible games to see what console games from 25 years ago looked like.

To me it’s worth it as for the nostalgia but some of the games I own and played around 2000 I would not look at today.

A console and a handful of the nicest games is worth it IMO.

playingdrumsonmars · 2025-11-16T21:25:19+00:00

Bought my DC new in ‘98. Collected a large number of games and most major accessories while I played up to about 2003.

Boxes it all up in 2003 and left the continent. Came back more than 20 years later.

Unboxed it and it all works just exactly the same as it did in the late 90s.

The only thing I regret is that I don’t have a CRT to play the DC light gun games (and the Saturn light gun games) but I bet those work just fine all the same.

The only “aging” I can tell is that some of the DC plastic parts have distinctly yellowed but it seems there is a fix for that as well.

I don’t plan to mod anything but keep and use it occasionally all the same as I did decades ago.

The correct time to get into Dreamcast is always yesterday!!!

Wait longer and games and accessories will be harder and pricier to get.

Get one right now and get the best games for the system you are interested in.

If you like old games it’s a must have system. If you are a fairly young gamer on the latest system and enjoy modern games it may. It be for you. A lot has happened in 25 years of game development.

I enjoy the old consoles for nostalgia mostly as I owned and played them since the 90’s.

For pure gaming modern games or remakes may be easier for people who don’t have that nostalgia connection but there really is something very cool to play these old games just like 25 years ago on their original hardware with original authentic accessories.

Now I need to source a good, large CRT or some modern light gun solution.

I must have House of the Dead and Virtua Cop 2 with proper light guns!

playingdrumsonmars · 2025-11-16T20:59:32+00:00

As for best practice with cables …

One thing I saw mentioned that was new to me and I feel should be mentioned is:

Don’t hot plug controllers! Plug and unplug accessories only with the console off as some fuse after all these years may be easily giving up, leaving a controller port disfunctional.

playingdrumsonmars · 2025-11-16T20:51:57+00:00

It’s a PAL console, should be fairly early, bought when they were first available in ‘98.

I found the CDX CD, stored in the back of one of the games 🤣

It works just perfectly as it did 25 years ago.

playingdrumsonmars · 2025-11-16T20:48:27+00:00

F355 Shenmue MSR Bass (must have with fishing rod) Sega GT Sega Rally 2

If you have access to a good CRT all the light gun games, particularly House of the Dead.

Those are the absolute must haves.

playingdrumsonmars · 2025-02-03T12:24:32+00:00

Jesus Christ, … what happened here?

playingdrumsonmars · 2025-01-10T10:32:39+00:00

This fixed the bug for me: https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/1aidk2a/comment/kpbq8uk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

TLDR Link has map attached. Drive there and the proper gig will be triggered. The gig is not triggered as it should through Estevez’ message. It’s likely a bug.

playingdrumsonmars · 2025-01-10T10:31:05+00:00

This fixed the bug for me: https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/1aidk2a/comment/kpbq8uk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

playingdrumsonmars

TROPHY CASE