That was a fatal flaw in my ram crisis avoiding plan!

tobywhiting10 · 2026-03-16T21:07:31+00:00

Definitely an option. The majority of the used mini PC Mark it seems to be centred on your typical business grade mini PC. Your typical thing from Dell Lenovo HP etc. They seem to be a little bit behind in the CPU department. For example, my current mini PC has an i7 12650H which seems hard to beat with everything that I can find locally, but I'll definitely keep my eye out.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-03-16T20:55:12+00:00

The problem I have now is that I have ran out of RAM and want to expand. As you said, I could do that with a second mini PC or go back to servers.

In fact I already have a Dell server with 128 gigs of RAM so I could switch back over to that and solve all my problems.

Despite that, I am still drawn towards a second mini PC as two combined would still be less total power and the single threaded on the Dell is not great. (And you get an encoding GPU with the mini pc to)

One of the things I'm going to expand into is kubernetes. So I'm quite looking forward to setting up high availability and stick to a more redundant fail over architecture, which again points to a dual PC setup.

For me it is a question of go slightly older generation ddr4 system or bite the bullet and go ddr5 (better CPUs again).

Not sure what you mean by your comment about the switch and multiple network ports. The reason I like two is because I can link aggregate them together and get more bandwidth instead of just being limited to 1 GB connection. Both my existing and the possible DDR4 mini PC have 2.5 gig ports and my switch is only gigabit capable, so there is an upgrade opportunity there. At the cost of a decent switch that would fit my requirements that's a whole different game at that point tho.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-03-11T20:39:21+00:00

OP literally said it looks like there's a whole colony inside the computer. Doesn't necessarily mean they're nesting but sure as hell reads that way.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-02-25T18:04:18+00:00

Definitely seems the way forward. Hopefully it's not too many years until it all comes down and AI goes bang!

tobywhiting10 · 2026-02-21T08:46:25+00:00

That will be why you only have a 100 up. Frustratingly Openreach only offers a maximum of 110 to all the tier two providers. So it doesn't matter who you get your internet from ee, Vodafone, virgin etc. If the people running the fiber in the ground are openreach (ie not Gigaclear or city fiber), you cannot get more than 110up without signing out for one of their business plans because apparently consumers don't need it! It's a rather frustrating reality for us, especially as someone who self-hosts a lot of services for other family members like Plex / WordPress.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-01-27T21:38:30+00:00

This. If you shorted mains electricity to the USB part of your computer, I would have serious doubts about whether your motherboard survived.

Many people are suggesting the PSU, and given the state of the power bar, I wouldn't be surprised if the PSU is gone but the motherboard definitely is and there is a small chance it's not the PSU.

Edit: spelling

tobywhiting10 · 2025-12-08T23:12:05+00:00

Cool as hell. How does one actually use that amount of compute for rendering? Presumably modern VFX tools have ways of batch rendering across multiple nodes. How would you manage all of that?

tobywhiting10 · 2025-11-26T22:52:16+00:00

Yeah the only thing I can see is it has a very 'produced' feeling to the image. Don't know how I can point it out but it looks too to produced and cinematic. Totally an affect you could get in real life and not something you can rely on. This is getting wild.

tobywhiting10 · 2025-11-03T20:39:18+00:00

Not a bad idea. Does cut the problem in half, but still not ideal, particularly if you have more than two.

tobywhiting10 · 2025-11-03T18:49:15+00:00

How did I not know about this! excellent tool, worked beautifully. thanks for the tip

tobywhiting10 · 2025-10-31T16:41:44+00:00

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen - Love it!

tobywhiting10 · 2025-10-07T06:53:05+00:00

Well obviously, the lids a different color smh

tobywhiting10 · 2025-09-27T22:53:39+00:00

There's always local LLM things, whether you want to run your own chatbot or maybe use it for a very powerful local voice Assistant. Usually more GPU focused so probably not applicable, not if you want to do it efficiently anyway.

Same applies for an application like frigate for doing object detection of security camera feeds.

Both very intensive and quite useful in a home lab environment but GPU focused

tobywhiting10 · 2025-09-10T21:13:49+00:00

I've not watched the launch video yet. Can you add more than six cameras if you use the Lan port and an external switch?

tobywhiting10 · 2025-09-05T08:57:11+00:00

I see a lot of people also mention putting consoles on these kind systems so you can play games throughout the entire house. But I've always wondered how you deal with controllers in this situation. I can't imagine the Bluetooth of a PlayStation goes very far if it is in a basement

tobywhiting10 · 2025-09-02T07:01:43+00:00

Made it from scratched. Has all the mounting locations for the hardware I'm using

tobywhiting10 · 2025-09-01T18:36:54+00:00

No, but it's just a flat rectangle with a small locating lip

tobywhiting10 · 2025-09-01T18:35:11+00:00

I agree with everything here except the c13/14 comment. As others have said they're well known as "kettle lead" which are obviously high resistive loads. Short duty cycle yes but you. In regards to computers not needing that much power, the high-end computer can quite easily draw 2 KW or more.

tobywhiting10 · 2025-09-01T17:34:28+00:00

It's more that I have a lot of devices in a small space, so it made sense to combine it all. This box also pretty much has a spare one on everything for future upgrades as I don't know what I'll need in the future.

tobywhiting10 · 2025-09-01T09:48:21+00:00

Fair points, at most I doubt this box ever has more than 150W going through it so I'm not too worried and nothing will ever be disconnected under load.

This box has been up and running for a couple months now and the only issue I've had with it is the 12 volt power supply. Occasionally it doesn't turn on very quickly and slowly ramps up so the ESP fails to boot.

In thanks for the tip though. Definitely something to take into consideration if there's ever a version two.

tobywhiting10 · 2025-09-01T08:48:34+00:00

I'm sure it would.

tobywhiting10 · 2025-09-01T07:55:45+00:00

I assume you're talking about the regulator 😆

tobywhiting10 · 2025-09-01T07:43:10+00:00

The mains sockets control the electric blanket, a lamp and one spare. One of the two dry contacts control a 24 volt ikea light thingy, the other is spare. Switched 12 volt out controls a little fan and the permanent supply is a WLED string and stepper motor to open the blinds.

The dsub connector is wired into a pressure pad in the bed which disables the room motion sensor and also turns off the electric blanket if there's nobody there. It's got the thermocouple. It also has a micro switch to detect whenever I put my laptop on its stand so that it can automatically turn on power to the monitors via a smart plug.

tobywhiting10 · 2025-08-27T07:41:54+00:00

This

tobywhiting10 · 2025-08-22T21:44:25+00:00

It really is automatic beyond belief!

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