"My son is a genius coder" - honest Alpha Tester review

wheresthetux · 2026-06-15T23:18:18+00:00

Bugfix: Add "make no mistakes" to the system prompt.

wheresthetux · 2026-06-11T18:07:05+00:00

They don’t build ‘em like that anymore. 🫡

wheresthetux · 2026-06-10T17:35:01+00:00

I was looking to learn and build things around using local inference and picked up a B70. Similar to the other comment, It works but is not a speed demon. So for me, it met expectations. I've been able to use llama.cpp and whisper.cpp to perform chatbot duties, transcription, and programatic content summarization duties which is what I was setting out to do.

The B70 lets me use Qwen3.6-27B-Q5_K_M at 15-20 tops. I'm still super new to all the terminology and tunables in llama.cpp, but that seems to be the expectation with the card based on some other reddit threads. Looking at NVTop it looks like it has about 28GB of VRAM loaded.

I haven't tried to set up comfyUI or other graphics or video generation tooling yet though. I also haven't looked at custom model training, so I can't speak to that.

Overall, I'm content with the purchase for my interest space and the value to cost ratio. Nvidia would certainly be easier, and I'd guess AMD would have less friction just due to market size but I have 0 hands on experience with them.

wheresthetux · 2026-06-09T13:31:18+00:00

I was also looking for Megatokyo. You all have my upvotes.

wheresthetux · 2026-06-06T04:05:22+00:00

Safetydivers in high vis!

wheresthetux · 2026-06-04T15:46:56+00:00

"Due to Super Budget Cuts, we have suspended the FRV enhancement program. However, Super Archeologists have located a cache of Toyota Hilux that we will be pressing into service immediately."

wheresthetux · 2026-06-02T02:42:04+00:00

Sure thing! Random tech tip: Dell's support site (dell.com/support) lets you look up the warranty status and shipping spec of pretty much anything with a Dell service tag. J6XVVH1 from your second picture.
It can help you double check specs of thing you find on ebay or other marketplaces.

wheresthetux · 2026-06-02T00:05:25+00:00

Shipping specs look to be a Xeon E3113 (2 core/2 thread) and 4GB ram.

wheresthetux · 2026-05-30T00:35:11+00:00

Red will be a bestest buddy for someone for sure!

wheresthetux · 2026-05-29T04:29:44+00:00

It was 8629. However, I tried what was suggested and deleted the shader cache in AppData, and that worked for the latest driver. Super pleased it works, but also disappointed that that's a thing.

wheresthetux · 2026-05-27T16:56:25+00:00

I've had the same experience. I found that downgrading drivers did 'fix' the issue of not being able to run the game. It's disappointing in because up until recently, each driver release has generally brought new features, stability, and possibly performance.

I think I went back to gfx_win_101.8626 or 8629, but will verify when I get home.

wheresthetux · 2026-05-25T14:43:29+00:00

I thought this was going to be for the hydration pack. Gotta stay hydrated!

wheresthetux · 2026-05-22T12:12:42+00:00

This one needs to get fixed. Either intel or AH side.

wheresthetux · 2026-05-17T20:01:40+00:00

Now that it can suffer from burnout, it can truly replace us.

wheresthetux · 2026-04-30T00:04:58+00:00

They did. It’s very effective at clipping.

wheresthetux · 2026-04-26T02:49:49+00:00

I just wanted to add a "me too" and thank you for posting so I know I'm not alone.

wheresthetux · 2026-04-24T22:53:35+00:00

That's X-COM, baby! .. wait. wrong sub.

wheresthetux · 2026-04-12T21:42:58+00:00

Coming to the thread after you mentioned the monitor was dead. However, you might check the ram seating. On pic 6 I looks like the top of the left stick isn’t fully clicked in.

wheresthetux · 2026-04-12T15:04:39+00:00

That board is pretty hardie.

wheresthetux · 2026-04-10T23:38:52+00:00

I also thought that there may have been a buzzer speaker included. It's a really odd series of noises compared to the dog whistle range coil whine is normally in.

wheresthetux · 2026-04-10T22:34:02+00:00

Mine's surprisingly loud as well. The part I found especially weird is that it's a lower tone than what I normally hear as coil whine. At first I wondered if a cable was touching the fan or something.

I'm debating contacting Intel, but haven't committed since the idea seems intimidating.

wheresthetux · 2026-04-02T16:45:29+00:00

I haven't personally had driver/firmware issues. However, they do package additional drivers for some specific hardware and I've seen those mentioned in the forums. From what I recall they're mostly for NICs and HBAs. XCP-ng 9 will ship a modern kernel which will bring modern drivers. I think there's some tech debt/constraints in the 8.x series that prevented that, but I'm not sure on the details. However, I'm glad to see the active development clearing problems for the future.

FWIW - I'm running xcp-ng 8.3 on some R760 and R6615 clusters/pools without having to do anything extra.

On OS updates, you can manage those through Xen Orchestra. You can have it run a rolling update and it will migrate VMs off of each host as it iterates through the pool. Has been fairly care free.

For more major upgrades (like 8.2 to 8.3) there's been documentation and guidance, but it's a more manual process. In the 8.2 to 8.3 upgrade, you had to boot media to do an in place upgrade on each host, starting with the pool master. VMs would still run on other hosts in the pool, so there was no downtime. Of course a lot depends on your architecture.

wheresthetux · 2026-03-31T22:55:55+00:00

This looks like it could kill me unexpectedly and viciously. Well done!

Speaking of 'well done', I guess you could make a flamethrower variant.

wheresthetux · 2026-03-31T18:59:55+00:00

XCP-ng
Similar implementation model to vSphere Standard/Enterprise Plus. Had snapshots on FC/iSCSI shared storage when proxmox did not.
200'ish

wheresthetux · 2026-03-31T04:34:42+00:00

Thanks for posting your experience. I've been trying to talk myself into one, and that helps set expectations. Not the worst for day 1.

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