What have you repaired lately?

[Lemon Merchant]

How do you feel about paired GPU's? I had some mid-range crossfire-configured cards on my last computer and I felt it did not really give me any big performance boost relative to one card. I definitely wished I had spent twice as much money on a single card rather than half as much on each of two cards.

I like them, but with the PCIe 4.0 specification out now, the paired card thing is essentially moot. You also have to really fork out serious money for a motherboard or your paired cards only run at x8 rather than the x16 lane width of a single card. Unless you buy a big time motherboard. Then you get the x16 in both slots. But that is easily $700 CDN just for the motherboard, never mind the inflated cost of the graphics card because everyone and their dog is bitcoin mining lately.

I'm going to pop for at least a 3080 when they finally become available and the price comes down. Maybe a Radeon 6900 XT. It depends on price and availability, but it probably won't be until next year, and by that time they will be obsolete.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I like them, but with the PCIe 4.0 specification out now, the paired card thing is essentially moot. You also have to really fork out serious money for a motherboard or your paired cards only run at x8 rather than the x16 lane width of a single card. Unless you buy a big time motherboard. Then you get the x16 in both slots. But that is easily $700 CDN just for the motherboard, never mind the inflated cost of the graphics card because everyone and their dog is bitcoin mining lately.

I'm going to pop for at least a 3080 when they finally become available and the price comes down. Maybe a Radeon 6900 XT. It depends on price and availability, but it probably won't be until next year, and by that time they will be obsolete.

What do you do that demands such graphics?

 

[Gorbles]

4k gaming is the future-proofing target for that kind of graphics power, but it's often used in any heavily 3D software, or perhaps browser software that leverages hardware rendering. I could think of any number of WebGL-developed projects that could be wholly educational but still require a lot of juice.

I got my 1070 with the expectation it would handle 1080p gaming on the highest settings for some time to come. Five years later that's still the case, I just needed to remove the bottleneck of the aging CPU. That said, it wouldn't handle the transition to 1440p well, and it would barely handle 4k anything at all.

 

[Broken_Erika]

My RTX 2060 serves me well. I punish it with such graphically intensive games like Civ2 and Garry's Mod.

 

[Cutlass]

I put new insoles in a bunch of different boots.

 

[Birdjaguar]

There was a box of 8 Entenmann's chocolate frosted donuts on the kitchen counter that needed emptying. I found time today to take care of that little job and get it off my list.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

What do you do that demands such graphics?

Newer games in 4K.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Here is a better picture of the Geforce RTX 4090

How the hell is this supposed to fit inside the case?

 

[Lemon Merchant]

That borders on the ridiculous. Your PC case would be enormous. This has to be a 3D printer gag.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Aprils fools joke apparently, here's the 4090 TI

https://www.pcmag.com/news/pc-builder-creates-an-nvidia-rtx-4090-for-april-fools-day-and-its-massive

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I like them, but with the PCIe 4.0 specification out now, the paired card thing is essentially moot.

How does PCIe 4.0 obsolete the paired cards thing?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I repaired three broken slats on a window blind using hot glue and some toothpicks. These blinds will no longer raise or lower correctly but that doesn't matter because we don't ever raise and lower this particular set of blinds. The repair job also looks kind of crappy but only if you know to look for it. It helps that I have a mesh screen in front of that door, further obscuring it.

That table I ordered but forgot to pay to have assembled had some quality issues. One of the bolts hole they undersized pretty dramatically such that no bolt would fit in it - and I stripped one bolt trying to force it. Luckily, I had exactly one bolt in my toolbox that happened to fit the random undersized threads perfectly, so I put it together fine. I need to get some loctite or something to keep these bolts from backing out because the the table and chairs are all joined with just 2 bolts at each leg - which basically guarantees they will loosen over time.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

How does PCIe 4.0 obsolete the paired cards thing?

Faster throughput. With newer cards, there is really no need for paired cards anymore. They are thus becoming out of fashion.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

A while back, someone stole the seat off of my wife's bicycle. It was a nice seat with a back that I bought and installed for her and I was pretty pissed. I guess I should be thankful they didn't steal the whole bike - the bike rails in our complex are littered with cut locks. When I bought the replacement seat, I didn't think to check if the thieves had stolen the seat post. It turns out they had, so I had to buy one of those in order to mount the seat on.

After making the repair, we kept our bikes inside the apartment for a few weeks which was a massive PITA. Eventually we broke down and opted to pay our landlord to have access to a locked room with motorcycle parking to keep our bikes in.

 

[CKS]

We had a treadmill with broken plastic side bits (the place you stand before stepping onto the belt). I removed them and replaced them with some 1x4's we had in the garage. Now the treadmill can be used safely, and we don't have to go buy yet another one.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I have a recliner that requires power to articulate (this model was sold out in the hand-powered version at the time), and so it has an electrical cord coming out of the back. When I first got it, the cord wasn't an issue because the chair was in the corner of a room next to an outlet. Then we moved and now the chair is in the middle of floor, which is a problem with the chord. I bought a battery pack that splices onto the power cord, but there is no attachment point for the battery on the chair, so I'd put it inside the back flap and eventually it would wiggle loose and fall on the floor.

I fixed this by hot gluing a bunch of velcro cable ties onto the inside surface of the chair's back flap. I looped the velcro cable ties around the battery and this holds it in place. Hopefully it'll stay put for good but I imagine having to reapply the hot glue every couple of years or so, which wouldn't be a big deal.

 

[Samson]

To repair or not to repair?

I have a charger that fell apart, and I was going to have a go at fixing it, but looking at it I think it is right dodgy. I am pretty impressed that they can make a charger with a transformer, 3 resistors and a capacitor, but if you can see in the image below the tiny little red wires that look to be suitable for low voltage would be at 240V, and are just soldered to the pins. I THINK they are just wedged into the tape around the transformer. I could have a go at reattaching them, and I am not usually one to worry too much about H+S, but I am not sure I have the guts. It also gets spectacularly hot when in use, which seems a bad sign.

Spoiler The item :

 

[bernie14]

My psyche

 

[Cutlass]

To repair or not to repair?

I have a charger that fell apart, and I was going to have a go at fixing it, but looking at it I think it is right dodgy. I am pretty impressed that they can make a charger with a transformer, 3 resistors and a capacitor, but if you can see in the image below the tiny little red wires that look to be suitable for low voltage would be at 240V, and are just soldered to the pins. I THINK they are just wedged into the tape around the transformer. I could have a go at reattaching them, and I am not usually one to worry too much about H+S, but I am not sure I have the guts. It also gets spectacularly hot when in use, which seems a bad sign.

Spoiler The item :

I'd say replace. Anything which is notably hot is a fire hazard. And trying to use that after repairing it yourself is unsafe.

 

[Cutlass]

So today's job I've been putting off for a while. Because I knew it would be a beast to do. And it was.

My house has a main section which has a full basement under it. And it also has an addition which has a crawlspace under it. (Note to all, if you're going to add a room to your house, pay the price for the full basement. More than worth it in the long run.) Anyways, a number of years ago I built a laundry room in part of the addition to the house over the crawlspace. Then more recently I got a front loading washing machine. Turns out that front loading washers vibrate a hell of a lot more than top loaders, because it's harder to balance the load. So the machine can jump itself around. This is less of a problem if the machine is on a solid concrete floor. But more of a problem if it is on a wooden floor. Which this is. The machine vibrates, and the floor vibrates, and suddenly the machine is bouncing all over the damned place.

So I got down into the crawlspace, only 2 feet high, and took some 2x4s and a saw and tools and lights and everything to the spot under the washer and cut pieces of 2x4 to the length needed to hammer them into place to brace up the floor joists in the hopes that I took out all possible room for the floor to vibrate.

We'll see how it works out.