My $30 desktop PC upgrade
I built my main desktop PC three and a half years ago and have no complaints about it, save one. Hard to believe, but PC hardware has improved considerably in recent years. This weekend, I sunk $30...
View ArticleThe world’s fastest budget PC
So, a relative’s PC was getting a bit aged, and runs Windows XP, barely, so I talked them into an upgrade. I noticed that Micro Center had HP/Compaq DC5700s for $99. They were standard issue office PCs...
View ArticleInitial upgrade reports on the HP Stream and Pavilion Mini
Earlier this year at CES, HP introduced its HP Stream Mini ($180) and Pavilion Mini ($320 and $450) mini-desktops. They’re small, inexpensive, and in the case of the Stream, silent. They turn out to be...
View ArticleHow hard-coding your DNS can improve your security
I’ve long recommended hard-coding your DNS settings as a performance and reliability enhancement–here’s my guide for that–but it turns out it can be a security enhancement too. Botnets targetting...
View ArticleWhat to look for in a performance SSD
The Register has a nice writeup on performance SSDs. The only problem is that performance is really a matter of diminishing returns, and The Reg didn’t report on random I/O. The problem we run into is...
View ArticleNeed a good, cheap dual gigabit NIC? I have just the thing.
If you need gigabit ports for your home server or router project and you’re short on available expansion slots, I have just the thing. Home sysadmins have known for a while that you can get cheap PCI-X...
View ArticleUpgrading a Compaq Evo D510 for Windows 10 and beyond
I had an old Compaq Evo D510 full-size tower/desktop convertible PC, from the Pentium 4/Windows XP era, that I wanted to upgrade. The machine long ago outlived its usefulness–its Pentium 4 CPU is less...
View ArticleSave money on a PCIe dual NIC
I’ve written before how to get a standard PCI dual NIC for a low, low price–but what about a PCIe dual NIC? PCI Express needs love too, of course. It turns out it’s not hard to find a good, cheap The...
View ArticleGigabit card only connecting at 100mbps? Here’s the fix.
I finished a modernization project where I replaced all of my 100-megabit gear with gigabit-capable gear, including my cabling and router and access points. But after I replaced my last 100-megabit...
View ArticleWhat to look for in a motherboard
I’ve been building PCs for more than 20 years and I tend to keep them a very long time, so it occurred to me that someone might be interested in what I look for in a motherboard to ensure both The post...
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