Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Surely sell before it crashes, rent, then buy after the crash. But then I'm a lousy trader.

T'will be interesting to see if people still want to live in plague-ridden post-brexit cities, rather that the nice safe hinterlands. Me? Four miles from the city centre, with a farm in between

If I was going to do that until I talked to an IFA. He suggested I wait for my mother to drop dead, sell her house and use that money to buy something, keep this place and rent it out. Over next 20 years it's still the best thing to throw investment behind even if it's on a dip now.

As for post-Brexit cities, yes indeed. The local estate has gone to shit already as most of the folk who weren't already unemployed and unemployable have been furloughed or disposed of entirely already. It has got pretty nasty.

I'm intending moving to a similar semi-rural location, in your direction, with moat (VK5RC is hired!), fibre, enough roof space to get a solar installation up and some pikey-proofing. Need to evaluate some suitably non Royston Vasey locations though.

Interesting, I'm such a grumpy bastard that I don't know what the rest of street does or their circumstances, once I'm in behind my front door, they can go to hell, I'm not bothered as long as me and mine are OK 

So the location I found for you still has some merits, in the right sort of direction from you, plenty of roof space for that solar installation and the antenna, already has its own large moat and no near neighbours, just about right for a fellow grumpy bastard then Replace the bridge over the moat with a drawbridge, fill the moat with sharks (with or without lasers) or at the very least piranhas should prove to be pikey resistant I reckon 

Yeah I think I agree with your investment strategy, not sure of just where your Mother lives but assuming she is further in towards the centre then you are, so will fetch a better price ready for you new purchase and your current house is also in a good spot, close to Heathrow but not to close, equally not to far away from the countryside and has good road connections so getting a reasonable income from it should not be hard to do at all 

[Mr. Scram]

Looks like the new AMD B550 chipset has done away with the active cooling. That's one of the things stopping me from an upgrade eliminated, though I guess the B450 chipset would have done the same.

[Specmaster]

T'will be interesting to see if people still want to live in plague-ridden post-brexit cities, rather that the nice safe hinterlands. Me? Four miles from the city centre, with a farm in between

Once this shit show is over, that farm which is your current buffer will purchased and large house estate built on it to tke all the people seeking to get the hell out of plague-ridden London. 

[tggzzz]

T'will be interesting to see if people still want to live in plague-ridden post-brexit cities, rather that the nice safe hinterlands. Me? Four miles from the city centre, with a farm in between

Once this shit show is over, that farm which is your current buffer will purchased and large house estate built on it to tke all the people seeking to get the hell out of plague-ridden London. 

I've been thinking that for 30 years But now the "established" end of the market is becoming vacant, everybody will be free to move up a rung or two, hopefully enabling the riff raff to stay where they are.

The 20-year-old golf course in the vale just over the brow of the nearest hill will probably end up with 10k people/homes. All in order to avoid too many involuntary moats 10 miles away.

[Ice-Tea]

Not TE but close - bought a 200A ac/dc TIG welder - lots of frustration ahead but currently enjoying 'This old Tony' on YouTube. Lots of little bits to consider! Gas lenses, water cooled handles - oooooh.

Please hand over your TEA badge. Unless you're welding with a 200A lab bench supply, you're not worthy.

[Ice-Tea]

Looks like the new AMD B550 chipset has done away with the active cooling. That's one of the things stopping me from an upgrade eliminated, though I guess the B450 chipset would have done the same.

Those whimpy new 90$ CPUs are flogging my 4790k left and right.

I'm not amused. I don't even want to talk about the i7 *dual core* laptop beast I'm typing on.

[Zucca]

/rant

I moved to a new apartment in Munich center. Did a lot of work in it. Last step get a decent internet connection.
FTTC is here fine yuhuuu, I ordered on the 21st March with 1&1.
Not activated yet. Canceled 1&1, they told me no lines are available, monkeys.
Nuts mode activated (COVID and no Internet at home is not fun), I requestd DSL with 3 others company (Vodafone, Telekom and MNet) and will see...
Telekom told me they habe a problem with the 250MB I ordered, but they can offer me a 16MB line 
No feedback yet from Vodafone or MNet.

Did I move in the only building in Munich where there is no Internet bandwidth available?

PLAN B: get a 5G Hotspot. 

Why this is happening in 2020 in a big and rich european city?

So sad.

/rant end

Thanks for reading and sorry....

Today I got Vodafone DSL, it took only less than one month (thank you Germany!!!).
Vodaphone DSL has following data plans
-250Mbs Down/40Mbs Upload
-100D/40U
-the rest...

Now I ordered 250D/40U and I got only 100D/40U (the modem do not sync at 250 but at 100), since Vodafone it giving the option 100D/40U I switched to that plan, it will be activated next week. 250MB Download is surely a thoretical/practical limit (well VDSL2 is 300 max....) I am curious to see what will happen with a switch from 250D/40U (but 100D/40U for real) to 100D/40U on paper line, . It must be still VDSL2 so I think I will get closer to what I pay, I hope. The noise on the line is always the same, regardless I am paying for 250 or 100, so I hope to get the same real download rate which should be about 100MB in download.

Or am I completely wrong and the ISP companies they just try to get all the money they can out of you, and they play you around?

Anyway I am doing it also for my technical curiosity, the main point is to pay 250D and get only 100D pisses me off. If it would be 150 Down I could justify the money I pay more than an 100 Down line.

[Specmaster]

Looks like the new AMD B550 chipset has done away with the active cooling. That's one of the things stopping me from an upgrade eliminated, though I guess the B450 chipset would have done the same.

Those whimpy new 90$ CPUs are flogging my 4790k left and right.

I'm not amused. I don't even want to talk about the i7 *dual core* laptop beast I'm typing on.

Its not just the 4790k's that are getting thrashed either.

[Ice-Tea]

Nope. I never felt the need to upgrade because, well, any mainstream CPU out there would offer only marginal gains. But that position is getting increasingly difficlt to defend if your CPU is trashed by the bottom of the barrel offering.

[Specmaster]

Hey all. So I decided to end my poorly thought out shelf imposed exile. Mea culpa. Besides, I miss all of your ugly mugs. 

And just by coincidence while I was gone a bunch of personal issues that I'd rather not go into popped up and needed resolving. That's done luckily.

And under the category of “I'd rather be ganged raped in a prison shower”...... 

I just spent 3 miserable days upgrading the media PC from WIN7 to WIN10. It was a wipe WIN7, reformat, clean install of WIN10. But it was anything but “clean”. I had forgotten all the tweaks I had put on this machine over the years and nearly every one of them reared it's head to bite me until the light bulb came on. The first issue involved video. As soon as WIN10 installed the monitor either froze or went blank. But the system was happily running. I had to remove the GeForce GT 610 video card and go back to the GPU VGA to get video to work. Clearly this was not going to be a good solution. And every time I put the GT 610 card in was the same result. Considerable fiddle farting followed and I was just about to dump WIN10 in favor of a Linux solution when that light bulb came on. Long story short....the GT 610 card was trying to render to a monitor that was shut off. The Samsung TV. D'OH.  Once I realized that the video was fixed.

There were several other frustrating issues to work thru including finding the right Realtek HD Audio Monitor Program and drivers but eventually everything fell into place. And now everything is working 100%. And while this machine was snappy running WIN7 I've noticed a considerable speed increase with WIN10. I haven't done any bench marking it's just a seat of pants observation.

I never, EVER, want to do this upgrade again.           

Yeah, welcome back buddy, I'm sure we all missed you. Don't forget that you did a clean installation of Win10 so once you sorted out the little tweaks, unless you're running a wimpy CPU, it should certainly feel more nimble on its toes because you haven't got all the years of crap that Windows machines just seem to accumulate, anyway welcome to the Windows 10 club

[Specmaster]

Nope. I never felt the need to upgrade because, well, any mainstream CPU out there would offer only marginal gains. But that position is getting increasingly difficlt to defend if your CPU is trashed by the bottom of the barrel offering.

I feel the same way with my AMD FX8350, it still give a pretty good account of it self, for me to make any real gain from upgrading is going to be costly as it mean replacing literally everything and even then, the gain is not going to mean a wonderful lot as I'm not really heavy gamer, most of my games are not power hungry.

[mnementh]

Sorry... that hasn't been true since Ryzen 29xx. But hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.

And now with Ryzen 3xxx... It's not JUST better multi-core, which AMD has had for like... EVER... it's that the single-core is now SO much better TOO. But as I predicted, after almost a year, active cooling on the chipset is a complete non-issue. It runs when I'm really hashing the SSDs, but the only way I even know it is when I have the stats overlay up.

I just wish AMD hadn't left us twisting in the wind for a top-level GPU for so long. I mean really; "Sometime Q5 2020" is the reason I finally bought fucking NVidia, even after swearing off their lazy asses "for good" a dozen times. 

mnem
 

[tautech]

The noise on the line is always the same, ..............

Phone line noise on a DSL line will impact on DSL performance, period.

We often had this issue and regularly checked it by pressing a single # to clear the dial tone and if there was ANY noise we reported it to the telco as a noisy faulty line.
When you call such in, the staff at the fault call center can run checks to confirm it before it is logged to the fault finding crew.
Just make sure the issue is not within your walls otherwise you might get charged for fixing it.....well we do here ! 
A spare phone and socket connected at your point of entry can indicate if the noise is in your telco network or just local to you. Check all joints as clean, dry and tight too. 

[mnementh]

Hey all. So I decided to end my poorly thought out shelf imposed exile. Mea culpa. Besides, I miss all of your ugly mugs.     And just by coincidence while I was gone a bunch of personal issues that I'd rather not go into popped up and needed resolving. That's done luckily.

And under the category of “I'd rather be ganged raped in a prison shower”......     I just spent 3 miserable days upgrading the media PC from WIN7 to WIN10. It was a wipe WIN7, reformat, clean install of WIN10.

But it was anything but “clean”. I had forgotten all the tweaks I had put on this machine over the years and nearly every one of them reared it's head to bite me until the light bulb came on. The first issue involved video. As soon as WIN10 installed the monitor either froze or went blank. But the system was happily running. I had to remove the GeForce GT 610 video card and go back to the GPU VGA to get video to work. Clearly this was not going to be a good solution. And every time I put the GT 610 card in was the same result. Considerable fiddle farting followed and I was just about to dump WIN10 in favor of a Linux solution when that light bulb came on. Long story short....the GT 610 card was trying to render to a monitor that was shut off. The Samsung TV. D'OH.  Once I realized that the video was fixed.

There were several other frustrating issues to work thru including finding the right Realtek HD Audio Monitor Program and drivers but eventually everything fell into place. And now everything is working 100%. And while this machine was snappy running WIN7 I've noticed a considerable speed increase with WIN10. I haven't done any bench marking it's just a seat of pants observation.

I never, EVER, want to do this upgrade again.           

Yeah, welcome back buddy, I'm sure we all missed you. Don't forget that you did a clean installation of Win10 so once you sorted out the little tweaks, unless you're running a wimpy CPU, it should certainly feel more nimble on its toes because you haven't got all the years of crap that Windows machines just seem to accumulate, anyway welcome to the Windows 10 club

Yeah, welcome to THIS side of the new millenium, old friend. We kept the crispy graphics and actual contrast on the desktop warm for ya.

mnem
Windoze10: Still slightly better than having your face mauled by angry badgers.

[Specmaster]

Sorry... that hasn't been true since Ryzen 29xx. But hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.

And now with Ryzen 3xxx... It's not JUST better multi-core, which AMD has had for like... EVER... it's that the single-core is now SO much better TOO. But as I predicted, after almost a year, active cooling on the chipset is a complete non-issue. It runs when I'm really hashing the SSDs, but the only way I even know it is when I have the stats overlay up.

I just wish AMD hadn't left us twisting in the wind for a top-level GPU for so long. I mean really; "Sometime Q5 2020" is the reason I finally bought fucking NVidia, even after swearing off their lazy asses "for good" a dozen times. 

mnem
 

It is for me, my MB has an AM3 socket, so that has to be upgraded to AM4 and I don't think that there's much to gained from then lumbering it with my DDR3 memory and other existing bits which were sort of optimised for the FX8350, the old bits will just throttle it back all the time.

[Kosmic]

I was watching the disassembly of the new Xbox series X, it's going to be a nice bit of kit. Almost look like some HP TEA 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fjn4GRw8qE&feature=youtu.be&t=620

[mnementh]

Sorry... that hasn't been true since Ryzen 29xx. But hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.

And now with Ryzen 3xxx... It's not JUST better multi-core, which AMD has had for like... EVER... it's that the single-core is now SO much better TOO. But as I predicted, after almost a year, active cooling on the chipset is a complete non-issue. It runs when I'm really hashing the SSDs, but the only way I even know it is when I have the stats overlay up.

I just wish AMD hadn't left us twisting in the wind for a top-level GPU for so long. I mean really; "Sometime Q5 2020" is the reason I finally bought fucking NVidia, even after swearing off their lazy asses "for good" a dozen times. 

mnem
 

It is for me, my MB has an AM3 socket, so that has to be upgraded to AM4 and I don't think that there's much to gained from then lumbering it with my DDR3 memory and other existing bits which were sort of optimised for the FX8350, the old bits will just throttle it back all the time.

Aww, come on Spec... I know that rig INTIMATELY; I STILL have it: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/random-mode-old-school-iron-1055trx580-rebuild-in-modern-gamer-case/msg2227704/#msg2227704

But even maxxed out with a RX580 GPU, it's really only good for checking eMail and watching yoobToob vids; I have a i7 laptop I bought used a year ago for $270 that's ALMOST as much CPU and much faster RAM; net is a MUCH snappier daily driver.

mnem
*prehysterical*

[med6753]

Since everyone is talking PC's/processors. This is what my media PC is made up from. About 5 years old now.

Opinions? Keep it? Toss it out the Window? It works fine for me and is plenty fast enough. Note....NOT a gamer.

Motherboard: MSI A78M-E35-AMD A78 Chipset FM2 + MicroATX

Processor: AMD A10-7850K APU 3.7Ghz Quad Core with Radeon R7 GPU
 
Memory: Two Crucial 4GB DDR3 1600 MT/s PC3-12800  (8 GB)

Video Card: MSI NVIDIA GeForce GT610 2GB

PSU: Corsair 430W 80+ ATX

[mnementh]

That's like... half the power of my FX8350, but 1/10 the power draw. Keep it under the bench for your PCB camera, viewing datasheets, etc... It would still run a lot better on Win10 than win7, tho.

mnem
*ducks soggy ol' boot thrown from a bit north of Jersey*

[mnementh]

...FPGAs are preferred nowadays.

If you want TTL, why not go the whole hog? E.g. http://www.megaprocessor.com/ Personally I'd prefer to implement a bit-serial computer, like the first one I used (Elliott 803).

Or for forth use the GA144 http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/index.html#architecture

   Didn't we like... just have this conversation...? 
https://monster6502.com/

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg2311203/#msg2311203

mnem

[Mr. Scram]

Please hand over your TEA badge. Unless you're welding with a 200A lab bench supply, you're not worthy.

AvE taught me that a welder is a 200A power supply.

[med6753]

that's like... half the power of my FX8350, but 1/10 the power draw. Keep it under the bench for your PCB camera, viewing datasheets, etc...

mnem

I use it for audio playback/recording and stuff like Netflix, Prime video, etc. Renders HD just fine. No lag, distortion, pixelation. But if I was a gamer I know it would be pathetic. 

[Mr. Scram]

Sorry... that hasn't been true since Ryzen 29xx. But hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.

And now with Ryzen 3xxx... It's not JUST better multi-core, which AMD has had for like... EVER... it's that the single-core is now SO much better TOO. But as I predicted, after almost a year, active cooling on the chipset is a complete non-issue. It runs when I'm really hashing the SSDs, but the only way I even know it is when I have the stats overlay up.

I just wish AMD hadn't left us twisting in the wind for a top-level GPU for so long. I mean really; "Sometime Q5 2020" is the reason I finally bought fucking NVidia, even after swearing off their lazy asses "for good" a dozen times. 

mnem
 

Noise is one part of the issue and some will care less than others. Long term reliability will be another. Fool me once.

[bd139]

Holy crap turn my head for two minutes and this thread goes bonkers. I'm buggered if I'm going back through it all.

Welcome back med. We missed your smurfyness

[Mr. Scram]

Those whimpy new 90$ CPUs are flogging my 4790k left and right.

I'm not amused. I don't even want to talk about the i7 *dual core* laptop beast I'm typing on.

Though I liked having relevant hardware for the better part of a decade, I didn't like the absence of progress. I don't mind my hardware going obsolete in 5 years when that means more stupid fast hardware for not much money.