stories5

Television & What's Not

Back when I was a child,TV was the electric drug
for youth and a free babysitter.
Oh sure there were actual baby sitters back then
and 2.00 an hour was the common wage for those
girls.

Tv is the antidote to our societies problems with
daily doses of murder,rape,gun violence,drugs
prostitution and the like.

People are so immune to all this and they
accept it as normal.
Look at the state we,as Americans are in.

The youth of today think getting rich is winning
the Lottery,Powerball and Mega millions.
What ever happened to the sweat of your brow?

One such young boy as a young man i was, I told
this boy,Whatever you want in life,you have
to work for it.....And how did that turn out you ask?
He has a crap wage job at a 5 & Dime in a welfare town
and is on food stamps for himself,his wife,and their
four children,WHY? Because he likes getting high
with his friends and doesn't seem to care about
hunting and fishing and harvesting berries.

This is what happens as society becomes apathetic.
This way of life for most is all that stands between
them and disaster.

I stopped watching TV back when it switched from
anolog to digital....Some years later when i bought
a Roku TV for a desktop monitor for my AMD FX
Computer system,I began watching the news
for the first time in many years.

Once in a super great while i will take in an old
western but thats it for tv.
I do have movies on a backup system as i used
to be a big buff....which in my almost senior years
seems like a big waste of time.

We have all become numb to the violence that even
cartoons have and those are geared towards children.

With all the hoopla of keeping Trans women from
doing this and that then all of our friends piling
into vehicles to go to the Drive In and get our
pocorn,drinks and candy only to watch some mass
murder ,bloody carnage on the silver screen....

It really makes you wonder what has become of
us all.

So Turn off your TV sets and read a good book
be a nice person all without plotting to slice your
neighbors throat because their dogs bark all night
so you cant get any sleep then plow thru a crosswalk
full of pedestrians because you nodded off.

BigT

Computers of Yesteryear

Wayyyy back in the day I got into the
world of computing.

First time out of the box,I turned it on
and sat there looking at it wondering
what in the Hell it does.

I had bought the Walmart Special
for 2000 smackeroos then another
2000 smackeroos for all the crap
that hooks to it including the upgrades
to the Hardware....
If only i would have bought the 233 MHz
wonder from Sams Club....LOL

I had to learn about not just the machine
but all the hardware and how to squeak out
the performance from any rig.

Then came the cleaning of any computer.
All computers gather dust inside via the
fans that will suck dust into the case which
need constant monthly cleaning using a
high pressure air hose hooked to a compressor.

Back in those days rigs didn't put off that
much heat but I was going "online" and
finding websites that sold cooling gear
namely high output fans to circulate
air.

I was on the right track and found myself
cutting holes into the sides of cases
and figuring out "airflow"... and custom
computer cases....DIY the whole thing.

As computers got quicker and cases began
to take on various sizes the hardware
and as some would say,the silliest gadgets
you'll ever see.

Back in the day,2008 dual and quad core
cpu's were the thing with bare memory
sticks that you could buy aluminum
heat spreaders and put them on yourself.
Its childs play installing them on your
memory sticks for superior cooling.

And there were better heatsinks for the
CPU and more powerful fans to really
cool your processor and thats where
overclocking came in...

Overclocking the cpu and memory was
starting to become the thing but dont
be fooled it will work for a good while but
limits the life of your hardware.

Nowadays computers are so fast theres
no reason to overclock except for
bragging rights.

I set out to learn repair and although not
hard,you had to read the A+ Computer
Manual.....Study and take the sample test
until youre ready for the real one.

Yanno you will eventually go broke in
that repair field. The Right To Repair
only works if the parts are even available.
Laptop parts which if basic are not even
attainable.

I do my own troubleshooting to a certain
degree but i dont know everything and
how can I???
Things are so complicated these days
with Tech and all so I find myself
drowning in technology.

I just sit back and watch the world zip
by at alarming speeds....Unless you are
working with tech all the time you will
simply get lost in the mayhem of it all.

Best of Luck to all you young kids out
there wanting to be a Professional
Repair Technician....

BigT

Dont Do Your Fan Dirty

We all have computers in our
households now and we have
a myriad of fans keeping things
cool such as that expensive new
fangled piece of machinery that
you hopefully built yourself.

Nowadays theres a lot of dust
and bunnies in our rigs.
Its up to you to keep it clean
otherwise youll run into issues.

The fan has a motor running it
but when your rig is unplugged
while you dutifully blow it out
with a high pressure air hose
you might not think it but its
generating voltage that will go
straight to your header and the
board its hooked to.

You can blow the fan header and
cause damage to your board.

Simply put,place your finger
on the fan then hit it with
your supply of compressed air.

Most fans use bearings and
yes you can damage your
bearing or blow it completely.

Ive known this for some time
and thought i would mention
it here.

As for RGB,it doesnt make your
rig run faster and to me its
an annoyance.

Do you really want to play a
round of Mechwarrior 5 only
to be distracted by all the
pretty colors and flashing?

The choice is yours and you
will pay that premium too.

Peace, BigT

Noctua Thermal Paste

Noctua NT-H1 is a thermal paste
best suited for enthusiasts and
over clockers alike.

The 3.5 g tube is for occaisional use.

According to Company Literature
Noctua should be reapplyed every
3 to 5 years.

Ive been using Noctua Paste since
2017 when I got my first radiator
and fan for my AMD 8350 FX.
It was a NH-U12s 120 mm rad
and 120 mm fan.....

Mechwarrior 5 was cooking my CPU
to the point my cpu fan ramped
up to 6000 rpm on the stock cooler.

My Noctua setup came with their
famous paste and Ive been a true
beliver since then.

I checked at the 3 year mark on my
3rd gen Ryzen gaming rig and
surprisingly it was still good.
So i know this stuff works.

Noctua has excellent
thermal conductivity and is
#1 on the global market.

Noctua is non conductive so if
you get a bit elsewhere it wont
short curcuit your electronics.

Nobody likes a sloppy job and
there are many variations like
just globbing it on and hoping
for the best.

First apply a pea size blob on
your cpu/gpu the using a straight
razor,apply across the cpu lid.
if you need more then apply
little blobs until you get a thin
even coating.

The cpu lid and heatsink have
microscopic pits and grooves
on both and the thermal compound
fills these in making the heat
transfer evenly.

The general rule using inferior
pastes is to monitor your cpu
idle temp which should not
exceed 65 celcius otherwise
indicating you need to replace
the paste you're using.

Peace,BigT

AMD K8 Microprocessors

Way back 20 years ago AMD
Advanced Micro Devices came up
with a Grand ideo to put the memory
controller on the die making it
integrated but before it was on the
boards Northbridge chip.

These included Athlon 64 and
Server Class Opterons.
In 2004 the mobile and Semperon
class came out.

The K8 family being 64 bit could
still execute 8,16 & 32 bit x86
applications.

The other benefits were
Lightning Data Transport and on
integrated memory controller with
dedicated memory access.

In 2006 AMD released the Athlon 64 FX
and those cpu's were 50 percent
more expensive and aimed at
enthusiast users.

2007 in comes the Athlon 64 X2
Socket AM2,
the first dual core desktop cpu
with speeds up to 3.2 ghz
providing you could afford the
premium board to run it.

The K8 class of Opteron CPU's
were socket 940 and used
single channel ECC Registered
DDR memory but the cpu was
single core.

My experience.
In 2008 I wanted to make leaps
and bounds and build myself an
awesome gaming desktop.
I ordered from Newegg and 5 days
later my package arrives.

I bought the whole thing from
them on the only site you should
buy computer parts from.
Unless you want to go retro
then its Amazon.

Asus socket AM2 motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 x2 3.2ghz
4gb ddr2 800 mhz (2x2gb)
#2, WD Velociraptor HDD
300gb each @10,000 rpm.
In a Raid 0,both drives
acting as 1 drive..smoking fast.
AMD 4870X2 graphics card
(2gb,dual gpu,384 bit)
600 watt Power Supply
Cooler Master Mid ATX case
DVDRW Drive.
Windows Vista

Ive been building computers
since 1997,hardware wise its
really easy,just need a steady
hand for mounting the mobo.

This rig was the fastest ive seen
and really made me say wow a
dozen times or so.

Back in 2019 I still had a nice
collection of games from the
95/98/xp and vista 32 bit days
and I wanted my collection
to live on so I dialed up Amazon
while riding with my friend.

I found everything I needed
on one site and ordered it
all before hitting Houston.
Unfortunatly the only case
I could find with a 5.25
internal drive for the dvdrw
was a Phanteks Enthoo
full ATX tower,its very heavy.

Total Cost? $400 smackeroos.

Putting it all together was a
breeze and installing the
heat spreaders on the DDR2
was a easy...I bought a Foxconn
motherboard and heck the splash
screen when powered up
says Gateway,Yeah I know right?
And I added a 2.5in SSD to max
out the Sata 2 300 mbps bus.

I installed win7 home 32 bit
Why not 64 bit?
My old games except 4,wont run
on anything higher than 32 bit.

The exceptions are as follows:
Unreal Tournament 3 DX10 (vista)
IL2 Sturmovik 1946 DX9c. (xp)
Deathkarz (98)
Wargasm (95)

Its an offline retro gamer.
No internet required to
install,activate or play games.

I activated win7 for the last
time before MS culled the O.S.

So you say dual core sucks right?
Absolutely Not,the tech just
got better is all.

Advanced Micro Devices,
I serve no other.

Peace,BigT

Phanteks Enthoo Pro Build.....My Experience

A few weeks prior I psyched myself up and promoted
it on my You Tube Channel and then Friday came.

I got up rather early about 6:20 am and pushed the
button on my Black and Decker coffee maker then sat
down and waited for it to be done.
I had 4 cups and was getting the morning jitters so i
got started.

First mission was to disassemble my computer from
my old Phanteks P400 case and in a smokers house
it was by no means clean.
I did find the thermal paste was drying up only with
14 months of use but the way i use computers it was
an eternity for the paste which i should replace
every 12 months or less.

When I got the board out i swapped the 3rd gen
3800x 8 core for my new 3900X 12 core as the final
upgrade for the X570 Unify motherboard.

I then used my new Kobalt air compressor to hose
off everything as it was time for its ritual cleaning.
I had been getting weird funky smells in the house
that i couldn't source out but as it was i had one
dead fan and one really noisy one losing the bearing.

The Antec ringed RGB 120mm fans had a 5 year
warranty and it was already up so my new case
had 3 new fans in it when i pulled it out of the box.
I purchased the case a few years back because its a
full tower and had the features that i wanted.
The new one however has a front mount USB-C
which this doesn't have but i cant complain because
my motherboard has that 1 port on the I/O panel.

Man what a mess i was in and i was up to my eyeballs
in hardware,I did have my IFIXIT Pro Tech Tool
kit out so i have all the different tools at my disposal.

Next was to set up the Enthoo on an oblong milk
crate on standing on end while i sat in the chair
to work on it.
First the motherboard,I had all the mounts in
place and noticed the top middle and center middle
mounts were a bit raised as this was for centering
the mainboard in the correct place and got 8 out
of 9 screws in but the bottom middle mount was
off a smidge but no biggie.

Once secure to the case i had to put it on the kitchen
counter and routed the HD audio and usb 2 cables
with the USB 3 to their proper plugs.

I then unscrewed the power supply cover from the
rear and sat down to put that together.
It was a new Corsair RM850X series and soon
found the factory made a mistake as I got 3 CPU
cables and 2 PCIe cables which meant i had to take
a PCIe cable from my old power supply which i used
for 7 1/2 years of the 10 year warranty.

It was the very same make and model and used a
Type 4 cable so whew!!!!!

Mounting the PSU in the case was a breeze then
for another 30 minutes was routing cables here
and there. The 24 pin ATX power connector was
a breeze and the 2 8 pin CPU power connectors
were just long enough,after all i was going from
a mid tower atx to a full tower atx case.

Once all the sata cables were routed I mounted
a spare 500 gb WD Blue 2.5 in SSD for additional
storage.

Painless really so now I put the psu cover on and
put in the 3 screws to secure.
On the back i had to plug in two sata cable
connectors one of which was for the Phanteks
fan hub controller the plugged in all 3 fans and
rand the PWM to a case fan header so that it will
work.

I cant tell you how many times Ive forgotten
this step.

Next i put on the back panel and put the rig
on the milk crate again.
I got out a new tube of Noctua NH-1 thermal
paste and applied it to the cpu with a razor
blade cuz all you need is a thin even spread
as the cpu lid and heatsink have microscopic
pits and grooves and the paste fills them and
provides even thermal transfer.

I installed the 120 mm radiator and screwed
it in place to finger tight then an couple more
turns and its on just dont torque it or you will
cut off the traces to the memory.

I then put on the cpu fan and put the end in
the right fan header.

Now I install the graphics card a Radeon
6800XT 16 gb and not only is it 5 lbs its also
just a smidge from the Hard Drive bays and
you have to angle it in....Whew

Next the steel anti sag support bracket that
keeps it from sagging because of the weighty
Heatsink cooler and the way the screws are
in this case it was a bit of a trick getting it
all screwed in as i have big fingers.

Then the 3 6+2 pin PCIe connectors to power
the video card....easy peasy

I also had a new 24x DVDRW installed for
creating a virtual machine,win95 to play
the old Arcade and Atari games like Asteroids.

Finally checked over my work and put the
swinging glass panel in place and sat down
and fired up a Winston to relax my nerves
and tossed back a bottle of High Life.

I got the machine on the floor and plugged
it all in and fired up my gaming monitor and
speakers and pushed the power button and
it was now alive.
In the madness i went thru a few boots and
MS made me make a new password and i was
digging for my MS account.

Next thing i did a restart and got into my
UEFI/BIOS to set the memory to 3200 mhz.
Save and exit.

I got into windows and verified my new cpu
in that and doubled checked with CPU-Z.
All Is good.

I did a burn in with 3dmark Firestrike and
others to see my score after the benchmarks.

Unigen Heaven bench mark did well too.

Sunday I need to replace my Noctua cpu
fan as the 6 year warranty ran out 2 years
ago...plus i need another fan to exhaust so
2 intake 2 exhaust plus im installing the
fron dust filter but have to pull the front
panel to do so....

This all took 6 1/2 hours and another hour
Sunday and its all good.

All in all i had a great time and thanks to
Phanteks for the manual telling me all
about this great case.

Peace,BigT

Happy Winter Solstice & Blessed Yule 2024

A week ago a lady friend called to set up a Solstice
celebration,just myself and her getting together
to bring in the return of the sun.

Now the days will be getting longer and spring in
April,my favorite time of the year.

With the darkness starting its waning and the
moonlit nights fading the air gets that crispness to it.

She came and brought a half pie and Ham with a
couple sweet potatoes that i put in the air fryer.
As it turns out those were not yams as i thought.

We sat waiting for the ham to heat up in the oven
and the potatoes were on their way.
She is great at conversation and we fired up a bowl
of some legendary MTF 27% and proceeded to get
really baked.

When you start talking gibberish then you know
that you are really baked.
I tried stammering out sentences but got really
lost even in my own conversation...LOL

Yanno the 21st of December isn't just Solstice,its
the first day of Yule,a Germanic festival that
when Christianized was called Christmas by the
crazy Christians of the day.

Christmas is the 5th day of Yule and its end is
January 1st.
Feasting,Merryment and gift giving,its all Yule.
The gift? A generous offering of the Green Goodness
and Good Company with such an amazing person.

We are both surprised how the channel is taking
off and that gives me lots of things to consider.
I cant take it lightly and so many people from
around the planet leaving all those comments.

She tried reading them all but it seems like it
goes on forever as she put it.
I couldn't stop talking about the outpouring of
greetings and well wishes as I am as taken aback
as she is.

Timer went off and ham is out of the oven as well
as the sweet potatoes. The Ninja did a superb job
as always and we sat inside my small cabin and
enjoyed some good food.

Oh,and the pie.....I told her this was the best
apple pie I ever had so she remarked that its
Marri Callendar and i says what?
She giggled and said it again,Well thats the best
pie ive ever had and we had a good chuckle about
it....Im going to have to get one at the store next
month for myself.

My friend and her husband had been long time
neighbors for over 20 years and sadly he passed
November 2023,and is sorely missed as he was
a real hoot.

She reminisced about telling him he can drive if
he wants and you know where there keys are.
He never did drive at that point as he was afflicted
with Parkinsons & Altzheimers so he stopped
driving some years back but he was always on her
about wanting to go for a drive.

We finished up our meal and fired up the green
again and were sufficiently baked ourselves.

Then as it was starting to get dark she had to
drive back to the barn as she put it,being 80
years old is no small feat and she cant drive
in the dark so off she was and that was an end
to a wonderful celebration.

Good Friends,Good Conversation and Good Food
Ya just cant beat that at all.

Many Blessings to all of you ....

Peace - BigT

On Hoarding & Knick Knacks

In the past ive had various sized dwellings before
moving to this little community.
Back in the day while camping in the forest,I had
a small duffle bag full of things that i happily
dubbed my Possibles Bag because every 49'er
had one.

First it started with the small duffle then a full size
duffle to a storage unit then a garage unit.
Then to a car,then a van to a storage unit to a cab
over camper to a cabin then to a house then back to
a cabin.

Theres 40 years of hoarding in a nutshell....LOL

As it was Saturday,Ive been without a cigarette
for 6 days and not dealing with it so lightly.
I had 7 cups of coffee and was really perked to say
the least so i embarked on a thinning crusade.

Being all perky i started going thru boxes and the
first was a computer box in the corner then morphed
into the other back corner realizing i am hoarding
again...

The front corner had to be dealt with and hung a
metal folding chair outside to get it out of the way.
I was tossing things in the junk pile that i traditionally
cart off to the dump come spring thaw.

Finally the shelves on the front corner by the ladder
because i haven't touched them in 25 plus years.
I am laughing because it was hideous and I mean
it was really bad....Ive been living in the cabin
since 2012 and i never though to even look at it.

2 cans of Escargot,snails......1 gallon can of halved
peaches only it was empty with some petrified
fruit clanging around inside and the juice had run
down the wall long ago...

Lots of computer related items such as Hard
drive enclosures that go to some cases i seem to
have parted with centuries ago and 4 case fans
which to my surprise i really need for my next
computer build,

A Retro Offline Gaming PC..No Internet Needed
I have all the components and it will go into
the loft to that computer center so i can game
an hour or two before bed.

Unreal Tournament 3 & IL2 Sturmovik 1946
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit.

I had to search high and low for all the parts
and get them all together in one place as I am
a scatter brained person with Manic Episodes
that can lead me to scatter things around.

Today I have the bottom front corner to
sort out as there is a Big 6X coat in there that
i cannot wear and am giving to my friend Scott
who is the biggest teddy bear of all time and
has said that he will take it.

Its a windproof winter coat from the Chicago
Area from an old friend who passed 12 years ago.
It is a winter coat but not by Alaskan standards.
Scott is a close friend who doesn't throw anything
away and has a hoarding streak miles longer
than mine....Birds of a feather flock together.

I am making use of my time not smoking by
decluttering,organizing and sorting and oh
the knick knacks,i mean i have boxes with
little things that I cant just toss but ended up
going outside anyway...LOL

Thank the Gods of Olde for C O F F E E

Peace, BigT

Admiralty Mis Adventure

Some 39 years ago i let this guy from church
talk me into going on a deer hunting trip to
none other than Bear Island.

This guy was noted for being prepared and
has done according to his book successful
hunts but this turned out no to be anything
but successful.

As always when going out i take an emergency
kit of pilot bread and peanut butter and jam.
You never know what will befall you on a trip.

We set out from the harbor with flat water but
at the southern tip of Douglas Island it was a
much different story.

Seas were 6 ft and the wind was not on our side
and then the rain.
We made our way to a creek on the island and
this guy went all the way up the creek quite a
ways so i informed him this was a mean tide
and we should go back down the creek.

We made camp and a fire and he went to pull
out the sandwhiches his wife made only to
discover the sandwhiches were not packed
along with the rest of our provisions except
there were sodas and peanut butter and jam.

Well out came a box of pilot bread so we
could eat and laugh at what a big dumbass
he was,this was Mr.Prepared.

I fired up a bowl and knocked back some sodas
and in the middle of the night the skiff flipped
over onto its side startling us both.

In the mayhem of it all it was really mean tide
and now the big creek is tiny and we are stuck.

We did do some hunting but not a critter
in sight....Lucky us,Bears eat hunters on
this island every year.

It was supposed to be a 3 day trip and his wife
wont make the call until we are overdue.

This was an 18 ft Aluminum boat with dual
100hp out boards and a heavy beast.
We couldn't wrangle it back to the water and
were in really big trouble.

Well no bears and no deer at all.....and
pilot bread was holding out.

And his wife did make the call and
the Coast Guard was dispatched to the creek.
Upon arrival he we were told theyve never
seen anyone up that creek so far and i pointed
at him.....He was the dumbass that did it.

Peace - BigT