Agathae sitting by my door.

June 19th, 2024

Another Day, Another Tower, Another Time I Lifted Something Heavy.

Yes, this post is a day late.

The Oversized Tower Gets a Companion

Last week, I was given another unwanted device by a friend. And this time, it was yet another Big Huge Tower. And, I think, better. It has a newer CPU, more RAM slots, and a motherboard that’s definitely a little nicer. In terms of specs, it has a Intel Core i7 930, 16GB of RAM, and a Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 in it. That’s better than the GTX 260 the Oversized Tower came with, but not as good as the Radeon RX 570 I stuck in it. I was also given a grocery sack with other stuff the owner didn’t want. There was a HP mouse (no subscription needed to use it), some cables including the power cable and a coax cable, and a GTX 750 Ti. Also included was another two sticks with 4GB of RAM per stick. I was very excited, and this was definitely one of the most exciting devices I’ve gotten in ages. Oh, and it was in a black-and-green case with “nVIDIA” on the front panel.

Here's some photos. Sorry for the image quality. I need to figure out how to focus this thing properly. And the lighting is terrible and I couldn't unplug the thing since it was in use.

Side of nVIDIA tower

Side of the tower.

Inside of nVIDIA tower

Inside the Tower.

SSD tossed inside of a sled inside the nVIDIA tower

SSD just tossed inside the tower. Look closely.

Top ports of nVIDIA tower

Ports on top the Tower, including FireWire and eSATA.

Front of nVIDIA tower

Front of the tower. It decided to stick its tongue out for this photo.

I first tried the machine in its stock configuration, as I got it. It had Windows 10 already installed on the 128GB OCz SSD inside it. The thing booted fairly fast, and seemed to work well. I ended up taking my 1TB SSD out of the Oversized Tower and sticking it in a third drive bay, which was a pain since the power supply’s cables aren’t the greatest, especially if you don’t have another way to anchor a SSD down (I need to buy one of those SSD sleds). I turned it on. Turns out, Linux didn’t like that graphics card. I ended up giving up, after trying to boot other distros on it, and swapped in the 750 Ti. Much better. Linux actually booted. And worked. I poked around for a bit, and then decided to shut the thing off. I had read that these CPUs can only handle a maximum of 24GB of RAM across 6 slots (6 sticks of 4GB, equalling 24GB). So I stick the sticks in there. There was already two 8GB sticks, totalling 16GB on the the board, and I was wondering how that was working. Well, the machine took my RAM and booted just fine with the 24GB of RAM. Well, that wasn’t enough for me to be satisfied with the answers I was getting from the computer. If it could do that, then surely it could handle two more sticks… Hmm. I ended up taking two more sticks from the Oversized Tower, with both sticks adding another 8GB to it. I turned the New Tower on. Lo and behold, 32GB of RAM. Lovely. I ended up doing some research, and as it turns out, it’s been possible to put up to 48GB of RAM, but it was never advertised at the time this kind of thing was new, as 8GB sticks were not common, from what I’ve heard (link). After the RAM upgrade my finishing touch. The RX 570 card I have. I popped it in there, turned it on, and the thing was now my fastest computer, with USB 3 ports as well (The Oversized Tower only had USB 2).

I have been using this tower for a few days now as well. It seems to be good so far, except that RX 570 has really loud fans. It edits videos well (so far), and rips CDs a zillion times faster than my laptop and a external USB drive. Yes, this thing even has a CD drive.

As for the Oversized Tower? It’s now on the Other Desk, with a GTX 750 Ti and a bump down to 12GB of RAM, along with Windows XP on the SSD it came with. Makes for a nice PC over on the Other Side of the Office. I’ve never used Windows XP on such a fast computer. All in all, both computers are fairly happy, except the CMOS battery is still dead on the Oversized Tower and I can’t be bothered to find another one right now.

Anything Else?

Not really. I’m fine, the sick is gone, the allergies are here, and so is the heat. Thank you for taking the time out of your life to read this post.

Edit to add:

I forgot about White Sands. Editing this post one more time to add these photos: White Sand Dunes at White Sands. White Sand Dunes at White Sands. White Sand Dunes at White Sands. White Sand Dunes at White Sands. White Sand Dunes at White Sands.

JM