Be Excellent To Each Other

ITX

If you are emulating the PS2 then it may be a better idea to buy an APU, as it offers both a CPU and half decent GPU on one die. This means less heat generated and it also means very small cases. As soon as you add a GPU you need the case length to support it..

The only thing you have really got me on there is the IR start up. In all my years of playing with computers I have only ever seen one device that could do so and it's no longer in production. I will, however, ask around about that !

The last time I emulated a PS2 game was Fast N Furious by Namco? it was only ever available on PS2. And I'm sure I did it with onboard graphics too. So, I would recommend..

Motherboard

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-a88 ... ie-30-(x16)-d-sub-dvi-d-hdmi-

It also has a PCIE slot so you could always add a GPU later if you felt you needed it.

APU

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a10 ... cpu-retail

Memory. Apparently with an APU the GPU is faster depending on the speed of the memory. I'd imagine it's because it shares the RAM.

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(2x4gb)-corsair-ddr3-vengeance-pro-series-red-pc3-17066-(2133)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-9-11-11-31

Power supply

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/500w-ev ... il-atx-psu

Cases. The really tiny ones need a tiny PSU. However, consider this first and if you like it remove the power supply above ^

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/evga-ha ... ot-optical

That actually comes with its own 500w PSU and is very smart.

This case would need the PSU and is very popular but do note, it can't take full sized graphics cards. It is available in a wide variety of colours though, if that floats your boat.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/raijinte ... 05-rt.html

Those are the most popular two atm. If you fancy something else holler and I will dig out a few more. The main issue with some ITX cases is that you need a SFF PSU are they are eye wateringly expensive (about £85 for a 500w).

Edit. The motherboard link is being a douche, you want the MSI A88XI

http://hexus.net/tech/news/peripherals/ ... next-week/

There you go fella, that ought to sort out the power problem

Well, kindof. If you want to use a universal remote or somesuch, It's not going to work.

Yeah I know. The only other thing I have ever seen that can actually turn a PC on and off though was the Silverstone MFP51. It hijacked the 24 pin cable and came with a huge cumbersome extension. Having said that it did also include a VFD that was extremely useful (date, time, temps, the news, emails etc).

What about a motherboard that supports Wake On Lan? There must be smartphone apps that'll send the wake packet. Granted it's a bit ridiculous having to use your phone to switch your computer one but given that any solution is just to save the 'hassle' of pressing a physical button a few feet away we're already into 'the firstest of first world problem' territory here anyway.

ETA: there's certainly a fuckton of Anroid apps that'll do WoL.

Don't turn it off.

Yeah you could always just let it sleep, then use a media remote to wake it (most support that function apparently)

Don't let it do that, either.

Leaving it on is going to use about 250KWh of electricity a year, which (at 10p per KWh, which is a little high, but easier to figure out) costs about £25, or 48p a week, or 6p a day.

Plus, while it's on, it'll update, do security scans, backup (if you do that), index files, etc. Computers like to be left on.

Noise, though.

Living room PCs shouldn't make a noise - not one you can hear unless you really listen, at least.

My NAS is annoying. I eventually swapped the PSU for a fanless solid-state DC-DC one (at a cost of about £85), but the main 120 mm fan is still a bit loud and uses custom HP buggery so not easy to swap out. Even after that, the drive seek noise is irritating if it's doing anything.

Is that not next to your head, though?

(Also - aside - it's NAS. Why is it not tucked away in a far corner of the house somewhere?)

http://www.streacom.com/products/flirc- ... -receiver/

Apparently.....

Far side of the room.

Sure, I'll put it in the East Wing... no wait, I live in a small London flat, AS YOU VERY WELL KNOW. I have these rooms at my disposal:

Kitchen
Lounge/diner
Bedroom one
Bedroom two
Bathroom one
Bathroom two

Where else should I put it? Keep in mind people sleep in the bedrooms. Bonus points: ideally your answer will allow for a wired ethernet connection to the TV without drilling any holes.

Fairly sure that in Putney, a Smoker as big as yours is large enough to qualify as an additional room with mezzanine floor.

I'd put it in bedroom two (which I assume is wired because there's a computer in there, but I don't know what I'm basing that on). People sleep in there rarely enough for you to be able to switch it off if you need to, right?

Failing that, I'd put it in the cupboard with the washing machine in.

You could try something like this?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008 ... 1_1&sr=8-1

Oh also, a very quiet cooler.

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/thermal ... nd-amd-cpu

I've always thought having two bathrooms is a weird use of space when it's at a premium. I'm doing a bit of house hunting myself recently and noticed quite a few two bedroom flats with an en suite which is just nonsense; I'd much rather have bigger rooms or more storage space than needlessly duplicate a whole function. Not least because then you've got two bathrooms to clean which is just a fucking pain. Mind you, I've never lived anywhere with an en suite bathroom or toilet so maybe there's some incredible aspect to them that I'm missing here.

It's probably more to do with increasing the price of the property. Like bedrooms en suites add to the value of the house.

But yeah, I personally make sure I've done all my peeing and pooing before I go to bed, so rarely get surprised in the middle of the night.

The iMac is in there, but it's on Wifi. The printer that's in there used to be connected via Powerline but it's flaky and slow on our old wiring.

Mrs Doc and I sometimes have one of us sleeping in there when we're ill or having a bout of insomnia. More importantly, it has no Ethernet to the TV. And see above re: powerline.

Also has the boiler and hot water tank, so is too hot for a computer.

In this case, I think it's an accident of house layout from when the house was divided up into flats. We have a room that joins onto what is now a bedroom (was originally a kitchen), so there's no obvious use for that other than a bathroom; but you can't have the only bathroom in a two-bed house open onto a bedroom so we also have a second bathroom next to it. It's a quirky layout, for sure. Apart from anything else, the ensuite is fucking huge, like 20 feet long. At our housewarming we made all the guests (25-30) stand in it; it's the header pic on my Facebook profile, if you want to see how large it is.

I appreciate you're trying to help but do you honestly think I haven't thought of this?

Have you thought about storing everything in the cloud, Rich?

Or Blu-ray discs.

Yes. TBH I got a little confused over what it was you were asking, hence why it was probably useless information.

However, maybe consider something like this.

http://www.quietpc.com/sys-a430s

It's expensive but it has no fans at all and can be configured with a fanless 750ti if you fancy some light gaming.

Pretty sure FreeNAS doesn't support nVidia graphics cards. Or run games. And that PC is more than twice the physical size of what I have now, so won't fit on my shelving, and it's more than three times the price I paid for my NAS in 2013; it's vastly overpowered for my use cases (which you admit to not knowing the first thing about and yet you are still pitching advice), and it doesn't have room for my four spinning rust drives plus the SSD I need to fit. But other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

I'm sort of bemoaning the fact that's case here (though I agree with you it is) because it seems bizarre to me. If I look at a two bedroom flat with an en suite I'm less likely to consider it because it means I'm losing space elsewhere. I suppose the answer, as always, is that people are idiots.



Heh, I was puzzling over that very image a few minutes ago as Danielle has just commented on it so that solves that mystery.

I think the magic factor you are overlooking is "flatshares." Not sharing a bathroom with semi-strangers is desirable.

The fuck is wrong with a bucket under the bed you posh knobberoonies?

True, but most of my context for comment here is looking at flats in Glasgow and it's not like flat sharing is really a thing here (students notwithstanding). Here, and I suspect in most places outside London, the idea of having to share a flat any time after leaving uni would generally be met with horror. Well, you're not long out of Wales so presumably you know what I mean.

We don't live in the north.

I dream of a bucket, me.

LUXURY!

The Intel NUCs have an IR receiver and I believe with some fiddling can be set to power on with a remote, and you can choose different specs, provide your own HSS/SSD.

They worked out more expensive than I really wanted to stretch to when I was considering replacing my HTPC (an Acer Revo) under the telly, but they seem like quite nice pieces of kit. Read up on them, maybe they'd suit you. Not sure if the built in GPU will be a bit weedy for PS2 emulation as I've not tried it.

Actually, I see you wanted 2 drives in there. Maybe this isn't what you are after (unless you are happy for external drives, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a small case if you then have to have other boxes plugged in to it).

Had a disappointing problem with the Steam controller last night playing Tomb Raider. It's been fine up until now, but when loading up the game using my preferred control scheme the haptic on the left trackpad was going crazy and it was selecting all my weapons at random. I tried disconnecting the controller's batteries, rebooting the Steam Link, rebooting my host PC and nothing would fix it. If I use other control schemes it's fine, but they aren't as good.

Fuck sake. My PC has started randomly doing hard shut downs for no reason I can work out. It did it maybe once last week then a couple of times earlier this week and last night saw it happen about four times.

At first I thought it was linked to having something plugged into the front USB ports but last I had nothing plugged in yet it shut down twice when I was actually using it then another twice when I tried to leave it on over-night for Steam downloads.

I checked the Windows logs and couldn't see anything at all; just complaints from it that the shut downs were unscheduled but nothing prior to them indicating a problem.

My only other area of investigation is the physical power button on the front of the machine. For years now it's been a bit iffy such that when you press it the actual button can slide sideways a fraction behind the case front and get stuck in; which of course means that it powers straight back down again after a few seconds. Jiggling it a little bit after it gets stuck has always popped it back out again and that's been fine so I've never looked into it any further. I'm far from convinced this is the root of my current problem though because in all occasions the power button wasn't stuck in so there's no reason it should be forcing a shut down.

The machine's so old it's certainly not worth attempting stuff like replacing the motherboard but I really don't want to have to upgrade it quite yet because it's currently happily doing everything I need.

Anyway, anyone got any idea of possible avenues to investigate here?

Your PC is currently entering an error mode due to a lack of sufficient LEDs.

Solution: Add more LEDs. Preferably Red.

Your motherboard got any kind of heat sensor that'll tell you if it's getting too warm? Fair chance it's got fan intakes full of dust and is getting too hot because it can't move air around well enough to cool properly. Worth getting a dustbuster inside the case (cue ZOMG hoovering PCs kills components discussion...)

Have you updated the firmware? That was the issue I was describing the other week, and unplugging the X52 etc. made no difference.

Then I actually updated the controller firmware (mainly so that the Link would stop nagging me to) and it cured it straight away.

I've no idea about the heat sensor, I'll see if I can find out. I don't think the thing is too dusty but I'll give it a hoover tonight anyway, that's a good shout. Can I just stick a hoover attachment into the thing or is that just a totally terrible idea?

When I reset it to factory settings I did all the updates, yeah. I think I solved my random freezing issue though - it seemed to be my ethernet powerline adaptor.

I wouldn't be expecting it to overheat if Bamba's had it shutdown overnight just doing downloads - that said there are various programs that can monitor and log temperatures for both CPU and GPU so can't hurt to have them running in the background.

Sounds to me like a dicky power supply or motherboard, or maybe a poorly seated cable somewhere, I'd take a look at that power button though, maybe dismantle the housing and just take it down to the raw switch.

Take it all apart, reseat all the cables, that sort of shizzle.

If it isn't bluescreening and Windows isn't logging anything, you'd have to say hardware really.

Core Temp was what I always used for CPU temperatures, I guess that'd still work OK - http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

Ta, I'll take a look at that app. Does it log temperatures as well as letting you monitor them? Ideally I want stuff logged so that I can just leave it running till it dies then look back at what it was sitting at moments before.

My general plan tonight is:

- Hoover entire inside
- Check all cables
- Check gfx card and CPU are seated okay
- Check fan on PSU is spinning okay and it doesn't smell dodgy
- See if I can fix the power button itself to rule that out
- Check BIOS options to see if there's any setting that would force a shut down in certain scenarios
- Memtest
- Run that app to log ongoing temperatures

I'll bet dicky PSU too. Is the little fan in there spinning properly? Does it smell weird?

Fair point, I'll check that too. That wouldn't be too bad, I don't mind replacing the PSU if it comes to that.

I use Hwmon for temps these days. I'm not sure if it logs temps to file but it definitely keeps your max and min temps all the time you have it open.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Not only does it do CPU temp but it does GPU/s temps board temps and even better, voltage. So you can have a look at your 12v and 5v rails, though do note sometimes they were wildly inaccurate due to some motherboards.

Also run a memtest, given it's free and check for dust bunnies. Those bastards stop for no man !