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Maybe Unorthidox Is Cool: The Journey of OPTICOMPLEX
5 months ago
General
OPTIPLEX!
Lets talk about my refurbished Optiplex, my Old PC. As I go on I'll be referring to it as the OPTICOMPLEX as well, you'll understand why as you read. If you're a tech wiz strap the fuck in: this is a wild ride. If you're not then same.
uh.
About 3 or 4 years ago I got my first computer, an Optiplex 7010. It's not the fastest nor the most convenient but just starting out it was a beast compared to my laptop, and under 200 dollars?
Specs... Specs wise it's got an i7, 4 core. Ran everything I needed just fine, AND at a top speed of 3.8 ghz, which was a BIG FUCKING DEAL when my laptop only did... what, 2?
Good stuff? How's ram? 16 GB...
DDR3.
I see you giggling. DDR3 has been out of date since 2014, and just this year they've been ceasing manufacturing of DDR3 ram sticks. We're currently on DDR5.
This is, without hyperbole, hardware nearing its expiration date.
OTHERWISE! Not too bad. Doesn't have an onboard wifi chip but that's okay, it came with a little USB thingy that does the same. It even had a disc drive, perfect for if I wanted to watch Cars on DVD for the 300th time.
A year into use, my friend Miles comes in and offers me a GPU, "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080". Whatever all those words mean.
I said okay! And work begun on the OPTICOMPLEX, an amalgam of the Optiplex, new graphics card, and necessary new PSU for the giant slab of hardware we were about to hammer into the motherboard.
The case I bought was big, too big actually. The Optiplex 7010 was SFF (Small Form Factor), so the hardware felt even tinier, made even more laughable when you peeked in through the glass side of the absolutely massive casing. The F-Panel didn't work... but just flicking the switch on the PSU started it up just fine. We lost the onboard speaker (sob) and the disc drive (bigger sob)... but the insane thing is it WORKED. Miles laughs, I thank him for his help, and then we part ways. What a guy.
Again... not bad for 200 dollars! Er... 300 now including the case, and now absolutely necessary set of Logitech speakers. Real pieces of shit those were, I'll admit. The interference on them was... pretty fucking bad! A reminder, I still needed the little USB for wifi. So no F-Panel, wifi on USB, speakers that needed their own outlet... Oh and I put a Dr. Mario amiibo inside for good measure.
Moving onto college 2023, I push for a new case because carrying a full sized case for baby-sized hardware was NOT ideal.
The new one I buy was a little bigger than a gamecube, at least, big and square and kindof heavy. It was all black, and didn't have any glass casing or whatever but I considered that an upgrade (not out of any shame, of course, I just thought it gave it a sort of complexity of an Xbox).
But alas the SFF case... was too small?
Fuck it! I stuffed it all in anyway, the entire thing was bulging by the time I was done (not good) BUT... considering it all still worked after the relentless manhandling and a bent motherboard... what a fucking miracle that was. I had to duct tape the front end (somewhat functional now) in order to keep it from falling apart but hey, not bad.
This was its final form, until the ass end of 2024. Windows 11... is sadly not supported for the OPTICOMPLEX.
My boyfriend (sweet guy, complete dumbass ; 3) asks, on topic "HEY, do you want a new computer?"
I look between my polite little box wrapped in duct tape (yes im serious), wires streaming from it like hair, and then his big rig.
I shrug, but he insists, stressing security concerns (since Microsoft was nudging people to Fuck Off of Windows 10 at the time and didn't want to push more security patches by 2025... guess its too much work to patch two identical OS'es.)
I cave but "ON ONE CONDITION
"It must be... small form factor."
He swallows.
Talks began. Him and his gaggle of furry friends (whom I don't associate with for my own safety I'm Not Kidding) get to work... and I get my new egg link.
One grand and some (a lot of) change is a lot to swallow, but he insists that finding anything under is a fools errand. So I buy.
Not much is actually different with this new PC, it uses the same graphics card (any more money spent would've made my heart seize), had relatively similar performance output overall. but now it was just...
Functional.
Lets talk about my refurbished Optiplex, my Old PC. As I go on I'll be referring to it as the OPTICOMPLEX as well, you'll understand why as you read. If you're a tech wiz strap the fuck in: this is a wild ride. If you're not then same.
uh.
About 3 or 4 years ago I got my first computer, an Optiplex 7010. It's not the fastest nor the most convenient but just starting out it was a beast compared to my laptop, and under 200 dollars?
Specs... Specs wise it's got an i7, 4 core. Ran everything I needed just fine, AND at a top speed of 3.8 ghz, which was a BIG FUCKING DEAL when my laptop only did... what, 2?
Good stuff? How's ram? 16 GB...
DDR3.
I see you giggling. DDR3 has been out of date since 2014, and just this year they've been ceasing manufacturing of DDR3 ram sticks. We're currently on DDR5.
This is, without hyperbole, hardware nearing its expiration date.
OTHERWISE! Not too bad. Doesn't have an onboard wifi chip but that's okay, it came with a little USB thingy that does the same. It even had a disc drive, perfect for if I wanted to watch Cars on DVD for the 300th time.
A year into use, my friend Miles comes in and offers me a GPU, "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080". Whatever all those words mean.
I said okay! And work begun on the OPTICOMPLEX, an amalgam of the Optiplex, new graphics card, and necessary new PSU for the giant slab of hardware we were about to hammer into the motherboard.
The case I bought was big, too big actually. The Optiplex 7010 was SFF (Small Form Factor), so the hardware felt even tinier, made even more laughable when you peeked in through the glass side of the absolutely massive casing. The F-Panel didn't work... but just flicking the switch on the PSU started it up just fine. We lost the onboard speaker (sob) and the disc drive (bigger sob)... but the insane thing is it WORKED. Miles laughs, I thank him for his help, and then we part ways. What a guy.
Again... not bad for 200 dollars! Er... 300 now including the case, and now absolutely necessary set of Logitech speakers. Real pieces of shit those were, I'll admit. The interference on them was... pretty fucking bad! A reminder, I still needed the little USB for wifi. So no F-Panel, wifi on USB, speakers that needed their own outlet... Oh and I put a Dr. Mario amiibo inside for good measure.
Moving onto college 2023, I push for a new case because carrying a full sized case for baby-sized hardware was NOT ideal.
The new one I buy was a little bigger than a gamecube, at least, big and square and kindof heavy. It was all black, and didn't have any glass casing or whatever but I considered that an upgrade (not out of any shame, of course, I just thought it gave it a sort of complexity of an Xbox).
But alas the SFF case... was too small?
Fuck it! I stuffed it all in anyway, the entire thing was bulging by the time I was done (not good) BUT... considering it all still worked after the relentless manhandling and a bent motherboard... what a fucking miracle that was. I had to duct tape the front end (somewhat functional now) in order to keep it from falling apart but hey, not bad.
This was its final form, until the ass end of 2024. Windows 11... is sadly not supported for the OPTICOMPLEX.
My boyfriend (sweet guy, complete dumbass ; 3) asks, on topic "HEY, do you want a new computer?"
I look between my polite little box wrapped in duct tape (yes im serious), wires streaming from it like hair, and then his big rig.
I shrug, but he insists, stressing security concerns (since Microsoft was nudging people to Fuck Off of Windows 10 at the time and didn't want to push more security patches by 2025... guess its too much work to patch two identical OS'es.)
I cave but "ON ONE CONDITION
"It must be... small form factor."
He swallows.
Talks began. Him and his gaggle of furry friends (whom I don't associate with for my own safety I'm Not Kidding) get to work... and I get my new egg link.
One grand and some (a lot of) change is a lot to swallow, but he insists that finding anything under is a fools errand. So I buy.
Not much is actually different with this new PC, it uses the same graphics card (any more money spent would've made my heart seize), had relatively similar performance output overall. but now it was just...
Functional.
FruityDragon
~rusteebucket
Task failed successfully
P.S i can't believe the optiplex had gpu slots to begin with that shit is wild.
