yophotoman's diy projects

Computers are not exactly a Do It Yourself project since manufacturing is far beyond an individual's ability. However, a DIY user can custom assemble 6 to 8 componants into a working system. The result is a custom system, unique to that user.

My computer learning curve included building up various systems from hand me down componants and installing a variety of operating systems on them two decades ago. However, when I wanted a more modern and permenant system, I ordered a custom system, from my componant choices, built for me by a company who specialized in gaming and enterprise systems (2009). I ordered a Shuttle Xpc, pictured, because it fit my credenza shelf. Since then, I've replace the power supply and am on my third hard drive. Then the audio became unstable, sometimes failing altogether. Years before the sound jacks on the CPU went dead so HDMI sound was all I had. Time to invest in a new computer and monitor. See the AMD Ryzen 7 build plan below.

For years I ran my Windows tax software on my Linux box using WINE (runs older MS Windows programs on Linux) until the developers upgraded it and it wouldn't run on WINE anymore. That's when I acquired the Asus VM40B. It was the cheapest MS Windows machine I could find. It came with with Win 8.1, a mechanical hard drive and limited memory but it was sufficient for my one job: annual income tax filing.

When my wife's 11 year old Mac Mini began to fail, I ordered a Bare Bones Asus UN65U (right), pocket size computer but the OS had problems with the hardware. It often failed to wake up from suspend ... apparently a known problem with the OS I chose ... didn't know. Wife was pissed at my attempt to set up a new machine for her. Eventually, I upgraded it to Linux Mint 20.03 and it ran perfectly! Happy Wife, happy life. We're a totally Linux household now!

That left me with a free computer, the silver Asus VM40B. I installed a series of Linux versions, just to look at them. I eventually added a larger SSD HD and turned it into a dual boot machine, Win 10 & Linux Mint 19. The Linux side was mostly Amature Radio, like a software defined radio (SDR) and ham radio info files. However, I got bored with messing with OS's. See below.

For the AMD Ryzen build, I chose a Cooler Master Elite 110 mini-ITX case. It was one of only two cases which fit the credenza shelf on my desk, but had more hard drive mounting options and uses a standard ATX power supply. Cooler Master still makes an updated version of this case.

The rest of the build was state-of-art. The motherboard is a Gigabyte model: B550I AORUS PRO AX. The graphics card is an NVIDIA GP108 [GeForce GT 1030]. CPU: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 64 bit. I mounted two MVMe drives, a small one for the OS and a 1 TB drive for Home partition, in the dual M.2 slots. I also mounted the HD from the Shuttle xPC in the case plus an additional SSD. It's how I avoided backing up everything. I just copied what I needed. I still pull audio from HDMI monitor feeding a pair of powered speakers. In only six months, I've managed to fill the HD up to 60%. Glad the case has room for another HD!

The old Shuttle xPC eventually found a home in the front closet shelf. It never ran well with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS even though it was rock stable with Ubuntu 16.04. The silver Ausus VM40B ended up in storage in the shed. I'm done with playing with operating systems and fooling around with hardware. I'm getting too old to mess with this stuff anymore. LOL