Post by johnno on Apr 24, 2015 14:21:54 GMT
I've just bought a little jem, Dell Opitiflex 9010 sff work station. purely for my astro gear. As I was using 2 laptops before to broadcast
I decided I needed a dedicated pc for astro, normally a build my own pc's but I couldn't match the price if a bought this at £210 off ebay. What I like about this little pc is you can stand it up or lay it flat and the measurements are 11.4 x 3.7 x 12.3 / (29.0 x 9.3 x 31.2) i5 processor. 8gb ram. 6 usb2 and 4 usb3, 2 display ports, 500gb hdd cd/dvd rewiter and bluray player and its quiet.
At first I was disappointed with it's performance compared to my i5 laptop, so I had to spend a little more on it and up grade it and now it's about 50% faster than the laptop according to Passmark performance benchmark.
Got rid of the Win7 32bit and bought a second user Dell win7 64bit disc with code £30
Installed a 1Gb HD 7570 half height half length video card £21. Some Dell suppliers are asking as much as £345 for these, but a bit of digging around I found this one and it looks like new so I'm made up with this purchase.
I had to buy a monitor as well. HP Pavilion 23xi ips screen refurb £102. I can get away with just using one monitor
Backlit keyboard and backlit mouse £18 cheap Chinese stuff but it serves it purpose
I sweet talked the other half into letting me put up a little pc deck in the back bedroom next to the window so I can hang my cables out which as made life a little more easier and quicker for setting up as all the adapters and cables are plugged into the back ports permanently and the cables are hooked up on the side of the desk so all I have to do is throw them out of the window.
I did a couple of white light broadcasts the other day on NSN and VAL to try it out but had trouble with the wifi kept dropping out, bought a wifi extender and it improved it a little but it was not much better so I changed the wifi adapter for another one I had lying around and this as cured it I think as I'm getting full bars now, needs to be tested to make sure.