i was stuck behind the 8, had to make the 4. Couldn’t masse or jump.. fast tables and nice rails works wonders. Needless to say, we didn’t with the round. We where playing doubles nine ball…. sorry no 9 ball in the diagram.
After much research, i decided on the Rog Ally Z1 (non extreme). A lot of other handhelds where in the running, but most where out of my price range or not “local” to our region. Everybody seems to hate the low powered Z1, but it kind of fit what i wanted to do with it. Emulation with ps3 and switch appears to be in reach on the far end of the spectrum, but space is kind of needed now. The things i need… Rog, nvme adapter, 2tb ssd, and heat sink. The purpose of this mod was to have more space (default 512gb) and protection to the new SSD (gets hot in there).
Taking apart the Rog was relatively easy, just finding the right tool was the hardest.. making sure i don’t strip any “heads”. Below is the picture of it taken apart and 512gb ssd removed and be quiet mc1 heatsink. For the 2tb nvme, I went pcie4 and WD Black sn770. I chose that drive due to thermal properties (it won’t get too hot). It’s kind of middle ground speeds of PCIE4 Nvme’s. I could have probably used a PCie3 nvme – without a heat sink, to help with the heat problem, but i decided to go with the mc1 addition.
I purchased the nvme adapter which basically converts the ssd in to a right angle. The old 512gb nvme was beside the left fan (on the right hand side).
After everything was installed, i did have to modify the case a bit – basically a little cutting of the back of the case to make sure it would close. Nothing too serious. Since the mod is done, I’ve noticed my SSD temps are 34c @ idle – using crystaldisk – though i didn’t know what it was before. More testing during actual load is needed. I like the “DO NOT DISASSEMBLE Stephanie” sticker 😉
I’m done with the proxmox physical and software build..
Dell T7810 Server (Hashira is the Node)
2x e5-2690v4 (56 cores)
128GB DDR4 ECC ram (will probably add more)
500gb SSD (Proxmox Install)
2tb Nmve for VM’s
2tb SSD for VM’s
5tb Platter drive (Backups/Isos/Templates)
Amd RX 6400 gpu
Intel Arc 750 gpu.
2.5gig network card (all vm’s uses this, 1gb onboard is for management only)
The Gpu’s are passed through, though performance is not what i expected. 6400 appears to be running better.. probably due to older motherboard and bad Intel drivers – this is all virtualized. I think the arc 750 will run better in a windows environment.
I’ve added an extra case fan – you can tell that it was heating up… though it had to be fen dangled to fit… side panel would not close otherwise.
I only have 4 VM’s right now.
Kasm (used as my gateway into my lan)
Retropie (Ubuntu OS, and retropie installed)
2 windows (VM’s with retrobat installed)
It is now stationed near my unRaid Server rack and my gaming pc has been moved (you can see my xbox and joystick controller).
More additions will probably include more memory and more network cards.
I’ve been using my little Beelink SER MAX for my proxmox (virtual environment) setup, but it was limited with space and power. I decided to buy an old server – Dell t7810 from amazon. Dual Xeon 2690-v4, 128gigs of DDR4 ram and a basic video card – just add space/config and it would be good to go. First I did some cleaning of the cpus and applied new thermal paste. I was going to replace the cpu and case fans, but that will probably be a later project. Second was general cleaning of the case, lots of dust inside and out was there – went outside and used my rechargeable “blower” to clean. I assume the “Chia farming” meant that multiple hard drives where used to “mine” crypto. Doesn’t tax the cpu’s at all. My plan is to make this the “VM farm” and remove Unraid out of the equation. This blog and family photosite (jellyfin) are housed on a physical desktop. Dirty cpu/heatsink below.
Clean now, both heatsink and cpu. 99% isopropyl alcohol and coffee filters do a good job.
I wanted a small pc to test things on and i decided on a Beelink Ser5 Max. Vm’s can only get you so far on my Unraid system. I played with proxmox a few years back, but i wanted to test it out again. This device only came with 16gigs of ram, 512g disk and the 5800h. I added 64gigs total and 2tb to the system. Since this is a linux based os, I can mount a NFS share from my unRaid System. I’m running some containers and virtual machine on this system. MacOS was kind of fun.. though it works really slow. Can’t really do gpu pass through. KASM and CasaOS is virtualized and running. Still learning alot of things. I plan on building a “Bigger” proxmox environment later.
Since I’ve been playing since 17…. and seriously trying to learn at 19, I’ve bought a few cues in my life.. started with a McDermott basic cue, then Falcon, Huebler, Predator…but here is my current list. I do have another Poison cue that is in my office…for when i play during lunch.
From left to right.
Fury cue (no inlays).
Cheap $15 dollar cue – maybe walmart… i put a dumb sticker on it – thought it was cool at the time.
Unknown custom cue – bought from a “cue seller” in a pool hall. It has inlays.. nice. I put a OB shaft on it. matched ring work… OB was based in Plano TX. This was used during my college league days.
Original shaft for cue 3.
Original shaft for that McDermott butt on cue 6.
McDermott lucky butt with Defy carbon shaft – my currently playing cue.
McDermot lucky cue with normal shaft.
Pure X cue by Players. Bought to test out the HXT LD shaft.
Old Lucasi with original shaft.
Custom DP (Dale Perry) cue.
1st generation Poison cue (Bolt model) with Venom2 shaft (LD).
Original shaft for 11 – Venom1 LD shaft.
Custom (sneaky pete) – hustling days lol.
Old Huebler (sneeky pete) – my wifes cue.
2nd generation poison cue (not pictured – in office) with Venom2 LD shaft.
My current favorite is McDermott cue with Defy shaft.
I’ve been running this website on a ubuntu virtual machine for a couple of months now. It’s running on my big Unraid nas. These past months, my server has gone down 🙁 not sure what is happening, but it might just be the heat in the room/outside. Stability of my unraid system isn’t that important, but my website, photosite, and other things are. I’ve moved my website over to a dedicated machine now. I decided on a refurb HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Small Form Desktop, Intel Core 7th Gen i5 7500 3.4Ghz, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 512GB NVMe. It’s running Ubuntu server as usual. I’ve added 3tb platter drive for wordpress things. The product was very clean when i got it and it’s functioning great….. for $125 it is a great buy. One of the dp ports is also broken…doesn’t really matter since this is running headless. I’ve also added a rx 6400 video card for “transcoding”… since it will also be a jellyfin photo site.
