moving into the 21st century
Aug. 7th, 2014 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrI was making a storage run today and since Free Geek was in the neighborhood, I dragged along that new-to-me Dell laptop and a couple other things.
I was able to score a laptop bag for the Dell for $5. I managed to score a 9 VDC power supply for a pair of speakers I've had for a while. This is good, because they have *two* audio input jacks, so I can hook two computers to them. This will help manage things until I can afford a USB & audiio KVM switch to replace the current one that only switches VGA and PS/2.
I couldn't find a USB to "barrel" connector cable for the laptop cooler pad that I salvaged.
But I wandered over to the area that has switches, hubs, etc and they had an 8-port gigabit switch for $35. Better yet, they let me have it for $30. Blew most of my discretionary budget for the month, but that's ok.
I already have it installed sitting above the old 16-port 10/100 switch in the living room. It was a bit of fun figuring out what cable went to what, but I the 4 gigabit capable systems plugged into it as well as the cable that Fay uses for her notebook (which I think is gigabit capable.
That used \up 5 ports. I needed one to connect the switch to the rest of the LAN. I decided to plug the cable from the router into the gigabit switch and use up another (short) cable to connect the old 10/100 switch to the gigabit switch.
Won't really help much outside of the living room group of computers, but it'll help a lot there. Especially given the way I move large files around.
Eventually I'll get a gigabit capable router, and another gigabit switch for the other room. I'll definitely need one or the other when I can replace the old NSLU-2 NAS unit with a proper NAS unit. That'll give me 10 times the storage, and be gigabit capable. But that's likely a year or more away.
I was able to score a laptop bag for the Dell for $5. I managed to score a 9 VDC power supply for a pair of speakers I've had for a while. This is good, because they have *two* audio input jacks, so I can hook two computers to them. This will help manage things until I can afford a USB & audiio KVM switch to replace the current one that only switches VGA and PS/2.
I couldn't find a USB to "barrel" connector cable for the laptop cooler pad that I salvaged.
But I wandered over to the area that has switches, hubs, etc and they had an 8-port gigabit switch for $35. Better yet, they let me have it for $30. Blew most of my discretionary budget for the month, but that's ok.
I already have it installed sitting above the old 16-port 10/100 switch in the living room. It was a bit of fun figuring out what cable went to what, but I the 4 gigabit capable systems plugged into it as well as the cable that Fay uses for her notebook (which I think is gigabit capable.
That used \up 5 ports. I needed one to connect the switch to the rest of the LAN. I decided to plug the cable from the router into the gigabit switch and use up another (short) cable to connect the old 10/100 switch to the gigabit switch.
Won't really help much outside of the living room group of computers, but it'll help a lot there. Especially given the way I move large files around.
Eventually I'll get a gigabit capable router, and another gigabit switch for the other room. I'll definitely need one or the other when I can replace the old NSLU-2 NAS unit with a proper NAS unit. That'll give me 10 times the storage, and be gigabit capable. But that's likely a year or more away.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-08-08 12:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-08 04:22 pm (UTC)I was going to look up what the cables cost, but since it was already gone when I went in to swap those DIMMs a couple days later, I haven't bothered.
Like my finding the gigabit switch, it's pretty much a matter of luck finding that sort of thing at Free Geek.