Desktop PC Recs...

[climberevan]

Thanks. Yes, it's a huge case with a big PS. I built it way back when to be upgradeable. Mostly I just don't like the idea of throwing so much stuff away but I get that it's prob cheaper to just buy a whole new machine.

What kind of specs would make Caltopo and Google Earth run more smoothly?

The main issue I have is that Caltopo will hang and sometimes crash the tab when it's trying to route on a line. If I open my system monitor it shows one or two of the processors just pegged at 100%. RAM doesn't seem to be an issue (16GB). Running Linux, FWIW.

[MESH]

I would go Intel NUC they come prebuilt or a kit and include a VESA mount.

[rfconroy]

I would go Intel NUC they come prebuilt or a kit and include a VESA mount.

I also have a NUC, great machine!
Use mine for a media center hooked up to a TV

[NBABUCKS1]

I'll say my final peace here, but if OP wants long term use/reliability and quiet the mac mini is it. Fans will hardly spin up, it'll last 5 maybe 10 years w/o issues. Those m1 chips blow anything intel out of the water right now.

[RShea]

Thanks. Yes, it's a huge case with a big PS. I built it way back when to be upgradeable. Mostly I just don't like the idea of throwing so much stuff away but I get that it's prob cheaper to just buy a whole new machine.

What kind of specs would make Caltopo and Google Earth run more smoothly?

The main issue I have is that Caltopo will hang and sometimes crash the tab when it's trying to route on a line. If I open my system monitor it shows one or two of the processors just pegged at 100%. RAM doesn't seem to be an issue (16GB). Running Linux, FWIW.

Have to visit the Caltopo software web site probably. Not familiar with that package, but every software company usually provides a minimum and hopefully also a recommended system requirements. Have the CPU, memory, Operating System versions, storage space etc.

General rule (again no personal experience with your package) is a Series 5 or 7 CPU (Intel Core i5 or i7 newer CPU or AMD Ryzen 5, 5 Pro or 7, 7 Pro series)- there are also different numbers of Cores- older dual core newer Quad etc., 8 Gb ram for very basic, 16 Gb or higher for more serious applications (or running multiple applications at the same time), SSD drive of sufficient size (now usually not an older style SATA interface but an M.2, PCIe or similar directly on the board or dedicated bus interface. A graphics card sufficient if it is needing an GPU for best performance, and sometimes a few other things.

[lucknau]

The new mac mini absolutely blows. I’m saying that as a person who switched to mac 20 years ago when they went to a Unix based OS, and never looked back. Until recently it was the best OS available for its robustness and flexibility as a programming platform, bulletproof security, capability as a standalone server, and for being the first Unix based system with a truly elegant and user friendly GUI.

This iteration, though, is an absolute turd. First thing it did was brick my whole photo archive. 20+ years of photos rearranged into their black hole of a library with indecipherable filenames. I had to write a shit ton of scripts and use an exif reader to peel the 40,000 or so photos out of the mess they left them in, and get them back to some semblance of organization by filename. It took me literally weeks. Fuck those assholes for doing that. I wouldn’t have notice the change in their organizational method if it weren’t for the fact that about 20% of the archive just didn’t ever show up in the software after the migration. It was hidden in the file system luckily, but rendered unrecognizable to the stupid software.

The most recent iteration of the OS is fucked. They stripped out everything that made it useful as a development platform and left it a shell of its former capabilities. No file servers, no secure shell, no native web hosting, no compiling, no anything that makes unix useful.

Next... The fucker crashes to full system failure sometimes when doing OS updates. I run incremental backups like a fiend, so this hasn’t left me stranded, but it does eat up hours and hours of my time whenever I have to restore the piece of shit.

Next... the incremental backup randomly shits the bed now! This is something I usually discover right before the system update, and requires a full rebuild of the backup before I can start the update. This eats up more hours and hours of my time. It can take literally days.

Next... if you ever have to wipe and reinstall the OS, good fucking luck. It is a completely broken process. You have to be a top tier expert just to get the restoration to go all the way to completion. Very specific steps, not written anywhere, but arrived at by trial and error after failing each time at nearly the end of the hours long process. I wouldn’t will that purgatory on anyone.

So yeah. Fuck Apple. Buy a Windows machine if you value your sanity. It’ll be a piece of shit in more ways than one, but at least it won’t repeatedly fuck you.

[nickwm21]

For casual home computing (browsing, docs, turbo tax, limited photo and video stuff) I’m a huge fan of medium-higher-end chromebooks ($500-$800).

Maybe you can find a all in one chromebook desktop? That’s what I’d look for.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[skaredshtles]

Thanks. Yes, it's a huge case with a big PS. I built it way back when to be upgradeable. Mostly I just don't like the idea of throwing so much stuff away but I get that it's prob cheaper to just buy a whole new machine.

I've been doing this now for 14 years. Still have the same case. Have completely replaced the guts twice. The nice thing is that you can get some *screaming* deals on components, as long as you're not trying to get the latest/greatest, and you get a nice "new" fast PC for cheap.

I did have to warranty one MB, which was a PITA, but that could happen with a "built" PC as well.

[Cocximus]

Thanks. Yes, it's a huge case with a big PS. I built it way back when to be upgradeable. Mostly I just don't like the idea of throwing so much stuff away but I get that it's prob cheaper to just buy a whole new machine.

What kind of specs would make Caltopo and Google Earth run more smoothly?

The main issue I have is that Caltopo will hang and sometimes crash the tab when it's trying to route on a line. If I open my system monitor it shows one or two of the processors just pegged at 100%. RAM doesn't seem to be an issue (16GB). Running Linux, FWIW.

Sounds like it might be a graphics acceleration/rendering issue with the browser. What browser and video card? Is webgl running with hardware acceleration? In my experience video hardware decoding(youtube) makes the browser run poorly, but that is highly dependent on hardware and drivers.

[gregorys]

The new mac mini absolutely blows. I’m saying that as a person who switched to mac 20 years ago when they went to a Unix based OS, and never looked back. Until recently it was the best OS available for its robustness and flexibility as a programming platform, bulletproof security, capability as a standalone server, and for being the first Unix based system with a truly elegant and user friendly GUI.

This iteration, though, is an absolute turd. First thing it did was brick my whole photo archive. 20+ years of photos rearranged into their black hole of a library with indecipherable filenames. I had to write a shit ton of scripts and use an exif reader to peel the 40,000 or so photos out of the mess they left them in, and get them back to some semblance of organization by filename. It took me literally weeks. Fuck those assholes for doing that. I wouldn’t have notice the change in their organizational method if it weren’t for the fact that about 20% of the archive just didn’t ever show up in the software after the migration. It was hidden in the file system luckily, but rendered unrecognizable to the stupid software.

The most recent iteration of the OS is fucked. They stripped out everything that made it useful as a development platform and left it a shell of its former capabilities. No file servers, no secure shell, no native web hosting, no compiling, no anything that makes unix useful.

So yeah. Fuck Apple. Buy a Windows machine if you value your sanity. It’ll be a piece of shit in more ways than one, but at least it won’t repeatedly fuck you.

So, Monterey or Big Sur?
Big Sur seemed to get kinda "Ok" in the last few months. Was worried about Monerey.
I'm in both camps. I've got clients on Mac and PC, and I have both myself. (And a ton of servers, hypervisors etc, in Linux)

I don't spend a ton of time in MacOS, but if Monterey is that bad, I'll make sure none of my clients accidentally upgrade.

[lucknau]

So, Monterey or Big Sur?
Big Sur seemed to get kinda "Ok" in the last few months. Was worried about Monerey.
I'm in both camps. I've got clients on Mac and PC, and I have both myself. (And a ton of servers, hypervisors etc, in Linux)

I don't spend a ton of time in MacOS, but if Monterey is that bad, I'll make sure none of my clients accidentally upgrade.

My problems have all been with Big Sur, but while digging my way out of the mess I learned that they bungled up the Photos software in the Catalina migration. I don’t know when they borked the Time Machine backup software. The old macs held their value for so long that I was still using a 2012 model as our family computer. Was running El Capitan.

Once it’s up and running it Big Sur works more or less fine. I don’t know if it’s better than Catalina. I don’t even use the Photos software now. The bluetooth audio has a bug where it searches for other peripherals on the audio channel and you get an ungodly screech between songs. There’s a command line workaround for that. I don’t like having to do extra work to get a *nix server environment to play around on, but it is what it is. Old macs make great Linux machines. The random and repeated failure of the Time Machine backups is unnerving to me. Thinking about using my NAS to initiate incremental backups on its own, to hopefully get a reliable backup. All of the issues are things I can live with, but it’s disappointing to see what used to be a robust and user friendly operating system succumbing to entropy.

I haven’t had to provide more than maybe an hour of tech support time to my 75 year old Mom since moving her to a Mac 15 years ago, but I actually just recommended she go back to Windows for now.

[::: :::]

Not sure how you got there but that sounds pretty odd in my experience

Only issues I’ve ever had running Apple hardware is coordinating the updates for autocad (a software that treats the Mac application as an unfortunate burden to be tolerated sometime after a system update), but that just means don’t immediately update as soon as a new system software is available.

I think the Preview app is sort of under-featured and clunky. Otherwise super stable for 25+ yrs without the rebuilding you seem to have. Only times I’ve had to rebuild is when scraping a machine prior to retiring it and recycling it.

[Dantheman]

Update:

In true TGR fashion I ignored all advice that didn't validate my existing position and bought the Dell. Luckily I jumped on it because they sold out very fast. I was going to save it for a surprise Xmas present for the family but couldn't handle using the old machine for another month and folded last weekend. One week in and I'm very impressed. It's a very slick machine and for what I paid I have zero complaints.

[RShea]

Desktops are "allocated" and do sell fast- but not anywhere as fast or as tight of supply as the laptops and notebooks are these days. In stock is unheard of unless it is a very high end and expensive model that is more than most peoples budget.

[climberevan]

Sounds like it might be a graphics acceleration/rendering issue with the browser. What browser and video card? Is webgl running with hardware acceleration? In my experience video hardware decoding(youtube) makes the browser run poorly, but that is highly dependent on hardware and drivers.

I finally got around to trying some stuff. I'm running the latest Ubuntu with the latest Brave (Chrome) browser. The issue is the same with Firefox or regular Chrome though.

I tried turning hardware acceleration off, but noticed no change. Only 3.5G of RAM is being used but the processor is often pinned at 100% for all 3 cores.

Processor is an AMD A6-3500, Video card is Nvidia GT218 GeForce 8400.

At this point I'm ready to just upgrade the whole thing, but the choices are insane. I (nearly at random) have a Gigabyte B550 mb & AMD 5700G in my Newegg cart. What say ye, in roughly that range ($5-700) for the stuff I need to upgrade this box?

[bean]

Processor is an AMD A6-3500, Video card is Nvidia GT218 GeForce 8400.

At this point I'm ready to just upgrade the whole thing, but the choices are insane. I (nearly at random) have a Gigabyte B550 mb & AMD 5700G in my Newegg cart. What say ye, in roughly that range ($5-700) for the stuff I need to upgrade this box?

What're you planning to do with it? No matter what upgrading from a 10 year old AMD APU to anything modern will be a big upgrade, if your most intensive stuff is google earth/caltopo/chrome it'll be fine.

I'm glad to have some time, my stuff is about 7 years old but still performing well and I've got until Oct 2025 until I need to upgrade for W11 and hopefully the graphics card madness will be resolved by then.

[gregorys]

I'm sure I've posted this upthread somewhere.
When I was young and stupid, I used to buy new machines.

But I'm not really needing blazing computing speeds for anything I do. (And never really did.)
However, if you do, and a few minutes of extra compute time per day could mean a lot of extra money - then ignore everything I'm about to say. (Then again, if that IS you, WTF are you doing asking for advice/reading on buying a PC in this thread then, you fecking idiot?!?!)

I buy a machine that's 2-3 years old, usually an off lease (used) one.
I've been doing Dell for the last dozen years or so, HP before that.

If you're the average office-dweller, then something in the standard desktop line works fine. Say a 7xxx series Optiplex. (I'm not sure what that is, these days, in the HP line.)
If you need something better than integrated video, then one of the "Engineering Workstation" boxes will probably do. (I'm currently less than impressed with the Dell Precision's that are available, so I'm now looking to veer back into HP territory.)

I buy stuff from Ebay, usually - using something like Gixen to snipe. (Craigslist has historically been nuts - almost never have I seen a CL computer listing that was listed for any sane price. Plus, you're super exposed, if it doesn't work right, etc. How are you going to test it in the Target parking lot, etc.)

I usually assume the disk is toast and I'll be replacing it - so plan that cost into your strategy. Sometimes it will be good, sometimes not. (smartmontools is a good tool here, to check.)

Optiplex 7040's (i5/i7's are preferred) are fairly cheap and perform pretty well, especially with a good SSD. (The 7040's also have M2 slots, which is nice. If you want a HDD for extra storage, buy a "tower" case.)
7040's will probably run Windows 11, though, I think, not officially supported. (I haven't spent any significant time working this out, and I suspect it will all change a ton between now and 2025 when Win10 support goes away.) Honestly I'd guess that a lot of 5th and 6th gen Intel CPU's will be more-or-less supported, but may not have the highest level of security. (IMO, Windows security is pretty sucky to start with, so it's not much of a difference. In fact, Windows updates may be as much of a system stability risk as malware.)

Engineering workstations usually have much higher-end processors, and usually accommodate ECC RAM - and lots of it. ECC RAM is often quite cheap on the used markets as servers upgrade to bigger stuff, so building a machine with, for example, 128G of RAM can be remarkably cheap.
The workstation machines also usually have the stuff needed to upgrade the video to discrete video. (Say a gaming card. Though this probably isn't going to be good enough for really serious gamers - so I guess you'll have to go on supporting the economy all by yourselves.)

Some examples: HP Z240, HP Z440, HP Z640The last Dell Precision I've gotten, and felt was decent was a T3610 - but those are getting quite old now. (And I don't care for a lot of the newer stuff.)

Just some ideas you might take and run with.

[climberevan]

Here's an especially rugged CalTopo map. It cripples my browser to such an extent that it will grey out and only come back to life after a couple of minutes, so obviously editing it is impossible.

https://caltopo.com/m/AHTR5

I screwed around with the hardware acceleration settings etc it had no effect. I also had another guy, whose system is more recent than mine, test it out and he could barely load it as well. I can't remember which FB page or whatever I pulled the link from, so I can't ask the guy who created it what his specs are.

What do I need to make this work better?

[bean]

What do I need to make this work better?

Open task manager when you’re working with that and see if it’s RAM or processor or GPU that’s your bottleneck. I’d guess processor or ram for something in a browser.

[RShea]

I finally got around to trying some stuff. I'm running the latest Ubuntu with the latest Brave (Chrome) browser. The issue is the same with Firefox or regular Chrome though.

I tried turning hardware acceleration off, but noticed no change. Only 3.5G of RAM is being used but the processor is often pinned at 100% for all 3 cores.

Processor is an AMD A6-3500, Video card is Nvidia GT218 GeForce 8400.

At this point I'm ready to just upgrade the whole thing, but the choices are insane. I (nearly at random) have a Gigabyte B550 mb & AMD 5700G in my Newegg cart. What say ye, in roughly that range ($5-700) for the stuff I need to upgrade this box?

I'd definitely get rid of the AMD A6 CPU. They were at best entry level CPU's before the Ryzen line up today that they offer. Intel was eating the market up when that is what AMD offered on both laptops and desktops. It was not AMD's finest hour in their long list of CPU's that are as good as Intel for usually a better price point like the Athlon, then the Ryzen series of today.