Let's upgrade my lab PC and talk about tools I use to make videos

Recently, I've been struggling with my workbench PC which prevents me from capturing video over HDMI. On today's video, a local viewer donated a newer and more capable replacement computer to the basement so I can hopefully get capturing video once again!

-- Video Links

Dell Precision T1700:

Support the channel on Patreon:

Adrian's Digital Basement (Main Channel)

-- Tools

Deoxit D5:

O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)

Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:

Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:

Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:

Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:

TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)

TS100 Soldering Iron:

EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:

DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:

Magnetic Screw Holder:

Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)

RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)

Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)

Heat Sinks:

Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)

--- Links

My GitHub repository:

Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA – Portland, OR – PDX Commodore Users Group

--- Instructional videos

My video on damage-free chip removal:

--- Music

Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino

[adriansdigitalbasement]

I wanted to add, after making this video, I bought this Startech PCI-Express to IDE card

[PhobosTK]

I really miss the times when drive bays were an essential feature of every pc case.

[MrLurchsThings]

Old Dell Precision workstations make fantastic PCs and are still plenty capable. You can do all kinds of upgrades (GPU, ram, etc). The PSUs are ridiculously strong. Most have a raid controller built in for a nice raid array (I used it for a striped raid of a couple of ssds for c drive).

[tirsek]

Adrian should've been in this business for long enough to know that every new PC (whether brand new or new you you) absolutely requires a blood sacrifice in some way. Now that that's out of the way, it will surely give you years of trouble-free service! :-)

[voneschenbachmusic]

I know that pain - and the pleasure upgrading the hardware and being able to re-use the same install without starting over! Interesting to see your rig!

[MrBawdry]

You mentioned the faff of re installing drivers. You can back them up with command prompt to wherever you want such as a thumb drive, by using
DISM /online /export-driver /destination:C:\DriverBackup

You just have to create the destination folder first and point the command to it when you instigate. All your drivers will be in one place ready to reinstall. Hope this is helpful to someone.

[CheshireNoir]

Looks at the VirtualBench in the video. Thinks: "That's nifty!". Goes to look at the price. Cleans coffee off screen and keyboard.
(That is a VERY generous gift!)

[patrickfinie]

Happy to hear about your new computer.

The button on the powersupply is so you can test if there are shorts on any of your devices. pressing it will power the supply on and turn on the devices it is plugged into. A Green light means the power rails to those devices are good and there isnt a short. It isnt too smart as it is mainly looking for shorts but can be useful none the less.

You will not be replacing any of those fans with off the shelf ones. The 4 pin connector on the Dell Prescision and Optiplex line of computers is not your standard 4 pin connector.

As for the rear fan, it is a Sunon branded fan, but one of the neat things is it uses MagLev technology instead of ball bearings or shaft bearings. So that fan would be equivalent to the Corsair ML fan. It is very very powerful. I have one that has been continuously on for well more than 10 years (always on) and it started making some odd noises. Sadly there is no way to lube it like you have shown in some of your other videos and replacements cost about 15-20 dollars. You will be better off looking for a Delta fan made for the Dell workstations if you need to replace it... or get to splicing cables!

If you need to replace the powersupply there are adapters out there including one from a company called Longdex. I picked one up and could send it to you if you ever need it. Also i might have some spare drive rails for the machine as well.

Glad you are happy with your new machine and i hope it will give you many years of good service.

Yours Turely

The Linux guy who sent you some linux stickers and a PCI SCSI card before you started doing Mailbag videos ~_0

[Geforcefly]

The Rosewill Line-M case that's featured in the video is definitely one of few MicroATX cases that can be bought new that has all of these:
Four front USB ports
Two included 120mm fans
At least one 3.5" and 5.25" drive bay
No side window

That makes it my case of choice for builds that are function-first.

[stevef]

Nice to see that Windows now moves so easily from machine to machine! XP absolutely did not like being moved, and I think even Win7 would blue-screen upon encountering a different motherboard (or at least a different chipset).

[pllenpny]

I own a Dell Precision T1700. Has worked absolutely flawlessly since day one. Great machine.

[JanEringak]

You have payed the blood sacrifice to the machine god.
The PC will work well & reliably for years to come :)

[robertcurtis]

You know Adrian... I only ever am able to understand tiny fractions of what you achieve on your channel and I'm often left feeling stupid....but your enthusiasm and passion is infectious! You are a very wonderful and intelligent man and the world is more awesome because of you! X

[GeekmanCA]

Speaking as an IT admin, Lenovo and Dell are the kings of non-standard PSUs in otherwise ATX-compliant cases. A real pain if you have a failure. I used to invest in a small number of PSU adapter cables "just in case", though that doesn't help if there's a weird form factor to the PSU.

Good thing you're so handy with electronics in case you ever need to hack an ATX PSU to replace the Dell one.

[djatomist]

I have the same T1700 in storage. I used it as a DVR for a few years and that thing was a beast.
That adaptec card caused flashback to year 2002 when that exact adaptec card fried a rare Alphaserver and then another server I had. After it killed the 2nd machine I suspected something was wrong with the adapter.

[afkbehr]

i really needed that 8-bit dance party today! made my cold rainy oregon weekend much better..

[arfurmo]

So Dell is still producing cutting edge technology!

[bambinone]

I'm so sad that I only recently found your channel because I just sold a Core 2 Quad system for a pittance that would have been a great "bridge" system for your workshop. It had IDE and FDD controllers and two PCI slots, but it was a quad-core, 64-bit system with great SATA SSD support, two PCIe Gen 2.0 x16 slots, and dual gigabit NICs. The only catch was it took weird 1.8v DDR3 RAM, but I had a working 8GB kit. Now I know who to tell when cool stuff lands in my workshop!

[ianhanschen]

Thanks, always appreciate when retro YTers talk about the work involved behind the scenes.

[TimothyFrisby]

This is definitely a computer that's meant to be a workstation for a company, and you'll see VGA ports on a lot of those as a lot of companies still have VGA hardware that they don't want to replace until it dies.

Also, the days of cutting yourself on PC cases is only over for enthusiast PCs/cases. This one will have been built down to hit a price point that makes bean-counters happy, and if there was a hardware problem they'd probably just send it in for a warranty replacement instead of having on-site IT do repairs.