Traveling ITX Gaming Build: Update

As I previously documented in an earlier blog post, I managed to fry my old gaming laptop by trying to make a DIY external gpu setup and decided to simply downsize my gaming desktop to take with me on work trips. The alternatives were 1) try to get a halfway decent gaming experience out of …

Converting My ATX Gaming Machine to Mini-ITX

I'm currently without a mobile gaming rig, which is something new for me. I explained exactly what happened here, but long story short I messed up the settings on a custom BIOS I flashed to my old gaming laptop and bricked it. Whoops. Anyways, seeing as I generally travel a few weeks a year for …

$9 DIY External GPU: How I Broke My Laptop

I have a handful of laptops kicking around in the "IT Closet," as my wife calls it, but only one of them is actually a gaming-centric device. That would be my Lenovo Y510P, with an i7-4700MQ and dual GT755M graphics cards. Whew, smoking! Well, not really. This machine was built in 2013 and I've had …

Desktop Gaming on Android with Parsec: Part 1

I don't pretend to come up with all of my ideas completely on my own. Well, I recently got an idea while watching a Linus Tech Tips video where they described how they are using Parsec to seamlessly RDP to their beefy work computers from the comfort of their lowly home machines. This isn't exactly …

|SCADA| OpenPLC + Raspberry Pi + ScadaBR: Part 1

Seeing as we're all currently living through a pandemic and can't really go anywhere or do anything in our free time, I figured I'd may as well look into something I've been interested in for a while: SCADA. More specifically, getting some hands-on experience with SCADA using some free, opensource software and hardware I mostly …

Virtualized Gaming Machine Part 3

This is the third and probably (?) last installment of me attempting to document my Ryzen server build and the process of getting my gaming virtual machine running. Honestly, this all happened in July and September, mainly, but I'm just getting around to writing it down now because I needed a mental break from this …

Virtualized Gaming Machine Part 2

As laid out in the first part of this series I posted a few months back, I'm attempting to build an ESXi server out of consumer-grade hardware and have it not only run my entire network (pfsense, ubiquiti controller, Pi-Hole DNS, security cameras, etc) but also a gaming VM for me to mess around with in VR.

Virtualized Gaming Build Pt 1: Design and Testing

I have a computer problem. No actual issues with any of the (many) computers I own, but I have quite a collection. My old gaming computer is running as an esxi server running our router, security camera software, Plex server, and a bunch of other vital services. I have my current gaming computer that only …

Homelab and WiFi Upgrades

I have a confession to make: I like computer hardware. I like working with it, fixing it, playing with it, owning a bunch of it. Hardware is just a ton of fun. It gets even more fun when you can actually use it for things. Luckily for me, but unluckily for my power bill, wallet, …

Mining in a VM?

I have something to admit, and I shouldn't be proud of it (according to gamers who want the graphics cards we need, of which I'm one): I'm a crytocurrency miner. I've done it on and off for years, but have been doing it 24/7 since December of 2017, and really got into it a year …