Measuring power draw of DC-DC Pico PSU power supply powering AMD APUs
AMD APUs are a power efficient package of CPU and a capable integrated graphics. They can be used for some gaming not to mention more day to day PC usage. All of that in a small package -but how small actually can you get with an Athlon 200GE or Ryzen 3 2200G? How much power does such system needs and can you use PicoPSU alike DC-DC super compact power supplies for ultra thin and ultra stylish builds? Let's find out.
Testing fancard effectiveness on GPU cooling performance
GPU Fancards aren't a new idea - an expansion card with fans that goes in front of your GPU to help push air through it to then help with the cooling. At least in theory. Fancards didn't really got much traction and are rather an oddity among PC hardware. Let's test some of them and see if they work as intended or just add more fans to the mix without any benefits.
Testing OEM and no-name RX 460 graphics cards
Graphic cards try to appeal to us with impressive cooling solutions, factory overclocks or RGB, lots of RGB. But what happens when a graphics card is destined to live it days as a OEM card in an pre-built PC? Or what it won't end up in a MSI, Gigabye, Sapphire or other well known brand product? Let's take a loot at Medion OEM and Jegy RX 460 cards to find out.
Benchmarking and analyzing World of Warcraft performance
World of Warcraft performance isn't something easily defined. Subsequent patches bring changes to the engine and online character of the game makes accurate benchmarking even harder. Lack of consistent and repeatable benchmark mode makes comparisons or problem debugging even more problematic. In this article I want to go over my benchmark results and methodology for Battle for Azeroth and Classic Stress Test as well as my set of benchmarks spots that try to cover edge cases of this game performance limits.
Solar System imaging cameras and hardware for 2019
In my look at planetary imaging cameras for 2016 I nominated IMX224 as best color sensor and sensors such as IMX178, IMX265, IMX250 and IMX252 as best mono variants. We are almost half a year into 2019 and those picks are still one of the best if not the best. What did changed and what is upcoming for Solar System imaging? Let’s find out.
Getting rid of dust from home and from a computer case
Dust is something not welcomed and the more dust gets to a room or to a computer PC the more often it has to be cleaned. For quite some time I was noticing a much higher dust buildup in my home that in few offices closer to the city center so I've decided to investigate this mystery. Here is my investigation involving air quality sensor, air purifier and winter heating season.
Building a software developer PC based on Ryzen 7 1700
From time to time a company will spend a nice chunk of money on new hardware. Few days ago company I work for - Social WiFi (and Captive Portal Installer) made some upgrades - new PCs for software developers, RAM and SSD upgrades for some old laptops and stuff like that (a new coffee machine!). I participated in the PC upgrade process. We built four Ryzen 7 1700 systems and added a bit of RGB on top of it. Here is the story, parts picked and some benchmarks.
Power and thermal performance of fanless Pentium J5005 PC
Not so long ago I tested a fanless Pentium J5005 motherboard. I did some basic power usage testing but that was done with a powerful ATX power supply. In this article I want to test power usage more precisely with a DC/ATX power adapter. Alongside it I want to test if there will be any thermal throttling when running the system under heavy load in a typical small mini ITX case. How a 10W TDP CPU will perform in those categories?
Wire wrapping tool for electronics prototyping with reliable connections
Breadboards allow for quick prototyping of electronic circuits, yet they don't offer reliable connections, especially those that will last in less friendly that desk conditions. We can solder the circuit on an universal PCB but that requires time and makes any fixes quite hard to implement. Fortunately there is a in-between solution called wire wrapping.
In this article I'll showcase a simple tool for wire wrapping - an very old technique of wrapping wires on electronic components. More reliable than DuPont connectors and a breadboard yet quick and easy to wrap or unwrap.
Grounding and electrostatic discharge protection of a problematic PC system
When winter comes or when someone watches The Verge PC build reaction video the topic of ESD protection and electrostatic discharge sees a surge in interest. People working with electronics or even more precautious PC builders do use various tools and safety measures to avoid damaging electronics via electrostatic discharges. Consumers of electronic devices don't care that much and often just rely that the device maker made the device to handle both electrostatic discharges as well as various electric faults that may occur.
In this article I'll go over basics of grounding, electrical bonding, electrostatic discharge and how that caused problems to my PC. Treat it as a template for checking or improving your own electrical wiring.
