So I’ve finally given in. Nikki has been showing off the joys of Plex. I did try it before, but I think that the woeful inadequacy of the media server (Athlon 2800+ FTW) somewhat screwed that pooch. So after various thoughts of upgrading and several occasions of looking optimistically at various upgrade options I’ve given in.
On its way is an Athlon X4 740 with associated motherboard and 6Gb of memory.
This should be adequate for our needs, and since it says we can share our media with friends *waves at Nikki*, it should be more than adequate for that too.
In other news, the RiscPC’s motherboard has been washed with a great deal of isopropyl alcohol, but it still looks like cack. The area directly around the battery is looking better, but a quick nose-test of the board tells me it still reaks of battery acid. That design plan which has the fan gently wafting battery acid all over the rest of the board has really done a bit of a number on it. I’m pondering washing it with a gallon of distilled water; but the issue then is drying it. We haven’t got an airing cupboard to dry it in…so I’m a bit unsure about how to ensure it dries rapidly and without turning into a pile of oxidisation.
The other option is to go and buy a lot more isopropyl alcohol…
I’m also pondering whether to stick a new hard disk in. The original one in there is now about 20 years old, which is probably pushing it in hard disk terms, really. Of course, when I say ‘new’ what I really mean is ‘less old’. Since the biggest drive it can support is 128Gb, which would be beyond overkill for a machine I barely use, and this being entirely a ‘fix it before it breaks, copy the data off the old drive onto the new one’ process I’m inclined to find one of my ‘spare’ drives. Of course, then comes the joy of trying to find a spare ATA drive… I’m sure I have some, somewhere. But where is going to be an interesting question.
