- Jun 17, 2017
- 6,231
- 31,136
Enthralled & Consent: Development Thread, and my other works & projects.
- Thread starter OhWee
- Start date
- Jun 17, 2017
- 6,231
- 31,136
Joy...
So, Uber Laptop finally died I think. It's in an infinite bios loop, after crashing while I was afk. i've tried a few troubleshooting steps, and watched a few related YouTube videos, no joy. it's around 8 years old now, so not really surprised. I've been using it heavily over the last couple of years.
So I'm typing this on my new backup laptop that I bought a while back, around the time that Uber Laptop's OS drive was corrupted at that time, which I ended up replacing. This laptop is a replacement for baby laptop, which has power issues - it's battery is completely dead, and it's over a decade old now, so it has boot issues.
Anyways, yeah this will finally force me to finish setting up my dedicated rendering rig. I need to install an OS disk and get everything working. I haven't had a chance to check the two SSDs from Uber Laptop yet, mainly I'm hoping that the dedicated Daz SSD is intact. The SATA drive that was also installed seems to be fine (tested it in an external enclosure, data is intact). As for the boot drive, yeah I'll check that too, fingers crossed.
It may be a while before I can work on Daz stuff again. This laptop doesn't have an Nvidia GPU, nor does it have a Thunderbolt port, so it's mainly just useful for web browsing.
*Sigh*...
Edit: So I was able to get Uber Laptop working again, but one of my NVME ports is causing issues.
This is the same NVME port that the previous OS drive failed in. Uber Laptop is rather unique, so I should explain why I still use this thing.
As has been mentioned a few times earlier in this thread, it's an MSI GT83VR laptop. It was VERY expensive (around $4K at the time). What made it worth it to me to grab it was:
1) 2 GTX 1080 8 GB GPUs.
- At the time, the best 'consumer' GPU that most people strived for was the GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB, so at the time 8 GB GPUs were rather useful.
2) Storage expandability.
- This laptop has space for a 2.5" SATA ssd, plus a SATA .m2 slot and two NVME .m2 slots that came with two drives installed in a RAID configuration. I almost immediately tossed the raid array in favor of a 2 TB SSD, and in it's most recent config it had 1 2.5" 8 TB drive, and two NVME drives (8TB and 2 TB, os on the 2 TB drive).
3) Mechanical illuminated keyboard
- Cuz clackety clacking the keyboard is soothing, and it's nice having 'full travel' on the keys.
4) It came with a Blu-Ray/DVD burner installed.
- I've since moved that CD drive into my HTPC rig, which is currently sitting idle as my entertainment system needs a new amplifier... In it's place I had placed the 8 TB 2.5" drive with a connecting cable, as the 'native' 2.5" slot has an issue with it's connector, and at that point my goal was to move my Daz install onto an 8 TB NVME drive.
5) Decent amount of ports
- 5 USB + 1 USB/Thunderbolt port. I have been utilizing the Tbolt port with an external RTX 3090. My Toshiba laptop that this laptop replaced had more ports, i.e. 6 USB + Firewire + a PCMCIA slot which I had a few cards for. That laptop was circa 2005 though, and eventually died in the 2010s...
6) 18.4" laptop screen. Only 1080p though... my eyes are getting older, so larger screens are nice to have!
Anyways, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, a few years back my headphone audio daughter board was causing the system to hang on boot. Several people figured out that you could avoid this issue by removing the daughterboard. So I tried removing the daughterboard, problem solved. I was without a headphone jack, but I solved that issue by attaching my headphones to my 32" external monitor, which I also had connected to Uber Laptop here, until earlier today...
Anyways, I feel like I did end up getting my money's worth out of Uber Laptop here, but CPU wise it's VERY dated, with only a 4 core/8 thread Intel CPU from 2017. So it's definitely due for retirement anyways.
My Dedicated rendering rig has an 8 core/16 Thread Ryzen 5000 APU (I forget the exact model at the moment, but it has an integrated GPU which I will use for desktop monitor duty). It also has 128 GB of memory installed, and room for two GPUs. My RTX 3090, as mentioned, is currently in an eGPU enclosure, and should drop in to the dedicated rig with no issues (1000w power supply). I also still have an RTX 3060 12GB which I could put in the second slot. Daz Studio does allow for Multi-GPU rendering, and Uber Laptop COULD run all three GPUs simultaneously (although the cooling solution is rather loud), but I essentially retired the two GTX 1080s to desktop duty as it's just easier and makes less noise, and the RTX 3090 is sufficiently fast for my needs.
So yeah, I'm in the middle of downloading a few more Daz packages onto my 8 TB NVME, which is currently in an external GPU enclosure and seems to be working fine. Once that's done, then comes the fun of cloning the OS drive and then re-configuring the drivers for the new motherboard. Then I'll probably box up Uber Laptop here, keeping it for emergencies should I have a laptop failure or whatever. Since one of my NVME slots in Uber Laptop seems to have failed, the second one can't be too far behind, so I'd rather not push my luck again...
As to why clone instead of doing a fresh install, I did this before with my HTPC rig and it's just faster, and then you don't have to re-install Daz Studio as it's already on the drive. My drive path stuff is rather convoluted, so it's best to just keep things 'the same' drive path and install wise. I'll need to uninstall the MSI drivers of course, and replace the chipset drivers with the relevant ones, but as I said I've been down this road before, so not too worried.
Also, Dedicated Rendering Rig will be isolated from the net, that's what my new laptop is for (internet duty). So with the OS and such already pre-installed, I won't have to deal with re-registering a bunch of software/tracking down product keys.
New laptop was very inexpensive, and it's sole purpose for me is internet duty. If something goes wrong with it, worst case I just buy another basic laptop, and won't have to worry about re-installing a bunch of stuff...
That's my day so far. Hope y'all are having a wonderful day!
So, Uber Laptop finally died I think. It's in an infinite bios loop, after crashing while I was afk. i've tried a few troubleshooting steps, and watched a few related YouTube videos, no joy. it's around 8 years old now, so not really surprised. I've been using it heavily over the last couple of years.
So I'm typing this on my new backup laptop that I bought a while back, around the time that Uber Laptop's OS drive was corrupted at that time, which I ended up replacing. This laptop is a replacement for baby laptop, which has power issues - it's battery is completely dead, and it's over a decade old now, so it has boot issues.
Anyways, yeah this will finally force me to finish setting up my dedicated rendering rig. I need to install an OS disk and get everything working. I haven't had a chance to check the two SSDs from Uber Laptop yet, mainly I'm hoping that the dedicated Daz SSD is intact. The SATA drive that was also installed seems to be fine (tested it in an external enclosure, data is intact). As for the boot drive, yeah I'll check that too, fingers crossed.
It may be a while before I can work on Daz stuff again. This laptop doesn't have an Nvidia GPU, nor does it have a Thunderbolt port, so it's mainly just useful for web browsing.
*Sigh*...
Edit: So I was able to get Uber Laptop working again, but one of my NVME ports is causing issues.
This is the same NVME port that the previous OS drive failed in. Uber Laptop is rather unique, so I should explain why I still use this thing.
As has been mentioned a few times earlier in this thread, it's an MSI GT83VR laptop. It was VERY expensive (around $4K at the time). What made it worth it to me to grab it was:
1) 2 GTX 1080 8 GB GPUs.
- At the time, the best 'consumer' GPU that most people strived for was the GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB, so at the time 8 GB GPUs were rather useful.
2) Storage expandability.
- This laptop has space for a 2.5" SATA ssd, plus a SATA .m2 slot and two NVME .m2 slots that came with two drives installed in a RAID configuration. I almost immediately tossed the raid array in favor of a 2 TB SSD, and in it's most recent config it had 1 2.5" 8 TB drive, and two NVME drives (8TB and 2 TB, os on the 2 TB drive).
3) Mechanical illuminated keyboard
- Cuz clackety clacking the keyboard is soothing, and it's nice having 'full travel' on the keys.
4) It came with a Blu-Ray/DVD burner installed.
- I've since moved that CD drive into my HTPC rig, which is currently sitting idle as my entertainment system needs a new amplifier... In it's place I had placed the 8 TB 2.5" drive with a connecting cable, as the 'native' 2.5" slot has an issue with it's connector, and at that point my goal was to move my Daz install onto an 8 TB NVME drive.
5) Decent amount of ports
- 5 USB + 1 USB/Thunderbolt port. I have been utilizing the Tbolt port with an external RTX 3090. My Toshiba laptop that this laptop replaced had more ports, i.e. 6 USB + Firewire + a PCMCIA slot which I had a few cards for. That laptop was circa 2005 though, and eventually died in the 2010s...
6) 18.4" laptop screen. Only 1080p though... my eyes are getting older, so larger screens are nice to have!
Anyways, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, a few years back my headphone audio daughter board was causing the system to hang on boot. Several people figured out that you could avoid this issue by removing the daughterboard. So I tried removing the daughterboard, problem solved. I was without a headphone jack, but I solved that issue by attaching my headphones to my 32" external monitor, which I also had connected to Uber Laptop here, until earlier today...
Anyways, I feel like I did end up getting my money's worth out of Uber Laptop here, but CPU wise it's VERY dated, with only a 4 core/8 thread Intel CPU from 2017. So it's definitely due for retirement anyways.
My Dedicated rendering rig has an 8 core/16 Thread Ryzen 5000 APU (I forget the exact model at the moment, but it has an integrated GPU which I will use for desktop monitor duty). It also has 128 GB of memory installed, and room for two GPUs. My RTX 3090, as mentioned, is currently in an eGPU enclosure, and should drop in to the dedicated rig with no issues (1000w power supply). I also still have an RTX 3060 12GB which I could put in the second slot. Daz Studio does allow for Multi-GPU rendering, and Uber Laptop COULD run all three GPUs simultaneously (although the cooling solution is rather loud), but I essentially retired the two GTX 1080s to desktop duty as it's just easier and makes less noise, and the RTX 3090 is sufficiently fast for my needs.
So yeah, I'm in the middle of downloading a few more Daz packages onto my 8 TB NVME, which is currently in an external GPU enclosure and seems to be working fine. Once that's done, then comes the fun of cloning the OS drive and then re-configuring the drivers for the new motherboard. Then I'll probably box up Uber Laptop here, keeping it for emergencies should I have a laptop failure or whatever. Since one of my NVME slots in Uber Laptop seems to have failed, the second one can't be too far behind, so I'd rather not push my luck again...
As to why clone instead of doing a fresh install, I did this before with my HTPC rig and it's just faster, and then you don't have to re-install Daz Studio as it's already on the drive. My drive path stuff is rather convoluted, so it's best to just keep things 'the same' drive path and install wise. I'll need to uninstall the MSI drivers of course, and replace the chipset drivers with the relevant ones, but as I said I've been down this road before, so not too worried.
Also, Dedicated Rendering Rig will be isolated from the net, that's what my new laptop is for (internet duty). So with the OS and such already pre-installed, I won't have to deal with re-registering a bunch of software/tracking down product keys.
New laptop was very inexpensive, and it's sole purpose for me is internet duty. If something goes wrong with it, worst case I just buy another basic laptop, and won't have to worry about re-installing a bunch of stuff...
That's my day so far. Hope y'all are having a wonderful day!
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