In this video I try to test out the Icy Dock ToughArmor M.2 NVMe Mobile Rack for PCIe slots. It supports 2 removable NVMe drives placed in the included sleds, and (almost) fits an x8 or x16 lane PCIe slot that supports bifurcation to get 4 juicy lanes to each of the SSDs. I test it out with Samsung 990 Pro and Western Digital SN850X 4TB drives.

That being said, it turns out that not all bifurcation implementations are created equal, nor are all PCIe slots. Hence the frustrating aspect. Buy it with a generous return policy in place, if you buy it at all.

Just to be 100% clear: This is not sponsored in any way. If you couldn’t tell from the length of the video and the conclusion. But anyways, I paid for it out of pocket and bought it for my own purposes.

Oh yeah, at the very end there’s an update to my video on using the Dell EMC PowerEdge T640 as a backup “server” with 18x 20TB disks.

I just got my most expensive single computer ever. It’s an already-outdated Precision 7865 with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 64-core CPU, direct from Dell. RAM upgrades from the manufacturer are always a bit of a rip, so in this video I upgrade it to 512GB. Also, I find out for the first time whether a consumer graphics card (PNY / NVIDIA RTX 4080 16GB) will actually fit inside the moderately-sized chassis. Oh, and fit two Western Digital Black SN850X 4TB SSDs to replace the woeful 256GB el cheapo card that came with the system from Dell.

Absolutely nothing in this is a paid ad. It was paid for by my wallet. Buy Dell, HP, Asus, even Razer for all I care.

And here’s the YouTube Generated Transcript of the entire video. Yeah, it’s a cheap shot at SEO, but in fairness it’s also legitimately the content. Also I guess you can read it if you don’t want to watch the video and imagine what’s going on:

Hi everybody, I’m Scott and this is the Dell Precision 7865, and if you’re familiar with the Dell product line the five at the end means it has an AMD CPU which is pretty unusual for Dell unfortunately.

And it’s not just any AMD CPU it’s a ryzen thread Ripper Pro 5995 WX which is the 64 core version (128 logical threads).

This is the first new computer I’ve got in quite a while obviously not the like first computer I’ve got in a while, as mostly everything I buy off eBay comes used. In fact, my current workstation is a Precision 7920 maybe 7910 E5 2697 V3 dual CPU so total of 28 cores.

It’s no slouch but I mean those CPUs are way old by now and the machine’s just not quite running like it should and mostly that’s because of the windows install and it’s like I could spend a lot of time cleaning it up the windows install I think dates back to like — well Windows 7 for sure — it’s been upgraded to Windows 10, but yeah, it probably dates back to like 2000-something I’ll put on screen yeah there we go yeah after so many years Windows just sort of accumulates crap and could use a little bit of a refresh I could install a fresh version of Windows in that machine but if I’m going to start from scratch from my desktop environment might as well start with an upgraded computer as well hence this guy I don’t usually buy pre-made computers from the manufacturer like I said either used or I’ve built a couple of computers recently one Intel one AMD but the reason for this one is that the entire machine cost about the same as just the CPU if I were to buy it retail so that’s to say I got a pretty good deal on the system like basically I pretty much just paid for the CPU and got an entire chassis power supply I’m not going to end up using the Ram or the SSD that’s in here although I can I’ll use them in other systems probably but at the very least for including a decent quality chassis it’s it’s worth it in my opinion I figure worst case if this chassis doesn’t work out for me I can use the CPU with a motherboard that I didn’t have to buy a case I I then have to buy and so forth and it would get a lot more expensive so I’m kind of hoping I can make do with this because this is pretty much the fastest CPU I can afford the reason it was so cheap is because Dell recently came out with the 70 the reason it was so cheap is because Dell recently came out the Precision 7875 which also has a thread Ripper Pro but it’s the 7900 series which oh my God Dell shut the up but you can see this starts at about what I paid for the 7865 but this is only with a 12 core processor if I wanted to upgrade this to the 64 core version well that’s an extra $111,000 and there we get up to $6,800 and if I want to go Max it out the 96 core version we’re talking whopping $22,000 for this machine which is pretty much I think the same chassis that I got here so we’ll take a look at that it looks like maybe a little bit different visually but I’m sure it’s just an upgraded version this with a th000 watt power supply so yeah 22,000 is a little Rich for my blood before any further upgrades so hence this guy the CPU is a little old I’m making this video in 2023 the very end of 2023 and the CPU was released in 2021 so it’s already a couple years old but I usually buy used old high-end like super high-end Hardware when it was new that I get for quite a reasonable price off eBay this is actually the most expensive computer I think I’ve ever bought for myself probably by a decent shot even after upgrades and this of course needs more upgrades because it only has 16 gigs of RAM which is definitely not enough it has a really low-end Nvidia workstation graphics card which was like one of the bare minimum ones that you could throw in there without raising the price so long story short the reason for this video is let’s see what upgrading this machine is like with consumer Parts particularly with consumer graphics cards because this is meant to be used with the professional workstation style graphics cards which are used usually way more expensive and not as performant as the consumer grade style I mean there’s other advantages to buying them that’s why companies do buy them for support and stability higher manufacturing defect rates or lower manufacturing defect rates I should say generally just more stable and they’re a little more conservative in order to achieve that stability as far as performance goes so the huge issue is that this chassis is not very big I mean as precision workstations go I mean they make smaller ones which are sort of like meant to be size optimized this is sort of the size of a standard desktop Tower and like the 7920 series is substantially wider and I think a little bit taller too it’ll hold a lot more pcie cards it’ll hold more internal discs you know 3.5 in or 2.5 and it’s just they’re just generally more robust systems this is kind of I mean I don’t want to say it’s cheap it’s heavy it feels well made and I’m sure it is cuz honestly I I like the Dell Precision line that’s tends to be what I stick with but let’s take a look inside and see how it Stacks up on its internals of course it’s just a single lever to open the case and it’s not a key it’s just a simple screw latch so it’s not really for security maybe you could get this with the screw latch as a screw and here is what we get for a money and I’m thinking well just like a car it has this plastic shroud over the main bits that you’d be concerned with although oh interestingly it does have a fan in there it is an act active shroud in that sense so the Fan’s just a separate module underneath we have the CPU heat sink of course which is huge I think this CPU has a 240 watt maximum power distribution dissipation eight Ram slots this uses ddr4 like I said the CPU is a couple years old so it’s not up to the ddr5 spec which is unfortunate but again for the price I just couldn’t resist an Nvidia T1000 graphics card which is really small and cheap this actually wasn’t the minimum card that was specked with the computer if you ordered it just as is basically but oh it actually has a little protective film over the fan which is kind of dumb cuz won’t that throw the fan out of balance cuz it’s got a little tab anyway whatever I think the default card this came with was an AMD card I’m going to be putting an Nvidia card in here and I’m going to try to use this as a second graphics card just for a couple of secondary monitors it’s got four mini display ports I think it has 8 gigs of RAM which isn’t too bad so obviously not for performance but just for resolution this will be able to power a couple of my other large high resolution screens with no problem as long as I’m not using it for anything that requires performance while we’re in here the other add-in card is a thunderbolt card I think it’s Thunderbolt 3 wow that does not want to come out okay well yeah it’s going to have to come out eventually anyway it’s got a display port Loop through and two Thunderbolt ports which are the USBC style physical ports so I’m probably not going to use this but it was like a $20 add-on and I figured maybe I’ll use it so just get it in case I probably won’t have enough slots for it and I’ll show you what I mean shortly when we try to put the graphics card in here and speaking of trying to put a graphics card in here so you can see the inside pretty well you can see my hands are coming out way Overexposed sorry about that but it’s not very bright inside the chassis and I want to make sure you can see what we’re talking about here and so here’s the deal pretty much all all workstation grade professional grade graphics cards take up two slots so they’ll cut they’ll be plugged into this slot electrically and physically cover this slot and then this slot would be free you could plug the second graphics card in here and it would cover this slot leaving the one in the middle as the only one accessible now the problem is consumer graphics cards as we all know have gotten huge I mean they’re bigger than some motherboards right at least with the fans and the Shroud and everything around it so the card that I got for this is going to take up 2.5 slots so it’ll take up this one this one and this one I believe and so it’ll come out to about here which probably won’t allow this slot to be used because that would cover up at least one of the fans in the graphics card not desirable for obvious reasons I wish we could get like 40 80s even or even 407s with squirrel cage fans just like this one but they seem to have dropped that option from the consumer range but almost all workstation cards are arranged like that and the advantage of those is you can completely block the front of the card up to about like here where the fan would then be here and also I like those better because they pull air through the card and out the back of the case whereas consumer graphics cards unless you have a water block on them tend to just throw air around the case and and rely on the case fans to push the air out anyway that’s enough of my rant there there what I want to look at though is that Dill did thoughtfully provide a bunch of 8 Pin power headers here four of them as a matter of fact and good cable management and that they plug into this plastic shroud in the front just to keep them out of the way and they are wired through this wiring Chase and they have a decent amount of slack on them too so presumably they’ll be able to reach wherever the graphics cards happen to plug in or happen to have their Power sockets the main downside with this chassis is that if I get the old measuring tape and I measure from this slot out to here you can see this just about 30 and 1 12 CM or just about 1 foot to this plastic piece here so if your graphics card is longer than that that might be a problem although it can be a bit longer because this plastic piece can be removed this is what holds the GPU power supplies in or GPU power connectors in and otherwise it doesn’t really have much utility as far as I can see it also has the cable guide here but that’s not technically needed and also I rather like the idea of taking it out because there’s this giant fan in the front of the case pushing air across all the pcie slots and I’m sure Dell Design This properly from a thermal standpoint and from an air flow standpoint but you can see this shroud does actually cover about almost half of the fan maybe just a little over a third and while it allows a decent amount of air flow less so if you have the connectors plugged in here and you can see there’s a lot of plastic in the way so I don’t know just on my own ter terms I would say omit this again with workstation gpus they’re going to be pulling air through the case for you so it’s less relevant that you have good air flow from that fan but yeah it just seems like sensible thing to do to remove that and then with that bracket removed let me just get these out of here because I’m going to be taking them out anyway when I upgrade this thing just so they don’t fall back into the case and so with that plastic piece removed you can see is about 33 cm of clearance 13 in between the chassis and the fan so that is the longest graphics card you could put in here at least without removing the fan which I wouldn’t advise and that presented a real conundrum for me because as you can see I looked at all these different video cards well and then some and I was looking at their specs mostly the card dimensions and like you can see this one’s 13.06 in which should just about fit there but this is probably one of the 480s I was looking at yeah all the 490s I looked at were just too long so I ended up looking at 408s this one’s a 90 and we can see the card dimensions are 348.50 mm or thereabouts to work with so this card would just not fit in the chassis and that was the case with all the 490s I looked at so 490 is just not compatible with this chassis the other issue is 490s currently priced around the 27 $2,800 Mark I mean you could find them sometimes with deals a little bit cheaper but not much and then if we compare that to 480s they’re selling more closer to the $1,500 Mark and I don’t know for that extra upgrade some people are definitely going to find it worth it and I mean it’s an expensive system in the first place so it’s like why not spend the extra money I just can’t bring myself to spend an extra roughly $12 $100 or more on that upgrade from a 480 to a 490 you know it’s not that big of an upgrade but to spend almost double the price of the card over again just for that small incremental increase I’m going to stick with a 4080 and not just any 4080 this one in particular which I believe should fit the Chassy based on its specs though we will see for sure the box kind of fits so you’d think the card would fit but we’ll get to that very shortly obviously this is a PNY and yeah nothing terribly exciting about it other than that I mostly bought it for size which I know is a weird reason to buy a graphics card but again my other option was 4090 new case new PSU new motherboard and then pop this CPU into that other system but then between the case the motherboard and a high High wattage PSU we’re talking like another I don’t know 1,500 bucks or so probably more and yeah and that’s with the 490s so then we’re talking an extra $33,000 almost with the card upgrade and the motherboard and the fan and the PSU rather and the fans for the case and the case itself yeah so I’m going to try to stick with this chassis but like I said the other main problem with this chassis or rather with the mother board specifically is that it can really hold that graphics card and then maybe I could put a card in this slot maybe and then it leaves one more slot free for sure and by the way these are both 16 Lane and these are all eight Lane so it’s a good motherboard in that sense that these are all you know very usable slots in the theory but in practice not so much this chassis is just too small it’s too tight I don’t like that aspect of it it’s not ideal but it’s kind of what I’m here working with and there is one other card I absolutely need to put in this chassis and that is this 10 gbit fiber network card it’s an Intel yeah that and this is it’s fresh from eBay it’s still sealed from the seller so let’s hope it’s genuine it came from reputable seller I’m assuming it will be because this chassis and this is a bit embarrassing that we haven’t looked at the back yet so let’s do that I mean honestly when I’m looking at eBay photos the very first thing I look for is the back of a computer because you can kind of see how dusty it is how dented it is and of course what adding cards it might have and what other ports it might have so as you can see this is actually stubbed out for PS2 and seral I didn’t see those options when I bought it but and it actually has 1 gbit and 10 gbit ethernet ports but obviously these are rj45s this is for copper and unfortunately the only 10 gig ports I have on my switch are fiber so yeah need a fiber capable card to go in here with an SFP and indeed that’s what we’ll do otherwise nothing very interesting three USBC ports I think USB 3.2 and USB type A is also 3.2 audio out and the power connector is the only unusual thing here I mean some of you will be familiar with this but that is the power connector and a standard shall we say computer power cable connector looks like this and that’s what that looks like and so just for your reference if you’re not familiar with it that is an IEC c19 power connector and it’s just generally chunkier squared off and has all the pins in this horizontal orientation and so here’s the c19 the mating connector is called the C20 and the main issue here here is that it has a current carrying capacity of 16 amps if we go back up to the connector we’re all familiar with the C13 which is the standard sort of computer style power supply connector and it’s mating c14 which would be on the power supply which looks like this you could see its Max rated amps is 10 and for this system that’s an issue because I upgraded this to a 1350 wat power supply whereas by default it comes with a th000 watt power supply and a standard 10 amp connector and just for your reference 1350 Watts divided 120 volts is 11.25 amps which is why this power supply could not be used with a C13 or rather c14 power connector because it technically would go over that specification I believe I’ve seen power supplies with a c14 connector that go over the allowed like that are even 1500 watts but technically that wouldn’t be allowed of course Dell is a large reputable manufacturer so they’re going to stick with the [Music] specifications so and of course you know this kind of power connector can be inconvenient for some people because if you don’t have a lot of these spare cables lying around you got to use the one that Dell sends you which you know this one’s pretty long I think it’s 10t but the other issue is if you were to use a standard c-13 style connector most of those power cables have a really small wire gauge like this one looks nice and thick it looks chunky but this is 18 gauge or 824 Square millim for the conductor sizes so this is not very robust I wouldn’t want to plug this into a High wattage power supply but this cable should be quite a bit thicker and yeah indeed this is 14 gaug gauge or well it doesn’t give it in square millim oh it does or 2.08 mm squar and this at least in the North American Market a 14 gauge cable would be rated for 15 amps so 11 Point whatever amps it was will be well within the current caring capacity of this cable so you do have to watch out for that and you got to watch out for that in general like you see a standard computer power cable with this standard connector you think oh well if I could plug it in surely it’ll work fine but some of these cables are very cheaply made they might even have aluminum conductors they might be very tiny conductors they might be lying about the size of the conductors on the cable sheath so if you’re ever dealing with a high wattage load even if it has a c14 power connector please please use high quality power cables in your high performance desktop systems because your fire alarms will thank you and before I upgrade it let’s look at the front that would be important to show you I suppose I’m got to look in the monitor to see where my hands are it’s got two Flex Bays which in this case just hold basic Drive sleds these are the configurable kind where you put a 3.5 in drive in here if you just lower this this folds out of the way or gets removed and yeah these pins you basically bend it sideways slot the drive into these pins and then bend it in and it’ll hold either a 2.5 in Drive using moving these blue pins to this Lo in this location and then moving this one over to here and I think this one to here as well anyway you can reconfigure all these to hold a 2.5 in disc or a 3.5 in I was a little disappointed actually I wasn’t familiar with their flex phaye but I it was disappointing cuz inside of the chassis is just a SAS connector which will hold which will handle SAS and SATA physically and electrically I suppose I was hoping it would be some kind of like pcie extension because one thing I got off eBay were some used nvme Flex Bay caddies so you can plug an nvme drive into these front Bays but yeah unfortunately I guess you wouldn’t get better than SAS rate speeds at best although it might be it might end up being SATA I don’t know something to test out in the future aside from that we’ve got the power button a headphones button and then USB type a USB type a two USB A’s and two USB C ports also USB 3.2 that’s just a and also I just took this off because something goes in here as well I think maybe just a slot load ROM drive or a you know one of those like laptop style popout tray Optical media drives I don’t really care CU this thing is going to be buried in that in my desk anyway and oh yeah that’s another thing I mean I know a lot of people are into pimping out their computer cases which is cool as hell sometimes like a lot of those look really awesome the thing for me is I don’t care that this looks pretty basic because I have an old school computer desk which was originally designed for CRT monitors but works really well with my setup and this is going to be buried right there in the middle under the desk so I you know I’m never going to see this I mean like unless I’m going under my desk to find a dropped screw I’ll never ever see this thing so yeah it could look like complete ass and I don’t care not to say I don’t like cool looking computer cases but that’s just my situation now what I have been dying to find out is will that 4080 that I bought actually fit in here because sometimes you know tolerances can be a little tighter than you think and yeah well let’s see I guess might as well do a really quick unboxing but yeah there’s really not much in the way of unboxing when it comes to graphics cards because it’s just right there and I mean God damn this thing is huge with the power splitter some paperwork oh a support bracket which probably won’t be usable in this chassis but I did buy my own Amazon sort of generic ass support bracket to keep this from completely B downwards in the chassis and ruining everything and I mean graphics cards are just preposterously huge nowadays I mean it’s like this is a workstation in chassis and this thing is even big compared to it but anyway let me take off the card Edge protector get that out of the way and yeah let’s just before I take off the protective film let’s just see if it actually fits oo that’s tight holy crap I mean the back just barely clears it I mean see that’s what I mean about having to actually test it you can measure it all you want but then like I wouldn’t have thought to measure how far back the card went from the slot in order to see if it hit this fan cage here but okay and I can’t even tell if the card is let me just at least secure it a little bit Yeah the card is seated yeah I mean the card’s so big I couldn’t even tell if it was seated just by doing that you can also see the card is basically make sure I’m focused down there the card is basically touching this plastic bracket for the shroud and actually is the Shroud GNA fit in next to that oh yeah okay that should be fine cool cuz the shroud’s inset from the graphics card wow but it just barely clears in the back I mean there is virtually no space as the measurement said there should barely be any space right there and then unfortunately the graphics card itself is blocking a significant portion of this fan which is kind of stupid and I misspoke before this card is 3.5 slots wide so it is actually covering all but one expansion slot all but one pcie slot and at least until I upgrade my network switch that is going to have to be taken up by the network interface card which is kind of unfortunate because that means I’m not going to be able to use this cheap Nvidia card for my other monitors now this will this GPU does have three display ports and one HDMI port I have five monitors So in theory I could connect four of them to this card and then the fifth one which is Tiny anyway I could just connect via a USBC to actually VGA cuz it’s old and it’s small it’s it’s it’s this one I use it for when amp and videos primarily and then okay so the other thing is I am going to need to use this cable because maybe this is just me not never having a 40 series card but this uses a much smaller form factor like Molex style connector which is actually very unfortunate because as you can see if I turn the computer up and of course unwise to do this without the video card being supported in the front but yeah I’m not going to be able to close the case with this in the way so I’m going to have to get a right angle for this and even then I don’t know if it’ll clear because like there’s really not that much space between the card and the case I mean the card and the case cover so to test this today I’m going to have to run this with the cover open I mean that’s the only option here right yeah I didn’t realize the card would come with it so right I actually bought a The Identical sort of connector adapter splitter whatever ever it’s actually a reverse splitter I guess but yeah it’s the right style of connector this one goes to two 8 Pin female ports and this one two three You probably get away with two I don’t know but yes so this one actually would be a lot more flexible but I still don’t think it would Flex enough to get the case closed and this one and I believe this one I got worrying about clearance and this should have a right angle connection Conor oh it is the right oh I was one step ahead of myself it is the right style of connector okay I was hoping it would go this way but it actually is oriented this way but that’s okay because I got plenty of cable length here to work with but I still think that might be too fat for the case to close I mean that’s like at the height of the case cover so here’s what we’re going to do not not even going to bother connecting it yet I’m just going to tuck these cables out of the way grab the case cover and nope oh you got to be kidding me this middle piece that sticks out right here which is called the pcie holder pretty yeah that is pretty ironic that bracket is called the pcie holder which I’m sure would hold PCI cards it probably you know has a plastic plastic things that would stick out and hold the cards I think it would close without this in place now it just looks like it’s spot welded in a few locations so I can probably break that off cuz the irony is the pcie holder is actually preventing me from using the PCI slot that’s that’s just brilliant I mean it’s not Dell’s fault I can’t badmouth them for that because you know you’re not supposed to use consumer graphics cards in this in this machine but it’s just a shame like that they really don’t want you to oh actually ah I didn’t realize no this piece of metal here the pcie holder is hitting the power connector before it can even close far enough for this piece which is labeled the EnV link holder which will then probably impact the card itself it might just clear it but I don’t know so before I start trying to remove those things let’s see if the case closes without the power connector oh okay pH it does clear it okay that is actually awesome news I mean it must be I mean I’m not going to be able to get a camera in there but like there has to be less than a millimeter between this well and now this that one’s a little higher actually the NV link holder is a little higher yeah there’s got to be less than a millimeter of clearance between that and the top of the card I mean it’s super tight but yeah so okay if I can remove this with a bit of force then maybe it’ll close on top of that power connector all right all right you guys all know the famous saying the wrong tool for the wrong job you know don’t try this at home I’m kind of hoping this is like poorly attached but I kind of doubt it because it’s probably a really well-made chassis cuz sometimes I mean if it’s bad spot welding you can just pop it off with a little bit of effort but I also don’t want to bend the whole case which I’m going to do a few fing later okay so I’m here at the other side of the basement using my cell phone much less professional next to the washing machine and the utility sink and boiler and this is just a random set of metric drill bits that I have that I don’t care if I ruin they’re not metal bits specifically but yeah I’m going to use a small small one just trying to get those spot welds drilled out hopefully not penetrating through the other side of the case so yeah let’s see how that goes and obviously I’m doing it over the sink so I can just brush any metal dust and the shavings into the sink and make it the drains problem so fortunately these these drill bits have a very sharp point so it should fit into that spot Weld and sort of hold it in place I should probably use some lubricant actually maybe even a smaller drill bit like why am I trying to push that hard through it all right so yeah I’m going to use this smaller bit there’s the comparative size and hopefully it’ll just be enough to break the spot weld I just really don’t want to go through this side of the case obviously let’s oh yeah there we go movement okay so that that spot weld is defeated so this tiny drill bit should do the trick it’s kind of good I guess that these aren’t real metal cutting bits and they’re kind of dull oh there we go that just popped yep I got just far enough to loosen that up all right so that side is all drilled out and that’s moving and then I drilled these just enough I’m hoping I can just lift this and it’ll sort of pop off nope okay not there yet aha there we go my only other piece of advice when doing this sort of thing which you know I’ve actually done in one form or another on a few occasions is is you want to make sure all the metal dust is gone from whatever you’re putting back on your computer for obvious reasons I mean even just one tiny Speck of metal particulate in a pcie slot for example could short something out and really make things unpleasant for you and be nearly impossible to debug because you’re almost probably never going to see it and you’re just going to think the motherboard’s dead or could short out any other connector or tracks or some other thing so I’m going to give this a full wipe down cuz also that that those metal particulates especially when that thing snapped off could have flown you know over here over here you know it could be under here so can give this a good shake out over the sink and just try to make sure I dislodge everything and then give it a real good wipe down obviously with just a damp cloth with water and yeah again and obviously you don’t want to do this over or anywhere near the actual Electronics because you could end up brushing metal particulates into it anyway you got the idea so let me do that and we’ll get back to the bench okay and we’re back and by the way I mean metal particular to no joke I mean the shavings from that drilling I also wiped off the other side of the case cover because sometimes they can become magnetic as they’re turned around and stick to metal you know some could get on the underside I also rinsed off my hands to make sure I didn’t have any metal dust or particulates on my hands and I checked my clothes because you know if I move my shirt around over the computer and some Fs in there not good either so should be pretty good as far as that goes now just because I remove that does not mean that this connector will still clear the side of the case this connector may be a little too tall but at least now it should be if it’s close it might be solvable and then I could get a different brand or different model of this connector and hopefully it’ll fit so oh yeah and it looks like there a little bit of flexibility there so it’s not actually touching the connector perfect okay so that was a little bit more of a faast than I was hoping it would be but now at least it looks like this graphics card should be usable got to get your hand your finger like deep in there to unlatch the connector but cool o oh it doesn’t it doesn’t have a latch I’m an idiot it’s just the card’s so tight in there and I mean I say card but this is like the actual PCB of this graphics card is that big it extends to where my two fingers are the rest of this is all heat sink like from here out is all heat sink and you know of course cage and fan of course like the actual graphics card itself is pretty small and I should discuss the elephant in the room obviously I could water cool this there is a I was eyeing this $490 which is actually oh $2,200 that’s actually a decent price at least compared to what it was and obviously this would be a decent solution because it’s physically a lot smaller for the card but it’s like where am I going to put the radiator on this chassis there’s there’s just really no practical place to put a radiator other than on the outside of the chassis or like really Jerry rigged in there and I didn’t want to go that route I know it’s going to be disappointing and even innan to some people but but there you have it nice big fat graphics card the other concern is that this this card will be almost completely obscuring these two heat sinks one of which I actually need to access before I put the graphics card in and so that’s not necessarily great although the graphics card itself might draw air past those because the heat sink is the fins are oriented this way vertically when it’s in the chassis and so that should be moving air across these two heat sinks under there hopefully put the graphics card out of the way and let’s talk about another upgrade that’s going to be done to this machine it comes I think with a 256 gig low performance SSD and what I’m going to be putting into it instead are two Western Digital black SN 850x nvmes 4 terabytes a piece because this has two nvme slots under this I say slot connector whatever under this heat sink oh they are captive screws at least and it even has thermal pads on it which is nice and it should squeeze the ssds nicely between this heat sink and other thermal pads below them oh my God this is a really tiny SSD I mean it’s got to like have what one flash chip oh that’s so cute if you can make it out those are the markings 256 gig right up there and yeah very tiny and then I’m going to have to move this stand off because these are going to be ful length form factor and then as far as unboxings go yeah nvme ssds not all that exciting we already know the specs but you can see the size of it it’s got two flash chips in the back two flash chips in the front and then a controller chip up here now at the time I’m making this video I could not get eight TB versions of these but I’m assuming you could fit 8 terabytes in this form factor in today’s technology because well why wouldn’t you I mean there’s only two chips on this on each side I mean and you could fit four on each side I believe I actually don’t know why I’m screw I need to screw this down because the you know what okay there’s an issue here yeah I don’t like that this is going to seem bizarre but I’m not going to screw the SSD in unless that’s going to conform because here’s the problem it has this big fat thermal transfer pad underneath it and the problem is the pad in order to get contact with the underside the SSD is thicker than it needs to be because it’ll compress down the problem is that with the SSD secured in the connector and on and by that screw it’s being secured at both ends and the middle is getting put pushed up by that pad and so I could see the card visibly bowing you know it’s supposed to be straight it was going like this it was bending up in the middle and that’s not good I mean one these BGA Mount chips could just pop right off of there right so I figure I’m not going to screw it down it’s going to be squeezed between these thermal pads right you can see where the other SSD put an indent in that one in theory I should get a new pad but I think will be okay and the other the one ones down there are a lot thicker they’re about three times as thick as these pads so once the ssds are squeezed between this heat sink module and and the lower heat transfer pads these s these ssds aren’t going anywhere so I’m not going to screw them down right now I’m not going to screw them down at all actually because this will hold them in place and when I tighten this down it’ll ensure that there’s even pressure along the whole length of the SSD and it’s not like they’ll be able to slide out of position or out of shape or anything look I don’t know I suppose I can’t really recommend you don’t screw these down because I’m sure it’s not the manufacturer recommended way to do this but and I’m just trying to get those screws lined up because I if I align the screws wrong and then I need to pull the heat sink this way it might pull those connectors out so I’m just trying to to get this as lined up as possible so that it can go straight down clamp down those ssds without moving them and everything should be happy okay now sort of like tighten down the lug nuts on a car tire I didn’t quite do a star pattern like you really you really should do diagonal sides tighten them down a little bit just catch the threads then catch the threads then tighten a little then tighten a little tighten a little tighten a little and basically I went around tightening each screw a little bit at a time just to provide even downward pressure on those pads because they did deform quite a bit I mean you can see that one starting to stick out on the side there where it’s squashed down and it took a decent amount of force to get them down there and you can see the edges of the connectors right there it doesn’t look like these shifted at all during the process and those are not going anywhere even without the screws holding the actual ual cards down those are definitely not not going to just pop out or leave the case somehow so I’m quite satisfied with that I mean those are really well squashed in there okay so that is the SSD upgrade accomplished now I guess before I put the graphics card in let us upgrade the RAM because as I said this came with 16 gab of ram which is not nearly enough for my taste dim socket levers were really tight oh those are some tiny chips but yeah it is these are 8 gigabyte ddr4 PC 3200 a Rd yeah nothing too fancy I think this system does use ECC Ram though or at least I hope it does because that is what I bought from new EG this was super micro branded Ram but it was just a good price and it should work with this system I mean it’s standard specifications I just hope super micro didn’t do something weird oh well they weren’t shy about the packaging and the efficiency thereof three four five 6 7 and eight so this system has eight dim sockets as we can see and I will be making use of all of them and then this is the mo this is the craziest packaging I’ve ever seen Ram coming yeah see this is this is more what I was expecting just eight of these not eight padded boxes but hey when I order Ram I guess I want it to arrive in good condition yeah it’s branded super micro it’s made by Samsung so yeah 64 gig pc4 3200 AA just the same as the other sticks except obviously four times the size and with eight of these that’s going to be 512 gigs in this modest little system and okay that is for sure Overkill even for me but my feeling was I mean the ram compared to the system wasn’t that expensive and I was going to go with at least 256 gig because I have 192 gig in my current system and so it’s like by the time I’m getting 256 gig might as well populate all the sockets and not have to upgrade this beast in the future so that was my logic obviously this should be a physical match for the system cuz it’s just ddr4 pc4 3200 AA so now just the moderately tedious process of unboxing all this RAM and then having to deal with the waste of all those boxes these are not a waste though cuz these I tend to hold on to because well first of all put the two modules that came out of this system into one of those and second of all it seems like I always have Ram laying around that I need to store so as planket would say cure the music Johnny that wasn’t a good planket imitation cure the music Johnny no oh yeah Johnny was captured by white [Music] slavers and there we go okay now in case you’re wondering why I didn’t order this system with 512 gigs of RAM well that’s because let’s just say it wouldn’t be cheap actually I’m kind of curious about how much more it would have cost but so this is a 7865 Configuration utility wizard whatever they call it and let’s see okay that’s for 4 * 128 gig this is for 8 time 64 which is what I got and oh we can get it with up to a terabyte but yeah $7500 I’m pretty sure from new EG I spent $12 $100 on this Ram so I would absolutely never I never ever upgrade ram from Dell I always do it myself post facto so much more expensive than upgrading it yourself now of course for businesses for Enterprises the type people are ordering these type of systems usually you know yeah it’s worth it for them it’s easier I guess and more you know reliable like in theory if I ever wanted if I ever need to do a warranty return on this machine I’m going to have to pop this r back in there and I guess maybe hope that D hasn’t seen this video Al I think they’ll honor a warranty if you just upgrade the RAM right they have to right at least I would hope they would all right so the only other piece to resistance is the network card and of course I still didn’t bring a freaking knife over here but who needs a knife when you got a screwdriver come on random eBay seller please be reliable let’s see what this is nice well I haven’t checked the model number but it looks nice okay so it’s an Intel e810 XX vda 2 Data manufacturer 5 2022 so it’s pretty new and as you can see it is a two port card and I already have sfps for it so I didn’t get it with sfps this wasn’t that expensive and yeah I don’t need two ports but it was actually cheaper than a single port version and the reason I got this is I have I have plenty of 10 gbit fiber ether cards but they are all unfortunately pcie Gen 2 or three and this is a Gen 4 card as is of course the bus here yeah in order to take advantage of the full speed of this bus and not throttle the bus down to a lower speed I want to get the appropriate card for it and we can only hope there’s enough air flow over that heat sink but yeah that will be a test for the gods I am sterculius God of feces okay so it’s pretty much just going to be the network card and the massive ass graphics card that takes up half the chassis okay oh actually I’m going to need one of these brackets I was hoping to be able to fit another card in here but I forgot this was three and a half slots wide not two and a half slots wide so that sucks okay then the only other thing I’m going to have to do is this chassis actually has mounting feet on the bottom you can see it doesn’t want to move from the table so you can just leave this flat on your desk which you know is good for graphics cards like this but the real problem is when I turn this up vertically which I’m going to do this end of the graphics card is still pretty heavy and it’s going to start sagging the only thing holding this end of the graphics card from sagging is the pcie slot because it’s basically like pivoting here and trying to Pivot downwards and the PCI slots the only thing holding in place I actually got a computer a couple years ago I think it had I think I bought the computer just because at the time it had a 3070 or 3080 in it and again it was a situation where the computer was on woot and it was priced such that the computer with the graphics card was actually the same price as just getting that graphics card retail at the time so I figured it’s basically a graphics card with a free computer attached so that’s what I did but that thing had been in storage for a little while and possibly from being banged around in shipping the graphics card had sagged so much it actually bent the PCI slot a little bit and it didn’t cause any electrical problems on the motherboard somehow or mechanical problems all right well believe it or not I cannot find the tiny little box that has the graphics card support brackets that I bought from Amazon so that’s okay for now I want to just close up the computer test it make sure it works and then I’ll those will turn up and it’s just basically a little magnetic thing that sticks to the bottom of the case and then is a pole that’s adjustable and can just go under the graphics card here at the end and that’ll just support it so yeah let’s get the GPU cabled up now I don’t necessarily want to tuck these wires down here because they will impede air flow a little bit and possibly foul those fans so I’m going to Route them up over the graphics card and if it’ll do a nice enough Bend radius maybe not I was going to say maybe tuck them into this Drive Bay to keep them out of the way cuz unfortunately cable management sort of becomes an issue here too because this chassis wasn’t really designed for this size card so you know what I’m going to do here let’s pop this drive bay or this drive caddy out and then tuck yeah once I close the case that’ll sort of Sandwich these two connectors right here and then the cables do a nice run around there into the connector and bada bing bada boom I should note and it’s kind of perhaps a bit late in the game for this but there are two large fans in the back of the chassis as well as the one in the front up here and as earlier noted there is a fan here and I should tell you that let me just throw this approximately where it goes just to show you how it all lines up so the Shroud is like this and the Shroud appears to actually do quite a lot so it’s kind of upside down reversed obviously now but you can see there’s a channel here that comes out the side and then there’s this main channel in the middle that’s where the CPU heat sink goes and then that connects out over here and then there’s another channel here there’s this baffle and another air duct here and that’s what goes to this fan and so basically these two channels cool the ram and this channel cools the CPU and the CPU and RAM have these two fans drawing air through these channels and I guess they just need a little extra cooling for this Bank of ram here because then this fan which is oriented like that like this fan is right here it would sit about here in the chassis and that’ll push additional air past this RAM and it probably will also have the effect of drawing air across these Drive Bays I’m guessing oh this not going to shut with these cables in place though ah it’s always something okay and so my point being this shroud is not decorative it’s not like you know I made fun of it before it’s not like the plastic cover on your car’s engine where it’s pretty much useless and just for show that shroud actually does quite a lot as far as airflow routing goes so I’m thinking what I got to do is sort of this is going to be a little Messier but I got to get these connectors sort of out of the way of the Shroud sort of obstructing the air flow of the front fan because they’re all kind of jammed in there I mean maybe if I pull this farther along and can no because this cable Mass here is going to get in the way and yeah I think the only way to do that is going to be to bring them out and have them dive down here it’s not blocking up the fan too much the cables aren’t and the connectors aren’t actually up against the fan they’re kind of out a little bit so we should still get decent air flow there and then these cables can lay flat right across the top there I know some of you are going to be screaming at me like because I’m not using zip ties and not making this all neat and tidy I mean the fact of the matter is I don’t care care it’s going to work it’s going to be fine you see it’s it’s bent up a little there it does not like those cables being routed there okay I mean it closes but it’s it’s pinching the cable slightly which I don’t like all right so these are going to have to sort of go somewhere else out of the way and there’s really not much in the way of options as far as like routing or storing these cables I think see I can’t go over this fan with these cables because that’ll pin that’ll be a pinch point but I think I can maybe stash these next to the [Music] fan kind of a little pocket between the fan and the Drive bracket and whatever this is and then that’ll at least keep those connectors from flopping around yeah I mean it doesn’t help that I added all this extra length to these cables with this adapter and once the Shroud is in there that’s sort of going to lock all those cables into a little cubby area although we don’t want to foul this fan either fortunately that’s got a cover a cage on it or a protective screen on it whatever so yeah that should be fine that’s not going to foul with any of these cables and then let’s get those under there oh yeah that’s fine these are not really pinched they can move moved quite nicely there’s nothing under there now what is it it’s hitting something what the hell is it hitting oh wait this is going to clear it but I didn’t realize see this thing here that sticks out I do believe that’s just touching the graphics card so I might not need a GPU stand I think the cables were just getting in the way a little bit cuz this was was closing before with the card in place so that sort of pivots yeah yeah yeah that’s like barely oh that’s brilliant okay that little Notch is actually going to support the GPU I hardly ever use this camera but this is sort of the idea behind it is for reasons is for situations like this okay that little Notch see it’s kind of going right between GPU and the bottom of the case when the case is closed in position it should it’s just brushing the GPU and it should I keep calling the GPU it’s a graphics card really but I mean you know what I mean it should just be to the side away from the fan so yeah I’m sorry it’s so tight in there that’s a pretty hard place to get a good shot but yeah see it’s so tight like the case just won’t close until unless that Notch sort of just shimmies into position so yeah but case closes like a detective on Christmas Even though it might not be right the case is closed I don’t know if that made sense but whatever you know what I mean okay well now I suppose the time has come to test this out I’m going to plug this into HDMI oh I just realized there’s no operating system on this so we’re basically just going to see the BIOS huh and of course the power connector that Drew so much power when it clicked on even though it actually didn’t turn the computer on just like charge the capacitors internally but it caused lights to flicker I don’t know if you call it that power [Music] on oh there we go okay that is not the mouse okay the man of system memory is changed continue oh actually meant bio setup continue is there’s no OS on this machine right now continue is a dumb Choice oh by the way I should note this is actually my second time trying to make this video I got like a third of the way through it last time didn’t realize my wireless mic died until much after and then kind of gave up on it so I’ve already started up this computer and tested it with the original OS which you can see right now as I’m talking so that’s how I’m familiar with some aspects of the computer in advance oh my God I got a disabled net boot this is it really Waits this long to time out trying to boot up off the network yeah no [ __ ] all right finally it really likes taking its time so there we go BIOS version blah blah blah thread Ripper Pro 595 5995 wx64 core Max clock speed of 4.55 GHz cool it’s detecting all 52 gigs of RAM that is [Music] nice and now before I exit I do have Ubuntu desktop 22.041 installer from that I wrote in 20232 24 so let’s just boot it into a buntu the live image so that we can just make sure this thing [Music] works did you hear that this thing actually has an internal PC speaker which is to say like a you know what I mean not like a Buzzy 8bit driven you know pazo PC speaker type deal I mean it’s an actual speaker connected to the sound card or built-in sound chip which I guess like you could say about a comer 64 you know what I mean actually let’s just load up G parted so that we can see the discs and make sure they’re both detected let’s just scale that up so that you guys can see cuz otherwise yeah so yeah good we see both ssds there I’ve only ever used use gparted in the on the command line so not familiar with that interface now that’s what I like to see come on too many CPU cores to fit on the screen I mean of course these are logical cores it has 64 physical cores but you know that’s still cool memory 14 gig of 540 gig I guess that includes swap well anyway that’s still nice to see yeah I mean cool dumb question but does a live version of auntu come with a like stress test/ performance test type [Music] [Music] deal [Music] [Music] [Music] well anyway you know what it’s getting late even for me cuz as we can see it’s currently 5:20 in the morning and no I did not wake wake up to make this video I’m still up so all right I guess I’ll be back with a more that’ll shoot another day showing the computer with like drivers and shite installed and it working properly no you know what I’m going to call this a wrap for this YouTube video Even though I would like to get Windows loaded on here all the drivers run some performance tests and blah blah blah I think I accomplished what I wanted to here which was showing you that it is possible to put a RTX 4080 in this system not a 490 because every single 490 I looked at would have been too long this was just about the shortest 4080 I could even find upgraded to 512 gigs of RAM upgraded to 8 terabytes total of ssds and yeah it is now a fairly complete system oh and 10 gig fiber network card can’t forget that that’s kind of what I wanted to show there’s plenty of other websites and videos about this exact system but none of them really went into trying to use this from a gamer SL performance consumer standpoint because at the time this came out spec like this with this CPU this system probably would have cost5 $20,000 so it was well Out Of Reach of anyone using this for home use most likely it’s still a little on the pricey side I’m like kind of all nervous at having spent this much on a computer it’s the first time I’ve ever spent this much on a computer in total yeah it should be it should be a lot smoother a lot faster a lot nicer to use than my current system and I’m kind of excited to get this in my desk and loaded up and working so thanks for watching I’ve been Scott if you have any questions or observations or if I got anything wrong please post in the comments let me know follow me on social media is not for no reason but because if I remember and if I don’t and you want to have more information you can you know tag me in a post or something trying to prompt me to upload some more information about this machine and how it’s working performance- wise like I’ll run a couple of performance tests on it and oh my God I already did performance tests on this machine but I just did it without sound so yeah here’s how it performed I should Benchmark the whole system as is right now anyway like I said thanks for watching let me stop rambling and go to bed bye or whatever I’m always so [ __ ] shitty at ending YouTube videos oh and my leg fell asleep like completely God damn I can’t even move it out from under me oh wow this is embarrassing I’m sitting like cross-legged well one leg’s crossed under the other one which is straight I can’t show you but the leg that’s underneath is completely asleep and I can’t oh there we go I couldn’t even like move it out from under whatever good night what with this salute who salutes at the end of a YouTube video that’s so stupid where’s my slate uh

Related video: QILIPSU Outdoor Enclosure with a Computer Inside… Because.

Visit the Data Grave coffins: outdoor.s.co.tt

Hi, I’m Scott and today we’re going to talk about a couple of computers I buried in my backyard to create a data graveyard.

They’re Raspberry Pies, which are great for this purpose as they’re compact and consume very little power, meaning they can be supplied by power over ethernet and won’t cause rampant heat dissipation issues.

But they’re also pretty good for their intended purpose: Backups.

If you’ve seen a couple of my other videos, you know I tend to go on rants about backing up data. For me, and many of you, most of the content I generate is digital. Losing all my data would be tantamount to someone’s house burning down in the pre-digital age. All my stuff is in there.

And in fact, house fire, floods, natural disasters, burglaries, war, seizure and all sorts of other catastrophes can lead to the destruction of your data. Which is why I always advocate for off-site backups, so your digital possessions aren’t tied to your physical ones.

So in that way I was considering alternatives to traditional off-site backups, and I came up with the idea of the Data Grave.

It’s kinda tongue-and-cheek / kinda serious. Do I think burying your data in your yard is the wave of the future for data security? No, of course not. But I do think it’s almost a viable secondary or tertiary backup strategy.

You might consider it your only offsite backup solution if you don’t want to store your data with third-party companies like Google, Apple, Backblaze, and so forth, and if you don’t have a secure alternate location in which to situate a server that’s 100% under your control.

With a deep enough burial, your underground data is likely to survive a nuclear apocalypse… even if you probably won’t.

I should say, this video is a proof-of-concept. The way in which I prepared and entombed the two computers in their coffins isn’t necessarily optimal. I’m just testing it out at this point, and I plan on revisiting the project in a year to see how it’s going.

Actually, since you might be watching this video quite a while after I uploaded it, you can keep an eye on how it’s going in real time. Over a year ago, I mounted a full computer in an outdoor enclosure to see how it would hold up (link in the video description), and for this project I changed out the computer but left the enclosure and the website up. Go to outdoor.s.co.tt, and that site is served by the computer mounted to the side of my house. At the bottom of the page are links to each coffin. The web pages are exceedingly simple, but they’re hosted on web servers in each coffin. If the web pages come up, then the underground computers are alive.

Technically, the concept is pretty simple: Use a Raspberry Pi (or other low-powered single-board computer) as a backup-slash-storage server. Put a massive SD card in it, and maybe even attach some USB drives. Those drives could (and should) even be put into a software RAID array. Then bury the whole thing in your back yard.. or wherever.

So, if you’re interested here’s how it all came together.

I started with a couple of Raspberry Pi 3 B plusses. They’ve got 4-core ARM Cortex SoC’s running at 1.4Ghz, 1GB RAM, four USB 2.0 ports, and an ethernet port that’s going to become extremely relevant. They’re neither fast nor powerful as computers go, but are more than sufficient for use as a home backup server.

Their low power consumption and ethernet port are extremely important because they can be combined with a power-over-ethernet hat (made by LoveRPi in this instance), meaning they each need only one cable connecting them to the outside world, which will provide both power and data.

It’s called a “hat” because it sits atop the Pi, interfacing with a few select pins for power and ethernet, while not obscuring the CPU or other pin headers. Well, a hat usually obscures your whole head, but in this case it’s a double entendre and HAT stands for “hardware attached [on] top”.

With the hats attached, I imaged a pair of micro SD cards with the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS, a Debian variant. Aside from the hostnames, both installations are pretty much identical from start to finish, but one card has a capacity of 256GB and the other only 32. When using them for backups, I’d probably keep the SD cards small and used USB drives in RAID for the actual data storage.

I chose to install the full GUI, which is a LXDE desktop environment running the Openbox window manager. The GUI is completely unnecessary for a backup server, but I figured in this case it would be good for load testing, as well as being more photogenic when appearing in a video.

I also tested out the PoE hats using a TP-Link TPE-S44 ethernet switch with four standard and four PoE ports. It has a maximum capacity of 15.4 Watts per port, which is more than enough for the Pi. It consumes about 2 Watts at idle, while the maximum consumption depends upon workload and devices that are attached. But in any case, it’s much less than the maximum of this relatively inexpensive switch.

To help keep connectors from corroding, my plan was to coat them all in dielectric grease. This includes the SD cards and slots. Here I used a 3M silicone product which is intended for automobiles, but should be more than suitable in a Raspberry Pi… probably.

Being as these Pies would run in a truly headless configuration, I configured their VNC servers and tested them with only an ethernet cable attached to verify overall functionality. And not for the last time, either, as you’ll see.

When mounting a computer outside in the elements, let alone underground, the main issue is water. I suppose if you live in the desert then maybe it’s less of an issue, but it still does rain on occasion. Given enough time, water will get into pretty much anything, even a decent quality supposedly “water tight” case. But an allegedly impervious container is as good a place as any to start, for mechanical protection at least.

So I decided to use a couple of small Pelican cases. Both are relatively inexpensive, and both are large enough to fit a Pi with USB drives attached.

But the cases aren’t going to be the only differences between these two.. coffins. In the yellow one, the Pi will sit in there with only an ethernet cable attached. In the grey one, there will be dongles to allow for debugging in the future, should the networking fail at a hardware or software level. I used very short USB and HDMI extensions so a display and input devices could be connected. In retrospect, extending the mini USB power input port may have been wise, as a failure of the network port or PoE hat could render the device powerless. Though, I wonder if you can backfeed 5 volts into the Pi via the USB-A host ports? Perhaps one day I’ll have to find out.

The ethernet port was also extended, but with a theoretically water-tight connector that has an RJ-45 jack on the inside.

Of course, those extender dongles aren’t necessary, unless the actual ports on the Pi are somehow inaccessible. And indeed that’s what will happen, because the next step is to pot the Pies in with epoxy.

But first I prepared a couple of USB flash drives by removing their cases. The idea being that any void spaces sealed in the epoxy (like the insides of the plastic shells) will contain air that will inevitably have some moisture content. I keep the humidity low in my basement, but at a sufficiently low temperature some water might condense. Plus this will let the flash chips bond directly to the epoxy, helping to wick heat away.

I used two different types of potting compound. The yellow coffin will use a clear compound to allow us to see the Pi as it sits in stasis, LEDs blinking away. More importantly it might help with fault analysis without the need to remove the solidified epoxy, when the device inevitably fails. (Though hopefully later rather than sooner.)

The grey coffin will receive a black, extremely opaque formulation. But that formulation has the benefit of being thermally conductive, which should (and as we’ll find out, indeed does) keep the Pi running cooler. The downside is that it’s going to be quite the forensic archeology project to reveal any physical faults. But I couldn’t find a compound that was both clear and thermally conductive. (Not saying it doesn’t exist, just that this is what I ended up buying.)

I don’t know how necessary this was (and it probably wasn’t), but I filled all of the unused connectors with more dielectric grease prior to potting. Realistically, if water infiltrates the potting compound then it’ll effect all parts of the PCB, not just the connectors.

The connectors that were used also got greased up, but those I justify by the thought that water might wick through the cables into the connectors specifically. Hopefully the grease will help to ameliorate that problem.

To save some space and reduce the amount of potting compound needed, I filled some unused volume in the grey coffin with open cell foam. Because the foam would absorb the epoxy, I covered it in electrical tape (the best kind of tape) before pouring.

If you ask me now which of the two concoctions was better to work with, I’d say the clear compound without a doubt. I’m not sure if it was due to the thermally conductive mix or some other difference, but the black epoxy was ridiculously viscous to the point that it was difficult to stir and ultimately pour. It also smelled horrible.

But time will tell if it’s the better choice, as it may hold up better in its earthen environs.

In any case, it wasn’t untenable, and I successfully mixed up my first small batch. The directions said to let it stand for 15 minutes after mixing to de-air. I’d actually purchased a cheap vacuum pump and vessel to remove bubbles in a faster and more thorough manner, but due to personal reasons (the pump being loud as shit and my wife being asleep) I decided to de-air it au natural.

With that first batch, I coated the bottom of the grey case with a few millimeters of the stuff. Then with the remnants, I thoroughly coated the back of the Pi. I think this is a necessary step to ensure that the PCB gets full coverage and adhesion on the underside, as just plonking it into a pool of the stuff might leave bubbles against its underside.

I then pressed it down a bit and brought it up slightly, so that the board wasn’t in contact with the bottom of the case. I had considered using stand-offs to keep an adequate layer of potting material between the inside of the case and the bottom of the PCB, but that would have created an interruption in pottedness at those points so I opted to finesse the board a few millimeters above the bottom of the case and leave it at that.

The potting compound was so thick and tarry that I don’t believe the Pi was able to sink into it.

Then I created a batch using the remaining compound, which was quite a lot. That harkened back to the part of the instructions that said the 2 hour working life specified was based upon a batch size of 100 grams, and that the working time would diminish in inverse proportion to the batch size. I measured it at about 475 grams (minus the cup) and — worried about de-airing it for too long — I poured it pretty soon after. I figured it could de-air in the coffin, and the bubbles would rise away from the PCB anyhow.

Then it was the turn of the yellow coffin, and I probably needlessly injected dielectric grease into all of its unused connectors. The potting compound probably would have flowed in and filled them completely regardless, but I felt that it was the best move in case moist-ish air did get trapped within them.

The yellow coffin – let’s call it the “yoffin”.. wait, no, that’s awful – also wouldn’t have any of the fancy dongle trappings of the grey coffin (Goffin?). It would just be a straight run of CAT 6 through a hole in the case and then into the Pi.

I measured the cable and made the hole as tight a fit as possible, but of course that’s not gonna stop water from infiltrating around it. But the hole will be below the level of the potting compound, and besides, I stripped back far more of the cable sheath than necessary. This way the individual conductors will become encapsulated, providing a break for any water wicking inside or around the cable.

The Pi also got one final boot-up before potting, just as did the one in the Goffin. Everything checked out, so it was time to pot.

The clear fluid, being less viscous, de-aired quite effectively just sitting on the table. It was a mix of about 375 milliliters total, which was the entire contents of the two containers poured simultaneously.

I poured it over the back of the PCB first to ensure coverage, and then flipped it over and continued pouring to get it completely covered. That 375 mL was more than enough to fill the Pelican 1040 case. Incidentally, the hard plastic exterior of the case is made entirely of clear plastic. The yellow insert is a flexible rubber-like material which to me didn’t seem desirable as it would thermally insulate the potting compound from the earth, to which the epoxy probably wouldn’t adhere all that well. But the lip of the yellow insert makes up the seal for the box, so without it water would just be able to flow right in. In retrospect I would have carefully cut off that lip, used it as a seal, and disposed of the rest of it. That would have also allowed us to view the underside of the PCB during failure analysis.

It was also a little tricky getting the CAT 6 conductors bent into a good way to keep the board neatly positioned. But in the end, the Pi was fully submerged, and the cable sheath was far away from it.

It was then time to cure the epoxy, and initially I was just going to let it sit out at room temperature which could have taken a maximum of 96 hours. My hope was that the relatively large pours would have resulted in faster curing, but after about 24 hours both mixes were still soft.

The instructions mentioned heat curing, but at relatively low temperatures. The lowest my oven would go was 250 degrees Fahrenheit, but I got impatient and decided to use the oven door to regulate the temperature. A few comically overblown multimeters with really horrible thermocouples were deployed to measure the temperature of the coffins at various positions. (The idea being that the multimeters could graph the temperature, but that was both not helpful and the displays too small to monitor while standing near the camera.)

After roughly half an hour each at anywhere between 100 and 175 degrees Fahrenheit, the potting compound seemed to have solidified – on the surface, anyway.

If you saw my previous video on the Qilipsu outdoor enclosure, you’ll know what this box is. It spent a little over 15 months attached to the outside of my house, braving a freezing New York winter and a couple of hot and occasionally stormy summers to test the enclosure.

Inside is an old Celeron mini-ITX motherboard which was incredibly shitty and slow, but which hosted a web server that announced to the world whether or not the system was up and running. Happily it never went down due to any kind of failure of the computer nor the enclosure, but I figured it was time to resurrect the project in a new and improved form.

The case received a new single board computer in an industrial style chassis – the branding on it is “V-N-O-P-N” (VN Open?) – which has a newer Celeron J4125 quad-core CPU, 8GB RAM, a 128GB mSATA SSD, as well as onboard WLAN and four ethernet ports.

That was paired with a TRENDnet TPE-S44 8-port ethernet switch, 4 of which are PoE-cabable.

The switch uses a 48V power supply that match the PoE voltage, whereas the computer uses a standard 12V PSU. I would have preferred one supply split on the DC side to both devices, but I instead mounted both of them in the enclosure.

The components were all attached to the backing plate of the case using industrial strength Velcro – which has a really sturdy adhesive backing and strong hook and loop connections – but the real holding is being done by zip ties.

The holes in the Qilipsu backing plate are only large enough to pass very small and weak ties, so I marked and drilled some of them out for these larger colorful ones.

The purpose of this wall-mounted computer would now be to act as a router to connect the Coffins to the outside world. Ethernet would be passed to the outside using the same connector boots as I installed in the grey coffin.

Those connectors have ethernet jacks concealed within, and cleverly the cinch nut is large enough to fit an RJ-45 connector, and the bushing is split to go over a cable. It means you can pre-terminate cables before connecting them, which is really the main advantage of using a connector like this rather than running the cable through the side of the case and then terminating it, like I did with the yellow coffin.

To distribute power to the two PSUs, rather than put a power strip or multi-tap NEMA socket in the box, I used a Y-splitter cable that I had lying around, in addition to an IEC C-14 to NEMA 5-15 adapter cable so that I didn’t have to replace the existing inlet power cord.

The mini-computer booted up just fine, and I set about configuring it as a web server and router.

If you’re watching this years from now, I may have taken this project offline. But you can go to outdoor.s.co.tt to see if this system is still up and running.

Before burying the coffins, I tested out the whole Data Grave setup on the bench one last time. I mean, if it didn’t work it was a little late to fix any hardware issues with the potted pies, but aside from a minor DHCP issue the whole thing came together without a hitch.

(The Pies use DHCP to obtain their IP addresses, making it easy if I need to connect them to a different net for debugging. The router has static DHCPD entries based upon MAC addresses to ensure that the coffins’ IPs remain consistent between reboots.)

The entombment had far less fanfare than a normal burial.

For this test setup, I located the hole right next to my house. If one were to do this for real as a serious backup solution, I’d dig the hole farther away from anything flammable or destructible.

Obviously there’s grass here that I didn’t want to ruin, so I flayed the top soil as you’d do when cutting sod. Only without a real sod cutter, so it was a bit more awkward than it could have been, but the result wasn’t bad.

Oh yeah, and when you’re digging a hole in this sort of circumstance (to bury electronics in?) it’s a good idea to put a tarp down to throw the fill onto. Makes cleanup much easier, and doesn’t ruin the grass.

I only dug down about two feet, which is above the frost line here in New York – the depth to which the ground is likely to freeze in winter. That means the coffins will probably be encased in icy soil for some of the winter, and they and their cables will be subject to strain as the ground heaves and settles. So it’s probably wiser to look up the frost line depth for your area (if the ground even freezes where you are) and bury deeper than that. Here, that’s anywhere from 30 to 50 inches, depending upon which website I’d want to believe.

In my defense, my back is shit and I hit the much harder sandy subsoil, so I gave up at two feet. But hopefully the subsoil should drain reasonably well and if it doesn’t we’ll all find out together when I pull waterlogged Raspberry Pies out of the ground that I put there for no reason.

When you’re burying your computers, it’s probably a good idea to put a layer of stone underneath them to facilitate drainage. The stone should be surrounded by landscape fabric to prevent earth from infiltrating and filling in the spaces between the stones. Here I used landscape fabric, but it probably wasn’t super necessary. I figured it would at least provide some protection to the coffins.

There was one last step to preparing the grey coffin. Because the yellow one had its ethernet cable subsumed by the epoxy, I had to cut a very long tail for it of about 50 ft which was way too long for safety. To make more efficient use of the somewhat expensive outdoor/direct burial CAT6, for the grey guy I ran the tail from the spool directly into it so that I could measure it out accurately by laying the cable.

The cable and grommet got plenty of silicone grease, as did the unused connectors inside the case.

Then I sealed them shut using a couple of plastic and one metal zip tie each. This was to prevent the latches from popping open either during the burial process, or from the stress of the freeze/thaw cycles.

With the Qilipsu re-attached to the wall and powered up, all that remained was the funeral.

I put a loop of extra cable from each coffin underneath them, to keep strain off of the inlets to the boxes during burial and freeze/thaw.

One last test was in order before shoveling the soil in, so it’s back to the router to terminate and connect the other ends of the ethernet cables. I decided to give the weatherproof jacks a proper test by not putting any dielectric grease on those connectors. Of course, they’re at the bottom of the box so water won’t rampantly flow upwards. But you always have to keep capillary action in mind, where water can indeed work its way into an enclosure against gravity.

Anyhow, the coffins both powered up fine, and so the entombment began as daylight faded.

Uh, apologies for the absolutely crap framing here where I cut off the edge of the hole, but you get the idea.

I tamped down the first layer of dirt by stomping on it to ensure that the coffins were firmly in place. In retrospect I should have stomped another layer because the ground has settled a bit in that spot. But if you’re doing this, then you should leave some loose dirt on top before replacing the piece of sod, but you can definitely compact more than I did.

Speaking of which, the sod was a little unwieldy in that piece as I’d taken a ton of soil with it. So I cut it in half before replacing it. Absolutely no harm done if that happens to you.

Last but not least, I watered the area. This wasn’t to test the water tightness of the coffins or anything, but it’s always advisable when laying sod. Regular watering will obviously keep the grass alive, but also promote root growth into the soil beneath, bonding it all back together.

And such is the story of the Data Grave.

I’ve been pretty busy lately, so I’m writing this script almost 2 weeks afterwards. In the interim there have been a couple of good rainfalls, and temperatures have been creeping down towards freezing. So far both underground Raspberry Pies are fully functional, and responding to requests.

When you go to outdoor.s.co.tt, you’ll see a link to each coffin at the bottom. The web pages are really nothing special to look at, but they are served from their subterranean location.

Being as this is a proof of concept, the story isn’t over. In about a year – or when both Pies fail – I’ll dig the data coffins up to see how they fared. So if you’re watching this video in 2024 or later, check my channel for the conclusion.

At some point sooner than that, I’m going to be posting a video about another coffin that’ll be serviceable rather than potted. So if you’re watching this after the second quarter of 2023, check out that video, too.

I take an extensive look at the Ficihp / BQAA (I think they rebranded?) keyboard and monitor combo, and try it with a bunch of different devices and operating systems.

I talk about my experiences troubleshooting and testing the Blackmagic Design ATEM Studio Converter 2, and then open it up for good measure.

I remove the insides of a dead-ish TrippLite ISOBAR power strip and it’s probably good to fall asleep to.

I repair the scrollwheel on a Razer Deathadder Left-Handed mouse after dropping a hard drive on it. Check the chapters to skip right to the solution.

This is after doing a hardware button swap on that same mouse: https://youtu.be/n00ioWfDE9k

I look at automatic transfer switches from Server Technology, Inc. and TrippLite and describe why you might want one.

I test out the USB ports on a couple of Addtam power strips, then for good measure I take them apart and lecture everyone about the importance of non-shite power strips. How fun?

I take a look at the Teclast F7 Plus which I bought on a whim to see if a cheap laptop could compete with my similarly-valued X1 Carbon Gen 2 from 2014. Turns out it could not, except in battery life (spoilers).

I actually purchased the laptop about a year ago and started making a video about it, but the farked around without working on it in the interim. Hence, we are here now.

For some reason I did a full walk-through of the Teclast’s rather robust BIOS, which you can see here:

https://youtu.be/OEDxgZwiUgg

I’ve been trying out different streaming tools and software lately, and ultimately I prefer the dedicated hardware approach. The Teradek VidiU Pro has been discontinued by the manufacturer, and can be had for some pretty good deals on eBay.

The VidiU Pro can be used to live stream events from remote and outdoor locations using either WiFi or a connected USB cell modem. It’s also got an ethernet port (and of course a power input) for use in fixed locations. Such as my basement.

The problem for me is that the VidiU has a built in battery for portable use, meaning that when I shut off my equipment at the main PDU, the VidiU stays on until the battery runs out. Not the end of the world, but it’s made more inconvenient by the power switch being very small and on the back of the unit. Because I’m gonna be cramming it into a 1U rack shelf, the switch is out of reach.

Hence I opted to just disconnect the battery, as I don’t foresee using it wirelessly. It’s not a very complicated procedure (I just snipped one wire as if diffusing a catastrophically boring explosive) but you may enjoy seeing the innards of the device regardless.

This is a quickie, wherein I swap the cosmetic faceplate on a Blackmagic Design Teranex mini converter for a smart panel. I thought it might be useful if someone wanted to check out the process before buying one.

But I’ll spoil it by saying that it’s just a matter of removing the 4 screws holding on the faceplate, and then pushing the smart panel onto an edge connector that protrudes from the Teranex device.

I’ve been working on two things lately (well, more than two, but whatever): Live streaming and testing AAA batteries.

The former is going somewhat OK, but I’m still trying to get the hang of it. The latter is coming together nicely.

This video is me assembling a rig to test 15 different brands/types of AAA batteries:

Duracell Optimum, Anker, Allmax, EBL, Fuji, Duracell Procell, Rayovac Industrial, Duracell Quantum, Rayovac Fusion, Rayovac, Eveready Gold, Energizer Max, Energizer Industrial, Maxell, and Amazon Basics.

The idea being that I’ll shoot that test rig with a time lapse camera, observing how the voltages of the batteries decrease over time. There are light bulbs both to provide a visualization and as a load to deplete the cells. More to come on that project.

The Echo Look

I’m working on a full review-type-thing of the Look, but who really cares about that? I’m sure people will want to see the insides of it, though.

The most interesting two things on it are an Intel RealSense SR300 module (minus its visible light camera), and what’s basically a full Intel PC motherboard. In fact, here are the main specs:

• Intel Atom x5-Z8350 (SR2KT) @ 1.44Ghz (1.91Ghz burst)
• 8GB Samsung eMMC Flash NAND Storage
• 8GB Elpida LPDDR3 RAM
• Broadcom 802.11ac + 802.11b/g/a/n + Bluetooth (Not sure of the version)

The hardware is fantastically made and well put together, and overall is very clever considering they stuffed all of it into a diminutive cylinder!

The Reassembly

I did put the Look back together after all was said and done. And I think there were only like 2 screws left over! :]

Unfortunately it didn’t work for very long, nor very reliably. Something about hacking off all the shielding and generally manhandling all the components maybe had something to do with it.

But if you wanted to see a Look’s boot-up and camera sequence with its proverbial shirt off (the LEDs being the only real aspect of interest), then here’s your chance! Yay.

IC List

This is by no means comprehensive, but it covers all the major stuff with applicable part numbers:

• Intel Atom x5-Z8350 (SR2KT)
• Samsung 8GB Flash NAND (KLM8G1GEME)
• Elpida 8GB LPDDR3 (F8164A3MA-GD-F)
• TI PMIC (SND9039A2)
• Winbond 16mbit Flash Memory (25Q16FW1Q)
• Intel RealSense (SR300)
• Broadcom WLAN + BT (BCM43570KFFB8)
• Dual Diaphragm Speaker (?)
• Camera – 1080p? (?)
• Discrete microphones x 4 (?)

Closeups

Here are some shots of the components. I’m warning you, the linked files are fairly hi-res, so beware if you’re on a low-power mobile device. But hey, at least you’ll get some good detail.

If you’re curious as to the relative scale of each component, the full-size photos were all shot using the same camera setup and position. This means that there’s pretty much a 1:1 correspondence in scale between the various images. (Not true for the thumbnails, tho.)

Also of interest:

• The “flash” illumination LEDs consist of 4 pairs of warm and cool white. As such, the Look can output light at varying color temperatures, probably in the area of 2700K – 5000K (that’s just a guess). From looking at high frame rate video, it appears that they are PWM-controlled, so the 4 LEDs of each temperature could be set to varying degrees of apparent brightness.
• The blue “Echo ring” LED packages have red, green, and blue chips (sorta your standard RGB dealies). There are only 6 of them, but they do a very good job of making a convincingly smooth chasing effect when viewed through the front cover.
• The WiFi (and possibly BT) antennae are at the bottom of the unit.

Stay Tuned

As I get questions and/or investigate further on my own impetus, I’ll update this page. And as I said, there’s a forthcoming “full” review of the Look. Don’t forget to subscribe and yadda yadda yadda follow blech burp social media blah blah. (Just google ScottDotDot if you really want to.)