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Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

thesizzle.com.au

141–150 of 227 posts

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#142

Any ideas how to use a mobile phone for a home server? (At least mobile phones don't have fan noise.)

You can attach an USB Ethernet Network Card using USB On-The-Go. Then if you have a rooted OS you can run whatever you want or you can create an app instead.

You probably want an OTG cable that allows you to charge it while using the network card.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#143
post #81

I use Asus 1001PX subnotebooks that way. They're available for about $40 on eBay. You get a keyboard, screen, WiFi, Ethernet, 250GB hard drive, and USB ports. Usually a power adapter, too. (Only use the real ASUS power adapters; the no-name 3rd party units overheat, don't provide enough power, or in at least one case, catch fire.) When I get one in, I put in the Xubuntu USB stick and run the memory diagnostic for an…

Where are the GPIO breakouts on the 1001PX?

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#144

One nice thing about Raspberry Pis for this sort of thing is that they support the full cec protocol, so can control other devices. I use hooked up mine to switch my TV on and off via an Amazon Echo: https://github.com/simonbyrne/fauxmo The only annoying thing is that my TV doesn't provide USB power while on standby, so I needed a separate power supply.

You can use that to your advantage and detect when the TV is powered on/off, via a GPIO pin from the USB power of the TV.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#147

I've been dabbling with re-purposing second-hand thin clients for years (NSLU, various Wyse, Neoware and HP clients). My current favourite is HP t520 (dual core AMD embedded apu, fanless, M2 SSD drive, a miniPCIe slot, gbit ethernet, USB 3.0 and low power consumption). I haven't measured it but HP states 7W for normal operation. More info at http://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hp/t520/ & in the quick specs www8.hp.com/…

These look great. Shame they're so expensive outside the US. There's an ebay listing for ~£40 there. Lowest I can get here is ~£120. It's almost worth importing.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#148
post #92
post #80

Here's a google spreadsheet someone put up the last time other options were talked about https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TCugLk0GSukeWjhsLu73...

Are you the owner of the spreadsheet? If so it is missing many x86 options like Udoo, JaguarBoard, UP board and others.

You could add a comment to the doc like others did.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#149
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I purchased one of these and installed CouchDB, Apache web server, and some webs I've made and it will serve those apps just fine to a small office full of desktops connected to a LAN. I've made web apps for managing Contacts, Quotes, Invoices, Expenses, Income Reports, ToDo, Chat, and others. I can back up all my data to a remote server (IBM Cloudant for example), and to another Pi in-house as well. And I've configu…

>I've configured it to boot off of the Hard Drive. You don't even need an SD card in it to boot. Woah, that's awesome! I had no idea the pi 3 could do that. I have a Raspberry Pi 2 B and a 3 B at home. I host my website using the 2 B with cloudflare in front of it [1], as well as use it as a login server, but every couple of months the SD card gets corrupted. The last time that happened was a couple of weeks ago and…

> every couple of months the SD card gets corrupted.

You may want to check your power supply before switching to USB storage. In my case, the corrupt SD card turned out to be an issue with the power adapter I bought for the raspi Model 3B. Switching to a better 2A adapter fixed the issue.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#150
post #85
post #81

I use Asus 1001PX subnotebooks that way. They're available for about $40 on eBay. You get a keyboard, screen, WiFi, Ethernet, 250GB hard drive, and USB ports. Usually a power adapter, too. (Only use the real ASUS power adapters; the no-name 3rd party units overheat, don't provide enough power, or in at least one case, catch fire.) When I get one in, I put in the Xubuntu USB stick and run the memory diagnostic for an…

Is one hour really enough for the memory test?

Common wisdom is to test for a minimum of 24h if you want to be reasonably certain of a negative result.

But an hour is certainly better than nothing.

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