The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC • Hacker News Board

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#151

Post by fabiensanglard » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 8:28 PM UTC

mastax wrote: post #101

The tall thin heatsink at the edge of the motherboard is cooling part of the VRM. The VRM or Voltage Regulator Module is responsible for converting the 12V input down to 1.3V or so for the CPU. Under that heatsink there are 2 of the 8 phases for CPU Vcore and 2 phases for Vsoc. It would be pretty safe to remove that heatsink, even in a passive case because: - Vsoc draws very little power, especially with no iGPU. - T…

Thank you so much for the explanation. How do you know all that? I am interested in learning about motherboard design and wonder if there are books you would recommend about it.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#152

Post by jwr » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 8:32 PM UTC

geertj wrote: post #24

bluedino wrote: post #17

All the docks seem like they are bad in their own way. Almost every one has a flaw. I can understand why Apple didn't bother making one.

I'm having good luck with the CalDigit TS3

Same here. After lots of crashes and problems connecting a monitor throught a DP to USB-C cable, I bought the TS3+ and this works much better. So far not a single crash, and everything works fine for me (Mac OS Catalina, MBP 16"). I use Gigabit Ethernet, displayport (4K monitor), some USB3 devices, and somewhere in the neighborhood of a bajillion USB2 devices connected via additional hubs.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#153

Post by jwr » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 8:33 PM UTC

supermatt wrote: post #40

geertj wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having good luck with the CalDigit TS3

if you are in clamshell mode, with display connected through the dock, will the display resume from sleep? I have tried a number of TB3 docks (pretty much all except the caldigit), and they ALL have the problem (on MBP m1 at least) that the display will not wake when in clamshell mode. Display wakes fine when connected directly as USB-3 monitor. Appreciate if you can test this and let me know :D

Yes, at least with Catalina. I use my MBP in clamshell. And wakeup is reliable and predictable, more so than with a direct DP connection to a monitor, surprisingly.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#154

Post by fabiensanglard » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

fatboy93 wrote: post #146

Very informative article! I love the website that OP has created though. Does anybody know what stack/platform is it based upon?

It is just HTML with CSS. I wrote a php generator that pics up src.php in each folders, adds header and a footer, and write back index.html. Nothing more.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#155

Post by wffurr » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #141

wffurr wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are "active" cables and so have microcontrollers in them.

But isn’t that an indictment of the whole architecture? 40-gig Ethernet reaches these distances with passive cables. Is it that the Ethernet people have moved the costs into the port and their ports cost more, while the thunderbolt ports cost less and the cables cost more?

Never seen a consumer motherboard with 40Gb Ethernet. Even 10Gb is rare.

One criticism of Thunderbolt is that it already requires a fairly expensive separate controller on the motherboard except for a few Intel chips with built-in TB controllers.

Sending that much data that fast is going to cost more somehow or another.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#156

Post by pmalynin » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #136

jeffbee wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the deal with these prices? Is it just because the connector is so compact? A 2-meter QSFP+ 40-gigabit copper cable is only about $25. https://www.fs.com/c/40g-qsfp-dac-1117

One very major difference is, Thunderbolt's spec requires that this cable carry 100W of power in addition to the 40Gbps of bandwidth.

Power over Ethernet is not too far from 100W. Maybe around 70, if I can recall correctly. So the power isn’t the biggest factor I think

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#157

Post by fabiensanglard » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 8:43 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #132

The keyboard/trackpad input setup is the buried lede here. I'd love to give that a go.

Ergodox EZ is the best keyboard I ever came across. I highly recommend it.

The Magic Track pad has been fully reverse engineered and works on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Also highly recommended.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#158

Post by fabiensanglard » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 8:47 PM UTC

Cactus2018 wrote: post #94

thusjustin wrote: post #88

I'm curious about that keyboard setup. To the author- if you see this, can you share some of its details- I've been wanting to put together something similar.

Looks like a ErgoDox EZ on a stack of books and an Apple Magic Trackpad 2.

Specs of the book stack:

- Masters of Doom

- Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

- Mid Century Modern At Home

- Scandinavian Style at Home

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#159

Post by gehwartzen » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #145

gehwartzen wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. This is probably not the best thing to do and I do get the warning about not having disconnected the gpu and ssd properly but Ive never once experienced an actual problem from doing so (hundreds of times). No corrupted data or anything. But the SSD is mainly for photos/videos not time machine backups.

Check out Jettison.

Nice. Thanks!

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#160

Post by jeffbee » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

wffurr wrote: post #155

jeffbee wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn’t that an indictment of the whole architecture? 40-gig Ethernet reaches these distances with passive cables. Is it that the Ethernet people have moved the costs into the port and their ports cost more, while the thunderbolt ports cost less and the cables cost more?

Never seen a consumer motherboard with 40Gb Ethernet. Even 10Gb is rare. One criticism of Thunderbolt is that it already requires a fairly expensive separate controller on the motherboard except for a few Intel chips with built-in TB controllers. Sending that much data that fast is going to cost more somehow or another.

Right, just thinking about the end-to-end economics. The TB3 add-in card for my HP workstation costs $200 for 2 ports. HP doesn't market a 40g ethernet card but an Intel model costs $400 at retail, also for 2 ports. Then I need either 2 $25 cables for ethernet or 2 $129 cables for TB3. It's the same price either way. Of course, the two setups don't accomplish the same things; they are comparable only in reach and speed.