Titan progresses

Well, I am absolutely determined to knock out at a more reasonable hour tonight.

I spent a bunch of extra time at the office today catching up on stuff and working through some thoughts I've had around work's hackathon. So, I didn't have much time to play with Titan today.

However I was able to get the monitor back up and running the way it was - as I suspected, it was just pretty confused and needed to auto-detect settings again on a more normative resolution.

I really need to order a...nope, done now. DVI-HDMI adapter on the way, hopefully that'll let me configure this monitor the way it's meant to be used, so it doesn't look so bad anymore. It's hard to argue with a 28" Viewsonic 1920x1200 monitor for $80...not complaining. Just want it to look half-decent. If I can't improve the picture over what's happening now I'll probably sell the thing and buy a proper monitor, probably a 23" range which is still quite reasonable.

What else did I do...confirmed the video card that came with this system *sucks* for 3d gaming. 3d anything, really. I know I've got the right drivers in but I could barely play Fingerbones from the Steam store without cutting resolution way down to 800x600.

Also confirmed my audio systems work fine with my headphones, although there's a buzzing sound I'm not happy about when I put the audio through my monitor's analog ports. Maybe I'll get an extender with a port on my desk instead. Love my rescued Shure monitors though, they rock.

I'm still having a lot of trouble booting from USB. Even using the internal header, I haven't been able to boot my Linux thumbdrive in this system, although it boots fine with other systems. Gotta dig into that tomorrow.

I really am keen on installing Hyper-V so I think I'm also going to invest some time really trying to find a course on that.

And my standing desk needs some serious work - keyboard and mouse are *much* too low, making for exceedinly uncomfotable typing/mousing after just a few minutes.

One thing that's really striking about this box is how quiet it is. A coworker suggested I be preapred for a very loud system because of Dell's use of delta fans. However it's extremely quiet. I know there are fans running but they are utterly unobtrusive, even with the system jammed in a misteable little unventilated corner like it is. This sucker is quiet. Stealth Titan. Not quite, but it's still a very pleasant surprise.

OK! Ramble over.