.Stripes.

I used Infinite Energy. The installer forgot to send through the paperwork for my system after he'd done the install, so it actually ended up taking a fair bit of chasing up on my part to get them to sort out my monitoring...but once I made a bit of a fuss about it they were pretty good with getting it sorted quickly. Overall I had a pretty decent experience with them. Cracked the 40kWh production today.

I did consider BIOS battery, actually. Interesting. Haven't had any BSOD or any other random behaviour like reboots etc. Would that help rule out the RAM and HDD being issues? Been playing with Kodi etc pretty heavily this week and have decided it's a PITA and I may be much better off setting up some form of PLEX server utilising Sonarr etc. Anyone done a setup like this and have any suggestions on specs and thoughts etc? Seems like the most streamlined way to make myself a lazy mans way of getting tv shows and streaming them to my Xbox in the living room. Can have everything auto update and organise folders etc then get PLEX to read the library.

Sooo my PC has been doing this thing for a while when I try to turn it on that it'll beep, start to post and then fail, restart and get stuck in a loop trying to post unsuccessfully. Generally I'll need to enter the bios settings and when I save and exit it'll boot ok. I thought it may have been due to my OC settings, so defaulted everything the other day but it did it again this morning. Anyone got any ideas what could be causing it? Or is it just indicating things are old and tired and I should get a new PC?

Yeah, it's a bit of a sticky topic, though. I'd have no problem going about things the right way...if it was reasonable. But making me pay a considerable larger sum of money for mostly stuff I don't wan't/won't watch isn't the way to do it. I haven't really played with Kodi until now, but that looks pretty cool with respects to functionality, customisation etc. And the base app itself is legal. Sidenote - recommendations for VPN's? Bearing in mind I'll need to install to my Modem (Netgear Nighthawk). Anyone had any experience with IPVanish?

Sport isn't really my thing, so not worth it for that. Thing is, I kinda wanna do the right thing, and not have to resort to other methods...so it's annoying that I don't have much of a reasonable option.

I've always been hugely against Foxtel, as I felt they were a rip-off for what you get. I pay for Netflix as I feel it's decent Value for what you get...but obviously Foxtel have rights to certain shows, a lot of which I watch via other methodology currently. However, Telstra are currently offering a combo of the Foxtel Entertainment and Drama packs for $20 a month, which seems somewhat reasonable and I'd be kinda tempted...but you have to add $10 a month on top for HD and then $100 for installation (or $25 for self installation kit, given I already have a satellite)...I'm really having a hard time bringing myself to pull the trigger, even though it's a decent discount on their normal charges...and actually even cheaper than Foxtel Now, even factoring the need for a Foxtel Now box, as they haven't actually released a Foxtel Now app for Xbox.

To be fair, I probably won't really use it for work stuff...was just thinking it'd mean I could claim it on tax if I did haha.

Thing is, means I'd need a new Mobo and would want a new SSD etc...so quite quickly puts me up over the $2k mark, when chances are I'll rarely, if ever, game on it. Also, I currently need to pay for my last two semmesters of uni and previous balance transfer...so probably SHOULDN'T upgrade my PC....cool dream, though haha.

Both, depending on what processes you're running...but GPU is definitely key. Either way, my motherboard and CPU probably need replacing as they're pretty old and tired, plus new RAM is so cheap for lots of it! I should be able to claim depreciation on tax if I buy it while I'm studying and working too, which I guess is my incentive to do it now

Soooo, given I'm currently studying and now have the ability to run my work software on my home computer I was looking over the specs of my current PC...and to say it's lack-luster is a bit of an understatement. It may have been decent back in like 2010...but times have moved on, significantly it seems. Current setup: i7-950 12GB RAM ATI Radeon HD 5700 Saffire 1GB graphics card 250GB SSD boot drive Several WD cavier green and black data drives Think I have either a 750 or 850W power supply Noctura NH-D14 CPU cooler It's crazy looking at the prices I could get a tiny little 1TB nVME SSD for now! And Also my graphics card doesn't even meet min spec to run my work software haha! Min specs for work software package that my entire career now revolves around is: Processor 64bit Intel or AMD CPU i7 series equivalent or higher Operating System Microsoft Windows® 7, 8 or 10 x64bit RAM 16 GB RAM or more1 Hard Disk 7200 rpm HDD or SSD 10 GB total disk space for installation 4 GB free disk space for swap files2 Graphics Card OpenGL 3.3 or later compliant dedicated video card 2GB Video RAM or more3 GeForce GTX or equivalent

44c buy-back is the dream! I'd be printing money if I was getting that! SA get bent over on power prices, Puff. Get yourself sorted with a solar setup, man! You can get the same size system as me for like $3-4k if you don't mind going chinese. So on your power prices and usage patterns your pay-back period would be bugger all I reckon. I feel like it's a bit of a rort that they buy the power back from me for 7c then on-sell it for significantly more than that. Is what it is though, and I'm just glad I get something at all for it, rather than it just going to waste. But still...

I reckon you'd benefit from solar even more than me given you're home all day during the day, man! I was surprised it came out so cheap, considering how much I'm just selling back to the grid (about $100 worth @ ~7c per unit a month) as opposed to using (power from the grid costs ~28c per unit). Be interesting to see what it works out like in summer when the aircon is getting a much bigger workout, though. But I'll be setting it to come on during the day while I'm at work, so it's doing the hard work of cooling the house down while the sun's still shining and just ticking over once I'm home.

Was procrastinating while doing a uni assignment yesterday I decided to look at how much my next power bill should be after having solar installed, since I can track all my usage, consumption, exporting etc. Came to a figure of around $20, inclusive of service charges haha. Although, this first one will be higher as I have to pay for cost of having my meter changed over to a digital one and there was a week in this billing cycle before my solar was installed...so it'll be higher this time, but still means I should no longer dread getting power bills.

This was obviously supposed to read "I was hoping to keep the guest bathroom nicer and less doggy for guests etc..."

Damage hopefully doesn't warrant a full replace - my folks had a look and have offered to come over and sand it back and chuck some filler in it etc during the week this week for me, which is nice. Hopefully the dog gets less interested in eating the door once it's painted. To clarify, she wasn't winding the dog up at my house (she's staying at my GF's house) - just in general she gets him all excited and lets him jump up all the time (something we're trying to train him not to do) and so I think he's feeling the separation anxiety a lot more, as he's started barking and carrying on during the night all of a sudden. He munched on the door during the night as I close that door and he sleeps in the laundry at the other end of the hall (which doesn't have a door). Previously he's just sat there and looked through the glass, waiting for us and occasionally made a noise, but usually been fairly good. Little jerk tried a little again last night and did a little extra damage, but I heard it so got up and threw him in the spare bathroom...so think he's gonna have to go back to sleeping in there again. I was hoping to keep the laundry nicer and less doggy for guests etc, hence trying to get him into the laundry and give him some more space...but that's not going well, so back to square one I guess.

Pretty much. It's definitely been noticeable since she arrived.

If it was just one of the other normal doors I wouldn't care so much, as I want to replace them with nicer ones at some point anyway...but the fact he did it on my custom $1,000 newly hung door kinda sh!ts me. It's weird though, as this is the first time he's done it, previously he's just sat at that door and looked through, waiting for us (it has a glass panel at head height for him). GF and I think it's probably her friend that's staying with her atm, as she winds him up and lets him jump up on her all the time etc (all the things we're adamant about him NOT doing)...so that's not helping.

Bloody dog and his separation anxiety...had a good do at my new hallway door that I had custom made and hadn't even painted yet!

HA! Called it way back. Grats, Keify!

Shockworks, hands down - if they're within your budget.

That's what SHE said.

Yeah, I bought the WW2 one when I bought my Xbox one-x...haven't even taken the plastic wrapper off the game haha.

Ha, that sounds like the last time I played CoD. Used to be decently competitive about 6 years ago...now, not so much.

Yeah...I mean, it'd be cool to install my work software on a beast computer with an i9, bulk RAM, big graphics card, big SSD etc etc...but I really wouldn't get the most out of it. I think I just like the idea that I could build a much faster machine with heaps more storage and not need hotswap bays anywhere as I could just jam a 1TB SSD in there cheaply enough now...

Mmmmm yummy. Just having a look through pccasegear makes me realise how long it's been since I build my computer! I could build something soooo much better and a whole lot less complicated! Just can't justify a couple of grand atm though