I bought 200 Raspberry Pi Model B’s and I’m going to fix them

Re:I bought 200 Raspberry Pi Model B’s and I’m going to fix ... by walrus01 on Saturday January 23, 2021 @07:11PM (#25887442)

This is both a good and a bad thing in my opinion. If you have, for instance, a big pile of near identical Lenovo M78 small form factor desktops (https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/desktops/thinkcentre/m-series-t...), it's easy to swap parts between them.

If you have just one unit and a failed power supply, instead of swapping in an ATX power supply you can buy in any local PC repair shop, you have to order the custom weird power supply online and wait for it to arrive. Or if you have a failed fan, maybe it's a standard 60mm or 80mm 12VDC fan, but it has a weird connector on it for how it plugs into the motherboard, so you'll have to take the 'ordinary' PC heatsink or case fans you have on hand and splice the old connector onto it.

Or if you have a failed motherboard (maybe a blown MOSFET?), but you're fairly certain all the other parts are good, instead of getting an ATX motherboard that will work with your CPU and RAM, you need a motherboard for that specific model of Lenovo M78, to match the weird shape and size of the case and rear I/O panel, and to match the specific DC power connections unique to that series and model of SFF desktop PC.

At least hard drives and RAM are common between whitebox PCs and enterprise type semi-proprietary PCs.

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Re:I bought 200 Raspberry Pi Model B’s and I’m going to fix ... by dannyw on Saturday January 23, 2021 @08:03PM (#25887750)

I mean, there is a legitimate reason for these SFF PCs having unique parts: normal/standard parts wouldn’t fit. A SFF PC is designed to be small.

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Re:I bought 200 Raspberry Pi Model B’s and I’m going to fix ... by walrus01 on Saturday January 23, 2021 @08:11PM (#25887811)

but even a regular midtower sized dell or hp pc has a proprietary motherboard, proprietary power supply, other pieces... and there are industry standards for mini-itx motherboards (170x170mm), microatx motherboards, mini and microatx cases, and power supplies that are designed for use in common mini-itx size cases. and also standards for low-profile expansion slot height microatx size cases.

the lenovo m78 I have which I was using as an example is no smaller than an equivalent spec pc built from standardized parts.

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Re:I bought 200 Raspberry Pi Model B’s and I’m going to fix ... by dannyw on Monday January 25, 2021 @02:46AM (#25900495)

I disagree, I’ve spent hours and hours of research on a build with similar volume as the m78 and it’s generally a nightmare.

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