I really hate eBay

Travis798

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Yes, see my edit. I meant on the computer I'm using. The laptop/convertable style that's basically a tablet with attachable keyboard. I purchased them for work use as I have need of a highly portable yet capable "computer" that has good pen support and is capable of connecting to an external monitor as I use a 24" monitor in my pickup while working.
 

Brazeal

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That sucks. I rarely buy anything from Ebay anymore. I bought a renewed Dell Vostro 3470 from Amazon for $420 that was supposed to have an I7-8700. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it looked new and had an I7-9700 instead. I had to add more RAM, SSD, 2nd NIC, and larger hard drive.
 

Arjun

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I almost thought about a 10gbps Intel 540-T2 card from eBay that was on auction; almost had it, but glad I wasn't the winning bid. Sold for $50 and first thing that came to my mind was the number of counterfeit Intel Network cards on eBay; many didn't even have the YottaMark/BradyID
Coming to integrated onboard NIC, some of them thermally throttle (depending on the bandwidth). Some of the older board's VRMs can't handle it, which is why I prefer a dedicated NIC

That sucks. I rarely buy anything from Ebay anymore. I bought a renewed Dell Vostro 3470 from Amazon for $420 that was supposed to have an I7-8700. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it looked new and had an I7-9700 instead. I had to add more RAM, SSD, 2nd NIC, and larger hard drive.
 
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IAmATeaf

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I use a server type card for my extra NIC, has I think 3 NICs all at Gb speeds though I only use the 1. They are pretty cheap on eBay, in fact around the same price as a big standard no name NIC card.
 

griffths

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... but apparently it has a M2 slot. I'm not familiar with those but I'm taking it to mean I can still add a SSD into the machine using that.
That is what I did for my Dell Precision 3420. Added a M.2 as the C: drive then used the availalbe 3.5" space for a 8 Tb Purple 3.5" for storage. It has been working fantastic.
 

Travis798

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Just thought I'd post so that everyone can get a good laugh at me. I'm an idiot. It kind of ties in here because I said having no Ethernet sucks because my USB-C hub is completely unreliable. That was the truth. But that USB C hub is a cheapo I purchased to replace my much more expensive Lenovo USB C hub/dock that had quit working on me. I tried everything with that thing. Even took it apart to take a look inside and see what I could see. Checked power with a multi-meter. The thing just wouldn't turn on. Well I got to messing with it again today, because it's hot out and I'd rather be inside, only to realize that there are 2 inputs for the power cable depending on wattage. Strange, but I plugged it into the OTHER one and it's working perfectly. So at least for now I have regular USB ports and external audio, along with my Ethernet connection. Too bad I didn't realize that 6 FREAKING MONTHS ago! Doh!
 

Arjun

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For smaller systems, some like to use Ethernet USB adapters. Depends on which one you use, some are very reliable and never disconnect at all. :rofl: Don't go for cheap. Like they say, you get what you pay for :lol:

Just thought I'd post so that everyone can get a good laugh at me. I'm an idiot. It kind of ties in here because I said having no Ethernet sucks because my USB-C hub is completely unreliable. That was the truth. But that USB C hub is a cheapo I purchased to replace my much more expensive Lenovo USB C hub/dock that had quit working on me. I tried everything with that thing. Even took it apart to take a look inside and see what I could see. Checked power with a multi-meter. The thing just wouldn't turn on. Well I got to messing with it again today, because it's hot out and I'd rather be inside, only to realize that there are 2 inputs for the power cable depending on wattage. Strange, but I plugged it into the OTHER one and it's working perfectly. So at least for now I have regular USB ports and external audio, along with my Ethernet connection. Too bad I didn't realize that 6 FREAKING MONTHS ago! Doh!
 

IAmATeaf

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USB network adapters can be a whole world of pain so I tend to avoid unless it’s for very infrequent adhoc use.

I remember a problem with Dell laptops a Dell supplied adapter which also has a NIC port. During heavy use the NIC port port would simply stop working and W10 would stop seeing it unless you unplugged and plugged it back in. I investigated this for a good month and in the end I discovered that most of these adapters uses the Realtek chipset and any that used this would have an issue. I tried various adapter from Anker but they would all fail, in the end I found that an Amazon basic adapter which had a differing chipset in worked and kept working.
 

Travis798

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The docking station is just for use with this Lenovo tablet/laptop that I'm using. I'm not going to be using it with cameras and blue iris. I only posted about it in case someone needed a good laugh. This is the dock I have. The power circled in red is what I had it plugged into, and green is where it should have been. I fiddled with this thing off and on for months, going as far as taking it apart to figure out why it wasn't getting power. Man I felt dumb when I realized my error!
Lenovo Hub.jpg
 

Frankenscript

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What a crappy design, to have two power input ports using the same plug configuration but apparently designed for different adapter powers. Thanks for sharing this. I will be alert in the future about this possibility.
 

MrSurly

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Interesting thread. I am gathering the bits of my soon-to-be system and the heart of it will be BI on a
Lenovo M700 Tiny Computer i5-6400T Quad 32GB 256GBSSD Win10. I'm adding an eSATA cable port and cable to an external 3.5" drive, # of TB undecided, likely 10+.
The system should see this as internal rather than a network drive as it's SATA to the native 2.5 slot. The OS is on the M.2 SSD. Swapping the VGA to HDMI port.
A V-7 24port PoE switch to tie things together. A few cams now, probably 12~16 later.

Any thoughts pro/con about say, a 12TB 3.5 SATA drive?

Any thoughts about the little M700 format?
 

Frankenscript

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Interesting thread. I am gathering the bits of my soon-to-be system and the heart of it will be BI on a
Lenovo M700 Tiny Computer i5-6400T Quad 32GB 256GBSSD Win10. I'm adding an eSATA cable port and cable to an external 3.5" drive, # of TB undecided, likely 10+.
The system should see this as internal rather than a network drive as it's SATA to the native 2.5 slot. The OS is on the M.2 SSD. Swapping the VGA to HDMI port.
A V-7 24port PoE switch to tie things together. A few cams now, probably 12~16 later.

Any thoughts pro/con about say, a 12TB 3.5 SATA drive?

Any thoughts about the little M700 format?
The T processors are lower power lower capability so you will be able to drive fewer cams than a regular processor. Generally we avoid T and U variants for this reason. However, depending on your needs, it may work just fine for a few cameras.

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MrSurly

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Thats the info I need. Will it run say, twelve cams 24/7? What would be the minimum processor iteration that you'd consider for running 12~16 cams? I only know of the basic heirachy of i3/i5/i7 etc and the generation indicator such as 6xxx but wasn't aware of the T/U suffix import.
 

area651

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Just a warning for shopping on ebay but especially when using paypal. I had an instance where I bought something on an online site (looked valid, not scummy or anything) and paid w/ Paypal thinking I was protected. Unfortunately, later I learned that there's a scam where a company can sell you something, "ship it" and even provide a UPS shipping number (and it shows delivered on the UPS site!) but it never arrives. You contact Paypal and the seller can then say "but it shipped and delivered, here's the tracking number". Crazy thing is that number will show it delivered to you. At that point, Paypal will close the case as done. Even if you contact UPS and get documentation that the tracking number is not related to your address (be prepared for hours on the phones and multiple transfers), you cannot get Paypal to open the case back up. Your money is gone. Paypal sure didn't protect me.
 

Frankenscript

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Thats the info I need. Will it run say, twelve cams 24/7? What would be the minimum processor iteration that you'd consider for running 12~16 cams? I only know of the basic heirachy of i3/i5/i7 etc and the generation indicator such as 6xxx but wasn't aware of the T/U suffix import.
I run BI on a small form factor Dell or HP (I forget which) that runs an i5-6500 (not U or T) with 8 GB and a SSD for the OS, two big hard drives for storage.

I've got 11 cameras ranging from 2-4 MP recording continuously at 10 frames per second direct to disc, using Intel acceleration per instructions here. It normally runs about 30-35% CPU except when I connect to it over RDP and open blue iris, then it spikes to 100%. Not sure why. But that is just once in a while. No spike when I connect via app or web interface.

I am no expert on how much the T series is crippled so won't speculate on number of cams and frame rates it can support, but my system would probably struggle to do much more than it currently does in terms of cams and frame rates. So you probably need fewer cams or more beefy processor. A few cams now should be fine.

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tigerwillow1

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I learned that there's a scam where a company can sell you something, "ship it" and even provide a UPS shipping number (and it shows delivered on the UPS site!) but it never arrives. You contact Paypal and the seller can then say "but it shipped and delivered, here's the tracking number". Crazy thing is that number will show it delivered to you.
Can you be sure that it was the seller that scammed you? I ask because I had an almost identical loss. The UPS truck came to deliver what I had purchased and the driver couldn't find my package. He spent about 15 minutes searching through the truck, and told me he'd be back when he found the package. A few hours later it was marked as delivered. The seller was Dell, so I wouldn't think they run a scam. After waiting a few days in the hope somebody would call me saying they had my package I contacted the seller via ebay and they said they send a replacement. I got a tracking number for it, but it never showed as being turned over to UPS. At that point I ate the $15 loss and bought my cable from somebody else. I have to think the problem with the first delivery was with UPS, unless somebody has a way to manipulate their system to cause this sort of mishap. Another possibility I suppose is that Dell subcontracts their ebay selling to somebody who knows how to manipulate the UPS system.
 

Frankenscript

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Can you be sure that it was the seller that scammed you? I ask because I had an almost identical loss. The UPS truck came to deliver what I had purchased and the driver couldn't find my package. He spent about 15 minutes searching through the truck, and told me he'd be back when he found the package. A few hours later it was marked as delivered. The seller was Dell, so I wouldn't think they run a scam. After waiting a few days in the hope somebody would call me saying they had my package I contacted the seller via ebay and they said they send a replacement. I got a tracking number for it, but it never showed as being turned over to UPS. At that point I ate the $15 loss and bought my cable from somebody else. I have to think the problem with the first delivery was with UPS, unless somebody has a way to manipulate their system to cause this sort of mishap. Another possibility I suppose is that Dell subcontracts their ebay selling to somebody who knows how to manipulate the UPS system.
If the driver didn't deliver the package and marked it delivered, he participated in the theft. I imagine it got lost, And rather than deal with the paperwork he marked it delivered in hopes someone else would deal with it. If I saw the delivered notice in this case I would be speaking with ups manager immediately to report fraud driver activity.

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area651

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Can you be sure that it was the seller that scammed you? I ask because I had an almost identical loss. The UPS truck came to deliver what I had purchased and the driver couldn't find my package. He spent about 15 minutes searching through the truck, and told me he'd be back when he found the package. A few hours later it was marked as delivered. The seller was Dell, so I wouldn't think they run a scam. After waiting a few days in the hope somebody would call me saying they had my package I contacted the seller via ebay and they said they send a replacement. I got a tracking number for it, but it never showed as being turned over to UPS. At that point I ate the $15 loss and bought my cable from somebody else. I have to think the problem with the first delivery was with UPS, unless somebody has a way to manipulate their system to cause this sort of mishap. Another possibility I suppose is that Dell subcontracts their ebay selling to somebody who knows how to manipulate the UPS system.
Your'e thinking like I did. Surely I didn't get scammed. So frustrating!
I contacted UPS and after hours on the phone with them, they finally came back and said the tracking number that the seller gave as my tracking number, the same number that if you put into their tracking system shows as "delivered to me on xx date" was incorrect. They explained they're not sure how the sellers are doing this and making it work. They said I'm not the first to call with this issue. Apparently, I guess, its a bug in their system that crooks have determined how to crack. Also to back up the suspicion, I looked up the web site and it's registered under a hidden name, the address on the site is for a WalMart in KS, the phone number goes to a google Fi account w/ no voicemail, and the email that is posted on the site (the same one that emailed me "thank you for your order") will bounce back as non-deliverable. The most frustrating and disappointing is that Paypal now has the issue as "resolved" and they refuse to reopen it. I've sent all this information that UPS sent me to Paypal, including departments, names and phone numbers of people to contact at UPS to confirm everything I send. In the end, I'm out about $300. Unfortunately I'll only buy from reputable, well established and popular sites from now on.

If the driver didn't deliver the package and marked it delivered, he participated in the theft. I imagine it got lost, And rather than deal with the paperwork he marked it delivered in hopes someone else would deal with it. If I saw the delivered notice in this case I would be speaking with ups manager immediately to report fraud driver activity.

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That's what I though and I told them that I have 24hrs of camera footage that shows I had no delivery that day at all. When UPS determined that the tracking number was a fake, that put the blame to seller. Then when you see the site has only been registered for 4 months, all of the fake info posted, then it really points to the seller. Frustrating as I'm not sure how much other people research companies before they buy from them. The site looked awesome and was covered with hundreds of reviews dating back a couple years. Nevermind that the site didn't exist 5 months ago.

If there's anything to take from this story, just be careful where you buy from. Even if the site looks great and there are lots of reviews, you cant count on them being real. If you really want to check, look and see how long the site has been up, confirm all of the contact info and location addresses with google maps and the local tax assessor office. Really though, who does all that before they order anything? Much easier to just stick to well known stores but even then, how hard is it to get through their contact system and get it resolved?
 

Old Timer

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If you paid pay pal with a credit card, you can call the credit card and protest the charges.
I have had to do this when pay pal would not cooperate.
Credit card withheld funds from pay pal, and pay pal passed it back to seller.
 

tigerwillow1

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I honestly can't imagine any motive for the UPS delivery I didn't get. Since the seller was the Dell ebay store, I've ruled out that they are the source of a scam. I suppose there's always the chance of rouge employees or contractors running a scam under the radar. And why would the UPS driver steal a small package when he had no clue that was in it? The item was a usb-c extension cable that cost $17.99. Wouldn't be a very big payoff for the driver. Yet if he delivered it to somebody else I think the odds are that they would have called me or returned it to UPS for another delivery try. Something failed somewhere by accident or design. Years ago I would have pursued to the bitter end it out of principle. Now I'm too lazy for that amount of money.

Right now I'm fighting a couple of bogus charges from amazon austrailia for about $70. A different scam.
 
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