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Dell Optiplex 3040 and 3050 micro

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 29, 2026August 29, 2026 0 Comment

The Dell Optiplex 3040 and 3050 Micro are useful machines when you need a small form factor, versatility, and affordability. They aren’t as hip and chic as a Raspberry Pi, but they are more expandable and, these days, they’re likely more affordable too. And if you’ve seen prices on computer gear lately, they are not e-waste.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Why Intel stopped making motherboards

Dave Farquhar Hardware January 22, 2026April 11, 2026

For nearly two decades, Intel was a go-to brand not just for CPUs but also for motherboards. On January 20, 2013, Intel pulled out of the market, ending an era. Here’s why Intel stopped making motherboards.

Intel saw motherboard production as a way to protect its brand identity more than as a profit center. Once the industry had several other companies producing motherboards that met acceptable quality standards, Intel had little reason to stay. The key to understanding Intel’s motherboard business is understanding Intel’s mindset. Intel will introduce products just to sell or protect another product, then leave that market when the product no longer needs that support.

Dave Farquhar

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Athlon 64: How AMD turned the tables on Intel

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 23, 2025September 23, 2025

22 years ago, on September 23, 2003, AMD changed the game for x86 once and for all. They released the Athlon 64 CPU, a chip that did something Intel didn’t want. Intel didn’t want to extend x86 to 64 bits. But when AMD did it, it forced Intel to clone AMD, rather than the other way around.

Dave Farquhar

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RTX 3050 GPU in an HP Elitedesk 800 SFF PC

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 28, 2024August 25, 2024

An RTX 3050 GPU seems like the ideal video card for a small form factor desktop like the HP Elitedesk 800 G4. In this blog post, I’ll explain the obstacles that stand in the way of this pairing and options for overcoming them.

Dave Farquhar

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Using a dual fan GPU in a Dell Optiplex 3010

Dave Farquhar Hardware July 3, 2024June 30, 2024

I recently went to install a modern dual fan GPU in my Dell OptiPlex 3010. It is an outmoded machine for gaming, and it’s not supported for Windows 11, but with a powerful enough GPU, I can do some other types of cool GPU work. It can still be a Folding at Home monster, and I can do some AI based image editing with it. But I ran into some challenges trying to install my RTX 3060 in my aged Dell Optiplex. In this blog post, I will tell you how I overcame them.

Dave Farquhar

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What a DASD is besides curious IBM terminology

Dave Farquhar Hardware May 7, 2024May 4, 2024

When reading IBM documentation or looking at a piece of IBM hardware, you may see a reference to an unfamiliar term: DASD. In this blog post, I’ll explain what DASD means and what other terms you may know it by.

Dave Farquhar

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Reduce the pinginess of a mechanical keyboard

Dave Farquhar Hardware December 4, 2023November 19, 2023

A mechanical keyboard will always be louder than a membrane keyboard because of their physical characteristics. A membrane keyboard involves a plastic tray with some keyboard sliders striking a rubber membrane to make contact with a circuit board. Mechanical keyboards almost always have a metal plate that holds mechanical switches with springs in them, so even a linear switch that doesn’t click still makes a tapping noise when it bottoms out, and when bottoming out, it can make that metal plate vibrate and make a pinging noise. Here’s how I reduced the pinginess of my mechanical keyboard.

Dave Farquhar

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A life hack to keep cables organized

Dave Farquhar Hardware October 10, 2023October 1, 2023

We all have a supply of cables that we aren’t using at the moment, but don’t want to discard because we might have a use for them again at some point. And some people will tell you you shouldn’t do that, because the cables will just turn into a tangled mess and you won’t be able to find what you need anyway. Here is a life hack to help you keep those cables organized and keep them from becoming a tangled mess–using something that you would otherwise throw in the trash.

Dave Farquhar

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Is it time to stop buying used Dell Optiplexes?

Dave Farquhar Hardware October 4, 2023August 29, 2026

I saw a YouTube video the other day saying it was time to stop buying used Dell Optiplexes, and he advocated building a new PC based on an AMD Ryzen 5 instead. But is it really as cut and dry as that? In this blog post, I will look at both options.

Dave Farquhar

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A retro style mechanical keyboard

Dave Farquhar Hardware July 5, 2023August 27, 2023

The resurgence in popularity of mechanical keyboards makes me happy. Today, you can get an affordable keyboard whose quality rivals those of the late 1980s and early 1990s but in a variety of sizes and styles and with a USB connection for a modern computer. But if you find the styling a bit over the top, you can retroize these newer keyboards. Here’s how I turned mine into a retro style mechanical keyboard.

Dave Farquhar

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