Chapter 2 – The Basement Lab
Chapter 2 – The Basement Lab
Finding His Space
Anon had always needed a place where he could tinker without interruptions. A space where he could think, experiment, and work without worrying about someone barging in. His house had a basement—old, unused, and forgotten—the perfect place for his personal lab.
Most basements were either storage spaces or neglected junkyards, and this one was no different. The air was musty, and dust clung to every surface. There were piles of old furniture, broken appliances, and discarded boxes his parents had dumped over the years.
His parents never went down there. They assumed he was just an engineering student spending extra hours on assignments, lost in books and coding. They supported his education and didn't ask questions as long as he was doing well. That belief worked perfectly in his favor.
Anon cleared out a section of the basement, leaving just enough space for a makeshift workstation. The walls were bare concrete, cracked in places, but he didn't care about aesthetics—functionality was the only thing that mattered.
At first, his setup was nothing more than a rickety wooden table, an old chair, and a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. But he knew this was just the beginning.
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Scavenging for Hardware
Anon's first real challenge was hardware. He needed computers, storage, and power—but he wasn't about to waste money on expensive new components.
Instead, he took a scavenger's approach, gathering what he needed from various sources:
College Labs: His engineering college had outdated computers lying around in storage rooms. Some were marked for disposal, others were just gathering dust. With careful observation and a bit of "casual borrowing," he managed to acquire a few old motherboards, CPUs, and power supplies.
Junk Shops & E-Waste Centers: Electronic scrap dealers often had damaged or discarded office PCs, cooling fans, and networking equipment. He spent hours picking through old computer cases, pulling out anything remotely useful. A few broken GPUs, an old power supply, and some half-working hard drives made it into his stash.
Online Marketplaces: People often sold "faulty" computer parts online for dirt cheap—things they thought were dead. But Anon knew better. He got a used NVIDIA GPU that overheated, a motherboard with a faulty capacitor, and a few RAM sticks with questionable stability.
After several weeks of scavenging, he had enough components to build a working system.
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Assembling the First Workstation
His first machine was far from perfect, but it was functional:
CPU: A second-hand Intel i5 processor, outdated but still usable.
RAM: 8GB salvaged from two different machines.
GPU: An old NVIDIA card with an overheating issue.
Storage: A mix of three salvaged hard drives, totaling around 500GB.
Power Supply: A repaired unit from an old office PC.
He connected everything on an open wooden table, leaving the side panels off the CPU case for better airflow. His hands trembled slightly as he pressed the power button.
A faint hum. The screen flickered. Then—the BIOS screen appeared.
A grin spread across his face. It worked. It wasn't the most powerful setup, but it was his.
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Pushing Hardware Limits
Anon wasn't satisfied with just having a working computer—he wanted more power. That meant modifications, optimizations, and pushing his hardware beyond its limits.
1. Overclocking the CPU
His Intel i5 was running at 3.2GHz, but he knew it had more potential.
He accessed the BIOS and manually increased the clock speed:
3.4GHz – Stable.
3.6GHz – Still stable, but heating up.
3.8GHz – Occasional system crashes.
At 4.0GHz, the system failed to boot.
He restarted, adjusted voltage settings, cooling, and power limits. After several tweaks, he found a stable speed at 3.9GHz—30% faster than its original clock.
2. Solving the Overheating Problem
Overclocking produced a lot of heat. His old GPU already had overheating issues, so he needed better cooling.
He ripped out an old car radiator and converted it into a makeshift water-cooling system, using repurposed tubing and a second-hand aquarium pump.
He salvaged extra cooling fans from old computers and adjusted their placement for better airflow.
He experimented with different thermal pastes, applying varying amounts to see what worked best.
After weeks of trial and error, he achieved a stable, overclocked system with manageable temperatures.
3. Modifying Old Components
Anon didn't stop at improving performance. He repurposed old components in creative ways:
He converted an old laptop battery into an emergency backup power source.
He hacked a damaged motherboard into a secondary control unit for testing risky modifications.
He combined multiple hard drives into a RAID setup, increasing speed and redundancy.
His basement wasn't just a storage space anymore—it was becoming a personal research lab.
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Expanding the Setup
One machine wasn't enough. If he wanted to run simulations, test algorithms, and eventually create something bigger, he needed more computational power.
He built a secondary machine using leftover parts, configuring it as a networked compute node.
He experimented with running multiple GPUs in parallel, testing whether he could distribute workloads efficiently.
He explored alternative operating systems and lightweight Linux distros, optimizing his setup for raw performance.
Bit by bit, he was building a true high-performance lab.
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The Beginning of Something Bigger
Anon leaned back in his chair, staring at the dimly lit basement around him. His setup was still crude—exposed wiring, salvaged parts, and makeshift cooling systems. But he had learned more in the past few months than any textbook had ever taught him.
This was just the start.
He had computers. He had control. And soon, he would push his skills even further.