Riddle me this: Tek's 2-room puzzle

this is what you need x2
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I wouldn't hesitate drilling through the wall, a 1.5 inch hole wont affect the structural integrity of an inner wall, even if it is load bearing.
 
You know that socket, the color of the RGB cables and the way the cables spread, it's reminds me of something throwing up rainbows... or maybe I've just got Critter Crunch on the brain from Tek talking about it XD :p .
 
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Tek7@Work said:
What about drilling through the floor as close to the wall as possible, running the cable under the wall (which would involve venturing into the crawlspace), then drilling a matching hole in the other room and running the cable up to it's destination?
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Drilling through the floor will be harder to fix then just drilling through the drywall.
 
Tek7 said:
So my computer upgrades should arrive Monday (after FedEx Tracking originally stated they would arrive today, but that's another matter entirely).

Once assembled, I'll have a beastly machine more than capable of playing any game on the market (after limping along on a Dell Studio 1737 with a Mobility Radeon HD 3650 for years), not to mention 1080p video.

Trouble is, I like games better suited for play at a desk with keyboard, mouse, and headphones (e.g. Natural Selection 2, Guild Wars 2, Team Fortress 2) AND games that play best on a HDTV with a wireless gamepad (e.g. Critter Crunch, Renegade Ops, Cave Story+). The desk will be in the bedroom, on one side of a wall. The living room and HDTV will be on the other side of the same wall.

"Simple," I thought. "I'll just drill a small hole in the wall between rooms and run the cables through the hole."

Not so fast.

It seems there's a board (my apologies for not knowing the proper term; I build computers, not houses) that would require drilling through to make my plan work. I don't want to do that as I don't want to damage the house and I certainly don't want to raise my utility bill or lower the potential selling price of my house.

So what's a man to do? The little research I've done so far suggests that companies may have already abandoned wireless HDMI technology (though I've suspected for some time that Valve may help give the technology a nudge with their supposed interest in hardware innovation) and it seems daft to buy a new case and new power supply to build a second computer solely for gamepad games and MediaPortal. Besides, I don't want any computers in the living room as any machines with the power to play some of the more demanding gamepad games probably wouldn't (or shouldn't) fit inside an ultra small form factor box.

I want to use one computer for everything, mirror the displays on the monitor I've purchased (which is gorgeous, by the way) and on the HDTV. When I want to play NS2, I leave my HDTV turned off and play on my monitor. When I want to play Critter Crunch in the living room, I turn off my monitor, turn on my HDTV, and grab a wireless gamepad.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?
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actually a shuttle toaster sized machine is exactly what i have setup for my wife and it runs fine....thermals and all. Modern technology has really improved and SFF are not evil incarnate anymore. Secondly..what you are hitting is a stud..and a hole through it( as long as it's not too big) isn't going to hurt anything. Otherwise it's pretty easy to move over a few inches to avoid the stud..get a drywall saw(if you have drywall) and cut one side of hte wall's drywall away allowing you to reach in and problem to see what is back there. If thee is wiring(probably unlikely if there is't an outlet within a foot of where you are cutting) then you can use a long screwdriver to move things out of the way and see your path. if your house is an older one with plaster and lathing..then things get trickier only from damaging plaster(aka making a bigger mess than you want to) but otherwise this isn't hard to do.
 
Gotta think about leaving a 1" hole in the floor. Yup carpet can hide it, but that hole is still there. Drywall is much easier to patch. The only thing I can think of wood in a drywall wall is a stud, in which case I agree moving a couple of inches either way will enable ya to miss it. And I agree, be very careful especially when drilling holes in a wall, wires be lurking back there. My usual problem is trying to find a stud and missing it. Of course ya could take the 3 Stooges method and pick up a sledge hammer and start whaling away at it.:p
 
I agree with the person who posted saying that looks like the backside of the drywall in the wall. You could always prod it with a sharp implement to see if you get through to gypsum (white power that is sandwiched in drywall) or if you get wood splinters instead. I expect you will find it is simply the drywall on the opposing wall.

I would definitely drill through the wall instead of the floor. The wall goes from one insulated, inside area to another. Drilling through the floor involves going from an insulated area to a non-insulated area and back again. You could potentially keep the hole tight and minimize loss of a/c or heat, but you are still better off dealing with drywall over wood. I could patch drywall all day, but ripping out wood and replacing it is much more labor intensive.
 
ursen said:
My usual problem is trying to find a stud and missing it. Of course ya could take the 3 Stooges method and pick up a sledge hammer and start whaling away at it.:p
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Stud finders are a glorious invention. Too bad mine goes off anytime I pick it up. . . :D
 
Well, my father-in-law came over today and looked over the scene with me. I ended up driving a small nail through the board behind the coaxial wall plate in the living room and it came out a few inches to the side of the corresponding coaxial wall plate in the bedroom.

Unfortunately, there's a thin block of solid wood between the two, which means I can't use the existing hole on the bedroom side AND it also means that I'll have to either (a) call AT&T U-Verse to come out and move a cable from one wall plate to another, (b) figure out a way to do it myself, or (c) run 4 network cables (U-Verse gateway, HDTV, PS3, PS2) from the living room to the bedroom.

So it's definitely possible to do what I want to do. The challenge is going to be keeping the U-Verse gateway, wireless router, and PC all on the same side without running more cables than I had originally planned.

But it's progress!
 
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Disregard my previous post. I figured out a way to work around the beam between the living room coaxial wall plate and the bed room coaxial wall plate without having to move the cable or run 4 more network cables. I'm a tad embarrassed I didn't think of it sooner. ^^;;
 
Wait wait wait.. there's a beam involved? The previous diagram is all wrong! Wrong wrong wrong! I think no progress can be made until an accurate representation be presented!
 
Tek7 said:
Disregard my previous post. I figured out a way to work around the beam between the living room coaxial wall plate and the bed room coaxial wall plate without having to move the cable or run 4 more network cables. I'm a tad embarrassed I didn't think of it sooner. ^^;;
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You just went around the piece of wood didn't you?
 
Stc95 said:
Wait wait wait.. there's a beam involved? The previous diagram is all wrong! Wrong wrong wrong! I think no progress can be made until an accurate representation be presented!
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My PC upgrades are scheduled to come in today, but I'll see if I can set aside some time with MS Paint to diagram the plan this week. :)

[toj.cc]phantom;469473 said:
You just went around the piece of wood didn't you?
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Heh. Not yet, but that's the plan. :) Won't be as pretty, but it'll get the job done without having a U-Verse tech come out.
 
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