I have a problem. It is a problem I try to hide out of sight and out of mind, one I try to pretend doesn't exist. But it does, and every so often it raises its ugly head to bite me. Most recently, I needed to replace an Ethernet switch as I needed more ports. As I unplugged the old switch, my monitor turned off. Why? Because under my desk I have a cable catastrophe. The mere act of unplugging the old switch had so disturbed and enraged the rat's nest of cables under my desk that in retaliation it decided to turn off my monitor.
So intertwined and confused is the mess beneath my desk that even the most mundane of acts—plugging in a new gadget, removing an old one, sometimes just even moving my feet—threatens to destroy everything.
TFA addresses the perennial problem of cable jungles. I use zip ties. What are the best solutions Soylentils have come up with, and what are their pros and cons?
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:05AM
The natural simple solution: stop working on/at the desk 1 . Working in bed is so much better... seriously, this is why laptops were invented.
(grin)
---
1 Of course this hasn't solved the "rat's nest of cables under my desk", but... who cares? I am no longer there
(repeated grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:31AM
c0lo pls
You can't effectively play FPS games in bed, and, no, browsing pr0n is not an acceptable substitute.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:56AM
The last time I played a FPS (it was Doom), I literally found myself on the floor after I broke the chair "ducking" (in real life) to avoid the missiles. It was ridiculous, I never ever played a FPS again since... what... 'twas 95?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2015, @04:58PM
You can, if you have chosen to use a 50+ inch TV as your monitor instead of a laptop, and have opted for a wireless bluetooth and trackball solution. You PROBABLY don't want to be laying down for optimal reaction time, but given that it's a bed, you have a wide range of potential positions to experiment with.
Couches are an alternative option here that will also work if the bed just doesn't cut it.
Of course, as the original poster here has said, this doesn't actually solve the mess of the cables...it just removes you from where they are.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday September 16 2015, @01:40PM
I don't know what FPS you play, but try the real old-school thing [sauerbraten.org] with trackpad, then retry with wired mouse and tell whether it's the same.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by krait6 on Wednesday September 09 2015, @09:35PM
The natural simple solution: stop working on/at the desk 1 . Working in bed is so much better... seriously, this is why laptops were invented.
(grin)
As any sleep expert will tell you, it's best to limit the things you do in bed to sleep and sex. And beyond that the general advice I've heard concerning sleep is to get up and do something else if you're not able to fall asleep within 15 minutes or so.
The issue with working in bed is that it confuses your reason for being there to other things besides rest, and can lead to issues of difficulty sleeping, because it becomes "a place to think" rather than a place to rest.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:20PM
I have a hunch it may work for sex as well
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Informative) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:14AM
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/categories/departments/workspaces/16195/ [ikea.com]
This or zip ties.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by zocalo on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:41AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2015, @06:58PM
Whereas if you don't bother tying the cables and let them dangle more loosely when you unplug some cable its less likely to yank another cable and unplug it.
Maybe put a tray or shelf under the desk for the cables to rest on.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:18AM
Who cares about the cables under the desk? The cables across the room are the real problem!
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:29AM
I don't think I know anybody like that [xkcd.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday September 10 2015, @03:13AM
Get a Naughty Bunny [iprimus.com.au].
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by stox on Wednesday September 09 2015, @05:09PM
or those running down the hall, up the stairs, hanging over doorways... sometimes I feel like I need a machete.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by basicbasicbasic on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:33AM
You can declutter by moving a lot of things away from your desk. Printers, scanners, and back-up drives don't need to be directly next to the computer and can all be attached to a wireless router / extender and hidden in a cupboard in another part of the house.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday September 09 2015, @11:54AM
Except if you live in an apartment.
(Score: 4, Touché) by basicbasicbasic on Wednesday September 09 2015, @01:21PM
True, in that case it would be "in another part of the apartment".
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 09 2015, @12:02PM
I do the ventilated closet strategy in my home office. Its quieter that way. So my desk needs to be next to a closet door, so what.
Note that in both my case and yours, you're not eliminating the seething mass of snakes you're just moving it from one place you don't see to another place you don't see.
You can "win" by decentralization making each station simpler and easier to build cleanly. I could put my entire house's stuff on my desk but its less messy to have the firewall and wireless access point in place, the giant fileserver and ethernet switch in the basement, etc.
Really its all a bunch of complaining about nothing. I've seen (and made) far worse cable messes with ham radio stations. Workbenches can be worse, I have somewhere over a dozen but less than two dozen "things" on the electronic workbench (a couple power supplies, oscilloscopes, various signal and pulse generators from audio to microwave, frequency counters, meters, an ancient RLC bridge that works too well to dispose of, it adds up)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by basicbasicbasic on Wednesday September 09 2015, @01:19PM
Well yes, it doesn't mean there are fewer cables in total - but by separating one big mass of snakes you make two smaller and more manageable masses of snakes.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 09 2015, @01:59PM
I'm pretty sure the cleanup process of tidying cables scales way beyond linear, so splitting is a win, when possible.
It is fundamentally a combination of a sort to grab the right cable and a routing operation to pathfind its cleaner route so that's not gonna be linear.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by cosurgi on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:44AM
Instead of plastic zip ties I am using those wire-inside-plastic ties that are sold with every cable. When I buy something I do not throw away it, but instead I collect them. Now when you have your ties you do following:
1. disconnect all cables
2. identify sockets that need to be connected.
3. make cables as short as possible (and a little shorter) by folding them into a circle at the one of the cable ends
4. tie all cables together so they form a one very thick pipe-cable
5. connect them
You will be extremely surprised how well the step 3 solves this problem.
Look under my desk: http://janek.kozicki.pl/IMG_3296.JPG [kozicki.pl] , my PC is in the other room because I hate noise and no matter how much money I put into making the PC silent it is never silent. So instead I bought 5 meter cables for me (and 10 meter HDMI cables for my wife, be careful about cable bandwidth though). The cables that you see here are for 3 PCs and 4 LCD screens, plus USB & audio. Headphones, mouse & keyboard are wireless of course, because I hate cables too.
#
#\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
#
(Score: 4, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday September 09 2015, @11:09AM
That's great until you have to change your mouse.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cosurgi on Wednesday September 09 2015, @11:13AM
Actually I had to change it, because it broke few months ago (after few years of use). I did some research earlier and I decided that I like a particular model so I bought exactly the same mouse. Then I used the vendor's software to pair the new mouse with existing wireless mouse&keyboard receiver, and unpair the previous mouse. And that was it.
#
#\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
#
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anne Nonymous on Wednesday September 09 2015, @02:21PM
You can just zip tie the new mouse to the old one.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 09 2015, @05:15PM
Vim + Vimperator. You'll never need a mouse again.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2015, @02:25PM
That's great until you have to replace your keyboard.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday September 09 2015, @03:10PM
To paraphrase Henry Ford.. Make cables as short as possible, but no shorter.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday September 15 2015, @10:13AM
Those wire-inside-plastic can be picked up at garden-stores - they are commonly used for tying up small braches.. Just in case you run out of them.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ledow on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:46AM
Velcro cable ties.
As tight as a cable tie in normal use.
Under major stress (things falling off desks), they will give a little rather than strip and destroy the cables they contain.
When you want to move them, or add another cable to the bundle, you just unzip them and re-zip them.
Cheap as chips for a reel, cut it with scissors and have as long/short as you like (no more tying two plastic cable-ties into each other).
In permanent installs behind walls and in roofs, yeah, maybe a plastic cable tie but that worries me for things like fibre if they are put under any stress, and they should be in proper encasement elsewhere anyway.
For behind-desk stuff with humans wanting to use them - velcro ties.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Leebert on Wednesday September 09 2015, @02:27PM
Not only Velcro, but also replace as many cables as you can with cables of appropriate length. Standard power and data cables can be purchased at practically any length, and removing the need to find space for excess slack can have profound effects on the neatness of your cabling.
My TV has several 0.5 meter HDMI cables; my computers have power cables as short as 18 inches.
(Score: 5, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday September 09 2015, @10:52AM
Even the power sockets are shocked at the state of those cables.
D:
D:
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DancesWithRobots on Wednesday September 09 2015, @11:51AM
Tacked or taped where ever needed. Extra cord length gets tucked inside. Cheap, easy to do, and easy to deal with when the inevitable change is necessary. I think I picked this one up from some handyman magazine back in the 70's.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VortexCortex on Wednesday September 09 2015, @12:35PM
First step is to try and simplify the stuff you have. If you have multiple systems try splitting up the workload of devices between them and using a network.
When it comes to wirespace you are ultimately facing a concurrency problem. You need to parallelize the desk so it doesn't become a FIFO buffer (last device added must be removed first). As with all Computer related problems the solution is usually to add another layer of abstraction. In this case, you may be able to add a new dimension to your 2D desk-space problem: In addition to desk-space and floor-space, use wall-space. My solution is a bit risky and not for everyone: Mount the PC components on the wall (on lexan), put shelves beside them for components. Treat the space between the wall and the screen/keyboard/chair as the solution space, and accept that such a space needs to exist to solve the problem.
Once mounted to the wall one can treat the computer like art (cable it neatly). Invite your hipster friends over and remark that you purchased a new art piece and see what they say about it. They may want to install a few in a modern art exhibit (or as post-modern art, which can literally be shit).
Bonus: Coverless computing improves airflow and makes dusting a breeze. At work, server racks are a 3D solution to the 2D problem. At home, if the problem space gets too cluttered I suppose I could make a computer-mobile (hanging structure kind, not vehicular, also not not to be confused with mobile-computer [a device that periodically checks whether a nerd has social skills and promptly removes them]).
Meditate for wisdom and the Flying Spaghetti Monster will guide you: Fork it, sometimes you need less noodles and more balls.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cafebabe on Monday September 14 2015, @08:14AM
I take the opposite approach. I connect the most important devices first with the intention that the least important devices can be most easily removed. As a bonus, I always connect devices to power strips from left to right. Therefore, anyone who removes devices in my absence knows what to remove while minimizing system degradation. If you don't keep labels current then this is the next best solution.
I thought that noodliness was next to godliness. Or something like that.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2, Interesting) by SDRefugee on Wednesday September 09 2015, @01:52PM
We've lived in our current house since 1996, and my "datacenter" (our third bedroom) is afflicted with this problem.. I *still* have some sections of the 10base2 coax I used when we first moved in, along with multitudes of other power/audio/you_name_it cables. I'd always intended to crawl under the desk and kill/remove these "snakes" but there was *always* *something* ahead of it on the "priority list"... I'm now retired, since 2010, but in 2013, I took a fall, blowing out the ligaments in both knees, causing me to spend a month in the hospital, leaving me with scars on both knees, and extreme difficulty in crawling
around under desks on my knees, like I did for nearly 25 years in my working career as a network admin/support tech.
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2) by Snow on Wednesday September 09 2015, @03:59PM
Don't be that guy that dies and leaves a huge cable-mess for their children to clean up! When you die, they will not remember you, but rather the mess you left behind!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday September 09 2015, @02:01PM
First off, do what I do: completely disconnect and remove EVERYTHING from your desk. Empty it and scatter, yet group your items on the floor/bed/table. Second, like a few others have said, buy velcro cable ties and possibly a cable tray or other organizer.
Okay. Now that you have an empty desk, start by looking at what you NEED to do most of your work. Monitor, keyboard, mouse, CPU case. Two power cords and some USB cabling if you use corded input devices. Route them neatly and tie them up. Advice: If you can, mount the outlet strip to the desk, possibly under it. The use a shelf or cable tray of some kind to get the power cords off the floor.
Look at the rest of the crap on your floor/bed/table and throw it out. Well, I kid but I always find that most of the shit piled on my desk over time is rarely used. At one point I switched to using headphones for gaming but I still had speakers with a sub. Why? So during my clean sweep, they went into a box and stowed away. When I went back to using speakers I did the reverse, the speakers came out and the headphones were put away. I also used to have two USB ATA disk enclosures each with a 120GB disk. It made no sense when 1TB was under a hundred bucks and they didn't need to be portable. So I bought a 1TB, installed it in my case and moved everything from those two disks to the new internal. More free space and four fewer wires. Another trick? Use splitter style IEC cords for multi monitor setups. This place has close to every type of power cord and accessory you can possibly ever need: http://www.stayonline.com/5-15-c13-splitter-cords.aspx [stayonline.com]. I bought the 18AWG, 6 foot IEC cord with twin 24" legs for my dual monitor setup. Eliminated one more cord on the floor.
My networking setup is a cluttered mess and has way too many wall warts. Router, Modem, low power Linux server and switch. I moved them off my desk and to a table next to it. They were less intrusive yet accessible and I gave them their own outlet strip and 1 foot cords to deal with the damn wall warts.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2015, @02:14PM
I don't do it religiously, but I like to label the plugs (eg: server, router, monitor).
I always feel a little silly doing it, but tend to thank myself a few months down the road when I forgot which cable is which.
The biggest danger is lazily re-using the cables without changing the label. Masking tape gets gummy, and stickers meant for envelopes sometimes fall off.
(Score: 2) by joshuajon on Wednesday September 09 2015, @06:35PM
They do make labels designed for this purpose [amazon.com]. There's also label maker tape designed for labelling cables.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2015, @07:40PM
90 cents per tag is pricey though, You can get a whole roll of tape for that price.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Wednesday September 09 2015, @03:26PM
Having fought this battle for decades now, I think the first thing to do is admit it: entropy exists.
Whatever solution I've tried - and I've tried several with about equal success - one thing remains Occasionally, you just have to take everything apart and put it back together.
Our desks are basically just wooden tables. I actually like this better than custom computer furniture, because you can roll your own solution, based on what you need. I've screwed the power strips to the underside of the table, so that there is only one power cord from the table to the wall. I've also screwed hooks into the bottom of the table, and the cables are suspected from those hooks using whatever you want: zip-ties, velcro strips, string, it doesn't matter. The computer itself is also attached under the table, using a standard computer rack made for that purpose. The result is that only one power cable and one network cable go from the desk to the wall. Importantly: nothing touches the floor, which makes cleaning, um, possible.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1) by throwaway28 on Wednesday September 09 2015, @04:36PM
Cables are beautiful. A tiny scar of honor. "I have battled the problem of no mouse, and this usb cable is proof." "I have battled the problem of no audio, and this headphone cable is proof." "I have battled the problem of no network connectivity, and this tangled mess of 5 ethernet cables is proof."
(Score: 2) by Username on Thursday September 10 2015, @03:36AM
Paint a sheet of 2’x4’ 3/4" thick plywood with two coats of white fire retardant paint on all side. Find a spot to mount the plywood on the opposite side of the wall that has the external demarc, so the telco/cableco idjit can find it. Give it 24" from any electrical cables runs and near enough to a preexisting outlet or wiring you can tap into. I like to mount it below the data cable hole so the wires hang down so when I unplug them so they don’t wander too far away, and above the electrical outlet. Set plywood on table and trace out hole patterns for router and modem. You will want to have them positioned so the power cord comes out sideways, and not facing towards the ground or it will just unplug itself. If your router is standard rack size, buy or fabricate a wall rack to give it that professional look. Make sure to leave 6" between devices. Measure twice. Mount plywood directly to wall with sufficiently long screws making sure you go into the stud. Most off the shelf routers will use 6-32 for mounting screws. Racks will most likely be 12-24 but the holes for mounting will not be threaded. Screw a piece of inch board to bottom of where your rack will be, balance rack on board and use selftaping screws to mount rack to backboard. Take off inch board and fill screw hole with putty and paint over. If you are mounting directly to backboard get wood inserts. They’re usually about 1/4" so drill holes one size smaller into plywood and screw the inserts into the plywood, attach screws and mount the hardware. If it doesn’t slide down or line up exactly and the hardware is light, use longer screws and tilt them to where they should be attached.
Go to your desk and measure 4" above the counter top and find an area for an electrical old work box that can supply as many outlets as your desk needs(3 gang is six), and for a single gang lowvoltage bracket for your tele/data com. Don’t put them right next to each other or ontop of a stud. Better to have them in separate bay between studs. Usually 16" on center between studs. Find out where you can drill into the stud bay or use a preexisting hole. Make the hole in the center or at least 1" from outside of the stud or joist. Do not use same hole for low voltage data cables, make another one. Make sure data will be 2" from electrical cabling. Make a 1/4" hole in wall in the center of where your outlets will be and make sure there isn’t any surprises behind it. Cut out holes with drywall knife. Place lowvoltage bracket into hole and leave the electrical box out. Push fish tape up through the hole and grab it out of wall through the cut outs and tape wiring to it and pull wire through the wall and all the way to where it connects to the patch panel or electrical box. If it’s from above can just drop through the hole and pull through cutout. Tack electrical to runners leaving enough at the end to work with, or if there isn’t any preexisting runs; nail on inch board runners then tack to runner. Can put data on hooks to look professional or just tack it, making sure it’s 2" from electrical cabling. Cut off cabling leaving 6" out of box. Bend electrical wire a bit so it doesn’t fall back into the wall, punch hole out of electrical box and stick wires through then mount box into cutout. Strip wires and attach to outlets, folding back into electrical box. White to light colored screws, black to dark colored screws, ground to green. Put electrical tape around screws and bare wire. Shut power off to box you’re taping into, open it up and attach wiring to its corresponding color with wire connectors that are big enough for the number of wires your connecting. Tape it. Turn power on and test outlets. Can do the same steps to do an outlet near the backboard if needed. Strip off 1" of the data cables jacket, use 110 punch down to attach data cable to keystone. Follow the colors on the wiring guide. Do the same on other end to terminate onto patch panel, or if there isn’t a rack do another keystone. Mount keystones into wall plate and screw onto bracket. Plates use the same 10-32 screws as your PC, I like to use pan head 10-32 pc screws instead of the crappy sloted ones that are covered with paint.
Plug in and power on the equipment attached to the backboard. Put PC ontop of desk counter instead of underneath. Use small patch and power cords to outlets so they do not hang under desk.
Problem solved.
(Score: 2) by Username on Thursday September 10 2015, @03:38AM
10-32 not 6-32 for off the shelf router/switches/ modems.
(Score: 1) by Bronster on Thursday September 10 2015, @03:43AM
1) Get a barrel full of monkeys
2) https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151313272488745.523815.769138744&type=1&l=d43306b8ab [facebook.com]
3) profit
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday September 10 2015, @07:57AM
For bigger machines (desktops, laptops) I use velcro-strip at the desk (and a staplegun if I need to attach the velcro)
For smaller machines (mini-itx, rpi, industrial) I have started to use DIN-rails for attaching the macines, and using a "cable channel" for the cables.
Cable channel are also used for any cabling that is to remain untouched for more than three months. Unless it involves lots of bends, in which case it is velcro-time again.
Oh, and for all the small periphials (mouse, usbsticks, cardreaders, mice) I use those small baskets intended to keep soap/shampoo/toothbrushes in the bathroom.
And yes, I do have hanging sleeves I put mousemats in.