Tech Corner

[jaylach]

Ya, my ASRock X370 Taichi is long in the tooth but I have come to really like their boards. Originally ASRock was a development part of Asus but went solo in 2002. One of the things I like most is that ASRock boards are just better organized. The organization even includes of running cables. Let's take SATA ports as an example. Too many times I see SATA ports all over the board but with my ASRock it has all 10 SATA3 ports in a bank along the front edge of the board. This just makes building a lot easier and the SATA data cables can be easily bundled for cable routing.

Another thing is that on MANY boards you have to remove the video card to mount and/or change an M.2 drive as they tend to run at 90 degrees from the video so run under the video card. With my ASRock the M.2 slots run parallel to the video card allowing mounting/replacing without having to remove the video card.

Not saying that I'll never use another board but ASRock is where I first look. From my experience they just tend to be better designed and easier to deal with.

 

[anewbie]

Ya, my ASRock X370 Taichi is long in the tooth but I have come to really like their boards. Originally ASRock was a development part of Asus but went solo in 2002. One of the things I like most is that ASRock boards are just better organized. The organization even includes of running cables. Let's take SATA ports as an example. Too many times I see SATA ports all over the board but with my ASRock it has all 10 SATA3 ports in a bank along the front edge of the board. This just makes building a lot easier and the SATA data cables can be easily bundled for cable routing.

Another thing is that on MANY boards you have to remove the video card to mount and/or change an M.2 drive as they tend to run at 90 degrees from the video so run under the video card. With my ASRock the M.2 slots run parallel to the video card allowing mounting/replacing without having to remove the video card.

Not saying that I'll never use another board but ASRock is where I first look. From my experience they just tend to be better designed and easier to deal with.

I know most of my mb are asrock though msi and asus are options when i shop. I avoid gigabyte because i dislike their bios though maybe it has changed since whatever.

Of course these are all moving targets and as market ages so do mb standings with myself

Having said that i've only had one mb fail and it was an ecs.

 

[MaloK]

I look a the specs and it's a great platform, But I you want to add m.2 drives, you are better getting a 8X multi m.2 adapter than condemning third slots 8 lanes for the second m.2 on board slot that would use 3 and hold only 1 drive. Those that are not raid are really inexpensive. But you can get some crazy one that are able to do Raid 0 on 4 drives 4 lanes each with 32 gig of cache ram on board.

A this point the operational power of your data support is reaching about the same speed your cpu can use a video card. Lolll.

I'm seriously planning my next workstation. And seriously considering a mainframe style Threadripper With 512 gig ram and 64 or 96 hyperthreading cores. That will be able to run at least 3 VM's hypervised to the material layer So each OS really thinks it has exclusive access to hardware. And enough resources to carry a significant payload. And maybe Have my own instance of a trainer AI model.. I'm looking at stackable workstation grade GPU, that have lots of cores too. And can be turned to accelerated Neural Processing Unit.

I'm trying to keep up, Possibilities are endless... But not the fraken budget...

 

[jaylach]

Thinking about it I've also only had one motherboard fail. That was an old Epox board that lost an IDE channel... ya, that long ago. Even with that I just needed to switch channels and it was fine.

I DO have a Gigabyte in my second desktop that has been going for around 12 years.

 

[MaloK]

I had many boards blow up liquid capacitors... I have some still in function with the bulged caps.

But once they became solid the next generations are rock solid. Besides software trouble...

As soon as I seen the First Solid Capacitors, I looked at the sky and said... "Finally"!

Loll.

 

[MattW]

Sort of non-tech related, but I have been selling some of my CS2 skins for in-game items as the Chinese influence on the game has made the market go mad. Managed to get £300 this month alone. I am thinking of getting a PS5, mainly for the upcoming GTA. I'm wondering if I should get it now or wait a little longer? And whether or not I should do my own upgrades to it. New SSD is what I was thinking.

 

[jaylach]

Just for those that want to keep using Windows 10 after it reaches end of life on October 14th, 2025 you can use 1000 Microsoft Rewards points for another year of security updates.

Windows 10 users can get extended security updates for 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points

Microsoft is throwing its more stubborn users another bone.

www.engadget.com

Personally I think this is BS as, if they are going to keep doing security updates, they should be openly offered. MS is always talking about web security yet they would deny security updates unless you go through their hoops... I never pay attention to my rewards points but just looked and I have over 34,000 points. Just kidding but I wonder if I could cash in 34,000 points for another 34 years of updates?

If you have a Microsoft account you likely have enough points for this extension without even realizing.

 

[Essjay]

If you have a Microsoft account you likely have enough points for this extension without even realizing.

I've just looked - I have 9 points.

 

[MattW]

Not many left to get then

 

[Essjay]

If you don't do the things to earn points, you don't get them

 

[MaloK]

But the reality is it's going to be working anyway So as W7 was more faded out because it's software support is declining and many of the newer software doesn't work or is really difficult to get running...

I'm pretty sure that there will be computers running W10 in 12 years from now.

Anyway the ball is in their camp should they deactivate one of my working personal setup once because windows or the hardware it's not supported anymore...

And their OS will never be the principal one I will use from there and will never activate a future version of Windows.

While the learning curve of a different OS less known to me is kind of bothersome, the support is excellent, I have more time to get around and once you get knowing what is what. It's a computer so getting used is pretty straight forward...

For those of the old league who had some of the CBM Vic20, C64 or worse PET... And remember the classics...

I started to follow Dave Plummer's YT channel, he's from the old development team at Microsoft.

Dave's Garage

Windows History, Windows vs Linux Comparisons, Arduino Project Tutorials, Shop Projects, ESP32 Information, and more in Dave's Garage. With DIY info and practical step-by-step tutorials. From hobbyist to engineer, everyone is welcome!

www.youtube.com

Dave's Attic

Dave's Secondary channel - See also Dave's Garage for the main content!

www.youtube.com

It's loaded with insiders stories and great stuff.

 

[seangee]

Just for those that want to keep using Windows 10 after it reaches end of life on October 14th, 2025 you can use 1000 Microsoft Rewards points for another year of security updates.

Windows 10 users can get extended security updates for 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points

Microsoft is throwing its more stubborn users another bone.

www.engadget.com

Personally I think this is BS as, if they are going to keep doing security updates, they should be openly offered. MS is always talking about web security yet they would deny security updates unless you go through their hoops... I never pay attention to my rewards points but just looked and I have over 34,000 points. Just kidding but I wonder if I could cash in 34,000 points for another 34 years of updates?

If you have a Microsoft account you likely have enough points for this extension without even realizing.

I'm on the other side of that fence.
In 2008 I quoted a client (big bank who is actually my current employer now ) £5M per year for them to continue using our software on NT4 Worksation (anyone remember that ). Fortunately they chose to upgrade instead because I would have had to set up a complete new dev team to maintain their branch and they would never have got new features.

In 2012 I was working for Vodafone and we had a huge party when Windows XP was finally killed because of the amount of extra work and testing it required to make our web apps work. Then we discovered that many UK government departments had paid for extended support. Our response was too bad, we only support officially supported browsers. MS have published a consistent end of life policy and stuck to it. For normal users the upgrade path is free. Yes there is a hardware upgrade requirement for some, and I initially resisted - in the same way that I resisted moving off Windows XP for longer than I should have. Last year I migrated the users at my wife's company from 10 to 11 and nobody even noticed.

 

[jaylach]

If you don't do the things to earn points, you don't get them

I don't do the quizzes or anything. I just use Bing as my search engine. I don't use Bing to gather points but, rather, just due to the fact that I prefer it.

 

[anewbie]

Just for those that want to keep using Windows 10 after it reaches end of life on October 14th, 2025 you can use 1000 Microsoft Rewards points for another year of security updates.

Windows 10 users can get extended security updates for 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points

Microsoft is throwing its more stubborn users another bone.

www.engadget.com

Personally I think this is BS as, if they are going to keep doing security updates, they should be openly offered. MS is always talking about web security yet they would deny security updates unless you go through their hoops... I never pay attention to my rewards points but just looked and I have over 34,000 points. Just kidding but I wonder if I could cash in 34,000 points for another 34 years of updates?

If you have a Microsoft account you likely have enough points for this extension without even realizing.

I have a windows box 10 that a friend (who was an employee) purcahsed for me; how many times do i have to spit on it to get 1000 points ?

 

[MaloK]

The only time I needed my MS account...

THEY HAD LOST MY PASSWORD.

I don't loose passwords, and google didn't lose a bit in 20 years. And I have many other accounts that lost my passwords over time.

But security oblige. Passwords databases cant be migrated. Because even the administrator cant view them. Well you can view the crippled password but without the real password migration to stronger encryption means forcing everybody to reset their password. Because you simply have no access to these.

So I assume that atm my google passwords are stored in 20 years old encryption cypher... Minimum.

And a couple others that also never forgot my passwords.. Loll.