Tech Corner

[seangee]

Finally completed my first real handsfree Intune Deployment. It's almost perfect. Printers, networks, wi-fi connections, vpn and security all just happened. Just one App I couldn't deploy. The app itself is buggy as **** and I can see that it installs ancient MS dependencies - it integrates with Office 365. Integration is OK but users spend a lot of time in support and I spend a lot of time un-corrupting their exchange mail boxes. Unfortunately its the only game in town for their market - so I have just deployed the installer and tell users to run it. I did extract the installer.exe but there is no MSI inside , so I can't log anything between "Launching Installer"and "Install Failed", I allow 60 minutes. Support's response to how do I do a silent install was you should ask your IT department we don't do that.

I also discovered that real engineers are under no immediate threat from AI. I confess I could not have done it without their help but I have never taken the time to learn powershell. To me its clunky, verbose and messy. Kind of like comparing C++ or Java with lots of heavyweight frameworks to plain old C. Give me bash any day. Ok I've just given my age away .
I created my own debugging and logging scripts to wrap whatever it gave me and always test locally before deployment (and some stuff I can't). I also now do a detailed code review as my skills improve...
Typical exchange
Me: I need a script to be depoloyed via Intune to Windows 11 Pro clients to do xxx running in the user context. Please also give me a detection script so that I can tell if it is already installed.
AI: Here are your scripts (and instructions for creating the deployment package)
Me: Are you sure about line nn in your detection script. How can a remotely run script detect user specific environment variables.
AI: Good catch you are absolutely right, here is an updated version
Me: Ok the deployment script failed here is the outputfrom the log I created myself
AI: Ah that can happen in 64 bit systems
Me: But I told you its Windows 11, have you ever seen a production Windows 11 system running 32 bits
AI: You are absolutely right, the parameter for blah should have been blah, would you like an updated script
Me: No thanks , I've already done it.
Me: That still didn't work - in the end I had to ...
AI: Got it — and that makes perfect sense based on how ...
AI: Here's a polished version of the blah script based on your confirmed working...
Me: Good night!

So it save me loads of learning time - but if I had up to date skills it would probably have taken me 10% of the time it did.

And don't get me started on Microsofts Azure AD implementation. They have completely broken LDAP compatability - pretty sure that's intentional so you can pay a lot more for their directory services.

 

[MaloK]

Not sure about that, Atm Ai is able to work out my worst.

And when programming You don't lose the thread. Everything else is syntax and typos related and can be revised.

And it was really good at getting abbreviations of all sorts, short cuts with line by line annotated reviewed code And even more masterfully helped to streamline the resulting program.

That was really fun... instead of weeks of step by step debugger engine.

It was a enriching conversation of 2 hours with something that speaks the language.

And even found errors from screen shots.

Call me blazed !!!

 

[MaloK]

Played a little more with my future Home server configuration and I'm considering 2 mirrored Hard core ssd's with unlimited payload per year for the hypervisor and the VMs.

Then I'm not sure If I should go full cheaper ssd's vs enterprise spinning rust. The price is about the same, but Life expectancy of consumer grade ssds ? While no OS or application will run on them I'm not sure if I can expect true Raid 6 support and other goodies but the power consumption and sound level would be a lot lower tho. I just have to keep in mind that I need 14 times 2TB.

If I'm reading the specs of the server correctly, It should support 8 PCIe GPU at 8x... I already found two models that will support PCIe pass trough, with low form factor, passive cooling, 512 core, 4 gig ram each... And very, very low power requirement.

Price is still under 1/4 of the threadripper with no disks. And Benchmarks recorded by users are surprisingly showing that the biggest Ripper atm is only 4 time faster in real life computing, than my laptop. It scored around 2.5 times faster than the 8 year old Poweredge. Not what you would expect at a premium cost like that.

 

[MaloK]

After finalizing my new laptop completely...

I have to come down to fact that it will take 6 more gigs in ram to run, more than the last.

I received Upgrade ram, I went with Kingston Fury... This should cut wait time in half from original, while doubling size...

 

[MaloK]

Laptop memory upgrade went very well... While it didn't cut wait time by half, These little cards are really consistent in performance and there's is no slow regions on them... For the price it's a very good deal.

Still not really incredible on gaming because of the entry line GPU, the machine now scores 196% for desktop applications and 122% for server applications. Loll.

That should be good for a couple years... After replacing the NVme. This is the best 150$ upgrade you can do to a laptop.

It really changed the dynamics of the OS... I'm Thinking about mouse water cooling next.

 

[seangee]

The machines I just replaced in my wife's business all originally shipped with Windows 7 to give an idea of age. They were just middle of the road desktops but at the time I gave them all 16Gb of memory. When it became economically viable I upgraded all the mechanical disks to SSDs. They obviously don't need gaming performance but these were still running perfectly well for their use. The main reason for replacing them was they moved into a much smaller office and wanted laptops to support their new hybrid working model.

I would have had to replace anyway because cyber insurance would not have covered them after 14 Oct

 

[anewbie]

The machines I just replaced in my wife's business all originally shipped with Windows 7 to give an idea of age. They were just middle of the road desktops but at the time I gave them all 16Gb of memory. When it became economically viable I upgraded all the mechanical disks to SSDs. They obviously don't need gaming performance but these were still running perfectly well for their use. The main reason for replacing them was they moved into a much smaller office and wanted laptops to support their new hybrid working model.

I would have had to replace anyway because cyber insurance would not have covered them after 14 Oct

Yea i used to build my parents computer and 2 things i did - used the cheapest ssd and lots of ram so they didn't swap; as for processor usually a middy celeron and my dad was pretty happy with his computer - he said at work they gave him an i5 and (which is 10x faster than a celeron) and couldn't figure why the thing ran so slow.

 

[MaloK]

Many computers M$ is trying to push aside are going to be good for a long time after.

I ran a laptop second gen i5 for 14 years and would still be good if I replace the keyboard.

I had to replace it more because for some reason when installing W10. The SDD performance was abyssal and tried many times with different versions and drivers, it always slowed down to a crawl. With W7 it was doing 550 MB/s like supposed to. But W7 is not following software compatibility anymore and is about to become retro computing.

I could turn it into a Linux mint rig that would be able to last another 10 years. loll.

 

[jaylach]

Haven't really decided yet but am thinking about a new build. I would use an existing case, Power supply, drives and video card so all I'd need motherboard, CPU and RAM. As to drives it has 3 Gen 4 M.2 slots so I could use all three of the 1 TB M.2 drives I have. It only has one HDMI port but does have some USB4-C ports that can be used for video output. Regardless I'd use my existing video card, not the onboard video.

If I do it I'm sort of looking at an ASRock Taichi X870.

ASRock X870E Taichi

Supports AMD Ryzen™ 9000, 8000 and 7000 Series Processors<br />24+2+1 Phase Power Design, 110A SPS<br />4 x DDR5 DIMMs, Supports Dual Channel, up to 8200+ (OC)<br />2 PCIe 5.0 x16<br />Graphics Output Options: 2 USB4 Type-C, 1 HDMI<br />Realtek ALC4082 5.1 CH HD Audio Codec,, ESS SABRE9219 DAC...

www.asrock.com

With all the power it offers I'm a little surprised that it is under $200.00 USD. If I remember right it is $179.00 USD at New Egg.

 

[MattW]

I've been wondering what AM5 chip I would go for if I upgraded my system later down the line. For you, going from first gen (if I'm correct) AM4 to 7-8-9000 AM5 will be a huge jump in performance. It will be fun to see what you end up with

I think my B550 and R7 5800X still have quite a bit more to give. By the time I eventually upgrade, we might be on AM6 already

Also, the 9000 AMD GPUs look impressive. But I'm happy with my 7900 XTX

 

[jaylach]

I DID mis-quote the M.2 slots. It also has 1 Gen 5 M.2 slot.

I'm sure that you are correct on the increased CPU performance. I'm sure that I'll also see a performance increase with my graphics card with the later gen PCIe slots. And, of course, going from DDR4 to DDR5 RAM will make a difference.

It would also be interesting to use 2 of the gen 4 M.2 slots with my 2 WD 1 TB gen 4 M.2 drives in a R.A.I.D. striped array and the 3rd gen 4 M'2 slot with a 2 TB M.2 for my clone backups leaving the gen 5 M.2 slot for whatever comes up.

 

[MaloK]

Nice choice, stellar board, All the latest goodies, server grade 27 power phases, 5gig lan, wifi 7, 128 GB/s nvme...

If you don't have the latest and greatest... Change the PSU at the same time

Put OS on gen5 Nvme ---> Serious.

 

[jaylach]

Do you really think a single gen 4 M.2 drive would do better in a gen 5 slot than a RAID 0 on two gen 4 slots? Personally I don't think a gen 4 drive would do any better in a gen 5 slot. If I had a gen 5 M.2 I could see the point but not when the drives are gen 4. I just don't see the sense of buying a gen 5 drive when I already have 2 1 TB gen 4 WD Black drives that already give 3200 MB/sec sequential reads in gen 3 slots. and will be faster in actual gen 4 slots. I mean just putting the drives in gen 4 slots would increase the potential read rates from 3500 MB/sec to 7500 MB/s. Now put that in a RAID 0 and we are talking 15,000 MB/sec. Of course that is not actually true as there are factors that would likely lower the read rates but I think it would be much faster than a gen 4 drive in a gen 5 slot. On the other hand I've read that NVME drives can cause issues in a RAID 0 array. On the third hand this motherboard seems to be designed for RAID with NVME...

I already have a 900 watt modular PSU that I'd use.

Actually, if I do this, it will really be 2 half builds. I'd be using the case from my current second desktop so I wouldn't need to do as much... well there would be some stuff to do.

I'd swap the PSU between the two with the 900 watt going in the newer build and the second desktop's 650 watt PSU going in the current main system. Would also swap the video cards. Not sure if I'd swap the 10 TB worth of media drives or the data drive. They are all the same size and everything is the same between them. Don't really see any sense in swapping the drives as they are the same.

 

[MaloK]

15 minutes job, I mean... Buy A Gen5 nvme for your OS then put your games on the raid 0, if it fails...

The big difference in raid support is not in the controller, but in the drive... RAID rated support is not more expensive for nothing.

Put 10 Samsung evo in a perc controller and at the first power outage. It's corrupted forever...

Even high reliability enterprise RAID controllers will mention as a feature that they support consumer grade drives.

But you have a consumer grade Board there... It should handle consumer grade drives.

 

[jaylach]

15 minutes job, I mean... Buy A Gen5 nvme for your OS then put your games on the raid 0, if it fails...

The big difference in raid support is not in the controller, but in the drive... RAID rated support is not more expensive for nothing.

Put 10 Samsung evo in a perc controller and at the first power outage. It's corrupted forever...

Even high reliability enterprise RAID controllers will mention as a feature that they support consumer grade drives.

But you have a consumer grade Board there... It should handle consumer grade drives.

Actually the motherboard is not exactly consumer grade. On new egg it only comes up under business products. Under consumer on new egg it only shows the X870E Taichi Lite.