Subj : Re: USB lock up - poo! To : Barry Martin From : Ky Moffet Date : Sun Dec 27 2020 14:30:00 BARRY MARTIN wrote: > Hi Ky! > KM> And guess what... remember I was a bit dubious about the future > KM> of Cash (Tarnish's twin, except for being made in Taiwan instead > KM> of China)... well, yesterday I plugged in the USB floppy drive, > KM> and... lordy, the solid lockup like you've never seen!! Took > KM> several restarts to get it to remember that it has other USB > KM> stuff. Well, I sure won't be using the USB floppy drive with it > KM> again! (At a guess, too much power draw...) > KM> USB floppy drive worked fine with Bullet. > > Well, possibly Cash might be the recipient of a capacitor transplant. Might be in its future, yeah... assuming it's still in use. But when I FINALLY get Silver II completely in service, it'll probably go back to its old job, which is about as static as it can be (second streamer during baseball season) and never needs USB anything. Tellya, tho... has sure shown that a 2.6GHz quadcore (Tarnish) outperforms a 3.2GHz Core2Duo (Cash). Latter gets clogged up about 10x as often. > KM> Oh, speaking therewhich, found a USB driver for DOS that works > KM> with flash drives (tho the USB keyboard doesn't work at the same > KM> time). Will have to find the URL again and post it over in > > Yes, I'd be interested if nothing more than troubleshooting. Have > several PS/2 keyboards and mice -- of course helps if the motherboard > has the ports! Ugh, will have to remind me another day. > KM> DOSTips. Not only that, but DOS7 works with a 128GB exFAT drive. > KM> Would not have expected DOS to be able to read exFAT. (DOS6 is > KM> limited to 2GB drives. I prefer DOS7 so don't care.) > > I'd probably be using an older version of DOS just because what I have > here, LIS, at this point troubleshooting, though eventually just for > old fun..... DOS7 has enough perks to be well worth the switch; just peel it out of Win98, or off any of numerous bootdisk sites. Large drives and FAT32 support are definitely a never-going-back for me. > > I've been half-looking at Intel motherboards and CPUs, mainly the Newegg > KM> You mean motherboards and Intel CPUs, since Intel not only no > KM> longer makes motherboards, they removed all support for their old > KM> ones, much to everyone's annoyance. (Bullet has an old Intel > KM> mainboard.) > > Darn shortcut English I use! "Intel motherboard" didn't mean a > motherboard manufactured by Intel but rather a motherboard using an > Intel CPU. As for the removal of support - bad Intel! Haha okay :D > They probably cited storage or some other relatively flimsy reasoning. > And as for the removal of support, why I try to grab as much information > as possible, though usually I'm grabbing manuals and that type of > information as I don't use Windows so don't need those drivers, etc. > (OTOH there are some Linux drivers not from the usual Linux sources.) Some guy was pulling the support files and watching them disappear right before his eyes... so what he could get is on archive.org now. 340GB. > KM> last year's model, so you end up in the same place and save a ton > KM> of money. > KM> (Well, maybe a ton in pennies..) > > Yes on the pennies! I will probbaly go more with an Intel-based (I > learned!) motherboard I like and match it with an Intel CPU; my > 'reverse' of checking out the Intel CPUs was more to see what's to look > for -- know from the current AMD-based motherboard a 95W CPU is better > toleraated than the 125W CPU version, though probably some other factors > in there which made the CPU cooler. Yeah, sometimes a problem. Not so much with the newer Intel CPUs, tho. Basically if the board supports it, it should be fine. > Also seeing a lot of the same CPU beign offered from Newegg. Not > surprising from being in retail: the usual sale cycle of full price, > sale at 30%, sale at 25%, sale at 40%.... And for poops and giggles > will have to check out what the "Avengers Edition" is: boot logo screen? No idea, probably something to sucker gamers. I want to see the boot stuff, I don't want no durn logo! First thing I disable. > > Motherboard selection generally seems less complicated: either is able > > to use the selected CPU or not, do want certain options, don't need > > others, etc. > > Right: one reason why I was doing it backwards so could be somewhat > ready for those one-day sales: I like this board, grab a CPU for it. Or > is the CPU being offered as part of the package deal any good? And no, > not necessarily going to go with a package near nor even with Newegg -- > just a starting point. I'd grab the board first, as there's usually some flexibility in what CPUs it'll support, but a given CPU may have a very limited compatible boards list. And by the time you get there, that board may not be readily available anymore. That's kinda what happened with Fireball -- I'd grabbed the CPU when I saw one cheap, intended to swap into Silver II so I could use the server's old RAM, but then found the desired RAM cheaper than expected, so now I had this homeless CPU, too good to languish unused but with no board in sight. Had been looking for some time when I finally tripped over a suitable board (NO! NOT DEAD!! MINE!!!) and that was sheer chance. Also, should you happen to miss the marketing window -- there are tons more CPUs available cheap used with near-zero chance of being defective, so if you have the board you can always find it a CPU, and if need be start cheap and upgrade. Frex, used LGA2011 Xeons go from $5 to $200. The $5 is adequate, and the $20 is equivalent to the fastest i7 that socket supports, tho the $200 is about 2x faster. All on the same board. > KM> Several SATA3 ports, maybe M.2 ports (but I don't like the idea > KM> of something that hot flat against the mainboard, and an adapter > KM> in one of the PCIe slots works just as well and stays a lot > KM> cooler), at least a couple USB3 ports, more PCIe slots than you > KM> think you need (minimally 2 or better yet 3 each of 16x and 4x, > KM> not just a 16x and a 1x), at least 4 RAM slots, layout not too > KM> cramped so fullsized ATX. That was my basic criteria when I went > KM> shopping for Silver's new guts. Happened on a CPU/board combo > KM> that was featureful enough, and here we are today. > > Yes, the ability to expand is somewhat important: who knows what option > will be made available? Not a fan on on-board video so need PCIe x16, Onboard video is usually good enough nowadays (unless they did something stupid like skimp the shared RAM down to 8mb, like the older Dell did!) Won't hold up to modern games and maybe not to very high def video, but certainly good enough for ordinary use. I no longer bother with a vidcard unless it's skimped (like that Dell). However, the LGA2011 CPUs don't support onboard video (being it's all one with the CPU nowadays) so those perforce need cards. Which are whatever was either laying around or could be found cheap and fanless. (Very tired of GPU fans going noisy and bad and being worse than none. Bullet's vidcard, I finally just dumped the fan and shroud and it's no worse off.) > which of course uses a PCIe x16 slot -- might be nice to have a second > one available. Yeah, and having only one PCIe x16 generally indicates corner-cutting. I still like to see half a dozen slots of one sort or another. > Built-in USB 3 (and 3.1, which is and isn't C - argh!!) is a plus - why > use a PCI(e) slot? Plus I tend to think if the motherboard comes with > the lastest-and-greatest in USB then it probably is also more up-to-date > in other factors. That too. And not chintzy somewhere. Turns out the reason we only get a couple USB3 ports is because the USB3.x chip is about $40 per pair of ports (or at least was a year or so ago, when I heard about this), which is an awful large chunk of the cost against a $100 motherboard. > Based on my limited experiences it also seems any random video card will > work fine -- as long as it fits in a slot and the BIOS cane be switched > to it. Yeah, since I'm not doing modern games, all I want is a decent picture, no lag or ghosting and good color, and it'll do. > KM> As a general rule, boards with overkill numbers of slots and > KM> ports also do not cut corners on less obvious stuff, and boards a > KM> bit short on ports probably skimped elsewhere. Over the years > KM> I've noticed a parallel trend in longevity, too. > > Ok, yes -- I don't have nearly as much experience as you do on that > detail but I have used the same criteria: if a motherboard seems to be > cutting corners on something like two USB 2.0 ports instead of four then > it seems they also have skimped on some other parameters. ...Doesn't > always work: this motherboard has 6 USB 2.0 ports on the rear panel and > apparently that design division didn't cut corners but the crew > designing the Southbridge circuitry did! Or just goofed up -- as complex as these things are, I suppose it's not that hard to get your wires crossed somewhere in the depths of the many layers in a modern board. However, when it's been going on for several years, you'd think they'd fix it... > > > .. Take the lemons and make lemonade! > > Take the salmon and make salmonella! > KM> Ain't biology wonderful? :D > > Yup! And seems no one remembers the old ad that had "Hey Sal! Sal > Monella!". I certainly don't. Side note: I desperately need a different form of Courier. Dark Courier doesn't grow nicely and gets all weird, like someone colored in all the 'windows' in the letters. Regular Courier isn't dark enough. SeaMonkey doesn't believe Bold exists. *sigh* þ RNET 2.10U: ILink: Techware BBS þ Hollywood, Ca þ www.techware2k.com --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com | 856-933-7096 (454:1/1) .