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Mark77

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  1. Informative
    Mark77 got a reaction from thekingofmonks in How does a SODIMM adaptor work?   
    The SODIMM standard, IIRC, drops the ECC/parity capability (ie: 72 bits vs. 64-bits), a feature that is provided on the "full sized" version of the standard.  And may even impose a limitation on the size of RAM modules ultimately allowed by reducing pins for address lines. 
     
    Once you drop those 8 data lines (which may be differential pairs anyways!), and the associated power/ground lines for that 9th chip, voila, the pin count is reduced accordingly!  The adapter is constructed accordingly.
     
    BTW, no need for anyone to treat anyone poorly.  Ashley's question is a very good one.
  2. Like
    Mark77 got a reaction from paddy-stone in Do You really Need ECC RAM for a home NAS???   
    My view -- if you're running "consumer" grade hardware (or heaven forbid, "gaming" hardware), then ECC is a waste of money.  There's lots of other areas in which you're more likely to suffer data loss/corruption. 
     
    If you've bought server-grade motherboards, power supplies, and UPS, and run a RAID-6 (or RAID-1), redundant network interfaces, and a reasonably ruggedized operating system, etc., etc., then yeah, you probably should buy that ECC RAM. 
     
    I don't want to throw statistics out there (because I don't got any), but I suspect lack of ECC capability is only very minimally a factor behind real-life data corruption.  If its only 1/8ths more expensive, sure, go buy it, but unless you've addressed those other systemic causes of data loss, ECC is probably a waste in the whole scheme of things.
  3. Like
    Mark77 got a reaction from Ben17 in Do You really Need ECC RAM for a home NAS???   
    My view -- if you're running "consumer" grade hardware (or heaven forbid, "gaming" hardware), then ECC is a waste of money.  There's lots of other areas in which you're more likely to suffer data loss/corruption. 
     
    If you've bought server-grade motherboards, power supplies, and UPS, and run a RAID-6 (or RAID-1), redundant network interfaces, and a reasonably ruggedized operating system, etc., etc., then yeah, you probably should buy that ECC RAM. 
     
    I don't want to throw statistics out there (because I don't got any), but I suspect lack of ECC capability is only very minimally a factor behind real-life data corruption.  If its only 1/8ths more expensive, sure, go buy it, but unless you've addressed those other systemic causes of data loss, ECC is probably a waste in the whole scheme of things.
  4. Agree
    Mark77 got a reaction from KhakiHat in Laptop Constant Pauses and Freezes   
    500gb HDD, good lord, get rid of that, go with a SSD.
     
    Its practically criminal that Windows 10 will even allow itself to be installed on anything but a SSD.  
  5. Informative
    Mark77 got a reaction from KhakiHat in Is it worth the effort to overclock?   
    Overclocking has been a waste of time since the days of the Pentium II.  
  6. Like
    Mark77 got a reaction from june_yah in How long till I MUST upgrade i5 Haswell?   
    Considering that even the 6-year-old Sandy Bridge platform is still, with a modernized video card, good for most gaming, I doubt you'll have a problem with Haswell for at least the next few years.  Hopefully your financial situation improves a bit by then. 
  7. Agree
    Mark77 reacted to Spotty in Will the hard drive last for a week if under heavy use?   
    Do you have any important data on there you want to save? If so, my recommendation would be to power down the machine and remove the drive until you have a drive available to copy the data to. The longer you run it, the more likely it will completely fail and you won't be able to access the data.

    Even if you don't have another drive, if you have some USB drives or DVDs you can backup the most important data to would be a good step. If you have decent internet you could look at cloud storage services such as Google Cloud https://cloud.google.com/
     
    Also, if you will need to reinstall your OS on to the new drive, make sure you download the Windows 10 installation media and set it up on a USB drive
    https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10
  8. Like
    Mark77 reacted to SupaKomputa in What can i do with an old Hard drive that was from a laptop   
    Yes you can use it in your pc, all connectors are the same, no need for an adaptor.
    Just plug and play.
    2.5 inch drives have the same sata connector as the bigger one.
  9. Agree
    Mark77 reacted to Droidbot in Msata in a mini PCIE   
    port needs to be wired sata not pcie, what's your laptop model - I'll check the data sheet on it and see what the mpcies are wired. 
  10. Like
    Mark77 reacted to Okjoek in Pentagon creating software 'do not buy' list to keep out Russia, China   
    I actually don't disagree. Our country, even our continent needs to be more self sufficient. Tariffs are one of the only things I'm happy to see come out of this administration. US workers need protectionism against foreign slave labor competing for our jobs.
  11. Agree
    Mark77 got a reaction from FireFox2015 in Virtualization   
    Enabling virtualization allows newer builds of Windows 10 to more effectively isolate processes, and hence, hypothetically increases the security and stability of the machine.  
     
    Its not just about running VMs anymore.   The newest Windows kernels use the features to provide memory protection to even ordinary uses running ordinary processes.
  12. Informative
    Mark77 got a reaction from Beaney9898 in Adding an 4G/LTE Wireless to Desktop PC for Rural Gamers   
    I think in the US people can do AT&T unlimited plans for $80 a month or something, which is 22gb of unthrottled, and then, only throttling under certain circumstances.  An extremely viable situation for those who live in a rural area.
     
    Just a warning though, latency is terrible though with 4G.  So don't plan on playing FPS.  In rural areas as well, the MC7455 may very well be overkill -- the extra bands it supports compared to the cheap MC7700's are only of interest in the cities mainly.  Look up the specs, find out what you have.  You can get a MC7700 for $20 which, on its supported LTE bands, performs just as well as the MC7455.  
  13. Informative
    Mark77 got a reaction from Beaney9898 in Adding an 4G/LTE Wireless to Desktop PC for Rural Gamers   
    You will need a miniPCI-E to PCI-E converter board.  With one caveat, and that is, it *must* support USB pass-through.   Such board must also support the SIM card.
     
    My personal suggestion is the Mikrotik RB14eu.   You can find 'em on eBay for about $56, shipped from Latvia.  Make sure you get the one that suppors the SIM cards.  Shipping is remarkably quick, a week or two.    The MC7455 is not a PCI-E card, but rather, is a USB card.  You must wire the USB from the card, to an on-board USB header.
     
    Once you wire the MC7455 to the USB, and set the antennas up, download the drivers from the Sierra Wireless website.    Install them.
     
    When you've done this, Windows 10 should recognize it as a Cell modem, and act accordingly.  I have such a device, actually a MC7700 on my laptop, works great.  I also have a RB14eU in my server.
     
    Also, you may need to purchase a microSIM to full-size SIM adapter if you use the RB14eu, as the RB14eu's SIM slots are full-sized, not microSIM as is very common these days.  These are a dollar or two online, and probably available at your local cell accessories shop as well.
     
    Also, you'll need antennas to connect the MC7455 to the outside world.  Leads, and actual antennas.  The MC7455 uses u.FL.  Holes are pre-drilled for the standard u.FL connectors.  Your leads need to have sufficient length.
     
    So probably $60-$80 worth of kit, + the cost of the MC7455 card. 
     
    BTW, while you're at, may as well pick up another set of antennas, and a cheap WiFi card that can be put in host/AP mode, such as the Atheros AR9280, and use such to share the wireless Internet connection through the Windows 10 facility that allows for such, "Mobile Hotspot".    
  14. Agree
    Mark77 reacted to Aniallation in How long before 7700K is out dated?   
    From a gaming perspective even a 2600k is still a good performer, so Intel does age pretty well
  15. Like
    Mark77 reacted to 79wjd in Which hard drive should I get for my Pc/NAS   
    HGST. Blacks aren't worth the money. 
    An extra 2 years isn't worth $60~ imo, realistically the drive will more than likely die early or well after either warranty period. Just my personal opinion on the matter. 
  16. Agree
    Mark77 got a reaction from Bjamse in Number of disks supported cpu?   
    If you want to consider PCIe expanders, SAS expanders, etc., you could hook up literally tens of thousands of hard drives to a single PC.   Only limited by proximity issues, power consumption, and RAID rebuild bandwidth/times.
     
     
  17. Like
    Mark77 reacted to 19_blackie_73 in Should i buy a used intel i7 3770?   
    if you can get a 3770 for cheap, get it. You won'T get a cheaper performance upgrade than that
  18. Like
    Mark77 got a reaction from jeetsagar in Dell XPS 15 2017 9560 Review   
    How about reviewing some of the actual Business-Class laptops?  Like the Latitude E7480?
     
    And maybe an after-3-years comparison?  To see if one stands up to daily use better than another?  I know, not scientific, but there's lots of people who wouldn't mind paying a little bit extra if "business class" quality means their laptop is going to last 4 years instead of 3.
  19. Agree
    Mark77 got a reaction from Ithanul in How to contact a US military member's CO   
    If its a truly serious matter, with your sister providing clear guidance to the serviceman that the communication is unwanted, you'll want to get ahold of the Military Police at your nearest DoD installation.  They will investigate based on the UCMJ, and lay charges (criminal, disciplinary, or otherwise) if warranted, for whatever offenses they believe the member has committed.  Other than that, the public has no access otherwise.
     
    The recruiting station will do the same -- just refer you to the nearest Military Police presence to make a complaint.
  20. Informative
    Mark77 got a reaction from Tieox in How to contact a US military member's CO   
    If its a truly serious matter, with your sister providing clear guidance to the serviceman that the communication is unwanted, you'll want to get ahold of the Military Police at your nearest DoD installation.  They will investigate based on the UCMJ, and lay charges (criminal, disciplinary, or otherwise) if warranted, for whatever offenses they believe the member has committed.  Other than that, the public has no access otherwise.
     
    The recruiting station will do the same -- just refer you to the nearest Military Police presence to make a complaint.
  21. Informative
    Mark77 got a reaction from mikat in RAID 1 For Android?   
    Hmmm, let's see where do I start.  First you'd need a completely custom kernel for your device with the md RAID compiled in.  As certainly the stock kernels do not incorporate RAID as there's no need for it on a mobile device.   Of course, it goes without saying that you'd need root access to your device to accomplish this. 
     
    Once you've built a kernel with the RAID, you'd also need to incorporate the RAID management tools into the android distribution.  This would probably mean figuring out the framework for cross-compilation.  Then, and only then, would you be able to get into a shell, and actually create this RAID volume. 
     
    Impossible?  Nope.  But you have to have a decent understanding of Android architecture, Linux kernel compilation, and how to work with all of the associated debugging and recovery steps. 
  22. Agree
    Mark77 reacted to Electronics Wizardy in Remote Access Server from Home   
    id vpn in. much more secure and then its like your working there.
  23. Agree
    Mark77 reacted to manikyath in Noob question about changing parts in pc   
    i've had a windows 7 (well, techically server 2008r2, but under the hood they're the same) install go from an athlon 64, to an i3 540, back to an athlon 64, and i've never had a hitch.
     
    that doesnt mean its recommended practisce to do so. (oh, and you better believe that deactivated the hell out of my key )
  24. Agree
    Mark77 got a reaction from Pasi123 in Does an i5 and i7 perform the same for graphics on a laptop?   
    One thing to keep in mind about 'mobile" i5 and i7 chips is that they can be the same CPU's, only changes in clock speeds, but same number of cores.  We're used to thinking for desktop PC's "i5 = 4 cores, i7 = 4 cores + hyperthreading", but for laptop chips, you really need to check exactly what you're getting. 
     
    For instance, my i5-4310M is actually a dual core chip with hyperthreading. 
  25. Agree
    Mark77 got a reaction from Xdrone in Please explain Barracuda   
    The "Barracuda" brand name came out in the mid 1990s, as an upgrade to the 5400rpm "Hawk" drives.   Development was led by a team acquired from Seagate's acquisition of CDC's hard drive business.   The first Barracuda drive held ~1.6 gigabytes or so, and had 10 or 11 platters, 20-22 heads, including a servo head/platter (so 150*megabytes* per platter, contrasted with the >1,000,000 megabyte platters of today!).   The main feature of the "Barracuda" being that it had a 7200rpm spindle speed.  Traditionally Seagate only offered 7200rpm drives in SCSI until the mid 2000s when they finally came out with ATA drives and focused most of their enterprise efforts on the 10kRPM "Cheetah" and 15kRPM "Cheetah X15" lines. 
     
    For the two drives you are comparing, it appears that the "1" and "6" refer to the variants at a certain capacity offering. 
     
    Basically put, I wouldn't get too caught up in the numbers.  HDD performance within a given rpm speed (ie: 7200rpm) hasn't changed much in the past 6-8 years.  So buy whatever you need, but do doublecheck reliability surveys like that offered by Backblaze to make sure you're not buying a total dud older model. 
     
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