SATA SSDs that changed their specs #1

 

Silicon Power Ace A55 256GB SATA SSD
Compare the pictures with those in this review: SILICON POWER ACE A55 256GB SSD REVIEW
I wonder who controls what those companies sell

Orico M.2 NVMe enclosure that somewhat works #2

This is Orico M.2 NVMe M-Key 10Gbps Space Gray MM2C3-G2-GY that works on USB3 5Gbps ports but is not stable at 10Gbps. Even after firmware update which cannot be found on their site, it constantly connects/disconnects on 10Gbps ports (Type-C and Type-A)

Orico HDD/SATA enclosure that works #1

Chip is VIA VL716-Q4
This works - no disconnects connected to USB3.x and USB2.0 ports, SMART status data is also visible

 

Orico enclosures in a nutshell

 Seems Orico (Leading Technology as stated on the product's box) continues to sell broken products. In this case their 2521U3 2.5" hard drive enclosure when connected to USB3 ports of different machines (two desktops, 4 laptops) cannot be used - nonstop connect/disconnect Windows sound. And the chip used  in the enclosure is ASM22xx. TLDR; 5Gbps not possible with this enclosure when connected to USB3, but perfectly stable at USB2

This enclosure is my 5th from Orico, only two of them work as expected (based on the claims printed on the box)

How to clone OS from non-RAID drive to RAID1 on Asus X370-PRO motherboard

 Let's go straight-forward to the solution:

1. Power off the computer and make your SATA bootable drive to be connected to SATA's second column upper port (from left to right)

2. Install an empty NVMe drive in the M.2 slot on the motherboard

3. Start the PC and clone your bootable SATA non-RAID drive to the NVMe with Macrium Reflect

4. Shutdown the PC and remove the bootable non-RAID SATA drive

5. Connect your two SSDs to first two SATA ports

6. Start the PC and change drive settings in the BIOS to be [SATA mode = RAID] and [NVMe RAID = Enabled], then save and exit

7. Activate RAID configuration utility when prompted for [Ctrl + R] shortcut

8. Make new RAID1 array from both SSD. Save and exit

9. When your Windows boot, clone the NVMe to RAID1 array (your RAID drivers must be installed or you can't see the array) and shutdown the PC

10. Remove the NVMe

11. Start the PC and if everything is ok your Windows will boot normally. Test with CrystalDiskMark the array and check if the Read/Write speeds are around 1100/500 MB/s, something a lot lower should point to problems with the cables/drives or probably OS processes that bottleneck drive I/O 

12. Profit

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USB3 fanboys: No, it's not wise to try to clone OS from USB3 connected drive because INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE blue screen error can pop-up and burst your holiday bubble

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This combat mission was created by your friend Asus (written in their manual):

How to check if the HDD or SSD are 4k aligned

Just type in command prompt as administrator:

wmic partition get BlockSize, StartingOffset, Name, Index

The last column in the output is the offset in bytes for where each partition starts, if this value is divisible by 4096 without a reminder then the partition is aligned. For example:

C:\Windows\system32>wmic partition get BlockSize, StartingOffset, Name, Index

BlockSize  Index  Name                   StartingOffset

512        0      Disk #0, Partition #0  1048576

512        1      Disk #0, Partition #1  105906176

512        0      Disk #1, Partition #0  135266304

512        0      Disk #2, Partition #0  1048576

This shows that all partitions are aligned (under NTFS)

Worst game servers in Europe #2: [BlER]Wiese >>> Italy [ONLY] <<< [css] Counter Strike Source

Name: [BlER]Wiese >>> Italy [ONLY] <<< [css] Counter Strike Source

IP address: 94.249.194.112:27015

Reason: Decided to do some casual shooting after years after abandoning the fps genre ... First time joining in that server and instantly detected one wall-hack cheater in it. Got kicked when pointed the obvious

Dyson Sphere Program - optimization training game

Dyson Sphere Program

Warning! Shortest review ahead!


Goal - eat all planet resources and build Dyson spheres

Pros - trains you in optimization techniques. Players doing OCD-layered buildings don't realize the power of spaghetti code

Cons - not fully automated and half of the time in-game camera tries to cut your nerves

Conclusion - The game is not bad, it's a casual production simulator at galactic scale. Give it a try (around 100-120 hours of gameplay to first finished sphere)

Introduction to scoop

Scoop is a tiny command-line installer for Windows, which helps to organize user's apps in more convenient way. All of them are installed by default in home directory or in selected by the use directory, and of course this is not the only feature: - updating all of them with one command - continuously growing database of supported apps - fully portable between Windows version that support at least PowerShell 5 and .NET Framework 4.5 Those features mean the users finally have a tool similar to Linux package managers like dpkg/apt, yum/dnf, portage (btw very powerful), slackpkg, Homebrew for MacOS and Chocolatey/Ninite/OneGet for Windows. It works like this (assuming the user OS meets the requirements):

1. Open a PowerShell command prompt 

2. Write "scoop search nameofyourapp"

3. If it's found in the buckets (collections of apps in scoop) write "scoop install name-of-your-app"

4. After successful app installation (scoop warns if there are problems during installation procedure and suggests what to do to fix them) the user must open "Start Menu -> All Programs -> Scoop Apps" and click on the corresponding shortcut to start the freshly installed application

There are also limitations: - number of bucketed apps is still less than those in Chocolatey - sometimes changes in app version or small code errors in app manifests block the user from successfully installing or updating desired apps. Usually an update to scoop fixes that because the whole development is on GitHub where every scoop user can report the problems

GDPR compliance in a nutshell

Recently MongoDB added field encryption in version 4.2. This means if there's a request to delete all user data (stated in GDPR) administrator can delete the encryption key(s) which is used for access to the personal data. So no key - no data ... right ... but the data is still there and probably ready to be brute-force decrypted. Nice try, MongoDB

A simple check for power outages

Sometimes users leave their computers on for longer intervals than usual only to see later that they have stopped or worse - dead because there were power surges. Reasons for that - one of them is the power outage. Many haven't a good protection like UPS or backup power sources and it's good to know exactly when this happened. Relatively it helps to estimate when to shutdown the hardware preventing it from losing data or become broken. One simple way is to check when this occured with the following PowerShell command (assuming the user is using Windows Vista and above):

Get-EventLog -LogName System -EntryType Error | Where-Object {$_.EventID -eq 6008} | Select -Property Message | ForEach-Object { if ($_.Message -match "([0-9]{1,2}:.*[0-9]{4})") { Write-Output "System shutdown at $($Matches[1])"}}

This parses whole Event Log on the machine with level Error in System Log where the event ID is unexpected system shutdown (eventID 6008) and outputs the results using regexp for extracting the date and time:

System shutdown at 2:05:00 PM on ‎3/‎1/‎2019
System shutdown at 1:32:30 PM on ‎2/‎27/‎2019
System shutdown at 9:28:38 AM on ‎1/‎25/‎2019
System shutdown at 2:45:59 PM on ‎1/‎21/‎2019
System shutdown at 4:15:13 PM on ‎1/‎10/‎2019
System shutdown at 9:57:27 AM on ‎1/‎10/‎2019
System shutdown at 3:16:15 PM on ‎12/‎27/‎2018
System shutdown at 6:33:47 PM on ‎12/‎23/‎2018
System shutdown at 6:29:35 PM on ‎12/‎23/‎2018
System shutdown at 6:26:43 PM on ‎12/‎23/‎2018
System shutdown at 5:53:58 PM on ‎12/‎23/‎2018
System shutdown at 5:34:58 PM on ‎12/‎23/‎2018
System shutdown at 10:40:03 AM on ‎12/‎23/‎2018
System shutdown at 10:19:27 AM on ‎11/‎24/‎2018
System shutdown at 3:47:47 PM on ‎11/‎17/‎2018
System shutdown at 3:07:32 PM on ‎10/‎14/‎2018

How to fix '32bit only' guest OS issue in VirtualBox

Recently installed on one of my test machines latest version (5.2.20) of VirtualBox and found that it's not possible to install and run properly a 64bit guest OS, the only option was 32bit. The culprit was 'Hyper-V' enabled feature on Windows 8.1 x64 while Intel's VT-x was enabled in BIOS (AMD-v for AMD cpus). So, to remove this '32bit only' restriction, go to 'Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features on or off' and uncheck the box in front of 'Hyper-V', click OK and restart the machine. Problem solved

Recently started to play Eve Online and already regret for that

Just a couple of random links:
The Real Reasons Player Population Is Declining
Eve Online Steam Charts
Bots Are Threatening Eve Online's Economy And Players Are Fed Up

Add to the equation too much clutter in the interface and that most of "successful" players are in fact already in large in-game groups where they multi-account and stay only for selling in-game currency ISK/PLEX/goods for real money gave me a big smile on my face :) This game called "Space simulator" is dead. DEAD.

Fixing the annoying mouse wheel is easy

There are three ways to fix it when we are talking about rotary encoder based wheels:

1. First way and the easiest one is to squeeze gently the housing of the encoder with small straight pliers. This increases the pressure between metal teeth and the internal spring which brings better electrical contact
2. Second way is to open it and clean the teeth so they have better contact. After closing the housing it will be also good to squeeze it for better contact
3. Third way and technically harder is to desolder the encoder and change it

Simple way to setup a real-time file synchronization between two or more Windows PCs in a local network

In this post I'll go directly to the steps needed to achieve some acceptable real-time file synchronization between two or more computers in a local network:

1. First find a good cat.5 or cat.6 cable(s), especially those that are shielded (including the connector), 1Gbit switch (or use a router with 1Gbit switch). 1Gbit because of the speed you will need if files are a lot and bigger (for example over 1GB). In the case you have only two PCs with free NIC ports, you can directly plug the both ends of the cable in the ports. Standard says that 1Gbit NICs can work with straight cable, but some can't detect it (ie 10/100Mbit NICs) so you will need a crosswired cable

2. If both PCs are directly connected with a cable, you must set their IP addresses/mask/gateways as following:
PC1 IP address: 192.168.XXX.2
PC1 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
PC1 Gateway: 192.168.1.3

PC2 IP address: 192.168.XXX.3
PC2 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
PC2 Gateway: 192.168.XXX.2

Make sure those addresses to be different from those used for the Internet connection!

3. If you are using a router or the machines are already in a local network, just make their addresses STATIC and DIFFERENT than those already assigned to their NICs. Wi-Fi local networks or a hybrid ones (wired and wireless computers in one local network) computers also won't have a problem to be used for real-time file sync but this type of connecton has drawbacks like lower throughput (low download/upload speeds) and sometimes the routers must be configured to not isolate Wi-Fi network from the wired

4. Share your drives (or folders) and to have full permissions (not asking for username or password and have full control for 'Everyone').

5. Set the sharing options (go to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings):

6. Install this tool - DSynchronize and configure it like this (you can put a lot more shared PC drives/directories in left and right panes, just remember to put them in a different job ... everything depends on your own needs):

7. And if everything is ok you will have a brand new near* real-time file synchronization between two or more

* I said near because there is some seconds noticeable pause, you can count exactly how much if you wait for 'ding' sound of the program

8. To be sure you have a good network capable of high speeds, it is a good idea to measure throughput between nodes/computers of your local network with tools like iperf3. There are enough tutorials about that, on one of the computers you must start iperf in server mode, and on the others you start it as a client

GDPR my ass, fix your products first

Some examples:

1. Last ~10 versions me and some folks have a problem with Google Chrome staying logged in. Every time we close the browser and open it we must login again so at least we are in sync with bookmarks or site passwords
2. Sometimes you cannot disable Autoplay on YouTube ...
3. Most of the sites shoots you in the face with cookies policy, "You should disable AdBlock to continue" rant, awkward interfaces and more shit while they forget they need to optimize to lower that annoyingly high CPU load
4. Facebook - a whole other story, sometimes I think they must just close their doors (around 5000 LoC when entering Home page, rly?)

Don't talk about some rights while you already track everyone through different channels, just fix your products

Quality of products #2 - AMD drivers

AMD and their never-ending story of badly written drivers ...

Writing this means I'm in a 20min session of trying to deinstall them and put older version because they don't allow me to set the refresh rate above 60Hz on Dell P1130, a CRT manufactured in 2003 (yes, those monitors are fully compatible with modern videocards). Seems AMD never will fix those refresh rate problems while NVIDIA (speaking from my experience, had 2-3 times the same problem  but generally they are ok) always worked. The driver version is 18.4.1, videocard is AMD R7 360, operating system is Windows 7 x64, and yes - I have a laptop with AMD HD7670M which allows me to set 120Hz without a problem

Quality of products #1 - Zalman coolers

Just installed a brand new Zalman's CNPS10X Optima on AsRock X79 Extreme9 motherboard and noticed two things:
1. While tightening the 4 main bolts of the cooler, and (very plausible) due to poor finishing and maybe bad design, there's a very high chance the user to create filings by the friction between the bolts and Intel clips (filings are barely visible with naked eye) that can SHORT-CIRCUIT the motherboard or other components during power on or working state!!! I was lucky to saw that before powering on the machine and to have a small magnet to collect them (I hope all of ...)
2. It's not possible to use closest to the cpu socket RAM slots (this particular motherboard has 8 slots) due to the cooler's inadequate design. They gave requirement that modules should be no taller than 44mm (mine are ~34mm with original RAM sinks, and can hit the cooler or its clips), while in fact the two possible positions of the cooler blocks modules with the cooler (especially if you lower it like in the user's manual recommendation to put some airflow and under the fins) or with fan fixing clips.

Great product, Zalman!

BAN all cheating Russians

If you have admin rights for a game server or a hosting a game which offers checking player's nationality with high accuracy - BAN all cheating russians. Two days ago finished my research how many of them must be banned, and the numbers (sorry, details are not available due to the techniques used in the research) are around 95% from all gathered player accounts. They feed, they spam in chat, they use exploits found in the games, they use all types to break the system. Just ban them. Thank me later

Decline of Dota 2 and maybe the genre

What the player will think when he or she starts to play Dota 2 (one of the most popular MOBA titles that has a History), and finds the following (I will try to make the list very short):

1. Toxic behaviour of (I will say a lack of) community, where people are offended when someone explains their mistakes during a match, and as usuall they report him. For example the notorious commend system put people with NORMAL behaviour in single draft low priority punishment queue, where the player must win only 1 match to be freed and where the average matches lost are maybe above TEN. And this happens only because ...
2. ... there's no ban-list system per user, we are still in 2017 and there's no better than WC3 BanList. It's weird that VALVE, the company developing Dota 2, has a perfect solution incorporated as ban feature in CS Source/GO server. They must only add this in Dota 2 with synchronization of banlists between players and we are good to go.
3. Balance issues. A lot of people told me through years that the heroes and items are balanced and the problem is in me, but if a normal person analyzes the matches he or she will definitely find a pattern in successful game-play styles which include same items and skill combos used 10-15 years ago. This means that the fastest gold collector in the game is usually the winner - first big and powerful item assembled changes win chances a lot for the bearer

Well, probably will say a nice harsh words and go play outside :)

...

Yeah, if a normal player is playing every day, for example 2 to 5 matches with 1:1 win-loss ratio (the majority of players (even the best ones) have this ratio (I'm not kidding), and crash into these problems, he will try harder with increasing the matches to try different strategies and this automatically means MORE matches lost and generate MORE frustration. To the level where he or she refuses to play Dota 2 anymore or similar games