Build Advice New build questions ?

[Richard1234]

These fake drives have been around for years.

It is relatively easy to create. And little legal downside for the creators.
You in the UK bringing a lawsuit to an entity in China isn't going to fly very far. No matter what the monetary amount.

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

inter jurisdictional things are tricky,

main thing is to action a refund, which I can do, as I bought it with a VISA credit card.

Aliexpress say I have 15 days to submit a dispute request, their wording is "If you still haven't received the order or you've received it but it is not as described, you still have 15 days to submit a dispute request"

Similar to this?
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806516237255.html

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

yes, very similar

after an exhausting shopping trek, before trying the disk salvage, I decided the time had come to rejig the mouse, keyboard and monitor of this HP laptop, as all 3 are a nightmare, and doing any further work on the 64T drive would be much better if these were rejigged, the laptop is an HP Spectre x360 2-in-1 laptop, 14-ef0500na, high tech, but quite unusable. the touchpad and keys respond spuriously, where they click, select etc uninitiated.

the fonts of the 3000 x 2000 13" screen are too tiny to read, needs a lens. I eventually managed to connect up the laptop with this also useless LG monitor via the DP cable meant for the new PC! the new keyboard also connected via wireless, and the existing handshake mouse connected also via wireless. the handshake mouse has 3 connections, so by pressing a switch I can use it for the 2010 PC via bluetooth also, or for the laptop via wireless. it can do a further PC via wireless.

with the rejigged mouse, keyboard and monitor it is much more usable. I can actually read what it says onscreen.

I then started the disk salvage program in uninstalled mode, where it has the option to salvage disks of any computer without installing.

no errors emerged, and it remained at 0% for easily an hour, right now it is 1% complete, the salvage program refers to the disk as "Disk 3(61.04 TB)".

so the drive is defying attempts to blatantly show it is a con, the disk salvage program thinks it is 61.04TB and hasnt detected any problem so far,

but as I cannot access the main 1Gig files I created, what I will probably do is halt the salvage tomorrow, and action a refund in that it isnt functioning correctly, basically refund because defective, rather than refund because it isnt 64T!

to show conclusively it isnt 64T is tricky, they must have arranged the query commands to pretend it is 64T.

I modified the source code of the program which creates the 1G files on the 64T drive on Linux Mint, and that file is unreadable! so I will have to rewrite that again! but I made a backup copy to the same 64T drive before modifying it, and that backup is readable.

I ought to have copied it to another disk, but the laptop via its own mouse and keyboard and screen is such a nightmare to use, eg it will spuriously delete entire segments of the source file whilst editting it, etc,
that I didnt follow a good protocol. I need an environment which works nicely in order to work properly!

I will get a refund via a dispute at my VISA credit card if necessary, have done this before where I have been scammed, eg I once signed up to an investment advisory, and received nothing at all, and all my emails to the firm bounced. After a certain number of days, could be 2 weeks, I got my money back from the credit card.

official protocol is you have to resolve a dispute directly, then if that fails, you escalate it to the credit card firm.

I will try to move to assessing the breadboarding and then to maybe breadboard the new PC. today I was too mentally exhausted from trekking around the city to work on it! 20.6 miles of journey to 4 different places in 3 different parts of town over almost 4 hours of time, and running into rush hour traffic jams!

just had the energy to rejig the laptop, which itself was a bit of a challenge.

With storage drive scams, there is nothing elaborate. Just take any random small microSD card, change the firmware to show whatever you like it to show, construct PCB for it that leads to USB type-A or type-C and house all of it in cheap plastic/metal casing. Voila, you have small 64TB drive. And also drop the price low, so that people are more likely to buy $25 drive than rather e.g $100 drive.

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

showing its a scam isnt viable, I will action the refund on the basis that it doesnt work, namely I created more than 1000 files of size 1GB, and am unable to copy all the ones I tried later in the list!

I am sure it is a scam, but to show that conclusively is a challenge!

the machine is defying all attempts so far!

ultimately computers determine drives via the query commands, so if these are fraudulent, the best you can do is show the drive doesnt work, to show it really isnt 64T cannot be done via software, all you can do is show that you cant copy back certain files, basically a refund because defective rather than because fraudulent!

now if someone sold you a 250G drive claiming it was 250T, you can show it is fraudulent via the windows computer management. but if the drive firmware is fraudulent, in practical terms all you can do is show the drive isnt functioning correctly. because the Windows computer management will show it is 250T, even the disk salvage software concurs. but what I can show is that there is a 1G file on the drive, and I cannot copy that file over to another drive, I just get error messages.

I had a lengthy dispute with a builder firm once, and I settled the dispute by requesting they discount their invoice by the amount I thought the work was worth, otherwise we settle in court.

they accepted that and end of dispute. basically they couldnt go to court, because as a firm they needed a solicitor, and their legal fees would be approx double the amount disputed! whereas as a consumer I could represent myself, and worst case was I had a fee of 0.5% of the amount disputed.

 

[USAFRet]

Getting a full refund from your Visa is about the best you can get.

Take that, move on, and don't fall for this again.

 

[Richard1234]

these are the refund rules for Aliexpress:

Spoiler: expand for aliexpress refund rules

http://www.directemails.info/tom/psu/refund.jpg

 

[USAFRet]

these are the refund rules for Aliexpress:

Spoiler: expand for aliexpress refund rules

http://www.directemails.info/tom/psu/refund.jpg

How much did you actually pay for this thing?

Is going through all that hassle worth a "refund"?

 

[Aeacus]

How much did you actually pay for this thing?

Peanuts;

If I am convinced its a scam, I wont break it open but will try to action a refund, as it was $23.97

Is going through all that hassle worth a "refund"?

The cheap price such fake drives sell for, are for 2 reasons:
1. More likely that people will buy them.
2. Less likely that people refund it once scam is found out.

Since it's easy to spend 24 bucks to buy something seemingly great but in the other hand, 24 bucks isn't enough money for most people to go through with refund hassle.

 

[Richard1234]

How much did you actually pay for this thing?

$23.97 each

Is going through all that hassle worth a "refund"?

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments on Alibaba returns process

in this case yes, because there were 3, ie 3 x $23.97 = $71.91

I halted the disk salvage at 7%, it found 0 files, then struggling to get the laptop to boot from Linux Mint via the external USB bluray drive, I decided a different route:

I booted my 2010 PC,

checked various of the files I created, they are all there, but all contain hexadecimal zeros, the filename text at start and finish of the second lot all vanished. the earliest files are alright.


then created a file on the 64T, called experiment.txt
entered the text "hello"

saved the file, reloaded it, and it says "hello".

but maybe this is the filesystem caching, so I then rebooted, and now nothing!

checked the hexadecimal, and it is 0000000000, where each 0 is 4 digits, ie correct number of bytes, but all are zeros!

thus what it is doing is storing the filenames and directories correctly, and the filesizes and datestamps, but the files beyond its limit the data is just 0's. its thus tricky to show it is fraudulent, but I can show it is defective.

also the filesystem caching will make it seem as if it is functioning, you have to reboot the system to show the file hasnt been created properly, but is just the outer shell of the file, the correct filename, size, datestamp, but the contents all hexadecimal 0's.

with some effort I did action the Alibaba returns process, its a bit tricky. but I had to first acknowledge receipt, and then wait some minutes then a returns button does appear somewhere. I went for the option of "does not work properly". you have to upload photos to proceed, so I took 2 screenshots, one showing the file without contents, and the other of the hexadecimal contents of 0's.

printed out the returns address which is a UK address, the parcel to be dropped off at any post office. the nearby one was shut till 2pm, so tried the next nearest one, no parking spaces, had to park some streets away, and handed it over and have the proof of postage receipt.

screenshots of the Alibaba returns process:

http://www.directemails.info/tom/drives/return_instructions.jpg

http://www.directemails.info/tom/drives/return_instructions2.jpg

 

[Richard1234]

Peanuts;



The cheap price such fake drives sell for, are for 2 reasons:
1. More likely that people will buy them.
2. Less likely that people refund it once scam is found out.

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

also tricky to show it doesnt work, you'd have to fill it up beyond whatever the true size, AND verify the contents! many people wont verify most downloaded files.

but the new price of these is much less than what I paid, as I bought 3, its worth a refund

technically all hardware is a black box, and all we can do is send commands and receive data. so at best all we can do is push the item beyond its limit where we call the bluff, and say it is malfunctioning.

this drive must have set the left hand zone of the drive for metalevel data of the filesystem, eg filenames, directory names, filesizes, timestamps, then probably the files themselves at the right end of probably some gigabytes. thus the files all exist, with correct filename paths and timestamps and sizes, but you get zeros as the data when you go beyond the edge. because the disk salvage program which looks at the low level data of files, having done 7% announced 0 files found. where it tries to piece together bits of files which may be lost, eg deleted files.

if a drive used compression to pretend to be bigger than it is, to push that beyond its limit you'd have to create lots of huge files with repeatable random numbers. as files of random numbers should be incompressible. where you can then verify if the file has the original data by repeating the random numbers. you can usually give a seed number for a random number generator, where it will create the same sequence from the same seed. eg number of the sequence is generated from the previous one via some maths formula, eg it might shift the binary number left one digit, then if the overflowed digit is 1, it might exclusive or the remaining number with some fixed number.

this might not sound random but in fact it is.

Since it's easy to spend 24 bucks to buy something seemingly great but in the other hand, 24 bucks isn't enough money for most people to go through with refund hassle.

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

by the time they find out they are probably beyond the 90 days refund window. they have an initial 15 day refund window, and the bigger refund window is 90 days. if you buy with paypal, they also give I think a 90 day guarantee of their own. bank transfers have the least protection, and debit cards have limited protection, its best to use credit cards, then you can get a refund via the credit card.

I was hoping to start assessing the breadboarding today, but have run out of time, will try to work on it at the weekend. Thursday the car is in for 4 works, MOT, service, and 2 repairs, where I will have to spend the day at the nearby shopping mall, and Friday I have an appliance repair anytime between 7am to 6pm, and not much other time.

 

[Richard1234]

will try to start breadboarding today, I just need to get in the right frame of mind!

Oh, as of where to assemble the PC, good sturdy table would do, e.g dining table.

what about a good flimsy table? namely the MDF tables!

http://www.directemails.info/tom/table.jpg

1. Breadboarding​

1.1. Unbox the MoBo and place it on any cardboard box. MoBo retail box does fine.

1.2. Unbox the RAM, open up 2nd and 4th slot clips and install the RAM. MoBo manual, page 8, shows how to do it. And page 30 has further info on about correct slots when you have 2 DIMMs (which you do).

1.3 Unbox the CPU and install it on the MoBo. MoBo manual, page 6, step 1, 2 and 3 show how to do it. And further reading from page 29.

this includes applying the thermal paste?

I wont have to reapply the thermal paste later?

Note: While MoBo manual shows installing CPU and CPU cooler before installing the RAM, but in your case, due to your Be Quiet! CPU cooler, it is advised to install RAM 1st, since CPU cooler will overhang/cover RAM slots, making RAM installation far harder. Hence why install RAM before CPU and CPU cooler.

1.4 Unbox CPU cooler and follow the instructions on CPU cooler manual on how to install it.
If no paper manual isn't included with CPU cooler (it should though), you can download it from here,
link: https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/4466

Scroll down to "Characteristics" part and select "Downloads" tab.

With RAM installed, CPU installed, CPU cooler installed, "PC" is in operational state. Still, it needs a bit more to get it working.

I might unbox that and decipher what is in the box as a first step,

1.5 Locate the USB type-C to HDMI cable and plug the USB type-C to the back of the MoBo, into correct USB slot. Namely that USB port that is marked "Item 10" in MoBo manual. Refer to page 23 and 24 to locate it. HDMI part of it goes to the monitor.

if I breadboard with the table in the other room, the monitor is in a different room. where I then would have to trek to this room to see what is happening on the monitor. can I do it like this?

if I move the monitor to the other room, then I cant check your instructions (unless I print them out). Now I could shunt all the computer components from the table in this room to use the table here for breadboarding where the monitor is nearby.


what I am thinking now is to use my 3D LG monitor, which I mothballed to keep it in working condition in case I want to do any 3D stuff.

that way I can view your instructions simultaneously with breadboarding.

current arrangement:

monitor1 + mouse +keyboard + speakers : table1 covered with PC component boxes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
wall
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2010 PC (storage cupboard)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
wall
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
empty table2



the question is whether to keep the monitor1 where it is, with a long cable to table2, or whether to shunt the stuff on table1 to table2 and breadboard with table1 instead. or to move a more ancient mothballed monitor2 to table2 and breadboard at table2.

1.6 Connect KB and mice to MoBo USB slots at the back of the MoBo. Doesn't matter much which ports you use.

the thing is I bought a wireless keyboard and have the wireless mouse which can handle 3 PCs, 2 via wireless, 1 via bluetooth.

can I breadboard with these 2?

with my HP laptop, the external wireless keyboard and external monitor dont work for the early startup,

I have a USB mouse and a P/S2 keyboard currently.

possibly the keyboard and mouse will work via USB via their USB C charging socket?

the wireless keyboard is the "MX Keys S" and the mouse is the "MX Vertical", both by logitech, both with almost nonexistent documentation.

they both have USB dongles for bluetooth, maybe if I use those?

or does bluetooth need the OS to synchronise?


I can see a potential catch-22 problem, that you need a functioning mouse or keyboard to synchronise a wireless one, where if you just start with wireless ones, there is no way to interact with the computer initially.

if I attach that 10 hub USB3 hub to the mobo, and then attach any USB stuff to that hub,

which mobo sockets are best for that?

the 10 hub is this one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SABRENT-mu...are-gb-6400928482696972000-21&geniuslink=true

I would go via USB extender cables,

that amazon page says USB 3.2, but the product box in fact says USB3.0, and supplies a type A cable with type B at the hub, which is labelled USB 3.0. so I think that amazon page is incorrect saying USB3.2?

I want to avoid using higher spec sockets for lower spec devices, horses for courses.

1.7 Unbox PSU and locate 24-pin ATX and two 4/8-pin EPS cables. Put the PSU near/next to MoBo, PSU fan facing upwards. Connect 24-pin and two 4/8-pin cables. I prefer to connect those to the PSU 1st and then connect to MoBo. But doing it vice-versa won't hurt either.
Make sure PSU switch is at the "Off" position. Connect the power cable from PSU to the mains.

the PSU currently is already installed in the tower. is it best to keep the tower horizontal or should I put it vertically?

vertically would use less table space, but horizontally would spread the load on the flimsy MDF better.

End result should look similar to this:
(This is my Skylake build breadboarded, when i bought the initial components.)

Now, "PC" doesn't have GPU or SSD for OS, but it doesn't need them. Since the idea is to make sure CPU-MoBo-RAM work and you can boot into UEFI (BIOS).

I dont know if with this photo you are using a PSU installed in the tower?


looking at the photo, if I breadboard, I then later will have to install all that paraphernalia on the mobo box into the tower case?

the CPU cooler looks like quite a heavy load and visually obstructive for installing the mobo, trying to align the holes, how precarious is this?

how problematic is it checking the holes are aligned?

 

[Aeacus]

what about a good flimsy table? namely the MDF tables!

As long as it doesn't crumble under the weight (up to 20kg) and doesn't slide sideways either (where legs broke off), it does fine.

this includes applying the thermal paste?

Yes. On the CPU IHS.

I wont have to reapply the thermal paste later?

No. Unless you don't remove CPU cooler.

If you do remove CPU cooler (the heatfins part), you have to:
1. Clean older thermal paste from CPU and CPU cooler, by cotton pads (that doesn't leave behind fibers) and at least 90% pure isopropyl alcohol.
2. Reapply the thermal paste to CPU IHS.

Video showing how to do all of it:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SST61g3hnIs

if I breadboard with the table in the other room, the monitor is in a different room. where I then would have to trek to this room to see what is happening on the monitor. can I do it like this?

You can, but it would be more convenient to haul monitor to the assembly table, so you can see the image during power-on. Once breadboard is success and core components work, you can haul the monitor back, when you then install core components inside the PC case.

the thing is I bought a wireless keyboard and have the wireless mouse which can handle 3 PCs, 2 via wireless, 1 via bluetooth.

can I breadboard with these 2?

Wired KB/mice are best used since i don't know if MoBo alone is able to detect and operate Bluetooth during breadboarding.

It won't work via wi-fi for sure, since you have to log-in to your wi-fi network for that. And that is done within OS, not during POST or within UEFI (BIOS).

I have a USB mouse and a P/S2 keyboard currently.

You need to have USB KB as well, since MoBo doesn't have PS/2 port.

possibly the keyboard and mouse will work via USB via their USB C charging socket?

It depends on the wireless device. Some can be used just fine when charging cable is connected. Others won't work during charging.

that amazon page says USB 3.2, but the product box in fact says USB3.0, and supplies a type A cable with type B at the hub, which is labelled USB 3.0. so I think that amazon page is incorrect saying USB3.2?

It may not be wrong, depending on what generation it is.

In a nutshell: USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 3.2 Gen 1, all operate at 5 Gbps speed and are identical.
Further reading: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/usb-3-2-explained

which mobo sockets are best for that?

Item #3 ports in MoBo manual page 23. These two connect directly to CPU.
Item #4 ports connect to MoBo chipset and work just fine as well.

the PSU currently is already installed in the tower. is it best to keep the tower horizontal or should I put it vertically?

Makes little difference regarding power cable reach. Tower being vertical would give a bit longer reach for power cables.

vertically would use less table space, but horizontally would spread the load on the flimsy MDF better.

If you're unsure of the table not withstanding the weight, you could either strengthen it (e.g additional feet, 2nd MDF pane on top of it, if you worry about MDF pane buckle), or build a more sturdy table.

Not a carpenter as i said before. So, i don't know at which point the specific MDF pane, that you use, buckles under weight [namely it's pounds per square inch (PSI) rating].

I dont know if with this photo you are using a PSU installed in the tower?

In my breadboarding photo, i did have my Seasonic S12II-520 PSU installed in the tower. Actually, i "loaned" it from my AMD build, since at that time, i didn't have 2nd PSU to use. I just unplugged the power cables from my AMD build and rerouted them to the new MoBo.

looking at the photo, if I breadboard, I then later will have to install all that paraphernalia on the mobo box into the tower case?

Yes. And all that in one single unit. Unless you want to go through the trouble of disassembly, clean up thermal paste, reapply thermal paste and install CPU cooler back, one MoBo is inside the PC case. For one, you'd have far harder time installing CPU cooler if MoBo is already inside the PC case, since space around MoBo is restricted due to the PC case.

the CPU cooler looks like quite a heavy load and visually obstructive for installing the mobo, trying to align the holes, how precarious is this?

Not much of an issue, since you don't have GPU installed on the MoBo. Due to that, you can easily align the two bottom row mounting holes and once you've aligned those, upper ones (near CPU socket) are aligned as well.

how problematic is it checking the holes are aligned?

Screw holes (MoBo mounting holes) are big enough to look through them and align them with MoBo standoffs. So, it wouldn't be that hard. Then again, i've done it for many years and know how to do it.

 

[Richard1234]

As long as it doesn't crumble under the weight (up to 20kg) and doesn't slide sideways either (where legs broke off), it does fine.

it supports the tower vertically plus PSU plus 7 noctua fans minus the 2 HDD cages without problem, which I weighed just now to be 9.6kg, but you couldnt sit or stand on the table!

Yes. On the CPU IHS.

IHS=?

No. Unless you don't remove CPU cooler.

I didnt realise it related to the CPU cooler,

what I dont understand is that fats eg oils and grease are insulators, wouldnt it be better just to have ultra smooth horizontal surfaces without oil? assuming its to transmit heat from the CPU to the cooler.

If you do remove CPU cooler (the heatfins part), you have to:
1. Clean older thermal paste from CPU and CPU cooler, by cotton pads (that doesn't leave behind fibers) and at least 90% pure isopropyl alcohol.
2. Reapply the thermal paste to CPU IHS.

Video showing how to do all of it:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SST61g3hnIs

I'll try to never have to remove it!

You can, but it would be more convenient to haul monitor to the assembly table, so you can see the image during power-on. Once breadboard is success and core components work, you can haul the monitor back, when you then install core components inside the PC case.

I'll probably use the spare monitor, which is an LG passive 3D monitor, which I stopped using in order to preserve it for 3D. BECAUSE if I run into trouble, I cannot then check your instructions or ask in this forum without having to lug the monitor back!

Wired KB/mice are best used since i don't know if MoBo alone is able to detect and operate Bluetooth during breadboarding.

It won't work via wi-fi for sure, since you have to log-in to your wi-fi network for that. And that is done within OS, not during POST or within UEFI (BIOS).

the wireless option is always via the modem?

with my wireless Epson printer, I can connect 2 ways either directly with the printer or via the modem, some things are best done the one way not the other way.

will a wireless keyboard or wireless mouse be able to connect without the modem?

I decided to test my wireless keyboard and mouse with the USB charging socket, where as this is USB C to USB C, I also used a USB C to A converter. I tried this with my 2007 laptop.

what I found is the handshake mouse works AFTER Windows XP detects the new hardware.

but the keyboard doesnt work. Then tried the wireless keyboard with the USB cable with my 2010 PC with XP, and that also doesnt work. the bluetooth also doesnt work, I havent been able to use it at all with the 2010 PC. Windows 10 on the 2010 PC only shows me my own broadband modem in the list, whereas when I boot with XP I think it shows various. The 2023 Windows 11 laptop also shows a list of modems.

I checked and ALL my keyboards are either PS2 or wireless.

I have a USB to 2 x PS2 Y shaped splitter, would that work with a PS2 keyboard?

ie you connect the USB plug to the laptop, and then you have a green and a purple PS2 socket.

I havent used that for easily 10 years, so I am not 100% sure if it still works!
I'll try and test that with the 2007 laptop (Fujitsu-Siemens) early startup.

otherwise I may need to buy a wired USB keyboard for the breadboarding, are there any cheap ones you would recommend? preferably with quiet keys,

You need to have USB KB as well, since MoBo doesn't have PS/2 port.


It depends on the wireless device. Some can be used just fine when charging cable is connected. Others won't work during charging.

looks like this wireless keyboard doesnt work but the wireless handshake mouse does work!

It may not be wrong, depending on what generation it is.

In a nutshell: USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 3.2 Gen 1, all operate at 5 Gbps speed and are identical.
Further reading: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/usb-3-2-explained

ok, I "forgot" that those were the same speed!

Item #3 ports in MoBo manual page 23. These two connect directly to CPU.
Item #4 ports connect to MoBo chipset and work just fine as well.


Makes little difference regarding power cable reach. Tower being vertical would give a bit longer reach for power cables.


If you're unsure of the table not withstanding the weight, you could either strengthen it (e.g additional feet, 2nd MDF pane on top of it, if you worry about MDF pane buckle), or build a more sturdy table.

putting an extra MDF pane sounds like the best way to fortify the table!

I dont want to build a more sturdy table as it will be too cumbersome!

instead with these MDF tables, I install them when needed and uninstall when no longer needed, where I can then store the boards easily.

Not a carpenter as i said before. So, i don't know at which point the specific MDF pane, that you use, buckles under weight [namely it's pounds per square inch (PSI) rating].


In my breadboarding photo, i did have my Seasonic S12II-520 PSU installed in the tower. Actually, i "loaned" it from my AMD build, since at that time, i didn't have 2nd PSU to use. I just unplugged the power cables from my AMD build and rerouted them to the new MoBo.

the photo isnt a true breadboarding then?

because you arent testing the intended PSU, but maybe that is a separate test.

Yes. And all that in one single unit. Unless you want to go through the trouble of disassembly, clean up thermal paste, reapply thermal paste and install CPU cooler back, one MoBo is inside the PC case. For one, you'd have far harder time installing CPU cooler if MoBo is already inside the PC case, since space around MoBo is restricted due to the PC case.

ok, so there is an installation advantage of installing outside the case!

Not much of an issue, since you don't have GPU installed on the MoBo. Due to that, you can easily align the two bottom row mounting holes and once you've aligned those, upper ones (near CPU socket) are aligned as well.


Screw holes (MoBo mounting holes) are big enough to look through them and align them with MoBo standoffs. So, it wouldn't be that hard. Then again, i've done it for many years and know how to do it.

I'll wait till I am sure about a wired keyboard before the main breadboarding.

is the CPU cooler electrostatic sensitive?

or is that an item which needs less precautions, like presumably a fan doesnt need precautions.

BTW I got a reply from Noctua on the lack of space problem, and they think Phantek

there is no non disclosure text in the email, so I will quote it directly:

--------------------------------
Based on our experience, it is always very difficult to state compatibly between various hardware components. The PSU you have chosen is quite large, and it appears that Phanteks didn't take this into account.

Based on the provided picture, isn't it possible that the fan does fit in the position seen below:

(photo suggests moving it a bit further away from under the HDD cage)

The anti-vibration pads attached to the fan slightly increase the thickness. You might also want to try removing them so see if it fits.

Our standard 120 mm and 140 mm fans have the same thickness of 25 mm. For our 120 mm fans, we also offer a thinner 15 mm version. However, I'd recommend sticking with 25 mm fans.

This isn't sufficient room for the fan to be efficient. However, it still might help a little with airflow. Personally, I'd recommend not using the bottom HDD cage if not needed to help with airflow within your case.
--------------------------------

so far no reply from Phantek!

 

[Richard1234]

Yes, the MicroSD card is formatted in such a way as to report it's size as 64Tb. This is not exactly easy to do, but it can be done.

And whether it's a scam or not can be put to rest easily. The only commercially available 64Tb drive is a 2.5" SSD unit that sells for >$10,000.

$10000 sounds like a rip off price!

in PCWorld, I checked SSD prices, and I can get a 5T for £119,

usually bigger capacities give you a cheaper price per byte,

at the above price for a 5T drive, 64T ought to be 64/5 x 119 = £1523

but for my own use, I am not sure I would use a 64T, because if something went wrong with the disk, that is a lot of data in jeopardy.

it would be generally better to spread the data over many disks. eg 1 disk just for camera photos.
1 disk for backups of emails etc. that way if a disk corrupts, only 1 batch of stuff is in jeopardy.

what is called "division of risk".

now with a server for a commercial firm, I could understand having one huge disk, but even there it might be better to have software which spreads the data over several disks. "dont put all your eggs in one basket".

with my HP laptop from 2023, I cloned the system drive to a Samsung 2T external drive, and booted from that, where the internal drive was as if just bought, where you finalise the Windows 11 registration.

used that for months,

then one day a ton of stuff just vanished from the drive, cannot find it even with disk salvage.

If you paid ~$50, you got a scam.

yes it was a scam, but I had to verify this by my own means, where I have sent it back to Alibaba via their refund process. if they dont refund, I will escalate the request to my visacard. Alibaba cannot sell much without Visa and Mastercard and Paypal. my visacard will always refund if something is a scam.

 

[Richard1234]

I have just checked the USB2 to 2 x PS2 Y-splitter, and the PS2 keyboard works with this in the early startup of both my 2007 Fujitsu-Siemens XP laptop AND with my 2023 HP Windows 11 laptop.

so I think that should be ok for the breadboarding!

I only thought of the Y-splitter when I was writing the previous reply

 

[Aeacus]

IHS=?

Integrated Heat Spreader.

It's the metal casing over CPU die.

CPU cross section:

And few words of further reading: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/integrated-heat-spreader-ihs-definition,5747.html

what I dont understand is that fats eg oils and grease are insulators, wouldnt it be better just to have ultra smooth horizontal surfaces without oil? assuming its to transmit heat from the CPU to the cooler.

Thermal paste is not oil or grease. Thermal paste consists of a base matrix and containing a thermally-conductive filler. Typical matrix materials are epoxies, silicones, urethanes, and acrylates. Fillers include carbon micro-particles, aluminum oxide, boron nitride, zinc oxide, and aluminum nitride.

Also, no matter how fine you machine the CPU IHS and cold plate of the CPU cooler, there ALWAYS will be microscopic grooves between two metal surfaces. So, thermal paste is used to replace the air (which has very poor thermal conductivity), with material that has far better thermal conductivity, so heat can be transferred more efficiently.

Couldn't find an image about it which would display (hyperlink), but instead found this white paper with images,
link: https://medium.com/@OpenSeason/soldered-cpu-vs-cheap-paste-59fb96a4fca7

1st image from there is what i wanted to link.

will a wireless keyboard or wireless mouse be able to connect without the modem?

As i said, wi-fi connection (be it internet or wireless device), must be accepted within the OS of the device. When you are breadboarding, there is no OS on the system, it's pure hardware and a bit of firmware.

Due to this, you can not connect wirelessly to the breadboarded build that doesn't have OS. Since if you could, it would be severe security vulnerability + then some.

I have a USB to 2 x PS2 Y shaped splitter, would that work with a PS2 keyboard?

It should. If i remember correctly: purple = KB ; green = mice.

otherwise I may need to buy a wired USB keyboard for the breadboarding, are there any cheap ones you would recommend? preferably with quiet keys,

I don't deal with cheap hardware, instead, i deal with good/great quality hardware. And when it comes to KB, then mechanical KBs, which will cost quite a bit.
E.g my Corsair Strafe RGB with Cherry MX Silent mechanical switches, costed me ~€178. While my newest KB: Corsair K100 RGB with OPX (optical-mechanical) switches, costed me ~€310.

So, if you want cheap, look towards membrane KB.
Membrane KB being quiet, is usually a luxury these cheap KBs do not have. If you want quiet KB, you have to pay more.

Also, KB being quiet actually depends on the person a lot. Since if you smash the KB, bottoming out the keys, it will be loud. But with mechanical keys, the registration point is far higher than bottoming out point.
E.g my Cherry MX Silent switches have total travel distance of 3,7mm, while key registers at 1,9mm of travel distance. So, if one can use the KB by pressing keys down up to 2mm or 2,5mm, without ever bottoming out, KB is very quiet to type on. (For Corsair OPX switches, on my K100 RGB KB, total travel distance is 3,2mm, while key registers at 1,0mm.)

the photo isnt a true breadboarding then?

because you arent testing the intended PSU, but maybe that is a separate test.

Breadboarding is to test if CPU-MoBo-RAM combo works and that's it. There is no such thing as "true" breadboarding.

is the CPU cooler electrostatic sensitive?

Well, think a little.

If you can't figure it out, i'll give some hints.

at the above price for a 5T drive, 64T ought to be 64/5 x 119 = £1523

You can not apply the price per TB in linear form, where capacity is N value, which then translates into final price.

When 5TB drive costs £119, then this makes it £23,8 per 1 TB. And for 64TB, it does cost £1523, IF you buy 13x 5TB drives.
But if you need to store a file that is 10TB in size (whereby you can not split the file), you can not do that, since all what you have, are 5TB drives. But if you'd have single 64TB drive, you could easily store the 10TB file on it. And this makes a difference. NAND cells that can house more than 5TB of data at once, have higher price per TB, than those that can house up to 5TB.

it would be generally better to spread the data over many disks. eg 1 disk just for camera photos.
1 disk for backups of emails etc. that way if a disk corrupts, only 1 batch of stuff is in jeopardy.

Bad idea, since if one of those would fail, you'd loose all the specific data on that drive.

Better idea is to have mirror copies (clones) on different drives. So, when one drive fails, you have 1:1 clone of all that data on another drive, without you loosing any data. Only thing you'd loose, is the drive (hardware) itself.
This is how me and many others, who know a thing or two about data preservation, are doing things.

 

[Richard1234]

I am working on the breadboarding at the moment,

its a lot of run around as many different items, and also looking for each item and eg documentation.

I have the mothballed 3D monitor set up, with HDMI extension and then the long USB C to HDMI cable.

question is, which USB C socket is wisest to attach the video cable to?

on p23 with the documents internal page numbering, there are 3 options, (2), (10) and (12),
(2) is USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20Gbps from ASM3241
(10) is USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps type C from CPU
(12) is USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20Gps from X670 chipset

I want the most efficient choice assuming a future monitor which is max allowable data rate,

you have said sometimes that the CPU connection is better than chipsets, but at the same time something like a mouse only needs a low data rate, so must be better from the chipsets in order to free the CPU ones for things that need this

I have set up the mobo on top of the electrostatic shielding bag on top of the mobo box, I dont know if this is alright? its only going to be a brief test so I presume there wont be enough heat to melt the bag.

Integrated Heat Spreader.

It's the metal casing over CPU die.

CPU cross section:

And few words of further reading: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/integrated-heat-spreader-ihs-definition,5747.html

Thermal paste is not oil or grease.

ok, I wrongly thought it was a grease!

Thermal paste consists of a base matrix and containing a thermally-conductive filler. Typical matrix materials are epoxies, silicones, urethanes, and acrylates. Fillers include carbon micro-particles, aluminum oxide, boron nitride, zinc oxide, and aluminum nitride.

Also, no matter how fine you machine the CPU IHS and cold plate of the CPU cooler, there ALWAYS will be microscopic grooves between two metal surfaces. So, thermal paste is used to replace the air (which has very poor thermal conductivity), with material that has far better thermal conductivity, so heat can be transferred more efficiently.

Couldn't find an image about it which would display (hyperlink), but instead found this white paper with images,
link: https://medium.com/@OpenSeason/soldered-cpu-vs-cheap-paste-59fb96a4fca7

1st image from there is what i wanted to link.


As i said, wi-fi connection (be it internet or wireless device), must be accepted within the OS of the device. When you are breadboarding, there is no OS on the system, it's pure hardware and a bit of firmware.

yeh, with the wireless printer, I have to either select the printer from the "modem list" or select the actual modem from the desktop, bothways the computer connects to the printer, but only via the OS.

Due to this, you can not connect wirelessly to the breadboarded build that doesn't have OS. Since if you could, it would be severe security vulnerability + then some.


It should. If i remember correctly: purple = KB ; green = mice.

yes, and there is usually a pictogram of a keyboard or mouse on EVERY green or purple socket or plug, and usually you just connect same colour to same colour, so if the item's cable's plug is green, you connect it to the green socket on the next machine.

but also I think you can in fact usually connect green to purple and vice versa,

ie I think usually the green and purple are identical in hardware. probably the mobo firmware queries the device on attaching, and if its a mouse it handles the data as if it is THE mouse socket. if you connect 2 mice, I think it just merges the data as if its the same mouse.

where you can get confusion is with extension cables, which are neither green nor purple plugs, but in fact it doesnt matter. I think I found this out when one day I rechecked the PS2 extenders across the wall, where I daisychain 2, and found in fact one was attached to the wrong socket, yet had been working fine!

I don't deal with cheap hardware, instead, i deal with good/great quality hardware. And when it comes to KB, then mechanical KBs, which will cost quite a bit.
E.g my Corsair Strafe RGB with Cherry MX Silent mechanical switches, costed me ~€178. While my newest KB: Corsair K100 RGB with OPX (optical-mechanical) switches, costed me ~€310.

you may need some cheap hardware for scaffolding! eg just for installation.

I prefer wireless because no physical attaching or detaching at the computer, thus no wear and tear and wireless is probably the longest range.

but to install the machine I would need wired. no point spending 178 euros for an item used for 1 day for a few minutes in total! for prolonged usage, its best to go for quality eg the 178 and 310 euros.

the wireless one I got is £99.99 plus a 3 year instant replacement scheme for any problem for an extra £21

So, if you want cheap, look towards membrane KB.
Membrane KB being quiet, is usually a luxury these cheap KBs do not have. If you want quiet KB, you have to pay more.

Also, KB being quiet actually depends on the person a lot. Since if you smash the KB, bottoming out the keys, it will be loud.

you mustnt smash the keyboard as that will eventually lead to health problems! eg RSI (repetitive strain injury). AND it will wear out the keyboard sooner.

with equipment its best to have a light touch, to use minimal force, to avoid physical stress of body and of machine. eg if you are struggling to rotate a steering wheel fast enough, you are driving too fast round a corner, and is what one driving instructor described as "loss of control" of the machine, could be a fail in a driving test.

there are 2 forms of loss of control, both of which I think could be fails in a driving test, one is loss of control by the person of the machine, eg struggling to rotate the steering wheel fast enough or frantically getting to the different controls eg jamming the brakes and the other is loss of control by the machine, eg skidding, and bad sounds eg if you use a gear which is 2 away from what you should,

loss of control by the machine is of course caused by incorrect usage by the person.

jamming the brakes is where you havent exercised proper anticipation skills eg driving blind round a corner too fast and then finding a parked car, basically driving too fast for the available info you can see and hear.

anticipation skills are about slowing down or changing direction because of stuff you can see or not see further ahead. if you cant see stuff, you slow down. if you are too near the next vehicle, you slow down to build up space, you dont abruptly slow down as the vehicle behind you might crash into your car.



young men like slamming doors, and using force with machines, this is stupid!

each slam, and each use of force is wearing out the machine.

Hollywood films glamourise loss of control of and by the machine. proper skill is effortless.

But with mechanical keys, the registration point is far higher than bottoming out point.
E.g my Cherry MX Silent switches have total travel distance of 3,7mm, while key registers at 1,9mm of travel distance. So, if one can use the KB by pressing keys down up to 2mm or 2,5mm, without ever bottoming out, KB is very quiet to type on. (For Corsair OPX switches, on my K100 RGB KB, total travel distance is 3,2mm, while key registers at 1,0mm.)

I havent researched this at all, I just tried out the ones in the store, and then located one which used USB C charging, as the charge with those lasts a long time, with hibernation etc.

the store had some "ergonomic" ones, but I found them unergonomic! because they were supplying the wrong ergonomics!

you want a light touch, but the problem with most laptops is they require too light a touch,

thus you want some effort to avoid pressing a key unintentionally, but not so much effort that it requires force.

there's a sweet spot between the 2 conflicting constraints.

I cannot use the keyboards of both my laptops, now with the wireless MX Keys S, the wireless handshake mouse, and the external monitor, my 2023 HP laptop becomes usable.

the 2007 Fujitsu Siemens 15.5" screen is ok, the keyboard and slider rectangle "mouse" are unusable,
with the 2023 HP Laptop, the keyboard, slider mouse and 13" screen are all unusable. the 3000 x 2000 touchscreen is very high tech, but is too small, and is overresponsive, it caused me to place a bid unintentionally on ebay once! the slider mouse is also overresponsive, often clicking unintentionally.

I havent done sustained usage with the new wireless keyboard, so I dont know for sure if it will be ok.

but it has a kind of soft resistance and the key presses are much less distance than my wired PS2 keyboard which has very prominent and noisy keys.

Breadboarding is to test if CPU-MoBo-RAM combo works and that's it. There is no such thing as "true" breadboarding.


Well, think a little.

If you can't figure it out, i'll give some hints.

my guess is it isnt sensitive to electrostatic, because probably sensitivity is at electrical sockets eg for cpus, memory, PCI cards, graphics cards.

You can not apply the price per TB in linear form, where capacity is N value, which then translates into final price.

but in practice, capacity/price decreases as capacity rises. because the enclosing technology is much the same, whereas with several smaller capacities you have repeated enclosing technology, eg the case, the interface circuitry, the cable, etc.

example, in the shop:

1T 54.99, price per TB 54.99
2T 72.99 price per TB 36.49
4T 107 price per TB 26.75
5T 119 price per TB 23.80

it is always thus! and so price/TB extrapolated to a bigger capacity should be an overestimate.

which is what I was doing, 1523 should be an overestimate.

When 5TB drive costs £119, then this makes it £23,8 per 1 TB. And for 64TB, it does cost £1523, IF you buy 13x 5TB drives.
But if you need to store a file that is 10TB in size (whereby you can not split the file), you can not do that, since all what you have, are 5TB drives.

I disagree! I am a programmer, and what I would arrange is in software to abstract the 65TB over the 13 drives of 5TB.

where the collection of 5T drives is one data space of 65T.

your 65TB drive is just doing that in hardware, you can do that same enclosing in software,

and in fact the 65TB drive will be doing that in software also but as firmware. at least with magnetic drives they do that,




your 4T magnetic drive is in fact lots of disks, and is 4x more disks than a 1T drive.

you'd need to have the 13 drives attached at the same time, but even that can be mitigated by caching. where eg one of the drives can be used as a cache, and the system migrates less used data to outer drives.

where you could probably do a lot of the work with just 1 drive attached. sometimes it might ask you to attach drive 2, and even less frequently drive 3 etc.

the software would also have to prevent the same drive being modified by another instance of the software on another PC. where you always need the first drive attached to modify the other drives. if you reattach it to another PC, then you can modify the other ones at that other PC, this is a problem of "coherency".

Now it would be programming work to arrange this, but if we are talking of a commercial firm, they can pay programmers to do this!

there was one programming project, where the people did the filesystem by using virtual memory,

where they just mapped the drive to memory, and the filesystem was just in memory.

you could modify that system to use multiple drives for the virtual memory,

where you could add any amount of further drives! eg when you run out of 64T, you just bring in a 17th 4T drive!

or have a 1T drive, a 2T, a 4T, a 6T, another 6T, etc.

its not the way I would do things, but it can be done.

I would personally not dabble with say 10T files, but would rejig the scenario to have lots of smaller files.

because copying a 10T file, even at 1 Gigabyte/second would take days! this is too long.

and in fact the multi drive approach is better, as I could copy the stuff in parallel.

eg if the 10T file is spread over 3 drives, I could be copying those 3 drives to 3 other drives in parallel,
and initially the data would be 3x as fast, and eventually 2x as fast, as using one 64T drive.

it does depend on what the hardware allows in parallel, but to clone the data, I could just attach each drive to a different PC, and manually get 3x and 2x the speed.

the dual memory modules is a similar idea, where physically there are 2 memory chips, but in software it is one memory space, but is potentially 2x as fast (depends on how the firmware rejigs things, and that is ultimately a software problem not a hardware problem).

But if you'd have single 64TB drive, you could easily store the 10TB file on it. And this makes a difference. NAND cells that can house more than 5TB of data at once, have higher price per TB, than those that can house up to 5TB.

you can just have ones which house say whatever amount is cheaper per TB, eg say it is 4T,

then you have 16 of those drives in a box,

and in software the first one is bytes 0, 1, 2, ..... 4T-1,
the second one is bytes 4T, 4T+1, .... 8T-1
the 3rd one is bytes 8T, 8T+1, ....., 12T-1
.....

and outside the box, the box is a 64T drive. inside it is 16 x 4T drives.

hardware engineers often waste a lot of time on what are essentially software problems!

horses for courses,

as long as you can connect the 16 drives by any means to the PC, you can in software abstract that to one indivisible 64 T system. and store a 63T file.

I can do this myself if the filesystem isnt integrated into the OS.

you need to ensure coherency also, which is the problem of someone reconnecting a drive to another PC, modifying it, and now the 16 drives are incoherent on the first PC. but as mentioned, the best way to ensure coherency is in software to never modify any of the 16 disks unless the first one is attached. this wont stop someone reformatting one of the other drives, but you put a sticker saying "DO NOT REFORMAT, MULTI DISK DRIVE MYDATA, DISK 3/16".

to integrate it into the OS where it appears on say Windows Computer Management as a 64 T drive, I'd have to invest time understanding how Windows drivers work, not something I am planning to do.

Bad idea, since if one of those would fail, you'd loose all the specific data on that drive.

all depends on the usage protocol!

if you just blindly store data, then yes,

but with more important data, I backup to at least 2 drives usually via a script,

Better idea is to have mirror copies (clones) on different drives. So, when one drive fails, you have 1:1 clone of all that data on another drive, without you loosing any data. Only thing you'd loose, is the drive (hardware) itself.
This is how me and many others, who know a thing or two about data preservation, are doing things.

once you reach the software side, including data, user protocol is all important.

eg with my camera, I backup "today's" photos to one of my main disks.

but I dont delete the photos on the camera! so the camera has a second backup of those photos.

at some point I backup ALL photos on the camera to another archive disk, which ordinarily isnt connected.
after backing up ALL, I then delete all photos on the camera.

 

[Richard1234]

You can not apply the price per TB in linear form, where capacity is N value, which then translates into final price.

When 5TB drive costs £119, then this makes it £23,8 per 1 TB. And for 64TB, it does cost £1523, IF you buy 13x 5TB drives.
But if you need to store a file that is 10TB in size (whereby you can not split the file), you can not do that, since all what you have, are 5TB drives. But if you'd have single 64TB drive, you could easily store the 10TB file on it. And this makes a difference. NAND cells that can house more than 5TB of data at once, have higher price per TB, than those that can house up to 5TB.

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

if more than 5T at once is more expensive than 5T, history will just have to repeat itself!

originally you had floppy disks, but the floppiness meant the read/write head had to be further away to allow for unevenness but this means the data blurs and is weaker signal,

so they made hard disks, where the surface was much more even allowing the read/write head much closer, allowing much more data.

but then what?

you dont want some ginormous disk the diameter of a bicycle wheel.

they brought in parallel disks, eg with 2 parallel disks, you now have 2x as much data, and the evenness means they can be closer together.

4 parallel disks, 4x as much data.

they have to do the same with the SSDs, if 5T is the max which is cheap per TB,

you now introduce 2 units of 5TB which are then 10TB at the same price per TB as 5T

and introduce 3 units of 5TB, to get 15TB at the same price per TB as 5T, etc.

the upper binary digits of the sector address are then just routing info for the firmware to whichever 5T unit.

best to work with powers of 2, eg 4T, as 4 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes = 2^(2+10+10+10+10)=2^42

magnetic drives I think work with 512=2^9 byte sectors, where the above 2^42 is thus 2^(42-9)=2^33 sectors.

for sector addresses, the lowest 33 binary digits are then the sector on a 4T subdrive, and the digits above that are routing info to which drive to select.

the $10000 64T drive sounds like the equivalent of a 1m diameter floppy disk! engineers are clowns!

its like the fiasco of hyperthreading, which is multitasking in hardware, and they cant go beyond 2x because of complexity bloat. multitasking is best done in software, where you can have 100x without problem

its just stupid to try and do multitasking in hardware, it has to be done in any case by firmware, which is software, better to do that software above the hardware. multitasking if done correctly adds very little latency.

having multiple SSD units also has the major advantage of much faster speeds IF engineered properly, which is both a hardware and software problem.

because say you have 10 subunits of 4T, then you can read from them in parallel, leading to 10x faster speeds.

whereas if you just have 1 unit of 40T, it is just the same slow speed, 1x as fast as 4T.

same thing with parallel magnetic hard disks,

if you can read 100kilobytes per second from a disk, with 2 parallel disks, you can read at 200kb/s

with 10 disks, 1000 kb/s.

now at some point you will run into the limits of the data buses.

you have to splice up the data somehow either at the firmware level or software level, in order to get the speed up. splicing can be either a wiring problem, or you alternate which drive a sector is from,

sectors 0, 4, 8, 12, ... are from drive 0,
sectors 1, 5, 9, 13, ... are from drive 1,
sectors 2, 6, 10, 14, .... are from drive 2,
sectors 3, 7, 11, 15, .... are from drive 3,

then when you read a file of say 12 sectors, it is 4x speed. if you just read 1 sector, no speed up, but the caches can read 4 sectors, so later reads are almost instant.

caching is one of the major speed innovations, eg instruction caches make cpus much faster at the same clock speed.


with 16 x 4T drives to get 64T, that would be 16x as fast, and easier to maintain, if one drive fails, you just replace it. you could arrange that as say 32 drives, with data always duplicated, then the totality is much safer.

 

[Aeacus]

question is, which USB C socket is wisest to attach the video cable to?

on p23 with the documents internal page numbering, there are 3 options, (2), (10) and (12),
(2) is USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20Gbps from ASM3241
(10) is USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps type C from CPU
(12) is USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20Gps from X670 chipset

I want the most efficient choice assuming a future monitor which is max allowable data rate,

There is only one:

1.5 Locate the USB type-C to HDMI cable and plug the USB type-C to the back of the MoBo, into correct USB slot. Namely that USB port that is marked "Item 10" in MoBo manual. Refer to page 23 and 24 to locate it. HDMI part of it goes to the monitor.

you have said sometimes that the CPU connection is better than chipsets, but at the same time something like a mouse only needs a low data rate, so must be better from the chipsets in order to free the CPU ones for things that need this

CPUs are designed to handle the hardware connected to them, since when AMD and Intel make new architecture of CPUs, they also design the chipset to go along with the CPU. So, it doesn't matter which (CPU or chipset) USB ports you connect the peripherals.

I have set up the mobo on top of the electrostatic shielding bag on top of the mobo box, I dont know if this is alright? its only going to be a brief test so I presume there wont be enough heat to melt the bag.

Hmm...

ESD bag should have fine, built-in wires in it, to create a Faraday Cage. Now, if some MoBo parts touch that bag (the backplate doesn't offer 100% cover under the MoBo), there may be short circuit risk. Better to lay the MoBo ontop of it's own retail box, it came with. (Same you can see from my image.)

you may need some cheap hardware for scaffolding! eg just for installation.

I already have. My old mothballed peripherals, that i don't sell off on Ebay (like you do). Instead, i keep them. Due to that, i have PS/2 KB and PS/2 mice. Also several USB mice. Heck, i can even borrow the small USB mice from my laptop if i need.

eg driving blind round a corner too fast and then finding a parked car, basically driving too fast for the available info you can see and hear.

For that, i have a nice quote that i like to use: "Never drive faster than your guardian angel is able to fly!".
As of the banging of doors and the like, that youths do, it's due to the showoff and attention. E.g loud exhaust and loud car stereo are another thing they like to do. To me, loud exhaust/audio are annoying and are also great way to lead to a loss of hearing.

you want a light touch, but the problem with most laptops is they require too light a touch,

thus you want some effort to avoid pressing a key unintentionally, but not so much effort that it requires force.

there's a sweet spot between the 2 conflicting constraints.

With mechanical keys, the key body is color coded to indicate it's actuation force and any other features it has.
E.g Cherry MX;
Red - 45g and linear
Blue - 45g and loud "click" at registration point
Brown - 45g and tactile bump at registration point
Black - 60g and linear

Here's in-depth about differences with Cherry MX mechanical switches,
link: https://www.keychron.com/blogs/news/cherry-mechanical-switch-guide

And when it comes to actuation force;
below 45g - low
45g-55g - medium
56g-65g - high
above 65g - very high (hard to press)

I prefer 45g, since i can rest my fingers on KB without registering the key press. Also, it doesn't take much force to press keys, whereby my fingers won't tire out.
Did try 65g in PC store at display unit and that was way too hard to press. Also, i don't like "click" and tactile feel, so, linear keys are best for me.

my guess is it isnt sensitive to electrostatic, because probably sensitivity is at electrical sockets eg for cpus, memory, PCI cards, graphics cards.

Well, the heatsink itself is one big block of metal, so, electricity flows through it like hot knife through butter. But electricity doesn't do anything to the heatsink itself.
Fans on it have plastic frame and are otherwise well insulated against outside electricity. Only the fan motor, deep inside the fan hub, is the electronics part, but it is a small servomotor and as far as i know, ESD won't damage it either, IF it even reaches the fan motor.

However, if CPU cooler is mounted on the MoBo and you happen to get ESD when you touch the CPU heatsink, the electricity travels through the metal heatsink all they way down to the CPU and CPUs are very sensitive to the voltage surges.

but in practice, capacity/price decreases as capacity rises. because the enclosing technology is much the same, whereas with several smaller capacities you have repeated enclosing technology, eg the case, the interface circuitry, the cable, etc.

Availability is another issue. Currently, there is 1 company who can make 64TB/100TB SSDs. And since they have monopoly in that segment, they can dictate the price.

Now, if there would be two companies that can produce the SSDs, then they would compete price wise, but it wouldn't still be cheap (just look how expensive top-end CPUs still are, since there are only two companies who make CPUs: AMD and Intel).
If there would be 3 companies, and with equal market share, price of the product would drop even further down. E.g with GPUs, there are: Intel, Nvidia and AMD. But since Nvidia has most of the market share and Intel has very little, Nvidia can still dictate, for the most part, the GPU prices. AMD doesn't compete with Nvidia in the terms of price per performance, instead, AMD likes to undercut Nvidia, by offering cheaper GPUs, but with caveats of course (usually far higher power consumption than Nvidia counterpart. Also, usually more hotter running and AMD GPU drivers also are less optimized than Nvidia drivers).

I disagree! I am a programmer, and what I would arrange is in software to abstract the 65TB over the 13 drives of 5TB.

You're missing the point of my example.

Spoiler: Off-topic description of my point

Let's say you have 6 cars, none of them are drive-able and you need to move them all into another location.

You have two options:
1. Buy six car carrier trailers, so you can load the cars individually on the trailers and tow them all either one-by-one, or find 6 other trucks to tow all 6 at once.

2. Buy the car hauler, so you can load all the cars onto it at once (it has more capacity), whereby you can move all cars at once, with semi-truck.

6 car carrier trailers combined, cost less than one big car hauler semi-trailer. But since car hauler semi-trailer has more capacity and in turn, is more efficient when moving 6 cars than moving 6 cars individually, it's higher price is justified.

If you want real life pricing as well, then car trailer costs £4299, link: https://www.lidertrailers.co.uk/product/twin-axle-2500kg-tilt-deck-car-transporter-39760/
And the car hauler semi-trailer costs $36.800, link: https://www.kaufmantrailers.com/car-trailers/double-deck-car-haulers/48000-53-double-deck-car/

6 x £4299 = £25.794
$36.800 to £ = £29.200

And with car hauler semi-trailer, due to it's capacity, you can also load a bus onto it, to haul around. But bus does not fit onto the small car carrier trailer.

So, when you have 6x car carrier trailers and you need to tow a bus, what do you do?
Bus doesn't fit onto car carrier trailer. Do you cut the bus into pieces to fit onto the car carrier trailers?
Or would you rather have car hauler semi-trailer, that can fit the bus in it's whole and can be also used to haul several smaller vehicles?

Do you now get my point?

you can just have ones which house say whatever amount is cheaper per TB, eg say it is 4T,

then you have 16 of those drives in a box,

and in software the first one is bytes 0, 1, 2, ..... 4T-1,
the second one is bytes 4T, 4T+1, .... 8T-1
the 3rd one is bytes 8T, 8T+1, ....., 12T-1
.....

and outside the box, the box is a 64T drive. inside it is 16 x 4T drives.

That is usually how NAS are.

However, the point of actually making single drive with high capacity is to save space dimensions wise.
No-one has unlimited amount of real estate where to store the hardware.

 

[Richard1234]

have done the breadboarding, and problems!

I installed the cpu, the memory modules at 2nd and 4th slots, did the thermal paste,
attached the cpu cooler, connected the one fan cable to the other cable and that to the cpu fan socket on mobo.

a bit of thermal paste went beyond the edge!

1. Breadboarding​

1.1. Unbox the MoBo and place it on any cardboard box. MoBo retail box does fine.

1.2. Unbox the RAM, open up 2nd and 4th slot clips and install the RAM. MoBo manual, page 8, shows how to do it. And page 30 has further info on about correct slots when you have 2 DIMMs (which you do).

1.3 Unbox the CPU and install it on the MoBo. MoBo manual, page 6, step 1, 2 and 3 show how to do it. And further reading from page 29.
Note: While MoBo manual shows installing CPU and CPU cooler before installing the RAM, but in your case, due to your Be Quiet! CPU cooler, it is advised to install RAM 1st, since CPU cooler will overhang/cover RAM slots, making RAM installation far harder. Hence why install RAM before CPU and CPU cooler.

1.4 Unbox CPU cooler and follow the instructions on CPU cooler manual on how to install it.
If no paper manual isn't included with CPU cooler (it should though), you can download it from here,
link: https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/4466

Scroll down to "Characteristics" part and select "Downloads" tab.

With RAM installed, CPU installed, CPU cooler installed, "PC" is in operational state. Still, it needs a bit more to get it working.

1.5 Locate the USB type-C to HDMI cable and plug the USB type-C to the back of the MoBo, into correct USB slot. Namely that USB port that is marked "Item 10" in MoBo manual. Refer to page 23 and 24 to locate it. HDMI part of it goes to the monitor.

I hadnt noticed "item 10" originally, but on studying these instructions located this, and have attached the spare monitor via the USBC at item 10 to the HDMI on the monitor.

1.6 Connect KB and mice to MoBo USB slots at the back of the MoBo. Doesn't matter much which ports you use.

I connected these to the 10 hub via extenders and the USB to PS2 splitter,

and then connected the 10 hub to one of the CPU batch of USB A sockets.

1.7 Unbox PSU and locate 24-pin ATX and two 4/8-pin EPS cables. Put the PSU near/next to MoBo, PSU fan facing upwards. Connect 24-pin and two 4/8-pin cables. I prefer to connect those to the PSU 1st and then connect to MoBo. But doing it vice-versa won't hurt either.
Make sure PSU switch is at the "Off" position. Connect the power cable from PSU to the mains.

End result should look similar to this:
(This is my Skylake build breadboarded, when i bought the initial components.)

Now, "PC" doesn't have GPU or SSD for OS, but it doesn't need them. Since the idea is to make sure CPU-MoBo-RAM work and you can boot into UEFI (BIOS).

2. 1st power-on​

When you're ready to power on the build;

2.1. Flip the switch at the back of the PSU.

2.2. Press the "Power" button on MoBo itself to power on the "PC". MoBo manual, page 55, shows where this button is located.

With this, you should be seeing some life from your assembled components, like CPU fan starting to spin, RAM LEDs light up, other lights lit up on MoBo.

lots of lights, eg the memory module lights, nothing on the monitor,

and 2 debug leds, red and yellow,

manual's p60 says red = "CPU - indicates CPU is not detected or fail"
and yellow = "DRAM - indicates DRAM is not detected or fail"

the number displayed on the mobo is 00, which isnt in their list!

If you don't see any image on monitor,

yes, I dont see any image

despite MoBo being powered on, look what code the DEBUG LED is showing.

red + yellow + 00

To locate the DEBUG LED, look MoBo manual page 61.
Pages 61 to 65 has a chart of all the DEBUG LED values and what they mean.

Now, it may get seemingly stuck on either 15, 16, 17, 18 or 2E,

I am not that lucky!

but wait since this is memory training and takes a bit of time. Shouldn't take more than 5 mins though. MoBo can do the memory training twice, but once POST is complete, PC should boot directly to UEFI (BIOS).

2.3. Once you see UEFI on your monitor, GREAT,

not there yet!

the most nerve-wrecking part is over

the most nerve-wracking part is happening! CPU and DRAM fail!

 

[Richard1234]

1. Breadboarding​

1.7 Unbox PSU and locate 24-pin ATX and two 4/8-pin EPS cables.

rechecking your instructions, I have connected just the 24-pin ATX cable, no other cable,

just trying to figure out if the "4/8-pin EPS cables" is some other cable or cables I have to attach,
what are these?

 

[Richard1234]

There is only one:

I eventually located your comment on which to use,

CPUs are designed to handle the hardware connected to them, since when AMD and Intel make new architecture of CPUs, they also design the chipset to go along with the CPU. So, it doesn't matter which (CPU or chipset) USB ports you connect the peripherals.

but any external hardware will eat bandwidth from the bus it is attached to, so its best to eat from the lower bandwidth buses to keep the most direct bus free for things which need data speeds

Hmm...

ESD bag should have fine, built-in wires in it, to create a Faraday Cage. Now, if some MoBo parts touch that bag (the backplate doesn't offer 100% cover under the MoBo), there may be short circuit risk. Better to lay the MoBo ontop of it's own retail box, it came with. (Same you can see from my image.)

I breadboarded with the ESD bag, but have now removed that, I have to figure out whether your 4/8 comment means a further cable or cables from the PSU.

I already have. My old mothballed peripherals, that i don't sell off on Ebay (like you do). Instead, i keep them. Due to that, i have PS/2 KB and PS/2 mice. Also several USB mice. Heck, i can even borrow the small USB mice from my laptop if i need.

I have kept the really ancient ones, but nowadays if an item fails I junk it immediately.

early era I kept all even if they were kaput. this does lead to some confusion as to which items work.

For that, i have a nice quote that i like to use: "Never drive faster than your guardian angel is able to fly!".

a very graphic metaphor!

As of the banging of doors and the like, that youths do, it's due to the showoff and attention. E.g loud exhaust and loud car stereo are another thing they like to do.

its the surplus hormones also. some of them will do some modification of their car where when they accelerate it makes this loud bang!

in Britain, in big cities like Bristol and London, the young people are better behaved, because there will always be someone in the vicinity who it is unwise to provoke! they soon learn to behave,

it is in the smaller towns that you get more delinquent behaviour. with Bristol, the delinquent car drivers are more in the outermost zones of the city.

To me, loud exhaust/audio are annoying and are also great way to lead to a loss of hearing.

loss of hearing is one of the key problems of loudness, eg if you slam a door, its not good for your ears.

loud music also. I went to the cinema whilst my car was being repaired, and the audio was way too loud.

the problem is if you regularly listen to audio too loud, your hearing deteriorates and it no longer sounds too loud!

With mechanical keys, the key body is color coded to indicate it's actuation force and any other features it has.
E.g Cherry MX;
Red - 45g and linear
Blue - 45g and loud "click" at registration point
Brown - 45g and tactile bump at registration point
Black - 60g and linear

are you talking about if you remove the keys?

or the visible colour of the upper side of the keys?

Here's in-depth about differences with Cherry MX mechanical switches,
link: https://www.keychron.com/blogs/news/cherry-mechanical-switch-guide

And when it comes to actuation force;
below 45g - low
45g-55g - medium
56g-65g - high
above 65g - very high (hard to press)

I prefer 45g, since i can rest my fingers on KB without registering the key press. Also, it doesn't take much force to press keys, whereby my fingers won't tire out.
Did try 65g in PC store at display unit and that was way too hard to press. Also, i don't like "click" and tactile feel, so, linear keys are best for me.

clicks of any form are annoying, and eg smartphone camera software which does a fake click,

if you are in a library or on a train, any noise of the smartphone or laptop will get on a lot of people's nerves!

when I went to the cinema, I got a seat at the back row, because of the pricing, just 2 other people, in the middle of the cinema. a man and a woman, both permanently looking at their smartphones, at no point communicating with each other! the one with really lucid images, and playing music, very irritating. a few minutes before the film began, many further people entered the cinema hall. it was hall 11 of at least 12 halls, this one a smaller hall.

Well, the heatsink itself is one big block of metal, so, electricity flows through it like hot knife through butter. But electricity doesn't do anything to the heatsink itself.
Fans on it have plastic frame and are otherwise well insulated against outside electricity. Only the fan motor, deep inside the fan hub, is the electronics part, but it is a small servomotor and as far as i know, ESD won't damage it either, IF it even reaches the fan motor.

However, if CPU cooler is mounted on the MoBo and you happen to get ESD when you touch the CPU heatsink, the electricity travels through the metal heatsink all they way down to the CPU and CPUs are very sensitive to the voltage surges.

ok, its quite involved, I will be more careful with it,
its an example of what my 2nd driving instructor said, which is to keep looking in all directions, even if you know nothing can happen. eg if there is a filter arrow left, to still check right, and one day a car with some young people emerged from the right! where they had jumped the previous traffic light, or got stuck in the middle and then continued. a junction where the left turn curves away from the centre.


the filter arrow left means you dont need to look right.


in this case, to assume everything is electrostatic sensitive, even if you think or know it isnt.

Availability is another issue. Currently, there is 1 company who can make 64TB/100TB SSDs. And since they have monopoly in that segment, they can dictate the price.

Now, if there would be two companies that can produce the SSDs, then they would compete price wise, but it wouldn't still be cheap (just look how expensive top-end CPUs still are, since there are only two companies who make CPUs: AMD and Intel).
If there would be 3 companies, and with equal market share, price of the product would drop even further down. E.g with GPUs, there are: Intel, Nvidia and AMD. But since Nvidia has most of the market share and Intel has very little, Nvidia can still dictate, for the most part, the GPU prices. AMD doesn't compete with Nvidia in the terms of price per performance, instead, AMD likes to undercut Nvidia, by offering cheaper GPUs, but with caveats of course (usually far higher power consumption than Nvidia counterpart. Also, usually more hotter running and AMD GPU drivers also are less optimized than Nvidia drivers).


You're missing the point of my example.

Spoiler: Off-topic description of my point

Let's say you have 6 cars, none of them are drive-able and you need to move them all into another location.

You have two options:
1. Buy six car carrier trailers, so you can load the cars individually on the trailers and tow them all either one-by-one, or find 6 other trucks to tow all 6 at once.

2. Buy the car hauler, so you can load all the cars onto it at once (it has more capacity), whereby you can move all cars at once, with semi-truck.

6 car carrier trailers combined, cost less than one big car hauler semi-trailer. But since car hauler semi-trailer has more capacity and in turn, is more efficient when moving 6 cars than moving 6 cars individually, it's higher price is justified.

If you want real life pricing as well, then car trailer costs £4299, link: https://www.lidertrailers.co.uk/product/twin-axle-2500kg-tilt-deck-car-transporter-39760/
And the car hauler semi-trailer costs $36.800, link: https://www.kaufmantrailers.com/car-trailers/double-deck-car-haulers/48000-53-double-deck-car/

6 x £4299 = £25.794
$36.800 to £ = £29.200

And with car hauler semi-trailer, due to it's capacity, you can also load a bus onto it, to haul around. But bus does not fit onto the small car carrier trailer.

So, when you have 6x car carrier trailers and you need to tow a bus, what do you do?
Bus doesn't fit onto car carrier trailer. Do you cut the bus into pieces to fit onto the car carrier trailers?
Or would you rather have car hauler semi-trailer, that can fit the bus in it's whole and can be also used to haul several smaller vehicles?

Do you now get my point?

Spoiler: Off-topic description of my point

if you are a computer user then yes, but with some programming you can essentially cut the bus into bits, and then reassemble them at the other end!

same way my 96G PC is in fact two 48G memory spaces, which are merged by firmware and electronics into the illusion of one 96G space. I probably wont even use 16G of that space, but I got the 96G in order to never have to upgrade the memory!

to actually go and program this would be some work, would easily take months to program,

a hardware version could be done with a special hub, where you connect say USB drives, but the hub's USB cable merges all those drives into one merged drive. whether anyone decides to manufacture this is a different question.

but basically if someone is selling for $10000 what can be done for maybe $1700, then there is an incentive to develop such a product. a lot of firms are in financial trouble because most firms ride on debt, and interest rates have gone up a lot which means trouble when they roll over their debt by refinancing.

its basically a black box, where inside the box you attach lots of say 4T drives,
but outside the box, the box is 64T or even 128T or whatever.

inside the box you could attach 4 of the $10000 drives, and now get a 256T drive!


in particular you could outdo the capacity of the $10000 drive, by merely attaching more drives, so it also has the advantage of being extendible and scaleable. if you want a 20T drive, you can arrange that, if you want a 100T drive, you can arrange that.

whereas the $10000 drive is one fixed option, which will be too big for some people, and too small for others!

way back in the 1980s, a british firm called Inmos developed a scaleable form of multicore called transputers, where with AMD a multicore cpu might have exactly 8 cores. with transputers, you can connect as many as you like! if you want 3, you connect up 3 of them, if you want 10, you connect up 10.


also you could grow the drive, start with a 4T, when that is 90% full, you buy another 4T and the drive is now 8T, when that is 90% full, you buy another 4T etc. adaptive capacity! much better

its one of the reasons why Microsoft overtook IBM, as IBM's focus was on mainframes, but when you reach approx 1993, there was a move away from mainframes to networks of PCs, and this is scaleable. whereas a mainframe is a fixed amount of power, where the more users you have, the more diluted the power. but with networks of laptops, you can connect as many as you want. the network speed would slow down as you add more laptops, but the work at each laptop would be max speed.

IBM had been the biggest company on earth, but approx 1993, Bill Gates decided to support the clones, and Microsoft overtook IBM to become the biggest company on earth for a long era.

basically software is often a better way to do things than hardware.

That is usually how NAS are.

However, the point of actually making single drive with high capacity is to save space dimensions wise.
No-one has unlimited amount of real estate where to store the hardware.

there is the cloud also if you want a lot of capacity without clutter, I wouldnt personally use the cloud

if a $10000 drive is too small, could be easier to steal also!

although it takes up more space, having lots of smaller drives leads to huge speed increases, but it needs software to splice up the data from the parallel drives. you can get say 16x the speed for 1/5 the price by having say 16 x 4T drives!

 

[USAFRet]

if a $10000 drive is too small, could be easier to steal also!

In or attached to my NAS is 12 physical drives.
Currently, ~95TB.

If I wanted/needed, I could easily double that capacity.

3 small boxes, that would almost fit inside a regular PC case.

 

[Richard1234]

In or attached to my NAS is 12 physical drives.
Currently, ~95TB.

If I wanted/needed, I could easily double that capacity.

3 small boxes, that would almost fit inside a regular PC case.

that sounds like what I was arguing for! where it is extendible and scaleable. when you run out of storage you add some more drives. if you just want 16TB, you have fewer drives. can you extend an in use merged drive?

modularity applied to size!

 

[USAFRet]

that sounds like what I was arguing for! where it is extendible and scaleable. when you run out of storage you add some more drives. if you just want 16TB, you have fewer drives. can you extend an in use merged drive?

modularity applied to size!

Be very very careful about "merging".

I have 3x 4bay pods.
The QNAP TS-453a
TR-004
Mediasonic

The only thing that is a merged volume is the 4 bay TR-004. 4x 4TB, in a single JBOD volume.
The other 8 drives are all individual drives, no merge, no extend.

 

[Richard1234]

1. Breadboarding​

Now, it may get seemingly stuck on either 15, 16, 17, 18 or 2E, but wait since this is memory training and takes a bit of time. Shouldn't take more than 5 mins though. MoBo can do the memory training twice, but once POST is complete, PC should boot directly to UEFI (BIOS).

2.3. Once you see UEFI on your monitor, GREAT, the most nerve-wrecking part is over and you've confirmed that CPU-MoBo-RAM work. You can then look around in UEFI if you like but otherwise, exit UEFI. Since there is no OS, PC restarts and does boot back to UEFI.

finally got to the UEFI!

http://www.directemails.info/tom/mobo/breadboard.jpg

where the monitor is my 2007 passive 3D LG monitor, which I stopped using to keep it as a functioning 3D monitor.

I have left it in that state for the moment, till I think what to do next.

2.4. To power off the PC, while in UEFI, either press the power button on MoBo, or flip the switch at the back of the PSU. (I prefer flipping the switch.)

For redundancy, you can turn the breadboarded setup back on again, to make sure all works. Just flip the PSU switch back to "On" position and power on the build via Power button on MoBo. If all is well, you'll end up back in UEFI. With this confirmed 2nd time, power off the build again, for further assembly.

not done this yet.

Regarding further assembly, you can go ahead and install the MoBo into the PC case if you like, but i personally prefer to install OS 1st, since when something should happen with hardware, it's easier to disassemble it.
I can write the follow-up steps too, if you like, but this (breadboarding), is the most crucial part of building any PC.

Be very very careful about "merging".

I have 3x 4bay pods.
The QNAP TS-453a
TR-004
Mediasonic

The only thing that is a merged volume is the 4 bay TR-004. 4x 4TB, in a single JBOD volume.
The other 8 drives are all individual drives, no merge, no extend.

yeh, I guess merging presents its own hazards, one shouldnt just blindly merge.

probably has to be done in a constrained way, eg to deal with say a drive failing without losing data.

personally I find 2T to be more than plenty, where I arrange my files to fit within directories or volumes within 2T. if one category of stuff did fill up 2T, it probably needs reorganising, into more interesting + useful stuff versus less, then split the material into 2 approx 1T batches on 2 drives.

I then only need to backup a volume on a 2T drive that I have been using a lot recently, and the sector backup goes to another 2T drive, where each backup goes to a different drive. that way if one backup drive fails, I have an earlier backup on another drive.

 

[Richard1234]

1. Breadboarding​

1.6 Connect KB and mice to MoBo USB slots at the back of the MoBo. Doesn't matter much which ports you use.

I think you dont need the keyboard to breadboard!

I checked this just now, and you can get to the UEFI just with a wired mouse. in fact I wasnt able to use the keyboard at the UEFI screen, if it can be used it must be some obscure function like setting a password.

the keyboard will probably be needed to install the OS.


I left it for ages, and no UEFI, checked and green led and A1, I think it had timed out from the UEFI and was trying to boot, where the error is no boot device.

rebooted and got to the UEFI, the earlier UEFI probably timed out whilst I was out of the room.

the breadboarding originally failed because I had only connected the mobo power cable, I had to then connect two 4x2 cables, and the right way round, then it reached the UEFI.

Regarding further assembly, you can go ahead and install the MoBo into the PC case if you like, but i personally prefer to install OS 1st, since when something should happen with hardware, it's easier to disassemble it.
I can write the follow-up steps too, if you like, but this (breadboarding), is the most crucial part of building any PC.

I am thinking of installing it into the case now, because its already generating heat, where I would prefer it has the full heat control, also I want to migrate my SATA Panasonic 3D bluray writer from my 2010 PC to this machine, where the cables will be starting to proliferate.

there is the question also of installing the M2 drive. where my plan is to partition that into volumes, for alternative OS boots, eg I was thinking of XP, Windows 10, Windows 11,

XP just for some legacy things, eg my camera's software only works properly with XP, not with Win 10,



where in the earlier topic I was told that the Windows 10 key can be used to install Windows 11,

will that key also work on all earlier and later install disks of Windows 10 and Windows 11?

presumably it will only work on the specific Windows product, eg I purchased some licenses of Windows 10 Pro in June 2021, I presume then it will work with Windows 11 Pro?

with Windows XP, will a key only work with the product and release version purchased, or will it also work with earlier and later releases of that Windows XP product?

by product, I mean eg Windows XP Home Edition.

the machine so far is super silent, where I could use it in the same room, but I havent got the 7 Noctua fans functioning yet.

Be Quiet! has a switch for 2 modes, Quiet and Performance, where it was factory set to Performance, but I have reset that to Quiet, I dont know if that is the correct MO?

 

[USAFRet]

with Windows XP

What happened with XP licensing and activation is totally irrelevant with Win 10 and 11.
Totally and completely.

Its like..."My car from 1968 had a socket on the end of the crankshaft so I could maybe hand crank it in an emergency, Why doesn't my Tesla have the same?"


A valid and otherwise unused Win 10 license will serve to activate a new Win 11 install.