Advice on a new PC motherboard 'bundle'

[Sam Plusnet]

I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.

Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.

I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the
Motherboard/CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace. To make life
easier, I want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.

Last time around,I bought such a bundle from Novatech, and I was very
happy with the result. I might still buy from them, but their bundles
get very expensive very quickly (e.g. a modest bundle is ~£300, the next
is £740 and sharply up from there).

Question: Can anyone recommend other firms which offer such (built &
tested) bundles, and are they good if/when things need attention?
(I can recommend Novatech since they replaced my first bundle without a
quibble when it suddenly died after a year of use.)

Question 2: My current system is Intel-based. Is there any advantage
to going for a Ryzen-based system at the moment?
I am not into the latest & greatest in gaming, so I have no interest in
overclocking the thing into meltdown.

[Paul]

I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on 'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from 2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the Motherboard/CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace.  To make life easier, I want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.
Last time around,I bought such a bundle from Novatech, and I was very happy with the result.  I might still buy from them, but their bundles get very expensive very quickly (e.g. a modest bundle is ~£300, the next is £740 and sharply up from there).
Question:  Can anyone recommend other firms which offer such (built & tested) bundles, and are they good if/when things need attention?
(I can recommend Novatech since they replaced my first bundle without a quibble when it suddenly died after a year of use.)
Question 2:  My current system is Intel-based.  Is there any advantage to going for a Ryzen-based system at the moment?
I am not into the latest & greatest in gaming, so I have no interest in overclocking the thing into meltdown.

To give the folks a flavour of what you've got currently, give us a dump on your hardware.
We can use this information, to give you a comparable system closer to what you've
got, without going overboard on the shiny aspect.

Using the CPUZ utility, you get CPU, motherboard, RAM, Graphics-Card.

The "Save Report" button gives a text file, and it can include
your hard drive detail, such as "Samsung SSD 870 EVO 4TB" that
is not shown in the graphical output here.

Loading Image...

The CPUZ download is here. If any "garbage" pops up, use the "reload" icon
on your browser to reload the page. Do NOT click any dialogs thrown up,
just refresh around them. This is the portable version that does not
need to be installed. You can unpack in your Downloads folder and use
the EXE file from there. If you Save Report, it can go into your
Downloads as well. The author of this, has not used advertising in the
past, but he has to pay for his server, and it is what it is.
(People use rental servers, these are not "servers in your basement".)

https://www.cpuid.com/downloads/cpu-z/cpu-z_2.15-en.zip

*******

If you're on Linux, "inxi -F" will give a dump of similar details.
Being a daily driver that had a bit of an illness, this thing
has been round-the-block a few times. It's actually on its third
processor, but don't tell anyone :-)

$ inxi -F
System:
Host: TICTAK Kernel: 6.8.0-51-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64
Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.4.6 Distro: Linux Mint 22.1 Xia
Machine:
Type: Desktop Mobo: Micro-Star model: MPG B550 GAMING PLUS (MS-7C56) v: 1.0
serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: 1.I0
date: 07/13/2024
CPU:
Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Graphics bits: 64
type: MT MCP cache: L2: 3 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 616 min/max: 400/4464 cores: 1: 400 2: 400 3: 400
4: 2994 5: 400 6: 400 7: 400 8: 400 9: 400 10: 400 11: 400 12: 400
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD Cezanne [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Mobile Series]
driver: amdgpu v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X:
loaded: amdgpu unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu
resolution: 1920x1080~75Hz
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: radeonsi,swrast platforms: x11,surfaceless,device
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa v: 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.3
renderer: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi renoir LLVM 17.0.6 DRM 3.57 <=== this is iGPU inside the CPU
6.8.0-51-generic)
Audio:
Device-1: AMD Renoir Radeon High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-2: AMD Family 17h/19h HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
API: ALSA v: k6.8.0-51-generic status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: active
Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
driver: r8169
IF: enp42s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac:
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 7.43 GiB (1.6%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD5003ABYZ-011FA0 <=== Some old hard drive
size: 465.76 GiB
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 39.08 GiB used: 7.35 GiB (18.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda7
ID-2: /boot/efi size: 96 MiB used: 79.6 MiB (82.9%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors: <=== No driver for sensor in Win or Linux!
System Temperatures: cpu: 36.4 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 29.0 C
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A <=== That is why fan speed is unknown
Info:
Memory: total: 64 GiB note: est. available: 62.19 GiB used: 1.65 GiB (2.7%)
Processes: 296 Uptime: 1m Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.34

*******

Sometimes, your graphics card can't be recycled, because the VBIOS is too old.
Some of the new motherboards, want a GOP VBIOS for UEFI usage, and they
may reject an old video card. You can handle this at build time, see
the video card is no good, try to pick up a cheap one (if the CPU
does not have an iGPU). The 5600G for example, has an iGPU and does
not need a video card purchase to work. Just recently, the later
Zen line has also just put out an APU-like thing with a decent GPU
in it as well. That's an AMD processor. Intel does similar things,
like maybe a 14400 with iGPU would be a quad core and fairly cheap.

Two sticks of RAM, and the usage of the XMP setting, and the RAM
"snaps to attention". You (or the provider) makes sure the RAM
is within range of the hardware, and the XMP feature runs the RAM
at whatever whizzy speed it's been tested with. For example, the
system above was DDR4-3200 and that's pretty well exactly what it
supports, and zero problems. The DDR5 systems today are DDR5-5600
and two sticks, flip on XMP, and job done. If you're fairly unconcerned
about the RAM, it can today be practically friction-less to get going.

Some boxes, the CPU won't start, and that's part of your "tested system"
philosophy. The machine I'm typing on, did not start the first time :-)
I wasn't particularly surprised. I knew I needed to flash up the
motherboard BIOS chip, and it took *all evening* to get the stupid
machine to read the USB stick with the flash image on it. I was ready
to smack someone. The manual had minimal instructions. When I thought
the flashing red LED meant it was programming the flash... that was
actually an error indicator :-) Doh. But I eventually got a different
flashing pattern out of it, and I relaxed and waited for it to finish.
No problem after that, came up, pressed <Del> and entered the BIOS.
Switch on XMP. Now my RAM is ready. And so on.

On a tested system, you will be spared these moments of aggravation.
Only if the CMOS battery fell out, might you take a step backwards
(have to set up the BIOS again, not a big deal). As it is, you still
have to enter the BIOS and set certain things with respect to keeping
the "new" Windows happy (TPM, VT-X, and so on). Windows uses virtualization,
so the VT-X or things near that, need to be switched on. Your TPM can
be a separate plug-in hardware module, or it can be the fTPM emulation
the BIOS provides. I would recommend to people to use the physical
TPM module (to avoid the stutter bug on AMD at least), but you may decide differently.
The price on those has shot up like crazy, for no particular reason.
Several years ago, they were like "jelly-beans" at the shop I use.
I really should have bought two.

Paul

[Sam Plusnet]

Post by Paul

I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on 'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from 2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the Motherboard/CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace.  To make life easier, I want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.
Last time around,I bought such a bundle from Novatech, and I was very happy with the result.  I might still buy from them, but their bundles get very expensive very quickly (e.g. a modest bundle is ~£300, the next is £740 and sharply up from there).
Question:  Can anyone recommend other firms which offer such (built & tested) bundles, and are they good if/when things need attention?
(I can recommend Novatech since they replaced my first bundle without a quibble when it suddenly died after a year of use.)
Question 2:  My current system is Intel-based.  Is there any advantage to going for a Ryzen-based system at the moment?
I am not into the latest & greatest in gaming, so I have no interest in overclocking the thing into meltdown.

To give the folks a flavour of what you've got currently, give us a dump on your hardware.
We can use this information, to give you a comparable system closer to what you've
got, without going overboard on the shiny aspect.

Using a different utility I already had loaded:

Intel Core i7-6700K
GIGABYTE Z170XP-SLI-CF
16 GB RAM (2 off Kingston KHX2666C15D4/8G) @1333 MHz
GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB

I have a mixture of drives. An M.2 SSD, a SATA SSD, and a few HDDs in
this machine, which will mostly go into the new setup.

[Theo]

Post by Sam Plusnet
Intel Core i7-6700K
GIGABYTE Z170XP-SLI-CF
GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
I have a mixture of drives. An M.2 SSD, a SATA SSD, and a few HDDs in
this machine, which will mostly go into the new setup.

That's a decent spec, and just missed the boat by a couple of years - it
would be a shame to ditch it. Before you buy anything, I'd probably try the
many hacks to install W11 'unofficially' - you could try it on a new
secondary 240GB SSD for a few quid. Keep all your apps and data on the
other drives. If it ever stops working you can revert to W10 and consider
your options.

Another option is to install Windows 10 LTSC, which gets you security
updates and no W11 junk. Not sure how easy that is if you don't have a W10
Enterprise licence. I think LTSC 2021 gets updates until Jan 2027, the IoT
version until 2032 - not sure of the differences.

Theo

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by Sam Plusnet
Intel Core i7-6700K
GIGABYTE Z170XP-SLI-CF
GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
I have a mixture of drives. An M.2 SSD, a SATA SSD, and a few HDDs in
this machine, which will mostly go into the new setup.

The Z170 motherboards are one of the best, I have 4 x PCs with the Asus
versions. They are from the Win 8 era and run it very well. Mine are all
set up (via the BIOS) so they won't run Win 11.

[Paul]

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by Paul

I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on 'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from 2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the Motherboard/CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace.  To make life easier, I want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.
Last time around,I bought such a bundle from Novatech, and I was very happy with the result.  I might still buy from them, but their bundles get very expensive very quickly (e.g. a modest bundle is ~£300, the next is £740 and sharply up from there).
Question:  Can anyone recommend other firms which offer such (built & tested) bundles, and are they good if/when things need attention?
(I can recommend Novatech since they replaced my first bundle without a quibble when it suddenly died after a year of use.)
Question 2:  My current system is Intel-based.  Is there any advantage to going for a Ryzen-based system at the moment?
I am not into the latest & greatest in gaming, so I have no interest in overclocking the thing into meltdown.

To give the folks a flavour of what you've got currently, give us a dump on your hardware.
We can use this information, to give you a comparable system closer to what you've
got, without going overboard on the shiny aspect.

Intel Core i7-6700K
GIGABYTE Z170XP-SLI-CF
GPU  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
I have a mixture of drives.  An M.2 SSD, a SATA SSD, and a few HDDs in this machine, which will mostly go into the new setup.

6700K

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html#desktop-thread

Intel Core i7-6700K @ 4.00GHz 2,505

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/mid_range_cpus.html

Intel Core i7-6700K @ 4.00GHz 8,943 # Would have been 4*2505 if perfect scaling, multi-thread bench

*******

The pricing here, is highly specious, and some of these have had multiple price drops.
You can use camelcamelcamel to get a graph of pricing, in some cases. My daily driver
is a 5700G, the more powerful machine sits off to the side on a table by itself. 32 watts idle
(has a cheap NVidia card, or the number would be even lower than that).

The single thread (left column), determines the "Windows feel". Sometimes Windows Update
finishes a bit sooner on the faster single thread machine. the right column (multithread)
helps determine how fast 7ZIP runs, or Cinebench, or Blender or the like. Just recently,
for the first time, I watched as Windows Defender opened a .7z by itself, used libarchive,
libarchive had a multi-thread decompressor for 7z and all the cores lit up. The first time
I've ever seen Windows use all the cores without prompting.

Intel Core i5-14400 3,766 25,253 $178.96 6*2 + 4 threads Faster than your 6700K
Intel Core i7-14700K 4,478 52,711 $319.00 8*2 + 12 threads Selected for single thread, high clock
Intel Core Ultra 7 265K 4,870 58,789 $332.99 8 + 12 threads No-HT, 13 TOPS NPU

AMD 5700G (Zen3) 3,284 24,477 $148.00 8*2 threads
AMD 7700X (Zen4) 4,192 35,862 8*2 threads $400
AMD 8700G (Zen4) 3,916 31,619 $307.88 8*2 threads Better iGPU, 16TOP via IFPU, unstable/biosfix
AMD 9700X (Zen5) 4,658 37,223 $326.99 8*2 threads , good single thread, for Windows $360
AMD 9800X3D 4,434 40,068 8*2 threads , extra L3 cache (for games) $479

The purpose of having a high single thread, is insurance against moves in the
future to slow the processor down. It's not your imagination, if you think
things are more sluggish than they used to be. By measurement, NTFS file
deletion is slower than it used to be (maybe 600 items per second now).

An item with extra L3 cache, the cache is faster than system memory, but the ratio
is not all that great. The L1 and L2 are unimaginably fast, and have to be, to keep
an instruction pipeline filled at 5GHz. On 7ZIP, the L3 helps with the "dictionary",
and the dictionary would be biggest (cache busting) on random data, such as an
encrypted file. That's why you don't compress an encrypted file, you compress first,
then you encrypt.

Can you buy a refurb ? Of course.

But weight them and measure them first. If they don't have
some measure of future proofing, they might not be a good
value.

For the 14 series Intel, you should find the BIOS file that
contains the "overvoltage/damage CPU" fix, before running
the processor for any period of time. While the 14 series has
an issue, a BIOS fix is available for it. Only "fresh" 14 series CPU
are safe -- don't buy used ones, or a motherboard where the BIOS
status is dodgy. A person could sell you a 14 series, because
it's cooked.

It makes it easier to select a bundle, once you have some
idea what direction you're taking. But at least compare them,
compare them to your 6700K, before going too much further.
These things are enough of a nuisance as home projects,
without adding selection uncertainty to the mix. My last upgrade
was a "wild ride". Not nearly as easy as projects in the past.

Paul

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 16/04/2025 08:56, Paul wrote:

<TL-DR>

Post by Paul
t makes it easier to select a bundle, once you have some
idea what direction you're taking. But at least compare them,
compare them to your 6700K, before going too much further.
These things are enough of a nuisance as home projects,
without adding selection uncertainty to the mix. My last upgrade
was a "wild ride". Not nearly as easy as projects in the past.

Look. It really is not that complicated.
Simpley look at what the machine is going to be used for, and use that
to determine the CPU spec and RAM size.

And RAM can usually be increased later.

All machines are going to have 256GB+ of SSD of one sort or another.

All machines except seriously old cheap shit are going to run Linux or
Win 11 just fine

Search for a machine that fits that budget, bearing in mind that a new
Mobo and CPU is likely to cost more than a whole refurbed 4 years old ex
corporate PC with pre installed windows


No one wants to mess with OS and hardware upgrades unless they have to.

Pick the shortest route to the desired destination unless you enjoy the
journey.

[RJH]

Post by The Natural Philosopher
<TL-DR>

Post by Paul
t makes it easier to select a bundle, once you have some
idea what direction you're taking. But at least compare them,
compare them to your 6700K, before going too much further.
These things are enough of a nuisance as home projects,
without adding selection uncertainty to the mix. My last upgrade
was a "wild ride". Not nearly as easy as projects in the past.

Look. It really is not that complicated.
Simpley look at what the machine is going to be used for, and use that
to determine the CPU spec and RAM size.

Well, if you want what you do to be done more quickly, or quietly, or look
better and made from better and longer lasting components, with decent I/O,
you might want to pay more for a higher specced machine.

There's also the issue of future proofing. Things like OS upgrades (how long
will W11 last?). My 5 year old Mac wouldn't run some of the latest features -
AI in particular. That might be something of interest in the future, and a
lower spec machine might not cope.

[Paul]

Post by RJH

Post by The Natural Philosopher
<TL-DR>

Post by Paul
t makes it easier to select a bundle, once you have some
idea what direction you're taking. But at least compare them,
compare them to your 6700K, before going too much further.
These things are enough of a nuisance as home projects,
without adding selection uncertainty to the mix. My last upgrade
was a "wild ride". Not nearly as easy as projects in the past.

Look. It really is not that complicated.
Simpley look at what the machine is going to be used for, and use that
to determine the CPU spec and RAM size.

Well, if you want what you do to be done more quickly, or quietly, or look
better and made from better and longer lasting components, with decent I/O,
you might want to pay more for a higher specced machine.
There's also the issue of future proofing. Things like OS upgrades (how long
will W11 last?). My 5 year old Mac wouldn't run some of the latest features -
AI in particular. That might be something of interest in the future, and a
lower spec machine might not cope.

The pattern I'm seeing, is maybe desktops won't be getting a real NPU.
AI computation can be done with a dedicated NPU (multiply-accumulate array),
but it can also be done with the resources of a video card. Some video
cards have Tensor cores.

Some laptops have the goods. (A few models have 50 TOPS dedicated NPU.)

https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/best-ai-pc

But everyone knows, in a gold rush, the real money is made on
selling mules and shovels. And they want to make sure we
end up buying unnecessarily-expensive mules for this application.

Maybe somebody will make a mule rental shop, and you can
go in there and play on an expensive system for an hour or two,
and see if the gold rush is real or not.

The video cards can't do too much of this stuff, until
the name of the software for it is more public. AMD has ROCM,
which has just recently been split into two parts. I don't
recollect the NVidia offering to have a name. While some
review articles have AI benchmarks, that too isn't all that
known by individual users.

There is ONNX-DirectML for some purpose, but when someone
in the newsgroups tried to use that, the software was incapable
of moving forward because it tripped over some drivers (that
should have been tested).

There's a healthy dose of incompetence out there.

If it's one thing I've learned about hardware over the years,
you never buy a hardware where "the cheque is in the mail".
If the software isn't ready, you just don't buy the goods.
You want the software ready. You want the software tested
by more than one test-donkey to prove the software is
real, and not a bug-zoo.

Paul

[Paul]

Post by The Natural Philosopher
<TL-DR>

Post by Paul
t makes it easier to select a bundle, once you have some
idea what direction you're taking. But at least compare them,
compare them to your 6700K, before going too much further.
These things are enough of a nuisance as home projects,
without adding selection uncertainty to the mix. My last upgrade
was a "wild ride". Not nearly as easy as projects in the past.

Look. It really is not that complicated.
Simpley look at what the machine is going to be used for, and use that to determine the CPU spec and RAM size.
And RAM can usually be increased later.
All machines are going to have 256GB+ of SSD of one sort or another.
All machines except seriously old cheap shit are going to run Linux or Win 11 just fine
Search for a machine  that fits that budget, bearing in mind that a new Mobo and CPU is likely to cost more than a whole refurbed 4 years old ex corporate PC with pre installed windows
No one wants to mess with OS and hardware upgrades unless they have to.
Pick the shortest route to the desired destination unless you enjoy the journey.

Look, it's simple.

Identify an item I can give a person, for a *flawless* experience.

That's what it takes to rescue 400,000,000 machines.

What you propose is fine for people with years of experience.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg

Paul

[Andy Burns]

Mine's a Xeon E3-1245v3, which is essentially a slower clocked version
of that, it's a decade old, but not feeling slow yet ... thankfully it
doesn't run Windows, so lack of TPM and generation of CPU isn't an issue.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Andy Burns
Mine's a Xeon E3-1245v3, which is essentially a slower clocked version
of that, it's a decade old, but not feeling slow yet ... thankfully it
doesn't run Windows, so lack of TPM and generation of CPU isn't an issue.

Mine is Intel® Core™ i5-6600T CPU @ 2.70GHz × 4

It's perfectly adequate for everything I am doing

[Jeff Layman]

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.

You might like to consider something like Linux Mint. I moved from Win7
to Ubuntu and after a couple of years Linux Mint, and have never wanted
to go back. I suggest you create a bootable iso of Linux Mint (try
version 22.0), and boot your old PC from it just to see what it looks
like, and perhaps have a play.
<https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html>

Post by Sam Plusnet
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the
Motherboard/CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace. To make life
easier, I want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.
Last time around,I bought such a bundle from Novatech, and I was very
happy with the result. I might still buy from them, but their bundles
get very expensive very quickly (e.g. a modest bundle is ~£300, the next
is £740 and sharply up from there).

Just over 10 years ago I bought a "Clearance" laptop from Novatech. At
the time, their machines were rebadged Clevo laptops. The laptop I
bought was half the price it would have been new about 12 - 18 months
previously, and was very highly specced. It worked faultlessly for over
8 years until the HDD started playing up (I've since replaced it with an
SSD after getting a new laptop, and it now works ok. However, it /is/ an
old machine, so things like electrolytic capacitors might be getting a
little dodgy). I wanted to replace the laptop with another Novatech, but
they no longer used Clevo machines. So I looked elsewhere.

Post by Sam Plusnet
Question: Can anyone recommend other firms which offer such (built &
tested) bundles, and are they good if/when things need attention?
(I can recommend Novatech since they replaced my first bundle without a
quibble when it suddenly died after a year of use.)

I found that PCSpecialist (<https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/>) sell
fully-configurable Clevo laptops, so got one from them. Their service
was very good, and I'm /fairly/ pleased with the new laptop. Why only
/fairly/? Well, like everything new "progress" comes at a cost -
generally a lower cost by doing things more cheaply, or following what
everybody else is doing. The new laptop doesn't have a removable
battery, easily-accessible disk drive replacement, no internal CD/DVD
drive, and most annoyingly a clickpad rather than a trackpad with
separate left and right click buttons (but if you're using a PC with a
mouse that will be of no consequence).

Another company you might want to look at is <https://novacustom.com/>.
They were incredibly helpful getting my new Clevo's led keyboard to work
properly even though they hadn't sold me the machine!

Post by Sam Plusnet
Question 2: My current system is Intel-based. Is there any advantage
to going for a Ryzen-based system at the moment?
I am not into the latest & greatest in gaming, so I have no interest in
overclocking the thing into meltdown.

You'll have to decide what processor you want on a cost/performance basis.

[Paul]

Just over 10 years ago I bought a "Clearance" laptop from Novatech. At the time, their machines were rebadged Clevo laptops. The laptop I bought was half the price it would have been new about 12 - 18 months previously, and was very highly specced. It worked faultlessly for over 8 years until the HDD started playing up (I've since replaced it with an SSD after getting a new laptop, and it now works ok. However, it /is/ an old machine, so things like electrolytic capacitors might be getting a little dodgy). I wanted to replace the laptop with another Novatech, but they no longer used Clevo machines. So I looked elsewhere.

Capacitors aren't that fragile.
You have to antagonize them.

I've had two motherboard failures here, and the root cause was *not* caps.

It was different during the capacitor plague. It was so bad then, a capacitor
could fail in two years, while cold, and not under bias. The pH of the liquid
inside was such, it just ate through the casing. I bought an Antec power supply,
it sat on the shelf for two years (as a "spare"), and when I went to use it,
it was behaving in an unstable manner. When I opened it for a look, the four
+5V output caps were leaking and brown fluid was coming out the top on the
vent lines (the metal is thinnest there).

Today, a design can use Polymer caps (no fluid) or electrolytics.

The electrolytic in my electric lawn mower, is 33 years old. It has
not exploded, the can is intact, it's really quite amazing, in terms
of service life. I got to check it, when I changed out the brushes.

This one is 100% polymer caps.

Loading Image...

The companies making motherboards, know which cap brands to avoid, in
terms of shenanigans.

Clevo is an ODM, so just about everyone rebadges their stuff.
They expect it to be rebadged. The Eurocom store near me,
uses a lot of Clevo, and they put the Eurocom sticker on it.
Clevo doesn't build battleships like it used to, the machines
are losing weight, and whatever tactical advantage they had,
is disappearing. You could have a laptop for example, with
four SSDs in it. They don't do them exactly like that any more.
The machines are toned down a bit. Can Clevo survive by making
laptops that way ? I can't see this ending well. We want four
SSDs, two MXM modules, and two wall adapters for power, like
all good battleships. No one can steal your laptop, because
it's too heavy. And some of those machines could cost 7000.
To give you some idea how over the top they were. part of the
price might be Quadro graphics (for CAD work).

Paul

[Andy Burns]

I've had two motherboard failures here, and the root cause wasnot caps.

The only motherboard I've had (still have) that failed due to caps was
the infamous Abit BP6

[wasbit]

Post by Andy Burns

I've had two motherboard failures here, and the root cause wasnot caps.

The only motherboard I've had (still have) that failed due to caps was
the infamous Abit BP6

I had a router fail with bad caps. An Asus IIRC.
Lost connectivity on 3 of the 4 ports in a period of several months.

[Jeff Layman]

Post by Paul

Just over 10 years ago I bought a "Clearance" laptop from Novatech. At the time, their machines were rebadged Clevo laptops. The laptop I bought was half the price it would have been new about 12 - 18 months previously, and was very highly specced. It worked faultlessly for over 8 years until the HDD started playing up (I've since replaced it with an SSD after getting a new laptop, and it now works ok. However, it /is/ an old machine, so things like electrolytic capacitors might be getting a little dodgy). I wanted to replace the laptop with another Novatech, but they no longer used Clevo machines. So I looked elsewhere.

Capacitors aren't that fragile.
You have to antagonize them.
I've had two motherboard failures here, and the root cause was *not* caps.

Well, I did say /might/. I don't know how old this Dell monitor was, but
this thread is very recent:
<http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3C0921d12b5112cf38b75a1339eeb4abf3%40www.novabbs.com%3E>
I can't see a date on the capacitors or anywhere else on the board.

Post by Paul
It was different during the capacitor plague.

It was an awful time for manufacturers.

Post by Paul
The electrolytic in my electric lawn mower, is 33 years old. It has
not exploded, the can is intact, it's really quite amazing, in terms
of service life. I got to check it, when I changed out the brushes.

Is it a start or run capacitor? They are intended for pretty tough
service, but even then problems can occur:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_capacitor#Failure_modes>

Post by Paul
Clevo is an ODM, so just about everyone rebadges their stuff.
They expect it to be rebadged. The Eurocom store near me,
uses a lot of Clevo, and they put the Eurocom sticker on it.
Clevo doesn't build battleships like it used to, the machines
are losing weight, and whatever tactical advantage they had,
is disappearing. You could have a laptop for example, with
four SSDs in it. They don't do them exactly like that any more.
The machines are toned down a bit. Can Clevo survive by making
laptops that way ? I can't see this ending well. We want four
SSDs, two MXM modules, and two wall adapters for power, like
all good battleships. No one can steal your laptop, because
it's too heavy. And some of those machines could cost 7000.
To give you some idea how over the top they were. part of the
price might be Quadro graphics (for CAD work).

I was a bit disappointed with the new laptop, but I doubt it would have
been different with any ODM (or OEM for that matter). The original
laptop was intended for business, gaming, or any other use it could have
been put to. It had an i5-3230M, 8GB ram, a Radeon HD 7970M video card,
fingerprint reader, and the FireWire port. It /was/ (/is/!) built like a
battleship, and the power brick even more so - it is rated at 180W!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Paul

Just over 10 years ago I bought a "Clearance" laptop from Novatech. At the time, their machines were rebadged Clevo laptops. The laptop I bought was half the price it would have been new about 12 - 18 months previously, and was very highly specced. It worked faultlessly for over 8 years until the HDD started playing up (I've since replaced it with an SSD after getting a new laptop, and it now works ok. However, it /is/ an old machine, so things like electrolytic capacitors might be getting a little dodgy). I wanted to replace the laptop with another Novatech, but they no longer used Clevo machines. So I looked elsewhere.

Capacitors aren't that fragile.
You have to antagonize them.

Well no, they *are* that fragile. Especially the eletrolytic types.
Remember that to get high capacitance the dielectric needs to be as thin
as possible.
In the case of an electrolytic it is a thin layer of generally aluminium
oxide. Created by electrochemistry . If it starts to leak the eletrolyte
can break down and off gas and distort the capacitor leading to a short
or a popped case spewing corrosive material over the board

It its a ceramic the ceramic can crack under shock load, or sometimes
break enough to short the electrodes out.

Blown caps are the most common failure mode for modern electronics
followed by chip failures - usually due to overheating

Post by Paul
I've had two motherboard failures here, and the root cause was *not* caps.
It was different during the capacitor plague. It was so bad then, a capacitor
could fail in two years, while cold, and not under bias. The pH of the liquid
inside was such, it just ate through the casing. I bought an Antec power supply,
it sat on the shelf for two years (as a "spare"), and when I went to use it,
it was behaving in an unstable manner. When I opened it for a look, the four
+5V output caps were leaking and brown fluid was coming out the top on the
vent lines (the metal is thinnest there).
Today, a design can use Polymer caps (no fluid) or electrolytics.
The electrolytic in my electric lawn mower, is 33 years old. It has
not exploded, the can is intact, it's really quite amazing, in terms
of service life. I got to check it, when I changed out the brushes.

One swallow doesn't make a summer. Smaller higher capacitance devices
are pushing the limits

[John Rumm]

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.

I have had this conversation with quite a few customers recently, and
have had to point out that yup it is a right pain that MS are forcing
you to ditch a perfectly serviceable machine, but many of them are 10+
years old, and they might actually be pleasantly surprised how much of
an improvement in performance the new one will bring along with lower
running costs.

Post by Sam Plusnet
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the Motherboard/CPU/
RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace.  To make life easier, I want to
buy a ready built & tested bundle.

OOI what peripherals are you referring to?

You could just pick a motherboard that meets your needs, and then look
at the makers hardware compatibility lists. Then just pick a RAM/CPU
combination from the list, and you know that it is a tested combination
that will work.

Post by Sam Plusnet
Question:  Can anyone recommend other firms which offer such (built &
tested) bundles, and are they good if/when things need attention?
(I can recommend Novatech since they replaced my first bundle without a
quibble when it suddenly died after a year of use.)

Not something I have ever bought, so not really.

(I could probably sell you a bundle though!)

Post by Sam Plusnet
Question 2:  My current system is Intel-based.  Is there any advantage
to going for a Ryzen-based system at the moment?

Better cost / performance ratio at the moment. Intel are not doing as
well in the desktop space as in the past. Their 13th/14th gen chips
still seem to have a number of issues. (12th gen can actually be a more
reliable bet at a lower price)

Post by Sam Plusnet
I am not into the latest & greatest in gaming, so I have no interest in
overclocking the thing into meltdown.

Any interest in gaming? (i.e. do you need a dedicated graphics card, or
are you happy with built in GPU on the CPU)
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Theo]

Post by John Rumm

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.

I have had this conversation with quite a few customers recently, and
have had to point out that yup it is a right pain that MS are forcing
you to ditch a perfectly serviceable machine, but many of them are 10+
years old, and they might actually be pleasantly surprised how much of
an improvement in performance the new one will bring along with lower
running costs.

Post by Sam Plusnet
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the Motherboard/CPU/
RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace.  To make life easier, I want to
buy a ready built & tested bundle.

OOI what peripherals are you referring to?
You could just pick a motherboard that meets your needs, and then look
at the makers hardware compatibility lists. Then just pick a RAM/CPU
combination from the list, and you know that it is a tested combination
that will work.

It's also worth considering whether a change of form factor would make
sense. eg now that primary storage is mostly M.2 NVMe SSDs rather than
spinning hard drives, you only need find space for a half credit card sized
PCB rather than an almost-VHS sized lump. If you don't need to house a
lump, you can make the case much smaller.

Also, laptop-class CPUs are often 'good enough' nowadays, and they use less
power and so need less cooling, which means you can get away with a tiny
heatsink and fan rather than a heatsink the size of a mug. That also allows
the case to be smaller. Because they're lower power and the graphics may be
good enough to not need a discrete GPU, you don't need a giant PSU you can
run the whole system from a power brick. etc etc

Once you go down this road, you might find you can pick up a whole mini PC
for £200-300 which is the price of a mobo/CPU/RAM combo. Even less if
you're prepared to consider a used ex-office mini PC.

Theo

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Theo
Once you go down this road, you might find you can pick up a whole mini PC
for £200-300 which is the price of a mobo/CPU/RAM combo. Even less if
you're prepared to consider a used ex-office mini PC.

Yes indeed.

Gone are the days of rolling upgrades to old PCs. You can pick up a win
11 capable refurb in the £150-£300 price bracket ...unless you want
gaming level performance old office out of warranty PCS are excellent value.

In fact they are often cheaper than the CPU they contain.

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/refurbished-hp-elitedesk-800-g4-sff-core-i7-8th-gen-16gb-256gb-windows-11-p-t1-800g4i716gb256gbw11p/version.asp

That's a nice chunky trad desktop with lots of ram ...and a reasonable
SSD. Probably not NVMe but that's no big deal

And it comes ready to go.

[RJH]

Post by Theo

Post by John Rumm

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.

I have had this conversation with quite a few customers recently, and
have had to point out that yup it is a right pain that MS are forcing
you to ditch a perfectly serviceable machine, but many of them are 10+
years old, and they might actually be pleasantly surprised how much of
an improvement in performance the new one will bring along with lower
running costs.

Post by Sam Plusnet
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the Motherboard/CPU/
RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace. To make life easier, I want to
buy a ready built & tested bundle.

OOI what peripherals are you referring to?
You could just pick a motherboard that meets your needs, and then look
at the makers hardware compatibility lists. Then just pick a RAM/CPU
combination from the list, and you know that it is a tested combination
that will work.

It's also worth considering whether a change of form factor would make
sense. eg now that primary storage is mostly M.2 NVMe SSDs rather than
spinning hard drives, you only need find space for a half credit card sized
PCB rather than an almost-VHS sized lump. If you don't need to house a
lump, you can make the case much smaller.
Also, laptop-class CPUs are often 'good enough' nowadays, and they use less
power and so need less cooling, which means you can get away with a tiny
heatsink and fan rather than a heatsink the size of a mug. That also allows
the case to be smaller. Because they're lower power and the graphics may be
good enough to not need a discrete GPU, you don't need a giant PSU you can
run the whole system from a power brick. etc etc
Once you go down this road, you might find you can pick up a whole mini PC
for £200-300 which is the price of a mobo/CPU/RAM combo. Even less if
you're prepared to consider a used ex-office mini PC.

Going the other way price-wise, I've just bought a new Mac Mini - astonishing
bit of kit for the size and price (£600, although quite easy to get
discounts).

[Theo]

Post by RJH
Going the other way price-wise, I've just bought a new Mac Mini - astonishing
bit of kit for the size and price (£600, although quite easy to get
discounts).

Given the way MS have been abusing their customers, foisting things on them
they don't want (forced-upgrades, removing features from W11 over W10,
telemetry, adverts, AI, Recall, 'forgetting' that you disabled those things
every time it updates, etc), that's not a bad option if you can stomach
switching to a different platform. If the base 16GB RAM / 256GB storage
isn't enough and you don't want to pay the Apple tax, there are now third
party storage upgrades.

Or switch to Linux, where there's no arbitrary CPU age cutoff.

Theo

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Theo

Post by RJH
Going the other way price-wise, I've just bought a new Mac Mini - astonishing
bit of kit for the size and price (£600, although quite easy to get
discounts).

Given the way MS have been abusing their customers, foisting things on them
they don't want (forced-upgrades, removing features from W11 over W10,
telemetry, adverts, AI, Recall, 'forgetting' that you disabled those things
every time it updates, etc), that's not a bad option if you can stomach
switching to a different platform. If the base 16GB RAM / 256GB storage
isn't enough and you don't want to pay the Apple tax, there are now third
party storage upgrades.
Or switch to Linux, where there's no arbitrary CPU age cutoff.

Absolutely. 16GB ram 256GB storage is under £300 for quality refurbs
...running win11 or Linux ...And with 16GB RAM you can run Virtualbox
for those must have windows programs..

Does anybody actually *want* win 11?

Post by Theo
Theo

[Joe]

On Mon, 14 Apr 2025 14:10:16 +0100

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Theo

Post by RJH
Going the other way price-wise, I've just bought a new Mac Mini -
astonishing bit of kit for the size and price (£600, although
quite easy to get discounts).

Given the way MS have been abusing their customers, foisting things
on them they don't want (forced-upgrades, removing features from
W11 over W10, telemetry, adverts, AI, Recall, 'forgetting' that you
disabled those things every time it updates, etc), that's not a bad
option if you can stomach switching to a different platform. If
the base 16GB RAM / 256GB storage isn't enough and you don't want
to pay the Apple tax, there are now third party storage upgrades.
Or switch to Linux, where there's no arbitrary CPU age cutoff.

Absolutely. 16GB ram 256GB storage is under £300 for quality refurbs
...running win11 or Linux ...And with 16GB RAM you can run Virtualbox
for those must have windows programs..
Does anybody actually *want* win 11?

I don't think anyone in business wanted anything after Win7, or maybe
even XP. But just as most sharks have to keep swimming to breathe, MS
has to keep pulling rabbits, or turkeys, out of the hat to stay in
business.

Office has been rented for some time, something that MS always wanted
to do with all its software, so I suppose it's only a matter of time
before Windows goes subscription-only, and they don't have to keep
pretending to develop it. Newer and better applications will always
happen, but in general the OS doesn't need 'a complete rewrite' (not
that it really happens) every few years.

Much of the change in Linux is due to having to keep up with hardware
changes that new versions of Windows require the manufacturers to keep
making. I still have a 32-bit netbook running the latest version of
Debian, but that will be the last version with 386 code.

[Jeff Gaines]

On 14/04/2025 in message

Post by Joe
Office has been rented for some time, something that MS always wanted
to do with all its software, so I suppose it's only a matter of time
before Windows goes subscription-only, and they don't have to keep
pretending to develop it. Newer and better applications will always
happen, but in general the OS doesn't need 'a complete rewrite' (not
that it really happens) every few years.

The problem for me is that the "rewrites" consist of obscuring things and
taking useful functionality (like being able to download updates but
waiting to be told to install them) away.

Programs I wrote for Win98 still work in Windows 10, a sign the underlying
API is still the same.

[John Rumm]

Post by Joe
On Mon, 14 Apr 2025 14:10:16 +0100

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Theo

Post by RJH
Going the other way price-wise, I've just bought a new Mac Mini -
astonishing bit of kit for the size and price (£600, although
quite easy to get discounts).

Given the way MS have been abusing their customers, foisting things
on them they don't want (forced-upgrades, removing features from
W11 over W10, telemetry, adverts, AI, Recall, 'forgetting' that you
disabled those things every time it updates, etc), that's not a bad
option if you can stomach switching to a different platform. If
the base 16GB RAM / 256GB storage isn't enough and you don't want
to pay the Apple tax, there are now third party storage upgrades.
Or switch to Linux, where there's no arbitrary CPU age cutoff.

Absolutely. 16GB ram 256GB storage is under £300 for quality refurbs
...running win11 or Linux ...And with 16GB RAM you can run Virtualbox
for those must have windows programs..
Does anybody actually *want* win 11?

I don't think anyone in business wanted anything after Win7, or maybe
even XP. But just as most sharks have to keep swimming to breathe, MS
has to keep pulling rabbits, or turkeys, out of the hat to stay in
business.

Less so these days - they have now moved to their customers being the
product that they sell most of. They don't seem to care about selling
windows as much as previously. (they fact that they leave the tools
required to circumvent windows licensing hosted on github (which they
own) is a bit of a clue).

Post by Joe
Office has been rented for some time, something that MS always wanted

You can still buy normal licenses for office.

Post by Joe
to do with all its software, so I suppose it's only a matter of time
before Windows goes subscription-only, and they don't have to keep
pretending to develop it. Newer and better applications will always
happen, but in general the OS doesn't need 'a complete rewrite' (not
that it really happens) every few years.

I expect their main goal is to reduce the cost and hassle of maintaining
multiple forks of the OS.

Post by Joe
Much of the change in Linux is due to having to keep up with hardware
changes that new versions of Windows require the manufacturers to keep
making.

Huh? Windows seems to be mostly following the hardware curve, not
pushing it.

Post by Joe
I still have a 32-bit netbook running the latest version of
Debian, but that will be the last version with 386 code.

Well the 386 is 40 years old now!
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Paul]

Post by Joe
On Mon, 14 Apr 2025 14:10:16 +0100

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Theo

Post by RJH
Going the other way price-wise, I've just bought a new Mac Mini -
astonishing bit of kit for the size and price (£600, although
quite easy to get discounts).

Given the way MS have been abusing their customers, foisting things
on them they don't want (forced-upgrades, removing features from
W11 over W10, telemetry, adverts, AI, Recall, 'forgetting' that you
disabled those things every time it updates, etc), that's not a bad
option if you can stomach switching to a different platform. If
the base 16GB RAM / 256GB storage isn't enough and you don't want
to pay the Apple tax, there are now third party storage upgrades.
Or switch to Linux, where there's no arbitrary CPU age cutoff.

Absolutely. 16GB ram 256GB storage is under £300 for quality refurbs
...running win11 or Linux ...And with 16GB RAM you can run Virtualbox
for those must have windows programs..
Does anybody actually *want* win 11?

I don't think anyone in business wanted anything after Win7, or maybe
even XP. But just as most sharks have to keep swimming to breathe, MS
has to keep pulling rabbits, or turkeys, out of the hat to stay in
business.
Office has been rented for some time, something that MS always wanted
to do with all its software, so I suppose it's only a matter of time
before Windows goes subscription-only, and they don't have to keep
pretending to develop it. Newer and better applications will always
happen, but in general the OS doesn't need 'a complete rewrite' (not
that it really happens) every few years.
Much of the change in Linux is due to having to keep up with hardware
changes that new versions of Windows require the manufacturers to keep
making. I still have a 32-bit netbook running the latest version of
Debian, but that will be the last version with 386 code.

A significant problem with Linux, is video card support. It's
been undermined by the delivery of binary blobs. Nouveau could have
been the answer... if we could get hardware specs.

I looked at this, to address the "how much help will I give to
the 400,000,000 people throwing away computers". And the mish-mash
of unnecessary standards changes, makes the scavenging of machines
labour intensive.

Here's how it goes. Kernel 5.15 *works* for old hardware. But it is
going out of support soon, and if I sell some victim needing rescue
on that, they'll be back in a year, two years, with a "I just installed
this new thing, and my machine won't...". Then what do I do for an answer ?

The expectation of the people, is we will keep this perfectly
adequate material running forever. And sadly, that's not how the
Linux ecosystem sees it (Wayland, UEFI, GOP video cards, Secure Boot...).
That's no way to rescue hardware. PCi Express cards, the user could be
holding one in their hand, the slot in the machines will be PCI Express,
but the cards can't be moved just anywhere. And the industry had a
hand in ensuring they broke that. It's what you expect of scumbags.

As a "simulation" of a rescue, I took a 7900GT PCI Express card from
my dead motherboard, put it in another box and tried to "rescue" the
other box. Linux booted, the screen froze with some graphics on it.
The card is out of support from a DKMS perspective (no NVidia driver).
and it's a legacy VBIOS card. If I buy a 2025 motheboard, I can't
even reuse that card. Windows 10, running on that simulation setup,
ran the video card OK... but it's on a hairs edge of being out of
support.

Just the collecting of information and handling of details, will
slow down the rates for the rescue operation. It would never have
been possible to rescue 400,000,000 machines -- it would require too
much organization to do it properly. But even piece-meal rescue,
it's just not going to work.

Google makes ChromeOS, a follow-on for Neverware CloudReady. I installed
CloudReady on one desktop - it worked. I tried on a second NVidia machine,
it didn't work. Batting average 0.5 . Well, the Google version of this
*only works on iGPUs*. It has no intention of working with regular video
cards. Now, think about what percentage of 400,000,000 machines fit
the iGPU time span they support. I thought they would at least keep the
NVidia card support in the source code they were given, but the installer
just flat out refuses to move forward (no necessary buttons appear on
the starting installer interface), which is how Google tells you "your
video card sucks". They don't even put a text error message up. And no,
it wasn't an inability to draw on the screen. They could draw on it.
I booted a machine with an iGPU, not to install that OS, but at least
to verify what the installer screen was supposed to look like.

Paul

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Paul

Post by Joe
On Mon, 14 Apr 2025 14:10:16 +0100

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Theo

Post by RJH
Going the other way price-wise, I've just bought a new Mac Mini -
astonishing bit of kit for the size and price (£600, although
quite easy to get discounts).

Given the way MS have been abusing their customers, foisting things
on them they don't want (forced-upgrades, removing features from
W11 over W10, telemetry, adverts, AI, Recall, 'forgetting' that you
disabled those things every time it updates, etc), that's not a bad
option if you can stomach switching to a different platform. If
the base 16GB RAM / 256GB storage isn't enough and you don't want
to pay the Apple tax, there are now third party storage upgrades.
Or switch to Linux, where there's no arbitrary CPU age cutoff.

Absolutely. 16GB ram 256GB storage is under £300 for quality refurbs
...running win11 or Linux ...And with 16GB RAM you can run Virtualbox
for those must have windows programs..
Does anybody actually *want* win 11?

I don't think anyone in business wanted anything after Win7, or maybe
even XP. But just as most sharks have to keep swimming to breathe, MS
has to keep pulling rabbits, or turkeys, out of the hat to stay in
business.
Office has been rented for some time, something that MS always wanted
to do with all its software, so I suppose it's only a matter of time
before Windows goes subscription-only, and they don't have to keep
pretending to develop it. Newer and better applications will always
happen, but in general the OS doesn't need 'a complete rewrite' (not
that it really happens) every few years.
Much of the change in Linux is due to having to keep up with hardware
changes that new versions of Windows require the manufacturers to keep
making. I still have a 32-bit netbook running the latest version of
Debian, but that will be the last version with 386 code.

A significant problem with Linux, is video card support. It's
been undermined by the delivery of binary blobs. Nouveau could have
been the answer... if we could get hardware specs.

You have to be 15 years out of date
First of all, even Nvidias own drivers (the problem was Nvidias closed
source) were and still are pretty good.
Secondly on board chipsets now comfortably outperform a traditional
entry lvele Nvidia/Radeon card.

This machione was going to get a graphics update but the Intel chipset
simply was
good enough, so I never bothered

Post by Paul
I looked at this, to address the "how much help will I give to
the 400,000,000 people throwing away computers". And the mish-mash
of unnecessary standards changes, makes the scavenging of machines
labour intensive.
Here's how it goes. Kernel 5.15 *works* for old hardware. But it is
going out of support soon, and if I sell some victim needing rescue
on that, they'll be back in a year, two years, with a "I just installed
this new thing, and my machine won't...". Then what do I do for an answer ?
The expectation of the people, is we will keep this perfectly
adequate material running forever. And sadly, that's not how the
Linux ecosystem sees it (Wayland, UEFI, GOP video cards, Secure Boot...).
That's no way to rescue hardware. PCi Express cards, the user could be
holding one in their hand, the slot in the machines will be PCI Express,
but the cards can't be moved just anywhere. And the industry had a
hand in ensuring they broke that. It's what you expect of scumbags.

My old hardware just died. It didn't run out of Linux support.

You can still ruin older 32 bit Linux if you must.

It is still just about available.

Post by Paul
As a "simulation" of a rescue, I took a 7900GT PCI Express card from
my dead motherboard, put it in another box and tried to "rescue" the
other box. Linux booted, the screen froze with some graphics on it.
The card is out of support from a DKMS perspective (no NVidia driver).
and it's a legacy VBIOS card. If I buy a 2025 motheboard, I can't
even reuse that card. Windows 10, running on that simulation setup,
ran the video card OK... but it's on a hairs edge of being out of
support.

I haven't had that happen since around 2005
IIRC that was Ubuntu on an old laptop. It just didn't work. But IIRC
Mint did.

Post by Paul
Just the collecting of information and handling of details, will
slow down the rates for the rescue operation. It would never have
been possible to rescue 400,000,000 machines -- it would require too
much organization to do it properly. But even piece-meal rescue,
it's just not going to work.

No one needs to rescue anything really. You cant run latest Linux on an
IBM PC either.

If you want a machine like that, run DOS.

Linux is perfectly capable of running on up to about 15 year old
hardware if the hardware itself is still OK.

Post by Paul
Google makes ChromeOS, a follow-on for Neverware CloudReady. I installed
CloudReady on one desktop - it worked. I tried on a second NVidia machine,
it didn't work. Batting average 0.5 . Well, the Google version of this
*only works on iGPUs*. It has no intention of working with regular video
cards. Now, think about what percentage of 400,000,000 machines fit
the iGPU time span they support. I thought they would at least keep the
NVidia card support in the source code they were given, but the installer
just flat out refuses to move forward (no necessary buttons appear on
the starting installer interface), which is how Google tells you "your
video card sucks". They don't even put a text error message up. And no,
it wasn't an inability to draw on the screen. They could draw on it.
I booted a machine with an iGPU, not to install that OS, but at least
to verify what the installer screen was supposed to look like.

You are just pushing the edges. Its not worth it.
If you have standard hardware live boot a simple distro like Mint, see
if it all works, if it does, install it. If it doesn't not much time wasted.

Post by Paul
Paul

[Pancho]

Post by RJH
Going the other way price-wise, I've just bought a new Mac Mini - astonishing
bit of kit for the size and price (£600, although quite easy to get
discounts).

Secondhand Mac Mini M1 going for about £300. I would buy one if I
thought I could get Linux to run on it.

This kind of thread confuses me because I don't know what people want.
Almost all modern PCs are fast enough for general use.

The new Beelink N100/N150 W11 is cheap and fast enough for general use.
An Orange Pi 5 is about the same speed, faster than my 10 year old
Windows/Intel PC, which was still fast enough.

The only reason I can see for building a PC would be if you have a
specific use in mind, in which case it would be good to say up front,
because it would affect the build requirements.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Pancho

Post by RJH
Going the other way price-wise, I've just bought a new Mac Mini - astonishing
bit of kit for the size and price (£600, although quite easy to get
discounts).

Secondhand Mac Mini M1 going for about £300. I would buy one if I
thought I could get Linux to run on it.

It will.

Post by Pancho
This kind of thread confuses me because I don't know what people want.
Almost all modern PCs are fast enough for general use.
The new Beelink N100/N150 W11 is cheap and fast enough for general use.
An Orange Pi 5 is about the same speed, faster than my 10 year old
Windows/Intel PC, which was still fast enough.
The only reason I can see for building a PC would be if you have a
specific use in mind, in which case it would be good to say up front,
because it would affect the build requirements.

I always used to get a PC and keep upgrading it. But it's no longer
worth it.

The market is flooded with ex leased corporate PCs 2-5 years old that
are unbelievable value for money.

Contractually these are always bought in bulk without disks (they get
crushed for security) and are therefore equipped with new SSDS and
Windows 10/11

The only reason to build a PC today is for a special usage - usually gaming

If you just want a PC for normal stuff, buy refurbed ex leased kit.

[John Rumm]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by Pancho

Post by RJH
Going the other way price-wise, I've just bought a new Mac Mini - astonishing
bit of kit for the size and price (£600, although quite easy to get
discounts).

Secondhand Mac Mini M1 going for about £300. I would buy one if I
thought I could get Linux to run on it.

It will.

Post by Pancho
This kind of thread confuses me because I don't know what people want.
Almost all modern PCs are fast enough for general use.
The new Beelink N100/N150 W11 is cheap and fast enough for general
use. An Orange Pi 5 is about the same speed, faster than my 10 year
old Windows/Intel PC, which was still fast enough.
The only reason I can see for building a PC would be if you have a
specific use in mind, in which case it would be good to say up front,
because it would affect the build requirements.

I always used to get a PC and keep upgrading it. But it's no longer
worth it.
The market is flooded with ex leased corporate PCs 2-5 years old that
are unbelievable value for money.
Contractually these are always bought in bulk without disks (they get
crushed for security) and are therefore equipped with new SSDS and
Windows 10/11
The only reason to build a PC today is for a special usage - usually gaming

or if you want a bit more oomph than the average corporate desk top box,
say for video rendering, CAD, or hosting multiple VMs etc.
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Chris Green]

Post by Theo
Once you go down this road, you might find you can pick up a whole mini PC
for £200-300 which is the price of a mobo/CPU/RAM combo. Even less if
you're prepared to consider a used ex-office mini PC.

Yes, that's what I use as my 'desktop' machine now. I have a Fujitsu
Esprimo Q957 bought refurbished from eBay for £142. I don't think
it's quite up to Windows 11 but I'm sure similar later models will be.

[Theo]

Post by Chris Green

Post by Theo
Once you go down this road, you might find you can pick up a whole mini PC
for £200-300 which is the price of a mobo/CPU/RAM combo. Even less if
you're prepared to consider a used ex-office mini PC.

Yes, that's what I use as my 'desktop' machine now. I have a Fujitsu
Esprimo Q957 bought refurbished from eBay for £142. I don't think
it's quite up to Windows 11 but I'm sure similar later models will be.

Yes, look for machines that have at least an 8th gen Intel or a Ryzen 3000.

If you're running Linux or Win10 (or prepared to run Win 11 unsupported),
there are some very good deals on the 7th gen/2000 series machines which
officially won't run Win 11 - they start at about £50 including RAM and SSD
on ebay.

Theo

[Sam Plusnet]

Post by Theo

Post by Chris Green

Post by Theo
Once you go down this road, you might find you can pick up a whole mini PC
for £200-300 which is the price of a mobo/CPU/RAM combo. Even less if
you're prepared to consider a used ex-office mini PC.

Yes, that's what I use as my 'desktop' machine now. I have a Fujitsu
Esprimo Q957 bought refurbished from eBay for £142. I don't think
it's quite up to Windows 11 but I'm sure similar later models will be.

Yes, look for machines that have at least an 8th gen Intel or a Ryzen 3000.
If you're running Linux or Win10 (or prepared to run Win 11 unsupported),
there are some very good deals on the 7th gen/2000 series machines which
officially won't run Win 11 - they start at about £50 including RAM and SSD
on ebay.

There are plenty of refurbished machines[1] for sale which say they come
with Win11 Pro.
I _suspect_ a fair number of those do not meet the Win11 hardware
requirements - but the sellers have installed that OS via one of the
work-arounds.
I wonder if those machines will be able to get later OS updates?

[1] I was looking at a range of Dell Optiflex PCs

[David Wade]

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by Theo

Post by Chris Green

Post by Theo
Once you go down this road, you might find you can pick up a whole mini PC
for £200-300 which is the price of a mobo/CPU/RAM combo.  Even less if
you're prepared to consider a used ex-office mini PC.

Yes, that's what I use as my 'desktop' machine now. I have a Fujitsu
Esprimo Q957 bought refurbished from eBay for £142.  I don't think
it's quite up to Windows 11 but I'm sure similar later models will be.

Yes, look for machines that have at least an 8th gen Intel or a Ryzen 3000.
If you're running Linux or Win10 (or prepared to run Win 11 unsupported),
there are some very good deals on the 7th gen/2000 series machines which
officially won't run Win 11 - they start at about £50 including RAM and SSD
on ebay.

There are plenty of refurbished machines[1] for sale which say they come
with Win11 Pro.
I _suspect_ a fair number of those do not meet the Win11 hardware
requirements - but the sellers have installed that OS via one of the
work-arounds.
I wonder if those machines will be able to get later OS updates?
[1] I was looking at a range of Dell Optiflex PCs

I thought that but having checked briefly and those coming from dealers
appear to conform to the Win/11 requirements. I believe many of these
have agreements with Microsoft, which they would break if they sold
machines incompatible with the OS installed.

For example Tier-1 only have Optiplex (not Optiflex) with Gen-8 I3/I5/I7
CPUs which I think are the minium for Windows/11. I assume these will
all have TPM 2. I note there are instructions on the Dell site for
upgrading the TPM on some PCs.

. on the other hand I see there are some Lenovo T470s on E-Bay with
Windows/11 and its not supported on those machines...

.. I suppose its Buyer Beware...

Dave
G4UGM

[Paul]

Post by Theo

Post by Chris Green

Post by Theo
Once you go down this road, you might find you can pick up a whole mini PC
for £200-300 which is the price of a mobo/CPU/RAM combo.  Even less if
you're prepared to consider a used ex-office mini PC.

Yes, that's what I use as my 'desktop' machine now. I have a Fujitsu
Esprimo Q957 bought refurbished from eBay for £142.  I don't think
it's quite up to Windows 11 but I'm sure similar later models will be.

Yes, look for machines that have at least an 8th gen Intel or a Ryzen 3000.
If you're running Linux or Win10 (or prepared to run Win 11 unsupported),
there are some very good deals on the 7th gen/2000 series machines which
officially won't run Win 11 - they start at about £50 including RAM and SSD
on ebay.

There are plenty of refurbished machines[1] for sale which say they come with Win11 Pro.
I _suspect_ a fair number of those do not meet the Win11 hardware requirements - but the sellers have installed that OS via one of the work-arounds.
I wonder if those machines will be able to get later OS updates?
[1] I was looking at a range of Dell Optiflex PCs

I thought that but having checked  briefly and those coming from dealers appear to conform to the Win/11 requirements. I believe many of these have agreements with Microsoft, which they would break if they sold machines incompatible with the OS installed.
For example Tier-1 only have Optiplex (not Optiflex) with Gen-8 I3/I5/I7 CPUs which I think are the minium for Windows/11. I assume these will all have TPM 2. I note there are instructions on the Dell site for upgrading the TPM on some PCs.
. on the other hand I see there are some Lenovo T470s on E-Bay with Windows/11 and its not supported on those machines...
.. I suppose its Buyer Beware...
Dave
G4UGM

The Refurbisher OS supplied by commercial refurbishers, is under Microsoft terms.
They're not particularly allowed to "hack" an OS in with Rufus. The hardware
for Windows 11 should be compliant enough, that an Upgrade Install would work on it.

TPM support is tricky. The BIOS only supports fixed versions of it. My machine
across the way, the BIOS can only do attestation with a TPM 1.4. If I plugged
in a TPM 2.0, it would not Secure Boot. It is apparently possible for a motherboard
with a TPM 2.0, to run a TPM 1.4 (assuming you could actually find a module, used).
You can also "flash back" a TPM 2.0 chip, to be compatible with TPM 1.4.

My Dell Optiplex 780 (a "simulation platform for rescue"), it supports a TPM 1.4,
there is a TPM module in it, but the BIOS does not have attestation. This means
it would not have Secure Booted with the TPM 1.4 standard. All you can do, is
support BitLocker with it (whatever primitives Bitlocker might have used).

The TPM issue is *not* as simple as it looks. The Refurbisher is going to
be shipping machines of a more recent vintage, with a full BIOS support for
TPM 2.0. Otherwise, there would be rough edges for the customer to cut
themselves on.

The suppliers of the motherboard across the way, they didn't even offer a TPM 2.0
for sale. At first, we thought they were just laggards. But those people
already knew that the BIOS would not know what to do with a TPM 2.0 module,
and the support for TPM is unlikely to be available in source code form,
to the motherboard manufacturer. The BIOS would be well out of support,
and even if they wanted to do it, the BIOS company (Award, AMI, Phoenix, Insyde)
would have to help them do it (for a price).

Paul

[Sam Plusnet]

Post by Theo

Post by John Rumm

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.

I have had this conversation with quite a few customers recently, and
have had to point out that yup it is a right pain that MS are forcing
you to ditch a perfectly serviceable machine, but many of them are 10+
years old, and they might actually be pleasantly surprised how much of
an improvement in performance the new one will bring along with lower
running costs.

Post by Sam Plusnet
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the Motherboard/CPU/
RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace.  To make life easier, I want to
buy a ready built & tested bundle.

OOI what peripherals are you referring to?
You could just pick a motherboard that meets your needs, and then look
at the makers hardware compatibility lists. Then just pick a RAM/CPU
combination from the list, and you know that it is a tested combination
that will work.

It's also worth considering whether a change of form factor would make
sense. eg now that primary storage is mostly M.2 NVMe SSDs rather than
spinning hard drives, you only need find space for a half credit card sized
PCB rather than an almost-VHS sized lump. If you don't need to house a
lump, you can make the case much smaller.

True, but I have a decent full-sized case with plenty of space inside.
It sits at the back of my desk behind the monitor so it isn't in the way.

Post by Theo
Also, laptop-class CPUs are often 'good enough' nowadays, and they use less
power and so need less cooling, which means you can get away with a tiny
heatsink and fan rather than a heatsink the size of a mug. That also allows
the case to be smaller. Because they're lower power and the graphics may be
good enough to not need a discrete GPU, you don't need a giant PSU you can
run the whole system from a power brick. etc etc
Once you go down this road, you might find you can pick up a whole mini PC
for £200-300 which is the price of a mobo/CPU/RAM combo. Even less if
you're prepared to consider a used ex-office mini PC.

I have thought about one of the many Dell Optiflex machines which seem
to dominate the second hand market, but I suspect I would end up
replacing that fairly quickly - and I do dislike all the hassle involved
in transferring my applications & data onto a new(er) setup.

[wasbit]

snip <
I have thought about one of the many Dell Optiflex machines which seem
to dominate the second hand market, but I suspect I would end up
replacing that fairly quickly - and I do dislike all the hassle involved
in transferring my applications & data onto a new(er) setup.

There are a number of free programmes that say that they can do that but
I have never tried any of them for this purpose.

Clonezilla - http://clonezilla.org
Disk Genius Free (was Partition Guru - also Portable 32/64bit)-
https://www.diskgenius.com/download.php
Hasleo Disk Clone - https://www.easyuefi.com/disk-clone/disk-clone-home.html
Macrium Reflect -
https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-Recovery/Macrium-Reflect-Free-Edition.shtml

NB: Acronis True Image, Paragon Drive Copy need the non freeware versions.

[Pancho]

Post by wasbit

snip <
I have thought about one of the many Dell Optiflex machines which seem
to dominate the second hand market, but I suspect I would end up
replacing that fairly quickly - and I do dislike all the hassle
involved in transferring my applications & data onto a new(er) setup.

There are a number of free programmes that say that they can do that but
I have never tried any of them for this purpose.
Clonezilla - http://clonezilla.org
Disk Genius Free (was Partition Guru - also Portable 32/64bit)- https://
www.diskgenius.com/download.php
Hasleo Disk Clone - https://www.easyuefi.com/disk-clone/disk-clone-
home.html
Macrium Reflect - https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-
Recovery/Macrium-Reflect-Free-Edition.shtml
NB: Acronis True Image, Paragon Drive Copy need the non freeware versions.

I put a W10 SDD, from a scrapped desktop, into an old laptop that had
previously failed W10 upgrade compatibility. Everything just worked. I
hadn't expected it to, but it did. None of the old hardware specific
driver installation. The only thing I needed to do was get a W10 licence.

[Sam Plusnet]

Post by wasbit

snip <
I have thought about one of the many Dell Optiflex machines which seem
to dominate the second hand market, but I suspect I would end up
replacing that fairly quickly - and I do dislike all the hassle
involved in transferring my applications & data onto a new(er) setup.

There are a number of free programmes that say that they can do that but
I have never tried any of them for this purpose.
Clonezilla - http://clonezilla.org
Disk Genius Free (was Partition Guru - also Portable 32/64bit)- https://
www.diskgenius.com/download.php
Hasleo Disk Clone - https://www.easyuefi.com/disk-clone/disk-clone-
home.html
Macrium Reflect - https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-
Recovery/Macrium-Reflect-Free-Edition.shtml
NB: Acronis True Image, Paragon Drive Copy need the non freeware versions.

If I set up a new machine, I would want to do a clean install and then
gradually move things over on to it. I have "apps"[1] and data
scattered around on 5 HDDs & SSDs - some of which I haven't used in more
than a decade, so a lot of housekeeping really ought to be done.
It's that housekeeping which I regard as a hassle.

[1] In the broadest sense of the term.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I do dislike all the hassle involved in transferring my applications &
data onto a new(er) setup.

Well put the data on a server or something - or a usb drive. Or install
the old data disk in the new computer etc.

[Bob Eager]

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the
Motherboard/CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace. To make life
easier, I want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.

I am in the same situation, and in fact one of the three machines I have
to upgrade has just died (CPU or motherboard) anyway.

I will avoid the obligatory 'install Linux <pick distro of the moment>
comment; that was useless for me as all three systems must run Windows for
good technical reasons.

I chose my own bundle using pangoly.com, which shows you options and
(mostly) checks compatibility. Take a look.

[Sam Plusnet]

Post by Bob Eager

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the
Motherboard/CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace. To make life
easier, I want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.

I am in the same situation, and in fact one of the three machines I have
to upgrade has just died (CPU or motherboard) anyway.
I will avoid the obligatory 'install Linux <pick distro of the moment>
comment; that was useless for me as all three systems must run Windows for
good technical reasons.
I chose my own bundle using pangoly.com, which shows you options and
(mostly) checks compatibility. Take a look.

Thanks for that. I hadn't heard of them, so this kind of information is
exactly what I was looking for.

[John Rumm]

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.

There are a couple of ways round the hardware requirements for Win 11...
Not necessarily things I would recommend for all users, but for home
user prepared to take the less common path, might be worth considering.

One example would be to run win 11 as a guest OS in a VM. Many of the
hypervisors can emulate a TPM even if the host of the hypervisor does
not have one. (if you currently have Win 10 pro, then Hyper-V is
included and can be enabled. That is a type 1 "bare metal" hypervisor
that introduces very little overhead). So you would use Win 10 only for
the purposes of access so the Win 11 virtual machine.
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Paul]

I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on 'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.

There are a couple of ways round the hardware requirements for Win 11... Not necessarily things I would recommend for all users, but for home user prepared to take the less common path, might be worth considering.
One example would be to run win 11 as a guest OS in a VM. Many of the hypervisors can emulate a TPM even if the host of the hypervisor does not have one. (if you currently have Win 10 pro, then Hyper-V is included and can be enabled. That is a type 1 "bare metal" hypervisor that introduces very little overhead). So you would use Win 10 only for the purposes of access so the Win 11 virtual machine.

Example of a setup.

The Guest RAM needs to be bumped up, to meet
the new requirement for 16GB. But since the
computer has no NPU (and VMs do not currently
pass thru the NPU), the OS saves 8GB right there
(does not have to host an 8GB AI file constantly),
and should not need nearly that much RAM for a Guest.
8GB (AI) + 2.6GB (Sandbox) + 5.4GB (Lowly User) = 16GB
That's a rough allocation plan, plus or minus. The user
is free to buy more memory than that for a host.

[Picture]

Loading Image...

VMWare does TPM, via a TPM emulation called SWTPM.

Whereas VirtualBox uses TPM passthru, and the Host has
to have a TPM or fTPM to pass thru. And I could not
get a machine with fTPM to work in pass thru mode (Virtualbox 7).
and I don't know what's wrong with the setup. Whereas
the VMWare just works.

My monitor is pretty small for doing stuff like this.

Paul

[wasbit]

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <

Not strictly true.
I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

[Sam Plusnet]

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <

Not strictly true.
I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will you
still get OS updates in future?

[John Rumm]

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <

Not strictly true.
I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will you
still get OS updates in future?

It will probably get the patch Tuesday ones. It might not do the six
monthly feature updates without more fiddling.

I have a 6th gen i3 Intel NUC in the workshop - mainly used to play
music or look at drawings etc. That has 11 pro on it, and it seems to be
getting some updates at least. Not sure how long it will continue.
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[wasbit]

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <

Not strictly true.
I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will you
still get OS updates in future?

Who knows? It's up to the vagaries of Microsoft.

I should also say that it is installed as a technical exercise & for
familiarity. There is no personal information on there.

[Tim Streater]

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <> Not strictly true.

I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will you
still get OS updates in future?

Who knows? It's up to the vagaries of Microsoft.
I should also say that it is installed as a technical exercise & for
familiarity. There is no personal information on there.

Win-11 runs nicely in a VirtualBox VM on my Mac Mini.

It's the first Win OS that I remember, that has decent fonts instead of all
the dotty ones. So it even looks nice.

[Andrew]

Post by Tim Streater

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <> Not strictly true.

I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will you
still get OS updates in future?

Who knows? It's up to the vagaries of Microsoft.
I should also say that it is installed as a technical exercise & for
familiarity. There is no personal information on there.

Win-11 runs nicely in a VirtualBox VM on my Mac Mini.
It's the first Win OS that I remember, that has decent fonts instead of all
the dotty ones. So it even looks nice.

Interesting.

If the official apple adapters were use to end up with a
firewire I/F, I wonder if the Win-11 image would be able to
connect to my Nikon scanner via those adapters.

Which mac mini is it, and how much ram is needed ?.

[Theo]

Post by Andrew
Interesting.
If the official apple adapters were use to end up with a
firewire I/F, I wonder if the Win-11 image would be able to
connect to my Nikon scanner via those adapters.

The Firewire interface shows up as a PCIe device, so if Virtualbox on Mac
will let you do PCIe passthrough then it might.

Post by Andrew
Which mac mini is it, and how much ram is needed ?.

Another option is just to buy an old Intel Mac Mini with onboard Firewire
and then install Windows on it. I think they may have only supported Win7
natively but it may be possible to upgrade it through 10 to 11.

The last Mini with native FW was the Late 2012 and people have got W11
working on 2011s/2012s. They start at about £40-50 on ebay.

Theo

[Paul]

Post by Andrew

Post by Tim Streater

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <> Not strictly true.

I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will you
still get OS updates in future?

Who knows? It's up to the vagaries of Microsoft.
I should also say that it is installed as a technical exercise & for
familiarity. There is no personal information on there.

Win-11 runs nicely in a VirtualBox VM on my Mac Mini.
It's the first Win OS that I remember, that has decent fonts instead of all
the dotty ones. So it even looks nice.

Interesting.
If the official apple adapters were use to end up with a
firewire I/F, I wonder if the Win-11 image would be able to
connect to my Nikon scanner via those adapters.
Which mac mini is it, and how much ram is needed ?.

The Windows was supposed to remove the *network* driver for Firewire.
A mode of operation that is pretty obscure (it could work point-to-point
or the hardware could work with a Firewire router box). The other modes
would still be there. As a joke, I was looking in DriverStore,
and there is a 68881.sys in there, which is one of the old
Firewire drivers. It's getting hard, on the Internet, to even
discover what the names of the old Firewire drivers were. The
68881 allows connection of a camcorder and recording of camcorder
tape playback. You start the camcorder running first, and connect it.
It's something like that.

If you are using virtualization, there has to be a passthru or an
emulation to the host side.

If Windows will run straight on the hardware (and the Mac is using
UEFI), it just might work with one of the remaining Windows drivers.
If we happened to discover what driver makes a scanner work.

Generally, for virtualization, I remain somewhat hopeful that a
minimal USB capability might exist, but other standards I generally
expect there won't be a mechanism for it.

Running a slide scanner, it's worth keeping an old computer around
to run it. The scanner in front of me, it's been driven by an old
computer (and async SCSI), and that's all the old computer is there for.
Is to run that scanner. I considered moving it to some other computer,
but it would be nothing but a continuing hassle to keep running. A computer
with a frozen OS, is perfect for the job.

Paul

[Tim Streater]

Post by Paul
Running a slide scanner, it's worth keeping an old computer around
to run it. The scanner in front of me, it's been driven by an old
computer (and async SCSI), and that's all the old computer is there for.
Is to run that scanner. I considered moving it to some other computer,
but it would be nothing but a continuing hassle to keep running. A computer
with a frozen OS, is perfect for the job.

This is the only viable approach, and is what I do. Old Mac Mini running Snow
Leopard or so.

[Sam Plusnet]

Post by Tim Streater

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <> Not strictly true.

I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will you
still get OS updates in future?

Who knows? It's up to the vagaries of Microsoft.
I should also say that it is installed as a technical exercise & for
familiarity. There is no personal information on there.

Win-11 runs nicely in a VirtualBox VM on my Mac Mini.
It's the first Win OS that I remember, that has decent fonts instead of all
the dotty ones. So it even looks nice.

Mention of dotty fonts brought back memories of my first (dot matrix)
printer. Cost me a fortune and didn't even do proper descenders (only 7
pin).

[No mail]

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by Tim Streater

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <> Not strictly true.

I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will you
still get OS updates in future?

Who knows? It's up to the vagaries of Microsoft.
I should also say that it is installed as a technical exercise & for
familiarity. There is no personal information on there.

Win-11 runs nicely in a VirtualBox VM on my Mac Mini.
It's the first Win OS that I remember, that has decent fonts instead of all
the dotty ones. So it even looks nice.

Mention of dotty fonts brought back memories of my first (dot matrix)
printer.  Cost me a fortune and didn't even do proper descenders (only 7
pin).

Be grateful that you never had to develop an interface for daisy wheel
printers - timing the hammer fire and wheel rotation was a nightmare.
ESD wasn't completely understood and a discharge during printing often
resulted in showers of "petals" - but the print quality was great. Swing
the lamp!

[Jeff Layman]

Post by No mail
Be grateful that you never had to develop an interface for daisy wheel
printers - timing the hammer fire and wheel rotation was a nightmare.
ESD wasn't completely understood and a discharge during printing often
resulted in showers of "petals" - but the print quality was great. Swing
the lamp!

My first printer was a Smith Corona daisywheel (I've still got it
somewhere!). For reasons long forgotten I decided that I didn't want the
font that usually came with it, so I bought "Tempo". I really liked it,
and, as you note, the print quality of a daisywheel was superb.

[Tim Streater]

Post by No mail

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by Tim Streater

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <> Not strictly true.

I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will you
still get OS updates in future?

Who knows? It's up to the vagaries of Microsoft.
I should also say that it is installed as a technical exercise & for
familiarity. There is no personal information on there.

Win-11 runs nicely in a VirtualBox VM on my Mac Mini.
It's the first Win OS that I remember, that has decent fonts instead of all
the dotty ones. So it even looks nice.

Mention of dotty fonts brought back memories of my first (dot matrix)
printer. Cost me a fortune and didn't even do proper descenders (only 7
pin).

Be grateful that you never had to develop an interface for daisy wheel
printers - timing the hammer fire and wheel rotation was a nightmare.
ESD wasn't completely understood and a discharge during printing often
resulted in showers of "petals" - but the print quality was great. Swing
the lamp!

Huh. Be grateful you never had to develop on an Elliott 803B. 8k of store, the
only I/O device being a slowish 5-hole paper tape reader/punch, the only way
of developing source tapes (using Elliott Autocode, which itself was pretty
limited), being a teletype which occasionally mispunched the typed character
onto the tape.

My first exposure to a real computer, however, so it was still fascinating.

[Bob Eager]

Post by Tim Streater

Post by No mail

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by Tim Streater

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not
run on 'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly
recent & decent.
Snip <> Not strictly true.

I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will
you still get OS updates in future?

Who knows? It's up to the vagaries of Microsoft.
I should also say that it is installed as a technical exercise & for
familiarity. There is no personal information on there.

Win-11 runs nicely in a VirtualBox VM on my Mac Mini.
It's the first Win OS that I remember, that has decent fonts instead
of all the dotty ones. So it even looks nice.

Mention of dotty fonts brought back memories of my first (dot matrix)
printer. Cost me a fortune and didn't even do proper descenders (only
7 pin).

Be grateful that you never had to develop an interface for daisy wheel
printers - timing the hammer fire and wheel rotation was a nightmare.
ESD wasn't completely understood and a discharge during printing often
resulted in showers of "petals" - but the print quality was great.
Swing the lamp!

Huh. Be grateful you never had to develop on an Elliott 803B. 8k of
store, the only I/O device being a slowish 5-hole paper tape
reader/punch, the only way of developing source tapes (using Elliott
Autocode, which itself was pretty limited), being a teletype which
occasionally mispunched the typed character onto the tape.
My first exposure to a real computer, however, so it was still
fascinating.

If anyone is interested, I have 803 stuff here:

http://www.ancientgeek.org.uk/Elliott/803/

[Tim Streater]

[snip]

Post by Bob Eager

Post by Tim Streater

Post by No mail
Be grateful that you never had to develop an interface for daisy wheel
printers - timing the hammer fire and wheel rotation was a nightmare.
ESD wasn't completely understood and a discharge during printing often
resulted in showers of "petals" - but the print quality was great.
Swing the lamp!

Huh. Be grateful you never had to develop on an Elliott 803B. 8k of
store, the only I/O device being a slowish 5-hole paper tape
reader/punch, the only way of developing source tapes (using Elliott
Autocode, which itself was pretty limited), being a teletype which
occasionally mispunched the typed character onto the tape.
My first exposure to a real computer, however, so it was still fascinating.

http://www.ancientgeek.org.uk/Elliott/803/

The one I used was in the Optics Dept of the Physics Building at Imperial.
Supposedly it was to be used by the Optics Dept to do ray tracing for (I
imagine) lens design. But I never saw it used by anyone other than myself and
another student, at the time members of the Astronomical Society.

At that time, planetary ephemera (if that's the word) were mainly computed by
a couple of dotty old Revds - by hand. No real astronomer seemed interested in
where Saturn might be in the sky, next Tuesday fortnight. We had the conceit
that we could automate that, but never got anywhere close. We didn't know
enough, and were anyway to be defeated by the poor language availability.

Still - I did learn an important lesson - that floating point numbers have
limited precision and in some cases the number you want to enter can't be
exactly represented.

I lurk on the SQLite User Forum, and even today about every three months
someone writes in that they entered this giant number into a database cell,
but didn't get exactly that back when they asked for it later. "Is this a
bug?". Someone then politely points them to (e.g.) the Wikipedia article on
floating point.

[Tim Streater]

Post by Bob Eager
http://www.ancientgeek.org.uk/Elliott/803/

Thanks Bob - just having a quick look now.

[Bernard Peek]

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <

Not strictly true.
I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will you
still get OS updates in future?

Who knows? It's up to the vagaries of Microsoft.

I have a machine that had one of those bodges. It stopped working when MS
did an update. I wouldn't count on them working indefinitely.

[Joe]

On 15 Apr 2025 21:49:15 GMT

Post by Bernard Peek

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not
run on 'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly
recent & decent.
Snip <

Not strictly true.
I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will
you still get OS updates in future?

Who knows? It's up to the vagaries of Microsoft.

I have a machine that had one of those bodges. It stopped working
when MS did an update. I wouldn't count on them working indefinitely.

It doesn't seem widely known that there are multiple generations of
Win11, with some earlier Win11 machines not able to upgrade to the later
one(s) and the early ones are now out of support. Later versions will
not work with the early Trusted Platform hardware, even when it's real.

"Windows 11 has an annual feature update cadence. Feature updates are
released in the second half of the calendar year and come with 24
months of support for Home, Pro, Pro for Workstations, and Pro
Education editions;"

"Windows 11 version 22H2 reached the end of life for Home and Pro
editions on October 8, 2024. This means that Microsoft stopped
providing security updates and non-security updates for these editions"

So there are two versions of Win11 gone end-of-life before Win10, and
many refurbished computers will soon lose the ability to run a
supported Win11, even when sold with it installed. This would seem to
be an escalation of Microsoft's normal planned obsolescence policy.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Joe
On 15 Apr 2025 21:49:15 GMT

Post by Bernard Peek

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by wasbit

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not
run on 'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly
recent & decent.
Snip <

Not strictly true.
I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

If you install Win11 via one of the published work-arounds, will
you still get OS updates in future?

Who knows? It's up to the vagaries of Microsoft.

I have a machine that had one of those bodges. It stopped working
when MS did an update. I wouldn't count on them working indefinitely.

It doesn't seem widely known that there are multiple generations of
Win11, with some earlier Win11 machines not able to upgrade to the later
one(s) and the early ones are now out of support. Later versions will
not work with the early Trusted Platform hardware, even when it's real.
"Windows 11 has an annual feature update cadence. Feature updates are
released in the second half of the calendar year and come with 24
months of support for Home, Pro, Pro for Workstations, and Pro
Education editions;"
"Windows 11 version 22H2 reached the end of life for Home and Pro
editions on October 8, 2024. This means that Microsoft stopped
providing security updates and non-security updates for these editions"
So there are two versions of Win11 gone end-of-life before Win10, and
many refurbished computers will soon lose the ability to run a
supported Win11, even when sold with it installed. This would seem to
be an escalation of Microsoft's normal planned obsolescence policy.

What a dogs dinner.

Sadly support for this linux version is ending in a week or so, and I am
really contemplating just letting it not get updated any more.

And rather buy a new machine, install the latest LTS version and slowly
migrate. Which is a pain.

Which is a pity, because this is a good machine.
Maybe I could dual boot it...

[Andy Burns]

Post by Joe
So there are two versions of Win11 gone end-of-life before Win10, and
many refurbished computers will soon lose the ability to run a
supported Win11, even when sold with it installed. This would seem to
be an escalation of Microsoft's normal planned obsolescence policy.

That's not right (low-rent vloggers inventing issues to get likes).

Microsoft don't support OEMs supplying latest Win11 on older hardware,
but any hardware that came with Win11 installed back when, can upgrade
to the latest Win11 now.

[Joe]

On Wed, 16 Apr 2025 10:20:32 +0100

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Joe
So there are two versions of Win11 gone end-of-life before Win10,
and many refurbished computers will soon lose the ability to run a
supported Win11, even when sold with it installed. This would seem
to be an escalation of Microsoft's normal planned obsolescence
policy.

That's not right (low-rent vloggers inventing issues to get likes).
Microsoft don't support OEMs supplying latest Win11 on older
hardware, but any hardware that came with Win11 installed back when,
can upgrade to the latest Win11 now.

I bought a refurb Win11 HP a couple of months ago, specifying one with
VGA and optical drive, as the advert stated. It arrived with neither,
but I fired it up out of curiosity and got the 'Windows has reached end
of servicing, please upgrade' message. I tried the upgrade, and got an
'insufficient resources' message. I didn't investigate further as the
machine was going back anyway, but there was one computer which wouldn't
upgrade Win11 to a supported version, so I know it can happen.

Only then did I investigate, and there's plenty of material on the Net,
it had just never occurred to me that the latest/current MS OS could
already be EOL, as I knew Win10 would be soon. My first quotation was
from:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/windows11-release-information

which I suppose might qualify as a low-rent vlogger. They now call it
'end of servicing', which means no more upgrades, security or
otherwise, exactly as 'end of life' did. 21H2 and 22H2 are already EOL,
23H2 will be this year. Currently supported Win11 requires TPM2,
whereas early versions would work with TPM1 hardware.
I assume the later versions want more RAM, but I've never known
Windows to refuse to work at all on low RAM, just run very slowly.

[Paul]

Post by wasbit

I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on 'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Snip <

Not strictly true.
I'm triple booting windows 8.1/10/11 on ancient hardware.

I think the reference is to "being ready for whatever whim
Microsoft has next".

The NPU situation seems not all that good on desktops. Almost
like the add-on video card will be tasked with inference (the best
video card can do 1000 TOPs). The software is not nearly ready,
for supporting AI tasks on all your hardware. Not even close.
(They've actually been working on that for *four* years.)

One AMD desktop product claimed to have an NPU, but the TOPs value was so
low, I couldn't find an actual spec for it. Which means it
was a 10 or a 13, and not a 50 TOPS NPU. There are laptop
processors that meet the Microsoft TOPS spec. The purpose of an
NPU in a laptop, was supposed to be a lower power way of supporting
the little tasks for AI (OCR, voice recognition, image sharpen).

The following selected for a slice of mid-range pricing.
It's just an attempt at a slice, not driven by requirements.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/241674/intel-core-ultra-5-processor-235-24m-cache-up-to-5-00-ghz/specifications.html

Performance-cores 6
Efficient-cores 8
Total Threads 14 (no hyperthreading)
Max Turbo Frequency 5 GHz

NPU Peak TOPS (Int8) 13

Processor Base Power 65 W

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/236799/intel-core-i5-processor-14600k-24m-cache-up-to-5-30-ghz/specifications.html

Performance-cores 6
Efficient-cores 8
Total Threads 20 (hyperthreading)
Max Turbo Frequency 5.3 GHz

NPU Peak TOPS (Int8) 0

Processor Base Power 125 W

https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/desktops/ryzen/9000-series/amd-ryzen-7-9700x.html

Performance-cores 8

Total Threads 16 (hyperthreading)
Max Turbo Frequency 5.5 GHz

NPU Peak TOPS (Int8) 0

Processor Base Power 65 W

As the price goes up, the solution space changes. It's hard to
say how much ordinary applications benefit from huge L3. Some
of the AMD processors are good at gaming, because of their L3.
The only thing I've ever seen that goes faster with cache,
was 7ZIP compression (large dictionary).

The power numbers tend to be meaningless, as the turbo value
can be quite a bit higher than the listed numbers. All that
the listed numbers can be used for is a "class" indication.
A 65W can be cooled with an in-box cooler. A higher base power
than that, the heatsink can get pretty big, to bring the
closed loop temperature control to heel. I had to toss a 150W
cooler, because the software was reporting 90C fake spikes,
and I wasn't about to leave it like that. A 250W cooler made it
behave. The lower power cooler wasn't wasted - it's on my daily
driver 65W CPU (8 cores).

My high power processor, runs turbo forever. It is not
limited to 28 seconds or 56 seconds. But the processor
also has a power limit, and the clock frequency comes down
to cause the power to meet the power envelope. So while
it's doing its best, it isn't all that impressive. It will
definitely runs 5GHz on one core, which is what we want for
a Microsoft desktop. On 16 cores it runs 4.4Ghz (and sucks
down ~200W). It finishes Windows Update a little faster
than the other machine :-/ But not by much. Yes, there is
currently some fan noise.

[Picture]

Loading Image...

Paul

[No mail]

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the
Motherboard/CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace.  To make life
easier, I want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.
Last time around,I bought such a bundle from Novatech, and I was very
happy with the result.  I might still buy from them, but their bundles
get very expensive very quickly (e.g. a modest bundle is ~£300, the next
is £740 and sharply up from there).
Question:  Can anyone recommend other firms which offer such (built &
tested) bundles, and are they good if/when things need attention?
(I can recommend Novatech since they replaced my first bundle without a
quibble when it suddenly died after a year of use.)
Question 2:  My current system is Intel-based.  Is there any advantage
to going for a Ryzen-based system at the moment?
I am not into the latest & greatest in gaming, so I have no interest in
overclocking the thing into meltdown.

Consider whether you *need* a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop (from
the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

[GB]

Post by No mail
Consider whether you *need* a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop (from
the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

The OP asked about a new mb for his desktop, but you can buy a quite
capable N100 machine for £100, or so. That will run browsers, email,
etc, which probably covers 90% of users.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006997281548.html

There are codes around to get the price down a bit.

[John Rumm]

Post by GB

Post by No mail
Consider whether you *need* a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop (from
the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

The OP asked about a new mb for his desktop, but you can buy a quite
capable N100 machine for £100, or so.  That will run browsers, email,
etc, which probably covers 90% of users.

Them that can put up with pretty lame performance anyway! i5 / Ryzen 5
would be a better starting point for a general purpose machine. The N100
might be alright for a media (consumption) PC.
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Pancho]

Post by John Rumm

Post by GB

Post by No mail
Consider whether you *need* a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop (from
the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

The OP asked about a new mb for his desktop, but you can buy a quite
capable N100 machine for £100, or so.  That will run browsers, email,
etc, which probably covers 90% of users.

Them that can put up with pretty lame performance anyway! i5 / Ryzen 5
would be a better starting point for a general purpose machine. The N100
might be alright for a media (consumption) PC.

Where do you think this lame performance manifests itself, on a general
purpose machine?

What activities benefit from the Ryzen 5?

[John Rumm]

Post by Pancho

Post by John Rumm

Post by GB

Post by No mail
Consider whether you *need* a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop
(from the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

The OP asked about a new mb for his desktop, but you can buy a quite
capable N100 machine for £100, or so.  That will run browsers, email,
etc, which probably covers 90% of users.

Them that can put up with pretty lame performance anyway! i5 / Ryzen 5
would be a better starting point for a general purpose machine. The
N100 might be alright for a media (consumption) PC.

Where do you think this lame performance manifests itself, on a general
purpose machine?

Comparatively sluggish response and general lacklustre performance. Poor
experience with VMs or any CPU intensive task like transcoding/rendering
video.

If you are used to using low end machines, then you might be ok with it.
If you are more used to a reasonable business spec machine then a low
end CPU will feel like a very poor relation.

Post by Pancho
What activities benefit from the Ryzen 5?

Less of the above!
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[GB]

Post by John Rumm

Post by Pancho

Post by John Rumm

Post by GB

Post by No mail
Consider whether you *need* a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop
(from the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

The OP asked about a new mb for his desktop, but you can buy a quite
capable N100 machine for £100, or so.  That will run browsers,
email, etc, which probably covers 90% of users.

Them that can put up with pretty lame performance anyway! i5 / Ryzen
5 would be a better starting point for a general purpose machine. The
N100 might be alright for a media (consumption) PC.

Where do you think this lame performance manifests itself, on a
general purpose machine?

Comparatively sluggish response and general lacklustre performance. Poor
experience with VMs or any CPU intensive task like transcoding/rendering
video.

I agree with you, for those tasks.

I bought an N100 machine, and for a bit of light word processing and
browsing, it's not really slower than my current desktop (i7). The N100
uses far less electricity.

Post by John Rumm
If you are used to using low end machines, then you might be ok with it.
If you are more used to a reasonable business spec machine then a low
end CPU will feel like a very poor relation.

[Pancho]

Post by John Rumm

Post by Pancho

Post by John Rumm

Post by GB

Post by No mail
Consider whether you *need* a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop
(from the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

The OP asked about a new mb for his desktop, but you can buy a quite
capable N100 machine for £100, or so.  That will run browsers,
email, etc, which probably covers 90% of users.

Them that can put up with pretty lame performance anyway! i5 / Ryzen
5 would be a better starting point for a general purpose machine. The
N100 might be alright for a media (consumption) PC.

Where do you think this lame performance manifests itself, on a
general purpose machine?

Comparatively sluggish response and general lacklustre performance. Poor
experience with VMs or any CPU intensive task like transcoding/rendering
video.

The thing is, I don't think VMs or rendering video are general usage.

The usecase for VMs massively decreased with Docker, and the main
constraint was RAM not CPU. I used to use them all the time, but not so
much in the last 10 years. Now we have WSL2, pretty much never.

I'm not sure why people would render video. I last bought a DVD 15-20
years ago. If I were interested, I suspect I would be looking at
offloading that onto a purpose designed machine with an appropriate
video card.

If I was transcoding, it would probably be on a lot of the time and I
would be concerned about electricity cost. Not something I would use a
general purpose PC for.

So it feels like requirements for powerful hardware are "you ain't going
to need it" for most people. It's like advising a fat middle-aged
cyclist to buy a £5000 carbon Bike, or an amateur golfer to buy
professional clubs.

Post by John Rumm
If you are used to using low end machines, then you might be ok with it.
If you are more used to a reasonable business spec machine then a low
end CPU will feel like a very poor relation.

The thing is, I'm sitting using an Orange Pi5, which is a 2-watt toy.
The problem isn't that it feels slow, it doesn't. The problem is that
the OS is buggy, not fully implemented.

I think Apple got this right, switching to an Arm chip for the Mac Mini.
That is what the common man wants. So we should be careful when we offer
advice on which PC to buy.

Post by John Rumm

Post by Pancho
What activities benefit from the Ryzen 5?

Less of the above!

[Andy Burns]

Post by Pancho
The usecase for VMs massively decreased with Docker, and the main
constraint was RAM not CPU. I used to use them all the time, but not so
much in the last 10 years. Now we have WSL2, pretty much never.

Huh? WSL2 VMs sit on top of Hyper-V ...

[Paul]

The usecase for VMs massively decreased with Docker, and the main constraint was RAM not CPU. I used to use them all the time, but not so much in the last 10 years. Now we have WSL2, pretty much never.

Huh?  WSL2 VMs sit on top of Hyper-V ...

*Everything* sits on Hyper-V.

Even the regular Windows is virtualized.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170404130558/https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768520%28v=bts.10%29.aspx

What we could use today, is another version of that diagram,
with WSL2 penciled in, VirtualBox penciled in, Sandbox,
and so on. Something showing the spectrum of what is in there.
Even if it doesn't show some of the dependencies (such as why
Nested Virtualization doesn't work on my AMD systems). One
of these days, I have another test case to run, where I switch
everything off in Windows, then try to get Nested Virtualization
working. The docuverse stubbornly claims it does work,
but not in evidence here. You cannot use all the "features" in
the OS and use Nested Virtualization too.

We used to have Nested Virtualization at work, on one of the early
virtualization products. So we did do demos of "how slow" the
inner-most OS is, when you do that. That's software that had
no hardware virtualization support at all, and it was
molasses-slow. On this platform, it should work a lot better,
if I could get it to run.

Paul

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Pancho
The thing is, I don't think VMs or rendering video are general usage.

For some people they are.

Making video content about themselves has replaced masturbation as the
goto way to obtain a cheap thrill...

Post by Pancho
The usecase for VMs massively decreased with Docker, and the main
constraint was RAM not CPU. I used to use them all the time, but not so
much in the last 10 years. Now we have WSL2, pretty much never.

I still run WinXP with a couple of apps I prefer to use for some things.
Some people like to play DOS games.

Post by Pancho
I'm not sure why people would render video. I last bought a DVD 15-20
years ago. If I were interested, I suspect I would be looking at
offloading that onto a purpose designed machine with an appropriate
video card.

Video content creation.

Post by Pancho
If I was transcoding, it would probably be on a lot of the time and I
would be concerned about electricity cost. Not something I would use a
general purpose PC for.
So it feels like requirements for powerful hardware are "you ain't going
to need it" for most people. It's like advising a fat middle-aged
cyclist to buy a £5000 carbon Bike, or an amateur golfer to buy
professional clubs.

That is certainly true.

About ten years ago my MV died and I got a new one with a core i
something instead of a pentium,. and a Nvidia graffix card

Ran faster and cooler and would run my real time video game.

Two years ago I bought this HP EliteDesk (Core i5) for a couple of
hundred and some change, and it ran the video game straight off.

All I had to do was increase its RAM when the burden of a 4GB WinXP
virtual machine plus some RAM hungry slicer software for 3D printing got
to be too much when watching videos on you tube and playing that game,
as well.

The point being that it all depends what you DO on your PC. If you like
to play 3D real time games at HD plus resolutions, you are going to need
some fairly fancy hardware.

If you are going to do artwork creation. you probably need a big screen

If you are creating videos, you want a lot of CPU

If you are using a tool chain that comprises many elements, like 3D
printing, you probably want a lot of RAM. Multiple open browser windows
have the same problem.

Post by Pancho

Post by John Rumm
If you are used to using low end machines, then you might be ok with
it. If you are more used to a reasonable business spec machine then a
low end CPU will feel like a very poor relation.

The thing is, I'm sitting using an Orange Pi5, which is a 2-watt toy.
The problem isn't that it feels slow, it doesn't. The problem is that
the OS is buggy, not fully implemented.

Should have gone to Raspberry...Raspios is pretty tidy these days.

Post by Pancho
I think Apple got this right, switching to an Arm chip for the Mac Mini.
That is what the common man wants. So we should be careful when we offer
advice on which PC to buy.

Its certainly getting to the point where a Pi 5 is probably better than
an old 32 bit Intel machine.

BUT the availability of precompiled ARM software is simply not as good
yet as on INTEL

I cant at this stage get rid of my INTEL desktop.

[RJH]

Post by Pancho
I'm not sure why people would render video. I last bought a DVD 15-20
years ago. If I were interested, I suspect I would be looking at
offloading that onto a purpose designed machine with an appropriate
video card.

I use it to reduce file sizes of ripped DVDs (etc) for storage on a media
server. My current PC (a new model Mac Mini) will compress a DVD to a fifth of
its original size in minutes - at about 600 frames a second. I'd imagine a NUC
would take considerably longer. There's also the issue of moving large files
around.

Post by Pancho
If I was transcoding, it would probably be on a lot of the time and I
would be concerned about electricity cost. Not something I would use a
general purpose PC for.

Only a couple of minutes. Not even long enough for the fan to become audible.
In fact I've never heard the fan - it just sits there stone cold. If I was
compressing hundreds of video files, then yes, probably, but I don't think
this machine consumes much more than about 30W even if stretched. <10W most of
the time.> So it feels like requirements for powerful hardware are "you ain't
going

Post by Pancho
to need it" for most people. It's like advising a fat middle-aged
cyclist to buy a £5000 carbon Bike, or an amateur golfer to buy
professional clubs.

Yes, maybe for most people. I use some fairly bloated software (MS Office,
QGIS for example - as well as whatever the Apple OS and apps add), and edit
and store thousands of photos, sometimes uncompressed. I'm sure I could manage
on a low spec PC. I just choose/am lucky enough to spend a couple of hundred
quid extra on decent hardware.

Where it's not wanted, I don't. The media server is a 14 year old Mac Mini -
so maybe £50 on ebay. No need for anything more powerful. It struggles with
very high definition video files (10GB+ heavily compressed) but they're of no
interest to me. 4k H265 files play fine. That said, I'm not sure what takes
the load - the TV or the Mini. Videos are played through Plex, served from the
Mini, played on the TV's app.

[John Rumm]

Post by Pancho

Post by John Rumm

Post by Pancho

Post by John Rumm

Post by GB

Post by No mail
Consider whether you *need* a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop
(from the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

The OP asked about a new mb for his desktop, but you can buy a
quite capable N100 machine for £100, or so.  That will run
browsers, email, etc, which probably covers 90% of users.

Them that can put up with pretty lame performance anyway! i5 / Ryzen
5 would be a better starting point for a general purpose machine.
The N100 might be alright for a media (consumption) PC.

Where do you think this lame performance manifests itself, on a
general purpose machine?

Comparatively sluggish response and general lacklustre performance.
Poor experience with VMs or any CPU intensive task like transcoding/
rendering video.

The thing is, I don't think VMs or rendering video are general usage.

Perhaps not, but IME you will immediately "feel" the difference between
a new mid range business spec machine and a new "low end" or ageing mid
range desktop system.

For example, I have recently rolling out some software updates to a
fleet of machines. The process is not that complicated - quit a couple
of running apps, uninstall a couple, download and install a couple,
start one of the new ones, and then do a bit of config. Most of it
automated in a batch file. Doing it on a >= 10th gen machine gets it
done in less than 5 mins. On a 6th gen i5 it is more like 10, and for a
3rd or 4th gen it is often 15 min. These are all Win 10 or 11 boxes with
SSDs.

How much that will affect your workflow will depend much on what you do
and how you do it. If you load a couple of programs and then live in
them all day - the impact of a slower machine is less noticeable. If you
need to run multiple things, and frequently switch between jobs, it is a
much bigger impact.

Post by Pancho
The usecase for VMs massively decreased with Docker, and the main
constraint was RAM not CPU. I used to use them all the time, but not so
much in the last 10 years. Now we have WSL2, pretty much never.

Yup WSL2 is handy, but VMs are still very useful and docker is not
always a suitable replacement. Quite often for things like developing
and testing on a variety of systems in different configurations, or for
security when doing malware analysis or testing unknown code.

Post by Pancho
I'm not sure why people would render video. I last bought a DVD 15-20

One of the dangers of assuming that your own particular uses for a
machine will be the same for everyone else.

Post by Pancho
years ago. If I were interested, I suspect I would be looking at
offloading that onto a purpose designed machine with an appropriate
video card.

You can end up rendering video in a multitude of use cases, not just
manipulating DVDs. Just doing jobs like trimming or joining video files.
Using Handbrake to reduce video file sizes etc. Rending an animation
from CAD etc.

Post by Pancho
If I was transcoding, it would probably be on a lot of the time and I
would be concerned about electricity cost. Not something I would use a
general purpose PC for.
So it feels like requirements for powerful hardware are "you ain't going
to need it" for most people. It's like advising a fat middle-aged
cyclist to buy a £5000 carbon Bike, or an amateur golfer to buy
professional clubs.

I could sand something with a cheap £50 RoS from one of the sheds, but I
choose to use a professional Mirka RoS at many times the price.

The better tool is not "necessary" in the sense that I could do the job
more cheaply with a budget tool. However because it is so much more
comfortable to use, does the job better and faster, and gives better
results, I no longer care that it cost 8 times as much because it is a
much nicer user experience.

You could make the same argument for the posh golf clubs or bike. Will
the occasional user really get the best out of the higher end option?
Probably not. Will if feel better / be more enjoyable / get better
results? Probably.

Post by Pancho

Post by John Rumm
If you are used to using low end machines, then you might be ok with
it. If you are more used to a reasonable business spec machine then a
low end CPU will feel like a very poor relation.

The thing is, I'm sitting using an Orange Pi5, which is a 2-watt toy.
The problem isn't that it feels slow, it doesn't. The problem is that
the OS is buggy, not fully implemented.
I think Apple got this right, switching to an Arm chip for the Mac Mini.
That is what the common man wants. So we should be careful when we offer
advice on which PC to buy.

Erm, I think the OPs message title kind of invited " Advice on a new PC
motherboard 'bundle'".

If I am giving general advice without much detail on the specifics, then
specifying something that will cope with most applications comfortably,
and allow for a bit of future proofing, rather than just suggesting the
cheapest option for a narrow use case is normally the "safest"
recommendation IMHO
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by GB

Consider whether you need a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop (from the
likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

The OP asked about a new mb for his desktop, but you can buy a quite
capable N100 machine for £100, or so. That will run browsers, email,
etc, which probably covers 90% of users.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006997281548.html
There are codes around to get the price down a bit.

You almost have to buy one for that price :-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Jeff Gaines

Post by GB

Consider whether you need a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop (from
the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

The OP asked about a new mb for his desktop, but you can buy a quite
capable N100 machine for £100, or so.  That will run browsers, email,
etc, which probably covers 90% of users.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006997281548.html
There are codes around to get the price down a bit.

You almost have to buy one for that price :-)

Bugger. I paid 9.60 for these two days ago

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008120181701.html

(Cut down raspberry pi PICO)

[Sam Plusnet]

Post by No mail

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the Motherboard/
CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace.  To make life easier, I
want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.
Last time around,I bought such a bundle from Novatech, and I was very
happy with the result.  I might still buy from them, but their bundles
get very expensive very quickly (e.g. a modest bundle is ~£300, the
next is £740 and sharply up from there).
Question:  Can anyone recommend other firms which offer such (built &
tested) bundles, and are they good if/when things need attention?
(I can recommend Novatech since they replaced my first bundle without
a quibble when it suddenly died after a year of use.)
Question 2:  My current system is Intel-based.  Is there any advantage
to going for a Ryzen-based system at the moment?
I am not into the latest & greatest in gaming, so I have no interest
in overclocking the thing into meltdown.

Consider whether you *need* a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop (from
the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

I have a laptop (2 actually)[1], but I can never get used to the tiny
screen, lousy keyboard and... that touchpad experience - ugh!

Yes, I could use an external keyboard and mouse - and maybe plug in an
external monitor, but that takes me back to a desktop machine.

[1] I generally buy refurbished Thinkpads.

[John Rumm]

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by No mail

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the Motherboard/
CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace.  To make life easier, I
want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.
Last time around,I bought such a bundle from Novatech, and I was very
happy with the result.  I might still buy from them, but their
bundles get very expensive very quickly (e.g. a modest bundle is
~£300, the next is £740 and sharply up from there).
Question:  Can anyone recommend other firms which offer such (built &
tested) bundles, and are they good if/when things need attention?
(I can recommend Novatech since they replaced my first bundle without
a quibble when it suddenly died after a year of use.)
Question 2:  My current system is Intel-based.  Is there any
advantage to going for a Ryzen-based system at the moment?
I am not into the latest & greatest in gaming, so I have no interest
in overclocking the thing into meltdown.

Consider whether you *need* a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop (from
the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

I have a laptop (2 actually)[1], but I can never get used to the tiny
screen, lousy keyboard and... that touchpad experience - ugh!
Yes, I could use an external keyboard and mouse - and maybe plug in an
external monitor, but that takes me back to a desktop machine.

It does, but you then have the option of taking it out and about on the
rare occasions that might be useful.

Post by Sam Plusnet
[1] I generally buy refurbished Thinkpads.

Probably what i will replace my ageing 3rd gen i5 laptop with. I got
caught out a while ago attempting to debug what seemed like an under
performing 1 Gbps FTTC connection. While it could easily saturate its
1Gbps ethernet, what it turned out it could not do, was run any of the
broadband speed test web sites at much over 300Mbps - even when PPPTPed
direct into the ONT.
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Sam Plusnet]

Post by John Rumm

Post by Sam Plusnet

Post by No mail

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run
on 'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent
& decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates
from 2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time
for a refresh.
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the Motherboard/
CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace.  To make life easier, I
want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.
Last time around,I bought such a bundle from Novatech, and I was
very happy with the result.  I might still buy from them, but their
bundles get very expensive very quickly (e.g. a modest bundle is
~£300, the next is £740 and sharply up from there).
Question:  Can anyone recommend other firms which offer such (built
& tested) bundles, and are they good if/when things need attention?
(I can recommend Novatech since they replaced my first bundle
without a quibble when it suddenly died after a year of use.)
Question 2:  My current system is Intel-based.  Is there any
advantage to going for a Ryzen-based system at the moment?
I am not into the latest & greatest in gaming, so I have no interest
in overclocking the thing into meltdown.

Consider whether you *need* a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop (from
the likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

I have a laptop (2 actually)[1], but I can never get used to the tiny
screen, lousy keyboard and... that touchpad experience - ugh!
Yes, I could use an external keyboard and mouse - and maybe plug in an
external monitor, but that takes me back to a desktop machine.

It does, but you then have the option of taking it out and about on the
rare occasions that might be useful.

Post by Sam Plusnet
[1] I generally buy refurbished Thinkpads.

Probably what i will replace my ageing 3rd gen i5 laptop with. I got
caught out a while ago attempting to debug what seemed like an under
performing 1 Gbps FTTC connection. While it could easily saturate its
1Gbps ethernet, what it turned out it could not do, was run any of the
broadband speed test web sites at much over 300Mbps - even when PPPTPed
direct into the ONT.

Connections with that sort of speed remain strictly science fiction in
this house.

[The Natural Philosopher]

an under performing 1 Gbps FTTC connection.

FTTC is not capable of more tnan around 80Mps

[Tim Streater]

On 15 Apr 2025 at 11:34:34 BST, "The Natural Philosopher"

Post by The Natural Philosopher

an under performing 1 Gbps FTTC connection.

FTTC is not capable of more tnan around 80Mps

Depends just where the cab is, I suppose. Here is about a quarter of a mile
down the road and its copper from there. Much better than copper to the next
village, however, as it used to be.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Tim Streater
On 15 Apr 2025 at 11:34:34 BST, "The Natural Philosopher"

Post by The Natural Philosopher

an under performing 1 Gbps FTTC connection.

FTTC is not capable of more tnan around 80Mps

Depends just where the cab is, I suppose. Here is about a quarter of a mile
down the road and its copper from there. Much better than copper to the next
village, however, as it used to be.

1/4 mile of copper with VDSL is at best 70Mbps

https://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/chart-of-bt-fttc-vdsl2-speed-against-distance-from-the-cabinet

Even gigabit Ethernet can only do about 300meters

[Andy Burns]

Post by Tim Streater

Post by The Natural Philosopher
FTTC is not capable of more tnan around 80Mps

Depends just where the cab is, I suppose. Here is about a quarter of a mile
down the road

When I was the only person in the street who had FTTC, my router
estimated it could achieve 100 Mbps down and 30 Mbps up, but BT's 17a
profile won't allow faster than 80/20, so that's what I got.

Now (different router) with lots of the street using FTTC (some have
moved to virgin FTTP) I still get the full 80/20, but with lower
estimated max achievable.

Downstream Upstream
Actual Rate 79990 Kbps 19999 Kbps
Attainable Rate 84642 Kbps 25238 Kbps

[John Rumm]

an under performing 1 Gbps FTTC connection.

Sorry my typo - FTTP

 FTTC is not capable of more tnan around 80Mps

Actually it can go to about 140 on SoGEA lines (i.e. VDSL without POTS)
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Theo]

Post by John Rumm

an under performing 1 Gbps FTTC connection.

Sorry my typo - FTTP

 FTTC is not capable of more tnan around 80Mps

Actually it can go to about 140 on SoGEA lines (i.e. VDSL without POTS)

Are Openreach offering >80Mbps profiles? My line is around 76Mbps (Huawei
cabinet, Broadcom modem) so I think it could go higher if a higher speed
profile was available.

Deutsche Telekom will sell you 250Mbps VDSL. For a time BT would sell you
300Mbps G.FAST which is like having VDSL with the cabinet at the top of your
pole, although I think the access layer is different (TDD not FDD).

Theo

[Andy Burns]

Post by Theo

Post by John Rumm

Post by The Natural Philosopher
FTTC is not capable of more tnan around 80Mps

Actually it can go to about 140 on SoGEA lines (i.e. VDSL without POTS)

Are Openreach offering >80Mbps profiles?

My speed didn't budge when I switched to SoGEA, didn't think openreach
used profile 35b due to interference? Might be nice if the offered it
after POTS finally dies in 2027?

[Nick Finnigan]

Post by Theo

Post by John Rumm

Post by The Natural Philosopher
FTTC is not capable of more tnan around 80Mps

Actually it can go to about 140 on SoGEA lines (i.e. VDSL without POTS)

Are Openreach offering >80Mbps profiles?

My speed didn't budge when I switched to SoGEA, didn't think openreach used
profile 35b due to interference?  Might be nice if the offered it after
POTS finally dies in 2027?

Mine did: 28 with POTS, which fits with the graph for 1km from the
cabinet; now seeing 48.

[Theo]

Post by Nick Finnigan

Post by Theo

Post by John Rumm

Post by The Natural Philosopher
FTTC is not capable of more tnan around 80Mps

Actually it can go to about 140 on SoGEA lines (i.e. VDSL without POTS)

Are Openreach offering >80Mbps profiles?

My speed didn't budge when I switched to SoGEA, didn't think openreach used
profile 35b due to interference?  Might be nice if the offered it after
POTS finally dies in 2027?

Mine did: 28 with POTS, which fits with the graph for 1km from the
cabinet; now seeing 48.

Modem firmware can make a big difference too. eg when I had a BT Homehub 5a
running OpenWRT I could load different firmware for the VDSL modem part of
the chip and it would change from 55 to 72 Mbps depending on the firmware
version.

When using a ISP Broadcom-based router (where there's no open source OS with
DSL support so I'm using the ISP's OS) I get 76, so obviously there's been
some tweaking - it seems like the preferred firmware varies depending on
whether you're on a Huawei or ECI cabinet.

So it's possible a router swap can also affect your line speed, if you
changed that at the same time as switching to SOGEA.

Theo

[John Rumm]

Post by Theo

Post by John Rumm

an under performing 1 Gbps FTTC connection.

Sorry my typo - FTTP

 FTTC is not capable of more tnan around 80Mps

Actually it can go to about 140 on SoGEA lines (i.e. VDSL without POTS)

Are Openreach offering >80Mbps profiles? My line is around 76Mbps (Huawei
cabinet, Broadcom modem) so I think it could go higher if a higher speed
profile was available.

It seems that they are but typically only on FTTC SoGEA connections.

Post by Theo
Deutsche Telekom will sell you 250Mbps VDSL. For a time BT would sell you
300Mbps G.FAST which is like having VDSL with the cabinet at the top of your
pole, although I think the access layer is different (TDD not FDD).

Yup Gfast goes quicker, although I have not seen more than about 160Mbps
so far.

This setup has a pair of normal lines from the cab about 100m away. One
was upgraded to GFast, but the other is ali cable, and so is not up to it!

Loading Image...

(a setup with load balanced dual WAN, one ordinary FTTC, and one GFast)
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by Sam Plusnet

Consider whether you need a desktop machine. A re-furb laptop (from the
likes of Tier1) will come with an in-built UPS ...

I have a laptop (2 actually)[1], but I can never get used to the tiny
screen, lousy keyboard and... that touchpad experience - ugh!
Yes, I could use an external keyboard and mouse - and maybe plug in an
external monitor, but that takes me back to a desktop machine.
[1] I generally buy refurbished Thinkpads.

I have 2 x Lenovo V17 both bought when they were previous generation for
about £600 each new with 17" screens.

[Andrew]

Post by Sam Plusnet
I was bliddy annoyed when MS decided that Windows 11 would not run on
'older' systems, since I considered my main PC was fairly recent & decent.
Having thought about it some more, I realise most of my PC dates from
2016 so regardless of Microsoft's messing around, it is time for a refresh.
I'm happy with the peripherals I have, so it's just the
Motherboard/CPU/RAM/CPU Cooler that I want to replace.  To make life
easier, I want to buy a ready built & tested bundle.
Last time around,I bought such a bundle from Novatech, and I was very
happy with the result.  I might still buy from them, but their bundles
get very expensive very quickly (e.g. a modest bundle is ~£300, the next
is £740 and sharply up from there).

Snap.

My Novatech 'bundle' dates back to 2011 with 4Gb ram and
6-core AMD something running Win 10 Pro/32 which is now getting
a bit slow, but OK for emails and general browsing. The power
supply dates back to 2006 :-)

Lightroom V3.6 is still running but struggles sometimes,

*BUT*, it has a Firewire I/F which I still need for my
expensive Nikon Coolscan slide scanner which I am reluctant
to part with.

What next, after October 2025 ?.

The Nikon scan software only ever ran on windows and Apple
Macs <= 2008, so Linux is presumably out of the running. Moving
to new hardware is not straightforward because of the limited
options for firewire (but I have posted this before and people
have pointed out the availability of pcie firewire boards. I
suspect I will have to go down the apple mac mini route + adapters
but only as a last resort since it still needs software to run
an obsolete scanner.

There are 3rd party Windows scanner software packages that still
target my scanner, like Silverfast but I tried that as a demo download
and it was complicated to learn.

Andrew

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Andrew
The Nikon scan software only ever ran on windows and Apple
Macs <= 2008, so Linux is presumably out of the running.

Not necessarily


Vuescan should work on all platforms. Its a free download. Try it on
windows first, if it works there it will work on Linux.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by John Rumm

Post by Andrew
The Nikon scan software only ever ran on windows and Apple
Macs <= 2008, so Linux is presumably out of the running.

Not necessarily
Vuescan should work on all platforms. Its a free download. Try it on
windows first, if it works there it will work on Linux.

Update. Its not free if you want all features, including slide scanning :(

[Theo]

Post by The Natural Philosopher

Post by John Rumm

Post by Andrew
The Nikon scan software only ever ran on windows and Apple
Macs <= 2008, so Linux is presumably out of the running.

Not necessarily
Vuescan should work on all platforms. Its a free download. Try it on
windows first, if it works there it will work on Linux.

Update. Its not free if you want all features, including slide scanning :(

It's £100 if you want slide scanning. But it could be a price worth paying
compared with buying more hardware.

Although you can buy Firewire PCIe cards for a tenner on ebay, so a modern
machine with PCIe slots may well be able to run the Windows software
(assuming it still works under W10/11).

Theo