A Connected Wife Is A Happy Wife

 

Its so common today that I'd bet most of you didn't notice that everyone in this image has a phone or tablet in their hands. All we see if a bunch of friends gathered together and having a good time. Of course, having worked in IT for some time, the infrastructure of how this happens is implicit to me. That in the background unseen and probably not conscious to most people is a connection to the internet. 

The fact is, that as much as we use and depend on "broadband" access to "the cloud", it something like this working in the background of every home that allows it to happen. Most homeowners don't give it a second thought and probably haven't looked at it since the Internet provider came and connected everything up years ago. In 2004, when we built our house in the Dallas suburb of Forney, these panels were standard, however, in 2003 when the first owners of our current house in Terrell had it built, apparently it wasn't! Yup, crazy! One year difference and despite having had speaker wire run all over the house, they didn't put in Ethernet!

What's the big deal you say? If you didn't already know this, let me enlighten you a bit. In the world of data, it's the wired networking (or infrastructure) that does the heavy lifting keeping us connected to Youtube, Amazon Music, Instagram...... streaming everything. What about wireless? That's what delivers the end product, but without the wired apparatus delivering the data, wireless is pretty weak. Ask anyone who lives in a 2 story house trying to use a Wi-Fi access point! Better yet, ask anyone who lives a bit in the country and struggling through using one of those wireless services for the entirety of their content delivery. It's better than nothing, but it ain't good....

So, what do you do with no Ethernet infrastructure in a 2-story house? PLC of course! What the heck is "PLC"? It's powerline connection. Or, What the..... as my brother-in-law would say. It's where you borrow the electric wiring in your house and pass data back and forth over it. If that sounds highly dubious to you, it did to me too. But it works, after a fashion. How fast is it? Ignore what the specs say. It's roughly the speed of 802.11b Wi-Fi. That's 11 megabits per second friends! You remember that old Wi-Fi router from 3 or 4 generations ago that's in a box in the attic? It came out in 1999! Wi-Fi history for consumers went something like this: "B" 11mbp, "G" 54mbp, "N" 300mbp, and "AC" 433mbp. That's theoretic speed of course. Real world is roughly half that, and you also have to have the same standard on the receiving end in order to get that speed. So, in short form, it's not very fast, but it's faster than trying to get Wi-Fi throughout a 2-story house with 1 access point. 

So, that's been the state of affairs in our house for the last 4 years....... Then Covid-19 happened...

When we BOTH started working in the house regularly, then we had a problem! I was fine working in the office on a desktop machine plugged up directly to the router, but she was in a different part of the house entirely that was dependent on Wi-Fi being delivered by an access point connected to the PLC system...... on a different floor! Yikes! And these days, virtually all applications are connected to through the Internet somehow. So you see, it's not a good situation and certainly not up to regulary Zoom meeting at all.

So, yeah.... the solution has been to run a looooong Ethernet cable from the office across the hall through the dining room into the study...... since April!!!

Therefore I talked to lots of people to examine possible solutions. The answer pretty much was to bust holes in the walls of the office and my son's room upstairs and run the cabling into the attic and then down the wall to where the upstairs access point/switch lives. Ahhhhh, NO! Actually, I even considered it..... briefly.

Then this occurred to me. The office has 2 outside walls at the rear of the house. Why can't I run cabling out and up the side of the house into the attic, across the attic to the appropriate wall and drop it down? The distance isn't really and issue for Ethernet, I just needed to put it in conduit to protect the cabling. A few weeks ago, my father-in-law came by and helped us get the wire up to the attic. Saturday, my son and I pulled it across the attic and dropped it through the wall and pulled it out. And yesterday, I pulled it into the office and terminated it! Let me tell ya; AC Wi-Fi speed is pretty good!

I would say that my wife is happy, but she was actually fine with the Ethernet across the floor. I was the one that was bothered by it. Of course, she'd rather it be gone, but really she's just happy that I finished the project.

The "New" ThinkPad Circa 2020

Roughly, every 3-4 years "I" get a "new" ThinkPad. This goes back to around 1997/98 when I was working at Texas Tech and decided I needed to have a laptop for the first time. Up till then, I had only had desktops; first a vendor built 386 clone, then a self-built (with help from my brother) 486 clone, then a Toshiba Infinia Pentium which got traded out for an IBM Aptiva "S" Model (Stealth). I'll probably do a desktop retrospective at some point, but this post is about my love for the portable computer..... of which I've only ever used ThinkPads. Oh, I've owned and worked on lots of others, but as far as my personal machines..... they're ThinkPads.

 

I bought that first machine used, but under warranty which I would take advantage of quite a lot! In the day of the big chunky laptops with poor battery life, I chose a different road with the IBM ThinkPad 701c. And right there, the die was cast. This is often considered one of the, if not the seminal ThinkPad that made it neck-and-neck the most iconic name in portable computing along with the PowerBook/MacBook. 

So emblematic in fact that the 1996 movie Mission Impossible cast those machine as the techno opponents, with of course, the PowerBook as the "good guy"! As for my "Butterfly", it did the mundane work of typing personnel evals while drinking coffee at Barnes and Nobles. Eventually, even media icons age and the 486 powered machine 701 gave way to a 600.

These could rightly be called the progenitor of the modern "thin and light" system machines of today's "business class". They had mainstream processors, a decent size screen for getting work done without an external monitor, but built with a docking port to connect with all manner of peripherals as well as the corporate network. However, it was a the last of the original ThinkPad breed built the old way with virtually no flex and rubber covers or sliding doors covering all it's ports. They were simply too expensive to build and sell at the 1998 prices ranging from the high $2000s to the fully-spec'd version in the $4000s. However, this would create the form-factor that I would return to time-and-time again.

The 600 Series would be replaced by the fully developed thin-and-lights in the form of the T20s (T20, T21, T22, T23), followed by the T40s (T40, T41, T42, T43) with a detour of T30 not withstanding,...... which I'll write about at some other time. To my eye, these were rough and ready versions of the 600 Series with a lot of cost-cutting. Gone were the port covers as well as the soft-touch coating an any parts that wasn't the lid! There's other things, but those were the main ones. However, they did their job and were much easier for a budding IT manager (me) to buy at the $2000-3000 range! These machines would take the ThinkPad from the Pentium III age all the way to through the Pentium-M era. 

Then came the Core Duo/Core2 Duo series of processors from from Intel as the computing world headed into multi-threaded computing. These were the early Lenovo years after the heart-breaking IBM buy-out. They were also the "try-hard" years for Lenovo trying to prove to the world that they were worthy of carrying on the ThinkPad banner. So they brought out the X300/301 which I saw as the true successors of the old 600s with it's include every feature under-the-sun and 13.3" screen design. I jumped from the T42p to the X300, then on to the X301 and loved these machines till it became obvious that the end was near for the C2D CPUs, especially the "SU" low-powered units in these machines. Which brings us to today.....uh actually.....last week!

For the last 3-4 years I've been running the 2012 introduced T430s. So yeah, it's going on 8 years old! If you're a long time computer builder/user, you're probably aware that unless you are a gamer or a high-end professional, the need to upgrade regularly has long-since past. Everyday task can be easily accomplished by older machines as long as they have an adequate amount of RAM (8Gb) and a few upgrades such as an SSD. This machine has an Ivy Bridge gen i5, 16Gb of RAM and a 512Gb SSD in mSATA form. It's been running Windows 10 without a hitch for the last 6 months. If that's the case, why are we talking?

If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you'll know that I'm an opportunity kind of guy. That and a few issues have pushed me to make the current change to the T450s. So, let me list them and explain why I use the type of machine that I went with and you can decide for yourself if you'd have done the same thing. Reasons I use the type of machine I do:

• I need like to use a "thin and light" because I often carry it to a client location, so I like to try and keep my machines in the sub-4lb range.
• Virtually all of my clients use windows machine so it works out better if I do the same.... so no MacBook (although I've considered that quite a bit, plus the next reason). 
• I'm cheap, and I don't need high level processing ability. I don't game and my machines don't do CAD or high-end photo/video editing. So, no Razer Edge or MacBook. Selling in large numbers to corporations makes a machine cheap to buy when they come "off lease".
• It needs to be compatible in a number of ways to the typical PC. These include video output capabilities, ports, media etc.  and OS.
• I like my machines to be rugged. They do travel on occasion. 
• They can't be too big since most of it's life is spent on my nightstand.

Why decide to upgrade to the T450s from the T430s now:

• First and foremost, I really dislike the screen on the T430s. When I moved to this machine, I had downgraded from a higher pixel density of an X Series to the 1600 x 900 HD+ on the T430 because of my aging eyes. Turns out that I was wrong. It wasn't the pixel density that was causing a problem for me, it was the crappy TN screen on the T430! ThinkPads have on and off been saddled with bad screens. Beginning with the T440, but specifically T450 can be found with an IPS full-HD (1920 x 1080) panel.
• I pretty much never use the optical drive on the 430, so that was no loss.
• I skipped that x40 series because Lenovo saw fit to delete the Trackpoint mouse buttons, but they were restored on the x50 series.
• The x40/x50 series had the "bridge battery" design allowing the user to exchange the externally accessible battery which came in 3 different capacities some of which can push these machines into the double digit hours when combined with the use of the Intel "U" series processors in this series. Yes, I know, they are lowered powered and aren't socketed so can't be upgraded, but that's a none issue for my use-case.
• It's thinner and lighter than the x30 series.
•  Starting with the Tx60 series, Levovo went to internal (read not user accessible) batteries.

So all these items combined with the fact that I'm currently in the process of chasing down 2 client machines of this type has given me a lot of research time looking at these machines. The combination of opportunity/circumstances and the an 8-year old computer gave rise to the "new" machine. 

Music To My Ears

For a very long time, I've wanted a good set of headphones. And I do have quite a few pairs of them, mostly of the earbud style which pretty much did their job, but I wasn't someone who saw themselves sitting for hours listening to music through headphones. It's strange though that I wouldn't have gotten around to delving into that part of audio till now.

I grew up in the 70's and those were the days of the Koss Pros. It seemed like any serious audiophile had a pair of them. And I'd been pretty serious about the hobby from the time I was in middle school and buying my own equipment. But there always seemed that there was something more important than spending the not inconsiderable amount it cost to own good headphones.

By the 80s and 90s, I was really immersed into audio and people were spending big money on premier headphones such as the Stax electrostatic models. Just not me.

In the early 2000s when I was working at a home audio store, I even bought a pair of Grado's SR60s. It was their low end model, but they were nice. However, I never used them much, so they were sold off. I was really into home theater at that time which certainly  wasn't a headphone thing! There was one pair that we sold in the store that almost got me.

The Sennheiser HD 600. They sounded awesome and felt that way too! However, at $450 (1998 dollars), they were just too expensive for me. Over the years, on and off, I've looked at them used on eBay, but there was never a good time.

Then last month I ran across a video on Youtube talking about a pair of headphones that Massdrop was selling. Apparently, the company had contracted with Sennheiser to produce the HD 650 (successor to the HD 600) specially for them and we're selling them for $200! I was floored! 

I checked with the wife first, but I ordered them right away! Essentially they are the HD 650s with a very few changes; shorter cord, 1/8" jack with 1/4" adapter, different finish, much less fancy box,....oh yeah, a different name..... HD 6xx vs. HD 650.... They are every bit as good as I remembered and mine aren't even broken in yet. So much so, that I'm considering buying a headphone amp and/or a high definition player to use with it. They have a 300 ohm impedance and aren't supposed to work well with regular players like phones, iPods, etc. I'm listening to mine right now on one of our iPods and it sounds pretty darned good, so I'm curious as to how much better it might be with better input!

The Refitted "Blackbird" Workstation Flys!!!

It's been a long haul, but my rebuilt workstation is finally up. I will have to say that it's a little strange to open up the Resource Monitor and see 16 cores running! So let's start there.

The heart of any high performance vehicle is the engine. And looking at the SR71 "Blackbird's" huge engine, you can see why it's a legendary plane. It was said that they pretty much only needed one answer when a SAM was launched at it......, that was to go faster!

 

At the heart of my rebuilt workstation is the Xeon E5-2630L processor. It's a bit of a weird part in the computer world. It's clocked at a low 1.8ghz, so only consumes 55 watts, which isn't very much given that it's got 8 physical cores and being hyper-threaded functions as 16 cores to the operating system. Which basically means that it doesn't do anything super fast compared to say, an i7 or i9, but it can do a LOT of different things pretty fast all at once. 

Right now, it's being fed by 2 8Gb modules of Corsair Dominator RAM, but with a total of 8 sockets available, I can max out at 64Gb total some day in the future.

It's all plugged into a Gigabyte X99-Gaming G1 board. The X99 chipset and the boards that they live on, is what make this thing workstation level. 8 RAM sockets, M.2 compatible, 40 lanes of access to the processor! Actually, I had started out with one of these which had dud processor pins that I never did get fixed. Then last week, I bought an Asus X99-3.1U board that had some issues with POSTing, which has to go back to Canada. So now this. There are two other parts to this build that make it my main machine for the next several years. 

A couple of weeks ago I traded for an nVidia GTX 970 which takes over the graphics duties for my old GTX 770 which looks just like this, except that it's less powerful and consumes twice as much power.

The last major component is the Plextor M.2 NVMe drive that will take over the boot drive duties. Theses things are quite a bit faster than my old Intel SSD connected through SATA3. The mass storage and optical drive stays the same, as do the old complement of monitors.

 

I supposed I'm about as happy as I can be with another rebuild put to bed.

Birthday Upgrade for the Son's PC and Around the Block with Micro$oft

In a post of September of 2017, I talked about the build I had done for my son's birthday back in May. It had taken me a year to gather all the parts that went into the machine, but in the end, he was happy and it was worth the trouble. Three years later, as we finish out this year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that time again. My son is a rising senior headed toward his last year of high school and then on to college to study engineering of some sort...... Which mean this...... that machine driven by a Pentium G4400 and rockin' a GTX-750ti graphics card wasn't going to cut it. 

And with another birthday fast approaching, it was a good time to upgrade his "gaming pc" to a full-blown college-ready workstation! When I analyzed his equipment, it looked like the bones were there. The Corsair Carbide 380t case is compact enough to go if he goes and certainly is fine if he wants to stay at home and start locally. I had gotten him a pair of 22" HP business-class monitors last year so that was fine as well. What needed some sprucing up was the ASRock motherboard which had only 1 of 2 RAM sockets working, and a Pentium G4400 driving the system. So I set a $300 budget to get it all done; motherboard, processor and graphics card.

$86 went to a Skylake i5-6500. Four cores running at 3.2Ghz with a little bit of headroom to bump it up. Little Sis chipped in by buying an inexpensive, but effective CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Black HSF, but that turned out to be 1/4" too tall for his case, so I had to chase down an M4 low-profile HSF to replace it. Now, I have an extra Hyper 212 sitting in the closet! I found a GTX-1060 on eBay for $120 because it was a Dallas seller and I didn't have to pay shipping! Then things got complicated.....

I had decided that we should go with the higher end Skylake chipset boards; either the Z170 or H170. Looking around, I found that the Mini-ITX boards of that generation tended to run around $100, plus or minus regardless of chipset. I was able to find a Gigabyte Z170 board for $90 shipped, but missing it's I/O shield which cost another $10 out of China. Everything came in around the same time last weekend and we got to work. That's when the upgrade train went off the rails! 

It started out with the Hyper 212 being a quarter of an inch too tall and the rest was just downhill after that! Next, I couldn't find the other stick of RAM for his machine, then the board refused to POST. Then started the trouble-shooting routine. One thing at a time using everything including his old board and processor. It turned out that the board just wasn't going to boot. I even tried straightening a few pin in the socket that looked bent. No Joy! Luckily the seller was a good guy and refunded the money immediately. Then I found another board just like it in LA and the guy offered it to me for $60 shipped. It was sold "working" but with some bent pins in the socket! I took a chance anyway!

It came today and Whatayaknow!!!  It came right up.... bent pins and all.

I have to say that all was not "wine and roses". I'm sure some of you have already guessed it! ....... the upgrade cause the Windows10 load to "deactivate". One new key and an hour and a half of tech support later, I can say that "I'm very angry at Micro$oft"!!!

In the end, the whole thing came in under budget and his machine is ready for a few more years. Yeah, I'm going to have to pull the board and install the M4 HSF assembly when it shows up from Canada in a week or so and I have some parts to sell back off too. Now, if I can only figure out what I did with that other stick of RAM I squirreled away 3 years ago.....

The "Globemaster" Home Server In Flight!

That's a C17 Globemaster on a test flight. My Globemaster is now in full-blown production mode!

About a foot from my left knee is a Silverstone CS380 case holding a fully working home server. It's running FreeNAS 11.3. Right now the only thing on it is a share called "media" that's holding 400+ movies that I've ripped into a non-DVD form, meaning that the files are small enough to get squirted through the network to a tablet to watch. Eventually, I'll create spaces for my music and photos to live there as well and all our media will be easily available and I won't have to go and find it for my wife and hand it to her on a flashdrive so she can post something on social media! I will say that it wasn't easy.

I started out thinking that I'd be doing something like this small form-factor box tucked into a corner somewhere.

Then I fell in love with the robustness of FreeNAS and really went for the idea of a ZFS storage array that had the ability to withstand 2 drives failing at once. In the middle of trying to build a 6 drive beast to do that, I went way off the rails and feeling like I'd never get the thing up and running! 

I was having dreams/nightmares of rack servers with dozens of hot-swap bays.

 

Ultimately, I was able to settle on a comfortable middling size compromise when I found the Silverstone CS380. In reality, it's just a mid-tower that's had it front end specially adapted to hold 8 "hot-swap" drivebays. The back end of it is really just simple ATX.

The Supermicro X9SCL/SCM motherboard slid right in without a hitch and there was plenty of room for a normal tower style heatsink/fan assembly. Once I got the type of RAM that it needed solved, I was able to get 16Gb (8Gb x 2) ECC RAM out of China off of eBay. That leaves me 2 more sockets for future expansion. I have all six drives connected directly to the motherboard, but also have an IBM/LSI controller along with two empty bays for future expansion. 

It took me a while to get everything loaded, up and running, but Youtube is an endless well of information these days. You just have to expend the time to find the right videos and watch them! Yup, I screwed up my first drive pool build, somehow allowing it to access the 16Gb SSD that I had put in there for possible future cache use which screwed up how it balanced out it's space allocation. In any case, I figure it out, pulled the drive, deleted the pool and rebuilt it. So now, it does indeed correctly gives me a bit over 7 Terabytes of storage out of 6, Hitachi Ultrastar 2Tb drives. Yup, that's right; I'm sacrificing around 5Tb of drive space to redundancy! But hey, that's why we build these sorts of things to start with right? Oh, and I also has something clearly reinforced to me while watching the 500Gb of movies being copied over. 

The standing rule of thumb for FreeNAS is that you need 1 gig of RAM for each Terabyte of storage that you have. A little much for a file server, right? Uhhh, no, not really.... I was watching the console data as the file transfer was being made, and it was using something like 80% of the available memory out of the 16Gb that I have in the machine! If I hadn't had enough, it would have really slowed down that operation! Lesson learned...

Do I wish I had one of these cool little cube builds!?! In a word, No..... In any case, I might still build a little box mini-server for my brother-in-law anyway!