The new new machine

Being the extremely prolific blogger that I am, I tend to write about all my hardware updates.

My main box was built in 2013 and lasted a surprisingly long while, but I couldn't contain myself once I had put the parts for another sub 800$ build together and saw components go out of stock every half hour due to the impact of COVID 19 on the US supply chain. Hunting instincts and the feeling that I, too, could be a winner if only I pressed buy at the right time got the better of me.

The adventure started out with a satisfyingly quick build experience and a system that just wouldn't post. I was able to narrow it down to the graphics card, which was the one element carried over from the old box. Did I damage it during transfer? Nope, still works back in the old build.

Turns out, if your graphics card is old enough to not have a UEFI BIOS onboard, you won't be able to get output. There is a helpful BIOS option to fall back into legacy mode, but of course you need to be able to boot to set it. I ordered a new card and moved on.

I've since spent a day optimizing BIOS settings for RAM and Processor - turns out, the 3600s sold now are the literal bottom of the barrel after the X and XT versions of the processors have been selected out, so no real overclocking and the RAM improvements made less than a 10% difference on bandwidth. Not really worth the trouble; I've set everything back to stock, with the exception of the CPU supply voltage, which my board feels ought to be 1.45V by default.

While I've not been able to find authoritative statements by AMD, it runs just fine at 1.3V, so that's where it's sitting now.

The new card exposed an issue with the TV I am using as a monitor - 4K60 at 49" look ok, but the VIZIO panel insist on advertising full 10bit RGB and YUV444 support when it only produces a legible picture at 8bit YUV420. The NVIDIA driver handled that just fine under Windows, but not so much Linux.

For the record, a

sudo nvidia-xconfig --force-yuv-420

takes care of that.

Speaking of Windows, I found a beautiful way to install Windows after first installing Linux that'll keep things nicely contained to a vhdx file on a NTFS partition:

Get out your windows installer disk or simply download a VHDX file (Microsoft occasionally publishes timebombed complete install with all the dev tools), and go party.

The main article can be found here, in short, copy (or create and install Windows into) your target vhdx drive on the NFTS partition, then boot into the recovery command line of the install stick and execute

diskpart
select vdisk file=X:\windows.vhdx
attach vdisk

list volume
select volume Y
assign letter=v 

V:\
cd v:\windows\system32
bcdboot v:\windows /s X: /f UEFI

Now you have a UEFI bootable Windows in a containerized file and can install junk and simply fall back onto the original copy to your hearts content.

The other time consuming hardware experiment I struggled with was airflow - I permuted four fans through all the mounting positions in the case and discovered to my chagrin that they are not only all functionally equivalent (ie temps range from the 50s to just under 90), but that I can achieve the same result with just a single case fan.

The benefit of stock settings, I assume.

Getting the fans to be quiet was a struggle, given that my motherboard (the least pleasant of the acquisitions) feels that fans must always have a minimum RPM > 0 and must spin at 100% over 70 degrees celsius. Ugh.

Moving c:\windows\installer to a separate drive

So, the occasionally rabid programmer had a reason to be mad indeed again. No, I am not talking about workplace politics. His parents computers stopped working.

Turns out, the c:\windows\installers folder tends to fill up over the lifetime of the OS. In the ORP's case, it managed to grow all the way to 20GB, leaving a convenient 0 Bytes free on the C: drive of his parents machines. Ouch.

So, as a follow up to the original post about setting up machines such that user directories are in an isolated partition, here's the prescription to make sure that the machines don't become dysfunctional due to too much updating, courtesy of stack overflow:

1. Restart your PC, press F8 continuously to bring up boot menu, and choose "Command prompt with safe mode" (this is to ensure you can move the windows folder around)
2. Once the command prompt is shown, type the command to move the folder to another drive:
   robocopy C:\Windows\Installer D:\Windows\Installer /MOVE /e
3. Next, create a "Junction" link for the missing folder:
   mklink /J C:\Windows\Installer D:\Windows\Installer

Verified, this method actually does the trick.

iPhoto just killed two years worth of memories

Software update graced me with a new version of iPhoto (2011), and on starting the app afresh, it prompted me to update my library. So far, so good. A progress dialog appears, runs through 9 tasks in record time... and hangs on "100% done with 9 of 9 tasks". For half an hour, for an hour, until I finally google (too late!) for this issue and discover that others have run into the same issue. I spend another hour attempting to repair the damage following the many good solutions touted on the wide, wide web.
No avail. Every time I start iPhoto, it's hanging. Great.
I copy the masters out of the library, delete the entire mess and rebuild.
Now I've lost all photo attributions, and it turns out that the resulting photos are a complete mess - the order in which they had been added is messed up, the new imports appear as a random jumble of photos from the last two years.

Thank you Apple, here's too the death of software quality.

Mood: Incredibly pissed off.

So, you want to hire a rockstar developer?

Now, I keep coming across these beautifully written job ads, looking for rockstar developers (you've seen them, too - remember all those ads asking for at least 10 years of experience in C++11?)

I am finally caving in. After all the years I've been working at Mr Evil, I will now offer up my services and come respond to your desire to find a true rockstar.

Send me your companies offer. Send it to me by strippergram. I'll put it on a stack with all the others, and then, if you're lucky, I'll have myself driven up to your offices in an immensely long limo. Your expenses not mine, obviously. I'll step in to the sounds of a blazing anthem with a background choir humming enthusiastically as I strut across the red carpet to the champaign reception you'll be hosting to woo me.

If your CEO is good and kisses the enormous ruby ring you'll have sent me as a present for this very occasion just right, I might even agree to grace your puny little startup with my presence. Provided you sign that contract stipulating ten-M upfront, class A share of proceeds, private office in a villa in Colorado with a private jet and airfield. Please talk to my agent. I will have to insist on creative freedom and partial ownership rights to the improved Mass Effect endings I'll be producing at my desk when inspiration strikes.

Oh, what? You were thinking more along the lines of 150k and 0.5% equity? And you want me to fix the throughput of that pathetic service you built?

Woah.

Sounds to me like you're looking more for a backstage technician, maybe? Time for me to grab my tiny whitish poodle and go for the grand exit.

Nice knowing you.

Updating to...@%*$!!... Freshly installing Windows 7

So, the occasionally rabid programmer is back after a long and interesting international hiatus with sufficient emotional involvement to produce an entire seasons' worth of drama.

Today's episode is about trying to upgrade the parents' vista boxes to windows 7. The experience wasn't pleasant.

You might remember that those machines were organized into operating system, user data and backup partitions. It turns out that windows 7 does not only require a whopping 16GB free space for inplace upgrades, no, it also doesn't allow inplace upgrades if the Windows, Program Files and Users folders reside on the same partition. Ouch?

For the record, here's the way to reduce the space taken up by the WinSxS directory:

1. Open an administrative command prompt
2. Run compcln (presumably you already are in the system32 directory)
3. Answer the question with Yes

The procedure to copy profiles to a separate drive following a fresh install also had to be changed because of a bug in the way windows 7 handles profiles:

1. Download the windows enabler tool from here, unzip and run it as administrator
2. Create a user account via Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Local Users and Groups / Users
3. Log into the user account you just created and log out again
4. Control Panel / System and Maintenance / System / Advanced / System Settings / Advanced / User Profiles / Settings... / Copy To...
5. Notice how the Copy To... button is disabled? Click on the enabler icon in the quicklaunch and then click the button again to enable and once more to actually use it...
6. and copy the user account to its new home
7. regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
8. You can modify the root of all users right here, or move dedicated accounts to the other drive, which is what I did
9. Find the guid for the profile you just moved and change its ProfileImagePath
10. Restart the machine
11. Remove the old folder under C:\users
12. Done!
    

Following these steps, I discovered that my parents' machines suffered from graphics card instabilities and no sound with the most up-to-date window update drivers. The solution for the 6150 graphics card was to download the newest drivers from NVIDIAs website, and the drivers from the realtek site (which proved tough to download in IE but were easy to access from chrome) to enable sound again.

Unfortunately, the black screen on logout and the ensuing hard shut-downs had caused measurable data loss and quirkyness, so a complete reinstall was required. I manually disabled the write cache on the hard drive, just because I wouldn't want to go through remote maintenance for this type of issue in the future. That said, I was surprised by the event - I had previously assumed that the journaled file system would prevent this precise problem.

Furthermore, the built-in flash card reader is detected by Windows and installs, but does not detect disks under windows 7 (it's an ASUS Flash HS-COMBO 3.95). Very frustrating, given that I can't find any drivers for this component online.

The last nonfunctioning device was the Epson EPL 5900L laser printer; manually installing the XP driver from the Epson website fixed this problem, fortunately, but be warned: there is no X64 version.

Windows installs from scratch nicely and swiftly, but the inability to upgrade due to user profiles on another partition and the idiotically disabled Copy To... button are unnecessary holdups. The freezing black screen on logout caused by the default microsoft 6150 driver is a disgrace, as is the lack of sound output on anything but the s/pdif out devices for most of the machines I've updated to 7 so far. I am disappointed at the class drivers installed by default with windows 7 that then fail to work spectacularly.

BSG - the final season

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD, DONT READ!

Just saw the January 16 starter Episode for the last season of Battlestar Galactica. Fascinating. My theory about what's going on: all of the members of the colonial fleet are cylons. What we're seeing is one cycle of repetition of "What has happened will happen again". I am guessing that the series portrays one answer to the question "What happens when a race of machine intelligences wipes out it's makers?"

Regardless of whether the original Cylons retained a memory of what happened that lead to guilt or if yet another unknown set of beings compelled them to do it - they are reliving what happened by reenacting it - creating a set of humanlike models, have those models populate a world, start a war with them, destroy all humanlike models but let a few escape. The escapes settle another star system, and the cycle repeats.

It would explain why XXX committed suicide: she found out that she was a Cylon by finding a medallion on Earth that showed her; it would explain why XXX can find her own dead body on Earth, and why there appear to be so many models.

Brilliant. I have no idea if this is what the series is headed for, but this would be what I'd consider the final stroke of perfection in what is the best example of recycling cultural garbage to create a compelling storytelling experience demonstrating what TV can accomplish.

TurboTax - a nightmare in high-pressure tax return preparation

Ow.

I haven't had a reason to blog for a while. Up until today. I just efiled my return with Turbotax, and, after having spent 2 days with their online suite, I can happily suggest to my readers that they look elsewhere for their tax return preparation and filing needs. TaxCut appears, at the very least, to be cheaper.

Specific issues?

Well, first off, I used the premier version because I had some stock and stock option trades to report. Data import from my brokers succeeded but imported completely useless data (sales were bunched together incorrectly and cost basis information was missing across the board).

Manual data entry for the trades proved challenging - the forms available are badly documented and are missing some crucial fields. I ended up doing a whole lot of precalculation with a spreadsheet and then entering the numbers I had come up with in the forms. It doesn't help that you can't simply enter all info on one page but have to click through 10 to 12 pages of wizards if you just want to change one field.

The reason for all those offline caculations? TurboTax cannot handle wash sales correctly. Ow.

I paid 50$ for the premium version in the hopes not to have to do all this manually.

There are many other hassles - TT decided that I owed a penalty this year, and although I finally found out how to convince it that I didn't (Tools|Search for Forms|2210|go through a lenghty wizard), it was, how to say this? Nonobvious. It also decided to print 4 estimated tax vouchers for 2008, which, it turns out, I really don't need, but the insistance of the program prompted a lot of research.

My typical conclusion at this point would be that I wasted $50 for the privilege of being allowed to do all the work myself and then have it pretty printed, except, well, Turbo Taxes printouts aren't pretty.

But, alas, there is worse. Turbo tax elected to add a new form for employee stock trades and submit it for exactly one of the trades I entered. All others are just listed normally on Schedule D. None of this was apparent before I had completed e-filing. I am now waiting with interest, to see if this gets me audited.

This is the reason I'd never use it again - if I can't see what will be submitted to the IRS, I cannot vouch for the correctness of the information, and in this case, this piece of shit got me screwed, pardon my french.

So, learn from my mistake, stick with something else. Tax Cut ($20 for the same basic functionality, and they couldn't be worse if they tried!), pen and paper... anything.

Your disgruntled and more than usually rabid programmer.