NTP66's thread of IT

Postby **DigitalGypsy66** » Mon Jan 29, 2024 10:12 am

I learned that lesson when we moved. Our ISP had the router setup with a default password, which I verified the service was up and running before the tech left. Once he'd left, I went in and changed the SSID to our old router SSID from our old house and watched 20+ devices all come online: laptops, phones, tablets, PlayStations, etc. Almost as good a feeling as tearing off shrinkwrap off an appliance.

Postby **NTP66** » Mon Jan 29, 2024 10:18 am

I have 25 wireless clients on my network, and at least two devices that I legit have no idea what or the **** they are. All I have is an IP and MAC, which is a generic NIC that can't narrow things down for me.

Postby **iamjs** » Tue Jan 30, 2024 2:21 pm

Anyone want anymore incentive to never buy an HP printer? Here you go.

I always wanted to start going paperless.

Postby **faftorial** » Tue Jan 30, 2024 7:43 pm

I received a panicked call from my mom today because she had a pop up window on her iPhone playing a loud sound and telling her she was hacked and to call a number to get someone to fix it.

Evil **** preying on elderly people. She needs an ad blocker on her phone. I added them to her browsers on the laptop a few years ago.

Postby **King Colby** » Fri Feb 23, 2024 10:04 am

Who else is having fun with the change healthcare cyber attack today

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Mar 14, 2024 9:29 am

Welp, it finally happened. For the first time ever, the [ASRock Z97 Pro4] motherboard in one of my computers died. I went to power it on to make sure it was still working in preparation for my TiVo drive clones, and it just wouldn't POST. Spent an hour trying everything I could, but the issue is most definitely the board. That's a shame.

Postby **NTP66** » Fri Mar 15, 2024 1:29 pm

Cloned the first drive in a little over 4 hours, so I figured **** it, let's do the second drive today. Initial estimate is 15 hours. I guess it doesn't scale the way I assumed it would, lol. At least this is a single command line clone/expand, and both TiVos will have brand new drives with 4x the storage.

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Mar 21, 2024 4:45 pm

Welp, it finally happened. For the first time ever, the [ASRock Z97 Pro4] motherboard in one of my computers died. I went to power it on to make sure it was still working in preparation for my TiVo drive clones, and it just wouldn't POST. Spent an hour trying everything I could, but the issue is most definitely the board. That's a shame.

I had a 50/50 shot at this being either the MB or PSU, and I apparently did not choose wisely. Same behavior on a new MSI Z97 PC Mate. Guess I’ll be buying a PSU now.

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Mar 21, 2024 6:42 pm

I’m about to throw this **** thing out the window. It’s not the PSU, either. Bought some new RAM on Amazon as a last ditch effort, because I have never seen 2-4 sticks go bad at once. If it still doesn’t work, I’m just going to return all of this and go Office Space on the damn thing.

Postby **Shyster** » Thu Mar 21, 2024 6:45 pm

Same CPU for all attempts? Watch, you'll buy memory and in will turn out to be a CPU failure.

Postby **NTP66** » Fri Mar 22, 2024 9:18 am

I Office Space'd the piece of ****.

On a related note, if anyone was wondering if they were putting too much pressure plugging in cables, etc. into the motherboard as it bends, I had this thing at like a 60° angle and it didn't snap.

Postby **NTP66** » Sun Mar 24, 2024 9:18 am

The box is alive again, thanks to a new board, CPU, and memory. I guess the old i7-4790K did die, which is a first for me. Ah well, at least I was able to say good riddance to Intel entirely, with the new rig running a Ryzen 5 4500. My daughter helped me assemble it, so it was fun showing her what all of the components are and what they did. She seemed to enjoy it.

Postby **DigitalGypsy66** » Mon Mar 25, 2024 10:56 am

Weird **** with my AM5 board as well. I have the ROG Strix B650 E-F motherboard with a 7600X, 32 gb of RAM, 5700XT GPU etc. I built it last January and haven't had any issues with it, even with ol' Windows 11.

So about two weeks ago, I boot it up and the screens flash and go into no signal mode. Then the main monitor kicks back on and it's at the BIOS error screen, press F1 to run setup due to system error. Hmmm. I go into BIOS, save and exit and go about my business. It boots back into Windows without issue, and is fine for the next two weeks.

Yesterday morning, I boot it up. Nothing. POST lights are doing their thing (I don't have a window, so I have to look through the fan vents on the top.)

I long press the power button and it reboots. Nothing again. A third time and I finally get to that same BIOS error Run Setup screen I had two weeks ago. Nothing appears to have changed, so I restore to default and reboot. It boots right into Windows, albeit with no DOCP profile and my other settings defaulted to stock. I download a new BIOS, reboot into BIOS setup and install it. Reboot and put back all of my settings...and reboot safely to Windows.

All is well...but what the hell is going on? Windows Event viewer doesn't say much, and there hasn't been any obvious glitches or strange behavior while using Windows. The PC shuts down normally. The only thing I noticed was that after I came out of a game, it hung a little bit and the clock wasn't updated. Once the game software closed, it did update the time. But I've noticed a couple of times that the clock, despite being set to sync automatically, falls behind from time to time. A minute or so, but very obvious when you get calendar notifications on my Outlook app on my phone...and then a minute later again on the PC.

Postby **NTP66** » Mon Mar 25, 2024 11:13 am

The time issue, even though I highly doubt it's the issue, you might want to try replacing your CMOS battery (should be a CR2032), since that's what keeps the BIOS time in sync. This is also assuming you have W11 set to automatically update the time.

The other issues... that's just strange. I'd be curious to know the exact error you received that first time around. Might want to reset the BIOS by clearing the CMOS (if your board has clear CMOS jumpers, you just unplug the power and jump those two terminals with either a jumper or a screwdriver, then power it back on). I'd then try installing the latest firmware, even if you've already installed it once before. Short of that, I'd be contacting ASUS and looking into a replacement board. I don't see how Windows would cause those issues.

Postby **Troy Loney** » Wed Apr 03, 2024 10:44 am

Work VPN question.

I get an mlb.tv subscription through each year through tmobile. When I want to watch a game, I use my work VPN. I tried on Monday and it was blacked out. Guessing the VPN went through the DC area.

When you use your work VPN, does it always go through the same location? Guess I am asking should I try going in and out a time or two next time?

I literally don't know how any of that works, so I get that might be a very stupid question.

Postby **dodint** » Wed Apr 03, 2024 10:55 am

My work has an East Coast and West Coast VPN to choose from, and the VPN concentrators are either in Mississippi or Oregon. So those are my choices. But we're a large, fully self-managed government network, not sure how it would work in the private sector where the VPN services might be contracted out.

Postby **Troy Loney** » Wed Apr 03, 2024 11:04 am

My work has an East Coast and West Coast VPN to choose from, and the VPN concentrators are either in Mississippi or Oregon. So those are my choices. But we're a large, fully self-managed government network, not sure how it would work in the private sector where the VPN services might be contracted out.

We do have offices all over the country. But I am guessing if we had two locations East/West coast, they would just route you to the network based on region?

Postby **NTP66** » Wed Apr 03, 2024 11:19 am

My work has an East Coast and West Coast VPN to choose from, and the VPN concentrators are either in Mississippi or Oregon. So those are my choices. But we're a large, fully self-managed government network, not sure how it would work in the private sector where the VPN services might be contracted out.
We do have offices all over the country. But I am guessing if we had two locations East/West coast, they would just route you to the network based on region?

That’s how it’s supposed to work, so it ultimately comes down to how many locations are in that VIP, and how saturated they are. At my last place, we had three locations that you’d be routed through, and if one was at capacity, you’d hit the next closest site.

Postby **Troy Loney** » Wed Apr 03, 2024 11:25 am

danka

Postby **dodint** » Fri Apr 12, 2024 1:37 pm

Someone started an e-mail off today with "As the local ITIL 4 expert" and we've been chuckling about it all afternoon. The e-mail was about whether a ticket should be an Incident or a Task.

Postby **NTP66** » Fri Apr 12, 2024 1:48 pm

YouTube · Postby **mikey** » Sat Apr 20, 2024 7:18 pm

Looking into making a subscription-based website. It's been a while since I've done web work like this. Seems like the internet runs on Wordpress now. I see all this stuff about plugins and what not for WP...but can I just use my HTML knowledge to get me most of the way there and if I need some sort of moderately complex interface or interactive component then I can turn to this plugin market?

Anyone with some somewhat recent experience in this realm...?

Not married to WP either...it just seems like the world generally went that direction.

If it were up to me, I'd fire up my old Microsoft Frontpage app and export that **** right on to Tripod or Geocities haha

Postby **dodint** » Sat Apr 20, 2024 8:14 pm

Jesus...Frontpage. Strong pull.

Postby **Kane** » Fri Apr 26, 2024 7:56 am

Mrs. 'Om wants a PC to play her stuff on, so I told her she can have mine since I was going to start building a new one anyway. Checked out r/buildapcforme and this balanced option they have pinned looks nice: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Photonman1/saved/Py42kL

Anyone else build a new rig recently?

Postby **DigitalGypsy66** » Fri Apr 26, 2024 9:02 am

Yeah, I built one in January 2023 (It seems like it was just a few months ago, but nope, over a year!) Very similar specs: I went with the 7600X as it was on sale at the time. I went with the ROG Strix B650 E-F motherboard, same CPU cooler (which is excellent especially at that price point). I kept my 5700XT, which is a great card and I still get 100+ FPS at 1440p for the one game I play (BF 2042, ugh). Very solid build and a great price overall.