NTP66's thread of IT

Postby **skullman80** » Thu Dec 07, 2023 5:18 pm

@Joegap

I have one similar to the below link that my job sent to me. Works perfectly for my work setup.

I have dual monitors plus laptop all hooked up along with wireless keyboard and mouse etc.

https://a.co/d/7aOqGfa

Anker USB C Hub, PowerExpand 11-in-1 Docking Station, with 4K@60Hz HDMI and DP, 100W Power Delivery, USB-C and 3 USB-A Data Ports, 1 Gbps Ethernet, 3.5mm Audio, microSD and SD Card Reader

Postby **tifosi77** » Thu Dec 07, 2023 5:49 pm

Haha, now everyone's gonna bombard poor Joe with home office suggestions.

Postby **Joegap** » Sat Dec 09, 2023 12:22 am

I bought the one NTP reccomended and my work laptop wont let me install the drivers. womp

Postby **NTP66** » Sat Dec 09, 2023 7:18 am

Damnit! See if your service desk will install the drivers for you since it’s literally just a dock. Nearly all of these types of devices are going to require a driver installation.

Postby **tifosi77** » Sun Dec 10, 2023 1:42 pm

Can your company send you a dock?

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Dec 14, 2023 6:31 am

Any ideas on why my laptop's bandwidth speed keeps dropping to, basically zero? I'll be browsing the internet and, suddenly, the speed is just gone. Sometimes literally 0 mpbs, others it's so slow it's in the kbps range up to 5-10 mbps. It only happens on my laptop. The TV keeps streaming fine so my internet connection is steady. I don't get a "no internet" alert on the laptop either, it still shows that it's connected to wifi, but there's just no speed and pages time out. It starts working again anywhere from 10-60 or so seconds later, but it's super annoying when it happens many times per day. And, yeah, I've rebooted my computer many times.

Responding in this thread. Is it always at specific times/intervals? Can you reproduce it easily? My first thought was that a process in the background was consuming all of your bandwidth making it seem like your browsing was just slow.

Postby **AuthorTony** » Thu Dec 14, 2023 8:52 am

Responding in this thread. Is it always at specific times/intervals? Can you reproduce it easily? My first thought was that a process in the background was consuming all of your bandwidth making it seem like your browsing was just slow.

Yeah, I couldn't find this thread, ha. Thanks for bringing it here!

It seems completely random. I don't typically have any programs running aside from Chrome. It's impossible to duplicate, it just happens out of the blue. When it occurs, I'll hop on Xfinity's speedtest page or fast.net and run a bandwidth test. Sometimes those pages will load and show me the 0 speed, or very slow. Sometimes they'll just time out before loading. A minute or so later it's working again and I'm back to my usual 200-500 mbps speed.

I've wondered if there could be something malicious program running in the background, but malwarebytes doesn't pick up anything. When I look at my running processes, I don't see anything that seems out of the usual.

YouTube · Postby **mikey** » Thu Dec 14, 2023 9:02 am

Sometimes these are just the dumbest things...and I don't like to send folks on a wild goose chase...but your network adapter and what not aren't set to go to sleep or reduce blah blah blah at any point, right?

Postby **dodint** » Thu Dec 14, 2023 9:03 am

All of Somerset is on a metered connection.

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Dec 14, 2023 9:06 am

Definitely worth a call to Comcast so that they can run tests from their end on your connection. They'll at least have some useful tools to help diagnose problems. FWIW, my dad recently had a weird issue similar to this and it was a cut coax line coming from the pole to his house. They said it looked like another utility sliced the cable, but not bad enough to completely drop the connection.

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Dec 14, 2023 9:12 am

Also, the next time this happens, click on Start and type in 'Resource Monitor' and launch it. Go to the Network tab and sort 'Processes with Network Activity' by 'Total (B/sec)'. Perhaps a process is just consuming all available bandwidth, though this is a longshot.

The other thing I'd do is find the latest network driver for your NIC and install it. That's probably the first thing you should do regardless.

Postby **DigitalGypsy66** » Thu Dec 14, 2023 9:14 am

Or it could be Windows Update(s) failing and failing. I've had that happen. Usually while gaming, my ping will spike and then get disconnected. It happened over 2-3 days, and I noticed that a Windows update wasn't downloading correctly. Had to manually update it through Windows Update and it was fine.

What I've been doing is delaying Windows update for the max amount, which is 5 weeks. That will minimize the amount of time Windows will hit the MS servers and keep buggy releases at bay. At least temporarily.

Postby **AuthorTony** » Thu Dec 14, 2023 9:17 am

Thanks for the ideas, gentlemen. Nothing is set to go to sleep. I'll check into installing the latest network driver. In the meantime I have Resource Monitor running so I can keep checking on things.

Postby **AuthorTony** » Thu Dec 14, 2023 9:25 am

Another question. Is it normal to have this many Network Adapters?

Also, I don't have NordVPN running or anything downloading when this is happening.

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Dec 14, 2023 9:27 am

It is, yes. You can ignore those WAN Miniport devices.

Postby **AuthorTony** » Thu Dec 14, 2023 9:28 am

Cool. Thanks!

Postby **DigitalGypsy66** » Sat Dec 30, 2023 11:49 am

Why is Windows add or remove programs so useless? I'm trying to free up space on my son's PC and it lists a 450 mb program as the largest app. That's bullshit. I'm assuming he's got a ton of games buried away in sub folders that I can't uninstall or locate easily.

Like I know he has a couple of CoDs and Warzone on there and they aren't listed in the add or remove programs list.

Anyway, does anyone know of a better file explorer program where I can list the files and folders by size? I bet these games can only be uninstalled via their launchers, and I'm not going through the password nonsense with those. Outside of steam and blizzard, I don't want any other launchers if I can help it.

Postby **faftorial** » Sat Dec 30, 2023 12:00 pm

Why is Windows add or remove programs so useless? I'm trying to free up space on my son's PC and it lists a 450 mb program as the largest app. That's bullshit. I'm assuming he's got a ton of games buried away in sub folders that I can't uninstall or locate easily.

Like I know he has a couple of CoDs and Warzone on there and they aren't listed in the add or remove programs list.

Anyway, does anyone know of a better file explorer program where I can list the files and folders by size? I bet these games can only be uninstalled via their launchers, and I'm not going through the password nonsense with those. Outside of steam and blizzard, I don't want any other launchers if I can help it.

You can do a file search for *.* on each drive and then when it completes sort by size. Should be some obvious "big" files to delete.

Postby **NTP66** » Sat Dec 30, 2023 12:09 pm

Source of the post Anyway, does anyone know of a better file explorer program where I can list the files and folders by size?

WinDirStat is what I use, for this purpose specifically.

Postby **DigitalGypsy66** » Sat Dec 30, 2023 12:27 pm

Nice. Thanks.

Postby **DigitalGypsy66** » Sat Dec 30, 2023 3:55 pm

712 GB install of CoD. I thought Activision fixed that nonsense a couple of games ago? Even after we deleted Modern Warfare II and MWIII's campaign, it was still showing 700GB (out of a terabyte). So I uninstalled the whole thing, and redownloaded the current game and warzone - 240 gb or whatever. Much more reasonable. The Battlenet installer only showed two CoDs installed, so I'm not sure what was going on there.

Postby **dodint** » Thu Jan 04, 2024 12:49 pm

My triple 27" LG monitors are getting long in the tooth. I'm pretty impressed they're still going, honestly, because I use them while at work so they're doing full time productivity duty on top of the flight and racing simulator stuff. I bought them in 2013.

I'm thinking about stepping down to dual 34" curved monitors when I finish my media room. These would be wall-mounted to support the gaming cockpit for the aforementioned flight and racing simulators. My PC is also showing its age, running these specs:

GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X
i7-7700 Processor
16GB DDR4 2400MHz

I have two concerns. The first being the 3440 x 1440 resolution of 34" monitors, can I run two of them with the hardware I have? I will also be running a very low-resolution third monitor for reasons but it's not really a factor.
The second is if the form factor of two curved monitors in an array is distracting or annoying? I can't tell looking online at pictures. My brain says it'll be like looking into a clamshell, but the stuff I'm seeing online makes them look not much different than a flat dual monitor setup.

Any thoughts are appreciated. Not looking for specific monitor recommendations yet but if you have something you like I'll file it away for later.

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Jan 04, 2024 1:02 pm

I think maybe @DigitalGypsy66 is the one person here who has curved monitors? I don't, and could never get used to them at work. I'd say that you can probably run those two monitors with the 1080, but you'd be pushing it. All of your hardware is ancient, and with GPU prices being where they are, now may be the time for you to do something about it. And on that note, I cannot recommend Ryzen CPUs enough. I'm never going back to Intel.

Postby **DigitalGypsy66** » Thu Jan 04, 2024 1:14 pm

I don't have curved monitors, at least not yet.

I'll echo what NTP is saying about your PC specs: it will struggle to push decent frames at that resolution, other than Excel and browsers. I would recommend an AM5 Ryzen processor. I have a 7600X that is excellent. Shyster recently upgraded too, and I think he listed his specs in the Vidya games thread.

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Jan 04, 2024 1:20 pm

This is the GPU that I have, and it's like $115 less today than when I bought it: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0985X2YR1