NTP66's thread of IT

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Postby Shyster » Mon Apr 27, 2020 4:19 pm

Definitely not upgrading now. Decided I wanted to go to a dual monitor setup at home, and after buying the two 2k monitors, realized that I needed a new video card, too. Almost went with an AMD GPU. Almost. Snagged an MSI GeForce 1650 pretty cheap on NewEgg.
The main thing I miss from my office is my work triple-monitor setup.

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Postby NTP66 » Mon Apr 27, 2020 5:24 pm

I updated to Workspace when we got the order to work from home.

I should say that it's not so much the connection breaking, but if it doesn't detect any activity after 10-15 minutes it locks on me.
Locks as in freezes and you have to kill the process and restart? If you’re being logged off after 15 minutes, it’s very likely a policy set in your Citrix environment.

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Postby faftorial » Mon Apr 27, 2020 5:26 pm

I updated to Workspace when we got the order to work from home.

I should say that it's not so much the connection breaking, but if it doesn't detect any activity after 10-15 minutes it locks on me.
Locks as in freezes and you have to kill the process and restart? If you’re being logged off after 15 minutes, it’s very likely a policy set in your Citrix environment.
Right, one you don't have permission to change. Hence the workaround.

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Postby NTP66 » Thu Apr 30, 2020 7:11 am

Got my dual 27" 2k monitor setup up... and I think I hate it.

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Postby count2infinity » Mon May 18, 2020 8:28 am

Any of yinz have a mesh WIFI system? If so which one and do you like it?

At our old place, the router was located in the livingroom (pretty centrally located). In the new place it's currently there, but will be moved to the basement as that's where our home office and my Xbox will be going. Looking to get a mesh system over an "extender".

Looking at the Orbi system: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Orbi-Mesh-Wi ... ZsQAvD_BwE)

Or the amplifi instant:

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Postby NTP66 » Mon May 18, 2020 8:39 am

@eddysnake or @DigitalGypsy66 are the only two I believe were considering them? Not sure if they went that route, though. I still have yet to find a scenario in which a mesh system is actually required unless you've got a massive house with the router at the furthest end of it. I've been a heavy supporter of ASUS networking hardware and continue to be. Most of their gear supports their AiMesh technology.

I've never heard of AmpliFi, and the fact that it only has a single ethernet port is an absolute deal breaker, IMO. You're going to want ethernet for at least your computer and Xbox alone. Now that I look at it, the Orbi model you posted also has a single link. Not sure if a wireless interconnect (between those two) is even possible - definitely want to verify that before purchasing. Ideally, you want an ethernet cable bridging those two devices, otherwise the system is not much better than a single router, if at all.

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Postby skullman80 » Mon May 18, 2020 8:58 am

I'll echo what @NTP66 said. Spot on.

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Postby count2infinity » Mon May 18, 2020 9:09 am

So should I move my router to the basement and find deadspots upstairs, it might be just a router upgrade that's warranted rather than a mesh system?

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Postby NTP66 » Mon May 18, 2020 9:13 am

Should have added my own recommendation: ASUS RT-AC68U (aka AC1900)



Just over $100 refurb'd. My own 68U is a refurb, FWIW.

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Postby NTP66 » Mon May 18, 2020 9:17 am

So should I move my router to the basement and find deadspots upstairs, it might be just a router upgrade that's warranted rather than a mesh system?
What router do you currently have? Yes, I would put that router wherever you plan on placing it permanently. Do you have a laptop? If so, download InSSIDer from my Google Drive and install it: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14YlpQ ... AUlTjQ6cB1. Run that app on your laptop and see how the space looks in every room. It can help you figure out which channels to use when configuring your wireless.

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Postby eddy » Mon May 18, 2020 9:28 am

I went with the Asus (RT-AC86U) and it's been fantastic

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Postby Shyster » Wed May 27, 2020 8:28 pm

Decided to upgrade my home work environment with a bigger monitor. I'm going from a 23" 1080p monitor to a 35" curved monitor at 3440 x 1440. I went with the ViewSonic XG350R-C. Should be delivered tomorrow.

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Postby NTP66 » Thu May 28, 2020 6:53 am

If you're planning on utilizing Windows Snap on that monitor, I highly suggest FancyZones from Microsoft's PowerToys collection.

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Postby faftorial » Thu May 28, 2020 10:53 am

Can your video card drive that monitor at that resolution?

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Postby Shyster » Thu May 28, 2020 6:14 pm

If you're planning on utilizing Windows Snap on that monitor, I highly suggest FancyZones from Microsoft's PowerToys collection.
I only use Windows for gaming, so that's not really an issue, but thanks for the recommendation,
Can your video card drive that monitor at that resolution?
Yes, both of them. Although whether I can game at that resolution is another matter.

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Postby AuthorTony » Fri Jun 19, 2020 7:15 pm

I'm strongly considering a NAS to store 10+ years of my professional photography, which is currently scattered across 8 or so external hard drives. I'd also like to eventually use it for streaming movies. I'm looking at the Synology units and I'm curious about back ups. I want something where the files aren't lost if a drive dies, but what about the other hardware? I've heard horror stories about Drobos and want to make sure I'm not getting into anything like that.

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Postby NTP66 » Fri Jun 19, 2020 7:42 pm

I'm strongly considering a NAS to store 10+ years of my professional photography, which is currently scattered across 8 or so external hard drives. I'd also like to eventually use it for streaming movies. I'm looking at the Synology units and I'm curious about back ups. I want something where the files aren't lost if a drive dies, but what about the other hardware? I've heard horror stories about Drobos and want to make sure I'm not getting into anything like that.
How much storage do you need for this solution? The network is going to be your bottleneck here, so I wouldn’t go all out and buy high end SSDs that are made for this type of workload. Fast mechanical drives will work fine.

In terms of RAID, make sure you get drives that are hot swappable, IMO. My personal opinion, I’m using RAID 10 (striped mirrors) on everything. It provides both fault tolerance and speed. Four drives are required to implement this, though, but you could lose 2 drives and still be operational until you replace the drives. I think Synology units can expand RAID volumes if you decide you need more space later on. Use their RAID calculator beforehand, though, so you can see how much usable space you’ll have after RAID. Four 1GB drives in RAID 10 will actually be 2TB of available storage.

What type of router do you have at home? You’re going to want to make sure you’ve got gigabit ports on there for this NAS.

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Postby faftorial » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:14 pm

@@NTP66

I'm having dropped connection issues between a Windows server within a companies network and a Windows Azure cloud server. I see it happen when my RDP session closes between the two servers (it comes back right away). How would I diagnose something like this? To figure out which side is dropping the connection?

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Postby NTP66 » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:37 pm

@@NTP66

I'm having dropped connection issues between a Windows server within a companies network and a Windows Azure cloud server. I see it happen when my RDP session closes between the two servers (it comes back right away). How would I diagnose something like this? To figure out which side is dropping the connection?
RDP’ing from that server into the Azure VM? I have no experience with Azure, personally, so assuming that the environment is configured properly (network rules allowing 3389, etc), I’d be enabling all logging for the Remote Desktop event logs. If you’re able to actually RDP into the box initially, you might want to look at the RDP listener configuration to see if somebody set something weird, like if you were being disconnected after a really short idle period.

Process Monitor is my go to for damn near all troubleshooting. I’d be running it on the Azure VM if that’s the destination, and seeing what’s happening at the time of the disconnect. Definitely helps if you can reproduce the issue easily, because procmon logs can be overwhelming.

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Postby faftorial » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:46 pm

@@NTP66

I'm having dropped connection issues between a Windows server within a companies network and a Windows Azure cloud server. I see it happen when my RDP session closes between the two servers (it comes back right away). How would I diagnose something like this? To figure out which side is dropping the connection?
RDP’ing from that server into the Azure VM? I have no experience with Azure, personally, so assuming that the environment is configured properly (network rules allowing 3389, etc), I’d be enabling all logging for the Remote Desktop event logs. If you’re able to actually RDP into the box initially, you might want to look at the RDP listener configuration to see if somebody set something weird, like if you were being disconnected after a really short idle period.

Process Monitor is my go to for damn near all troubleshooting. I’d be running it on the Azure VM if that’s the destination, and seeing what’s happening at the time of the disconnect. Definitely helps if you can reproduce the issue easily, because procmon logs can be overwhelming.
Thanks, no it's dropping as the app I work with is throwing errors on Azure because the client software is crashing while data is traveling back to the networked server from the cloud. I'll try procmon

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Postby nocera » Fri Jul 17, 2020 10:19 am

My home office is a wifi dead zone. Normally it isn't a big deal but lately I've been having to transfer a ton of large video files so getting 5 mbps isn't exactly ideal. When I'm in my living room next to the router, that number is about 250 mbps. Is there a way, short of running a cat6 to the office that I could boost that signal? I've heard bad things about "boosters" but I don't know enough to make an educated decision.

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Postby NTP66 » Fri Jul 17, 2020 10:35 am

My home office is a wifi dead zone. Normally it isn't a big deal but lately I've been having to transfer a ton of large video files so getting 5 mbps isn't exactly ideal. When I'm in my living room next to the router, that number is about 250 mbps. Is there a way, short of running a cat6 to the office that I could boost that signal? I've heard bad things about "boosters" but I don't know enough to make an educated decision.
You could try a better antenna on your router to see if that helps, but short of running ethernet between the two, I don't think an extender will help in most cases. The signal will just be poor from the extender to the router. That said, if you can figure out what could be causing that dead zone, perhaps you can place an extender in an area that will allow your devices to work better.

Allow me to illustrate with MS Paint:

Image

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Postby nocera » Fri Jul 17, 2020 10:40 am

It's amazing how you were able to capture the essence of me.

Thanks man. I'll try the extender. Thoughts on this? This was C Net's choice:

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Postby NTP66 » Fri Jul 17, 2020 10:42 am

I have no experience with extenders at all, but TP-Link makes good stuff. For $30, it's probably worth a shot. What router do you have now? And if you're about to tell me that you have one of those shitty ass Apple routers, then I'm going to tell you to buy a new router...

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Postby nocera » Fri Jul 17, 2020 10:46 am

I have no experience with extenders at all, but TP-Link makes good stuff. For $30, it's probably worth a shot. What router do you have now? And if you're about to tell me that you have one of those shitty ass Apple routers, then I'm going to tell you to buy a new router...
It's worse than that. It's the Verizon Quantum Gateway.

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