[Ed P]

Although this is great for a fresh install, be careful when converting an existing Windows to GPT. Do use the MBR2GPT utility, otherwise the system disk will never boot!

link

[Ed P]

Very pretty – looks like you were up very early to grab those views!

[Ed P]

+1 for JayCeeDees post. It is pretty much essential if you plan on moving to secure boot and TPM.

link

[Ed P]

Luckily they have not as yet banned RSS, so it is very easy to read international viewpoints rather than those of  the Government mouthpiece (the politically castrated BBC).

[Ed P]

I think that you are probably correct, the system already had the best firmware installed,

I have however noticed one thing associated with my habit of always running as a ‘user’, and just temporarily promoting to Admin for installations. This works perfectly for 90% of things, but driver installs just fail silently unless I log into a full Admin account and run the install from there.

[Ed P]

Sorry, count me out  as growing cataracts now make that sort of work impossible for me. Reasonable eyesight, steady hand and lots of patience to take things slowly and methodically  are really all that are required.

If you fancy doing it yourself make sure that you get a headband craft/jeweller magnifying loupe first, then study techniques on the many You Tubes covering this art.

[Ed P]

‘In the deep Purple’.  I frequently browse through the interactive Covid map out of morbid curiosity, and the knowledge that my Covid immunity is rapidly being eroded.link

However, today I was struck by the map overview that shows Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland  were all in the ‘deep purple’ danger zone. What I could not understand was that these territories had all been far more conservative in their lifting of restrictions but were getting hammered by infections, whereas profligate BoJo land is muddling along except in a few areas.

[Ed P]

Don;t forget the refurbished market. Just like laptops, it can often pay to go second hand. Take a look at companies such as https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk. but I’m sure Dave may be able to suggest others.

[Ed P]

I fingered the SSD because the error always took place during a file write operation, but I guess the CPU may also have been involved. It is all a bit moot now however, as since blowing out accumulated dust and adding the external cooling everything has run just the way it should.

Its perhaps a warning that Mini PC boxes do not have a lot of leeway when it comes to dust and heat.

[Ed P]

John you are correct, the mobo appears to have bent pins in a couple of different areas. As PM says, with a LOT of patience and a hard plastic razor shim it MIGHT be possible to slowly and carefully ease them back into place. It is however a very high risk thing to do as you may end up doing something very nasty to the CPU when you try to insert it.

Echoing PM again,  if you go this way check, and then check again before inserting the CPU.

[Ed P]

PM hopefully you sort out your drone issues. Then maybe you can enter next year’s Drone Photo competition.

This years winners are shown in the link.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-12/aerial-photgraphy-drone-awards-2021/100454756

[Ed P]

Its probably the damned lobbyists bribing getting at their tame MPs. Many business ventures that are on the fringes of social acceptance have Conservative MPs as paid Board Members.

I would like to see our political system put onto a professional basis that eliminated such dubious practices. Pay MPs twice as much but make it illegal for them to have any paid external positions. Of course it would also be necessary to prohibit (over)paid speaking tours  (such as those undertaken by a dubious former Prime Minister) for a long time after they step down from Parliament.

I’d also like to see similar rules for Civil Servants who have any senior IRS position that put a moratorium on them joining Tax Management concerns.

I really do not believe that the UK deserves its position as the 11th least corrupt country, the corruption is there, but it is far more subtle than an overt backhander.

[Ed P]

I’ve had the odd issue, but all were accepted for return without issue. It all depends on the logistics train with the last person in the chain being the most important. In fact I recently had a delivery refused because the person handling the last step noticed the package was damaged, and just stuck it straight in his refused delivery returns. No charge just an email to me saying something had gone wrong and cancelling that order, the note said my credit card was being credited. If you accept a credit on your Amazon account the refund process is a lot faster.

I have however noticed a worrying trend,  sales through Amazon are sometimes handled by box slingers such as Yodel or Hermes. My guess is that these particular firms pay their drivers so little they just do not have time to do things properly.

[Ed P]

On the latest Win11 update the Control Panel can still be accessed. However, they have cleaned up and rationalised ‘Settings’ and only a few items now appear to be missing from Settings (Win7 backup being one)

[Ed P]

Thanks, I’ll certainly book mark your NVMe cooler suggestions for my main rig. I’ll confess that I never thought of cooling them!

[Ed P]

I’ve now ordered a TECKNET Laptop and Notebook Cooling Pad to sit under the Vivomini. Time will tell if this cures the problem, but with winter on its way I probably will not be able to tell for 8 months or so!

 

 

[Ed P]

According to M$, Windows 11 comes with a lot of optimisation that ‘should’ make the OS feel snappier and more responsive. Details here:

https://www.onmsft.com/feature/microsoft-windows-11-pc-faster

[Ed P]

Thanks guys – if you take a look at the Vivomini hardware you will see that it is a ‘compromise’ between size, processing power and noise (it would have been better with a Ryzen cpu!). I suspect that heat came off second best and it really was not the best choice for its primary security camera duty. However I also had to comprehend SWMBO’s views!

[Ed P]

It still looks good, I am now wondering if it was heat and dust build up in the case, (out of habit I air can any electronics I dissemble). Maybe I need to add a bit of auxiliary cooling to the Vivomini to cater for its fairly demanding duty of running four security cameras.

[Ed P]

Have you checked the bios settings? It should at the very least say that the USB drive is the boot device.

[Author]

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