@ricedg
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Not true.
“EVs convert over 77 per cent of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels. Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 12 per cent – 30 per cent of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels,” according to the US Department of Energy”.
If you’re going to include distribution then you must include the energy to get the stuff out of the ground, refined, transported, pumped etc.
Because Hollywood pays for American heroes. If they made a film of Flight 421 they would have to get an American in there somewhere.
The pilots and flight attendants were awarded the Master’s Medal of the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators in recognition of their “heroic and unique aviation achievement” despite being 7 years after 421. The rescue was more film worthy too, a bunch of villagers is not as dramatic as the Hudson ferry.
421 was never going to sink but the pilots actions saved a lot of lives and injuries just the same as 1549.
The problem with that is there’s no more bandwidth for two M2 than one M2, so you still need to use 1 CPU and 1 chipset (and RAID 5 is out). But let’s face it, it’s insanely fast even if there are cludges going on – good You Tube using X570 here.
You do need to get 1TB+ drives or you’ll be making up the capacity / speed difference before getting the RAID 0 advantage. At least we now know that you don’t have to shell out for the very top end chipset!
But how it affects IOPs I’m not sure. We know it nearly doubles bandwidth tests but I don’t think you can assume IOPs will follow. I confess that I don’t really understand what drives IOP rates.
Well they’re all done now and the Asus is a lot less fuss but just as many unknown devices in DM. One foible is Asus turn off the TPM chip by default, which they do with their motherboards, and I can’t understand the reason why. Neither of them respond to wake-on-lan even though the settings seems to be correct, one for another day when they’re on the production network.
Performance wise, yes it’s nippier than the i3 but they both boot in a few seconds so it’s not really worth considering. Is it worth the extra £40? I’d say so but not worth the extra £240 (8%) it would add to the whole project. That’s been spent on uplifting the monitor, keyboard and mouse sets where it really will be noticeable.
More funds being released soon so the next job is getting the network hardware ready, that needs to be in for the integrated security systems to function. Hopefully Openreach will be in soon too to get the new fibre line installed. It’s all going to be VOIP and the main phone number is working already.
I’m not sure about what controls RAID as the (Ryzen 5000) CPU only supports a single M2 slot, the other is from the motherboard chipset. RAID from the chipset goes through DMI which is the same bandwidth as PCIe 3.0 x 4. Intel is the usual nightmare, I think it’s really Xeon only.
From what I’ve been reading it’s still early days and is software RAID only with all sorts of cludges and gotchas rather than hardware RAID.
Any of them TBH, they are all very good quality with top notch features.
I’ve used the Gigabyte B450 AORUS ELITE a couple of times in gaming builds, one of which was fully blinged up with LED lighting controlled by the motherboard.
They all have 2 x M2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe slots, decent power, capacitors, loads of USB, etc.
So, do you need a Type C connector, built in WiFi or a full ATX board for more slots? That’s the only differences worth thinking about I can see.
I have the 4GB and toyed with the idea of Ubuntu. I’ve got a spare 256GB SSD at the moment, might give it a go in an external caddy.
Finished 5 / 6 today, including all the production software, Bitlocker, AV, remote monitoring etc. Tweaked the managed Chrome settings a bit more and I’m pleased with what I now have. WiFi works well with it consistently associating with the AP 2 floors away at between 350 and 400 mbps on 5Ghz. I’ve not heard a fan yet which is just what I wanted.
It’s not difficult to max out the CPU doing things like installing Office, but most of the time it’s not stressed at all. Seems just about right for office tasks and being able to take advantage of the x4 NVMe SSD is a real plus.
Ryzen tomorrow.
I have bought BenQ monitors but they’re hooked up to I can’t remember what in the workshop.
3 / 5 have had the issue but the HDMI firmware update solves it. I have to be quick and install AnyDesk and configure it as the flickering starts as soon as windows updates the graphics driver. It gets more intense until the monitor is off more than on within 2 minutes or so. If I’m not quick enough a reboot lets me start again, then I can remote onto the machine and get the firmware update done. I tend to do all setups remotely anyway.
Each unit has been different as to what the official Intel driver assistant finds to install, but that may be down to timing and Windows getting there first. There’s always the same half dozen that don’t get installed but I have downloaded the official INF file and updating them manually doesn’t take long.
Once that’s done they are very nice machines and I quickly got a toolkit set up on my Windows USB stick for everything I need. I just don’t expect this sort of thing from Intel though, especially as it’s been going on for several iterations and seems to affect all models.
On the Google Workspace front I can centrally manage Chrome on each machine and apply all sorts of policies, by organisational groups if I want (machine level not user). This means I won’t need any tricks like Guest mode as I can force login before Chrome can be used and delete all local data when they log out. If anyone tries creating any shortcuts to circumvent this they get deleted too and passwords are not saved either. I can force extensions to be applied and ban users from adding their own. I’m still poking around to see what I can manage.
This and a hell of a lot more can be applied to Chrome o/s too. I might start looking at Chromebooks as a serious business tool when I can. It’s a heck of a lot easier than dicking about with MS Group Policies and packaging and Google provide a .reg file to make enrolling a browser easy.
Bear in mind all this is at the cheapy cheap end, under a fiver a user.
I had the same issue with my ankle, too young for replacement and the same boney growth problems along with cartilage loss and damage.
They did a day surgery job to clean everything up and it certainly bought me some time and some relief. Sounds very similar. It didn’t affect my walking at all, neither good nor bad, and the 24 hours the local anaesthetic they pumped in lasted was marvellous (the surgery was done under general anaesthetic).
Well it looks like I spoke too soon about speaking too soon :wacko:
Booted up this morning and problem gone. I can’t see any driver updates so the HDMI firmware upgrade must have done something even thought the version looked the same. May have been a very minor difference in the many sub-version numbers, Intel do go OTT on their version numbering.
Several unknown devices in Device Manager so back to the Intel support pages…
Update: Just had my annual check up via a phone call. Even though they are not expecting any change they have booked up a walk-in x-ray for me.
Hmm, looks like I spoke too soon. The first NUC configured just lovely but the next one started extreme flickering and turning on and off of the monitor. It wasn’t straight away and doesn’t affect the BIOS screen so my first thought was drivers. Turns out it’s a bit more than that and whilst it doesn’t affect Linux so must be Windows, neither does it affect every unit so it is also hardware related in some way. The second unit is showing the same issue.
There are fixes out there that involve HDMI firmware and BIOS updates. Not tried the BIOS yet but even doing the HDMI one was a real pain as it needs Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 which are no longer included. Turns out it needed 32bit and no 64bit like the o/s. Made no difference, will try BIOS today but not expecting much.
Apparently the guaranteed fix is to use the USB C Thunderbolt capable port as it has DisplayPort 1.2. I’ve ordered a USB C to HDMI adapter to test as I already have the very short HDMI cables I want. The monitors are DP capable but C to DP cables are all long ones.
I am really disappointed in Intel, apparently this has been plaguing NUC since at least Gen 7. The extra cost of cables means that the Asus PN50’s are even closer in cost to the NUC and I’m starting to wish I’d gone down that route. I probably could RMA the affected NUCs but the hassle will be immense with no guarantee the replacement will be unaffected too. I’ll find out on Friday if the cable does the job.
I get an annual check on my ankle replacement that always involves x-rays (but not this year it’ll be by phone).
Even though every one shows it’s as good as the day it went in and I have no issues at all they always do it. In the last 2 years they’ve not been done before I see the consultant and even after the physical examination has produced no worries they still insist it’s done.
I believe they are just being thorough, I don’t read too much into it. What will happen when it wears out I don’t know (apart from the fact you can’t do two replacements) and I’m not sure they are either as the usual route of arthrodesis isn’t appropriate. They don’t know how long it will last, may be 10 years and I’m on year 8, but as I said it still looks like the day it went in.
Just as well Rheumatology did x-rays on my back a few weeks ago as the consultant was 99% sure it was osteoarthritis and not what it turned out to be.
There’s still a cable like an umbilical cord to the “lid” but it’s a lot thinner in all dimensions and more flexible than I’ve seen before. I’m using M2 drives so didn’t touch it. The reason I went for the tall version was a comment about the thin M2 only variant’s fans getting a bit excited when worked hard.
The PN50 is a more flexible unit, I like the interchangeable port and the fact the type C supports DisplayPort. You could have 3 monitors with no chaining. Also the IR receiver for a home media centre. They’ve really thought it through.
Just set up the first i3 NUC and it’s a little cracker. Of course the NVMe SSD makes all the difference, I went for a boring Kinston A2000 but it’s still PCI-E 3.0 x4 and 2200 MBps (read) / 1000 MBps (write).
So far it’s been very nippy installing Windows and all the software and is extremely responsive. Will see what the WiFi performance is like given the antenna are so small and my AP is 2 floors away.
One down five to go then I can have a look at the Ryzen powered Asus PN50. Internally both are very accessible for the things you can change and top quality build. Surprisingly heavy, the box with 5 x NUCs in did me no good at all 😣
I’m glad to say that the OEMs are cutting down on single use plastic, I literally only have a handful having built all the units. That all came from the ram and SSD packaging and all looks recyclable. Of course there is a ton of cardboard!
That’s a pain because I have a lovely little battery / micro USB Bluetooth speaker I use in the workshop. Currently plugged in via the audio cable whilst I’m messing about testing things.
I was looking at an unused BT kb / mouse set too that a customer didn’t get on with. Both kb and mouse recharged via micro USB so very thin and no buying batteries.
I’ve just got some Lenovo Essential FHD Webcams from E-Buyer at £45.
Yet to set them up but I chose them because they are 1080P, they have a privacy shutter, can be monitor or tripod mounted and the price is OK. Add to that the Lenovo name and they have very clean lines.
As a by-the-by both the Intel NUCs and the Asus PN50 have microphones specifically for talking to Cortana (and the like). Interesting, I can see some integration with Alexa or Google assistant and also softphones.
Yes you should be able to, not tried it personally. That opens up viewing from anywhere.
As for transportability, a TP-Link nano travel router or an old MiFi unit would do the job and be powered from a phone charger (I’m thinking about a local WiFi source rather than any internet access).
You can run Doom 3 on a 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMYUgfvijvY
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