The computing stuff rant thread

[ian]

That's the odd thing – there's typically 0.0% packet loss (averages around 8ms to the router), the computer CPU isn't maxed out, there's spare memory, but it only happens periodically (so I've not managed to catch the specifics as I'm usually on the call when it goes off). The sound doesn't so much as drop out, it just goes weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeirdddddddd.

Occasionally it kills the entire connection, and I have to kill the wifi and reconnect.

[neilrj]

That's the odd thing – there's typically 0.0% packet loss (averages around 8ms to the router), the computer CPU isn't maxed out, there's spare memory, but it only happens periodically (so I've not managed to catch the specifics as I'm usually on the call when it goes off). The sound doesn't so much as drop out, it just goes weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeirdddddddd.

Occasionally it kills the entire connection, and I have to kill the wifi and reconnect.

We get dropouts on Skype/Zoom and the only thing that seems to cure it is making sure no other devices are connected by wifi, I assume a phone or tablet checks in for mail/updates/surveillance and just creates a little/large upset. Mind you we only have low bandwidth copper connection.

[Kim]

Yes, a large part of this sort of problem can be due to something (quite reasonably) saturating the link.  The proper solution is traffic shaping, prioritising things like ACK packets and streaming media over bulk data transfers.  The problem with that is that:

a) Most consumer routers don't do it
b) Most consumer ISPs don't do it (they want to score well in speed tests, which is mutually exclusive without resorting to Dieselgate tactics, and they would rather you just paid for a fatter pipe)
c) You need to do it on both sides of the bottleneck for full effect (see 'b')
d) Correct shaper configuration is a bit of a black art, though prioritising small packets goes a long way (unless someone's running Bittorrent or similar)
e) Some protocols make it nearly impossible to identify without deep packet inspection:  "Oh look, encrypted traffic to AWS on port 443..."  What you can't identify, you can't prioritise.


(WiFi suffers from its own fundamental problems.  They don't call it the Devil's Radio for nothing.) 

[ian]

Weirdly, my wife uses the same system via her mothership without issue and we're on the same bloody access point. I could blame my mothership, but no one else seems to be getting the same dropouts. I suppose I could put Teams on another computer and try that, it's an older Macbook Pro, but no other kind of system activity seems to coincide with the weirdness. I checked and the Hell Portal under the hallway floor is closed.

[matthew]

My new monitor has developed a fault, I've only had it for 100 days and it is now showing a vertical line of blue pixels straight through the middle.

I've checked two sources, laptop via VGA and desktop via HDMI and it was present on both inputs so definitely the monitor.

However power cycling it has cleared it. Now not sure why or if I trust it.

[Jaded]

loose/poor connector between the panel and the electrickery gubbins, affected (initially) by heat?

[Mr Larrington]

Yes, Windows, I know that monitor has built-in speakers.  But they're shit.  That is why I disabled them in Control Panel.  In fact I disabled all the myriad sound options – except one – because they're shit too.  Or they don't exist.  So please route sounds out of the optical hole in the sound card, so they can travel down the string, into the pleasingly chunky A/V receiver and thence to my ear'oles via the 5:1 squeaker system I bought for that very purpose.  You know, like I told you to do when I installed them.

Do NOT decide unilaterally to renable the shit monitor speakers and send sound to them instead, because they make BRITISH Sea Power sound like Mickey fucking Mouse.  With pneumonia.

So after behaving flawlessly for a Several of weeks, the sound did it again.  No, there haven't been any updates to the picture card software or to Windows since switching it on yesterday.  The startup sequence is the same as it ever was, viz. switch on monitor with squeakers, switch on monitor without squeakers, switch on AV receiver, start PC.  Only this time with Tangerine Dream sounding like someone small, far away and drunk.

The Internets says it should be possible to disable the wanky monitor squeakers properly by doing Device Manager -> System devices -> High Definition Audio Controller, finding the one associated with the graphics card's PCI address and disabling it.  We. Shall. See.

[TheLurker]

I have now been using WindozeX for several weeks.  Long enough to have formed a reasoned and well thought through opinion of it.  It is....

S H I T!

[Mr Larrington]

Case sensitivity is undoubtedly the Jbex of Stan.  $SOFTWARE, you complain bitterly about being unable to open a file called /foo/bar/Xyzzy.sii, and you are right, in a way, because it's called /foo/bar/xyzzy.sii.  But you still apparently managed to open it, because if you had not the item defined by /foo/bar/xyzzy.sii would not have appeared in the fucking game.  Get in the sea.

[ian]

More battles with the wifi (episode 506). The Teams thing is still playing up, I thought I'd fixed it. Then I yesterday it was awful again. There's no notable latency, the packets are not lost, and what appears to be a decent signal.

I might just splurge on one of those mesh things, except I'm probably just opening the door to something else to annoy me. The reason I didn't do this last time was because the Sonos speakers didn't work on it, but they have a boost box now so should use their own network.

Googles 'wifi mesh.' Oh look, you see a million different types and models, all alike. Sigh.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

Suggest Unifi. We used it at Job -1 in a business environment

[russellm]

That reminds me a lot of my own home network problems. I'm pretty sure that for me it was the Sonos devices that were causing the problem - what solved it was making sure that none of the Sonos boxes were connected via Ethernet and they were only using WiFi. When they were set to use WiFi and one (or more) was connected via Ethernet, there were two network paths to the router which utterly confused everything.

I also bought a Deco mesh network setup (to replace the powerline additional access point) and now everything's working well.

[ian]

I never got the Sonos to work fully, I bought a Boost and that mostly works, but when I try to use everything, it's a bit flaky. The issue seems to be my office, which is a mezzanine extension fixed to the outside of the house, hence there's a solid c1966 exterior wall between me and any source of wifis. Anyway, I never need to use the Sonos in my office and the rest of my house at the same time, and I get tunes in the bathroom, so that's OK.

A kindly donated access point installed upstairs mostly seemed to deliver decent wifi through the rest of the house. Leastways it stopped my wife dialling IT support (me, unfortunately).

I can't actually remember when the conferencing broke, but I suspect I used to simply dial-in (the mothership's latest cost-saving wheeze is internet-only voice).

I blame my office, but the numbers aren't awful and nothing is notably slow (speed test shows my iMac to run at full connection speed, the crappier Macbook at around half that, for some reason it'll never connect to the 5GHz). That said, my wife can use Teams and Webex fine on the same access point, so all I can assume is that it's somehow not good enough, though in some indescribable way.

Ubiquiti seems nice, but a bit overkill for a modest house with two people. I like the TP-Link stuff though buggery knows what the difference is between all the models (the specs of the M4, S4, P9 seem the same, the latter just seems to include a powerline adaptor).

[ian]

Hmm, I finally decided to prejudicially dispose of the 2.4GHz radio to force everything to connect to 5GHz (OK, I just renamed the SSID). I think the only device I have that needs that band is an ancient Kindle (the security camera and Sonos have their own networks).

Everything has been perfect all day. Not a single hiccough.

Finestre, being the Demon of Such Things and Queen of Hell, is probably one step ahead of me, of course.

[russellm]

That might still point to the Sonos boxes causing the problem - I think they only work on 2.4GHz.

[SoreTween]

FFS!  I am so -ing bored of fucking about with RAM.

1st try - My mistake, I bought single rank instead of double.
2nd try - I bought a quality Corsair set of 4x4Gb that is listed on the web site as compatible with my motherboards.  Many random system freezes followed by some deep memtest86+ revealed none of the sticks would work error free.  They'd often get through 1 memtest cycle then fail on the 2nd or 3rd.  Borderline but wrong - returned and refunded.
3rd try - I bought a better quality Corsair matching 2 sets of 2x4Gb, again listed on the Corsair site as compatible with my motherboards.  One pair works perfectly and the other wont even POST despite the sets having exactly the same part number.  FFS the only difference is the version number.  They are clearly completely different parts under the skin despite being sold as the same.

No wonder there's so much Corsair RAM on Ebay, it's shit.

Actually, those are tries 2-4 because try 1 was going direct to Crucial which always works, 16Gb works flawlessly in this machine (same mobo as the one I'm trying to update)¹.  Very little choice and high prices due to such an old specification, I should have just taken the hit.  Unfortunately there's bugger all Crucial RAM on Ebay.

¹Yes I have tried the good Crucial RAM in the 'trouble' mobo and the problem Corsair RAM in the 'good' mobo.  The results move with the RAM

[ian]

That might still point to the Sonos boxes causing the problem - I think they only work on 2.4GHz.

They are, but they have their own network via the Boost box. The Arlo cameras also use their own 2.4 GHz network. The Macbook Pro was always connecting to the wifi 2.4GHz signal even though it was a bit shit. Now it has to connect to the 5GHz which, while a weaker signal, seems to deliver far better performance.

Anyway, it's mostly working other than, of course, my wife's Windows laptop which decided at 9.30am this morning that it really doesn't like the 5GHz connection that every other device in the house is now on. The age-old 'no internet connection' that every ex-Windows user fondly remembers. Something about public networks and she says it randomly barped something about 'certificates.'

No obvious fix that I can be bothered with, so she can use the 2.4 GHz connection.

Let's hope Finestre, the Demon of Such Things, keeps her nefarious focus elsewhere.

[Mr Larrington]

That reminds me a lot of my own home network problems. I'm pretty sure that for me it was the Sonos devices that were causing the problem - what solved it was making sure that none of the Sonos boxes were connected via Ethernet and they were only using WiFi. When they were set to use WiFi and one (or more) was connected via Ethernet, there were two network paths to the router which utterly confused everything.

I also bought a Deco mesh network setup (to replace the powerline additional access point) and now everything's working well.

You'd think the Sonos gadgets would be smart enough to detect the presence of a wired connection and turn off their WiFi if they found one.  Even my old eeePC can do that.  Or it could before the cover over the Ethernet port broke off.

[ian]

That reminds me a lot of my own home network problems. I'm pretty sure that for me it was the Sonos devices that were causing the problem - what solved it was making sure that none of the Sonos boxes were connected via Ethernet and they were only using WiFi. When they were set to use WiFi and one (or more) was connected via Ethernet, there were two network paths to the router which utterly confused everything.

I also bought a Deco mesh network setup (to replace the powerline additional access point) and now everything's working well.

You'd think the Sonos gadgets would be smart enough to detect the presence of a wired connection and turn off their WiFi if they found one.  Even my old eeePC can do that.  Or it could before the cover over the Ethernet port broke off.

That's not how they work, if you plug one in, it's still trying to wirelessly mesh with any unwired speakers.

I nearly bought one of those Deco systems, but helpfully they were all out of stock. Helpfully, because I might not need one now.

[ian]

Finestre, the Demon of Such Things and Queen of Hell, she hears. She hears all. And she punishes those who take her name and quote it on the internet. Thusly an eternal damnation of wifi foes is thrown upon me, like a damp, mouldering blanket of existential d es p  a ir.

I'd mind less, but I don't want to be in most of these bloody meetings in the first place.

Blah, it worked for a day and is now shitworthy again unless I descend to the living room. What the hell is the Asbestos Palace made out of (other than asbestos, obvs)? Did they stuff the cavity walls with lead? Does it even have cavity walls? Is there somekind of hippy stuffing from the 60s era construction methods? How does it filter the wifi rays so they look like they might be adequate, so all the bars are present and correct, but really they're not? It's the big lie, people, the BIG LIE. WIFI PRoGraMS YOuR MiND!

[Mr Larrington]

It's the 5G Bat-Control Rays swamping the signal.

[Kim]

Do those come with a neatly printed label saying "5G Bat Control Rays"?

[ian]

Gazing out of the window, at the top of the hill, there's a 5G bat-weaponization platform. I don't know whether to develop Covid-19 or autism. I'm definitely already feeling a bit gluten intolerant.

I may start to spontaneously emit mesh wifi swears soon enough.

*lie, it's WWII big gun platform, but there's one on the other side of the valley**
**lie, I think that one is a firey beacon to warn us when Napoleon is coming.***
***but I figure there's a 5G mast somewhere.

[barakta]

My mother drowned her iPhone 6 in a washing machine incident.

Insewerants has replaced it with an iPhone 7. Which doesn't have a fucking 3.5mm headphone port (which is why Mum never upgraded).

Less said about maternal crazy plans involving "I want a different email address so I don't clutter up new phone with all my grandchildren photos so it won't run out of space" (I am not tech supporting multiple AppleIDs across her multiple iThings, one is hard enough).

[Davef]

I thought it comes with a lighting to 3.5mm widget


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