8.1 just for fun

Oh, I have several routers. The main one is included with the Hughes.net satellite Modem. It's protected by a password.
#2 is an Intellinet Router that I use when I want to use an Open WiFi. And, it gives me several more ports for my LAN cables, that run throughout my house.
Numbers three thru five are currently inactive, and saved for Backups if ever needed for me or my friends.
I sort of understand what you're saying, but I've never found the need to set up a Home "Network".

If I ever have the need to move/copy a file from PC to PC, I just copy the file to a Flash Drive and then walk it to the receiving PC. It's not failed me yet. lol I call that my "Sneaker Net".
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win-8.1/Pro/64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer X-1200
    CPU
    AMD 2 Core
    Motherboard
    Acer
    Memory
    Crucial, 4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDEA GeForce 9200
    Sound Card
    On Board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    24" Acer
    Hard Drives
    Sandisk, SSD 500GB
    PSU
    Acer
    Case
    SFF Slimline
    Keyboard
    emachines 101 key
    Mouse
    Logitech Wireless
    Internet Speed
    5 Meg
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    Using Classic Shell on Win-8.1 /pro/64
I used "Sneaker Net" before networking, not so much since. I personally find networking to be very useful. I can share files, my laser printer and most importantly, I can access my media server from any TV in my house as well as any place in the world that has an internet connection. I can access my media files from any of my desktop or laptop computers, tablets or phones.

I only have one router, don't see any need for additional since the one I have does everything I need it to do.

How do you like your Hughes satellite setup? I had that years ago, first go around the download link was via satellite but the upload link was via 56K modem! Later, Hughes came out with a system with satellite up and down links. I always hated both of those Hughes systems but we lived out in a rural area and didn't have many options. Do they still have their FAP (Fair Access Policy)? It was an algorithm that decided if you were using too much bandwidth and, if it decided you were, it cut your download speed to about 1200 baud for hours until it decided to slowly increase your bandwidth again. It really sucked.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    W10 Pro (desktop), W10 (laptop), W10 Pro (tablet)
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built i7-8700K, Hp Envy x360 EVO Laptop, MS Surface Pro 7
    CPU
    3.7Ghz Core i7-8700K, 11th Gen Core i7-1165G7 4.7Ghz, 10th Gen Core™ i5-1035G4 1.1Ghz
    Motherboard
    ASUS TUF Z370-Pro Gaming, HP, MS
    Memory
    16G, 8G, 8G
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD Radeon RX580, Intel Iris X Graphics, Intel Iris Plus Graphics G4
    Sound Card
    ATI High Definition Audio (Built-in to mobo)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual Samsung U32J59 32 inch monitors, 13.3" display, 12.3" display
    Screen Resolution
    3840x2160 (Desktop), 1920x1080 (laptop), 2736x1824 Pro 7
    Hard Drives
    500GB ssd boot drive with 2 & 10TB Data (Desktop), 512GB ssd (laptop), 128GB SSD (tablet)
    PSU
    Corsair CX 750M
    Case
    Antec 100
    Cooling
    Coolermaster CM 212+
    Keyboard
    IBM Model M - used continuously since 1986
    Mouse
    Microsoft IntelliMouse
    Internet Speed
    665Mbps/15Mbps down/up
    Browser
    FireFox, MS Edge
    Antivirus
    Defender on all
    Other Info
    Retired in 2015 after working in the tech industry for 41 years. First 10 years as a Technician, the rest as a programmer/software engineer. After 1 year of retirement, I was bored so went back to work as a Robotic Process Automation Consultant. Retired for 3rd (and final) time in 2019.
Hughes.Net is all up and down now, with a Telephone Option (VOIP). I don't remember exactly the MBPS download speed that I'm actually paying for, but I know I don't get anywhere close to that. I'm sure they could do better.
The Hughes Modem has built in WiFi, but it has very limited number of LAN ports. So I run a second router, to give me more LAN ports and an extra WiFi connection. At one time, I ran an additional Linksys router, with an outside antenna, so I could supply Internet to a good friend and neighbor. That worked pretty good, considering he was over 500' away.

I liked the old Linksys routers with the removable antennas, because I could replace the little short antennas with much taller 9db gain antennas.
7dbGain.jpg
My Netbook, with a WiFi device and 7db gain antenna.

16dbGainYagi.jpg
My 14db gain, outside WiFi antenna.

Both of the above are no longer in use. But I still have them.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win-8.1/Pro/64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer X-1200
    CPU
    AMD 2 Core
    Motherboard
    Acer
    Memory
    Crucial, 4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDEA GeForce 9200
    Sound Card
    On Board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    24" Acer
    Hard Drives
    Sandisk, SSD 500GB
    PSU
    Acer
    Case
    SFF Slimline
    Keyboard
    emachines 101 key
    Mouse
    Logitech Wireless
    Internet Speed
    5 Meg
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    Using Classic Shell on Win-8.1 /pro/64
I have one of those wifi adapters with the high gain antenna somewhere but never used it much. The antenna was just something that got in the way and, in practical use, never gave me improved performance that I could actually notice. I prefer the tiny little dongles, they worked great for me and were practically invisible other than the fact that they used one of the available USB ports.

I only have 1 router but use multiple network switches to provide enough ethernet ports for all the computers and other devices I have attached to my network. Also only need a single wifi connection since it can support multiple simultaneous connections. Our house is wired so that most rooms have an ethernet port which helps with connecting things to the network.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    W10 Pro (desktop), W10 (laptop), W10 Pro (tablet)
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built i7-8700K, Hp Envy x360 EVO Laptop, MS Surface Pro 7
    CPU
    3.7Ghz Core i7-8700K, 11th Gen Core i7-1165G7 4.7Ghz, 10th Gen Core™ i5-1035G4 1.1Ghz
    Motherboard
    ASUS TUF Z370-Pro Gaming, HP, MS
    Memory
    16G, 8G, 8G
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD Radeon RX580, Intel Iris X Graphics, Intel Iris Plus Graphics G4
    Sound Card
    ATI High Definition Audio (Built-in to mobo)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual Samsung U32J59 32 inch monitors, 13.3" display, 12.3" display
    Screen Resolution
    3840x2160 (Desktop), 1920x1080 (laptop), 2736x1824 Pro 7
    Hard Drives
    500GB ssd boot drive with 2 & 10TB Data (Desktop), 512GB ssd (laptop), 128GB SSD (tablet)
    PSU
    Corsair CX 750M
    Case
    Antec 100
    Cooling
    Coolermaster CM 212+
    Keyboard
    IBM Model M - used continuously since 1986
    Mouse
    Microsoft IntelliMouse
    Internet Speed
    665Mbps/15Mbps down/up
    Browser
    FireFox, MS Edge
    Antivirus
    Defender on all
    Other Info
    Retired in 2015 after working in the tech industry for 41 years. First 10 years as a Technician, the rest as a programmer/software engineer. After 1 year of retirement, I was bored so went back to work as a Robotic Process Automation Consultant. Retired for 3rd (and final) time in 2019.
A new year, but same old me. And, I'm still fussing with my very old eMachine. A couple of weeks ago, I left it downloading a bunch of updates, to Windows 8.1/Pro/32. (even with an AMC Athlon 64 CPU, it won't have anything to do with any 64 bit program or OS)
Anyway, I went back to the little eMachine a while later, and it was shut down. ???
And, it flatly refused to boot up again. I did all the standard troubleshooting and nothing worked, so I pulled the CMOS battery (again) and left it out, turned out the light and left the old eMachine sit there with no power to it for almost a week.
Days later, I went back in, re-installed the CMOS battery re-applied the power and with Hands ON, I prayed a little prayer and hit the START button. PTL! It came to life and booted up to Windows 8.1.

Since then, I've been working with the little machine, and last night it did something really strange.
It was definitely ON, and I saw my Windows desktop on my monitor and I could move my mouse around, but... The CPU fan was not turning, and not stuck either. I plugged it in to the Case Fan port, on the motherboard, and it started right up and ran normally. With no fan, I'm sure that little AMD cpu was getting pretty warm, but it was, still just chugging right along. I've actually seen that before.

So just for grins, I pulled the cpu cooler and cleaned all the old heat sink grease off of it, and replaced it with a new supply of heat sink thermal compound (grease). Then I plugged the cpu fan back into its proper port on the motherboard, and it ran then, and is still running just fine.
So, big mystery, , , why did it stop in the first place, while Windows was still running?

One more mystery: I was sitting there with Win-8.1 running on my eMachine, and I was running no programs, and literally doing nothing, but the drive light was flashing like crazy!!! What the heck?
So I opened Task Manager and found a Process called McBuilder.exe running like crazy! I've not found that on any of my other PC's. So I ended it!
And I'm wondering if anyone else has that thing running on their own PC?

:cool:
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win-8.1/Pro/64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer X-1200
    CPU
    AMD 2 Core
    Motherboard
    Acer
    Memory
    Crucial, 4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDEA GeForce 9200
    Sound Card
    On Board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    24" Acer
    Hard Drives
    Sandisk, SSD 500GB
    PSU
    Acer
    Case
    SFF Slimline
    Keyboard
    emachines 101 key
    Mouse
    Logitech Wireless
    Internet Speed
    5 Meg
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    Using Classic Shell on Win-8.1 /pro/64
For McBuilder.exe see here: mcbuilder.exe Windows process - What is it? As for the CPU fan, in many BIOS the default setting is "smart Fan enabled" which means the CPU fan will either rotate slowly and speedup when CPU reaches a defined temperature, or it will be idle until that temperature. I have also seen the fans of huge graphics cards remain off and at first I though something was wrong. When the card is getting hot one of them or all of them start spinning. About your old computer that wouldn't start, next time try to unplug all power cables from motherboard and disks and plug them back. Maybe some static electricity charge is blocking proper startup. One other way is to remove the power cable from the PSU and press the on/off button on the computer several times to discharge any remaining static electricity charge. Then plug the cable back and press to switch on. You can also test the PSU with a PSU tester to see if it gives the appropriate currents and consider replacing it if the difference from nominal values is too high.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10/11 Pro 64-bit (was Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit)
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom build
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 3770 3.40GHz s1155
    Motherboard
    Asus P8H61 full ATX s1155
    Memory
    2x Kingston 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Hyper X Blu
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus GT 620 1GB DDR3 PCI-E
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Sony 19" TV (VGA connection)
    Screen Resolution
    1440X900 60Hz
    Hard Drives
    480GB SSD (one for 10 one for 11), 4GB HDD for data
    PSU
    600W
    Case
    Old white case (to hide I actually have a modern PC)
    Cooling
    Intel CPU fan
    Keyboard
    OEM PS/2 keyboard (to save USB ports)
    Mouse
    OEM PS/2 mouse (to save USB ports)
    Internet Speed
    VDSL 50MBps
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Edge
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    Dual boot Windows 10 and 11 (change boot priority). Windows 11 installed with compatibility check bypass hack in Legacy BIOS mode, no TPM, no Secure Boot. For details visit Elevenforum
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