8.1 just for fun

[TechnoMage]

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".

 

[strollin]

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.

 

[TechnoMage]

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.

My Netbook, with a WiFi device and 7db gain antenna.

My 14db gain, outside WiFi antenna.

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

 

[strollin]

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.

 

[TechnoMage]

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?

 

[spapakons]

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.