(OT) Would you pay $99.99 for a USED 1gb Flash Drive

On Thu, 8 Jun 2017 13:00:39 -0400, Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:

On Thu, 8 Jun 2017, Trevor Wilson wrote:

On 7/06/2017 5:58 PM, oldschool@tubes.com wrote:
Am I missing something, (like gold plating)

Or do they really think someone is stupid enough to pay $100 for a USED
1gb flash drive?


**I don't know anyone dumb enough to pay $100.00 for ANY kind of 1GB flash
drive. I would bend down to pick one up. They're now freebie items. OTOH, a
1TB flash drive is a different thing. Easy worth $100.00. Maybe a couple of
hundred. 1GB is worth, maybe, $1.00. Tops.

I was wondering if the seller messed up, confusing terms so it's actually
a larger capacity drive.

Actually, NO. I have some identical drives and they are 1gb.
The reason I was looking at them, is because I want to buy some of them
1gb drives, if they are about $1 or $2 each. The reason is because I
made some linux bootable flash drives. I just plug them into the USB and
can boot to Linux instead of Windows. I dont generally use Linux, but if
Windows wont boot, they are a handy way to retrieve data, and sometimes
even fix Windows.

For some reason, I can NOT make these bootable drives on any flash
drives larger than 2gb. They just dont work....

I paid ten for my first couple of 1gig flash drives, I forget when, a
decade or so ago I'd say. And they had dropped in price by then. Now
one can get much greater capacity for the same or less price.

I paid $150 for a USED 10 mb hard drive in 1990. Thats MEGAbyte, not
GIGAbyte.

I suppose a seller might think in terms of "rarity". I think 1gig drives
have disappeared, at least from regular outlets. It seems a waste to use
a larger size one for when you only need low capacity, but it's sure not
worth paying $100 for it. Maybe the seller thinks there are instances
where the larger drive was too large, but while that did happen in the
days of hardware hard drives, and I have digital cameras that won't
makeuse of larger capacity memory cards, I don't think computers have
problems with "too large" flash drives.

Michael

Yep, some older digital cameras wont take cards larger than a specific
size. I have an older Canon, and I cant use cards larger than 16gb. Then
again, I see no reason to use a larger card. I can get many thousands of
photos on a 16gb card. I doubt I take over 1000 photos in a full year,
and I dump photos to my computer at least once every 3 months.

Anyhow, in the case of *bootable* flash drives, it appears that
computers DO have problems with "too large" flash drives.


BTW, I dont believe they make a 1tb (TERAbyte) flash drive. The largest
I have ever seen in the stores and on ebay is 128gb. I do recall hearing
they make or are working on a 256gb flash drive. If you want to talk
about portable USB hard drives, yea, they go as high as 2tb, maybe
higher, but not flash drives.

But if someone knows of a 1tb flash drive, post the URL.....

 

[Ralph Mowery]

In article <nm4ljc1m4ffosvrrfvbl2ce7oon119njif@4ax.com>,
oldschool@tubes.com says...

one can get much greater capacity for the same or less price.

I paid $150 for a USED 10 mb hard drive in 1990. Thats MEGAbyte, not
GIGAbyte.

I suppose a seller might think in terms of "rarity". I think 1gig drives
have disappeared, at least from regular outlets. It seems a waste to use
a larger size one for when you only need low capacity, but it's sure not
worth paying $100 for it. Maybe the seller thinks there are instances
where the larger drive was too large, but while that did happen in the
days of hardware hard drives, and I have digital cameras that won't
makeuse of larger capacity memory cards, I don't think computers have
problems with "too large" flash drives.

Michael

Yep, some older digital cameras wont take cards larger than a specific
size. I have an older Canon, and I cant use cards larger than 16gb. Then
again, I see no reason to use a larger card. I can get many thousands of
photos on a 16gb card. I doubt I take over 1000 photos in a full year,
and I dump photos to my computer at least once every 3 months.

Anyhow, in the case of *bootable* flash drives, it appears that
computers DO have problems with "too large" flash drives.

I paid about $ 600 for 2 of the 5 1/4 inch floppy drives and electronics
to go in a TRS-80 computer. As long ago as that was, it was probably
well over $ 1000 in todays money.

Some computers and othe devices that take storage devices do have
probles with large 'cards'.

Same with devices where I worked had problems with newer computers. We
programed many devices with a laptop. As the computers got faster, the
old devices would not program. The timming loop timmed out before the
old device could send or receive the data.

I keep a couple of old laptops around the house to program some of my
things that the software is only in dos or I need some of the MCICA or
whatever memory card slots.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 9 Jun 2017 07:01:08 +1000, Trevor Wilson
<trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote:

**My Windows 10 laptop boots in less than 30 seconds, is speedy and easy
to use. It is MUCH faster than any Win XP machine I've owned. All done
without an SSD too.

It boots that fast because it never really shut down. Try disabling
Windoze 10 "fast startup" feature and time how long it takes when it
has to load everything from scratch:
<https://in.answers.acer.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/37059/~/windows-10%3A-enable-or-disable-fast-startup>

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Trevor Wilson]

On 10/06/2017 3:20 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Fri, 9 Jun 2017 07:01:08 +1000, Trevor Wilson
trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote:

**My Windows 10 laptop boots in less than 30 seconds, is speedy and easy
to use. It is MUCH faster than any Win XP machine I've owned. All done
without an SSD too.

It boots that fast because it never really shut down. Try disabling
Windoze 10 "fast startup" feature and time how long it takes when it
has to load everything from scratch:
https://in.answers.acer.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/37059/~/windows-10%3A-enable-or-disable-fast-startup

**Are you suggesting that Windows 10 is, somehow, magically operating on
my laptop? A laptop, I might add, that has the battery removed, because
I only run it on mains power? AFAIK, when I switch on a laptop, which
has no battery connected, then that qualifies as a 'cold boot'.

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

 

[rickman]

Trevor Wilson wrote on 6/10/2017 12:41 AM:

On 10/06/2017 3:20 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 9 Jun 2017 07:01:08 +1000, Trevor Wilson
trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote:

**My Windows 10 laptop boots in less than 30 seconds, is speedy and easy
to use. It is MUCH faster than any Win XP machine I've owned. All done
without an SSD too.

It boots that fast because it never really shut down. Try disabling
Windoze 10 "fast startup" feature and time how long it takes when it
has to load everything from scratch:
https://in.answers.acer.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/37059/~/windows-10%3A-enable-or-disable-fast-startup



**Are you suggesting that Windows 10 is, somehow, magically operating on my
laptop? A laptop, I might add, that has the battery removed, because I only
run it on mains power? AFAIK, when I switch on a laptop, which has no
battery connected, then that qualifies as a 'cold boot'.

My laptop manages to "cold boot" from the saved image on the hard drive that
was saved the last time I turned it off. I think they call that hibernate
rather than sleep. But I believe what Jeff is talking about is something
similar, but automatic rather than you having to set it to hibernate when
powering off. I'm using Win8.

--

Rick C

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 10 Jun 2017 14:41:43 +1000, Trevor Wilson
<trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote:

On 10/06/2017 3:20 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 9 Jun 2017 07:01:08 +1000, Trevor Wilson
trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote:

**My Windows 10 laptop boots in less than 30 seconds, is speedy and easy
to use. It is MUCH faster than any Win XP machine I've owned. All done
without an SSD too.

It boots that fast because it never really shut down. Try disabling
Windoze 10 "fast startup" feature and time how long it takes when it
has to load everything from scratch:
https://in.answers.acer.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/37059/~/windows-10%3A-enable-or-disable-fast-startup

**Are you suggesting that Windows 10 is, somehow, magically operating on
my laptop?

Well, yes. You stated:
"**My Windows 10 laptop boots in less than 30 seconds..."
which suggests that your laptop is under the control of Microsoft
Windoze 10. Further resistance is futile. You have been assimilated.

A laptop, I might add, that has the battery removed, because
I only run it on mains power?

Unless you have the power management set to reduce the CPU speed when
running on battery, your laptop should operate at the same speed on
either battery or mains power. I've run my own benchmarks comparing
XP and Win 10. However, the comparison isn't fair. I never could get
64 bit Windoze XP to work reliably, so all my XP machines are running
32 bit. Most of my Win 10 machines are running 64 bit. The machines
that were intentionally or surreptitiously upgraded ran a mix of 32
and 64 bit Win 10. The difference in speed between 32 and 64 bit Win
10 was sufficient for me to justify loading 64bit Win 10 from scratch.
So, if you're comparing the speed of XP and Win 10, you're comparing a
32 bit XP, which is limited to 3.5GB of RAM, with 64 bit Win 10 which
can use far more RAM. Apples and oranges.

AFAIK, when I switch on a laptop, which
has no battery connected, then that qualifies as a 'cold boot'.

Methinks we have different definitions of "cold boot". I'm referring
to the time it takes from starting the laptop from a power off state
to when it is ready to use. When you disable "fast startup", a
similar hardware XP machine should boot at approximately the same
speed, mostly depending on how many background programs need to be
started.

What the "fast startup" feature does (which incidentally is enabled by
default in Windoze 10) only partly shuts down when you turn off the
computah. This explains it better than I can:
<https://www.howtogeek.com/243901/the-pros-and-cons-of-windows-10s-fast-startup-mode/>
Windoze 8.1 has the same features (which incidentally are disabled by
default) but with slightly different feature names:
<http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/how-windows-8-hybrid-shutdown-fast-boot-feature-works/>

Opinions vary on whether "fast startup" is a good or bad thing. In
general, I find it beneficial and harmless on most systems. However,
about once a month, I get a customer call for various boot time errors
that are eventually traced to "fast startup" and are cleared by doing
a full shutdown. I also have similar problems when running Win 10
inside a virtual machine (both VMware and Virtual Box). So far,
nobody has lost data, so I think you're safe to leave it running[1].

Nine different ways to do a full (and other) shutdowns in Win 10:
<https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/7418-shut-down-computer-windows-10-a.html>

Note that if you have "fast startup" enabled, and turn off your
computah, you cannot force it to do a full boot. You have to do the
full shutdown first, before it will load everything from scratch.

If you need more detail, please ask. It's midnight and I've had a
long day which included living on party food. I expect to survive but
right now, my brain is almost off-line.


[1] I turn off "fast startup" and sell my customers an SSD if they
want more speed. In general, an SSD will make everything go 3X to 5X
faster.



--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Trevor Wilson]

On 10/06/2017 5:18 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Sat, 10 Jun 2017 14:41:43 +1000, Trevor Wilson
trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote:

On 10/06/2017 3:20 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 9 Jun 2017 07:01:08 +1000, Trevor Wilson
trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote:

**My Windows 10 laptop boots in less than 30 seconds, is speedy and easy
to use. It is MUCH faster than any Win XP machine I've owned. All done
without an SSD too.

It boots that fast because it never really shut down. Try disabling
Windoze 10 "fast startup" feature and time how long it takes when it
has to load everything from scratch:
https://in.answers.acer.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/37059/~/windows-10%3A-enable-or-disable-fast-startup

**Are you suggesting that Windows 10 is, somehow, magically operating on
my laptop?

Well, yes. You stated:
"**My Windows 10 laptop boots in less than 30 seconds..."
which suggests that your laptop is under the control of Microsoft
Windoze 10. Further resistance is futile. You have been assimilated.

A laptop, I might add, that has the battery removed, because
I only run it on mains power?

Unless you have the power management set to reduce the CPU speed when
running on battery, your laptop should operate at the same speed on
either battery or mains power.

**You're not reading what I wrote. I do not operate my laptop with the
battery installed. It operates only on mains power. It cold boots in
around 30 seconds.


I've run my own benchmarks comparing

XP and Win 10. However, the comparison isn't fair. I never could get
64 bit Windoze XP to work reliably, so all my XP machines are running
32 bit. Most of my Win 10 machines are running 64 bit. The machines
that were intentionally or surreptitiously upgraded ran a mix of 32
and 64 bit Win 10. The difference in speed between 32 and 64 bit Win
10 was sufficient for me to justify loading 64bit Win 10 from scratch.
So, if you're comparing the speed of XP and Win 10, you're comparing a
32 bit XP, which is limited to 3.5GB of RAM, with 64 bit Win 10 which
can use far more RAM. Apples and oranges.

AFAIK, when I switch on a laptop, which
has no battery connected, then that qualifies as a 'cold boot'.

Methinks we have different definitions of "cold boot". I'm referring
to the time it takes from starting the laptop from a power off state
to when it is ready to use. When you disable "fast startup", a
similar hardware XP machine should boot at approximately the same
speed, mostly depending on how many background programs need to be
started.

What the "fast startup" feature does (which incidentally is enabled by
default in Windoze 10) only partly shuts down when you turn off the
computah. This explains it better than I can:
https://www.howtogeek.com/243901/the-pros-and-cons-of-windows-10s-fast-startup-mode/
Windoze 8.1 has the same features (which incidentally are disabled by
default) but with slightly different feature names:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/how-windows-8-hybrid-shutdown-fast-boot-feature-works/

**I didn't read any of your cites (though I may do later), because, I
assume, that feature doesn't apply to a laptop which has no battery
installed. Feel free to correct my assumption.

Opinions vary on whether "fast startup" is a good or bad thing. In
general, I find it beneficial and harmless on most systems. However,
about once a month, I get a customer call for various boot time errors
that are eventually traced to "fast startup" and are cleared by doing
a full shutdown. I also have similar problems when running Win 10
inside a virtual machine (both VMware and Virtual Box). So far,
nobody has lost data, so I think you're safe to leave it running[1].

Nine different ways to do a full (and other) shutdowns in Win 10:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/7418-shut-down-computer-windows-10-a.html

Note that if you have "fast startup" enabled, and turn off your
computah, you cannot force it to do a full boot. You have to do the
full shutdown first, before it will load everything from scratch.

**I'll check to see if it enabled or not.

If you need more detail, please ask. It's midnight and I've had a
long day which included living on party food. I expect to survive but
right now, my brain is almost off-line.


[1] I turn off "fast startup" and sell my customers an SSD if they
want more speed. In general, an SSD will make everything go 3X to 5X
faster.

**Sure does. I installed an SSD in my Win 7 desktop machine (first gen
i5 CPU) and it hums along quite nicely. Boot times are quite
respectable, but nowhere near as quick as my laptop (5th or 6th gen i5
CPU).


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 10 Jun 2017 19:57:55 +1000, Trevor Wilson
<trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote:

**You're not reading what I wrote. I do not operate my laptop with the
battery installed. It operates only on mains power. It cold boots in
around 30 seconds.

Trust me. I even read between your lines. If your laptop is booting
at what I would consider to be an unusually high speed, then something
is going on to make that happen. Unfortunately, few of my Win 10
customers remove their laptop batteries when shutting down, so I don't
have any personal experience in how this works. My guess(tm) is that
"fast startup" does not write the entire memory image to your hard
disk drive as in hibernate, but instead writes only those parts of
memory that have changed since the last memory image was written. That
would really speed up shutdown and startup. I'll play with it when I
get back to my palatial office on Monday.

Meanwhile, just try disabling "fast startup" and compare the boot
times. I predict that a normal cold boot will take quite a bit a bit
longer with "fast startup" disabled.

**I didn't read any of your cites (though I may do later), because, I
assume, that feature doesn't apply to a laptop which has no battery
installed. Feel free to correct my assumption.

Gladly, but not today. I need a Win 10 machine and all I have are XP,
Win 7 and several Chromebooks at home. Monday or Tues please. There
should also be an explanation of how "fast startup" works on the MSDN
(Microsoft Developers Network). I'll see if I can find it later
tonite.

I turn off "fast startup" and sell my customers an SSD if they
want more speed. In general, an SSD will make everything go 3X to 5X
faster.

**Sure does. I installed an SSD in my Win 7 desktop machine (first gen
i5 CPU) and it hums along quite nicely. Boot times are quite
respectable, but nowhere near as quick as my laptop (5th or 6th gen i5
CPU).

Win 7 does NOT have the Win 10 "fast startup" or the Win 8.1 "fast
boot" feature. Unless you have hibernate enabled or have performed
some of the Win 7 boot tweaks found on YouTube and elsewhere, Win 7
boots normally (cold boot) every time.



--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

On Sat, 10 Jun 2017 08:55:26 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

Win 7 does NOT have the Win 10 "fast startup" or the Win 8.1 "fast
boot" feature. Unless you have hibernate enabled or have performed
some of the Win 7 boot tweaks found on YouTube and elsewhere, Win 7
boots normally (cold boot) every time.

Having never used anything newer than XP, I was wondering if Win7 boots
as fast as XP, or is it slower?

I've never had any problems with the boot time of XP. Only once did I
get a computer that booted so damn slow I reinstalled XP. I had bought a
used laptop on ebay and they seller sold it with a fresh install of XP,
but then he put so much anti-virus software on it, that it literally
took near 5 min to boot. Once booted the thing ran so slow I could not
even use it. I finally wiped the HDD and just reinstalled XP. Problem
solved!

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 10 Jun 2017 14:56:24 -0400, oldschool@tubes.com wrote:

On Sat, 10 Jun 2017 08:55:26 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:
Win 7 does NOT have the Win 10 "fast startup" or the Win 8.1 "fast
boot" feature. Unless you have hibernate enabled or have performed
some of the Win 7 boot tweaks found on YouTube and elsewhere, Win 7
boots normally (cold boot) every time.

Having never used anything newer than XP, I was wondering if Win7 boots
as fast as XP, or is it slower?

I've been told that Win 7 is somewhat faster. As I previously
mentioned, such comparisons turn into apples and oranges comparisons
due to differences in hardware, differences in 32bit vs 64bit, etc.
The only comparisons I find valid is when I take a single machine, and
swap out two identical hard disk drives, one with XP and the other
with Win 7. Also, both machines should have XP and Win 7 updated to
the latest, with typical resident programs installed (virus scanner,
acrobat, skype, fancy video drivers, etc). Only then will I get a
valid comparison. Also, there's the question of when does one
consider the boot timing to end? I usually use when task manager
shows near zero CPU and disk usage. Or, maybe when the HD light
almost stops flashing. That's fine, but if the machine decides to
download or finish installing updates just after boot, the benchmarks
get mangled.

I've also seen benchmarks claiming that XP is faster than Win 7. When
I dug deeper, I found that the Win 7 machine was a fully loaded
production machine, while the XP machine had only the basic
installation to SP3 (service pack 3) without any further updates.
That's not very fair since the subsequent updates, and typical
installed resident programs, really slow down XP. On a fresh install,
on an Intel E8500 dual core machine, XP can easily boot in 45 seconds.
However, install the mass of updates and junkware, it will slow down
to about 6 minutes. Win 7 has even more updates, but the slowdown is
less.

For entertainment value, I just timed my HP Pavilion Elite m9077c
desktop, running Win 7, quad core Q6600, 8GB RAM, Seagate 1TB drive.
Well, that was a monumental waste of time. I'm at 10 minutes and the
HD is furiously bashing away. I haven't had it on for about a week,
so it's catching up with updates, virus scans, disk maintenance
(defrag), backup to NAS, etc. All that usually takes about an hour.
Maybe I'll try again later. Remind me if I forget.

I've never had any problems with the boot time of XP. Only once did I
get a computer that booted so damn slow I reinstalled XP.

I bought both my home and office XP machines in about 2006. I loaded
XP once, and have never had to reinstall XP. When I needed a larger
disk drive, I would clone the old drive to the new driver, and
continue merrily on my way. If you have to reinstall XP (and you're
not cleaning up the mess left by a virus), then you're doing something
wrong.

I had bought a
used laptop on ebay and they seller sold it with a fresh install of XP,
but then he put so much anti-virus software on it, that it literally
took near 5 min to boot. Once booted the thing ran so slow I could not
even use it. I finally wiped the HDD and just reinstalled XP. Problem
solved!

Sure, but did you install a virus program, any virus program? Even
MSE (microsoft security essentials) takes its toll on performance.
Comparing performance with and without an anti-virus program isn't
fair.

Incidentally, I don't care much about speed when the differences are
minor. Initially, most of my customers want speed and features. After
the smoke clears and reality sets in, they change their mind and
demand reliability at whatever speed and features will produce a
reliable machine. My days of overclocking, registry tweaking, and
alleged performance boosting software are long over.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

On Sunday, 11 June 2017 18:01:51 UTC+1, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Sat, 10 Jun 2017 14:56:24 -0400, oldschool@tubes.com wrote:

On Sat, 10 Jun 2017 08:55:26 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:
Win 7 does NOT have the Win 10 "fast startup" or the Win 8.1 "fast
boot" feature. Unless you have hibernate enabled or have performed
some of the Win 7 boot tweaks found on YouTube and elsewhere, Win 7
boots normally (cold boot) every time.

Having never used anything newer than XP, I was wondering if Win7 boots
as fast as XP, or is it slower?

I've been told that Win 7 is somewhat faster. As I previously
mentioned, such comparisons turn into apples and oranges comparisons
due to differences in hardware, differences in 32bit vs 64bit, etc.
The only comparisons I find valid is when I take a single machine, and
swap out two identical hard disk drives, one with XP and the other
with Win 7. Also, both machines should have XP and Win 7 updated to
the latest, with typical resident programs installed (virus scanner,
acrobat, skype, fancy video drivers, etc). Only then will I get a
valid comparison. Also, there's the question of when does one
consider the boot timing to end? I usually use when task manager
shows near zero CPU and disk usage. Or, maybe when the HD light
almost stops flashing. That's fine, but if the machine decides to
download or finish installing updates just after boot, the benchmarks
get mangled.

I've also seen benchmarks claiming that XP is faster than Win 7. When
I dug deeper, I found that the Win 7 machine was a fully loaded
production machine, while the XP machine had only the basic
installation to SP3 (service pack 3) without any further updates.
That's not very fair since the subsequent updates, and typical
installed resident programs, really slow down XP. On a fresh install,
on an Intel E8500 dual core machine, XP can easily boot in 45 seconds.
However, install the mass of updates and junkware, it will slow down
to about 6 minutes. Win 7 has even more updates, but the slowdown is
less.

For entertainment value, I just timed my HP Pavilion Elite m9077c
desktop, running Win 7, quad core Q6600, 8GB RAM, Seagate 1TB drive.
Well, that was a monumental waste of time. I'm at 10 minutes and the
HD is furiously bashing away. I haven't had it on for about a week,
so it's catching up with updates, virus scans, disk maintenance
(defrag), backup to NAS, etc. All that usually takes about an hour.
Maybe I'll try again later. Remind me if I forget.

I've never had any problems with the boot time of XP. Only once did I
get a computer that booted so damn slow I reinstalled XP.

I bought both my home and office XP machines in about 2006. I loaded
XP once, and have never had to reinstall XP. When I needed a larger
disk drive, I would clone the old drive to the new driver, and
continue merrily on my way. If you have to reinstall XP (and you're
not cleaning up the mess left by a virus), then you're doing something
wrong.

I had bought a
used laptop on ebay and they seller sold it with a fresh install of XP,
but then he put so much anti-virus software on it, that it literally
took near 5 min to boot. Once booted the thing ran so slow I could not
even use it. I finally wiped the HDD and just reinstalled XP. Problem
solved!

Sure, but did you install a virus program, any virus program? Even
MSE (microsoft security essentials) takes its toll on performance.
Comparing performance with and without an anti-virus program isn't
fair.

Incidentally, I don't care much about speed when the differences are
minor. Initially, most of my customers want speed and features. After
the smoke clears and reality sets in, they change their mind and
demand reliability at whatever speed and features will produce a
reliable machine. My days of overclocking, registry tweaking, and
alleged performance boosting software are long over.

My slowest machine ever was a 486 that hung around long past its best before date. It never skipped a beat in its entire life, and was occasionally useful (partly to punish users that screwed machines up). I once virus scanned it - it started scanning the first file after 16 minutes! With carefully chosen apps it ran ok, though the 256 colour graphics were grim.


NT

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2017 10:01:39 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

For entertainment value, I just timed my HP Pavilion Elite m9077c
desktop, running Win 7, quad core Q6600, 8GB RAM, Seagate 1TB drive.
Well, that was a monumental waste of time. I'm at 10 minutes and the
HD is furiously bashing away. I haven't had it on for about a week,
so it's catching up with updates, virus scans, disk maintenance
(defrag), backup to NAS, etc. All that usually takes about an hour.
Maybe I'll try again later. Remind me if I forget.

I couldn't resist, so I ran a quick boot speed test. For timing, I
used:
<http://stopwatch.onlineclock.net>

The XP box is a Dell Optiplex 960. Core 2 Duo E8500 at 3.16Hz with a
1333MHz FSB (Passmark = 2,293), with 4GBytes RAM, and a Seagate
ST31000340AS 1TB drive. XP is 32 bit.

The Win 7 box is an HP Pavilion Elite m9077c. Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
at 2.4GHz with a 1066MHz FSB (Passmark = 2,972), with 8GBytes RAM, and
a Seagate ST31000524S 1TB drive. Win 7 is 64 bit.

I started the clock at first light (when the bios screen appeared
after power is turned on) and stopped when the Performance Monitor
showed very little CPU or HD activity.

Both machines have identical resident programs to slow things down. In
this case Avast anti-virus, Skype, Google Drive, MS OneDrive, Nvidia
GeForce Experience, Everything, and Teamviewer.

For results, I got:
Win 7: 5min 10sec.
Win XP: 3min 39sec.

The machines are not identical, but using what I have, XP boots 29%
faster than Win 7. My guess(tm) is that I tried it again with
identical CPU's, the boot times would be closer.



Now for a something a little different. Let's see how fast my shiny
new Chromebook boots. It doesn't run Windoze, so there's no sense in
trying to load it down with things to slow it down. It's an Acer
CB3-431-C5EX. Refurbished from the eBay Acer Store at:
<http://www.ebay.com/itm/252557970886>
1.4GHz Intel N3160 quad core, 4GB RAM, 32GB SSD. I'm running the IPS
screen at 1536x864, but it will go up to 2400x1350.

For cold boot time, I got 24 seconds, starting with power on, and
ending when the Chrome browser reloaded the mess of web pages I was
looking at when I turned it off. That also includes hitting <ctrl>D
on startup to get past the developers mode warning, and logging in
with my Google password. Add another 8 seconds to start the Android
on ChromeOS script, and 3 seconds to login again.

So, if you really want boot speed (like I do when going to a coffee
shop, meeting, event, or need a quick Google search, get a Chromebook.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2017 12:17:14 -0700 (PDT), tabbypurr@gmail.com wrote:

My slowest machine ever was a 486 that hung around long
past its best before date. It never skipped a beat in its
entire life, and was occasionally useful (partly to
punish users that screwed machines up). I once virus
scanned it - it started scanning the first file after
16 minutes! With carefully chosen apps it ran ok, though
the 256 colour graphics were grim.
NT

I have to guess the dates, but I think between 1987 and 2014, I ran a
Xenix mail server in my palatial office on a 486DX2-66 system with
4MBytes (that's MegaBytes, not GigaBytes) RAM, 1GB Conner CFP-1060S
SCSI hard disk, and an assortment of tape drives and SCSI peripherals.
At various points during its 27 year life, I replaced the motherboard
once, power supply twice, and video card thrice, but never reloaded
the Xenix operating system. If you don't mind character based
computing from the command line, the machine ran just fine and was
very fast for most things. I kept waiting for the machine to die so
would have an excuse to replace it with something more modern, but it
just wouldn't die. So, I killed it and gave it a proper funeral at
the local recycler.

Also, I used to maintain some CNC controllers, that ran commodity 486
motherboards behind the fancy exterior. Until recently, I had a
fairly good stock of replacement 486 motherboards, EISA, ISA, VESA,
and VL bus cards for fixing these.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Trevor Wilson]

On 12/06/2017 7:16 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Sun, 11 Jun 2017 10:01:39 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:

For entertainment value, I just timed my HP Pavilion Elite m9077c
desktop, running Win 7, quad core Q6600, 8GB RAM, Seagate 1TB drive.
Well, that was a monumental waste of time. I'm at 10 minutes and the
HD is furiously bashing away. I haven't had it on for about a week,
so it's catching up with updates, virus scans, disk maintenance
(defrag), backup to NAS, etc. All that usually takes about an hour.
Maybe I'll try again later. Remind me if I forget.

I couldn't resist, so I ran a quick boot speed test. For timing, I
used:
http://stopwatch.onlineclock.net

The XP box is a Dell Optiplex 960. Core 2 Duo E8500 at 3.16Hz with a
1333MHz FSB (Passmark = 2,293), with 4GBytes RAM, and a Seagate
ST31000340AS 1TB drive. XP is 32 bit.

The Win 7 box is an HP Pavilion Elite m9077c. Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
at 2.4GHz with a 1066MHz FSB (Passmark = 2,972), with 8GBytes RAM, and
a Seagate ST31000524S 1TB drive. Win 7 is 64 bit.

I started the clock at first light (when the bios screen appeared
after power is turned on) and stopped when the Performance Monitor
showed very little CPU or HD activity.

Both machines have identical resident programs to slow things down. In
this case Avast anti-virus, Skype, Google Drive, MS OneDrive, Nvidia
GeForce Experience, Everything, and Teamviewer.

For results, I got:
Win 7: 5min 10sec.
Win XP: 3min 39sec.

**Bloody Hell, that is slow. I haven't timed my Win 7 box recently, but
it is fully stuffed with software I never use. I stuck a 240GB SSD in
there for it to boot from and it is quick. Very quick. If I had to
guess, I'd say around 1 minute. That is for a first gen i5 CPU, 64 bit
Win 7, 16GB RAM. Not as fast as my Win 10 lappy, but then the lappy has
hardly anything on it to slow it down. I timed the Win 10 lappy
yesterday. 21 seconds from boot to being able to browse the net.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 12 Jun 2017 09:28:52 +1000, Trevor Wilson
<trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote:

On 12/06/2017 7:16 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
For results, I got:
Win 7: 5min 10sec.
Win XP: 3min 39sec.

**Bloody Hell, that is slow.

Yep. The Optiplex 960 was introduced in late 2008. The HP Pavilion
Elite m9077c was introduced in Sept 2007. Both use DDR2 RAM and SATA2
HD's. That's 9 and 10 years old respectively. Needless to mention,
if you want something faster, buy something newer with SATA3 or SSD,
DDR3 or 4, and faster CPU's with larger L2 caches.

Also, with an SSD, you can reliably and effectively use a HD write
cache, such as Samsung TurboWrite:
<http://www.anandtech.com/show/8747/samsung-ssd-850-evo-review/2>
for a big speed boots. I don't have numbers handy, but for boot
speed, I saw about a 2:1 improvement with the write cache.

I haven't timed my Win 7 box recently, but
it is fully stuffed with software I never use. I stuck a 240GB SSD in
there for it to boot from and it is quick. Very quick. If I had to
guess, I'd say around 1 minute.

That's about right for an SSD. As I previously mumbled, adding an SSD
give about a 3x to 5x overall speed boost (without the Win 8.1/10 fast
startup feature).

That is for a first gen i5 CPU, 64 bit
Win 7, 16GB RAM. Not as fast as my Win 10 lappy, but then the lappy has
hardly anything on it to slow it down. I timed the Win 10 lappy
yesterday. 21 seconds from boot to being able to browse the net.

3rd time: Try it with "fast startup" disabled. You're not
benchmarking the speed of the machine, but the speed improvement of
"fast startup" (also known as hybrid shutdown and hybrid boot).

I promised to post something from MSDN on how "fast startup" works. I
couldn't find much specific to Win 10. I eventually determined that
although the name changed from "fast boot" to "fast startup" between
Win 8.1 and Win 10, it's basically the same thing. Some stuff worth
skimming:

Designing for PCs that boot faster than ever before
<https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/b8/2012/05/22/designing-for-pcs-that-boot-faster-than-ever-before/>

How to Turn On or Off Fast Startup in Windows 10
<https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4189-turn-off-fast-startup-windows-10-a.html>
Notice the drawing at the beginning showing what is loaded on boot and
how "fast startup" has much less to load.

Windows 8: Fast Boot
<https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/olivnie/2012/12/14/windows-8-fast-boot/>

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

On Sunday, 11 June 2017 22:32:33 UTC+1, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Sun, 11 Jun 2017 12:17:14 -0700 (PDT), tabbypurr wrote:

My slowest machine ever was a 486 that hung around long
past its best before date. It never skipped a beat in its
entire life, and was occasionally useful (partly to
punish users that screwed machines up). I once virus
scanned it - it started scanning the first file after
16 minutes! With carefully chosen apps it ran ok, though
the 256 colour graphics were grim.
NT

I have to guess the dates, but I think between 1987 and 2014, I ran a
Xenix mail server in my palatial office on a 486DX2-66 system with
4MBytes (that's MegaBytes, not GigaBytes) RAM, 1GB Conner CFP-1060S
SCSI hard disk, and an assortment of tape drives and SCSI peripherals.
At various points during its 27 year life, I replaced the motherboard
once, power supply twice, and video card thrice, but never reloaded
the Xenix operating system. If you don't mind character based
computing from the command line, the machine ran just fine and was
very fast for most things. I kept waiting for the machine to die so
would have an excuse to replace it with something more modern, but it
just wouldn't die. So, I killed it and gave it a proper funeral at
the local recycler.

Also, I used to maintain some CNC controllers, that ran commodity 486
motherboards behind the fancy exterior. Until recently, I had a
fairly good stock of replacement 486 motherboards, EISA, ISA, VESA,
and VL bus cards for fixing these.

Anything can run command line & single app, even an Apple II. Add multitasking & GUI and it's another story.

I had an impressive 24M RAM, but ISTR the HDD was just 100s of M. So many times I hoped it would die. So did people that used it. But it never did. Many more modern PCs came & died, but not that 486. I guess you got a better machine when they cost well over ÂŁ1000 new.


NT

 

On Monday, 12 June 2017 00:29:00 UTC+1, Trevor Wilson wrote:

On 12/06/2017 7:16 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 11 Jun 2017 10:01:39 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com

For results, I got:
Win 7: 5min 10sec.
Win XP: 3min 39sec.


**Bloody Hell, that is slow. I haven't timed my Win 7 box recently, but
it is fully stuffed with software I never use. I stuck a 240GB SSD in
there for it to boot from and it is quick. Very quick. If I had to
guess, I'd say around 1 minute. That is for a first gen i5 CPU, 64 bit
Win 7, 16GB RAM. Not as fast as my Win 10 lappy, but then the lappy has
hardly anything on it to slow it down. I timed the Win 10 lappy
yesterday. 21 seconds from boot to being able to browse the net.

This old dual core is 10 yrs old now. It boots in under a minute. I'm grateful I don't run windows.


NT

 

[Jon Elson]

Phil Allison wrote:

Jon Elson wrote:

------------------



I've got an old eBay listing on my wall at work, for two "Les Paul" oil-
paper capacitors for buy-it-now price of $145. These are the huge ones
about a half-inch diameter with color stripes. I don't even know how the
seller determined they were Les Paul capacitors, but that apparently made
them VERY special!


** Means they were extracted from a 1950s Gibson "Les Paul" guitar
amplifier.

Commonly known as " bumble bee" caps.

I had a couple of leaky ones a while back and threw them out.

SILLY you! You could have sold them for $75 each on eBay. How could anyone
know they DIDN'T come out of a Les Paul amp? The leakage is probably the
cause of that "Les Paul" sound.

Jon