Corsair and some other manufacturers have (very expensive) software controlled PSUs. I have a Corsair HX1200 in my computer, it has no switch for eco mode but has, what they call, "zero rpm fan" which, I suppose, is basically the same thing. The software controlled version of my PSU is the Corsair HX1200i (notice the "i" in the end). It is controlled by a software named "iCUE", which seems to be just a driver and a "cute" (read flashy) interface. It only works in Windows and Mac. And they do not seem to update the software (I mean, they update it but seems the new versions do not support previous PSUs). I bought the version not controlled by software because I only use Linux and I do not like the idea of a, possibly buggy and easily hackable, driver to be able to control such a potentially catastrophic piece of equipment. So far I had no problem with my PSU but, according to a power meter I have on the outlet, I never went above 500W (of the 1200W the PSU supports).

If you want to go to so much detail... No, I did not ohm tested. But I anticipated that static electricity might build up so I kept the string away from any electronics, plastics, and other strings. I added long screws to the usual mount points of the motherboard and the string strapped to those, on both sides of the motherboard to avoid bending due to too much tension on just one side. Used a similar setup for the HDDs. Also connected those screws to the case of the PSU with copper wire (insulated obviously) to establish the connection they usually have in a normal ATX chassis. So, effectively, those connections were grounded. Tip: some motherboards fail to boot if those points are not properly grounded. I approached the build as a suspended cable bridge project where the motherboard and the HDDs are part of the deck, floating in the air but at the same time secure and without excessive vibration (that in bridges can lead to collapses). So, anticipating that the strings might come loose due to the vibrations (because cotton stretches more than metal) I stress tested a single string with the double of the maximum length I would need to find how many I would have to use per cable (one cable per mount point) so that stretching was imperceptible. Then I built braided cables with the double of that amount. I did not use plain string to secure things. Those cables had a hole near the middle that could be used to twist them to increase the tension if they ever got loose and, anticipating moister, those holes were also used to hold desiccant bags. On the points the string cables attached to the mount points I used electrical tape to prevent tearing on the screws threads. Also used electrical tape to bound the strings together and prevent the cables from unwinding. That setup lasted two years and then laptops started to become cheap enough and powerful enough so I replaced this setup with a laptop.

I know the felling. My favorite computer that I have is a Compaq Contura Aero 4/25 and I used it so much the display melted (4bit gray scale 640x480). Can not find a compatible replacement anywhere :(( Only once I saw a used display from a dead Contura but they wanted 400€ :wtf: Nice computer you got there, by the way :-D

There are desks like that although most have the computer under a glass on the top and are made of metal. Search "computer desk case" and you may find something. Passive cooling anything needs to be in a place that is naturally well ventilated, preferably with a very small draft (imperceptible by humans). That is the little information that manufacturers held back or most people would not buy them. If it is not in a naturally well ventilated place, it will eventually burn. In the best case scenario it just stops working.

That is a little awkward to turn into a computer chassis :doh: . And looks oversized. I bet they would charge me an extra ticket to carry that on a public transport :sigh: . If instead you are referring to trashing the computer, it was brand new. I just could not afford a mobile chassis. The cheapest one at the time was a few thousand euros. Looking at your signature, if your are just reacting to my cat sticker, it was just a joke because of all the string inside the chassis :laugh: . I love cats :-D .

I prefer the cotton string because it does not propagate vibrations as much as cable ties if the HDD is hanging in the air. The down side is that it deteriorates a lot faster. Vibrations were the reason I used four laptop HDDs in RAID instead of a single desktop HDD. Obviously, the situation I described was temporary and after some time I bought a proper chassis. But, if it works in your case and the HDDs are not shutting down/parking heads/becoming corrupted you can let it be. Anyway, I would recommend that you buy the brackets if you can and, if they are made of metal, they will help dissipate the heat from the HDDs. The HDDs will be healthier and live longer.

Holding everything inside with cotton string :-D At the time I couldn't afford a mobile chassis for my work computer (literally a PC I take to work) so I asked in my school for any chassis that they had for recycling. They gave me an old one that was not ATX compatible so I put some rubber feet on the back of the motherboard to avoid shorts, strapped it to the chassis using cotton string, put a smaller heatsink on the CPU (the chassis was thin), strapped the fan to the heatsink with more cotton string, drilled holes in four old CDs to mount the four laptop HDDs (using screws) and strapped that set with some more cotton string to the chassis. Then, because this computer would suffer some vibrations from the travels, I strapped everything with even more cotton string forming a sort of web over the motherboard to prevent anything from moving. To finalize the build, I wanted to add a "No cats allowed" sticker but couldn't get it to stick. The chassis was slippery :doh:

Seem the fires are extinguished (no visible fires) :) They are proceeding with the cooling of the hull and it is expected that Thursday (2022-02-24) the experts will be able to go aboard to begin accessing damages that may affect the towing of the ship. Link to the news on the Portuguese navy site (sorry, in Portuguese only): Marinha prossegue acompanhamento de navio com incêndio a bordo ao largo dos Açores[^] Maybe next week we start getting reports of what survived if anything. Apparently (from a news site: Navio arde ao largo dos Açores com estragos de mais de 400 milhões de euros[^] ), the appraisal of the cargo is approximately 400 million euros for the vehicles, 150 of which from Volkswagen alone. Ouch!

Actually, if I remember correctly, some time ago I read an interview with a guy that was a developer in the 1980s or 1990s (I think I got the decade right) that used their very limited graphics (compared to today) to, not only store, but do calculations. I can not remember what they calculated but he described that their CPU was very limited for the amount of data in terms of speed, so they used their unused graphics card for bulk storage and processing. Each (8-bit grayscale) pixel corresponded to a variable and they would write from RAM to the graphics card an entire screen (320x200?!?) at a time as a memory page. Then they would do the same operation on all pixels (variables) and read back the memory page (screen) into RAM. I searched my browsing history but can not find the link :sigh: . I did not bookmark it because I thought of it as just a curiosity. I do not know if something like this would apply to your case or if reading and writing in bulk to your IoT screen would be fast enough to be useful but when you can not stretch the hardware it is time to get silly inventive :)

According to the Portuguese media today (2022-02-21): - the ship was still on fire although with less intensity - there are a number (not specified) of electric cars onboard with their lithium batteries which is preventing the firefighters from addressing the fire in a traditional way (they need special equipment) - a dutch tech team, hired by the ship owner, is waiting to go onboard and tow the ship to Europe - also, a dutch tow boat, the "ALP Guard" from Gibraltar, is waiting to tow the ship - a second tow boat, the "Thor B", is spraying the hull of the ship with water to cool it - the cars include Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini (some are/where Aventador Ultimae) and Bugatti Chiron, but there are other models too

David O'Neil wrote:

Idiot management

Or because they couldn't. Many years ago I bought a small board (do not remember the seller name) for the ram and it wasn't even connected (there were no PCB traces going to it), it was just glued on some free space of their previous board revision :omg: Easy money for them. Idiots us who bought it.

I think many are clueless about what Access is. It is mostly a mentality thing. Many former colleagues of mine through the years (programmers, DB administrators, etc) think that Access is not a true DB, only a toy for people who just want to play with something that looks like a DB. I always reply to them that legos are also "toys" and yet, many great professional looking things can be built with them that are not used for playing (like cars, bridges, etc).

David O'Neil wrote:

Everyone seems to sh*t on Office and VBA, but when used correctly it is TREMENDOUSLY POWERFUL! A small business could be ran with it pretty easily

My brother works in a multinational corporation (I think they are the fourth biggest in their field) and most of their internal monthly accounting is made in Excel, assisted by VBA macros for the more complex things (like reading the detailed results of the month and filling out the official accounting software mandated by the different governments). But you haven't heard that from me :suss: A long time ago (1995, I think), when I was starting to program, I built a DB with GUI in Access for a library. At that time Access allowed to build GUIs, do not know if it still does. On delivery, the guy who hired me commented "This is all in Access? It looks great."

I would: - check if the image is of the entire disk and not of a partition, and check if the image is intact. - check that the image belongs to that computer. XP embedded is somewhat different from the regular XP - check the hard drive S.M.A.R.T. and search for bad sectors. The drive can be faulty. - try to boot from a XP embedded floppy or CD and repair the boot. Something might have changed, like the connector on the motherboard where the hard drive is connected, or the hard drive might have been replaced and the serials (on the drive and on the image) do not match, causing a boot failure.

Joan M wrote:

Would it be possible to clone a working operating system

It might work if the hardware is the same on both computers and you, probably, would need to repair the boot. If I remember correctly, XP embedded did not store drivers for hardware that was not present during installation except for plug-and-play (like USB) so, if you use a PC with different hardware you will most likely have to install all the drivers. Good luck

You have my sympathy. I too have lost a lot of time/patience/hair to mice. I have RSI and, from my experience, a good ambidextrous wireless mouse that is also not too expensive and durable is hard to find. I did not had any luck with that yet. My previous one did not last to the end of the warranty. My solution, that I currently employ, is to have a mouse for all the fast work and a pen tablet for the precision work. And keep alternating between the two. The mouse I use is a logitech mx master 3 (right hand only). I have it for a few months and haven't charged it since I bought it (November, I think). There is software to configure it in Linux if you need. The pen tablet is a wired Wacom Bamboo Fun (CTE-650) but I think there were wireless versions back when I bought it (2007 maybe?!). Like the mouse, it has software to configure in Linux. Configuring the buttons on the tablet to zoom in/out makes life easier. I can not say anything about the software for windows because I work only in Linux but it used to be good on windows 7 (for the pen tablet) and did not get on the way of work. Regarding battery life, depending on what amount you refer to with "breaking the bank", there are wireless mice that have the charger in the mouse pad so, as long as the mouse is on top and almost centered on the mouse pad, it will charge even when you are using it. Probably you will not find one that is ambidextrous. Good luck.

PIEBALDconsult wrote:

Where did [ 4 , 6 ] come from?

Maybe that is what makes it "hard to solve"?!? Because the OP clearly understands the problem (as demonstrated by the rest of the example). Or maybe I am the one not understanding something :confused:

Like you, I am annoyed with mice. I too have a lot of dead mice from multiple brands. Most died still in warranty but the manufacturers say that they will not fix or replace them because they were damaged by "over using"!

dandy72 wrote:

I'd scroll down one "tick" (if you wanna call it that), it would do it but then scroll back up again by 2 or 3 ticks

This is one of the most common problem I have. That and the "ghost scroll" where it moves up and down without anyone even touching the mouse. I have tried cleaning the mice and no joy :^) The other problem I usually have is the left button just stops clicking. It is like the 5 million clicks of lifetime expectancy wore off in less than two years. Like I recently said in a post here, I still use a serial HP two button ball mouse (or it's PS/2 sibling) when I go on the field because it is the most durable mouse I have, and works in every surface. It has been drowned, run over, drop from heights, etc. Except some scratches, still works as new and it is 28 years old :omg: . Just clean it and go. The only downside is the lack of scroll wheel.

That sounds more and more like a duplicate ID problem. When you merged the partitions the drive gets assigned a new ID. Had you made an exact copy of the disks before? Understanding what happened might help you prevent it in the future. Either way, problem solved :)

You do not give enough information to diagnose quickly so let's go in slow mode :zzz: I assume that both computers are using the same OS (either windows or linux). If not, the instructions below may not apply. Also, the instructions are ordered from the quickest to do to the hardest. * Try different USB ports on the desktop. Use ports directly from the motherboard. Some case ports have bad cables that affect the speed and power delivery. Preferably use USB 2 ports instead of USB 3 ports. Even today, some drivers have issues with some USB 3 hardware. My current board has this problem in Linux. * Use a Y USB cable to connect the external drive to two USB ports (if you have one). It might be under powered. * Double check that the external box specifications are sufficient for the disk you put inside. It may be working on the laptop (due to different drivers than the desktop) but might be corrupting the disk. I had this problem once were a box appeared to work but was clipping anything above 1TB corrupting the HDD (which, to make maters worse, was a backup drive :doh: ). * If you made an exact copy of the disk on to the SSD and they are both on the desktop, they have the same ID which is unacceptable by the OS so only the first disk to be connected is made available. In this case you have to change the disk ID. The following links from a quick internet search might help (even if they do not present the most appropriate solution) Linux: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/what-is-disk-identifier-740408/[^] How do I change the disk ID in Linux?[^] Windows: How to change Hard Disk's Volume Serial Number (Volume ID) - wintips.org - Windows Tips & How-tos[^] Good luck.

I have a lot of IDE drives too. When I want to connect them to modern PC I use something similar to that (old version for SATA1) also from StarTech. Never had corruption or other types of problems but never used it full time. Maybe the one you had working for a couple of weeks overheated and burned something? StarTech boards usually work OK but read all the documentation and the fine printing on their site before you buy to make sure it is compatible. Some years ago I bought a rather expensive softraid controller from them that worked fine until I changed the motherboard (same year/chipset but different manufacturer). It stop working and had a major caveat. It only works if the MMU setting on the BIOS is disabled (which the "new" motherboard does not support disabling) :wtf: