Windows 11

[TBman]

I received my new HP PC from Santa today. I have it set up with dual monitors (a 24" curved and a 27"). This PC runs at 3.7 and it has a solid state hard drive. Smooth. It came with Windows 11 and so far I like it. Instead of installing Chrome I'm going to see how Edge works out.

I really liked not having to run an install of drivers for my Scarlett 2i4 and for our HP printer. I set up my plugin and software licenses and I'm ready to go.

I'm just going to get a simple two speaker setup next week so I've retired my 5.1 setup I had. Too many wires and components. I have a set of AKG headphones that I always use. My son prefers speakers otherwise I wouldn't even bother with them.

[Dru Edwards]

Barry, those solid state hard drives are sweet. Both my work and home laptops have one and they're fast.

I use Chrome but have Edge for a few work applications.

Did you leave Santa any cookies and milk in exchange for the wonderful gift?

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

Barry, those solid state hard drives are sweet. Both my work and home laptops have one and they're fast.

I use Chrome but have Edge for a few work applications.

Did you leave Santa any cookies and milk in exchange for the wonderful gift?

Santa was well rewarded,

A few years ago I had purchased a HP Simple Save external hard drive and then a couple of years ago upgraded to a faster and larger external. They made setting up a new machine easy. With this SS drive though, my 2022 Reaper projects will be kept on the SS and I will do periodic backups to the externals.

I've been using computers since the early 80's - it's odd to not hear a sound coming from the computer.

[robj144]

Yeah, I've been using SSDs since they started to become more affordable... since about 2014 or so. I couldn't go back to non-SSD.

The NVME drives are especially fast.

Also, what do you mean it runs at 3.7?

[TBman]

Originally Posted by robj144

Yeah, I've been using SSDs since they started to become more affordable... since about 2014 or so. I couldn't go back to non-SSD.

The NVME drives are especially fast.

Also, what do you mean it runs at 3.7?

The processor speed is 3.7 gHz

[robj144]

Originally Posted by TBman

The processor speed is 3.7 gHz

Ahh... what processor is it though? Speed is a bit tricky as there is a base speed, turbo speed, and the number of threads/cores.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by robj144

Ahh... what processor is it though? Speed is a bit tricky as there is a base speed, turbo speed, and the number of threads/cores.

This is the computer I bought.

It's speed is just what I needed. My other computer was S-L-O-O-W-W-W

[robj144]

Originally Posted by TBman

This is the computer I bought.

It's speed is just what I needed. My other computer was S-L-O-O-W-W-W

Nice. The benchmark is pretty decent:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php...+4600G&id=3807

12 GB of RAM is odd. It's probably an 8 GB and 4 GB stick. Ryzens (your CPU) need dual channel RAM to perform at their best. To run at full dual channel, you need both sticks to be the same size. Right now, I think you're only running 4 GB at the dual channel level (or maybe it's 8 GB... forgot how it works with mismatched sized RAM). I'd recommend getting another 8 GB stick to get 16 GB of dual channel RAM. It will make the computer even faster.

It's also easy to do. RAM is just about the easiest component to replace. Just pop one stick out and pop the new one in... just make sure you grounded yourself before doing it though.

You want DDR4, 3200 Mhz RAM by the way. Ideally you want exactly the same specs as the other stick, but HP doesn't list the exact specs and I think it's proprietary for HP. Even, if they aren't exactly the same specs, you will still get dual channel and the computer should be faster.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by robj144

Nice. The benchmark is pretty decent:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php...+4600G&id=3807

12 GB of RAM is odd. It's probably an 8 GB and 4 GB stick. Ryzens (your CPU) need dual channel RAM to perform at their best. To run at full dual channel, you need both sticks to be the same size. Right now, I think you're only running 4 GB at the dual channel level (or maybe it's 8 GB... forgot how it works with mismatched sized RAM). I'd recommend getting another 8 GB stick to get 16 GB of dual channel RAM. It will make the computer even faster.

It's also easy to do. RAM is just about the easiest component to replace. Just pop one stick out and pop the new one in... just make sure you grounded yourself before doing it though.

You want DDR4, 3200 Mhz RAM by the way. Ideally you want exactly the same specs as the other stick, but HP doesn't list the exact specs and I think it's proprietary for HP. Even, if they aren't exactly the same specs, you will still get dual channel and the computer should be faster.

Thanks Rob, that's good to know.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by TBman

This is the computer I bought.

It's speed is just what I needed. My other computer was S-L-O-O-W-W-W

My guess is you have a pretty nice buy and I hope you enjoy it in good health!

That should be good. I took a gamble and bought 55 HP mini format with the Ryzen CPUs. The gamble was a poor history with AMD reliability and flakey behavior but they've been fine. I tested a group of them in production before getting the rest.

Department store grade stuff could be different but the professional grade HP memory modules have part numbers you can reference with Kingston and other memory suppliers. Very often CDW has HP branded memory modules at good prices and that can be your friend for the sake of warranty.

If you think you have a performance bottle neck Windows built in utilities will show you what it is. The most common silliness I see is people speculating on performance upgrades they think they need without knowing what it is. Storage is often a common bottleneck these days. Sometimes an older Windows process running in the modern 64 bit OS is the bottleneck.

[srick]

Originally Posted by imwjl

If you think you have a performance bottle neck Windows built in utilities will show you what it is. The most common silliness I see is people speculating on performance upgrades they think they need without knowing what it is. Storage is often a common bottleneck these days. Sometimes an older Windows process running in the modern 64 bit OS is the bottleneck.

I find that replacing the many metal nuts with bone nuts has helped my computer's performance. And I'm thinking of going with a round core processor instead of a hex core. Of course, you should consider altered tunings as an alternative to over-clocking.


Couldn't resist!

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by srick

I find that replacing the many metal nuts with bone nuts has helped my computer's performance. And I'm thinking of going with a round core processor instead of a hex core. Of course, you should consider altered tunings as an alternative to over-clocking.


Couldn't resist!

Confessions:

One of the Martins I bought came with the different pins (materials) and nut the previous owner tried. It also had spare stock from the guy's experiments. I had to nerd out making my own on yet another guitar replacing the synthetic with bone. I tried the plastic, bone, brass and fossilized bone across guitars. Pretty much no one could hear differences but dialing things in for intonation and good action had results.

I also had 3 Telecasters at same time - Highway One, 52 AVRI, FSR "Thinskin" Thinline. They I got a well regarded pickup set I tried in the different guitars along with trying brass and steel saddles. Nothing made a difference like the pickups, and pretty much no one could tell much different from the body types that varied.

For compute, what my users might think of as a computer are clusters that are 8 actual CPUs and 768 GB of RAM that run 13 "servers". Most of those resources are used by the platform constantly keeping a few copies of everything. When any of near 1000 staff feel performance issues the bottlenecks are pretty much always unfortunate things vendors and programmers do - not horsepower.

More and more the single most important contributor to performance is the network. These days that applies to work and home.

The altered turnings are a thing. I run the diagnostics to show the vendors the exact things they need to fix or change. I'm not a violent person but I get tested showing vendors and programmers expensive SQL queries and they propose "more RAM" instead of confessing to and fixing their crappy work.

[imwjl]

I could not put this off anymore and upgraded my company issue Surface Pro that is one of the two first line test/stage/model system I use.

My one frustration is using both an enterprise tier and personal tier Microsoft cloud (Microsoft 365 E tier and Office 365 family) display issue.

My assistant hasn't had any issues and same for associates who do similar work.

Two important points. None of us have any craptacular discount store or mail order stuff or the Dell or HP cheap brands. We're using business tier systems. The just out Windows update impacting L2P VPN impacts Windows 11 and 10 but there are different patches to remove depending on what version of Windows.

You can pursue the upgrade manually but I suggest waiting until your Windows Update shows it as an option.

It's a good update overall but I can't see wanting to use Windows anymore or the Chromebook world with how much ahead Apple is. We're moving to a new HR system right now that won't require Windows so I'm hoping to see an M Mac mini as competitive as M1 Apple laptops. In 2022 Microsoft's goodness and power is their cloud and not desktops.

[imwjl]

FWIW, at some point this week we're letting the floodgates open for all departments and personal use to use Windows 11 if staff wish to do so.

For some the update has been enough of a refresh to eliminate some quirks likely in the "old" folder. Our (IT) tests on new and 3 year old computers are all fine. I do detect the right mouse click "Show more options" to be a little slower on my 3+ year old test system that's an i5 Surface Pro 6 but the programs we use most and web use is all fast and responsive.

We are qualifying all this as only run the upgrade for systems Microsoft is listing in Windows update even though there are ways to run it on systems that aren't fully compatible.

Get updates for your programs before you run the OS update, and remember to open the Windows "Store" app and run all those updates after the OS upgrade.

Overall I like the new aesthetics.

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by imwjl

FWIW, at some point this week we're letting the floodgates open for all departments and personal use to use Windows 11 if staff wish to do so.

So would you say it's "ready for prime time" for the average user? I don't like to be a first adopter, and let others work out the big bugs at the start. which hopefully has happened (tho I haven't heard of any real doozies). I've even read some recommendations to wait for the first major yearly update that would be out next fall.