Other What currently makes your life awesome?

Fresh windows install, Steam downloads go wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

What was it in the end mate?

Weren't you having no luck with ethernet, WiFi nor psychic connections?

 

Finally managed to grab an nzxt kraken g12 for cheap on ebay, and picked up a cheap used corsair h105. Less than 50 quid, loud evga hydro pump out, temps around 50 degrees with fans at 15 percent, Vrms and mem modules have little coolers on them, Happy that its quiet now , still waiting on the new out take fans arriving

 

Oh yeah, sorry, I thought I mentioned in the ITX thread. Bypassed the internet connection requirement in the OOBE setup so I could finish installation with an "offline" account. Booted into Windows for the first time and boom: instant internet connection. No idea WTF is up with the Windows installer these days, that's two of us who've recently had network problems during installation. Last time I installed Win11 on this board it was fine - if I'd had this much trouble I'd have remembered.

 

It's funny you mention that, I downloaded the iso and it was also missing the network drivers, had to download them on my laptop, transfer using usb, then get everything working, was like wtf not even the ethernet worked.

 

I was going to suggest an offline installation but wasn't sure how easy that is with W11.

Plus my head's so messed up at the moment I don't trust any of my suggestions

Glad it's sorted though. Not sure why MS tinker so much, it seems they get things to work and then go "nah, we can't have that - change it!"

 

Three of us then.

Of all the Windows installations I've done since I used Win10 regularly, I cannot ever remember needing ethernet drivers during installation.

WiFi, sure - in fact I pretty much expect WiFi to not work during Windows installation. But not ethernet.

Way way way back in the day, back when this were all fields, lad we were all using Win95*, you had the option to install third-party drivers during Windows installation - without having to modify the installer image beforehand. That survived all the way until at least WinXP, and probably longer; you didn't need an internet connection during installation until relatively recently, but the option for additional drivers was at least there. I don't know at what point that functionality was taken away, but it took until October last year for that functionality to be restored in a preview build: https://www.neowin.net/news/windows...etwork-drivers-during-the-initial-setup-oobe/

* EDIT before Gareth chimes in : Yes, I know, it existed before Win95 as well, because you could customise autoexec.bat and config.sys to load additional device drivers (being cautious how much memory you were using, of course)

 

This brings back some memories of Win2K and XP installs. My bro had a vanilla XP install disc and a separate disk for SP2, so that was quite a labour, but latterly I streamlined SP3 into the XP image and it made all the difference. Installing Windows these days is just a breeze by comparison - I just put Win10 on a PC for the kids and I didn't need to manually install a single driver. Bliss!

 

Despite posts to the contrary, the Shift+F10 > Command Prompt > oobe\bypassnro trick does still work completely fine, I've been using it on fresh USB installs with an up to date installer and pre-installed 11 on retail devices. The only times it fails me is if the device is running S mode Windows or the device is enrolled to Autopilot.

 

If it’s even relatively recent hardware, it’s still worth installing drivers from the manufacturer. They’ll usually be more up to date than what Windows provides (via Updates or out of the box).

Though I really don’t have the patience for going through each and every single driver entry on the manufacturer website and individually downloading & installing them. Aorus App Centre, Gigabyte Control Centre, ROG Armo(u)ry Crate, etc, might be bloated applications, but if they keep critical drivers & firmware up to date then it’s a compromise I’m willing to make.

 

Bad News:- Meta are saying "move your Oculus account to us or lose your games forever" (I no longer posess the Oculus CV1)

The only game I care about on there is Elite: Dangerous. Everything else is on Steam VR which my HTC Vive XR Elite works with.

Good News:- Checked with Frontier and as a Kickstarter backer, I have "Unlimited" downloads of the standalone E: D installer available, and the option to request a steam code.

 

https://overclock3d.net/news/software/ghost-of-tsushima-directors-cut-is-coming-to-pc/

F yeah dude.

 

Hardly "awesome" in the grand scheme of things, but after after having recent emails from Amazon, Netflix AND Disney about steep rises in subscription prices, this seems noteworthy.

Just got an email from Tidal to say they will in fact be LOWERING my subscription from £30 to £17/month. Superb.

 

I was given a professional grade chainsaw that had ingested its spark plug electrode at 10,000 RPM. A repair shop wrote it off as an uneconomical repair, I bought a cheap replacement piston and filter for £13 off eBay, it was probably under an hour's work in total. I tell you what, its gutsy. I've got a Husqvarna 120 that's a nice little saw, this 550XP is in another class, although it was the vibrations to match.

 

Mate, where are your trousers and boots?!

 

In the house of course, it's just one quick cut, what could go wrong?

Of course, I was wearing hearing protection, doesn't matter how good you are with a saw, you can't avoid the noise.

 

Finally finished stripping, dusting, photographing, and re-packaging all the surplus kit here. Now I’ve just got to list all this…

Turns out that I have 5.2TB of spare SSDs now, 2TB NVMe and 3.2TB SATA…

 

No such thing as spare storage!

#datahoardingislife

 

I have a 1Tb nvme but it's just resting on my table and is in no way spare