Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2016 January 13

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January 13

Windows 10 saving the message in the mail app to the PC app

In Windows 10 how can I move the email message from the Documents folder in the Mail app to Documents in the PC app? What I want is a way to transfer some of my email messages to a flash drive or a back-up hard drive. I am able to move and save attachments, but not the main message. ₫♠♣♥♦

Using server hardware as gaming PC

As LGA 1156 platform is dirt cheap today, I am planning to build a PC for gaming and everyday usage until AMD Zen comes out. One seller is offering me an Asus P7F-X and a Xeon X3440. The price is cheap, but this combo is totally out of my expectation. I have almost no experience about server hardware.

According to the supported RAM list, it is okay to use regular non-EEC DIMMs and UDIMMs as long as the CPU is a quad core i5, i7, or Xeon, so I will be good. But I still have some confusions that need your clarifications.

First, I have noticed that the PCI Express x16 slot of the motherboard does not have a holder on the right. There should be one to stabilize the graphics card. What is the purpose of such design?

Second, I still confuse about PCIe lanes. As far as I know, PCIe devices communicate with the CPU via PCIe lanes. The introduction of socket 1156 eliminates the Northbridge, and the CPU communicates with PCIe devices directly using its own PCIe lanes. According to Intel product site, the Xeon X3440 has only 1 PCIe lane, and the Intel 3420 chipset (on the Asus P7F-X) has 8 PCIe lanes(?!). What is the use of chipset's PCIe lanes? How many lanes will it use if I connect my graphics card to the PCIe x16 slot? And at which speed will my graphics card run?

The third question is about driver support. I am using Windows 10, and it works flawlessly on ancient hardware. The manufacturer does not release drivers for Windows 10, but Microsoft somehow obtains them (probably from the manufacturer itself), and automatically download the necessary ones for my PCs. Maybe they are generic driver, but it is better than nothing. Will it be able to do the same with server motherboards? The chipset is strange and not used by many end-users.

Finally, I would like to know your thoughts and recommendations about such build for the above mentioned purposes. Livy (talk) 19:54, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Servers are desinged with higher reliability than gaming computers. Check for driver support and compatibility first. Note, Your operating system needs to support the number of CPUs and CPU cores, the hardware has or the game is designed for the server operating system. Early Windwos NT had the same kernel als server an workstation, games were designed most likely for Win 9x. Today Windows Server differ much more from other Windows. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 20:19, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I will be using Windows 10 on it. Livy (talk) 00:47, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, you will be far happier starting with a Gigabyte GA-X99-UD3P or GA-X99P-SLI motherboard. Server motherboards are not designed to handle fast video cards, which require a boatload of PCI lanes to run at full speed. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:32, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I can afford a Skylake build with fully custom liquid cooling right now, but as I mentioned above, this will be a temporary PC that I used while waiting for AMD Zen. Price/performance ratio is the highest priority. X99 motherboards are insanely expensive. Livy (talk) 00:47, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

To answer the question as best I can, chipset lanes can basically be used for whatever the motherboard manufacturer decides. The chipset is connected to the CPU via Direct Media Interface so the maximum speed is likely to be limited for anything which needs to cross to the CPU/RAM (i.e. most stuff which crosses the PCIe bus). The spec sheet says DMI for the X3440 is 2.5 GT/s, the same as PCI express 1.0/1.1 with I'm pretty sure the same linecode etc. And I think it has 4 DMI lanes per our article and [1]. In other words, whatever the chipset supports connecting to cards, you're only effectively going to be getting the speeds of 4 lane PCIe 1.0 from the chipset to the CPU.

Note that the chipset PCIexpress can also be an older version, it isn't that uncommon for PCH to be PCIe 2.0 and CPU to be 3.0 and I suspect when 4.0 comes you'll see the same 3.0 and 4.0 split. But Intel 3420 seems to be 2.0 [2] and so is the X3440 [3].

Anyway while I'm pretty sure you could connect the graphics card to the PCH and it will work (couldn't find confirmation, people definitely do this for mining and for virtual machines but the card wouldn't generally be the primary GPU then), you're effectively only going to get 4 lanes of PCIe 1.0 bandwidth at most regardless of whether it connects at PCIe 2.0 x8. Also the motherboard you listed only has a 8x slot connected to the PCH (with 4 lanes) so you'd need a riser device or card of some sort to even install it. You can see the block diagram in the manual (near the end) for how the PCIe slots are connected [4]. (The bandwidth will also be shared by the LAN or if you connect anything to the x1 slot.)

However all is not doom and gloom. I'm resonably confident there is a mistake in the Intel website. In particular the Intel data sheet I linked above [5] strongly seems to imply it has 16 lanes. There's also the fact that the same spec sheet you listed earlier says it supports "1x16, 2x8, 4x4", I don't know why you'd want to do that with 1 lane, actually I'm not sure if it's possible without a bridge chip. It would also seem fairly odd for it to be so limited. As far as I can tell, all the Xeon X34xx series up to X3470 and X3480 say the same thing. And as much as Intel didn't like it, there were definitely workstation (which I'm pretty sure the 3400 series was partly targetting) and even server uses for GPUs some of which would need a decent data link. Unfortunately I couldn't find a clearer source saying it definitely has 16 lanes (I don't totally trust my intepretation of a data sheet) and I would recommend further confirmation before you spend money except I don't know how you'll get that. Trying to get Intel to clarify will likely either be like banging your head against the wall or just useless.

Note you will definitely be limited to PCI express 2.0. I presume you're only looking at one GPU card and since it sounds like you're not looking at a really high budget, so I presume your planned GPU is midrange or low high end. You're likely to get minimal performance loss due to the limited bandwidth. See e.g. [6] with real world and synthetic benchmarks, even for PCIe 1.1 vs PCIe 3.0 at x16, the worst difference with a GTX 980 is under 10%. And the frame latency graphs are very similar. With dual GPU/SLI, you start to get bigger differences although even there it only reaches 20%.

Without latency tests but you can see similar results here [7] which even has down to PCIe 1.1 x4 on a Radeon Fury X. That also have results for a card running off the chipset although a few newer one and I'm not sure if it's the only GPU. It seems it does lose a bit of performance to off the CPU at the same speed and number of lanes, I presume because of factors like higher latency and stuff competing for the DMI link (which I believe is equivalent to PCIe 3.0 4x with the chipset and CPU use. BTW, remember PCIe 1.1 x16 will have the same bandwidth as PCIe 2.0 x8 or similar bandwidth to 3.0 x4 etc.

Older but similar results here [8]. You can easily find other user and profession PCI express scaling, any I've seen (which aren't that more recent ones admitedly) concur that it isn't as big a deal as sometimes suggested.

So while I wouldn't recommend a high end GPU at PCIe 1.1/1.0 x4 (although the benchmarks suggest maybe a 20% peformance loss at worst even with a Fury X), let alone PCIe 2.0 x1; I wouldn't worry about a high end GPU with even PCIe 1.1 x16 or 2.0 x8, let alone 2.0 x16. You could of course get bigger performance loss if the CPU or something else becomes a limiting factor and not simply the PCIexpress bandwidth.

P.S. Provided the system works as expected, I wouldn't worry too much about who the drivers come from for a home user config. I would only worry about the graphics drivers which shouldn't be affected by the motherboard. Edit: See you actually asked about whether there would be driver support. I strongly suspect there will be since Nehalem isn't that old even if Xeon and it's likely some workstations use it plus the chipset is likely to be similar to the same generation consumer ones. Plus Windows Server 2016 shares a similar base to Windows 10. Perhaps most significantly the driver architecture changes from Windows 7 (or even Vista) to Windows 10 are limited [9] so most things which worked in Windows 7 should work in Windows 10. However you'd need to either search harder or get someone to confirm if you want to be sure.

P.P.S. I'm not otherwise commenting on whether this is a good build. The only thing I will say is you may want to check what sort of performance you'll get from an AMD system of similar price (when it comes to price, you should be looking at the whole system, not just one component). Since you're looking at Nehalem (microarchitecture) and a somewhat lowish end yet not particularly low wattage CPU, you may find some of the AMD CPUs are able to compete, particularly if it's not a workload with high floating point or that benefits from hyperthreading.

Not relevant here but note that depending on the CPU limit some motherboards will divide the lanes to the slots depending on what's plugged in. So if they have 2 PCIe x16 slots, but only 16 lanes, often this means with one card you will get 16 lanes, with 2 cards 8 lanes. Note that this is normally automatic and fixed, even if you plug a x1 card in to the x16 slot you're still going to be limited to 8 lanes for the other card. If your motherboard has 4 slots all of which are sharing the 16 lanes, even if you plug 2 x1 cards in along with your GPU, it's still likely to be limited to x4.

Fancier motherboards use bridge chips which means both cards can connect at (up to) x16 speeds. Although the total bandwidth is still limited to 16 lanes (or whatever), this can be an advantage even with 2 GPUs, see [10] for a simplistic explanation and [11] for a more complicated one.

Nil Einne (talk) 19:50, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

How do I get Mozilla Firefox to open to my home page as a default?

Does Mozilla Firefox have a customer service telephone number? I cannot seem to find one anywhere. They have other support options (chat, email, etc.). But I'd like to make a phone call; I'd like to speak directly with a person on the phone. Does anyone know if Mozilla Firefox has a customer service telephone number? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:52, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

No, Mozilla is no commercial organisation. If You need support, ask in forums or reinstall the newest version. If this does not help, backup Your data like Bookmarks, reset the browser. If it does not solve the problem, uninstall it, delete the folders mozilla folders in the user profile, reinstall Firefox, check the problem to be solved, restore Your bookmarks, reinstall Your AddOns, done. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 21:11, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Ugggghhhhh. I am computer illiterate. This is the issue. When I open up Firefox, it always directly opens to my "home page" (which is AOL.com). Now, all of the sudden -- out of the blue -- when I open up Firefox, it will open up to whatever was the last page that I was on before exiting Firefox. I went into "options" or "settings" and looked to see if the setting was "open up Firefox to my Home Page of AOL" ... and indeed it was. What could be going on? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:33, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

There are things that change your page like that, but it is easy for you to fix. In Firefox, go to the page you want to be your home page. If you don't see "File Edit View... " across the top, right-click on the top and select "menu bar". Then select Tools, then Options. Under "General", after "when Firefox starts" click "Use Current Page" and that should do it. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 21:38, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

No, that did not work. When I log off of Firefox and then log back on, it (again ... or, still) brings me to the last page before I had exited. Which, in this case, was the Tools/Options/General page. Do I need to reboot the computer? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:03, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

You do not need to reboot the computer. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:22, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

When I open that dialog box (Linux it's under Edit -> Preferences rather than under Tools), it looks like this:

        When Firefox starts: [Show my home page]
                  Home page: [http://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl,cr]
                             [Use Current Pages] [Use Bookmark...]
                             [Restore to Default]

"Show my home page" is a pull-down. Another setting is "Show my windows and tabs from last time", but selecting this does not cause the "home page" setting to go away, it just cases it not to be used. Since Joseph says that he saw the AOL URL there as he intended, I suggest that somehow the "Show my windows and tabs from last time" setting has been selected and he just needs to change that. --76.69.45.64 (talk) 21:46, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

No, that also was not the issue. There are three choices in the pull down menu that reads "When Firefox starts". The choices are: show my home page; show a blank page; show the windows and tabs from last time. I made sure that option #1 was selected (show my home page). And down further, where it asks for what I want as the home page, I made sure it says "www.aol.com". Despite all the settings being correct, Firefox is still opening up to "the last session I had before I exited". Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:02, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I think that should work unless there is some malware that keeps resetting it (which happened to me one time). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:26, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

So, if the above suggestions do not work, then what? I have to uninstall Firefox, and the reinstall it? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:48, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Update: If anyone has the same problem as I did, I found the following web site: [12]. It describes the exact problem I had, and a solution. And the solution worked. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 08:29, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Did you uninstall the add-on or are you just running in permanent safe mode? 199.15.144.250 (talk) 13:43, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

As referenced above, I went to this website: [13]. That website gave two options. I selected the first option, which did not seem to work for me. So, I went to the second option, which did work. The second option was: Alternately, you can go back through the process I described to start Firefox in Safe Mode and choose the Reset option. That fixed the problem. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:24, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Could you describe EXACTLY what you do when you "exit" Firefox and "restart" it?

I suspect that when you say that you "exited", all you've really done is shut down the window or shut down the computer - and when you "re-open" it, you're not actually restarting Firefox - merely resuming a session already in progress...which would (of course) leave you at the same pages you left off with. I doubt there is an easy fix for that. You'd need to FULLY exit the tool and restart it to get it to place you at the desired page.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:07, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not really sure. I "exited" Firefox the way that I always had done so in the past. I click the "x" on the top right. When I do that, it says "You are about to close multiple windows. Are you sure you want to do that?" (or some such). I click "yes". To me, I have now "exited" Firefox. Then -- in the past -- if I clicked the Firefox icon on my Desktop, I would "re-enter" (start up) Firefox again. And it would always go to my Home Page (aol.com). That was in the past. Now -- with the new problem surfacing -- I "exited" the same way that I always did (as described in the previous sentences). But when I went back into Firefox to start it up again, it would always return to the last pages that I had visited prior to exiting. In other words, both before the problem and after the problem, I always exited in the same manner. I never did anything different. I am not sure I follow your line of questioning? I assume your theory is that I am exiting Firefox incorrectly. If your theory is correct, I would end up on the pages I left off. Yes, correct. But what about before the problem started? Why would it always bring me to my Home Page? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:30, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

SteveBaker: Nope. I shut my computer down when I go to bed, and when I next launch Firefox it has all the same tabs from before (though it doesn't load any tab other than the current one). This is how I like it. —Tamfang (talk) 04:53, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't really understand all of this computer mumbo jumbo. But it said, somewhere, that there could be a problem with "add ons" to Firefox. I think that -- somewhere along the way -- my "add on" that is called "Ad Blocker Plus" somehow contributed to the problem. I guess? When I hit "reset Firefox" in Safe Mode, I noticed that my Ad Blocker Plus was not there anymore. (Of course, not, since I just reset the program.) I then added it back in. So, I am guessing that was, somehow, the culprit. Who knows? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:32, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Several Crapware changes the default page of browsers. Some of it comes with AddOn to restore the software and the software restores the AddOn. Use CCleaner or other Software. Firefox for Windows (since Windows Vista) is organized in the following folders:

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox contains the program Firefox (can be fixed by reinstalling Firefox)
• C:\Users\<your_username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla User data, settings, Firefox user profiles, AddOns (backup this data, if you need it)
• C:\Users\<your_username>\AppData\Local\Mozilla Cache und update downloads and web cache (can be deleted, changeing the computer the folder does not exist)
• C:\Users\<your_username>\AppData\Local Low\Mozilla (optional temporary data, can be deleted)

Appdata/Application data is a hidden Folder and can be accesed by running or enter in the explorers address line %APPDATA% or enter in a command line into a cmd box: start %appdata% . Know what are You doing, this folder contains user settings. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 20:40, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:37, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Resolved

can you send data through the electrical system?

On Person of Interest, in the episode "No good deed" (around 8:00), they talk about sending data through the electrical system, ie. via the grid. Is this possible? IBE (talk) 22:32, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes. We have an article, power-line communication. One popular standard implementation of this technology is called X10, which sends data over residential power distribution wires. This technology, and many others like it, have many drawbacks: there are safety concerns, signal quality concerns, and so on; now that wireless radios are commonplace and cheap, those wireless technologies generally offer a better quality data transmission at a lower price. Nimur (talk) 22:41, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

X10 is really nasty - but it has it's uses. These days, you'd probably want an "Ethernet over power" (EOP) system. I use this to get ethernet connections from one end of my house to the other because WiFi can't handle the range or the intervening walls and floors. I have two little white boxes (mine cost about $35 for a pair and are made by Tp-Link - but there are others), each plugs into a power outlet and has an ethernet socket on the bottom. Plug one box into your router, and the other into your computer (or in my case, into a second WiFi router) - and as if by magic, your internet data is passed around over the power lines. I have four such devices scattered around in my garage, attic and basement and they work fairly seamlessly and are much faster than WiFi.

Outside the home, Broadband over power lines is used to do a similar thing over longer ranges. SteveBaker (talk) 15:59, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

There are some details here worth noting. "The grid" generally refers to, well, the whole power grid. Systems like X10 are designed to work only within a building's wiring. To achieve long-distance communication through the power grid, you need the cooperation of the power utility/utilities. Electrical distribution equipment is not generally designed to facilitate transmission of communications signals. Things like transformers will often block signals. To use the grid for communication the utility often needs to add or retrofit equipment. It's definitely possible, but you're not going to be able to transmit stuff over the grid unless you've made arrangements with the utility to do so. In other words you can't plug in and send me a message unless your utility offers you Internet access and you've signed up for it. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 19:29, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree - the Tp-link gear that I have doesn't work between my house and my neighbor - but it works perfectly well (and over longer distances) between different circuits within my own home - so there is likely to be filtering of some kind at the entry to each house or something like that. There is no chance that a system of that nature would work out on the grid unless specific provisions had been made for it. That said, our Power-line communication article talks about devices that peel the date off of the power line before a transformer, then re-inject it again afterwards - it's not clear how often those contraptions are used - but such things would allow communications across the grid. SteveBaker (talk) 03:49, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

My impression supported by sources provided so far and also List of broadband over power line deployments is that genuine end user internet access systems are very rare. They have and are being tested, mostly in developing countries but don't really have significant deployment and while it's possible it will succeed, people have been talking about this sort of stuff for years and years. (I think I recall discussions from before I even had DSL in Malaysia. Or if not then, not long after I first got it ~2000.) However low data rate systems are I believe more common and used for things like automatic reading of electronic Electricity meter and for load management. In fact load management doesn't require electronic meters, the traditional ripple control systems use for controlling hot water heaters and other non essential appliances didn't require anything normally considered electronic AFAIK (see [14] for example) and have existed since WW2 or before (according to our article). Yet even these systems are effectively sending data through the electrical system although only generally one way. It sounds like the example mentioned by StuRat is very similar. Nil Einne (talk) 16:16, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

See National Emergency Alarm Repeater. StuRat (talk) 06:22, 15 January 2016 (UTC)