GA-X99-UPD3

I bought this motherboard back in early July for work. It took about a month to get to my desk. At the time I had promised my interns that they would get to set up this system. This was a mistake due to the complexity of the chipset on the motherboard but lesson learned.

The gave it their best shot but could never get the motherboard to post. The Power supply they used at the time was an ANTEC 850 W which seemed to me like it would have enough power.

The problem was, the X99 chipset is a haswell chipset and Haswell chipset motherboards need power supply that are EPS12V compliant. Thankfully this great informative site, gave me the information I needed.

Originally we thought the motherboard was defective because we tried several power supplies with no luck. Sadly none of the ones we tried were EPS12V compliant.

Gigabyte accepted an RMA, checked the board out, updated the BIOS and returned the board to me. By then I knew about the Powersupply limitations, so I'd asked my hardware guy to lend me one. He lent me a 450W Powersupply that did work. At least it told me my mobo was good.

Then I looked in my other big chassis, and I have an Antec 900 which is EPS12V compliant. After moving the motherboard and configuring it now everything works great.

It took nearly 2 months from the time I ordered this motherboard to the time the system is up and running, and now I've finally finishing installing the supported operating systems.

In case you're wondering, the chassis we used was an Antec ATX 902, which comes with a USB 3.0 plug from the chassis and I needed to buy an adapter for motherboard, because we've had this chassis for a few years and the original motherboard did not have USB 3.0 so the plug must have gotten lots with all the equipment here.

Really? Cortana during the install?

Years ago in Windows XP they introduced this stupid like assistant dog and that didn't last very long because it was a giant waste of time.

Not sure why they decided Cortana is so useful. For starters if you have windows 10,  you can't do any search without Cortana popping up. I don't need her. I can google like a champ.

But Microsoft with their infinite wisdom decided that Cortana once you're in the OS isn't good enough. Now with the latest technical preview build 14295,  now they introduce her during the setup.

I can't decide important things like where my display drivers come from anymore. Something that is a major pain in the ass for someone who tests graphics drivers and would prefer testing the beta drivers I'm paid to test instead of uninstalling drivers Microsoft is pushing on me.  But I digress.

Not ready to use Cortana!

So Cortana isn't just a helper it's also a major spy. It will have it's nose into everything and lord knows what it will do with this information. Scary...

Windows 10 and things people just press ok to

Windows 10 is full of spyware and sends information to Microsoft when it wants. Most people don't spend much time reading these things, and use automatic install so all these are turned on by default.

Finally System updated to Windows 10.

Took close to 4 months. But both systems started the upgrade yesterday.

My windows 8.1 Pro setup on a HP Z220 finished the update yesterday.My Windows 7 Ultimate on the Lenovo S20 is finishing the update now!

Windows 8.1 asking me if I'm ready to update

Windows 8.1 updating to Windows 10

Windows 7 Ultimate ready to update to 10

Windows 7 Ultimate upgrading to 10

Windows 7 64 bits on the last part of the upgrade

Oh Boy! My Windows 10 upgrade is finally coming!!!

I setup these machines back in June in preparation for Windows 10 free upgrade, starting July 29th. It is now almost November 29th, 4 months later. I have been checking for these updates almost every day since July 29th, for the first 2 weeks, and now at least twice a week, rebooting system often and making sure all updates were always installed.

Windows 7 Ultimate telling me it was ready

Windows 7 ultimate downloading Windows 10

Windows 8.1 Pro downloading Windows 10.

Lets see how long the download takes.....

Seething.....

Windows 10 - build 10586 also known as 1511 because it was released November 15th, is causing me endless grief. I have yet to figure out how to disable windows 10 pushing display drivers continuously.  If each time I boot into an OS I get forced a WHQL driver, it makes my job of testing drivers before they get certified really difficult.

I used to be able to turn off forced driver updates using this dialog below. That is a screen capture from Windows 10 - build 10240 - The release of a few months ago.

This is the dialog of Windows 10 - 10586, known as 1511.   So far since installing it a hour ago, I have removed the display drivers from the device manager 5 times. I'm not sure how to configure it to stop getting device drivers installed automatically.

I've googled this morning. All I can find to turn off device driver updates is the dialog from the release of Windows 10. No one says what to do with this new build.

If you know PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT how to do it. Thanks.

Wow... partitions on hard disk = portable devices?

Really Microsoft???? 

Shown below is Windows Explorer in Microsoft Windows 10, showing that I have 17 partitions on my hard disk going from Windows XP all the way to Windows 10, with room for S2016 when it is released.  How are these "PORTABLE" devices? In Device manager on the same Operating system it shows all the partitions as Portable Devices.  I cannot remove one and walk away with it.  What kind of drug was the programmer taking while he designed this little gem????

Good grammar Microsoft. .

Makes me wonder who does QA sometimes.  

Window upates are always a PITA

Don't know what's up of late but Windows updates is really pissing me off.

Currently I'm either refreshing or reinstalling Windows 8.1  along with Windows 10 on multiple machines.  In April 2014 there was a massive update for Windows 8.1, and I've been installing with that version. There's over 150 updates to add over that version and of late for some reason, while update it seems to jam randomly on one update. Not the same one on every system, just random.

You notice 1 or 2 hours later that the message is the same. You stop the updates, let the system reboot, and restart and it gets stuck again at the same place. Sometimes I have to stop, reboot and restart updates multiple times before it finally gets all it's updates.

I wonder how many days people have let their PC run for fear of killing it?

Of course I can hear someone saying "Fuck the updates, ignore them". Uhm. no.   If I don't update my systems, on the day I have a critical test to do for my boss in 2 minutes, I will reboot this system and it will decide it's installing 200 updates and won't be ready until next day!

Microsoft does not make it easy for beta testers

In the current beta's of windows 10, Microsoft ignores completely when you check to say "No, let me choose what to do" and "NEVER install driver software from Windows updates" the display driver installs within 2 minutes of being on the network.

Do you have any idea how IRRITATING it is to validate a beta display driver, when it takes about 20 reboots to install. Half of the time I cannot install fast enough, the "in-the-box" driver installs, and installs, and installs. 

If I'm not extra cautious I'll end up validating a WHQL certified driver instead of the one I was asked to test.

Wouldn't it be helpful if Microsoft actually made windows functionality work?

Windows 10 hell

I'm back at work and stuck in Windows 10 hell.

I'm not even going to say how I feel about this OS. Except for the fact it will be free and auto-update for everyone.  But I think this OS is being deployed free because it's a good way to spy on all of us. All those agencies like CSIS and NSA probably have all sorts of back door.

Anything free makes me really suspicious.

Anyways, I'm in Windows 10 hell. It's all I'm doing. Installing, testing, breaking. Freaking!

Hopefully it's sunny later today and I can go canoeing with my new friend  :)