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  • Windows memory logged on vs logged off

    - by Adi
    Let's say I power on my fresh installed Windows 7 x64 machine. After Windows boots up, there are a bunch of services being started in the background that start allocating memory. Then I enter my user/pass and Windows logs me in. Let's supose I don't do anythig else (I don't explicitely start any application) and I don't have any other app installed by me. So it's fresh install of my machine. My question is: how much memory is needed for all the UI & other stuff? Is it a good indicator to look into task manager and check all the processes started under my user name and sum up all the memory consumed by those processes to get the total amount of memory I am consuming just to stay logged on? Basically this is my question: how much memory is needed just to stay logged on? Now, if log off would all the memory be released back to the system so that the background services can benefit of? Also, I assume that there might be a different discussion for each Windows flavors (?)

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  • Is timeout in tracertoutput an indication of an error?

    - by nitramk
    TCP/IP packages sent from my computer to a remote server does not always reach destination and ends up being retransmitted sometimes several times before they succeed. To troubleshoot this, I'm running a tracert to the server: Tracing route to <site> [<address>] Over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms mymachine 2 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms gw.levonline.com [217.70.32.30] 3 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 81.201.213.218 4 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms bmf1-hmf1.driften.net [81.201.213.12] 5 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10ge-2-4-cr2.a1.sth.ownit.se [84.246.88.157] 6 <1 ms * <1 ms netnod-ix-ge-b-sth-4470.microsoft.com [195.69.11.181] 7 26 ms * * ge-3-0-0-0.ams-64cb-1a.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.42.1] 8 48 ms 57 ms 56 ms ten9-1.lts-76e-1.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.42.133] 9 * * * Request timed out. In step 6 and 7, I'm seeing timeouts while waiting for the reply from the server (as seen above). Running the same tracert many times gives varying output, sometimes the response is fine, but sometimes I get this timeout 1, 2 and sometimes for all 3 packets. The timeout always starts at the same server, netnod-ix-ge-b-sth-4470.microsoft.com. I've tried setting the tracert timeout to 10 seconds, but am still getting the timeout. Running tracert towards other servers does not give me the same timeout. Microsoft network technicians tells me that the problem is not on "their" side. Are these timeouts an indicator of a lost packet on the specific node which did not respond? Are the timeouts an indication of there being a problem, or is it normal?

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  • Thoughts on home NAS server

    - by user826955
    I currently have a NAS with a 2x2TB HDD 1x16GB SSD layout on a mini-itx atom board. The NAS is in a Lian Li PC-Q07 case. On this system I was running freebsd 8 with a gmirror raid 1 setup, which was enough for my needs. So far I was using the NAS for: Fileserver with AFP protocol (only mac clients used) SVN server hosting all my source trees of my projects JIRA (performance was okay-ish) Timemachine backup for the macs The power consumption was about 38W, although I did not put HDDs asleep when unused (I think this is not possible in a raid setup). I liked the NAS because: the performance was good through gigabit LAN (enough for my needs) power consumption was good its a pretty small case and fits in one of my cupboards I disliked the NAS a bit because: it was a bit noisy, the Q07 case vibrated a good amount because of the HDDs. I switched the NAS off every evening I do not have a real backup of the data on the NAS, only the internal raid 1 as safety. I really dont want to loose my source trees under no circumstances, so I would really be sleeping better if I knew I had regular backups somewhere. Recently, the board seemed to have died, I can't boot anymore. Thus, I was thinking about a redesign of my NAS (I still have to find out what parts are broken, I probably need to replace the mainboard and SSD. HDDs seem to be okay). First of all, I was wondering what other users have as backup for their NAS? Are you actually using a second NAS, and regularly copying over the data to have it safe? Or is there any better solution to this? I was thinking about getting a cheap NAS like the synology DS112j with only one disk, and use rsync or something similar to regularly copy data over to the second NAS (wake the second NAS upon start, shut it down after copy). Although this approach seems somewhat weird, It would have the benefit (?) that I could use a single disk instead of raid in the main NAS, and put the disk asleep when idle, and have the NAS running 24/7 with low energy consumption (I found no way to do this with a gmirror setup). Is there any recommended backup solution for a small NAS? Then I was thinking about a different raid setup. Since I have to buy a new mainboard as well as SSD, I might as well switch over to a i3 board with more ram, and also switch to ZFS. I am not familar with ZFS, I've never used it, but I read and hear much about it. Would it be viable to set up a ZFS storage with only 2 disks? Can I easily extend this storage with more disks, once I choose to add some? I could maybe get a new case like the Fractal Design Array R2 which has more 3,5" slots. I could as well get another 2 disks, but I would prefer sticking with the existing 2 for enegery/heat/noise reasons. Should I go for a ZFS storage or stick to my gmirror setup? I would also like to keep freebsd as operating system, and also I dont need any web gui or something (that is, I dont need/want to use FreeNAS or Openfiler etc). Does anyone maybe have a sample setup in use so I can compare energy consumption/noise/software setup? Any guidance towards the NAS of my dreams (silent, low energy, safe w/ backups) much appreciated.

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  • Ubuntu purple splash screen with blinking pixels?

    - by joxnas
    I had ubuntu 9.10 I upgraded to 10.04 after solving some problems (freeze at boot). Since then, I don't have the ubuntu's logo showing up when I boot, but a purple screen with some blinking pixels. I didn't care much about it... but today my computer took too long at that screen (normally it was just 1/4 second, but today it was like a minute..). And it happened like 4 or 5 times in a row (Only at the 5th time I realised that it was not freezing up, but it simply would took more time) After a reboot, it is again 1/4 second of purple screen but I don't want this problem to return.. so I want to get rid of the purple screen (I think it is an indicator of the problem) Well, I already installed the graphic drivers (going to system admnistration hardware drivers). But it didn't solve anything. (I don't know if it is even related) I searched in google, found something old (2006) and I think it maybe has some relation with my problems .. http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-294692.html But couldn't understand the conversation (i'm a linux novice) Sorry for my horrible english.. I would appreciate any help! My hardware: ATI Mobility Radeon 4650 HD P7450 2.13Ghz Core 2 Duo

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  • Cisco 678 Will Not Work using PPPoE - Possibly Because I Configured it Incorrectly..?

    - by Brian Stinar
    I am attempting to configure a Cisco 678 because I am totally sick on my Actiontec. However, I am running into some problems. It seems as though the Cisco is able to train the line, but I am unable to ping out. I am all right at programming, but still learning a lot when it comes to being a system administrator. I apologize in advance if I did something ridiculous, or am attempting to configure this device to do something it was not designed to do. It is almost like I am not correctly configuring the device to grab it's IP using PPPoA (like my Actiontec.) The output from "show running" (below) makes me think this too. Below are the commands I ran in order to configure this: # en # set nvram erase # write # reboot # en # set nat enable # set dhcp server enable # set PPP wan0-0 ipcp 0.0.0.0 # set ppp wan0-0 dns 0.0.0.0 # set PPP wan0-0 login xxxxx // My actual login # set PPP wan0-0 password yyyyy // My actual password # set PPP restart enabled # set int wan0-0 close # set int wan0-0 vpi 0 # set int wan0-0 vci 32 # set int wan0-0 open # write # reboot Here is the output from a few commands I thought could provide some useful information: cbos#ping 74.125.224.113 Sending 1 8 byte ping(s) to 74.125.224.113 every 2 second(s) Request timed out cbos#show version Cisco Broadband Operating System CBOS (tm) 678 Software (C678-I-M), Version v2.4.9 - Release Software Copyright (c) 1986-2001 by cisco Systems, Inc. Compiled Nov 17 2004 15:26:29 DMT FULL firmware version G96 NVRAM image at 0x1030f000 cbos#show errors - Current Error Messages - ## Ticks Module Level Message 0 000:00:00:00 PPP Info IPCP Open Event on wan0-0 1 000:00:00:14 ATM Info Wan0 Up 2 000:00:00:14 PPP Info PPP Up Event on wan0-0 3 000:00:01:54 PPP Info PPP Down Event on wan0-0 Total Number of Error Messages: 4 cbos#show interface wan0 wan0 ADSL Physical Port Line Trained Actual Configuration: Overhead Framing: 3 Trellis Coding: Enabled Standard Compliance: T1.413 Downstream Data Rate: 1184 Kbps Upstream Data Rate: 928 Kbps Interleave S Downstream: 4 Interleave D Downstream: 16 Interleave R Downstream: 16 Interleave S Upstream: 4 Interleave D Upstream: 8 Interleave R Upstream: 16 Modem Microcode: G96 DSP version: 0 Operating State: Showtime/Data Mode Configured: Echo Cancellation: Disabled Overhead Framing: 3 Coding Gain: Auto TX Power Attenuation: 0dB Trellis Coding: Enabled Bit Swapping: Disabled Standard Compliance: T1.413 Remote Standard Compliance: T1.413 Tx Start Bin: 0x6 Tx End Bin: 0x1f Data Interface: Utopia L1 Status: Local SNR Margin: 19.0dB Local Coding Gain: 7.5dB Local Transmit Power: 12.5dB Local Attenuation: 46.0dB Remote Attenuation: 31.0dB Local Counters: Interleaved RS Corrected Bytes: 0 Interleaved Symbols with CRC Errors: 2 No Cell Delineation Interleaved: 0 Out of Cell Delineation Interleaved: 0 Header Error Check Counter Interleaved: 0 Count of Severely Errored Frames: 0 Count of Loss of Signal Frames: 0 Remote Counters: Interleaved RS Corrected Bytes: 0 Interleaved Symbols with CRC Errors: 1 No Cell Delineation Interleaved: 0 Header Error Check Counter Interleaved: 0 Count of Severely Errored Frames: 0 Count of Loss of Signal Frames: 0 cbos#show int wan0-0 WAN0-0 ATM Logical Port PVC (VPI 0, VCI 32) is configured. ScalaRate set to Auto AAL 5 UBR Traffic IP Port Enabled cbos#show running Warning: traffic may pause while NVRAM is being accessed [[ CBOS = Section Start ]] NSOS MD5 Enable Password = XXXX NSOS MD5 Root Password = XXXX NSOS MD5 Commander Password = XXXX [[ PPP Device Driver = Section Start ]] PPP Port User Name = 00, "XXXX" PPP Port User Password = 00, XXXX PPP Port Option = 00, IPCP,IP Address,3,Auto,Negotiation Not Required,Negotiable ,IP,0.0.0.0 PPP Port Option = 00, IPCP,Primary DNS Server,129,Auto,Negotiation Not Required, Negotiable,IP,0.0.0.0 PPP Port Option = 00, IPCP,Secondary DNS Server,131,Auto,Negotiation Not Require d,Negotiable,IP,0.0.0.0 [[ ATM WAN Device Driver = Section Start ]] ATM WAN Virtual Connection Parms = 00, 0, 32, 0 [[ DHCP = Section Start ]] DHCP Server = enabled [[ IP Routing = Section Start ]] IP NAT = enabled [[ WEB = Section Start ]] WEB = enabled cbos# wtf...? Thank you all very much for taking the time to read this, and the help.

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  • Why are USB 2.0 devices crashing my system?

    - by BenAlabaster
    Background on the machine I'm having a problem with: The machine was inherited and appears to be circa 2003 (there's a date stamp on the power supply which leads me to this conclusion). I've got it set up as a Skype terminal for my 2 year old to keep in touch with her grandparents and other members of the family - which everyone loves. It has a generic baby-ATX motherboard with no identifying markings. CPU-Z identifies the motherboard model as VT8601 but doesn't provide me with any manufacturer name. There's one stamp on the motherboard that says "Rev.B". On board it has 10/100 LAN, 2 x USB 1.0, VGA, PS/2 for KB and mouse, parallel port, 2 x serial ports, 2 x IDE, 1 x floppy, 2 x SDRAM slots, 1 x CPU housing that is seating a 1.3GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 3 x PCI, 1 x AGP - although you can only use 2 of the PCI slots if you use the AGP slot due to the physical layout of the board. It's got 768Mb PC133 SDRAM - 1 x 512Mb & 1 x 256Mb installed as well as a D-LINK WDA-2320 54G Wi-Fi network card and a generic USB 2.0 expansion board containing 3 x external + 1 x internal USB connectors. All this is sitting in a slimline case. I don't know the wattage of the PSU, but can post this later if this proves to be helpful. The motherboard is running a version of Award BIOS for which I don't have the version number to hand but can again post this later if it would be helpful. It has an 80Gb Western Digital hard drive freshly formatted and built with Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 and all current patches. In addition to Windows XP, the only other software it's running is Skype 4.1 (4.2 crashes the machine as soon as it starts up). It's got a Daytek MV150 15" touch screen running through the VGA and COM1 with the most current drivers from the Daytek website and the most current version of ELO-Touchsystems drivers for the touch component. The webcam is a Logitech Webcam C200 with the latest drivers from the Logitech website. The problem If I hook any USB 2.0 devices to this machine, it hangs the whole machine and I have to hard boot it to get it back up. Workarounds found I can plug the same devices into the on board USB 1.0 connectors and everything works fine, albeit at reduced performance. I've tried 3 different kinds of USB thumb drives, 3 different makes/models of webcams and my iPhone all with the same effect. They're recognized and don't hang the machine when I hook them to the USB 1.0 but if I hook them to the USB 2.0 ports, the machine hangs within a couple of seconds of recognizing the devices were connected. Attempted solutions I've tried disabling all the on board devices that I'm not using - such as the on board LAN, the second COM port, the AGP connector etc. through the BIOS in an (perhaps misguided or futile) attempt to reduce the power consumption... I don't think it had any effect but it didn't do any harm. I was wondering if the PSU wattage just isn't enough to drive the USB 2.0 devices; I've seen this suggested but haven't found any confirmation that this could really be an issue - nor have I found a way to work around this issue - if indeed it is one. Any ideas? The only thing I haven't done which I only just thought of while writing this essay is trying the USB 2.0 card in a different PCI slot, or re-ordering the wi-fi and USB cards in the slots... although I'm not sure if this will make any difference. I've installed the USB card in another machine and it works without issue, so it's not a problem with the USB card itself. Other thoughts Perhaps this is an incompatibility between the USB 2.0 card and the BIOS, would re-flashing the BIOS with a newer version help? Do I need to be able to identify the manufacturer of the motherboard in order to be able to find a BIOS edition specific for this motherboard or will any version of Award BIOS function in its place? Question Does anyone have any ideas that could help me get my USB 2.0 devices hooked up to this machine?

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  • Expresscard Not Detected in PCI-E Adapter

    - by maxpower47
    I'm trying to put an expresscard TV tuner (Avermedia HC82) into my HTPC using this expresscard to PCI-E adapter. I've verified that the tuner works fine in my laptop. The motherboard is a Biostar TF7050-M2. When I install it and turn it on, the light on the back of the adapter comes on fine (there are two indicator lights on the back to show if it is using PCI-E or USB communication, USB communication goes through a USB cable connected between the card and a header on the motherboard) showing that it is working in PCI-E mode. However, the device is never detected in Windows 7 Professional x64. The auto detect never happens, it doesn't show up in the device manager, and I can have it rescan for new hardware and nothing is found. I tested the whole setup (tuner + adapter) in another PC (also using Win 7 Pro x64) and it worked fine. I also tried: Plugging the adapter in to the PCI-E x16 slot on the motherboard (I verified first that the x16 slot worked by installing a video card in it) Booting into safe mode and rescanning Updating the chipset drivers Installing the tuner drivers first Using a different USB cable, plugged in to one of the known good ports on the back of the board Trying it without the USB cable plugged in Removing the other PCI cards that were installed on the board Looking through the BIOS for any setting that might be disabling it somehow to no avail. I'm at a loss for what else to try. I really don't want to RMA it (the shipping back to newegg will be almost as much as it cost to buy in the first place. Any ideas?

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  • Do hard drive enclosures fail/is it the HDD or enclosure?

    - by x0a
    I'm having a whole host of problems with an external hard drive that was working just fine a couple of hours ago. I've had this problem before once, and that was about 3 months ago, here's what I documented: So a couple of hours ago I turned off all my computers and shut off the power to all my devices in my room, then went and turned the power off at the main switch so I could change an outlet. A couple hours later, after I've already slowly turned everything back on, I go to my xbox to try and watch a movie and it can't seem to list any of the movies I've got. So I go to my desktop to find that my external hard drive isn't there.. even though it's on and connected. It's also stationary and hidden behind something so there's not a whole lot of tampering/physical wear to that external. I plug it into my laptop to try and see what's going on. It starts making this endless loud screeching noise. None of that clicking that's usually associated with hd damage. It's not listed in my computers, and it shows up in Disk Management as "uninitialized" asking me to choose between two different partition types. After carefully disconnecting it and connecting it back, it asks me to format it, which I cancel. I start googling about my issue, starting to accept the situation, torn as hell and helpless and just about ready to toss the thing. Suddenly the screeching stops, after almost 45 minutes of it going, and Disk Management lists the drive as "Online" and "Healthy". Explorer pops up with all my files! I'm still being really careful with it and weary and treating it as though it's in fragile shape. I've downloaded some S.M.A.R.T. software to read the values and everything is listed as "OK" . No reallocated sectors, no read errors, no seek errors. I also ran a quick self-test, which completed without error. Everything seems fine. It looks to be a perfectly healthy external hard drive. So what the hell was that about? Was it doing some sort of maintenance or self-test? How am I supposed to tell the difference? I would've undoubtedly killed the drive for sure if had it gone on a bit longer. I've got the same problem now, with one exception: it doesn't magically reappear after the screeching stops. Occasionally I manage to get some S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics information, which basically reads everything as fine. The only problem is that my HD isn't initializing (so I can't access anything in it). I'm able to successfully run a quick smart test but not an extended one (I've only tried it once but got conflicting indications as to whether it was actually making any progress or not (was stuck on Random read test). So, final question (if all else fails): Could the hard drive enclosure be failing rather than the HDD? Is this a likely possibility at all? How would I know?

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  • Mac Finder: WD My Passport won't mount

    - by Matt
    I really need your help. I have a WD My Passport 650GB (with Firewire and USB). I'm using it for almost a year now and it always worked fine. While underway I simply plug it in via Firewire - at home I connect it to my Airport Extreme to have it available as a network storage. Today I connected the hd to my macbookpro (via firewire) and NOTHING. The hd is starting (clearly making a sound and the power-indicator is flashing) but it won't appear in Finder. I also tried it with USB - no sign. I ran Disk Utility and tried to repair the disk. At first try I got a red error line saying that something is wrong with the "headers". However the repair completed with a success message saying that everything is ok. I also verified the hd. Also with a success message. I did that a few times again and unplugged it in between. Never got the error with the headers again - it's always completing and saying everything is ok. However I can't mount the drive. That is what Disk Utility is showing. Any ideas on that? I really need the files on that hd. thank you in advance!

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  • What seems to be plaguing my hard drives?

    - by Craig
    In a little bit of a tech nightmare here. I know oodles about software, not so much more than the above average user about hardware. I recently had to toss an old desktop of mine. It was gradually getting slower and slower, and after shutting the desktop down for long periods of time, it would choke up upon startup. Sometimes it'd give a disk read error, sometimes say no OS was found, etc. Restarting it about 5-15 times would eventually boot properly. Weird. I also noticed that startup programs were going missing, Dropbox was reindexing my entire folder, and Backblaze was backing up less than the number of files that it should. This lead me to believe it was probably a hard drive issue. I began to wonder why I'd have hard drive issues, and came to closure when I assumed it was because of recent power surges and outages. I'm sure that does a number on the drive. I bought a new desktop recently. It's not a beast or anything, but it's enough for what I do. It's an eMachines (I know, I know) Ultra-Slim (http://www.amazon.com/eMachines-Ultra-Slim-ER1401-57-Desktop-PC/dp/B00475OG9U). This is ideal for me because it's small and portable. It comes with an AC adapter and battery, like a laptop. Just to be safe, I bought an uninterruptable power supply on top of that. It's basically protected completely from any outages that might scramble the drive. I set this up a few days ago and for the past few days I've been perfecting settings, downloading the usual applications, etc. Two days ago, I noticed Dropbox was reindexing my entire Dropbox folder. I installed both Dropbox and Backblaze on this system, but it is very much more lightweight than the other. Only about 15 third-party applications installed. I thought that maybe Dropbox and Backblaze were stressing my system, so I turned off Backblaze. Still, Dropbox runs and comes across this infinite reindex issue. I noticed that upon a reboot recently, two applications did not start on startup either. Also, much like my old desktop, every 3rd or 4th reboot, I'll be forced into a chkdsk. This makes me incredibly nervous. What could possibly be going wrong with my old, years-old desktop that is immediately causing the same issues to my new one? I've considered all of the basics. I'm in a very air conditioned room. I take run routine virus scans. I'd like to think I take care of my systems very well. What is this issue that is haunting me? There's always the possibility that this new desktop has a junk hard drive, but it just seems way too coincidental.

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  • Host ::1 resolves to remote IP

    - by thebuckst0p
    /etc/hosts files usually have this line, ::1 localhost. I thought ::1 was the equivalent of 127.0.0.1/localhost, and from my reading it seems to be the IPv6 version. So I was using it in Apache for firewalling, "Allow from ::1" and it only allowed local. Then suddenly that stopped working, so I pinged ::1 and got a remote IP address. I tracerouted it and it went through my ISP, through some Microsoft server, then another half dozen steps of asterisks... I'm not sure why this would be (the remote IP), but it doesn't seem good. I grep'd my hard drive for the remote IP and it doesn't appear anywhere. Is this some indicator that I'm being hacked, or normal behavior? Maybe my IPv6 settings are wrong? (This is a brand new MacBookPro with Snow Leopard.) Any ideas about this would be great - what is ::1 supposed to be, why would it be remote, should I be worried, how do I get it back to localhost? Thank you!

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  • Vista 64-bit, DISK BOOT FAILURE

    - by weka
    So I have this Acer Aspire AX3200-U3600A with Windows Vista (64-bit). Every night I turn it off and turn it back on in the morning. Around three weeks ago, I did a fresh factory reimage. Good as new. Then around two days ago, when I turned it on, I noticed it was running extremly slow. As in, it would often freeze up while I had multiple applications open when it usually never froze up. So I decided to restart my computer. Big mistake. My computer froze right after I clicked shut-down. I waited a while. Nothing. Waited some minutes. Nope. I decided to shut it down by pressing the power button. Here is where the problems begin. When I turned it back on, I saw the Windows logo and loading bar and then it loaded to black. I turned it off again forcefully by power button and then once more... then I got: AMD Data Change... Update New Data to DMI! then later the screen clears and I get: AHCI Option ROM BIOS Revision: 01.05.92 Date: 02-19-2008 Copyright (c) 2006-2008 Phoenix Technologies, LTD Port 01: Reset Port Error!! Port 02: then the screen clears again but this time, this loads from the bottom: Nvidia Boot Agent 249.0542 (copyright stuff... blah blah) PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable. PXE-M0F: Exiting Nvidia Boot Agent DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER. So I try to go into Safe Mode. Well, first of all it doesn't load as fast. After it loads disk.sys from windows/drivers, it will wait a while (2-3 mins) THEN load. However it loads the Acer eRecovery Management Tool. I have three options: Reset computer to factory default, Restore computer from user's backup, or Exit. However, the top two options are gray and disabled where as the Exit is in blue and definitely clickable. So obviously safe mode is not there... A strong thing to note: In the beginning when all of this started, I did a Boot Windows Normal from pressing f8 and I got to my desktop! It logged me in. I could see the icons on my files. However my desktop was extremely slow as in when I clicked on the Start menu, it would wait a while, then load up the menu with JUST the gradient, no text or icons... so as you can see... it saw my HDD? Also, before anyone says, I have NO USB plugged in. My mouse and keyboard are not USB inputs, I assure you. And this came without a recovery CD AND when I went in BIOS, to change the BOOT ORDER, I did NOT see a CD-ROM option. And when I tried pressing ALT+F10 to get into Acer eRecovery Management, the top two options were disabled as well. But sometimes on start-up, I get: Windows has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer. This error can be caused by unplugging a removable storage device such as an external USB drive while the device is in use, or by faulty hardware such as a hard drive or CD-ROM drive that is failing. Make sure any removeable storage is properly connected and then restart your computer. If you continue to receive this error message, contact the hardware manufacturer. Status: 0xc00000e9 Info: An unexpected I/O error has occured. Then I tried Last Known Good Configuration Settings, that gives me a BSOD. What should I do/

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  • SBS DC DNS entries going missing?

    - by Chris W
    I've been looking at a problem on a friends SBS (2003) server where the client PC's aren't able to connect to the server with a variety of errors reported. Checking the server itself the only indicator of an issue is an error 5782: Dynamic registration or deregistration of one or more DNS records failed with the following error: No DNS servers configured for the local system. Running a dcdiag reports that there are no DNS records registered for the DC so I fixed the problem by doing a netdiag /fix after which the dcdiag comes back clean and clients are ok again. It happened a few weeks ago as well and the same fix solved it. What are the possible causes of the DC DNS entries going missing? Is this a config option that needs tweaking or could it be solved by something simple like scheduling the SBS server to re-boot periodically? The only change they can think of that was made near to the time of the first instance of this problem occurring is that RRAS was started up to allow for a VPN connection from a home user. NB - The server is setup with a pair of NICs in a team so the server has a single virtual NIC providing both LAN/WAN connections to it. An external hardware firewall is in use rather than the windows firewall.

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  • Windows 7: Wi-Fi connection drops intermittently - only returns after "Troubleshoot connection" resets the adapter

    - by sleske
    On our laptop (running Windows 7) the Wi-Fi connection drops intermittently. Symptoms: Connectivity is suddenly lost, and the "signal strenght" indicator in the tray shows zero strength and a yellow "star" symbol. What happens then: The problem does not resolve itself by just waiting. If I click on the tray icon, the "Windows network diagnostics" wizard pops up and tells me that there is a networking problem (duh). If I click on the "repair" button (not sure about the wording), the wizard works for a while, then reports that it has reset the network adapter. Then Wi-Fi works again. While the above procedure has worked every time so far, it is very annoying. It takes 10-20s to repair the connection, and in the meantime downloads, video streams etc. may have been aborted. Some more details: The problem occurs without any apparent regularity, but usually a few minutes after powerup (though not every time). It happens frequently enough to be annoying. It is unlikely to be a router problem - another laptop running at the same time usually has no Wi-Fi problems. I am at a loss about what to try to troubleshoot this. Any ideas? Computer: Acer Aspire 7739Z. Wi-Fi card: Atheros AR5B125

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  • Discrepancy in file size on disk and ls output

    - by smokinguns
    I have a script that checks for gzipped file sizes greater than 1MB and outputs files along with their sizes as a report. This is the code: myReport=`ls -ltrh "$somePath" | egrep '\.gz$' | awk '{print $9,"=>",$5}'` # Count files that exceed 1MB oversizeFiles=`find "$somePath" -maxdepth 1 -size +1M -iname "*.gz" -print0 | xargs -0 ls -lh | wc -l` if [ $oversizeFiles -eq 0 ];then status="PASS" else status="CHECK FAILED. FOUND FILES GREATER THAN 1MB" fi echo -e $status"\n"$myReport The problem is that ls command outputs the files sizes as 1.0MB in the report but the status is "FAIL" as "$oversizeFiles" variable's value is 2. I checked the file sizes on disk and 2 files are 1.1MB. Why this discrepancy? How should I modify the script so that I can generate an accurate report? BTW, I'm on a Mac. Here is what man page for "find" says on my Mac OSX: -size n[ckMGTP] True if the file's size, rounded up, in 512-byte blocks is n. If n is followed by a c,then the primary is true if the file's size is n bytes (characters). Similarly if n is followed by a scale indicator then the file's size is compared to n scaled as: k kilobytes (1024 bytes) M megabytes (1024 kilobytes) G gigabytes (1024 megabytes) T terabytes (1024 gigabytes) P petabytes (1024 terabytes)

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  • Gateway laptop module bay light repeating 12 flashes - what error is that?

    - by Simurr
    I have a Gateway M465-E laptop currently running fine with a T2300E Core Duo installed. I wanted to upgrade it to a Core 2 Duo. My brother has the same model laptop and that took a Core 2 Duo (T7200) just fine. Picked up a T7200 on ebay and installed it. Normally when booting all the indicator lights flash once and the fan spins up before the machine actually starts to POST. With the T7200 installed all the lights flash and the fan spins up, but the module bay activity light flashes 12 times repeatedly. I'm assuming this is an error code, but can find no information about it. There are no beep codes. I've removed the ram, HD, Bay module and no change. Switched back to the T2300E and everything works fine. Anyone know what that error code is? The motherboard was actually manufactured by Foxconn if that helps. Update 1 Returned the CPU as defective. I tested it in 3 M465-E's and all of them did exactly the same thing. I still have no idea what the error code is. I'd still like to know for future reference. Perhaps I should try removing the CPU from one of them and see what happens.

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  • Does a high run queue length average result in poor performance for a web server?

    - by Domino
    I'm trying to narrow down the list of suspects of web servers that perform moderately well most of the time with occasional bouts of poor performance. I'm analyzing the data collected and summarized by sar. I've noticed a few things, one of which is high number of tasks in the run queue. 10:15:01 AM runq-sz plist-sz ldavg-1 ldavg-5 ldavg-15 blocked 10:25:01 AM 2 150 0.05 0.05 0.06 0 10:35:01 AM 4 149 0.08 0.12 0.09 0 10:45:01 AM 6 150 0.13 0.19 0.15 0 10:55:01 AM 1 150 0.08 0.10 0.13 0 11:05:01 AM 4 150 0.20 0.35 0.23 0 11:15:01 AM 3 149 0.02 0.09 0.15 0 11:25:01 AM 7 149 0.04 0.05 0.11 0 11:35:01 AM 4 150 0.14 0.15 0.13 0 11:45:01 AM 6 150 0.27 0.18 0.16 0 11:55:01 AM 5 150 0.08 0.10 0.13 0 12:05:01 PM 3 149 0.35 0.40 0.26 0 12:15:01 PM 19 155 0.02 0.10 0.16 1 12:25:01 PM 2 150 0.00 0.07 0.12 0 12:35:02 PM 3 151 0.58 0.24 0.17 0 12:45:01 PM 8 150 0.02 0.13 0.15 0 12:55:01 PM 6 149 0.81 0.29 0.18 0 01:05:01 PM 3 148 0.00 0.09 0.13 0 01:15:01 PM 7 149 0.00 0.04 0.11 0 I believe these are 10 minute averages. Is this an indicator that the web server is not performing as fast as it could if the average run queue length was lower?

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  • How does the Cloud compare to Colocation? And development too

    - by David
    Currently I/we run a SaaS web application where each subscriber has their own physical instance of the application in addition to their own database. The setup has each web application instance deployed on two different IIS boxes both for load-balancing and redundancy (the machines have their Windows Update install times 12 hours apart, for example). Databases are mirrored on two different SQL Server 2012 machines with AlwaysOn for uptime. I don't make use of SQL Server clustering (as it doesn't provide storage-level failover: we don't have a shared storage box). Because it's a Windows setup it means there are two Domain Controllers (we cheat: they're both Mac Minis, 17W each, which keeps our colo power costs low). Finally there's also an Exchange server (Mailbox, Hub Transport and Client Access). One of the SQL Servers also doubles-up as an Exchange Hub Transport. Running costs are about $700 a month for our quarter-rack colocation (which includes power and peering/transfer), then there's about $150 a month for SPLA licensing, so $850 a month in total. Then there's the hard-to-quantify cost of administration, but I reckon I spend a couple of hours a week checking-in on the servers: reviewing event logs, etc. I keep getting bombarded by ads and manufactured news stories about how great "the cloud" is. Back in 2008 when the cloud was taking off I was reading up about the proper "cloud" services like Google AppEngine, where you write in Python against Google's API and that's how they scale your application across servers and also use their database provider for scaling storage. Simple enough to understand. Then came along Amazon, and I understand how Amazon Storage works, but I'm not sure how Amazon Compute works: web application pages don't take much CPU time to compute, how do you even quantify usage anyway? Finally, RackSpace gets in the act and now I'm really confused. RackSpace advertise "Cloud" SQL Server 2012 available for about "$0.70 per hour", going by how they advertise it I thought the "hour" meant the sum of CPU time, IO blocking time, maybe time spent transferring data, so for a low-intensity application that works out pretty cheap then? Nope. I went on to a Sales Chat window and spoke to one of their advisors. They told me the $0.70/hour was actually for every hour the SQL Server is running... but who wants a SQL Server for only a few hours? You're going to need it available 24 hours a day for months on end. $0.70 * 24 * 31 works out at $520 a month, which is rediculously expensive for SQL Server. An SPLA license for SQL Server is only $50 a month or so. That $520 a month does not include "fanatical support", and you also need to stack on top the costs of the host Windows server instance too. From what I can tell, Rackspace's "Cloud" products seem like like an cynical rebranding of an overpriced VPS service, but priced by the hour. I have the same confusion about Windows Azure which uses similar terms to describe the products available, but I think that's because Azure offers both traditional shared webhosting in addition to their own APIs you can target for scalable applications.

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  • Monitor randomly shutting down, computer accepting no input, need to restart to get working

    - by Sebastian Lamerichs
    First off, spec list: OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1 CPU: i7-4820k @ 3.7GHz (stock) GPU: Two 3GB Radeon HD 7970s @ 1.05GHz Mobo: AsRock X79 Extreme6 HDD: 2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm RAM: 16GB quad-channel Kingston 1600MHz PSU: Antec HCG 900W Monitors: Acer S220HQL 1920x1080 + ViewSonic VA2251 1920x1080. Plugged into different GPUs. My problem is that, on a daily-ish basis, my monitors will turn off and not turn back on. My computer will still be running, GPU/CPU/case fans all still going, but the monitors will not turn back on. Additionally, it seems to cease all network activity. It doesn't seem to log any errors at all. I've verified that this is not a monitor issue, as when I press the num/caps/scroll lock buttons on my keyboard, the lights don't change, so the computer is clearly not accepting input. I have noticed a few other people on the internet with this problem, and some have claimed that it was solved by disabling PCI-Express Link State Power Management, but the issue still occurs for me after this. Whilst my CPU and GPUs both run at 100% 24/7, the temperatures are certainly not at dangerous levels, with the CPU averaging 65°C and the GPUs at 70°C and 78°C average. All components are brand new. I have tried forcing MSI Afterburner to start when Windows starts and to force a constant voltage, as this fixed the issue for a few days for another user, but he reported back saying that it had stopped working properly again, so I'm not putting too much faith in this working. Many people have said to adjust display sleep mode settings, but this will clearly not work, as the keyboard lights would still work if the monitors were the issue. The closest I can get to a log file for this issue is the following Folding@Home logs: 14:45:21:WU01:FS00:0x17:Completed 1120000 out of 2000000 steps (56%) 14:46:43:WU00:FS01:0x17:Completed 480000 out of 2000000 steps (24%) 14:46:49:WU01:FS00:0x17:Completed 1140000 out of 2000000 steps (57%) 14:48:30:WU01:FS00:0x17:Completed 1160000 out of 2000000 steps (58%) 14:49:55:WU01:FS00:0x17:Completed 1180000 out of 2000000 steps (59%) As you can see, the second GPU (FS01) stops computation approximately three and a half minutes before the issue occurs (it should be completing 1% every 80-120 seconds), and the first GPU (FS00) continues for a few minutes more before the logs just end. As far as I can tell, the computer has a network failure at the time the first GPU stops working, the latest IRC message I received from this time was at 14:47:58. That being said, there could have just not been any messages between then and 14:50:00, so I'm going to be connecting a laptop to the same bouncer to double-check if it happens again. The GPUs functioned perfectly well in another computer for a significant period of time, so I'm fairly confident that they aren't the issue, which means that this is being caused by either software or the motherboard, or possibly RAM. I really hope it's software. I heard from a forum board that there was a patch from Microsoft that fixed this problem, but "I've forgot which KB it was or the google search terms I used to find the patch, LOL.", so that's not much help. Haven't seen it mentioned by anyone else on about a dozen threads about this issue either. The computer is plugged in via a surge-protected power board, and I've run several other computers and pieces of hardware through it with no issues, so that is not the cause. I have just set the hard disk to never turn off, although I don't believe that that will solve the issue. Strangely, this has only happened when I'm not at the computer (which is actually a minority of the time). Until today it had only happened when I had not been actively using the computer for 6 hours, but today it happened within 10-30 minutes of me last using the computer actively. I have enabled file logging from MSI Afterburner, so hopefully this will shed some light on the issue, but I'm not too optimistic. I've heard that it could be a motherboard problem, but I figured I should ask around before RMAing it. Any help?

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  • SSH & SFTP: Should I assign one port to each user to facilitate bandwidth monitoring?

    - by BertS
    There is no easy way to track real-time per-user bandwidth usage for SSH and SFTP. I think assigning one port to each user may help. Idea of implementation Use case Bob, with UID 1001, shall connect on port 31001. Alice, with UID 1002, shall connect on port 31002. John, with UID 1003, shall connect on port 31003. (I do not want to lauch several sshd instances as proposed in question 247291.) 1. Setup for SFTP: In /etc/ssh/sshd_config: Port 31001 Port 31002 Port 31003 Subsystem sftp /usr/bin/sftp-wrapper.sh The file sftp-wrapper.sh starts the sftp server only if the port is the correct one: #!/bin/sh mandatory_port=3`id -u` current_port=`echo $SSH_CONNECTION | awk '{print $4}'` if [ $mandatory_port -eq $current_port ] then exec /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server fi 2. Additional setup for SSH: A few lines in /etc/profile prevents the user from connecting on the wrong port: if [ -n "$SSH_CONNECTION" ] then mandatory_port=3`id -u` current_port=`echo $SSH_CONNECTION | awk '{print $4}'` if [ $mandatory_port -ne $current_port ] then echo "Please connect on port $mandatory_port." exit 1 fi fi Benefits Now it should be easy to monitor per-user bandwidth usage. A Rrdtool-based application could produce charts like this: I know this won't be a perfect calculation of the bandwidth usage: for example, if somebody launches a bruteforce attack on port 31001, there will be a lot of traffic on this port although not from Bob. But this is not a problem to me: I do not need an exact computation of per-user bandwidth usage, but an indicator that is approximately correct in standard situations. Questions Is the idea of assigning one port for each user is a good one? Is the proposed setup an reliable one? If I have to open dozens of ports for many users, should I expect a performance drawback? Do you know a rrdtool-based application which could make the chart above?

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  • Is it possible to theme Windows 7 like XP?

    - by LonelyPixel
    Everybody seems to mean the window frame colour and a set of desktop background pictures when they're talking about Windows 7 themes. Does anybody remember what themes used to be in Windows XP? You could actually alter the appearance of the window frame, how close buttons and menu popups looked, put a texture on the taskbar, all those funny things. Microsoft themselves have published a number of XP themes over time (Luna on XP, Royal on MCE2005, Zune later on). I don't say that most of those and the numerous third party XP themes were beautiful or even practical. But it was possible to create something nice. In Windows 7 (I suppress the existence of Windows Vista...) such a theme could well be used to increase readability to a level before Aero Glass again. I mean, you cannot really tell whether a Glass window is active or not. I've been tweaking the colours and transparency levels a lot recently but the only safe indicator is the close button: it's red when the window is active, it's colourless otherwise. Then there's the window title. It is always painted black, on however dark a background. Again, regardless of whether the window is active or not. Turning off Aero is not an option in Windows 7 anymore. Classic design looks just ugly there. It already wasn't exactly looking good on XP with the wide start menu. So, can we increase the readability of the Windows 7 UI with themes like in XP or didn't Microsoft learn a thing since the Windows 7 Preview "Vista"?

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  • How does voltage fluctuation affect a laptop

    - by user45535
    I own an Acer Aspire 3680. In the past 2 years, I have given, my laptop for service due to the same kind of problem. Last year at the same time, I gave my laptop to the service center. They repaired it and I managed to ask them this question: Why does this problem happen. How can I prevent it? They said, that due to voltage fluctuations, something has gone wrong in your laptop. They actually were hesistant in mentioning as to which part they changed/repaired. Now recently the same problem happened and again I gave it to a service center to get it repaired and they also said, this is caused due to voltage fluctuation. My Question is: Due to Voltage fluctuation which part of the laptop can get affected. How can I prevent this from happening. Laptop Symptoms before I gave to service: When I plug in the adapter for charging the Green Light blinks and the laptop doesn't turn on. Neither does the charging indicator indicates the light, while charging.

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  • Part 2&ndash;Load Testing In The Cloud

    - by Tarun Arora
    Welcome to Part 2, In Part 1 we discussed the advantages of creating a Test Rig in the cloud, the Azure edge and the Test Rig Topology we want to get to. In Part 2, Let’s start by understanding the components of Azure we’ll be making use of followed by manually putting them together to create the test rig, so… let’s get down dirty start setting up the Test Rig.  What Components of Azure will I be using for building the Test Rig in the Cloud? To run the Test Agents we’ll make use of Windows Azure Compute and to enable communication between Test Controller and Test Agents we’ll make use of Windows Azure Connect.  Azure Connect The Test Controller is on premise and the Test Agents are in the cloud (How will they talk?). To enable communication between the two, we’ll make use of Windows Azure Connect. With Windows Azure Connect, you can use a simple user interface to configure IPsec protected connections between computers or virtual machines (VMs) in your organization’s network, and roles running in Windows Azure. With this you can now join Windows Azure role instances to your domain, so that you can use your existing methods for domain authentication, name resolution, or other domain-wide maintenance actions. For more details refer to an overview of Windows Azure connect. A very useful video explaining everything you wanted to know about Windows Azure connect.  Azure Compute Windows Azure compute provides developers a platform to host and manage applications in Microsoft’s data centres across the globe. A Windows Azure application is built from one or more components called ‘roles.’ Roles come in three different types: Web role, Worker role, and Virtual Machine (VM) role, we’ll be using the Worker role to set up the Test Agents. A very nice blog post discussing the difference between the 3 role types. Developers are free to use the .NET framework or other software that runs on Windows with the Worker role or Web role. Developers can also create applications using languages such as PHP and Java. More on Windows Azure Compute. Each Windows Azure compute instance represents a virtual server... Virtual Machine Size CPU Cores Memory Cost Per Hour Extra Small Shared 768 MB $0.04 Small 1 1.75 GB $0.12 Medium 2 3.50 GB $0.24 Large 4 7.00 GB $0.48 Extra Large 8 14.00 GB $0.96   You might want to review the Windows Azure Pricing FAQ. Let’s Get Started building the Test Rig… Configuration Machine Role Comments VM – 1 Domain Controller for Playpit.com On Premise VM – 2 TFS, Test Controller On Premise VM – 3 Test Agent Cloud   In this blog post I would assume that you have the domain, Team Foundation Server and Test Controller Installed and set up already. If not, please refer to the TFS 2010 Installation Guide and this walkthrough on MSDN to set up your Test Controller. You can also download a preconfigured TFS 2010 VM from Brian Keller's blog, Brian also has some great hands on Labs on TFS 2010 that you may want to explore. I. Lets start building VM – 3: The Test Agent Download the Windows Azure SDK and Tools Open Visual Studio and create a new Windows Azure Project using the Cloud Template                   Choose the Worker Role for reasons explained in the earlier post         The WorkerRole.cs implements the Run() and OnStart() methods, no code changes required. You should be able to compile the project and run it in the compute emulator (The compute emulator should have been installed as part of the Windows Azure Toolkit) on your local machine.                   We will only be making changes to WindowsAzureProject, open ServiceDefinition.csdef. Ensure that the vmsize is small (remember the cost chart above). Import the “Connect” module. I am importing the Connect module because I need to join the Worker role VM to the Playpit domain. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WorkerRole name="WorkerRole1" vmsize="Small"> <Imports> <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" /> <Import moduleName="Connect"/> </Imports> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition> Go to the ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg and note that settings with key ‘Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.%%%%’ have been added to the configuration file. This is because you decided to import the connect module. See the config below. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="1" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>             Let’s go step by step and understand all the highlighted parameters and where you can find the values for them.       osFamily – By default this is set to 1 (Windows Server 2008 SP2). Change this to 2 if you want the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. The Advantage of using osFamily = “2” is that you get Powershell 2.0 rather than Powershell 1.0. In Powershell 2.0 you could simply use “powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted ./myscript.ps1” and it will work while in Powershell 1.0 you will have to change the registry key by including the following in your command file “reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell /v ExecutionPolicy /d Unrestricted /f” before you can execute any power shell. The other reason you might want to move to os2 is if you wanted IIS 7.5.       Activation Token – To enable communication between the on premise machine and the Windows Azure Worker role VM both need to have the same token. Log on to Windows Azure Management Portal, click on Connect, click on Get Activation Token, this should give you the activation token, copy the activation token to the clipboard and paste it in the configuration file. Note – Later in the blog I’ll be showing you how to install connect on the on premise machine.                       EnableDomainJoin – Set the value to true, ofcourse we want to join the on windows azure worker role VM to the domain.       DomainFQDN, DomainControllerFQDN, DomainAccountName, DomainPassword, DomainOU, Administrators – This information is specific to your domain. I have extracted this information from the ‘service manager’ and ‘Active Directory Users and Computers’. Also, i created a new Domain-OU namely ‘CloudInstances’ so all my cloud instances joined to my domain show up here, this is optional. You can encrypt the DomainPassword – refer to the instructions here. Or hold fire, I’ll be covering that when i come to certificates and encryption in the coming section.       Now once you have filled all this information up, the configuration file should look something like below, <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="2" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="45f55fea-f194-4fbc-b36e-25604faac784" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="WIN-KUDQMQFGQOL.play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="************************" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="OU=CloudInstances, DC=Play, DC=Pit, DC=com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="Playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration> Next we will be enabling the Remote Desktop module in to the ServiceDefinition.csdef, we could make changes manually or allow a beautiful wizard to help us make changes. I prefer the second option. So right click on the Windows Azure project and choose Publish       Now once you get the publish wizard, if you haven’t already you would be asked to import your Windows Azure subscription, this is simply the Msdn subscription activation key xml. Once you have done click Next to go to the Settings page and check ‘Enable Remote Desktop for all roles’.       As soon as you do that you get another pop up asking you the details for the user that you would be logging in with (make sure you enter a reasonable expiry date, you do not want the user account to expire today). Notice the more information tag at the bottom, click that to get access to the certificate section. See screen shot below.       From the drop down select the option to create a new certificate        In the pop up window enter the friendly name for your certificate. In my case I entered ‘WAC – Test Rig’ and click ok. This will create a new certificate for you. Click on the view button to see the certificate details. Do you see the Thumbprint, this is the value that will go in the config file (very important). Now click on the Copy to File button to copy the certificate, we will need to import the certificate to the windows Azure Management portal later. So, make sure you save it a safe location.                                Click Finish and enter details of the user you would like to create with permissions for remote desktop access, once you have entered the details on the ‘Remote desktop configuration’ screen click on Ok. From the Publish Windows Azure Wizard screen press Cancel. Cancel because we don’t want to publish the role just yet and Yes because we want to save all the changes in the config file.       Now if you go to the ServiceDefinition.csdef file you will see that the RemoteAccess and RemoteForwarder roles have been imported for you. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WorkerRole name="WorkerRole1" vmsize="Small"> <Imports> <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" /> <Import moduleName="Connect" /> <Import moduleName="RemoteAccess" /> <Import moduleName="RemoteForwarder" /> </Imports> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition> Now go to the ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg file and you see a whole bunch for setting “Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.%%%” values added for you. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="2" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="45f55fea-f194-4fbc-b36e-25604faac784" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="WIN-KUDQMQFGQOL.play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="************************" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="OU=CloudInstances, DC=Play, DC=Pit, DC=com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="Playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.Enabled" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountUsername" value="Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountEncryptedPassword" value="MIIBnQYJKoZIhvcNAQcDoIIBjjCCAYoCAQAxggFOMIIBSgIBADAyMB4xHDAaBgNVBAMME1dpbmRvd 3MgQXp1cmUgVG9vbHMCEGa+B46voeO5T305N7TSG9QwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQAEggEABg4ol5Xol66Ip6QKLbAPWdmD4ae ADZ7aKj6fg4D+ATr0DXBllZHG5Umwf+84Sj2nsPeCyrg3ZDQuxrfhSbdnJwuChKV6ukXdGjX0hlowJu/4dfH4jTJC7sBWS AKaEFU7CxvqYEAL1Hf9VPL5fW6HZVmq1z+qmm4ecGKSTOJ20Fptb463wcXgR8CWGa+1w9xqJ7UmmfGeGeCHQ4QGW0IDSBU6ccg vzF2ug8/FY60K1vrWaCYOhKkxD3YBs8U9X/kOB0yQm2Git0d5tFlIPCBT2AC57bgsAYncXfHvPesI0qs7VZyghk8LVa9g5IqaM Cp6cQ7rmY/dLsKBMkDcdBHuCTAzBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwFAYIKoZIhvcNAwcECDRVifSXbA43gBApNrp40L1VTVZ1iGag+3O1" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountExpiration" value="2012-11-27T23:59:59.0000000+00:00" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteForwarder.Enabled" value="true" /> </ConfigurationSettings> <Certificates> <Certificate name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.PasswordEncryption" thumbprint="AA23016CF0BDFC344400B5B82706B608B92E4217" thumbprintAlgorithm="sha1" /> </Certificates> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>          Okay let’s look at them one at a time,       Enabled - Yes, we would like to enable Remote Access.       AccountUserName – This is the user name you entered while you were on the publish windows azure role screen, as detailed above.       AccountEncrytedPassword – Try and decode that, the certificate is used to encrypt the password you specified for the user account. Remember earlier i said, either use the instructions or wait and i’ll be showing you encryption, now the user account i am using for rdp has the same password as my domain password, so i can simply copy the value of the AccountEncryptedPassword to the DomainPassword as well.       AccountExpiration – This is the expiration as you specified in the wizard earlier, make sure your account does not expire today.       Remote Forwarder – Check out the documentation, below is how I understand it, -- One role in an application that implements a remote desktop connection must import the RemoteForwarder module. The two modules work together to enable the remote desktop connections to role instances. -- If you have multiple roles defined in the service model, it does not matter which role you add the RemoteForwarder module to, but you must add it to only one of the role definitions.       Certificate – Remember the certificate thumbprint from the wizard, the on premise machine and windows azure role machine that need to speak to each other must have the same thumbprint. More on that when we install Windows Azure connect Endpoints on the on premise machine. As i said earlier, in this blog post, I’ll be showing you the manual process so i won’t be scripting any star up tasks to install the test agent or register the test agent with the TFS Server. I’ll be showing you all this cool stuff in the next blog post, that’s because it’s important to understand the manual side of it, it becomes easier for you to troubleshoot in case something fails. Having said that, the changes we have made are sufficient to spin up the Windows Azure Worker Role aka Test Agent VM, have it connected with the play.pit.com domain and have remote access enabled on it. Before we deploy the Test Agent VM we need to set up Windows Azure Connect on the TFS Server. II. Windows Azure Connect: Setting up Connect on VM – 2 i.e. TFS & Test Controller Glad you made it so far, now to enable communication between the on premise TFS/Test Controller and Azure-ed Test Agent we need to enable communication. We have set up the Azure connect module in the Test Agent configuration, now the connect end points need to be enabled on the on premise machines, let’s have a look at how we can do this. Log on to VM – 2 running the TFS Server and Test Controller Log on to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on Virtual Network Click on Virtual Network, if you already have a subscription you should see the below screen shot, if not, you would be asked to complete the subscription first        Click on Install Local Endpoints from the top left on the panel and you get a url appended with a token id in it, remember the token i showed you earlier, in theory the token you get here should match the token you added to the Test Agent config file.        Copy the url to the clip board and paste it in IE explorer (important, the installation at present only works out of IE and you need to have cookies enabled in order to complete the installation). As stated in the pop up, you can NOT download and run the software later, you need to run it as is, since it contains a token. Once the installation completes you should see the Windows Azure connect icon in the system tray.                         Right click the Azure Connect icon, choose Diagnostics and refer to this link for diagnostic detail terminology. NOTE – Unfortunately I could not see the Windows Azure connect icon in the system tray, a bit of binging with Google revealed that the azure connect icon is only shown when the ‘Windows Azure Connect Endpoint’ Service is started. So go to services.msc and make sure that the service is started, if not start it, unfortunately again, the service did not start for me on a manual start and i realised that one of the dependant services was disabled, you can look at the service dependencies and start them and then start windows azure connect. Bottom line, you need to start Windows Azure connect service before you can proceed. Please refer here on MSDN for more on Troubleshooting Windows Azure connect. (Follow the next step as well)   Now go back to the Windows Azure Management Portal and from Groups and Roles create a new group, lets call it ‘Test Rig’. Make sure you add the VM – 2 (the TFS Server VM where you just installed the endpoint).       Now if you go back to the Azure Connect icon in the system tray and click ‘Refresh Policy’ you will notice that the disconnected status of the icon should change to ready for connection. III. Importing Certificate in to Windows Azure Management Portal But before that you need to import the certificate you created in Step I in to the Windows Azure Management Portal. Log on to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on ‘Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN’ and then ‘Management Certificates’ followed by Add Certificates as shown in the screen shot below        Browse to the location where you saved the certificate earlier, remember… Refer to Step I in case you forgot.        Now you should be able to see the imported certificate here, make sure the thumbprint of the certificate matches the one you inserted in the config files        IV. Publish Windows Azure Worker Role aka Test Agent Having completed I, II and III, you are ready to publish the Test Agent VM – 3 to the cloud. Go to Visual Studio and right click the Windows Azure project and select Publish. Verify the infomration in the wizard, from the advanced settings tab, you can also enabled capture of intellitrace or profiling information.         Click Next and Click Publish! From the view menu bar select the Windows Azure Activity Log window.       Now you should be able to see the deployment progress in real time.             In the Windows Azure Management Portal, you should also be able to see the progress of creation of a new Worker Role.       Once the deployment is complete you should be able to RDP (go to run prompt type mstsc and in the pop up the machine name) in to the Test Agent Worker Role VM from the Playpit network using the domain admin user account. In case you are unable to log in to the Test Agent using the domain admin user account it means the process of joining the Test Agent to the domain has failed! But the good news is, because you imported the connect module, you can connect to the Test Agent machine using Windows Azure Management Portal and troubleshoot the reason for failure, you will be able to log in with the user name and password you specified in the config file for the keys ‘RemoteAccess.AccountUsername, RemoteAccess.EncryptedPassword (just that enter the password unencrypted)’, fix it or manually join the machine to the domain. Once you have managed to Join the Test Agent VM to the Domain move to the next step.      So, log in to the Test Agent Worker Role VM with the Playpit Domain Administrator and verify that you can log in, the machine is connected to the domain and the connect service is successfully running. If yes, give your self a pat on the back, you are 80% mission accomplished!         Go to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on Virtual Network, click on Groups and Roles and click on Test Rig, click Edit Group, the edit the Test Rig group you created earlier. In the Connect to section, click on Add to select the worker role you have just deployed. Also, check the ‘Allow connections between endpoints in the group’ with this you will enable to communication between test controller and test agents and test agents/test agents. Click Save.      Now, you are ready to deploy the Test Agent software on the Worker Role Test Agent VM and configure it to work with the Test Controller. V. Configuring VM – 3: Installing Test Agent and Associating Test Agent to Controller Log in to the Worker Role Test Agent VM that you have just successfully deployed, make sure you log in with the domain administrator account. Download the All Agents software from MSDN, ‘en_visual_studio_agents_2010_x86_x64_dvd_509679.iso’, extract the iso and navigate to where you have extracted the iso. In my case, i have extracted the iso to “C:\Resources\Temp\VsAgentSetup”. Open the Test Agent folder and double click on setup.exe. Once you have installed the Test Agent you should reach the configuration window. If you face any issues installing TFS Test Agent on the VM, refer to the walkthrough on MSDN.       Once you have successfully installed the Test Agent software you will need to configure the test agent. Right click the test agent configuration tool and run as a different user. i.e. an Administrator. This is really to run the configuration wizard with elevated privileges (you might have UAC block something's otherwise).        In the run options, you can select ‘service’ you do not need to run the agent as interactive un less you are running coded UI tests. I have specified the domain administrator to connect to the TFS Test Controller. In real life, i would never do that, i would create a separate test user service account for this purpose. But for the blog post, we are using the most powerful user so that any policies or restrictions don’t block you.        Click the Apply Settings button and you should be all green! If not, the summary usually gives helpful error messages that you can resolve and proceed. As per my experience, you may run in to either a permission or a firewall blocking communication issue.        And now the moment of truth! Go to VM –2 open up Visual Studio and from the Test Menu select Manage Test Controller       Mission Accomplished! You should be able to see the Test Agent that you have just configured here,         VI. Creating and Running Load Tests on your brand new Azure-ed Test Rig I have various blog posts on Performance Testing with Visual Studio Ultimate, you can follow the links and videos below, Blog Posts: - Part 1 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - Part 2 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - Part 3 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Videos: - Test Tools Configuration & Settings in Visual Studio - Why & How to Record Web Performance Tests in Visual Studio Ultimate - Goal Driven Load Testing using Visual Studio Ultimate Now that you have created your load tests, there is one last change you need to make before you can run the tests on your Azure Test Rig, create a new Test settings file, and change the Test Execution method to ‘Remote Execution’ and select the test controller you have configured the Worker Role Test Agent against in our case VM – 2 So, go on, fire off a test run and see the results of the test being executed on the Azur-ed Test Rig. Review and What’s next? A quick recap of the benefits of running the Test Rig in the cloud and what i will be covering in the next blog post AND I would love to hear your feedback! Advantages Utilizing the power of Azure compute to run a heavy virtual user load. Benefiting from the Azure flexibility, destroy Test Agents when not in use, takes < 25 minutes to spin up a new Test Agent. Most important test Network Latency, (network latency and speed of connection are two different things – usually network latency is very hard to test), by placing the Test Agents in Microsoft Data centres around the globe, one can actually test the lag in transferring the bytes not because of a slow connection but because the page has been requested from the other side of the globe. Next Steps The process of spinning up the Test Agents in windows Azure is not 100% automated. I am working on the Worker process and power shell scripts to make the role deployment, unattended install of test agent software and registration of the test agent to the test controller automated. In the next blog post I will show you how to make the complete process unattended and automated. Remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Hope you enjoyed this post, I would love to hear your feedback! If you have any recommendations on things that I should consider or any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment. See you in Part III.   Share this post : CodeProject

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  • Installing Lubuntu 14.04.1 forcepae fails

    - by Rantanplan
    I tried to install Lubuntu 14.04.1 from a CD. First, I chose Try Lubuntu without installing which gave: ERROR: PAE is disabled on this Pentium M (PAE can potentially be enabled with kernel parameter "forcepae" ... Following the description on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PAE, I used forcepae and tried Try Lubuntu without installing again. That worked fine. dmesg | grep -i pae showed: [ 0.000000] Kernel command line: file=/cdrom/preseed/lubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash -- forcepae [ 0.008118] PAE forced! On the live-CD session, I tried installing Lubuntu double clicking on the install button on the desktop. Here, the CD starts running but then stops running and nothing happens. Next, I rebooted and tried installing Lubuntu directly from the boot menu screen using forcepae again. After a while, I receive the following error message: The installer encountered an unrecoverable error. A desktop session will now be run so that you may investigate the problem or try installing again. Hitting Enter brings me to the desktop. For what errors should I search? And how? Finally, I rebooted once more and tried Check disc for defects with forcepae option; no errors have been found. Now, I am wondering how to find the error or whether it would be better to follow advice c in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PAE: "Move the hard disk to a computer on which the processor has PAE capability and PAE flag (that is, almost everything else than a Banias). Install the system as usual but don't add restricted drivers. After the install move the disk back." Thanks for some hints! Perhaps some of the following can help: On Lubuntu 12.04: cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 13 model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz stepping : 6 microcode : 0x17 cpu MHz : 600.000 cache size : 2048 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 mtrr pge mca cmov clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe up bts est tm2 bogomips : 1284.76 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual power management: uname -a Linux humboldt 3.2.0-67-generic #101-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jul 15 17:45:51 UTC 2014 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS Release: 12.04 Codename: precise cpuid eax in eax ebx ecx edx 00000000 00000002 756e6547 6c65746e 49656e69 00000001 000006d6 00000816 00000180 afe9f9bf 00000002 02b3b001 000000f0 00000000 2c04307d 80000000 80000004 00000000 00000000 00000000 80000001 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 80000002 20202020 20202020 65746e49 2952286c 80000003 6e655020 6d756974 20295228 7270204d 80000004 7365636f 20726f73 30352e31 007a4847 Vendor ID: "GenuineIntel"; CPUID level 2 Intel-specific functions: Version 000006d6: Type 0 - Original OEM Family 6 - Pentium Pro Model 13 - Stepping 6 Reserved 0 Brand index: 22 [not in table] Extended brand string: " Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz" CLFLUSH instruction cache line size: 8 Feature flags afe9f9bf: FPU Floating Point Unit VME Virtual 8086 Mode Enhancements DE Debugging Extensions PSE Page Size Extensions TSC Time Stamp Counter MSR Model Specific Registers MCE Machine Check Exception CX8 COMPXCHG8B Instruction SEP Fast System Call MTRR Memory Type Range Registers PGE PTE Global Flag MCA Machine Check Architecture CMOV Conditional Move and Compare Instructions FGPAT Page Attribute Table CLFSH CFLUSH instruction DS Debug store ACPI Thermal Monitor and Clock Ctrl MMX MMX instruction set FXSR Fast FP/MMX Streaming SIMD Extensions save/restore SSE Streaming SIMD Extensions instruction set SSE2 SSE2 extensions SS Self Snoop TM Thermal monitor 31 reserved TLB and cache info: b0: unknown TLB/cache descriptor b3: unknown TLB/cache descriptor 02: Instruction TLB: 4MB pages, 4-way set assoc, 2 entries f0: unknown TLB/cache descriptor 7d: unknown TLB/cache descriptor 30: unknown TLB/cache descriptor 04: Data TLB: 4MB pages, 4-way set assoc, 8 entries 2c: unknown TLB/cache descriptor On Lubuntu 14.04.1 live-CD with forcepae: cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 13 model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz stepping : 6 microcode : 0x17 cpu MHz : 600.000 cache size : 2048 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 1 core id : 0 cpu cores : 1 apicid : 0 initial apicid : 0 fdiv_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe bts est tm2 bogomips : 1284.68 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual power management: uname -a Linux lubuntu 3.13.0-32-generic #57-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jul 15 03:51:12 UTC 2014 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS Release: 14.04 Codename: trusty cpuid CPU 0: vendor_id = "GenuineIntel" version information (1/eax): processor type = primary processor (0) family = Intel Pentium Pro/II/III/Celeron/Core/Core 2/Atom, AMD Athlon/Duron, Cyrix M2, VIA C3 (6) model = 0xd (13) stepping id = 0x6 (6) extended family = 0x0 (0) extended model = 0x0 (0) (simple synth) = Intel Pentium M (Dothan B1) / Celeron M (Dothan B1), 90nm miscellaneous (1/ebx): process local APIC physical ID = 0x0 (0) cpu count = 0x0 (0) CLFLUSH line size = 0x8 (8) brand index = 0x16 (22) brand id = 0x16 (22): Intel Pentium M, .13um feature information (1/edx): x87 FPU on chip = true virtual-8086 mode enhancement = true debugging extensions = true page size extensions = true time stamp counter = true RDMSR and WRMSR support = true physical address extensions = false machine check exception = true CMPXCHG8B inst. = true APIC on chip = false SYSENTER and SYSEXIT = true memory type range registers = true PTE global bit = true machine check architecture = true conditional move/compare instruction = true page attribute table = true page size extension = false processor serial number = false CLFLUSH instruction = true debug store = true thermal monitor and clock ctrl = true MMX Technology = true FXSAVE/FXRSTOR = true SSE extensions = true SSE2 extensions = true self snoop = true hyper-threading / multi-core supported = false therm. monitor = true IA64 = false pending break event = true feature information (1/ecx): PNI/SSE3: Prescott New Instructions = false PCLMULDQ instruction = false 64-bit debug store = false MONITOR/MWAIT = false CPL-qualified debug store = false VMX: virtual machine extensions = false SMX: safer mode extensions = false Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology = true thermal monitor 2 = true SSSE3 extensions = false context ID: adaptive or shared L1 data = false FMA instruction = false CMPXCHG16B instruction = false xTPR disable = false perfmon and debug = false process context identifiers = false direct cache access = false SSE4.1 extensions = false SSE4.2 extensions = false extended xAPIC support = false MOVBE instruction = false POPCNT instruction = false time stamp counter deadline = false AES instruction = false XSAVE/XSTOR states = false OS-enabled XSAVE/XSTOR = false AVX: advanced vector extensions = false F16C half-precision convert instruction = false RDRAND instruction = false hypervisor guest status = false cache and TLB information (2): 0xb0: instruction TLB: 4K, 4-way, 128 entries 0xb3: data TLB: 4K, 4-way, 128 entries 0x02: instruction TLB: 4M pages, 4-way, 2 entries 0xf0: 64 byte prefetching 0x7d: L2 cache: 2M, 8-way, sectored, 64 byte lines 0x30: L1 cache: 32K, 8-way, 64 byte lines 0x04: data TLB: 4M pages, 4-way, 8 entries 0x2c: L1 data cache: 32K, 8-way, 64 byte lines extended feature flags (0x80000001/edx): SYSCALL and SYSRET instructions = false execution disable = false 1-GB large page support = false RDTSCP = false 64-bit extensions technology available = false Intel feature flags (0x80000001/ecx): LAHF/SAHF supported in 64-bit mode = false LZCNT advanced bit manipulation = false 3DNow! PREFETCH/PREFETCHW instructions = false brand = " Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.50GHz" (multi-processing synth): none (multi-processing method): Intel leaf 1 (synth) = Intel Pentium M (Dothan B1), 90nm

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  • Parallelism in .NET – Part 5, Partitioning of Work

    - by Reed
    When parallelizing any routine, we start by decomposing the problem.  Once the problem is understood, we need to break our work into separate tasks, so each task can be run on a different processing element.  This process is called partitioning. Partitioning our tasks is a challenging feat.  There are opposing forces at work here: too many partitions adds overhead, too few partitions leaves processors idle.  Trying to work the perfect balance between the two extremes is the goal for which we should aim.  Luckily, the Task Parallel Library automatically handles much of this process.  However, there are situations where the default partitioning may not be appropriate, and knowledge of our routines may allow us to guide the framework to making better decisions. First off, I’d like to say that this is a more advanced topic.  It is perfectly acceptable to use the parallel constructs in the framework without considering the partitioning taking place.  The default behavior in the Task Parallel Library is very well-behaved, even for unusual work loads, and should rarely be adjusted.  I have found few situations where the default partitioning behavior in the TPL is not as good or better than my own hand-written partitioning routines, and recommend using the defaults unless there is a strong, measured, and profiled reason to avoid using them.  However, understanding partitioning, and how the TPL partitions your data, helps in understanding the proper usage of the TPL. I indirectly mentioned partitioning while discussing aggregation.  Typically, our systems will have a limited number of Processing Elements (PE), which is the terminology used for hardware capable of processing a stream of instructions.  For example, in a standard Intel i7 system, there are four processor cores, each of which has two potential hardware threads due to Hyperthreading.  This gives us a total of 8 PEs – theoretically, we can have up to eight operations occurring concurrently within our system. In order to fully exploit this power, we need to partition our work into Tasks.  A task is a simple set of instructions that can be run on a PE.  Ideally, we want to have at least one task per PE in the system, since fewer tasks means that some of our processing power will be sitting idle.  A naive implementation would be to just take our data, and partition it with one element in our collection being treated as one task.  When we loop through our collection in parallel, using this approach, we’d just process one item at a time, then reuse that thread to process the next, etc.  There’s a flaw in this approach, however.  It will tend to be slower than necessary, often slower than processing the data serially. The problem is that there is overhead associated with each task.  When we take a simple foreach loop body and implement it using the TPL, we add overhead.  First, we change the body from a simple statement to a delegate, which must be invoked.  In order to invoke the delegate on a separate thread, the delegate gets added to the ThreadPool’s current work queue, and the ThreadPool must pull this off the queue, assign it to a free thread, then execute it.  If our collection had one million elements, the overhead of trying to spawn one million tasks would destroy our performance. The answer, here, is to partition our collection into groups, and have each group of elements treated as a single task.  By adding a partitioning step, we can break our total work into small enough tasks to keep our processors busy, but large enough tasks to avoid overburdening the ThreadPool.  There are two clear, opposing goals here: Always try to keep each processor working, but also try to keep the individual partitions as large as possible. When using Parallel.For, the partitioning is always handled automatically.  At first, partitioning here seems simple.  A naive implementation would merely split the total element count up by the number of PEs in the system, and assign a chunk of data to each processor.  Many hand-written partitioning schemes work in this exactly manner.  This perfectly balanced, static partitioning scheme works very well if the amount of work is constant for each element.  However, this is rarely the case.  Often, the length of time required to process an element grows as we progress through the collection, especially if we’re doing numerical computations.  In this case, the first PEs will finish early, and sit idle waiting on the last chunks to finish.  Sometimes, work can decrease as we progress, since previous computations may be used to speed up later computations.  In this situation, the first chunks will be working far longer than the last chunks.  In order to balance the workload, many implementations create many small chunks, and reuse threads.  This adds overhead, but does provide better load balancing, which in turn improves performance. The Task Parallel Library handles this more elaborately.  Chunks are determined at runtime, and start small.  They grow slowly over time, getting larger and larger.  This tends to lead to a near optimum load balancing, even in odd cases such as increasing or decreasing workloads.  Parallel.ForEach is a bit more complicated, however. When working with a generic IEnumerable<T>, the number of items required for processing is not known in advance, and must be discovered at runtime.  In addition, since we don’t have direct access to each element, the scheduler must enumerate the collection to process it.  Since IEnumerable<T> is not thread safe, it must lock on elements as it enumerates, create temporary collections for each chunk to process, and schedule this out.  By default, it uses a partitioning method similar to the one described above.  We can see this directly by looking at the Visual Partitioning sample shipped by the Task Parallel Library team, and available as part of the Samples for Parallel Programming.  When we run the sample, with four cores and the default, Load Balancing partitioning scheme, we see this: The colored bands represent each processing core.  You can see that, when we started (at the top), we begin with very small bands of color.  As the routine progresses through the Parallel.ForEach, the chunks get larger and larger (seen by larger and larger stripes). Most of the time, this is fantastic behavior, and most likely will out perform any custom written partitioning.  However, if your routine is not scaling well, it may be due to a failure in the default partitioning to handle your specific case.  With prior knowledge about your work, it may be possible to partition data more meaningfully than the default Partitioner. There is the option to use an overload of Parallel.ForEach which takes a Partitioner<T> instance.  The Partitioner<T> class is an abstract class which allows for both static and dynamic partitioning.  By overriding Partitioner<T>.SupportsDynamicPartitions, you can specify whether a dynamic approach is available.  If not, your custom Partitioner<T> subclass would override GetPartitions(int), which returns a list of IEnumerator<T> instances.  These are then used by the Parallel class to split work up amongst processors.  When dynamic partitioning is available, GetDynamicPartitions() is used, which returns an IEnumerable<T> for each partition.  If you do decide to implement your own Partitioner<T>, keep in mind the goals and tradeoffs of different partitioning strategies, and design appropriately. The Samples for Parallel Programming project includes a ChunkPartitioner class in the ParallelExtensionsExtras project.  This provides example code for implementing your own, custom allocation strategies, including a static allocator of a given chunk size.  Although implementing your own Partitioner<T> is possible, as I mentioned above, this is rarely required or useful in practice.  The default behavior of the TPL is very good, often better than any hand written partitioning strategy.

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