Two Bad Tracks`

[yogi]

I got an e-mail today from my NAS telling me its hard drive is in danger of becoming history. All the important stuff on that NAS is backed up off line on a portable SSD. It's not just for redundancy sake but also for security reasons. About half the data I keep on the NAS is one of a kind. It's nowhere else and as such would be lost should the NAS go south. Given that such things as an image for my old Vista computer is among those one of a kind directories I'm not too too worried about losing it if I had to. In fact I also have a copy of my Win98 machine, but, sadly, that's not an image and not bootable. If I knew then what I know now things would be different. I do have the original install disks, however, should I care to try and go back in time.

Panic would be a good word to describe my feelings when I got that e-mail. It simply said some sectors were bad and they have statistics showing that bad sectors lead to dead hard drives eventually. I should back up everything at once and run the disk check utility to get more advice. Back up the NAS? To what? I don't have a dedicated media for that purpose. I do have a few HDD's from various machines I disemboweled, and one SSD. So I fired up Linux on the laptop and called on gparted to format the SSD. That drive was the home of my old MBR version of Windows 7 prior to my changing over to gpt and efi booting. So, since I don't intend to go back to MBR, and all those files have changed drastically by now, that old SSD is now my new NAS backup device. The SSD checks out as good but has a bunch of sectors that are no longer useable. I'm not sure how many bad sectors turn a drive to bad from good, but that point was not reached yet on the SSD.

I manually copied nearly all the files from my NAS to the SSD. I discovered in the process that direct copying that way was not the most efficient. I would load a bunch of files into my RAM disk memory, the one connected by bus directly to the CPU of my Windows 7 machine, and then copy from the RAM disk to the SSD backup disk. For some reason that was a lot quicker than going from one hard drive to another. So, anyway, now that all the files I care about on the NAS are safely backed up. I ordered a new drive from New Egg and dived into the disk checking utility on the NAS. It has a short test and a long test to choose from. Apparently it does the short test every day. Last night that short test found 2 bad sectors, and I think I know where they are because those files did not transfer when I did the backup. It was simply an archive copy of Linux Mageia, and I was having trouble with it the other day. The long test, presumably with more detail would take nearly three hours to complete. I didn't want to wait that long and besides I think I know all I need to know already. I'm going to replace that drive no matter how good or bad it really is.

The NAS has only one drive, and the OS that runs the server. The immediate question is how do I install a new OS on the new drive? I can't even get Synology to admit what OS is on there and much less get a copy of it to reinstall. After some wailing and gnashing of teeth it became apparent to me that there is a Synology web site just for this purpose. People replace drives all the time, and they give a web version of how to initialize the new disks. You would think I have a CD to do all this since I set it all up when I bought the system new. Well, maybe I do but I cant find it. Fortunately there are ways to do it without a CD. I only have one concern. The old drive is 1 TB in size but I could not buy one less than 2 TB. It's an exact replacement except for the capacity. What could go wrong? You will read about it if something does.

[Kellemora]

Sorry to hear your NAS is going belly up.
My first NAS held two 1 tb drives, so if one drive went south, you could replace it and it would rebuild.
But what happened with it was what I have always feared the most, the controller card going south.
Now I only use the NAS for shared stuff that is already backed up, often redundantly.

I've had a few hard drives with bad sectors, but as long as they were blocked from being used by the internal program, I never lost anything on them, well, that I know of anyhow, hi hi.

I just use RSync to make a copy of one drive to another, it is faster than direct copy, but still slow the first time you do it.

I hope you get everything backed up and your new NAS holds up forever!

[yogi]

This is not the first time a hard drive outlived it's usefulness. I believe this one suffered a premature death, but then again, it's not dead yet. There was no warning about this potentially fatal error, and in fact there were some misleading drive status reports telling me all things are good, not to worry. When I got the e-mail it was from some service or another running in the background. The NAS runs Linux and I could find no way to do a disk repair as is possible with Windows. I could have examined all the tracks to get a more detailed report but there was nothing obvious about fixing the problem dynamically. It probably did mark the bad sectors, but I can't be sure. There are a few files I cannot access well enough to use, but they do transfer to backup media. It's very odd and I never saw such a thing in Windows. To be fair, however, the NAS does not run a full boat version of Linux. Many things are missing by design.

My first instinct was to backup everything that I could from the NAS, and that turned out to be everything but a couple odd files. Using Windows file manager I am able to access the Windows shares on the NAS and copy the files to a backup media. There are certain backup files that gave me the "path name is too long" message and I just skipped over them for the time being. It occurred to me that I could fire up one of my Linux boxes, access the NAS and the storage media (a partition on a spare drive) and do the backups that way. Well that was the worst idea I had in a long time. LOL I tried copying a directory of a dozen Gigabytes using the Linux file manager (Linux Mint by the way). It mounted the NAS and it mounted the target drive and it started moving things. The estimated completion time was in excess of three hours. I moved those exact files in Windows in slightly over three minutes. My hope was that Linux would not have the same path length constraints as Windows, and it probably does not. But the copy time is absolutely insane. No doubt the are using rsync.

I ran across a cure for the long path name problem which involved using Windows Power Shell. This is basically a hyped up terminal emulator for Windows and as you would expect the commands and rules are nothing like Linux command line. I have used it before for various reasons but never took the time to learn any details about Power Shell so that I would have to sit down and do that before I could attempt backups that way. The same problem exists with rsync. I never used it and only know what you tell me about it, plus my experience this afternoon. I'm sure it could perform the task but that too would require me taking time out to learn about rsync and all the idiosyncrasies Linux attaches to it. It simply wasn't worth it given that I was under a time constraint.

So ... I copied the entire NAS, sans a few broken files, using Windows and it's file manager. Got the (transfering 450 GB of data) job done in about two hours which is less time than it would take Linux to backup 14GB. I may look into rsync just to see if it can solve the long path name problem, but I'm guessing the mv or the cp commands will be a lot easier to use. And, I ordered a new NAS drive yesterday afternoon. It was delivered today around lunch time. Not a bad turnaround, but it did cost me $10 to do that. It was worth it.

[ocelotl]

Greetings, Hope that your recovery of your NAS drive doesn´t result in future issues... Almost a year ago, one of the first things I did when recluded due to the pandemica, was setting up a NAS based on a Raspberry Pi 4. IT went without issues, since I used some help from the web, with OpenMediaVault mounted on Raspbian. I tried to use it to broadcaast digital copies of movies I got to the home TV, only to find that the broadcasting capability of my setup was a bit limited, so I returned to keeping the movie copies in a dedicated HDD connected to the TV, backups at a portable HDD and another copy in the NAS HDD... What has been bugging me and made me keeping the RaspNAS offline and unplugged most of the time, is that I haven't mounted a RAID array to the NAS and that the raspberry runs without thermal protection whenever it is connected and working.

Those pair of points are in the schedule for when we are able to exit the pandemic and the self imposed personal budget restriction.

[yogi]

Much of what I read about NAS devices is focused on RAID configurations. In a typical application that makes sense. My system is purchased from a company named Synology and it runs some form of Tiny Linux which seems to be only slightly more functional than a Raspberry Pi machine. I only have one HDD, which apparently is an unconventional way to use an NAS. In my case it's more like a file server, but it does have cloud capability and multi-media presentation software. It can do much more than what I use it for which is primarily for backups. Most of my data has redundant backups, but certain old and archived data is one of a kind stored only on the NAS. Bad idea, I know,m but It's not business critical. It still would be a shame to lose any of it.

I've seen a few processors that claim they don't need external cooling, but I'm guessing that's only true under a light load. Most processors can sit idle without cooling, but streaming video does up the temperature a bit. It is better to be safe than sorry and I think you are doing the right thing by keeping your system unplugged.

[Kellemora]

Sorry you are having problems with your NAS, but glad you have a new one on the way.
I had many files that could not be read by a Windows machine, so had to go in and rename all of the ones that caused problems.
Now I save to an NTFS drive and it will tell me if there is an illegal character or other problem, so I can change it right away.
But then too, I also save my work to an EXT4 drive as well, my main drive actually.
As far as I know, we don't have to run checks on Linux drives, because they check their health before writing to an area, and if an area shows bad, it blocks it out. Disk Health shows when it is about time to replace a drive, and how many sectors it has blocked out, but of course can not know if the motor or something else is going south or not.
I've taken a few old drives with bad sectors and reformatted them to EXT4 and it will find the bad sectors all over again and block them. If there are too many it tells you the drive health is low and should be replaced.

I'm not sure if it is a good idea to keep external drives turned off or not.
I have a pair of 500 gig externals that are normally turned off. I've used them for years too.
I used to copy all of my data to one, then mirror it to another, so I had two copies over my daily use drives.
But now I'm finding one is very slow to start-up when I want to copy things to it.
If I leave it on, it is always ready to go. But if I leave it off for a whole month, it takes a while for it to spin-up again.
The grease might be getting old in the motor, hi hi.

My 2 tb external drive never gets turned off. It is my primary backup drive right now.

[yogi]

One of the big reasons I got an NAS was to keep backups for this site. The database was huge and I wanted to keep copies of it locally. When we were more active than we are today I did backups more frequently and needed a place to keep the archives. It wasn't until a few years after that I decided to back up my personal computer data as well. Now with ransomware rampant it is mandatory to preserve what you don't want to lose so that a network drive could actually be a liability. Thus I copy the really important stuff from the NAS backups to an external SSD.

All of that went swimmingly, albeit I didn't have the ideal backup plan. Most commercial software for backups will compress the files typically in a non-standard format or store them on a cloud they own. That's nice, but I want direct copies in which I can access individual files and not have to run a restore routine. I found a program that will do exactly what I want, but they stopped supporting it about 5 years ago. Thus, I've been using that backup software to directly copy files from my local drives onto the NAS. Then certain of those files would get copied to SSD off line. Some files on the NAS just stayed there and never got copied offline. Thus when the red flags were raised I had to do something before losing it all.

Windows had a problem with file names ever since Windows was invented. There were days when your file could only be named with no more than 8 characters and even those characters were limited. Fortunately Windows fixed that problem after many years of people complaining about it, but that's not where the current problem arises. The issue I'm having involves path name length. That path can only be so many characters long (256 I believe) after which point nothing works. All I will say is that making an image of this site tests those limits because the software developers are very fond of nesting directories. php can handle the nesting, but then there is a limit to the length of the path name. As you might imagine the backup image could run into problems when the source and destination identifiers are added to the path names. The software developers don't see it because they aren't moving things around. I see it because I'm moving entire images from one device to another.

The quirk here is that my backup software does not have a problem. It moves these site images, and other things, without ever reporting an error. I had few problems moving the NAS files to another backup device. However, when I tried moving them back to the new NAS I got those path error reports. I'm really not in the mood to learn about rsync and its quirks, and even less inclined to dive into Windows Power Shell. Yet, after several attempts using different methods that seemed to be the only two choices left. But then I had an idea. Instead of doing a direct copy for backups, what if I did a compressed zip file copy instead? First of all that would take less space on the NAS and it would reduce the copy time. But the biggest payoff is the path name now only includes the name of the zip file and not all those nested directories. Apparently those directory tables are stored inside the zip file and not visible to the system. That makes the file names very short because it only involves the name of the zipped file. The price one pays for that is that the compression process takes more time than a direct copy. Likewise, if I want to extract a single file from the archive, I have to decompress the whole thing. Those are extra steps, but now I do not get any path length errors.

[Kellemora]

I have some folders nested many levels deep, and never had a problem using RSync to back them up. But who knows, maybe all of them added together don't hit the limit?

Had a terrible morning, I thought the Silver Yogi gave up the ghost.
So many weird things happening when I got ready to start this morning.
Even after rebooting, I still couldn't log-in to the system.

At first I thought it was the new keyboard, my last one from the box, has already gone south.
I switched to a couple of other older computers and tested it out, no problems there.
Came back, rebooted again, and finally got the OS to load, but when I went to click on anything, the mouse was acting crazy too.
I click on the tab to open the drop down box and it just opened anything at random.
Rebooted again and now it wanted to open my last 26 tabs all at once.
In frustration, I finally let it do that so I could close all of them individually.

I swapped out my new keyboard for my old one, still same problem.
Swapped out my new wireless mouse for the old wired mouse, still same problem.
Rebooted the KVM switch, because sometimes it does some weird things.

Instead of the reboot method, I tried 4 cold boots in a row, because after it got past bios to the log-in screen, it would just go away, then come back, go away, then come back, like it was stuck in a loop. If I hit enter, it was like it kept hitting enter. If I got the password window, didn't matter what single letter I typed, it would fill the thing with the letter, like I was holding it down.

I disconnected from the KVM and went straight to the computer with a manual mouse and keyboard, still same problem.
So I hooked everything back up the way it was originally, using the KVM, my new keyboard, and new wireless mouse.
Did a cold reboot, and some things seemed to start working, I could at least log in and get the desktop.
Opened Google Chrome, it looked OK, but I still could not get the drop down from a bookmark to work.
So I went around, unplugged, and plugged everything back in again.
Shut down the computer for 10 minutes, I figured if the CMOS battery was bad, it would show up by that time.
Did a really cold boot and it came back to life, and right now it appears everything is working again.
The thing is, I still don't know exactly what caused the problem. I didn't change any of the settings.
So I'm sitting here with my fingers crossed, hoping it was just an OS glitch that went bonkers..
It's now been up and running for three hours with no new problems appearing

[yogi]

My first thought was a driver is corrupt or you have a virus. The way you describe the problem does not lead me to think it's mechanical. I don't recall much about BIOS in the Silver Yogi but it typically will not affect the hardware the way you are seeing it. BIOS may detect things so that you can jiggle the mouse to wake up a sleeping OS, but that's about it; it only registers the fact that hardware is present - normally. You might look into the USB controller driver and the ones for your input devices. Perhaps they can be updated. Since it's probably a software issue, you can also reinstall the operating system. I know Ubuntu will allow you to do that without affecting your data, but I'm not sure what Debian does.

Anyway, I'm just guessing from a distance of 517 miles. If you disappear for a few days, I'll understand why.

[Kellemora]

I did find others who had a similar experience. It has to do with Logitech's USB mini-receiver.
Just unplug it for 2 minutes and plug it back in, and all will work again.
A few said a low battery could also cause it to act up. But one should still unplug the receiver and plug it back in again.
Especially if it is the kind where you can add a keyboard or change the mouse.
Also, those little mini-receivers are subject to interference.

I was on my computer until late last night and no more problems.
Oh, even though I was busy unplugging things and plugging them back up again,
one of the things I did not unplug at first was the mini-receiver, which is why the problem persisted.

I don't really have another computer to fall back on with any power, other than the new one I bought for Debi, but even with Linux, it is still a bit slow on some things.
I wish I could afford another good computer, if they still make such a thing, hi hi.

[yogi]

Your story is one more reason I don't like wireless peripherals. My tower is all hard wired with no mini receivers on it anywhere. The laptop, however, has a wireless mouse for obvious reasons. A low battery there could indeed affect the mouse's rf, but the receiver is powered by the USB supply. That is usually stable. In any case I'm happy to know you figured it out.

I'm still drooling over the new hardware that is available to build another computer. I read where chips are becoming rare for some reason so that if I could find what I want it likely would be way more expensive than it used to be. I've not done any serious research yet so that I don't know how hard or how expensive it would be to replace this black box. I recall us talking about passing this machine on to you when I build the new computer. One obstacle I need to deal with first is the co-manager of the household budget. LOL We are due for another handout from the government so that it might be easier to justify any extravagance I have in mind, but I can't say how that would go at this point. We also talked about me hand delivering it to you should you decide to take it off my hands. That would be the preferred deliver method considering the last experience, but then there is this little matter of pandemic panic. I'm totally immune (in theory) as of today but am still very hesitant about making any road trips and staying in public hostels.

I think you would like this machine but I don't know how it would fit into your expectations for a "good" computer. It certainly meets and exceeds my needs, but we tend to see things in different ways. In any case, should the day come when I have a new computer and am looking for a home for this one, you will have first choice. I'm confident we can work something out to meet both our needs.

[Kellemora]

I hate wireless too, but what do you do when your favorite mouse only comes in wireless.
I tried three others that were similar, but sent them all back and got the one I like the feel of, even though it is wireless.
NONE of them are PS2 compatible anymore either!

It's a nine hour drive from my house in Creve Coeur, to Debi's parents home (now our home) here in Knoxville.
Made that trip many times, and towing a cargo trailer too boot.
Unfortunately, now that I'm hooked to machines, I can't even go back home to see my kids anymore either.

I just read where the CDC said the Vaccines don't do much of anything. They don't stop infections or the spread of Covid-19.
But they may reduce your risk of getting Covid-19 by a small percentage.

If and when you do ever build a new computer, and if I'm still alive, I would be glad to have your old one.
But it will have to be able to run Debian!
And I hope the Covid is long gone by then too!
I think you would love to visit Gattlinburg and Pigeon Forge, while here!

[yogi]

I know of what you speak when it comes to the feel of mouses and keyboards. After all these years I STILL haven't found a combination that I can say I love. Performance is a lot easier to measure and there is a lot of high performance hardware available to choose from. That's why I settled on a wired mouse and keyboard; high performance.

Google claims it would take 7 hr 38 min (516.6 mi) via I-24 E and I-40 E from my town to your town. That is doable in a single day, but my last trip out your way stopped at Manchester which is a few miles east of Nashville. I've heard about Gattlinburg but not Pigeon Forge. They both could be on the agenda depending on the circumstances at the time. Should the computer transition from my place to your place I would make an effort to deliver it with Debian installed. I know I had trouble with it previously but in spite of the rumors that was due to issues with Debian and not my hardware. From what I can see Debian came into the 21st century recently and a lot of their derivatives now work in places they did not work previously. I probably would leave rEFInd in the system for booting purposes, and of course I'm not going back to MBR any time soon. Should you take on this machine that's how it will be delivered, but it's easy enough to change things should the need arise. It only took me slightly more than a year to figure out how to do it. LOL

From the horse's mouth: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... nated.html

[Kellemora]

I think with everything, it is what you get used to early on, and try to stay with that same feel as the years roll by.
We both learned to type on manual typewriters, and early electric typewriters had fairly heavy keys.
I don't know about you, but I like the pressure it takes to type on the keyboards I have, which is why I bought so many after finding them. They were fairly cheap too, compared to all the others I had purchased, but I loved the feel.
I get a free keyboard now and then for one reason or another, and the keys are so light in touch, I'm constantly having to backspace over a bunch of letters that spewed out hi hi.

On that time Google Maps gives you, add to it stopping for gas, grabbing a snack, and having a tinkle or two.
But then too, 90% of my trips back and forth I was pulling a cargo trailer too.
Oh, and add in that half hour the Illinois cops detain you, hi hi.

You could just load Linux Mint or Ubuntu if you prefer, since both are based on Debian.
If they run, Debian will too. I would probably replace whatever you put on there anyhow.
But some of today's computers won't run Linux Distro's at all, or so I'm told.
I don't know why they wouldn't, something to do with the API I think they said.

You used to be able to pick up used Dell computers from vendors who got them from businesses who upgraded.
Most would come with either Windows 7 or Ubuntu on them.
Now they all only come with Windows 8 and they won't even try to put a Linux Distro on them for you anymore.
Especially the small form factor ones they get back in now. Seems they are designed for a specific purpose is why.

I need to find that article about what the CDC defines as a vaccine, and none of the Covid vaccines are classified as vaccines by their own definition. Those who get the shots are experimental guinea pigs for the genetically altering drugs.

[yogi]

A long long long time ago I bought one of those Dell refurbished laptops. It had Windows installed, but I don't recall what version. Probably was Vista or somewhere in that era. That's the computer that turned me against Dell. LOL Well, it actually worked well but when it broke that was the end of it. Dell is totally useless as far as support goes, unless you are a big company like Motorola. Even at Motorola Dell didn't repair their broken machines, they simply replaced them with new ones. That's how it is when you can buy 10,000 computers at one time.

The Silver Yogi, as I recall, does not support Linux. At least that is what the MSI motherboard people said. Likewise, the current ASUS motherboard I'm using does not want anything to do with Linux. They advised against using it in fact. The truth in the matter is that the OS has no baring on how well the silicon chips work. The people who supply the firmware, BIOS, and the people who service said front ends don't want to invest the time and effort into supporting a niche Linux market. That's how they see it anyway.

I suppose it is possible that BIOS can be written to favor one operating system over another. That's the beauty of EFI booting. However, because EFI is so versatile, it is possible to replace what is given with a BIOS that is not boogered up by some company locked into a cash cow like Microsoft products. The processor and the memory are OS indifferent no matter who assembles them onto a motherboard.

This ASUS tower runs all the Debian based Linux distributions I ever put on it. It even runs Debian itself. Debian, however, insists on screwing around with Grub and EFI so that it doesn't have to deal with anything that is proprietary. Well, they changed their stance on that but I haven't attempted to install it on this newly formatted EFI tower yet. For my purposes Debian is only good for learning troubleshooting techniques. If I were to pass this machine onto you, I would want to be sure you can use it and install a working copy of Debian would be the proof.

[Kellemora]

I have an old Dell here with Windows XP on it, and it dual boots to Debian 10 now. It only has 2 gigs of memory, so the only thing I use it for is playing Spider Solitaire, hi hi. I can't use it for an on-line game because it is too slow, and not enough memory.
But it is handy, when a new upgrade comes out, I put it on there first to see if it causes any problems, if none, then I update the Silver Yogi.
The machine I had before I got the Silver Yogi, died on me, which is why I don't have another current fall-back-on machine.

Lenovo is supposed to make a machine with 16 gigs of memory, and comes with Ubuntu or Linux Mint pre-installed, but they say very little about anything else about it. Also the price was fairly steep, around 950 bucks if I recall from when I saw their blurb.
I guess you have to go to the website to get all the specs on it? Funny thing, I haven't heard much about Lenovo now for a couple of years, so was surprised to see an ad, but I think the ad was by a vendor, not necessarily Lenovo themselves.

[yogi]

Funny that you should bring up Lenovo. They own Motorola cell phone manufacturing. In fact I've recently seen ads for a desktop version of their cell phone. At the time Motorola was all one company, Lenovo was licking their chops at the purchase prospect and agreed to keep the Motorola name. Nothing else about it is the company I used to work for. Motorola still exists in it's original form but is making commercial products we never hear about.

In any case, Lenovo is probably what used to be called a conglomerate. They have their fingers in to a zillion different things. From what I understand Dell already sells a Linux based computer; I'm thinking it's Ubuntu but I could be wrong there. I recall reading about Lenovo coming into the market and your comment about high prices was one of the criticisms I read. It just goes to show you that the OS has little dollar value. All the money is going into the hardware as far as Lenovo is concerned. I don't see a lot of Dell Linux computers out there, but I may not be looking in the right places. Lenovo thinks it's worth their money and we will just have to wait and see where it goes.

I don't know how many more computers I'll be buying. Certainly any desktops will be homebrew but any laptop would be store bought. I've discovered that no matter what they claim, all computers can run Linux. Some are easier to configure than others. I have heard stories of how certain machines lock out everything but Windows, but I've yet to see that proven true. Regardless, any computer I do purchase or make will be able to run both Windows and Linux. Linux is how I keep my mind fresh solving problems. LOL

[Kellemora]

All of the computers in my office were built by computer shops, except for the used Dell I picked up, and the AcerAspireXC I bought for the frau that she hated. It is now running Linux Mint and works OK, but nothing is as fast as the Silver Yogi.

I did have a used Lenovo I got from a neighbor when he was moving into an apartment. It had not been used for like two years, because he did everything on his laptop. It only had two 512 meg memory cards in it, and an RPM based Distro. If I recall the HD was only 40 gigs too. I gave it to a lady at church who only wanted a spare machine to keep her recipes and address book in, plus perhaps make a few reference notes. She had a nice computer, but her son more or less commandeered it to play games on, and it was always messed up when she needed it. She put it in her kitchen in a corner with the bread box on one side and her canisters on the other. It did what she wanted it to do, and as far as I know, she's still using it, and I doubt if she ever did any upgrades or anything to it either. it is off limits to her son as well, hi hi. Haven't seen her in a couple of years now.

I wish I knew someone around here who like to tinker with computers, I have plenty for them to learn repairs on.

[yogi]

During our discussions here I had looked up the specs on that Silver Yogi motherboard. I kept a copy just for old times sake. Amazingly the CPU on both your machine and the one I built after that are pretty close. They are both Intel but from different generations of architecture. The clock speed on this ASUS tower is just a smidgen higher than what you have, plus it can be overclocked whereas I do not think the Pentium you have can be. In other words the performance of the two is pretty close in theory. I also have slots for 4 SATA HDD/SSD and 4 optical drives. I seldom use the one CD reader I have now that I've learned about replacing them with USB memory, but the slots are part of the tower. About the only significant improvement here is the motherboard has an M.2 connector for memory that runs off the PCIe bus. Since I didn't know what to do with it at the time of purchase it is empty, but apparently it's the fastest way to boot an OS because it runs off the PCI bus. The SSD I am using is pretty darned good and I can't imagine booting quicker. The potential replacement system I'm dreaming about would have an AMD CPU, unless Intel comes up with an equivalent. However, the CPU alone costs more than the entire computer I built 5 years ago. The video card comes close to that price too, so I'm thinking of a system that is outrageously overpowered for my needs and about 3x the cost of the ASUS tower. Well, a guy can dream, can't he?

That used Lenovo computer you speak of can be replaced by a low tier smartphone that doesn't even have to be very smart. The only reason not to use the mobile version of a computer would be the screen size. Although, this Pixel cleverphone I am using only on rare occasion goes to smaller type font than my eyes can resolve. I can change the default font, but so far have not had a need to do it.

[Kellemora]

No biggie on overclocking, I've never done that anyhow. But if I recall, when I get the initial boot screen, I do think that is an option that shows up.
I know you prefer Intel, but nearly all of my machines I had built used Asus MoBo's and AMD CPU's. In many cases, the AMD's were faster than Intel at almost half the price.

Speaking of Schmartz-Fonz, although I never asked him about it.
Our car repair shop we use, he runs almost all of his business from a Schmartz-Fone.
When you pick up your car, he plugs this U shaped thing into the side of his phone to scan the card.
He has a regular computer monitor and keyboard on his desk, but I've never seen a computer there.
When he went to print out our receipt, he sticks his phone into this cradle first, scrolls across his phone screen and hits an icon.
When he does that, it appears on his desktop monitor, and from there he selects my invoice to print it out.
It does appear it may be done using cloud storage and programs.
Next time I'm up there, which I hope isn't too soon, hi hi, I will ask him about it.

Debi's niece says she can buy something to make her cell phone appear on her computer monitor, but never bought one so don't know how it works. She does think you need BlueTooth to be able to do that though.