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Frustration MAX!

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DVDR_Dog

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I have this old junky Dell Inspiron 3147 convertible. Honestly all I wanted to do is watch videos from my NAS on before I go to sleep, surprisingly enough the video is pretty darn good, the touch screen is awesome for what it is especially since it was free. So as not to disturb my GF I have a pair of noise reduction Bluetooth headphones. Although most users couldn't get the system to take 8gb of RAM, I have a pile of high quality modules and got one that works well in the system.
So now you know the setup. So this Dell was originally shipped with an Atheros/Quallcomm, blah-blah 1707 wireless card w/Bluetooth. Bluetooth is a jokes and keeps disconnecting which makes the Dell kick over to the speakers and gets me in trouble. SO I go down in the workshop nd dig out an Intel 7265 wireless card (which is FAR better). Now here's where it gets whacked. First silly me thinks "Oh I'll just uninstall the old card, software and drivers, put the new card in (now get this) use the exact Windows 10 drivers for this card listed on Dell's site for this model. WRONG!!! I then reloaded Win 10 and tried the same procedure and used the drivers from Intel, still no Bluetooth, just an unknown entry in the device manager.
In a last ditch effort, I loaded the system with Win 8.1 as it was delivered, loaded the Intel driver set and guess what, the Bluetooth worked great! So then I figured I would try to upgrade the 8.1 install to 10 so I did. Not only did the Intel wireless work, Windows update loaded the divers that enabled Bluetooth in Windows 10. Now I have read that there is a possibility that 8.1 "sees" it has a serial port device and 10 carries that over in the upgrade. Unfortunately when 10 sees it as a "virgin" it wants to configure it as a PCI-e for whatever reason.

The only reason I am sharing this story is if you ever run into similar situation you might not have to bang your head against the wall as I did.
Not that many of you will encounter this, but be aware there were subtle but drastic changes to how Windows now natively deals with serial data. A lot of the networking hardware I setup and maintain still has serial console ports, slow as all get out by today's standards, but still work just fine. Many of the RS-232 to USB adapters won't work with Win 10 + 11 as well.
 
I have a WD PR4100 4x 8tb WD red plus. Works great and good remote access. Still trying to determine all the correct settings on my Cisco asa 5506 firewall to allow secure remote access.
I am still searching for the ultimate multi media catalog/server program. I have looked at Plex but it doesn't seem to have the features I am really looking for, besides it appears you have to pony up $5/month to get many of the features. So for now it's Network Browser on my Firestick Max 4K (which does a heck of a job). I don't rely on the PR4100 for transcoding, it doesn't like many of the currently accepted formats/containers and WD doesn't seem to care. I use VLC on Windows for video and AIMP for audio. I just wish I could find a better way to catalog.
I did go the home server route before the PR4100 but for home use the choices are limited and buggy. I am about to jump back into the Linux options but Windows and Linux don't love each other. You now have the option of Linux emulation on Win 10 and up, but it's VM so resources are a bit tight.
 
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I have a WD PR4100 4x 8tb WD red plus. Works great and good remote access. Still trying to determine all the correct settings on my Cisco asa 5506 firewall to allow secure remote access.
I am still searching for the ultimate multi media catalog/server program. I have looked at Plex but it doesn't seem to have the features I am really looking for, besides it appears you have to pony up $5/month to get many of the features. So for now it's Network Browser on my Firestick Max 4K (which does a heck of a job). I don't rely on the PR4100 for transcoding, it doesn't like many of the currently accepted formats/containers and WD doesn't seem to care. I use VLC on Windows for video and AIMP for audio. I just wish I could find a better way to catalog.
I did go the home server route before the PR4100 but for home use the choices are limited and buggy. I am about to jump back into the Linux options but Windows and Linux don't love each other. You now have the option of Linux emulation on Win 10 and up, but it's VM so resources are a bit tight.
I have a Plex Media server setup on my PC and am running 6 various drives that total around 26TB of storage. I've thought about getting a NAS but couldn't justify the expense right now. But, Maybe you could give me a reason to spend the money on a NAS. That out of the way I absolutely love plex. What is it lacking that you are looking for? I have a plex pass but you really don't need it. The plugin Tautulli still works and it will give you all the stats for your server. About the only thing I can think of that you would want to you have to have a plex pass for is webhooks. I use a webhook to connect my Trakt account to plex but don't reference it often and wouldn't miss it if I didn't have it. Have you checked out Jellyfin as an alternative? Many people like it.
 
Well I finally bit the bullet and set up plex on the NAS and have the access across all my platforms. I was going to start messing with Docker but honestly I don't have the time with the new job, new house, blah-blah. For the time being it gives my GF a good look at my current movie/tv show inventory complete with all the answers she normally asks me about the titles.
 
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