Netflix Love

I am quite fond of Netflix streaming. I am no good at keeping up with a series from week to week. Battle Star Galactica and Firefly are prime examples.

No less delightful are wonderful old British series like MI5 which entertained me for days and I watched every one. MI-5 is expiring soon sadly (opps, seems to be back). A Touch of Frost is fantastic along with others I can no longer remember. Luther was good, Rosemary and Thyme, Midsummer Murders. etc.

Netflix streaming, as it exists now, is worth every penny.

Less attractive is the disc delivery, although I still have it.

My new Roku works well for streaming.
RoMote is a free app. that turns your Android into a Roku remote that works faster than the original remote, although the original is very good. Just enter the ip address assigned to your Roku. You may wish to assign a static ip to the Roku.

You can find Roku's assigned ip through Roku settings or just use Wireless Network Watcher on your PC from NirSoft

HTPC Do I Want One?

Check out http://www.remotecentral.com/index.html for remote info:

Of course I want an HTPC. In reality there is little difference between an HTPC and a regular PC except for placement and function. OK if you are picky, size, heat and noise counts and handling actual TV can be tricky.  I am marking this forum post and this for reference. It is the most complete information I have found so far. Some of the specs are already out of date but the ideas are valid. What holds me up right now is where to put the thing. My living room TV location defies adding any physical piece of equipment without wifely wrath.

I lean toward I3 or I5 and Z68. At least I can re-task it if the HTPC thing doesn't tweak my fancy. Remember to add $30 if motherboard has crappy Realtek NIC.

My first purchase was the little Lenovo remote keyboard which I acquired from Levono for $25. I just had to buy something and as long as Lenovo had it discounted, which they do from time to time, I grabbed it. I like it. Keys are small but anything beats scrolling/arrowing and clicking. If a bigger keyboard is desired then this may be a better option.

2012-11-26 I've been using a tower i'd built but now I'm ready to build one on the little guys. Here is a reference for now.

2013-03-10 For awhile now I just have an old computer tacked to the big screen. I've cut the cord and don't miss it. But I would like something other than a huge tower sitting there.


MD A4-3400 Llano 2.7GHz 44.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819106014 
ASRock A75M-ITX FM1 AMD A75 90
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157273 
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 33
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145278 
Western Digital WD Green WD20EARX 2TB 105
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136891 
APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 250W Power Supply 55
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154091 
SilverStone Sugo Series SG05B-USB3.0 107
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163207 
GELID Solutions FN-PX08-20 80mm Case cooler 9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835426010 
Xbox 360 Controllers 40
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16874103205 
Logitech K400 40 (I have already and works great)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154091

Apex case instructions
http://thebottleopener.net/2012/10/photos-of-the-new-htpc/ 

  45 cpu
  76 motherboard
  33 ram
105 hd
107 case
=366
If I used the Apex case it would be $311

ROKU

Update: I have sound distortion and tweaked the network for improvement but now discover even my USB streaming has distortion. HDMI or Roku must be the problem and not DSL. Still fixing ....
It is Vizio incompatability as stated on this forum post and this Youtube clip. The clip sounds exactly as mine but my video is fine. I use this Roku2 on another Vizio successfully. I will look for a firmware upgrade for the Vizio. I may need to use this converter from Monoprice to avoid the Vizio HDMI ports. Maybe I can use HDMI for video and component for audio? This incompatibility did not exist on pre v2 Roku boxes. At least now I know. Why would a Roku tech. not know this????
--
Finally bought a ROKU. I picked the Angry Birds model that was on special for $79 and is basically a ROKU2 XS for a $20 savings.

Do I like it? Yes.

Why?

The interface for Netflix is very nice and quick. Fast forward/rewind works well. I am comparing to cheap Insignia Bluray interface.

I like the extra channels like TED, TWIT and Revision 3 even though accessing them from PC works as well or better. I sometimes just want to watch on the large screen.

PLEX server works well to access mp4 movies over a local network. There is some pixelation which apparently has occurred during a recent firmware update. Hopefully this will be fixed but PLEX is not a supported ROKU channel so jury is out. It is usable. Not sure if wired connection would improve this. Forget trying huge mkv files.

Roku native USB access and playback works fine but did stop midway with a large mkv file at 1080p. Up until seizing up it worked great with very good picture. Different TV's may work better of worse. Surprisingly, the portable USB drive powered on.

As stated elsewhere, ROKU is a good internet streaming device with not as good local streaming capability.

Someday I want a WDTV but I should really just do HTPC. I wish I had more room in my "media center" (to use the term loosely).

The Bad.
XS is 2.4 Ghz only.

Found the problem to be Vizio/Roku2 incompatibility with HDMI. Following tweaks did help but no real fix besides HDMI/composite conversion box.

I bought a Netgear DGND3300 for $40 refurb off eBay. Same sound problems but now I have N which does Roku no good because it only communicates on 2.4 GHz and my N is only on 5 GHz. No problem, G speed is good enough if working correctly. Heck of a buy on the router though ... works great.

Following may be great but my problem was HDMI incompatibility.
Went to ROKU support page and they have live chat. Agent suggested the following:
DNS Primary 208.67.222.222, Secondary 208.67.220.220. I need to test these for speed but it doesn't matter because my NICs have their own DNS settings.
MTU of 1462 (default is 1500 so doesn't sound like much difference)
These settings did not solve the problem. 13 minutes in the sound distorted. I reset MTU back to 1500.
I am setting the Roku MAC addresses as static and try. Why would that work???
I am also listing the Roku MACs QoS to highest.

I still love the Roku and would recommend it. I have a WD Live coming for its superior local media playback. Roku can do it but chokes on large MKV files. I found a forum post that WD may also have HDMI problems with my Vizio model VA270M but the WD Live may not have component option either. Looks like another $40 for the converter box. Maybe I want a bigger TV and will find a good home for this sweat little 37 inch model that I only drove to church on Sundays.

Netgear's N speed is all over the place. I tried to grab a screen shot while it was at 300 to impress you but it is fleeting.

Signature Stamp PDFXchange Viewer

I love PDFXchange Viewer free but I was installing PDFNitro also to use the signature stamp feature because I was too lazy to figure out a way to do this in Xchange and this "feature" is only available in the paid version. It is a simple procedure to use signatures in free Xchange.

signature use 1300 px wide 300 to 600 quality
initals use 200 px wide

Scan your signature.
Save or convert to image file.
Open file in Gimp (or whatever).
Add alpha channel so transparency is enabled.
Choose by color "white" and delete.
Save file as *.png (it preserves the transparency).
Use this file to add a stamp to Xchange.

Should I use WPA? I can't connect to Internet!

Lesson #!. Be sure you don't have a splitter or extender fitting to join or extend your coaxial cable.

I am still using an old Belkin pre-N that only connected to N when using a Belkin NIC so basically it is a G. It has been a great G router. It started giving me fits on disconnects and then stopped connecting to the Internet completely despite having a local network connection working.

So I proceeded with a marathon of unplugging, hard reset, restore default, flushing this and that. Nothing worked so I connected to the modem directly and ordered the latest/greatest Asus RT-N56U (OK, I wanted one anyway).

If you need the RT-N56U utility try here and look for a file like this: UT_RT_N56U_4218.zip (the final number will change with version and firmware you are using).

I finally gave up and left the router unplugged over night. You guessed it. It worked in the morning. I'm guessing it took longer to clear the memory than I was giving it (or maybe not). I get a new router by default so win/win and I will have a backup router.

Started having fits again. Seems it was a simple but faulty joint for extending the coaxial cable. So fine, I will put my modem six inches from base board. Joints and splitters are never a good thing for coaxial cable. It worked for four years but not now.

I had been running WPA even though I hated the reduced speed. I decided to reevaluate the security/speed issue.

Without WPA

With WPA

Do I really value security that much? No. I am in a gated community and see two other connections weakly so how much risk do I really have?

So I decided to turn off broadcast and use MAC filtering. Something I should have done long ago. My speeds are back up. Hopefully Mrs. Johnson and her Paradise ssid is not a closet hacker.

Perhaps my shiny new Asus will be fast enough to not be adversely affected by WPA2. We shall see. If not, I will avoid WPA security, I am liking the MAC filtering.

Asus RTN56U With WPA2

Looks like the RTN56U does as well with WPA as the old Belkin did without. The speed was little different without WPA. Other testing does show my N speeds between 150/300 but download speeds are not much improved. My modem is Motorola SB5120. Maybe SB6120 would help. I've read mixed but impressive things about SB6120 on Comcast in some areas. I have one on a self in the frozen North and plan on showing it some sunshine.

I changed the admin password and could not log on so had to hard reset. Haven't tried it again yet. Maybe I put in a wrong password twice during setup. There is no obvious way to change the admin user name that I have seen ... peculiar. 

Hard reset finally worked this way: With power connected press the reset button for 10 seconds. Release the button and remove power for a minute. Power up.

The USB drive support is interesting. During setup I received an error that indicated an Asus server was not possible but it worked anyway. Not sure what happened or what I did. Again guilty of trying settings without documentation.

How about a New SB-6120 cable modem? In my area we do not have DOCSIS 3 so I see little or no improvement. SB-5120 is just as good.

One interesting thing, my wifi speed is better than my cabled speed. I assume this is due to the Realtek NIC adapter on my Asrock/AMD desktop. I should hook up my laptop hard wire and check. So here is the hard wire result now:

Looks like time to order a $30 Intel PCI-NIC. I will have to add $30 to the price when considering an Asrock motherboard from now on.

So, I bought an Intel EXPI9301CTBLK Network Adapter 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express (I finally found use for PCI-Express) but it gave little if any speed increase. My Wireless constantly beats my hard wire speed. I had tried Auslogics Internet Optimizer 2.0.6 before trying to evaluate my speeds and possibly it set something wrong. I could have been too harsh on the Realtek NIC.

Speed Up Windows 7

Speed Up Windows 7

Change desktop background to black. (solid color)
Keep desktop clean of files and shortcuts.
Clear the index from the hard drives. (right click drive/properties/un-check index/ignore all)
Turn off Windows search service. (I use "Everything" for occassional searches)
Adjust power plan to High Performance
Disable hibernate (a known problem source)
If SSD turn off pre/superfetch. (only for SSD and not for speed)
Control Panel\System and Security\System\System Protection Turn off restore. (after you have your system stable) (has this ever really worked)
Sounds use no sounds.
MSConfig uncheck unnecessary startups.
Install Launchy and learn how to use it.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\desktop
 In the right pane, right click on MenuShowDelay and click on Modify and use 1
Be aggressive on uninstalling programs you don't use.
If you wish to manipulate Aero I would do it this way and not Ultimate Tweak
 Control Panel\System and Security\System\System Properties\Advanced\Performance
  If you "break" transparency it can be hunt and seek to fix. Turning it off and on here is easier.

Use discretion on what and how you install programs but don't be paranoid either. Before you install Microsoft Office, ask yourself if you really need it. Libre Office Portable will work just as well for most mortals and you won't have a bunch of unnecessary junk installed on your system. If you must install MS Office, do you really need Outlook, Access or One Note? At least customize and omit these and others.

In Windows XP days I always did these (the one's available in XP) but I quit doing some of them in Win7 because processors ran faster and who doesn't love transparent Windows. Well, I'm over that now and all I want is fast, quick, blazing Windows. So I'm back tweaking for speed and loving it. On a monster desktop, I may let Aero run, depending on how things are popping. There are other tweaks but these are basic and will improve things greatly.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker (a quick way of doing some of the tweaks and more)

Camelegg To Track Newegg Pricing

Newegg.com price tracker, Newegg.com price history charts, price watches, and price drop alerts. | camelegg.com

A free Newegg.com price tracker. Get email alerts when prices drop! camelegg provides free Newegg price drop alerts and Newegg price history charts, helping you buy when the price is right. For instance, hard drive prices right now are high but dropping so I would wait to buy unless unavoidable.

I use this to help make buying decisions on Newegg. The Chrome extension works great. I turn it off when not shopping as I do with other extensions I am not currently using. Amazon and Best Buy have their own camels. The extension is site specific, ie. Amazon, Newegg, etc. You can use Camels web site without using the extensions.

Microsoft Defender "this program is turned off" message

When Microsoft Security Essentials is installed, it turns off Defender because Essentials replaces Defender. Sometimes the Defender startup entry either does not get turned off or becomes re-enabled somewhere down the line. Simply run msconfig, go to the startup tab and uncheck the Defender entry. Sometimes you still get a warning that Defender is not running. This can be sticky.

If entry not in startup but you still get the warning these have worked for me:

Method 1:
1. Launch regedit (Win+R, type "regedit", hit return)
2. Locate the Key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
3. Delete Value "Windows Defender"

Method 2:
Here is the thread where I found this answer.
Rename the program exe

using an elevated command prompt:
takeown /f "C:\Program Files\Windows Defender" /r /d y
icacls "C:\Program Files\Windows Defender" /grant Administrators:F /t
Yes, use the quotes or path will not be recognized.

Or use your user name instead of Administrators or  try Administrator without the s.
Now rename the file
Before (Original name):
C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\MSASCui.exe
After:
C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\aMSASCui.exe

As usual, Microsoft recommends reinstalling or restoring Windows.
The lame brains who think this is not an issue have not installed enough systems. I don't know why it happens but if you need to change the names of users or machine after initial setup may be one instance. Why is a mystery. It is one of those "Oh Crap" moments.

Forget services or gpedit, they have never worked for me on this issue.
No, uninstalling Essentials and reinstalling did not fix it.
No, turning of Defender from within Defender did not fix it.

Salsa

I used this recipe. My first try at salsa and it is outstanding. I'm sure there may be delicious additional ingredients to try.

6 - 8 large fresh, flavorful tomatoes about 6 cups - Roma works great
2 scallions, finely minced
1 cup FRESH cilantro, chopped, no stems
6-8 cloves garlic, minced (used a press)
1/4 cup chopped FRESH oregano
2 tablespoons Jalapeno pepper, minced (more if your taste buds can handle it)
1 red pepper, chopped
2 yellow peppers, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons FRESH lime juice (I squeezed one lime)
Salt and Pepper to taste

I love chunky salsa so I chopped all the tomatoes,scallions, cilantro, oregano by hand for fear of getting it too soupy. By the time I got to the peppers, I was sick of chopping and pulled out the little Cuisinart and pulsed. It worked very well and I would use it for everything except the garlic next time.

The most tedious part of this recipe remains pulling the cilantro/oregano leave and chopping them. I see an "herb scissors" in my future.

I can not overstate how superior this salsa is compared to any store bought I have tried. I will use more Jalapeno next time.

Cuisinart12-Cup Does Not Last

I have purchased my last Cuisinart DCC-1200 Brew Central 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker. I have owned several of these and only one had any durability and lasted several years. The others have only gone a few months before adopting the extreme gurgling and no production. Yes I've tried cleaning with everything possible.

Why did I keep buying them? When they work, they make great coffee. Even at the current Amazon price of $69, I am not going to bite.

I have an Aero Press sitting in the wings. If I need a traditional drip, I'll just buy a cheap Mr. Coffee. I'm not overly impressed yet with the Aero Press but I've only used it once. Now I will put it through it's paces. And it won't gurgle.

I have settled on French press. Aroma hot water pot for $30 is great even though it doesn't always shut off, I would buy it again. For now I'm using a blade grinder. I would like to try a burr but hate spending the money and having trouble. Based on reviews the burr grinders can be work.

Grabbed this Bodum on Amazon for $71. It is quiet, clean and grinds consistantly. So far I love it but does the coffee taste any better than with my old blade chopper? Not really but as time goes on my opinion may change.

.trash-999

When I used my Linux USB (Xbuntu) to delete the old Windows Protected folders it placed them in a Linux recycle bin (.trash-999) on the same HD partition, who knew. I discovered it when back in windows. I should have emptied recycle before leaving Linux. In my case it was a good thing because I was able to pick up a few files that were not backed up.

I assume booting back into Linux and emptying trash will do the trick. Many of the files still hold their permissions while I am in the Windows system so I can't delete them from Windows.

And the answer is yes. From Linux open the Windows Data folder, then open that folder's trash and delete the files. Now when back in Windows .trash-999 can be deleted if you wish. I am not sure if USB Linux will create it again by simply running or if it only creates if you delete something from within Linux. It doesn't hurt anything being their empty.

Moving Chrome Temporary Internet Files

 --user-data-dir="your folder path"
right click, properties on the chrome shortcut you will be using and add the above after the target, remember the space after chrome.exe(space here)--user-data-dir="D:\Temporary Internet Files"


Now you can delete the old Chrome user folder.


Now that I am a proud owner of a marginal ssd, I am concerned about such things.

Any page that loads except from the shortcut has no extensions or bookmarks. Not quite sure about the behavior but no second cache seems to appear. You would think these programming geniuses would be able to fix this and allow relocation of the temp folder like Internet Explorer.

Installing SSD on AMD - Underwhelming Performance

I should give an intro in case someone reads this. Following is what I went through on my first SSD install. My conclusions are:

Edit: After using the ssd now for several days I am more and more impressed with the speed benefits on my Intel notebook. Even though my ssd is sata2 and not achieving speeds I see posted elsewhere even for sata2, the system is noticeably snappier. Programs install fast and load fast. Gimp for instance, which can load slowly on Windows, loads very rapidly. And that is with the Users folder on the Hard Drive, where Gimp keeps the fonts, scripts and plug-ins. It would be even faster if Users were on the SSD but that is something we want to avoid..

1. If using AMD, performance will be less impressive than with Intel.
2. Notebooks benefit more, they normally do not have huge fast drives. But the improvements I seed with my notebook makes me believe any system would benefit greatly from a properly tweaked SSD. It does take some work to get right and much of that work is not so much for speed but to save the drive from writes to the drive.
3. I just put a Plextor M3 in a i-5 2500k desktop and it's blazing fast. I'm sold on SSD.
4. I have not used RAID on SSD but posted speeds are enviable. (2 x 60 RAID 0 anyone?) Smaller ssd's are slower than larger ones but RAID0 would more than make up for the reduction. Notebooks are limited for drive space but most 17 inch notebooks can take 2 drive plus if you threw out the DVD drive you could RAID the two native slots and put a hard drive in the DVD slot. I usually have a desktop DVD around and portables are dirt cheap.
5. Keep tweaking to minimum, the obvious big culprits, and avoid tweaking programs.
6. 30GB (maybe even 16) may be enough if Programs and Users are mklinked to a secondary HD
7. With my 250GB ssd I am going to let programs install on ssd. I will manually direct certain (maybe most) huge programs to install on the secondary HD.
8. No need to turn off Recycle Bin because no additional writes are involved. Desktop is in Users folder.
9. Symbolic link User folder off C: drive.to D: or other. This is a handy way to set things up anyway. It keeps the OS small for imaging and quick restore if something goes wrong down the road.
10. Move Internet Explorer cache (Chrome is already in User folder).
11. I did turn off indexing. I use "Everything" to search anyway and Winkey still finds essential things.
12. I changed the System temp and tmp variables off the SSD as well.
13. ***Turn off page file? I can't make up my mind. If you have been running with a page file and turn it off, things will probably feel faster. Maybe this is due to a fragmented page file. I turned mine back on because Company of Heroes wanted it and I didn't see much difference. Ether way works fine.
14. Win7 does several of the tweaks we read about but not the ones above.
15. See further down on specific tweaks right after Windows install.

Programs:

SSD-Life free portable is program that claims to evaluate the remaining life of the SSD.

EaseUS is a great free cloning tool. Get it from Major Geeks, not from EaseUS.

Linux firmware flash for OCZ

Use diskpart to check offset

HDTune to test speed because it does not do excessive disk writes.

PCWizard reads the controller speed.

Here we go:
Defragged the crap out of my OS and shrunk it to fit on the SSD comfortably when imaged.

Hooked up the OCZ Agility2 and could see it in Windows but OCZ tools can't see it to flash most recent.

Windows registry says AHCI mode. (this is the way it will read on AMD if AHCI enabled)

I suspect it is the crappy AMD AHCI drivers.
Get new AMD AHCI drivers here.
Installed new AMD drivers, OCZ Tools still does not see it.
Installed Windows standard AHCI drivers, OCZ Tools does not see it.
(in case you are wondering how to change to the Windows driver)
Right click the driver in Device Manager and choose update, then choose from list.

How am I going to update the firmware? Linux? Who is running this railroad?

Let's see if trim is recognized. Yep, good old CrystalDiskInfo.

Speed is underwhelming:

Went here and am trying the Linux route.

It worked. Firmware updated.

But speed is still a yawn.

Ok, it beats my Samsung but not by much.

I don't know whether this is due to older gen. ssd or AMD's pathetic performance but give me a Raptor any day. And no need to baby Raptors. (Checked my old Raptor 74GB and only does 70's transfer so maybe not. It is SATA 1.5) I wish I would have tried a 60 GB for $60 instead of 250 for $250 but oh well. My laptop is Intel, maybe I will try it in there. Raid zero seems the key to hair splitting speed with SSD.

So let's put our Windows image on the ssd and see how happy we are. Standard procedure, Windows won't recognize the image. Time to pull out Macrium for a new image. I wonder if we will experience the dreaded "misalignment" problem.

No problem, Macrium free will not clone.  EaseUS will and is cloning as we speak. I did the 100 system reserve first and then the main Win7 partition. I started with no partition on the ssd. It is adding some irritating unallocated in front of the partitions for some reason, maybe to "align".

If you want to verify the alignment (e.g. for a SSD where you are not certain whether the proper alignment was done), you use the following commands.


Rumor has it that Win7 fresh install aligns itself correctly.

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk n
List partition

Now you should see a result like this.

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Primary 59 GB 1024 KB - but 64KB or any number divisible by 4 is also good

The offset (in KBs) has to be divisible by 4.


Note: Some readers and users of this tutorial got confused because the alignment numbers in a typical Windows7 installation are shown as:

1024KB for the 100MB partition
101MB for the next partition - which is most likely the C partition

They think that 101MB is not divisible by 4 and that there must be a problem. But that is not so. If you convert 101MBs into KBs (multiply by 1024), then the number is divisible by 4 and the partition is aligned.
credit SevenForums

The clone booted and if divisible by 4 is the test I am aligned. I had hoped the speed would pick up but no.

Kudos to EaseUS for free and easy cloning. I had not used it before and was impressed. Now I need to move all or most of the write files off the ssd or it will become even more useless. I am not impressed. Good to get that out of my system. Just when I though I was immune to tech hype, too.

So, I moved the ssd to my Notebook with a fresh install of Win7-64.

I must admit it is far better than the Hitachi 7200 second drive. I wish I could find my old spec. pics. This all seems under performing but I can't remember. I guess notebooks are the place for ssd but you need one that can handle two drives. Intel Matrix isn't doing much so I suppose one needs a later chipset.

I chose way too large a drive. 60GB would have been perfect because I moved users and programs through junction. Now I need a larger second drive than 320GB but will wait for prices to drop again. Here is the size of the OS now:

Pretty fair HD index.

I did some tweaks, cleared the index from the ssd, no pagefile and others. OMG he turned off pagefile, danger, danger! I ran an ssd tweaker and let it auto tweak (I wonder what that did?). Version 2 is here.

It helped. I should have been more patient and tested after each tweak but I just did a bunch of crap and hoped for the best Not sure what the peak/valley stuff is but something is accessing the drive. 200 is a satisfying upper number to be hit repeatedly and the burst rate is more what I would have expected. Windows experience was not impressed and that number did not change.

All things feel smooth and snappy but fresh installs will do that.

Problem: after my recent use of "ssd fresh" tweaker, updates will not install. One tweak too many? I will need to set this up again. I think I may just mklink the User folder, make sure it is not defragging and maybe turn off indexing. If the ssd dies while handling programs folders then it will be a good, honorable death.

Now I have "protected" Users/Programs folders on D: that I can't remove. Yes I have tried the "takeown" stuff. Linux on USB should make quick work of it. I have moved all my data in some copy to new, was painful. Not all of the copy worked and I suspect it was due to some of the permission stuff I was struggling with. I didn't check. Deleting these protected folders is a snap with usb linux but be sure you have a backup if you need the files later. Also Linux will place these files in .trash-999 folder on your hard drive. Remember to delete them from trash before you leave Linux or you will have the same permission problems if you try to delete them from Windows.

My new setup I did much less tweaking:

Done:

move and mklink Users (like this) (don't use quotation marks)

Turn off write cash, both boxes checked (had no effect)

Clear index from disk properties. (something I always did on XP)

Disable Windows Search service.

Disable defrag service and turn off schedule.

System Restore off (honestly, has this ever worked anyway?)

disable hibernate powercfg -h off (I always did this anyway) delete hiberfil file if present

Move Chrome temp internet files

--user-data-dir="D:\Temporary Internet Files" (stupid Chrome) not needed because in Users folder anyway 

prefetch off (seems to have been done by Windows) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

Find the "EnablePrefetcher" key on the right-hand pane, right click it, hit modify and change 3 to 0 and hit OK. 

page file ( moved to HD, I have 8GB RAM) turn off pagefile and much better
Disable Superfetch service

The highs are higher but it is a wild ride. Windows tends to do things early on to optimize so maybe that is causing the dips. I left programs on the ssd but I had nothing running.

Offset: Perfect

I might clean this post up later but at least I can go back and see some of what not to do. I will avoid tweaking programs which I credit breaking my update ability.