Monthly Archives: December 2009

Skulls and intel motherboards

Computer Aid Posted on by

I recently sold an i5 system, based on an intel DP55WB motherboard.

As part of the setup & configuration, I went into the bios, and found some really unusual settings:

  • Internal bling LED.
  • Skull backlighting.
  • Skull eye hard drive activity (give the skull life!).

Since I had the computer built for me, I had to look at the motherboard carefully, to find out what it all means.

The bling LED is just a bright white LED, near the CPU, that can be made to flash.

The small skull was a lot harder to find… Its on an inner corner of the motherboard… on the underside of the motherboard.

I suspect the skull can glow (maybe its made from special fluorescent tracks), but I was looking during daylight, so I couldn’t see the glow effect.

The skull eyes are 2 LEDs, which can be made to flash with hard drive activity. It works, but is highly unlikely to be seen.

If this is an attempt by intel, to look “cool” to the PC performance crowd, then they only managed to look like they are trying too hard.

If it was up to me: either keep the mobo uncluttered… and maybe coat it with a fluorescent dye (then the builder can decide on UV lights to add some extra “bling”), or go all-out and have fluorescent tracks everywhere… And make it as gaudy as possible.

All this reminds me of IBM many years ago, where they tried to make their version of Unix (AIX) more popular by packaging the CDs in a “cool looking” case with the words “AIX Rocks!” splashed across the front cover… it was good for a laugh.

memtest86 and 4Gb RAM

Computer Aid Posted on by

The computer had some unusual problems, so a memory test was an obvious test.

I ran my usual memory test: memtest86

But when I ran the test, the computer would immediately reset.

After running a different memory test (with no fault found), I eventually realised that the fault was not with the RAM, it was with memtest86.

After some research, I found that running a 32-bit application (like memtest86), meant that there is scope for potential problems, as 32-bit applications can only address 4Gb, so at the limits of RAM, its possible for errors to cause problems.

So from now on, I’ll be careful about testing Ram of 4Gb or more.

backups for small businesses

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’ve seen many small businesses that don’t realise the best way to make backup copies of their computer data.

There are a few general problems with backups:

  • Backup technologies keep changing… So using a tape backup might have been ok about 5 – 10 years ago, but not now.
  • Some backup systems need manual input.
  • Some backup systems store data in special / propriety formats… Making it difficult to restore without the appropriate software (which can be difficult to find during a computer breakdown).
  • Backups are often stored together with the computers being backed up… Something like a fire can destroy the original data, and all the backups.
  • Backups are rarely tested to see if they actually copy what they should.

With current technology, its easier to do correct backups, which are both easy to restore, and “fire proof”. This article doesn’t go into securing your data, but that can be added as an extra step.

Here is how to do it:

  • Buy at least 3 external USB drives. Ideally, get at least a 320Gb external drives. 2.5″ drives are best, as they are lightweight, and use only 1 USB cable for both power and data. I like the seagate freeagent Go drives, but I avoid the supplied backup software.
  • Download the free syncback backup software. Syncback will backup / synchronise your data, yet you can restore the data on any pc with a USB port.
  • Install and setup syncback to sync the data between your pc and the external drive. How to do this depends on your specific circumstances and requirements.
  • With 3 drives (A,B,C), rotate and backup the drives (daily), so that one drive is always off-site (eg at home).
  • Every month or so, you can just double-click on the icon for the external USB drive, and navigate to a folder that you know contains recently changed files… open some of these files, and make sure they are as recent as you think they are.

If syncback is setup correctly, then the first backup can take a while (as the whole PC can be backed up at this time), but subsequent backups should only take 1 or 2 minutes, as only recently modified files will get copied.

Its also worthwhile excluding certain files from being backed up (eg hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys).

I’ll get into the details of setting up syncback in a future post.

incompetent computer repairers

Computer Aid Posted on by

Sadly, stories like these seem to be all too common.

I was called out to a small company, as they seemed to be having ongoing computer problems.

Once on site, i would see the XP PC errors like:

  • Invalid file structure.
  • Applications suddenly shut down, displaying various error messages.
  • Windows explorer would just freeze.

A scan with malwarebytes, can’t complete without some kind of lock-up.

While the scans are running, i ask a few more questions, and find that computerdrive.com.au have tried twice to fix the problem.

Initially, they scanned the drive for infections, fixed corrupted files, did various updates. The second time, they imaged the drive to a new drive. Once problems continued, the customer asked if they know what the problem is, and they admitted they didn’t know what was wrong, and could only suggest a new computer.

Back to the PC, i decided to eliminate any hardware problems.

I ran a simple RAM test, and everything seemed ok until the test did a block move… then the test gave an error. A few more tests showed that only 1 of the 2 RAM sticks was consistently faulty.

I replaced the RAM, and after a few more tests, i found no more problems.

Of course, i wonder why another computer company doesn’t have the tools to diagnose a problem that should be relatively easy to find… But then, in the last 4 years, I’ve seen many companies shut down after a year or two, and others just take any opportunity to milk customers who know little about computers.

Oddly, customers are also to blame… I’ve heard many of my own customers say (almost as soon as i walk in the door), that they know nothing about computers.

To the unscrupulous operator, its like saying: “please rip me off”.

Abused laptops

Computer Aid Posted on by

Most laptops are treated well by their owners.

Occasionally, accidents happen, or laptops are mishandled, and they quickly start to look and feel “aged”.

On one occasion, I saw a laptop that obviously had a hard life.

The laptop had some unusual problems:

  • The power socket felt loose when the power was plugged in.
  • Some keys on the keyboard would sometimes not work.
  • The power button had “lost” its LED backlight.
  • The CD/DVD drive would sometimes “disappear” from windows vista.
  • It recently had its hard drive replaced by another repairer.
  • I needed to re-installing vista, and the customer asked me to re-install office 2007… But i found the CD was scratched… I couldn’t install office.
  • The owner had another laptop… The keys in the middle of the keyboard (clustered in a circle… About the size of a fist) were about 2 mm lower than the rest of the  keyboard!

All this made me think: there is probably a market for rugged laptops that can take some abuse… Both hardware, and some kind of self-healing software.

sdhc cards need new readers

Computer Aid Posted on by

I recently got myself a new 8Gb micro SD card (for my HTC smartphone). Its actually a micro SD card, but except for the physical size, SD and Micro SD operate identically.

It all worked well, except I had some problems copying data from my older 2Gb SD card.

As soon as I put the 8Gb card in my PC card reader, The PC seemed to freeze for about a minute, and I couldn’t read the cards content.

After some searching around, I found that most older card readers cannot read SD HC (High Capacity) cards.

If you buy an SD or micro-SD card thats 4Gb or bigger, then its probably an SDHC card.

The best solution is: buy a USB multi-card reader that supports SDHC. It only cost me AU$15, so I’m sure most people can get one for under $50.

W7 first impressions.

Computer Aid Posted on by

At this stage, W7 is still very new, and after vista, most people are cautious about jumping in, in case w7 turns into another lame duck.

So, here is what i have found, both good and bad, but without getting into details that many people don’t care about.

First of all, the bad:

  • Despite what MS says, w7 really is vista 2.0. Now that sounds worse than you might think. Towards the end of its life, vista was much better than when it was first released.
  • If you don’t like the vista “look and feel” then you won’t like w7.
  • It still pushes the vista “start menu”, with the annoying system of “wipe out the current set of start menu choices with whatever sub-menu you happen to pause over”. Its annoying with a scroll-mouse, and just plain crap with any pointing device without a scroll wheel.
  • My biggest gripe about w7 and vista is the senseless naming system. In particular, i find the control panel change from “add / remove programs” under xp, to “programs and features” just makes managing the pc more difficult for the average, non-technical user. I have seen many people not know how to un-install software… And this has now gotten much worse with vista / w7

The good:

  • W7 64 bit is impressively fast. As long as you have enough RAM (at least 4 Gb), then everything seems to respond faster. And W7 64 bit has virtually none of the incompatibilities that xp-64 had.
  • The UAC popups are much less intrusive, compared to vista.
  • Connecting devices (eg printers) is usually flawless, particularly if you have an internet connection.
  • If you just use your computer for email, web browsing, some instant messaging, and a writing a few documents and spreadsheets, then you probably won’t be able to tell the difference between xp, vista, w7, mac, and linux anyway.

Overall, w7 doesn’t have the same “stay away at all costs” feel that vista had, as long as you can get used to the slightly less friendly user interface.

Review of the tab kit add-on for firefox

Computer Aid Posted on by

The tab kit add-on for firefox has many features that allow you to customise the way that tabs look and behave.

tabkit

Here is how I have setup the various options (tools -> addons -> extensions -> tab kit -> options)

tabkit1

The most obvious change I make is to have the tab bar along the top, and to show up to 4 rows at once (useful while using entrecard).

tabkit2

In this section, I like to have a minimum tab width of 80 pixels, tick all the appearance options.

tabkit3

Here, I disable all mouse gestures, and I like having scrollbars instead of arrows.

tabkit4

In this option window, I make sure I automatically group new tabs, but I don’t like collapsing inactive groups. I also like having ungrouped tabs to the right of the current tab.

tabkit5

And I tick all the options under open tabs by default.

Cannot get channel 13 wifi (802.11) on wm6

Computer Aid Posted on by

I had an unusual situation, where my Wm6 phone (htc touch 3g) would not connect to a wifi router (802.11G) that was set to channel 13.

I’m in Australia, so I should be able to use channels 1 – 13.

Whats unusual, is that an Asus eee laptop would find and connect to the wifi, but my phone wouldn’t, and a PC with a wifi usb adapter also wouldn’t.

The solution was to simply change the Wifi router channel to something in the range of 1 – 11.

But that made me curious: Why couldn’t my (quite new) phone connect to channel 13?

I know my timezone and geographic regions are set to Australia, yet the phone cannot see channel 13.

My next step was to do an internet search for a way to “enable” access to channels 12 and 13.

But it seems that there are a few other people out there, with similar problems, but nobody with any solutions.

I did a quick search for some obvious registry settings (80211, region, wifi, etc), but nothing useful.

Unless someone out there has an answer, it seems like wifi on the Windows mobile platform (version 6.1) cannot support wifi channels 12 and 13.

How screen resolutions have changed

Computer Aid Posted on by

Its interesting to see how screen resolutions have changed over time.

The following are pie-graphs of the screen resolutions, of visitors to computer-aid.com.au, during november, for the years 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009

screenres-2006

screenres-2007

screenres-2008

screenres-2009

The most obvious change over the last 4 years, has been the decrease of 1024×768 from about 47% to 23.5%

1280×1024 has decreased from 22% to 15%

The rapidly fading 800×600 has gone from 8% to 1.5%

In contrast, 1280×800 has increased from 6% in 2006, up to 18% in 2009

Also, 1440×900 has gone from 2% to 11%

So what does this all mean?

Well, if you design websites, you need to be increasingly aware of what a website might look like when viewed at different resolutions.

Just 4 years ago, catering for top 2 resolutions of 1024×768 and 1280×1024 covered 68% of viewers

But now, the top 2 resolutions (1024×768 and 1280×800) only covers 41% of viewers.

Its obvious, that with the increasing popularity of LCD monitors and laptops, has resulted in a much greater variety of screen resolutions.

Its also obvious that wide-screen resolutions are on the increase (but is this due to true consumer demand? Or is it a case of LCD makers catering to a small group of people who want to view wide-screen movies?).

Whats amazing, is that 1024×768 and 1280×1024 are still very popular for a 4:3 format.

Since most monitors are now widescreen LCDs, how can we have so many 4:3 format screen resolutions?

The answer is simple, as I see it happen very often: people will buy widescreen monitors/laptops, but to make the words “visible”, they usually lower the screen resolution to 1024×768, even though this results in a screen with objects that have a slight horizontal stretch.

This seems to show that, for most people, making screen fonts readable is more important than keeping screen objects in correct proportion.

Given that Vista and W7 still have an inconsistent approach to screen font sizes, I’d say that the 4:3 format will continue for quite a while yet, despite the increased number of widescreen monitors.