Tag: Windows XP

How Is My DVR doing?

I really wasn’t going to write about this, but a posting’s just gone up on Digg and I figured I’d better update. The Digg story referred to this article on building a homebrew DVR using SageTV software.

Paying $80 for software – that’s so not me.

I have chosen to use KnoppMyth, a Linux distribution based on Knoppix Linux and MythTV. For the un-geeky, “Linux distribution” refers to the operating system software that speaks directly to my computer’s chips. Windows XP is an example of an operating system.

What makes Linux so interesting as an operating system is, it’s free and it’s mainly supported by its own community of users.

MythTV is the actual suite of programs (also free) which turn my computer into a DVR.

What KnoppMyth does is make them play nicely together. Once you stick the KnoppMyth disk into your CD drive, most (not all) of the work has been done.

OK – enough of the technical stuff. How does it work and what have I discovered?

I’m pretty impressed with the quality. I haven’t played much with changing the capture parameters, but the way it’s set up now, recorded shows don’t look any different from what I’d expect to see on a TV screen.

The computer is currently in Steffie’s playroom. I thought it would stay there, but moving the video as packets across my network isn’t quite as simple as I thought. It will probably move into my office, on a shelf under the TV. I’ll unplug the computer monitor and move the video directly into a TV set.

Being able to program the DVR over the Internet is amazing – very powerful. More than once I have scheduled a recording while I was away from home.

Internet programming might be a problem over the long run because Comcast changes my home IP address from time-to-time. Imagine going to work in the morning and having all your stuff moved to a secret location while you’re away.

Also on the list of impressive features is the use of a MySQL database to hold the programming information. Enter a name, title, subject – nearly anything, and the DVR will let you know when something that matches will air. If there’s a conflict, it will even figure out another time to record! That’s very cool.

I recorded a program and wanted it on a DVD. No sweat. MythTV does all the grunt work of setting that up.

The computer I’m using is from the 90s. Its hard drive is large enough to hold 30 hours of high quality video. That should be enough.

One of the advantages of this free software is my ability to play around with it and modify it. I’ve done a little. I plan on doing more.

At some point, this homebuilt DVR will make me cry. All my computer projects do at one time or another. I try and keep it all in perspective, but stuff you throw together on a kitchen table or the floor of a spare room just isn’t the same as what you buy at Circuit City or Best Buy.

I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad.

Microsoft – Activation And Bad Music On Hold

Once the main computer’s case was buttoned up, I booted and that’s when I got Microsoft’s message. Because of my changes this looks like a new computer. To them, it seems like this machine’s copy of Windows XP has been activated too many times.

I am currently upset. I am upset while listening to bad, guitar laden, non-descript instrumentals on the Microsoft Activation Hotline.

It is now five minutes since the first guitar was strummed.

Here’s the backstory. Now that my new computer is working, it’s time to really optimize it.

A warning message has flashed each time I booted. I was using the wrong cable on one of the disk drives. I would be slowed, not stopped. The DVD writer was old, but I had a faster one in my backup machine. Why not swap?

These are simple things to do. It’s almost like unplugging one TV and plugging in another.

I moved the computers from their place, wedged between my desk and file cabinet. You could call the mess of wires back there a rats’ nest, but that would be unfair to rats!

It’s amazing how many formerly used cables there were back there. It’s a job I should have done 10 years ago – and it hasn’t gotten prettier.

As I lifted cables and wires, there were dust bunnies the size of real bunnies.

Still on hold. I’m getting a gun to shoot a random guitarist. This is beyond painful.

Anyway, I cleaned, straightened and reinstalled. Helaine asked if I’d be throwing some of the old cables out?

Please! These are cables. Where I come from, you sacrifice to the cousin level before you ditch cables. There has to be a place in the attic for them to lie in state.

Once the main computer’s case was buttoned up, I booted and that’s when I got Microsoft’s message. Because of my changes this looks like a new computer. To them, it seems like this machine’s copy of Windows XP has been activated too many times.

They won’t let me reactivate over the Internet, that would be too simple. And, if I don’t do this, and then wait too long, my computer will be frozen like a Popsicle.

It would be one thing if this was a bootlegged copy of XP. This is legit. I am holding the packaging in my hand – see?

It’s approaching a half hour and that guy is still strumming. There hasn’t been one voice nor any hint I might have misdialed. Maybe instead of Microsoft I’ve gotten hold of the non-descript guitarist hotline? No way to know.

Even worse, it’s a short piece that keeps repeating… and repeating… and repeating.

If this were work, it would be on my speakerphone. Here at home it means phone firmly between chin and shoulder. I am tethered in place and can accomplish nothing.

A few minutes ago, a call came for Helaine. I answered it, but didn’t take more than 5 seconds, telling her Helaine would call back. Hey – you only get one shot. I don’t want to go to the back of the line.

I want to know if Bill Gates waits this long? Actually, at this moment, I just want Bill Gates!

Addenum – After around an hour, I was getting suspicious this might end up my life’s work. We have another phone, and I called on that line. It wasn’t more than a few minutes (after hearing the same guitar music) before I was speaking to a woman with an Indian accent.

After swearing on my parents that this copy of XP is only in one machine, I was allowed to activate it.

Now, who gives me back the hour I lost?

Computer Problems – Business As Usual

As a special welcome home, Helaine’s computer decided to suffer a near death experience today. It was one of those things that can happen to anyone.

She turned on the computer, but forgot to plug it in the wall. Having been away for nearly two weeks, and with an elderly battery, there wasn’t more than a minute or two of juice. It was just enough to allow it to die while booting!

When she plugged the laptop in and tried to boot again, it got to the first Windows ‘splash screen’, churned its disk drive for a while, briefly flashed a ‘Blue Screen of Death,’ and began the boot cycle all over again. Uh oh!

I was called in for my technical expertise. You like to think in a situation like this you can just boot to the ‘Safe Mode,’ restore the computer to an earlier time, and merrily resume computing.

If only it were that easy.

Attempting to get to the ‘Safe Mode’ produced exactly the same result. I told Helaine it was possible her emails and bookmarks, the things she really wanted, might be gone. she wasn’t thrilled.

I called for tech support – my friends Peter and Kevin. They had some suggestions and I plowed on.

With Windows XP you should be able to put the original Windows installation CD in the disk drive and watch it repair itself. Good idea, but it didn’t work.

Since the ‘splash screen’ came up, I assumed the drive wasn’t a total failure. Maybe there was a way to read this laptop drive in my desktop?

They are normally incompatible, but sure enough, there was a cable for sale at CompUSA to allow them to talk. I’m trying to think if there are any good circumstances when you’d want this little device? No.

This was too easy. It’s a 25 minute drive to CompUSA and the cable was around $8… and they had it in stock&#185!

In order to use it, I had to remove the drive from Helaine’s laptop, physically open my desktop’s case, free up an IDE port (I unplugged the CD and DVD drives), hook everything up and fire up the PC.

I crossed my fingers and pressed the button.

My desktop booted very slowly, as if it knew it was entering uncharted waters. Finally it flashed a screen saying the “H” drive (that was where the laptop drive ended) needed to be checked.

I gave my permission and watched the errors fly. Four clusters were unreadable, an index file was wrong, some corrections were made and a small section of the disk was being marked as bad. It was bad, but it could have been much worse.

When Windows finally finished its booting, I tried to move all of Helaine’s files to my PC for safekeeping, but got an error message. What had looked promising a few seconds ago now looked bleak.

Kevin suggested I just take the semi-repaired drive out of my PC and put it back in the laptop. I did, booted, and watched the disk warning again – this time with a few different files.

Then a strange thing happened… the laptop finished its disk check, ran through its boot sequence and worked! Helaine was overjoyed.

You know, in the movies the geek never gets the girl. Maybe we should?

&#185 – Interestingly enough, there were two of the needed cables on a hook at CompUSA. The one in front had obviously been used and poorly repackaged. I passed on it for the other. The next purchaser gets to be their guinea pig.

Discovering Skype

Earlier today, I got an email from my friend Bob Wood in Austin, TX. He’s having a computer problem, as Windows XP fights with an application written in the ‘golden days’ of computing.

I picked up my cellphone and gave him a call. We ran through the typical trouble spots and found nothing.

As we went through a list of programs in msconfig, I looked at the cellphone and saw we were already 20+ minutes into the conversation. Hey – I’m not made of minutes!

I think it was then that Bob mentioned Skype. Skype is a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) service.

VOIP isn’t a new concept. In fact, we already use a VOIP service at home as an extra phone with unlimited Connecticut calling.

What makes Skype so different is its excellent integration into your PC. It took under 5 minutes to download, install and activate my Skype account. From that point forward, I was talking to Bob PC-to-PC. In that mode, Skype is free!

There are also ways to use Skype to call an old fashioned phone. That’s what my friend Peter did while traveling through France. Calls from a PC to a telephone cost a few cents a minute – even when calling from Europe.

The voice quality was excellent. There is no noticeable lag. Bob said radio stations could conceivably use Skype for remote broadcasts. I agree.

Where Bob and I disagree is his contention that Skype is a telephone killer. It’s good, but it’s not convenient. You need to be near your computer. It’s not portable.

It’s an adjunct, not a replacement. However, it’s a pretty darn good adjunct.

The Challenge of Computing

For the past few months I’ve been blogging, emailing, and computing in general on my backup machine. Somehow, my main computer had become unstable, rebooting at any or no occasion.

I’m not sure what made it go nuts. I only know it did. I suspect it wasn’t a virus or spyware. I’m very careful about that, but something was bugging it and it was relentless.

At one point I wondered if the problem wasn’t caused by the power supply? Considering all the crap I’ve got shoved in my computer case, it might have been overtaxed. A few weeks ago I ordered a new, quieter, more powerful power supply and a few extra sticks of memory.

This weekend I pulled the old supply and hooked up the new one. Though it looks complex with lots of wires and plugs connected to it, it’s really pretty straightforward.

I fired up the computer and – well, it was the same garbage. Right in the middle of nothing the computer would reboot. Maybe the original power supply was bad and a spike of electricity from its strained regulators had put bad data on my hard drives?

I decided to start from the very beginning.

My C:\ drive didn’t contain much other than installed programs. All my important data was squirreled elsewhere. I re-formatted the drive.

Next came my copy of Windows XP. In the drive it went and the install process was underway… until it stopped. Randomly, files weren’t being copied properly and Windows wasn’t shy about telling me.

The message was something like, “Press Enter to try again, skip this file at your peril.” I pressed Enter… and Enter… and Enter. Sometimes on the second or third try a recalcitrant file would load, only to hit the another pothole a few seconds later.

Finally there was a file that wouldn’t copy, no matter what I did! Was it the CD drive, my hard drive, the Windows CD itself or something I hadn’t thought of yet? I kept trying, but never got any further.

Finally, tonight at work while reading through an old Usenet message, I found something that might be the culprit… though it sounded off the wall. Sometimes when mixing and matching memory chips, Windows balks. It just refuses to install.

That, in a nutshell, was what had happened to me.

I’m guessing – actually, it’s more like hoping, I’ll be able to stick the memory into the PC once Windows is loaded and running. It will run much faster with 1 Gb of RAM than it does with 512 Mb.

As I type this Windows is updating, installing all the security patches that have come out since XP hit the scene. I still have a few more drivers and utilities to throw on before it’s time to reinstall my programs.

What a royal pain!

In the long run, all of this anguish and angst will go away. The computer will run like a top. I will be happy.

It’s a machine I designed and built myself. Unless something goes wrong from time-to-time I feel I just haven’t pushed the envelope.

My New, Old Computer

My butt is sore. Much of yesterday was spent on the hardwood floor in my office moving pieces in and out of my main computer.

Over the past few months, this computer has become more and more unstable. As tech support for my family and many of my friends, this is a situation I have seen and advised on many times in the past. Usually I consider a total rebuild to be the last resort. This was different.

I am, alas, fast and loose when it comes to software. I move things in and out of my machine on a fairly steady and totally disorganized way. Who really knows what was inside of it to make it croak?

On many machines the instability is caused by outside forces containing viruses and spyware. I don’t think that was the case (though it’s possible). Somehow, through all my playing, some driver been ‘pranged.’ It’s possible it was just one byte, or maybe more. It was impossible to predict where or when the crash would occur – only that it would.

Of course that’s the problem. Computers should be dependable. How anxious would anyone be to do any work on a computer with the understanding that you were no more than minutes or seconds to losing everything you had worked on?

I decided the best course of action would be to add a new hard drive, allowing me to keep my old data and reorganize. Most modern computers have one hard drive and a CDROM or DVD player/recorder. This machine now has five&#185 hard drives, a CDRW and DVDRW.

Staples was having a sale and I picked up a 160 GB drive for $70. That’s an astounding number, though it probably will be middle of the road in a few months and expensive by the summer. That’s how high tech pricing goes.

My friend Peter is disappointed I didn’t buy the biggest and (more importantly) fastest drive I could get my hands on. I am a firm believer that most high tech horsepower is wasted. Getting a deal was more important than getting a speed demon.

I plopped the drive in the case… not as easy as it sounds. Because of all the pre-existing wiring, I had to disconnect and reconnect devices to swing the drive bay out and then back in.

Who exactly designed the plugs used in IDE disk drives? This is ridiculous, with an almost impossible to find key arrangement that allows you to decide whether the plug is going in upside up or upside down. It is possible to put it in backwards and bend some pins. Ask the man who has!

This 160 GB hard drive has more capacity than my machine can address! I put in a CDROM from the drive’s manufacturer, Maxtor and split it into 3 parts: 10, 75 and 79 GB. It was time to turn my computer back into a computer.

As I was loading Windows, a sobering thought entered my mind. What if it was crashing because of some hardware failure? I would be out the $70 for a drive that would be useless. I didn’t want that.

Windows loaded fine. Then, I pulled out a CDROM I had burned (and have used at least a half dozen times since) with Windows XP Service Pack 2. This is so much easier than downloading it every time it’s needed.

I have discussed this with other techno weenie friends. No matter how many times you install Windows, each installation comes out slightly differently. I have no idea why.

After Windows was totally up-to-date, I began to load all the hardware specific drivers I needed. I was surprised that the drivers for my video card were totally different -totally redesigned in look and feel – from what I had been using.

Are they faster and better or just different? With computers, version 2 is not necessarily better than version 1.

Next I started to move back some of the software. Because of Windows structure, if you put in a new drive and reload Windows, all your old installed programs (even if they’re still accessible) have to be reinstalled from scratch! The data remains, but the program is unusable.

As of this moment, I, once again, have a working computer. Of course I always did have a working computer… there are three in this room at the moment. But, right now, my main machine is pure and sweet and speedy again. Its data is still somewhat disassociated from its programs. That will need to be fixed. I’ll also keep checking to see what I’ve forgotten or misplaced.

The final step to make this box totally operational will be to follow some on-line instructions and shut down a bunch of services Windows runs in the background which I don’t need, and which slow down any computer.

All of this is a royal pain, yet it’s my fun.

&#185 – Only four are supported at any one time and the smallest is currently offline. It contains most of my photos, which will be moved to another drive. Then it will be removed from the case and used in another project.

Who Will Support This Tech Supporter?

When it comes to computers, I provide tech support for my family and friends. I enjoy it. I’m pretty good with it. The secret here is, most computer problems are fairly easy to solve and involve the computer user shooting himself in the foot.

Sorry – it’s true. They’re mostly self inflicted.

But what do I do… who do I turn to when I have problems? Mostly it’s my friends Peter and Kevin. The funny part is they often lean on me too! Sometimes just a different perspective is valuable.

Unfortunately, I have a problem on my main PC and I don’t think either of them can help me. The problem isn’t in knowing how to troubleshoot this PC. The problem is the sheer volume of possibilities that will have to be searched.

A month or so ago I started getting spontaneous shutdowns of the Windows XP operating system and, what computer geeks call, BSOD or Blue Screen of Death.

No matter what glitch or bug or error you get, there is nothing more sinister than a BSOD. By the time it is on your screen the operating system has stopped… well, it’s stopped operating.

There are a few cryptic clues like a reference to a specific error which is often associated with the computer’s software drivers. Great – there must be hundreds, maybe thousands of those. And each time the BSOD occurs the screen points in a slightly different direction.

I wanted to take a screen shot to post here, but once you get a BSOD your computer is pretty much dead in the water.

Luckily, this isn’t the only problem of late. Note the error message on the left. I have tried searching ever source I know… and come up blank. There’s nothing I’ve changed recently which should have caused this USB error. I’m guessing it’s related to my scanner and it very well might be related to the BSOD problem.

Please, don’t feel sorry for me. I collect computers like Steffie collects shoes. There are backups available (though I still don’t back up my data – another weakness of mine) and I have used them in critical situations, like taking tests for school. A computer crash there might be incredibly costly.

So, why am I writing this? Well, my friend Steve (who has received his fair share of tech support) was wondering why it wasn’t here. I had originally decided to wait until I solved it before writing about it – but that might never happen.

Lonely

Helaine and Steffie have gone away for a few days. The house will be very quiet.

When we last spoke, they were somewhere in South Jersey. Traffic hadn’t been bad in Connecticut, but that changed from the Cross Bronx Expressway into Central New Jersey.

It’s possible that a suit could be filed to have them change the name of that road. Isn’t calling it an “expressway” false advertising?

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. Even late at night, while I’m the only one awake, there is something very reassuring knowing that they’re both there.

For this quick trip, I had to do some tech support. Helaine wanted to bring a laptop, but we weren’t sure what kind of access would be available. Last night I made sure the computer would work with either wired or wireless connections.

Networking on the road is a definite weakness of Windows machines. Sometimes you can just unplug it in at home, then plug it in at your destination and it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. I can’t predict which will happen in any given situation.

I had become pretty proficient at working these problems, Then Microsoft made changes to them with Windows XP Service Pack 2! No good deed goes unpunished.

I’m thinking it’s 60/40 that Helaine won’t need help. We’ll see. If she does need assistance, I hope I can talk her through it.

They also took my camera. The last time Steffie took it, the auto focus somehow got switched off. Steffie figured it out and focused by hand – still, why bother when it’s not necessary. I put together a set of instructions with every contingency I could think of.

From a selfish standpoint, when they’re not around I have a tendency to put off going to sleep. As late as my bedtime is now – it gets later! I’ll also wait until the last minute to straighten up the house and run the washing machine.

Cellphones make things a little easier. There’s no real reason to be out of touch. But I’ll miss knowing they’re with me… having my middle of the night conversations with Helaine… having her wake me up (as she did this morning) when I forgot to take some medicine.

I am married because I want to be with them. This trip will make me appreciate that a little more.

Windows XP Service Pack 2

Over the last year or two, the Windows operating system has started to resemble the South Bronx in the early 80s. Yes, it’s intrinsicly valuable, but it’s also become dangerous. The young and innocent must be protected from predators.

Over the weekend, Microsoft slowly rolled out a massive service pack for Windows XP – the latest version of its operating system. Since I have a bunch of machines to update at home, I downloaded the 225mb version and then passed it across my network to all the machines.

The size of the download will certainly keep people with dial-up accounts from getting the pack. It will probably intimidate many broadband users as well. That’s a massive file to download.

I’m taking few chances, so it was installed on my spare machine first. I figure there’s nothing mission critical on this machine so I can survive should the machine be unhappy with what I did.

Microsoft actually expects to see some troubles, though I have seen few specifics. Since it closes holes in certain ports with its new firewall, it’s sure to break programs that communicate in a non-standard way – even if they’re doing so for a perfectly legitimate purpose.

After the download, installation took about 25 minutes. It didn’t ask for my help, other than clicking off on the EULA.

As far as I can tell the installation was a success. I immediately noticed my wireless network, which needed me to manually start it on every reboot, was now finding its own way to operation. I’m not using Internet Explorer or Outlook Express on that machines, and I know that’s where a lot of the security enhancements were aimed.

There are two things which trouble me. First, this service pack doesn’t address problems for people running Windows 98, a perfectly fine and usable operating system. We have two machines at home (Steffie’s desktop and my laptop) which are running Windows 98. Neither machine has the firepower to switch to XP. They will continue to be susceptible to all the same attacks that brought this service pack on in the first place.

My second problem concerns whether Microsoft will allow this patch to be used on systems with bootleg copies of XP. It would seem obvious that they shouldn’t support those who steal from them, except for the fact that many of the ills this service pack stops are passed along to legitimate users. So, no inoculation for them means they may make my computers sick in the long run.

It is certainly a quandary for Microsoft. I don’t know what I’d do if it were me. However, if viruses and spam from zombie machines continues because of Microsoft’s policies, I’ll be ticked.

Fixing My PC

It’s been nearly a week since my main computer died a horrible death. Upon close inspection, it was easy to see a diode had popped. Now, with a second motherboard on the kitchen table, it’s easy to do an a/b comparison.

That’s a pretty substantial diode that bought the farm (top left is the dead diode photo, next down is the diode on the new motherboard). The ceramic casing totally flew off, meaning the temperature got very hot in a very short period of time. Hopefully, whatever drove the diode to its demise was on the motherboard and not in some peripheral component which is still in the system.

I made a conscious decision to get the very same motherboard, and preserve the CPU, even though they are well below state of the art. My main concern was to get this PC up and running as soon as was possible and as close to its original configuration as I could.

I was surprised that, while this machine was down, I could do nearly everything I wanted to do on my Linux machine. One notable exception was the ability to spellcheck these blog entries. And, as soon as I’m done with this, I’m going back over the last few entries to see how poorly I’ve spelled.

This afternoon, as 2 turned to 3 and then 4, Helaine asked if I was worried about repairing the PC. She could see I was avoiding it. She was, as always, right. But, no matter what the outcome, it couldn’t be any deader than it was, so I began the surgery.

There’s not enough space upstairs in my office, so I carried the computer down to the kitchen table. I reached in the cupboard and pulled out two coffee cups. They would be used for screw storage, as I removed and then reinstalled motherboards. There’s nothing worse than not finding the screws you just removed – and still need.

As I removed the flat disk drive cables, I marked their assignment. Good move because there were four of them to go into four separate slots.

I cut some cable ties I had used to keep wires from flopping around inside the case. Steffie had graciously gone to Sears Hardware (a very sad store) to pick up some more, and had returned with a psychedelic assortment.

The fried motherboard itself was screwed into brass standoffs attached to the case. I removed the screws and pulled the board out. Other than the diode, I saw no obvious problems. There is the possibility I could have soldered another diode in place, saving the cost of the motherboard – but that just seemed too risky a proposition.

The new motherboard slid in perfectly. Most of the screw holes lined up… and the one that didn’t did after a little coercion.

I inserted the CPU from the first machine and fastened the Zalman heatsink. Then I attached all the cables. There were the 4 – hard drive cables, a floppy drive cable, power, fans, USB connectors and a half dozen small attachments for controls, like the panel lights, internal speaker and power switch.

When I pushed the power button, the computer sprang to life. It beeped – properly this time – and went though its boot process. I hit the “DEL” key to make some minor changes in the BIOS and then watched as Windows XP came up – silently.

In fact, there were a few problems on the first boot. They were simple, like audio cables in the wrong port plus backward USB and high drive light connectors. I fixed them all in an instant.

Then, I set about the process which brought the machine to its knees in the first place. I installed the cooling fan and a resistor to slow (and quiet) it down. The computer didn’t like the lower rate of spin, but I bypassed the protective circuitry and continued.

As far as I can tell, the computer is working like a champ. The CPU is running a little warmer than before – about 141&#176 versus 123&#176. But, those numbers are still world’s away from the ‘redline’.

And, though not silent, the computer is much more quiet. The noisiest component is now the fan on the power supply. Hmmm – I wonder if I can replace that?

Blogger’s note: This is the 500th entry in my blog.

Silence of the Ram(s)

I love my little auxiliary computer. It’s the one that runs Mandrake Linux and sits next to my main (though less powerful) Windows XP machine.

It started life as a Pentium II 300, but thanks to a ridiculous mail order sale, it is now an Athlon XP 2400+. Of course changing the motherboard demanded a new power supply… and it really needed more memory… and there was this CDRW that was only $10 after rebate. You get the idea.

I’ve got Mandrake running nicely… well, nearly nicely. I might reinstall it, again. Anyway, I’ve got it running. And I do use the machine. But there is a continuing, nagging problem. When I turn it on, it’s like standing next to a 747 as the engines get run up!

I know what the problem is. Buying the motherboard, CPU and fan on a ‘deal’ meant the components were low end. For the internal CPU cooling fan, that meant very noisy.

I had heard about Zalman cooling solutions and how they were often nearly silent. I decided to try one. I think it’s interesting that Zalman sounds like an Eastern European name – since it’s a Korean company.

I read a lot and settled on the CNPS3100-Plus. It is a two stage cooler, with a pure copper heatsink shaped like a flower, and a fan. The fan, which isn’t mounted directly atop the heatsink as most are, comes with a “noiseless fan connector.” That’s a clever way of saying a cable with resistor to drop the fan’s voltage and speed.

I went to Google’s price comparison search engine and found the best deal. “Froogle” is a good idea, but is often confused when many items are listed together. It took me a while to find the right item and price. I ordered two. One for the auxiliary and one for the main computer.

For the past week, these two hermetically sealed “Quiet CPU Cooler” kits have sat in my office. Tonight, I finally installed the first.

I removed the original heatsink, a fan attached to a honeycomb of copper. Because it was held by tension, I used a screwdriver to stretch it a little more and pull it off the CPU socket’s pins. The kit came with a tube of thermal grease, which I spread over the area where the CPU and heatsink would touch. Then I replaced the original fan and heatsink with the copper flower. I hung the new fan from the screws that hold PCI cards on the motherboard.

When I fired the computer up the first time, it swung right into action. But, when I went to close the case and try again, the computer let out with a steady tone and shut itself down.

Modern motherboards monitor the fan that cools the CPU. Maybe this one was judging the slower fan as not sufficient? I readjusted the BIOS settings so it wouldn’t monitor the fan anymore. The computer booted right up.

Amazingly, most of the racket the PC had been producing was no longer there! There was still noise from the power supply fan and the new CPU fan – but it was worlds away from the racket I had heard before. I was able to heard the chatter of the disk drives as they accessed data. Earlier, that noise was masked.

Later tonight, or maybe tomorrow, I’ll install the second cooler on my main computer. So far, I’m very impressed by what I haven’t heard.

Tough Choice for Microsoft

I’m sitting at one of my Microsoft powered computers at the moment. Since I built this puppy from individual components, I actually have a full CD version of Windows XP Home – something that seldom comes with computers anymore.

It used to be, prior to Windows XP, that Microsoft’s operating systems were easy to steal. There must be millions of Windows 98 machines running on an operating system that was borrowed from a friend.

Starting with XP, Microsoft made this much more difficult. Now computers need to be activated before the operating system will become permanently enabled. Windows XP versions that come with specific hardware often will not run on other hardware. And, Microsoft has found many of the bogus serial numbers used to activate XP and now deactivates those systems if they try and use Windows Update. Still, if what I’ve read is correct, much of Asia and the Third World’s computers are run on bootlegged copies of Windows XP.

There lies the problem.

I never would have thought of this myself and have to thank Slashdot for pointing it out.

With all the security flaws and weaknesses of Windows XP, should Microsoft continue to deny software upgrades to illegally obtained and installed versions of their software? Surely, if Microsoft allows anyone to keep XP up-to-date, there will be less incentive to buy the disk. On the other hand, by denying these patches, is Microsoft creating an environment where more and more bad code will infect the Internet… which affects legal owners like me!

I’m not sure what advice I’d give to Microsoft. Are they liable for the unpatched versions of their original code? Do they have any obligation to me, a paying customer, when it comes to bootleg copies of their software?

This won’t be the last we’ll hear of this. It’s a very provocative question to ask in an industry that’s anything but simple.

Mac Users… I’m So Embarrassed

I compose this blog on a variety of computers. Most of the time, the typing is done at home on one of a few Windows XP machines, using Internet Explorer. From time-to-time I will also compose on my Linux machine at home (or if it’s a really slow night, my Linux machine at work) using Mozilla as the browser. Most of the time, the blog looks exactly as I want it to look.

Without going into all the details (since I’m not sure I totally understand it), a blog like this is only possible because of CSS or cascading style sheets. I can define the look of the blog’s component parts and keep things uniform through a master style sheet. That’s why the column on the left looks as it does, the main blog body and headers look as they do, and how

I can put text into a bounded box with mono spaced type by adding a few characters

I don’t own a Mac and never use Macs. I had no idea what this blog looked like on a Mac. Now I do, and I’m not happy. You can take a look yourself if you really want! That capture was sent to me by Michael Dreimiller.

I had somehow left out one tiny little command. It was a command that deactivated big type. Without it, every once in a while, big type would appear where I didn’t want it.

My Windows browser could care less. Unfortunately Internet Explorer really doesn’t follow the exact CSS protocol (even though it accounts for the vast majority of web browsers). So I was short changing Mac owners.

The fix took about 10 seconds. I’m still not sure if everything else is Kosher. For that, I will run the rest of the site through a ‘validator’ later tonight and see what changes are necessary. Though I started with a perfectly valid style sheet, I have modified it mercilessly over the months. Who knows what evil I have done.

Anyway, if you’re a Mac user, my profuse apologies. Feel free to reread whatever looked awful earlier. Everything should be fine now – I hope.

The Penguin And I Are Speaking Again

With an international crew of geeks at the ready (they were working on video drivers before I got stated) I have finally got my Linux machine up and running while looking and sounding good.

It has been a long and arduous task – and even today it reverted to some of its old habits; losing its Internet connection and sound functions.

The benchmark I had been running, “glxgears”, has gone from 130 fps to over 300 fps. When I switched to fewer colors, though still more than I can discern, the speed went to 600+ fps.

I have run a few screensavers and a ridiculous little game to stress the video system, and the computer has responded perfectly.

Now, what to do with the computer? It sits next to this perfectly competent Windows XP machine which can already do most everything.

I will be looking for some modeling and animation software to run. The Linux machine is the perfect testbed because I can dedicate the processor and not have to worry about bumping other things like mail or web browsing.

Still, the most important thing is, it’s running. I’m just not sure it’s currently, or permanently, stable.

Building a New PC – Almost

Why would anyone want three PCs at home? I’m not talking about the machines shared with my family. These are my computers. Granted, two of them are discards; computers deemed too slow by others.

I have done most of what I could to optimize these older machines. They’re loaded with memory and unnecessary processes are shut down. You still can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, but you can get a lot closer than most people expect.

The laptop, a Pentium II 300 MHz model, is my road machine. It’s got a wireless card and is often downstairs in the family room (especially if I’m watching TV and playing poker). It is sometimes sluggish, but never enough to be a bother.

The second desktop is also a P-II 300. Well, it was until a few days ago.

I wondered if it would be possible to bring this machine into the 21st century without spending much cash. TigerDirect was having a sale where the net cost (after rebates) of a motherboard, fast processor chip with fan, and memory was only $99.99. I decided to give it a try.

It took about three days for UPS to deliver my package. Looking in the box, everything was there, in its original packaging. So far, so good.

Fearing the 256MB RAM stick that came with the kit wasn’t enough, I went to Staples and bought another 256MB. It was $30, after rebate, bringing me to $130.

What is missing in a deal like this is a great deal of documentation. There were no instructions with either the CPU chip (an AMD XP 2400) or the fan. There was a sticky label on the chip’s packaging saying, in essence, “you break it, too bad.”

Instructions don’t seem like a big deal, but mounting the fan isn’t totally intuitive and a thermal compound paste (included) has to be applied between the fan and chip.

My first step was unplugging the old motherboard, unscrewing and removing it from the case. No problem. It came out really easily.

Since the computer industry standardized motherboard sizes, my new ATX board should fit exactly where the old board sat. It did. A new plate fit between the case and motherboard, allowing the external plugs for video, audio, mouse and keyboard to be accessible. So far, so good.

Each individual peripheral, like a disk drive, has to be wired for both data and power. It sounds tougher than it is. There are distinctly sized plugs for each operation. It’s tough to go wrong, though it is possible if you’re not looking, to put some plugs in backwards.

The manual for the Soyo motherboard was well illustrated and easily led me to the right sockets on the board for all these cables. I did have to call AMD to try and figure out how to set an on-board jumper. I was on and off the phone in two minutes.

AMD, if you’re listening, I’m impressed.

It took a bit over an hour on the kitchen table before I was ready to plug it in. I lugged the case upstairs and plugged it into my KVM switch. KVM stands for keyboard, video, mouse. All it means is I can run two computers from one set of devices. Hitting the scroll lock key twice toggles my keyboard, mouse and monitor from one machine to the other. It’s pretty simple, saves space and lots of money.

The system started to power up, but the normal beep as it’s getting ready to go was replaced by a continuous tone for a few seconds and then… silence. The machine shut itself down.

Uh oh. I took a look at everything under the hood. Something had to be wrong. I didn’t see anything out of place. So, I went to Soyo’s website and searched out my problem.

Someone had described a similar outcome for another motherboard. It hinged on the safety circuitry not sensing the cooling fan on the computer chip. Sure enough, my fan was plugged into the wrong socket.

Though the fan was spinning, keeping things cool, the motherboard’s circuitry though it was just an extra fan, not the one necessary to keep the chip operating. I moved the plug and bingo, it booted.

I spent the next few hours going through a bunch of different operating systems, trying to decide what I wanted. I loaded Windows XP and two different flavors of Linux.

Since I was aiming to keep the cost down, I went with Linux. Specifically, it’s “Mandrake Linux 10 Community,” a close-to-production release. It’s free! I actually downloaded the installation disks the night before and burned them onto Cd’s. Unless you play games or run some very specific applications, Linux is fine. There are browsers, email programs, graphic design software, etc. Most of it them are free.

I find it a little more difficult to get answers to Linux questions, because I know fewer people who run it than Windows. But, I am constantly ‘mitchering’ with my machine, and that brings up situations most users wouldn’t get into.

I went to bed a happy man. My machine was humming along. This ugly duckling was now the fastest machine in the house. Life was good. And then, I woke up.

Hitting the power button brought nothing. No noise, no lights, nothing.

I had built this system in an old case with an older, weaker power supply. I can’t be sure, but my best estimation is the power supply was stressed with this new configuration. As it cooled, it broke down. A digital multimeter across the power pins showed no voltage anywhere.

My goal here was to keep costs down. Now, with the extra RAM, I was already $30 over my original cost. I could have spent $60 at CompUSA or Circuit City to get a new supply, but decided to log onto eBay and see what was available.

For $20, including shipping, I bought a 420 watt supply to replace the 230 watt model I’ve surely fried. It’s coming from California, so I’ll be without this machine for most of – maybe all – of the next week. My $100 machine is now $150.

Still, if the power supply is the problem, and if it boots up right away, this will be a great investment. For $150, a computer someone wanted to throw away, will be a screamer. And, I did it myself. It’s no big deal.