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Computer Tales: Is That Plugged Into the Right Spot?

November 6, 2008 | 6 comments

As some of you may recall, I bought parts to build a new computer a little over a month ago. My tale last left off with me awaiting the arrival of a heat sink and fan, so I could actually, you know, turn the new comuter on without melting my desk. Let us pick things up there.

Having ordered it from Newegg, it arrived fairly quickly. When I first opened it, I was concerned that it wasn’t going to fit inside the case; the thing is massive. I actually ended up having to remove the exhaust port tube from the interior of my case – the black pastic thing on the right panel:

Not a problem, not a problem, I had a fan I wanted to mount there anyway…

After removing the tube, I fought with the monstrosity for 20 minutes or so to get it mounted on the CPU. For those who have never mounted a heat sink and fan on a CPU, it can be a real pain in the butt. The instructions make it sound easy – just slip the clips over one side, then the other side, then pull the lever, done! – but it’s actually much more troublesome than that. It’s easy to get the clips over one side, but when you start moving the heatsink around to get the clips down over the other side, guess what happens? The first clips you mounted slide off. D’oh.

Anyroad – after a bit of frustration and a few choice words aimed at the heatsink, it was mounted and plugged into the motherboard. Upon powering up, the computer nor my desk melted; success. Kind of, anyway. Bet you saw that coming, didn’t you?

I went through the usual routine then, installing Windows, installing programs, etc. The computer worked (and continues to work!) fine. Recently, however, I ran into a few issues, though. Namely, after running a system intensive game for a while, I’d get the very occasional system reboot, or the graphics would mess up and then the system would reboot. Ruh roh; sounds like it’s getting too hot in my case.

I downloaded a nifty little application called SpeedFan, which, along with telling you the RPMs of your fans, also displays the various temperature readings of your hardware: CPU, CPU ambient, GPU, etc. While the temperatures were a little warm for my likings, what really shocked me was the RPM of my CPU fan: 800! Having bought this thing, I expected to see a minimum of 900, and a maximum of 2200. Not only was it running 100RPM below specifications, it was also never going any higher, even when I configured SpeedFan to speed the fan up at a lower temperature reading.

I thought that perhaps the fan didn’t like SpeedFan, or vice versa, so I installed the software that came with my motherboard, EasyTune Pro 5, to see if it could control the fan. I was unable to figure the program out, as it’s utter junk, but what it did do was provide an important piece of the puzzle. When I looked at its hardware monitoring display, it showed that my SYSTEM fan was running at 800RPM, and next to the CPU fan reading, there was… well, a red, blinking exclamation point. Ummm… that doesn’t sound good, now does it?

It then occurred to me that the software was just reporting what the hardware was telling it, so something was obviously wrong on the hardware side. I popped the case open, and after referring to my motherboard manual again, I discovered the problem. Apparently, the plugs on the motherboard labeled CPU_FAN and SYS_FAN are identical. Except one is labeled CPU_FAN and SYS_FAN, of course (oops). They both provide the same amount of base juice, so, for example, plugging your CPU fan into the SYS_FAN plug won’t make anything blow up. It’ll just make your CPU fan unable to increase its RPM as it’s supposed to.

May I repeat a word from above? Oops. After plugging the CPU fan in where it was supposed to be plugged in, amazingly, it started to function correctly. When launching a system intensive application, the RPMs would jump up to not 2200 but 2300.

Apparently, one needs to not only RTFM, but also pay attention to what it’s telling you. Be gentle in the comments.

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Geeky Dreams

September 21, 2008 | 5 comments

Some people’s dreams revolve around sex; others, nice sports cars or being able to see long-dead relatives. For me, one “happy” topic is foreign language books, apparently.

I dreamt this morning that I was at a massive shopping area; it seemed like it was a flea market or some such, but it was in something akin to a warehouse; very tall ceilings. We were at a used book place, except rather than browsing the shelves, you stood in line, and people “took your order”, as it were. The counter was piled with books, so while waiting, I picked up a book with a blue cover, and, lo’ and behold! It was a copy of Russian without Toil, printed in the 70s. Having the German version of the book, I obviously wanted (but didn’t need) the corresponding English version. They also only wanted $1.16 for it. No, I don’t know why it was a dollar and sixteen cents in my dream.

I’m not sure why we were at a flea market-ish place without any cash, but we were. I asked them if they took debit or credit, and the lady said yes. So, I reached to my back pocket, only to discover that I didn’t have a back pocket for my wallet, as I was wearing my boxers. Okay, then! I’m not sure what exactly happened, but in the next part of my dream, I found myself at home with the book.

By the time I got home, however, the title had changed – literally. When I looked at the cover of the book, it was for a completely different language. In my dream, it was something like “Yeradov ohne Mühe”; I remember not knowing what language that was, so I googled it, and discovered on Wikipedia that it was the Russian word for Hungarian. And yes, the base language of the book had morphed as well – from English to German. Fiddlesticks, the base being English was why I wanted it to begin with! ;) I recall being a bit bummed that it had changed to Hungarian, but decided that I’d probably want to have a go at it later, so it joined all of my other books on the shelf.

I think such a dream is worth at least 50 Geekery points. Maybe 75.

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Battlestar Galactica: I need my fix – now!

April 2, 2008 | 2 comments

I’ve been doing pretty well in keeping my cool about the return of Battlestar Galactica this Friday (as in, the day after tomorrow!), but I’m now craving a Battlestar Galactica fix. This evening I watched the two half-hour specials about the show, Battlestar Galactica Revealed and Battlestar Galactica: The Phenomenon. (As of right now at least, you can watch the first one here, and the second one here.) Neither really showed anything that most fans don’t already know, but still – watching snippets from episodes I’ve seen, listening to the people talk about it, thinking about where it’s headed – has got me absolutely wanting Friday night to be here right now. Where’s my flux capacitor when I need one?

I’m feeling extraordinarily geeky right now; when the second special ended, I realized that I was grinning from ear to ear and fidgeting in my chair. I need my Battlestar Galactica fix! Only two more frakking days to go. Two more. I’ll be okay. Really. Two days to go.

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Josh Vs. The Video Card

February 24, 2008 | 4 comments

If you’ve worked with computers for a while, you’ve probably heard some standard things about maintaining your system. Defrag the hard drive regularly; keep your virus definitions up-to-date; uninstall stuff you’re not using to free up space; update your drivers, especially if you’re trying to fix a problem or get the best performance out of your hardware. My computer recently taught me, however, that updating your drivers is sometimes not a good thing. Sometimes, newer is not better; sometimes, newer is total junk.

A couple weeks ago, I bought a new video card for my aging computer, in order to give it enough juice to run some newer games I’d like to check out. (I will also openly admit that I wanted to be able to run some of my older games at max settings and still get a good framerate. Yes, I’m a geek.) I’d been running an nVidia Quadro4 750XGL for a long while, a piece of hardware I bought when I thought I was going to get into 3D modeling – a hobby that never really developed. The card had done well in running games, something it wasn’t even really built for, but some Source games were a bit clunky, even if I used low settings, and Company of Heroes was even worse. To replace it, I bought a Sapphire X1650 512MB card after poking around on newegg.com. It seemed to have, on average, very good reviews, and it’s AGP, which is all my motherboard supports. Reviewers said that it ran all sorts of newish games very well at high settings, including Half-Life 2, which is a Source engine game. The card sounded right for me.

I got it in short order, due to newegg.com’s wonderful lightning-fast service. After physically installing it into my computer*, I moved on to the next thing: drivers. Thinking I was oh-so-techy, I figured I wouldn’t even bother with the outdated drivers on the CD that came with the video card. Instead, I would get online and get the latest and greatest set, or maybe even some optimized drivers! I went to guru3d.com and surveyed the landscape; aha! I found Omega drivers, which are optimized for performance. I nabbed them. I installed them, rebooted as requested, and then fired up Day of Defeat: Source to see if the new video card made a difference. And wow, what… the hell? Why was Day of Defeat running the same, or perhaps even worse, than it did with the Quadro4?

I tried out other various games I’d played before – Company of Heroes, Counter Strike: Source, Half Life 2. While they were vaguely prettier due to the new card supporting some shading stuff that the Quadro4 didn’t, overall, the difference was nonexistent. Framerates in all of them were awful, sometimes dropping so low that the games were essentially unplayable. Certainly, they weren’t flying, which is what I had expected from all of the rave reviews at newegg.com.

For a week or so I kept trying to play the games, tweaking settings on the video card using the ATI Tray Tools application, which came with my so-very-optimized Omega drivers. Nothing made much of a difference. Day of Defeat: Source, even using all low settings, ran about like it did before. I was quite bummed overall. I felt like I’d spent $75 and ended up with the exact same thing I’d had before.

After toying with settings and staring at bad framerates, I decided that something was not right, and that I should perhaps check out the newegg.com reviews again. 10 minutes of skimming and I found a recurring issue – people loved the cards, but drivers could be problematic. More importantly, many people who had grabbed the latest drivers from ATI – the drivers that the Omega drivers are built on top of – persistently ran into problems. However, if they went back to the old drivers that came on the disk, things were great.

So, going against my usual habits – so long ingrained that they’re more like instincts – I uninstalled the latest and greatest Omega drivers, rebooted my computer, and installed the (rather old and outdated) drivers that came with the video card. I rebooted again, fired up Day of Defeat: Source, and proceeded to oooh and ahhh like I was watching Fourth of July fireworks. Everything was running on high, and it was running fast. I tried Half Life 2, and oooh’d and ahhh’d some more. Company of Heroes had me bouncing up and down in my chair, pointing at stuff and saying things like “check out the texture quality!” I even downloaded the demo of Bioshock, and was very pleasantly surprised to find that it not only ran, but it ran well enough to be quite playable, even on my aging system.

My ATI video card taught me that newer isn’t always better – even when it comes to drivers. I guess I’ll have to amend my “how to fix a computer problem” bible now.

I may end up checking out the official updated drivers, but if things go boom, at least I know the old drivers will work well.

Post Script – Read The Frakking Manual

* The physical installation did not go smoothly. I got the card and rushed to my computer like the overgrown little boy I can be. I’m sure I looked silly, with a big grin across my face.

I yanked the old card out, then pulled the new one out of the anti-static bag it was in. I put it in the computer, hooked the monitor up to it, and pressed the power button on my computer. The monitor clicked on and… nothing. Well, it was something – green, yellow, and red, slashing across my screen in nasty, jagged lines. Not quite what I wanted to see. I tried rebooting the computer (always step #1 if you’re having computer problems), and got the same thing. I then decided that I should perhaps look at the quick start guide. It told me what I already knew: take out the old card, put in the new one, and turn the computer on.

I examined the card closely, and thought that perhaps it wasn’t seated well in the AGP slot. I took it out, and put it in again; that time, I thought I saw it go into the slot a bit deeper. Aha! I thought. This shall yield success. Alas, hitting the power button told a different story. Same jagged lines; same nastiness.

At this point I was in a bit of a panic. Had I gotten a bad card? Would I have to go to the trouble of getting an RMA, sending it back to newegg, and then having another go with a different card? I decided to inspect the box more closely, to see if I’d missed anything important. By that, of course, I mean I really looked in the box for the first time, because upon opening it, all I’d grabbed was the card. That’s all I needed, right?

I found a little power cord. Before I found that, however, I moved the anti-static bag out of the way; when I did that, I noticed that, on the underside of it, there was a sticker. I flipped the bag over. On the sticker, in big red letters:

STOP!!! You MUST plug this graphics board into the power supply of your computer. Please see the Quick Start guide for details.

Oops. I used the power cord the card came with to hook it into my power supply, hit the power button on my system, and – well, imagine that! It worked.

A long time ago, when I first started messing about with computers, I often read in tech forums this simple response (usually not directed at me, to be fair): RTFM. Read the… well, let’s say frakking manual, but that’s not what it stood for. :)

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Death of a Hard Drive

July 30, 2007 | 4 comments

Well, it finally happened to me. I lost a hard drive – or I would have, if I hadn’t swapped it out.

It’s really quite amazing, I think, that I’ve been using computers heavily since I was 9 years old (I’ll be 23 on the 11th of August, for reference), and yet just recently, one of my hard drives started to go bad. It seems that everyone I know who’s used computers for any amount of time has suffered a hard drive crash; while I certainly didn’t want to join the club, I did feel a bit left out. “Me? Nope, never had a hard drive crash.” Oh well. I’m in the club now, whether I wanted membership or not.

The clicking – that dreadful scraping, clicking sound – started about two weeks ago. At first I paid little attention to it. I’d heard other bits of hardware make strange sounds in the past, and nothing ever came of it. Unfortunately, as the days ticked by, the clicking became worse. It reached a point where the clicking was constant; if the computer was up and running, that not-very-healthy-sounding clicking was present.

I thought the clicking was coming from the oldest hard drive I have in my computer, a tiny 20gb drive which I’ve had for 6 or 7 years. It’s the drive I use for my mp3s, and considering its age, I really did expect it to be the one kicking the bucket. I was wrong. When I finally accepted fate – that one of my hard drives was dying, and I should damn well do something about it – I discovered that instead of my ancient hard drive being on its death bed, it was my newest hard drive. It was my 80gb SATA drive, which I bought from newegg.com in April of 2004. Pathetic! I know hardware goes bad, but isn’t 3 years a bit short for a hard drive? Perhaps I’m wrong; like I said, up until now, I’d had no experience with the phenomena. At any rate, whether it’s normal or not, it was, for sure, my 80gb drive, with Windows XP and the vast majority of my programs installed on it. Sigh.

Being broke (a seemingly chronic problem for many university students), I ripped the 40gb drive out of my inactive Tivo box, and swapped things out. To get everything up and running again without being forced by the Windows XP installer to erase lots of data on my other 2 drives, I had to swap around some of the IDE cables. In fact, I had to swap around all of the IDE ribbon cables. That’s something I hadn’t done in quite a while, and I must say: who in the hell invented those things? Really, now! Of all the types of cables, why would you decide that the standard cable to use inside of a small, cramped area would be gigantically wide ribbon cables, which don’t like to be twisted much at all? Ugh.

Anyway – all is well now. My PC is relatively quiet again, and no data was lost. Now all I have to do is muster up the courage to shove all of the power and IDE cables back into the tower, and slap the side of the case back on. As it is now, I have big, black ribbon cables and bright green power cables hanging out of the side of my computer. All tinted in a lovely blue glow from my power supply, no less.

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