Archive for September, 2005

DFI LanParty nF4 Ultra dead?

Sep 30th, 05 / Comments Off

DFI Forums – NF4 Ultra-D – Ultra D: Leds of Death Once Again…. Well, I got a brand new 600 watt power supply and the thing is still dead. The LED standby power light goes on, but nothing happens when I push either power button. I also see the DRAM light is off.

Hardware

2006 Scion xB

Sep 29th, 05 / Comments Off

!cars.com: 2006 Scion xB Reviews. _Ugh, our Volvo died again, this time it is the alternator and the battery. I can’t take it any more and most importantly, Connie said, OK, you can get the ugly thing, but I’ll never drive it._

Shopping for the thing is easy as there isn’t any haggling, so the big decisions are. A “Yahoo”:http://autos.yahoo.com/newcars/scion_xb_2006/4537/model_user_reviews.html;_ylt=Al1IHSuUY81qXco1zVyVYAM8l8AF?sort=mh&modelid=4537&start=1&show=atf&reviewid=7&reviewnum=1&trimid=17751 review points out that most of the OEM accessories are available on eBay, so if you want these, the cheapest way is to find a local tuner in town or to buy on eBay and install yourself.

The 2006 model adds a standard audio jack so the audio input goes in easily. For an additional $260 bucks, the stereo itself can show the song playing on the iPod. Personally, the $260 doesn’t seem quite worth it, because for me, the iPod itself is a nice enough user interface.

Alarm system. $400 for this, seems like a good idea to get an integrated one, although “Car Toys”:http://cartoys.com can outfit you after market. I had an after market system for my original BMW and I kind of like the integrated ones better, but don’t know if things are better now.

Leather seats. OK, the thing doesn’t come with leather, you have to change that after market and it is expensive. So cloth ain’t so bad now that the kids are older.

DVD Navigation System Eclipse ESN E5. Again, these are after market, “Scionzone”:http://forums.scionzone.com/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=500 recommends an Eclipse unit that fits into the standard double DIN radio slot. The “ESN E5″:http://www.eclipse-web.com/avn/avn5435.html has a DVD navigation, MP3 playing. You can watch a DVD, but only when the car is stationary (how depressing!). Both Car Toys and Magnolia Hi Fi carry it. It is incredibly easy to install an aftermarket radio according to this post.
* remove the three climate control knobs, yes the just pull off.
* then remove the philips screws under the two outer knobs locations.
* then you will have to gently pull the bottom out on both sides. pulling in a downward but outward motion, this will allow the top to swing out and unclip.
* gently disconnect the heater controls, Hazards and additional plugs on the back of the bezel. Place this in the rear to keep from scratching the unit.
* next remove the 4 philips screws and detach the power plug on the rear along with the antenna.
* at this point you should have a gapping hole in the dash and a smile on your face.

Performance-wise, there are some things to get and there is an incredibly techie post on “ScionZone”:http://forums.scionzone.com/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=245 that I’m still trying to decypher. The important ones are:

* Manual “Transmission”:http://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=85493. Manual is definitely peppier, but there is a two month wait for them :-(
* Air “intake”:http://forums.scionzone.com/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=27. These parts “open up” the air input, so you get better performance. AEM Cold Air Induction is what Scion sells, but they also recommend the Injen version. They also hurt gas mileage. Not hard to install, but if you are noob, then let the dealer do it.
* Exhaust Manifold. Strup makes one that is good, the DC Sports Header costs more but is also good.
* Exhaust system. To really get best performance, you have to put a full catback in. Sounds expensive.

For the suspension and ride performance, again “Scionlife”:http://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=65648 has a bunch of recommendations:

* Rear Shocks. The front shocks are fine, but the stock rear ones are harsh. Change the rear shocks to Koni 80-2827 Sport (this is the model for the Toyota Echo, which is mechanically a Scion xB) and things get better for just $196 at “LTB Motor Sports”:http://ltbmotorsports.com. You can apparently do this yourself in 20 minutes just with the right tools. Tirerack.com also carries them.

Cars

Chaintech VNF3-250 and Quiet N Cool

Sep 26th, 05 / Comments Off

Well, I tried to get my DFI Lanparty board working and I’m pretty sure I toasted it. At least I tried the Seasonic Supertornado 400 against a known good machine and it worked fine. Also put the memory in and the OCZ memory seems good. So, now I just have to wait for the new power supply. I fear though that the Lanparty board or worse yet the X2 3800+ is dead. We’ll see.

In the main time, reminded me to upgrade my old Chaintech with latest BIOS. Tried to install the latest Quiet N Cool drivers, but this caused the system to hang. Windows XP SP2 and the latest AMD Processor Driver “1.2.2.2″:http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=28&threadid=1680855 cause the system to hang on boot. It is quite funky, but you have to go to Start/Control Panel/Power and set it for Minimal Power Management and load that driver, but I’ve never been able to get it to work.

Also, some note on “PC Perspective”:http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=401206&page=3&pp=15 that Quiet N Cool doesn’t work on the Chaintech VNF3-250 if there are two sockets worth of DRAM. How is that for strange interaction :-)

How to use WinFlash Utility. This is the utility to flash the Chaintech BIOS from Windows. Never mind that it says that it is for ECS, appears to work on any Award BIOS machine.

“PCPer.com”:http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=373815. These folks keep track of all the BIOS for Chaintech with some documentation. The latest official version as of today is the VN120321 which is the March 21, 2005 driver. It says that it mainly changed the Memory Timing to 2T. The previous version is VN120A19 (love that name) also called Version 4, this added Cool’N'Quiet support (but that hung my machine).

“Biosflash.com”:http://www.biosflash.com/e/bios-update-howto.htm. Instructions for the completely paranoid that show you how to flash very safely and also how to recover a flash. Basically, you need to have a boot floppy and then use a commandline program awdflash.exe to update things. The command goes into autoexec.bat and is “awdflash.exe _old.bios.file_ /py /sn”

“RM Clock”:http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml is a pretty cool open source project that lets you adjust just about all clocking stuff.

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Hardware

Bluetooth Headset

Sep 26th, 05 / 1 Comment

Broke both my Nextlink Bluespoon AX headsets. In one case, Calvin stepped on it. Yuck and in another, it cracked because of a manufacturing defect. So on to find some others. There have been incredible price drops. The original Bluespoon AX that “CNet”:http://reviews.cnet.com/Nextlink_Bluespoon_AX_Bluetooth_headset/4505-6448_7-31228822.html?tag=pdtl-list loved and I did costs $120. Now, they are $60 at “Blueheadsets.com”:http://blueheadsets.zoovy.com/product/BLUESPOONAX-C?ref=cnet.

“Howard Forums”:http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=665540&page=4&pp=15 seems to have the most active list of recommenders. Folks like the big Motorola 530, but it seems too big for me. They have some interesting looking ones like the Tekkeon EzTalker Mini Intro – Tekkeon EzTalker Mini review – Cell Phones – CNET Reviews for just $55 at “Newegg”:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16826160201 that C|Net liked.

Also, the new Motorola RAZR H3 was just “announced”:http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details/0,,110,00.html and it looks cool too. Very small but not yet available.

Phones

DFI LanParty nF4 Ultra D problems

Sep 25th, 05 / Comments Off

I’m a failure. Have had great luck building my own machines, but now my latest masterpiece, a DFI NF4 Ultra, Athlon 3800+ X2, OCZ 4000+ and nVidia 7800GTX won’t boot at all. It is very flakey what is going on. I’ve had any number of issues:

* The system starts and then all the fans go off. See below, but this means the overvoltage protection at the Power Supply went off. There is more detail below, but the long and short of this is that with the high voltage jumper (JP17) enabled, you can trip the power supply. This then causes the supply to go dead for some period of time and then you can try again. So the fix is to set the JP17 to low voltage and all the standby power jumpers for USB and PS/2 back to their defaults.
* The system starts and I got it to boot, then the when I tried to run memtest, the system cycles. Sounds like this might be due to a too tiny power supply. I was trying to boot with a pair of SATA drives, two DVDs, 7800GTX, 1GB of memory and an X2, I’m not surprised that the system was unstable. Need to get a bigger supply, but in the mean time I unplugged all a DVD and a SATA, in the hopes of booting. Some folks have gotten the Seasonic to start by “jumpstarting”:http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17916&page=1&pp=15 that is shorting the green and black wire together. For me, this turns on the power supply, but it doesn’t work when I put the 24 pin connector into the motherboard (uh oh, did I fry the motherboard?)
* When I booted the last time, I get a flashing standby LED and no DRAM LED. Then sometimes a solid standy LED and no DRAM LED. Then the system starts but I get a all four diagnostic LEDs on. This means the CPU can’t be found and the system hangs. Then you have to do a clear “CMOS recovery”:http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showpost.php?p=127704&postcount=24 to get back again and pray the system isn’t totally dead.
* Uh oh, think I put the floppy connector into the motherboard backwards! Yikes, that could mean I burned out the motherboard, CPU and everything else. The floppy connector goes directly into the voltage regulator of the CPU, so that is bad. Only way to find out is to get a know good power supply and to try each component I might have burned (memory, disks, DVDs, CPU) in a known good configuration. The CPU is the only issue as it is the only socket 939 motherboard I have.

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Hardware

nVidia Driver Install

Sep 24th, 05 / Comments Off

Hardware

nvmcp.sys Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) with SimCity 4

Sep 24th, 05 / Comments Off

Games

Kids Bikes

Sep 24th, 05 / Comments Off

Tong Family Blog: Christmas is coming, time to. It’s been three years since Alex and Calvin got their K2 Zed road bikes. They have loved them ,but they are getting bigger, so nows the time to find out what’s next. They need bikes that are really right for someone who is about 5″ tall and with a standover height in the 26″ range.

24″ road bike makes the most sense, but almost everyone is onto mountain bikes for kids. There are quite a few mountain bikes reviewed at “MTBR Review”:http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/kids/index_byrating.shtml
Some choices include for road bikes that are in the 18 pound range:

* “H.H. Racing”:http://hhracinggroup.com Kid Road Bikes. They are still around. Have a 3.5 pound steel frame. You build up from there, so maybe some of my old components can go into it. The main thing is that you can build up a great bike but it will cost more since you are using grown up parts.
* “Ibex Vantage JayVee”:http://www.ibexbikes.com/Bikes/VTG-JV-Details.html road bike that /uses 650c wheels (26″). They say that this works for folks under 5″ tall (60 inches). They aren’t super expensive and their parts are pretty good. Shimano Tiagra instead of the really low end Sora and it comes with a carbon fiber fork and standard 650cc wheels (26″), so you can use them for other things rather than the pretty non standard 24″. All and all a great choice, but it sells for about $640 on the Internet, so certainly not cheap. Only one review on “roadbikereview.com”:http://www.roadbikereview.com/cat/latest-bikes/kids-bike/ibex-bicycles/PRD_303632_5678crx.aspx but the guy liked it and so does “Ethan”:http://www.fraziercycling.com/partner_bio_ethan_tolbert.htm
* “Redline Conquest 24″:http://www.redlinebicycles.com/adultbikes/conquest-24.html. Streets for $600. This one is a cross bike, so good for both. Uses Sora parts, so not as nice as the Ibex. Like the Ibex, it has a 26″ standover so will fit most kids at about 5″ in height.

Here are some mountain bikes to look at:

* “Ibex”:http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Kids/product_123933.shtml. This is a real mountain bike. Comes in 20″ wheels and also 24″. The 24″ K440 is only about 25 pounds so not bad for a hard tail.
* “Specialized”:http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Kids/product_123797.shtml. The standard mountain bike from a big manufacturer, it is cheap at $250 or so street, but of mediocre components.
* “Trek”:http://www2.trekbikes.com/Bikes/Kids-BMX/Kids/Ages_9-12/Index.php. They have a line of kids road bikes. The “KDR”:http://www2.trekbikes.com/Bikes/Kids-BMX/Kids/Ages_9-12/KDR_1000/index.php seems the right road bike model.

Bicycles

Gmail for sending big files

Sep 24th, 05 / Comments Off

viksoe.dk – GMail Drive shell extension. I’ve had two requests for this in the last week. Basically, what’s the easiest way to send a big file over the Internet that mail systems can’t handle.

Here’s the easiest way I’ve found:

# Get a Gmail account. It stores up to 1GB of stuff
# Compose a message and attach the huge files, but DON’T SEND IT
# Now send the gmail account and password to the other person
# They can now login, see the big mail and copy it down.

Gmail limits what you can send, but not what you can store.

If you do it a lot, you can also use utilities like Gmail Drive, to make Gmail look like a hard drive on on your desktop, this stuffs each folder into a separate email on gmail so it is neater.

Internet

Mini Microsoft

Sep 22nd, 05 / Comments Off

Mini-Microsoft. Wow, written up in Business Week, Slashdot, etc. Shows the power of the web when someone can put up a site like this about the insides of a company.

Wonder how long it will last, so read it while it lasts. Some really greet insider comments. It took me an hour to read one post like “comments”:http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2005/09/comment-overload-at-mini-microsoft.html#comments or “reorg”:http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2005/09/microsoft-reorg-reshuffle.html. of course I have my own opinions but I’ll keep them private :-)

Blogging by the way is an incredible way to communicate. Wish we had made more investment there :-(

“Sinofsky’s”:http://blogs.msdn.com/techtalk/ comments are interesting given he’s Mr. Office.

Steve Jobs on Apple was probably the most interesting

. Q: What can we learn from Apple’s struggle to innovate during the decade before you returned in 1997?
A: You need a very product-oriented culture, even in a technology company. Lots of companies have tons of great engineers and smart people. But ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together. Otherwise, you can get great pieces of technology all floating around the universe. But it doesn’t add up to much. That’s what was missing at Apple for a while. There were bits and pieces of interesting things floating around, but not that gravitational pull.

People always ask me why did Apple really fail for those years, and it’s easy to blame it on certain people or personalities. Certainly, there was some of that. But there’s a far more insightful way to think about it. Apple had a monopoly on the graphical user interface for almost 10 years. That’s a long time. And how are monopolies lost? Think about it. Some very good product people invent some very good products, and the company achieves a monopoly.

But after that, the product people aren’t the ones that drive the company forward anymore. It’s the marketing guys or the ones who expand the business into Latin America or whatever. Because what’s the point of focusing on making the product even better when the only company you can take business from is yourself?

So a different group of people start to move up. And who usually ends up running the show? The sales guy. John Akers at IBM is the consummate example. Then one day, the monopoly expires for whatever reason. But by then the best product people have left, or they’re no longer listened to. And so the company goes through this tumultuous time, and it either survives or it doesn’t.

Microsoft