34 posts tagged “computer”

Tonight I opted to do a little more thorough testing of the memory used in BlackFlame after discovering over 100 errors while running memtest86 yesterday. So while watching Game 4 of the Flames-Sharks playoff series, I hauled out the beast and began.

The plan: Remove the new 'Patriot' memory stick from the system, leaving the previous two Kingston sticks in to ensure the Kingstons haven't gone corrupt on me (after all, they've been active almost non-stop since 2005).
Then, remove the Kingstons from the equation and test the Patriot stick on it's own.

My Hypothesis: The Kingstons would render no errors, the Patriot would produce errors after a while.

The Results? Exactly what I expected. After 47 minutes of memtest86 running on the Kingston sticks alone- no errors were reported. Since it was after the 35 minute mark of yesterdays test that errors began appearing, I figured 47 minutes into the test was probably safe to declare them 'working'.

I popped the Patriot stick in- even used a different memory slot than what it was previously sitting in. Within seconds of running memtest86, I had dozens of errors flood my screen.

No question that this stick of 'Patriot' memory is a dud. But now the ultimate question: what can be done about it?

I only bought this RAM 11 days ago from a local computer shop who has really made a name for themselves in Calgary. But their policies are a bit of a gray area I find. As the company has grown, I've found they have begun to adopt more of a 'big box retailer' attitude, including introducing their own 'Performance Plan' add-on services not unlike those found at places like Best Buy.
I did not buy the 'performance plan' service when I bought the memory. And the only mention I see on their invoice and website about returns or exchanges is simply: 'no returns of exchanges after 7 days'. I'm clearly over 7 days- and without having purchased their 'performance plan', I'm just expecting to have to put up a fight with them over this.

Quite simply- I don't want this 'Patriot' memory. I want to exchange it for a stick of Kingston. When it comes to computer parts for my own systems, I adopt a very strict 'one-strike-and-you're-out' policy. I run my hardware HARD, and if a manufacturer can't produce a product to keep up- then it doesn't deserve to be part of my rig. Period.
Patriot memory has struck out faster than any other part I've ever had to replace on my systems, so I don't want a new stick of Patriot- I want something that has a proven track record, and for me, that is Kingston.

But how much battle will I have to wage in order to get my way from this local retailer? Time will tell I suppose- though already I haven't heard back from them regarding my exchange request, so I'm not really expecting much from them at this point.

My parade of tech problems appears to have no immediate end in sight.
Now that my network is 'working' (to acceptable levels- still going back and forth with D-Link as to why my Nintendo DS can't get a connection speed any faster than a paltry 2Mbps), it seems that both the PVR and 'BlackFlame' have decided to be 'sick' now too.

The PVR, I suspect a hard drive issue. Nothing that has been recorded actually contains any data- just a black screen. We can no longer 'rewind' live TV either. How pathetic- just goes to show the true level of quality put into consumer electronics today.

BlackFlame's issue seems to be with the recently-installed RAM upgrade. I'm usually a stickler for certain brands. I've used Kingston memory in all my systems up to, and including, this one. So whatever possessed me to accept a stick of 'Patriot' RAM really did me a disservice. Things have been randomly crashing as of late- sometimes Firefox (still running 3.0b3- which I know is buggy, which doesn't help the situation obviously. Yes I know there have been releases since then- but that's an entirely other ball of wax I don't want to get into right now), sometimes parts of KDE, sometimes my entire X session!
Tonight I ran a test on the system RAM using 'memtest86'- a program I've trusted for many years. Within 30 minutes of the test beginning, the screen began to fill with red error messages indicating corrupt bits. A mere 45 minutes after the test began, memtest86 had counted 110 memory errors- all of which were in the higher area of memory- which belongs to the new 'Patriot' RAM.

I still need to perform tests on that specific stick to guarantee that is the source of the problem. My tests tonight included both the old Kingston DIMMs and the 'Patriot' DIMM. If the results are the same after removing the Kingston sticks, then mission accomplished.
The only other potential source of the problem that I can think of is a problem combining 2x512 DIMMs with 1x1024 DIMM on my ASUS A7N8X-X motherboard. Unlikely, but the only likely option if individual memory tests on each DIMM turns up with no errors. And if that is the case, then I may be looking at building BlackFlame's successor sooner than I thought.

As of now, Firefox unstable to the point it's unusable- so I've resorted to using Mozilla Seamonkey in the meantime. Truth be told- after some of the recent discoveries with Firefox 3, I may be jumping ship to Seamonkey indefinitely.

I've been sick all this week. I started feeling it Monday afternoon, and by that night I was well into the throes of illness. Ange caught it too- in fact, we started feeling the symptoms at about the same time on Monday, so we've at least been able to suffer through it together. The only difference is that she still has to go to work, whereas I have the freedom to stay home and rest- and rest I did.
Unfortunately, after 4 days, I have yet to really begin to feel like I'm on the road to recovery. I actually don't feel all that terrible- but being sick around those who simply can't afford to be sick at this time of year has kept me in my own personal quarantine all week.
So this afternoon we decided to get out for a bit. I picked Ange up from work and we were off for an afternoon full of chores- but not bad chores.

Ange's laptop has slowly continued to rot. The DVD drive is completely unusable, and more recently, the wireless network card rendered itself completely unusable- it connects to my network, but at a paltry speed of 1Mbps, even when less than 2 feet from the wi-fi access point itself. A far cry from the expected 54Mbps.
So I backed up all the data to BlackFlame (using a cabled network connection) and took it back to Best Buy to cash in on our purchased 'performance plan'.
Browsing forums the past few days has revealed that the wi-fi problem seems to be a near-epidemic problem with this line of HP Pavilion laptops (Ange's was a model dv6000). And it's not a Windows problem- it's a hardware problem. Often times the motherboard needs to be completely replaced. I know plenty of people who have bought HP laptops similar to this one in recent months. I presume it's only a matter of time before their wireless network connections begin to crap out as well.

I decided to do a little self-tech support of my own with my workstation/server, BlackFlame. Nothing serious needed to be done- but my lone 1GB of RAM has become a performance hinderance lately- especially running both Linux and a Windows XP VM (virtual machine) concurrently. I added another 1GB stick of RAM to the system to bring it up to a more acceptable 2GB. I was a little weary about the upgrade since I've read mixed things about the memory setup on my motherboard. But the memory took to it like a fish to water with no problems whatsoever, and the performance difference has been very noticable thus far.
I also replaced my CMOS battery on my motherboard. Sometime last year, the battery died- and I've simply been dragging my feet to replace it. It hasn't been a real pain- but in the few cases where I've had to power-down the system, I've been forced to reconfigure my CPU speed and memory configuratation from (my) memory. I put an end to that tonight too, or rather, Ange did since her hands are small enough to get into the tight space and hold onto the quarter-sized battery. My big ape-like hands probably would have done significantly more damage.

While I was out picking up dinner and a CMOS battery (just a typical Friday night outing for a computer geek)- I stopped by my local EB Games store... just to see if they were open. I decided that if they were, I'd pop in and reserve my copy of Mario Kart Wii. Sure enough- the doors were open, so I proceeded to reserve me a copy... and an extra Wii Wheel for an extra $10! (somehow I imagine I'll be picking up a few others shortly after launch as well).
There are a few games that I'd honestly love to pick up and go through right now- including Rainbow Six Vegas 2, and the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 4. But I figured when it came right down to it- I don't have the kind of time to put into a game like GTA4 or even Vegas 2- but Mario Kart is always something quick and fun you can pick up and play for 20 minutes at a time and still make some progress through it. That's the beauty of Wii, really. While developers for XBOX 360 and Playstation 3 are hell-bent on creating 'epic' games that essentially require you to quit your job and give up food and sleep in order to get through them in a decent degree of time- Nintendo continues to stick to the idea that games should be just that: games, not 'epic' adventures or a form of virtual reality. Don't get me wrong- I still enjoy my 360 and the games on it- but in the past year the Wii has clearly received the bulk of my gaming dollar. And why? Because they're simple to pick up and understand- and most of all: they're genuinely fun.

OMFGZ!!!!!1!!1!!1 Someone has a strong, fast, wide-open wireless hotspot available here in 'the valley'. It popped up while booting my laptop tonight after getting in from a grueling trip along Highway 93. There were several near-whiteout conditions along the way. People were pulling off to the side, opting to wait it out- while the rest of us trudged on at no more than 30 km/h. Sheesh.

But we made it in one piece- and have been rewarded with free Internet for the weekend.
The laptops seem to connect just fine. The DS can 'see' the hotspot, but fails to connect to Nintendo WFC. Haven't tried the Wii yet (yes, we brought some of the 'toys')

Seems I'll be fragging fireside sooner than I thought.....
*bwahaha*

While browsing Slashdot tonight, I came across a great blog post about the "REAL reason 'we' use Linux.

To summarize: because it's fun.

This post really struck a chord with me, because for years I have tried to find the right way to express why I choose to go against the grain and use something besides Windows on all my computer systems. At first, I'll admit- it was a form of rebellion. To shun the evil corporate empire Microsoft seemingly forced upon it's helpless victims who simply don't know any better- or worse, don't care. Over the years, my use of Linux has evolved from simply a form of rebellion- to something I truly enjoy, am even passionate about using. I have as much fun tinkering with Linux as I do sitting down and playing games on my 360 or Wii- in some ways I have more fun using Linux than I do playing games!

I never expect anyone to understand that reasoning. I often try to liken it to a car enthusist's love for their vehicles- and the tinkering they do under the hood to squeeze every ounce of performance they can out of their machine- and make it run just exactly the way they want it to run. Most people merely own a car to 'get around' in- whereas the enthusist takes pride in the uniqueness of their ride, and take it out for nothing more than the enjoyment they get from it. For me, Linux is the same. Windows aggravates me to no end because of how restrictive it is. Sure you can customize it through themes and screensavers- and hell, you can even install software that allows you to tinker just slightly under the surface, but it largely lacks the outright ability to change how something operates under the hood.
I custom-build all my Linux kernels- something you simply cannot do with Windows. I optimize it's settings to be minimalist- that is, not including code that takes up precious resources that I do not need for the use of my specific system. Windows is built to 'work' on virtually any computer- but that often means the code contains instructions for hardware you don't own and perform functions you can't use. The effect is bloat- which leads to the use of more of your computers' resources, resulting in the system slowing down and having other performance issues.
That advantage also comes into play with the software I install on my system. I compile all my applications from their source code- optimized for my system. Windows (and many Linux) programs are 'packaged-up' to be able to, again, run on virtually any computer- but that often results in bloat and performance issues. By compiling directly from source, I'm able to configure my system to build software specifically for my hardware- to get the most performance out of it.

I think my early computer days using DOS greatly influence my love of Linux. Like the post, linked above, states: "it's fun to use the command line".
Whenever I use a Windows system, I almost always try to use the command prompt where I can- because it provides a greater degree of control over your interaction with the system. How often have you found yourself digging through menus- or a screen-full of application icons- to find what you wanted to run? On a command-line, you simply enter the name of the program you want to run- hit enter- and it runs. If I want to change a setting with my system- like changing a network configuration, I simply run a handful of commands and it's done- no fancy, clunky window needed. I always have at least one command terminal window open on my system at all times- because it is simply what I prefer to use to run my system.

I have scripted my systems to death too. Scripting is a 'lite' form of programming- and while you can use scripting under Windows, it is generally accepted that everything in Windows is a dedicated program. In Linux, some of the best tools- in terms of their simplicity, as well as their quality- are used on the command line. Scripting allows you to execute those tools in a logical flow. For example, under Windows- you generally have a dedicated program to do something like rip a music CD, or connect to a network. On my system, I use a script to run seperate tools- in sequence- to rip music from a CD- then encode it into a high-quality MP3 and place it in my 'music' directory on my disk. So instead of trudging my way through a clunky windowed program- I simply run a command like 'ripmp3', hit enter, and my system does the rest (assuming I've remembered to put the CD in the drive).

I get a kick out of doing things in this way. Besides a true feeling of being in control of my computers- there is also a sense of satisfaction in having things work exactly as you want them to- and knowing you were the one to make it happen. My systems are always a 'work in progress' because I always find myself wanting different ways to make things work on them- or add a new feature, or new way of doing something. I often hear Windows users say they wish something would work a certain way instead of how it does. With Linux, there's really no reason not to make something work a certain way if you don't like the way it does it now.

Recently I've been required to work more with Windows systems- and in a way, I have a new appreciation for Windows. I enjoy XP, and I even don't mind Vista either. But they simply aren't as 'fun' as Linux for me. I actually run Windows XP on a 'virtual machine' on my Linux workstation- it literally is Windows in a window- for those times I need, or even just want to use Windows, and as a 'secondary' OS, it works great- but I'd be extremely hard-pressed to jumping back to using it as a primary operating system again anytime soon.

Tonight, after completing all that I needed to complete (it's been busy- let's just say that for now), I decided to install Firefox 3.0b3 and take it for a spin. Lately I've been very dissatisfied with Firefox 2. It's been extremely sluggish, bogs down my system considerably due to the demanding resources necessary to run it, and has a tendency to crash at random. At this rate I may as well go back to Windows and run Internet Explorer!

The reviews I've been reading have indicated that memory and performance have been key issues that Mozilla has focused on for version 3. And while I've only had a chance to test Firefox 3 (beta 3) for an hour or so, the difference is already extremely noticeable. Pages load faster. My entire system just seems more responsive. My CPU usage hovers just below 10% (which includes having Thunderbird, XMMS, Pidgin and several BASH terminals open across 8 desktops), and my memory usage isn't through the roof. Even pages that are Flash-heavy scroll effortlessly.
Granted, many (read: most) add-on extensions and themes are not compatible with b3- so I'm running a very barebones browser from what I have with 2.0, so perhaps my tune about Firefox 3 will change once I run it consistently in a production environment with my usual 8+ tabs open and all my extensions loaded. But I do have a glimmer of hope that by the final 3.0 release- the browser will be stable enough to handle it. Perhaps I can run with a stripped-down browser anyways. It's not like I'm using the web development toolbar all the time.

But so far, I'm impressed. I'm also holding out hope that Mozilla's mobile browser will be just as good of an offering as Firefox 3 is shaping up to be. It's not without bugs- it's still rough around the edges- but Mozilla is definitely on the right track. Can't wait to see the finished version.

OMFG! First a Street Fighter 4 teaser- and now the first official teaser for Duke Nukem Forever!
Fans of the Duke series have been waiting since the days of Windows 95 for this title. Ever since then we've been told by 3D Realms that it will be released "when it's done".

Looks like it might finally almost "be done".
Maybe I'll hold off building my next computer until we know the hardware specs required to run it (which means having to have Windows installed- but for Duke, it's a small price to pay)

After a month of fucking around with a well-known local computer shop in an attempt to have a custom-built system assembled, I finally picked up the new system tonight for what looks to be a fun-filled weekend of installing Linux and configuring software.

This is not the successor to my current workstation, BlackFlame (although I have begun toying with configurations- maybe after the new year), but instead is intended to be a dedicated Linux-based server for a little project I've been working on for the last several months for the family business. There are some big things coming in the foreseeable future.

Over the weekend my Linux systems did me a great disservice- they gave me the wrong time. Traditionally, this past weekend would have been when we normally would have set our clocks back an hour to mark the end of Daylight Savings Time. But as a result of the passing of the Energy Policy Act in August of 2005, part of which extends DST by a few weeks- the time change actually takes effect next weekend- not this past one.

Most modern systems and properly-patched OSes already have this taken into consideration, as have most providers of time information through their products (ie: cable boxes, cell phones, etc). But my computer systems are running Slackware Linux 10.1- which was released long before the EPA was signed by President Bush back in the summer of 05. And despite the upgrades I have made- time information has been untouched the entire time, which means that Linux continues to adjust the clock according to the pre-EPA DST settings. Sure, we've already gone through a set of DST changes and my clock has continued to act according to the old DST settings- and while it was a pain to know exactly what time it actually was by looking at the desktop clock- I just couldn't bring myself to put in the few minutes to update my system with the proper DST information... until now.

Surprizingly, the fix is really quite simple. There is some technical background involved- but isn't altogether necessary to perform the fix. For those interested, might I direct your attention here. For the rest, allow me to summarize the steps involved. Note that I won't go into the innards of how time is stored under Linux and the difference between old systems and older systems- these are the steps taken under Slackware 10.1, and I imagine many other distros will utilize similar conventions.

STEP 1
Open a terminal window/console as 'root'. You can do some of these tasks as a regular user- but why make things complicated?

STEP 2
Create a temporary directory for the new timezone information to reside prior to installing it. Something like /tmp/timeinfo will suffice. Then change into that directory.

root@localhost> mkdir /tmp/timeinfo
root@localhost> cd /tmp/timeinfo

STEP 3
Fetch timezone data from this U.S. Government FTP site. You specifically need the file titled 'tzdata20##*.tar.gz'. For simplicity, enter the following command into your terminal window:

root@localhost:/tmp/timeinfo> wget ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata20*

STEP 4
Extract the contents of the downloaded timezone information file in the temporary directory you created in Step 2, above.

root@localhost:/tmp/timeinfo> tar xvzf tzdata20*

STEP 5
Use the 'zic' command to extract the timezone data and convert it to something usable by Linux. The second argument is the name of a temporary directory to place the converted data into for the corresponding zone.

root@localhost:/tmp/timeinfo> zic -d zoneinfo northamerica

STEP 6
Change into the new directory created by the 'zic' command, above, and copy it's contents to the location of your timezone information on your Linux system. In my case, this information is located at /usr/share/zoneinfo

root@localhost:/tmp/timeinfo> cd zoneinfo
root@localhost:/tmp/timeinfo/zoneinfo> cp -r * /usr/share/zoneinfo

STEP 7
Ensure that your /etc/localtime file either points to, or is a copy of the appropriate timezone file within /usr/share/zoneinfo. For me, being in mountain time in Canada, I merely provide a symlink such as:

root@localhost> ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Edmonton /etc/localtime

STEP 8
Update your clock information by polling a public NTP time server. In Slackware 10.1, I use the command 'ntpdate', but your distribution may use an NTP daemon (ntpd) instead- in which case you probably don't have to do anything but wait for the daemon to poll the timeserver again. But since I'm using ntpdate, I entered the following command to get my system up-to-'date':

root@localhost> ntpdate pool.ntp.org

STEP 9
Finally, store the Linux time as the local hardware time by running the following command. This will ensure that the hardware itself contains the correct time information so that when your system restarts, it will have the correct time from start-up instead of having it believe it is January 1st of 1970 until the system is able to poll the public timeservers again:

root@localhost> hwclock --systohc

That's all there is to it!

I've felt completely rotten over the past few days- so tonight, feeling up to going out for a bit, I decided to swing by my favorite geek-shop and do a little retail therapy in the form of a memory upgrade for my laptop, 'SpitFire'.

I've been running SpitFire with 512MB of RAM for almost 2 years now, and while it's run well, I tend to have a lot of crap open (like Firefox with 10+ open tabs) that eat up resources and bog down the system. For kicks, I checked out the price of 1GB SODIMMs- which is a bargain these days at $35! By comparison a 1GB stick of PC3200 for my workstation, 'BlackFlame' alone costs about $65. So I indulged and picked up 2 1GB sticks for the laptop, maxing out it's RAM at 2GB. That fact alone still baffles me. I remember when 512MB was considered 'huge'.

All was going well with the 'transplant' until I went to unscrew the panel on the bottom of the laptop that contains the RAM sticks. I didn't have a screwdriver small enough to get into those tiny slits. So off to Walmart I went to pick up a 6-piece 'precision screwdriver' set. That did the trick, and within minutes, I had the panel off and was removing the two existing 256MB SODIMM's. This was my first attempt at a hardware upgrade on a laptop- and it was so painless I'd do it again just for kicks!

Installing the RAM itself was almost easier on the laptop than it is on a desktop! They just seem to magically slide into place, and lock into position. And so, the panel was replaced, and the moment of truth arrived- would the sticks be 'seen' by the BIOS?

I plugged SpitFire back into the power, powered her on, went into the BIOS setup- and lo and behold... it reported 2048MB of RAM running at 533Mhz in dual-channel mode! Success!
I exited the setup and allowed it to boot into Linux. Here is where things went slightly askew- but not really. Everything booted fine as expected (except for the network connection- which I selected to be a cable connection... another fix I dealt with recently... which was taking forever to obtain an IP address. Then I realized the network cable was unplugged. Duh). So I login as root and run the 'free' command to see what the kernel is reporting for RAM. Only 896MB (or so- can't remember the exact number) reported. I check the 'dmesg' log- turns out my kernel only supports a maximum of 1GB of total physical RAM. Whoops.

Easy solution- go back into my kernel config, change the High Memory Support to 4GB (from 'off'), recompile the kernel (and played a period of NHL 08 while waiting), install, reboot- and voila! 2GB physical memory supported!