I’ve been doing a bit of work lately,
- I have a new Rom installed on my HTC Evo, the MikG 2.3 Rom with Sense 2.1+3.0
- I’ve added the poorly placed in the top left corner Google +1 button to the site
- I am going to flash a new Rom on my Notion Ink Adam here in about three hours
- Finally got my Xbox 360 setup so I can get audio and video on my PC monitor (HD TV) and my TV
- Reimaged my laptop, three times… still having issues with it, going to have to spend most of tomorrow on it I fear
- Finally ordered a replacement fan for the top of my Thermaltake PC case, it has been acting up for about 12 months now!
- Not to mention a bunch of housework
All my apps are reinstalled, but not yet configured, Thank you Titanium Backup for helping with that, just bought the Pro License, a bit pricey, but’ll just eat at home this week!
It was either that or the bottom left… haven’t figured out where else to put it with this theme, but I’m looking.
I have to go mow the lawn first, it looks so bad I’ve started singing “Welcome to the Jungle” every time I go outside!
Video has been working for a couple of months, but I couldn’t find the adapter I needed to do the audio, so I bought another yesterday, paid too much for that too..
I hope it fits, the manufacturer claims they are 230mm fans in there now, but when I measured it with my tape measure it was only 203mm (fan size) and about 214mm from end to end of the case opening and I’m afraid I’ll have to remove the Motherboard to replace it…
So, deal with the Google +1 button where it is, I’ll probably not get around to moving it for 3 -12 months (I say that as I have a baby due in less than 4 months), I’ll try and get another 5 or so Android apps posted up this week, a write-up on my Evo and Adam Roms, and maybe I’ll even finally get pictures put up for the apps pages! I did take 383 screen shots on my Adam using the ShootMe app, but they all came out as blank black screens… so I’ll try again later. I’ve also added and updated my Notion Ink Adam Roms page, a LOT the last week or so, now make sure you head over and take a look! Doubt I’ll do the same for my Evo though, as they seem to have things well in hand on their own.
(missed this post somehow, been in draft for a while…)
well, I am still not getting any formatting on my blog posts, still have no idea what is causing it, but I am severely PO’d about it. I’ll start posting again and just pretend it’s a non-issue for now… I have been working on some of my PC issues and resolved a couple, I found that IF I set my SPU to specifics in the BIOS they are forced on the system after boot (auto-disables AMD’s Cool ‘n Quiet features) so this is not good. Next I learned that if I up my voltage on the NB to 1.25V I can run my on-board GPU at the card’s default standard speed of 700MHz (by default my MB was setting it to 497MHz, or 500MHz equivalent based on multipliers), so that is really good news, upped my windows 7 performance score by .2 (just a shame I do not run Win7 by default, which leads me to my next point…) If I want to overclock my CPU any, I have to do it from within the OS so as to keep AMD CnQ enabled, well… AMD OverDrive is a Windows exclusive app, so I will have to search for a way to do it in Linux without the 1st party app. I have also semi-resolved my random power offs (due to “overheating”) by disabling my ACPI system auto-shutdown feature, I now keep a temp monitor open on my desktop at all times (looking for a linux/KDE plasmoid that will display individual core temps, the default KDE plasmoid for system temp only shows the temp sensor that is on the cooling fan “on top of” the heatsink for the CPU. AMD OD shows the internal individual core temps… but my system is not going over 57C even after I overclocked it 800MHz to 3.997GHz (but I dropped it back to 3.795GHZ to be safe since my auto-shutdown is disabled). I was also able to boost my Hyper-Transport from 200MHz to 220MHz with no issues while playing DDO for 2.5 hours, but later while surfing the internet my PC crashed… So I dropped it down to 205MHz and it is stable (again only when booted into Win7) and have had no further issues, sitting pretty at 38C-47C per core. I have been using KUbuntu 10.04 for software and hardware compatibility issues while I wait for Fedora 13 to launch next week, so you may notice several Ubuntu 10.04 based posts here for a bit. I will try and post my experiences setting up KUbuntu some time this week, I took notes, but did not write it up yet.
just want to get this started as I hope it will motivate me to finish it, since I have done a LOT of things on my computer since my last post, and obviously I have posted none of it.
So, I got a little impatient about not having my PC functioning, so I I installed Fedora 12 x64 on the rest of my FreeBSD boot drive and I have about 80% of the things on my list done and working. I’ll reference them by numbers here, and you can go read what they were by clicking on “my list” above. I am still hoping to get FreeBSD as my host OS; however everything is working right now with Fedora (except that stupid wireless NIC), although I am still having my “system reached critical temp” error from ACPI, yet the system resource monitor I have running shows a nice pleasant 30C CONSTANT temp. maybe this summer I’ll pickup a liquid CPU cooler… I already have 5 exhaust fans and 2 intake fans, 2 x 240mm exhaust and a 160mm or 180mm intake, I think I have air flow covered. (talked to a friend who is more into the details of technical issues, a network engineer, and he says that an inactive CPU, like when the system shutsdown, can drop 40F in about 7-10 seconds so it might be why I cannot catch it reporting a high temp in the BIOS) The BIOS does not report any temps reaching above 45C ever, so I have no idea why this is happening, I do run widgets reporting the internal temp, but have never seen it change!!!) . most of the time when it shuts there is/has been high CPU/disk IO usage (all 4 cores over 60% sustained, multiple long term large/multiple file movements across drives and/or multiple VMs running). So it could be valid.
I have come up with a couple of things to try to resolve this issue (going with the cheapest first, even if it is not really going to help a CPU issue, it can’t hurt…)
- I could just upgrade some hardware and see if a different BIOS/MB manufacturer makes a difference. I would love a lower watt CPU (or 6 core!), more L2/L3 cache, and USB 3.0 and SATA 6GB/s, since my current system bottleneck is the SATA 3GB/s HDDs.
- Switch to liquid cooling and installing a new thermal sensor with an external readout.
- buy cute little 5cfm coolling fans to place on my NorthBridge, SouthBridge, and onboard GPU passive cooling fins (cheapest option, not necessarily attacking the actual issue though)
- purchase a pretty new Video card and disable the onboard video (the chip is within an inch or two from the CPU, so there maybe some issue with residual heat from the GPU causing my overheating).
in order from cheapest to most expensive would be 3, 2, 4/1 (really close and might be a tie or within a $20-$30)
My List of things to get working, except this one is for Fedora.
1. VirtualBox is installed, working and I have multiple VMs up and running.
2. Install VMWare Workstation, I have downloaded the newest trial version and it is good for another 3 weeks, but have not gotten around to installing it.
3. Mounting my NTFS drives, all mounted, where I want them, even went through and deleted the Windows OS system folders from all but one.
4. SSH connections, I have started this and was working on it when I decided to start this post, should be done tomorrow.
5. I am posting this from Google Chrome on my Fedora 12 installation right now, so I’d say installed and working. Java shows up in the plugins, although java.com cannot detect it in my browser.
6. Hulu works great in Firefox or Google Chrome, although is a bit spotty when I have VMs running, and the playback is laggy in Chrome… So I am trying to get the Hulu Desktop app running. will make a post after I get some work done on it and let you know how it goes.
7. So far everything is working great, going to try a couple of VM’ed games next week after I get the rest of this done.
8. Firefox is up, running, and is playing hulu; however it does not report Java as installed from the about:plugins page, even though it is and I followed all the steps to link the correct files to the correct places. I believe this is the Firefox 3.6 doesn’t support Java issue though and not an issue on my part.
9. access NTFS drives remotely via ssh and a chrooted account with links to the mounts. After I get my SSH working tomorrow I should be able to test this. I was reading something online I no longer have open and may not have bookmarked that said that I can double mount drives (mount a drive to more than one, specifically 2, locations)
10. convert my NTFS drives to a more suitable linux FS, this again is a last thing item, to be done after everything else is working.
11. convert my drives from MBR to GPT, most likely to be done at the same time as the FS change.
12. GUI package manager for KDE, done, comes with Fedora.
13. eliminate all traces of Gnome from my computer… again, have to be last thing, once all is up and working.
14. build my first kernel, normally done immediately after install, I’ll do it last after EVERYTHING else (including the other things I said I would do last)
15. Wine is installed and works. will try out some things that I have installed in VMs to see about dropping those VMs
16. install older apps, again part of a couple of other items, I will of course be installing older apps on older OS installation I have, and will try them in Wine as stated.
17. X.org port forwarding to Cygwin on a windows machine (laptop) something I might do in a week or two…
18. start regular backups… I’m getting there, I have the drive formated in ext3, I just have not started backing things up.
19. Java, I think it works in Chrome, I was able to see the animated maps on the NOAA website, which most people use to test their Java. not working in Firefox 3.5.9.2
20. Flash, Hulu is working in Firefox and Chrome, so all good here.
21. Yakuake is fully functional and working.
22. Picasa 3.6 (I think) is installed and working great, except I don’t seem to be able to find the facial recognician system.
23. No idea on this one, can not find where I posted what it was, only that it was completed on BSD.
Unfinished items for Fedora: 2, 4, 9, 10, 11, 19?
apparently Open Office will not load, for an unknown reason, looking into it at this time.
Ok, back from vacation, had a good time, now I think I’m sick, sore throat, sinus drainage, coughing (tried to text that word earlier and my phone thought I wanted to say “coffeeing”), stuffy head (more like someone tried to stuff me for thanksgiving dinner…). will give some updates on my vacation sooner or later, but for now I shall utilize the World Wide Web for what it does best… Immortalizes information. As I can never find the settings for my Motherboard, I will post them here, so I can always find them, I hope…
Right, so first off, I have my replacement MB and I am trying (still) to get it to work. The first issue I am having is that the MB will not POST if I place my ram in either Dual Channel Configuration. (slots 1&2 or slots 3&4, per the MB instructions using slots 3&4 provides the best performance for a 2 DIMM setup, and this is how it was before I sent the MB back to ECS as an RMA). no matter what I do, with 2 DIMM’s installed it will only POST if and only if I place the RAM in slots 1&3 or slots 2&4. No ifs, no ands, and no butts.
So I am dealing with that, I just want the dumb thing to work at this point. I’ve had it since the end of May and it has never worked correctly, so this is a minor inconvenience. I am using slots 1&3 currently.
After setting the date and time in the Standard CMOS setup page (American Megatrends v02.62 BIOS), I skip Advanced setup and go to Advanced Chipset Setup and change the third option for Shared VRAM from “Auto” to 128MB. I do this because it has a 256MB Dedicated Sideboard, and I doubt I need more than that, but just incase… Also (forgot this the first time), I need to change the default startup video “Init Display First” to “OnBoard” from PCI, as I am currently only using the onboard video.
Next, I’ll skip Integrated Peripherals, Power Management Setup, and PCI/PnP Setup, as there are no features in there that I wish to mess with. So, I’ll head on over to PC Health Status and go to choice numero uno “SMART Fan Function” and set “SMART Fan start PWM” value to 50 (I think this is the percent of max RPM the fan will start at) and set “SMART Fan start TEMP.” to 55C, this should allow my CPU fan a chance to stop spinning at some point… maybe. Escape out to go to the second option there “Shutdown Temperature) and change the default setting “Disabled” to “70C/158F” (the minimum) because I want this thing to shutdown quick if something happens, and since it normally runs around 51C/123F CPU and 31C/87F System temp, I have determined that a 20C/35F temp spike is not a good thing and the PC should kill it before it gets any higher. Except when I was messing around with AMD’s Overdrive software for overclocking from within Windows, I have never seen the CPU break 53C so I did base my choice off a researched value, not just at random…
Next victim… “M.I.B. II (MB Intelligent Bios)
this is where I will have to do some trial and error… first off (already been at this for 1.5hrs, fyi) I am not going to change a thing and see if the PC will reboot with the above changes only, then I will stop changing them and just do this part till I can get a reboot again… after which I’ll combine the two parts and try to boot up again, as every time it fails to boot, I have to reset all back to default and start again…
Save and exit… system restarted fine… oh one more thing I am using the HDMI out AND the VGA outputs currently to 2 different TV’s (this is what it would not do before and is the primary reason for the RMA, the HDMI out would crash the PC if the cable was connected to the PC). A quick check shows that everything is exactly as I set it, except the current CPU temp is 50C and the CPU fan is running at 2335RPM…. oh well, maybe I’ll get around to that later… now to play with the MB and RAM settings…
so the PC Health Status page shows my CPU Vcore at 1.344V and the VDIMM at 1.520V. over in the MIB II page it is correctly displaying my processor as a Phenom II x4 955 running at 3200MHz with a NB Clk 2000Mhz. (different than before, but still automatically detected…) it shows my RAM as 533MHz,7,7,7,16,4,27 (previously it showed 533MHz,6,6,6,14,4,20) but this is good, as previously I had to manually change it to 9,9,9,24 in order to get the PC to boot, so I think I will leave it be. ****edit**** the RAM is supposed to be set to 667MHz change made at the bottom****
CPU settings, as most OC websites show this CPU running significantly faster when OC’d (up to 3.8GHz per core), all without special cooling systems or changing the voltage, I think I will bump it some.
first try
x18.5 3700MHz at 1.350V with NB @2000MHz (default). save and exit… reboot successful, I think I’ll leave it there, I don’t need to push it, and if it works, well then it works…
But… I will try bumping the CPU/HT Reference Clock (MHz) from the default of 200 to 225 (based off the results from this review where they bumped it to a whopping 240MHz, they say when you up the HT Ref Clock, it also increases ram speed, HT link speed, and NB (IMC) speed) again, no voltage change was made… and time to reboot… fail to POST
2nd attempt on the HT Ref Clock, (utilizing information from AMD’s employee blogs and this overclocking reviewat AnandTech) 220MHz and +.75mV on the NB, I also bumped the NB Frequency to 2400MHz… time for a reboot… well, the power light came on, but the system did not POST.
setting a base again…
x18.5 3700MHz at 1.350V with NB @2400MHz (default 2000MHz). save and exit… reboot successful, so it would appear that the HT ref clock is killing me…
I set the HT ref clock to 215 and saved and reboot… no good that is… ok then, back to my base (with 2400MHz NB) If I feel like it, I’ll play more with the AMD Overdrive proggy… right now I want to see if my Video works… well failed to boot this time… I did not change any settings from the base, so…
New settings… 3.7GHz, 2.4GHz NB, +80mV to DIMM, +50mV to the NB, and I manually configured my RAM to 667MHz (remember the multiplier…) at 7,7,7,24 lets try that… and we have windows booting… although I think I forgot to set the other BIOS settings… doh!
I also got a BSOD (pre-login screen)… Stop: 0x0000007E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF80002CDDDA7, 0xFFFFF880037706D8, 0xFFFFF8800376FF30)
Best results I found was a forum post over on Tom’s Hardware… could be the new board?
well, back to 3.6GHz, 2.4GHz, 667MHz,8,8,8,24, +80mV, +50mV…. failed to POST.
trying: 3.7GHz, 2.4GHz, 667MHz,9,9,9,27, +80mV, +50mV… as it is obviously the ram. I know the voltage is too low, as the BIOS reports it as 800MHZ, not 1333 AND claims the voltage is 1.6, but should be 1.75. Now if I try to set the voltage above 1.72 it goes red and tells me I am exceeding the safe voltage level for the system… failed to POST.
I am beginning to wonder if the dual channel issue may be the culprit at this point… I am just going to try and get the system to start now and see about a BIOS update… then see what happens… guess I should have held off on OC’ing until I knew it was all working…
settings are at 3.5GHz, 2.2GHz all else default, PC booted, allowed Win7 to go to startup repair mode, pulling a system restore now. Very confident message… “If system restore was successful, Windows should restart successfully” well, it’s sitting on the “Starting Windows” screen… and I have a login screen…
more later…
- New blog post... Diablo III closed Beta http://t.co/dKC2ChWm
- New blog post... resolving video problems with K-L-Ubuntu and XFX Radeon 6850 http://t.co/H6bXuMqi
- New blog post... Computer upgrades http://t.co/6PWVNy4m
- $7 for $15 Worth of Hand-Tossed Pizza, Calzones, and Drinks at Andolini's Pizza Charleston, SC http://t.co/QnKwPwB
- New blog post... is zdnet.com/news down http://t.co/DThuI4r
- New blog post... Netflix Down? http://bit.ly/q74Svu
