Archive for category Hardware
Problems with nVidia cooling over long term?
Posted by eric in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Windows Vista on June 15th, 2009
I’m an avid SETI@home cruncher have been for years. My bragging note is that I recently passed 3,000,000 credits on SETI@home and part of that is thanks to the SETI@home CUDA enabled client they released which enables GPU crunching of SETI@home work units!
I’m currently running the CUDA client on two machines that have video cards that support the CUDA API. My home GeForce 8800GTX and my work Quadro FX 4600. From what I’ve read in specs and reviews, they’re basically the same card. So although this issue isn’t TECHNICALLY apples to apples, there might be a connection.
I noticed after a month or so of running the CUDA client on my home GeForce 8800GTX, my Vista machine started to become unstable. Blue Screening (BSOD) or rebooting randomly. It struck me as odd because I had not changed anything and for the most part, the system had just been sitting idle crunching work units.
Your GPU running SETI@home CUDA Client
After some basic trouble shooting I was able to determine that the instability was due to my video card overheating! This struck me as strange, because I know nVidia uses variable speed fans on the 8800GTX, so you’d think that if the system was reaching an unsafe operating level, that the fan would kick on, right? Wrong.
Upgrading my HTPC — It’s time to bring it up to date!
Posted by eric in Audiophile, Hardware, Multimedia, Reviews on June 2nd, 2009
Many moons ago I decided to build an Home Theater PC (HTPC) for miscellaneous computer uses that I might want to display on a TV…. OK, really it was just the thing everyone was doing at the time and I wanted a new project, so a small HTPC fit the bill. We’re all friends here, so no need to beat around the bush, right? 
So I built an HTPC. I built a GREAT HTPC. It was small, fanless and had everything I’d ever need. But I was disappointed though, only because the quality of the video combined with what I was ACTUALLY able to do with it let me down. I suppose it was my own fault because I had let my desire for the system to be completely silent and fanless impact its performance.
Fast forward a couple years later and I have this shoe box sized PC sitting below my computer desk at home. What should I do with it?
Car Hacking — Installing an iPod Adapter in my 2004 Acura TSX
Posted by eric in Audiophile, Hardware, Multimedia, Reviews, iPhone on January 31st, 2009
My car is old. Ok, not REALLY old but old enough that it doesn’t have an AUX input or an iPod adapter. I drive a 2004 Acura TSX with Navi and recently canceled my Sirius subscription to save money, so I wanted to be able to plug in my iPhone 3G and listen to Pandora or songs off my iPod.
I checked around the net for models that were supported by my car (which was hard because it was a 1st generation, 1st year TSX). I know there’s an MP3/DVD Player option as well as an XM head unit available for the 2004 TSX, but no iPod adapters from Honda. I finally decided on the DICE Electronics R4 Kit for Honda/Acura because it had received positive reviews and seemed a pretty simple install 
I purchased the DICE iPod Kit from a reputable seller on eBay for $139 + tax and had it within a few days. The unit itself is pretty small (only a couple square inches) and has inputs for the iPod cable as well as AUX input. It’s a good thing the unit is so small because it has to fit up in the dash
Installing the unit in my car took about all of 2 minutes. Literally.
(Sorry about no pictures, I’ll add them as soon as I’m able to!)
Step one was to remove the storage bin that is located below the factory radio. This is where the factor XM or MP3 player would go. Simply open the bin and pull it out towards you. There are two clips on the bottom right and left as well as clips on the top.
Pull out the storage bin carefully as the light above is still attached to it. Carefully remove the light taking care to not break the housing. Once the bin is out your radio compartment will be exposed. Just a warning: be careful in there! Unless you’ve unhooked your battery, there’s still live current as well as some wires for the airbags Don’t kill yourself over an iPod hookup
Step two is wiring it in. You’ll see one wire running straight up into the stereo. Unplug this. This is the wire that will plug into the daisy chain provided by the DICE iPod kit. Plug the other end of the DICE iPod kit into the factory radio.
Step three is running our cables however you choose (into the glove box, storage bin, middle console) and putting the storage bin back in! Presto! Done!
I used a Dremel and cut out a small section of the bin to run the cables through. To keep it clean looking, I used a bit of rubber (read: old mouse pad) to cover the Dremel spot and cut a slit down the middle allowing the cables to run through it. This helps seal up the bin without having a gaping hole into my dash. Also, for the sake of future use I added a small amount of hot clue to the connectors that are plugged into the DICE iPod Kit so (god forbid) someone pulls on the cable too hard it wont unplug from the DICE iPod Kit while still in my dash. 
I didn’t add a LOT of glue, just a small drop to hold them in place nicely.
Finished storage bin with iPod & Aux Cables
A few “gotcha’s” about this unit and the 2004 Acura TSX. The ‘XM’ mode of the DICE iPod Kit only works with Honda/Acura models with an actual ‘XM’ button. This wasn’t introduced until the 2005 model year. The 2004 Acura TSX only has a “CD/AUX” button. Because of this, the DICE iPod Kit cannot work and will not be detected in XM mode. You have to set the unit to “CDC” (CD Changer) mode.
Other than that, the unit works great! It’s able to charge my iPhone 3G while I’m listening to music as well as allowing me to stream my iPod and any audio from my iPod straight into my factory radio!
Setting the DICE iPod Kit to ‘iPod’ mode allows you to control the iPod manually on the screen and not with the wheel controls. I find this much easier than trying to navigate the songs using a ‘track up’ & ‘track down’ method on my steering wheel. Also, in ‘iPod’ mode, the DICE iPod Kit acts as a standard audio source. Meaning it’ll play Pandora and send ring tones to your factory radio without having to use the AUX input, like iPod adapters from other manufacturers!
I hope this helps someone else out there in the same situation I was in Please feel free to ask any questions and I’ll be sure to post pictures of my setup as soon as I get them!
Cheers!
Backing up a DVD to DivX — My way or the highway!
Posted by eric in Audiophile, General Software, Hardware, Multimedia on January 22nd, 2009
I’ve been backing up my DVD collection for years in order to watch the movies I own on my portable devices as they evolve. Currently I love watching my movies on the iPhone! I’m currently using a FANTASTIC new application from Elemental Technologies called Badabom! It uses nVidia’s CUDA technology to harness the power of my GPU to convert movies from DivX to MP4! Currently it’s able to convert a movie to iPhone size/format at over 200fps using my Intel Q6600 and nVidia 8800GTX!
SCIENCE! 
Backing up to DivX is another story though. I’ve always been a stickler for quality and control over the process. A perfect example of this is my use of “old” programs such as VirtualDub and refusal to use the “1-Click” applications because I feel like I lose control over the quality. I think this stems from my age and time of use because back during DivX 3.11 there were no “1-Click” applications that could copy a DVD and any attempt at making one usually failed terribly.
So I’ve always manually converted them, again, out of my own stubbornness. I thought I’d post my steps here to see if anyone agrees that there’s some method to my madness (or to tell me that I’m getting old and should get with the times!)
My process allows me to encode any DVD content into DivX using 2-pass XviD encoding while still maintaining the original Dolby Digital AC3 audio track.
What I’ve been up to…
Posted by eric in Apple, General Software, Hardware, Opinion on October 26th, 2008
Not that anyone who finds my blog will actually CARE what I’m up to, but it’s my blog and I run this dog & pony show!
My projects as of late have mostly been electronic in nature. I’ve actually had three projects on the burner:
Replacement of the capacitors on my Mortal Kombat 2 arcade machine’s CRT controller
This was far more time consuming that I thought it would be. Not because it took me an actually long time to desolder and replace the capacitors on the board, but ordering the CORRECT caps and waiting for them to be delivered took the most time. I decided to use Mouser for my components and they delivered as promised. I posted pictures of my extracting the CRT controller here. From what I was able to gather with some Google-Fu and the few English markings on the board, I determined it was a Wei-Ya C829HR CRT board. Of course there aren’t any cap kits for this board (for whatever reason), so I had to order all the caps (about 30) one by one getting their voltage and capacitance from the one’s that are currently on the board. The one cap that I wasn’t able to find (easily) a replacement for was this monster bipolar 75v 4.7uf cap.
FINALLY finishing my Replica 1 computer (which I posted about starting here… over a year ago)
I know, totally lame right? I’d like to say it got put down during the move and I forgot but I literally think it was just the time of year and I was tired of freezing my ass off in the garage with only the glow of a soldering iron to keep me warm So I picked back up the kit and finished soldering the rest of the 50-or so IC pins and fired it up. I got a response on the video port but when I reset I get random giberish. I checked and the oscillator is clocked in at 1mhz and voltage at the test points looks OK. I’m thinking it’s probably a bad rom. I’m currently e-mailing the project creator and he’s been very helpful!
Building a Blue Box
This year I decided to be Woz for Halloween (I figured Fat Nerd is an outfit I’d be able to pull off ) and I wanted to have a sweet accessory to go with my outfit of a vintage apple shirt, name tag and rockin facial har. I decided what cooler than actually building a function blue box! I found this schematic which seems to be the defacto one that everyone since the 80’s has been using. The down side? Exar no longer makes the XR2207 voltage controlled oscillators. I tried to get samples straight from the company, but no luck. I was able to find them through some IC resellers, but they wanted $30 per chip, so F’ that noise!
Again, I activated some hardcore Google-Fu and found this slick project by a website called ProjectMF.org. He used a PIC microcontroller to generate the frequencies which is waaaaay easier and makes sense in a more modern world I used his schematics and again ordered the parts from Mouser. I was able to solder together the power supply portion and will fire up the PIC programmer later this week! Super cool!
So anyways, I haven’t been hacking away on the code or software projects lately but I find my creativitiy comes and goes through phases. I’m just in a hardware one right now, but I’m sure sooner or later I’ll fire up Visual Studio again
Cheers!
Does a DVD player that outputs 480i over HDMI really need to be more than $100?
Posted by eric in Audiophile, Hardware, Miscellaneous, Multimedia, Opinion on September 15th, 2008
I mean seriously!
There is no simpler a solution than a DVD player that outputs the 480i signal decoded from the DVD to an HDMI output. There’s no processing, no deinterlacing, no scaling. Just decode it and output it. Bam! Done!
My current home theater is based around a Denon AVR-2308CI Receiver which handles all my video processing thanks to it’s magical voodoo (and a DCDi video processor ). When searching for a DVD player to solve my previously mentioned DVD watching dilemma, I wanted just a simple DVD player that can output 480i over HDMI. Why should I waste my money on an upconverting DVD player when my receiver can do the same function (and probably better). Seemed simple, right?
WRONG!
It seems the internet defacto DVD player that does 480i is the Oppo Digital DV-980H which weighs in at $169 MSRP! 
There are a couple other options as well, including the previous Oppo Digital DVD player model, DV-970HD which was specifically marketed as a ‘cheap’ player that supports 480i over HDMI. The problem you ask? It’s no longer offered directly from Oppo and it still sells for > $100 in the secondary used market.
An hour or so of Google-Fu later I landed on the Pioneer DV-400V-K DVD Player! Pioneers own website lists its MSRP as $99 and with some luck I found it refurbished through an Amazon reseller for $49! EURIKA! At last the lords of the Internet blessed me with a little devine intervention on my search results
I got to wondering after my pilgrimage to find this DVD player, why does it have to be so hard? I mean, if manufacturers like Denon offer Receivers with video upscaling and deinterlacing already included, why do they also sell DVD players with the SAME functionality? You’d think they’d try to offer a family of products that not only work well with one another but don’t waste your money on duplicate hardware that you won’t be utilizing. Denon is a prime example of this because even their ‘low end’ DVD player still carries an MSRP of $169 (and even then, it uses the built in DVD hardware deinterlacer without offering pure 480i output).
So as I said, there HAS to be a good quality family of products out there that are symbiotic and AFFORDABLE because they’re saving money on not having to waste it on unused hardware.
XBox 360 freezing while watching a DVD movie == SAD PANDA!
Posted by eric in General Programming, Hardware, Opinion on September 3rd, 2008
I’ve been on a minimalist kick recently regarding my home theater upgrading my receiver to an upscaling Denon AVR-2308CI receiver and then removing all components I never really use. Part of this process was eliminating a DVD player when my XBox 360 is (or at least should be!) capable of playing standard DVD movies. Sure, it only puts out a 480p signal but the Denon handily upscales the incoming video to 720p for output to my TV.
Sounds simple, right?
So of course now when my wife and I actually sit down to play a DVD movie, randomly it’ll just freeze the picture and appear to lock up. It’s not a hard lock as my XBox still responds to IR commands (open/close the tray, power on/off). At first I suspected the Denon receiver as it is taking the video from the XBox in using component and scaling it out via HDMI. Multiple restarts and power on/offs of the receiver and the picture wouldn’t unfreeze meaning the XBox 360 itself had locked up.
What the hell!
I’m sure there are some who are at this point thinking, “Your XBox is defective!”… I would completely and 100% agree (as I’m on my 3rd one), but I can play titles like Bad Company and Arcade games for hours with no problems, so I doubt it’s a hardware defect within the machine itself.
I suppose I’ll swallow a big ole’ slice of humble pie tonight and call Microsoft Support, BUT, just in case they find nothing wrong I’m curious if anyone else has had this issue!
Thanks!
Samsund NV24HD — Choppy High Definiton Video?
Posted by eric in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Multimedia on July 5th, 2008
I recently sold my entire DVD collection in order to buy some things I’d actually use around the house. On top of a small upgrade for my desktop computer, I also purchased a new Samsung NV24HD Point and Shoot Camera. I decided that I wanted a Point and Shoot in addition to my SLR because it seemed silly lugging around a giant camera and lens when going to simple events such as a friends birthday party.
One of the selling points for me on the Samsung NV24HD was the fact that it was able to capture high definiton video in 720p (1280×720, MPEG-4 H.264). Combine this with the 16GB Transcend SDHC memory card I bought to use with it, and I now had a point and shoot camera AND an HD video camera that could record over five hours of HD content.
After a couple test trials using my cat among other things, I started to notice when playing back the files using Quicktime on my computer that the video seemed fairly choppy and also the audio would drop out and then come back from time to time.
My first suspect was the memory card thinking that it might not be fast enough to record the video. But the Transcend 16GB SDHC card I purchased was certified Class 6 SDHC (guaranteed minimum 6mbps), which is the fastest you can buy for SDHC cards, so that couldn’t be the issue.
I then tried perhaps using another computer to play back the file, so I fired up my wife’s Black MacBook and used Quicktime on her machine. I had the same issue of choppy playback (at the beginning of the file) as well as the audio dropping out at the same points.
I suspect one of three things:
- This is an incompatibility with the MP4 files generated by the NV24HD and Quicktime, which I should probably e-Mail and ask Samsung about.
- It’s an issue with the memory card I’m using not being able to keep up with the recording device and thus losing data while recording video.
- It’s an issue with the NV24HD itself or an issue with the hardware encoder that’s used to compress the H.264 video stream.
I imagine it takes a bit of CPU power to compress video to 720p real time, and it’s evident on the NV24HD because after shooting continuous video for over five minutes the camera gets noticeably warmer.
ANYWAYS, if you have experienced this issue or have some ideas for a remedy I’m all ears
Cheers!
Does your Juniper VPN client keep disconnecting after you connect?
Posted by eric in General Software, Hardware, Internet, Networking on April 18th, 2008
I had this issue a while back while working from home using my company laptop. Our company utilizes the Juniper VPN client software and up until recently it had been working just fine! One day while working remote my VPN connection kept closing with the error:
“The Network Connect session terminated. Do you want to reconnect? (nc.windows.app.23711).”
I did some Googling and I came across this support manual from Juniper which discusses the error codes/messages returned by the VPN client software and what could be causing the issue. Error code 23711 Juniper describes the problem as:
“The Network Connect client disconnected from the secure gateway because the
client’s routing table was altered.”
I thought to myself, “What the hell could be changing my routing table?” At first I suspected it might have been a VPN tunneling issue with my Apple Airport Extreme but that known issue has been fixed since early 2007. The issue obviously was being caused by something on my company laptop.
I tried different media (wired vs. wireless) and also updated and rolled back different network drivers to no avail. Another long Google search put me upon this blog entry at kevinluck.com where he states:
After a bit of googling I found out that there were complaints about the early betas of CS3 and the Bonjour service that they installed affecting networking. And this is what was causing my problem. If you press Ctrl-Alt-Del and look at your processes then you will find a “mDNSResponder.exe” service running after installing Flash CS3. Ending this process allows you to connect through Network Connect.
Presto! Stopping that Process and eventually uninstalling the Bonjour application from my computer fixed my VPN disconnection problem! A big THANK YOU to kevinluck.com for being a great resource and I hope that this blog entry helps others trouble shoot the same issue I had with our Juniper VPN client!
Lord knows I was ready to pull my hair out
MacBook Air: First Impressions With The Solid State Drive
Today while on our lunch break a couple co-workers and I ventured over to our local Apple Store here in San Diego. We had seen on a few Apple related sites that the new MacBook Air had been showing up in Apple Stores so we decided we needed to take the latest laptop from Apple for a test drive.
A little background from my point of reference. My wife is currently using a 2.2Ghz Black MacBook with 1GB RAM and my personal laptop is an ‘ancient’ 17″ Titanium PowerBook with a 1.33Ghz G4 processor and 1GB RAM. Both are currently running the latest version of Leopard (10.5.1). So these are the benchmarks I’ll use when comparing the speed of the new MacBook Air.
The model I was testing was the ‘top of the line’ 1.8Ghz model with 2GB of RAM and a 64GB solid state drive (SSD). I verified that it was in fact the 64GB SSD because the system preferences labeled the available disk space after format as 55.35GB and the serial number was that of the listed 64GB SSD model.
Our first test was to just see how fast iTunes opens as this usually takes even a couple seconds on my wife’s MacBook. Even on a machine only clocking in at 1.8Ghz, iTunes literally took only a SECOND (we timed it) to open and be ready to use. I was floored! Other applications such as iMovie or Garage Band only took a second or two to open as well.
It’s obvious that performing every day operations will be much, much faster on the new MacBook Air with the additional ($999 additional as well) solid state drive. The benefit here is the seek time for non-cached data has dropped from milliseconds to NANOSECONDS. That alone greatly increases the load time of data, regardless of actual transfer rates once the data is accessed. Operations such as saving or opening large sequential files might seem a little slower on an SSD drive compared to traditional disk drives, but honestly, I feel the benefits far outweigh the draw backs.
What excites me is now we’ll have storage devices that can finally feed our fast data hungry CPU’s information at a rate that will actually make then earn their keep Even when booting Windows XP while watching the CPU monitor, you’ll notice that it’s not the CPU that’s the limiting factor in boot time. It’s the disk I/O that’s causing things to slow down. The hard drive has to trash around all over the disk loading information and god forbid you don’t defrag regularly
For additional reading, you can check out the benchmarks posted over at MacRumors where users in their forums are posting actual MacBook Air SSD Benchmark information using such programs as Xbench.
Cheers!
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