Archive for category Hardware
What a Difference a New Chipset Makes
Posted by eric in Hardware, Networking, Reviews on January 17, 2010
My system for the last few years has been a Dell Dimension 9200. I’ve done a few upgrades to it that were non-Dell standard but for the most part it has been completely stable and without issue. That was until recently… when I installed a new nVidia GTX 295 video card. I had thought outside of the SLI on a single card that I wouldn’t experience any issues. My mistake.
Soon after installing the GTX 295 I started experiencing strange issues. 3D Performance was in the pits, video playback had issues and even sound while playing a game was choppy and stuttered. I was at a loss for what could have been happening because I had the latest drivers from nVidia and did a fresh install of Windows 7 x64 Enterprise Edition.
Then I remembered last time I had the symptom of stuttering sound…
Review — Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player
Posted by eric in Audiophile, Hardware, Miscellaneous, Multimedia, Reviews on January 10, 2010
I recently started creating backups of my home Blu-Ray library without any method to play these backups on my home theater. My media playback device of choice, the XBox 360, is unable to play any video files that are within an MKV container. I had played around with MP4 containers as an alternative but the Windows Networking component of the XBox 360 limited the file sizes to the FAT32 limit of 4GB, which is too small to host an entire 1080p movie and I was unwilling to split the backup into multiple files.
The available alternatives out there didn’t seem technically feasible as most D-Link and Linksys offerings are merely Windows Media Center Extenders with “support for MPEG-4/ASP” (read: DivX) but no support for MPEG-4/AVC or MPEG-4/VC1. The option of setting up another HTPC for my home theater wouldn’t be financially viable because at a base price of about $399 I might as well invest in a Blu-Ray burner to watch my backups.
Enter the Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player…
Review: Intel SS4200-E NAS
Posted by eric in Hardware, Networking, Opinion, Reviews on September 12, 2009
Well, it finally happened. The D-Link DNS-323 NAS that I’ve been using for the past two years with a 750GB RAID1 finally filled up 
The DNS-323 has been a great NAS! I had my doubts at first with a D-Link product, since in the past their networking products that I’ve used haven’t been quality. So my issue was, how do I upgrade from a RAID1 on a two-drive NAS to a new fault tolerant system that has at LEAST 1.5TB of storage. I mean, if you’re going to upgrade you need to make it count, so doubling the capacity of my current NAS was the primary goal.
I did some research and with NewEgg running a sale on the hardware, I settled on the Intel SS4200-E NAS. On the spec sheet, this NAS met my requirements because it supported up to four drives, RAID5 and RAID10! Technical reviews I found of the device put it at the top of the chart when it comes to RAID5 performance.
Upgrading my HTPC — It’s Alive!
Posted by eric in Hardware, Internet, Miscellaneous, Multimedia, Reviews on August 24, 2009
A couple months ago I posted a blog entry about my plans to upgrade my Home Theater PC (HTPC) using the new Zotac IONITX
Intel Atom based motherboard. As a point of reference, I’m upgrading my HTPC from an underpowered, but pretty sweet at the time VIA EPIA-M 600M. My reason for using the 6000 at the time was I wanted a fanless setup to the HTPC would be as silent as possible.
The case I’ve been using is a Morex 3677B case, which is fairly small but still allows enough room for a 2.5″ Hard Drive and a Slim Laptop CD/DVD drive.
A couple gotchas I ran into while upgrading from the VIA board to the new Intel Atom based board:
Apple releases fix for wireless latency issue caused by 10.5.8 update!
Has wireless latency gotten you down? Have your internet porn habits been impacted since you updated your Macbook or Macbook Pro to 10.5.8?
ME TOO AND IT WAS DRIVING ME UP THE FUCKING WALL! 
After I updated my 15-inch Macbook Pro to 10.5.8 I noticed right away that my wireless performance was in the crapper. Ping times to Google jumped up to an AVERAGE of 300ms, sometimes as high at 1,500ms! Any other wireless device in the house? 40-50ms! So it was obvious, after pulling my hair out thinking it was an issue with my Airport Extreme base stations or Verizon FIOS.
Luckily my friend Joe (who has been suffering the same issue), pointed me towards a link on Apple Support that not only admits that the 10.5.8 update breaks “some” Intel based laptops, but they also released a fix! What was their fix?
It basically rolls back your wireless drivers to 10.5.7!
http://support.apple.com/downloads/AirPort_Client_Update_for_MacBook_and_MacBook_Pro
I hope this helps out anyone else who thought they were losing their mind! 
Cheers!
Problems with nVidia cooling over long term?
Posted by eric in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Windows Vista on June 15, 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 2, 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 31, 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 glue 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 22, 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 26, 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!
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