Category Archives: Hardware

Regeekified

Hardware, Humour, Life

In May, I realised that over the course of the last few years some of my so called geek status might have been fading, as I lamented that I hadn’t taken the side panel off my computer for over 2 years. Over the last fortnight, I can confirm that I have been quietly re-estabilshing my geek-fu with the following hardware acquisitions:

  • Intel Core 2 3.0Ghz CPU
  • Asus P5E Motherboard
  • Asus GF8800GT 512MB
  • Corsair TWIN2X2048 8500C5D 2GB
  • Western Digital 74G SATA Raptor 10000 rpm HDD (16Mb Cache)
  • Western Digital 500G SATAII 7200 rpm HDD (16Mb Cache)
  • Liteon 20x DVD Dual Layer DVD+/-R SATA
  • CoolerMaster Real Power 550W Extreme

At the same time, I have installed Windows Vista Business, which was a pretty seamless exercise. After using it for the last fortnight, Windows Vista is certainly a visual upgrade from Windows XP Professional however there are a few things that keep getting in my road. Once I’ve fixed those and the Vista driver problems I’ve been having, I’ll reevaluate whether it is worth downgrading to Windows XP Professional.

Besides those few little problems I’ve had with Vista and driver support, the new computer components sure do hammer. I’ve been playing Counter Strike:Source, Team Fortress 2 and a few other games with the highest settings I can manage and it isn’t missing a beat.

For those that are interested, the Vista performance information for that above hardware is:

  • Processor, 5.6
  • Memory, 5.9
  • Graphics, 5.9
  • Gaming Graphics, 5.9
  • Primary Hard Disk, 5.9

I chuckled when my slowest component was my 3.0Ghz CPU!

Defridgeration

Food, Hardware, Life

Last weekend, our refridgerator started showing a warning signal that something wasn’t quite right and by midweek it had decided it was a good time to stop refridgerating.

When it stopped cooling properly, I opened up the phone book and started calling around to service people to come and fix the fridge. I naively thought that it’d be a simple process and someone would be out that same day, it turns out that wasn’t the case. After calling 15-20 different businesses, the standard responses were that they didn’t service Fisher & Paykel fridges or they were too busy.

Of the ones that did service Fisher & Paykel fridges, the soonest we might be able to get someone out was going to be the following Monday. Now comes the amazing part, of the ones that did performed fridge repairs on Fisher & Paykel, their fees varied from a $100 to $150 for the call out fee. Once they were on site, they billed a similar amount per hour for labor and of course parts were extra.

Apparently, refridgeration is a license to print money like plumbing.

HP Laserjet & Windows Vista Driver Support

Hardware, Software

I had heard that the driver support for Windows Vista was a little patchy in places, however I didn’t realise it was just so patchy.

I have a HP Laserjet 1010, which isn’t a new printer by anyones account and I expected that Vista would have picked it up on its own but that wasn’t the case. Some people might take the opportunity to stone Microsoft for not providing a driver out of the box but that isn’t fair in my opinion; you can’t expect them to support every device under the sun.

Off to the Hewlett Packard web site, where I wander my way into the driver download area. I plugin the model number of the printer expecting to see a nice list of drivers for Windows Vista, only to be told that they haven’t released them yet and that I should check back soon.

It could be just me, but when a company like HP don’t provide a driver for one of their staple home/small business printers for Windows Vista six months after it has been released – it isn’t coming anytime soon; in fact it may never come.

Fortunately, Microsoft provide a driver for the Laserjet 1015 which appears to be compatible. It’s lucky really because Hewlett Packard don’t provide a Windows Vista driver for the 1015 either.

Rebuilding Continued

Hardware

After getting stung again by a wasp on Friday afternoon, I wasn’t able to put my new computer bits together because of the Hellboy hand. Feeling a bit like an invilid, I called Brendan to see if he was able to lend me a hand.

Putting all the new components together didn’t take very long at all and it posted successfully on the first attempt! Back in July, I mentioned that I had won a copy of Windows Vista Business, so with the new found speed it seemed like a good time to give that a go. Installing Windows Vista was absolutely pain free and surprisingly fast on the new hardware.

A day later and the only thing I’m having problems with is the driver for my Netgear WG311T PCI wifi card. Once the Netgear wireless card is physically installed, I can still boot into Windows Vista without a hitch. As soon as I install the driver for the card, everything is still working – wifi included, until I have to reboot. Upon rebooting, the machine gets into the boot process and hangs for some reason. To get back into Windows, I need to boot into safe mode and disable the device.

Not sure what I’m going to do about the Netgear driver problem but once that is done, I should have a pretty sweet rig.