Monday, October 13, 2008
Similar to Dell and HP Apple has released a tech notice about NVIDIA's acknowledgement of a "higher than normal failure rate" of some of their GPUs. Apple is providing free repairs for 2 yrs from the date of purchase regardless of warranty status.
MacBook Pro: Distorted video or no video issues
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Macbook:1, ThinkPad:1
Looks like I will get my DELL XPS 1300 fixed, DELL is shipping a new motherboard. I spent some time researching this issue since this is the 2nd motherboard replacement in 1yr timeframe.
I should clarify I love the XPS 1300 and that it is not a DELL part that is failing. It appears the issue is with the NVIDIA GPU and it is a systemic problem that goes beyond Dell. It seems that most high end laptops use the same GPU as the Dell. Dell, Apple, Lenovo and HP were listed as having machines that are susceptible to the GPU issue. Desktops as well as laptops may be affected as well. The news from various sources seems to point to a very high percentage of NVIDIA GPUs failing due to heat.
Dell has provided a 1 yr extension to the existing warranty for a GPU issue. This might take the sting out of the issue but unfortunately all they can replace the suspected GPU is with another suspected GPU. There appears to be no way to fix the problem with a non-suspected GPU. Dell also recommends a BIOS update that will turn the fan on at a lower temperature ( of course running the fan longer, killing the battery life and burning out the fan which is not covered by the warranty).
My XPS will be fixed since it "should" be under warranty. But my XPS will be suspect from here on out. I think that any machine with a similar NVIDIA GPU will be questionable since I have seen no mention of where the chip has been changed or fixed.
Some links for those that are interested:
NVIDIA GPU Update: Dell to Offer Limited Warranty Enhancement to All Affected Customers Worldwide
Nvidia G92s and G94 reportedly failing
Nvidia plays the meltdown blame game
Summarizing the Nvidia problems with laptop chips overheating (very interesting summary)
Lawsuit alleges Nvidia hid chip defects
Dell Xps M1330 Nvidia Gpu Failure 2nd time...!!!
(Not me, but very similar situation)
Saturday, October 04, 2008
My Dell XPS M1330 Laptop is having issues, again. It seems that the NVIDIA GPU is having some issues with overheating. I have had the motherboard replaced once already and now it is acting up again. Dell's current solution is a BIOS update that will basically run the fan non-stop. But that is a not a real fix. I might replace the MB once more and that will be it. I loved the machine but it is proven to be untrustworthy and I rely on it too heavily to be without it while I wait for another service call.
So I am in search for a new laptop. I generally run Office and a few other applications. I primarily develop, design and demo using either Virtual PC or VMWare. Here are a few items that are high on the priority list:
Support 32 and 64 bit
Min 4 gig of ram, 8 gig preferred
15 inch monitor
Nice to have SD slot
Need to have ExpressCard slot.
Dell is out - not going there anymore.
Basically I am in the market for a high-end laptop that will run a few VMs without bogging down. Feel free to suggest something.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
It was long drive, Central Illinois to Chicago for the monthly Chicago Microsoft Sharepoint Strategies Group meeting and a longer drive home I might add thanks to the night-time construction traffic. After wandering around a few city blocks (felt lucky to find the car after it was all said and done) I finally made it to the meeting space. The Chicago Microsoft SharePoint Business Strategies Group is a fairly new group that focuses more on the business use of SharePoint and not the normal technical details of the product. Last night NewsGator presented a Social Computing demonstration to a room full of SharePoint business users. Next on the agenda was a basic presentation from eCopy which will scan and dump document images into a SharePoint library. Four of us adjourned to a nearby watering hole and continued the SharePoint discussion until I needed to start the hunt for my car. A four hour ride home thanks to the midnight construction and I am back to the daily SharePoint grind today.
If you are interested in SharePoint and live in the Chicago area you should meet up with this Chicago Microsoft Business Strategies Group. Their site is available at: http://web.meetup.com/69/
Friday, September 05, 2008
I almost did not check my emails before I left the house today… One cannot explain the grief I felt when I checked the mail on the phone and realized the SharePoint community lost a dear friend. Wading though way too many eamils this morning to my disbelief I leaned that Patrick Tisseghem passed away.
Patrick was practically a SharePoint icon, not only in the European community but world-wide. Many of us have had the pleasure of meeting Patrick at one of his training sessions, SharePoint conference or by reading one of his many books, articles or posts.
For myself, I distinctly remember the first time I met Patrick. We were both speaking at an Advisor Summit in Phoenix, Az. As the speakers made their way across the hot pavement quiet and soft spoken Patrick and I introduced ourselves and made our way with the pack to dinner. It was during that time that Patrick made some SharePoint fame with his famous Beer database.
Over the years we connected primarily on the conference circuits, in and out of the speaker room and the after hour events. Patrick was always there, pint in hand, quiet and on the edge of the crowd. Always willing to talk and listen. Strange quality for an instructor, Patrick was more of a listener than a speaker after hours.
I can easily recount the events and parties that we happened to be together at, many now are all a blur over the years. I can say that my parting memory of Patrick will be TechEd 2008 in Orlando. Heading back to the speaker hotel from an event, my Matt and I happened upon Patrick taking a break on the bench outside the hotel. We sat an talked for a few minutes and as usual headed to the hotel bar. Over pints we discussed his current book, watched some sports and just kicked back. For me personally I will be left with a fond Patrick memory of TechEd, Pints, Books and Friends.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
After a successful, long and painful installation and configuration of SQL Reporting Services in SharePoint integrated mode with Kerberos I finally forced SSRS to work very nicely with my R&D SharePoint lab this week.
Yesterday I installed SQL Reporting Services and SP2 on an existing MOSS box in our integrated development environment. Installation and configuration of SSRS went smooth an easy up until I logged into Central Admin to configure Reporting Services. I received the following error:
"The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference."
The fix for my situation was simple - rerun the SQL Server Reporting Service install effectively repairing the server.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Seems like I have been building and deploying features and solution for weeks. I have run into this error while attempting to add a solution to the solution store: Failed to extract the cab file in the solution.
Seems like there is more than a few reasons why you might see this return from your STSADM addsolution command but for myself each time was this error was associated with a duplicate entry in my .ddf file. I spent some time trying to determine what was causing this error and then happened upon Rob's post on the topic: STSADM strikes again, Failed to extract the cab file in the solution...
You can check your DDF files for duplicates. If you can't seem to located the offending duplicate then try renaming your web solution file to .CAB extension and open it. The cab file will open sorted by name and you might be able to more easily find the duplicate file.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
I happen to be tracing down a specific Microsoft Press release and happened across Microsoft's "Learn more about Social Computing" a set of SharePoint Social Computing resources. This site contains many resources about social computing using SharePoint including case studies, white papers and news.
Link: http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/capabilities/collaboration/social.mspx
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Microsoft's Infrastructure Updates have been out for about a week now. There does seem to be some potential big issues with the updates breaking third party products. Microsoft also has posted a KB article on Alternate Access Mappings issues associated with the Infrastructure updates.
Here are a few key posts you should be looking at if you have installed or are considering installing the Infrastructure Updates:
AAM issue with Infrastructure Update
Description of the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: July 15, 2008
KB: When is the SPContext.Current available ? (SharePoint dev)
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Microsoft has announced free, unlimited installation and compatibility support for Vista SP1 starting right now until March 18, 2009. Don't you love that word Free!
The deal is Telephone support available world wide, chat and email support US and Canada only.
Information and details are available at:
http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx?rdpath=1&prid=11274&gprid=500921