Of No General SharePoint Use

Some Heat Required ...

Darrin Bishop — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:35:31 GMT

Every now and then I get an itch to do something different. These days I scratch that itch with microcontrollers and embedded programming. Working with micros are a nice change of pace after spending all day working with SharePoint and .NET (though I love to work with MOSS). Most of the playtime is spent using the C or Assembly language . Micro programming is a world of ports and registers, hex and binary - a place that most .NET developers never see.

Half of the fun is working with digital electronics, capacitors, diodes, resistors, integrated circuits, breadboards and wires. There is a certain amount of satisfaction when you create your own 5 volt power regulator and it actually puts out a clean 5V signal. Right now I am working with the ATMega168 controller which retails for about $4. Toss in a the 5V power regulator and about $5 in capacitors, resistors and an 16mhz oscillator you have pretty nice little microcontroller set up.

Last night I was working with the ATMega168 controller and the Bare-Bones Board Kit from Modern Device Company. For a few dollars you get all these parts…..

and with some solder and heat you end up with….

Trust me, it is a great feeling to actually start from the pieces, spend an hour soldering and find out that it actually works when it is finished. Great little diversion and one more thing to code.

The New Laptop - ThinkPad W500

Darrin Bishop — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:00:33 GMT

Well I finally caved in and "replaced" my Dell XPS M1330 ( the machine with the faulty NVIDIA card) with a brand new Lenovo ThinkPad W500. The W500 is the 15 inch rebirth of the T61P series which was the powerhouse line for ThinkPad. Not a bad deal, end-of-year, got a nice set of rebates and discounts.

I grabbed the middle of the road option for the W500 and upgraded the monitor and added an extra slot drive to replace the CD with a second SATA drive. The W500 has dual video cards, a high end card to suck the battery life out of the laptop and a built-in Intel video card for those long trip on the train. As soon as I opened the box I pulled the drive ( small, slow 5400rpm SATA ) and replaced with a 320 7200rpm drive I had setting on the shelf. I also upgraded to a total of 4gb of memory. I can go to 8 but right now the DDR3 4gig chips are way too expensive. I did reload with Vista x64 and have no issues with drivers.

Since then I moved to the ThinkPad W500. I have had only one minor issue with virtual machines and power management. Once I got the power management under control my virtual machines, now running from my secondary hard drive are blazing fast with no need for the external hard drive.

I should note that before I purchased the ThinkPad I had purchased and returned a new 15 inch MacBook Pro. Running Vista on the new MacBook Pro was painful. To sum it up, the Vista drivers for the MCP were not ready for prime time. I had frequent random lockups, which was thought to be caused by the video driver and every two minutes the speakers would howl and screech as the wireless scanned for access points.

MacBooks and NVIDIA GPU Failure

Darrin Bishop — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:29:00 GMT

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

Need a New Laptop - Update

Darrin Bishop — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:04:12 GMT

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)

Need a New Laptop, Suggestions?

Darrin Bishop — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 01:30:11 GMT

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.

Free Vista SP1 Support From Microsoft

Darrin Bishop — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:17:00 GMT

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