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Sylvania NB530SLX Blu-Ray Player only $59.99 at Amazon!
The Sylvania NB530SLX Bu-Ray player is only $59.99 at Amazon! I have the Magnavox version (see revew)for some time now and it has been woking great. Don’t know how long it will last but this is certainly a great price for a decent Blu-Ray player.
Too Much Computer Control in Modern Cars
By now the infamous Toyota’s sudden acceleration is well known and much publicized problem. Although Toyota has been consistently deny the electronics controls may be possible causes of the problem, suspicions abound.
Whether Toyota’s electronics may or may not be the source of the problem, the fact is there is too much electronics computer controlling too many aspects of the modern cars, regardless the maker.
Take out 2008 Audi Q7 for example. A few days ago, after driving it during the day, we park it on the curb first and moved it to the drive way. Up to this point, everything is none eventful. It is when we want to park it a little better, things start to happen.
The car would not start. This is not like battery is dying and the starter is attempting to crank. No. It is like the instrument panel gong dark altogether. Normally, for most of the cars and this Audi included, the instrument cluster consists of a number of warning lights that will light up briefly when the ignition key is first turned on. In addition, in the center of the instrument cluster of late model Audi, there is a so call “Driver Information Display” was dark too.
Since we just moved the car no more than five minutes ago when it all the sudden decided to quit on its own and the radio, interior lights and remote door locks etc. works, I did not think it is a battery problem and the only thing to do is to call Audi’s road side assistance. They first want to try jump start to call, although I was pretty sure that would not solve the problem and surely it didn’t work and the car was towed to dealer.
What surprised me next was after I did not hear any thing from the Audi dealer and called them the next day, I was told after they connect the diagnostic computer and reset the Q7’s internal control, the car just came back to life. The dealer did not replace anything and they while said this problem is rare, they have seen it before but not sure the cause of the problem. What is even less settling is of course since they do not known the cause of the problem, it means this problem may happen again and may even happen under unsafe conditions.
In this age, computers have been used to control many things we use daily. The problem is computer has bugs. When a PC or notebook bugs surfaces, most of time one just reboot it without too much a problem. But when a car is controlled by computers it is something else. If the computer all the sudden decided to go crazy, at the very minimum, it is an inconvenient annoyance I just experienced, at worst, well; you can fill in the blanks.
May be we should not let the computers control things that can end very badly.
If your Late Model Audi’s Battery Died or Fuse Blown…
If your late model Audi’s battery just went dead or the main fuse to the control blown, you are in for a very rude surprise that the key will be locked and can not be removed!
Our 2008 Audi Q7 all of sudden was not able to start. Since we just drove the car a few times that day and the interior lights, radio, electronics door locks etc still works, I doubt it was a battery problem. Instead, I thought it could be a fuse got blown as the center instrument cluster would not light up and the “Driver Information Display” is totally dark and the starter did not even attempt to start.
When I reach to the fuse panel and indentified the main fuse for the control, it looks ok. Just to try, I plug in the key and turn. Nothing happen. But then I did not expect it to. But what happens next was a big surprise as I was trying to pull out the ignition key. The key seems got stuck and I was not able to pull it out. I first thought may be I did not turn it to the right position but after tried it several times, I have concluded somehow the key was locked inside due to lack of electric power. Sure enough, after I put the fuse back and restore the power, I can remove the key as easy as before. When the car was towed to the dealer, the tow truck driver confirmed that he has seen the Audi key locked when the car looses electric power.
It seems this “problem” I just experienced is really Audi engineers’ design “feature”! It also seems to me that Audi’s engineers have a very odd sense of logic that I can not understand. With this “feature”, if the car is immobilized due to any electrical failure, and the key was already been inserted into the ignition switch, the key will be locked by the car and the driver will not be able to take the key. If the driver has to leave the car behind to find assistance, the key will stay with car. It is very easy for some one else to come along and fix or tow the car away along with the key during owner or driver’s absent.
Whatever design logic those Audi engineers might have, to me this design is totally absurd! This Q7 is my first and likely the last Audi if they choose to stick with this absurd design.
MSI 785GTM-E45 Motherboard for HTPC
I was thinking building a HTPC for some time. My first choice for a HTPC motherboard the XFX GeForce 9300 did not work out when it went dead in just three days. Luckily, right after I returned it, there was a sale on a AMD Athlon II X3 440 CPU and MSI 785GTM-E45 motherboard combo for just $10 more than the XFX board by itself. I naturally jumped on the deal.
Packaging and the Board
While the MSI board was not packaged as fancy as the XFX board, it does come with a printed manual! Besides the printed manual, there is also a quick installation guide; driver CD; a SATA cable; a SATA power adapter cable and an IDE cable.
Compares to the XFX GeForce 9300 board I just returned, it only has 4 USB ports on the back panel and there is no eSATA port. It does however have HDMI; DVI and VGA video ports. More importantly, unlike the XFX board only has PS/2 keyboard port; this MSI board has both PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports.
Compares to the XFX GeForce 9300 board I just returned, it only has 4 USB ports on the back panel and there is no eSATA port. It does however have HDMI; DVI and VGA video ports. More importantly, unlike the XFX board only has PS/2 keyboard port; this MSI board has both PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports.
On board, the MSI MB also has 6 SATA ports and unlike the XFX only has 4 of them active on default BIOS settings; all 6 SATA ports are active here. But equall bad as the XFX board, the SATA ports are also facing side rather than up. To make up for the short fall of USB ports compares to the XFX MB on the back panel, this MB has 4 two ports USB connectors on board compare to three on the XFX so the total max. Possible USB ports for both boards are 12 if one buys USB back or front panel brackets to bring the ports out. One thing not so great aboutthis board is it only has two memory slots but this is ok with me as I don’t plan to use more than 4GB of memory any way. What is more important to me is this board at least has one IDE port that XFX lacks. This is important for the old IDE based HD DVD drive .
Installation
After the board is installed, updating the driver is quite easy as MSI has an on-line update utility that will check for the latest drivers and BIOS. Updating the BIOS is easy. This factor alone makes the MSI board a far better choice than the XFX.
The BIOS is able to unlock unused core from certain AMD CPUs. Of course, being able to unlock a locked core does not mean it will functon correctly. I tried on my X3 and it hangs which means the 4th core is really a bad one to begin with.
The on board video, ATI 4200 turn out to be somewhat disappointing. I first tried the board with an AMD Athlon 64 5200+ I have. The Windows 7’s Aero scores in a low 3.8. In comparison, the GeForce 9300 of the XFX MB with an Intel Core Duo E4300 that in general performs around the same as the AMD CPU gets a 4.7 Aero score. When I put in the AMD Athlon II X3 440, the Aero score still a low 4.3. Even when over clock t he ATI 4200 from 400MHz to 700MHz, the Aero still not able to compete with the GF9300 with an Aero score of 4.5. It is certainly a disappointing performance to say the least. Especially when the AMD 785 chipset is a newer chipset and it’s ATI 4200 graphics processor is AMD’s top IGP. Over clocking, at least for the on board video is easier and more stable than the XFX board.
Regardless of the Aero performance, the ATI 4200 is capable to playback both HD DVD or Blu-Ray video without any problem. HD audio on the other hand turn out to be very different story. The MSI’s web site somewhat imply this board supports HD audio. What they neglect to make it clear is that HD audio only means the on board Realtek’s audio chip supports 8 ch. analog output. The HDMI port on the other hand only supports two ch. stereo LPCM sounds.
HDMI Setup
After first boot up, the Windows 7 will install the default HDMI driver automatically. Unfortunately, the default Microsoft HDMI driver only supports 2ch audio. Furthermore, the MSI driver CD split the HDMI driver from the chipset driver and requires separate installation. Even after install the ATI HDMI driver from the CD, I still only got 2 ch. Audio. Upon further on-line search, I was dismayed to found out that the AMD 785 chipset only capable to support 2 ch. LPCM output. An updated Realtek HDMI driver on the Realtek’s web site allows pass through of none HD audio stream such as regular 5.1 ch. DD and DTS sound tracks. After download and install the Realtek HDMI driver however, I still only got 2 ch. PCM output. Its only looking into the matter further, I found out there is an option on the Windows Sound manager that need to be selected to support pass through of none LPCM sound tracks. There is NO documentation that I can find on either MSI, AMD or Realtek ‘s web sites to state very clearly what is supported and how to make best use of the on board HDMI connection!
Summary and Conclusion
Pro:
- The board is more stable than the XFX GeForce 9300 board before it.
- MSI has a much better support web site and on-line update driver update mechanism.
- There is a printed manual.
- Able to unlock unused core of AMD CPUs.
- Reasonably easy to over clock for the onboard ATI 4200.
- HDMI, DVDI and VGA video output.
- Total 12 USB and 6 SATA ports.
Con:
- HDMI only supports 2 ch. LPCM audio. Even with updated Realtek HDMI driver, it can only support pass though of older 5.1 ch. DD or DTS sound tracks. No HD audio.
- Only 2 memory slots.
- Only 4 USB ports on the back panel. One needs breakout brackets to bring out the rest.
- No SPDIF port on the back panel.
- Performance of the ATI 4200 even over clocked is no match to GeForce 9300.
This MSI 785GTM-E45 is a reasonably priced board with decent features and performance. The big surprise and disappointment is the AMD 785 chipset only supports 2 ch. audio over HDMI. It really shows AMD really don’t care that much about design a chipset that can support modern HTPC applications. As far as I can tell, even their new flagship chipset 890, is still unable to support HD audio. Of course, AMD is not alone being guilty on this regard as Nvidia and Intel are no better.
For people who are happy with regular DD or DTS sound tracks, this is a good board for an all in one setup. If you want DTS HD MA or DD TrueHD however, you still require having an add-on graphics for that.
A not so great experience of the XFX GeForce 9300 Motherboard
I have been using an old ECS motherboard with AGP bus with Intel E4300 Core Duo processor. It is an older board and therefore not only lacking HDMI connector, it does not even support HDTV resolutions and that make it rather difficult to connect to an even older 1080i RPTV. Furthermore, the board has no support for HD audio formats such as DTS HD MA or DD TrueHD. In fact, like most of the entry level boards, even it has SPDIF connectors inside the board, it is not on the back panel and does not came with a bracket to bring it out either making difficult to get even the none HD digital audio such as DTS or DD out. Since AGP is a dead bus format, it is clear I need at least a new MB if not a new MB and a new graphics card.
My first choice for the replacement is this XFX GeForce 9300 MI-9300-7AS9 motherboard. Unfortunately, as it turned out, this was a mistake for several reasons, but I am ahead of myself. The reason I choose this board is not only it has HDMI, DVI and VGA video output; it also has 6 USB and 1 ESATA connectors at the back panel. Although I have seen many reviews said the GeForce 9300 is not capable of output DTS HD MA or DD TrueHD bit stream, I feel I can live with it, as long as it can output 8 ch. LPCM.
The board is packaged in attractive double box.
While the board itself is very attractive looking, the included content is on the short side. It only contains a back panel bracket; a SATA power connector adapter cable; a SATA data cable; driver CD and quick installation guide. There was NO printed manual! This was the first motherboard I have ever encountered that does not come with a printed manual and it was a very unpleasant surprise.
Before I got the board I was already somewhat concern with XFX’s web site is on the slim side compares to other motherboard makers. To make matter worse, they have a very paranoid way of support that require customer to register first in order to gain access to driver down load etc. Again, XFX is first and only of PC board maker I have ever seen require customers to register in order to access the support section of the web. But that’s not all! Once I got to the support section of the web, I found out there are really no updated driver or BIOS beyond what was already on the CD or the board. This is 2010 and the latest BIOS is dated 2008! Furthermore, they did not include BIOS flash utility to update the BIOS and the CD update matter failed because they did not set up file name correctly. All these issue bode ill for XFX’s customers.
Regardless, the board itself looks attractive and much better than the old ECS board. Installation wasn’t a problem either. After I installed the board and powered it on, it worked despite the drivers and BIOS were old. I down loaded various components such as motherboard chipset and graphics drivers from the components makers such as Nvidia’s web site.
There were some things else I did not realize this board is lacking before I brought it. First, there is no older IDE support. While this may or may not be a problem for some people, it is to me as my HD DVD drive is an IDE drive. Since no one is making HD DVD drive anymore, if I want to keep playing HD DVD, I need to buy an IDE to SATA adapter. Not only it will be an additional cost, most of time seems are hit and miss at best with many users. The second issue is this board does not have a PS/2 mouse port. Again, this may or may not be a problem to some people but I have a two PC KVM switch that only works with PS/2 keyboard and mouse. It is a nuisance to have to keep two mice on the desk or have to get yet another adapter.
One other thing I don’t like is the SATA connectors are facing sides rather than up to save board space. While some people may like it, I don’t. Once the board is installed inside the case, it is impossible to see these connectors. Once has to use touch feeling to connect new drives. Although it says it has 6 SATA ports, only 4 are available under default BIOS settings.
The on board GeForce 9300 performed quite a bit better than the GeForce 7050 on board the old motherboard. The Window 7’s Aero scores jumped from 3 something to 4.7. Unfortunately, things went downhill from there.
After the installation, I let it running for the burn in process. On the fourth day morning I found the board went dead overnight. Just to be sure, I put the CPU and memory back to the old ECS MB and it boot up nicely. This means the new board is really dead and the choices are either return the board for replacement or return the board for refund. In view of the out dated drivers on XFX’s web site and not much else and the fact that this is the only MB died on me for the last 10-15 years, I did not want to waste for time on replacement and opt for refund.
Because I have not got the chance to try the HDMI port before it went dead on me, I was not able to it in HTPC settings. Even assume it did not failed, it is worth to take note that the GeForce 9300 is not capable to supprot DTS-HD MA or DD TrueHD pass through. The best it can do is to support 8 ch, LPCM and this means additional h/w or s/w is needed to decode these HD format. For the short time I have with the board, I can summarized the pro and con as follow,
Pro:
- Attractive looking board. Good size heat sink on the chipset.
- Have 6 USB and 1 ESATA port on back panel.
- HDMI, DVI and VGA port.
- CMOS reset button on the back panel. Good for people who want to try out on the edge BIOS settings.
- On board GeForce 9300 is a decent performer and probably one of the better IGP.
Con:
- The board went dead in less than four days.
- No printed manual.
- Out dated drivers and BIOS. No BIOS update utility and the CD update version does not work due to wrong file name used.
- Require registration to gain access to a very slim that close to nothing web support pages.
- Side facing SATA ports.
- Only 4 SATA ports are available on default BIOS settings.
- No SPDIF port on back panel.
- I did not try it but looking at the BIOS setting options, it does not appear it is capable to do much over clocking if any.
Because of this not so good experience, I probably will not buy any XFX products any time soon. Luckily for me, there was a sale on AMD Athlon II X3 440 processor plus MSI MB bundle on sale for only $10 more than this XFX board. Although the on board ATI 4200′s video performance on the MSI board was not even close to this XFX board, I am much happy with that purchase.
12 Scenes of Eiffel Tower
Boycott NBC!
It’s Olympic time again and sure enough, for those of us in west coast, NO live coverage for Olympic on NBC again! How ridicules can it be when a live game is played on west coast and people like us who lived on west coast is not able to watch it live?
This really shows NBC is a STUPID and GREEDY company! The only way to make those greedy guys take note is BOYCOTT NBC. If you must watch the stupid delayed taped show, write to the advertiser that you are BOYCOTTING their products until they demand NBC to wake up and take those of us who live on west coast seriously!
West coast people should not be second class citizens when it comes to live coverage. We have rights just as east coast people!
Quicken 2010 Update Problem
I just got the Quicken 2010 Deluxe to upgrade my old version 2008. Big mistake. Not only the 2010 version has not changed much from 2008, it is slower and apparently very buggy!
The very first thing after the installation of the Quicken 201o, it goes to check for update as before. The problem is the auto update FAILED!
After searching the web, I found a manual patch to update the initial version of the 2010 from R1 to R5. It also FAILED. Both version end up giving the erreor message “Oops, update was not completed. Restart your computer and try again.”! Needless to say, restat did not work.
After searchng the web further, I found this “full manual patch” of over 100MB. Well, at least this time it worked and now I have R5 version of the Quicken 2010. Sad to say though, this version is still slower than 2008. If you have Quicken 2008 or newer and have not “upgrading” to the 2010, don’t waste you money on this very sloppy new version! If you are like me already waste the money and unable to update the Quicken 2010, Here is the link for
Full Manual Update Patch for Quicken 2010
09.09.09
09.09.09
Get the Biggest Saving out of Amazon’s B2G1 Sale
Amazon is having another one of so call “Buy 2, Get 1 Free Sale” for Blu-Ray movies. But is it really a “sale”? It seems Amazon has raised the prices on those qualify for the “sale” by average of $5 or $6 from the day before the “sale”.
Let’s assume for a movie that was listed for $12 the day before and now is $17. If you buy three of these movies before the “sale”, your total is $36 and now with the wonder of the “sale”, you paid only $34! A whopping $2 saving!
On the other hand, let’s say the movies you want were priced $20 before the sale and now they are $25. You would have to pay $60 but now the grand total is $50! A $10 saving or a little less than $17 per movie.
So, it looks like in order to “save” more you have to spend more to buy the higher priced ticket items. Amazon changes prices on items all the time. I for one rather want to wait for price dropped on individual movies but YMMV.
BTW, the “sale” expire on 8/21/2009