Beta 2 has arrived. I am testing it out on two machines. So far, so good. Although there is a really big bug that I have to report. It has to do with a certain website and drop down boxes.
Some of the features that IE8 brings to the table are:
Accelerators From the Microsoft website, it says: accelerators let you efficiently complete your everyday browsing activities like mapping directions, translating words, emailing your friends, and more in just a few mouse clicks.
Simply put. Amazing. I noticed that you can now type in something into the search bar and upon hovering over the search bar, several options will appear. This is something that I had hoped for but did not even think of. It is a great addition and I can only say great things about IE8 Beta 2 so far.
However, there is a lot of work to do. A LOT. There are still many CSS bugs even though they claim to be standards compliant. I will keep this post updated with any new news that I can find.
Has your Dell recently died with symptoms of the ability to turn on but no display being shown? You may have encountered the dreaded mobile nVidia chipset problem! Nvidia has several chipsets, specially I believe the 8400 and the 8600 although I have heard of other series being affected too, in which the chipset or video card overheats and dies. Supposedly it’s the solder points on the actual video card that is being lifted off of the motherboard and in doing so is causing there to be no display.
There are a few main series of laptops that are being affected by this extended warranty.
If you’ve any of the above listed laptops, stick around to find out more. It appears that Dell is in its infancy stages with setting this program up. If you need more info. feel free to check out their direct2dell blog.
It appears that nVidia’s head honcho has confirmed why the chips are failing. Like I mentioned, there are solder points on the video card which hold it in place on the motherboard. Apparently the unit gets so hot the solder points melt and they lift off of the motherboard. In doing so, it no longer makes proper contact, thus, the display of the laptop no longer works properly.
Today’s video cards like the nVidia 9800GTX or the 280GTX cards are humongous! I mean huge! Literally, they are massive. They take up a lot of room within a regular sized ATX case. If you were to put two for SLI, you’re at a lost for a lot of space within a regular sized ATX case.
Here is a picture of an nVidia 9800GTX. The card is as long as the box is!
If you plan on buying one of these, make sure you have:
A very beefy power supply Something along the lines of 500-600W and up. You will have to make sure there are two (possibly even four) 6-pin power adapters for your video card. This 9800GTX pictured here takes 2×6-pin PCI-E power connectors.
An extremely beefy/full sized ATX case If your case is rather old and you had maybe an nVidia 6800GT or maybe even something older than that, then you SHOULD upgrade your case as well as power supply alongside your new video card. Maybe perhaps an Antec P182 will do well although I hear that it barely fits all of the cards along with the SATA cables. Do your research before you buy!
It seems like rumors have been flying that nVidia, maker of some of the best video cards on the market, is leaving the motherboard chipset race. It seems to be related to the dozens of problems that have recently arisen. Almost all if not all of their 8×00 series chipsets have serious flaws with overheating.
I witnessed a lot of the problems first hand with the HP notebooks that I reported about earlier. This is a very widespread problems and is going to cost nVidia a lot of money to fix the situation.
I originally purchased the first nVidia nForce 1 chipset motherboard for my I believe it was a T-Bird AMD processor. This thing was amazing. It has an onboard Geforce MX video card and onboard SoundForce (I think it was called this) sound. Every single computer that I’ve personally build has had an nVidia based chipset. That’s how loyal I am to this company. So it definitely saddens me to hear that they may be leaving the business of motherboard chipsets.
I don’t blame them though. Could you imagine having to sort through hundreds of thousands of problems related to problematic chipsets? That would definitely suck. I can see how HP or Dell or whichever else OEM used these chipsets in their notebooks would be upset. The blowback from the consumers is and will be harsh.
You can read more about the possible exit here.
