Scored the mobo for $120 and the CPU for $280. Tried to bargain the guy down to $250 but he said it was too little. I opted for $280 which was a decent middle ground.
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Archive for November, 2009
If you’re trying to install something, such as iTunes or any other program and you are experiencing the dreaded error of: The Windows installer service could not be accessed, you have come to the right place for the right solution.
I have searched high and low for the solution. I finally figured it out.
You have to go into your registry.
Start, run, type in “regedit”.
Next go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
SYSTEM
CurrentControlSet
Services
MSIServer
To the right you’ll see WOW64. Double click on it, or right click on it and click on modify. Change the setting from 1 to 0.
Next, go to the start menu again and type in the search box: “services.msc”.
Look for and find the Windows Installer service.
Double click on it and tell it to stop. Next, tell it to start.
You should now be able to install your programs.
So I recently put together a new computer and put my older computer to the side. I also recently invested in a new $500 dollar dual monitor, dual-link DVI KVM switch so that I could use both computers at the same time. Unfortunately it appears the old computer bit the dust.
There is this weird correlation where if you do not use a computer that was constantly being used all the time, all the time, it will just spontaneously die. No joke. All I have is anecdotal evidence though so it’s just my own experiences that I’ve accumulated over the years that have shed light on this phenomena.
I’ve seen clients bring their computers in and tell me, “Oh yeah, I’ve had this for 4 years now, I use it everyday. I left on vacation for a month, came back and it won’t turn on or boot!”
That’s the exact same type of symptoms my old computer is experiencing.
At first I was going to try to reinstall Windows then realized my DVD drive was not reading my disks.
So I turned it off, and reseated the cables and all the basics of troubleshooting and turned it back on and it wouldn’t go.
It’s more detailed than that but it’s turkey day and I can’t write too much since we’re so busy. To keep it short, the computer is probably dead. Hopefully I can salvage the rest of the parts though. I’m actually going to try to get it to boot right after I type this.
IOGear released a dual-view (dual monitor), dual-link DVI KVM switch. For those who’ve kept up with this blog since its inception will all know I’m a diehard KVM freak.
When I saw that they created a new dual monitor-dual-link DVI KVM switch I said I HAVE to have it. It sort of became an obsession almost. I just had to see if it was legitimate and if it worked.
I purchased the IOGear 4-Port Dual View Dual-Link DVI KVMP Switch with Audio GCS1644 (Black) from Amazon on Monday. Paid roughly $60.00 extra to have it overnight express since Thursday is a holiday and received it this afternoon.
I waited all day to play with it. I brought it home, did my chores, help the wife out and all that family stuff.
I then broke it out of its box and started putting it together.
Right now I only have two computers that can utilize dual DVI monitors and thus my journey began.
I connected all wires and cables.
Hooked it up to my first main PC.
I connected everything while it was already on so it recognized it right away and I did not see any quirks.
Sure enough after hooking up my second PC and then rebooting my first PC, I ran into an issue where the KVM (IOGear GCS1644 dual view, dual link DVI KVM switch) prevented my computer from booting.
It stalled on the Rampage Extreme splash screen.
I removed the KVM’s USB cable and hooked my keyboard directly up to the computer. I noticed that upon restarting it by pressing the reset button, the computer booted into Windows and got past that stuck screen easily without any issues.
I decided to investigate. I turned off all the fancy splash screen stuff from within the BIOS and figured out it was getting stuck at “Initializing USB controllers.”
So I ended up checking for a new BIOS for my motherboard. There were two available since the last flash.
I downloaded and installed the latest version.
Made some adjustments within the KVM switch itself and tried for another reboot.
This time, success. It past the point where it was getting stuck. It appears that it was an issue with the BIOS.
In any case, here is the beat in all its glory.
It is for Intel’s VIIV auto wake driver.
You can download this file here.
Even though it says AMDLive, it will work. Trust me.
I was reading multiple reviews of people having the hardest time getting the sound card to work properly with their Windows 7 and Vista 64-bit.
I installed the card, did not touch the drivers included on the disk and let Windows install the driver itself. It found a Creative driver with software and installed it. I had sound right away. I just started messing with changing the way the speakers are setup. I switched it from stereo to 5.1 setup since I have the Logitech Z5500 speakers.
At first it told me that my sound was in use (iTunes) and in order to test it it would have to interrupt the sound. I said OK.
I had no sound after that. I tried logging off and then back in, still no sound. I had to reboot in order to gain sound back.
I’m not sure if that’s what people are talking about but it seemed relatively minor to me.
Another thing is, never, never, never, use the drivers on the disk provided. 9/10 times those drivers are outdated and old. You should always download the latest available drivers via the manufacturer’s website. This should help you out a lot!
I’m in the process of downloading the Office 2010 beta. Hopefully it’s a lot better than 2007. My main gripe and concern is that Microsoft still plans to use Word as Outlook’s HTML rendering engine. This is bad because of the fact that so many people utilize CSS instead of basing their layouts/emails on tables (which is what they’ll have to use instead of CSS).
Very disappointed. We’ll have to wait another 5 years or so before they can make the correction.
So I bought the Seasonic M12D 850W PSU, which is supposedly their top of the line power supply. I read a few reviews on Newegg which indicated that a few people had some problems with the power supply. The thing is, I’ve spoken to enough people to realize that Newegg isn’t the best place to base a purchase off of reviews anyway.
So, I bought it.
I recieive it, plug it in, I immediately hear a loud, high pitched noise coming from the power supply. Had I not read about this I would have never known and probably guessed that it was some other part that was faulty. Sure enough, it crossed my mind and it immediately clicked. I have a power supply that is making a really loud coil whine.
I searched Google for “Seasonic M12D 850 high pitch” and found several sites which indicated that this is basically coil whine. What is coil whine? Well there are coils in the power supply which get wrapped and unfortunately due to QC issues, not all are wrapped the same thus causing some coil whine or vibration to occur. This in turn causes the high pitched noise to come out of the power supply.
I bought it from Amazon so I ended up requesting an RMA. The second power supply was sent to me. I received it at work, plugged it in to a test computer and sure enough, the high pitched noise was still there. I was extremely disappointed to receive a second PSU with the same exact problem.
I finally called Seasonic USA and spoke to a lady at first who attempted to help me. She finally ended up transferring me to a male who told me that the noise I was hearing is not normal. He ended up laughing at me because I was so adamant about the noise. I said, so you’re telling me that the power supply should not be making any noise? He literally laughed at me and said yes, the power supply should not be making any type of weird noises.
That was enough of a recommendation and reassurance that I felt that I should RMA it directly to Seasonic. So I did.
They just cross shipped one out to me so I have to return this one in a day or two. The thing is, I still have the one in the computer which I will have to return to Amazon once I received the one from Seasonic.
All I can hope and ask for is that the one from Seasonic does not have a high pitched noise. According to many forums out there, the coil whine actually does not harm the power supply nor is it on its way out. It’s just poor QC and it will be ok as long as you can get used to listening to a high pitched noise.
If anything, my honest recommendation is to replace it with an RMA and hope that the one you get is working properly.
Update
So Seasonic sent me an RMA’ed unit. I asked for a unit specifically without any type of high pitched noise. What did I receive? A GOOD POWER SUPPLY! Noise free of course!
Goes to show, when you want something, go to the source. I tried Amazon and yet received another flakey dud. It appears that the model that Seasonic sent me is fairly new. I compared the serial numbers and if I assume that they base the serial numbers in sequential order then it would indicate that the PSU that I was sent is much newer than the ones I bought and received from Amazon.
On top of that, the unit has different cabling. It’s weird. Very weird. I am just thankful that they sent me a unit that does not have any high pitched noise.
As my recent posts have said, I upgraded to Windows 7. I actually upgraded at home but thought about upgrading my work bench as well. So I did. What happened was that everything other than Acronis works like a champ. Acronis, unfortunately has many issues with the way it interacts with Windows 7. Basically it will crash at random, which is indicative of buggy software, which I would have to place the blame on Acronis. Another thing that happens is that you cannot mount images (.tib) files that you create with Acronis. This means that you really don’t have any luck with mounting the image you just created to see the files and verify that everything is working properly.
This is unacceptable for my line of work. I use Acronis to image clients’ hard drives to ensure that when doing a wipe that I have every single file, regardless of if I do a full format/reinstall. I need this for insurance purposes, figuratively speaking, of course. It saves my ass when a client comes back and says I don’t have x file or x folder, it was saved here in a different place other than My Documents. I can fire up Acronis, mount the image to Windows, go through Explorer and view all files, directories, etc. and pick the file the client needs.
This is something that is vital to the line of work that I do. Without this, I’m screwed.
So in the end I went back to Windows XP Pro. Tried and trusted, it just works. It’s old, outdated, Microsoft is going to cancel support for it but it works. Windows 7 has come a long way from Vista. It blows Vista out of the water and for those who say that Windows 7 is Vista, you are dead wrong. Dead. WRONG. It is nothing like Vista. It is a hundred times faster, snappier, zipper, however you want to describe it, just please don’t call it Vista SP3 or Vista, period.
But anyways, I could go on and on about this and I really should save it for another post.
Until then, adios, have a great day!
I uninstalled KIS 2010 on both my home computer as well as my work bench. 2010 just hogs way too much resources. For one, the Win 7 64-bit with 8GB of memory slowed down enough so that I felt it was no longer worth having Kaspersky on it. Kaspersky, don’t get me wrong, is an awesome antivirus program to have and run. It gets the job done but it isn’t doing it optimally. It is doing exactly what Norton used to do: BOG your system down. My system should run extremely quick, with Internet Explorer tabs opening up less than a second (which it does now with Kaspersky removed). Instead I was waiting roughly 2-3 seconds for a tab to open.
This is not acceptable.
People on the Kaspersky forum indicated that Java plays a factor with the slow downs. The thing is, this computer doesn’t even have Java installed. There is no Java! So pray tell, what might be causing this slow down? It’s Kaspersky’s bloody software. It’s just bloated like every other major piece of software out there today.
At least Norton got the point. It took many years though. It took them, I believe, almost 10 years for them to get their stuff together.
Now don’t get me wrong, up until KIS2009, it was great. Although KIS2009 did slow my system down just a TAD. Not enough for me to be bothered.
I just cannot have a slow system with the system specs that I have. I want to compare this to having a great body, lifting weights, working out, but yet being confined to a wheel chair. That’s how it feels. You just can’t do anything with the power, strength, and massive amount of CPU cycles that are available to you.
I have been following the complaints over at the Kaspersky forum for the past few days. I hope that they figure it out and release some type of patch. I’d hate to have to wait until 2011 just for a new version of KIS to work out the kinks.
In the mean time, at work, I installed Microsoft’s Security Essentials. It feels much lighter than Kaspersky, obviously, but at the same time I did feel a slight performance hit.