return of the quiet weekend

So on Friday I mentioned that there were no plans for the weekend, and that would only be partially true.

Being me, I had prepared my usual list of stuff to do. What I really meant was there was no specifically interesting activity planned. I did have a few things I thought it might be nice to try to achieve, including:

• Finish Claymore (did this);
• Watch the first few eps of The Big Bang Theory s4, which I'd managed to get all across with in terms of order, having not realised it had started (did this);
• Finish CoD: Black Ops, assuming I was already a good chunk of the way through (did this);
• Play Anno 1404 (did this... a bit too much, which resulted in me not doing the next thing) and
• Scanning stuff (didn't do this, but see below).

Otherwise, it was a flat-cleaning weekend and I went food shopping and caught up generally on recorded telly programmes, plus I went for my usual weekend walks (pleasingly, I'm keeping up with doing 10,000 steps at the weekend, so the fact the weekday walking has suffered due to daylight and the weather doesn't make me feel too guilty).

Anyway, about the scanning.

As I discussed last week, I've been building a new computer (I may actually have got it fixed and it definitely looking like it's the loose RAM module theory I had - I may even have identified the culprit, which leaves me the real problem of how I get the company to believe me and accept a return :). And that means that I have the problem of hand-down.

See, I've built the new computer exclusively for gaming. What I like to do is keep that computer clean and not install any crap on it, so that games will run smoothly and as quickly as possible. I even try to remove any un-necessary windows components and it gets completely reinstalled on a regular basis.

But that sort of regime is not helpful for more normal stuff. I don't know about you, but I have all sorts of crap on my machines - random programmes that where maybe useful at the time and documents saved in what seemed like sensible places at the time. All that sort of stuff. So I also have a machine for general use.

And that machine is where I do my scanning. Or I would if I wasn't a lazy bugger (just recently I have a myriad of proper reasons I haven't been doing scanning, but before that it was definitely a list of excuses).

Anyway, the point is that I've ended up in the tricky situation of having to re-purpose my machines. What was my old games rig can now become my new desktop, etc. The big problem is that I want to also end up with a machine I can put by my TV that I use to watch blu-rays on (well, and all sorts of other stuff too - but essentially I'll end up with a PC there, rather than a DVD and other players).

I'm getting way off the point, which is that I found my A3 scanner does not have a windows 7 driver. But I've also heard that later versions of Photoshop have a really good photo stitching algorithm. But Photoshop is incredibly expensive (£600!) so I was hoping to get a cracked version of it.

This will allow me to at least test out how good the photo stitching is. If it's good then I can look at buying a new scanner (a regular size one, rather than the A3 one) and possibly getting a legit copy of CS5 (ouch) and then that will allow me to completely upgrade to windows 7.

Except I've given myself another headache, because in my attempts to fix my games rig by throwing money at the problem I've kinda ended up with half another machine, and it's a really powerful one. So do I try to sell this stuff (I've no idea how well it will e-bay, especially as it's without original boxes)? Or do I go the whole hog and get the last few bits to build yet another machine? And what do I do with a fourth PC? I know my dad is frustrated by the age and slowness of the machine he has - perhaps I should donate it to him?

more on the PC

So yes, I was getting loads of error messages which suggested RAM, but running Memtest 86 showed up no problems.

There's another testing tool called Prime 95. This can be run in what's called a torture test and it's a way of testing a mix of things. You can do three test, which test the CPU and RAM to a greater or lesser extent.

Running this the machine completely flaked out on all three tests. This actually suggested there might be a power problem, as in the system wasn't getting enough juice. A quick trip to the BIOS revealed that something called Intel Turbo Boost was turned on by default.

This is meant to increase the clock speed of your CPU with no effort, but often overclocking requires more power, so I thought maybe that was the problem and I turned it off. Doing so meant that Prime95 now passed two of the tests, but the third still failed. This third test was one that mainly tested RAM.

But given Memtest 86 had passed I was now thinking that the mobo/PSU combo couldn't supply enough juice to run all four sticks of RAM. So last week I took the brave decision of buying a new mobo (it's actually about the most expensive you can buy) and a new, high quality 1,000W PSU.

This last weekend I rebuilt the system with this new mobo and PSU and the initial results were good. I spent most all of Saturday building the system, installing Windows 7 and all the updates (this was the bit on the previous system that was a crash-fest of epic proportions) and then playing Anno 1404 and CoD: Black Ops with not a single crash.

But then on Sunday, it wasn't happy. However, I checked the RAM modules and one of them was definitely slightly loose (I'd touched them the day before after I'd shut down to see how hot they'd got). So, I pushed it back in and the machine ran fine all day.

But then I switched it on this last Monday evening and last night and it initially seemed to be having the same problems.

Actually, I should note I'm skipping a point here. See, the weird thing about the BSODs is that they really only occurred from what's known as cold boot - literally booting up after the machine has been switched off for a good while and has gone cold.

And that was one of the problems I've been having working out what's wrong. See, I'd boot it up, it'd crash and then I'd start investigating. However, as I'd do more testing (swapping the RAM modules, for example) the system would no longer be booting from cold, so the BSODs would clear up.

But also there's another aspect there I mentioned - swapping out the RAM modules. See, the weirdest thing is that the problems on Monday and last night were simply solved by me pushing on the RAM modules. Now they weren't loose that I could tell, but I applied some pressure to them and the machine was totally fine after that.

It's almost like as one or more of the RAM modules cool down they become slightly loose in the slots and so as they warm up from use they expand a little and then when I reseat them ever so slightly by applying pressure they then run fine.

To me, this seems like a bonkers explanation, but it's the best I've got. It also suggest I've spent a lot of additional cash on a mobo and PSU when perhaps the RAM really is the culprit. Problem is, I'm still not sure. See, a complicating factor is that the memory controller is actually located on the CPU.

So it could be the processor and my bizarre conclusion above is simple coincidence.

pc building woes

I've been unsure about posting about this for the last few weeks.

The reason I was telling myself was that I was afraid I might curse myself, as I kept thinking I'd solved the problem and then finding myself. So I didn't want to find what I thought was the final solution, but then the "yay" post caused it to fail.

This, of course, is superstition. It also isn't true. My fear was mainly of embarrassment - "yay, I've fixed it" followed by "no, I haven't." But then I realised I could write the post as a "I'm still trying to fix it" because I still am.

Anyway, a while back I think I mentioned how I was building a new PC. The reason was that the newest version of Civilization - Civ5 was coming out. No, that's not right. The excuse was that Civ5 was coming out. The reason is because I'm a huge nerd who isn't very sensible with his money.

The point is that I bought a load of new computer kit and built myself a new PC. The specs for the PC were:

• 850W power supply
• Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 motherboard
• Intel 2.8GHz socket 1156 Quad-core Processor
• 4 lots of 2gb 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM
• 150gb SATA2 Hard Drive
• ATI HD5970 Graphics Card (this is a dual GPU graphics card)
• Windows 7 Pro 64bit

I had a Dickens of a time with a case to put it all in as I ordered a really swanky one, but it turned out that the graphics card was an absolute monster and it simply didn't fit. The case I use for my then current games machine was actually an oversized one, so I ended up doing all sorts of switching over.

So yeah, I put together the machine and then started the process of loading on Windows7. And that's when the problems started.

See, as windows was loading, there was an error. The error message wasn't hugely helpful, but a Google search suggested that there'd probably been some sort of copying error from the CD into either memory or RAM. This seemed very odd and what was more worrying was that restarting everything and giving it another go kept producing the same error.

But it was late when I was doing it, so I left it and tried again on another day. And that time it worked. But, when I finally got into windows proper, the real problems started. Basically, every so often the machine would crash. What's more it was a proper full-on crash - what's known as a Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD.

But weirdly, every time it crashed it gave the same error message of a "Memory Management" error. This gave the initial impression it was the RAM, but a search of the error codes online was inconclusive, because although other people had the same codes, the meaning of them was not explained by Microsoft.

But it seemed like RAM, so I downloaded something called Memtest 86. This runs from a CD and test your RAM by sending it binary codes and checking the accuracy of what comes back. Now because I had 4 sticks, the best thing to do was to run each stick during the day while I was at work and see which one failed.

Only none of them failed. I even tried slotting all of them in and running them all and that still didn't produce any errors.

So what the hell was wrong?

This post is already quite long, so I'll pick up on another day.

pc building woes

I've been unsure about posting about this for the last few weeks.

The reason I was telling myself was that I was afraid I might curse myself, as I kept thinking I'd solved the problem and then finding myself. So I didn't want to find what I thought was the final solution, but then the "yay" post caused it to fail.

This, of course, is superstition. It also isn't true. My fear was mainly of embarrassment - "yay, I've fixed it" followed by "no, I haven't." But then I realised I could write the post as a "I'm still trying to fix it" because I still am.

Anyway, a while back I think I mentioned how I was building a new PC. The reason was that the newest version of Civilization - Civ5 was coming out. No, that's not right. The excuse was that Civ5 was coming out. The reason is because I'm a huge nerd who isn't very sensible with his money.

The point is that I bought a load of new computer kit and built myself a new PC. The specs for the PC were:

• 850W power supply
• Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 motherboard
• Intel 2.8GHz socket 1156 Quad-core Processor
• 4 lots of 2gb 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM
• 150gb SATA2 Hard Drive
• ATI HD5970 Graphics Card (this is a dual GPU graphics card)
• Windows 7 Pro 64bit

I had a Dickens of a time with a case to put it all in as I ordered a really swanky one, but it turned out that the graphics card was an absolute monster and it simply didn't fit. The case I use for my then current games machine was actually an oversized one, so I ended up doing all sorts of switching over.

So yeah, I put together the machine and then started the process of loading on Windows7. And that's when the problems started.

See, as windows was loading, there was an error. The error message wasn't hugely helpful, but a Google search suggested that there'd probably been some sort of copying error from the CD into either memory or RAM. This seemed very odd and what was more worrying was that restarting everything and giving it another go kept producing the same error.

But it was late when I was doing it, so I left it and tried again on another day. And that time it worked. But, when I finally got into windows proper, the real problems started. Basically, every so often the machine would crash. What's more it was a proper full-on crash - what's known as a Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD.

But weirdly, every time it crashed it gave the same error message of a "Memory Management" error. This gave the initial impression it was the RAM, but a search of the error codes online was inconclusive, because although other people had the same codes, the meaning of them was not explained by Microsoft.

But it seemed like RAM, so I downloaded something called Memtest 86. This runs from a CD and test your RAM by sending it binary codes and checking the accuracy of what comes back. Now because I had 4 sticks, the best thing to do was to run each stick during the day while I was at work and see which one failed.

Only none of them failed. I even tried slotting all of them in and running them all and that still didn't produce any errors.

So what the hell was wrong?

This post is already quite long, so I'll pick up on another day.

system building pt2

God, I'd completely forgotten what a pain it is to re-install a system.

Specifically I'm talking about re-installing XP on my old machine. My original plan (can't remember if I discussed it) was to use this machine as a file server and to watch TV on, but that hit a bit of a snag. Well, there have been a few snags, actually.

I mentioned before about how I had to change my plans for cases. My new case, which is all clever and stuff ended up with my old machine bits in because the GFX for my new rig was too big to fit. Well, something I also thought about doing was dusting off my old acrylic case and using that for my file-server machine.

However, couple of problems. First off, it turns out this old case id damaged, but also it's old so it's using 8cm fans. New cases tend to use 12cm fans, which are bigger, so they can shift he same amount of air but run slower and therefore are quieter. So the problem is acrylic case is broken and also very old. Also, it's got loads of blue lights in it.

I had forgotten Id' originally built this machine with the idea of using it as a sort of "show off" modding case, so when I had transferred all the gubbins (which took hours) and fired it up I was blinded by all the fan-lights and stuff. So the upshot is I need yet another case.

Especially since my plan of using this as a file server can't be implemented. Basically, I bought two new copies of windows 7 - one 32bit and one 64bit. The 32bit was for my old rig and the 64 for my new rig. But what I didn't know was that a 32bit system can only support about 3.5gb of RAM in total (i.e. including the video RMA). But what I also didn't know was that all core2 duo processors are 64bit compatible.

So essentially I've bought a useless version of windows 7. Except, I though, maybe I could run it on my old normal machine and by another 64bit copy. But this time before simply leaping into it, I tried testing out my hardware and software with windows 7.

Generally speaking I was hugely impressed. I was rather afraid that windows 7 would have horrible compatibility problems, but in reality it run nearly everything - even my old copy of Office 2000 and Photoshop 7! But the important bit is the 'nearly', because there is no driver for my A3 scanner.

And my A3 scanner is critical to the whole deal, which meant another change of plan. So, I installed the 32bit Windows 7 on my old games rig and will be using that as the file and print server and TV machine. Which really is a bit of a waste, but I have to keep using my old normal machine so that I can still use my scanner.

But I've decided to upgrade it to Windows XP. see, the old machine used Windows 2000, but my copy of XP of course is now not needed for my games machine, so I'm installing it from fresh. And it's taking ages.

See, the machine of course is slow compared o the newer ones, but also, Windows XP isn't the quickest installing thing anyway. I'd been thorough impressed by how quick it was to set Windows 7 up, but SP has taken me days.

I guess a part of that, though, is that windows 7 is relatively new, so it doesn't have as many patches. XP, being old, has literally hundreds of patches to download. But also, a lot of them take a long time to install compared to the windows 7 ones.

But also, the update process for Windows 7 seems much more comprehensive. I mean, it had lots of hardware patches and stuff where XP's doesn't. A great example of this is the printer - for XP I had to go on a mission to find a driver, but with Windows 7, the driver was there for download from the windows update site, which it found and installed automatically, so it was a piece of piss.

But yeah, it's never easy tweaking and upgrading, and now I've the added expense of buying another new case. And I should really get a better PSU too...

new PC

I've been building a new PC.

Well, no, that's not quite the entire story. I have been building a new PC, but I've also been rationalising my existing PCs.

I currently have 5 PCs in various states of working order and of various performance levels. I also have several of the (now famous) plastic crates worth of "PC gubbins" out in the shed.

The idea is to eventually end up with 3 computers.

The first will be a dedicated gaming rig, which is the new computer I'm building. This is a really powerful machine, the juicy bits of which are a quad-core, 2.8ghz core i7 chip, 8gb of RAM (using 4*2gb sticks to take advantage of hyper threading), a Velociraptor 2 drive, which spins at 10,000RPM and is SATA 2 (couldn't afford one of the SATA 3 ones), and a 5970 ATI card, which has, I believe, 2gb of RAM and a dual-core processor with a clock speed of 1ghz, which, when you think about it, is like having what was a reasonably good computer from a few years ago sat inside my computer :/.

It's also going to be running windows 7 64bit and should basically be able to cope with anything the gaming world can throw at it for a good few years to come.

The second machine is what I'm currently using as my games machine. The idea is that I'll upgrade this to windows 7 32 bit and will use it as my regular, run of the mill machine. However, I'll also be able to play older games on it using the windows 7 XP mode thing. I'm also updating it to have two relatively cheap ATI cards running in cross-fire (more an experiment than a necessity, if I'm honest) and am bumping up the RAM.

The third machine will be what I'm currently using as my regular machine, but will essentially become a file server with my printer on it and also a whole bunch of hard-drives for storing stuff and doing back-up, etc. I'm also going to put this machine next to my TV, so I can watch stuff on it (really, my new TV is more like a monitor). I'm upgrading this machine with some more RAM too as it was cheap, but also, crucially, a Blu-Ray drive, so I should be able to watch Blu-Ray stuff (well, if I ever buy a Blu-Ray disk that is :/).

Everything else I'll put on e-bay and then, since most of it is so old and won't sell, I'll take it all down the recycling place.

It's been ages since I last built a machine and stuff has moved on quite a bit, but some things stay the same. The main thing that stayed the same is the fact that I made some gigantic cock-ups.

The main cock-up this time was with the power supply. When I was putting the system together, I started out with my absolute dream system, which cost a small fortune, and then stepped things back to a more affordable level. However, I think I must have gotten rather mixed up with the case and power supply.

Basically, the case I bought has a power supply that's recommended for it and initially I was buying the pair. But I think at some point I decided to look for cheaper alternatives, and managed to confuse myself that I'd changed the case, so I picked a different power supply.

Except I hadn't changed the case, and the case has an odd design in that the power supply is at the bottom, so you need rather long cables and the supply I bought fell short. Now, this wouldn't be such a problem, because my other supply has super long cables, but the new PSU is also not sufficiently powerful to run both the cross-fire graphics cards if I swap them over.

So, in other words, I've had to buy the first PSU I picked as well :/.

My existing games machine case is actually an over-sized one and it was originally my intention to put the new gubbins in there. However, when the new case turned up, it was a really nice case with some neat features, so I tried to put it in there. But, as well as the unusual design, I also found that the graphics card just wouldn't fit.

Now to be fair, that's not really the fault of the case, because the card is an absolute monster. I was actually quite shocked at the size of the card when it turned up. It's actually longer than the motherboard is wide. In fact, it's almost as big as the motherboard is tall!

Which kinda backs up what I was saying at the beginning about the graphics card being like a mini-computer.