Last week both ATI and Nvidia released updated, WHQL-certified drivers for Windows Vista. The ATI drivers are working fine here on my main system, and I’m about to update the Nvidia drivers on a test machine.
I’ve got download links and more information over at ZDNet. I’m especially interested in feedback from the gaming community. Are these drivers an improvement?
More: Are ATI and Nvidia doing enough with their Vista drivers?
Reinstalling Windows XP is painful enough, but it becomes a real hassle if you have a system originally built by a large OEM and you can’t find the original disks that came with it. With Windows XP, the installation media for this type of system uses a technology called System Locked Preinstallation (SLP) to prevent its use on a system other than the one it came with one from the same manufacturer and the same product family. [Updated per comments.] The good news is that you don’t have to enter a product key or activate an SLP system. The bad news is that if you lose the CD that came with your system, you’re out of luck.
Or at least you were. I’m not sure how long this Dell Support page has been around, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it earlier today:
Dell Customers can now request a set of backup discs containing the factory-installed operating system as well as the device drivers and utilities specific to your system.
Requests are limited to one (1) set of backup discs per system purchased.
The backup discs requested must match the operating system that was factory installed on the original order.Please note that Dell will provide you the most up to date Resource disc available, containing the latest drivers and diagnostic tools currently being shipped on new systems. Due to the frequent updates, this Resource disc may not have all the drivers needed for your specific system, especially if it is over one (1) year old.
One widely held belief is that Dell and other big OEMs only provide so-called recovery media that reinstalls the original factory configuration, complete with trial programs and other crapware. In my recent experience with Dell Dimension and Inspiron computers, this is no longer the case. As of July 2004, the disks shipped with those brands include the full operating system and a separate disk with drivers and utilities. The option to get back to the original factory installation using the hidden recovery partition is still there, but only via the Dell PC Restore by Symantec utility (press Ctrl+F11 at startup to access the partition).
If you’ve got a Dell (or any OEM PC), your best bet is not to lose the disks in the first place. But if they do go missing, it’s good to know this option exists.
(If you own a PC built by a different royalty OEM, such as HP, Gateway, Toshiba, Lenovo, or Sony, help me out. Was it purchased after January 2005? If so, did you get OS media or just recovery media? Does your OEM offer an option to get a replacement disk? Add a comment with any details that might expand this post beyond Dell.)
Peter Svensson of the AP doesn’t like it:
Apple Inc. has graced the public with another smooth, white, exquisitely designed gadget, this time aiming at making it easier to play iTunes movies and songs on the living-room TV set.
Too bad, then, that where looks really matter – in the quality of the video on the TV screen – the $299 Apple TV comes up short. It’s as if Apple had launched an iPod that sounded like a cassette player
Ouch.
Update: Apparently, Google Finance decided this post deserved to be highlighted on the page where Apple stockholders go to get information about AAPL. So I’m seeing a lot of visitors who don’t know me and don’t quite understand why I bring up an Apple product on a Windows-centric blog.
First of all, as I mention in the comments below, Apple TV is a Windows peripheral. If you have the Windows version of iTunes installed on your PC and you hook up an Apple TV box to your TV, you’ll be able to play music, pictures, and videos from your PC’s library on the TV.
I think this concept of an extender is a good idea. In fact, I have two Windows Media Center extenders in my home and use them regularly. I believe Microsoft has a better collection of technologies than Apple at this point with the Xbox 360 (which blows the doors off Apple TV in terms of picture quality)and with so-called v2 extenders that will connect to Windows Vista Media Center PCs and should be out at the end of this year.
I am a digital media gadget fanatic, but I have no desire to get an Apple TV box. Having seen its specs and read other reviews that emphasize its terrible picture quality, I can’t imagine why Apple released it now instead of waiting until it was actually ready. I’m sure Steve Jobs has some grand plan, though, because everyone knows he never makes a mistake.
I go through hard drives the way most people go through bags of potato chips. Currently, the smallest hard drive installed in any desktop computer in my lab here is 160GB, and now that 500GB drives are down below $120 in price that’s my default size for any future upgrades.
Meanwhile, that means I have a box of old drives here that have no home. The seven orphaned drives that I just finished securely wiping this morning range in size from 40 to 80GB (all IDE/ATA models).
I don’t want to trash them, but I also know they’re essentially worthless on Ebay (or more accurately the time it would take to sell each one wouldn’t even begin to cover the return).
So what would you do with a box full of old, small, but still usable hard drives?
A few months ago, I replaced my Media Center machine with a new Dell E521. It came with a 160GB hard drive (not enough given that this system has two TV tuners and is constantly recording). I briefly considered paying Dell for an upgraded drive. But then I looked at the upgrade prices and said no:
Yeah, it didn’t make sense to pay $220 for a 500GB drive when bare drives that size are going for $129.
So tonight I decided to replace that 160GB drive with a 500GB Seagate drive I bought from Newegg. Some observations:
All in all, this may have been the easiest upgrade I’ve ever done. The whole job took less than an hour, and my involvement required only five minutes at the beginning and two minutes at the end. Total cost was significantly less than the upgrade cost from Dell, and I have a 160GB drive that I can use in any system with a SATA controller.
Dreaming of building your own super-high-capacity flash drive? Addonics has this nifty-looking little adapter that lets you sandwich two flash drives together and then replace the 2.5” hard drive in a notebook.
It’s not cheap. Kevin Tofel at JKOnTheRun has priced out the pieces for a 32GB solid-state drive (two 16GB cards at $250 each) and has the details. I think I’ll wait until they’re down in the $50 range, which should be about this time next year. (I’m kidding, I think.)
I’d love to try it as the system partition on a Windows Vista machine. How wicked fast would it be? I’m guessing it would cut Vista’s load time to about 12 seconds. If anyone wants to donate the parts – or at least pitch in for the flash cards – I’ve got my stopwatch handy.
(via Gizmodo)
Today’s big news: Microsoft Unveils Xbox 360 Elite
Shiny black finish? Check.
HDMI support? Check.
120GB hard drive? Check.
But the one question that this press release doesn’t address is the one that matters most to me: How much noise does it make? I’ve got two Xbox 360s here, purchased almost exclusively for their Media Center Extender capabilities. The one that was installed in the master bedroom has now been banished because of the godawful noise, which made TV viewing unpleasant. The one in the living room is still in service, but the noise level, while tolerable in the larger room, is still noticeable, especially when watching a quiet movie on DVD or streamed from the Media Center PC in the other room.
I really hope that the engineers who work on the Xbox 360 pay some heed to the many complaints about this issue. Read the comments on this thread, for instance, to see that I’m not alone: the fan noise is “pretty distracting, actually”; “annoying and the wife acceptance factor just isn’t there”; “makes the 360 useless as a media player”; “for bedroom purposes, useable only if you want to drown the fan noise with louder audio”; and so on.
Spousal acceptance factor is the key metric. These comments from the same thread are identical to my experience:
Vista works flawlessly with the new XBOX 360 as an extender. The graphics are great, HD, recording, etc. everything works as it should through the XBOX. The only problem is the fan noise on the XBOX 360, unbelievable. It’s unrivaled as appliances go, and my wife is not too pleased with it.
and
In the bedroom we have a Linksys extender and there is NO noise from the box. It is a very [quiet] unit, BUT it will not stream HD. The wife likes this box as an extender and uses it every day. Please wake up to the fact that any audible fan noise is NOT acceptable if Microsoft want the xBox 360 to be a true set top box.
As much as I love Vista’s Media Center capabilities, I can’t use them, at least not today. I’ve pulled the old first-generation Linksys Media Center Extender out of mothballs and put it back in the bedroom, and XP Media Center 2005 is running the show.
This memo from an AMD Executive Vice President, cited by Robert McLaws, makes me want to buy a new PC with an AMD processor. Sure, Core 2 Duos might be faster, but I’d rather back a company that’s trying to think months or years ahead, because they’re more likely to satisfy their customers that way.
Go read the whole thing.
Wow. That’s all I can say about the Nexus 120mm Real Silent Case Fan.
I’ve replaced a few computers in the last two months and have been reshuffling hardware around the office. I decided that my MWave Pentium D 830 PC (vintage mid-2005), which had previously been my main production system, would now take over server duties: shared files, web apps on an intranet, and virtual machines via Virtual Server 2005 R2. In the process of making the switch I noticed that the noise level of this system had become unacceptable, and it was especially noticeable in its new location. Even with the door shut, I could hear this PC running from 10 feet down the hallway. A little careful listening suggested that the bulk of the noise was coming from a single case fan in the back. The power supply and CPU fans were both inoffensive.
I decided to replace the case fan with the Real Silent fan ($12.99 from endpcnoise.com; the total with shipping came to around $20).
It took just a few minutes to replace the fan. Undo four screws, swap out old fan, use same screws to secure new fan. The power and fan connectors were easily accessible and the plugs on the replacement fan matched the original.
When I turned the system back on, I wasn’t expecting a huge difference. But the change has been profound. When I place my hand in front of the fan’s exhaust, I can feel warm air being pulled out of the case, but I can’t hear the fan at all. I’m sure the noise level is measurable, but it’s crossed well to the good side of the noise fatigue line and blends comfortably into the background.
Generic case fans are especially susceptible to this sort of deterioration. Over time, they seem to get louder and louder. Which is why this sort of replacement can be so effective. Next up, I’ll give the same treatment to a three-year-old Dell PowerEdge server that’s buzzing front and back. If it has the same effect, I’ll have a Real Silent office for the first time in years.
I’m apparently not the only person who wants to “push the ‘Mac guy’ under a bus.” Justin Long just got his pink slip from Apple.
Ed Bott 