Ben Engel's Blog

Troubleshooting Matt's New Gaming Rig

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 03:21:00 +0000

Southern Utah Makerspace
459 N 1300 E St. George, UT

I am a member of Southern Utah Makerspace. We had just paid rent on a new location so that we had a place to meet and make stuff but before moving in we needed liability insurance. I took the advice of our new landlords and contacted Matt Howe as he has provided insurance for them and other tenants before. It took a while for a makerspace to be understood by the underwriters that needed to sign off on the policy so I had also shopped it around a couple other insurance companies but Matt pulled through quicker than the others. When I went to his office to button it all up, I saw a water cooler and a motherboard box in his office. It caught my attention and I soon discovered that Matt had a lot in common with myself and many of the other people in our makerspace: we like fast, graphic capable computers and sometimes those computers don't work. Matt explained his enthusiasm for his new machine and his frustration that the local computer shop was not able to resolve his problem. I explained that a community of technically inclined people can often be a better solution than shelling out dollars to an expert that can do nothing more than shrug it off as a difficult problem. I asked Matt to become a member of the makerspace so that he could experience the magic of the community and make some more techy friends along the way. I told him that I would document the experience so that others might understand where the process goes ugly, and where it finds resolution.

Matt's Rig

AMD FX 9590 CPU

Cooler Master Seidon 120M closed loop liquid cooler

ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z Motherboard

16GB RAM (4x4GB)

Intel 120GB SSD

1TB Hard Drive

MSI 390X Video Card

Power Supply

Case

Matt's use case was World of Warcraft. It would crash about 45 minutes into playing. Knowing that WOW is not particularly taxing, I suspected that there must be a pretty obvious issue. Since this was his first custom build, it seemed likely that something was not hooked up right or that he had caused some ESD (Electro Static Discharge) damage. A shock so little that cannot be felt can do serious damage to sensitive electronics. Isolating the component would be possible since I have a similar gaming rig, which allows me to swap out parts and narrow it down to the offending component.

My Rig

Intel CPU

Closed Loop CPU Cooler

ASUS Motherboard

12GB RAM (3x4GB)

512GB OCZ Vertex SSD

1TB Hard Drive (RAID mirror)

Gigabyte 290X Windforce

Platinum Rated Corsair Power Supply

Case

Large power connector on motherboard

I first checked that all of the components were installed correctly. He had the fan for the radiator on the CPU cooler connected to the large style molex connector on the motherboard. I had never seen this on a motherboard and it was reverse gender to be plugged in as he had it. It turns out that this can be used to supply additional power to the motherboard. But since it is on the same power rails as the rest of the board, you can also draw power from it. I changed it to use a chassis fan connector and left this additional power for the motherboard disconnected.

Unused 4 pin extra motherboard power

There was also an unused 4 pin connector that I thought was necessary but it turns out that it is optional because the similar 6 pin style extra power connector was being used. Initially, we were very concerned because his modular power supply did not come with one of these cables. It turns out that we were worried for nothing.

I needed a more predictable and automated use case. I don't game much anymore and I had no desire to play WOW to an impending crash. I decided to use 3DMark Basic Edition. It is a benchmark package that can run a while and work the system pretty hard without me having to do more than click start. The basic edition is free and download links can be found at:

http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmark?_ga=1.74296913.2128338082.1442750633

My video card has been RMA'd twice before. I really punish it by mining cryptocurrency. Upon the first RMA, I found that using a better power supply really helped it run higher hash rates. That's when I upgraded to the platinum level. Since Matt's computer had a similar video card, I first suspected the power supply, after a switcheroo and 3dMark, the machine locked up just the same as it did with its original power supply.

I pulled just 2 of the 4 RAM modules from the motherboard and it passed. Well, it seems that he either has some bad ram, or a bad ram slot. I didn't use the ram from my computer initially because I thought he was using DDR4 since it is a brand new machine. I thought this was a limitation to my testing process but later discovered that he had DDR3, just like my machine. I swapped the ram sticks, seeing if I could confirm that it was either the ram or the slots. It failed again so I thought it was the ram. I then replaced the original 2 sticks and it failed again. And another test confirmed another failure. I guess the one time pass was a fluke. No combination of ram in the slots would produce another pass, so I concluded that the ram was not the cause.

The video cards in the 2 machines are similar but not exactly the same. They both use the catalyst drivers so a quick detection and reboot is all that is needed to swap them. When using his video card in my machine, it passed every time. When using my card in his machine, it failed every time. The video card was not the cause. I also played with the overclocking in order to reduce the speed of the card and to pump up the fan speed to 100% all of the time. Temperatures never got high but I was unable to see the temp while running the 3dMark app because it runs in fullscreen. I ran some other non-fullscreen apps to watch the temp of the graphics cards and the CPU and it all seemed rather low. I should have kept closer track for the sake of this post but I did not.

I then realized that the ram in the new machine was DDR3 so I thought it might be that all 4 sticks of his ram were bad. When I placed my ram in his motherboard, it still failed. At this point, I thought it must be the motherboard that is causing the issue. Matt sent it back to newegg they sent him a replacement.

A week later and we had the new motherboard. And it still failed. My confidence was kicked and I began to think we would not figure it out.

Next on the hit list was the SSD. A few years ago, I had a Crucial M4 256GB SSD that would lock up after it had operated for a certain amount of hours (about a year and a half, if I remember) and it would lock up consistently after that time about every 15 minutes (which might be wrong but I cannot find the exact reference). It seemed odd that a problem like this would still be around since SSD have become very popular but I thought I'd check into it and, of course, there were no newer firmware updates available. Even less likely, but still possible, it might be a problem that has not yet been identified and fixed by new firmware. So I decided to clone the SSD to the hard drive so that I could boot and test from the hard drive while the SSD was completely disconnected. In the old days, I would have used ghost. But it has been a while and since I did not want to steal or buy ghost, I looked around for an open source tool. I seem to remember using partimage (or something like that) long ago but I found and used clonezilla instead. It did the trick although I needed to use the command line and remove the GPT info on the SSD since it was not copyable to the hard drive (I have no idea why). I followed the directions on screen. GPM (General Purpose Mouse) was running on this fine little linux distribution so I could highlight the command with the mouse, right click to pop it in the clipboard, and then click to paste the command. You can download clonezilla for free at: http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php

Using the hard drive for the computer did not fix the issue. It still locked up as usual. I thought I might be on to something because the lockup usually seemed to occur in between the tests, when it was loading the scene. It seemed that it would make sense that the disk was most in use while loading the scene but I was wrong again.

Well, that does not leave much left to suspect besides the CPU. I have an AMD APU in my FreeNAS server. It has served me well, but it is not doing any hardcore graphics. I have not used another AMD CPU since the K6... a long time ago. I generally will never suspect a CPU as the cause, but I could not think of any culprits. A quick search in google for AMD FX 9590 lockup returned the following page on Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2191595/stabilize-9590-freezing-completely.html

This seemed to describe my experience exactly. I also corroborated the information in a few more pages that resulted from the same search.

CPU Ration Before

CPU Ratio After

Advanced CPU Settings Before

Advanced CPU Settings After

So I only changed 3 settings from the default:

Changed the CPU ratio from Auto to 20.0. Auto for this CPU should be 23, which would clock it at 4.7GHz. By changing the ratio, it only clocks to 4GHz. That's painful especially when the 9590 is sold as "Black Edition" chip that should be capable of overclocking.
Change the Cool 'n' Quiet to Always Enabled. This probably doesn't make much difference, but it was suggested and a quiet PC is a luxury.
Changed the Core C6 State to Disabled. While I understand that this has to do with power management, I didn't take the time to really understand it. Many people said that things worked when they turned it off, so I turned it off. The C1E was already disabled in the default profile.

UPDATE:
I changed the CPU ratio back to auto and it passes all of the tests. I guess it is that Core C6 state that caused all the problems.

If you'd like to get some insurance from a guy that you can gab about gaming with too, please contact:
Matt Howe Insurance
(435) 674-8771
321 Mall Drive
Building R
St. George, UT 84790

Tell him that Ben Engel sent ya.

EBT Coin

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 14:04:00 +0000

I just saw a new altcoin called EBT coin that is intended to replace food stamps or EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) cards. I am curious what the financial transaction fees are for our current system. If financial institutions are reaping continual rewards from a system that is for the financially disenfranchised, it really makes sense to replace that system with a crypto currency since the transaction fees are minimized. What concerns me about EBTCoin is that it shows that you can buy other products besides food. I would think that we would need a selective recipient based system. Something like ripple but without the closed aspects and without minimal points of failure. I think most people would want to make sure that food stamps are used to buy food, and not crack... or yachts.

Does anyone know what kind of transaction fees our government needs to pay in order to keep food stamps flowing?

Does anyone have an idea of how to create an open source restrictive recipient public ledger?

Windows 8 and FreeNAS

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 05:45:00 +0000

I setup a FreeNAS server a while ago and I have come to really enjoy having all of my media in one location on my home network. Now, Windows 8 has arrived and, as I try to keep up with all things tech, I have upgraded my windows computers.

Problem #1: The Windows 8 Store app: Photos
It only shows pictures that are in the picture library

Problem #2: Windows will not allow FreeNAS shares to be in the library
There is a hack for making a link to the network location and then adding the link to the library. This makes a non-indexed library. I found a better way was to select to use the network location offline and then cancelling the sync. Then you can add it to the library. It is important to cancel the sync because it will make an entire copy of the NAS files on your local windows computer. In my case, my local computer only has 512GB SSD while my NAS has two 5GB+ volumes so there is no way it would fit.

Problem #3: Windows 8 Photos will still not see the items in the library
Maybe I should upload 100+GB of photos to Flickr so the app can see them

Strange Workaround Solution:
If you download the new Sky Drive client http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/skydrive/download it will share directly from computer to computer instead of requiring full upload to sky drive. So, since both of my computers have the NAS in their libraries, I can see all of the files on the other computers through sky drive even though I cannot see the NAS files directly on each computer

Matrix Resurection

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 19:56:00 +0000

AJ pointed me to a redit article and it made me completely rethink the Matrix trilogy.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/g9ps7/does_anyone_really_understand_the_matrix_trilogy/

Not only did I miss the significance of food changing programming. I never really saw the connection between the Oracle's cookie, the orgasmic pie, and the red pill.

But the really interesting thing was the following portion:

If you consider the jobs of her (Sati's) parents, Rama was "Systems Manager for Recycling Operations" basically he was in-charge of recycling the humans!! His wife was an interactive software programmer. His name comes from Lord Rama an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu who oversees the cycle of reincarnation. They are trying to create, in Sati, a better way of recycling humans, but they get something without a purpose.

I however don't know how programs from the machine world get human bodies and get into the Matrix

I am suprised to see that so few people acknowledge the possibility that machines have come to embody spirit. Everyone seems to think that Neo had WiFi but regardless of any kind of radio, he had transended the Mind/Body/Sprit barrier and that is how he was able to control the machines in the 'real world'. The real trick is how he transended the barrier, and I think the catalyst was Sati.

Windows 7 connecting to Windows 2000

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 19:56:00 +0000

I have a windows 2000 server that has had a few windows 7 clients connecting fine for the last year or so. But recently we added a few more windows 7 clients and we started having problem mapping a drive. I found the following solution to this increasing problem. On the windows 7 computers, make 3 registry changes:
(http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1257866)

[HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa]
"LMCompatibilityLevel"=dword:00000001
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc960646.aspx)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters]
"DomainCompatibilityMode"=dword:00000001
"DNSNameResolutionRequired"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Netlogon\Parameters]
"RequireSignOrSeal"=dword:00000000
"RequireStrongKey"=dword:00000000

Dynamic images

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 19:54:00 +0000

I was just reading Logan's Blog about OpenCV and using basic transformation filters on images and I remembered doing a color filter on favicon images for websites.

First, I created a grayscale png image saved in RGB mode and named it favicon.png. This is the base image used to perform transformations on. However, I do not use it as the default, non-colored images, because it has to be much darker than I would like. When I want the favicon to be a certain color, to indicate a certain context on the page, I call favicon.php. (In reality, I use a basic MVC that uses mod-rewrite to hide the .php extension and to call the image as a controller, but here, I am translating that to regular $_GET[] style)

And here is the favicon.php file. It has to output the correct header, so that the browser sees it as an image instead of HTML. The I use the php GD functions to transform the colors. Using the imagealphablending($im, false); and imagesavealpha($im, true) allows the transparency of the original image to be preserved


header('Content-type: image/png');

$im = imagecreatefrompng('images/favico.png');

imagealphablending($im, false);

imagesavealpha($im, true);

$red = hexdec(substr($_GET['color'],0,2));

$green = hexdec(substr($_GET['color'],2,2));

$blue = hexdec(substr($_GET['color'],4,2));

imagefilter($im, IMG_FILTER_COLORIZE, $red, $green, $blue);

imagepng($im);

Here is the favicon.png image before processing

Here is an image after transformation by php using 009900 as the color; called with
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.php?color=009900" />

The results are somewhat grainy due to no anti-aliasing cleaning up the edges, but when it is scaled down, it looks nice

DD-WRT routing my DynDNS

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 07:17:00 +0000

I use dyndns to use my local linux server with my dynamic IP address assigned with Baja Broadband. The problem was that after I upgraded my router with DD-WRT, my benengel.dyndns.org was not looping back to my web server thru my router. Google helped me find a page with the solution:

http://blog.irepublics.com/2011/01/unifi-dir-615-nat-loopback/

In Administration->Commands, enter the following:

iptables -t nat -I POSTROUTING -s 192.168.3.0/24 -j SNAT --to-source `nvram get wan_ipaddr`

Run the command and then save it as a startup command so it doesn't go away after the next reboot.

Removing password from an SSL Cert

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:17:00 +0000

Just got a new SSL cert that was created by someone else. For some reason, the certificate key was created with a password. Now every time I restart apache, it wants me to type in the password. That will be a real problem when I am not at the console and the server asks for the password, and I really do not want to have to look up that obscure password every time. Normally, you should leave the password blank when signing a cert for apache. But when someone else have already done it, you can still remove it.

I found the solution here: http://www.insivia.com/removing-a-pass-phrase-from-a-ssl-certificate/

WARNING: I would highly recommend backing up your existing key file before regenerating it.

# openssl rsa -in www.domain.com.key -out www.domain.com.key

Electric Vehicle Batteries

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 05:02:00 +0000

I'm very excited for electric vehicles to become more widely available and affordable. But, like many other people, I would find the limited driving distance a problem. And waiting hours for a recharge would make a short trip take a very long time. I think we should have an open design for a portable battery format. If the battery were easily removable and interchangable between different cars, gas stations could simply provide a battery exchange service similar to the propane tank exchange that we all see at most grocery stores.

I also have a basic idea for the recharge and storage mechanisms for the gas stations. I think I have a good idea for relatively large storage in case it gets popular.

Since I am not too familiar with the current EV power system designs, I am hoping that this could be run in a way that would allow each battery to be dicharged one at a time. Then, when you need to 'refuel', you would be able to only replace those batteries which have been depleted and not have to exchange them all. If this is not the case, I guess you'd either have to replace batteries that have not been completely depleted and the recharge station could pro-rate the battery swap charge based upon the remaining charge in the battery.

Another great addition would be solar and wind electricity generation at the recharge station. This would alos allow for a very distributed power system and hopefully a greater return on investment for the recharge facility.

How do I verify that a private key matches its Certificate?

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Tue, 04 May 2010 22:57:00 +0000

taken from : http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.8/ssl_faq.html#ToC32

The private key contains a series of numbers. Two of those numbers form the "public key", the others are part of your "private key". The "public key" bits are also embedded in your Certificate (we get them from your CSR). To check that the public key in your cert matches the public portion of your private key, you need to view the cert and the key and compare the numbers. To view the Certificate and the key run the commands:

$ openssl x509 -noout -text -in server.crt
$ openssl rsa -noout -text -in server.key

The `modulus' and the `public exponent' portions in the key and the Certificate must match. But since the public exponent is usually 65537 and it's bothering comparing long modulus you can use the following approach:

$ openssl x509 -noout -modulus -in server.crt | openssl md5
$ openssl rsa -noout -modulus -in server.key | openssl md5

And then compare these really shorter numbers. With overwhelming probability they will differ if the keys are different. BTW, if I want to check to which key or certificate a particular CSR belongs you can compute

$ openssl req -noout -modulus -in server.csr | openssl md5

IIS doesn't know DMG

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:02:00 +0000

Today, we needed to have our IIS webserver serve up a dmg file for apple users to download. When we put it in the download directory and tried to download it, we were getting the message that the file could not be found. We knew it was there and checked over and over for a typo in the filename but it insisted that we were wrong. The problem was that IIS didn't have a mime type for dmg files. Here are instructions for how to add your dmg mime type in IIS.

1. Open the Internet Information Services (IIS ) Manager

2. Right click on the server and select properties

3. Click the MIME Types button

4. Click the New button

5. Enter dmg in the Extension field

6. Enter application/octet-stream in the MIME type field

7. Click OK

Replacing Electrolytic Capacitors

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 06:46:00 +0000

I have had to replace electrolytic capacitors on 3 DELL GX520 now. That's a pretty high rate of failure since the company only has 7. 3 have had power supplies replaced under warranty and one has had a hard drive replaced under warranty. The company had recently purchased additional extended warranties after the original warranty had expired and dell would not replace the units. They claimed that it had to be due to a power surge and power surges are not covered under warranty even if they are on a quality UPS. Here is a step by step on how to do it. While this is a about the GX520, the same principle can be applied to any electronics that have electrolytic capacitors. I hope someone can find this useful.

1 - Open case and clean out the dust bunnies. There is the typical dell style Japanese puzzle box type way to open the case. When you pull on it, the top cover will pop up. When you clean it, it helps to have an attachment with the bristles in order to scrub the built up dust out of the grilles. Remember that electronic integrated circuits are very sensitive to static electricity and that most household vacuums generate a lot of static due to rushing air over plastic. It helps to use a can of "Dust Off" or any similar compressed air designed to blow off electronics. Don't let yourself or any curious children breathe in the air directly. While I have heard that it can get you quite a buzz, it can also cause severe brain damage or even kill you. You can also get ESD safe vacuums. I have been meaning to get one but since I have not, I just take my chances with the Dyson.

2 - Remove the hard drive, unplugging the SATA and power cable. It is easiest to unplug the SATA cable from the motherboard since it is attached to the bottom of the carriage with a little clip. The power cable has a little cable tie on the side of the drive carriage that is simple enough to undo. Then squeeze the blue things together and lift. It kinda hinges in the back on the case.

3 - Remove the CD-ROM drive, unplugging the special, mobile ide+power ribbon cable from the motherboard. You'll have to lift the lever marked with blue and then slide the drive toward the back of the case and then lift it out.

4 - Remove the floppy drive, unplugging the special, floppy+power ribbon cable. Just like the CD-ROM drive, lift the lever marked with blue and slide it back and then up. The ribbon cable wraps around the fan shroud and is easy enough to untangle.

5 - Remove the CPU heatsink by unscrewing the 2 front screws that retain the heatsink toward the front of the case, behind the fan. Once the screws are out, the whole assembly hinges back toward the back of the case. Tip it up and pull it out.

6 - Remove the screws from the heatsink hinge piece and remove it from the motherboard.

7 - Remove remaining 4 motherboard screws. There is basically one in each corner of the motherboard.

8 - Unplug remaining cables. The power connector, just like any standard ATX power supply, you have to pinch the clasp while pulling to release. The 4 pin P4 power connector that is right underneath where the floppy drive was; push the clasp just like the power cable. Finally, there is the ribbon cable that attaches the front assembly with the USB, power switch and LED's, just pull it up and off.

9 - Remove the motherboard from the chassis. It can be hard with the ribbon cable for the front LEDs and USB ports and with the little ribbon cable at the front by the fan but you can get it if you push them out of the way. Once you get the motherboard out, it is a good idea to take out the front fan. Just squeeze the clip in the corner and hinge it out. Now you can clean the fan and the front grille thoroughly.

10 - Identify the capacitors that need to be replaced. you can tell that they are bad because the tops are not nice and level anymore. Sometimes you can even see corrosion or residue like I have on one of mine. Electrolytic capacitors are filled with a fluid for the dielectric. I guess they either overheat or the fluid expands when it gets too much of a jolt. Whatever happens, it makes them bubble up and once they bubble up, they don't work the same as they used to. They don't need to be bubbled up much to be bad. Just compare them to all of the others to find the ones that aren't quite flat. They can't all be bad.... right? Most of the time, capacitors are used to clean noise off of the power lines. Often, when they go bad, it will not cause a complete failure, but your computer may crash more or perform slowly.

11 - Remove the capacitors. I use a $10 soldering iron that I got at Wal-Mart. There are definitely better ones out there and if you intend to do work on fine chip components, the cheap one will not due. I place the iron on one lead of the capacitor on the bottom side of the board. Then lift that lead through the board by bending over the capacitor. Usually, there is not enough play in the leads to allow it to pull all of the way through. You will need to do the other lead and kind of teeter totter it back and forth until you get both leads all of the way out.

12 - Remove the remaining solder from the 'via' using wick or solder sucker. The holes that go through the board are known as via. They are there to allow through hole components to go through the board. There are also smaller via that are masked over with the green layer that allow the circuits to connect the multiple layers of the printed circuit board or PCB. You will need to remove the old solder form the via so that you can easily insert the new capacitors. I prefer to use a solder sucker but you can also use solder wick. I will typically have to add some solder to the remaining solder since the old solder is too 'cold' to flow properly. New solder typically has a flux core. The flux is a chemical that causes the solder to melt more evenly. I think it eliminates the oxidants in the metal which allows the heat to disperse more evenly. Whatever it does, the solder goes all shiny and bubble up more instead of going flat and spiky. When it bubbles up better, the solder sucker can take it all in one good suck and you will not have to reapply heat over and over. Reapplying heat can eventually damage the board. It seems that frustration with cold solder is your worst enemy when it comes to soldering. Flux can be added separately but I can never find it anywhere but I can do fine with just the flux core found in the solder.

13 - Get the right replacement capacitors. Along the side of each capacitor it will say the ratings for it in µF (micro farads) and V (volts). I placed the order for my replacement capacitors with mouser.com. You just need to search for the capacitor with the ratings that match the capacitors you have removed. For my replacement, we have 2 2200µF/6.3V and 1 1800µF/6.3V. They were 51¢ ea. and 36¢ eac. respectively so I ordered 20 of each. I also ordered 30 1000µF/6.3V capacitors @ 14¢ ea. since they also seem to be a popular replacement. The shipping was cost $7.95, that's why I decided to order so many. It seems a waste to spend more on shipping than on the parts that are being shipped. Mouser did not have pictures of the capacitors, or if they did, I didn't pay attention and when I received the capacitors, they were quite differently shaped than the ones I was replacing. It didn't really matter since they still fit in between all of the other components without a problem.

14 - Insert the new caps. Pay attention to polarity. There is a stripe, down along the side of each capacitor. The stripe indicates the negative side. The negative lead (wires out the bottom of the capacitor) will also be shorter that the positive lead. On this motherboard, the positive side is indicated with a white triangle and a plus sign. Other motherboards may indicate polarity differently but generally will at least indicate the positive with a plus sign. If you cleaned out the via properly, the leads should slide through effortlessly.

15 - Solder new caps. You'll need to turn the motherboard upside down in order to solder it. But when you do, the cap will probably fall out if you are not holding it in place. But it is hard to solder with only one hand. So you will need to 'tack' it in place. Just grab a small glob of solder on the tip of your iron and apply it to one of the leads while holding the cap flush to the board. Since you will not be able to flow solder into the joint, it will be a very bad solder joint but it will allow you to let go of the capacitor and use both hands to solder the other lead. Now you can flow the solder into the joint with one hand while you apply heat with the other hand. Once you get the un-tacked lead soldered, you can return to the tacked lead and flow in solder for a clean joint.

16 - Inspect solder joint. You want the joint to be nice and shiny. There should also be a nice fillet, or curved slope from the surface of the motherboard to the length of the lead; You do not want a blob. There should also not be any contamination of other material, like residue from your soldering iron and there should be no pinholes in the solder. If your joint does not look good, you can reflow the solder with your iron, you can also flow more solder into the joint. The flux from the solder will allow the joint to fill and set properly. If you apply heat too long, all of the flux will burn away and you will be left with a cold solder joint, which is not shiny. If you need, you can also suck the solder away and try again. Be careful though, prolonged and repetitive application on the iron to the motherboard can cause damage that cannot be undone.

17 - Clip the Leads. You should use a pair of dikes (diagonal pliers) but since I seem to have lost mine so I used my lineman's scissors. I love those lineman's scissors. You used to have to special order them but now you can get them at Home Depot.

18 - Reassemble the Computer. It is a good idea to replace the thermal paste between the CPU (Central Processing Unit) and the heat sink. I had some 'Arctic Silver' paste lying around. I think I ordered it from Tiger Direct a while ago. If you are placing an order for other stuff it is a good idea to add it to the shopping cart. You should always have extra thermal paste around. I have heard that most of the Xbox360 red ring problems can be solved by simply replacing the thermal paste. I have not had to personally do it but I have heard that others have had success with it. A while back, when I used to over clock my computers, I would have to sand down the heat sink and CPU with high grit, wet dry sand paper and very lightly apply really good thermal paste. Remove the old paste with a paper towel. When applying to the top of the CPU, use 5 small globs of paste to ensure even dispersal as it is squeezed between the CPU and the heat sink. only apply to the CPU or heat sink; if you apply to both, you will have too much paste Once you have the motherboard and heat sink installed back in the case, reassemble the rest of the parts.

19 - Power up the computer. Most Dell computers of this generation have a self test initiated by the motherboard when power is applied. The power light will turn on momentarily and you will hear the fans spin and then it will turn off. If it does not, chances are you did not get it fixed. If you press the power button and no smoke comes billowing out of the computer, you are probably good to go.

Super Duper Garden at Beth's house

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:13:00 +0000

Check out the blog at bethsgarden2010.blogspot.com!!

Tm2t pen doesn't like my start orb

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:49:00 +0000

I really like my pen input but for some reason, no matter how many times I calibrate or which method I use to recalibrate, it still won't work right in the lower left corner of my screen. It really isn't my start orb that it doesn't like because, if I rotate my screen, it works fine in the other corner. Hmm. I'd hate to have to RMA already.

Tm2t Accelerometer??

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:37:00 +0000

I have read that most new hard drives designed for laptops have accelerometers that are designed to sense when the hard drive is jarred or jolted around so that it can park the hard drive heads before they have a chance to whack the platter and do damage. I went looking for software that takes advantage of this new sensor that is available in my hardware in a more fun way. I can't find anything except for on linux. I am probably going to try linux on this new toy sometime but I was hoping that there would be some windows apps. I am looking forward to playing games on my laptop similar to those iPod touch games wher you simply tilt to steer a car and cool stuff like that.

Tm2t touch lag

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:30:00 +0000

I was beginning to get annoyed that the capacitive touch on my new computer seemed to be very slow to respond. I found a post that explained to turn off the power saving on the touch input device and it now works much better.

First Tm2t problem

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:23:00 +0000

I was playing with new touch and surface stuff and installed iRotate. It is an application that allow screen rotation with a mouse click. I was thinking that it would be nice to have a quick software option instead of having to select the video card menu or to using the rotte button on the side of the screen.

It may have not been due to iRotate but soon after, my touch screen capabilities were not rotating with my video. So I uninstalled iRotate, thinking that it was the cause but it still would not work. So I rebooted, still no good. So I reinstalled iRotate, still no good. Finally, I forced the Switchable Grahics to use the other video card. I had previously told it not to automatically change. I was willing to sacrifice some battery life to just always use the ATI card. Once I switched it to the power save Intil card, bingo, it worked!!

Now it works on either card and I have kept iRotate uninstalled. No problems since then.

TouchSmart Tm2t

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:20:00 +0000

I got a new laptop. It is an HP TouchSmart Tm2t convertible tabletpc. I loaded it up with the SU9600 CPU, 4GB DDR3 ram, the only available ATI video upgrade, a 500GB hard drive, fingerprint scanner, webcam, and external USB BluRay drive.

I love it!

server executables on Vista

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:49:00 +0000

Ever go to run an executable from a file server in Windows Vista and it always warns you that it is from an untrusted source? Go into Internet Explorer and then click Tools -> Internet Options. Click the security tab. Click the Local Intranet icon then click the sites button. Click the Advanced button. type file:\\your-server-name and then click the Add button.

Dumping transaction logs

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:51:00 +0000

Often times, people will do a complete back up the database nightly but they never do anything with the transaction logs. When this happens, the log files can grow out of control and fill up the partition. Here is a simple routine that will simply dump the logs and shink the database to free up disk space:

USE YourDataBaseName
GO
DBCC SHRINKFILE(YourDatabase_log, 1)
BACKUP LOG YourDataBaseName WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY
DBCC SHRINKFILE(YourDataBaseName_log, 1)

Albino Praying Mantis

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:44:00 +0000

Is this an albino or can they really change color that much? Is it white so it can blend with my white stucco?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praying_mantis

Just to keep me laughing

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:24:00 +0000

Problem with most new technology is that you can no longer blow in the cartridge

Homage to the red swingline

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:57:00 +0000

I found a real, live Red Swingline stapler in the wild. I had to take a photo. Thanks, Sage, for spotting this elusive creature.

From Ben Engel's Blog

And another one, just after I did this blog, at Costco. I caught it with my cell phone.

CS Center Taco Tuesday Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:37:00 +0000

The CS Center Taco Tuesday pictures have been published @ :
http://benengel.dyndns.org/gallery2/v/bens_pics/2009-07_cs_center_taco_tuesday/

Number of Rows Updated with MSSQL

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Engel) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:04:00 +0000

Sometime I want to know how many rows were updated when I update the database in Coldfusion using Microsoft Database Server but a normal query doesn't have that information. What I need to do is use the NOCOUNT setting. In the following example I also create a variable to record all of the rows updated with multiple update statements generated in a cfloop:


<cfquery name="qryUpdateTable" datasource="#Datasource#">
 SET NOCOUNT ON
 DECLARE @rowsUpdated AS INT
 SET @rowsUpdated = 0
 <cfloop list="#FORM.List#" index="thisListItem" >
  UPDATE TableToUpdate SET
   Col1 = <cfqueryparam cfsqltype="cf_sql_integer" value="#FORM['Col1_#thisListItem#']#" />,
   Col2 = <cfqueryparam cfsqltype="cf_sql_bit" value="#FORM['Col2_#thisListItem#']#" />
  WHERE TableToUpdateID = <cfqueryparam cfsqltype="cf_sql_integer" value="#thisListItem#" />
  SET @rowsUpdated = @rowsUpdated + @@ROWCOUNT
 </cfloop>
 SELECT @rowsUpdated AS rowsUpdated
 SET NOCOUNT OFF
</cfquery>
<cfif qryUpdateTable.rowsUpdated>
 <span style="color: green">SUCCESS</span> : <cfoutput>#qryUpdateTable.rowsUpdated#</cfoutput> Rows Updated
</cfif>