A Dash of Web and Mobile Development » windows 7

Motherboard Change

Ian G. Clifton — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 01:55:51 +0000

On Thanksgiving I decided to change out the most painful of hardware components to replace: the motherboard. I had previously built my computer with a Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R motherboard, which came recommended by Tom’s Hardware, among other sources. It was a relatively low-end motherboard with a LGA 1366 socket, and it was great… for a while. After a few months, the onboard NIC died. That wasn’t too big of a deal for me, but then I started to have other issues. The computer would occasionally lock up without obvious cause. I noticed that the RAM was being overclocked (well, CAS settings) and underpowered by the motherboard’s auto settings, so I manually set those. That didn’t solve the problem though. I eventually gave in and decided to update the BIOS, hoping for some good luck.

Unfortunately, the updated BIOS caused the computer to not turn on correctly. I would press the power switch and the computer would come on for a fraction of a second and then turn off. I waited a bit and then pressed it again to find the computer booting with default BIOS settings, which I had to update (since the CAS and voltage settings were always wrong). That quickly became tiring, so I even tried the latest beta version of the BIOS with the same problem.

When that didn’t work, I decided to order a new motherboard, opting for the one brand I have always trusted for motherboards: ASUS. I went with the Rampage III Formula.

I was rather concerned with how Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows 7 would handle the motherboard change. The northbridge and southbridge chipsets were the same, but the audio chipset, SATA controllers, etc. were all different. With my important data backed up, I swapped out the motherboards and booted into Ubuntu. It worked! Everything worked just fine (video, audio, drives, USB devices, etc.). I was impressed! Not long ago, this would have been a several-hour adventure in Linux.

Feeling lucky, I booted into Windows 7. The login screen was the wrong resolution, but I logged in successfully to be immediately greeted by a message telling me that the computer needed to restart. I waited a little while and another dialog came up that listed the various drivers necessary for the motherboard with indicators to the side showing they were updating. It took about five minutes, but they all updated, so I restarted the computer and booted back into Windows. It worked!

I’m thoroughly impressed with the ability of both Windows 7 and Ubuntu to automatically recover from such a significant hardware change. It wasn’t long ago that I wouldn’t have even tried booting into each OS; I would have simply reinstalled each OS (possibly after formatting the hard drive).

The Computer I Built

Ian G. Clifton — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 22:14:04 +0000

Update 2010-11-25: I have since updated my computer with an Asus Rampage III Formula motherboard.

A few weeks ago, I build a new computer. I hadn’t built a computer for myself since 2004 when I built the one I have replaced with this new one. In that time, I have upgraded the RAM, added another hard drive, and changed from the original 17″ LCD screen to two 19″ screens. Other than that, it remained the same for all these years and served me well as an Ubuntu box. Unfortunately, the need for increased processing power always develops.

When I purchased a Canon 7D in fall of last year, I quickly realized how limited my desktop was in terms of processing power (and the 2.5GB of RAM was a bit underwhelming). My laptop was better in many respects (Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, 1GB video card, etc.), but it didn’t have the screen real estate. Of course I could hook up an external monitor, but that just wasn’t cutting it for me and I started to heavily consider a new computer.

Despite its allure, I eventually decided not to buy a 27″ iMac, largely due to glare issues. That machine had seemed pretty impressive, especially to someone who hadn’t paid a great deal of attention to hardware in recent years. Apple offered no matte option, so I looked at various matte films and other solutions only to decide I wasn’t willing to give them a try. Eventually, I opted to build my own computer.

I couldn’t help but be continually surprised at what I could build for far less than an iMac. I eventually went with a system that is designed for good performance now and expandability in the future. Though it’s not possible to fairly compare a built (all-in-one) computer with an Apple product, I couldn’t help but find myself noting the differences.

	Built	Decent iMac	Better iMac
Processor	Intel i7-920 ($288.99)	Intel i5-750	Intel i7-860 (+$200)
RAM	12GB 1600 Corsair ($339.99)	8GB 1066 (+$200)	16GB 1066 (+$1400)
Hard Drive	1.5TB ($109.99)	1TB	2TB (+$250)
Video Card	GeForce GT 240 1GB 128-bit DDR3 ($89.99)	Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit DDR3
Monitor(s)	LG W2343T-PF 23″ HD x2 ($359)	27″ 2560×1440

The lower-end comparable iMac is $2199 before Washington State sales tax (Apple estimates $2,407.91 after); the higher end is $3849 before taxes. The total cost for my system, including tax and shipping and the Windows 7 disc (though I use Linux 99% of the time, there are those occasional times when I have to deal with Windows for something like Cisco TFTP), was $1750.74.

Some benefits to the iMac: bigger screen; OS X Snow Leopard; video card (I believe this is better than the 240 but with a higher power consumption; politely show me otherwise if that’s not the case); built-in SD card slot, webcam, Bluetooth, and WiFi; all-in-one enclosure.

Some benefits to the built system: more screen real estate; matte screens; more/faster RAM; LGA 1366 chipset; two USB 3.0 ports; two 6GB/s SATA ports; two eSATA ports; BluRay drive; significant expandability.

The biggest and most prominent difference is the two 23″ monitors vs. one 27″ monitor. Personally, I like the two 23″ monitors, but I could have gone with a Dell U2711 27″ monitor instead. It would have increased the cost to $2490.74. Dell also has an excellent replacement policy (a single dead pixel and you get a new one!), so that would have been a good option if the larger screen were important. (BTW, anyone know what Apple’s dead pixel policy is on the 27″ iMac?)

The other big difference is the all-in-one approach. Honestly I think Apple does this for three reasons: it’s aesthetically pleasing, it’s extremely easy for even a computer-illiterate person to set up, and it’s not expandable. That means Apple’s only line of products that is really expandable is the Mac Pro series which is basically 2-3x the cost. If needed, I can throw 24GB of RAM in my computer, swap out the processor with better LGA 1366-based chips, add multiple hard drives or optical drives, add video cards. I even put a Corsair 650W power supply into my system just in case. Sure, you can buy 16GB of RAM for the iMac for ~$750 (or pay twice as much to have Apple do it for you), but you can’t do much about the other issues like single hard drive, single video card, etc. Further, if your screen goes out, your computer is useless. A non-all-in-one (is there a word for that?) can just have the bad monitor swapped out.

Here are the parts I bought:

It even came with a voucher that I used to get Resident Evil 5 for free. For some people, the iMac might be the right decision, but I’m absolutely pleased with my decision to build my own computer. I hope it continues to be useful for 5.5 years like my last one.

(Note: If you added up the prices listed for my system, you probably see that the numbers are slightly off. The motherboard and processor combo gave a $20 discount. Shipping was $3.45 for 3-day delivery. I also bought a DVI adapter that I included in the price, but I didn’t end up using it and some fresh Arctic Silver 5).

First Experience With Windows 7

Ian G. Clifton — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:19:36 +0000

This past weekend, I tagged along with my brother on a trip to Fry’s (an electronics store) to help him decide on what new monitors to get. I was pretty surprised at how much the normal size and quality has gone up since I last paid attention. In February two years ago, I bought two 1680×1050 19″ monitors for $230 a piece. Now, you can buy a 1920×1080 24″ monitor for that.

While comparing them, I saw a monitor that looked a little glossy, so I thought I’d change the desktop background to black to see just how glossy it was.

I right-clicked on the desktop and didn’t see an obvious “Change Desktop Background” or “Change Wallpaper” option. There was an option for “Next desktop background,” which just switched to another picture as the current background was apparently set to be a slideshow, and the only semi-likely option: “Personalize.” Guess what? Personalize was not the correct choice.

At that point, I didn’t care enough and moved on to look at some other monitors, but I became curious today and looked online. A simple search revealed 24 million results, one of which was Microsoft’s solution.

Open Desktop Background by clicking the Start button and clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type desktop background, and then click Change desktop background.

Microsoft actually has a video to demonstrate because it is overly complicated. Vista was terrible, so Windows 7 doesn’t have to do a great job to seem impressive, but I expected a better user experience.

For reference, in OS X you would right-click and pick “Change desktop background…” and in Ubuntu (Gnome) you would right-click and pick “Change Desktop Background.” In Vista you would right-click and pick “Personalize” and then pick “Desktop Background.”