Cheap system... (Abit NF7-M ?)

[keith]

is there any reason why if the mountain doesn't come to Mohammed,
Mohammed cannot go to the mountain instead? Or is your casing so huge
that even moving the drives closer won't help? pPpPp

I guess I could get out the Binford 6000 chasis saw (more TV humor here).
No, the casing isn't *huge* (6" shorter then my trusty Q500 casess),
rather the IDE ports are in a bad place. One assumes they think a
"server" will only have disk drives and no CDROM drives? The cables
*just* about make it to the top of the case. In no way can one put two
drives (disk-CD, or CD-CD) in there on the same (standard) IDE cable.
Thus, my DVDROM frive is disconnected now.

 

[George Macdonald]

No sorry (see: smiley). ;-))


...another reason to tell 'em to "go to hell". Rumor has it that they're
replacing 3YO ThinkPads next year. They'll replace my A21p over my
retired body! ;-)


Ok, but shouldn't the MB temperature sensors decide what RPM to use,
rather than the PS? There's an argument either way, but the motherboard
sensors are presumably closer to the widget that needs cooling.



Well, they're both Tyans. ;-) The Opteron system has the ATA drives and
the cables don't reach (well, I can plug in the DVD drive or the DVD-R/W).
The K6-III's CD drives are all SCSI and I have enough cable to reach to
Mars. I have SCSI drives in the Opteron system too, but it appears that
my AHA-3940 is toast. No one recognizes it. ...not a biggie, since newer
and better ATA drives are so cheap.


Two channnels, three drives. The pATA drive is in the 3-1/2 inch bay down
below and of course the two DVD drives are above in the 5-1/4
bays. Again, if the SATA drive worked I'd be a happy camper, but I have
no power over software support (other than bitching where it might get
noticed ;-). I ded send Tyan a "reminder" today.


My boss paid $750ish for an unlimited licence for 3.0, umm *moons* ago. I
was using it every day to set up test systems, so it wasn't absurd.
AFAIK, we still have a corporate license for 7.x, but that's for business
use only.


Free download/trial? URL?

BTW, you wouldn't know anythign about USB sticks and Win98, would you? A
friend wants to repartition his THinkPad, but I'm not going there unless
he takes his business accounts off there first. A USB stik would be a
perfect answer for him. I loaned him mine to try, but apparently Win98
didn't like the taste.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[George Macdonald]

...another reason to tell 'em to "go to hell". Rumor has it that they're
replacing 3YO ThinkPads next year. They'll replace my A21p over my
retired body! ;-)

I know what you mean - for the cost of a measly min-DIN! But I had 2
A2xms (a 500MHz and 800MHz) go bad about a year ago so they had to be
replaced.<shrug> I suspect it's the CPU socket/seating issue mentioned in
the Forums at www.thinkpads.com but I haven't had err, time to go inside
them yet.

Ok, but shouldn't the MB temperature sensors decide what RPM to use,
rather than the PS? There's an argument either way, but the motherboard
sensors are presumably closer to the widget that needs cooling.

Makes sense but the Antec case fans have HDD-type power connectors and the
Truepower P/S has those special variable voltage fan connectors.

Free download/trial? URL?

Yes: www.bootitng.com

BTW, you wouldn't know anythign about USB sticks and Win98, would you? A
friend wants to repartition his THinkPad, but I'm not going there unless
he takes his business accounts off there first. A USB stik would be a
perfect answer for him. I loaned him mine to try, but apparently Win98
didn't like the taste.

Yep I've had some "experience" there and it appears that some of the Win98
USB flash drive drivers are crap - and even seem to quarrel with each other
- and of course you have to use drivers with Win98:

I got a couple of Sandisk Cruzer 128MBs and they worked OKwith the drivers
off the Sandisk Web site; then the "next time" I got a couple of Sandisk
Cruzer 256MBs and they didn't work. Trod off to the Sandisk site to find
that... ahh, there are new drivers; load the new drivers and nothing
works!... not even a 3rd USB drive of a different brand. I had to
uninstall all the USB flash drivers from the system, delete the old .INF
files and then load the latest driver versions.... reboot.... reboot....
reboot... Win98 does get frustrating.

I've also had trouble trying to make some of the USB flash drives bootable
- came across a utility called AEFDISK, http://www.aefdisk.com/ which
allows you to patch the boot records and that helped. It's actually a
DOS-based command-line low-level partitioning utility, which I'd find kinda
scarey for HDD work, but I only had to use a couple of commands on the USB
flash drives... to change the media type IIRC.

The other possibility, if he has a CD-R/RW, is to use BootitNG to take an
Image of his current partitions to CD-R but if he has a lot of stuff that
could be several CD-Rs and a lot of time.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[keith]

I know what you mean - for the cost of a measly min-DIN! But I had 2
A2xms (a 500MHz and 800MHz) go bad about a year ago so they had to be
replaced.<shrug> I suspect it's the CPU socket/seating issue mentioned in
the Forums at www.thinkpads.com but I haven't had err, time to go inside
them yet.

I just don't see the reason behind USB keyboards/mice at all. There is no
advantage and many problems. Cheap, cheap, cheap.

Makes sense but the Antec case fans have HDD-type power connectors and
the Truepower P/S has those special variable voltage fan connectors.

I replace my case fans, but it didn't do any good. The board still
doesn't detect any R's. :-(

Yes: www.bootitng.com

I'll look into it (seeing the URL, I now remember you talking about this
some time back).

Yep I've had some "experience" there and it appears that some of the
Win98 USB flash drive drivers are crap - and even seem to quarrel with
each other - and of course you have to use drivers with Win98:

I guess that's not surprising. Win9x is crap, and always has been. USB
was useless until Win2K, IMO. Indeed it was a bad idea until 2.0.

I got a couple of Sandisk Cruzer 128MBs and they worked OKwith the
drivers off the Sandisk Web site; then the "next time" I got a couple of
Sandisk Cruzer 256MBs and they didn't work. Trod off to the Sandisk
site to find that... ahh, there are new drivers; load the new drivers
and nothing works!... not even a 3rd USB drive of a different brand. I
had to uninstall all the USB flash drivers from the system, delete the
old .INF files and then load the latest driver versions.... reboot....
reboot.... reboot... Win98 does get frustrating.

Ugly! I have a Crucial Gizmo that apparently doesn't like '98. Crucual
doesn't support it either. Whou wudda thunk that a storage device would
need its own driver. Interface, sure. ...but *device*?!

I've also had trouble trying to make some of the USB flash drives
bootable - came across a utility called AEFDISK, http://www.aefdisk.com/
which allows you to patch the boot records and that helped. It's
actually a DOS-based command-line low-level partitioning utility, which
I'd find kinda scarey for HDD work, but I only had to use a couple of
commands on the USB flash drives... to change the media type IIRC.

I'm much less interested in bootable USB sticks. I use them as the new
sneaker-net. ...floppy replacement, if you will. If it'll fit on a
floppy , I'll email it to myself. Otherwise a stick is rather usefull.

The other possibility, if he has a CD-R/RW, is to use BootitNG to take
an Image of his current partitions to CD-R but if he has a lot of stuff
that could be several CD-Rs and a lot of time.

He doesn't. IIRC, he bought a USB connected writer, but he can't get it
to work either. Win98 is just so grand!

 

[George Macdonald]

I replace my case fans, but it didn't do any good. The board still
doesn't detect any R's. :-(

Hmm, I've seen that when the case fans had their own thermistor speed
control and weren't spinning fast enough to meet the min speed for
detection by the BIOS - 1300rpm IIRC. I found that the mbrd monitoring
software (Asus Probe at the time) had a lower min speed setting than the
BIOS and it could see them.

I guess that's not surprising. Win9x is crap, and always has been. USB
was useless until Win2K, IMO. Indeed it was a bad idea until 2.0.


Ugly! I have a Crucial Gizmo that apparently doesn't like '98. Crucual
doesn't support it either. Whou wudda thunk that a storage device would
need its own driver. Interface, sure. ...but *device*?!

I have a Gizmo too and the drivers for Win98 are here:
http://www.crucial.com/support/gizmo/ - works for me... but it is a mess,
since there is no generic driver.

I'm much less interested in bootable USB sticks. I use them as the new
sneaker-net. ...floppy replacement, if you will. If it'll fit on a
floppy , I'll email it to myself. Otherwise a stick is rather usefull.

Errm, remember I mentioned the T40s I got have no PS/2 connector - they
also have no floppy unless you get a USB floppy. I got one but if I'm to
use USB it might as well be off a flash drive.

He doesn't. IIRC, he bought a USB connected writer, but he can't get it
to work either. Win98 is just so grand!

Is this Win98SE? If it's Win98(non-SE) the USB was known to be flakey as
well as a bunch of other stuff.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[keith]

Hmm, I've seen that when the case fans had their own thermistor speed
control and weren't spinning fast enough to meet the min speed for
detection by the BIOS - 1300rpm IIRC. I found that the mbrd monitoring
software (Asus Probe at the time) had a lower min speed setting than the
BIOS and it could see them.

I don't think these fans are smart enough. I've gone through at least a
half-dozen fans, expecting crap to be just that. ...nada.

I have a Gizmo too and the drivers for Win98 are here:
http://www.crucial.com/support/gizmo/ - works for me... but it is a
mess, since there is no generic driver.

Thanks! I've forwarded it on to my friend. I thought I'd see him earlier
so I could loan him my Gizmo again, to make sure what he buys will work.

Errm, remember I mentioned the T40s I got have no PS/2 connector - they
also have no floppy unless you get a USB floppy. I got one but if I'm
to use USB it might as well be off a flash drive.

Errm, that's rather my point; floppys are useless. I don't know why I
even put one in this system, other than it was gathering dust in a drawer.
Indeed I've never tested it. ...but also has never failed. ;-)

Is this Win98SE? If it's Win98(non-SE) the USB was known to be flakey
as well as a bunch of other stuff.

Dunno. It's hard getting real information out of non-professionals.

 

[keith]

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 03:07:40 -0400, George Macdonald wrote:

I've given her my proposal, which was the Asus board Tony suggested and an
option (to fit her budget) of 256MB and a combo CD-R/W and DVD ROM, or
512MB and "only" a CD-R/W. Both are within nickels (ok, $15) of her
$400[*] target. She's said she'd give me a check this weekend.

[*] note that she has a monitor/keyboard/mouse, I'm going to swipe the
floppy out of the smoked system ($8.50 issue), and I'm giving her one of
my USR external modems.

Sounds good - it'll be a helluva system for the $$. Oh BTW, just in case,
I finally found a keyboard for $20.+/- that I like and can live with - the
Memorex MX2760 (yeah, yeah is it dead or is it......?) which I've only
seen in-store at Comp-USA so far. It has USB + PS/2 which was one of my
criteria, the keys feel very nice and it comes with a rubber wrist rest...
I just ignore the "multi-media" button crap.

I ordered the stuff last Tuesday morning (real work to do Monday), and
amazingly the stuff arrived Thursday afternoon. I guess NewEgg has the
ordering process down pretty well! I didn't get a chance to open the
boxes until today and did what I could. I was waiting for my friend to
bring her monitor over so I didn't have to bend any more pins on my KVM
cables. :-( Sooo, I didn't fire up the old system to delete all the
hardware widgets, in an attempt to slavage her OS.

Anyway, wihtout having put power to the "new" system, I do have some
observations. The case (Antec SLK2650-BQE) isn't all that great, but it
does have some interesting points. The screwless 5-1/4" "slides" seem to
be nice, particularly since they didn't ship *ANY* hardware with the case.
The drive cover/door is a tad flimsey, but I didn't pay lots either.

Back to the lack of any nutz-n-boltz; I busted the stand-off bank
scrounging enough to mount the board. That solved, I moved onto mounting
the drives. Nope, no screws to mount the 3-1/2" drives either. Since the
case uses non-standard mounting screws (rubber mounting bushings for the
drives), I'm dead in the water unless I kludge up something from the local
hardware storee (closed when I got there).

I ordered her a Lite-On CD-R/W drive (OEM), but that didn't come
with everything advertised either. There was supposed to be an audio
cable and a Nero CD. Nope, none. ...but amazingly there was a "Power
DVD" CD included, though no DVD capable drive was ordered.

I also *wrongly* assumed the board (Asus A7N8X-VM/400) would come with
two IDE cables (other recent boards have). Looking closer at the Asus
site, I was wrong (ok, what do I expect for $60). So, I ordered a
couple of round cables for my system this afternoon. I can then donate
mine to the cause. Note that I was considering moving the stuff from my
SX1040BII to a Sonata, but figured a couple of cables were a tad cheaper.
Only about $3.50 for each cable. ...and $4.99 each for shipping! Ok,
such as it is living where a USB cable goes for $25. ...but!

I'm not a big fan of NewEgg tonight. I sent them a nastygram, but
I'll be surprised if I get anything other than an invitation to ship
everything back, at *my* expense. ...plus the 15% re-stocking fee. We'll
see how much they want further business. :-(

 

[George Macdonald]

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 03:07:40 -0400, George Macdonald wrote:

I've given her my proposal, which was the Asus board Tony suggested and an
option (to fit her budget) of 256MB and a combo CD-R/W and DVD ROM, or
512MB and "only" a CD-R/W. Both are within nickels (ok, $15) of her
$400[*] target. She's said she'd give me a check this weekend.

[*] note that she has a monitor/keyboard/mouse, I'm going to swipe the
floppy out of the smoked system ($8.50 issue), and I'm giving her one of
my USR external modems.

Sounds good - it'll be a helluva system for the $$. Oh BTW, just in case,
I finally found a keyboard for $20.+/- that I like and can live with - the
Memorex MX2760 (yeah, yeah is it dead or is it......?) which I've only
seen in-store at Comp-USA so far. It has USB + PS/2 which was one of my
criteria, the keys feel very nice and it comes with a rubber wrist rest...
I just ignore the "multi-media" button crap.

I ordered the stuff last Tuesday morning (real work to do Monday), and
amazingly the stuff arrived Thursday afternoon. I guess NewEgg has the
ordering process down pretty well! I didn't get a chance to open the
boxes until today and did what I could. I was waiting for my friend to
bring her monitor over so I didn't have to bend any more pins on my KVM
cables. :-( Sooo, I didn't fire up the old system to delete all the
hardware widgets, in an attempt to slavage her OS.

Which OS is on the old system? If Win95 it's beyond salvage value; if
Win98(non-SE) that's as bad. If Win98SE and you go ahead with a removal of
all devices in Safe Mode, remember to put a CD-ROM driver in CONFIG.SYS and
load MSCDEX in the AUTOEXEC.BAT before you try to boot up in the new
system.

Anyway, wihtout having put power to the "new" system, I do have some
observations. The case (Antec SLK2650-BQE) isn't all that great, but it
does have some interesting points. The screwless 5-1/4" "slides" seem to
be nice, particularly since they didn't ship *ANY* hardware with the case.
The drive cover/door is a tad flimsey, but I didn't pay lots either.

Back to the lack of any nutz-n-boltz; I busted the stand-off bank
scrounging enough to mount the board. That solved, I moved onto mounting
the drives. Nope, no screws to mount the 3-1/2" drives either. Since the
case uses non-standard mounting screws (rubber mounting bushings for the
drives), I'm dead in the water unless I kludge up something from the local
hardware storee (closed when I got there).

Are you sure about the "lack of nutz"? From what I see in a review,
written in French, on the Antec site, the screw package is hidden in the
plastic doo-hickey on the rear of the case which covers the top of the card
slots... and yes they are apparently "special" screws for the drives.

I ordered her a Lite-On CD-R/W drive (OEM), but that didn't come
with everything advertised either. There was supposed to be an audio
cable and a Nero CD. Nope, none. ...but amazingly there was a "Power
DVD" CD included, though no DVD capable drive was ordered.

I also *wrongly* assumed the board (Asus A7N8X-VM/400) would come with
two IDE cables (other recent boards have). Looking closer at the Asus
site, I was wrong (ok, what do I expect for $60). So, I ordered a
couple of round cables for my system this afternoon. I can then donate
mine to the cause. Note that I was considering moving the stuff from my
SX1040BII to a Sonata, but figured a couple of cables were a tad cheaper.
Only about $3.50 for each cable. ...and $4.99 each for shipping! Ok,
such as it is living where a USB cable goes for $25. ...but!

I'm not a big fan of NewEgg tonight. I sent them a nastygram, but
I'll be surprised if I get anything other than an invitation to ship
everything back, at *my* expense. ...plus the 15% re-stocking fee. We'll
see how much they want further business. :-(

If there really are missing parts, I've found Antec very responsive: got a
warm phone-body in seconds and they sent me USB 2.0 connector upgrades
because their original front panel USB connectors had a low-pass filter for
USB 1.0 frequencies in the mini-PCB; they also sent me a complete new
plastic front panel assembly for one case which arrived with a broken lower
section - the box had no signs of external abuse so I figured it was the
fault of the packing they use rather than Fedex.

Me?... looks like I'll be starting my spending earlier than anticipated: my
Nokia 447XS monitor started playing up on Sat. morning. The screen just
suddenly went black with no other symptoms - after finding that a spell
with no power would make it work again for a few mins... or a few hours, I
eventually discovered that a whack on the side works too. I'm on my 3rd
whack so far this evening. I guess it could just be 5years of dirt
build-up but I hate to lose this one since it's the best monitor I've ever
seen as far as geometry (absolutely perfect) and clarity goes.

Now I'm investigating the swamp of LCD monitors - dunno what to make of it
really... so many bad stories about every brand available. Samsung looks
good - looking at the 172X - but there are indications that they are just
"very good at writing really good specs". I've tried Iiyama and
Viewsonic at the office and they're "OK". The "standard" acceptable
tolerance for dead pixels seems to be 10... which seems like a lot to me -
I'd be pissed with that at the wrong end of ~$500. Any experiences or
hints appreciated.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[The little lost angel]

Viewsonic at the office and they're "OK". The "standard" acceptable
tolerance for dead pixels seems to be 10... which seems like a lot to me -
I'd be pissed with that at the wrong end of ~$500. Any experiences or
hints appreciated.

That's really weird. I think around here, 3~7 seems to be the max and
some brands like Philips offer a 3yrs zero bright dots warranty.
Though admittedly, I'm not sure if they cover dead dots as well PpPp

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[Keith R. Williams]

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 03:07:40 -0400, George Macdonald wrote:


I've given her my proposal, which was the Asus board Tony suggested and an
option (to fit her budget) of 256MB and a combo CD-R/W and DVD ROM, or
512MB and "only" a CD-R/W. Both are within nickels (ok, $15) of her
$400[*] target. She's said she'd give me a check this weekend.

[*] note that she has a monitor/keyboard/mouse, I'm going to swipe the
floppy out of the smoked system ($8.50 issue), and I'm giving her one of
my USR external modems.

Sounds good - it'll be a helluva system for the $$. Oh BTW, just in case,
I finally found a keyboard for $20.+/- that I like and can live with - the
Memorex MX2760 (yeah, yeah is it dead or is it......?) which I've only
seen in-store at Comp-USA so far. It has USB + PS/2 which was one of my
criteria, the keys feel very nice and it comes with a rubber wrist rest...
I just ignore the "multi-media" button crap.

I ordered the stuff last Tuesday morning (real work to do Monday), and
amazingly the stuff arrived Thursday afternoon. I guess NewEgg has the
ordering process down pretty well! I didn't get a chance to open the
boxes until today and did what I could. I was waiting for my friend to
bring her monitor over so I didn't have to bend any more pins on my KVM
cables. :-( Sooo, I didn't fire up the old system to delete all the
hardware widgets, in an attempt to slavage her OS.

Which OS is on the old system? If Win95 it's beyond salvage value; if
Win98(non-SE) that's as bad. If Win98SE and you go ahead with a removal of
all devices in Safe Mode, remember to put a CD-ROM driver in CONFIG.SYS and
load MSCDEX in the AUTOEXEC.BAT before you try to boot up in the new
system.

I'm not sure what version it has, which is why I want to salvage it, if
possible. I think my copies are all Win98 (non-SE), so I'm hoping that
the old system SE (It's about the right age). A new OS will bust the
bank.

Good point about the CD-ROM driver. I wouldn't have thought of that
(the first time ;-). I've copied the old disk to the new, so I can go
back if I blow it. One thing that sorta surprised be is that I can't
expand the FAT32 partition beyond 8GB. I suppose it shouldn't,
considering the clusters were set up on a 6GB drive and Win is *dumb*.

Are you sure about the "lack of nutz"? From what I see in a review,
written in French, on the Antec site, the screw package is hidden in the
plastic doo-hickey on the rear of the case which covers the top of the card
slots... and yes they are apparently "special" screws for the drives.

You mean that secret trap-door in the back embossed with the word
"hardware"? <blush>. I looked *everywhere* inside the case, including
that black PCI thingy (on the case side). I thought perhaps they'd
stick it in the front fan shroud or something. What *is* the purpose
of the black thingy? ...to make me nutz? ;-) It sure looks like it
has "EMI exit here" written all over it. ... and yes I can see now how
"special" the screws are. I don't like non-standard hardware. I always
seem to lose it and can't collect more. ...at least my parts kit has
been resupplied of board stand-offs.

If there really are missing parts, I've found Antec very responsive: got a
warm phone-body in seconds and they sent me USB 2.0 connector upgrades
because their original front panel USB connectors had a low-pass filter for
USB 1.0 frequencies in the mini-PCB; they also sent me a complete new
plastic front panel assembly for one case which arrived with a broken lower
section - the box had no signs of external abuse so I figured it was the
fault of the packing they use rather than Fedex.

It looks like I won't have to test Antec's reputation, but it's good to
know. I'm still considering a Sonata for my Opteron system, but a 24"
(round) IDE cable should get the SX1040 back to being useful, so it's
not an emergency.

I'm still short the Nero CD (I have one from my DVD burner though) and
sound cable, so I'll still have to twit NewEgg. I would have just paid
the $.99 and forgotten the whole thing, but I don't want to pay the
other $4.99 to have it shipped. :-(

Me?... looks like I'll be starting my spending earlier than anticipated: my
Nokia 447XS monitor started playing up on Sat. morning. The screen just
suddenly went black with no other symptoms - after finding that a spell
with no power would make it work again for a few mins... or a few hours, I
eventually discovered that a whack on the side works too. I'm on my 3rd
whack so far this evening. I guess it could just be 5years of dirt
build-up but I hate to lose this one since it's the best monitor I've ever
seen as far as geometry (absolutely perfect) and clarity goes.

Like your Nokia, my IBM G94 (or is it a G96?) is perfect too, but has
been doing some horizontal shrinking/flickering. I may check out my
house mains voltage since it seems to be related. The power supply may
be getting weak.

Now I'm investigating the swamp of LCD monitors - dunno what to make of it
really... so many bad stories about every brand available. Samsung looks
good - looking at the 172X - but there are indications that they are just
"very good at writing really good specs". I've tried Iiyama and
Viewsonic at the office and they're "OK". The "standard" acceptable
tolerance for dead pixels seems to be 10... which seems like a lot to me -
I'd be pissed with that at the wrong end of ~$500. Any experiences or
hints appreciated.

The CFO wanted an LCD monitor, but the large ones are still too
expensive for my blood. I'm very happy with the dual-screen Viewsonic
P95/IBM G94 setup. I didn't have the cash to go dual LCDs and buy a
system too.

 

[George Macdonald]

That's really weird. I think around here, 3~7 seems to be the max and
some brands like Philips offer a 3yrs zero bright dots warranty.
Though admittedly, I'm not sure if they cover dead dots as well PpPp

It varies by screen size - here's Samsung's policy which at least is stated
up front:
http://erms.samsungusa.com/customer...?PG_ID=1&AT_ID=5608&PROD_SUB_ID=28&PROD_ID=-1

Others, like Sony, will not say and just make some comments about how
difficult (impossible ?) it is to make zero-defect TFT LCDs and how if you
get an exchange the 2nd one might be worse. NewEgg states 8 as their
threshold for an RMA. On laptops the policy used to be if they're near
(weasel wording) the edge of the screen they don't even count.

I suspect that many people who believe they have zero "dead pixels" do in
fact have a few which they just don't notice. Note also that if you do get
a replacement it's going to be a "refurbished" - the return rate on those
things is huge... everybody wants perfect but it just doesn't exist... and
the repair techs are told what is "acceptable". Indications are that many
returns are just reboxed because they are "within tolerance" - IOW if the
1st one ain't perfect, the odds are stacked even worse on the 2nd.

I once got a CRT which had one bad pixel - a blue which would not "light
up" and since it was off center and the geometry of the screen was so
unusually good I lived with it. Viewsonic waffled a little when I called
them but eventually said that they would replace it if I really wanted to -
the refurbished thing really put me off.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[George Macdonald]

I'm not sure what version it has, which is why I want to salvage it, if
possible. I think my copies are all Win98 (non-SE), so I'm hoping that
the old system SE (It's about the right age). A new OS will bust the
bank.

To tell the truth, any non-SEs I've had, I've just done an illegal(?)
upgrade to SE because the non-SE (shows as 4.10.1998) is so bad and the
fixes were never made available for it.

Good point about the CD-ROM driver. I wouldn't have thought of that
(the first time ;-). I've copied the old disk to the new, so I can go
back if I blow it. One thing that sorta surprised be is that I can't
expand the FAT32 partition beyond 8GB. I suppose it shouldn't,
considering the clusters were set up on a 6GB drive and Win is *dumb*.

If you don't have a CD-ROM driver handy the oakcdrom.sys in the
windows\command\ebd folder should be good.

I'm still short the Nero CD (I have one from my DVD burner though) and
sound cable, so I'll still have to twit NewEgg. I would have just paid
the $.99 and forgotten the whole thing, but I don't want to pay the
other $4.99 to have it shipped. :-(

I never bother with sound cables any longer - just use the digital
interface for playing. In fact I have several of those things lying around
- e-mail me if you want one.

Like your Nokia, my IBM G94 (or is it a G96?) is perfect too, but has
been doing some horizontal shrinking/flickering. I may check out my
house mains voltage since it seems to be related. The power supply may
be getting weak.

I *wonder*.... we've had a few nasty power outages here recently from
post-hurricane damage (they'e always pretty weak by the time they get to NJ
but still have the occasional squall). It's possible that's what finished
my Nokia off but once I get a replacement I'll probably open it up for a
clean-up.

The CFO wanted an LCD monitor, but the large ones are still too
expensive for my blood. I'm very happy with the dual-screen Viewsonic
P95/IBM G94 setup. I didn't have the cash to go dual LCDs and buy a
system too.

I have limited space so a 17" is about the max I can go and even some of
those are too tall. The Nokia was a really special short-neck - shortest
17" ever.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[keith]

It varies by screen size - here's Samsung's policy which at least is stated
up front:
http://erms.samsungusa.com/customer...?PG_ID=1&AT_ID=5608&PROD_SUB_ID=28&PROD_ID=-1

Others, like Sony, will not say and just make some comments about how
difficult (impossible ?) it is to make zero-defect TFT LCDs and how if you
get an exchange the 2nd one might be worse. NewEgg states 8 as their
threshold for an RMA. On laptops the policy used to be if they're near
(weasel wording) the edge of the screen they don't even count.

Another reason I love my ThinkPad A21p. It *had* zero defective dots
outta 1.9M. Over the last three years it has developed a dark-dot, but I
rarely see it. ...only when an ultra-fine line goues down that
street/avenue.

I suspect that many people who believe they have zero "dead pixels" do
in fact have a few which they just don't notice. Note also that if you
do get a replacement it's going to be a "refurbished" - the return rate
on those things is huge... everybody wants perfect but it just doesn't
exist... and the repair techs are told what is "acceptable".

Sure. ...though if *I* spent that kinda money I'd want *perfect* too.
Thanks, I'll stay with CRTs for a while longer.

Indications
are that many returns are just reboxed because they are "within
tolerance" - IOW if the 1st one ain't perfect, the odds are stacked even
worse on the 2nd.

Makes sense; piss off the complainers! ...no loss. ;-)

I once got a CRT which had one bad pixel - a blue which would not "light
up" and since it was off center and the geometry of the screen was so
unusually good I lived with it. Viewsonic waffled a little when I
called them but eventually said that they would replace it if I really
wanted to - the refurbished thing really put me off.

I'd like to see a "bright-dot" on a CRT. ;-)

I rather like my ViewSonic monitor. The kid bought one a few years ago
and it made my IBM look rather pale next to it. When he moved out that
space was left for another (actually I've taken over his bedroom . Of
course a sweetheart deal with ViewSonic didn't change my mind either. ;-)

 

[keith]

To tell the truth, any non-SEs I've had, I've just done an illegal(?)
upgrade to SE because the non-SE (shows as 4.10.1998) is so bad and the
fixes were never made available for it.

If you don't have a CD-ROM driver handy the oakcdrom.sys in the
windows\command\ebd folder should be good.

I've taken her old drive and put it in the new system to make CD copying
easier. I assume it'llll be simple to re-use it. (no time tonight to
mess with it all)

I never bother with sound cables any longer - just use the digital
interface for playing. In fact I have several of those things lying
around - e-mail me if you want one.

I don't mess with any sound myself, but that attitude is getting me in
trouble on the home-front. SWMBO is insisting on sound. Perrhaps when I
get the room finished (likely never) I'll hook it op on the Linux system.
It'll give her another incentive to learn how to navigate Linux. <;-)

I *wonder*.... we've had a few nasty power outages here recently from
post-hurricane damage (they'e always pretty weak by the time they get to
NJ but still have the occasional squall). It's possible that's what
finished my Nokia off but once I get a replacement I'll probably open it
up for a clean-up.

Good idea! Don't mess until a good backup is at hand!

I have limited space so a 17" is about the max I can go and even some of
those are too tall. The Nokia was a really special short-neck -
shortest 17" ever.

Since the kid left the nest I have lotsa space. ...not time to get the
space right, and I'm repairing the sheetrock (not his fault - roof leak)
and trying to paind around the computers). Sheetrock dust is the pits.
....and my house is full of it, and much more to do.

 

[George Macdonald]

Another reason I love my ThinkPad A21p. It *had* zero defective dots
outta 1.9M. Over the last three years it has developed a dark-dot, but I
rarely see it. ...only when an ultra-fine line goues down that
street/avenue.

All our Thinkpads - 7 of them over the years - have had zero bad pixels; we
had one which would occasionally show one bad dot but a nudge with the flat
of a fingernail would bring it back

Sure. ...though if *I* spent that kinda money I'd want *perfect* too.
Thanks, I'll stay with CRTs for a while longer.

Yeah - makes me nervous as I draw my cc out of my wallet here but I dunno
how many good whacks I've got left with this Nokia.

I'd like to see a "bright-dot" on a CRT. ;-)

I rather like my ViewSonic monitor. The kid bought one a few years ago
and it made my IBM look rather pale next to it. When he moved out that
space was left for another (actually I've taken over his bedroom . Of
course a sweetheart deal with ViewSonic didn't change my mind either. ;-)

For CRTs I've been buying Viewsonics for home & work since I got my 1st
home computer - it came with a 14" Viewsonic which never let me down... was
still working when it was dumped. Only exception was this Nokia, because
it was the only 17" available which would fit in the available "hole". Of
all the Viewsonics we've had in the office, only one was sent back for
repair - the rest are all in some state of "working" - hey remember my
boss's umm, syndrome.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[keith]

All our Thinkpads - 7 of them over the years - have had zero bad pixels; we
had one which would occasionally show one bad dot but a nudge with the flat
of a fingernail would bring it back

Actually I noticed another darkie on my A21p, but I had to really go
looking today. I had nothing else to do since teh Virus police decided to
kick me off the network, for an undisclosed reason. They made me guess
that I was kicked off too. THe only hint I had was that my LAN cable was
"disconnected". The monkeys down the hall pulling new cables led me
t'wards a different hypothesis though. ...a *total* waste of a day.

Yeah - makes me nervous as I draw my cc out of my wallet here but I
dunno how many good whacks I've got left with this Nokia.

Indeed. The truth comes home whan the money is personal.

For CRTs I've been buying Viewsonics for home & work since I got my 1st
home computer - it came with a 14" Viewsonic which never let me down...
was still working when it was dumped. Only exception was this Nokia,
because it was the only 17" available which would fit in the available
"hole". Of all the Viewsonics we've had in the office, only one was
sent back for repair - the rest are all in some state of "working" - hey
remember my boss's umm, syndrome.

It seems we have a "partnership" with ViewSonic so get a rather
good price on their products. Though even before, my son's ViewSonic
19" 'G' series was much better than my IBM 'G' series of maybe a year
earler, and far less expensive. I'm certainly not sorry for buying the
P95f+B. If the IBM goes I'll buy another.

 

[keith]

To tell the truth, any non-SEs I've had, I've just done an illegal(?)
upgrade to SE because the non-SE (shows as 4.10.1998) is so bad and the
fixes were never made available for it.

Well, the good news is that the old system is '98SE. I was able to get
the system to recognize everything (I think). It took a dozen re-boots
and a few slaps upside the head, but... I did make a minor oops (and a
major one). I couldn't get the fool thing to understand the N-Force4
graphics controller, though the drivers loaded fine. Ok, there is this
littke thing about enabling the on-board controller in BIOS, but...

....then there was the floppy controller power connector plugged off by one
pin. Oww! Smoked the power cable to it. Oh, well... I wonder if the
floppy survived? ...another problem with that Antec case; the cable
congestion around the drives is pretty severe (not an excuse, rather an
explanation ;-).

If you don't have a CD-ROM driver handy the oakcdrom.sys in the
windows\command\ebd folder should be good.

No problem there. Id even recognized teh Lite-On drive out of the chute.
Perhaps there will be an issue when I try to teach it that it has
two CDROM drives.

I never bother with sound cables any longer - just use the digital
interface for playing. In fact I have several of those things lying
around - e-mail me if you want one.

Maybe. $4.99 for shipping pisses me off. IT's bad enough to pay $4.99
for a $3.50 IDE cable, but $9.98 for two? ...and $14.97 for two IDE
cables and a $.99 audio cable? Yikes! I think I wanna fly FedEx planes.

I *wonder*.... we've had a few nasty power outages here recently from
post-hurricane damage (they'e always pretty weak by the time they get to
NJ but still have the occasional squall). It's possible that's what
finished my Nokia off but once I get a replacement I'll probably open it
up for a clean-up.

Wait until Florida is all cleaned up. I hear excavation work is getting
expensive. ;-)

I have limited space so a 17" is about the max I can go and even some of
those are too tall. The Nokia was a really special short-neck -
shortest 17" ever.

Priorities. I took over another room (my son moved out, complete with
its own bathroom (that's broke). Space has never been a biggie for me.
OTOH, uninhabited horizontal spaces have always been. Junk accumulates to
fit the space given.

 

[George Macdonald]

...then there was the floppy controller power connector plugged off by one
pin. Oww! Smoked the power cable to it. Oh, well... I wonder if the
floppy survived? ...another problem with that Antec case; the cable
congestion around the drives is pretty severe (not an excuse, rather an
explanation ;-).

That kinda thing happens to everybody I guess. I can't count the number of
times I've had to take a floppy drive back out of the case because I'd
forgotten to check which was pin-1. Even now I have trouble trusting
keying where it exists.

I once spent a coupla hours on a system I was building from bits around the
office - after a half-hour of screwing and connecting, damned thing
wouldn't start... no sign of powering up at all... zilch. I knew all the
components had worked a day or so earlier so I started disconnecting things
one by one... down to the floppy and video card.... which still did not
make it work. Of course I "knew" that a reversed floppy cable should cause
the access light to come on solid so that couldn't possibly be the
probem... but it was. Was I angry at myself!!

Wait until Florida is all cleaned up. I hear excavation work is getting
expensive. ;-)

Yep and I hear insurance in FL is going through the umm, roof.

Priorities. I took over another room (my son moved out, complete with
its own bathroom (that's broke). Space has never been a biggie for me.
OTOH, uninhabited horizontal spaces have always been. Junk accumulates to
fit the space given.

My space problem is mainly desktop/shelves - I have a nice piece of
furniture we got after our 1st PC and the monitor sits in a shelf which is
part of shelving which sits on top of the desk. I like the arrangement but
it is constraining on monitor size/placement.

Anyway, after wading through the LCD swamp, I came to the conclusion that
there's a lot of cheap crap out there - stuff made for the gamer market
which has the fast response "numbers" that gamers crave but which
sacrifices off-axis image... some of it very badly. Some of those, even
from reputable mfrs, will show brightness & color shifts just off center
axis and even at moderately off-axis seem to go to what looks like a color
negative image.

Usenet & Forums are full of misinfo based on fudged numbers in the specs of
LCD monitors... how a 12ns response is "much better" than a 16ns response
and how 25ns is no use for gaming.< The result is that, especially the
17" sector, is full of displays using TN (twisted nematic ?) panels which
are subject to the above artifacts. Many of them are also using 18-bit
engines which only do 256K colors and use dithering to get to 16.2M
colors... instead of 24-bit engines which give a true 16.7M colors.

The bottom line is that, although prices have come down all round, the
biggest price drop is in that low-end sector and a good LCD display is
still pretty pricey. I decided to splurge and ordered a Samsung 173P - I'm
not prepared to suffer with an imperfect monitor.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[George Macdonald]

Usenet & Forums are full of misinfo based on fudged numbers in the specs of
LCD monitors... how a 12ns response is "much better" than a 16ns response
and how 25ns is no use for gaming.< The result is that, especially the
17" sector, is full of displays using TN (twisted nematic ?) panels which
are subject to the above artifacts. Many of them are also using 18-bit
engines which only do 256K colors and use dithering to get to 16.2M
colors... instead of 24-bit engines which give a true 16.7M colors.

Sorry but the above response times should obviously have been in
milliseconds.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[keith]

That kinda thing happens to everybody I guess. I can't count the number of
times I've had to take a floppy drive back out of the case because I'd
forgotten to check which was pin-1. Even now I have trouble trusting
keying where it exists.

The floppy power cable was supposed to be fool-proof. The keying is done
by the PCB on the bottom edge. Well, it ain't damned-fool proof! ;-)

Data cables are a whole 'nother kettle. No one can agree on how they
should be keyed. Though it seems that the 80-conductor ATA cables have
finally gotten it right.

I once spent a coupla hours on a system I was building from bits around
the office - after a half-hour of screwing and connecting, damned thing
wouldn't start... no sign of powering up at all... zilch. I knew all
the components had worked a day or so earlier so I started disconnecting
things one by one... down to the floppy and video card.... which still
did not make it work. Of course I "knew" that a reversed floppy cable
should cause the access light to come on solid so that couldn't possibly
be the probem... but it was. Was I angry at myself!!

I would have known *exactly* the same thing. ...rather like the time I
couldn't get a systeem to power-on. The fans would run a quarter-turn
and then notin'. The fool 120/230 switch on the back came set wrong from
the factory. I had to go to lunch and come back fresh to find that silly
problem.

Yep and I hear insurance in FL is going through the umm, roof.

A friend of an acquaintence left with his partner in a dump-truck to spend
a *year* down there carting stuff off. Apparently he has a contract with
an insurance company for more money than they could make here. Capitalism
at work. ...and a grand thing it is!

I have limited space so a 17" is about the max I can go and even some

My space problem is mainly desktop/shelves - I have a nice piece of
furniture we got after our 1st PC and the monitor sits in a shelf which
is part of shelving which sits on top of the desk. I like the
arrangement but it is constraining on monitor size/placement.

Ah! That's the excuse I use to avoid buying an HDTV. ...but we just
bought that furnature a few yeasrs ago. ;-)

Anyway, after wading through the LCD swamp, I came to the conclusion
that there's a lot of cheap crap out there - stuff made for the gamer
market which has the fast response "numbers" that gamers crave but which
sacrifices off-axis image... some of it very badly. Some of those, even
from reputable mfrs, will show brightness & color shifts just off center
axis and even at moderately off-axis seem to go to what looks like a
color negative image.

I thought all LCDs had this problem. I certainly see the negative=image
if I view my THinkPad's image off-axis (enough). I assumed that this was
an artifact of the LCD twist/polorization. I can't imagine LCDs for such
use anyway. OTOH, they're *excellent* for CAD apppplications, as long as
they gots all dots.

Usenet & Forums are full of misinfo based on fudged numbers in the specs
of LCD monitors... how a 12ns response is "much better" than a 16ns
response and how 25ns is no use for gaming.< The result is that,
especially the 17" sector, is full of displays using TN (twisted nematic
?) panels which are subject to the above artifacts. Many of them are
also using 18-bit engines which only do 256K colors and use dithering to
get to 16.2M colors... instead of 24-bit engines which give a true 16.7M
colors.

Are the screens really good enough to see the difference? What's the
color tracking across the screen? Do graphics/pre-press people use LCDs?

The bottom line is that, although prices have come down all round, the
biggest price drop is in that low-end sector and a good LCD display is
still pretty pricey. I decided to splurge and ordered a Samsung 173P -
I'm not prepared to suffer with an imperfect monitor.

I'm willing to suffer with CRTs, for some time. A colleague has a couple
of 19" (I think) LCDs on his desk. I'd kinda like such a setup, but my
21" CRTs are nice, even though one is dualed with a 15" LCD. If I could
squeze somead to buy my own KVM switch to swap to the laptop.