HOW A SIMPLE FAN SUPERCHARGED MY GAMING EXPERINCE

February 22, 2012 Paul No comments

I use my computer for all sorts of things, from writing blogs just like this one to staying on top of my finances with spreadsheets and visiting sites to comparing Office Insurance and the like.
Recently, though, I thought I’d have a go at doing some gaming on my PC. There have been a lot of highly reviewed games released lately, and I’m not always in the mood to play on a home console, so gaming on my PC seemed like the natural choice.

I went out and purchased one of the best selling games of last year, Crysis 2. It’s a science fiction first person
shooter based in a future version of New York which is under siege by an
alien force. It’s not exactly prize winning stuff in terms of story, but it
was very well received by critics and I’d heard the graphics were gorgeous.

My first time playing Crysis2

Now, my computer – generally speaking – is pretty up-to-date, and the
graphics card in it is only around a year old. It’s an Nvidia card which
supports all the latest bells and whistles, including Direct X 11,
tessellation, soft shadows, and so on. All in all, it’s a solid card which
should be able to run pretty much anything you throw at it. Now, I’ve
reliably been informed that the Crysis series is renowned for being an
absolute dog to run – even the first game, which came out in 2007, is still
incredibly hard on PC gaming rigs – even those built yesterday! Crysis 2,
however, was also designed for consoles, and my PC is definitely faster
than those, so I thought I’d have no trouble. How wrong I was. I installed
the game (which took quite some time), fired it up, and sat back ready to
enjoy the best that modern gaming could throw at me. I let the game decide
on the best settings for me, and changed only the resolution to match my
monitor. I chose to start a new game, watched the intro, and the game
began. The only word I can use to describe it is: slide show. I was getting
15 – 20 frames per second, tops. Most games run at 60!

Desperately seeking a solution

Not best pleased, I hit the web to see how I could solve the problem. I
altered settings, changed resolutions, the works – but nothing worked. I
was about to give up when I noticed a slight electrical smell coming from
my PC tower. Intrigued, I opened it up: the heat pouring out was
phenomenal! This set me thinking: could my PC simply be overheating? I
fired up a temperature monitor called MSI Afterburner and ran the game.
After just five minutes, my PC graphics card was running at over ninety
degrees… Celsius! You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realise that
that’s way too high. This convinced me that overheating was the issue.

I headed to my local PC store and picked up a regular case fan, completely
run of the mill, and very low cost. I’d never considered that I needed
another fan so was relying on the PSU fan up until this point. I got home,
installed the fan, secured it to my case in just a few minutes, and crossed
my fingers. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure it would make a real difference;
usually getting things like this fixed can cost, big time. But I was
pleasantly surprised.

Problem solved!

Fan in place, I once again launched Crysis 2 and started a new game.The difference was like *night and day*! It was amazing. I felt like someone had switched my computer for a brand new one!

The game went from being choppy and unplayable to buttery smooth – and all it took was one cheap
fan! From the 20 fps slide show I went to a
minimum of 50 fps at all times-more than playable.

I couldn’t believe it; I’d never really considered
the effects of a poorly ventilated case, but this was a real eye-opener.

So if you’re having trouble with your PC running slowly, especially during gaming, make sure that
you check your case ventilation – it could be as
simple a fix as mine was.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the game is great.

ps…here is a quick tutorial on case ve ntilation you may want to check out.

Keep cool everyone!

posted by paul

written by I. R.

Gaming, Google, Hardware, Software, Tips, Windows a simple fix, Crysis 2, graphics, Office Insurance, Problem solved, slight electrical smell

REPAIRING A BIG SCREEN MITSUBISHI

November 16, 2011 Paul No comments

It was an interesting week at best. Our big screen Mitsubishi TV had once again failed. I walked into the living room to find the TV off and my wife siting in the dark; this seemed kinda ODD so I had to ask “How come the TV is off?”

She said “It shut itself off and I couldn’t get it back on”!

We had just watched a movie with her brother; he’d left and I was returning from the restroom; not much time had elapsed.

I tried the Remote, and then walked over and used the manual buttons.

SHE WAS RIGHT……IT WOULD NOT START!

My first thought was, OH NO……NOT THE BULB AGAIN!

This was a Big Screen PROJECTION TV and its first failure 2 years previous was due to the PROJECTION BULB . Fortunately the cost THAT time was nothing out of MY pocket as we had opted for a 4 YEAR EXTENDED WARRANTY PACKAGE at purchase time.

Then, I noticed a bright red Panel Light to the right of the TV’s manual controls. Above the light was written “BULB”. I tried starting the TV again and walked around back to see if the Projection Bulb was on; it was not….good thing we had that extended warranty.

I got out the TV’S User Manual and the Warranty paperwork to find a repair call number.

[This was somewhat of a disappointment]

We were 2 weeks beyond our extended warranty’s termination.

Oh boy!

That meant I would be paying for a new bulb, and perhaps other repairs, MYSELF!

Thinking back I recalled looking for a bulb On-Line last time and the cheapest one found was right at $200.00. THAT had almost made me happy about the extended warranty.

Now however, no friendly, PRE-PAID, Technician would be arriving at our door to fix this. It would be ME doing repairs OR a big chunk of CASH would move from my pockets to another.

An old joke ran through my head “Say mister, have you got change for a $20?” “Yes; from your hand to mine”.

All I could think was………

HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO CHANGE A LIGHT BULB?

Putting on a Headlamp I grabbed a Phillips Screwdriver; then, I unplugged the TV. Behind it, on the right side at the bottom there was a cover. Behind the cover was the Bulb. I removed a screw holding the cover and 2 screws holding the bulb housing. Next I slid the bulb assembly out of the TV.

It was not broken……..it did not rattle…..it didn’t look burnt; this bulb did not appear defective.

But, what do I know, right?

The next day at work, I showed it to an electrician. He said it looked like a type of gas bulb since there was no wire element. During break he looked in an electrical supply book thinking perhaps we could figure out how to test it if we knew what it was, but he could find nothing comparable.

That evening I got On-Line again and did a search. Fortunately, it appeared that prices had dropped. The best value I found was $67.00, including free shipping at Amazon.com; this was Wednesday night.

After that, taking the Make & Model of our TV I successfully located AND downloaded its service manual. Turns out there were a set of buttons I could hold down for 5 seconds and it would then give me an ERROR CODE sequence.

[I put the bulb back in for this this test]

Unfortunately, having already removed the bulb after it’s failure the error code was not what I had hoped. It did not say bulb failure…instead it said “Bulb not making contact, or no bulb” An error code directly after system failure should have pointed me to the bulb having failed.

[Had I known about the error codes when it happened, I could have gotten them before removing the bulb]

Was or wasn’t the Bulb bad? I really didn’t know for sure.

Still, I felt comfortable enough with the Bulb being a problem to buy another. So I placed the order Thursday night at Amazon.com.

Friday evening I looked around back, inside the TV. There were 2 fans that looked plugged with dust. In the service manual I found directions for removing the back panel, and then next the Optical Engine. Once again, I got out my Phillips…[I was already wearing the Headlamp.] After removing the panel I found many wires connecting the Optical Engine Assembly to the TV. But each one was unique so I figured it should be easy to hook them all back up correctly; no need to tag wires or take pictures.

It was not much later I stood staring at the Optical Engine where I’d set it on a table. Closer observation found a third plugged fan and a very clogged heat-sink.

I have many times cleaned out fans on various computers. The secret is to stick something in them so they don’t spin up under air power, as this COULD damage the fan.

I stepped out to the garage first and cut the Air Compressor on so that I would have the Optical Engine out in the cold the shortest time possible.

I suspected cleaning the optical lens before reassembly would be smart; I sealed the lens and Optical Eye in plastic to keep them at least as clean as they were.; I did not want them to become another worry.

There was a cover over the heat sink that housed one of the fans so I separated that from the whole assemble to facilitate cleaning.

I next carefully carried the Optical Engine assembly to the garage for cleaning. Being the heart of this TV I’d hate to think what dropping it might cost me. This would probably border on a “NEW TV” event.

I set the assembly down in the garage and grabbed a small screwdriver and the air hose. Within minutes the fans and heat sink had lost their 4 year coating of dust.

Once again inside I removed the protective plastic and carefully cleaned the lens and Optical Eye with Warm water, then dabbing the surfaces dry. After this, I wiped them with an Eyeglass Cleaning Cloth.

Next I walked back to the TV and looked into its back where the optical engine slips in. It was really dusty back there so I got out the vacuum and cleaned that too.

The actual TV electrical chassis did not appear to house any fans. It had one really big heat-sink but it was not at all clogged. I concluded there was no maintenance needed in that area.

I reinstalled the Optical engine, and hooked up all its wires. Then, the TV’s back panel was put back on.

Since the Bulb had not arrived yet I went On-Line to track its whereabouts and found it was on the way but still one state away. Delivery was guessed to be Monday by 4pm……….

IT WAS GOING TO BE A LONG WEEKEND!

So, we waited.

Saturday afternoon I dug out my old Home Network/Server Internet-Gateway PC. I thought perhaps we could use it to watch movies on our ancient 32 inch Samsung Television.

[we bought that one in 1993]

After loading Linux mint 11, I moved the PC and old Samsung together, and hooked them up.

The TV and computer did not at first create a usable video as the screen rolled and rolled……. and rolled. So, I returned to my workshop and changed its video driver. Once again I tried the 2 together and this time the video was good, but the sound was scratchy.

Installing a sound card did not help. Then I swapped the Audio inputs on the old TV: that fixed the sound, so we were set for movies and TV till the bulb arrived.

Monday, after work, there on the front porch sat a box….THE BOX, I HOPED! Carefully, I opened and examined its contents.

There I sat, old Bulb in one hand, new Bulb in the other.

Yes, this WAS the correct bulb!

I looked over at my wife and she looked at me.

“WELL,” she said….”WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR……….FIX IT!”

I certainly had nothing more important on MY mind then fixing that TV. All that was left was to reinstall the bulb and replace its cover.; and, it didn’t take very long.

Done with that I plugged the TV back into its Surge Protector Power Strip and walked directly to the TV remote, and pushed the power button.

SUCCESS!!!

Our Big Screen Mitsubishi came BLAZING back to life in all its glory.

My wife smiled…I smiled……What a relief…and, best of all, I had not needed to spend big bucks on the repair.

Years ago, my dad was trained in TV repair, back when it really took some trouble-shooting skills. He told me once that Most TV repairs now days were just a components exchange. It was cheaper to throw away and replace with new then to repair the broken parts. I can see how true that statement was.

It is the same today with PC components. Nobody repairs a modem or video card…they throw it away and just buy another.

I am glad that this repair was so easy. But I am wondering if having a new bulb on the shelf is a better choice then waiting till THE problem occurs AGAIN.

Prices went DOWN, over the past 2 years, NOT up. Still, a whole week without our TV might have been avoided.

Anyway, I can honestly say my PC REPAIR ADVENTURES made this TV’S fix an easier process. Had I not worked on all those computers I may not have braved our TV. I think all those previous experiences made me a little smarter about this one.

I guess I’ll keep repairing things, for now. Maybe if I win the lottery I might start hiring it out. I don’t know though…I really do enjoy the little victories.

Probably I’d add a little more to this article. But, its time for the SIMPSONS….and TRUST ME, they are VERY impressive on our Big Screen Mitsubishi!

I REALLY don’t want to miss THAT!

later

paul

ONCE UPON A VISTA DOWNGRADE

November 7, 2011 Paul 1 comment

When Jack brought me his Notebook, a Gateway m-1634u, it would not boot up. Pushing the power button brought it to life with lights and fans; but no Post or Graphics of any kind.

After a little Internet research I found that this Notebook came with a replaceable display “Back-light”. OK, I’d found one possible answer.

Then I noticed the Notebook sported an HDMI Port. A little more research told me that pushing alt and h4 switched from internal to external displays.

[first thing I did was try the key sequence to be sure it was not already switched to "EXTERNAL"...it wasn't]

My Big Screen Mitsubishi TV also had an HDMI port. Hooking the Notebook to the TV seemed an easy way to test it’s video output, so I hooked them up.

Unfortunately, the results were not what I had hoped for as there was still no video.

So, I unhooked the power, removed the battery, and then removed one of the Notebooks rear access plates. Underneath, inside, I found the Central Processing Unit [CPU] and the RAM. Removing, cleaning and inspecting the ram was a given. I got out my old faithful ERASURE and scrubbed the contacts like a 5th grader with a misspelled word.

After This I reinstalled the ram, reattached the power cord, put the battery back and started the Notebook up. Once again, I found the same results….no video.

After pulling power and battery, I removed only one ram stick this time and tried rebooting…..SUCCESS! I’d managed to boot the Notebook into its OEM Vista desktop!

COOL!

OK, so was there a problem with the ram? Swapping sticks should answer that.

Again, removing power and battery first, I swapped sticks and tried booting from the other stick with success.

Great, we had 2 good sticks of ram; whats next, I thought?

Well, what about the memory slots? I again removed all power, then swapped the installed stick of ram from the inner to the outer memory slot..

Suddenly, we were back to square one, almost, as it once again would not boot.

So, apparently we had a bad memory slot.

AHA!

Wait a minute…..Hmm….even though I had found a problem, I did not believe that it would be very easy to repair.

A little more research lead me to believe that pulling all ram and then booting up should give me error beeps that might shed light on this.

So, I removed all power, pulled the ram again and tried restarting, without ram, hoping for the error codes. It fired up………………BUT WITH NO BEEPS!

NOW WHAT…..why would one ram slot work but not the other. And, the BIOS should have detected NO RAM and emitted error codes at boot, but they didn’t!

Weird!

Was this a BIOS issue, or a HARDWARE problem? Contacting Gateway was pretty much out of the question as their tech support is somewhat pricey….I was on my own.

A little more searching came up with a failed ram slot being rather common in the list of typical Notebook problems.

I found that some people were of the opinion when this happens it’s time for a new Motherboard.

Others suggested often times one can find connection problems on the motherboard memory slots connections. And by re-soldering these joints the other slot may once again be used.

I even found one article about a man who actually fixed a defective Notebook ram slot problem with his guitar pick.

He had discovered that by applying pressure to the stick of ram in question while booting up, he could get the BIOS to recognize it again, thus proving there was a bad connection.

What he did was stick a guitar pick in between the ram and the ram slot. Then he closed the back of the laptop.

And it worked!

So, he left it there, returned the Laptop, and told the folks who owned it what he’d done.

[this sounded like a pretty easy way to test for a broken solder connection anyway]

I tried applying slight pressure to the ram and memory slot during boot…….with no results.

[well, it was worth a try]

That left BIOS or possibly a bad connection or SOMETHING!

Now, in my opinion, the easiest solution to this scenario would be downgrading the operating system from Vista to say….XP, and just LIVE with one “2 gig” stick of ram.

This Notebook running Vista on 2 gigs of RAM moved like a COLD DAY TURTLE where as were it running XP with 2 gigs it would probably run like, well, THE WIND.

Heck, I can remember running XP on a 350 MHz processor with 350 MB of ram, AND IT RAN WELL!

The Notebook was prime country for XP, or another Operating system like Linux Mint, Ubuntu, or Debian.

It would certainly be the easiest, and cheapest solution.

During my searching I did come across someone with the same make and model of laptop with the same problem. What they concluded was the BIOS chip was defective. They said someone told them there was a company in California that might exchange the original cheap Asian BIOS chip for one made in Texas.

This sounded really good, but, I did not find any feedback on the results of their BIOS chip replacement repairs.

IT MIGHT BE WORTH PURSUING, MAYBE…….

I tried clicking on the given link; The results were not promising; an old link perhaps, and no info about where to send a motherboard; or who to send it to. The link contained absolutely no info pertaining to my problem.

And unfortunately I did not have a good way to test and prove a BIOS chip was the problem. So my thoughts were again on backtracking to XP.

The next day, I asked Jack about installing XP and he said “I’ll let you know “. Next we discussed what would need saved from the Hard Drive should this option be our path. We concluded pretty much just the users folder labeled “Jack and Mary” would be saved.

A point of interest is that going from XP to Vista, Windows saves your files for you. But going the other way from Vista to XP….everything is totally wiped out.

Later that day I Removed all power and then after removing the Hard Drive hooked it up to a Linux Mint box through a USB port; it Mounted as OS.

I navigated to the users folders and then the folder called Jack and Mary.

/OS/users/Jack and Mary

I checked properties and there were 71 gigs of data to save, about 40 minutes worth of data transfers.; so, I started the transfer, and waited.

After that finished I checked properties again to be sure that the size and number of files were the same in both locations.

Next, I did some searches for music; Jack had mentioned music files to be saved and there were none in the “MUSIC” folder. I moved what I found elsewhere into the saved files folder.

Then I reinstalled the Hard Drive.

Still not having heard from Jack I decided it was time to call. This repair could not proceed without authorization.

Jack said “GO” so I jumped into action, wanting to finish this and get the Notebook back to its owners. An XP install does not really take very long on modern equipment. Hopefully tomorrow would see its being returned to them!

The install went fine, nothing unusual. When it finished and booted into an XP desktop I went directly to “DEVICE MANAGER” to check if all needed drivers were installed.

OH BOY……………………lots of yellow flags……audio, networking and others. I could not even get on line to let windows check for the correct drivers.

WELL, THIS IS A BUMMER!

I searched the net some but did not find any XP driver support for this notebook PERIOD! Apparently this Gateway notebook came out around the time Vista did and never was released with XP.

Well, I thought, what about Linux support. I burned a Linux Mint 11 DVD and booted up from it, or tried to as I could not get it to boot. I kept getting the same error no matter what I tried. Something about it fixed the problem and needed to reboot to continue, and we had not even reached a point where the install could begin.

THIS INSTALL WAS GOING NOWHERE

When I booted in compatibility mode it stopped at a command prompt.

My next thoughts were that POSSIBLY this problem may not be easily resolved by research.

The next day I popped a Windows 7 install disk into the DVD drive and booted from that. Surprisingly the install took less then half the time of the earlier Win XP load.

Upon rebooting, 7 seemed to run comfortably on 2 gigs so I figured I was on to something. A quick check of the Device Manager found all the drivers were already installed. I was on line via my home’s WIFI right away.

Starting Internet Explorer 8 presented an offer for an upgrade to I. E.9. I accepted and a couple minuets later we were up to speed. All that was left was moving files back to the hard drive and then returning the machine to Jack.

Before returning though I installed “AVG free” Anti-Virus, Google’s “Chrome” web browser and also Firefox web browser. Plus, Win 7 did numerous updates; now was the time as I have a fast Internet connection.

In retrospect, the results of this repair were not what I had wanted as the Notebook now had only 2 gigs of ram; I UNFORTUNATELY did not really fix the problem.

Jacks Notebook WAS running and usable but it would have been nice to have actually fixed something.

But, I was spending someone else’s money and did so with caution. Another Motherboard would have run $175.00 [ best new price I could find ]

All in all it worked out well. Sure they would have to buy a copy of win 7 upgrade for $119.99…but, they had their Notebook back, AND IT WORKED!

Its funny though, I could not find a service manual for ANY gateway laptop ANYWHERE on the web.

[top secret stuff apparently]

If I had, perhaps the broken solder joints possibility would have been investigated a little more.And, it may still happen if the other ram bay fails.

In summary……

The problem-no video on boot

Possible reasons…….

*Faulty BIOS chip

*Broken solder joints

*Other

Possible solutions……..

**Replace Motherboard………….$175.00+ [fixes problem]

**Have BIOS chip replaced…………cost unknown [may be possible, maybe fixes problem, maybe not]

**Find and repair broken solder connections on memory slots. [ could be costly, plus no service manual available, not to mention the difficulty of making that soldering repair.]

OR………

**Change Operating Systems and live with 2 gigs of ram [Win 7 Home Premium $119.99]

Unfortunately, Linux Mint would not install for some reason That would have been my choice of operating systems; plus its free. [most LINUX distributions are]

As a point of interest, my sisters Sony Vaio laptop ran Vista when she bought it home new. After several years and many MANY problems, she called and asked for help.

I installed Linux Mint 11 for her, being glad to get her away from Vista; now it runs pretty much trouble free.

Today she has no more Vista slow shut downs or Vista crashes or Vista slow boots or Vista ANYTHING!

Shortly afterwards, I got an email from her and she said “Thank you so much for what you did to my Laptop…this feels like a breath of fresh air; it runs really quick and everything is SO crisp and clear”! Mind you she is not an expert on PC’S but she did take to Linux Mint very well; one might almost say, EASILY!

Mint was my best choice for Jacks Gateway also; It could have saved them the $119.99 for Win 7 and I am sure they would have really liked it.

But, I would have stayed with XP if there had been any driver support mainly because its what they knew.

That Mint would not install however, leads me to believe this Notebook has other issues going on. Therefore, it makes sense not to spend much now, since more problems may manifest themselves later on down the road.

In other words, they will just have to use it and see.

Who knows, it may run a long long time.