As I mentioned last month, my desktop computer at home bit the dust. Most of the components in that system heralded from the late twenty-oughts, making them beyond time to be replaced. I have since replaced all the old stuff with new stuff, and I'm impressed (though not surprised) at how far computer hardware has come since my last upgrade.

I finally upgraded my computer case, going with a Fractal Design Meshify 2 Compact model. This case is so incredibly quiet! Even under load, you can barely hear the fans spinning. In fact, this system is now quieter than the laptop I use for work, which is itself fairly silent. Another nice feature of this case is the cable routing options. Cable routing has clearly been given a lot of attention over the past decade or two; it's now very easy to keep your case neat and tidy.

The other major upgrade I made was in the power supply department, opting for a Corsair RMx Series (2021) 750W unit. Interestingly, the fan on this unit doesn't ever turn on at idle; only when it's under load does it spin up. The modular design also makes it easy to use only what cables you need, again keeping things neat and tidy.

I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to Windows 11 with this build, and I've been pleased so far with the upgrade. As is usual with Windows, there are a number of quirks and annoyances, but that's always been the case. Some of the applications I use, specifically those built with the .NET framework (e.g. KeePass), now start instantly. It's nice to see that some effort has been put into little stuff like that.

All in all I'm pleased so far with the upgrade. I've had an intermittent lockup occur a couple of times, and I'm trying to track that down, but otherwise it's been incredibly smooth sailing.

The December round of updates from Microsoft has toasted my desktop computer. For some reason, the system enters a blue screen loop of death on boot. I've been able to restore to a previous system restore point, but now Chrome, Brave, and other applications don't work. I may try reinstalling Windows from scratch to see if I can limp along a little more, but it looks as though it's time for new hardware.

My current motherboard, CPU, memory, and primary SSD were all purchased in August of 2014; over 8 years ago! The graphics card I'm using is nearly 6 years old (purchased in January 2017). I'm not sure how old my power supply and case are; they're old enough that I can't find emails stating when I bought them. The case particularly needs to be replaced; it's fairly noisy (though, back in the day, it was a stellar case).

Upgrading computer hardware is generally a headache (there are too many options to wade through!), but the end result is worth the effort.

I had a general idea about how optical mice work, but I didn't know the specifics. This nicely animated video gives a short, high-level overview of exactly what's happening. It's remarkably well produced.

Three months ago, I gave a quick review of the Logitech M585 Wireless Mouse. In the past couple of weeks, I've started having trouble with this mouse, so I can no longer recommend it. When my laptop first starts up, the mouse has trouble staying connected (I connect via their Unifying USB receiver). The connection drops out repeatedly causing the mouse to stutter. I tried switching to Bluetooth connectivity mode, but that experience was even worse! The lag when operating over Bluetooth was comically bad.

This connection issue persists for the first 10 minutes or so of my laptop usage. After that, things magically start working again. Rebooting doesn't seem to trigger the problem, interestingly enough. It only seems to appear on a cold boot.

To top matters off, I've already had a battery die on me with this mouse, and I've only owned it for about 7 months. The second battery I installed is also nearly dead, according to the Logitech software. I could go for a couple of years on a single battery using my previous Logitech mouse, so this is a real disappointment. Many Logitech mouse models have poor reviews at Amazon, indicating to me that they've clearly dropped the ball on their quality control.

I've ordered a Kensington wired mouse to replace this one, figuring that going back to a wired model will obviate these types of problems. Hopefully a different brand will provide me with an improved experience. I'll report back once I've received the new mouse (it should be here this weekend) and put it through its paces.

Since late 2017, I've used the Logictech M705 Marathon wireless mouse at work. I loved everything about this mouse. It had great battery life, even when only using 1 AA battery (it supports two batteries for even longer life, at the expense of extra weight). The weight of the mouse with one battery was terrific; not too light and not too heavy. To top it all off, it had great extended button placement at my thumb, allowing me to quickly browse back and forward in my web browser with a quick click.

This past December, however, I started noting phantom double clicks when single clicking, a problem that quickly got annoying. Searching around the internet informed me that this is a common problem with Logitech mice, and is a sign that the physical switch under the left mouse button is failing. I immediately headed to Amazon to pick up another M705 when I discovered a ton of negative recent reviews. Apparently, Logitech has actually changed that product, dropping some features and cheapening the body, while keeping the same model number (how can any company rationalize doing this, by the way?).

Persuaded to stay away from the newer model, I opted instead for the Logitech M585. Having had this new mouse for a few months now, I'm fairly pleased. The mouse is smaller physically, and not as sculpted as the M705, which is a minor drawback to me (the M705 had a real nice feel in the hand). However, this new one still fits my hand well. Pointing accuracy is dead on. The 585 supports moving between multiple machines, but it requires external software (on both systems), and that was enough of a barrier that I didn't bother.

Time will tell if the mouse holds up to daily driving, but so far so good.

Has anyone here run into sound corruption problems in Windows 7? I'm having occasional audio problems with my current system, and I'm wondering whether my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS is to blame (it's an ancient card). All I need is another hardware failure...

Having recently replaced my graphics card, I was surprised to learn that the latest generation of cards requires not one, but two PCI-E power connections (with recommended power ratings of 20A on the +12V rail). Seeing as graphics cards have gotten larger (they now take up the width of 2 or more PCI slots) and more power hungry, I got thinking about their future. Several questions came to mind:

• In 5 or 10 years, will graphics cards require their own dedicated power supply?
• Will computer manufacturers forgo the PCI-E format for some sort of on-board socket, similar to the CPU?
• If not, how will card size factor in to motherboard and case design?

It seems to me, especially seeing as how some graphics cards have cooling units larger than the card itself, that the PCI-E form factor for GPUs can't last for many more years. Perhaps smaller-scale, multiple cores will prevent them from growing even larger than they are today. It's interesting to think about the various possibilities.

I found an old video card around my house last night, so I swapped my current one out for it. I was able to boot my system, but upon entering Windows, I still see graphical trash. That indicates to me that the motherboard is most likely to blame.

After doing a little bit of hardware research last night, it appears that my CPU is still among the best, so I doubt I'll replace that after all. And seeing as my graphics card might not actually be to blame, I'll probably hang on to it as well (it, too, is still fairly decent). The motherboard definitely needs to be replaced, and I'm thinking about going to DDR3 memory instead of DDR2 (though if I stayed with DDR2 I could get by with just purchasing a new motherboard).

So, long story short, the situation doesn't appear to be as dire as I had initially thought. It still bites that I have to deal with this though. Why can't technology just work?

My desktop computer at home has been giving me some occasional graphical problems ever since I updated to Windows 7. I have the latest and greatest drivers for my graphics card, but every so often I get graphical trash on screen that, usually, corrects itself. Tonight, it seems to have died for good. I can't get the system to boot reliably, even after trying to reseat the card. To add to my woes, I've also been having the occasional "double-beep" at startup, indicating that I have a memory problem. This has been an issue ever since I switched to the abit motherboard I'm currently using.

Anyways, I'm going to bite the bullet and buy a bunch of new hardware to fix all of this. New motherboard, CPU, memory, graphics card; the whole shebang.

If you have recommendations as to what to buy these days, I'd sure appreciate it. I'll be putting in some orders ASAP, so the sooner you can recommend something, the better.

Exactly five years ago today, I bought a used NEC 22" monitor for my personal computer at home. It has served me well for that time, but I've seen it act up a time or two recently. Seeing as LCD technology has progressed much over the past few 5 years, I feel like it's finally time to bite the bullet and join the mainstream. As such, I'm starting the hunt for a new display. Here's what I want:

• Real Estate: I run 1600 x 1200 at home, and I'd like to stay in that neighborhood
• Fast Response Times: The display would primarily be used for gaming, so fast response times are a requirement.
• Vibrant Colors: Some LCD displays have pretty weak white-balance; I want something with nice color reproduction, since I'll also be doing occasional photo editing.

Does anyone here have any recommendations on brands or where to start looking? Is there a model or manufacturer you've been happy with? Any ideas would be appreciated!

My dad has just posted some details on how he's reducing the humidity under his house. It's a pretty cool solution that utilizes 'SmartVents' (essentially a vent with some muffin fans and the appropriate sensors). Head on over to the article to get the full details.

In my recent post on analyzing bandwidth usage, I promised an update once February was done. Seeing as it's now March, it's time for said update. Here's the graph of my bandwidth usage for the month of February:

I didn't break the 40 GB barrier, but I wasn't far from it this month at 37 GB. The highest daily total was 3304 MB on February 2, though several other days came close to that total. This is the first month that I haven't noticed any interesting trends, but it's still enjoyable to chart my activity. As I predicted, my daily average seems higher this month, thanks to my Roku player and Netflix Watch Instantly. If I break the barrier in March, I'll be sure to let everyone know. It appears Time Warner has done their homework on their proposed upper limit...

Time Warner Cable recently announced that it will be bringing bandwidth caps to more cities, after apparent success in their trial area of Beaumont, Texas. The upper bound on the cap is 40 GB, considerably lower than the 250 GB cap used by Comcast. Go over that amount, and TWC will charge you extra overage fees. I'm completely against this. If caps come to our area, I will seriously consider ditching TWC for some other means of internet access (perhaps the recently mentioned WISP network). Note to Verizon: start rolling out your FiOS service to the Triangle area; I will happily subscribe!

Anyways, while chatting with my dad about these caps, we got wondering about what our bandwidth usage rates really are. I recalled that my router (the oh-so-wonderful Linksys WRT54GL), which I flashed with the open-source DD-WRT firmware, supports bandwidth monitoring (beginning in v24). Happily, I flashed v24-SP1 right before I moved into my new house, so the data has been collecting ever since that time. There are some very interesting trends in the graphs, so let's take a look at them:

I moved in on September 30, so October of last year is the first month I had data for. As you can see, I transferred just under 31 GB for the entire month. Though it's not as apparent on this graph, the peak daily value was 4204 MB. One interesting trend in this graph is that you can see how busy I was with unpacking my stuff at the beginning of the month. As the month went on, I was online more and more.

The graph for November is a little misleading. Note that the units on the y-axis are on a different scale. This is thanks to the largest daily transfer (a clear outlier): 7223 MB on November 15. I purchased a game on Steam that day, which accounts for the majority of that bandwidth. Overall, this month was pretty light, though you can see that I was home at the end of the month (for the Thanksgiving holiday). November's bandwidth total was just over 30 GB.

I was home for over half of December, thanks to all the vacation I failed to take throughout 2008. As such, my daily bandwidth average was much higher, with a monthly total of 34.6 GB. I was out of town from the 27th to the 31st, which explains the lull in that period. The largest daily total was 4780 MB, on December 15.

January's graph is very interesting. Again, take note that the y-axis values are different. Can you identify the day I received my Roku player? It's pretty clear that January 17th is the beginning of a new trend of bandwidth. I've been watching a bunch of stuff on Netflix watch instantly, which accounts for the daily spike in activity. The monthly total for January was 31.6 GB, with the largest daily peak of 2428 MB occurring on January 31.

All in all, these graphs are pretty interesting to analyze. Watching my bandwidth usage over the next few months should be an educational experience. Surprisingly, I have yet to break the theoretical 40 GB limit. However, I have not yet had my Roku player for a whole calendar month. After February has come to a close, I will post an update on my bandwidth usage. That should give me a better clue as to what my 'real' bandwidth totals will be going forward, seeing as I watch Netflix content more than I watch broadcast TV.

Do you track your bandwidth? If so, share your findings!

Last week, I rebuilt my computer again (making this the third machine I've run on since this site opened up). Here's the list of what I upgraded in the system:

ABit IP35 Pro Motherboard

A great motherboard with passive coolers on the MCH, ICH, and PWM component areas. A very handy digital readout is available on the board to troubleshoot boot-up issues (no more beep codes), and the overall layout is excellent. However, I have a few minor problems with the board. The SATA connectors are angled at 90 degrees, making it very difficult to attach the cables from my drives. I'm currently using SATA ports 5 and 6, because ports 1 through 4 are physically inaccessible. Also, my wireless network card wasn't happy with the board, and I had to switch back to my old one, which has lousy reception. I'm going to fix this problem in a novel way; stay tuned for further details.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale CPU @ 3.0 GHz

After much thought, I decided to go back to an Intel CPU (after using an AMD X2 4400+ for a while). The Intel chips are just faster right now, and they use less power, allowing them to run a little cooler. I had a difficult time getting the stock heat sink to snap into the mounting holes on the motherboard, causing the motherboard to bend around the CPU socket (which concerns me). I'll probably spring for an after-market cooler at some point to remedy this situation.

2 GB of Geil DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) SDRAM

I've never used the Geil brand of memory before, but Anandtech recommended it on their last holiday buying guide, so I picked some up. The chips run at a default 5-5-5-15 timing, but they support 4-4-4-12. I made one attempt at overclocking the chips, but Windows wouldn't boot, so I reverted back to the defaults. Changes in the default memory voltage is probably warranted here, which is something I failed to do on my first try. The copper-orange heat spreaders are very sexy.

BFG Tech GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) 512 MB

The 8800 GTS-512 line of graphics cards is based on the new nVidia G92 chipset (using a 65nm die). It's notably faster than the 8800 GT, which is the card I had my eye on for a long time. The 8800 GTS has a larger cooler that's not as loud, and it's a beast of a graphics card. This is the first card I've had that takes up two slots on the motherboard, leaving me with only 2 out of the 3 available PCI slots. It runs a little warm (70 degrees Celsius at load), but I'm willing to live with that for now.

Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W Power Supply

I was concerned that my old 500 W power supply wouldn't have the juice required for this new build, so I bought this highly recommended Corsair model. It's modular, which allows me to use as few cables as I need, and it's incredibly quiet.

2 Seagate Barracuda SATA 250 GB Hard Drives

These Seagate drives are a little faster than my old ones, they're 90 GB larger, and they have double the cache (16 MB).

I have been test driving this new setup with a few games. Call of Duty 4 looks amazing in high resolution with all the eye candy turned on, and it has elevated my opinion of the game. The Crysis demo ran great at 1280 x 1024 at the 'High' graphics setting, and I may be able to push it a little farther (I've ordered the full game, by the way; I'm very excited). Team Fortress 2 is thrilling at 1600 x 1200, and even Half-Life 2, which will be four years old later this year, looks great running at 1600 x 1200 with 4x FSAA. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 should be equally as nice.

A couple of guys have figured out a way to hack the Nintendo Wii, opening the door for better home-brew software for the platform. The way they figured this stuff out is pretty cool, and it should be interesting to see what kind of new software is developed now that the "Keys to the Kingdom" are available.

My dad and I both agree that it seems to be in Nintendo's best interest to open up their hardware. Why they don't do it, however, is beyond what we can figure. Maybe they're scared of the game publishers having to compete against "open source" (i.e. free) games? It seems to me that having lots of great third-party, home-brewed software could only help your platform in the long run. Not to mention that it would open up the hardware to great uses as assistive devices (which would be great for kids with disabilities).

Valve recently posted the results to their hardware survey. There are many interesting things that can be gleaned from the data:

• At least 54% of users have broadband connections
• 39% have 2GB or more of memory
• 55% have Intel processors versus 45% with AMD
• nVidia graphics cards are much more popular that ATI cards
• 1280 x 960 is the most common primary display resolution
• Embedded audio chips are more popular that stand-alone cards (I found this particularly interesting)
• 84% of users are still using Windows XP

Lots more interesting data is available, so be sure to check it out if you're into that kind of thing. The results of another survey were also recently released. Statistics for Half-Life 2: Episode 2 are available for viewing. I particularly enjoyed the overhead maps that show where players die most often. I've got to believe that the developers at Valve think this kind of data is pure gold.

I bought a Linksys WRT54GL today, to replace our aging DLink DI-624 (it had been acting pretty flaky as of late). The Linksys router supports open-source firmware, and our first course of action was to flash the highly recommended DD-WRT distribution. I have to say that I am very impressed with this firmware. There are lots of options available and it reports lots of interesting information.

Setting up the router wasn't difficult, but my dad and I ran into problems getting our IBM laptops connected wirelessly. All of our other machines were able to connect without any problems, so it was clearly a problem with either the ThinkVantage Access Connections application or the IBM wireless adapter. We spent quite a while trying to get things working, and finally found the issue. We had originally set the Wireless Network Mode option in the router basic setup to "G-Only" mode since we intended to use 802.11g only around our house. But for whatever reason, the IBM laptops didn't like that. Switching the option back to "Mixed Mode" cleared up the problem immediately, much to our delight. Hopefully this little tidbit will help out someone else facing the same problem.

I've noted over the past few weeks that my computer at home has picked up a vibration. Every so often, it gets to be so bad that the case actually rattles. The only possible cause is one of the many cooling fans, and I'm guessing that my Zalman VGA cooler is the culprit (though I'm not completely certain). When I installed the Zalman, I opted not to use the variable fan speed control, choosing instead to run the fan at full speed all the time. What's odd is that my last video card, which also ran with a Zalman cooler, didn't have this issue. Perhaps this second cooler isn't as well balanced? Should I install the fan speed control to throttle down the fan speed? Or could it be another fan altogether? Whatever it is, I've certainly got to spend some time troubleshooting the issue; it's driving me crazy!

Update: It looks like the Zalman cooler is not the culprit (score another point for Zalman!). I installed the FanMate speed controller, turned the speed all the way down, and the vibration was still present. I'm now suspecting my stock CPU cooler (the one that came with my AMD processor). Also, when I was inside the computer, I noted that the case's side panel supports were bent out ever so slightly, so I bent them back. Now the vibration has turned into a constant hum! Perhaps it's time for a new case?

An article posted yesterday at Slashdot mentioned a new way to break 104-bit (aka 128-bit) WEP keys in less than 1 minute. What's more, this new method requires capturing less than 10% of the packets required by the previous best method. This kind of discovery should hopefully help people move to more secure schemes, like WPA.

My family and I still use WEP around our house, but we're thinking about changing to WPA instead. One benefit of where we live is that our neighbors houses are fairly far away from ours. So, if anyone is using our access point, they are likely to be sitting out in our front yard, something we are likely to notice pretty quickly.

The new networking card that I ordered came in yesterday, and I installed it last night. I now get excellent signal strength in my room, compared to the 'poor' rating I was seeing before. Hopefully the slow down issues I've been seeing will disappear as a result. My computer boots way faster now, which seems encouraging (boot time had slowed to a crawl, and I correctly suspected that the wireless card was to blame).