I’m currently writing this on my laptop as I am updating my main machine with Windows updates after a rebuild. I had to do this after a bizarre issue occurred involving my Antivirus/Firewall software. I found that if I disabled it (a requirement for streaming to Media Center on the Xbox) my internet performance went out the window. I tried a few different things but none of them worked.

Anyway, after rebuilding my PC I did what you normally do: grab the latest updates and the graphics card drivers. This went according to plan, but after rebooting I was presented with a black screen, yup, nothing but black. The monitor was definitely on because I got no signal errors, Windows had loaded because I could hear the startup chime. WTF was going on? I loaded the thing into Safe Mode and checked out Google only to be presented with thousands of results of the black screen of death, all of which related to a Windows update issue that popped up in November 2009.

I tried several different things, I uninstalled the video drivers, tried the previous version, nope. Uninstalled the updates, nope. And then it suddenly hit me – disconnect the HDMI connection from my graphics card. I rebooted the machine, did it work? YES!

… the bloody thing had only gone and selected my TV as the default monitor…

And to think I was throwing my TV controller up in the air and catching it while thinking about the potential driver issue. It’s official, this user is a tool.

Whenever I do web design bits and bobs I always check to see how how the site looks in various browsers. Firefox is my browser of choice and the new version of this blog looks fine, however it does look a bit dodgy in Internet Explorer 8 and this is even under compatibility view.

I will not be messing around making sure this site displays correctly in Internet Explorer, web standards have changed quite a bit in the last decade and it’s about time Microsoft caught up. If you’re viewing this site in Internet Explorer, I would suggest you switch to one of the following browsers:

Mozilla Firefox
Google Chrome
Opera
Safari

I’ve just had dinner. Yes… at 3:15 in the morning I’ve finally had dinner!

See, what happened was at around 7pm this evening I thought I’d try and watch the Inglourious Basterds Bluray I bought at Tesco today but PowerDVD had other ideas. After three quarters of an hour try to mess with the bastard thing (and trying alternatives) I admitted defeat and retired to bed while watching Robot Chicken on DVD. The only problem with this was I was out cold for the next 6-7 hours and now I’m wide awake.

I’ve already been looking into this but I am definitely in the market for a dedicated Bluray player now. I can’t put up with PowerDVD’s crap.

I reinstated the old router and now my latency readings look normal. There’s still the odd spike here and there but it’s not bad enough to affect audio playback and doesn’t occur on every webpage.

If you encounter similar problems the checker can be downloaded from here.

Over the last few days when using itunes there will be some severe crackling occurring in the audio whenever I load a webpage. At first I thought it was an issue with the soundcard driver so I uninstalled the drivers and re-installed them to see how it went. At first it seemed ok, but the crackle eventually made it’s way back.

(more…)

Check it out, this if the first webpage I have come across where its’ had a problem with me having the Adblock Firefox plugin installed. Screenshot below:

At first I thought “hmm, I’ll disable it once just for this page” but no it continued to have a hissy fit about Adblock being installed. It was at this point where I decided that the website could go and fuck itself. I am not being dictated to by some twerp on the Internet about what software I have installed on my PC. And to be honest, if this happens again, I’ll go elsewhere for what I’m looking for.

The page was probably packed with enough ads to kill my PC anyway.

This entry is more for my own reference, but by all means keep reading if you’re interested…

I developed a problem on Windows 7 where I was being prevented from right-clicking on pinned items on the taskbar, this further extended to selecting certain options in the start menu and applications such as Photoshop. Another symptom of this was the top bar of the window flickering, like a key was being held down on the keyboard. I did the following to try and remedy this:

- Rebooted (natch)
- Checked all keys on the keyboard, even unplugged the keyboard – the problem still persisted.
- Created a new account to see if the problem continued, it did.
- Restored my PC back to 24th December before this issue occurred.

After reading around and finding nothing I tried something else and it worked.

NOTE TO SELF: UNPLUG THE GOD DAMN MEMORY STICK WHEN I’M FINISHED.

gorilla_shark

The new motherboard came yesterday so I spent early Tuesday evening stripping down my PC and reinstalling stuff and IT WORKS! With no problems at all. The bonus was my case speaker came too so it makes a nice satisfying beep each time I boot. ^_^

The new motherboard is the current top of the range Asus model – the Crosshair Formula III. I haven’t played with all of the features yet but it came with a SupremeFX X-Fi soundcard (using Creative’s technology) a lot of flashy lights and overclock profiles for AMD Phenom II X4 955 processors in BIOS. I’ve read that the profile’s can push the 955 upto 3.6Ghz from its stock 3.2Ghz speed, could be interesting to play with.

I just managed to find the data cable to my Sony Walkman. The thing has been AWOL for the last year! Now I can finally update my music selection for on the go! ^_^ Too bad Sony’s software will absolutely kill my backup PC, 2 Gigs of RAM is not nearly enough!

Oh, and I’ve ordered a new motherboard. Going to be tinkering with my PC on Tuesday night.

I’ve got more money in my bank account than I was first expecting so I’m going to put my plan for getting the PC up and running into action sooner than originally intended. Later on today I’m going to buy a new Motherboard, a 500GB harddrive (can get these for around £35-ish) and a system speaker (!). The latter is because my case didn’t come with one, if I had one I may probably could’ve diagnosed the exact problem sooner!

Anyway once I’ve got the above bits, I’m going to install them and check to see how it all runs. The reason for the new drive is so I don’t have to keep swapping drives between my new and old PC. I’m also going to be using my spare monitor and a different keyboard and mouse to minimise the effort. If all goes to plan the new Motherboard should work like a charm and everything will be better, if not I may need to buy a new CPU (my model and the next one up have dropped in price by £20 since I originally bought it) and at the very worse case scenario I may need a new Graphics Card. Either way I intend on getting my money back as these components should hold up a hell of a lot longer than two months.

… if the CPU is cooked, I’m not sure if I can get my money back for that one, can I?