Now the last thing on my list of crap to replace in my PC is the video card. At this point I’ve updated everything except the video card. I’ve been saving up for an ATI HD 5870 to replace my ancient ATI HD 3870.

And now this HD 4870 falls into my lap. It’s more than twice as fast as the HD 3870. Fate must be playing tricks on me again.

First thing’s first! I removed the fugly Diamond Multimedia sticker covering the stock ATI sticker of awesomeness +2. You know, maybe it was just the sticker that was causing the card to prevent a POST.

Anyhow, I tossed it in my computer at this point and … it booted. I was fairly surprised. It lasted about 60 seconds and then the monitors went black and the card’s fan spun up to a deafening 100%. Oh well, too good to be true?

Well, I’m persistent. In removing the card from my system, I noted that the card was awfully hot after just over a minute of being powered on. “Maybe,” I thought, “it’s just overheating.”

So I ripped (gently and carefully unscrewed) the HSF from the card and inspected all the points of contact. Everything seemed in order, except an awfully huge glob of thermal grease between the GPU and its portion of the heat sink. I removed the glob, cleaned both the chip and the heat sink with rubbing alcohol, and applied a very thin layer of Whatever The Hell™ thermal grease I had on hand. Once I had reassembled and mounted the card’s HSF, I tossed it back in my computer.

It worked!

Perfectly, in fact. I ran it through half an hour of FurMark just to be certain that it wasn’t going to overheat. I applauded myself and went on living my life in peace.

Until the next day.

At the generic Windows 7 desktop I began experiencing graphical corruption and hard lockups accompanied by that deafening 100% fan speed again. “Maybe it doesn’t like running at its idle clock speed” I guessed. So I ran a windowed 3D application in the background which kept the video card running at its 3D clocks of 750MHz GPU, 900MHz memory.

No luck. Card still futzed up the screens, blacked out, then deafened me with its fan.

At a loss for what to do, and unable to simply shrug and discard something more than twice as fast what I previously used, I decided that my only hope was to cook the card.

After reading a good deal into the science behind the procedure, I found a post on teh hardforum where several folks before me had successfully resurrected dead video cards complete with maniacal laughter. There was even a possibility that the undead cards wouldn’t have an insatiable desire to consume the flesh of the living.

The technical term for this procedure is “reflowing.” It involves heating the card to the point where the solder (partially) liquefies and then allowing the solder to cool and re-solidify, potentially repairing severed or compromised joints. This method has been used to repair Microsoft Xbox 360s and various video cards. Though it’s advised to only perform this procedure with the right tools (an actual reflowing oven or a heat gun), that simply isn’t an option for most people looking to save some money by repairing it themselves.

So I followed the procedure as documented by user “Haste266” with a few minor changes.

1. I used a toaster oven. They can heat up more quickly.
2. I preheated oven to 300°F.
3. I cooked the card for 3 minutes at 300°F.
4. Then, I ramped up to 425°F for 2 minutes.
5. I shut off the oven and let the card cool for 10 minutes.

I also took precautions to properly vent the area while I was conducting this mad science.

Result? I once again have a fully functional HD 4870 1GB. A friend has informed me that the fix might only last a month, but that’s a full month of not gaming on the sad HD 3870.

It took 2½ hours to install because, while very pretty and functional enough for my needs (WHS internal/external backup drive), the entire docking frame was very, very  poorly assembled and insufficiently documented.

I had to take it completely apart, take off the spring-loaded docking mechanism, apply some grease to the metal on metal plates which are expected to slide, and then properly attach the little door that springs closed when the mobile rack is not docked.  I also had to use some electrical tape at the rear to insulate an area where the rubber cable's shielding was slightly exposed. Internally, it plugs directly into one of the unused USB headers on your motherboard. The internal cable is split into four parts:

1. Data(-)
2. Data(+)
3. SH GND (Shield Ground)
4. MOLEX (For +5v and GND)

Because the manual is complete trash when it comes to installing the docking frame, here’s the pins you’ll be using on the motherboard header.

 
Connect Data(-) to USB -, Data(+) to USB +, and SH GND to NC. Then plug in the MOLEX power connector to your power supply.

However horrible the assembly and instructions, I am 100% satisfied in my purchase because I only had to deal with it once. The enclosure/dock works flawlessly once installed and I would recommend this product to anyone looking for an attractive and functional internal/external 2.5” HDD dock for backup purposes or otherwise.

Price at time of review: $56.97 from Newegg.com.

Also, they seemed hesitant to answer any questions on the LANParty Division's status when a reporter from Bit-Tech visited their offices in Taiwan.

DFI's LANParty division brought us a number of products aimed at the PC ethusiast including the bizzare hybrid LGA 775 + ION dual system on one ATX board (complete with integrated gigabit ethernet switch connecting the two systems' independent gigabit NICs into a single port).

There’s still a small tangle in the bottom left of the first picture, but by the time I finished with the rest of the cords I didn’t have enough cleaning powah remaining to attack it.

Source: The Wall Street Journal: A Guilt-Free Hamburger

“Want to know more about Windows Home Server Vail? The all-new version of WHS v2 has just hit the preview stage and We Got Served is loving it! You can find a huge preview of all of Vail’s new features here in our Vail Preview Deep Dives, as well as walkthroughs, top tips and a couple of hidden secrets revealed along the way! Over at WGS Forums, thousands of experts and enthusiasts are sharing their thoughts on Vail – why not join them?”

Update: Executive Summary of New Features

• Based on Windows Server 2008 R2, 64-bit CPUs required
• Significantly improved console (now “dashboard”) and remote website UI
• Remote website customizable out-of-the-box
• Remote website compatible with mobile devices
• Remote website can stream and transcode music and video on the fly
• Homegroups
• Server can back up its operating system files and client back ups
• Client restore OS can easily be written to CD, DVD, or USB

Source: We Got Served – WHS Vail Preview

Holy crap. You mean Apple users might start appreciating the downside to having so many different app developers? Welcome to having a popular software platform.

Source: Yahoo! News

Well, after about a month of going back and forth between cheap giant TN panels and prohibitively expensive professional IPS panels, I finally decided on HP’s new ZR24w.

First off, I needed a monitor with DisplayPort. I’m one of those types who prepares for all sorts of eventualities, and triple (or more!) monitor gaming via ATI’s Eyefinity technology seems like a lot of fun. I might never get the money to make it a reality, but I like to leave the option open. Sure, I could get by with one of those DisplayPort to DVI adapters, but after reading so many horror stories about which active dongles exhibit flickering and which don’t and some only flicker if you use them on a bus-powered USB hub, and some passive DisplayPort to single link DVI work perfectly fine for 1920x1200@60Hz while others completely refuse, etc.. I decided that I’d just save myself the headache and get a monitor with a native DisplayPort input.

Second, I wanted a panel that wouldn’t look horrible in portrait orientation. If I ever decided to get three of these monitors I don’t think I have the desk real estate to arrange three of them in landscape. This ruled out the plethora of cheaper TN panels, which have universally horrible viewing angles on their vertical axis.

Third, I wanted something with a larger than a .255 dot pitch. Don’t get me wrong, my old Samsung 204B is a very nice monitor, but I tend to sit about 2½ feet away and reading any significant amount of text at Window 7’s native 96 dpi was a trial in eye strain. I tried using 120 dpi scaling, and it helped for the most part, but some applications just didn’t scale properly and some UI elements were either hidden or unattractively wrapped.

These three desires left me with only a handful of displays to choose from. And once I shot down the options based on price, the new HP ZR24w was the only one left standing.

So here it is:

(Notice: shortly after taking these pictures, Arthur flew into a frenzy of dusting.)

It doesn't have a native HDMI port on the back, but a DVI to HDMI adapter will fix this straight away. It supports both HDCP and DPCP, so it has both the annoyingly necessary digital content protections covered. I was initially surprised by the actual aluminum strip framing the entire monitor. At first, I thought it was merely decorative; turns out, the strip used for heat dispersion and gets warm to the touch after several hours.

The integrated generic USB 2.0 hub is powered and doesn't require an additional power cord. The on-screen display menu (OSD) has a shit ton of options. It even lets me turn off the blue-red power-standby LED on the front bezel.

Performance-wise, I have noticed no ghosting typically associated with IPS / PVA(MVA) panels while gaming. The Women's PVA panel suffers from slight ghosting and serves to exacerbate her motion sickness. The HP ZR24w also makes my TN-based Samsung 204B (which used to look better than average) look drab and washed out. According to a friend with a similar HP monitor, his Pantone huey Pro color calibrator reported that the ZR22w panel is 98.5% accurate out of the box. (I haven’t kidnapped him and his fancy color calibrator for testing on this particular display.)

While this display is not intended for professional color accuracy (those tend to start around $800), it's fantastic for those who dabble in graphic design and photo editing from time to time, or just can't justify spending $800+ on a professional IPS display.

I’m very pleased with the HP ZR24w and I highly recommend it for others with tastes similar to mine.

HP ZR24w @ Amazon.com

Yahoo! News – Skype to unveil group video chat function

“Four months after buying Lala Media's popular online music service for a reported $80 million, Apple is pulling the plug on the 5-year-old site.”

Los Angeles Times - “Apple kills Lala music service”