Eve's new toys August 28, 2008
Posted by a1291762 in : eve , add a commentSince I’m going to be away for fathers day, I was given an early present. It’s a new battery for Eve (my MacBook Pro). The old battery was so dead it got maybe 15 minutes. Now I’m back to over 3 hours of battery life. Nice.
I’ve also been playing with my phones. A Nokia E90 (from work) that’s got 3G connectivity and my trusty Treo 650 that only does EDGE. I’ve now got both phones setup to do BT DUN so I can get on the internet when I’m out and about. Not that I’m likely to ever actually do that but hey, it never hurts to be prepared.
Reload June 23, 2008
Posted by a1291762 in : eve , add a commentSo… I wanted to increase my Windows partition by 5GB to fit a game. I saved the original partition to the old backup disk using WinClone. Then I realised my main drive was too fragmented to let me allocate another 5GB to Windows. I then copied everything from the internal hard disk to the backup disk. Then 2 things went wrong.
First, I managed to completely lose the Windows filesystem. At the same time that I re-partitioned the disk, the WinClone image just vanished.
Second, I had installed a new version of rsync (in an effort to get syncing going with the NAS backup disk) and it silently ignored the -E switch, totally screwing up my Mac OS X install (yes, I know resource forks are legacy but I’ve got some important apps that still rely on them).
So I’ve had to rebuild my Windows install from scratch. Luckily I don’t really have anything installed on there (just whatever games I’m playing at the moment). I noticed something though. A feature found in Boot Camp 1.2 has been missing in every version since. When I do “Advanced Properties” on the video card I get a series of ATI tabs in addition to the standard tabs. If you don’t install the Boot Camp 1.2 drivers first you don’t get this. I think you can get a similar effect by installing a full Catalyst driver but at least one of the things I use, PowerPlay, does not seem to be mentioned in the Catalyst driver I found. So I’ve built my Windows install up by installing Boot Camp 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and then the 2.0 drivers. I probably could have gone from 1.2 to 2.0 but who knows what else has come and gone in the mean time…
My Mac system is missing some bits but all the important stuff is back now. The biggest problems were Palm Desktop (which makes extensive use of resource forks, even for data files) and AppleWorks. I seem to have thrown out the AppleWorks CD. Luckily the internet keeps things like this around so I’ve got it back too. I’ve also got Mac Office 2004 (got it for Bree and it comes with 3 licenses so I’ve got it installed) and NeoOffice. Mac Office was a joke. I installed it off the CD then I had to download and run, one at a time, 20-odd updaters. Hey Microsoft, how about a combo updater or at least letting the update tool run the available updates one after the other without intervention?
The thing that bums me the most about all this? I lost my savegame for FEAR. I’m not sure how far I was but it’s enough that it’s annoying to have to do it again.
Restoring Windows November 22, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : eve , add a commentMy previous backups of Windows were all done with dd. The problem with this is that you need to restore to a partition of exactly the right size. Since my hard disk is a different size, both Disk Utility and Boot Camp Assistant are creating a partition the wrong size. I tried using diskutil directly to create an accurately-sized partition but after restoring Windows I ended up with a system that wouldn’t boot.
After a bit of searching for a way out I found Winclone. I used it to copy the files off my restored partition, created the partition with Boot Camp Assistant and then restored with Winclone and the result was a system that booted. Yay.
I’m not sure if I can use it for backups but it’s not every day that you get a new hard disk.
Eve's got a new hard disk November 20, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : eve , add a commentMy hard disk arrived today.
The longest part was copying the instructional video to my DV camcorder (I was originally going to use Bree’s laptop to watch the video on but the disk didn’t arrive on Friday like I’d hoped so Bree was home).
The actual job was easy. I haven’t done much laptop work at all but I’ve done a heap of desktop building. Laptop work is the same only more cramped and with smaller screws. I used the notes here and the instructional video from OWC (link doesn’t work properly, you’ll have to click “Hard Disk” then scroll down to MacBook Pro).
The first thing I noticed when booting up is that the new hard disk seems to have a louder “idle” noise than the old disk. It’s not unpleasant though, like the sound of air moving rather than a whine. Given the rarity of using the machine in a really quiet environment and Fan Speed ramping up my fans aggressively once the machine is over 50 degrees, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.
The restore is still going. Interestingly, the backup disk is having a really hard time of this. I think I might do a clean backup once I’m done (clear the disk and then backup) since it’s pretty clearly suffering the effects of file fragmentation.
Eve's hard disk dies November 14, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : eve , add a commentThe bad sectors have caught up with me again. My disk, once dying then apparently ok has developed bad sectors again. I’ve lost half a dozen files from my home directory. I’m not even going to try rescuing my system (my last backup will do). This time the bad sectors are all over the disk, not just in the Windows partition. As far as I’m concerned this disk can no longer be trusted (I’m sure the self test program will once again report no errors but my data is worth more than some stupid program’s report).
So I’ve ordered a replacement drive, a 160GB Seagate ST9160821AS. It might just be coincidence but every non-Seagate drive I’ve ever owned was loud compared to all of the Seagate drives I’ve had. I’m kind of bummed that the 250GB Seagate that I’ve heard rumors about isn’t around. I would have preferred the extra space but then 160GB is a step up from the 100GB I’ve got now (which I haven’t really managed to grow out of yet).
This comes at an inopportune time. I was about to get a Treo 650 (more on that later) so that will have to wait now. I was never really interested in getting the same size to replace the disk simply because I am getting close to growing out of 100GB (I did briefly overload the drive holding some temporary DV footage, that stuff is HUGE). The disk is costing me $1 per GB. I could have paid $300 for the same thing. It makes me sad to think that people will pay such ridiculous prices for things.
Apple killed my battery! October 31, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : eve , add a commentHoly crap!
I installed Apple’s Battery Update 1.3 when it came out (a month ago) and since then I’ve noticed my battery life wasn’t so good.
How bad is it? I’m at 49% capacity. I was able to play games for 3 hours before the update but I can’t do that any more!
It seems I’m not the only one either.
According to Apple this kind of problem should have shown up with the 1.2 update but it didn’t. I’m left with a significant decrease in my battery’s capacity and I’m under 300 charge cycles (299 but that’s still technically under 300).
I’ll call the Apple shop to see if there’s anything they can do. I’m out of warranty which isn’t a good start but then the damn thing was working just fine a month ago.
I’ve seen reports that PRAM/SMC resetting can help so I’ve done those. I’ll try doing a calibration run and I’ll take the machine into work (where it’s cold all day) to make sure it’s not some reaction to summer setting in. The machine doesn’t go above 50 degrees much which is the same as what I saw over winter though that’s a CPU temp and the case was always very cold in winter.
Update 1 November 2007
I took my machine in to work today. I charged it up until it was fully charged then took it off in preparation for discharging. After a while I looked at it and it showed 74% capacity. WTF?
Update 2 November 2007
So my capacity has gone from 74% then it went down to %67 and it’s now up again at %71. I don’t remember my capacity jumping around like this before. The thing is, if I get the local Apple shop to check out the battery and it’s not faulty, it’ll cost me $99. An official Apple battery costs only $199 new and a FastMac battery (that claims a bigger capacity and a longer useful life) is $100 from the US (which probably means about $120 total since the exchange rates are so good right now. I think I’ll just put up with the battery for a while and then get the FastMac battery to replace my current one once it gets too annoying. I didn’t get the machine for its battery life but for its portability and while using a cable is more of a pain it’s still better than dragging around a desktop machine.
… and now it’s up to 82% capacity! If only it would stay this high when charging I wouldn’t have a problem.
My hard disk is dying… August 24, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : eve , add a commentYikes!
I went to play a game last night (Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight) and it hung. That’s odd… it worked before. Perhaps it’s the new Boot Camp drivers… What’s this? The event log says I’ve got disk errors!
Quick, do a backup before it’s too late! Luckily the data on the Mac partition (about 90GB) seems to have backed up without issues. However the Windows partition (last 10GB of the disk) has bad sectors.
I ran ddrecover all day and it got most of the data off. It missed about 4MB of data which was over a thousand errors. I’m currently zeroing out the disk to try and make it usable again (the theory being that writing zeroes to the disk forces the firmware to remap bad sectors for good ones). In any case though, I’m going to have to get a new disk since the number of errors indicates the disk will begin to fail rapidly. Based on inspection of my last backup log it seems the problem has been around for some time now (stupid home-made backup script missed the error message from dd) so since Jedi Knight used to work (ater the last backup) it’s clearly already getting worse.
The trick now is that the machine is out of warranty but it seems the disk itself may not be out of warranty (ie. disk manufacturer’s warranty). That could be fun to sort out…
Update 24 August 2007
A service guy at my local Apple retailer told me that they can’t do anything about my hard disk and that I’d probably need to send the hard disk to the manufacturer (Seagate) but he wasn’t even sure that would work because the drive was most likely purchased by Apple in a country other than Australia. On top of all that, I’d need to pay for someone to take the disk in/out of my machine or do it myself.
So I’m looking at the cost of a new disk (I found a Seagate Momentus 160GB for $149) plus labour (about $60 an hour) or I can skimp on the labour and do it myself but I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, even though there’s no warranty to void.
I’m currently using my internal disk again after running on the backup disk today. I zeroed out the disk and sure enough it now has no problems reading the Windows partition. I’ve restored everything back to it but I haven’t actually checked on the health of Windows just yet. Annoyingly I was not able to exactly re-create the size of the Windows partition. It’s a little bit bigger than the image I stuck on it but Mac OS X sees the filesystem ok so hopefully it won’t be a problem.
VMWare Boot Camp April 17, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : computers, eve, mythtv , add a commentI finally bit the bullet, ignored the unsettling warning dialog and booted my Boot Camp partition on VMWare today. So far, all seems well. I did notice that VMWare is emulating the RTC in “local time” which of course breaks the time sync feature (since Windows is expecting it to be in UTC). Sigh. At least I can get the NTP client I setup to connect over VMWare’s NAT without any hassles.
So what (I hear you ask) prompted me to finally do this? I’m preparing to build a MythTV box. I was chatting to someone who’s got one and it turns out that I already have most of the hardware I’ll need. In some cases, older hardware works better (eg. more PCI slots on older motherboards). So I’m going to use Asteria as the base with the Radeon 8500 card that’s currently in Luksusdyret. Of course, I didn’t bother to save the original 8500 BIOS before I flashed the Mac one on there (I never thought I’d need that card in a PC again) so I’ve been scouring the web to find a suitable 8500 BIOS. It turns out that nobody wants to intentionally flash a 250/250 (slow) BIOS to their cards :) Luckily I found what appears to be a good BIOS and an BIOS editor that let me set it to PAL 250/250. So with Boot Camp running in a window, I can get files between Windows and Mac really easily and prepare stuff for the flash. All I need to do now is grab Asteria, put in a PCI card (I think I’ve still got one of those) and flash away.
Of course that doesn’t quite get me a working system. That gets me a TV capable output card and a box to hold everything but I’m going to need some TV capture cards and a big hard disk. It looks like TV capture cards can be found for under $100 while a 320GB disk is about $100. Best of all, this is Linux so it won’t matter that such a huge disk is being used in such an old machine. I should have enough disk space for a test build and I’ve just downloaded KnoppMyth so the only thing I need to do now is get the hardware sorted out and get a capture card. That’s less than $100 for a system that should be pretty comparable to my current PVR for basic operation (whoa!). I’m guessing another $400 will get me a system with 320GB storage and 4 tuners. When I go for that I’ll probably also spend a bit more on case/fan/psu so that the box is quiet (how much depends on just how loud it is and how much of a problem proves to be).
Nasty system error February 27, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : eve , 2commentsI just had a nasty system error. Somehow, when I rebooted the filesystem got corrupted an a singe file (something to do with 802.11x) got corrupted. However, this caused SystemUIServer to crash, leaving me with no menu bar icons (or associated functionality). It also left me without wireless connections.
Mind you, it took me an hour or so to figure out what the problem was. I tried trashing prefs, removing all sorts of things but to no avail. The biggest hint came from looking in the console output. In the system.log file it told me that SystemUIServer was crashing. The crash log showed me the file that was buggered. I restored it from my last backup and now all seems to be well.
The restart was triggered via Applescript. I have a .command file that sets the fans to full speed, sets the machine to boot into Windows on the next boot and then uses Applescript to tell the system to restart. I previously had it call reboot but that doesn’t let GUI apps shutdown cleanly. Perhaps the Applescript call has it’s own problems?
Here’s what the error log showed…
Link (dyld) error:Library not loaded: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/EAP8021X.framework/Versions/A/EAP8021X
Referenced from: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/InternetConnect.framework/Versions/A/InternetConnect
Reason: no suitable image found. Did find:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/EAP8021X.framework/Versions/A/EAP8021X: file to short
Update 27 February 2007
It seems something got screwed up with Java too. Luckily, re-installing the latest Java installer (Release 5) fixed that problem.
A new take on an old problem January 9, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : eve , add a commentSo I’ve been using a custom-built system to deal with the excessive heat given off by Eve. It’s primitive but it works. Basically, a script polls the temp (using an older speedit version) and adjusts the minimum fan speed based on what the temp is doing. The algorithm is crap but it’s been good enough that I haven’t bothered to do anything about it.
So I was looking around today and stumbled on this forum post that discusses an alternate way to achieve the same thing. In fact, this solution looks much more like what I want. Oh wait… many pages into the discussion this idea is abandoned for SMC-based utilities, including my own fanspeed. Sigh. Why must everyone be so quick to drop good ideas for bad ones? I’ll have to look into this further, since this sort of logic tuning is exactly what I was trying to put into fanspeed.
Luckily, as a result of reading to the end, I found out that Fan Control has temperature-based speeds (using the SMC too, not speedit like fanspeed does). The algorithm seems to be less intelligent than fanspeed (no increasing the fanspeed if the temperature doesn’t come down) and it’s definitely less aggressive but the GUI is sooo much nicer and it’s GPL so I can tweak the algorithm a bit. Actually, it might be enough to just tweak the allowed ranges (so I can make the “curve” look like what I get out of fanspeed).