Month: April 2008

Getting Vista to go to sleep

I noted my troubles with the Intel GMA drivers, the Intel DG33TL motherboard, and Vista SP1 blue screen crashing in my earlier post.

Since I was running the 15.8 version of the Intel GMA drivers, and Microsoft KB948343 indicates that, based on the driver version numbers, these newer drivers should not be affected by SP1, yet the crash details were clearly the same, and no new driver was forthcoming to correct the blue screen crash, I decided to take the GMA drivers out of the picture.

I am currently using an ATI HD 26000 XT card in my HTPC, and this is a great card. I looked for the same model, the one I was using is from VisionTek, but I found a Sapphire brand card for significantly less. I am actually happier with the Sapphire compared with the VisionTek, the VisionTek fan was really loud, and since I was using it in my HTPC, I ended up buying a Zalman VF900-Cu replacement fan for the VisionTek card. The Sapphire card has no problem with a noisy fan.

I installed the ATI card, installed the drivers, and put the machine to sleep. This is where the GMA drivers would normally crash. This time there was no crash, but the machine also immediately woke up again, I could not get it to stay in sleep mode.

At this point I had had enough of the DG33TL board; it had given me more trouble than I was willing to put up with and I wanted a replacement board. Since I already had the machine open, while replacing the VGA card, I wanted a new board now, which meant instead of ordering online and waiting a few days I had to take a trip to my local Fry’s.

I knew my in store choices would be limited, so I did some research and selected a few models from Asus, Gigabyte, and Intel, with the primary requirement being ICH9 support so that I would not lose the RAID-0 configuration of my drives, and the motherboard swap would not require an OS reinstall. My first choice would have been a Gigabyte GA-G33-DS3R, unfortunately, as I suspected, it turns out that of all the options I was hoping for the only board that came close was an Intel DQ35JO.

Of the three boards on the shelf, all of them had been returns and were resealed, so this was even more of a risk, but they were marked down a few dollars so that did make me feel better, and I could always return the board.

The DQ35JO is very similar to the DG33TL. The DQ35JO is from the Executive series, and the DG33TL is from the Media series. The DQ35JO has no multichannel audio, but does have TPM and AMT. The component layouts are almost identical.

I replaced the board, powered on, the POST screen came up and then nothing. On reading the Intel support documents they recommended a BIOS reset. I removed the battery, waited a few minutes, replaced the battery and rebooted. This time the POST completed, and I could boot. I assume that since the board had been used, and I just replaced the memory and CPU, that this may have caused the initial boot failure. Before booting into Vista I first booted to my DOS bootable USB key and updated the BIOS to the latest version, then reset the BIOS configuration to defaults, and again made all the required changes, most importantly to restore the RAID drive configuration.

I booted into Vista Ultimate x64, waited a few minutes for the new drivers to load, and eventually the keyboard started working and I could login. The ATI control center application complained that there was no ATI driver installed, so I reinstalled the ATI driver, rebooted, and this time everything seemed fine. Not quite, Windows told me the hardware had changed and I had to reactivate. Activating over the internet failed, and I had to activate over the phone, that worked. I also noticed that Windows Update wasn’t working, the KB article for the error code told me to check the PC time. Since I had reset the BIOS without resetting the time, the time was off by years, on correcting the time WU started working again.

Now for the ultimate test, can the machine go to sleep? I press the sleep button and the machine sleeps, I touch the keyboard and the machine wakes up. I leave the machine idle for an hour, it goes to sleep, I touch the keyboard and the machine wakes up. Success!

There is one thing that is still not 100%, and this seems to be a problem on both the DG33TL and the DQ35JO; the case power light is not always on. E.g. after removing mains power and powering on the case power light will be on and stay on until the first sleep, and then the power light will turn off, and even resuming from sleep or rebooting will not turn the light back on.

Maybe I should have been more patient and ordered the Gigabyte GA-G33-DS3R instead, but for now I am happy.

Installing Vista SP1 with an OEM key

I received my new Lenovo ThinkPad T61 notebook, pre-installed with Vista Ultimate, but also with 3rd party software I did not care for.

I wanted a clean Vista install, and that is exactly why I made sure to order the recovery media with the notebook, thinking that this will include an OS install DVD. It turns out that the recovery media is six CDs, I don’t know why not a DVD, regardless, the recovery media does not include a Vista install DVD.

I called Lenovo support asking how to obtain a Vista DVD that will accept the OEM key, and was told that Vista install DVDs are not available, and that I should use the recovery CDs or the recovery partition.

I decided to give the recovery partition a try; boot, press F11, select restore, do a custom restore, unselect all the 3rd party software, start the install process.

The machine rebooted several times, eventually returning to the same state as when I first booted. There was no 3rd party software on the system, only the Lenovo ThinkPad software was installed.

This was much better than the out of the box version, but still not as clean as I’d like it to be.

I did some research and found several articles explaining elaborate procedures on how to install Vista using a normal Vista DVD and an OEM key.

Since I had read that Vista SP1 had made some licensing changes, I decided to experiment using a Vista x86 with instegrated SP1 DVD I downloaded from MSDN.

I was not sure if I would need the actual key used on my system, as explained by the article, which is different to the key on the OEM sticker, so to be safe I used Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder to make a note of my current key. This key was indeed different than the key on the OEM sticker.

I booted from the Vista with integrated SP1 DVD, formatted the partition, it was interesting that the 6GB recovery partition does not show up in Vista, I did not enter a key, and started the installation.

After the installation completed I changed the product key using the key I had previously retrieved from the system. After a few seconds Windows reported that there was a problem with the key.

This is when I noticed something interesting, the activation window appearance changed, and the temporary key that was displayed changed to indicate xxx-OEM-xxx. It seems that Windows automatically switched to OEM mode.

Next I tried the key on the sticker, and after a few seconds Windows was activated.

I was intrigued by the automatic mode change, but I did not want to repeat the whole procedure just to find out if I could have used the OEM key in the first place.

If you try this procedure using Vista with integrated SP1, be sure to first try the key on the OEM sticker, you may not need the initial key retrieval step at all.

Intel DG33TL motherboard

This article was originally posted here.

Introduction:

After my bad experience with the Abit F-I90HD motherboards, read about it
here, I purchased two Intel DG33TL motherboards.

Although these boards do not have HDMI onboard, they do have HDCP compliant DVI,
and by adding an ADD2 HDMI board you get HDMI and audio over HDMI.

The Good:

  • Onboard HDCP compliant DVI.

  • Intel ADD2 HDMI card support.

  • Vista installed very fast and with no problems.

  • The driver DVD that came with the board installs all devices that is not
    installed by Vista.

    It even lets you set your username and password and will automatically
    reboot and continue the installation after every driver.

The Bad:

  • The DVD installs the 5.x version audio driver, works fine, yet the Intel
    website lists the latest driver as 6.x.

    However the 6.x driver fails to install, reporting that the hardware is not
    supported.

    Intel support says the 6.x driver installed fine on their test system, and
    they recommended I wait for a new driver to be released, or I exchange the
    boards.

    I find it hard to believe Intel support, and I believe the website is
    incorrectly listing the 6.x driver as compatible with this board.

  • Intel Desktop Utilities sporadically reports 0.000V warning messages,
    and lists one source for a voltage reading as unknown.

    Intel support told me that Desktop Utilities is not supported on the 3x
    series boards, yet the DVD that came with the board installs Desktop
    Utilities, and the Desktop Utilities download page lists support for the 3x
    series boards.

    After pointing this out to Intel support, they recommended I reinstall the
    BIOS and the Desktop Utilities, made no difference.

    A new 0262 version BIOS was released that lists some corrections with the
    Media Engine, but this made no difference.

    Waiting for Intel support to respond, or for a new version of Desktop
    Utilities.

  • I purchased the

    Prolink PV-CH7315     ADD2 card, but connecting the HDMI does indicate that
    there is a HDMI signal, but no picture on the television.

    The Intel GMA control application does list three outputs, monitor,
    television, and digital television, only monitor / VGA works.

  • The Intel 15.7.3 and 15.8 igdkmd32.sys and igdkmd64.sys GMA drivers and Vista SP1 are incompatible,
    the machine blue screen crashes when going to sleep.

    I tested this with Vista Ultimate x86 being upgraded to SP1, and a clean
    install of Vista Ultimate x64 with integrated SP1.

    I notified Microsoft of the issue during the Vista SP1 Beta, was told Intel
    would fix it before SP1 ships, yet the problem still exists even after SP1
    shipped and after the 15.8 GMA drivers shipped. The issue now appears to be
    documented in
    this KB
    article    .

The Outcome:

  • I have been contacted by several readers that experience similar issues,
    I urge you to contact Intel support and notify Intel of the problems.

  • After several exchanges with Intel support I am still waiting for a new
    version of Desktop Utilities to solve the 0.000V alerts.

  • Intel removed the 6.x audio driver from the download site, and updated
    the 5.x driver, seems the 6.x driver was not supposed to be on the site.

  • I have not been able to get HDMI working with the Prolink card.

  • Waiting for new GMA drivers that do not bluescreen with Vista SP1, the
    issue is now documented in
    this KB
    article    .

Links:

Microsoft Expression Media / iView Media Pro to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom converter

This article was originally posted here.

Introduction:

Because of severe performance problems I experienced with both iView Media Pro and Microsoft Expression Media, I decided to switch to Adobe Lightroom.

Unfortunately Lightroom does not understand catalog sets nor does it understand people tags, so the transition is not that simple.

After I could not find a simple, or even complicated solution, I decided to write my own conversion application.

This application will convert hierarchical catalog sets into keywords, and will add people tags to keywords.

I considered directly converting to Lightroom’s native SQLite database format, but the reverse engineering effort did not seem justified.

Disclaimer:

I am providing this utility and the source code as is, no warranties are provided, use at your own risk.

Backup all your data, validate the conversion results, do not discard your backups.

Source:

I wrote the utility in C++ using Visual Studio 2005 SP1.

I tested on Vista Ultimate x86.

I tested with Microsoft Expression Media 1.0.8104.0, and iView Media Pro 3.1.3.42E6.

The code utilizes the COM API’s exposed by Expression Media and Media Pro.

Unfortunately neither application’s COM API’s work reliably, I can only hope that the quality of future versions will improve.

See the source code comments for problems I encountered.

Usage:

  1. Download the archive and extract the contents to your folder of choice.

    The archive contains the source, and two binaries, one for Expression Media
    and one for Media Pro.

    The binaries are compiled to use either the Expression Media or the Media Pro COM type libraries.

  2. Run Expression Media or Media Pro, and open the catalog you want to convert.

    Make sure that only one catalog is open.

    Make sure you have a backup of your catalog and of all your media files.

  3. Open a command prompt and change the directory to where you extracted the files.

    Run: ExpressionMediaExport.exe [Full path to the catalog file you opened in
    Expression Media or Media Pro enclosed in double quotes]

    E.g. [ExpressionMediaExport.exe “c:\media\catalog.ivc”]

    The utility will convert catalog sets to keywords, and will convert people to
    keywords.

    You can close the command prompt.

  4. The catalog sets will be converted so that each catalog node is a keyword and
    the keywords are assigned to all items in that catalog.

    E.g. if you have “Travel” and “Travel\Someplace”, the keywords will be
    “{Root}{Travel}”, and {Root}{Travel}{Someplace}”.

  5. People are added to keywords.

    E.g. if you have “John Doe” as a person tag, then “John Doe” will be added to
    keywords.

  6. Sync the updated information to the media files.

    In Expression Media or Media Pro [Edit][Select All], [Action Sync
    Annotations][Export annotations to original files].

  7. Import the images into Adobe Lightroom.

    Use the category keywords to create new collections.

    Select all images containing a category keyword e.g. “{Root}{Travel}”, create a
    new collection called “Travel”, and add all selected images to the collection, do
    the same for child collections.

Known Problems:

  • If you are using Expression Media, you first have to fix the COM registration
    that is not correctly set during installation.

    On Vista [Start][All Programs][Accessories][right click the Command Prompt icon
    and select Run as administrator].

    On XP [Start][Programs][Accessories][Command Prompt]

    Change directory to the Expression Media folder: [cd “C:\Program
    Files\Microsoft Expression\Media 1.0″]

    Register the Expression Media COM interfaces: [media.exe /regserver]

    You can close the command prompt.

  • If you encounter failures writing keywords to media items, try adding
    keywords to all items that fail using the main application.
  • If you get an error “Active catalog does not match requested catalog”, it means the catalog you specified on the commandline did not match the default catalog. The problem is that the Open() API always fails, and I have to use the Attach() API to connect the active catalog, and for integrity reasons I make sure the catalog on the commandline is the same as the active catalog that will be modified.

  • Complain to Microsoft that the COM API’s are not fully functional.

Download:

Version 1.0.1.1: ExpressionMediaExport.1.0.1.1.zip

  • Added people to keyword export.

Version 1.0.0.2: ExpressionMediaExport.1.0.0.2.zip

  • First release.

Links:

Abit F-I90HD motherboard

This article was originally posted here.

Introduction:

I was very excited to find the Abit F-I90HD motherboard for use in my HTPC,
primarily because it had an onboard HDMI connector.

I purchased two boards, but I ended up returning them both because of problems.

Instead I purchased two Intel DG33TL boards, read about that experience
here.

The Good:

  • Onboard HDMI with 7.1 digital audio over HDMI.

    At least on paper, I never got to test it.

The Bad:

  • No ability to pick a boot device at POST time.

    Whenever I want to boot from my USB key, or CD, or external drive, I had to
    edit the BIOS settings then reboot.

  • BIOS screen will hang on the monitor hardware page if any fans are
    connected to the AUX fan connectors.

    Abit support told me the fans draw too much power, but the board is rated as
    6W max per fan and my Antec fans only draw 2.8W.

    I connected the fans directly to the PSU for power, and only connected the
    fan speed monitor wires to the motherboard, BIOS still hangs.

    I had to disconnect the fan speed wires.

  • The Vista install takes a very long time.

    When the Vista install enters the last phase of the installation, right
    before entering graphic mode, the Vista install just hangs.

    Some users on the Abit user forum recommended that I edit the BIOS and
    increase the voltage for the Crucial Ballistix memory, made no difference.

The Outcome:

  • I returned the boards.

Links:

Antec Veris Fusion Black HTPC case

This article was originally posted here.

Introduction:

I purchased an Antec Fusion Black case to replace my aging HTPC.

The case looks very nice, until you turn on the LCD display…

The Good:

  • The case looks very nice.

  • The construction is solid.

The Bad:

  • The two included case fans do not have speed monitoring wires, I had to
    purchase new fans.

    For such an expensive case this is rather disappointing.

  • There are two fans on the side of the case, both set to extract hot air,
    but hard drives are located in an area with no direct ventilation.

    There is ample ventilation holes around the drives, but it remains to be
    seen if the drives will overheat or not.

  • The LCD display used on the case is an OEM version of the iMON from
    SoundGraph.

    The Antec provided software has far fewer functions compared to the software
    provided by SoundGraph, unfortunately the SoundGraph software does not work with Antec
    LCD.

  • The LCD turns on bright blue when power is applied to the case.

    The LCD only turns off after the LCD software is installed, and the setting
    enabled to turn the LCD off.

    I really expected the opposite, LCD remains off until turned on by
    controlling software.

  • The LCD contrast is very poor, and the viewing angle is severely limit.

    From pictures I expected to see a blue display on a black background, but
    instead I see dark blue on light blue, it literally looks like the backlight
    is way too bright.

    The LCD details are not visible from angles other than almost right in front
    of the display.

    The plastic panel covering the LCD is highly reflective and any light
    sources obscure the display contents.

    The Antec LCD looks like a cheap joke compared to the excellent quality of
    the LCD of my Yamaha RX-V2700 receiver.

    Low contrast setting (text is visible):


    LCD Contrast Low

    Medium contrast setting (text is partially visible):


    LCD Contrast Medium

    High contrast setting (you can’t see the text at all):


    LCD Contrast High

  • Antec support sent me pictures of a similar LCD in a test system, they
    do not have the actual case, and it looks marginally better than mine, but
    still very poor.

    Low contrast:


    LCD Antec Contrast Low

    Medium contrast:


    LCD Antec Contrast Medium

    High contrast:


    LCD Antec Contrast High

    Picture from SoundGraph website for iMON OEM LCD (very different to the
    Antec version):


    LCD SoundGraph iMon OEM

  • The LCD started flickering, I tried rebooting, removing power from the
    LCD, does not stop.

    It does seem that while the PC boots the display does not flicker, but the
    moment the iMON software starts the flickering starts.

    Here is a movie of the flickering in DivX AVI format
    (4.27MB).

  • I returned the LCD module to Antec under RMA, they were unable to
    reproduce the flicker problem, but they did send me a replacement LCD
    module.

    I installed the new LCD module, and the new module does not suffer
    from the flickering problem.

    As for the quality of the new LCD module, the
    text is now readable at the medium contrast setting, but not nearly as good as the picture from the iMON website.


    Replacement LCD Module

  • The remote only starts working once you have logged in, you can not use
    the remote prior to logging in. I am now forced to use a mouse or keyboard
    to log in.

    The original eHome Media Center external IR receiver works just fine without
    being logged in, this allows me to boot the machine, and select an account
    and log in using only the navigation buttons on the remote.

  • The LCD would occasionally hang with strange characters or elements on
    the display. Once this happens you ave to unplug the case and reboot.

    This problem is being discussed in

    this     thread on the SoundGraph forum.

The Outcome:

  • Several readers emailed me and also complained about the quality of the
    LCD display, and the lack of features vs. the retail iMon, I urge anybody
    that is not satisfied to contact Antec and raise your concerns.

  • Due to the poor LCD image quality and various other issues I do not recommend this case.

Links:

Philips digital photo frame

This article was originally posted here.

Introduction:

I have been looking for a digital photo frame for a while, and from what I
read the Philips Photo Frame
models appear to have very good image quality and good features.

I bought a Philips 9″ wood border model 9FF2CWO.

The Good:

  • The frame looks very nice.

  • The image quality is really very good.

  • The frame’s built in software is very extensive and easy to use.

  • The frame directly displays pictures from cameras or pictures copied to
    to memory cards, no special settings required, no image resizing required.

The Bad:

  • The battery only lasts for about an hour, I see no point in having a
    battery at all if it only lasts an hour, better make the device cheaper and
    lighter without a battery.

  • The included CD launches a very nice looking flash based autorun
    application, from there you can read the manual or install the Photo Manager
    software.

    Unfortunately the launcher software does not work on Vista, clicking the
    links to the documentation or the Photo Manager installation does nothing.

    On exiting the application Vista notifies you that the application is not
    Vista compatible and that it will run the application in compatibility mode
    next time.

    On launching the autorun application again the links now work.

  • When you connect the frame’s USB connecter to the PC, several new
    removable drives are mounted.

    The one drive is the internal frame memory, the other drives are for the
    removable media slots in the frame.

    When I clicked on the drive letter associated with the SD card, Windows said
    the drive needs to be formatted, the Photo Manager software was also unable
    to access the SD card, yet the frame itself can display pictures from the SD
    card.

    Philips tech support confirmed that the card, 2GB Kingston Ultimate, was on
    the compatibility list, but they did say that there are some compatibility
    problems with larger sized memory cards, and they recommended I use a
    smaller memory card.

    I tried a 1GB PNY SD card, again the frame displayed images fine,
    and this time the SD card was accessible in Windows and in the Photo Frame
    software.

  • The Photo Manager software (picture) leaves much to be desired.

    The software is slow, but maybe this is because accessing the frame storage
    is slow.

    It took me a while to figure out how to transfer pictures, no simple
    intuitive copy or transfer, you have to drag and drop them, and you can only
    transfer pictures, not folders.

  • When I tried to delete a photo I got this error “Disk has no enough free
    space. There should be 20% free space at least”, what can I say, dumb error,
    poor English.

    Philips tech support recommended I delete the pictures using the frame
    software, or to delete the pictures directly using Windows Explorer.

    Error

  • The version of Photo Manager (1.0.1.6) I received on the CD and the
    firmware (9.01.38) in my frame was both later versions than the versions
    listed on the Philips support website.

The Outcome:

  • Because the picture quality is so good, I am willing to avoid the Photo Manager software,
    and using the USB connection directly manipulate the pictures on the SD
    card.

  • I can only hope that Philips will replace the Photo Manger software with
    something usable.

Links: