Category: Personal Computing Page 5 of 7

After hearing some rather worrying tell-tale sounds* coming from my PC last night – specifically, from the harddisk with the Windows operating system – I quickly made up my mind to replace it today. After all, the said harddisk is about 3 years old. Unlike all the problems I had in the past when hardware failure always occurred at the wrong time, hopefully I am doing the right thing to head off any impending problems. It goes without saying that I then spent the rest of the day reinstalling all my softwares…

While I was at it, I also splurged out on another 1GB of RAM. Since I am doing quite a bit of video and audio work, and RAM being as cheap as it is, I figured that there was no harm in having 2GB of RAM! However, it was right after settling the payment that I realised that this was indirectly saying that I wouldn’t be upgrading my PC in the near future. The current DDR RAM I am using is be pin-compatible with the latest standard of DDR2. In other words, a future upgrade will definitely mean spending extra cash for new RAM.. 🙁

*For those who have not heard this before, it sounds like a spring winding and unwinding and usually precedes a complete break in the harddisk.

After returning from the recent Machine Learning Summer School in Australia, my itching to become a Mac user has gotten even stronger*. For a start, there were many Mac Powerbook users at the Summer School (presenters and attendees alike). And, let’s face it, the Powerbooks are cool… 😉

Finally the top two reasons that had me pretty convinced:

1. Mac Powerbooks/iBooks work straight out of the box (desktop software as well as server-oriented stuff) without needing much additional software or reading complicated manuals.
2. I can continue to use many of my favourite Unix softwares under OS X.

*With the caveat that if the price is right of course.

Since it’s probably kind of obvious that I have been spending much time diagnosing and ensuring some stability in my Windows PC, I may as well mention that I have also been looking to get my hands on a cheap Mac system to play with. In fact, I was close to spending some money on a second-hand Mac Mini until the buyer backed out at the last minute. 😡

Anyway, here are some links (likely to add to as I find more) I have found useful while doing the research.

• MacInTouch: timely news and tips about the Apple Macintosh (the original Mac news and information site according to the site slogan and with lots of performance comparisons)
• Mike’s Mac OS X Management Software and Tips (at least there’s the Carbon Copy Cloner which allows you to have a complete, bootable backup of the hard drive)
• Think Secret – Apple Mac Insider News (full of advance announcements, so much so that Apple is seeking legal action for some news items! Update: unfortunately forced to shut down by Apple…)
• Low End Mac: How Much Mac Do You Need?
• Mac users group, Singapore (there’s a nice buy/sell section in the Forum but requires registration just to browse)

The problems (as I wrote here, here and here) I have been having lately with my PC at home seem to be finally over! Finger crossed…

My theory is that when I removed a faulty harddisk recently – the time when all subsequent instability issues seemed to have started – I had inadvertently left hanging a ground(ing) cable that was secured to the PC casing using the one of screws which secures the same harddisk. This naturally can lead to unexpected fluctuations in my system, or even burn out key components in the worst case. Two incidents seem to back this up. Two days ago, I tripped the power at my unit as I was merely plugging in the power cord of the PC. Secondly, I noticed quite by chance that the ground lead of the front panel Firewire port was touching the metal case. I have since unplugged the Firewire cable from the motherboard just in case. It just goes to show that when tinkering inside your PC, don’t leave anything hanging!! 😉

In fact, I have managed to run OCCT (apparently even more stressful than Prime95) overnight without crashing – although CPU temperature was raised to unusually high 52C. At the moment, I am putting the system through the rigours of Burnin Test. Another tool that I have used extensively over the past couple of weeks is the Ultimate Boot CD, mainly for checking the integrity of the harddisks. read more