It’s Back!
I like my laptop for what it does, but the big box has a processor with twice the cores and three times the speed with access to four times as much RAM. The extra 6 inches on the screen makes reading a lot easier, and the keyboard really feels good.
Of course during the time the big box was down everyone issued software updates, so it spent the day downloading and upgrading both the Linux and the Win software.
Now I have to hope that the power supply didn’t break something when it died. Only time will tell…
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Now I have to hope that the power supply didn’t break something when it died. Only time will tell…
yeah… That was the problem I had. After the occasional BSOD in Win or just hang, it took me awhile to decide the video card was the cause and get it replaced. It could have been worse. 🙂
It has been two days of ops normal, so there doesn’t seem to have been any damage. When it went, it replicated almost immediately after booting, so I’m feeling better about it.
I also took the opportunity to clean the processor heat sink, which is the only thing that had accumulated any dust.
How old is your PC? If it’s about 2 years, you should clean and replace the thermal paste on the CPU. That stuff breaks down, especially if it’s the standard cheap grey gunk. 🙂 It really needs to be done every 2 years. Of course, most PC owners (and notebook owners for that matter) don’t know until the CPU temp’s start to rise and they just die one day. I used to see a lot of notebooks that had taken out AppleCare extended warranties where the cheap grey gunk Apple used had degraded and caused inner Temps to rise. I saw a couple where the MoBo and other components were actually scorched! No wonder people complain of being burned when their aluminum case notebooks overheat. But Apple, of course, is the *most amazing computer company EVAH!* Aha. If people knew what I knew… *shrug* And of course, ignorance IS bliss (until it bites you in the ass!) 😉
I’ve long given up trying to educate and save the Sheeple from their own blind ignorance.
The thermal paste I used was neither grey nor cheap, [especially not cheap]. I bought a separate heat sink that was designed for over-clocking, which I don’t do.
I’ll reapply it when I pull the box again to add another intake fan. I want to pressure the box a little more to keep out dust. The fan on the heat sink seems to be sucking it in, so I’ll have to check the seals. The main fans rarely run, because the case doesn’t get warm and they are coming off the temp control.
“I used to see a lot of notebooks that had taken out AppleCare extended warranties where the cheap grey gunk Apple used had degraded and caused inner Temps to rise.”
I believe Apple considers that a feature, not a defect, because everybody should buy a new laptop every other year, right? :twisted:.
Actually, I do that, but only because two generations of Intel progress typically results in a vastly more powerful and less battery-consuming laptop. I don’t expect HP to make the world’s best laptops for the price they sell them, and HP lives up (down?) to my expectations. If Apple sold laptops for the price that HP sells laptops I wouldn’t get upset about them falling apart after two years either… but they do not. They sell premium priced gear for a premium.
Not that there’s a risk of me buying a laptop from Apple anyhow. Now that they’ve discontinued the “real” Macbook Pro, they don’t sell laptops anymore. They sell status symbols. I need a laptop — something big and beefy with a high speed quad core processor and tons of disk storage and the ability to change out the hard drive as my needs grow — not a status symbol.
@Badtux: You’re correct m8! Anything that forced people to buy an almost worthless extended warranty (with more loopholes than US tax law), or buy new gear is definitely a *feature* as far as Apple is concerned. Did you know that the first Intel Macbook Pro in 2006 actually has 6 major revisions the first year, with no public notification of change in model # etc? The first two were so abysmal, they should never have gotten off the production line! Failure rates were well over 60%, and those that didn’t fail were just pure dumb luck. The first two actually used cheap thermal pads! Geez! Then the third one had so much thermal gunk, that it would ooze when the system got hot and invariably cause a short (it was electrically conductive gunk)! Apple did finally issue a (very specifically written) callback when they were facing a lawsuit. It was the final straw that forced me to resign. I have some standards! 😉
The thermal paste I used was neither grey nor cheap, [especially not cheap].
Of course! I would expect no less. 😀
These days, I generally recommend either the Phobya HeGrease Extreme (8.5W/mK) for standard applications, Phobya NanoGrease Extreme (16W/mK) for medium overclocking, and Phobya Liquid Metal or Coollaboratories Liquid Ultra (38w/mK) for high OC. With Intel i7 CPU’s (in particular), it’s worth an extra drop of 4-5C to remove the IHS (metal CPU module cover) remove the cheap grey gunk Intel use and apply a good TIM (Thermal Interface Material, ie. *gunk*) to the underside (the actual CPU die has it’s own metal cover that needs to mate with the IHS cover very well to get a good thermal transfer). Note that the CPU die is generally about 1/4 the size of the IHS that’s mounted on the MoBo, and is rectangular. I found that designing the extreme OC system this year, that results will vary considerably depending on several variables. Also, almost all TIM’s have a cure time that can vary wildly from a few hours to 200 (Arctic Silver 5 – the worst)! 🙂 As for removing, the best I’ve used (especially for gunk that’s become baked on) is the Indigo Xtreme Clean XC-01. It leaves no residue, has no flashpoint, and is non-conductive. It’s much better (and safer) than the Isopropyl alcohol pad’s most people use! 🙂 One problem with many of the extreme TIM’s, is they tend to degrade faster than more conventional gunk. Coollaboratories Liquid Ultra for example should be replaced every year (roughly). That reminds me! On the topic of “How much to apply?” Less is definitely more! 😉 (As in, the less TIM, the higher it’s efficiency). I generally use a blob in the center about the size of a grain of rice and apply the heat-sink and use the “wriggle method” to spread it evenly. But this takes some practice to get it right. Phobya gives a good spreader with their TIM, or another good way to spread a thin even coat is with an old credit card, or similar stiff plastic. 🙂
(I decided to go into some detail for anyone who might be curious). 😉
Schools out! 😉 LOL
The kit for the heat sink had a processor specific template and a spreader to apply the paste that produced a square sheen in the center. The template was a plastic sheet set for the recommended depth. It was quick and easy, so the re-application will be even easier.
Yeah, everyone designs for a 24 month failure so you have to buy all new because they no longer make the same parts.
Bryan, that’s one advantage of buying server-grade parts, they tend to stay in production longer than enthusiast or consumer grade parts. My storage server is a rather long in the tooth Nehalem jobber, three generations old now. I can still get every single component that’s in that server, indeed, can even still order a complete barebones server with the same exact motherboard, and order the same exact CPU chips. Its only limitation is that it only has a 3Gb/sec SAS1 backplane so it won’t handle more than 2 terabyte hard drives. I’ll live with it. Who needs more than 18 terabytes of storage anyhow?
Kryten, nobody with any sense buys a first generation of any product because the quality issues you encountered with that Macbook Pro are no different from any other product on the market. I always wait six months or so before buying a new anything to see whether people are reporting problems or not. If they are, then I don’t buy it. Sad to say this is true of pretty much every product out there…
Sadly, you are right Badtux. The thing about Apple for me is that they pride themselves on being so much better than the rest. When I worked for them 89-90, they were. Back then, you got what you paid for, and didn’t mind paying it. Now, you pay for the brand, and nothing else.
I still have my PowerBook G4 17″ 1.67 GHz PPC CPU, 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9700 w/ 128 MB VidRAM. The last model built. The first couple of Titanium models had terrible hinge design that usually snapped. The later couple models had that fixed. 🙂 It still works, but the last OS-X that run’s on it is 10.5.8 (Leopard) as Apple dropped support for PowerPC models after that. It was given to me when I started working as Service Manager here in 2005. I never use it now. It’s heavy and the battery doesn’t last long. *shrug*
As I said on my website (About page) Bryan, I am pleased that some of the big machines my team & I designed in the late 80’s are still running. 😉 😀
Getting the first iteration of a product right is *hard* and investors aren’t willing to pay for it. Back this spring I retired some of the 1st generation of our product, that had been designed in 2003-2005. It was very reliable, but getting it reliable had taken so long that the investors pulled out and torpedoed the company (the first time). The second iteration of the company decided to put out their next generation prior to getting it reliable, and that killed sales in the marketplace and they ended up out of business anyhow. Seems you can’t win in the Silicon Valley unless you’re Apple and nobody cares about the functionality of what you put out, just that it gives them status :).
I remember the bad old days when I had to be on the ‘bleeding edge’ of technology and recycled a dumpster full of things that weren’t quite ready for prime time. Great ideas and concepts in the products, but they just wouldn’t work reliably.
Now I wait and read reviews before I move.
A lot of those products were way ahead of their time, but the developers couldn’t stay afloat long enough to get them to work properly.
Apple changed course and started concentrating on profit margins to the detriment of reliability. Cheap comes at a price in reliability, which new owners are discovering.
Cheap comes at a price in reliability
i’ve been supremely happy with my cheap cheap cheap netbooks. everything in my vicinity, with or without the help of cats gets zapped by lightning or electrical surges before it can wear out.
I make my living with my laptop, so it has to be substantial. Which this giant hunk of HP is, with a 2.7ghz quad-core processor, 16gb of memory, and I think I have 1.25TB of disk storage on the moment (or, rather, one 500Gb SSD and one 750Gb hard drive). But it’s running a Linux VM, a fat Java IDE, and assorted other things that I need, so … (shrug).
And Apple doesn’t sell anything like it. Because this big hunk of laptop isn’t stylish. It looks like a big hunk of, well, laptop, for getting real work done. Not like a status symbol. Huh. Go figure.
Well, the Toshiba cost me under $300, so it certainly qualifies as cheap, but it works as a back-up until the big box gets rolling.
Yes, Badtux, if you need a production machine, you can’t go cheap, you need something with major power and resources. All laptops are certainly better than the original ‘luggables’, like the Compaq.
The funny thing is that other than the SSD (which I added), this big HP wasn’t very expensive. You can get a new one just like it (HP Envy 17) for $1300 off the HP site, albeit not with 16Gb of memory and the SSD. Apple has nothing like it. Hasn’t ever since they discontinued their 17″ Macbook Pro.
The big this is that it can be expanded inexpensively from things bought on a relatively open market, while Apple wants total control of hardware and software.
OTOH, $1300 is more than the total cost of my big box, so portability comes with a price.
That includes the 17″ 1080p monitor too, Bryan, as well as a keyboard, a mouse substitute (the clickpad), and the Windows Tax (sigh). And of course Apple uses the same exact components as HP, it’s all off-the-shelf Intel stuff, just slicked up to be all status-symbol-y. It’s a shame, really, MacOS works a lot better than Windows. But Apple simply doesn’t want to sell me a product that will meet my needs. Go figure.
But you’re right that it’s $300 more than a similar-spec HP All-in-One PC that also comes with monitor, keyboard, and mouse. So that’s my portability tax: $300. Worth it for my needs.
I remember paying $1500 for my first Windows 95 computer. And it sucked. 64 megabytes of RAM, a 486 processor, 160 megabyte hard drive, a really cheesy video card, and of course an awesome 15″ CRT monitor was extra. What you get for under $1500 today is ridiculously powerful by comparison. I have more power in my laptop than we had in our whole computing center at college (an IBM 3270, two Vax 780’s, a triple-processor Multics, three Pyramid 90x minicomputers, and two terminal rooms full of TVI 900 series 9600 baud terminals). These are crazy times we live in…
For the price of my Toshiba I got a Hercules graphics card for my first IBM PC. A base Apple IIe with a diskette drive was $1500. Prices have certainly dropped while the power has spiked.
Unfortunately the operating systems to take advantage of that power don’t seem to exist. Oh, they add the eye candy and suck up CPU and memory power, but fundamentally they’re all stuck in the past, indeed, 30 years in the past or more. You have Windows, which is firmly stuck in the 1980’s with ideas inspired by VMS, and you have Linux, which is firmly stuck in the 1980’s with the POSIX standard, and MacOS, firmly stuck in the 1980’s with BSD 4… they’re all fundamentally insecure compared to military-spec operating systems of the 1970’s, and they all have fundamental limitations in how they store data on disk and how they index and access that data that make it impossible to use the filesystem as what it really is — a database of arbitrary objects, or versions thereof. Hmm, that reminds me of PICK. Yet another bundle of good ideas that lost the war against bad ideas. Sigh.
It’s is amazing how every new advance is processors is met with an increase in software bloat that negates more than a modest increase in actual speed.
It’s amazing how many people refuse to change to anything better than what they are currently using. The herd instinct is strong in people, and few are ready to go beyond the status quo.