The Spam Thread!

[cpd2009]

Hmm... the new Gateway is rather strange. Here is what happens so far...

Initially, when you put the computer to sleep or shut down, you can successfully start it up again within 10 or 15 minutes of power down or sleep. After that, it becomes unresponsive until power cycling.

With Fast Boot and Hybrid Sleep disabled, the tower still refuses to wake up until you cycle the power which I can easily do with my under-monitor surge protector. However, if you shut down the computer with Fast Boot disabled, you can turn the computer back on again after pressing power three times. First time, the computer turns on but no POST beep or anything. If you hold down the power to force a power off and turn it back on again, Viola! The computer starts up just fine.

I tried the VGA trick, but it still refuses to power on until I perform the three press trick I tried above. After exhausting every other option short of MemTest86+, it could very well be a hardware issue, but what kind? It's strange that if you leave the tower on, Windows performs flawlessly, although it does start up slower due to no Fast Boot. You can leave the tower on for hours on end without problems. So there seems to be no serious issues with hardware.

Could it be that a connection is loose? The tower was in the box on the way home, but we hit a rather rough road right before we got back to town, so the possibility is there that a RAM stick or SATA cable could be loose. In order to check, I would have to open up the tower, but that would probably void any warranty and I wouldn't be able to take it back to the store. Should I open it up anyway?

[RAMChYLD]

I was able to boot Ubuntu with no problem. The problem was that X failed to load because it tried to use the fglrx driver, which their version apparently has no support for the new AMD A6-5200. OpenSUSE 12.3 beta did boot to the desktop. And, it ran into the same sleep issue like Windows.

Doing some gritty Google research, I learned that sometimes UEFI won't boot or POST if the HDMI is connected when you turn on your computer. I have an extra VGA cable lying around, and I will try using VGA for the display to see if that helps. HDMI probably uses HDCP, so perhaps there could be an HDCP conflict because of the monitor or HDMI to DVI converter?

Which is again odd. I am using an AMD A10-5800K and the FGLRX drivers work wonderfully. (Btw, this is what became of Clementine after I concluded that the Biostar motherboard she inherited from Helen had fried- long story short, another complete overhaul). Granted tho, she booted into the VESA driver and I only installed the latest FGLRX on her from a command line terminal after installing the OS into the RAID array and tweaking GRUB-EFI to boot with iommu=noagp,noaperture.

As for the sleep issues, well, this is one good reason I don't use sleep on my desktop. To be honest, I've had enough troubleshooting sleep issues on Helen (the Biostar board before this had sleep issues with both XP and 7, as well as a particular annoying shutdown issue that doesn't power the machine off after I selected "Shut Down") that I gave up.

[cpd2009]

Okay, I think it's pretty safe to say that my new Gateway tower has buggy UEFI firmware. As long as I can still start up the computer easily and it performs well, it's still a worthwhile purchase if somewhat dogged by the two straight days of diagnostic tasks. I will just have to live without Fast Boot and sleep mode, which I can do just fine without.

I'm waiting for reviews of this computer on WalMart.com. The system is so new, there are no reviews yet. I'm waiting to see if anyone else has the same issues, which would indicate an endemic firmware problem along this line of computers. Hopefully if enough people complain, a UEFI update will come out.

[RAMChYLD]

That's UEFI for you. There's no doubt that Asus' UEFI implementation (which is a customized version of American Megatrends' Aptio UEFI) is equally buggy. And then there's all these nonsense like secure boot.

[cpd2009]

That's UEFI for you. There's no doubt that Asus' UEFI implementation (which is a customized version of American Megatrends' Aptio UEFI) is equally buggy. And then there's all these nonsense like secure boot.

I understand that UEFI was created so the limitations of the 25+ year old x86 BIOS could be overcome, but there could have been a better way to do it, like say, porting the 16-bit BIOS Assembly code to 32/64-bit and creating a standardized implementation. Although there are perfectly good UEFI implementations, like Greta, who has no UEFI issues, and is also a Gateway to boot! Likely reason? She has an "InsydeH20" UEFI rather than that custom Acer-created UEFI in the Gateway tower.

Speaking of Secure Boot, I had to disable it to get some Linux distro's to run without using a utility like "Shim". I did turn it back on though afterwards. My Gateway has an Acer-branded UEFI, which means they are responsible for removing Legacy Boot. Why did you do that Acer? UEFI is capable of using Legacy Boot to load things like, say, MemTest86+!


Now, that my computer drama is over, I now present my musings about Windows 8...

Yeah, Windows 8 does take time to get used to, but the desktop behaves mostly the same as Windows 7. The only real difference is that Explorer now uses the Ribbon setup from Office.

I'm starting to warm up to the Metro-style Desktop style. No fancy transparency effects, but it looks rather nice and fits in with the overall Metro theme. I recall posting about how the 1970's cartoon "Santa and the Three Bears" had a surreal musical sequence that had some visuals almost like Metro live tiles.

I also like how programs can't set themselves to be default for certain file types. You now have to set those defaults using the "Set Default Programs" panel. Not all desktop apps are set up like this yet, such as RealPlayer.

I haven't really tried out any Metro apps yet. While I may be warming up to Windows 8, I still think Metro is best fit for a tablet or a touch screen monitor. I do like live tiles though, like the weather tile.

Lastly, it's a good thing Windows 8.1 will be a free update.

Later on this evening, I plan on formally introducing my new Gateway in the Computers sub-forum.

[huckleberrypie]

Idk if Corebook actually took off, but it doesn't seem to be so, even if it appears to be a promising alternative to the antiquated BIOS.

[RAMChYLD]

Idk if Corebook actually took off, but it doesn't seem to be so, even if it appears to be a promising alternative to the antiquated BIOS.

I'd have preferred OpenFirmware. Sadly tho, OpenFirmware is only for Power-based systems like pre-Intel Macs, newer Amigas, Sun SparcStations and IBM zSeries servers

[RAMChYLD]

Malaysia makes the Xbox One CPU: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/28/xbox_one_system_on_chip/">http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/28 ... m_on_chip/</a><!-- m -->



And yet we'll be among the last in the world to get the Xbox One, and will get the most crippled (no XBox Live Gold and no Zune) version.

SERIOUSLY, WTH MICROSOFT?!?

[cpd2009]

I could care less about the Xbox One myself as I'm putting all my faith in the Wii U, although it's good that Microsoft removed the always-online DRM and resale restrictions. That doesn't make up for the restrictions they are placing on Malaysian players though.


Now, where was I?

We went to the yearly Native American Pow-Wow on the nearby reservation, and here are two of the various cheap toys I got. I present to you, "Bonny" and a small unrelated Princess wand...



"Bonny" must have been popular this year as there were several vendors selling the exact same set. I mainly got it just for the cheap toy phone, which plays random sounds like a phone ringing, a dog barking, and a small loop of "Butterfly" by Smile.dk.

It seems that many cheap fake mobile phones, no matter what type they are, use the same sound chip.


Oh, and welcome a new computer system to my technological family in the Computers forum.

[cpd2009]

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/08/nintendo-2ds/">http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/08/nintendo-2ds/</a><!-- m -->

Yes... Nintendo is coming out with the 2DS, a 3DS without any 3D screen and looks like a slab of burned toast. It also has no clamshell design either.

Why do we need this? Apparently, this could be fit for children, but kids can turn off the 3D on the 3DS as it is, and there are even parental settings that prevent the 3D from being enabled. Will this also spell the end of the 3DS' unique 3D feature if non-3D games start flooding the market?

What's next? A Wii U with no optical drive and digital-download only games?