Random thoughts.... [Tech Edition]

Dr_Q said:
I've been experiencing something very similar, I even replaced by CPU cooler to see if that made a difference. In the end I just underclocked my RAM slightly and that seems to have solved the problem.
Click to expand...

I might try that out later, thanks.

thevictor390 said:
Does the HDD indicator light go solid or rapidly flashing during the freezes? I had that happen recently, and thought my HDD was going bad. I ended up just opening up the case and reseating everything I could find (save for the processor) and it seems to have resolved the issue.
Click to expand...

I'll check for that next time it freezes.

Edit: It goes solid.

maxtortheone said:
This may sound silly but defrag?
Click to expand...

Maybe. I'll try that out.
 
Last edited:
If the HDD light is solid, that's almost definitely the source of the issue. I actually forgot until now, I also switched SATA ports while I had the case open. My symptoms matched yours exactly, so maybe it's worth a try.
 
I just sent my flash driver through the washer and dryer. Forgot to check my jeans pockets before sending them though.

Still works perfectly fine.
 
I just switched my hard drives' SATA ports, hopefully this will get rid of the issues. I won't be using my computer much till tomorrow however, so chances are I won't know for sure until then.
 
Evel said:
I just switched my hard drives' SATA ports, hopefully this will get rid of the issues. I won't be using my computer much till tomorrow however, so chances are I won't know for sure until then.
Click to expand...
Good luck, tho unless you have bad SATA cables or controllers you shouldn't have any issues with that.
 
Anybody ever encounter false positives on YM attachments? Because I sent an archive with PDFs to a couple of my friends and they said it got marked as a threat by Yahoo's virus scan. I looked at the sent mail in my Gmail account and it checked out fine.
 
eizbaer said:
i've never tried myself, but have heard quite good things about the damn thing working just about anywhere :)
Click to expand...

I can confirm. We have eduroam set up here since about a year now, and I've been to a couple other places where it worked with no setup whatsoever. Quite awesome.
 
eizbaer said:
i've never tried myself, but have heard quite good things about the damn thing working just about anywhere :)
Click to expand...
I've had to fix my configuration so many times I can almost do it by heart... and yet, it's still a matter of pure luck whether or not another university's WLAN accepts my login. but when it does work, it's the best thing since free WiFi.

...and today, it did and even instantaneously. Huge contrast to Sunday when it didn't even pretend to. I'm a happy tiger.
 
Last edited:
Evel said:
I just switched my hard drives' SATA ports, hopefully this will get rid of the issues. I won't be using my computer much till tomorrow however, so chances are I won't know for sure until then.
Click to expand...

It seems that this has worked, as odd as it may seem. It could just be a coincidence, but I've went through this whole day without a single hiccup so far.
 
CrazyRussian540 said:
I just sent my flash driver through the washer and dryer. Forgot to check my jeans pockets before sending them though.

Still works perfectly fine.
Click to expand...

Happened to me not too long ago too :)
 
Evel said:
It seems that this has worked, as odd as it may seem. It could just be a coincidence, but I've went through this whole day without a single hiccup so far.
Click to expand...

It is odd, but I had the exact same symptoms and resolution not so long ago.

EDIT: no, I did not purposely post a rewording of PacketCollision above :lol:
 

William Shatner tells you to buy a Commodore VIC-20. Man, I didn't know they had him advertising for one.
 
My old earbuds started dying (the right speaker went out) so I had to switch to a pair I had laying around.

God, they sound horrible. And I'm not even an audiophile.

I'll need to scrounge up the money for a proper set.
 
prizrak said:
Not to sound like a jackass but did you actually test that assertion or are you going based strictly on the theoretical limits of the two standards? narf tested USB vs eSATA not USB2 vs 3, those are completely different technologies. There is no eSATA on Apple laptops, never have, likely never will but it's not really exclusive to Apple, my Dell XPS didn't have eSATA either and it would fall into the high end category. No one looking at an Apple laptop would be expecting eSATA capabilities, however since TB is basically an external PCIe interface it would be trivial to make an eSATA to TB adaptor (and I'm sure we will see them pretty soon). That's really the main benefit of TB, it has more than enough bandwidth to support any standard that's out there and while yes it would require an adaptor unlike USB3 or eSATA it would not be limited to just the native protocol***.
***Yes there are translators from USB to SATA/PATA but they still have to do translation from USB to SATA and back, by the sound of it TB would work just like a normal expansion port inside of your PC.

IMO the ONLY bad thing about TB is the fact that instead of the original designs I saw where it would look like a USB port and accept all of the current USB peripherals.
Click to expand...

I'm having issues with my new router which made me forget about this discussion, but I still feel like making a reply if I may:


Yes, I know eSATA and USB are totally different and unrelated standards... I also know that eSATA is not really common to any laptops, but I thought we were discussing the new Sandy Bridge-based iMacs.

My initial statement was that the a high-end computer like the new iMac (never mentioned the MBP, not sure where you got that from) needs to have either eSATA or USB 3.0 so a potential customer can have the option of transferring files quicker than the slow speeds offered by USB 2.0 (as TB's not gotten much traction yet). eSATA and USB are different, but they are related in that they both provide much faster theoretical and real-world speeds over USB 2.0 drives.

If they make eSATA/Thunderbolt adapters then I guess that's a solution, the Apple faithful are used to buying all sorts of adapters anyway. Still, doesn't excuse Apple's completely stepping over a mainstream technology like USB 3.0 (even though I know Intel is a bit guilty here too).


Oh, and I finally got my USB 3.0 ports working so I can do some tests for you. But I don't think I was making baseless claims before having done these tests because as I was saying, I think theoretical and actual maximum speeds are relative - USB 2.0 drives never came close to reaching 480 MBits, and even though USB 3.0 drives still fail to achieve that speed (let alone the 5GBps theoretical max. of USB 3.0) they are indeed noticeably quicker as you see below.

These tests were done using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 and a WD My Passport SE 1TB drive:

https://pic.armedcats.net/s/sh/shawn/2011/05/11/cmdusb2.jpg https://pic.armedcats.net/s/sh/shawn/2011/05/11/cmdusb3.jpg​

Admittedly I said three time faster before, but write speed is still more than twice as fast with USB 3.0. To put this into perspective, the 1.43GB 720p rip of Top Gear's Polar Special takes 59 seconds to transfer over USB 2 and 28 seconds using USB 3.0, with only difference in the equation being the port used.

Just for the heck of it I also tested my eSATA enclosure which houses a 750GB drive. Even faster than USB 3.0, but I admit eSATA has certain disadvantages (e.g. needs separate power cable, connections aren't as sturdy):

https://pic.armedcats.net/s/sh/shawn/2011/05/11/cmdesata.jpg​

So yes, setting aside everything else theoretical or not, USB 3.0 beats USB 2.0 rather handily. The same would go for eSATA. It would serve many Apple customers well if they had added either of these unrelated interfaces to Macs by now. They would still be useful despite of Thunderbolt being on there and in fact, they could have been added years before Thunderbolt was.
 
My initial statement was that the a high-end computer like the new iMac (never mentioned the MBP, not sure where you got that from)
Click to expand...
My bad, I always think MBPs when talking Apple, don't see the point in their desktop offerings.
Oh, and I finally got my USB 3.0 ports working so I can do some tests for you. But I don't think I was making baseless claims before having done these tests because as I was saying, I think theoretical and actual maximum speeds are relative - USB 2.0 drives never came close to reaching 480 MBits, and even though USB 3.0 drives still fail to achieve that speed (let alone the 5GBps theoretical max. of USB 3.0) they are indeed noticeably quicker as you see below.
Click to expand...
Thanks I was quite curious, I wasn't saying you were making baseless claims I just wanted to see some proper testing because my experience suggested that we are pretty close to the limit of HDDs so bus wouldn't make a huge difference, appears I was wrong :)
If they make eSATA/Thunderbolt adapters then I guess that's a solution, the Apple faithful are used to buying all sorts of adapters anyway. Still, doesn't excuse Apple's completely stepping over a mainstream technology like USB 3.0 (even though I know Intel is a bit guilty here too).
Click to expand...
I think this might have had something to do with Intel more so than anything else. I know that Intel is not huge into USB 3.0 at the moment and Apple has some interesting agreements with them (for instance both iMacs and MBPs use chipsets that were not available to anyone else at the time) so I can't help but wonder if Intel had provided those with some strings. Though at the same time Apple isn't known for giving in to demands so USB3 must have been a very low priority to them.

What is interesting however is that when I saw the original Lightpeak designs the ports looked like standard USB but now that it was given life as TB it uses a miniDP connector. The original purpose of the tech was to replace all external I/O with a single backwards compatible port. It would make much more sense to do it that way as they could have implemented all the USB3.0 functionality along with it.

The only reason I can see for not including eSATA/USB3.0 in iMacs is because they are meant for a more "casual" user that is not necessarily going to care much about port speeds.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top