More Vista Fun

The red Xs are disruptive shutdowns caused by power failures.

This is the reliability chart from my old machine running Vista Business 32bit . I really expected the new machine running Vista 64bit to be the same. Interestingly the less I “touch” the old machine the higher the reliability climbs. Basically haven’t been using it since Jun 21st.

Visat reliability

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Quote

I think character is permanent, and issues are transient………..
the determining factor in electoral success should be a proven character.

~ Vice Admiral Jim Stockdale (1923 - 2005).

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Vista fun

So later on July 1, I installed Vista 32 bit Ultimate. After the install finished, I started installing the motherboard drivers. About half way through the machine did a random reboot. Guess it wasn’t Vista 64 bit after all. I had a total of 4 random reboots. After the fourth, I re-adjusted the memory timings back to 8-8-8-21 and set the RAM voltage to something like 1.78 volts. Had the voltage set to something like 1.60 when running under 64 bit Vista. So far no reboots and only one explorer crash. For what it’s worth, Vista 64 bit is noticably faster, but there seems to be better app support for 32 bit Vista. Like the WD My Book mostly works connected via eSata. Also the audio drivers seem to be more functional - has record settings, they were missing under 64 bit Vista. Have to just wait and see how stable the machine is.

Filed in: Geek, Vista

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Vista random reboots.

Boy talk about speaking too soon!!! Shortly after the last post my new machine started going on a reboot rampage. An average of once an hour. 31 times yesterday.

realiabilityMonitor

Things seemed to be getting better then I installed a WinTV1800 and things have been getting worse ever since. The software installs are mostly Windows updates. The Install failures are the Western Digiatal 64 bit drivers for MyBook, the application failures are mostly explorer.exe but there are a few 32 bit apps that don’t work, nothing important. The misc failures are the random reboots mostly, with one Windows failure and a few power failures thrown in for fun. Sadly it is not unusual to have a power failure a day for several days in a row. Yeah I know, they’re called UPSes.

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Vista random reboot re-visited

Ever since I made the memory timing change I’ve not had a single random reboot. Guess that was the ticket!

I made the change June 14th, so it’s been two weeks, safe to say “stable” I think.

Filed in: Geek, Vista

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Frustrating error of the day

An error occurred creating the configuration section handler for loggingConfiguration: Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Logging, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null’ or one of its dependencies. The located assembly’s manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0×80131040)

I hate trouble shooting assembly loading errors. Arcane voodoo. FusionLog. Bah.

Manifest reference definition this!

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IIS 7 and Apache on the same box

because I need this every once in awhile and I have trouble finding the ONLY post that actually works for me.

Original post can be found here @ Steve Schofield’s Weblog

<BEGIN QUOTE>

IIS7 post #44 - IIS7 and Apache on the same machine.
Published 06 July 07 11:26 PM |
steve schofield
There was a question on http://forums.iis.net about having Apache and IIS7 on the same box. here are the instructions I tested on Vista RTM and Windows Server 2008 B3. This assumes you have two ip addresses on the box, 192.168.0.90 and 192.168.0.91. It can be any ip’s.

1) Added or make sure your machine has two ip’s
2) Open a command prompt
3) Type netsh
4) Type http
5) Type sho iplisten. It should be blank
6) Type add iplisten ipaddress=192.168.0.90
You should get IP address successfully added
7) Type sho iplisten again
It should sho 192.168.0.90 in the list
8) Type exit to get out of netsh
9) Type type netstat -an. See if you notice 192.168.0.90:80 in the list. If you see 0.0.0.0:80, do an iisreset

10) Download and install Apache ( I did it with 2.2.4)
http://mirror.nyi.net/apache/httpd/binaries/win32/apache_2.2.4-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi
11) Do a default install,
12) Open httpd.conf and adjust the ip listen to 192.168.0.91:80

# Listen: Allows you to bind Apache to specific IP addresses and/or
# ports, instead of the default. See also the <VirtualHost>
# directive.
#
# Change this to Listen on specific IP addresses as shown below to
# prevent Apache from glomming onto all bound IP addresses (0.0.0.0)
#
#Listen 12.34.56.78:80
#Was 80
#Change to

Listen 192.168.0.91:80

12) Restart the Apache service. (for some reason the start / stop thing didn’t work for me, I used net stop apache2 net start apache2.)
13) Type netstat -an
14) You should see 192.168.0.90:80 and 192.168.0.91:80. Open a browser and test both IP’s to see if IIS7 and Apache come up.
15) Test restarting Apache service to see if it works after that.
16) Turn off Apache, browse IIS, turn of IIS, browse Apache. Test it every which way to see if it works.

Hope this helps

</END QUOTE>

Filed in: Music, New Music

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Had some hail this afternoon!

Hail_9059

Hail_9065

Hail_9055

Hail_9067

Hail_9069

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Vista Ultimate and the random reboot of doom

Been running Vista Business 32 bit for a bit more than a year. Pretty stable, few problems. Problems revolved around iTunes and Phase One’s Capture One. CO would only run if I was logged on as administrator :-( iTunes was just un-cooperative, but it sorta worked so I could live with it.

On the new PC I installed Vista Ultimate 64 bit, it seemed fine for a few days, then random reboots started happening. The Event logged showed nothing, just the machine restarting, similar to what the log looks like after a power failure. :-( The reboots became pretty bad, so bad infact that I decided I couldn’t live with it. I couldn’t find a solution, had all the latest drivers, had all the latest fixes for Vista sp1, the GPU and the mobo. Sadness.

Googleing Vista Ultimate 64 bit random reboot returns way too many matches. So is the problem “Ultimate” or “64 bit”? Did the CPU, RAM or GPU get fried during the flame fest? Or maybe it’s a GPU driver problem and installing Vista Business won’t help at all.

Installed Vista Business 64 bit, it was stable for 5 days, then the random reboots started :-( The Reliability and Performance Monitor reports eight “Disruptive Shutdowns” yesterday, giving me a 5.54 index :-( Looks like back to 32 bit for me. Googled around some more, found the usual suggestions (remove RAM, try one stick at a time, try CPU in another machine - I have no spare parts or other machines to swap with).

Found an interesting suggestion regarding XP back in 2004 days. Some one suggested that the person loosen their RAM timings. So I thought what the heck, what do I have to loose? Changed my timings from 7-7-7-7-20 to 8-8-8-8-21. That was 24 hours ago and no random reboot since! I Don’t understand how this could solve the problem, but I’ll see.

It’s too early to say the system is stable, but I’m hopeful.

Filed in: Vista

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Building a new PC

Started awhile ago. Bought case and PSU first, then a HD and DVD writer. Then came the hard part. Which mother board? Needed to decide on the mobo next as it would possibly restrict CPU and RAM choice.

Got an ultra X2 PSU. Decided on the Intel DX48BT2 motherboard. Although I don’t believe it is actually made by Intel, Intel boards have a reputation for stability - we’ll see. So by choosing this motherboard, it means I was committing to an Intel CPU and DDR3 ram. Got the Intel Q9450, some Patriot ram that wasn’t too insanely priced. Got a Sapphire HD3870.

Put it all together, turn the switch on. The system boots, insert CD, re-boot, start installing Vista Ultimate 64 bit. Went fine for about 5 minutes and then the machine just shuts down. :-( Make a long story longer, got a new PSU, plug it all in again, turn on the power and, sniff sniff, that doesn’t smell good, oh oh there’s some smoke, CRAP there are FLAMES shooting out of the mobo. Small flames but, flames, large or small + mobo = bad. :-(

This would be the first time I had a mother board go up in flames. My big concern though was the CPU, RAM and Video card. Clearly the mobo was dead, but if it took other components with it, that would really suck.

Got the replacement board, hook everything back up and it all works, like it should’ve the first time.

Pre-flame out picture
Pre-flame motherboard

Flames shot out of here. According to the back of the box those are voltage regulators under the heatsink.
flame

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