Monday, June 30, 2008

Issues I encountered before installing the graphics CARD

On 29/6/2008 i got 2Gb ram(single slot) and a EVGA e-geforce 8600GTS 512MB GDDR3 Ram. I installed these items and started My computer as usual. ie. I disabled my GPU because of the inadequate power supply from SMPS. The system boot was fine. Then i went to my BIOS and applied Optimal Settings.

This is where the trouble Began!!!

I then checked for the settings whether they are correct before rebooting
I found that my ram speed was detected as 667 MHz rather than 533MHz
I changed the setting of Speed of FAN to auto check on next reboot. And i restarted

ANd then of course my system didn't start.

i tried twice and my system didnt boot..
In my Motherboard, I have to change the jumper setting to reset the BIOS configuration(965RY Version 1718)

I did that and then i Booted. No use!!!

OOPS that's the only solution for my Motherboard!!!
i tried again... no use..
and then i removed the newly inserted Memory and the GPU and prayed a small prayer as that was the only other option available. And upon restarting My system booted properly. Whether its because of the prayer or GPU or changing the setting of fan speed detection, i never knew!!! Anyway all credit goes to GOD!!!

Next day i bought a new SMPS for RS 3300. (too costly though) as that was the only option i could choose as i could replace it if it isnt working. My GPU requires a minimum of 400Watt power supply and 26 Amps along the +12V rail. the Vendor told me that its impossible to replace if there is any scratch and off course if it gets burnt!!!

My SMPS has support for SLI technology ie TWO GPUs can be connected using this SMPS.
AS usual i disassembled studying where each pin goes and assembled my new SMPS with the inbuilt 6 Pin PCI Ex power Supply.

First i setup the SMPS upside Down. So i had to take the SMPS back. while doing this a small scratch was made on the sides. then i set it properly. As my SMPS is Black the scratch can be easily seen!!.

Then i started my system with my GPU connected to the 6pin GPU power cable. And My system didn't respond!! Tried again, and it was of no use...

I had only one more solution. With the GPU pack i was given a complimentory power adapter which uses power cable of IDE as input and the 6 PIN GPU power plug as the output. My SMPS has 3 IDE connected on the same and another one connected along the SATA.

I used that power adapter. Using two IDE powercable connected along the same stretch As shown in the diagram

Upon restarting my system booted properly

PHEW!!!


Now My system works in the 6-pin. GPU power Cable..

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Digital Cameras

With the continuous improvement in scientific field, every electronic/electrical instrument has started to become digitized. Using digital instruments makes our work easier. One such digitalization is for Cameras. However the cost of digital instrument still is a issue to worry.

While u go for a camera, the first issue of concern is the clarity and naturalness of the photograph. It is common for a human to slighly move his hand while clicking. Which will result in blur. At times the subject may be in motion while the picture is being taken. But nowadays the digital cameras have taken these factors into consideration and has tried to get a picture as if everything was actually standstill. But there are a few cameras that say that provide these features(esp SONY) but still have blurs in the photograph even when they are taken in stable position.

The next issue in the clarity is the resolution of the photographs. In photography this is better termed as Megapixel. The greater the megapixel quantity, bigger is the size and better the quality of the picture. so to get a good camera its better to choose a higher megapixel one.

Zoom is the feature that is provided in the consumer cameras where as the ordinary amatuer film cameras dont. There are basically two types of zoom. Digital Zoom and optical zoom.
the digital zoom is provided by the software and the optical zoom is provided by the lenses by changing the point of focus. The greater the zoom level, the closer the object is. U can take a photograph of a distant hill as if u were really close to it. the pictures taken in digital zoom will not be of good clarity and will contain grains or noise. some cameras provide digital zoom for still photogragh and might not provide the same for videos. It is otfen worth to get a camera that provides viceversa or for both. Th cons of zoom(both digital and optical) is that u would have sufficient brightness in the picture. to compromise this most digital cameras provide a setting called Exposure Value(EV) setting. This feature can be used to improve the brightness before the picture is being taken.

The next issue is the focussing capability of the cameras. Most cameras have autofocus. Ie it identifies the object and tried to make it very clear to be taken in the photograph. Nowadays a few cameras can recognize upto 12 faces and focus on these 12 faces. Also the most important factor is the time taken to focus the object. The cameras also try to find the different modes and thereby adjust its setting to take the best photograph. some common modes are portrait, landscape, night mode, sport. The zoom feature literally becomes useless in most cameras when pictures are taken at night. but some cameras does have enough sensitivity to take good pictures at low light.

You can get the display of the photograph on the LCD screen. usually these screens are inbetween 2" and 2.5". the greater the size of the display, the greater is the quality of the picture u can view before and after u take the picture and also higher is the power usage. So its better to go for optimal displays. A few cameras also provide the facility to switch off the display to conserve power.

All digital cameras have memory to store the photo or video. There are various types of memory cards available and each type of camera support different type of memory cards. the internal memory can be used to store a few photos.

The last but not the least is the power consumber by the cameras. usually digital cameras consume more power than normal film cameras. The type of power source is also under consideration. Many cameras allow alkaline and other rechargable batteries. And many cameras also work on adaptors. The lower the power usage the longer is the camera usage and the more picture u can take. When u make long tours, Your cameras might become useless because of the usage.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Virus? Oops Not again!!!

There are a lot of virus in the internet. Most of them come as a Keygen, crack, or through P2p. Some even act to be a codec application for some unknown video. Its better to install the some codec pack and let it take care of your codecs.

The most common virus found in colleges are that files that appear like folder. It often deceives the most professionals into double clicking such files. the reason is that people opening folders fastly might consider that as a folder when its inside a empty folder. a lot of viruses have started to use this methodology. so u cant predict that its the same virus that u seen before... and it might not be detected by ur antivirus also.

The next virus i like to say is a virus which changes the document files to exe files when u copy them. Recently my friend received such a virus in a mail under the title of call letter. unfortunately even i fell to this prank. thanks to bit defender v 10.

And this is the virus i'll never forget off. It came as a unknown file extension... my Mcafee spotted it as a virus. And disabled the antivirus and opened the file. Alas....

the virus removed my anti virus and silently settled in my system. In WIN me, the virus deleted the norton anti virus and displayed a icon in system tray as if norton 2002 is under updation process... i tried to close, rigth click the system tray icon; but to no avail. U can see a lot of exe files with the some name and having winzip icon(the old winzip 8.0). this virus silently sits inside ur system and maits for 2nd of the month and deletes all ur document files... .doc, .xls,etc

The virus scans for any folder by name antivirus and deletes such folder. thats the reason nowadays antivirus applications dont name any folder with the text antivirus and often Norton is the first target for virus/trojan programmers.

Search and delete all the files which have the icon of winzip and which are hidden system files. and goto program files and delete the same kind of files...

The best part is that windows folder does not have any hidden system files on clean install. so if u find any hidden system file in ur windows directory then that file can be a suspect. If u find such a file then check whether that file is signed by microsoft or any known company. better search in internet for the details of that file...

Some times whenever u try to scan ur system the antivirus comes and as soon as it starts, the program closes. to prevent such a happening, login to ur system using a limited account and launch the application as a administrator ie rightclick on the shortcut and select run as and enter ur admin username and password... that way u can execute the antivirus and make sure it scans ur system. the same can be done for taskmgr.exe .

The picture of a task manager of a clean system is shown. The first 4 processes and the 6th might not be present in ur system..

Hope this was useful...

The files such as winlogon.exe,lsass.exe, smss.exe,csrss.exe, alg.exe,spoolsv.exeare all important system files and they have only one instance in windows XP.