Four Monitors, Anyone? A PCIe Card for X1, X4, or X8 Lane Slots

After several dead ends (PCI cards with unresolved PCI-to-PCI bridge issues, x16 extender cards that didn't work in the form factor of the chassis, interrupt conflicts with NIC hardware), one solution has been found that works in my Dell PowerEdge 2900. This is a low end server being used as a workstation. It wasn't designed to support an x16 PCIe card, so it's been difficult finding a substitution. The AMD ATI FirePro 2270 x1 version nicely supported dual monitors and installed without a hitch. Others with older machines where PCIe x1, x4 or x8 lanes are needed may wish to consider this alternative. Note: A "pro" not a "gamer" class device, but you can use two or more to support more than two monitors. Very tempting.

p.s. Another viable option for Nvidia users may be the PNY NVS Quadro 440 x1.

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Four Monitors, Anyone? A PCIe Card for X1, X4, or X8 Lane Slots

Update on Elitebook Windows Event 17: HP HW Repair Process Insights

Update 19 May 2011 Laptop was repaired after 2 working days. The fan problem was corrected, but the  Event 17 errors have returned. The rep from the team handling repairs in progress insisted on dialing into the machine and reading the event log messages herself, then issued another RMA number. She indicated this would be "priority" (what is that?). Another box was shipped and the laptop has been returned to the depot.

Update 14 May 2011 As reported earlier, an HP Elitebook (c. 2010) was returned for repair after much investigation. The laptop was returned by overnight service from HP Depot repair with a new Nvidia 5100M graphics card. Impressively, a technician phoned form the depot facility to verify the nature of the complaints and to understand whether WLAN problems were also being experienced (Answer: Unclear). Unfortunately, the machine turns itself off a few minutes into the HP run-in test. Maybe fan or fan sensor disconnected or failed? The machine was returned to the depot the next day.

Internal Repair Processes Interestingly, HP hands off duties for repairs in progress to a different team. The chat channel used for triage is seemingly abandoned, though it can be assumed that transcripts are available for downstream technicians to read. Also, HP sends a new box for shipping rather than simply having customers print a new prepaid shipping label. Odd, considering that a day is lost while the box is shipped, and there's another box to be  disposed of (the packing material used is not recyclable).

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Update on Elitebook Windows Event 17: HP HW Repair Process Insights

Gotcha! Different Notch Offset for Fully Buffered DIMMs (FB-DIMMs)

An aging Dell 2900 server needed more RAM to extend its life. The used marketplace for RAM seemed like the right place to go. The specification called for ECC buffered, 555 or 667mhz PC2-5300 DIMMs, deployed in pairs. Straightforward enough. Or so it seemed. After reading the Wikipedia entry on DIMMs to refresh my memory of standards in effect at the time that this machine was new, a pair of 4GB DIMMs was purchased.

What was immediately apparent, but which presales research had failed to discover, is that PC2-5300 FB-DIMMs have their single notch in a different location than otherwise identical PC2-DIMMs. To avoid this mistake in the future, refer to the photo above, which shows the offset position of the FB-DIMM notch.

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Gotcha! Different Notch Offset for Fully Buffered DIMMs (FB-DIMMs)

When a PC is not Point-and-Shoot: WHEA-Logger EventID 17

When everything's working smoothly, a PC seems a simple device, like a toaster, or, to use a better example, like a digital camera. Turn it on, launch an application, do work, and turn it off. A smoothly working PC offers its own quietly efficient version of Point and Shoot. 

Beneath the covers, with both devices, but more so with today's PC, a lot needs to go right to produce the appearance of a carefree toaster-like experience. Some problems are comparatively common (if not frequent) but straightforward to diagnose and correct. Disk drives still fail, and for most, while SMART doesn't generally provide warning of pending failure, it's usually obvious when it happens and the corrective action is also obvious. But once in awhile, problems arise that are a reminder of how much complexity lies beneath that ever-thinner chassis.

An incident in this latter category has been occurring with an HP Elitebook 8540p laptop. Several times a minute, Windows 7 throws this exception to the event log:

Event 17, WHEA-Logger
Component: PCI Express Root Port
Error Source: Advanced Error Reporting (PCI Express)
Bus: Device:Function: 0x0:0x3:0x0
Vendor ID:Device ID: 0x8086:0xd138
Class Code: 0x30400

More details are provided by Windows in the full WMI-interfaced Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA) message. There were several problems with the laptop that could have been related to this error, which was thrown at least several times a minute, and sometimes more often depending on what processing was occurring. These included infrequent blue screens, fairly frequent glitching in pro audio devices (e.g., Echo AudioFire Pre8 and Ableton Live, as well as various USB audio devices), and an unsatisfactory rating by the Echo-recommended DPC Latency Checker.

Over several months, HP support and I worked on this issue. New device drivers were tried, USB device drivers were removed and added, self-tests and diagnostics were run. Nothing turned up. Finally, the hated "reinstall Windows" suggestion reared its head. Since everything else had been tried, the partition was erased and Windows 7 x64 was reinstalled. Result? Even before all the HP utilities were reinstalled, the problem recurred.

The last HP technician suggested it could be an issue with the Nvidia NVS 5100M discrete graphics card. There are two related threads in forums that illustrate the scope and diligence of some users in trying to resolve this error. One is in NotebookReview (more related to Asus motherboard problems) and the other in an Intel Community forum (where most of the blame was laid at the feet of AMD ATI graphics cards.

The laptop is off to HP for a repair attempt. Stay tuned. In the meantime, should this post have appeared in TechnologyHead.com or in ErrorProcessing.com? Arguing in favor of the later, for instance, were several remarks by hardware technicians consulted by worried forum posters that "these problems didn't used to be reported anyway, and can easily be ignored." Arguing in favor of TechnologyHead was the aspect of complexity; after all, the error message was close to what passes for best practice these days in error reporting (if not recovery).

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When a PC is not Point-and-Shoot: WHEA-Logger EventID 17

Acrobat Pro #Fail: Why Software Standards Matter for Accessibility

Acrobat Pro Resolution-dependent Window

Acrobat Pro 9 -- not just the Reader, but the commercial off-the-shelf product -- is a mainstay product of Adobe. Adobe is a publicly held company with more than 7,000 employees. It's Fortune rank in 2009 was 601. It is reasonable to expect that Adobe has in place solid standards for its products. These standards make Adobe products similar across platforms, consistent with each other, and consistent with platform-specific standards -- that is, Windows, Apple or Linux platforms. 

For these reasons, coupled with the maturity of Acrobat 9 Pro, when a customer contacted me with a Windows problem, the working assumption is that the user had accidentally clicked on some setting.  The symptom was that a dialog box used to control automatic insertion of headers and footers, such as Bates numbering, was partly off screen. There was no scroll bar for this dialog box, which had apparently been coded using the Multiple Document Interface (MDI) standard.  Unlike some daughter windows in Acrobat, this window could not be maximized, minimized or resized. The standard Microsoft Windows "Move" command worked, but the "Size" commands did nothing. As a result, the user couldn't see all the settings available, nor even click OK to invoke what few settings were visible.

A little casual research showed that my customer was not alone.  There is no solution for customers who use 800 x 600 resolution, single monitor displays. The "fix" is to increase resolution.

Not only is this a major nuisance, but for visually impaired and some netbook users, it creates a serious obstacle. Adding to the annoyance factor are the abundant comments in various forums which show that this problem must be known to Adobe. I don't know whether it's been "fixed" in Acrobat Pro X, which specifies a minimum resolution of 1024 x 576 (a bit odd, but there are a few netbooks that use this resolution), but the analyst producing requirements for the Acrobat Pro developer team should have either specified that all dialog boxes must operate within 800 x 600, or alternatively, since this is by today's standards a low resolution, provide an Acrobat startup warning that the resolution was below the minimum required.


Update I cross-posted this message to the aforementioned Adobe forum, and a user requested an explanation. One was received. In essence, no patch for the V9 problem was ever produced, but Adobe did address the problem in version X. The message as relayed by user cyberbiker1 follows. I'm not fully convinced that the accessibility issue has been addressed:

 "Unfortunately the 9.4.2 patch did not address anything relating to screen resolution.  The system requirements for Acrobat 9 on Windows operating systems includes a minimum resolution of 1024x768.  Simply put, Acrobat 9 and previous versions weren't designed for netbooks.  During the Acrobat 9 development cycle, netbooks were in their infancy. Acrobat X however, was designed with netbooks in mind, supporting a minimum resolution of 1024x576."

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Acrobat Pro #Fail: Why Software Standards Matter for Accessibility

Windows 7 Self-Lockout Feature: "User Profile Service Failed to Load"

Being locked out of one's own computer is a proven precursor to madness. It's now happened to me several times on several different machines -- both under Vista x64 and now twice under Win7 x64. Windows is restarted, and either user desktop fails to restore, or, on this occasion, Windows refuses to log in the user, because "User Profile Service Failed to Load." When this happens, you'll be left dumbfounded at the Windows login screen. 

From what I've seen, chances are good that you didn't do anything wrong.

There was a recent set of Windows Updates in the last 48 hours that I am tempted to blame for this, but there's no proven connection.

Some tips:

• If the "locked-out" account is the only account on the machine, you will have to create 1-2 new ones, depending on how you decide to try to recover your data.
• It's unlikely that a heavily used account (lots of customization and licensed software installed) will get back 100%. Prepare expectations.
• You'll need to boot into safe mode to gain control long enough to create a new account if one isn't already available.
• Remember that if F8 during startup to get to Windows safe mode option isn't working, it could be because Windows won't recognize F8 over USB or wireless. Use a regular wired keyboard or the main keyboard on a laptop. 

Microsoft suggests several possible solutions to correct "a corrupted user profile." The first option is to restart -- which of course had been tried several times before reading their tip. Then the FixIt solution was attempted, after creating a new admin account in Safe Mode. No love there, either. 

That left a third option. This is a messy process of creating a third account from which to copy profile data from the stranded profile to a new one. That is, a User3 is needed to copy stranded User1 data to a new User2. The details are in the Microsoft prescription. However, you'll be mildly unsatisfied with the results, depending on the situation. In my example, the user profile directory was 3.6GB which had to be copied to User2's directories. The "corrupted profile" files and registry remnants remain to be disposed of. 

How do things work out with new User2? While most apps will launch, many will have to be reauthorized, which took several hours in my case. Further, many had lost settings and these had to be relearned, rediscovered and painstakingly restored.

A quick search for Windows or third party backup/restore processes specifically addressing a Windows user profile didn't turn up anything specific; the goal would be to address this specific failure which it's fairly clear is likely to recur. Ideally, one would want a backup/restore solution that addresses any registry changes as well as the files associated with %USERPROFILE%.

I am fairly certain that users aren't doing anything especially unusual when the "corruption" occurs. I fully expect that it will recur unless the underlying causes are addressed.

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Windows 7 Self-Lockout Feature: "User Profile Service Failed to Load"

Yahoo Mail: Object Lesson in Failed Scalability?

Elsewhere I had begun a lengthly blog post detailing my often unsavory history of interactions with customer service at Yahoo! Mail.  A paying customer who intentionally accumulated considerable mail, increasingly that mail could not be searched or retrieved. The symptoms varied, so in the beginning it seemed to be a flaw rather than a design problem.  The example below was typical of the initial symptoms.

After several months of back and forth with level 1 and 2 support, I began to question the initial assessment of "bug."  During this time period, Yahoo developed a new, nicer interface.  There was good functionality in this new work, but my problems persisted.

I'll post more details here later as time permits (I'm in the middle of a tedious migration to escape all this), but it's become clear that Yahoo does not intend for its users to keep large quantities of mail online. Or perhaps its testing environment is insufficient.

Gmail?  Gmail is so far scaling nicely, though I have only a fifth as much mail there.◦

Yahoo Mail: Object Lesson in Failed Scalability?

Single-track Playback for WMP and MediaMonkey

Cause unknown, but some MP3 files play back only one track in Windows Media Player 11.0.6002.18111 and MediaMonkey 3.2.1.1297,  Songbird 1.7.3 Build 1700 and VideoLan 1.1.2 are fine.  I found myself looking for pan controls (are there any in these tools?).  Platform: Vista x64.  (Not mono;  one of the stereo tracks won't play.)

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Single-track Playback for WMP and MediaMonkey

Stuxnet: SCADA System Threat Real This Time

TechRepublic is running my blog post on the SCADA worm that was publicized last week.  The incident takes place after considerable alarmist rhetoric.  As I wrote in the piece, my biggest concern is the Dependency Syndrome, which I've consciously lifted from the film China Syndrome. ◦

Stuxnet: SCADA System Threat Real This Time