Author: Ultra Slacker

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The bent pins

A few days a go my colleague and I were working on a computer which was having some odd problems. During the trouble shooting, I noticed something with the CPU socket.

Intel-Socket-1155

At a glance, there’s nothing wrong with the CPU socket, but upon a much closer inspection you can see where the problem is.

Intel-Socket-1155-bent-pin

Two pins were bent out of shape. It might be causing the computer to randomly crash.

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Windows 8 pricing is set to increase in February 2013

Microsoft announces that Windows 8 pricing is set to increase starting February 2013.

Windows 8 upgrade editions will be priced as follows starting in February:

  • The Windows 8 Pro upgrade edition will be available online and at retail for $199.99 MSRP (U.S.).
  • The Windows 8 upgrade edition will be available online and at retail for $119.99 MSRP (U.S.).
  • The Windows 8 Pro Pack will cost $99.99 MSRP (U.S.).
  • The Windows 8 Media Center Pack will cost $9.99 MSRP (U.S.).

Microsoft has been selling Windows 8 Upgrade at a special pricing.

But we have our promotional offer available until January 31st 2013, you can upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for just $39.99 ERP* (U.S.) via Windows.com using the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant or pick up a DVD copy at a local retailer for just $69.99 ERP* (U.S.).

Users are reportedly slow to adopt Windows 8 despite Microsoft’s efforts to convince  users to upgrade.

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SpinRite: Division Overflow Error!

This is one error that I’ve seen before in the past, but really rare with SpinRite. One computer at the office was having performance issue. How could a computer with Intel Core i7 be slower than one with Intel Pentium 4, which is the oldest computer in the office. After ruling out malware infestation, I suspected that the hard drive was the source of the problem. I then boot SpinRite on this computer to check the condition of the hard drive. Shortly after running Level 2 (emergency data recovery), SpinRite halted and displayed an error message.

Division Overflow Error!

A critical error occured at: B04E from which SpinRite CANNOT recover. The system has been halted!

I’ve just sent the screenshot to GRC support.

IMG_1168

It would be a lot easier for me to get a new hard drive and install a fresh operating system than waiting to get this hard drive repaired.

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MacBook Pro and SanDisk Extreme SSD 480 GB

I’ve been getting a lot of request lately to install Solid State Disk (SSD) on laptops, especially MacBook Pro. One of my current favorite model is SanDisk Extreme SSD. This particular MacBook Pro is now armed with SanDisk Extreme SSD 480 GB. I also installed 8 GB of RAM.

MacBook Pro SanDisk SSD

Short of installing fresh Operating System per owner’s request, I use Carbon Copy Cloner. The only problem is that it took 8 hours to clone 400 GB of data through FireWire 800.

Carbon-Copy-Cloner-in-action