CAT | My computers
I have to preface with this, I am a programmer, not a carpenter. Anyway, let’s move on to the meaty part shall we? This summer, I was building my girlfriend a computer, then the problem of the case came up. I wanted it to be somewhat small, nice, and cheap. There were several nice, small cases that costed $70! There was no way I’m going to spend that much money given the financial situation that I am in. I decided to look around the house and I had this really old computer that was given to me a few years back. I don’t know it’s actual age, but it was struggling to run the OS that it had on there, Windows 98 SE. If any of you can determine the age, let me know, here’s what it looks like stripped.
build wooden computer case · build wooden pc case · wooden computer case · wooden pc case
So, I have the dell E22FP along with my M1330. In the first few days/weeks, the monitor was working fine. Then, I noticed that it was flickering when viewed from a slight angle. At first, I thought this was a problem with the LCD. My first inclination was to complain to Dell. However, being that I am a lazy person, I never did that 
, but then I realized that when my M1330 plugs into other LCD monitors, the flicker also appears. When I try to boost the refresh rate up past 70Hz, the flickering disappears.
m1330 and e22fp problem · m1330 problem · m1330 vga port · m1330 vga problem
I have had the M1330 for a few months now and I must say, it is quite a fast computer! I cannot ask for anymore in terms of speed, however, there are a few things about this laptop that bothers me. You can see more of my laptop here. Of course, you can ignore me as I am very picky with my laptops .
Since my previous post about the horrors of Vista, I’ve been thinking a lot about compiz fusion and it got me rather interested in getting it to work on my laptop. I wanted to step in to try and see how I like this thing, not knowing all the troubles that I will be facing as you’ll soon find out. Since I wanted to try out Ubuntu, I had a choice to make between Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu. As you can guess by now, I’ve chosen to stick with Xubuntu, why?
I’ve tried using Vista for slightly over two months now, and I keep on having issues with it. At this point, I find that working with Vista has caused more headaches for me than XP, so I’ve decided to use something else. My current problems with Vista and my Dell M1330 are many, but here are a couple of major ones. If my computer goes to sleep, sometimes it will not wake up. That is, the screen turns black and when pushing the power button, it remains black. I’ve had to do a hard reset on this computer more times than necessary.
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Finally, initial reactions to my new Dell M1330
7 Comments · Posted by A.K. in Blog, My computers
As I have posted in my previous post, I am a big fan of portable laptop computers. My first laptop was an HP and it was big. Not to sound like a wussy and all, but carrying that thing around campus was quite a challenge, and it was only 15.4" 
. I am not much of a gamer, so my need for a heavy-duty, 256MB video card laptop wasn’t necessary, so I opted for the Dell M1330. When I received my M1330 last week, I took a few pictures, but haven’t had the time to post anything up about it, so here it is.
dell m1330 · dell portable laptop · portable laptop · xps m1330
After a few days of using my new E228FP monitor, I’ve gotten to like it a lot more. Of course, you can see my initial thoughts on my E228FP. I watched a movie, and the quality was fantastic! Unlike my previous monitors, a PyxScape and another generic brand name, this monitor does not have any white streaks on it. The dark areas was a lot darker than that of my other LCD screens. (more…)
22" lcd · 22" lcd monitor · Dell lcd · e228fp
So, at about 10:30 my time, the server went down, and I have no idea why. I was connected to SSH during that time, and I could ping it from my other linux box. At first, I thought it was some sort of spambot trying to access the server at a high rate, so the server is not responding. Now, I am not so sure anymore.
I went to log into the webhost’s administration page to reboot the server. Once I got in, I did the usual rebooting. Five minutes went by, nothing. Ten, nothing. It’s not starting to look so good. So, naturally, I looked at the IPMI sensors and found out that Fan #3 was not spinning at all. Its RPM at exactly 0. (more…)
Well, along with my new Dell 1330 laptop is the Samsung 320GB. As you can figure, this is a high-capacity hard drive. This thing also includes a free-fall sensor, which protects it from me accidentally dropping it or something. With my experience so far with my older laptop, I’ve dropped it once in 4 years. Even then, it was padded inside of a slipcover, inside of my cushioned bag. Of course, like most laptop hard drives today, it is 5400RPM, 8MB of cache and uses a 1.5Gbps SATA interface. (more…)
320gb samsung · hard drive click · hm320ij · samsung loud clicking
Wow, my first 22" LCD screen! This thing is huge! I am currently using it as an external monitor to my Dell M1330., and I have to say, it does help with productivity. I have it running at its native resolution of 1680×1050, nothing less. Naturally, I’ve "split" the screen into two, each half containing an instance of Firefox, my browser of choice. (more…)
