My Playstation 3 Hard Drive Change Experience

 

So I finally made the decision to upgrade the Playstation 3 hard drive. I got the Hitachi travelstar 750GB drive. It’s a standard 2.5in 9.5mm height, 5400RPM drive. Unfortunately, it’s a 4k advanced format drive, which from the information gathered, the PS3 OS is supposed to not support it and have some performance issue which causes game stuttering. But still I took the bite, worst case I can always return it… My Playstation 3 was the original 60GB. I’ve been wanted to upgrade the hard drive for a while, but never made the decision until the recent PSN hacking incident where I can get a few games for free. That pushed me to switch out the hard drive, pretty in desperate of needing one. And here’s the story:

Frist found a used drive, formatted it with large fat32, and performed a backup, the went well. Then went out to get the drive, and here’s where the adventure started… The screws! I never thought the screws would cause so much trouble! Without the right size screw driver, it’s impossible to unscrew these damn 5 screws. Well, the blue screw isn’t that bad for the tool I have. But for the 4 small screws that mount the drive, it’s virtually impossible to make them move! I fought them for a good two hours, after getting tips online using the plier since I stripped two of them. After replacing the drive, I replaced the two stripped ones with the standard screws which have the rounded head and sticking out on the latching side. These two will fit into the case, on the other side, I just screwed the original ones with again the plier… The standard ones don’t fit. And I think I’ve overcome all the trouble. But no, the last step which restoring the backup failed mysteriously. I got error message 800283E7 around 21%. Upon researching, it’s probably some issues with external hard drive, or game DRM. So lessons learned, never trust the software. When backup, you should perform a system backup, AS WELL AS a manual backup. The system backup files are just a bunch of encrypted *.dat files, it’s useless since there’s no way to stripe them out… Fortunately I don’t have much loss since the original hard drive was 60GB only (an OEM seagate), and my backup size was 32GB with mostly games, mp3, and pictures. The games I can always retrieve from the downloading list. For the mp3, it’ll take a while for me to re-rip though.

The process which originally I thought was really simple, took me a whole damn day to do, and still failed miserably. It’s THE most frustrating thing I’ve encountered with my Playstation 3.

As far as the new hard drive performance, I can’t say much yet. I’ll keep updated. But right now, I’ve copied around 100GB video files onto the hard drive through TVersity’s DLNA server, and it’s been really smooth.

SONY VPCF13UFX/B Laptop Review 06-28-11 Update

 

06-28-11 Update: Some comment on the Atheros AR9287 PCI-e wireless card after switching a wireless n router. See at the back.

06-12-11 Update: It’s been another month, the laptop has been running pretty smoothly. The AC adapter seems fine for now. And almost no incident of BSOD after I figured out the driver conflicts except one incident where a kernel crash occurred one morning due to ntoskrnl.exe. But this is after almost a full month continuously running without shutting down. I’ve also upgraded the display driver to 270.61, which I had only encounter the driver kernel crashing for once. I’ve also tried encoding some video on this machine, while there’s definitely some speed boost, it’s not as significant as I had hoped. But I have to admit that my encoding parameters are quite demanding…

05-11-11 Update: First major follow up after two month and a half of heavy use. OK, bought this machine on Feb 25th, AC adapter started making constant high pitch buzzing noise on May 4th. Have to call SONY support on May 6th (Friday) to get a replacement AC adapter. Was told that it will arrive within 7 days. But received it on May 9th (Monday). That was pretty fast, but still disappointed at how unreliable the product was…

So the left is the replacement model VGP-AC19V45, the right is the original shipped model VGP-AC19V15. As you can see, the replacement is much larger, which translates to much heavier than the shipped one. But they did have the same spec (input, output). The replacement is still NOT entirely “quite”, you can hear the electronics (presumably a fan?) running if you stick your ears to it. It became more obvious in the night when everything is quite, you can hear it within a short distant. The packaging indicated that the replacement may or may not be refurbished. Upon checking, the 45 is indeed an old model that shipped with laptops manufactured last year, the 15 comes with the new ones shipped this year! One minor improvement for this replacement is that it handles the interference a lot better, you can barely hear the noise from headphone port, well, still a little during the night… So maybe the old adapter was DOA right out of the box? That’s what I want to say about the adapter for now. But I’m sure I’ll request another one AND the battery by the end of the one year limited warranty.

Another quality issue I have recently is the BSOD in Win 7 caused by drivers. The two types of BSOD I’m encountering are the netio.sys caused by the nic (not sure if it’s the Marvell Yukon gigabit or the atheros wireless) and nusb3xhc.sys caused by NEC USB 3.0 driver respectively. It would almost BSOD every single DAY, completely randomly! So I reinstalled the system from scratch, actually installed Win 7 Ultimate this time. But before that I went to the SONY website to pick up all the drivers, have to download that retarded taxi driver program… I opted to not install a lot of the unnecessary software this time, the installation is apparently smooth, every component worked fine except I didn’t install the hardware diagnose program and VAIO media gallery so that I can’t use the ASSIST and VAIO button. I didn’t install the auto update program as well since at this point I can no longer trust the “official” drivers from SONY. But as I had expected, this didn’t stop the machine from BSOD with the nusb3xhc.sys from crashing! Then I suspected it must be the “official” drivers! So I uninstalled it, and grabbed the driver from NEC directly. Now it seems to be working fine, at least for the past week I haven’t restarted the machine! I never installed the two network drivers BTW, therefore haven’t encountered any BSOD from netio.sys crashing. The atheros driver is from win7, the Marvell driver is from the manufacturer since win7 has a really old driver. So anyway, here are the drivers for NEC USB 3.0 controller (2034) [the official one from SONY is 2040 or 2041, but somehow 2034 is newer?] and Marvell Yukon gigabit (11.41.3.3).

 

BTW another issue I have is the Nvidia driver seems to crash from time to time, then had a kernal recovery. During the crash, there will be a split of second that the screen would go black, sort of like win7 switching from aero effect to no effect. But since this doesn’t happen too often and didn’t BSOD, I haven’t taken any action on this one. Well, the only thing I could do is to install a newer driver I guess. And hope for the best, it’s not a hardware issue! The driver from SONY (259.03) is apparently a special Tesla driver.

Also I’ve enabled Virtualization permanently in BIOS since I need to use VMware. There’s apparently very little impact on the fan noise unlike I said earlier.

04-07-11 Update: Minor follow up. Now I discovered that both running on AC or on DC battery, this machine will output some constant humming noise ALL the time, this is particularly noticeable if you are in a very quite environment. The noise comes from the power button area on the right.

When on AC, there's also the noise from headphone port which I'm fighting with since day one. However, I found that if the battery level drops below 75%, even if you're recharging (means on AC), the noise disappears! But when charging above 75%, the noise starts returning. I don’t think there is any fix on this problem except attaching an external sound card!

03-07-11 Update: I’ve got the Realtek audio mystery mostly figured out. It’s more of a problem from my environment. Mainly the interference of the noise issue is from the power supply due to my building is NOT properly wired. When attaching the power plug in, the noise IS there, but when using internal battery, the noise is NOT present! Also, the SPDIF does support ac3 and DTS pass-through, but by default it’s off. 

I’ve been looking for a laptop for some time now. So I finally decided to bring home a SONY VPCF13UFX/B last week. Got it from local retailer store with somewhat OK price. I was actually waiting for the sandy bridge ones, but this Sony seems nice and have all the features I want. So I splurged some money on it, $800+tax to be exact, the most –expensive laptop I’ve ever bought so far.

Specifications:

Operating System: Genuine Windows^® 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-740QM, 1.73GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.93GHz, 6MB Cache

Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® 310M with 512MB dedicated video RAM

Memory: 4GB DDR3 SDRAM Memory, Max supported = 8GB

Storage Drive: 500GB SATA Hard Drive

Optical Drive: DVD-Super Multi Drive

Display: 16.4" Display, 1600x900 resolution

Audio: Intel® High Definition Audio with Dolby® Home Theater Technology

Webcam: Built-in MOTION EYE® camera and microphone

Communications: 10baseT/100baseTX/1000baseT, Bluetooth with Integrated Stereo A2DP (2.1 + EDR), Atheros® 802.11b/g/n

Expandability: Memory Stick® Media Slot: 1, Express Card®/34 Slot: 1, Secure Digital (SD) Slot: 1

Ports: Headphone Jack: 1, Microphone Input: 1, VGA Output(s): 1, e-SATA: 1, HDMI™ Output(s): 1, USB 2.0: 1, USB 3.0: 2

Battery: Standard Lithium-Ion (5000 mAh)

Software:

Microsoft® Office Starter with reduced-functionality versions of Word and Excel, VAIO Care™, Media Gallery™ , PMB - VAIO Edition, Norton Internet Security™ 2011 30-Day Trial Offer

Some highlights are i7 740QM processor with quad-core 8 threads, 16.4” with 1600*900 resolution, Nvidia GF310M dedicated video card with HDMI output, 500GB 7200RPM Hitachi HDD, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 1 USB/eSATA port, backlit keyboard, bluetooth, crappy realtek HD audio with SPDIF digital output (shared with headphone), which are basically the things pushed me over to make the purchase. Another reason I got a SONY is because the PS3 leaves a very good impression, I hope this second big SONY product could work magic for the another time.

So here is my initial impression about the machine after a week of use.

Epson Artisan 725 Color Inkjet All-In-One Review – 062811 Update

 

06282011 Upadte: Adding troubleshooting for cannot find scanner issue at the back.

So Office Depot is offering a trade-in special on this EPSON Artisan 725 Color Inkjet AIO. I picked it up for $50 after turning in my ancient Lexmark AIO (which is still functioning I believe, but they don’t care if the printer is in working condition).

 

I picked up this model because I want to print CD/DVD labels with those direct printable surface. Also I want to print covers for the keep case. Plus the reviews on Amazon seems overall positive. After owning it for a week, printing a dozen labels/photos, I have to say that I’m impressed with the printing quality from this printer with its 6 color HD ink system. Also the network function exceeds my expectations. I have previously owned EPSON CX4400, CX7700, CX8400 AIOs (I so miss those great days where you can buy a cheap $10 camera and get these AIOs for free. Well, more like for free ink), but I wasn’t able to get much from those models. But this Artisan 725 packed with so much advanced features which made it worth the money.

 

 

First impression is that the printer is heavy and large, it takes up a lot of spaces! But I do like the top is flat unlike the previous CX8400. Initial setup was pretty easy. For connections, You can choose between USB, wireless, wired network. I opted for wired network installation since my desktop doesn’t have wireless and I want to have printing/scanning on all of my computers. So my particular setup was router –> 8 port switch –> printer. 2 laptops connected to the router wirelessly and then the printer, then 1 desktop connected to the switch then the printer. All computers can now access to the printer’s card reader, printer, and scanner. The card reader is mapped as a connected network device, on 32bit system, it seems to use up a drive letter Z, on a 64bit system, it shows up as a network device which didn’t use a drive letter. I’m not sure if it’s the normal behavior, personally I prefer as the latter since I’m running out of drive letters on my desktop!

 

 

 

Software consists of printer driver, scanning software (no OCR), network manager. There’s not much change between the driver and scanning software interface since those CX series. I never liked the scanning software, but I can live with it. It seems adding an office mode aside from auto, home, and professional from the CX series. The only thing I’m missing is ADF automatic document feeder but since this is an entry level model, they didn’t equip it. The scanning speed has improved dramatically. Either from lamp warming up to scanning, it’s really fast compared to the CX series. I can now scanning at 600dpi within minute, this took ridiculously long before on the CX8400. And the image is instantly available across a lousy slow wireless g network, even for images that are saved as *.bmp which could take up to 90MB easily (600dpi).

 

 

 

Another note for the network setup is that I wasn’t able to use the default WSD port for the scanner to work. But adding a standard TCP/IP port works. The only problem is the ink level checking no longer works. But you can still check the ink using the web interface by typing in the IP address: http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/PRESENTATION/

 

 

The screenshot reflects the ink level after printing ONLY a total of 6 DVD labels AND 8 keep case covers. So yes, this is another ink guzzling machine as expected… At this rate, I guess the yield is gonna be less than 100 paper… I’m not sure how they could claim 500 yield on draft mode… But this is not too surprising…

 

One thing that changes quite dramatically is the paper tray. It’s a 2-layer design where the large sized paper going the bottom, and small sized photo paper going the top. Some people on Amazon mentioned the printer has trouble grabbing two pieces of paper at a time, I only had this problem with some really thin copy paper supposedly used for laserjet, but that was not supposed to be used for inkjet…

Another tray is the CD/DVD tray for printing labels. It’s built-in unlike the previous models. You have to tilt the touch panel all the way up to see this tray. There’s a button on the touch panel to eject and close the tray, otherwise I don’t find such a button in the CD Printing software. It feels more like burning a CD/DVD now. The tray emulates a full size A4 or letter size paper. And it’s printing the image upside down. I have to mention this because the Verbatim BD-R DLs I got have letters on the disc where you cannot print over, so I have to adjust the orientation to avoid the letters covering on the important part of the images. The provided sample Memorex (oops!) CD-R does have white printable surface edge to edge without any letters. However, the printable Verbatim DVD-R/+Rs I got a while back has large non-printable center hub… So the discs really vary from model to model.

Another change is the addition of duplex module at the back. Double sided printing seems pretty standard nowadays, but I really don’t see much use on an inkjet. The module is large, and sticking out too much IMO. While it is removable, it leaves a large opening at the back, and EPSON didn’t provide a cover.

Printing, I’m very satisfied with the performance. It could easily compete with any local photo labs, if not better. The only problem I had initially was disabling color profile in EPSON’s driver so that it converts the colors twice, which causing the colors to be smeared and appears magenta… After reading this article on Adobe’s web, I was able to print photos very close to what I see on the screen even without any calibrations.

So basically you have to choose EPSON’s profiles in PS, then disable the ICM color adjustment in the printer driver:

From PS:

From driver:

Other neat features include operating without using computer. You can copy documents, even CD/DVD labels directly using the printer. You can also scan images directly onto memory cards. Then the images are shared across the network! Operating with computer, you can use the touch panel to scan pictures, open email application on the computer without using the software on the computer. (It would be cool to be able to send images as email attachments directly without computer) Also the USB port supports charging USB devices which I haven’t tried yet.

Lastly, this is the CD/DVD template for PS. This let you print labels directly inside PS, instead of using the included CD printing software which doesn’t have much flexibility… It’s from CDfreak, although it says it’s for Artisan 810, it works for my Artisan 725.

Recently my router broke, so I have to swap it. The problem is that the IP address changes, can the replacement one doesn’t have a fixed IP feature like the old one. Therefore the IP address of all my network devices changed, which of course includes this printer/scanner. The issue is with the the scanning software – Epson Scan cannot be started. So I looked into this, found that you have to enter the IP address manually in EPSON Scan Setting.

You might want to delete the original scanner, since it’s no longer useful. Clicking the Edit button only allows you to edit the name, so it’s useless. So just delete it, and add as a new.

Now the automatic search doesn’t work for me, so I have to enter my network address manually. The IP address can be found inside the router. This should solve the scanner problem.