Thursday May 8
23:34
Sleep N Shake
Last night was the worst earthquake I’ve felt in Tokyo. Again, it was during the night and it woke me up - and it seemed to last forever. Just when I thought it had stopped, a few minutes later it would start back up again. It was very scary.
My computers seem to be having similar ups and downs. After the problems with the Acer, today I was playing with my Kohjinsha SA1 - increasing the Video RAM in BIOS and plugging in an external monitor - and I managed to bluescreen it. Continually. As soon as Windows started, it would find a new USB peripheral (why?!), then crash. Thankfully after switching it off and leaving it cold for 15 minutes, it recovered. I guess after allocating more memory to the graphics card in bios, some garbage must have been left in memory somewhere that caused problems. Who knows.
Then I came home, and as I was playing with my LG laptop (LW25), I noticed that the fan wasn’t on. I tried toggling the fan speed and no joy, so I turned it over and looked at the fan. There looked to be a little bit of dust, so I got a toothpick and pulled out… what can only be described as a hairball.
There’s a cat living inside my LG.
The fan started to whizz away again. I wonder how long it has been like that? I noticed it had been getting hot lately, but I thought it was just normal heat from being switch on all the time. Now that I feel the laptop being cool again, I wonder what damage I - or the cat - has done.
Spurred on by a bit of success, I decided to take a big risk. My LG has 2GB of memory - 2 x 1GB. According to the online documentation and everything that I can find on the LW25 on the internet, the maximum memory is 2GB - but then again, the online documentation says my computer has a Pentium M, and that’s poppycock. It has a 2GHz Core Duo.
I read elsewhere that some manufacturers specified “maximum RAM” not by what the BIOS or motherboard actually allows, but by what chips were available at the time of machine launch. Since I have a 2GB module hanging around from the Acer - the one that I bought to put in the Acer - I thought I’d whack it in the LG and see what happened. If all went well, I’d have 3GB (2GB + 1GB). If all went tits up, I’d have a burning mess.
With my luck with computers lately, it probably wasn’t a good thing to experiment with - potentially blowing up my long-time-reliable PC - but it worked. I now have 3GB running quite happily. It’s also a relief because I did wonder whether the 2GB card was dodgy and had caused the Acer problems, but since it’s working fine in the LG, I know that the card is OK (I also used ran the Microsoft memory test program that comes on the Vista DVD to verify the chip was OK in the Acer and it gave no errors - but I still had slight worries until now).
My experience with the Acer was annoying - I thought I’d be left with a non-refundable 2GB memory chip, as well as the time I wasted - but as things have turned out, it’s thanks to the Acer that I realised I could upgrade my LG to 3GB, and my Kohjinsha to 1GB. So even though I lost 3+ days out my life, I’ll hopefully gain them back slowly through increased computer performance ;)
Wednesday May 7
19:31
I Tried - I Really Tried 2
I was all happy because I managed to wipe Vista from my 5520 and install XP instead. Unfortunately not all was as grand as I thought it to me.
Despite installing well, surviving several reboots, and running nice and fast, I found that after leaving the machine OFF for 1-2 hours and then rebooting into Windows, I was presented with a VGA screen. Going into Display - Settings, I was presented with the error:
The currently selected graphics display driver cannot be used. It was written for a previous version of Windows, and is no longer compatible with this version of windows. The system has been started using the default VGA driver. Please contact your hardware manufacturer to get an updated driver, or select one of the Microsoft provided drivers.
There’s a Knowledge Base article about the error here - but it seems irrelevant to the times when the error hits me, and it’s supposed to have been fixed by now.
I tried reinstalling XP again, even updating to SP3. It appeared to work - then wham! Same error.
What’s most strange is that by rebooting the PC, it starts working again. So what seems to be happening is that after booting from cold, the display driver doesn’t work - but every reboot after that is fine.
So, I have a lovely Acer laptop with a NVidia GeForce 7000M graphics card which crashes with “Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding but has successfully recovered” every five minutes under Vista, and fails to load the display driver correctly after a cold boot in XP - ie. a laptop that I effectively can’t used.
I called Bic Camera and they agreed to collect the machine and refund, though they did say the refund could be delayed until next month due to timings in credit card processing. That makes me very wary - but there’s not much else I can do.
The saga doesn’t end there, however. Since the machine is going back tomorrow, I decided to use the opportunity to try the Vista DVD that I grabbed from torrent - it was going to be my “fallback” incase I couldn’t get English menus in the Japanese edition. Since I have a Vista license, it’s not illegal to download an install CD.
As expected, a fresh install with that DVD gave me the same “Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding but has successfully recovered” error - as soon as I switched on Aero.
Experiment complete, I whacked in the Recovery DVD that I’d made with the Acer eRecovery suite when my machine arrived. It should have reformatted my hard drive and restored the machine to the state it was when I first received it. Instead it gave me a pop-up with:
Type Mismatch
Doh!
I tried Alt F10 to being up the recovery mechanism from Bios. No response.
Owch!
If I send the machine back with XP or a non Japanese version of Vista installed, it’s asking for trouble.
I tried searching around on the net and found that Vista has most likely changed the partition details so that Alt F10 no longer was responding.
I also found out that the C and D drive should exist and be formatted to FAT32 - since I don’t remember my Acer being formatted FAT32, that seemed wrong to me.
In the end, I was able to get the machine to boot from the recovery DVDs’ I’d made and restore Vista without “Type Mismatch” by doing the following:
1. Use the XP Pro CD and boot into XP setup.
2. Remove all partitions EXCEPT the recovery partition (F: on my machine, 10GB in size).
3. Create C and D partitions with half of the available space each (70GB each in my case).
4. Start XP installing onto C, but reboot after formatting has taken place.
5. Start XP installing onto D - again reboot after formatting has taken place.
What a pain in the neck, eh? A recovery mechanism should do just that - recover. Offer the option to format the disks if necessary, not breakdown and cry and shout “Type Mismatch”.
I know that I’ll never buy another Acer laptop again, or any laptop with NVidia graphics. I’ve no idea why PC makers keep using graphics cards from a company that caused almost 30% of logged Vista crashes in 2007.
In fact, faced with being FORCED to buy a machine with Vista installed and not be sure that it’ll work properly, it seems that the only way I can get a machine which is guaranteed to run XP properly is to buy an Apple! Ironic, eh?
Monday May 5
03:44
I Tried - I Really Tried
I really did try to give vista a chance. I really wanted to love the sidebar which showed the weather. I tried to smile when it took 10 minutes to unzip a 62MB file. But the last straw came when the NVidia graphics driver kept crashing every five minutes with “nvlddmkm stopped responding”.
How on earth could Acer sell a laptop with a driver that continually crashes?
So it’s now 3am, and I’ve just finished wiping the hard drive and installing XP.
For any Acer 5520 (or other Acer model) users in Japan, here are some tips:
1. Vista Ultimate allows you to switch language from Japanese to English using the MUI language packs. Home Premium does not. If you’re going to stick with Vista and want to change Home Premium to English, get Vistalizer. Just remember to change the language back to Japanese before installing SP1.
2. Vista doesn’t give up without a fight. The 5520 (and other Acers) has SATA drivers which no XP install CD can find. This page describes how to install XP on the Acer Aspire 5520 if you have a floppy drive - but I don’t. Instead I downloaded the files as recommended, extracted them using WinImage, then used NLite to create a new WinXP CD which contains the drivers. XP installed with no problem. This page provided all the XP drivers required for the 5520 after installation.
I cannot describe how much of a combination of pleasure and pain Vista was. On the one hand, I wanted a nice glossy toy to play with. On the other, it just felt so slow and buggy - aside from the display issue, I’d need to upgrade Photoshop, DVD Region Free, and probably a whole lot more.
It’s amazing to think that a single piece or hardware, which is make fully and 100% functional by XP, is crippled so severely by Vista. I only wish Apple would release MacOs X for PCs - they could take over the world.
As an aside, I’m deeply disappointed by Acer as a company. Not only does the NVidia driver crash continually under Vista, but Acer have plastered a “Warranty void if seal broken” sticker over the memory slot access. If you want to upgrade memory, you lose all warranty - unbelievably confirmed by a phone call to Acer. Luckily for me, I have a Bic Camera 3 year warranty (coast about 30 USD) and BC confirmed that they will still cover the warranty if I upgrade the memory myself and break the seal.
I really dont get how a company can advertise a machine as 1GB upgradeable to 4GB, and then tell you after purchase that if you want to do the upgrade, you will lose your warranty. They even include upgrade instructions in the user manual. Very dodgy.
Friday May 2
14:28
Retail Therapy
I bought some computer goodies yesterday.
First was a new laptop: Acer Aspire 5520 AS5520-7A1G16.
Second was new memory (2GB) for said laptop, raising the specs to:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 (Dual Core) 1.9GHz
3GB Memory
160GB HDD
DVD burner
15.4″ screen
This isn’t a “power laptop” - I don’t play games - but for the price I think it’s amazing value: 69200 yen, about 665 USD, for a dual-core machine with 3GB memory. I paid nearly 3 times that for my Intel 2GHz Dual Core / 2GB laptop 2 years ago.
The reason for buying it at first was to replace the little Kohjinsha SA1 that sits beside me at work, to surf the internet, check email, etc. The Kohjinsha is great for travel, but using it with logmein to connect to my home PC is a pain: 800×600 screen trying to display a 1280×800 screen - not nice.
However, I’m going to benchmark it against my machine at home first. If there’s little difference (Intel Dual Core 2GHz, 2GB memory), I’m going to use the new machine at home. Not only will I appreciate the larger screen for viewing photos, but I’ll be able to get all my iTunes on the internal drive. My current home machine is also smaller, so it will fit better on my desk at work. In honesty, I want a nice desktop machines with multiple monitors at home - but I’m trying to resist that, because I don’t want to have yet more junk to carry from country to country. If this machine performs well, it’ll make it easier to resist splashing out :)
Speaking of small: Third purchase - new memory for my little Kohjinsha SA1.
I had no idea memory prices were so cheap these days.The 2GB for the Acer was just 4400 yen, about 40USD - that’s nothing.
My SA1 has been struggling running XP with 512MB and its little 500MHz AMD Geode chip. While looking for the Acer memory, I just happened to search for memory for the SA1 out of interest. If I’d known I could have upped the memory to 1GB for just 6000 yen, I’d have done it months ago. I’ll never get over the limitations of the processor - but for the price of 6 pints of beer, XP can now breathe.
The Acer hasn’t arrived yet - they will deliver it on Sunday. It comes with Japanese Home Vista Premium, so my first task, after slotting in the extra memory, will be either installing XP or an English version of Vista.
Links:
Acer Aspire 5520 AS5520-7A1G16 laptop (with 1GB memory): biccamera.com. Price is 64,800yen until the end of this weekend.
This laptop is not available in the shops, so with the help of Google Translate, I had to buy it online. What astounded me is that even though the website is Japanese only, when I phoned them up to confirm the delivery date after buying, I was able to talk with a guy who speaks fluent English. And they’re delivering on a Sunday. Cool.
Memory: Ark in Akihabara, found from Kakaku.com price matching site.
Kakaku is a brilliant site - I check the price of everything electronic there before I buy.
Ark is a shop that I didn’t know about before, though I knew the street it’s in. As well as very cheap prices on memory, I noticed they also have 4GB SDHC cards for 1,770 Yen - that’s almost giving them away!
Tuesday April 1
00:55
Mobile Broadband
I’m a pretty resourceful chap, and over the past 18 months I’ve found several ways of getting around my company’s block on Gmail - including bringing my own laptop to work and buying a wifi booster, and using WAP on my mobile phone.But once you’ve tasted luxury, you don’t want to go back to beans on toast.
With the latest ban on logmein, and all the free Wifi networks gone, I was back to using QC or WAP to access gmail, and faced with warnings of “WARNING! Site Restricted! Your access has been logged!” from following links to about.com, etc, on Google searches.
So at the weekend, I finally admitted defeat and bought mobile broadband from EMobile.
There is very little written in English about EMobile in Japan, so I’m going to blog about my experience for the next two weeks. Why two weeks? You’ll see in a moment.
First I had to decide what to buy. I had three options:
1. Get a USB modem, and use with my Kohjinsha SA1 mini-notebook.
2. Get the EM・ONEα (S01SH2) Windows Mobile 6 internet PDA.
3. Get the EMonster (S11HT) Windows Mobile 6 smartphone. This is based on the HTC TyTN II smartphone, reviewed briefly here.
The first is probably the only one reasonably affordable without a one or two year commitment - but you need to have your laptop to use it. It’s also the fastest at 7.2Mbps. Since it’s a modem only, you don’t need to know Japanese to use it.
The second and third are similar. Both are Windows Mobile 6 based (Japanese only), both allow you to hook up a PC to allow the PC to access the internet. Their speed is 3.6Mbps. The problem is that they are expensive at 60~90,000 yen, and so you need to take out a 2 year contact to make them affordable. In fact, buying them without a contract costs more that buying them with a contact and paying cancellation penalty fees.
Despite being similar, there are important differences:
- The S11HT is a phone. The S01SH2 is not - it is for people who want good internet access.
- The S11HT has a smaller screen - 320×240 compared to 800×480 of the S01Sh2.
- The S11HT is smaller overall. The screen of the S01SH2 making it too bulky to go in the pocket.
- The S11HT has a slower processor. The S01SH2 feels “zippy” in comparison.
- The S11HT has Internet connection sharing - which means that you connect a PC to it, both the PC and the phone can access the internet. The phone can continue to receive mail, for example. The S01SH2 cannot access the internet if a PC is hooked to it - only one of the PC and the S01SH2 can access the internet at any time.
- The S11HT has insurance at ~300yen per month (3 USD) - so if you lose it, drop it in water, etc, you can get a new one for maximum 10,000 yen (100 USD). If you lose the S01SH2, you need to pay the cancellation charge of upto 48,000 yen (two year contract), or buy a new device at 90,000 yen.
- The S11HT has GPS. The S01SH2 does not.
- The S11HT has Mobile IE only. The S01SH2 has Opera also.
Both have advantages and disadvantages - one is a good standalone browser; the other is a phone and can keep retrieving email while sharing its connection with the PC - it was very difficult to choose which one to go for.
At first I wanted to get the S01SH2, because I prefered to have a proper internet tablet on the go - but I’m paranoid. The thought of losing the machine a week after buying it and having to pay 48,000 yen contact cancellation fee - I’d be gutted.
Since I was drawn to both of them, I decided to go for the S11HT.
It wasn’t quite as easy as that, however. EMobile has been running their mobile broadband service for a year or so now, and the coverage is still limited - but their mobile phone service only started this weekend. None of the phones had SIM cards, so you couldn’t check the signals. That made me very wary. Being locked into a 2 year contract or face cancellation fees, I wanted to make sure I had a get-out clause if I couldn’t get a signal at home of the office.
But that wasn’t easy. One place in Roppongi offered to let me refund if I brought the unit back within 5 days - but they wouldn’t have any in stock for another 10 days!
The large Bic Camera in Shibuya flatly refused to allow a refund after purchase if I couldn’t get a signal at my home or office. To me, it’s crazy to be expected to keep a mobile phone if you find you can’t get a signal at your apartment - why should I pay for service I can’t get? Bic Camera’s answer - go outside when you want to use the phone. My answer - why should I do that instead of switching to a provider that will give me the service I’m paying for?
Things went well at the smaller Bic Camera in Shibuya, however, and I did eventually get them to agree to a 14-day get-out clause, which they wrote on the contract and signed.
Hence 14 days.
That little blurb above really doesn’t do justice as to how difficult it was to get any store to allow a get out clause. It was a lot of walking around, asking different sales assistants, different branches of the same store. To me it’s crazy that one Bic Camera store would refuse but the other would allow it - but then also, when I looked in detail at the contracts, the two Bic Camera stores have completely different contracts for the same service, so who knows what is going on.
It was worth the effort, though - because my experience so far has been mixed.
I get an excellent reception at home. A quick speed test to the UK revealed 700kbps per second from the handset, and 360kbps from the PC via Bluetooth. That’s about a 1/4 of the theoretical maximum, and I’m going to a site in the UK.
At work, however, the reception is less good. Since I want to use it at work - that’s a problem.
It’s also unexpected. One of the guys I work with uses EMobile and has told me he’s always able to get a good connection at the office - but he’s using the USB modem. It’s possible the USB modem is better at grabbing signal.
One of the problems is we’re high in the sky, at more than 20 floors up. I noticed when I was using Wifi before that the reception would be more difficult when it was raining, and this morning the weather was terrible. Interestingly, the guy I work with also had problems getting some websites, so it could have been the weather playing its part.
The afternoon was better. Still a little patchy, but I could get internet access most of the time.
What surprised me, however, is how good Windows Mobile 6 is. There are the usual Windows unintuitive features - like there being no obvious way to do “copy & paste”, and I can’t find a way to switch off the sound for the keyboard slide without disabling all sounds… not even with someone there translating the Japanese for me. [Update: Thanks to p45 of the English HTC TyTN II manual, I found out that the sound for the keyboard sliding is not configured with all the other sounds under “Sounds” but has it’s own mini-control panel. Intuitive - huh? Still can’t find a Windows Mobile user guide anywhere.]
But there are good things I never expected. Mobile Outlook is fantastic, for example - completely unlike the PC equivalent, which is pants. It let’s me add multiple gmail accounts and sync them by imap. No longer do I have to logout of one gmail account to login to another (work; play), I can switch between them easily. And unlike Thunderbird, it handles the separation between accounts very well (I find Thunderbird clunky).
EMobile has removed Java from the installation, but I was able to download Java from here, and after installing it, I could get access to the Java Gmail applet, Opera Mini, and Google Maps for Mobile. The latter hooks up with the GPS, so places me on the map and updates the map as I walk around.
In fact the convenience of it all, combined with having a keyboard instead of tap-tap-tap to get the letter I want, makes me tempted to keep the thing even if I can’t get a good connection at work - it’s just streets ahead of what I was using before.
But I don’t know. It’s quite possible that if the signal stays bad, it’ll get to me - and I’ll end up taking it back and getting something from Softbank. Softbank will be significantly more expensive per month, and I know their “high speed” service is actually nothing near high speed (because my current phone is also “high speed”), but at least the signal will be stable.
Blimey, I never thought I’d be calling a Softbank signal stable.
I’ll be updating more on my EMobile experience over the next two weeks, assuming I keep it for two weeks.
Side note:
I just found this on the Softbank website (I can’t link to it because the page hides the URL):
Even if Unlimited Packet Discount is used, note that some communications do not apply to the fixed charge. [..] SoftBank sends Notification via SMS to customers (excluding corporate customers) who incur more than ¥100,000 in Packet Communication charges. Notification is sent the day after charges exceed ¥100,000.
So if you spend more than 1000 USD on packet charges, they’ll sent you an SMS to tell you. A bit late then, isn’t it?! This reminds me why I didn’t go with Softbank in the first place - their pricing scheme is so unclear. EMobile is a maximum 5980 Yen (60 USD) for unlimited usage.
Hmm, don’t get me started on Softbank and their high pressure rip-off sales tactics and dodgy pricing. They actually refused to sell me a contract free phone, because they were pushing their “free phone” 2 year tie-in, which had a penalty clause of 150% of the full price of the phone. It took an hour of arguing with them and threatening to go to head office and report the manager before the manager would sell me the phone, which is supposed to be freely available without contract - and even then she tried to refuse the sale again because I didn’t have my passport (which isn’t required if you have a credit card, alien registration card, and medical card). They will try anything to stop their subscribers from falling and falling - because once people transfer to Softbank, they are often disappointed by the quality - even signing Disney up. If you must go to Softbank, go to the Harajuku store and avoid the Roppongi store like the plague.
