Monthly Archives: February 2009

Feb 17 2009
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Life in general

Fan failure and other tales of woe

Lately, Eve (my 15″ MacBook Pro) has been showing her age a bit more than I’m comfortable with.

A few weeks ago, she suddenly became unresponsive, as in no applications would launch, and finder froze. She complained that spotlight had quit unexpectedly, and at other times (the problem persisted after a reboot) she added more serious things too, like the loginwindow (which is supposed to always be running in the background), and even more seriously, the systemuiserver (which manages the entire visible interface of the computer). After some personal messing around (ensuring that I had all of my files backed up-thank god for Time Machine), I brought her into the Apple Store.

The Geniuses tried re-installing the OS from an external hard drive (as my superdrive had been broken for more than a year), and it repeatedly failed. This led them to the conclusion that Eve’s hard drive was corrupted. Seeing as how she is almost 3 years old, and that’s about the average life of a hard drive, it seemed likely….However, they said that it was highly unlikely that they’d be able to repair it themselves due to the computer’s cosmetic damage (dents and such, particularly one directly under the hard drive, not to mention a huge crack across the base of the frame of the display). Instead, they sent me to a little place in Allston called The Computer Loft, who agreed to replace/upgrade the hard drive and the superdrive for around $600.

Well, they did an amazing job – Eve’s hard drive is now a 7200rpm, 320gb drive, which is absolutely amazing, and I finally have a working superdrive again, which is nice. However, two days ago Eve’s right-hand started acting up.

I noticed that she was making a pretty loud buzzing noise, with a relatively light load, so I checked the fan speeds – as I thought, the left fan was going at about 5000rpm, and the right fan was spinning at around 2400rpm. This itself was abnormal, since I have the fans set to always spin in synchronization, but even more abnormal was the buzzing noise – a fan spinning at 2400rpm should be relatively quiet. I put her to sleep, and woke her up again – the buzzing was entirely gone. I was happy, but that didn’t last long, because I realized that the buzzing had only stopped because the fan had, as well. That was two days ago, and my right fan hasn’t risen above 0rpm since.

As a result, Eve is running a bit hotter than normal, but the left fan is working in overtime to keep the temperature regulated. Meanwhile, I’m trying to avoid heavy loads (opeations which would normally push both fans to their maximum) for fear of overheating her. I suppose I’m going to have to bring her back into The Computer Loft. I’m not really ready to buy a new computer yet, but Eve is starting to fall apart…

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Feb 17 2009
1 Comment
Life in general

Fan failure and other tales of woe

Lately, Eve (my 15″ MacBook Pro) has been showing her age a bit more than I’m comfortable with.

A few weeks ago, she suddenly became unresponsive, as in no applications would launch, and finder froze. She complained that spotlight had quit unexpectedly, and at other times (the problem persisted after a reboot) she added more serious things too, like the loginwindow (which is supposed to always be running in the background), and even more seriously, the systemuiserver (which manages the entire visible interface of the computer). After some personal messing around (ensuring that I had all of my files backed up-thank god for Time Machine), I brought her into the Apple Store.

The Geniuses tried re-installing the OS from an external hard drive (as my superdrive had been broken for more than a year), and it repeatedly failed. This led them to the conclusion that Eve’s hard drive was corrupted. Seeing as how she is almost 3 years old, and that’s about the average life of a hard drive, it seemed likely….However, they said that it was highly unlikely that they’d be able to repair it themselves due to the computer’s cosmetic damage (dents and such, particularly one directly under the hard drive, not to mention a huge crack across the base of the frame of the display). Instead, they sent me to a little place in Allston called The Computer Loft, who agreed to replace/upgrade the hard drive and the superdrive for around $600.

Well, they did an amazing job – Eve’s hard drive is now a 7200rpm, 320gb drive, which is absolutely amazing, and I finally have a working superdrive again, which is nice. However, two days ago Eve’s right-hand started acting up.

I noticed that she was making a pretty loud buzzing noise, with a relatively light load, so I checked the fan speeds – as I thought, the left fan was going at about 5000rpm, and the right fan was spinning at around 2400rpm. This itself was abnormal, since I have the fans set to always spin in synchronization, but even more abnormal was the buzzing noise – a fan spinning at 2400rpm should be relatively quiet. I put her to sleep, and woke her up again – the buzzing was entirely gone. I was happy, but that didn’t last long, because I realized that the buzzing had only stopped because the fan had, as well. That was two days ago, and my right fan hasn’t risen above 0rpm since.

As a result, Eve is running a bit hotter than normal, but the left fan is working in overtime to keep the temperature regulated. Meanwhile, I’m trying to avoid heavy loads (opeations which would normally push both fans to their maximum) for fear of overheating her. I suppose I’m going to have to bring her back into The Computer Loft. I’m not really ready to buy a new computer yet, but Eve is starting to fall apart…

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Feb 03 2009
Life in general

Windows 7 SKUs – How Microsoft fails as they improve

Microsoft confirmed the 6 SKUs of Windows 7 today – Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. At first glance, this seems pretty bad, even worse than Vista’s nightmare melange of SKUS (as this seems to have 2 more SKUs than the previous OS). However, if one takes a closer peek, it becomes clear that this is actually much better than Vista (while simultaneously still being pretty bad).

Let me explain a bit. Windows XP basically had two SKUs, Home and Professional. There were other versions too (Media Center, x64, etc), but it basically boiled down to Home and Professional. This is pretty self-explanatory, and in my opinion this is really as complicated as it has to get. Average users can use Home just fine, while people who need more features for work or ‘enthusiast’ use can get Professional. This is simple enough, not quite as simple as OS X’s single one-size-fits-all edition, but it works (and in some ways, is better than the single blanket edition, until you need to use a feature from Pro edition that simply isn’t available in Home no matter what you do…)

Windows Vista complicated things pretty horribly. The Vista SKUs (as most people know them) were Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate. In addition to these, Vista Starter and Vista Enterprise also exist, but are not purchasable by most consumers. Home Basic ws an extremely crippled version of Vista, lacking almost all of the new features of the OS, and not really worth anybody’s time or money. Home Premium added most of Vista’s features, and was suitable for most people’s use (the XP Home of Vista). Business added business-centric features, but removed many of the home-use features (such as Windows Media Center), and Ultimate simply includes everything. If this is confusing to you, don’t worry, it is confusing to most people. Vista didn’t sell that well, and it’s not much of a surprise.

Now, Windows 7 has the same SKUs as Vista, at least in name. As with Vista, most people don’t need to worry about Starter or Enterprise, as these are only available in developing countries and to big businesses, respectively. For Windows 7, Home Premium is still suitable for most people’s use, as it includes basically all of Windows 7’s main features. Business adds to these features, but it includes all the features of Home Premium. Ultimate adds a few more features, being the most complete edition, however it seems like Ultimate is a bit unnecessary, as Business edition includes practically all of the features as well. Accordingly, Microsoft is going to be reducing the shelf presence of Ultimate edition by a lot for Windows 7, pushing customers towards Home Premium or Business.

Now, what about Home Basic? Home Basic wasn’t useful for anybody in Windows Vista, and Home Premium is being set up to become the default Windows 7 SKU, so what is the point of Home Basic? This is one of the reasons I’m still very disappointed in Microsoft. In Windows 7, Home Basic and Ultimate editions are not going to be seen by most people, and don’t even really have a purpose anymore, so they are just complicating things unnecessarily. The two of them should be dropped entirely, and Home Premium should become simply ‘Home’. Personally, if I go into a store and I see ‘Home Premium’, I’m going to be confused if there isn’t a ‘Home Basic’ somewhere around, it just makes no sense to have only a Premium edition.

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