graphics – Andrew the Hopeless Techie

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Andrew the Hopeless Techie > graphics

Computer issues resolved

October 4, 2010 0 Comments

Well alot of you might remember a post a while back about my computer issues, I have recently figured out what the issue was ! Let me recap the problem just for those not familar with it. I began having issues with my computer the video would frequently drop out and I would need to turn off and on the monitor to get the image back Well i immediately thought the monitor was bad so i got on the horn to Samsung. They ensured me that “Their monitor could not possibly be the cause of the issue” like a fool I bought it.

I then looked to the two low end cheap graphics cards i bought I called several tech support people was was assured that was not it. I asked a few friends and the Motherboard was point to as a possible but unlikely cause for the issue seeing as the cards were both solely bus powered. So a RMAing the board will go. The board was RMAed and still nothing!!! The issue was still there I then started RMAing the Graphics cards and with one on its ways to Powercolor to get swapped. I then decided to see if Samsung was accrate in their claim that their monitor could not be the cause.

Well they were wrong, the issue existed when i tried the monitor on a different computer. Was I annoyed? YES! I had decided before this I was going to upgrade the Graphics cards to more solid and powerful cards which i did. Now a replacement monitor is on the way. I decided to get this monitor http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=24-236-091&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=4#scrollFullInfo

ASUS 27" LCD Monitor

ASUS 27" LCD Monitor

Some people may ask me what did I learn from this experience? I learned that Vendors will Lie like dogs to prevent their hardware being replaced

Components, Computers, General Stuff, Hardware Trials, Linux, Non-Specific, Windows Trials

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Computers – Ram Compatibility, Motherboard, Graphics

September 16, 2010 0 Comments

Motherboard

I finally got confirmation that my replacement Motherboard has in-fact been shipped from ASUS. The fact that they sent a replacement instead of the repaired board shows me one of two things, Ethier they were not able to fix the board due to the issue being to great, or they broke the board trying to fix it and just decided to pawn it off as unfixable.

Ether way I would have been happy, some people get leery when they hear a refurbished part is being sent in place of what was a brand new part being fixed. I on the other hand feel if the factory is the one doing the Refurb which in this case it is then the board is as good as new. If not it would be free to get replaced.

Ram Compatibility

I got to thinking the other day how alot of companies seem to be terminating support for previous generations of products. I tend to agree with something like XP which has had a predecessor previous to Windows 7. However RAM it seems is never backwards compatible, why is this? I know they use different voltages and what not right?

Well I think that reason is crap, If we can make a freaking car that runs on 4 different types of Gas and Electricity should gas not be present, then why in the name of all that is can we not make a RAM slot that will detect and adjust voltages for the appropriate RAM.

Here is a case scenario where this would be beneficial:

You currently have a Motherboard with 16gb of DDR2 RAM, you want to upgrade the Motherboard to support newer technologies such as SATA 6gb/s, and USB 3.0 support. It however does not support DDR2 RAM that means you would need to purchase all new ram leaving your old RAM useless.

If you were able to use the DDR2 until you acquired enough cash to upgrade to the over priced DDR3 then you would have a much smoother computer upgrade.

Graphics Card

The graphics cards that I got to use with the computer at the time seemed very good but I am finding it to be less then adequate for the current demand by programs.

Sadly the cheapest upgrade I saw was $84 and that is a lower but more acceptable model. This is out of my price range but I am watching it and will most likely get it one day in the far off future

Components, Computers

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Trouble with getting a clean Face image

July 6, 2010 11 Comments

Ok so I am trying to join the Social Media trend and make a decent Face image to use as my avatar and what not. I am however running into some issues.

me.jpg This image is the source image the one i am trying to use to get the face image. I looked around for tools to help me do this and the only way I found to do it was to open the image in Gimp and then use the Multi-point selection tool to try and outline my face then cut the image from the background and past it onto a new layer on top of a layer with a transparent background.

This resulted in this image face-master.png

The image as you can see if technicaly a face image but it is no where near as cleanly done as I want. If you look on http://www.av-j.com/fedoraplanet you will see examples of people with clean faces ones that do not have jagged edges and do not look like an amateur edited them such as myself.

So what I ask you guys is, Do  you know of a plug-in for the Gimp or some site that can aid me in doing this more cleanly? I need the file it generates to be able to be safely re-sized with minimal degradation to the image quality (not a super good quality to begin with )

Digital photography is not one of my strong points here so anything suggested should be clear and to the point and hopefully something i can follow easy enough.

Fedora, General Stuff, Linux, Ubuntu

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FGLRX/Catalyst Woes! ATI Get with the big picture allready!

January 22, 2010 5 Comments

Well now I have been told and told and even experienced first hand why NVidia is better to its linux user base then ATI however I did not heed the warnings and now I have reached a perdicament.

ATI offers their drivers for video cards for linux however what seems to be the case lately is that X.org and ATI do not seem to be on the same page. ATI releases an update for their drivers to support a new Xorg version and then xorg goes and releases a new stable version which then takes ATI 6 months to make a driver for. Well this is all and good except that by the time ATI releases that driver update to support it the development cycle continues and bam another xorg stable version is rolled out. leaving ATI once again in the wake of its success.

Now Nvidia does not seem to have nearly as long of a delay in their support for new xorg versions why then does ATI insist on falling behind in this.

The simple answer is that they are pre-concerned with adding support for newer cards instead of enabling their existing current products to function properly. This leave people like myself with the decision do use an older xorg and continue using the drivers which in my case means an older Fedora version or use the open source drivers.

I often get told “Try the new mesa experimental drivers they support 3d perfectly” To which I have to say no they do not at least not in the way that someone installing the fglrx driver would expect. When i say that I want the same support that fglrx has I mean that i want to run 3d games like World of Warcraft in WINE something that to me is not possible with the experimental drivers.

Now before i get people saying “Install the mesa-dri-experimental package” I am going to say I have done this and see  no change at all. I have even downloaded and compiles the radeonHD driver with no luck as well.

Bottom line here is that why does ATI not take their linux users seriously? Why do they take 6 months to add support for a new xorg version?

Fedora, Non-Specific

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