Another day in paradise

Ok! This is actually boring. Though it is to be expected from a Windows system, I've faced problems with various drivers, that were provided through Windows Update or with the system itself.

First of all, I needed to install a driver for my JMicron controller. It has my SATA2 and PATA ports, which of course were usable, but for some reason that eludes me, the hard disk raised its temperature to 55° or 56°C. It actually keeps working, reading and writing, all the time, even though the Indexing Service has been disabled on it. After the installation I think, it lost some speed, as the benchmarks show [a 8MB/sec drop in mean read/write speed with HD Tune]. But it keeps cool under load... 46-48° C.  [And I did check these with a digital thermometer]

The driver I've mention on an earlier post for my TV Tuner, was also kind of broken. I could watch TV, but it seems that it had a different mapping for the remote. So Volume Up meant Shut Down the program. Hmmm... Fortunately the Vista x64 Driver worked as it should! 

Apart from that the feeling you get from the system, is kind of effortless. It obeys your commands without delay still. I have some doubts about the practicality of some features, and though I hate that I have to "allow" HDTune to run on every start up, it could be a usefull feature for viruses etc. Tried some tricks, nothing worked so far. 

So please people Update your drivers manually, from the manufacturers site... :-)

Just checking

After having resolved any issues [that was easy], it was time to try some stuff. Between settings and customizations, I hit Windows Experience Index. I got a disappointing 3.5 out of 7.9, which screams: UPDATE MAN! 

To my great surprise though, it was the graphics card ATI 2400 PRO with 512 MB, that made the score so low! And to top that it was the value of Desktop Performance for Windows Aero. Eh? What are you saying? I got 5.3 on 3D gaming and Vista 2.0... em sorry Windows 7 says it needs bigger muscles for Aero? Really? Right!!!

By the way the effects with Compiz on Ubuntu, on this computer are effortless. 

Day 2, Nice!

Interesting! Very Interesting!

I used the Windows Update feature which found all missing drivers! So after that I had both my NX1101 Network Adapter and the TV tuner card installed [I 've had problems with it on XP x64]. 

One minor problem though. I could watch TV but without sound. Hmmm... Nowhere on the options could I find smth specific to my problem, and then it hit me!

I went to download the latest Realtek HD Audio Drivers. Try the .zip file, both exe's had problems downloading. As it turns out, the drivers that came with Windows 7, didn't recognize all inputs of the card! 8|

Yeah stupid I know, but now everything works. No problems with anything else so far. No, strike that, my AMD Power Monitor, refuses to launch on system boot. 

Here is a first screen capture: 

Getting started with Win7

Today I finally installed Windows 7 x64 on my desktop. I've had the installation media from technet.com but I postponed the installation for some time, cause I didn't want to ruin my good old fashioned system (that WinXP). As it turns out I didn't cause I used a 80GB Maxtor HDD, I've been using for back-ups.

So its kind of a test. Old system, based on an Athlon x2 3800, and a VIA 890 chipset [What was I thinking then? 8| ].

Anyhow, everything went smoothly with the installation... No problems. Up and running in a couple of hours with common programs installed.

As it turns out my ASUS NX1101 doesn't work with the system. I haven't found a driver for  my Leadtek 2000XP TV Tuner.

Boot time is 1 minute, with everything up and running...