tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21354927635718651782024-03-13T13:23:04.263+00:00Zero1's StuffZero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-38899865165638377062012-10-20T13:05:00.002+01:002012-10-20T13:10:14.153+01:00New Pickup: Sony MDR-V6<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Well, that title is a stretch of the truth, as I've had these headphones a few weeks now, but that at least gives me a fair shot at giving some feedback on the quality after having used them for a little while.</div>
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So, a few weeks ago I got the buying bug again, and there were a couple of models of headphones that were on my radar for various reasons. The Sony MDR-V6, a model of headphone that has been in production since 1985, is widely used in studios and possibly one of the best value for money headphones on the market; and the Panasonic RP-HTX7, which after following the introduction for the V6, are nothing special - just some retro style headphones that have been the subject of product placement in a couple of shows I watch (I'm a bit of a collector/hoarder, so I couldn't resist buying them).</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KI05z6ybFMY/UIKTisTZ__I/AAAAAAAAAI4/cev01ooBl4E/s1600/mdrv6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KI05z6ybFMY/UIKTisTZ__I/AAAAAAAAAI4/cev01ooBl4E/s1600/mdrv6.jpg" /></a></div>
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The MDR-V6 were of particular interest, because of how many photos I've seen of voice actors, singers and inside studios that have these headphones, or one of the many variants. I thought for something to be so widely used, they must be pretty good. I didn't really have high expectations for the Panasonic since they were the cheapest headphones I own (£37), so not really fair to compare them to the K701 that cost 5x as much. That said, as my collection grows, it means I have more points of reference/comparison, as well as a clear high (AKG K701) and low (Panasonic RP-HTX7) anchor.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Sony MDR-V6</b></span><br />
As I mentioned earlier, the Sony V6 released in 1985. It's amazing that a product has lasted that long and is still in production, as most things are cycled out after a few years, such as models of cars (I wish to buy a brand new Mk2 SW20 MR2 ;_;), games consoles, audio gear, computers - the list is endless. That's not to say that Sony haven't attempted to improve and revamp them over the years, often at a higher price tag.<br />
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The list of V6 based headphones is as follows:<br />
MDR-V6, MDR-V600, MDR-7506, MDR-7509HD, MDR-CD900ST<br />
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Here is a chart from Wikipedia comparing all the models, except the CD900ST<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nj3YAm1ig-I/UBgLECNmb6I/AAAAAAAAAH8/0rJulkwAeYM/s1600/v6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nj3YAm1ig-I/UBgLECNmb6I/AAAAAAAAAH8/0rJulkwAeYM/s640/v6.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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I went with the V6 after much deliberation, as I was torn between those and the 7506. The general comments I seemed to come across was that the 7506 were a bit more detailed; suited more for monitoring, and that the V6 were more fun/enjoyable. I liked the idea of having another pair of detailed headphones, and the 7506 have a gold plated connector over the V6, but Sony claim the frequency response of the 7506 isn't as wide (to be honest, 10-20,000Hz seems like some safe cop out rating you would give something without even testing since it's so much narrower than all the other models). The thing that finally swung it for me was my original reason for buying them - trying to find the best quality/neutral headphones for the lowest price. Good quality audio is something everyone should be able to enjoy, but not everyone is comfortable with spending £200 on headphones and a load more on amps and DACs. As it turns out, the V6 frequency response is a little closer to the K701 than the 7506 are.<br />
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<b>Build Quality</b><br />
No real complaints here. They feel reasonable quality for their price and the cable/jack is very well made. The ear pads aren't real leather, and I've read that they peel/flake after some time, which is something that happened to an older pair of Sony V700 that I had. Fortunately you can buy replacement pads, so it's not a deal breaker. The 6.3mm adapter is threaded and screws on to the 3.5mm jack very securely. Once the 6.3mm connector is screwed on, it looks as though it's just a single 6.3mm jack rather than an adapter.<br />
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<b>Design/Comfort</b><br />
A special mention goes to the presentation of the packaging, which is some of the classiest I've seen for headphones of this price range - this is something you wouldn't mind giving as a birthday present for example.<br />
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Overall they are pretty comfortable. They are a snug fit and feel as if they won't go anywhere if I'm moving around, so possibly quite good for outdoor use, if you are the kind of guy to wear fullsize headphones outdoors (fistbump if you are). The headband has numbered click stops, so you can set the correct size for your head and it will stay there, particularly useful if you have people who like to "borrow" your gear as you can just click them down to the number that's right for you instead of messing around trying to get comfortable again.<br />
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The ear pads are a good size. Not quite as spacious over the ear like the K701, but large enough to surround your ears. In my case I can feel my ears pressing on the inside of the cups a little which is something that doesn't happen with the AKG. It's not particularly a bad point though, just an observation. I don't feel as though this ruins the comfort of them. The inside of the cups/driver cover is nicely padded with good quality cloth.<br />
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<b>Sound</b><br />
The overall tone is pretty well balanced, the bass is good, giving kick drums a real kick to them and the treble isn't harsh at high volumes like it can be with some headphones. Some might say they enhance the bass a bit, but I find them pretty well balanced for the price. I would say they are mostly neutral, perhaps with a slight emphasis on the bass, but that might be just me being used to the lesser bass of the open back K701.<br />
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They are fairly detailed, but could sound better if they had a tiny bit more treble, but getting that balance right is tricky without sounding dull or too bright.<br />
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The sound stage is average - they don't sound artificially wide, nor do they sound flat or lifeless, but it would have been nice if it was a little wider I guess.<br />
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They sound reasonably good on standard audio out jacks like those found on laptops, audio players or phones, but they are rated at 63 ohms impendance, which means that to get the higher volume levels, you could do with an amplifier. They sound better on an amp, but I don't think they benefit as much from it as other headphones.<br />
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<b>Compared to:</b><br />
AKG K701<br />
It's amazing how similar these sound given the huge price difference. The Sony MDR-V6 punches well above it's weight, giving an overall similar tone to the K701, however I feel as if the V6 has a little more bass and mid-bass, but a bit less treble than the K701, giving the V6 a slightly less detailed feel at the side of the K701. That's not necessarily a bad thing though as a lot of people comment on the K701 sounding a little bright and/or lacking bass - so take that as you will. The K701 certainly sounds a bit cleaner on most metal/rock songs, mostly owing to the fact that I feel the mid-bass on the V6 is a little on the "slightly too much" side. The K701 also won out in terms of realism, most likely owing to the advantages of an open back setup.<br />
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They are power hungry, meaning that I was having to turn my amp up to similar levels with either headphone connected, so if you like your music loud, you might want to invest in a small cheap amp.<br />
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It's not really fair to compare the design of the V6 to the K701, as the K701 are beautiful, yet the V6 have their own down to earth charm. The K701 build quality is of course better given the price tag, but the K701 still manage to feel delicate. At least with the V6 I feel they would withstand knocks a bit better, and if they did break they don't cost too much to replace.<br />
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The K701 beats the V6 on comfort hands down, but the V6 aren't what
you would call uncomfortable, although the ear pads can get a bit hot
and stuffy after a while. Nothing comes close to the comfort of the K701 - you just can't beat that combination of cloth ear pad and open back.<br />
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Sony XB700<br />
Although the V6 are designed to be neutral, and the XB700 are designed to enhance bass, I thought it would be interesting to make the comparison anyway since they are in the same price bracket.<br />
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Are they really in the same price bracket? Ok, so I know they serve different purposes, but the V6 sound like they should cost twice as much as the XB700. Of course the V6 is down on bass at the side of the XB700, but if I'm honest it's not so much that I would choose the XB700, not when the treble, detail and overall balance of the V6 is so much better.<br />
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I know it's not fair to spout words like detail, balance and neutral when talking about some bass enhancing headphones, but the sound of the XB700 is really weird. There is very little top end at all, and in some songs, I was missing out on details I could hear fine with all my other headphones. Sonically, the XB700 are weak. They aren't just a normal pair of headphones that have been tuned for bass; whatever happened during the process totally killed the top end making everything sound dull in comparion (but maybe that was intentional so you can turn the volume up and rock the bass without going treble deaf).<br />
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I find the XB700 are more comfortable, and with the design and those huge ear pads, they do feel quite premium at the side of the ancient (read: almost as old as me) V6; with the added bonus of it not having a sticker on the side stating FOR DIGITAL.<br />
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The build quality between both models is decent, but I feel the V6 cable and connector is way better quality, and will most likely last longer. Also the V6 is single side entry, where the XB700 use the annoying double entry cable.<br />
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<b>Conclusion</b><br />
Over all, these are fairly neutral headphones, snug fitting and relatively comfortable (perhaps not for extended periods though). For sound quality, I really feel that you are getting a good deal for your money and won't hesitate to recommend them to anyone who asks for good headphones in the £50 range. They aren't quite detailed enough to be considered analytical, but they don't miss much.<br />
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Of course they aren't for everybody and the dated design might be a turn off for your Beats by Dre wearing <strike>friends</strike> acquaintances.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-21644723267447597852012-10-20T12:53:00.003+01:002012-10-20T13:10:37.863+01:00Old Pickup: Sony XB700<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
It wasn't until I started writing my review of the Sony MDR-V6 that I realised I hadn't reviewed my Sony XB700, so I thought to give some background (as I reference them in "future" reviews) I would go back and review them.<br />
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The Sony XB700 are part of Sony's extra bass style headphones, and come in various tiers of shapes, sizes and cost. Starting off at the low end there are the XB300 right through to XB500, XB700 and XB1000 (XB700 were the old "flagship" XB series, now replaced with the XB1000). The XB500 seem a little redundant since the XB300 takes care of the low end/low cost/portable market, the XB700 works nicely as home headphones and the XB1000 notable for their 70mm drivers. The XB500 are just too close in price, size and style to the XB700 for me to understand why anyone would go with the XB500.<br />
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As you will have no doubt figured out already, these are coloured headphones (meaning not neutral). That is they won't present music as it was recorded or intended to sound, but will boost certain frequencies, changing the tone of the music. What this means is that they will most likely suit certain styles of music better than others, which makes them a bit specialist, unlike a neutral pair of headphones which should sound good with anything.<br />
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But that's fine if you already have a decent pair of neutral headphones. I bought the Sony XB700 because I thought they would compliment the K701 - have one pair of neutral, open back headphones, and have some cheaper bass tuned headphones to compensate for the tracks where the bass on the K701 isn't as strong as I'd like.<br />
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Specs wise, Sony claim they cover 3-28,000 Hz, handle up to 3W (yes, that's 3000mw...) and are rated at 24ohms impendance which is good news for portable players as they are easy to drive.<br />
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<b>Build Quality</b><br />
The build quality is really nice. They feel stable and have some very soft, premium feeling leather pads - you really need to feel these if you ever get the chance. The headband is a mix of plastic/leather for the upper part, and brushed aluminium for the parts near the ear cups. The ear cups continue the metal theme, but are unfortunately just silver coloured plastic. The headphone cable is fair quality, but on my external amp I can hear some interference which is the same level no matter the volume. If I use the built in amp of my DAC, it goes away, so I would guess that where Sony decided to go with a flat cable design, it means they had to skimp on shielding, and this is why it's picking up the interference. It's odd, because I don't get this issue on any of my other headphones, or even sensitive IEMs.<br />
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<b>Design/Comfort </b><br />
The design is a cross between sleek and over the top. The headband is clean and smooth, with some brushed aluminium detail at the bottom, and the earpads are incredibly soft and equally large. The ear pads are large enough to completely cover your ears and they don't seem to get quite as hot or uncomfortable as they do with most leather ear pieces. The headband has a small amount of padding, but it's very soft and does the job perfectly. The headband has click stops, so they don't go anywhere once you've set them to a comfortable size. The inside of the cups are just covered with cloth and aren't padded, which doesn't seem to present a problem for me, but if you resemble Gary Lineker it might irritate you.<br />
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The headphone cable is dual entry, which gets annoying at times, and there is only 1.2M of it, which is fine for portable use, but can be a bit short when using at home when you are tied to your desk amp, computer or whatever.<br />
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<b>Sound</b><br />
They do a good job of boosting the bass, but the width of bass frequencies they boost is a little too wide for my liking. Ideally, I would like most bass enhancements to taper off at around 80-100Hz which is around the same kind of setting you would have for a subwoofer. At these frequencies, you can boost bass without having much effect on the tone of the rest of the music (a classic example is listening to a radio with male voices coming through the subwoofer occasionally - horrible). Unfortunately, cutting the bass at around 200-250Hz gives a bit of a muddy sound.<br />
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At the other end of the scale, the treble seems a little lacking in places which is weird because it's not an overall dull sound, it's what I can only describe as "peaky", as if someone took an EQ and put say 6Khz in positive boost, then the next band in negative, then the next in positive etc. This slight dullness to the treble may even be intentional on Sony's part, as it means you can ramp up the volume and let the bass rumble without going treble deaf.<br />
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<b>Compared to:</b><br />
AKG K701<br />
It's hard to compare the XB700 to anything I own currently, as I tend to go for neutral sounding headphones, but for the sake of completeness, I will draw some comparisons. <br />
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Unsurprisingly, you can hear the difference in the price of these headphones, as the K701 cost three or four times as much. The K701 has a much wider soundstage, even though I wouldn't say that the XB700 was unusually narrow - it's just the case that the K701 have a wide soundstage and many people comment on this and sometimes say it sounds a little artificial.<br />
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The different instruments and frequencies are all clearly distinguishable with the K701, whereas the XB700 sounds rather busy, crowded and muddy in the low end, no doubt due to the range of boost they applied. I still say if they had boosted the bass only up to ~80Hz, it would have greatly improved the overall clarity. The K701 and XB700 are pretty much opposites at the high frequency end with the XB700 sounding a little dull and peaky, and the K701 sounding bright and pinpoint. The difference is that you will be able to listen to the XB700 at much higher volumes without piercing your ear drums than the K701.<br />
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The top and bottom of this treble thing, is that the K701 has a clarity and tone to it that makes me want to get my air guitar out, and the XB700 makes me want to get my equalizer out.<br />
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The XB700 sound pretty much the same they do on low powered devices as they do a dedicated desktop amp, and they are easy enough to drive for you not to require an amp to reach high volume levels.<br />
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The K701 wins out on comfort, but that said it's hard to beat the combination of cloth, full size ear pads and open back design. Closed back, leather pads can't really compete. I can wear both for any number of hours, but the K701 are at a level where you can't really feel anything, but with the XB700 you are always aware that you are wearing them.<br />
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Sony MDR-V700<br />
A bit of a fairer comparison, but even so, at release the V700 cost almost twice as much as the XB700, and sound pretty similar to the K701 and V6 so much of the same comments apply here.<br />
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The V700 has a wider soundstage than the XB700, but not as wide as the K701. The general feeling when going from XB700 to V700 is that it sounds clearer and more detailed.<br />
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As expected, the XB700 beats the so called DJ headphones on bass, as the V700 are on a similar level in terms of bass to the K701 (frequency response grahps suggest maybe a bit less). <br />
Although the V6 are designed to
be neutral, and the XB700 are designed to enhance bass, I thought it
would be interesting to make the comparison anyway since they are in the
same price bracket.<br />
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In terms of design and build quality, the XB700 are better as they don't suffer from those crappy swivel joints that always used to break, and the plastics don't feel quite as cheap. The XB700 also beat out the V700 in terms of comfort by a long shot as the ear pads on the V700 are only thin, so it means your ears are pressing against the driver housing which is poor design in my books.<br />
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<b>Conclusion </b><br />
To be blunt, I was a dissapointed with the sound quality. I was expecing a pair of good headphones with a smiley face style EQ - that is increased bass and increased treble, but in the end what I ended up with were some headphones that have good bass but weird dull/peaky treble. I'm not sure where it went wrong. I mean I don't think it's asking much for Sony to take the MDR-V6, put some fat ear cusions on them, update the style a bit and give them a nice big bass boost and taper it off at 100Hz. Maybe it's a driver issue, or maybe it's a housing design issue, who knows.<br />
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Reasonable headphones if you can get them for £50 or less and certainly not the worst I've heard. Some criticism of the tone, but be warned that the headphones I was comparing them too were all high end or noteworthy for a reason.<br />
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A good alternative to Beats Solo. I tried these on in HMV some time ago, and while I wasn't able to draw direct comparisons at the time, I was surprised at how similar the tone was, yet the Sony were 1/3 of the price.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-40357949405172073502012-05-23T20:31:00.002+01:002012-05-23T20:33:24.654+01:00Formatting FAT32 Volumes Larger Than 32GB & SD Card AlignmentFor a long time, flash memory for mobile phones and portable audio players seems to have been stuck at around 32GB. Many devices report their maximum supported card size as 32GB, but this didn't stop me buying a Sandisk 64GB Micro SD for my Galaxy S2 and playing around with it.<br />
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Samsung claim the Galaxy S2 supports a maximum of 32GB via it's Micro SD card slot, but as the owner of <a href="http://www.androidnz.net/">AndroidNZ</a> found out, this wasn't strictly true. He had tried the card in the device, and once I saw that it was working, I decided to take a punt and buy one for myself.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g01hpNx_vi0/T7zbFsjeDnI/AAAAAAAAAF0/H6F-cz1Prns/s1600/Screenshot_2012-05-19-11-39-13.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g01hpNx_vi0/T7zbFsjeDnI/AAAAAAAAAF0/H6F-cz1Prns/s320/Screenshot_2012-05-19-11-39-13.png" width="192" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">64GB Micro SD card working flawlessly in my Galaxy S2, which claims to only support up to 32GB.</td></tr>
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Initially you may run into some difficulty. When I inserted the card into the phone, the phone said that the card is damaged or unreadable. It appeared that my card shipped unformatted, which meant it had no filesystem. The first challenge was to format the card in a filesystem the Galaxy S2 could read. I tried the Linux filesystems first such as EXT2, EXT3 and EXT4, as the default filesystem FAT32 has a 4GB maximum filesize limitation, and I intended to use my phone as a portable HDD too (very useful for transporting or downloading Linux ISOs if you are caught out with a dead computer).<br />
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I found that with the Galaxy S2, EXT2, EXT3 and EXT4 were not supported, which was quite annoying and odd since that the internal memory of the Galaxy S2 uses EXT4. So why can't it mount EXT4 SD cards? I had also tried mounting external NTFS HDDs before with no luck, so I knew not to bother wasting my time with that. I also tried exFAT but still no joy. Hopefully since the Galaxy S3 supports exFAT the code will be retroported to the S2 (everything crossed).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lNVjq9V1q_U/T7zb9AvlbSI/AAAAAAAAAF8/-dOy4gXr-IM/s1600/Screenshot0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lNVjq9V1q_U/T7zb9AvlbSI/AAAAAAAAAF8/-dOy4gXr-IM/s1600/Screenshot0003.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The card even works on my 2008 Nokia N96!</td></tr>
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So unfortunately that left me with FAT32. For whatever reason, my S2 refused to format the card (but since I formatted the card, my phone will do it no problem now) which meant I had to do it on my computer, and immediately I ran into an old problem. You see Microsoft impose a 32GB limit on partiton sizes for FAT32 in recent operating systems (XP onward I believe), despite the filesystem supporting partitions up to 2TB on paper. My only guess is that Microsoft wanted to push NTFS as the dominant filesystem since it's a lot more robust. I had tried formatting by right clicking the drive in "Computer", through launching diskmgmt.msc via the command prompt, and then even resorting to the CLI format utility, diskpart. None of which would allow me to create a FAT32 partition of 64GB.<br />
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Fortunately, third party partitioning software will allow you to create FAT32 partitions in excess of 32GB, so it was time to find an alternative.<br />
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For simple partitioning, I found <a href="http://www.partition-tool.com/download.htm">Easeus Partition Master</a> which has a free version with all the functionality we need (for my final formatting, I eventually decided to use some tools supplied in Linux, but I'll come to that later as it concerns aligning the SD card too). If you are a little more experienced with computers, or have used Linux in the past and are familiar with the filesystem structure, you could also use a <a href="http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php">GParted Live CD</a> which boots into a basic version of Debian with the GParted program which is simple to use.<br />
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Additionally you could possibly use a Windows 98/ME boot disc or Windows setup disk to get into DOS and run fdisk. Unfortunately even though I was able to find the boot disk files online, they wouldn't run within 64-bit Windows - they might possibly work within DOSbox though.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Partitioning With Easeus Partition Master</b></span><br />
For the purpose of this tutorial I will be using an old 32GB Micro SD card as I have already formatted my 64GB and loaded it up with music and stuff. The process is identical, but the reported volume sizes will be different.<br />
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Upon launching Easeus, you will be shown a screen like the one below.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3g8f-IcUhEU/T7zgGNMwSOI/AAAAAAAAAGI/6noilnaHlEs/s1600/easeus-start.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3g8f-IcUhEU/T7zgGNMwSOI/AAAAAAAAAGI/6noilnaHlEs/s640/easeus-start.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Note the disk sizes, so that you don't accidentally delete partitions on your HDD!</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Easeus is really easy to use, but here's a quick run down for those who might not have partitoned a disk before.<br />
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1) Upon opening Easeus, check to see if your SD card has any existing partitions. The one in the screenshot is blank. If you have existing partitions, select it by clicking on it, then right click and choose <b>Delete Partition</b>, then click <b>Apply</b> in the top left hand corner.<br />
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2) Right click the Unallocated space of the SD card you wish to format and click <b>Create Partition</b>. Change the default settings to match the screenshot, so we are creating a <b>Primary</b> partition in <b>FAT32</b>. You can adjust the space used if for some reason you want to create multiple partitions, but in general you just want to select the maximum amount. The drive letter is not important, so leave that as the default. Once you are done, press Ok to go back to the main screen.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h-16WFNeQmE/T7zj9iZ-uxI/AAAAAAAAAGU/eZcDPuDKo1Q/s1600/create-part.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h-16WFNeQmE/T7zj9iZ-uxI/AAAAAAAAAGU/eZcDPuDKo1Q/s640/create-part.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first part of creating a FAT32 partition</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That's all there is to it, but if you would like to experiment with different cluster sizes which can improve write speeds, perform the final step below.<br />
<br />
3) To change the cluster size, right click the partition and select <b>Format Partition</b> and choose a cluster size from the drop down menu. Press Ok to go back to the main screen and press apply to write the changes. In general, the larger the disk size, the larger the cluster size you would use. Using larger clusters can help improve transfer speeds, but at the cost of disk space efficiency. What this means is that files occupy space on the disk to the nearest cluster size. So a 12KB file on a disk with a cluster size of 16KB, will use 16KB on that disk, or if the cluster size was 64KB, then that same 12KB file will occupy 64KB.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Aligning the SD Card</b></span><br />
If you are comfortable with Linux and command line tools, then we can improve the speed of the SD card by aligning it. The theory behind this is that SD cards erase/write 128KB blocks which means even if only 10KB in that block changes, the whole thing needs to be re-writtent. Most formatting tools don't seem to be aware or care about how SD cards work and just format the FAT32 filesystem in the usual way, however better performance can be achieved if the File Allocation Tables end at the border of a block, with the data starting at a new block, rather than some of the FAT using part of a block and the data starting in that same part block. This makes it easier for the SD card to write full blocks more often than it would if the partition was unaligned.<br />
<br />
I found that with my SD card unaligned, I would get write speeds averaging around 6.5MB/s, but once aligned it would manage a consistant 9MB/s, and higher with large files.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately I do not know of any SD card alignment tools for Windows when it comes to FAT32, so we will be using a Linux Live CD for this, but if your device supports exFAT, then I've found the <a href="https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_3/">official SD card formatter</a> to give really good speeds.<br />
<br />
We first need a Linux environment, you maybe already run some linux distro, but if not we can download a Live CD which runs the OS from optical media without installing anything. I use <a href="http://software.opensuse.org/121/en">Opensuse</a><br />
<br />
Here is a link to the <a href="http://www.patriotmemory.com/forums/showthread.php?3696-HOWTO-Increase-write-speed-by-aligning-FAT32">original thread</a>. The guide I will post will pretty much be a simplified version of this based on my own experience as I found the guide a little bit cryptic at first.<br />
<br />
<b>Partitioning The Card</b><br />
1) First, insert the SD card so that Linux detects it and allow it to mount. If it doesn't mount automatically, you can open the file browser and browse to the card as this will cause it to be mounted. You may need to have a filesystem on the card beforehand, so you can just format it to NTFS or something in Windows as a temporary measure.<br />
<br />
2) Open a terminal window from the progam menu and type:<br />
<b>df -h</b><br />
df is the disk free command, which shows you the available space on your mounted drives, and the -h switch for "human" readable information, such as MB and GB rather than just bytes.<br />
There are a few pieces of information we need here. Locate your SD card by its capacity in the list, and make note of the <b>Filesystem </b>and <b>Mounted on</b> columns.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZdtUNSgdnVI/T706a8sXL6I/AAAAAAAAAGg/kB1B66A9GE8/s1600/df.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="395" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZdtUNSgdnVI/T706a8sXL6I/AAAAAAAAAGg/kB1B66A9GE8/s640/df.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
As you can see, my SD card is listed under filesystem as <b>/dev/mmcblk0p1</b> and under mounted on as <b>/media/15F4-1F1D</b><br />
<br />
I should explain briefly about how Linux's filesystem works. <b>/dev/mmcblk0p1</b> is actually referring to a partition on the disk, and the disk itself is known as <b>/dev/mmcblk0</b> - as you may have guessed, Linux simply suffixes p1, p2, p3 etc to the device name to denote partitions on a device. <b>/media/15F4-1F1D </b>is the mount point and is the Linux equivalent to a drive letter, eg C:<br />
<br />
3)<b> </b>Next we need to unmount the drive. In the terminal window type (replacing the mount point with whatever your drive is mounted as when you typed df -h):<br />
<b>umount /media/15F4-1F1D</b><br />
<br />
If you don't want to type the whole thing, you can start it off and press Tab to complete it automatically. If the unmount was successful, you are returned to the prompt. You can check it was unmounted by typing in <b>df -h</b> again and confirming that it is not in the list.<br />
<br />
4) Now we need to change the drive geometry in order to make the 128k easy. Flash memory works differently from harddrives and do not have physical, sectors tracks or heads, but it still uses that information to organise data. The aim is to find a combination of sectors, tracks and heads that is evenly divisible by 128KB (131,072 bytes). The suggested geometry of 224 heads and 56 sectors does that (224 heads x 56 sectors x 512 bytes per sector / 131,072 bytes = 49) whereas the default value (255 heads x 63 sectors x 512 bytes per sector /131,072 bytes = 62.75) does not.<br />
In the terminal window, type the following:<br />
<b>su </b>(then press enter, this enables super user mode, or admin)<br />
<b>fdisk -H 224 -S 56 /dev/mmcblk0</b><br />
<br />
fdisk is the partitioning program, -H sets the number of heads and -S sets the number of sectors.<br />
<br />
To confirm this worked, press <b>p</b> to get a list of the <b>p</b>artitions and device properties<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MPppq71gReM/T706pYKPEkI/AAAAAAAAAGo/tkI8XMclpP4/s1600/part.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="394" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MPppq71gReM/T706pYKPEkI/AAAAAAAAAGo/tkI8XMclpP4/s640/part.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
4) While still in fdisk, we will create the FAT32 partition. To do this, type the following at the prompt:<br />
<b>d </b>(then press enter to <b>d</b>elete any existing partitions - if you only have 1 it is deleted automatically, otherwise you are prompted to enter the number of the partition)<br />
<b>n </b>(then press enter to create a <b>n</b>ew partition, then select primary partition and then enter through the other options).<br />
<b>x </b>(to enter e<b>x</b>pert mode)<br />
<b>b </b>(to change the <b>b</b>eginning of the data, then select partition 1 and set the start to 1)<br />
<b>r </b>(to <b>r</b>eturn from expert mode)<br />
<b>t </b>(to set the partition <b>t</b>ype, enter <b>c</b> when prompted for FAT32)<br />
<b>x </b>(to enter e<b>x</b>pert mode again)<br />
<b>b </b>(to set the <b>b</b>eginning of the data to 256 for partition 1)<br />
<b>r </b>(to <b>r</b>eturn from expert mode)<br />
<b>w</b> (to <b>w</b>rite the changes to disk<br />
<br />
You may press <b>q</b> at any time to quit without saving changes.<br />
<br />
5) Finally we need to create the aligned FAT32 partition. We first need to find out how big the FAT tables are going to be, so we can manipulate the size of the tables to finish at the end of an erase block (the 128KB blocks we keep talking about).<br />
At the terminal window, type:<br />
<b>mkfs.vfat -F 32 -s 32 -v /dev/mmcblk0p1</b><br />
Then press enter to format. Once done, you will see something like below, giving a read out of the disk. The line we need is the FAT size which tells us how big a single FAT is (there are two on this disk).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-35D3i_NSP64/T7066fCmPwI/AAAAAAAAAGw/3dpbWi7xiR0/s1600/vfat.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="394" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-35D3i_NSP64/T7066fCmPwI/AAAAAAAAAGw/3dpbWi7xiR0/s640/vfat.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MPppq71gReM/T706pYKPEkI/AAAAAAAAAGo/tkI8XMclpP4/s1600/part.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
6) We then need to calculate the size of the FAT in bytes, to see if it will end on a whole erase block or not. What we do is:<br />
<b>FAT size x No. of FATs x 512 bytes per sector / 131,072 = No of erase blocks</b><br />
In this instance we would have:<br />
14,976 x 2 x 512 = 15,335,424 / 131,072 = 117<br />
Now if at this point the number of erase blocks is uneven, we need to pad that out to fill the erase block. Simply round up your last result to the nearest whole number and reverse the calculation.<br />
<br />
<b>No of erase blocks x 131,072 </b><br />
Which gives us:<br />
118 x 131,072 = 15,466,496<br />
<br />
Now we subtrack the original FAT size in bytes, from the erase block aligned FAT size in bytes, then divide by 512 to give us the number of sectors difference to be used as reserve sectors. This is essentially expanding the amount of space allocated to the FAT in order for it to finish on a complete erase block, so the data starts on a new block.<br />
<br />
15,335,424 - 15,466,496 / 512 = 256 reserve sectors<br />
<br />
7) Now we know how many reserve sectors are needed to ensure alignment to the erase blocks, we can continue to format with the correct information.<br />
At the terminal window, type<br />
<b>mkfs.vfat -F 32 -s 32 -R 256 -v /dev/mmcblk0p1</b><br />
<br />
The switches used are:<br />
<b>-F 32 </b>(for FAT32)<br />
<b>-s 32 </b>(cluster size expressed as sectors, so 32 x 512 bytes = 16KB clusters)<br />
<b>-R 256 </b>(number of reserved sectors)<br />
<b>-v</b> (device to be formatted)<b></b><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
Once that has completed, you can mount the drive to transfer items to it, or simply remove it and go back to Windows, or use it in your device.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-28769900045584681222012-03-16T20:15:00.000+00:002012-05-23T20:34:01.206+01:00CRT, Upscaling and 2D GamesI'm a big fan of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo and I play it on GGPO, so I scrutinise every aspect of my setup to achieve the best image and sound quality, and also eliminate lag or at least keep it to the bare minimum.<br />
<br />
Just recently I decided to pick up a Sony Trinitron E530 CRT monitor to use with my Xbox so I have a complete setup to take with me to tournaments, but I also now use it at home for when I play Super Turbo on my laptop. The CRT simply has way better colours and black levels than the laptop panel, not to mention way better motion (this is a huge thing in a reaction based game like ST) so that you can recognise individual frames rather than it being a bit blurry from motion.<br />
<br />
<br />
The way I have my GGPO configured gives me a perfect 60fps offline, but I got a lot of complaints about lag, despite the fact that it certainly wasn't anything to do with my laptop or the internet connection. I asked someone on shoryuken.com to share their config file and I found that while the framerate was not as good, I didn't get any complaints about lag. I can only guess that maybe the Vsync was causing a conflict with the usual way the emulators sync when playing online.<br />
<br />
My usual setting before getting the CRT was to use a bilinear filter at the panel's native 1920x1080 resolution and it looked really good, however the config file that I now use, uses a nearest neighbor filter which can look ugly when scaling by a non-whole number. It was when I was using my CRT when this became apparent. The default resolution that was set for the monitor when I plugged it in was 1024x768, so I thought, "Ok, I'll go with that". When I put the game into fullscreen, I noticed the hatching effect on the Super and life meters wasn't consistent in size.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aYZ5ZDLAX94/T2MIwNooGuI/AAAAAAAAAFE/g2q1Vov6W6E/s1600/noscale.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aYZ5ZDLAX94/T2MIwNooGuI/AAAAAAAAAFE/g2q1Vov6W6E/s1600/noscale.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Left: 100%, Right 400%<br />
The hatching pattern in the life and super bars are 1 pixel blocks</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Above we have a 100% view of Super Turbo and to the right of it a 4x zoom to show the hatching pattern. As you can see, the pattern is a grid of single red coloured pixels. The problem with playing a game like Super Turbo at fullscreen using the basic renderer in GGPO is that it doesn't do any resampling of the image - it literally just multiplies the amount of pixels which means you get this inconsistent effect:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9ET75bBkFtA/T2MNMwlFgRI/AAAAAAAAAFU/HB9fkeFeJXU/s1600/scale.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9ET75bBkFtA/T2MNMwlFgRI/AAAAAAAAAFU/HB9fkeFeJXU/s1600/scale.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The observant of you will notice that the life bars in the first and second screenshots are different sizes. The reason for this is because Super Turbo is a 4:3 aspect ratio game, but has a resolution of 384x224 which is closer to widescreen which needs to be stretched to 4:3 for the game to look correct. This means that the first image was at it's native resolution/aspect ratio, but the second image was with the game running at 1024x768, which is a correct 4:3 aspect ratio. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
If we go back to the first image, you can see that the hatching is nice and clean, and the large version is clean too since it's a simple 4x upscale. The problem arises when you are trying to play a game like this which needs the aspect ratio correcting or that it's native resolution does not translate well to your upscaled resolution.<br />
<br />
Since the game's resolution is neither 16:9 or 4:3, it means that in whichever situation you are in, the width and height are being scaled at different factors. For example to take the 384x224 image from ST and display it on a 4:3 screen at 1024x768, the width is upscaled by 2.666x and the height by 3.429x. For 1920x1080 that would be 5x for the width and 4.821x for the height, or if you were to run it at 1080p with the correct aspect ratio (1440x1080) it would mean the width gets stretched by 3.75x and height by 4.281x.<br />
<br />
<br />
Because of how nearest neighbor works where it just increases the number of pixels by whole numbers rather than drawing any inbetween pixels, it causes a problem when being asked to upscale by a non-whole number.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-34rUz9BLK0I/T2NyiIJnBgI/AAAAAAAAAFc/AgDxeY8MBwM/s1600/hatching+close.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-34rUz9BLK0I/T2NyiIJnBgI/AAAAAAAAAFc/AgDxeY8MBwM/s1600/hatching+close.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The red blocks should all be the same size, but upscaling to a non-whole number causes this uneven effect since nearest neighbor only uses whole pixels</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There are only 2 ways round this, and that is to either use a smarter upscaling algorithm like cubic or linear, or if you have a CRT, to set a custom resolution.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Solution: Custom Resolution</b></span><br />
Because of how CRTs work in that they don't have a native resolution as such, it means you can send pretty much any resolution to it up to its supported maximum and it just displays it, without scaling. If you are lucky, you may even be able to find monitors that will run arcade games at their native resolution but these are rare since a lot of PC monitors won't do this as the resolution and refresh rate is usually too low. Some people prefer using a bit of upscaling in the emulator to avoid the scanline effect caused by low resolution games on CRT, but then again some people like scanlines and even buy additional hardware to emulate them!<br />
<br />
This non-native resolution trait of CRT monitors is particularly useful for 2D/sprite based games which have these weird resolutions that are neither 16:9 or 4:3 since we can set the emulator to upscale the image by whole numbers to avoid the scaling artifacts caused by nearest neighbor.<br />
<br />
For example upscaling 384x224 by 4x to 1536x896, the monitor will then display that resolution and fill the screen without additional upscaling. Rather than being stuck at one resolution like an LCD at 1920x1080, a CRT is able to "adapt" it's resolution, and would be able to display something like 1920x768 should you wish. It simply means the width would be the same, but it would change the vertical resolution to fill the screen.<br />
<br />
If you were to send the upscaled 1536x896 game image to a 1080p LCD panel, it would then have to upscale it again in the monitor logic board to fill the screen (otherwise you would have big black borders where the outer pixels were not in use). This is bad because generally any kind of LCD based upscaling creates input lag which is why you should always try to use a resolution that matches the number of pixels on your display. In the case of a PC, it is preferable to use a non-integer upscaled resolution like 1920x1080 with a bit of ugly scaling than it would be to let the monitor handle the upscaling, which is usually not only ugly, but adds input delay. Some consumer TVs have as much as 50ms input lag, which is around 3 frames. That's simply unacceptable in a game where reversals must be performed with frame accuracy.<br />
<br />
So bear in mind then, that the following guide mainly applies to CRT, but if you don't care about upscaling or incorrect aspect ratios, then these methods can also be applied to LCD.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Creating a Custom Resolution for GGPO</b></span><br />
In order to find and create the correct custom resolution for you, you need to know:<br />
1) The native resolution of the game<br />
2) The maximum, native or recommended resolution for your monitor<br />
This assumes that the game was intended for use on 4:3 screens.<br />
<br />
In my case, the resolution of the game is 384x224 and the recommended resolution for my CRT is 1600x1200. If we work back from the width for example, and calculate that 1600/384 is 4.166r, the resulting number you get is not a whole number so you will get the ugly scaling when using nearest neighbor. In this intance we take the nearest whole number and multiply that by the width of the game, so 384x4=1536 which is our new upscaled width. Doing the same for the height I get 1200/224=5.357, and if we take 5 as the scaling factor, 5x224 gives us 1120 pixels.<br />
<br />
That gives us an integer scaled resolution of 1536x1120. It's what I would describe as a bastard resolution as it doesn't fit any of the nice round resolutions that you usually find in your graphics driver like 1024x768, 1280x960 or 1600x1200, so we will have to deal with that later but first on to adding the resolution to GGPO.<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<u><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Adding the Resolution to GGPO</b></span></u><br />
1) First get to a window where you can browse your HDD (C: usually). If you don't have an icon for "Computer" on your desktop, you can find it in the start menu.<br />
<br />
2) Look for the GGPO config folder. Where it is may depend on your Operating System, or where you put it but generally speaking you need to go into <b>Program Files (x86)\GGPO\config</b><br />
<br />
3) At this point make a copy/backup of <b>ggpofba.ini</b> as this is the settings file that we will be editing. Once you have done that, open it by double clicking or in a text editor.<br />
<br />
4) In the file you will notice the following chunk of text which are the custom resolutions.<br />
// The preset resolutions appearing in the menu<br />
VidPreset[0].nWidth 400<br />
VidPreset[0].nHeight 300<br />
VidPreset[1].nWidth 640<br />
VidPreset[1].nHeight 480<br />
VidPreset[2].nWidth 1024<br />
VidPreset[2].nHeight 768<br />
VidPreset[3].nWidth 1280<br />
VidPreset[3].nHeight 960<br />
<br />
In case you haven't figured it out already, we need to add another couple of lines to this with our own resolution which would look like this:<br />
VidPreset[4].nWidth 1536<br />
VidPreset[4].nHeight 1120<br />
<br />
5) With that done, save and close ggpofba.ini and run the emulator. Click <b>Video>Fullscreen Resolution>Other</b> and you should see your new resolution in there. Select it, then press Alt and Enter to go fullscreen and try it out.<br />
<br />
Do not worry if you get a message that the emulator couldn't set the resolution blah blah blah with a load of random numbers. It generally means that your video driver doesn't see this as a valid resolution, which brings us on to the next part...<br />
<br />
<b><u>Adding the Custom Resolution to the Video Driver</u></b><br />
This next part is written for adding the custom resolution to nvidia graphics cards. If you have an ATI GPU or something else, you should google for advice.<br />
<br />
1) On your desktop, right click and choose NVIDIA control panel, then under the Display tab select Change resolution and then Customize. A popup with a list of standard resolutions will pop up, but we just want to click Create Custom Resolution.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OkV4hXvNisw/T2ObRLCK_II/AAAAAAAAAFk/tLAEC7xx7L4/s1600/nvid1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OkV4hXvNisw/T2ObRLCK_II/AAAAAAAAAFk/tLAEC7xx7L4/s1600/nvid1.png" /></a></div>
<br />
2) Enter your resolution and the refresh rate (usually 60Hz). I found keeping the timing set to auto works for me, but if you get tearing or judder you may be able to fix that with different timings. The basic auto timings only allow you to specify an integer framerate, but most games were designed to run at 59.94Hz (the NTSC field rate) so if you can't get smooth scrolling motion, it may be worth playing around with custom timings where you can specify 59.94 fps.<br />
<br />
It may also depend on the emulator as some may run at 60fps and others may run at 59.94fps. In GGPO there is an option to force 60fps, and triple buffering/VSync also helps eliminate tearing but having said that, I think those last 3 settings were what was causing the apparent lag with GGPO before - so try to stick with the basic settings.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RasyPKokz60/T2Odurnkq5I/AAAAAAAAAFs/t1fVuEuWY6Y/s1600/nvid2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RasyPKokz60/T2Odurnkq5I/AAAAAAAAAFs/t1fVuEuWY6Y/s1600/nvid2.png" /></a></div>
<br />
Once you've tested the resolution and it has passed, it is automatically saved. You should now be able to run GGPO again at the new resolution.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-44490079196216850282012-02-10T11:54:00.001+00:002012-02-10T12:12:54.813+00:00How to Make Almost Any Wired Device WirelessRunning my Xbox 360 wirelessly without using the official Microsoft wireless adapter is something I've been doing for a number of years now, and it's not that difficult. I wanted to write this guide for a long time as I believe it's such a better alternative to the grossly overpriced Xbox 360 wireless USB adapter (seriously, it's around 4x the price of the PC equivalent), and more to the point has the potential to be much faster. Fortunately, I decided to upgrade my wireless bridge which means I'll be revisiting the setup.<br />
<br />
Basically it involves taking a standard internet router and putting custom firmware on it that gives it additional features such as wireless bridge mode. This is what will let your secondary router connect to your internet wireless router, wirelessly which effectively turns it into a wireless adapter or a client just like a laptop. The clever part is that since your devices connect to it with ethernet cable, they act just like a wired device, so once the initial setup is completed, adding "wireless" devices to your network is as easy as plugging the cable in. No messing with router passwords or anything ever again.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vJJbBcYM8M4/TzKCeid6KYI/AAAAAAAAAEE/VY68upO6Yso/s1600/xbox+wifi+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vJJbBcYM8M4/TzKCeid6KYI/AAAAAAAAAEE/VY68upO6Yso/s1600/xbox+wifi+1.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Top: Xbox 360 with original adapter connected to a wireless router limited to around 20mbps.</i><br />
<i>Bottom: Xbox 360 connected to a wireless router acting as a bridge, which is connected wirelessly to another router transferring at least 105mbps.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
There are numerous advantages to this, which is what stood out to me more than the fact I was getting one over on Microsoft, or saving a good amount of money. For instance, depending on the router model you go for, it can be cheaper than the Xbox 360 wireless adapter. My old router was £35 compared to £60 for the USB adapter and since it allowed me to connect multiple devices it meant I didn't have to buy an adapter for each device.<br />
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<br />
The other big advantage with this method is that you are not bound to the speeds of internal or official wireless adapters. My PS3 has an internal 54G wireless card which has a real world performance of about 20mbps max which is the same as the original Xbox 360 wireless USB adapter. Even with the new Xbox 360 built in wireless or the Wireless N adapter, those are dual stream which means they top out at around 60mbps at any realistic range, but since the routers I am using are triple stream I am able to get around 120mbps from them at opposite sides of the house. Remember that even if you decide to replace your existing router with an E4200 triple stream router, the client must support it which means having 3 antennas, and the Xbox 360 only has two. It will still work, but it will be limited to around 60-80mbps at best, whereas a triple antenna device can transfer as fast as 230mbps at very close range<br />
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Wifi speed ratings are very misleading. One of the most common standards we will have come across at some point is Wireless G which is rated as 54mbps, but since wireless communications are effectively half duplex in the way they work, the bandwidth available is at best half of the rated link speed or less. In other words when they rate a device as 54mbps, that's 54mbps shared in both directions, operating in the best theoretical conditions.<br />
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Wireless G is fine for a lot of people, but is not so good for streaming high definition movies that can have bitrates peak in excess of 20mbps, or people with fast connections. With the wireless bridge method, the wireless adapter is in effect external now, it means I can upgrade the routers as and when faster products and new specifications come out, so you are never stuck to a certain wifi speed or spec. In fact right now, it's the Xbox 360's ethernet port that is the bottleneck in my setup. If it had gigabit like the PS3, I would be able to download up to 120mbps in theory once Virgin carry out the upgrade in the summer.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wx9sl0l0GSw/TzKF3kZAOFI/AAAAAAAAAEM/tS6UnzmySJI/s1600/wifinet.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wx9sl0l0GSw/TzKF3kZAOFI/AAAAAAAAAEM/tS6UnzmySJI/s1600/wifinet.png" /></a></div><br />
Take a look at the above picture. In this typical situation, all devices are competing for wireless bandwidth. If someone is streaming movies from the PC to the PS3, it will take away from the total wireless bandwidth that could be otherwise used for the Xbox 360 causing slower downloads or the real possibility of lag. The PS3 wireless is limited to around 20mbps, meaning that high bitrate movies could stutter and lag and the Xbox 360's original wireless adapter is also limited to around 20mbps (since it is also Wireless G), which means if you have a connection over 20mbps, you simply won't make the most of it. What's worst is that if your main router is only Wireless G, then it will only have about 20mbps to share out between all the devices, so if when your brother or sister is streaming films on the PS3 from the laptop and it hits a part of the video that comes close to or exceeds 20mbps, the router will run out of bandwidth meaning there is none left for the Xbox and then your download will stall or game will lag. You should at the very least ensure you have a high quality wireless router, even if you don't go to the trouble of setting up a second router as a wireless bridge.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q6GpgqK05uE/TzKHw27ikUI/AAAAAAAAAEU/i4t1EO87rlo/s1600/wifinet2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q6GpgqK05uE/TzKHw27ikUI/AAAAAAAAAEU/i4t1EO87rlo/s1600/wifinet2.png" /></a></div><br />
Now let's revisit that situation but put a wireless bridge in there. Straight away you eliminate a lot of potential for wireless bottlenecking, in particular with things like streaming. Now instead of the laptop having to send the movie data through it's wireless to the router, and from the router through the PS3's wireless, the transfer now just takes place over ethernet, which in this situation is way better since the PS3 has gigabit lan, so do most laptops and the routers used in this example (Linksys E4200) have gigabit ports too. Not only are transfers faster to the PS3, but lag in movies is eliminated and it has no impact on local users as the wireless link is now only used for internet data, and not communication between devices. Communication between devices is now done on a switch/ethernet level, unless of course you have another laptop connected directly via wireless to the main router/modem. Since the PS3 and PC are communicating through the switch, the Xbox 360 is free to request data from the internet using the wireless link as it likes.<br />
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One of the other cool things about this setup is that I can share my ethernet laser printer on the network, so if you imagine the laser printer is connected at the same point where the Xbox and PS3 are, and that the laptops in my house connect to the first router on the left, it means I can print wirelessly.<br />
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Port forwarding remains unchanged too, and rather than having to set port forwards on both devices, you just set them on the main router. There is no need to set port forwards on your wireless bridge. <br />
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The only real downsides to this method are that it can be expensive if you want a good router (£130 for a Linksys E4200 for example) and that the choices of routers are limited by what are supported by custom firmwares, and at the end of the day, you still require some amount of cable (although if you are like me, all your entertainment stuff tends to be in a corner of the room). One other limitation that was present the first time I tried this was that when your router is set up as a wireless bridge, other wireless devices cannot connect to it directly as the link is used solely for communications between the wireless routers. Wireless clients will have to connect to the original wireless router/modem as usual. That said, I'm sure you will agree that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Flashing the Custom Firmware</b></span><br />
For this particular project I will be using <a href="http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index">DD-WRT</a> again. Although stability is as much a hardware thing as it is software, my old faithful WRT-54GL has had in excess of 100 days uptime with no signs of getting bogged down with an 8% overclock. There are two ways to attack this, either check the website to see if an existing/spare router you have is supported (in general, hardware with built in ADSL modems are not supported), or if you are looking to buy some hardware specifically to use as a wireless bridge, check the <a href="http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database">router database</a>. I will be using a Linksys E4200 V1 with DD-WRT. It is currently a work in progress as the hardware isn't really that old in comparison with some of the supported routers. Normally I would say to stick with tried and tested stable builds and hardware, but my hand has been forced a little into this because the WAN/Internet port on my E4200 was acting funny, so I bought a new one and decided to retire the old one to replace my decrepit WRT54GL. Although the E4200 is a very good piece of hardware there are certain reasons why it is unlikely that DD-WRT will ever be able to extract the full speed out of it, but people on the forums are saying it should be good for 100mbps over wireless, which is good enough for my use.<br />
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<b>1) 30-30-30 Reset</b><br />
The very first thing you must do is a 30-30-30 reset. This should be done before and after the firmware upgrade as this clears contents from NVRAM. If you don't do this, remnants of information may be left in the NVRAM and cause conflicts with the new firmware.<br />
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A 30-30-30 reset is as follows. First with the router switched on and everything else unplugged, hold the reset button in for 30 seconds. While still holding the button in, pull the power cable out and wait another 30 seconds. Finally while still keeping the reset button pressed in, connect the power and wait for another 30 seconds. In all, you should have held the reset button in for 90 seconds continuously.<br />
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<b>2) Inital Flash</b><br />
The next step is an initial flash, which flashes a base version of DD-WRT onto your router, which you may then upgrade later to a version with more features. The process for flashing can be a little different for each router and may also require different files, so it's strongly advised that you visit the <a href="http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page">DD-WRT Wiki</a><b> </b>and look for instructions relating to your specific model. I'll be using <a href="http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_E4200#Flashing_Process">this page</a> for my E4200. Download the initial flash file, then disconnect all your network connections, turn off wireless and connect the router to be flashed by ethernet cable. The file I am using for the initial flash is:<br />
<a href="ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/others/eko/V24-K26/svn16773/dd-wrt.v24-16773_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-e4200.bin">ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/others/eko/V24-K26/svn16773/dd-wrt.v24-16773_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-e4200.bin</a><br />
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Load up the web interface for the router you are flashing. The exact address for these vary depending on model and manufacturer, but in general Linksys stuff can be accessed at <a href="http://192.168.1.1/">http://192.168.1.1</a> Once you have logged in, find the administration tab and click to browse for and upload the firmware.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XqTogi0uuIM/TzT5QCoKFFI/AAAAAAAAAEk/WJd1YidcKnA/s1600/linksys-preflash.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XqTogi0uuIM/TzT5QCoKFFI/AAAAAAAAAEk/WJd1YidcKnA/s1600/linksys-preflash.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
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Click start and leave the web page open. Flashing only took about 30 seconds for my router, but the DD-WRT guys say to wait for at least 5 minutes just to make sure. When that has passed, click Continue and you should be greeted with a screen similar to this:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cizM4jfTm6w/TzT5wK3_7_I/AAAAAAAAAEs/EHhlU65F8qY/s1600/dd-wrt-post-flash.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cizM4jfTm6w/TzT5wK3_7_I/AAAAAAAAAEs/EHhlU65F8qY/s1600/dd-wrt-post-flash.png" /></a></div><br />
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When prompted for a login, the default username is <b>root</b> and the password is <b>admin</b>. These can both be changed later.<br />
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<b>3) 30-30-30 Reset</b><br />
As a matter of course, disconnect all network cables and clients then perform another 30-30-30 reset as outlined in step 1. This will ensure that the NVRAM is cleared of any settings left by the stock Linksys firmware.<br />
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<b>4) Upgrading to a Bigger/Newer Build</b><br />
This step is optional since the initial build you just flashed should be pretty much fully functional, but you will probably want to flash one of the later builds for increased performance, stability and features. Routers have a limited amount of flash memory, so this will dictate which build you can use. Check the wiki to see how much flash and RAM your device has. Recommended builds are sometimes listed in the Wiki for your device, but may not be up to date, so check <a href="http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=51486&sid=03db7d102ec017a5ca24d3a9f71fbb61">this thread</a> for recommended builds. Pay special attention to details in the Wiki about any special requirements your device may have, such as the E4200 must have a build that uses no more than 60KB NVRAM, as denoted by -nv60k in the filename. Do not use micro builds as they are reported to brick Wireless N devices.<br />
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The version I am upgrading to is:<br />
<a href="ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/2011/12-12-11-r18000/broadcom_K26/dd-wrt.v24-18000_NEWD-2_K2.6_big-nv60k.bin">ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/2011/12-12-11-r18000/broadcom_K26/dd-wrt.v24-18000_NEWD-2_K2.6_big-nv60k.bin</a><br />
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Now that you have your device with the initial file flashed and have performed a 30-30-30 reset, you can proceed to upgrade the firmware. Enter your router's address in your web browser to reach the interface. If prompted for a username, it is <b>root</b> and password is <b>admin</b>, then find your way to the administration tab and then firmware upgrade from within that. Again, making sure all other network devices are disconnected and wifi is shut off, select the firmware to be flashed and press upgrade. Keep the browser window open all the time while the upgrade is in effect and wait for about 5 minutes.<br />
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<b>5) 30-30-30 Reset</b><br />
After 5 minutes has passed and your router has come back online, perform one last 30-30-30 reset. You are now up and running with DD-WRT and can move on to configuration.<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Configuring DD-WRT as a Wireless Bridge</b></span><br />
Setting up DD-WRT to connect to your other wireless routers is very easy but we need to change some settings while the router is connected to only your computer as if you try to add it to the network with it's default settings it will likely cause an IP address conflict.<br />
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1) Ensuring your wireless is turned off and the only device connected to your computer is the one you just flashed, enter <a href="http://192.168.1.1/">http://192.168.1.1</a> in your browser to reach the DD-WRT setup page. At this point it will probably prompt you to enter a new username and password from the last 30-30-30 reset. Do so and then click the setup tab.<br />
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2) Set the WAN connection type to disabled. Next under the Network Setup header, change the local IP address to an unused one. Since most Linksys routers default at 192.168.1.1, if we leave the DD-WRT flashed router with the same address it would cause a conflict. You only need to change the number in the last segment of the address. I have mine set at 192.168.1.3. The gateway address should be that of your router that provides the internet connection. Net mask should be left at 255.255.255.0 unless you have specific needs. Local DNS is fine if it is left empty. Check the option, Assign WAN port to switch. Disable the DHCP server. Click save settings and then apply.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MkCAHh84qBg/TzT9Td_UybI/AAAAAAAAAE0/1VpGg9CtjjE/s1600/basic-setup.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="334" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MkCAHh84qBg/TzT9Td_UybI/AAAAAAAAAE0/1VpGg9CtjjE/s640/basic-setup.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click for larger image.<br />
Left page shows defaults and right page shows example settings for wireless bridging (your default gateway and IP settings may vary)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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3) Once those settings have been saved and applied, you will have to enter the new address of the router into your browser to continue working in the GUI. Once you are back into the setup, click the Wireless tab. Depending on the hardware you have, you may see one or two sections. Since I am using the 5GHz link, I disabled the 2.4GHz radio. To set up the 5GHz radio to connect to my other router, set the wireless mode to client bridge, select your network mode from the drop down (5GHz was disabled by default) and under wireless network name (SSID), enter the name of the router you wish to connect to exactly. Next go to the wireless security tab and enter the wireless key that you use to connect to the main router. For Wireless N connections the encryption should be set as AES as TKIP will revert to Wireless G speeds.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lBN6qR5bDtk/TzUAXiC10uI/AAAAAAAAAE8/0oeDFlI-BCQ/s1600/wifi-setting.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="303" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lBN6qR5bDtk/TzUAXiC10uI/AAAAAAAAAE8/0oeDFlI-BCQ/s640/wifi-setting.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click for larger image.<br />
Left page shows defaults and right page shows example settings for wireless settings (page may differ depending on DD-WRT version and how mant radios your device has)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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4) Save and apply all settings. It may also help if you reboot or power cycle your router.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Conclusion</b></span><br />
It's pretty much as simple as that. Of course I have a little experience with networking now so I am familar with most of the terms mentioned in the firmware, but as long as you know the IP address of your modem/router (which is referred to as the gateway) and you know of an open IP address to assign your router, you are good to go.<br />
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There are alternatives to this method. You can actually buy wireless ethernet bridges from the likes of Linksys and Netgear, but in my past experience I found that they were often much lower spec than the routers and the performance just isn't that good. All they do is flash existing hardware with their own wireless bridge firmware on it and that's pretty much all that device can do. Flashing your own router with DD-WRT is a much better choice simply because of the amount of options and flexibility DD-WRT gives you. For example if you ever decide to change how your network is set up or go wired instead of a wireless bridge, you can change some settings in the router and have it do something else ie working as another router or a switch, unlike off the shelf wireless bridges which tend to have such restrictive firmwares that you can't do anything else with them.<br />
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There are of course some alternatives too. Possibly the easiest method of networking between floors without wires is with power line adapters, but I can't comment on how secure they are, much less the performance of them. Last thing I heard was that the performance was pretty awful. Basically they use your house wiring and transfer data over the mains.<br />
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Of course nothing beats the speed or security of Cat 6 cable and a couple of gigabit switches, but if like me you only need a means of getting internet data from one place to another this works quite well, and the local transfers are very fast over ethernet too.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-35676931144053999672011-11-17T17:38:00.002+00:002011-11-17T17:41:10.737+00:00Super Turbo Meet 27-29th NovemberWhat started out as a weekend in London with Waveskill to play Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo in the Casino (an arcade), has eventually mutated into a meet up with various other players, and a tournament thrown in for good measure.<br />
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I'll keep this short and to the point. Myself and Waveskill were travelling down from Chesterfield and Sheffield to London for what should have been the weekend, however due to working arrangements, we shifted it forward a day and extended it by a day too, so we will be on the road from 27-29th November, which is Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.<br />
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I found out the other day that there is a tournament happening in Bristol, which just so happened to be on one of the days we were going to London, so we decided to make a detour and take part in the tournament. More information about the tournament <a href="http://www.neoempire.com/?p=10039">can be found here</a>. Here is a brief plan on what we intend to do, and where we intend to be:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sunday 27th November - Sodium Showdown 4 @ Bristol</b></span><br />
We will be leaving earlyish to try and avoid the traffic, although the exact time hasn't been decided. I'd like to arrive before 12:00 which means setting off at around 08:30 since I am picking up Waveskill, but the venue doesn't open until 14:00, so not sure what I will do to kill time. Perhaps if anyone else is going to this tournament we could meet up and go and do something. Drop me a message on Xbox live if you are.<br />
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This tournament features Blazblue CS2, Mortal Kombat 9, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, SSF2T (HDR I presume), SF3 3rd Strike and of course Super SF4 AE. Entry to the venue is just £3, and it's only £1 to enter each tournament, so don't expect big cash prizes. I haven't heard of this event before, but I presume it's going to be pretty small scale, so hopefully I can finish top 3 again! The line up is quite big for an event I haven't heard before, so I hope they aren't being overly ambitious. The organiser has also said, "Arc System Works EU will also be there with copies of BBCS and AH3!", so if that means free copies, then I'm definitely there.<br />
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Once the tournament is over, we will be heading over to London in the evening where we are staying at the Cumberland Hotel Harrow, which is the I used in 2010 for SVB. £92 for 2 nights is reasonable, but not including breakfast. The hotel is in a good location with shops, cash machine and train station all within walking distance. It will take around 2 hours from Bristol to London, so I'll hopefully set off for the hotel at around 19:00 providing the HDR tournament is done, and spend a couple of hours in the on-site bar, then have some locals in the hotel room once we reach kicking out time as I'm bringing my Xbox.<br />
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<a href="http://www.neoempire.com/?p=10039">Don't forget to check the tournament information here</a> <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Monday 28th November - Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo @ Casino</b></span><br />
Once we've sobered up and had something to eat, we'll head over to Casino. It's about 45 minutes drive from Harrow and I intend to stay there most of the day, or if the likes of orf, kaos flare or Ryan Hart are there, as long as my money lasts. I'm guessing we will be at Casino from around late morning (10:00?) to early evening, after which we will check out some of the pubs (around 3 in staggering distance) and probably make our way back to the hotel close to kicking out time with some more HDR casuals.<br />
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The address for Leisure Casino Centre is 69 Tottenham Court Road. <a href="http://www.londonnet.co.uk/listings/eventsattractions/amusementparksarcades/leisurecasinocentreinmarylebone/">Check the full information here</a> or <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=69+Tottenham+Court+Rd,+London+W1T+2HA,+United+Kingdom&hl=en&ll=51.520375,-0.13409&spn=0.000683,0.002064&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=55.981213,135.263672&vpsrc=0&geocode=FXQjEgMdm_P9_w&hnear=69+Tottenham+Court+Rd,+London+W1T+2HA,+United+Kingdom&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=51.520464,-0.134188&panoid=vqmo881kglAE_5p71Rhzqw&cbp=12,238.41,,0,-1.4">Google maps here</a>.<br />
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I will probably be meeting Herbalholic at some point for some arcade ST action, and there's the possibility of TryDodgingThis and/or AnxiousBrute showing up too. You can get the tube to Goodge Street Station, and as you exit the station turn right and there is a KFC literally next door with Casino being one of the next buildings.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Tuesday 29th November - Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo @ Casino part 2</b></span><br />
I haven't planned much for Tuesday but it will likely be a similar setup to Monday with us being in Casino a good part of the day, but we might take some time out to check out some other things, or if anyone is kind enough, to crash at their house and play some locals.<br />
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There will be no hotel casuals on Tuesday as we have to check out around 10:00 so we won't have a base for the day. We will probably make our way back around 20:00 as I'll be dropping Waveskill off, so I'm allowing 3 hours for the return trip.<br />
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Don't forget that if you drive into central London, you may get hit with a £10 congestion charge per day, unless you drive a milk float.<br />
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If anyone wants to come along and meet up with us at some point drop me a message on Xbox live, by text or facebook. I also have a twitter now, so keep an eye on that for updates during the 3 days as to what our plans are and where we will be.<br />
https://twitter.com/#!/Zero1_ST<br />
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Hope to see you there.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-67798327633219886182011-07-23T04:26:00.001+01:002011-07-23T04:28:13.226+01:00New Pickup: Victor HP-FX500/JVC HA-FX1000Some time ago I was looking for some new IEMs to replace my expired Sony MDR-EX90LP. It was never going to be an easy task, because the EX90 were a very nice pair of earphones. They were very comfortable, looked great (I'm not exaggerating when I tell you people would stare at them trying to find out what brand they were as I walked past), had very nice build quality, and a nice tone and fair sound stage. The only thing I could say against them is that they didn't have quite as much bass response as my previous Sony earphones.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-U8PYpBsgjh8/TinmBvJUQwI/AAAAAAAAADs/DLntGbqNbXg/s1600/fx500-small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-U8PYpBsgjh8/TinmBvJUQwI/AAAAAAAAADs/DLntGbqNbXg/s1600/fx500-small.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Victor HP-FX500, originally only available in Japan, but also sold as JVC HA-FX1000 for almost double the price in the West. Bargain!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
In fact I liked them so much that as soon as they started to show signs of dying (the left earpiece would lose connection, which I found was due to a loose connection in the mould where the single cable splits into two), I looked around online to try and buy another pair. Sadly, since I had owned them for around 2 years, the range had been revised, cycled out and replaced by the MDR-EX500, which didn't look as comfortable.<br />
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The Sony started to die a little while after I bought my K701, so my first point of call was AKG. I checked out their range and had set my sights on the AKG K370, which cost £50, the same as what I paid for the Sony. Knowing that AKG is typically more expensive than the equivalent products from other major manufacturers (Harmann is a large company, but in comparison to Sony, could be considered small), and that the K370 also had an inline remote control, I made the assumption that the audio quality might not have been quite as good as my old Sony, so I decided to aim higher and splash out a little more.<br />
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During my searching, I came across some very high end/expensive earphones called the Victor HP-FX700 which had gained a lot of attention for being made from wood. Not only was the enclosure made from wood, but the cone itself was made from a very thin layer too - the theory is that it would help replicate the sound of instruments more accurately. I knew as soon as I saw them that I wanted these, but at 29,000 yen ($370/£230) the price was too high for me to justify for in ears.<br />
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Fortunately, I learned that Victor (known as JVC in the West) offered a less expensive version called the HP-FX500 (which I think was simply an earlier model with the FX700 being a beefed up version released later, rather than the FX-500 being a trimmed down FX700). The main difference being the driver size, and aesthetics, but at a much more reasonable price of 10,000 yen (or 13,000 yen/£100/$170 by the time I had imported them).<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-S5qVD-DnoJE/Tin2EfT9UzI/AAAAAAAAADw/uGLHeYL2NK8/s1600/fx500-crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-S5qVD-DnoJE/Tin2EfT9UzI/AAAAAAAAADw/uGLHeYL2NK8/s1600/fx500-crop.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>It wasn't until I took these photos that I realised the logo on the earphones is the same logo as HMV use. HMV Japan is owned by JVC Kenwood holdings.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Victor HP-FX500 First Impressions</b></span><br />
The retail package for the earphones comes with 3 sizes of silicone tips, a medium sized pair of foam tips, carry case and an extension cable (since the main cable is just 0.8M long) - pretty standard fare as far as earphones go.<br />
<br />
The earphone cable is quite short, which I presume is so that people can connect them to remote controls for portable players and mobile phones. An extension cord is supplied, but it's thinner and feels of a lesser quality than the main cable. If you believe things like this make a real difference you might prefer to buy your own extension cable, but I couldn't tell a difference between using the extension and not. On the subject of the extension cable, a minor annoyance is that the combined length is a little too long to have the cable hanging free with a player at pocket height. I tend to find the cable swings around what with the weight of the connectors, so you will probably end up bundling it in your pocket.<br />
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The headphone cable is the traditional "Y" type, meaning the left and right ear pieces have equal cable length, unlike the more recent designs where the left cable is shorter than the right, so the cable sits on the left and the right earpiece cable goes behind your neck. I prefer the "behind the neck" type of headphone cable since you can pull the earpieces out when needed and they sit in place around your neck, in contrast to the "Y" cable which you'd have to fuss around and put in your pocket or something. A minor point sure, but one that could save daily frustration.<br />
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They are as comfortable as most other earphones, but my ears felt a little irritated after long term use, but that could be simply because I haven't used canal style earphones for months. I gave the foam tips a try and they were a lot better, although I prefer the sound I get from my Sony silicone tips. I also found that after extended listening that they had gradually worked loose since I don't insert them fully into my ears but that might be something to do with the size of the Sony tips, being designed for 13mm drivers and the FX500 being 8.5mm.<br />
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At 16 ohms the FX500 are very easy to drive, as is the case with the virtually all in ear earphones and have a frequency response of 8Hz-25kHz, which seems to be about what to expect from decent IEMs. Something to note about frequency range though. Frequency range, and frequency response mean different things. The frequency range tells us the spectrum of frequencies the driver can produce, from lowest to highest. Frequency response tells us how loud each frequency is played (or how well the driver responds) when a continuous volume sine sweep is played. This means that you can get some product A can have a frequency range of 25Hz-20kHz and product B can have a range of 5Hz-25kHz, yet it's possible product A will have better bass response. It may be louder for a given volume, but the driver won't be able to go quite as low as product B.<br />
<a href="http://zero1-st.blogspot.com/2011/05/guidelines-for-buying-headphones.html">Check out my section on frequency response graphs</a><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fDmn0WnSnYQ/Tio-myVkIfI/AAAAAAAAAD0/p-UZoZR7zmY/s1600/fx500freq.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fDmn0WnSnYQ/Tio-myVkIfI/AAAAAAAAAD0/p-UZoZR7zmY/s1600/fx500freq.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>These graphs can be misleading with the dB level since drivers have different impendances, and testers may use different sound levels. What's important here is the shape of the line.</i></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Out of the box the FX500 come with the medium tips attached, which I immediately switched over to the large tips. The reason for the change was purely sound related, as in the past I have found I get better bass when using the larger tips, and sure enough I did some testing and it still held true for the FX500. Using the largest provided the best bass out of the supplied tips, and out of interest I tried the tips from my old Sony EX90 which gave even better bass still.<br />
<br />
I would have to put these earphones in the "coloured sound" category, as they aren't neutral. They exhibit a smiley face style frequency response, which means they have better than average bass and treble response, but the side effect to that is that it can often feel like mids are lacking. It's not always the case that mids actually are lacking, but more often a case that the bass and treble boost creates that effect. That's not to say that the sound is flawed or that you would be wishing for more neutrality, this is my opinion purely from an analytical point of view.<br />
<br />
The sound signature of these earphones is highly enjoyable. The bass is deep, detailed and strong. It's almost akin to the effect a subwoofer gives at low levels but without sounding muddy - an impressive achievement, especially for earphones with a 8.5mm driver. The treble sits at a good level, giving the higher frequencies a clean, pronounced sound without causing additional silibance (the hissing sound at the end of some words in recordings).<br />
<br />
Some people have commented that the treble can be fatiguing, but I have not found this using my Sony tips. There are also aftermarket foam tips from Comply that have a "wax filter" that also acts to attenuate treble, so if it is an issue, there is always that option. <br />
<br />
To sum it up, the sound is crisp and powerful but would have benefitted from a slight boost to the mids. You will particularly enjoy these earphones if you listen to any bass heavy music or use them outside where bass typically gets drowned out.<br />
<br />
The only real sonic weakness of these earphones is the slightly recessed mids, but if that's the price you pay for deep, punchy bass without vocals becoming muddy and crisp treble without silibance, then it's a price worth paying. I may experiment with some after market tips and post my findings.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-80846666282588114292011-06-23T15:25:00.002+01:002011-06-25T15:20:53.165+01:00Upgrading the Wireless LAN on a Vaio - Follow UpAs you may have read last time, I had taken on the task of upgrading the wireless card in my Vaio to take advantage of the new 3 stream 450mbps wireless N routers coming out. The second part of this task was to actually get one of these routers, and get everything running smoothly at the new link speed.<br />
<br />
The router I decided to go for is the Linksys E4200. It's very small and unoffensive, with no glaring LEDs flashing on the front as is the case with so many routers these days. Apparently, blinding blue LEDs are cool. No, instead the activity lights on the E4200 are hidden on the back as part of the ethernet ports. They don't emit much light at all, but you can even turn those off if you like.<br />
<br />
Setup was really quite easy. I never bother with the installation CDs and I just jumped straight into the web interface. I was surprised to be confronted with a page that looked as though it wanted to force me to install the Cisco Connect software, but there was an option to bypass that. Something along the lines of, "Continue with an unsecured network". I guess they are trying to frighten ordinary folk into installing their (presumably dummy proof) software.<br />
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<br />
Once I had set up most of the stuff using the supplied CAT5e cable (which was nice since it saved me some rummaging), I enabled the wireless and connected. The moment of truth aaaand.... It connected at 300mbps.<br />
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All kind of things were going through my head at this point. Was the antenna supplied (as a free gift) with the wireless card compatible with 5GHz? Had the antenna broken once I put the laptop back together? Did it simply become disconnected from the wireless card? Are my router settings wrong? Do I need to do a fresh install of the drivers?<br />
<br />
It was frustrating stuff, and worrying thinking of what I might have to do to put it right (ie installing a new antenna - again). I reviewed all my settings. I know from researching a bit before hand that the 450mbps link rate is only available on the 5GHz band at 40MHz width, so I set the 5GHz radio to enabled at 40MHz width, disabled 2.4GHz entirely and set the network mode to N only.<br />
<br />
Still no joy. So I pulled up the wireless connection info to see if while I was messing with the settings, if I could find the right combination to get the 450mbps link rate. I didn't manage it, but as the router was saving its settings, I noticed the link rate jump up from 300mbps to 450mbps. That was a big relief. At least now I knew the wireless card was working right and was able to pick up the 450mbps signal. I googled around a bit and found some suggestions saying that I need to go into the properties for my wireless adapter and set the channel width to auto, otherwise it will force 20MHz, which I had done previously.<br />
<br />
There isn't much worth changing in the wireless adapter driver, but I recall a feature called WMM being enabled in the router, but in the wireless driver it was set to disabled. I don't see what correlation this has to the link speed (since it's just software QoS), but I set it to enabled in the wireless driver and the link speed jumped up to 450mbps.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a7B9vhnZ3mA/TgNK0JEZHfI/AAAAAAAAADY/1SSQ2kNtG8s/s1600/450-wl.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a7B9vhnZ3mA/TgNK0JEZHfI/AAAAAAAAADY/1SSQ2kNtG8s/s1600/450-wl.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The upgrade was a success. Can you believe it? I can't.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Of course wireless is subject to things called walls and distance, so I unfortunately don't get the 450mbps speed at the other side of the house. That said, I still get 240-270mbps of rated speed, which is a huge improvement over the embarrasing 108mbps the so called "Super Hub" that Virgin supply. While I haven't done any proper bandwith testing yet, I do know that I can get my full 100mbps download speed, which was my main motive for performing the upgrade.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EAGqlHM7XVc/TgXqsnjAuaI/AAAAAAAAADo/3Ic5gmtTkBE/s1600/bandwidth.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EAGqlHM7XVc/TgXqsnjAuaI/AAAAAAAAADo/3Ic5gmtTkBE/s1600/bandwidth.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Virgin "Super Hub" on the left, and the Linksys E4200 on the right. Same location, same wireless card.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>This was of course, an expensive upgrade overall (£130 for the router and another £30 for the 3 stream wireless card), but for me tinkering with stuff like this is as much a hobby as it was something that needed to be done.<br />
<br />
I had intended to upgrade my network for some time now and never got round to it. Soon I will buy another E4200, flash DD-WRT on it and replace my old WRT54GL to be used as a wireless bridge, so that then my Xbox 360 and PS3 can also have a taste of 100mbps. I might actually bother downloading demos then.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L3TvXRP3sRU/TgNMe9GGN4I/AAAAAAAAADc/Ois8apWC6CE/s1600/torrent.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L3TvXRP3sRU/TgNMe9GGN4I/AAAAAAAAADc/Ois8apWC6CE/s1600/torrent.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>At almost half the rated link speed, the Intel 6300 and Linksys E4200 still manage over 11MB/s</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-83537768142615877232011-06-20T01:23:00.000+01:002011-06-20T01:23:02.819+01:00Upgrading the Wireless LAN on a VaioJust recently, I upgraded my internet connection to 100mbps, but I found I wasn't getting the full speed over wireless. I was downloading at around 80mbps max despite the fact both my wireless card in the laptop, and the modem/router itself are both wireless N devices and connected at a supposed 300mbps.<br />
<br />
Surely if it's connecting at 300mbps, and is in the same room, it should reach 100mbps download no problem, right?<br />
<br />
That's what I thought too. I decided to look into it, and it turns out that this is just the way wireless is. There are a number of reasons for this and I don't know them all, but I'll offer some suggestions as to why. The first thing that I found is because wireless is effectively half duple - that means it cannot transmit and recieve at the same time, so that halves your bandwith to 150mbps right there. The next big one is the CPU in the router itself. Right now they are operating at around ~500MHz and it has to deal with everything from routing to encryption. Another thing that will have an effect on quoted speeds are retransmissions due to transmission errors.<br />
<br />
The theoretical quoted output of 300mbps is something you never see in real world situations, and in fact, you are lucky if you get 1/3 of that. Just take a look at <a href="http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/bar/67-5-ghz-dn-40?task=archiveon">this chart</a>. Not even the fastest dual band wireless N device breaks 90mbps, so where does that leave me?<br />
<br />
Well fortunately there are wireless N devices starting to come out that offer higher bandwidths up to 450mbps (which I'll take to mean a real world maximum of 150mbps if my previous experiences are anything to go by). It is much the same as the current 300mbps wireless N, but where the 300mbps variant of wireless N uses 2 antennas (known as dual/two band/stream), 450mbps uses 3 antennas. However as you might expect, it's not simply a case of buying a three stream router and expecting it to work. You need a wireless card with three antennas too.<br />
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That presents me with a little problem. Swapping a two stream wireless card like for like is easy. Just take the back cover off, remove the old card, install the new card and connect the antennas. However if I want to upgrade the wireless in my laptop to three stream, not only do I have to take the back off to install the card, I also have to remove the media keys, keyboard, LCD assembly and eventually the LCD panel itself to install the new antenna, since they are installed behind the display. This was an ambitious upgrade, and essentially entailed a complete teardown of my laptop.<br />
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This guide details the process of upgrading a Vaio F12 (but should also work for F11 and F13 models) from the stock wireless card (in this case a dual stream 300mbps Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200) to a three stream 450mbps Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300. If you are simply swapping a dual stream (2 antenna) card for another dual stream card, you may still find this guide of use.<br />
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<b>Please note that this upgrade may not be an option for some laptops. Some manufacturers (eg. HP</b>)<b> lock the BIOS to only recognise certain brands and model numbers of wireless cards and will reject upgrades. Even if this isn't the case, there is always the possibility that there will not be enough room in your case, cable path or behind the display to install the extra antenna. Proceed at your own risk.</b><br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Upgrade Process</b></span><br />
Replacing the wireless card is easy, but the difficult part is installing the new antenna. Do not proceed if you are uncomfortable with taking your LCD apart.<br />
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<b>Make sure that you have earthed yourself and that you are not wearing any clothing that generates static electricity.</b><br />
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Things you will need:<br />
<ul><li>A PZ0 Screwdriver. Must have a thin shaft to fit inside the recessed holes.</li>
<li>Something thin and flat to push tabs in (eg a flat screwdriver).</li>
<li>A knife or something sharp to remove LCD screw covers.</li>
<li>Some sticky tape (not required on the Vaio if you use the original sticky tabs).</li>
<li> The <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?ogpg8cr9x8wlbdb">service manual</a> or a laptop with this <a href="http://www.insidemylaptop.com/take-apart-sony-vaio-vpcf1-laptop-replace-lcd-screen/">website</a> for more detailed information.</li>
<li>A three stream wireless card (eg Intel Ultimate-N 6300).</li>
<li>An extra antenna. </li>
<li>Drivers for your wireless card.</li>
<li>A backup of your drive just in case. </li>
</ul>Notes: <br />
The service manual is for the Vaio VPCF1 series, which appears to cover the F11, F12 and F13. It contains exploded views and part numbers, so it's worth keeping just in case.<br />
Drivers should be downloaded before hand unless you plan to connect via ethernet.<br />
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Please refer to this <a href="http://www.monteverde.org/images/Sony_Vaio_F11/VAIO_F_Series_Disassembly_Guide_Teardown.htm">website</a> for detailed images on opening the laptop. It's fairly simple, so I shall just talk through the process. Refer to this other <a href="http://www.insidemylaptop.com/take-apart-sony-vaio-vpcf1-laptop-replace-lcd-screen/">website</a> for details on removing the LCD later.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Installing the Wireless Card</b></span><br />
1) Before you start doing anything to your laptop, create a system image and restore disk Windows backup and restore. This can be found in <b>Start > Control Panel > Backup and restore</b>.<br />
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2) Next go into the device manager and uninstall the old wireless card. You can get to this by right clicking the <b>Computer</b> icon and selecting <b>Properties</b>. In Windows 7, there is a link to <b>Device manager</b> in the top left of the window. Alternatively you can press the Windows key and type device manager in the search box.<br />
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Expand <b>Network adapters</b>, right click your wireless card and choose <b>Uninstall</b>. When the next prompt is shown and it asks if you would like to delete the driver, select yes if you are installing a wireless card that is a different model or brand, or no if the wireless card uses a unified driver (for example, the Intel Advanced-N 6200 and Ultimate-N 6300 use the same driver).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8-O5-UAplLI/Tf3Lk8xaJnI/AAAAAAAAACs/hzz1CB-PzH8/s1600/device-manager.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8-O5-UAplLI/Tf3Lk8xaJnI/AAAAAAAAACs/hzz1CB-PzH8/s1600/device-manager.png" /></a></div><br />
3) Shut down, then remove the power cable and disconnect the battery. I waited a few minutes with the battery out, and then held the power button in for about 10 seconds to drain any remaining power.<br />
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4) Now remove the DVD/Bluray drive. This is secured by two screws, one in the top left near the power button, and one to the left of the RAM cover. These have 3 small dots above the hole.<br />
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5) Proceed to remove the HDD. Looking at the HDD cover, there are two screws at the bottom, remove these. Again these have 2 small dots above the hole. Once you have removed those screws, gently slide the door toward you to reveal the HDD. Remove the two screws at the top securing the HDD and slide it left. Once it is free from the connector, lift it out.<br />
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6) Remove the RAM cover. The screw that secures the RAM cover does not actually come out as there is a retaining clip under it. What you have to do here is unscrew the door as best you can and then lift it up from the screw side (you should be able to slide a nail under it).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C41w_FC8eQM/Tf3Iyaq28XI/AAAAAAAAACo/FYUIeJMNTSY/s1600/remove-drives.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C41w_FC8eQM/Tf3Iyaq28XI/AAAAAAAAACo/FYUIeJMNTSY/s1600/remove-drives.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Back in the lab. Removing the HDD, BD and memory cover before removing the back cover</i><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
7) Remove the remaining screws from the back cover. I placed them on a table in the same position that I removed them from the laptop, but it would be better to draw a quick diagram to save confusion.<br />
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8) Now to remove the back cover. This was tricky at first as I wasn't sure what to expect. The bottom 1/3 of the cover felt as though it was still secured by something. I thought that maybe there were screws under the rubber pads but that wasn't the case.<br />
<br />
Joe Bleau suggests working from the HDD side and carefully sliding the cover. When I tried this it felt like it wasn't working (perhaps I was doing it wrong), so the method I used was to start from the opposite end and run my fingernail down the front of the case carefully forcing it apart, working from right to left. I stopped just as I got to the HDD bay and lifted the case at the right hand end a little which also seemed to lift some of the PCB with it. With the PCB clear of the lower half of the case, I was able to slide it right (as suggested) and get the back cover off.<br />
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I suggest going with the original instruction of Joe's of , "Starting from the hard drive bay side, slide the cover, shake & bake with care & patience & remove the cover."<br />
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Patience is definitely the key here. Fortunately getting the case back on is rather easy.<br />
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9) You should be able to see the wireless card easily. It's just to the left of the RAM and up a little. Remove the screws securing it and slide it left to remove it. Carefully turn it over and make a note of which antenna is connected to which port on the board. The Intel boards are numbered. It might not even matter which port you connect the antennas to, but if you can connect them to the same numbers, you might as well, right?<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H4PchY9B4hk/Tf3QGrnVgiI/AAAAAAAAACw/ljzi2-2vP-o/s1600/wifi-old.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H4PchY9B4hk/Tf3QGrnVgiI/AAAAAAAAACw/ljzi2-2vP-o/s1600/wifi-old.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Wireless LAN card with the two antennas under it</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
10) Disconnect the antennas from the original wireless card and then connect them to the new one. It's a very tight connection and you will find you have to apply a lot of pressure, so just be careful. Once they have snapped on to the new card, slide it into the slot carefully.<br />
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11) Work back from step 8 to reassemble the laptop. Put the back cover on and install all the drives and screws you took out so it is in original condition.<br />
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12) Power on and install the driver/software for your wireless card to ensure it works and is accepted by your laptop. There is no point going to the trouble of installing a new antenna if the laptop BIOS is set to refuse other brands or models of wireless card after all.<br />
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If you are using a wireless card that uses a unified driver (like my upgrade from an Intel 6200 to 6300) and you chose not to delete the driver when you uninstalled it earlier, Windows will detect the card and install the driver automatically. All that was left for me to do in my case was to enter my wireless password and set my static IP settings.<br />
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If you were upgrading an old two stream card to a newer two stream card, this is all you need to do up to this point. All further instructions will relate to installing a third antenna for three stream cards.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Installing Another Antenna</b></span><br />
1) Power down the laptop and remove the battery and AC adapter. Hold the power button in for around 5 seconds to drain any remaining power.<br />
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2) Flip the laptop over and remove the screws show below. You do not need to remove any drives for this part of the install, just the battery (for safety, but there are some screws under that which we need to remove). Removing these will allow us to remove the keyboard, media keys/speaker cover and eventually the LCD assembly.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mQAlioZ-Da8/Tf3aGf5xrCI/AAAAAAAAAC0/Ke4jkbNur14/s1600/screws.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mQAlioZ-Da8/Tf3aGf5xrCI/AAAAAAAAAC0/Ke4jkbNur14/s1600/screws.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>There are two screws under the battery that you need to get.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
3) Turn the laptop back over and open the LCD in the normal positon for use. Starting with the media keys/speaker cover, start from the side nearest the power switch on the right. Using a sharp object or your fingernails, push it in and gently lift upward. Do the same to the left hand side, then run your fingernails across the front of the speaker cover to push in the rest of the tabs. Carefully lift it upwards once it is free. You may need to move it around a little or angle the LCD to get it free.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cB44GDMgu2s/Tf3cWCjyB6I/AAAAAAAAAC4/96FbvTN0Zcc/s1600/speaker+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cB44GDMgu2s/Tf3cWCjyB6I/AAAAAAAAAC4/96FbvTN0Zcc/s1600/speaker+cover.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Speaker cover removed. Excuse the dust, it gets everywhere once you've had the back cover off.</i><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
4) Now to remove the keyboard. Carefully lift up one corner for example near the escape key, then insert your thumbnail and work toward the bottom of the keyboard. You should feel the tabs pop out. Do the same for the opposite side. Carefully lift the keyboard up slightly, and pull it towards the LCD at the same time. You should feel it pop free of the chassis, but be careful not to damage the connector. Turn the keyboard over so it is resting on the palm rest.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oEw8cA40OIw/Tf3gEqwHQ2I/AAAAAAAAAC8/Gk5f8mT5h9Y/s1600/kb-removed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oEw8cA40OIw/Tf3gEqwHQ2I/AAAAAAAAAC8/Gk5f8mT5h9Y/s1600/kb-removed.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Now would have been a great time to install a sexy backlit keyboard. Why do I never think of these things ahead of time?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
5) Next we have to remove the media keys as the wifi antennas are actually routed underneath them. Just remove the three wide screws and unclip the power button connector on the right. This will give us enough space to move the media keys out of the way so we can lay the new antenna cable.<br />
<br />
6) Now remove the screws securing the speakers. Do not worry if your right speaker only appears to have one screw, this is because it is secured from the other side with the screws that hold the back cover in place. Fold the speakers inward so they are resting face down. This will give you access to the LCD hinge screws, but we will come to that later.<br />
<br />
7) Now that you have the speakers and media keys out of the way, you should be able to disconnect the wireless antennas and the LCD cables. The LCD cables are on the left. The leftmost cable should be pulled upwards gently, and the two smaller cables should slide towards the LCD itself. It's a really fiddly job and you may find it easier if you pull the cable out of it's trench first. Moving over to the wireless antennas, this is equally fiddly. I found it easier to ease them out with a sharp object, or if you want to be careful, whip the back cover off and disconnect them there. If in doubt, knife them out.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZFvutdcyvQo/Tf3rHKvi0RI/AAAAAAAAADA/aRvcnNltjxk/s1600/cables.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZFvutdcyvQo/Tf3rHKvi0RI/AAAAAAAAADA/aRvcnNltjxk/s1600/cables.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>These are the only cables you really need to bother removing</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
8) With the LCD and antenna cables free, you can now seperate the LCD from the base of the laptop. If you haven't already, move the speakers aside and that will reveal the hinge screws, 2 on the left and 2 on the right. They are really long screws and tougher than the others to remove. Be sure to support the weight of the LCD assembly with your other hand while unscrewing the hinges. Get someone to help is possible, or use a magnetic screwdriver to make life a little easier. Once that is done, you should be able to pull the display free from the base.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rUxiu1nQ8mQ/Tf6CSwNpLWI/AAAAAAAAADE/6GGbpWIBUac/s1600/display-out.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rUxiu1nQ8mQ/Tf6CSwNpLWI/AAAAAAAAADE/6GGbpWIBUac/s1600/display-out.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>This is how the iPad was born, when Mr. Jobs thought, "Hey, let's take a laptop and remove everything good about it". Probably.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
9) Now it's time to work on removing the bezel (that's the surrounding of the LCD). It is very flimsy, so be careful at all times. First take a sharp object for example a knife and prise out the screw covers. There are 4 in total, two square covers at the bottom left and bottom right, and 2 round covers in the top left and top right. Once those are out, remove the screws and place them somewhere safe.<br />
<br />
Now work on unsnapping the bezel. It is held in place by a number of tabs. I suggest working it from the top left or top right where the round screw covers were and push it apart with your fingernail. Once you have got a bit of a gap started, go around the bezel unhooking the tabs by pressing inward with a little pressure. This is a long and frustrating job and is largely trial and error. Just take your time and be careful not to apply pressure to the LCD itself or scratch it. I had the most trouble unsnapping the lower half of the panel, in part thanks to the hinges. It's a similar story with the removal. Once you have everything unsnapped, pull the bezel toward you (if the hinges are facing away from you) and gently wriggle it free. This is not an exact science, but you can rest easy knowing that putting the bezel back on is about the easiest part of this whole upgrade process.<br />
<br />
10) Now the bezel has been removed, it's almost time to install the new antenna, but first we have to unscrew the LCD panel so we can get behind it to install the new antenna. Just remove the four screws from the bracket securing the panel to the back of the case (two on the bottom left and two on the bottom right). When it comes to reinstalling these screws, just look for the arrows pointing to the holes in case you forget where they came from. You may also use this chance to disconnect the LCD from the inverter so you can completely remove it from the case, which would make life nice and easy, but I chose to leave it connected as the cable was slack enough to give me a enough space to work with.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wFYhFFbNkhE/Tf6HEl1KQtI/AAAAAAAAADI/QYCESVMoze8/s1600/no-bezel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wFYhFFbNkhE/Tf6HEl1KQtI/AAAAAAAAADI/QYCESVMoze8/s1600/no-bezel.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The hinges seemed more trouble than they are worth to remove, but the new cable just pushes in from the side.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
11) With the panel removed (or propped up on a roll of tape in my case), we can go about laying the new antenna cable. We will concentrate on the connector end because we don't want too much slack cable in the laptop itself - slack cable is easier to store in the LCD as there is much more space. Align the ends of the connectors according to the mounting position on the wireless board, for example the third antenna connector on my Intel 6300, is between the first and second, so the connector for the third antenna needs to be somewhere between the existing cables in length.<br />
<br />
Once you have the connectors aligned as you want, push the remaining cable into the side of the hinge and follow the existing cables to see how it's routed. This sounds like a pretty vague instruction, but once you see the hinge for yourself, you will know exactly what to do. This method will be pretty easy if you have removed the panel totally, but if like me you was lazy, you might find it easier to run the whole cable under the panel first, route it through the hinge and then pull it through to suit the required length. This part is mostly trial and error.<br />
<br />
You may notice something that look like tabs. These are very sticky, and if you pull them up carefully, you can run the new antenna cable under them with the existing ones to keep it nice and tidy. If you don't have such tabs, normal sticky tape will probably do the job.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VjqxQ7__hnw/Tf6Lbr7d6iI/AAAAAAAAADM/JoZhoZul0ZI/s1600/cable.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VjqxQ7__hnw/Tf6Lbr7d6iI/AAAAAAAAADM/JoZhoZul0ZI/s1600/cable.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Be careful when lifting these tabs. They are so sticky that they might tear.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
12) Once you have your cable routed, it's time to stick the antenna on. The suggestion is to place antennas at least 12cm apart. I placed mine somewhere in the middle as it allowed me to get a decent distance from the existing antennas as well as not getting too close to the LCD inverter. Unfortunately the cable is quite stiff and very curly so the finished result looks kind of rushed. I tried to route it on the inside of the other cables but it didn't quite work out. It probably would have been better to go to the right of the cables instead.<br />
<br />
Rest your LCD panel in it's mounting position to make sure it fits flush and isn't affected by the new antenna (eg it's not resting on it).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-byao9X7SrAI/Tf6NqP31znI/AAAAAAAAADQ/d1zi5HVr-wc/s1600/antenna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-byao9X7SrAI/Tf6NqP31znI/AAAAAAAAADQ/d1zi5HVr-wc/s1600/antenna.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Avoiding a cable crossover was next to impossible thanks to how short the cable for the antenna on the right is.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
13) Work back from step 10 to get your laptop back into normal working order. Pay particular attention at step 7 when reconnecting the cables associated with the panel (LCD cables and wireless antennas). You may find that it's a bit of a tight fit when putting the antenna cables back into their trench due to the fact you have an extra one. I was able to get around this by pushing them into the clips with a screwdriver. Once you have worked your way back through all the steps, power on and enjoy your new speed, but remember that you need a three stream router if you don't already have one.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R5HiU3Vxdf8/Tf6QAaCWb7I/AAAAAAAAADU/s1zOfrQsvzk/s1600/three-antenna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R5HiU3Vxdf8/Tf6QAaCWb7I/AAAAAAAAADU/s1zOfrQsvzk/s1600/three-antenna.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Not a bad job in the end</i>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Special thanks once again to Joe (check his website <a href="http://www.monteverde.org/images/Sony_Vaio_F11/Vaio_F_Series_Keyboard_Replacement_Guide.htm">here</a>) for his help. Without his guide and the excellent links he gave me, I doubt I would have had the confidence to attempt this upgrade.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-53041719581084122942011-06-08T13:46:00.002+01:002011-06-08T21:12:32.539+01:00Windows 7 Tips for the OCDIf like me, you are mildly OCD (or perhaps pedantic is more accurate), then you might appreciate these little bits of information that will help make your Windows 7 UI a little more pleasing to the eye.<br />
<br />
If you have a large, high resolution screen, you might notice that Windows 7 doesn't look so hot in places, such as the login screen background being very low resolution and suffering from JPG artifacts. Similarly, if you have decided to change the default user icon/avatar to something of your own, you might find that it looks a little blurry compared to the preinstalled icons.<br />
<br />
Fortuantely in my fiddling and tweaking with Windows 7, I've come across some work arounds and information that will improve this situation.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Windows Login Icon</b></span><br />
If it's one thing I like, it's a crisp image. It has been a habit of mine to make sure I get the dimensions right when creating avatars and icons to avoid them being rescaled. In fact, this is basic and you no doubt already take this into account when selecting or making desktop backgrounds.<br />
<br />
I googled around at first to save myself the trouble of trial and error, but all information was pointing to the icon size being 128x128 pixels. I created my icon with those dimensions and it didn't look as sharp as the supplied icons - I could tell it was being rescaled. I managed to find a screenshot of the Windows 7 login screen and measured the dimensions of the user icon space in Photoshop.<br />
<br />
It turns out the correct dimensions for the Windows 7 user icon at the login screen is 126x126 pixels. I'm now using a 126x126 PNG as my login icon, and it's pixel perfect, no rescaling anymore.<br />
<br />
You might want to note that Windows Live Messenger uses 96x96 pixels icons and also accepts PNG.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Desktop Background</b></span><br />
It actually wasn't until last night that I noticed this. I've been using a scan of some Ocarina of Time 3DS promotional art as my background for a while, and I found a high resolution PNG of it on the Nintendo E3 press site, so I decided to recreate it as the original had some weird artifacting around Ganondorf's hair despite the image being very good quality. I didn't know why and presumed they were scanning artifacts.<br />
<br />
After I had cropped and downscaled the new image, I saved it as PNG and applied it, but the weird thing was is that my recreated image didn't look as good as the image I was replacing. If anything, Ganondorf's hair looked worse now than before, and I thought I saw some JPG artifacts around Link's ear. That set some gears turning upstairs, so I pulled up the original PNG in window and compared them.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_06X4zHeG0/Te9KtD8vrmI/AAAAAAAAACM/wo61Fhd5F-w/s1600/link.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_06X4zHeG0/Te9KtD8vrmI/AAAAAAAAACM/wo61Fhd5F-w/s1600/link.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left: Original PNG, Right: Original when set as wallpaper in Windows 7. Notice the artifacts around his ear.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Sure enough the background appeared to have JPG artifacts and was evidently lower quality than the source file despite the fact that the source was a PNG. It turns out that Windows 7 converts BMP and PNG wallpapers to JPG, and after a quick google, I found it stores them in "%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Themes" (paste that into an explorer window, or press the Windows key and R and paste it in there).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qo9CEh9vuq4/Te9LXPT7B4I/AAAAAAAAACQ/cRs9NJrrIVA/s1600/ganonhead.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qo9CEh9vuq4/Te9LXPT7B4I/AAAAAAAAACQ/cRs9NJrrIVA/s1600/ganonhead.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saturated colours are a huge giveaway. Who at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to convert lossless wallpapers into JPG of this quality?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Fortunately there are two workarounds for this.<br />
<br />
<b>Method 1</b><br />
Windows will recompress BMP and PNG images to a lower quality JPG, but it does not recompress images that are already in the JPG format, it simply copies it to the themes folder in %appdata%. Open your BMP or PNG wallpaper in something like Adobe Photoshop or <a href="http://www.gimp.org/downloads/">GIMP</a> if you need a free alternative, and save it as JPG using the highest quality setting. It's not lossless, but it's so good I doubt you will be able to tell the difference. Apply the wallpaper in the usual way.<br />
<br />
<b>Method 2</b><br />
This method will allow you to use a lossless background (eg BMP or PNG) without ever converting it to JPG. Just get your image, drop it into an open Firefox window, then right click and choose <b>Set As Desktop Background</b>. The only real down side to this is that Firefox converts it to a 32 bit BMP, which uses around 8MB for 1080p. Ouch.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gRyPVFpdTcY/Te9NJbUkt0I/AAAAAAAAACY/sWEl6Nnc_ok/s1600/ganoncape.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gRyPVFpdTcY/Te9NJbUkt0I/AAAAAAAAACY/sWEl6Nnc_ok/s1600/ganoncape.png" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
Microsoft, if people select BMP or PNG as a desktop background it's because they want a lossless image. Don't go around compressing it to a shitty JPG. My computer is supposed to do as I tell it to, not what someone else thinks is good.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Replacing the Login Screen Background</b></span><br />
When I was testing the Windows 7 RC, I noticed that the login screen background was horribly stretched and full of JPG artifacts. It irritated me, but I let it slide, and assumed they would put lossless backgrounds in for the retail version. Well it didn't happen. When I bought my Vaio at the beginning of 2011, it was the first time I had used a full retail version of Windows 7, and I was surprised to see the same low quality background. It felt like a downgrade, because Vista certainly didn't have JPG artifacts, and I'm pretty sure the Windows XP login, as simple as it was, didn't suffer any quality issues either.<br />
<br />
But one day my sister got a new laptop and to my surprise it had its own branded login screen. The quality was really good too. This gave me hope. I had previously not even considered the possibility of changing the login background because I presumed it would be hidden deep within the system files and be tied up within a DLL, a locked file or something that wouldn't be worth the effort changing.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WtMX7kAVRns/Te9bwcsTx7I/AAAAAAAAACc/1WZPrZZ6z4U/s1600/DSC02698.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WtMX7kAVRns/Te9bwcsTx7I/AAAAAAAAACc/1WZPrZZ6z4U/s1600/DSC02698.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>One of the workarounds for the low filesize limitation is to decrease the brightness of the image.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
I googled it anyway and it turns out it's stupidly easy to change the login background, however there are a couple of limitations:<br />
<ul><li>The image type must be JPG</li>
<li>The file size must not exceed 249KB (256,000 bytes)</li>
<li>Must be named backgroundDefault.jpg</li>
</ul>Unfortunately a filesize that low can impact the quality for large resolutions, but there are a few tricks to help with that which will come later on.<br />
<br />
<b>How to use a Custom Login Background</b><br />
1) The first thing you need to do is <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?v244pnibeot3h4v">download this registry entry</a>. You may need to show the file extensions in Explorer and delete the .txt that mediafire seems to have added to it (so it ends in .reg). Double click to add it to the registry (or right click and select merge). This tells Windows 7 to prefer custom backgrounds over the OEM background.<br />
<br />
2) Open an explorer window and navigate to <b>C:\Windows\System32\oobe\</b> At this point you may need to create another couple of folders if they don't already exist. Right click and make a new folder called <b>info</b> within the <b>oobe</b> folder. Open the <b>info</b> folder and make another folder in that called <b>backgrounds</b>. Once you open the <b>backgrounds</b> folder, your path should read <b>C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds</b><br />
<br />
3) At this point we need to prepare/compress the image. To prevent scaling of the image (which is what gives the default login background that pixelated appearance), you need to make sure the image is the same resolution as your display. Right click your desktop and select screen resolution to find out the dimensions of your display, and match these dimensions if you are downscaling or cropping an image in your photo editing software. If your image is smaller than your display, it is generally better to upscale it in your photo editing program than let Windows do it.<br />
<br />
When you have the image at the correct resolution, it's time to compress it. We need to get the filesize under 249KB, but at the same time squeeze every last bit of quality out that we can.<br />
<br />
<b>For Photoshop:</b><br />
To save the file, click <b>File > Save for Web & Devices</b>. This gives us much finer control over the JPG quality levels than the usual JPG export under <b>File > Save As</b>. Select the <b>Optimized</b> tab to see a preview of your compressed image and then pick <b>JPEG high</b> from the presets in the top right corner.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CeKahnaaMvo/Te9lXuX3l0I/AAAAAAAAACk/lYjrWIZ5n2o/s1600/save2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CeKahnaaMvo/Te9lXuX3l0I/AAAAAAAAACk/lYjrWIZ5n2o/s1600/save2.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Photoshop Save for Web and Devices export screen</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
Taking note of the filesize in the lower left hand corner of the window, adjust the value in the quality setting (in the top right) until you get close to 245-250KB. You can also experiment by checking and unchecking <b>Optimized </b>and <b>Progressive</b> as these will usually save you 5-10KB for free. If embed colour profile is checked, uncheck it. When you have reached your target filesize, hit save and put it on the desktop for now.<br />
<br />
<b>For GIMP</b>:<br />
To save the file in GIMP, click <b>File > Save As</b>. In the save dialog that pops up, change the extension to .jpg and press enter (just save to the desktop for now). This will take you to the JPEG compression options. It's similar to Photoshop in that you have a quality slider with fine control over the amount of compression.<br />
<br />
Check the box that says <b>Show preview in image window</b>. This will enable a preview of the image quality after compression, but more importantly the filesize. Move the slider left or right until you get to around 245-250KB. You can expand <b>Advanced Options</b> to gain access to things like <b>Optimise</b> and <b>Progressive</b> which will save a few KB without affecting the image quality. There are also advanced options such as subsampling which controls how the colour is encoded. If you are saving a JPG to use as a desktop background like earlier, I'd suggest using the highest quality level, and setting the subsampling to 1x1,1x1,1x1, but for the purpose of the login background, you might want to experiment with the other subsampling options.<br />
<br />
4) Once you have your compressed image, it's time to move it to the <b>C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds </b>directory. The image should be named <b>backgroundDefault.jpg</b>.<br />
<br />
<br />
Providing you applied the registry entry successfully and got the filesize small enough, your custom login background should now show when you <b>Ctrl Alt Del</b> or lock your system with <b>Windows key</b> and <b>L</b>. If the background does not show, you might need to reboot. If it still doesn't work after that, compress your image so it's a little smaller (I read the limit is 256KB, but it appears to be closer to 249KB or 256,000 bytes. <br />
<br />
Once the registry entry is applied, you can change the backgrounds in real time without reboots by just changing out the image stored in the backgrounds folder as long as it has the same name. If it doesn't show, it's likely to be a filesize issue or the JPG settings (eg Windows doesn't like the subsampling or optimisations the program uses).<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Disabling the Boot Logo</b></span><br />
I had used Windows 7 on a 4:3 laptop (1400x1050) for quite a long time, maybe over a year, so imagine how many times I have seen the boot logo. Well now that I have a widescreen laptop, that boot logo simply annoys me. Why? Because it's the wrong aspect ratio. Apparently Microsoft can cram their OS with 10GB of redundant crap, but they can't be bothered to put in a boot logo for widescreens.<br />
<br />
It's not as if widescreens are anything new either, and they are only becoming more popular as time goes on. Well there isn't really a fix for this, aside from unpacking a system file and resizing 105 or so images. It's just not worth the time (even if I automate it) and not worth the risk of screwing something up.<br />
<br />
So my solution is to not look at it at all, and here's how you can do the same.<br />
<br />
1) Press the <b>Windows key</b> and <b>R</b>.<br />
2) Type <b>msconfig</b> and hit enter. <br />
3) Go to the <b>boot</b> tab and check <b>No GUI boot</b><br />
4) Click Ok to confirm<br />
<br />
Now the next time your computer boots, it just shows you a black screen (with some weird little dotted lines in the top left corner as it loads). I found that skipping the boot animation speeded up my boot by about 5 seconds, so it's a win-win.<br />
<br />
The only downside to this is that I rebooted to run a surface scan on my HDD once, and because the GUI did not load, it just ran the scan with nothing on screen so I had no idea what point it was at. That wasn't too bad since the program was automated, but it might cause some problems if you ever require user input.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-57863118757002884802011-06-02T18:03:00.000+01:002011-06-02T18:03:22.296+01:00Replacing the Audio Board in a Vaio F SeriesIt's a common problem, one that has probably happened to you, or you know someone it has happened to. I'm talking about broken or partially working headphone sockets. Unfortunately it seems to be a common problem with laptops (as far as common problems with laptops go). I'm not sure why, but I presume it's because the build quality of the headphone sockets is generally low.<br />
<br />
It happened to me not too long ago. Not because of wear and tear or because the headphone socket was of poor quality, but because of an accident. Admittedly it was probably partially my fault. I was visiting family and decided to bring my laptop and K701 along. Since the K701 use a 6.3mm plug, I had to use the chunky 6.3 to 3.5mm connector AKG supplied (which is a decent weight in itself). That alone didn't prove too much of a problem, though I'm sure prolonged use wouldn't do the socket too much good. The problem was that with the size of the plug and the adaptor, it was protruding from the laptop maybe a good 2 inches. It got snagged on some clothing, and you can figure out what happened next.<br />
<br />
Although I have a USB DAC, losing the headphone socket would have been a major inconvenience for me since the headphone socket also doubles as optical output (and I prefer optical over USB for the DAC, as I get some weird interference with USB). I also occasionally use the onboard audio with earbuds if I am watching something at night.<br />
<br />
I hadn't had the laptop too long when this happened, and I had no idea of what it's internals were like, so naturally I raged. My fear was that the headphone socket was built into the motherboard, as is the case for some laptops.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-muAE4CdV_Ko/TeeHBgtHCAI/AAAAAAAAABw/ZyI_mmQgN00/s1600/DELL_INSPIRON_6000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-muAE4CdV_Ko/TeeHBgtHCAI/AAAAAAAAABw/ZyI_mmQgN00/s1600/DELL_INSPIRON_6000.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Dell Inspirion Motherboard. Note that the headphone and microphone jacks are built into the motherboard. This would require specialist soldering or a new motherboard.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I can't remember exactly how it went from there, but I recall searching for service manuals (PDF files that Sony service center staff use for repair), browsing forums and looking for images of the motherboard, to try and determine if this was something I could fix myself.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I got lucky. It turns out this laptop has the headphone/optical, microphone and USB ports on their own small PCB, meaning that as long as I could get into it, I should be able to swap the part out. After a little googling, I managed to find out the part number, and was able to locate a replacement that was sourced from another laptop from <a href="http://www.thelaptopcentre.co.uk/sony-vaio-usb-led-boards/sony-vpcf11-series-audio-and-dual-usb-port-board-numbers-on-part-may-include-1p-109b501-8011-includes-cable-part-number-015-0101-1499_a-pn-cnx-448.html">The Laptop Centre</a>. It's also worth checking ebay.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qEos-c0yoi0/Tee5BSVBRBI/AAAAAAAAACA/t5uyfBnJDEc/s1600/audio-board.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qEos-c0yoi0/Tee5BSVBRBI/AAAAAAAAACA/t5uyfBnJDEc/s1600/audio-board.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Vaio F12M0E with the CNX 448 M930 USB/Audio Board (the board inside the laptop is a CNX 448 M931 but they appear to be identical)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Replacement Process</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Replacing the audio board in this particular laptop was easy, and will take you 15 minutes or so.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Make sure that you have earthed yourself and that you are not wearing any clothing that generates static electricity.</b> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Things you will need:</div><ul><li>A PZ0 Screwdriver. Must have a thin shaft to fit inside the recessed holes.</li>
<li>A CNX 448 USB/audio board. </li>
<li>Something thin and flat to push tabs in (eg a flat screwdriver)</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?ogpg8cr9x8wlbdb">service manual</a> or a laptop with this <a href="http://www.monteverde.org/images/Sony_Vaio_F11/VAIO_F_Series_Disassembly_Guide_Teardown.htm">website</a> for more detailed information .</li>
</ul>Notes: <br />
The service manual is for the Vaio VPCF1 series, which appears to cover the F11, F12 and F13. It contains exploded views and part numbers, so it's worth keeping just in case.<br />
The audio board in my F12 was a CNX 448 M931, but the replacement I am now using is a CNX 448 M930. Everything appears to work fine.<br />
<br />
Please refer to this <a href="http://www.monteverde.org/images/Sony_Vaio_F11/VAIO_F_Series_Disassembly_Guide_Teardown.htm">website</a> for detailed images on opening the laptop. It's fairly simple, so I shall just talk through the process.<br />
<br />
1) An obvious step, but remove the power cable and disconnect the battery. I waited a few minutes with the battery out, and then held the power button in for about 10 seconds to drain any remaining power.<br />
<br />
2) Now remove the DVD/Bluray drive. This is secured by two screws, one in the top left near the power button, and one to the left of the RAM cover. These have 3 small dots above the hole.<br />
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3) Proceed to remove the HDD. Looking at the HDD cover, there are two screws at the bottom, remove these. Again these have 2 small dots above the hole. Once you have removed those screws, gently slide the door toward you to reveal the HDD. Remove the two screws at the top securing the HDD and slide it left. Once it is free from the connector, lift it out.<br />
<br />
4) Remove the RAM cover. The screw that secures the RAM cover does not actually come out as there is a retaining clip under it. What you have to do here is unscrew the door as best you can and then lift it up from the screw side (you should be able to slide a nail under it).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YazZdtomhLo/Tee4ZyopCnI/AAAAAAAAAB8/9JZQXoi7o4M/s1600/drives-removed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YazZdtomhLo/Tee4ZyopCnI/AAAAAAAAAB8/9JZQXoi7o4M/s1600/drives-removed.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Just before removing the back cover</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
5) Remove the remaining screws from the back cover. I placed them on a table in the same position that I removed them from the laptop, but it would be better to draw a quick diagram to save confusion.<br />
<br />
6) Now to remove the back cover. This was tricky at first as I wasn't sure what to expect. The bottom 1/3 of the cover felt as though it was still secured by something. I thought that maybe there were screws under the rubber pads but that wasn't the case.<br />
<br />
Joe Bleau suggests working from the HDD side and carefully sliding the cover. When I tried this it felt like it wasn't working (perhaps I was doing it wrong), so the method I used was to start from the opposite end and run my fingernail down the front of the case carefully forcing it apart, working from right to left. I stopped just as I got to the HDD bay and lifted the case at the right hand end a little which also seemed to lift some of the PCB with it. With the PCB clear of the lower half of the case, I was able to slide it right (as suggested) and get the back cover off.<br />
<br />
I suggest going with the original instruction of Joe's of , "Starting from the hard drive bay side, slide the cover, shake & bake with care & patience & remove the cover."<br />
<br />
Patience is definitely the key here. Fortunately getting the case back on is rather easy.<br />
<br />
7) You will notice a lone PCB to the left where the HDD bay is. This is the USB/audio board. Remove the two screws securing it, and carefully turn it over and remove the cable. You will need to pull the metal tab toward you at the same time as pulling up on the plastic removal tab.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XfovSVzdftI/Tee93tGlQ9I/AAAAAAAAACE/ABh-OEutupA/s1600/open.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XfovSVzdftI/Tee93tGlQ9I/AAAAAAAAACE/ABh-OEutupA/s1600/open.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>This is the view as you remove the back cover. Notice how under normal usage, the motherboard is facing down, making it very easy to upgrade and service.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
8) Replace the old audio board with the new one, and connect the cable. Secure it using the scews from earlier and then work backwards from step 6 to put everything back together. Power on and enjoy.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rShE1a-Ky8g/TefBRx_mRiI/AAAAAAAAACI/8I_uxz--Mfk/s1600/audio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rShE1a-Ky8g/TefBRx_mRiI/AAAAAAAAACI/8I_uxz--Mfk/s1600/audio.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>CNX 448 M930 and M931 side by side</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>That's about all there is to it. It goes without saying that the information posted here is a guide and you should proceed at your own caution. I'm not a technician or anything, just a regular end user, so if you are worried about anything going wrong, have it serviced properly. This kind of modification will probably void any warranties, so it's worth bearing that in mind (that doesn't bother me since I deal with stuff on my own).<br />
<br />
I want to say a big thanks to Joe Bleau at <a href="http://vaiofseries.com/">vaiofseries.com</a>. Without his help and awesome guides, I probably would have ended up breaking something, so thank you.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-52581294051974593232011-05-14T16:27:00.001+01:002011-05-14T23:46:22.798+01:00Guidelines for Buying HeadphonesSomething I seem to get asked a lot is, "What headphones are good for <insert price>?"<br />
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That's not an easy question to answer, thanks to a number of reasons. I'm also reluctant to give direct recommendations due to the fact that a lot about headphones (quality, sound, value) is subjective. What I find good, someone else may find not so good.<br />
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With that in mind, I want to go through a few points which will hopefully help you to make your own, informed decision. Here are some of the things you should consider when looking for headphones.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Style of Music</b></span><br />
This is possibly the most obvious point, but one that should be covered. Not all headphones are created equal, and by that I mean they have different sound signatures (a fancy phrase for the tone they impart onto the music). You are probably aware of the fact that headphones and speakers all have different sounds, and may have put it down to a difference in quality, but it's most often, simply down to how they respond at certain frequencies.<br />
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We can put headphones into two basic categories (there are more, but we are going to keep it simple for now). Those are neutral, and coloured. Neutral, as the name suggests, presents the music as close as reasonably possible to the original recording. It's difficult to make and tune neutral headphones due to various factors, so you do have a degree of variance between them. Not all neutral headphones sound exactly alike.<br />
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As for coloured, this basically describes any headphones or speakers that add their own tone to the music. The most common example of coloured headphones are those that boost bass, but it can also describe non-neutral behaviour in other frequencies, such boosting high frequencies which gives an impression of greater clarity.<br />
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We can determine for ourselves which headphones are neutral or coloured simply by checking their frequency response graph.<br />
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oZ4lOS0xWQE/Tc2XH0tmIwI/AAAAAAAAABo/f3dOGGjxDh0/s1600/graphCompare.php.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oZ4lOS0xWQE/Tc2XH0tmIwI/AAAAAAAAABo/f3dOGGjxDh0/s1600/graphCompare.php.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UaqChN7D6II/Tcjsx_pJ2tI/AAAAAAAAABg/2f5lCKgSkp8/s1600/graphCompare.php.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div>Here is a frequency response graph for 4 popular headphones. These graphs are generated by playing a standard frequency sweep through the headphones and measuring the output. What the graph shows us is that although the same frequency sweep is played through all the headphones, the output can vary a lot.<br />
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In a perfect world, neutral headphones would have a straight line at 0dBr, right across the frequency spectrum. However in practice this is extremely difficult, and even the $1400 Sennheiser HD800 can't produce a completely flat line. Generally, anything +/-5db relative to 0db would be considered neutral, and anything significantly higher or lower than that would indicate that the headphones either have a coloured sound or weakness. As we can see, given the +/-5db rule of thumb, the HD800 do amazingly well, staying within that range for most of the frequencies. The K701 do well too, but in comparison to the HD800, it appears that bass and highs are a little under represented (but when you consider there is a $1100 price difference, they don't do bad at all).<br />
<br />
Moving on, we can see the Sony MDR-V700, which are sold as DJ headphones, have the weakest bass response of them all, and is lacking in the high frequencies/treble department. Ordinarily that would stand out to me as a weakness of the headphones, but given that they are designed to be used in clubs, and support up to 3000mw of power, I wonder if they were purposely tuned this way so they can be played at high volumes without piercing treble or ear rattling bass. For DJ headphones they are fit for purpose, but I wouldn't suggest these to any budding audiophiles (talking from first hand experience).<br />
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Conversely we can see that the Sony MDR-XB700 apply a large boost of +15 in the bass range. That much of a bias into one frequency range means that it works superb for certain styles of music (notably hip hop or drum and bass), but potentially not so well for others. The boost tapers off at around 250-300Hz which is the usual cutoff frequency for subwoofers, so it's obvious what these headphones were tuned for. The only downside with this much of a boost is that it may leave some low male vocals sounding a little muddy. While these don't appear to boost the high frequencies (in fact it's just below 0db), in comparison to most other headphones, it would sound as though they do since a lot of headphones tend to fall off to around -10db in the 10kHz+ range.<br />
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As the graph shows, the AKG K701 and Sennheiser HD800 are neutral headphones, whereas the Sony MDR-XB700 are coloured since they intentionally boost the bass. Coloured headphones are typically a lot more popular than neutral headphones as it's easier to notice a difference in<b> tone </b>between two headphones than it is to notice the <b>quality</b> difference between two that have similar frequency responses. To notice the quality difference between two high quality headphones, you would need an equally high quality source, but the difference between neutral and coloured headphones can be noticed on practically any output.<br />
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<i>Protip: Coloured headphones work well on cheap players/output as their bass/treble boost can offset the rolloff associated with portable devices/underpowered amplifiers. <a href="http://zero1-st.blogspot.com/2011/05/headphone-amps-and-dacs.html">See this for more detail.</a></i><br />
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That alone makes it easier to differentiate between them. Coloured headphones also give a false sense of quality. What happens when you go from a neutral headphone to one that boosts the bass and treble by +5db? You will easily notice the improved bass, and the extra high frequency response will give the impression of extra clarity. Then move to headphones that boost by +10db and you have the same issue again. The +10 boosted headphones will have even more bass and sound even more detailed than the last pair.<br />
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These kind of headphones are likely to grab your attention at first <a href="http://zero1-st.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-audio-gear.html">which is not something that happens when using neutral headphones</a>. As such, these headphones are popular and thanks to their artificial boosting of the frequencies, can leave neutral headphones sounding dull or flat in comparison. That's not to say coloured headphones are bad or no good, but they serve a different purpose from neutral headphones. My personal preference is to listen to music as it was intended to sound in the studio, but if you are a bass head, then that's cool too.<br />
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If you listen to certain types of music (such as hip hop or drum and bass as mentioned earlier), then coloured headphones may suit your requirements. If you listen to a wide range of stuff and only want to invest in one pair of headphones, a neutral setup will serve well as a jack of all trades. The great thing about headphones is that they are small enough to own multiple pairs, so you may decide to go for one of each and alternate depending on what you are listening to.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Source Quality</b></span><u></u><br />
As I touched on before in previous posts, your source quality is critically important. There's really no point in spending $1400 on some Sennheiser HD800 if you intend to run them off your onboard laptop audio or iPod. Your output will simply be way better than your input and your source will cripple the performance of the headphones.<br />
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Budget according to the quality of your setup if you don't intend to upgrade your audio. If you have onboard audio for example, then I'd advise spending $150 maximum. If you have a high end soundcard, then feel free to splash out a little more (let's say up to $250). If you still really want to spend a decent amount (over $300 for example) on a certain pair of headphones, consider buying a DAC first (or an amp if you already have a high end soundcard like the X-Fi Titanium). It makes the initial cost of upgrading expensive, but a high quality DAC is a long term investment and will out live numerous pairs of headphones.<br />
<br />
A common mistake, and something I can speak about from experience, is that people think they can buy good quality headphones and expect significantly better sound. While high quality headphones will provide an improvement, they will potentially show you the flaws in your source too. I originally bought the AKG K701 and intended to run them from my laptop audio (insert laughter here). I thought that at $320, they would be good enough for me to not care about the pitfalls of onboard audio, or that I would be so impressed with the quality over my old Sony V700, that I wouldn't notice any flaws.<br />
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That of course wasn't the case, and I soon got the upgrade bug. The audio quality was obviously improved from the Sony V700, but the onboard amp lacked the power to properly drive the headphones, not to mention the poor quality of the DAC. I wanted to see what these headphoneswere actually capable of, so I went down the path of a seperate headphone amplifier and DAC.<br />
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Audio is a two way deal. Input is equally as important as output, so with this in mind, I'd recommend splitting your budget. I would suggest spending as much on a combined amp/DAC as you would the headphones. For example if you have a budget of $400, rather than spend that much on a single pair of headphones to use with onboard laptop audio, split the budget and buy a DAC too. It's a case of striking a balance since you are more likely to get better quality from a very good source with very good headphones, than a poor source with excellent headphones.<br />
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You may decide to split your budget dead in half, or something like $150/$250 for example (incidentally, $400 gets you a nice Maverick D1 and AKG K601 combo, which Findns can personally vouch for). I would advise biasing your budget split toward the amp/DAC as they are long term, and headphones come and go.<br />
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More information on the hardware side of audio quality and upgrading can be found in my <a href="http://zero1-st.blogspot.com/2011/05/headphone-amps-and-dacs.html">previous post on amps and DACs</a><br />
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While I am on the subject of source quality, let's talk briefly about the music itself. Once you make the move to high quality audio, you may be left feeling that your 128kbps youtube rips don't quite cut it anymore. Joking aside, MP3 is an aging standard, and what was good enough for lossy compression 10 years ago, is poor now. Consider using at least 320kbps mp3, or better yet, AAC or FLAC. FLAC is a lossless compression method that retains all the quality of the original recording, but reduces filesize using similar algorithms to zip and rar, but specially tuned for audio. Typically it reduces the original bitrate of 1411kbps to around 900-1000kbps.<br />
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AAC deserves a special mention as it is the successor to MP3 and is rather impressive. It is said to be around 30% more efficient than MP3 at the same bitrates, and in an encoding test I performed, I found that 226kbps AAC retained more high frequencies than 320kbps MP3.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K1NbJVX9_pU/Tc2_wzRp-0I/AAAAAAAAABs/Nk3jLd9GqhI/s1600/test.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K1NbJVX9_pU/Tc2_wzRp-0I/AAAAAAAAABs/Nk3jLd9GqhI/s1600/test.png" /></a></div><br />
So if we consider that 226kbps AAC is better than 320kbps MP3, then how good would AAC sound at 320kbps? Even if 320k AAC isn't enough for you, you will be happy to know that AAC goes all the way up to 448kbps for CD audio, and I'd challenge anyone to tell the difference between the source and the AAC in a blind listening test. I'm confident it simply can't be done, especially if you consider that for most people, AAC reaches transparency at around 200-250kbps. I back this statement as I personally find it difficult to find any differences even with my gear. Watch this space for a listening test in the future.<br />
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AAC also supports multi channel, a range of bit depths and sample rates, and rather than being stuck at a fixed highest bitrate like MP3, it can scale depending on the input. I recently encoded a track from SACD (24 bit, 96kHz) which ended up at 2009kbps, so you don't need to worry that your high resolution sources will suffer from a maximum bitrate. AAC is here to stay for a while. <br />
<br />
Moving on to the software side of things, I want to talk about a couple of things that affect the audio quality. These are quite important to get right, because they impact the audio before it is even sent to your sound card or DAC.<br />
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The first thing I want to talk about, and the one that can have the most bearing on quality are equalisers. In my opinion, equalizers don't have a place in high quality audio. When I was a kid, I was under the impression that CDs were simply mastered to sound a bit flat so that they didn't sound overly bright or bassy on different setups. Now that I have got a good quality setup, I realise that it wasn't the CDs that were made to sound flat, it was simply my audio gear that made them sound that way.<br />
<br />
Consider recording studios. We know that they spend insane amounts of money on high quality headphones and monitor speakers. These are designed to be as neutral and realistic as possible, and the recording is mixed and levels adjusted, according to how it sounds coming from their speakers/headphones. In order to hear what they heard in the studio, we also need a high quality, neutral setup and equalizers have no place in obtaining this goal.<br />
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Disabling EQ and any other sound processing is especially important when using a DAC. EQ alters the audio levels (and in turn the quality) before it's even sent to the DAC, so the DAC is then forced to deal with pre-processed audio which will give sub optimal results. How can the DAC accurately decode the audio if the contents have been changed before hand?<br />
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Another, more detrimental effect of equalisation is clipping and distortion which can occur when the level of a frequency range is already close to zero, but is equalised to an extent that would ordinarily cause the level to go positive. For example let's take a bass range that is already at -5db. If we add 10db to that in an equaliser, it will cause it to clip since the audio cannot go above 0db.<br />
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There are two methods of equalisation. One is to boost the frequencies requested by the user, which can often lead to distortion (such as the example I just gave, and the awful EQ on the iPod). The other method is to reduce the amplitude of the other frequencies, so the higest level of boost actually becomes neutral, and anything lower than that is effectively a decrease. In the second method, adding 10db to the bass frequencies would leave the bass range at -5db to prevent clipping, but all other frequencies would be dropped by -10db to create the effective 10db bass boost over the rest of the frequencies.<br />
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Some media players with fixed EQ levels already do this, for example if the maximum you can boost a range by is +15db, then you will find that all the frequencies are already at -15db when the EQ is flat to prevent boosting causing clipping. The only downside to this method is that the volume levels are lower.<br />
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If neutral sound isn't your kind of thing and you would prefer coloured sound, then it's generally better to achieve the type of sound you want through careful choice of amplifier and headphones, rather than using an equaliser.<br />
<br />
Finally I want to mention media players and codecs. As far as lossless codecs go, your choice of media player isn't that important, but for lossy codecs such as MP3 and AAC, there can be slight differences in quality due to the accuracy of the decoding. Fortunately most media players have a choice of plugins (such as Winamp) or software like Windows Media Player which uses the directshow framework and has a huge choice of decoders available.<br />
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Windows Vista also introduced a new audio API called WASAPI. In short this is ideal for DACs because it bypasses any OS processing of the sound and allows bit perfect transport. Also of interest is a feature called exclusive mode renderer. While audio is playing using WASAPI in exclusive mode, all other sounds are suppressed, so that means you can listen to music and not be bothered by system sounds, or audio from websites as you browse. Foobar 2000 has WASAPI built into it, and it is available in Winamp via a third party plugin from <a href="http://maiko.elementfx.com/">Maiko</a>, although at the time of writing, Maiko's exclusive mode renderer is incomplete and somewhat buggy.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Specifications</b></span><br />
As you are looking round for headphones, you will no doubt encounter some specifications. Although they aren't critically important, they can give us some clues and other useful information. Here are the specifications for the K701 which I will use as an example.<br />
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<b>Headphone Type: Open</b><br />
Headphones tend to come in two types; open and closed, which refers to the back of the unit. Closed headphones have a solid back and open are usually some form of mesh. Open headphones tend to offer the better sound quality of the two and generally sound more natural (I also feel that closed back headphones cause a little reverb from the sound rebounding off the outer case). Unfortunately, open back headphones typically don't have the same kind of bass punch that closed types have.<br />
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Open back headphones tend to be more comfortable for long use and your ears don't get stuffy since the air can get to them. The main down side to open headphones though, is that they leak a lot of noise, and also noise can get in easily which makes them poor for outdoor use. Although there isn't anything wrong with the bass reproduction on open back headphones, they can sometimes lack a bit of the punch that closed types offer. In my opinion, open headphones, despite their downsides, are still better than closed.<br />
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<b>Frequency Range: 10Hz - 39.8kHz</b><br />
This tells up the lowest and highest frequencies the headphones can produce, however there are a couple of things to note about frequency ranges and why they aren't as important as you might think. The first is that for CD audio, the normal frequency range tops out at 22.05kHz (although digital audio is sampled at 44.1kHz, the nyquist/effective frequency is half of that). The second is that the average range of hearing for a human is 20Hz to 20kHz. That makes the fact that these headphones go to 39.8kHz largely irrelevant when talking about CD audio since there are no frequencies higher than 22.05kHz, and most people can't hear above 20kHz anyway. If you are buying your setup to listen to CD audio, then you should be fine as long as your headphones cover 20Hz to 22kHz. The only thing I could say about headphones with such a high frequency response is that if offers a bit of overhead, so that you know if it can do 39.8kHz, then it won't struggle at 22.05kHz at all, compared to headphones that top out at 22kHz.<br />
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<b>THD: <1%</b><br />
THD, or Total Harmonic Distortion gives us information about how the headphone perform at high volumes. Basically, it is how the driver is able to respond under a load. A high THD will usually cause popping, cracking or general distortion in how the music sounds. Needless to say, you want this to be as low as possible.<br />
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<b>Impendance: 62 ohms</b><br />
Impendance is one of the more useful specifications as it gives us a clue about how easy or hard it is to drive the headphones. Headphones for portable devices tend to be 16 or 24 ohms, and the higher the rating, the more power you need to get the same volume levels. In other words, the K701 at 62 ohms are a lot quieter than my V700 at 24 ohms when using them on my mobile phone. I would say that anything over 60 ohms benefits from an amplifier, and anything under may get away with using the stock output. High quality headphones that have low levels of hiss usually have high impendance as a result, so don't assume that high impendance is a bad thing.<br />
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<b>Max Power Input: 200mw</b><br />
This simply tells us the maximum milliwattage the headphones can handle without damage. This is usually not of much interest since at the maximum power ratings for most headphones, it would be so loud it would be uncomfortable, and damage your hearing. Some headphones such as the Sony V700 and XB700 handle up to 3000mw (3 watts), which is probably two or three times louder than most laptop speakers. It should also be noted the the power your amp can deliver to the headphones depends on their impendance. The Yulong A100 for example can provide 1000mw at 33ohms at full volume, but drops to 343mw at 50ohms.<br />
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<b>Efficiency: 105dB/V (99.8dB/mW)</b><br />
Also known as Sound Pressure Level or sensitivity, this is a measure of how loud the headphones are at a given input level. This can also be a bit confusing due to the fact that manufacturers measure this in different ways. Sennheiser and AKG tend to use dB/V, where most other companies use dB/mW. You can convert dB/V to dB/mW with the following formula. Just change dB/V to the value supplied in the specifications and paste this in google search.<br />
dB/V+10*log(300*0.001/1^2)<br />
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By comparison, the Sony XB700 have 106dB/mW compared to the K701's 99.8dB/mW. This is probably owing to the differences in impendance more than anything else.<br />
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Suggestions should come later.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-53183170802026359862011-05-07T00:51:00.001+01:002011-05-07T00:51:52.879+01:00Headphone Amps and DACsShortly after I bought the AKG K701 as an upgrade from my dying Sony MDR-V700, I started looking around at ways of improving the audio quality from my laptop. I had it in my mind that I wanted a new soundcard (which in my case would have been USB since it's a laptop) plus a seperate amp. Soundcard output levels are much the same, so the K701 would have sounded just as quiet on a top end soundcard as onboard.<br />
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I spent some time looking around, trying to find an external soundcard that was at least as good as the X-Fi Elite Pro that I had in my last desktop computer but to no avail. All the USB soundcards I found were low end. As I was looking around, I came across threads with posters suggesting DACs instead. After a bit of research I found the right DAC for me.<br />
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I'm lucky enough to hang around with a bunch of cool people that love music and appreciate quality too, so I'm going to explain a little about headphone amplifiers and DACs, and why they are a better alternative than sound cards. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Amplifier</b></span><br />
An amplifier simply increases the volume of an input signal. The features can vary between amps but they all serve the same basic purpose - to take a low power input signal and turn it into something powerful enough to move drivers and in turn, air. Standalone amplifiers should only be considered if you have a good source, since an amplifier does no decoding of any sort (it just amplifies an analog signal). In general, you'd only buy a standalone amplifier if you have a seperates hifi system with good quality RCA outputs, or a very high end sound card with RCA out. <br />
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The thing to remember is that you get out what you put in. That means if you connect a low quality laptop audio out to the amp, you will get low quality laptop audio out, but just at higher volumes. Similarly if you connected a cassette player to your amp, you will get the same hissing, low quality sound. You may notice a small improvement simply due to the fact the amp has more power, which will usually present itself as slightly fuller bass.<br />
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So if your source is high quality and already has a headphone out, why would you buy a seperate amp? There are a few reasons. The first and most common reason is that some headphones require more power to drive than others. This is a result of their resistance (impendance), measured in ohms. My Sony V700 are 24 ohms and were loud enough for me not to max out the volume on my old laptop. The AKG K701 on the other hand, are 62 ohms and because of the extra resistance, require more voltage to reach the same listening levels. With the AKG I could max out the volume level on my laptop and still be left wanting a little more. The K601 are even more power hungry at 120 ohms and would sound relatively quiet on most headphone out jacks.<br />
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The other reason is that headphone outputs in most devices always leave something to be desired. Portable devices such as the iPod are specifically designed with headphone output, but the limited power of the player and often compromised circuit design due to cost and space means you can get bass rolloff. Fortunately, you can buy portable headphone amps if it bothers you that much.<br />
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Take a look at this image. This is a 40Hz square wave. This is a tough test for an amplifier, because it requires it to drive to full voltage, hold it for a short while then back in the opposite direction.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rWo9IAV-IkY/TcPWeXN90VI/AAAAAAAAABQ/Xt51w5RAVvI/s1600/sqwav.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rWo9IAV-IkY/TcPWeXN90VI/AAAAAAAAABQ/Xt51w5RAVvI/s1600/sqwav.png" /></a></div><br />
Here we have the iPod 15GB playing back the 40Hz square wave. On the left is with no headphones connected, and to the right is with the standard Apple headphones<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cR3655e5akg/TcPZAdWT8aI/AAAAAAAAABc/4dMZ5vXq4QA/s1600/sqwav.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cR3655e5akg/TcPZAdWT8aI/AAAAAAAAABc/4dMZ5vXq4QA/s1600/sqwav.gif" /></a></div>As you can see, unloaded the iPod does a fine job of playing the file accurately, but once load is applied the internal amp runs out of steam and cannot sustain the voltage for the required time. You have to wonder that if such a difference is seen here, that what kind of difference it will make to your music if signals are being distorted like this? As mentioned earlier, this specific problem is typically recognised as thin bass. Now you can see why bass boosting headphones and equalizers are so popular. They are a workaround for poor amp design. I can only presume this effect is magnified when using larger, more powerful headphones.<br />
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That is the benefit of a dedicated headphone amplifier. The better design and having its own power supply means it can better sustain the voltages required of it, rather than falling off like weak internal amps. Even for portable amps there is still a benefit because the amp has it's own battery rather than sharing a power source with the iPod or phone.<br />
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Some people use headphone jacks on stereo amplifiers, but since these are designed to drive speakers primarily, the headphone output is usually secondary. There's nothing to say that the headphone output on a £500 stereo amp is going to be better than that of a £200 headphone amp, in fact it's likely to be the opposite. As important as good amplification is, you also need a quality source, which brings me on to the next section:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>DAC </b></span><br />
A DAC is a Digital to Analog Converter. Its job is to turn digital signals into analog, which is then passed on to the amplifer and then to the speakers/headphones. DAC chips can be found in any digital music device and they come in all kinds of sizes and specifications. DAC chips are found in CD players for example, which is why you can plug those directly into an amp (since the digital signal has already been converted to analog). A DAC alone does not provide a suitable signal for driving speakers or headphones, so the signal must pass through amplification first.<br />
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For the most part, when I refer to a DAC, I'm talking about an external device that pretty much does the same job as a soundcard. They are usually available with USB connections, require no special drivers and work perfectly fine on Windows, Mac and Linux. All that's required is that you change your audio output in the control panel to the DAC.<br />
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The vast majority of USB DACs have a built in amplifier and headphone output, but it is possible to buy standalone DACs in which case a standalone amp must also be used.<br />
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Using an external/USB DAC bypasses any existing audio hardware, so it's an ideal solution for getting away from poor quality and noisy internal DACs. Another advantage is since they are seperate from the computer, they are less likely to pick up interference from power supplies the other circuitry (eg WLAN card). The DAC chips used in the external DAC device are generally a lot better quality than those found in sound cards too.<br />
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If you are reading this post, then it's probably because you want to buy some decent quality headphones or upgrade your computer audio. Although the most common usage for a DAC is to use as an external soundcard via USB, most of them also come equipped with Coax, Optical and AES inputs which means you can use them in a variety of other ways. Combine that with the RCA outputs and you've got a device with a lot of potential in a seperates system.<br />
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A DAC can be used in such a way to turn a cheap DVD player into an audiophile grade CD player. How you ask? The trick is in using the optical output. By using the optical out, you bypass the DAC stage in the DVD player, and the digital audio is sent to your external DAC and converted to analog. Connect the RCA outputs to a speaker or headphone amp and enjoy the quality. You can also use an external DAC to play computer audio through your hifi; simply connect the PC to the DAC with USB or optical, and the RCA out to your stereo amp.<br />
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When buying a DAC, you should aim for the highest quality you can afford. The amplification can come later, or on most models, there is a built in headphone amp. Good quality source is important, and as I explained earlier, there's no point cutting corners getting a low spec DAC that will show noise at high volumes. A source should also be completely neutral and transparent.<br />
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With regard to connecting the DAC to your computer, you usually have a choice of USB or optical (at least on Vaio and Macbook laptops). Optical is almost always the better connection, and I'd suggest you go with that. My experience with Windows 7 is that I could not choose 16 bit output to the DAC (16 bit being the bit depth CD audio uses), so the OS only gave me the choice of 24 bit at 44.1, 48 and 96kHz, which meant the bit depth was upsampled before it was sent to the DAC. That's not a problem in itself, but most DACs upsample the source anyway, so it's just a pointless process which can be avoided with using optical since you can set 16 bit, 44.1kHz.<br />
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Another advantage with optical is that there is no electrical connection between the computer and the DAC. This means less chance of interference. I found that when using the D100 and A100 with my laptop plugged into the mains that I would get a lot of interference, and it was really quite noticable. I ordered an optical cable and just like that it cured the problem. I'm not sure how interference was transmitted via USB, but according to my experience, it can happen.<br />
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The only downside to using optical is if you switch between speakers and the DAC a lot. Generally it means going into the control panel and setting the optical or speakers as the default device.<br />
<i>Protip: Right click the speaker tray icon and choose playback devices</i><br />
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This can get quite annoying. During my time using USB, I set the DAC as the default device so it would take precedence when connected, but when disconnected Windows would fall back and use the speakers. Unfortunately it seems that the OS has no knowledge of devices being connected to the optical, but that can also work in your favour since it means you can disconnect it without your media player exploding or that annoying hardware disconnected sound/notification.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Buying an Amplifier or DAC</b></span><br />
Now that you have an idea of what amplifiers and DACs do, it's time to look at some of the options. As mentioned in my previous post, I own the Yulong A100 amp and D100 DAC, so I'm happy to vouch for those and answer any questions if you are interested. Here's a short list of gear that's worth looking into.<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><u><b>Stand Alone Amplifiers</b></u></span><br />
These have no DAC section and are intended to boost the level of good quality sources. These should be used in combination with a DAC, or some other high quality source.<br />
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<b>Matrix M-Stage</b><br />
Price: $220 excluding shipping<br />
Input: 2x Stereo RCA <br />
Output: 1x Stereo RCA, 1x 6.3mm Headphone <br />
Where to buy: <a href="http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/wsz0304/?_trksid=p4340.l2559">Shenzhen Audio Store (official outlet)</a><br />
Review: <a href="http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/475618/matrix-m-stage-amp-review-simple-cheap-and-excellent#post_6447810">Project86 at head-fi</a><br />
The Matrix M-Stage is a great amp for the money. It was hard for me to choose between the M-Stage and the Yulong A100, but the neutrality of the A100 was what won me over. Project86 has described the M-Stage as the darker sounding of the two and comments that the M-Stage has a little more low end. This amp is quite popular with fellow K701 owners for that fact. Despite its low price, it's essentially a clone of the Lehman Black Cube Linear, which retails at £600 ($985). This amp has a very good reputation and I'd be happy to suggest it.<b> </b><br />
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<b>Yulong A100</b><br />
Price: $330 excluding shipping<br />
<b> </b>Input: 1x Stereo RCA<br />
Output: 2x 6.3mm Headphone<br />
Where to buy: <a href="http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/wsz0304/?_trksid=p4340.l2559">Shenzhen Audio Store (official outlet)</a><br />
Review: <a href="http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/535630/review-yulong-a100-headphone-amp#post_7223427">Project86 at head-fi</a><br />
The Yulong A100 isn't cheap, but it features top of the range opamps. The only thing I feel lets it down is the lack of inputs. Sound quality is excellent. An ideal amp if you have a stand alone DAC, but if you already have something like the Yulong D100, the amp in that is good enough for most people not to notice much difference. It largely depends on your headphones, so bear that in mind. See <a href="http://zero1-st.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-audio-gear.html">this post</a> for more of my impressions.<br />
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<u><b>Combined Amplifier/DAC</b></u><br />
These are the best way to get started in high quality audio, and some of them are good enough that you will not even feel the need to upgrade. If you want to jump straight in to a seperate amp/DAC system, look at standalone DACs so you are not paying for a headphone amp section that won't even be used.<br />
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<b> FiiO E7 (Portable Amp/DAC)</b><br />
Price: $100 excluding shipping<br />
<b> </b>Input: 1x USB, 1x 3.5mm Line In<br />
Output: 2x 3.5mm Headphone<br />
Where to buy: <a href="http://www.fiio.com.cn/where/index.aspx">FiiO</a><br />
Review: <a href="http://www.head-fi.org/products/fiio-e7-usb-dac-and-portable-headphone-amplifier-black">Misc E7 Reviews</a><br />
This is a great little portable unit. Not only will it amplify the output from your phone or portable audio player, but it also has 2 headphone out jacks meaning you can share with a friend. What's more is that it also doubles up as a DAC. Obviously, the DAC section isn't going to be as good quality as the rest of the choices here, and neither is the amplifier, but at $100 can you really complain? Decent signal to noise ratio (>100db) but probably not enough to notice a difference from a decent onboard soundcard.<b> </b><br />
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<b>Maverick Audio D1</b><br />
Price: $200 excluding shipping<br />
<b> </b>Input: 1x USB, 1x Coax, 1x Optical, 1x Stereo RCA, 1x 6.3mm Line In<br />
Output: 2x Stereo RC, 1x 6.3mm Headphone <br />
Where to buy: <a href="http://www.mav-audio.com/">Maverick-Audio</a><br />
Review: <a href="http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/470639/maverick-audio-tubemagic-d1-dac-amp-condensed-faq-and-info-thread">Maverick D1 Condensed FAQ</a><br />
This unit is the definition of bang for buck. At only $200 it has more inputs and outputs than more expensive models, and features a very powerful amplifier which can deliver up to 300mw at 600ohms - more than enough to ruin your headphones and your hearing. You can also upgrade it by replacing the opamps, which is a feature you rarely see. Be sure to check the review link above for tons of information.<br />
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<b> Matrix Cube DAC</b><br />
Price: $300 excluding shipping<br />
<b> </b>Input: 1x USB, 1x Optical, 1x Stereo RCA, 1x BNC<br />
Output: 1x Stereo RC, 1x Coax<br />
Where to buy: <a href="http://coolfungadget.com/store/">Tam's Audio</a><br />
Review: <a href="http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/516993/review-matrix-cube-dac#post_6984969">Project86 at head-fi</a><br />
The Matrix Cube was one of my first choices for DAC, before I learned of the Yulong D100. My intention was to buy the Matrix Cube and pair it with the Matrix M-Stage. While not as fully featured as the Maverick D1, it's assumed that with less features and a higher cost, that it has been invested in the audio quality, which is why we are here to begin with. If this is in your budget, be sure to check out Project86's excellent reviews. The cube has a decent SNR at 109db and a wide soundstage.<br />
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<b>Yulong D100</b><br />
Price: $450 excluding shipping<br />
<b> </b>Input: 1x USB, 1x Optical, 1x Coax, 1x AES <br />
Output: 1x Stereo RCA, 2 x XLR <br />
Where to buy: <a href="http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/wsz0304/?_trksid=p4340.l2559">Shenzhen Audio Store (official)</a><br />
Review: <a href="http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/499562/review-yulong-d100-dac-amp-reference-quality-with-a-reasonable-price#post_6743468">Project86 at head-fi</a><br />
I eventually decided to go for the D100 based on the strength of Project86's review. The most expensive amp/DAC combo here, but also has the highest SNR at over 120db. An excellent all in one unit. The DAC section is highly praised and the internal amp is comparable (but slightly lacking) to the Matrix M-Stage.<br />
To quote Project86,<i> "I find the Yulong amp to be very neutral and transparent sounding. I've owned various models in the $1,000+ range including Benchmark DAC1, Grace Design M902, and Lavry DA10. This Yulong competes well with those units and is even superior to some of them in certain aspects. The headphone amp, while not quite on the level of the DAC section, is still quite good, and you'd need to spend a significant amount of money on a standalone amp to get much improvement."</i><br />
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<u><b></b></u>Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-40080522404398535092011-05-03T14:12:00.004+01:002011-05-06T01:05:41.218+01:00My Audio GearSince music is something I enjoy a lot (even moreso after rediscovering it thanks to a certain series), I thought I'd post my current setup which will serve as a reference for some later posts. There is quite a bit of interest in the K701 headphones in particular, and I also think an amp/DAC is something everyone should have if they appreciate music and quality. DACs in general are way better than soundcards, but I'll save that for another, DAC specific post.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uzGa7pXcTqk/TcABY1dLQjI/AAAAAAAAABM/WmMi-0wRGSw/s1600/dsc02562.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uzGa7pXcTqk/TcABY1dLQjI/AAAAAAAAABM/WmMi-0wRGSw/s1600/dsc02562.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<b>AKG K701</b> <br />
The K701 are my default headphones. They were expensive at £200 (currently the equivalent of $330) but perform very well. They are often compared to more expensive models which makes me feel like they are good value. That said, you can't simply buy these headphones and expect everything to sound amazing. Just like you need a good amp to drive powerful, expensive speakers, you need a good headphone amp to drive powerful, expensive headphones. After all, it's the same concept just on a smaller scale. Think about the Sennheiser HD800. At £1000, would you expect a laptop soundcard to drive those to the same potential as some £10 headphones? No. Source quality must improve with output quality.<br />
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Initially I was a little dissapointed. I felt that the highs were a little less pronounced than my Sony MDR-V700, and that they also lacked bass (it should be noted that I didn't have an amp or a DAC at that time). It may have been that my source wasn't very good (pretty awful laptop audio...), but it might also have been that the K701 require quite a long burn in time. Some people dispute burn in and some swear by it. My opinion is that anything mechanical can improve or degrade with time/wear. We are all familiar with the concept that things wear with age such as car clutches, brakes and hard disk drives, but with speakers and headphones it is believed that sound quality improves with wear up to a point. The theory is that the material the driver is made from becomes worn and more flexible with use and can operate more freely. Of course I don't believe in burn in for things like solid state amplifiers or processors.<br />
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Now I feel that there is no comparison between my K701 and V700. The K701 simply has better soundstage, bass and treble. Is that a result of burn in? Or is it the case that with a much better source it's easier to tell the difference between the headphones? Could be a bit of both I expect.<br />
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The K701 are impressive but discreet. At no point have I put these on and thought, "WOW". Well that's not exactly true because I'm somewhat impressed everytime I put them on, but what I mean is that the sound doesn't jump out at you. These headphones are designed to be neutral and accurate, so with a good source, music should sound somewhat like it was intended to (since studios invest crazy amounts of money in high quality, neutral output). The thing is not everyone appreciates the neutrality as we have become so used to hearing music with bass boost, equalizers and subwoofers. The thing is these exist only because of shortfalls in driver ability/design. If you have an accurate, high quality driver, why would you need to boost the bass or treble?<br />
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In fact boosting bass is one of the easiest ways to sell headphones, since it's the easiest thing for a listener to pick up on. Why waste time developing and tuning drivers that can accurately represent frequencies over 16kHz if few people can hear it? Unfortunately your average person doesn't appreciate the neutrality of these headphones, and compared to "consumer" headphones like Beats by Dre which boost low frequencies, the K701 will naturally sound flat in comparison (since you automatically feel that more is better).<br />
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The only drawback to the K701 is the fact that to get the most out of them you need a decent source and an amp. That's not to say they are so power hungry that you can't use them in normal headphone sockets as is the common misconception. You can, just the maximum volume is not as high as I'd have liked it to be, and you are more likely to get bass rolloff with stock soundcard/portable player amps than a dedicated headphone amp.<br />
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They also leak a lot of noise. The noise coming out of the back of them is loud enough for my sister to identify what I'm listenting too... In another room. The noise leakage is owing to their open back design. Open back makes them a lot more comfortable for long use as you don't find your ears getting hot and sweaty (plus the cloth earpads as opposed to leather help with this too). The sound is a lot more natural and doesn't have the usual "closed in" feeling that headphones usually have, but one of the other downsides to open back is that bass doesn't quite have the same level of impact. It's strange, drums sound amazingly real and can rattle your eardrums, but you seem to lack the ear ticking sensation of air being forced down that you get from closed back designs. If bass is really that much of a big deal for you though, there are plenty of headphones designed for that purpose (such as the Sony XB700).<br />
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One sensation that I haven't quite got used to yet is that some music sounds dull. By that I mean the high frequencies appear to lack treble, and it makes me tempted to fiddle with the EQ, which is something I have left on flat ever since buying the K701. If you are going to EQ, then there's no point buying neutral headphones in my opinion. This dull sounding treble is certainly not a shortfall with the headphones (although it feels like it at the time). Switching to a better mastered track reveals just what they are capable of, so bear that in mind. You get out what you put in, and you can really notice the difference in recording quality and mastering between artists and tracks.<br />
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<b>Yulong D100 DAC</b><br />
Finding an amp and DAC to suit me was the hardest part. Initially I intended to buy a combined amp/DAC for £200, which after some thought I decided to split it and budget £100 for a DAC and £200 for an amp. I couldn't find anything that appealed to me, but I happened to come across the Yulong D100 at head-fi.org and a <a href="http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/499562/review-yulong-d100-dac-amp-reference-quality-with-a-reasonable-price">very nice review by project86</a>. I wanted to avoid buying an all in one unit, because I'd rather have had a dedicated DAC and a dedicated amp, but it turns out the Yulong D100 had an excellent DAC and a very good amp, and was within what I wanted to spend at £320.<br />
<br />
The Yulong D100 is a very nice unit. The DAC section is very highly praised and the amp is surprisingly good (uses the same OPA2134 opamp as the Matrix M-Stage, which is a clone of the £600 Lehman Black Cube Linear). Unfortunately it has no analog inputs, so you can't plug an RCA source into it and use its headphone amp. It's strictly for digital input (Coax, USB, Optical, AES) but has balanced outputs and standard RCA out so you can use it as part of a seperate system (eg connect a DVD player to the DAC via optical and the DAC to your amp).<br />
<br />
The D100 has 2 headphone out sockets. They are intended for different impendances, and I find the high impendance output is best for the K701. I feel that some of the dynamics are lost when using the low impendance output, but I don't think this is going to be a problem for low impendance headphones (32 ohm or lower).<br />
<br />
There are also 2 sound modes. The first is flat, unaltered sound and the second mode reduces frequencies 16kHz and above by -3db. The effect is actually not that easy to notice, but it was intended to be used with headphones that are heavy on treble. I never felt the need to use the second sound mode.<br />
<br />
Overall it's a great DAC and amp combo and I'm happy to suggest it. Like with most things though, there's an element of diminishing returns. By that I mean you could probably pick up the excellent Mavrick D1. At $200 it's less than half the price, but I don't think the difference in sound quality will be that much between them. The Yulong D100 is excellent quality, but value or bang for buck wise, you can probably do better.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Yulong A100 Headphone Amp</b><br />
I had always had it in my mind that I wanted a seperate amp to go with my DAC to make the best of what I've got (since although the amp in the D100 DAC is great, it didn't do the DAC section justice). One amp that kept popping up was the Matrix M-Stage, which is a component for component clone of the Lehmann Black Cube Linear and cost 1/3 of the price (Chinese, how do they work?).<br />
<br />
I lurked around on the head-fi.org forums for a bit trying to gather information to make an educated decision which was when I learned that Yulong were making a dedicated headphone amp to match their DAC. This amp is quite impressive. At first I found it hard to tell the difference (from listening to the D100 one day and the A100 another) but if you match the volume levels and switch between them while playing something, the D100 sounds somewhat flat in comparison (which is impressive because the D100 never sounded flat to begin with). The A100 feels like it has more detail, and is more lifelike. Drums really do sound like drums, cymbals are more apparent and aren't hidden in the mix of everything going on, but I do find the improvement varies depending on the source and type of music.<br />
<br />
Great sources benefit more than average ones rather than it seeming like an improvement across the board. I attribute this to the amp and DAC combination just being detailed and neutral rather than the A100 adding anything or boosting any frequencies over the D100's own amp.<br />
<br />
The A100 amp cost me £240. It's a nice unit and it matches the D100 DAC (with some slight design differences, looks like the volume pot and circuit board is higher up in this one). The RCA jacks are notably better quality than on the D100, but unfortunately it does not have balanced input which is weird considering the D100 DAC had balanced output. The one downside to this amp is that it only has one pair of RCA in and no other inputs. I suspect this was a decision made to keep costs down, because internally they use the highest spec opamps currently available, the OPA627B. If you enter that in google shopping, you will see that amps using those opamps usually cost thousands of pounds.<br />
<br />
The headphone jacks are also higher quality and the fit is quite snug. At first I was worried that it would scratch the gold plating off of the K701 jack, but they seem to have become less tight over time. It's a class A amp and it does generate more heat than the D100, so Yulong drilled some holes in the top to allow it to cool.<br />
<br />
Overall that brings my K701/D100/A100 combo to an eye watering £760 ($1250). Would I have spent that much in one go? I doubt it. This was the result of upgrading a bit at a time. Like most things however, there is a case of diminishing returns which I may also discuss later. In other words performance/price. While the Yulong D100 DAC is more than double the price of the Maverick D1, the quality doesn't icrease linearly with priceZero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-17518131909764171622011-04-29T23:51:00.000+01:002011-04-29T23:51:42.696+01:00Firefox Quick TipAt some point you will have come across a website that resizes or moves your browser, sometimes it can be in the form of those annoying popups. I recently came across this when watching a news stream from Japan covering the Fukushima nuclear plant.<br />
<br />
Well here's how to stop those sites hijacking your browser positioning.<br />
<br />
Click <b>Tools</b>, then scroll down to <b>Options</b>.<br />
Select the tab <b>Content</b> from the top.<br />
You will now see some options. Look across at the one that says <b>javascript</b> and click <b>Advanced.</b><br />
Uncheck the first option <b>Move or resize existing windows</b>.<br />
<br />
That's all there is to it. You can test by loading this site.<br />
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/r/movie/index.htmlZero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-30571933791634878122011-04-07T23:23:00.001+01:002011-04-10T11:44:44.042+01:00uTorrent TuningFor most people, the default settings in uTorrent will work fine. You will generally max out your connection before you hit the maximum number of connected peers for example. However I have recently upgraded to 50Mb/s (6MB/s) fibre optic broadband, and found that I wasn't getting the most from my connection.<br />
<br />
One thing I found is that I was connecting to the maximum default number of peers and still not maxing out my connection. Consider this: If you can download at 6000KB/s, but your software is set to connect to a maximum number of 100 peers, what happens if the fastest they can upload is 30KB/s each? That's right, you connect to 100x30KB/s peers, and you only achieve 3000KB/s download (half your maximum throughput). It's even more of a problem on connections such as 100Mb/s where the downstream is approximately 12MB/s.<br />
<br />
One real life scenario was when I was downloading an episode of Nichijou. I had already set my max connected peers to 150 from previous. I left it to download in the background while I chatted in IRC for a little bit and then thought to myself, "Why hasn't it finished yet?". It hadn't finished because I had connected to something like 135 seeds and 15 peers and was only managing to pull 800KB/s (new torrent). I upped the limit to 200 just to see if it would help and although it didn't connect to 200 (maybe 180 in total), I got 3.8MB/s. It's definitely worth adjusting your maximum connected peers if you have a good connection but rarely get your maximum seeds on well seeded torrents. <br />
<br />
Then I ran into another problem. When you start downloading a torrent, the default action is to write that file to disk and fill it with zeros. Kind of a placeholder for the file if you like. For MP3 albums and small downloads, it's not a big deal because your HDD will have written the file before you've had time to connect to all your peers and reach a high download speed. The problem arose when I was downloading an OpenSUSE DVD ISO. uTorrent wanted to write 4.3GB as soon as I had started the download. It took a little while to write this, during which time I had connected to all my peers and hit 6MB/s download. Because the HDD was busy, I got a disk overloaded 100% warning in uTorrent and my download speed dropped drastically (a few hundred KB/s) since the HDD couldn't keep up with writing the file at maximum speed, plus the stress of an extra 6MB/s.<br />
<br />
Writing the file and zeroing it out when the download starts is annoying. Not only will it cause your download speed to drop, but it also has the potential to cripple your system for a good few minutes. What happens if you download a 50GB Bluray ISO? It would take a good 15 minutes at least to write that at full speed, during which time I doubt you could load much else. Fortunately I found two methods within the uTorrent settings that help alleviate the problem.<br />
<br />
Another annoyance that can hinder you from reaching your full speed is traffic management. An automated system that checks the packet headers to see what type of data it is. If it detects torrent traffic, it throttles the speed. You can work around this by using encryption in uTorrent.<br />
<br />
So now let's move on to the actual tuning. I use uTorrent 1.6, but these options are pretty much universal. Click <b>Options > Preferences</b> to get started.<br />
<br />
<b>Downloads</b><br />
Click the downloads tab, and ensure "Pre-allocate all files" is unchecked.<br />
<br />
<b>Connection</b><br />
<u>Bandwith Limiting</u><b> </b><br />
Did you know that uploading at your maximum speed can cripple your download speed? The latest versions of uTorrent set your maximum upload speed to 80% of what you can actually achieve to prevent that happening. If you don't know what your upload speed is, go to <a href="http://www.speedtest.net/">Speedtest</a>, pick a local server and make a note. Multiply your rating in Mb/s by 128 to get your upload rate in KB/s. Then multiply that by 0.8.<br />
Eg. 4.7Mb/s * 128 = 602KB/s * 0.8 = 481KB/s<br />
Your result is what you should set your <b>Global maximum upload rate</b> to. Check the box for <b>Alternate upload rate when not downloading</b> and set the KB/s to 0 (unlimited). With these settings your downloads will not be crippled, and when they are done uTorrent will seed at maximum speed.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sEqSXa-Ewe4/TZ28sxMwONI/AAAAAAAAAAY/0w0Xn2aGfHo/s1600/bw1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sEqSXa-Ewe4/TZ28sxMwONI/AAAAAAAAAAY/0w0Xn2aGfHo/s1600/bw1.png" /></a></div><br />
<b>BitTorrent</b><br />
<u>Number of Connections</u><br />
This will control how many peers you can connect to. Take a look at the image below<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e3FWFKQp80Q/TZ2_CIGZXHI/AAAAAAAAAAc/Z-YMhKG2bvE/s1600/peers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-e3FWFKQp80Q/TZ2_CIGZXHI/AAAAAAAAAAc/Z-YMhKG2bvE/s1600/peers.png" /></a></div>Here you can see that under the <b>Seeds</b> heading, it says 119 (845). What that means is that I am connected to 119 seeds out of a potential 845. The same applies for the <b>Peers</b> heading (connected to 6 peers out of 126). You will see that the setting <b>Maximum number of connected peers per torrent</b> controls how many seeds and peers your are able to connect to. In this case my limit is set to 125, and uTorrent has decided to connect me to 119 seeds and 6 peers. Fortunately for this torrent I had reached my maximum download speed, but there are occasions where you will connect to your maximum number of peers and still not reach your maximum speed. In this case, increasing the maximum number of connected peers should help, providing the number of seeders in the brackets is larger than the number you are already connected to.<br />
<br />
Be aware that setting this number too high could have adverse effects, so it's a case of trial and error.<br />
<br />
<u>Protocol Encryption</u><br />
Setting encryption to <b>Enabled</b> and <b>Allow incoming legacy connections</b> will encrypt some of your traffic. This is particularly useful if you suspect your ISP is throttling your torrent traffic as it scambles the data and makes it unreadable by bandwith management systems. Again this is another setting that you should experiement with. You could set encryption to <b>Forced</b> and uncheck <b>Allow incoming legacy</b><b> connections</b> for full encryption, but it will also limit the amount of peers you can connect to. It's probably better to have a little encryrption and a little throttling than full encryption and less connected peers.<br />
<br />
<b>Advanced</b><br />
<u>net.max_halfopen</u><br />
This option specifies how many connections uTorrent should try to establish at any one time. The default is 8 which is very low. I have mine set to 100. The theory behind this is that it will take less time for you to connect to all your peers and reach your highest speed. Before tweaking this, I found that for files in the region of 200MB, that it would have completed before I had connected to all the peers and reached my full speed. <br />
<br />
Users of XP SP2 or later should patch their tcpip.sys file to make the most of this increase, as the max number of halfopen connections was reduced. More information can be found <a href="http://www.speedguide.net/articles/windows-xp-sp2-tcpipsys-connection-limit-patch-1497">here</a>. This limitation was again removed in Windows Vista and Windows 7.<br />
<br />
<u>gui.update_rate</u><br />
This won't affect your download speed but simply changes how often the data reported by the GUI is updated. The default is 1000ms (1 second) and the lowest you can select is 500ms. Any lower figures will be igored and 500ms will be used. I prefer having it update at half second intervals, but if you find CPU usage is high, you can set it to update less frequently if you wish.<br />
<br />
<u>bt.connect_speed</u><br />
This option specifies the number of connections uTorrent should make each second up to the limit set in net.max_halfopen. The default is 20, and I set mine to 40.<br />
<br />
<u>diskio.sparse_files</u><br />
This is an important option as it controls how the data is allocated on your hard drive. If <b>False</b> is selected (which is the default), then uTorrent will write a dummy file to the hard drive as soon as you add the torrent, but fill it with zeroes (the place holder file as explained earlier). This is fine for small files that can be written in a few seconds, but for large files like Bluray rips it can cause your drive to be busy for a long time, and the download speed will likely drop during this process as the HDD can't keep up with the incoming data. It may also cause programs to become unresponsive.<br />
<br />
Setting this option to <b>True</b> (as I have done) will inform the filesystem of the size of the file, but will not physically zero out the data. Instead the only write operation uTorrent performs are writes for data actually downloaded. This not only saves your computer becoming unresponsive when adding large torrents, but also means that the hashing process for incomplete files is much faster as it only hashes what has been downloaded, rather than a full size pre-allocated file.<br />
<br />
In my opinion <b>True</b> should be set by default, however there are some limitations regarding the support of this mode. It apparently only works on partitions formatted as NTFS (as opposed to FAT32 I suppose), however I can't speak of other filesystems such as EXT3. Also if you are using a non-administrator account with a disk quota, sparse files won't work and it will still be allocated.<br />
<br />
I encourage you to at least try this option if you've noticed high amounts of disk activity or unresponsiveness when adding large torrents. This completely cured it for me.<br />
<br />
<b>Advanced - Disk Cache</b><br />
Providing you set diskio.sparse_files to true, you don't really need to edit any settings here, but in case you couldn't (due to filesystem limitations for example), then these settings will help ease the pain of the file allocation stage.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_UnZUq2O114/TZ4xFPma37I/AAAAAAAAAAg/x8Sxbw3L3H0/s1600/cache.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_UnZUq2O114/TZ4xFPma37I/AAAAAAAAAAg/x8Sxbw3L3H0/s1600/cache.png" /></a></div><b> </b>These settings are fairly self explanatory, but most people rarely think about changing them. I have done a little experimentation and find that the settings above give me the most preferable disk access. Rather than writing data constantly, it stores it in RAM and writes it in chunks of about 80MB, or whatever your HDD can write in the space of a second. If I'm downloading at my maximum speed, this means time between writes is 13 seconds plus, rather than the HDD writing 6MB every second.<br />
<br />
You can check read and write patterns yourself in uTorrent. Simply click on the <b>Speed</b> tab in the lower half of the window (the tab that gives you a upload and download speed graph) and change it to show disk statistics. You can now see a bunch of cool stuff like how the cache is being used, how regular uTorrent is reading and writing to the HDD, and the throughput.<br />
<br />
One setting I suggest you do experiment with is the cache size. While the settings above should be good for everybody, the amount of RAM you have to spare for a disk cache will vary from user to user, and the amount of RAM you will need to allocate to make a decent buffer length depends directly on your download speed, ie a 1MB connection will require a lot less RAM buffer than a 6MB connection if the HDD is busy/unwritable for 2 minutes.<br />
<br />
If you have a fast connection and download large files, I strongly suggest setting <b>Override automatic cache size and specifiy the size manually</b> to whatever figure you are happy to use. This acts like a buffer in case the disk is busy and data cannot be written (a good example being the file allocation at the start of a large torrent, or if you do video editing etc). The downloaded data is stored in RAM, instead of the download speed being dropped to a rate the HDD can handle. Once the HDD becomes free again, the data stored in the RAM is then written to the file. It's a lot more efficient than dropping the speed and/or disconnecting from peers and then reconnecting once the HDD becomes usable again.<br />
<br />
You can calculate an effective cache size using the typical size of files you download and your maximum download speed. Let's say that my system is set up to allocate disk space to new torrents and that I want to download a 4GB Linux ISO. For the purpose of this example we'll say that my drive can write this file at 35MB/s - that means it would take 115 seconds to complete. That's 115 seconds of the HDD thrashing and not being able to download at a decent speed (I'd usually get figures under 100KB/s when the disk was overloaded).<br />
<br />
I know that I can download at a maximum of 6MB/s, and that I need to store this in RAM until the allocation has been written (115 seconds). So 115s * 6MB/s would give me a value of 690MB. In other words during the time it takes to write the pre-allocation, I could have downloaded 690MB, but without the buffer this wouldn't have happened.<br />
<br />
And that concludes our uTorrent tuning. If you find any better settings, please post them belowZero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-17236204799360839182011-04-07T01:09:00.003+01:002011-04-07T01:49:58.811+01:00Upgrading to an "Advanced Format" HDD (Windows 7)About a month or two back I bought a new laptop, since my old HP was literally falling to pieces (the LCD hinge broke and it the metal bracket was stuck. Not even a hammer would get it to move). So rather than run the risk of the LCD cable becoming severed one day and not having a laptop, I decided to buy a Vaio and went for the VPCF12M0E. It has an i7 740QM CPU, 4GB of RAM and 500GB HDD. I decided on this model becuase in my opinion, anything over 4GB of RAM right now is a waste. I'm a pretty demanding user and I've yet to reach a point where I feel 4GB isn't enough.<br />
<br />
It's pretty nice. The CPU encodes video literally 5x as fast as my old dual core Athlon 64 2x2GHZ TL-60 in the HP, the memory scores high on the Windows Experience Index, and the GPU is decent too. The only thing that let it down (as is usually the case with laptops or manufacturer assembled computers) was the HDD. It shipped with a Western Digital 500GB Scorpio Blue (WD5000BEVT). I could tell straight away that it wasn't great, and while I didn't perform any proper benchmarks, it scored 5.8 in the Windows Experience Index, compared to an old Western Digital 250GB Scorpio Black (WD2500BEKT) which scored 5.9.<br />
<br />
At this point I should tell you that the in Windows 7, the Windows Experience Index caps the score for platter based HDDs (ie not solid state) at 5.9. It's possible that it would have scored even higher.<br />
<br />
The Blue didn't seem unusually slow as such, just I remember my 250GB Black feeling faster and more responsive. The main differences between the Blue and Black series notebook HDDs are:<br />
<ul><li>Blue - 8MB cache. Black - 16MB cache</li>
<li>Blue - 5400 RPM. Black - 7200 RPM</li>
</ul>The Black drives also typically have a longer warranty (5 years compared to 3), but are generally a step behind the Blue when it comes to capacity (at the time of writing the largest Blue notebook drive is 1TB, and the Black is 750GB).<br />
<br />
However data density also plays a part in speed, and the general rule of thumb is that the larger the HDD, the higher the write/read rates, so although the 500GB Blue lost out on cache and RPM to my old 250GB Black (which are pretty major points to lose out on), it does high a higher data density, so sequential throughput shouldn't have suffered quite as much - it's more seek operations and loading multiple files where the Black series outclasses the Blue.<br />
<br />
So after looking at my options, I decided to go with a Western Digital 750GB Scorpio Black. It was the right combination of capacity and speed for me (though I really wish they had made it available in 1TB. I smell a marketing ploy...).<br />
<br />
I had also looked at the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB. It's an interesting drive as it's a hybrid. It has platters like any other harddrive, but it also has 4GB of on-board SSD storage where most accessed files are stored (eg the OS files). The performance is really impressive, but since it's only 500GB it would have been a sidegrade, so I passed on it. Hopefully this type of drive will catch on. Who would need SSD if we have 2TB platter HDDs with 16GB of SSD?<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Advanced Format</b></span><br />
My choice of the 750GB Black was a relatively easy one. Right now it's probably the best performing HDD of that capacity. The Momentus is awesome, but I wanted extra space as well as extra speed. However I ran into a little problem. Something called "Advanced Format".<br />
<br />
What is this and why is it such a big deal? Ever since HDDs were first created way back in 1956, they have used 512 byte <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_sector">sectors</a>. It was predicted that using current technology that HDD sizes were going to stagnate. One solution to this was to use larger sector sizes which allows for more efficient usage of the recording surface which in turn allows the manufacturer to use more robust error correction which is needed at the ever increasing data densities.<br />
<br />
The 750GB Black uses 4096 byte physical sectors, but the controller still communicates in 512 byte sectors (4k emulation). Think of it as a kind of translation. The decision was made to use this kind of emulation because of the many programs and operating systems that presume a HDD will have 512 byte sectors - think of it in a similar way to how your 64-bit OS and CPU still offers emulation for 32-bit programs. Going full 64-bit would be a pain right now.<br />
<br />
I had read about this prior to buying the 750GB Black and I got myself confused. Due to the fact that the sectors are larger now (8 sectors combined into one if you think of it that way), it's possible for data to be unaligned. That is instead of the 4k sectors sitting nicely like this:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NKv7VVBmGOQ/TZxriT_sUdI/AAAAAAAAAAM/wxVeEEoOzaY/s1600/Alignment-02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NKv7VVBmGOQ/TZxriT_sUdI/AAAAAAAAAAM/wxVeEEoOzaY/s1600/Alignment-02.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Some operating systems and partition creation utilities can create paritions that are unaligned. I do not understand fully, but I believe it's to do with the location and/or size of the Master Boot Record. In this case, data can become unaligned like this:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TnpV-hE6jHA/TZxsEYHneKI/AAAAAAAAAAQ/8PRFwtctKec/s1600/Alignment-13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TnpV-hE6jHA/TZxsEYHneKI/AAAAAAAAAAQ/8PRFwtctKec/s1600/Alignment-13.jpg" /> </a> </div>That creates two specific situations. One where data is aligned (as the first example) and one where it isn't. To the best of my knowledge it doesn't cause any compatability problems, just decreased read and/or write performance. If your data is unaligned, then you need to use a tool like WD Align to fix it.<br />
<br />
Here is a chart Western Digital put together to help end users determine whether or not they need to run the WD Align tool on their disk.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zDsu2VWl3j8/TZyE_npPWlI/AAAAAAAAAAU/T0pUXqKuyFc/s1600/WD-Align_chart_r3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zDsu2VWl3j8/TZyE_npPWlI/AAAAAAAAAAU/T0pUXqKuyFc/s1600/WD-Align_chart_r3.jpg" /></a></div>As you can see, Windows XP (and presumably earlier) requires you to run the WD Align tool, since the OS is not 4k sector aware, and neither does the OS really "know" that the drive has sectors of these size since the drive's firmware still communicates in 512 byte sectors (4k emulation). In this instance, XP creates a partition that is at a sub optimal offset for 4k drives, and the WD Align tool fixes that.<br />
<br />
Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Mac OS use an offset that is optimal for 4k Advanced Format drives and does not require alignment under normal circumstances (for example a clean install of one of these operating systems).<br />
<br />
However cloning utilities are a grey area. Western Digital claim that you should align the partition after restoring the data to ensure full performance, however I believe that some disk cloning utilities (such as Macrium Reflect) support 4k drives and would not require alignment after (providing the OS supports the correct drive offset).<br />
<br />
This is what raised questions with me. I needed to migrate my data from a 512 byte sector HDD that I did not know the offset of to a 4096 byte sector HDD. Luckily since the old HDD was formated with Windows 7, it already had it's data at the right offset, but I think that would probably end up to be irrelevant anyway.<br />
<br />
I decided to use the internal Windows 7 backup/restore utility. One of the reasons was because it's was free and readily available. The other reason was that since this is a backup tool, rather than a dumb data cloning program, I expected that upgrading a HDD this way would be less hassle as this type of situation will have been considered when Microsoft were designing the software. Think about what happens if you have been making regular drive images, and 5 years later the original disk dies? You may not be able to source an identical drive, so I expect there is some amount of flexibility within how much, and the type of data is stored, to allow you to restore to other brands, sizes and types of drive.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Migration Process for Windows 7 SP1</b></span><br />
This process will most likely work for Windows 7 installations without the service pack, but the following guide will be based on SP1 since that's what I used and can confirm it was successful.<br />
<br />
What you will need:<br />
<ul><li>USB HDD with at least as much storage as the HDD you are migrating (prefereably 2x and not password protected)</li>
<li>Screwdrivers (this is obvious but you usually need a very small screwdriver also to attach your HDD to a cradle)</li>
<li>Latest chipset drivers (Intel Rapid Storage Technology must be 9.6 or higher)</li>
<li>"F6" chipset drivers if your vendor supplies them</li>
<li>Blank media (At least 1 CD/DVD/BD for the recovery disk, more if you plan to save your HDD image to disc instead of USB HDD)</li>
</ul>1) Connect your USB HDD. We are going to make an image of your current drive, prior to messing around installing updated drivers. This is just a precautionary step, but is good practice if you intend to update your HDD controller driver. You should ensure your HDD is not encrypted, hidden or requires unlocking of any sort. You won't have access to Windows during the recovery stage, so it will not be possible to run the unlocking software for these types of drive.<br />
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2) Grab your blank media and run the program. Once the image has been made, it will prompt you to burn a recovery disk. This contains the bootable program that will transfer your disk image stored on the USB HDD to your new internal HDD. To start the image creation process click <b>Start > Control Panel > Backup and Restore</b>. In the left hand pane, click <b>Create a system image</b>. Follow the prompts to create a system image. How long it will take to make the system image depends entirely on how much is stored on your HDD and how fast your external is, so it may take a while. Once the image has been stored, you will be prompted to burn a recovery disc, click yes.<br />
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3) Now that you have a system image of your current configuration and a restore disc, it's time to ensure your chipset drivers are up to date. For Intel chipsets, the Rapid Storage Driver must be version 9.6 or higher for 4k sector support. The Windows driver can be found <a href="http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=19607&keyword=%22rapid+storage+technology%22&lang=eng">here</a> and the F6 driver (which you load during the recovery process) can be found <a href="http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=19601&keyword=%22rapid+storage+technology%22&lang=eng">here</a>. Download and install the Windows software. In my case I had to boot into safe mode (keep pressing F8 as your system boots) to install, as it would fail under normal conditions. Unzip and place the F6 driver on a USB stick or the HDD that you stored your drive image on. At this point, it would also be good to download and install any Windows updates.<br />
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4) Once your chipset driver is up to date and any OS updates are installed, it's time to make another image. Before we do this, we need to rename, or move the original image to another location (since the default action is to overwrite the old image). Open your USB HDD in your file browser and look for a directory called <b>WindowsImageBackup</b> which should be in the root. Within that directory will be another directory named the same as your computer (in my case it says RX-93). Rename this directory so that you will be able to tell it's the previous version (eg. RX-93 Old). Now repeat step 2 to make your new drive image. This will appear in the same directory as the name of your computer and this will be the image that we restore onto the new HDD - that's why it's important that we mark the first image as old.<br />
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5) By now you should have 2 system images on your HDD (the original one before installing updated drivers, and the current one with the new drivers/updates), a recovery disc (CD/DVD/BD) and dependant on your chipset vendor, some F6/installation drivers on the external HDD to be loaded during the restore process. If you have all that, power off your computer/laptop, remove any batteries if applicable and press and hold the power button for a few seconds to drain any extra power. Before removing the HDD from it's anti-static packaging or from the laptop, you should ensure you are earthed and/or that any static electricity has gone. You can do this by touching a radiator for example. The enthusiastic lady at Western Digital tells us that clothing can also generate static electricity, so install it naked if you wish.<br />
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If you haven't replaced a laptop HDD before, <a href="http://www.wdc.com/global/products/video/?typeid=1&language=en&id=682692524001">check out this video</a>. The laptop used in the video is the same model HP laptop I have, and I can tell you that the process is very similar.<br />
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6) Once you have your new HDD installed, and everything is closed back up and screwed into place, it's time to attach the battery and the AC cord. Do not try to run the restore process using the battery alone because it will take a long time, and will likely run flat during the process. Turn on your laptop and insert the recovery disc if it isn't already inside (you may need to power off and power on again if you missed the point where the system reads from the optical drive).<br />
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7) Once the recovery program starts to load, attach your USB HDD. Follow the prompts, but look out for the <b>Load drivers</b> option. Click this if you have downloaded the F6/install drivers, browse to them and load the applicable chipset driver. It is likely to give you a list of different drivers, so pick the AHCI driver for your chipset (which you found earlier in the device manager). Proceed through the prompts, selecting to restore using an image. The option to format the drive will be greyed out as this is the default action for a blank disk. Click next and the restore process begins.<br />
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8) All being well, your new drive should boot up with all your configuration, programs and files intact. If you used a different brand or model of HDD, you will be prompted to restart your computer. This is normal as it detects the HDD as new hardware since it's ID was different to the original.<br />
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You may notice that once your computer boots that even if you installed a larger HDD, that the capacity appears to be the same. The reason for this is that the restore program only formats the same amount of space that was available to the old drive. However we can extend the partition to use the full capacity, or even format the remainder so it appears like a seperate HDD. Click <b>Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools</b>. Double click <b>Computer Management</b> and then select <b>Disk Management</b> in the left hand pane. This will bring up a list of drives attached to the computer. You will notice Disk 0 will have some space unallocated. Right click on this and choose <b>Extend Partition</b>. Follow the prompts all the way through (this will extend the C:\ partition to use the whole of the unformatted space). The process takes a matter of seconds.<br />
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Once that's done, enjoy your new HDD.<br />
<ul></ul><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/IjMQsMI2Lf0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
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For a more information on Advanced Format, check these links:<br />
<a class="linkification-ext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format" title="Linkification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format</a><br />
<a class="linkification-ext" href="http://www.wdc.com/advformat" title="Linkification: http://www.wdc.com/advformat">http://www.wdc.com/advformat</a><br />
<a class="linkification-ext" href="http://consumer.media.seagate.com/2010/03/the-digital-den/4k-sector-hard-drive-primer/" title="Linkification: http://consumer.media.seagate.com/2010/03/the-digital-den/4k-sector-hard-drive-primer/">http://consumer.media.seagate.com/2010/03/the-digital-den/4k-sector-hard-drive-primer/</a>Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2135492763571865178.post-60030290237497934792011-04-06T13:09:00.000+01:002011-04-06T13:09:14.282+01:00About this blogWell I finally cracked and decided to start a blog. I've always said I hate these things, and that's mostly because I associate blogs with people posting random crap of no worth or relevance (having said that, I guess it's subjective).<br />
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So I hope that this blog turns out different.<br />
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With that in mind, this will be a place for me to post information and tips on subjects that interest me, so that means audio, cameras, computers and of course, Street Fighter.<br />
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Initially I hope to post a few different things that I've been meaning to do but never got round to. One of my projects for example was making my Xbox 360 wireless without buying their wireless adaptor, and I want to post details of a recent HDD upgrade method for my laptop that was so stupidly easy that anyone can do it.Zero1http://www.blogger.com/profile/11322405935785514236noreply@blogger.com0