Never-ending 450VX

I've just been notified by my parents that their computer mysteriously died this morning. After surfing the web for about 50 minutes, the whole thing just powered down on its own and wouldn't boot again. My father, in a surprise move (he's never shown any knowledge for building PCs), was able to reinstall the back-up PSU from before. And apparently, they're up and running too because my mother sent me their story via email.

I don't believe this. I left them the Corsair because after a 4-day weekend of turning it on and off and typical usage, it seemed stable. Now I've got a problem. The store I bought from has a 30-day in-store warranty and it's rapidly running out. In fact, it was so close to running out, I sent in for my mail-in rebate (the box is in decent shape, but it's not what I'd call returnable). Secondly, my parents don't exactly live in town... It's quite a event when they come visit me. And as it stands, they're not ready to come until at least next weekend (not this coming one).

Anyway, I plan to head over to the store after work to ask about my options. The fellow at the counter knows me (not well, but he'll recognize me from when I bought the damn thing and subsequently returned to have it tested). Don't know if he'll make an exception to the 30-day policy in my case. Maybe at the very least, he can print out a second copy of the receipt (might need it for proof of purchase if and when I deal with Corsair directly for an RMA).

Dead Fantasy 1 and 2

Everybody remember that viral that went around of the stick figure who fought a never ending battle Matrix-like against another bunch of stick figures? Well, here it is again... this time an ambitious fellow has been posting his work over on Gametrailers.com for us to enjoy. If you happen to be a Final Fantasy and Tecmo fan (particularly DOA), then you get extra value - the characters are all using movements and combat techniques all found in the actual games - super cool stuff.

Just make sure you have about half an hour to spare...

Part One is Here



And Part 2 is here!



I'm also encouraging you guys to check out the actual links to the source because the animator has posted some very lengthy commentary to provide insight into the work!

The Final Word on the 450VX

(As far as I'm concerned anyway!)

Well, I'm back from visiting my parents. I went with two PSUs in my baggage. My old Enermax (which really had nothing wrong with it to begin with except its age) and the troublesome Corsair I had blogged about previously. I was armed with only a medium Phillips screwdriver...

Well, when I got home, I pulled out the temp PSU I had thrown in a month ago when their original PSU blew up in a spectacular puff of black smoke. Then I mounted the Corsair into the case using a gentle bit of elbow grease (it seemed to be about a fraction of a millimetre too big - I think it was the larger fan-grill on the bottom of the VX series). Anyway, it went in and plugged in just barely. The 20-24-pin combo plug was a tight fit for their particular motherboard. And then... [insert drum roll], the machine booted up.

And it continued to boot up. In fact, it booted normally throughout the rest of the 4-day Easter weekend. So, reluctantly, I decided to let my folks keep the sexy new PSU. So now everything in my own home is back to status quo (The old Enermax is back in my machine), and $80 has gone into my parents' POS machine.

Robonimal Panda-Z

I'm not a huge fan of vinyl figures (designer or otherwise) but I was reminded that I had this guy stored away since I moved into my house. A couple of years back, just before the vinyl revival started (around the same time designer vinyl started picking up steam), Sunrise tried their hand at doing animated shorts. I'm not sure what their ultimate goal was, but the result was a series of 5-minute anime about robot-animal kaiju adventures. And the titular character turned out to be a cross between Mazinger Z and a panda bear... in turn piloted by a panda bear wearing a very Kamen Rider-esque red scarf.

The vinyl figure representing our hero stands about 8 inches tall (the removeable pilot Pan-taron is in a seated position but is about 1.5 inches). It's articulated around the feet and shoulders and the the forearms are removeable featuring the "internal mechanisms" of a rocket-punch (according to the anime, Panda-Z's rocket-punch has a max range of about 4 centimeters). Of course for our figure, the punch is not actually rocket-powered. The "scrander" flight pack is also removeable and which is fine because the figure cannot fly even while wearing it.

Here's a quick look at the feet - oddly, even more detailed than the arms.
The back has the indicia for Medicom, of course. He also has a tail. Not sure what function that serves.Here is a picture of Panda Z chillaxing with Mazinger Z and his bro, Great Mazinger. Coz that's juz the way he rolls.

Reaction: Appleseed Ex Machina

In 2004 the manga classic Appleseed was revived and reimagined into a cutting edge CGI anime feature film. It fused cel-shaded animation characters with sharp hi-res backgrounds. In late 2007, director Shinji Aramaki revisited this world, this time with an all-new star-studded production team including the likes of international super-star John Woo.
Sometimes its difficult to separate the entertainment from the philosophy. Masamune Shirow is well-known for his thought-provoking themes in his masterpiece manga creations. But sometimes an action story is an action story and while there's plenty of intrigue in Ex Machina, at its heart is an adventure story.Several months have passed since the story in the 2004 film. Duenan is a full-fledged member of ESWAT now and carries on a relationship with her partner, the cyborg Briareos. The movie follows Olympus City's attempt at networking the world's many defense systems into one, thereby making ESWAT a world-wide counter-terrorist force. But something's afoot: cybrog terrorism is on the rise... coincidence?
While the film is a direct sequel, it does take the opportunity to fine-tune the look of Appleseed. If you haven't seen the first movie in a while, the changes can be subtle. But if you have, then the changes become very noticeable. For one, Woo's fingerprints are all over the movie. The fight scenes are choreographed in a distinct Hong Kong-Shooter style. But above this, the cel-shading has much finer lines than before. Whereas the previous films' characters all had a reflective sheen to them, skin tones in general are much more real this time. But not enough to give that eerie real-not-real look found in many photo-realistic CG (I'm looking at YOU, Final Fantasy!). Indeed, the characters remain unmistakeably anime.An observation I made while watching was that Duenan seemed somewhat sexier as well. I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I checked out the bonus features. And interviewed creators pointed out that they had simply shrunk her eyes slightly. No longer is she a wide-eyed cartoon, but now has slightly more real facial proportions. I think it allows her to emote better than before.And while the humans have a new look, so do the mecha: it's still awesome.

Street Fighter TLY: Final!

Here it is - CollegeHumor.com posted the final chapter of their Street Fighter send-up last week.


Well... I'm pretty sad to see it end. It was pretty fun while it lasted.

Darlie - people thought we were racist

What I have here today is a tube of toothpaste brought back from Hong Kong. Over in HK, you're either using Crest ...or you're using Darlie brand (which is today owned by the Colgate folks).
Above is a pic of the card packaging. Note the big friendly logo in English words... but also note the vaguely contemporary gentleman... Well, he wasn't so vague in the past. Indeed, unless you're totally oblivious, it used to be man of African-descent. And the brand (before the corporate takeover by Colgate) was indeed once known as "Darkie." Knowing that, I found it oddly amusingly suspicious that the original Chinese name appears only in a very small font in the fine-print:
Looking carefully, you'll find the 4 Chinese words that mean "black person tooth paste." Why this name was chosen, I won't go into detail here (Wikipedia does a pretty good job of that anyway). But I do find it funny that nobody really gave a damn about it before Colgate bought the brand and a bunch of outsiders thought it'd offend a population that is pretty much non-existent where this product is marketed.

And in reality anyway... once you open the box...
There's the original Chinese name as prominent as ever right on the tube! If you ask me, the whole thing is hardly more offensive than Uncle Ben or Aunt Jemima. But then again, maybe I'm just a racist too.

PS: if anybody's wondering, the toothpaste is bland yet simple minty-fresh affair. What did you expect?

The PSU chronicle

Well, I still don't know what the hell is going on.

I took my new PSU into the shop to show them what was up. But when they plugged it into their test gear, the multimeter showed normal readings across the board. In fact, compared to my readings, some of the voltages I said were high were a little low, while those I said were low were a little high.

Anyway, they suggested I retest my PC with the old PSU plugged in, and then retest the PSU myself by plugging in only 1 device at a time to see if there was something drawing an unusual amount of juice that would cause my low readings.

So home I went. First I plugged in my old PSU into the mobo and video card alone - no hard drive. The system posted fine and the BIOS readings looked very normal. Then in went the new Corsair PSU (the same setup). The readings were still low. But I did make note of the fact that the power button was now acting normal again and starting the power supply on the first button press.

So I shut it down and added the hard-disk and floppy, all on the same cable. This also posted fine and the voltages were still low. But again, the ATX wake-up button seemed to be delivering enough power. So then I shut it down and plugged in the second IDE line for my optical drives (these on a second line). Also booted okay.

I dreaded the next step (because I had troubles with the case accessories before). But I shut down a final time and plugged in the case fans and front-pannel (on the line with the optical drives). And surprise! Everything was up and running and no sign of the strange ATX power button weirdness I reported earlier. It seems like the low voltage was NOT the cause of the false-start because I'm still reading between 4.70 and 4.73 volts on the 5V line.

I refer you to the old fallback: "why ask why?"

updates all around

The running commentary on my PSU: I've learned that I'm not the only one with "false starts" on my PC. According to http://www.pjrc.com/about/rambling/antec.html my ATX power switch is a symptom of a weak 5V line. I can't wait to check out the readings in my BIOS. If I can confirm it's the same problem, I'm taking the thing to the shop to show them and then ask for a replacement.

Also, about a month ago I reported seeing cracks in my paintball loader. Well, DXS never got back to me. I even called this support line and left and message. Anyway, in the end (last week) I tried what I swore I wouldn't do: contact the store that sold me the loader. These guys in the past would take an eternity to respond to me but this time sounds like they got my back. They gave me an RMA number and said depending on what the thing looks like, they'll send me a new loader. They also thought to warn me in advance that they only had black ones left in stock (I'm at the point where I don't really care). Anyway, I shipped it off yesterday. We'll see what I get back...

My last Amazon order is still in limbo. I wrote about this in January, I think. The Annihilation book is in but the Voltron book is not. Argh. Good thing Weirdguy still invites me to the comics shop every week (he goes for the designer collectibles while I go for weekly randomness).

Speaking of which, here's a shout-out to a new player in the virtual world: www.canadianvinyl.ca - they're so new I was member number 2... I'm pretty much Weirdguy's test monkey. But he did open a section on the forums for discussion of anime PVC statues. The only collectible vinyl I own is a PandaZ Robonimal. I should blog that in the near future...

ATX weirdness

In the 24 hours following my install of the Corsair VX450W PSU into my box (with an Asus A7N8X-E motherboard), I've discovered something ...weird.

From a "cold" start, I must press the ATX power switch twice. The first press doesn't do anything. But a second press will boot up the PC. Once up and running, it exhibits no symptoms of unstable power or anything.

And instead of holding-for-a-second to shut down, simply pressing and releasing the ATX power button will cause the PC to power down (including proper shut-down of the OS and everything!). In fact, it behaves exactly like it should if I had pressed-and-held-for-a-second.

Now the weirdness of shutting down doesn't bother me much. Because I can't even remember when the last time was I had to use the physical ATX switch to shut down my PC. I always use the OS software shut-down. But it does bother me that I must hit the switch twice to turn on. I can't help the feeling "if it's not working properly, that might be a symptom of something else wrong."

Update: a couple of hours later while browsing my motherboard manual, I've learned that the power-down delay is a programmed behaviour of ATX. For some reason, my board's default CMOS setting is for "instant-off" when you hit the power switch while the PC is on. After playing in the BIOS, I was able to set the delay on - tested and working. Just proves what I said about not using that function too often, eh? "not often" as in "never."

The Corsair PSU

I needed to have a spare anyway. A few weeks ago, the PSU in my parents' computer fried (I'm serious: a loud pop and a puff of smoke came out the back!)... So I figured, I have a decent PSU in my machine... but it'd be cool to have a new one (it's always cool to have new stuff).

This hunt started back in the fall when Ars Technica did a highly unusual hardware round-up: they reviewed a whole bunch of Power Supply Units. While the Seasonic S12-II came out on top, Corsair's offering was in the running too. And in fact, it picked up a ranking at SilentPCreview as well. I picked up the VX today at a local shop. Now I've never purchased my own PSU before... but I figured, I've built PCs before... all PSU follow the same basic principles, yes?

After being fairly experienced with trying to save a few bucks buying OEM products, I was pleased to know that in a retail box, even PSU manufacturers like to spice up their goods. The box opened to reveal a cloth draw-string bag with the Corsair logo silk-screened on it holding the PSU. Too bad it's a little ragged like it's been snagged on something before. Oh well. The PSU also came with a bunch of plastic-ties and a case badge (yeah! another one for my collection).

I was a little confused at first because the main plug was 24-pin and while I didn't panic, it took me a moment to realize that the 4 extra pins just snapped open to swing away from the rest. Presto: a 20-pin plug. Another thing that threw me off was that on my old PSU, it had a separate line to the motherboard that could monitor the fan. Well, the VX doesn't have one. And finally, I also worried a bit to realize how old my platform is getting. I don't own a SATA drive... so pretty much half the plugs are useless to me. And would there be enough 4-pin Molex plugs for my IDE drives and video card? Hmm...
Well... yes.
The VX completely maxed out in my case to power a pair of optical drives, my HDD, video card, case fans, lights and front panel. I breathed a sigh of relief at the end of that install. All the unused lines were tied up and tucked into an unused drive bay. One last thing that drives me a little crazy: my PC is just as loud as it was before this PSU went in. Turns out my old PSU was an Enermax - while not the most silent PSU in the world, it did boast the "whisper" label on it. And of course, my two case fans are probably making most of the noise, however, I'm not too keen on removing those.

DS-Lite - a few days later

I go through those phases where I don't buy crap for weeks. And then there are the other times I just suddenly "feel like splurging." I've only had my DS for week or so. And I'm loving the Lunar RPG (while Cooking Mama got old real quick).

On Thursday my buddies at work quickly organized a Mario Kart DS tournament. If Nintendo did one thing right that Sony can't catch up with, it's that the games are small enough and the system RAM is big enough, game sharing is very very workable. With only one cartridge, 6 of us were able to connect to each other and race each other. How cool is that?

Anyway, Napoleon tipped me off to an awesome deal at Best Buy.I picked up this storage case today along with both my own copy of Mario Kart DS and New Super Mario Bros. I'm pleased with the case - the inside is a soft rubbery lining that grabs the DS and the game cards. There's also room for a spare stylus (but why people lose those things, I don't understand since the DS has a frickin' slot built into it to keep the stylus!). There isn't much to be said for Mario Kart: it's a racing game. But I'm really loving the newest take on Super Mario - this is so cool it's almost retro. It's really an updated classic. Feels a bit like Super Mario Bros. 3 to me, which is nice, since I never got to play SMB3 all the way through in the old days (I didn't even own an NES back then).
Anyway, both games can be had for a sweet $30 each. Both great deals if you compare against typical retail pricing for either. The case by Intec was not on sale... but was on a shelf at eye level... and cost me $15. But that was alright since I figured, I played the game of hunt-for-best-price when I first got the DS. If I rationalize it that way, I actually got the case for $5. Hmm... O.o