Rising Japan: The FT 5760 Review - Page 3

Complete Wipe
Took the plunge and nuked XP. Installed Vista Business and Ubuntu 4.07 this morning. I have to say, the Vista install was painless as could possibly be, I think. Easier and faster than XP, I want to say.

Ubuntu was a little more hair-pulling. When I got to the partition part (the part where I've turned back on Linux installs for years starting w/ Mandrake), I fudged it and hoped for the best. It works, so I must've done something semi-ok. It did have to restart itself in the middle of the first boot, so maybe I'd set something up whacky, but... I don't know. Works now.

Both Vista & Ubuntu effortlessly found my wireless, so that was great. Vista also had absolutely no problems w/ my Logitech MX900 bluetooth mouse. I'd expected to have to use a corded mouse for awhile judging by other threads regarding Vista + Bluetooth. However, it worked perfectly (and I didn't allow it to DL updates at first, either, so it was supported from the get-go). Ubuntu, however, wasn't so easy. I wasn't able to figure out where to even try to enable it. Typed bluetooth in the Help and it gave me a command to try, but I couldn't even figure out where to type the freakin' command. At least Windows give you a little icon to open the Command Line and also gives you the Run command. Didn't see anything similar in Ubuntu. So, for the sake of ease of use for n00bs, Vista gets the win here.

I've heard people complain about Vista being a pig, etc., but so far the 5760's very snappy. In fact, IE opened up much faster in Vista than it ever did in XP. Granted, this is a fresh install.

Card Reader
One problem so far- neither Vista nor Ubuntu has any clue about the card reader. I'll have to go check and see if there aren't some driver updates for it. But initially, it's not seen by either OS.

Web Cam
Of the updates that Vista installed, it DL'd & installed a Bison Cam update. Sounds good, right? Possibly. If I only knew where to look to find the Camera! The only place I knew to look in XP was in Explorer. Doesn't show up in Explorer in Vista. In the Device Manager, it shows up just fine. Sounds good theoretically :P Ubuntu was the same- not a clue on where to even start looking for it.

Reboot Update
After Vista's updates installed and the system rebooted, there is no longer a DVD drive in Explorer. Lovely. Ubuntu updated w/o incident.

Bison Cam update- Vista
Nuked the Vista-installed drivers. Installed the "beta" drivers from Sager's site. Now there's an icon for the cam on the desktop, but it won't run. Tells me Please turn on the Video Capture power (Fn+F10), but doing so doesn't change/help anything. Looks like the cam's F@#'d for the time being. Not a huge issue since I rarely use it.

Card Reader update- Vista
Installed "beta" drivers from Sager's site. Works fine now.

Vista + Ubuntu 2 Week Update
Vista Business is pretty, I'll give it that. But it's a PITA. The UAC is utterly ridiculous. Disabling it doesn't work as if there's something important that needs to be done, you can't say Yes w/o having to re-enable UAC and rebooting. Things are harder to find/access. Display Properties used to be a R-click on the desktop- now it's hunt for it somewhere after R-clicking on the desktop. P I T A .

Picasa, Google Earth, Photomatix & Firefox all crash and crash often. Photo Info, a Microsoft program, won't even work! WTH? Scroll pad still doesn't work right (side slider + middle button). Ubuntu? Scroll pad works flawlessly.

Ubuntu... haven't messed w/ it much. Messed w/ it enough to know that I'm grumpy w/ it. Firefox settings aren't ever saved. Every time it's booted, it's just like I'm booting off the Live CD and it's the first time I'm seeing everything. NOTHING is saved in Firefox. Bookmarks, previous tabs, etc. Don't know enough about it to know if it's an easy fix. Haven't had time to screw w/ it.

So w/ both Vista & Ubuntu being stoopid (and me having hosed something along the way so the DVD drive wasn't available to either), I decided to go back to, dare I say it... Old Reliable. Nuked Vista Business and Ubuntu 7.04 last night and reinstalled XP Pro.

So far, running good. Only problem is that I installed the BlueSoleil drivers for my BT and it's giving me pop-ups that I'm running a Pirate Copy. Well, @$$hat, I'm not. Done a search and it looks like the Widcomm drivers are sufficient and don't have the Pirate problem, so I'll probably uninstall the BlueSoleil and try the Widcomms at some point.

Maybe once Vista grows up a bit, I might (begrudgingly) try it again. Once I have time to figure out Linux, I'll definitely try it again. Lately, I've been of the mind to end my Windows experience at XP. I've had that much fun w/ Vista lately. I have to say, though, it has been fast. VERY fast. Fast boot and fast shutdown. I'll miss that. But not much else.

Bluetooth Stupidity
Was just using Firefox to show a friend something online and while I was moving the mouse around, it just died. Windows bleeped at me and then the Local LAN Connection is Disconnected pop-up came up. The Bluetooth icon grayed out and I was dead in the water. Opened up the BT properties and it showed the mouse still sending signals. Decided that this it was time to nuke BlueSoleil.

I'd previously DL'd Widcomm's drivers, so I was ready. Rebooted after uninstalling BlueSoleil and XP automatically detected and installed BT drivers (why didn't it do that originally?) Installed fine, detected fine, runs fine. So, no need for Widcomm.

Don't know what happened- BlueSoleil just auto-nuked itself or something. Driver self-implosion. Go figure.
Fixed now.

I don't envy you having to support Vista. I'm sure I'll be "supporting" it soon enough once my friends' computers start to go south (that's already happened, but so far, I have had minimal contact w/ it). Setting up a new computer w/ Vista Home on it in a couple days. Not looking forward to the n00b questions on how to run it because I don't know that well myself. Know just enough that I don't like it (understatement, possibly?)

UAC is a disaster, IMO. They need to cut that thing out and shoot it into the furthest reaches of space. Just deleting files off of my external drive (which I have several) kicked up the UAC every single time. Ridiculous. Given the amt of files that I nuke (I can take a couple hundred photos a day if I'm out playing around w/ my Nikon D80), that's just criminally insane to have to deal w/ that thing popped up twice per instance. No no NO.

Keyboard Issues
So yesterday my apostrophe/quote key quit working. WTF? I wasn't home for long, so I didn't type for long. Problem ended up solving itself somehow. Not sure what the problem is/was. *shrugs*

Hit and miss problem. Hopefully it stays gone.

Playing with my neighbor's Sigma 10-20mm lens and took this for the fun of it:

Video Drivers
Up until recently, most everything has worked on this computer (Civ IV:Warlords & C&C3 being the most CPU intensive games that I bother with). However, I recently tried out the Mythos beta. Or thought I'd try it.

When trying to start the game, a loading screen or small pop-up screen appears for a split second then disappears. That's it. Nothing else. The End.

Checked Sager's site for updated drivers and nVidia's. nVidia doesn't even acknowledge that this model exists. Nothing and everything else runs stable, so I didn't want to fuss w/ the horse and upend the cart.

However, the day before yesterday I was invited to join the Hellgate London beta (think it's fairly open). Cool, right? Right. Well, once installed, it acts the same exact way as Mythos. A quick bloop and done. The End. Probably not coincidence that the same company, Flagship Studios, is responsible for both games.

This game not working isn't an option. So for now, the search is on for updated drivers...

Update:
Thought this might be relatively easy/painless. So much for that. Now I remember why I don't mess w/ my video drivers if I don't have to. And why I prefer ATi cards over nVidia. I have nothing but trouble usually w/ nVidia cards and their drivers whereas I don't recall near as my grumpy episodes w/ my ATi drivers.

Installed the latest drivers (162.62) off laptopvideo2go.com. Or at least tried to. No go. Next...

Agonizing Update

Posting from work now. Found some Clevo drivers on laptopvideo2go.com that were from June. Seemed to be the newest available. Installed. Rebooted. Hellgate London then refused to run because "This game requires Windows XP SP2 or higher." However, I had XP up to date as far as I was concerned. Tried out Windows Update and the only thing missing was IE 7. Well, crap. Had a bad experience with that previously. Don't remember if it was on the 5760 or Dell 9300 or where, but I remember it being troublesome.

Took the plunge to install it. Mid-install, it crashes out. WTF! Firefox goes haywire. Finally get 'em both nuked from the Task Manager. Windows wants a reboot since I was playing with the update. Reboot. The End. IE file is missing or corrupted, so Explorer won't run. Lovely! Just moved towards the end o' August and not everything is unpacked. Where my Sager XP CD is, I'm not quite sure. Tried using an older XP Pro that I have laying around, but was older than the installed version, so no go.

All this for a game. Well, two games. But both by Flagship Studios. Can't say that I'm happy w/ MS (for their lovely IE7 junk), nVidia (for making it hard to find a suitable video driver) and Flagship Studios (for conspiring to code me out of a game :P ). *sigh*

Mandriva Linux
Having moved recently, I've no clue where my XP disc is, so I'm still stuck in the water. Have been using my Dell 9300in lieu of having the 5760 "fixed." Painful going from Dual-Core back to a Pentium-M. Ugh.
Still not impressed with Linux enough to see the immediate impetus to abandon Windoze. I suppose if I give it time, I might see the light, but navigating the file manager SUCKS. Easy as that. If I hadn't mentioned it yet, let me just state that IT SUCKS. Hopefully I'm clear on that. Perhaps there's a better file manager out there, but I haven't messed around enough to find it. Also, I'm still only using the Live CD, so I don't think I can install anything DL'd. I remember having this problem when I installed Ubuntu earlier this year. Explorer is a PITA, too, but it's better than what I've seen automatically installed from Ubuntu & Mandriva so far. Guess I'm going to have to deal with it/learn to love it since it doesn't look like Vista's going away anytime soon

Hey, chief- long time, no see. Glad to hear that you're still troopin' along. Can't argue w/ service like that. I've actually been considering picking up a little 12"~13" rig for traveling. Now that I lug around a Nikon D300 + lenses, etc. w/ me wherever I go, a 17" notebook just gets in the way.

Another friend over here in Japan asked me about one and recommended that he pick up a Dell 12". You're the only one I know w/ one, so it's all your fault He likes it. Only problems he's had so far are Vista-related (and problems I rarely can help w/ since I'm not familiar w/ it). It's a great place to be when the software issues overshadow hardware issues and not the other way around!

Wow. It's been a long time since I've been around here. Have to say, the 5760's been rock-solid. What a machine. Most bumps & burps I've had w/ it are Windows-related, so can't really say anything to Sager about that!

Clock
For some reason, the clock was running slow. Couldn't remember for the life of me how to set the thing, so just ignored it. After a recent update/reboot cycle, I noticed the time was sync'd correctly again. Go figure. shrugs

Video Artifacting
Last couple days have given me a bit of slight video artifacting when scrolling webpages vertically. This is the sort of thing that started happening w/ my 8790 before things really went South.
Haven't cleaned the unit in some time, so will open it up and see if there are any dustbunnies squatting on property that ain't theirs.

Dead Pixels
Not sure where all the lil buggers came from, but it's like a swarm o' the things hit me. I rarely notice them and really, the only reason I did notice was that I saw an odd dot once in a photograph when I was going thru some of my shots. Noticed after that there seems to be quite a few o' 'em hanging out. Not a problem, really.

Hard Drive
Just got a 500gb drive in the mail today. Was going to stick it in my Samsung NC10, but realized that it's be better served put in my 5670 (my main computer). So will try to follow-up on that if that's where I decide to put it.

5760's been On for most of its lifetime. I tend to shut it off if I'm on extended vacation, but that's pretty rare. So definite cheers to Sager for an excellent machine. However, I'm really feeling the need for a speed upgrade. Just not cutting it versus my manic multi-tasking (esp. in regards to photo post-processing).

So... another Sager? A desktop? Hmm...