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G-Omaha's **8790 Review** Now Open To Questions and Comments - Page 2

post #21 of 228
3/18/04 at 6:57pm
Thread Starter 
Chance, Thanks.

I am downloading all of the drivers located in Sager support. Have them all except the big Pig for the tuner which is still down loading. I have downloaded a game; however, don't know how to use it. My son should be up after 6 or so and maybe he can connect to the internet and put it through it's paces. I think that he might like that.
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post #22 of 228
3/18/04 at 7:07pm
Thread Starter 

Heat Update

The bad news is that the digital thermometer that I have only goes up to 110F.

The good news is the only temperature that is that high or higher is the underside of the power cube.

Now here are the "hot spots" that I found:

1). On the LCD facing starting between the three lights and extending to the first blue button on the base unit. Temp was 106.2F

2). On the top left of the touchpad it is warm. Temp is 102.1F.

3). Just below the left "windows" key where the keyboard and the base unit come together (small spot). Temp is 107.3F.

When looking at these "hot spots", I would conclude they are at points where the following equipment is located. 1) LCD Invertor 2). 1st HDD 3). 2nd HDD and possible a point where some "blow by" air/heat is existing off the memory cards.

The DVD get's hot also; however, not any more - maybe even a bit less than my 3363V.

Overall, the 8790 does cause the room temperature to go up a degree or two; however, it is well ventilated and seems to throw most of the heat out of the back of the unit.
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post #23 of 228
3/18/04 at 7:11pm
Thread Starter 

Stuck Pixel Update

Well it's still stuck. I did change color from teal to green, had fun winking a me for a few minutes and then changed back to teal. I tried to massage the screen and all it did was wink a few times and it is now staring at me.
The color and placement of this one "stuck" pixel is so far acceptable and it is small. Just hope that it "dims out" or ompletely dies in the near future.
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post #24 of 228
3/18/04 at 7:24pm
Thread Starter 

USB Ports

Question: Which side is "up" for the USB "jack"? If, when I plug in the cables the little "tined figure" and on top, then this machine hase these connections oriented correctly. Odd that I never notices that my 3363V was upside down; but then I only had a mouse connected to it and a Zip Drive from time-to-time.
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post #25 of 228
3/18/04 at 7:35pm
3Dmark03 seems to have some pretty heavy gaming benchmarks, they're like mini games to test the card and are really high quality..runs pretty slowly on my 8890-v actually! You might want to see if you get a nice fast framerate with the more intense ones like nature and the troll's lair one, both of which run quite slowly at some times for me. it's kind of a big download but if you have wireless you can go to a wireless cafe for about an hour and get it (which I did)
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post #26 of 228
3/18/04 at 7:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by G-Omaha
Question: Which side is "up" for the USB "jack"? If, when I plug in the cables the little "tined figure" and on top, then this machine hase these connections oriented correctly. Odd that I never notices that my 3363V was upside down; but then I only had a mouse connected to it and a Zip Drive from time-to-time.
The 8790 that I have definitely has its USB connectors upside down - at least compared to every other machine I have. Also, my power brick doesn't get that warm - the fan only kicks in when its charging, or so it seems. Once the battery was at 100%, it was no warmer than any other power brick in my nest of wires and cable. As for wallpaper, I've been scoping out the PowerBook sites for 1440x900 wallpaper - there's quite a bit out there it seems, but I haven't found a good site that has them all gathered together nicely. Something like a 1024x768wallpapers.com but for 1440x900 would be cool
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post #27 of 228
3/18/04 at 7:57pm
Thread Starter 

USB Correct for side connection - Upside down for the rear ones

Sorry about that. I looked at it again and what I originally stated is not the case.
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post #28 of 228
3/18/04 at 8:05pm
Thread Starter 

How to create BSD's

Well, I finally plugged in the USB floppy to make sure that it works. That cable is really short. Then I formatted a floppy, ejected the disk, and plugged the plug. Got a BSD immediately. Apparantly, this device needs to be released before it is unplugged or unplagged after the system is down.

Just to make sure, I did it two more times. I have come to the conslusion that I "shouldn't do that anymore".
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post #29 of 228
3/18/04 at 8:15pm
Yeah, that would probably be a good idea. I take it it doesn't do it when you tell windows you are going to remove it, right? Do you think it might also be related to the earlier blue screen you got? About the only think I like about Windows NT technology is system logs found in computer management. It helps me figure out what the potential problem might be or at least point me in the right direction.

With the temperatures you measured earlier, I'll be interested in seeing what it does when you play a 3-D game or a 3-D application for about an hour.
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post #30 of 228
3/18/04 at 8:33pm
Thread Starter 
I had a rather long winded observation and was just trying to send it when WHAM.. the WiFi disconnected. Now I'll have to redo it.

I think that other BSD of related to something else. I'll dig for the dump summary and post it what I get there.
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post #31 of 228
3/18/04 at 8:35pm
Thread Starter 

INtervideo WinDVD4 is Lame

This is not, IMHO a very good product. Real player does a better job. I installed Power DVD and got the quality that I expected. Enough said.
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post #32 of 228
3/18/04 at 8:43pm
Thread Starter 

GigaBye WiFi (Internal & Router) - Problematic

These products are not sufficiently developed and tested, IMHO to be marketed.
8 hours to establish a WiFi connection by two people that do this stuff "all of the time" - A real joke. Then once established, it is not stable. It even refused to work with the original network name for some reason. I could go on and on and on; but won't.

It is not recommended for the novice.
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post #33 of 228
3/18/04 at 8:48pm
Are you sure that it is both of them and not one or the other?
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post #34 of 228
3/18/04 at 8:51pm
Thread Starter 

Gaming = Heat and Increased Fan Noise

Well, got my son to play UT 2004 Demo for about 35/40 minutes.

I found another "hot spot"; however, this is in an expected location - the exhaust vent. It measured well over 110F. I also noticed that I helped with the high heat condition becauser I inadvertently laid the "isolator" (or what ever it is call - the big black block on the power cable) so that it laid in front of the exhaust vent and it was blocking the air flow. When I flipped it over to the othe side, the fan speed was reduced for a few minutes.

After about 20/25 minutes, the fans appeared to be at "Phase Three" and cycle often between phase 2 and phase 3. I was annoying when the game volume was low and almost acceptable as the volumes increased. It was loud; but still seeed to be less than the Fan Sound of the Gateway 450-SX4 that I use to connect to the mainframe at work. The Gateways is louder; however the duration of the surge is for a lessor amount of time.

My son has downloaded a lot of other games and will probably play some more .. go figure..
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post #35 of 228
3/18/04 at 8:55pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Prophet
Are you sure that it is both of them and not one or the other?
Started the process with connections to my existing LinkSys router, after I flashed the BIOS. This was problematic in WEP and WPA mode. I did not test for very long in an "unsecured mode" as I don't want any of my personal and/or work data available to the "casual surfer?" or neighbor.

Also the Antenna does not seem to be that good.

Forgot to mention. The distance between the laptop and the router is about 45 feet, if you follow the hallway; otherwise it is about 20 feet point to point - my house is pretty small.
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post #36 of 228
3/18/04 at 8:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by G-Omaha
These products are not sufficiently developed and tested, IMHO to be marketed.
8 hours to establish a WiFi connection by two people that do this stuff "all of the time" - A real joke. Then once established, it is not stable. It even refuses to work with the original network name for some reason. I could go on and on and on; but won't.

It is POS and not recommended.

There is a big difference between "cheezy" and "SHEETY" - sorry for the mispellings here.
But hey, it was free wasnt it, so I guess you get what you pay for but I feel your pain, I cant even get my linksys card to work in my 4780.
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post #37 of 228
3/18/04 at 9:14pm
That temperature rating seems pretty good. I have a digital readout on my tower and it gets a little higher than that when running a 3-D app and this is with 6 system fans in a 21" tower. I guess that pretty much will put to bed my concerns for heat on the 8790 as long as it stays like that for several hours of use. I saw too many blue screens in my day with HP tech support caused by heat that it makes me paranoid over the issue.

As for your wireless issue, is your linksys router still involved at all in your setup? I turfed my last linksys router due to some connection problems with it. While troubleshooting a network problem I had, the only thing I had left was to update the firmware. This created a different problem as I now started to get dropped because the router was sending bad packets to my machine. If you have the linksys involved and you updated the firmware, that might be a potential cause. With my new linksys 802.11g router and wireless card in my Dell laptop, I haven't had any problems but I'm definitely never going to make that mistake again.
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post #38 of 228
3/18/04 at 9:15pm
I am typing this on a Dell Inspiron 8100 using an Orinoco wifi card thru a Linksys wap 11 and Linksys router. It has worked well for me.

I have a 8790 ordered that includes the wireless card without the router. Are you saying I should change my order and leave out the card even though it was free and keep my Orinoco card?

Charles
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post #39 of 228
3/18/04 at 9:22pm
Why did you flash the bios? I would think that it should come with the latest version.
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post #40 of 228
3/18/04 at 9:42pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by kr381
I am typing this on a Dell Inspiron 8100 using an Orinoco wifi card thru a Linksys wap 11 and Linksys router. It has worked well for me.

I have a 8790 ordered that includes the wireless card without the router. Are you saying I should change my order and leave out the card even though it was free and keep my Orinoco card?

Charles
I'm saying I am disappointed. I'll not recommend or not recommend that you change your order. I would think, that the problems will be fixed sometime down the road. It just annoys me, that's all.
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