Live from Japan: The FT 8790 Review - Page 4  

Speaker noise
Not sure if I'd had this problem before with my wired Intellimouse Explorer, but I think I posted about having had it (too lazy to look at the moment). But I know this is new with my current mouse. I was just scrolling with my Logitech MX500 Bluetooth mouse and am getting feedback buzzing through the external speakers that I've got plugged in to the unit. I might not have noticed previously as I probably had Winamp playing mp3s or something, preventing me from noticing.
However, I'm looking at getting a 2nd Bluetooth mouse for work and at work, I don't have any background tunes to drown out sound problems like that. On the other hand, I don't have external speakers at work, so as long as the sounds don't emanate from my onboard speakers (which at this moment, they don't), all should be ok for work.
Minor grumpiness, tho'. It's going to require fixing at some point. Bad design, maybe, in regards to the sound issues? I'll have to look around when I get the chance.

USB issue
Just now came up w/ my first USB problem. At work, put my unit into Standby (as usual), came home, powered it up (having first plugged in 2 external HDs, one 2.5" 80gig & one 3.5" 120gig). Got a message telling me that a Hi-Speed USB device was plugged into a non Hi-Speed hub. Uh, excuse me, WHAT? Please repeat that for us slow people. I unplugged each of the drives and plugged them back in (using the rear ports). Seemed to be the self-powered 3.5" 120gig HD that was/is giving me that msg. Doesn't make the least bit of sense to me as:

1) It's a USB 2.0 port, therefore it is "Hi-Speed."
2) It's never complained about this drive before (was hooked up this morning before work just fine- as usual).

XP was even nice enough to open up a box showing me that I had 8 ports to choose from that were Hi-Speed and that I should pick one. I'm kicking myself now for not getting a screenshot (just thought of it as I typed this). But really, eight HUBS? Huh? WTF?

3 USB 2.0 ports. Ok, there's 3 accounted for. Where are the other 5?
Would the card reader count somehow? Would it count for 1? or 7 since it takes 7 different kinds of cards? Or 4 since there are only 4 slots? Any way you slice it, it doesn't add up to the 5 required to fill in where the original 3 USB 2.0 ports left off (unless they're getting counted twice somehow, but that still doesn't clear up the math for me).

The dialog box seems to've gone away in the taskbar now, so I'm not sure if it was just playing with me or if it's just gone into hiding because it knows I will smash it with hurricane fury, sending away forever into the void if I find it.

Maybe the puter's grumpy and wants to be rebooted. Whether it's that or not, it's still very weird. At least to me. Maybe I just worked too hard today and can't see the obvious in front o' my face.

Thank you, Atype, but the thing is, I haven't installed anything lately. Nothing new's been added to my system that I can think of as of late. There's been no change, so I don't understand why it would alluva sudden pop up like it has. I used to have that problem w/ my Sony all the time, but it was a USB 1.1 motherboard with a PCMCIA USB 2.0 4 port card- it was always grumping at me about that sort of thing. To have my 8790 do the same for no reason is what bothers me.

G, it was indeed the rear bottom port that was acting huffy. My 80gig also started giving me wacky errors last night. Delayed Write Failure to J:/Mft$ or something like that. I unplugged it because I was tired of the box popping up occasionally. I was busy file-transferring something to someone and talking on IM, so I didn't reboot. I'm going to do that before work. I figured that rebooting would be my first try at a remedy. I don't think it's necessary a problem w/ the hardware. I think it's more a problem w/ Windows getting bent out of shape somehow at some point. I wasn't too concerned at this point because I hadn't rebooted and I wanted to try that first.

Just woke up, so once I get ready for work, it'll be reboot time. See if the gremlins'll disappear.

And I did get a screenshot of the odd USB Root Drive message. Saw it again, so I snagged a screenshot. I've still got a bunch of pics to show, darn it. I will find a picture host one o' these days...

Uru-Ages Beyond Myst
nuyork, Uru looks good, but it's not widescreen. It's at 1280Xwhatever resolution right now. It looks really good- just not widescreen (at least, 1440x900 isn't in the resolution selection box).

I just asked him via IM what his thoughts on Myst: Uru were and this is what he said:
It's one of the best looking games out there if your system can handle it. I had some problems with the game itself... buggy and things wouldn't work so it was impossible to tell if you were doing things right.

Kind of how I felt. Played a little, but not much. Hope that helps!

USB Issue Rebooted
A simple reboot seems to've made everyone in my computer happy again (as both G and I suspected). Windows is such a fussy little thing sometimes. I tend to leave my computer on for as long as possible, so it doesn't necessarily surprise me when they show up. It just surprises me at what does show up. Weird stuf.

Being that I've not wanted to reinstall XP yet, I've still yet to get my 2nd HD installed. What a pain in the butt in order to install a non-RAID drive. Blah.

You can set the screen to run games in non-stretched mode. Mine is set that way, so it will play any game just fine with no stretching- all games will look as they are meant to look with this setting. I only empasize that so that anyone not familiar w/ the 8790 will know that it is possible and that having a widescreen does not mean that one will automatically suffer from stretching on older/non-widescreen compatible games.

What happens is that there are black bars on the edges. Not a big deal at all. Once I get immersed in a game, you don't even think about the bars. Just consider the black bars the frame of your screen and *poof* as soon as you're in the game, they're "gone." Uru looks good, nuyork. There's no distortion whatsoever. Gameplay's a bit different. Frustrating to me, so I haven't played it much. My friend who installed it initially got frustrated w/ it, too. But it looks Good!

Mobmeter Temp
I decided to pull my Chopstick Cooling solution out from under my lil beast to see what the temp would default to. Under no load whatsover and w/ my Chopstick solution in place, I was getting a fairly solid 45C via Mobmeter.

After pulling the chopsticks, the temps slowly rose and have steadied out @ 49~50C. Quite a difference.

Please note that this surface is a Japanese tatami mat. Not a smooth, cool surface like a table, so that needs to be taken into consideration.

With that in mind, make sure to use chopsticks when you're in Japan

Edit: Shortly after posting this, I put the chopsticks back and my temp immediately started headed back down to 45C.

G, thanks for the advice. However, after I posted that, I fell asleep. Now that I've woken up, I see that the temp settled in @ 42C for the entire time I was asleep. Now that I'm pokin' away at the keyboard, it's up to 43C. Since it's exactly in line w/ where you're at now, I figure I'll leave it be for the time being.

And Jovox, if you ever need anything, just drop me a line
ぜんぜん大丈夫だよ。頑張ってね！

Reasons why I ordered from PCT and not locally:

Availability. I couldn't find any shops that sold the 8790 when I ordered it. Someone posted a link to an online shop in this thread and I've since passed that along to others here in Japan, but I didn't know about it at the time.

Support/Service. I was very antsy about support issues overseas. Still am, but as of the initial offering of the 8790, PCT added Overseas support. Excellent. I've dealt with enough people at various shops around the Sapporo area and I can confidently say that most of them couldn't find their way out of a wet paper bag if it was stuck over their heads. On a $3000 unit, I want to know that when I've got a problem, there's going to be an intelligent hooman bean listening to me complain. Customer Service as you know it in the US is not the same here in Japan. There are exceptions (as to every "rule," but for the most part, I think US companies generally have pretty darn good CS).

English. I want an English keyboard. I want English Windows. I want English support. Want those in Japan? Good luck. Available, but not readily. Did find a Clevo reseller online that offered English Windows and English Support. However, they didn't offer the 8790 and it took them about 3 days to answer my initial email. Tom from PCT generally answers within a few hours. THAT is service. Also, have you ever tried explaining an error message to someone that wasn't a computer enthusiast? They have no clue what the wording in error messages mean, do they? Now try the same thing in a foreign language. Good luck.

Options. I can't speak for any other Asian countries or even all the Clevo resellers in Japan, but the ones I did find weren't very accomodating in the options category. One place was adamant that the card reader wasn't available as an option on the 4780 (well, the corresponding Clevo model). I showed them my 8790 w/ card reader, but that didn't work- "Different model," they said. Uh-huh. Total lack of caring about whether or not I bought from them or not. There was only one place that genuinely seemed to want to deal with me and they didn't have Clevos. Had Clevo/Sager not entered the picture, I would've considered buying a Toshiba from them.


Those are basic outlines of what I used as criteria for my decision. There was a lot of time spent wringing my hands and fretting about this. One more factor was that I didn't know how long I'd be in Japan. If I returned to the States, then ev'thing would be cake regarding returns/RMAs. If I bought in Japan and returned to the States, I can imagine nothing but a nightmare. No thank you.

This might seem somewhat harsh. Perhaps it is. But it's the truth as I've found it to be. I'm not saying everywhere and everyone is like this- merely what I've experienced. I have high expectations when it comes to Customer Service and I'm living in a place where the customer doesn't always come first. That fact cost Hypersonic a sale, too. I don't hold nationality against anyone. Facts are facts- I don't color them. Japanese companies lost my sale. Hypersonic lost mine, too, due to non-existance Customer Service. Eurocom might have gotten my sale had PCT not started selling the 8790 when they did. My brief encounter w/ Eurocom's CS was a positive one.

I call it as I see it. That's why I didn't buy from Japan. As for Taiwan, I was planning a trip there w/ another gaijin in Japan, but it never panned out. Thought about trying to pick one up there, but once again, it's a matter of language. And I don't know many ppl there to help out, so I figured it was an even longer shot. Not worth the risk. There's a thread about someone looking for an 8790 equivalent in Taiwan and it seems like more trouble than it's worth.

Oh, I forgot to add: Warranty. 3 yrs plus export coverage through PCT/Warrantech. I didn't find anything equal to it here in Japan.


*Steps off soapbox*
Just my 1/2 cent worth
(and yeah, if you can't tell, these issues make me grumpy )