Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY

Big Picture does Space Station Pics!
posted by GJ on November 25, 2008 @ 2:02PM

Check out these lovely photographs of the Internation Waste of Good Money Space Station!

Note, technically it's the International Space Station. I just can't help myself most of the time.

Geoff said about 21 hours later

So has the space station been largely a failure? I know they've had all sorts of problems, but then again, it is the first "space station."

I'd rather throw my money away on things like this. It's progression I think. Eventually we will have to leave Earth for our species to survive. I mean, the sun is destined to gobble us up in 4 billion years or so, what will we do then? :)
Steve said 5 days later

I'm with Geoff, I support scientific studies. Granted, we haven't learned much about what NASA and company has learned from the space station, but I do know that a lot has been learned about developing all sorts of materials for space flight. Parsla and I have been wanting to go see a shuttle launch, unfortunately this crappy economy has put that on hold. We were going to go down and watch STS-126 launch in November, but the economy downfall and our risk of loosing jobs kept us from spending the money to go down to see it. Hopefully, some time in the future we'll be able to see it before they end all shuttle flights (only 8 or 9 more flights are approved right now before the shuttles are retired).
GJ said 5 days later

Hey now--don't you even start claiming I don't support scientific studies. I back more than the two of you combined. :)

What is the ISS besides a colossal waste of money and resources? What important science is being done there that wasn't done on Mir by the Soviets years ago?

MORE IMPORTANTLY....what science is being thrown away for lack of funding? Do either of you have any idea what NASA's budgets look like? Do you realize just how many programs have been shut down during the lifetime of the ISS just so they can keep the lights on in that thing?

Here's my position: dump all manned flight for the moment. Concentrate on developing robotic repair "droids" to maintain our expensive satellites like Hubble, and expand on the rover programs already in place on Mars. Start work on a mass driver program--the first step to mining things like asteroids and other rocky bodies. With all the freed up monies, we could shrink the NASA budget and still get more *real* science done. Can't beat that, can we?
Geoff said 6 days later

I thought they were dumping Hubble and releasing a new eye in the sky next year?
GJ said 6 days later

You're referring to the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2010 (hopefully). The Hubble is at the end of its service life--they're currently trying to keep it afloat for another year or two so they don't have to live without this kind of space telescope until the Webb gets up there.

Of course, guess what...the Webb will orbit much higher than the Hubble, and thus cannot be serviced by the Shuttle. They toyed with robotic repair for Hubble, but ended up using the Shuttle. No such luck this time around...they'll need to either ensure their Shuttle replacement can orbit higher, or use a robotic repair craft.

Computer Conundrum
posted by Geoff on November 24, 2008 @ 8:17PM

Ok so I have been having this random computer problem. Totally random.

My computer, at random, will restart. No blue screen (I've enabled it to show me as suggested by Marc), no nothing. It just restarts like I pressed the reset button. I assume this is a hardware issue for the reasons below.

Here is what I've done to try and remedy it:

replaced my RAID array of 200GB hard drives with 1 500GB hard drive
went from Windows XP 32bit and installed brand new copy of Windows Vista 32bit
all updates had been applied to both OS's
disabled all energy performance

So, seeing as it was happening in both XP and now my newly installed Vista (with no software except for the OS)...it must be hardware or firmware related IMO. I did add new memory awhile back and the problem started sometime after that, though not immediatly after it. That has been the only hardware change to my system in 4 years. Any ideas?

9 comments | Tags: computers

Geoff said about 1 hour later

I'm going to try swapping memory out and see if that fixes the issue. I'll let you know if I have any luck with that aspect. Let me know if you have any other suggestions.
GJ said about 3 hours later

Spontaneous resets are caused by a fault in the CPU. These can be caused by a) faulty CPU b) faulty memory c) operating at too-high temperatures d) operating at too-low voltages.

Temperature is easy to rule out--your motherboard probably has temp sensors for the CPU at least, maybe a case temp too. Be sure it's within operating level after a heavy load on the CPU (after a stress test, for example).

Too-low voltage--happens if you try to run a heavy duty graphics card and a sucky power supply, or from overclocking improperly. If you have a no-name power supply, even a 400 or 500 watt one, it may not be able to supply enough current on the 12V and 5V lines to drive the motherboard.

Memory and CPU faults can be detected with stress testing. Get one of those fancy boot CDs with them all on it and go to town.
Geoff said about 3 hours later

Power Supply is good (500 watt Enermax, top of the line model)...been running it 4 years with no problem. Been swapping my memories and still having the same problem. I am trying to format one of my 200 GB HD's in Windows and it crashes every time when I am nearly finished with it. Not sure how stressful that is. Been monitoring my temperature levels and they are running about 55C (with case open and crashing). Runs at around 65C with case closed and doing stuff on the computer.

Just updated BIOS to latest update. We'll see if that does anything.
GJ said about 12 hours later

OK, good power supply, cross that off the list.

Geoff, formatting a hard drive doesn't stress the CPU or memory--if anything, they're idle during this operation. Are you only having the problem while formatting a drive? Does it fail at the same point each time? If so, I'd say there's a problem with the hard disc. I can send you a tool that will analyze the crap out of the drive and find what's wrong with it (way better than windoze's chkdsk utility).

The BIOS update was a good move--it's possible the disc controller is at fault. Did you have to change BIOS settings when you went from one drive to two?

Anyhow, I'll send that program to you shortly.
Geoff said about 16 hours later

Ok currently I am running a Stress test on the system. No crashes since the BIOS update...however I've been pretty much running off the boot CD. I will dry formatting the hard drive again when I get home to see if it crashes. If it does, I will try stressing the memory.
GJ said about 18 hours later

Whatever you do, stay away from wet formatting of the hard drive. Trust me on that one.
Geoff said about 21 hours later

wet formatting? What is that, throwing it in a lake?

I went to my power settings and noticed that it puts my HD's to sleep after 20 minutes. I turned it to never. We'll see how that works. I was still getting a crash during format after my BIOS update...perhaps my HD's go to sleep and never wake up. Doing another format test now...

Memory test yielded no errors. Quick HD test yielded no errors.
Geoff said about 23 hours later

Ok so that seems to have fixed the format issue at least. The HD must not be waking up. Lets see if this fixes my totally random crashes.
Geoff said 1 day later

Finally got a blue screen error and Windows picked up the problem. It is my ATI video driver for my AGP FireGL X1 Video card. Damn thing has given me driver problems since the first day I bought it. Unfortunately I am running the latest drivers. Looks like I need a new card. Doh!

Still doesn't tell me why I was randomly restarting in XP since it had been working for years without a problem. Perhaps a new update to Windows caused it...in any case I've read a few reviews from people online who experienced similar problems with this card in Vista.

Ah, technology. And spoiled brats.
posted by GJ on November 24, 2008 @ 10:25AM

Something to watch and enjoy.

4 comments | Tags: video

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