Movie purchase

26-Oct-2007

New releases this week include Hostel: Part II, the Director's Cut of Hostel and the zombie comedy Fido. With Halloween coming up there are sales aplenty on horror flicks, so I continued filling out my collection with 7 more titles including the badly reviewed 30th Anniversary Edition of Romero's classic and it's 3-D remake. An American Haunting (Unrated Edition) Embrace of the Vampire The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Special Edition) (Widescreen Unrated Edition) Fido Hostel (Director's Cut) Hostel: Part II (Unrated Widescreen Edition) The Messengers Night of the Living Dead (30th Anniversary Edition) Night of the Living Dead 3D Open Water 2: Adrift (Widescreen Edition)

Movie purchase

11-Oct-2007

Got two new releases today at Best Buy in a 2 for $25 sale. The first, 28 Weeks Later, is a sequel to the modern zombie classic and the second, Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, is a direct-to-video sequel to the 2003 original. Also picked up the Unrated Extended Cut of Black Hawk Down for the extra footage. 28 Weeks Later (Widescreen Edition) Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (Unrated) Black Hawk Down (Unrated Extended Cut)

New computer build

01-Oct-2007

After a couple of setbacks, my new desktop computer is finally finished. It's based on an Intel DP35DPM mobo with the Intel P35 chipset and a 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo proc. It's got 4GB of RAM and tons of storage. Everything is housed in a quiet, black Antec P180B midtower. Here are some quick specs (more details can be found in the Computers section).

This build did not start out smoothly. Windows XP kept producing a BSOD during/after the installation of the video card driver. I used WHQL drivers from nvidia.com and Beta drivers from nzone.com and was careful to uninstall the driver or re-install Windows before trying a different version.

More details on the problem:

1. WinXP Pro SP2 installs fine.
2. nForce 8.44 WHQL chipset drivers install fine (did not install nTune as instructed in Forceware release notes, also did not install NVIDIA IDE drivers).
3. Attempt to install the 162.18 WHQL driver, but the system produces a BSOD during installation (Stop Error 0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0x48373254, 0xB97B13F0, 0x00000000)). I tried several times and the BSOD occurs at the same exact point: File extraction goes fine, agree to license, and then click on Next to actually start installation. A progress meter appears and sits at the halfway point for about 30 seconds and then BSOD.
4. Tried 163.44 Beta driver and the install actually finishes, but the system produces a BSOD during startup (and all subsequent startups). Have to uninstall in Safe Mode.

Some searching suggested the stop error could indicate a RAM issue, so I used Memtest86 and it returned zero errors after 9 passes (7 hours). Then I tried swapping components. I tried different memory, motherboard (Note: my original motherboard was an EVGA 122-CK-NF66-T1 (nForce 650i Ultra)), video card, hard drive and cables, as well as, different WinXP CDs, but the BSOD kept appearing.

I swapped one more component and discovered the culprit was the monitor! I was using a Syntax Olevia 27" LCD HDTV via its VGA input. I swapped it with a Dell 17" LCD monitor and Windows and all drivers installed fine. Damn. I've connected several computers to the Olevia and never had an issue. Guess the moral of the story is don't use an off-brand TV as your monitor for a build because it could drive you f*ing nuts.

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