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  • How can I keep the cpu temp low?

    - by Newton
    I have an HP pavilion dv7, I'm using ubuntu 12.04 so the overheating problem with sandybridge cpu is a lot better. However my laptop is still becoming too hot to keep on my legs. The problem is that the fan wait too much before starting, so the medium temp is too hight. When I'm using windows 7 the laptop is room-temperature cold, I've absolutely no problem. On windows the fan is always spinning very low & very silently so the heat is continuously removed, without reaching an unconfortable temp. How can I force the computer to act like that also on ubuntu? PS The bios can't let me control this kind of thing, and this is my experience with lm-sensors and fancontrol al@notebook:~$ sudo sensors-detect [sudo] password for al: # sensors-detect revision 5984 (2011-07-10 21:22:53 +0200) # System: Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC (laptop) # Board: Hewlett-Packard 1800 This program will help you determine which kernel modules you need to load to use lm_sensors most effectively. It is generally safe and recommended to accept the default answers to all questions, unless you know what you're doing. Some south bridges, CPUs or memory controllers contain embedded sensors. Do you want to scan for them? This is totally safe. (YES/no): y Module cpuid loaded successfully. Silicon Integrated Systems SIS5595... No VIA VT82C686 Integrated Sensors... No VIA VT8231 Integrated Sensors... No AMD K8 thermal sensors... No AMD Family 10h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 11h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 12h and 14h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 15h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 15h power sensors... No Intel digital thermal sensor... Success! (driver `coretemp') Intel AMB FB-DIMM thermal sensor... No VIA C7 thermal sensor... No VIA Nano thermal sensor... No Some Super I/O chips contain embedded sensors. We have to write to standard I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe. Do you want to scan for Super I/O sensors? (YES/no): y Probing for Super-I/O at 0x2e/0x2f Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'... No Trying family `SMSC'... No Trying family `VIA/Winbond/Nuvoton/Fintek'... No Trying family `ITE'... No Probing for Super-I/O at 0x4e/0x4f Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'... Yes Found unknown chip with ID 0x8518 Some hardware monitoring chips are accessible through the ISA I/O ports. We have to write to arbitrary I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe though. Yes, you do have ISA I/O ports even if you do not have any ISA slots! Do you want to scan the ISA I/O ports? (YES/no): y Probing for `National Semiconductor LM78' at 0x290... No Probing for `National Semiconductor LM79' at 0x290... No Probing for `Winbond W83781D' at 0x290... No Probing for `Winbond W83782D' at 0x290... No Lastly, we can probe the I2C/SMBus adapters for connected hardware monitoring devices. This is the most risky part, and while it works reasonably well on most systems, it has been reported to cause trouble on some systems. Do you want to probe the I2C/SMBus adapters now? (YES/no): y Using driver `i2c-i801' for device 0000:00:1f.3: Intel Cougar Point (PCH) Module i2c-i801 loaded successfully. Module i2c-dev loaded successfully. Next adapter: i915 gmbus disabled (i2c-0) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus ssc (i2c-1) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 GPIOB (i2c-2) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus vga (i2c-3) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 GPIOA (i2c-4) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus panel (i2c-5) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Client found at address 0x50 Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1033'... No Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1034'... No Probing for `SPD EEPROM'... No Probing for `EDID EEPROM'... Yes (confidence 8, not a hardware monitoring chip) Next adapter: i915 GPIOC (i2c-6) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Client found at address 0x50 Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1033'... No Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1034'... No Probing for `SPD EEPROM'... No Probing for `EDID EEPROM'... Yes (confidence 8, not a hardware monitoring chip) Next adapter: i915 gmbus dpc (i2c-7) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 GPIOD (i2c-8) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus dpb (i2c-9) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 GPIOE (i2c-10) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus reserved (i2c-11) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus dpd (i2c-12) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 GPIOF (i2c-13) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: DPDDC-B (i2c-14) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Now follows a summary of the probes I have just done. Just press ENTER to continue: Driver `coretemp': * Chip `Intel digital thermal sensor' (confidence: 9) To load everything that is needed, add this to /etc/modules: #----cut here---- # Chip drivers coretemp #----cut here---- If you have some drivers built into your kernel, the list above will contain too many modules. Skip the appropriate ones! Do you want to add these lines automatically to /etc/modules? (yes/NO)y Successful! Monitoring programs won't work until the needed modules are loaded. You may want to run 'service module-init-tools start' to load them. Unloading i2c-dev... OK Unloading i2c-i801... OK Unloading cpuid... OK al@notebook:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/module-init-tools restart Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d, use the service(8) utility, e.g. service module-init-tools restart Since the script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an Upstart job, you may also use the stop(8) and then start(8) utilities, e.g. stop module-init-tools ; start module-init-tools. The restart(8) utility is also available. module-init-tools stop/waiting al@notebook:~$ sudo service module-init-tools restart stop: Unknown instance: module-init-tools stop/waiting al@notebook:~$ sudo service module-init-tools start module-init-tools stop/waiting al@notebook:~$ sudo pwmconfig # pwmconfig revision 5857 (2010-08-22) This program will search your sensors for pulse width modulation (pwm) controls, and test each one to see if it controls a fan on your motherboard. Note that many motherboards do not have pwm circuitry installed, even if your sensor chip supports pwm. We will attempt to briefly stop each fan using the pwm controls. The program will attempt to restore each fan to full speed after testing. However, it is ** very important ** that you physically verify that the fans have been to full speed after the program has completed. /usr/sbin/pwmconfig: There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed Is my case too desperate?

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  • Surface RT–first impressions

    - by DigiMortal
    Couple months ago I bought Surface RT because I needed some lightweight business supporting thing to take with me sometimes. Carrying ~3kg development laptop is not always fun, specially when you have long days and you need to move from one place to another often. Surface RT turned out to be pretty good investment and here are my first real-life experiences. Read more from my new blog @ gunnarpeipman.com

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  • How to pause/resume transfer of large files?

    - by Olivier Lalonde
    I recently had to copy about 20 GB of data split between about 20 files from my laptop to an external hard drive. Since this operation takes quite a while (at ~560kb/s), I was wondering if there was any way to pause the transfer and resume it later (in case, I need to interrupt the transfer). As a side question, is there any performance difference between copying from the terminal vs copying from Nautilus?

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  • Lenovo G580 video driver does not work

    - by Evgeniy
    I have trouble with video driver. In my laptop, I have 2 video cards: GeForce 630M and Intel HD 4000 Series. I installed 12.04, it starts in Unity 2D mode, I try to install drivers to both video cards, but results inefficiencies. Nvidia control panel propose me to create xorg config file manually, but after this screen resolution resets to 640x480 and I can't get it back to normal mode. Please, help me if this is possible.

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  • Tablet PC Review: Fujitsu LifeBook T4410

    Fujitsu's newest convertible not only flips from laptop PC to tablet mode, but the tablet accepts both pen input and freehand multitouch gestures for everything from jotting notes to zooming and rotating photos. Is this 4.5-pounder the best tablet to date?

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  • Tablet PC Review: Fujitsu LifeBook T4410

    Fujitsu's newest convertible not only flips from laptop PC to tablet mode, but the tablet accepts both pen input and freehand multitouch gestures for everything from jotting notes to zooming and rotating photos. Is this 4.5-pounder the best tablet to date?

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  • NVIDIA x server - "sudo nvidia config" does not generate a working 'xorg.config'

    - by Mike
    I am over 18 hours deep on this challenge. I got to this point and am stuck. very stuck. Maybe you can figure it out? Ubuntu Version 12.04 LTS with all the updates installed. Problem: The default settings in "etc/X11/xorg.conf" that are generated by the "nvidia-xconfig" tool, do not allow the NVIDIA x server to connect to the driver in my "System Settings Additional Driver window". (that's how I understand it. Lots of information below). Symptoms of Problem "System Settings Additional Driver" window has drivers, but the nvidia x server cannot connect/utilize any of the 4 drivers. the drivers are activated, but not in use. When I go to "System Tools Administration NVIDIA x server settings" I get an error that basically tells me to create a default file to initialize the NVIDIA X server (screen shot below). This is the messages the terminal gives after running a "sudo nvidia-xconfig" command for the first time. It seems that the generated file by the tool i just ran is generating a bad/unusable file: If I run the "sudo nvidia-xconfig" command again, I wont get an error the second time. However when I reboot, the default file that is generated (etc/X11/xorg.conf) simply puts the screen resolution at 800 x 600 (or something big like that). When I try to go to NVIDIA x server settings I am greeted with the same screen as the screen shot as in symptom 2 (no option to change the resolution). If I try to go to "system settings display" there are no other resolutions to choose from. At this point I must delete the newly minted "xorg.conf" and reinstate the original in its place. Here are the contents of the "xorg.conf" that is generated first (the one missing required information): # nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig # nvidia-xconfig: version 304.88 (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-06) Wed Mar 27 15:32:58 PDT 2013 Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Layout0" Screen 0 "Screen0" InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" EndSection Section "Files" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # generated from default Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # generated from default Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "kbd" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "Unknown" HorizSync 28.0 - 33.0 VertRefresh 43.0 - 72.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device0" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Device0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Hardware: I ran the "lspci|grep VGA". There results are: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 [Quadro 1000M] (rev a1) More Hardware info: Ram: 16GB CPU: Intel Core i7-2720QM @2.2GHz * 8 Other: 64 bit. This is a triple boot computer and not a VM. Attempts With Not Success on My End: 1) Tried to append the "xorg.conf" with what I perceive is missing information and obviously it didn't fly. 2) All the other stuff I tried got me to this point. 3) See if this link is helpful to you (I barely get it, but i get enough knowing that a smarter person might find this useful): http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/lucid/man1/nvidia-xconfig.1.html 4) I am completely new to Linux (40 hours over past week), but not to programming. However I am very serious about changing over to Linux. When you respond (I hope someone responds...) please respond in a way that a person new to Linux can understand. 5) By the way, the reason I am in this mess is because I MUST have a second monitor running from my laptop, and "System Settings Display" doesn't recognize my second display. I know it is possible to make the second display work in my system, because when I boot from the install CD, I perform work on the native laptop monitor, but the second monitor shows a purple screen with Ubuntu in the middle, so I know the VGA port is sending a signal out. If this is too much for you to tackle please suggest an alternative method to get a second display. I don't want to go to windows but I cannot have a single display. I am really fudged here. I hope some smart person can help. Thanks in advance. Mike. **********************EDIT #1********************** More Details About Graphics Card I was asked "which brand of nvidia-card do you have exactly?" Here is what I did to provide more info (maybe relevant, maybe not, but here is everything): 1) Took my Lenovo W520 right apart to see if there is an identifier on the actual card. However I realized that if I get deep enough to take a look, the laptop "won't like it". so I put it back together. Figuring out the card this way is not an option for me right now. 2) (My computer is triple boot) I logged into Win7 and ran 'dxdiag' command. here is the screen shot: 3) I tried to look on the lenovo website for more details... but no luck. I took a look at my receipts and here is info form receipt: System Unit: W520 NVIDIA Quadro 1000M 2GB 4) In win7 I went to the NVIDIA website and used the option to have my card 'scanned' by a Java applet to determine the latest update for my card. I tried the same with Ubuntu but I can't get the applet to run. Here is the recommended driver from from the NVIDIA Applet for my card for Win7 (I hope this shines some light on the specifics of the card): Quadro/NVS/Tesla/GRID Desktop Driver Release R319 Version: 320.00 WHQL Release Date: 3.5.2013 5) Also I went on the NVIDIA driver search and looked through every possible combination of product type + product series + product to find all the combinations that yield a 1000M card. My card is: Product Type: Quadro Product Series: Quadro Series (Notebooks) Product: 1000M ***********************EDIT #2******************* Additional Symptoms Another question that generated more symptoms I previously didn't mention was: "After generating xorg.conf by nvidia-xconfig, go to additional drivers, do you see nvidia-304?" 1) I took a screen shot of the "additional drivers" right after generating xorg.conf by nvidia-xconfig. Here it is: 2) Then I did a reboot. Now Ubuntu is 600 x 800 resolution. When I logged in after the computer came up I got an error (which I always get after generating xorg.conf by nvidia-xconfig and rebooting) 3) To finally answer the question - No. There is no "NVIDIA-304" driver. Screen shot of additional drivers after generating xorg.conf by nvidia-xconfig and rebooting : At this point I revert to the original xorg.conf and delete the xorg.conf generated by Nvidia.

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  • What package is meant to replace thinkfinger in 11.10?

    - by misterhaan
    My laptop has a fingerprint reader that until 11.10 I used via thinkfinger. That package is no longer in the repositories, but I assume there’s a different package meant to support fingerprint readers in thinkfinger’s place. What is the recommended fingerprint reader package? Should I just find thinkfinger on my own and use that instead? Here’s my reader’s lsusb output: Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0483:2016 SGS Thomson Microelectronics Fingerprint Reader

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  • New Trends In Gaming Laptops

    Gaming laptops and gaming technology are constantly changing and offering us some great new features to consider if you';re in the market for a gaming laptop. Perhaps, the biggest trend has been the m... [Author: Titus Hoskins - Computers and Internet - March 23, 2010]

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  • How to setup IPSec with Amazon EC2

    - by bonzi
    How to setup an IPSec connection from my ubuntu laptop to Amazon EC2 instance? I tried setting it up using elastic IP and VPC with the following openswan configuration but it is not working. conn host-to-host left=%defaultroute leftsubnet=EC2PRIVATEIP/32 # Local netmask leftid=ELASTICIP leftrsasigkey= connaddrfamily=ipv4 right=1laptopip # Remote IP address rightid=laptopip rightrsasigkey= ike=aes128 # IKE algorithms (AES cipher) esp=aes128 # ESP algorithns (AES cipher) auto=add pfs=yes forceencaps=yes type=tunnel

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  • Cisco PrecisionHD USB Camera (Detected but no video)

    - by Marcel Bissonnette
    I'm having an issue with my Cisco PrecisionHD USB Camera. It is detected but does not show video (using "Cheese Webcam Booth"). Any ideas? (I'm a newbie with ubuntu) Specs: Ubuntu 12.10 32bit Dell Latitude E6400 Cisco PrecisionHD USB Camera (USB 2.0) connected directly into laptop (no docking station) Troubleshooting: Using the command lsusb, I find the following device: Bus 002 Device 003: ID 1f82:0001 TANDBERG PrecisionHD Camera '+ more devices like audio, finger swipe, Linux foundation 2.0, 1.1 So what now? Thanks. MB

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  • Media keys play/pause globally worked in 12.10, not in 13.10

    - by Stéphane Gourichon
    Laptop media keys On Asus n55sf laptop, there are a dedicated keys for volume up, volume down, mute, [play/pause], stop, launch (plus a dozen Fn-key combinations). In 12.10 most worked. (Overall is seems unrelated to desktop environment used, stating it for the sake of completeness.) On Ubuntu 12.10 under XFCE they just worked. That is: when a player like rhythmbox or totem was started, it would alternate between play and pause. Interestingly, if several were started, they would alternate independently. E.g. use mouse to pause rhythmbox, launch totem, and one hit on [play/pause] key would pause one and resume the other. Keys Next,Previous and Stop worked as expected in any program. In 13.10 most still work, but play/skip related ignored. On Xubuntu 13.10 (XFCE too) the volume keys work but the [play/pause], stop, next and prev are ignored. Not tried regular Ubuntu 13.10 (Unity). Search before you ask Here are a few facts: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Architecture is ummutable and mentions Ubuntu 9.10. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting is also outdated as it mentions /usr/share/doc/udev/README.keymap.txt which no longer exists. On 12.10 and 13.10 versions, at XFCE level (as visible by xfconf-query or using xfce4-settings-manager) there are a couple of shortcut for keys like XF86Calculator or XF86TouchpadToggle but nothing related to volume prev/next/play/stop, which is okay. XF86Audio substring doesn't appear in /etc (which is normal) Kernel-level test: "showkey -s" on console shows that keys Next,Play/Pause,Previous,Stop are keycodes 163,164,165,166. Nothing relevant in /etc about that. Reports https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/udev/+bug/1072371 and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/systemd/+bug/1012365 suggest to adjust at udev level. Alas, the udev tutorials I found ( e.g. https://wiki.debian.org/udev ) don't even mention keyboard. A thread in french seems to deal with a similar issue: https://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=1395051. @sudo evtest /dev/input/event3@, in X as well as on plain console, reports events on key pressed and repeats, but nothing when pressing those media keys. Is udev a dead end ? Questions How did it work in 12.10 ? Through udev ? Something else ? Any other hint ?

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  • GDL Presents: Women Techmakers with Pixel Qi

    GDL Presents: Women Techmakers with Pixel Qi Jean Wang sits down with 2011 Anita Borg "Woman of Vision" Award for Innovation winner Mary Lou Jepsen of Pixel Qi to discuss overcoming technical challenges in hardware, drawing on Mary Lou's experience leading the engineering and architectural design of the $100 laptops that inspired the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization. Hosts: Jean Wang - Lead Hardware Engineer for Project Glass | Vivian Cromwell - Manager, Global Chrome Developer Relations Guest: Mary Lou Jepsen - CEO and Founder, Pixel Qi From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 0 0 ratings Time: 01:00:00 More in Science & Technology

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  • Wireless Adapter Review: hField Wi-Fire

    Tired of weak and wimpy WiFi? This clip-on replacement for your laptop's 802.11b/g adapter promises up to triple the range, plus finding wireless networks you couldn't access before. Is it the best $59 a road warrior ever spent?

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  • Wireless Adapter Review: hField Wi-Fire

    Tired of weak and wimpy WiFi? This clip-on replacement for your laptop's 802.11b/g adapter promises up to triple the range, plus finding wireless networks you couldn't access before. Is it the best $59 a road warrior ever spent?

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  • MIX 2010 Covert Operations Day 1

    - by GeekAgilistMercenary
    Portland Departure - Farewell Stumptown Off I go on a plane from Portland, Oregon to Las Vegas, Nevada for the MIX 2010 Conference.  Before I even boarded the plane I met Paul Gomes a Senior Software Engineer and Andrew Saylor the Director of Business Development.  Both of these SoftSource Employees were en route to MIX themselves.  Being stoked to already be bumping into some top tier people, I bid them adieu and headed for my seat on the plane. I boarded, and had before the boarding opted for an upgrade.  I have to advise that if you get a chance on Alaska to upgrade at the last minute, take it.  It is usually only about $50 bucks or so and the additional space makes working on the ole' laptop actually possible (even on my monstrous 17" laptop).  So take it from me, click that upgrade button and fork over that $50 bucks for anything over an hour flight, the comfort and ability to work is usually worth it! Las Vegas Arrival - Welcome to Sin City Got into Las Vegas and swung out of the airport.  I then, with my comrade Beth attempted to get Internet Access for the next 3 hours.  Las Vegas, is not the most friendly Internet Access town.  I will just say it, I am not sure why any Internet related company (ala Microsoft) would hold a conference here.  There are more than a dozen other cities that would be better. But I digress, I did manage to get Internet Access after checking into the Circus Circus.  Don't ask why I ended up staying here, if you run into me in person, ask then because there is a whole story to it. At this point I started checking out each session further on the MIX10 Site.  There are a number I deemed necessary to check out.  However, you'll have to read my pending entries to see which session I jumped into. With this juncture in time reached, I got a ton of work to wrap up, some code to write and some sleep to get.  Until tomorrow, adieu. For more of my writing, thoughts, and other topics check out my other blog, where the original entry is posted.

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  • Need a Better Cleanup Tool [Humorous Image]

    - by Asian Angel
    Obviously some cleanup tools work better than others…and sometimes common sense cleanup is the best tool of all! Note: Notice the timeline in the image… View the Full-Size Version of the Image Got a sales guys laptop back… Note the times. [via Fail Desk] The Best Free Portable Apps for Your Flash Drive Toolkit How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 3 How to Sync Your Media Across Your Entire House with XBMC

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  • HTG Explains: Should You Build Your Own PC?

    - by Chris Hoffman
    There was a time when every geek seemed to build their own PC. While the masses bought eMachines and Compaqs, geeks built their own more powerful and reliable desktop machines for cheaper. But does this still make sense? Building your own PC still offers as much flexibility in component choice as it ever did, but prebuilt computers are available at extremely competitive prices. Building your own PC will no longer save you money in most cases. The Rise of Laptops It’s impossible to look at the decline of geeks building their own PCs without considering the rise of laptops. There was a time when everyone seemed to use desktops — laptops were more expensive and significantly slower in day-to-day tasks. With the diminishing importance of computing power — nearly every modern computer has more than enough power to surf the web and use typical programs like Microsoft Office without any trouble — and the rise of laptop availability at nearly every price point, most people are buying laptops instead of desktops. And, if you’re buying a laptop, you can’t really build your own. You can’t just buy a laptop case and start plugging components into it — even if you could, you would end up with an extremely bulky device. Ultimately, to consider building your own desktop PC, you have to actually want a desktop PC. Most people are better served by laptops. Benefits to PC Building The two main reasons to build your own PC have been component choice and saving money. Building your own PC allows you to choose all the specific components you want rather than have them chosen for you. You get to choose everything, including the PC’s case and cooling system. Want a huge case with room for a fancy water-cooling system? You probably want to build your own PC. In the past, this often allowed you to save money — you could get better deals by buying the components yourself and combining them, avoiding the PC manufacturer markup. You’d often even end up with better components — you could pick up a more powerful CPU that was easier to overclock and choose more reliable components so you wouldn’t have to put up with an unstable eMachine that crashed every day. PCs you build yourself are also likely more upgradable — a prebuilt PC may have a sealed case and be constructed in such a way to discourage you from tampering with the insides, while swapping components in and out is generally easier with a computer you’ve built on your own. If you want to upgrade your CPU or replace your graphics card, it’s a definite benefit. Downsides to Building Your Own PC It’s important to remember there are downsides to building your own PC, too. For one thing, it’s just more work — sure, if you know what you’re doing, building your own PC isn’t that hard. Even for a geek, researching the best components, price-matching, waiting for them all to arrive, and building the PC just takes longer. Warranty is a more pernicious problem. If you buy a prebuilt PC and it starts malfunctioning, you can contact the computer’s manufacturer and have them deal with it. You don’t need to worry about what’s wrong. If you build your own PC and it starts malfunctioning, you have to diagnose the problem yourself. What’s malfunctioning, the motherboard, CPU, RAM, graphics card, or power supply? Each component has a separate warranty through its manufacturer, so you’ll have to determine which component is malfunctioning before you can send it off for replacement. Should You Still Build Your Own PC? Let’s say you do want a desktop and are willing to consider building your own PC. First, bear in mind that PC manufacturers are buying in bulk and getting a better deal on each component. They also have to pay much less for a Windows license than the $120 or so it would cost you to to buy your own Windows license. This is all going to wipe out the cost savings you’ll see — with everything all told, you’ll probably spend more money building your own average desktop PC than you would picking one up from Amazon or the local electronics store. If you’re an average PC user that uses your desktop for the typical things, there’s no money to be saved from building your own PC. But maybe you’re looking for something higher end. Perhaps you want a high-end gaming PC with the fastest graphics card and CPU available. Perhaps you want to pick out each individual component and choose the exact components for your gaming rig. In this case, building your own PC may be a good option. As you start to look at more expensive, high-end PCs, you may start to see a price gap — but you may not. Let’s say you wanted to blow thousands of dollars on a gaming PC. If you’re looking at spending this kind of money, it would be worth comparing the cost of individual components versus a prebuilt gaming system. Still, the actual prices may surprise you. For example, if you wanted to upgrade Dell’s $2293 Alienware Aurora to include a second NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 graphics card, you’d pay an additional $600 on Alienware’s website. The same graphics card costs $650 on Amazon or Newegg, so you’d be spending more money building the system yourself. Why? Dell’s Alienware gets bulk discounts you can’t get — and this is Alienware, which was once regarded as selling ridiculously overpriced gaming PCs to people who wouldn’t build their own. Building your own PC still allows you to get the most freedom when choosing and combining components, but this is only valuable to a small niche of gamers and professional users — most people, even average gamers, would be fine going with a prebuilt system. If you’re an average person or even an average gamer, you’ll likely find that it’s cheaper to purchase a prebuilt PC rather than assemble your own. Even at the very high end, components may be more expensive separately than they are in a prebuilt PC. Enthusiasts who want to choose all the individual components for their dream gaming PC and want maximum flexibility may want to build their own PCs. Even then, building your own PC these days is more about flexibility and component choice than it is about saving money. In summary, you probably shouldn’t build your own PC. If you’re an enthusiast, you may want to — but only a small minority of people would actually benefit from building their own systems. Feel free to compare prices, but you may be surprised which is cheaper. Image Credit: Richard Jones on Flickr, elPadawan on Flickr, Richard Jones on Flickr     

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  • How do I install drivers for the Atheros AR8161 Ethernet controller?

    - by Jessica Burnett
    I have installed Ubuntu 12.04-64 bit on my Lenovo IdeaPad laptop, and the wired Ethernet (LAN) connection doesn't work. Running the lspci -vv | grep Atheros command from the terminal shows me I have the AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet controller: 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 08) This looks like a new product whose drivers are not built into Ubuntu. How do I install drivers to get the AR8161 working?

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  • ZTE USB Modem AC2736, connection not possible in Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS

    - by Fredo
    It's a long post but nearly covers all my experiments and changes I did to my NM. Hope the information is complete and if there are still question, more information can be provided. I've a ZTE AC2736 USB Modem (CDMA modem) which worked fine in Ubuntu 10.04 /11.10. I recently switched to 12.04.1 (precise pangolin). after the switch the first issue I faced was to connect to internet using my USB modem (ISP: Reliance Brand: Netconnect). Tried to run the drivers provided by Reliance but they are old and won't support Kernel 2.6.30 above. since the code was not downloaded with ISO image (of 12.04) i couldn't compile the files provided in such driver. lsusb does detect it as Modem with output similar to 19d2:fff1 ZTE CDMA technologies inc. (or similar as i didn't note it down) If it is detected as USB storage it shows 19d2:fff5 (as per few online forums, i may be wrong here). I used the network Manager and configured the modem to dial #777 (default) and the ISP provided username:password combination. It tries to connect to internet (3-4 times automatically)but fails to get online. once I was able to connect in the monring hours and the message was flashed 'registered on CDMA home network'. I was able to run an update. the kernel was updated with 3.0.2 -pae OR something similar (can find out if required). I surfed the net for about 2 hours later before restarting. After the restart, again the Modem was not able to get me online. I kept trying for many times. I tried changing the setting in NM. One evening after dark I was able to connect to network with same message flash 'registered on CDMA home network' (the message was similar, i'm not precise here,sorry). I was able to surf the net for nearly 3 hours before I switched off my Laptop. I'm not able to get online after that day, It's been 3 days now. I'll try the observered theory of late/early hours sometime soon as mentioned below. Laptop configuration : Make: Lenovo Model: B480 Processor: Intel B950 RAM: 4G DDR3 HDD: 500 G Broadcom Wireless/Bluetooth/Ethernet LAN OS: FreeDOS / Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (dualboot) Kernel 3.0.2-pae Obeservation : I'm able to connect to internet in those hours when generally the speed is high (low usage by other network (wireless) users). like in early mornings or late nights. This is strange as connection should not be dependent on bandwidth usage. Any help would be appraciated to fix this issue. before I decide to cahnge the OS or ISP.

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  • Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!-grub rescue

    - by Nimish
    I have windows8 and ubuntu 13.10 installed on my laptop in dual-boot mode.While updating the disk management system my pc got hanged and on restarting it have grub rescue mode prompting on the screen.I tried ls (hd0,msdos_) all the commands but it shows 'unknown file system".i tried booting with ubuntu,boot-repair,superboot live cd but it shows "Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!" and hangs on the screen with two blinking lights.please suggest some help as soon as possible thanks in advance

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  • How to make ad-hoc network connection?

    - by Johan Nathaniel Soedjono
    I can't make ad-hoc from my netbook (Ubuntu 12.04). It has internet source from ethernet. I have tried making from network manager. But it always says 'Wireless Network Disconnected' and can't be detected by neither my other laptop nor my cell phone which have wifi. How can I make adhoc from it? I have already tried making a connection in Network Manager a lot of times, but it still can't connect and appear notification 'Wireless Network Disconnected'.

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  • 10.10 - No wired connection (cable plugged)

    - by Roland Burda
    So, my problem is that I have a recently bought laptop (Dell Inspiron M5040) with Ubuntu 10.10 installed on it, and the wired connection isn't working. The wireless connection is ok, it works. But the LAN isn't being recognized when the cable is plugged in. I've found an article, but I'm not sure whether it is a good approach for my case: http://www.zyxware.com/articles/2680/solved-wired-connection-eth0-not-detected-in-ubuntu-12-04

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  • Boot into Windows after uninstalling Ubuntu (Dual-boot)

    - by user1320771
    I had a Windows 7/Ubuntu dual-boot set up on my laptop. I deleted Ubuntu, and when I load up my computer, I am now met with a screen displaying the following: error: no such partition. grub rescue> How can I have my computer boot straight into Windows 7 again? Solved: I created a win7 system repair disc using another machine, and fixed the problem using the bootrec command within command prompt.

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