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• Microsoft Ergonomic 7000 keyboard + mouse lag

  - by user115210

  I recently bought a new Microsoft Ergonomic 7000 keyboard. I started to use it with my Ubuntu 12.04 and it lags all the time. I try to be more specific: Even on a minor CPU usage the mouse lags. By minor I mean firefox loading a webpage, or opening an application like conky, gnome-terminal etc. When higher CPU usage occurs the keyboard is lagging too, but by this I mean it misses my hits, so what I type won't appear later. What I tried so far (and did not work)? Disable autosuspend (echo -1 to sys/bus/usb.../autosuspend) and at the same place set level to "on". I have tried several video drivers: Vesa, radeon, newest catalyst (and catalyst beta too) When my keyboard and/or mouse lags I tried an other USB keyboard which works perfectly and the same for the mouse. I tried the keyboard and mouse on a different computer with Linux (Ubuntu, Arch, OpenSuse) too, the same problem appears but not on Windows. I tried to replace the battery sets, and to change channel on the dongle. And also tried to use the dongle from other USB ports. On the same time I am able to use any other wireless mouse. I changed the XkbModel to "microsoft7000" but it did not solve anything. About the hardware: AMD A8 3870K - Radeon HD6550D 8 GB of memory 4 GB of swap (which is almost never used) Here are my PC's details: lsusb: Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 007 Device 002: ID 045e:071d Microsoft Corp. Bus 005 Device 002: ID 0461:4ea7 Primax Electronics, Ltd lspci: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h Processor Root Complex 00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI BeaverCreek [Radeon HD 6550D] 00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 40) 00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB OHCI Controller (rev 11) 00:12.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB EHCI Controller (rev 11) 00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB OHCI Controller (rev 11) 00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB EHCI Controller (rev 11) 00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson SMBus Controller (rev 13) 00:14.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson IDE Controller 00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson Azalia Controller (rev 01) 00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson LPC Bridge (rev 11) 00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson PCI Bridge (rev 40) 00:14.5 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB OHCI Controller (rev 11) 00:15.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 43a0 00:15.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 43a1 00:16.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB OHCI Controller (rev 11) 00:16.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Hudson USB EHCI Controller (rev 11) 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 0 (rev 43) 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 1 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 2 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 3 00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 4 00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 6 00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 5 00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 7 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06) dmesg | tail -n 150: http://pastebin.com/sGUAAiUe cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log: http://pastebin.com/fny7ZkN4 Note: The Icon7 Twister Evolution is the replacement mouse to use.

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• Why would GLCapabilities.setHardwareAccelerated(true/false) have no effect on performance?

  - by Luke

  I've got a JOGL application in which I am rendering 1 million textures (all the same texture) and 1 million lines between those textures. Basically it's a ball-and-stick graph. I am storing the vertices in a vertex array on the card and referencing them via index arrays, which are also stored on the card. Each pass through the draw loop I am basically doing this: gl.glBindBuffer(GL.GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, <buffer id>); gl.glBindBuffer(GL.GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, <buffer id>); gl.glDrawElements(GL.GL_POINTS, <size>, GL.GL_UNSIGNED_INT, 0); gl.glBindBuffer(GL.GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, <buffer id>); gl.glBindBuffer(GL.GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, <buffer id>); gl.glDrawElements(GL.GL_LINES, <size>, GL.GL_UNSIGNED_INT, 0); I noticed that the JOGL library is pegging one of my CPU cores. Every frame, the run method internal to the library is taking quite long. I'm not sure why this is happening since I have called setHardwareAccelerated(true) on the GLCapabilities used to create my canvas. What's more interesting is that I changed it to setHardwareAccelerated(false) and there was no impact on the performance at all. Is it possible that my code is not using hardware rendering even when it is set to true? Is there any way to check? EDIT: As suggested, I have tested breaking my calls up into smaller chunks. I have tried using glDrawRangeElements and respecting the limits that it requests. All of these simply resulted in the same pegged CPU usage and worse framerates. I have also narrowed the problem down to a simpler example where I just render 4 million textures (no lines). The draw loop then just doing this: gl.glEnableClientState(GL.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glEnableClientState(GL.GL_INDEX_ARRAY); gl.glClear(GL.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL.GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); gl.glMatrixMode(GL.GL_MODELVIEW); gl.glLoadIdentity(); <... Camera and transform related code ...> gl.glEnableVertexAttribArray(0); gl.glEnable(GL.GL_TEXTURE_2D); gl.glAlphaFunc(GL.GL_GREATER, ALPHA_TEST_LIMIT); gl.glEnable(GL.GL_ALPHA_TEST); <... Bind texture ...> gl.glBindBuffer(GL.GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, <buffer id>); gl.glBindBuffer(GL.GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, <buffer id>); gl.glDrawElements(GL.GL_POINTS, <size>, GL.GL_UNSIGNED_INT, 0); gl.glDisable(GL.GL_TEXTURE_2D); gl.glDisable(GL.GL_ALPHA_TEST); gl.glDisableVertexAttribArray(0); gl.glFlush(); Where the first buffer contains 12 million floats (the x,y,z coords of the 4 million textures) and the second (element) buffer contains 4 million integers. In this simple example it is simply the integers 0 through 3999999. I really want to know what is being done in software that is pegging my CPU, and how I can make it stop (if I can). My buffers are generated by the following code: gl.glBindBuffer(GL.GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, <buffer id>); gl.glBufferData(GL.GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, <size> * BufferUtil.SIZEOF_FLOAT, <buffer>, GL.GL_STATIC_DRAW); gl.glVertexAttribPointer(0, 3, GL.GL_FLOAT, false, 0, 0); and: gl.glBindBuffer(GL.GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, <buffer id>); gl.glBufferData(GL.GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, <size> * BufferUtil.SIZEOF_INT, <buffer>, GL.GL_STATIC_DRAW); ADDITIONAL INFO: Here is my initialization code: gl.setSwapInterval(1); //Also tried 0 gl.glShadeModel(GL.GL_SMOOTH); gl.glClearDepth(1.0f); gl.glEnable(GL.GL_DEPTH_TEST); gl.glDepthFunc(GL.GL_LESS); gl.glHint(GL.GL_PERSPECTIVE_CORRECTION_HINT, GL.GL_FASTEST); gl.glPointParameterfv(GL.GL_POINT_DISTANCE_ATTENUATION, POINT_DISTANCE_ATTENUATION, 0); gl.glPointParameterfv(GL.GL_POINT_SIZE_MIN, MIN_POINT_SIZE, 0); gl.glPointParameterfv(GL.GL_POINT_SIZE_MAX, MAX_POINT_SIZE, 0); gl.glPointSize(POINT_SIZE); gl.glTexEnvf(GL.GL_POINT_SPRITE, GL.GL_COORD_REPLACE, GL.GL_TRUE); gl.glEnable(GL.GL_POINT_SPRITE); gl.glClearColor(clearColor.getX(), clearColor.getY(), clearColor.getZ(), 0.0f); Also, I'm not sure if this helps or not, but when I drag the entire graph off the screen, the FPS shoots back up and the CPU usage falls to 0%. This seems obvious and intuitive to me, but I thought that might give a hint to someone else.

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• SQL Server 2008 Hardware Recommendation;

  - by Jay

  Hi,I work for a large fortune 500 company. We have several SQL 2005 Servers running on DELL Poweredge 2950 with 8 GB RAM and 4 CPU's. Storage is DMX RAID 10. We are in the process of migrating to sql 2008. We are planning on consolidating multiple sql 2005 into single SQL 2008 Server.If anyone can suggest hardware I would appreciate. We have looked at DELL R710, I was wondering if there are other servers that are good for running SQL 2008. Thanks

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• Other user SSHed from my hardware

  - by Alex

  While logged into our HPC cluster I used w to check out who else was logged in. I happened to notice that it looks like there's another user logged in from my (personal) computer; 19:04:47 up 40 days, 6:39, 44 users, load average: 0.10, 0.14, 0.18 USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT ME pts/4 zerg.neuron12. 18:55 0.00s 0.09s 0.04s w SOMEONE_ELSE pts/35 zerg.neuron12. Sat14 2:27m 0.08s 0.08s -bash Is this something I should be worried out - I tried to kill the other session but had a permission denied message. Is it possible we just both have the same hardware name? I'd have thought that if this were the case the server would give one of us a different name (e.g. zerg1) when we logged in to prevent confusion. This is not an area I have any experience with, so any advice would be greatly appreciated!

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• GRUB Problem or Hardware Problem?

  - by Nikit Batale

  I have Windows XP Professional and Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 on dual boot. I often get a GRUB loading failed error during boot-up. Or sometimes, when I try to boot into either Ubuntu or XP, I get a Could not read from source error. Now this is funny. After getting one of the above errors, if I simply unplug the SATA cable from Hard Drive end and plug it again, the problem gets solved. So what and whose problem is it? GRUB or My Hardware ? P.S.: I was suggested on StackOverflow that ServerFault is the right place for this question.

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• Text Terminal Hardware (for Linux)

  - by DLH

  Is there any way to obtain a hardware text terminal (preferably small in size) with a screen and a keypad to connect to a Linux machine (preferably via usb)? I'd like to be able to log into a command line and do some work there while simultaneously running a graphical environment on the main display. It seems like there should be some kind of lcd screen and qwerty keypad device designed for this purpose. Does this exist, and how do I get one? Edit: I'd be happy with a small networked device as well, as long as I could get a remote terminal into my computer.

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• Database Server Hardware components (order of importance), CPU speed VS CPU cache vs RAM vs DISK

  - by nulltorpedo

  I am new to database world and would like to know what are crucial hardware specs when it comes to database performance. I have searched the internet and found this so far (In order of decreasing importance): 1) Hard Disk: Get an SSD basically (much more IOPS than spinners) 2) Memory: Get as much as you can afford 3) CPU: For the same $ spent, prefer larger cache size over speed. Are these findings sensible? EDIT: I would like to focus on CPU speed VS CPU cache size. EDIT2: The database is used to store some combination of ints and int arrays with few text fields. There are a lot of Select queries looking for existing entries. If entry is not found, then insert it. I would say most of processing would be trying to find a match across a table with 200 columns and 20k rows. The insert statements are very few. EDIT3: Also, we have a lot of views (basically select queries).

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• Autonegotiate errors between HP and Cisco hardware?

  - by Satanicpuppy

  This is a bit of a specific extension to this question. I've got two ASA's that feed into a Procurve switch, and then into an IPS. All is well except that the procurve absolutely refuses to autonegotiate with the ASA's...The asa's run 100full, and the procurve autonegotiates to 100half. It does it for both ASA's, so it's probably not a failure on one of them, and everything works fine if I force the procurve to 100full. Has anyone else seen this issue? I've been buying more HP hardware, but I'm not keen on getting equipment that's not going to play nice with my Cisco backbone.

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• Can't change Hyper Terminal Hardware Settings

  - by Tim

  Anyone here any good with Hyperterminal? Am having a nightmare trying to use it at work to update our telephone extensions. The company who supply our PABX box have told me that XP does strange things to Hyperterminal and that I should use Win2k. Which I did with the same result. I have narrowed the problem dowwn to the Hardware Settings for the connection in Hyper Terminal. No matter what I set (and I need 7E1) it defaults back to 8N1. Has anyone seen this behaviour before and know of a simple way around it? (Apart from buying a more expensive commercial version of Hyper Terminal, as suggested by our support people). Edit: I should point out I have to connect via a phone line so a direct serial connection is not an option. Cheers Tim

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• Clonezilla , NLite and PCs with different hardware specs..

  - by r2b2

  Hi, I used Clonezilla to create and restore images from a master computer to other workstations with the same specs. But the problem now is there are new computers whose hardware specs are different than the ones I maintained (mostly the videocard is different). Is it possible to create a customize Windows XP installer using Nlite and integrate all potential videocard and motherboard drivers ? If I then used this NLite ISO to install to a master computer which i will later clone and restore the image to other workstations, will windows xp still pick up the correct driver set? During XP installation, does the installer transfers all the drivers to the computer's harddisk? Thanks! Ryan

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• Alsa hardware volume with PulseAudio

  - by Jan Hudec

  Before installing pulseaudio, I was able to control volume for the front (meaning on the front panel, the "headphone" jack) and rear (meaning on the back panel, the "line out" jack) separately. When I installed pulseaudio, it became possible to control volume for each playing process separately, but the individual controls for outputs disappeared. While the default device in alsa now routes via pulseaudio, the sysdefault device provides access to the hardware. But kmix does not seem to let me show them now. Is there any way to beat kmix into showing the sysdefault device too? Or something else X-based that would not fight with kmix too much? The system is Debian Jessie (testing) amd64, updated, KDE version 4:4.13.3-1.

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• Configure Ubuntu9.10 to see hardware of my laptop

  - by michael

  I have installed Ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop. But it can't see all the hardware of the laptop. I would like some help. my laptop has 8G (in Windows7), but Ubuntu only see 2.9G (I get this value from System Monitor under Resource tab my laptop can have 1600x900 resolution (it works in Windows7), but i can only set to 1280x800 in Ubunutu my wireless card does not work. But my wired connection works. Can you please help me in configuring my Ubuntu environment?

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• spurious hardware memory 'errors' on hp dl380 g5's being generated

  - by friedchicken

  Hi All, i've got 2 new HP dl380g5 servers running HP's esxi4 patched to 219382. they have both been patched up to the latest hp firmware levels (firmware cd 8.7) both are running 32gb (4 x 8gb sticks) both servers are showing the same symptoms - the memory lights come on for two (random) dimms on the front of the server and the health led turns red. sometimes the server stays up and running with no problems. othertimes the server locks dead and only a power reset can bring it back. there is nothing showing in the ilo logs and nothing within the vmware hardware monitoring. the memory has been replaced i've got other customers that have been running dl380g5's with out any issues on esx3.5 - this is our first vsphere deployment with them. these are meant to go live soon so any advice would be great. thanks in advance.

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• Best DSL hardware for ADSL Troubleshooting

  - by Jeff Sacksteder

  I have a situation where I need to make the best of a bad DSL situation. The CPE is a black box with no access to DSL diagnostics. My plan is to get some sort of DSL hardware that exposes link-layer state and gives me knobs to tweak. I'd like to be able to mitigate bufferbloat as much as I can while I'm at it. The obvious choice would seem to be a Sangoma card in a linux system. I have no way of knowing if that will do anything for me without testing it, however. I have no other access to WAN troubleshooting equipment. Are there any other options avail to me as a consumer?

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• Clonezilla , NLite and PCs with different hardware specs

  - by r2b2

  I used Clonezilla to create and restore images from a master computer to other workstations with the same specs. But the problem now is there are new computers whose hardware specs are different than the ones I maintained (mostly the videocard is different). Is it possible to create a customize Windows XP installer using Nlite and integrate all potential videocard and motherboard drivers ? If I then used this NLite ISO to install to a master computer which i will later clone and restore the image to other workstations, will windows xp still pick up the correct driver set? During XP installation, does the installer transfers all the drivers to the computer's harddisk? Thanks! Ryan

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• Setting up Multiple Routers (as Hardware Firewalls) behind a Home Router

  - by Synetech

  I’ve currently got one computer behind a router with built-in firewall functionality, connected to a home cable-modem that has a single Ethernet port and one IP. I’m going to have to set up another computer for the rest of the family to use which of course will need to be connected to the Internet, probably wirelessly since the modem is in my room and the new system would not be. What I would like to do is to get two more small routers with firewall capability and connect each computer to a router, which would in turn connect to the main router which connects to the cable-modem. That way, both systems have a hardware firewall protecting them (particularly the wireless system) and the burden of blocking would be reduced on both the computer CPUs and the main router because the secondary routers would handle some of the workload. I’m trying to find out about the complexities inherent in this design and how I could set it up to work, specifically the IP handling and NAT aspect. Thanks a lot.

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• Detecting hardware and installing drivers in Windows XP

  - by JL.

  I have on my desk a computer that I am reinstalling. I have just completed the Windows XP install , which is professional service pack 3. I have also installed an AV package. Now it is time to install the audio and display drivers. Windows Update does not detect the Display card, and neither the audio device. I really have no idea what devices are present in this system, and I am thinking of opening the case, and reading some IDs from the cards themselves. Before I do this, is there not some kind of tool that can automatically detect hardware and install drivers automatically. If not then at least tell me what devices are present, with some real descriptions, so I can search for drivers.

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• Graphics drivers could not find compatible graphics hardware

  - by selak

  I have a desktop with Asus P5KPS/EPU motherboard and Nvidia GF 9600 GT Graphic Adapter. I just set up new windows 7. My problem is that I cannot find a good dirver for my Graphic Adapter. I've downloaded driver from Nvidia.com which say support my GF 9600 GT, but when I installed it, it said This graphics drivers could not find compatible graphics hardware. I go into safe mode, uninstall Standard Graphics Adapter that auto installed then install my Nvidia driver, still not work. Anyone can show me how to solve this problem?

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• ESXI with non standard hardware HDD issues

  - by Hurricanepkt

  I have 3 very underutilized servers that I am condensing to one of those shuttle PC's with VMWare ESXi The HDD seems to be the bottle neck right now (the light is almost always pure solid) right now I have a single 1TB Seagate 7200.11 connected by SATA. VMWare ESXi cannot detect it when running in AHCI mode, but does when running in IDE mode. I have read that IDE mode can give a 5% performance hit which might give me enough breathing room. However, I am open to setting up an external eSATA or some sort of raid to give me more than just the 5%. I am just weary of sinking some money into a bit of hardware without knowledge of whether it will work. Does anyone know of resources or procedures of how to get this working.

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• Removing integrated video card drivers broke other hardware?

  - by jsnlxndrlv

  I just purchased and installed an XFX ATI Radeon HD 4650 video card. The installation instructions said to remove the old video card drivers before installing the new driver. I did both things, but now every time I start my computer, the Found New Hardware wizard pops up for the following three devices: PCI Device SM Bus Controller Other PCI Bridge Device Furthermore, my LAN port no longer functions. The cable's connected, and the light on the port comes on, but the computer can't find any servers when I attempt to connect with it. The modem and router are working, and obviously I'm able to use the other computer here to post this. What do I do to fix this?

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• Does programmable hardware exist to allow hardware to be programmed by computers?

  - by agentbanks217

  I am a programmer and I have never really dealt with the hardware of anything, only software. I want to start building things that I can control from my computer using programming. My question is are there such devices on the market that have a programmable interface or API? For example, I want to build an automated window blinds opening/closing device, and I would like to be able to control it from my computer e.g. writing an app or some code to schedule them when to open and close. I would like to know if there are any devices that can be programmed to do that (the computer part)?

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• Mavericks Server Hardware suggestion [on hold]

  - by crystalWing

  I am an application developer in a small company. Recently, my boss asked me to setup a server for another company owned by him. He has 2 latest MAC PRO and he can provide me any hardware I want. He listed the following requirements: Failover is a must Should be capable to handle 20 vpn connections at the same time RAID 5 Remote Copy of backup data to different loaction I know this is a generic question that I shuoldn't ask here, but I really need help because comparing to Linux and MS server. There are not many resources available online. I read the APPLE PRO TRAINING book but it tells nothing about the above requirements.

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• GDB hardware watchpoint very slow - why?

  - by Laurynas Biveinis

  On a large C application, I have set a hardware watchpoint on a memory address as follows: (gdb) watch *((int*)0x12F5D58) Hardware watchpoint 3: *((int*)0x12F5D58) As you can see, it's a hardware watchpoint, not software, which would explain the slowness. Now the application running time under debugger has changed from less than ten seconds to one hour and counting. The watchpoint has triggered three times so far, the first time after 15 minutes when the memory page containing the address was made readable by sbrk. Surely during those 15 minutes the watchpoint should have been efficient since the memory page was inaccessible? And that still does not explain, why it's so slow afterwards. The GDB is $ gdb --version GNU gdb (GDB) 7.0-ubuntu [...] Thanks in advance for any ideas as what might be the cause or how to fix/work around it.

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• Google Chrome hardware acceleration making game run slow

  - by powerc9000

  So I have been working on a game in HTML5 canvas and noticed that the games lags and performs much slower when hardware acceleration is turned on in Google Chrome then when it is turned off. You can try for yourself here From doing some profiling I see that the problem lies in drawImage. More specifically drawing one canvas onto another. I do a lot of this. Hardware Acceleration on. Hardware Acceleration off. Is there something fundamental I am missing with one canvas to another? Why would the difference be that profound?

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• First PC Build (Part 1)

  - by Anthony Trudeau

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tonyt/archive/2014/08/05/157959.aspxA couple of months ago I made the decision to build myself a new computer. The intended use is gaming and for using the last real version of Photoshop. I was motivated by the poor state of console gaming and a simple desire to do something I haven’t done before – build a PC from the ground up. I’ve been using PCs for more than two decades. I’ve replaced a component hear and there, but for the last 10 years or so I’ve only used laptops. Therefore, this article will be written from the perspective of someone familiar with PCs, but completely new at building. I’m not an expert and this is not a definitive guide for building a PC, but I do hope that it encourages you to try it yourself. Component List Research There was a lot of research necessary, because building a PC is completely new to me, and I haven’t kept up with what’s out there. The first thing you want to do is nail down what your goals are. Your goals are going to be driven by what you want to do with your computer and personal choice. Don’t neglect the second one, because if you’re doing this for fun you want to get what you want. In my case, I focused on three things: performance, longevity, and aesthetics. The performance aspect is important for gaming and Photoshop. This will drive what components you get. For example, heavy gaming use is going to drive your choice of graphics card. Longevity is relevant to me, because I don’t want to be changing things out anytime soon for the next hot game. The consequence of performance and longevity is cost. Finally, aesthetics was my next consideration. I could have just built a box, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun for me. Aesthetics might not be important to you. They are for me. I also like gadgets and that played into at least one purchase for this build. I used PC Part Picker to put together my component list. I found it invaluable during the process and I’d recommend it to everyone. One caveat is that I wouldn’t trust the compatibility aspects. It does a pretty good job of not steering you wrong, but do your own research. The rest of it isn’t really sexy. I started out with what appealed to me and then I made changes and additions as I dived deep into researching each component and interaction I could find. The resources I used are innumerable. I used reviews, product descriptions, forum posts (praises and problems), et al. to assist me. I also asked friends into gaming what they thought about my component list. And when I got near the end I posted my list to the Reddit /r/buildapc forum. I cannot stress the value of extra sets of eyeballs and first hand experiences. Some of the resources I used: PC Part Picker Tom’s Hardware bit-tech Reddit Purchase PC Part Picker favors certain vendors. You should look at others too. In my case I found their favorites to be the best. My priorities were out-the-door price and shipping time. I knew that once I started getting parts I’d want to start building. Luckily, I timed it well and everything arrived within the span of a few days. Here are my opinions on the vendors I ended up using in alphabetical order. Amazon.com is a good, reliable choice. They have excellent customer service in my experience, and I knew I wouldn’t have trouble with them. However, shipping time is often a problem when you use their free shipping unless you order expensive items (I’ve found items over $100 ship quickly). Ultimately though, price wasn’t always the best and their collection of sales tax in my state turned me off them. I did purchase my case from them. I ordered the mouse as well, but I cancelled after it was stuck four days in a “shipping soon” state. I purchased the mouse locally. Best Buy is not my favorite place to do business. There’s a lot of history with poor, uninterested sales representatives and they used to have a lot of bad anti-consumer policies. That’s a lot better now, but the bad taste is still in my mouth. I ended up purchasing the accessories from them including mouse (locally) and headphones. NCIX is a company that I’ve never heard of before. It popped up as a recommendation for my CPU cooler on PC Part Picker. I didn’t do a lot of research on the company, because their policy on you buying insurance for your orders turned me off. That policy makes it clear to me that the company finds me responsible for the shipment once it leaves their dock. That’s not right, and may run afoul of state laws. Regardless they shipped my CPU cooler quickly and I didn’t have a problem. NewEgg.com is a well known company. I had never done business with them, but I’m glad I did. They shipped quickly and provided good visibility over everything. The prices were also the best in most cases. My main complaint is that they have a lot of exchange only return policies on components. To their credit those policies are listed in the cart underneath each item. The visibility tells me that they’re not playing any shenanigans and made me comfortable dealing with that risk. The vast majority of what I ordered came from them. Coming Next In the next part I’ll tackle my build experience.

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