- Windows XP SP3 is 10-percent faster but causing endless reboots on AMD chips.
- Powerset semantic search is all over the news.
- FBI is worried about counterfeit chips with backdoors.
- Wii rolls out 6 downloadable games.
- Hackers create social network.
- My thoughts on Geotagging.
- Cigarette machine to do face recognition to check the age of a person.
Right click here and select ‘Save Link As…’ to download the mp3 file.
Which AMD chips specifically? It sounds more like a problem with certain motherboard chipset drivers. I can’t imagine that a bug that affects all processors of a certain socket type could get through testing.
I’m running XP SP3 on an ancient AMD Athlon 500 MHz (K7, Pluto core) as a file server. It works fine. I’ve upgraded all my newer machines to Vista.
SP3 is also causing problems on Windoze machines that have XP installed. I tried to install SP3 yesterday and the installation canceled itself after I got a message stating “Access Denied”. I know there’s a work around but what the heck is wrong with the folks at Mikrosoft? Can’t they get this right BEFORE they put it out to the public??
Obviously there is a lot I don’t know about search engines when I wonder why it isn’t easy enough to come up with a better search algorithm than Google.
I started with Alta Vista; went to Dog Pile; and finally relented to Google. But if another, BETTER, search engine came along, why wouldn’t anyone and everyone migrate? I’d move tomorrow. “Google” means nothing to me. Why aren’t thousands of program-geniuses not emulating Google’s success?
Evolution is a fact of life and there is no reason (I know of) where this shouldn’t apply to a search engine.
The professional video world already has “geotagging.” Specifically versions of the Sony XD Cam, to name one. Imagine shooting scenic footage and, as John mentions, setting up nearly the exact same angle on Google Earth to then follow out a distant river in the monitor to later figure out exactly where and what was just shot. Done that, got the T-shirt.
RBG
There seems to be several possible causes and solutions for the Windows XP SP3 endless reboot cycle according to this blog post: http://tinyurl.com/6zs52d
[Please use TinyUrl.com for overly long URLs. – ed.]
We had to deal with this bug on a customer’s machine last week. For some reason SP3 installs & runs some a service driver for Intel CPUs regardless if the PC runs Intel or AMD. And of course if it runs on an AMD PC it causes the crash.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888372
Here’s the fix:
Workaround — for Non-Intel processor based computers ONLY
1. Enter Safe Mode.
2. Click Start, click Run, and enter this single word into the command bar that opens: CMD
3. In the black box that opens, type (carefully):
sc config intelppm start= disabled
(Note: there is a space after the “=” symbol)
exit
Stop at this Point — Reboot and try Normal mode. If that works, (and it very likely will), do nothing else further to remedy the issue. Be sure to try a reboot to Normal mode several times.
…or should I say “workaround.” Damn copy/paste…
I’ve installed SP3 on two machines, one Intel one AMD, both run clean (and very smoothly I might add). Incidentally both were “clean” installs (scratch installation of XPSP2 immediately followed by SP3). Soon I’ll try an upgrade from a long running XP installation on an AMD platform; I’ll bet the problem occurs there. But so far my experience with SP3 has been only good.
RE: XP SP3… If anyone thinks that this is just a result of MS incompetence, think carefully. What have happened with XP updates last Summer? And than in the Fall? More MS incompetence?
Maybe I am conspiracy theorist but I’d bet that all these problems are intentional, to frustrate XP users into the Vista. I expect worse yet to come…
I did read on one site that the problem only occurs when doing the update through a regular download and install from MS. Apparently some shortcuts were taken since this is only about 319 MB. If you instead download the .iso file (about 554 MB), burn the CD and install from that, all is well.
However, I am still a bit leary, since I do have an AMD processor in my system. I have downloaded the .iso (just google XP SP3 iso and click on the microsoft site) and burned the disc, but I will wait a while before installing.
I did read on one site that the problem only occurs when doing the update through a regular download and install from MS. Apparently some shortcuts were taken since this is only about 319 MB. If you instead download the .iso file (about 554 MB), burn the CD and install from that, all is well.
However, I am still a bit leary, since I do have an AMD processor in my system. I have downloaded the .iso (just google XP SP3 iso and click on the microsoft site) and burned the disc, but I will wait a while before installing.
Here is where I read about this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/12/windows_xp_sp3_reboots_amd/
I love my linux.
>>I can’t imagine that a bug that affects all
>>processors of a certain socket type could get
>>through testing.
Hey, it’s Microsoft “testing”. Anything is possible.
John,
I almost always use the Tech5 link on the left to listen, but I thought I would check out the new tech5.mevio.com page. John’s intro says, in part:
“One or two tidbits alone can make this the most important five minutes of you life. Please subscribe and listen to the report through your iPOD daily.”
“…of you life” ? Normally I let the typos go, because the blog entries scroll off in a day or less, but this is on the intro page…
Also, I thought everyone was getting away from explicit references to iPods and going to the generic “media player”. Whatever.
The story about counterfeit chips and devices (routers, etc.) is a bit scary. We’re used to unreliable and possibly unsafe software, but not to hacked hardware! How can we tell if our devices are safe/secure? Sounds like a question for Security Now!
Also lost a feature in SP3! The Address Bar was removed!
I regularly used the address toolbar on the Start menu bar, along with the quick launch. It was handy to type in addresses of web sites and it would launch ones default browser (skipping the opening page wait). It would also launch exe’s such as notepad or inetmgr. It was what Vista does on its command bar for the most part….
But Microsoft removed it! Some have said it was a legal decision. Bah it launched your specified browser!
Thanks Microsoft!
I’ve not listened to your broadcast nor read the above comments but I would not put it beyond M$ to make this flaw actually a designed on purpose, not that M$ and Intel are that friendly to each other but you never know what deals went on behind the scenes.
I’ve tried everything I found mentioned on the web and can’t resolve my reboot issues. I have an AMD Athlon X2 and a FOXCONN C51XEM2AA-8EKRS2H motherboard. I installed the system from scratch, no intelppm, only Microsoft signed drivers, etc. I tried the no USB mouse, USB drive, disabling everything I could in BIOS, etc.
What I get is a reboot near the time safe mode displays what appears to be the mup.sys driver. It happens so fast I’m not sure that is really the spot. And yes, I tried the F8 – disable auto reboot but that didn’t work either.
To get anywhere, I had to remove my sata DVD, install a pata DVD and then I could get into the recovery console. From there, I used the “batch spuninst.txt” to remove SP3 and rebooted.
But several things were still broken (Network Connections and IPCONFIG to name a few). At this point, while booted normally, I went into Add/Remove Programs and removed SP3 from there too. You can’t remove SP3 enough times apparently. After the reboot, everything appeared to be functioning now.
Except that Microsoft Update wanted to reinfect me with SP3 again. So one last fix… I installed the SPBlocker available from MS. Now I’m immune to the virus code-named SP3, for a year anyway!
I’m really starting to think this just might be a secret Vista sales campaign 😉