Items tagged with issue
Say what you will about Apple (and yes, there's a lot to be said), but the company has proven fairly reliable when it comes to repairing or replacing defective gear over the years. They're even confessing to a "bar issue" on the iPhone 4, which can't be an easy thing to do. The only problem we see here, however, is that they're a few years late in addressing a very real issue, and we have all ideas that most consumers moved on and purchased a replacement from a rival company after their Apple unit broke. The unit we're talking about, of course, is the Time Capsule NAS device. Earlier models had a very real problem where they would simply fail without any rhyme or reason, and up until now, Apple...
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In a business update call earlier this month, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang went on record detailing the impact of certain NVIDIA notebook GPU failures that have been reported and the one time charge the company would have to take against the cost of revenue for Q2 of this year. The blank check was estimated at the time to be in the range of $100 - $150 million for coverage of anticipated warranty, repair and replacement costs of failed product with major notebook manufacturers. As a result, as we reported, NVIDIA's stock tumbled hard on Wall Street to the extent that some analysts were calling it a buy opportunity. Further, NVIDIA's Huang noted on the call, "This...
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Solid-State drives (SSDs) have had a lot of coverage lately, mostly negative. Battery life, performance, reliability, those sorts of things have been under close scrutiny of late. Monday, in Sandisk's earnings call, Sandisk placed the blame for at least one of those issues squarely on Microsoft's shoulders. Eli Harari, Chairman and CEO of Sandisk, when asked about how his company plans to increase adoption rates of SSDs, said (emphasis ours):As soon as you get into Vista applications in notebook and desktop, you start running into very demanding applications because Vista is not optimized for Flash memory solid state disk. And the next generation controllers needs to basically compensate for...
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You'll recall our earlier story on registry corruption for certain users upgrading to Windows XP SP3. The cases of registry corruption seemed to have a common thread: Symantec security products. Originally Symantec blamed Microsoft, but in a post on a Symantec support forum, a a senior manager with Symantec indicated the fault may indeed lie with Symantec's products."After a lot of testing, we've reproduced a number of different cases where applying the XP SP3 upgrade adds additional registry keys within already-existing Symantec registry keys," said Anschultz. "We have determined that the SymProtect feature is involved, though this issue is not exclusive to Symantec customers. To help prevent...
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CNET blogger, Brooke Crothers, reports that AMD is running into compatibility issues with its quad-core Phenom CPU. Some motherboard makers and system builders are mistakingly trying to pair the 125-watt, quad-core Phenon with motherboards that only support the lower-power, 95-watt AMD processors. Crothers includes these quotes from AMD spokesman, Jake Whitman: "They've taken an enthusiast-class quad-core part and paired it with a mainstream motherboard..." "And not all motherboard manufacturers have tweaked their boards to support a 125-watt TDP..." "We've never made claims that 780G motherboards are enthusiast-class motherboards." Enthusiasts and hobbyists have dealt with just these sort...
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Apple patched QuickTime not once, but an amazing eleven times on Wednesday. Some of the patches were to improve stability and compatibility, but there were also some exploits which were found and patched.“It's at least the sixth time Apple has patched QuickTime since October, as researchers and hackers have been closely examining media players for vulnerabilities. As operating systems have become more secure, vulnerabilities in applications have become a favored route to break into a PC.”Apple is notoriously coy with information regarding the specific exploits, but the running rumor is that most of the exploits patched were actually found by Apple themselves....
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It is no secret that Windows Vista had a less than smooth launch, and when it comes to trying to discover the real reasons behind the launch issues everyone seems to point the finger at everyone else. Today, the theory making the media rounds is that NVIDIA was somehow to blame for the major problems:“The main early adopters of Vista were PC enthusiasts; the hardware of choice for PC enthusiasts at the time was NVIDIA G80 GPUs so it would be natural that more crashes would be logged as caused by a NVIDIA driver. Ars Technica also points out that the Microsoft data doesn’t specify if the crashes logged are from multiple machines or a group of particularly error prone computers experiencing...
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What good is a file server if you can't store files on it? Uh, huh. Microsoft has posted a Knowledge Base article, KB946676, which warns of file corruption issues with Windows Home Server. "When you use certain programs to edit files on a home computer that uses Windows Home Server, the files may become corrupted when you save them to the home server," Microsoft said in a support document posted last week. The document went on to list the software, which includes Windows Vista Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, OneNote 2003, OneNote 2007, Outlook 2007, Microsoft Money 2007 and SyncToy 2.0 Beta. Others programs, however, may also corrupt files stored on a home server powered...
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If a product is called the Slide, don't you think you really ought to test the heck out of the "slide" part? Apparently T-Mobile didn't.T-Mobile confirmed Monday that it had temporarily suspended sales of the Sidekick Slide until it can discover why the phone is turning off when the device is opened and closed. The issue is localized to the Slide models, produced by Motorola. The Sharp-produced Sidekick LX and iD are not affected, T-Mobile said. The Slide first disappeared from the carrier's online store late on Friday.We shouldn't limit blame on testing to T-Mobile, of course, since Motorola manufactures the device. Still, it's not a good week for T-Mobile, what with Vodafone's court...
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Despite the well-publicized issues with defective DVDs and BSODs, Apple still managed to sell 2 million copies of Leopard (OS 10.5) on the first weekend.Apple said Tuesday that it sold over two million copies of Mac OS X 10.5, known as Leopard, on Friday when the operating system went on sale and over the weekend. That tally makes Leopard the most successful Mac OS release - at least if looking only at the first weekend.Available for $129 individually and $199 for a five-user license, Leopard introduces over 300 new features, according to Apple, and the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive.Yes, the reviews are quite positive, assuming you can get it to install at all....
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Some users have been having issues with a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) after an installation. Apple has posted a support document on their site, which coincidentally also appears as the top search on the support page, indicating how prevalent the issue is.According to the support document the issue may be related to "third-party 'enhancement' software installed that does not work with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard." The document lists two different solutions.Solution 1: Reinstall Leopard (recommended). It may be necessary to perform an Archive and Install installation of Leopard.Solution 2: Use the command line (advanced) to remove application enhancement software. Try this solution...
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The past 30 days has seen some major events in the global anti-piracy war: Demonoid (operating out of Canada) went off the air for a week or so, both Dutch & U.K. police had major network busts in their respective territories and now it appears that a joint operation have shut down OiNK.“OiNK distributed albums often weeks ahead of their official release date. More than 60 major album releases had been leaked onto the Internet so far this year.The site had an estimated membership of 180,000. People were only invited to become members if they could prove they had music to offer and had to keep posting tracks to maintain their membership.”If the police end up doing a bit of forensics on the...
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For once it's not a Sony battery being recalled, but it is a huge number. 46 million BL-5C batteries made by Matsushita are being recalled by Nokia because of possible overheating. Replacements will, of course, be free. The batteries were manufactured between December 2005 and November 2006. Nokia has identified that in very rare cases the affected batteries could potentially experience over heating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge. Nokia is working closely with relevant local authorities to investigate this situation. Consumers with a BL-5C battery subject to this advisory should note that all of the approximately 100 incidents have occurred...
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It seems that we are learning a little more about AMD’s upcoming Barcelona cores week after week as the launch date nears. A couple of days ago we learned that Barcelona will be launched on September 10. Today we learned that Barcelona’s full power-saving features will not function unless users get a new BIOS update and a supported motherboard. It might mean buying a whole new mobo for those who want to take full advantage of Barcelona’s features. “It seems the CPU itself is capable of engaging in CoolCore operations, but not Dual Dynamic Power Management (formerly “Split Plane,” which allowed each core to operate independently with different voltages and clock speeds). It won’t be able to...
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It's amazing that there are still Sony batteries in the world left that have not been recalled. Or at least, it seems that way. Today Toshiba annunced its second recall of Sony batteries in a month. This time around, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says 1,400 of the lithium-ion batteries containing Sony-made cells sold with Toshiba laptops pose a fire hazard. There have been three reports of models with those batteries overheating in other countries, but none of the incidents caused injury, according to the CPSC. The good news, if there can be any, is that the numbers keep going down. The second recall was 10,000 batteries, this time only 1,400. The model numbers for...
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That was fast. Only a day after introducing their new line of aluminum and glass iMacs, Apple has released updates for them. The updates were only vaguely identified as providing "important bug fixes." Owners of the day-old 20-in. and 24-in. iMacs should install iMac Software Update 1.0, Apple said in a terse message accompanying the 5.1MB download, but it didn't spell out the exact fixes. Some users on various Apple-oriented message forums claimed updated ATI video drivers were among the changes, but Apple did not respond when queried for details.As is the norm after a hardware refresh, Apple also posted a new version of Boot Camp, the free-of-charge dual boot utility that's still...
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In a recent business update call earlier this month, NVIDIA CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang went on record to address the company's high failure rate problem with respect to certain mobile GPU designs and the charges against the cost of revenue for Q2 that are anticipated to cover warranty, repair or return of the product. The blank check was estimated to cost NVIDIA $150 - $200 million and as as a result NVIDIA's stock tumbled hard on Wall Street. Fast forward to Friday last week and it looks like Dell has set the wheels in motion with respect to a more detailed notification and service program that will help bail their customers out...
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In a business update call earlier this month, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang went on record detailing the impact of certain NVIDIA notebook GPU failures that have been reported and the one time charge the company would have to take against the cost of revenue for Q2 of this year. The blank check was estimated at the time to be in the range of $100 - $150 million for coverage of anticipated warranty, repair and replacement costs of failed product with major notebook manufacturers. As a result, as we reported, NVIDIA's stock tumbled hard on Wall Street to the extent that some analysts were calling it a buy opportunity. Further, NVIDIA's Huang noted on the call, "This...
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MediaDefender, a company that provides anti-piracy solutions, has been accused of setting up a fake pirate site called MiiVi.According to reports from around the web, the site offered unlimited free movie downloads once users downloaded their software package.The software package is said to contain spyware that supposedly reports existing media on the computer of any unsuspected downloader.Given that MediaDefender is involved on some level with both the RIAA and MPAA, both of whom are involved in litigation against pirates, such an act might be frowned upon when it comes time for lawyers to explain how they got their evidence.MediaDefender CEO, Randy Saaf, is now claiming that the whole thing...
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Care to guess how many computer viruses, thefts, hacker break-ins, and other security issues the Department Of Homeland Security has suffered over the past 2 years? If you guessed over 800, you're a right! "In one instance, hacker tools for stealing passwords and other files were found on two internal Homeland Security computer systems. The agency's headquarters sought forensic help from the department's own Security Operations Center and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team it operates with Carnegie Mellon University.In other cases, computer workstations in the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration were infected with malicious software detected trying to communicate...
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People have been breaking Nintendo controllers for years now, though now it isn't always out of anger. The Wii's wireless remote-style controller can be as much of a hazard as it is fun, slipping out of hands and into just about anything in the area. TVs, laptops, and even a few faces have all found themselves victims of flying Wiimotes. Nintendo has recently given some Wii safety advice, such as using small hands movements, instead of flailing your arms around, and always keep your hands dry. "There is even one site, Wiihaveaproblem.com, dedicated to chronicling tales of Wii-related carnage. On Wednesday, the site's damage toll included...
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NGOHQ is reporting that Creative Labs is blaming NVIDIA for cracking and other sound quality issues when an X-Fi sound card is installed in an nForce 4 motherboard. This reminds me of the good ol' days of installing the PCI Latency patch on VIA chipset-based motherboards when using a Creative Labs sound card. "We have observed through direct observation of the PCI bus on the nVidia nForce 4 motherboards that when the crackle symptoms are occuring, the Soundblaster X-Fi card PCI bus master memory requests for audio data are being held off (not serviced) for very long intervals. We have observed peak holdoffs of up to 2 milliseconds in...
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