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Old May 12th 11, 02:50 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.gigabyte
Ben Myers[_4_]
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Posts: 479
Default Lockup playing AVI file with pivoted display

On May 12, 9:40*am, Russell May wrote:
On Thu, 12 May 2011 03:50:36 -0700 (PDT), Bob Villa

wrote:
Russ, what is your need in pivoting your display on this admitted
antique? You have so many variables here...old architecture being one
of them.


I am writing a program for a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), and
I do some of the work at home. It is a larger design than what I have
done previously and has taken much longer than I expected. I felt a
desire for more pixels at work because the schematic and text portions
of the design are large. So I comandeered an unused 1600x1200 display
(Dell 2007FP) there. I liked it so much that I bought a used one for
home. I use the pivot mode most of the time because it is better for
editing the schematic diagrams and especially the text files. I also
like pivoted mode better for most other purposes.

Playing an AVI file in pivot mode at home is definitely optional. It
just keeps me from having to un-pivot (is that a word?) the monitor
back to normal for playing an AVI file.

The new CPU is also related to some of this. My computer at work is
about 2.5X as fast as the one at home. I was also using an MS-DOS
program for simulating mathematical aspects of the design. I found
having both the MS-DOS and FPGA compiler (Altera Quartus II) in memory
doubled the already-long compile time at home. Compile times at home
were getting onerous. I considered replacing the computer at home with
a new one with Intel 2600 or 2600K CPU until Intel found a significant
bug in the chipset. Motherboards and systems were withdrawn and Intel
estimated $700 million to fix the bug. AFAIK it still hasn't been
fixed. I thought a CPU with hyper-threading would stop doubling the
compile time because my computer at work, which has a dual-core CPU,
did not exhibit this. I thought a faster CPU would also help me to
play 720p MKV files. So I bought and installed a used 3.06GHz CPU, the
only Northwood CPU with hyper-threading. It reduced compile time
slightly without the MS-DOS program in memory, stopped doubling the
compile time when the MS-DOS program was also in memory, and
sucessfully plays 720p MKV files too.

One more experiment: I played a two-hour AVI file from an internal IDE
hard drive using VLC with the monitor pivoted. There was no lockup. So
the IRQ shared by the video board and eSATA controller board might be
related to the lockup when I play AVI files from the external eSATA
drive.

Russ


Intel fixed the bug in its new chipset. I can't speak for i7
desktops, but a Lenovo Thinkpad T410 with an Intel i7 I sold to a
client recently is downright awesome for quad-core computing power AND
for low electrical power consumption... Ben Myers