Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Laptop screen shows strange colors.

The main step is testing how laptop outputs video on an external monitor (or TV).
You can connect your laptop to an external monitor using VGA cable, DVI cable, HDMI cable or S-Video cable, it depends on a type of connector you have on the laptop. Most laptops have VGA connector, so it would be the most common way to connect.
In my example I’m connecting to an external monitor via VGA connector
ome laptops detect external monitor automatically and start showing image on both screens right from startup.
Other laptops can detect the monitor but display image only on one screen (internal or external). In this case you’ll have to switch video between internal and external using the Fn key and one of the F* keys in the top row of the keyboard. This combination varies for different laptop brands, for example it’s Fn+F5 for Toshiba, Fn+F4 for HP, Fn+F8 for Dell, Fn+F7 Lenovo etc…
If both, the internal screen and external monitor (or TV) show strange or incorrect colors or any other image distortion, this is the graphics card failure.
If only the laptop screen shows strange colors or any other distortion but external image appears to be normal (as in my example), the problem is somewhere inside the laptop display. It could be bad connection, bad LCD cable or bad LCD screen.
Let’s narrow down the problem one by one.
The laptop screen receives data signal from the motherboard via LCD cable. If the LCD cable not making good connection with the motherboard, it might cause image or color distortion on the screen. Try reseating the LCD cable connector and see if it fixes the problem. Make sure the LCD cable connector plugged correctly.
In most laptops the LCD cable connector located under the keyboard bezel (aka keyboard cover). If it’s not there, most likely you’ll find it somewhere under the keyboard.
The LCD cable runs inside the laptop display, under the LCD screen. For this test it’s necessary to disassemble the display, so you can access the cable.
A pinched or damaged wire inside the LCD cable also can cause color distortion.

Try wiggling the LCD cable while the laptop is running. If wiggling the LCD cable affects image on the screen in any way (it starts shown different colors, lines, or image clears to normal, etc…) most likely the LCD cable is defective and has to be replaced. Try replacing the cable.
On the other hand, if wiggling the cable doesn’t affect image on the screen at all, most likely the cable is good and your problem related to the LCD screen failure. In this case you’ll have to replace the LCD screen.
Try applying some reasonable pressure to the top part of the display assembly. Squeeze it with your fingers
If the screen starts showing different colors, lines, or clears to normal when you squeeze the top part of the display panel, most likely this is LCD screen failure. In this case you’ll have to replace the LCD screen.

iPhone Troubleshooting: How to Restart, quit frozen apps and Reset iPhone

'm starting to think there is some sort of bad luck attached to my iTunes Store account, as tonight I experienced the third iTunes Store song that completely locked up an iPod - only this time it was my iPhone. While listening to 'Again with the Subtleties' from the Yppah album You Are Beautiful At All Times (US iTunes link) in my iPhone's iPod app, the phone completely locked up at the end of the track with an almost-faded out display. What was worse, the iPhone became completely unresponsive - the display wouldn't accept any of my taps, and even the external buttons were ignored. Momentarily wishing I could simply yank the battery to cut the power and reset the phone, I realized Apple must have some sort of a contingency in place for lock-ups like these.

Fortunately, I was right: The iPhone troubleshooting section of Apple's main iPhone support site contains a walkthrough for situations like this, complete with instructions on how to restart the phone, force quit a frozen app or reset the phone in cases like mine where it has completely locked up. Here are these steps in a nutshell:
    Restart your iPhone: Most people probably already know how to do this, but just in case, you can simply hold the sleep/wake button on the top for a few seconds to bring up a red slider at the top of the display which allows you to power off the phone.
    Quit a frozen iPhone app: I know it's a crazy thought, but it is entirely possible that Apple's wondrous iPhone apps can lock up from time to time. In this case, simply hold the Home button when in the app for about 6 seconds to kill the app. You should be able to jump back into the app without restarting the phone itself.
    Reset your iPhone: Note that this is not Restoring your iPhone; that's the button in iTunes that wipes the iPhone and all your information on it. Resetting an iPhone is nothing more than a hard reset or a forced reboot - you're simply cutting the power and making it reboot. To do this, hold the sleep/wake button and Home buttons simultaneously for a few seconds; the display will quickly wipe itself and you should see the black background and white Apple logo, signifying a reset well done.

Fortunately, that reset fixed my problem and I'm jamming again with my iPhone as I write this. Still, you can be sure that I'll ping iTunes support to find out what's going on with these files, as this is the third one I've downloaded from the iTS that's caused an iPod to stop dead in its tracks. Anyone else experience something like this? You know where to sound off.

How to test LCD screen inverter in a laptop

The screen inverter failure is very similar to the backlight lamp failure. In both cases the screen gets very dark and the image on the screen becomes very faint, barely visible under a bright light.
If you suspect the inverter board failure, I know only one reliable way to test that. It’s either replacing the inverter board with a known good one and see if it works, or connecting a known good backlight lamp and see if your presumably bad inverter lights it up.
In most cases I go with the second method – testing the laptop with a known good backlight lamp. Why? Because backlight lamps are pretty much universal. The same backlight lamp will work with many different inverters as long as they have matching connectors. I’ll talk about these connectors later.
The inverter board is located inside the display panel under the LCD screen. In most laptops you can access the inverter board if you remove the LCD screen bezel. The inverter board has connectors on both ends. The left side of the inverter is connected to the LCD cable. The right side of the inverter is connected to the backlight lamp which is mounted inside the LCD screen.
To make sure that inverter board is getting power from the motherboard (via the LCD cable), you can test it with a multimeter. In my case I connected the “+” lead of the multimeter to the pin 1 on the connector and the “-” lead to the ground trace around the screw hole. I got about 19.4V DC on that side of the inverter, so it’s getting power from the motherboard.
WARNING! If you accidentally short something on the inverter while testing it, you can damage the inverter or even the motherboard. Proceed on your own risk! Not sure? Don’t do that!

So, the inverter is getting power from the motherboard, but the screen is still dark. Apparently, it’s either bad inverter or failed backlight. Let’s test it with a known good backlight.
Here’s what I’m going to do:
1. I will unplug the LCD screen from the right side of the inverter. Basically, I’m unplugging the LCD backligth lamp which is located inside the screen.
2. I will plug in my known good backlight lamp which you can see on the picture below. Please notice that my test backlight lamp is shorter than the screen, but for the test purpose that’s OK.
Results I’m expecting:
1. If my test backlight lights up, the backlight lamp inside the screen is bad and there is nothing wrong with the inverter board. If that’s the case, you’ll have to replace the LCD screen
2. If my known good backlight lamp stays dark after I turn on the laptop, most likely we have a faulty inverter board. If that’s the case,
There are two different types of backlight connectors, you can see them on the picture below. The top one (big) is not as common as the bottom one (small). I do most of my test with a backligth lamp which has a small connector.
IMPORTANT! If you decide to buy a new backlight lamp for test, you have to make sure that the connector on the lamp matches the connector on the inverter. Very often backligth lamps are sold without any wires attached. If you plan to use this backlight as a test equipment,

Monday, November 19, 2012

How to make the iPad a better music device

I was at Apple's iPad launch on Wednesday, and maybe it was just Steve Jobs' reality distortion field, but I don't quite understand why the haters are piling on. A lot of PC-centric commentators are dismissing the iPad as an overpriced gadget, wondering why it's lacking features that are standard on even the cheapest notebook computers, like Flash support, multitasking, USB inputs to connect peripherals, and video outputs (HDMI would be nice). These are legitimate complaints--for a notebook replacement. But the iPad isn't a notebook replacement, and I don't think users will carry it with them on business trips. (Apple's iWork demo confused matters, admittedly.)

Instead, I agree with CNET's Ina Fried and Business Insider's Henry Blodget: this is a consumer electronics device for puttering around the house and leisure time--reading books and Web sites on the couch, showing pictures off to friends, catching up on the latest Web videos. And, yes, listening to music.t's also a golden opportunity for Apple to fix some of the glaring shortcomings in its portable music experience. Here are five things I'd like to see the iPad incorporate, perhaps through the next update to the iPhone OS (which it uses).

Wireless sync. The iPad is not a Mac. That means it doesn't run the full iTunes client, so you can't share music from another computer over your home network. Instead, like an iPod or iPhone, you must physically connect it to the computer on which your music is stored, then wait for the music to travel over the wire. This is, frankly, absurd. If you want me to use the iPad to listen to music in my home, don't make me walk over to my computer and attach it every time I want to load some new tunes. Wireless sync would also be great for syncing other material like pictures, videos, and apps. How hard can it be? Microsoft's Zune player has had wireless sync for three iterations and more than two years.

Cloud-based music service. Even if the iPad had wireless sync, the most affordable model has only 16GB of storage. This isn't enough for most music lovers' digital collections, especially if they're going to use the iPad for other functions like electronic books and photos. So how about taking that Lala acquisition and using it? Instead of having to load music onto the iPad itself, I could sync it from my computer to Lala's online music locker service, then stream it over the Web directly to my device. Bye-bye, storage limits. Best of all, every time I update my music collection, it's updated everywhere simultaneously. This is such a no-brainer I'd be stunned if Apple doesn't make it available shortly after the iPad launches.

Music-sharing with third-party apps. There are some surprisingly sophisticated DJ apps for iPhone, like TouchDJ and DJ Mixer, that let you play two songs at the same time and mix them together like a mulitrack DJ set-up. These apps would be much easier to use on the iPad's 9.7-inch screen. But they all share one big shortcoming: they can't just play songs that you've already loaded onto your device. Instead, you have to re-load songs into the DJ apps, either from a sync application running on your computer or over a Web server. This isn't the fault of the app designers--it's a limitation that Apple places on the iPhone and iPod Touch. I hope Apple figures out a way around it soon.

Queuing. I like to play DJ. As one song plays, it sparks associations with other songs. It would be nice to be able to load these other songs into a "now playing" queue. The Zune's had this feature since its inception, but I can't do it on the iPod Touch or the iPhone--instead, I have to wait for the current song to end, then start up a new song. (And no, I don't want to do this with playlists on the computer and then sync those playlists to the device. That misses the entire point of spontaneity.)

Decent speakers (and amp). Naturally, the first thing I did with the iPad was check out its music playback. I could barely hear it, even with the volume maxed out. It's true that the room was crowded with gadget fans scrambling for their first look at the device, but even so, the speakers sounded no louder than the iPhone's. But this isn't a phone. It's also not a Mac, where music isn't the primary focus for most users. It's a consumer electronics device. It would be great if I could set it up in my living room or bedroom without having to attach it to another device. Peripheral makers might complain--iHome does great work creating audio accessories for the iPhone--but if this is truly going to be a new product category, Apple should treat it like one. Alas, I'm going to have to wait for v.2 for this feature.

Stop Windows Blue Screen Error Caused by Device Drivers

When Windows detects a problem from which it cannot recover, it displays Stop messages. These are text-mode error messages that report information about the condition. Stop messages, sometimes referred to as blue screen of death (BSoD), contain specific information that can help you diagnose and stop blue screen error caused by a device or driver.

Find Out Which Type of  Blue Screen Error is Causing Your PC to Crash

BlueScreenView scans all files created during your minidump "blue screen of death" crashes, and displays information about all accidents at a table. For each accident, BlueScreenView shows the minidump file name, date and time of the accident, the accident shows basic information on the blue screen.
For each accident shown in the top pane, you can see the details of the device drivers loaded during the clash in the bottom pane. BlueScreenView pilots also mark their addresses found in the crash of battery, so you can find the drivers suspected that the probable cause of the accident

Fix Windows Blue Screen Errors
Reading the Blue Screen will just cause you confusing. It will only help to write down the STOP number near the bottom of the screen

Stop 0x0000009F or DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE (above screenshot)

Indicates that a driver is in an inconsistent or invalid power state, can occur after installing faulty applications or drivers or system services. For drivers, disable, remove, or roll back that driver to to determine if this resolves the error. If it does, contact the hardware manufacturer for a possible update. Using updated software is especially important for backup programs, multimedia applications, antivirus scanners, and CD mastering tools.

Stop 0x0000000A or IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

If you encounter a Stop 0xA message, the problem might be due to an incompatible driver, system service, virus scanner, or backup.

Stop 0x0000001E or KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

The problem might be due to a memory leak caused by an application or service that is not releasing memory correctly.

Stop 0×00000024 or NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM

If you are not using the NTFS file system, and the system partition is formatted with the file allocation table (FAT16 or FAT32) file system there are write errors while pagin due the limit on FAT32. You can also resolve this situation by adding more RAM
Stop 0x0000002E or DATA_BUS_ERROR
Hard disk corruption can also cause this Stop message. The problem might also be due to cracks, scratched traces, or defective components on the motherboard. If all else fails, take the system motherboard to a repair facility for diagnostic testing.
Stop 0×00000050 or PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
Defective memory (including main memory, L2 RAM cache, video RAM) or incompatible software (including remote control and antivirus software) might cause Stop 0×50 messages

Bad RAM



Several situations can lead to RAM-related performance problems with a particular machine:
RAM timing is slower than optimal machine spec.
RAM has minor flaws that appear only on detailed testing.
RAM is overheating.
There is insufficient RAM.

In the old days of Fast Page RAM, buying new RAM for your computer was a simple affair. You just needed to know what speed your motherboard supported and the maximum each slot would take. Today, there are many types and speeds of RAM, and the better motherboards may be tolerant of using RAM that does not match the motherboard’s maximum specs. For example, your motherboard may support PC133 RAM but will still work with PC100 RAM. But be aware that you may see performance decreases if you install RAM that is slower than the maximum spec. Some motherboards will even allow you to mix speeds but will default to the slowest RAM installed.

Minor flaws in RAM chips can lead to system slowdowns and instability. The least expensive chips often have minor flaws that will cause your system to slow down or Blue Screen intermittently. Although built-in mechanisms may allow the system to keep working, there is a performance hit when it has to deal with flawed RAM chips.

In the past, no one worried about RAM chips getting hot, because they didn’t seem to generate much heat. But that’s changed with newer RAM types, especially SDRAM. To check for overheating, open your computer’s case, power down, and pull the plug out. Ground yourself and touch the plastic on one of your RAM chips. Ouch! They get pretty hot. If you find that your RAM chips are overheating, you should consider buying a separate fan to cool your memory. If your motherboard doesn’t support a RAM fan, you might be able to get enough additional cooling by installing a fan card that plugs in to a PCI slot.

Of course, one common reason for poor performance that’s related to RAM is simply not having enough of it. Modern operating systems such as Windows 7 and today’s resource-hungry applications, combined with our increasing tendency toward extreme multitasking, result in a need for more RAM. The minimal specified system requirements may not cut it if you’re doing lots of multimedia or running other memory-intensive applications. 32-bit Windows is limited to using 4 GB of RAM, but 64-bit Windows 7 can handle from 8 to 192 GB, depending on the edition. If your system allows, adding more RAM can often increase performance.

Processor overheating

Chipmakers have recently been working to make processors more efficient, which means they generate less heat. Nonetheless, some modern processors still generate a lot of heat. That’s why all processors require some sort of cooling element, typically a fan of some type. A system’s Thermal Design Point (TDP) rating indicates, in watts, how much heat it can safely dissipate without exceeding the maximum temperature for the chip. When the processor temperature goes over spec, the system can slow down or run erratically (lock up) or may simply reboot. The processor fan may fail for several reasons:
Dust is preventing the fan from spinning smoothly.
The fan motor has failed.
The fan bearings are loose and jiggling.

Often, you can tell if there is a fan problem by listening and/or touching the computer. A fan that has loose bearings starts jiggling and vibrates the case, making a characteristic noise. As time goes by, the sounds and vibrations will become so prominent that you’ll change the fan out just to regain some peace and quiet.

You don’t always need to replace the fan. If it is covered with dust, you can often spray away the dust with compressed air. But even though you might get the fan running again, its life span has likely been reduced because of the overwork. You should keep an extra fan in reserve in case of failure.

Processors may also overheat because the heat sink is not properly placed above the processor or the thermal paste is not of good quality or was applied incorrectly (or not at all) when the system was built. This is more likely to be a problem with home-built systems but can happen with commercially manufactured ones as well. The paste can break down over time, and you may need to reapply it.

Case design is another element that can contribute to or help prevent overheating. Cases with extra fans, better vents, and adequate room inside for good airflow may cost more but can provide superior cooling performance. Small cases that squeeze components together can cause overheating. For this reason, laptops with powerful processors are prone to overheating.