How Much RAM is Enough?

RAMs are dirt cheap nowadays, but how much is enough? I already got 2GB of DDR2-677 running on ‘dual channel’ mode on my PC, should I go for 4GB just for the sake of it? As I could not resist the low price attack I decided to go for it. Then another question arises: Would all RAMs in pairs support the so-called ‘dual channel’ mode? Could you mix the existing double sided RAMs with the newly single sided RAMs?

The answers are depending on your motherboards. Some motherboards would only support 4 single-bank (single sided chips) RAMs, if you already got 2 slots filled with 2 double sided RAMs then the remaining 2 empty slots might not be functional anymore. In this case you could only use 4 sticks of single sided RAMs if you intended to use up all the 4 slots. Now the next question is could you mix the single sided RAMs and double sided RAMs? Yes, you could but it would be on ‘single channel’ mode only, you won’t get the ‘double channel’ support.

I was quite lucky as my motherboard does support 4 sticks of double sided RAMs and it still could provide dual channel support, what I had to do was ensure that the 2 new RAMs I was going to buy were of the same brand, same capacity and double sided, that's it!

Lastly, how much RAMs would appear as the physical memory on your Windows? For 32 bits Windows, you might get roughly 3.25GB in total, including the shared memory for graphics. That means you might have 3.00GB reported by the System Information under the Windows environment. Yes, you lose roughly 800MB, but the improvement is quite significant and I personally feel that it is worth it.

Adding a Coolermaster Silent Fan to my HTPC

I have just added a Coolermaster's silent fan to my HTPC. It works great and is really silent if compared to my previous one. Coolermaster produces good silent fan at low price, this one comes with led light and transparent blades.

Windows XP SP3 solves the HDMI audio problem

The OS I used when I built my own HTPC was Windows XP, it never be a problem to me as I hooked it to my LCD TV with a D-sub cable which obviously cannot carry audio signal. I used analog audio output instead. But, when I have a HDMI cable, naturally I would expect my TV's built-in speakers would sing but unfortunately it didn't!

I know HDMI is kind of digital stuff and it provides superior sound quality directly from the source to the speakers, in this case the PC was the source, the HDMI cable as the bridge and the TV's speakers as the audio device, but they just didn't work under Windows XP (SP2, to be exact). So I started searching around and found that it might be due to the Microsoft UAA (Universal Audio Architecture) Bus driver problem, I downloaded it and installed it numerous times but it still didn't work due to some reasons beyond my knowledge.

You know what? I solved it immediately when I installed the SP3!

ATI finally supports 1360 x 768 resolution

I am back again after almost 5 months of silence! First of all I would like to tell you that I have added some stuff to my system: a 500GB hard disk, a Sony DVDRW and a HDMI cable. With the HDMI cable the text quality on my Sony LCD TV is really impressive now, it helps a lot when I view the texts. Besides, I also found that ATI finally answers to his fans and provides a driver that supports 1360 x 768 resolution! Good news to all HTPC owners who are still dealing with non-HD LCD TVs!

What the big guys say about 1360x768 resolution

I've got a Dell Voxtro 1400 notebook running on the latest Intel chipsets. As I could not get the full screen display when I connected it to my LCD TV, I wrote to Dell for technical support. Dell replied on 2 Oct 2007: “I understand that you would like to connect your notebook to your Sony LCD TV to get the resolution of 1360x768. If I had misunderstood your concern, please feel free to let me know. Please be advised that your system is running on an integrated graphic card. The card can only support the resolution of 800X600 and 1024X768 for external display…I apologize for my inability to assist you on your said concern. We value you as our customer and look forward to serving you better. Thank you & best regards, Theresa Kong, Dell Services - Technical Support, ANZ & SA - Online Team”

Obviously it’s Intel’s problem. So I went to the Intel’s website and surprisingly they did have a forum on the 1360x768 topics! Archibael said: “Support for non-standard resolutions like 1360x768 and 1680x1050 still rough, especially when EDID from the monitor is wrong or misleading. Intel's position on this is typically: fix the monitor EDID-- that's the problem. It certainly is, much of the time... but Intel's competitors have made many other resolutions available to the end user.”

As for my HTPC, I wrote to Gygabyte for the same support. I got this answer from them: “Sorry for long waiting. We are trying to work with ATi to see if there is any new VGA BIOS to fix the problem. Once we get any solution, will let you know as soon as we can. At last, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any other questions or suggestions. Thank you for your time. Yours faithfully, Gigabyte Technology”.

I wrote to Gigabyte again after I had resolved my problem with an Omega driver on Oct 31 2007. I informed them: “I installed a driver by omega, it works fine for me. It can output 1360x768 and match the native resolution of my LCD TV. Maybe you should look into it and see whether you could come up your own solution.” Then they replied: “Thank you again for your email and information. Omega VGA driver is not the official VGA driver, thus, we will still try to ask ATi to provide any solution for this symptom. At last, if you still have any further question or suggestion about our products/service, please do not hesitate to contact with us directly. We will try our best to help you resolve the problem ASAP.”

My conclusion is, all big guys do not support 1360x768 although this is the only closest resolution that matches the native resolution of a 720p LCD TV. And, there are more than 80% of the LCD TVs sold worldwide nowadays are with this 1366x768 resolution. Funny?