Power! Power! Power!

A couple of days ago I bought a brand new ATI Radeon X800 Pro and decided to install it in my computer. Of course, I still had the cheap power supply that came with my case (300W Codegen) and it just wouldn't supply enough power, the computer would crash as soon as I tried to do anything graphics intensive. So I replaced my power supply with a 400W Antec TruePower and restarted the computer. Guess what happened? The computer would get half way through the loading Windows XP screen and then restart. It kept doing this in a continuous loop. So I went into Advanced Startup (F8) and found a cool boot mode (Disable Auto Restart) that keeps the BSOD up if the computer crashes. Sure enough the computer crashed but this time I was able to get the following error code: STOP 0x000000ED and after a quick Google search came across the following:

"RESOLUTION To resolve this behavior, use the appropriate method. UDMA ControllerIf your computer uses a UDMA hard disk controller, use the following procedures: Replace the 40-wire cable with an 80-wire UDMA cable.In the BIOS settings for your computer, load the 'Fail-Safe' default settings, and then reactivate the most frequently used options such as USB Support.Damaged File SystemIf the second parameter (0xbbbbbbbb) of the Stop error is 0xC0000032, then the file system is damaged. If this is the case, restart the computer to the Recovery Console, and then use the chkdsk /r command to repair the volume. After you repair the volume, check your hardware to isolate the cause of the file system damage. To do this, use the following steps: Start your computer with the Windows startup disks, or with the Windows CD-ROM if your computer can start from the CD-ROM drive.When the Welcome to Setup screen appears, press R to select the repair option.If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the Windows installation that you want to access from the Recovery Console.Type the administrator password when you are prompted to do so.NOTE: If no administrator password exists, press ENTER.At the command prompt, on the drive where Windows is installed, type chkdsk /r, and then press ENTER.At the command prompt, type exit, and then press ENTER to restart your computer.For additional information about how to use the Recovery Console in Windows XP, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 314058 Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console If this procedure does not work, repeat it and use the fixboot command in step 5 instead of the chkdsk /r command."

To my great luck it worked and my computer rebooted flawlessly after the somewhat endless 2 hour repair process. Note that I didn't need to run fixboot and my computer began booting again just after running chkdsk /r I later also realized that I was using a 40 conducter IDE cable and as soon as I replaced it with an 80 conductor cable my boot time was quartered. I believe that the entire problem resulted from data corruption due to using an underspeced IDE cable, but now that I've repaired the disk and replaced the cable I have a much faster and working computer.

Xbox Cables & WTF

I received my four replacement power cables for my Xboxs today and they all seem to work exactly as intended except that I have no idea which cable goes with which Xbox. Three of the cables are the same and one is different. Anyway, I go online trying to find the answer and find a whole bunch of people complaining and saying how Microsoft is cheap for sending them a free $10 cable to protect their house from burning down. In the meantime I'm thinking WTF and asking myself why people are so f!@#ing ungrateful, at least I felt a little better when I read this person's post:

"i can see how most of you think that ms has done thw wrong thing here. but i think that they have done the right thing. if you have a psu that is liable to have a dry joint, they give you the cord with the big bulky plug thing. if it stops working, you send it to ms, the replace the psu.

for evreyone else, the reason why you have a new cord is so that for you lazy fuckers out there who dont unplug it when you transport your xbox, you dont do as much major damage the connecter"

If you guys keep trying to sue Microsoft there isn't going to be an Xbox 3 or a Halo 4; Microsoft isn't going to produce products for a market that they're not even making money in yet that is just going to sue them 5 times over. Four years ago for every Xbox you bought Microsoft lost over $100, it's only now after four years as a result of Moore's law that they break even. Give Microsoft a break.

By the way, doesn't the warranty say something like "free from manufacturing defects and poor workmanship for 90 days", not 4 years. A power connector coming lose after four years is not uncommon at all, especially with people dragging their boxes by the cord. Microsoft isn't obligated to give you a new cord, sure they're covering their own asses, but they could just as easily say you screwed up the power connector by not removing the cable as specified. As for the sparking, even of newer consoles, all products spark when they're plugged in, it's called a difference in electrical potential and you can even hear it when you turn your light switch on. Also, remember that all of these Xboxs passed UL and CSA testing...

Here's the concensus on what kind of cable you get:

"There are two potential defects within the xbox. The power supply solder joints, and the power cord pins not fitting snuggly enough. The bigger fire hazard is the power supply. Some xboxes have both problems, some only have the power cord pins problem.

M$ is therfore distributing two cords:

1) One with an afci box on it [for Xbox 1.0 & 1.1 with Rev. A Foxlink supplies without the riveted power connectors].
2) One without the acfi box on it, but just fixes the pin connection problem [for all Xboxs manufactured in 2003 or earlier (1.2-1.5 Xboxs)].

If you want to fix the solder joints, or otherwise replace the power supply to avoid using the cord with the afci box on it, you can BUT: it is advisable to replace the cord anyway. The old cord is still potentially defective. The new cords are numbered JHT-031, and the old defective ones are numbered JHT-013 . And of course, new xboxes will come with JHT-031 cord in the box." - jason_m