Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Seagate Hard Drive Hardships! Resolved!?
After almost a month and a half of dealing with a troublesome, faulty set of hard drives, which I’ve chronicled here and again here, I’m happy to announce that the replacement drive sent by Seagate arrived in much better condition than the previous two sent out by NewEgg.
Since receiving the new drive, its been installed and functioning beautifully. The read/write times are faster than the previous one, and finally no more hiccups during video playback!
I don’t really know if this batch of drives experienced issues due to poor manufacturing by Seagate, or some horrible streak of bad luck, but what I can verify is NewEgg’s sub par packaging for this delicate piece of equipment. Having read through Seagate’s own packaging instructions, I realized NewEgg might be to blame.
As my original post describes, NewEgg shipped the drives in a cardboard box filled with packing peanuts, and the drives were in the electrostatic bag, wrapped in profuse amounts of bubble wrap and tape.
Seagate clearly states:
“Enclose the static-protected drive(s) in 2-inch foam rubber in a corrugated box. DO NOT USE foam packing pellets, bubble wrap, or newspaper.
Warranty is void if the SeaShield cover or top cover, or any seal or label is removed or damaged, if it is improperly packaged, or if the drive experiences shock in excess of its Gs rating.”
I’ve never had any issues with NewEgg, but such blatant disregard for proper packaging and care of my hardware doesn’t speak very highly of them. According to Seagate, there is a possibility of my drive having had its warranty voided due to NewEgg’s negligence.
I finally have a working 1TB drive installed in my PC, and I would gladly purchase a Seagate drive in the future. However, I must reassess my allegiance to NewEgg after this discovery, and the hassle it created.
Having paid close to three hundred dollars for this drive, I would expect to receive something in working condition, and proper packaging, despite its OEM status. Having to wait close to two months before receiving a functional drive, after paying an additional $8.43 for shipping the first drive back to NewEgg, followed by $21.24 for shipping the second drive to Seagate doesn’t sit well with me at all, especially since in my opinion, all of this could have been avoided had NewEgg properly packaged the drive the first time around.
No commentsSeagate Hard Drive Hardships! Cont.
Even after all the troubleshooting, diagnosis, and tests run on the drive that came back stating the drive was perfectly healthy, it looks as if my initial suspicions were correct in regards to my new hard drive mentioned in my previous post.
*Click**Click**Click* is not suppose to be a “normal noise” on any hard drive that I’ve ever encountered, despite what I’ve read about this particular model of Seagate Drives.
SMART Detection Errors began popping up, and even Windows Vista detected the errors. I rechecked the status of my drive using Seasoft’s Sandra Lite that was mentioned in my previous post. The software concurred with Vista’s findings, displaying an enormous amount of Read/Write Errors, Seek Errors, and all kinds of issues which pointed to imminent failure.
It seems as if the Read/Write heads on the drive are failing, and they are gradually decreasing in performance, bringing about significant slow downs and hiccups during normal operation…
I’ve initiated a return to Seagate after verifying my drive’s warranty status here ; I should be receiving a replacement in the next few days.
No commentsSeagate Hard Drive Hardships!
With the recent move to “high definition” content and my obsessiveness to keep entire seasons worth of television programs on my computer for easy viewing access via the Xbox 360 or PS3, imagine my frustration when Vista started warning me that my measly 120GB drive was running out of space.
With out hesitation, this tech-savvy consumer rushed over to newegg.com and began shopping for a bigger drive, a drive that could hold a massive video and music library and still have room to spare. After a few hours of searching, comparing, and mentally justifying the expense, I ordered myself a 1 terabyte drive by Seagate!
A few days later, the drive was finally in my hands! I carefully opened the box and pulled out the giant wad of bubble wrap which encased my new drive. As I struggled with the profuse amounts of tape and bubble wrap, my precious new drive suddenly flew out of its bubbly haven, flipped through the air, and promptly landed on the floor before I had a chance to react. Doh!
After gently installing the gravity defying drive, my PC began booting up…*Click* *Click* *Click*, Windows didn’t even detect the new hardware. Just like that, my dreams of massive storage were shattered! I called up newegg’s customer service and set up an RMA. I sent my drive back, 1 1/2 weeks later, I received a replacement.
This time, the unpacking and installation was rather uneventful. Vista promptly located drivers and I initiated a format. After everything was said and done, my entire music & video library now resided on this drive, with tons more storage space to spare! I began clicking through my video library and opened up a video, just to try it out. *Click* *Click* *Click* Eh!?!
It was then that I noticed the new hard drive would “click” when it would spin up, and again whenever it would access data. Usually a “clicking” noise from a hard drive means bad news, but a quick search on the internet revealed that these new 1TB drives were known to “click” during normal operation. I backed up my important data, since in my eyes, failure was imminent.
A few weeks went by and the clicking was still present, yet the drive hadn’t experienced any sort of failure. I did begin noticing some severe lag and skipping while playing back video content located on that drive. To make matters worse, certain programs, like MSN Messenger and Firefox, would stall for short periods of time while this drive was trying to access data. This was completely unacceptable! My quest to find some answers began anew! Read more
4 commentsJapanese Zombie Girl!
I’m sure we’ve all seen those Internet ads with characters that follow your mouse pointer with their head, or eyes. Kinda creepy no? Well, this one , which I’ve dubbed ‘Zombie Girl’, just takes the cake as the creepiest one of them all. I’m not sure if its the bloodshot eyes, or the robotic facial expressions, but I’m strangely disturbed by this.
Apparently the technology is called "Motion Portrait", and its being used throughout Japan in various forms including television shows, commercials, schools, and even the recently released Bandai Namco PSP Game "Lian Palace promise HARUHI".
Perhaps they can one day be used to keep old people company while they sit in their nursing homes…maybe even custom made Motion Portraits of family members, or their favorite movie stars? I think I’ll keep Zombie Girl running on my 2nd monitor to creep some people out.
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Comcast Pays To Shut People Up
The FCC hosted a public hearing in Boston on February 25th to discuss the future of the internet. In the weeks leading up to this event, several pro “Net Neutrality” organizations educated and encouraged the people of Boston to attend and voice their opinions on the issue directly. The hearing is part of the ongoing investigation into Comcast’s practice of restricting peer to peer internet traffic over their networks.
Clearly Comcast and other anti-net neutrality corporations like AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner don’t want the FCC to decide in favor of net neutrality, this would stifle their profit margin by disallowing them, in the near future, to charge content providers extra to “guarantee” their content is accessible over their networks in a timely manner, if at all.
With such an important matter on hand, hundreds of citizens showed up to the hearing only to be denied entry. Why? Because the limited seating within was filled almost ninety minutes before the hearing began. Closer inspection of the many people inside Ames Hall revealed them to be mere “seat warmers” who showed no interest in the hearing itself by falling asleep shortly before the event began! One blogger from SaveTheInternet.com quoted one fellow having said he was, “just getting paid to hold someone’s seat.” The same fellow went on that he had no idea what the meeting was about.
With several sources accusing Comcast of paying disinterested people to sit in to prevent truly concerned citizens from speaking, Comcast finally reported having paid people to hold places in line but never admitted having paid people to fill seats to prevent anyone from attending.
Clearly Comcast doesn’t want the FCC to rule in favor of net neutrality, but net neutrality should be standard practice in a country that claims to promote free speech and equal rights to all citizens. This is a prime example of what one blogger says is “big corporations using its financial resources to marginalize the public from the policymaking process.”
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