iPhone Tracking Data

There has been a bit of discussion on the Internet about the iPhone retaining a history of GPS location information- unbeknown to the iPhone owner.  It appears this action was fairly benign and the data never left the phone save for a backup to iTunes when the iPhone synchronizes.

Personally I would actually consider access to this information to be fairly useful for myself; I already use a GPS logger for GeoTagging my photos (not so much now as my HX5V/B camera has integrated GPS) ao having this data already logged on another device would negate the need for an additional device (and additional charger/batteries).

One resourceful person has released a MacOS application for plotting the data (synched with iTunes) over a map.  There is also a Windows version available.

The data seems to go back a distance (2/15/11 was the earliest in my cache) but seems fairly inaccurate as well as when I zoom into the map, there are several places I have never been (perhaps within 20 miles, but not that far off the Interstate).

Asus P8P67 Pro Sleep Mode Issues

I am still having annoying issues with sleep/resume and my Asus P8P67 Pro system. 

While digging through the BIOS settings to underclock my RAM speed (as suggested as one possible resolution) I cam across an ‘EPU Power Management’ option (beneath the RAM settings- of all places)- and disabled it. 

I will not know until morning if this fixes my standby issues- but I will try to update my findings over the weekend.

Update:  The EPU power setting had no effect; it may actually be having more issues than before. 

On a hunch, I decided to look at the memory to see if it may be the problem.  I was running 2x4GB and 2x2GB sticks for 12GB of RAM; I pulled the 4GB modules and replaced them with some older 2GB modules (so now at 4x2GB = 8GB).  I reset the BIOS to ‘optimal’ settings and my PC appears to have stayed online for the night; I will need a few more days to confirm, but initially this looks promising; 9+ hours and no sleep issues!

Update #2:  It looks like my RAM was the culprit!

I replaced the 4GB modules with 2GB modules and I have been almost a week without a sleep/shutdown issue.  (I did have one lockup, but that was probably a normal Windows issue).  I am nit sure if it is the 4GB module size or the RAM is defective, but I am currently running:

4x Corsair XMS3 2GB PC3-10600 1333MHz 9-9-9-24 (Kit of CMX8GX3M4A1333C9)

I replaced

2x Corsair XMS3 4GB PC3-10600 1333MHz 9-9-9-24 (Kit of CMX8GX3M2A1333C9)

I believe my memory was banked correctly; 4GB modules in slots 1 & 3 and 2GB modules in slots 2 & 4.

I am not sure if I want to try just the 4GB modules to see if the issue returns or if I should just be happy with it running as is.  I was hoping to eventually go to 16GB and onto 32GB (when they get around to making non-registered 8GB DDR3 DIMMs)- so I am kind of at a loss for what I want to do…

P67 Power Management Issues

i.e. P67 (SandyBridge) chipset will NOT resume from sleep mode!

I purchased a MSI P67A-GD65 B3 motherboard with an Intel i7-2600k a few weeks ago and returned the motherboard as it would go to sleep and not resume without a hard power reset (it also froze twice while working, so that was a deciding factor on the return).

I replaced it with an Asus P8P67 Pro.  It has been having many of the same issues when trying to resume from sleep mode:

• Short ‘sleep’ sessions allow the PC to return to normal; generally under 1 hour
• Extended (4+ hour) sessions will not resume.  Often my USB mouse will be dark and light up briefly when I press a button or move; but no wakey-up.
• Pressing the power button on the system does nothing
• My two options are to press reset or do a hard power off; after which the system comes back with with an unexpected shutdown alert.

Reading various forums (search for ‘P67 sleep mode issues’ and you get 1mil+ results) there are numerous suggestions:

1. Disable PLL Overvoltage (specific to the Asus board); did this with no difference
2. Issues with SSD drives and sleep mode; replaced the SSD with a SATA3 Winchester drive (and rebuilt Windows 7 from scratch) with no difference
3. BIOS update will resolve; latest BIOS and no difference
4. Issues with Win7 SP1 and Marvell SATA (SCSI MiniPort) controller Hotfix; Applied and possibly a difference?
5. Use MCE Standby Tool; Installed tray icon, but does not appear to prevent sleep mode
6. Disabled (as far as I can ascertain) ALL sleep, hibernate and hybrid sleep modes; still goes to sleep and having sleep issues!
   powercfg –h off
7. Clear BIOS configuration after firmware update and reset to defaults; haven’t tied this one yet.

Today I was able to get my first successful wake from hibernation (albeit hibernation was disabled).  I pressed the mouse button on my PC and I heard the HDs click and the system fans spin up.  From powercfg I was able to discern:

powercfg -lastwake
Wake History Count - 1
Wake History [0]
  Wake Source Count - 1
  Wake Source [0]
    Type: Device
    Instance Path: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1503&SUBSYS_849C1043&REV_05\3&11583659&0&C8
    Friendly Name:
    Description: Intel(R) 82579V Gigabit Network Connection
    Manufacturer: Intel

This is logged as my first wake since I built this system about a week ago- not noting the 10 hard resets I have had to perform since then.

I am not sure if this was from the hotfix or from MCE Standby Tool running before it went into hibernation (or Hybrid sleep?).

I guess I will try the BIOS reset.  If that doesn’t work I will go back to Win7 with no SP1 and see what happens…

Arrgh!

xBox 360 GPU

Ok, this video has me amazed:

I am learning that the xBox 360 GPU solder points may be ‘reflowed’ with the use of a hot air rework station and a 43mm nozzle:

 

This is not something I currently have a need for, but if I ever get a RROD on my current xBox 360 (or find a cheap original PS3 with GPU issues) I can purchase a few items and fix this myself!

 

Aoyue 968 3-in-1 Digital Hot Air Rework Station:	Aoyue 43mm nozzle

42PF9631D/37 TV Issues

My roommate purchased a Philips 42” Plasma TV for her bedroom three years ago.  The TV worked great until a few weeks ago when the TV started not powering up; hitting the power button would turn the power indicator LED greed for a few seconds, and then it would flash red seven times. 

Luckily this is a pretty common issue as there are several posts (another here) and videos on the web detailing this issue:

I removed the back from my TV and it looks fairly intimidating:

A slow review of the mainboard revealed he capacitors mentioned on the posts; and they are blown…

The Capacitors are electrolytic 3300UF, 10V 105C units.  The part on DigiKey is P13117-ND.  I ordered four of these (two for extras in case I mess one up or one is damaged before delivery) and they are being delivered USPS priority mail.  They should be here by the end-of-the-week.

I have pulled the power supply board and I will install the new ones when they arrive.  I will post an update after all is done.

Neat Receipts

I have been using an awesome program called Neat Receipts for a few years now; it comes in a bundle with a small scanner that I use to scan in all of my receipts/packing lists/invoices/etc. It auto-recognizes dates and amounts (and sometimes vendor names- dependent on font) and allows me to categorize them and include information if they are business or personal expenses.

One issue I have with the software is you must use their scanner (I can import JPEG/GIF from another scanner- but that makes the scanning process more laborious, so I stick to their scanner) and their scanner can sometimes be unwilling to calibrate (especially with Windows 7 x64).  In my latest rebuild of Windows, I found that the scanner would not calibrate at all.

However, a quick Google search returned Neatco’s scanner trouble-shooting page with a link to their scanner maintenance tool (which I never knew existed)- this is a great utility if you are running Neatco’s Neat Receipts.