[mdlug] ECS A770M-A motherboard SATA controller failure

[Aaron Kulkis]

Jeff Hanson wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 3:13 PM, Aaron Kulkis <akulkis00 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Personally, I've had good success with motherboards from
>> a company called DFI (back in the 1990's, althought a guy
>> at the shop (Stone Computer) said they had problems with
>> them.
>>
>> My last couple of motherboards have by Gigabyte.
>> Not a problem with either one.
> 
> I've used a lot of brands/models over the years and had little
> problems outside of bad caps.  I usually don't overclock.  The last

Yes.  Overclocking is asking for trouble.

Most over-clockers don't seem to understand how the electronics
industry works:

The do NOT set out to make a patch of parts to a specific
set of electrical specifications.  Instead, they make a bunch
of devices (resistors, capacitors, chips, whatever...) and
then TEST whatever comes out of the manufacturing process,
to see what specifications it meets.

In other words, if a CPU is in a 2.2 GHz box, that's because
it FAILED to run flawlessly when they cranked up the clock
to 2.33 GHz.


> Gigabyte model I bought was a GA-MA770-DS3 for my AMD Phenom 9550
> system.  The system has been very unstable.  The first MB/CPU/RAM was
> sent back and replaced.  The replacements have been marginally better
> but I still get occasional RAM corruption and have to power cycle the
> system to correct it.  Since the CPU has an integrated memory
> controller I don't know who to blame yet.  I waiting for a new ASUS
> M3A78-EM to arrive to see if it works better.

Wow, that sounds annoying.

> 
>> My HP dv8330us laptop has been more of a pain (primarily
>> the touchpad spuriously taking input when I'm typing as
>> a deliberate tap, and moving the typing cursor to wherever
>> the mouse-cursor is located -- annoyance to no end, as
>> this usually happens when I'm ... answering e-mail.
> 
> Does that use a Synaptics touchpad?

Yes, I believe so.

> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=271052

Ah.  Thank you!

pretty braindamaged thread though -- and overly gnome-ified. (UGH!)

1.  All he needed to do was say to put

	 syndaemon -i 1 -d

    in the GUI startup script

2. Obviously, the OP didn't read the man page all that well,
because the primary problem during typing is errant TAPS,
which is specifically addressed by the -t flag (while still
preserving the ability to do mouse-movements immediately
without waiting for the 1-second time-out; and -k and -K flags
address the needed to preserve the use of modifier keys (ctrl,
shift, etc.) when using the mouse without inducing the delay.

>From the man page:

SYNTAX
	syndaemon [-i idle-time] [-d] [-p pid-file] [-t] [-k] [-K]

DESCRIPTION
	Disabling the touchpad while  typing  avoids  unwanted
	movements  of  the pointer that could lead to giving
	focus to the wrong window.  This program needs
	SHMConfig "on" in your XOrg/XFree86 Synaptics Touchpad
	configuration.

OPTIONS
	-i <idle-time>
	      How  many  seconds to wait after the last key press
	      before enabling the touchpad.  (default is 2.0s).

	-d    Start as a daemon, ie in the background.


	-p <pid-file>
              Create a pid file with the specified filename.
	      A pid file will only be created if the program
	      is started in daemon mode.

	-t    Only disable tapping and scrolling, not mouse
	      movements, in response to keyboard activity.

	-k    Ignore modifier keys when monitoring keyboard activity.

	-K    Like -k but also ignore Modifier+Key combos.


Therefore:

 syndaemon -i 1 -d -t -K


Anyways, with KDE, I didn't even have to restart my desktop.
I just started the deamon, and syndaemon took effect immediately!