Windows Vista Disk Thrashing

I've tolerated Vista's insane disk thrashing forever now and usually the system would lock up with disk activity once in a session.  Having used Vista more often now, I decided to have a look at why in the world is this happening.  I have reduced it and here's the three basic culprit:

1. Windows Search Indexing - Go to the Services and disable this service from starting up.
2. Windows SuperFetch - This is also in the Services
3. Automatic Disk Defragmenting - Go to Accessories, System Tools and then Disk Defragmenter.  Then, disable the Run on a schedule option.

Of the three, disk defragmenter was the major culprit of locking up.  So, if you're suffering, disable this one first.

Mass Effect 2 and sudden poor frame rate

My friend was going through Mass Effect trilogy and suffered sudden drops of frame rate in Mass Effect 2 mid-game and we were going through possible workarounds to solve her problems.  After all the tests, it turns out it was as simple as disabling the Origin overlay.  Damn crazy!

Update on Realtek ALSA

I figured I'd put this down for whoever ends up finding this post.  I'm buying a new sound card and disposing the onboard sound.  Whoever is having issues with the ALC line of sound cards can look into Realtek's ALSA fork.

Random thoughts: Wii and Youtube PLUS Latest on ALSA

I've been playing around with the Youtube app from the Nintendo Shop Channel and the old Wii and it buffers like there's no tomorrow.  I found a tip online that suggested to set the MTU (Maximum transmission unit) to 1500 instead of 0.  A higher MTU means more data is being transmitted per packet.  This seemed to improve the Youtube streaming.

On ALSA and Ubuntu, the last bit of my research lead me to Realtek's own ALSA fork as the daily HDA drivers from Ubuntu do not do me any good.  I could not wrap my mind around trying to dkms it, so instead, I'm going to shop around for a decent sound card.

That's all!

Revisiting Ubuntu and Trine 2 Audio Issue

I'm still running some tests on a possible solution to the problem.  I edited /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf and added the line: options snd-hda-intel model=auto.  We'll see if it works.

Nintendo Wii U and the Samsung HT-BD2

So, after studying how to get the my Wii U to work with the Samsung bluray home theater system, I figured out a few things.  First of all, most likely due to a recent firmware upgrade, it is now possible from the TV setup menu of the Wii U settings to set the audio to go to HDMI, A/V cable, or both.  This became key to setting up the system (and it's very easy to miss!) as the Samsung HT-BD2 does not have any HDMI input.  For you to use the home theater system with other devices, you either use the digital audio in (which was abysmal the last time I've seen it used) or the auxiliary in (which worked much better).

Using the Wii component cables, I had hooked up the audio cables on the AUX in ports of the home theater system.  I also set the Wii U to use both HDMI and A/V cables for audio.  It worked really well but I realized that if the home theater system was turned on after booting the Wii U, the Wii U detects there's no device active on the A/V cables so it will automatically disable those.  To recover from this, you'd want to turn on the home theater system first before booting the Wii U.  If you get into the situation where the Wii U disables the sound, visiting the Settings app on Wii U re-enables the sound settings saved.

Starting EA Origin in Offline Mode

From this forum thread, the parameter is "Origin.exe /StartOffline".