Comments on: Vista, SSD, and Sound

By: El futuro del almacenamiento mÃ¡sivo: disco sÃ³lido de 256 GB « JokinSu

El futuro del almacenamiento mÃ¡sivo: disco sÃ³lido de 256 GB « JokinSu — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 17:08:42 +0000

[...] convirtiendo en el cuello de botella del performance de los portÃ¡tiles. AquÃ pueden encontrar un buen review de alguien que se atreviÃ³ a probar un SSD de 32GB y quedÃ³ feliz con la mejora en la [...]

By: SanDisk announces 64 GB solid state drive for notebooks

SanDisk announces 64 GB solid state drive for notebooks — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:53:57 +0000

[...] get your hands on a 32 GB SSD right now for about $300-400, as Matt Mullenberg, WordPress founder has done. I personally can’t wait to get one in my laptop, as I need the speed, but I’m going to [...]

By: jez

jez — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 16:43:26 +0000

hey matt, are you still running vista on your ssd?
I am curious, how much did you pay?
those 32gb ones are quite pricey over here in Germany.
I have heard they wanted to drop prices this summer when introducing the new 256GB versions…

I’d really need a ssd drive to team up with my water-cooled pc, since my tinitus is getting worse.

Have you stuck your ssd directly on the mainboard IDE port using an adapter or attached it with a cable?

questions over questions, maybe if you got some time you can reply,
cheers jez

By: azrin

azrin — Tue, 22 May 2007 06:29:19 +0000

I know Vista is a nightmare for ACER laptops too…especially the 5572x series…crashs hard drives etc.

In the end..I rather stick to XP for the while..and Debian.

Nice article abt the SSD…very tempted.

Azrin @ http://www.azrin.net

By: Photo Matt » Disappearing SSD

Photo Matt » Disappearing SSD — Mon, 21 May 2007 21:00:45 +0000

[...] some of you may remember, I’ve been using a 32gb solid state drive in my desktop for a bit not, and I’ve been happy with it. Enough so that I was ready to make [...]

By: RyanCPO

RyanCPO — Thu, 03 May 2007 22:11:22 +0000

A-Data is soon to be releasing a 128GB SSD. Check out Gizmodo's latest post on it.

By: Matt Livingston

Matt Livingston — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 23:50:23 +0000

Windows Vista still has too many problems to be used as the operating system of your primary computer. For one, which is minor but an inconvenience nonetheless, plugging your iPod into a computer running off Vista could corrupt both Windows and the iPod’s HD. Windows released an update that did not work, and does not plan to have a working patch for another month.

Also, as nice and sleek as Vista looks, it is more for the average user who does not need to use the full power of their PC. For more advanced users, such as myself and I imagine many others, Windows 2k + XP (and even better; Linux) are the way to go. Of course, this is my opinion. But I believe it has a good base.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:56:17 +0000

Martijn, got a link?

By: Martijn

Martijn — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 07:22:39 +0000

For all of you that think SSD is not the replacement of magnetic media: Dell is selling laptops with it already.

By: Dave in Cincinnati

Dave in Cincinnati — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 02:53:13 +0000

same problem with vista and itunes. All sound stops after about 5 minutes of playing. If I kill the itunes process on the processes tab in the task manager. I can restart itunes and hear sound. The problem is in itunes. (they probably have a timer to kill sound after 5 minutes. lol)

By: tecosystems » links for 2007-04-21

tecosystems » links for 2007-04-21 — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 05:33:42 +0000

[...] Photo Matt Â» Vista, SSD, and Sound Matt on solid state drives – gotta get me one of those (and who wants to bet that Apple will be one of the first out of the gate with them?) (tags: SSD solidstate flash drives MattMullenweg) [...]

By: John R

John R — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:03:36 +0000

Hi Matt,

I’ve been having the same problem with Vista native sound drivers on my Intel chipset which is 3 years old now.

Updating the drivers through Windows Update resolves some of the issues, but ultimately, the only way to get sound back up and running is to restart the Windows Audio service each time.

I’ve posted a workaround for others as I was sure I wasn’t alone.

This is probably my biggest bug bear since the Vista BETAs, and I’m annoyed that it still hasn’t been sorted. (Yes, I did send a bug report.)

Oh, well. If I *really* need sound, I just plug in my USB headset.

By: David Russell

David Russell — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:07:24 +0000

Matt, I hate to play Devil’s Advocate, but the reason Vista runs fine on your system is that you have 4Gb of RAM. Even most average systems will only have a quarter of that.

By: Bradford Knowlton

Bradford Knowlton — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:32:51 +0000

There are rumors going around, which I like to keep going around, that Apple is going to release an Ultra Light portable with SSD technology.

My understanding of the potential specs:

12″ LCD widescreen display
SSD storage drive
No optical drive
Super battery life
Dual core Intel CPU

This will be a great computer for the traveler, photographer and tourist. Nothing heavy, nothing fancy just fast quick and light.

Hope they announce something soon
Bradford Knowlton
http://x86Virtualization.com/

By: Morgan Johnson

Morgan Johnson — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 05:26:27 +0000

Matt, NeoSmart Technologies has an excellent guide to getting the right drivers for your sound card, complete with optimization steps and dl links for all the various drivers. I used this guide to get my digital audio piping the way I want it until Feisty comes out (today!)..

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:51:40 +0000

Sweet, my rating was either 4.7 or 4.3 (that’s the lowest score, which ends up being the final score) (not sure, since I’m not at my Vista PC right now, and I’ve installed Vista on about 3 other machines, so I get the scores mixed up sometimes ).

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:39:09 +0000

I got Ultimate, and my scores are proc: 4.3, RAM: 4.7, graphics: 5.9, gaming: 4.9, hard disk: 5.3.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:21:22 +0000

I also have similar problems with Sound in Vista. Except, if I pause WMP, or use the Music controls on my keyboard, the sound will completely stop, even the OS’s sounds. They won’t come back until I restart, either. Don’t know if it’s still doing this, though, I now refrain from using the Music controls on my keyboard, and the Pause button on WMP. I’m still hoping that Asus will release Vista drivers for my around a year old motherboard. All they have right now for Vista is PC Probe.

What version of Vista do you have, and what’s your Windows Experience Index rating?

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:14:11 +0000

I didn’t realise you’d gone back to Windows. I thought I’d read a post of yours about Linux a while ago.

I’d like to echo the comments about Feisty (which if you’re using Vista is the better choice as you obviously have no concern for stability . Otherwise Dapper and wait for the next LTS as Sam said.

When you’re not playing games I really don’t see a benefit to using Windows.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:09:39 +0000

Matt,

There are known issues with the quality of nVidia drivers out there with Vista. Once you get passed the drivers though, I’m in love with Vista. Programs start faster, the UI design (not specifically Aero) seems more modern and well…at least for me I don’t get blue screens. Then again, I play it safe and use signed drivers.

By: Remembering Hard Drives | Steve's Stuff

Remembering Hard Drives | Steve's Stuff — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:47:28 +0000

[...] his blog, Matt Mullenweg writes about replacing the hard drive in his desktop with a 32GB SSD flash memory card (picture) and installing Vista. To quote Andrew [...]

By: Neville Hobson

Neville Hobson — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:28:59 +0000

I did a fresh Vista install about 10 days ago. Interesting you have sound issues. My niggle is video where in spite of the WHQ-certified Nvidia Vista driver, weird things happen including system freezes. To be fair to Nvidia, they clearly say regard any Vista driver as beta.

Still, for me Vista rocks and there’s no going back to XP.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:21:23 +0000

@Paul: Rubbish? Harsh, maybe. Not rubbish! But perhaps it’s geographical. Top of the line computers are ridiculously expensive in Denmark. And yes, I know that you don’t need state-of-the-art tech to run Vista, but my rather powerful system ground to a halt.

By: Chris Wild

Chris Wild — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 12:44:24 +0000

First off, I like Vista better than Windows XP. There are just a lot of little things, like when you press Windows + M it minimizes windows on both monitors, that are a lot more polished.

As it does on XP….

By: Nathan Oliver

Nathan Oliver — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 10:11:50 +0000

Found your blog through the WordPress Dashboard.

You’re the first person I’ve found who has the same issue.

I have exactly the same issue with sound. It doesn’t seem to come about with time, but rather when I leave iTunes open while the computer either suspends or goes to hibernate. Sometimes it simply won’t have any sound at all, and pressing the play button in iTunes toggles the button to the pause button, but the seek bar does not advance. This seems to require me to log off–interestingly, the log-off sound will work. Other times, I get the distortion that you speak of–it reminds me of using battery powered headphones that are low on battery. In this case, simply restarting the application fixes it.

If I don’t have iTunes open, I don’t seem to encounter this problem, and if I set the power settings such that the computer never goes to standby, I also don’t seem to have this issue. What’s strange, though, is that as you mentioned, it’s not just a specific application’s sounds that get screwed up, it’s all the sounds, including system sounds!

I have a Compaq Presario R3000, which I believe is nForce. I looked for drivers, but Windows can’t find any newer ones, and I couldn’t find any for download. It doesn’t help that Compaq has declared my laptop too old for Vista.

Keep us updated if you find any solutions–I’d like to get this foxed, too.