Dell U2913WM and DisplayPort

My good friend Matt and I just purchased new monitors. We'd both been intrigued by the 29" ultra widescreen monitors which have appeared over the past year from LG, AOC and Dell. So when we saw an awesome deal on the Dell U2913WM we both jumped at the chance to get one. Or to be more honest Matt jumped first and I wasn't going to be left out of it.

The Dell u2913wm is the equivalent of having two 1280x1024 standard ratio monitors joined together (with a few extra pixels in height) and the picture below (which is how I now have it set up) shows you roughly how it compares next to a 19" widescreen 1440x900 monitor. It's not a natural monitor width at 2560x1080 and it takes some used to getting to working with it, but I'm really pleased. Firstly is bright and even with good color rendition. In fact it comes color calibrated from the factory (they even give you a print out). In the image below I hope you can see that the whites are muddy on the Dell Pro series monitor (top)next to the Ultrasharp 29". While I've had other IPS panel based monitors this seems a lot cleaner handling text and color rendition, but it might be the shiny new monitor smell working it's magic on me.

One of the appealing things about this monitor is the ability to watch movies in an aspect ratio a lot closer to the original theatrical release. As I have my main PC set up on a desk in the living room the display often doubles for a television. My wife and I don't watch a lot of TV, but we often watch Netflix or the occasional Amazon.com instant video purchase. It's nice to see movies showing all the edge detail. Your DVD and Blu ray widescreen movies fill the screen without excessive letterboxing.

The options for connecting computer monitors have got a little mixed up over the past few years, with so many ways to connect your humble PC to the display. This is the first monitor I've seen which covers almost all the options.

The only connections you can't see in this picture are the main power in, and two USB 3.0 A connections (outs) located on the side of the monitor bezel. From left to right you have power out (for an ultrasharp speaker bar), analog VGA in, DisplayPort in, mini DisplayPort in, DVI in (it has to be dual-link DVI-D for this resolution), HDMI in, DisplayPort out (daisychain), audio out (from the HDMI or DisplayPort digital audio channels), USB 3.0 in and two USB 3.0 out. An amazing array of connections in my opinion.

Out of the box I had issues with getting the monitor setup, however it was user error and not the monitor at fault. I attached my monitor to an Atdec dual (vertical) monitor stand along with the 19" monitor in the second picture. This did not give me much space to connect the cabling. So I connected the included DisplayPort cable to the first DP port I could find. It just happened to be the output connection and not the input. After a couple of idiot checks on my part I worked out the issue.

This monitor is interesting in that it supports the daisychaining of multiple high resolution DisplayPort monitors. Both Matt and I were interested in checking this out, but we didn't have a chance to get the monitors together. However I found this picture of the bizarre setup over at overclock.net. Considering how wide my single monitor appears the two of them would probably give you serious neck ache.

DisplayPort, in a similar way to HDMI in the consumer audio/video space, is going through an evolution. HDMI is now up to version 1.4 and if you do not purchase the right revision of the cable you may not be able to play 3D content to your TV or stream data from your network capable Blu Ray player. Some might call those first world problems, but I don't always think it's obvious to Joe public that these issues exist.

The DP cable shown above gives you plenty of information about why you should get this cable. High resolution support up to 3840x2160 which is proper 4K (the equivalent of four 1080p displays in a 2x2 grid). It also has 4 data lanes of 5.4Gbps throughput, which is where the "2x faster than DisplayPort 1.1" claim comes in. These multiple streams of graphical data are how the daisychaining ability works, by passing through certain channels/streams to the next monitor in the line. It will be interesting to see how long before 4K desktop monitors become common place, right now they are available, however they have limited refresh rates and require some tweaking to get working correctly with your video card. But both DisplayPort and HDMI may be on the verge of launching the new standards that make up version 2.0 of the cable specifications.

So what will I be using my 2560x1080 monitor for this evening... well I'll be heroically helping my tanking buddies capture the enemy flag. But I should also tell you it's awesome for spreadsheets too.

iPhone 3GS camera iris won't open.

My wife uses an unlocked AT&T iPhone 3GS camera on the budget priced $30 a month T-Mobile 100 minute / 5Gb data plan. If I didn't have a company phone then this is probably the plan I would use too. Essentially if you don't talk a lot on your phone then this give you plenty of data bandwidth for a low $30 fee. Her phone works great, except it was getting poor battery life (probably due to the age of the battery). So a couple of weeks ago I undertook a battery replacement. I purchased a battery kit from Amazon.com (get the one with the suction cup). I followed instructions on youtube. And after a couple of minor issues I got a new battery installed and the phone working again.


Fast forward a couple of weeks and my wife is trying to take a photo with the iPhone's camera but the software hangs at the iris screen. It's a weird issue, and the camera looks like it is trying hard to get things to work. I downloaded some images to the camera roll, that's all fine. But I realized my wife hadn't taken any photos with the iPhone since I wiped, unlocked and activated it on T-Mobile.

So I'm off to Google to see what comes up with a quick search. Hhhhmmmm, lots of options: factory reset camera, restore from backup, try taking a photo from a message, contact Apple for a replacement etc. There were videos on youtube and posts on several forums with unhappy people not getting any answers. So I logically think back to the possibility of it being a physical issue instead of a software glitch... did I put the phone back together correctly? During the disassembly process there are several connectors that need to be released. I'd run into issue with them when I replaced the battery but thought I'd got them all placed correctly. So having replaced the battery, I wasn't so scared about re-opening the phone a second time, other than I am aware that these connectors are only ever rated for a few connect/disconnect cycles before I manage to break something!

With the 3GS you have to remove the sim card, the screen, then release several ribbons/connectors before the main logic board can be removed. Once the logic board is out it exposes the battery. The connector for the camera assembly sits by the battery (under the logic board) and is the only connection that needs to be made when placing the logic board back into the phone during reassembly. This isn't an easy connection to make as it is tiny and the logic board is relatively large to maneuver. I wasn't convinced the connection was sitting correctly, and this might be the camera iris issue. I decided to try something different, instead of what I had seen on the youtube video. I dropped out the single screw holding the camera lens and cabling and removed them. I then fitted the camera connector to the logic board before reassembling the phone. This makes it a lot harder to put the logic board back in, but with gentle handling, and careful maneuvering of the other connector cabling I finally wiggled the logic board and camera module back into the phone. The picture below shows what the logic board and camera connector look like together. This crop comes from a useful website ifixit.com which has strip down references for a lot of different phones etc.

I completed the reassembly of the phone and rebooted, waiting patiently for the login to appear. I selected the camera application, iris appears, iris disappears :)

So I successfully corrected a problem of my own making. I'm not sure if that is a success or not, however my wife is probably happy her phone works correctly. The reason I wanted to post this slightly embarrassing repair is the fact that there were SOOOO many other people with this issue. I guess that some of those camera problems may be related to that connector working loose over time. It's possible that the photo software queries the camera assembly and only opens the iris animation once it receives a successful "I'm okay" from the camera. With the cable incorrectly seated it never gets that message. Potentially opening the camera up and reseating this connector could be the answer.

On a separate iPhone related note... today is the release day for the 5C and 5S cameras. Matt has been in line this morning (in the rain) waiting to pick up a new shiny 5S. Hopefully I can get him to write something about it for the blog.

Microsoft Server 2012 and Client Access Licenses (CALs)

Anyone who works with Microsoft Server (and other MS products) knows that licensing these products can be a minefield for a system administrator or IT director. The most common form or licensing for volume users is the server and client access license (CAL) model. This involves purchasing a server license and then an access license for each user or device that accesses that server.

The above image from Microsoft is a good illustration of this model.
On the left we show a situation where Device CAL's make sense because in this example multiple people are accessing just a few PC's. Think of a situation like a call center where shifts of workers share a bank of computers. In this case purchasing device CAL's makes more sense (and costs less).

On the right it shows that User CAL's are more suitable for an environment where you may have more computers (notebooks, tablets etc) than users - for example if you have people accessing servers from home, the road and the office. A single user CAL will allow all of these devices access to the network server resources.

Historically Microsoft CAL's cost the same whether they are Device or User... however that has now changed. If you are looking to buy CAL's it's worth carefully calculating the cost of User versus Device CAL's. User CAL's are now more expensive as Microsoft has probably anticipated that people will be accessing data from more devices.

Now the complexity with CAL's doesn't end with the User/Device question, you also have to be aware of which version of the Microsoft Server your users are accessing. For example Bob gets a new job as a sys admin for Company X. They are all using servers based on Microsoft Server Std. 2008 R2 and they have 100 CAL's for everyone to access these servers. Bob, being a capable guy, wants to spin up a new Server 2012 for a new software platform Company X wants to implement. Bob purchases a new server license for roughly $880 and gets the software up and running, but what Bob didn't realize is that his User CAL's did not have Software Assurance (upgrade protection) and are only valid for Server 2008 R2. He'll need to purchase new CAL's to enable access to this new implementation of Server 2012. That's roughly 100 x $31($3100) to add to this project budget. This same CAL issue also exists with Exchange, SQL, Project, SharePoint etc.

So are there ways to avoid this problem? Well yes, there are: You can buy your licenses with Software Assurance based on 2 or 3 years duration. The 3 year option can also be purchased as an annual annuity payment. Alternatively you can purchase your licensing as a subscription (renting your licenses) which gives you access to the newest licenses (but you never really own the licenses).

From my experience with Microsoft licensing the annuity Software Assurance (SA) works very well, as IT admins can buy new licensing now (at 1/3 of the price) with a known annuity cost in years 2 and 3. Then after that they have the option to just renew the SA (which is much less) as the licenses are now fully paid up. This stops the IT department from worrying about new deployment costs as they always have access to the newest software release through their Software Assurance benefits. Software Assurance is available on a full range of licensed products from servers to Office and even the Windows OS. You normally purchase it with the license, or within 90 days of an eligible license purchase.

Realtek Sound and 2.1 Speakers

I wouldn't call myself an "audiofile" by any means but I do appreciate decent 2.1 sound on my computer setup through a set of Klipsch Pro Media speakers. I recently noticed that they weren't sounding quite as good as they had in the past and as I'd taken my who desk apart and rewired everything I thought it might be a good idea to check into the issue. If you remember back to the XP days there used to be several speaker configurations in windows sounds settings. Everything from headphones, quadrophonic, laptop speakers, stereo and stereo with subwoofer. Now I wasn't appearing to get the good old bass level I had previously, so I was starting to worry about my subwoofer's health. When I looked at the settings in my Realtek drivers it is limited to stereo, quad, 5.1 or 7.1. There isn't a reference to 2.1. This intrigued me.

Now I just assumed that because the setting said stereo that the audio drivers would output everything down those stereo channels and then my 2.1 system could separate the bass from the signal. Well this didn't appear to be true. No matter how I tried it I could not get the subwoofer to woof... at all. Of course I looked at the sound properties in the windows system and there (even with stereo selected) it shows the subwoofer channel routed to a different output plug.

This immediately led me off to Google to look for more info and a solution. Needless to say I wasn't the only person with the issue, and while there were lots of solutions listed online none appeared to work correctly. I even tried setting the rear front speaker output to headphones in the hope they at least output all the frequencies to headphones. Well that didn't work either. I looked in the registry for anything which might be a solution but nothing. Finally I found a posting where someone took a common sense approach to the problem. They recommended getting a 2 x male 3.5mm stereo to male 3.5mm stereo adapter, like the one below.

This should combine the analog subwoofer and front stereo speaker outputs back together and let the Klipsch speakers handle the separation again. It's not as clean a solution as having the audio codec output to a single jack but I'm willing to give it a try. The cost $2.99 on Amazon. I'll update this post once the cable arrives and let you know the outcome.

UPDATE 9/20/2013
Okay, splitter cable installed... still no subwoofer output. Try alternative audio source... still no subwoofer output! So it appears that after all the things I mentioned it looks like the subwoofer part of my Klipsch Pro Media 2.1 set has finally failed. I've never been a thumping bass fan, but I like to experience a full audio range (as best I can for me age and budget). I took the subwoofer apart to see if there was anything obviously wrong (such as blown capacitors or an internal fuse) however I couldn't find anything. I cleaned the volume and subwoofer knobs with electronics cleaner and reseated everything I could. No luck on any of these items. I guess I might be on the look out for a new set of speakers. Shame really as these have been great. The only issue now is whether there actually is any bass being output by the 889 sound chipset over the stereo channel output.

Welcome to the Tech Muse Blog

Welcome to the Tech Muse Blog of Gavin Thomas, my intention is to post interesting and informative technology related articles about the new and existing tech items I've used both at work and at home. I'll cover issues I come across both in the office and talk about problems maintaining home and family networks. I'll be reviewing some of our favorite gadgets and point out some of the items that didn't quite make the grade. I hope that some of the information we offer might be helpful to our readers. This blog is more of a creative outlet than a serious attempt at blogging, if you do find anything interesting then please let me know.