NVIDIA Geforce 480 core clock drop to 405mhz v270.61 v275.33 CUDA

We participate in the BOINC CUDA project to use idle CPU and GPU time for scientific research purposes.

We recently updated to the newest NVIDIA drivers for Windows 7 x64 which are version 270.61.

After doing this we noticed the core clock on our NVIDIA Geforce 480 would drop from a standard or overclocked speed, down to 405mhz.  The core clock would stick there and the only way we can get it back is to reboot that machine.  Then after a few minutes again running the BOINC app, the core clock would drop to 405mhz again.  (We can see this because we use the MSI Afterburner 2.1 app, which has a nice real-time graph that shows current clock, memory and GPU utilizations among other things and also allows you to overclock the card.)

It turns out that there is some new “feature” (or bug) in the NVIDIA v. 207.61 drivers that is causing this issue.

Our solution was to uninstall the 270.61 drivers, restart and then install v266.58 drivers (which are the ones that preceeded 270.61).

After a reboot and more testing the core clock speed stay at the factory default speed (700mhz) or at our designated overclocked speed, without ever dropping down to 405mhz.

Apparently this is a widespread issue and users playing 3D based games also experience this issue as dropped frame or sluggish framerates while gaming… those users should also think about reverting to 266.58 until NVIDIA gets this sorted out.

We’ll have more information after we test the next version of NVIDIA’s drivers.

 

UPDATE 06/22/2011:  The same “clock drop” is also experienced on the most current NVIDIA 275.33 drivers.  Don’t use those if you plan on using CUDA.

ASUS G73 G73jh ATI 5870 GSOD Grey Screen of Death – FIX

One of the computers in our office is an ASUS G73jh which is a powerful laptop we use for testing sites and on-location visits to clients. We usually keep the very latest Windows 7 updates and ATI video card drivers (11.4) on the machine. Recently we noticed the machine locking up after a few minutes running 3D graphics. The only recovery is to hold down the power button and power cycle the computer. The issue was easily replicated using FURMARK or BURN IN TEST. After much research we determined this is the infamous GSOD or “Grey Screen of Death”.

This is what it looks like:

ATI 5870 GSOD Grey Screen of Death

ATI 5870 GSOD Grey Screen of Death

We tried everything to eliminate this issue that we could think of, even uninstalling the current video card drivers and going back to the ones on the ASUS site which are from 2009. Nothing would cure this issue, so we RMA’d the laptop back to ASUS. A week later we get the laptop back with “all tests passed, no problems” and the machine had been wiped back to the factory OS defaults for Windows 7 Home Premium.

At that point I reloaded the FURMARK and BURN IN TEST applications on the laptop, and guess what – it did not go into GSOD when running 3D. Now I immediately thought this is a driver issue with the video card, because I was trying to use the latest ATI Cataylist drivers, and this wiped laptop had a clean set of factory drivers. Not wanting to keep 2+ year old drivers on my laptop (which was purchased mid 2010), I set out to try and get to the bottom of the issue.

I found two forum sites with hundreds of pages of user posts on this exact issue. First one Here Second one here

The issue is that the video BIOS on the onboard 5870 video card is old and is not compatible with the latest ATI drivers, so what needs to happen is you have to do is flash update your video card and then install the latest video drivers from ATI (in my case they were version 11.4) from the ATI SITE here.

Here is the path I would recommend:

  1. download the modified, fixed video BIOS for the ATI 5870 from this post here
  2. Make sure your G73 has the latest system BIOS (current version is 213), if not, update your laptop to the latest system BIOS FIRST
  3. Extract the video BIOS files to a bootable USB stick and follow the directions on this page to flash the modified updated video bios
  4. At this point your G73 should have the latest video BIOS and system BIOS
  5. Boot the laptop. If you are not currently running the ATI Catalyst driver version 11.4, you should go and download the latest AMD Mobility Catalyst Driver from the ATI site. (current version is 11.4 as of today’s date).
  6. install the latest drivers and reboot, and your GSOD situation should be history.

Note: if you still experience some other form of glitching with your video card drivers on the G73, use this procedure to completely wipe the ATI drivers, then re-install the latest ones. Try using this procedure below to get a completely fresh install of the ATI drivers.

ATI DRIVER CLEAN START GUIDE

(Modified by The Amixa Web Guru. Original one by steviejones133)

  1. Uninstall the current AMD Mobility Catalyst Drivers by going to the control panel, uninstall programs and select everything. Remove. Do not use the EXPRESS removal. Use the one where you pick ALL the items to uninstall.
  2. Check in Device Manager that you are back to Standard VGA Drivers.
  3. If not back at VGA, uninstall/remove devices manually via device manager. This should get back to VGA.
  4. Reboot into safe mode (press F8 when you are at the BIOS to get to the Windows boot menu and pick SAFE MODE)
  5. Run Driver Sweeper in safe mode for Ati Display only (run as administrator by right clicking the icon – required) and CLEAN any ATI fragments.
  6. Quit Driver Sweeper.
  7. Re-run Driver Sweeper a second time (also as administrator), pick ATI again and let it scan once more to make sure all ATI fragments are gone
  8. Run CCleaner for both clean up and registry in safe mode.
  9. Repeat step 8.
  10. Restart normally to windows – the laptop will look bad due using only standard VGA drivers
  11. Re-run driver sweeper (admin)
  12. Re-run CCleaner
  13. At this point, all ATI driver fragments are gone.
  14. Go to the ATI site and download the latest AMD Mobility Catalyst Drivers
  15. Install the latest ATI drivers. Do not choose CUSTOM. Choose EXPRESS and let it complete.

reCAPTCHA in SSL – Changes coming – update your code

Important news for developers using reCAPTCHA on your sites.

If you are currently using http://api.recaptcha.net/challenge?k=XXXX and you need to implement reCAPTCHA on an SSL protected page — you need to switch the links to https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/challenge?k=XXXYYYZZZ.

Per Google, this change went into effect April 2011.

 

Change from this (OLD) To this (NEW)
http://api.recaptcha.net/challenge?k=XXXX https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/challenge?k=XXXYYYZZZ
http://api-verify.recaptcha.net/verify http://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/verify
http://api.recaptcha.net/noscript?k= http://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/noscript?k=

 

For more information, read this page

 

The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period

This is a brand new issue that I just came across while working on my new workstation, which has a 120gb OCZ Vertex 3 SATA 6.0 SSD drive as the primary boot drive into port #1 of the SATA 6.0 channel, running on a ASUS Maximus Extreme IV rev B3 motherboard running Windows 7 x64 Ultimate w/SP1.  The symptom is your PC freezing for around 30 seconds or more and then resuming normal operation.  I was getting these freezes throughout the first few days using this configuration.

The errors would also show up in the SYSTEM event log, called iaStor event ID 9.

The Solution:

In the BIOS, first make sure you are in AHCI mode.  Then choose HOT PLUG=ENABLED for your SSD boot drive (which should be on port #1 of the SATA 6.0 controller).

Save changes and boot up and your problems will be history.

 

IIS WordPress images 500 error

If you are here you probably are having the dreaded “broken images” problem while running WordPress under IIS.

You may have found this issue by looking at the IIS logfiles for your site and seeing 500 errors logged when it’s supposed to be pushing out images.

I will save you a lot of time.

This is all about fixing permissions so that images/media/files uploaded via WordPress will properly render.

This is the fix for the infamous “500” error that is thrown when your server has wrong file permissions and the visual result is all the images you uploaded are “broken images” and won’t display. Also called HTTP Error 500.50 – URL Rewrite Module Error when you have Detailed errors on.

  1. Don’t sweat it, I will save you HOURS of time on this one.   Thanks to the article I found here after HOURS of tracking this issue down, this problem is caused because PHP first uploads the document to a temporary directory (by default C:\Windows\Temp), and then moves it from that directory to the actual /blog/wp-content/uploads/ subdirectory.  What happens is that because IIS does not have any permissions to your “C:\Windows\Temp” directory, when the file is uploaded there, then moved by PHP, the file inherits NO permissions.  So when IIS trys to serve out that file from your /blog/wp-content/uploads/subdirectory it throws a 500 error and that is actually a permissions error.
  2. The solution:  on the Windows\Temp folder, grant “modify” permissions to both IUSR and {servername}\IIS_IUSRS user accounts.
  3. Now when you upload files via PHP and PHP moves them to the correct directory, the files will have the correct permissions and can be accessed.
  4. Important note #1:  If you already have uploaded files and are getting the dreaded broken images issue, go to the /blog/wp-content/uploads/directory and replace/update the permissions to add access for both user accounts noted above.  That will solve that issue.
  5. Important note #2: as with any change off the defaults for Windows, you do this AT YOUR OWN RISK.  It’s up to you if you want to grant the Windows\Temp directory permissions for those two accounts.  If you don’t PHP won’t be able to upload without the 500 issue (unless you move the PHP temp folder elsewhere and grant those accounts access to the other folder).  Do these changes at your own risk… I cannot and won’t take any responsiblity for your systems.  Please know what you are doing.

UPDATE: 04/29/2011:  One reader commented to me that he is concerned about changing security permissions on the Windows TEMP directory, and he noted that you can also edit the php.ini file and change the location of the “upload_tmp_dir” variable and point it to another location.  It’s up to you how you want to do this, as long as you have the right permissions mentioned above, your WP images and future uploads will work fine.

 

Trying to install/run ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT on W2K8R2 Windows 2008 R2 Server

If you happen to get this message when trying to launch ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT under Windows 2008 R2 Server:

The page you requested has generated an error. Please visit our homepage by clicking this link.

The issue is most likely that you are running a 32 bit version of ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT on a 64 bit server.

to fix this:

  1. IIS Manager
  2. Application Pools
  3. click on the application pool for the ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT app
  4. advanced settings
  5. Enable 32-bit applications = TRUE
  6. Click recycle

Retry your application.  It should work now.

 

Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash under Windows 2008 Server

Need help getting the Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash working under W2K8 or W2K8 R2 server?

Here is how to properly configure your server:

  1. Install the Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash software and register it using your registration key.
  2. In the destination folder for the videos, you will need to grant {machinename}\IUSR full control.
  3. the MyRequest.dll file (for ASP) won’t work properly, so if you are using ASP, you will need to use some other method to upload files to the server.  One good choice is ASPUPLOAD.COM
  4. Presuming you have already setup a site under the IIS 7.5 management tool, you need to change the pool to LOCAL SYSTEM.  Do this by locating the application pool for this site, then click ADVANCED SETTINGS (on the right nav) and under PROCESS MODEL, for Identity, select LOCALSYSTEM
  5. Click OK to close out of the property page above, then click RECYCLE
  6. You will need to grant scripts and executables property to the site.  It’s different under IIS 7 and IIS 7.5 to do this… so on the site home, open HANDLER MAPPINGS, and click “edit feature permissions” and check execute.  Then click OK and exit out.
  7. I would advise at this point to restart IIS on this box by clicking the server name and then RESTART in the right nav.
  8. If you’ve done all the above properly, you should have no problems encoding videos using Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash on a Windows 2008 server.

 

IIS 7 and IIS 7.5 script map .htm to asp.dll

I recently upgraded a site from a Windows 2003 server to a Windows 2008 R2 Web Server and needed to be able to continue running .htm files through the ASP engine, because many of the pages on the site comingled ASP and HTM.
After spending about 3 hours looking into this, I finally worked out the process (below). I hope this gives some of you a time savings!
  1. Make sure that ASP is installed on IIS 7 or IIS 7.5 (obviously)
  2. Setup your web site
  3. Your ASP files should work normally
  4. to allow your .htm files to run through the ASP engine, do the following
  5. On your IIS 7 or IIS 7.5 server, go into the C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config directory and edit the file applicationHost.config (you will need to do this in administrator mode, or do it from a different computer networking over to that server, otherwise Windows will protect that file and won’t allow you to change it.)
  6. Scroll all the way to the bottom and look for the section that corresponds to your web site <location path=”Your Web Site”>
  7. Change/edit the code block to add in the HANDLERS and HTM map below
  8. <location path="Your Web Site">
    <system.webServer>
    <asp appAllowClientDebug="true" scriptErrorSentToBrowser="true" />
    <handlers>
    <add name="htm" path="*.htm" verb="*" modules="IsapiModule" 
           scriptProcessor="%windir%\system32\inetsrv\asp.dll" resourceType="File" />
    </handlers>
    </system.webServer>
    </location>
  9. Save the file.
  10. Restart the web server in the IIS Manager by right clicking the server name.
  11. Test your site. .HTM pages should now work as ASP files by running through the ASP.DLL

WordPress Windows 2008 Web Server R2 IIS 7.5 setup

I thought I would share a few important tips on getting WordPress 3.x to work properly – with PERMALINKS / SEO friendly URL’s.  It’s taken me a lot of trial and error to figure out the finer points, but assuming you can get it installed, these tips should help you get it 100% functional.

  1. to install, use the Microsoft Platform Installer 2.0, and let it do the work of installing PHP, WordPress etc.  IT IS FANTASIC!!! It will automatically setup PHP/FASTCGI for you and it is slick!  You can access the direct link to install WordPress on IIS here http://www.microsoft.com/web/wordpress/
  2. Secondly, I am going to make an assumption you are installing this as a subdirectory on your root site, such as www.mysite.com/blog.  If you are installing this to the root the same directions will basically apply but you’ll need to figure out which setting will need to be adjusted to put WP on the root.
  3. Third, we use a dedicated MySQL 5.x box, so we don’t install MySQL as part of the MPI 2.0 install (from step 1).  If you don’t already have a MySQL server you’ll need to let it install that as well, or make a new empty database on your MySQL box and use that info as part of the install process.  For security and speed reasons, a dedicated server for MySQL is the best choice, but not everyone has the resouces to permit a dedicated server.
  4. Under IIS 7.0 or 7.5, make sure you have downloaded and installed the free URL REWRITE 2.0 add-in for IIS.  This is a free download here: http://www.iis.net/download/urlrewrite
  5. PERMALINKS.  Once you get WP installed and are able to login to the admin interface, it’s pretty simple to get permalinks running.
    1. in the WP admin, go to SETTINGS->Permalinks.  We chose to use the “DAY AND NAME” setting.  Any other setting is your choice.  Pick a setting and click save changes.
    2. make sure you have a web.config file in your /blog/ subdirectory. 
    3. here is what your web.config file should look like – customized just for WP 3.0 in the /blog/ subdirectory (below).  (Download a ZIPPED copy of my file here)
    4. <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
      <configuration>
        <system.webServer>
          <httpErrors errorMode=”Custom” />
          <rewrite>
            <rules>
             <rule name=”Main Rule” stopProcessing=”true”>
              <match url=”.*” />
              <conditions logicalGrouping=”MatchAll”>
               <add input=”{REQUEST_FILENAME}” matchType=”IsFile” negate=”true” />
               <add input=”{REQUEST_FILENAME}” matchType=”IsDirectory” negate=”true” />
              </conditions>
             <action type=”Rewrite” url=”index.php” />
            </rule>
         </rules>
          </rewrite>
          <defaultDocument>
            <files>
              <clear />
              <add value=”index.php” />
            </files>
          </defaultDocument>
        </system.webServer>
      </configuration>
    5. Save this into your web.config file – this is all you need for WP running in the /blog/ directory.  Once you replace your file with this one your permalinks should work flawlessly.
  6. Troubleshooting.  One easy way to troubleshoot things with your WP install, is to enable DETAILED errormode.  To do this, edit your web.config file within the /blog/ folder and change just the one line above to this <httpErrors errorMode=”Detailed”/>  Of course when you are all done and going live with WP, change that line back to “Custom”
  7. Fixing permissions so that images/media/files uploaded via WordPress will properly render.  This is the fix for the infamous “500” error that is thrown when your server has wrong file permissions and the visual result is all the images you uploaded are “broken images” and won’t display. Also called HTTP Error 500.50 – URL Rewrite Module Error when you have Detailed errors on.
    1. Don’t sweat it, I will save you HOURS of time on this one.   Thanks to the article I found here after HOURS of tracking this issue down, this problem is caused because PHP first uploads the document to a temporary directory (by default C:\Windows\Temp), and then moves it from that directory to the actual /blog/wp-content/uploads/ subdirectory.  What happens is that because IIS does not have any permissions to your “C:\Windows\Temp” directory, when the file is uploaded there, then moved by PHP, the file inherits NO permissions.  So when IIS trys to serve out that file from your /blog/wp-content/uploads/subdirectory it throws a 500 error and that is actually a permissions error.
    2. The solution:  on the Windows\Temp folder, grant “modify” permissions to both IUSR and {servername}\IIS_IUSRS user accounts. 
    3. Now when you upload files via PHP and PHP moves them to the correct directory, the files will have the correct permissions and can be accessed.
    4. Important note #1:  If you already have uploaded files and are getting the dreaded broken images issue, go to the /blog/wp-content/uploads/directory and replace/update the permissions to add access for both user accounts noted above.  That will solve that issue.
    5. Important note #2: as with any change off the defaults for Windows, you do this AT YOUR OWN RISK.  It’s up to you if you want to grant the Windows\Temp directory permissions for those two accounts.  If you don’t PHP won’t be able to upload without the 500 issue (unless you move the PHP temp folder elsewhere and grant those accounts access to the other folder).  Do these changes at your own risk… I cannot and won’t take any responsiblity for your systems.  Please know what you are doing.
  8. Another site with good info on WordPress/IIS installs is here

Best of luck on your Windows 2008 R2 IIS 7.5 WordPress install. We use it here and it is fantastic!

Navigation bar missing from web site made in Publisher

Recently we were hired to fix two web sites that were designed in Microsoft Publisher and then output as HTML and uploaded to a server for a local business.  The problem is that since IE 8 came out (March 2009), both of these web sites – for anyone using Internet Explorer 8 (even using compatibility mode) – were completely missing the VERTICAL left hand navigation bars that were on each site.  When we tried the site under Firefox, Chrome or Safari, the site worked fine.  This is still a major problem because still a majority of users use IE for browsing and to them the site will be broken.

After spending several hours reseaching this topic as well as experimenting with the HTML code that is generated by Microsoft Publisher (absolutely BLOATED and HORRIBLE) – I figured out the solution to the issue.  Now keep in mind this is like putting a band-aid on the Hoover Dam to plug a leak, this should only be used to “hold over” the site until you get a “real” site designed by a company like Amixa.  I highly suggest you use this to only fix the site in the interim until you get that new site built.  Any site using Publisher is likely to suffer from horrible HTML bloat and horrible (or no) image optimization, so get off that site as soon as posssible so as not to drag down your SEO rankings any further.

Here is how to fix the issue.  (I will show you how to fix one page.  You can do the others yourself.)

  1. You will need Publisher installed onto your workstation  In my case I have the latest Publisher 2010.
  2. Download a full copy of the site to your computer.
  3. Make a backup copy into another directory.  We will only perform these fixes to the COPY.  Never erase the original in case you need to go back to it.
  4. Launch Publisher
  5. Go to file menu and OPEN up the HTM page (I am starting with the homepage, called index.htm)
  6. The page should open up perfectly and look “as it does”
  7. Locate the navigation element that is missing when you view the site under IE.  In our case it was a vertical element on the left side of the site.
  8. Hover your cursor over the upper left border of the navigation element.  When you do this the border should change into a “white and blue” striped edge.
    1. Publisher navigation border when you hover
  9. Then carefully RIGHT CLICK and select UNGROUP
  10. As soon as you do that the navigation element will change into a bunch of individual elements with “dots”
  11. Go to file, Save As, select Web Page, Filtered.  Save the file OVER TOP of the original one.
  12. You will see that each time you complete this process for each page Publisher will generate it’s own image folder.  That’s ok.  We’re only using this as a temporary fix anyways.  Upload all the revised HTML pages and their image folders to the server.
  13. It’s not perfect but the site will work on all browsers again and buy you some time until the site is rebuilt.
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