Two Weeks Later

Okay, not really two weeks, more like just the time between the last snowstorm and this one.

I’m in the process of ricing out the windows install some more on my T500, and I’ve found out how to properly use the switching graphics modes. Aside from that, I swapped panels with my Inspiron 9100 so that it had a nice, crisp 1920×1200 panel. the old 1680×1050 panel is back in the 9100, but I seem to have forgotten to hook up the backlight to the inverter! so that’s something else to be taken care of at a later date with that laptop. I also fixed the heat issue with the T500’s ATI side alongside working out the switching graphics stuff. what you have to do is install the switching graphics driver provided by Lenovo, and then install AMD Catalyst 13.9 Legacy (for the HD 2000/3000/4000 series cards including mobility solutions) atop that to update the AMD/ATI driver side. it works amazingly and does drop the temperatures a few degrees, into what I call the safe zone, at load. the issue with this laptop is that if it overheats, the laptop goes into thermal protection shutdown past a certain temperature on the CPU. and because the CPU and GPU share a common path to the heatsink, there’s some residual heat making its way onto the metal which includes the contact area for the CPU. I’m still not sure how to resolves this any more than it has been. Should I add more solder to the heatpipe around the area where it hits the actual heatsink part? I’ll have a diagram later of what I want to do.

I have an UltraBay hard drive adapter on the way for the T500 as well. the current 320GB hard drive is going in it, and then the 320 is getting cloned to a 750 which will reside in the main hard drive caddy housing. This will be the way things are unless I decide that I want more space, in which case the 1TB from the D830 is immediately going in here and I’m just gonna wipe that install off the face of the earth. I’m going to see if there’s a way to preserve it first, though. dd isn’t an option, since the partition size is 930GB. so I’m going to have to shrink the partition and see what I can do with it from there with possibly the horrible easeus utility or the apricorn utility from work.

Grandma’s doing better. she’s almost back to her old self, whining and all about stuff. it makes me both happily relieved but also semi-annoyed sometimes, but I have to live with it until the doctor says she’s okay to go back to living on her own again. so every couple of days (or two days in a row, such as with the current snowstorm) I’ll be over here and then i’ll get relieved by either another family member e.g. my mother or younger brother, as those are both the only other two that can drive. and I’ll be here all day. This usually encompasses making a large cup of coffee so I don’t have to leave while I’m here to go get some, nor use the coffeemaker to make any either. I do have to make her coffee on occasion, and that’s just some hot water from the teapot and then a sanka packet and a saccharin sweet n’ low knockoff packet and she’s set.

I think that’s quite a bit for a second post, so I’ll end it there.