Display driver amdkmdap has stopped responding and has recovered (say WHAT?!)

Yesterday i've encountered a strange error:

"Display driver amdkmdap has stopped responding and has recovered"

After a little bit of research it seems Windows (Only Vista SP1 and 7) display drivers have an issue with the TDR (Timeout and Detection Recovery) mechanism.

While both Nvidia and ATI drivers had suffered from this issue, it seems Nvidia had successfully managed to overcome it, while ATI still hasn't.

Using TDR, "Windows attempts to detect problematic hang situations and recover a responsive desktop dynamically... If the GPU cannot complete or preempt the current task within the configured TDR timeout, then the GPU is diagnosed as hung" ~ Microsoft.

That sucks... and if you have a power supply that couldn't provide enough energy to your display adapter this will probably happen often, eventually causing your computer to reboot.
So what can you do?

Well, this is a false positive alert in most cases. You can disable the TDR mechanism completely using this quick fix:Copy paste the below text into notepad and save it with a .reg suffix, then execute it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers]"TdrLevel"=dword:00000000

This should reduce the rate of this errors significantly if not solve the problem.

Cheers q[^_^]p

How to make your Orange Cellular modem SIM free (or how can you save two business days)

After putting up with low speeds, high latency and bad reception from my Orange operator I’ve decided to move to Pelephone (which has the BEST coverage in the country in case you didn’t know).

While purchasing, I was presented with only one option:
Buy a Cell modem + Sim for 99 NIS/Month - The deal consists of 9.99 NIS for Sim and a whopping 80 NIS for the Cell modem. In exchange you’ll get 5GB traffic with 3.6MBp/s and 200KBp/s for the rest of the month.

For all of you who don’t know, if you already have a Cell modem like me Pelephone offers a smaller package of 1GB of traffic with 7.6MBp/s and 200KBp/s for the rest of the month for only 45 NIS, no package , no commitment for more than one month, pay as you go. The only issue is that this offer only applies for those with an iPad… and Pelephone are really strict and verifies if you have and iPad or not:

Seller: “Do you have an iPad”
Me: “Sure”
Seller: “Good enough for me”

After purchasing this package I faced a different problem, my Option iCON 225 was SIM locked and I had to unlock it to use the Pelephone SIM.A short conversation with an Orange representative discovered the bitter truth: one must place the modem in customer service for two days for it to be unlocked.I enjoy wasting my time like the next guy, but something told me there’s another way so I kicked the guy over the 25-yard line (laces out, of course) and used some Google-FuAs it turns out, someone had already wrote a Python module for unlocking Option iCON 225 so no much work had to be done.

Simply follow the instructions in the link below and you’ll be good to go:http://dogber1.blogspot.com/2010/01/unlocker-for-option-gio225.html

There will be two modules:Msm_unlock – This will load a new firmware to your modem and generates a new unlock codeMsm_apply – This will use the generated unlock code and turn your modem to SIM free

C:\msm-unlock-v1.6>msm_apply.py
msm_apply.py v1.6
Copyright (c) 2009 dogbert <dogber1>, http://dogber1.blogspot.com</dogber1>
This scripts applies the unlock code of Option 3G modems (Icon 225).
Searching for serial ports...
Application serial port: COM3
Please enter the unlock code:
45668462
Unlocking modem...
Disabled PN lock
Unlock successful.
done.

Two days saved ^_^

Update:A month after unlocking the modem, it will start acting a bit funny and won't connect to the new APN.Simply change the APN back, log using your previous SIM and change the APN and SIM back

Easily downloading videos from YouTube

 

A bit frustrated from my internet connection, i mean, 15Mbp/s are all fun and games, but watching video clips, trailers etc on YouTube is slow (and if you take into account i only use HD it's mega-slow).

You can use tools such as SpeedBit to download the files, but they don't support HD for free and charge a yearly subscription of 15$ :-O

Using WireShark and a simple download manager such as FlashGet or even Wget you can download files from YouTube

After launching WireShark with your captured HTTP stream, look for a GET request to a relative path starting with /videoplayback.

Then start constructing your request:http://Host_Header/Get_Request
Configure your download manager to use the User-Agent you browser use (http://whatsmyuseragent.com/) and then pass that request to your download manager to start the download.

Note: This is relevant for all resolutions (up to 1080p)

Happy sniffing ^_^

Ubuntu/Windows Dual boot, still not perfect...

Even if you put away all the nifty things Natty Narwhal (Ubuntu 11.04) has to offer you can still feel it's not as complete as it should be.

• Unity has some GUI issues that needs to be solved
• Battery consumption is bad, and power saving options are too simple
• P&P is not always P&P but Plug-wait-install-configure-Play

But 11.04 IS a major leap forward with much better hardware support, Gnome 3 and Unity, TRIM, LibreOffice,convinient-then-ever dual-boot installation and its blazing fast performance.
Installed mine on the SSD on top of Windows 7 at the same partition (the installation process is great btw) But as it turns out, using a dual-boot will increase your power consumption for some reason.
Before the installation, i could last exactly 5:45 hours while (see specs below) working only on my SSD (Wifi,documents, music with 100% brightness, which is a bit harsher then Apples' benchmark for their laptops for all you iLovers)

After installation Ubuntu lasted only 2:30 hours with the same settings while Windows lasted 4:45.
Uninstalling Ubuntu brought the power consumption back to normal.

Btw, if you ARE considering using dual-boot with Ubuntu, keep in mind that in order to uninstall you'll have to restore your MBR using the Windows Repair Disc (just type create in the start menu), and snatch it back from the "evil" GRUB.

Boot from the repair disc, and while in the main menu, choose Command Prompt and type:
bootrec /FixMBR
bootrec /FixBoot
bootrec /RebuildBCD
reboot and GRUB will be removed from boot, and Windows will be back to normal.

Specs:
Dell Vostro 3700
CPU: Core i7 720-QM, 1.6Ghz, 2.8Ghz w/TB
Mem: 6Gb DDR-3 1333Mhz
GPU: Geforce 330GT 1GB Dedicated Memory
8-Cell battery
H.D.D-Storage: WD 500Gb 7200rpm
H.D.D-Boot: OCZ Vertex-2 60Gb

Cheers q[^_^]p