Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 August 5

= August 5 =

Intel vs AMD: Has Intel achieved a decisive victory?
I used to follow the processor industry pretty closely, but not buying a new PC in the last 5 years has meant I haven't paid close attention to recent developments. I do regularly read tech news, though, and all I've seen lately is praise for new Intel product lines -- nothing about AMD. Has this grudge match been settled when I wasn't looking? Is AMD no longer competitive? 218.25.32.210 (talk) 01:11, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi
 * Intel currently has the lead with the following products
 * Intel Xeon 3000 Processor Series, which consists of:
 * Intel Xeon 3100 Processors
 * Intel Xeon 3200 Processors
 * Intel Xeon 3300 Processors
 * Intel Xeon 3400 Processors, which are a line of single-socket server processors with wattages ranging from 23W to 130W, cache sizes ranging from 2MB to 12MB, and frequencies ranging from 1.73GHz to 3.73GHz.
 * Intel Xeon W3500 Processors, which is a line of processors intended specifically for workstations.
 * Intel Xeon W3680 Processor, which is a 130-watt six-core workstation processor with a 3.33GHz base frequency, 3.6GHz maximum frequency, and a 12MB L3 Cache.
 * Intel Xeon 5000 Processor Series, which consists of:
 * Intel Xeon 5100 Processors
 * Intel Xeon 5200 Processors
 * Intel Xeon 5300 Processors
 * Intel Xeon 5400 Processors
 * Intel Xeon 5500 Processors, which are manufactured using 45 nanometer technology for dual-socket computers, and consist of dual-core and quad-core processors.
 * Intel Xeon 5600 Processors, which are manufactured using 32 nanometer technology for dual-socket computers and consist of dual-core, quad-core and hex-core processors.
 * Intel Xeon 6000 Processor Series, which consists only of Intel Xeon 6500 Processors, which are manufactured with 45nm technology for dual-socket computers and consist of quad-core, hex-core and oct-core processors.
 * Intel Xeon 7500 Processor Series, which consists of:
 * Intel Xeon 7100 Processors
 * Intel Xeon 7200 Processors
 * Intel Xeon 7300 Processors
 * Intel Xeon 7400 Processors, which consist of quad-core and hex-core processors manufactured using 45 nanometer technlogy.
 * Intel Xeon 7500 Processors, which are designed for computer systems with 2 to 256 processor sockets, and have up to eight cores each running at a maximum frequency of 2.666GHz, and are equipped with caches ranging in size 8MB to 24MB.


 * But AMD is still actively competing with, and has in someways (such as processor core count) surpassed, Intel with the following products
 * AMD Opteron 6000 Processor Series, which consists of processors which are designed for dual-socket and quad-socket servers, with 12MB L3 caches, either eight or twelve cores each, and frequencies ranging from 1.7GHz to 2.4GHz. The AMD Opteron 6000 Processor Series, which currently consists only of the Opteron 6100 line of processors, supports up to twelve DIMMs per CPU in four channels.
 * AMD Opteron 4000 Processor Series, which consists of processors which are designed for single-socket and dual-socket servers, with 12MB L3 caches, either eight or twelve cores each, and frequencies ranging from 1.7GHz to 2.8GHz. Each AMD Opteron 4000 Series processor supports up to six DIMMs of DDR3 1333MHz RAM in two channels.
 * By the way, I also changed the title of your question from "has AMD decisively lost against Intel?" to "Intel vs AMD: Has Intel achieved a decisive victory?". Rocketshiporion
 * Not sure what was wrong with the original title....--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 04:52, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * And you're supposed to be a linguist? Active sentences are less confusing that passive sentences. We expect the subject to perform an action, not the action to be performed on the subject! Objects should be placed in the predicate! Also, the word against implies that losing is something performed on Intel. Therefore, the current wording is less ambiguous.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 06:32, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Man, the folks from Language Log are gonna kill you; there's no passive voice in the original title. Heck, this usage of "lose" isn't even transitive; you need to add a direct object to make a passive construction: "Has the battle been lost by AMD?", which is awkward because "battle" is unnecessary.  Paul (Stansifer) 13:48, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've asked Rocketshiporion on his or her talk page to not change any more section titles, per our recent week-long debate. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:18, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * This is just idle speculation, but AMD's initial success at the high end was made possible by two huge blunders on Intel's part, NetBurst and Itanium. It isn't normal for Intel to screw up that badly, and AMD has a hard time competing with Intel's R&D budget when Intel isn't shooting itself in the foot. -- BenRG (talk) 04:35, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The Intel NetBurst architecture wasn't a complete screw-up; the NetBurst microarchitecture evolved (together with the Banias/P6M architecture) into the Core and Penryn architectures, which have more recently evolved into the new Nehalem architecture. Itanium was more of a disaster; Itanium processors were always single-core or dual-core and manufactured using 90 nanometer technology, and only recently has the new Itanium 9300 line of dual-core and quad-core processors come out. But even then, the top-of-the-line Intel Itanium 9350 Processor; has four-cores and a 24MB L3 cache, runs at 1.73GHz, and consumes a whopping 185W of power. Compare this to the Intel Xeon X7560 Processor; which has the same amount of cache memory, double the number of cores, runs at 2.26GHz, and consumes 130W of power. IMHO, I don't know why anyone would want to use Intel Itanium 9000 processors instead of Intel Xeon 7000 processors; they can both be used in systems which scale to dozens of processors. Rocketshiporion  15:20, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * HP-UX doesn't run on x86. But don't ask me why anyone would want to use HP-UX. 98.226.122.10 (talk) 23:32, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Colorado will not load on Internet Explore 8, but other articles will
I already asked the help desk, Wifione suggest I come here/try Google Chrome, It works on Google Chrome. My Internet Connection is fine for all other Wikipedia articles/general websites

For Internet Explorer: 8.0.6001.18702

For MSN 09: 9.60.0053.2200

Computer: Compaq Pesario

operating system: Windows XP Media Center Edition Version 5.1: Service Pack 3 BionicWilliam (talk) 08:23, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * At 110 KB long, the Colorado article is quite long and does take longer than usual to load, but otherwise it works fine on my on my Windows Vista/IE 8 laptop. There have been no changes to the article in the last couple of days, so I suggest you check your PC for malware or rogue IE 8 addins that could cause it to fail to load the page.  Do you get an error message, perhaps in thesystem event logs?  Astronaut (talk) 11:16, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It is not the article length that makes it quite a burden on the browser, it is the total download size, I would imagine. Total, with all of the images and etc., the page is 1.2MB in size. That puts it kind of on the heavy end of the spectrum. Most long articles seem to be generally around 400KB by comparison. United States of America is about the same size. I suspect it is just because there are a lot of images on the Colorado page. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:44, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I get "This program cannot display the webpage" messege, and I've tried going on IE with no add-ons through my system tools and still doesn't work. I just download a new Webroot Antvirus with Spy Sweeper update a couple days ago. I removed Trend Micro Antivirus from Computer after a day or to since on of them was freezing my computer a lot. I've also not had any new add-on's for IE and Colorado Article was fine a month ago. BionicWilliam (talk) 06:58, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm running IE version 8.0.6001.18928, and although the article took a little longer to load than most articles or other pages do, it didn't have any problems. Have you encountered this with any other very long pages?  WP:MPS is 281 KB long, and it has tons of links and other things besides simply text; it takes about as long to load as the Colorado article does.  Nyttend (talk) 02:34, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:MPS loads, United States Loads; so no I haven't encountered it. BionicWilliam (talk) 03:45, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * We have a definite issue here - it's very slow to load in firefox as is Texas. I will do some experiments with other states. Exxolon (talk) 19:26, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm Texas was only slow on first load, assume some caching happened. Still not sure why Colorado is still slow. Exxolon (talk) 19:28, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Colorado doesn't try to load at all for me, it go's right to "This program cannot display the webpage" BionicWilliam (talk) 04:32, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

News Flash, Colorado just loaded for me :O :D, I mean wierd I didn't do anything abnormal. Thanks for all of guys help/suggestions BionicWilliam (talk) 04:38, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * An edit removed some category related stuff - this seems to have fixed the issue. Exxolon (talk) 12:47, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Finding a MAC Code/wireless dongles/uninstalling browsers
Hello, here are my latest computing problems, sorry to be a nusisance but these are causing me a lot of annoyance.

I have recently moved house and want to set up broadband (ADSL), however several new ISPs websites have told me that there is already broadband on my phone line so they need a MAC code from my previous broadband provider before they can do anything. There is plenty of advice on this online, with numerous websites telling me to contact my previous provider, however I don't have a clue who the provider is so I can't contact them and in any case, any contract would not be in my name and I'm not sure they'd be willing to just dish out the MAC code to somebody who is not authorised.

Is there a way of analysing the phone line to find out who 'owns' it - or can I get round the issue of having to have a MAC code some other way? Cable broadband is one option but not particularly cheap, or alternatively, mobile phone network broadband. I do have a '3' mobile USB dongle but it keeps disconnecting when used on my laptop (it works fine on my PC so I think the problem is related to Windoze).

That brings me onto my next question - why does the '3' dongle keep disconnecting when used on my laptop? The problem is extremely annoying and goes like this: I load up the '3Connect' software and once the USB modem status says 'Ready to connect', I click connect. It works OK and the status says 'Connected' for about a minute then the connection drops out. I go back to '3Connect' and it says 'Ready to connect' so I click connect again and it comes up with an error message that there is a problem connecting and would you like to try again. Clicking OK results in the same message and this error is fatal, in that the only way of connecting again is to reboot the laptop, when I can use it again for a minute before experiencing the same problem. It works fine on my desktop PC, it rarely disconnects and if it does, I can reconnect without having to reboot. I am therefore pretty convinced that it is a problem with the laptop and not the dongle or the mobile phone network these things use (GSM or whatever it is). It is also not a problem with the location, as if I use the laptop in the same room as the PC it won't work.

Both machines have Windows XP, SP2, although both are long overdue a rebuild, which I am dreading as there is so much stuff to load (on the desktop PC at least). I would very much like to ditch Windoze on the laptop as I can survive without Windoze-dependent software on that as long as my desktop still has Windoze. However, will the '3' mobile broadband dongle work with Linux (Ubuntu being my preferred choice)? Has anyone had any experience of using these things with alternative OSs? I don't think the 3Connect propriatery software would work so it would need some kind of generic driver or app.

Next question, are there any significant disadvantages of using mobile broadband over fixed line/ADSL broadband? I think the 3 dongle costs about £10 per Gb but it is pay-as-you-go and I haven't needed to top it up yet so I don't need that much allowance, really just Facebook and general email/browsing, although I sometimes use Youtube a bit to watch music videos (these are usually pretty low res) and I also use Spotify sometimes for listening to streamed music.

Finally, there seems to be some kind of bizarre conspiracy against other browsers on my desktop PC. I used to have Firefox, Safari and my browser of choice, Chrome all installed and working OK on this. However, in the last couple of weeks, something has deleted all the program files. There is no trace of them in C:\Program Files although the Desktop, Quick Launch and Start Menu shortcuts are still there, clicking them brings up a message that it can't find the folders. I am not surprised, as they have been deleted (and not in the Recycle Bin). So, I went to the Google website and attempted to install Chrome, apparantly it only takes a few minutes, and on my laptop, it did (I was using a public WiFi network to download it). On my PC, it downloads the installer and then says 'Installing', with one of those silly progress bars that fill up and then empty again (giving no actual indication of progress) and it never completes. The same goes if I try and install Safari or FireFox. Now this sounds to me like a virus but I did a full scan using my AVG antivirus and nothing was found. I know you are probably going to suggest rebuilding it but that is a last resort and in any case, it is perplexing why these browsers have been removed. Internet Explorer still works but I would rather use something else.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any answers you have and sorry about the long post, I need somewhere to moan about my computer problems, otherwise I will end up throwing them out the window!!! GaryReggae (talk) 08:43, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Forgot to mention, the mobile broadband dongle mentioned is a ZTE MF112.GaryReggae (talk) 08:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I assume you are in the UK. If you can use the internet from home, then you can do a whois inquiry on the IP address.  If not, you will have to pursuade BT to tell you the ISP currently occupying your line.  When I called BT just a couple of minutes ago, they suggested they would need your phone number or postcode to "do checks on your line" which would tell them the ISP.  In theory, you can then call the ISP to get them to issue the MAC code.  However, I have an awful suspicion you will repeatedly come up against the "we won't talk to anyone but the account holder" line used by so many organisations these days (when my sister's ISP switch was taking a long while, I ended up pretending to be my brother-in-law so they would talk to me!).  An easier way might be to contact your solicitor (if you have bought) or the letting agent (if you are renting) to get them to tell you the name of the previous occupant and perhaps a forwarding phone number.  Then you can call the previous occupant and get them to press for their internet to be disconnected (after all, they're probably still paying for it).  Astronaut (talk) 14:34, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

You do not actually need to use the 3 Connect software on windows (though it does need to be installed in order for the drivers to be available). You can connect/disconnect using windows built-in networking (on Vista, just right click on the network icon and connect to 1.3G, not sure where it is on XP though). I found this rather more convenient than the 3 Connect bloatware. If you're familiar with programming you can use the RAS functions to handle the connection. I have found Three to been very reliable this last year, though I had a lot of problems previously which I put down the the local cell tower being overloaded. You could try moving the laptop to see if you can get a better signal, or try a USB extension cable. Price-wise I'm using their 12GB/12 month package (cost £80 inclusive of dongle) which is very good value for money if you're a light user (I generally browse without images which is easy to toggle on/off on Opera)

The dongle will work fine on Ubuntu (nothing to install). You just need to right-click on the network icon (top line, right), Edit Connections, Mobile Broadband, then fill in the provider deails. I did have some problems with DNS and had to manually configure /etc/resolv.conf (added nameserver 141.1.1.1) but as I was only doing a test with the LiveCD I never followed it up. The ubuntu forums are very helpful though. Good luck. Kram (talk) 20:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * On disadvantages, the main one is reliability which is very dependent on your location (just go looking in the forums for examples of woeful experiences, though bear in mind that satisfied users don't tend to post). The other niggle is data allocation expiry (on Three pay-as-you-go, if you top up with 1GB it only lasts a month, and does not roll over), which is why the 12 month pay-as-you-go package was so attractive (and its much cheaper than getting a landline installed). Another issue is over-restrictive nanny filters used by some providers (Vodafone, are you listening?). You can supposedly get the filter turned off, though I didn't bother (I only got the Vodafone dongle as a backup for the occasions that Three was unavailable, and it had an attractive non-expiring data allocation (provided you connected at least once every 6 months), sadly no longer available on new dongles). BTW I have stayed clear of Contract packages as I don't fancy getting burned by over-usage charges, though they may be appropriate for some users. And a plug for NetWorx by SoftPerfect (google it) which is a great (free) bandwidth usage monitoring tool. PS Sorry for the slight rant! PPS I recall seeing some mention of USB power issues with 3G dongles on laptops, so you could try (borrow?) an externally powered USB hub to see if it helps. Kram (talk) 21:23, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the replies folks. No luck with the MAC Code yet but I have sent an complaint to BT along the lines of I set up a new contract with them for a phone line and it is unacceptable that I cannot use it for broadband. I optimistically asked them to either just disconnect whatever the previous person had on it (as its nothing to do with me!) or to give me a new line that does work properly. No answer yet but I have a complaint number now so can complain further if they ignore it! The cheeky so-and-so's want to increase my line rental as well, not until they sort out the problems!!!


 * On a more positive note, I am writing this from my laptop using the '3' mobile broadband dongle. It works fine now I have installed Ubuntu, as you said, just a case of following a simple wizard. I was surprised how easy it was to get it working, I didn't even need any settings except for what network it is on but Ubuntu seems to have presets for those. Now I have this up and running I am not in such a hurry to get BT moving. I do agree about the data allowance expiry on the mobile broadband dongles, I bought a dongle with 3Gb allowance in early June and haven't used all that much yet (mind you, downloading that 700Mb Ubuntu installer will have helped me get my money's worth! Thanks again, GaryReggae (talk) 17:43, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Recovering data from a bad latptop harddisk
This hard drive has too many bad sectors and at some point windows did not start so i got rid of that laptop and retained the hard drive. I bought another laptop, it works well but would not boot from ultimate boot cd. This laptop has cdrw /dvd drive and i burned ultimate boot cd in a cdrw and  it worked on the older laptop. Current laptop apparently wont boot from the old hard disk either - it shows windows boot menu with safe mode etc.

So I decided to boot from linux cd and copy data from old hard disk to a usb drive. Damn small linux boots but i dont see the hard drive or usb stick in the file manager - i looked in etc/ and also in dev/. So,I a clicked the green thing near hda1 or hda5 on the widget on lower right corner (does not belong to the file manager), but just could not find the drives.

My next attempt was use ubuntu, on booting it started to read the old hard drive and said "I/O error bad sector 3636657" or something along those lines. There are too many bad sectors so, it is still doing that. I don't know whether ubuntu will eventually start. But if it does start, i could easily find the drives in its file manager.

Another thing i could have done wrongs is that i have misplaced the jumper on the old hard drive. Current laptop has no jumper on its hard drive. I don't know if that causes any of the problem.Perhaps you could please give some suggestions on how to recover data. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.99.136.3 (talk) 10:17, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Puzzled why you dumped the old laptop but kept the dying hard drive. Most people dump the dying hard drive and install a new hard drive in the old laptop.
 * Anyway, recovering data from a dying hard drive can be difficult. I recently tried doing this, before eventually giving up when various Linux distributions consistantly refused to mount the drive any more.  The drive had gone from making intermittant rattling noises to a constant noise like a meat grinder.  I did have some luck in using Windows Recovery Console to rebuild the Master Boot Record and Partition Table and was then able to access the drive for a short while before it failed again - unfortunately the part I needed to access was hidden from Windows (in the system recovery area) and it was the restart with a Linux Distribution (to allow me to access that area) that broke it again.
 * As for jumper settings, if you are accessing the faulty drive through a USB port, I don't think the jumper settings matter. However, if you have mounted the faulty drive inside the case on the second connector on an IDE cable, the jumper setting does matter.  Astronaut (talk) 11:31, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know whether SpinRite would be able to fix the broken hard drive... Chevy  monte  carlo  - alt 15:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I would second SpinRite, also take a look at Drive Savers, a send-away drive recovery service that I've had much success with. They are very expensive (upwards of $1000 per hard drive recovered), but very effective, so you'll have to weigh the value of your data --rocketrye12talk/contribs 20:21, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Third SpinRite. However, running the hard drive through SpinRite could damage it further. So if the data is worth more then $1000 send it away to professionals. If it's not use SpinRite. --mboverload @ 04:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Lost XP file
When I boot up, I get a message saying 'Cannot find KBDMPI.DLL. Anyone know what this file does and how I can restore it? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.82.209 (talk) 17:11, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If you had a system install disk with Windows XP on it, you could insert it into your computer's disc drive and I think there's an option to repair/maintain the OS I think. Anyway, the file should be on there, if it's a system file. Once you resolve things, I'd scan your computer for malware and other nasties, as it maybe have been caused by that. Chevy  monte  carlo  - alt 15:36, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * There are 0 Google hits for this dll name: KBDMPI.DLL . This makes me suspect it isn't a core dependency of Windows but rather some other software program dll that has been installed on your machine. As Chevy mentioned, a restore using a system disk and a malware scan is probably the best option. --—Mitaphane Contribs 19:27, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Safari
I have just downloaded Safari (web browser). I was bit excited when I read on the Wiki article that it is a "graphical" web browser. That filled my mind with dreams. I have always expected more than browsers can give us. Lately when I switched from IE to Firefox I was not disappointed - the spell-checking thing in itself is quite cool. So what more has Safari to offer ? Can I directly adjust colors etc. of my Wikipage or other pages ? What else it will do for me. Thanks -- Jon Ascton    (talk)  17:42, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * "Graphical" means that it is not "text-based" like Lynx (web browser). IE and Firefox are both graphical web browsers. --  k a i n a w &trade; 17:51, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I use primarily Safari on the Mac, Firefox on Linux. Safari is a bit "smoother" and fits better into the Apple ecosystem, but I think technically Firefox is as good or better, and it has a great plug-in engine. Don't expect too much. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:02, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * One thing that safari does that most other ones do not, is that it uses any color profiles that happen to be embedded in a picture...not all pics use them, but if they do, safari will render the pic better and more accurately. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.110.109.88 (talk) 02:37, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Slow Blender interface
I'm minding somebody's house for a week, and doing a bit of programming which involves some 3D models. Blender works fine for me at home, but on his (higher spec) PC, the interface is intolerably slow - there's a delay of about three seconds when selecting an object, pressing a button, opening a menu, and so on. (The actual rendering is very fast.) So I hunted through the processes and services to find some likely culprits, and stopped messenger, ad-aware (he is running avast, too, but I left that on), and some residual service left over from a previous Norton installation. Each time I got rid of one of these processes Blender seemed to perk up a bit, but after a few edits it was back to the incredibly slow interface; and this isn't with complicated models - even if I just have a couple of incredibly simple models with a few vertexes each, it's still like this. He has XP and a Radeon Xpress 200. The Blender version is 2.49. There is plenty of free memory and disk space. I'm on the verge of giving up, but: is there is any known common cause of a slow Blender interface? Wurstgeist (talk) 20:19, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, some research tells me that this is because the Radeon R300 (the Xpress) had crappy drivers, and the Blender programmers were too stubborn to write a workaround, saying ATI should fix the drivers instead, and now ATI belongs to AMD and you can't get updates for these old drivers any more and nobody ever fixed anything. My only solution seems to be to start Blender's "game" every couple of minutes and then stop it again, which resets something or other in Blender's inner workings and stops it being slow for all of the next two minutes. Unless anyone has a better idea? Wurstgeist (talk) 00:57, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Do the poor soul a favour and get them a proper graphics card ;) (for those about to complain: my first ever graphics card was an Ati, specifically it had the Mach32 chip - it was dreadfuly painful to work on in the olden days of Win95; I then had a Matrox (G200? is that right?), and my next one was an Nvidia, as have been all my graphics cards since then; so this is not just speaking of one thing without knowing the other) --Ouro (blah blah) 08:55, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I have used both ATI and Nvidia graphics cards, both with their share of issues perhaps slightly more for ATI. I will continue to buy either depending on price, performance and features for my requirements. And I would argue you are speaking of one thing without knowing the other if your last experience with ATI was a Mach32. Realisticly any recent standalone graphics card is going to be far, far better then such an old IGP, be that IGP ATI or Nvidia Nil Einne (talk) 13:41, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Nil Einne, please accept my apology. Perhaps I had gone a bit too far. In any case, I stick to Nvidia because they satisfy my needs and I had gotten used to them I must say. --Ouro (blah blah) 07:43, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Have you tried finding the most up to date version of the graphics card drivers? Never mind, I see the problem with that! Sorry about the lack of a better idea. Ah, open source. Great for some things, horrible for others — like when the programmers feel that the problem is "someone else's fault" and refuse to make workarounds. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:45, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Have you tried simply disabling hardware acceleration? If you're not sure how has a hackish method that used to work.  also has a suggestion of a method that may keep some hardware acceleration Nil Einne (talk) 14:06, 6 August 2010 (UTC)