Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) and Samsung 55" Series 6 Smart TV UA55J6200AWXXY aka J6200 Problems. Turn off Deep Color Output (HDMI)!!

I've had a Sony PS3 now for about 7 years, and it's always been pretty idiot proof to get working. It's been working fine in my house for that entire time on an old 40" Samsung Series 6 LA40A650, no problems.

Anyway, it seems the PS3 outlasted my LA40A650 which died a little while ago. So off we trotted and managed to snag a new 55" Samsung Series 6 Smart TV (non 4K), model UA55J6200 for $1380 at Harvey Norman at Knox City, Melbourne. The Samsung 55" J6200 is an amazing piece of tech, and we really love it, the LED is so much better than the old LCD we had and the SmartTV features are really neat (it's handy to be able to watch Netflix directly from the TV).

So the UA55J6200 Samsung is all good.....

except it doesn't work by default with a PS3.

Lets define "doesn't work". In my setup, the PS3 runs through an Onkyo NR515AE amp, and having the HDMI out from the AVR running to the HDMI 1 port of the Samsung 55" Series J6200 results in no signal being picked up by the TV (but sound coming from the AVR). I knew the PS3 was still working because of the audio output via the AVR and the HDMI display was working because I plugged the AVR HDMI out into an HDMI-enabled DELL monitor, and the display worked too. But, no matter of swapping HDMI cables got it working on the UA55J6200, no joy at all. 

So I went trawling the far reaches of the internet looking for help. Apparently people have been having this problem with various TVs for at least 5 years. There are plenty of people wanting to help, but generally none of the answers helped me (and many others).

Amongst the things I diligently tried but didn't work included resetting my PS3 to factory defaults, but it didn't work. I got a non 1080p signal, and when the system switched back to 1080p the TV lost signal. Clearly, whatever that did wasn't the problem. So avoid doing that if you can help it (I lost a lot of game saves, etc. doing that).

Anyway, today I came across this post on the Tom's Hardware forums. It involves the HDMI output signal from the PS3. Definately something that could be causing my problem, if the HDMI signal from the PS3 is malformed or dirty/out of spec in some way which might trip up the sensitive new-age UA55J6200.
Anyway,  this post on the Tom's Hardware forums by Sarahqt was on the money.
I'm going to be lazy and quote the post here, verbatim:

To fix it you need to head to Display Settings where in you can find an option called "Deep color Output (HDMI)". Turn this option from automatic to OFF and viola! the 1080p output from the PS3 works just fine again! I think the problem definitely lies with the PS3- software/hardware I cant tell.

So, on the PS3 do:
SETTINGS>DISPLAY SETTINGS >DEEP COLOR OUTPUT (HDMI) > OFF
(default is Auto, which doesn't work on the Samsung 55" Series 6 6200).

I hope this helps someone else. I found this as frustrating as hell, but now it's working just fine.

Medion P6624 - Windows 10 Install Guide

Here is a definitive upgrade guide for the Medion P6624 for going from Windows 7 or Windows 8 to Windows 10. This step-by-step guide gets you through all the hoops of the actual Windows 10 upgrade installation, and then fixes driver issues once Windows 10 is installed.

Step 1.
Remove the battery, but keep the power cable in.

Step 2.
Start the Windows 10 upgrade. This image shows the upgrade that starts with the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool. The same information here goes for the Windows Update/GWX update method.

Let it go through the all the inital stages. The Medion P6624 will restart, let it go. This sequence events will happen:

Step3.
When the first stage, Copying Files, has finished and the Upgrading Windows percentage hits 30%, the Medion P6624 will restart.
When it restarts and the BIOS screen is presented, pull out the power cable.

Step 4.

Reconnect the power cable, and power up the computer.

Then the second stage of the installation will kick off (without this plug trick, it will hang).

Step 5.
At the end of the "Installing features and drivers" stage, at around 75%, the Medion P6624 will restart again.
When it restarts and the BIOS screen is presented, pull out the power cable.

Step 6.
Reconnect the power cable, and power up the computer.

The third and final stage will now continue.

Installation of Windows 10 complete.

With Windows 10 installed, there are two more things to do.

1. Replace the default USB3 driver, it causes a hang on restart. The default Windows 10 driver has the same issues as the Windows 8 driver on the Medion P6624. It's fine from a cold start, but system restarts cause lockups.
2. Replace the default nVidia driver, it crashes Direct X on the Medion P6624. The default 353.62 nVidia Windows 10 driver has the same issues as the Windows 8 driver on the Medion P6624 - DirectX applications hang instantly.

Step 7.
Install this USB3 Reneasas driver from Intel.
Install the Nvidia Geforce 344.65 drivers from NVidia.

Done! Enjoy.

not that sort of N-Joi

Conclusions.
With these installed, your Medion P6624 running Windows 10 should restart without hanging, and the Geforce GT425M in it should run DirectX applications without crashing.

I have to thank user DS_POS from this thread (warning, it's in German) for making the logical extension of my previous findings with Windows 8. I think the BIOS in the Medion P6624 needs work. My very strong suspicion is that it has something to do with the RESTART state, and the USB3 controller. I saw someone say they could Disable Legacy USB in the BIOS and get the same result, but when I did that, I couldn't boot at all.
As for the NVidia Geforce GT425M problem, I'm at a loss to explain that. I think that is simply a driver issue with NVidia, but using the very latest NVidia drivers still does not work so stick with 344.65 and IGNORE all advice to upgrade for now.

Happy upgrading!

The Medion P6624 and Windows 10... a work in progress

Update 25th August, 2015:

Success! I now enter this update from a Medion P6624 running Windows 10.

Details here.

Original Post:
To those out there who've seen my Windows 8.1 Pro installation instruction/help guide, I want you to know that I'm giving the Windows 10 upgrade a crack.




I'm attempting at first to use the live upgrade GWX tool.. you know, the one that Microsoft pushed out to everyone around April 2015, running Windows 7 or above with an icon that looks like this:

it seems to just hook in with Windows Update.

Anyway, so far, no good. Everything starts fine, there is a reboot initially. The installer presents a screen after reboot, saying it's installing Windows 10, and it is doing the copy stage..
Once that is done, it reboots.
It is at this step that things go wrong.
It boots, I see the old Windows 8 style screen, some twirly dots, and then they go away. Then it does "nothing", as far as I can tell. It eerily smacks of the "reboot hang" that I saw when I first fresh installed Windows 8 on this Medion P6624 (see last post on this blog). That was caused by the default USB3 driver in Windows 8. I hope to earth that the Windows 10 live upgrade doesn't replace the driver during the initialisation stages of the live upgrade process. Otherwise we are never going to get it installed - at least not the easy free way.

This is what I see...

...for about 8 hours. That is as long as I've left it. I could leave it longer I guess...

Anyway, the Medion is *hot*, so the CPU is working hard doing what visibly amounts to nothing, nothing at all (no twirly balls or anything).
At this stage, the only other option is to hard reset. Hold down the power button for 5 seconds. Afterward, the system boots, I see a super quick flash of a window. There's a title on the window, but I always miss what is running, it's something.exe. I suspect its the WinPE environment that loads all this installation. Immediately after this, I see "recovering installation", and then I get a black screen with the blue windows logo (as above) but no twirly dots at all, and nothing else. I guess I could leave that for another 8 hours, but I haven't.

After another hard reset, I see another super quick flash of a window, presumably the same thing that ran after the first hard reset. After that, I see this:

This happens every time, so I have now classified this particular outcome (Windows boot screen, no sign of twirly ball activity) a "hang" or "lock up".

I attempted the installation no more than 5 times, with the same result.

At least Windows 8.1Pro is restored to the PC. Bravo Microsoft. At least you do leave me with a working PC so dont need to use Clonezilla to get working again, that would take much longer.

Update 12/08/2015 9pm

The media creation tool method to install windows has the same problems. After I do a hard reset (hold down P6624's power button for 5 seconds) twice, it restores Windows 8.1 Pro. After that, the media creation tool least it provides *some* information. Here's what I'm presented with:

at least this is something to go with for now...

0xC1900101 - 0x30017

The installation failed in the FIRST_BOOT phase with an error during BOOT operation.

This error could be one of two things:

1. The actual problem that is causing the hang, or

2. Me hard resetting the PC because it doesn't seem to do anything, like, forever.

I have only done this once so far, but since it was the same result as the GWX version, I didn't see the point.

Hmmm. I'm not sure what to do next.

The Medion P6624 on Windows 8.1 Pro. How to make the bastard work.

The Aldi Medion P6624 is a circa 28/10/2010 laptop that was had for $900 in Australia. Quite well specced with a 640gb HDD, Intel Core i3-370M processor (2.4 GHz, 3 MB Intel® Smart Cache, Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology), 15" screen, USB3, an Nvidia Geforce 425M, DVD burner, Wireless N, Ethernet, HDMI out, VGA out. It weighs a ton.

I recently decided my Medion P6624 needed a new breath of fresh air. The two things the Medion P6624 is suffering from at this day and age in June 2015, are a slow HDD and a lack of breathing space on the RAM front. So I changed the stock Samsung 640Gb 2.5" HDD (Model# HM641JI) and the 2x 2Gb Hynix DDR3 SODIMMs (Model# HMT325S6BFR8C-H9) over. I opted for a Samsung 850 EVO 250Gb SSD on the hard drive front, and some Corsair CMSA8GX3M2A1066C7 1.5V SODIMMS as a 2x4Gb (8 Gb kit). Apparently that Corsair RAM kit is "mac memory", but that's bollocks. RAM is RAM is RAM. The CMSA8GX3M2A1066C7 kit is just certified to work on MACs, but as of me writing this, I can also certify that it works on the Medion P6624.

With the new hardware, I figured "why not upgrade to something fresh on the OS front?". I've previously posted my public thoughts on Windows 8. I think its desktop rocks. With the right software in there, a Desktop-Only Windows 8.1 Pro experience can be had, and it's *awesome*. The Win8 desktop is vastly improved over the Windows 7 desktop.

Installation of Windows 8.1Pro from a USB stick was simple. Getting the install working from a USB thumb drive is easy as Microsoft does it for you these days.

BUT.

Freeze! This would be an accurate screenshot
of my Medion P6624 after a restart. Those little circles
get log jammed and don't move. Haaaang.

During installation, I quickly found that the Medion P6624 would always hang during bootup after a restart.

If starting from a shutdown, no problems, but just don't try to restart. The boot screen would start, and the little spinny dots spin around, and then get stuck. And sit there. For hours, if I let it.

Ok, so that is Problem #1.





Problem #2.

Even with the most recent drivers, this innocent window would
throw errors on a Medion P6624 on Windows 8.1 Pro, 64bit.

I had installed NVidia Geforce 353.06 drivers, just the bare essentials, none of the "Geforce Experience" guff that the installer wants to install by default. Less bloat on the boat, I say. Anyway, every time I tried to use 3D, everything that should invoke a 3D session (either full screen or windowed) would just cause an immediate error. This included trying to run Diablo3, or even opening up the NVidia control panel (in the "Adjust Image Settings With Preview" window). Direct X was clearly having some sort of problem. DXDIAG.EXE is useless in this case because it only seems to diagnose display adapter 1, which is the Intel HD Graphics adapter. Of course, that isn't the graphics adapter that's failing. Awesome. Fix this in Windows 10/DirectX 12 please Microsoft.

So, 2 problems.
Problem 1 - restart causes a hang.
Problem 2 - 3D (Direct X at least) is fucked.

The solution, what to do
The default USB3 controller driver that Windows 8.1 Pro uses is the cause of the restart hang. That needs to be replaced. The Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller needs to be running driver version 2.1.28.1. I found USB3.0_allOS_2.1.28.1_PV.exe from Intel's website, you can download it here. Just unpack the exe, and run "setup.exe", it's pretty simple.

The NVidia Geforce drivers need to be rolled back to 344.65 because everything since that seems to screw DX in Windows 8.1 Pro on the Geforce GT425M on the Medion P6624. I tried 353.06 , 352.86
and I found that only NVidia Geforce drivers 344.65 were the only ones to work. There are 8 increments between 344.65 and 352.86, but I don't have the patience to check every single one and 344.65 are good enough for me.

So in summary, to get an Aldi Medion P6624 working normally in Windows 8.1 Pro after doing a stock installation:

• install this USB3 driver from Intel.
• install these NVidia drivers.

Windows Live Mesh has had its gonads clipped

A bit of a rant here. Windows Live Mesh used to have a really nifty feature called "Remote". This allows one computer to remotely see the desktop and control another computer on the same network or across the web. The same software also had another feature called "Folder Sync" which enables directories on multiple computers or devices be continuously updated from every device that is 'linked'.

This is what the Live Mesh remote window looks (looked) like:

Now, Microsoft seems to assume that all everyone used Live Mesh for was "Sync", because in updating Windows Live Mesh, they've now essentially rolled it into SkyDrive, and in the process have removed the Remote access system completely.

This sucks

Why? Because academic institutions have major trust issues with people installing VNC software willy nilly (VNC software has been around for a very long time, and is essentially what Remote is). For reasons that many people would strongly disagree with, the same institutions have a more trusted attitude when it comes to Microsoft software -- which Remote is (was), a part of Live Mesh. This has saved my bones many times, being able to control microscopy machines from home, and do some work on my office PC by remoting in. Now it gets harder. I might have to go back to TeamViewer or something.

Screw you MS, for your shortsightedness.

Freedom from what?

So we're all hearing about the latest on the long list of massacres in the USA. Twenty primary school kids are dead this time.

In Australia, we have evolved differently to the USA. Yes we were both British colonies, but early Americans 'kicked out the English', where we slowly drifted away from the British, culturally. Generally, on many levels, I don't think we're that different from the USA. Although, perhaps it was those early times where the American reliance on the gun as a 'shield' to protect them from everything they didn't agree with took root. The notion "I have a gun, and I will use it" is quite powerful, we would all agree and certainly would sway many an argument in the favour of the person waving the gun around. When two people have guns though, one could argue that 'mutual distruction' is quite a deterrent to either person using them, but there are always people out there that don't think straight.
On the world stage, nuclear proliferation has resulted in somewhat of a stale mate because whoever pulls the trigger would begin an annihilation that would end up with their own country being obliterated. The people with their fingers on the button (arguably) are probably somewhat considered with their position and posturing, and think very carefully about how they use their nuclear arsenal. Normally, those people in those positions have to jump through certain hoops, over certain hurdles, and usually show their own country and the rest of the world they're not a complete nut job. If they are, usually someone in their own country, or someone from another country, makes them quickly disappear. This is very different to guns. When everyone can have guns then there are always going to be people who have them who really shouldn't have them.

This is for the USA, that's a whole-lot of people dying by gunshot:

.
We hear a lot of the USA in our country, we hear many American commentators waxing lyrical about their country being the root of democracy, capitalism, how it is 'the home and land of the free'. But, in the aftermath of yet another massacre, what does that amount to when people are forever checking over their shoulders? Afraid because they never know when they'll be the next target of some mad man or woman with a mental problem and $30 in their pocket ready to buy a few rounds of ammo?

I don't think any sensible person could classify that as being truly 'Free', when you can't live normally because you're worried about being shot at any moment. What is freedom, without safety?

Other people in less 'open' countries may not be 'free' in the same sense that the USA sees it, but perhaps some of those people feel safer, and don't have the same fears that grip much of the American populace. Perhaps these 'less free' people are more happy?

A lot of it comes down to gun control, quite simply. That seems like such an odd notion to Australians because we have some pretty tight gun control laws now. Guns have no place in a modern globalised urban society, and it really makes the USA look very arcane in the eyes of much of the world (this is 2012, not 1812).
I guess in light of the latest American massacre, how many more kids have to die until a majority of people, or states, are willing to relinquish their grip on their right to bear arms? Moreso, how they can let it continue to happen, time after time, after time. I'm sure there are millions upon millions of Americans who want laws significantly changed/tightened.
Perhaps one day something might change, but it doesn't look like anything will ever happen. Australia has had tragic massacres too, but federal laws were changed and now we have some of the toughest gun ownership laws in the world - specifically implemented to reduce the chances of such events happening again.

The USA in 2009 had a gun homicide rate of 3.7 deaths per 100,000 people. Approximately 25 times higher than Australia.

I know what the government of the USA should do, our example speaks for itself, but whether it's own citizens (bizarrely) want it, is another thing.

Deducer does the heavy lifting while Excel does the easy formatting.

Deducer is a great GUI head for the R statistical opensource multi-platform Java-based software.
It is free, and offers great tools to enable direct importing of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets (right up to the current XLSX format). R on its own can do this with the right plugins, but Deducer makes it all very easy for those who are put off by the standard command-line interface of R.

Interactive plots are very powerful, and R-Deducer makes them very easy.

You can do some pretty neat Text mining with it too.

And something I've used recently - a Rose chart (to represent a distribution of angles between 0 and 90 degrees).

Anyway, for those of you out there that are keen on making sense of your data... for free, and the thought of a R turns you off because you're frightened of command-line driven tools, then perhaps give Deducer a go. I did, and I'm glad I did.