Posted 11/03/09 at 07:00:00 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

At first I thought it was a fluke, but when I first installed Win7 Beta on a new HDD on my laptop, one of my USB ports stopped working and performance of the others took a nosedive, with some USB devices not getting enough power. I tried a reinstall with Win7 RC and now three of my four USB ports are having the same issues. It may not even be an issue with Windows 7 but there seems to be a correlation that the problem started and got worse with each installation.

I have Windows 7 running on two other PCs with no issues and all I can find on the Internet are people with the same problems but no solutions. I’m sure you can imagine how much it sucks having to use a four-port USB hub just so I can connect more than one USB flash drive.

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Posted 10/07/09 at 01:45:22 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

Ninety percent of the time, when I attempt to turn on my PC it powers up for a second then immediately shuts down. The other 10 percent of the time, it boots but I get no video signal. I’ve had it looked at by a local shop, which tested each component individually (except the mobo) and found them working properly. I’ve done some troubleshooting myself and I’ve gone through the wire diagrams and everything seems to be plugged in right. However, it doesn’t sound like my hard drive is turning on. I was hoping you had some ideas before I try a new hard drive. I’ve already put in a new power supply but that didn’t change anything. Any ideas?

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Posted 09/11/09 at 09:30:41 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Google has wide-ranging interests and no immediate plans to relent. Faced with the dearth of groundbreaking green technology ideas, the conscientious internet giant has taken it upon itself to break some ground in the green tech industry. It is nice to know that not every company has its sights riveted only on the e-book reader market.

Google is working on new mirror technology that could make solar thermal energy more affordable. Its current efforts are focused on the development of radical materials for the mirrors – both for the reflective surface and the substrate - used in the generation of solar thermal energy.

"In two to three years we could be demonstrating a significant scale pilot system that would generate a lot of power and would be clearly mass manufacturable at a cost that would give us a levelized cost of electricity that would be in the 5 cents or sub 5 cents a kilowatt hour range," Google’s green energy Czar told Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday.

The current cost of solar thermal energy ranges between 12-18 cents per kilowatt hour. Besides mirrors, it has plans to develop solar-powered gas turbines, a solution that could further lower the cost of electricity.

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Posted 05/22/09 at 05:30:22 PM by Andy Salisbury

Google has long been an advocate of saving energy where possible, and now they’re bringing that same policy to their users with the recent introduction of the Google PowerMeter, a gadget that allows you to track your home’s power consumption.

The gadget will track your juice use by pulling information from your power company, just so long as it’s one of their partners. Their partners include: San Diego Gas & Electric (California), TXU Energy (Texas), JEA (Florida), Reliance Energy (India), Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (Wisconsin), White River Valley Electric Cooperative (Missouri), Toronto Hydro–Electric System Limited (Canada), and Glasgow EPB (Kentucky).

Currently the feature will only be handed out a small group of customers with each utility company, but this is purely for testing. They plan on making it more available once this process is taken care of.

If you’re interested in finding out more, be sure to check out the PowerMeter home page here.

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Posted 05/22/09 at 04:56:42 PM by Andy Salisbury

Earlier this week Hitachi Ltd. and Hitachi Vehicle Energy Ltd. announced a new battery that they claim has the world’s highest power density.

The new lithium-ion battery has 4,500W/kg power density, a number that clocks in at about 1.7 times the output of their current batteries. The increase in power allows for smaller size, and is thanks to a new manganese cathode and a unique battery structure. The structure employs thinner electrodes, a new power collection method, and more effective configurations.

Hitachi plans to make this technology available for notebooks and cell phones once the automotive industries have had a chance with it, but there’s no official word as to when we could see this technology implemented on a grand scale.

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Posted 04/20/09 at 08:20:59 PM by Pulkit Chandna

The One Laptop per Child project has chosen Via’s low-wattage C7-M processor for a revised version of its XO laptop. The inexpensive XO laptop currently ships with AMD’s Geode LX processor, but AMD has decided to retire the processor. OLPC has made it clear that the Via-powered XO laptop - which the OLPC has dubbed “Generation 1.5” – will not be a major hardware refresh.

"The design goal is to provide an overall update of the system within the same ID and external appearance," OLPC’s VP of hardware development, John Watlington, announced on Friday. The revised version, which is due in November, will feature 1GB DDR2 SDRAM (currently 256MB) and up to 8GB flash storage (currently 1GB). OLPC will abandon the x-86 processor platform and adopt an ARM-based processor in its stead as part of its Generation 2.0 refresh.

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Posted 02/23/09 at 02:06:50 PM by Andy Salisbury

If you find yourself in Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz, Germany late at night be sure that you’ve got your cell phone with you. In an attempt to save energy, the citizens of the town have set up their streetlights to turn off unless you use your cell phone to turn them on!

The program has been a moderate success so far. So far the town of only 900 has managed to save $5,300. Not too shabby! Other towns, such as Döblitz, resident Heinrich Frühauf tripped and fell in the darkness, and not long after the town was turning on their lights with cell phones as well.

Though, main issues with the program still remain. Many worry that this is just a gateway for corner cutting. Perhaps it might cause people to not use as much light as safety would require, causing for manhole accidents or night crime.

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Posted 02/10/09 at 06:28:45 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Google’s prolific online search business not only allows it to invade other business niches, but also gives it the freedom to take up numerous social causes. Now the online search juggernaut has launched an online platform that will help ordinary people conserve energy.

The free tool, called PowerMeter, will allow users to view and thoroughly analyze their household energy consumption data. The platform, currently in closed beta, requires that the user possess a smart meter. It will let users compare the energy-appetite of different devices within their house, besides making it possible for users to compare each other’s energy consumption trends.

 Google hopes that access to household energy data will help users conserve energy – something many studies and Lord Kelvin have previously suggested.

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