Inside my Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG

To all of you who's curious about how a lens look like from the "inside". I decided to dismantle (it was some while ago) my Sigma 24-70 2.8 EX DG because there was some strange noise in the zoom ring. Looked like something was loose (and indeed was). A small bolt was not in place.

Here I put some photos of my adventure. (note: after I mounted it, it worked perfectly, so if you know what you're doing, you're golden !)

Hope you enjoy !

My Sony DSC-HX9V flash does not pop-up !!!

My compact camera is a Sony DSC-HX9V. Amazing compact with a big 16x optical zoom lens. Today I needed to use it and wanted my pop-up flash to work (usually I don't use the flash).

But, to my surprise, it was not popping-up. To solve this, I had to put in manual mode, set the flash to "always" and while pressing the shutter, I used my nail and gently pull out the flash. It worked !!! From now on, I will at least turn it on once a day (ok... maybe not once a day... but once a week...)

Cheers !

Dual monitor onboard MSI 880G-E45 motherboard

So I wanted to connect 2 monitors using my onboard video from my MSI 880G-E45 motherboard. I could do it but using one high def and VGA (DVI + VGA or HDMI + VGA).
Connecting DVI and HDMI didn't work. So the idea now was to plug another video card and use the DVI from the onboard and from the video card.
I tried several combinations of primary graphics adapter in the BIOS and my PCI-e video card. No kudos.
I ended up buying an EVGA 8400GS and now I'm a happy user of a dual monitor setup (DVI + HDMI).

Don't forget to turn on your PC before removing the CPU heatsink !

I just bought a new CPU heatsink, the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ to replace my stock one in my AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition processor.
After carefully reading the instructions on how to install the new cooler, I unpacked it and had everything ready to roll.
Now it was time to remove my stock cooler. I unscrewed the base that goes attached to the motherboard and started removing it from the CPU. It was hard. Damn... I thought, maybe it's like that... and continued until I got it. But, for my surprise, the CPU came TOGETHER in the heatsink. My heart was beating fast. I checked the pins... everything seemed ok...

Found some posts to heat the heatsink using a heatgun. I used a hair dryer to heat the copper base (not the CPU itself) and carefully started twisting the CPU right to left until it started moving... and voilà... the CPU unglued.
I plugged it in and mounted the new cooler. I was so luck that nothing was damaged.


So, a word of caution. ALWAYS turn on your PC to heat up the CPU before taking it apart.