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April 2000 |
Wow, Microsoft is really getting slapped around for this antitrust thing. Apparently the splitting idea looks likely, even though MS say it's a bad idea.. but it may be the fine print of the ruling which turns out a real killer for them..
FiringSquad have taken a look at the Tyan Trinity K7, a KX133-based Athlon mobo.
I don't normally post links to regurgitated press-releases, but this one over at InsaneHardware piqued my interest - a GeForce2 card from Asus that has video capture built in.. hmm..
A review here of a Casio wristwatch with PIM functions, a notepad.. even IR ability!
Dan has reviewed the MS Natural Keyboard Pro.. he doesn't like it.
Another "Recommended Systems" thing here on UGHardware. Something to point annoying relatives and co-workers at. :)
Actually, AnandTech have released their Buyer's Guide, which is a similar thing but more comprehensive. Not too sure I agree with their dream system, though..
A P3-650 taken to 1007MHz here..
A 3-way water-block comparison here..
An interview with an AMD PR person here, some interesting stuff there.
Hope to get the K7V review finally sorted today..
P3V4X FORUM FIXED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Saturday, 29-April-2000 18:34:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I spent all day learning SQL, PostgreSQL commands and how Phorum handles it's sequencing internally. Big thanks to Jason Birch from the Phorum mailing list for the last hint I needed to get it working. It's in the same place:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/forums/list.php3?num=8
If you posted a message that didn't appear in the listing, in the last week or so, it was corrupted and isn't there any more. Post it again, it will work fine now. :)
I'm off to get a stiff drink or 8..
Saturday Morning #2
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Saturday, 29-April-2000 12:03:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Another "what I think about some stuff" article on TechExtreme. This time it's about hard disk drives.
A review of the DFI CA-61 mobo here, an Apollo Pro 133A unit.
Wow! This is very cool, an MP3 player that looks like a cassette, so you can stick it in your walkman.. like those CD-adaptors for cars, you know. Funky. Only 64MB storage though..
This thing might be an interesting article on benchmarking, or just a counter-rant to the whole open-source benchmark thing lately. I dunno, I've not read it and probably won't. I just thought you should know. :)
PeterC pointed out that the guy who makes the Paradox GFD we reviewed a few days ago has gotten his Athlon to 1GHz, there's benchmarks and stuff. Look at that memory speed!
BXBoards have done a KX133 motherboard comparo here. That's the new Athlon chipset from VIA, o'course. Notably absent is the Abit KA7, but all the other biggies are there.
Hmm, Adaptec have a new UDMA (IDE) RAID controller that does Raid5 (better than the FastTrack etc). Info here and here. Apparently people have reported success with 16 and even 32 drives. In Aus, TerabytePC have them for AUD$899, yowch.
Body Moody sent word of a new radial cooler, info here, the ArctiCooler..
TechExtreme have reviewed the Soyo SY-6VCA, another Apollo Pro 133A mobo.
Saturday Morning #1
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Saturday, 29-April-2000 12:02:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Sorry, was a bit slack with the news yesterday. Kinda got on a roll with fixing the P3V4X forum - made some definite progress but not there yet.
Ahh, Duron=Spitfire.. derr. Here's me thinking they just magicked up a whole new CPU out of spare stuff lying around the chipfab.
Hey, I'm looking at getting a CD-R/RW drive. Got any tips or horror stories? Join the thread here and let me know. Ta.
We knew it was stupid before they did it and while they did it - now we have proof, after they did it. The Australian internet decency law or whatever it's called.. info here. It'd be interesting to see how many people were involved in reporting those 124 complaints, it's probably just one or two grumpy old busybodies.
Win a bunch of cooling gear (vapochill, water-cooler etc) here .. from the info provided it looks like it's open to international readers (they're in sweden I think).
Another competition here - this time an Australian site is giving away an LS120 drive and some media. You have to benchmark your machine, they're making a database. They use frames on their site (grr) so you have to go to the link, then click the top-right menu button ("Hardware Crankage") then scroll down a bit..
I bet you just can't get enough of the GeForce2 info at the moment. :) I'm certainly sick of the Previews and regurgitated press-releases. FiringSquad have a review of a real, actual, shipping product from Elsa.
Here's some info on overclocking the memory on a GeForce2-based card.
Funky "retro" joystick here, made by an Aussie, interviewed on an Aussie site, so you really have no excuse not to click.. :)
Trouble burning 80min CD's on your HP 8100i? Here's a bios trick that will let you do it.
There's a 5-way HDD cooler comparo here at Hexus.com.
Thursday Night
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Thursday, 27-April-2000 21:15:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Looks like the Primus ADSL thing from this morning is old news and doesn't really mean anything. Bummer.
AMD announced their Duron processor today. Looks like their answer to the Celeron. Sounds like a there's a Klingon in their marketing department.
PCExtremes have reviewed the Alpha CO-6035MFC cooler. It's a socket cooler, it's really good but really expensive, like all Alphas. :)
Interesting article about a news item that has irritated me recently here. Basically, he takes apart the recent Wired story about video games being linked to violent behaviour. Not exactly light reading, but interesting.
Some amazing computer cases here. I really like the crumpled-shopping-trolley one. :)
Are 3DFX taking the piss? Check out the size of this monster videocard on HardOCP. 4 processors, 128MB of RAM..
A couple of Soltek Apollo Pro 133A motherboards are checked out here.
I saw this before but forgot about it, Mr Bill reminded me. If you buy a K7V, inside the box there is an ad sheet for Asus's video cards. They list a few websites in there (that have reviewed their products) and we're on that sheet, logo and all! Look mum, I'm famous! :)
Photos of AMD's Thunderbird etc here (japanese text, good pics)..
ArsTechnica have reviewed the Abit KA7, a KX133 Athlon board.
Yeah baby!
Primus beats Telstra to the Punch
Thanks to Tom for letting me know! Now, who was it who was saying that Primus were going to horribly cap their ADSL service? Hopefully that doesn't turn out to be true..
Wednesday Night
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Wednesday, 26-April-2000 22:44:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Jim's reviewed a couple more GFD's, so I added them to the comparo. The new ones are the Hypascend Paradox and the OutsideLoop Afterburner. You can read the whole (updated) article here if you missed it before.
Been an awful lot happening in the world of video chipsets over the last few days. Here's a preview on ExtremeHW of the NV15, AKA GeForce2.. here's another one on FiringSquad and another over on iXBT.. and another on HotHardware .. SharkyShark and the funky bunch have one too .. and Anand couldn't be left out, of course.. Kyle also has an opinion on it (unusual, I know :) )
iXBT have also put up a preview of ATI's new chipset, called Radeon for some reason. So have FiringSquad. So did Anand. So does HardwareCentral.. :)
Matrox announced their G450 video card, too. The TechReport has a copy of the press-releasse.. can't load that site at the moment, hmm.
BTW, wondered what EMBM is? Apparently it's a technology for making things look fuzzy and wobbly. Err, great. If you don't have a compatible video card, you could drink a bottle of tequila for a similar effect.
Couple of water-pumpy things on overclockers.com - firstly a 6-way water-pump comparison and then a look at an in-line pump vs submersible.
ArsTechnica have an interesting comparison of the Playstation2 (get your rocket-launcher ready) and the PC.
This is an incredibly frustrating puzzle thing that Jim passed along to me. I think the solution is probably really simple, you either see it straight away or you don't. I don't. :)
BXBoards (gotta change the name, guys) have checked out the Tyan Trinity K7 mobo. It's a KX133-based unit for yer Athlon.
US prices, but this page shows how much cheaper the Athlon is than the P3.
NeoSeeker have reviewed a laptop cooler. 8CFM is pretty woosy. Hmm.
PCExtreme took a look at the CardCooler. I checked it out here a little while ago, not too nasty a unit.
TweakTown reviewed the Ultimate HDD Cooler.. my review here for comparison.
Ever wondered what would happen if you lapped a coppermine too far? Here's someone who knows.
Saw on HardOCP that the new Winzip is out, get it here. I wonder if it's the Phil Katz memorial edition?
That's it for tonight. I'll end the news with a gratuitous beaver shot:
Looks kinda fake to me. Ahh well. :)
Tuesday Morning
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Tuesday, 25-April-2000 09:44:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Hey, Phil Katz died a couple of days ago, the creator of PKZip.. bummer. We've all used his software, even WinZip started off as a shell for PKZip. RIP..
Dan's been playing with Palm's, he's got 'em receiving email and recording voice memos.
Here's another K7V review. This is an Athlon motherboard, KX133 chipset. They like it.
Trouble getting your ATI video to work with your Soyo SY-6VBA-133 mobo? This BIOS update may fix it.. I wonder if it'll fix the dog-slow memory performance of their recent BIOS updates too. I'm using one 3 versions old and it screams..
PeterC wrote in to say that, while Celly2 SMP does not work yet, you may be able to get away with 1x Celly2 and 1xP3E, according to (somewhere in) the powerleap forums. Presuming you can find an FSB they both work at, and a common multiplier (C2-600 and P3-900E? hmm) it may be a goer. I have run chips with different multipliers on my BP6 before (a C400 with a C366) and had some stability issues, but I've seen reports of it working flawlessly elsewhere with mismatched Cellies. Food for thought, anyway.
PCCritix have a review of the Soyo SY-6VCA mobo, Soyo's new Slot1 VIA Apollo Pro 133A offering.
This thing seems pretty cool. It's a really well-done parody MPEG of Star Wars and the Matrix in one. "Stars In Black" .. really professional quality. I'm only about 1/3 through downloading it, it's 43MB and yes, I'm on a modem too :( but worth downloading in the background or while you're mowing the lawn or something. Thanks to Poit for pointing it out..
Actually, Poit is an regular from the alt.comp.hardware.overclocking newsgroup I used to frequent. Check his site out, there's a load of good info there, water-cooling etc.
Tech-Report have another comparo between the Everglide Giganta and the Radpad.. "they're almost exactly the same, but I like this one better" :)
Microsoft have given nvidia a USD$200MIL advance payment for video chipsets for their X-Box product. I guess they really are serious about it.
An interesting article about the whole web-patent thing here. I've not read the whole thing yet but surely they need to shorten patent lengths for web stuff or software.. but then, maybe other industries will want it too (like pharmaceutical engineering, another high-paced industry) .. hmm.
There's a bunch of silly stuff on this Aussie site - scroll down to see a "portable" computer, pretty funny. :)
Monday Night #2
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Monday, 24-April-2000 22:07:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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BXBoards have checked out the MSI 6301. This is an i820 board which uses DIMMS, hence has a Memory Translator Hub, hence blows hot salty chunks performance-wise.
Very nice water-jacket here, from Swiftech, who've been making serious peltier gear for a while now.
Tom Leufken dropped me a note to say he's selling the last bunch of his GFD Athlon overclocking cards for USD$25. Shipping to Oz is USD$4. The site is here. I've not seen that unit up-close, but there's a review of it here.
Another review of the Abit KA7 here, this time by FiringSquad.
Interesting home-made water-jacket here - all made from really basic hardware-shop stuff..
PCExtremes have been dicking around with the nvidia 5.14 drivers too.
A review of a Samsung 17" flat-screen CRT monitor here.
A quick tweaking article here. A celly300 beating an Athlon650 is not a bad effort.
iXBT have reviewed Epox's new Apollo Pro 133A mobo, the EP-6VBA2, here.
Aussie site TweakTown have a Win2K Modem Tweaking Guide here.
Power corrupts. Dirty power corrupts your HDD. :) AMDXtreme reviewed an APC UPS unit (that probably works for Intel chips too)..
Another GeForce review here, this time the MSI 3D AGPhantom..
FiringSquad check out the Celly2-600 for overclocking here.
ArsTechnica have a video-card roundup here, comparing the Viper2 and Rage Fury Maxx with some nvidia offerings.
Urgh, that's enough, deleting the rest and going to bed.. :)
But I'll finish on an Easter theme. Hope you guys all had a good one!
I'm back too (from a LAN marathon).
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Monday, 24-April-2000 20:33:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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That's about 4 solid days with not a lot of sleep. Didn't get to the Kensington LAN though because of problems with my car's brakes. These news items are a bit old because I didn't get a chance to check my email until tonight, so apologies if this is all old news.
"Skull" tells me that the competition at www.overclockin.com isn't open to anyone outside contintental USA. Sorry for posting it here without that info guys, but I didn't read that much into it at the time.
Who wants a GeForce2? I do. In fact, I want one so much it's the only reason I haven't already bought a GeForce(1). There's some info at Actumicro about the GeForce2 here. Thanks Ian.
Water cooling your laptop? Seems a bit counter-productive to me to lug around a 2 litre jug of water and a radiator with you when you take your laptop out on the road :) But Toshiba have done it, with a lot less water than you'd expect (well ok, less than *I'd* expect). Read about it here. Thanks Fysh.
Apparently we got a mention in last Wednesday's Green Guide in Melbourne's "The Age" newspaper. I don't think they had many nice things to say about us, because Julian (who sent me the information) told me that he doesn't agree with the article, and that "publicity never hurt anyone" :) Hmm, I never really felt infamous until now (well, not with regards to the website anyway :)
Just noticed a new bios for the K7M on Asus' site. The most ambiguous update I think I've ever seen, "Latest April updates" is all it says. Get it here.
Monday Night - I'm baaaaaack..
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Monday, 24-April-2000 19:45:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Urgh, nearly 300 new emails. Thanks guys. :) Thanks to Jim for helping out as best he could in my absence. Also, expect some news postage from another guy, YYK, soon. He's not a total hardware freak but will be posting stuff you guys might find interesting anyways. If not, feel free to flame his newbie ass off. :)
Buncha news to post tonight, as you'd expect. I'll start with the new stuff then work my way back to the old stuff. I got a bit wasted on the plane (free alcohol is a terrible thing) so I'm dead tired now.. excuse any oddness in my postage.
I have wanted one of these for freakin' ages. Very cool laser-temp-sensor thingy.
The same guys also have a nice BP6 super-cooling project up. I like to read these because they always give me more excuses for doing anything extreme with my own BP6. :)
TweakMax have an article on using a separate PSU for your peltiers etc..
Most people like 'em tiny rather than large, and so do I. GFD's, that is.. this one is titchy indeed, the smallest GFD I think I've seen, actually.
FiringSquad have a preview of the Voodoo5 5500 here. They make the observation that, while this unit may hold it's own against the GeForce, the GeForce's big brother is going to spoil the party Real Soon Now..
Interesting article here on Tech-Junkie (another Aussie site) about flashing your nvidia-based video card with a new BIOS. Hmm!
I thought Jai was never going to get around to writing a new article, but he's done a 4-way PC133 memory comparo here. Atta boy!
There's a review of a 6.4GB HDD here. No, I'm not having flashbacks to '98, this drive was made in 2000 and is pretty snappy apparently. Shame it's so danged small.
Can anyone see what's wrong with this idea? They honestly expect a Globalwin CPM25603-32 to keep 2 peltiers cool. Err, right. Roasty-toasty time, I suspect..
Won another web award thingy, from these people this time. They reckon this is one of the top 100 sites in the world.. who am I to argue. :)
More in a bit, food now.
Nightmare in New Zealand
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Friday, 21-April-2000 14:25:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Aaaaaargh! Most of the daily news stuff is mailed to me by other webmasters, so I was planning to log in with my palmpilot+mobile and read my mail from NZ, forwarding the stuff for the news page onto Jim. However, despite the fact that I am 15 minutes from the heart of Auckland, there is _ZERO_ digital mobile reception here. So now I'm logging on via the slowest web PC I've ever used, trying to find a Windows 3.1 telnet client so I can log into Zip's shell server and read my mail. This machine is a crappy old Toshiba laptop with a mono screen, that annoying "my hard drive spindle is about to seize" sound and a 14.4 modem, running Netscape 3 under Windows 3.1. I dunno if it's just the modem or if XTRA.NZ really are the slowest ISP in the universe, but downloading a 4mb file is estimated at taking 1hr:20 so I may give up soon. This is not helped by the machine hard-locking if I try to load any of the OcAust pages (but not this news script, thankfully).
I must have done something to really offend the Technology Gods and now they're punishing me. I know, it must've been that iMac laptop someone offered me really cheaply the other day.. I actually considered buying it. That'll be it. Serves me right.
Thursday afternoon.
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Thursday, 20-April-2000 14:36:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Hope I've got time to do them all this afternoon before I go home. Being the public service I've found that lots of people have either gone home for a half day or taken the full day as a flexi on this last day before Easter. I'm only a contractor so I can't take flexis :( Anyway the good thing about this is less IT problems to deal with, and more time to post news :)
Technology at an Extreme (gimme another pepsimax) has informed me that AMD have dropped their Athlon prices again. Gotta love CPU competition. More details here. The same guys also show you how to share your internet connection. They also review the Creative 8x DVD drive with the Dxr3 decoder card here.
Now seems to be the time of cheapie hard drive companies churning out something decent. Recently we had Maxtor putting up a high-end drive, and now Fujitsu have done the same. Electic have a review of the new 10.2Gb platter Fujitsu drives here.Unfortunately they only go up to 20Gb. Doesn't really cut it IMO. But the "silent" drive technology is a definite plus. I also notice on the same page reference to mobile K6-III .18 micron processors.
iXBT Labs has posted an article devoted to the memory technology of the near future - DDR SDRAM.
Want a free Athlon GFD overclocking card? Enter this contest. Thanks to Overclockin.
Another Senfu review is here. "Senfu" reminds me more of a type of bean curd than a water cooler, I dunno. Thanks to Danny of Overclockers Paradise (no URL given, no time to look for it, sorry Danny!)
Want to plug your computer into a LAN but don't have a free expansion slot? Or maybe you just can't be arsed pulling your computer apart and rebooting. Maybe you need a USB LAN connector. A review of one is here. Thanks to Chris at DocHardware.
Globalwin FEP32 Mod, a clip:
"The Globalwin FEP32 is no stranger to overclockers. But as we all know it's not the best cooler out there. So what do we owners of FEP32 do ? Change to another cooler ? No way, do yourself a favour and change that small puny fan to something better like say a 80 mm fan. Now how about Celeron 366 @ 616 Mhz using this modified cooler !" Check the article out here, thanks to Hardware Corner.
TweakTown has taken a look at the Alpha PEP66u HSF Kit.
Here is an Exhaustive Performance Analysis of Intel’s 840+RDRAM vs Micron’s DDR Reference Platform. Read it to find out who wins, but as far as price is concerned I'm sure the DDR RAM has got to have the edge.
Tweakmax have an article on a DYI water cooling setup.
Fast-Mhz takes a look at Cable vs. DSL.
Komson overclocked his Athlon 500 to 994. If you want to know how he did it, have a look here.
Anyway guys, that's it for today, there were a couple of humorous links in the batch which I just don't have time to look at or post this afternoon. I'm getting an early mark today because I worked back an hour yesterday, so I'm off for a 5 day unpaid holiday in exactly 10 minutes. I might see some of you at the Kensington LAN, if the other one I'm going to at fatboy's place is boring enough :) Catchyas later.
Jim.
Happy Birthday to me.
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Thursday, 20-April-2000 11:59:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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This deserves its own subject I've decided. I'm a year older but don't have any extra wisdom to show for it. Umm, yeah! Gimme some cake :)
Thursday morning, the Real McCoy.
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Thursday, 20-April-2000 11:37:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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It's almost afternoon, it'll probably actually be the afternoon by the time I'm finished. Anyway, Happy Easter guys and gals (Do any gals read this site? Drop me a line if you do! I'm not trying to pick up, honest! :) Here is some news.
PC Extremes has done a review on the A-Open DVD-1040 Pro DVD drive. They seem to think AOpen is a lesser-known manufacturer. Maybe they are in the States, but I've always thought they were pretty famous in Australia.
Extreme Hardware (gee, what is it about all these extreme people? hand me a pepsi max!) has done a review on the Soyo 6VBA. This seems to be a pretty good board for overclocking, it has adjustable PCI divider settings. Unfortunately I can't check this review because the wondrous powers that be at my work also consider this to be a gaming site.
Hmm. I've gotta set up some laptops now (why can't they pay me to do news on here? It's much more fun :) so I'll post some more after lunch.
Thursday morning snafu.
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Thursday, 20-April-2000 11:33:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I'll get the hang of this thing eventually. I managed to delete the wrong news post, but luckily I still had it all in my history so I'm able to re-post it here. Thank god I don't have access to Agg's news posts or they'd all be history by now :)
PC Extremes reviews the Global Win CFA12 here. Looks to be a very nice unit, though I have heard it is a little on the noisy side. (uhm, npi there folks :)
Planethardware has reviews on the ADI Microscan G710 17" Flat Panel CRT monitor here, and the Microscan 9L 18.1" LCD monitor here. The latter unit is very nice, but the price isn't :) One for the lottery wish-list though.
If you have a spare US$400 and think your stereo just don't cut it for your PC, take a look at Firing Squad's VideoLogic Sirocco Crossfire Speaker review.
Enjoy some cheeseball tech humour with a quiz at Chip Testers. I got 5 out of 10.
Overclocking the 300A Golden Orb Style (a clip) -
"Everyone knows how overclockable the Celeron 300A's are but what happens if you take the most bang for the buck cpu and put it together with the most coolest Socket 7 cooler available ? What about 300A @ 558 Mhz. That's a whooping 86% performance increase. So just don't throw those 300A out the windows yet there might still be some juice left to keep it going just a while longer."
Check out the article. Thanks to YoLk at Hardware Corner.
A Sea Monkey game review? Only at Arstechnica.
Slot coolers have always seemed to be a waste of a slot to me. But if you've got slots to spare, maybe you could use one (or more). TechWatch (another groovi Aussie site) have reviewed the "Super Slot Fan".
Roy Wilson tells us that the present K7V bios version will not allow you to use a GFD. I can't confirm this since I don't have a K7V, but it's something you Athlon overclockers should check out before buying a K7V. Hopefully Agg will be able to clarify this more in his review.
Wednesday Night
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Wednesday, 19-April-2000 22:59:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Ok, I've got some bad news and some bad news. :) Firstly, I'm going away for 5 days, off to a wedding in NZ for the Easter break. Back Wednesday probably. In my absence (I hope) Jim will do some news posting but we'll see how things go.
Secondly, the P3V4X forum is still broken. I've tracked down exactly what the problem is but I'm not sure exactly what to do about it at this point. I am writing some scripts to pull the data out of the database so I can manually rebuild it. I was hoping to get that finished tonight but I got stuck at work because the airconditioner died and the computer room was overheating.. sigh. So it'll have to wait until I get back. I've taken the forum offline so people stop writing posts that go nowhere - if you want to write a message do it in one of the other forums. All the old messages are still in there, though, they're not lost or anything. It's just confused.
Anyway, I've got to get up at 4am to get my flight (urgh, last time I let the GF book anything) .. so I leave you with only this:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q131/1/09.asp
Toosday Night #2
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Tuesday, 18-April-2000 20:31:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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NSW-based LAN-players, there's a LAN day coming up at UNSW Kensington. Full details here.
The Senfu review from yesterday attracted quite a bit of interest. A few people let me know that you can get them from Plycon in the USA and ColdTech in Germany.
There's a comparison here of a couple of quite serious-looking PC speaker setups.. I've still got the crappy ones that came with my 6X CD-ROM and ISA SB32.. :)
Tweaktown have reviewed the SexyMouse! Comes with a free SexyPad. :)
Another mouse reviewed here. This one doesn't have breasts, though. It also doesn't have a cord!
Kyle over at the HardOCP has managed to get his hands on a Voodoo5-5500 AGP. Bah, that's nothing compared to our in-house Voodoo5 9000 AGP! :)
Remember how Intel said the FC-PGA P3-1GHz wouldn't work for SMP? Well, HardwareCentral have proven them dead wrong, and have (fast!) benchmarks to prove it. Sandra CPU score of 5394.. egad.
HotHardware took a P3-800EB and cranked it all the way up to.. [checks email again] ..err, 900MHz. Shoulda picked the E not the EB, guys. :)
Another cool MP3 box to put in your hi-fi. This one is cooler than normal, though, in that it uses an IDE HDD inside, you can rip it out and put in a 30GB unit if you like.. mmmm.
Electic.com sends word that Samsung have proven their .10 micron fab process works..
Also, an annoying press-release full of weak puns is Microsoft's way of announcing their new IntelliEye-based Trackballs. Cringe here.
PCInsight have a review of a cheapy IDE RAID card from IWill. Not quite as cheap as doing this, o'course..
I saw this on Slashdot first, but a couple of people have sent it to me now. It calls for open-source benchmarking software so everyone knows what it's really doing. It's a TomsHardware article so takes 6 pages to get to the point.
Oh, another thing I saw on slashdot is this History of Computing thing.. lengthy but interesting..
Too much news today, my brain is starting to go numb..
FiringSquad have a comparo of lots of different motherboard chipsets here.
Stuck in the 80's? Remember the mullet? Here's a site to bring those nauseating memories rushing back. I was at a course the other day, there was a guy there with a mega-mullet, truly awe-inspiring. BTW there is some Adult Content (with clear warnings) on that site so you might want to send the wife and kids out for some pizza or something before clicking.
Keep sending in your funny pics.. :)
I'm sure there's a joke here that I'm just not getting. Thanks (?) YYK.
Tech-Junkie take some more old crappy computers out into the desert and shoot them. Whatever floats yer boat, guys..
Another "my opinion on a bunch of stuff" tech-extreme. Something about the stock market or something.
FiringSquad have done a comparo of the Cu-P3 and the Cu-Celly2. This is the first one I've seen that actually compares them at the same FSB and multiplier, so you can see the true effect of the L2 cache crippling.
I saw people coming here from this discussion on ArsTechnica's forums, it's pretty funny, about stupid warning messages on things.. the poodle one made me laugh. :)
Speaking of forum messages, I got some flack for posting a link to this thread in the forums here, about an OverclockersHideout disgruntled customer. Well, you might be interested in reading this other thread on HardOCP's forum, with a bunch of similarly-minded folk..
Dan's checked out a couple of i810 boards and discovered that they don't suck as much as you might expect.
Dinner now, more news later. :)
Monday Night #2
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Monday, 17-April-2000 23:10:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Ok, buncha news for you tonight. Firstly, if you've been thinking it's been a bit quiet on the review front here lately, you're right - I've been working on my monster Senfu water-cooling kit review. I finally finished it tonight!
It's pretty huge, I cover the performance of the unit on socketed, SECC and SECC2 CPU's. Of course, I also compare it to my own cobbled-together water-cooling system. Check out the full review here.
Slain wrote in with a cool tip for people soldering near components, doing motherboard hacks etc - Dick Smith have some little spring-loaded heat-sensitive pliers for holding things in place. They work as heat-sumps, drawing the heat off the component.
ClubOverclocker have taken a look at the Globalwin CBF-32 Card Cooler. I checked this out a few months ago here, not a bad unit.
Electic.com send word of a new 18.2GB flash drive.. this is a solid-state SCSI drive. Transfer speeds aren't as high as I would've expected..
These guys really hate mobile phone users.
ArsTechnica have stepped down to the level of mere mortals and reviewed another game. Which game? Soldier of Fortune, of course..
VSPOT (?) review the Abit Siluro GeForce card here.
ExtremeOC have reviewed the Soyo SY-7VCA. It's a shame we don't see more Soyo stuff down here..
NVNews have an interesting thing on different graphics options in Soldier of Fortune here. GeForce peeps only.
MegaBaz pointed out this neato site called CaseGallery. It's basically a showcase where people can.. err, show their cases.. this one is way cool. :) In a barbie kinda way.
Nearly a gig, but not quite. Vapochillin' a P3-550E.
Very Australian pic for you today.. :)
Ok, Forums went down Sunday morning, came back Sunday afternoon. They look ok except for the Asus P3V4X forum, this doesn't seem to be noticing new posts (but you get no errors when posting so they may be going into the DB). Looking into it..
I had to restore the backup as of half-past-midnight last night, so if your message is missing (from the other forums), please post it again.
BTW, Jim Noonan, who you should all know from his various articles here, will be helping out with the news from now on. Be gentle on him for his first few posts. :)
Saturday Morning
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Saturday, 15-April-2000 10:12:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Tweakmax have a thing on hot-swapping your BIOS here in case you flash it and something goes horribly wrong.
Big surprise, turns out Microsoft is Evil. Who woulda guessed? Some sneaky back-door thing has been discovered in IIS, their web-server product. I don't care - I use Apache and so should you.
Quite technical article on how the Athlon works here on Tweak3D.
Acer have released a laptop with no floppy, but a CD-RW drive built in. Pretty cool..
AnandTech have taken a look at the new Maxtor DiamondMax 40 UDMA/66 HDD. Pretty snappy transfer scores. Also, they check out a 64MB GeForce from a new company called Suma.
Fairly simple idea here but works well, fitting a thermal probe through the back of your slocket. His slocket already had holes but I've seen people drill through them to do the same thing.. obviously you need to not hit anything important with the drill. :)
VR-Zone have an article on popping the cover off your Athlon. Interesting in that they recommend using freeze-spray to loosen the pins that hold it together.
HardOCP has had a lot happening over the last few days. Firstly, they have some benchmarks of an AMD Thunderbird - check out the memory score in Sandra, 423/483MB/sec! Dunno about the reported 4k L2 cache though.
Also there is a quick look at the Powerleap Neo-S370 FC-PGA -> PPGA adapter.
Finally, I noticed on the HardOCP that MBM 4.17 is out. This supports the VIA 596B so P3V4X and other Via Apollo Pro 133A board owners can use this excellent proggy now. Get it here.
Press Release - "Tiger Attack!"
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Friday, 14-April-2000 22:43:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I just got a strange press-release sent to me, claiming a new Malaysian company is working on a 1.5GHz chip. It's fairly long so I put it into a forum message, check it out here. I've no way to verify if it's true, but it was sent to the webmasters of all the major hardware sites, so you'll probably see it elsewhere too..
There's an article here on ZD-AU about overclockers. A few familiar names there. :) Thanks YYK for the link..
We got listed on "Beyond... The Black Stump" today, on their new sites list. While on that list I found moviesthatsuck.com which is pretty funny in places. Kinda weird in others..
Found some info here on choosing the right FC-PGA P3 for SMP.. I'm hoping to drop a couple into my BP6, using Powerleap Neo-S370's, at some point..
Acer Peripherals have registered a local domain. These guys have hooked us up with some cool stuff in the past, they're now at acerperipherals.com.au. not much on their site at the moment, though.
The Alpha PEP-66 (FC-PGA cooler) is reviewed here on PC-Critix. As you'd expect, it's really good but expensive..
TechReport add their thoughts to the CoppermineP3 vs CopperCelly2 debate here. Benchmarks showing the effects of the smaller cache and lower bus speed.
Looking for GFD's? Eyo have the Nortwind GFD 2.0 in stock now..
Goldfinger Rev 2.0, $79
Goldfinger Rev 2.0 with Cache divider kits, $109.
Thanks to Kyle (no, not that one :) ) for the news.
IBM had planned to rollout 300,000 Win2K workstations, but after trialling it now have an internal policy of not allowing it to be connected to their network. Full details here on the Register (hands out grains of salt).
iXBT are getting as bad as AnandTech with the number of articles they crank out. Now they take a look at the Gigabyte GA-6VX7-4X (I'm sure Gigabyte coulda squeezed some more letters in there) .. it's another Apollo Pro 133A board. They really like it.
Another Abit KA7 review here on BXboards. I wonder when they're going to change their name? :)
Interesting hardware/oc site run by a NZ'er here..
A review of some cheapish flat-panel speakers here. Mmmm.
Another pic from Chris:
Derrr..
Thursday Night
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Thursday, 13-April-2000 22:51:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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iXBT have a monthly roundup (in their cool pseudo-english :) ) of the hardware scene, check it out here.
FiringSquad have a review of the C2-566 on an older BX board. They benchmark it against a C300A and act all surprised when it blows the doors off it. Maybe they could've dug up an old Apple IIe or something to benchmark it against, too. :)
PCExtremes managed to squeeze 3 pages out of an article on changing the fans on their HDD cooler. How exciting!
While your heart's still a-thumpin' in your chest from that last one, ClubOC have reviewed a 60mm fan! Amazing stuff! :) Actually, it moves a serious amount of air.. and is, as you'd expect, loud. So they only gave it 9.5 out of 10. :)
ArsTechnica have a review of a funky vcr-killing toy that encodes video to a HDD so you can watch it later.. or something, I've not read it all yet. Damn, I can't think of anything sarcastic to say about that. Oh, wait.. "Of course, by the time the service is available in Australia we will have evolved into something incapable of viewing TV anyway". That's better.
Interesting article here (but orange text on a chequered background does odd things to my eyes) about force-melting ice using salt to get an insulating layer around your water-cooling reservoir.. hmm!
Kingston have a new flavour of Rambus called SO-RIMMT .. info here.
InsaneHardware report that some AOpen mobos may be shipping with the wrong BIOS chip..
AussieGamer have a review of "Solder of Fortune" up - the new game that lets you, instead of just blowing people up, blow smaller bits off them first.
HotHardware have reviewed the Abit KA7, new KX133 Athlon board that looks pretty sexy. Boy, I'd sure like to get my hands on one of those. [clears throat] .. :)
Finally, we've won SofCom's "Pick Of The Net" award. Awww. :)
Seems AllAdvantage have sorted out their problems with shipping cheques. Got another one today:
Slightly less than the previous, because that one was Dec+Jan, and this is just Feb. Many thanks to those who have signed up under me, this is certainly helping with the move to the new server. Of course, you need to get a few signups yourself before you start making decent money with AllAdvantage. Getting paid for something I was going to do anyway is fine by me..
Wednesday Night
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Thursday, 13-April-2000 00:22:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Late news today, sorry. I was putting the finishing touches on a review - not the usual motherboard-review stuff but something else I think is pretty damned cool. Check it out, a full-size keyboard that not only connects to your PalmPilot, it folds down to the size of your PalmPilot, too!
Palm Portable Keyboard
TE took a look at the Creative Labs PC DVD Encore 8X DVD with Dxr3 decoder card.
Look at this page, japanese text, but scroll down a fair bit and you'll see a PC made out of lego.. too cool. :) Thanks mr bill!
Speaking of Japanese people who are too cool, Bunny has been going crazy with his liquid nitrogen rig again.. his new record? A P3-800 at 1428MHz! MWP pointed out the link here and a WCPUID shot here. No pics of the rig, though.. however, this site is one of his mates who also has a liquid nitrogen setup.. in English, too. He only gets it to 1372MHz, though.. pah, amateur. Notice the photo of the temp gauge showing -196C. You start thinking you're an extreme d00d, then you discover these guys.. sheesh.
A really pro looking server case here.
HP will be bringing out an 800MHz chip in 2001. Way to go, guys.
A bit more info on the "leaked" Detonator 5.x drivers here, focussing on the new texture compression feature. I can't get to the site at the moment, hmm..
TE have an article on Cable vs DSL. Of course for Australian readers this is less relevant.. :) They also took a look at the new Kenwood 72X CDROM.. my 68X is outdated already!
More Celly2 overclocking action here on FiringSquad.
Finally, a pic from Chris. Not sure what to do with aged relatives during the holidays? Take them to the zoo!
Apparently these new BIOS'es for Soyo's 7VCA and 6VCA increase IDE performance.
This LiteON case has room for 3x 120mm fans. It's just begging for a Dremel to cut those grilles out, though.. :)
Can't remember if I posted this before or not. An Aussie story about someone taking Y2K waaaay too seriously..
TomsHardware have done a 21-unit roundup of Apollo Pro boards. P3V4X owners will get a kick out of it. Thanks to Taxiback for pointing it out in the forums!
HotHardware posted a review of the MSI 6309, their own Apollo Pro 133A board. This is an FC-PGA unit.
Kinda basic water-cooling article here..
ClubOverclocker torture an innocent P3-650E flipchip here. They noticed a definite burn-in effect with their chip.. and whaddya know, they give it 10/10. I think that's 3 in a row for them now. :)
OcUK took a look at the Abit KA7 (Athlon) Mobo here. They like it.
PCStats have another article up on what people are buying at the moment, focussing on gamers.
Dan's checked out a couple of neato projectors for your pc here. If you've never played wall-sized quake you haven't lived. :)
ArsTechnica are finally catching up to us: they have an article on peltiers up. :)
FiringSquad have reviewed the Asus K7V Athlon motherboard here. It's another KX133 jobbie.
TC dropped me a note to say he had some trouble with the VOS-32 blocking some slots on his P3-equipped BE6-II - I had to cut the fins that the fans mount to down by 8mm as they were in the way of dimm slot 2. Something to bear in mind if you're looking at that combo.
I found this page with zillions of Athlon-related links on it today. Probably a bookmark for some of you..
Dan's taken a look at the Diamond Viper II. This is based on S3's Savage 2000 chipset. He's none too impressed with it.
Kyle from HardOCP, also known as "The Slayer of KA7's", has some info on the main page there about a program you can use to adjust the In-Order Queue depth on VIA boards. This setting has been blamed for a lot of the memory performance hit on those boards, this might let you adjust it even if your BIOS doesn't. I've looked at the page but can't find specific VIA chipset info, only i820. Apparently WCREDIT is the prog you're after. You're on your own for now.
Here's another everglide review.
This might be cool, but it might just be vapour. It looks like a gameboy but runs Quake3, UT, Tomb Raider, Homeworld etc..
Apparently on page 49 of the current "Computer Market" magazine is a very funny article titled "The Dangers of Overclocking".. I've not seen it but Michael reckons it's a good read. Go check it out in your newsagent. :)
Finally, YYK sent this in:
There's this young single guy on a cruise ship, having the time of his life. On the second day of the cruise, the ship slams into an iceberg and begins to sink. Passengers around him are screaming, flailing, and drowning, but our guy manages to grab on to a piece of driftwood and, using every last ounce of strength, swims a few miles through the shark-infested sea to a remote, deserted island.
Sprawled on the shore nearly passed out from exhaustion, he turns his head and sees a woman lying near him, unconscious, barely breathing. She's also managed to wash up on shore from the sinking ship. He makes his way to her, and with some mouth-to-mouth assistance, he manages to get her breathing again. She looks up at him, wide-eyed and grateful, "My God, you saved my life!" He suddenly realizes the woman is Cindy Crawford!
Days and weeks go by. Cindy and our guy are living on the island together. They've set up a hut, there's fruit on the trees, and they're in heaven. Cindy's fallen madly in love with our man, and they're making passionate love morning, noon, and night.
Alas, one day she notices he's looking kind of glum. "What's the matter, sweetheart?" she asks, "We have a wonderful life together, and I'm in love with you. Is there something wrong? Is there anything I can do?"
He says, "Actually, Cin, there is. Would you mind, um, putting on my shirt?"
"Uh, sure," she says, "if this will help." He takes off his shirt, and she puts it on.
"Now would you put on my pants?" he asks.
"Sure, honey, if it's really going to make you feel better," she says.
"Um, OK, would you put on my hat now and draw a little mustache on your face?"
"Whatever you want, honey," she says, and does.
Then he says, "Now, would you start walking around the edge of the island?"
She starts walking around the perimeter of the island. He sets off in the other direction. They meet up halfway around the island a few minutes later. He rushes up to her, grabs her by the shoulders, and says, "Dude! You'll never believe who I'm sleeping with!"
:)
Interesting athlon-adjuster thingy here. Note the L2 cache adjustment. They also have an interesting (overclocked!) thermal probe on that page.. got the link from Battlax who pointed it out here on AkibaPC (japanese). Also, a bunch of new stuff on the Japanese market here. Japanese again, but lotsa pics. Big page.
A review of an interesting case here, lotsa fans, a blowhole and lan-party handle - pretty cool. The review could've been 1 page instead of 4, though..
Kyle from HardOCP tests a C2-533 @ 800MHz and a Coppermine P3-600E @ 800MHz against each other. Once again the P3 wins because of the higher FSB speed, but if you're considering [a] using it on a BX board or value-for-money, the new Cellies look pretty good. I've now had 4 suppliers promise me one for review but I don't see any boxes on my doorstep..
Also, on the front page of his site, Kyle gets a C2-633 to 1012MHz.. this is all stuff you can do on BX boards, remember, so you can enjoy the grunty memory speed of that chipset.
Sunday Afternoon
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Sunday, 9-April-2000 17:01:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Only overclockin.com could come up with this method to cool your beer cans.. (shakes head) now, something to keep your Vodka at near-zero would be much more useful. :)
Another quality article from iXBT, this time comparing the 3 big P3 chipsets at the moment, i820, Apollo Pro 133A and the venerable (but seemingly unstoppable) BX. Lots of benchmarks and interesting info.
There's a review of the coolchip waterblock here. Unfortunately their review unit had a leak.. eeerrgh.
A review of the new Abit Slotket!!! here. They really like it.
ClubOverclocker take a look at the 256MB Micron PC133 stick.. hmm, they seem to be giving out a lot of those 10/10 gold stars lately..
Gainward (who?) have released an Apollo Pro 133A motherboard. Feature-wise it seems fairly standard..
PCCritix take a look at the Tyan Trinity 400, another Apollo Pro 133A board. Another one that maxes out at 150MHz FSB. Anyone know of any that go higher? Even my old Soyo (non-A chipset) makes it to 155.
If you're thinking of buying from OverclockersHideout you might want to read this thread in the forums first. I don't like lynchings but I've emailed the owner (Outlaw) twice about this, even sent the URL to the forum thread and despite his emailing me to announce some new product (which I did not announce) he has not addressed the issue of this very dissatisfied customer.. in the absence of a rebuttal from him, I guess you'll have to make up your own mind.
A review of the Razor Boomslang here. They like it. Everyone seems to. :)
TweakMax try to take a coppermine 600E to 800MHz here.
Thursday Night
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Thursday, 6-April-2000 22:01:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Just saw "Wild Wild West". It's silly.
Info on a watercooling system here. They call it "Overclocking 101" for some reason but it's not a how-to or anything, just info on one guy's system. Interestingly, it doesn't use a radiator or any fans to cool the water. Crappy photos but the system works so I can't knock them too hard.
HardOCP have taken a look at Abit's Vt6X4 (Apollo Pro 133A motherboard) here.
Firingsquad have checked out the new Asus DDR Geforce.. with 64MB ram!
Apparently Netscape6 will have magic auto-translation stuff built into it (for those of you who can't use Babelfish). So now you can read those "I'm going to crash and close all your open windows" messages in the language of your choice.
Do those Russian guys over at iXBT ever sleep? Jeez. Now they've reviewed the Chaintech Desperado GeForce video card. Desperado? I think something was lost in the translation.. that's even worse than telling people to store their mission-critical data on a Fireball..
PCStats reviewed the Asus S370-133 slocket. It's an FC-PGA capable jobbie. I've got one here, seems ok but I've not stress-tested it much. They've got a little more room between the socket and the slot1 than most, good for sealing, watercooling, peltiers.. you get the picture.
If you make a new GeForce and you want it to sell well, I guess you make a press release titled "World's Fastest GeForce Card".. which Falcon Northwest did here.
Detailed thing on a stick of Hyundai RAM here. As they say, more info than you need to know. Or want to know. Or will ever care about.
Just in case an arts degree wasn't slacking off enough for you, you can now get a degree in playing Quake. Yep, lots of real-world skills there. Still, it'll give you something to chat about with the other guys in the dole queue. :) Reminds me of this. :)
Now we know why all of Aureal's management quit the other day. Because they're whatsit. I want one!
Firingsquad also checked out the P3-650E. Not too impressive an overclock, but not bad.
You could win a buttload of stuff here, if it wasn't for US residents only. That's nice of them. Even nicer to send me the news to post on my website.. (grumble)
Anyway, I'm going down the coast to see my parents this weekend.. so no news until Sunday night I guess.. have a good one guys.
Celery @ 1GHz!
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Thursday, 6-April-2000 11:11:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Thanks to Sandman for pointing this out in the forums, a C2-633 @ 105MHz FSB. It does get fairly stomped by the P3 @ 133FSB, but for the price it's a ripper..
Wednesday Night
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Wednesday, 5-April-2000 19:36:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Buncha stuff to put up before the X-Files comes on. BTW, is anyone else really sick of the whole alien conspiracy thing and just wishes they'd go back to the 1-story episodes? Bring back fluke-man and the computer that subliminally tells people to kill. Ahh well.
This is very cool. Australian National University is building a 192-processor Beowulf cluster using P3-550's. Although they don't mention it on the site, Chris let me know he's seen loads of P3-550E boxes lying around there, so they may well all be coppermines. Does this explain the current shortage? Regardless, it'd be a monster system.. shame they're not overclocking it. :( They rate it at 158.4 Gigaflops!
This is also very cool. ConundruM pointed it out in the forums, a great phase-change cooled system. Well researched, fantastic construction and great results (2x P3-700E at 1008MHz..) - go drool here.
Jim Noonan sent in some info on his further adventures with Athlon overclocking, check it out here.
Running low on memory? Jim from Realtime Systems let me know that Corsair have released a 512MB PC133 CAS3 stick. RRP is AUD$2,235. What a bargain! Form an orderly queue at the cash register.
TechExtreme seem to be doing a lot of waffly "this is what I think" articles lately.. here's another one about "The Perfect System"..
Jim Noonan also posted a bit more info about his experiences with the Promise hack here in the forums. Might be helpful if you're suffering lockups too.
Some mind-wobbling physics stuff here on arstechnica. Nanotechnology, quantum dots etc..
A thing on (fairly) cheaply upgrading your old AT machine here on CPU-Burn. Site seems really slow for me.
Beta Win2K drivers for Voodoo 3500TV out, info here.
A thing on torturing felines here. What's that old saying, 2 mallets and a sackful of kittens is an afternoon's entertainment? Actually, I'm a real cat lover, honest. My mangy old diabetic moggy is sitting on my lap right now, purring away as per usual.. and the article's about cutting CAT-5 cabling.. ooohh..
P3V4X guys will be interested in this - see if you can work out why this guy's P3V4X has such a kickass memory score. Then do it to your system. :) I posted it to the P3V4X forum here too, maybe someone there can shed some light..
Silly thing here an interview with the AskJeeves search engine.. pretty funny in parts, there's even an Australian reference. :)
Anandtech have some things up, a PC133 RAM Roundup and a review of the Asus K7V Athlon mobo. I just got one here for review actually.. y'know, Anand claims authorship of those two articles, released a day apart. Further proof that That Boy Is Not Human.
Arstechnica have taken a look at the Abit VT6X4 mobo. I've not been too impressed with what I've seen of that board, not quite up to Abit's usual standard.. they seem to like it, though. The 150MHz max FSB makes it a non-starter for me.
Remember ages ago I was going on about the possibility of giving out YOU@overclockers.com.au emails? It's getting closer to reality but with a slight change, join the discussion here to have your say.
Athlon vs P3 at 1GHz
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Wednesday, 5-April-2000 07:30:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Akiba PC Hotline have done a stack of benchmarks of these two chips. Text in japanese but graphs and pics are readable. Mostly business-type benchmarks, not games. The results quite surprised me. Also interesting to look at the cooling methods on the chips..
Everglide Reviews
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Tuesday, 4-April-2000 22:08:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Done a couple of reviews of Everglide stuff:
The Everglide Giganta Mousemat:
Read the full review here
..and..
The Everglide Wrist Rest Plus:
Read the full review here.
:)
Got booked for speeding on the way to work today, bugger. Only 5 points left now. :)
BXBoards have reviewed the AOpen AX64Pro.. which isn't a BX board. They find it not too stable and and a little slow.
Andrew pointed out an interesting thing today, this upgrade that lets Pentium Pro (in Intel's long-forgotten bastard child, the socket8) systems take Mendocino (classic) Celerons. You can even run 2 cellies in a dual socket8 system. My guess is the quad boards won't work. :) There's supposed to be a review here on HardwareCentral but it looks like their DB is broken.
CPUReview have a guide to picking the right PC. Just the thing for those annoying relatives and co-workers.. "Ask James, he's into computer whatsits.."
A couple of people pointed out this link which says the Gas Out thing is not true. Well, I'm not sure what makes that website more of an authority than >20 people sending me the same email. If enough people do it these things can be self-fulfilling. I don't really care either way. :)
FrostyTech have a thing on modifying your slocket so it can physically fit a coppermine on..
That bastian of factual reporting, the WeeklyWorldNews, has an article up about a virus that can make your CPU explode and kill you. Riiiiiight. Actually, I remember back in the amiga days, the story of one WareZ group taking out another by sending them a floppy which contained touchpowder so their Amiga500 burst into flames when trying to boot off it. Probably another urban myth. :)
Microsoft lost. Nerr nerr. Proof that money doesn't always buy a legal victory in the US. We'll have to see what happens if Bill stabs his wife.
Cirrus Logic (you remember, think crap video cards) have revealed their new CD-RW controller chip, capable of running a drive up to 16X write and 48X read. Pretty impressive, details here.
iXBT have reviewed the rev B of Leadtech's DDR GeForce card. Fairly stonking speed, mega-chunky stock heatsink.
Major cooler roundup here.. a bunch of different types, tested synthetically so you can see how they compare across mounting styles/chips etc.. not read it yet but seems good.
TweakTown have updated their Modem Tweaking guide..
OCUK review the new Soltek KX133 (Athlon) board here..
HardOCP have checked out the Siluro, the new GeForce board from Abit.
Interesting article here on direct water-cooling rather than using a jacket.
A few people sent this in, a dual FC-PGA motherboard here (japanese text, but good pics). Apollo Pro 133A of course. I want to see more dual Slot1 boards with Apollo Pro 133A, stick a couple of these 825-capable 550E's on it.. mmmm.
ClubOverclocker have taken a look at the Alpha FC-PAL35 FCPGA cooler. Typical Alpha quality and has little feet to keep it centred over the coppermine slug.
I screwed up the link this morning to the case-modification page, it's actually here. Not a bad job either - he's done a few things to his HX-08 that I've done to mine. Must get that article finished and posted someday..
This is kinda double-dipping, but FiringSquad have expanded their 600E overclocking article to include results on the Asus P3V4X.
This is another of those technologies that might be used for something useful in the future. IBM say it'll help them build .13 micron chips.. info here.
A new review of the Asus P3V4X is here. Their review is fairly light on detail but they do show a stomping memory benchmark.
Our own P3V4X forum is going wild, the stats tell me it's had an average of 41.1 messages per day since it came up. Lots of good info in there.
The same site has a review of the FC-PGA Celly2-533. Again, they hit 800 (8x100) with it. The CPU benchmark shows it being a poofteenth faster than the P3 550E at 803 - of course the higher memory speed of the P3 blows it away, but try using that P3 at that speed on a BX board. The new Cellies are looking tasty for sure.
TechReport have expanded their GFD roundup to include 2 more units.
That reminds me, Eyo are to become the sole distributor for the Northwind GFD 2.0 in Aus. This gives us another local option (the other being the NinjaMicro FreeSpeed Pro from PC-Index). Both good cards, to compare them read our roundup here.
ExtremeOC have a review of the new Abit Apollo Pro 133A board, the VT6X4, here. I remain unimpressed with the 150MHz max FSB. I have 2 P3-550E's here that are capable of maxing my Soyo out at 155FSB (well, if my ram didn't keep crapping out they would).
About a zillion people have sent me this thing about the Australian Gas-Out so I guess I should post it. Read it, decide what you think and do what you like. I buy petrol so rarely I'll miss those days anyway. I don't like to get involved in this political stuff but I also don't like paying $1/litre (the bike uses Premium Unleaded). However, I also think that people should use less petrol anyway and making it expensive is one way to force that. Anyway, I offer only information. Flaming opinionated emails about this will be cheefully deleted.
Have a good nite guys. :)
Wow, a four-CPU BP6!
Dan's taken a look at a little tiny PC. I will call it "Mini-PC".
I can't view it from here, but apparently this is a new site on case mods..
iXBT have a review of Abit's Siluro, a GeForce based video card..
NVNews have taken their P3-550E to 683.. not bad for a BX board but the CPU is probably capable of closer to 800..
Aopen AX64 Review
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Sunday, 2-April-2000 23:40:27 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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here on iXBT. They say it's nothing special. P4V4X owners will be happy to see their board coming fastest of the 5 Apollo Pro 133A boards benchmarked.
I've been playing pool and drinking vodka all evening, as is my habit of a Sunday, so excuse any typos etc..
The forums seem to be feeling a little better, I'll bring the Pub back tomorrow maybe, it will have 0 messages though. :( Something Bad happened in it, not sure what.
To the person who put the April Fool's joke about Intel suing 400 overclockers in the Pub forum - ok, you got me.. I went to the Register and hunted around for the article, which of course wasn't there.. [slaps forehead] .. :) All the other April Fools jokes I saw out there were pretty lame.
Not too much newsy stuff today. Overclockin.com have a thing up on the differences between version of the Ultra66 cards and the best way to hack each type. I still think the around-the-back method is pretty good, too. Don't forget our article including benchmarks is here.
Yet another look at the Detonator 5.13 drivers here. Seem to be pretty snappy and stable, too. It's like a free upgrade - more noticeable on GeForce than TNT, though.
Sorry if this offends anyone, but Michael pointed out this funny site that "Jesusifies" sites. Here's what this site looks like (you can check out more sites from there). Kinda like that swedish chef one, but with much more potential for offending people. Unless they're swedish people, I guess. If you're a swedish christian then I'm really sorry. :)
Yetanothernewhardwaresite here. Actually this one is OCDbase and "The Art of Overclocking" (?) merged into one, called TweakMax. And it's run by 2 swedish guys. No, really! :)
Tweaktown have a couple of articles up but their site is not responding for me.. hmm, try here for their guide to P3 Case removal and here for a look at the JustCooler FC-900, which they don't think much of..
Forums are unwell..
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Sunday, 2-April-2000 09:47:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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..as you've probably noticed. The good news is that the data is still there, but the server is doing odd things so the database becomes unavailable from time to time. The bad news is that the Pub forum might lose all it's messages and be reset. No big deal, of all the forums to die I guess that's the least important one.. Zip are looking into it.
Celly2 looks good for O/C
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Saturday, 1-April-2000 16:53:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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In fact, it looks GREAT! Crazney pointed this out in the forums - a C2-533 @ 800MHz (100MHz FSB). This is great news for a few reasons - firstly, it's going to be a (relatively) cheap high-MHz option, but also, and to me this is the biggie, the FSB's are only going to be in the 75-133 range, probably not even that high, so you can use them on BX boards (ones that provide the lower voltages)! Forget the memory hit of Apollo Pro 133A (as much as I'm an advocate of that chipset), ditch the overpriced, underperforming i820. A BX board running at a core of (say) 880 and an FSB of 110 or so would be a serious fire-breathing machine for the price!
Secondly, in that article, note the possible way that Intel neuter the P3's to become Celly2's. This looks like something that could possibly be reversed at the slocket level to me. Modifying the package itself might be an option for some adventurous soldering-iron wielder to attempt. Imagine a P3 (256kb L2) in the BX situation I described above - serious cheap speed.
Anyway, enough of my waffling - you can add your own thoughts here if you like.
Win95 + KX133 = Bad (sometimes)
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Saturday, 1-April-2000 11:49:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Info here. Apparently some KX133 boards suffer BIOS corruption when Win95 is installed.
Saturday Morning
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Saturday, 1-April-2000 10:59:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AMDExtreme.com have a very impressive 11-way GFD roundup posted. If you only read one (besides mine of course (cough)) then read this one.
Feel like bragging about your system config? This site is aiming to be a database of people's setups. My setups change almost daily so not much point me sending mine in..
My brain isn't quite up to processing this yet but ArsTechnica have written an in-depth analysis of the Emotion engine, which drives Sony's Playstation2.
Interesting look at some sound-dampening foam here. Hopefully it doesn't smell as bad as DynaMat does..
Dan has reviewed a cheapo GeForce here. This one really is a GeForce, and it's available in Oz, too.
Tech-extreme have a video buyers guide up here.
A review of the IWill SlocketII here.
A couple of sneak peeks on TechExtreme - Windows ME (Millennium Edition) and Netscape 6.01 - a leaked copy available for download, with a review. Hope it's more stable than 4.7..
This is interesting. A dual slot1 motherboard using VIA's Apollo Pro 133A chipset. A couple of P3-550E's cranked on that could be fun. Looks like 133MHz is the highest FSB it supports, though.. :(
Actually, I stand corrected - it says "Support overclocking 150FSB or higher" .. woo!
A FC-PGA cooler shootout here. Hmm, Alpha's 2 most kickass products against a wimpy cheapo GlobalWin.. I wonder who's going to win? Should've at least thrown the FKP-32 in there.
Another FC-PGA Alpha review here.
A 10X Pioneer DVD-ROM drive is reviewed here. These have been the drives to have for a while now, I think.. speaking of DVD's, the rumour is that Sony have bought up zillions of parts for their Playstation2's and the market is starved for components now.. maybe just a rumour. :)
Listen to your MP3's anywhere in the house with this FM-radio transmitter, hook it to your PC, tune in the radio elsewhere and away you go.. cool!
Finally, this is one of the funniest game reviews I've read in ages. They really hate it. :)
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