|
|
|
|
|
March 2001 |
Saturday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 31-March-2001 11:15:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
OCMOD have an article on modifying your Senfu radiator. They enlarge the inlet and outlet tubes on the twin-fan unit and fit bigger fans. I've been using a similarly modified single-fan unit for over a year now, but their work is definitely neater than mine. I'm almost tempted to mod the tubing their way and stick a nice quiet Panaflo 92mm on it now. My review of the full senfu kit is here - there's a lot more watercooling stuff in the archive and if you want to chat about it, drop into the Extreme Cooling forum.
Rubberband says our link from yesterday about BlackAndWhite is not true!
Morjo points out a new Half-Life mission pack: Blue Shift.
GideonTech have a guide to case window etching for that truly custom look.
NitroWare are all excited about getting 4-way interleave on VIA chipset boards under Win2K finally happening.
Speaking of Win2K, Grinspoonz says: just thought you might like to let ppl know about a ASPI layer fix I found for Win2K. I have had a bit of trouble getting AudioCatalyst to run on Windows 2000 but a bit of web searching revealed an "ASPI Fix" for the problem. the file can be found here. after running that self extracting file i went to this page on the Adaptec site to get the latest ASPI update. Now AudioCatalyst works without a problem.
Reviews:
Global Win CAK38 socket cooler on ChillBlast.
Sony 48x CD-ROM on 8balls.
ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon on Digit-Life.
Samsung SyncMaster 570S TFT 15" LCD on PCStats.
Abit TH7 RAID Pentium IV motherboard on OCWB.
Early Saturday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 31-March-2001 01:05:51 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
D'oh, just did something stupid and lost a bunch of news.. think I can remember most of it.
Special greets to the folks over at Elsa Tech Support UK, who sent a nice email about the site.. great to have you here guys. :)
Special greets also to echo, who's P3-600E @ 900MHz (with 9 drives!) was entry #1200 in the PCDB.
More info on the case badges in the forums..
Compu-geeks are giving away a tube of Arctic Silver thermal paste.. good stuff.
Apparently there was a screwup with BlackAndWhite, the new game, whereby the manufacturer shipped beta software instead of proper release software.. if you bought it you can swap it. Don't think it's on sale in Oz yet tho. Thanks IPfreely.
IQHardware have coverage from CeBit2001 a recent technology show in Hannover.. in German, but lots of interesting pics - funky video cards, dual athlon motherboards, the usual. :) VIAHW have info+pics from WinHEC which seems to be a similar thing.
Reviews:
Dlink Wireless Network kit on SystemLogic.
ATI TV Wonder on The Tech Zone.
Thermaltake Volcano II socket cooler on MikhailTech.
Cambridge Speakers and SBLive Platinum on OCOnline.
MSI KT266 Pro (apparently super-fast) SocketA motherboard on Chip-Online.
Boomslang and Icemat on OCPrices.
Going for dinner with the girly tonight, so a quick news post before then..
Reviews:
IWill KK266-R SocketA motherboard on VR-Zone.
Trig T40-EA/EAC socket coolers on ClubOC.
Ligitech SoundMan Xtrusio DSR-100 speaker system on PCStats.
DataZONE DataBook 10GB USB HDD on USBWorkShop.
Plextor PX-W1610TA CD-RW drive on Digit-Life.
Samsungs SD612 12x DVD drive on IANAG.
MSI K7T Pro 2a SocketA mobo on HardCoreWare.
Mmmm.. the weekend starts this-arvo.. lookin forward to it :)
First of all this afternoon, LWD have reviewed the D-Link DI-713 Wireless Home DSL/Cable Router + Switch.. looks like a pretty interesting device.. if you've got DSL that is, and I know a few of us do.
It definatley seems AXIA is the place to be in the T'Bird Overclocking world right now, and ChillBlast confirm this.. a 1.0GHz AXIA running at 1.465GHz with only air cooling is damn impressive. It may of taken over a decade to go get to 1GHz.. but the way things seem now its going to take less than a year to hit 2GHz.. pretty astounding.
ChillBlast also take a look at the Sspring SBCT601CAF-1B CPU cooler.. I'll call it the S-Spring from now on to stop your brain exploding. Anyway, its basically a heat pipe/radiator cooler with a fan. Looks similar to those Kendon cooler's we see the insane Japanese overclockers using frequently. They put it up a FOP38 and it wins by 2deg/C in both Idle+Load temps.. without sounding like the Sydney Airport in the middle of the Olympics. I wonder how it'd go if you crowbarred the Sydney Airport Black-Label Delta fan onto it..
If you havn't followed the masses over to the AMD Camp, Digit-Life have a roundup of boards based on the Via Pro266 DDR Chipset... and they've got quite a few boards there, with all of the big names making a showing.. (bar ABIT, who havn't got a Pro266 board yet). Definatley worth a look if your thinking about going to the next level in memory technology. (Dunno what level RDRAM is, but it sure as hell isn't the next one).
GlideUnderground have taken a look at the upcomming form of Audio CD Protection.. I couldn't easily find a name for it, but it basically makes it hard to rip Audio from a CD to your computer with current software by building errors into the Disc that make your CD-ROM think the disc is damaged. I presume that you can still listen to the music normally, you just can't rip it. I reckon it'll be, maybe, a month, until there is a workaround DeCSS/DVD-style.. and then probably two weeks after that there will be a lawsuit against the people who wrote the workaround. Of course now we know all the ways to turn code into free speech from the DeCSS experience, so the copy protection scheme all seems like a waste of time to me. In case you can't already tell, I'm a big fan of MP3/DiVX technology :)
Bit of news from OCshoot, top of the list for me is a Celeron566@1202.. thats over double the rated speed, and damn impressive if you ask me. They also reviewed that Wave cooler with the wavey fins.. hence the name. Dosn't perform that well.. but its wavey!
GeForceCities may of just found that the Matrox G800 will be out soon.. taken from a new driver set, they've found word of it in the actual driver by opening one of the driver .dll files with a hex editor.. This method has already been used on nVidia drivers with success.. it allowed them to find out about the GeForce2 Quadra before nVidia let everyone else know.. Hope the G800 brings some much needed competition to the market :)
VeriSign has caved, advising MS that they issued two digital certificated to an individual fraudently claiming to be "Microsoft Corporation". As the saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.. VeriSign - you are the weakest link... Goodbye? All is not bad for MS however, and Gaz has pointed out this article speculating that the Foot and Mouth disease is possibly the first major virus that is unable to spread through Microsoft Outlook.. what a releif ;)
The OCAU case badges seem to be comming to a front.. with toe2toe having final prices and designs ready in the forums for you to have a look, give feedback, etc.
There is a bit of talk in the forums about the current generation of Socket-A mobo's being unable to support the upcomming Palamino chip.. none of this is confirmed as yet, but so long as AMD stick to their word of Palimino just being a change to reduce heat output I don't see it as being an issue. If they do sneak in new features it might mean an upgrade however.. remember this is all speculation at the moment.
G3D has reviwed a Ghetto Game Controller.. The Fragmaster 2000. mm.. dremel adventures.
BSOD are continuing their webmaster interview marathon, this time its MikhailTech getting the runover.
I'm out of time now.. gotta run and do things before close of business.. More news later maybe, either from Agg or myself. Remember, today's post was brought to you by the band Kittie, the color orange and the number 32.
A few people have sent tshirt orders through that I haven't processed yet - don't panic, I'm just a little busy with other things at the moment. I'll respond to and process your orders on Monday. Thanks for your patience!
Early Friday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 30-March-2001 00:20:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
There's been some discussion in the forums in response to alchemy's post about Litestep the other day. Cadal pointed out two alternatives, WindowBlinds and WinCustomise..
Daemion mentioned in the forums that Microsoft has published some guidelines for PC's using WindowsXP.. one of which is that "The system does not allow end-user access to expansion bus cards. This means users will no longer routinely open their PCs to add peripherals." The article doesn't say if it's a recommendation or a requirement, but it's not going to be well received by tweakers and overclockers..
Win y'self a t-shirt signed by Ice-T over on Hypothermia..
Dan has written a step-by-step guide to reinstalling win95/98.
KyocEr@~* sent word of a bizarre new game from Nintendo, targeting the "adult" market. Info in this Malaysia Star article. I followed some links to the site and yup, it's truly bizarre. Something about squirrels and babes from the looks of it. Very odd.
Also in my wanderings, I found this ad for healthy cigarettes..
Here's some stupendously huge subwoofers, thanks Lou.
Cool Star Wars Walker, a Lego Mindstorms kit, on FutureLooks. This stuff is cool but sooo expensive..
Tim says our RC5 Team was ranked #48 in the world for yesterday, not too shabby at all. Thanks to Mort who is the #1 in the team at the moment, but of course thanks to everyone who participates.
Here's another tiny PC, this one built around a DVD drive, thanks Zed.
Reviews:
CPC-30370 socket heatsink on VYW.
Soyo 7IS2 socket370 motherboard on NeoSeeker.
Glacier II socket heatsink on ClubOC.
Enermax Drive Rack with tempurature monitoring on Mikhailtech.
Logitech Wingman Rumble on PCTalk.
Hrrrm, no excuses this morning.. I didn't wake up late, I'm not late for uni, I havn't forgot anything.. 'spose I better just stop procrastinating and get on with the news :)
First of all, OcPrices take a look at OCZ MicroBGA Memory.. rated at 166 or 183MHz. Sounds to be the same technology that makes that Kingmax ram so nifty, just a different name..
I don't really know what to make of this.. but anyway. Digit-Life has reposted their Raedon VE review, except this time it's in poetic form.. yes, you know.. a Poem. Either someones bored, or they've got an English exam comming up.. if it's something different to that, I'm not sure I want to know.
Now this is exactly what I like to see.. TheRegister is laying into Senator Richard Alston (Federal Communication+IT Minister) about his backwards thinking policies (which are resulting in laws) such as the recently introduced Forwarding-Email-Is-Bad law. Seems to be that no-one in Australia is really aware of all the "good" he's been doing for the 'net.. Maybe articles like this will stir us into some whip-crackin' action.
IAmNotAGeek still has that contest going, and it still looks stupidly complicated... I don't have the mental power this time of the morning to figure it out, but the effort it'd take to do so, it'd want to be a damn good prize :D
XOverclocker has been having fun with Dry Ice and Copper.. They've basically built a big cup to put ontop of their CPU slug, and filled it up with dry ice.. I'd say it would work pretty well.. while there is still ice in it. Wonder what'd happen if the ice ran out mid-way through a cstrike session? Toasted chips anyone?
The Ctrl-Alt-Del has leaked some new Detanator Drivers.. this time the Win2K 7.59's... I don't know about you, but I've been idle on the 6.47's for some time now.. All these new drivers just seem to confuse the heck out of me. I don't doubt that there are some of you that'd kill for an extra 4 fps or 15 3DMarks, so I'm not about to stop posting them. I'm just having my little rant :)
BF has pointed out something about DingoBlue's new pricing structure.. that being the cost of constantly redialing. Even if you use it in the biggest possible (12hr) chunks, you are still going to make about 33 fone calls each month.. adding up to at least $6. Thats assuming you use the whole 400hrs tho (I once used 720), and also assuming that you dial up only once every 12hrs. With those prices broadband isn't getting cheaper, but it's sure getting closer to the price of dialup.
AwareMag has released part two of their heatsink roundup.
The Guru of 3D visited CeBit in Germany and has brung some photos back.. word has it there where some GeForce3 booth babes.. mmmm.. booth babes. You can guess where I'm pointing my browser next.
This is for the wack-o's.. If you enjoy shooting stuff, enemy's included.. but don't think its real enough for you, have a look at this UT map.. It's a map of colonial Sydney.. yep, you can run around fragging your mates (?) in Sydney now.. just keep it in the game, remember.. you can't do a rocket jump IRL. Don't ask why, you just can't.
Fianlly today, NeoSeeker has reviewed that swanky USB CDRW/MP3 Player thing-o that was previewed a few weeks back.
Reviews:
MadnessPC have reviewed the AOpen 16x DVD-ROM.
TechZone look at pre-tested Durons+Tbirds.
Wednesday Night
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 28-March-2001 22:28:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
There's been a lot of jumping up and down over DingoBlue's change to their unlimited plan (basically, it's not unlimited anymore). There's a lot of discussion in the forums about it, too many threads to link here. I can see both sides of the argument, on one side people are annoyed that their "unlimited" plan has been yanked, but on the other side, there must be a reason, and a flat-rate unlimited plan hasn't worked out financially for any other ISP, so why be surprised that it didn't work out for DB? Anyway, if you really feel strongly about it, there's a petition you can sign. 400 hours and 1.5GB for $27.50/month sounds like a pretty good deal to me tho.
TechPatrol have an interesting article about attaching heatsinks to the other chips on your motherboard.. very pro work. :)
Kinda silly article on PCMonkey about robots being shot.
Simon points out this slocket adapter from PowerLeap.. hmm, had a quick look, seems to allow FCPGA chips on 440LX motherboards?
TE seem to be arguing that Microsoft's Monopoly might be a good thing..
A couple of people pointed this out, the first Windows AND Linux virus.. here.
Reviews:
MSI K7T Turbo R SocketA mobo on RizeNet.
Copper Spacers on OCAddiction.
FrontX Multimedia Ports on OCHW. Our review here.
Sennheiser HD570 headphones on G3D. Our review here.
Abit KT7-RAID SocketA mobo on IPKonfig.
Handspring Visor Platinum PDA on FutureLooks.
Audio Panel 3.5 on LostUniverse.
Vendor Verdicts
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 28-March-2001 15:29:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
The "Vendor Verdicts" forum has been taken down - whether or not it will return will be determined over the next few days.
Please don't hassle me for details about why this has been done, I'm not at liberty to say at the moment.
The only person who knows ANYTHING about why this has been done is me and I have told NOBODY. So ANYTHING you hear about reasons behind this is pure conjecture and flat out rumour and almost certainly untrue. Please refrain from propagating rumours about this until I provide more information.
Wednesday Morning Quickies..
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 28-March-2001 11:17:54 (GMT +10) - by alchemy
|
Extreeeeemly quick post this morning.. running late for uni, so here we go..
Firemoth sends word of some extremley futuristic displays over on Tech Review..
Getting sick of the plain old Windows shell and don't have a fast enough connection to download WinXP Beta2? Well, BSOD has a guide to LiteStep.. a shell replacement utility for Win9x/NT. It's pretty cool (I've used it before), just be better if it was *stable*.
SpodesAbode has been adding Headphone jacks to their speakers.. I suppose you could call that a case mod? A speaker casing mod? *shrug*
Ctrl-Alt-Del has reviewed some Jenson speaker thing-o.. I'm not too sure, I *hate* HTML emails in pine.
Digit-Life has reviewed a SUMA Neon MP3 Player that uses Flash memory..
AthlonOC has a guide Duron/Athlon steppings.. The email it came in said it was very interesting, and it sound's like it may be.. but I haven't had time to check it out so you'll have to take their word for it.
Reviews:
TempleOfTech have an Epox 8KTA3+ review here.
UKGamer review the SuperOrb here.
Kingmax TinyBGA 128Mb RAM Stick here on N3DT.
Crucial CAS2 PC133 SDRAM Stick here on Jsi-Hardware.
DigiDoc Review Update
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 28-March-2001 01:00:10 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Michael from AusPCMarket let me know that the pricing for the DigiDoc5 has changed since we got the review unit, they're only AUD$146.20 now, instead of $176. I've updated the review.
Also, MacPower contacted me and let me know that they are including a CDROM with the PDF manual in the DigiDoc5 pack from now on.
Still plenty of tshirts left!
 
Ordering info in this thread. Go on, you know you want to. :)
Abit DDR/SDR motherboards?
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 27-March-2001 23:10:33 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
This from Rick:
I emailed Abit about the possibility of there being an Abit version of the Asus A7A266. Here is their reply:
"At the moment it is unlikely that any of our up and comming DDR boards will also be able to run SDR Ram. Because we here at ABIT strive to develop the best motherboards possible, we believe that such an approach might cause unnesseccary complications thus compromising the performance of our boards.
For more information about ABIt's DDR boards, please keep an eye on our website for future developments and official announcements.
Thank you for your interest in ABIT.
Ben Adams
Regional Marketing Manager
ABIT Computers"
A little after midnight tonight we will break our monthly traffic record, set last month. :) Should crack 2.5M pageviews this month. Of course, that just means we have to do better again next month.. :)
TheRegister reckons the music industry really is tracking individual MP3 users.. thanks Nigel.
On the other hand, JT points out that the ACCC claims DVD Regional restrictions are "illegal" and anticompetitive.
Digit-Life have an article about estimating hard disk reliability. This looks to have been lifted intact off Seagate's website.. I dunno. Interesting tho. Well, the introduction is - my brain imploded shortly thereafter..
BBSpot have put up a very pointed article, satirical as always, about a 1200+ page video card review. Pointed at who, you ask? Here's a hint. :)
They also have an article about Mir crashing into Taco Bell.. some "Australian" accents in that article sound like a cross between Sydney and Alabama..
VIAHW have a FAQ list for the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card.
LiamC has a new article, this time analysing what the Winstone benchmarks actually measure..
CaseJunkiez have an article all about neon for your PC.
This is kinda cool, a half keyboard for the Palm. I dunno, not as James Bond as the folding keyboard I reviewed a while ago. :)
Skitza points out some info on 99 minute CD's!
Snaggs.com is apparently an Oz site about Tribes 2.
There's a comparo of microphones for use with voice-recognition, also on an Australian site.
Reviews:
PCMods MicroBus on VyW. I will call it "minifanbus".
GobalWin WBK38 socket cooler on TE.
Evergreen RumbleFX force-feedback headphones on FullOn3D.
Vantec FCE-6254OD socketA cooler on HardCoreWare.
Blizzard copper heatsink on FrostyTech.
Pre-rounded ATA100 cables on Overwear. Our cheapy option here.
Tuesday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 27-March-2001 10:12:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
OCCafe have a Video Card Heatsink Roundup happening. Same sorta deal as my Video Cooler Comparison from a month ago.
GideonTech have 12 new case mods posted. Remember, all the cool kids hang out in the PCDB. :)
Dan rips the entrails out of a Wacom graphics tablet.
These links have been up and down over the last few days but seem to be working now, thanks B5lurker - Microsoft have info and a download page for a preview of IE6.
FullOn3D have a KK266 FAQ, info on that Iwill KT133A motherboard.
CDRInfo have news of CD Stuff from CeBit.. info from the various manufacturers present at that show.
Finally people are realising that "post in our forums" contests are lame. Rizenet changed theirs to just require an email.. win y'self some heatsinks etc. Someone who hasn't realised is FutureLooks, who have a forum-posting competition where you can win.. a.. err, golf shirt. Hold me back.
Reviews:
Hoontech (heh) Sound Blaster Daughterboard.. lots plugs for your SBLive! on AcidHW.
fUnc Mousing Surface on OCShoot. Our review here.
Gigabyte 7VTX SocketA DDR (KT266 chipset) motherboard on OCWB, thanks David.
Evergreen Rumble FX force-feedback headphones on ChicksHW.
DigiDoc 5 Review!
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 27-March-2001 00:29:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
I've checked out the DigiDoc 5. This is a fairly impressive gadget which sits in a 5.25" drive bay and controls up to 8 fans and monitors up to 8 thermal probes. I found it had some quirks, but overall was pretty cool.
Click here for the full review!
Agg's busy tonight finishing up a review you should see later on, so he's roped me from my usual cstrike madness to do the news. So here it is :)
3DGameMan has a video-review of the DigiDoc5.. video reviews seem to be gaining popularity of late.. and I can sort-of see why. I'm on broadband and have been streaming music videos (leagal, of course) most of the afternoon, and it's a pretty novel thing to do. Don't expect it to last tho, wait until he see's his bandwidth charge :)
OCTools, those mad bastards from NZ who had the fluronert adventure have reviewed a PlexiGlass waterblock clamp from DangerDen.. seems they're starting to tone down the act to the reaches of practicality.. what can I say, sofffft.
While we are talking about water cooling, this has got to be one of the most tricked out system's I've seen in a while. Definatley put some thought into that one Randy.. nice work!
I *knew* something like this must of been happening up there.. 'sif Cosmonauts could sit around all day without indulging in their national pastime (drinking), or scaring the heck out of newbies. It's a relief to finally know they are human, just like the majority of us..
The TechZone have a guide to building your own computer.. becoming alot more common these days - you should see the line ups some of the more popular Brisbane computer shops get on a Saturday morning..
If you've been wondering what makes Agg and OCAU tick, you might want to go and read this interview he gave.
Tech-Report have checked out the ComputerNerd Visonator.. basically a really small, really well thought out multimedia powerbox for LANning, using as a DiVX box next to the TV and all that sort of stuff. Even though it's built (and sold) overseas, it would be quite easy to DIY with off the shelf components - which is all they use anyway.
Over at VCD they've just discovered that a cutting board has a texture curiously similar to that of a RatPadz.. funny, I never knew that before today..
InsaneHardware seems to of woken up.. today they've got a review of "a piece of hardware that is pretty much for pure wank value" - Jai's words, not mine. So.. err, I suppose if you're looking to add wank value to your PC, you might want to head over to IH and check it out..
I am taking their word for this, because I can't understand how it works.. but anyway, IANAG are running a contest to give away free stuff. It's a little hard to understand, so I suppose if you take the effort to understand it your chances of winning are higher..
Bain has finished modding his HQ-08 and put pictures up in the forums.. It's pretty much exactly the opposite of SiliconAngel's wood veneer case I linked to last week.. I really like the look of this one, nice and futuristic... well done!
PC Extremes has reviewed the Netgear RT314 Cable/xDSL router.. basically a straight-out-of-the-box hardware alternative to what alot of us are using old linux boxes to do.. incidently, I'm asking over in the forums if its possible to share O@H with nothing more than a crossover cable and a hub.. no ICS, no NAT, no Wingate, No Linux. Be pretty neat-o to find out if its possible..
Quickies..
3DSpotlight have updated their Win2K Service's Tweak Guide.
ClubOC have reviewed a 256Mb stick of Kingmax PC150.
AMD MB review The Core heatsink from CPUfx.
MS Strategic Commander, RTS Controller reviewed on HardCoreWare.
TweakTown have posted press releases from Via about the C3 Processor I linked to this morning, and about a Mobile Webpad thing-o doody wacker.
Enermax EG351 P-VE reviewed on IANAG.
Thermosonic Thermoengine reviewed over on MikhailTech.
Techwatch have reviewed a 32/10/8 Acer Burner..
Finally tonight, the best peice of advice I've seen in a long time to give to people new to overclocking. It was given by someone wise.. "Read a lot. Don't expect anyone else to be your personal overclocking coach." It definatley rings true to alot of the posts I've seen in the forums, and alot of questions asked on IRC. If you need more convincing, look at it this way.. If you read alot and become wise without hassling other people, alot of respect will be shown your way when you share your knowledge.
If you're a regular in our forums, you may have come across several references made to an up and coming Overclockers Australia Hardware and Overclocking FAQ.
Well, I am pleased to announce (officially, with Agg's blessing) that the FAQ is indeed being put together at the moment.
We want this FAQ to serve not only the overclocking community, but also other computer users, who may not be interested in overclocking, but still want to know everything there is to know about computing, and especially about running their own PCs.
What we really need though at the moment is questions! We don't need the answers yet, just the questions - so spend 10 minutes typing into an email all the annoying questions that relatives, friends, co-workers etc. continually pester you with! And things you wish you knew the answers to, too. :)
Unfortunately, we're not mind readers here at OCAU (we haven't overclocked our brains that far yet I guess) - so if you could please email us with your questions, we'd appreciate it very much.
Once we get enough questions we can collate them, sort them into categories etc and then populate the FAQ system with them. Then, we can start off the process of answering them (again, with assistance from you guys). And then, pending final testing, release the FAQs to the world!
First off the bat this morning is Tech-Planet with an article about buying a PC for the budget gamer. Seems to be pretty obvious today.. Duron 750, Abit KT7A, GF2MX, 128Mb Kingmax… still might be worth checking out if you're a bit unsure tho. You could do worse than to check out the PCDB to see what others have built as well.. see what combos work and what ones don't.
If you're looking at upgrading, but don't want to replace the whole guts of your PC, ChicksHardware have reviewed the Evergreen AcceleraPCI card. Basically, it's a Celeron 466 CPU and a 128Mb SODIMM (laptop sized ram) module on ZX motherboard that plugs into a PCI slot.. good for upgrading an old socket-7 P133 or something.. Great in theory, not so good in practice. I'm sure there's a market for this though, somewhere..
Lots of Via news today.. first of all, they've changed the name of the CyrixIII budget processor to C3, finally letting the Cyrix name drift off into oblivion.. and ViaHardware are linking to pics over on Akiba of a SMP C3 system Via was showing off at CeBit. Now before you laugh, just think for a moment that the C3 is built on a 0.15um die process, meaning it's got an extremley low heat output.. making it a lot easier to build a super small super quiet SMP server.. something that wouldn't be possible with a high heat output P3 for instance..
The final piece of Via news is over in the forums, with chainbolt starting a thread about the perfomance of the upcomming KT266 northbridge in relation to the AMD760 northbridge.. He's linking to a German Zdnet article benchmarking the two chips.. and the outlook isn't that good for the Via contender. Basically, the already available (and rumored to be in short supply) AMD760 chipset outperforms the KT266 in almost every area, with the KT133A chipset even stepping up to beat the KT266 on some occasions.. hopefully this is just an immature incarnation of the chip, and like the KX133 it will mature into a well performing stable motherboard platform. If not, that rumor on a Japaneese site I linked to the other day about the A7M266 being discontinued could turn out to be a really bad thing.. I've yet to have this confirmed from a reliable source btw, so if you've got one, email me!
Probably a bad time to say it now, but, OCWB has pics of the upcomming Gigabyte 7VTX motherboard.. based on the KT266 chipset… aaaaaaaaand, HardwareOne have done a review of the Iwill KK-266-R, KT133A mobo..
FullOn3D have had a chat to Abit.. about all sorts of things. Fairly interesting read, probably worth checking out.. they managed to nab one of the Abit staff that speaks good english too, which is obviously a plus.
I'm sure a lot of people will be pleased to hear this.. AMD has knocked off ChipZilla (Intel) in the stock market, posting a higher share price.. sure, its not by much.. but its still a start eh?
Not doing so well, Micron, a US PC builder of a similar stature to Gateway, has exited the PC building market.
Nigel sent in this link, which I'm going to be madly pasting to everyone in IRC late at night. It's scary the number of people still talking at 3AM.. Incidently, Nigel sent in a heap of other links as well - almost half the emails in the 'box this morning where from him. So a big thanks :)
Quickies..
Digit-Life have reviewed the Intel Anypoint.. Wirless LAN thingo.
IANAG has reviewed a 30G hardrive here, and a 40G one here
ASUS CUSL2-C i815EP Mobo reviewed on RojakPot
Finally today, if you want to be weirded out, the latest issue of ZZZ online, #76 is out.
Oh, aaaand.. Happy Birthday Sciby, I'm sure you'll have a beer for every single one of us on IRC. (That's over 70 beers btw, so you better get started)
GeforceMX Core Voltage
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 26-March-2001 12:27:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
This info from Les Tutt - he of the holden radiator watercooler from nearly 18 months ago:
The last email (about a year ago) was about raising my vcore on my banshee cpu. This time I've got some info on my SUMA geforce MX. I'm still running one of the K7M's that came in an unbranded box, so have some probs with my geforce.
It seems to be an interface voltage problem, as the onboard 3.3 volt rail ( for AGP , PCI and ram) is default set at 3.45v. This is great for overclocking the ram, but no so good with a geforce MX (ie video ripping and jags in 3d). The general fix on the net is to wind the voltage to stock 3.3. No good for me (do you think I's wind my old 550 athlon back from 920, no way, and won't even post at 3.3v), so I started looking for alternatives. I confirmed the prob by taking the mb 3.45 to 3.6 and made the prob worse. Obviously the problem is the slightly changed voltage switching characteristics at 3.45v (ie the GPU core runs at 1.9v standard, and the switching time in relation to 3.3v is slightly different than in comparison to 3.45v).
I made the assumption it was the core rather than the ram, as the ram is running at 3.45 from the mobo-generated rail, not a regulator on the vid card. I tracked down the info on my cards regulator, a UniSem US1150 (I've seen this reg on many mx's). I paralleled 1 resistor to lift the GPU core .15 volts to 2.05 (hoping this would retime the bus to the GPU) and my problems dissappeared. I then also noticed I could for the first time ever turn the AGP 2x on and not crash as soon as initialising the vid card into 3D mode. Also has had the really 'bad' :-) side effect of allowing my core to o'c another 10 mhz (probably just due to the raised vcore rather than the timing).
Nice one. Good to see you're still out there tweaking, Les. :)
Happy Birthday Sciby!
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 26-March-2001 11:00:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
26 today. :) Have a beer for me, mate..
Sunday Afternoon
(0 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 25-March-2001 16:15:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Slow sunday as per usual.
LoneWolf sends word of an uptime monitor for Win2k..
ExtremeOC have part 2 of their heatsink roundup posted..
Xoverclocker have modified an Epox 8KTA+ to allow 2.1v core voltage.. allowing their Tbird to go from 1GHz to 1.45GHz.
OCWB have an interesting guide to pursuading your ADSL modem to be a router.. so you just plug it into a switch without needing an intermediate PC.
IPfreely points out on ReactorCritical (scroll down a bit) a theory about why GeForce3's are not on shelves yet.
Spodes go to great lengths to prove that a jam jar is a bad waterblock.. :)
Some more Palomino info in the forums, thanks Danthemanz.
We've seen these before but they're worth another look on a slow Sunday, check out the flower heatsinks, pretty wild. Thanks Morpheus.
ProCooling have some info on chemicals and cooling.. interesting stuff.
Special Message:
DEEZNUTZ write to your girlfriend! From Amber. Okey dokey. :)
Was supposed to be going for a ride through the Royal National Park today, but rain has stopped play, bah.
Andypoo points out a German ISP using that net-over-power technology we've seen at PC shows for a few years now.
Reviews:
Wacom Graphics Tablet on FutureLooks.
Sennheiser HD535 headphones on VCD.
RayTek non-contact thermometer on WildAndyC.
Genius Sound Maker Live 5.1 sound card on Digit-Life.
Icrontic.com raided
(0 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 25-March-2001 09:07:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
This is bizarre. Go read Icrontic.com, in particular the news post "A Major Turn Of Events", from which I quote:
We went back to a buddies of my house around 6PM EST, and I called my house. Please note I'm 16 years old. I told my mom I was over here, and she informed me that several armed FDLE agents raided my house today and seized all of my computers. I was stunned. I am being prosecuted on Communcations Fraud and Offenses Against Computer Users. This is a third degree felony, which means I could face a lot of jailtime and never see the likes of a computer again.
More info in this thread in their forums. Their local newspaper website has a story about the lawsuit.
I dunno, I'm all for freedom of speech and I do think this is an overreaction.. but he did something illegal, he confessed and documented it - it's hard to confirm without reading the article but some say it was inciting others to do the same - and if he really cost the ISP in question money then they're entitled to reclaim it I guess. Still, agents raiding a kid's house because of his website is a scary thought.
Saturday Morning #2
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 24-March-2001 11:12:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
There's live coverage of CeBIT in Germany here, in English too.. further info on CeBIT, in Japanese, here. Meanwhile, FutureLooks checked out Internet World here in Los Angeles.
Chainbolt has put some pictures and translated blurb into the forums, about AMD's Palomino launch. This is the new Athlon core. More info on Wired, including stuff about AMD's 64bit Hammer processor. AkibaPC have some info in Japanese here, too.
Meanwhile at the Big Boys Toys Show in Sydney (on now!) we've got Flying Cars.. the Moller Skycar we've seen before, still cool, still expensive. Does anyone else have nightmares of long-haired people opening the canopy with the engines still running..?
A lot of people in IRC have become Bridge Builder addicts - there's a thread about this new game here.
No sooner had Mir hit the water than people were selling bits on Ebay. With all the excitement over Mir, I discovered this funky applet that builds a zoomable, rotateable globe showing the current position of more than 500 satellites..
The GeForce3 FAQ has been updated..
SharkyExtreme have a benchmarkfest involving GeForce3, GeForce2 Ultra and ATI's Radeon.
Let's hope this case mod doesn't start a new trend.. :) Thanks Manaz.
Reviews:
Transcend TS-ASL3 Socket370 motherboard on RizeNet.
Soyo 6BA+ a Socket370 i440BX motherboard with all the trimmings on TechnoYard.
Asus A7V133 SocketA KT133 mobo on IANAG.
ImageMate CF Card reader on TacoNuts.
Saturday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 24-March-2001 00:08:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Saw "The Exorcist - Director's Cut" tonight .. what a silly film. :)
I just noticed that Sandra 2001 SE seems to be out now.. musta missed the announcement a few days ago.
AkibaPC have a comparo of the Athlon 1.33GHz vs Pentium 4.
Mind-bending quantum computing stuff on TE.
VYW are giving away an alpha.. cooler, not car.
Dan has a.. kinda review, kinda ad, for a new oz overclocking gear company.
Reviews:
2CoolPC Plus and Turbo on OCerCafe - our reviews here and here.
Soltek SL-75MIV SocketA KM133 motherboard on VIAHW.
AMD Athlon 1.33GHz SocketA CPU on CPUReview.
CPUFX Core v2 socket cooler on ClubOC.
Silent PC on NeoSeeker.
Coolermaster Cool Drive 4002 hdd cooler on MikhaiLTech.
ThermoEngine socket cooler on OCTools.
At 5pm Sydney time, Mir went swimming.
NASA were running this tracking page, which gave a minute-by-minute update as to where Mir was above the planet - at about 4:30pm Mir passed Australia for the last time, and by 5pm, the tracking stopped, to be replaced by the "A goodbye Salute to Mir" graphic seen on the NASA tracking page now.
15 years is a LONG time for a piece of gear built by man to be anywhere - let alone the harsh environment of space.
And despite alchemy's concerns, the Russians even managed to park it where they said they would. :)
For all those that don't already know.. Mir's probably going to come down in a blaze of (glory?) at around 4pm Qld time this afternoon.. thats 5pm for all you Sydney dwellers.. if you're in Perth I'm sure you're already used to working out timezones, so you can do it yourself, 'cause I'm not so sure :)
Anyway, pull on your stack hats, because we're about to find out how much vodka they've had to drink over in Russia.. seems a bit sus to me that they're bringing it down on the side of the planet directly opposite to their's.. oh well. Triple M was at the train station handing out Ice-Cream containers with the words "MIR STACK HAT" printed on them.. so I'll be safe.. what about you ? ;)
UPDATE: They missed the free taco thing-o.. I told you the Russian's don't know how to fly spacecraft Manaz :D
Whoever said in the forums that I needed a bloody huge alarm clock was right.. I slept right through it today and missed uni... whoops :/
Insane Hardware are back from the dead with some scoopage on AOpen Heatsink/Fan combos. They look to be for the OEM market only.. and one of 'em bears a striking resemblance to a Thermaltake Volcano II..
A reader named Desh sent in this link to another Mir tracker.. Just looking at it now.. i think Mir has crashed already.. into the datacentre where that website is hosted ;) But seriously, looking around the site you can find graphs like this showing you how high it is above your head.. is 200km enough?
Over at Digit-Life they've reviewed the A7V-E.. a cut down version of the A7V (KT133, not KT133A) designed for the budget market.. one less DIMM slot, one more PCI slot, no CNR slot.. voila!
Dan has taken a look at the ASUS A7A-266.. he says it features both types of RAM slots - Country AND Western.. well ain't that grand *slaps thighs* It's worth reading tho, like most of his articles.
Romio points us in the direction of a rant about Telstra/O@H security.. basically about how untrained techs are leaving NetBIOS enabled. Can safely say that the tech who installed mine didn't.. wish I could say that my email worked at the moment, or that latency was at it's normal low.. but, I can't. While we're speaking about O@H, have a look at this.. all I can is.. whooooops. Lucky I'm still on the trial period when netstats don't count.. *fires Napster back up*
More lovin' on that Tyan Thunder K7 Dual Thunderbird board.. this time over on PCstats.. gee, I would *really* like a review sample of one of those boards please Tyan :)
Scott has told us that Anand has benchmarked the GeForce3. I'd like one of those too please, MSI :)
GlideUnderground have reviewed a 16x AOpen DVD Drive that dosn't feature a cup holder. Yes, that was lame.. but it was their joke, not mine. If you're really slow it means it's a slot-load drive btw..
It's always fun when you see things like this over on MS TechNet telling you that the security certificate regeime MS promoted as being unhackable has been, well, hacked. WindowsUpdate anyone? What? I need to install BackOrrifce so windows works better? Okily Dokily..
Finally, HarBinger sent in this news feature about a peice of software record companies are supposedly using to track copyright violators.. now while it could be real, I reckon its a fake. Why? well - the interface for one - it's just too pretty. Second of all, if it really *was* the record industry's Napster hunter, the website would of been sued by now. Third, my names not on the list... and guess how my netstats got so high.. ;)
Friday Morning #2
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 23-March-2001 03:06:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Damnit, it's 3am again. Seems to happen every night at about this time now.
Tim sent this in: Just discovered that any of the old 32x Teac drives (532 series) are compatible with the 40x series utility program which boosts CD-DA extraction from 4x to anywhere from 12x to 32x. Works an absolute charm, can now burn CDs at 12x in real time. Just thought I'd share this discovery. Get the util here.. thanks Tim!
SystemLogic have updated their GeForce3 manufacturer guide..
XG8 points out another Mir re-entry site.. lots of info.
Linux.com reviewed the linux beta of Tribes2, a game.. thanks Theone333.
Winamp v2.73 is now out! Thanks Morgan.
ASUS changing motherboards to protect traces near socket..
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 23-March-2001 02:48:33 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
I got this (in a roundabout way) from Asus today:
Sent: Wednesday, 21 March 2001 02:04 PM
Subject: PCB damaged by heatsink clip
Dear all,
ASUS is in the process of doing some protection on some MB models to resolve
the problem of, PCB is easy been scratched when install the heatsink chip.
Please see below for your information.
Let me know if you have other questions. Thank you.
Regards,
Mia Tsai
--------------------------------------------------
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
SALES & MARKETING DEPARTMENT
Tel: 886-2-2890-7602
Fax:886-2-2890-7714
URL: http://www.asus.com.tw
> The measures we may take to protect the PCB from being scratched by the
> heatsink clips include:
> 1) plastic socket protector (???) for both Socket 370 & 462--contract
> still in review with the vendor; expected to phase in within 1 month
> 2) protective sticker (??)--already phased in for main-stream models,
> which include:
> a) S370 M/Bs: CUSL2, CUSL2-M, Medion2001, CUV4X-CM(E), CUSL2-C,
> CUSL2-LS, CUSL2K Series
> b) S462 M/Bs: A7V, A7PRO, A7V133 Series
> NOTE: You may inform your customer that the layout of the CUV4X-E and
> CUV4X-C is clever enough to avoid this problem.
>
> Because labeling the stickers on the PCB is very time-consuming for the
> factory, we aim for phasing-in the plastic protector for all compliant
> models, and urging R&D to clear up the "no-trace" zone.
I wonder how this will affect warranty claims on existing motherboards that have been damaged by CPU heatsink clips. Previously, ASUS have not been exchanging boards that are damaged in this way. If they are now redesigning motherboards, does that imply they admit the previous designs are flawed?
Griff put some pics of his PC into the PC Database recently. Check out the sexy blowholes:
 
click to enlarge images (warning - large)
Hmm, makes my effort look pretty shabby. I asked Griff how he made them:
Used a hole cutter to cut the hole a bees dick smaller than the grill. Flattened the grill mounting legs so the whole thing is flat, then pressed the grill in from behind, it kinda clicks in, then a couple of drops of super glue to make sure it stays there.
The cutter is the drill type with a horizontal beam with an adjustable lathe tool to cut the hole, perfectly round.
Looks great! More pics in Griff's PCDB entry and of course, more of this kind of stuff in the Case Mods forum.
AMD have announced their 1.33MHz (266MHz FSB) Athlon, thanks to LiamC for the notice. I dunno how you can review a CPU speed stepping, but lots of people have.. (it's just like the 1.2GHz one, but a little bit faster!!) Hopefully more on AMDMB.com - AnandTech - AcesHardware - FlamingShrubs - TomsHardware - Tweak3D.
Reviews:
Plextor 16/10/40A CDRW drive on TR.
ThemoEngine Socket cooler on ClubOC.
OCZ Monster Coolers on TheTechZone.
AOpen CRW1232 CDRW drive on NeoSeeker. Our review here.
GlobalWin WBK68 socket cooler on Merc100.
Samsung 40GB HDD on IANAG.
CardCooler XT on MikhailTech.
Thurs Morning.. and it's Quiet
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 22-March-2001 10:57:54 (GMT +10) - by alchemy
|
There's not much happening in the news box this morning, hopefully it picks up later in the day..
Hardware One have reviewed the SMC 8-port 10/100 Storage Server. Kind of like an 8-port switch, a firewall, and a 20g hard drive all mixed together..
Well, its not the GeForce3, but to alot of people its going to be alot more usefull.. Toshiba has been the first to develop a true Random Number Generator. And what good will one of these do ya? Well.. it makes encryption a hell of alot harder to crack, and for alot of things that are required to act in a random manner, it'll make them work alot better to. I don't expect it to be too long until we see versions of this hardware built right into motherbaords or cpus.. as long as Toshiba don't do a RAMBUS and patent everything including the word random.. thanks for the headsup Márcio.
They've upgraded to a Thunderbird over at FiringSquad.. and told us about the experience.
TheTechZone is giving away a 256Mb stick of CL2 Micron RAM that they've tested up to 150MHz. It's one of those post-in-my-forum-to-go-in-the-draw comps.. I'm not much of a fan of those, but maybe you want the RAM more than me :)
Over on Digit-Life they've posted a review looking at every recent chipset for the x86 Platform. It's a pretty well written article explaining what each chipset was designed for, how they perform relativley to their competitors. Alot of people may not realise it, but the competition in the mainboard market is as healthy as it's ever been, with 4 competitive chipset makers, and at least 2 (in the case of Socket-A, 4) competing chipset designs.
SecretSquirrel just pasted this into IRC.. its an article about Telstra's Internet Support Service (thats an oxymoron) performance.. or severe lack of. I'm sure alot of people won't be suprised to hear that's true, but to me it's just utterly pathetic.
They've taken a look at the GlobalWin WBK38, ThermalTake Volcano II and Vantec FCE-62540D Heatsinks over on AwareMag to see how they perform. Three very boring looking fast-fans-on-big-blocks-of-aluminium designs. They all seem to work pretty well tho..
VideoCardDrivers have got the latest 307 version BIOS for the IWill KK-266-R.. apparently the old one didn't work with VCM sticks over 64Mb.. which probably affects no one. The new BIOS adds more memory tweaks tho, which is always good. Incidently, I cant see why VCM memory hasn't even slightly taken off.. it gives performance way above that of normal SD-RAM, with the only disadvantages being a slight price premium, and the fact that it'll only work with Via chipsets... 'spose you're all waiting for the DDR KT266 (like meeeeee)
Early Thursday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 22-March-2001 01:01:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
AnandTech have an interesting article on SocketA at 133MHz FSB.. explaining how/why some Athlons and Durons refuse to do that FSB and offering a solution. I just read the whole thing, it's good stuff.
There's a three-way socket cooler roundup on AwareMag.
xbit have the "scoop" (ie, they posted the press-release first) on the new Asus A7V266. This is another interesting DDR and SDRAM motherboard for SocketA, with RAID.
XG8 points out a neato hdd cooler with USB ports by Jetway.
From the forums, Martinus shows that BX is still the king. :)
TomsHardware have a P4 motherboard roundup.
The ArsMasters have a guide to Win2K Memory Performance Tweaking.
TweakTown reviewed the Asus A7V133 SocketA KT133A motherboard.
Wednesday Night
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 21-March-2001 19:31:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Bah, my bike died today, refused to start after filling up at a servo. Had to get my GF to come give me a jumpstart, how embarrassment. Seems to be ok now tho.. [worry]
The GeForce FAQ has been updated. If that thing gets any bigger it's going to start screwing with the tides.
Win y'self a gig 'o ram on HardCoreWare or a set of speakers on NeoSeeker.
SystemLogic want to tell you how to make a custom system properties screen.
Wondering where MIR is right now? XG8 points out this NASA page which will tell you. Note that it's under the "temp" tree of NASA's webserver.. hehehe. (looks up worriedly)
New site. Cooler reviews. In Portuguese. Clicky clicky.
Reviews:
Shuttle Av30 Socket370 DDR mobo on OCWB.
Mushkin PC2100 DDR SDRAM on RizeNet.
AquaStealth II watercooling kit on G3D.
SMC Wireless Networking kit on TheTechZone.
Chipsinks ram heatsinks on ClubOC.
MSI K7T-TURBO RAID SocketA mobo on VoidYourWarranty.
One of our hosted sites, Case Modders Aus (www.casejunkiez.com) has got quite a cool feature that I don't think enough people know about. Their CoolerBase is a database of reviews (on other sites too) of all kinds of CPU coolers. We gave it a little plug when it started up but I think more people should check it out. It's pretty cool - if you're looking for info on a particular cooler, you'll probably find it there.
http://www.casejunkiez.com/coolerbase/coolerbase.shtml
If you know of any reviews out there that aren't listed in the coolerbase, drop them a note!
Don't you hate it when you oversleep? Especially by over an hour? The news is going to have to be fairly quick this morning..
A new hardware site has appeared on the scene.. but this one is a little differenet. First of all, its run by a monkey called bob. Second of all, most of the news is delivered in video/divx format. Sounds like it could turn out alright.. but as always, its in the execution. Have a look for yourself.
ViaHardware have a full review-type thing up on the KT266 chipset that I got all excited about a few days ago.. and now, well.. mmm.. I'm more excited.
IQ-Hardware (?) has a water-cooler shootout happening.. seeings I'm in a rush today I don't have time to check if they mean it in terms of cool-your-cpu-down water cooler.. or if they mean stand-around-it-and-blude-at-work type water coolers.. I think its the former, however..
If you are thinking about water cooling, and you're on a bit of a budget - maybe you can take a page out of ArakniD's book and build a ghetto radiator. Looks to me as if its made out of the carton those grolcsh beers came in.. maybe if he stopped drinking such expensive beer he could afford to make something a little more.. conventional?
If you want one of those new GW WK-38 heatsinks, you could do worse than to head over to Overclocker Cafe' and tell them you want to win theirs..
Tweakmax preview an ECS i815EP-based board..
CPUTweak have taken a look at one of those Logitech Marble Cordless Mouse thingo-s.. whatever they are.
I've noticed several random acts of violence and abuse come flying out of Aggs corner in IRC and I think they have something to do with all the emails he's been getting about those fan adaptors. I'll say it again, we do not know where you can get one for yourself.. chainbolt submitted a review of parts he was able to locate in Japan, and we don't know where that was either. Please, people, think of Agg's sanity (and #overclockers saftey) before you hit send.
Scott sends in what I consider to be some terrific (smashing, in fact) news.. the ATI Raedon has dropped in price. Can't find anything official from ATI on this one, but he says he has noticed that about since 3DMark 2001 came out, that they've dropped from about $800 to $550 for the 64Mb VIVO. Thats just absolutley super! I love competition.
Finally, if you want to rate my news, you can head over here and do it in the forums.
I noticed today a little trend in OCAU's traffic.. there is a small spike at about 4pm which continues until 5:30 and then tails off.. methinks there are a lot of cube drones out there killing the last hour or so of their day in the forums. :)
I got a fair bit of feedback about the blowhole thing from a couple of days ago, quite a few people have that same case from the sounds of it. Shivan points out his own painted + fanned one.
Poly sends word of this newish IBM supercomputer, once again wanting to be the fastest in the world (is anyone really competing with them in these stakes?) .. to be used for gene research.
CPUReview have announced a homegrown memory benchmark that looks to be quite interesting.
TR did a little research into what's better for stuffing data into your PDA, USB or serial..
Nigel sent in this link to info on FCRAM memory from Fujitsu. I think this is just a fancy name for their DDR SDRAM.. have to be careful how you pronounce it tho.
From the forums via alchemy (thread here) - some interesting silver shims.
This is so bizarre I think I should have sent it to YYK for him to post.. :) Mir, the russian space station, crashes into the ocean in a couple of days time. Taco Bell have said they will give a free taco to everyone in the US if the space station hits a 40x40 foot target they are placing in the middle of the ocean. That's nearly 300 million tacos?! Riiiight. Thanks Andrew..
Reviews:
PCMods Bus Bay Kit on HardAvenue.
Logitech MouseMan iFeel on TE. The mouse that wiggled.
Asus A7A266 SocketA DDR + SDRAM motherboard on OCWB, thanks David.
I'll start off the afternoon with more Japanese Overclocking Madness.. this time a 1.3GHz at close to 2GHz.. nb: liquid nitrogen *was* harmed in the making of that article.. UPDATE: Just been reading that article now and it says something about the A7M266 being discontinued.. anyone able to confirm/deny this for me?
HardcoreWare have an interesting comparo up.. they're benching the difference between different amounts of RAM under WinME and Win2k.. Interesting to see that half a gig of ram, whilst it sounds elite, is for most people a waste of time.
MrPCPro looks at the KM133 Athlon/Duron low-cost chipset boards, more specifically the Biostar M7VKE.. and whilst integrated chipsets sound pretty boring to us overclockers.. they actually managed to overclock not only the CPU, but the onboard video as well.. might be a good platform to build a tiny server or parents box from.
It's not a review, just a press-release.. but still.. CDR-info has the news about the upcoming 20X Yamaha Burner. Now thats fassssssst... a full CD of "backups" in about 4 minutes.. who's got a patience problem? :P
The Unaclocker of ProCooling.com has been at it again.. this time he's made a water cooler that you wouldnt be able to tell is there.. until, of course, you open the case. Then there's no hiding it. Interesting way to do it.. Not everyone wants to be a centrepiece at LAN's.. they're giving away a DigiDoc5 if you still believe in fans as well.
Silicon Angel, one of our forum mods, has been busy of late covering his HQ-08 in Wood Veneer.. It's turned out pretty well, if you like the look of wood on your computer case that is.. you can give him a piece of your mind here in the forums :)
OverclockerCafe has thrown a heap of top-rung coolers into a cage and waited for them to start fighting each other.. they didn't. So instead they found out how well they performed. soffffft.
I've been waiting for a review like this.. X-Bit Labs have taken a look at the Shuttle AV32 Via Pro266-based motherboard that supports both DDR and SDR RAM. Not content just to bench DDR RAM on it though, they've put DDR and SDR head to head on the same platform - so is DDR really that much faster?
BSOD is having a rant about how easy print hardware/gaming magazines have it compared to their online cousins.
Beast^Wk writes in to tell us that Telstra BPA have finally admitted that they are crap. He received this email this morning apologising for the recent Broadband troubles BPA has been experiencing. No surprises from my side, I'm an O@H customer :)
Rizenet have genetically modifying the nVidia det drivers.. crossing the D3D core from 11.0 with the 10.8 Driver Set.. then they did other things as well.. might want to go and have a read if you're looking for an extra few 3D Marks.. Your system tho, so be careful with 'em.
Finally, two OT things.. first being about the US Customs Department.. thanks Manaz, and second - if you thought there was no such thing as Good Spam, then this might go some way to changing your mind. Until that gets spammed. And then it's just more Spam. It never ends.
Quickies...
Dan is pimpin' a PSU. An Enermax 550W one of course. The man's got class..
IWill KA266 (ALi DDR Athlon) based board at FullOn3D.
OCWorkbench take a look a look at the ASUS version of the ALi Board as well.
ABIT VP6 over on PCHardware.ro
Hexus review the OcUK Tornado Pre-Modded Case.
If you want to see what DIY-ers can do, Bluesmoke have updated their case-mod gallery.
Hard-Drive Cooler Giveaway over on JsiHardware
Athlon 1.2GHz-C reviewed on Inside-Hardware.
VR-Zone review the same thing here, then tell us about their top 10 annoying computer problems here.
Finally, DangerousDog (?) tweak 3D Mark 2001
First thing off the bat this morning is not about overclocking, or even computers. It't about beer. But trust me, its worth it. Go here and watch this.. you'll of had of seen one of the earlier budweiser wazzzzzzuppp commercials to fully get the joke.. but still, I've watched it about 40-odd times so far and it still makes me laugh.
Anyway, back on topic.. news box is verrrry full this morning, so I can see this being a fairly long post..
That crazy German site Hart-Core.de has put up some pictures of some pretty serious looking radiators.. all the text is in German (could always feed the 'fish), but the pictures pretty much speak for themselves.
KngtRider (spelt correctly now) was first into the news box this morning with news of a new version of SiSoft Sandra - 2001se. It's mainly just an update adding support for new hardware and fixing bugs - most notably support for Win200X (I presume this means WinXP as well). You might want to head over and download it.. I'm sure alot of people are going to be talking about it soon..
The TechZone take a look at the AMK LAN case.. sounds like a good idea - small cases are easier to carry around to lans than a beasty old HQ-08.. but then.. even if you put your whole clan's Jolt bottles on top of it, you still dont look elitez0r as Mr.HQ-08.
HarBinger sends word that there is a new type of music-media format out - the DataPlay CD. Looks Suspiciously like a MiniDisc to me.. except it holds more data. They make it sound as if the compression they're doing is a big thing as well - don't they know MiniDisc already uses a 1:5 compression algorithm?
3DSpot have a tweak guide up for Counter-Strike v1.1 using the Half-Life 1.1.0.6 engine... looks to be for the newbie amoung us.. incidently MegaBaz sends word that the frago LAN is happening again on 8 April. Register here if you're keen.
The people of FutureLooks have been giving their employees crack and sending them into the future? I think thats what the email said.. but seriously, interesting read about where the Internet has come from, and where the author thinks it's heading.
6-way Thermal Paste roundup over on ExtremeOverclocking. It's beyond me how thermal paste has become *such* a big thing.. I remember buying a tube of white thermal goop back when a 600MHz Slot-A Athlon was da bomb.. and everyone in the shop looked at me as if I was an idiot for wasting $3.. little did they know 8 months later I'd be paying $22 for some toxic silver stuff in a syringe.
Another techsite with a name I can't figure out, Techmocracy looks at the A7V133 voltage mod... hot chips :)
Agg just told me on IRC that he's received a zillion emails from people wanting those fan adapters that chainbolt reviewed.. well, stop emailing him. He's not from Japan, and they'll be frightfully expensive with the Aussie Dollar and shipping factored in.. what you can do, however, is head over to here in the forums where a member, brad66 is looking at fabricating some perspex ones. They look pretty cool, and there looks to be alot of interest in them. Hope he goes ahead with them..
Reviews:
GlideUnderground take a look at "Hitman: Codename 47". It's a game. With guns.
Merc100 speak to IBM about BlueTooth.
16X Pioneer DVD Drive over on TweakTown. Nice Drive. I've got one :)
Senfu Thermistor over on MikhailTech.
Soc from CaseJunkiez looks at the Icemat.
Digit-Life is looking back on 3dfx. A few years ago a 6Mb Canopus Pure3D was absolutley GF3-type hardcore.. and it only cost $300AUD too.. remember that kids.
VideoCardDrivers.com are overclocking the GF2 MX.
Thats all for now.. the newsbox is still about 2/3 full so I'll be back later. Keep it comming, I'm a sucker for punishment :)
Fan Adapters - Review!
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 20-March-2001 02:19:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
You might remember the Fan Adapters we showed you some pics and basic info about a couple of weeks ago. Well, Chainbolt, our man in Japan :) has sent along a full review comparing the performance of 80mm and 90mm versions on Alpha and Taisol heatsinks, compared to the normal 60mm fans. Lots of pics etc, it's an interesting read..
Click here for the full review!
Monday night... yes, I have been a newsboy slackarse.
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 19-March-2001 23:09:09 (GMT +10) - by Sciby
|
Well, I've been busy. It's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Anyhoo... news.
Got some burning questions about the GeForce 3? Good. Chances are, someone's asked them already.
This is kinda cool: Matt has made a ducted FOP-32/heatsink. Neat. PVC piping would probably work just as well.
Ooooooooooer... dual AMD action... all hardcore, all SMP, all nu-... er... *ahem*... sorry. Thanks to Chris Nolan for making me get that excited (Blame him).
Ooooooh dear... more dual AMD loving', this time, a saucy motherboard preview, from those temptress hussies from PCStats. Ooooh nursie, it's time for my sponge bath!
Time for some Intel vs. AMD smackdown... a Pentium 4/1.7ghz vs an Athlon Tbird 1.3ghz... exciting shtuff.
Right, here's something I've always wanted to know: How to transfer MP3's from PC to Minidisc player. And Techextreme show you how. Goodo.
If you're like me, you see China as just a massproducer of cheap electronics and little red books. But is it really?
I love this website name: VoidYourWarranty have posted an interview with Matt Stiltner of Faraday Cases, who are planning to listen to overclockers about case design and then give them exactly what they want.
Reviews:
ELSA Gladiac MX Review - at Dangerous Dog. (??)
SiS730s Athlon Motherboard review - at AMDMB.Com.
Aopen AK73 Pro A motherboard review - at [H]ardOCP.
It seems OCworkbench have been going crazy with their overclocking.. they sent me an email saying they had a 1.3GHz Athlon running at 2.0GHz with a 188MHz FSB.. sounds insane. Catch is - I can't find it on their page. What I did find, however, was a P4 1.7GHz engineering sample clocked up to 2.3GHz. Thats some serious clock speed.. They also have pics up of the upcomming ABIT TH7-RAID P4 mobo..
Digit-Life have gotten all romantic on us and posted a Love Story. Of course the love story includes a P4 1.5GHz, a 1.2GHz Athlon and a 1.0GHz P3. Then theres a GF2U, a DDR Raedon VIVO, and of course a GF3. It'd be rad if the OCAU labs started looking like that..
It seems DX8b is or will be out soon, and the Ctrl-Alt-Del have it ready for you to download. Of course this isn't an official release from Microsoft.. so tread with caution.. I don't think MS would be as kind as Valve where with the HL leaked copy last week and release a fix. They've also got a copy of the nVidia dets 11.0 up. Where are they finding all this pre-release leaked software? or dare I ask ;)
Over at PCreview they've got a review of the Hercules Game Theatre XP sound card+box thingy giving some competition to the SBLive... and like everyone else, they like it.
Over in the forums Chris Nolan has discovered you can pre-order that ultra-hardcore Tyan Thunder K7 Athlon SMP board. You might want to start harvesting your organs to buy it tho.. US$959 is alot of money..
ZZZ Online #75 is out.. this time around featuring a wooden three-wheeled car, a tongue display unit and flexible batteries among other things. Madness, just pure madness.
Reviews:
2Cool PC Turbo on Club Overclocker. Our review here
Samsung 955DF 19" Flatscreen CRT over on CDA.
BSOD interview Andrew "Spode" Miller and find out he thinks being a webmaster involves hampsters.
Finally, Tech-Planet look at the CPUfx DTS400. Its a Socket-A Shim. Lucky Agg didn't see that email. He dosn't like shims. And they don't like him either.
Been out doing stuff in the Real World this weekend.. and now I'm sunburned. That'll teach me. I'm just going to skim through this lot..
ARP have updated their BIOS Guide and Win2K Hints and Tips article..
Digit-Life want to tell you all about VIA Chipsets..
They also have a 6-way KT133A Motherboard Roundup posted.
BSOD have an interview with the founder of VirtualHideout.
Topher points out another twin-radial-fan cooler, the Silverado. He's started a bulk buy thread in the forums.
OCMOD built themselves a high-efficiency water-cooling radiator and want to tell you how they did it.
TweakTown have a bunch more modded cases in their gallery..
MegaBaz points out a site with info on making animated half-life logos.
FullOn3D want to tell you how keyboards work.
TacoNuts have a guide to using neon lights in your computer.
Akiba say that Tyan are taking pre-orders for their Dual Athlon motherboard in Japan now..
OCCafe have a pretty big article on the effect of Detonator versions on 3DMark2001..
Dan has compared a few webcams.. he managed to resist the urge to include nude pics of himself, thank god.
Apparently pccasegear.com is broken and you should go here instead - or so Hellfire tells me.
Voidyourwarranty have a little RAM comparo. This is a 5-page review that should have been 2 or 3 at most.
Daniel points out the geforce2mx200 info on Akiba and says: even more interesting than the artical is the translation through babelfish. SDR = "Special Drawing Right". LOL!
Kazashi sends a slashdot link claiming the RIAA is hypocritical.. surely not?
Hypothermia are giving away some heatsinks..
Apparently Germany will no longer use American software (that includes you, MicroSoft) on "sensitive" computers.. thanks Morjo.
Whooo.. gonna go crash out, methinks.
There's a thread here gathering info/feedback on OCAU Case Badges. This has been sanctioned by me but I have nothing to do with the organisation/distribution side of it. Thanks to toe2toe for offering to organise it all. If you're interested, go there and let him know. :)
Hmm, musta been a good weekend for case modding or something - there's been quite a jump in PCDB entries. Check out the latest additions with pictures here in the Gallery. Actually, I did a little modding myself yesterday - put a blowhole in my main machine which had a worrisome hotspot at the top of the case, between the CD burner and the PSU..
  
click images to enlarge
Hot spot no more! I thought the world could live without yet another blowhole article and it's not the neatest blowhole ever made but it ended up looking better than I expected so I thought I'd put some pics up. An hour or so hacking away with the dremel, whack on a 92mm Panaflo fan (thanks Manaz!), gold fan grill borrowed from an Enermax PSU (to match the rear one).. done!
Oh shush, I'm allowed to get excited about my first blowhole. :) Next on the list is a better front intake..
Sunday Afternoon
(0 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 18-March-2001 18:29:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
News withdrawal. It's a terrible affliction that affects countless Australians. Lets see if a quick dose of reviews helps any of you out. :)
Reviews:
X-Micro Hulk 5 - a GF2MX video card, believe it or not, on TweakTown.
OCZ Twin Turbo Heatsink on FrostyTech and also here on Rizenet..
Leadtek Geforce 2 GTS video card on TheTechZone.
HP Photosmart 315 digital camera on PCInsight.
Ratpad mousing surface on 8balls.
AM35-EC KM133 SocketA motherboard on Spode's.
Vantec FCE62540D heatsink on JSI.
ATI Radeon VE on Digit-Life.
Abit KT7A-RAID SocketA KT133A mobo on Ripnet.
AMD Athlon 1.2GHz 266MHz FSB SocketA CPU on Fullon3D.
Video Ramsinks on DangerousDog.. errr, ok.
ATI Radeon 64mb on ClubOC.
Moderation Changes
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 17-March-2001 15:30:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Please welcome Danthemanz as a new moderator in the forums. He's a 2000+ post veteran who will be helping out in a lot of the forums - I've basically added him to all the forums that didn't have a 4th moderator and he has replaced Sciby in the Pub as it needs someone who's in there all the time - Sciby is busy with other stuff at the moment. Also, Chris Nolan's responsibilities have been expanded to include the Troubleshooting Help forum at his request. Thanks to you both (and of course, the other Admins and Moderators) for your assistance.
nVidia? pffft.. what about AMD DDR for a change..
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 16-March-2001 22:37:07 (GMT +10) - by alchemy
|
Having a weekend up the coast, so I figured I better do a post before I go - keep you all busy :)
Now this is the type of stuff I like to see in the newsbox. ViaHW have a preview up on the upcoming KT266 chipset.. thats Via's DDR Athlon solution for all you poor kids living in the dark. The board they previewed featured both DDR and SDR RAM slots in a 2+2 config, meaning you can buy the board now (or, when it comes out, rather) and wait (hopefully not too long) for DDR prices to drop. You obviously can't use both memory types at once, but even so. Be a *very* interesting platform to test the true performance gains of DDR memory on. If anyone from a company with a KT266 solution in the works is reading this, I'd love to tell everyone about it. From my own experience. Please :)
Checking out what the competition have to offer, OCworkbench has a series of photos of ASUSTeK's upcoming board based on the ALiMaGiK (I feel like im a 12yo on IRC again typing that..) chipset, the A7A266. Looks pretty tastey. My A7V133 is feeling jealous now. 3 168pin SDR-RAM slots on this baby too..
If you just *cannot* get enough DDR into you, TomsHardware has a roundup of three AMD 760-based DDR boards. AMD DDR seems to be today's nVidia of the news. At least we can afford DDR. Well.. Almost.
Remember that article I posted yesterday about that turbine death fan thingy on Akiba? Well.. a reader called Chester with a long memory sent me in this link to something very similar from the Celeron 300A days. Looks like Akiba has been playing catch up. For once. If it ever happens again.. I'll be amazed.
Just on the subject of hardcore air cooling, you might want to check out this beast over on overclockers.com. Not a turbine death fan, but shiny copper.. and lots of it.
Now that Napster is pretty much over as a "backup seeking device", you might want to check out Aimster, if only for the comedy value of their Slogan "cant touch this". The joke behind it is that they're using RSA standard encryption to send their data.. so if the RASA tries to sniff their data, like they did with Napster.. they will be breaking their own laws if they attempt decryption.
Quick Stuff..
Spode said to say that the comp he's running for a Mid-Tower case ends soon.. just under 500 entries so you may just win it.
Halflife 1.1.0.6 update has been officially released.. and you're going to need it to play on most servers now. If you got the leaked version last night that corrupts your hl.exe.. well, that'll learn you to tree and be elite.
mofos.org are back from the dead, posting an interview with MadOnion 2001. Yes, with the onion. It's mildly funny.
The Ctrl-Alt-Del has posted a guide on how to share your internet connection.. in case you didn't already know.
Finally, Tony sent in this link to the "True Internet Color(r) Page". oohhhhh k.. internet color, what next? internet toothpaste? oh.. we've already done that. S'pose you could always just Blow The Dot Out Your Ass (.com)
Anyway, I'm off up the coast for the weekend... seeya Monday :)
Friday Afternoon
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 16-March-2001 17:28:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
There's another mainstream overclocking article, this time on ZDNet. This one sticks to the facts, hopefully a sign of less sensationalism and more acceptance of overclocking and overclockers.. we're not all tweak freaks and benchmark geeks.. well, not all the time.. thanks David.
Reviews:
Lian-Li PC-20 aluminium case on OCOnline.
OCZ GF2MX video card on G3D.
ATI Radeon LE video card on xbit.
LiteGlow Neon Light Kit on TacoNuts.
A few people have reported difficulty grabbing version 3.00 of WCPUID from www.h-oda.com. Okey dokey, I've made a mirror here - get grabbing!
I was just thinking, what the hardware and overclocking scene needs is another new website.. :) Today's one is WildAndyC.co.uk. Quite a bit of stuff there already, worth a poke around. They use frames though.. [sigh]
Chainbolt claims to have constructed the king of aircooling in the forums..
This is pretty cool - check out the bottom 2 pictures. :)
Techwatch checked out a 1.2GHz Athlon and got their Asus A7V (non-133) to 123MHz FSB, wow.
JC's has a little Dual Athlon Info.
Things are going from bad to worse for RAMBUS.. awww. Thanks David.
Reviews:
Macase FireWire HDD Enclosure on AcidHW.
CC290 System Cooler, takes up a whole 5.25 bay, on MikhailTech.
3DMark2001 Pro on Hardware.AusGamers.
Copper spacer on RizeNet.
Thursday Night
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 15-March-2001 21:34:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Elvis_a_presley points out this 3DMark2001 mirror on PlanetMirror. This is probably the fastest mirror in Oz at the moment. Uh, thankyuh very much.
More info on Comdex Canada here on FutureLooks and here on TheTechZone. If you missed it, check out my impressions of Comdex Sydney from a week or so ago.
Yet another rounded cables guide, this time on IANAG. That's the last I'll link of those, I think. If you need info you should be reading our article anyway. :)
Dmband points out that version 3 of WCPUID is out. Click "download" on the left menu on that page to get to it. I just grabbed it, 178kb, but not looked at it yet. WCPUID is of course the best proggy to tell you more than you could possibly need to know about your CPU, cache and AGP.
TE have more amazing computer stories..
Yet another mouse skatez review. Last one of these I think I'll link to, too. Little bits of tape that make your mouse smooover. I find spraying my desk with Mr Sheen does wonders for the smooovness of my Intellimouse Explorer.
WinME vs Win2K in a Gaming O/S Comparison on HardCoreWare.
Probably the first of many, OCAddiction checked out 3DMark2001.
Speaking of which - 2 things which are annoying me today: Firstly, people saying "Oh my god, my computer's only getting 1000 in 3DMark2001 and I used to get 5000 in 3DMark2000!" .. guys, you can't compare compare benchmark results across versions. Of course the numbers are different. The benchmark is different. Secondly, people saying "Oh no, I'm only getting 1000 points, I need to upgrade my video/cpu/memory/brain/girlfriend/life".. uuhhm, until yesterday you were happy with your PC and now that a new benchmark tells you it's slow you feel a panicked urge to upgrade? Can you say "Slave To Marketing"..? :)
Anyway. If you want to discuss 3DMark2001 I recommend checking out the Software Stuff forum which has exploded into life over the last 48 hours. :)
The I-was-late-for-uni-and-but-I-didnt-forget-about-the-news edition
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 15-March-2001 12:01:54 (GMT +10) - by alchemy
|
Woke up late this morning and thought "crap - no time to do the news". So I copied-pasted all the emails into a html doc so I could do it in my spare time at uni. Arn't I clever :oP
Theres more craziness over at akiba.. this time it's a hardcore turbine looking fan thing. I'm sure it blows alot of air. Alllllott of air.
XG8 sends word that the GeForce FAQ has been updated, OverclockersOnline has a Detanator Driver Shootout happening to see which det gives you the best performance, LSD from eclinic (Don't ask me) reviews the new Det's for Linux in his funky way, and AcidHardware give them a look-in as well..
If that wasn't enough nVidia news for you, EuroGamer have some GeForce3 info up from the recent "Gathering" event, and GlideUnderground are asking if nVidia is too fast for us with comments from Part II here and from Part I here. I don't think the question is too *fast*, as that can never be a problem - I think it's too *expensive*.. GeForce3 anyone? If you *do* think nVidia is too fast you can always benchmark a GeForce II MX under 3D Mark 2001 and find out that it, well, sucks, compared to the new juice.
Now that I've given you enough nVidia news to last you through until Geforce9, (or if you've skipped all the nVidia stuff because your an ATI man), here's some stuff thats not nVidia. I promise.
Dan takes a look at a USB logitech product that vibrates. I think it's a mouse or something.
It seems IBM are jumping on the AMD bandwagon and intend on producing a SMP Athlon system, as Kaliban pointed out in the forums.
Someone on #overclockers (can't remember who) pointed me in the direction of an article about FTP Hijacking. Sounds like those scurvy pirates are at it again.. wonder what all this "warez" stuff they speak of is.
If all the nVidia news made you want to get as far away from an AGP slot as possible, I'm sure this would be the way to go. Dare ya to fit a GeForce3 in there nVidia, I DARE YA!!!
Howard sends word that people up in darwin play LAN Games, and have in fact set up a Darwin Gamers Assc. Comes as a shock to me mate, I didn't even think you guys had electricity yet ;)
Madness PC have checked out Comdex Canada, and found it to be pretty boring. As are most things in Canada, or so I'm told.
ModdingZone is telling everybody how to cut round holes. They also said something about skinning cats, but I beleive that is an alternative use for your dremel.
Finally, VIAHardware looks at the S3 SuperSavage mobile graphics chipset. It's not nVidia. I promised you.
Reviews:
KT7A-RAID over on Maximum3D
VR-Zone take a look at a Copper Radiator and the MSI K7T Turbo-R
OverclockerCafe find out that 80mm fans are quieter than 60mm ones.
Auto sends word that people are stupid
and Digit-Life take a look at CD-R's
Thursday Morning #2
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 15-March-2001 11:07:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Not sure what's going on with the news this morning but I suspect alchemy's having trouble because there's no news in the mailbox and no news on the front page. :)
684 people downloaded the 3DMark2001 mirror, totalling about 18GB of extra traffic over the 24 hours it was up. :) Not sure why the numbers don't add up, either my logger is not recording properly or there were a lot of cancelled downloads? Weird.
Looks like Court-Jester was number 1100 in the PCDB..
I think there's some confusion about this again so let me clarify - people are welcome to send in reviews or articles to be (edited and) hosted on OCAU. In fact, many of the articles/reviews in the archive have been submitted by readers. I'm not going to be throwing heaps of free hardware around (because I don't get much) but if you've bought something, modded something or otherwise want to tell the world something, I'm (usually) happy to host it for ya. This was prompted by this thread.
HardOCP have a SocketA Cooler Roundup happening.
Somebody deep-fried their PC because they won an iMac. Disturbing stuff, borrowed from HardOCP.
GeForCities tries to answer some GeForce3 Questions.
PCExtremeTech reviewed the Tornado pre-modded case.
3DMark2001 mirror
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 15-March-2001 01:50:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
..will be removed 10am today (Thursday). So don't start a download if it won't finish by then. Or be prepared to resume your download from somewhere else. :) 700 or so people have downloaded it from our mirror so far.
Here's some more mirrors for you:
AusGamers - Oz, supposedly fast.
moldycr.net (USA, I think)
download.cnet.com (USA)
ZDNET (USA)
Hmm, tell me more Oz mirrors. :)
Thursday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 15-March-2001 01:18:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Reviews:
ELSA Gladiac Ultra 64MB GF2U video card on HardwareOne.
ECS K7VZA SocketA motherboard on OCWB.
2CoolPC Turbo air scooper thingy on PCExtremeTech - our review here.
Copper shims on ExtremeOverclocking.
ACORP 7KTA KT133 SocketA motherboard on MrPCPro.
3DCool Fan Block baybus-type thing on PCExtremeTech.
DangerDen MAZE waterjacket on TweakMax - our review here.
Logitech Cordless Trackman FX controller on TE.
30GB Quantum Fireball AS hard disk drive on IANAG.
Aopen 1232a CDRW on OCWB. Our review of the non-A model here.
Elsa Video In/Out Daughterboard for ELSA video cards on GU.
3DMark2001 Now Available!
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 14-March-2001 11:01:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Go to it, kids! Quick, before they're slashdotted. :)
Mirrors:
download.cnet.com
ZDNet.com
I have made a mirror on OCAU's server here. I'll be keeping an eye on how much traffic this causes, if too much it'll vanish. :)
Speed Cheat in Win2k..
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 14-March-2001 01:57:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
You might remember the Speed Cheat in benchmarks article we posted a month or so ago - it attracted a lot of attention. In there I suggested using Win2K for benchmarking because apparently the speed cheat is Win9x only.. I've since been told that there is a Win2K version available. Doc went one further and sent in these 2 pics of it clearly running in Win2k. These are large pics, ~180kb each, so dialup users just take my word for it. :)
 
click images to enlarge (A LOT)
CounterStrike 1.1, Halflife Update
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 14-March-2001 01:36:50 (GMT +10) - by alchemy
|
The Counter Strike version 1.1 linux server update came out yesterday and it seems the 1.1 client update won't be too far off either. Anyone that's a dedicated cstrike player like me will be rubbing their hands with anticipation waiting for this one. Selectivley taken from the README included with the linux server update, changes will include the following
- Added spectator mode -- allow_spectators (0/1)
- Upgraded player models to 512X512 textures
- Terrorist defuse kit pack re-added (why would a T want to defuse ??)
- Made jumping while shooting more inaccurate
- Took out sniper crosshair when zoomed out
- AWP leg shots now non-lethal
- Swimming animation added to models
- Status bar text uses team colors
- Added cs_thunder, de_rotterdam, de_inferno, & de_dust2
- Upgraded de_dust de_cbble, de_aztec, cs_siege, de_vegas, & cs_italy
- Fixed many cheats
Sounds like fun to me - reduced AWP effectivness can only be a good thing for maps like cs_seige. Those new maps also look pretty cool.
There is also an update to the Half-Life engine on which Counter-Strike (among many other mods) runs on. I'm not sure what changes there are new to verion 1.1.0.6, but suffice to say there'll be a heap of bugfixes and cheats removed among other things. You're going to need this to play on pretty much all servers very soon.
If you want more info, head on over to AusCStrike or Planet Half-Life.
Its a bad time to have a slow connection.. these patches are going to be 20mb each. If your normally a heavy broadband user you might want to watch your AUP as well..
UPDATE: Counter-Strike 1.1 is out!!!. Fastest mirror for aus peeps at the moment seems to be here in NZ. I'd say that AusGamers will probably have a mirror up soon as well. Halflife 1.1.0.6 should be out soon now as well.. for a CS1.1 Server head over to NoSoup @ 130.194.2.141
Yep, you read it correctly. Get your download managers at the ready at prepare for an overloaded local backbone sometime within the next 24hrs. 3D Mark 2001 is ready to go, just waiting for an exact time from the Mad Onion Gamers HQ now.. This is going to be a big release on the hardware/overclocking scene I reckon.. hope it follows in the footsteps of its older brother (sister ?) and turns out to be a reliable peice of benchmarking software.. and, of course.. eye candy. It'd really suck to be on Telstra Broadband right now and not be able to download anything :)
Thanks to Jamie from Jsi Hardware for the heads up.
UPDATE: Mad Onion say that it'll start rolling into the FTP servers between 10AM and 12PM Today (Wednesday, Queensland Time, +1hr for you NSW people). Keep an eye on the 3D Mark 2001 Confidential page to be the first to know..
With Agg being so busy doing.. well, Agg things (too many to list, trust me on that) I've been enlisted to help write the news. I'll normally be doing it of a morning before Uni, but this being my first post I figured I'd do it of an evening to get a hang of things before doing it in a pre-caffeine blurr. Alot of you probably already know me (I lurk on #overclockers on irc.oz.org pretty much all the time), and to those that don't - gudday :)
Tim sent in a nifty little bandwith tester to see how much bandwith you've got to play with on your connection. Judging from the download speeds I get on my O@H connection it seems about right. Interesting to see it thinks my speeds are faster than a LAN :)
Anandtech has a review up on the Kyro II chipset with 64mb RAM. They seem to me like an interesting way of doing things - building a somewhat underpowered (by nVidia standards anyway) chipset and using the drivers to decrease the load on the card. Tech Report say in their review that the card contains technology one generation ahead of the PowerVR stuff in the Dreamcast.. cool. Flipside of all this is it means cheaper hardware. Way of the future kids.
ClubOverclocker have a release from IWill up on their front page basically saying that the multiplier issues the KK266-R (KT133A) mobo had have been fixed.
It seems that some people want to take the Ghetto Hardware thing thats been happening recently to the next level. SpodesAbode are taking it to the this-was-made-by-someone-on-their-way-to-a-mental-hospital extreme with this crazy waterblock.
There's an article up on AustralianIT about the recent problems users of Telstra Broadband have been experiencing. Seems another person forgot to pull up their anchor. Wonder if they realise how many people it affects. All those BPA users wanting a cstrike fix and can't get it.. mmm.. cstrike.
Reviews:
SystemLogic have a review of the Claw.
OverclockersOnline with the A7V-133. Nice board. I've got one :)
MS GameVoice over on HardCoreWare
UPDATE: Yes, I now know how to hyperlink properly :D
alchemy helping with news..
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 13-March-2001 23:21:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
We have another news hound on the beat, alchemy. This is due to the other news hounds being a bunch of slackers.. err, being busy with other stuff. :)
Be gentle with him at first. :) Thanks alchemy!
A7V266 Multiplier Dip-Switch Mod
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 13-March-2001 22:03:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Chainbolt has sent in some info about modding the A7V266 (Asus motherboard using AMD761 chipset for AMD CPU's with DDR SDRAM) .. to add the multiplier-changing jumper-block they removed from the production boards for some reason. Some resistors need to be changed too. Pretty heavy going unless you're very handy with a soldering iron..
click for details
Tuesday Morning #3
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 13-March-2001 11:45:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
I think we've seen this before, but it's appeared in the PCDB..
Tommy points out this cool site for people wanting to get the whole car-MP3 thing happening.
TheTechZone are strapping big fans to things again.
PCExtremeTech have a guide to making a LAN box.. theirs seems to be housed in a cardboard motherboard box. Looks less convenient to carry around than the miditower I use. :)
MikhailTech have a cooling guide.. basically a few products in a few different configurations.
A1Electronics have a Socket Cooler Roundup..
This might be old but it was news to me, ScarifieR pointed out this A7V Raid Hack which requires no hardware modification.. hmm. I'm working up the courage to do it now. :)
PCExtremeTech checked out the CompuNurse thermal probe..
Digit-Life reviewed the Inno3D Tornado GeForce2 MX 64 MB video card.
Tuesday Morning #2
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 13-March-2001 11:31:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
The controversial topic of "Coppermine Lapping" seems to have reared its head up again. If you don't know what lapping is, read my article from ages ago explaining how to do it to Mendocino (PPGA) Celerons. The first I heard of it being done to Coppermine CPU's was here on Beast's page. Scarecrow has posted his results on a Coppermine (FCPGA) Celeron here in the forums. At the bottom of Martin's page here are some more results and they are discussed here in HardWareZone's forums. Certainly seems that there are good results to be had, but I'm still too scared to do it to mine. Be careful, guys!
SluDge points out this newbie article on cooling and overclocking that manages to avoid the sensationalism and is actually quite a good read.
Dan has checked out the MacPower Digital Doc 5, whizzo bay-bus fan-controller lcd-screen thingo.
Acidhardware reviewed the Hollywood Plus DVD card. Check out our 8-page review from over a year ago that still draws traffic.
ExtremeCooling have some northbridge cooling overkill happening. :) Actually, some good results.
HyperOC have some info on the principles of cooling..
Chainbolt has some info here in the forums about LOWERING core voltage to get higher speed on certain Tbird CPU's.
Duron 900MHz and Athlon 1.33GHz have appeared in Akiba, thanks David..
The usual silly stuff on ZZZ Online. They also have a list of what they think are the worst 5 cars ever..
Might be time to back the FSB off a bit.
click to enlarge..
Thanks Eric. :)
Tuesday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 13-March-2001 00:35:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
TE have some Amazing Computer Stories! How exciting.
xbit have a guide to Duron Overclocking.
Reviews:
Thermosonic Thermoengine funky socket cooler on CaseJunkiez.
Arctic Silver II thermal paste on G3D.
Soltek SL75KAVX SocketA motherboard on JSI.
Taisol CGK Ultra socket cooler on OCHW.
Logitech Wingman Force joystick on TE.
PCMods Neon Light Kit on SystemLogic.
The Core socket cooler on HardCoreWare.
Shuttle AV32 Socket370 DDR and SDRAM motherboard on VIAHW.
Monday @ Work - Very Sleepy
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 12-March-2001 14:14:33 (GMT +10) - by YYK
|
With a movie that has Freddie Prinze Jr. starring as … Fred, you know it’ll be good… that is until you see this picture. On the upside it does have Sarah Michelle Geller ...Is that still an upside?
Article about a DVD encryption cracking program that uses seven lines of code
It seems another Spice Girl has seen the light and departed, however the question is still “is this the end?”
Linux users are up at arms about the Aussie Tax office website… well them and every other man, woman and their dog.
Kylie and Elle are about to wage the deadly underwear war, one can only hope that it will escalate and involve slumber parties and pillow fights
It seems that the sequel to Basic Instinct is about to be made. Don’t forget to read the article!
Human cloning seems to be getting closer and closer, much to the disgust of many
‘neko’ sends in Lee's Useless Super Hero Generator… for someone who watches/reads/worships/sleeps with comics, its amusing/laughable/sacrilegious
It may be the giant Buddas are gone, much to the dismay of many
Sydney PC Show 2001
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 12-March-2001 01:21:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
I spent a couple of days last week at the PC Show in Sydney and today I collated my photos and notes into an article. It's not a full-blown tour of the event, more a slideshow of a few cool things that caught my eye as I wandered around. Hopefully you'll find it interesting too!
Click for pics + info!
ClubOC have been playing with an AMD Athlon 1200MHz.. lucky so-and-so's. Actually, the 200MHz FSB (DDR) 1.2GHz parts are available in Oz for a little over the $500 mark which is pretty amazing.. the 266MHz 1.2GHz parts are still very thin on the ground.
Sabrtooth points out this Linux tool for overclocking nvidia-based video cards..
TechPatrol have a guide to greasin' your greenie.. good for newbies I guess.
DreddNews reviewed a fulltower case called the 4Q FullTower.
InsideHardware reviewed the Taisol CGK760092 socket cooler.
We've seen this before, but *ahem* I'm sure you won't mind seeing it again. Note the AYB reference. Odd. Thanks Ozone.
It was only a week ago that the PCDB reached 1000 entries and now it's not far until 1100.. there's been a lot of entries with pics added or updated, here's a few that caught my eye:- Amy's dual-loop watercooled peltiers..
- Voltage's cool GT-striped machine.
- MJCrow1's machine.. mmm, furry.
- Draxx's ex-server-case monster..
- Mota has updated the pics of his watercooled machine.
- RedLinE's fulltower - almost no case left, it's all windows and fans. :)
Firestone sent these pics, that seem to be a P4 1.7GHz engineering sample running at 2.3GHz? Hmm..
8Balls are giving away some free webspace in a competition.
ARP's BIOS Optimization Guide has been updated.
The WindTunnel II pre-modded case gets a going-over by ProCooling.com.. PCExtremes checked it out here today too.
Digit-Life have their February 3D Digest.. they also have an article about the GeForce3 and how it fares on some high-end systems. Lotsa benchmarks.
PCReview checked out the Polk AMR 150, some 4.1 surround speakers.
If all this hardware stuff is too much for you on a Sunday, go check out Dan's updated review about tanks and stuff.
Saturday Night
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 10-March-2001 20:00:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
ARSTechnica have info on a massive coordinated hack that occurred recently.
Some more GF3 vids and pics on BobTheGhettoMonkey's site.
OCOnline have a 3-way SDRAM Shootout.
ASUS are running a series of international competitions, so you can win stuff by answering quizzes, thanks Nigel.
GideonTech have a mousepad roundup happening.. interesting testing methodology. :)
Review-zone have a guide to audio, everything you didn't know you needed to know..
AcesHW have part 2 of their Pentium IV article posted, this time focussing on benchmark performance, thanks Nigel.
OCMod have a guide to changing the fans on a Voodoo5..
8Balls compared a couple of 60mm fans.
TweakMax reviewed the PC Tote, a carry strap thingo for your case..
We've seen this before, but it looks like the turbine-powered motorcycle is entering limited production! Just a shame it's so far until Christmas.. thanks Spark.
Martin details his experiences upgrading to a Gig on this page.
[rant]
A few people emailed me links to articles about how to remove the ads from ICQ today. I'm not posting them for a few reasons. Firstly, we're a hardware site not a Cr4kz0r site. Secondly, removing the ads is of dubious legality (obtaining goods/services via fraud..? hmm). Mostly though, I'm not posting them because they represent the "gimme everything for free" attitude that is slowly killing the net. If you like using ICQ and enjoy using the service, how does it hurt you to have an ad appear occasionally? What does it cost you except a few seconds of your time? Would you prefer if they made it a paid-subscriber service only? Someone's got to pay for the traffic, the support, the servers.. why shouldn't it be advertisers?
[/rant]
This is from Iceman. I'm tired so I'm just dumping this all in here in one go without looking into it too much. You decide if it concerns you or not. :)
Prompted by this thread:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/ubb/Forum8/HTML/001000.html
With the impending closure of napster, many users are moving to audiogalaxy, however (unknownst to me) audiogalaxy contains spyware, Report at: http://www.infoanarchy.org
There is a spyware database here: http://www.spychecker.com plugin a program names and see if it contains spyware.. you'd be suprised.. cuteftp has contained up to 3 different versions
Lastly, Id recommend people to download Ad-Ware from http://www.lavasoft.de/aaw - its free and removes all traces from your registry/cookies cache/system files of resource hogging spyware programs
GRC (makers of spinrite) have a baby version called 'optout' .. not quite as good but useful for reference http://grc.com/optout.htm
Note that I'm not (necessarily) advocating the use of programs like Napster, this spyware thing is not really related to that (despite it being an early topic in the thread linked above).
Saturday Evening
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 10-March-2001 18:29:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Arg! 50 emails in the news mailbox today. That'll teach me to go out drinking last night.. well, that and the splitting headache. Let's get some reviews up to keep you busy..
Reviews:
Plextor 12x10x32 Ultra-SCSI CD-RW on TE.
Mouse Skatez on HardAvenue.
Trace Tape for AMD overclocking on TR.
QuickSilver thermal paste on FrostyTech.
Ram Sinks on OCHW.
Slot1 Alpha on TacoNuts.
Mini Super Orb (part 2) on MikhailTech.
Neon Light Kit on TweakTown.
Laser cut fan grills on PC-Workshop, thanks McGoff.
Enermax 651 PSU on OCWB.
Vantec FCE-62540D socket cooler on VR-Zone.
Thermaltake Volcano II socket cooler also on VR-Zone.
ASUS CUV4X-DLS dual FCPGA motherboard on Digit-Life.
64MB Evil Kyro video card on Rizenet.
Mushkin REV3 SDRAM (with discount) on OCTools.
LifeView TV Tuner on DansData. Verily, it doth stinketh.
S4 MidiLand 7100 Plus speaker system on TheTechZone.
Asus iPanel Basic on OCWB.
Friday Morning #2
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 9-March-2001 10:29:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Think this site is ugly? Take a sneak peek at the future design here. Coming soon(ish)! :) There's some discussion in this thread in the forums.
LWD took a look at overclocking the Duron, which seems to be the #1 passtime around here lately..
I dunno, I think gamepads belong on consoles. But you can get 'em for PC, some people enjoy them - IANAG have compared two, the Gravis Eliminator AfterShock vs Logitech WingMan
RumblePad.
Digit-Life have their Monthly Storage Digest posted.. usually a good read.
PenStar reviewved the Abit SA6R, an i815E motherboard.
Not a whole lot else happening out there right now..
In case you're wondering what happened to the server, there's info from Sciby in this thread. Basically it's down until we work out how much traffic it's actually generating. If that turns out to be an unacceptable level then.. well, it was fun. :)
Off to the PC Show I go, off to the PC Show.. again.
Funny/Sad thing on Overclockers.US - the Saga of the iPanel. I've got one here for review. Not got a motherboard that I can plug it into. This is not good. :)
BobTheMonkey has some GeForce3 Stuff, pics and vids from the PC Show.
Speaking of GeForce3, HardOCP have some info on High-Res Anti-Aliasing.. showing that the GeForce3 DOES thrash the GeForce2 Ultra in certain instances.
Icrontic.com report that Abit motherboards are back on the AMD approved list. Working link to the AMD list here.
AnandTech have a Socket Cooler Roundup happening.
Reviews:
X-Micro IMPACT 4 GeForce2 Pro video card on TweakTown.
Arctic Silver II (a four page review) thermal paste on EXHardware.
2CoolPC Plus and Turbo on MikhailTech. Our reviews here and here.
DLink DMP CD-100 MP3 / CD Player on TheTechZone.
I have an Asus V7700 Ultra here for use in future reviews (it's unlikely I will review the card itself) .. I've been.. well, for want of a better word let's say "bragging" in #overclockers for a couple of days while waiting for it to arrive from Asus. Epoch from RaidZero whipped up a funny comic:
click to enlarge
Of course, it's based on this Penny Arcade strip from when Diablo 2 came out. I laughed a lot. :)
Beta site redesign
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 9-March-2001 00:06:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Right, I've been working on the site design pretty much all day today, thanks to Dr-R0M, KngtRider and a few others from #overclockers for their help. Thanks of course also to Luke Beales who won the design comp (over a year ago!) with the graphics you see in the top-left of the new page.
Anyway, here's the (early) fruit of my labours:
http://overclockers.com.au/new.php
I know half the page vanishes in Netscape, working on it. The menu doesn't look great, might have a comp for better menu design soon. The menu's not finished, either, and some of the buttons point to the wrong places. Banner location is not great but I might fade the graphics around it to make it look nicer. The default text colour will be lighter. There'll be more stuff, links to old content etc on the page, maybe a random image, but that's the general layout for now.
I don't know how open to suggestions I'll be at this point - firstly because it's nowhere near incorporating all the current ideas/suggestions, but also because I want to get something up and working, and change it later, rather than getting it 100% perfect first go. But anyway. There it is. I hope you think it looks nicer than the current design. :)
I'll put up pics and blurb of the PC show probably Saturday - I'm spending all day there again tomorrow (Friday) so might get more info for the article. Hopefully hook up some review gear and maybe sponsors, too.
*dribble* Lookit, lookit! A Tomb Raider movie poster! OOOooooooer... I think the guns are a bit done up though, I saw them in a magazine, looked like H&K USP's with extra plastic bits on the front. *shrug*
Another "What's it like on the inside of the computer retail world?"...er... expose', this time, Crazy PC is in the spotlight.
Sure, the GeForce 3 is here, but how well does it deal with DirectX 8, hmmm? What? Don't look at me for the answer, go look at the link.
Got two Blorbs just sitting around doing nothing? Got a Geforce 2 that's just gathering dust? Well, give 'em to me! Or, you could put them all together and do this.
Wanna help cure Cancer? I do, so go to United Devices, another distributed computing project, just like Seti@Home and RC5. Maybe there'll be an OCAU team.
Speaking of things OCAU, the OCAU Counter-strike server is offline at the moment, for the foreseeable future, due to hosting and traffic issues. Check out this thread. We'll keep you all updated.
This is all programmer technobabble to me, but it seems that some nerdboy has written a 7 line VB script that can decrypt encoded DVD information. Tie that with a 5 byte Perl script and then it's fast enough to do it realtime. Wow. I'll stick to my DVD player for now, thanks for asking.
Reviews:
KT7A-RAID Revision 2 motherboard review - at Icrontic.
SONY Mavica MVC-CD 1000 review - at Digit-Life.
Thursday Morning #2
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 8-March-2001 11:40:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
I was at the PC Show in Sydney yesterday, saw a few interesting things but nothing too surprising. I'll put some pics and blurb up a bit later today I think. In the meantime, StakeOut are sending live pictures from their stand here (seems to be dated yesterday?) and here (updating as we speak)..
Apparently the OCAU RC5 Team ranked 100th overall in the world yesterday! That's pretty amazing. :) Thanks Andy!
Auenf says There is a NV20 in a machine (1ghz athlon, DDR memory) at the AMD stand at the PCIT show at darling harbour, and it scored 1000 3dmarks less than a gf2u at another stand (1ghz athlon) .. hehe. It must be a nightmare working on a stand there, at one point yesterday (also on the AMD stand, sorry guys!), one of the machines locked up during a Q3 timedemo and was doing that looping-the-sound-sample thing that crashed-q3 machines do, the noise was one of the bots being shot so this nasty sounding "gruaarg-gruaarg-gruaarg-gruaarg" sound was booming from the machine.. the system unit of which was in a locked cabinet so they couldn't reboot it or turn it off until they found the key, very amusing. :)
TechPatrol have a guide to the freezer method of removing stubborn heatsinks..
Leo points out another helpful page in MS's Knowledge Base..
XtremeTech have a list of network acronyms.
TransMetaZone have some info on new Crusoe-based servers coming soon. There was a vendor showing off a crusoe-based server at the PC Show. Wolfy and I puzzled over the motherboard for a while trying to find the CPU before realising it was tucked away under the (flat-lying) video board. Talk about running cool..
Ph@tTm@N points out this peltier drink cooler and a triple-turbofan-powered MR2 .. I can't decide which is sillier..
I'll probably regret linking this :) but JAB has started a thread wondering who would play various OCAU people if it were made into a movie.. current suggestions for me range from James Spader to Big Bird. :)
TweakTown have an article titled "how we were going to make a SocketA overclocking device but didn't, and here's a pic from someone who did". Ok, that's not their title, it's mine.
TempleOfTech have a technical article on memory bandwidth..
SystemLogic have a guide to SCSI Terminology.
OverclockerCafe checked out Vulpine's GL Mark v1.1 - they reckon it is a challenger to 3DMark2000 and 2001 in the 3D benchmarking stakes. Mmm.. eye candy.
The Cambridge Coffee Pot, arguably the first streaming webcam on the Net, is going to be retired when the lab it's in moves to new premises.
A1-Electronics get some modding action going on a SuperMicro SC750A uber-fulltower. This is pretty much the only case I'd consider upgrading my HX08 to, if I could afford one! Oddly, they refer to it as an "ATA" case a few times.. I presume they mean ATX.
The last ALL YOUR BASE link you'll see on this page. My sentiments exactly. :) Contains the F word, so don't go there if Mum's looking over your shoulder. Hi Mum!
Thursday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 8-March-2001 10:47:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
A few people have sent word that the new 266MHz FSB Athlons are available at a number of vendors in Oz. Also, the new AMD pricing seems to have come through with many places offering 1.2GHz Athlons for a little above the $500 mark. No, I'm not going to tell you where - there's lots of places - check the usual suspects. :)
Reviews:
Arctic Silver II thermal paste on VideoCardDrivers.
Ricoh MP7125A 12x10x32 IDE CD-RW on CDRinfo.
VIA PLE ultra-low-end motherboard chipset on VIAHW.
VideoLogic Sirocco Pro speakers on Digit-Life.
Hercules Game Theater Xp sound card + connection rack on Max3D.
Lifeview Encoder 4 VGA-to-TV connector on DansData.
Gigabyte GA GF-1280 GF2 MX video card on Guru3D.
Certified Data 100-peice toolkit on Merc100. Looks like every other cheapy toolkit to me. :)
Yamaha CRW2100EZ 16x10x40 CD-RW on CAD.
Wind Tunnel II pre-modded case on ClubOC.
Wednesday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 7-March-2001 11:07:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
It's not me who wants to buy a car, it's Sciby. Stop sending me photos of your cars please. :) I don't even have a car license!
Hexus want to tell you all about DDR and how it affects Athlons and P4's..
AnandTech have an article detailing their new socket heatsink testing methodology.. interesting.
Uh-oh, Dan's discovered peltiers! Better get the comfy chair. :)
OCWB have a screenshot from a KT7A-RAID doing 183MHz FSB..
Hehe, Scott pointed out this article on TomsHardware from back in 1998 where he says "By now we are pretty much at the end of the sweet days of overclocking. The upcoming Intel chips Katmai and the socketed Celeron will not allow any form of overclocking anymore.." :)
GeForceCities have info comparing the GeForce3 to Voodoo5 6000.
ExtremeOC have a guide to making a a cheap linux router.. good use for those old bits you just upgraded from.
AkibaPC have info on a new DirectX 8 Benchmark that seems to involve a little girl running around a tree.. okey dokey.
Decromin sent word that there are some memorial cruises being held as a tribute to Todd "Judge" Wilkes who was killed recently.
Reviews:
Kanie Copper Hedgehog review on TechWatch.
Innovision Tornado GeForce2 MX video card on TechWatch.
Alpha PEP66 on MrPCPro.
Epox 8KTA3 SocketA KT133A motherboard on NeoSeeker.
Black and Decker Wizard dremel-clone on Ripnet.
MPIOX / Esounds MP3 player on ElementalHQ.
D-Link DWL-120 wireless ethernet/usb adapter on AwareMag.
AOC LM-500 15" LCD monitor on PCStats.
Shinco DVD-380 DVD/MP3 player on FutureLooks.
Tuesday night... the new car quest continues.
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 6-March-2001 23:27:14 (GMT +10) - by Sciby
|
Right, money problems being sorted out, now to pick a car... anyone know of a decent commodore for sale? Email me. ;)
Yay, Australia's in the news again, for being backwards when it comes to IT policy. Any pollies reading, you know that the rest of the world probably thinks of us as poor little rednecks, living in the past, fearin' the almighty God and all that.
AMD's promised price drop has come into affect, two Australian companies reflecting these price changes are Umart, and Aus PC Market. Thanks to Sleepless for the heads up. (Try counting sheep, works for me.)
CaseJunkiez has a new cooler review database, calle... wait for it... CoolerBase! Original or what?
It seems that the "world leading" audio company, Sensura, is now going to be producing hardware for the Sony Playstation 2. Exciting shtuff.
Digit-Life, those crazy guys, have done some benchmarking on the GeForce 3 with Vulpine GLMark...
... and if you want a GeForce 3, you can preorder them here. Only $1095, for the 64mb model with TVout. What was that noise? Oh, that was my wallet having a stroke.
If you've every had a bit of a delay with an order that you've placed, and you're getting narky (Like I am with a certain Dreamcast VGA adapter order. Vendor, you know who you are. >:| ), spare a thought for the poor sods, walk in their shoes. Hmmm... nah, screw that, where the hell is my adapter??!?
Reviews:
AOpen AK37 Plus Pro266 motherboard review - at VIA Hardware.
Asus 7100 MX vs. VisionTek MX video card comparo - at LittleWhiteDog.
Mini Super Orb HSF review - at MikhailTech.
Arctic Silver II thermal grease - at Overclocked Hardware.
Antec Performance Series SX830 case review - at PCHardware.Ro.
Just a quick news set before I go to work. I *was* supposed to do this last night (sorry Agg!) but I got called back into work. Ah well, on with the show....
Pat from Tech Patrol has posted a 5 minute guide to cable rounding. Wolfy wrote a similar article for this site a while ago, which can be found here.
Issue 73 of ZZZ Online is out. It's full of the "normal" stuff (if you could call anything featured in ZZZ Online "normal").
Do you own a Sun 3/60? I thought you did! Would you like to overclock it? Why even ask! Here are some simple instructions, yeilding a 20-25% performance increase!
In more "It looks like RAMBUS are going to die the slow, painful death they deserve" news, it appears that Intel want to jump onto the 400MHz DDR-RAM bandwagon. Thanks to Nigel for this link (you may need to scroll down the page a bit to see the story).
The Tech Zone have posted an article on tweaking your PC's memory performance.
The guys down at The Tech Report have put Intel's and AMD's finest head-to-head - check out their Pentium 4 vs. Athlon DDR Grudge match, featuring a 1.5GHz P4 and a 1.2GHz Athlon as the prize contenders, and some lower speed processors from both sides of the battle for comparison.
Reviews:
Gigabyte GA-7DX on Hardware-One.
TerraTec 512i Digital Sound Card on PCReview.co.uk
In an attempt to culture you all in foreign languages, ELSA Gladiac Ultra review on Puces 3D, in French. If you can't read French, use The Fish!
This case was mentioned in the forums recently I believe - Antec SX1440B Server Case on OCPrices.
GeForce 3 P/Review on TweakMax.
D-Link Wireless USB Networking Adapter on TECH EXTREME.
FragieSpice pointed out that the Attorney-General of Australia has released a statement crushing flat the rumours that "everyday users of personal e-mail" could be penalised under the recent copyright law amendment. Everybody take a deep breath and chill.. :)
Monday night... someone lend me 25'000 for a new car.
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 5-March-2001 22:20:10 (GMT +10) - by Sciby
|
If it seems that you can't get onto the Counter-strike server tonight, there's a good reason: it's offline. And there's a good reason for that too, we'll keep you posted. Anyway, news:
MadnessPC has some help for you butterfingered people who need help installing a harddrive, and the help comes in the form of their Harddrive 101 guide. W00t.
Ah, this would be great. Not. Microsoft's new baby, Windows XP won't like you very much if you change your hardware often. I really don't see the point in pushing forward with XP. Why are they just throwing aside Win2k so quickly? Geez, 95 and 98 both lasted for ages. Just seems to me like they're just trying to shove the market inside of letting it evolve. *shrug* Just my opinion.
Aha! I knew they were evil! And here's proof! Thanks to Geo (you newbie loser). :)
The Guru of 3D has tweaked his GeForce Tweak Utility... it's now up to verion 3.0.1
Reviews:
Logitech Mouseman Wheel Optical review - at ExHardware.
Logitech QuickCam Traveler - at USB Workshop.
Right, this is a quickie only, but it's the first official thing I've seen from either side about Abit's removal from the AMD approved motherboard listing.. details on siliconcreations.net. Not a whole lot of info, but an Abit person saying it was due to "communication problems between AMD and ABIT". They say the KT7 will be reinstated by the end of the week.. this, to me, seems to validate the theory that there was some recertification testing required. More news as it comes to hand. :)
More on forwarding-email thing..
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 5-March-2001 11:40:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Ok, here's some further reading, here from Hyrax1 and here from C0V3R. That second one apparently dismisses the claims made elsewhere but now seems to be returning a 404 error and I can't find anything about it on the ABC site..
Some more info and discussion in this thread in the forums.
60mm to 80mm Fan Adapters
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 5-March-2001 01:47:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Chainbolt sent in a quick bit of info on some simple but quite neat gadgets available in Japan at the moment.. they let you use 80mm fans on pretty much any heatsink designed for a 60mm fan. This of course can get you higher airflow with less noise..
Click here for pics and info!
Asus A7V 1007 bios with hacked RAID
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 5-March-2001 00:49:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
From spwny:
I took the new 1007 A7V bios and added the hacked RAID bios from tweakhardware to it.
(they only have the 1006 with the raid bios atm..)
You can grab it here. I haven't tested this - remember Bad Things can happen when you flash your BIOS. If your PC explodes, killing your whole family and levelling buildings for miles, I don't wanna know. :)
Monday Morning (just!)
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 5-March-2001 00:10:10 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Not everyone is shooting for the bleeding edge, or even anywhere near it, when it comes to PC's. Ooroo notes that some people would be happy to get a PC at all, even if it barely resembles what we're used to.. a cheap PC for the masses, a volkscomputer.
GameSpyUK report that the GeForce3 is in Europe..
Redback advises that Electronic Frontiers Australia have a lot of info about the Internet Censorship Bill in South Australia. Scary stuff.
NO_DAEMON pointed out this Australian pocket PC, the Microtop - not your average palmtop though, this can run Win98/2K, Linux etc.. and can take "any socket370 P3 processor at 100MHz bus speed"!
Digit-Life look back at February 2001 in their monthly hardware digest.
Squozen says that the SETI@HOME link is back up after being severed a few days ago.. and now it's REALLY flooded with data as everyone is trying to send their work packets in and get new ones. :)
ExtremeOC checked out some rounded IDE cables.. our DIY option here.
Overclocking.DK have a screenshot of a Tbird 1200 running at a cool 1606MHz.. aircooled. 1.63v. Phwoar.
AcidHardware have reviewed a copper spacer. Go the dodgy graph which makes a 1C difference in temperature look huge. They go one futher with a graph showing a massive 0.5C difference in their silver paste comparo.
NASA have canned the X-33 project, which was to supercede the Space Shuttle.
Reviews:
Arctic silver II thermal paste on TweakTown.
Logitech Internet Keyboard on LostUniverse.
Forward mail, go to jail?
(0 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 4-March-2001 22:52:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Wow, a few people have sent word today that they've heard on the radio or seen on TV that with this new copyright law coming into Australia as of today, you can be imprisoned for up to 10 years for forwarding an email without the original author's permission due to copyright infringements?! What the hell? I can't find any stories on it on the (few) Australian news websites I know of, has anyone got a URL or something I can read/link on this? This place is turning into rumour central today and they are getting crazier by the minute.
Ask not why I am posting news at 3am.. :)
G3D are smashing and burning stuff, as you do.
MUNN3Z points out that the CNET article we linked to a couple of days ago is also on ZDNET. Interesting comments at the bottom, some familiar names there. :)
Firestone sends word that the SocketA overclocking adapter is on sale now in Japan. Presumably this provides multiplier/voltage adjustment on boards that don't offer it natively.
There's a few rumours flying around that AMD have removed ALL Abit motherboards from their approved list.. well, there's nothing about it on AMD's Press Release Page, so for the moment I consider it unsubstantiated..
GameSpotHW have put up their own GeForce3 page..
B5Lurker points out that Everglide have reengineered their mousing surface.
VideoCardDrivers.com have a quick comparo of a few Detonator versions.
OCMOD have a guide to voltage-modding the Abit KT7-RAID and show us their webmaster's water-cooled machine.
Reviews:
Aopen Ak73Pro SocketA motherboard on TheTechZone.
ZyXEL Prestige 316 wireless router on HardCoreWare.
Optiquest Q95 19" monitor on TacoNuts.
Leadtek WinFast GeForce2 MX SH Pro video card on Digit-Life.
TaiSol CGK 742092 socket cooler on ClubOC.
Saturday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 3-March-2001 10:38:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Malleus points out more internet-law insanity in Oz, firstly on The Register which claims The South Australia Parliament is pushing an Internet censorship bill that will make it an offence for anyone to post any information deemed offensive to children anywhere on the Internet. And it's the police that get to decide what is and isn't offensive. They link to this story on AustralianIT that goes into more detail on this lunacy..
Slashdot have turned their many-faceted eye upon overclocking again, prompted by the cnet article from yesterday. Sone interesting debate as usual.
Overclockers.com strapped a hairdryer fan/motor onto a heatsink to to see if lots of air makes lots of difference.. results here, thanks xy1em.
Wow, just noticed this entry in the PCDB, is that the most extreme video card cooling we've seen..?
Hexus have an article about memory limitations in chipset architectures, with a focus on the GeForce2.
3DRage have a list of things to do with that spare linux box you have lying around.
Wizard posted some cool pics of his system into the PCDB, nice blue powder-coated case.. some discussion of how it was done here in the CaseMods forum.
VR-Zone have some info on modding the MSI KT7 Pro and the Asus A7V133 for higher core volts.
Hexus have taken a pre-tested tbird combo to some very high speeds.. I'm still pretty impressed with 1GHz PC's and now people are pushing 1.5GHz with aircooling?!
Finding it hard to cough up the cash for a GeForce3? Maximum3Dhave the scoop on a new NVIDIA program which may assist.. Under the NVIDIA Donor Program, gamers can donate internal organs, which will be applied to the cost of the GeForce3-based video cards from participating manufacturers. Upon successful removal of the organ, donors will receive a mail in rebate certificate. Go on, you can't really be using BOTH of those kidneys.
GeForCities has some more info up, this time about FSAA etc on the GeForce3.
Dan's gone all James Bond on us.. playing with a fingerprint login gadget.
Reviews:
Hoontech SoundTrack Audio DSP24 Value cheapy soundcard on TweakMax.. hehe, Hoontech.
Sat Morn - Crappy Day for Scuba
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 3-March-2001 10:31:48 (GMT +10) - by YYK
|
See, I *am* still doing posts!
The US military have created a non-lethal weapon. (oxymoron?) A beam used for crowd control. In the theme of this website, one wonders what might happen when it's overclocked?
How does the world's richest man react when faced with an earthquake? Probably dump more shares
NSW police find out that they were too fast for their own good, and have to repay speed fines. Now if they could only get rid of permanant speed cameras... arrgh!
Thinking about having a hamburger? This might change your mind...
In a theory that may bring cries of "I told you so" from many school kids, the Bard might not be all that straight
Here are the teasers for Planet of the Apes, Harry Potter, and The Mummy Returns. Be warned if you're on dial up...
"chris" has sent me the worst of the internet flash animation….
Heh, the PC Database has been pretty quiet for the last couple of days but suddenly everyone is submitting entries in the hope of being number 1000! MWP took at look at the database and tells me that [Proud]Tobi was the guy hitting the submit button at the right time. So, congrats to him. :) Congrats to us all, really.. I remember when the PCDB was launched, not that long ago, hitting 1000 entries already is great. Don't forget you can vote for your favourite entries in a few different categories now, too.. check out the current leaderboard in looks, functionality, effort and ingenuity. Also check out the most popular listing of entries with the most pageviews.
ProCooling want to tell you all about peltiers.. interesting stuff.
Nikeotronik do the dirty to a big server case..
VIAHW have Part2 of their Intel Developer Forum coverage posted.
Colin points out this interesting story on AustralianIT, with the amendment to the copyright law coming in on the 4th, PlayStation "chipping" is illegal and Sony have forewarned businesses that advertise the service that they WILL pursue and prosecute them if they persist.
SystemLogic added a GF3 card from Visiontek to their collection of info on this new chipset and updated their manufacturer info page.
PCExtremeTech have a Black and Decker RTX vs Dremel showdown, just the things for case modders.
Hypothermia have a review with one of the art guys from Croteam, who are working on the upcoming Serious Sam game..
Choc has made a bunch of mobile phone logos for fans of various PC goodies who want to geek their Nokia phones out. :)
Reviews:
Gigabyte 7DX SocketA DDR mobo on TweakTown.
Theone333 points out this article on cnet which is a mass-market view of overclocking. I don't know whether to laugh or cry with this stuff, really.. some quotes: Honaker says a peltier setup allows him to keep his processor running at a brisk 45 degrees, but not without some work. "To do that, I had to waterproof practically every component in my system because condensation is such a concern," he said... uhm, how many peltiers is he using on "practically every component" ..? The most common overclocking techniques increase the power supplied to everything connected to the motherboard, meaning that graphics processors, hard drives and other components may overheat or perform erratically. Close.. but no. "You're dealing with a lot of heat," Blevins said. "I've had friends get third-degree burns working on their systems." .. this is laughable, someone obviously has no idea what a third-degree burn really is. FYI, contact with a 60C surface takes 5 seconds to form a 3rd degree burn. What, these people are falling into their fulltowers and being pinned against their CPU cores by their fans? :)
On a sadder note, Andy from BXBoards.com posted a note on their front page giving notice that he's closing the site. BXBoards has been one of the pillars of the hardware and overclocking scene since before OCAU started and it's a real shame to see it go. While I don't necessarily agree with everything he says on the front page of his site, I can understand how he feels and why he's perhaps a little bitter. I knew that the current website shakedown would claim a lot of sites but I never thought BXBoards would be one. Sorry to see you go Andy, good luck with your future endeavours!
Reviews:
K7T Turbo-R SocketA motherboard on TempleOfTech.
FireWire, ATA-100 and/or USB cards on DansData.
ECS K7VZM KT133 SocketA mobo on TechnoYard.
SuperMicro P4STA i850 P4 motherboard on Digit-Life. Mmmm, pasta. :)
WindTunnel2 pre-modded case on PCMech.
ThrustMaster AfterBurner HOTAS controller system on Max3D.
A few people have sent this link in, which explains how to upgrade your HP or Sony burner to a later (and faster burning) model with a BIOS flash. However, you might also want to read this link from Anthony, which has quite a few people having horrible things happen to their drives. A lot having free upgrades, a lot having dead drives. Your decision. :) Seems to be mostly (or perhaps only) the SCSI ones, too, I couldn't find any info on my HP8100i IDE burner listed.
Sud has posted a lengthy and interesting post in the forums, sharing his musings on GeForce3..
TE have some more GeForce3 info and so do Digit-Life, thanks Sniper.
VooDoo points out this news blurb on CDRInfo about 24X Burners..
Steve says, in reference to the CADA thing from before, The guts of this legislation is that devices such as mod chips in Playstations and DVD players ,software such as VGS (Playstation emulator), and any sort of software crack are now illegal. Use of such will now get you in trouble... hmm, doesn't sound very easily-enforceable.. sounds more like that internet censorship thing that got buried because it was so impractical to implement.
LoneWolf sent word of www.bradman.org.au, a tribute to the late great Sir Donald Bradman.
TechPatrol have a showdown between the FOP-38 and VolcanoII socket coolers.
Mario points out this little article on bionic exoskeletons.. just the thing for ducking down to the shops.
Review-Zone have a guide to overclocking video cards..
OCWB reviewed the Enermax 451 PSU.
Tshirt Reminder
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 1-March-2001 23:56:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Uhm, people, the "ALL YOUR BASE.." tshirt was a joke. I know most of you got it, but some of you didn't. :) Yes, tshirts are for sale, but they look like this:
Still quite a few left but we've sold about 160 or so so far. Here's the link to the ordering info thread in the forums.
Thursday Night
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 1-March-2001 23:26:39 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Received while in IRC: [22:11] (OZZY_Edd[) did u really put 'all your base are belong to us!!' on the tshirts? .. hehe. Dean, who made the picture (below) is the same person who brought us the Voodoo5 9000, must've been about a year ago now.
Reviews:
Soyo K7VTA-B, SocketA mobo with ATA-100 support on RizeNet.
Neng Tyi P365 Lil' Turbine socket cooler on FrostyTech.
Thermaltake Volcano II socket cooler on HyperOC.
fUnc Mouse Surface on TheTechZone. Compare our review here.
Senfu Thermal Probe on AcidHardware.
The Core "Final Verdict" on this socket heatsink on ClubOC.
Nikao funky case on MikhailTech.
Super Orb on Tech-Planet.
All your tshirts..
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 1-March-2001 17:43:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Dean has too much time on his hands, obviously.. :)
click to enlarge
Realtime sent some Corsair blurb today, normally I don't link to vendors on the front page but this caught my eye as newsworthy, they have a 256MB CAS2 PC150 stick listed in this pdf file. I don't think I've seen any other manufacturers rating their RAM to CAS2 @ 150MHz..? No pricing as yet, but keep an eye on Realtime's page.
Thursday Afternoon
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 1-March-2001 12:34:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Hurrah! More GeForce3 info over on xbit. They have a technology preview article as well as a catalog of all the cards that have come out so far.
Newsflash from Lombers: Just a quick one. Telstra Bigpond suffered a massive outage yesterday from about 6:00pm till this morning when a freak virus spread through their machines deleting all bigpond users starting with i, l, and m. Yep, i was one of them. Services seem to b back up and running ok now, and it seems all useres have been reinstated in the system, let's just hope it doesn't happen again.
This German site has a comparison between the A7V133 and KT7A KT133A motherboards. Translate it with babelfish or just skip to this benchmark page showing sod-all difference but the KT7A slightly ahead.
MultiPlayCity have a guide to making backlit images in your case windows..
Bigass ((tm) JimX) pics of a bigass copper heatsink from Globalwin over on TheHeatsinkGuide.
Spode put the Duron vs P3 in a head-to-head..
SETI@HOME is down at the moment, and Iceman points out what happened. At about 3:30 AM PST on 27 February an optical fiber cable connecting the U.C. Berkeley campus with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was cut, apparently by vandals trying to "salvage" copper from other nearby cables. .. [shakes head]
Those lucky so-and-so's over at Hexus have been playing with a 1200MHz DDR Athlon system..
TechPatrol have a guide to greasing up and preparing for action.. your CPU, of course.
Reviews:
Arctic Silver Paste II on ClubOC.
GlobalWin Istorm hdd cooling kit on OCCafe.
February always surprises me, I forget it's a short month. :) For those who are interested, last month we served 2,295,496 pages (81,982 per day, on average) totalling >60GB of outbound web traffic. If we had another hour we would have broken 2.3M pageviews. :) This was another record month of course.
Interested in what time of the day we're busiest? Here's an hourly breakdown:
Here's how the growth of the site has been since we got the dedicated server:
July and August in that graph are not accurate because I was still moving parts of the site over from the old server. From September onwards the numbers are right, though.
Thursday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 1-March-2001 01:52:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Malleus sent me a big ranty thing about CADA. What's CADA, you ask? Well, this article explains it at some length and this link is to a law.gov.au page explaining it. It's a Digital Copyright Act that comes into effect in Australian Federal Law on the 4th of March. There's more info on this law.gov.au site too. I've not read this in any great detail and I don't see anything specifically Evil about it.. but Malleus is all worked up and promises to keep me informed.
Lombers points out some new GlobalWin coolers listed on their page..
ReviewZone have a value chip shootout, Celeron2 vs Duron.. like we don't know who's going to win. :)
OCMod have a guide to switching a display between several thermal probes.
LostUniverse have a 10-way SocketA Cooler Comparo posted.
VIAHW have posted info from day 1 of the Intel Developer Forum.. quad Intel i860 motherboard, mmm.
3DRage have a guide to making the LED on your mouse blue. w00t.
Reviews:
Chaintech 6VJD DDR Socket370 mobo on TheTechZone.
AOPEN AK73-1394(A) KT133A motherboard with FireWire on OCWB.
Antec SX-1030 case on Tech-Report.
Globalwin FOP-38 socket cooler on MikhailTech.
Abit KT7A-RAID KT133A SocketA motherboard on OCShoot.
|
|
Advertisement:
All original content copyright James Rolfe.
All rights reserved. No reproduction allowed without written permission.
Interested in advertising on OCAU? Contact us for info.
|
|
