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October 2001 |
Wednesday Midday
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Wednesday, 31-October-2001 12:53:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Good luck to Isometrix, IRC junkie and forum member, who is undergoing a pretty serious operation today. Get well soon!
Ferry pointed out where THG explain that the second chips-in-flames video (mentioned yesterday) really is from AMD and uses a modified (ie, not currently available) motherboard.
G3D have a thermal paste roundup happening.
A few people pointed out this AthlonXP unlocking kit on Plycon in the USA. Expensive, but easier than some of the other options discussed in this thread. OC.com have some more info about the newer bridges on XP chips.
Dan has added a few more coolers to the cooler comparison that will not die.
BurnOutPC compared the ASUS V7700 Pure versus Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 (TV-Out), coupla budget-ish video cards.
Here's some things you probably didn't know about computer hardware.. kinda silly satirical reviews, thanks ChicKeN.
Reviews:
Macpower DigiDoc5 on OCPrices, our review here.
Spire BigRock socket cooler on 8balls.
SyncMaster 170T TFT screen on PCStats.
Wednesday Morning
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Wednesday, 31-October-2001 02:36:04 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Most users ever online was 267 on 29th October 2001 at 08:40 PM - a new record!
A heap of people submitted news that conflicts with a video seen here on TomsHardware. That video shows AMD CPU's going up in smoke when their heatsink is removed while Intel P4's cope much better and survive. Today's news is a couple of videos over on AMDZone. The full blurb is on that site and I encourage you to read it, but in summary they have videos showing the exact opposite results from what TomsHardware got: here we have an AMD CPU surviving the treatment while here we have a P4 going up in smoke. Up springs another article from THG, saying AMD responded to their original video with a solution which can be implemented in future motherboards. Some people are saying that THG reckon the more recent videos are tested on motherboards using this new technique to preserve the CPU, but I can't see that mentioned on THG directly. There's a lot of jumping up and down and finger-pointing going on at the moment so I'll let you draw your own conclusions and I imagine we'll get more info over the next few days. Apparently the videos first appeared here. Van Smith, ex-THG guru who now runs his own VansHardware.com offer his take on events to date. Actually, a few sources including HardOCP are now saying that AMD confirmed the second lot of videos were theirs - but not meant for release - and are using a suitably modified motherboard to protect the CPU. So don't go ripping your heatsink off.. as if you would have anyway. :)
AnandTech have an article summarising their readers opinions of WindowsXP. Whether they'll upgrade, if they have upgraded what they think of it etc. Interesting. They also have an article on phoneline and wireless networking.
Boky notes this AmigaOS for x86 page. Wow.. why haven't we heard about this before? I woulda thought the alternative O/S people would have been shouting this one from the rooftops.
UNIX your thing? Live in QLD? Own a car? Maybe these rego plates are what you're after..
If you're having trouble installing DetonatorXP drivers for your nvidia-based video card under Win2K/XP, gbh notes this page saying antivirus software running during the install can stop the drivers configuring themselves properly.
On the other hand, Yaleman says he installed these new Kyro / KyroII drivers and got a handy 310-point boost in 3DMark.
Digit-Life have a roundup of 12 i845-based motherboards for your Pentium4 with SDR memory.
HardwareAccelerated have an article about some future features of D3D.. they also have an article about what they call the graphical divide, old-tech video cards still being sold new.
Duckman reckons we're all missing the point about nForce, the new integrated chipset from NVIDIA.
I've ridiculed AMR / CNR slots on motherboards before, because of the (seeming) nonexistence of any cards to put into them. Digit-Life not only proved they exist, but rounded up 6 CNR sound cards in their most recent comparo.
Despite all the pain-in-the-neck-for-real-consumers copyright protection built into WindowsXP, a day after its launch you can buy it for 75 US cents in China with no activation scheme or any other nuisances to dampen your installation experience. So people who buy it legitimately get treated like criminals while the criminals get it for almost free with less hassles. Where do you want to go today?
Reviews:
Arctic Silver II thermal paste on ViperLair.
Alpha 8045 socket cooler on AtlantaOC.
Biostar M7VKD socketA SDR (KT133A) motherboard on HWExtreme.
TEAC CD-W524E 40x24x10x IDE CDRW on CDRInfo.
Yamaha CRW3200E 40x24x10x IDE CDRW also on CDRInfo.
ATI Radeon 7500 & 8500 video cards on Radeonic.
AVGS Cyber cases on JSIHW.
DynoTron heatsinks on OCNZ.
Glaciator II heatsink on OCrCafe.
Asus P4B i845-based P4 motherboard on IANAG.
Samsung SyncMaster 770TFT 17" Flat Panel Monitor on FutureLooks.
MSI 850 Pro 5 i850-based P4 motherboard on Hexus.
Nostromo n50 Speedpad game controller on PlanetQuake, thanks Kazashi.
TweakMonster Light Strips on Bit-Tech.
Tuesday Night (*cough*)
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Wednesday, 31-October-2001 00:13:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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XtremeTek have a bit of a rant about Abit's KT7 and the problems some of those boards had.
HardOCP have taken a fairly detailed look at how manufacturers are implementing VIA's P4X266 chipset, which supports P4 processors and DDR SDRAM.
In the PCDB, a nice briefcase PC from Aterops and of course, they don't come much more tricked-out than Rex's HQ08.
Reviews:
Belkin 650 UPS on SoundCardCentral (of course).
Hercules 3D Prophet III Ti500 video card on Guru3D.
V8 Heatsink socket cooler on OverclockersOnline.
Excalibur GeForce2 Pro video card on PCHardware.
Dell Inspiron 8000 notebook on ThinkTechie.
Shuttle AK31 KT266A-based socketA DDR motherboard on VR-Zone.
Choliang heatsinks on Icrontic.
VisionTek Xtasy 6964 GeForce3 Ti500 video card on Icrontic.
Seagate Barracuda IV HDD on Hardware-Test.
Intel D850MD i850-based P4 motherboard with RAMBUS on 2FastCPU.
Millennium Glaciator socket cooler on VyW.
AHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.. all my uni assignments and other forms of non-exam assessment are finished for this year. That is as good a reason as any to celebrate with a smoked cod. It was also the last episode this season of Pizza / Life Support which where both pretty amusing.. it seems the life support crew just went for broke and crossed all the lines.. with pretty funny consequences.
Well, ATA/133 is out. AtlantaOC have a review of an 80Gb Maxtor drive supporting the interface, along with a Maxtor/Promise PCI card supporting the same. In this review the Maxtor drive smokes the other tested drivers, yet I don't think that will hold to be the case in real life. What I'd really like to see is the drive tested on an ATA/133 controller and then on an ATA/100 controller. That'd give a real indication of the ATA/133 benefit (to my mind, zip).. of course, it does prove that this Maxtor drive is pretty quick.. which is nice to see.
TecCentral.de have a head to head of the A7V266 (KT266 chipset) with the A7V266-E (KT266A chipset), which I reckon will be pretty interesting.. clear to see how much the KT266A rocks. Of course, there are always issues. It's in German.. well, it was.. it's been babelfish-like translated.. so it's in gerglish. Or something.
I'm sure a lot of you remember Tomshardware smokin' CPU video.. the one where they take the hs/f off a P3/P4 and T'Bird/Palomino, and the AMD cpu's start smoking it up while the Intel counterparts live? Well, AMDzone reckon they've got it wrong. Following Tom's lead they have a video with a rather dodgy matrix-theme soundtrack showing what happens when they took the hs/f off a Palomino core Athlon.. it didn't die, just shut down. Nice work AMD, good to see. There is some info up on their main page. Thanks to Iceman and Tarrasque.
Over at Whirlpool (thanks to Iceman again) there is an interesting interview with one of the former Excite@Home staff who got axed in Optus' buyout of Excite@Home.au. It seems a ~tad~ bitter employee style to me, but a lot of what he is saying sounds feasible, especially if a lot of the code is proprietary... and anyone that has dealt with OptusNet/DingoBlue knows that they aren’t up to the same standards that O@H is (was?). I hope it doesn’t come true, I can gratefully say O@H is probably one of the best ISP's I've dealt with in a long while.
AMDpower have a review of a product that isn't AMD (cue shock, horror).. but it's still pretty cool. It's a HDTV Tuner card so you can watch and record HDTV streams on your PC. I've previously owned a normal TV tuner and thought it was nothing special.. a HDTV one might change my mind tho, especially if it'll let me record those last episodes of Stargate.
More stuff from an AMD-named site, this time AMDmb have an article about how fans work.. pretty handy if you're new to the whole overclocking scene and wondering what the difference between a Delta and a Panaflow is.
It's Monday. It's ZZZ Online time. If you haven’t read it before, start reading it now. It's cool.
Reviews:
Matrox G400 XP Drivers on Matrox.com, thanks to Chris S.
DYI Watercooling on Digital-Explosion.
Thermaltake Cyrstal Orb on ComputerChaos.
Ice-Hole Fan Adaptor w/flashy LED's on Bit-Tech.
Ice Hole also on RipNet.
2GHz P4 on OCPrices.
CoolJag JAC311C copper hs/f on MikhailTech.
Alpha PAL7125 Slot-A/1 coolers on Inside-Hardware. Our ancient Slot Cooler roundups here and here.
Soyo K7-V Dragon on ViaHW.
BitsPower NP80D on FrostyTech.
ECS P4ITA video-review on 3DGameMan.
AMK Game-Tunnel II case on TheTechZone.
Early Monday Morning
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Monday, 29-October-2001 01:43:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Dave sent word of another car MP3 player.. this one based around an Amiga 1200!
TacoNuts have updated their case gallery.. of course, all the cool kids hang out in the PCDB. :) Speaking of modded cases, MegaBaz in the forums had some trouble squeezing a big mobo into a little case.. easily fixed with a Dremel.
Firemoth pointed out this amazing rendered girl. Just check out the still images if you don't want to download the video.. so realistic it's scary.
With the terrorist attacks occurring in the USA, it's important to not let an increased focus on security infringe on the rights of non-terrorists. Wired has more info on an Anti-Terrorism Bill that has many proponents of online privacy worried not only because of what the Bill allows, but also because of the way it was rushed through the normal legislative procedure. Even more worrying is this proposed and so-called PoliceWare Bill that could see all computers equipped with systems designed to prevent misuse - at the expense of privacy and with severe penalties for transgressions. Kazashi notes this petition opposing the PoliceWare bill.
OCdCafe have a comparison of a couple of thermal pastes.
Very interesting article about taxpayers saving millions with Linux. A "Linux in the Real World"-type article about a government department that is refusing to play the Windows upgrade game any more, has built a better system and saved a bundle. Very interesting to hear how they've got it all set up, thanks leperMessiah.
AMDMB have a review of nvidia's new(ish) nforce chipset, while AcesHW have overclocked it.. thanks Iroquois.
ProCooling have an article about several methods of controlling fan speeds.
Win y'self some Crucial memory over on AcidHW.
Is there a noisy fan in your system? Chances are it needs a little maintenance. A drop of Singer oil or similar in the bearing (under the sticker on the back, usually) does wonders.
A cool little article in the forums about supercharging your Golden Orb socket cooler.
Bit-Tech want to show you how to add another fan to your PSU. Be careful when playing with power supplies!
Finally.. this news post is a little late tonight.. blame Flecktone. He sent in this shockwave Lego puzzle game that sucked up the last couple of hours and will no doubt inhale your Monday too. :) Starts off pretty easy but there's 60 levels!
Reviews:
AOpen H600 case on DanzDomain.
Intellimouse Explorer on Jiarne, our review here.
Shuttle AK31 v3.1 KT266A-based SocketA DDR motherboard on ClubOC.
Crystal Orb chipset cooler on OCrCafe.
Prolink Geforce 3 XX-Player video card on Hexus.
HDD Coolers on PC-Arena.
OCAU Folding #1 !
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Sunday, 28-October-2001 23:29:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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That's right, Team OCAU is now the Top Folding@Home Team in the World!! Awesome effort guys. :) Maintaining that spot won't be easy though, with HardOCP and Overclockers USA already gearing up for a shot at the title. To be on the winning team follow these simple instructions on any bored PC's you have lying around. There's info here on running it as a service. Remember: make sure you have permission for any PC's you load it on!
Sunday Afternoon
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Sunday, 28-October-2001 15:44:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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OCMojo are building a rackmount server, kind've a review of their rackmounted case. That reminds me, I should do the PCDB entries for our two new rackmount boxes soon.
Digital-Explosion has a guide to cracking athlons.. no, not the bad way, but opening SlotA Athlons to allow mounting coolers directly on the core. Not really much of a concern lately, the days of SlotA are long gone.
KyocEr@~* pointed out these pics of what can only be described as a whopping handheld.. or as he noted, a handsheld.
Over on OCTools they have a freezer-assisted-watercooling project, thanks flarets. Oddly it's split into 3 pages with no link between them.. 1, 2 and 3.
Interesting Car MPEG box, thanks again flarets.
In our Extreme Cooling forum, hack100 has put up pics of his custom peltier PSU, occupying an old AT case.
Nice Borg artwork in the PCDB from Gerry_M.
Reviews:
Fuji FinePix 4800 digicam on NeoSeeker.
Crystal Orb chipset cooler on ExplosivePC.
Arkua 7528 socket cooler on FrostyTech.
Fan Bracket on XtremeMods.
Lian-Li PC-60 USB case on AMDMB.
FrontX Multimedia Ports on ThinkTechie, our review here.
Sound Blaster PC128 V2 sound card on BSOD.
Delta 60mm 50CFM fan on TacoNuts.
Doc Thermal socket cooler on CaseJunkiez.
ECS K7S5A socketA SDR + DDR motherboard on TechWatch, our review here.
Large Copper Thermoengine socket cooler on Chillblast.
Volcano 6Cu socket cooler on 8balls.
Alpha PAL8045 socket cooler on TweakTown.
Early Saturday Morning
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Saturday, 27-October-2001 01:26:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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ATI are copping a beating today with suggestions that their drivers are aware when they're running benchmarks and perhaps cheat a little. More info here on FiringSquad and here on HardOCP.
With Christmas approaching I might have to make room for one of these driving simulators in the livingroom..
Another vote against the CPU Radiator Zen here on overclockers.com in the USA. They found, similarly to our recent review, that it's a promising idea but the mounting design is chip-killingly bad. There's another review here but it's in portuguese, so you're on your own. I will note there's a picture of a very badly chipped Duron in their review tho. :)
Guamy has some funny pics.. pages from a 1988 issue of APC. Ahh, those were the days.. when I had an Amiga. :)
A zillion people sent word that Sound Blaster drivers for XP are available. However, if you want LiveWareXP, Creative are seemingly not allowing you to download it - you must order a CD.
VoiD noted this Tiny Apps website which contains, oddly enough, programs that are useful without being bloated.
Joe points out this software which can hopefully help stop Code Red.. which judging from our server logs is still very much alive out there.
Cool little mini-case in the forums from Bravo, just the thing for next to the TV..
JimX spotted these electronic insect toys.. much cheaper than Aibo and better for freaking out younger siblings. :)
One of the problems with SocketA SMP from an overclocker's perspective is the lack of core voltage adjustability on dual socketA boards.. VR-Zone now have a voltage hack for the Tyan Tiger MP board, cool.
ViperLair have an article about WindowsXP Activation.
Spodes has checked out 4 Zalman Coolers.
Philips Australia are running a 5 Minutes of Fame competition to help discover budding Australian musical artists, who might even score themselves a recording contract out of it. You can submit your own tracks and/or vote for your favourites to help decide who wins.
In my wanderings I discovered the Guggenheim Museum have an amazing Art of the Motorcycle display, bit more info/discussion in that forum thread.
HotHardware compared a couple of SocketA DDR motherboards.
Apparently WindowsXP has not been exactly leaping off the shelves in Sydney.
More info on IBM's DeskStar - nicknamed DeathStar - failure rate on Slashdot, thanks thetron.
Another new site indexing reviews, ReviewLocator.com, from IANAG.
Programmers might get a kick out of this page listing Hello World in more languages than you thought existed, thanks Epoch.
More info on the OCAU Sydney Paintball Day in the forums from Wolfy, social coordinator extraordinaire. :)
Reviews:
Apollo Kyro2 video card on Jiarne.
Cold Cathode light kit on OCPrices.
Cordless Optical Desktop on BurnOutPC.
Samsung DVD-V1000 DVD/MP3/VHS player on FutureLooks.
Zalman 300W PSU on MikhailTech.
MS Wireless Optical Intellimouse on MGON.
Titan TTC-D5TB2/A socket cooler on FrostyTech.
Blizzard Watercooling Kit on Rojakpot.
Window Kit on ProCooling.
Antec SX635 minitower case on Max3D.
Millennium Glaciator 2 socket cooler on ClubOC.
New 160-bit Athlon!
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Friday, 26-October-2001 22:47:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Industrial spy DeezNutz risked life and limb to get this sneak pic of AMD's upcoming 160-bit processor project to us:
Click to enlarge!
Another scoop from OCAU! Just like our Voodoo5-9000 and 8-way SMP SlotA motherboard. :)
Well, I screwed the proverbial pooch when it comes to that Dick Smith LCD thing. Actually, it wasn't me that screwed it, it was BinaryZero. Blame him! Nah, it's half my fault for posting it anyway. On the flipside, a lot of people have sent in info saying that works, and works well. It was pretty impressive getting so much email correcting my mistake and giving me helpful advice on how to fix it. Cheers to everyone who emailed me, this isn't everyone.. there was much more but to avoid repetition some people's comments I didn't post.
Cyrogenic wrote: I just read your news. I bought a non-backlit LCD from DSE the other day and wired it up according to Wolfy's instructions and it works wickedly.
Vort wrote: I got a 16x2 Line LCD from Dick Smith (cat Z4170) and hooked it up no probs. The only hiccup was the pin out list on Wolfy's LCD page. His has two "pink" wires which may cause confusion. My parallel cable had completely different coloured wires inside, so a quick check with a multimeter sorts that out. (Dick smith have em for $19.90 atm as well). The other ambiguity was the hard drive power supply. It's got one red, two black, and one yellow wire. I didn’t know which black wire to use, so I used the one right next to the red, and it worked fine.
BigDude wrote: If you read the data sheet that comes with the DSE LCD , you will find the controller for the cd is the same as the one Wolfy used , its just the pin outs for the lcd that may vary slightly. He also sent along a copy of the wiring diagram for the DSE LCD, which I've chucked up here
Kosti wrote: I just wanted to add that it does work and the DSE LCD Screen uses a KS0068 LSI controller which is compatible, as I have made one the other day, but there is a wiring problem with Wolfy's colour scheme.
w1force wrote: if people are having problems try just putting a 1k resistor in each wire from the d25. this is good anyway just in case something bad happens, it may just help save ya port....
DrDevil wrote: I'd just like to say that both Dick Smith LCD displays, the Z4170 and the Z4172 work. They use the same wiring as Wolfy's article. The chip on them is not an HD44870 but is exactly the same.
Please bear in mind that I'm not having a go at BinaryZero by posting this, I just wanted to share all the info that I got sent.. it's pretty overwhelming that so many people where compelled to fix up my mistake.. so thanks :)
Also, it seems last night was the night for making errors in the news because I also assumed thehungersite was down, when it's not. Admittedly, when I went to check the URL last night I got server-not-found errors, but with Optus@Home's changeover it could of well been me instead of them. Anyway, it's still there.. they still do the same stuff. It's good, and worthy of your page views. Go do it :)
The powers that be (the mighty 20c coin, and my apparent lack of cheating at coin tosses) decided I'm writing news tonight. So here it is.
All is not rosy with the X-Box, apparently the units that they've dished out to World4Kids and places like that don't work as well as they should.. they have booting 'problems'. Funny thing is, there is a thread somewhere in the forums talking about how you don't need a fast PC now as much as you used to in the days of Quake2.. and that a console will prolly whip it's arse anyway. Well, yes, until it core dump bluescreens in the middle of a game. Fuuuun.
Ok, Ok, thehungersite is back up and running.. something must of died last night because I couldn't get to it. Run along, click the links and people get food. It's all good. I wonder if they get spam tho? ;)
I found funny flash stuff this morning. Really fun flash stuff this morning. Really funny flash stuff is cool, if you have any really funny (and I mean really funny, not only-funny-after-3-ounces-of-weed funny), then let me know please..
AMD has this tour thing happening over in the US at the moment where they basically drive away unburdening themselves of überfast XP processors along with motherboards and hs/f's.. it sucks when your warehouse is overstocked, it really does. AwareMag have taken some pics of the good stuff. Soooo... AMD, how's your warehouse in AUS looking.. pretty full, yeah?
BinaryZero wrote in to say that the LCD units that I linked to the other day from Dick Smith Electronics no workee with Wolfy's DIY LCD Guide.. which is a bit of a bummer. He says that it has a different interface, one that he couldn't get to talk to his PC..
Do you have $700 burning a hole in your pocket? Yes? Well, give it to me. I need it to buy a car :) If you're not that generous tho, HardOCP has a GeForce3 Roundup happening. That'll more than take care of your heavy wallet.
Sure, there are some really dumb people that ask some incredibly dumb questions to tech support. But this time it's tech support giving the dumb answers. Really dumb answers.. pretty amusing, and thanks to SilentSniper for the link.
Finally, AcidHardware went and attended the launch of WindowsXP today in Sydney.. but I've got no idea what they thought of it, seeings it crashed IE6. Five times. Maybe that is what the six stands for?
Reviews:
Logitech Wingman Formula GP driving wheel on GamingIn3D.
Free Stuff on TacoNuts.
Alpha PAL8045 on ClubOC.
Case Ace Gear-Grip CRT on M:6.
nVidia nForce Chipset on AMDmb.
Xitel DG2 MD-Port on Tech-Report.
HighSpeedPC AGP AirLift on IANAG.
Arkua 7228 Copper Core hs/f on FrostyTech.
VisonTek Xstasy Ti500 GF3 on 3DSpotlight. BYO rave music.
Shuttle AK31 3.1 on OCwb.
What is Holding Linux Back? article on AnandTech.
Thursday Morning
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Thursday, 25-October-2001 10:52:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Dave noticed TheReg ripping into our Senator Richard Alston again, repeating their claim that he's the biggest Luddite in the world and unfit for what is essentially Australia's top IT job.
Let me round up a few roundups: KT266A-based SocketA DDR motherboards on AnandTech, 5400-rpm IDE hard drives on xbitlabs, SocketA CPU unlocking methods on OCOpolis and Socket478 P4 coolers on VR-Zone.
Tech-Report have an article about ATI not sticking to one clock speed for their OEM video cards.. ATI have since responded.
On the WindowsXP side of things (remember a lot of this stuff is still Beta, so Horrible Things may happen) bluetaro says these are hacked OpenGL drivers for 3DFX cards, here is a utility to make boot disks, TheTechZone want to help you decide which version to use, CSM looks at the bundled programs included with it and Reflexion says that here are drivers for the Hercules Game Theatre XP sound card.
In other XP-ness, Dr Kildare notes this list of AthlonXP compatible motherboards and the required BIOS revisions over on AMDMB. Seems to be down for me at the moment.
Drew sent word of an article about the Melbourne Wireless network.
ExplosivePC have an article about Win2K and ACPI.
From ipggi: I was walking to work today down William Street in East Sydney when I noticed sprayed on different parts of the footpath was the X Box green logo on a black squared background. I'm assuming this is legit marketing as the logo was authentic and even had the Trade Mark on it. The console war is beginning.
McGoff put up a quick page showing how to use a Palm PDA as an LCD, similar to Wolfy's DIY LCD article but having the Palm emulate the LCD hardware. I was wondering about this a couple of days ago, time to dig out the PalmIII classic I have buried somewhere..
Apple have released their iPod, a portable MP3 player with a 5gb hard drive, 32mb ram, and 10 hours play back... works also as a firewire disk for data, and charges via the firewire cable says someone calling himself Mr DaddyPants.
VIAArena have an Xtreme Machine based unsurprisingly around some VIA goodies.
AllTechBox want to warn of the evils of static electricity.. that'd be why you never see any computer geeks with ponytails.
DiCeY sent in this DriverSMS thing. I actually got spammed with it a few times and meant to say something on here but forgot about it. It's a system whereby you can send messages to someone based on seeing their vehicle's number plate in traffic. They suggest things like "I noticed you in your car today.. would you like to meet for coffee?" ... Who are these people? Have they even driven in Sydney? Surely we're more likely to get messages like "YOU CUT ME OFF LIKE THAT AGAIN AND I'LL KILL YOU" or "DAMNED MOTORCYCLISTS, NEXT YIME YOU LANESPLIT I'M OPENING MY DOOR!" :)
Reviews:
Eclipse Computer Light on Icrontic.
Coolermaster HCC-002 socket cooler on FrostyTech.
Vantec CCK-6027D socket cooler on 3DGameMan.
OCZ Dominator socket cooler on FrostyTech.
MSI K7T266 Pro2 KT266A-based SocketA DDR motherboard on Hexus.
Canon Powershot S110 digicam on ThinkTechie.
Soyo K7V Dragon KT266-based SocketA DDR mobo on OCPrices.
Rainbow Neon light kit on AcidHW.
MS Wireless Explorer mouse on AcidHW.
DFI NB72-SR i845-based P4 mobo with RAID on PCHardware.
Alpha PAL8045 socket cooler on OCrCafe.
AMD AthlonXP 1800+ SocketA CPU on Digit-Life.
iCute Aluminium PSU on OtakuPC.
Inno3D TORNADO GeForce2 MX400 video card on LWD.
Microstar K7T266 Pro2 RU KT266A-based SocketA DDR mobo on Hardware-Test.
AMD AthlonXP 1800+ SocketA CPU on ClubOC.
Samsung DVD-P401 DVD player on PCStats.
Asus TUA266 Socket370 DDR/SDR motherboard on BlueSmoke, thanks t_rex.
Echo MIA sound card on NeoSeeker.
Microsoft Trackball Explorer controller on 3DSpotlight.
ECS P4S5A SIS 645-based P4 board supporting DDR-333 on OCWB.
Millennium Gladiator II socket cooler on Icrontic.
Intel Celeron 1GHz socket370 CPU on Jiarne.
ATI Radeon 7500 video card on Guru3D.
Non-conductive purple CPU shim on ViperLair.
Epox 8KHA+ KT266A-based SocketA DDR motherboard on OCNZ.
Wednesday Afternoon
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Wednesday, 24-October-2001 14:34:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Nice artwork from subside in the PCDB. Seems to be a bit of a day for case-modding, actually.. GideonTech have a liquor case mod posted, K6Plus is hacking up an old case to make a portable gaming rig and OCOnline have done some work on an Aopen HX45.
Hardware-Test have checked out the Gigabyte GA-7DXR, a SocketA DDR motherboard using the AMD760 northbridge with VIA's 686B southbridge. This is a great board, I'm in the middle of rebuilding my main machine around one and relegating my A7V to a heatsink testbed. We first saw it in our AMD760 Motherboard Roundup, it was used in the recent Kingmax PC2100 DDR review and Chainbolt's met a sorry demise in his CPU Radiator Zen review from a couple of days ago.
Anandtech have an article about AMD's new Hammer Technology.. their 64-bit CPU's.
ProCooling compare Silicone and Vinyl Hosing to see which is best for watercooling.
IANAG have an article about Modifying the HP A1097C Monitor, a 20" fixed resolution monitor that will only work at 1280x1024 @ 72Hz, but it won't work with a normal VGA card until you do a modification to add the HSync and VSync connectors. Once you do the modifications you have a 20" monitor for dirt cheap.
Avant notes that downloads from wireplay.com.au are free for BPA customers (as in, 3GB cap friendly). Here is a nice repository of Linux/BSD ISOz and archives of stuff that is good to have, including games.
Lombers has posted into the forums with info on the Clear Type feature in WindowsXP, which apparently anti-aliases your desktop and makes it look really nice.
Dan has checked out Lian-Li's PC-60 USB, with some extra goodies.
Those of you still stuck in SlotA land might be interested in this SlotA Watercooling project on Digital-Explosion. Ages ago I checked out a slotA adapter for the Senfu watercooling gear. If this whole SlotA thing is a big mystery to you, check out our SlotA Showdown covering the different types of CPU's.
Reviews:
Antec SX1030B case on ViperLair.
Klipsch 4.1 speakers on PCFusion.
Philips Acoustic Edge sound card on PCStats.
Nanotherm Ice thermal interface material on Radeonic.
Arcti Silver Epoxy thermal glue on Mikhailtech.
CaseAce GearGrip CRT monitor carry-handle on ExplosiveHW.
OCAU in Folding V2!
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Wednesday, 24-October-2001 13:54:27 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Is your computer sitting around bored most of the time? Put it to good use and get folding! In the new Folding V2 stats OCAU is currently third in the world, we're on the way to 2nd place in a few days but 1st place will elude us unless we get more members. Join Team OCAU!
Monster Machine in PCDB
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Wednesday, 24-October-2001 01:55:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Scary. Talk about running out of drive letters.. nice custom perspex case.
Click for the full entry!
Right, no mucking about tonight. News. Now. Read.
3D Spotlight.Com is having a competition, but it's a "Join our forums and post some stuff to enter" comp. Bleh.
Remember MS Powertoys for 95/98 and all that? Well, someone has leaked Powertoys for XP, and Electic has a mirror of them.
From Herbo: Some pricing on the Hercules Ti range of vid cards, at Ausgamers.
Nothing really new here, but still: GeForce2 Ultra cooling mod at VoidYourWarranty.Com.
If you own a Dell computer, which happens to have an ATi Rage 128 Pro vid card, AND you run WinXP, then you need these drivers.
On a more interesting note, which probably applies to more people than the item above, Transgaming has released WineX, which apparently, will allow you to play PC games on XWindows, straight out of the box. MandrakeSoft are planning to release the Mandrake Gaming Edition, which will include WineX and the cool live-'em-up, The Sims.
As a direct result of the WTC events on the 11th of September, the world certainly is changing, even Counter-Strike is being affected... and if VIA isn't caught up in enough legal battles already, it's planning to make a Pentium 4 clone cpu. Thanks to Sync_array.
This is kinda neat: a (almost) cube PC... it's good that it's small, but bad that it has limited mobo options. Oh well, can't win them all.
From SPG: Melbourne: Digital and Wireless. Neat. Lots of wireless info. And other stuff.
HardOCP has posted a followup to their Radeon 8500 review. They're revisiting certain driver issues.
Finally, from MegaBaz, ThinkGeek is selling the Terapin Mine, which is a linux-based, 10gb handheld pc... with network connection, pc-card slot and usb port. Rather shmick. I'll have one. Price: US$579.99. Unh... maybe not.
Reviews:
Ricoh DVD+RW MP5120A cdrom/dvd drive -at CDRinfo.
Cooler Master ATC-201 case - at AMDMB.Com.
TweakMonster Trace Lighting Kit - at OCAddiction.Com.
Alpha PAL8045U Copper Insert hsf - at ipKonfig.
COOL JAG 102C all-copper hsf - at M:6.
Minion IMT 4000 midtower case - at Extreme Overclocking.
BIOS Reset Switch
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Tuesday, 23-October-2001 18:18:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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[Agg: This mini-article is from Aaron. It's a pretty simple idea that doesn't really need pictures, but if you do it and send in some pictures I won't mind. :) Be careful soldering your motherboard of course - you could always use a switch connected to a jumper cap (Andrew uses the term "bridge" instead of jumper in this mini-article.)]
For all you BIOS tweakers out there you will know that the most annoying thing you could have to do is reset the BIOS (which I will know refer to a bios because I'm too lazy to press the shift key). The bios on every motherboard has a simple little pin setup of three pins with a little connecting bridge (for use of a better word) that will only ever link the middle pin with either of the two outside. Now back in the conventional days you would have to get you case out from its hiding place, unscrew it, fumble through power supply leads and IDE cables, then with much skill remove the little connector/bridge and move it over one place for a couple of seconds. After this was done one would inevitably loose the little connector within the dust mote in the bottom of the case and have to dodge something out of paperclips. No longer. We can now do it all with a switch put stylishly in the front of you case.
*note soldering your motherboard can cause harm to the electrical components. The author will take no responsibility for any damage cause by creating this switch.
What you'll need:
2 meters of insulated wire (thin copper, same as the case wire to speakers and so on) cut into three equal lengths
1x soldering iron and solder, or anything that you can attach the wire to the MOBO with
1x toggle switch (must have three pins, two active at all times)
MOBO manual or knowledge of where the bios reset is
Assembly:
OK your're ready to go. Take the three pieces of wire and with your wire strippers (or teeth) and strip both ends of the wire, taking of about 3cm either end. Remove the existing bridge from you MOBO. With you soldering iron (taking extra care) attach the ends of the wire strips to the pins of the motherboard (one wire length for each pin). Now with a drill make a hole where you want to put the switch. The hole should allow the switch to sit firmly in place with no movement at all. When making the hole take into consideration the placement of the switch, as you would not want it in an area where it will get knocked or bumped easily. After making the hole feed the wires through the hole and attach them to the switch. Make sure that the pin that is always active (usually the middle pin) is connected to the middle pin of the switch. Then connect the other two wires to the two remaining pins of the switch. Screw the switch into the hole and test it.
Now you have your very own bios reset switch.
Tuesday Midday
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Tuesday, 23-October-2001 12:46:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The last two articles from Wolfy and Chainbolt have certainly attracted a lot of attention to the site - it's been like a mini-slashdotting for the last 3 days. I noticed this thread over on AMDMB showing that Chainbolt is far from alone in his negative appraisal of the CPU Radiator Zen. OCBrasil emailed to say: I see that I am not the unique with installation problem. It kill my CPU too. Regarding Wolfy's DIY LCD article, Romio notes that there is Linux LCD software available too. Scott says that here and here have some reasonably-priced LCD's.
Been dreaming of a Voodoo5-6000? That's the monster 4-CPU one. Tensop notes there's one for sale on eBay. I still prefer our Voodoo5-9000. :)
IBM has been copping flack about their 75GXP drives, particularly the 30GB models, for quite some time. They have apparently dismissed the warranty returns as no more than a normal RMA rate for components, but the consumers aren't buying that line anymore. A class-action suit has been filed against IBM - more info here on Tech-Report and here on Ars-Technica.
Wokket noticed some interesting movies of chemical reactions.
From Simon, the World Cyber Games Australia registration is open.
The Acts of Gord website has been updated! Be prepared for extreme time suckage.
Reviews:
Absolute Nemesis GF2MX-400 video card on Chillblast.
Bitspower p4 coolers on M:6.
SiPix Pocket Printer on RojakPot.
Vantec CCK-6027D on HWDaily.
Lenten Reborn PC recovery card on XtremeTek.
Cyberdrive 16x12x40 CDRW on Radeonic.
Lian Li PC60-USB case on HCW.
Jetway Fantasy 64MB Radeon video card on Digit-Life.
Fortis A102 socket cooler on G3D.
KingMax DDR memory on ClubOC, our review here.
Thermaltake Memory Cooling Kit on TweakTown.
OCAU Sydney Paintball!
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Tuesday, 23-October-2001 12:04:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Full details here in the forums.
This is the last chance you'll have if you want to play paintball. Wolfy wants to complete the deposit/booking process by the end of the week. If you haven't already signed up, do so now!
If you have deposited money, check the forum link to ensure that your name is on the list of people we've booked for.
About 40 people confirmed to date, should be a great day!
Everyone seems to be going LCD crazy.. there are quite a few threads in the forums about it, most specifically in the trading forums and oc+hw. A large number of people seem to want to get schmicker looking LCD's as well, not settling for the cheaper ones that Wolfy tracked down. Either way, I reckon they're going to be flying into the PCDB soon.
McNugget pointed out that you can obtain a similar LCD to the one Wolfy used in his article from Dick Smith Electronics, catalogue number Z4170. Probably a bit easier for a lot of our readers.
Jon pointed out that Sony now have an MP3-playing head unit for your car.. which comes as quite a surprise to me. Sony don't seem to like mp3.. I wonder why.. anyway, it should have pretty nice build quality going from the quality of other Sony in-car audio gear, just I reckon their new designs looks a bit average compared to the competition from places like Pioneer. Kenwood also have a similar unit if I'm making you drool.
Allegedly a former employee of Maroochy Shire Council has got the ultimate revenge on his employer. He's facing court, accused of hacking into their computer systems and causing sewage overflows.. hahaha. Oh dear.
Lombers from Case Junkiez pointed out that a new version of the nVidia refresh rate fixer for Win2K has been released.. bringing with it, you guessed it, XP support.
If all the new AMD CPU cores have you a bit confused then this might be a good read.. ViaHW have put the Morgan-based Duron and the Palomino-based Athlon up against the older Thunderbird-based Athlon.. all that is missing is the Spitfire Duron.. still a good read tho.
Firemoth pointed out this totally bizarre shockwave animation.. I reckon it'll make you crave hallucinogenic drugs. Crazy. There are some more amusing ones in the directory above that file as well..
Finally, My-Rig have a little article about using motorbike air-filters in your case to keep it free of dust.. but one of our readers has already done that, using the air filter from a Nissan Patrol instead. The upside to the Patrol filter is that it is flatter, making your case look a bit less.. strange.
Reviews:
CoolJag JAC102C hs/f on MikhailTech.
ECS SiS645 P4 DDR mobo on OCworkbench.
WinXP vs Win2K on DanzDomain.
Non-Conductive Purple Shim on TacoNuts.
Power COoling PCH137 on NeoSeeker.
CyberCooler P-1500 weird peltier cooler on OCcafe.
SonicBLUE ReplayTV 3000 digital-recorder on DesignTechnica.
FREE COOLERS on OCPlus.
Samsung 170MP Flat-Panel LCD on FutureLooks.
Asus TUA266 on BlueSmoke.
Alpha PAL8045 on 2FastCPU.
Monday Morning
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Monday, 22-October-2001 11:51:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Microsoft are saying that everyone should stop talking about security holes because this makes them more likely to be abused, thanks Nicholas.
AtlantaOC have reviewed the Iwill KK266+R, a socketA motherboard using SDR memory. They're also giving away a Vantec CCK-6035 copper socket cooler.
OCrCafe are giving away a 1GHz Athlon CPU.
Digit-Life have posted the second part of their SocketA SMP article.
ExplosiveHW reviewed some Titan Coolers including the Majesty Twin. We had the world's first review of the original version of that cooler here and quite frankly thought it sucked. Titan went away and improved it with better fans and different clip but it still managed to crunch my Tbird950 so it ultimately wasn't included in our big socketA cooler roundup. Hosted site CaseJunkiez checked out both versions too, here and here, finding that the improved version was outperformed by the venerable golden orb, which is well behind the pace these days. However, the Majesty Twin won ExplosiveHardware's roundup of Titan coolers, which means either the other Titan coolers manage to suck even more than the Majesty Twin, or this is another version of the twin which has fixed the performance/mounting problems. Unfortunately there's no way to tell from that review.
PimpRig have neon-stringed their keyboard.
Tensop spotted this guide to unlocking AthlonXP bridges on Overclockers.com.
Combining my two main interests, Suzuki have revealed an intelligent superbike which is started by the owner's fingerprint, can fully diagnose a range of problems with itself, keeps an eye on the weather forecast for you and will ring your mobile if someone tries to steal it. It'll even let you read your email as you ride along.. which sounds like a really bad idea to me. :)
Michael says that much of his weekend was spent playing this shockwave rally game (click the link at top-left-middle on that page).. but I found it just frustrating, really.
Bit-Tech have a cool little LCD Stand. Seems to be basically taking Wolfy's remote LCD article from the weekend, to another level.
Your Monday morning dose of the bizarre on ZZZ Online.
Reviews:
ATI Radeon 7500 video card (video review) on 3DGameMan.
IceMat Mousing Surface on PC-Arena.
Cold cathode lights on BurnOutPC.
Not a whole lot going on today. Good luck to everyone starting their HSC on Monday! Give it your best shot but remember, it's not the end of the world if you don't do as well as you'd hoped.
Some info on a common email scam in the forums, the old let us put $30M in your bank account trick.
Also in the forums, Chainbolt has posted his Epox EP-8KHA+ first impressions, some info on this SocketA DDR board.
Reviews:
Digidoc5 thermal monitor on OCrCafe, our review here.
Novelty keyboards on DansData.
FeelingPC-IceHole on IPKonfig. I dunno, I just link this stuff, ok? :)
Crystal Orb chipset cooler on TweakTown.
Lian Li PC626 server case on OCOnline.
Lian Li PC72 server case on Hexus.
Dragon Orb 3 socket cooler on BSOD.
Rheobus fan controller (video review) on ExtremeOC, our review here.
CPU Radiator Zen Review!
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Sunday, 21-October-2001 02:11:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Today we have a review of this innovative new CPU cooler from TS Heatronics in Tokyo, Japan. Chainbolt has tested the unit against some other serious coolers and written up his experiences with it. How did it go? Well.. good and bad.. :)
Click for the full review!
Saturday Evening
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Saturday, 20-October-2001 21:15:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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John sent word of his large disk array project, with 16 60GB IDE drives. He even made a PCDB entry for it. If hardcore storage is your thing, check out our Intro to Storage Area Networks from last month.
Also from the PCDB, PhlyingPenguin's killer Linux box (cool artwork), Phat^Trance's tidily-finished fulltower and Tasmaniac's very cool midtower featuring (among other things) an LCD very similar to the one in Wolfy's article from today.
3DSpotlight have a Socket Cooler Roundup posted.
Dennis_B has posted a multiplier modification guide in the forums, detailing how to cut bridges by shorting them out with a power-supply.. errrm! A little scary for my tastes, must be getting soft in my old age.
Also in the forums, MWP has put up into on his modified Rio800 pump for watercooling. These things are pretty loud by default - I mentioned my dissapointment in my original watercooling article, because on the box it says "Silent Operation" and it's anything but. Anyway, MWP has some cool ideas to make it quieter.
Ever been sucked into Popup Hell, where you can't get out of the cycle of automatically-opening websites pushing dodgy stuff into your face? Seems the USA are taking legal steps to stop this kinda thing.
Reviews:
Global Win YCC-8870 aluminium case on OCdCafe.
Samsung Syncmaster 171MP TFT monitor on IANAG.
Philips Rhythmic Edge sound card on TheTechZone.
Abit KG7 socketA DDR motherboard on AtlantaOC.
Plextor Plexwriter 24/10/40A CDRW on AwareMag.
Epox EP-8KHA+ KT266A-based socketA DDR motherboard on Hardware-Test.
OCZ Dominator socket cooler on OCPrices.
Cooling-solutions watercooling kit on Bit-Tech.
Z4 waterblock on OverclockersOnline.
Abit KG7-RAID socketA DDR motherboard on ClubOC.
Predator 505 black case on Mikhailtech.
ARKUA 6228 socket cooler on OCPlus.
Intel Celeron 1.2GHz CPU on xbit.
Build your own parallel-cable LCD!
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Saturday, 20-October-2001 01:11:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Master modder Wolfy has whipped up another how-to article for us. This time, making an LCD display on the end of a parallel cable - so it can be mounted inside your case. If your case is not conveniently located, you can run the display up onto your desk or anywhere within reach of the printer cable. Very cool - and surprisingly cheap and easy to make. Less than an hour and less than AUD$25.00!
Click for the full article!
Friday night. I have mango frozen yoghurt.
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Friday, 19-October-2001 23:51:36 (GMT +10) - by Sciby
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Lots of news, so it's going to be short and sweet...
Radeonic have an article about building your own heatsink testing rig.
Winamp 3 Beta is out: it's beta... installer beware.
From Deeman: there's some new version of the Swifttech MC462 HSF. Very solid way to mount a heatsink to the mobo.
AMD has released some test results from what appears to be an independant tester. Interesting that the P4 wasn't tested as well at the same time. Thanks Manaz.
Do you have a Conexant HSF Soft56k modem? Are you running an RC of XP? Do you need drivers? Well, thanks to Clayton, both you and he (and no doubt a myriad of other Conexant others) can dial up to the net again, with these drivers here.
More drivers, again for XP, but this time for the Soundblaster Audigy. I wish I had one to update drivers for. The file is 14.3mb, thanks Volnhar.
Now THIS is impressive: An $800'000 phonebill. It makes my efforts look decidedly wimpy.
Unh... well, it's a pumpkin case. Just go look, okay?
While we're on cases, DIY Case Badges are what every respectable case modder needs.
Want to know how to configure a software router? LivePC can help with this nice video guide for ya'll.
A printer review! This is something I haven't seen in a while, that's why it's up here and not down there with the rest of the reviews. FutureLooks has reviewed the Samsung ML-1650 PCL6 Laser Printer. Neat.
AMDPower have reviewed the new Athlon XP 1600+. Go look, you know you want to.
Still on CPU reviews, Digit-Life has a look at the Celeron 1.2ghz unit. Fast.
RivaStation have compared the ATI Radeon 8500 and the nVidia GeForce 3 Ti500. I can't afford either of them. *sob* Thanks Lombers for the url.
Reviews:
Logitech Z-560 4.1 Speakers - at IGN.Com.
Coolermaster ATCS 110 case - at Slautech.
MSI MS-8833 GeForce MX400 vid card - at PC Hardware. (Winners of the Most Imaginative Website Name award for 2001.)
SOYO Kiky Joy PS adapter - at AllTechBox.
Fujifilm FinePix 6900 Zoom digital camera - at NeoSeeker.
Akasa Icicle 238 Heatsink - at FrostyTech.
Vantec CCK6035D copper HSF - at JSI Hardware.
Asus A7V266 motherboard - at TweakTown.
Thermaltake Crystal Orb hsf - at ViperLair.Com.
HP Jornada 565 palm PC - at Neoseeker.
Thermaltake Volcano5 hsf - at SystemLogic.net.
Paintball Info
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Friday, 19-October-2001 16:59:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Wolfy has put up more info about OCAU's Paintball day in Sydney. So far 36 people have confirmed and more in progress, with people coming from all over Australia to participate. I hope to see you there.. before you see me. :)
Friday Morning
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Friday, 19-October-2001 00:19:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Version 2 of Folding @ Home is now out. There's a vote in our Team OCAU forum to see if our Folding team should stick with the old client or go to the new one. So if you're a folder, go vote.. and if you're not a folder, become one, then go vote. :)
Some more ATI Radeon 8500 reviewage for you, here on Digit-Life.
Remember kids, intake fans are good but don't overdo it. :)
An interesting article about putting glass feet on your mouse for friction-free mousing. The feet on my Intellimouse Explorer are getting very worn down now, will have to investigate something like this soon.
MCN has an article about a new engine which can change capacity and compression at the owner's whim.. save fuel while cruising and max power while fanging.. nice.
There's another article about whether long/rounded ide cables are evil or not.. and again, you can find our review of pre-made evil here or roll-your-own evil here.. I've never had a problem with rounded/long IDE cables. Cables that have been nicked after being sucked into a big fan is another story..
TheDDRZone have rounded up a few P4X266 motherboards.. P4 with DDR.
Also on the P4 side of things, Radeonic checked out the Intel i845 chipset, which allows SDRAM with P4 CPU's.
OCZ have been getting some coverage today. Tweaktown checked out their Dominator 2 socket cooler as did MikhailTech here, while their Titan 3 GF3-based video card gets the going over on Tech-Report.
OCShoot have some hardcore chipset cooling happening. Our comparison of slightly more pedestrian chipset coolers here.
Dan has been playing with some really weird magnetic liquid stuff.. bizarre.
Reviews:
Duron (Morgan) 1.1GHz on xbit.
Arkua 7528 on OCPlus.
Epox 8KHA+ KT266A socketa DDR motherboard on OCPrices.
Vantec CCK6027 on ViperLair.
Corsair PC2100 and PC2400 DDR memory on OCTools.
Get your Case Badges and T-Shirts while they're hot! :) Note: There are NO XXL tshirts left. Plenty of XL's, some M and L's tho.
It's Union election week this week at UQ, and I must say I've had it up to here *points up* with all the arrogant tactics they go on with. There was some loud-mouthed tart having a go at anyone in the main refec area this arvo who took any how to vote card but hers, and she is just the most noticeable part of a large spam campaign. It really comes down to this: who cares? You pay a charge each semester for a service you never use. Makes no sense to me really.
ClubOC have checked out a turbine for case. Well, not really.. but yes, really. A 51.1cfm Delta 60mm monster that is sure to make your local hearing aid specialist a happy chappy in the years to come. 54.5dBA is a lot of noise for a PC to be pumping out, but then, I 'spose 51cfm is a lot of cfm. Oh, did I mention 8,000rpm as well? Air cooling is getting near the end of it's useful life I reckon.
FiringSquad are covering 3GIO, a technology from Intel that is designed to replace the PCI bus somewhere down the line. They take a nice dig at PCI only operating on a 33MHz bus, but I don't see their point. If you hook an old 4,200rpm PIO1 hard drive up to your fancy new ATA/133 controller you're only going to get PIO1 performance out of it. Same goes with PCI, and apart from ultra-high-end SCSI stuff the PCI bus dosn't really seem saturated to me. Still, I 'spose it is a bit of decent forward-vision. USB seemed pretty fast a few years ago when they stuck it on your motherboard and you thought it was all well and good until you tried to find a peripheral to use with it. Of course now, USB is slowwwww.
OCIA has reviewed the Matrix Orbital LCD screen for your PC. Quite a (s)wank bit of gear for your PC, looks neat-o in finished form. Meanwhile, neill appears to be getting a bit swamped in the forums after looking into building some similar LCD screens for the OCAU community from easily-available electronics parts. Bit of an overwhelming response there I'd say.. maybe something for one of the smaller sydney-based case mod stores to look into in conjunction with neill?
There is a new version of the DiVX codec out that we all know, love, and use for our strictly legitimate MPEG-encoding purposes. Or something.
Thermaltake has pushed their memory cooling kit one step further by adding a puny 40mm fan to it to make it an activley cooled kit. I reckon anyone buying this should be aware that it is really just rice, as dan has proven that DDR memory dosn't really need cooling, and RAMBUS already comes equiped with passive cooling.
Icrontic have a pretty decent coverage of most of the PC case fans that you find around the traps. Good for comparing dBA, cfm, all that stuff.
Boyd points out that on the left toolbar on this site is a simple-but-addictive flash game you can play that might win you a decent toolkit, good for moddin' those cases ready to add em to the PCDB. MMMmm, pimping.
Finally this evening, Eddie points out this article discussing broadband internet as an election issue. Most interesting comment there comes from the wonderful Senator Alston, who said that the South Korean broadband demand is driven largely by "kids playing games". Maybe he has a point, but I wonder what he'd say if he knew FPS's like CS and UT save lives.
Reviews:
Fortis Heatsinks on FrostyTech.
CoolerMaster ATCS 110 case on SlauTech.
Visiontek Xtasy GF3 Titanium cards on X-Bit Labs.
Soundcard + Speaker Tweak Guide on 3DSpotlight.
MS Office Keyboard on RojakPot.
Early Thursday Morning
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Thursday, 18-October-2001 00:48:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Sniper pointed out this Dual AthlonMP 1800+ Server that fits into a single rack unit.
CaseJunkiez have organised a special deal for Panaflo fans, get yourself a discount if you mention them when you pre-order, check their news page for details.
Athlons are getting cheaper and faster, thanks Nicholas.
A cool system from Grim_Chicken in the PCDB. Yet another modded AOpen HX-08 fulltower, but with a custom drive-bay door and other goodies, really well finished.
We reviewed the KingMax PC2100 DDR RAM a week or so ago. TweakTown have checked it out in conjunction with a few motherboard chipsets, with an eye on compatability and overclocking.
We've already linked this but it's worth another mention - your case mods could win you a PC from Asus, thanks David.
leperMessiah is kindly giving away AMD Case Badges in the forum. Of course, you can still buy OCAU Case Badges but they are not free. :)
There's a new version of the GeForce Tweak Utility.
Reviews:
Radeon 8500 video card on TomsHardware, thanks Bain.
Radeon 8500 video card on Anandtech, too.
Radeon 7500 on HCW.
Shuttle AK31 Rev3 KT266A motherboard on AMDMB.
Spire 5T060B1H3R socket cooler on NeoSeeker.
4-port bay-mount USB hub on SystemLogic.
LinkSys Wireless Network kit on DesignTechnica.
Silver Pro Aluminium Case on IANAG.
ECS SiS315 video card on TheTechZone.
Intel 2GHz P4 CPU on 2FastCPU.
Western Digital WD1000BB 100GB HDD on Hardware-Test.
Wednesday Morning
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Wednesday, 17-October-2001 10:58:10 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Seems we have a reader in the Attorney-General's department. Jules advises that nationalsecurity.ag.gov.au is the best Australian National Security site and is updated the most regularly. Here's some recent info so you can catch up. There has been no confirmed terrorist related incident within Australia since the September 11 US incidents. At the moment, no specific terrorist threat within Australia has been identified.
What happens when you let HardOCP go crazy with a P4 and a VapoChill? 2.4GHz happens, that's what. Yeeowch.
Simmo sent word of this Fuel Price Comparison website for Australia. Find the cheapest go-go juice in your area.. doesn't seem to cover all of Oz tho, Darwin is notably absent.
2FastCPU have checked out a new water-cooling kit.
Dan has checked out some connection sharing options.
OCClub have a 120mm blowhole guide.
Keep getting jumped by amorous ocelots whenever you go out? Maybe it's your cologne, thanks Epoch.
Reviews:
Shuttle AV40 P4X266-based motherboard on HotHardware.
Inwin Alaska premodded case on HWExtreme.
Duron 1.1GHz on NewsForge.
Leadtek Winfast 7350KDA SiS735-based motherboard on VR-Zone.
It appears that DesignTechnica do not know the wrath of forum spamming. They have a comp going to win a Diamond Rio 600 MP3 player for the first person to spam their way to 300 posts in their new forums. Not a very wise move guys, but I tell ya what, if it got rid out our forum spammers I'd donate a few prizes to the cause.
Nothing else but reviews are really worth mentioning in tonight's news.. Pretty crap I know, I apologise for it but there aint much I can do. I am sure that we are missing out on a few sites mailing lists, so if you know of any sites that regulary pump out some decent content please mail me with their URL so I can figure it out.. cheers :)
Reviews:
Evercool Heatsinks on AtlantaOC.
EPoX 8KHA+ KT266A board on PCHardware.ro
MS XP Activation on SourceMag.
Kingmax PC2100 DDR on Radeonic, our review here.
Samsung Syncmaster 150T on PCStats.
IBM 60Gb 60GXP 7,200rpm ATA/100 HDD on MikhailTech.
OCZ Gladiator vs Tt Dragon Orb on G3D.
AOpen CRW2040 and CRW2440 20/24X burners on CDR-info.
OCZ Ice PC150 SDRAM on PCStats.
Dynatron DC1206DM-O638 hs/f on IANAG.
Abit VP6 on SystemLogic.
Soyo K7V Dragon on NeoSeeker.
GF3 Ti500 on Guru3D.
Tt Dragon Orb 3 on OCPlus.
Athlon XP1700+ on OConline.
Tuesday Afternoon
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Tuesday, 16-October-2001 13:29:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Interesting spam today.. There is a threat that these terrorists may try to attack next with CHEMICAL or BIOLOGICAL weapons. We now offer Gas Masks that are 100% Certified by the Israeli Army. We also offer Cipro, the only medication approved by the FDA to treat ANTHRAX. Some people see everything as a business opportunity. Anyway, Australians concerned about Anthrax should check this statement on health.gov.au - follow the link at the bottom for more Anthrax info. Info on Australia's counter-terrorism planning can be found here. There is a fact sheet on the Attorney General's website about suspicious mail or packages and what to do if you receive and/or open one. Remember you are only really in danger if you inhale the powder (skin contact is bad but nowhere near AS bad) which of course nobody who is aware of the danger will now do. Note that the only person killed by these Anthrax attacks was the first one exposed, who wasn't aware of the risks and inhaled a bit of the powder (I imagine, trying to smell what it was). All the others have just gotten it on their skin and been ok, so if you do get a suspicious package, don't panic, but follow the instructions on this page and get the package checked. In Australia there have been NO CONFIRMED ANTHRAX PACKAGES. According to the AG, all so far are either confirmed false alarms or still under investigation. Still, be careful opening your mail for sure. I guess this is where email finally kills off physical mail for basic letters.
Time for a mini-rant about AMD's Performance Rating (PR) system. My fellow news-posters seem to be unanimous in their dislike of it, but I think it's a solution to a tricky problem AMD are facing. I think most of the skepticism about this scheme stems from previous PR systems from AMD and Cyrix, which were, shall we say, somewhat optimistic in their classification of their products. I don't think that's the case any more. Anyone who's seen the benchmarks knows that a 1.533GHz Athlon really is as fast as a P4 at 1.8GHz - if not faster. So by calling a 1.533GHz Athlon an "1800+", they're not trying to dupe you into buying an inferior product, they're trying to inform you that the product performs similarly to other products so you can make a decision based on price or other personal factors. You have to remember that overclockers and hardware freaks like you and I are very much in the minority. Sure, we buy a lot of computer gear, but nowhere near as much as the big corporates or the great mass of less knowledgeable users buying a PC for work or study or for their kids. If AMD really want to take the battle onto Intel's ground (servers, corporate desktops, brand-name PC's) they need to level the playing field. Quoting MHz no longer describes CPU performance accurately enough.
Dicey notes the US Govt may form a new internet.. which sounds all new and exciting, but realistically, what they're describing is an Intranet like many other large international organisations have these days. There was for a while a shift towards Virual Private Networks, which means using encryption to run a private Intranet over the public Internet, but many security-paranoid institutions like banks (and, it seems, major governments) prefer to have their own links, their own comms gear and hence tighter control of their own security.
Speaking of security: that bastion of invulnerability, Internet Explorer, has another 3 holes and another fix, thanks Volnhar.
RealWorldTech has an article comparing KT266 to KT266A, socketA DDR chipsets of course.
Transmeta have announced a new CPU today. This chip incorporates CPU, southbridge, northbridge and video all in the one package.
Panasonic have a new DVD Recorder which they're hoping will replace your VCR.
FiringSquad have reviewed Pontifex, the new version of Bridge Builder.
From Wokket: The website of a professional streaker in the UK (all the rude bits are covered in the pictures thankfully, but funny stories etc), a hidden camera found in the ladies toilet at the Dept of Experimental Psychology at Cambridge (all in the name of science, no doubt), and if you can put a virus on this computer you'll get 10,000 pounds. Of course, it's a Linux system, to make it a little more tricky for you.
Happy birthday to Soc for a few days ago too, kinda missed that one, sorry dude. :)
OCAU Sydney Paintball
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Tuesday, 16-October-2001 12:19:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Remember, tomorrow (wednesday) is the last day to get a deposit to Wolfy to be included! It's already a huge day with plenty of people attending including pretty much the entire OCAU admin team, so if you're going to be in Sydney on the 18th of November don't miss out!
Monday Night / Tuesday Morning
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Tuesday, 16-October-2001 00:30:34 (GMT +10) - by alchemy
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MMMMMmmmm, the new forums are flying along.. we hit 251 simultaneous users tonight, only for the box to disappear into oblivion soon after. Oh well, you get that... It's back to life now, so get busy!
A b-i-g Happy Birthday! to TheGibbon, err, I mean Dr Alby. Happy birthday dude ;)
Jeremy from SilverProp has posted pics of a new radiator they have coming out soon.. actually, it came out today. No, yesterday. Heh. Anyway, it looks fairly serious, it is long enough to support three 92mm fans side-by side, which is pretty big. Definitely for the enthusiast, but there will be large (and cool) rewards for anyone who invests.
More hardcore water-cooling is over on Duckman's page, with the FrankenCooler Part II, a rather serious water cooling experiment.. Nice mahogany case there as well.. if you're reading this Duckman you (and everyone else that matter) should add your case (or their case, if such the case) to our PCDB which has been getting a bit of traffic the past few days.
Bit-Tech have taken case-modding to where it has never really been before.. the monitor.. they've cut holes, added windows and added neons.. and it looks pretty damn good, I must admit. I don't know what sort of possibly negative effects that can have on your monitor's picture, but it does look cool. Of course, they are just playing catch-up to us (gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat), Astro1 put pics of his monitor window in the PCDB a few weeks ago.
Well, it's Monday, well, it was just recently. You know what that means, I'm sure ZZZ Online lovin'.
OCnz have managed to have a chat with GlobalWin, the big hs/f manufacturer (duh). It points toward copper being the stable of heatsink design for the foreseeable future, as they believe aluminium has reached it's limits with the 2GHz+ CPU's of today. Indeed, today's 1.4GHz Thunderbirds pump out a lot more heat than ye 'ole Cyrix PR200+ that we enjoy attributing as the cause of global warming.
ViaHardware has some interesting news regarding VIA's P4X266 chipset.. you know.. the one that hasn't been getting good support from manufacturers because Intel put the pressure on? Well, if you had a barn-storming chipset that you reckon has a good chance of grabbing a fair share of the market, but isn't due to a technicality, what would you do? Do it yourself? VIA has.. and not just one board, but several. It'll be interesting to see how these perform, as no one should know the chipset better than VIA themselves.
AMD has released a swag of new AthlonMP processors today, and with it they bring the stupid PR rating stuff. Tech-Report has a review here. I'm a bit disappointed with this, I thought they'd assume the target audience for AthlonMP would be smart enough to figure out there is more to processing power than MHz.. obviously we're all stupid. It's in all the same "rating"/clock speed configurations as the AthlonXP, with the only difference being it's certified for MP operation.
I'm sure a lot of you have a HPT370 RAID controller on your motherboard. For all that do, new drivers are out here for all 32bit MS operating systems. 2.0.1008 is the version if that helps.
Finally tonight, Rick was the first one to send in news from Whirlpool that the 3Gb cap on Telstra Broadband may well be scrapped.. just rumours at the moment, but pretty substantial ones. Way to go for people power.
Reviews:
Teflon Mouse Tape on PCrivals. Like MouseSkatez.
GeForce3 Roundup on ViaHardware.
60Gb IBM 60GXP 7,200rpm ATA/100 Hard Drive on IPKonfig.
Fortis Heatsinks also on IPKonfig.
Swiftech MC462A on IANAG.
These two were entered today, both pretty awesome. Oni5000's amazing skull intake and fuzzba11's cool little jet-ducted box:
 
Click images for PCDB entries!
Monday Afternoon
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Monday, 15-October-2001 15:32:33 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Been running around like a crazy person today. Here's some reviews to tide you over:
Reviews:
GeForce3 Titanium video cards on HardOCP.
Pre-Modded Lan Party Case on IPKonfig.
Alpha PAL8045 socket cooler on VyW.
Abit Siluro GF2MX video card on ExtremeOC.
Fortis A102 socket cooler on OCIA.
AMD Athlon 1800+ 1533MHz socketA CPU on AMDMB.
Vantec CCK-6027D socket cooler on GideonTech.
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum EX sound card on Hardware-One.
EasyDisk USB storage on OCAddiction.
Gainward GF3 Golden Sample video card on PimpRig, our review here.
Samsung ML-1651N printer on IANAG.
Epox EP-8KHA+ socketA DDR motherboard on PlanetSavage.
ProlinkPixelView XX Player GF3 video card on Digit-Life.
Thermaltake Active Memory Cooling on ExplosiveHardware.
Light Tape Kit on SerialAddiction.
Everglide mousing stuff on JSIHW, our reviews here, here, here, here and here. :)
3D Game Maker software on G3D.
Mac OS X 10.1 on ArsTechnica.
Sunday Afternoon
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Sunday, 14-October-2001 14:03:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Why do the news people keep referring to the current spate of anthrax scares as chemical warfare? It'd be biological, surely. Anyway, glued to the TV watching the Philip Island GP today of course..
Apparently WinXP Home version is not something most of us will want to be installing. That'll save us the pre-upgrade check anyway.. thanks Sniper.
If you're one of the several people who haven't installed/updated virus software and are still sending me SirCam emails every day (and there's quite a few of you, I've given up replying now) .. Bad Things might happen to your PC next Tuesday.
The GTRPC went screaming up to the top of the most pageviews category of the PC DataBase today, thanks to a link from [H]ard|OCP.
Actually, there's been so much activity over the last 3 or 4 days in the PCDB that I can't link all the cool ones. Hendot's OCAU PDA deserves a special mention I guess :) but have a look through the last 3 pages (1, 2, 3) of the Most Recent entries/modifications if you're after some custom PC goodness.
VIA Arena have an article with some info on using their chipsets with sound blaster sound cards. They explain the infamous issue between SBLive! cards and their 686B southbridge as well as testing the new Audigy card with some chipsets.
HardOCP have some cool IDE cables, click the image for the original Akiba article.
xbit have compared 6 popular 7200rpm IDE HDDs.
Fellow Oz hardware site OCMelbourne is giving away an Alpha cooler.
Looks like even Intel don't like RAMBUS any more, thanks DSH.
Gareth notes that Australian Auction site AuctionTrader is offering free listings and bidding with no commission for a while.
TacoNuts have an article to help you decide if you should upgrade.
An interest concept from JC-News.. a system whereby you can rate the reviews of the new AthlonXP 1800 chip.
SpodesAbode has a little Cooler Roundup posted.
PCStats want to show you how to make a glowy fan.
FreeFrag notes that Telstra 2-way Satellite is on the way.
On 3DSpotlight: We just got official word from Abit's UK offices that current KT7A rev 1.3 and KG7 motherboard will work with the XP processors but need a BIOS update. Without BIOS upgrade, the boards may able to boot up and run. But the SSE function will not activate. Also if the system is upgrading from T'Bird Athlon to XP Athlon, you are requested to re-install Windows. Otherwise, the SSE function will not work. Older boards such as KT7A rev 1.2 won't work at all due to "hardware limitation". More info here.
Reviews:
Thermaltake Copper Shim on ExtremeCooling.
Compex DS2216 16port LAN switch on PCHardware.
KingWin HDD Cooler on InsideHardware, similar products here and here.
Thermaltake Active Memory Cooling kit on OverclockersClub.
Gainward Golden Sample video cards on xbit, our review here.
Abit KG7 socketA DDR motherboard on Radeonic.
PowerColor PowerGene MX video card on PCStats.
Infinipro Aquacool watercooling system on Digit-Life.
SkyHawks aluminium case on AMDMB. Similar review here.
AVC Sun Flower socket cooler on HardwareZone, thanks DSH.
ASUS V8200 GF3 video card on OCrCafe.
Teax 16X CD burner on Bench-House.
TwinMOS 512mb CL2 DDR memory on ClubOC.
Antec 1030B case on PC-Arena.
Saturday Evening
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Saturday, 13-October-2001 20:25:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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An interesting bit of news over the last few days is that fellow Aussie hardware site TweakTown have opened a shop where you can pick up the high-performance goodies you read about.
ComputerSource Magazine have checked out Linux and WindowsXP, finding more similarities than you might expect. Except that only one, of course, is free.
ProCooling have a guide to Picking a PSU for your high-performance AMD-based PC. They can be fairly picky about their power requirements..
Garrie sent word of this GF3 watercooling system.. some preview info on GotApex.
Brisbane gaming site LANSmash have a few pics from the recent launch of WinXP and MS's Wireless Intellimouse.
LivePC have the second part of their "How to Build a Home Network" video posted. Here's part three too.
From Greg, an amazing PowerLeap upgrade kit which seems to be almost an entire socket370 PC on a card that slots into an ISA slot. The problem with this kind of system historically has always been the cost - hopefully PowerLeap can keep the cost for this unit down.
From Zia: This site posts links of latest drivers/firmwares/bios's, on a daily basis. Also this site has new primware for all sorts of CD, DVD, CDRW, and combo drives. Including most region free firmware updates!
A little more info on Intel's BBUL cpu packaging.. which might allow future CPU's to contain one billion transistors.. thanks Skeg.
Speaking of a billion, that's approximately how many people told us that there are new DetonatorXP v21.83 drivers available from NVIDIA. From Volnhar: I know that alot of people have been having trouble with the 21.83 and .85's when used under XP and the Geoforce2mx Cards. I have downloaded and all of my problems have gone. Of course, despite being called DetonatorXP, they are also available for operating systems other than WinXP, just like AthlonXP's work with other operating systems than WinXP too. Marketing people have a lot to answer for.
Coney is organising a group buy in the forums, of Mega Mite chipset coolers from the USA.
The future of privacy has taken a serious hit today with the approval of an anti-terrorism bill in the United States which allows much greater use of surveillance.
Here's an interesting article suggesting a possible explanation for ghost phenomena.
3DSpotlight want to tell you how to install Windows.
MMMMmmm, starting work at 9am on a Saturday. Gotta love it.
The founder of SysOpt has started himself a new site, after selling out his old one during the dotcom boom. TechIMO.com is the URL, and as the sharp ones amongst us have probably guessed, it's Tech.. in his opinion. SysOpt was good, I'm expecting more of the same.
Eeep, bad news concerning KT7A motherboards and Palomino's.. some board rev's don’t like 'em. Apparently rev1.1 and rev1.2, the two most popular revisions have trouble finding the right microcode and freeze. Hopefully a fix is just a BIOS flash away..
Hmm, bad news on the eStore front.. Rob wrote in with a bit of a rant about what's happening.. yet I was reading in yesterday's Australian that orders placed with retailer will be neither filled nor refunded. Yowch.. bye bye estore. Of course, if you payed by credit card you can always request a charge-back from your card company, one of the benefits of signing your life away I spoze..
Great news for anyone with a NT 4.0 MCSE.. MS has decided to let you keep it. They had previously planned to 'retire' this certification, meaning it'd be worthless in a few months. Apparently they've found new worth in it tho, and it's going to stay on along with a new certification called MCSA.. MS Certified System's Administrator. More news from MS here.
Zia pointed out that a new version of the Microsoft IntelliPoint software for MS mice has been released.. 4.01 is the version number, and it brings WinXP support with it.. unsure what else is new tho.
Scott and d00bie pointed out a new Nokia phone getting ready to hit our shores.. the new 5 series phone, the 5510. Quite cool in my opinion.. shame you cant change the covers, but you can't argue with 64Mb RAM, inbuilt MP3 decoder and encoder, FM receiver and a proper QWERTY keyboard.
Finally this evening, Accelenation have a review of the new MSI KT266A board, the K7T266 Pro2-RU. KT266 take number two for MSI: have they got it right? With USB 2.0 onboard, and an Aus release date sometime this month make this board one to watch..
Reviews:
GeForce Ti on SourceMag.
Intel i845 roundup on VR-Zone.
Fan Painting Guide on Razor-Tech.
Alpha PAL8045 vs Swiftech MC462 on OC.nz
Cyber Cooler P8000 on 2FastCPU.
CyberCooler HDD Coller on OCcafe.
Nikon 950 Digi-Cam on Inside Hardware.
Friday Middayish
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Friday, 12-October-2001 13:02:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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If there's one thing I like to see, it's a Happy PC. Some nice tricky bits in that project.
Tarrasque points out this FiringSquad article on Dual Durons! We were talking about this months ago and it's great to see it finally happening. When the cheaper boards become available (bring on 760MPX) a couple of Durons will be a VERY cheap SMP workstation with plenty of grunt.
Speaking of Durons, A1-Electronics in the UK compared them to Celerons. It's a pretty lightweight comparison with no details of what chipsets are being used.. a shame as that has a big impact on overall performance.
Reviews:
Shuttle AK31 Revision 3 KT266A-based motherboard on Accelenation.
Thermaltake Volcano6cu+ socket cooler on ExtremeCooling.
Light Strips on GideonTech.
Logitech Cordless Freedom Optical mouse on HWExtreme.
D-Link DI-704 gateway and switch on LWD.
Shuttle AV40-R & AB30-R P4 motherboards on ClubOC.
Thermaltake Crystal Orb chipset cooler on GideonTech.
Pixelview MX400 video card on 3DSpotlight.
PC2PC networking kit on TacoNuts.
SB Audigy sound card on HWMania.
Elsa Gladiac 920 GF3-based video card on HotHardware.
Noise Control Silverado socket cooler on OCPrices.
Abit KG7-RAID motherboard on Radeonic.
Epox 8KHA+ KT266A-based motherboard on AMDMB.
Thursday Middayish
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Thursday, 11-October-2001 12:52:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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CodeMasters have apparently introduced new anti-piracy code into their games, that slowly degrade the gameplay of pirate copies over time. Didn't we hear about something like this a year or so ago from someone else? Weird. Anyway, it'd be interesting to see how it knows if it's on a pirated CD or the original.
Ahh, that poke the bunny thing is a classic. Keep poking. :)
AllTechBox have a guide to connecting a Playstation joypad to a PC.
Tony noticed another space simulator program, and while cruising around that site I found this training course used by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to train their staff in the Basics of Space Flight. Seems pretty in-depth, you could learn a lot there if you did the whole thing.
Apparently Intel have plans for a P4-based Celeron at 1.8GHz. Riiight.. "word processing and email only, madam? No games etc? In that case, you only need a value processor, such as this one at a mere 1.8GHz. That should load Outlook nicely for you."
There's been a lot of talk today about Microsoft possibly being fined (Doctor Evil voice) 2.5 billion dollars! by the European Trade Commission but the Financial Times says that's not true.
Matarka was very bored while playing Spaced Penguin.
Wolfy notes that Sony have bought into Square, the people who brought you the Final Fantasy series of games. Square has agreed to sell 11.2 million shares, as they are still recovering from their attempts in the movie industry with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The movie took in $32 million at the box office, far below their estimated $135 million budget. Yeeowch.
X-bit Labs have a bit more info about the "Special Edition" Western Digital HDD with 8mb cache, thanks Zia.
Ahh, the joys of owning several pets and seeing their cute interactions.
Dan's checked out a USB drive rack that turns any IDE HDD into a USB-connected external drive.
Another weird Internet phenomenon resurfaces, perhaps Bert really is evil..
Digit-Life have checked out three SiS735-based motherboards. This is the same chipset seen in today's OCAU review, the ECS K7S5A.
Reviews:
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum on Bench-House.
OCZ Dominator socket cooler on HardAvenue.
eBay Free Listing Day Today!
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Thursday, 11-October-2001 10:19:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Online auction site eBay Australia is having a Free Listing Day today! This means that the fee they would normally charge you to list an item for sale is waived - for today only. This means firstly that you can dig through your cupboards and get maybe get rid of that old junk, but also that there should be a LOT more listings of stuff you might want to buy on there, too. :) Head on over to eBay Australia and check it out..
As you may already be aware, OCAU are having a Paintball day in Sydney on the 18th of November. If you're in Sydney (or will be on that weekend), and you are 18 or older (NSW laws prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from playing paintball - it's not our rule, so please don't complain to us about it), and would like to meet up with (and possibly shoot) some of the other people in the OCAU community, then please read this thread in the forums. Pre-registration (and a deposit of $30, details in the thread) is required by the 17th of October, so that we can book the venue ( Action Paintball in Rouse Hill). I'll be there, as will several OCAU "celebrities" (if they can be called that) - Agg, Wolfy, VooDoo and Sciby to name a few. If the idea of shooting a few paintballs at us (or having us shoot a few at you) sounds like fun, why not join us?
Well, I didn't get any email concerning reviews that we're missing.. so either you're all not infidels who read other tech sites, or we manage to post all the interesting reviews from the web. They both sound good to me, so hey, I'm not complaining :)
Beset pointed out this article talking about an overload of traffic created on the internet during the S11/WTC tragedy.. indeed, I was merrily chatting away on #overclockers when the event happened, and the first place I went (after the TV) was www.cnn.com.. mmm, server-overloaded goodness. slashdot was one of the few sites to survive through the overload, and through tools like google's caching system you where able to find ways around it.. but the Internet now is definitely not the redundant distributed computer network it's founders intended.
Digital-Monk is doing his bit to aid in procrastination, as is DMband. something that I have been partaking in all afternoon.
More AthlonXP goodness on Radeonic and CPU Review.. and, that's it. Odd, I thought there'd be more than that. I even set my sentence up for a whole bunch of em. Oh well, too late now.
Accelenation has previewed the IWill XP333 board.. which is a fairly interesting concept. Go and have a read, but the short and curlies of it is that IWill asked OC'ers what they wanted in a motherboard and gave it to them.. custom PCI/AGP dividers and all. Very very impressive stuff from IWill there.. it uses the new ALi Magik A1 stepping as well, meaning that it is speedy++. If this comes in at the right price point it's going to be a very interesting board to watch. Supports a 200MHz DDR (400MHz effective) memory clock too. Very swanky.
Baba pointed out that rumours are true, PowerLeap will be releasing a FCPGA2 to Slot-1 converter allowing you to use Tualatin processors in your Slot 1 board.. cool. Very cool, in fact. Tualatin doesn’t seem half bad, if you can ignore the price impediment Intel has given it.
Sniper pointed that AMD is throwing some heavy punches as the processor wars heat up.. I think it was over on HardOCP that I read what AMD needs is a marketing slogan "my MHz whopped your GHz's arse". Yes indeed they do.
Finally, d00bie pointed out that The Prodigy, New Order and The Crystal Method will be at BDO this year.. and for all those that are claustrophobic, no, Limp Bizkit have crawled back under the rock from which they emerged, taking numerous 14yo camo-pant wearing fools with them.
Reviews:
WindowsXP Home on MGON.
DTI 2015XL Review (3D LCD) on IANAG.
Philips MMS305 Multi-channel Flat Panel Speakers on The Tech Zone.
Samsung Yepp YP-30S on FutureLooks.
MSI K7T266 Pro2-RU on OCWB.
ECS K7S5A Motherboard Review
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Wednesday, 10-October-2001 23:27:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Dennis_B has furnished us with a new review of ECS's K75SA motherboard, based on the SiS735 chipset. This board is unusual firstly because it supports both SDR and DDR SDRAM (not at the same time, of course) but also because it's surprisingly cheap for a SocketA DDR-capable motherboard. It's not completely without niggles, though:
Click for the full review!
Owning a car's not everything it's cracked up to be people. My car that's barely 3 years old (and just out of warranty, wouldn't you know it) cost me $1500 today - admittedly $800 of it was for tyres, but the other $700 is for new drive shafts, as the CV joints have decided to crap out on me. Gotta love that. Though it does mean I get a day off work (it's time in lieu, for working on a Saturday). And hence, I'm doing a news update. :)
Hmmm, is that the sound of a falling NDA I hear? AthlonXP reviews on Anandtech, OCPrices, AMDMB.com, [H]ard|OCP, The Tech Report, Computer Source Magazine, Newsforge, Radeonic and Hardware-TEST.dk - and that's just the ones who emailed us! DeezNutz also wrote in to let us know that some Australian retailers are already listing the AthlonXP parts, though whether that's for pre-ordering, or if they actually have them in stock, available for purchase now, remains to be seen. I have to say (and I'm not the only one to say it, several of the reviews I just listed agree with me) that I'm quite disappointed that AMD have gone with a "performance rating" (they call it Quantispeed I believe) product naming convention with the AthlonXP - I think it's a cop-out by their marketing division - again, I've seen a new ad on TV lately for the Intel Pentium 4, but when it comes to AMD, there's not a thing to be seen. Ah well, they've gone ahead and done it, and to be fair, the reviews tend to indicate that the AthlonXP, dodgy naming convention or not, is a seriously good processor.
Electic.com are reporting that AMD AthlonXP processors will, according to AMD (who have a marketing partnership with Microsoft, enhance your Windows XP experience. That's OK though, because having an Intel Pentium 4 processor makes the Internet better as well. No, really, it does! Just ask Intel! Yes, that's right, you guessed it - I'm dubious of their claims.
If you're considering creating a water-cooling setup, Kucho thinks you should do it properly. This link comes to you courtesy of the Overclockers Australia PC Database. Have you added YOUR PC to the PCDB yet?
I'm sure a lot of you know that the Bathurst 1000 was on last weekend. TuNeS was in attendance, and thought he'd share some photos he took while he was there.
Some of you (who are old enough) may remember the game "Tron" (based on the movie of the same name), way back in the days when Atari and Commodore 64 computers were popular. Well, it's been updated to 3D, and it's freely available from this site. Thanks to McNugget for the heads-up.
On a humourous note (or several), this URL got posted in IRC the other night. Consider it a public service announcement - drinking and acting like an idiot is bad for your social standing, mmkay? Aaron sent word of a wicked case mod done by a furniture store. Several people wrote in to let us know of a report that being a Jedi Knight is now officially recognised in the UK as being a member of a religeous group.
Reviews:
Shuttle SV24 Barebones System review on ClubOC.
Silver Mountain HSF review on DangerousDog.com
VisionTek GeForce 3 review on Overclockers Online.
Unex Wireless Networking Kit review on ExtremePC UK.
Tuesday Evening
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Tuesday, 9-October-2001 20:27:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Digit-Life have an article on Arapahoe and HyperTransport Data Buses.
Tanus pointed out this flash game that will suck up the remainder of your Tuesday night, so make sure you've eaten something before you click on the link.
HardAvenue have some info on Hercules GeForce3 Ti500 products.
Apparently Intel have a new chip packaging technology on the way.. more info on CNet, thanks DSH.
From Chris: If you own a Sony CDU5211 CD Rom (the 52x cd rom), your CDs are only being read at 40x most of the time...according to the sony website, you have to hold in the eject button for 5 seconds, and it'll then read at 52x...this is hard to do, seeing as the CD ejects most of the time when your trying to enable 52x...what i've found easiest to do is hold in the eject button for a random amount of time thats over 5 seconds, and then let go...the read light should flash 2 times. Found in the online user manual (need adobe acrobat).
Reviews:
LaserBay case modding wotsit on GideonTech.
Dr. Thermal TI-V77 socket cooler on HWGN.
Altec Lansing ADA890 speakers on PCHardware.
ECS K7SA5 SiS735 board with SiS315 graphics card on VR-Zone.
GigaByte GA-7DXR DDR socketA mobo on RatedPC, as seen in our Kingmax DDR-226 review.
Coloured fans on BSOD.
Pioneer DVR-A03 CD/CD-R/RW/DVD-R/RW/DVD-ROM drive on CDRInfo.
Wire Loom Kit on Icrontic.
CompuCase 9109B fulltower case on Inside-Hardware.
Arkua 6128 socket cooler on 2FastCPU.
Enermax 80x25mm Adjustable Fan on 2FastCPU.
Sound Blaster Audigy sound card on VyW.
HighSpeedPC AGP Airlift video cooler on ViperLair.
Western Digital WD1000 100GB ATA-100 drive w/8mb buffer on StorageReview, thanks Tarrasque.
Lian-Li EX-10 Front Gamers Ports on IANAG.
Fujitsu-Siemens 1219 socket370 motherboard on G3D.
Silent PC Case on G3D.
Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64MB video card on AVault, thanks Funkdafied.
Tuesday Midday
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Tuesday, 9-October-2001 12:24:10 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Today sees the release of the SiS 645 Pentium4 chipset. This is the first chipset to support the new DDR-333 memory standard. More info here on Accelenation, here on AnandTech, here (preview) on OCdCafe, here on HardOCP, here on TomsHardware, here on LostCircuits and here (preview) on FiringSquad. General impression seems to be good, DDR + P4 becoming a reality in a way that i845 utterly failed to deliver (despite supporting both DDR and SDR SDRAM, Intel have only allowed it to be used for SDR and performance has suffered). It also doesn't have the legal complications associated with VIA's P4X266 chipset, which DOES use DDR - 266, not the 333 of this new chipset.
More info on the P4 + AGP issue. If you remember, we linked a warning image a few days ago. Adrie notes a similar warning on Asus's P4B site. Daemon received a similar warning in a .DOC from GigaByte, listing much the same scenarious as our warning image and even noting they will be including a warning note with their motherboards from now on. Nathan noticed a diagram explaining it on Intel's site. How to avoid the problem? Well, make sure the video card you want to use with your i845 or i850 based P4 system supports AGP4X. If it supports both AGP4X and AGP2X, make sure it's set to AGP4X mode. Most cards these days will switch between the two modes automatically, but older cards like the Viper V770 have a jumper you must set. Cards that only support AGP2X (or 1X) will blow the board, but generally will not fit into the slot because of the notching. That's presuming your motherboard manufacturer used the appropriate slot.. definitely worth checking your card anyway, a couple of minute's investigation could save your motherboard and video card. From Glenn: I have fried a P4B Asus motherboard by putting a older Asus AGP card into it. Lots of smoke from the d845 chip!. From David: we like blew 10 mainboards by putting the 2x Video Cards like the Sis305 into any intel board with the 845 and the 850 chipset. Most people would have stopped at 3. :)
As more people are getting their hands on AthlonXP chips, some are concerned that the infamous pencil trick (to "unlock" the multiplier and voltage, allowing it to be set on the motherboard) may not work on these newer chips. Apparently the bridges that you would normally close with a pencil are covered on the new "organic" chips. DSH notes this article but there's a thread here explaining that it can be done with a little work. VooDoo notes this thread with good news on the SocketA SMP front. Seems most SocketA chips will work, but only AthlonMP are supported. Sounds familiar - this page is being served to you from a dual mendocino Celeron box, and those chips were in a similar "it works but Intel don't wanna know" situation.
Wokket sent in this Solar System Simulator. It looks pretty amazing, the graphics are incredible.. and it's open source.
From Dicey, who seems to have gotten the ICQ 2001b Alpha working: ICQ now stores everyone's contacts onto their servers. If you have your own existing ICQ contacts from older version, you can simply import them there and the ICQ itself will automatically upload the contact list to the server. It's great for people like me who always forget to backup the ICQ folder before format!
Greg noticed that the 2001 Ig Nobel Prizes have been awarded. TECHNOLOGY: Awarded jointly to John Keogh of Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia, for patenting the wheel in the year 2001, and to the Australian Patent Office for granting him Innovation Patent #2001100012.
Your herb garden in tatters? Maybe you need SlugBot! The world's first fully autonomous robot is being developed by a team of British scientists. The SlugBot eats slugs and uses their decomposing bodies to generate electricity.
Apparently Escalade, once makers of some pretty hardcore IDE RAID devices, are exiting the market to concentrate on SAN products. We have an Intro to SAN article here, serious storage for people with too much money. :)
OCAU Sydney Paintball!
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Monday, 8-October-2001 23:40:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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It's happening on the 18th of November. The law says over 18's only, sorry. Details here in the forums! Come put faces to names, make new friends.. and shoot them. :)
My post yesterday seems to be worded a bit.. strangely. I wasn't feeling too well when I wrote it (from some certain pictures I'm sure you can tell why), so I've come to the hypothesis that I don't write the news too well after extended drinking sessions. However, in the spirit of proper scientific conclusions I intend to test the null hypothesis under a repeated set of controlled conditions to come to a proper conclusion. MMMmmm, beer.
New VIA 4in1 drivers are out, man. 4.34 FINAL is the version number, and there are lots of other places you can get them from too. For those not in the know, VIA 4in1's are essential chipset drivers for all VIA-chipset-based motherboards for Win9X/2K. They really should of been built into the core operating system (they are in WindowsXP), but they aren't, so get em and watch your VIA board work how it really should.
Digit-Life have a massive 3D roundup for September happening.. if you're not the type of person that refreshes the news page several times a day in search of fresh news this might make for a good read, otherwise you've probably seen it all before. Incidentally, if you are one of the F5-maniacs I normally let everyone in #overclockers know when the news is up once it's done, so that's the place to be.
If you like pictures, and I mean a lot of pictures, then Bit-Tech has a picture-full review of the ClearPC ATX chassis.. which is clear. Of course, clear things are usually hard to photograph so you've got to wonder why they took sooo many photos, but it's a cool product nevertheless.
Big Phat coolers over on Icrontic.. Alpha 8045 gut to gut with a Swiftech MC462. When we're using coolers that big it really is a sign that processors are getting hot. Really hot. I'll be interested to see how much more efficient the AthlonXP core really is.
Matthew pointed out that a lot of Compaq notebooks have had their AC adaptor recalled. Apparently it's been on the TV and radio a bit of late.. although, Life Support, 9PM Monday's on SBS is quality aussie viewing.
There is a new Kanie heatsink out, and it looks a lot like the Super Dual that we reviewed eons ago, except it's made out of copper and has two screaming 7,000rpm fans strapped to it. Review is here on AMDmb.
Tom pointed out that LiveWare! 3 for Windows XP is out, downloadable from here.
Plextor have a new burner out to keep up with the ever-increasing speed of the competition. 24/10/40 is a fairly damn quick drive, especially for a burner. Incidentally, up until I read this Dan's review I wasn't aware of the fact that all of the speedy CD-R/W drives these days use CAV, which is the same technology that gives us 54X CDROM drives that make a loud noise and send your data nowhere (kind of like rice, really).
It's Monday. That means ZZZ Online. But it's not just any Monday, it's the 100th Monday that ZZZ Online has been released. Congrats guys.
That's about it for tonight. On a different note, I'm sure there are a lot of reviews that we miss. If you're one of the infidels that reads other tech sites, and you reckon they put out good reviews but for some strange reason they don't find their way onto our news page be sure to let me know of the sites URL, and I'll see what I can do about having their reviews on the news page.
Reviews:
Heatsink Roundup Part 2 on MikhailTech.
Fortis Heatsinks on OCnz.
ATi All-In-Wonder Radeon on SerialAddiction.
Monday Afternoon
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Monday, 8-October-2001 14:04:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Sabz0r pointed out that TinySoftware have a personal firewall product that is free for home use. I'm running it now and it has already warned me of a few interesting probes to my PC, which I blocked. You'd have to be mad to not run a firewall of some kind if you're connected to the net a lot these days and now you have no excuse..
There always seems to be a lot of PCDB activity after big LANning weekends. People borrowing digicams at LAN's? Anyway, neato fanbus from pSyren, case cooling a la Nissan Patrol air-filter from Jester, bright flashy things inside a nicely finished case from SimonFearbyAUS and a cool-looking gold case with window-and-neon modded monitor from Astro1.
CaseJunkiez have checked out the sexy-looking Enermax CS-688-AL aluminium midtower case.
John noticed this Federal court case in Australia. Sony has started a case against a guy for making a mod-chip for the Playstation. The ACCC has been permitted to file a statement with the court (amicus curiae brief - friend of the court statement) to clarify what the anti-circumvention sections of the Copyright Act mean. Sony opposed it because the ACCC appears to be in favour of the defendant (Stevens).
Prepare your mind for boggling like it's never boggled before: Dan from DansData is now selling tshirts, mugs and other trinkets with, among other things, The Face Of Dan on them. Maybe we should get some made up with some silly images from OCAU's past: The Agg Witch Project, or OCAU Will Not Bow To Any Sponsors (white really isn't my colour) or maybe even Power Ranger Agg.. hmm, maybe not. :)
Trevor sent word of this Snowy Ride, great ride in the snowy mountains, in support of childrens cancer research and the chance to win $20,000 worth of honda motorbike! Cool, I could sell it and get one of these. :) I won't be going on that ride due to other commitments. I'll be riding though, that day should be the last day of my Motorcycle Instructor course.
Ever wanted to build a black light? Now you can. I can't wait for next week's "building a black hole" article.
Mr Bill says your phone number is copyrighted.
There's a new spy satellite that can resolve to 10cm on the surface, apparently, thanks Wokket.. who also knows why everything tastes like chicken, how OCAU would look in Pokemon and that a Finnish city is Finished with Windows due to restrictive licensing from MS.
Reviews:
Perspex Kit and Dual Slim Neons on 8Balls.
Cordless Mouseman Optical on TweakMax.. they don't like it.
Rounded SCSI Cables on VyW.
Still a few of these left but they are selling like hotcakes so get your order in before they sell out (again!):
Click for ordering info!
Note the new ones are a little lighter than the one in the pic. Dual P3's not included. :)
There are still a few tshirts left too, notably XL size.
Kingmax DDR-266 128MB SDRAM
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Monday, 8-October-2001 03:39:51 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Another Kingmax RAM review today - this time I look at their DDR-266 or PC2100 product. In conjunction with the GA-7DXR motherboard I was able to wring some impressive numbers out of a lowly Duron 700MHz:
Click for the full review!
U.S. attacks Afghanistan
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Monday, 8-October-2001 03:31:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Looks like this "New War" is now a hot one. Details on CNN and pretty much every TV station on the planet, no doubt.
I have had an incredibly huge weekend. Saturday night was a mate's 21st birthday party (happy birthday Rippa!), and someone brought along a rather serious piece of beer machinery that creates problems the next morning when you use it. Lots of Panadol getting used this morning.. and lots of greasy food being eaten. Big congrats go out to Mark Skaife for winning Bathurst, a nyer to Craig Lowndes for borking it.
This weekend saw a huge amount of LANning happening around the country, with QGL, MPU and Shafted all happening simultaneously. I sadly missed out on the action due to work and other social commitments, but a lot of OCAU people went along, and I'm sure as soon as they get some sleep they'll have some good words to say.
Joe from Ireland pointed out this lobby group campaigning against their national telco monopoly's rollout of an ADSL service.. with, you guessed it, a 3Gb cap. Don't they seem to be all the rage these days.. Making them worse than Telstra tho, is an AUD$200/month price tag for this "service". Feel lucky.
The need for seti crunchers is about to get higher.. news is that they're widening the band of spectrum they analyse in the search for extra-terrestrial life. Of course, if Seti isn't your thing we're always happy for you to run folding!
OCIA have investigated probably one of the most dodgy case mods I've seen in a while.. applying Contact to the side of your PC. Remember that sticky stuff with patterns on it you used to cover your books in during primary school? That was always impossible to do without getting creases in it? Yep, that stuff. On the side of your case. Eww.
Stuey points out this preview of the upcoming Radeon 8500 card over on Anandtech.. Be good once it's here, competition is always good in a capitalist society.
OCMoJo has a nice guide to rack mounting gear.. Which is a pretty neat way of packing a lot of processing power into a small amount of space. Sure, it's not cheap, it's not even close to cheap, but I doubt the guy next door has a rack.
AcidHardware have a P4X266 shootout happening, which is a good thing to see.. we weren’t sure if we'd even see many P4X266 boards due to the licensing mess surrounding the chipset.
Finally, Daniel pointed out that there are some new dets out for some nVidia video card action. 21.85.
Feeling unwell, bed.
Reviews:
OCZ Dominator on TweakTown.
Arkua Tech 6128 hs/f on 2FastCPU.
Fortis Coolers on OCcafe.
CTX PV520 LCD monitor on Digit-Life.
Zen SCR325-2f CPU Radiator hs/f on Bit-Tech.
Water-Cooled Laptop?
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Sunday, 7-October-2001 08:31:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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This from Richard: Watercooling isn't just for o'clockers...just seen a brochure for the new Toshiba Tecra 9000. 1066 MHz, and "WATER COOLING SYSTEM - nested pipes contain an extremely high vacuum that uses water evaporative cooling to suck heat away from the CPU". Nothing about this on the Tosh web site, the brochure has a cutaway clearly showing a water block attached to the m/b. I scanned it for you:
click to enlarge
Nice looking lapotop, but no GeForce 2 Go :(
Early Sunday Morning
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Sunday, 7-October-2001 01:19:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A couple of people rightly pointed out that trading under an Administrator is fine. The Administrator takes control of the management of the company in an attempt to save it financially. If the company was declared bankrupt or insolvent and continued to trade, that would be against the law - but e-store is not in that situation. Still, I wouldn't be buying from a company that admits it's sent all staff home and is not returning emails.
This German article (stick this fish in your ear) apparently shows ATI's Radeon 8500 resoundly beating nVIDIA's GeForce3 Ultra (aka Titanium), thanks Hong.
A coupla custom fulltowers from MaxmuS and BloodDonor.
Reviews:
Fortis A92 socket cooler on OtakuPC.
WBK68 socket cooler on OCPlus.
2GHz P4 CPU on Active-Hardware.
Epox P-8KHA DDR socketA mobo on PlanetSavage.
Saturday Afternoon
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Saturday, 6-October-2001 14:53:10 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I guess we're all glued to our TV's for the big race? :) There's certainly something about the whole Mt Panorama weekend.
Overclockers.com have collated some AthlonXP Info from around the net and their readers, thanks Dr Kildare. Apparently AMD haven't had a great quarter but then, I don't think anyone has.
Those considering trying out the new ICQ 2001b Alpha might want to wait a while. Dicey downloaded it only to discover (a) it's time-limited (b) there's a connection limit on the Alpha-testing servers and they seem to be pretty much always full. I just wanted to let you know that I wasted time downloading that and not able to use ICQ.
There's an interesting if lengthy read on CounterPane.com about security both online and offline in the wake of the WTC and related terrorist attacks. In relation to those attacks, MS are rethinking some of the imagery associated with their WinXP Launch, thanks Sniper.
DDRZone have reviewed a KT266A board. More KT266A reviews here on TechHard, here on PCPop and here on AMD3D, here on Accelenation. Pics here on AkibaPC.
Technical programming article here on IBM.com which I'm not even going to pretend to understand, but according to Joe it shows M$ suck the butt and *nix r0><0rz.. he's obviously much more technical than me. :)
TheReg reckon Intel aim to kill the Floppy and Serial Ports.. thanks Hong.
A few people have things to say about E-store. Apparently they have appointed an administrator, but from the look of their site they seem to still be accepting orders. I'm no lawyer but I'm pretty sure trading while under administration is, if not actually illegal, strongly frowned upon. Maybe their website just hasn't been updated, but it's not too hard to replace index.html with a "we're closed" message. NX notes from a recent PC Authority mailout: As a duty of care to our readers at this earliest opportunity we strongly advise that whilst our magazine currently carries E-Store advertising, do not buy from them at this current time either online or offline until its position is clarified. Some inside info on ZDNet, thanks John, who notes I have been waiting for 2 1/2 weeks for my order, still has not arrived and my 6 e-mails to e-store go unanswered.
There's some hardware modding going on.. Digit-Life are upgrading SBLive! to SBLive! 5.1, no soldering required but some EEPROM value changing. However if you do feel like some soldering, OCWB are adding multiplier and FSB adjustment to their ECS K7S5A.
James says that there's a much better Slime Volleyball than the one we posted earlier. Okey dokey.
leperMessiah posted his review of the Philips 150X LCD into our own forums. nice! :)
Reviews:
OCZ Dominator socket cooler on AtlantaOC.
Aluminium Fan Adaptor on Slautech. Our similar reviews here and here.
Speeze socket cooler on NeoSeeker.
Sanyo SCP-6000 super-light mobile phone on DesignTechnica.
Solarism LM1503 LCD monitor on EXHardware.
Iwill KA266plus socketA DDR motherboard on OCTools.
Philips Rythmic Edge sound card on SourceMag.
ECS K7S-5A socketA ddr board on HCW.
Cool PCDB Entry
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Saturday, 6-October-2001 11:46:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Just spotted this in the PCDB: I was making perspex cases 14 years ago!. It's a very tidy custom case made from smoky perspex.. for an Apple IIe. :)
Click for the PCDB entry!
Yes. I have nowhere to go on a Friday night. Leave me alone.
From Wokket: If you've ever typed in a web address incorrectly and still managed to get a webpage, albeit it one full of porn or warez or other stuff, then these laws are for you... India's taking a census of a slightly different nature... and something I need, how to create the perfect cup of coffee... play around with 3d renderings of USAF warplanes... and some really low quality flash volleyball.
Sick of not knowing what your pet rat is thinking? (Hint: cheese and pestilence) Some brainy scientists can help... and to think that Microsoft said that Windows XP wouldn't be hacked. It's like slapping pirates with a gauntlet. Thanks to Funkdafied for both those.
A new version of ICQ has been released... ta KyocEr@~*.
For the case modder: why use paint when you can use vinyl sheeting? Be sure to enter some photos into the Overclockers Australia PCDB or your vinyl work. No catsuit photos please. (talk to me later, behind that tree)
Reviews
Antec 400w PSU - at Radeonic.
Dynatron Model-638 Copper Heatsink - at Frostytech.
Archos Jukebox personal MP3 player - at JSI Hardware.
AGP issue on P4 boards!
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Friday, 5-October-2001 13:24:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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This from Kanthan: Uou might be aware of this already but i thought you might like to know. I was forwarded this warning by my supplier. This warning will appear on all new boards.
click to enlarge
Yikes. Anyone got any more info on this? Let me know.
Friday Afternoon
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Friday, 5-October-2001 13:09:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Spoke to Gateway yesterday, they say they ran out of speakers so I could either have the 2.1 instead of the 4.1 I ordered (with no discount) or cancel my order. So I cancelled my order. Of course, it'll take them 2 weeks to do the refund to my credit card, but they had no problem with charging the card before shipping the goods. Fiiiine.
Cypher points out this Abandonware Supporters group.. abandonware being (usually) games that have long since been abandoned by their makers but still have supporters/players.
If you were one of the many people who got sucked into The Great OCAU Bridge Builder Craze of 2001, you'll no doubt be thrilled to hear from Matex that Pontifex, the sequel to Bridge Builder, is now available. Freeware demo, full version is $20 (presumably USD).
Might want to bring your own drinks if you ever go to one of this guy's parties. Jones was convicted for introducing bodily fluids into the soft drinks of various employees.. very Fight Club.
Apparently Microsoft will be giving free virus advice and making it easier for people to update their software with security patches, thanks Sniper1G. Previously, corporate customers had to pay Microsoft to get their virus-related questions answered and were required to check the company's websites regularly for any updates.
PCHardware.ro's server died last night so many people would have been unable to see their 22-unit cooler roundup. Those things are a heap of work so if you missed it, check it out now. Our own 21-way roundup is still right here. ExtremeOC have a comparo of 5 coolers too. If you're after more cooler reviews, try a wander through CaseJunkiez's CoolerDB.
Dan has compared 6 water blocks.
A very nice modded case project over on Bit-Tech.
Reviews:
LaserBay case-moddin' wotsit on AtlantaOC.
OptiUPS on ClubOC.
Lian Li Ex-10 Media Port on Icrontic.
LinkSys Wireless Networking on SourceMag.
Dynatron Model 0 copper socket cooler on Gideontech.
Skyhawks Aluminium Case on Accelenation. We checked out an earlier model here.
Creative GF2 GTS on OCPrices, our review here, Ultra version here.
Microsoft "Plus" Pack for WinXP on Icrontic.
Mmmmm, I love Uni assignments. Especially when you have lots of them due, all at once. And you haven't even started them. I love them so much, in fact, that I had to write assignments instead of news.
Auenf points out this page on Intel.com showing off a 1.2GHz Celeron processor obviously based on the Tualatin core due to a 0.13u die process. The really cool part tho is the 256kb of level two cache.. value processor indeed ~cough~. Intel is really going to be taking completion up to AMD in the next six months.
VooDoo pointed out the longest play time stats from his MOS CS server. All I can say is harrrrrd-core. Eight days, Thirteen hours, and fifty-four minutes. Crazy. For those sceptics, Half-Life will auto-timeout clients that don't play as a part of the game.. and that includes playing over map changes. It would of been possible to just have a person using the same nick on the same connection there for 8days+, but that is still a pretty impressive feat.
Alchemist points out info over on CD-R info.com concerning AOpen CRW1632 16X burners.. apparently they are physically identical to the 2010 20X burners, all that's different is the firmware... which you can flash yourself. Mmmm, an extra 4x burn speed for free. Which is quite a lot really. I happen to own a Ricoh MP7040A which enjoys a similar capability.. it's a 4X drive able to be flashed to a 6X drive. Quite cool, really.
Just on burners, the a new version of the deservedly popular Nero Burning ROM CD-R/W authoring program has been released.. now at 5.5.5.1. If you want more news about it Electic has it here.
PCHardware.ro has a fair sized cooler roundup going with 22 heatsinks compared.. which is one more than our 21-way roundup from a while ago. Sure, theirs may be bigger and more recent.. but there ain't nothin like a home cooked meal, pah. *slaps thighs and polishes gun rack*
Visiontek is the first on the market with GeForce Ti boards, with 3DSpotlight having the prices for them already!
If you happen to work in a PC store and have got your dirty paws on a copy of WindowsXP before the rest of us do then you'd be interested in TweakXP, a site dedicated to, uhh, tweaking Windows XP which was pointed out to me by Mark. Lots of swanky little mods you can perform to customize WinXP. Of course, if you don't work in a PC store then where the heck did you get your copy of XP from? ;p
The guys over at HardOCP are running an Auction on their brother-site Hypothermia to benefit the sufferers of the September 11 WTC tragedy.. they've got five 1.4GHz+ DDR systems up for auction, as well as a heap of other stuff, with all the proceeds going to help the victims. Nice work guys.. Any of our American readers might like to have a look in, but shipping+currency for us Aussies is a bit steep.
DesignTechnica has taken a look at a new Bang+Olfusen technology allowing the operation of multiple video and audio sources through a common network.. sort of the first step towards full home automation. If anyone can do it right, my bets are on it being B+O.. they make some damn sexy gear.
Want a cooler? Have an email address? Don't have money? Do have strangely good luck in winning every competition you enter? Click here to win one.
Finally tonight, more free stuff a little more locally from AcidHardware. Once again, all you need is an email address and the brain power to answer a simple question. Crucial PC133 and PC2100 ram will be your reward shall you be the chosen entrant to partake in the given bounty.
I'm all weirder out after being awake way-way-way too long finishing assignments at the death knock. G'night.
Reviews:
Antec SX830 on AwareMag.
Rheobus Construction Guide on OCmod.
Philips MMS305 Multimedia Speakers on SourceMag.
Crucial PC2100 256Mb DDR Stick on MikhailTech.
NEC NR-7800A 16X ATAPI CD-RW on Bench-House.
Belkin Cable/DSL Router on NewsForge.
Spire ST060B1H3R heatsink-with-silly-name on FrostyTech.
ECS K7S5A SiS735 board on X-Bit Labs.
Early Thursday Morning
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Thursday, 4-October-2001 01:53:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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VyW have a budget heatsink roundup posted.
Squozen's all excited because Star Office 6.0 Beta is out. This is an Office-type suite (wordprocessor, spreadsheet etc) that runs on Linux, Solaris and Windows. Seems to be gaining a lot of support lately because.. well, mostly because it's not made by Microsoft, I suspect, and of course because it's free. However, it is apparently pretty good in its own right.
Hmm, Asus are having a case mod competition, how cool is that from a vendor.. thanks Funkdafied.
There's an interesting thread/poll in the forums about clean power.. clean as in environmentally friendly, not clean as in high-quality PSU. :)
Raidzero have a pic of a network card that seriously fried itself.. amazingly, the motherboard was fine.
People who complain that the Internet is full of crap lately obviously aren't aware of this online Map of Australian Public Toilets. I had a bit of a cruise around on it and I hope I never have to use that interface when I'm in a rush..
Jeremy notes that the AthlonXP has appeared in Japan. I still hate the name (AthlonXP, not Jeremy). James notice they've appeared on PriceWatch too.. and Jon commented on the warnings in PriceWatch about "1500 does not mean 1.5GHz".
Reviews:
ADK Custom Built Gaming System on ClubOC.
ProLink GeForce3 video card on TweakTown.
Thermalright CB-6L cooler on FrostyTech.
Hercules Fortissimo 2 sound card on 3DSpotlight.
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum sound card on Digit-Life.
DigiDoc5 Thermal Controller on TheTechZone, our review here.
AMD Duron 1.1GHz socketA CPU on AMDMB.
DiskOnKey USB storage on EXHardware.
Wednesday Night
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Thursday, 4-October-2001 00:01:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Not content with having the GeForce3 Ultra scoop yesterday, HardOCP have gotten their hands on Abit's new GF3. It's taken Abit a little while to bring out a GF3 board - this is obviously not an Ultra card, but they were impressed with the overclocking regardless..
AnandTech have an article about Peer to Peer networking.
RipNet reviewed the Logitech QuickCam 3000 Pro.. I wonder if they could make that review title logo any bigger.
A few people pointed out that WinAmp 2.77 is now out.. and while WinAmp.com only lists v2.76, Toliman pointed out these links directly to v2.77 files: full, std and lite.
Reviews:
Arctic Silver thermal paste on My-Rig.
OCZ Dominator socket cooler on OCrCafe.
Klipsch Promedia 5.1 speakers on SourceMag.
Wednesday Morning
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Wednesday, 3-October-2001 11:55:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Gateway have been copping a lot of flak lately about their closing down sale. I ordered some speakers ($99 for a 4.1 system, bargain!) but when the stories of cancelled orders and nonexistent stock started floating around I wasn't too fussed. I've got some speakers already and it was kind of an impulse buy anyway. No charge to my credit card, so no loss. Then, nearly a month later, they rang to say my speakers would be delivered the next tuesday. Alrighty then, I'm sure I'll find a use for them. On the Monday they left voicemail asking me to ring them back. I did, but nobody there knew why I would have been asked to ring them.. speakers didn't show up.. and a week later I've still heard nothing. But now I see my credit card has been billed. :) I'll ring them today and no doubt commence The Great Runaround. IRC regular Sticks has detailed his experiences here and I note fellow Oz hardware site Case Modders Oz have had similar bad luck. Not a good way to treat your customers.. but I guess customer service is less of a concern when you're exiting the market, hmm? Anyway, this further reinforces one of the fundamental rules of the Internet: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
AMDMB have a guide to making a quiet PC. Hopefully we're seeing the end of the "speed at any volume" era of PC cooling..
Apparently rounded IDE cables are evil. Well, potentially evil anyway. Take a walk on the Dark Side with pre-made evil here or roll-your-own evil here.
One of the black arts of the hardware scene is BIOS flashing. Xbit Labs have a guide to a flashing your AMI BIOS which might help stop you turning your motherboard into a novelty ashtray.
Wireless free "community" internet services are an interesting new phenomenon cropping up here and there. Mikeamp notes a new one on the way in Perth here and an established one in Melbourne here.
Dan's checked out the PC-76, a server case from Lian-Li. Full of the usual nice Lian-Li trimmings and wotnot, but big. The PC-70 looks like a PC-60 on steroids. The PC-76, in turn, looks like a PC-60 that was bitten by a radioactive hippopotamus. I think that hippo had a bit of a go at the pricetag, too.
Xoverclocker have gotten their P4 1.5GHz to 2.14GHz.. shame it's in an i845 motherboard. :)
Reviews:
IWill KK266plus-R socketA (KT133A) motherboard on OCOnline.
Athlon 1.33GHz socketA CPU on Radeonic.
BIOS Saviour on AllTechBox.
Tuesday Night
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Wednesday, 3-October-2001 00:17:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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JimX and I did Level One at the Australian Superbike School today. Great fun, learned a lot, destroyed my rear tyre.. and very tired now. :) Came home and had a BBQ with some members of my GF's family.. not a bad day at all.
Big news for today is the GeForce3 Ultra, or "Titanium". Stock speeds for this new video card/chipset are 240MHz core and 500MHz DDR memory. More details on HardOCP, HotHardware, Tweak3D, xbit, BluesNews, AnandTech, Digit-Life and no doubt more to come..
Interesting if lengthy read here about someone hitting a Roo on a motorcycle. Not the way to start day one of a long tour.
A cool desk PC from Satconcook.
Dan has compared some mini mice.
Reviews:
Shuttle AV40R P4 DDR motherboard on OCWB.
UV stuff on Bit-Tech.
Fortis Tech A92 heatsink on FrostyTech.
Dr Thermal cooler on 2fastcpu.
Case Badges Available Again!
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Tuesday, 2-October-2001 00:09:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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D'ya know what this is?
Click for ordering info!
It's a big box full of case badges! That's right, they're available again, after the last lot sold out so quickly. These are slightly lighter and better looking than the first batch and there's a special deal if you buy a few at once now. So get to it! :)
Note: I imagine the orders mailbox will be swamped again like last time, so don't panic if you don't hear back from us for a day or two.
Also, OCAU Tshirts are still available in a few sizes.
Well, hasn't it been a ripsnorter of a weekend. On Saturday the Lions walked all over Essendon, and showed the silly Victorians the proper way to play aerial ping pong, then on Sunday night the Knights walked all over the Eels with a near-perfect game. Sure, I may have assignments a-plenty due, but that was some quality footy.
Just on quality, Wokket points out that our Genome team is wiping the floor with the Anandtech team. Sure, Genome isn't AT's strongest suit.. but just judging by their server farm their readership is a bit more substernal than ours. And that's all the excuse I need to give a good pimping to our Folding and Genome teams.
I'm sure some of you remember the hyped-up Digital TV launch that occurred back in January.. and if it wasn't for those pesky THIS SHOW IS AVAILABLE IN D-I-G-I-T-A-L messages at the start of the news and other programs you probably would of forgotten about it too. If you're keen on finding out for yourself what Digital TV is actually like, Vegeta points out this page selling set-top boxes and the like. Having a look around there the reason for digital TV's small penetration becomes quiet clear.. $630 anyone?
Znipa-X points out this article in the Scientific Journal Nature which covers a recent achievement scientists have made which is bringing them one step closer to teleportation. Mmmm, just the cure for oversleeping lectures.
Xntrik points out this rather cool web mapping tool.. he explained it best to me, so I'll let him explain it.
fire it up.. and open a new URL, and map with the address "www.overclockers.com.au" and watch the
rings expand as it goes through all the links and maps them as rings.. I've attached a screenie of some of the output.. I'm thinking that if u left it for ages...it'd end out mapping quite a large chunk of the net. End's up looking rather cool in my opinion as well.
Guru3D has just released RC7.1 of their RivaTuner 2.0 util.. quite a few different versions of these nVidia tweaking tools getting around at the moment.
Finally tonight, AnandTech has info of the changing product lines coming up from nVidia.. looks like the moniker "Titanium" is going to get tacked onto the end of the GeForce3 product line, and they're going to release a suped up version as well.
Reviews:
Fortis Technology coolers on 8Balls Hardware.
1.1GHz Morgan-Core Duron on AMDmb.
RumbleFX 3D Amp on AMDPower.
OCZ Dominator hs/f on FrostyTech.
MSI MX400 VIVO card on ViaHardware.
Rounded IDE Cables on OCCafe, our review here.
1.1GHz Morgan-Cored Duron on Tech-Report.
Archos MP3 Jukebox on PCStats.
EasyDisk Portable USB Hard Drive on ClubOC.
VideoLogic Vivid!XS KyroII card on Noticias3D.
RumbleFX 3D Amp on BlueSmoke.
Compex WavePort Wireless LAN kit on GideonTech.
Interesting Forum Threads..
FAH Production Levels in TeamOCAU.
AMD Compliant PSU's in OC+HW.
Bigger PSU OC Results in OC+HW.
LCD Monitors for Gaming in OC+HW.
Ant Farm Case (idea) in Case Mods+PCDB.
DiVX Box (idea) in Case Mods+PCDB.
Quick Waterblock/HSF (idea/plans) in Extereme Cooling.
Dual CPU - Same Chips? in SMP+Clustering.
SMP for CS Server? in SMP+Clustering.
Pair Gain Phone Lines in Networking+Internet.
170MHz FSB on Tyan Tiger in AMD HW.
Gigabyte SiS735 in October? in AMD HW.
P3 or Celeron? in Intel HW.
Disabling ACPI in Via HW.
Don't forget to register your interest in an OCAU Paintball/Skirmish day in Sydney. There's maybe going to be a non-official one in brisbane too.
Win y'self a 1.4GHz Athlon over on Spode's!
Joel notes this interesting article about security technology in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the USA.
Apparently DDR333 is well on the way.
Remember the Black Ice radiator we reviewed a little while ago? Well, there's a new model out, twice the size. They also have some shiny shiny ones in the forums.
DanzDomain have a overview of WinXP, as do we.
MikhailTech have a big socketA cooler roundup, as do we. :)
It's Monday, which means a new issue of ZZZ Online.
Reviews:
CPU Radiator Zen cooler on OtakuPC, thanks Garrie.
Soyo Dragon socketA motherboard on Hardware-Test.
Volcano 6cu cooler on OCTools.
BitzPower NP80D cooler on OCNZ.
Archive Updated
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Monday, 1-October-2001 03:20:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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September was a pretty quiet month at first, due to the forums bringing the server to its knees pretty much every night. However, after AusGamers kindly let us use their server for the forums, I could post new content again. Hence the big rush over the last week! I've added these new articles to the archive:
Glowire and Lazer LED review.
KingMax PC166 SDRAM (got missed in the last update).
Asus A7V266 motherboard review.
NEC MultiSync 1525v LCD monitor review.
Storage Area Networks article.
PQI PC133 SDRAM review.
Funnily enough, the 2 busiest articles last month weren't written last month! The Tyan Thunder and Windows XP articles topped the chart with the more recent PQI PC133 review coming in third.
ThermoEngine Comparison
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Monday, 1-October-2001 02:43:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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You'd think Wolfy would be sick of coolers after the monster cooler roundup but no, he's been playing with ThermoEngines lately. He's compared the various types available (silver vs black, hollow vs solid) as well as trying different fans and thermal pastes. Lots of info topped off with a whopping graph of results:
Click for the article!
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