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March 2002
Sunday Night (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 31-March-2002  23:57:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Hope you all had a good Easter and aren't feeling the effects of gorging yourself on chocolate too badly..

Gaz spotted this article about 10 years of OS/2 2.0, as that operating system celebrates that birthday today. It's an interesting peice, with plenty of historical stuff about the PC software industry.

Zero_g71 found a new winamp that's silently been released. It has this cool crossfading plugin as standard. Just like in Winamp 3 BETA!

OCAU-hosted site HardAvenue have another section opening up, for 3D gaming.. called (of course) 3DAvenue and has a couple of new articles on the front page.

From wayne: The new bios and drivers for the Promise TX2\TX4 RAID controller allows 48 bit LBA transfers, the release date was 3\28\02. Dig around here for the goodies.

Smoothy sent in this big forum thread on Tweakers.net, full of case-mods by their members. We have a slightly more sophisticated system here of course, in the form of our PC DataBase with over 3200 entries.

From Jaw174: What do you do with those Realy old computers...you know.. the old 386 you have stashed away in the darkest corner in the basement...well you can always make it something beautiful! Or you can try to give it away .. then again we could always do a bewolf cluster and make a dedicated folding machine....

Reviews:
Below Zero Puma socket cooler on 8Balls.
Adaptec XHub4+ USB 2.0 4-port hub on Bit-Tech.
CH Products Flight Sim Yoke & Pro Pedals USB controllers on OCPrices.
PowerCooler PCHxxxx coolers on BlargOC.
AMD AthlonXP 1700+ on BlargOC.



Saturday Afternoon #2 (0 Comments) (link)
 Saturday, 30-March-2002  17:30:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Andypoo sends word of a LAN near Liverpool in SW Sydney that's on right now and continues for the rest of the long weekend.

OCAU's major sponsor ComputerAlliance have entered the Folding fray by committing their in-house machines to folding. Nice example to set, thanks to Jason, Adam, Stewart and the rest of the gang!

More depressing lawyer stuff with Intel requesting a free yoga clinic stop calling themselves Yoga Inside.. sigh, thanks Firemoth.

ExtremeTech have an article about a vulnerability in Win2K and NT.

Paul spotted an interesting Kazaa ruling.. an appeal was settled in favour of the file-sharing program.

Reviews:
Gigabyte Radeon 8500 video card on HardWarePub.
MSI Geforce Ti4400 128MB DDR DVI-I / VIVO video card on TekSeekers.
AOpen AX45 P4 SiS645 motherboard on OCrCafe.
Lian-Li PC50 case on ProCooling.
ProCase IceMaster case on JSI.
PARS Scorpio case on Hexus.
PNY Verto Geforce4 Ti4600 video card on Bjorn3D.



Saturday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)
 Saturday, 30-March-2002  13:09:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Sniper spotted this 7-way GeForce4 Ti comparison.

VooDoo of DDRZone has a rant titled What's with Marketing Analysis Sites? on his site.

NewBie sent in that most famous of cute kitten pictures.. with a Capture The Flag twist.

Moldy notes: With lawsuits like these, it's a wonder Coffee drinkers haven't sued Folgers (or insert Australian coffee company) for getting them addicted... sssh, don't give the lawyers any more ideas. I can feel a rant brewing, but it'd probably just get me sued.

Hothardware compared two value P4 DDR boards, the ECS P4IBAD & Transcend TS-ABR4, both based on Intel's i845D chipset.

SlCentral have a guide to adding a window to your case.

Whirlpool reckon more Telstra customers can get ADSL now.. not a whole lot more, but more, thanks DJ-Studd.

Win y'self an online game subscription over on MGON.

PenStarSys went and saw how VisionTek make video cards at their headquarters, thanks al4xus.

Geo has started an interesting What Linux Distro Should I Use? FAQ-type thread in our Software Stuff forum. FYI, our server, as with the previous ones, runs Debian.

Reviews:
Power Cooler PCH154S socket cooler on MikhailTech.
DFI NS70-EL SiS645DX-based P4 DDR333 motherboard on TweakTown.
MSI KT3 Ultra KT333-based SocketA DDR333 motherboard on AMDMB.
Icemat Black and Original mousing surfaces on EXHardware.
Epson Perfection 1250 photo scanner on DesignTechnica.
Compex irdaNet iRE201 PDA networking on TheTechZone.
Linksys Wireless Networking gear on DeviantPC.
Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277 Notebook on AnandTech.
Noisecontrol Silverado socket cooler on BlargOC.



Friday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 29-March-2002  15:49:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Coupla updates: I upgraded the forums to v2.2.4 this morning, from v2.2.2. Some security patches but mostly bugfixes.. haven't looked around the forums too much this morning so not sure if there's any noticeable changes. Also, last night I moved the rest of the site over to the new ad-management software. The old perl-based stuff caused a fair bit of server load and was usually the first thing to die when the server got really busy.. the new proggy has been in testing in the forums for a while and I've moved it out to the rest of the site now. PHP+MySQL-based goodness, of course.

Special congrats to Realtime Systems, the Australian distributor for Corsair memory. They've been appointed a Premier Solution Provider by Corsair Micro - one of only 5 in the world. Realtime have been involved with OCAU for a long time now and it's nice to see them getting some recognition. Speaking of which, Hexus have info on Corsair's new XMS3000 memory.

Jediguy spotted info on the Lord of the Rings DVD.. and started a forum thread about it. Wolfy found more info here.. 4 DVD's!

AMDPower have something a little unusual.. a linux review of the Shuttle AK35GTR motherboard.

There's some debate about whether 1024-bit encryption can still be considered secure, thanks F1DarkFlash.

HotHardware have info on using Comanche 4 as a DirectX benchmark.

More info on the latest silly copyright law proposed in the USA on Wired.

Scarifier noticed this article about fibre in your loungeroom on Whirlpool.. we keep hearing all kinds of broadband promises, but here I am still, stuck on dialup.

FiringSquad have a roundup of 760MPX motherboards.. mmm, dual SocketA.

Interesting new Silence Machine technology, thanks Ropable, who suggests it's a new way to silence those case fans? :)

Considering Apple's long-standing commitment to the education sector, booting a volunteer developer because he's too young seems an odd move. I blame the lawyers.

Our own MWP, creator of the PC DataBase has been busy writing this LCD software for CrystalFontz. Apparently it supports serial and parallel port LCD's and, in his own modest words, it's kinda like lcdcenter, lcddriver and the rest of them, but much better ;) So, after you've made your own DIY LCD, you now have something to drive it with. Hurrah!

Flash 6 is also out. Also hurrah. Thanks dink.

Reviews:
Hercules 3D Prophet FDX 8500LE video card on Tech-Report.
3DBoxx dual XP2000+ system on AMDZone.



Good Friday (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 29-March-2002  12:11:33 (GMT +10) - by LoneWolf

Happy Easter everyone. Let's hope the bunny your pappy shot yesterday for supper, was NOT supposed to be carrying a basket o' goodies on Sunday, otherwise no eggs for you! :)

PCStats have an article up telling everyone the various "in's and out's" of DDR RAM. What the various speeds mean in terms of overclockability, etc. Looking to buy some DDR? Check this out first :)

Kevin Baker sent in a link telling us that JEDEC is starting some DDR-II specs, in speeds of 400mhz, 533hmz, and 667mhz. It will include "posted CAS", differential strobe, off-chip output driver calibration, on-die termination, burst interupt and 4 bit pre-fetch (instead of 2-bit in standard DDR).

If you're a fan of all things ironic, as I am, check out this story. :)

3D Spotlight is hosting a giveaway in which you can win a Pentium4 2.2GHz combo from AZZO (includes Abit mobo and DDR333 memory), a GeForce4 MX440 from eVGA, a Kyro 3D board from Hercules and a 5.1 channel soundcard from Terratec. It's a "register on our forums" type deal though.

COMDEX Las Vegas is one of the Largest Computer Shows in the world. However, Key3Media also puts on shows in other cities as well. As part of the local press, Futurelooks checks out the Vancouver COMDEX, which ran from March 19 - 21.

Well! About time! If you ever run out of electricity or gas, and feel a sudden hunger for some fried food, here is a guide to "cooking breakfast with your CPU." Taa Chai.

If you would like to see a video of an Intel P4 running quite comfortably at 4Ghz, then go here. If not, errrm, then don't :)

GAMES 'R' Us has decided to abandon its computer games retailing business and move into oil and gas. That would make them "Games R'nt Us" wouldn't it? :) Full story here.

Dan from Dan's Data seems to have a lot of sleepless nights. His latest "think session" involved stealth modding some CDROM's and stuff.

...And here's a guide to lapping your heatsink, for a nice, flat, even finish. Perfect for those toasty AMD's. :)

If you are in the market for a 2U rackmountable server, but wouldn't have the slightest idea on where to start, here's some help. :)

And lastly, a link sent in by MrShadow ... In an attempt to stomp out illegal gambling, which is more prevalent in Greece than in anywhere else in the European Union, the government has banned all video games, including Pac-Man and Tetris. Electronic games will now be legal only in casinos.

Reviews:
PC Remote control on BurnoutPC.
Tweakmonster's Lightstrip Rev2 on TacoNut's.
Lian Li PC-6 from DansData.
Gigabyte GA-7VRXP KT333 from HardwarePub.
OCZ PC3000 Memory from OCPrices.
Swiftech QPower Barebones Case on Extreme Overclocking.
Samsung SW-224 24/10/40 CD Writer over at The Tech Zone.
ATI Radeon 8500LE on The Bench House.
Abit KR7A-133RAID Socket A Motherboard from PC Stats.



Thrusday Morn - Quickie (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 28-March-2002  11:20:43 (GMT +10) - by YYK

Thursday Morn - Quickie

Nothing better to do, so I'll do some News - Make Aggie Happie

Sad news with the MD of HP Australia dying of a heart attack yesterday, and the Englishman Dudley Moore bids the world farewell

Sony unveils a "healing ball", not really sure what it's really supposed to do, but the Magic 8 Ball is not too worried.

Microsoft lets academic researchers take a little peek under it's .NET skirt.

Congratulations, you are now worth $177, 000 according to the Treasury. Now run along and sell yourself on Ebay.

In the name of research the guys @ CSIRO have been surfing for porn. They found that there's a lot of it, and that the filters don't really work.

To the CSIRO's joy, hundreds of ex-Enron women want to pose for Playboy - to tell the human side of the story - or should that be the secreatry/boss story..errr..involving shredding documents?



Thursday Morning #2 (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 28-March-2002  01:38:39 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Grant noticed that Google may be a launching a folding@home assault soon, via their toolbar. OCAU's Folding Team was recently relegated to 2nd place in the world by the [H]orde.. but the battle is far from over. If you want to help us regain the top spot, here's how to join the team. Bollocks also has an article about dedicated folding boxes.

Our SETI @ Home Team hasn't been resting on its laurels tho, clocking up 200,000 work units - thanks Robert.

Speaking of Google, it seems Britney Spears fans can't spell.. or maybe they're all typing one-handed.. thanks Driver.

Rumours abound regarding both DDR400 memory and VIA's KT400 chipset to support it. Info here on TheInq and here on SiliconStrategies, thanks Nigel.

Apparently NVIDIA is almost out of GeForce3 chips, thanks Dr Kildare.

Digit-Life have days 4 and 5 of their CeBIT coverage posted.

Ubeek dug up more scary email security stuff.

From NeoDude: I thought this might be of real interest to all as it gives a very comprehensive review of the GF4 Ti cards & runs them up against the Radeon 8500 as well as the GF 3 Ti 500 & the results are mind blowing, They underclocked the Ti 4400 to match the GF 3 Ti 500 & it still blew it away. By all accounts the Ti 4400 runs almost as fast as the Ti 4600 at normal clock settings, So this raises the question :- Is it really worth the extra $200-300 for only a marginal increase that you get from the Ti 4600???? Not for me that's for sure my money's going on the Ti 4400, if you're not happy with framerates like that, you're never going to be happy.

Reviews:
HIS Radeon 8500 64meg video card on DigitalDomination.
Vantec Stealth Fans on ViperLair.



Thursday Morning. (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 28-March-2002  00:32:22 (GMT +10) - by Darkness'

Thursday Morning

Well this is my first news post so go easy on me and we'll both work through this together :)

ZDNet have an article on What ever happened to 64-bit computing.

Scott from the tech report sends word that Belkin may have created the ultimate game controller combo with the n30 and n50 series. Check them out here.

Apparently there is a computer auction on at the Cairns show grounds More info in this thread

ViperLair have a nice mouse war going on. Reviewing some of the industries top mice. Have a browse of that right here.

Bridgestone Corp, Japan's largest tyre maker, has developed a new kind of electronic display that is brighter and responds faster than conventional liquid crystal displays (LCD). Read more here

NeoSeeker have a guide on How to Maximize your FSB

Ian from Designtechnica has had a look into how digital television could be a scam

For all you Lord Of the Rings fans out there, DuKe sent a link to some pictures of the up coming sequel. Check them out here

Iroquois sends info on the alleged next chipset to come from Intel. Kyrene. Could be worth a look.

Another possible trade issue arises with Windows XP's license agreement regarding remote administration programs. Thanks David

This has to be the most extreme case mod I have ever seen.
Look at it here. I'm still lost for words.
Cheers Jason

Damian sends word of a massive sale of 8-bit video games on e-bay. Apparently it's one guy's personal collection of 9 years.

CD-R info has a CD-ROM Roundup and CeBIT 2002 info on their site. They show some pretty impressive burning speeds too. Thanks Asimakis

The game giant Valve software maybe testing the water with a .net style implementation into their games in an effort to stay in touch with users. Read more here

Well that wasn't so bad was it. :) Until next time...

Reviews:
ARKUA 628 Heatsink review over at Overclockers Cafe'.
Radeon 8500 (AT008) Review on the hardware pub.
Coolermaster ATC210 case review on deviant PC.
Power Cooler PCH141H Heatsink Review over at Mikhailtech.
KingMax Tiny BGA PC2100 review over at Project K-Pro
GeForce 4 MX Roundup at OCTools



Wednesday Night (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 27-March-2002  23:37:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Happy Birthday to Sciby for yesterday! I didn't forget, really. I mean, who could forget a nice guy like him? :)

ReaX spotted on QGL this press-release saying that the ACCC support timed calls to ISP's.. yes, my immediate reaction was to scream obscenities too (being a dialup user) but the charges they are talking about seem extremely low. So maybe it won't be too bad. Further thought required.

For something a little different, Digit-Life have an article on black and white photo printing.

Owen spotted this article about the world's first Cyborg, apparently.. more info here, thanks Daniel.

Drayzen found more info about the dancing robot from Sony. Does quite a bit more than just shake its electronic booty, evidently.

Want a 3DFX video card? Ben's spotted a few on eBay.

And now, a couple of reviews for you..

Reviews:
AMD AthlonXP 2100+ socketA CPU on HardCoreWare.
Creative 3DBlaster Ti4400 video card on DeviantPC.
ABIT NV7-133R nForce 415D motherboard on OCTools.
Cold Cathode Window Kits on IPKonfig.
ATI Radeon 8500 video card on PCStats.
Sibak AC02625B copper core heatsink on FrostyTech.
Koolance PC2-C cooling case on Hexus.
Enermax PSU on BurnOutPC.
Neolec Vento socket cooler on SubZeroTech.
Soyo K7V Thunder Plus socketA DDR motherboard on HeatSeekerz.
Leadtek WinFast A250Ultra TD GeForce4 Ti4600-based video card on Digit-Life.
Thermaltake Hardcano 2 HDD cooler on OverclockerCafe.
Creative Geforce 4 Ti-4400 video card on OCPrices.
Compaq Fingerprint Reader on IceHardware.
Lian-Li PC35 case on ClubOC.
Leadtek WinFast A250 TD GeFORCE 4 Ti 4400 video card on G3D.
Visiontek Xtasy Geforce4 MX440 video card on Bjorn3D.
Soltek SL-8DRV3 P4X266A-based P4 DDR motherboard on VIAHW.
Apple iPod MP3 player on BuddhaCon, our review here.
Cooleaster CWC01 copper socket cooler on AMDMB.
3DMark2001SE benchmark on BurnOutPC.
Sibak AT01515B TwinHead Heatsink on FrostyTech.
Benq VP150X Projector on DansData.
EPoX 8K3A KT333-based SocketA DDR motherboard on ChillBlast.
Kleer-Dome Casebadge Kit on InsideProject.
Thermaltake Orange Orb chipset cooler on WinHQ.
Engelking AP2 6300SFC fanless PSU on Tobitech.
ATi Radeon 8500 64MB video card on PCParadox.
MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU KT333-based socketA DDR motherboard on AMD3D.
MSI K7T266 Pro2 KT266A-based socketA DDR motherboard on SubZeroTech.
EPoX 8K3A KT333-based socketA DDR motherboard on OCPlus.
VisionTek GF4 Ti4600 video card on SLCentral.



Wednesday Morning (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 27-March-2002  11:20:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Waratt noticed this DirectX 9 Preview that's out.. it's in German, so you might want to stick this fish in your ear.

Ubeek sent in this warning/fix about a security problem in IE.. kinda old news, but still worrying. Something about that fix program seems a bit dodgy though, but I can't put my finger on what it is. Try at your own risk, as always.

TheTechZone reviewed the Chenming AE-601 tower case. It's another in the family of suspiciously-similar cases that we've seen from Chieftec, Enermax, EYO, Antec and Macase - we reviewed the Macase models here and here. TheTechZone say that Chenming manufacture the cases and everyone else rebadges them, but whenever you ask any of the manufacturers they all claim to manufacture them, it seems. The plot thickens.. nice cases, tho. :)

Soliah notes that ICQ 2002a Beta is out.. info on that page or you can grab it directly here.

There's a patch floating around to convert .NET to XP Pro and vice versa, thanks Isengard. There was a similar thing back in the NT4 days and presumably also for Win2K.. without reading the article in too much detail, I'm not sure what the big deal is? Unless you want to use it to pirate the software of course, but most pirates will just get the version they want anyway. Everyone knows that there's not all that much difference between the Server and Workstation versions of MS O/S's so a script to make the appropriate registry/file changes doesn't seem such a big deal to me.

Does your HDD have bad sectors that keep moving around? Maybe they're ants, thanks Wokket.

It's been a bit quiet from these guys for a while.. but now, Issue 122 of ZZZ Online is out. Cool airships and using roaches for data storage, among other stuff.

Interesting Forum Threads
Leadtek GF4 Ti4600 First Impressions in NVIDIA Hardware.
A7V333: CPU at 2.3v! in AMD Hardware.
Best way to tidy up cables? in Modding & Electronics.
ADSL Broadband Provider Roundup in Networking & Internet.

Reviews:
Gainward GeForce4 Ti4600 Power Pack on HardOCP.
MSI 845 Ultra-AR P4 DDR motherboard on MBReview.
Asus T9 Notebook on AnandTech.
Samsung Tantus HCL473W 47" Rear Projection HDTV on PCStats.
Leadtek GF4 Ti4600 video card on HotHardware.
Wahoo Schema case on GideonTech.



Tuesday Morning (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 26-March-2002  10:57:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Wired report it's now illegal to buy PC’s in Cuba, except in special circumstances. Also, and we may have linked this before, but an article about PC’s being used to prove war crimes, thanks Ubeek.

ProCooling want to tell you all about.. well, cooling, or the 4 main ways to do it.

VR-Zone have a voltage mod for Northwood P4’s.. changing the default from 1.5 to 1.85.

Some email security problems.. on Excite’s PHP-based mail and in Outlook 2002, thanks Ubeek.

For something a little different, HWExtreme checked out the latest and greatest mobile phones.

Ed notes this theonion article about Dell reaching their goals.

Mouse not behaving? Maybe it needs a ball clean.. viperlair show you how.

mjcrow says Network associates has compatible versions of PGP for OSx and Win XP and refuses to release them.. More info here.

Phrantic Anima wonders: I just got the April 2002 edition of PC World, because it has a few articles on GeForce4's. The first article (page 16, "GeForce4 goes titanium", by Alexandra Krasne) has a bit to say about the difference between the Titanium and the MX versions of the new cards: "The Titanium boasts specifications designed to make PC gamers drool, while the budget MX chip offers improved graphics for business users and casual gamers." _BUSINESS USERS_. I'm sorry, but is a GeForce3 Ti 500 no longer suitable to open Outlook Express?? :)

Reviews:
Microsoft Xbox game console on Hexus.
MSI GeForce4MX video card on Hexus.
Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical on Monster-Hardware.
Thermalright AX7 socket cooler on 8Balls.
Epox 8K3A KT333-based socketA DDR motherboard on Tweakers.
KingMax DDR400 SDRAM on HardwarePub.



Monday Night (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 25-March-2002  23:29:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been down the South Coast at my parents place, having an early Easter and chilling out. I had hoped there'd be more news posted in my absence but no matter, I'll see what I can rustle up for you now..

Customs and the Australian Federal Police have seized Australia's second largest shipment of heroin and arrested three people in a joint operation that culminated last night, the Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator Ellison has announced. Customs officers found approximately 380 kg of heroin allegedly concealed in packaged rice noodles when they inspected a sea cargo container that arrived at Fisherman Islands Wharf in Brisbane from China on 15 March 2002. Hmm, I thought I'd been enjoying my rice noodles a little too much lately.. more info here.

Sniper spotted this: Quad Sledgehammers. Nuff said.

Mods4Me have a guide to maximising your FSB..

Jarhead has a serious homemade heatsink.. nice work! However this is just plain bizarre.. thanks Jaw174.

WinHQ have a DetonatorXP Comparison.. different driver versions for your nvidia-based video card.

FutureLooks have a high end recommended PC setup.

Matt D says Asus Ti4600 on epox 8kha+ - Just letting you know that this combination actually does work. The capacitors are firmly touching, but the card does plug in fine. Hope for the epox lovers yet. I can confirm that the MSI Ti4600 card is OK on the EPoX board too.

Newbie streaks to the top of the "weird stuff" ladder for this week with this article about a schoolgirl with a 7cm tongue. Those pics are kinda disturbing. :)

Reviews:
Xoxide Z-60 ClearStorm case on Virtual-Hideout.
Soltek SL-DRV5 KT333-based SocketA DDR motherboard on TweakTown.
EverGlide Asian Swords Mousepad on PCHardware.
Case-120HO 131CFM Fan on IPKonfig.
MSI K7D Master-L dual socketA motherboard on AMDMB.
Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM on 8Balls.
Noise Control Magic Fleece sound-dampener on BlargOC.
Epox 8K3A KT333-based socketA ddr motherboard on OCPlus.
MSI KT3 Ultra ARU KT333-based socketA DDR motherboard on HotHardware.
Coolermaster HHC-001 heatpipe-based socket cooler on TekSektor.
MSI GF4 Ti4600 video card on VIAHW.
Belkin USB2.0 Hub on PCStats.
e-VGA GF4 MX 440 video card on Tech-Report.
Samsung DVD N2000 DVD player on IANAG.
Leadtek WinFast A170 DDR T GeForce4 MX440 video card on GotApex.
Samsung 151MP TFT monitor on NeoSeeker.
NexSOHO Networking Kit on DeviantPC.
SiS645 'DX' chipset on Accelenation.



Sunday Night News (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 24-March-2002  20:21:01 (GMT +10) - by LoneWolf

Hmmm. Well, I have been away for the weekend, as have some of the more regular news posters, so sorry for the lack of news all weekend. ....So I get home, set myself up for an uber news posting, and there's only 12 messages in the news box! Musta been a slow weekend for everyone.

First up, Drayzen sent in this link showing the Sony Robot doing the groove thing at Akiba. "I see you baby, shaking that.." AHEM, sorry.

Designtechnica takes a looks at NHT's new Evolution Series of speakers. Rather impressive too...Check it out here.

You ever play marbles at school, and one kid always had the "uber marble" that would end up winning all yours? Bet you wish you had one of THESE bad boys back then, huh? :P Cheers Jack D.

Mr. Tweak from TweakTown.com has posted a thread in his forums, divulging what all the Micro$oft codenames for various products are. Well worth a look. Thanks Things.

HogWash tells us the the new WinAmp 2.79 is out, and is most likely available for download from here I would imagine. Cheers.

Tired of trying to think up imaginative passwords, that you think no-one will be able to guess? This guy was, so he designed a system that uses pictures instead. Excellent ... *digs out the pr0n* :) Taa Morgan.

If you're the sort of person that gets all gooey when a new mobile phone is released, you may want to have a "perve" at the new Sony Ericsson T68i.

And lastly, remember the old, OLD game called SpyHunter? Maybe not ... Hmm, well here it is, in shockwave form for your enjoyment. Taa Freaek.

Reviews:
Power Cooler PCH075H Heatsink over on MikhailTech.
Taisol CGK760092 Heatsink from FrostyTech.
European and Australian MicroSoft Xbox over at MGon.



Friday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 22-March-2002  14:21:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Futuristic suits of nanotechnology-equipped armour.. are we living in a Japanese cartoon? Not yet, but MIT are working on it, thanks Sciby.

If you're going to sell your soul, you'd want to at least get thirty bucks for it, jeez.. thanks Dragon Lee.

Guru3D went to CeBIT 2002 and want to tell you all about this huge consumer electronics show. Digit-Life have their Day 3 coverage posted.

Virtual-Hideout have been overclocking a Northwood P4.

Josh noticed a couple of interesting things on Whirlpool: firstly, the ACCC has moved against Telstra and enforced the competition notice that it served on Telstra in September last year. As of today, competitors have the ability to seek damages from Telstra and the ACCC has strongly suggested it will take action against Telstra in the Federal Court with a view to obtaining substantial penalties. Also, they linked to this article comparing broadband to Big Macs and saying ours should be cheaper (err, the broadband.)

There's new VIA 4-in-1 drivers out now too, thanks Anthrox.. version 4.38a.

VR-Zone have a 6-way DDR333 SDRAM Roundup posted. We reviewed KingMax's DDR333 memory here a little while ago.

TekSektor have reviewed 3 socket coolers from Globalwin.

TweakHardware have a guide to tweaking your monitor. Fiddling around inside your monitor's casing is one of the few PC-related activities that can kill you, so be careful. Unless you know how to discharge the current that lingers in your monitor after it's powered off, leave monitor repair to the pros.

Reviews:
Global Win YCC-61F1 server case on HardwarePub.
Tocools Crown prototype socket cooler on FrostyTech.
Abit Siluro GF4 MX440 video card on Hexus.
Coolink U2P socket cooler on Coolerhut.
Thermaltake P4 Dragon socket cooler on Tweakers.
Mouse Bungee cord management on ViperLair, our review here.
AOpen 'Strong Power' FSP 300-60BT(12V) PSU on Bjorn3D.
USB 2.0 External Media Bay on PCStats.
5-fan HDD cooler on OCPrices.
WinFast GF4MX video card review on OCPlus.
Belkin USB 2.0 PCI card on PCStats.
Zalman CNPS6000-AlCu socket cooler on FrostyTech.
Soltek SL-DRV4 KT266A-based SocketA DDR motherboard on MBReview.



Friday Morning (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 22-March-2002  11:44:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Ed noticed this DNA computer and wonders, as I do, how you'd overclock it..

Digit-Life have a roundup of 128mb GF3 Ti200 video cards.

IBM are working on floppy PC's, thanks Thingy. "Just imagine being able to roll up your screen and put in into your bag and then connect it to your watch."

As if the 360MB video card from Wednesday wasn't over the top, MChap noticed this 416MB one by 3DLabs.

Interesting article on ZDNet about how spam is out of control.. I've gotten used to deleting 100 or so messages every morning now.

Digitalis notes new official DetonatorXP drivers for your nVIDIA-based video card. These are version 28.32 and hopefully include official support for the GeForce4 Ti - the last official ones, 23.11, ignored a card I had here for testing so I ended up using the leaked 27.70 drivers for the review that will appear on this site early next month.

Some fairly basic guides for you: how to mod your case on mods4me and replace your chipset cooler on Digital-Explosion. If you're not sure what to replace it with, we did a roundup of chipset coolers here a while ago.

F1DarkFlash spotted this flash driving game that will probably suck up most of your Friday afternoon. Also, roll-your-own superhero. Tarrasque sent this flash game from HP, too.

Reviews:
MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU KT333 motherboard on HardOCP.
Intensor Gaming Chair on ComputerChaos.
Plextor 40/12/40A CDRW on 3DVelocity.
Gainward GF3 Ti500 128MB Golden Sample video card on JSI.
KingMax PC2100 DDR SDRAM on K-Pro, our review here.
Belkin 4-port KVM switch.. with audio, on 3DRetreat.
Lian-Li PC70 fulltower case on IceHardware.
Cold Cathode case lighting on TweakTown.
Sandblasted window designs on OCrClub.
Gigabyte GA-7VRXP KT333-based SocketA DDR motherboard on TweakTown.
VisionTek Xstacy GF4 Ti4600 video card on HotHardware.
4 inch mini-LCD screen on AMDMB.
Global Win CAK II-16 socket cooler on OCrCafe.



IceCube Firewire HDD Enclosure (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 22-March-2002  02:51:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Fad reviewed this little gadget. It's similar to Sciby's earlier USB HDD Enclosure review, but this one uses a normal 3.5" HDD and connects via FireWire which is faster. It also has a blue LED on it.. :)


Click for the review!



Thursday Evening (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 21-March-2002  18:23:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg

SLCentral have a quick editorial about AMD and Intel on the price war front, overclocking.. and some other stuff.

Got a Sony VIAO laptop? Wish I did.. but anyway, there's a security warning out about them, thanks mong.

Phrantic Anima spotted this Tao of Programming, very amusing.

You may have seen this on the mainstream news last night.. Sony have a new robot that sings, dances and will cost as much as one car, a luxury car, thanks Wild.

From Denis: Seems that there is finally an updated nForce driver, v1.03, available from (of all mobo manufacturers) fujitsu-siemens. Hopefully it fixes the audio input level and PCI write throughput problems! Haven't checked it myself yet. Win2K/WinXP driver here. Like anything, install at your own risk - backup important data first!

Looking for a review of a DDR motherboard..? It's probably here on JATHardware.

Scroll down a little on this page and you'll find a 52mb video of Unreal2 action.. apparently awesome graphics (glares at dialup modem).

More clueless politicians in America. I vaguely recall them trying something similar in Oz a couple of years ago.. that didn't work either, thanks Ed.

Apparently Telstra's network isn't very good.. gosh. Thanks Thingy.

Rei found this gallery of broken hardware.

There's a LAN on in western australia on the 30th of march apparently..

Reviews:
SanDisk 128MB memory stick on EXHardware.
Abit BD7-RAID P4 DDR motherboard on Bench-House.
MSI GeForce3 Ti500 Pro-VTG video card on ComputerSource.
Maxtor D740X-6L ATA-133 HDD on IANAG.
Similasan #3 Eye Drops for CRT junkies on FutureLooks.
Stereo-Link 1200 PC-HiFi connection on NeoSeeker.
ECS L4S5A SiS 645 P4 DDR motherboard on 3DSpotlight.
Marvel Comics fan grills on ThinkTechie.
Leadtek GeForce 4 MX440 video card on PureOC.



Thursday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 21-March-2002  16:06:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg

This week has been flying by..

Seems Sony have had to take their PS2's and go home from CeBIT, the consumer electronics show in Europe, thanks F1DarkFlash.

OCNZ have added some more sticks to their DDR SDRAM guide, for a total of 6.

Mods4Me have a guide to making a thermal probe cheaply.

Morpheus apparently does some sneaky browser tricks now, thanks FreeFrag.

Wow, a virtual keyboard.. very cool, thanks Wokket.

From Jeff McLuckie: it appears AMD have put out a second revision of the 760MPX Southbridge which addresses the USB problem which resulted in Mobo manufacturers either disabling or removing USB1.1 from their motherboards. We'll have to wait and see how long it takes for Asus,MSI and Tyan to update their boards to use the new southbridge and give us good old USB 1.1. PDF with info here.

Thank gawd the days of this kind of thing are long gone, thanks Borg.

AnandTech have their CeBIT Day 2 coverage posted.. this time it's CPUs, Cooling, Motherboards & Video but I know you guys aren't interested in any of that. :)

CeBIT info from DigitLife too, here and here.

From NextWish: oh dear.

I've had a few people email me lately with an obvious misconception.. they keep trying to correct my usage of the term "DDR SDRAM", claiming it's an oxymoron, that "DDR" and "SDRAM" can't be used to describe the same product. Not true! DDR memory and the older SDR memory are both SDRAM. SDRAM means "Synchronous Dynamic RAM" and refers to it having a separate clock signal (usually, but not always, at the CPU's FSB speed). SDR (Single Data Rate) and DDR (Double Data Rate) refer to how many control/data signals the RAM sends per clock signal - one for SDR and two (one on the rising edge of the clock signal, one on the falling) for DDR. Google if you don't believe me. :)

Reviews:
Soyo P4I FIRE DRAGON P4 DDR motherboard on G3D.
Gainward GeForce4 Ti4600 video card on MikhailTech.
Shuttle SS50 Barebone P4 system on VIAHW.
Asus V8460 GeForce 4 Ti4600 video card on TweakTown.
DiskOnKey USB storage on OCrCafe.
Directron SF-201 aluminium case on AMDMB.
Zalman CNPS6500-Cu socket cooler on FrostyTech.
Creative Inspire 5700 5.1 speakers on DeviantPC.



Wednesday Morning (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 20-March-2002  11:40:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Martin has written a cold-boot voltage selector guide. Useful for motherboards that start with default voltage before changing to the value in the BIOS, like Asus's CUBX. He also says Btw, if you want to know what to do with the integrated heat spreaders you keep popping off your intel cpus all the time (don't ya?), this is the answer.

Dan's cooler comparison has had yet another 5 coolers added to it. Hold me, I'm scared.

Digit-Life have a huge article comparing Pentium 4 2.2 GHz vs. Athlon XP 2000+ on lots of different motherboard chipsets. They also have their 2-part CeBIT coverage here and here.

MrPCPro compared the Tyan Trinity 510 Vs Acorp 4D845A, a couple of DDR P4 motherboards.

Quadbox notes that Mandrake Linux 8.2 is out.

Murray says that here, you can get a Xbox Media Player Skin, picture looks good.

Denis spotted this monster video card from Sun and more info on its dual-core GPU here. According to Ace's Hardware: "the board features 32 MB of PC800 DRDRAM for GPU memory, 72 MB of 3DRAM, 64 for the framebuffer, and 256 MB of SDRAM for texture storage. All told, this totals 360 MB of onboard memory for use by a dual-core geometry processor and a rasterizer chip."

gbm31 has an interesting watercooler while MADMAX has squeezed his PC into a mysterious black box.

ViperLair have an article about activation and how Microsoft aren't as evil as we thought. Or maybe they are. That article doesn't really clear up the evilness aspect for me. :)

Bench-House have an overview of P4 chipsets.

Rick found a funny description of Australia by Douglas Adams (RIP).

HeatSeekerz have some info on serial ATA from CeBIT 2002. This is a future standard for hard drive connection.

PCStats have an article about unlocking the AthlonXP 2100+.. with a dremel (gulp).

Reviews:
ATi & Joytech's 8500LE video cards on HardOCP.
Iwill XP333-R socketA DDR333 motherboard on HardOCP.
Thermaltake Active Memory Cooling kit on CaseJunkiez.
EPoX 8K3A+ KT333-based SocketA DDR motherboard on TweakTown.
Cold Cathode barebones kit on MikhailTech.
EVGA GF4 MX 440 video card on AMDMB.
MSI G4MX440-T video card on AMD3D.
ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 8500DV video card on DesignTechnica.
Bitspower NP80D socket cooler on CoolerHut.
ATI Radeon 8500 video card on Tweakers.
Swiftech H202-C watercooler on DWPG.
Belkin Wireless Networking gear on ComputerSource.
EPoX 8K3A+ KT333-based socketA DDR motherboard on VR-Zone.
Marvel Comics Fan Grills on ClubOverclocker.
Alpha PAL8942 on ClubOverclocker.
BeingSeen EL Light Tape on GideonTech.
AOpen AX45-V SiS645-based P4 DDR motherboard on PCStats.
DiskOnKey USB storage on 3DVelocity.
Marvel Comics fan grills on OCIA.



Thermaltake Volcano 7+ Review (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 20-March-2002  01:38:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Jeff McLuckie checked out this copper-heatsinked cooler from Thermaltake. It comes with a speed regulator that allows you to choose when you want loud with good cooling or quiet with less cooling..


Click for the full review!



Tuesday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 19-March-2002  16:56:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Monday Afternoon

TerminalError has an idea what to do when you don't want to cut the side-panels of your case.. also check out nice setups from Exciter and nemaste2 and Driver's cool LED's.

Kieran has found out how to make a dummy monitor for connecting to the video card of PC's that get upset when you run them without a monitor attached. This stops them from behaving strangely by making them think there's a monitor connected.

There's some discussion in the forums about whether AMD is dropping the 4 heatsink mounting holes in their socketA motherboard specification.. threads here and here.

Interesting article on HWZone about turning AthlonXP's into AthlonMP's. AMD always said that the XP's would work in SMP but were not supported - but it seems some motherboards refuse to detect more than one XP. HWZ have identified the CPU bridge that lets them work in SMP mode! This could work for Durons too, which would be cheap and grunty SMP indeed. Nice work and unsurprisingly it was Slashdotted, thanks to Hendot and a few others for letting us know.

Wired have an article about Australian clothing involving intelligent polymers that can generate power, protect the wearer and monitor your health.

Icrontic have info about IT Certifications, thanks BJ.

8Dimensional have put together some hefty directories of motherboard reviews and Game Reviews.

Yaleman says there are WindowsXP updates on WindowsUpdate now.. It's supposed to fix the "windows has recovered from a serious error" problem, which I have been getting a lot lately. There are updates for error reporting, one for resuming from shutdown, a keyboard layout update (good for us non-english typists) and another MSN update.

GotApex have compared the Lite-On LTR-40125S and Plextor PX-W4012TA/SW 40X CDRW drives.

VIAHW take another look at IBM's 120GXP-series hard drives in the light of statements made by IBM about their operating life. IBM have been copping a lot of flak lately about the reliability of their drives, particularly the 75GXP and (less so) 60GXP range.. for the record, I have 2 of each here and have been running them continuously for ages with no problems. Still, makes it hard to recommend them with some of the nightmares others are experiencing.

Looking for a little part-time work? Junkz spotted this.. looks like it could be a bit of a pain in the, ahh.. neck.. though.

Interesting Forum Threads
Samsung PC2700 (see the real thing) in Overclocking & Hardware Discussion.
AthlonXP Unlocking in Overclocking & Hardware Discussion.
Monkey controls a cursor with thoughts in Media & Current Events.
Which mag is better? in Media & Current Events.
Monaro Weekend (big pics) in Motoring.
Mt Cotton Hillclimb in Motoring.
Montoya's Penalty (Formula One) in Motoring.

Reviews:
VIA Erza C3 CPU on Tech-Report.
Ratpadz mouse surface on ViperLair.
Intel 2GHz Northwood P4 CPU on HWExtreme.
Digidoc 5 fan controller on PCReview, our review here.



Monday Night (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 19-March-2002  00:29:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Rik and a few other sent in this iMac Bong story on Wired - that's one way to Think Different. :)

Derek spotted that new graphics chipsets from SiS are on the way and sound like something to keep an eye out for.

Cebit2002, the european electronics and computer show, is on at the moment. 27 halls and 7963 exhibitors! Makes the Sydney PC Show look a bit tame. Some Cebit2002 coverage here on Tobitech and here on AnandTech.

NeoSeeker have a Pentium 4 2.2 GHz & Athlon XP 2000+ shootout article posted.

Bit-Tech checked out the brightest LED on the planet..

Reviews:
Chaintech A-G441 GeForce 4 MX440 64Mb video card on OCTools.
Shuttle AK35GTR KT266A-based socketA DDR motherboard on 3DXtreme.
Sky Hawk economical case on IPKonfig.
Sound Blaster Extigy USB sound device on TweakTown.
Lian Li PC71 USB fulltower case on ClubOC.
Xoxide Warrior pre-modded case "review"/photo-fest on PGN.
HC-720 Aluminum HDD Cooler on TekSektor.
Thermalright AX-7 socket cooler on MonsterHardware.
Klipsch Promedia 4.1 speakers on HardAvenue.
Dr Thermal Extreme socket cooler on TekSektor.
AMS Elec. gTower CF-1006 case on Virtual-Hideout.
Directron Dragon fulltower case on IPKonfig.
Creative GF2 Ti200 video card on DeviantPC.
Arkua 7528 socket cooler on SubZeroTech.



Sunday Night (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 17-March-2002  21:41:36 (GMT +10) - by LoneWolf

News posts are getting less and less from me lately, really do wish I had more time ... Must be the party animal lifestyle I lead .. :rolleyes: (edited due to confusion over the wording I used) :)

Article here that covers the last 7 years of graphics advances for PC's. Interesting read.

Competition here for a new website called 4peeps.com in which they are giving away a GeForce 3 Ti 200 64meg DDR video card. No details though, as my connection has been playing up lately.

Interesting story sent in by Manaz. Intel has developed a new heat sink and fan to dissipate more than 50% more heat from more powerful processors. Sounds like an orb to me...

Overkill LAN 5a is being held in Melbourne from 10 Am on April 6th to 3 PM on 7th April. Their network backbone is now fully cisco, which ensures awesome pings and download speeds. CS, TFC and Q3 Competitions are scheduled, all with prizes. For further info, visit the overkill lan webpage, and for registration, visit here.

Matex send this link which details some of the finer points in shipping stuff from the US to Australia. And some of their restrictions are weird to say the least.

Tweakers Australia are having a giveaway of the copper Thermalright SK-6 Heatsink in their forums. You can read the review at Tweakers, and all you have to do to enter is tell them why you want it.

Keith sent this link in, for a modded acrylic case. The guy got a clear case, then smoked it with black paint which turns clear when the case is lit. Also comes with detailed instructions on how to do it yourself. It's getting harder and harder to think up original case mods these days.

DoCsIs sent in this cool flash thingy, which is very similar to a police identi-kit. Had a bit of fun messing around with this. :)

Bollocks wants to know where all the OCAU folders hail from, so there is a poll set up in the Distributed Computing forum to find out just that. Cheers.

Reviews:
MSI GeForce MX 440 - T from DeviantPC.
Lian-Li PC61 USB from TekBug.
Maxtor UDMA/133 HDD also from TekBug.
Inno3D Tornado Geforce4 MX 440 on TechSeekers.



(VERY) Late Sunday morning (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 17-March-2002  13:01:59 (GMT +10) - by Manaz

This post would have been up over an hour ago, except for an annoying java applet on a site I was checking a link to crashing IE. No linkage for that site today! Anyway, on with the news (again). Oh, and thanks to everyone who emailed me about the mysterious pictures in the PCDB - the general concensus is that the pictures show parts from a small refridgerator of some description being adapated to PC cooling.

Last night, I posted a link to some information about an upcoming Abit Motherboard with integrated, well, just about everything. It turns out not only have Abit integrated a lot (Firewire, USB2, RAID, NIC, sound) into the motherboard, but they've also left stuff off, such as parallel, serial and PS/2 ports. Legacy free - and still won't suit me. Thanks to Mark for the link.

F1DarkFlash thought we might find these statistics about Internet usage and connectivity interesting. Half a billion people online from home sounds like a *lot* of people - until you consider that the world population is a touch over six billion, meaning that less than 10% of the world's population have Internet access of some form at home.

Mal (one of our forum members) has had quite a bit of luck overclocking Athlon XPs it seems. Including getting an Athlon XP 1600+ to 1920MHz. Bravo (another forum regular), not to be outdone, posted his 1600+ at 1961 MHz in the same thread. That's some SERIOUS overclocking. And the good news doesn't stop there - apparently some recent Athlon XP processors haven't been "trenched" when the L1 bridges have been laser cut - meaning they're a LOT easier to unlock. Which is very nice for overclockers - there's plenty of information in the thread I've linked to - I'd suggest reading it all if you want the full story!

Michael wrote in with news that nVidia are releasing versions of their nForce chipsets which support 333MHz DDR RAM.

Voodoo wrote in to let us know that VIA have posted their latest AGP drivers (for motherboards based on VIA chipsets) on the VIA Arena website, here. They will be included in the next set of 4-in-1 drivers, but you can manually install them now if you wish - they apparently give better performance, especially under Windows XP.
Chenbro Micom PC610 ATX case on The Tech Zone.

AzonIc has found the ultimate PC protection tool. Yes, that's said tongue in cheek. But it's still cool nonetheless.

bit-tech have published an article on a DIY Lighted Fan Mod. The end result looks pretty impressive actually - though I wouldn't rely on the fan in a critical cooling situation...

All good things must come to an end it seems. Version 4.01 LE will be the last version of NVmax - the source code is being released on the 23rd of March, 2002, but all support for it by the author (and the ability to download it from nvmax.com) will cease as of the 25th of March 2002. Hopefully, someone will pick the code up and continue to develop it, as I'm sure lots of people have found it a very useful tool.

LAN news. Brisbanites interested in attending a computer gaming LAN should check out the GameVictims LAN - coming up on the 6th and 7th of April. 100 spots only, so if you're interested, registering early might be an idea. Those in far north Queensland would probably be more interested in FNQGL's event, on the 4th and 5th of May. Those of you in/around Newcastle will be pleased to hear that the Newcastle Gamers League LAN is back on March 23rd and 24th.

In the timeless tradition of OCAU linking to Shockwave Flash "games", try this one. All I can say is that I hope you're good with a mouse, and can beat my lame score of 30.65 seconds...

Reviews:
Leadtek Winfast A170 DDR-T GeForce 4 MX 440 on OCTools.
Gigabyte Radeon 7500 Pro on HardwarePub.
FIC AN11 Stealth Socket A Motherboard on PCStats.
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ on Got|Apex.
Thermaltake Volcana 7+ heatsink on OCPlus.
Logitech Mouseman Dual Optical Mouse on bit-tech.
Dynamat (sound deadening material for PCs) on IANAG.
Samsung SyncMaster 181T flat panel display on IANAG.
HiCool HDD cooler on CoolerHut.
Samsung SyncMaster 181B flat screen display on PCStats.
ATi Radeon 8500 video card on Bench House.
Belkin Wireless Networking on 3DGameMan.
EPoX 4BDA2+ motherboard on OverclockedCafe.
WD 1000JB "Special Edition" hard drive on OcPrices.
Arkura 628 and 7528 heatsinks on PC-Extreme.
SiS 645SX reference board on VR-Zone.
MSI GF4Ti4600 Video Card on Digit-Life.
Shuttle AK35GTR motherboard on Tweakers Australia.
Vantec CCK-6027D Heatsink on BurnOut PC.



Late Saturday evening (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 17-March-2002  01:22:56 (GMT +10) - by Manaz

Sorry that it's been so long since the last news post - I'll make up for it though, and make this one *really* big, OK?
Update: I'll be splitting the news up into a post tonight, and a post tomorrow morning. There's simply too much to put it all in one post - I'm tired, and I have the second day of my cricket semi-final tomorrow - and I need sleep...

Digitalis wrote in to let us know that Microsoft are getting close to releasing Service Pack 3 for Windows 2000. In fact, there are some sites offering SP3 Release Candidate 3.51 (basically a beta) for download. Please note that the site linked to just then is *not* an official Microsoft distribution site, and Overclockers Australia are *not* responsible for anything that may happen to your PC should you choose to download the SP3 file - it's beta, and it's an unofficial download site - you take your own chances.

Feek pointed out that it seems that supercooling and overclocking is reaching the "mainstream" market - well, at least you'd be excused for thinking so, after seeing this article about a 3GHz Vapochill PC on the BBC News website.

Mothug sent us in this information on x-bit labs about Abit's upcoming KT333 based motherboard. There's a decided lack of PCI slots - and lots of integrated components. I personally wouldn't buy a board like this, but I guess time will tell how the market receives this sort of product.

If I were to tell you that the desk your PC is sitting on right now could be used as a giant speaker, you'd probably think I was off my tree. You'd be wrong, apparently. Thanks to both Josh and Sphinx for sending us the link.

There's a couple of rather interesting PCDB entries that have been spotted recently - this clear case, this rather heavily modded system, and if anyone can explain to me what this is supposed to be, I'll sleep easier at night. Or at least my curiosity will be satisfied. Of course, you've all got entries in the PCDB, don't you?

Dan's had a look at some rather impressive Altec Lansing Select 641 speakers. Computer speakers that don't, apparently, suck.

Overclockers New Zealand have grabbed a whole bunch of GeForce 4 MX video cards, and done a big comparison between them.

ICEHardware are looking for a slogan. And they're willing to give away a rather nice backlit graphical LCD to the person who comes up with the best slogan. Sounds quite reasonable, so put your thinking caps on, and see what you can come up with!

Reviews:
Soyo K7V-Dragon Plus motherboard on Accelenation.
Bitspower NP18NCS heatsink on CoolerHut.
Asus V8170 Geforce4 MX440 video card on Hardware Avenue.
Logitech Wingman Rumblepad on Planet Savage.
EPoX 4BDA2+ Motherboard on TweakTown.
Mushkin Enhanced High Performance PC2100 DDR RAM on PC Stats.
Tyan Tiger MPX motherboard on VIAHardware.
AOpen KF-45A case on OC-Melbourne.



Friday Evening (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 15-March-2002  18:17:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Mike spotted this interesting but kinda scary article about Microsoft .NET and what it really is.

CuttingTheEdge have a quick mice and pads comparison.

ATI have launched a motherboard chipset with integrated graphics, called the ATI Radeon IGP - AnandTech have the scoop. Interesting - it's a similar idea to NVIDIA's nForce chipset and we reviewed the first non-reference motherboard based on that here.

JimX spotted this cool freaky camera.. making your own is NOT recommended.

There's a LAN in western Sydney in April, info here.

Canada are apparently considering blank media taxes and Tech-Report think it's a dumb idea.

InsideProject are giving away a glow in the dark Chinese dragon and frankly I don't blame them.. if I had one I'd be trying to give it away too. Also some waterblocks and stuff, but you have to spam their forums to enter.

DDRZone are running a competition involving forum spamming too, but you need to dig around on the net also. I don't normally post these things, but it's Friday evening, so what the hell. In fact, if I listen carefully, I can hear the first beer calling me..

Interesting Forum Threads:
KR7A @ 212 Mhz w/o volt modification in AMD Hardware.
Your, You're, Yore, Their, There, They're in The Pub.
Who was the greatest Aussie? in The Pub.
Breakdown lanes and fines in Motoring.
Shorty's Party Fun (cocktail recipes) in Geek Food.
Car PC Discussion in Modding & Electronics.
Bond 20 - Title confirmed in Media & Current Events.
SoundBug turns flat surfaces into speakers in Audio Visual.
Building own speakers.. help! in Audio Visual.
VIA releases DDR333 for P4 in VIA Hardware.

Reviews:
Belkin Wireless Gateway on Virtual-Hideout.
InnovaCOOL 3.0 watercooling system on DWPG.
HighSpeedPC AthlonXP Unlocking Kit on TweakTown.
Logitech Internet Navigator Keyboard on G3D.
Matrox Millennium G550 Dual-DVI video card on Tweakers.
Creative Soundworks 5.1 speakers on 3DSpotlight.
Mstation Portable MP3 player and USB storage on TechWatch.
Plextor 40X CDRW drive on HardWarePub.
Creative GF4 MX440 video card on Guru3D.



Can't post or reply in the Forums? (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 15-March-2002  17:29:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The site was up and down late last night - not a server problem, we were doing some further testing in relation to the problem we had the other day.

On a separate note, we've been getting a lot of bounced emails back from people who have set the wrong email in UserCP in the Forums. Usually people change ISP's and forget to update their settings. This means any reply or PM notifications will be bounced back to the server and with nearly 11,000 members that's a lot of email and a lot of wasted bandwidth and server time. I have set the accounts with incorrect emails (based on the bounced messages) to "Requiring Email Confirmation" which means you cannot post or reply until you enter a correct email in UserCP and respond, as you did when you first signed up, to the email the system sends you. Of course, most people in this situation have PM's turned off so there's no way for me to contact them. So if you suddenly find you can't post, that's why. More info here in the Site Discussion forum.



Thursday Night (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 14-March-2002  20:48:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Top story today is the announcement of AMD's AthlonXP 2100+ socketA CPU. This chip should come as no surprise to OCAU readers as we had a couple of sneak pics of it in our Sydney PC Show 2002 coverage from a few days ago. This CPU is likely to be the last of the Palomino-cored Athlons and, as predicted by our QuantiSpeed calculator, runs at 1733MHz. Reviews/articles on PCStats, HotHardware, Tech-Report, VIAHW, AMDMB, AnandTech, SimHQ, TekBug, 3DVelocity and TomsHardware.

Mal's been vapochilling his XP2000+ CPU's..

ViperLair have noticed that Radeon 8500DV's and Lian-Li's may not be a good combination.. bit of dremelling required to get the video card into the case, thanks Wokket. 3DGameMan have a video review of the 8500DV and HotHardware have pics and info on the new 128MB version with higher core and memory speeds.

Linux fans should be impressed by this 10-second kernel compile on LWN.net, thanks Ozone.

Telstra seems to be having more billing issues.. Thank you for switching back to Telstra for your local and long distance calls. By changing your preselection, you are able to take advantage of the $16.50 monthly preselection discount on your Telstra BigPond broadband ADSL service. This discount should have been applied to your ADSL account automatically when you switched back to Telstra, but due to a processing error this has not yet occurred. Thanks SecretSquirrel.

Drayzen spotted these new Abit MAX motherboards.. however, that PR seems to be down at the moment. EXHardware have another press-release on their site, but that one manages to go on and on about the wonders of the product without actually telling you anything at all about it. The plot thickens.

Dan takes his cricket bat to town on dodgy website graphs in his thermal paste comparison.. all the big players of course, including toothpaste and Vegemite. Guess which won.

Seems it will soon be illegal for kiddies to buy norti music in Australia.

Funny article about microsoft being split in two, thanks Simon.

Apparently this is a petition about Blizzard taking Bnetd down, thanks Falkor.. but I can't see that, either. Maybe my DNS is screwy, it wouldn't surprise me today.

Steve says Just when you thought your PC was dead, the new overclocked Jesus can ressurect it faster than ever.. funny stuff.

Martin has posted a guide to using Tualatin CPU's on i440BX motherboards. This is in reference to a thread in our Forums from a little while ago. Dave also found this link with a similar article.

Reviews:
Dynamat Xtreme Computer Kit sound-dampener on OCTools.
Plextor 24/10/40A CDRW on MihkailTech.
Ascent socket coolers on OCdCafe.
Microsoft Office Keyboard on Bit-Tech.



Thursday evening (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 14-March-2002  20:05:19 (GMT +10) - by Manaz

Early Thursday evening

Well, with the server having been down for a bit, there's some news that needs doing. And apparently (I think more by default than any other reason, no-one else was around), I'm the one to do it. So here we go...

MrW wrote in to let us know that there's a new version of Roxio Easy CD Creator been released - version 5.1.1 to be exact. I personally use Nero, but for those of you who prefer Easy CD Creator, there's some significant improvements there - including support for DVD-R, DVD-R/W and WindowsXP.

Apparently compu-geeks is almost 2 years old (congrats guys!)! To celebrate, they're giving away an InnovaFlat-Flow Copper Base Water Block. Details are on their main page (you've already got the link!).

Gaming in 3D have published a rather interesting article, entitled "A New Era in Bus Technology - AGP8x and 3GIO". As you may suspect, it's not about Sydney Transit's latest fleet of (driverless - they're striking again on Monday & Tuesday) buses insured by GIO Insurance, but rather about new computer system bus technologies. Anyway, enough of my drivel, go and read the article if you're at all interested.

PC Stats have published specs for their March 2002 Dream Machines. You know the ones, you really wish you could have them, but you know there's no way you'll ever be able to afford to buy them unless you win lotto. Or rob a bank. And as we ALL know, robbing banks is a VERY bad idea. So don't do it, OK?

Reviews:
Antec thermally controlled (smart) fans on Mikailtech.
EPoX 4DBA2+ motherboard on PC Hardware.
Trust FamilyCam 310AV Digital Camera on BurnOut PC.
Sonicblue Rio Volt SP250 (MP3 player w/ FM tuner) on Buddhacon.
Leadtek A170 GeForce4 MX440 on TweakTown.
Evergreen FireLine 20GB Pocket Hot Drive on GideonTech.
Xoxide Z-60 Clearstorm pre-modded case on Teksector.
Polk AMR130 5.1 Speakers on Neoseeker.
Logitech Mouseman Dual Optical mouse on The Tech Zone.
KDS 17" X-Flat monitor on TweakNews.
ATi All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500 on HardwarePub.
Thermalright SK-6 copper heatsink on Tweakers Australia.
ECS K7VTA3 Ver2.0 motherboard on Hardware Extreme.



Server Fun (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 14-March-2002  17:37:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Right, what a fun couple of days it's been.. not. As you hopefully noticed :) the server crashed yesterday afternoon after being in death throes (and not responding to console commands) for a few hours. When we got it back together, there was some minor filesystem corruption.. right across the forum database. So I've restored it as of the last backup, which was 4am yesterday morning. Not too much will have been lost because the server wasn't up for much since then anyway. :)

As for what caused the original crash, it's tempting to point the finger at the PCMark2002 mirror.. but from the logs, we really didn't do that much traffic from it. Nowhere near as much as from the 3DMark2001SE mirror a few weeks ago. The problem also seemed to be mostly mysql-centred, too.. anyway, I've taken the mirror down, we'll be keeping an eye on things and sifting through the logs for a while. Everything seems to be good now, tho.

Many thanks to MWP, Andypoo and the guys at AusGamers for their help getting things sorted. Lets see if we can get some news happening..



Tuesday Evening (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 12-March-2002  23:28:11 (GMT +10) - by Manaz

There's quite a bit of news tonight (lots of reviews), so rather than dilly-dallying around, I'll get straight into it.

First up, Issue 120 of ZZZ Online is out.

Next, for all those of you who thought the story (and photos) of the tug boat "sliding" under the bridge were false/fake/made up, apparently it's true.

Morgan thought that those of you in the Sutherland area of Sydney (or those willing to travel to Sutherland) may be interested in knowing that SutherLAN is coming up.

If you're using a Via based motherboard and Windows XP, and have experienced what has become known as the "Infinite Loop" or "NV Loop" error, Nigel thought this link would prove useful to you.

Thanks to OzEight for this one. If you are in Australia, and suffer from poor Internet connectivity due to "pair gain" telephone lines (you'll know it if you do), then this online survey being run by Senator Kate Lundy (Shadow Minister Assisting on Information Technology), may eventually lead to something being done about it.

The Tech Report have had a look at a couple of DVD/CD-RW drives - that write to DVDs as well, albeit in different formats.

PC Paradox is giving away a blank engineering planar for an upcoming EPoX dual Athlon motherboard. If that's the sort of thing that interests you, go enter (it's a "post in our forums" competition, but registration isn't required).

Digit-Life has posted a roundup of nine i845D motherboards, the second part of their GeForce4 MX 440 Video Cards Roundup, and their February Hardware Digest.

Offtopic stuff:
Eric sent in news of a page which lets you build virtual robots in Shockwave Flash.
Yahoo Serious is apparently suing Yahoo! (is he, dare I say it, serious?) - thanks to jobbers for that link.
All you wanted to know on navel fluff/lint (can you ever know enough?), courtesy of Falkor.
Ever wanted to own a pub or brewery? If so, would a virtual pub/brewery suffice? Cheers to Anthony for that link.
And finally, from Wokket, news that beer and chips (crisps) are good for your figure.

Reviews:
Plextor 40/12/40A CD-RW drive on HotHardware.
MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU on VIAHardware.
Thermalright AX-7 HSF on A1 Electronics.
Compex WavePort Wireless Network Solution on Got|Apex.
Cooler Master HHC-001 Heat Pipe on HardwarePub.
VisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti 4600 on Bjorn3D.
Lian-Li PC75 USB case on Technoyard.
EPoX 8K3A+ on VR-Zone.
Noisecontrol Magic Fleece Sound Absorbing Material on FrostyTech.
Bluetake USB Wireless Networking dongleon 3DGameMan.
Innovatek Watercooling Kit on OcPrices.
DiskOnKey USB Flash Memory Card/Keyring on BurnOut PC.
FIC Radeon 8500 video card on Tweakers Asylum.
Samsung 151s LCD screen on Neoseeker.



Cool new fan technology! (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 12-March-2002  22:54:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The fan in the picture below looks mostly normal.. but it's a new TMD fan from Y.S.Tech. TMD stands for Tip-Magnetic Driven.. that's right, there's no central hub motor. The fan is driven by motor coils around the circumference of the fan.. an interesting idea and an engineer from Y.S.Tech sent us over some technical data and pictures about it.


Click for the full article!



Tuesday Midday (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 12-March-2002  12:01:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg

MadOnion.com, makers of the 3DMark series of benchmarks, have had a countdown running on their site for a few days with a mysterious message saying something big is coming and it's not a new version of 3DMark. They've now updated that statement to say it's a new benchmark called PCMark2002 and by the current count it'll be available for download in about 20 hours. We already have a 3DMark2001SE mirror and I'll set one up for this new benchmark, too.

Digit-Life have an article comparing how dual systems using AthlonMP's or Pentium 3's compare in 3DSMax, a 3D-rendering package.

P4-Mobile performance seems to be pretty average even compared to the mobile P3, according to ZDNet. Business Winstone 2001, a testing suite for computers running common office applications, found the 1.7GHz Inspiron 8200's score of 38.4 to actually be behind that of its 1.13GHz Pentium III-M-based predecessor, the Inspiron 8100, as well as lagging behind Hi-Grade's desktop Pentium 4-based Ultinote M6400--although this did have the benefit of 512MB rather than 256MB of RAM.

Ah, the old pump in a bucket next to the PC.. reminds me of this site's early days. :)

Creative Technology have acquired 3DLabs, makers of the Oxygen series and other professional graphics adapters.

Pulp Phantom is a anime parody of Pulp Fiction and Star Wars.. funny but strong language in places if that bothers you, thanks Halibut.

An Australian is marketing a new security system that involves spraying thousands of microdots on an object, making it extremely easy to identify and hard to "rebirth".

IceHardware have a guide to making a baybus with LCD temp monitor.

Sniper spotted an article about a future technology timeline. Robots could outnumber humans in developed countries by 2025. Robotic firefighters, security guards, gardeners, maids, hospital workers, postmen and exercise companions are all predicted within 20 years. And insect-like robots could fight our wars within decades.

MegaBaz spotted an article on the top 10 american tv ads of all time, you can download and view them, some funny apparently.

KillerSmurf has some video cooling overkill.. you didn't need those PCI slots anyway.. :)

Digital-Explosion are wondering if it might be possible to watercool RAM in a PC.

Mods4Me have a KR7A voltage mod guide posted. Our review of the KR7A with RAID is here. They also have an AthlonXP unlocking guide and a guide to soldering.

Hexus have a guide to making stealth blow holes.. those must be the ones that appear in your PC overnight with no warning. :)

Reviews:
EG465P-VE 431W PSU on Bit-Tech.
DigiDoc5 fan controller on OCrsClub, our review here.
eVGA GeForce4 MX440 video card on IANAG.
Below Zero Puma socket cooler on MikhailTech.
190CFM fan on TheTechZone.
Magic Pro case on Heatseekerz.
Zalman CNPS5500Cu socket cooler on TweakTown.
Asus A7V333 KT333-based socketA DDR motherboard on Tweakers.
CoolerMaster HHC-001 heatpipe-based socket cooler on 3DVelocity.



Funny Pic (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 11-March-2002  12:13:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Tim sent this along.. the real reason behind sluggish P4 performance? :)


Click to enlarge!



Monday Morning (5 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 11-March-2002  11:59:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg

After five years of making first person shooters like Quake2, Quake III Arena, and Quake III: Team Arena, designer Paul Jaquays has left id software, thanks Trout. There's an interview with Paul here.

In a similar vein to the C64 webserver from a couple of days ago, Darmok spotted this net-connected BBS running on a C64.. at this old computer museum.

Jaw174 sent in this guide to making a wireless antenna from a tin can - and apparently the pringles tubes like we saw earlier are not as good as a beef stew or coffee can at extending the range of a wireless network. So there you go.

Virtual-Hideout have been modding a LiteOn FS020 case.

IceHardware have an LCD guide posted. Check out Wolfy's DIY LCD guide here.

Peal spotted an engaged couple who met playing DiabloII online.. awww. I know we have a few relationships going on in the OCAU Forums, but I don't think we've had any start between people who've met there. I'm sure we'll have our first OCAU wedding soon enough tho. :)

There's a LAN in Fremantle, WA on the 30th of March.. info here.

StormBringer has put updated pics of his mean grean watercooled machine in the PCDB.

Interesting Forum Threads:
Why you should always use a fan grill in Modding & Electronics.
Drowning trailbikes in Motoring.
Designing and making PCB's in Modding & Electronics.
Do you use Anti-Aliasing? in NVIDIA Hardware.
PC2700 RAM in AMD Hardware.
Why can't I connect at 56.6k? in Networking & Internet.
How do you make your noodles? in Geek Food.

Reviews:
Crystal Fontz 633 Temp/Fan Control Panel on ProCooling.
Akasa AK268 socket cooler on OCrCafe.
ATi TV Wonder USB TV tuner on Accelenation.
Visiontek Xtasy 6564 GeForce3 Ti 200 video card on HWExtreme.
Matrox Millennium G550 Dual-DVI video card on Tweakers.
DiskOnKey ThumbDrive USB storage on Tech404.
Mini Bay Bus fan controller on TweakersAsylum.
Coolermaster ATC-600 case on AMDMB.
Power Cooler PCH137H socket cooler on MikhailTech.
Tin-coated Copper Ramsinks on Teksektor.



Another virus doing the rounds.. (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 11-March-2002  08:58:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Gotten a heap of these over the last few days - a message with a title like "a very funny website" or "A funny game" or "a powful tool".. with a .jpg and an .exe attached and a pseudo-english message body, usually ending with a line like "i wish you would enjoy it" or "i wish you would like it". Can't see any new alerts about it on SARC, tho.

Remember kids, don't run executables from strangers!



Archive Updated.. (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 11-March-2002  01:41:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg

I've updated our Article & Review Archive with some recent content:

Leadtek Winfast GeForce3 TDH video card review.
KingMax PC2700 DDR333 256MB SDRAM review.
Quantispeed Calculator for working out XP+ ratings and MHz.
Apple iPod MP3 player review.
Enermax UC-9FAB adjustable-speed fan review.
Sydney PC Show March 2002 coverage.



Sunday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 10-March-2002  13:17:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg

OCPlus have a guide to making a variable speed fan from a temp-sensing one. Pretty simple stuff.. the advantage of course is that you can choose the fan speed and hence the noise it makes, as suitable for how hard the PC is working at the time. Surfing the web: quiet. Playing a game: loud. More ideas along these lines from our archives: voltage reduction to slow noisy fans, using an automotive rheostat to control a lot of fans at once and a thermal control circuit to speed them up automatically when things get hot. There are commercial products to control fan speed too, from the (probably only in Japan) ST Fan Controller to the impressive-looking PCMods Rheobus and the automatic Digidoc 5.

The SB Audigy may not be as new as originally thought. I'm sure we heard something about this when the Audigy first came out, but it went all quiet again.. hmm.

overl0ad spotted this server-oriented Dual SocketA board from Abit.

Sun say that Microsoft engaged in extensive anticompetitive conduct by not including Java support in WinXP and is suing them for one billion dollars.

Mods4Me have 2 chipset tweaking guides posted.. one for KT133/KT133A/KX133 and the other for AMD760.

Tweaktown have their ITExpo/PCShow 2002 coverage posted.

TheInq are reporting on a strange statement by an IBM person about some of their HDD products.. that they shouldn't be powered more than 8 hours a day..? Thanks ScarifieR.

From the PCDB: Woofer's 3GHz Northwood P4, Vapochill-cooled, naturally.. and Postal's custom watercooled cube case.

Reviews:
AMD Duron 1.2GHz socketA CPU on PlanetSavage.
Netgear MR314 wireless router on TheDDRZone.
GlacialTech Igloo coolers on Digit-Life.
Light Strips on ExtremeOC.
Creative MegaWorks 510D 5.1 speakers on Digit-Life.
Cooljag JAC311C socket cooler on BurnOutPC.
Fortish Technology socket coolers on 8Balls.
CyberCooler Keyboard on MikhailTech.
Hercules XPS 210 speakers on MGON.



Sydney PC Show 2002 (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 10-March-2002  12:41:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg

I went to the Sydney PC Show on Wednesday and took a few pics of cool things I saw in my wanderings. Like last year's article this isn't a massive in-depth analysis of the show.. just some pics and my comments about things I thought were cool.. or weird. :)


Click for the full article!



PC PowerPlay Mag (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 10-March-2002  01:34:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Just a quick note to let you guys know I have accepted, for the next 3 months at least, the role of "Technical Editor" at PC PowerPlay magazine.. as in glossy-cover, buy in it newsagents type printed magazine. Their Editor asked me to come onboard and add a little more meat to their hardware/tech section and I've accepted.

Now, before you go ranting about how this will mean I have less time for OCAU - I'm way ahead of you there. My agreement with PCPP allows me to use review goodies that PCPP arrange, for content on OCAU too.. and they have a lot more contacts than I do. So in fact, this will mean MORE content for OCAU! So everyone wins.

More specifics as they come to hand, but the first issue with my input in it (Issue #73) should be hitting the streets in a few weeks.. (bites fingernails)



Saturday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)
 Saturday, 9-March-2002  14:33:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg

A few people have been sending news to my personal account lately.. this makes me grumpy. Please send your news to news@overclockers.com.au and make everyone happy. :)

Peacekeeper sent word of a new Asus Competition starting soon, where you can win lots of goodies by answering quizzes.

GideonTech have a 6-way socket cooler roundup posted.

Wired reckon that there's so many intrusions on the net because software is insecure.. well, duh. Speaking of which, Outlook and IE have another security hole, thanks alx.

ClubOC reviewed at a new hdd cooler from Vantec. We've looked at a few of these sorts of devices over the years, from a not so useful one to a very effective one.

Josh says that we were woefully remiss in not telling everyone that the CS 1.4 Public Beta is out! He's probably right.

Nice transparent case project by Frombosis in the PCDB.

Apparently hax0rs have added the humble pringles tube to their arsenal of tools, thanks alx. Paulh sent in a funny report of Melbourne Police vs Angry Ostrich.

Painstation is a new game with more incentive to not lose than usual.. in the form of electric shocks. Info here and here, thanks to.. err, someone calling themselves "Halibut Toothpick".. righty-ho. Either I took the wrong flu tablet this morning or today is just getting wierder and wierder..

Reviews:
Compex Wireless Networking goodies on PCReview.
Abit BD7-RAID i845D-based P4 DDR motherboard on OCNZ.
IOmega Predator CD-RW Firewire 8x CDRW on DDRZone.
PlexWriter 24/10/40A CDRW on ClubOC.
Thermaltake i845 chipset cooler on OCAddiction.
Evercool CUC-610 socket cooler on OCrCafe.
VPSD P4PA-UL P4X266A-based P4 DDR motherboard on VIAHW.



Saturday Morning (0 Comments) (link)
 Saturday, 9-March-2002  01:03:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Wolfy spotted this C64 webserver which, given it's connected using a 38.4bps connection, will probably be really slow now it's been linked from here. :)

TomsHardware have dug up 3x GeForce4 Ti4600 cards and compared them.. check out the cooling on the Leadtek! Cooling seems to be the only variation from the reference design we're seeing, these days.

Peter sent word that Telstra have admitted overcharging customers. It has discovered problems with its billing process and has been overcharging some Bigpond Broadband customers.

Admiral found this cool 3D thesaurus, good fun for word geeks.

FutureLooks have an editorial about shopping on the net.

Wild posted a copy of the email he got from DingoBlue, confirming their closure.

How to make a Glowing Mouse Pad, thanks Daniel.

Reviews:
Visiontek XTasy 6964 GF3 Ti500 video card on ViperLair.
AMD AthlonXP 2000+ socketA processor on PureOC.
Intel Northwood P4 2.4GHz processor on HWMania.
Dynatron DY1206BH-625 socketcooler on BurnOutPC.

Interesting Forum Threads:
Website logs off WinXP in Software Stuff.
New Matrox Card? in Overclocking & Hardware.
Quieten those IBM HDD's in Overclocking & Hardware.
New and returning TV series in Media & Current Events.
Peltier Theory and Math in Extreme Cooling.



Friday Night (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 8-March-2002  23:52:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Hexus have "scoopage" of some Crucial DDR333 memory on the way. I checked out KingMax's DDR333 about a week ago.

Need $100,000 USD? Got a good head for numbers? Crack this code and you'll get the cash, thanks F1DarkFlash. More info here, thanks Anthrox - apparently the same company has a box on the net they invite you to hax0r and win some less-exciting prize.

Mr-X spotted an interesting article about how GeForce4's are sometimes limited by the CPU.

Dan's been playing with some Hercules sound stuff including speakers and sound cards.

[H]ard|OCP have an editorial about the state of LANning, how it is now and what it needs to make it better.

Bern says there's new Linux NVIDIA drivers but you should read these instructions before

Reviews:
Abit Siluro GF4 MX440 video card on TweakTown.
Ascent AC7000E socket cooler on Digital-Explosion.
Chaintech 7VJDA KT266A socketA DDR motherboard on OCTools.
AVC Tundra socket cooler on OCdCafe.



Thursday Night News (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 7-March-2002  23:41:59 (GMT +10) - by LoneWolf

Thought it was about time I performed my "news-ly" duties again, :) so here goes.......

First off, wanna buy a battle-tested, anti-tank missile launcher? Sure you do, and rightly so ... Go here and check it out..Cheers Smash.

If you live in NSW, and would be interested in playing soccer, our very own forum member Pax, needs you to go here and have a read :)

According to this story sent in by DJOsborn, 1 in 5 american households have some form of broadband. (says me doing news from 56k shared dialup) :(

Hehe. In an e-mail received by Wokket, was the following : Thought for the day...........

If you bought $1000 worth of Ansett Stock one year ago, it would be worth $49 today.
If you bought $1000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, and traded in the cans for the aluminium, you would have $52 today.

Beer - is there anything it can't do?
Mmmmmm, beer :)

Apple was honored by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences with a Technical GRAMMY Award for its outstanding technical contributions to the music industry and recording field. This is the first Technical GRAMMY ever awarded to a PC company. Thanks Scott.

Wokket also spotted this on [H] ... It's a metal, that only conducts heat ONE way!! Think of the uses for something like that.

Australian site TechnoMancer have a couple of interesting pictures. An XP2100+ and some DDR400 RAM.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the software giant would have to withdraw the Windows operating system from the market if a federal court approves sanctions being sought by nine states in its antitrust case, according to depositions released Monday. WHOA! Thanks Alex.

If you are a Star Wars fanatic, and live in QLD, perhaps you would like to attend a Star Wars Convention at the University of Queensland on the 29-31 of March? Thought you might, see you there :) Cheers Oxmax.

Apparently the "iron phone" we linked to earlier may be CDMA and the latest on the market, but the "blender phone" was around first. Yes, it's real and you can actually buy one. Taa Denis.

Long haired Git sent in this link to ratpadz.com.au. Apparently you'll soon be able to buy them direct yourself.

Reviews:
Enermax CS-003-A102 case on The CoolerHut.
XOXIDE Z-60 Clearstorm premodded case on RizeNet.
Samsung SyncMaster 171B 17 inch LCD monitor on FutureLooks.
Vantec WC6040 P4 Cooler from PC Arena.
Thermaltake Active Memory Cooling Kit on TobiTech.
Enermax Speed-Dial 80mm fans on CaseJunkiez.
Shuttle AK35GTR Motherboard from TweakTown.
Directron SF860S-USB Hydraulic Case from MikhailTech.
ThermoEngine V60-4225 HSF from TekSector.
Tyan Tiger MPX Motherboard on Tech-Report.
Nanotherm Ice and Blue Thermal Compound over at EXHardware.
Jetway S446R Motherboard on Accelenation.



Folding Fight Failing! (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 7-March-2002  12:05:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Our world-leading Folding@Home Team is in very real danger of dropping back to 2nd place within the next couple of days unless we boost our output. If you stopped Folding for whatever reason, consider starting up again. If you don't know how to help, here's how to join our team. Come on Aussie! :)


Thursday Morning #3 (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 7-March-2002  11:41:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The plot thickens, surrounding the Hughes Wireless "nobody can find out anything but it sounds really interesting" Internet thing.. more info here, thanks Derek. Brian says I just called the number for the wireless Internet thing and as of 9am they have stopped business and all files have been destroyed. More info here, thanks Peter. Bummer, would have been nice to have more competition in the Australian broadband market. Even Senator Alston thinks so, thanks Josh.

Seems Dingoblue are closing too, thanks Doggyboy and PsyKo-Billy.

Sanies spotted a stealth fan, interesting.

GRC.com have info on a new type of DDoS attack, thanks Morgan. Feelings are mixed about the value of info from GRC, but from a quick skim it looks like an interesting read.

Just what the world needs, a combination phone and iron, thanks HyRax1.. I'm assuming this is a net version of the ancient (insert minority here) joke. :)

Attack of the badge-lite reviews! Incoming from DansData, Teksektor and OCIA. Makes your case badge glow, woo.

xbit feel that Asus have used some dishonest marketing with their GF4 Ti cards, thanks Mothug.

SubZeroTech have compared a few ATI Radeon 8500 driver versions.

VIAHW have an article about the stupidity of keeping spam legal.. the amount of spam I get on a daily basis is unbelievable these days.

TweakTown have a guide to installing WinXP. We had a very early preview article about XP a while ago.

The ACCC took CD giants Warner and Universal to the Australian Federal Court on grounds of abusing their market power and got them slapped with over half a million dollar fines each, thanks Morgan.

It's been 40 years since the first video game was made, thanks Funkdafied.

Noticas3D have posted an (english) guide to tweaking using NVMAX, optimizing your NVIDIA-based video card.

Hellfire found an interesting article that claims several of the hijackers deemed responsible for (and killed in) the September 11 attacks, are alive and well and say they had nothing to do with it.

Reviews:
CoolerMaster HHC-001 heatpipe socket cooler on ThinkTechie.
CoolerMaster HHC-001 heatpipe socket cooler also on InsideProject.
RD1 Bios Saviour on VyW.. actually, a different site called VoidedWarranty, hmm.
IBM DeskStar 60GXP HDD on the same site.
VIA C3 socket370 processor on BlueSmoke.
TRENDnet RK-800R rackmount 8-port KVM switch on PCStats, sounds like what I need.
AMD AthlonXP 2000+ CPU on PCParadox.
Shuttle AK35GTR KT266A-based SocketA DDR motherboard on Accelenation.
Matrix Orbital VFD Display on Bit-Tech.
Global Win YCC-61F1 case on AMDMB.



Thursday Morning #2 (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 7-March-2002  10:57:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg

There are a lot of seriously grumpy emails in the news box regarding rumours of a download cap coming to Optus@Home, similar to the existing (and much complained-about) one on Telstra's cable service. Whirlpool think that a small price increase is more likely and at least one OCAU reader has apparently received an email from Optus which makes the price rise seem more likely. Based on the response to that first article I'm sure everyone on O@H would MUCH prefer to pay a few extra bucks rather than suffer a big data cap.

Digit-Life have an article (or 3) about the SPEC CPU2000 benchmark.

AnandTech have posted their wrap-up of the Intel Developers Forum.

More P4 laptops on the way, thanks Zed. A mobile P4 with a GeForce4Go in it would be a pretty decent laptop.. I wouldn't be surprised if it ignites the fat in your thighs after a few minutes of Counter-Strike, tho.

PersianIMMORTAL sent word of these Beta DetonatorXP 27.70.. I've been using them with the GF4 I have here for testing, because the latest ones on nvidia's site don't support it. They seem ok, but your results may differ.

Apparently Morpheus was hacked and will now use a different network, thanks paulhoopen.

A nice P4 waterblock over on OCNZ, thanks H2gO Flasher.

VH have a cold-cathode shootout, these can add a great effect to your PC if used well.

OCPlus had fun unlocking their XP1700+.

On the Cable-TV side of things, Optus and Foxtel have a new content-sharing agreement, more info here, thanks xjc8 and Grant.

Some new BMW cars have Windows, and not just the glass kind.. which makes this ad funnier, thanks R0d.

Intel has been backing consumer rights when it comes to copyright.. kinda, thanks DJ-Studd.

Reviews:
Lian-Li PC35 case on OCdCafe.
Cold Cathode light kit on Tobitech.
AK35GTR KT266A-based SocketA DDR motherboard on MikhailTech.
Rounded Cables on Elite-Hardware, our cheapy option here.
GlobalWin TAK68 socket cooler on TweakTown.
Visiontek XTasy 6564 GF3 Ti200 video card on ViperLair.
Xbags PC carrying system on OCrsClub.
eVGA's GeForce4 MX 440 on HardwarePub.



Thursday Morning (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 7-March-2002  10:24:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg

No news yesterday as I was at the IT Expo in Sydney.. also, this morning I think there may have been a router problem for a little while, the server was unavailable but now it's back and shows no sign of having rebooted. And, I'm sick as a dog with some horrible throat lurgy I seem to have picked up at the PC Show! That'll teach me to go out into the real world. Anyway, there's no doubt a zillion emails in the news box, so let's get into it..

Dicey noticed that OCAU is xis.com.au's site of the week this week! Cool.

I received one of these emails a couple of days ago, thanks Scott.. it sounds like a Microsoft security update but of course it's a trojan. Seemed suspicious to me so I didn't run it and I hope you didn't either.. might be a good time to update your virus software yet again.

Bit-Tech have a hefty guide to making a transparent case.

Jadlak spotted some cool desktop mini-rover toys.

SourceMag checked out Intel's mobile P4 and Radeon 7500 Mobility..

That Unlimited Wireless Internet thing from the newspaper recently seems less and less convincing every day, thanks DudeMan.

Today seems to be nForce motherboard review day.. with Abit's NV7M on Hexus and Asus's A7N266-E on Tweakers and HotHardware. You can check out our review of MSI's K7N420 Pro here.

Apparently DivX 5 is out, thanks ffindog.. there's also a new version of Flash coming, thanks thetron.

Robotic brain surgeons and homeless hackers on Wired.

Reviews:
Medal of Honour: Allied Assault game on FutureLooks.. popular in IRC, this one.
Guillemot Radeon 7500 AIW video card on Guru3D.
Light Strip casemod kit on OCIA.
Hercules Prophet 3 Ti500 video card on HardExtreme.
Skymaster DRV-0262 Mini CF Card Reader on DansData.
Shuttle AK35GTR SocketA DDR motherboard on PCHardware.
Kyro 2 video chipset on MrPCPro.
Arctic Silver 3 thermal paste on OCMelbourne.
Nikau Zeus case on TheTechZone.
Coolermaster E210 case on OCPrices.



Screwy Text Colours (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 5-March-2002  15:27:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Users of Netscape and certain versions of IE might have gotten unreadable black-on-blue text on this page over the last few days.. thanks to Darkness for fixing that up. If you have the problem in future, try hitting Ctrl-F5 to force your browser to refresh the page. In doing so it should reload the CSS document that defines the colours etc.


Tuesday Midday (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 5-March-2002  12:34:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Bit of a stir going on at the moment regarding an amazing newspaper offer made by a new player on the Telco market, thanks Ryan. There's some introductory info here and here on Whirlpool, as well as discussion here, here and here in our own forums. Certainly seems too good to be true, but there's pretty strong arguments on both sides. If you get it installed, let me know. :)

Manaz found out what happens when teddy bears get assimilated.. with a network switch inside, pretty cool.

Interesting article about ticket reselling (not scalping, no, really) from Hoe.

We've linked this amazing towboat thing before but the site was down (for me anyway) last time.. so there it is again, thanks arkenstone.

OCMelbourne have a guide to unlocking Thunderbird CPU's.. these are the older socketA CPUs, not the newer Palomino-cored AthlonXP and Durons.. most people unlocked their Tbirds using a normal pencil.

Some GF4 goodness: VisionTek GeForce4 Ti4600 video card reviewed on HardOCP. HotHardware have been overclocking a GeForce4 Ti4600, as you would, while Digit-Life compared a few more GF4 MX440 video cards. TheTechZone and VR-Zone focus on the Abit Siluro GF4 MX 440 and eVGA GF4 MX 440 respectively.

I have to confess, I spent way too much time playing Lycos Fight Club yesterday.

Reviews:
MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU KT333-based SocketA DDR motherboard on PCStats.
SilentDrive HDD enclosure on MikhailTech.
Intel Northwood P4 2.2GHz CPU on 3DVelocity.
Directron SF860B midtower case on VIAHW.
Xoxide Polaris pre-modded case on OCAddiction.
Samsung SyncMaster 210T 21" LCD screen on BlueSmoke.
Thermaltake 1U DTFCF014-1 heatsink on FrostyTech.
Ali Aladdin P4 DDR chipset on Digit-Life.
Audiovox DVD-1500 portable DVD player on Monster-Hardware.



Monday Afternoon (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 4-March-2002  14:35:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Oh yeah, the site went down for a couple of hours a couple of nights ago.. I broke something and went to bed. Thanks to Andypoo and MWP for fixing it. Note to self: don't do sysadminny stuff at 2am. :)

[H]ard|OCP have info on a problem between EPoX's EP-8KHA+ motherboard and VisionTek's GF4 Ti4600 video card.. it's a clash of the capacitors, which prevents the card being inserted into the AGP slot. HardOCP lay the blame firmly at EPoX's feet for including tall capacitors in a "restricted component height" area as listed in the AGP 2.0 spec. Some more info in this thread in our Forums. I have the MSI GF4 Ti4600 here and it fits fine - although the capacitors are close - in that board. I have 5 other KT266A boards here for testing as well as a couple of boards based on other chipsets and none of them have components anywhere near as tall as the 2 caps on the EPoX in that area.

Anthrox sends word of a petition for the introduction of an R (Restricted 18+) category for games. As adults, we wish to dispel the widespread misconception that only children play computer games, and draw the Honourable Ministers' attention to research statistics which prove that a substantial percentage of Australians who play computer games are over the age of 18. The proposed reforms and amendments would allow us to purchase and play games that would conceivably be Refused Classification under the current guidelines.

Give your email to mbreview.com and win an A7V266-E.. doesn't say if it's open to international peeps or not.

PC-Critic squeeze a PC and a Mac into one case. I'm sure we've seen something like this before, but can't remember where.

BurnOutPC have a guide to starting an ATX PSU without a motherboard.

Martin pointed out this thread (number 36000!) discussing a method to make a Tualatin CPU work in an older motherboard.. maybe.

Tweakers have an article about new memory technologies like PC166. Uhhm, PC166 has been and gone, guys. We reviewed some from KingMax here over 6 months ago. Weird.

Reviews:
FrontX Multimedia Ports on ModTheBox, our review here.
LifeView FlyVideo 3000 TV Tuner on TweakTown.
Abit BD7 P4 DDR motherboard on VyW.
Scanner LED Kit on JSIHW.
Abit KR7A-RAID KT266A-based SocketA DDR motherboard on OCTools, our review here.



Monthly Stats (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 4-March-2002  01:40:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Haven't done this in a little while. We've had a few months of shuffling the site between servers so logging has been a little tricky.. in fact, around Dec/Jan the site was being juggled between no less than 5 servers at 4 ISP's. You can imagine me ripping my hair out and having nightmares about DNS zone files.. anyway, all that is behind us now, with our new grunty server being very kindly hosted by AusGamers and Comindico.

So, February was the first month in a little while where we've been able to really accurately track the site statistics.. and here they are. In Feb 2002, OCAU:
  • served 4,334,645 pages
  • to 267,878 unique clients
  • totalling 317GB of outbound data
Remember, February is a short month, too. A 31 day month would have pushed us to about 4.8M pages. The most popular articles in Feb 2002 were:The newspage is loaded on average a smidge over 12,000 times a day. Anyway, this all further cements our position as the #1 PC hardware site in Australia. So, thanks to all of you guys and of course, thanks to AusGamers!

If you'd like to advertise with OCAU, drop me a note for details.



Monday Morning (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 4-March-2002  00:58:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Dan has been playing with a midi keyboard and, as you'd expect, making techno music with it.

Seagrave has a guide to distributed computing.. tells you what the projects are all about.

Digital-Explosion have a watercooled PSU guide. Mmmm, mains electricity and water, sounds like a winning combination.

From OneArmedMan: Just what everyone needs.. a home made rail gun.. time to show the neighbors cat who's boss. :)

There's a guide to unlocking AthlonXP CPU's in our Newbie Lounge forum, thanks Nazgul. Be warned, there's some huge pics in it.

Apparently .NET has been delayed 6 months, thanks Bezerk.

OCPlus have been playing with an XP1700+ on an A7V133c motherboard.

Rainwulf has a stealth drives mod happening.

Apparently, today Pacific Internet will release some (supposedly) very competitive ADSL pricing, thanks Tizey.

Deej spotted a some crazy legal action in the USA that might make home-built PC's illegal.. lets hope they nip that one in the bud.

HWExtreme list their favourite gadgets at the moment.

Reviews:
WD Caviar 120 GB Special Edition HDD on HardDiskInfo.
Arkua 628M socket cooler on OCIA.
64mb EasyDisk USB storage on OCrsClub.
OCZ PC150 SDR SDRAM on MikhailTech.
Abit Siluro GF3 Ti200 128MB on WinHQ.
Everglide Mousing Surface V-1 on Aus3D.
Directron 250W PSU on MikhailTech.
Arkua 7528 socket cooler on TekSektor.
CrystalFontz 20x4 LCD on OCrsClub, our guide here.
KingWin KCU 7025 socket cooler on IPKonfig.
Logitech Cordless Freedom Optical mouse on ThinkTechie.
Bluetooth USB Dongle Tweakers.



Overclocked Bike? (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 3-March-2002  22:19:05 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Boky, a mate of mine who also rides a bike, has been having problems with the regulator/rectifier on his Honda VFR800 overheating and causing electrical problems on his bike. He dropped around for a bit of OCAU-style trickery.. in the form of a Y.S.Tech 60mm fan cable-tied to it to get some decent airflow happening over the heatsink on it. A couple of long rides later it's still running, under the fairing, powered off the tail-light circuit and keeping the reg/rect nice and cool..

  

  
Click images to enlarge!


Now I just have to teach him to carry his PC on his bike too. :)



Sunday Evening (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 3-March-2002  20:24:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg

WOOFLE noticed that Team OCAU's Boxen Database shows we have over 1THz of Distributed Computing power behind us. If you want to get involved, jump into our Team OCAU Forum for info on the various projects we're involved with.

A funny abridged Matrix script from Timmy.. some strong language in places, if that bothers you.

Hosted site HardAvenue.com have info on a new heatpipe-based GPU cooler, looks interesting.

There's a LAN on in Sydney on the 23rd of March, info here.

Interesting article on online defamation on Wired.. USA laws of course, but kinda scary.

Adrian's Rojak-Pot went offline for a couple of months but it's back now.. and they've updated their BIOS Optimization Guide, too.

Apparently nForce2 is on the way and so is WinXP SP1, while Abit are entering the server market, thanks Sniper.

If you run PHP on a webserver, you should take note of this security problem. MWP has already upgraded our server to fix this hole, thanks Ken and Spingo.

Olivier found this little movie-making flash thing to kill a few minutes..

I've said it before and I'll say it again.. Mac owners are freaks. :) I mean, who in their right mind would make a webpage full of pictures of their computer?

Reviews:
Xoxide Pi pre-modded case on GideonTech.
eVGA Geforce4 MX440 video card on Bjorn3D.
Lian Li Dual Temp Rack on OCIA.
Epox 4SDA+ SiS645-based P4 DDR motherboard on PCStats.
KDS Rad-5 15" Ultra-Thin LCD Display (video review) on 3DGameMan.
Merconnet's PS-PC USB Converter (use Playstation controls on PC) on CoolHardWarez.
Plextor 40/12/40a CDRW on PC-Extreme.
XBags PC Carrying System on PimpedOutCases.
Abit Geforce2 T400 video card on OverclockersClub.
DFI NB70-SC i845D-based P4 DDR motherboard on Accelenation.



Late Friday Night/Early Saturday Morning (0 Comments) (link)
 Saturday, 2-March-2002  00:36:37 (GMT +10) - by Manaz

Well, as this post shows, I *am* alive still. I know it's been a while since I did a news post here, but I don't think I've lost the necessary skills.

*cracks knuckles*

OK, down to the news.

It appears Intel have been busy of late - they've recently announced new heatsink and power supply designs, designed for upcoming, more powerful systems (which will produce more heat). Thanks to Jason for the heads-up.

Milne_Doggy wrote in to let us know that if you've had problems with Windows XP and an ADSL Internet connection, this page may help.

Zed wrote in about this - a CDMA mobile phone with a 640x480 colour LCD screen. Looks interesting, but also, to me (and Zed) at least, a little unwieldy...

Lots of people sent in links to this rather cool case. It seems that it's a one-off at the moment, but may actually go into production - more info on that page.

The Overclockers Intelligence Agency (OCIA) have had a look at a rather funky anodised and laser-etched Lian-Li PC-61 case. Of course, if they'd put it into the OCAU PC Database, you wouldn't have to go look at it over there! :)

3DSpotLight have made some major updates to their OS Updates page.

Wokket's been at it again, sending us links to an unofficial Darwin awards kind of thing, and a flatulence filter.

Reviews:
FrictionTech have a 7-way heatsink comparison/review.
HexedReviews have had a look at a Stereo VU Meter case mod.
DigitLife have had a look at the Ricoh MP5120A and HP dvd100i DVD/CD-RW drives.
BurnOut PC have had a look at the Zalman 6000 Copper Flower Cooler.
Overclocked Cafe have also reviewed the Zalman 6000 Copper Flower HSF.
TobiTech have reviewed the AVC Tundra heatsink.
OCPrices took a look at the Creative GeForce 4 MX440 video card.
x-bit labs have taken a look at the new Western Digital 1200JB hard drive.
MikhailTech have reviewed three Arkua heatsinks.



Friday Night (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 1-March-2002  22:58:54 (GMT +10) - by LoneWolf

Well, once again, your friendly neighbourhood news person is back, with another installment. Enjoy :)

Shuttle's USA site here have listed variants of their Shuttle SV24 Barebone mini-PC which are based on the AThlon XP (SS40) and P4 (SS50) !! They include better graphic chips (SiS315) and integrated LAN, Firewire and 5.1 audio. Now how would one of these babies be with a DVD-RW? Thanks to Arthur2Sheds.

BurnoutPC have an easy guide for all you power users, if you don't want to spend a few hundred on a new psu, and you still need more power you can always wire up another psu.

Anthony Lee tells us that there are new Hercules Game Theatre XP drivers out, and they are available here. Cheers.

There's been a release of a new alternative Operating System. Basically it is built with linux and looks like XP. Very informative and appraising article here. Thanks to all that sent this in.

3DVelocity have taken a look at the new Command and Conquer : Renegade, and lets us know all about it. Head over on over and check that out.

FrostyTech have an article up on how to sound proof your case using Melamine Foam. Worth a read I reckon. /me covers ears then overclocks some more :)

Again from Arthur2Sheds is this link, which shows off the newest "bare-bones" system to hit the market, the Asus Terminator. (Arthur seems to like these mini-PC's a bit, eh? :) )

Nvidia’s high-end NV25-core graphics chips, the GeForce4 Ti 4600 and 4400, are set to hit the market worldwide on March 1. Currently, all of Nvidia’s card-manufacturing partners have related products ready. More on that story here. Cheers Sniper.

McDaddy notes that a hacker famous for hitting such high-profile companies as Yahoo, Microsoft and Excite@Home has done it again. This time, The NY Times network. Seems like he won't be happy until he's teaching his cellmate Bubba, how to retrieve e-mail instead of soap :)

Breakthrough developments on TransGaming's incredible WineX portability technology have for the first time enabled a DirectX® 8-based game title, Max Payne, to operate on the Linux platform. Cool. More here. Thanks Anthrox.

ViaHardware have posted an article exploring the different integrated graphics chipsets on the market and how their role may playout going forward.

3DSpotlight have a guide to tweaking the NVIDIA GeForce (1/2/3/4) videocard.

C. Yes, that's it, just C, sent this link in, a company that makes spherical 3D displays..

AWL is on again this weekend Saturday 2nd March at 2:00pm, Wodonga civic centre. More info here. Thanks Redback.

Seagate today demonstrated the industry's first full-speed native Serial ATA hard drive technology, in form factor and ready to integrate into future Seagate products. If it's already been news-ified, I apologise. If it hasn't, w00t! :) Thanks LookTall.

Reviews:
Enermax EG365P-VE on SubZeroTech.
EverCool CUC-610 Hybrid Heatsink at MikHailTech.
VIA P4PA Socket 478 Motherboard over on PCStats.
FIC Radeon 8500 Videocard on PCStats.
Belkin N30 Game Mouse from MGON.



Friday Evening (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 1-March-2002  19:40:27 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Right, sorry for the late news. My main machine died spectacularly last night (as did one of the testbeds, hmm) .. so I've been running around screaming and kicking stuff and occasionally trying to fix it. But it's all working (finally) now, so here's some news.. more in a bit.

Spike Milligan died a couple of days ago, apparently of kidney disease or as he put it "giblet failure". To quote Eric Syke this morning, "One of the jewels has fallen out of the crown of British comedy." RIP.. thanks looktall and bern.

Sciby reviewed the Apple iPod for us here about a week ago.. turns out they not only play music, but some people use them as portable leech-o-matics, too.

AnandTech have their coverage of day 3 and day 4 of the Intel Developers Conference posted. A few people noticed that AMD's Hammer-capable boards at the IDF have Intel's theme tune silkscreened onto them.. good to see some light-hearted rivalry among the seriousness of the CPU race at the moment. It's all fun and games until someone rings their lawyer.

A forum-goer had his motorcycle stolen.. grr. If you've seen it in Sydney, let him know. BTW, my Yamaha R6, also in Sydney, is still for sale. :)

A heap of people wrote in to say that Telstra have spent AUD $50M on broadband infrastructure.. more info here and here.

BlargOC have a roundup of P4 heatsinks, HardAvenue compared 3 GF3 Ti200 video cards and there's 3 GF4 MX440 cards in a shootout on G3D.

Reviews:
GeForce4 Ti4600 19-page review on AthlonXP, thanks dr.
Swiftech MCX370-0A socket cooler on OCIA.
Memorex Wireless KB + Mouse on MrPCPro.
AVM Fritz!Card DSL adapter on Tobitech.
Lian-Li PC76 case on TweakersAsylum.




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