Archive for the ‘tech’ Category
The WOPR
I got my RMA’d chip back from NewEgg yesterday.
Since that time, I have overclocked that little bastid to 4.005Ghz, and seem to be Orthos and OCCT stable, with plenty of headroom left. The hope is to get it to about 4.2-4.5GHz and stop before i hit the vcore limits of the chip.
Once I get everything stabilized, I’ll post some performance pics and graphs.
That Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme is a beast. 
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Tags: cpu, e8400, geek, new pc, newegg, overclock
Hot Throbbing RMA
After a long discussion with Ivan the Overclocker on Tuesday night, we pretty much determined (and confirmed my suspicions) that the CPU I got was flawed with faulty temp sensors. Just my luck right?
I have sent the chip back to NewEgg for an RMA and replacement. After spending all this cash on new components, I want to be absolutely sure they work like they’re supposed to. Typically, I would just let it go and continue to use the chip. Afterall, Intel sells CPUs and not thermometers. That said, I hate having that nagging “what if” in the back of my mind, and I know that’s all I would feel if I tried to overclock this chip without being able to properly read the core temps.
I suppose I can wait another couple of weeks…I mean, now that Big Brown is holding my package, it’s not like I have choice. My delivery is supposed to make it back to NewEgg by the 28th, so I hope to have a new working chip by the first week of June. My jealousy of Magic Mike’s flawless build knows no end.
New PC Build – Day 2
Well, I got everything connected, installed a stripped down version of XP, and away we go…
I also posted more pics to the FLICKR set.
No project is without problems though. When I was doing all of the research on the components, I came across a few threads regarding faulty temp sensors on the E8400. Basically, the temp sensors get “stuck”. As a result, instead of showing the high 30-low 40c temps for the CPU core, I’m showing 59c. I’ve tried troubleshooting as much as I can…setting and resetting the heatsink, applying different thermal paste, swapping 120mm fans on the CPU and running stress test after stress test. All the results are the same: 59c on the core.
My hope is that the sensor is only stuck on idle temps, and that the proper triggers will flip when the temperature gets too high. My guess is that I may see some of this when I up the voltage a bit.
Speaking of fans…I bought the wrong one, and boy do I feel like an idiot. The Scythe 120mm I originally bought to sit on the sink has a max speed of 800rpm, and is only a 3 pin fan. The header on the P5K-E is 4-pin, so I can’t adjust the fan speed. Regardless, 800rpm ain’t gonna cut it on an overclock.
Maybe Bearclaws can help me out a bit tonight.
All that aside, I can already feel the potential of the machine.
Tags: cpu, geek, intel, pc, scythe
New PC Build – Day 1
I just couldn’t wait anymore. I had to start the build process today. Going into it, I know I won’t finish, but I HAD to start playing around. I dropped Mrs Nerd off at Logan Airport this morning so she could head to Korea for a week, so in the meantime, it is pure geek freedom.
The whole goal of this project is to build a machine that I can overclock. When I built my last PC in 2005, I used an AMD64 3400+ (2.2 Ghz) which didn’t allow me to overclock at all. I have to blame Ivan for reinstilling the build-jones in me, so here we are.
Let me back up a bit first, though. Here are the components of the machine. Newegg loves me.
LianLi Metal Boned K10 mid-tower case
ASUS P5K-E WIFI-AP Motherboard
Intel E8400 Wolfdale CPU
Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme Heatsink
Corsair 620HX Power Supply
eVGA GeForce 8800 GT PCIe Video Card
Samsung DL DVD writer
Seagate 7200.10 250GB Hard Drive
G. Skill D9GMH 6400 DDR2 RAM – 2GB
Logitech G51 5.1 surround speakers
Tags: asus, corsair, evga, g.skill, geek, intel, lian, pc, thermalright
Jumping on the Bandwagon
With the announce of all the new, sexy, life-altering, you-must-have-this-item-now products from Apple, Inc (see? I used the new name…), I figured that BasementNerd would post yet ANOTHER link to the news.
Here you go. Now go take a cold shower. Yes, the phone is THAT cool.
That said, I have very mixed emotions. Since I work for the company that actually OWNS the “iPhone” brand (see related article) watching another company use the name makes me a little upset. I’m sure those feelings will fade as Apple ships a zillion units, and Cisco makes royalties hand over fist, driving my pitiful amount of stock options a few pennies higher.
I mean, it’s not like you think of any other company BESIDES Apple when you put “i-” in front of a word. Any bets on when they will patent the “iBall” and send optometrists scurrying?
Any way you slice it, this is a huge step forward for phone designers, and I don’t think Apple will have any problems capturing the 1% market share (approx 10MM phones) in the next year or so.
In the Department of the Never-Ending-Basement-Studio-Setup:
I finally decided to abort my plans to build a music workstation like this one, and purchased an Ikea Jerker. The infinitely customizable Jerker should allow me all the space I need. A highly recommended purchase. If I ever get around to it, I’ll post some pics.
If you follow poker at all, you’ve seen the professionals playing the game the right way. If you want to see how 10 morons treat the game, head on over to my newest site, BlaseBlah.com.
Tags: iphone
1080p(hony)
I’ve been researching plasma/lcd televisions for a long time, and if you are a casual reader of this site, you know how cheap I actually am and how long it takes me to pull the trigger on big-ticket items. So I read. And research. And compare. And test. And read some more.
I stumbled across this article which is probably the best piece of information you can have at your disposal when you go shopping. There is no better feeling in the world than walking in to an electronics store and schooling the sales rep on their field of “expertise.” Though it can be lengthy at times, the section on optimal viewing distances of 720p/1080i/1080p really makes the rest of the eye-glazing content worth it.
I’m pretty sure at this point that I will not dive into the 1080p pool right now, but the 1080i or even 720p prices are really dropping, so maybe I’ll head out and actually pick one up.
Or maybe I’ll read some more.
Yeah? So What?
The chip race is heating up these days, and the players, Intel & AMD, are in the thick of it.
With the release of Intel’s QuadCore chips (Tom’s Hardware review here), more than a few overweight light-deprived geeks are sweating with eager anticipation (or actually walking up a flight of stairs…who knows?).
My take? Great, a faster super-expensive chip that will produce a speed only noticeable by the most introverted autistic savants. Will it make IE crash faster? Will Thunderbird deliver my spam faster? Who cares? The upside to all of this is that the price of the quad-cores will make the Core2Duo price drop like a baby under Britney Spears’ watchful eye. As soon as the E6600 is in the mid-$200 range, it will be a great value for Joe PCUser. Think about it. Most of the applications that would benefit from 4 cores haven’t been updated to utilize all that new horsepower, so unless your running some 4000 machine beowulf cluster, don’t worry, be happy. The Core2Duo will speed things up quite nicely if, like me, you are still running a caveman-like AMD64 3400+.
I’m not exactly writing new gospel here, but I just don’t think that all the media hype is worth it. I write this to you from my Texas Instruments TI99-4A to prove my point.
Back to Normal?
So now that the major renovations are over, it’s time to shift the focus of this site back to that for which it was intended (was that English?). I realize that no one wants to read another self-indulging home remodel blog, so back to geekery we go.
You may have noticed that the message board was reset. I noticed that I had left registration “off”, so it got flooded with thousands of spam posts which, while entertaining, do nothing for the content of the site. A couple of SQL commands later and blammo, a fresh start.
I have been struggling as of late with BSODs on my main PC. After extensive MiniDump analysis with the Windows Debugger, I’m almost kinda sure it’s my RAM. So I come to the crux of my problem. Do I replace the 1GB of DDR400 RAM on an AMD 3400+ machine, or rebuild a whole new machine with the Core 2 Duo E6600, 800Mhz RAM and speed things up a bit? Let’s put that decision aside for a moment, shall we?
If you know anything about my basement setup, you know I have hundreds of CDs, a ton of vinyl records, and tens of thousands of MP3s. Add to that the hours of DV footage and thousands of digital pictures, and I’m like the poster boy a storage company. Unfortunately, all of these 1’s and 0’s are spread across the 3 drives in my system, 2 external USB drives, and countless DVDs. With this storage problem in mind I have been looking at Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. The prices of drives have been steadily falling, making enterprise-capable storage available for the consumer. I am gravitating towards the 2 TB Buffalo Terastation with built-in FTP server, RAID5, and multiple USB ports (for external drives, printer sharing, etc). At a price point of about $1100, it winds up at about $.50/GB, which isn’t all that bad. And for the added security of RAID 5, I’m all bout it bout it.
So therein lies the problem. Backup ALL my stuff and continue to work on a failing machine, or upgrade the machine and struggle with storage? Can any human truly be capable of making such a decision?
If I get enough cash for the blood I’m selling, I’ll let you know how this story ends…
Tags: geek, renovation
Rebuild Windows XP
If you rebuild your machines as much as I do, you want a good method to follow. Here’s a way to flush all that crap out of XP without losing your settings.
A Sad Day in Music Production
No, I’m not talking about the detah of Robert Moog. That topic is sooooo last week. I’m talking about the death of Propellerheads ReBirth. The first music software I really got into, and then replaced with Reason. And this too shall pass…
Tags: death, production