http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-trial-the-verdict-090417/

Super top secret new site under development. Blog style, much more update-able. Fun. Viral.

I really want to think this through this time, and possibly make some cash from adverts. I’ll need something to help ease the pain of the no-vaseline boning I just took selling my house.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5132451/emperor-workstation-priced-at-40000

In any event, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, so be on the lookout for some new posts regarding my hackintosh, Logic Studio, the Blackberry Bold, and Rockbox.

(Novelquest via Gizmodo)

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.

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.

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.

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

Here’s the FLICKR set

Cisco acquired yet another company this week (Securent), making 12 so far this year, which bodes well for me keeping my job at least another 6 months.

Conference calls dominated the week, taking up approximately 24 hours in total, some lasting until after 11pm. It was easily a 65 hour week, but you know what? It wasn’t that bad. I’m not sure I want to get used to this sort of thing, but for the most part, I escaped unscathed.

The chore of ripping my CD collection has dominated a lot of my time. I keep 2 machines humming along, ripping and LAME-ing a disc every few minutes. At this pace, it results in about 20 discs an hour. It could probably go even faster, but the machines are not exactly quad-cores. Only 350 more to go…then it’s on to the vinyl.

Though most of my nerdy career has been centered around the IT integration of acquired companies, I have moved over the business side where I am now integrating HUMAN applications and systems, otherwise known as people, as part of the HR Acquisitions integration team. The integration work in and of itself really isn’t all that different from IT when you boil down the core processes, but the level of intensity has been ratcheted up about 12 notches because of one simple fact: humans have feelings (damn them to Hell).

In the IT world, if a server gets pissed at you, it blue screens, or hangs..you may have restart a service, job, or reboot…not a huge deal if you have a decent disaster recovery plan in place. In the HR world, if an employee has a meltdown, you are either staring down the barrel of an illegally purchased AK-47, or worse, into the eyes of a litigating ambulance chaser intent on diving face first into the old Cisco checkbook. So that is the fine wire that I walk nowadays…setting policies & processes, integrating employees, and hopefully not pissing anyone off to the point that I have to go upstairs and talk to our counsel (or dive under a desk).
It’s a pretty cool job. I mean, it’s not as cool as a heli-board tour guide in the wilds of Alaska, but for a slightly overweight mid-30’s adult ADHD corporate nobody, it’s something.

Every now and again I find myself dropping one-too-many buzzwords (synergy, alignment, go-forward strategy…take your disgusting pick) which brings me back down to Earth and reminds me what a little jerkoff I can be at times. If I step back for that moment of self-loathing I can realize what is really important in all of this, and that is the group of people that I just helped. (This is the part of the post where I get sappy, so feel free to go get a beer and kick a cat). This past week, I tried counting the number of folks that I have (or will have) integrated into Cisco. I got to 10,000 and quit. You don’t think about it on a daily basis, but when you sum it all up, that’s a pretty big burden to carry, cuz it’s not just the employees that I affect, it’s their families. Roast that in your bowl, throw on some Ernest Ranglin and think about THAT.

This week was apparently a big-epiphany week.
Here are the other things I realized:
I talk too much.
I don’t listen enough.
Humility is not prevalent in today’s conversations.
I can make people feel very comfortable very quickly, but can creep them out even quicker with one inappropriate comment.
The right combination for drinking is gin first, THEN wine, THEN beer.
The previous drinking combination wicked brings out my fuckin Bawstin accent dude.
I am never even close to as important as I think I may be.
Flying first class as often as I do (just through upgrades) has the potential of turning me into a complete classist douchebag.
Crown Royal is a little slice of cold, golden Heaven when travelling for 12 hours.
I want to invent a caffeine patch…all the jittery goodness without the garbage breath.

Not sure why this post turned so introspective, but I guess I just never take the time to smell the roses as I get caught up in the 80 hour workweek. Maybe it’s time to align my inner strategies and create some self-synergies….you know, from the 30,000 foot view.

I make myself sick.