tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83657961115609760152023-11-15T08:43:15.927-05:00Spynoodle Tech StuffBudget Experiments and Other Tech Ramblingsspynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-67998232551554063482011-03-13T14:31:00.004-04:002011-03-13T14:37:54.378-04:00iPad? No. Inspiron Duo? Yes.For the past year or so, I've wondered why the iPad is so popular. Windows tablets have been around for years now, but of course, Apple has managed to popularize tablets with one that runs a non-desktop OS.<br />
<br />
IMO, I'd much rather take a tablet that can run every Windows program over a tablet that can only run mobile apps, and doesn't support Flash!<br />
<br />
As if the iPad wasn't already enough of a rip, I was reading through the Staples flier today, and saw something I'd heard about before: The <a href="http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/landing/en/inspiron?c=us&l=en&cs=19">Dell Inspiron Duo</a>. I don't own a tablet, and don't really plan to get one. I'd rather have a computing device that has a keyboard, or a mobile phone with a touch screen. Still, Dell has come up with a product that actually appeals to people like me. This thing can act just like any other 10.1" netbook with an Intel Atom, but the Screen can flip over special so it looks just like a normal tablet.<br />
<br />
You can have a laptop and a tablet, all in one..... for $500! Wait a sec.... doesn't the iPad cost $500? Yes, it does. So...... why would you buy an iPad? Oh, yeah, it's a sleek, stylish, and really easy to use. Is that really all people care about nowadays? That magical App Store that lets us download programs in only 5 seconds? IIRC, us Windows users have a magical tool called Google to look for software, but that's just ever-so-complicated. Linux users even have a package manager, which is essentially a Linux app store!<br />
<br />
I will give the iPad one thing: it's great for <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20041856-247.html">autistic children</a> and <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20003192-17.html">99-year-old women</a>, although I don't think that accounts for a large percentage of iPad owners. My opinion might be skewed, being that I'm a computer nerd, but I really don't see Windows 7 as being that complex. I think that the main cause for iPad-ism may just be a want for instant gratification. People would rather have a device that's ridiculously easy to use than a device that requires just a little bit of effort but can do so much more!<br />
<br />
/rant. Yeah, that was definitely my rant of the day. I just want to get it out there: if you want a tablet, DON'T GIVE INTO THE IPAD CRAZE!spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-64916124028300356222011-03-13T14:08:00.000-04:002011-03-13T14:08:49.074-04:00Celeron D..... FRIED!This marks the first time that I actually burned out a CPU. Without thinking, I let it get into the 80s Celsius, which led to the degredation of my epic 4.5GHz overclock. At lest I found one on ebay that's 200MHz quicker! :)spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-24758179386889945282011-02-22T20:34:00.001-05:002011-02-22T20:36:18.100-05:00"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt ntoskrnl.exe" after the latest Windows XP updateThis is what happened to me last week, with my Dell Latitude D410. Installed the new updates, rebooted, and POOF! No more booting. I went through the steps that usually fix this problem: reconfiguring boot.ini, reinstalling ntoskrnl.exe, and running memtest86. Nothing worked. Eventually, I ran into this thread:<br />
<a href="http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistawu/thread/73cea559-ebbd-4274-96bc-e292b69f2fd1">http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistawu/thread/73cea559-ebbd-4274-96bc-e292b69f2fd1</a><br />
So, MS? Trying to throw out updates that break computers, huh? >:( Luckily, this thread described how to fix the problem, so if the latest updates aren't really doing much for you, check it out! ;)spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-74666181396132104902011-02-12T22:16:00.003-05:002011-03-15T10:05:04.590-04:00Flash 10.2 now on the CR-48!Flash 10.2 was released a couple of days ago, and I'd like to mention to anyone that's wondering: you can now use it on your CR-48! So far the CR-48's flash performance has been AWFUL. Luckily, with the introduction of linux hardware acceleration, flash 10.2 makes the CR-48 display flash content a lot smoother. How do you enable it?<br />
1. Enter about:plugins in the browser bar<br />
2. Click on "Details."<br />
3. Disable the first entry for the flash plugin, which should be the 10.1 version, which will leave version 10.2 as the main version.<br />
4. Reboot.<br />
<br />
10.2 may be the default version soon. Also, I'm on the dev channel, so it may not be available yet for users of the beta channel (default).<br />
Happy chrome-testing! :)<br />
<br />
UPDATE: Flash 10.2 is now default.spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-60698934119698665952011-01-29T22:55:00.002-05:002011-01-29T22:55:58.335-05:00Maybe Compaq didn't quite need to die.....I took apart my Compaq hard drive today, and it turns out that it has Quantum internals. So I'm guessing that it died mainly because it's at least 12 years old and I dropped it in my case multiple times.... while it was running. :o<br />
<br />
But they still need to die, since HP turned them into a crap brand. :)spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-43561785070457410482011-01-29T14:44:00.000-05:002011-01-29T14:44:17.525-05:00Sony CRX2100U: An External EnclosureMy DVD-RW drive in my media center was giving me a lot of trouble while trying to burn DVDs, so I decided to use a different drive instead, this time with a USB-IDE adapter going to my laptop. This adapter didn't work, so I turned to my Sony CRX2100U. By default, it's only a CD-RW drive, but I hypothesized that it was actually a USB-IDE external enclosure plugged into an IDE CD-RW drive. It turns out that I was correct. I was able to slip in an IDE DVD-RW drive.<br />
<br />
Also, this is a really good external drive in general so it gets the:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i52.tinypic.com/262urtw.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://i52.tinypic.com/262urtw.png" width="162" /></a></div>spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-55176604317699654572011-01-16T18:18:00.005-05:002011-01-17T10:31:12.406-05:00How to Clone a Hard DriveI just recently realized that my hard drive was going down the road to failure, so I had to clone all the data from the old drive onto a new drive from Newegg. Since I have all the steps fresh in my mind, I figured I'd write a guide on how to clone a hard drive.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Materials</span><br />
<b><u>For a desktop drive, you'll need:</u></b><br />
-A CD-r drive, and a recordable CD<br />
-An internet connection<br />
-A new hard drive, to clone to. It should be larger or equal to the storage size of your old drive. You'll usually have to get a 3.5in. drive, but some Mini-ITX cases use 2.5in. drives.<br />
-An IDE/SATA cable, depending on your type of drive. Make sure that you can plug two drives into your cord. It is also possible to clone an IDE drive to a SATA drive, or vice versa.<br />
<b><u>For a laptop drive, you'll need:</u></b><br />
-A CD-r drive, and a recordable CD<br />
-An internet connection<br />
-A new hard drive, to clone to. It should be larger or equal to the storage size of your old drive. Make sure to get either a 2.5in. or 1.8in. drive, depending on your laptop.<br />
-A USB to IDE/SATA cable. Laptop SATA HDDs use the same kind of port as a desktop SATA HDD, but laptop IDE HDDs use a smaller kind of IDE port that has a built-in power plug, rather than the larger IDE+Molex combination on desktop HDDs. Usually, you can find a USB-SATA/IDE adapter on ebay by searching "USB SATA adapter" or "USB IDE adapter". If you're cloning to a laptop IDE drive, make sure that the adapter you find includes a laptop IDE plug.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Procedure</span><br />
1. Download <a href="http://clonezilla.org/downloads/alternative/iso-zip-files.php">Clonezilla</a>, <a href="http://infrarecorder.org/?page_id=5">Infrarecorder</a>, and <a href="http://download.cnet.com/Easeus-Partition-Master-Home-Edition/3000-2248_4-10863346.html?tag=mncol;1">Easeus Partition Master</a>. This guide was made with version 20100721-lucid of Clonezilla, so download that version from the "oldfiles" folder. If you already have a program that burns CDs, then you don't need Infrarecorder.<br />
2. Put a recordable CD in your CD-r drive.<br />
3. Open up Infrarecorder, and tell it to "Write Image". It will open up an explorer window. Navigate to the folder that contains the Clonezilla ISO image that you downloaded, and open it. Then click "Ok". InfraRecorder will then burn Clonezilla to that CD.<br />
4. When InfraRecorder is finished burning the CD, shut down your computer. Plug the new hard drive into whatever cable you're using for the cloning process.<br />
5. Turn your computer back on, with the Clonezilla CD in your disk drive. If your system automatically boots to the CD, or prompts you to do so, then skip to step 6. If not, then:<br />
a. Restart your PC and boot into your BIOS. To do this, you'll have to a hit a certain key at bootup, which varies depending on your PC's manufacturer. At bootup, most PCs show an image which will say which key to press. Press that key.<br />
b. Navigate through your BIOS, and find the setting which determines the boot order. Switch the first boot item to your CD drive, then exit the BIOS, saving your changes.<br />
6. Clonezilla will then start up, looking something like this:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.clonezilla.org/screenshots.php?op=show&filepath=./screenshots/album//00_Clonezilla/02_clonezilla-live-boot-menu-gra.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.clonezilla.org/screenshots.php?op=show&filepath=./screenshots/album//00_Clonezilla/02_clonezilla-live-boot-menu-gra.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Just press Enter. It will then automatically run at default settings. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">7. You will then be asked which language to run in. If you're reading this, you'll probably want English. ;)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8. Next, you'll be asked about the Keymap. Select "Don't Touch Keymap", or just hit Enter.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">9. Clonezilla will then ask you if you want to run in normal or shell mode. Just press Enter.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">10. Next, you'll have to select which form of cloning to do, device-image or device-device. Select device-device.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">11. Then, you will be asked which mode to run in: beginner or expert. Select beginner. If you think you may want to set special options, then select expert. If you select expert and don't want to change any settings, then just keep hitting Enter.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">12. Now you'll be asked what kind of clone you want to do, which will involve local and remote disks. Just hit Enter.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">13. Now, you'll have to choose which disk to clone from, and then which disk to clone to. Choose appropriately.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">14. You will then be warned two times that the target disk will be overwritten if you clone to it. Type "y" and hit Enter both times. You will also be asked if you want to clone the MBR from the original disk. Once again, just type "y" and hit Enter. Your disk will now clone over. When it is done, you will be given prompts on how to shut down Clonezilla. Follow these prompts. The Clonezilla CD will be ejected , and you will be prompted to hit enter to turn off your computer.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">15. After your system shuts down, take out your old hard drive and replace it with the new one. This process will vary, especially with laptops.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">16. Turn your computer back on. Then run Partition Master. If your new hard disk has more space than your old one, then you'll see that you're not utilizing all the extra space. Resize the disk's partition accordingly.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">17. Defragment your drive. This is optional, but it will improve your computer's speed. I like to defragment using <a href="http://www.piriform.com/defraggler/download">Defraggler</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Congratz, you've just cloned your hard drive. You now probably have more space, and if you cloned because your hard drive was dying, then you no longer have to deal with a feeling of impending doom. :)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Tiny FAQ</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Q. A random vague IO error came up during the cloning process. What does this mean?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A. This means that the hard disk you are cloning from has one or more bad sectors. This is a sign of soon-to-come HDD failure, so it's a good thing that you're cloning. If you use Windows, then boot into it and type WindowsKey+R. Then type "cmd". This will bring you into a command line. Type "chkdsk /f". Type "y" and then Enter. Upon reboot, Windows will reallocate any files on your bad sector(s).</div>spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-54842286308231089362011-01-15T16:49:00.000-05:002011-01-15T16:49:38.198-05:00Kingwin Revolution RVT-12025D Heatsink: A quick reviewAah, Kingwin..... or more like AAH!!! KINGWIN!!!! Or so I thought, until just today.<div>You see, I bought this cooler on Newegg about 8 months ago for $18, when they still carried it. Pretty cheap for a heatsink. It got mixed reviews. Some say that the heat pipes aren't wicked, so you have to attach it with the pipes facing upward. Some say that it's just a plain out piece of junk. Others say that it's great. For the past many months since I bought it, I was one of the people who thought it was a piece of junk. Today, I slightly changed my mind</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">1. Physical Description</span></div><div>The RVT-12025D isn't a small heatsink. It's definitely necessary to pull the power supply out of your case when you install it. It's got 4 heatpipes that run directly up to its cooling fins. This doesn't translate into the usual six heatpipe-paths of a standard tower heatsink with 3 heatpipes. This heatsink contains 4 pipes, with exactly 4 paths for the heat to go (remember this for later). Installing the heatsink is a bit of a pain, since it has the stupid LGA775 pushpins, but you'll eventually get it in there stable.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">2. Cooling Performance</span></div><div>I don't have any exact numbers, but I can say this:</div><div>With my Pentium 4 520 @ ~3.7GHz, 1.55v, this thing was awful. A bit better than the Intel heatsink at idle, but about the same at load. Not worth $18.</div><div>BUT, with my Celeron D 356 ES @ 4.5GHz, 1.5v, it's quite nice. It kept the CPU in the mid 60s Celsius under full load. I only just tested it with this CPU today, having used a different heatsink (that doesn't work as well) for many months, since I thought that the 12025D was awful.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Here's the deal: there are two differences between these two CPUs that would make a major cooling difference:</div><div>1. The Pentium 4 520 was running .5v higher than the Celeron.</div><div>2. The Celeron has a D0 stepping, so at it's stock speed, it only requires 65w. This is compared to the 84w power consumption of the Pentium 4 520.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Why does this make such a huge difference? Because of the heatpipe transfer rate. As I said before: a standard tower heatsink supplies 6 paths for heat to travel through the heatpipes. This heatsink only supplies 4 paths. So, although the cooling fins can dissipate heat perfectly fine, the heat has trouble getting to those pipes. I calculated out the overclock wattage for both my CPUs, and it looks like the Pentium 4 consumes 135w and the Celeron consumes 115w. Just a 20w difference pushed the heatsink over the edge.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">3. Conclusion</span></div><div>So, in conclusion, this heatsink will work great with most CPUs. Stay away from CPUs that have a TDP of more than 120w, but for most CPUs, even with a little overclocking, this is a great heatsink. I highly recommend it. (with caution) :-)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i52.tinypic.com/262urtw.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://i52.tinypic.com/262urtw.png" width="162" /></a></div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div>spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-50589130774992310032011-01-02T13:37:00.000-05:002011-01-02T13:37:15.198-05:00Sandy Bridge ES Already on EbayLooks like someone got their hands on a Sandy Bridge Engineering Sample a couple days before its official release:<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Sandy-Bridge-Core-i7-2600K-ES-3-4GHz-8MB-95W-32nm-/400185065420?pt=UK_Motherboards_CPUs&hash=item5d2ce37fcc">http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Sandy-Bridge-Core-i7-2600K-ES-3-4GHz-8MB-95W-32nm-/400185065420?pt=UK_Motherboards_CPUs&hash=item5d2ce37fcc</a></span><br />
and<br />
<a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Sandy-Bridge-Core-i5-2300-ES-2-8GHz-8MB-95W-32nm-/260714136902?pt=UK_Motherboards_CPUs&hash=item3cb3c60546">http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Sandy-Bridge-Core-i5-2300-ES-2-8GHz-8MB-95W-32nm-/260714136902?pt=UK_Motherboards_CPUs&hash=item3cb3c60546</a><br />
Just in case two days is too long of a wait..... :-)spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-58401841782690118342011-01-01T23:38:00.001-05:002011-01-01T23:39:56.878-05:00Google Chrome CR-48 Full File AccessJust today, I loaded some new songs on my Sansa e250 mp3 player, and I later realized that I had a duplicate song. I had just turned off my Windows desktop, and I'm lazy, so I ended up trying to figure out how to delete the file from the device with my CR-48. With a little exploring, I figured it out in a jiffy:<br />
<div>1. Follow my previous post (it's right before this one) on how to get into the dev mode terminal.</div><div>2. Type dir /media</div><div>3. Then type cd -P (whichever device seems like the right one, without these parentheses. Make sure to be using correct capitalization throughout this process, or lack thereof)<whatever are="" be="" capitalization="" correct="" device,="" dir="" lack thereof ="" make="" or="" process="" returned="" right="" seems="" sideways="" sure="" that="" the="" these="" things.="" this="" throughout="" to="" triangle="" using="" without="" you=""></whatever></div><div>4. Then type dir. A list of files from that device should come up.</div><div>5. After you've determined which file you want to delete, type sudo rm (file, without parentheses)<file, sideways="" triangles="" without=""></file,></div><div><br />
</div><div>There ya go, deletion completed. A little message about admins and whatever should also come up after deletion, but it doesn't mean there was an error. Happy chroming! :)</div><div></div>spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-48131358807850623982010-12-19T17:22:00.003-05:002011-01-01T23:29:06.753-05:00Chrome OS Virtual TerminalI just recently received a Google Chrome CR-48 notebook. After loads of searching, I've learned that you can get to a vritual terminal by hitting CTRL>ALT>T This is big, since there is no file manager. Just a heads-up for all lucky owners!<br />
<br />
EDIT: It looks like there are no usual commands with this thing.... just network stuff. Dang.<br />
EDITx2: It looks like a fully-functional terminal is only in dev mode. That's the solution. Just switch into dev mode, go to CTRL>ALT>T and type "shell"spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-79141682882758627502010-11-28T16:07:00.000-05:002010-11-28T16:07:42.982-05:00SilentModsI've been starting work on a project that involves a lot of heatpipe manipulation. I had no idea how to obtain heatpipes, and build any form of a heatsink. Luckily, I found <a href="http://www.silentmods.com/">www.silentmods.com</a>. This site has EVERYTHING I could need to know about heatsink-making. I highly recommend this site for anyone who wants to perform a heatsink-related project.spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-32796190702581189332010-11-12T09:59:00.000-05:002010-11-12T09:59:40.760-05:00Previews in Google: Pretty EpicSo apparently Google makes a preview now when you click the text below one of the links returned in a search. I know that this is personally something I'll use all the time. Nice job, Google! :Dspynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-67488788875673103172010-10-22T19:16:00.001-04:002010-10-23T16:49:02.847-04:00Core i7 X 995: The Unreleased (but benchmarked!) CPUhttp://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+X+995+%40+3.60GHz<br />
<br />
This is a first as far as I know. A CPU that is benchmarked but currently unreleased (as I can tell from google.) It's a nice amount faster than the 980x with the pretty major clock increase. bet this thing will OC like crazy.spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-70708727696018915252010-09-19T22:07:00.002-04:002010-10-22T19:17:13.728-04:00Cool new Forum!One of the guys known on various forums as Lucasbytesgenius just created a cool new forum. It seems really nice and I suggest you try it out @ <a href="http://www.enigmachs.com/">http://enigmachs.com</a>spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-21082135330241454992010-08-17T09:59:00.000-04:002010-08-17T09:59:52.116-04:00Compaq must die!Good advice: NEVER use a Compaq SCSI hard drive. I've been using one for only a few months and when I booted up today, I discovered that a good amount of my programs were corrupted! Great..... Now I get to have a fun day of reinstalling EVERYTHING on my WD400. Emphasis on the "WD" in WD400. I've never, and I mean NEVER, had trouble with a Western Digital drive.<br />
<br />
Now the Compaq might have died because it fell a couple inches inside my case once. While it was running. This isn't the first time I've had trouble with Compaq hard drives, though. Of course, they've all been old. So maybe it wasn't too bad back when it was one year old, instead of ten, but how should I know? The only thing I know for sure is that you CAN'T GO WRONG WITH WESTERN DIGITAL! Take this as a lesson: only use hard drive brands THAT YOU KNOW!!!!spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-23488661632772960092010-08-16T15:44:00.000-04:002010-08-16T15:44:38.701-04:00Various Experimentation: Geforce 8400 and Celeron D 356 ES<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i35.tinypic.com/2uykmiv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i35.tinypic.com/2uykmiv.jpg" /></a></div>As you can see, after raising my PCI-e voltage .1v up to 1.6v, I managed to pull about 115MHz more out of the GPU and a few MHz more out of the memory. I would've went higher on the GPU, but afterburner actually wouldn't let me go any higher. The slider just wouldn't go any farther. Any advice is appreciated. I also raised the PCI-e frequency to 100MHz in the BIOS (from 90, I think). I don't think it makes much of a difference, though.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i38.tinypic.com/saw3ec.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i38.tinypic.com/saw3ec.jpg" /></a></div>As you can also see, I got my Celeron D up to 4.75GHz @ 1.6v VCore. My temps were out of control when I first tried, but it turned out that since I have my heatsink taped down it needed more thermal paste to make adequate contact. THAT's another story. ;)spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-42082864593398958672010-08-11T13:08:00.004-04:002010-08-11T13:21:13.749-04:00My Current Experimentation: Overclocking the Pentium 4 520 and Celeron D 356 ESToday I'll try to sum up what I'm currently up to. My newest projects have involved overclocking cheap Netburst CPUs on my $20 Asus P5PL2. Yeah, not too exciting, but pretty good for only having to spend about $10 per CPU.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Introduction</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you've ever compared a Pentium 4 to a cheap Core 2 Duo, then when you hear the word "Netburst," the<span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: small;">first word that probably pops into your head is "slow." Very true. One thing that Netburst can do, though, is easily achieve high clock speeds. You may hit the mid-70s Celsius during Prime95 on mediocre air cooling, but is it really going to constantly sit that hot? No. It's going to sit in the high 30s to low 40s. Now I know what you might be thinking: "Clarkdales can hit high clockspeeds too with half the power Netbursts draw." Yes, they can. But can you get a Core i5 660 ES for $10 on ebay? Not even close. And that's why any old Cedar Mill Celeron D makes for a nice cheap little venture into overclocking.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Testbed</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">As you may have picked up, I've currently overclocked a Pentium 4 520 (not ES) and a Celeron D 356 Engineering Sample. Before I get into what I've done so far, here's my current system:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">-Pentium 4 520, 2.8GHz, E0, LGA775, 1m, Prescott, 800MHz FSB, 14 multi OR Celeron D 356, 3.33GHz</span></span>, D0, LGA775, 512kb, Cedar Mill, 533MHz FSB, 12-25 multi<br />
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-Asus P5PL2 Rev1, LGA775, 945PL<br />
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-<span style="font-size: small;">512mb (2x 256mb) Micron ddr2 @ 400MHz + 512mb (2x 256mb) Samsung ddr2 @ 533MHz</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">-Geforce 8400 GS + Radeon 7000</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">-AcBel R8 II 500w 80+ Active PFC Power Supply</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">-Qlogic PCI SCSI card with Compaq 9.1GB 10,000rpm SCSI drive (RAID hopefully coming soon) with Windows XP Pro</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">-Western Digital WD400 40gb SATA 150 Hard Drive for storage</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">-HP L1906 19" 4:3 LCD as main monitor</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">-Samsung Syncmaster 172T 17" 4:3 LCD as secondary monitor</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Current Results</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">I've already finished my experimentation with the Pentium 4 520. At my maximum VCore (1.6v) I could hit 3.8GHz with my RAM at a CAS of 5 @ 54xMHz. Sadly, at that speed I lost my SATA ports. My highest completely stable speed was 3.756GHz @ 1.55-1.6v VCore with my RAM at a CAS of 3 @ 536MHz. Sorry about no screenshot. I don't have the CPU in anymore. Now as for the Celeron:</span></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i37.tinypic.com/oavh5c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i37.tinypic.com/oavh5c.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><b> </b></span></span><br />
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^I've gotten it pretty high so far. 4.5GHz @ 1.5v VCore. I can still go higher, but this is just what I've tried so far. It's kind of good news / bad news. The good news is that I could actually use it on my motherboard. On Asus' CPU support list it says that all D0 CPUs aren't supported by the Rev 1 board. Maybe I got lucky. The bad news is that it's not overclocking as well as I had hoped. I can't get it to hit 5GHz on 1.6v VCore. Being a record-breaker CPU it should do better than that. I think the motherboard is the problem, though. I'm pretty sure it has an FSB wall at around 200MHz for this CPU. Overvolting the Northbridge or the FSB Termination Voltage doesn't help. If anyone has any suggestions, don't be afraid to comment. Another cool thing that this CPU has (that I still haven't figured out how to use) is a special Engineering Sample setting in the BIOS called "VID CMOS Setting." With help from Google I've figured out that it has to do with what the default voltage for the CPU is. It can be set from 1-62 and mine is by default set at 62. Supposedly early Pentium 4 ES CPUs (Willamette, I think) were at default set at 45. Once again, if anybody knows if setting it lower will make my voltage higher (and how much higher) please comment.<br />
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Well, I think that's about all for today. Happy reading!spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8365796111560976015.post-21526631543557602442010-08-09T12:43:00.002-04:002010-08-09T22:16:35.461-04:00Overclocking the Geforce 8400 GS: Decent Graphics on a VERY Low BudgetWelcome to Spynoodle Tech Stuff! On this blog I will pretty much cover my latest ventures and discoveries in the world of computing. In short: I'll write about my experiments (usually on the "not new tech" side) and the latest tech news that I think is interesting. This is my first post, so I guess I'll start out with my first real experiment: overclocking the Geforce 8400 GS.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Part 1: The Card </b></span><br />
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When it comes to PCI-e video cards, it pretty much doesn't get any cheaper than this. The Geforce 8400 I bought was from a seller on ebay who sold these cards in bulk by the hundreds for $15 each. He called the card a "Geforce 8400 HP" and I believe he said it was manufactured by HP, although I didn't find any hint of it being manufactured by them at all. In fact, I didn't even know they manufactured cards until I looked it up and it turned out they did manufacture a PCI-e x1 version of the Geforce 8400, although this was PCI-e x16. The card had 128mb of ddr2 memory running at a base clock of 500MHz. The fact that it only had 128mb of memory surprised me, since it's the newer, faster G98 version of the card vs. the old G86 version. Some programs actually thought that it had 512mb of memory, although I seriously doubt they were right. The GPU by default runs at 540MHz, which is also a bit slow for this model card. Most run at 567MHz. The GPU/Shader ratio remained the same when overclocking.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Part 2: The Testbed</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Like the card, my testbed is also El cheapo. In fact, the testbed was actually given to me for free. It was a Dell Optiplex GX280. For my most recent tests I use a custom computer that I built with some of the parts from the GX280, but I ran this experiment earlier this year. Here are the specs:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">-Pentium 4 520, LGA 775, E0, 2.8GHz, 1m cache </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">-Crap Dell Intel 915 motherboard. No support for anything but Pentium 4s and early Netburst Celerons. >:0</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">-512mb (2x 256mb) Micron ddr2 @ 400MHz + 512mb (2x 256mb) Samsung ddr2 that would run at 533mhz but instead ran at 400MHz. One of the 256mb sticks was standard in the Dell. The other three were salvaged from other systems. The sticks ran in dual-channel.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">-Geforce 8400 GS + Radeon 7000 for a dual-monitor setup.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">-Crap Dell 250w PSU</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">-DVD-RW drive (missing cover)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">-200gb Maxtor Maxline something-or-other. Never wrote down the specs. XP Pro was installed on this drive.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">-40gb Western Digital SATA 1.5gb/s WD400 with Crunchbang Linux installed on it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">-Samsung Syncmaster 172T 17" DVI LCD monitor as main monitor.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">-Old Viewsonic CRT monitor (15"?) as secondary monitor.</span></span><br />
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</span></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Software Used:</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">-Atitool 0.26, to overclock the card. I've actually stopped using it on my new build in favor of MSI Afterburner.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">-Rivatuner, to adjust fan speed. I didn't realize when running this experiment that the card wouldn't at all get hot if I didn't raise the voltage (which I didn't).</span><br />
-3dmark 03, to benchmark the card.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Part 3: The Experimentation</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Then came the fun part: seeing how high the card could go. Sadly, when running these tests on that crappy GX280 I couldn't raise the PCI-e voltage. Now that I have my new setup I might update the OC with volt-upped results. Still, here are the results of the OC:</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i35.tinypic.com/2hf3sk3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i35.tinypic.com/2hf3sk3.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"> ^ My max speed I achieved was 591MHz on the GPU (meh) and 601MHz on the memory (okay). Overall, it gave me a pretty nice 3dmark score-up (from 5729), probably mostly from the decent increase I got on the memory. At this speed I did have a few artifacts in 3dmark, so I decided that I would keep it at 585MHz on the GPU and 590MHz on the memory. At those speeds I got a 6333 in 3dmark.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Part 4: The Conclusion</span></b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">I guess I would evaluate this OC as a good ups for the 8400, but overall still a pretty low score. Although 6401 was a nice score for the card itself, it's still probably not comparable to something like the Geforce 8500 GT. Either way, if you're looking for a card that's exceptionally cheap but still gives decent performance, I highly recommend it. I'm not a gamer, but still DEFINITElY want better graphics than the GMA 900 I was dealing with. (Ahhh!!!)<b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b></span></span>spynoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04811925720022767820noreply@blogger.com0