Tech General Chat

[M. H. Hunter III]

Right a buddy of mine brought me his vaio laptop with a problem, trouble is I dunno if

I, myself can fix it alone.

 

Problem started with his anti virus detecting something, isolating it and having to restart for whatever reason I'm still not sure of.

But when that happen it loaded the typical Vaio Logo followed by a black screen with a flashing underscore.

 

Now from my own experience that would mean something to the effect of the pc trying to find instructions on what to do/load up/boot up. Meaning in turn something may've happened to the hdd/or just messed up the OS. But with further thought I'm thinking it was some hardware failure of sorts.

 

Any thoughts here on a route to go,

Edited December 16, 2010 by Master Headhunter

[Ryan]

Faulty HDD maybe?

[M. H. Hunter III]

I was thinking that but I'd still be able to load into Bios area right,

which makes me wonder if the fault instead is with the motherboard itself.

[Stinky12]

ThriXXX has demo the first virtual pr0n game for Microsoft Kinect.

 

Tom's article

So far a working link to the demo video.

NSFW and must be 18 or older even though there is no nudity.

 

Update:

 

If you live overseas in Asia (Malaysia to be more specific), you can have a chance to get the latest Intel Sandy Bridge earlier than anyone else.

 

Lucky bastards!

http://www.pcper.com/comments.php?nid=9562

Edited December 18, 2010 by Stinky12

[anus]

Anyone seen the OCZ R2 P88 SSD?

 

Some incredible tech right there. Fastest SSD in existence (1.4GB/s write and read) and you can get it in up to 2TB capacity. Can't find any benches though .

 

Would be awesome to have one.

 

Someday...

[Ryan]

 

 

 

[OverTheBelow]

Anyone seen the OCZ R2 P88 SSD?

 

Some incredible tech right there. Fastest SSD in existence (1.4GB/s write and read) and you can get it in up to 2TB capacity. Can't find any benches though .

 

Would be awesome to have one.

 

Someday...

£3,284 for a 1TB version. Pretty cheap.

[anus]

@Ryan, This is the Z-Drive mate, it's different from the Revodrive .

 

@OverTheBelow, Haha yeah, but the performance is like running a couple of the fastest normal SSDs on RAID .

[Stinky12]

Without TRIM support on RAID SSDs, the performance of these drives will degrade as time progresses.

And garbage collection is gay.

I wonder if that OCZ R2 is a chip off of their other high-end SSD called the IBIS?

IBIS uses a HSDL (High Speed Data Link) which can achieve up to 2-4GB/s of bandwidth on a

single HSDL link.

For SSD, rather that looking at SATA interfaces. A new breed is emerging and they run on SAS (Serial Attach SCSI).

 

 

Update: Detail looks at the GTX 560!

GPU-Z

Edited December 22, 2010 by Stinky12

[dog_day_sunrise]

Wow. INSANE amount of respect for Amazon.

After my previous supplier cancelled my motherboard order, I bit the bullet and payed a little more for it on Amazon. This was yesterday morning.

It arrive today- hows it that even possible?

 

That's a seriously sweet looking mobo.

[Tommy-Vercetti19]

That's a mean looking piece of kit mate! I seriously can't wait to stick my GTX460 in and just watch it destroy every game i throw at it. I'm not far at all into Metro 2033 so that'll be a blast to play. So will ArmA2, it looks stunning on full settings.

[dog_day_sunrise]

That's a mean looking piece of kit mate! I seriously can't wait to stick my GTX460 in and just watch it destroy every game i throw at it. I'm not far at all into Metro 2033 so that'll be a blast to play. So will ArmA2, it looks stunning on full settings.

I'm gonna strip down my existing rig on boxing day, might shove a few build pics up when I do. Spec is gonna be:

 

PC Power & Cooling Silencer Quad 750w PSU

Phenom II x4 955 Black Edition (@ 3.9GHz) CPU

ASUS Crossfire IV Formulate 890FX MB

2x2GB (soon 4x4GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600

Gainward Geforce GTX460 GLH 1GB GPU

 

Might invest in a cheap 32GB SSD for a boot disk too.

[Stinky12]

That's a mean looking piece of kit mate! I seriously can't wait to stick my GTX460 in and just watch it destroy every game i throw at it. I'm not far at all into Metro 2033 so that'll be a blast to play. So will ArmA2, it looks stunning on full settings.

I'm gonna strip down my existing rig on boxing day, might shove a few build pics up when I do. Spec is gonna be:

 

PC Power & Cooling Silencer Quad 750w PSU

Phenom II x4 955 Black Edition (@ 3.9GHz) CPU

ASUS Crossfire IV Formulate 890FX MB

2x2GB (soon 4x4GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600

Gainward Geforce GTX460 GLH 1GB GPU

 

Might invest in a cheap 32GB SSD for a boot disk too.

A lot of Asus ROG boards has come and gone, I've still remember their Concept ROG called the Pluto which then paved the way to other

boards targeting towards enthusiasts and overclockers. The original ROG Crosshair has lit up port labels and I/O shield so you can see in the dark which non

of the other boards after that has it.

 

Congrats and some pics!

[Tommy-Vercetti19]

Speaking on such, i'm in bad need of a new case. I've been using my old compaq case from like 4 years ago i got as a freebie. The wire from the power switch/hdd LED isn't long enough so it doesn't light up but it turns on and off. Thinking of an Antec 900 or such or i might do a Power Mac conversion if i ever get time.

 

Please do post pics mate! Looks like a killer rig.

Edited December 24, 2010 by Tommy-Vercetti19

[Stinky12]

Don't know why everyone likes the Antec 900 case but IMO it looks ugly and lacks functionality.

The front intake fans are attached to the HDD bays so if you want to clean them out (they are dust hoggers), you will have

disconnect your HDDS, remove the screws so you can move the bay out a bit just to clean a freakin fan!

IMO the Antec 300 is the best case the line up as it's easy to install and actually has a some sense rather than

showing off using massive amounts of bling...

 

Still want the Antec 900, you can take a look at their 2nd version called the Antec 900 II.

It's similar to their Antec 1200 design.

 

 

[dog_day_sunrise]

 

Don't know why everyone likes the Antec 900 case but IMO it looks ugly and lacks functionality.

The front intake fans are attached to the HDD bays so if you want to clean them out (they are dust hoggers), you will have

disconnect your HDDS, remove the screws so you can move the bay out a bit just to clean a freakin fan!

IMO the Antec 300 is the best case the line up as it's easy to install and actually has a some sense rather than

showing off using massive amounts of bling...

 

Still want the Antec 900, you can take a look at their 2nd version called the Antec 900 II.

It's similar to their Antec 1200 design.

I'm running an NZXT Beta Evo case, and it's been great so far. £30 and lots of functionality- top moounted twin USB, E-SATA and headphone/mic inputs, the top has space for 2 12cm fans, bottom mount PSU, side mount HDD sockets, lots of internal space (which I need for the mass of cables from my non-modular quad-crossfire ready PSU) and it looks good- quite understated, but very good.

[Stinky12]

Don't know why everyone likes the Antec 900 case but IMO it looks ugly and lacks functionality.

The front intake fans are attached to the HDD bays so if you want to clean them out (they are dust hoggers), you will have

disconnect your HDDS, remove the screws so you can move the bay out a bit just to clean a freakin fan!

IMO the Antec 300 is the best case the line up as it's easy to install and actually has a some sense rather than

showing off using massive amounts of bling...

 

Still want the Antec 900, you can take a look at their 2nd version called the Antec 900 II.

It's similar to their Antec 1200 design.

I'm running an NZXT Beta Evo case, and it's been great so far. £30 and lots of functionality- top moounted twin USB, E-SATA and headphone/mic inputs, the top has space for 2 12cm fans, bottom mount PSU, side mount HDD sockets, lots of internal space (which I need for the mass of cables from my non-modular quad-crossfire ready PSU) and it looks good- quite understated, but very good.

Beta?! When are they going to come out with the final version?

Currently using a Cooler Master Cosmos RC-1000 which has lots of room since it

fits E-ATX boards so I don't have to worry about long-ass video cards.

 

A few grips with that case

Wire management is dumb

Side panel tends to pop open (seems other has that problem too), need to manually push down on the lever to make sure it's locked

HDD should be the other way so it's aligned with the SATA cables. Now their twisted!

 

 

Here is a reivew of that case

 

 

 

[Tommy-Vercetti19]

Thanks guys, i hadn't really checked around. I'll more than likely do a big casemod, like buy the one DDS mentioned and see where i can go from there.

[dog_day_sunrise]

Thanks guys, i hadn't really checked around. I'll more than likely do a big casemod, like buy the one DDS mentioned and see where i can go from there.

I toyed with the idea of doing an epic casemod based on an old Evesham case I've still got kicking around- literally, tower server sized. Huge thing. Was going to try and build a mad max inspired, water cooled setup for it. Had all the bits ready (besides water cooling components, though I had chargercooler from Corrado CC kit in my garage I was going to use as an intercooler for it) and was about to start...

 

Then I decided it would probably be a waste of time. Don't make that mistake, I so wish I'd built it.

[Tommy-Vercetti19]

It would be all very new to me, i only have basic knowledge with mechanical equipment but i'd give it a good shot, Mac G5 case, fighter jet switches for the Power switch and Optical drive sound sweet to me.

 

Something like this, but with LED's and a big window.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3136/297518...e8999b42a_b.jpg

Edited December 24, 2010 by Tommy-Vercetti19

[Pico]

Well, I got fed up with my computer running so choppy, I decided to just reinstall Windows completely. It was worth it, I think. So far it seems MUCH snappier. Videos seem just that much smoother, and everything is loading up quicker, and Firefox is loading stuff up a lot quicker as well.

 

Also, it's not all glitchy like it was before. I had issues with DisplayFusion (multi-monitor management program), wifi not wanting to connect automatically all the time... and I don't know if it's the awesome picture I took that I'm using as my new wallpaper, but it just looks a lot better

Could be the lack of icons on my home screen now allowing it to look less cluttered/messy.

 

The cool thing is, it seems to be running better and I restored my default clock speed, which is .6Ghz slower than what I had it clocked at. I don't think it was a poor OC set up, it was stable and providing noticeable results at first. The main reason I removed the OC was for power consumption. Electricity is expensive, lol.

[Stinky12]

International CES starts tomorrow and lets see what cool stuff they got for us in the years to come.

 

Gigabyte has launched their own line of gaming motherboards against Asus ROG.

It features Killer networks. Boards comes in 3 flavors and the cheapest cost $299.

 

Gigabyte G1-Assassin (highest of the line up)

 

Asus revealed the Asus Rampage III Extreme Black Edition which also features a K1 Killer networks and its

Xonar sound card. Both technologies are bundled into single card rather than soldered into the motherboard.

Asus calls it "Thunderbolt".

 

Stupid thing is they use socket 1366.

 

Edit:

Looks like "Titanium" is making a come back as Nvidia release the GTX 560 Ti on 1/25

link

 

Edit:

Most expensive GTX460 but with a nice add on

newegg

Edited January 13, 2011 by Stinky12

[Cursed]

Almost bought a Powermac G5 with a broken power supply earlier. Was outbid at the last minute though. Oh well, whoever bought it still got a bargain at £107.

[Tommy-Vercetti19]

Almost bought a Powermac G5 with a broken power supply earlier. Was outbid at the last minute though. Oh well, whoever bought it still got a bargain at £107.

Jesus, that's very cheap. I'd love to get one for work related purposes. What site was this? eBay?

[Cursed]

Jesus, that's very cheap. I'd love to get one for work related purposes. What site was this? eBay?

Yeah, it was on eBay. It was a Dual 2.5GHz model too. Only problem being is replacement power supplies are rather expensive. I'll have to keep my eye out for other good deals in the future.

[Cursed]

 

I am so happy right now. My maximum bid was £220, so I got it quite a lot cheaper than I was expecting.

[Tommy-Vercetti19]

Congratulations! Be sure to post up pics when you get it.

[Ronnyboy]

Damn, I just want the case man. Those things are sexy.

[Stinky12]

Gainward GeForce GTX 580 Phantom

review

 

Edit: GTX 560 Ti is here!

review

 

Edit:

With the AMD Radeon HD6990 coming out soon, Nvidia can't just sit there any let AMD take in all the spot light!

Therefore they're coming with their own dual GPU solution, the GTX590.

Let the battle of dual GPUs begin! And hopefully with the still bad economics, the price won't reach to ridiculous levels.

 

Edit:

IPV4 has officially ran out on Thursday after 30 years when the first internet address was created.

link

Edited February 4, 2011 by Stinky12

[Pico]

Just bought some new computer parts

Going to throw it all together in a little bit, hopefully works out perfectly. I'll be back with more info and results.