P.

Phenom X2 955 + 8GB PC2-8500 = Win

By In Technology0 Comments3,532 Views

Well I decided to get an upgrade for my current AMD Phenom 9600 setup, and that upgrade was a new Phenom X2 955 processor, 8GB of OCZ Reaper PC2-8500 memory, and ASUS M4A79 Deluxe motherboard. Now I’m currently actually using my old ASUS M3A32-MVP motherboard because the new M4A79 needs to be sent back for RMA (which made me sad). I also ordered a new printer and case for this setup so I can’t wait for that to get here as well.

But so far I’m very impressed with the results compared to the 9600. As an example, in WoW while in Dalaran my screen would stutter and freeze with an FPS 12-20 at any GFX setting. This was common through a lot of my games, where I could set the GFX settings pretty much as high or as low as they’d go and I’d still get the same FPS. This was caused by the fix for the error in the translation lookaside buffer (TLB) and L3 cache of the processor which made it suffer huge performance losses. But now with this new X2 processor I can easily fly through Dalaran with 40-70 FPS and no lag and that’s with only one of my two ATI 3870’s in the rig.

Can’t wait to see what else I can easily do.

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T.

Toshiba M200 and a Solid State Drive

By In Technology0 Comments3,612 Views

So I decided to amp up the performance of my Toshiba Protege M200 tablet by installing a Transcend 64GB SSD into the already awesome device. And I must say: Wow! So quiet! And it got a huge boost to hard drive performance all the way from 4.4 to 5.8 in the Windows Experience Index. On top of that it’s a lot cooler now but did I mention quiet???

I have my power options in Windows to allow the processor to lower it’s speed even on full power so the fan barely comes on. Even while I type this post, the fan it totally silent so this computer is emanating NO SOUND what so ever and holding steady at 55c for the processor temp. Now of course compared to my new 45nm quad core AMD which is 45c at full load, doesn’t come close. But for a 90nm processor in a 5 year old tablet laptop, I’m doing pretty damn good.

Q: Does it really boot faster with SSD?

A: I’d say it shaves about 2-3 seconds off the boot time of mine*.

Q: Does your profile and applications load faster?

A: Definitely seems more responsive, yes. For both loading my profile and applications.

Q: Is Aero any more stable with the SSD?

A: Not really.

Q: Do games play better with the SSD?

A: I may see a bit better on loading screens but overall frame rates will probably remain the same.**

Q: Has your battery life improved a lot?

A: Solid State Drives require far less power than traditional hard drives, but how much they actually draw on the battery I can’t really say (verses the cpu or gfx). Presumably I should, but I haven’t had the chance to test it yet well yet. So far Vista estimates about 2:30 hours on the battery with my current setup. I’ll know more when classes return.

*Specs: 1.8 GHz, 2GB PC2700, Clean Vista Ultimate Install

**No games installed yet

T.

The mighty DNS 323

By In Technology0 Comments3,348 Views

The D-Link DNS-323 network attached storage, what a fantastic device. With it’s ultra 500 Mhz ARM processor, 64 MB of memory, Gigabit Ethernet controller, and two SATA 2 3.5″ drive bays all in a little box about the size of a 360 power supply (that ugly brick) *kawaii!!*.

Any who. With a little tweaking, this little box can do so much more than just act as a: samba, ftp, iTunes, uPnP Audio/Video Server, and DHCP server. With a little effort you can go ahead and install yourself a copy of Debian on it and do… well… anything on it. But for those who aren’t as ambitious to void their warranty, you can still use a huge collection of ‘fun_plug’ programs instead.

I’m currently working with the chroot method of installing Debian, if I can avoid flashing a custom firmware and potentially having to install a serial port, both of which void your warranty, I’ll be thrilled.

I have Debian Lenny, Apache 2, and PHP5 currently installed. I’m just working on disabling a few things to get all of the above to work smoothly together.