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| 11/26 |
| 2005/9/14-17 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/Editors/Vi] UID:39665 Activity:moderate |
9/14 Does anyone else think Sun Microsystems is evil? I have 2 biases
#1. I went to Cal as an undergrad
(SUN used to mean: Stanfurd University Networks)
#2. I work for IBM.
But seeing them fly over Dell yesterday:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26127
And then their advertising against Dell:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26164
Just is not classy. -vallard
\- "evil" "stanford" ... come on grow up.
if you think the ad might backfire, maybe that's worth
talking about. i used to work for ibm too and there was a
lot of stupidity there [dont use gnu compiler, dont talk
about what is cool about the alpha] but in other areas
it was a great environment and a smart company, but with
regards to some things, they had their head up their ass.
\_ sheesh, never hear of humor before?
\_ do you think dell is evil for refusing to use amd? do you think
intel is evil for refusing to let dell use amd?
\_ Not the pp or op but Dell is evil for supporting war
mongering, corporate tax loophole loving conservatives.
They supported GWB and his illegal War on the Iraqi people.
\_ I work for Sun. And I can tell you flat out that Sun is *NOT*
evil at all. Sun is *STUPID*, *IRRESPONSIBLE* and has no
accountability at the VP level and up, but they are not Evil.
A lot of this has to do Scott McNealy's own personality.
Instead of looking at competitor coldly and trying to figure
out a way to crush them, he and entire Sun put a lot of emotion
into it, and pull one prank after another (StarOffice, JDS)
that is at most mischievous, but doesn't hurt competition in
in any way in the long term... and a the mean time waste alot of
its resources.
\_ Yup as an ex-Sun employee I think you got it here. The
Stanford/Cal thing is just retarded - Sun was started by some
uber-talented people, including Bill Joy from BERKELEY ...
And Sun is no more or less evil than IBM.
\_ Seconded. Sun is like many Frat boys I knew at Cal - too
dumb to be dangerous or evil. - current sun employee.
\_ Eh, the flyover stunt was pretty silly. In this case I think
the ads are just a necessary evil. PHBs buy whatever has the
buzz. In this case their servers really are better than the
more popular brand, and they need to show that. -jrleek
Addendum: Ok, the ads that got "censored" are pretty low-class.
\_ Why do people always forget about Bill Joy?
\- "Bill Joy has a lot ot answer for." --hilfingr
\_ Who is Bill Joy? What does he have to answer for?
\- He wrote the "almond" editor ... it would corrupt files and
was later replaced by vi.
\_ I've been googling and all I can find is that he wrote
vi, I've seen nothing about "almond."
http://thomer.com/vi/vi.html
\- it's been covered up. the almond editor existed long
before the WEEB and those of us who were around then
like to talk or blog about it. emacs may have an
almond emulation mode.
\_ You mean "WEB"?
\- NOO
\_ In the dark and dismal corners of Cory and Evans,
during the dark ages (or the eighties) Bill could
be found hard at work on a little known and heavily
litigated hobby called the berkeley software
distribution.
\_ I think the "lot to answer for" may refer to vi.
\_ I think the "lot to answer for" may refer to ALMOND. -ausman
\_ So, can some one give me a link on almond history?
\- google for "joy almond" --psb
\_ <DEAD>psb.is.a.moron<DEAD> -tom
\- hint: there are much more subtle ways to say
something bad, and be more effective. That is, if
care to be less disliked. So let me try this.
Instead of saying "X is a moron/dumbass", say
"psb has failed prank and humor miserably."
\- google for "gabriel almond"
\- ALMOND was the editor for CEDAR from PARC and OAK which
became JAVA and ALMOND became PINE and ELM. You can google
for "joy gabriel almond stanford berkeley".
\- ALMOND was the editor for OAK which became JAVA
and ALMOND became PINE and ELM. You can google for
"richard gabriel almond joy".
\- i am extremely clever --psb |
| 2005/8/9-11 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:39065 Activity:nil |
8/9 Can anyone recommend a vendor that sells Athlon 64 X2 (dual-core)
configurations for small businesses? Basically it looks like we're
buying Pentium D machines from Dell otherwise.
\_ You want a desktop (non-buffered memory, ECC not required, etc.)
or a workstation? I see HP has workstations using dual-core
Opterons. Look for xw9300. A bit pricy, but you get what you
pay for. Will see if there's something in the desktop domain.
pay for. Call them up and ask?
\_ Price/performance is much better for the Pentium D than the
dual-core Opterons. You can heat rooms better, too.
I'm looking for Athlon 64 X2, either the 4400+ at $630 per CPU
or 3800+ for $405 per CPU. Desktop. |
| 11/26 |
| 2005/8/5-6 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:39013 Activity:nil |
8/5 I remember when we had 8Mb homedir quotas, and we liked it.
\_ You probably can get an 8 MB quota again if you really want.
\_ I remember working on a product where the whole OS, apps (word
processor, spreadsheet, graphic, browser, e-mail, news, games...),
templates, help files, sound files, etc. fit in 15MB disk space
uncompressed. |
| 2005/7/22-23 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:38764 Activity:kinda low |
7/21 I'd like to buy 10-20 heat sinks in arbitrary shapes. CPU heat sinks
are OK, but they always sell them with a crappy fan. Anyone know
where I can get custom sized heat sinks, or CPU heat sinks without
fans? ok thx.
\_ There's a store called Wierd Stuff in Cupertino or Santa Clara or
somesuch which sells all kinds of old/salvaged/strange computer
and electronics parts. You can probably get a bunch of random
heatsinks for cheap.
\_ It's "weird." Of course, they knew people can't spell worth
%(*#& to save their lives, so they used to own http://wierdstuff.com,
too. I don't know if they still do. Anyway, also try
http://halted.com, another surplus store. They have all kinds of
heatsinks, or stuff with heatsinks on it that you can break
apart.
%(*#& to save their lives, so they also bought http://wierdstuff.com.
I don't know if it's sad or funny.
Anyway, also try http://halted.com, another surplus store. They have
all kinds of heatsinks, or stuff with heatsinks on it that you
can break apart.
\_ Yeah, I knew about them too but couldn't think of the name -pp |
| 2005/7/16-19 [Computer/Theory, Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/Apps/Media] UID:38658 Activity:nil |
7/16 Cellular Squirrel:
http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefanm/phd/cellularsquirrel
\_ What a waste of funding. It's no wonder some people are
are skeptical of the "hi-tech" work that comes out of
media labs.
\_ C'mon, this is cool. I'd much rather have some dancing stuffed
rodent than most of the obnoxious headwound-worthy ringtones
you get on cell phones. -John
\_ the japanese are way ahead of us on this. |
| 2005/7/12-14 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:38570 Activity:nil |
7/12 Now for something that has nothing to do with Sith Lord Rove:
http://tinyurl.com/aaa4a (news.yahoo.com)
EU Anti-trust regulators raided Intel's European offices. |
| 2005/6/22-23 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:38244 Activity:moderate |
6/22 I'm doing some performance tuing of a multithreaded application on a
dual-Xeon with hyperthreading. Windows reports 4 cores and counts
1 core @ 100% as 25% CPU usage. I realize this is a fuzzy question,
but what's a reasonable real-world limit for CPU usage in this
situation, since there aren't really 4 cores? This app has a mix of
MMX computation, unaccelerated floating-point math, bus I/O, and a
lot of pointer dereferencing / irregular memory access patterns.
\_ Turn off hyperthreading.
\_ Since I currently get around 60% reported CPU usage, it would
seem hyperthreading is helping performance about 20%, right?
\_ The general wisdom is that hyperthreading increases GUI
responsiveness but decreases overall performance by 0-5%.
I'm sure there's an example where hyperthreading increases
overall performance, but I can't think of one.
\_ Run your app with it on and off. Compare the run times.
\_ Just tried that. Hyperthreading on: 200 seconds
Hyperthreading off: 220 seconds
\_ I'm doing the same with a simulation app. It hits the memory bus
and CPU most. HT actually slowed our system down considerably. A
dual xeon gave us about 2x speed improvement. The dual opteron did
the same. We're now checking a dual opteron with each package
having dual core. I say this as a former Intel employee who likes
Intel--HT sucks for anything other than casual use. Hard. -emarkp
\_ I agree. If yer doing simulations or anything else hardcore,
turn off HT. If yer doing Word and net browsing, by all means
turn it on because it's a more pleasant user experience.
Or wait until the Athlon dual-cores drop from $630.
Or don't wait and get an Intel dual-core for $250 if your room is
too cold.
\_ OK, so aside from dissing hyperthreading, nobody has given actual
information on what is a realistic maximum load for a 2-Xeon
hyperthreading system. -OP
\_ I think you should rephrase your question. What are you
asking? What parameter(s) do you wish to change that are
under your control? The load should be 2 at most, since
there are 2 CPUs. Play with it and see what happens when you
run more processes.
\_ Do you have two dual-core CPUs with hyperthreading enabled?
That implies eight logical CPUs.
If you disabled hyperthreading, then you have four logical CPUs
and four real cores. You should get theoretical 100% usage on
each core. The simplest way to do this is to write a C program
with a while (1) loop and run it four times.
We have an old 700 MHz 4-CPU machine at work, and I can get about
that running Linux with top.
For one or more real-world apps that each uses multiple threads,
it really depends on the threading implementation in each program,
followed by how good the kernel is at handing out tasks to 4+ CPUs.
I can easily imagine a two-thread program that uses 100% CPU on
one CPU and 25% CPU on a second.
\_ I have two dual-core dual processor machines with hyperthreading
enabled ......
\_ So each machine has one dual-core with hyperthreading?
Yeah, then that means four logical CPUs, two real cores,
per computer.
You can only expect a maximum of 100% CPU usage over the
two logical CPUs that sit on one physical core.
Anyways, if you run four while (1) C programs you should
get 200% total over the four CPUs as reported by top.
Same thing for Windoze if you have four CPU graphs. |
| 2005/6/20-22 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:38206 Activity:kinda low |
6/20 I was waiting for a powerbook G5 and then come this announcement
about a switch to intel. Now I'll just sit tight and see what
comes out. Anybody else doing the same? I'm wondering if I'll
be able to run windows on a intel-based powerbook (so that I don't
have to run virtualPC). Thanks.
\_ You will not be able to run Windows on Apple-branded hardware;
so says Apple. (And VirtualPC >> dual-booting anyway). -tom
\_ http://news.com.com/2100-7341_3-5733756.html
"That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They
probably will," [Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller] said.
"We won't do anything to preclude that."
\_ There is nothing that prevents Microsoft from making Windows
compatible with Apple's Intel boxes if they really wanted to.
Of course, to run it legally, you'll have to pay the full
price for Windows since it probably won't come with the machine.
\_ Where did you read this? The last thing I read said that they
wouldn't stop anyone from running Windows on an intel mac.
\_ How well does direct3d peform on VirtualPC?
\_ badly. Probably still badly when Apple switches to Intel
chips. If you want to run Windows direct3d applications, get
a Windows box. -tom
\_ So "VirtualPC >> dual-booting" means?
\_ Dual-booting is a major pain in the ass, no matter
what the two OSes are, but especially if one of them
is Windows. -tom
\_ Intel's new line of chips is supposed to support
VT technology so you can run two oses and switch
between then without a reboot. Should be nice
if it works.
\_ I wouldn't wait if I didn't have a laptop and if I needed one NOW.
But if you can wait and then buy one as soon as Apple comes up
with one, the only problem that I can think of is that probably not
all of third party commercial Mac software will be ported to Intel
by then.
\_ Some insider dirt: I heard that the Unreal Tournament guys got
a working universal binary port together in about two hours.
I'm thinking this transition will be a lot easier than 68k/PPC.
\_ Gee, UT was an engine that was orginally ported over from
x86 to PPC. Don't you think that's going to make porting
it back to x86 just a wee bit trivial?
\_ You still haven't told us if/how you fixed your PC networking
problem. You wanna share your experience?
\_ If you want to wait for an x86 PB/iBook plan on waiting more than
1 yr unless you are willing to deal w/ the curse of the rev 1 pb.
Personally I'm waiting for Apple to release an iBook w/ a Quartz
Extreme 2D compatible video card and I'm going to get that and
hold onto it until the kinks are worked out of the x86 line. The
reason I'm going w/ the iBook is that it is almost as light as
the pb and is significantly cheaper.
\_ thanks for the tip. The reason why I've been holding out for
a G5 PB is because I've heard that virtualPC runs very slow
on a G4. VirtualPC on an Intel is probably going to be a lot
faster. I don't play games so graphics performance is not an
issue for me. -op
\_ Go away pervert. Go hug a snuggy. |
| 2005/6/9-12 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:38052 Activity:nil |
6/8 I recently bought Via Samuel 2 based motherboard to use for my
firewall. There is a little fan mounted on the cpu and I was
wondering if I could disconnect it and stick a bigger 80 mm or
120 mm fan on top of the cpu and run the system safely. The
current fan is a bit loud and I want to make the system as
quiet as possible. I'm open to other suggestions as well. tia.
\_ Do you know exactly which processor is on your motherboard?
Browsing the Via website, it seems that the Samuel 2 core is in
both the low end of the Eden family and the slowest C3. The
Eden dissipates less than 7W, and you should just use a passive
heatsink. (The slowest Edens dissipate less than 5W and should no
t even require a heatsink.) The Samuel 2 C3 dissipates 13W and
should require active cooling, but you can probably swap in any
fan and it will work fine. (By way of comparison, I have been
running a 1GHz Celeron dissipating probably 20W fanless for 3 years
now, and I have only had heat related failures on 3 or 4 days in
that period.) |
| 2005/6/7-9 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:38018 Activity:moderate |
6/7 Why Intel? why not AMD? They both run on notebooks(unlike the G5)
Also, does this pave the groundwork for porting OS X to all PC
machines?
\_ You know, you guys are trying to find good technical reasons
for the move. I think it's actually simpler than that. Economics.
IBM can't produce their chips cheaper than Intel, which we all
know is kicking TI and other microprocessor fabs. IBM simply can't
sell their chips to Apple at competitive market rate. The
mundane technology of integration is driven by business, not
technology.
\_ Intel has the best laptop chips and once Apple has made the
transition it'll be easy to move to AMD if they want to.
\_ PC BIOS is a fundamentally different architecture than the Mac.
\_ I wonder. Macs these days use mostly commodity hardware.
What differences will remain? The BIOS? Motherboard type?
\_ PC's have a BIOS. Macs have real firmware. -dans
\_ Alas, not on Intel:
http://csua.org/u/cae (adc)
See "Specific Scenarios->Open Firmware" - ciyer
\_ Each Mac will come standard with a little slice from the ego
of Steve Jobs.
\_ Which is where they get the hot air to blow out the back.
\_ Intel has good support for DRM. (Why delete this MOTD censor?)
\_ It does? Cite?
\_ Apple may not want to limit itself to x86.
\_ Apple is trying to get away from a marginal chipset, why replace
it with another one?
I haven't seen enough discussion to know about the larger
implications; will OS X be able to run on Dells? There's a
lot of risk for Apple either way. -tom
\_ In the short/mid term, Apple is unlikely to let other PC vendors
sell OS X (of course, the hackers will make it possible). NeXT
took about two years to solve all the driver problems that affects
most users of generic x86 hardware and peripherals. However, moving
to x86 would let Apple open OS X up to Dell & other select vendors
in the future if they wanted to do so. However, not likely... one
of Jobs' first things he did when he came back to Apple was to end
the Clone Wars.
\_ This is all about laptops and Athlon 64 can't compete in that
space in the foreseeable future. Also Apple probably wants to
get at the pentium risc[?] core w/o the x86 microcode at some
point in the future.
OS X will probably never run on a non apple branded machine
legally. While the x86 mac's will have a bios (so Windows might
be installable on them), they will likely have a special apple
boot rom (the dev machines supposedly have this already) which
is needed in order to boot OS X. Unless you own an apple x86
system you can't get a legal copy of the rom so no legal OS X
on dells.
The bigger question is WHY you would want to run OS X on a dell
anyway? Is OS X that much more compelling than Windows/Linux?
\_ OS X is much more compelling than Windows/Linux. And you'd
want to run it on a Dell because Dell makes inexpensive hardware.
I would also run it on my Sharp laptop in a second, if it were
possible. -tom
\_ I run OS X on a daily basis and I still don't see why
it is more compelling than Windows/Linux. I agree that
it is nice and all but most of what I like about Macs
has less to do w/ OS X and a lot to do w/ the hardware:
ADC (w/ OSD of my monitors controls), deep sleep, power
on from the kbd, low noise, multiple firewire ports, &c.
I could easily buy a Dell but I don't b/c I can't get
these hardware features from any vendor other than Apple.
NOTE: I might not "get" it b/c I used to buy Macs for
purpose of running LinuxPPC b/c I liked Mac hardware
better than PC/Sun hardware (though the SS20 was
a NICE system, too bad there was no IDE support).
\_ Interesting. I am less enamored with Apple's hardware.
I do like my G4 Powerbook's sleek form factor and large
17" screen, though. What makes Apple interesting to me
again is OS X. UNIX-like and also runs applications
like Office and Photoshop. It's the best melding of
Windows and Linux. In fact, I run VMWare on a
Windows/Linux box to achieve the same things I get
with OS X. The Intel h/w is superior to Apple's, IMO.
I don't even care about any of the 'advantages' you
mentioned. --dim
\_ Yes, it is. However, part of its beauty is its tight
integration with the hardware and the lack of all the misery
generic x86 hardware and peripherals imposes on its users with
little incompatibilities. The "OSX on Dell" idea is kind
of a cruel joke. |
| 2005/6/6-7 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:37996 Activity:nil |
6/6 Apple to use Intel chips. Does this mean future iBooks will run as
hot and as short as Intel Pentium M based notebooks?
\_ I think a strong motivating factor behind this decision was that
IBM cannot seem to make the G5 viable at all for laptops. |
| 2005/5/27-31 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:37858 Activity:nil |
5/27 How is Intel's Dual-Core technology different from using two CPUs?
\_ Difference is negligible. The point is costs. Obviously one dual
core will cost less in the long run to make vs. 2 seperate CPUs.
Savings may not be immediate, though.
\_ Not always. If you have two chips with 50% yield each and decide
to combine them into one larger die, your yield goes down to 25%.
Your cost per area ends up increasing.
\_ Uhm, what do you think "savings may not be immediate" means?
Initial runs will have a much lower yield vs. ramp-up
runs. Also, you forget the cost of packaging, which is
not insignificant for CPUs these days. Over the long term
the cost should theoretically be less. Also, a dual core
setup will not be 2x the area of a single core chip. It
will always be less than 2x.
will always be less than 2x. In addition, most likely
dual core will utilize a newer technology which will
shrink the overall size of each core.
\_ I'm not saying it will jump by 2x. I was just using 2x and %
50% yield as an unrealistic example to illustrate a point. I'm
just saying that increasing die area also increases cost per
area and that it's not as simple as throwing in the packaging
costs as a single overhead shared between two chips.
50% yield as an unrealistic example to illustrate a point.
I'm just saying that increasing die area also increases
cost per area and that it's not as simple as throwing in
the packaging costs as a single overhead shared between two
chips.
\_ Exactly. That's why som Celeron chips are simply Pentium
chips with half the cache disabled--that half had a flaw, so
they turn it off and sell the result as a Celeron.
\_ Think about it. I'll give you a hint - distance.
\_ Probably not much difference.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2397&p=2 |
| 2005/5/26-31 [Recreation/Computer/Games, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:37840 Activity:nil |
5/26 http://www.pcgameworld.com/top50.php Are you bored? Want to download cool game demos? Here are top 50 games to try. Make sure you have a nice PC (Athlon 64, +1G RAM, vid card). \_ Umm, are you saying if it's not a P4, it's not a "nice PC?" I take you on any day with my three Athlon 64 machines on games. \_ It's just a rough guideline, chill. |
| 2005/5/18-19 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:37749 Activity:kinda low |
5/18 Hyper-threading considered harmful:
http://www.daemonology.net/hyperthreading-considered-harmful
\- You mean it isn't fun and profitable?
\_ I don't know about security problems, but lots of testing has
led us to believe that in most instances it does not help
performance. The number of cases it improves performance is
small compared to the number where it degrades performance -
especially on a multiuser machine. I always turn it off.
\_ In my experience it helps responsiveness, at least in Windows.
Windows 2K/XP threading just seems to work better when there are
more than one processor.
\_ I agree with pp. Hyperthreading helps GUI responsiveness (Alt-
Tabs, etc.), but does not decrease total execution time of a
given process. This is also the general wisdom.
\_ Not only does not decrease, but can increase time spent
in CPU.
\_ Well it *can* decrease the total time of two processes,
if they have certain properties.
\_ For most apps these days responsivenss under load is
a lot more important that some minor gain in raw speed.
I'd gladly sacrafice 1% speed (and we are really talking
less than that) for a noticable gain in UI responsiveness
when my machine is pegging.
\_ We are not talking about less than 1% in speed and
some of us actually do heavy work on our computers.
Depending on what you are doing, the UI response
might actually be *slower* because the OS thinks it
has 2 CPUs when it only has 1 (worse scenario is
when it thinks it has 4 and only has 2 and, I
imagine, gets worse the more CPUs you have). I suggest
always turning off hyperthreading.
\_ Is the hyperthreading thing the same as bundling two CPUs together?
I have a dual P3 machine, and it helps when my compiler compiles
multiple modules in two parallel processes.
\_ No. |
| 2005/5/16-17 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37704 Activity:moderate |
5/16 I am looking for recommendations for a how-to-assemble-one's-own-
computer-book. I would just buy a Dell but I want something quiet.
The system will run XP and SuSE. -- ulysses
\_ Buy Dell, donate to Republicans. It's as simple as that.
\_ Is that worth it? One standalone copy of XP is so expensive.
\_ Worth it? Probably not. Fun and instructive, yes. Also you
don't have to pay full retail for XP. -!op
\_ My Dell is very quiet.
\_ My Dell is very noisy (the power supply) and the
replacement from Dell is not much better either. I hate
the fact that I cannot put in a standard ultra-quiet
power supply because it won't fit Dell's propretary
case!! I am never getting a Dell computer again.
\_ Who sells cheap standard PCs? Tiger Direct?
\_ Tiger Direct? Only if you take their rebates into account,
and that might not be an entirely wise thing.
\_ I build my own now. I enjoy doing it and once
every few years gives me the opportunity to be
informed about the latest PC building trend. There
are tons of places that sells standard PCs.
\_ Care to recommend one?
\_ My Dell dual Xeon at work is noisy, but my home machine is
silent. I can't hear the fan or hard drive at all. It was a
Dimension 4600.
\_ The Dell OptiPlex GX280 (Small Business only) is reviewed by
http://cnet.com as very quiet, due to its new BTX case design (which
funnels air down a central corridor as my Geek Squad friend
tells me). http://csua.org/u/c2w
Our office is buying them, but I'm too lazy to walk over and check
how loud they are. These are standard Dell Small Business desktops
as of ~ half a year ago. Don't get the Small Form Factor version,
which only has 2 DIMM slots (I would get the Mini Tower).
Don't get any Pentium 4 above 3.2 GHz.
\_ The Precision series is pretty quiet. In spite of the above
advice, the desktop is even quieter than the minitower.
\_ Do you stand the Desktop on its side like in the picture?
How do you insert CD-ROMs? The Precision series is a
"workstation" series right?
\_ You can stand it vertically with a plastic stand you
order or use it horizontally. Yes, Precision is the
workstation series. Like someone else noted, the Xeon
systems are loud. So it would be the 3x0 series which
is quiet.
\_ And the Dimension 4600's. Just watch http://slickdeals.net for
a good deal to come up.
\_ http://endpcnoise.com has great parts and complete custom systems.
\_ Has anyone used "Zalman TNN-500AF Noiseless Case" at $1200? Is
it worth the price? |
| 2005/5/9-11 [Science, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:37576 Activity:nil 66%like:37580 |
5/8 Architecture Virtualization:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1762884,00.asp
\_ This link goes to something about a gymnast/model
\_ fixed |
| 2005/5/5-6 [Computer/SW/OS/Solaris, Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:37529 Activity:kinda low |
5/5 I am not familar with Solaris, so, I may be biased... My impression,
from a desktop/laptop user point of view, is that Linux has
better userability than Solaris10, eventhough Solaris 10 also come
with a gnome desktop environment. However, I find myself in a
rare position of not knowing how to articulate this point to
some of the Solaris fanatics. Their argumenet is that since S10
is also equipped with GNOME, userability is the same as Linux.
1. is this arguement flawed?
2. if you think Linux indeed has better usability, any concret example
of userability is more than gnome desktop TIA
\_ From a user point of view, the biggest advantage of Linux is
all the software it ships with. All of that *can* be added to
Solaris, but it isn't there out of the box. Another advantage
of Linux is that for most tasks the actual hardware is faster,
assuming you are running Intel/AMD. Sun has the advantage for
problems that fit within the larger CPU cache, but are larger
then the (smaller) Intel cache.
\_ No Linux desktop user has any basis for say his desktop is superior
in usability to the S10 desktop. This is like the dateless ugly
girl at the dance picking on the other ugly girl for not having a
date.
\_ Thanks for erasing my post and adding bullshit at the same
time.
\_ it's ok, I read it already. -- OP
\_ that is why I post this on motd. If i think i am in a
position of being objective, i probably can make assessment
on my own. having said that, from little things such as
ls, man command, to the way driver installed on S10, I
still think Linux is friendlier.
\_ BWWAAAAHAHAHAHA! Man, it's 'friendlier' until you have to do
low down systems level programming. Then it's 'friendly'
in the same way your 320lb cellmate 'Butch' is friendly.
\_ ^320lb cellmate^neurotic 320lb cellmate
\_ Is that what the server world has really come down to? One
version of 'ls' is "friendlier" (meaning: the way you learned
it on the one system) therefore that system is superior? I'm
curious how many non-Linux systems you've used and for how
many years each.
\_ Your point is correct, but I've just watched (again)
a bunch of presentations tearing gaping new assholes in
Windows security. Maybe he should have mentioned this.
Usability is actually pretty decent. -John
\_ What about drivers? Unless you buy hardware from Sun, you're
going to have some serious problems with hardware support. In
addition, the number of binary-only desktop applications seems to be
dwindling (for example our users would like to be able to use the
latest Matlab and Acrobat reader but those aren't available on
Solaris/x86). In addition, even though Sun includes Gnome, I doubt
Solaris x86 comes with as many popular open source applications as
there are in a typical Linux dist (but then I could be wrong, I
haven't used Sol10 myself yet although Solaris 9 loses hands down in
this area even though it also comes with Gnome).
\_ Easy fix for that: just buy Sun hardware.
\_ I don't understand the desire on the part of some people to attempt
to compare the quality/friendliness/whatever of the desktop
environments of what are really server systems. If you want a nice
GUI, buy a Mac. If you want to play games, work in an office, and
have the largest variety of desktop apps, buy Windows. If you want
a server system and you're the one making the buying deicision, the
question is not "Is this Gnome better than that Gnome?" The
question you're answering and the 'debate' you've involved in is
meaningless.
\_ Someone has to develop the apps for the server system and
that lucky person often gets to use it as a desktop. It is
true, though, that using a PC/Mac as one's desktop and
remotely connecting to the server to code makes sense
depending on the app being developed.
\_ Yep, I've got the kind of luck where I have to use CDE
at work. As far as desktops go, Linux is easier to use
on x86 because there are just a lot more people using it
and improving it. Also, I'd have to say GNU utilities are
generally superior to default solaris ones. |
| 2005/5/2-4 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:37454 Activity:moderate |
5/2 I'm that noise intolerant guy who wanted to make my PC noiseless.
Here is my update. In addition to changing my power supply to
Seasonic Tornado (which is nearly inaudible at around 20db), today,
I just received my brand new Papst 80X80mmcase fan. At $18.95 each,
it costs 3X more and weighs 2X more than the other fans. However,
it is only 12db and just as efficient as the other fans. It's
amazing to hold something noiseless and totally VIBRATIONLESS to
the touch, yet still being able to feel a huge amount of cool air
moving through. The other fan I got is the Silentmaxx 120mm air
intake blower (with filter). It pricey, at $22.95 each, but it
delivers a whopping 41.2CFM at only 19.0db. Both Papst and Silentmaxx
are import items from Germany. I'm now a big believer of quality
German engineering. ALL HEIL DEUTSCHE TEKNIC, and fuck
Yankee/Chinese made cheapo goods.
\_ PABST BLUE RIBBON!!!
\_ The standard quiet 80mm fan according to http://silentpcreview.com are
specific models of the (Panasonic) Panaflo. I got one last week,
it's quiet and pushes medium-amount of air:
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835180041
I got the Vantec 80mm below but it clacks and is annoying:
(probably only mine sucks - poor quality control)
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811999602
My Athlon 64 is still louder than the old Pentium 3 866 MHz, but
I have now judged it "quiet enough" and will stop tweaking it.
(God, I also put in a Zalman 120mm /CPU/ fan. That thing is huge.)
\_ Sorry, but your cheapo $5 fan is 21dB. While that is pretty
quiet, it is not completely silent, like my superior
GERMAN MADE fans (12dB). Each 3dB increase means 2X the sound,
and each 6dB increase means 4X the sound. Also, try lowering
the speed of the fan. I find that a lower speed actually cools
the case better. The reason is that you want air flow to be
uni-directional, and too many fans will blow hot air everywhere.
By the way, what kind of power supply are you using? A rule
of thumb is that they account for 1/2-2/3 of total noise.
\_ Uh ... okay ... anyway, I have an Enermax power supply:
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103458
I do know the Seasonics are quieter.
Can you post a link to where you bought your Papst fan?
BTW, a 3 dB increase will increase sound POWER by 2x.
You need a 6 dB increase to increase sound PRESSURE by 2x.
Most people say you need 8-10 dB to increase perceived
loudness by 2x.
BTW, a 3 dB increase corresponds to an increase in sound POWER
by 2x. A 6 dB increase corresponds to an increase in sound
PRESSURE by 2x. Most people say you need 8-10 dB to increase
perceived loudness by 2x.
\_ I got my Papst fans from http://quietpcusa.com, the site German
John suggested. I can't find the db spec for your
\_ W00t! -John
Enermax, although it is using 2 pretty small fans (80mm).
I suggest you concentrate on the noisiest thing first,
which is usually the power supply. Getting a power
supply with ONE 120mm fans means it will run at a lower
RPM (mine runs at 750RPM, compare that with 1500 with
normal fans). Noise is quadratic with RPM. After you've
done that, then concentrate on secondary stuff like
fans. Like I said, adding speed controller arrays (and
using a digital thermometer) really helps you cool your
case better AND lowering fan noise. I've done all of
the above and have gotten noise down to a point that
the only thing I hear is the humming noise of my cheapo
Maxtor drives and the humping noise of my neighbor 2
houses down. I hope to fix #1 by replacing Maxtor with
completely silent Seagate Barracuda in the future. I'm
not sure how to fix #2 though.
\_ Yeah, I did say the Seasonics were quieter than my
Enermax. I do know the Seasonics use a big 120mm
fan, for lower noise. I'll try out the Papst and
the Seasonic for the next computer, I think.
\_ Amendment: Actually, I also took out my chipset fan
and my VGA fan. I replaced them with big heat-sinks.
Taking out the VGA fan was painful (and kind of scary
because I had to pry open the hard thermal glue)
But everything worked out at the end:
http://www.quietpcusa.com/vgainstall.html
In summary when I started the project, I had: 1 noisy
power, 1 loud intake, 1 loud CPU fan, 1 loud HD fan
1 chipset fan, and 1 VGA fan. In the end, I had:
1 22db Seasonic fan, 1 19db Silentmaxx intake (19db),
1 12db HD fan, and 1 semi-quiet (but not completely
silent) CPU fan.
\_ My Panaflo pushes 24.0 CFM of air at 21 dB(A), but
your Pabst pushes only 19.4 CFM at 12 dB(A).
Ha-ha! (according to the http://silentpcreview.com Excel file)
</sarcasm>
\_ I bought the Antec Sonata case to replace my existing case
which is too noisy. Although not completely silent, it is
significantly quieter than my old case. The Antec power
supply is pretty quiet, and the 120mm case fan is also
quiet and mounted on a rubber feet connected to the case.
The HD slot is also dampened by rubber feet, the only
component the HD actually touches. I also replaced my noisy
Intel CPU fan with a Zalman CPU fan, and replaced my video
card with one that does not have a fan. Actually in my
experience the CPU and video card fan generate quite a bit
of noise. I could install noise absorbing padding inside
the case, but decided it was not worth the money as the
case currently is very quiet. Is your setup completely
silent? (except the HD noise of course...). Silent PC is so
nice. I hard the Mac Mini is also very very quiet, too bad
it doesn't run XP, haha. -chiry
\_ I also have a silent PC. It costs me $0.50 and 5 seconds to
install. It's called a EARPLUGS. This whole conversation reminds
me of how dumb Harley bikers go to those dumb Harley conventions
and compare how loud their pipes are, except in a completely
different direction.
\_ Here's an even better idea, why don't you just perforate
your eardrums so that you go deaf.
\_ Huh? earplugs? you joking right? Instead of solve the
problem, you cover your ears. Who said PCs should be
loud? Have you ever used a quiet PC? Building a quiet
PC is just the same as building a quiet car, a quiet
home, you don't solve these problems by putting in
ear plugs. This is the stupidest argument I've heard
in a while, but then again I am feeding the trolls,
damn. -chiry
\_ I put mine in the closet and I hear NOTHING. |
| 2005/4/18-19 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:37246 Activity:kinda low |
4/18 Has anyone tried those liquid CPU cooler? How much noise does it
reduce? I have an AMD and I'm not sure whether the noise is from
the CPU fan, power supply fan, gaming card fan, or the motherboard
chipset fan. If you have those cool liquid coolers, how much did
you spend on it and do you think its worth it?
\_ If you want a quiet computer, it is most effective to tackle
all sources of noise at once. http://www.endpcnoise.com
\_ A colleague of mine bought a Zalman TN1500A, with a bunch of
super quiet fans (Papst?) from http://quietpc.com. He has a load of
SATA disk in there, and the thing is dead silent. Costs a bunch,
though. -John
\_ they have a really quiet power supply I'd like to get (350W
and less than 20db? That's just amazing). But how do I know
if it will fit in my enclosure? The web site has no spec
\_ Google? :) Seriously though, also look at papst fans.
I've had trouble finding resellers, though. -John
\_ The advertised decibal rating is MISLEADING. They claim 19dB,
but don't tell you that it's under light load. If you look at
specs here: http://www.nexustek.nl/nx3500.htm you'll see that
at full load, it is near 30dB. |
| 2005/4/15-17 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:37213 Activity:kinda low |
4/15 I'm compiling something standard and it fails. Upon Googling, the
sol'n is to use "setarch i386" on my Pentium M730 processor, and
everything works fine. Out of curiousity, I dumped my environment
variable under "setarch i386" and outside and they're almost
identical. Furthermore, uname reports the EXACT same thing. I'm
baffled now. What does setarch do?
\_ DESCRIPTION
setarch This utility currently only affects the output of uname -m.
For example, on an AMD64 system, running 'setarch i386 program' will
cause 'program' to see i686 (or other relevant arch) instead of x86_64
as machine type. It also allows to set various personality options.
\_ Yes I RTFM'ed too, but the fact of the matter is, under both
conditions my Fedora Core 3 reports IDENTICAL uname -m results
\_ I've never heard of setarch. Which *nix is it?
\_ Fedora Core 3 |
| 2005/4/15 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Printer] UID:37205 Activity:kinda low |
4/15 Son of Newton:
http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/news_9485.html
\_ seriously lame
\_ What's the point of running TabletPC OS if the screen is not touch-
sensitive?
\_ or even if it is?
\_ touch sensitive is good for limited applications, like GUIs that
give you big buttons (for UPS men, census poller, voting, etc).
Most Win apps are not like that. In addition, the selling point
of Tablet PC is not the original PC itself, but rather, the
ability to draw freehand (take notes, highlight EXISTING
documents, read eBooks), and character recognition. The latter
is especially useful for East Asian languages. I use it to
write Chinese all the time. I still find it slow and hard to
type Chinese, and the char recognition program is amazingly
accurate to use. Is the Tablet PC for everyone? Absolutely NOT.
It tailers to a niche market, and will most likely never be
main stream. But I think it's cool -happy Tablet PC user
\_ Most Tablet PCs don't have touch-sensitive screens. They all
require a special stylus (and as a consequence, they're usually
more accurate and offer other features like pressure
sensitivity, which is good for drawing apps). Even with a
touch-sensitive screen, it's not like you want to smudge it up
with your fingers anyway. |
| 2005/4/15-17 [Computer/SW/Security, Computer/SW/Apps, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:37199 Activity:nil |
4/15 http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/04/14/mit.prank.reut/index.html The lead author is a (recent) cal alum. |
| 2005/3/19-20 [Computer/HW/Drives, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:36772 Activity:high |
3/19 Given the choice between a firewire and USB2.0 connection
(between an external hard drive and my computer), which one is
better and why? Thanks.
\_ Firewire is faster and more robust for that application. USB
is more widely available if you'd ever want to move the disk to
another machine. -tom
\_ Interface-wise, FireWire is better technically speaking, but to
most users they see no difference.
As tom said, you see USB 2.0 on more notebooks and desktops than
FireWire, because Intel p0wnZ dat f00l st3vee j0b5, I mean,
Intel produces mobo chipsets with USB 2.0 on-board as a std feature.
\_ Cool, thanks for the responses.
\_ Firewire. It's peer-to-peer instead of host/client, so you don't
load your CPU while transferring data. You can burn one CD while
ripping another one, etc.
\_ nothing personal, but this is a fine example of the utterly
bizarre, meaningless techno-babble advice often disgorged
on the motd. what happened to the CS in CSUA?
\_ Uhm, the firewire peer to peer connectivity between computers
has nothing to do with how efficiently peripherals functions.
The spec has provisions for peer to peer networking which
would allow for fast grid computing. This doesn't mean you
get higher efficiencies when transferring information to a
CD burner.
\_ http://csua.com/?entry=35792 (specs)
http://csua.com/?entry=12107 (speed)
Also just search for "usb firefire" on Kais Motd |
| 2005/3/15-16 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:36695 Activity:high |
3/15 It's been a while since I bought a notebook. Is there any reason to
pay extra $100 to upgrade from XP Home to XP Professional? How about
Intel Pentium M Processor 7x5, do they run at decent speed relative
to say, P4? And what's the difference between 1) Crystal View XGA TFT
and 2) SXGA+ non-crystal view TFT? ok thx
\_ You definitely want a Pentium M for the power savings.
\_ XGA = 1024x768, SXGA = 1400x1050
CrystalView is just the name they gave to a better LCD; don't get
the last gen LCD
\_ Comparing a 1024 and a 1400 IBM screen, the 1024 is brighter with
slightly slower refresh, and the 1400 has a very wide viewing
angle, but less brightness when viewed Head-on.
\_ Home has problems working with more than I think 5 computers on a
LAN and has a bunch of other esoteric cripplings that make it
unusable by most businesses. For home use, 'Home' is fine.
YMWTS: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx
\_ How about dialing in and running VPN to access corporate network?
Does Home work in this case?
\_ Clock-for-clock, 7xx Pentium Ms do more work that Pentium 4s.
The 7xx series also use a lot less power, which means better
battery life and cooler thighs. Pentium M is lower voltage, lower
frequency, bigger cache, and shorter pipeline.
\_ Generally, multiply the Pentium M frequency by 1.5 to get the
equivalent Pentium 4 frequency. So a 2.0 Ghz Pentium M is like
a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4.
Anyway, you definitely do not want a Pentium 4 notebook.
Runs too hot, uses too much power, notebooks are too heavy, they'll
break from all that -- it's a desktop CPU.
\_ Pentium 4: Desktop CPU, very hot, high power and clock rate
Pentium 4M: Pentium 4 at lower voltage and power
Pentium M/Centrino/7xx: Different design philosophy, very low
power, lower clock rate but more work per cycle.
\_ FYI, they don't make the Pentium 4 Mobile anymore
Also, the Pentium M not only has a different design
philosophy, it was engineered from the ground up as a mobile
CPU.
\_ XP Home does not have IIS. Pro does for development purposes.
\_ M$ is really good at bundling things and defying antitrust laws.
\_ My gf wants a cheap laptop(against my advice.) Are there any
significant difference between Celeron M 360 and Pentium M 725?
Besides the cache I mean. I'm mainly interested in performance
and battery usage.
\_ http://www.tabletpcreviewspot.com/default.asp?newsID=178
Celeron M's are Pentium M's with half the L2 cache and no
SpeedStep (always runs at the list frequency).
See the article for more details.
Pentium M > Celeron M >> Pentium 4
\_ Cool. Thanks for the link. Her older celeron laptop was
dog slow, but this page looks good. -pp |
| 2005/3/7-8 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:36555 Activity:high |
3/7 Anyone know where I can get old PC components? For example, I want to
get a replacement Pentium CPU. (The good old Pentium)... Thx.
\_ ebay or craigslist.
\_ Seconded, but you might have to wait a while to see anything come
up. There's Wierd Stuff and SurplusComputers both around
Sunnyvale / North San Jose, and they will have what you need for
cheap. You could probably build a whole 386 from parts at those
places.
\_ Jesus. I threw away a P-133. I didn't realize someone would
want it. What do you want it for?!
\_ To play Doom. ;)
\_ Too bad. They make mediocre file servers without having to heat
up your room like modern machines. Or they make great machines
that display slideshow in your living room or something.
\_ They're hot and noisy. I ran a lab of them, and you really
want the window open after a while.
\_ Try "The Used Computer Store" on Shattuck.
http://www.usedcomputerstore.net
\_ God's sake no.
\_ I've one lying around somewhere.
\_ I just gave away several PII machines on craiglist.
\_ They're bad? Any experience with them?
\_ Come by 337 Soda, we've got lots of old pc sh*t destined for e&s.
I think we have a couple pentium pro processors in our freezer too.
...
Which is awesome. -mrauser |
| 2005/2/3 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:36044 Activity:moderate |
2/2 This is a really really cool CPU fan:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=35-106-043&DEPA=0
\_ Meh. All that metal and yet they use a central fan. Which means
their fins aren't getting near optimal air flow at all.
\_ WHat's so cool about it?
\_ This supermega CPU fan reminds me of those supermega spoilers
kids put on their souped up Honda Civic. It is both funny and
ridiculous at the same time. |
| 2005/1/28-29 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:35949 Activity:low |
1/28 I'm thinking of building a cluster of diskless, low-end low-noise
PCs (one to attach a monitor to a wall to make it look like a
moving painting, one in the kitchen to display weather/traffice),
are there motherboards that boot up from LAN and without having to
have a HD?
\_ Try Mini-ITX from VIA. Many of them are fanless. AFAIK,
all of them have the ability to boot off the net.
\_ Also just to get some ideas, look at http://www.mini-itx.com .
They're in the UK, so ordering may abe problematic, but their
page has some cool resources. -John
\_ You can get the same shit here in the U.S. Just go down to
Central Computer if you're in the Bay Area. They'll either
have it or get it for you.
\_ how about 802.11? Any board that can boot from that?
\_ I don't think so. |
| 2005/1/24-25 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:35870 Activity:high |
\1/24 On 21264, you have 80 physical registers of which 31 are visible.
However, on P4's you have 128 physical registers, of which
8 of them are visible at one time. The rest are used for
speculative storage and renaming (to prevent WAW and WAR hazards).
So, why 128 physical registers when only 8 are exposed (I presume
they're only ax-dx, and eax-edx)? Isn't that a lot?
\_ It's been a while since I've taken 152 but I believe this has
something to do with register renaming. Many CPUs have extremely
deep and wide execution pipelines allowing for a massive amount
of in-flight instructions. You cannot have 40 instructions in-
flight, for example, with only 8 registers. When an instruction
is issued, it is placed in a reservation station. Its regsiter
specifier is renamed to point to other reservation stations if
an instruction is already in-flight. When that in-flight
instruction is completed, the reservation station for the
pending instruction will source the write value of the instr
that it was dependent on. Since there can be more reservation
stations that user accessible registers, this is how we get
the 80 physical vs 31 visible registers.
\_ Which semester did you take 152? I didn't learn these in Sp93.
\_ Perhaps buy a more recent Comp Arch book (the H&P version,
not the P&H one). It's covered in the section on Tomasulo's
algorithm. This is more graduate level stuff so it's not
surprising that some profs don't cover it in 152.
\_ I think by 8 exposed registers they mean eax-edx, esi, edi, esp,
ebp.
\_ The P4 is a CISC machine and does a lot for one instruction. Hence
the work done per instruction is higher, and hence more registers
are necessary. When I learned RISC programming in CS60B it was
noted that 32 registers were available, but by convention most were
reserved--so you only really had 8-12 registers you could really
work with. Also, Intel has made the L0 cache very fast so that
there isn't much of a hit moving data from cache to register.
\_ I respectfully disagree with the post above. CISC requires
FEWER registers than RISC because not as many intermediate regs
need to be kept around, and if L0 was so fast there's not
"much of a hit" then FEWER registers would be required. Different
codes require very different number of registers; what all the
physical registers are used for in x86 are supporting massive
out-of-order execution, multiple simultaneous threads, loop
unrolling, etc. ... the existence proof is that Intel would not
have put them there unless they helped performance.
\_ Intel machines may be technically CISC, but they're more RISCy
than stated above. Most compilers write code that's very RISC-
like. However, since backward compatibility at every step is
key, the Intel line has been straightjacketed into the eight-
register world. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you hate the
Pentium architecture), Intel (and AMD) easily finds ways around
that. After 30 years shackled to the same base instructions
I'm not quite sure why Intel doesn't build a second assembly
language to fully leverage the architecture - having a special
mode for this - but I guess it would be more trouble than it's
worth to do so.
\_ They did try, and it went over like the Hindenberg (c.f.
IA-64)
\_ IA-64 sunk for other reasons. You don't need an
expensive 64-bit processor without a market in order to
allow some programs to execute the microcode (or some
one-to-one translation thereof) directly. |
| 2005/1/19-20 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:35792 Activity:kinda low |
1/19 USB>>Firewire or Firewire>>USB? Give reasons and specs. Round 1 START!
\_ Yersister >> Yermom
\_ Yersisiter + Yermom >> Yersister
\_ Yersister + Yermom >> Yersister
\_ Firewire has a way better plug. USB upside-down looks the same
unless you look inside the plug. What a stupid design.
\_ From a usability perspective Firewire wins hands down. On
interface, on cpu load, etc. Unfortunately USB is cheaper.
\_ Firewire has less overhead and in practice is faster. |
| 2005/1/18-19 [Computer/HW/Display, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:35769 Activity:kinda low |
1/18 Recommendations for MoBo/CPU for a game PC (Windows XP) -John
\_ MSI Neo2 Platinum plus A64 3000/3200/3500
\_ What about future-proofing by getting a PCI-X mobo?
\_ Most of the ones that have all the features you could
possibly want (SLI, hi-def sound, RAID) are either too
expensive or aren't available yet. FWIW, i'm waiting for
the MSI K8N SLI Platinum
\_ SLI is stupid. But PCIE (not PCI-X... that's something
else) you should get for future compatibility although
they will likely release cards using AGP bridge chips
for a while yet.
\_ Athlon 64 3500+/3200+ "Winchester" (90nm) with Asus A8V - http://newegg.com |
| 2005/1/15-17 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:35732 Activity:nil |
1/15 Which book was used in cs60b many years ago to teach RISC (MIPS)
assembly?
\_ Author was Gerry Kane.
\_ http://csua.org/u/apw |
| 2005/1/11-12 [Computer/Companies/Apple, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:35661 Activity:low |
1/11 Can I install XP on an iMac Mini?
\_ You sick, sick human being.
\_ Think about this for a second: It's a G4 processor. Is there a
PowerPC version of WinXP? No. You could install VMWare on a mini
mac, and then put XP into that, but it'll be s-l-o-w.
\_ Microsoft bought Virtual PC to offer this kind of functionality,
which has been mostly stable on G4 for awhile. Yes, it's
very slow.
\_ You mean VirtualPC. VMware is x86 only and doesn't do emulation. |
| 2005/1/7-8 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:35591 Activity:moderate |
1/7 Is there a way to determine whether a e-commerce site uses 3rd party
payment processor (and which one) or its own server?
\_ Is this the fellow buying porn again who doesn't want to be IDed?
What the hell is up with all these weird e-commerce questions?
And the answer is no unless the site was written for you to know,
wtf are you doing that requires you to know this and why do you
care?
\_ Plus, most of it goes to the same large backend companies
like Paymentech anyway.
\_ pr0n is irrelvant. It's digital anonymous currency or slavery.
Live free then die.
\_ Put this in your mind: there is someone stalking you: he follows
your every click, POST and GET. He knows your addr, ssn and dob.
He knows your wife's name, taste, and cup size (from her shopping
at http://victoriassecret.com). He has your joint CC and bank account
# as well. Last but not the least, he has your consent to use
all that information however he chooses after you clicked on the
"I agree" button. Because he is a multi-trillion $ industry
with access to tens of thousands of supercomputers he has the
mean and motivation to profile, predict and prescribe your
behavior. Should you disobey, your info will be sold to the UN
human traffickers at a discount. Freedom requires anonymity.
\_ you mean they were watching me when i ordered that
tinfoil hat?
\_ in fact, they tampered with it before it was delivered. |
| 2005/1/5-6 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:35552 Activity:high |
1/5 Phew! Quit that job just in time!
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050105/transmeta_stock_2.html
--lye
\_ tell us about transmeta, like was it cool while you were there?
is the technology really that cool? what did you work on?
\_ The technology is very cool, but it has become a solution for
a problem that doesn't exist. The Pentium M essentially makes
Transmeta's hardware moot. The amount of engineering labor
required to make code morphing really work is immense, and
it is the kind of labor that PhDs are not fond of. TMTA is
staffed with lots and lots of PhDs. I'm sure you can imagine
the sorts of management drama that resulted from that.
I myself worked on x86 verification, which essentially meant
writing lots of directed tests in x86 assembly that tested
thousands of corner cases. In x86, virtually everything is
a corner case due to legacy support, especially in floating
point. I also wrote and managed random testers. I Learned
A Lot, but it was Not Fun.
I also learned that Linus Torvalds is a very nice man who drives
like a complete maniac.
--lye
\_ what kind of car did he drive? and is he a nice guy?
\_ Yellow Mercedes Benz SLK32 AMG. --lye
\_ Did Ditzel go down in flames too? I see that he's making $411K
a year, but did he manage to sell his stock in time?
\_ Ditzel was well equipped with all manner of golden parachutes.
While I was there, he typically unloaded 100s of thousands of
shares a month, which he was optioned at a very low price.
This is all a matter of public record, I believe. --lye
\_ I think this is a very good move, even if they don't make it.
The code morphing is very cool, I have always thought this would
be a great match for a next generation of high performance chips.
A brilliant way to help move away from the aweful x86 ISA. -jwm
\- you're an idiot. -tom
\_ In case you were wondering, this response has gotten old, at
least for me. -- ulysses
\_ Someone (probably crebbs or erikred) has decided that
it's amusing to post that in my name. I certainly
wouldn't use psb's "\-". And I don't think jwm is an
idiot. -tom
\_ dude, fuck off. What the hell is wrong with you anyway?
I didn't post with your username. It seems obvious
that erikred didn't either. Nor did I think it amusing
when someone did it in the middle of our thread.
-crebbs
\_ Doh! I should have thought of that. -- ulysses
\_ tom, I promise you, I have never nor would I ever post
under your name. I have a soft-spot for loveable cranks,
so I'm not likely to alter or delete your posts, either.
Keep on trucking. --erikred
\_ Tom is right on here, although he probably didn't need to
resort to insults. Code morphing is "cool," but essentially
useless. Is there a word for technolgy like this?
Slashdotware? --lye
\_ I recently suggested to google scholar that they add
an Erdos number calculator. -- ilyas
\_ That would fucking rock. Could you post if they
respond? I wonder if they would be more likely to do
it if they got more requests for it. The only time
I sent a suggestion to google(about their calculator)
it was totally ignored.
\_ What was your suggestion? I might be able to talk
to someone who can get it done.
\_ I made another suggestion to scholar a while back
that got put on a feature list, apparently.
-- ilyas
\_ I respect your opinion on this because you know
a great deal more than I do about this. To me it
seems that it could be very useful, and in fact
practical in the sense that it could be used to solve
real problems. But I am very interested in your take
on it as someone with experience. --jwm
\_ It's a very long story - but essentially code morphing,
no matter how good it is at individual benchmarks,
never "feels" like "real" hardware from the native
instruction set that you are emulating. Translation
time lag always leads to a jerkiness and the feeling
that the computer is "shifting gears." This is on
top of the fact that getting the translator to do the
right thing in all cases while optimizing for
performance is extremely hard. --lye
\_ Java is the term I use.
\_ So what did you work on at Transmeta? |
| 2004/12/21 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Display] UID:35371 Activity:high |
12/21 Hey fellow moderately rich bastards. The Samsung 193P is on sale at
http://jr.com for $500 after rebate. I just put in my order with next-day
shipping. See http://newegg.com or http://pricegrabber.com to see other prices.
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=3967280
\_ How can it have a 4:3 AR with a native resolution of 1280x1024?
(And yes, I am aware of the existence of rectangular pixels, but
I was under the impression that no one sane makes LCDs with
non-square pixels.)
\_ I don't get what's so special about this monitor with the exception
of slightly higher contrast ratio. Am I missing something?
\_ http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/lcd-guide.html
http://www.anandtech.com/displays/showdoc.aspx?i=2289
There is consensus that the 2001FP (20" Dell) is better still.
\_ Fully review here: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2024&p=1
\_ It's not better except it's bigger. If you read the comments
on that monitor, 193P has better features and they rated it
higher in the "subjective" analysis.
\_ Yer right. I should say, "some say that" the 2001FP is
better still because it's 1600x1200 and has all the groovy
inputs.
\_ Full review here: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2024&p=1
Note this comparison:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1974&p=7
\_ You can get the Dell 20" wide 2005fpw for $622. Don't
bother with the samsumg for $500. Check
http://www.techbargains.com for the coupon code. I am ordering
one, no rebates, no fuss, and 20". If you can afford $500,
you can afford $622, believe me, the difference between
$1600x1050 and 1280x1024 is big.
\_ Do you expect any problems with widescreen?
\_ I will let you know when I receive mine. :) So far I haven't
heard any problems with the wide screen. It works better for
DVDs and photos taken with digital SLR, you actually get more
pixels than 1600x1200 but shrinked....
\_ What happens when you want to drive it with a 2 yr old
notebook with Intel chipset graphics? (how does it
interpolate to 1680x1050?)
\_ I'm trying to decide this too... I could get this for $610
shipped with my coupons.
\_ Actually if you call Dell Small Business, they may
give you a 35% off coupon. That will bring the
overall price to ~ $560 shipped with tax. Hella of
a deal. Just ordered mine. The best price I can
find online is the 30% off for small business, but
with tax and shipping, which totals to about $620.
But you have to call them, as the $35% off coupon
is not listed anywhere. Check this thread
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1026999131
\_ You got free shipping too? Well, I went ahead and
ordered my crappier deal and will call tomorrow to
bitch or cancel if I can't squeeze out any more money.
\_ What if the 193P is only $414 ?
http://www.hwextreme.com/deals.shtml
\_ Are you talking about the Dell E193FP? I don't see the 193P.
\_ you are right. my bad.
\_ This item has now gone offline. (You need to call them or
go to a bricks&mortar store.) -op |
| 2004/12/7-8 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:35205 Activity:low |
12/7 Followup to the hardware problem yesterday: I down-clocked the
FSB to 100MHz and the problem went away. The memory went from 266->200
the CPU went from 1466->1100, but the AGP and PCI stayed at 33MHz.
Since memtest showed the memory itself is probably OK, and GIMPS showed
no CPU problem, that says to me the AMD 761 Northbridge is the problem.
Thanks to everyone who helped with this tricky problem.
\_ No such thing as a 33MHz AGP (not commercially at least).
\_ Did you have it overclocked in the first place???
\_ No, it was all to spec.
\_ heh, same with my younger brother's computer. He was mighty
pissed he spent ~ 2x on Corsair super-elite CL2
memory and had to go back to CL3 AND reduce his bus frequency.
This was on a Pentium 4 2.26 GHz, MSI motherboard, with
Intel chipset as well.
FYI, my Athlon 64 3200+ Newcastle with an Asus mobo and two
sticks of CL3 Kingston 512MB work fine, but it has the same
problem with random games in the dynamic frequency-clocking
mode (I had to fix it to stay at 2.2 GHz).
\_ Where did he buy it from? Or did he assemble it
himself?
\_ Newegg, both DIMMs are the same - it's probably a flaky
mobo that worked fine with 512 MB but had problems going
to 1 GB at the spec'd speed
\_ maybe your northbridge could benefit from better cooling. |
| 2004/12/6-7 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:35186 Activity:high |
12/6 I'm at my wit's end with a problem. I'm running WinXP and a lot of
newer 3D games make the machine randomly lock hard. There isn't much
pattern to it, but some games do it and some don't. This problem is
not mentioned under tech support for the games besides the generic
"Update your drivers and DirectX" which I've done. Games which crash
include Railroad Tycoon 3, Rome:Total War and Sid Meier's Pirates, and
in the non-crash group is GTA:Vice City, Doom3, and MS Flight Sim 2004.
I don't know what else to try, is it a hardware failure of some type,
or maybe AGP apperture? This is a GeForceFX5700 on an Athlon XP.
\_ SP2? Running in safe mode works? Maybe bad memory? -John
\_ SP2. Can you use D3D in safe mode? Other apps are stable.
\_ SP2 fucks up a lot of apps and games. There are lists
of known problems at the MS site. I think there's a way
under safe mode to select the drivers you load. Just as
a terribly stupid idea, try setting up a vmware session and
running the game inside that--it might give you some more
clues. -John
\_ The SP2 issues page seems all about firewall issues,
which is not the problem. Safe mode, while a good idea,
prevents DirectX from working.
\_ I had some similar problems after I installed a new video card
in my old computer. Make sure you are not overloading your video
bus. Try turning down the AGP rate from 4X to 2X or even 1X and
then see if it still happens. I tried a bunch of things before
I hit upon this. You can set it in your start-up screen. -ausman
\_ Motherboard supports 2x and 4x. Switching to 2x did not fix it.
\_ Do you have the VIA chipset? I do, and I have the same
symptoms, as documented on <DEAD>viaarena.com<DEAD>. -ax
\_ MB is Abit KG7, with AMD 761 northbridge and VIA 686B south.
\_ What did you do about it? -ausman
\_ I got used to not being able to play the Medal of Honor
series. Most other 3D games work fine. -ax
\_ Could be something overheating.
\_ But Doom3 runs fine for hours.
\_ My younger brother had this exact problem after we added another
Corsair CL2 DIMM to get him to 1 GB. Entered BIOS settings and
turned CAS settings from Auto or CL2 to CL3 - now everything works
fine.
\_ Some games worked and other didn't? -op
\_ I don't think you should put too much concern on the
"some game work and other don't". The game that works
may just be not exercising the CPU enough or something.
I would suggest the following, download "Ultimate BootCD"
and try a burn-in test, if your mahcine locks up, it's BIOS
or hardware problem. If it passes, then maybe a software
problem, reinstall XP from scrach and see if it helps.
If it's a software problem, most likely it'll go away.
\_ Yes.
\_ Can you start to play some games and then they lock up,
or will they lock up your computer on startup?
\_ In my case they will start, then lock randomly in 1-10
minutes. Screen freezes and sound gets stuck in a loop. -op
\_ Now's the time to upgrade to an Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester!
-sl0da l0s3r
\_ Yeah, exact same symptoms as mine. I am pretty sure you
are overloading your graphics subsystem. Have you installed
the latest firmware upgrades on both your graphics card
and your mother board? Could be a sound card problem
too, but it seems unlikely from what you have said.
Any kind of hardware or driver changes lately? -ausman
\_ Same symptoms for me too. -ax
\_ OK, an update for those whove been helping me: I ran memtest86 and
one other memory tester. Both ran for a while reporting no errors
until the system suddenly locked up. I ran the mersenne prime
torture test and had no problems. So something is flakey, but how
can I be sure it's the RAM, not the CPU? My motherboard monitor
reports in-spec temperatures and voltages both at idle and when
running GIMPS.
\_ Can you try a stick from another PC?
\_ I have 2 different sticks in there now, both in use for at
least a year. I'll try selectively pulling one later. For
now I'm wondering about a good CPU-only stress test (like
one that uses only a tiny bit of memory and no mallocs() ).
\_ OK, I tried each stick on its own. One crashes very
fast while the other takes a while. So, either I have 2
bad DDR sticks, or something else is fucked. Suggestions?
\_ It's your motherboard. Abit KG7s are know to be flakey.
Return it and get something not Abit, like a Gigabyte.
Abit + P4 + Via also has problems. I only recommend
Abit if it's the more expensive standard Intel chipset
version. Avoid Via chipset abits, especially if you
are using P4. Also, K series is known to be flakey.
You can try upgrading the BIOS and see if that helps,
but I never got one to work reliable, especially
on high load stuff.
-williamc
\_ I agree with williamc, I think it's
my motherboard as well, but am too lazy
to change it since my disks are raided. -ax
\_ BIOS is current. I'm afraid you might be right.
Can you reccomend a stable MB for an 266FSB Athlon?
\_ I'v been using a GA-7VT600 gigabyte for
some time now with Linux/XP and no problems.
It's got a KT600 and it can support up to 400
FSB. BTW, the reason why your MB is flakey is
because of the chipset combo. It's a via/amd
solution that just doesn't work. Avoid combo
solutions like this. Plus, whatever you do
avoid the KT266 like the plague (older
via chipset). Your solution was due to the
KT266 instability (the A version doesn't help
matters much, just avoid any MB like this)
Via cleaned up its act aver the KT266 debacle
and Via+Athlon is pretty stable now. Via+P4
is the crap, especially the P880 series.
-williamc
\_ Motherboard having hardware issues does not
explain why it would lock up in some games
and not in others. Do you mean "flakey' in
some other fashion?
\_ Yes it does, I've seen this before on Linux
also. 90% of programs ran fine, even a
kernel recompile. But when we began to
load the system up with circuit simulations
the thing would segfault at random. It took
me a week of replacing parts to find out it
was the MB initially. What was interesting
was that stuff started to fail in succession.
First there was the segfault issue, then
all of a sudden kernel recompiles failed, then
the IDE controller went out for no reason.
Chipset problems usually only appear if you
stress the system long enough. That's why it
passes QA and gets put on the shelf. -williamc
\_ Presume that any game can lock the system by
sending a corrupt instruction to the video
driver or AGP controller. Now if there's a
MB/chipset that is randomaly corrupting some
writes to main memory, a game which makes more
writes has more chances to get stung, and send
a corrupted instruction. Just one explanation.
\_ Yeah, but shouldn't that mean that he
should see Doom3 crashes sometimes as well?
Less frequently yes, but none at all?
Something else is happening that we are
not quite understanding here.
\_ RR Tycoon, Pirates, and Rome must have
something different about them than GTA,
Doom, and flightsim. Maybe he should try
underclocking his FSB and see if things
get more stable. Anyway the memtest
indicates the RAM is the problem area.
\_ Memtest doesn't report any problems,
it flat-out locks the system. This
is with 2 different RAM sticks. -op
\_ No, you're wrong. It's the MB, plain
and simple. Just because it appears
as if it's a memtest problem doesn't
mean it's not the MB. Trust me, it's
the MB. I have direct experience
with Abit K series MBs, I've seen
stuff like the IDE controller going
wonky, the serial ATA going wonky,
the video AGP problem going wonky,
etc. The memtest is only one
symptom of basically a chipset
problem. Hardware is complex, it's
not like software where you can
pinpoint stuff to one dll and say
the bug is there. It's the MB, stop
wasting time and just get it replaced.
It costs $50. -williamc
\_ Thanks for your help. What do you
think of this mobo:
http://tinyurl.com/4ul8f
\_ It looks fine, I've never had
an issue with nvidia chipset.
I've had some minor problems
with MSI, though, but that's
on the P4 side. Your athlon
should be fine as long as
you get a good board, MSI
makes decent (but not really
outstanding) boards. The
nvidia I have running an athlon
is an ASUS from last year.
-williamc
\_ Could also be the power
supply?
\_ Hardware monitor reports all
voltages 3-5% over spec. -op
\_ Sounds like a virus. Reformat and start over.
\_ Are you sure? Re-read the thread.
\_ http://forums.eyo.com.au/arc/t-1142.html
Relax your memory timings. Reduce bus speeds. |
| 2004/12/2 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:35155 Activity:moderate |
12/2 my computer is probably 40 times more powerful than my
first PC. does my processor consume 40 times more than
my first PC?
\_ consume... power?
\_ Vespene gas.
\_ Quite possibly, considering that PCs in the old days didn't have
CPU fans.
\_ It definitely consumes more but not 40x. Today's CPUs are more
efficient in terms of speed to power usage ratio.
\_ 486 was ~20W, original Pentium around 40. Max power per chip goes
up about 4-5% per year currently (as per the SIA roadmap), much
slower than the ~50%/year performance increase.
\_ Hey, and the 90nm Athlon 64 3500+ uses 47.5 watts at 100% CPU!
The 3000+ runs at 40 watts.
\_ when viewing good soft porn DVD movies, yes. |
| 2004/12/1 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/OS/Solaris] UID:35146 Activity:high |
12/1 open source sadness, SUN being destroyed by linux..
\_ More like Sun stupidity by refusing to either
A) Make Solaris x86 free until it was too late.
B) Give up on the stupid "java thin client" crap
C) Open Source Solaris and let people actually write
drivers for 3rd party peripherals.
D) Standardize on a PC architecture instead of dragging
on forever with a dying USPARC platform.
\_ Re: C), Why does it need to be open source for people to write
drivers for 3rd party peripherals? XP is not open source, but
people can write drivers.
\_ Obviously you don't understand software/hardware economics.
Unless your OS has a large entrenched user base (such as
Windows) nobody is going to spend money on writing
drivers for it. It's economically unsound, especially
if you have to buy the tools. Solaris didn't even come
with a free cc compiler (SunOS did). As for writing
drivers for XP, it costs in the neighborhood of $10,000
to develop a driver for it (I know, I've been involved
in one). Solaris needs to be open sourced so that OSS
people can port Linux drivers to it (which has been done
before) or write drivers from the ground up, especially
on an X86 platform. Apple's OS X would have faced the same
problem if it had jumped onto the X86 platform.
\_ I am glad. I was a big, big Sun customer who kept telling my
reps that we were going to move to Linux mostly because of cost
since we actually prefer Solaris. Most of us don't care
about the OS price (cheap) or whether it is open source.
It's the Intel hardware that was much cheaper and drove the
decision. My reps had the attitude that we were small potatoes
since we didn't buy lots of E10Ks and that it was fine for
client-side to be Linux as long as they could sell their
expensive servers. Now they are paying the price for not
listening to their customers...
\_ Not just that--I've encountered some pretty serious
incompetence here. They had the chance to take a really huge
services contract away from a major outsourcer--they threw a
half-wit project manager and two untrained sysadmins without
work permits at it, because "hey, we're Sun, nobody would ever
refuse us". -John
\_ Sun's proposal to replace uclink was pathetic; the people
who came to do the presentation had no idea what was in
it, and no idea of the Berkeley environment. -tom
\_ it's like the mama spider whose babies eat her once their born
\_ As long as someone eventually beats Micro$oft, I don't care.
\_ and linux is going to do that?? hahahaah
\_ Incidentally, why do people rave about Ed Zander? What exactly
did he accomplish at Sun?
\_ Four sysadmins administer a 400 server webfarm, along with
a database server, email server, all the corporate servers
and all the networking equipment. We can do this because
we run all Sun hardware and software. Tell me a place that
runs linux and does this. -Sun fan
\_ Any place that runs Linux on an AS400, dorkus. It's called IBM,
they are going Linux, it's well supported, and runs like a
charm.
\_ You know, administering 100 (likely similarly configured)
machines is not really _that_ hard for any competent sysadmin as
long as they run some form of *nix.
\_ Sun is out to destroy itself. Sun Service's new trick is to come
in, declare all the SA's overpaid, and replace them with Sun Service
H1-B's making $20/hr. -ax
\_ It is more like.. if they get destroyed, it would be because of
their own stupidity. They should have seen the Linux/x86 threat
coming a long time ago. Granted, they're ARE embrassing Linux and
x86 now and have plans to open source Solaris. So, it's possible
they're not a toast yet. Though, their sales people STILL don't
understand that the time when they could have made thousands and
thousands of profit per machine sold are over. The other day I was
looking at their education promotions page, and the best deal for
"low-end" server is a dual USIIIi rack box that costs $7000. Say
what? I can get a Dell twice as fast with storage 5 times the sun
for half the price. If that's the best they can offer, I feel really
really sorry for them. |
| 2004/11/30 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:35120 Activity:high |
11/30 New AMD 90nm CPUs kick yermom's ass (see power consumption)
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-90nm_5.html
We are back to ~ Pentium III land in terms of power consumption.
\_ Wow. TMTA's last puny leg to stand on was their "low power
\_ Wow. TMNT's last puny leg to stand on was their "low power
consumption at 90nm" technology. Looks like I got out of that
hellhole just in the nick of time. --ex-TMTA
\_ TMTA?
hellhole just in the nick of time. --ex-TMNT
\_ Which turtle were you? I was always partial to Leonardo.
\_ Teenage Mutant Technical Associates
\_ I...don't think I remember that one. Are you sure you
don't mean Mike or something?
\_ TMNT?
\_ Too Many Tortured Acronyms
\_ It's a fucking stock ticker symbol, you Communists.
\_ Sigh...Transmeta. --ex-TMTA
\_ Too Many Thickheaded Academics
\_ Sigh...Transmeta. --ex-TMNT
\_ Heroes in a half shell!
\_ Sadly, that just about sums it up. --ex-TMTA
\_ Sigh...Transmeta. --ex-TMTA
\_ Heroes in a fuck you!
\_ pp is right. Transmeta is TMTA. |
| 2004/11/29-30 [Computer/HW/Printer, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:35108 Activity:high |
11/29 I haven't bought a PC in years. How does the quality of Dell, Compaq
and Gateway PCs compare? That is, how long does a brandnew machine
last until something breaks. Any other major brands I missed? I'm
buying a low-end desktop. Thanks for any info.
\_ Other brands: Sony, HP, Micron (now "MPC"), eMachines. Try CNET.
\_ HP == Compaq, eMachines == Gateway.
\_ They are still different "brands". i.e. at the least, the
cases are somewhat different at least for HP <-> Compaq.
Also I know the "HP" brand ones offer AMD but not sure
about Compaq. I have no idea what their marketing strategy
is though, if any. Having two brands competing in the same
exact market segments seems idiotic. Oh and apparently IBM
still produces desktop (business oriented) PCs.
\_ You should just get a Dell if it's a desktop. They are as good as
anything else, and they're cheaper to configure. All PC vendors
use commodity hardware and re-use RMA parts, so there isn't much
difference in reliability. -tom
\_ Dell uses nonstandard power supplies. If your psu fries and
you want to replace it you're out of luck unless you hunt down
a $20 conversion cable or spend a lot on a "real" dell PSU.
The most standard "PC" out of the bunch is probably emachines,
although the PSU is a micro they are still relatively easily
obtained. Everything else (including the MB if you are so
inclined) can easily be swapped out of these el cheapo machines.
If you want to replace parts yourself consider
getting a white box system from Fry's. -wiliamc
\_ "cheaper to configure": this is not always true. There are also
a couple other factors one might consider. One being that Dell
has some proprietary differences for no good reason so e.g. you
can't just go buy a power supply if the Dell one dies, you have
to get a Dell-specific one. Another factor is others may have
a design (case etc.) you like more. Another factor could be that
Dell is Intel-only and this entails a price markup for the same
performance.
\_ Typically, Dell charges about half what the other major
vendors do for changing RAM, disk, video cards, etc, from
the base models. I've never seen an example of things
going the other way. Worrying about Intel vs. AMD is
strictly for the slashdot crowd, to 99% of users there's
no difference. -tom
\_ I'm saying Intel generally costs more for the same
performance. Do you dispute that? Worrying about changing
a bunch of stuff is more a Slashdot thing IMO. HP appears
to offer a sufficient selection of ready-to-ship versions.
\_ I should point out there was never a "Dude, you're getting an IBM!"
ad.
\_ But there was a "no one got fired for getting IBM" which is
almost as bad, in a spineless corporate sort of way.
\_ Appealing to business cowardice is kinda funny. "Buy our
stuff or you might get fired!"
\_ Thanks for all the tip so far. I just saw the Gateway 3200S that
has an Intel Celeron 2.66GHz. Does anyone know roughly what clock
rate of a Pentium 4 processor is a Celeron 2.66GHz equivalent to,
performance-wise? --- OP
\_ The obvious response is "At what tasks?". For general internet
use it's plenty. Probably pretty good for 3D games, but crappy
for stuff that needs a big cache.
\_ How about editing a huge Excel spreadsheet? That's what my
wife does with my current PC. Let's say there's a lot of RAM
and swapping is not a factor. --- OP
\_ Just editing, you'll be fine. Trying to do big operations
or computation is asking for pain. That's just what cache
is best for. |
| 2004/11/19-22 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:34989 Activity:nil |
11/19 I have an Athlon XP 1700 on a 266 FSB, with 266MHz RAM. Can I put a
333MHz bus CPU (say an XP 2800) in the socket and down-clock the FSB to
266, but keep the same core speed (by raising the multiplier)?
\_ Most new CPU's have locked multipliers.
\_ Get a cat
\_ Oh, shazbot. |
| 2004/11/15-16 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:34911 Activity:high |
11/15 What's a good place to buy a custom computer online? I'm looking for
a high degree of configurability and a sane price. Dell is too
limiting, and Falcon Northwest is $$$.
\_ how is Dell limiting your configurability options?
\_ No ability to pick a motherboard, few AMD options, no choice of
component brands, few chances to get a 10kRPM drive, etc, etc...
\_ Thunderbox
\_ It seems they all look like rice-rockets.
I guess what I'm looking for is "If Newegg sold systems..."
\_ Company run by a white guy. Maybe he just has an Asian fetish
\_ I don't mean rice-rocket in the sense of souped-up asian
cars, but in the sense of computers built to *look* fast.
\_ How about Monarch? Dunno anything about their quality, though,
but their prices do look reasonable and they're very flexible
on the configs.
\_ I like http://sysbuilder.com and I've bought two computers through them now.
\_ Nice. Thanks. How's their customer service? -op
\_ From what people have told me they can be slow to
respond (they seem to be a pretty small operation), but
they will get around to you.
\_ I haven't tried them, but http://armsystems.com has quite the range
of configurability. They specialize in low-noise boxes. |
| 2004/11/7-8 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:34739 Activity:nil |
11/7 I was playing witht the internal of my Powerbook G3 Pismo (firewire)
and somehow the large metal heatsink plate comes off from the metal
contact atop the processor. What special glue do I need to reattach
the two? Instruction url, if any, is appreciated too. ok tnx.
\_ Actually I figured out that I simply had to remout the a bracket
back to the CPU, but I noticed that there is not much thermal paste
between the metal contact on top of the CPU and that on the
heatsink and it looks dry. Should I put more there? |
| 2004/11/3 [Politics/Domestic/911, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:34600 Activity:nil |
11/3 Any bets on the next senate minority leader? If they pick that
son of a bitch Liebermann, I'm leaving the party for good.
\_ Damn jew!
\_ Reid, don't you know?
\_ What's wrong with Liebermann?
\_ He was one of the authors of the homeland security bill that
created the DHS, is a big supporter of the patriot act,
was part of the crusade to censor music and video games,
is owned outright be the insurance industry, and is a total
welfare whore for the ct. defense contractors. In the primaries
the candidates were asked about how to deal with America's
healthcare crisis. Everyone had some answer or another
except him. His response was basically "I don't think the
american people want to hear about that." Hell, even the
republicans admit our healthcare system is fucked, they just
disagree on how to fix it. When someone says it's just not
a problem, that's far far worse. As a ct. resident, I
particularly resent him because I've voted for him on a
lesser-of-evils basis, but he continually represents the
corporate interests of CT, rather than the people.
\_ So, to sum up, he's the biggest liberal in the Senate.
\_ huh?
\_ Engage humor processor, read again.
\_ Sorry. that part of my brain fused about
11 pm last night. I've got dual cooling
fans on the rage processor, and had to shut
down other auxiliary fucntions. |
| 2004/10/25-26 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:34328 Activity:kinda low |
10/25 What's the difference between intel's C and E cpu for p4? What about
those processor with names like 540, 530? I am helping a friend pick
components for a system. Any recommendations? I am thinking of
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe with P4-3.0Ghz CPU and 1GB PC3200 memory, all for
about $600. Is the newer socket 775 with ddr2 memory that much better?
Not a gamer, just need a fast desktop system for general applications.
\_ General apps means Word, surfing, and email. This P4 system is
already overkill. It doesn't matter which socket, how fast the
ram is, etc. Get your friend to buy a mid ranged Dell.
\_ I do not recommend Dell. They don't use standard components,
if they go bad, you are stuck with Dell supplies.
\_ Dell desktops usually come with 3-year warranty and often
4-year warranty is an option. Besides, I have never seen
a Dell motherboard or power supply fail. What other
non-standard components are there? I have a Dell Dimension
and I had no problems replacing video card, ram, disks, and
optical drives. (BTW, those were really upgrades, not because
the original parts failed). Yes, if you need a PC that allows
you to swap a motherboard a few years later, Dell might be
bad for that.
\_ My original PS from about 1.5 year ago has gone
bad (making loud noises). Dell sent me a new PS,
but it's still loud. Their case is also non
standard, ie, you cannot put the thing into a
ultra quiet case (the motherboard connector to the
case is non-standard) So you see, if I want quiet
and peace of mind when I am working next to the
computer, I have to replace the friggin
motherboard as well, because the motherboard is
not standard. I can't put in a ultra quiet PS that
I can get at Fry's either, because Dell
SPECIFICALLY changed the PS layout so standard
ones won't fit. Their fan system is also non
standard, the back fan that sucks air out of the
CPU through the tunnel out the PC is also non
standard. So now I am stuck with this loud piece of
($*%($% unless I replace the freggin motherboard,
it's a good thing they uses standard CPU. ;)
\_ If you care about noise, get an Optiplex. They're
pretty quiet.
\_ You don't need 'fast' for general applications unless that includes
stuff like crazy Photoshop work or video editing, or maybe a PVR.
If you're going to run WinXP on it I'd spring for 512MB of RAM...
\_ Goto Fry's and buy whatever's on sale. It will be fast enough.
\_ Has anyone ever actually bought one of Fry's $200 shitboxes? I'd
expect it to explode 2 weeks later.
\_ Actually, I used on sale parts from Fry's to to cobble
together a machine. The motherboard was a piece of crap
with a BIOS problem, but once I flashed the BIOS it was a
good deal. So, if you don't mind fighting a little with
the machine at first, you can come out really well. -jrleek
\_ I think you want the C. The E runs hot, I think.
I also think you want a 2.8 GHz CPU. 3.0 jumps up in heat a lot.
Check http://newegg.com for user opinions on E vs. C.
Then again, you could just get an Athlon 64 3200+ (Newcastle) or
3500+, which both run cooler and generally faster.
Search the http://newegg.com reviews for any of the above CPUs if you want
suggested mobos + memory to buy with them. |
| 2004/10/22-23 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:34286 Activity:low |
10/21 The Emperor's battle computer is now fully operational. ---psb
http://www.tgc.com/hpcwire/hpcwireWWW/04/1022/108601.html
\_ The battle between vector and scalar supercomputers continues!
\_ I'm still waiting to see a tensor computer. |
| 2004/10/8 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:33979 Activity:moderate |
10/8 I am looking for a quiet case fan and cpu fan for my P4 2.26ghz
system. Any suggestions? I just realized the case fan and cpu fan
is significantly louder than my power supply. thx.
\_ A colleague of mine is getting a Zalman TNN500A
http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx=64&pr_name=500a
It's a bit pricey, but looks awesome for quality & noise. If
you just want a good case, have a look at Thermaltake (there are a
ton of others, but these have good, well-placed cooling with nice
reasonably quiet fans in the case.) If you just want fans, look
for Papst fans--they are very reputable for quiet PC fans. You
may also want to consider underclocking a tiny bit and going
fanless or getting a variable speed fan. Cheap cases are never
worth it if you want peace & quiet. -John
\_ The noise of my PC dropped significantly when I switched to a
Zalman CPU Fan (120mm) and heat sink. The one that I bought
was $25-$30 at Fry's. There are quieter ones, but they were
in the $50+ range.
I also added Thermaltake fans (90mm, 17db) which were the
quietest fans at Fry's in the ~ $10-$15 range. Thermaltake
is quieter than similarly priced Zalman and Vantec fans, but
one of my 3 fans developed an annoying hum which was probably
from a bad bearing. --ranga
\_ Don't save $5. Buy all Zalman. You'll appreciate the quiet
everyday for years and won't miss the $5 later.
\_ Be careful which Zalman 90mm fans you buy, some are 25db
others are 19db. I haven't been able to find the 13db ones
anywhere local. |
| 2004/9/29-30 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:33831 Activity:kinda low |
9/29 I'm looking for a mini-PC type of deal, similar to Soekris. Need
1 or 2 100mb rj45 ports, USB2, and maybe vga. Booting off CF would
be fine (I can use external drives for bigger stuff.) I'd prefer
something fanless. Any recommendations? Soekris seems a bit
expensive for what they offer. -John
\_ I'm looking for the same thing. (Soekris uses 486. How quaint!)
Related question: How many times can CF be rewritten?
\_ I've heard 100,000x quoted before. Use RAM for stuff that
changes a lot and treat CF more like a hard disk without a swap
file.
\_ OK I found something -- http://mini-itx.com looks pretty decent. -John |
| 2004/9/22 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:33695 Activity:nil |
9/22 This whole tech talk about AMD/Intel is in violation of the motd
post spirit. Let's go back to the good ol days and talk about
politics. |
| 2004/9/22 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:33686 Activity:high |
9/20 Underclocking my CPU has been the best decision I've ever made since
I bought my AMD last year. It was so hot, even when idling, that I
had to turn on my AC to keep the room from heating up to 85 degrees.
I have an AMD 2500+ (1800 Mhz, 1.7v) and after underclocking,
it is now 1.1Ghz, 1.1v core and is as cool as my friend's P4
3GHz. I just reboot and regular clock again when I play games.
BTW I'm never buying another AMD.
\_ Is it just me or does this sound highly implausible unless you
have a multi-cpu with really big fans blowing out of the case?
I mean, come on, it's pretty much thermodynamically implausible
that one CPU is going to heat up a whole frickin room to 85
degrees. Did you flunk physics or something? If what you say
is true I can cool my room by opening up the door to my
minifridge.
\_ I had two AMD machines that were so hot they were overheating
the room and then shutting down. After underclocking them
the problem went away, but the room is still noticably warmer.
\_ So in other words your AMD machines were overheating because
the room was too hot, which probably means that the room
isn't good for running computers in, and basically has
nothing really to do with the design of AMD cpus. Folks,
you can't assume that you can run computers in a really hot
room, i.e. the second floor of a not very well ventilated
apartment during a heatwave. I've had stuff like drive
failures on laptops occur because of this. If your cpus
are failing at their rated speeds because the room is too
hot, that should tell you something about your computer's
environment...
\_ You can get a 286 that will beat the pants off of your 1.1Mhz
CPU, and it doesn't even have a fan!
\_ What kind of shitty heatsink do you have? My 1.5ghz rarely goes over
50C in the dead of summer; mostly 35-40C othertimes
\_ Cooler than a P4 3 GHz? This *isn't* really saying much.
Also, I have an Athlon 64 3200+ (Newcastle), and it runs at 37
degrees idle with the stock fan.
\_ I have an AthlonXP1700 with a ThermalTake fan ($15, decent but not
any overclocker-whizbang) and my CPUs usually 45, or 55 on a hot
day. If you're running at 85 that suggests either your CPU fan is
badly clogged or failing, or you have terrible airflow in your case.
Do you have any case fans?
\_ I have a LOT of fans. My room is tiny, barely walkable. I have
a 30w LCD so I blame everything on the AMD -op
\_ Case fans help keep the case temperature down, but help make
the room hotter. You, your power supply and every other
component are more to blame than the CPU. Open some windows
or get a 20" box fan to put in the doorway.
\_ btw 85 is ambience temperature. My CPU used to run at 145F but
now runs at 102F. My 1.1G is "as cool" as a P4, pathetic. Never
buying another AMD -op
\_ What kind of moron uses F for anything other than weather
and cooking these days? Get with the program and start posting
C, especially if you are a Berkeley alumni.
\_ Wuss. It's degrees C or °C. If you're a real man you use
K. Remember that room temperature is about 293K.
\_ Morons like doctors and nurses use degree F for body
temperature these days.
\_ Please explain why that makes them morons.
\_ Gah! We're all talking centigrade and you meant Fahrenheit!
85F as a case temperature is not bad. 145F as a CPU temp is
a little hot, but not extreme. 102F as a CPU temperature is
very good.
If your room is getting up to 85F that sounds like a building
problem not a CPU problem. You put out about 100W of heat,
your computer puts out 100-200W of heat and your monitor puts
out up to 150W of heat if it's a CRT. Out of this 250-450W of
heat, blaming the 60W contribution of your CPU for making the
room hot is stupid.
\_ Why are the american pig-dogs still on the imperial
system? Shouldn't they join the rest of the civilized
world and use SI and, you know, decimal fractions.
\_ Celsius is not the SI unit of temperature.
\_ Tedious twit.
\_ And Kyoto. We need Kyoto to run our computers cooler
to prevent global warming. This is another Bush
disaster that will destroy American credibility around
the world for generations to come!
\_ My P3 runs hotter than your AMD. Stop being such a crybaby.
I can only dream of the day my P3 runs that cool. When I
turn it off it takes 10 minutes to get to your temps.
\_ This whole thing sounds like "Wah! My AMD CPU is warm but
my friend says his P4 is super cool. AMD = TEH SUCK!" |
| 2004/9/17-18 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:33587 Activity:low |
9/17 How difficult is it to host a virtualized FreeBSD server? Not
commercially, just want to let a friend go nuts with it. Something
like what's described at http://www.johncompanies.com/jc_bsd.html
but I don't care so much about uptime and reliability. Is this guy
just using a jail, or is it more vmWare-like solution?
\_ Jail. Very straight-forward. I love the part about their special
technology. You just need a unique IP/server. -John |
| 2004/9/13 [Computer/HW/CPU, Recreation/Computer/Games] UID:33497 Activity:nil |
9/12 I don't play games but I want to play Beyond Good and Evil. I seek
people's opinions as to the cheapest way to do this. I own no console
and my computer has only the standar-issue graphics card.
\_ What's your CPU and RAM? Do you have an AGP slot?
\_ 1998 HP Pavillion. 199 MHz. 128M RAM. Yes - The old
fashioned kind.
\_ No such thing. The Pentium II started at 233 MHz. Oh, and
there's a difference between Hertz and MegaHertz.
\_ You'll either need to buy a console or get an all-new system.
6 years is long enough for an upgrade anyway.
\_ OK. But would it be better to buy a used PS2 or Xbox,
instead? That's what I'm asking, really. -OP
\_ If you're ONLY concern is to play the game as cheaply as
possible, then buy (or rent from Blockbuster) a used
console. The graphical quality will be best on a PC
with a DirectX-9.0 video card, but that will be a lot
more money. If my system was 6 years old I'd upgrade
for a lot of reasons, but your priorities may vary.
\_ Thx. It actually hadn't occurred to me that I can
rent consoles. That's what I'm going to do...as soon
as the wife goes out for awhile.
\_ New ones are ~$150, aren't they? You can also rent
them from some video stores.
\_ Why don't you just look and see? They're the same
price new. I'd pick based on if you think there are
any other games of interest. But, Xbox is capable of
better graphics, which might be better in BG&E.
\_ As above, thank you both. These were useful answers. |
| 2004/9/4-6 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/Security] UID:33348 Activity:moderate |
9/3 Thinking about getting an opteron? If security is your concern,
maybe you should think again: http://csua.org/u/8x7
\_ Erm, maybe I'm missing something, but that page argues that
if someone can gain root access and flash the system with
malicious microcode, they can in the future gain full access
through mere userspace privilege. True, but wouldn't that apply
to any box where you can flash the bios as root? -John
\_ on the PC, linux for example bypasses the BIOS except for
initial bootstrapping. modifying processor microdoce gives
a more persistent hook, as would modifying firmware of
any DMA-master capable device that is not reprogrammed
by the OS. this isn't the end of the world, but surely
adds to the "security is hard" mountain.
\_ Very few places need to be this concerned about security. The
financial industry, for example. The finance and high security
government facilities I'm aware of would be no more or less
freaked out by this than the idea that someone got root in the
first place. If they take a gun to your sysadmin's head at a
party they'll get access, too. So, if you're thinking about
hiring sysadmins who might show at a party maybe you should
think again.
\- hello, it is interesting to talk to people in the
financial world about some of the "attacks" they
face, for example organized crime infiltrating the
mail room. also you have problems like say how to
not let the backup staff read the data. ok tnx.
\_ Yes, that is what I was getting at with the sysadmin
at a party line. There are lots of easier ways to
do nasty things that don't involve updating micro-code
or anything high tech at all.
\_ Wow, someone who actually knows something. Thank you for
showing up.
\_ That's why I avoid parties. It has helped me land better
jobs. :-) |
| 2004/8/29-30 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:33209 Activity:high |
8/29 So, what processor would you recommend for a desktop PC? What's
got the best Bang-for-your- buck right now?
\_ I'd say an AMD Athlon XP. Exact model/speed depends on how much
buck you have, and how much bang you need. If you live in the
bay area, go to Central Computer in Hayward.
\_ What about the AMD 64 processors? Is there any value in
running in long mode yet? Linux 64 maybe?
\_ Depends on what you're doing with it. Games/no-games? Just
surfing and email? For mozilla and no games you can get a nice
machine from Dell for under $500. |
| 2004/8/27-28 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:33192 Activity:insanely high |
8/27 I'm currently running a 1.2 Ghz Celeron with 386 megs or so of RAM.
I'm thinking of buying a new machine, but I want to go cheap, maybe
less than $500. I want to end up with a nice machine and a crap
machine at the end of this. (Crap machine so my wife can do email and
stuff) so don't need a CD drive or monitor, and the video card
doesn't have to be great because I already have a nice one in my
current machine. A TNT2 would be fine (It just has to be good enough
to play video full screen). Any suggestions?
Will I be able to use the old ram in my new machine?
\_ What are you proposing? Buying a crap machine for your wife?
Buying a tricked-out new machine and giving her the Celeron, or
buying a new machine, and putting some of the Celeron's parts in it?
\_ Option B + C. I going to take the nice video card out of the
celeron, so I'll need one to replace that. I'll also take the CD
burner, and some RAM if I can. I'll probably need to buy: New
processor, motherboard, case, harddrve, and RAM for the new
system.
\_ OK. Almost any video card can play full-screen videos. I
could sell you an old Radeon VE for $10 or something or you
can go on Craigslist. The RAM is not transferable to the
new computer because the Celeron is probably using PC133 and
a new machine would be using DDR400 or the like.
I bought an ATX case I like and have had it for 6 years.
If you're video-card shopping, the magic word is 'overlay'.
\_ What's an overlay?
\_ Dell is routinely selling 2.8GHz systems for less than $500. See
http://gotapex.com. The Dimension 4600 systems are great and include
integrated video (but have an AGP slot), SATA, and typically 512MB
Ram. Watch out for the 2400's though, they don't have an AGP slot.
\_ AMD! AMD IS THE STANDARD ENTHUSIAST CHIP!
\_ That's interesting info. However, aren't chips up to 3.8 Ghz or
something now? Shouldn't I at least be able to get a AMD 64-bit
3Ghz processor cheap by now?
\_ Search the same page for amd and you'll get some results.
\_ And what the freak is an AMD Sempron? Sounds like a word for a
deformed shrimp.
\_ It is a brand-name that AMD came up with to prevent
Athlon(TM) brand from becoming perceived as "low-end"
because, frankly, they're not. Most of the current desktop
Sempron processors are K7-based cores. The only exception
is the 3100+, which is basically a true Claw Hammer (256k
L2) with a fuse blown to disable long-mode. It's
practically identical to a Drill Hammer Athlon 64 2800+
(512k L2), other than the fact that it has a smaller die and
that it cannot enter long-mode. All mobile Sempron chips
are K8-based, again with long-mode disabled.
It appears that all corporation-generated trade-markable
names get made fun of. Can _you_ come up with something
better? Seriously, I'd like to hear your opinions.
And above comments such as "I'm currently running a 1.2 Ghz
Celeron" and "aren't chips up to 3.8 Ghz or something now?"
really saddens me.
\_ why does that sadden you? i was running a 500 MHz celeron,
up until a few weeks ago, and it was all right for most
things, except playing some movies and all games.
though having 1 GB ram does do a lot.
\_ Those "2800+" numbers have become silly with so many chips
with the same number but different performance. Oh and do you
work in marketing? There is no need for (TM) on the Motd(TM)
CSUA(TM) Motd(TM) Copyright (C) 2004. All Rights Reserved.
\_ As much as I hate all those numbers, those are all that
most people look at. In fact, it saddens me that people
buy things based on numbers instead of even attempting to
learn a bit more about the products they're buying and
thinking about their requirements. It's not all that hard
to differentiate them if you just try little bit. For
example, at this point, I just cannot possibly recommend
anyone buy a K7-based processor. Embedded memory
controllers on K8-based processors are simply too
worthwhile to pass on. No, I don't work in marketing. I
work in microprocessor design verification. --ricky
\_ I'm kinda wondering about your sadness too. What part of
that post makes you cry?
\_ Except for that certain Celeron (known as CeleronA, I
think), they're like 300 horse power engine attached to a
1980's 2-speed automatic transmission. Seeing as how
during the most of the period these were available, Athlon
was also available at similar price points, it makes me
feel sad that people were buying these. The other part
about 3.8GHz thing, to me anyway, shows the lack of
understanding of microprocessors in general by the general
population. Not much I can do about it, but still
saddening. --ricky
\_ I'm sure the marketroids who probably spend many meetings
coming up with that would be hurt. I can only guess it's related
to the latin, as in "semper fidelis". I don't think it works
they way they think though. Just like celeron is supposed to have
the association with excel, accelerate etc. but to me just sounds
like celery. Or "sell her on". Or cellophane.
\_ Semprini!
\_ Update, I was going by Fry's anyway, so I stopped by to take a
look, there were some good deals, so I went ahead and bought
what I needed. I got: Athlon XP 2800+ and mother board for
$100, 512Mb of 400 Mhz ram, $60, and a Maxtor 7200 RPM 160 GB
HD for $70. In particular I think that HD is a pretty dang
good deal. I think this should cover me. -op |
| 2004/8/24-25 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:33117 Activity:moderate |
8/24 http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/0,39023100,39164010,00.htm Intel Prescotts run hotter and slower, comparing complete systems, same graphics card (GeForce 6800GT): Athlon 64 3800+ (2.4GHz) 82W idle 162W max Pentium 4 560 (3.6GHz) 155W idle 258W max \_ Old news. Prescott is a dog. Intel knows this and has terminated all 90nm Pentium 4 products in favor of Pentium M. \_ These are for the latest Athlon 64 and Prescott CPUs, and I am not aware of the above data being readily available. Also, since the first Pentium M-based desktop CPU isn't scheduled to arrive until 2006, it's all Prescott right now for Intel until then. -op \_ It is indeed. Tejas and Jayhawk, the followons to Prescott, were cancelled: http://csua.org/u/8r4 \_ 258W is nuts. Intel can't seriously expect people to build real servers in compact data centers with a nuclear reactor like that. Even without the graphics card, 155W idle (plus a bunch of drives in a server) is insane. Anyone here work for Intel and have any inside dirt on this problem? \_ I don't work for Intel, but I worked for another microprocessor company that shall not be named. It's no secret what's going on, it's the hottest topic in the industry right now. Just google 90nm and leakage power. \_ well what I really was asking is what Intel was thinking when they shipped this beast and if they really thought that Intel Inside(tm) was enough to overcome this horrible heat number. \_ Previous to 90nm, most die shrinks came with a reduction in power consumption. You could just say, "It was too late once they realized they couldn't fix the problem (fast enough?)." Anyway, their yield is increased with 90nm; more chips per wafer; more money. AMD will also be releasing 90nm parts for desktop and mobile; I am curious how they will do. -op \_ having worked there I can assure you that NO ONE there knows the inside scoop. Everyone's so busy and specialized with his own component (cache, chipset, processor, etc) that he/she has absolutely no idea what the big picture is. \_ thanks. \_ I don't work for Intel, but Nocona (codename for next Xeon iteration) will have SpeedStep. Probably they will have SpeedStep for Pentium 4. True, max power doesn't change, but idle will lower and you will stay there longer. -op \_ Pentium 4 is dead. They are going to multi-core and Pentium M based desktops. See the link about about Tejas and Jayhawk. \_ Duh. I realize this. I am talking about what they will have available through 2006. -op \_ If you care about conserving energy, just turn off your desktop machines and monitors when you leave work. A few people turning off their machines and monitors after work saves a lot more energy than getting whatever low-wattage server you can find. \_ I'm concerned about the heat output in my data center. You're not getting a 3.6ghz machine on your desktop in my company. Also, many shops do desktop backups at night so turning off your machine is a no-no. |
| 2004/8/7 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:32757 Activity:nil |
8/7 I have a FreeBSD box serving Samba, NFS, DHCP and DNS (as a
forwarder behind a firewall and for a few "internal" boxes.) It's
creaky and old, and about to go, and it gets too hot. Can someone
give me a tip as to whether there are smaller devices that can do
all this (like some sort of low-cost NAS with all the above
functionality) so I don't have to have a PC running in a poorly-
ventilated room anymore? -John
\_ Some options that come to mind:
1) If you don't mind running debian, get an old cobalt raq3/4,
wipe the drive and install debain. These boxes can be had
for $100-$200 on ebay. They can take two 120 gb hd's and
can be passively cooled (K6-2's don't put out much heat).
My intern has his sitting under his bed and has been using
it as a file server for more than a year. If you really
want to stick to BSD, older cobalt boxes can be coaxed
into running NetBSD.
2) Replace the motherboard with a via c3 based mb. You can
usually replace the tiny cpu fan with a chipset heat sink
and run the board with passive cooling.
3) Get a mini-pc with a celeron or an underclocked Athlon
mobile. Shuttle makes some reasonable quiet ones with
good ventilation.
\_ I took an old 1U server box, loud as hell, built it out with the
loudest, fastest shit I could find, dropped it in a closet and
forgot about it. The closet isn't hot, the server isnt hot, the
room isn't loud. The case it off, btw because I needed to use a
card that wouldn't fit sideways. No problem. |
| 2004/8/3 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:32661 Activity:nil |
8/3 "IBM to Build Supercomputer for U.S. Army"
http://www.csua.org/u/8fn (Yahoo! News)
1186 machines, ~2300 processors, runs Linux.
\_ There's one contract for AMD Opterons, there's another contract
for Intel Nocona (64-bit Prescott) processors. Goddamn, the Intel
cluster is going to burn up the building when all the CPUs hit 100%. |
| 2004/7/28 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:32536 Activity:nil |
7/28 For those looking to upgrade, an article on the recent AMD CPU price
cuts: http://csua.org/u/8d4
The price difference showed up on newegg several days before the
news release. :'( |
| 2004/7/26 [Computer/SW/Languages, Computer/Rants, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:32483 Activity:nil |
7/26 what do you think about good "viruses" that spread to
people's computer but do scientific computations to
help mankind, only runs when computer is not being used?
\_ Still bad. Are you sure you have no programming errors that
eat CPU when the computer is being used or abuse bandwidth
looking for other hosts to infect? What gives you the right
to decide how my CPU is used or to keep it active instead of
going into low power mode when idle? Are you going to pay for
the increase in my power bill? Are you sure it's not really
monitoring a critical piece of equipment that it needs to
respond quickly to when an interrupt comes in? |
| 2004/7/26 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Scanner] UID:32478 Activity:high |
7/25 I want to run AV filtering on my mail server. Has anyone used ClamAV?
Also, I am not sure if my server has enough juice to run ClamAV, so I've
been looking at Procmail Sanitizer. Anyone have success with this? It
looks hairy.
http://www.impsec.org/email-tools/procmail-security.html
\_ yes, clamav generally works pretty well, and doesn't require that
much cpu.
\_ Adult Video filter? |
| 2004/7/12 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:32234 Activity:high |
7/12 Architecture question: Are RISC programs generally larger than
equivalent CISC programs (binaries)?
\_ yes.
\_ uh oh, I anticipate yet another heated CISC/RISC debate
why can't we all get along? |
| 2004/7/8 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:32186 Activity:very high |
7/8 Why is this taking up so much time? It's just irc:
vvvvvv ???
35992 jon 2 0 2120K 868K select 497:44 1.66% 1.66% epic-EPIC
10150 jon 2 0 2148K 964K select 558:12 1.03% 1.03% epic-EPIC
\_ Constantly updating the screen.
\_ doubtful. Considering the size and the frequency at which
it executes sys calls, it's doing kqueue and kevent to
spy on people
\_ What are you talking about? It's an IRC client, not
stalk(1)
\_ Some people are probably convinced that I have some
binary that plays with argv[] to look like epic.
Whatever. If you knew how to use ps(1), you'd also
notice that my epic processes have been running since
late April of this year. Gee, maybe that's how they
have accumulated so much CPU time. BTW, that is 559
(or 498) minutes of CPU time. --Jon
\_ Too many people around here know just enough unix
to be dangerous. Then they start tossing
accusations around like this thinking they're
clever and discovered something when in fact they
have only just put their first foot on the path.
Ignore them and you'll be happier.
jon 10150 1.2 0.2 2148 1180 AU S+ 23Apr04 559:16.56 epic jk . (epic-EPIC4-1.0.1)
jon 35992 1.2 0.1 2120 976 AV S+ 30Apr04 498:49.89 epic (epic-EPIC4-1.0.1)
\_ I like the guy who accuses me of writing half
of the stuff on the motd. -- ilyas
\_ ilyas U !ilyas = the universe of CSUA
\_ and some of us like to help shove it farther
down the twink's throat. |
| 2004/7/6-7 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:31192 Activity:kinda low |
7/6 Any reason why IBMJava2-JAVACOMM is no longer on http://ibm.com? \_ It was removed. |
| 2004/6/25-26 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/OS/FreeBSD] UID:31016 Activity:nil |
6/25 OpenBSD SMP support now available on Opteron:
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20040625160304 |
| 2004/6/17 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:30869 Activity:very high |
6/17 For general purpose computing do you think a dual p3-700 with 100mhz
bus is faster than a single p3-700 with 133 mhz bus? When would the
single cpu be faster?
\_ For most applications, the bus speed will not matter. So you
are looking at 1 CPU versus 2 CPUs. You may not receive any
benefit to 2 CPUs, but they will not hurt. So the dual is
almost always going to be faster. The exception is if you are
limited by the bus speed (lots of I/O) and even then 133 is not
much faster than 100.
\_ Bus speed helps for applications that access memory in large
"stride". Having an extra CPU and not using it at all will actually
slow the system down by 1-2% due to extra polling.
\_ No, because the CPU will be used by the OS. Real benchmarks
I have run show about a 10% gain on 2 CPUs even if there is just
one non-threaded process running. The other CPU will never
be 100% idle.
\_ Sorry, I was refering to OSes which are not dual-cpu aware.
\_ From op: I'll be using windows XP. Thanks. |
| 2004/6/15-16 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:30815 Activity:very high |
6/12 What is the difference between VIA6306 / VIA6307 1394 chipsets?
\_ 1
\_ haha. What's the difference in capabilities or specification.
\_ doesn't matter. You should get a Texas Instruments 1394 chipset
instead.
\_ any recommendation for a pci card that works with linux. |
| 2004/6/11 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/Security] UID:30750 Activity:high |
6/11 I want to give my compile really high priority, in hopes of
getting it to compile a little faster, so I ran : nice -20 make
but all i got was the error: setpriority: Permission denied. help?
\_ Only root can set a priority higher than default.
\_ only root can raise priority, dude.
\_ Dang. I need to get root on this box (my work box).
There's all kinds of stuff that needs fixin'
\_ If you have a dual-cpu or a P4 with HT you can try spawning more
compile threads.
\_ what else are you running on the box that would lead you
to think that renicing will have an impact?
\_ Actually the problem is I'm running Enterprise Linux 3
(Kernel 2.4), in which the VM sucks. Either way, I'm
running a dual processor Xeon, but only about 2% of
the processor time is being used. I thought I'd take
a shot at raising priority, just because I knew I
couldn't fix the problem without root access. (My
sysadmin hasn't helped.)
\_ if you're not CPU bound, nice won't change anything.
\_ Let me guess, you have a big fat shitty 5400 rpm
Maxtor? Probably sharing the IDE bus.
\_ Sorry, it's a 15000 RPM Seagate Cheetah on
Ultra SCSI. The probelm really is Linux. |
| 2004/6/10 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:30723 Activity:nil 53%like:29972 |
6/10 What's a good place to buy the digital rebel body only? Can I get
it for around $700?
\_ Special mentioned on http://gotapex.com says OneCall is selling the kit
with 18-35mm lens for $826 eith free 3-day FedEx shipping. |
| 2004/6/2 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:30551 Activity:high |
6/2 I'm curious about ideas for computer naming schemes. Please suggest
a few.
Fish (Freshwater and Saltwater)
\_ http://www.vleonica.com/ship_cap.htm
I used "happy delivery" on my mail server, and adventure on my
laptop for example. - pst
Roman/Greek Gods
\_ We've used norse gods as well
Alcoholic Drinks
Full House cast members
\_ That invites the regretable mary-kate and ashley
Famous Scholars
Actors/Actresses
Body Parts
\_ uvula!
Starship names from Star Trek
Famous disasters
TV Shows
Sherlock Holmes characters
Japanese Monsters
State Capitals << Major Cities around the world
\_ Please stop deleting people's suggestions -op
Porn Stars
\_ Only if you have loads of cash for harassment lawsuits.
\_ Maybe it's his home computers.
\- ucb cs or eecs had a number of p0rn star named workstations.
i dont recall which research group. --psb
\_ maybe the one doing vision research on pr0n images?
\_ Just name them after the type of machine. Best way to do it since
then you don't have stupid shit like "oh, is Styx supposed to be the
Athlon XP box running BSD or the Sun Blade 1500"?If you have a large
room of similar type of machines name them in an approximate
grid-like fashion, i.e. "box-1-7".
\_ Ugh, no. This is horrible. "Hey, Bob, can you log into
hba742db-prod1 and let me know if it's down?" Kill me now.
\_ but everybody knows what smvcjg01 is!
\_ We usually have two names for a system, the real name
(something like u60-s9-[rack]-[room]-[bldg]-[sys num])
and a human friendly c-name. This lets people refer to
systems by name and you can always get the real name
(hence the hw, os and location) using dig.
\_ Who is the poor SOB who has to change the name when it
moves to a new rack/room/building? Ridiculous!
\_ hear hear!!! -tired sysadm
\_ My ex-company used chemical elements. They even tried to match
element names or symbols with the engineers' names. However, when
the elemens ran out, they had to use particle names. --- yuen
\_ How many machine names do you need and what is the function of
the machines and their type [OS]?
\_ We used to use the following convention:
Famous scientists and mathematicians for SGIs workstations
Star Trek characters and ships for Sun workstations
Greek/Roman Philosophers for SGI/Sun servers
Rivers for routers and other network systems
\_ Lord of the Rings characters, you'll never run out.
\_ although not particularly original, this wins.
\_ Members of the Bush administration..
\_ I use famous conquerors and sites along the silkroad
eg. attila, genghis, gobi, talas, samarkand
\_ Put a name sticker on each case. for ATX cases, use
the square-inch case-badge area for the name-tag.
\_ Popes! http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm
or Roman Emperors. http://www.roman-emperors.org/impindex.htm
Those guys went on for quite a while. Names get a bit long though.
or Roman Emperors. |
| 2004/6/2 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/OS/FreeBSD] UID:30545 Activity:nil |
6/2 I'm curious about ideas for computer naming schemes. Please suggest
a few.
Roman/Greek Gods
Alcoholic Drinks
Famous Scholars
Actors/Actresses
Body Parts
Porn Stars
\_ Only if you have loads of cash for harassment lawsuits.
\_ Maybe it's his home computers.
\- ucb cs or eecs had a number of p0rn star named workstations.
i dont recall which research group. --psb
Starship names from Star Trek
Famous disasters
TV Shows
Just name them after the type of machine. Best way to do it since
then you don't have stupid shit like "oh, is Styx supposed to be the
Athlon XP box running BSD or the Sun Blade 1500"? If you have a large
room of similar type of machines name them in an approximate grid-like
fashion, i.e. "box-1-7".
\_ hear hear!!! -tired sysadm
\_ My ex-company used chemical elements. They even tried to match
element names or symbols with the engineers' names. However, when
the elemens ran out, they had to use particle names. --- yuen
\_ soda users
\_ It is silly to call them "sun1-sun[x]". Some hardware is around
so long that it changes forms many times. Soda itself is one
example. Also, using a numeric scheme inevitably some of the
numbers go away and you get weird shit like a room that has
sun1, sun5, sun6, and sun20 in it. What if soda had been called
"sequent1"?
\_ Use the respective root passwords. |
| 2004/5/7 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:30080 Activity:high |
5/7 Intel to cancel their Tejas.
\_ hehe, bye-bye high-freq 90nm (for now), hello multicore!
They will get mileage from their Centrino -> desktop designs,
but you won't see those CPUs for two years I think.
\_ The synchronicity of this and the info from MS that the average
system in 2 years for Longhorn will have a dual-core is interesting,
to say the least.
\_ Sandals have been out of fashion for some time.
\_ Those are Tevas. |
| 2004/4/27-28 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:13419 Activity:kinda low |
4/27 The mystery CPU usage has been found. I stopped postfix and all my CPU
came back. This is on an old redhat 7.2 box. According to top and ps
it was only using like 4%, but really it was using 100%, why no tool to
see what "real" usage is?
\_ Actually, it is quite possible that postfix was only using 4% of
the CPU. Depending on the exact way forking is done, children of
postfix could have been using the rest of the CPU. If these
children spawn and die fast enough, you will never catch them in
top. This has happened on Soda a few times...look at your
process accounting logs to see what is really going on.
\_ mucho gracias. But i don't think i have process accounting logs
\_ muchas |
| 2004/4/26-27 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:13394 Activity:nil |
4/25 Did the motd just get too long to leave my tech Q up? Anyone out
there want to clue me in on how to check kernel cpu usage? I
assumed that would be part of top's "system" cpu numbers. no?
\_ If memory serves, nobody had a usefull answer.
\_ http://csua.com/?entry=13375
\_ ps |
| 2004/4/26 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:13375 Activity:nil |
4/25 I've got top saying that 100% of the cpu is being used 70% user 30
system. But the processes it lists aren't using anywhere close to
100% cpu cumulatively. Is there some other way to see what is eating
upt the cpu?
\_ Either hacker processes or the kernel, and also top isn't always
right.....
\_ It is an MP machine? Top doesn't work very well with MP machines,
for obvious reasons. |
| 2004/4/12-13 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:13158 Activity:nil |
4/12 Is is common but implicit in computer repair to use used but
*working* component to replace bad components on the unit you gave
them? I took a Powerbook Pismo to we-fix-macs and was told to shell
out $351 for reburbishing the processor boards (actually the genius
said they would repair and refurbish the CPU!). If so, it doesn't
seem worthwhile to reapir at all!
\_ Mac people... hehehe. If it was a PC, you'd spend less than that
to get a new motherboard and cpu and end up with a better computer
than you had before for less money instead of the same computer with
equally old parts. Did they also change your fan belt oil and the
power supply equalizer? What about your cam shaft bearings and the
differential rotar terahertz storage display? *snicker*
\_ I remember trying to fix parts on my old PC. You'd replace
one thing and Windows wouldn't boot normally, so you'd go to
'safe mode' and see that not only does windows insist on trying
to find stuff on your old motherboard, it has your mouse device
loaded like 8 times, still is looking for a sound card you
replaced last year, and the only sure way to clean this up is
to reinstall from scratch. And reinstall DirectX. And the
endless rebooting..
\_ It's generally better now. You can tell it "that part
doesn't live here anymore"
\_ I'm still using my old PC except since I first built it I've
changed every part except the floppy, a few cables, and what
little remains of the case and PS. Nothing you're talking
about has ever happened and I didn't spend $351 to get my
cam shaft rotorhertz drive pixelation problem refurbished at
some rip off joint that survives by screwing endless
generations of mac wielding english major freshmen.
\_ My main expectation with a repair is that I should get
new parts replacing the broken ones, instead of some
parts just as old or even older salvaged from other
dead units bought over ebay. -- op
\_ well, every warranty I've seen says that the manufacturer could
use refurbished parts
\_ but can the "refurbished" part be from another computer that
has been equally old but just hasn't failed yet?
\_ yes
\_ Are you talking about out-of-warranty repair?
\_ in-warranty ... out-of-warranty, they can still
be refurbished, but the implication is that the
refurbished parts need to be "recertified". Guess who
determines the part is recertified (hint: not the
manufacturing company).
\_ I always thought that repair means replacing bad
parts with new parts, and refurbish means checking
and repairing new or almost new (returned by
unhappy customers with 30 days) units. Guess I was
wrong.
\_ I've found that typically, a warranty means if
it breaks, you get one that works. Not
necessarily a new one. As far as I can tell,
the only difference between in-warranty and out-
of warranty is in the latter, you pay for more
than just shipping it to them. |
| 2004/3/31-4/1 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW] UID:12947 Activity:low 66%like:10782 |
3/31 Will a mini-ATX board fit in an ATX case?
\_ I want to say yes, but I'm not sure. If your google-foo is strong
the specs for both standards are available online. You can just
open them side-by-side and compare.
\_ Yes, my computer is set up this way. Not all the mounting
screws always line up perfectly though, so when installing
cards make sure the motherboard has some back support or you
flex it in less than ideal ways.
\_ Yes. Also, I think Mini-ITX boards also fit in ATX cases.
I'm running a Micro-ATX (cause it has 3 expansion slots)
case Antec KS280B Black ATX
mobo VIA C3M266-L Mini-ATX
cpu VIA C3 866Mhz ezra (i586tsc)
cpu VIA C3 866Mhz ezra
\_ "Yes, but". If its for anything you care about get the right case. |
| 2004/3/29-30 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:12903 Activity:nil |
3/29 Cigarette lighter and ash tray for you PC:
http://www.coolerguys.com/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=1215
\_ Customers who bought this item also bought:
a pack of marlboros |
| 2004/3/25-26 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:12863 Activity:kinda low |
3/25 Don't forget, bring your laptop to SF April 3rd and be part of
a supercomputer experiment! It should be cool.
http://www.flashmobcomputing.org
\_ Oh, you should register on the website if you're planning to go.
\_ make sure it's "a 1.3 GHZ Pentium III Celeron/AMD equivalent or
better with at least 256MB of RAM." --above url |
| 2004/3/21-23 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/Networking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:12790 Activity:moderate |
3/21 I have two computers, a p3-133 and a p3-500. They are taking up
precious space and gathering dust. Is there any worthwhile cause to
donate them to? If I can't turn them on should I bother taking out
the harddrives and whacking the fuck out of them with a hammer first?
\_ Computers for schools will take the p3-500. No one but an old
lady who wants to use the internet will take the 133.
\_ Would you sell the p3-500? I'm interested in buying.
\_ email me -aspolito
\_ http://accrc.org
\_ There's no such thing as a p3-133. You mean a P-133 or P2-233?
Either way, a 133 could be easily turned into a firewall/router.
\_ I dunno what it is. I bought it in 97 or 98 or so and I
probably haven't turned it on this millenium. I seem to
remember 133. I'm not really curious enough to look, I just
want it out of my closet.
\_ It's a Pentium from about 1994 if it's 133 mhz. A 233 from
then *could* be a Pentium but more likely a P-II.
\_ Don't whack the hard drives. Even small hard drives are useful
for a computer for the poor or 3rd world. If you're worried about
data, boot from a Linux floppy and do dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda
\_ Elitist prick! They need food and condoms and free aids drugs
not your old hard drive! Think of the children!
\_ There's no such thing as a p3-133. It could be easily turned into a
firewall/router. |
| 2004/3/9-11 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:12585 Activity:low |
3/8 Why is Soda still running 700Mhz? Is it suffice? Do you want a
better processor? -alumni working at Intel
\_ The CSUA wants all the free hardware you want to give it,
but if we're going to go to the trouble to upgrade soda
we aren't just going to throw in a new CPU - I think that
the VP-ish people these days are thinking along the lines
of dual-xeon or something. If you have the juice to get us
free stuff from {Intel,AMD,*}, you should email politburo
or the vp directly, they will be very interested. Disk for
the office system got upgraded last semester thanks to njh,
soda disk is probably next (eventually). Some of this stuff
is in the CSUA minutes. --jhs (current ugrad)
\_ I think I have a 6 year old 80GB RAID 5 SCSI Array.
Can we think of anything fun to do with it?
\_ Drop it off of evans?
\_ Hey jhs, are you on the politburo, or do you just take it
upon yourself to speak for them?
\_ I'm not on politburo, I do go to most pburo meetings, I
spent a lot of time in previous semesters talking with
the previous and current VPs about these issues. I
thought that everyone might be interested in what is
actually going on with current pburo thoughts on
these issues.
The current pburo people don't go on the motd very often
- I pointed this thread out to erikk, the vp, so maybe
he can post with definitive info if that's what you
desire. --jhs
\_ so youre saying if i donate a few terabytes i wont get
insulted on the motd for daring to offer free stuff to
the csua? -alum
\_ A more charitible interpretation is that they have uses for
any semi-modern hardware, but that they won't bother
upgrading the main server without having something
substantially better. Lesser donations can be used on the
lounge machines.
\_ I don't think there's any way to guarantee you won't be
insulted on the motd. The statements found on the motd
do not in any was represent the opinions of either the
Politburo or the CSUA's official stance on any subject.
- Poliburo-alum
\_ Indeed. There are much more appropriate venues to
discuss such subjects where you won't meet with the
motd-type railing. Try mailing csua@csua.berkeley.edu,
politburo@csua, hardcorps@csua, etc. --scotsman
\_ suffice is a verb, but yes, we need a better processor!
\_ hey nice way to slam someone doing you a favor for nothing.
\_ Also, "alumni" is plural. It should be "alum", "alumnus",
or "alumna".
\_ How do you know it wasn't posted by a few alums who
decided to make a gift together? How deep do you look
into a gift horse's mouth before your head gets bit off?
\_ don't tell them about the "Prescott is AMD 64's beyatch" thread
\_ Because it doesn't run Windoze which needs 2GHz for one user.
\_ Another clown.... No class.
\_ See the post below, moron.
\_ You: no class. It doesn't matter if the item offered is
useful or not. Oh fuck it, nevermind. Why do I bother
trying to teach the most basic manners that any 6 year old
understands to motd jerkoffs?
\_ It's funny that someone calling others clown with no
justification talks about basic manner.
\_ If you don't see the justification you're beyond
hopeless.
\_ a better processor is not much use without a motherboard (and
everything else that entails) to support it. though frankly,
how much processing power can a machine used to read mail and
edit a text file need...
\_ But Intel makes mobos too. All you'd need is probably new RAM.
I don't know what type soda has now. We don't need the latest
greatest RAM so maybe the current stuff would work.
\_ uh, run uptime: 183 users, load averages: 1.29, 0.94, 1.00
\_ Your point?
\_ his point is that politburo is stingy on processing
power and imposes our freedom to run useful tasks such
setiathome and gene folding and porn storage.
\_ motherboards, etc, are cheap.
\_ so are lots of >700 Mhz processors...
\_ Here is a very fundamental question. Is CSUA more CPU bound
or disk space bound? I would say definitely the latter because
of all the h0zers storing email and never cleaning them up.
Secondly, it's easy to do "ps aux" and see who should get
squished, but it's not so easy to do "df -k /users/*" because
of file permissions, so we don't have a clear idea on who to
target. My point is we need an alumni who works at Western
Digital to donate free space more so than an alumni who works
at AMD/Intel to donate a powerful space heater that will most
likely be underutilized.
\_ Why not both? Haven't you seen soda's load a 8?
\_ Before spamassassin, soda didn't have any shortage of cpu.
Faster/multi-spindle disk would help with that, but that's
about the only thing that cpu would help.
\_ I'm sitting on a few terabytes I have no use for but I can't
imagine donating them if I'd get the same treatment as the
op for this thread.
\_ Har har har. Troll. |
| 2004/3/8-10 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:12576 Activity:nil |
3/8 I've finally got it so I can't hear anything at all from the 3
computers in my home office. I just got 4th one which is so incredibly
loud it completely drowns out the other 3!
\_ Get a new quiet power supply.
\_ Could be the CPU fan too. Anyway, newegg sells an Enlight 360 watt
for $25 which is quieter than the $60 PC Power & Cooling Silencers.
(Yeah, I have both.)
\_ It's a 1U server which has a vacuum cleaner volume fan that blows
over the fanless dual cpus and mb chip. It's so loud I can hear it
2 rooms aways with the door closed. Now that I have it on the net
I'm going to finish building it out remotely and then move all the
parts to a mid-tower and put a pair of $5 cpu fans in the case. It
is going to replace the mid tower which I'm still using so I can't
put it in the tower and then build it out. BTW, any suggestions
for *quiet* cpu fans for a 1.0 ghz p3? thanks! --op
\_ http://www.endpcnoise.com I have 4 computers running with their stuff.
There are typically 4 sources of computer noise:
1) case fan(s)
1) case fan
2) power supply fan
3) CPU fan
4) hard drive.
Fix all four and you'll be happy and able to think more clearly.
\_ Thanks! My drives, case and ps fan are all quiet enough.
I'll check out that url. |
| 2004/3/8-10 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:12571 Activity:nil |
3/8 What is an acceptable temperature in a computer case? I'm asking
because as summer is approaching, my case is already 90 something
farenheit, and I know that it'll probably jump to 100 something
during the summer. My CPU is currently 134F and system (mother
board) is 96F. I'd hate to fry my CPU and HD. Should I be
concerned and get those fancy heat exchange things from Frys?
\_ Dear posters, I bought a heat paste from Frys (it was a whopping
$8.00) and got the CPU to go down to about 122F. Thanks. Now I
worry about my HD because that's where the data is, but that's
gonna be another post.
\_ Consider placing the HDD in the lowest available bay and moving
optical drive(s) as far away as possible.
\_ do you have case fans in the front? you should have a 1:1 ratio
of fans sucking air in and fans blowing out. i have my HDD
directly in the airflow path. it never reaches above 42C.
\_ Why do you need front case fans? As if the rear fans won't
draw air through from the front? They'll create a complete
vacuum inside your case?
\_ I had a MB/HD death when the case was 150 and the cpu was 190 --oj
\_ You're getting into the danger zone. CPUs in the 60-65C range will
run normally but ocasionally have 'soft' errors. You will have
shortened CPU life also. Try to keep your CPU under 50C (122F).
A MB temp of 96F doesn't sound too bad, but the ambient case temp
affects your HDD temp. Try running with your case open and see how
it helps...
\_ Why go fancy? Just go low-tech and buy a $10 fan from Walgreens,
then open the PC case and blow on it. It's going to carry away more
heat than most fancy PC fans.
\_ I agree, < 50 deg C is good for CPU temperature. You should
buy some thermal paste and re-seat your fan with it. Remember,
just enough paste to make a very very thin layer is all you need.
What CPU are you using BTW, and does it already use paste
or some kind of heat-transfer pad?
\_ I run an open case. The heat sensors say my cpu is ~105F and the
case is barely above room temp. When I ran it closed I was at
~130F cpu and about ~108F on the mb and didn't get any errors. I
have it open for easy access because I change hardware a lot, not
because I was worried about heat.
\_ 100 is probably a good upper bound. If you can track your CPU temp
125 is a good upper bound, and 140=fried.
If it's really hot, I'll take the side of my case off. |
| 2004/3/3-4 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:12502 Activity:nil |
3/3 Dear Intel: Prescott is a Dog. AMD64 kicks your ass. Thank you for
playing anyway!
\_ Okay, we all know that Prescott runs 90 watts plus, but can
you provide a URL comparing performance of an AMD CPU vs. a
Prescott, in the $150-$250 price range of CPUs?
\_ Come on, try harder. Prescott isn't in that price range.
The 3.2ghz is $278, the 3.4ghz is $417. It might do alright
in benchmarks thanks to its cache improvements, but my
2.4ghz Northwood feels "snappier," and the AMD64 eats it for
breakfast.
\_ You need to start giving people a little more credit.
Prescott is in this price range. http://csua.org/u/69f
I just had to build a system last week for someone (it
was not a Prescott, but I looked at it), and the CPU I chose
was $183. I also see the Athlon 64 3000+ for $211. Are
there any diffs between the 3000+ and 3200+/3400+ other
than clock frequency? (Oh, I do see the increase in L2
cache from 512 KB to 1 MB; that must be why the 3200+ is
$270.)
\_ 3000 -> 3200 = +cache. 3200->3400 = 3000+cache+clock.
\_ thx.
\_ anandtech to the rescue
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1956&p=23
\_ For some reason, this link just takes me to the completely
useless site http://www.up-d8.com
\_ oops, spelling fixed
\_ Does someone have power dissipation / thermal design power data
for any of the AMD 64 CPUs?
\_ Answering my own question: http://csua.org/u/69h
FYI, the system I built last week was a Pentium 4 2.8C (800 Mhz
system bus, HT) with an Envision 360W power supply and an ATI
Radeon 9600 SE with an Asus P4P800 mobo. SATA 160 GB Hitachi
drive. It uses 75-80 watts idle, and 135-140 watts playing a
3D game.
\_ how did you measure this? |
| 2004/1/24-25 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/OS] UID:11926 Activity:nil |
1/24 I'd like to upgrade my 15 year old cordless phone which is still using
40 something megahertz. Should I get a 2.4GHz digital phone or
a 2.4GHz DSS (digital code hoping) phone? Which one is more secure,
has a better quality, range, etc? By the way I also have a cell phone
but the quality (clarity, lag, etc) is still inferior to a land based
phone. Thanks!
\_ How about a 5Ghz phone, since 2.4Ghz phones have been known to
interfere with 802.11b wireless routers (in case you have one)?
\_ No one is listening to your boring phone calls. Security should
be the last reason you choose one phone over another.
\_ Just a note: frequency has little to do with quality here, or
even range. Go for 900 Mhz, avoid the radiation and
interference.
\_ Another note: The Panasonic handsets heat up with 2.4 GHz (and
probably 5 GHz). The 900 MHz one does not, and has great battery
life. You probably get better range with 2.4 or 5. As far as
quality, 900 is fine -- if you notice clicking about 10-20% of
the time, just rock the switch to the left a few times to change
to another channel. I've never heard any interfering conversations. |
| 2004/1/20 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:11844 Activity:nil |
1/19 Anyone tried to build a Athlon 64 based system? What motherboard
did you use? Any incompatibility problems?
\_ I started to spec it out and then found out that AMD was
going to switch socket types in Q2 2k4 and gave up the
idea. We have a couple of dual opteron boxes at work (newisys)
they are very nice. No problems with Linux (SuSE Enterprise
Linux 8 and RH 3.0) or FreeBSD 5.2.
\_ Thanks. I don't worry too much about "upgrade paths", since
my habit is to just get a new computer every 5 years.
\_ Why does a mb change bother you? Are you really seriously going
to ever put a new chip in that mb? By the time you're ready to
get a new chip, you'll *want* to get a new mb to get all the new
stuff on it... like support for that new chip. Just go buy the
AMD. I'm only slightly above my break even point and I need
AMD. I'm only slightly above my break even point and I need for
them to have a good quarter. Thanks! |
| 2004/1/5-6 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:11663 Activity:nil |
1/5 Not something you want to see before making a trade:
An error has occured while processing request:
<DEAD>trade.americanexpress.com/brokerage/AControlServlet<DEAD>
Message: [JSP 1.0 Processor] reported an error
... along with the associated Java stack trace. |
| 2004/1/2 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:11644 Activity:high |
1/1 I got a IBM R40e recently with windows Xp. I'm wondering what I should
run (if anything) to stress the computer out. I heard that if a
laptop is going to break it's going to break in the first few months of
use. Should I worry about this? I'd much rather ship this back in
30 days to the seller rather than deal with IBM warranty. Thanks.
\_ setiathome
\_ bah. recent games are still generally the things that work a
computer the most.
\_ In terms of actual stress testing, not really.
\_ yeah goof point. seti only stresses the CPU.
\_ Video editing and reencoding.
\_ I had a Dell Inspiron that had an overheating GeForce GPU --
only found out after playing Flashpoint on it for a day.
It also took two or three exchanges with Dell before they figured
it out.
\_ M$ Fight Simulator in demo mode with highest randering options.
That's how I stressed a PC I bought a few years ago. Turned out
that it hung after 15min or so and it was a CPU problem.
\_ Prime 95 has a good stress mode, not for the video card though. It
was able to detect faulty CPU operation when overclocked, even though
stuff would appear to run ok. http://mersenne.org. You have to run the
specific stress test. Some people run two instances.
\_ is it just me or it seems like modern computers are less fault
tolerant than ever?
\_ It's just you. Personal computers are much more fault tolerant
now than they used to be. Apparently you've never run an AppleII
or a C64. People's expectations change and they forget about the
recent past. It would have been ludicrous during the dawn of the
PC era to think that a C64 could have uptimes of months. You were
lucky if it didn't bugger out after a couple hours. You can't
compare today's multipurpose PC to mainframes of the past because
that's like comparing apples with oranges. The fact is that PCs
have essentially replaced mainframes because they have become
increasingly more fault tolerant to the point that they can be
reasonably used in an enterprise market. That doesn't mean that
they are as fault tolerant as a mainframe, but the fact is that
you can keep a Linux/BSD x86 box running for months shows the
vast improvement over time of the OS and the hardware archtiecture
of PCs.
\_ By "fault tolerant" was the poster asking about how often
something goes wrong, or how likely the machine keeps going
after something has gone wrong?
\_ Not all modern computers are designed to be fault tolerant. If you
have a plain Pentium IV and non-ECC RAM, you aren't getting the
greatest reliability but probably enough for most people. With a
Xeon and ECC RAM, you get better data integrity in both the CPU
and from the RAM. Enterprise storage equipment has more. I guess
data integrity isn't the same thing as the real fault tolerant
stuff on servers like RAID and other redundancy, which is what
you would need to tolerate disks, psus, cpus etc. going bad. |
| 2003/12/31-2004/1/1 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:11621 Activity:nil |
12/30 Three weeks ago I accidentally overclocked my AthlonXP 2000MHz to
2500MHz for 24 hours running setiathome. A test with memtest86
showed no errors, but since then, I've had three different disk
drives get corrupt data with "IO" errors. I fear this is related.
badblocks -w showed no errors. drives work fine after reformatting
ext3. The overclocking was done with very fast case fans and a
copper CPU cooler rated for overclocking. The CPU fan was turned
up all the way. Do you think overclocking damage would cause this
error? Could overclocking fry an IDE controller?
\_ If you overclock the front side bus, you are stressing everything
on that bus, including IDE interfaces.
\_ It's quite likely you fucked your system, yes. Did you have
temp measurements before and during for this 'test' or did you
just figure it'd be fun to fry an expensive new chip?
\_ He said he'd done it accidentally.
\_ I had this EXACT same problem when I fried a memory stick.
Put a new RAM chip in and see if it goes away. Also, make
SURE that there is good air flow over the memory (I.e.. no
drive cables occluding the case air flow).
\_ I fried a mem as well. There were no smoke whatsoever, but
it's a goner forever. Overclocking ain't what it used to be
\_ I ran memtest86 for many hours w/o a single flaw. -op
\_ Really- just try to put in a new mem stick. In general,
don't trust software- Its a 10 minute experiment.
\_ then what? how to corrupt a hard drive in 10 min? |
| 2003/12/29-30 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:11606 Activity:nil |
12/29 I am hearing less and less about AMD computers. Almost every local
store is selling intel inside machines. Is AMD fading away? What
was the third chip maker? There was Intel, AMD, and one other
competitor, but I have already forgotten its name.
\_ Stock went from around 5 to around 15 in the past six. Don't know
what that means, except wall street seems to think there is value
in AMD. As for 64 vs. 32, people didn't know what to do when 32
vs. 16 came out, then came Windows 3.0. I guess you can write
bigger bloatware, since now you can address a lot more space...
\_ umm, do you hear much about computers at all?
\_ Cyrix, see wikipedia for a history. AMD has a relatively
inexpensive 64-bit CPU, but there is no demonstrated consumer
benefit for it.
\_ there are a few "third" chip makers. i don't know if cyrix is
even still around, these days it's probably VIA. transmeta too,
but they're more of a laptop thing.
\_ Cyrix was bought out by National during the good days, then
National basically went South (and is continuing the long,
painful slide to oblivion to this day). They sold the assets
for Cyrix to VIA, which has basically done nothing with it.
National didn't do much with Cyrix either, except sell a couple
for embedded products. Problem with Cyrix is that chips always
get cheaper, and it doesn't make sense to build low performance
low margin chips that are going to be obsolete in two months.
What you want to do is build high-end high margin chips and
live off of the skim until it becomes commoditized.
\_ thanks, much more informative response than the first non-sense.
\_ nonsense begets nonsense.
\_ ah, you loose. just look at how this thread has grown.
\_ probably lose, too. we weren't talking about yermom.
\_ you mean the fact that it runs faster, runs cooler, costs less
and out performs Intel's best? hmmm, yeah, and no one will ever
need more than 640k either.
\_ faster is up for grabs; cooler is marginal (89 watts vs.
100+ watts?); costs less is true. I should have written that
there's no consumer benefit to the 64 bits.
\_ Try 45 watts in the real world. See real world benchmarks
on your favorite website for faster.
\_ Are you talking about the desktop Athlon 64? Please
post a link to the 45W claim - I'm very interested.
I wasn't able to find any heat data beyond "89W" for
the Athlon 64 FX on tomshardware or anandtech.
And actually I also see 89W Thermal Design Power for
the FX, 3000+ and 3200+ on http://amd.com.
\_ Until MS Office 2005 ships with a minimum RAM
requirement > 4Gb thanks to the integration of
the Yukon database throughout.
\_ There's a conspiracy between M$ and Intel. M$ keeps
cranking out slower and slower software so that people
have to buy faster and faster CPUs.
\_ Well, maybe not a conspiracy.. Let's call it a
friendly mutual arrangement.
\_ Wasn't java more CPU speed demanding to offset java's
inherent slowness? Also, it's more Memory demanding.
\_ There isn't any new software that people care about
that needs much speed. Even new games don't need the
latest stuff.
\_ Doesn't matter, Microsoft & other makers
keep requiring more and more speed and
do as much as possible to make it hard
to continue using older versions with
lower requirements.
\_ NP-hard problems need speed.
\_ Indeed. What NP-hard problem is the mass market
so intent on solving?
\_ Now you deftly (?) went from 'people care
about' to 'mass market.' People care about
NP-hard problems, my friend. Otherwise
there wouldn't be a name for them.
P.S. You are an idiot.
\_ the thread was about "consumer benefit"
and desktop computers, dickwad.
\_ Jesus you can't be this dense. Let
me spell it out for you. Anyone who
P.S. I remain an idiot.
needs a computer is a 'consumer'.
Some people who need computers use
them for real sciency sorts of things.
Like munging astrophysics data, or
solving scheduling problems. Those
people care about fast computers.
P.S. You remain an idiot.
\_ YOU ARE THE ONES WHO ARE THE BALL
LICKERS.
\_ that stuff is research/industry.
not "consumers".
\- Linux grep needs a lot of speed. --psb
\_ don't use linux grep.
\- do you know what is wrong with it? |
| 2003/12/22 [Computer/SW/Apps/Media, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:11557 Activity:nil |
12/21 Whoever said Winamp 5 is not a resource hog should go to hell.
I have a Pentium 3/600 MHZ labtop. That thing eats up most of the
CPU cycle. For those who want something light, go for Winamp 5 lite.
Then again, I don't see any reason for upgrade to winamp 5 light from
winamp 2.9x, since most of the cool features are in the "full" version
\_ i run winamp 5 on a celeron 500, and it doesn't use more than 5%
on mp3s. maybe about 10% on ogg.
\- all yer cpu cycles belong to us
\_ I said that it wasn't as much of a hog as ver. 3. |
| 2003/12/12-13 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW] UID:11438 Activity:nil |
12/12 My computer just died. Power switch does nothing. Is it most likely
the MB/CPU or power supply?
\_ Disconnect the MB from the PS. Try to turn it on. If your drives
do not spin up, it means the PS is faulty. The MB could still have
a problem, though.
\_ how can you disconnect the PS from the MB and test it without
buying a special ATX PS tester? isn't an ATX PS dependent on
the motherboard to turn it on?
\_ Right. Sorry, was thinking of the old AT days.
\_ I think what the above person is saying is:
Switch -> Motherboard -> Power supply
If you remove motherboard from loop, you can't turn on power.
Anyway, I would have a known good power supply and swap that in
to distinguish between motherboard / power supply problem. |
| 2003/11/26-27 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Display] UID:11242 Activity:nil |
11/26 PC about PC
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/11/26/master.term.reut/index.html
\_ "Master and Slave computer labels offensive"
\_ The complaint was actually about some videotape machine, but
the policy applies to all equipment.
\_ Intel knew this back in 1995, that's why the PCI specs have no
master/slave labels. Instead they use "arbitor" and other terms.
\_ yeah, LA has been getting a lot of flak over this but the truth
is if someone come up with the term master/slave for a computer
system today, he probably would be politely asked to come up
with a new term. I actually CAN see why some people would like
the term changed. They aren't storming the barricades made
about it either. Stupid geeks getting all frumphy over someone
else getting frumphy is always good for an eye roll.
\_ Well, "Promiscuous" is a valid term in networking:
http://www.tek-tips.com/gpviewthread.cfm/qid/527658/pid/729/lev2/5/lev3/60 |
| 2003/11/20-21 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java, Computer/SW/Languages, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:11153 Activity:nil |
11/19 My lab got a bunch of computers and it's idling most of the time.
I guess I could download that ET signal program, but what other
things can I use it for?
\_ http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
\_ cure cancer!
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding
\_ I recommend omega@home! Join the worldwide effort to solve all
open mathematical problems! -- ilyas
\_ can't find it on google
\_ Sorry it's a bit of a geek joke. The program doesn't
exist yet, but the "all" is actually real. The idea
is that you want to find bounds on a certain
number called Chaitin's omega. If you know something
about that number you can solve lots of problems.
In fact, if you know that number precisely you can
solve any problem which can be precisely stated.
You get lower bounds by simulating programs until they
stop, and you get upper bounds by searching for programs
that print certain strings.
-- ilyas
\_ didn't you learn in high school to take "all" with a
grain of salt? i guess not, since you never learned
to format either.
\_ who learns to format the motd in high school....
\_ I had that in class.
\_ Duh. Game servers.
\_ Well, that consumes bandwidth too.
\_ So? If the lab is idle most of the time, it's idle.
\_ http://www.fightaidsathome.org
\_ I seem to remember there was a guy in your situation and his
university fired him and had him charged with unauthorized use
of their equipment and he got like 1 year of probation and a big
fine. Sorry, don't remember the exact details.
\_ IIRC it was the UofGeorgia. I didn't know Georgia even had a
university. I thought they stopped at 5th grade.
\_ Turn them off while not in use. Saves power. |
| 2003/11/18 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/OS/FreeBSD] UID:11116 Activity:nil |
11/17 I'm looking to buy a UPS for use with my Open/FreeBSD x86 systems at
home. Something in the 500 va to 750 va range is enough for me. I
just need enough power for 10 mins or so (enough time to shutdown
both boxes). Any recommendations on specific models? (I'm willing to
spend upto about $200). tia.
\_ Slickdeals has a UPS for about $30. http://slickdeals.net
\_ you looking for something with net/serial manageability, so your
x86 system can know to shut itself down before the power goes out?
\_ Yes. I want to use something like nut or apcupsd (or anything
else that might be better) in order to shutdown my systems
when the power goes out for longer than 1 min or so. |
| 2003/11/7 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:10974 Activity:nil |
11/6 Does anybody know what the difference is between these two procs:
1) VIA Cyrix III 650AMHz (100 X 6.5)
2) VIA C3 650MHz (100 X 6.5)
\_ IIRC, Cyrix was faster but ran hotter. Via's chips were all low
power. |
| 2003/10/30-31 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:10871 Activity:moderate |
10/30 I want to run a script that checks if a machine has active users on
it, and if there aren't any, than starts a CPU intensive process,
and also to turn it off if there are users. Is there a way to check
this easily? The best I've come up with is running ps and who -u
checking for idle users and/or processes. TIA.
\_ uptime
\_ can't you just run the process with a weightless priority. then
it will only use the CPU when nothing else is using it. The only
downside is if it uses a lot of memory you may experience swapping
issues. 'npri -w <command>' (at least on IRIX).
\_ hmm... sounds like it would work. However, I don't run Irix.
Anyone know of a Linux equivalent? nice -19 is too intensive
\_ what do you mean by "intensive"?
\_ I mean that users complain that the system is slow
and sluggish even when the job is nice -19
\_ The problem probably is not CPU time, but that the
working set of your process is too big.
\_ if you're trying to reinvent a queueing system, don't. install
openpbs, lsf, or condor instead.
\_ Sun Grid Engine is free and worked well when I used it before. |
| 2003/10/29-30 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW] UID:10850 Activity:nil |
10/29 hello I need to purchase a couple of 2U rackmount intel
compatible servers and I am low on funds. suggestions
of where to get such a thing? - danh
\_ http://www.pricewatch.com
\_ Work with a dot-bomb liquidator. You can prob pick one
up on the cheaps. http://www.fireflysales.com http://www.ableauctions.com
ebay, or craigslist.
\_ I buy them (1U and 2U) from Western Scientific (wsm.com). I bought
~30 2U and ~30 1U systems from them with satisfactory results. They
have the best prices anywhere (for me=govt). YMMV. --dim |
| 2003/10/29-30 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Display] UID:10835 Activity:nil |
10/28 I just bought a VIA C3M266-L socket 370 motherboard on eBay and
discovered after delivery that ieee1394 is "optional".
It's brand new. Paid $60, will sell for $55 any takers?
It's an ATX motherboard that takes a fanless VIA C3 CPU -brett
\_ Why not just buy an ieee1394 card?
\_ I need all 3 PCI slots |
| 2003/10/26 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:29587 Activity:nil 53%like:10791 |
10/25 Any recommendations on an ATX motherboard that supports the VIA C3 CPU? |
| 2003/10/26 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:10791 Activity:nil 53%like:29587 |
10/25 I'm looking for an ATX motherboard that supports the VIA C3 CPU.
Has anybody heard of using this one with linux? VIA C3M266
http://www.viavpsd.com/product/C3M266_spec.jsp?motherboardId=101
\_ Do yourself a favor and buy a less than cutting edge intel chip.
Here's a start: http://www.pricewatch.com
\_ can any of those run with no fan?
\_ probably not but you can get fans quiet enough that ambient
room noise will be louder. |
| 2003/10/23 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:10747 Activity:nil |
10/22 Do the Pentium 4's (2GHz+) these days run so hot that you need a huge
fan on it? My Athlon does, and it's waaay too noisy, so I'm thinking of
switching to Intel. Good or bad idea?
\_ i vaguely remember only CPU taht doesn't require huge fans
are those transmeta chip. You would have better luck check out
the latest Pentium-M, as it has much lower power consumption than
P-4
\_ Consider underclocking. Seriously. And formatting in 80 columns.
\_ Do PCs these days still have the "Turbo" switch which we can turn
off?
\_ Yes, they run hot, just like the Athlons.
When are they going to put a Pentium M on an ATX board?
\_ I agree! I want a fanless CPU on an ATX board.
Let me know if you find something. -brett
\_ There's nothing wrong with a huge fan. Huge fans are good. That
means they spin slower to move the same air as a smaller fan. That
means they're quieter.
\_ http://www.thermaltake.com/products/heatsink/silentBoost.htm
http://www.zalman.co.kr/usa/product/cnps7000a-alcu.htm
\_ The main thing that's obscene about current processors (AMD and Intel
both) is how much wattage they consume - the 3ghz P4 can eat upwards
of 80 watts, and I've heard reports that Prescott may be in the 125
watt range. And people leave these things on 24/7, and then wonder
why there's a power crisis.
\_ there's a power crisis because of several reasons. 1) monopoly
abuse in the power market, 2) lack of effort being put into
developing alternative energy sources, 3) waste, 4) mismanagement
and 5) well, there's more but I've gotta go grab the new seti
client so I can cure cancer.
\_ I run seti on my desktop machines at work, but I power off
those machines when I leave work. My priorities are 1)
conserve power, then 2) put to good use the power that I can't
conserve (ie. all idle CPU cycles). For this reason, I don't
run seti on my laptop at work, since my laptop is smart enough
to turn off the CPU clock when it hits the idle loop. Running
seti on this laptop will increase power consumption, defeating
the original intent of seti. |
| 2003/10/15 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:10633 Activity:kinda low |
10/14 I want a fanless CPU (500-1000 MHz) on a mobo with multiple PCI slots.
Any ideas or suggestions?
\_ Zalman. And while you're at it check out the hottie at <DEAD>zalman.com<DEAD>
\_ yuck + lame.
\_ I already have a quiet computer that uses Zalman fans, but
it still heats up the room. I'd prefer something that uses
less power that a traditional CPU. THanks.
\_ Oh! So you want a PDA? I suggest something Linux based.
Also, if you use candles you'll save power, too.
\_ abacus.
10/14 Where's a place online to check for existing lawsuits? All I have
are names...
\_ a specific court or you want to find out if your ex-gf is
getting divorced in some unknown state? |
| 2003/10/10-11 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:10576 Activity:nil |
10/10 Well I need to build a new firewall seeing as my old Linux box is dead.
After figuring out my set up for my studio I've come to the conclusion
that I will have half a rack slot free while the other half is being
taken by a MIDI module. Well can't have that last slot empty now can
we? So I go over to http://www.mini-itx.com and see quite a few good things
there. Get plenty of ideas for my next home stereo and what not. Only
problem, I can't find a case that will be 2" high by 9.5" wide (half a
u). Anybody know where I can get one?
I'm not going to be slapping a ton of gear into this machine. The
board I'm thinking of getting is the EPIA CL10000 board. It has two
nics already there. The only thing I need to put in there would be
a compact flash to ide converter for the file system. Any other disk
space needed can be mounted off a central file server with samba if I
want. For logging I'll just use syslog-ng and log remotely.
So, anybody know where I can find a case to meet my requirements?
\_ If you're feeling cute, set up a box, cut a bootable CD from
it, and don't bother using the drive for anything but swap. -John
\_ http://iDOT.com AKA Medialand Systems, Hayward CA |
| 2003/9/13 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:10181 Activity:nil |
9/12 Really cute case mods. http://csua.org/u/4av |
| 2003/8/27-10/22 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:10007 Activity:kinda low |
8/27 My computer WinXP has a lot open but isn't actually DOING ANYTHING
and yet explorer is running in the background at 50% of CPU and up
(on a 1.6G processor) and i can hear my hard disk being accessed
like mad. Is there any software that can tell me what is going on?
What files are being accessed? What the hell explorere is acutally
DOING? ok thank(ia).
\_ Try the utilities at http://sysinternals.com. Process Explorer will
tell you the CPU usage of various threads within the explorer.exe
process. Filemon will tell you who is causing all the disk
activity. --sky
\_ Probably some virus or spyware.
\_ search for filemon.
\_ Press Ctrl-Shift-Escape and sort processes by CPU time.
Click View -> Select columns and choose some I/O operations.
\_ ctrl-alt-delete shows task manager in xp, and is easier to type.
but still, that doesn't show in any degree of detail what's
actually going on.
\_ Have you tried View -> Select columns yet? |
| 2003/8/19 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:29384 Activity:very high |
8/18 What's a good Athlon motherboard that supports ECC memory? If
that's not possible, what about motherboards for Intel CPUs?
\_ I just built an Athlon system. That thing is HOT, heats up
my apartment in no time. No more Athlon for me in the future,
thank you.
t/18 John's bored link of the day:
http://www.deine-oma.de/pop.swf
\_ possibly not work-safe.
\_ Completely harmless and silly, ffs. I never post non-work-
safe stuff for you bunch of old women.
\_ you own intel stock? it's below water? FUDding the motd
won't help.
\_ Pentium 4's run hot, too.
\_ underclock your Athlon. it'll run a lot cooler.
\_ water-cooling, baby!
\_ Unless you pump the heat outside, the apartment will
still heat up just as much with water cooling.
\_ Not only are the pentiums just as hot, the next generation are
going to be even hotter. How's 103 watts pumping away inside
your box from *just the cpu* going to take care of your winter
chills? Real men have cold rooms anyway. Heat problems are
for the proles. |
| 2003/8/9-11 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:29294 Activity:moderate |
8/10 I just build a AMD2500+ computer and overall I'm pretty happy with
it. However it seems to output a lot more heat than my P4. Is this
normal?
\_ yes AMD cpus consume more power and run hotter
\_ I hope you're not settling for a stock fan, and you have at least
2-3 case fans.
\_ 2 blowing in (with filter), 2 blowing out, and 1
circulating inside. It's still pretty... warm. Is it
mostly from the CPU? My MB has a fan for its chipset,
my AMD has a huge ass heat sink with fan, and even my
ATI All-In-Wonder Card has a fan.
Actually I'm kind of disappointed now with the
power consumption. Do AMD & Intel publish their power
(wattage) somewhere?
\_ Exhaust fans are generally more effective than
fans blowing in. I think it has to do with turbulence
fans blowing in. I think it has to do with turbulence
vs lamnar air flow. to get the heat out. AMD CPU's
chips are hotter.
vs lamnar air flow. to get the heat out.
\- hello, it's perhaps not intuitively obvious but
this is a case where you dont want completely
laminar flow. the pressure differential you can
achive is linear in air flow and exponential in
a factor based on turbulence. this is why some
fans have non-smooth blades to increase turbulence.
mirco design issues [like fan blade shape] as well
as macro ones [location of fans and components
demending on their heat properties ... tolerance
and production] is a big design problem. i used to
work on modeling flows at IBM Almaden. so in
disk drived you want laminar flow to avoid platter
vibration and for cooling you wanted more turb flow
for greater heat capacity. it's a pretty cool [NPI]
area to see real applications of theory/math. --psb
\_ Wow, interesting! Thanks.
\_ Did you design anything we would have heard
of or used?
\- I worked mostly on models and design tools
[first doing what you might call conservation
law drivien aggregate calculations and then
describing the components in sort of a
black box fashion only exposing the char-
acteristics relevant to thermal modeling
from where you'ld sort of interatively
converge on a couple of designs you'ld
evaluate in greater depth]. BTW, this isnt
a bad WEEB pg on this: http://csua.org/u/3w6
BTW, this was written in a pretty crazy
way ... it was all controlled by some codes
in common lisp, which built some stuff in
C but also used the c pre-processor to
build some fortran codes from some canned
parallel libraries for some special big
machines at livermore. --psb |
| 2003/7/31 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:29197 Activity:high |
7/31 I just bought AMD2500+ (based on 1800Mhz) with FSB of 333Mhz and
installed it on a MB that supports up to AMD3200. When I boot up the
computer however, it says that I have AMD 1100Mhz. I tried playing
with the BIOS, changing the FSB speed and all from 100Mhz to 200Mhz
but the boot screen still says that I have AMD 1100Mhz. What is
going on?
\_ Your bios might be old, and not support the processor. Try
updating the bios. -- ilyas
\_ turns out my MB has a switch between auto or manual 100 FSB.
Forgot to turn it on. Thanks.
\_ hello do any of you people use amd chips for heavy integer
crunching/sorting/searching? i have taken some quick and dirty
measurements of an operton box i have on loan and our
production Xeon system and it looks like an Nmhz opteron ~=
1.65-1.75 x N mhz Xeon ... anyone have other numbers to share?
any floating pt comparisons? my float-dept stuff has to be
heavily retooled for new processor so i wont have those number
for a while. thisis pretty small working set stuff. ok tnx
\_ Learn to format to 80 cols with tab=8
\- oh my window may have been operating at a different
size at the time. ok tnx --psb |
| 2003/7/24 [Politics/Domestic, Computer/HW/CPU, Politics/Foreign] UID:29127 Activity:very high |
7/24 Want to waste a little time? http://www.emode.com/tests/uiq It's a 2 page IQ test. When it asks for email address at the end, just give any fake address. You'll still get the results after you submit the form. My score was 135 and rated "visual mathematician" \_ 160+ here. \_ liar \_ I scored 136 and was a "visionary philosopher" \_ doesn't IQ test depend of age also? \_ Technically yes -- but the emode people claim to use a different method to arrive at similar results. *shrug* \_ 135, Facts Curator \_ 135, Visual Mathematician. -ucla cs guys \_ Ditto. -mice \_ too many people getting 135. I think there's something wrong with the test. \_ I think 135 is perfect score minus one. This test is too easy for sodalites. We need one where the middle is higher. \_ 138, visionary philosopher. \_ Then it isn't an IQ test. \_ My understanding is that anyone can completely legitimately make a test with any scale and call it an "IQ test". For a standardized test you have to go for specific ones, i.e. "Wechsler IQ test." I'm not certain, though. -niloc \_ It could be timed, hence all the "philosophers" and "curators". \_ 136, "visionary philosopher" \_ Ack! Only 133. Must be the chocolate for breakfast. I'm a Word Warrior. I have exceptional verbal skills and easily make sense of complex issues and take an unusually creative approach to solving problems. My strengths make me a visionary! Even without trying I'm able to come up with lots of new and creative ideas! That's why I waste my time posting on the motd and wall all day. I'm just waiting to pop my next creative idea on you and take over the world and be the next Netscape! \_ 140, eh hem! \_ 84, Precision Processor! \_ 140, Visionary Philosopher \_ 129, precision processor -ax (I get from 129-14X on these sort of tests, but I've never put much faith in IQ tests.) A question- What is your IQ on this test vs how much money do you make? \_ IQ doesn't mean anything! It is bullshit! You can be a dumb ass and still make tons of $. I know I do, cuz my EQ is very very high -mr liao \_ I never took an IQ test, but you can be the Leader of the Free World with the right connections! -dubya \_ Although you don't see it you are actually making a very good point. Not the one where you attack the President mindlessly but where you point out that with the right connections you can do anything and be anyone. "It isn't what you know, it's who you know" will always be true. \- hello i think the main problem with the "IQ test" is that it isnt timed. e.g. someone who can do the nasa alien question in 10 sec vs. 30 sec. i didnt spend a lot of time on the pattern match questions for example. ok tnx --psb 138/fact curator \_ I like how you use the example of a part of test on which you happened to do particularly well. What if other people used the same argument about the verbal or math portions? Your capability to perform pattern matching does not impress anybody with half a brain. And may I ask why you thought the alien NASA question was particularly difficult that it should deserve special merit for finishing quickly? \- that's not what i meant about doing the pattern matching quickly ... i probably did lousy at that because i didnt spend much time on those. i dont think you can compare a 135 in 10 min and a 140 in 20 min. how much time you spend on the "which one doesnt belong" type Qs i think also makes a diff. --psb \_ I am not defending the validity of any test which claims to be able to categorize all of human intelligence with any accuracy or precision by asking 40 simple questions. However, IQ tests in general do not test your ability to think quickly, but your ability to concentrate, visualize an answer, and verify the answer. Hence, no time limit. \_ Who's attacking the President? If they have a problem, they should tell that to me in my face! -dubya \_ 140, but it recorded one of my answers incorrectly and scored it as wrong. How is the IQ of the people who made the test? \_ 136, Visionary Philosopher, and no idea what the heck the answer was to the "rose" question. What is it? \_ tempting. Look up the phrase on google. |
| 2003/7/22 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:29102 Activity:high |
7/21 What is the differences among Pentium M and Pentium 3-M, cerelon
performance wise? Given the same clock speed which one is better?
Similiarly, I am looking for one notch above Pentium 3-M, does
AMD/VIA/Transmeda has chip that outperform p3M by a notch? it doesn't
necessarily has to be in the same league as P4M.
\_ go with the Pentium M. It's designed from the ground up as opposed
to the 3M and 4M which are closer to desktop CPUs at heart. I hear
the Pentium M trounces them anyway.
\_ don't buy a celeron for anything unless saving $5 *really* means
that much to you in which case you shouldn't be buying a computer
anyway.
\_ I am looking at IBM T-series versus the new IBM X-series.
I am using company's old IBM X and I am wondering how's
new IBM X (Pentium M) stack up against IBM T(Pentium 4M)
--OP
\_ Don't look at the X for CPU, look at it for size. It's
comparatively tiny, tremendously robust, and weighs almost
nothing. The T-series has a bigger screen and DVD. If you
are worried about price, get a refurbished one--that's what
I have (X-20) and it's brilliant. -John
\_ Dewd, the T40 can come with either the Mobile Pentium 4
(aka Pentium 4-M) or Pentium M (aka the Centrino CPU).
All reviews of the T40 I've seen are with the Pentium M.
1.6 GHz Pentium M ~= 2.4 GHz Pentium 4-M.
And as the previous poster wrote, the Pentium M was
designed from the ground up as a mobile CPU. The Pentium
4-M was based on the Pentium 4 desktop CPU; Intel had
not planned for a notebook version until they got
caught up in the raw MHz game (consumer: "This Pentium
3 is only 1 GHz, and the Pentium 4 is 2.0 GHz!").
Also, the X has a 12" screen; the T40 has a 14" screen but
weighs more, as the previous poster wrote.
There's also notebooks with an AMD CPU if you want
something a step above a Pentium 3-M. The Fujitsu
S2000 and S6000 series are almost identical, except
for the CPU; the S2000 has an AMD CPU, and the S6000 has
the Pentium M. They're both new, so you can check
performance numbers on http://cnet.com. My impression is that
the Pentium M blows the AMD CPU out of the water in
performance and energy consumption. |
| 2003/7/17-18 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:29070 Activity:high |
7/16 Looking for a lite notebook that is reasonbly powerful as well.
Really like the company IBM X-series. But X-series only uses
Pentium 3 processor. Is there any other notebook that is similiar
in size (e.g. 13" LCD) but use a CPU which is more powerful than
Intel P3? I don't mind CPU being slower than Intel P4, but I
want a notch above P3. What kind of Transmeta / AMD / VIA CPU
should I looking for?
\_ Fujitsu S6120D. Pentium M is what you want, multiply GHz by 1.5 to
get equivalent Pentium 4 speed
\_ By 1.5?? Let's see a URL for that. There's nothing wrong with
a 1.0+ ghz P3 for normal use. If you're playing quake on it,
the graphics subsystem will be so slow it won't matter what cpu
is in there.
\_ Are you kidding? My Radeon 7500 mobile card does very well for
all the games I've played, including several of the recent 1st-
and 3rd-person games.
\_ Turn on all the graphics and play at hi-res where the
developers intended you to play then come back and say
that. No, I'm not kidding.
\_ Yes, I do turn on all the graphics, and display at hi-res
(1400x1050), and play the games that way. And?
\_ I asked what games you're playing. Solitaire in 3d
at any resolution isn't taxing.
\_ No, you didn't ask. But now that you have:
GTA 3, UT2k3, Enter the Matrix, Splinter Cell,
Warcraft 3, and a few others.
\_ google for "centrino 1.5 multiply pentium". The Dell Latitude
D600 weighs 5.5 lbs., but it has a Mobility Radeon 9000. The
Fujitsu has the integrated graphics, so 3D games are a no-no.
\_ 5.5 lbs? Why don't they just strap a cpu to a brick?
\_ That's true. I'll be pretty happy when I can get a 4.5
lb. notebook with 3D acceleration, a 15" screen, and
is Windows-native. (Yes, I know about the Macs.)
\_ url re 1.5x: http://csua.org/u/3n9
\_ Nuh uh! This is comparing Pentium-M versus the *MOBILE*
version of the P4 not the desktop version. And it's more
like 1.25 to 1.35 except for the highest end chips where
yes it is about 1.5x given Intel's own charts where you
don't have a clue how they came to these conclusions.
\_ http://csua.org/u/3na
\_ which confirms what I said. 1.5x is only true for
the highest end chips and those benchmarks aren't
graphics oriented if that matters to the OP.
\_ Systems with the 1.6 GHz Pentium M's are
$50 more expensive than 1.4 GHz these days.
Graphics oriented ...
\_ The ThinkPad X series now has the Pentium M as well, but the
screen is 12". The T series weighs 5 lbs. and is $$$.
Warcraft 3, RtCW, and a few others.
\_ Hmm, I did but it's not there now. Anyway, I
find it hard to believe you're playing some of
those games at with everything on at hires and
getting playable frame rates. Maybe your idea
of playable is different from mine.
\_ 40-60 fps is good enough for me. |
| 2003/5/19-20 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:28484 Activity:low |
5/18 Is it possible to force two (cpu-hungry) programs to each
run on a separate processor, on a dual-processor Dell running
Win2k?
\_ The OS isn't doing this for you?
\_ I'm not sure. Is there a way to check under Win2k?
\_ Look at your performance graph and see if the cpu's are
balanced. I don't know if you can do anything more.
\_http://www.mlin.net/SMPSeesaw.shtml |
| 2003/5/16 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:28462 Activity:moderate |
5/15 Is a Pentium 133 Mhz Processor fast enough to decode mp3's in
real-time?
\_ Almost certainly yes, depending on load. I used to play mp3s
on a 166 win95 machine, but I couldn't use netscape at the same
time. And I think that might have even gotten better later on
when winamp improved their decoder.
\_ This would be a linux box totally dedicated to the task -op
\_ God... what a sad waste of good hardware....
\_ Ha ha. funny you are.
\_ I remember when I used not just play, but encode my cd's on
my 486. My gf don't like encoding the cd's on her 1GHz
celeron laptop. |
| 2003/5/9-10 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:28385 Activity:moderate |
5/8 On a dual Xeon processor machine running Win2k, is it possible
to force/specify that two programs each run on a different
processor? Thanks.
\_ Check the man pages... oh wait! You don't have any! bwahahahhaa!
\_ http://www.mlin.net/SMPSeesaw.shtml
\_ You can do it in Task Manager if you have admin rights. Right-click
on the process and choose CPU Affinity. --- yuen |
| 2003/4/9 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:28039 Activity:high |
4/8 I need a new PC type motherboard designed. Where is a good
place to get a possible reference design schematic that is
detailed enough to get me started? I plan to mass manufacture
the board. The exact processor is of no concern to me, as long as
it can run x86 binaries. I've checked out Transmeta, and they seem
to have a kit, any one with experience with such design kits?
\_ hahahahahahaahahahahaha
\_ Do you have any idea how much $$$ this is going to cost? There
is a very high markup on prototypes. I hope this is related to
your work in some way and so price is less of a concern since
the company is picking up the bill. I worked in that industry
for a while and just making a few boards (assume off-the-shelf
components) will set you back thousands. --dim
\_ on a relatively simple backplane (simple compared to what we
were connecting to the backplane at least), we had NRE costs of
about 5000 and a per board cost of about 700 on a run of 15
boards for a low part count (~200) board from layout to assembly.
That's a really conservative estimate and doesn't count the time
our HW guy spent on the schematics (which were then given to
outsourced layout guy) --Jon
\_ on a relatively simple backplane (simple compared to what
we were connecting to the backplane at least), we had NRE
costs of about 5000 and a per board cost of about 700 on a
run of 15 boards for a low part count (~200) board from
layout to assembly. That's a really conservative estimate
and doesn't count the time our HW guy spent on the schematics
(which were then given to outsourced layout guy) --Jon |
| 2003/3/23 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:27810 Activity:high |
3/12 Battle of the obselete CPU's: What's faster an AMD K6 or pentium2 ?
at the same Clock speed.
\_ You don't need a processor just get Linux.
\_ I have Linux, and I have two motherboard/CPU's. I'm wondering
which one is faster. Then I will hook it up and boot Linux. |
| 2003/2/20-21 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:27470 Activity:high |
l2/20 http://info.lindows.com/mobilepc/mobilepc.htm Do any of you have one of these? \_ They're not being sold yet you idiot. \_ http://csua.org/u/99b \_ They should really put the Fujitsu S series in the comparison. \_ looks kinda cool, I'd be worried about the display though, and does anyone know how the processor is? |
| 2002/12/26-28 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26920 Activity:nil |
12/26 First it was honda's now its athlons:
http://www.xoxide.com/pctachometer1.html
\_ Wow, that's dumb. I wish I were making money off of it. --aaron |
| 2002/12/23 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26889 Activity:low |
12/22 I need a recommendation for GUI word processor and SpreadSheet
applications to run on a LinuxLaptop that only has 40MB ram and
a slow Pentium CPU? Is Abiword good? OpenOffice requires a bit
more hardware that this machine has.
\_ Dos 5.0, MS Word 4.x, Lotus123 or any other SS from that time.
It'll run faster than your linux system and get the job done.
\_ Applixware (or SO 3.x or 4.x) |
| 2002/12/20 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26873 Activity:high |
12/19 regarding the "dual" post from yesterday, its called a "trinary
processor":
http://www.theonion.com/onion3847/ghost_of_christmas_future.html
\_ How many is "trinary"?
\_ There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and
those who don't. -John |
| 2002/12/18 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26848 Activity:very high |
12/18 If "single" is for 1 and "dual" is for 2, what are the corresponding
words for 3 and 4? Thanks.
\_ In (linguistic) morphology, "trial" is used to describe a noun
form in a couple of exotic languages (most famously, Fijian) that
corresponds to 3 of that number (the single/plural distinction in
English splits into single/dual/trial/plural in those). The OED
has this as the sole usage of the term as an adjective. There is no
corresponding term for 4 in this context since no known
language splits off 4 as a separate number class. -alexf
\_ triple, quadruple
\_ But I thought "triple" and "quadruple" are in the same category
as "double", not "dual". No?
\_ single, double, triple, quadruple
mono, bi, tri, quad
I believe dual is a unique case
\_ dual is a synonym. (dict is your friend)
though the distinction of double (duplare) and dual
(dualis) is interesting to note.
\_ "dict dual" says:
"3: a grammatical number category referring to
two items or units (as opposed to one item
(singular) or more than one item (plural));"
So I guess it should be singular, dual, plural. That
means since we call 1- and 4-processor machines single-
and quad-processor, we should call 2-processor machines
double-processor instead of dual-processor.
\_ how about if applied to sex?
unisexual, bisexual, menage a trois, gang bang?
\_ forgot orgy
\_ It should be abstinence, masturbation, monogamy, menage a trois
orgy.
and orgy for 0, 1, 2, 3 and many.
\_ Where does "treble" fit in?
\_ Music 1A |
| 2002/12/16-17 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26828 Activity:high |
12/15 is there a rule of thumb that relates the processor speed/type
to the number of interrupts it can handle per second without
significantly affecting its performance? specifically, I'm
wondering if about 1000/s (i.e. 1 kHz) is too much for a P II.
\_ what is too much?
\_ 1000 interrupts/second...is that too much?
\_ what is your definition of too much? the cpu keels
over and dies? latency or throughput drops to a
certain level? what level? but like the next poster
said, depends on your isr, your driver, etc.
\_ I want it free enough so that another program can
be in the foreground and active. BTW, it's Win2k.
And I don't want to just measure it and see b/c
I want to know whether I should embark on writing
the ISR in the first place.
\_ what is your foreground program doing? what
does active mean anyway? see, this is a silly
discussion, and you have to go and do performance
measurements. tanstaafl.
\_ That also depends on how efficient the OS is in handling interrupts.
\_ measure it and see? |
| 2002/12/9 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26763 Activity:very high |
12/8 Just exactly how fast is USB1.1 vs USB2?
\_ Isn't this highly googlable?
\_ You think we'll all think you're cool cuz you made up
that adj. But we don't.
\_ You imply too much. "Googlable" has been around for awhile.
\_ USB 1.1 has a data rate of 12 Mbps. USB 2.0 has a data rate
between 120 and 240 Mbps. To a rough approx. 2.0 is between
10x and 20x "faster" than 1.1. You should really have google'ed
this.
\_ Thought 2.0 was 480 mbps...anyway USB is CPU dependent,
thus my experience is that when I'm pushing lotsa data
through the bus my computer starts chugging.
\_ Someone erased this, but it's 12 Mbs versus 480 Mbs. --dim
\_ The speed is also dependent on the devices. The slowest
device dictates the speed of all the devices. If you
plug in a 1.1 device on a 2.0 chain, the entire chain
degrades to 12Mbps. |
| 2002/11/26-27 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:26639 Activity:very high |
11/26 A serious question about this: http://www.apple.com/xserve I have zero experience with recent apple hardware or software. My company needs rock solid NFS hosts at low cost. Performance isn't an issue. The clients will be Solaris 2.7 and Linux 2.4. Do any of you have any experience with this? Does it sound good/bad to you and why? Any info, urls, whatever is much appreciated. BTW, this isn't a religious issue. I just want something that will work and isn't going to cost me an arm and a leg like EMC, Hitachi, or IBM and I sure as hell don't want to start building my own. Thanks! \_ I'd be wary of any ATA array. IDE just isn't designed for large file service projects. Also, this sort of thing looks like super overkill for what you describe. I suggest finding a good supplier of prebuilt *nix boxes, preferably something running a BSD tcp stack for the sake of NFS. I found a fibre channel array from http://corpsys.com that runs $1700 per .5TB. Had no trouble with it yet under windows 2k, mandrake, and freebsd. Alternatively, you may want to look at the Sun A1000 line. --scotsman \_ I would not consider the XServe as a general-purpose server at this point. Apple just doesn't have a server pedigree (except a pedigree of abandoning their server products). -tom \_ apple's xserve is an incredible piece of hardware, but overkill for what you need. build a box from http://pixelusa.com. also, dell has $1k 1U servers with one year of on site support and two more years of by-mail support. \_ Solaris has a great NFS support and the most featureful NFS implementation. Why would you want to serve Solaris client with anything other than a Solaris server? \_ because Sun's low-end server hardware sucks. \_ In what respect? Do you really need 3GHz Athlon CPU on an NFS server? Take a look at Sun Fire V120, a very decent low-end server. \_ their hardware also is unreasonably expensive, as is support as well as people who know solaris. \_ A configuration with 1 GB RAM, 72 GB of disk, and a 650-mhz processor is $6000. You can get 3 much faster Intel boxes for that much. \_ What they gain in speed, they loose in software robustness and support. Specially, if you need an NFSserver, the question should be a no brainer. Also, who pays the list price for Sun hardware? Talk to a salesman. They'll slash the price by up to 50% depending on how deep your pockets are. \_ Mylex DAC960 controller. You can put together a real good x86 server for <<< $5k. Equivalent performance (and yes reliability) from Sun is gonna cost you three times as much, at least. And don't tell me Sun equipment is more reliable; some of my clients run thousands of high-load servers, and the Compaqs and Dells and other PC boxes of their world don't suffer any more outages. -John \_ I don't want to 'put together' 20+ new boxes. \_ ah. nweaver. \_ what software robustness and support do they lose? only if you screw together some parts from Fry's. \_ You get incomplete and unstable NFS support and funky RAID software. See the original poster's requirements. In addition to the IDE flakiness that someone mentioned, AFAIK, you can't mirror the boot disk on the xserve since it does not have an internal RAID controller and OS X probably does not support putting / on a software RAID device. Would you really like to take your server down for hours when the boot disk fails? If you're looking for a cost effective SCSI array consider the new Sun D2 (JBOD) or the 3310 series (hardware RAID). \_ Read the link above: OS X supports RAID devices. \_ But it doesn't support putting your root file system on software RAID. \- does apples weird file system with its weird case issues manifest themselves over nfs? this is a real annoyance for me when Makefile = makefile, configure = Configure etc. ok tnx. --psb \_ Forget software RAID anyway. Performance *is* an issue, although it may not be the determining issue. Buy yourself a hardware RAID card and stick it on a cheap PC with a gigabit NIC. --dim |
| 2002/11/7-8 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:26459 Activity:high |
11/7 What kind of computer do they use to store financial data in
say Wall Street or in banks? Cray? SGI? Sun? INTEL???
\_ IBM.
\_ Store? Probably IBM. I think either the Nasdaq or NYSE runs trading
through an HP farm though.
\- does anyone know what kind of computer the FED MASTER COMPUTER is?
The one at the bottom of a mine in colpepper, virginia? This is
the computer that tracks the reserve requirements of all the
usa banks. --psb
\_ They don't use a 'computer' generally. They use SANS and high end
DAS and NAS devices from companies like EMC and Hitachi. When you
get into high end 100% uptime computing environments you stop seeing
computers and start seeing discrete components: some sort of app
server/farm connected via multiple high speed fiber links to SANs.
\_ Sorry, what do SANS, DAS and NAS stand for?
\_ http://www.google.com/search?q=nas+san+das
\_ SANs -> Storage Area Networks
\_ say your FC mesh
NAS -> Network Attached Storage (ie file servers)
\_ your storage appliance, like netapp.
Don't know what DAS stands for
\_ direct attached storage
\_ disk on your lameass POS linux box. |
| 2002/11/6 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26429 Activity:moderate |
11/5 UltraSparcIII's SPEC2000 marks really sucks compared to say a P4.
Why do people still want to buy UltraSparcs?
\_ Solaris works better with sparcs.
\_ This was true when the Sparc-10 came out. I guess CPU power isn't
everything ...
\_ What's the allure? Reliability? Bwahahaha. Sun Blade 2000 is
a POS and Sun Blade 1000 was EOL'ed about 10 minutes after
its release. Sun is screwed. --dim
\_ Maybe so. The UltraSparcIV is "supposed" to be good,
but I have a tough time believing it. The SPARC cpu
family has a long history of mediocracy.
\_ let me know when you can get an intel system in the e15k class
\_ floating point perf. "64" bit architecture. software support.
\_ Uhm yeah like Intel has a great reliability record. At last count
they were 100.0000001% accurate at all math functions. |
| 2002/11/5-6 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26415 Activity:low |
11/4 Does Intel use pure Intel machines to design uproc, or do they use
a mix of Sun/HP/IBM/Intel machines for EDA+design+optimization?
\_ The *huge* Intel server room I saw on a tour was all Intel but
that doesn't mean other facilities aren't doing other things.
\_ in 98/99 They were using a lot of Sun machines. Don't know anymore
as I have changed jobs and don't work with them anymore.
\_ I tihnk intel largely does their own tools in-house, so probably
on intel. If they use Cadence, that is Sun/HP only.
\_ synopsys runs on linux/x86. some cadence tools for linux
were in beta a couple months ago. |
| 2002/10/24-25 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26310 Activity:high |
10/23 Where can I get UltraSparcIV processor architecture details?
\_ get a job on Sun's CPU design team or convince a sales rep
to give you NDA information |
| 2002/10/19-20 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26257 Activity:nil |
10/18 I'm looking to buy some new hardware to run Linux on: AMD Athlon,
AGP graphics for X. Any suggestions for the motherboard, chipset
and graphics card. I don't really need 3d but wouldn't mind having it,
if it doesn't degrade 2d performance.
\_ If you want a cheap mb, take a look at this one:
http://store.yahoo.com/justdeals/abkg7raidmot.html
I think that there is a coupon that will reduce the
price further.
\_ wait a month or two and get an Intel Granite Bay motherboard.
Dual channel DDR will kick ass.
\_ I don't want anything too expensive. Should've said my budget
is about $700 (if possible) for: 80GB disk, CPU, M-Board,
Video card, Case with power supply (oh yeah memory too)
\_ you need RAM also? that's plenty of money. Get a Western
Digital 8MB cache drive, $111 at newegg. For Intel, get
a P4 2.4B ($184) or 1.8A and overclock to 2.4 ($141),
and a $95 albatron 845PE board. For AMD get a board
that does 333 MHz DDR and any cheap processor.
\_ GeForce3Ti or MX (Don't waste your money on a 4, since XFree
doesn't support it). Go for a 2000+XP since the chip is ~ $100
and isn't that much slower than a 2200. Any mb with DDR and
ATA100 should be okay. I think mine is a Via.
\_ You can always download NVidia's drivers from nvidia's web
site. They work better than XFree86 ones but you will have
to rebuild them for every kernel upgrade.
\_ THanks y'all. -op |
| 2002/10/16 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26202 Activity:high |
10/15 Do P-II celerons support SSE?
\_ no
\_ I believe SSE started in the PIII chips. |
| 2002/10/14 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:26173 Activity:very high |
10/14 Random curiosity on my part: I've been upgrading my home computer by
skipping chip generations. I had an 8088, skipped 8086, had an 80286,
skipped 386 *and* 486, had a 586, skipped PII, got a PIII, now I'm
waiting for AMD's Hammer family to come out (assuming it does and it
doesn't suck a la itanium). How often do the rest of you replace your
cpu or other hardware? Do you do it just because or because there's
some new software that doesn't run properly on your old one or what?
\_ Apple ][+ -> 386SX 16 -> Celeron 400 (current).
\_ 6502 (Apple ][+) -> 386SX 16 -> Celeron 400 (current).
\_ Apple ][e(6502) -> pentium 166(current)
\_ Centris 610 -> beige G3 -> still waiting. -tom
\_ Mac Classic, 486, Pentium 133, Celeron 300, AMD XP 1800+
\_ Does Pentium 133 or Celeron 300 run faster?
\_ prices are really cheap. upgrade more often.
\_ Prices are always really cheap. Is that reason enough to spend?
\_ If it works, don't replace it. Why waste your money? Go on a
vacation or something.
\_ What makes you think Itanium2 sucks? --dim
\_ I didn't say I2 sucks. --OP |
| 2002/10/12 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/OS/Linux] UID:26160 Activity:moderate |
10/11 I just tried the WinAxe+ Xserver! It totally kicks ass! I'm going to
upgrade my net to run my apps on a Linux box in the basement and
display them via WinAxe on my windows box at my desk. Should I go to
Gigabit ethernet, or is 100 fast enough? I want it to feel as fast
as if I were connected directly to the Linux box. Does the desktop
windows box need a fast processor to do this right?
\_ Why not just run Linux on a single machine on your desk instead?
\_ Because he also needs Windows apps which Linux doesn't provide.
\_ there isn't QuarkXPress for linux.
\_ dude like you should just use open source and write your own
and like itll be better than anything and itll be free and
you'll totally rule and be just like linus who answered an
email i posted once, well not really but he wrote back to
some guy who had a name that sounded like mine and it was
cool for me to think it was like linus really writing back
to me ya know and like then everyone will have free quake
express and we'll all write cool mods and new weapons and
maps and stuff and itll totally rock and USE LINUX!
\_ dont forget to ride bike
\_ dude theres no room for my rad linux on a bike! ive
got like my mp3 server with raid5 and 500+ gigs of
cool tunes and like i needed a hummer to carry it so
im, ya know, saving up for a hummer and itll have a
50 cal on a turret for better parking and itll be like
that open source guy who likes guns ill be like him and
have linux and ride hummer and be cool too!
\_ XManager is pretty good, and cheaper. Kinda like WinZip, they ask
you to pay, but don't stop you if you don't.
\_ Does it have a full screen mode so my whole monitor
is in X land? |
| 2002/9/8 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/Display, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:25807 Activity:very high |
9/7 I'm building my own system. I've decided to get my CPU+MB from NewEgg.
What is a good place to get mem, HD, and my Geforce? As for the case,
I gotta go to Frys cuz I gotta see what the case looks like in person.
Thanks.
\_ Before ordering anything from anyone, go look at http://micropro.com.
Great prices and out of state so no taxes. I had them build 2
custom boxes which showed on time and to spec with decent parts
on the unspecified stuff.
\_ http://newegg.com seems cheaper, maybe YOU should check it out
\_ Taxes, son, taxes. I know newegg and others. Also,
newegg isn't building custom systems which micropro will
do for you. I've done the math. On some systems you
can save as much as 10 bucks if you carefully order parts
from all over the net and then you still have to build
the damned thing. "seems cheaper" is not cheaper. Just
trying to give someone some help which you're not.
\_ say I'm getting a MB with KT333 chipset. The FSB is rated 100/133,
so how much more will I gain from using DDR2700 over DDR2100? Is
DDR2700 good only when the FSB is 166? This info is not on
tomshardware by the way.
\_ 2700/CL2.0/333 >> 2100/CL2.0/266 by 0-25% depending on how
memory intensive your application (game) is. If you're building
a top end system then get the 2700/CL2.0. If you're going to go
light on the cpu, video, or some other speed related part, then
save your money across the whole system and get 2100/CL2.5. |
| 2002/9/8 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:25805 Activity:nil |
9/7 Motherboards have a spec called FSB, what is the significance of
that?
\_ ObYermomboard
\_ front side bus, like anything else on a mobo, the faster the
better
\_ What does it connect to? Memory? Peripherals?
\_ It's the bus between the CPU and memory. For future
reference: http://www.whatis.com |
| 2002/9/5-6 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:25778 Activity:high |
9/5 tomshardware has a kt400 motherboard review article if you're into that
\_ Yeah, right. Once I turned away from VIA, I've never looked back.
Now I have 2 SiS (735 and 745) and 1 AMD (762+766). They just WORK
unlike anything VIA makes. (VIA=Verification Is Avoided)
\_ I've never owned either. Whats the problem with VIA? |
| 2002/9/2-4 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:25755 Activity:high |
9/2 Is there a free X-server for M$-Windows?
\_ Try XFree86 for cygwin.
\_ cygwin is really slow on my pentium 133. Will X be slow too?
I know, it's time to get a new computer, but I'm waiting to
see what happens with osX.
\_ Um, what's *not* gonna be slow on a p133?
\_ windows 95 and Linux-XFree86 3.3.6, which brings up
another question: what ways are there to speed up
Xfree86 4.2.0?
\_ You're going to be waiting a long time for x86/osx if that's
what you're looking for. You'll still be forced to buy
over priced apple hardware to run it.
\_ I'm not waiting for x86/osx. Apple wants control
of everything. It won't happen. I'm waiting to
see if Apple improves Aqua. to the point of it not
making me puke.
\_ Uhm, if its puke now, what are the odds they're
going to change it so radically you'll suddenly
love a refit version with some bug fixes and extra
"we love steve!" subliminals in the icons?
\_ XManager. not free, but low cost. still works for "free" even
after the trial period.
\_ not a direct answer to your question... but on http://berkeley.edu you
should be able to download Exceed for free... check
http://depot.berkeley.edu
\_ only if you have a calnet id
\_ a what? -alum
\_ Micro-Images X-server $25 http://www.microimages.com/mix free for mac |
| 2002/8/23-24 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:25666 Activity:nil |
8/23 AMD fans and other potential computer buyers: are you planning on
buying now, waiting for the amd 2600+ in two weeks, the barton core
in 8 weeks, or the clawhammer in january? |
| 2002/8/21-22 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:25642 Activity:high |
8/21 Looks like AMD is finally going to beat Intel:
http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=202
\_ They're only just pulling even. They need the barton core to
pull ahead. There's no motherboard support for any of this stuff
since they released early. This is just a holding action for PR
until the clawhammer and opteron stuff comes out. --amd shareholder
\_ Don't forget that Intel has plans to announce a 2.8GHz processor
this week and they have plans to announce a 3GHz Pentium 4 in
December. Heh, I have 933MHz PIII box and still feel like it's
way too fast ;p
\_ When all you do is surf porn and edit the motd....
\_ Also, they're announcing it a month before they're shipping it to try
to win PR.
\_ Just like M$.
\_ Poll, I have:
AMD: .
Intel: .
yesmom: .
\_ That's "yermom". Sheesh. Kids today, yesmomming everytime
they get the least bit horny....
\_ Also note the class action lawsuit against Intel due to p3's
outperforming p4's (vs Intel's claims that p4 is the fastest
chip on the market).
\_ lawsuit = useless. Look at M$ |
| 2002/7/19-20 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:25394 Activity:kinda low |
7/19 http://www.mindprunes.com \_ ahh blazing at 166Mhz of pure pentium power! Gotta love trashcans. \_ Where does it say 166MHz Pentium? \_ Yes. And? |
| 2002/6/25 [Computer/HW/CPU, Recreation/Food] UID:25186 Activity:very high |
6/24 What's the difference between a food-processor and a blender?
\_ the former chops, slices, dices, grinds
\_ and the latter grinds, dices, slices and chops.
\_ You ignorant slut!! A blender takes the food and chops
it up into tiny bits, sometimes liquifying it. A food
processor is designed to do more subtle stuff like
making slices of variying thikness or shapes. |
| 2002/4/24 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:24564 Activity:nil |
4/23 http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/53/24973.html Nick Weaver now officially almost famous. \_ Nick Weaver and/or the article author needs to take e190. |
| 2002/4/23 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:24539 Activity:nil |
4/22 who is nethk331 and why is he/she using 90% of the cpu?
\_ it's nethack, biznatch! BOW FOUL DEMON!
\_I note from the dates on the bones files that some people
are still using nethack 3.3.1. Upgrade to 3.4.0, people! |
| 2002/4/22 [Computer/HW/CPU, Academia/Berkeley/CSUA] UID:24518 Activity:nil |
12/09 "got mips?" t-shirts! See dans or visit the CSUA office. $10 |
| 2002/4/8-9 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:24371 Activity:nil |
4/8 Assume I have a server and a bunch of clients on the same machine,
and assume my CPU is fast. My clients sends a lot of UDP to the
server (and again on the same machine). Will any of them get
dropped, or will all of them get through because they're not actually
sending on the network?
\_ They 'should' but as you know it's still not guaranteed. |
| 2002/3/20 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW] UID:24164 Activity:high |
3/19 Interested in building a decent Linux box. How much are the
following components nowadays?
1.5Mhz CPU
256 MB Ram
120 Gig HD
MB
ATX chassis
10/100 card
cheap ass video card
\_ http://www.pricewatch.com
\_ no longer very economical to build a system from scratch.
just get a cheapo prebuilt one from compusa, frys, etc.
actually, if you only want a 1.5Mhz cpu, maybe you should
try an antique store.
\_ True that it isn't cost effective to build your own if it's a
low end clunker. Not true if you think compusa/frys/etc are
worth walking into. http://www.pricewatch.com
\_ Even an 8088 runs faster than 1.5MHz. You want a 6502?
\_ My PCjr ran at 4.33mhz. |
| 2002/3/16-17 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:24135 Activity:low |
3/16 Given the choice between similar systems would you choose an
AMD Duron 800 or a PIII 450?
\_ duron unless you have code that is known to run better on p3.
\_ duron unless you have code that is known to run better on p3. for
only a few bucks more you can get an athlon 800 which is definitely
better than the duron or p3. |
| 2002/3/7 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/HW/IO] UID:24043 Activity:high |
3/6 How many people have a "webcam"? Do you need a special software to
view it? Do you need to register with a central server? Also, what is
a good webcam package (Intel or Logitech)?
\_ trying to get all the teeny bopper real time porn from 14 year olds
in south carolina putting their little titties on their net for
you to jack off to?
\_ urlP
\_ Ewww.
\_ I'm not making this up. A friend of mine "confessed" to
having a few chats exactly as I describe.
\_ And in which correctional facility does he live now?
\_ http://www.spotlife.com & http://www.camarades.com are two services that host
webcamming. There are many different ways to do it: p2p,
client/server, etc. Each service has it's advantages and
disadvantages. For example, some don't do audio and some scale
based on your available bandwidth. |
| 2002/2/21-22 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:23938 Activity:high |
2/21 reposting my question. Is it possible to filter gige traffic
with freebsd on x86? Can the fastest pentium out there do that?
I'm talking about running ipfw or ACLs. Please do not turn this
question into a troll on linux vs freebsd. Thanks.
\_ Processor speed is definitely not your problem. I think you may
run into problems where gige would overwhelm the PCI bus. Not
sure though. Do some back of the envelope calculations and see.
\_ A 64 bit PCI bus at 66MHz should be good enough. All major
vendors have servers and workstations that come with it.
\_ Even if this was possible, you probably need a heck of a server
to be able to do that. Sun support people for example recommend, as
a rule of thumb, in order to saturate a GigE pipe, you need to have
one fast modern CPU per GigE NIC. Plus, you need another CPU for
just processing the rules. Your looking at a quad CPU server with a
64bit/66MHz PCI bus.
\- my longer answer is in th emotd archive, but it depends in
part: are you talking about "typical traffic" or against a hostile
attacker. a hostile attacker can kill you. "typical traffic" is
do-able but once you are beyond the throw money at the problem
in terms of buying cpu and memory, this is kind of a black art
involving hacking your net dev driver and perhaps your bpf filters.
a lot of ids systems are freebsd boxen on gige. btw, trying to do
this on a sysV machine is probably not possible. i dont know enough
about linux to have an opinion there. --psb
\- ok tnx |
| 11/26 |