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2024/12/25 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
12/25   

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.
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.
2024/12/25 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
12/25   

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
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