Hardware

Egg on my face

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , ,

I dragged my computer back over to Micro Center this afternoon. It took three of us, but we got the computer working.

It’s a long story. It would have been a much shorter story if I’d remembered my rule #1. I won’t bore you with the details, except to say the second technician, upon hearing the only thing we hadn’t swapped out was the power supply, dragged a power supply out of the back. We plugged that power supply in, and heard the sweet gimme-some-memory scream from the motherboard failing to POST. Incredible. So we powered down, reinstalled the memory, and watched the system POST.

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Socket 775 adventures, Part 2

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , ,

I closed down Micro Center last night.

I wasn’t having any luck getting my new motherboard working, even after working with Asus and with Micro Center’s online support. Micro Center’s web site said that if you take a system in to their knowledge bar, at the front of the store, someone with an A+ certification will help you. So I took them up on the offer.

A nice, knowledgeable technician named Eric spent two hours working with me.
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And now Intel’s teamed up with Sandforce

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , ,

Intel’s new SSD 520 uses a Sandforce controller. Very interesting. Both Tom’s Hardware and Anandtech  have reviews posted.

So you’ll have Sandforce performance, hopefully coupled with Intel reliability. That’s the theory. They aren’t shipping yet, and you’ll pay a premium for the Intel name.
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My Socket 775 adventures, Chapter 1

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , ,

So I bought an Intel Socket 775 board to support a crash webserver rebuild project. I present the story in hopes that it might be useful, or entertaining, or both. I don’t know the ultimate outcome of it yet, but all of the decisions made sense at the time.
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I got my new webserver motherboard

Dave Farquhar Hardware

I got my new webserver motherboard. There’s a story there. I’m saving it for later in the week.

The board doesn’t work. I power it on, and it shuts itself off after 2-3 seconds. The power supply works with a different board. So for the first time in my life, I’m contacting Asus technical support, because I can’t figure out if it’s something I did, or just a DOA board.  So there’s going to be a story with that, too. Let’s hope for a happy ending.

Review: Panasonic Lumix DMC-S3

Dave Farquhar Hardware

My wife wanted a point-and-shoot camera. My go-to brand for that sort of thing usually is Olympus, based on the recommendation of someone who’s forgotten more about cameras than I’ll ever know, but there are some serious concerns that Olympus may not be around much longer.

So I bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-S3, a point-and-shoot I got on sale for under $100. Unlike most cameras I could find in that price range, the reviews on it were overwhelmingly positive.

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If you’re looking for a cheap motherboard

Dave Farquhar Hardware , ,

If you need a dirt-cheap, dependable motherboard, Computer Geeks Discount Outlet has a refurbished Asus M4N68T-M V2 available for under $34. It’s a socket AM3 board, so it uses readily available AMD Sempron/Athlon II/Phenom CPUs and up to 8 GB of DDR3 memory (and there’s little reason not to put the full 8 GB in–4 GB DIMMs cost $19). I’ve been running one of these boards since September or so and I’m thrilled with it.

You can build a nice 4-core system around this board, or, for a budget build, drop in a $40 Sempron and 4 GB of RAM for $19 to upgrade an aging system on the cheap, or build an affordable, low-power HTPC. A low-end Sempron will outperform an Atom while using less than 45 watts.

I spotted that this weekend, and thought you might like to know.

Is overclocking over?

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , ,

Extreme Tech (via Slashdot) asks if overclocking is over. It’s an interesting question. It has a long and colorful history. But maybe it is history.

I have a 4-core machine whose cores can all run at a top speed of over 3 GHz. And it’s a midrange PC at best, these days. The only time I ever push its CPU usage is when I’m encoding video. Web pages that bring a P4-class machine to its knees momentarily bring this PC’s CPU usage to 10%.

Not being a gamer, I haven’t had any reason to overclock in years. In fact, even back in 2000 I was recommending against it. Bad things can happen when you overclock.
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Cyanogenmod 7 on a Nook Color

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , , ,

I should not have said yesterday it would take 38 minutes or less to turn my Nook Color into a Cyanogenmod-powered tablet. Big mistake.

I have it running now, more or less. It’s nice. Sluggish at times, but once it’s set up it seems to do better. Time can make it better. Getting started is the big thing. Baby steps. Baby steps.

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First impressions of a low-tier tablet, plus why I don’t shop at Best Buy

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , ,

I received my Nook Color this week. I haven’t hacked it yet–I only just got an SDHC card for that, which is a story in itself–but to my pleasant surprise, I’m not certain everyone would need to. Yes, it’s marketed as an e-reader, but what I took out of the box is a viable entry-level tablet. It certainly wants you to read books on it, but aside from the e-reader, it also has a music player and a web browser. Out of the box, it does the basic things people buy tablets for.

I’ll hack mine, because supposedly it’s easy and virtually nothing can go wrong, and I like having maximum control over my devices. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

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