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Be careful when buying previous-generation hardware

Dave Farquhar Hardware July 25, 2011April 21, 2017amd, asus, intel, pentium d, phenom

So I was hoping I could score a bargain on some older Socket 775 hardware, being previous generation and all. And sometimes you can. But sometimes you can just think you’re getting a bargain.

Here’s an example.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.

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Analysis: Samsung “green” memory

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Saving money June 19, 2011June 19, 2011amd, Blade, intel, kingston, KWH, Micro Center, Missouri, samsung

I was at Micro Center today, picking up CD jewel cases and USB flash memory and a cheap USB game pad. And to buy a little extra time–I had one son with me and the other was home napping–I wandered around. In the memory aisle, I spotted some Samsung “green” memory. Manufactured with a 40nm process instead of the usual 60nm process, the modules are 2/3 the size of conventional modules, run cooler, and use up to 47% less power.

Is it worth paying extra for? As always, it depends.

Dave Farquhar

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How to decide if a computer upgrade will pay for itself in power savings

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Saving money June 15, 2011April 17, 2017amd, intel, Intel Atom, KWH, Micro Center, Missouri, phenom, power savings

I occasionally read an offhand comment where someone says he or she just bought a new computer, and the new computer is so much more power efficient than the old one, it’s going to pay for itself.

I wonder if they did the math, or if that’s what the salesperson told them. Because while I can see circumstances where that assertion would be true, but it typically would involve extremes, like replacing an aged Pentium 4 computer with, well, a netbook. They probably didn’t do that.

Part of the reason I got into computers professionally was because I was tired of hearing lies from salespeople and technicians. So let’s just take a look at this claim.
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Dave Farquhar

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Farquhar discovers power-sipping AMD Fusion motherboards

Dave Farquhar Hardware June 14, 20111980s, 1990s, amd, asus, intel, micro atx, Micro Center, pcie, VGA

AMD just announced its next-generation Fusion CPU/GPU combo. I’m not quite comfortable with AMD’s APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) moniker, because CPU-GPU integration isn’t about speed so much as it’s about reducing price and power consumption. This version of Fusion is intended to compete with mainstream Intel CPUs. Pricing isn’t available yet.

And that reminded me to go look and see what’s going on with first-generation AMD Fusion motherboards. I’m not so much interested in Fusion as a netbook/low-end notebook solution as I am for a power-sipping PC. Looking at the reviews online, it looks like I’m not alone in that. I don’t think I can afford to run multiple 750-watt fire-breathing dragons at home, and I don’t think I’m the only one. Give me a cool, quiet PC that doesn’t get bogged down in Visio, and I’m happy.
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Dave Farquhar

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Hybrid drive options roll in

Dave Farquhar Hardware June 1, 2011amd, intel, ocz, PCI Express

OCZ introduced a hybrid hard drive, featuring 60 GB of solid state storage caching a 500 GB conventional hard drive, priced at around $350 and due in July. It’s on a plug-in PCI Express x4 card.

The idea has some merit.
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Dave Farquhar

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Why you don’t want to be the first to install a Microsoft service pack

Dave Farquhar Windows March 16, 2011amd, intel, windows 7

And, like most Service Pack 1 releases, it seems Windows 7 SP1 isn’t flawless. Under some circumstances, SP1 machines hang during the boot process with a C00000034 fatal error. Or sometimes it goes into a reboot loop with Error C000009A applying update operation 120782 of 367890.

Microsoft doesn’t yet know what’s causing the problems.
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Dave Farquhar

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How CPU multipliers came to be locked

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing March 11, 2011July 15, 20171980s, 1990s, amd, asus, classmate, intel, math coprocessor, overclocking, pentium ii, windows nt

It was 1996. I was a senior in college, and I went to the computer store in the student commons to get a cable or something. I ran into an old classmate working in the store, who went on to work as an engineer for Boeing. We talked for a few minutes, and he told me about a web site that I just had to visit. I still remember the URL for some reason. He grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled “http://sysdoc.pair.com” on it.

It was my introduction to the world of PC hardware enthusiast sites. That mysterious URL was the early address of Tom’s Hardware Guide. The front page mostly consisted of links to articles telling you how to overclock Pentium CPUs using undocumented jumper settings on Asus motherboards, and the ads were largely mail-order houses offering specials on Asus motherboards and low-end Pentium CPUs.
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Dave Farquhar

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What will you do with your Freedom Box?

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking February 17, 2011amd, intel, pogoplug, x86

Columbia Law Professor Eben Moglen has a great idea. He wants every household to have a server on the Internet.

It’s not as outrageous as you might think. The hardware exists today. and I’ve talked about it before. The Pogoplug is based on it. Right now it costs about $100. The trouble is making the software easy enough that anyone can plug it in and use it. But that can happen too, and that’s the part he wants to get done.

I can’t wait.
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Dave Farquhar

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If I had to buy an off-the-shelf PC, what would it be?

Dave Farquhar Hardware January 13, 2011January 13, 20111990s, acer, amd, apple, compaq, dell, hp, IBM, lenovo, Packard Bell, toshiba

I got a question today. A someone who knows someone who knows someone kind of thing. Basically, wanting to know what to buy if, you know, they wanted to buy a computer rather than build something.

They’d had bad experience will Dell, so Dell wasn’t on their list. I did not argue.

Here’s an edited version of my response.
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Dave Farquhar

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