Wow. Since I got my computer, most games have been no problem. Half-life 2 and even Doom work resonably well at high-quality, using 1280x1024 or sometimes 1024x768 resolutions.
Quake 4 I have to run at 800x600, and I'm thinking of lowering that to 640x480 to get rid of the lag. Yes it's that crazy. When you set it to Ultra Quality, a warning comes up saying that over 500 megs of textures must be loaded and that this setting is not recommended for anyone.
Crazy shit.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Nerd stuff
Ok.. yeah i'm a nerd. Here are some CPU-Z info from 2 laptops I setup/fixxed for some friends.
First:
This is a celeron 2.2Ghz from a Dell Inspiron 1100. It's not a bad machine for what it needs to do. For day to day tasks in windows, there's enough power to run most of anything you might want to do. It does start showing it's weaknesses if you start running too many programs at once. It only has 256MB of DDR333 so that is a factor. With another 512 stick, this thing should do fine.
Second:
This is a Pentium 4-M 2.0 Ghz from a Toshiba Satellite. This is the mobile version of the Pentium 4, NOT a Pentium M. This is the predecessor to the Pentium M. The performance is about the same as the celeron 2.2. This one had more ram (512) so multitasking was a bit speedier. The laptop itself was rather large, but it was able to take 10+ hours of folding without missing a beat. Another 512 of ram would do well for this machine.
Something to notice is the FSB of both machines. The true FSB is only about a 100Mhz, but being intel chips, the FSB's are quad-pumped for 400Mhz effective Bus. Having never owned a Pentium of these speeds (my fastest Pentium is a 700Mhz P3), I couldn't say how much the slow bus affected overall speed. I know that on my Athlon64, with the integrated memroy controller, the FSB has become less of an issue.
From these shots, the major difference between the two processors is that the P4-M has twice the L2 cache of the celeron 256k vs. 512k. Cache does make a big difference in performance.
Other than that, both processors seem to perform comparitively.
First:
This is a celeron 2.2Ghz from a Dell Inspiron 1100. It's not a bad machine for what it needs to do. For day to day tasks in windows, there's enough power to run most of anything you might want to do. It does start showing it's weaknesses if you start running too many programs at once. It only has 256MB of DDR333 so that is a factor. With another 512 stick, this thing should do fine.
Second:
This is a Pentium 4-M 2.0 Ghz from a Toshiba Satellite. This is the mobile version of the Pentium 4, NOT a Pentium M. This is the predecessor to the Pentium M. The performance is about the same as the celeron 2.2. This one had more ram (512) so multitasking was a bit speedier. The laptop itself was rather large, but it was able to take 10+ hours of folding without missing a beat. Another 512 of ram would do well for this machine.
Something to notice is the FSB of both machines. The true FSB is only about a 100Mhz, but being intel chips, the FSB's are quad-pumped for 400Mhz effective Bus. Having never owned a Pentium of these speeds (my fastest Pentium is a 700Mhz P3), I couldn't say how much the slow bus affected overall speed. I know that on my Athlon64, with the integrated memroy controller, the FSB has become less of an issue.
From these shots, the major difference between the two processors is that the P4-M has twice the L2 cache of the celeron 256k vs. 512k. Cache does make a big difference in performance.
Other than that, both processors seem to perform comparitively.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Oh dear lord...
http://hardmac.com/news/2005-10-10/
OSx86 running on 4 physical intel processors. Hyperthreading enabled. That's 8 logical processors..... holy crap.
OSx86 running on 4 physical intel processors. Hyperthreading enabled. That's 8 logical processors..... holy crap.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Smack that SAS...
After hours upon hours of compiling, updating and otherwise working my laptop into the ground... I have SAS 6.1.0 working under 10.4.
I can't take much of the credit... I followed this and merely adapted it to 10.4 (instead of 10.3 or 10.2 as in the instructions).
Here is how it went:
Download the most up to date version of xmm-newton-sas from here.
There are four files needed:
xmmsas_XXXXXXXX_1832-common-config.tar.gz
xmmsas_XXXXXXXX_1832-common-doc.tar.gz
xmmsas_XXXXXXXX_1832-powerpc-apple-darwin6.8-bin.tar.gz
xmmsas_XXXXXXXX_1832-powerpc-apple-darwin6.8-libextra.tar.gz
The X's are replaced with the date of the most recent build. If you go through the ftp site, the path is pretty simple to follow.
Extract everything to some folder, such as ~/SAS/.
Use the following commands to set your paths:
export SAS_DIR=~/SAS/xmmsas_20041122_1832
export SAS_PATH=$SAS_DIR
. $SAS_DIR/sas-setup.sh
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$SAS_DIR/libextra:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
replace ~/SAS/ with your path, and xmmsas_blah blah with the version you have.
After you get THAT working... make sure your fink(and X11.app) installation is up to date. If so, get the qt3 package.
sudo fink install qt3
Then go watch a movie. Depending on the state and speed of your system, this could take a while to d/l and compile the necessary packages. On my 867mhz G4 it took roughly 2.5-3 hours.
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/sw/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
to update tell your SAS installation to use your newly compiled DYLD libraries instead of the older ones that came with sas.
If you get something similar to this error:
dyld: Symbol not found: __cg_jpeg_resync_to_restart .... then do:
sudo fink remove libjpeg.
Updating libtool might help as well (sudo fink update libtool).
Don't ask me WHY removing libjpeg works... I'm not really sure. Hope this helps.
I can't take much of the credit... I followed this and merely adapted it to 10.4 (instead of 10.3 or 10.2 as in the instructions).
Here is how it went:
Download the most up to date version of xmm-newton-sas from here.
There are four files needed:
xmmsas_XXXXXXXX_1832-common-config.tar.gz
xmmsas_XXXXXXXX_1832-common-doc.tar.gz
xmmsas_XXXXXXXX_1832-powerpc-apple-darwin6.8-bin.tar.gz
xmmsas_XXXXXXXX_1832-powerpc-apple-darwin6.8-libextra.tar.gz
The X's are replaced with the date of the most recent build. If you go through the ftp site, the path is pretty simple to follow.
Extract everything to some folder, such as ~/SAS/.
Use the following commands to set your paths:
export SAS_DIR=~/SAS/xmmsas_20041122_1832
export SAS_PATH=$SAS_DIR
. $SAS_DIR/sas-setup.sh
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$SAS_DIR/libextra:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
replace ~/SAS/ with your path, and xmmsas_blah blah with the version you have.
After you get THAT working... make sure your fink(and X11.app) installation is up to date. If so, get the qt3 package.
sudo fink install qt3
Then go watch a movie. Depending on the state and speed of your system, this could take a while to d/l and compile the necessary packages. On my 867mhz G4 it took roughly 2.5-3 hours.
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/sw/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
to update tell your SAS installation to use your newly compiled DYLD libraries instead of the older ones that came with sas.
If you get something similar to this error:
dyld: Symbol not found: __cg_jpeg_resync_to_restart .... then do:
sudo fink remove libjpeg.
Updating libtool might help as well (sudo fink update libtool).
Don't ask me WHY removing libjpeg works... I'm not really sure. Hope this helps.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
64-bit Action.
I bit the bullet about 2 weeks ago. I did a major upgrade to my desktop. I purchased a:
Athlon64 3000+ Socket 939 "Venice" Processor
Epox 9NDA3J Motherboard
Total from Newegg: $230 after tax and shipping.
That along with 512 borrowed from Rachelle has given me a very nice desktop to work with. (I recently bought another 512, so that I can return Rachelle's 512 to her next time I'm home).
Pictures of course:
The two boxes, right out of the FedEx packaging.
The contents of the motherboard package.
The motherboard itself. Note that there are a total of 4 DIMM slots, as opposed to the normal 2 or 3 DIMM slots of budget boards. The reason this is worth noting is that when I upgrade ram, i'll be able to merely ADD ram, than having to replace it. Also the board supports Dual-Channel.
The picture of the processor itself. The stock Heatsink/Fan is EXTREMELY Quiet. I love how I can barely hear the system going, and thats only if I don't have any music or anything else going on. Stock the processor runs at 1.8Ghz with a 200Mhz Bus(kinda). Equivalent performance is to a 3.0Ghz Pentium 4, for most tasks.
Stock the system ran a very cool 40C, under full folding load.
UPDATE: I overclocked the system. Its now running at 2.43Ghz with an 270Mhz Bus(kinda). Thats about a 30% overclock. To translate into easier to appreciate terms. I'm getting the equivalent speed to a 3.5-3.7Ghz P4 or a 3500-3700+ Athlon.
The processor is running at a still cool 44C, again, under full load. What used to take 1.5 Hours/frame to fold, now takes roughly 23mins/frame.
Athlon64 3000+ Socket 939 "Venice" Processor
Epox 9NDA3J Motherboard
Total from Newegg: $230 after tax and shipping.
That along with 512 borrowed from Rachelle has given me a very nice desktop to work with. (I recently bought another 512, so that I can return Rachelle's 512 to her next time I'm home).
Pictures of course:
The two boxes, right out of the FedEx packaging.
The contents of the motherboard package.
The motherboard itself. Note that there are a total of 4 DIMM slots, as opposed to the normal 2 or 3 DIMM slots of budget boards. The reason this is worth noting is that when I upgrade ram, i'll be able to merely ADD ram, than having to replace it. Also the board supports Dual-Channel.
The picture of the processor itself. The stock Heatsink/Fan is EXTREMELY Quiet. I love how I can barely hear the system going, and thats only if I don't have any music or anything else going on. Stock the processor runs at 1.8Ghz with a 200Mhz Bus(kinda). Equivalent performance is to a 3.0Ghz Pentium 4, for most tasks.
Stock the system ran a very cool 40C, under full folding load.
UPDATE: I overclocked the system. Its now running at 2.43Ghz with an 270Mhz Bus(kinda). Thats about a 30% overclock. To translate into easier to appreciate terms. I'm getting the equivalent speed to a 3.5-3.7Ghz P4 or a 3500-3700+ Athlon.
The processor is running at a still cool 44C, again, under full load. What used to take 1.5 Hours/frame to fold, now takes roughly 23mins/frame.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
All Natural...
I purchased this Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro from the UCR Salvage sale for $1 (plus tax). It was pretty filthy when I got it, so I decided to clean it up. Here are some of the pictures from that cleanup. The keyboard was much more complicated than both my Microsoft Keyboard and Logitech Wireless Keyboard.
The photos above are closeups of the dirt in the keyboard. The photos don't do it any justice. This thing was filthy.
These photos are after the cleanup. After the cleanup,the keys feel more spoungy, like they've lost some of their spring. I'm not sure if it's just my imagination, or if the keys aren't quite seated perfectly. But from the layout of the keyboard, I'm not sure how that could happen.
The photos above are closeups of the dirt in the keyboard. The photos don't do it any justice. This thing was filthy.
These photos are after the cleanup. After the cleanup,the keys feel more spoungy, like they've lost some of their spring. I'm not sure if it's just my imagination, or if the keys aren't quite seated perfectly. But from the layout of the keyboard, I'm not sure how that could happen.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
EMACS
Here are a few emacs and terminal tricks I picked up today.
C- means hold down control and press the next letter. Example C-x means hold down control and press x.
M- means press and release ESC and press the next letter. Example M-x means press ESC then press x. Also on some systems holding down ALT will work also.
For the mac users, ALT=OPTION.
Terminal:
Lock your command prompt: C-s
Unlock your command prompt: C-q
Minimize emacs: C-z (from within emacs)
Restore emacs: fg (type fg into command promt)
Emacs:
Split window horizontally: C-x 2
Split window vertically: C-x 3
Merge back to single window: C-x 1
Close current buffer: C-x 4 0
Open a file in a new window: C-x 4 f filename
More to come later.
C- means hold down control and press the next letter. Example C-x means hold down control and press x.
M- means press and release ESC and press the next letter. Example M-x means press ESC then press x. Also on some systems holding down ALT will work also.
For the mac users, ALT=OPTION.
Terminal:
Lock your command prompt: C-s
Unlock your command prompt: C-q
Minimize emacs: C-z (from within emacs)
Restore emacs: fg (type fg into command promt)
Emacs:
Split window horizontally: C-x 2
Split window vertically: C-x 3
Merge back to single window: C-x 1
Close current buffer: C-x 4 0
Open a file in a new window: C-x 4 f filename
More to come later.
Friday, June 10, 2005
New Sunglasses
After 8 loyal years of service, I've retired my perscription sunglasses. They're old and battered but they were reliable.
In it's place I got a pair of Caribbean Sun's from Wal Mart. They were having a package deal and I was able to get the frames, lenses, polarization and labor for $99 total without insurace. Sure beats the $253 an optometrist shop wanted to charge me.
Here are some pictures. YES they were taken by my Nikon Coolpix 3100. A few days ago it decided to start working again.
They're quite a bit larger than my previous pair, which should help with pinching of the ears. Yes, I got a fat head.
Another angle.
It came with a case (huge compared to my Converse case) and a wiping cloth. Wal Mart also threw in a small bottle of cleaning solution.
Im still getting used to the glasses. They're heavier than my old pair, and almost completely eclipse my vision. They're also a different color. Using these indoors will be quite a bit harder than my previous pair (the lenses are much darker).
I think it might have something to do with the polarization, but I can see vivid color patterns in paints and off glass. It's quite strange, it is similar to light being passed through a prism.
In it's place I got a pair of Caribbean Sun's from Wal Mart. They were having a package deal and I was able to get the frames, lenses, polarization and labor for $99 total without insurace. Sure beats the $253 an optometrist shop wanted to charge me.
Here are some pictures. YES they were taken by my Nikon Coolpix 3100. A few days ago it decided to start working again.
They're quite a bit larger than my previous pair, which should help with pinching of the ears. Yes, I got a fat head.
Another angle.
It came with a case (huge compared to my Converse case) and a wiping cloth. Wal Mart also threw in a small bottle of cleaning solution.
Im still getting used to the glasses. They're heavier than my old pair, and almost completely eclipse my vision. They're also a different color. Using these indoors will be quite a bit harder than my previous pair (the lenses are much darker).
I think it might have something to do with the polarization, but I can see vivid color patterns in paints and off glass. It's quite strange, it is similar to light being passed through a prism.
Monday, June 06, 2005
OSX to go to Intel
Well it's official, today at the WWDC, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that OSX was transitioning to Intel x86 chips. He even did the entire demo using a Powermac running a 3.6ghz Pentium 4. Everything seemed smooth. All the major Apple apps were working fine.
I'm still quite a bit stunned at the prospect of it all.
Pros:
1. Parity in processor speeds. This will finally decide the "which is faster" debate, since OSX and Windows will both be running on the same chips.
2. Economies of scale. Intel makes ALOT of processors. Compared to a G5 processor, an x86 chip will be MUCH cheaper. Does this translate to cheaper system? It's too early to tell.
Cons:
1. Intel hardware. Among the OSX people there's always been a disdain for anything PC (that's where the whole "zealot" name came out of). Pentium 4's have an unbelievably deep pipleline, this is what enables them to run at 3+ GHZ clock speeds. This also means it takes many clock cycles for an instruction to finish, and that branch prediction errors are very costly. How this will affect OSX, is again, too early to tell.
2. Migration: Some software will just not work. Especially some of the "Classic" software that people are using just will not work on Intel hardware. Period. This can also mean that many developers might give up on the platform.
Since everything is so early, there's no way to know how things will play out. But I do know that Apple hardware sales will be down this year.
I'm still quite a bit stunned at the prospect of it all.
Pros:
1. Parity in processor speeds. This will finally decide the "which is faster" debate, since OSX and Windows will both be running on the same chips.
2. Economies of scale. Intel makes ALOT of processors. Compared to a G5 processor, an x86 chip will be MUCH cheaper. Does this translate to cheaper system? It's too early to tell.
Cons:
1. Intel hardware. Among the OSX people there's always been a disdain for anything PC (that's where the whole "zealot" name came out of). Pentium 4's have an unbelievably deep pipleline, this is what enables them to run at 3+ GHZ clock speeds. This also means it takes many clock cycles for an instruction to finish, and that branch prediction errors are very costly. How this will affect OSX, is again, too early to tell.
2. Migration: Some software will just not work. Especially some of the "Classic" software that people are using just will not work on Intel hardware. Period. This can also mean that many developers might give up on the platform.
Since everything is so early, there's no way to know how things will play out. But I do know that Apple hardware sales will be down this year.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Room to expand
Try #2 to write this post: (Much shorter version)
I just bought a SimpleTech 250GB USB2.0/FireWire HD. The specs are as follows:
1 Firewire 1394a port
1 USB2.0 Hi-Speed port
The enclosure itself is a prolific chipset. The internal HD turned out to be a Seagate 250GB
HD with 7200rpm spindle speed and 8MB cache.
The drive as it arrived from UPS (it arrived early in the morning the day after it shipped, but with no tracking number).
The box of the drive itself
The drive itself as packed in the box. The drive was packed pretty well, but I would liked a bit more padding.
The drive is made of metal, which hopefully will help disappate heat. It comes with drive stands and was designed to be upright, but without the feet it's possible to run it horizontally.
The drive came with 2 VERY short USB2.0 and Firewire cables. They are the shortest I've ever seen.
The firewire cord is only about 1 foot long. Which means the drive has to be right next to the laptop, if it has any chance of reaching.
The pictures were taken with my roommates' Sony digicam, as my Nikon is still broken.
So far I've formatted the drive, and have backed up my laptop's internal HD to it. It has about 50GBs of data on the drive currently. I have even been able to test whether the drive boots, good news, it does. I've also run a surface scan using Tech Tool pro, and the drive passed.
The drive itself is quiet, the only noise you can hear is the seek noises. Once in a while, theres' this thrashing sound that's quite a bit louder than normal, but I think it's normal. Hopefully it keeps working well.
I just bought a SimpleTech 250GB USB2.0/FireWire HD. The specs are as follows:
1 Firewire 1394a port
1 USB2.0 Hi-Speed port
The enclosure itself is a prolific chipset. The internal HD turned out to be a Seagate 250GB
HD with 7200rpm spindle speed and 8MB cache.
The drive as it arrived from UPS (it arrived early in the morning the day after it shipped, but with no tracking number).
The box of the drive itself
The drive itself as packed in the box. The drive was packed pretty well, but I would liked a bit more padding.
The drive is made of metal, which hopefully will help disappate heat. It comes with drive stands and was designed to be upright, but without the feet it's possible to run it horizontally.
The drive came with 2 VERY short USB2.0 and Firewire cables. They are the shortest I've ever seen.
The firewire cord is only about 1 foot long. Which means the drive has to be right next to the laptop, if it has any chance of reaching.
The pictures were taken with my roommates' Sony digicam, as my Nikon is still broken.
So far I've formatted the drive, and have backed up my laptop's internal HD to it. It has about 50GBs of data on the drive currently. I have even been able to test whether the drive boots, good news, it does. I've also run a surface scan using Tech Tool pro, and the drive passed.
The drive itself is quiet, the only noise you can hear is the seek noises. Once in a while, theres' this thrashing sound that's quite a bit louder than normal, but I think it's normal. Hopefully it keeps working well.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
MSI Radeon 9550 128MB 128-bit
The Radeon arrived today, 2 days ahead of schedule. Compulsory pictures are included. The card arrived at 2:30pm 4/20/05. I beat the FedEx guy home by about 5 mins. I think he was in front of me on the way home, but he had to stop at the UV.
The package itself was very light (only 2 lbs). The retail box itself was packed within.
A picture of the retail box itself, quite tiny.
The back.
The internals. It came with the bare essentials. Card, booklet, drivers.
A picture of the card itself. Notice the MSI heatsink.
A closer view. Excuse the paper towel I used to clean the case before hand.
A picture of both cards installed. I actually had some trouble getting the card installed. It turns out that NVIDIA and ATI do not co-exist very well, atleast their drivers don't. I had to uninstall the NVIDIA drivers before the ATI card could output a signal. Thank goodness my LCD has dual inputs (VGA adn DVI), so I was able to switch between without trading cables.
For comparison, a picture of my Geforce4 MX440SE PCI video card. It has been a loyal work horse for many years. It's time it was retired. From now on it will re-join my 733mhz Dell at home, this should help my mom play her games a little better. The Dell integrated graphics are not cutting it.
A few preliminary tests with Cinebench and 3DMark2001 indicate that the 9550 is performing at rougly twice the level of the GF4. 3DMark2001 scores are in the high 6000s. I have been putting the card through it's paces and it seem to play Homeworld 2 @ 1280x960 with all the graphics turned up, quite well. Later I hope to overclock the card to 9600 or even 9600Pro speeds.
The package itself was very light (only 2 lbs). The retail box itself was packed within.
A picture of the retail box itself, quite tiny.
The back.
The internals. It came with the bare essentials. Card, booklet, drivers.
A picture of the card itself. Notice the MSI heatsink.
A closer view. Excuse the paper towel I used to clean the case before hand.
A picture of both cards installed. I actually had some trouble getting the card installed. It turns out that NVIDIA and ATI do not co-exist very well, atleast their drivers don't. I had to uninstall the NVIDIA drivers before the ATI card could output a signal. Thank goodness my LCD has dual inputs (VGA adn DVI), so I was able to switch between without trading cables.
For comparison, a picture of my Geforce4 MX440SE PCI video card. It has been a loyal work horse for many years. It's time it was retired. From now on it will re-join my 733mhz Dell at home, this should help my mom play her games a little better. The Dell integrated graphics are not cutting it.
A few preliminary tests with Cinebench and 3DMark2001 indicate that the 9550 is performing at rougly twice the level of the GF4. 3DMark2001 scores are in the high 6000s. I have been putting the card through it's paces and it seem to play Homeworld 2 @ 1280x960 with all the graphics turned up, quite well. Later I hope to overclock the card to 9600 or even 9600Pro speeds.
Monday, April 18, 2005
New Purchase
Just purchased this:
It is a MSI Radeon 9550 w/ 128MB of VRAM. It is the normal 9550 with
the 128-bit interface instead of the SE's crippled 64-bit. I ordered
it today, and there seems to be a problem with my address verification.
Hopefully it will be resolved and I can write a review as soon as
I recieve the card and put it through it's paces.
Also from some of the research I've done, depending on your luck you may
be able to overclock it to 9600 or 9600pro speeds. Not bad, $120 performance
from a $60 card.
$60 @ ChiefValue.com
It is a MSI Radeon 9550 w/ 128MB of VRAM. It is the normal 9550 with
the 128-bit interface instead of the SE's crippled 64-bit. I ordered
it today, and there seems to be a problem with my address verification.
Hopefully it will be resolved and I can write a review as soon as
I recieve the card and put it through it's paces.
Also from some of the research I've done, depending on your luck you may
be able to overclock it to 9600 or 9600pro speeds. Not bad, $120 performance
from a $60 card.
$60 @ ChiefValue.com
Friday, April 01, 2005
Ram is VERY good.
A few weeks ago I wrote an Ode to Ram. Well I've finally got some more ram for the desktop (1.3Ghz Athlon). I got a 256MB stick and a 128MB stick of PC133 ram from a friend. This means that the Athlon is now running 2x256MB sticks for a total of 512MB of ram. I have 2 extra 128 sticks that are destined for my Mom's P3 733. Navigating simple windows in Windows XP doesn't seem much faster (not as noticeable a jump as the 128->384MB jump of a few years ago), but once i start to run a few programs together the difference really starts to show itself.
Launching applications is not only quicker but also feel "sturdier". Yes, I know that describing applications as "studry" seems rather silly but that's the best adjective I could come up with. Withb more ram there is no split second delay as the memory is paged to disk, also there is no hard drive sound. This type of feeling, though hard to explain, seems quite tangible when felt in person.
Get as much ram as possible in your computer. You're computer will thanky you for it.
Launching applications is not only quicker but also feel "sturdier". Yes, I know that describing applications as "studry" seems rather silly but that's the best adjective I could come up with. Withb more ram there is no split second delay as the memory is paged to disk, also there is no hard drive sound. This type of feeling, though hard to explain, seems quite tangible when felt in person.
Get as much ram as possible in your computer. You're computer will thanky you for it.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Dust is very bad.
I just cleaned out the Athlon again (increased the multiplier to 13x, so now it's running at 1.3Ghz). I decided that the heatsink/fan could use another cleaning. Before the cleaning, it was running at a moderate 49C at full load. Now, after the cleaning it is running at a much cooler 38C full load. What a difference cleanliness makes.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
More mini pics
Here you go, more pics of the unpacking of the mini. Photos courtesy of Adam Meadows.
Another picture of the box right before the opening event.
The box of the mini itself is incased in a foam shell. That's right, the box is even protected. But with boxes as pretty as Apple's who could blame them?
Very well protected.
The mini box in all it's glory. The box is TINY.
The back of the box.
The inside of the mini box looks very similar to the ipod box. Notice that with apple gear, nothing is an after-thought, all parts have their own indentation in the foam.
Removed the manual (yes that tiny square was the manual.
The mini itself.
The cables and whatnot are stored underneath.
Top view of the mini.
The mini all set-up. For size comparison, Adam's mini is next to ... his new mini. The white base is a styrofoam piece is from the packaging of the mini.
A view of his setup.
Shortly after setting everything up, Adam installed the 1GB ram stick. It was ... an involved process at the very least. Not a procedure he would like to do again.
The top casing for the mini.
That concludes our adventures into box-opening land.
Another picture of the box right before the opening event.
The box of the mini itself is incased in a foam shell. That's right, the box is even protected. But with boxes as pretty as Apple's who could blame them?
Very well protected.
The mini box in all it's glory. The box is TINY.
The back of the box.
The inside of the mini box looks very similar to the ipod box. Notice that with apple gear, nothing is an after-thought, all parts have their own indentation in the foam.
Removed the manual (yes that tiny square was the manual.
The mini itself.
The cables and whatnot are stored underneath.
Top view of the mini.
The mini all set-up. For size comparison, Adam's mini is next to ... his new mini. The white base is a styrofoam piece is from the packaging of the mini.
A view of his setup.
Shortly after setting everything up, Adam installed the 1GB ram stick. It was ... an involved process at the very least. Not a procedure he would like to do again.
The top casing for the mini.
That concludes our adventures into box-opening land.
Monday, March 14, 2005
iPod Scare
The prospect of turning a $399 iPod into a very stylish $399 paperweight can be difficult to get through. Last night I remembered that a new software update was available for my iPod (a 3G 15gb model) that would enable some features that were release for the 4G and later models. This update was straight from Apple. I downloaded it here. After the update, the software informed that the iPod would reset. I was multitasking at the time, so I actually didn't notice that something had happened for a while.
After I remembered I tried to get the iPod to respond. The screen was completely blank and no responce from pressing any of the buttons. I listened very carefully and whenever I pressed a button I heard a small screeching sound, which I assume is the HD spinning up. This indicated that atleast the buttons were still sensing input. I held down menu+play to do a soft reset. After about 30 seconds the iPod rebooted. After that I asked me to plug it into my computer and it finished the update.
Just a warning to my fellow iPod people. Be careful with the 2005-02-22 iPod update. BTW, the update adds the "shuffle songs" item to the main menu, and changes the charging icon.
After I remembered I tried to get the iPod to respond. The screen was completely blank and no responce from pressing any of the buttons. I listened very carefully and whenever I pressed a button I heard a small screeching sound, which I assume is the HD spinning up. This indicated that atleast the buttons were still sensing input. I held down menu+play to do a soft reset. After about 30 seconds the iPod rebooted. After that I asked me to plug it into my computer and it finished the update.
Just a warning to my fellow iPod people. Be careful with the 2005-02-22 iPod update. BTW, the update adds the "shuffle songs" item to the main menu, and changes the charging icon.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Cleaning a Logitech Wireless Keyboard
I decided that since it was finals week, and I REALLY need to study, today would be the completely wrong time to clean my keyboard. Naturally this made it irresistable. This process was much more complicated than cleaning my Microsoft Keyboard.
Removing the first set of screws was a straight forward process. This enabled the removal of the top layer of the keyboard (remove the batteries first of course). The second set of screws attached the main assembly to the bottom casing, with these off the assembly came away.
I chose to size the photgraphs at 640x480 in order to clearly see the condition the keyboard was in. The silver media buttons and main assembly are attached to a circuit board by VERY thing plastic connectors. Another set of screws were removed to free the circuit board from the bottom housing. At this point the keys can be pried off.
I regret not taking pictures of the main assembly "sandwich", but another few screws had to be removed to extract the dirtiest part (the plate that the keys attach to). Here are a few of the dirtier parts.
The flash on the camera hides exactly how dirty it is. After a few trial and error shots, I found a way to take some non-flashed photos. These photos shot just how bad the keyboard has become in it's 3 year lifetime.
Because the keyboard is black, any non-black dust or dirt shows up exceptionally well.
Here is a picture of the various parts, before I was able to put it back together.
Fortunately, after putting everything back together, it all worked. Enjoy.
Removing the first set of screws was a straight forward process. This enabled the removal of the top layer of the keyboard (remove the batteries first of course). The second set of screws attached the main assembly to the bottom casing, with these off the assembly came away.
I chose to size the photgraphs at 640x480 in order to clearly see the condition the keyboard was in. The silver media buttons and main assembly are attached to a circuit board by VERY thing plastic connectors. Another set of screws were removed to free the circuit board from the bottom housing. At this point the keys can be pried off.
I regret not taking pictures of the main assembly "sandwich", but another few screws had to be removed to extract the dirtiest part (the plate that the keys attach to). Here are a few of the dirtier parts.
The flash on the camera hides exactly how dirty it is. After a few trial and error shots, I found a way to take some non-flashed photos. These photos shot just how bad the keyboard has become in it's 3 year lifetime.
Because the keyboard is black, any non-black dust or dirt shows up exceptionally well.
Here is a picture of the various parts, before I was able to put it back together.
Fortunately, after putting everything back together, it all worked. Enjoy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)