[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Notebook DDR Up:

I think this has been a really odd year for Ram prices as we did not see the pre-holiday price jousting by Ram makers. Still here is a little jab after the fact.

Samsung Electronics plans to raise prices for 128Mbit (4Mbit×32) notebook-use graphics DDR chips by over 10% in early 2004, from about US$3.60 per chip currently, due to tightening supply, according to sources.

ABIT K8:

MBReview takes a look at the ABIT KV8-MAX3 mainboard that uses VIA's K8T800 chipset. And they promise a big conclusion! Here is our review for comparison.

When the time came for the KV8-MAX3 to face a round of MBReview punishment, ABIT’s motherboard was completely solid and ran flawlessly during operation.

SETI Finds Alien:

Ten headlines you won't read in 2004.

Dear Dear Dan:

Dear Dan hits us up with two editions today. Get the first dose here, and if you are feeling up to another, just click here.

The next SATA speed bump will give more peak bandwidth, yes, but it won't actually be faster in real world use.

Cooling:

Fan Speed Controller @ ATrueReview - Titan HSFs @ OCZone

Modding:

MicroATX Case @ SystemCooling - Silverstone Case @ Xtrememodz

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

More VPU Power!

Think you are a real man? Then go get your soldering iron (All real men have one of those, right?) and start working on that video card that you just paid anywhere from $250 to $400 for. FastLaneHW shows you how to voltage mod your ATI 9800. FYI, I think this might void your warranty.

What do people do when an overclock becomes unstable?? They add more voltage! You see people adding more voltage to their CPU's and RAM, why not your video card? This guide will go through the steps taken, in giving your ATi 9800 series that extra boost it needs to run super overclocked speeds.

Join the [H]orde:

Are you looking for something to do with your computer when you are not using it? How about you maybe save some lives by helping with research by Stanford University? We want new Folders for the [H]orde, so please check out HardFolding to find out how to contribute.

Net Tax:

Designtechnica sounds off on paying tax on your Net purchases. Not exactly a lot of new solutions solved here, but they are inviting you to share yours.

One possible solution to the Internet tax problem, would be a nominal fee on all email that is sent. Let's say ten cents on every 100 emails sent. For me this would be about fifty cents a month max. This would help cut down on spammers and the money could be used to help low-income families get Internet access.

Many Mini's:

Steve linked to these a while back and today a reader shares with us a Russian page that gives us a look on the inside of this tiny NEC computer.

Thermalright Heatpipe HSFs:

The crew at SilentPCReview show us two of the latest and great HSFs from Thermalright and how to integrate them into a "silent" configuration.

The SP94 and SP97 clearly deserve the top rank on Thermalright's product lineup. They are clearly better performers than the earlier SLK900, and the advantage will show up especially with hotter CPUs. In many ways, the performance of the Thermalright heatpipe heatsinks is limited by the exclusive use of the Panaflo 80L in this review.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

OCing AFX:

Take a look at these guys results after popping the heatspreader on their AFX-51. This could certainly be a worthy project for those folks looking for the edge of the envelope.

NFII Review:

HardwareZoom reviews the new revision of DFI's Lan Party mainboard. It has some pretty nifty new BIOS features on it that you will want to check out. Also, DFI has made these options available to current Lan Party board owners in their latest BIOS updates.

This board should satisfy both overclockers and mainstream PC users. It has been awhile since we saw boards with great bundles, good performance and a good price so it shouldn't dissapoint anyone. The LanParty Ultra B board should propel DFI back to the top-tier level as a motherboard manufacturer.

Triple DFI:

SubZeroTech has a full line-up of DFI boards for you to read about today. They cover rev A and B of the NFII Lan Party boards and also put the i875P Lan Party mainboard into the mix. This is not a review, but rather a preview. Hey, its a slow news weekend so give us a break!

TV & Gaming:

Watch TV on your computer and play you console games as well with this black box from Viewsonic. Of course you console games may look like ass on a large monitor, or at least I would think.

Card Cooling:

Remember when our buddies over at TheCardCooler made these famous? Of course now they have flashy lights and mega-features like this VANTEC unit reviewed at ClubOC, but the concept is the same.

The unique features which include the fan speed controller, lights and UV reactive plastic, make this yet another example of Vantec's design innovation. The quality of this product exceeded our expectations.

SLK-900A HSF:

One of the latest CPU coolers from Thermalright gets the once-over at FrostyTech.

Ultimately, the Thermalright SLK-900A is a very good heatsink, and one I would recommend for AthlonXP users looking for a little extra from their system. While it is possible to use a very large and high speed fan to further increase the thermal performance results, say for overclocking, I don't see that as a really feasible option outside the test bench.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Hardcore Air:

When it comes to aircooling your CPU, it is hard to surpass what Swiftech has done with their products. R&BMods takes a look at the latest and greatest, but you might want to bring your ear plugs. Then again with the right fan it can give you great cooling without the noise.

We can see that this heatsink performs very well under heavy overclocking and low rpm on the fan. If you don't mind 54dB then you can have some superb temps!! The numbers speak for themselves!

GFFX 5990:

LegionHardware digs into the GeForceFX 5950. And this intro is sure to get you excited.

This year really was quite a disappointing year in the graphics card industry. There were a limited number of impressive products released and for the most part the industry was slow and quite disheartening. While ATi have enjoyed strong sales throughout 2003, their flagship product is based on an aging architecture.

Hey wait! I thought all the video card stuff was moving forward too fast?!?!?

Wired Graffiti:

In the mercurial world of graffiti, even the most eye-catching art can disappear, almost instantly. Building managers often sandblast any evidence of perceived vandalism -- no matter how nice it looks. City "beautification" projects wipe adorned walls clean. And in clashes of street egos, graffiti writers relentlessly scribble over each other's best work.

Hmm, maybe these folks ought to find somewhere to paint besides on someone else's buildings?

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

Fan Controller:

VANTEC Nexus Fan Controller Review at CreativeMods shows you how to quiet all those fans down when you don't need all the cooling during light load times.

The Vantec Nexus Fan Controller provides an easy and inexpensive solution for dialing in your unruly case temps. The attention to detail and overall good looks of the NXP-201 line are some of the best on the market.

Quiet Fans:

More on fans that need to be a bit more quiet and these do it by themselves.

It is almost completely silent, it is well designed, and the thermistor does an excellent job of controlling the fan speed. If you are looking for a way of making your PC quieter, then the SilenX has one of the best CFM per decibel level ratios that I have seen yet.

Gaming on the Go:

TrustedRevs in the UK show us the Dell laptop that is equipped with the Mobility Radeon 9600 and 128MB of memory. Now to just get the sample rates on those LCD screens down and we will be in the mobile deathmatch business.

I have personally used a rig that was similarly equipped and you could do a good bit of gaming on it in comfort.

Pretty Lights:

Can't have a fan now days without a bunch of LEDs on it.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

Gigabyte Vs. Gigabyte:

CoolTech Zone has a Gigabyte vs. Gigabyte socket A board comparo. The fellas pit an nForce 2 board against a SiS748 board with some pretty interesting results. Here is a quote from the review:

The motherboard that is based on the newly released SiS 748 Chipset did well against the nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset. System performance could have increased if SiS applied a Dual Memory controller to their 748 Chipset. nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset lead through our entire suite of performance tests in Single Channel Mode.

Vulture Spin HSF:

Somebody at Speeze must have slipped, fell and bumped their head when they were coming up with the name Vulture Spin for this HSF. Hopefully the performance doesn’t leave vultures circling your system. You’ll need a translator for this one if the pictures and graphs aren’t enough for you.

One of the largest pluses was naturally the volume, which is exhaust at the number of revolutions to hardly hear and one could not leave theoretically also the housing open, it anything would disturb.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

Foundry Fued:

And the survey says….lawsuit! China’s largest foundry, SMIC, is sued by TSMC for patent infringement. SMIC doesn’t really care, they insist that “artificial or unfair restrictions should not be imposed on such fair competition”:

China's largest chip foundry, SMIC, accused of patent infringement by Taiwanese rival TSMC, stepped up a war of words between the two companies Thursday, warning against any efforts to restrict competition. While declining to comment directly on the merits of a lawsuit filed in the United States by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the normally tight-lipped Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co. insisted on its right to compete fairly.

Nathan James points out that even though China wants no restrictions because it “isn’t fair” at the same time, China wants a proprietary encryption scheme on WiFi that has everyone answering to them. I wonder what the chinese proverb for "your cake and eat it too" is?

Holiday [H] Sighting:

Everybody loves the holidays, they bring cheer, family friends and of course…treats. Long time reader Phil sent us a picture of these custom [H] gingerbread men…that are made to look like ME. Thanks Phil, that is definitely a first and the resemblance is uncanny. Check em’ out:

Mods & Ends:

Mobile HD Rack @ ClubOC - UV-CCFL @ Crazy Modders - TTGI 550w PSU @ Lost Circuits - Memorex Mod Stuff @ Mod Synergy - Wireless MS Intellimouse @ Bit-Tech

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

How LCDs Work:

You probably use items containing an LCD every day. They are all around us -- in laptop computers, digital clocks and watches, microwave ovens, CD players and many other electronic devices. LCDs are common because they offer some real advantages over other display technologies. They are thinner and lighter and draw much less power than cathode ray tubes (CRTs), for example. But just what are these things called liquid crystals? The name "liquid crystal" sounds like a contradiction. We think of a crystal as a solid material like quartz, usually as hard as rock, and a liquid is obviously different. How could any material combine the two?

XDR DRAM Soon:

XDR, which was formerly known by its Yellowstone development code-name, is targeted at high-performance applications such as digital consumer electronics, network systems, game consoles and graphics applications. It runs at a speed of 3.2GHz, which is significantly faster than any memory technology in use today. Toshiba's first samples are 512M bit DRAM (dynamic RAM) chips and come slightly ahead of schedule. When Rambus announced XDR in July this year it said it expected sample chips to begin rolling off fabrication lines at Toshiba during 2004.

Lighter Power Adaptors:

As notebook computers become thinner and lighter, the ever-present bulky power adapters used for line current approach the weight of the laptops, but smaller and lighter adapters may be on the way, thanks to piezoelectric technology, according to a Penn State electrical engineer. "Electromagnetic transformers are shrinking slightly, but there are theoretical limitations in reducing the general size," says Dr. Kenji Uchino, professor of electrical engineering. "A piezoelectric motor and transformer can be much smaller and lighter."

Modifying GM’s OnStar:

Tinkerers seek little justification to deconstruct any technology. A common reason given for fiddling with a device is simply that it's there. These technologists believe that a bit of tweaking will inevitably unearth some innovative uses. It was this curiosity that led Pete Carter, a 28-year-old computer engineer at an online brokerage in Omaha, to plug a GPS unit he had bought for his father into his own laptop just to see how it would react. To his surprise, the laptop picked up the device without requiring any additional software.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

Shuttle FB54 Motherboard:

It looks like Shuttle has a mini-mainboard that might offer an alternative to the VIA EPIA line of boards for use in those HTPC / file server / MP3 boxes. Tech Report has the write up on the Shuttle FB54 mainboard for all of you looking into a mini-pc mainboard. The FB54 has no AGP, so LAN gamers will not be interested, but the file server / MP3 / HTPC crowd will certainly dig on this board.

To cater to small form factor enthusiasts looking to build systems in something other than one of its XPC cubes, Shuttle has rolled out a tiny Flex ATX board called the FB54. Just two centimeters wider than VIA's diminutive EPIA Mini ITX boards, the FB54 should be compatible with a good number of Mini ITX cases. However, rather than relying on VIA's cool-but-slow C3 processor, the FB54 can accommodate a Pentium 4 processor on a 533MHz front-side bus.

Linux 2.6 Scheduler:

All you alternative OS guys will find this write up interesting. The Linux.Ars crew take you inside the Linux 2.6 scheduler giving you a run down of the schedulers new features as well as a basic explanation of how the scheduler works and why the new features are important.

At long last, the 2.6 kernel is finished. The Christmas holiday gives us plenty of free time to play with its new features. The list of changes is quite long; very much work has been done on this new kernel. One of the most important and visible changes it the introduction of the O(1) scheduler. The scheduler is the piece of the kernel which allocates slices of time to individual programs running on the computer. It makes it possible for one CPU to execute multiple programs at once by allowing one program to run for a certain amount of time, then switching to another program, allowing it to run for another amount of time, and so forth.

Domain Name Super Sale:

The days of selling your domain name for millions is apparently back. A guy that bought “Men.com” for $15k just a few years ago sold it for $1.3 million. Damn.

One more sign the technology sector is rebounding: An Internet domain name is again commanding seven figures. Last week, a Florida man sold men.com for $1.3 million, a healthy profit over the $15,000 he paid for it in 1997.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

MPAA Learns From RIAA:

Actually, the title to this news item should read “MPAA learns from RIAA mistakes” to be more accurate. The movie industry has seen the mistakes of the RIAA and the way they have handled themselves ( suing their customers ). The MPAA is trying a whole different approach hoping to avoid the same kind of backlash that the RIAA is getting now.

The music industry's approach has contributed to a decline in downloading but has also produced a powerful public backlash, angering millions of its customers. That is one reason, among others, that Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, said that his industry would not be following the music companies' path any time soon.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

Reflecting On Linux Security:

Windows wasn’t the only OS with security issues. Net Security has an article titled ”reflecting on Linux security in 2003” which is certainly worth a read.

When it comes to 2003 I think we can call it "the year of the patch" with the security community paying close attention to what is patched in what period of time. In an interesting column about security fixes, SecurityFocus columnist Hall Flynn notes that he doesn't understand why Linux vendors that put so much time and money into creating security patches distribute them for free.

MOSFET HSF Guide:

Adding to the cooling “mod guides” at Rojak’s Pot, the gang kicked out another guide…this one covers installing MOSFET HSFs. We have seen many companies now follow the lead of the enthusiasts community by putting HSFs on their MOSFETS for better stability and performance.

As you all know, a motherboard's voltage regulator is nothing more than several power MOSFETs and a MOSFET controller. Because the voltage regulator provides power to the processor, the number and quality of the MOSFET used directly determines the quality of the power supplied to the processor. Needless to say, better quality MOSFETs produce better voltage regulators but what about the number of MOSFETs?

Intel Mainboard Sales Up:

Chip giant Intel is said to be enjoying rising motherboard shipments in China, catching up to Taiwan-based makers such as ECS, MSI, Gigabyte Technology and Asustek Computer, according to sources. Intel plans to outpace overall market growth in China in 2004, sources said. While motherboard shipments in China are projected to grow 20% in 2004, Intel aims to push its full-year combined motherboard shipments to the Chinese system integrator (SI) and retail markets to 1.2 million units next year, up 71.4% from this year’s estimate of 700,000 units.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Another NVIDIA Defector:

Terratec, a predominant European brand name, will start offering up ATI-based videocards in January.

TwinX3700:

Viperlair has a gig of PC3700 from Corsair on the grill this Christmas day.

At 250FSB, 3-4-4-8 was the timings the system was most comfortable at.

NF2U400:

OCInside of Germany has their one page review of the Soltek board that sports the NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset. I guess sometimes there is just not much to say.

Etc.:

New MSMouse @ BitTech - Clear Case @ OcPrices

Now get the hell away from this computer and go act like it is Christmas before you piss someone off in your immediate family for hiding from them... [H]O [H]O [H]O.