Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

Overclocking is a complicated topic. Here’s how I did it on this new Chaintech VNF3-250. The net is that I got an Athlon 2800+ costing $150 to perform like an Athlon 3700+ costing $400 with a 30% overclock. And also got another 10% out of the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. Read away: h4. The Overclocking…

Turning Legacy USB Mouse support on in bios locks keyboard o. Thank goodness for the internet, it just required the correct google query, which was google:”Chaintech VNF3-250 keyboard locked”. This told me that when you turn on USB Legacy Mouse support in the BIOS, then you get the Post Code 7C. Keyboard is locked: Unlock…

Boy it sure has gotten complicated installing Windows. Here’s what I did (breadcrumbs for Calvin’s new machine): # BIOS errors. On startup, I got BIOS errors 7F and 8C. 7F is “Keyboard is locked”. This means the BIOS thinks that there is a lock on the PC case itself and you have to turn it…

Yahoo! Groups : nslu2-linux Messages : Message 1096 of 1387 . Pray that you never have this happen to you. In my first test of the NSLU2, I did a firmware upgrade since I was having problems and it is good to get the latest. Destroyed the boot of the machine. Fortunately, there are literally…

I got an el cheapo Linksys Linksys: NSLU2 – Network Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives which is about the size of a small camera. Plus, got a USB 2.0 enclosure for cheap from Newegg called a “Quick-Serv Penr35u2”:http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=17-145-843&depa=0. It cames in a box labeled Backup Q. Here is what I found. The net…

Transmeta Unveils the Efficeon. I admit it, Dave Ditzel is one of my heroes. In the old days when I worked on IC design and stuff, the guy is a legend. They just shipped their “90 nm”:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/10/transmeta_90nm_chips_ship/ part. I always wondered what happened to Transmeta, the ultralow power chip company. Kind of got rolled over…

Well, we are getting closer to it the perfect laptop at least in my opinion, What’s the perfect laptop? Well, it should be: * Under 3 pounds, so you don’t think about it * Have a near full sized keyboard * 802.11b/g Wifi and built-in Ethernet and VGA output without a dongle * Be less…

Well, I mainly assemble PCs myself these days, but if I didn’t want to, here is where I’d go to pay a little more for building, but get the exact components that I want at a reasonable price. In order: * ARM Systems. Haven’t ordered from here yet, but will soon. They are somewhat more…

AnandTech on Intel Developers Forum Wow, this is a big deal, both AMD and Intel are going dual core. So there will two complete processors on one chip. Vanderpool Technology or VT is an upcoming feature on several processor families (including the dual core families) that allow processor emulation and/or virtualization. As explained by Intel,…

Guru3D.com Forums – Which nVIDIA Drivers Are For Your Video Card?. A great list of what drivers for your nVidia card work and which don’t.

This is a $600 industrial quality web cam. There are folks who are doing in rough order of what I think is interesting: Netcams These are devices that don’t need a PC to show audio/video. Unlike webcams which require a PC: * StarDot Technologies / NetCam. There are so many more cool WiFi devices that…

Some late breaking changes to the August guides are pretty relevant. For the “high-end”:https://richtong.org/guide_to_pcs/2004/09/01/high_end_system_recommendations.html systems, First, taking into account the Silentpcreview.com information, I changed some of the components in the guide to the high end particularly the power supply and the case. Switched the motherboard recommendation to the DFI Lan Party UT Nv3 250 Gb…

Who would have ever thought there was going to be a bunch of debate about this, but in the world of high performance gaming, everyone tries things. “Guru3D”:http://guru3d.com is the site I use for much of this, but here’s the quick guide: * Guru3D.com Forums – Which nVIDIA Drivers Are For Your Video Card?. This…

OK, here is my first guide to Silent PCs. I’m going to change the way I do the PC guides to have essentially three guides: * High-end guide for very fast full systems that are great price/performance. These are gamer and video editing machines mainly. Basically what I like to do and it will have…

Ah for the days when you just read PC Magazine and that was it to find the best computer hardware and software, now its all about the web. Since I’ve been buying a bunch of PCs this month, here are the sources I’m using in stackranked order of quality IMHO. Its sad, but I basically…

I’ve had one of these “Audiotron’s”:http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/audiotron/feedback.asp forever but have never really used it much. Spent a little time hacking and realized it doesn’t work because it needs a magic user name and password to access a file share. Aargh. How is anyone supposed to remember this stuff, let alone that there is a web interface…

IP-Tools. Need to figure out what’s on my network. I should have written it down but I forgot. Here’s a tool that will scan for me. Here are some utilities: * “SoftPerfect Network Scanner”:http://www.softperfect.com/products/networkscanner/. A high google hit. Freeware and seems fast too for finding systems. * “WinPCap”:http://winpcap.polito.it/. Free network analyzer on Windows. Watch the…