Zxian

First off - the 3800+ number is artificial. That numbering scheme was deisgned by AMD to give a rough equivalent to the equivalent P4 system. So a A64 3400+ would be about the same as a P4 3.4GHz (with regards to single threaded applications). And no - X2 3800 does not mean two 64-1900 cores (Like I already said above ). There are two cores both running at the same speed - 2.0GHz. This is MUCH faster than the old 1900+ systems (I've got an Athlon 2000+ at home, and even on single threaded apps, the X2 3800 will cream my system). A single thread in the X2 3800+ system sees a 2.0GHz core. A single thread in the A64 3800+ sees a 2.4GHz. The rated clock speed is the speed at which a single thread will execute. You don't divide by two or four depending on the number of cores. I could effectively make a dual core CPU by your reasoning, by having the processor "switch" between threads every other clock. That would sorta give you "two" cores, each at half the speed of the whole CPU (I know it's a bad example, but it proves my point). But, you wouldn't get any performance increase, like you do with a proper dual core CPU.

Gah!!! That's not how things work at all! A 2.4GHz Dual Core CPU will have two cores, both running at 2.4GHz - not 1.2GHz! The reason why a Athlon X2 3800+ might be slower than a Athlon64 3800+ is because the 64-3800 is clocked higher. Each of the two cores in the X2 will be clocked slower, but AMD gives it the "3800" rating because the second core "makes up" for the lower clock speed. It's a really confusing naming convention IMO, and causes mixups like this one. Any C2D or X2 CPU today that's running at 2.4GHz will kick the pants of any P4 setup from a year ago - regardless of clockspeed.

@[deXter] - The IOPageLockLimit "tweak" actually doesn't do anything on an XP machine, or a Win2K-SP1 or higher system. See here for more information.

What kind of hard drive do you have? If your computer is running that hot, then you're not cooling it properly. Hard drives are the standard of storage for everyone nowadays, and there are many quiet and cool computers that use hard drives. If you want something other than disk to store data on, have a look at CF cards. They're not the best, but they don't generate much heat (if any at all), and there are CF to IDE adaptors that you can use to connect them to your system. Tape is a horrible idea for a system drive. It doesn't have any sort of random access, unlike disk or flash memory, and was designed for large scale backups.

You should also use a software tool to check the actual wear level on the battery. If the laptop is Intel based, you can use Notebook Hardware Control to check the battery wear level. I had a funny acting battery that I returned to Dell because it was defective (for a 25% wear level after only 5 months!).

I can't remember how to do it off the top of my head, but you can backup all of your media library information, including history. Have a look through the Winamp Forums and see if you can find it. Otherwise, I'll have a look later to see if I can dig up the specific files.

@ripken204 - The laptop he's talking about takes a 1.8" hard drive, not 2.5" drives. That means that he's also highly limited to the size and variety of drives he can buy. @LordFett - Is the drive you have connected via IDE or ZIF?

How do you know what I'm thinking about you in particular? I realize that you are not a unique individual when it comes to your views on MSFN. Have I said anything concrete to argue otherwise? The number of members logged in nowadays also has to do with different methods implemented on the forums and in browsers. You might realize that it's not possible to have cookies stored on two different computers, both having you logged in. When I log into the forums from my desktop, I need to then re-login from my laptop. That wasn't the case beforehand. What was the topic you wanted to search for? There are ways of refining your searches to help reduce the amount of replies, but you also need to realize that MSFN has been around for quite a while, and if you simply take a general search, you're going to get a lot of hits. Did you, for example, limit your search to posts over a year old? Search a specific set of forums? Try to find the user that posted the information? How about the other members here? Just because you don't get along with a particular member doesn't mean that they can't stimulate good discussion. Have a look at this thread. I know it's a long read, but if you skim over it, you'll see how the members there probably wouldnt' sit down for a cup of tea, but they do have a very in depth and IMO a very productive discussion in the end. You can probably get a very good consise understanding of the benefits and downsides to compiler methods, assembly, .NET, and so on. There has been discussion about a "rating" system for the members, but it's been turned down, because in the end it doesn't hold too much merit. Who's to say that a group of buddies don't just give themselves good ratings (when in fact, they're the "bad crowd" so to speak)? There is a warning system in place here at MSFN, and I can assure you that it is used when appropriate. If you don't like a user's reply (it's rude, or flaming, or anything else inappropriate), you can use the report button, and the moderating team gets sent an e-mail with your comments and a link to the post in question. We can then take appropriate action.

Router, Opera, and nothing else. No anti-virus, no firewall (not even Windows). Been this way since August and no problems so far. With NOD32 that I had before that, there was only one time that I got something I didn't want, and that was my own fault (one of those "oh crap" moments).

This is exactly the kind of reply that we didn't want here. First off, it's a direct attack on Lost Soul, and secondly, it brings nothing but negativity to the table. I'm sorry that you felt annoyed with some of the responses that you got before, but if you stick around and ignore some of the flak that might come your way, I feel that you tend to get quality information around here. The search here is powered by the Google search engine. A couple of simple keywords and then a little bit of personal filtering will usually find you what you're looking for. I too love the information going around this forum. There's a lot of it, and it's usually pretty good. (And I'm not being sarcastic, either!) How can you tell that people are "young know-it-alls"? Some members post their birthdays in their personal profiles, but others do not. And to be honest, I've found the opposite to also be true. Some (not all) adults seem to have the impression that because they are older, they automatically have the right answer. I'm not saying this is the case with you, but I've seen it a number of times. You simply can't make generalized judgements about the "sub-25" age group.

Hahah.... nice.... Oh - and Tarun's right...

Doesn't happen to me here... are you using the latest Winamp? Any extra plugins?

Whoa... nice find gamehead! The Samsung drives aren't bad, and for $90, it's a pretty good price.

Good lord... 6000RPM? That's just insane. I've got 3 fans in my server - two 120mm Nexus fans, and one 80mm SilenX. The Nexus fans are running at 50% (6V) and are completely inaudible. The temperature inside the case stays at a nice cool 27C, and the CPU never goes above 45C. I really don't understand why you'd need that many high speed fans in your system. If you do, then I'd suggest that you try to create a more efficient airflow path. If you think that quietly cooling high power systems isn't possible, have a look at these two articles. You honestly can't say that there's any excuse to have a system that's that loud. Superquiet Superclocked DIY Core 2 Duo System Quiet DIY OC'ed Pentium D 830 System, Part Two I haven't taken a sound meter to my computer, but comparing it subjectively to some of the stuff over at SPCR's labs, it's probably in the 25dBA range. Let's just say that it's quiet enough so that I don't notice it until I stop doing whatever it is that I'm doing and listen. @Jeremy - Fanless cooling is usually expensive, and if it fails, you've got no backup whatsoever. You're better off going with the stock 120mm Nexus fans. If you want to control them further, get a decent fan controller, or you can make yourself a simple 7V mod from some spare molex plugs, and run the fan off that.

Umm... not really. The location of the drives makes a big difference in the cooling of the drives. I don't have any extra coolers on any of my hard drives, and the hottest one is my 200GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7. The highest temperature I've ever seen it at is about 45C. In my experience, hard drive coolers like the one you showed help with temperatures, but also result in noisier computers. And for $4, the quality of the fans can't be very high....

prankst3r - are you using AveDesk 2.0? Showcase enabled? I have no idea why it would work for your system but not mine...

And here it is... It's actually quite easy to do, and once you've got some quiet fans on there, it makes a really big difference to the overall noise levels.

First off - the Catalyst Control Center isn't the video drivers. It's the Control Center. The video drivers aren't getting more bloated - they improve speed. If you don't like the CCC, don't install it. Simple! And who said anything about how the "big AV programs" are bigger because they're faster? I said that the size wasn't the main concern of the majority of computer users. I never made any correlation between the size and speed of Norton. Again in this discussion, you disregard the real message... And if you're complaining about the disk space that Norton takes up, then I would really recommend re-looking at your personal budget and see where else you spend those $0.25 (and I'm being generous here when it comes to the disk cost). Efficiency is directly proportional to the speed and inversely proportional to the size. Any sources to back this up? Or is that just your own opinion? Many formal computer science courses don't really spend much depth going into discussions on software efficiency, because [1] they are reluctant to admit that software efficiency has decreased with time, [2] the amount of material that is written on efficiency is relatively sparse, and [3] they don't want to get into heated debates such as the one right here, that often begin to degenerate Is that so? I actually e-mailed the professor of the compiler course I sat in on about this exact topic. He essentially told me that all speed-critical applications are compiled with speed as absoute paramount. Space is not a primary concern with modern systems. People care about speed - not disk space. Like crahak already pointed out, the extra cost for more disk is far less than the extra cost for a faster processor. Let me give you a non-compiler example which follows the same argument. Databases. Which would you prefer - a database that was larger and faster, or smaller and slower? Anyone who deals with databases will gladly spend the extra money for the disk space required for a fast DB. If you think otherwise, your company is gonna go out of business real fast. Your example about SSE actually proves crahaks point exactly. SSE was designed to be faster. The code example you gave is faster using SSE instructions. He pointed out that SSE was designed for speed - not space savings, and you proved his point perfectly.

How do you define the "efficiency" of a compiled program? I've never seen anything of the sort come out of any of my courses that I've taken (and I sat in on about half the lectures of a course that teaches you how to make a compiler). The things that my assembly courses discussed was speed, speed, and more speed. What's the major complaint about people who rant about Norton? It's slow. Most people don't care (or perhaps don't even know) how much disk space it takes up, but what do they notice - the speed (or lack thereof). Video drivers usually also come with a performance increase. Anyone who's got a modern video card and wants to get the most performance out of it will probably be downloading the latest drivers as soon as they come out. Downloading a installing a single package is a pain? I've never heard anyone say that needing to install a framework is "stupid". I explain to them that it means that we can have better software made quicker, and they all go "Oh! That's a good thing then. Let's install it." I deal with a lot of "average joe" computer users, and not one has ever complained about the size of the JRE or .NET frameworks. Never. To be honest, MSFN is probably the only place where I've seen so much bickering over a programming language. Almost everytime that a program was been written in .NET (except for nLite... it's a "magical" .NET program that doesn't count in the discussion) you have the ".NET-haters" who come in and complain about it, before even having a look at what the app does! Oh but wait... ever since nuhi made nLite .NET based, a lot of the old anti-NET group have quieted down. Maybe they now see that nuhi's application is easier for him to develop, and that he can make a better program... To be honest, the only person who ever worries about filling up their hard drive with programs is my mother. That's in part my fault because I filled up our old 1.5GB hard drive with games like MechWarrior2 and the like. She even asked me if Office 2003 would fill up her 40GB drive! I said no... it'll be like one of those books on the bookshelf over there, and she was happy.

Yep - Antec Solo review by SPCR. Quite an amazing little case. It's probably what I'm gonna end up buying for my next purchased system.

I had posted a picture of the hard drives in my server (dubbed Deathstar) a while back (try to find the post about my CM Stacker case), but I'll post up a front-side view of this computer's suspended hard drives later on tonight. Correction - that's how Socket A/370 heatsinks go on. Yes - it's an ISA slot. Really old stuff, eh? And yea, the video card is slightly bent. It was that way when I got the system, but everything works as it is. I'm guessing it's just from the motherboard and rear panel being off by maybe a millimeter or so... *shrugs*

SilentPCReview - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 series Sadly, they're not the quietest in the bunch. Sure - for consumers it's the best warranty, but in my experience, if a drive outlasts a 3 year warranty, it'll probably outlast a 5 year as well. Oh - and another word of warning - never buy Maxtor. I can post a picture if anyone wants of 3 Maxtor hard drives that I have on my shelf that are all dead. All of these are not terribly old, but of the 4 maxtors that I've seen lately (in the past year or so), three have died. Not to mention - the one that's still running is a pretty old 10GB 5400RPM drive. It passes all diagnostics I've run on it, and SMART is reporting excellent results.

Here's my basic workstation - Lusankya. Antec SLK2650-B case with 350W SmartPower PSU (120mm fan replaced with TriCool on low) ASUS CUV4X motherboard Intel Pentium III 700MHz 896MB PC133 SDRAM 40GB 5400RPM Seagate HD Nvidia RIVA NT Video card Some random CD-RW And yes... it's running without a CPU fan. The coppermine PIIIs generate next to no heat, so it's crunching away at SETI@Home data and running at a cool 30C. B) The loudest part of this whole rig is the hard drive, which you can see is suspended. **** ball bearing hard drives! *shakes fist* Anyone wanna donate a FDB drive?

The motherboard would end up being vertical, so if the heatsink pulls on the CPU... EDIT - And... tada!!! Problem solved. With a little suggestion from puntoMX on MSN to bend the metal clip, we're back in business. I've just bent the clip to the point where it now squeezes the socket instead of tries to pull away. Ultimately, this way makes more sense IMO, since it's now actually wanting to stay on, instead of relying on the socket to hold it there. Have a look at the end result! So... I'm testing this heatsink without a CPU fan. My old setup was a basic aluminum heatsink with a 80mm Nexus fan, just to give it something. Temperatures were 22C/35C at idle/load. Now, with this heatsink with no fan, I'm getting 20C/39C. Not too bad for a passively cooled CPU.

Thanks for the update. On a side note... this is a pretty funny comic that I saw. - Link