colm

In a moment of movie inspired madness, Asus have released a trailer for their new motherboard! http://event.asus.com/sli/index.htm Not listened with the sound on, cause I'm at work, but I'm guessing it's surely the same guy as on all the video trailers "Beyond the mists of time, in a world beyond our ken..." Gets my juices going though! :-D

Thanks for the reply - I was about to go for the Tagan TG480-U01 480W Silent PSU , but at the last minute changed over to the Akasa 460W Active PFC 12cm Fan Ultra Quiet PSU - Black Nickel. 3 reasons for this really. 1. in quoted "normal" operation the Akasa was 2 dB(A) quieter (18). 2. My case is black and the Akasa is "black nickel" I don't know wwhat the tagan one is (product shot showed just the box) 3. Akasa was £10 cheaper Downside is obviously that the Akasa is 20W less beefy but I'll take my chances and see what happens when the time comes to plug in graphics card number 2 (at least 6 months from now...) New estimated mobo delivery date 20th December.... :-((

New estimated date of arrival 17th December, then it needs to get posted out to me. I'm not getting this before January am I? :-(

Hi folks, I've now got all of my goodies except my new motherboard, estimated arrival date is 12th December 2004... Hope I get it before christmas! http://uk.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a...-d/overview.htm The manual for the motherboard is online (uk site is broken) http://www.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket9..._sli_deluxe.zip My new graphics card states minimum psu at 450W, but it's an SLI graphics card and mobo, so I wonder what the power requirements are for 2 cards http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/cop...800_Series.html I'm looking for a !silent! psu that will support 2 sli graphics cards and the athlon 64 3500+ Looks like I need >= 500 from the motherboard manual, but the 450W requirement for a single graphics card alone has thrown me.... Can anyone shed any light? Thanks

Thanks for the tips! Ah, is that what the six pin thing is! I saw that recently on a new psu for another machine (300W... but it only cost me £4.50 from eBuyer!). Any ideas what the 4 pin square connector is for? It has the same moulding as a mobo connector, but just 2x2. Still waiting for Asus nForce 4 - 2nd or 3rd week of December.... -- Colm http://dearbbc.blogspot.com

Serialise the data and store it in a big binary field

I have a hauppauge winTV card (basic, no PVR etc) in my current PC and I cannot fault it. I'm not a huge fan of the Hauppauge software suite (winTV2000) but this may have been updated for the most recent cards. For tv viewing, I use an open source app called dscaler 4 - http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/ It doesnn't support all of the hardware out there, but if you're lucky you're in for a treat... Just got to thinking - wonder if my new card is supported. Hauppauge have actually licensed some of the technology of dscaler for their own application, so it's a cutting edge product, not just a run of the mill open source copy. -- Colm http://dearbbc.blogspot.com

Cheers XtremeMaC! The line in sony monitors (and in others) is only on CRTs - they are the horizontal wires that hold the vertical shadow mask in place. for more info on horizontal lines appearing on monitor: http://www.monitorworld.com/faq_pages/q28_page.html The doa laptops does sound like a problem with sony's qa - I'm hoping that the monitor will have the same quality one expects from the TV I'll look into plextor - cheers, see if I can find SATA II fast drives. XPpro does offer (with a little persuasion) the ability for me to log on as a PowerUser, which could be useful for old games, but I tend to happily use runas at the moment. The majority of my development is in cygwin or coLinux so no XP pro requirements there - and I only have 3 computers on my network - well 4 when I get my new boy :-) so domain login isn't quite required - and if it was I wouldn't use a windows server anyway... I'll happily save the £50 for home. My work laptop has 2Kpro on it - that's necessay for work. <frustrated> I just need to wait for the asus nForce 4 board to be released - currently early december, but that could slip... </frustrated> Cheers for those other silent higher power psu's I'll deff change over to one. -- Colm http://dearbbc.blogspot.com

> They did want to move to BTX power-supplies, but in all likelihood, compatibility with ATX will still be maintained. Oh thank goodness for that - it would be heartbreaking to wait on a component getting released, sent to the supplier and then shipped to me to find that I couldn't plug it in! >I really don't think such a standard [sATA 3Gb] exists. Sorry for not being precise, I checked the Serial ATA website, the correct name for the extensions to serial ATA is SATA II. Aka SATA 3Gb/s and SATA-300 However, I haven't named the spec at all thus far, I'm talking about the _speed_ of transfer. from the Mobo specs: - Supports AMD Socket 939 Athlon 64FX/Athlon 64 - PCI Express Architecture - SATA 3Gb/s - Dual RAID - Dual Gigabit LAN & AI NET2 - NV Firewall - AI NOS™ - AI Audio (8-channel Audio) cheers!

Thanks for the replies folks, I'm still waiting on my mobo to get released... one slight worry I have is a rumour I heard/read somewhere that the new nForce4 will require a different type of power supply connector? Anyone heard about that? >Wouldn't it be better look for FX-53? The processor I've chosen is a cost/benefit decision, by buying a very modern mobo and slightly dated proc, I keep the proc price down and keep an upgrade option open > does AMD64 3500+ have SSE3? Just a rumour I think - features listed as: 3DNOW!, 3DNOW!+, Intel MMX, Intel x86 Compatibilty, SSE, SSE2 > wtf is 3gb sata? SATA = Serial ATA current versions run at 1.5 Gb/sec - the new SATA runs at 3GB/sec, hecnce 3Gb SATA. Unfortunately the HDDs I've chosen run at 1.5 Gb/sec, but I like the redundancy and upgrade path. > get a bigger PSU Power supply was chosen specifically because it is silent. Not actually planning to overclock - getting h/w from overclockers because of service&price, but I'll consider power requirements for fans - read that I can o/c the processor quite a bit to make it run as a 3800+ Cheap upgrade path later when the machine gets tired (and after adding a new PCI Express to the SLi mobo) > u want to get 2 dvd writers? I like to have 2 drives, one for a current game say and one for music, dvd writers are so cheap these days >get a plextor Why? >get rid of that wireless crap. I'll stick with the wireless - I do play games - it's obv a hl2 machine! but I also have a desire to play in front of my tv that I've got cabled up to the pc, got an x10 mouse remote for playing media at the moment, but game playing is not possible, without huge trailing cables or a kvm solution - wireless makes this so easy - rechargable batteries make wireless painless I hope... Anyone else have experience of wireless they can share - is it really a no no no - or ok, but watch out for... logitech mx1000 - but I _like_ ms hardware.... ;-) > get XP pro afaik pro has nothing that I need - is there something specific that you know about that would be a benefit? > get samsung 19" considered a lot of monitors before the sony, I like and trust sony, my mate has a 10 year old sony 15" that is as bright as the day it first went on. I've got a sony 29" tv and a sony stereo and they both have long service medals. With that much trust built up in Sony, what overriding reason would make me choose a samsung monitor? (Just say it will play hl2 better and I'm probably sold!) >is that pci express card UK specific? Dunno, I just spotted it on oc's site - don't really know too much about it... > checkout www.asus.com check out the new pci express video cards they have out I'll have a look, I have great faith in Asus, my old Asus FX5200 in my current machine has given me great service

oops - meant to paste in the urls too - overclockers don't have a page per product, so you'll have to scroll for some of the items... graphics Leadtek GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-049-LT) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/cop...800_Series.html mobo Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-087-AS) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/asu...therboards.html proc AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-101-AM) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/AMD...#acp_2d096_2dam boot Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-007-WD) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/wes...gital_sata.html store Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500JD SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-010-WD) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/wes...gital_sata.html ms tax windows XP home oem http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Onl...Systems_20.html case+psu Antec Sonata Piano Black Quiet Case - 380W TruePower Silent PSU (CA-003-AT) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Antec_Cases.html ram Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200XL Pro TwinX (2x512MB) CAS2 (MY-050-CS) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Corsair_XL.html monitor Sony SDM-S94 19" LCD Monitor - Black (MO-001-SO) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/lcd18.html speakers Creative Inspire 7.1 T7900 Speakers - Retail (SP-039-CL) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/nTech.html dvd writer AOpen DUW1608 Chameleon 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter inc. Ivory/Black/Silver Bezels - Retail (CD-007-AO) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/DVD...#acd_2d020_2dpo dvd writer AOpen DUW1608 Chameleon 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter inc. Ivory/Black/Silver Bezels - Retail (CD-007-AO) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/DVD...#acd_2d020_2dpo keyb&mouse Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Elite - Retail (KB-032-MS) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Onl...nations_54.html tv card Leadtek Winfast TV2000 XP RM (Inc. Remote Control) TV Card - Retail (GX-047-LT) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/TV_Cards.html

Hi follks, the time has eventually come (well half life 2 was eventually released!) so I'm going to buy a new PC, I wonder does anyone have any input on this system I've been thinking about with all components from overclockers.co.uk I notice that the new nforce4 (which isn't actually out quite yet...) has 3Gb SATA, but I can't find any hard drives to match... lots of upgrade potential with the SLi, the processor, Ram and the hard drives (Raid and 3Gb SATA) will keep the machine fresh over the years graphics Leadtek GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-049-LT) mobo Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-087-AS) proc AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-101-AM) boot Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-007-WD) store Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500JD SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-010-WD) ms tax windows XP home oem case+psu Antec Sonata Piano Black Quiet Case - 380W TruePower Silent PSU (CA-003-AT) ram Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200XL Pro TwinX (2x512MB) CAS2 (MY-050-CS) monitor Sony SDM-S94 19" LCD Monitor - Black (MO-001-SO) speakers Creative Inspire 7.1 T7900 Speakers - Retail (SP-039-CL) dvd writer AOpen DUW1608 Chameleon 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter inc. Ivory/Black/Silver Bezels - Retail (CD-007-AO) dvd writer AOpen DUW1608 Chameleon 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter inc. Ivory/Black/Silver Bezels - Retail (CD-007-AO) keyb&mouse Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Elite - Retail (KB-032-MS) tv card Leadtek Winfast TV2000 XP RM (Inc. Remote Control) TV Card - Retail (GX-047-LT) -- Colm