EggXpert

Nokia Lumina 920 and Windows 8 Mobile Review

root — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 19:06:00 GMT

I was recently forced by my employer to switch from my Apple iPhone 5 to the Nokia Lumina 920. I've used both iOS and Android phones (both equally good in their own right), and I wasn't too thrilled with switching to yet another platform, let alone a Windows one. I mean, come on, my name is ROOT for crying out loud. But after using the phone for the past week, I'm... not as put off by the phone. Read on for my full review. Let me first start off with the surprise I had: It's gorgeous. I think both...(read more)

42, AMD, Intel, Microsoft and it's Windows 8 OS

FascistNation — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 12:20:00 GMT

AMD began shopping itself. Never a good sign. Bankruptcy usually follows if there are no takers.

Intel has taken some hits for lower sales reflecting perhaps the end of the desktop and even the laptop.

Are consumers who are the final word abandoning both in favor of cheaper, smaller, lighter, disposable battery powered handheld devices?

Windows 8 is clearly Redmond's spotting a trend and catching the wave. All of us Luddites who clack away on our keyboards had better get used to the Don't Call It Metro interface because where else are you going to go? It is an interface for smartphones and tablets. Voice recognition software is not far behind. These little devices already have the capability to cheaply add video projector, projected input interfaces, to watch us for our gestures, to obey our commands and translate others words to us. I see the universal translator and a net tied Uhuru's communications center along with the ship's computer carried in our pocket. Who needs anything else?

AMD has been working on 64-bit ARMs (currently 32bit only) for almost a year.

Intel has made great strides not only in shrinking incredible computing power, but in making that computing power amazingly more energy efficient and killing off one of AMD's prior advantages.

But Intel was not good enough to keep up with the low powered "just good enough" philosophy 32bit ARMs licensing and distribution now in so many consumer devices including the components of our computers. This was a profit line Intel missed or ignored. And now it is biting them in the a** again.

Windows 8 is supposed to come out in an ARMs version. 32-bit. Unlike typical Microsoft vaporware promises, I think this one will happen because Windows 8 is made for operating on the most successful processor or all: ARMs. Right now ARM's most successful OS is the Linux based Android OS which is found in 3 out of 4 smartphones. Linus Torvalds is both the wind and the lion.

Microsoft hopes so as it too has been fairing so-so in the stock market. It has taken an enormous gamble in not only the ahem Metro interface but compelling users to get used to it or die off. And why not? Where are desktop and laptop users going to go?

With cheap but powerful all-in-ones in your pocket who needs anything else? [Is ARMs powerful enough?]

I have been thinking about this. Feeling like a dinosaur. At 57 years of age I am someone who notices the fonts seem a lot smaller than I remember them being, the display screens seem a lot less brighter, the contrast a lot less well . . . contrast. So, that is one group (real dinosaurs) I see as not embracing the computer in a pocket technology.

I don't see corporations rushing to do so either. At least not to the complete abandonment of the desktop. A desktop PC is still something not easily stolen. It's interface known. Dinosaurs rule.

But a corporation and their competing businesses is composed of people. Mostly younger people who have computing power in their pocket and get work done through that. Sooner than the dinosaurs feel comfortable with they will be pressured to allow their staff to do their work on either their employee owned devices (not a good idea for a lot of reasons) because their employees can get more work done faster that way or give their employees access to those tools they can use so well.

Right now ARMs is not powerful enough to supplant Intel's or AMD's CPUs, but it is a RISC processor design. It is scalable. When it is scaled up will it remain low power consuming? Will it replace the needs of gamers, scientists, engineers, graphics artists and vidiographers? Will it replace the choice CPUs for servers?

Dinosaurs die off. Butterflies emerge and take off. We are living in the presence of inevitability. Embrace the suck. AMD may have. Microsoft may have. Intel is chewing a little less uncertainly these days. Linux is already there. But man, these old eyes --- maybe they need replacement.

Asus P8B75-M LX Motherboard Unboxing

danijelzi — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 18:42:00 GMT

I've recently started using the Asus P8B75-M LX, the latest motherboard with the Intel B75 chipset. I like how for $70 I got a micro ATX mobo with Ivy Bridge support, UEFI BIOS, and almost all necessary features for an everyday-use desktop PC. One of the nice surprises was GPU Boost. With one click in Asus AI 2 software I'm able to overclock the Intel HD integrated GPU on the Pentium G2120 from 1.05 to 1.25GHz. The main downside is a lack of HDMI.

Link: http://techonbudget.com/desktops/asus-p8b75-m-lx-motherboard-overview

Virtual Machines

root — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:03:00 GMT

I recently ran upon a thread about Virtual Machines (VM's) and Virtualization. I figured a post on this topic has been long over due. For those of you who don't know what VM's are, I HIGHLY recommend that you read on. This technology is a game changer, even if it's been around for quite some time. So let's just get right down to it. WHAT is it? A lot of people have different definitions of Virtualization but the way I think of it is that it's abstracting and decoupling SOMETHING from the hardware....(read more)

Over Clocking

HOGHAULER — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:48:00 GMT

OCing these days is relatively easy if you read the motherboard manuels. With the UEFI software that allows you to OC without going into BIOS and does a step by step procedure anyone with a little common sense can do it. Aw but here is the catch if you don't understand the facts about OCing and you don't know the limits for your rig you will endup with freezes, crashes, BSOD or possibly fry some component. You will definitely shorten the life of your CPU, ram and GPU depending on whether you OC 1, 2 or all 3 components.

Lets discuss the limits of your build: the first is the temperature at which the CPU can handle no matter whether it is AMD or Intel when the temprature exceeds the limit you will get either a freeze, a crash or a BSOD this is the system protecting itself. What are the temprature limits for my CPU you ask well here is where you must do some research, you go to the manufacturers web site and find your cpu specs and read that info till you find where they say max temprature that is the point you do not want to go past unless you are willing to pay the price. The next limit is the voltage for the CPU again as before you can find that at the manufacturers web site under the specs for your specific CPU a warning here the higher the voltage the more heat produced.

Let us look at the facts for OCing you will never be able to get below ambient temprature with normal cooling types (air & water), you will never get a stable OC if you don't learn to balance the OC or test it for stability.

Ambient temprature is the temprature around you or your rigg, say you like the cooler temps so you keep the house/apt at 70*F or 19*C your rigg produces heat so inside the case depending on the cases cooling and airflow the ambient temp would be about 80*F or 24*C this would put your CPU at about 100*F or 34*C (this is just an example) which would be at idle and a decent set of temps. Now as you are using your rigg and applying a load to it the temps will rise and your fans will start to raise in rpm to cool things off, this is where a good monitoring program comes in handy allowing you to keep an eye on the temps and possibly the rpms of your fans and the voltage changes.

Here is where we talk about balancing the OC: you want to keep the heat produced to a minimum and the voltage as low as you can while still getting the best OC you can for overall performance. Balancing these 2 major factors to your OC can get aggravating at times since until you test it under load you don't have any idea if its stable or not this is why we always recomend you do it in small steps and test after each OC (use either prim95 or OCCT). Just a reminder here make sure your PSU is strong enough and has enough watts and amps to power your OC as well as the rest of your components ( I have found that going from a 550 to a 610 to a 650 watt PSU has increased my OCing ability).

Time to discuss your case and its ability to cool and maintain a good airflow: You will get a lot of arguments over whether a positive or negative airflow is better in your case so here are the facts negative airflow or more air being exhausted than coming in has 1 major draw back and that is it sucks in dust thru every crack & creavice in your case. This means more time spent tearing your rigg down and cleanning out the dust. Positive airflow or more cool air coming in prevents this by exhausting air thru every crack & creavice in the case but still draws dust in thru the intake fans reducing the frequency of cleanning your rigg out. This is why some people look at cases that come with filters built in or ways to mod the case so they can install their own filters.My rigg sounds like a jet taking off when I'm doing intense work or gaming, how many times have you heard this or said it yourself? Yep that is all those fans running at high rpm trying to cool that poor rigg down and that is the trade off you face when OCing. How can I solve this problem you ask again its a matter of balancing the heat against the noise, you can install bigger fans that run at a lower rpm but produce the same amount of airflow (cfm) or you can buy a fan controllor so you can adjust the fans rpm or get fans that plug into the mobo allowing the BIOS to control the fans rpms.

Lots of info to digest, so I will continue later.

Now the first question that most people ask is what are the best settings for my rigg to get the best OC, well that is a nonanswerable question. Each rigg is different the CPU waffers vary from 1 to another each stick of ram is different and each mobo is different even the PSU can effect the OC. This is again why we stress small steps and stress test after each step. Normal use will not put that much of a load on your rigg so everything may work fine on a daily basis but you start doing heavy gaming or heavy CPU/ram usage programs and boom freeze, BSOD or crash and then you wonder why. The prim95 or OCCT stress test puts the system under a 100% load and gives you reports on how well your system handles the test this allows you to go back and fine tune things such as lowering the OC, raising the voltages, or lowering the fsbs.

Wondering how the PSU can effect an OC, well the higher demand for higher voltages to the mobo, CPU, GPU or ram can put a strain on the PSU depending on the wattage and amps your power supply is rated for. Using myself as an example my last rigg started with a Corsair 550 and I was able to hit 3.84ghz on the Q9550 but when I swapped it for a PCP&C 610 I was able to get to 4.0ghz and later upgraded to a PCP&C 650 hit 4.21ghz and this was from a stock 2.83ghz cpu.

There are those riggs with no UEFI capabilities so you have to go into the BIOS and change settings as well as enabling or disabling certain items in the BIOS. This is where your mobo manuel is very important and a must read before playing with those settings. Each manufacturer of mobos use different BIOS and each of them use different terminology for the functions in BIOS so I won't try to list all the stuff in BIOS since it is in their manuels and posted on their web sites for each mobo.

CPU COOLING

HOGHAULER — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:20:00 GMT

There are basicly 3 ways to cool your CPU, first is just by heatsink alone (not recomended these days), a heatsink with fan (air cooling) or third water cooling.

Now several things to know about cooling the CPU the cooler you keep it the better it runs and the longer its life expectancy. There are several laws of pyhsics you can not break when cooling your CPU whether by air or water and the first is you will never get the temps below your room/ambient temperature and second is that the more area you have to dissapate the heat the faster it will cool the CPU. The last statement will also depend on the fans and the amount of airflow you have in your case but we will discuss this later.

As to which heatsink and fan or W/C will work best again depends on the size of your case and the fan setup in your case. The biggest problem you face is dust and dirt in the air which will be pulled into your computer unless you are in a sealed hypoalagenic type enviroment and that is an expensive setup right there. So what can you do about that regular cleanning of your computers internal parts, use some type of air filters and use a positive airflow ( more cool air being drawn in than exhausted) which prevents dust being drawn in at every crack and crevice of your case or negative airflow (more air being exhausted than drawn in).

Cases will dictate what size heatsink and fan you can use as well as the weight of the heatsink and fan, yes I said weight some heatsinks and fans can weight more than 5lbs and if your motherboard is mounted verticialy this can and will put undue stress on your mobo and could cause damage to it over a period of time. When doing W/C again the case will dictate what type you can use either the sealed units or the W/C Kits where you have to put it together yourself or buy seperate parts and build it yourself. You will need to checkout how they are mounted and where you can mount them in/on your case.

I know about now some of you are screaming about what about those people that use liquid nitrogen to cool their computers and go to all those shows and show how cool they get their computers and those freezer setups to cool their computers, well if you got that kinda money more power to you but us average geeks can't afford that stuff or the licenseing to handle liquid nitrogen not to mention condensation buildup and how to handle that.. Enough said on that.

Most heatsinks and fans need at least 50+cfm to keep the cooling of the CPU down to a minimum since stock heatsinks & fans run about 35 cfm and can not really handle OCing the CPU very well and since they lay down on the mobo they do not direct the airflow towards the top or rear fans on air cooling. This is why a standup HSK&F unit is more advantagous to cooling. Now fan size will make a difference since the larger the fan the more air is moved depending on the rpm of the fan for example an 80mm fan may turn at 3,000 rpms to move 50cfm of air but the noise it makes is loud while a 120mm fan turning at 2,000 rpms will move 50cfm but with less noise produced (these figures are for example they are not exact) is easier on the ears.

Its time to discuss the case and how it can effect your CPU cooling: First off the dimensions of the case, the newer cases are mostly wider than 8" these days due to the height of the heatsink and fan which are running from 5" to 6.5". Those cases with side fans usually 25mm deep or 1" reduce clearance for the higher heatsinks add to this another 1" for the mobo and cpu plus the space beneath this is 2" to add to the height of your hearsink so now you are at 7" to 8.5" clearance room, get the picture. The next thing to consider is the airflow inside the case and the wire management, the less stuff blocking the airflow the better the cooling abilities so good wire management is a must.

Ok lets discuss water cooling for a while, there are 3 types of W/Cing sealed units, kits and DIY. The sealed units work well and will even keep the CPU a few degrees cooler than the air cooling but are limited by the tempratures in the case and the temprature of the room your computer is in. The cost is the next factor to consider is a few degrees worth double to triple the cost between air cooling and W/Cing with a sealed unit?

Kits for W/Cing can range from $150 to $380 or more and again will only make a few degrees difference but here you have to be good with your hands since you assemble it yourself and you don't want any leaks. The other drawback here is the kits are usually only for the CPU. Now the DIY W/Cing here you pickout the individual parts and do all the research to make sure they will fit your parts and your case and where you plan on mounting all the parts. The plus side to this is you decide where the parts go and whether or not you want a large radiator for the outside of the case and how strong a pump to push the coolant thru the system this will give you about 5* to 10*C cooler temps but at a much higher cost factor than a kit or sealed unit.

Predicting the Future - Technology

root — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 05:57:00 GMT

I always wanted to do this kind of post but never had the time to put words to paper (so to speak). So here it goes. I'll be covering a wide range of topics, as technology has many fields, but bare with me. Operating Systems With the introduction of the iphone, and I think more notably the ipad, Apple hit the nail on the head. When it comes down to it, technology, in the most basic essence as you can imagine, is meant to be a means to an end. What I mean by that is it's suppose to enable you to do...(read more)