Personal computing discussed

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by bfg-9000
Tue Oct 01, 2019 8:57 pm
Forum: Storage
Topic: HDD burn-in software for Windows?
Replies: 18
Views: 5534

Re: HDD burn-in software for Windows?

I suppose you can also do a lot of low-levelish stuff even without a driver. ATA commands thru SPTI, etc. Isn't that the point? Only the controller or BIOS can do low-level formatting because a driver cannot know where the sectors are . A filesystem block is an abstraction which the controller tran...
by bfg-9000
Sun Sep 29, 2019 9:37 pm
Forum: Storage
Topic: HDD burn-in software for Windows?
Replies: 18
Views: 5534

Re: HDD burn-in software for Windows?

Such a thing would probably require direct access to hardware which isn't allowed in Windows anymore. Spinrite has a manufacturer rated maximum speed of 120GB per hour--which is achievable only if it finds no errors. I've had it run for weeks at a time before so set up a dedicated testing station fo...
by bfg-9000
Sun Sep 29, 2019 8:58 pm
Forum: Windows
Topic: Resetting a laptop in preparation to sell
Replies: 8
Views: 5222

Re: Resetting a laptop in preparation to sell

Recovering data from flash that has been overwritten is expensive enough to require the resources of a government, which of course considers money to be free. So you really only need to focus on the free space--"deleted" files there are easily recovered because they aren't truly deleted at...
by bfg-9000
Sun Sep 15, 2019 7:03 am
Forum: Storage
Topic: Zeroing non-RAID controller firmware?
Replies: 11
Views: 3864

Re: Zeroing non-RAID controller firmware?

Makes more sense to just lift the power leg of the flash chip.

Unlike all of the socketed option ROMs I've removed, it's a lot easier to find again when most of it is still soldered on.
by bfg-9000
Sun Aug 25, 2019 1:27 am
Forum: Graphics
Topic: Best low profile video cards available (April 2018)
Replies: 345
Views: 480953

Re: Best low profile video cards available (April 2018)

I wonder why MSI did that with their GTX 1650 when their previous GTX 1050Ti low-profile had displayport? I suppose it does allow for use in those SFF cases that are single-slot but have room inside for a double-width heatsink. In any case ASUS just announced theirs and it looks about like the Zotac...
by bfg-9000
Fri Aug 16, 2019 12:27 am
Forum: Overclocking, Tweaking, & Cooling
Topic: Optimal Heatsink Fin Density?
Replies: 6
Views: 6705

Re: Optimal Heatsink Fin Density?

The limit to fin density for air cooling is not for performance reasons, as can be seen from the earliest extremely high-fin-density stamped sheet heatsinks like Zalman, which were much denser in places than anything sold today. I absolutely hated those things because while performance was pretty go...
by bfg-9000
Mon Aug 12, 2019 9:17 am
Forum: Windows
Topic: Is it possible to enable Ready Boost on secondary drive?
Replies: 5
Views: 6252

Re: Is it possible to enable Ready Boost on secondary drive?

Every time Intel comes out with another iteration of such technology, there are suddenly many questions afterwards about what you can do with a very small SSD--because no perceivable benefit can be noticed. Perhaps detectable in benchmarks (which invariably are run with the minimum possible RAM and ...
by bfg-9000
Sun Aug 11, 2019 10:46 pm
Forum: Windows
Topic: Is it possible to enable Ready Boost on secondary drive?
Replies: 5
Views: 6252

Re: Is it possible to enable Ready Boost on secondary drive?

At least how it was originally designed for Vista and Win 7, Readyboost was intended to only work on the primary drive (the system drive with Windows on it) and disables itself if that is a SSD (that is, the WEI disk score is over 5.9). It may well work if the SSD is a secondary drive, but performan...
by bfg-9000
Sat Aug 03, 2019 8:41 pm
Forum: Overclocking, Tweaking, & Cooling
Topic: Undervolt less stable and more aggressive throttling with Windows 10 + XTU update
Replies: 3
Views: 5475

Re: Undervolt less stable and more aggressive throttling with Windows 10 + XTU update

The Spectre and Meltdown mitigations have caused plenty of overclocking headaches, particularly the OS-level Intel microcode updates which have prevented HEDT overclocking at all in KB4346084 and KB4100347 included in build 1809+. Apparently this issue only occurs when the updated microcode does not...
by bfg-9000
Tue Jul 30, 2019 9:41 pm
Forum: System Builders Anonymous
Topic: Can I? Win95/98 on a dual P3 SuperMicro P6DGE
Replies: 19
Views: 4100

Re: Can I? Win95/98 on a dual P3 SuperMicro P6DGE

I found even WinME was perfectly stable when you used the original Win95 shell on it. That effectively disabled the active desktop crap from iE4/Win98 on that crashed all the time. Even if there are no drivers, it will run fine in MS-DOS 16-bit compatibility mode. But your board has the same PIIX4e ...
by bfg-9000
Wed Jul 24, 2019 12:11 am
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: Bedbugs FTL
Replies: 71
Views: 12741

Re: Bedbugs FTL

This thread is so old that if OP had just sealed up his condo and moved to one of his vacation homes back then, he'd be about ready to move back next month because it only takes ~300 days without blood to starve the bugs without any special application of heat. While they are now resistant to all ap...
by bfg-9000
Sat Jul 20, 2019 3:13 am
Forum: Overclocking, Tweaking, & Cooling
Topic: Sidegrading C2D
Replies: 20
Views: 7671

Re: Sidegrading C2D

Is it really surprising nowadays that Core 2 was 3x as fast as Pentium 4 at the same clock? Look up for example the Sunspider/Kraken benchmark numbers for yourself. When Core 2 came out in 2006, it was an incredible leap in performance, especially considering it was on the same node + all of the com...
by bfg-9000
Wed Jul 17, 2019 9:00 am
Forum: Hot Deals
Topic: Prime Day 2019 is two days
Replies: 8
Views: 5749

Re: Prime Day 2019 is two days

Well of course the rating is a worst-case number with a white screen and the gamma turned all the way up. I calibrated the plasma long ago and the brightness ended up being turned almost all of the way down, which is good since all three technologies: CRT, plasma and OLED can suffer from burn-in whi...
by bfg-9000
Tue Jul 16, 2019 7:34 pm
Forum: Hot Deals
Topic: Prime Day 2019 is two days
Replies: 8
Views: 5749

Re: Prime Day 2019 is two days

We need a new secondary TV. My 42" Westy is just sucking too much juice. CLose to 240W. Gosh when I was growing up our old RCA console CRT TV said 1000w on the back of it, which is probably why the cat liked to sleep on top of it. I have a plasma that says 660w so my current OLED that uses onl...
by bfg-9000
Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:40 pm
Forum: Overclocking, Tweaking, & Cooling
Topic: Sidegrading C2D
Replies: 20
Views: 7671

Re: Sidegrading C2D

I routinely repurposed business boxes for children to use, though their parents often seemed to take and use them for business purposes again once they noticed how well they ran with a SSD. Many are still actually in use today, and the Q6600s remain the only overclocked machines I built used in prod...
by bfg-9000
Mon Jul 15, 2019 11:00 pm
Forum: System Builders Anonymous
Topic: Retro Build
Replies: 31
Views: 8968

Re: Retro Build

350nm Rage XL (which was essentially a die-shrink of Rage Pro) from 1998 was finally replaced by the 180nm ATI ES1000 in 2007. The ES1000 was also PCI-bus and DX6 class with the same 8 million transistors as the Rage XL so was probably mostly a die-shrink of Rage XL. So brand new server boards came ...
by bfg-9000
Mon Jul 15, 2019 10:24 pm
Forum: Overclocking, Tweaking, & Cooling
Topic: Sidegrading C2D
Replies: 20
Views: 7671

Re: Sidegrading C2D

There's nothing wrong with dual-channel if it lets you install more RAM--if the frequency matches the FSB then there is no latency penalty, you just can't take advantage of the doubled bandwidth. Unfortunately G41 only officially supports 4GB of DDR3 (or 8GB of DDR 2 ) You may be thinking of those 1...
by bfg-9000
Mon Jul 15, 2019 2:19 pm
Forum: Overclocking, Tweaking, & Cooling
Topic: Sidegrading C2D
Replies: 20
Views: 7671

Re: Sidegrading C2D

As I explained before, there's no benefit to dual-channel with DDR3 here because it has enough bandwidth in a single channel already to fully saturate the FSB. The bandwidth improvement you observed going from 266 to 306 is entirely because you increased the bottleneck of the FSB itself. Is there a ...
by bfg-9000
Sun Jul 14, 2019 6:51 pm
Forum: Overclocking, Tweaking, & Cooling
Topic: Sidegrading C2D
Replies: 20
Views: 7671

Re: Sidegrading C2D

G41 is indeed limited to around 340/1360 FSB without going to silly Northbridge voltages, due to the artificial lack of slower straps. 333/1333 is perfectly fine on it and would be the stock, supported FSB with any 6MB cache Wolfdale installed. At 1333 FSB, the bandwidth between the CPU and the memo...
by bfg-9000
Sun Jul 14, 2019 9:11 am
Forum: Overclocking, Tweaking, & Cooling
Topic: Sidegrading C2D
Replies: 20
Views: 7671

Re: Sidegrading C2D

The 3MB cache is 12-way set associative, while the 2MB cache is 8-way set associative. I expect this is an edge case where searching through more blocks slows the L2 cache, because there is no improvement in hit-rate to offset this with 7-zip as it's already 100%, while both that and the larger cach...
by bfg-9000
Sun Jul 07, 2019 3:43 pm
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: Something's different...
Replies: 1628
Views: 328152

Re: Something's different...

Well if the site is going to resemble Overclockers.com, I hope it does not also go to the same model where amateur members produce all the original content too
by bfg-9000
Sun Jul 07, 2019 3:10 pm
Forum: Graphics
Topic: HDMI stuck on 30 refresh even at 800x600,help!
Replies: 2
Views: 2336

Re: HDMI stuck on 30 refresh even at 800x600,help!

What happens when you force the refresh rate (and 1920x1080 32-bit) in Display Setting-->Advanced Display Settings-->Display Adapter Properties-->List all modes button?

If the screen goes blank then something in the chain doesn't have enough bandwidth, like the cable.
by bfg-9000
Fri Jul 05, 2019 5:58 pm
Forum: Cases and Power Supplies
Topic: new PSU now SATA drives won't load
Replies: 24
Views: 12324

Re: new PSU now SATA drives won't load

To be fair, the ATX spec does not mention anything about modular cables at all, and in fact using them makes it harder to meet the required electrical and ventilation specifications. Modular cables were something invented by the PSU manufacturers themselves in order to cater to the tidy-case crowd, ...
by bfg-9000
Tue Jul 02, 2019 2:11 pm
Forum: Cases and Power Supplies
Topic: new PSU now SATA drives won't load
Replies: 24
Views: 12324

Re: new PSU now SATA drives won't load

For decades when flash was expensive, the standard practice was to put the firmware (the drive's OS) as well as the locations of any relocated sectors onto a hidden service track on the spinning disk media itself. The controller board would only contain the BIOS/CFE needed to boot the firmware. This...
by bfg-9000
Tue Jul 02, 2019 1:56 pm
Forum: Storage
Topic: Mitsubishi's Verbatim, Known for Optical Media, Sold to CMC
Replies: 10
Views: 2947

Re: Mitsubishi's Verbatim, Known for Optical Media, Sold to CMC

CMC Magnetics' media always had an iffy rep and I would intentionally avoid the "Life Series" Verbatim made by them, but perhaps now that they own IP of both Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden (which they acquired in 2015), things may change for the better. Wouldn't count on it though, as I remember...
by bfg-9000
Mon Jul 01, 2019 4:21 am
Forum: Cases and Power Supplies
Topic: new PSU now SATA drives won't load
Replies: 24
Views: 12324

Re: new PSU now SATA drives won't load

Both of those PSUs are modular. You didn't happen to use one of the Corsair strings on the EVGA, did you? That could instantly fry every drive attached to that string.
by bfg-9000
Thu Jun 27, 2019 9:11 pm
Forum: System Builders Anonymous
Topic: Retro Build
Replies: 31
Views: 8968

Re: Retro Build

Slimbrowser may work, but it's Windows-only. Last updated Oct 2017. Midori uses Webkit last used in Chrome v27, while Blink quit working after Chrome v34 in Apr 2014 . I was always sad to see people who confused the excellent Thermalright with Thermaltake. It probably didn't help that the Thermaltak...
by bfg-9000
Thu Jun 27, 2019 8:50 pm
Forum: General Software
Topic: Help me understand where my hard drive space has gone...?
Replies: 27
Views: 8615

Re: Help me understand where my hard drive space has gone...?

Clearly, OP still has a scratch disk set on C: if files are still being written there. Photoshop is supposed to delete the temp files on program close, but has been pretty bad about doing so since Vista--perhaps because of a permissions issue? It's probably just as well to leave the 1st scratch on t...
by bfg-9000
Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:55 am
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: Need new tires
Replies: 13
Views: 2288

Re: Need new tires

As opposed to the American automotive press, who only seem to do a small tire test every five years or so, the European press runs tests all the time. Be aware though that some tire models sold here may be completely different from what is sold over there despite sharing the same model name.
by bfg-9000
Wed Jun 12, 2019 7:55 pm
Forum: System Builders Anonymous
Topic: Retro Build
Replies: 31
Views: 8968

Re: Retro Build

I replaced all of my 256k cache Tualatin Celerons 10 years ago when StarMicro dropped their price for brand new 512k cache PIII-S 1400 to US$6 each to clear them out (the price stayed there for over a year on Pricewatch, so nobody wanted them). The whole batch I got was a matching lot, but then I on...
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