Back Issues Of News From The Pot

Monday January 01, 2001

More Win2k Tips! 02:35 AM IDT Adrian Wong

I have just posted Rev. 2.0 of the Windows 2000 Hints & Tips Guide! Here's what's new in this revision :-

Added a new tip on how to quickly access the Task Manager.
Added a new tip on how to disable DHCP for a quicker boot time.
Corrected numerous minor formatting, spelling and HTML errors throughout the entire guide.

Check it out! :D

PS. I forgot to mention that several tips now have more than 1 page. Also, you may need to refresh the pages in order to see the updated pages.

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Happy New Year! 01:05 AM IDT Adrian Wong

On behalf of the whole ARP team, I wish you all a very Happy New Year! May the new year bring you new fortunes!

The year 2000 has truly been a challenging year for ARP. For over 3 months, it was put out of action but the irresponsible actions of my previous host's service provider. But thanks to my new host and all of you, ARP has risen from the ashes.

In fact, in the 4 and a half months since ARP started up again, ARP has expanded into a team of several writers with various interests. This enables us to produce articles of a wider range than have been previously possible. In fact, we have started writing articles and reviews on the Pocket PC as we believe in its future.

As per the rojak pot philosophy, we will continue to expand our scope and range of articles. And of course, we will always strive to improve our writing skill and technical knowledge in order to write better articles. I know that we may not have the slickest or the most professional layout. In fact, the layout currently doesn't even work properly in Netscape! Sorry about that - my incompetence with HTML shows. :)

But that is all slated to change in 2001. I have big plans for ARP in 2001 (one that includes a new layout) but because I don't even have a fraction of the resources that most hardware sites have, I hope you will be patient while we work with what little resource we have!

BTW, if you are a WinCE programmer who has some experience developing software for Pocket PCs or if you are interested in joining the ARP team, please do contact me.

In the meantime, enjoy the new articles we will be posting!

Comments?

News From The Net

Rizenet posted a short review of the Yellow Rounded Cables from HighSpeedPC.com. Here's a quote from them - "Nothing but the essentials. Honestly, how much can we say on rounded cables?"

OverclockerCafe is giving away a Leufken Socket Peltier Kit!

Speedy 3D posted an article on the current state of AMD as a gaming platform. Here's a snip - "When the first batch of K7 supporting boards ventured onto the market some issues, often serious, with AGP timing, interference and voltage caused many graphics cards (not just Nvidia) to be unstable. You had to click down into AGPx1 or turn it off altogether if you wanted games to be 100% stable, thrusting forward into x2 mode brought system hangs and general 3D instability."

Maxx Overclocking reviewed the Visioneer 6200 USB scanner

Tuesday January 02, 2001

Pocket PC Users Help Needed! 03:10 AM IDT Adrian Wong

I'm currently preparing a performance comparison article on Pocket PCs and I would like to enlist your help in obtaining performance data on the various Pocket PCs out there. So, if you own a Pocket PC, do consider helping us create a definitive Pocket PC performance guide. Click here for more details!

Comments?

Golden Oldies 01:40 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Reflecting on how ARP has developed over the last two and a half years, I decided to start porting over the articles from the old ARP site again. I dug into the archives and came up with the two articles below. Hope you enjoy this blast to the past! :)

MMX And Beyond - "Almost everyone must have heard about MMX one way or another and the only thing most know is that they must have it or their machine will be inferior somehow. So what's behind it, what's it useful for and what's happening now that all new processors have MMX? I'll be taking you through these questions and hopefully more.."
Jim Navas, Troll Of The Net - "I don't know if he's psycho, but he's certainly an elitist. And of the worst type because all he does is shout about our "ignorance" but refuses to explain his supposedly superior knowledge. Leads me to believe that he doesn't really know either. I wonder if he lives in a run down shack in Montana?"

Comments?

News From The Net

NTCompatible updated their game tuning guide for Windows NT/2000 with a tip on increasing application timeslice for higher speed.

Thursday January 04, 2001

See You Later! 03:10 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Okay... it's really late... well, early now. Gotta catch some sleep before my classes in the morning.

BTW, if you are a Pocket PC user, don't forget we need your help in creating the definitive Pocket PC performance guide! Check out the details and send us your results!

Another Win2k Tip 02:40 AM IDT Adrian Wong

I was supposed to come up with something more substantial today. Unfortunately, I had to spend countless hours working on that ACPI problem. Too bad, I couldn't come up with a solution. Luckily, I managed to finish off another tip for the Windows 2000 Hints & Tips Guide.

This tip should help you save a couple of megabytes of RAM using the Services tool. Pretty nice in my opinion. With that, the guide is now up to rev. 2.1. Check it out!

Comments?

ACPI Horror! 02:15 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Tuesday night, I experimented with ACPI and Windows 2000. Someone mailed me a tip about Windows 2000 not detecting ACPI correctly during installation, therefore requiring a manual change of the system type from Standard PC to ACPI PC.

It was a simple change, really. But to my chagrin, Win2k hung right after the reboot with these horrifying words printed on the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) - Inaccessible Boot Device! Luckily, my Win98 installation on another partition was still running.

So, I spent the rest of the night and the whole of Wednesday trying to figure a way out of the problem. After all, it's only ACPI, right? I didn't mess with anything really dangerous but my Win2k was thoroughly screwed.

Finally, I resigned myself to the fact that there would be no quick and painless way out of this mess. I spent the afternoon backing up my hard disk and then repaired my Win2k installation. However, that meant that I lost all my settings and lots of other stuff.

Anyway, I guess the moral of this pathetic story is not to mess with ACPI. If you want to ACPI support, enable it in the BIOS before installing Win2k. If you made the mistake of disabling ACPI in the BIOS and then installed Win2k, it would not be a good idea at all to try this questionable tip of manually switching the system type in Win2k from Standard PC to ACPI PC.

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News From The Net

BlueSmoke posted a review of American McGee's Alice.

RipNet UK posted a review of the Thomson VMD2S digital camcorder.

OCAddiction posted a review of the ThermalTake SuperOrb cooler. Here's a clip - "I think it's quite safe to say the Thermaltake SuperOrb is a very high quality HSF unit. Even though it was built to work wonders on the AMD socket A's, it still has something to offer those of us running Intel P3 FC-PGA's."

G3D posted a review of the Artic Adhesive, a new epoxy designed by the dudes at Articsilver.com to replace frag tape.

Friday January 05, 2001

Help Needed! 04:00 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Also, if you are a programmer familiar with Windows CE and the Pocket PC, we would like your help in developing a proper benchmark for the Pocket PC. We have lots of ideas on what the perfect Pocket PC benchmark should be but we need your help in making this a reality. So, contact us! :)

Comments?

Font Caching Guide Updated! 03:25 AM IDT Adrian Wong

The guide has been updated with important information (from the author of PalmTweak, Toru Imai) on the Font Cache's size and why VOBenchmark won't show the performance benefits of increasing the cache size. Here's a clip of that guide :-

"Inside, there are some pretty nice features although there's nothing that would enable us to improve the performance of the Pocket PC. Except for one feature, that is - Font Caching. Granted, the Pocket PC was never meant to be a speed demon but I'm sure we could all do with a shorter delay when switching between programs or while loading up processor-intensive software like Microsoft Reader. :)

So, what does Font Caching do? Will it actually boost the Pocket PC's performance? Let's find out!"

Comments?

News From The Net

Combustión posted a review of the Transcend TS-ASL3 motherboard. In Spanish though...

Jsi Hardware posted a short review of the ABIT SH6 motherboard.

Active-Hardware posted a review of the ECS K7VZA motherboard. Snip - "The ECS K7VZA is an ATX form factor Socket A motherboard. Like the K7VZM that came before it, the K7VZA is based on the VIA KT133 chipset, but features greater expendability, and support for PC133 and VCM memory, as well as ATA66 drives. The K7VZA also happens to include a Codec Avance ALC100 circuit in its wiring, which is essentially an AC"97 sound-card."

Hardwareluxx posted an Award BIOS Guide but it's all in German...

Overclocker Cafe posted their $20 heatsinks shootout!

3Dn posted a LED modding article.

Overclockers Online posted their review of the Alpha PAL6035 cooler!

Tech-Planet posted their review of the ABIT BE6-II motherboard. Check this snippet out - "Even when socket processors were being made, Abit brought out their BE6-II Mainboard, a updated, revamped version of the original BE6. This newer version included a HPT366 Bios for the ATA66 drives. This was updated to HPT370 with the release of the BE6-II Rev1.2""

TweakTown reviewed the Epox 3SPA3L i815EP motherboard. Here's a snip - "This is the fastest Intel 815 we have tested and is also one of the most stable ATX motherboards we have ever tested. Epox have done a good job with the 3SPA3L, this is something we have become to expect from Epox lately with their newest boards based on all different chipsets, not just the Intel 815EP."

HardwareZone posted a review of the Elitegroup P6VXA Socket 370 motherboard. Here's a clip - "The P6VXA is a simple board with acceptable performance and stability. It is suited for general usage and not meant for any fancy overclocking. If you're looking for a simple motherboard for leisure or work, you won't go wrong with the P6VXA. Elitegroup has been known to produce good motherboards, and I for one, am still using their old P6BX-A+ board to this day."

FrostyTech reviewed the Thermal Buster Heatsink from KWO GER Metal Technologies!

HardOCP posted their Hardest of 2000 Awards! Here's a blurb from Kyle - "In this first week of the new millennium, we look back to the first year of the new century and pick out the biggest and the brightest...or what we like to call...the [H]ardest of 2000. No BS 20 page write up either, just the facts. And no, we did not even include sound cards, was there any other to get besides the SBLive! ?? ;)"

Saturday January 06, 2001

More On The ACPI Win2k Disaster 10:10 AM IDT Adrian Wong

It has already been four days since the disaster but my Win2k isn't fully functional yet. Well, Win2k itself is okay now, after hours of registry editing (horror!!) but several other applications still won't work and will probably need reinstalling. For example, ICQ keeps trying to connect to the server but doesn't quit trying if the connection isn't there as it normally does. Weird, eh?

Also, downloading certain files from the Internet is now impossible as well if the file cannot be accessed directly. Certain sites like CNet will redirect your file requests so that you can't use GetRight or a similar download utility. However, for some reason, their redirect now won't work and there's no way I can download from such sites now. <sigh...>

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Disk Cache Optimization 09:00 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Here's another ARP guide that many of you have been clamouring for. Sorry it has taken so long but I had to redo all the charts and edit the article. Anyway, it's now ready for viewing! Here's a clip from the Disk Cache Optimization Guide :-

"Naturally, this degrades performance as the program now has to use the much slower swapfile, instead of the RAM. Also, it was found that increasing disk cache had diminishing gains. That means that increasing your disk cache from 32MB to 64MB of RAM won't boost overall hard disk performance as much as an increase from 4MB to 8MB of RAM. On the other hand, many programs' performance are degraded when deprived of RAM by the disk cache and forced to run using the swapfile. Hence, it is now important for us to control how much RAM is allocated to the disk cache so that there is a balance between hard disk and program performance."

Comments?

News From The Net

PC Rivals posted an update to their Frugal LANbox project.

Active-Hardware posted a review of the DFI AK74-AC. Damn... one of these days, DFI is going to name one of their boards as the HK MP5... heheh...

Overclocking.dk posted their Matrox G450 review! Here's a clip - "This can be a GREAT card for some and completely unusable for others. The professional 2D user will trilled with the great 2D quality but the hardcore gamer will think its to slow and the overclock will avoid this card because it can’t even run at 75 MHz on the AGP port..."

Overclockers Online reviewed two hard disk coolers from Just Cooler!

3Dn posted an article called "Case Modding - An Epic Adventure - Part 1"

A new site called OCForce posted these two articles :-

a Fanbus How-To
a review of the Senfu Temperature Monitor

Extreme Overclocking posted their review of the Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical!

AMDMB reviewed the first available AMD 760 motherboard - the Gigabyte 7DXC!

HardwareOC takes a look at AOpen's AX3S Pro motherboard!

OC Addiction is giving away a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX reference card! Check out the details here!

Apu's Hardware reviewed the Plextor 12/10/32X ATAPI (IDE) CD-R drive. Here's a snip - "This drive is packed with 12X write speed. It's got 32X read, which means it's fast enough to be used as a normal CD-ROM drive, too. In the time since the drive was released only one other drive has come out which is faster - the Yamaha 16X."

Speedy 3D posted an article on the progression of Counter-Strike.

HardwareZone posted these two reviews :-

a review of the Dell Inspiron 4000 notebook.
a review of the Cardexpert GeForce2 MX 32MB SDR graphics card

Sunday January 07, 2001

Note About Old ARP Articles 02:00 PM IDT Adrian Wong

Hey everyone... just wanted to remind you that the old ARP articles were just ported with graphs changes and some editing done only. The benchmark results are all from the old articles so please don't ask me why I didn't use a more up-to-date benchmark like Quake 3 or 3DMark 2000! :D

Anyone With A Pocket PC? 01:35 PM IDT Adrian Wong

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Blurb 01:20 PM IDT Adrian Wong

I just resolved the ICQ issue by reinstalling ICQ. I guess that's the only way to get the rest of the apps working again... Still, one problem still remained. Whenever I start up, Win2k now automatically opens up My Documents. Weird... I will have to check and see if I have mistakenly set it to do so.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you better take a look here.

Comments?

New Binaries 11:55 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Ken Ng has been pretty busy these days but he has managed to update the Binaries Storage Area with three new Detonator 3 (Rev. 6.31) drivers for NVIDIA cards. Check them out!

News From The Net

G3D posted their review of the Leadtek WinFast GeForce2 MX DH Pro graphics card! This MX sports a TV-Out, shiny big ole heatsink, and other features.

Rizenet posted a short review of NerdsByte.com's MiniSinks - "I installed them one MiniSink per one DDR SDRAM module on my MicroStar GTS. The heatsinks are far larger than the DDR SDRAM, so installation is very easy. This did however cause a little scare as to how close my MiniSinks would be to the Blue Orb. It's a tight fit, but they do sit fine without touching. The "pre-applied" thermal tape is a nice touch, but I wish they would offer them without the tape, so users could opt for Arctic Silver paste. You could try to remove the thermal tape, but I wouldn't advise it - it's on there good!"

GideonTech posted a review of the Arctic Silver Thermal Epoxy. Here's a snip - "The options at this point for most of us are usually limited to thermal tape or epoxy. I do not know about the rest of you, but I have found the 3M brand of tape to be insanely difficult to apply. Attempting to remove both sides of the backing off that film (whose thickness can only be measured at the sub-atomic level) and then apply it without damaging the stuff is nearly impossible, although..."

Spode's Abode posted a review they did of the Senfu watercooling kit!

TweakTown is hosting a contest! Check it out!

Extreme Overclocking reviewed the Wind Tunnel Plus mid-tower casing from the CoolerGuys.

BlueSmoke posted an article called "Introduction to Programming".

Monday January 08, 2001

Chunksize Optimization Guide 03:20 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Here's another ARP guide from the ARP archives. Again, I redid all the charts and edited the article but the benchmark results remained the same. Anyway, it's now ready for viewing! Here's a clip from the Chunksize Optimization Guide :-

"But what exactly is chunksize and what has it got to do with the disk cache? Well, to organize the data stored in the cache, the RAM used for the cache is divided into smaller units, just like hard disk space. Each of these units or chunks of cache are now like containers in which Win98 can store cached data. The size of each chunk is the chunksize of the disk cache. Like the dimensions of a container, it limits the amount of data that each chunk can store. So, the smaller the chunksize, the less data can be stored in each but there will be consequently more chunks per MB of cache. But what's the significance of this fact?"

Comments?

News From The Net

TweakersAsylum posted a review of the MSI K7T Pro Socket A motherboard. Here's a clip - "The MSI k7T PRO was MSI's first offering for the VIA KT133 chipset and also one of the very first to hit the market. The MSI k7T PRO doesn't offer some of the features that you can get from MSI's newest KT133 motherboards, but it has just about everything the "normal" computer user would need."

Overclocker Cafe posted their Silver Tool Heatsink review. It isn't really made out of silver but it does have three fans!

LittleWhiteDog.com is hosting a new contest in which you stand a chance in winning the In & Out PC Air Circulator and boxed copies of 3DMark 2000 and Video 2000.

Tech-Planet reviewed the AMD Athlon 800 processor.

HardwareZone posted a review of the Epson Stylus Color 880 inkjet printer - "As you can see from the test results, the Stylus Color 880 is no slouch in terms of speed, especially for economy and standard mode printing. Where it tends to drag a bit is at the very high end--1440 dpi and 2880 dpi. But this is expected given the amount of data transferred from the source to the printed pages. Our only dislike is the skimpy four sheets of Epson Photo Paper bundled with the unit and the slight mechanical roller traces (common to most inkjet printers) left on low-resolution color print-outs."

Rizenet posted their review of the Intel D815EEA motherboard. Here's a clip - "Everyone knows Intel makes processors and chipsets, among other things. But you just don't hear too much about Intel motherboards. Sure, lots of OEMs use them, Dell for one, but what about the average computer builder? How does Intel's design compare to other motherboard manufactures? Let's find out."

TweakTown has reviewed the CoolerGuys' Wind Tunnel Plus ATX mid-tower casing.

Apu's Hardware has metamorphosized into Icrontic! Check out their new site!

Tuesday January 09, 2001

Odd BIOS Tip 04:20 AM IDT Adrian Wong

It's not an weird BIOS tip but rather, a BIOS tip that I haven't been able to add to the BIOS Optimization Guide yet. Anyway, this tip is regarding the CPU Drive Strength that you will most probably see in motherboards like the ABIT KT7. Alternative names include CPU Push/Pull Strength.

This controls the signal strength from the North Bridge to the CPU. The default for this feature is usually 2 but if you are overclocking, you should increase it to 3 for greater stability. BTW, setting it to 3 does not decrease performance. It merely increases the signal strength to improve the stability of the system when overclocking. However, ABIT recommends that you set it to 2 if you are not overclocking.

Comments?

Reminders 04:05 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Also, I'm currently preparing a performance comparison article on Pocket PCs and I would like to enlist your help in obtaining performance data on the various Pocket PCs out there. So, if you own a Pocket PC, do consider helping us create a definitive Pocket PC performance guide. Click here for more details!

Finally, if you are a programmer familiar with Windows CE and the Pocket PC, we would like your help in developing a proper benchmark for the Pocket PC. We have lots of ideas on what the perfect Pocket PC benchmark should be but we need your help in making this a reality. So, contact us! :)

Comments?

News From The ABIT Grapevine 03:30 AM IDT Adrian Wong

ABIT will most probably be announcing the release of their AMD 760 motherboard sometime this week. It will be called the ABIT KG7 and it will come with a feature that no other AMD 760 motherboards have. I couldn't get much other than that but it's probably an extra hardware feature.

Note that the KG7 is not an OEM board. According to ABIT's internal nomenclature, only boards with a -20 in their model numbers are OEM-only motherboards which will not be available for retail sales. The KG7, as far as I know, will be for retail sale. Yahooo!!! :D

Oh yeah... remember @Flash? Well, it's been renamed to FlashMenu. SoftMenu... FlashMenu... it rhymes! That's all the ABIT-related news I have for now. Check back later for more on the ABIT KG7.

Comments?

News From The Net

TweakPC posted a review of the Silverado, a new, special cooler!

Technoyard posted their review of the Jazz Speakers DE-006 and DE-005 Dolby Digital decoders! Here, check out this clip - "Jazz Hipster Corporation, one of the largest suppliers of multimedia speakers recently announced the release of their newest audio products, the DE-005 and DE-006 5.1 Digital Audio Decoders. Adding real Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 channel audio output to PC-DVD systems, DVD players and other similar devices, they are a must have if you're any kind of a audio buff."

Active-Hardware reviewed the Gigabyte GA-7ZXR motherboard. Here's a snip - "After all, it comes equipped with a RAID ATA100 controller - the Promise Technologies PDC20265 to be precise - and that's something that definitely puts this baby in the same league as the big boys in the server department. Not only that, but our newest contender also comes equipped with DualBIOS technology, a suite of interesting features, and a CT5880 audio chipset that can compete with the Soundblaster PCI-128."

3Dn posted Part 2 of their Case Modding Adventure. Man... what's all this deal about case modding??? ;)

HardOCP posted Part 3 (Guide to Painting) of their Case Mod article.

Overclocked Cafe posted a review of the Dell Dimension 8100 system!

Game Forces posted their review of the DTI Virtual Window 2018XL LCD monitor.

The House Of Help posted an article called "FPS Per Dollar".

Wednesday January 10, 2001

NVIDIA Press Release 04:10 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Here's the latest from NVIDIA! It appears that NVIDIA has finally entered the Mac market. Apple will now ship their Power Mac G4 systems with a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX inside! Check out the full press release!

Comments?

Pocket PC Benchmarking Guide 03:40 AM IDT Adrian Wong

No... this isn't a full-blown article per se. Rather, this is just the benchmarking methodology I'll be using for the Pocket PC Performance review I'm hope to do. I think some of you have already seen it before. However, I have updated it with a new file benchmark. This time, the benchmark is much, much smaller. Coming in at only 1.65MB compressed, this smaller benchmark will enable faster and easier benchmarking.

In addition, I also added more information on how to use the benchmark. So, you will be able to check out what you will need to do before you download the benchmark. So, check out this small benchmarking guide and send us your results! :)

Comments?

News From The Net

Icrontic posted a review of the alternative web browser - Opera 5.01.

X-Bit Labs posted a review of the AMI HyperDisk100 IDE RAID controller.

Active-Hardware posted their review of the ABIT KT7-RAID motherboard!

HardOCP did a shootout of the KT133 vs. KT133A chipsets!

TweakTown reviewed the Raytek MiniTemp MT4 portable, non-contact thermometer. Here's a snip - "The MT4 uses infrared thermometers which measure the surface temperature of an object using a laser. The MT4 optics are sense emitted, reflected and then transmitted natural energy (which all objects have - however, you will find that if you point the MT4 at the sky it will register a temperature, the sky does not have a surface, it registers a temperature because of the density of the atmosphere you point it at) is collected from the object and focused back onto a "detector", on the gun. The information is then collected by the detector and converted into an electrical signal at the decoder stage and is then translated into a temperature reading which is displayed on the LCD display."

SystemLogic.net posted an article on "Why Intel Is Two-Faced"!

I Am Not A Geek posted a review of the ABIT VP6!

BlueSmoke reviewed Interplay's latest title - Giants : Citizen Kabuto!

TweakMax posted a fan replacement mod for users of the ABIT KT7 or other motherboards with a low-quality chipset fan.

OCAddiction picks the Best and the Worst of 2000!

PC Stats reviewed the Samsung 750s 17" monitor.

Friday January 12, 2001

New E-Mails 04:40 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Oh yeah... Did I tell you that ARP now has new e-mail addresses? If you want to send us news or information, send it to news@rojakpot.com. And if you want to contact me directly (not the other ARP team members), I can now be reached at awsh@rojakpot.com. Just make sure you state the topic clearly in all your e-mails so that we don't accidentally delete your mails because they look like the tons of junk mail we get everyday! :)

More info...

New BIOS Options Posted! 04:40 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Sorry about the delay. Was fiddling with my new e-mail account, trying to get it to work. Anyway, the newly updated BIOS Optimization Guide is now up for viewing. Now at revision 5.4, here's the list of new BIOS functions covered :-

Fast R-W Turn Around
CPU to PCI Write Buffer
PCI Dynamic Bursting
PCI Master 0 WS Write
PCI Delay Transaction

If you have any BIOS functions you would love to see covered in the BIOS Optimization Guide, just pop me a short e-mail!

Comments?

New BIOS Options Coming Soon! 02:50 AM IDT Adrian Wong

I am now finishing off a new update to the BIOS Optimization Guide. Expect to see it up in about an hour or so. Have to clean up some formatting problem in the whole guide.

Comments?

Reminders 02:35 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Hey everyone... just wanted to remind you that I'm preparing a performance comparison article on Pocket PCs and I would like to enlist your help in obtaining performance data on the various Pocket PCs out there. So, if you own a Pocket PC, do consider helping us create a definitive Pocket PC performance guide. Click here for more details!

Comments?

News From The ABIT Grapevine 02:20 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Here's a little more on the ABIT KG7. Although it will be announced soon, it's been delayed a little and it's unlikely that ABIT will be shipping it by the end of the month. Although they still can't confirm it, the earliest shipping date is expected to be somewhere in February.

Comments?

News From The Net

Overclocking.dk reviewed the FIC AZ-11E Socket A motherboard!

3Dn has an article on how to create your own drive bay fan controller - a system to switch your fans on and off.

The German site, HardwareLuxx posted the following articles (in German) :-

VIAHardware has a review of the final revision of VIA's Apollo Pro266 chipset.

OCWorkbench reviewed the FIC AZ11E motherboard!

X-Bit Labs posted a review of the VIA Apollo Pro266 chipset.

Tweakers' Asylum posted their review of the Inno3D Tornado GeForce2 MX graphics card!

Overclocker Cafe just reviewed the Card Cooler XT. This monster is two 120mm fans together moving air at 138cfm.

FrostyTech has a review of the CoolerMaster CH5-5K12 heatpipe heatsink! Here's a clip of that review - "With out a doubt this has to be the coolest and most deadly looking piece of cooling hardware to ever grace a computers' processor! In fact it's one of the only commercially available socketed heatsinks to employ dual heat pipes in the design, amidst a flurry of copper no less..."

The Game Den reviewed the popular RTS game - Homeworld Cataclysm!

HardwareZone reviewed the Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Theater 5.1 DTT3500 speaker system. Here's a snip - "The Cambridge Soundworks DTT3500 Digital speaker system is only good for its design and promising specifications. Although there is principally nothing wrong with the operation of the speaker system, it just did not sound as good as it's supposed to be. Even my older Cambridge Soundworks' FPS2000 sounded a lot better in just normal music playback"

GideonTech posted 12 more case mods!

Overclockers Online posted a small review of VIA's 4-in-1 drivers. Here's a snip - "The new 4.28a seem to be very stable, but since I only installed these new drivers a day ago there might be problems with them I have not yet encountered. Version 4.26a is, for me anyway, not so stable as it made my system reboot at random moments without me modding anything but the VIA drivers."

The-Ctrl-Alt-Del posted their review of the Logitech MouseMan Wheel Optical mouse.

Saturday January 13, 2001

Join Team ARP! 01:30 PM IDT Adrian Wong

Yeah! We are looking for more talented people to join our team! Here are the available slots :-

Webmasters
News Editors
Contributing Writers
Binary Boys
Forum Moderators
Programmers

If you think you have what it takes, just drop me an e-mail! :)

Comments?

E-mail Problems 04:10 AM IDT Adrian Wong

It appears that my new e-mail accounts cannot receive e-mails properly due to a server misconfiguration. That should be solved by Monday or so. In the meantime, please reuse the old awsh@hotmail.com e-mail address should you need to contact me directly. But unless it's personal, it would be better for you to post your questions directly in the forums.

Sorry for the inconvenience caused and thanks for your patience! :D

APS 2000 Baybus Press Release 02:30 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Here's a press release from GiB-Tek about their APS 2000 baybus. It controls your cooling fans inside your PC via a front panel, between 1 and 4 units. This can be expanded to more if required but additional information on loads and amps being used will need to be specified. This best thing of all it uses it own power supply completely independent from the standard PSU. Its unpluggable and can be migrated into different bays or a new case. It's handy for moving around for LAN partys or taking round to a mates house.

For more info, check out the full press release!

Comments?

News From The Net

Icrontic posted their review of the ABIT KT7A motherboard!

Active-Hardware reviewed the Gigabyte GA-60XE i815EP motherboard.

VIAHardware posted their own review of the ABIT KT7A-RAID motherboard.

HardOCP reviewed the new ABIT KT7A motherboard!

Tweakers' Asylum posted a review of Symantec's Norton SystemWorks 2001.

I Am Not A Geek reviewed the 1.3GHz Athlon.

Motherboard HomeWorld posted a review of the ABIT SH6 motherboard.

The Game Den posted their report on the 2001 Consumer Electronic Show!

HardwareZone posted a review on the Matrox Millennium G450 32MB DDR graphics card! Here's a blurb - "In terms of performance, the G450 is not any faster than the older G400 but it is in every way more advanced than the G400. With better 0.18 micron manufacturing process, the power requirements for the G450 is lower and hence, it has lower heat dissipation. This is one reason why the new G450 is shipped with only a heatsink. If you don't intend to play any games with high 3D requirements, the Matrox G450 is something that I would recommend for a dual monitor setup."

Monday January 15, 2001

New E-Mails Working! 01:40 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Sorry about the mail problems, everyone! ARP's new e-mail addresses are working. So, if you want to send us news or information, send it to news@rojakpot.com. And if you want to contact me directly (not the other ARP team members), I can now be reached at awsh@rojakpot.com. Just make sure you state the topic clearly in all your e-mails so that we don't accidentally delete your mails! :)

More info...

Video BIOS Shadowing! 01:15 AM IDT Adrian Wong

I've just updated the Video BIOS Shadowing portion of the BIOS Optimization Guide with a true-life account of a video BIOS flash gone wrong. You may be surprised to learn that it happened because the video BIOS was shadowed but what's even more surprising is what happened to that card after the failed flash...

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Reminders 12:45 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Another bi-daily reminder in hope to enlist your help in obtaining performance data on the various Pocket PCs out there. So, if you own a Pocket PC, do consider helping us create a definitive Pocket PC performance guide. Click here for more details!

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News From The Net

Tomas Risberg has an excellent article on the Silent PC.

Tweakers Asylum posted their review of the ABIT KT7 RAID motherboard.

GideonTech just finished a guide on peltiers. Here's a snip - "It is simply a "heat pump" that pumps heat from one side to the other when an electrical current is applied to the peltier. A peltier itself is made up of paired up p- and n- type semi-conductors wired in series that are sandwiched between two ceramic plates. As an electrical current is applied to the peltier one side gets..."

TheColdShop took a look at the ThermalTake Pentium 4 Indigo Orb. Man... is there colour coding thing going on here...? :) Anyway, here's a quote - "The first thing that I noticed when I looked at this was the Air flow, 36CFM's is a lot, and other then the Delta 38CFM monsters I think this is the most air moved by a 60MM fan that I know of. And the fact that it's only moving at about 5500RPM's means that it's very quite, And it definitely is, During testing it was quieter then my normal system 60mm's fans"

Beta Bites has a review of the HP CD-Writer Plus 9150i. Here's a snip - "Compared to my old Memorex CD burner (6X/4x/2x) which could take over an hour to burn a full game or my hard drive, the HP CD-RW 9150 can do it less than about 15 minutes. YeeHaw! Burning can actually be a pleasure now, and not a drag..."

Spode's Abode posted two new articles :-

Using a jam jar to create a reservoir
Some serious dual PIII/SCSI RAID

Thursday January 18, 2001

More BIOS Options 04:50 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Okaaay!!! Here are three new BIOS options, bringing up the BIOS Optimization Guide to rev. 5.5 :-

PCI#2 Access #1 Retry
Master Priority Rotation
AGP 4X Mode

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Little Jornada Trick 03:30 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Just read on the newsgroups about a little trick for HP Jornada users. Here's what Beverly Howard found out :-

"After 5 months with the Jornada 540, I just discovered last night that the "home menu" button has a "press and hold" option that brings up the HP Settings screen... very valuable if the sun is shining and the last time you used it was with the lights out."

She's right. Such a function is very useful, especially if you use your Jornada outdoors a lot... Wish my Casio E-115 has a similar hidden function...

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Trading 03:10 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Have something to sell? Or just looking for a great deal on something? Check out the Trading section of the forums! There are already two posts there. See if anything interests you.

Blurb 02:50 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Phew! Just completed the major part of my final block exams for this year! Up next - the second year University exams next month! :(

Anyway, heads up for more BIOS options. I'm sneaking in a couple new BIOS options so expect to see a new revision of the BIOS Optimization Guide soon.

Join Team ARP! 02:40 AM IDT Adrian Wong

We have received quite a few resumes but we are still open for more talented people. Here are the available slots in Team ARP :-

Webmasters
News Editors
Contributing Writers
Binary Boys
Forum Moderators
Programmers

If you are interested in joining Team ARP, drop me an e-mail! :)

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Chaintech Press Releases 02:30 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Wow! Three Chaintech press releases in a day! Check out these new Chaintech product releases :-

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News From The Net

Overclockers Online posted part 1 of their guide to case modding...

If you are looking for screenshots from the online roleplaying game - Lineage : The Bloodpledge, Beta Bites has 13 of them!

Neoseeker posted a review of the Polk AMR90 surround sound speaker set.

Tweakers Asylum reviewed the disk defragging software - Diskeeper 6.0 by Executive Software.

USB Workshop posted some news on new USB 2.0 products.

Overclockers Workbench posted their review of the ABIT KT7A motherboard.

HardOCP reviewed the EPoX KT133A motherboard - the EPoX 8KTA3.

Overclocked Cafe posted their review of the Juzt-Reboot card.

HardwareZone posted a review of the Canon PowerShot G1 3.34 MPixel digital camera.

PCStats reviewed the Biolink Umatch Biometric Mouse.

PCRivals reviewed Innerloop's Project IGI.

Icrontic posted a review of the Microsoft IntelliMouse Trackball Explorer. Here's a clip - "The most important difference between the Trackball Explorer and Optical is that the Optical is designed so that you move the ball with just your thumb, and there really is no way around that. The Explorer has the ball mounted in the center so your middle three fingers can keep it rolling continuously (important when gaming)."

TweakTown posted an article about "value" integrated chipsets for the Intel platform.

GideonTech reviewed the Logitech MouseMan Wheel with Optical Technology. Here's a clip - "One of the immediate impressions that this mouse makes is the oddly shaped
design. The mouse is a lot longer than any of the other mechanical mice we
have used. The left and right buttons at the top of the mouse are long also
thus eliminating any missed clicks in the heat of a frag fest!"

MadOnion has a new contest called "The M.A.D.O.N.I.O.N. Challenge"! The prizes to be won include the ASUS CUSL2-C motherboard and the ASUS AGP-V7100 GeForce2 MX Pure graphics card!

Rizenet posted a review of Mushkin's PC150 Rev. 3 SDRAM.

Saturday January 20, 2001

Plagiarism! 04:25 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Man... I'm so PISSED!!! Thanks to Ole and fx3, we have discovered yet another case of plagiarism! This time, it's the Norwegian site - Hardware.no. And guess which article they ripped off and passed off as their own effort? Would you believe the BIOS Optimization Guide?!!!

Check their "BIOS Guiden" out! It's in Norwegian but I'm told by Ole and fx3 that it's a mere translation of the entire BIOS Optimization Guide. I checked it out and true enough, it looks like a translation of my guide. In fact, the format is entirely the same! And not only were they not satisfied with merely copying the entire guide, they were also arrogant enough to blatantly pass it off as their own work. The "author", according to them is one Mohammed Sourouri.

Now, I don't know why Mr. Sourouri thinks he can claim credit for his "guide" but I sure won't stand for the usual crap about making sure we don't make too much money (huh???) or freedom of information (double huhs???). Remember, information on this site (and many others as well) is free. So, plagiarism isn't about money or freedom of information. Plagiarism is about the theft of credit and is a major problem for all writers because they deny the author the right to be recognized for his/her work.

So, if you happen to see an article similar to one posted on this site, please help prevent plagiarism by e-mailing those who are involved (me and the webmaster of the website you saw the other article on). Any help in eradicating plagiarism would be greatly appreciated.

In the meantime, if you feel that Mr. Sourouri is wrong and should stop what he's doing, please write him an e-mail telling him what you think. You can also drop an e-mail to the editor of Hardware.no (Håvard Røste) to let him know how you feel about such plagiarism on his site. Finally, you can always tell me what you think about this matter in this forum topic or by e-mail.

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Reminders 03:45 AM IDT Adrian Wong

This is a last call for help in obtaining performance data on the various Pocket PCs out there. So, if you own a Pocket PC, do consider helping us create a definitive Pocket PC performance guide. Click here for more details!

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News From The Net

RipNet-UK posted a new article on their favourite freeware!

Mofos.org has a review of Kyle's HardOCP hardware site!

Club Overclocker posted a review of the Arcticooler.

I Am Not A Geek has a review of the world's worst GeForce2 MX card.

8Balls posted an article on FDISK.

Game Forces whipped up an article on the happenings and products from this year's Consumer Electronics Show.

GlideUnderground posted an editorial titled - Wrath of the Game Developers! Here's a blurb from them - "We got word about a few strong-arm tactics that a certain company might try to enforce on some of their upcoming game reviews. This didn't sit too well with me, so I just had to throw in my $000,000.02 on the issue."

Slo-Tech has some interesting pictures of a silver (yup! SILVER!) water cooling system. You gotta check this one out!

Neoseeker reviewed the AOpen HQ08 full tower case!

HardwareZone posted a review of the Apple Titanium PowerBook G4. I'm no fan of the Mac but it never hurts to see what the other side is offering! :)

GideonTech posted an article on how to make your case look like it's filled with water!

Overclockers Online posted a review of the ABIT VP6 motherboard.

OCAddiction is hosting a contest in which you stand a chance in winning a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX reference card!

Sunday January 21, 2001

From The ABIT Grapevine 05:10 AM IDT Adrian Wong

ABIT is still tight-lipped about the KG7. I still don't know what the special feature is. But ABIT just confirmed that the KG7 won't be shipping in February. Due to some unspecified delays, ABIT has pushed back the shipping date to some time in March. :(

Another thing is about news of an ABIT shipment being held at customs in the United States. Well, that's over now. The shipment has just been released from the customs so you can expect to see new ABIT stuff in the stores soon.

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Win A Hercules GameTheatre! 04:40 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Hercules is sponsoring another contest in which you stand a chance in winning one of three GameTheatre XP cards! Check out the details here!

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Plagiarism Part Deux 04:30 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Hello everyone!

Sorry for taking so long to start making today's posts. I've been busy with the plagiarism issue. Received lots of mails about it, including one from Hardware.no :-

Hi, we will check this out. I would be very surprised if the claims are
true, but we take this very seriously, and we will investigate this properly.

We will contact you later this day.

Thank you for letting me know about this issue.

Regards
Martin Wirak
Hardware.no

Well... I hope they will come up with an explanation soon. In the meantime, check out the forum topic and let us know what you think of all this!

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News From The Net

PC Hardware reviewed the latest Altec Lansing speakers - ATP5. Here's a clip - "There are many unconventional things in these speakers design and maybe one of the most shocking ones is the sound level control. I have just said shocking because most speakers use the old analog potentiometer. ATP5 use instead a digital method for volume, treble and bass control."

Hardwareluxx posted the following updates :-

Updated AMD Overclocking Guide
DVD-ROM Shootout - Creative 12X vs. Pioneer 16X

OCShoot posted their review of Kãrna's Razer Boomslang 2000 - The Snake! Here's a blurb from them - "When it comes to FPS gaming this mouse is the ferrari of gaming mouse. With high sensitivity and perfect shape it scores very high. This is the first part of many in the Hunt for Precision, we will be testing lots of mouse pads and mices in the future."

Club Overclocker has a full Blizzard Intercooler kit with peltier to give away!

Extreme Overclocking is giving away 10 dead CPUs that have been converted into key chains. Now, I know many sites giving away graphics cards and other cool stuff... but heck, you have to admit that it would be really cool to own one of these hi-tech keychains! :D

Monday January 22, 2001

More BIOS Descriptions Posted! 04:35 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Plagiarized or not, the development of the BIOS Optimization Guide must go on. This latest update consists of these two new BIOS functions :-

AGP Driving Control
AGP Driving Value

Check them out, especially if you are interested in improving the overclockability of the AGP bus.

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Silence 04:00 AM IDT Adrian Wong

No word from Hardware.no on the plagiarism of the BIOS Optimization Guide. Maybe they don't work on weekends so let's see if they pull their "guide" off their site later today.

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News From The Net

Rizenet posted two new case mods. Here's a blurb - "Who the hell cares, it's two new mods. Wow". Well, one of them is rather cool and unique - a case made entirely of legos. I don't know if any other gallery has this one as it was sent in by the creator, but it's damn cool looking. It even has a Lego Man wired with a green LCD as the power light!"

8Balls posted a card cooler DIY article!

BlueSmoke reviewed the D-Link DFE-538TX NIC!

Glide Underground posted a review of the VRStandard VRJoy 2000 3D shutter glasses.

Speedy 3D just updated their case mod resources with tons of links and information.

X-bit Labs posted a review of the EPoX EP-8KTA3 motherboard.

OCWorkbench posted their review of the Iwill DVD266R Dual Coppermine DDR motherboard.

More plagiarism... Tweakers Asylum just discovered that a Thai site called Sirirat just ripped off the graphs used in their DirectX Showdown article! Jeez... what's wrong with people???

The House Of Help has opened an online classifieds section for all you hardware junkies to ditch your unwanted 'stuff's' on someone else for some spare cash!

Wednesday January 24, 2001

Imagine Tech @ ATEI 2001 12:20 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Just received a press release from Imagine Technologies. Looks like SEGA and other companies will be debuting their PowerVR-based products at the arcade show - ATEI 2001 in London. If you want to check out some interesting tidbits on SEGA's NAOMI2 (and other stuff), you can read the entire press release here!

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From The ABIT Grapevine 11:50 AM IDT Adrian Wong

Okay... there has been some speculation that the ABIT shipment that got held up at the customs was due to lawsuit. Well... that's true! :) But what's not true are the rumours going on that the lawsuit involved ABIT.

The lawsuit was about patent infringement of a particular technology used in one or more Winbond chips. As such, all motherboards from Taiwan are being inspected to make sure they don't have that technology in question. That's the reason for the delay in the shipment. But since ABIT motherboards don't use that particular Winbond chip affected by the lawsuit, they were allowed in. Otherwise, you can expect the shipment to go back to Taiwan... Heheh...

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