RAM Prices Rising?         02:15 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

I noticed that the prices of the Crucial DDR SDRAM DIMMs have risen somewhat since the publishing of the review. Looks like DRAM prices are stabilizing. Manufacturers have been reducing production in hopes of stabilizing the market. Guess their measures have started taking effect.

Those of you who purchased earlier, congratulations! You have really saved quite a bit of money. For those of you who are thinking of adding more RAM, better hurry! The prices look as if they could rise again.

Comments?

Back To Work         01:45 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

Yeah... it's time to go back to work. I'm now editing several reviews for posting next week. Come early Monday (Sunday night over at the other end of the globe), everything will be back to normal at ARP. Watch this page for updates! :)

Comments?

News From The Net

Radeonic reviewed the Thermaltake Volcano 7 cooler! Snip - "While the use of aluminum and copper seems to offer a compromise between weight and performance, this is still a very heavy unit. It weighs 520 grams, which is nearly double the AMD recommended maximum of 300 grams. As these units keep getting heavier and heavier, the makers should start thinking about alternate mounting methods. On the plus side, the blue anodizing is attractive and the copper slug has a very flat surface."

The Overclocker Cafe finished reviewing the Global WIN YCC-8870 aluminium case! Clip - "Now for the trick part of the bays.  Notice the green sliders on each of the 5 ¼ and the top 3 ½” spots?  This is a toolless drive installation for your devices.  To install a device, you slide the device in and once it is positioned correctly you push the green slider to the right and lock it with another small slide.  What this does is force two small aluminum catches into the drive where you would normally be putting screws.”

3dGameMan reviewed the AMD Athlon XP 1900+ processor! Quote - "Damn fast and certainly more affordable than an Intel P4 2GHz!"

BurnOutPC reviewed Max Payne! Quote - "Perhaps one of the most talked about and eagerly anticipated games of this year, Max Payne has finally reached the shelves. It was doubtful at times whether or not this title was ever going to make it to a fully fledged PC game, as many thought it was merely a graphical demo showing off some of the new fancy features on graphics cards"

PC Hardware tested the Antec 400W power supply! Quote - "The computer ran for 100 hours with the CPU overclocked at 2.25Ghz. During this period we monitored the 5V and 12V voltages using a digital multimeter able to record results from time to time. Note: We didn't have two digital multimeters able to record results so 12V log was recorded in a 15 hours period and 5V log was recorded in a 18 hours period. The measurement precision was 0.5%."

2FastCPU reviewed the Dr. Thermal TI-S8640N cooler! Snip - "When we first reviewed TI's Dr. Thermal TI-V77 heatsink, it made a good impression on us. Though it was a relatively wide heatsink, it could have had some trouble mounting on a minority of motherboards. The TI-S8640N uses more height instead of width, but this issue could still come back. We'll put it up to not only the TI-V77, but also many of today's top dog heatsinks to see how it can stand up for itself."

GideonTech reviewed the UMaxPC Switching Bay Bus! Snip - "The individual switches each can take up to 6W. In our case, the 80mm Panaflo comes in at about 2.08W. So it is well under the maximum wattage supported by the switch. Keep in mind that the faster and large your fan is, the more watts it uses. For example, the fastest Panaflo I have seen comes in at a bit over the 6W mark, so be careful on which fan you use."

Dockers Mobile Pant          00:40 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

Marauder couldn't help trying out the new Dockers Mobile Pant and he certainly has some opinions of this pair of khakis! Check out this review before you rush to the stores! :)

"On the outside, the Mobile Pant looks just like any other pair of Dockers Khakis. With two pockets at the side and two more at the back (Actually, I've always wondered if anyone actually use those pockets? How are you supposed to sit with stuff in them???). The cloth is supposedly Teflon-coated so liquids will bead off the material instead of being absorbed into it. This feature is vital for ANY piece of clothing that was intended to carry mobile devices. Gadgets and water don't mix well!"

Comments?

News From The Net

Extreme Overclocking reviewed the Thermaltake Active Memory Cooling Kit! Quote - "It is basically a pair of heat spreaders with a fan mounted on top. It is designed for both SDR & DDR RAM. The theory is that if your memory runs cooler, it will last longer and perhaps be able to run faster (higher FSB speed)."

2FastCPU reviewed the Titan TTC-MT1AB-5 golden cooler! Snip - "I was overall impressed with the look and feel of the gold colored TTC-MT1AB -5. As you may be able to tell from the pictures, it comes with not one, but two, yes two... okay okay, stop drooling, and pick up your jaw. I'll wait. Ready to proceed? Okay, two fans that run at 5500 RPM... watch those fingers too, those blades hurt."

GideonTech reviewed the V77L Radi-Fin cooler! Snip - "The first item that stands out is the bar on the side of the unit. Upon lifting it, it releases the clips so you can slide them onto your socket tabs. Pushing them back down locks it. Extremely easy installation, no tools needed at all! They call this the 'E-System Attachment' portion of the heatsink."

ThinkTechie reviewed the Senfu Copper Fin with Temp Slot cooler! Snip - "Temp Slot? What a great concept. Built right into the HSF is a small indentation for the thermal probe."

VoidYourWarranty just posted a review of the Rotokiller Gaming Mouse! Snip - "Is it a hockey puck? Is it a Duncan yo-yo? Nope, it's a mouse! That's right, this odd looking thing is actually a highly dynamic ball-mouse. Dubbed the Rotokiller: RTR-720 (made by Good Work Systems), this mouse claims to be the ultimate performer when it comes to games."

Overclocker Cafe is giving away a new ASUS V8200 GeForce3 Pure graphics card! Check out the details here!

BurnOutPC posted these two articles :-

• A guide on tube-modding - "Last time, i've reviewed the lighstrip. The effect was cool, but not cool enough. So I made some mods. First "Tube Modding", and second some other shots of where I placed the the strip"
• A review of CompuNurse - "Do you need the temps of your cpu? or your memory? or anything related to that? And you need something small cheap and pretty funky looking? I've got the key to that. The CompuNurse"

BlueScreenOfDeth reviewed the Kanie Hedgehog Type W cooler! Quote - "The flood of heatsinks saturating the market today is amazing - comeon, how many heatsinks do you want?? Personally, one will do me fine. If love at first sight is real, i reckon the Kanie 'Wing' is the Heatsink for me."

Arctic Alumina Thermal Paste!         01:25 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

While coolers may get most of the limelight, serious overclockers know that there are actually two parts to the equation. The cooler is one while the other is the thermal interface. Without a good thermal interface, not enough heat can be transferred to the heat sink to be dissipated.

Today, Chai takes a look at the new Arctic Alumina thermal compound from Arctic Silver. If you know of the famous Arctic Silver II thermal compound, well, then this is the new compound formulation that's based on ceramics, instead of silver. According to Arctic Silver, it offers the same performance as Arctic Silver II but without its drawbacks.

Now, that's some claim. Will it perform as well as they claim it would be? Or should you still stick to the Arctic Silver II? Find out in Chai's review of the new Arctic Alumina! Here's a clip from the review :-

"...Now, Arctic Silver is undoubtedly one of the most popular thermal pastes in the market. It's a very consistent, high performance thermal paste that does not degrade over time, unlike other thermal pastes. Because of its high silver content, Arctic Silver is one of the best thermal paste you can get.

But it also has some drawbacks. Silver is an excellent electrical conductor so the Arctic Silver is highly conductive. I've heard many stories of ..."

Comments?

New NVIDIA Drivers!         00:55 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

NVIDIA has released the new version 23.11 of the Detonator XP drivers for Windows 95/98/ME/XP. This new version comes with a new version of the OpenGL ICD as well as full support for the nForce's integrated GPU. Here's the list of the new version's key features :-

• Highly optimized DirectX® and OpenGL® pipelines
• New OpenGL 1.3 ICD with NVIDIA extensions
• NVIDIA's patented Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) - supports all products in single a driver binary
• Full hardware acceleration of Windows XP
• Fastest Windows XP 2D and 3D Performance
• NVIDIA XPress Link
• Full hardware acceleration for Windows XP's new graphical user interface
• International Language Support
• Compatibility fixes
• WDM 1.08 Driver for Personal Cinema

To download this new driver, click here!

Comments?

News From The Net

ExtremeOC reviewed the PlexWriter 24/10/40A CD-RW drive!

myWORLD Hardware posted a review of the Arkua 7228 and 6228B coolers!

PC Hardware reviewed the DFI AD70-SR motherboard! Quote - "It's maybe the first motherboard which didn't suffer a decrease in memory overclocking power when using three memory modules instead of one. The reliability test was conducted with Corsair registered memory, but as you can see in the list above in order to test compatibility we used unbuffered memory too. With unbuffered memory the overclocking potential was not affected, but I cannot say too many things about stability because we didn't conduct extensive tests."

ThinkTechie posted the following reviews :-

• Gold Anodized Thumbscrews - "Have any of you ever had to open up a computer case several times to fix, modify, or upgrade it? Then you know how annoying it can be to get a screw driver out (find one in my case), then slave for a bit on getting the screw out. This isn’t to mention that a lot of times when working on a computer you might strip the screws."
• Delta 120x38 152 CFM fan - "Today I received an interesting item, the Delta 120x38 Case fan. Now you may be saying a case fan? Why the heck would you ever review a case fan? Well heres comes our response... Its a 152 Cubic Feet per Minute fan! Thats right a 152 CFm fan, and its only $12 over at ColdCPU. Now I don't know about you but thats exciting."

HardwarePub posted a review of the OCZ Dominator II cooler! Clip - "The minute I opened the box I already started to like this HSF. It came completely assembled with fans and grill attached to the base. Also the fan mounted on the HSF was the optional YS Tech 40cfm fan. This is the most powerful 65x65x25mm fan available currently on the market."

VoidYourWarranty reviewed the Swiftech MCXC370 cooler! Snip - "The MCXC370 is Swiftech's second heatsink to utilize their new clip, and is also their first clipped heatsink to use a copper base. The only characteristic that separates this heatsink from the MCX370 is the copper base; everything else is virtually identical." They also have a review of the Lian Li PC70 full tower case! Clip - "A $230 case isn't the sort of thing that is for everybody.  And even barring the high price of this case, not everyone needs a full tower.  But if you have a lot of HDDs and also need space for watercooling then the Lian Li PC70 is an excellent choice.  While the price is high, you do get a case with a high build quality and finish, and it comes stock with 4 cooling fans."

IAmNotAGeek posted a review of the 1.7GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor! Quote - "With processors getting faster and faster, nobody looks back at older processors, and this is a mistake. Faster processors only makes the price drop for the older, but not yet outdated processors. Today we look at such a processor, the P4 1.7 GHz Willamette. We look back at it, and determine if its a better solution than it was a little ways back. It might be a a little old now, but it still is one of the fastest processors out there which is why it so badly deserves another look."

The Overclocker Cafe reviewed the Akasa Silver Mountain cooler! Snip - "If nothing else, this sink is absolutely beautiful to look at.  The overall construction is very high.  I can only imagine the engineering problems in trying to uniformly coat a heatsink in another metal.  They did it, and quite well I might add.  The downside of this effectively copper heatsink, is its weight.  480 grams is nothing to sneeze at." You should also check out our definitive review of the Akasa Silver Mountain!

3dGameMan reviewed the OCZ Goliath cooler and the ABIT KG7-RAID motherboard!

PC Fair, Here I Come!          01:50 PM MYT     Adrian Wong

Comments?

Update Your Firmware!          01:20 PM MYT     Adrian Wong

Previously, the buffer would keep running out and the drive would stall for a while. Of course, its SMART-Burn technology ensured that the drive will continue from where it left off but the stalls increased the actual burning time quite a bit. Fortunately, the latest firmware update seemed to have solved that problem! Yahooooo!

If you still have not updated your LITE-ON CD-RW's firmware, head over here to check out the latest firmware updates available for your model. Note again that even if your drive originally didn't come with any buffer under-run protection feature, LITE-ON now provides firmware upgrades that gives you that feature! So, all LITE-ON CD-RWs now support either BURN-Proof or SMART-Burn.

Comments?

What A Translation!          01:00 PM MYT     Adrian Wong

Click to enlarge!

For those of you who don't know Malay, "kayu balak" is the literal translation of the log of a tree! Looks like they didn't bother to hire a proper translator! :)

Comments?

News From The Net

3dGameMan reviewed the EPOX EP-4B2A2 RAID motherboard!

GideonTech reviewed the Feeling PCs Ice Hole! Clip - "There are three LEDs, a blue, red and green light. You can use the dipswitches to change them from individual colors or turning them on all at once. I prefer the all on option, it looks like a light show in the dark."

BlueScreenOfDeth reviewed the Arctic Alumina thermal compound! Here's a snip - "However good your heatsink may be, it's going to work a lot better if you've got somthing decent to stick between it and the CPU core. 'Artic Silver' has become practically a household name in recent times, recognised for being one of the best thermal compounds available currently. One of the most recent to the Artic Silver line is a new thermal paste called Arctic Alumina." You can also check out our own review of the Arctic Alumina!

VoidYourWarranty posted a review of a Socket A Voltage Mod Kit! Clip - "Prior to installing the clip, then adjust the potentiometer so that the potentiometer is at maximum resistance (turned all of the way clockwise). Next you carefully install the IC test clip, taking care to catch the proper leg of the IC and to make sure you have a secure hold. I had no troubles with doing this on my Shuttle AK31, but on the KT7-RAID the parallel port made getting two clips locked into place a time-consuming process." 

A Look At PC Fair 2001!         01:25 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

As promised, I took with me my digital camera to capture a little of PC Fair 2001 for you to see. It took me some time to get this mini-article up because I came back from my trip to KL to my ENT test. Had to recuperate from the frenzied studying I had to do in the final hours before the test. :)

Anyway, check out this little article on PC Fair 2001. It will give you a glimpse at what Malaysian computer fairs are like.

BTW, if you are into LITE-ON drives, well, the 32X model is coming out very soon. We have already asked IMD to loan us a unit as soon as they get the first shipment so we should have the reviews out as soon as the first units actually hit the stores.

Comments?

News From The Net

GideonTech reviewed Thermaltake's active memory cooler! Quote - "We strapped the aluminum unit with the 40mm fan onto one of our SDram modules and hoped for the best."

The Heatsink Guide posted a DIY temperature control guide! It can be made from widely available parts for abour $4. This temperature control has the following advantages over "classic" temperature controls :-

• Temperature can be adjusted by the user. The desired temperature can be adjusted over a wide range, so the control is suitable both for regulating case temperature and CPU temperature. Also, this allows the temperature control to be used with overclocked CPUs.
• Fans are switched off if the temperature is low enough
• Several fans can be controlled with just one sensor and temperature control. 

The Overclocker Cafe reviewed the Dr. Thermal TI-S86 and V86 coolers! Snip - "Thermal Integration obviously recognized the strength of their oversized ThermoEngine like design and tried some new things.  Namely, a shift to traditional 60mm fans.  Today we have two Thermal Integration units up on the review bench.  The TI-S86, that carriers a 60 x 60 x 25mm fan and the TI-V86, that is a shorter version heatsink, with a 60 x 60 x 15mm fan roosting up top.  Actually, each model is offered with the choice of a 60 x 60 x 25, 60 x 60 x 15, or 60 x 60 x 10mm fan."

IAmNotAGeek posted a review of the DFI WT70-EC Socket 423 motherboard! Clip - "I was disappointed to find out that DFI didn't include many extras in the motherboard package (such as an IrDA connector or some frontal USB ports), and I was also disappointed to find that the only software that was found in the box were Intel drivers, Direct-X 8.0 and an Anti-Virus Utility (PC-cillin I believe)."

PC Hardware posted their review of the Intel Tualatin Celeron 1.2GHz processor! Quote - "This CPU was able to overclock up to 1.48Ghz and outperformed Duron 1.1Ghz in most benchmarks. Unfortunately with Intel decision to discontinue the current line of Pentium III CPUs you have to think twice before going for a Tualatin solution."

2FastCPU reviewed the Arkua Technology 7228 cooler! Quote - "When people see their unique 'X' radiating design, they immediately know the company name, Arkua. Without further delay, here is our review of the Arkua 7228 heatsink, so sit back and enjoy!"

Think Techie posted the following reviews :-

• 8 port Fan Power Block - "Cooling inside of a case is always important. More often than not we use fans. In order for this to work as well as most of us want we need more than one."
• Sunon High Output 50+ CFM 80mm Fan - "First we showed you the new Delta 120mm 152CFM fan, that was an incredibly powerful (loud too!) case fan. This time we're showing you the Sunon High Output 80mm 50 CFM fan, it can be used as either a case fan or with a 60-80mm fan adaptor to supercharge your heatsink."

ipKonfig reviewed the Dr. Thermal TI-V86 & S86 coolers! Clip - "Not to long ago we reviewed the Dr. Thermal TI-V77 heatsink that featured the copper core. In that review we discovered the performance to be quite well for it's size and low CFM fan. This time we have two new heatsinks from TITI that benefit the same type of concept, with a new look. First is the TI-V86 Dr. Thermal:" They also reviewed the IceMat - "If you're a pro gamer, you've probably heard about the IceMat already. Next to Everglide, it's about the only professional Mouse Pad out there. Well, not that Pad is the right word here… What makes the IceMat so special? Well, it's made out of glass! It's the smoothest surface you'll ever find, as long as you don't scratch it. I've had my share of mouse pads trough the years, but from the moment I moved my mouse around I immediately noticed a difference!"

Firmware Problem!          01:50 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

During PC Fair 2001, Ken and I each bought a 16X LITE-ON DVD-ROM (LTD 163) drive. This drive has some pretty impressive specifications and even comes with SMART-X technology (covered in the 24X LITE-ON CD-RW review)! Ken's testing the drive right now so we should have the review pretty soon.

What I want to talk today isn't about the drive's performance. Rather, it's about the latest firmware update and the HPT370 IDE controller found on many motherboards. I first attached the LITE-ON DVD-ROM drive to one of the HPT370 IDE channels. It worked perfectly on boot-up.

Next, I booted to real mode DOS (courtesy of Win98) and flashed the drive to the latest firmware. Everything went smoothly but when I restarted the computer, the system rebooted itself just before Windows 2000 finished loading! I then tried Windows 98. To my horror, it also wouldn't boot up properly!

I thought perhaps the bus speed was a little too high for the newly flashed drive so I throttled the PCI bus speed back to the standard 33MHz. Still, both Windows 98 and Windows 2000 would automatically restart just after logging on to the network.

Finally, I grew impatient and switched the channels connecting the CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives. Instantly, everything reverted to normal. Both Windows 2000 and Windows 98 loaded up normally. Phew! Looks like only the new LITE-ON DVD-ROM firmware is incompatible with the HPT370 controller. The 24X LITE-ON CD-RW drive (with the latest firmware) seemed to work with the HPT370 controller. 

However, I noticed that with the 24X LITE-ON CD-RW drive connected to the HPT370 controller, the buffer level would now fluctuate wildly while burning a CD-R disc. It wasn't quite as bad as the older firmware where the buffer would actually reach zero and the drive would stall. While the buffer now fluctuates wildly, it still managed to stay above zero and thus, burning speed wasn't affected much. Looks like the HPT370 IDE controller isn't that hot after all...

Comments?

News From The Net

3dGameMan reviewed the Mouse Bungee and Mouse Bungee Pro!

MadOnion just updated the Fastest Webmasters' list!

Bring Back Tex!!!         01:05 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

Yours truly has been a major Tex Murphy fan since I first tried Under A Killing Moon. After that, I went through The Pandora Directive and Overseer several times (I brought both of them with me when I first left for India!). If you have ever played any Tex Murphy game, you would know just how addictive they are. I myself can't have enough of Tex Murphy!

True, the days of FMV adventure games are long gone. That's quite okay because they mostly suck. But the Tex Murphy series is the ONLY one I played that went far beyond the others and stood out as the Holy Grail of FMV adventure games. Each installment was better than the previous one and after Overseer (which was a little quick to finish), I just couldn't wait for the next Tex Murphy game.

Unfortunately, when I went surfing to Access Software's website today (to check up on the expected release date of the next Tex Murphy adventure), I was horrified to discover that the website no longer existed! After that, it became a frantic search for Tex Murphy news. Luckily, a search of "Tex Murphy" brought up 6,950 Tex-related pages! Phew! Access Software's site may be gone but at least, Tex hasn't been wiped off the Net yet!

Shifting through the numerous links, I came to TexMurphy.com and UnofficialTexMurphy.com. At TexMurphy.com, I found the Overviewer, a utility that allows you to gain access to the resources (pictures, music, etc...) in your Tex Murphy CDs.

At UnofficialTexMurphy.com however, I found even more goodies for the die-hard Tex fan! Aaron Conners and Chris Jones (Tex himself!) have created SIX Radio Theater episodes that address the issues that left us hanging at the end of Overseer! They will be released every two weeks and right now, the latest episode is Episode 4 : Foreshadowings And A Funeral! You can download them here!

In addition, they are asking all Tex Murphy fans to sign a petition to get Microsoft to approve a new Tex Murphy game! If you are a Tex Murphy fan, please help the cause by signing this petition! Before I sign off this post, I would like to leave you all with a quote from Stefan of TexMurphy.com :-

"Tex Murphy will live on in the hearts of adventure gamers. Each time someone gets hooked on The Pandora Directive, UAKM, or Overseer for the first time, another Tex fan is born. And a true Tex fan never dies."

Comments?

DMA In WinXP         00:25 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

Ken informed me that he has successfully enabled DMA mode for his DVD-ROM drive in Windows XP. Previously, it would stubbornly revert back to PIO mode no matter what he tried. You know what was his solution? Heheh... it's pretty simple.

He merely switched IDE channels! Yes, he merely swapped the IDE channels his CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives were using. His CD-RW drive was originally the master drive while the DVD-ROM drive was the slave drive. But once he switched the DVD-ROM to the master channel and the CD-RW to the slave channel, WinXP automatically enabled DMA mode for the DVD-ROM drive!

Amazing, isn't it? Now, you can try this method out with your "stubborn" drives and see if it works for you too! Let us know! :)

Comments?

News From The Net

Think Techie just posted a review of the ThermalTake Crystal Orb cooler! Clip - "We all know how important cooling is on your CPU. But what about your GPU? Its overclockable too, and hell it gets hot! I may just have the solution to your heat problem. Think about it, why risk burning you expensive video card with a stock cooler? Well Thermaltake has a great product for you. The crystal Orb, sleek and effective, but don't take my word for it, keep reading and find out more on it." 

RAID Optimization Guide!          02:40 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

RAID has long been employed to provide data protection as well as greater performance. Until recently, RAID has mostly been relegated to large corporations with pockets deep enough to foot the incredible cost of a RAID array.

But today, cheap IDE RAID cards are flooding the market. Even some motherboards now have these IDE RAID controllers onboard. These IDE RAID solutions are very cheap, compared to the traditional SCSI RAID solutions.

Because of the much lower cost, RAID is now becoming quite the rage, especially for people on the lookout for better hard disk performance or data redundancy or both. Today, Ken Ng will take you on a journey of the various RAID levels and what the optimal settings are for different RAID arrays. What started off as a review of the Promise FastTrak100 ATA RAID card has now become the RAID Optimization Guide! Here's a clip of the guide :-

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. However, some prefer to define RAID as Redundant Array of Independent Disks. In principle, RAID is a technique in which you logically turn two or more hard disks into a single, high performance hard disk. How this is done depends on which RAID level is used.

Well, there is quite a lot to talk about regarding RAID as a whole. However, I'll try to keep it short and simple, and yet informative enough so that even newbies will be able to understand the concept of RAID as well as how, when and why it can improve the hard disk performance.

For more on RAID optimization, check out the new RAID Optimization Guide!

Comments?

Some Changes          01:55 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

I just updated the About ARP and About Adrian pages! :)

Comments?

New Webmaster!          01:40 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

Let me introduce you to the newest member of Team ARP - our first real webmaster - Kenneth Kowalsky! He will be working on a new layout for ARP so if you have any suggestions or wish to help out, just e-mail me or post your suggestions in the forums!

Comments?

Troubles          01:10 AM MYT     Adrian Wong

The last few days have been real stressful. Heheh... I finally migrated from Windows 2000 to Windows XP! Because I have a lot of important data in my Windows 2000 installation, I took every possible precaution to ensure that the transition was smooth. Naturally, with Murphy's law in action, the transition wasn't smooth at all...

I stupidly forgot that the new HPT370 drivers do not support ATAPI drives. Yeah, knock me on the head again, puh-leaze! I've been using an older driver so that I could run my CD-RW drive off the HPT370 controller. I really hate HighPoint IDE controllers now that they have cut off ATAPI support. What's the point of having extra IDE channels when you can't use them???

Anyway, I spent half a day chasing ghosts when my DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives disappeared! Man... did I have a real swell time... Learn from my mistakes - go with IDE controllers from Promise or other manufacturers if you want to make full use of your additional IDE channels.

Not only that, my brand-new PK Blackout Buster UPS just went bonkers! At about 7:30 in the morning, it suddenly went into battery mode and refused to return to mains mode! I tried all the sockets in my room (there was definitely power) but no luck. In the end, I had to shut off the computer. Since then, it would go into mains mode for a while and charge. And then, it would "automatically" go into battery mode until it runs out of power. Damn... anyone facing the same problem? So much for an uninterruptible power supply...

Finally, I have to admit that my brand-new 16X LITE-ON DVD-ROM drive has a problem. Even after testing it with numerous DVD players and in the new OS, the drive still won't play certain DVDs properly. I just tried out a friend's Sony DVD-ROM and it read all the "problematic" DVDs without a hitch. Just a note - Ken's LITE-ON DVD-ROM is working fine.

Looks like Lady Luck isn't with me. If you have her number, please give her a tinkle and let her know I need some luck! :)

Comments?

News From The Net

VoidYourWarranty posted a review of the Klipsch ProMedia 5.1! Snip - "DVD playback is where this system shines. StarWars: The Phantom Menace offers probably the best visuals and sounds than any other DVD out there. During many sequences, I felt that I was actually back in the theater. The center channel does wonders, handling the voices while the fronts take care of the main sound with the rears handling ambient sounds. The PM5.1's deliver in DVD quality. For those who never experienced a home theater setup, this will truly be an enjoyable experience."

The Overclocker Cafe posted their review of the Tweakmonster Tin Coated Copper RAM Sinks! Snip - "Tweakmonster’s website claims the RAM sink's base is within .0002 of an inch flat.  From the looks of the sinks I have no reason to dispute this.  Each Tweakmonster RAM sink is cut from a single piece of copper and then coated in tin.  The nice thing about the tin coating is that you won’t have to worry about your sinks oxidizing and loosing that lustery shine."

BurnoutPC posted a.. er... thing about some options for modding with a lightstrip. Quote - "Hi there, Burnoutpc.com has a small thing online, it isnt a review, neither an article, but some options for modding with a lightstrip."

PC Hardware just reviewed the MSI 845 Pro2 motherboard! Clip - "The motherboards offers the Frequency / Voltage Control which allows you to adjust almost all parameters which influence overclocking. You can modify the AGP Voltage, DRAM Voltage, CPU Voltage, CPU FSB and CPU Clock Ratio. But let's review the choices for every one of them. The AGP voltage can be adjusted between 1.50 and 1.65V in 0.05V increments, a useful feature that may increase stability if you have a powerful video card that requires a high power on AGP. If you experience problems with the system stability you can increase the voltage."

GideonTech reviewed the Global WIN SAK38 cooler! Snip - "One of the newer additions to the design of the SAK38, is the 3 hole clip. This clip is a lot better for stabilizing the heatsink on top of your CPU. Also, if you happen to have broken off the middle tab on your socket, this can be a nice alternative. It will still allow you to have a heatsink to be used on your motherboard. One downside of this clip is that it gets stuck in between the fins a bit too much. It probably would be easier to maneuver if the fins were a bit wider apart or if the clips were thinner."

Hardware Pub reviewed the Alpha PAL8045 cooler! Quote - "If you don't know who Swiftech is, go to any cooling store, and try to find the most expensive HSF around and you most likely found the Swiftech MC-462. What's my point? Well my point is that Alpha's PAL8045 is being seen for over $20 cheaper than Swiftech's monster MC-462.  If this is any indication, the MC-462 will most likely fall to shame."

2FastCPU reviewed the OCH MicroView LCD screen! Snip - "So you think you've got your case tricked out all the way right? Wrong! You've still got one part missing from that awesome machine of your's, a 4" LCD screen." They also posted a review of the Swiftech MCX462 cooler! Snip - "The particular model that we are going to take a look at today is the newly released MCX462. This is our first Swiftech heatsink, so let's see what makes them special compared to other heatsinks!"

Unique Hardware reviewed the Global WIN CAK2-38 cooler! Snip - "Continuing with the FAN, the CAK11-38 gives you two options for connecting it. Either with the 3 pin connector, which is not reccommend because of the power consumption, or use the 4 pin molex connector, which is in fact a 3 pin >> 4 pin convertor. The only downside to this is that it doesn't support hardware monitoring, whereas the 3 pin connection does."