Overclocking ‘Skeletor’ Q9450 – Round 2

(see round 1 notes for full specs)

After watching a quick youtube of a guy that hit 3.9Ghz (485MHz FSB) where he didn’t bat and eye about leaving his DDR2 at something around 1000MHz, I decided to copy his lead and give up on the 1:1 DRAM:FSB thing and just go for the CPU gusto… I wasn’t seeing much love at 485… it would somehow boot if I goosed the DRAM to 1349 or something like that… but Win7 would reset after boot logo… lower DRAM frequencies wouldn’t even boot until I set it to auto and it came back with 971 :(

I’m at 420 FSB with 1400 DRAM now and holding in Win7 for a nice stretch here… that’s around 3.4GHz which is at respectable 26% increase… we shall see.

Primary OC BIOS settings (gleaned from here)

• CPU Ratio = 8
• C1E = disabled (I have no idea)
• Max CPUID = disabled (ditto)
• FSB = 420
• FSB Strap = Auto
• PCIE Freq = 100
• DRAM freq = 1400’ish
• CPU Voltage = 1.39375 (he read that was the safe max somewhere)
• DRAM Voltage = 1.8 … haven’t played with this at all yet to see if lower would suffice

Temps reported from Everest:
Motherboard    34 °C  (93 °F)
CPU    33 °C  (91 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1    44 °C  (111 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2    44 °C  (111 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #3    43 °C  (109 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #4    41 °C  (106 °F)

Micro SATA to ZIF Adapter

 
Update: 13 Dec 2010

• I have the board in hand now… I’ll answer preliminary questions anyone has… still planning to hold out on Intel X18 G3 before I actually try cramming it all in my tablet.
• I opened my tablet this evening and it’s definitely not going to be a cake walk… the first commenter is right… most of us are going to be stuck with the existing HDD’s cavity which means no room to stick the adapter on the SATA end… *maybe* I can unsolder the mounting poles and bend the micro SATA connector into something close to a 180 degree reverse… stripping the SSD bare might give it all enough room… still looks like a complete long shot… otherwise, there’s soldering wires directly from board to SSD as the commenter mentioned… and *maybe* putting the sata connector on a ribbon cable, just to preserve the drive for other purposes.

Finally, we have a full product to work with that adapts directly from Micro SATA to ZIF.
My intended purpose is to convert a 1.8” Micro SATA SSD to the ZIF connector on my netbook PC… I just never saw myself pulling off the microscopic soldering job required by the piecemeal solutions posted by clever folks on the longstanding NotebookReview thread about this topic.
Doug at sales@microsatacables.com has been very helpful.
This is a brand new item they just received and haven’t had a chance to post on www.microsatacables.com yet.
Rough Dimensions: 55mm (L) x 26.5mm (W) x 7mm (H)
I've ordered one and will post results on fitting it in my Samsung Q1U… obviously it’s a long shot given the space constraints as always… first thought is that hopefully there’s something to be done with the giant silver box on right side of first photo… I think I can handle soldering that to some relocation wires … then it looks like a significant portion of the PCB would be safely whackable as shown in the second photo… and of course strip the SSD’s stock enclosure down to its barest essential dimensions… any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.
The Intel X18-M 1.8” SSD (SSDSA1MH160G2xx) is the obvious prime choice right now but hopefully a bunch of Christmas and New Years cheer will distract me long enough to hold out for Intel’s imminent G3’s… so it’ll probably be February before I can post any results (that sound you hear is me champing at my bit).

Car GPS Navi Shopping

TomTom lineup

Obfuscated Marketing Buzzwords (OMB’s) abound in this segment… it’s taken me many GC’s (Google Clicks) to distill what is sold down to differentiable features.

As always Wikipedia is our friend.

Euro vs US product availability – if you sit on the Car Navigation product page and flip back and forth between the various locales (very bottom of all pages), you start getting a feel for what’s available where… DE has the “Via 125” listed right now, where GB has the “Via 120 Live” and the US doesn’t even list the Via line at all.

“GO” product line – the main difference I see here between the X/XL products is that GO includes microSD card slot and the prices are significantly higher for otherwise equivalent model/features.

“IQ Routes” – application of historically collected consumer based traffic data to your current route (TomTom.com IQ Routes home page).  This data is collected from all of us by uploading via USB connection to the “Home” application on our PC’s.  This data represents driving speed per road segment per time of day in order to be most accurate.

“HD Traffic” – analytical combination of mobile phone generated traffic data in addition to traditional government traffic data sources. Highly detailed white paper (from HD Traffic home page).  Delivered every 3 minutes to capable devices via Live services (see below).

“Via” – appears to be the latest model line sporting most of TomTom’s contemporary functionalities combined (e.g. 5” screen, voice control, Bluetooth-hands free calling, Live Services, 4GB internal flash mem, etc, but notably NO SD slot)

“Live Services” – wireless updates via integrated cell/SIM (includes HD Traffic, etc). Delivered every 3 minutes.  Requires a subscription (estimated $10/montly, even though some come with 12 months for free, any subscription like this is a big personal turnoff).

“RDS-TMC Traffic” – live traffic data delivery via radio receiver (product link).  I have confirmed directly with TomTom customer support that the RDS-TMC receiver is indeed included in the box on XXL 540T and XXL 540TM models via the car charger cable.  And that it does provide lifetime traffic information.

Memory – XXL 540TM World Traveler Edition (WTE) appears to be the only XXL 540 model one that comes with 4GB mem.  Although other models are listed on TomTom.com with 4GB, it has been confirmed by buyers that all other XXL 540 models are 2GB only as recent as Nov 2010 (best reference, also see the main thread).

Great hands on comparison between Garmin Nuvi 1490T and TomTom XXL 540S

TomTom enhanced software hacks

• TripMaster – provides many things include track log

Openbravo ERP & POS – Open Source ERP, FINALLY!

Openbravo – heck of a BoD/CxO roster, InfoWorld bOSSie awards last three years running, solid funding … looks pretty good

Blu-ray Burner & Media Shopping

Burner: Pioneer BDR-206

• Provantage has brown box OEM for $130.37 (+ $11.70 APO shipping)
• Dual Layer capable
• 3D capable (whatever that means)
• Write: 12x BD-R (DL), 2x BD-RE (DL), 5x DVD-RAM, 16x DVD±R, 8x DVD±R DL, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+RW, 40x CD-R, 24x CD-RW
• Read: 8x BD-R/RE/ROM (DL), 6x BD-RE DL, 5x DVD-RAM, 16x DVD-ROM, 40x CD-ROM
• 4MB cache
• some write performance competitive comparison specs

Media:

• Vinpower’s “Optical Quantum Best Print” product line is competitively priced and covers the specialty gamut well (hub printable, etc)
  • In particular, the Water-Resistant Media using “Liquid-Defense” version sounds pretty cool: The OQBP water-resistant media is a new innovation using nanoparticle technology. It secures the printed matter to the disc preventing moisture from separating the ink which causes smearing and bleeding.
  • Rated at 4x for BD-R *BUT* RunTechMedia.com says – “This media can record up to 8x speed in certain 8x or higher speed Blu-ray burners, please refer compatibility list for more info.” and goes on to list the previous gen Pioneer BDR-205 as capable of 10x with these discs (sweet :)
  • Google Shopping Search 
  • RunTechMedia.com has competitive prices
    • OQBDR04LDWIP (White, Hub Printable, with Liquid Defense) 10pack = $30 ($3 a disc is a little rich for my purposes, i.e. photo backups initially)
    • OQBDR04GWIP-H (*GLOSSY* White, Hub, NOT water proof) 25 pack = $46.25 ($1.85 is top end of ok in my book, fair tradeoff if I do want to print something for friends)
    • *NOTE*: VinpowerDigital.com doesn’t promote all the various formats they actually manufacture…I originally missed that there was even a glossy version available… if you’re not up for the top end pricey Liquid Defense, I absolutely recommend *GLOSSY* white finish at least… the plain white (i.e. “matt”) finish I’ve tried once on another generic brand was much less impressive… it only ups the cost of the 25 pack by $6.24 over the non-glossy format (OQBDR04WIP-H) and I think it’s totally worth it.
    • RunTechMedia had solid eMail sales support and actually price matched Provantage on the Pioneer burner, for a markdown of $40 (schwing!)
    • They charge $9.55 for APO *PRIORITY* shipping on single spindle case qtys… that’s fair
    • fyi, even though their confirmation email listed depressing "Media Mail", my package did arrive promptly via Priority as quoted.

[SOLVED!] Photoshop CS5 – Detected Video Card: Blank

Just go into Help > System Info before you do anything else, that’s it.

Unbelievable but this works 100% of the time on my current rig running Photoshop CS5 on Windows 7 with an ATI x1300 Pro graphics card (yeah yeah it’s far from a graphics superstar but honestly it does everything I need, including Photoshop 3D mode just fine thank you :). 

Anyway, the area under Edit > Preferences > Performance > GPU Settings > Detected Video Card would always come up blank.  This was absolutely driving me nuts because I want all the 3D mode stuff that only comes when Photoshop is happy with your OpenGL bits.  There are several forum posts about Photoshop being sensitive to what your video card spits out when PS does an OpenGL “capability scan”.

Sure is cool to have such an easy fix… found it totally by chance.  Obviously it would be nice if Adobe could find it in their hearts to run the video detect code through the System Info code but I’m sure they’ve got a ton of bigger fish to fry.

[Update: 01 Feb 2011] Photoshop CS5 on the Mac side has no such issues recognizing this card.

[Update: 04 May 2011] Photoshop CS5 64bit on Win7 seems to find the card straight away, nice.

**Note: I had to install the ATI Catalyst drivers, the default Windows WDDM drivers didn’t provide the right kind of OpenGL support… for this old card Catalyst v10.2 seems to be the “legacy” cutoff point.

More keywords for Google to bring home other wayward souls: Photoshop, CS5, No Detected Video Card, Enable OpenGL Drawing, Enable Graphics Hardware Acceleration is unavailable, GPU Settings

Before		After

Self-hosting Zenphoto on Windows 7 (IIS7, PHP & MySQL)

I really like ZenPhoto - it's a solid photo gallery with an easy point and click web admin GUI.
The main thing I dig is that i can point it at my main photos folder on my hard drive (via a quick symbolic link) and it goes to town dynamically publishing whatever I drop there without any other fiddling… that's photo sharing nirvana if you ask me.

[Update: 25 Oct 2010] After running the gallery for a couple days I’d have to say Apache did a better job at popping the pages back than what I’ve got setup under IIS so far… maybe Apache just deals with these more CGI oriented modules better than IIS can for some fundamental reason… I do have PHP “FastCGI” enabled for IIS… any performance tips would be greatly appreciated :) I’ll have to go find some trace tools to see where it’s spending most of its time.  I guess it could still be caching images since ZenPhoto pulls a new random image for the album cover each time you refresh the page and I did wipe the cache when I migrated over to IIS.

[Update: 29 Oct 2010] Setting Admin Options > Image subtab > Full image protection = Unprotected - yields a noticeable speed boost presumably because it skips a bunch of file I/O… now it feels back on par with what I was seeing in Apache… unfortunately, I just don’t remember how I had that setting under Apache.

Installs:

• I installed them all to c:\Program Files because that's my speedy SSD and I want this site to be as performant as possible
  • then i simply SymLink my main photos folder (on a RAID1 volume elsewhere) over the top of c:\Program Files\zenphoto\albums
  • here's an awesome SymLink utility for Windows Explorer!!
• IIS - I'm on Win7 so it's IIS7 - Apache's cool and all but i saw a note somewhere that gave me the impression that on Windows, IIS + PHP via FastCGI module is  going to be more performant than Apache... otherwise, I did previously run it all on Apache just fine via the nifty "XAMPP" stack that installs everything for you in minutes and it "just works" which was honestly much less trouble than getting it all to hang together under IIS7 myself.
• PHP - there's a specific Windows/IIS “Fast CGI” version (current version: 5.3.3) (see this for Thread Safe vs Non Thread Safe binaries, non thread safe + IIS FastCGI is most performant)
• MySQL - and their WorkBench tool is handy (current version: 5.1.51)
  • there's a lot of environmental tuning questions during the install wizard but i mostly selected default settings
  • I chose to go with a \MySQL_Data subfolder for the datafiles
  • configure for TCP/IP access (i don't yet know how to configure PHP to connect to MySQL over named pipes)
• ZenPhoto - just an unzip (current version: 1.3.1.2)
• zpGallerific theme (current version: 1.0)

FIREWALL!!! turn it completely off to begin with so you know whether it's your main problem or not

• I had to add these two rules to BitDefender
• 
• THE ORDER OF THE RULES MATTERS... MOVE THESE TO THE VERY TOP of the list with the arrow buttons!!
• helpful: http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?showtopic=12764
• nutshell: to see what's blocked "Increase Verbosity" and "Show Log" on Activity tab 

Folder Permissions:

• grant IUSR full permissions to root zenphoto folder (IIS_IUSRS group did NOT work)
  • it was also necessary on the true target of the symlinked albums folder
• something happened on my win7 box where my albums folder was no longer accessible to zenPhoto/PHP… maybe a Windows Update closed a security loophole or something…
  • anyway, I found this: http://www.gotknowhow.com/articles/fix-login-failed-for-user-iis-apppool-aspnet-v4-error-iis7
  • the basic idea is to change the account for the AppPool that’s running your site to something specific rather than the pseudo “ASP.Net V4.0” / ApplicationPoolIdentity accounts used by default… so I changed to LocalSystem and everything started working again

IIS Tweaks:

• Enable 32bit PHP under IIS on 64bit Windows
  • install IIS6.0 script compatibily
  • cscript %SYSTEMDRIVE%\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil.vbs SET W3SVC/AppPools/Enable32bitAppOnW
• MOD_REWRITE
  • once I got everything fired up I realized that it’d be nice to support my old URLs that I’ve mailed out to everybody already
  • interesting thing was, Apache was doing something cool I didn’t realize… it was mod_rewrite’ing my php urls for me so they looked like pretty folders
  • actually zenphoto was kicking out the pretty urls and mod_rewrite was translating them back into /index.php?album=blah format behind the covers
  • IIS doesn’t do that right out of the box but they have a nice free URL Rewrite module you can drop in to do this very same thing (v2.0 currently)
  • you have to restart IIS Manager GUI after you install to see the “URL Rewrite” icon under the “IIS” section of your web site
  • it has a good wizard for the easy stuff which is all I needed to map “photos/(.*)/” to “photos/index.php?album={R:1}”
  • also under conditionals, input: {REQUEST_FILENAME} => “Is Not a File” & “Is Not a Folder” was crucial to allow the real URLs for direct downloading of images and such to continue working
  • Here' are all the rewrite rules I needed to apply:

web.config

1. <?xml version="1.0"?>
2. <configuration>
3.     <system.webServer>
4.  
5.     <rewrite>
6.             <rules>
7.                 <clear/>
8.                 <rule name="RewriteUserFriendlyURL6" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true">
9.                     <match url="^page/search/archive/(.*)$"/>
10.                     <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false">
11.                         <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true"/>
12.                         <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true"/>
13.                     </conditions>
14.                     <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php?p=search&amp;date={R:1}"/>
15.                 </rule>
16.                 <rule name="RewriteUserFriendlyURL5" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true">
17.                     <match url="^page/([0-9]+)/?$"/>
18.                     <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false">
19.                         <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true"/>
20.                         <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true"/>
21.                     </conditions>
22.                     <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php?page={R:1}"/>
23.                 </rule>
24.                 <rule name="RewriteUserFriendlyURL4" enabled="true" patternSyntax="ECMAScript" stopProcessing="true">
25.                     <match url="^page/(.*?)$"/>
26.                     <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false">
27.                         <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true"/>
28.                     </conditions>
29.                     <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php?p={R:1}" appendQueryString="true"/>
30.                 </rule>
31.                 <rule name="RewriteUserFriendlyURL1" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true">
32.                     <match url="^(.*?)/?$"/>
33.                     <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false">
34.                         <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true"/>
35.                         <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true"/>
36.                     </conditions>
37.                     <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php?album={R:1}" appendQueryString="false"/>
38.                 </rule>
39.             </rules>
40.         </rewrite>
41.         <directoryBrowse enabled="true"/>
42.     </system.webServer>
43.  
44.   <system.web>
45.         <compilation targetFramework="4.0" debug="true"/>
46.         <pages controlRenderingCompatibilityVersion="3.5" clientIDMode="AutoID"/>
47.   </system.web>
48.  
49. </configuration>

PHP Setup:

• Map an IIS virtual directory to your zenphoto root
• browse to http://{your domain}/{zenphoto virtual dir}/setup.php
• it'll probably bark about a couple settings you have to make manually... no biggie hopefully
• you'll have to reset "World Wide Web Publishing Service" to refresh any PHP settings it tells you to twiddle
• I had to leave file/folder permissions as "loose (0777)"... all of the stricter settings blocked zenphoto subfolder permissions
• MySQL settings:
  • root login & password
  • 127.0.0.1:3306 (localhost did NOT work!?!)
  • database name ("zenphoto")
  • table prefix = blank (i preferred to go with a separate database w/o table prefixes)
  • it'll create the zenphoto database for you with a simple click once you get a successful login to MySQL server working
  • *GO* :)
• i went ahead and let it delete the "zp-core\setup*.php" files
• set admin username & password
• You're in!

ZenPhoto admin page settings:

• just unzip zpGallerific folder into the \zenphoto\themes folder
• Theme's tab - activate zpGallerific
• Options tab
  • general subtab - Time zone = Europe/Berlin
  • gallery subtab
    • title = The Andersons
    • description = {blank} (set Gallerific subtitle next)
    • sorty by = filename - descending (works for me because i name all folders "yyyy-mm-dd {description}")
  • image subtab – Full image protection = Unprotected (as long as you don’t really care who gets access, this yields a MAJOR speed boost for page rendering times)
  • theme subtab
    • Albums per page = 9
    • Color = Blue
    • Tagline = Cassidy, Anne, BJ & Friends

iTunesControl

This thing totally rocks!… essentially flawless implementation of global hotkeys plugin to control iTunes and also sweet configurable heads-up-display functionality (example shot below)… if you’ve been looking for this kind of functionality, look no further! (waaaay more functional than the clunky Aqua-Soft mmKeys.dll plugin that’s out there)

Super bonus points: the developer Carson Morrow is a great guy… very responsive!

TortoiseSVN + Code.Google.com = development LOCATION nirvana

Over the last couple days I took a stab at throwing my source code up into a Google Code repository.

There are several options to choose from with regards to accessing your code base… “the Google” will host your code via either Mercurial or Subversion standards… quickly browsing for recommendations, I felt like Subversion was better represented. and then quickly landed on the much recommend TortoiseSVN.  TortoiseSVN adds Subversion related context menus to Windows Explorer (or whatever your preferred “Finder” equivalent is).

Now when I wake up in the middle of the night with an the itch to toss an idea into my current project, I don’t have to suffer through firing up my corporate Vista (ugh) laptop, waiting for a VPN connection, waiting for the remote desktop to open up… I can just pop into my VS2010 project on my main desktop (always running) and check in some code that will be right there ready to merge back into my project when I get back to my desk at work.

I’ve just started using it but I’ve been back and forth a couple times and its working.
I think that’s pretty cool.

Notes:

• I was initially concerned about how peppy the interaction with a cloud hosted source library would be… after using it for about a year and a half now, I can confidently say that it’s not even an issue… you generally blast away on local work copies of your files so there’s no impact… then when you’re finally ready to send up some changes you hit “SVN Commit”… it does some obvious bit chugging over the wire for a few moments but not too bad and then you get a big list of what it plans on uploading to Google…then you hit OK and it chugs through that… so the time spent on source maintenance is well contained and makes sense… good time to take a breather
• I believe Subversion works on more of a branch and merge methodology vs. exclusive checkout locks like I’m used to with VSS so I’ll have to see how that goes in practice.
• When you want to first connect your Google Code Repository with Tortoise, remember to simply select the “Checkout” context menu on your desired folder… it’ll prompt you for the SVN URL, login name (your Gmail address) & special password found via this URL.

Expression Blend 4 + SketchFlow is pretty dang cool

I’m just getting my feet wet with a silly little project… i wanted to create a high res icon for Windows Enabler in my ObjectDock… turned out decent:

WPF .Net 4 LOB Application Framework

(Wikipedia: LOB)

Grepping for nuggets: (All the code is hosted in a Google Code SVN repository with “nugget:” comments to help me remember the highlights I’ve learned along the way this time around)

Highlights:

BackgroundWorkerEx.cs – “incremental search” -- ala Google (no “search” button to press)

• ~100 lines of simple wrapper around .Net BackgroundWorker and DispatcherTimer classes
• automatic WaitCursor handling (System.Windows.Input.Cursors.AppStarting is perfect UI for this purpose, it shows that something is going on with the wait spinner, but you also get a mouse pointer which tells the user they can still do stuff)
• implemented as Generic class as an elegant way for the client to provide a “state” object that gets handed back to the caller’s async event handlers

Handy ETL JScript

import.cmd: @cscript /b import.js %*

import.js

1. //v1.0
2.  
3. function cleanarg(i)
4. {
5.   //WScript.stdout.WriteLine("i: " + i);
6.   return(WScript.Arguments(i+1).replace("\"", ""));
7. }
8.  
9. //WScript.stdout.WriteLine("arg count: "+WScript.Arguments.length);
10.  
11. if (WScript.Arguments.length == 0)
12. {
13.   WScript.stderr.WriteLine("Usage:");
14.   WScript.stderr.WriteLine("  -i \"input file\"");
15.   WScript.stderr.WriteLine("  -o \"output file\" (blank = screen output)");
16.   WScript.stderr.WriteLine("  -r \"record separator\"");
17.   WScript.Quit();
18. }
19.  
20. var inputfile;
21. var outputfile;
22. var record;
23.  
24. var localpath = WScript.ScriptFullName.replace(WScript.ScriptName, "");
25.  
26. for (var i = 0; i < WScript.Arguments.length; i++)
27. {
28.   //WScript.stdout.WriteLine("arg["+i+"]: "+WScript.Arguments(i));
29.   switch (WScript.Arguments(i))
30.   {
31.     case "-i": inputfile = cleanarg(i); break;
32.     case "-o": outputfile = cleanarg(i); break;
33.     case "-r": record = cleanarg(i); break;
34.   }
35. }
36.  
37. var fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
38.  
39. //WScript.stderr.WriteLine("  inputfile: " + inputfile + ", record: " + record + ", exension: " + fso.GetExtensionName(inputfile) + ", WScript.ScriptFullName: " + WScript.ScriptFullName.replace(WScript.ScriptName, ""));
40. //WScript.Quit();
41.  
42. var ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2;
43.  
44. var f = fso.OpenTextFile(inputfile, ForReading);
45.  
46. var out = WScript.stdout;
47. if (outputfile != undefined) out = fso.OpenTextFile(outputfile, ForWriting, true);
48.  
49. var line="";
50. while ( f.AtEndOfStream != true )
51. {
52.   var str = f.Readline();
53.   if (str == record)
54.   {
55.     out.WriteLine(line.slice(1));
56.     line = "";
57.   }
58.   else line += "," + str;
59. }
60. out.Close();
61.  
62. if (fso.GetExtensionName(outputfile) == "csv")
63. {
64.   var WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell");
65.   //WScript.stderr.WriteLine(localpath + outputfile);
66.   WshShell.Run(localpath + outputfile);
67.   WshShell.Run(localpath + outputfile);
68.   WshShell.Run(localpath + outputfile);
69. }

Keyboard Porn

True Geek Love :) The perfect rainy day activity Ode to keyboard: Still lovin’ my Dell “QuietKey” classic generic server keyboards (Thank you Pat and Gabe!! :) It’s nice and heavy… doesn’t slide around on the desk like the featherweight Dells we get at work these days The rubber pads under the keys (ocean blue dots in first photo) give a pleasingly solid thunk feel but still fairly quiet, not rata-tat-tat (which matters a whole lot more lately, when trying to sneak in some quality PC time next to the little one’s nest ;) I highly recommend a simple jet wash versus popping all those keys off. By my second round it was a quick matter of: unscrew, hose down, blow dry, screw back on… <15 minutes that way Just 8 easy screws to separate the all-plastic key tray top side from its electronic underbelly (great cleaning copacetic design there… good job random Asian manufacturer!) Then you can focus on blasting away the furry gummy bears rotting under your keys with nary a concern… a shower/sink sprayer with decent pressure comes in handy here. Still into poppin’ keys? Lesson #1 - have another keyboard handy for reference when it’s time to pop the caps back on Careful, there was a micro spring under the space bar on mine Careful #2, those rubber pads are very fragile… the slightest nudge knocks them off their gossamer adhesive… fortunately, very easy to super glue back on but they just sit on a flat glossy surface with no guide bumps or anything so you have to be mindful of re-positioning when you commit new glue The plastic standoffs on mine (white pile in middle of first photo) are keyed so they fit back the right way without any thought … so feel free to let those chips fall where they may when you disassemble… the F and J were vertically slotted, all the rest were horizontal

Overclocking ‘Skeletor’ Q9540 v1.0

[Update: 14 Dec 2010] Round 2 here

Photos of the rig

Well I just spent a few hours racking up some serious negative wifey points to see what I could see at the end of the OC rainbow :)

Current CPU specs:

• Intel Q9450 Quad Core 2 “Yorkfield”
• Got it for $382.48 including shipping back on 21 April 2008 (not quite a month after release :)
• LGA 775 socket
• stock @ 2.66GHz (333MHz FSB  x 8x multiplier = 2.66GHz)
• The multiplier is locked on this CPU (SOP for cheaper non ‘Extreme’ Intels) so the only way I can overclock is by jacking the FSB.
• 2 * 6MB = 12MB L2 cache
• 333MHz * quad pumped = 1333MHz effective FSB

RAM considerations:

• 333MHz FSB x quad pump means the minimum RAM spec is 1333MHz (= 4 x 333) to keep up with the FSB & CPU
• DDR - this 1333 MHz is a DDR number meaning the RAM clock is actually half that (reference how the timings are typically rated under RAM Specs below)
• FSB/RAM Ratio - that 1333 MHz is bare minimum in order to stay with a 1:1 FSB/RAM clock ratio… one can lower typically jimmy with this ratio in your OC bios settings to avoid choking your RAM while still goosing your CPU… i don’t have a feel for how practical that compromise winds up being but OC’ing is all about bragging rights and 1:1 just sounds cooler doesn’t it? ;)
• Anyway, I decided to go with bare minimum DDR3-1333's starting out given Q2 2008 build date prices ... Hoping that I’d be able to juice them a little over spec without paying for it of course :)

 

Current RAM Specs:

• G.SKILL - Part#: F3-10600CL9D-2GBNQ
• DDR3 1333MHz, PC3-10600
• Timings: CL 9-9-9-24 @ 666 MHz, 8-8-8-22 @ 592 MHz, 6-6-6-16 @ 444 MHz
• 1.5V – 1.65V
• 4 x 1GB Sticks (NewEgg was $110 per 2 x 1GB bundle = $220 total for G.SKILL 4GB DDR3 1333MHz back on 21 Apr 2008)

 

Mobo Specs: ASUS P5E3 PREMIUM/WIFI-AP @n BIOS: AMI (09/02/08) FSB: 1600/1333/1066/800 MHz Socket: LGA775 Chipset: X48 HDD Controllers: Intel ICH9R = 6 x SATA 3Gb/s RAID 0,1,5,10 JMicron JMB363 = 2 x eSata ports & 1 PATA/IDE legacy port Card Slots: 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 @ x16        1 x PCIe 1.0 x16 @ x4, x1        1 x PCIe x1         2 x PCI  RAM Slots: 4 x DIMM, 8 GB, DDR3 2000/1800/1600/1333/1066/800 Non-ECC, Un-buffered, Dual Channel NICs: Dual Gigabit - Marvell 88E8056 (PCIe) & Realtek RTL8110SC (PCI) Audio: Analog Devices AD1988B @ Intel 82801IB ICH9

OC Reality (kind of dismal actually):

• 466 MHz FSB x 8 = 3.72 GHz wouldn't even boot :)
• 433 MHz FSB       = 3.48 GHz booted but BSOD’d pretty quick :)
• 400 MHz FSB       = 3.21 GHz lasted through 10+ minutes of serious crank tests <yeah?> but BSOD’d right when I fired up Outlook after those tests <rats!>
• 380 MHz FSB       = 3.05 GHz seemed to hold <meh, better than nothing i guess>

I then realized that my BIOS OC settings were in an auto RAM ratio selection mode… at 380 MHz FSB it was choosing 456MHz core RAM clock (= 912 MHz DDR)… which compared to 1333MHz isn’t very awe inspiring… it was easy to change the BIOS OC settings from auto to a locked RAM clock to see what happens… I set my RAM clock to 1520MHz DDR (380 MHz x 4 for quad pump) to keep 1:1 with the FSB … it booted… ran for a while, still eventually BSOD’d :( well, they’re rated for 1333 and apparently I got just what I paid for.

Voltage:
I'm getting mixed signals from Everest... some screens say Core CPU is 1.0xxx and others say 1.2... no sure what to take as gospel there... my ASUS P5E3 x48 mobo's got some nice auto OC optimizer logic that I believe is choosing that voltage for me... I think I've read that 1.3v is tops recommended so you don't fry it... the way I see it, once everything else like bus bandwidths are lined up, voltage is the thing to creep up for stability ... I'd like to get 3.2GHz CPU to be stable and be happy with that.

Temps:
I'm idling just under 50c right now with silent medium fan level so I'm sorta wondering if I went a little too heavy on the thermal paste... easy mistake... I really really watched it but that's my first guess... the stress test at medium fan level got right up to 70c but no higher thankfully... putting it at a reasonable but audible high fan level knocked everything down about 7c which is great to watch.

Bottom line:

1. Obviously I didn’t get anywhere with OC'ing yet so far
2. I’ve now reapplied the thermal paste… i’m pretty clueless here… looked pretty thin smooth clean, but i really don’t know
3. First obvious move is DDR3-1600 to keep up with 400MHz FSB = 3.2GHz CPU … 
   • Rats, Everest pulled meta data which indicates mobo only supports up to DDR3-1333… hmmm… sounds like I should just get an i7 or something ;)
   • mobo FSB is rated up to 1600 so ok there
   • [Update: 12 Nov 2010] Stumbled into the mobo manual <duh> for another reason, RAM modules up to DDR3-1800 are listed with immediate compatibility, and even up to DDR3-2000 is listed with O.C. disclaimers (e.g. air cooling on the RAM modules is recommended) … but the guys I read on 13 Dec 2010 below have a good point… all those RAM specs at 1600+ are only 1GB populated… so they weren’t filling up all the slots during those tests
   • i like to think the stability i saw running 10+ minutes under high utilization @ 400 MHz is promising
   • NewEgg 4GB (2 x 2GB) Search = <$100 ballpark (23 Sep 2010)
   • G.SKILL “RipJaws” DDR3-1600 with CL 7 timings = $75 (as of 13 Dec 2010, already dropped from $95 just a month ago 12 Nov 2010) … “Customer Choice Award Winner” sounds nice.
   • G.SKILL “Flare” DDR3-1800 w/CL7 timings = $140 (12 Nov 2010) … that might be fun… 433x4 = 1732 RAM freq would run nearly 3.5GHz CPU clock… would have to try 466 = 1864 just to see of course ;)  lots of helpful OC tips in the feedback for those modules … [Update: 13 Dec 2010] these seem like they’ve been discontinued… maybe they weren’t the real deal
   • [Update: 13 Dec 2010] This was a great, fresh, discussion that confirmed my suspicions and filled in a lot of holes for me… nutshell:
     • they’ve had trouble going above 1333 as well
     • they’ve been successful at 1400’ish x 4 sticks with 7-7-7-21 timings … that really doesn’t seem like much to write home about
     • and this deep tech: “A big part of getting the board stable at higher clocks was turning C1E off and setting the Load Line Calibration to Performance to combat the Vdroop and the board switching back and forth between the 6.0 and 8.0 multiplier”… I don’t know what half of those words mean
     • post#4 here was good too
     • they indicate that 2 sticks is better odds for success above 1333 … something about not “able to push enough info to all 4 slots at speeds above 1333 MHz”…
       • so you might want to go with 2 x 4GB’s rather than 4 x 2GB’s if you’re shooting for 8GB this round
       • or maybe think further ahead and get a 3 stick kit for Nehalem or presumably Sandy Bridge and just let than one stick hang loose for now… naww
       • NewEgg, G.SKILL page… 2 x 4GB with 7-8-7-24 timings are in the $200 ballpark but they top out at 1600 right now (as of 13 Dec 2010)… that’s a bummer…
       • actually there is nothing out there for 1800 with CL7 timings… so it would have to be 1600 I guess
       • so with all that, I could easily spring for the $75 1600 CL7 2 x 2GB kit and see what there is to see at 3.2 GHz… or I could always just stay put and throw everything into a 6 core Gulftown or wait and see what Sandy Bridge is all about… decisions, decisions… at least it’s good to feel more solid about where this board is at.

Considering Home Network Storage Alternatives

My current bottom line is that I’ve got a 6 x SATA ICH9R just sitting there on my main Windows 7 machine’s mobo for free so I slapped on 2 TB x 2 in RAID1, published a few shared folders and leave that machine powered on 24/7.

After everything else (optical & OS drives) I had two ports left doing nothing so the previous gen 750GB’s x 2 are in RAID0 receiving scheduled backups for a little more cheap peace of mind.

I’m hoping by the time I actually need more space, that there will be something along the lines of a 5-bay Drobo engineered around SATA 3.0 (6 Gb/s) internally and USB 3.0 (5 Gb/s!!) externally to finally give us some serious speed for that $700 price point.

My big up front consideration: NAS vs DAS

• What’s better, a true stand alone NAS box –OR- a large/fast DAS array shared from your primary machine???
• FOR THE HOME scenario: I always go back to preferring DAS connected to my main beefiest workstation/”home-server”
• You get to rally the performance wagons around at least one location where you have absolute top end HDD access when you want it…
• If you go with a NAS, you basically accept that GbE is your top end… true, even DAS RAID0 HDD configs generally level out around 100MB/s average xfer rate which is basically the GbE saturation point (1 Gb/s = 125 MB/s minus some packet overhead puts you right around 100 MB/s)… but sequential burst rates can go upwards of 300MB/s (2.4 Gb/s) … so I believe NAS over GbE could very well prevent your drives from spitting the bits as fast as they’re capable.
• After chasing NAS box performance specs for a while you start to realize that the end game is basically spec’ing out a mid-range PC… so that’s why I can’t stop swinging back to throwing my money at the primary machine’s horsepower and just leave that powered up all the time to share files.
• My current working scenario is based on a main machine that’s sits at the center of our home’s media universe as the do-it-all living room media player… projector, good speakers, VLC, iTunes, etc… after that, it’s a matter of streaming (primarily video) wirelessly for individual needs (internet tablet, wifey’s PC, etc)… even if I did have the luxury of hiding that main machine somewhere other than the main living space, I think I’d just roll with a cheapo networked media player (e.g. Western Digital TV) in the living room with network storage requirements still covered by the main box.
• Invariably one wants to share a few things out on the internet as well as around the home… my config readily lends itself to accomplishing this from simple IIS Directory Browsing up to a full blown photo gallery (PHP/MySQL based zenPhoto, love it!!)… other NAS boxes (Synology, etc.) market themselves on more and more “server” oriented features, but why fuss with learning and navigating around the limitations of various embedded linux flavors when you can have the full power of your primary machine’s OS to load up all kinds of goodies?? e.g. Synology’s built in photo gallery is nice but open source is always going to be ahead of the game
• Another consideration: you don’t hear much talk about virus checking and NAS… maybe I’m worrying about this too much but full scans are something that one must do from time to time… ok yes, most of what we’re putting out there is going to be non executable media that doesn’t require scanning… but being a developer, I’ve developed a fairly extensive library of software that I like to have on hand… it’s doesn’t add up as fast as movies but it’s substantial… and apparently even JPG’s can get viruses… the thought of scanning all those files over the wire (repeatedly) just doesn’t appeal to me.
• I like the idea of running a reasonable database in this space… granted the optimal database drive configuration is not the same as your primary storage volume –BUT- you do still benefit from having those byte buckets near each other for backups and such
• [29 Sep 2010] Another one hit me: We finally have full symbolic/hard-link flexibility under Windows 7 NTFS… we can cross phyiscal drives with a link, etc… this allows full granularity to choose exactly what consumes the more valuable RAID1 space but still symlink anything into the same visible folder hierarchy… e.g. a single “movie” shared folder is physically comprised of “classics” subfolder (hosted on RAID1) in addition to “unwatched” (hosted on RAID0)… Shell Link Extension makes symlinks awesomely convenient to create with Windows Explorer.
• For the HOME sized problem: There starts to be a pile of compelling reasons in favor of connecting the physical storage to the main CPU horsepower over the highest bandwidth possible

Pertinent specs:

• MB/s = MegaBytes per second, Mbit/s & Mb/s = MegaBits per sec, GbE = GigaBit Ethernet, Gb/s = GigaBits per sec
• Notable NAS vendors: Synology, QNap… Buffalo, LaCie… HP, Acer, Asus… NetGear, Cisco, ZyXEL
• Performance rundown of many popular NAS boxes
  • RAID0 based units hold the crown – and nothing tops out much over 100MB/s read or write
  • Didn’t realize the Qnap’s were kicking so much arse
  • The NetGear seems to be the champ but she’s pricey (see my note about their X-RAID technology below under Holy Grail)
• HD Video Streaming, minimum required bandwidth: in the ballpark of <10MB/s (per client)
  • Blu-ray spec max data transfer rate = 54 Mbit/s (~7 MB/s)
  • HD DVD spec max data transfer rate = 36 Mbit/s

The Holy Grail (at the raw storage level):

1. Single Volume - a single logical storage pool
2. Redundancy - at least single drive failure redundancy (with RAID 5 style efficiency)
3. Different Size Drives – we all want to take advantage of the biggest/cheapest drive available from one year to the next

These are the only options I'm currently aware of:

• Drobo
• Windows Home Server
• NeatGear has something called X-RAID2 in their ReadyNAS line that looks pretty good as well… 6 bay Pro model (empty) = $1000 street <yikes>
• zFS - Solaris only…various OpenSolaris based versions out there… people do run it under a Windows VM with some success but seems clunky

Drobo

• BeyondRAID is like RAID 5 striping & redundancy yet with the freedom of on-the-fly swapping of any drive size
• Pre-emptive, automatic self healing
• Tool-less, Tray-less HDD slots
• Sexy Health lights
• OS X TimeMachine compatible
• Downsides:
  • - a bit pricey (5 bay, eSata “Drobo S” = ~$700 empty!) … i feel like they’re charging about $100-$200 over average hardware for their secret sauce
  • - unfortunately it’s run of the mill speedy (60-90 MB/s over eSATA)… too bad we can’t justify the cost with some extra performance
  • - unavoidably it’s running a proprietary format in order to work its magic … the million dollar questions is: What is Drobo’s track record now that they’ve been out there a while??  Definitely need to dig up some solid reliability satistics…  If it ever does totally puke on you, you’d have to wait for a replacement unit to drop in your drives and see what’s still there… and after that, only Data Robotics Inc can possibly save you and it’ll cost you.
  • but is this really any different than RAID5?  RAID is pretty much the same vendor specific lock-in isn’t it??… if your RAID controller up and dies (for me that’d be my mobo :| … you’d have to obtain nearly identical duplicate hardware to salvage your drives… apparently you can migrate across same vendor like ICH9R –> ICH10R which does give slightly more flexibility

Windows Home Server

• You can install PHP
• It does run fine in a VM
• OS X TimeMachine compatible
• - When you add a drive you must designate it as either Storage or Backup (the Storage pool offers no redundancy)
• - Obnoxious – there’s something whacky about how it does not balance allocation very well across available drives
• WHS “v2” aka “Vail” due sometime 2010 (V2 is Windows 2008 based, V1 is Windows 2003 based)
• Great AnandTech.com dissection
  • v1 was basically a fancy tack-on above NTFS - “Drive Extender was the biggest component of the secret sauce that made WHS unique from any other Microsoft OS. It was Drive Extender that abstracted the individual hard drives from the user so that the OS could present a single storage pool, and it was Drive Extender that enabled RAID-1 like file duplication on WHS v1. Drive Extender was also the most problematic component of WHS v1 however: it had to be partially rewritten for WHS Power Pack 1 after it was discovered that Drive Extender was leading to file corruption under certain situations.”
  • v2 Drive Extender is now ‘below’ NTFS… proprietary block based storage… single file can/will be spread across multiple disks (“chunking”)
    • biggest downside is that you can no longer just plop a WHS drive in another server to pull files in an emergency
    • chunking means that you’re in a more RAID0 like risk category for your main storage
    • enables backup of open files… to me, Drive Extender v2 provides similar freedoms to what Volume Shadow Copy provides us elsewhere
  • Great stuff in the many comments:
    • This comment basically sums up my WHS vs Drobo question => [RE: Almost there by davepermen on Wednesday, April 28, 2010, on comment page 2] – “in storage-loss for the security, raid5 is superior. if all your data is in duplication mode on whs, it needs 2x the storage space. raid5 needs "one additional disk".” … so Drobo is more like WHS flexibility + RAID5 reliability… so they really are the only game in town and hence the price.
• Generally accepted as a solid WHS implementation: HP Storage Works x510 (rebranded MediaSmart EX495)
  • 2TB config = $700 street
  • Good review
  • Very good burst speeds, 80-90MB/s average read/write

Links:

• http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-charts/view

Logitech S715i Portable iPod Speakers Review

My primary usage scenarios is small group biking… want something that can carry some punchy bass to nearby riders over typical road/wind noise w/o being clunky or adding too much weight (we have to hop on/off a lot of trains/stairs, etc)…

	Highlights	Reviews / Links
	Retail: $150, Street: $132 Released Aug 2010 8 speakers! = 2 x 3” neodymium mid drivers, 2 x 1.5” neodymium tweeters, 4 x 2” passive bass Rechargeable proprietary NiMh battery (highly marketed @ 8 hours)… too bad they’re not rocking a Li-ion slab… but supposedly these batts are user serviceable through a screw panel so we’ll see. 3.5 lbs (perfect) Standard 3.5mm AUX input (required for me) Remote (worthless for me) A/C wall brick Travel sack My review: just gave them a test run tonight 22 Sep 2010 they bang pretty nice off the back bike rack compared to the logitech 28mm (eBay = $30, no longer available) they are better enough to be worth $150 to me iPhone compatible feel solid, not as bulky as i expected Battery = NiMH 180AAHC3TMX 3.6V 1800mAh (see photo)	iLounge deep review “Unlike its predecessors, S715i has a battery compartment with standard screws that can be opened to swap the rechargeable cell out when it’s non-functional, a positive change that critics of the Pure-Fi series will appreciate.” Logitech’s product detail page Logitech’s own YouTube demo

Batteries!!  I’ve already started maxing out the battery life during our rides… we saw around 6 hours last ride… that’s not 8 hours :) … to be fair, once I turned down the volume, then the light went back green for another hour or so… but who wants low volume!?!? So now I’m looking to hack in some Lithium rechargables like what I’ve started to experience with these CREE LED’s I’ve already received one of these buggers to the right ($20 bux, 6 days Air Mail from Hong Kong to Germany! you gotta love the Chinese economy! :) I plan on cannibalizing the battery box and springy cable for feeding the speakers :)  we shall see To answer Peirre’s question in the comments: The direct battery feed is 3.6v (based on an packaged bundle of 3 x 1.2v AA NiCads in series)… but the DC charging input port is rated at 12v so there’s hurdle to get over there… I feel like we could use a fancy more expensive battery pack (like the Tekkeon’s) to drive the 12v input in a physically clean but likely power wasteful approach… I’m more inclined to fiddle around tapping the existing battery feed first and see how far I get that way. [Update: 2012 May 05] To finish off this thread, the headlamp at the right was cheap yet very capable as a lighting solution. It was a shame to cannibalize it for the battery pack experiment. And unfortunately, while the pack and cable were physically promising, the arrangement was based on a remote switch at the light head which was not a simple circuit loop that could be shorted to be always on. It was a real bear getting the little wires soldered back to the light head after this disappointment. Fear not. What has worked out quite practically is using a simple 18650 plastic case with wires soldered to pennies on either end to form a simple battery case with power leads. The case also provides an easy place for a spare backup battery… Or one could probably run them in parallel but I haven’t bothered. I removed the stock NiCad battery leads and spliced them to the makeshift 18650 battery pack so that it could be easily connected and removed. The makeshift battery case is too big to fit anywhere inside the original battery cavity but the built in speaker stand lends itself to use as a strap mounting point. Actually, eBay seems to have some nice single 18650 battery cases with leads ready to go.

Lastly, a buddy got the Bose SoundLink Bluetooth speakers and I definitely consider them another notch or two up this ladder. Highlights: $300 – this is the only downside really The internal battery pack is made of no less than 3 good ol’ 18650’s! Yay! finally somebody gets it! They’re rated pretty low (less than 2000mAh if memory serves)… so beyond the already good base 10 hour rating, presumably there’s some good room for improvement with solid upgrade cells, like the latest Redilast 3100mAh’s. From what we could tell after getting the battery cage open (there are screws under a label), the cells appear to be bare, i.e. no protective cap chip. There’s a pretty dense logic board right after the cells so presumably it’s all well buffered from spikes. I emailed the owner and he indicated $14 a piece for the naked 3100’s in qty 5 or greater. Bluetooth is pretty handy with today’s devices… there’s also a standard 3.5mm AUX port. A bit more sound punch for sure… very clear… nice tight, well built, rectangular package that lends itself to bungee’ing to a rear bike rack, etc. also, the cover can be easily removed which leaves some raised Allen screws convenient for mounting.