Switched On Tech Design

Author: sotech

  • Is there any difference between a CPU assembled in Malay and one from Costa Rica?

    On the top of any modern Intel CPU you will see the country of assembly printed, and it will be either Malay or Costa Rica. Back in the day this could mean the difference between a chip with excellent overclocking potential and a dud; how about now?

     

     

    In a nutshell, no more difference than you get with normal batch-to-batch variation. Intel’s Copy Exactly program apparently works as intended – controlling every possible controllable variable involved in the assembly process to eliminate any differences. You can read more about Copy Exactly on Intel’s website (link) – the origins of this process actually date back to the 1980s.

     

    So if you end up with one or the other, relax – neither one is going to automatically mean a better chip.

  • New watercooled build coming…

    We have a new mini-workstation/gaming build coming; here’s a couple of teaser pics from the first one:

     

     

     


     

     



    More to come! It’s a beautiful little thing 🙂

  • Raspberry Pi & SD cards

     

    After yesterday’s brief post about the Pi there were some questions about how the SD cards fit in – easiest answered with a photo or two:

     

     

    As you can see, the SD card slot is on the underside of the device and once inserted the card protrudes about half its length beyond the edge of the Pi. Any of the cases I’ve seen so far  compensate for that, but it is something to keep in mind if you are thinking of building your own.

  • Just arrived: Intel Dual-10-Gigabit Network Cards

     

    We got our first Intel X520-T2 10Gbe cards in this week; benchmarks and a review won’t be available for a couple of weeks yet but we’re expecting big things…

     

    Stay tuned for more!

  • Raspberry Pi has arrived…

    Our first shipment are already allocated but we did have the chance to grab some photos before they were all gone… In case you aren’t familiar with what the Pi is, it’s a new device which has the potential to be a complete game-changer when it comes to computing – here are some links:

     

    Homepage – FAQ

    As for the device itself, here it is:

    (more…)

  • Asus 7850 Direct CU II 2GB review

    This graphics card has grown to be a staple in our workstation and gaming builds; today we have a mini-review of why you might want to consider including on in your own build.

     

     

    (more…)

  • Teaser: New graphics cards

    We’ve got a mini-review of a certain AMD Pitcairn-based graphics card coming up soon. In the meantime, here’s a couple of teaser shots!

     

     

     

    More to come – including the review – soon!

  • How to update/upgrade OpenIndiana

    Unlike Ubuntu Server, the text-only version of OpenIndiana doesn’t prompt you on login to update its packages when new ones become available. To do a dry run upgrade use the command:

     

    pfexec pkg image-update -nv

     

    The -n flag specifies a dry run (no system changes) and the -v flag produces a verbose output. If the changes look satisfactory remove the -n flag and upgrade:

     

    pfexec pkg image-update -v

     

    Depending on how long it has been since you last upgraded it might have a couple of hundred megabytes to download. As a word of warning – check your rpool free space and don’t upgrade if your rpool is extremely close to being full as the additional space taken up might cause your system to drop you into maintenance mode on reboot as it runs out of room for log files and the like, which can be slightly alarming.

  • How to reset a ProCurve 2510-24g to default settings

    Here’s one someone asked me today – it’s reasonably straight-forward, though not necessarily obvious:

     

    • Press in both the Clear and Reset buttons (tiny buttons on the left edge)
    • Release the Reset button after the port lights come on (~2 seconds)
    • When the Self-Test LED starts flashing (to the left of the Clear and Reset buttons), release the Clear button.

     

    This resets the switch to the factory default settings, including the IP address. By default this switch uses DHCP for its IP if available; try checking your router’s DHCP client list after the switch boots if you’re having trouble finding it.

     

    These switches are popping up in the hands of enthusiasts more regularly now that they’re quite cheap to come by; they can be quite handy for hooking up a large number of devices which don’t require a gigabit connection (printers, UPS’, modems, IP cameras etc.) – 24 100Mb ports and two gigabit ports in a fanless, rack-mountable chassis can be quite handy.

  • BIOS update: Asus P8Z77-V

    For those customers (well, for you single customer at this stage…!) who have this board there’s a new BIOS out, #1015; it’s worth updating to this one as Asus claims it improves system stability, memory compatibility and USB compatibility, along with supporting some new CPUs.

     

    You can download it here.