How to break 915/925 overclocking prot

There has been a lot of talk on the Internet about Intel’s alleged overclocking protection on 915/925 chipsets. First impressions were that these chipsets had clock limiter that depended on the PLL (Phase Lock Loop). Theory goes that the PLL would refuse to lock a frequency that was higher then Intel’s threshold. Based on our findings we think this is not true – we think it’s a simple matter of North Bridge voltage. read more

Posted: July. 14, 2004 @ 12:02PM GMT +10 by Perc

BIOS Updates for Week 28 @ PCTuning.cz

A lot of new motherboard BIOS updates form last week, including changelog's, can be found @ PCTuning.CZ. List contains: # Albatron (2) # A(10) # ASRock (5) # ASUS (15) # Biostar (2) # ECS (4) # Epox (3) # Gigabyte (10) # Chaintech (3) # Intel (13) # Jetway (8) # MSI (6) # Shuttle (6) # Soltek (4/2) # Supermicro (2) # Tyan (3) BIOS Updates for Week 28 @ PCTuning.cz Source:Warp2search

Posted: July. 13, 2004 @ 10:40PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

Philips' Ultimate Edge sound card

In what seems like no time at all, VIA's Envy24 audio controller has successfully infiltrated every level of the consumer PC sound card market. The Envy24 isn't a single audio controller per se but an entire family of chips targeted at different applications and market segments. At the high end, the Envy24HT can be found in sound cards like M-Audio's Revolution 7.1. For mid-range markets, the Envy24HT-S is available in cards like Mad Dog Multimedia's Entertainer 7.1. Not to be left out, motherboards from Chaintech, Albatron, and others offer integrated Envy audio with the Envy24PT. Read more Source:Warp2search

Posted: July. 13, 2004 @ 10:37PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

Intel 865/875 Versus 915/925

Tom's Hardware Guide have thrown up their latest article which compares the performance of Intel's previous line of 865/875 chipsets for socket 478 to the current line of 915/925 chipsets for socket LGA 775! Here's snip. [i]Last month, Intel introduced the new platform generation for DDR2 memory, PCI Express and the new LGA 775 socket. Technologically, this generation breaks with everything that has been seen before. The new chipsets are superior to all competing products on the market feature-wise. The question is, however, do we need all that right now?[i] Source:Warp2search

Posted: July. 13, 2004 @ 10:35PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

PlayStation 3 set for May debut @ E3

BBC News reports electronics giant Sony is planning to show off the console at the annual E3 video games trade show in Los Angeles. But the chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment, Ken Kutaragi, did not say when the machine would go on sale to the public. Source:Warp2search

Posted: July. 13, 2004 @ 10:33PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

Its raining ForceWare drivers!

Here are some of the latest nvidia forceware drivers,ForceWare 62.01 Windows 2000/XP,ForceWare 61.72 Windows 2000/XP WHQL,ForceWare 61.80 Windows 2000/XP. Remember, these driver need to be considered Beta, use them at your own risk. Also a new version of coolbits has been released: ForceWare Coolbits 2.0, Coolbits 2 unleashes hidden function within ForceWare drivers, it enables several new Direct3d andL configuration tabs, and even more tweaking capability from the nVidia taskbar settings panel. This new coolbits registry hack has some new items in it that are interesting for sure. Unpack the achive (self extracting) and then in the setup directory simply click on the .reg file. To get to these options simply right-click on your desktop and go to 'NVIDIA Analog Display' (Win XP/2003). For Win 2000 and lower you may need to get to the Nvidia Control Panel the old way. Right click desktop > Properties > Settings > Advanced > GeForce xxxx *NOTE: Coolbits 2 is not fully compatible with driver versions older than 55.xx. If you do happen to run this tweak with drivers older than 55.xx you will more than likely get errors at startup! To enable full compatibility, you must disable the options that are causing issues with your current setup. Download Source:Guru3D

Posted: July. 13, 2004 @ 10:29PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

Windows SP2 Denies Access to Illegal CD

TechTree reports that this time around Microsoft may have found a much more destructive way to get rid off Illegal copies of WindowsXp than Service Pack1. Users installing SP1 on illegal copies would simply get a 'This is a pirated copy' error message. But now Microsoft has armed itself with a huge list of illegal CD keys ensuring that not only does the SP2 not install, but also destroys the computer hard drive by rendering it unusable. Source:Warp2search

Posted: July. 13, 2004 @ 10:17PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

Half-Life 2 Specs Revealed and Hardware

EuroGamer have news of the hardware requirements for Half-Life 2 and over at Half-Life 2 Fallout Mr Chimp's has posted his Half-Life 2 hardware Q&A article! Here's a snip from EuroGamer. Valve boss Gabe Newell has revealed the hardware requirements for Half-Life 2, ahead of the game's expected late summer release Taking time out to post on HL2Fallout's forums last week, Newell said that the minimum spec would be a 1.2GHz powered PC with 256MB RAM, Win 98/ME/2000/XP and a DirectX 7 compatible graphics card. But for those who want to see the game running in all its glory, be prepared to spec up to around a 2.4 GHz machine, with 512MB RAM, Windows 2000/XP and a DirectX 9 capable graphics card. Half-Life 2 Specs Revealed Half-Life 2 Hardware Q&A It seems there's a lot of confusion about which hardware will be best for playing HL2. MrChimp tackles some of the more common questions in this HL2 Hardware Q&A. In the article, he explains the basics of constructing a smooth HL2 gaming rig by choosing the right components. Video cards, CPUs, RAM? Which part matters most? What's a system bottleneck?Read on Half-Life 2 will run on DX7 hardware and above, an example of DX7 hardware is a GeForce 2 or a GeForce 4 MX (really just a glorified GF2). It won't run very fast, though, and without any of the fancy effects. If you have hardware this old then you really do need to upgrade if you want to experience HL2's graphics anywhere near its potential. Likewise, if you have an integrated solution then you need to buy something new. Source:Warp2search

Posted: July. 13, 2004 @ 10:15PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

HIS x800XT IceQ II (LE) @ Guru3D

The HiS Excalibur x800 XT IceQ II VIVO 256 MB GDDR3 (Limited Edition) vid card has been reviewed by Guru3d: Another big plus is of course innovative IceQ-II cooling. By itself it did not do any wonders in terms of overclocking but that's as always a little board dependant, we did not receive an engineering sample. This was the real deal, a production line board. What we can say is that it cools down the graphics core very sufficiently and also very important, it's just downright silent. Read more Source:Guru3D

Posted: July. 13, 2004 @ 10:11PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

Computex 2004: Cases and Cooling

Flying out to Taipei, the AnandTech team was expecting the BTX form factor to be the center of attention at Computex. Judging from the lack of BTX boards, we found this to be far from true. The only manufacturer who displayed a decent sized line of BTX boards was, not surprisingly, Intel. In turn, only a few manufacturers came to the show with their BTX style cases. read more

Posted: July. 13, 2004 @ 09:44AM GMT +10 by Perc

Another Look at the Acrylic Arena

A little over a year ago, we looked at 3 clear acrylic cases by ClearPC, C3, and BeanTech in our first clear PC case roundup. At the time, these so-called clear cases were just making an appearance and beginning to create a niche in the desktop case market. Manufacturers of these acrylics aim their products toward fanatics who have a taste for "modding" with customized parts from neon lighting to glow-in-the-dark data cables. read more

Posted: July. 13, 2004 @ 09:43AM GMT +10 by Perc

The Birth of an Abit NF7

Last year, we took the opportunity to travel with EliteGroup (ECS) and take an in-depth tour of their production facilities. On that tour, we had the chance to see PCB and motherboard assembly, as well as system building and testing. After receiving such warm response from that article, we jumped all over the opportunity to visit Abit's Chinese production facilities. read more

Posted: July. 13, 2004 @ 09:40AM GMT +10 by Perc

Intel 925X: Exploring the Overclock Lock

Almost as soon as the 875/865 chipsets were introduced last year, we were dealing with news stories about PAT being implemented on the 865 chipset. This Intel "875-only" feature was quickly and cleverly being introduced on the mainstream 865 chipsets by the Taiwanese motherboard makers. This was not what Intel had intended, but it was a testament to the engineering capabilities of the major board manufacturers. read more

Posted: July. 12, 2004 @ 10:36AM GMT +10 by Perc

DDR2 Roundup: Reaching for 667 & Beyond

Each time we had approached the launch date for Intel's new 925X/915 chipsets, we ran into delays. The rumors seemed to be consistent that there were still issues with DDR2 memory for the new platform, and almost everyone with whom we talked had described the difficulties with getting the new DDR2 memory working as it should. read more

Posted: July. 12, 2004 @ 10:33AM GMT +10 by Perc

Price Guides July 2004: Video Cards etc

Welcome to the latest edition of the Price Guides. In a time when technology is supposed to be getting cheaper and more powerful simultaneously, the industry seems to think differently in some areas. While the new generation of video cards from ATI and NVIDIA are both shining examples of hardware making leaps and bounds ahead of its own history, memory prices remain in the background to remind us of the glory days when RAM was bought and sold like popcorn. With this guide, we will take a look at what bargains remain available and which products will give you the most performance for your dollar. As always, be sure to visit our Realtime Pricing Engine for the latest prices and deltas on everything you see here, and more

Posted: July. 12, 2004 @ 10:30AM GMT +10 by Perc

LeadTek 6800 and eVGA 6800 Ultra Extreme

The past couple months have been very exciting, entertaining, and interesting as far as consumer level computer graphics cards go. Everyone was blown away when NVIDIA essentially doubled performance of their previous generation in their new top of the line 6800 Ultra. Shortly thereafter, we had the pleasure of discovering that this generation of graphics cards would see two GPU makers on equal footing for the first time since hardware acceleration was introduced. Each IHV has strong points and weak points, but the overall picture is surprisingly balanced readmore

Posted: July. 12, 2004 @ 10:28AM GMT +10 by Perc

Reviews: Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939

AMDZone have thrown up their review of Gigabyte's K8NSNXP motherboard based on nvidia's nForce 3 250GB chipset! Here's a snip. Gigabyte has an entire line of impressive Athlon 64 motherboards supporting a variety of sockets, and CPUs. Today we are looking at their latest K8NSNXP-939 nForce 3 250GB based Athlon 64 Socket 939 motherboard. We will compare it to the Asus A8V Deluxe K8T800 Pro based motherboard. First up here are the specs for the new board. Click here AMDZone

Posted: July. 11, 2004 @ 04:42PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

Bios Updates

If your looking for the lastest Bios updates for ABIT , A ASUS , GIGABYTE , INTEL or SHUTTLE , then head this way to Station-Drivers! Here's some of the updates they have: # ABIT KV8-MAX3 Rev 1.0/1.1/1.2 bios 2.2; Support AMD Athlon64 Sempron # ABIT AA8 bios 1.2: Support P4 Extreme Edition CPU. # GIGABYTE GA-8I915P Duo bios F2: Fixed system sometimes hang up randomly # INTEL D865GVHZ bios P18: Added display of Celeron Badge with Prescott Celeron Source:Warp2search

Posted: July. 11, 2004 @ 04:38PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

Doom3 on 6CDs

PlanetDoom has a pic of the Doom3 cd's and case. One pic says more than 1000 words: Doom3 box/cd shot Source:Warp2search

Posted: July. 11, 2004 @ 04:34PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

$11M Internet Scam

The FBI is investigating an alleged Internet scam that has raised $11 million from 1,600 investors nationwide during the past 17 months. The scam involve nonexistent products and a bogus Internet business named in documents filed in U.S. District Court in Portland as part of an attempt by federal prosecutors to seize property bought with proceeds from the scam. The waterfront property in Gig Harbor, Wash., was purchased by Scott Louis Guenther and property in Shalimar, Fla., is linked to Frank Richard Hendricks, according to an affidavit written by FBI Special Agent Joseph Boyer. Read the entire story at eWeek

Posted: July. 11, 2004 @ 09:52AM GMT +10 by erock

Doom 3 Preview

Doom 3 has been billed as one of the biggest games of 2004. With a massive fan-base and a huge 4 year development time, John Carmack and the wizards at id software hope to have created something that will rock the gaming world. Indeed, even if Doom3 itself is not the success it hopes to be, the parts which make up the game should live long in the PC gaming world. A preview is up at gameSlave and offers some food for thought as we await this highly anticipated title. Preview here Source: Warp2Search

Posted: July. 11, 2004 @ 09:47AM GMT +10 by erock

Doom 3 Done

The hot new rumor on the Internet is that DOOM 3 is finished, because of this marketing flyer by Activision which mentions "we said it will be out when it's done..it's done!". GameSpot contacted the publisher where a spokesperson said "id Software has made no announcement that Doom 3 has gone gold". As previously mentioned here, online retailers have the game pegged for an August 3 release and it was recently announced that there will be a DOOM 3 tournament at QuakeCon (August 12 - 15). Source: Shacknews

Posted: July. 11, 2004 @ 09:43AM GMT +10 by erock

Mozilla updated to correct Win Protocol

Three new branches have been created for Firefox, Thunderbird, and the original Mozilla suite, in order to fix an external windows protocol handler bug. The new version numbers are Firefox 0.9.2, Thunderbird 0.9.2, and Mozilla 1.7.1. Alternatively, you can set the pref network.protocol-handler.external.shell in about:config to false to remove the exploit, or install the XPI listed below. (This will only set it on your current profile, if you have more than one profile, or could be creating more, you should use the XPI or the updated build.) It should be noted that this patch was released within hours of the flaw being discovered. Update: It should also be noted that this flaw effects all browsers for the Windows operating system which take advantage of the "shell" function, not just Mozilla. Click links below to download the updated builds: Download Firefox 0.9.2 XPI fix for older builds Mozilla 1.7.1 Thunderbird 0.7.2 Source:Neowin

Posted: July. 09, 2004 @ 05:33PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

Intel Begins Shipments of 3.60GHz

Intel Corporation has initiated shipments of its recently announced Pentium 4 3.60GHz processor also known as Intel Pentium 4 560. Announced in mid-June, the chip did not immediately make appearance in retail and personal computers assembled by leading makers of PCs, such as Dell. Intel Pentium 4 processor 560 operates at 3.60GHz, features HT and SSE3 technologies and comes in LGA775 form-factor. The chip is compatible with Socket T mainboards supporting 800MHz processor system bus, based on i915- or i925X-series chipsets from Intel. The chip can dissipate up to 115W of power and requires mainboards to support Platform Compatibility Guide 04B. Source:X-bit labs

Posted: July. 09, 2004 @ 05:21PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

ATI Catalyst 4.7

If you guys haven't already found out, ATI just released Catalyst drivers revision 4.7 ! This unified driver has been further enhanced to provide the highest level of power, performance, and reliability. [Download] Resolved CATALYST™ Driver Issues This section provides information on CATALYST™ driver issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST™. These include the following: * Enabling both the CRT and DVI connectors and setting the CRT to primary no longer results in display corruption being seen on the display connected to the DVI when running 3D Labs applications and disabling the display on the DVI connector * The mouse pointer no longer flashes or becomes corrupted when setting the display mode to 1080i and launching Windows MCE * DVD playback hesitation at the beginning of a movie is no longer noticed when using the ATI DVD Player under Windows XP with an ATI 8500 ALL-IN-WONDER™ installed * The Windows XP operating system no longer fails to respond when a D3D application generates a floating-point exception error * The BIOS Version information is now stated correctly in the Details found in the ATI Options tab. Further, the correct DAC and ASIC information is now displayed in the Adapter tab found in the advanced setting of the display properties * The Overlay Theater Mode table has now been extended to support 1080i and 720p * Launching EVE Online under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON™ 8500, 9100, or 9200 series no longer results in a VPU recover error before the terms and conditions is displayed Resolved Game Issues This section provides information on game issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST™. These include the following: * Setting the D3D option to Optimal Quality and configuring the game Freedom Fighters to 1280x1024 no longer results in display corruption being seen on the test resolution window. This issue occurred under Windows XP with an ALL-IN-WONDER™ 9200 installed * The water that surrounds Death Island in the game Halo: Combat evolved is now seen as blue in colour. This issues was known to occur under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON™ 8500 installed * Image rendering issues in the Truform room found in Serious Sam are no longer noticed when increasing the Truform level to maximum under the Advanced Rendering Option * Flashing textures in the water are no longer noticed when running Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON™ X800 XT installed * Playing the game TOCA Race Driver under Windows XP no longer results in the shadows being missing under the car when the shadow quality is set to high 1. Navigate to the CATALYST™ Download folder on your desktop. Double-click on the folder to view its content. 2. Double click the CATALYST™ display driver. Accept all the default prompts. 3. Restart your system as required. Source: Guru3d

Posted: July. 09, 2004 @ 05:19PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

New Microsoft Mice Pictures

Eyeit have found out that there are some new microsoft mice on the way! Source: Eyeit

Posted: July. 09, 2004 @ 05:11PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

MSI K8N Neo2 nForce3 Ultra

PC Perspective have thrown up the review of MSI K8N Neo2 nForce3 Ultra motherboard for AMD's 939-pin Athlon 64 processors! Click here The nForce3 series has seen slower acceptance than the K8T series of chipsets from VIA, both because of cost differences and feature gaps. NVIDIA is quickly changing these key items though and now that VIA’s overclocking ability with their PCI/AGP lock may be up in the air, NVIDIA is set to take back some of the AMD market share. Source:Warp2search

Posted: July. 09, 2004 @ 04:27PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

BFG Tech GeForce 6800 GT OC

Bjorn3D have thrown up their latest review which looks a pre-overclocked version of a GeForce 6800 GT ( 370MHz instead of 350MHz ) form BFG Tech and compares the performance to Sapphire’s Radeon X800 PRO!: Click here Well, BFG really is a different kind of company, at least it seems to be from my perspective (from the outside trying to look in). The company is made up of gamers, so they really do care about releasing top-quality products. Quality isn't their only concern though. Performance is right up at the top as well, as is evidenced by their newest line of "OC" (or overclocked) GeForce 6800 cards. All of BFG's current 6 series cards come only in the "OC" flavors currently. That's right; there's a 6800 OC, 6800 GT OC and a 6800 Ultra OC. All of these cards are of course overclocked right out of the box (when compared to other 6800s clocked at default reference clock speeds). Source:Warp2search

Posted: July. 09, 2004 @ 04:21PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

Evolution could speed net downloads

Well this is cool: Survival of the Fittest(..bandwidth)! It turns out that the popular evolutionist scientist may have left with us more than just records of animals on a lonely island and the idea behind natural selection. Internet download speeds could be improved dramatically by mimicking Darwin's evolution to "breed" the best networking strategies, say computer scientists. Transferring popular data across the internet repeatedly can be inefficient and costly, so networking companies have developed ways of temporarily storing, or "caching", data at different locations to reduce costs and increase download speeds. But figuring out where to store data and for how long is a complex problem. One solution might be to have caches "talk" to each other repeatedly, but this is inefficient as it takes up a lot of bandwidth. To tackle the challenge, Pablo Funes of US company Icosystem and Jürgen Branke and Frederik Theil of the University of Karlsruhe in Germany used "genetic algorithms", which mimic Darwinian evolution, to develop strategies for internet servers to use when caching data. Using a simulation they were able to improve download speeds over existing caching schemes. The researchers evolved algorithms for specific types of network, for example networks with a bottleneck. But they also developed algorithms that worked well on various types of network. Source: Neowin

Posted: July. 06, 2004 @ 10:51PM GMT +10 by S.T.x

Todays Video Card Reviews

ATi Radeon X800XT PCIe review by Beyond3D BFG GeForce 6800GT review by Bjorn3D Leadtek GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB review by Digit-Life Asus AX800 Pro Radeon X800 Pro 256MB review by HotHardware

Posted: July. 06, 2004 @ 09:51AM GMT +10 by erock

Far Cry Articles

Far Cry v1.2 patch analysis - DriverHeaven Far Cry Interview - FiringSquad Crytek weighs in on Shader Model 3.0 - TechReport Far Cry v1.2 patch Detailed analysis - TomsHardware

Posted: July. 06, 2004 @ 09:49AM GMT +10 by erock

Corsair DDR 2 667 Soon

The Inquirer reports: We got an email from Asus that claimed that its board that we are currently testing have capability of running far beyond 533MHz, and even 600MHz or more. Corsair has a cure for users that want to overclock heavily as it will soon ship DDR 2 667MHz. Intel's plan is to have this memory ready for its 1066 MHz FPS CPUs and faster platforms that are due to come at the end of this year and next. Full Article

Posted: July. 06, 2004 @ 09:44AM GMT +10 by erock

AMD's "Celeron Killer"

Benchmark results of the AMD Sempron processor in its incarnation for Socket 754 hit the web. While the chip cannot outperform the more powerful AMD Athlon 64 rivals, it is likely to offer a nice price/performance ratio in the value segment. The new Sempron microprocessors from Advanced Micron Devices will be supplied in a number of flavours depending on the socket the new chips are designed for. The initial versions will be available for Socket A platforms and Socket 754 platforms, while the longer-range prospects include Socket 939 revisions of the chips. Full Article @ Xbit

Posted: July. 06, 2004 @ 09:40AM GMT +10 by erock

HL2 Beta GeForce 6800 vs Radeon X800

Digit-Life have thrown up their review of Leadtek's WinFast A400 TDH and WinFast A400 Ultra TDH Based on NVIDIA GeForce 6800/6800 Ultra Graphics Cards! What's so interesting about their review is they've thrown in some Half-Life2 (beta) benchies comparing Nvidia's Geforce 6800 Ultra againist ATi's Radeon X800 XT. Source: Warp2Search

Posted: July. 06, 2004 @ 09:32AM GMT +10 by erock

XP SP2 cracked already?

As seen on The Inquirer: EVEN THOUGH Microsoft has not yet released service pack 2 for Windows XP, word reaches the INQ that its anti-piracy features have already been cracked Microsoft has claimed that it's introduced features in SP2 which mean that illegal users of stolen or cracked activation codes won't be able to upgrade the OS, which is due for release in August of this year. Read More

Posted: July. 06, 2004 @ 09:29AM GMT +10 by erock