Recent Posts

5001

Living Room / Re: Carrier Pigeon faster than commercial ISP

« Last post by 4wd on September 12, 2009, 12:04 AM »

I tried to find a link but google is failing me, or I'm failing it

-Kamel (September 11, 2009, 10:09 PM)

The search: Google

The site:

5002

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by 4wd on August 12, 2009, 10:22 PM »

BTW, I really liked the "Slow Driver must pull over" Federal Law in the USA

-4wd (July 10, 2009, 12:31 AM)

Hey - what law us that?  I might have to start writin' some tickets!

-mwb1100 (August 12, 2009, 09:32 PM)

The last time I was in the US of A, (2003), traveling up the west coast and down through the inner-western states, there were road signs on any section of road that had a reasonable incline stating:

"It is a Federal Law that slow traffic allow other traffic to pass."

Or, along those lines.

They weren't old signs, (having been left from a bygone era, etc), and there were enough of them not to assume an isolated incidence.

This might be what I'm thinking of: Slow Vehicles Use Turnouts

I'm positive that the ones I saw stated "Federal Law" in them.

5003

Living Room / Re: PLEASE, Host Your Own DNS Server

« Last post by 4wd on August 12, 2009, 12:28 AM »

After having a period where my ISPs DNS' were up and down like a yoyo, I now run Treewalk on my headless 24/7/365 usenet machine, (Via EPIA based so it's not sucking heaps of power), and the other machines on the LAN direct all DNS queries to it.

I did use OpenDNS for a period but the redirects suck big time and I didn't want to create yet another freakin' account at some place just to get rid of them.
Plus the fact that while OpenDNS may be uber-reliable in the US of A - it isn't when you're in another country and have to rely on backbones/trunks to get to it.  There have been times when OpenDNS hasn't even been available to me.

Nowadays with Treewalk = no problems.

5004

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 31-09

« Last post by 4wd on August 02, 2009, 07:44 PM »

6. "And yet again, Australia shows the world the true prevalence of utter stupidity in this country. I feel so patriotic at the moment...really..."

I'm in total agreement.

From the heights of the invention of the Flight Data Recorder and the Rotary Clothes Hoist we, as a country, have fallen to such ridiculous depths of stupidity that I really wish I lived somewhere else most of the time.....except the majority of other countries are just as stupid in their own ways.

About the only satisfaction that can be had from Australia science-wise these days is that we seem to be right at the forefront in medical research done at the universities.....even though in all likelihood that research will end up be patented overseas as will any revenue generated by the resultant products.

5005

General Software Discussion / Re: Why can't my computer detect the 6th Sata drive?

« Last post by 4wd on August 02, 2009, 04:51 AM »

I attribute it to MS wonkiness.

-Innuendo (August 01, 2009, 08:44 PM)

Of course, I forgot the Wonky Factor

5006

General Software Discussion / Re: Why can't my computer detect the 6th Sata drive?

« Last post by 4wd on July 30, 2009, 08:57 PM »

Dumb question but how does that affect you loading your own drivers?

Doesn't it only pertain to MS' default AHCI driver?

eg. My board uses ahcx86.sys as the AHCI driver, (AMD AHCI).

Mind you I'm using XP.

5007

General Software Discussion / Re: Why can't my computer detect the 6th Sata drive?

« Last post by 4wd on July 29, 2009, 11:09 PM »

So should I go through the work and switch everything to AHCI?

-superboyac (July 29, 2009, 10:38 PM)

Yes, it's easy enough to do without doing a lot of reinstalling:
1) Switch the GSATA back to IDE mode and move your boot drive onto it.  Leave the Intel in AHCI mode.
2) Boot the computer and hit F12, (normally for Gigabyte), to select your boot drive.
3) When it boots up it will detect the Intel SATA in AHCI and ask for the drivers.
4) When it's finished installing you can power down and move your boot drive back to the Intel SATA and change the GSATA back to AHCI.
5) When you boot up again you'll probably be asked for AHCI drivers for the GSATA.

Another way:
If it's anything like my Gigabyte board, the last two of the South Bridge SATA connectors, (Intel for you, ATI for me), can be individually swapped between 'IDE mode' and 'Same as SATA'.
Install the boot drive on one of those, (S2_4 or S2_5), mark it as IDE mode in BIOS while leaving the rest as AHCI when it boots up it will ask for the AHCI driver, on the next boot go into BIOS and change S2_4/5 to 'Same as SATA'.

Can live with the system not wanting to boot when the driver is wrong, but it's too much bother getting an existing system to a new <kind of> boot device...

-f0dder (July 29, 2009, 10:46 PM)

One of the reasons I like the way Gigabyte do it with being able to set SATA2_4/5 in IDE and leave the rest in AHCI until installing is finished - that way it picks up all drivers at install.

What I really hate is the way the freak'n boot order changes when you plug in another drive - is it really so hard to make the BIOS just keep your boot preference no matter how many drives you (un)plug?

5008

General Software Discussion / Re: Why can't my computer detect the 6th Sata drive?

« Last post by 4wd on July 29, 2009, 07:53 PM »

Everything works fine now.  There's only one minor consenquence/inconvenience from all of this.  Apparently, the computer won't recognize the eSata as an external connection is my external connection manager software "USB Safely Remove".  Before, it did.  Now it recognizes my DVD drive as an external connection.  I guess whatever is connected to the GSata is considered an external device.  But it's no big deal I guess.

-superboyac (July 29, 2009, 06:03 PM)

Are the Intel SATA in AHCI mode in the BIOS?

5009

General Software Discussion / Re: Why can't my computer detect the 6th Sata drive?

« Last post by 4wd on July 29, 2009, 01:37 AM »

This sounds similar to a problem one of the guys at our LAN meetings was having with, IIRC, the same board.

The two separate SATA are the Gigabyte +2 SATA controller and, again IIRC, they would only work in some form of RAID mode - he couldn't run separate drives on it in a non-RAID configuration, which he wasn't really happy about since he wanted the interfaces for purely non-RAID storage.  So he was left with two interfaces he couldn't fully use.

My suggestion is try running your eSATA off of the 'normal' lot of 6 SATA connectors and see if they are detected.

EDIT: I'm not entirely sure if I got my facts right but I do know that he couldn't use those two ports for normal 'stand-alone' drive configuration.  I'll check on Friday - it's LAN night

Another EDIT: Then again, maybe you can set the GSATA controller to IDE mode, you'll lose your hot-plug facility, (AHCI), on them but can use them as normal ports.  You could then move 2 drives from the 6-pack and set the mode on the 6-pack to AHCI and use 2 of them for your eSATA.

5010

General Software Discussion / Re: $20 if you make me a 6' Molex cable. $10 for recommending a better solution.

« Last post by 4wd on July 29, 2009, 01:16 AM »

They have a lot of cool solutions for these things.

-superboyac (July 28, 2009, 11:44 PM)

Yes, I'm seriously tempted by this little gadget - very cool for plugging your external USB drive into the LAN at a meeting.

5011

General Software Discussion / Re: $20 if you make me a 6' Molex cable. $10 for recommending a better solution.

« Last post by 4wd on July 28, 2009, 08:39 PM »

superboyac, for some reason people seem to be obsessing about this 300W power supply.

-Innuendo (July 28, 2009, 09:51 AM)

I wouldn't say obsessing - just pointing out that it is a really poor design, (and actually, considering that their single drive version also failed to work properly - it was also poor design).

Considering the size of the case and the PSU, if I was willing to get one I'd be installing a Mini-ITX, Pico-ITX or Nano-ITX motherboard in it and turning it into a fileserver.

I don't care about that stuff primarily.  My top concern is that the hard drive works, environment be damned.

-superboyac (July 28, 2009, 01:20 AM)

Now if you'd said you were a 'tree-hating, doze-in-a-greenie, there-ain't-no-such-thing-as-global-warming, screw-the-environment' kind of guy, well then............I would have been right up there with you  

Personally I'd prefer the flexibility of the Addonics range:


Now if only I could afford them  

5012

General Software Discussion / Re: $20 if you make me a 6' Molex cable. $10 for recommending a better solution.

« Last post by 4wd on July 27, 2009, 10:57 PM »

So if I have a 300W power supply, but I'm only using 20W of it, then I'm not being wasteful or anything.  I'm only drawing 20W from the power company.

-superboyac (July 27, 2009, 04:37 PM)

Not quite

Because the efficiency of your typical switchmode PSU depends on the output power load you might find that your 300W PSU is only running at 50%-60% efficiency at a load of 20W - so your actual input power might be around 40W from your power company.

When you get up near the full rated capacity of the PSU then you start to get near an 80%, (or more with the right PSU design), efficiency.

The 80 Plus Program is trying to get manufacturers to use better switchmode designs:

The 80 PLUS performance specification requires multi-output power supplies in computers and servers to be 80% or greater energy efficient at 20%, 50% and 100% of rated load with a true power factor of 0.9 or greater. This makes an 80 PLUS certified power supply substantially more efficient than typical power supplies and creates a unique market differentiation opportunity for power supply and computer manufacturers.

But even if the 300W PSU in your external has a 80Plus sticker on it, it's still not running at that because the 20W load, (6.7% of full load capacity), is well below the requirement for 80% efficiency at 20% load, which is 60W.

Thus a lower rated PSU would actually be more efficient.

5013

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows XP & sata drive

« Last post by 4wd on July 23, 2009, 01:46 PM »

Bought an Asus p5ql pro board and am trying to do the streaming part, but I have no idea of what to do.
I have no idea of what inf file I should choose when integrating drivers.

-mrHappy (July 23, 2009, 11:09 AM)

1) Start nlite and point it to your XP CD or the directory you've copied the files to, then click 'Next'.
2) Select 'Drivers' and 'Bootable ISO', then click 'Next'.
3) Select 'Insert Multiple Driver Folder' and point it at the directory that has the extracted P5QL SATA driver.  It will add all drivers in that directory - don't worry, upon installation any drivers that aren't required won't be installed.
4) Click 'Next' then answer 'Yes' to start the process.
5) Give your ISO a label, (top left, 2nd down), and click 'Make ISO', save the ISO somewhere.
6) Burn the ISO to a disc using whatever you like, (nlite can do it but I prefer ImgBurn).
7) Job Done.

Alternatively, using DriverPacks:
a) Grab the MassStorage DriverPack from here, (current version 9.01).
b) Grab the DriverPack BASE program from here, (current version 8.12.5).
c) Extract and run the DPs_BASE.exe, it'll create a directory structure - copy the MassStorage DriverPack to the DriverPacks directory, (don't extract the DriverPack).
d) Click the '>' button in the BASE program until you get to 'Select location of platform' panel - Browse to the HDD directory containing the copied XP CD.
e) Click '>' and select 'DriverPack MassStorage 9.01' and 'DriverPack MassStorage text mode', (or Select  All).
f) Click '>' and select 'Method 1'.
g) You can now leave the rest at default and just click the 'Slipstream!' button if you're using a bog-standard uncustomised XP install, (no extra programs installed at installation time).
h) The final XP directory can be turned into a CD using nlite and just the 'Bootable ISO' button.
i) You now have a XP CD that will install on almost any IDE/SATA controller, no matter what mode the SATA may be in, (IDE Compat, AHCI or RAID).

5014

Living Room / Re: SSD File System Recommendations

« Last post by 4wd on July 20, 2009, 08:13 PM »

FlashPointFire is back!

Hello, everyone!!

Finally, we are doing fresh restart with the new name, 'FlashFire'

FlashFire version 0.99 is now available here.
( http://tech.groups.y...ashpointusers/files/)

FlashFire 0.99 is functionally same with FlashPoint Beta 6 version, but now it has a installer.
In addition, it is only supports Windows XP.


Previous blog can be accessed with this address  (http://zflashfire.blogspot.com), and you can leave feedback there.

Thank you.

Hyojun Kim

5015

General Software Discussion / Re: $20 if you make me a 6' Molex cable. $10 for recommending a better solution.

« Last post by 4wd on July 19, 2009, 10:47 PM »

A friend and I now use these things instead of 3.5" external enclosures and carry around 2.5" externals instead.



Just slide a drive in and close the door, open the door and the drive gets pushed out.

Saves carrying around a lot of PSUs and cables, just the HDD in its transport pack - a lot lighter.

Plus, considering the amount of HDDs I've got lying around, it makes it easy to find out what's on them.  Heaps better than those cradle things, they were an absolute PITA if you wanted to swap HDDs.

5016

General Software Discussion / Re: $20 if you make me a 6' Molex cable. $10 for recommending a better solution.

« Last post by 4wd on July 19, 2009, 09:04 PM »

Well, they must have seen the error of their ways.....

The one you're referring to must be old stock they want to get rid of, all their newer External 2 bay enclosures only have a 40, 50 or 80 watt PSU.

And at 10Kg for a dual bay external it's more an anchor than it is portable.....they've certainly lived up to the name Granite with this thing.

5017

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 29-09

« Last post by 4wd on July 19, 2009, 06:07 AM »

1. "...as will wireless router owners who enabled security but retained the default password."

This implies they are going to access your router, (and thus your network), without your permission....which is illegal.

When they come to the door to tell us the dangers we can ask how they know the password is default and then get them charged for illegal network access......yeah, right.


On a side note and totally off-topic: The new series of Scrapheap Challenge sucks!! 

5018

Living Room / Re: Send Yourself To Mars!

« Last post by 4wd on July 18, 2009, 08:19 PM »

I hope they give him plenty of sunblock then, otherwise he might end up with a Red Skin.

BTW: The digits sum to the number 23! So now I have proof the Illuminatus is behind this...[FNORD]

-40hz (July 18, 2009, 12:37 PM)

Thanks to you I now have this nifty table to put inside the fridge.

5019

General Software Discussion / Re: $20 if you make me a 6' Molex cable. $10 for recommending a better solution.

« Last post by 4wd on July 18, 2009, 07:59 PM »

That bigger drives should require more power also sounds a bit silly, imho only faster rpm and (perhaps) more spindles would require more juice.

-f0dder (July 18, 2009, 08:18 AM)

I think you meant platters unless there's something in the works about dual spindle drives

I'm with you, the WD RE4-GP 2TB HDD lists a read/write power consumption of 6.8W, startup isn't listed but I don't think I'm far wrong in saying it would be in the range of 15-20W since it's only 4 platter.

Power consumption for HDDs has generally decreased since they found that instead of more platters they can cram more bits on a platter.

My DNS-313 Single drive NAS PSU is rated at 36W, (12V @ 3A), and will handle anything I stick in it bearing in mind it also has to run a small Linux machine in there also.

300W for a dual drive external enclosure is just ridiculous even if it is a NAS, eg. the DNS-323 Dual HDD RAID NAS has a ~50W PSU.

5020

Living Room / Re: Looking for P2p file sharing for personal use

« Last post by 4wd on July 18, 2009, 06:49 PM »

4wd doesn't do blogging nor does he allow kids on his lawn.

-Innuendo (July 18, 2009, 11:46 AM)

Damn right!!  Little b*ggers always digging up the plants and pooping everywhere....place is like a minefield!

Then again, since the block is so steep that I don't actually have a lawn....maybe it's something else?

Martian tripods perhaps?

5021

Living Room / Re: Send Yourself To Mars!

« Last post by 4wd on July 18, 2009, 06:43 PM »

The second stage rocket will give it a Boost but I hope they get the landing right or it'll be up and down like a YoYo.

No doubt the first dog to Mars will be a Yorkie.

5022

Living Room / Re: DRM hits a new low as Amazon hits the delete key

« Last post by 4wd on July 18, 2009, 05:41 AM »

Here's the quirky part - both Orwell books are freely downloadable Down Under.

-nosh (July 18, 2009, 04:12 AM)

Don't worry, I'm sure the industrious people behind the FTA are working to correct that slight oversight in the copyright laws.

5023

Living Room / Re: Send Yourself To Mars!

« Last post by 4wd on July 18, 2009, 01:46 AM »

Although the mission is a Cherry, Ripe for the taking.

5024

Living Room / Re: Send Yourself To Mars!

« Last post by 4wd on July 17, 2009, 08:00 PM »

Send Yourself To Mars!

That could raise a few Snickers.

-cranioscopical (July 17, 2009, 01:58 PM)

It sure wouldn't be a Picnic.

5025

Living Room / Re: Send Yourself To Mars!

« Last post by 4wd on July 17, 2009, 01:23 PM »

Well, in this case you'll get a personal visit from one of the Martian tripods.