Search found 183 matches

by quikkie
Thu Mar 04, 2010 8:35 am
Forum: Networking
Topic: low power WHS for torrents 24/7 + storage - what proc/mobo??
Replies: 8
Views: 10194

I'm using a Acer Easystore H340 which is a NAS built around an atom n230 running WHS with utorrent for my torrenting requirements. It's not silent, but nothing with hard mounted drives is going to be. The fan(s) are pretty quiet and where it is mutes the sound pretty well so that my desktop (which i...
by quikkie
Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:17 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: anyone good at batch scripts? (filename renaming)
Replies: 4
Views: 3098

http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/ - works for me. It can do regular expressions, cut X characters from beginning or end of the filename, or find X and replace with Y and some other stuff I've never used.
by quikkie
Fri Aug 14, 2009 4:12 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Low power (<200W) HTPC
Replies: 8
Views: 3695

My 780G based mainboard, BE2350, twin tuner, one hdd and two sticks of RAM at boot has peaks up to 110W and settles down to ~50W when idle.
This system works fine on the 120W pico-psu I currently have installed.
by quikkie
Wed Aug 05, 2009 2:40 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Looking for a Disc eraser
Replies: 32
Views: 9960

Frankly, yes, I would be surprised - I'm aware of the DoD specs, and of the theoretical uses of scanning electron microscopy, but do you have a link to a credible source confirming that usable data has *ever* actually been recovered in practice after a single pass zero fill (such as the Linux dd co...
by quikkie
Tue Aug 04, 2009 6:25 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Looking for a Disc eraser
Replies: 32
Views: 9960

after 7 passes it becomes very difficult/time consuming/expensive to recover whatever data was on there, notice that I didn't say impossible just difficult. Either way three or seven passes of DoD spec disk wiping will destroy the data enough that the data recovery companies will not be able to reco...
by quikkie
Tue Aug 04, 2009 4:38 am
Forum: Cases and Damping
Topic: Antec Fusion Remote Max - Linux, LCD replacement?
Replies: 1
Views: 20105

If it's the same as the Silverstone cases (and I think it is) the VFDs (used on the GD01-MXR) are not supported by anything other than the windows software. The LCDs are reasonably supported by alternative software including software available for linux. The IR stuff can be handled by LIRC - however...
by quikkie
Tue Aug 04, 2009 3:47 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Looking for a Disc eraser
Replies: 32
Views: 9960

Personally I'd be pretty confident that a simple one-pass zero fill (provided it fully completed) would stop even the CIA/FBI/MI5/MI6/NSA from recovering anything useful from a modern high-density drive. Clearly I don't know everything though, and I'm sure they know things that I don't know, and gi...
by quikkie
Sat Jul 18, 2009 1:10 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Need help with my routers.
Replies: 23
Views: 9400

the way I did it on my network: adsl router (linksys wag354g) configured with my ISP settings, and everything else turned off (dhcp, wifi, dns). I also set up the internal/lan IP address to .1 My wrt54g (running dd-wrt) I set to .2 with a default gateway of .1, I configured wifi, dns, dhcp and decon...
by quikkie
Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:32 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: Patriot 128gb USB key
Replies: 6
Views: 3047

there's a whole bunch of USB memory sticks that hit the USB2 transfer speed limit already (on sequential reads). ArsTechnica has a handy round up here
by quikkie
Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:18 am
Forum: Silent Storage
Topic: I just ordered OCZ Vertex...
Replies: 22
Views: 16348

I've had a 64GB samsung SSD (the OEM drive from novatech.co.uk) in my rig for a few months running windows 7 and haven't had any problems with it. Transfer speeds aren't as good as the vertex drives but still over double what my WD2500KS can do (reading or writing). For the time being if you are thi...
by quikkie
Tue Feb 03, 2009 3:33 am
Forum: Notebook Systems
Topic: laptop fan alternatives?
Replies: 7
Views: 11219

to be safe I'd have to say that this would only work with the acer aspire one. The reason I say this is that the ACPI structure on a different laptop could be different enough that it could cause damage if you tried this script. The script is pretty simple - it checks the temperature and adjusts an ...
by quikkie
Mon Feb 02, 2009 1:58 pm
Forum: Notebook Systems
Topic: laptop fan alternatives?
Replies: 7
Views: 11219

Thanks proc but I already know about acerfand :)

This is me pimping SPCR and stating I use it.
by quikkie
Mon Feb 02, 2009 6:31 am
Forum: Notebook Systems
Topic: laptop fan alternatives?
Replies: 7
Views: 11219

running linux (which was pre-installed) so I'm running acer-fand. Does the same as aa1 fan control.

Haven't found a suitable replacement fan yet but I'm not looking that hard for one since discovering acer-fand
by quikkie
Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:26 pm
Forum: Notebook Systems
Topic: Anyone own an Aspire One?
Replies: 18
Views: 17721

I have the 8GB w/ linux and out of the box it did most of what I wanted. The eternal tweaker in me had to fiddle with the factory install to massage it into doing exactly what I wanted. For those wanting a fan control solution for linux search for "acerfand". I have it configured to turn on at 70C a...
by quikkie
Fri Nov 28, 2008 7:56 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Prius vs Lexus IS vs Lexus GS
Replies: 20
Views: 7282

people talking about efficient driving always brings to mind the segment (again from TopGear) where they raced a prius around the track and had a BMW M3 following it - literally just keeping up with the Prius. The M3 (can't remember if it was the 3.2 twin turbo or the newer 4 litre version) had bett...
by quikkie
Mon Sep 29, 2008 5:35 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Silent HTPC build advice needed
Replies: 14
Views: 7466

don't worry about the graphics - on the 780G it's pretty much an ati 34xx (minus the memory) soldered onto the mainboard, so a full HD blu-ray will need 0% of the CPU for decoding. Read the link angelkiller posted for more details, or take the word of a 780G owner (me!) that all will be okay. my sys...
by quikkie
Wed Sep 24, 2008 2:17 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Linux is just not ready for the living room.
Replies: 28
Views: 14203

For example, how it expects all programs to be in either /bin or /opt. windows and *nix have places where operating system binaries and libraries, and user installed programs are kept. Both have places to store user data. So they are both the same in that respect e.g. explorer.exe is in \windows bu...
by quikkie
Tue Sep 23, 2008 3:40 am
Forum: Notebook Systems
Topic: Anyone own an Aspire One?
Replies: 18
Views: 17721

Yeah I have one, I'm the poster of the fan alternatives? thread. According to aspireoneusers.com (specifically the forum) it seems like every other AA1 has a noisy fan. If you go with linux then there is a work around involving temperature monitoring and turning the fan off until a certain temperatu...
by quikkie
Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:27 am
Forum: Fans and Control
Topic: FreeBSD monitoring tools?
Replies: 11
Views: 10862

if you gave us a clue about what hardware you have then maybe we can find something that will work... my google-fu is typically pretty good :)
by quikkie
Fri Sep 12, 2008 6:52 am
Forum: Notebook Systems
Topic: laptop fan alternatives?
Replies: 7
Views: 11219

laptop fan alternatives?

I've joined the netbook/umpc/eeepc-clone bandwagon and bought myself an Acer Aspire One. The only problem I have with it is that the fan turns on at power on and never turns off, worse still is the whine that it makes. The aspireoneusers forum has a few threads about the noise and it seems that it i...
by quikkie
Thu Aug 21, 2008 6:00 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Low Power MythTV Home Server List
Replies: 16
Views: 15131

...I'll connect in to an NX session with nx client to do bittorrent downloads or other admin. Actually I've even got a thin client from ebay (HP T5520) which I'm going to netboot from the box so people can always log in and download even if there are no laptops in the house. May I suggest investiga...
by quikkie
Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:06 am
Forum: System Advice / Troubleshooting
Topic: Assist me with TV Tuner woes
Replies: 10
Views: 4450

Pigbristle - if you haven't already bought replacement hardware I can recommend the Compro E700 (dual DVB-T tuner) it's a PCI-E x1 card that works great (for me!) under vista media center. My only niggle about it is that it doesn't do RF pass-through (no RF out) so I had to buy a splitter to plug th...
by quikkie
Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:04 am
Forum: Newcomers Briefing Room
Topic: Newbie wanting to build a silent but fast PC for £700
Replies: 8
Views: 6237

DanielG - I have that exact mainboard with a BE-2350 and don't have the same problems in a Silverstone GD01 - I use a top down CPU cooler with the rear fans @5V. I do agree though that different cases have a different effect on cooling.
by quikkie
Wed Jul 30, 2008 7:20 am
Forum: Newcomers Briefing Room
Topic: Newbie wanting to build a silent but fast PC for £700
Replies: 8
Views: 6237

For what you want to do the asus eee pc would be more than enough, unless you do play some games... or you are trying to future proof yourself for the next 5 years! For the things you want to do I'd personally go with XP and the cheapest components you can find. FWIW I played Crysis on XP with a mer...
by quikkie
Wed Jul 30, 2008 7:00 am
Forum: Quiet Prebuilt, SFF and Barebones Systems
Topic: new dell mini pc
Replies: 10
Views: 10348

The Dell UK site has the celeron 550 in as the base package, optional upgrades to c2d are available. I know that the UK pays 17.5% VAT (sales tax) versus 0-8% (?) in the US, however I seriously doubt it costs 213USD to send the computer from the States to the UK - especially given the size/weight of...
by quikkie
Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:38 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Al Gore & Guy Dauncey's Energy Challenge to the World
Replies: 133
Views: 64101

I think that the nuclear waste is France is also radioactive? Have they figured out what to do with it, yet? last I heard Fast Breeder reactors (FBR) were rather efficiently dealing with "waste" from the Pressurised Water reactors, this does however have the rather unfortunate by-product - weapons ...
by quikkie
Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:18 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Super bright case leds
Replies: 17
Views: 8833

you are not alone - I used a (black) permanent marker to obscure the retinal-burn-inducing brightness.
by quikkie
Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:55 am
Forum: SPCR Article Discussion
Topic: AMD 780G: Best Ever Integrated Mainstream Chipset?
Replies: 140
Views: 108834

if this is in the wrong place let me know I'll repost in the right place. I'm trying to figure out if I can run a 780G based system off a 120W picopsu and I'm wondering if anyone else has figures for their systems power draw at boot up. I've used a watt meter to check the current system usage and am...
by quikkie
Mon Jul 07, 2008 8:22 am
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: AVG Anti-Virus.....New Version.
Replies: 48
Views: 23481

they already have in the free version. also tweakable from setup is the email scanning - no windows machine of mine will be downloading email so I was glad I could turn that off. There's also a couple of files that if you rename them the annoying advert "information tab" will not appear. Rename 'avg...
by quikkie
Sat Jun 28, 2008 1:55 pm
Forum: Off Topic
Topic: Hypermiling: A new hobby for gas savers & environmentali
Replies: 95
Views: 43290

aristide1: you are absolutely correct, europe just uses RON and I just recently found that the US uses the average of RON and MON. So UK standard fuel is (roughly speaking) 90-91 in US equivalent - wikipedia and a bunch of other sources seem to corroborate that figure.