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Domain: a1-electronics.net

Stories and comments across the archive that link to a1-electronics.net.

Comments · 6

  1. Death to blue LEDs!!!!! by dangitman · · Score: 1, Insightful · on Millennium Technology Prize Awarded to LED Creator
    The blue LED is one of the worst inventions ever. It's getting harder and harder to buy computer peripherals, audio equipment, and other devices that aren't festooned with the damn things. It's become a manufacturer's way of saying "my product is cool!"

    Why do I want my indicator lights to illuminate the whole damn room? They are extremely uncomfortable to look at, and too bright for purpose they are used for. I want an indicator light to discreetly notify me of the status of my equipment. Not blind me. Is there anything wrong with a subdued red/yellow/green LED for this purpose?

    My god, I've even seen high-end speakers for the entertainment industry with these things on the FRONT of them. Newsflash: I want to listen to a speaker, not look at it. Especially when you are using it in a theater - you have to cover the LEDs with tape so they aren't distracting during a black-out or scene with low-level lighting. You fucking idiot manufacturers - why do you think your speakers are BLACK? It's so they're as invisible as possible when on stage. Way to go and wreck that by installing an LED which may as well be an aircraft landing beacon.

    Work just provided me with an external HD enclosure that not only has a blue LED, but uses a plastic lens system to simulate the look of a bar LED-array. Of course, this does not function as a meter of the level of activity. ALL of the "lights" are either on or off. So why the hell did they put a whole row of the motherfuckers there? You do not gain any more information over just having a single point of light flashing on and off. Being bright enough to cause eye cancer does not give me any advantage over a low-intensity green LED.

    Please, won't somebody think of the LEDs? THIS INSANITY MUST STOP!

  2. Re:It's not exactly a free resource. by njyoder · · Score: 0 · on Distributed Computing on Next Gen Consoles

    How did you get $10/month? Did you actually bother to do any calculations or did you pull that figure out of your ass?

    I don't know what you pay, but for me it's $0.07 per kilowatt-hour.

    If these people are continually running their systems anyway, the extra power on top isn't going to be much. For every EXTRA 100 watts used, that would be 24 hours*100 W/1000 kW*0.07 dollars = $0.16 extra per day.

    Most cpus are not going to breach 100W power consumption even at full power consumption. I did a check and only the pentium 4 prescott exceeds it, with pentium 4 northwood at 84W and Athlon 64 at 63W.

    http://www.a1-electronics.net/Intel_Section/CPUs/P entium4_Prescott_Feb04.shtml

    Now, even assuming that you went from 0% cpu usage idle (yeah right) to 100%, this would cost a total of $5.04 per month, running 24/7 with 100W extra power usage.

    Stop being an anal retentive alarmist fuckwit and crunch your numbers.

  3. Re:130 Watts!! by eRacer1 · · Score: 1 · on Dual-Core Pentium 4 Slated For 2Q 2005

    Isn't 130 still less than the power needed by the latest ATI and nVidia graphics boards? The GeForce 6800 Ultra card "only" uses 110W according to this article. If the core was 90-nm like Prescott and the latest Athlon 64s instead of 130-nm the power requirements would likely be even lower.

  4. Re:Heat by stratjakt · · Score: 3, Informative · on Intel Shrinks Transistor Size By 30%

    The 3.6 gig prescott puts out 115 watts

    This article puts the 3.2 and 3.4's at about 103 watts.

    This article pegs the Athlon 64 at 116 watts.

    Yeah, you are engaged in CPU tribalism/fanboyism, whether you realize it or not. Both chips are pretty much equally "hot". One should use a different yardstick to compare the two.

    BTW, this article has the Itanium sucking 130 watts, which is probably where the misinformation came from.

  5. Some Other Links by GoodNicsTken · · Score: 4, Informative · on Balance Technology Extended (BTX) Explained
    Here are a few links:

    Try This

    Or This

    Or This

  6. They call it Low-K Dielectric by OS24Ever · · Score: 2, Informative · on Intel: Metal in Future Chips = Less Leakage (updated)

    Here is an article explaining low-k dielectric. I believe this is a shipping product on the Power4/4+ based systems and it is in the EXA chipset on the x365/x440/x445/x450 Intel servers, and the Apple G3 and G5. The xSeries products even have little copper BB's in the grill of the system to symbolize that they use copper based technology.