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Can we add Corsair to the list? They've been pretty shifty lately.

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Gather round, children, it's story time. Back when AMD's FX-9590 and Asus's Crosshair V Formula Z were the latest and greatest in their neck of the woods, Corsair cooked up some DDR3 RAM that ran @ 2800Mhz. Now, the above setup would never reach 2800Mhz (without special cooling), topping out at 2400Mhz, but this made for some top grade RAM; I mean, if it could do 2800Mhz, it could easily do 2400Mhz, right? It's overkill.

Well, around the time of DivineKnight's particular batch of RAM manufacture, RAM manufacturers were suffering from something called Row hammar. This makes the RAM very useful as a random number generator, but very bad as a storage device. And this batch had it. Memtest confirmed it.

RMA process seemed straight forward enough. Send the RAM back, get new RAM. So I sent it back. Some time passes, and I am told that instead of receiving new RAM (of the same make and model), I will be receiving a refund check, because they are out of that type of RAM. I say that's fine with me; they say it will take 6-8 weeks to cut a check. Whatever, corporate policies.

Somewhere around 8 weeks pass, and Corsair 'upgrades' their support site, apparently losing all data relating to my RMA. A quick phone call reveals that the old system still exists, but I am still put through several rounds of questions first regarding my RAM ("The system says you haven't sent us the RAM yet" "Check the old system" "Oh yeah, we received it", "The system says that it hasn't been 8 weeks yet" "Check the old system" "Ah, it has been 8 weeks", "We can't give you a refund until it is approved" "It was approved, check the old system" "Oh, yes it was"). And every time I call, I am assured that the Finance people are working on it, and that they will send me an email before the day is out. Oh, and the reason it is apparently taking so much effort to get a refund check is because Corsair normally doesn't cut a check of this size (their words).

Included image includes false dates (for Submitted, Approved, Arrived, Processing) which you can notice where the RAM was 'Processed' before it 'Arrived.' You may also take notice of the amount of time lapsing between comments, and the lack of any action on the part of Corsair (it's 8/28/2017, and still no refund check).

Can we add Corsair to the list? They've been pretty shifty lately.

Relevant Image

Gather round, children, it's story time. Back when AMD's FX-9590 and Asus's Crosshair V Formula Z were the latest and greatest in their neck of the woods, Corsair cooked up some DDR3 RAM that ran @ 2800Mhz. Now, the above setup would never reach 2800Mhz (without special cooling), topping out at 2400Mhz, but this made for some top grade RAM; I mean, if it could do 2800Mhz, it could easily do 2400Mhz, right? It's overkill.

Well, around the time of DivineKnight's particular batch of RAM manufacture, RAM manufacturers were suffering from something called Row hammar. This makes the RAM very useful as a random number generator, but very bad as a storage device. And this batch had it. Memtest confirmed it.

RMA process seemed straight forward enough. Send the RAM back, get new RAM. So I sent it back. Some time passes, and I am told that instead of receiving new RAM (of the same make and model), I will be receiving a refund check, because they are out of that type of RAM. I say that's fine with me; they say it will take 6-8 weeks to cut a check. Whatever, corporate policies.

Somewhere around 8 weeks pass, and Corsair 'upgrades' their support site, apparently losing all data relating to my RMA. A quick phone call reveals that the old system still exists, but I am still put through several rounds of questions first regarding my RAM ("The system says you haven't sent us the RAM yet" "Check the old system" "Oh yeah, we received it", "The system says that it hasn't been 8 weeks yet" "Check the old system" "Ah, it has been 8 weeks", "We can't give you a refund until it is approved" "It was approved, check the old system" "Oh, yes it was"). And every time I call, I am assured that the Finance people are working on it, and that they will send me an email before the day is out. Oh, and the reason it is apparently taking so much effort to get a refund check is because Corsair normally doesn't cut a check of this size (their words).

Included image includes false dates (for Submitted, Approved, Arrived, Processing) which you can notice where the RAM was 'Processed' before it 'Arrived.' You may also take notice of the amount of time lapsing between comments, and the lack of any action on the part of Corsair (it's 8/28/2017, and still no refund check).

I think the idea of a "barebook", such as those by MSI, Clevo, or Compal, is that it includes everything but CPU, RAM, and storage, at the cost of being significantly bulkier and more expensive than a fully assembled laptop.

> No mods is supposed to means no cheating in online multiplayer against strangers but yet cheaters still abound

FTFY.

Likewise, the console industry and dumb fanbois remains completely clueless about why PC's kick the ass out of consoles for good reasons:

* Mouse+Keyboard is a superior input combo which blows gamepads out of the water for sub-pixel pefect FPS accuracy with multi-level DPI precision such as the classic Logitech G500s weighted 10 button mouse.

* Dedicated keyboard makes web surfing fun and trivial to reply with long detailed info. to people on forums such as /. and Reddit, not to mention GameFaqs instead of typing on some shitty virtual keyboard.

* No bullshit proprietary USB -- standard Joysticks, Gamepads, and Throttles such as the excellent CH Throttle Pro work awesome in Space and Flight sims.

* Allows the user to pick their favorite case such as the excellent Corsair Graphite 780T

* Online Digital Game stores (Steam, Gog, Origin, etc.) with user ratings give gamers a wide access of games -- consoles are so crappy that they can't even run some of the genres such as RTS's!
  * RTS's such as excellent Starcraft 2, Rise of Nations, Age of Empires 2 & 3
  * RPG's such as the free Path of Exile, World of Warcraft, Diablo 2, Dungeon Siege 1 & 2, Ultima, etc.
  * Space games such as Master of Orion, Freelancer, Elite, Star Citizen

* Tons of innovate indie games played first on PC; most which are exclusive to PCs

* Allows anyone to make games & content; no shenanigans of overpriced dev kits

* Allows gamers to upgrade to a real GPU such as the GTX 980Ti at their convenience instead of throwing the entire box out

* Aren't overpriced like consoles

* Isn't a gimped 5 year old PC

* Allows anyone to run applications such as Photoshop, Krita, Inkscape, etc., Text Editors for real work such as the excellent WebStorm, etc.

* You decide what software to run not some arrogant third party dictating what is "legal"

* TONS of Emulators to play all your old favorite games!

* Superior 4K resolution @ 60 Hz, not 720p and 1080p wannabe resolutions

* True 120+ Hz framerate not some crappy 30 Hz stutterfest.

* TONS of Mods for your favorite games: Skyrim, Minecraft, Left 4 Dead (SourceMod), etc. not to mention photo realistic graphic ENB shaders such as Skyrim ENB that are a slideshow on consoles.

* Systems aren't obsolete with an artificial console upgrade cycle

* Allows water-cooling for super Over-Clocking of CPU and GPU if desired

* Wide range of choice in Operating Systems: Windows, OSX, Linux, BSD based on what your needs are

/Oblg. /r/pcmasterrace

My server spec's likely won't be helpful for you. One of the SSD's alone would pretty much use up your budget. Here are the details anyway:

Intel S2600CP Motherboard
2 of E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10GHz
64GB of DDR3L 1600MHz RAM
1000W Power Supply
Intel RMS25KB040 RAID Controller
AXXCBL740MS7P RAID/SAS Cable Kit
2 of 500GB SATA HDD in RAID1 for OS/Boot
2 of Intel 750 Series PCIe 1.2TB SSD for VM storage

Software installed includes:
VMware ESXi 6.0.0
Intel-nvme-1.0e.1.1-1OEM.550.0.0.1391871.x86_64.vib
Scsi-mpt2sas-20.00.00.00.1vmw-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820.x86_64.vib
Vmware-esx-provider-lsiprovider.vib

I bought a Corsair Raptor M45 and it kicks ass. $45, a nice rock solid mouse. http://www.corsair.com/en-us/r...

I've been pretty happy with the non-mechanical Corsair Raptor K40. Corsair also has a mechanical keyboard line with the same design but with cherry switches. Unfortunately, the price has jumped up to the Logitech price points --- previously the K30 was ~$40, and the K40 was ~$50-$60 (when it was stocked by Amazon LLC, instead of 3rd parties).

The only "short-stroke" keyboards that I've seen are pretty much just laptop-style derivatives.

I've been pretty happy with the non-mechanical Corsair Raptor K40. Corsair also has a mechanical keyboard line with the same design but with cherry switches. Unfortunately, the price has jumped up to the Logitech price points --- previously the K30 was ~$40, and the K40 was ~$50-$60 (when it was stocked by Amazon LLC, instead of 3rd parties).

The only "short-stroke" keyboards that I've seen are pretty much just laptop-style derivatives.

There were reasons which I cannot seem to remember right now. Fan noise maybe? But why dont cases blow air up?

Actually modern PC cases such as Bitfenix's Prodigy/Phenom, Fractal Design Define R, and specially made for air cooling Corsair Carbide Air provide vent and filter on top. You can install apair of large fans on them but most of the time, they are used for watercooling kit.

I see you got a lot of replies which didn't really fix your problem.

http://www.corsair.com/en/gaming-peripherals/gaming-keyboards/vengeance-k95-fully-mechanical-gaming-keyboard-nd-layout.html

http://www.prisjakt.nu/produkt.php?p=2131273

You're welcome! :)

This is what I use
 
45GB + as big of a HDD as I want to combine with it, I noticed a significant difference in game load speeds.

Sandforce has already announced its new sata3 controller. On paper it looks like it will have much faster sequential writes than Intel, but it sounds like it will also have a shorter lifetime and shorter data retention times due to the use of 25nm NAND. Intel is wisely sticking with 34nm. It may be more expensive to manufacture, but is superior tech. I can only hope that OCZ changes their mind and decides to at least offer a more expensive 34nm version. OCZ won't be shipping their Vertex 3 drives until Q2 so Intel will have a big head start in the market.

The NAND industry seems to be doing its best to encourage ignorance on the disadvantages of smaller process sizes from the consumer POV and the ignorance seems to be widespread. Getting the facts on this issue can be a bit difficult. Here is a good thread on the topic.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2142742

The following post sums it up better than I could. Note his point about data retention times as well. That is a point that is often ignored when the focus is solely on write cycles.

As flash cells are shrunk, they become less good. This is a fundamental feature of the technology. The overall volume of the cell becomes smaller, so less electrons can be stored in the cell (so the signal picked up by the electronics is weaker and less clear, so you get a higher error rate) and the insulating barriers around the cell must be made thinner, in order to save space - allowing the electrons to leak out of the cell more easily (reducing power off data retention time). The thinner insulation also wears out more quickly (reducing life cycles)

It's difficult to define a 'fundamantal' limit for flash, because it may be possible to work around poor performance, and as yet unknown new manufacturing techniques and semiconductor materials may be developed. However, it has been suggested in the scientific literature that 18-22 nm, is the realistic limit. Beyond that, the performance/reliability/lifespan of the flash would be too poor, no matter how much wear levelling, and how sophisticated the ECC codes were.

Enterprise grade SSD flash, will need higher specifications than flash for toy cameras. Enterprise applications are unlikely to tolerate 18 nm flash with 100 write cycles and one lost sector per 100 GB of data stored. However, this probably would be acceptable for toys or throwaway devices.

Some more coverage of the topic:
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20090528/170920/

NAND Flash memory quality is also beginning to drop. Chips manufactured using 90nm-generation technology in 2004-05, for example, were assured for about 100,000 rewrites and data retention of about a decade. As multi-level architecture and smaller geometry are introduced, quality is showing a sharp decline. The 30nm 2-bit/cell chips expected to enter volume production in 2009-10 may well end up with a rewrite assurance of no more than 3,000 cycles, and a data retention time of about a year. The first 3-bit/cell chips are hitting the market now, with only a few hundred rewrites.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1502663

Flash memory works by trapping electrons. Over time these electrons leak away, until the charge is too small for the data to be read any more. With smaller feature sizes (34 nm instead of 45 or 65 nm) this leakage is more significant and fewer electrons can be stored per bit, thus the time during which the stored value can be maintained is decreased.

http://www.corsair.com/blog/force25nm/

Take a look at this one from Corsair then. http://www.corsair.com/products/survivor/default.aspx Its case is aluminum and waterproof. And the keyring hole is very strong. You do have to unscrew the lid every time you open it, but that doesn't bother me much. Also, the 2 rubber bands on the outside came off of mine. Again, doesn't matter to me. I am very impressed with the quality of the aluminum case and it has a 10-yr warranty.

I have had 2 fail on me within the last year. The first was a Corsair Survivor http://www.corsair.com/products/survivor/default.aspx Was a pretty rough and tumble device but I guess it couldn't stand pottery dust. Within 4-5 months Windows nor Mac would recognize the drive. I kept a backup of it and called Corsair. They were very cool about it and asked that I return it. I sent it back and received a replacement for the drive within a few business days of them receiving it. I want to say that it was sent back to me via UPS Second Day. The drive itself wasn't handled to roughly so I have my doubts that it wasn't just a hardware problem from the start. Second one that is on its' way to failing is an Imation Clip Drive http://www.imation.com/en/Imation-Products/USB-Flash-Drives--Accessories/Clip-Flash-Drive/. It is intermitantly failing to transfer files. I ran a version of Portable Apps http://portableapps.com/ and am also starting to see the Imation have a few problems. I'll probably not get the clip flash again because dust and dirt gets into the rubber boot and falls into the USB sheeth.
I work in an environment that can get pretty dirty, http://www.hlchina.com/ But what should I expect from a pottery. On the positive side, i've had about 3-4 SD cards that I transfered over from my Palm Zire that are now being used in the wife's camera and they refuse to die.

Ok, this will be off-topic for this thread but whatever, maybe it can interest someone :D

His motherboard is an ASUS P5Q-E (1) running stock BIOS I guess, there is a newer one out (2) version 1703 which mentions "Enhance the compatibility with certain memory." so I guess that may help to, can be upgraded with ASUS update utility (3) from within Windows so he should be able to do it. The motherboard runs Intel P45 (4) chipset which spec page mentions 1333 MHz FSB although Asus webpage (1) says 1600 MHz, guess they have tested it.

I think he was supposed to get Corsair CL5 PC8500 TWIN2X4096-8500C5D (5) but since he has a fan I guess he got the TWIN2X4096-8500C5DHX or something such. Modules spec sheet mentions:
JEDEC standard 5-5-5-18 values at 800MHz.
EPP standard 5-5-5-15-2T, 2.1V values.

Processor is Intel E8500 (6) 1333 MHz bus speed, 9.5 ratio, 6 MB cache, 3.16 GHz clock.

Anyway, I checked the manual (available at (2)) and told him to do the following:
* Turn Ai Overclock Tuner from Auto to Manual.
* Change FSB Frequency to 400.
* Change CPU ratio setting to 08.0
* Change DRAM Frequency to DDR2-800 MHz.
* Let DRAM Timing Control remain at auto (assuming it reads correct values) and same on DRAM Voltage unless Corsair EPP doesn't change that to 2.1 as default.

Which would run his CPU at 3.2 GHz but with 1:1 CPU to RAM clock divider at atleast run the RAMs faster than 333 MHz.

If the RAM remains on 2.1 volt I guess one can go in and drop it down to 1.8, and eventually fill in the timings manually from the JEDEC part of the spec sheet.

If he runs into problem I'll tell him to:
* Change Ai Clock Twister from Auto to Light or Lighter which is supposed to raise compatibility.
* Update to latest motherboard BIOS since it's supposed to raise memory compatibility.
* And finally if nothing else helps change RAM speed to DDR2-667 MHz, FSB down to 333 MHz and CPU ratio to 9.5.

And if everything works as it should and he really want to overclock I assume he can start with:
* Either change his CPU multiplier back to 9.5, eventually increasing CPU voltage if needed.
* Or shoot for increasing his FSB beyond 400 MHz by increasing RAM voltage again and eventually NB voltage to.
* Or a combination of both.
Since I'd prefer as high FSB as possible without no errors I'd start there but then chipset and RAM is more likely to fail. The CPU probably got higher margins since they usually overclock so good so maybe that's a more fail-safe option =P, he do run stock cooling however.

Looks ok?

1) ASUS P5Q-E http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?modelmenu=1&model=2267&l1=3&l2=11&l3=709&l4=0
2) P5Q-E BIOS 1703 http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5Q-E
3) ASUS Update Utility http://support.asus.com/technicaldocuments/technicaldocuments_content.aspx?no=714
4) Intel® P45 Express Chipset http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/chipsets/p45/p45-overview.htm
5) Corsair TWIN2X4096-8500C5D http://www.corsair.com/_datasheets/TWIN2X4096-8500C5D.pdf
6) Intel® Coreâ2 Duo Desktop Processor E8500 http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAPK#

Oops I lied.. there's also XMS2 Dominator, which IS what I have. You can tell cos there's a D on the end and big fat heatsinks. The page for that is here...

http://www.corsair.com/products/dominator/default.aspx

Erm, I have XMS2 Dominator 8500C5, which is guaranteed up to 1066, however it will only do this above the stock 1.8V, it is intended to be used at 2.1V. There are different XMS2s though, check Corsair's website for the spec on the exact model number. http://www.corsair.com/products/xms2/default.aspx

Originally I had to drop the multiplier on my CPU to achieve this, but now have got it stable with the multiplier intended for 800MHz ram by upping the core voltage a little (1.4V instead of 1.35V) and bumping most other ICH9 voltages by 0.1V, then putting a better fan on it.

This is my next purchase:

http://www.corsair.com/products/hx1000/default.aspx

These are solid for less demanding systems:
http://www.corsair.com/products/vx/default.aspx

Solid all around:

http://www.corsair.com/products/tx/default.aspx

This is my next purchase:

http://www.corsair.com/products/hx1000/default.aspx

These are solid for less demanding systems:
http://www.corsair.com/products/vx/default.aspx

Solid all around:

http://www.corsair.com/products/tx/default.aspx

This is my next purchase:

http://www.corsair.com/products/hx1000/default.aspx

These are solid for less demanding systems:
http://www.corsair.com/products/vx/default.aspx

Solid all around:

http://www.corsair.com/products/tx/default.aspx

All these cycles are given as one cell write cycles. But flash has more than the advertised cells (spare cells). And these are written every time a block is wrote. So a newly written spare block becomes the new block while the old block is moved to the spare blocks. So in theory, you can exceed those write cycles, even by writing data to the same sector. After all, that's why it's called "wear leveling". I think DVD-RAM (and DVD+-RW, but in SW if used in packet writing mode) uses the same algorithm.
My only concern is how/where the mapping is stored.
Besides, I would be satisfied if I would get 3-5 years with no errors. I had to deal with corrupted cards, but usually it was with low-cost cards used in low-cost cameras. And I also would like to try an XP installation on my 4GB Corsair Voyaget GT.

PS: wear leveling explained by Corsair (pdf)

Dude, you're only considering one aspect of disks when you analyse their speed - their rotation. That's not all there is to disks. The bit density has inceased 1,000-fold, and this is represented by the data transfer rates. I'd expect about 5MB/sec coming from a 9GB 7200RPM Disk in '95 or '96. Maybe a touch faster. Nowadays I can get sustained throughput of 100MB/sec from a 15000RPM 181GB Disk. It's a lot faster.

Also, flash or NVRAM has improved drastically since the old days, and it's more useable, but remember that it doesn't compare to SDRAM - it's not even close. Looking at Corsair's web site (http://www.corsair.com/corsair/flash_memory.html) they're only looking at 19MB/s read and 9MB/sec write time. I can get a sustained 60MB/s write on my PC at home.

Finally, while NVRAM will catch up, the current flash technology probably won't. They'll find a new NVRAM technology which doesn't use the current limitations of cell deletes and multiple writes to imprint the new data over the old data.

Corsair has a rubberized water resistent shock-resistent flash drive available. I have one and found that it is quite durable: http://www.corsair.com/

As for encryption, check-out this open source project which offers an excellent encryption solution for Flash drives:
http://www.truecrypt.org/