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Can you install your own OS on your DVD player?

Maybe, since my DVD player runs Linux, and the source code is available.

Here's a review which shows the output from "top" running on the DVD player.

A perfect example of the "Ballmer Disconnect" is this little gem from earlier this year when it was announced they were pulling the plug on Windows Home Server "We have all those features in Windows SBS now so its not that we are leaving the market, I'm sure everyone will just switch to SBS"...hmmm...lets look at the numbers, shall we? Windows Home Server? $40, and that's OEM retail price, more like $25 to the OEMs themselves. Windows SBS? $400!!!! And that is for the OEMs!

And to further rub salt into the wounds, they knobbled SBS like Apple knobbled OS X Server. For example, there's no in-house email in SBS 2012 or OS X Server 10.7+
This forum post has a good comparison of licensing SBS 2011 over 2012
In fact, compare the feature sets of previous versions and current versions of these two Server OSs and it's all about extracting recurring income through cloud dependence.

For a slightly more sane solution than rackmounting at home, consider the HP microserver.
Very low power (12W CPU), small, quiet, cheap, server grade, no Windows tax, holds four pluggable 3.5" drives plus optical (which some people swap for a 5th HDD for RAID5.)

http://blog.thestateofme.com/2011/05/14/review-hp-microserver/
http://www.silentpcreview.com/HP_Proliant_MicroServer
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/15351-15351-4237916-4237918-4237917-4248009.html
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=905262

If 8TB is full, you need to stop the obsessive collection of warez/pr0n/torrentz you are never likely to watch again.

So the rumors are true: according to the article all Sandy Bridge CPUs are Socket LGA 1155, replacing the 18 month old LGA 1366 and 17 month old LGA 1156.

I'm all for bigger and better but it's a pain to throw away a $500 motherboard every 18 months because Intel decided they want to change the socket.

On the other hand the latest 6-core processors from AMD still support 3+ yr old AM2+ motherboards. It's nice to see someone still looking out for the budget shopper.

Isn't this technology ('supercache' or whatever you wish to call it) carried over from Vista?

I thought it was big news back when Vista first came out...

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/09/why-does-vista-use-all-my-memory.html
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=640296

It isn't a new sieve at all even that particular modification of Erasothenes sieve has been done beofre and by me at that.
I programmed a sieve years ago that rules out previously discovered primes. What i don't get is why you stopped at ruling out 2,3 and 5? You could have taking it further and ruled out 2,3,5 and 7.
ie. all primes above 210 are in the form 210*n + 1,11,13,17,19... etc. You could create a seive for that, etc.
Link to my version of the algorithm, exactly the same method as yours

(I am known as Pacifist on other forums).
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showpost.php?p=6658274&postcount=11
Date 2006

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showpost.php?p=813807&postcount=18
Original idea date 2002

The fact is such a sieve algorithm has been done many times before (and not just by me).

It isn't a new sieve at all even that particular modification of Erasothenes sieve has been done beofre and by me at that.
I programmed a sieve years ago that rules out previously discovered primes. What i don't get is why you stopped at ruling out 2,3 and 5? You could have taking it further and ruled out 2,3,5 and 7.
ie. all primes above 210 are in the form 210*n + 1,11,13,17,19... etc. You could create a seive for that, etc.
Link to my version of the algorithm, exactly the same method as yours

(I am known as Pacifist on other forums).
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showpost.php?p=6658274&postcount=11
Date 2006

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showpost.php?p=813807&postcount=18
Original idea date 2002

The fact is such a sieve algorithm has been done many times before (and not just by me).

That's not true at all. It works in a single card configuration as well. Modern GPUs have more than enough spare parallel processing power to chug away at some physics operations. Guys are already modifying the beta drivers to test it out on their Geforce 8 cards. The OP in this thread is using a single card configuration:
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=689718

I apologize if you thought I was picking on Joe Six Pack. My point is that the hardware is up to the task, but the bloated, slow, and inefficient software grinds down the performance of the machine. I base this on personal experience and run a MythDora (MythTV + Fedora Linux) media center on a Pentium III without any performance issues. It happily plays and records TV, burns DVDs, shows pictures, plays games, plays/rips DVDs, transcodes video, surfs RSS feeds, streams video and audio without any performance problems.

The modern hardware we have is very powerful in terms of computing power. It is the bloated software like Vista/Java/.NET which make your shiny new machine feel slooooow. If we could get the DirectX guys and the Linux kernel guys together, we could have a killer O/S.

Another that did this a long time ago.
Mine also shows recorded GPS track data though.
Directory based using PHP and GD.

An example:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/~mwp/gallery/?l=Cla ssic%20Celica%20Club/2007-03-25%20CCC%20Cruise

http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=5199 19&P=5

OCAU got it to 3.7 with a Big Typhoon and a 140CFM fan. Only a matter of time before some nutter with liquid nitrogen hits 4-5GHz.

http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=5199 19

The site claims that "Intel's quad-core QX6700 CPU offers stunning computing power. At the same clockspeed it runs anywhere between 25% and 70% faster than the already lightning-fast dual-core E6700."

After reading this review and the other reviews posted on Slashdot, I think that Intel bombed this launch bigtime. Perhaps AMD's true quadcore chip will trounce Intel's new offering. Only time will tell.

http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=4895 87

We have a comprehensive review on OCAU also: http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=4895 87 We compare the new high-end 2.93GHz X6800 and the 2.67GHz E6700, with the current Pentium D 955XE and AMD's A64 FX-62. Lots of info, loads of benchmarks and of course, some overclocking.

The Summary Offences Act 1988 states: 'public place' means (a) a place (whether or not covered by water) or (b) a part of a premises, that is open to the public, or is used by the public

As the parent says, MCE is a performance hog, which means you need a grunty CPU, which means heat and lots of it. Heat requires cooling, and cooling is the prime cause of noise.

Trust me - you dont want a noisy PC in your living room.

Myth runs very well on low spec fanless EPIA mobos.

It *is* possible to reduce cooling noise significantly in a box running MCE, but the price is driven up, and you often end up having to customise the box. Further, there are likely to be water pumps or fans still in there.

Myth is a *pig* to install (even with Knoppmyth, which I use), but you can build a completely silent system.

Dont underestimate how much the noise will bother you.

About 6 months ago, one of my cheap free-with-case PSU's died. I went on a mission to find a good bang for the buck PSU to replace all 3 of my systems with high quality PSUs. I read several tests and reviews, including the one on Toms and another http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=3598 67 and another http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/psus/index.x? pg=1 and not to mention http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=-270.

The conclusion? I went with FSP power supplies labeled as Fortron or Sparkle Power. Yes, you can get nicer more expensive ones, but for a very low price, these beasts couldn't be beat for price/performance. I opened up 300w Sparkle, a cheapie 400watt free with case, and my friends ThermalTake which was fairly pricey rated at 350watt. In terms of size of capacitors, mosfets, heat sinks, etc, the Sparkle definately had the edge in size (size does matter with this stuff!). I replaced all 3 of my systems with these and they are humming along great.

I am calling bullshit. How about some real numbers not your fantasy. In 1988 you would pay around $2500 for a laser printer. So your comparing a top of the line Mac with a laser printer verses a screw driver shop PC with an Epson FX-80.

Here is your $3000 bullshit computer. Go to the middle of the page and there is a picture of a Tandy ad for 1989 selling a 386 no monitor no mouse for $8499. Tandy's prices were comparable to other companies at the time. So please explain how you were able to buy computers with laser printers for 1/3 of a normal PC.

Here is from 1988 Computer Shopper scroll near the bottom of the page. A cheap laser printer was $2263. A Compaq 286 was $4855.

Here is the price of the top of the line Mac in 1988 and it is $9300.

The basic problem with comparing Apples vs PC years ago was the difference in the hardware Apple used and feature sets. Apple used SCSI the PC MFM drives. How about the Sony floppies that could eject a disk? How about the ability to run multiple monitors? Does that even work 100% in XP almost 20 years later? How about built in networking. You may not like AppleTalk but it worked fine for small work groups. How about file sharing?

Today it is much easier to compare the hardware because Apple uses standard hardware. Besides the totally bogus numbers you had to pull out of some dark crevice when it came to PC prices you were close to what Apple's prices were except you forgot a laser priner, SCSI drives, networking, and the ability to run multiple monitors to the PC's price.

http://www.overclockers.com.au/~bluesmurf/

The 35MHz ARM processor in my DVD player is pretty good at DVD playback too but that does not make it a desktop replacement. The benchmark also showed that the 1Ghz Via processor has a 38% slower CPU Integer performance than a 450MHz AMD K6-III. A 1 GHz via runs like a 333MHz AMD or Intel proc.

Useable? Yes. Acceptable for generic web browsing and word processing? Maybe. An excellent-performing midrange desktop replacement? No way.

The benchmark you linked said the single processor handled dvd playback flawlessly, and played divx movies "perfectly with no slowdowns or stutters"

Their conclusion:
"VIA has definitely listened to the users of the EPIA on this one. They've fixed up all of the major problems that stopped the EPIA becoming a perfect TV-Run machine. Anyone who is looking to set up a dedicated TV-Run machine should look no further than the VIA EPIA-M - its high quality DVD and DivX playback make it a perfect choice!"

That sounds fast enough to replace many home desktops

Not quite...

Benchmark review of a single 933 Via processor

Granted, this is the C3, which is slightly inferior to the Eden-N being used here. Can you see the second processor in the arithmetic benchmarks, the one running about equally? That's a 333mhz PII. Even being generous and saying this newer series chip has significantly sped up, we're still talking performance equal to maybe a dual 500 Mhz PIII.

Useable? Yes. Acceptable for generic web browsing and word processing? Maybe. An excellent-performing midrange desktop replacement? No way. The Mhz myth is definitely in effect here, just not like you might initially think. These things are fine and dandy as a generic file server where speed is not a supreme priority, and they work fine as a router/gateway or simple firewall, but please don't try to use them for much else.

I hacked an N64 down to it's bare essentials, and put it in my PC.

It's powered by the PC's power supply and the video and audio cables are run through my digital TV tuner card so I can play it in all it's deinterlaced glory using tvtime, although it can be plugged into a large TV or a projector and a loud stereo.

It's great at LAN parties. Nobody can resist the attraction of a GoldenEye deathmatch. >:D

Here at Overclockers Australia

for literal heat, this puppy is pretty hot.

my dual 2.5GHz PowerMac G5 idles at 52C (125F) on CPU A and 50C (122F) on CPU B. the memory controller is actually one of the hotter things, it idles at 62C (143F). however, it's not the hottest thing, of course: at full load (DVD rip+encode or playing 15 videos at once + MP3 + tasks + flicking around Exposé) both CPUs have hit a max of 83C (181F) (the computer is supposed to automatically sleep around 90C or so).

so why so effing hot? i mean, this idles at the max temp my athlon 2500 peaks at! it certainly idles at a hotter temp than it needs to, but i have no problem with that: the system runs the fans dynamically to keep the noise down, so at idle it's not as cool as it could be. the difference in noise in my room when i sleep the athlon is ridiculous - the G5 sounds like a slightly loud external hard drive that's spun up. the system also has a liquid cooling system to quench the processors. this seems to just keep the processors within their range. the value that i see in it is response to new heat - the CPU temps flick around a lot and are very responsive to load and the loss of load. after ramping up the CPUs to >80C, it take about three or four seconds after the load drops for the CPU temps to drop 15-20C, then maybe a total of ten or twelve seconds to drop to idle temp.

for some real-world perspective... a DVD rip+encode with HandBrake with using ffmpeg engine, MP3 audio, 2-pass encoding, and gunning for your average 700MB movie time (800-1300kbps?) takes slightly less than the length of the DVD. an hour and a half long movie took about and hour and fifteen minutes to get on to my hard drive. MP3 ripping in iTunes will run up to 28x, but it's not fully loading the processors so i wonder about a drive read bottleneck. the first night i got it, i was at a loss for how to really test the speed on it, so i just decided to open up a shitload of videos. basically i played a DVD (fluff, the GPU does that), opened up something in VLC, opened up about 13 videos in QuickTime of various sizes and formats, played some MP3 music (fluff again, that's ball sweat of a cutting edge proc), and still had enough processing power to comfortably navigate files, chat, browse web pages, and flick around Exposé. around all of these things plus one is when a few of the videos would start stuttering and expose would start dropping frames to keep collapse speed uniform. anything past this would really start robbing time from videos.

all in all? it's fast. it's quiet. it gets hot, but it takes care of itself. coming from a 375MHz G3-upgraded PowerMac 7600 (vintage '98), i'm not doing too shabby. i just decided i'd scramjet at mach 7 to the top of the pack and then sit there for another few years.

Take a look at this one http://www.overclockers.com.au/image.php?pic=artic les/296910/ad1.jpg
It says the old pentium (586?) was a 64bit CPU. that aint right, is it?

The genuine P5 64bit cpu at 60 MHZ. PCI bus with........

Very true. And you could do a lot more with 8 megs 20 years ago. The only people seeming to buck the trend is Microsoft (picture with old prices). Seems they haven't dropped their price a lot.

Well actually its a Dual P3 1Ghz

I'll have one of those (137KB jpg).
But can I overclock it from 60Hz to, say, 3000Hz?

It is one incredible case.

If those servers die, it can also be seen here in the PCDB.

Please get rid of the space that was introduced by Slashdot in the URL Fixed Link

And what is your damn reason for not even trying 2.6 in the first place? Of course, Debian does give you a choice by way of dpkg. Don't like it? Just find yourself another package, or build it yourself with your selection of packages etc.
Overclockers Australia runs 2.6.5 on both www and db.
AFAIK the mem usage is high due to the use of some caching and accelerator tools. Both servers are quite new run Slackware and replaced a single Dual PIII 1GHz which started having high usage problems since a few months back. Peak time slowdowns are a thing of the past now.

All my computers run 2.6 series kernels and I have never experianced problems with them at all. The performance is higher (my machines do distributed computing stuff all the time) and I my laptop is even faster booting into KDE than Windows now (couldn't beat Windows on 2.4)

And what is your damn reason for not even trying 2.6 in the first place? Of course, Debian does give you a choice by way of dpkg. Don't like it? Just find yourself another package, or build it yourself with your selection of packages etc.
Overclockers Australia runs 2.6.5 on both www and db.
AFAIK the mem usage is high due to the use of some caching and accelerator tools. Both servers are quite new run Slackware and replaced a single Dual PIII 1GHz which started having high usage problems since a few months back. Peak time slowdowns are a thing of the past now.

All my computers run 2.6 series kernels and I have never experianced problems with them at all. The performance is higher (my machines do distributed computing stuff all the time) and I my laptop is even faster booting into KDE than Windows now (couldn't beat Windows on 2.4)

if you click on this link you will find one that has a computer inside it.!

http://www.overclockers.com.au/%7Ebluesmurf/

so the url is really THIS

There are different methods the motherboard can use to measure the die temperature. One is to place a thermal diode on the motherboard in the center of the socket beneath the CPU. Other motherboards report the temperature directly from the CPU's internal on-die thermal sensor.

Usually the report from the on-die sensor is 10-20C higher than the external sensor reports.

Here is what the in-socket thermal diodes look like: http://www.overclockers.com.au/techstuff/r_abit_kr 7a-r/sensor_small.jpg

The Imperiator Star Destroyer computer case:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/~bluesmurf/

Don't forget the Imperial Star Destroyer case mod. wow, overkill and too much time on his hands.

The product you are taking about is "Buddy B-210 Virtual PC" Here is a link to a review of the product. http://www.overclockers.com.au/techstuff/r_buddy_b 210/ And I hope you saw english as it was developed by an Australian company. Whether is is still made I cannot say but you may be able to find it on ebay.

OCAU had a 7km link established (with 'perfect' LOS mind you) which is quite impressive. Link to article

Introduction - More Hardware Next Year Please

To be deadly honest with you, the Australian Game Developers Conference which was held over this past weekend at the Melbourne Convention Center was not all that exciting for a strictly hardware junkie like myself.

However... for an Australian conference, it was very good to see large companies such as Intel, AMD, nVidia, Microsoft, Sony and Creative in your backyard all putting some dollars back into the industry for the benefit of future game development in our good country down under.

While we did not see it necessary to post any formal coverage, throughout the weekend we did learn a few things of interest for us hardware folks, obviously though much of it was focused toward the gaming industry with no ground-breaking new juicy hardware news to feed you folk with.

So without further ado, here is some of the interesting bit and pieces I found @ ADGC 2002.

Sony on PS2 - Still Pushing Hard

- PS2 Online Gaming Service

First off, at their Delegate Cocktail Party, Sony let a noisy, mostly student dominated crowd of 300 or more know that they will launch their very own online gaming service for the PS2 in Australia sometime during our winter season next year - no in-depth details were given by the speaker battling to sound himself above the crowd.

This service will compete with Microsoft's Xbox Live online gaming service which should go live in Australia around the same time, we think.

- PS2 Linux Dev Kit

Sony were also showing off their PS2 Linux Development kit with the aim of getting more up and coming game developers to learn the art behind programming PS2 games under the Linux OS.

These kits sell for around $1000 Australian (roughly $500 US).

nVidia bring beautiful Dawn to our shores!

One of the company stands I thought I would stop by was nVidia where the friendly Steve Burke, Art Director and co from the Santa Clare office in the US of A were showing off their GeForce FX graphics card (to my delight) and CG Graphics engine and development software.

- The Videos

Now most of us have seen the stunning NV30 videos floating around the Internet over the past month or so. I remember when I first saw these videos and how amazed I was. Seeing the NV30 in action personally impressed me a whole lot more with what the technology is truly capable of - somewhat refreshing my excitement over the new product.

We shot 3 or 4 minutes of our own new video footage of both the Dawn and Ogre demos for your viewing pleasure. To view these AVI files, you will need to download the latest DivX codec from the DivX website.

You can download both videos here from our servers:

- Video #1 (Dawn) (10.1mb)

- Video #2 (Ogre) (6.7mb)

UPDATE - New Download Mirrors

Overclockers Australia were kind enough to mirror both of these videos...

- Video #1 (Dawn) from OCAU (10.1mb)

- Video #2 (Ogre) from OCAU (6.7mb)

- The Card

After we shot the videos, I asked if we could get a closer look at the NV30 graphics card. While nVidia refused to power down their systems (fair enough - we cannot take Dawn away from fellow jaw dropped perverts) they did offer to take the sides off one of their three ASUS nForce2 Athlon XP 2700+ powered systems they were demonstrating...

[pictures here]

These shots give us a good idea of just how much space these monsters are going to take up inside our cases. As you can see, the heat pipe cooling technology is going to cover two of your first PCI slots - whether you like it or not, start to get used to the fact guys.

- Cooling

While we couldn't see it, the fan cooling the heat pipes was very loud - we are talking almost Delta-like volume levels. Possibly, as we get closer to seeing these cards in retail, nVidia may tweak the cooling systems to a more noise tolerable level - at least I hope so.

When quizzed by a gamer at the sound levels coming from the back of the card, an nVidia rep was quick to suggest that it wouldn't matter much because gamers would be using headphones during their gaming. Unless the cooling technology has thermal throttling (which it very well may, mind you) I would have to disagree with this notion.

Say you are listening to music or fragging away with your desktop speakers, the hum of the cooling fan will still be audible since we do not all use headphones.

- Retail Release Dates

I ended my discussions with Steve Burke asking when we could except to see the GeForce FX on store shelves.

He made it clear he was not 100% certain but said we may possibly see a limited supply in stores in the United States toward the very end of this year with supply coming in quantity late January / early February next year.

Please remember these dates were given to us as ESTIMATES and should be treated as such.

Conclusion

Like I said in the introduction, I didn't have a great detail of information to report here. I hope you enjoy the brief coverage I provided in this forum thread.

Feel free to post your thoughts and comments on anything discussed here.

Introduction - More Hardware Next Year Please

To be deadly honest with you, the Australian Game Developers Conference which was held over this past weekend at the Melbourne Convention Center was not all that exciting for a strictly hardware junkie like myself.

However... for an Australian conference, it was very good to see large companies such as Intel, AMD, nVidia, Microsoft, Sony and Creative in your backyard all putting some dollars back into the industry for the benefit of future game development in our good country down under.

While we did not see it necessary to post any formal coverage, throughout the weekend we did learn a few things of interest for us hardware folks, obviously though much of it was focused toward the gaming industry with no ground-breaking new juicy hardware news to feed you folk with.

So without further ado, here is some of the interesting bit and pieces I found @ ADGC 2002.

Sony on PS2 - Still Pushing Hard

- PS2 Online Gaming Service

First off, at their Delegate Cocktail Party, Sony let a noisy, mostly student dominated crowd of 300 or more know that they will launch their very own online gaming service for the PS2 in Australia sometime during our winter season next year - no in-depth details were given by the speaker battling to sound himself above the crowd.

This service will compete with Microsoft's Xbox Live online gaming service which should go live in Australia around the same time, we think.

- PS2 Linux Dev Kit

Sony were also showing off their PS2 Linux Development kit with the aim of getting more up and coming game developers to learn the art behind programming PS2 games under the Linux OS.

These kits sell for around $1000 Australian (roughly $500 US).

nVidia bring beautiful Dawn to our shores!

One of the company stands I thought I would stop by was nVidia where the friendly Steve Burke, Art Director and co from the Santa Clare office in the US of A were showing off their GeForce FX graphics card (to my delight) and CG Graphics engine and development software.

- The Videos

Now most of us have seen the stunning NV30 videos floating around the Internet over the past month or so. I remember when I first saw these videos and how amazed I was. Seeing the NV30 in action personally impressed me a whole lot more with what the technology is truly capable of - somewhat refreshing my excitement over the new product.

We shot 3 or 4 minutes of our own new video footage of both the Dawn and Ogre demos for your viewing pleasure. To view these AVI files, you will need to download the latest DivX codec from the DivX website.

You can download both videos here from our servers:

- Video #1 (Dawn) (10.1mb)

- Video #2 (Ogre) (6.7mb)

UPDATE - New Download Mirrors

Overclockers Australia were kind enough to mirror both of these videos...

- Video #1 (Dawn) from OCAU (10.1mb)

- Video #2 (Ogre) from OCAU (6.7mb)

- The Card

After we shot the videos, I asked if we could get a closer look at the NV30 graphics card. While nVidia refused to power down their systems (fair enough - we cannot take Dawn away from fellow jaw dropped perverts) they did offer to take the sides off one of their three ASUS nForce2 Athlon XP 2700+ powered systems they were demonstrating...

[pictures here]

These shots give us a good idea of just how much space these monsters are going to take up inside our cases. As you can see, the heat pipe cooling technology is going to cover two of your first PCI slots - whether you like it or not, start to get used to the fact guys.

- Cooling

While we couldn't see it, the fan cooling the heat pipes was very loud - we are talking almost Delta-like volume levels. Possibly, as we get closer to seeing these cards in retail, nVidia may tweak the cooling systems to a more noise tolerable level - at least I hope so.

When quizzed by a gamer at the sound levels coming from the back of the card, an nVidia rep was quick to suggest that it wouldn't matter much because gamers would be using headphones during their gaming. Unless the cooling technology has thermal throttling (which it very well may, mind you) I would have to disagree with this notion.

Say you are listening to music or fragging away with your desktop speakers, the hum of the cooling fan will still be audible since we do not all use headphones.

- Retail Release Dates

I ended my discussions with Steve Burke asking when we could except to see the GeForce FX on store shelves.

He made it clear he was not 100% certain but said we may possibly see a limited supply in stores in the United States toward the very end of this year with supply coming in quantity late January / early February next year.

Please remember these dates were given to us as ESTIMATES and should be treated as such.

Conclusion

Like I said in the introduction, I didn't have a great detail of information to report here. I hope you enjoy the brief coverage I provided in this forum thread.

Feel free to post your thoughts and comments on anything discussed here.

Sorry - the correct URL.

All the reviews I've read seem to indicate the same thing:

On default settings, all video is VERY jumpy and out of sync, with both Media Player and The Player 2.0. However, when I lowered the DIVX quality settings (Start-Programs-DivX-DivX Pro Codec-Decoder Configuration) to the minimum, all playback was perfect.

The EPIA M (for Multimedia) boards debut in October. I'm hoping they'll use a somewhat more powerful processor in those.

There are several more 2600+ reviews, and these are much better too.
AMDZone.com
Hot Hardware
Tech-Report
Overclockers.com.au
Ace's Hardware
Firing Squad
Hexus
xbit
Anandtech
Van's Hardware
VIA Hardware
The Inquirer

I have also heard a story about a Seagate drive being used in a RAID array which stopped working..... turns out the drive leaked oil everywhere.

Oily Barracuda

- HeXa

http://www.overclockers.com.au/techstuff/a_diy_lcd

Sydney really isn't a typical city. The CBD is very small, it has few residents, and it's mostly cut off from the rest of Sydney by the harbour and parkland. Despite the council's efforts to make it a "Living City", it's still a ghost town on weekends, and those streets are empty.

Besides, this is a News Corp paper reporting on an AOL/Time Warner film. Nuff said! ;-)

Check out what else the Matrix crew have been doing in Sydney.