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Although the NJ100 can be powered by a local AC adapter, the NJ100's "Power-Over-Ethernet" option is a feature that really provides additional value. The NJ100 supports IEEE 802.3af Power-Over-Ethernet standards, which allows you to power the NJ100s from wiring closets, rather than locally. 3Com also offers a Power-Over-Ethernet Midspan Solution, which can add Power-Over-Ethernet capabilities from one to twenty-four ports, using the IEEE 802.3af standard. Of course, this feature isn't included, but can be purchased at additional cost.

The back up server is still online.

http://www2.tomshardware.com/network/01q4/011129/i ndex.html

For those that don't want to read the article...here's a Direct Link to the pic.

And another one to a 3Com diagram

And one last pic.

For those that don't want to read the article...here's a Direct Link to the pic.

And another one to a 3Com diagram

And one last pic.

For those that don't want to read the article...here's a Direct Link to the pic.

And another one to a 3Com diagram

And one last pic.

Actually with the right burner, you can burn either 90 or 99 minute discs. I've never seen the blank media being sold, but Tom's Hardware reviewed it here so it must exist somewhere.

It's good to see the kernel compilation back in the benchmarks. Tom's Hardware started that last year and then it kind of disappeared for a while. It's a shame that whoever did that graphic is such an idiot, though...

I just upgraded to SuSE 7.3 from 7.1 and it is sweet. I was amazed at the improvements from an incremental release, especially the hardware management capabilities in YAST2. KDE2.2 is much smoother and more responsive as well. I would be totally comfortable handing the CDs to my mom and letting her install it herself (she'd be scared shitless, but she could do it). It's certainly a distro I'd wave in the face of the Linux naysayers that whine about how Linux is to difficult to install and configure.

SuSE's not just for wierd Germans anymore!

Though I trust Tom's Hardware with their benchmarks and recommendations, I have to question the details when it comes to their writing.

Unless I'm missing something, what are these DIE devices and cables they talk about here and here? Could they possibly mean IDE cables? Though the article is in English, perhaps IDE is the same as DIE in another language.

They are also confusing Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and I really hope they aren't compiling Linux under Windows 2000, as someone mentioned earlier. All the benchmarks are run under Windows 2000, yet they state that Lame MP3 Encoder under Windows XP was used. When describing the benchmarks, they state that they chose not to use Sysmark 2001 because values can fluctuate under Windows XP. Am I supposed to assume they don't trust it under Windows 2000? They need to state that, not leave us to assume, if they meant to say XP at all.

I'm just picking nits, but I think if you are going to write a technical review, you must be accurate and specific.

Though I trust Tom's Hardware with their benchmarks and recommendations, I have to question the details when it comes to their writing.

Unless I'm missing something, what are these DIE devices and cables they talk about here and here? Could they possibly mean IDE cables? Though the article is in English, perhaps IDE is the same as DIE in another language.

They are also confusing Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and I really hope they aren't compiling Linux under Windows 2000, as someone mentioned earlier. All the benchmarks are run under Windows 2000, yet they state that Lame MP3 Encoder under Windows XP was used. When describing the benchmarks, they state that they chose not to use Sysmark 2001 because values can fluctuate under Windows XP. Am I supposed to assume they don't trust it under Windows 2000? They need to state that, not leave us to assume, if they meant to say XP at all.

I'm just picking nits, but I think if you are going to write a technical review, you must be accurate and specific.

Though I trust Tom's Hardware with their benchmarks and recommendations, I have to question the details when it comes to their writing.

Unless I'm missing something, what are these DIE devices and cables they talk about here and here? Could they possibly mean IDE cables? Though the article is in English, perhaps IDE is the same as DIE in another language.

They are also confusing Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and I really hope they aren't compiling Linux under Windows 2000, as someone mentioned earlier. All the benchmarks are run under Windows 2000, yet they state that Lame MP3 Encoder under Windows XP was used. When describing the benchmarks, they state that they chose not to use Sysmark 2001 because values can fluctuate under Windows XP. Am I supposed to assume they don't trust it under Windows 2000? They need to state that, not leave us to assume, if they meant to say XP at all.

I'm just picking nits, but I think if you are going to write a technical review, you must be accurate and specific.

Though I trust Tom's Hardware with their benchmarks and recommendations, I have to question the details when it comes to their writing.

Unless I'm missing something, what are these DIE devices and cables they talk about here and here? Could they possibly mean IDE cables? Though the article is in English, perhaps IDE is the same as DIE in another language.

They are also confusing Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and I really hope they aren't compiling Linux under Windows 2000, as someone mentioned earlier. All the benchmarks are run under Windows 2000, yet they state that Lame MP3 Encoder under Windows XP was used. When describing the benchmarks, they state that they chose not to use Sysmark 2001 because values can fluctuate under Windows XP. Am I supposed to assume they don't trust it under Windows 2000? They need to state that, not leave us to assume, if they meant to say XP at all.

I'm just picking nits, but I think if you are going to write a technical review, you must be accurate and specific.

there is a marginal difference between them

If you call 10% marginal, you are right. Looks like now that board with the same chipset perform within a few percent from each other. I do not think you will notice the difference. But then i am still using my pII 350 at home since it fast enough for diabloII & internet. (You can hit me with you club/truncheon now).

If you have determined the the last few % of performance are not important for you, you should focus on features. If you do not play games the integrated Geforce2MX on the nvidia might be fine. And a integrated ethernet may save you a few dollar you can spend on a better display. I am suprisid they integrated a realtech ethernet in one of the nvidea board.

* This is using an external graphics card - the GeForce 3. The nForce has a GeForce 2 MX equivalent, and I imagine that comparing the speed of the nForce to a KT266A with GeForce 2 MX would prove insightful, too.

This isn't true. The benchmark was fair indeed for, when testing the nforce boards, they disabled the onboard graphic chip and used the geforce3 as well. See the test setup.

* The nForce, IMHO, is aimed at the OEM market. It has not just graphics, but sound integrated onto the motherboard, at a significant cost saving compared to buying them seperately.

However, if you're a geek who upgrades his computer every once in a while, you're better off with separate nic / graphic / audio cards that you can reuse in your new computer.

* I cannot find any reference to stability, and my experience of Via chipsets, compared to Intel and AMD chipsets, is that they are less stable and more likely to have problems

I don't have enough experience with via chipsets to respond to that. However, I bought a via kt266A motherboard last week (the epox one), and have had absolutely no problems with it. So far, it is as stable as my previous all intel setup (p3+bx chipset).

It's quite possible, look at this pic.

• Here is a link to the review.

• Swiftech MC-462 review

Thank you.

Overall I would tend to agree. It was the simplistic nature of this particular request which I found off-putting. The CoLo and Office Culture examples are reasonable enough, and while I would tend to put the XBox question in the same category as this one it has the added facets of being (a) - a specific product, and (b) - brand new and thus lacking the wealth of online info that an older product would have.
A month from now I would probably consider the XBox question unsuitable as well.
Something like the RAID question is more suited for an IT version of Consumer Reports. E.g. Tom's Hardware or AnandTech, both of which he would find in a Google search along with many other far more useful pages (e.g. RAID HOWTO's :)

My 2c.

One small comfort is that no one buys ATI cards for performance. Any cards of the GeForce (Nvidia's brand) variety handily whip anything at the same price point with ATI.

This really isn't true any longer. ATI finally released better drivers for the 8500 this week and it keeps up fine with a GeForce3 Ti 500, for $50 less. Here's a review at Tom's Hardware.

Well, this is certinaly possible with the development of Bluetooth.

However, why bother with wireless when all your appliances are WIRED TO AC in the first place?

Tom's COMDEX Report on Netgear

I know that powerline networking has been avaliable in the past, but now that embedding network connectivity into a device is so trivial its the next logical step. Why bathe your house in more RF and use up the spectrum when your devices have to be plugged into the wall anyway?

Obviously this goes along the line to EASE OF USE. No extra cables, when you plug in the power cable you're also hooking into the network! No need to make sure your Bluetooth devices are within range or are being blocked by walls.

All we need now is a networking protocol as easy to setup as IPX.

Firewire doesn't really stack up to ide all that well in speed yet, but it certainly does beat the snot out of usb 1.x. USB 2.0 devices are starting to come out though...

Now you might go through ten pages on google to finally find the information that you were looking for, and that would bring the cost of the search to a dime as well. However, most of the time google returns the page you are looking for in the first ten matches or so. That is only one page and so your search would only cost one cent here. I guess the point is that the cost would eventually balance. Some searches would cost you more than what you think it is worth, and some will cost a lot less.

In the case of Toms hardware, if you look at this story it's only about 11 pages long and so the review would cost $0.11 for a person to read. I don't find the story interesting, but someone who does would probably pay that much money to read it. Tomshardware also has a relatively large reader base I believe. I do not have any idea how many people actually read their articles per day, but say 10,000 people read that article about the Athlon XP. That's $100.00 for a story. And as the article pointed out, the websites will improve when there is a financial incentive to do so..

OK if this doesn't make you drool, then you must be at the wrong web site.

I can see Nvidia's next generation GPU to have embeded DRAM. This one is soo close.

Tom's Hardware corroborates the belief that AMD systems, if not AMD chips as well, are unstable.

"while all Athlon [systems] suffered from occasional instability
in our tests, the Pentium 4 platform ran without a glitch."
- Athlon XP Meets P4: A Comparison Of All CPUs

I say they should add troubleshooting and reboot time to all benchmark runs and calculate "performance" that way.

--Blair
"This never happened to me before, honest."

I think the most dramatic demonstration of this was a test done by Tom's Hardware last year. He ran a test on a bunch of different processors doing MPEG-4 encoding using FlaskMPEG. The Pentium 4 performed abysmal, comming in behind a Pentium III 1ghz. Intel decided then to download the source code to FlaskMPEG and recompile it with their compiler. This moved the P4 up to the top of the heap, but also increased all the other scores. The P4 1.5 got the biggest boots, from 3.83fps to 14.03fps the PIII 1ghz also got a lesser boost from 4.39fps to 8.03fps. However the Intel compiler helped out the Athlon 1.2ghz too, boosting it from 6.43fps to 11.14fps. So it even gave their competitors' hardware a 60% speed boost.

Intel's compiler division isn't interested in trying to screw their competitiors and make Intel's chips look the best, they are interested in producing the most optimized x86 code possible. Now of course the Intel compiler supports all the special Intel extensions (MMX, SSE, SSE2) and I don't believe it supportins things like 3dnow, but that dones't mean they are going to screw up their code on purpose to make it run poorly on other chips.

The first link in the story is incorrect, Tom's little preview is actually located at http://www4.tomshardware.com/technews/technews-200 11108.html#0053

what KVM Extender would you recommend?

Tom's Hardware recently did a review of 5 KVM switches. They gave the top nob to, not suprisingly, the Belkin F1DS102T, which has some nifty features such as audio and usb switching.

what KVM Extender would you recommend?

Tom's Hardware recently did a review of 5 KVM switches. They gave the top nob to, not suprisingly, the Belkin F1DS102T, which has some nifty features such as audio and usb switching.

No one ever wants to flat out say that the motherboards for AMD chips are a lot less well supported than the motherboards for Intel chips because they're so busy cheering for the underdog.

But if you dig deep into, say, Tom's Hardware Guide: Another factor is the stability and product quality of a system: while all Athlon processors suffered from occasional instability in our tests, the Pentium 4 platform ran without a glitch. (http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q4/011031/xpvs p4-15.html)

Now, for me and I'm guessing a lot of people, system stability is far more important than a few percent performance increase. Since these machines are so closely matched and overpowered anyway, I'd like to see more emphasis on other factors like stability. More than a single sentence buried in one review, anyway. If these things are crashing during the tests, I want to know about it with a big red X on the graph...

Or just the chance to stop having to download freakin' 4-in-1 drivers for my KT7A...

I've always thought that it's pretty cool (and have been duely impressed) that AMD Procs pump out more power at the same clock speed as a comparable Intel chip, but it seems to me that AMD could still learn a lot from Intel on Thermal Overload Protection.

Yes, I'm sure most /.er's have read this article already, so mod me as redundant if you wish, but please hear me out first. The simple fact is that I will not invest in the money for a chip that might send my money literally up in smoke. I recently experienced multiple system halts on my home machine due to Hardware error, only to open my case and find the heatsink fell off the GPU of my TNT2. Luckily, no apparent damage, but I could see the (however slight) possibility of the same happening to my processor. Does AMD want to insure their chip from overload at the price of my system? No? Then I think for the time being I'll stick with the chip proven to have good protection, no matter what kind of performance boost I could get.

Here. Here. Here.

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q4/011105/index. html

Wait 20 seco....SHUTUP!

I recommend a visit to Tom's Hardware to check out some benchmarking done on P4's and AthlonXP's. "comparable in some benchmarks" isn't accurate, but of course neither is the idea that the pentium 4 is blown away. Exaggeration is retarded; we are (or, should be) intellectually debating, not flaming. Yes, I am an idealist.

In reality, AMD's best chip can compete with and usually beat the P4. (shrug). that's the way it is. But, the point is that AMD's pricing is better, they are loved as the underdog (and not hated because of Intel's Monopoly Price Gouging ((tm), licenced from Microsoft).

Anyone remember the prices of Intel chips (especially high-end) before AMD came on the scene? I do. It was insane...the CPU was about half the system price. Now, I spend about $130 for a good chip, instead of $800. I attribute that to AMD. That is one of the reasons I love the company, that is why i drove 2 hours at 6 this morning to Detroit to their XPerience Tour to get a chance at a free chip and motherboard. People love AMD. No one 'loves' Intel.

And yeah, it was worth it, to hear the chant of, "INTEL SUCKS! INTEL SUCKS!"

Furthermore, I've heard all sorts of horrible things about VIA's KT266 chipset, and now that there are alternatives, there's really no reason to buy it at all. SiS's AMD chipset rocks (if you don't believe me, read this, but if you're going for cost-no-object performance, you'll want one of tyan's mobos w/ AMD's own chipset.

Also, Creative has a new sound card out, and it has built in firewire, and considering that, it's not too much more than the platinum. And you may want to at least consider ATI graphics solutions, esp if you're ever going to run linux on this machine. From the reviews I've read, the 8500 is comparable or better than the GeForce3 in most ways. If everyone starts considering nvidia a foregone conclusion, it won't be long before we don't have a choice at all.

As far as the silent drive thing goes, insulating a device that is supposed to be conduction cooled (ie it conducts heat through its metal casing) is a very bad idea! nuf said.

Finally, those of you considering those nifty round IDE cables may want to read this first.

In closing, I would like to point out that this article was little more than a shameless plug for thinkgeek and pc power and cooling. All of the choices that didn't involve these stores were ill thought out. And you'll notice when it comes to the cpu fan, a very important piece of hardware these days, he didn't even bother telling us what he bought, only that he got it from pc power and cooling!

If Hemos ever had any creditibility, he just pimped it out to thinkgeek and pc power and cooling. Oh well. I guess in these troubled times, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

tom's hardware has a great Piece on cpu fans. They rate 'em on temperature versus noise... Not surprisingly, the biggest heatsink with the largest fan caused the greatest drop in temperature and the most noise. But if you're looking for some brand ideas, its a great read.
Also, there is the following:
Silencer 80mm Fan (sold by someone else but made by PC Power&Cooling)
24dba SECCII fan

I got these last few from here, i thought slashdot had run an article linking to the tom's hardware review, but i can't seem to find it.

~zr

tom's hardware has a great Piece on cpu fans. They rate 'em on temperature versus noise... Not surprisingly, the biggest heatsink with the largest fan caused the greatest drop in temperature and the most noise. But if you're looking for some brand ideas, its a great read.
Also, there is the following:
Silencer 80mm Fan (sold by someone else but made by PC Power&Cooling)
24dba SECCII fan

I got these last few from here, i thought slashdot had run an article linking to the tom's hardware review, but i can't seem to find it.

~zr

Tom's site has to be the single best example of independent oversight via the web. One more example of the internet showing its shregnth of fighting corporate ass-covering FUD. It's just amazing what started as a one man web project can do to get the truth out. Last I heard, Tom really isn't a doctor, but he sure has earned the respect of netizens and corporations alike.

It all depends on which kind of CPU you have. PIII or P4, your machine with either lock up or run considerably slower (respectively) with complete thermal dissapation breakdown. If it is an Athlon, then yes, you'll want to watch your fan health like a hawk... I only say this because of this article on Tom's Hardware. It is a little over a month old, but I was simply amazed when I first read it. Athlon owners are especially encouraged to read this, because it just might save your processor AND motherboard. Hope this helps someone out there.

There is a response to AMD's video at tomshardware.com here.

-AC

I just went to tomshardware.com, and he (well, actually Frank Vöelkel) has an explanation as to what is in the newer video, and how it can be explained that their test blew the Athlon.

In short, because the Siemens motherboard (as all other motherboards on the market now) do not protect the CPU from thermal death, but that AMD has some new design guidelines which can protect it with the addition of a chip.

Go read it yourself here.

Dillo is a neat little effort, a cool side project, but no replacement for a real browser like Galeon or Konqueror. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt, the lowest point of the GNU-Darwin package.

-CT

Well, this was no fault of the AMD CPU, just the fault of the misinformed operator. You must have a board that has the ability to utilize the diode and also have the proper BIOS to facilitate a system shutdown in a high core temperature situation. Of course, making it work cooler now allows us to speed it up and make it work hotter later!"

And, from THG's article, it's stated that (a) only 2 motherboards were known, at the time, to contain that circuitry; (b) THG used one of those boards (from Siemens), and was assured "that the thermal protection circuitry is definitely working on their motherboard"; and, from Siemens' engineers that, (c) "the thermal diode of Palomino is unable to react quickly enough. Only 1 degree/s is what the thermal diode is able to handle."

I'd say, all in all, Tom was pretty accurate in his reporting on this. Assuming his board and CPU weren't out-of-spec faulty, and that Siemens' knows what they're talking about (which we have no reason to doubt, they did design the mboard logic to communicate with the CPU diode), my conclusion is that the diode didn't react quickly enough to shut down the system. Are the AthlonXP's and/or a different motherboard able to cope better? Perhaps...But the one THG used certainly wasn't.

And now we know one of the ways AMD cuts costs....It's a pretty unlikely scenario, IMO, but it deserves recognition at any rate....

Siemens assured us that the thermal protection circuitry is definitely working on their motherboard.

Those pictures cannot show you what happened by far as good as our test-lab video. A split second after the heat sink had been taken off the Palomino-Athlon, the system crashed. We then watched in horror as smoke clouds rose from the overheating core. The temperature measurement ensured us of what we had feared. No semiconductor survives almost 300 degrees Celsius / 580 degrees Fahrenheit. Palomino was dead.

We rushed to the telephone to confer with Siemens. The engineers assured us that what we had seen was for real. The thermal diode of Palomino is unable to react quickly enough. Only 1 degree/s is what the thermal diode is able to handle. That might be good enough for failing fans. A fallen off heat sink however will ensure a dead Athlon processor and possibly a damaged motherboard as well. What a serious disappointment!

here with videos on the 5th or 6th page.

Here's the original Tom's article.

Here's the text of the new article direct from the source:

Thanks to the millions of people who e-mailed me about this.

Do we title this: We TOLD You So!
or do we title it: Maybe we were right about him?
or do we title it: AMD Won't Burn a hole in your wallet, or your motherboard?
or do we title it: AMD Slaps Around Little Tom-Tom? as Van Smith put it?

Well whatever you want to call it, there is a new video out on the internet showing what REALLY happens to an AthlonXP (or MP) when your heat sink falls off, or when your fans fails. Now I'm not saying that Tom Pabst is completely wrong, but let's just say this makes his testing methods look a little 'suspect' at best. Here's a quote from Van Smith:

A video has appeared on the Internet countering a huge dose of FUD my former employer inexplicably dumped on his readership a couple of months back. The new video, with AMD credits all over it, is entitled "How an Athlon(tm) MP 1.2GHz Really Copes with Heat Emergencies." The piece demonstrates the AMD Palomino Athlon subjected to brutal circumstances such as heat sink removal while playing Quake III and boot up attempts when a CPU cooler is not attached. In all scenarios, the Palomino comes out unscathed. A similar though much less thorough test came out with unsurprisingly different results at Tom's Hardware. Ouch! Looks like dispensing bad medicine can result in a mouthful of looser teeth. Good job Ben & Joe, perhaps you can also give THG a crash course in analyzing computer technology.

The video also presents the much more realistic situation when the CPU fan fails. In that case the Palomino continued to play Quake III for several minutes before shutting down. Again the chip was undamaged.

This video may look like it's from AMD, but I'm pretty sure it's not, even if it makes a great case. The original download site appears to be down, so I mirrored it onto AMDZone right here.

Other mirrors: Mirror.

Update: One of our readers e-mailed me to give me his first hand experience with the thermal control capabilities of the AthlonXP:

I installed my amp1800 (sic) with the heat sink rotated 180 deg. and after 3 hours of trying, incessantly, and not being able to boot I found the problem, I rotated the heat sink and all is fine. I must say, I was sweating bullets when I found the problem.

No fried chip, no smell of burned silicon. Looks like the thermal diode is working.

(end article)

~Aaron.

The video on Tom's Hardware Guide can be found here.

I will be keeping a close eye on this one in the next few days. If this is true, I will be changing my plans to buy a new Radeon to buying a new nVidia card - because nVidia has never given me such a reason to distrust them.

This has the potential to really harm ATI.

Noting that Intel Pentium III chips are not damaged by the heatsink being removed in operation (the clock is stopped if the temperature gets too high) and Pentium 4 continues to work perfectly because the clock is automatically throttled to control temperature. See the test at Toms hardware.

Why is it everyone wants AMD to pull some magic processor out of it's pants and to kill of Intel? Intel could start a pricewar at any time and price AMD right out of business with a quickness. True, variety and anti-monopolistic practices are good things, but Intel got to where they are because they did some things right. Some people are pulling for AMD because they are the underdogs, others are doing it because they want to jump on the bandwagon.

Those left, those people that say AMD is undeniably better than Intel in all categories are wrong, Intel and AMD have their own set of advantages and disadvantages over the other.

I am reading a tomshardware.com article on how AMD and Intel's previous and latest processors handle heat. The AMD processors failed horribly, they had zero heat protection. Not only are the processors worthless (burned up or not), but the motherboard could be damaged too. They even used a motherboard that the manufacturer guaranteed wouldn't fry an AthlonXP (a brand new processor). Guess what? In less than a second, you wasted hundreds of dollars. I'll just say that Intel's processors, Pentium 3 and 4, they didn't have any damage. You can read about it on tomshardware.com, there is an article called How Modern Processors Cope With Heat Emergencies, they even published their very first lab video demonstrating exactly what they did here.

AMD can't let things like this occur, they have to give customers something that none of the competition can, they need to innovate. Before AMD has enough weight to kick Intel around, it has to have much more support from it's customers. It'll take more than hopes and dreams to push Intel out of the #1 CPU slot. (pun intended)

Why is it everyone wants AMD to pull some magic processor out of it's pants and to kill of Intel? Intel could start a pricewar at any time and price AMD right out of business with a quickness. True, variety and anti-monopolistic practices are good things, but Intel got to where they are because they did some things right. Some people are pulling for AMD because they are the underdogs, others are doing it because they want to jump on the bandwagon.

Those left, those people that say AMD is undeniably better than Intel in all categories are wrong, Intel and AMD have their own set of advantages and disadvantages over the other.

I am reading a tomshardware.com article on how AMD and Intel's previous and latest processors handle heat. The AMD processors failed horribly, they had zero heat protection. Not only are the processors worthless (burned up or not), but the motherboard could be damaged too. They even used a motherboard that the manufacturer guaranteed wouldn't fry an AthlonXP (a brand new processor). Guess what? In less than a second, you wasted hundreds of dollars. I'll just say that Intel's processors, Pentium 3 and 4, they didn't have any damage. You can read about it on tomshardware.com, there is an article called How Modern Processors Cope With Heat Emergencies, they even published their very first lab video demonstrating exactly what they did here.

AMD can't let things like this occur, they have to give customers something that none of the competition can, they need to innovate. Before AMD has enough weight to kick Intel around, it has to have much more support from it's customers. It'll take more than hopes and dreams to push Intel out of the #1 CPU slot. (pun intended)

You can see my setup right before they laid us all off. And of course they kept the KVM and the shiny laptop... :(