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Memory Activity LEDs
Azert writes "Since a few months almost every popular memory maker includes heatspreaders with their fastest memory modules. Probably Corsair is setting a new fashion with their new line of memory with memory activity LEDs
XMS ProSeries modules feature a row of LED's on the top edge that display real-time memory activity level. Each memory bank has a row of nine dedicated activity LED's that alight as the level of memory activity increases. 512 Mbyte XMS ProSeries modules, with two banks, have a total of 18 activity LED's in green, yellow and red."
Pretty soon it will be odd to not have a modded computer. It seems many companies are adding whiz-bang lights and windows on the computers so that people don't even have to pull out a Dremel any more.
The trend will reverse (thank God!), and having a tasteful, plain computer-- one that doesn't look like it would have been driven by a pimp in the 70's if it were a car-- will be in vogue again.
/me looks fondly at the dead-plain, black, monolithic PC case under his desk, adorned with nothing but a small case badge that bears a photo of an F-117.
:-)
People who rice up their PCs should be locked in a large cage with people who rice up their cars, and the two groups should be made to fight to the death. Then when the winners emerge victorious from the cage, they'll be cut down by a couple well-positioned Gatling guns.
What is meant by 'activity?' Size of memory usage, bandwidth usage, amount of power it's drawing?
I used to think people did this stuff because there was some sense of uniqueness, or some artistic effort going into making something you own a bit more 'you', but after seeing a friend of my cousin's effort of copying to the last detail 3 cases from magazines, it makes me wonder.
What made me realise he's an idiot was seeing his latest one. A window, neon lights galore, an Alien skull on the front with LEDs in the eyes, and the text "Case Mod" across the side. I mean wtf. Even Type-R Honda owners don't write "body kit" on their cars.
Or do they. Maybe I'm out of touch.
What good are LED's unless you've got a clear case mod ... or no case?
Who doesn't like free music?
Seriously, is this aimed at professional people who can use it for system diagnostics? Or is it aimed at the happy 12 year old $random_famous_brand_name fanatics who think that a prefab window, along with prefab water cooling with prefab fanguards and of course the hideously bright blue LEDs?*
*) With proper respect to true case modders, as featured on Slashdot before.
Hate me!
Great-- I will now have a gigantic machine with rows and rows of blinking lights. Why the hell do we need this again?
Oh boy. More crap for people with more money than brains. Let's see.....
- Case which looks like it was designed by a liberal arts drop-out (and windows so we can see the dust bunnies grow): X dollars
- Lights for the inside of the computer (to highlight the dust bunnies): Y dollars
- And now, blicking LEDs inside the computer (well, at least it doesn't bring out the dust bunnies): Z dollars
Being able to remove all doubt you're a first order stupid dork: Priceless.
Yeah, go ahead and mod this as a troll.. Proves the point, doesn't it.
Hmm.. A crank on a modern car would be very useful when you battery is dead.
Not really. If the battery is truly dead, there won't be anything to supply spark, power the electronic fuel injection, electric fuel pump, etc. It's not like the old days of magnetos and carbs.
Perhaps a PC should have a front panel for single-stepping a crashed OS.
Ignoring all of the technical ramifications of doing this with a modern PC, one major obstacle is the complexity of modern operating systems and applications. Back in the day when an 8K OS was considered bloated and a computer with 64K of RAM was considered a "loaded" system, it was quite reasonable to try to single-step your way through applications. When PCs have hundreds of megabytes of RAM and programs now take hundreds of thousands of instructions through OS calls just to perform conceptually simple things like opening a window on the screen, it's nigh-on impossible to do anything with a front panel.
Well I think that was one of the versions that had something similar, but for CPU usage. A row of about 5 or 6 LED's used to swish left and right ala Knight Rider at a bit of speed, and as the machine got bogged down with CPU heavy jobs the pattern used to slow right down..
:)
Or was it the other way round.. I can't remeber. Cool none the less - wouldn't mind something similar to stick into a floppy drive blanking plate
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Puerile joke: Always funny.
Funny and ontopic reference: Never funny.
Understand now?
- Case with a window on it, with a Quake applique on it.
- Boards with different, clashing colors.
- Cables with different, clashing colors (preferrably glow-in-the-dark).
- LEDs on the fans.
- LEDs on the memory.
- Purple flourescent tube.
- Fan guards shaped like the biohazard symbol.
You, too can have the tackiest case ever!Seriously, I had a hard time finding a case without a window on it. No, I don't need a window; I know it's all in there.
What a bummer. I thought they were going to be SMTs next to each chips access pin, but no, instead it looks like Kit's bumper.
Cause we all know that the more obnoxious lights and blinking crap you have visible makes your computer run faster. Kinda like placing a Type-R logo on you Honda Civic.
Finally a LEGITIMATE reason to have a window on your computer's case!
I want to see more stuff like this; if people are going to put windows in their machines, it'll actually be useful now instead of just "ricing out" the machine...
It's not off topic, moron. Corsair making memory with blinking lights on it requires a reference to the classic "blinkenlights" warning.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Yeah, where are the 1GB PC3200 ECC DIMMs? Forget LEDs; let's talk REAL memory.