Slashdot Mirror
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."
...is that what they mean by 'flash memory'..?
This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment.
Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is
allowed for die experts only! So all the "lefthanders" stay away
and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working
intelligencies. Otherwise you will be out thrown and kicked
anderswhere! Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished
the blinkenlights.
With enough banks of this RAM will the resolution be enough to play Pong?
Omnis amans amens
Cool! More blinkenlights! :-) Can we have one on the PCI bus too? What about the IDE bus? The USB cable. We alredy have one for the ethernet. Soon we'll be able to have our very own home discos.
Stick Men
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.
I might as well just build my computer case from a 1997 Honda Civic hatchback with an 8-inch exhaust, 2-foot wing spoiler, blue turn signals and green neons under the car.
What is wrong with people who buy this crap? It's so gaudy. Oh my god, LEDs! That's so cool!
Case modders have the attention spans of 3-year-olds who hit every button in the elevator.
512 Mbyte XMS ProSeries modules
I want a 512 Mbyte LIM ProSeries module goddamit!
Now, will case modders with transparent cases have to face a new optical tempest problem (beware, PDF link!)? (People being able to sniff potentially critical data through analyzing LED blinking, that is...)
The site actually links most of its information from [H]ard|OCP. Search for "[H]ardNews 8th Edition" to find the relevent article with pictures.
Mirror Below
I have just received some more information about Corsair his new line of memory. The XMS ProSeries memory is basically the same as their XMS series memory, with a better heatsink and an integrated memory activity meter.
Corsair Memory, today announced the ProSeries, a new series of ultra-performance modules in their highly awarded XMS module family. XMS ProSeries modules offer the same extreme performance XMS modules are known for, but also incorporate two essential new features: an all-new heatsink designed for optimum thermal efficiency, and memory activity LED's.
Corsair's new high-efficiency heatsink was custom designed especially for the XMS ProSeries. It is crafted from cast aluminum to offer excellent thermal qualities. Its mini fins maximize air surface contact area to draw heat away from the memory chips and dissipate it more quickly. The heatsink, which is bonded to the memory chips with a unique thermal adhesive, is embossed with bold "XMS" lettering on both sides of the module. On the top edge of the heatsink are windows to the activity LED's.
XMS ProSeries modules feature a row of LED's on the top edge that display real-time memory activity level. Corsair is the first company to ever offer an activity meter on the module itself. Corsair invented this feature for the growing legions of enthusiasts and gamers who use windowed chassis, so they can tell at a glance the current level of memory activity. 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.
According to Corsair President Andy Paul, "The XMS ProSeries further extends Corsair's leadership in high performance module design. We combined the most efficient and stylish heatsink in the industry with never-before-seen activity monitoring features and XMS's legendary performance to deliver what will soon become the de facto standard memory module for gamers and enthusiasts."
The following XMS Pro Series modules and module pairs are available immediately from resellers worldwide: - TwinX1024-4000PRO - matched pair of 512MB, DDR500 modules - TwinX1024-3200C2PRO - matched pair of 512MB, DDR400 modules - CMX512-4000PRO - 512MB, DDR500 module - CMX512-3200C2PRO - 512MB, DDR400 module
Looks pretty cool I think, but on the other side I do not really think that many users will really have any benefit from memory acitivity LEDs on their memory modules. But it sure looks cool..
What in the hell is a "heatspreader"?
An Eskimo hooker.
Trolling is a art,
What is meant by 'activity?' Size of memory usage, bandwidth usage, amount of power it's drawing?
To the 1950's, 1960's, and early '70s where computers had rows and rows of blinking lights and switches Anywbody remember the PDP 11's? Or the early Altairs?
Now we just need an excuse to add dozens of little toggle switches to the side of the case.
My rights don't need management.
I dont know but I do know that if my PC looked like those machines I'd be irresistable to women!
A piece of metal which attaches to memory sticks and passively dissapates heat.
eg: http://www.gibtek.co.uk/hardware/nexus.php
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
What good are LED's unless you've got a clear case mod ... or no case?
Who doesn't like free music?
With all the case modding going on, I wonder how much though has been put into the interferance being generated by all the clear cases that are around today? There's a reason computer cases normally come as a solid sheet of metal. It's called a "faraday cage", (sp?) and is used to keep the nasty interferance generated by today's high speed systems inside the case.
/. ran across any studies or sampling done on computer-generated interferance?
Most stock case systems come complete with rows of metal "fingers" along the edges where sheets meet, and where the ports mesh against the back of the case, etc., to keep emi/rfi from leaking out. I'm assuming all of this bother is to keep the case within FCC regulations for generating interferance.
I wonder just how much interferance a typical "clear case" system generates to the surrounding area? Has anyone here at
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
EMS/XMS memory thats one nightmare I did n't want to be reminded off.. expanded and extended memory I'd almost forgotten.
Nightmare? Can't you remember the pure joy of upgrading your emm386.exe to Quarterdecks ultra-super-space-saving QEMM386, watching "Optimize" do its trick (three reboots, right?) and having saved another forty kilobytes of precious low memory, raising your fist to the sky screaming yeeeaaaaaahhh! ?
Well, I can! I can remember my jaw dropping and drool gushing out when the same Quarterdeck QEMM386 (May God be merciful upon its memory) rebooted my lovely DOS in less than 5 seconds, thanks to the awesome Quarterdeck Quickboot!
What next? An LED that displays hard drive activity?
I tell ya thems were the days sonny. It was always good to see my CPU usage back then... it helped relieve some of the stress of having to walk to school, uphill both ways, every day of the week, too, none of this "weekday" crap. That's how it was and WE LIKED IT, WE LOVED IT!
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
We've been trying to figure out for months how to make our data center more impressive when we take PHB's there on tours. This sounds like just the ticket!
Everyone knows that you can tell the speed and worth of a server based on the number of blinking lights on the front of the display. Moving our switches up higher in the rack so that they were more visible did us a ton of good. Sounds like this whole memory lights thing may be the killer app that lets us charge for data center tours now!
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
here's the ram from the top down, showing the LEDs
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Whilst QEMM386 was good you could still get some extra goodness out of emm386.exe. I used to work in a pc repair/upgrade shop, you could sometimes see a customers tears of joy when I used to knock out my "signature" EMM386 line in the config.sys after spending they spent the whole pervious evening trying to get the required 614k to get some game working. The trick was (if I remember correctly) adding /I=B000-B7FFF to 32K more "upper" memory since that memory area was only used for monochrome video cards.. that was nearly 9 years ago, man I cant believe I remember all this crap.
Whaddya mean, "pretty soon"? People are already removing Windows in droves!
Activity lights are nothing. Relatively useless in the grand scheme of things (except they'd make a wonderful addition to a good case mod)... The new Intel Blade Servers (sorry, no link, they're not released until Tuesday - you might try searching for the IBM ones, since they're pretty much the same hardware) have an LED next to each RAM slot that lights up when the stick dies (there's a capacitor on the board that keeps 30-40 seconds worth of electricity, so the LED's will stay lit up when you remove the blades from the chassis).
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
STOP the Madness!
It seems to me that there are two kind of people who go in for case modding. On the one hand, you have your causual modders. They like pre-fab windows. Might add a cold cathode light and some round cables. These represent perhaps the majority.
However, then you have the real "hard core" modders. The kind of people who build their computers in to old radios. The kind of people who want to do some special cooling project, or who want to have a unique case. My personal favorites are the concept cases, and mods that have some practical purpose (like better temperature monitoring for servers etc). They want to be creative. It's not just about pimpage.
This memory seems to be for members for the first catagory.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Seriously case prices have done nothing but go up in the last year or so with many of the vanilla boxes not being stocked anymore. Though I've had my eye on a prefab'd watercooled case for awhile due to the noise levels I still have not seen the prices of it go down where I'd consider it acceptable.
:)
If you consider the case which retails for maybe 100 dollars and a pump that runs 30 dollars and another 30 for hoses and such I still dont see the point of paying 300 for a case for that amount of silence. And there's still the amount of heat that's being output into the house to deal with. I'm considering installing a duct from the office room to a window or through the wall to pipe all the excess heat out of the house.
I'm sure I'd make it back on the 300 dollar case by pumping all that hot air back outside except in the winter when I wouldnt mind it being put into the house