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Intel Putting Wi-Fi into Future Chipsets
Ridgelift writes "Wired's got the story on Intel's plan to incorporate Wi-Fi into the motherboard chipset. "The chipset, however, will not include an actual Wi-Fi radio, so users will still need a wireless add-on card. Intel has said it eventually intends build a Wi-Fi radio into its microprocessors." This would make setting up a wireless network a lot simpler."
It's all very well putting more peripherals onto processors but with the shrinking feature sizes and an increase in cross talk is placing a powerful 2.4GHz source on die really a good idea? You would have to shorten long lines and slow down the processor or suffer random errors. Doesn't inspire me with confidence.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
This is a lot like Microsoft's business plan, but at the hardware level. It leaves ISV's out of the loop. "Centrino" was perhaps the most serious example of this that I've seen.
They will probably promise to provide Linux driver like with the centrino chipset and then not even make specs available.
You will get all kind of lame excuses:
- We are working on a driver.... (For half a year already)
- We can't tell you how to operate it because the FCC won't let us (Complete bullshit but sounds nice: 'linux hackers want to interfere with police radio')
- They might release some binary only modules... (Redhat version bla.bla, kernel version bla.bla and nothing else)
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
This would make setting up a wireless network a lot simpler.
Woah there, whats so hard with the way its setup now? pcmcia is a matter of plug and go, pci is a matter of modprobe if that.. theres nothing hard about wifi... its a nic with a wireless medium.. thats all.
Now if intel had some new fangled wep replacement then that would make things simple, no more mac rules on my fw would be nice.. which is unlikely.
moo
The chipset, however, will not include an actual Wi-Fi radio, so users will still need a wireless add-on card. Intel has said it eventually intends build a Wi-Fi radio into its microprocessors.
Why put in a chipset without a radio? Maybe one could argue an attempt to get market share by making their add-on card cheaper than the others (just radio, no chipset), but this card will have a more limited market, since it wouldn't be compatible with older or non-intel mobos.
Now if the were to put a software radio on board, *that* would be cool! Think of upgrading to future standards with just a flash rom upgrade...
I don't follow tech too closely but this sounds like those worthless AMR slots or whatever they were called - the ones that were like having a built-in sound card or modem (in the sense that the board cost more and had less space available) except didn't actually do anything...?
Customer:If I can have a 3 Ghz processor why cant I have WiFi at 3 Ghz
Radio Shack Assistant: Mam the 3Ghz speed refers to CPU speed while Wi Fi works at 2.4 Ghz
Customer:Dont get technical on me . I know this Ghz speed keeps increasing all the time . It cant be fixed at 2.4 Ghz
Building more functionality into the motherboard is an ongoing trend, but adding a radio cannot be a good thing. Due to potential interferance, you cannot go into a hospital or airplane without being told to turn off your cellphone.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
I think that if an admin of a corporate network had several thousand wireless clients, a simple airsnort would compromise thousands of computers, without requiring the packet sniffer actually access any sort of ethernet cabling.
This could have a grave impact on the sales of wireless-based chipsets in the corporate market.
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
So when Big Brother wants to know what you're up to, they don't need you to be online to the public internet. How convenient. The "trusted" BIOS can always let them bypass your firewall, as the BIOS is going to handle the net connection too.
Trusted Computing FAQ | Free Dawit Isaak!
I sincerely hope they're going to have these things configured in one of the following manners:
1. Disable the Wi-Fi by default
2. If not disabled, seed the encryption key with a pseudorandom number before the user specifically configures it.
You don't want new computers forming unintended bridges or access points between the untrusted network/airspace and your trusted internal network between when they're first powered up and when the overworked sysadmin has a chance to configure them properly. So much for your company's firewalls having a chance to do their job.
Wi-Fi without a radio? Sounds kinda like a soundcard without a DAC or a videocard without a RAMDAC. What's the point of including functionality while not including necessary pieces except, perhaps, to rachet up the marketingspeek and pressure out other manufacturers?
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
I think it should be integrated into the motherboard (like regular ethernet) but not the chipset.
Or is intel upset that sales of centrino are so poor? To be an "official" centrino laptop, you have to offer intel's 802.11b wireless. Not surprisingly, many people want faster (802.11b/g or 802.11a/b/g) wireless cards.
Broadcom has been eating intel's lunch in the oem ethernet (wireless & wired) card market. Sounds like anticompetitive monopolist activity to me.
What about security issues?
I like my router (at home, I share a cable internet connection between two desktop PCs and, occasionally, my laptop). It has an inbuilt firewall according to the manufacturer, and I know if I ever do have a serious problem which I suspect originates from the internet, I can physically disconnect it. Sure, cables are archaic, but they're cheaper and more secure than wireless networks - especially for the novice (like myself).
But if you enable a CPU to act as a wireless hub - or, eventually, if WiFi comes as a full onboard feature (rather like many motherboards now have onboard sound and graphics) - would that not open up your PC and network to security issues? My parents would not be best pleased if someone warchalked on the fence, but since they have little idea of technology or computer security, I think if they bought a new machine enabled with this kind of tech, every l33t hax0r in a two mile radius would be camping out to leech their access.
Any other thoughts, opinions or predictions?
"It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork
When a server gets "lost", you can track it by it's radio signature.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
I think it's silly how Intel is now embracing a trend to include features already provided by another market. This is the same situation that MS caused by intergrating IE into the system. So now people will quit buying wireless AP's and routers becuase it came with the motherboard.
Intel will probalby do this witout adding more than 20 employees and in turn drive about 10,000 people out of jobs due to their companies going out of business.
Yeh but look at Centrino, they only had support for Windows, what about linux users we had to try and reverse engineer all the stuff and it still barely works. why can't people just add support for the main OS's used on PC's, Doze, Linux and MacOS
The FCC DOES require that ISM band consumer devices opearate within specifications. They are certified for a given antenna configuration, among other things. Even the anntenna connectors are non-standard, for this very reason (so the consumer doesn't think you are supposed to hook it up to an amp).
It's nto that you aren't allowed to modify it legally, of course you are, as long as you operate within spec... but that the company has to make it so.
It's not a big stretch for them to feel releasing driver code is a risk, as anyone who gets it from them could easily use it to operate outside of spec.
Considering no vendor seems to slipstream service packs or security fixes onto new XP systems (probably never will - too expensive): just what we need - another attack vector.
The reason why Intel probably don't want to integrate the Micoprocessor with the actual WiFi transmitter and receiver is quite simple. If they add it inside the IC, they will have to go through radio use approval for every different potential market in the world, before they sell a single component. By letting the motherboard/add on card manufacturer's do this instead, they can concentrate on developing better microprocessors.
As somebody in the know, I do worry that these new WiFi enabled equipment could be the next mobile phone when it come to interference of avionic systems; especially as many modern microprocessors are prone to soft faults at altitude due to the effects of the upper atmosphere.
This is to make it so that an average desktop computer can function as a router for WiFi traffic in the home or office. The card is needed NMW, in order to grab that traffic. A poster above mentioned using a software radio, but it seems that that would only be useful if things were reversed: the software radio *interprets* the signal, and *generates* one to return to the WiFi device in question, but ultimately it is a radio device which transmits that signal into the air. The problem Intel will face is explaining this in terms that a PHB who *signs* the check to buy this stuff.
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
oh grow up
Just be grateful it wasn't the goatse guy again - saw that one for the first time yesterday and almost lost my lunch. Jeez, but these things are turning into the /. equivalent of Fark photoshop contest cliches...
"It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork
802.11a/b/g on board would be nice.. but, I would really like to see more motherboards coming with bluetooth onboard. This would seem to make sense with things like keyboard, mice, headsets, and cellphones that are bluetooth enabled coming to market.
Transistors formerly responsible for generating floating-point errors will now be repurposed towards wi-fi.
Isn't that like buying batteries (batteries not included)?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I'm all for WiFi everywhere, but it sounds like a pretty big backdoor to me, I don't think I'd want to have a WiFi connection built onto my board that I couldn't disable with anything mroe then software. Next thing you would know Microsooft is using it to send DRM related information or usage stastics without you knowing.
I realize that it would probably able to be disabled in BIOS, but it wouldn't take much that if M$ wanted to take control they could do it with a few sentences in the EULA.
Improbable, but possible.
How freaking simple can it be now?
1) Insert Airport Extreme Card into PowerBook 12"
2) Turn on PowerBook 12" 3) Select Network from Airport menu & Enter WEP if needed
4) Wirelessly communicat
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I'm no Wi-Fi expert, but couldn't a wi-fi-enabled cpu transmit data without your permission?
Unique cpu ids? Treacherous Computing Group data?
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
and while you dummies are doing ... ... /me feels
dumb, someone is planing on puting
a pyramid on earth
-
why abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
doesnt cut it anymore
-
we're lost def. lost.
soo sad that all your stinking brains
are just gonna rot away in worm
stomaches... (your stinking comment here)
Customer:If I can have a 3 Ghz processor why cant I have WiFi at 3 Ghz
Radio Shack Assistant: Oh, i dont know. I bet it does.
Customer: Ok. good.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
If every cpu transmits its presence to the world ( and unique MAC address ) it will make monitoring ones whereabouts that much easier..
Oh, and make the spectrum a total mess with all that noise....
( and just for the record, they were talking about this a year ago, but to discuss it you had to have an NDA )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This just is another step in Intel's ploy to rule the wireless market through cheap and underhanded business practices. Not many people know this, or at least I didn't till I started shopping for a laptop 2 days ago, but all new laptops carrying the Centrino designation have to come with an Intel miniPCI WLAN card preinstalled or they cannot be called Centrino. Which is great except that Intel refuses to support Linux on their stinkin' card. (Yes I could go elsewhere, but for the price, speed, and power consumption, Centrino is far and away the best on the market right now.) If you want to monopolize an entire hardware sector, fine--good luck trying. But don't chain me to a stupid Wintel platform because of it. If Intel had their way they'd be the only supplier of WiFi cards within a few short years--then WTF do we do if we're not on Windows?
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
But why!
Onboard soundcards (chips?) are rubbish, onboard NICs are quite often crap (not always), onboard modems are a joke and onboard video is nasty. Apart from some specific cases (VIA's mini-itx stuff) I think manufacturers should be moving away from this onboard-everything obsession.
PCI was invented for a reason! Customisability is what set the PC apart from the Amiga or similar machines!
"Trusted internal network" ... good joke, thanks, I needed a laugh.
Personally, I'm not really convinced all these integrated parts do us any favors.
Just last week, for example, I installed a new Pentium 4 motherboard and CPU in a standard ATX case that was formerly running a PII system. This was done for a law firm, and was upgraded on-site, because they couldn't afford to have much downtime.
Well, as luck would have it, the integrated EIDE controller was faulty. I kept getting "data corrupt" type messages when it tried to boot Win2K on the drive that just worked in the other system. I tried a different hard drive with a fresh format, and had the same issue. Even the secondary channel had problems.
If it hadn't been intergated, I could have simply swapped a $15 or $20 controller card and gotten everything back up and running for them.
The more devices Intel can integrate into motherboards using their chipsets, the more often they get to sell people an entire new board when they only need one small part.
On-board video has been a disaster since day 1, for both PC and Mac users. What seems "high end" when a machine is new turns into "mediocre" within a year or two. Then come all the conflicts trying to get the on-board video disabled when you add a new, add-in video card. (I'm sure many long-time Mac users can remember the dislike for the "Performa" towers like the 6400/6500, largely due to the on-board video only allowing up to 2MB of video RAM.)
Integrated NICs may work fine when they work, but again - I've seen many a blown NIC card due to power surges/spikes. I'd rather swap a card and have a fully functional machine again than have a dead port permanently soldered onto the back of my computer....
Intel is still a bit worried about the allegations of the Lone Gunmen.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I, for one, do not like this trend of integrating wireless into everything.
As a security conscious individual, I want to be able to physically choose whether or not I want wireless when I want wireless.
I like to be able to physically pull out the wireless card in my laptop because then I know I can't be h4x0r3d via my WLAN card.
Fine. Call me paranoid. I don't mind.
(Yeah, I know they said the RF part would still be an add-on... I'm just talking in general that I want add-ons and not fully integrated wireless stuff that I can't pull out without desoldering chips.)
I totally disagree that Centrino is the 'best' mobile chipset. Transmeta's offerings are way too slow for my taste, AMD CPUs draw gobs of power, and Centrino is 'black boxed' to the Linux community.
The 'best' mobile CPU in my opinion is available from Apple, as either a PPC750 or a PPC74xx. You really can't beat the iBook line in terms of price/performance/quality. Sure, the clock speed is a bit low, but even the G3 has tons of horsepower. A 900MHz iBook running Linux feels about as fast to me as a 2GHz Centrino.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Intel has said it eventually intends build a Wi-Fi radio into its microprocessors.
You should have seen Paul Otellini when he explained how easy this would be (April/May of last year? can't recall exactly). He looked like he was about to wet his pants.
Would you people please think before posting?
This includes a chipset, not a radio. Therefore, it won't be sending out your world control schemes to everyone in existence. Yes, Intel will at some point in the nebulous future include a radio. As will many manufacturers. At that point, we go to the next paragraph:
Every integrated soundcard/videocard/ethernet controller/serial port/etc. I've ever seen has a setting in the BIOS. If you don't want the location of your laser embedded sharks known to the black helicopter people, switch it off.
Finally, when is the last time your built in ethernet card just randomly spewed data out the port to the CIA? Oh, last week? Then you have more problems than just a wireless AP built into your motherboard.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
This would make setting up a wireless network a lot simpler."
As in "The cops are at the doors! This is a set-up!" ?
Say, I want a box that's remotely uncrackable. Nothing simpler, remove all network cards. But Intel is known from claiming its CPU 'features' can't be re-enabled without reboot, while they can. So I have a potentially harmful piece of hardware in my box...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Will it not need some kind of cooling to prevent it overheating?
;-)
Since they can't seem to prevent their processors from emitting lots of energy, they might as well emit it at a useful frequency. Once they add the radio to the chip, it will actually function as a cooling device itself. When the chip gets too hot, you just transmit more packets.
First time? Damn, [whistles] you must be new around here ;)
just add the radio card to any os9/X than can (slot loading iMacs on up, iBooks on up) and press 'share'
do all the protective stuff of course...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I wonder what would happen when you give the chipset a specific channel to use and it decides to use the old pentium math section and approximates the transmit frequency - all the computers start talking on a Fed's channel...too funny. Now I guess Intel wants to implement planned obsolescence in the Wi-Fi market. My Orinoco cards work just fine thank you. One other idea comes to mind: Microsoft integrates web browser into Windows -> Intel integrates WiFi into their chips. I smell a parallel here...
Check out a Computer Structure and organization book. Anything in hardware can be done in softwear and vise versa.
Do you lament the fact that all modern chips hae an FPU? Builtin memory management? Altivec?
Intel will eventually want to put the graphics card, and sound card in the CPU too. Think of the peak bandwidth!
And there's still no support for AiportExtreme on Linux, greatly reducing the utility of Linux on that iBook.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 -- Mathematics is the Language of Nature.
I don't get it.
I'm happy with my hardwired LAN. Why do I need to think about wireless hardware being in my setup by default? I'm assuming that in this situation I'd have to do something to disable it so I can plug in a good old fashined NIC card. Right?
This is troubling. OK, maybe putting it on the MOBO isn't so bad, but on the CPU? Why? This is good in what way?
wbs.
Huh?
I work in a fairly large hospital (200+ beds) and I can tell you from alot of experance that this is no longer the case for hospitals with modern equipment. The hospital I work for just had Nextel come in and install signal multiple repeaters on every floor and building of our entire campus and put a cell tower on top of our main building that houses all patent rooms / OR's with no problems what so ever. There are certain areas where we are advised not to have our Cell phones on but that is due more to respect of patent famlies and not becuase of any interferance issues.
You can talk to someone in Bangladesh but can't get the football game commentary on WIP? What's up with that!
This is my sig.
I agree that we should not sacrifice modularity for all-in-one disposability, but for all the applications you list (IDE, NIC, video) you can put in a modular card and override the integrated stuff. Personally, I think ubiquitous integrated mobo NICs are one of the handiest hardware improvements of the last five years.
Your perception is seriously off. First, there is no 2GHz Centrino. The fastest one is 1.7Ghz. Second, a Centrino is *extremely* fast clock-for-clock. Its even faster per-clock than a PIII. A 1.7GHz Centrino is about equal to a 2.6 GHz P4, or a hypothetical 1.9 GHz PIII.
"tons" is not a precise metric of computing power. Relatively, a G3 has very little horsepower. Its got a pretty crappy FPU, and isn't that much faster clock-for-clock than a PIII anyway. A 900Mhz iBook is probably comparable to a 900MHz or 1GHz Centrino.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Internet protocols were designed around wires and it shows when you go to wifi meshes. Meshes are critical due to the fact that meshes scale. If you are going to have a wifi node in every consumer device, as seems potentially viable, then you need to continually discover new routes and do so on nearly every packet. Route-flap is what you get, even with damping protocols, with current internet standards. You can end up waiting minutes for a route to stablize.
Here's an algorithm for a mesh node that seems to work simply:
Just keep a table of destination IP addresses in memory with a counter that decays exponentially with time.
When the counter decays below some threshold, clip its IP address from the list. An IP address with no counter is considered to have a value of 0.
Every time a packet acknowledgement comes through for a given destination IP address, add one to the counter for that IP address.
Whenever a packet (not already awaiting acknowledgement) is 'heard' destined for an IP address, queue it for rebroadcast according to a priority established by the IP address's counter.
Let packets that fall off the end of the queue due to low priority do so without further consideration.
More complex algorithms are required for transmission power optimization, but even this simple algorithm shows how far off-base current internet protocols are for wifi.
Seastead this.
In a computer lab where I teach, we had 25 Toshiba Equiums with integrated NICs, and in the two years we had them in that lab, we probably sent back 4 or 5 motherboards with fried integrated NICs. Sometimes we could get them to limp along with an ISA or PCI NIC, but other times Windows would refuse to remember that we'd disabled the dead integrated NIC, so on restart it would try to reinstall the drivers.
To be on-topic, I don't think this is likely to happen with intergrated wireless; I just question its inclusion at a time when people can't secure their own wireless access points.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
Integrated video is nice for servers. It's nearly impossible to buy a cheap video card that doesn't have 3D anymore. My hardware buying coworker recently put a ATI 7000 series into a server, because it was the cheapest thing he could find!
When you don't even need graphics at all, onboard video works great, and doesn't waste a PCI slot on something you don't really care about.
Integrated NIC... Who cares? Again, it saves a PCI slot, and if you need to stick a new one in, they cost $10. Squirt hot glue into the old port if you are afraid of a braindead tech (or yourself) accidentally trying to use the dead one.
Integrated sound, I'm more inclined to agree with you about. On board sound is usually kind of shoddy, but sufficient for most people.
It seems your primary bitch is when it's difficult to disable on-board stuff. The only thing that I've ran into recently with that was "shared ram" on-board video that couldn't be totally disabled, so it still took up some ram even though it wasn't doing anything.
That's not really a problem inherent with on-board stuff, that's just crappiness on the part of the motherboard assembler.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
It will probably be easy for mobo makers to make use of this as an optional feature, much like SATA, USB 2.0, etc. Then you just need to have an antenna lead from the mobo, and enable it in the BIOS: it will work just like parallel/serial ports.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
The solution is simple, however; Don't buy the systems with wifi in them, or be sure to configure them with a software image, unattended install, or similar feature to configure the card out of the box, or disable it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
> why wouldn't any wifi enabled anything be able to do it?
When a card, motherboard, and cpu are involved, the anti-privacy plan needs all card, motherboard, and cpu manufacturers to agree to make the hardware do this. When it's all on the CPU, only intel have to be convinced to do it.
This is a good reason for buying AMD. Supporting a monopoly is not good for the consumer.
(note that AMD may also do this. Market pressure might force them to do it, if intel do it, and M$ require it for M$ Windows, AMD would have to comply. But I still boycot intel, to prevent or lessen this monopoly problem in the first place.)
I agree with your sentiment. My question, and I'm not an experty by any means on WiFi, is this. If a new standard comes out, say 802.11musthave, do I suddenly have to buy a new motherboard (+ CPU/Memory/etc) to use that? It'd be awfully convenient for Intel now, wouldn't it.....
I think that WiFi has gone through more upgrades lately that processor architectures, and perhaps Intel is looking for another upgrade gravy train.
Apple's current PowerBook line comes with Bluetooth built-in out of the box, and it's iBook line (and every other product, except for the eMac) can have it added at the factory for $50.
Just another reason to go Mac.
CPU's talking to each other over WiFi?
MOBO's just to supply power and numerous empty sockets to add more CPU's as needed?
Parallel processing?
Hello NSA virus to activate built in wi-fi.
Wait a minute - you bought a new motherboard that was defective and you wanted to stick it into production anyway?
The IDE controller is deeply integrated into modern chipsets. If it's funky, it's very likely something else isn't working also.
...
Why tell Intel the truth?
Why not borrow documentation from a Windows software engineer who accidentally photocopies it at work or loses his/her backup copy while he/she is at your house for dinner.
It's true that Intel Linux support sux and it's true that the government (which is full of idiots - think Ashcroft) thinks it shoul be "illegal" and that all large established vendors (with the possible exception of IBM) generally despise Linux (BTW they are going to be **seriously** burned - in the same way the U.S. automobile industry was by the Japanese - by Asian manufacturers of Linux devices and computers), but you are wrong on one point:
... and in mainland china Intel ... well ...
...
Intel hardware and support sucks in general - not just for Linux. Intel Pro 2100 network card is a good card "except in Linux" or the 810 is a good video card except in X. No, it is expensive *crap*. Young teenage entrepreneurs in Taiwan are making better cards
Microsoft will decline in market share and lose stock value (it's been out of whack for years 200/1 P/E nearly a trillion in capitalization and 95% market share can't last for ever folks) but they will be all right and will buy Disney or something and keep on trucking
What I for one will really watching, and what I really hope happens soon, is the long slow tortuous death by stupidity and cupidity of Intel. It's going to be so surprising to the media so coverage will be silly but still it will be beautiful to watch them go down in flames.
Well, I did think to try adding an IDE controller card - but the card I added didn't allow booting from CD, which I needed to get Windows 2000 or XP loaded on the box. (The existing install of 2000 refused to start up after the motherboard was swapped, since the incorrect HAL was on the drive.)
My point is, PC's are designed to be a "box of slots". This concept is what initally made them dominate the marketplace. (If you didn't buy a PC or clone, it used to be, your other choices were systems that gave you a specific set of features which were largely non-upgradable. You wanted an upgrade? You sold the whole computer and got a newer model.) Now, we're going back to the "old model", where the PC has everything on-board, and most of the expansions slots are sacrificed in the name of "saving space".
Micro ATX boards with everything integrated have their place - but it's not appropriate for the standard PC desktop, IMHO.
Well, I did think to try adding an IDE controller card - but the card I added didn't allow booting from CD
I think you've answered your own question about why mobo manufacturer's supply everything integrated on board. In most cases you can still disable the integrated feature (like sound graphics, lan, usb) and add your own card.
So really apart from cost, there is no reason why its a problem. and the cost of mobos nowadays is really low...
I know you're sort of half trolling, half being a mac promoter, and actually not lying, but why post as an AC? Is it really that bad to get a single -1 on your Karma (which you aren't even getting anyways).
Grow some balls, man.
- Sherman
No wait!
If these machines have the default "intel" ssid.
well, theyre blank machines anyway.
Fine. make an image of the hdd. you won't get anything good anyway cuz the machine is new and has no sensitive data *yet*
-Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
I belive that 99.9 percent of the time integrated components work just fine. In the case of your law firm you could have put in a 3rd party ide card. And concerns of not being bootable, why not just use a bootdisk?
Integration of components used to be a pain in the rear, but hardware has gotten better, and so have the drivers. I bought a Gigabyte mobo for about 130 earlier this year. It has integrated nic and audio including the other standard stuff. Should I have to buy a 100 mobo, then lay out thirty or fourty bucks more per part for extra cards?
As for dead ports on the back of the machine, I imagine that you probably have open PCI slots on machines that are just dying to be used.
Give them a shot.
Integration is not a bad thing if it is implemented properly. But the devil is in the details on that one. 810 chipset video is nothing to write home about, but hey buyer beware!
Honestly most people don't care about that stuff, they just want a good cheap computer, and if it came to saving 5 or 10 bucks on a port that they are never going to use, they would rather save the money.
Excuse me, but I thought this is what Centrino was. Can someone explain this to me?
blog & fiction: jd87
I think a G3 has more horsepower per-cycle than a PIII, I seem to compile things in less time on my G3/450 than on my PIII/600. Of course this is pretty subjective, but most other things seem faster on the G3 too.
The G3 has much better integer performance than a PIII of similar clocking, and FPU scores are neck-and-neck. I don't know about you, but I tend to make use of the integer units about 100 times more often than the FPU units.
I think our 'feel' for instructions-per-clock has been whacked by the P4, which does amazingly little per-cycle. The PIII was a hot slow CPU (for it's clock), and the P4 is even worse.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Why do I read about this on Slashdot, instead of an article about Intel declining to provide drivers or specifications for their wireless part of Centrino?
The CPU in Centrino machines is a Pentium M, which is basically a souped-up Pentium III (includes SSE2 instructions, for example). It is not in the same family as the Pentium 4. I got a Centrino laptop for my dad (Dell Inspiron 500m), and while I was setting it up for him, netbooted NetBSD and ran some benchmarks and compiles to get a feel for the performance. I was impressed by the speed and battery life; it's a bit faster than the PIII per clock, but has much lower power consumption. I had expected it to be in the P4 family, with the associated low instructions-per-cycle, but was pleasantly surprised. I wouldn't mind having a desktop machine with a Pentium M processor... I'm not a gamer and don't need a superfast CPU; I'd be happy with a slower CPU that didn't need to run its fan all the time.
To respond to those who are making the slippery slope contention, I respond, so what. The slippery slope argument seems to be...
"what if in the near future, are new computers boot with an active wifi ap built in!"
That's obviously not dealing with the issue at hand, which is a wifi chipset, but without the necessary hardware built in, but it seems to be popular, so to address that...
There seems to be at least one fairly simple solution to this. So incredibly simple that I feel silly proposing it, but,
Why is it oh so insecure for our new computers, hypothetically, to boot with integrated wifi...by default disabled in the BIOS? What danger is there? If Grandma before booting her computer plays with the jumpers on her motherboard or goes into her BIOS to change the setting, she'll be open to haxors?
Yeah, wifi is in most cases inherently less secure than plain ol' RJ45, but I tend to think disabled but integrated wifi is a pretty slim threat. Your computer's open to hacking if someone gets into your office and changes a setting in your BIOS. If malicious hackers are fiddling around in your BIOS, you've got bigger problems.
It seems chip ID didn't work te first time. People were too paranoid. Others were saing that you have an ID anyway, because you have one on the ethernet card.
Hey! So why don't we just put the card on the chip? No one can argue with that!
But it could also be that they just want a monopoly over wireless... but why? why not put the sound on the chip? Or the graphics chip? Is it really that much more energy efficient to have the wireless card on chip, but it doesn't help much for graphics? Anyone?
Slashbots are already experts at giving head.
I let them ream my tight asshole in return.
Kathleen.
This has to be BS. Tight asshole? Fent's asshole is bigger than the goatse guy's
Linux is successful because it is modular. It is what helps it make it so great(besides the awesome community behind it). If Intel starts integrating everything then they are going the way that Microsoft has gone. Everything must be upgraded at once and when one thing breaks, everything must be replaced. Companies should learn from linux and make their products modular. It was great when you could just pull out a burnt card and get a 15 dollar replacment for it. The way wireless is going, I can't see a single standard being around for long. We'll be at 802.11z at 1000gbs before you know it. (That is somewhat of an exageration) My point is that, if i bought a 802.11g compatible motherboard, in 2 or 3 years g won't be the standard anymore. Joe Linuxhacker may get around this with his '1337' skillz, but Joe Schmo and Joe Corporate will most likely feel forced to upgrade. This move is partly intel making its customers life easier, but partly ensuring a future income for intel.My company could probably use its current computers for 10 more years. They used their last ones for at least 6. This integration type stuff I feel is trying to stop that and accelerate upgrades. Its much harder to fix a broken integrated board. Just my 2 cents.
How long until hard drives are integrated? All this integration is starting to get a little ridiculous. Microsoft is doing away with Independant Software Developers (i.e. they are coming out with their own AV, and they now have integrated zip utils and cd burning utils), and Intel is doing away with Integrated Hardware Developers. When will the madness stop?
Mine's not a matter of feel. Benchmarks show that a G3 is only a bit faster than a PIII clock-for-clock. This was true back when Boot compared a 300MHz G3 to a 300MHz PII (same core architecture as the PIII) and its true today. The Pentium-M is significantly faster than the PIII clock for clock. Either way, a 900 MHz will lose very badly to a 1.7GHz P-M.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Clearly your workplace is using the Nextel cellular system for your voice (and maybe data) communications, and I am sure that your workplace has taken great care with the deployment. However, I do wonder how it all will hold up when everything is broadcasting radio signals, cellphones, PDAs, desktops, heart monitors, baby monitors (everything with a processor) etc.; not to mention tracking tags for beds, lunch trays, wrist bands, and everything else that get wheeled about the place. I am sure that questions like that won't escape the over cautious. Don't get me wrong, I love wireless, but adding features to the motherboard before some are willing to adapt (or even live with), might not be the best idea. (Grain of salt) I am sure that Intel will have a way of turning it off in BIOS for people who don't/ can't use it.
BTW, my son is is doing ok and do have a great deal of respect for the fine Nurses and Doctors who have cared for him.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
BTW, my son is is doing ok and do have a great deal of respect for the fine Nurses and Doctors who have cared for him.
That is very good to hear. Seems alot of people who are priveledged enough to have it take for granted their health care... glad to see someone who has the extreme respect - and success - for their nurses and doctors as you do.
[bullshit=on] As somebody in the know, [credibility=off] I do worry that these new WiFi enabled equipment could be the next mobile phone when it come to interference of avionic systems; especially as many modern microprocessors are prone to [hang=on] soft faults at altitude due to the effects of the upper atmosphere. [[ insert rim shot here ]]
... You have entered the Bogosity Zone... and your mom says it's time to come in now.
Earth to Plusser... WARNING
I was on a flight last week where they specifically mentioned that Centrino laptops must be kept off during the flight.
:(
So if there is integrated wi-fi on the motherboard, will that be the end of laptops on airplanes? Will I have to be content playing the gameboy version of Splinter Cell?
Sigs are for lusers. Hey! wait a second...
I'll adjust my Karma down appropriatly.