Archive for the ‘ Tech Stuff ’ Category

E5300 in the house!

I’m replacing my E5200 with an all new E5300! Okay okay, this doesn’t sound much but then why E5300? Reng Kwan’s getting 3 new rigs for his company and why not swap my E5200 for this E5300? The newer 100mhz faster E5300 processors have Intel’s VT-x technology in it and with that I’d be able to do more virtualization stuff or even run parallels on my hackintosh. The older E5200 does not support VT-x. Prasys.. I’m coming to your way soon. LOL. 

As expected, this E5300 is indeed a good overclock-er surpassing my E5200′s overclocked speed. The E5200 was a good overclock-er too but perhaps I didn’t manage to get the good performing ones with mine overclocked to 3.1ghz only. The E5300 running now could clock speeds of 3.75ghz before the maximum operating temperature became an issue. The stock heatsink – fan wasn’t sufficient to dissipate the huge amount of heat fast enough. Have a look at the stock heatsink fan of the E5300 and the stock heatsink fan of the Pentium 4 HT 3.06ghz. Almost double the thickness.

Alright, I’m just waiting for the thermal paste from Reng Kwan as he bought a Q8300 for himself. It pwns all the chips here even before overclocking .. ==’  But anywaysssssss, I’m glad that this chip outperforms the Intel Core i3 chips which costs 2~2.5x more. hahaha.

Processor showdown =)

Samsung T400 dissected-Part2 (Surgery)

Few weeks ago I wrote a post regarding the Samsung T400 dissected and the screen was brought back to life. However as posted there, the keypad of the phone was slightly cranky and had to be modified a little. Well modifications don’t really match the quality of a real working unit.. The keys were still a little hard to press and each key would require different amount of pressure to make the input work.

Oh anyway, let’s get to the point. I managed to get the replacement unit for this phone at a local flea market. The phone was pretty much screwed up with its flipping parts broken into 2. LOL. The unit was from Vietnam though.. (says the firmware when it was booted up).

Ahh, the two keypads together. Look at the hinge where the other phone broke. *ouch*.


(“new” and old)(rev 3.3 and rev 3.2)

The two mainboards together. The keypad of the phone was actually soldered on the main board of the phone so it would be a little messy if the keypad was replaced. Instead, the easier way was to simply swap the main boards and plug everything back in. The “new” board was a rev 3.3 board while the original one was rev 3.2 . Didn’t notice any difference in performance though. I accidentally broke the volume button ribbon during the brain transplant. Such a waste, no more volume control for the phone but then the other functions works good. If there’s a need for the volume control in the future, I shall perform another surgery to transplant the volume control ribbon from the working unit.

Now the phone is working great. Time to get another sim card and get it back to duty.

Total cost of repair: RM2.

Hackintosh on a $300 pc

Oh yeay! Finally, a real hackintosh Snow Leopard running on my $300 desktop pc.  QE/CI on the graphics card works perfectly here, we have sound, wifi, etc.  Performance wise? Between the 21.5″~ 27″ iMacs.  The real iMac’s costs $1199 (the cheapest). I’ll post up a guide on the installation soon.

My specs:

3.2ghz Core Duo (yeay!)
4gb 1066mhz ram
500gb 7200rpm hdd
512mb ATI HD4670 (256mb more!)
Cheapo USB Wifi
6 USB ports (yeay! we have more than the iMac)
Razer DeathAdder

A real iMac specs? here!
Well, in the screenshot it shows there 800mhz ram. Its actually running at 1066. Have to fix it..

Sound output is at 2 channels currently. Don’t intend to get 7.1 running unless I have the speakers..

and all I need now is an Apple Cinema Display… =P

Samsung T400 dissected

Alright, there was this Samsung T400 phone lying around because the screen was supposed to be “not working” . Sent it to the repair shop for a checkup and was told that RM80 would be needed to get it fixed. The ribbon connecting the main board to the LCD screen was “supposed” to be broken.

Heck.. for a 7 year old phone, RM80 isn’t worth the money. So lets get dirty and break it up.

The Samsung T400 was only secured by 5 screws on the lower part of the phone while only 2 screws held the screen in position. Unscrew them, un-clip the plastic holders securing them together and its open. Easy huh?
The phone consists of only 2 parts which are the screen and the main-board. LOL.

Once opened, the whole board looked like a “forest” of IC’s and pins. I’m no expert in this so I’ll just have to do it the usual NBTD way, which is to remove all removable pins/plugs and simply clean the device. The chances of getting your stuff repaired this way are close to ZERO but then what else can be done? Just trying my luck.

The phone was simply powered up to see what comes out and *pooof*
It lights up!

Before assembling back the parts together,  the keypad of the phone was slightly modified by adding some supporting pads on some of the keys. Due to wear and tear, some of the keys are no longer that sensitive and they needed more contact pressure to work.

There you have it, another device brought back to life!  My X1 would be having a good rest now while I’ll get this Samsung T400 up to a good stress test.

Free Google Wave account invitation giveaway

Happy New Year!

I have 16 14 12 11 10 9 8 6 invites to Google Wave to give away. Anyone wants them? Just drop a  comment here with your email address and wait for the confirmation email from Google. =)

What is Google Wave?

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation
and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Click here to learn more about Google Wave.

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