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Coming back into building pcs a bit more sane :P

sP00N — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:26:59 GMT

I had a temporary hiatus from having a top of the line desktop, and sold it off to just have a laptop. Durring the time I was really into linux, and gaming took a back seat to learning how everything work in nix :P Then I got a $100 newegg gift certificate for a grad present and I had nothing else to spend it on than a new desktop. All I needed was a processor, heatsink, mobo and ram. I managed to get all of that for under $100. $100 got me an amd x2 4050e 2.1ghz, 1gb ddr2 ram, biostar mobo, and a stock hsf.

That purchase changed the way I buy anything in general now. Instead of paying big bucks for the best damn thing out there, why not just settle for less and upgrade every once in a while.

Now I'm in the process of upgrading my memory and motherboard, and I just bought a 4850 for $92. Since computer parts are getting to be so cheap, I'm limiting myself to spend only $100 on an individual part. I have came a long way from buying my first amd single core athlon 3200+ 2ghz for $230 at compusa 5 years ago :P

I laugh at my friends who spent >$200 on quad cores when all they do is play wow / tf2.

Dumbing down apps is DUMB

sP00N — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:11:25 GMT

Alright when vista came out, I was confused when I came to to the control panel. I had to actually google how to change a few settings, and I've been using windows since 3.1 >.<

Why change a common format after years of having the same setup. I hate the stupid network center crap. Oh whats wrong with my internet, well apparently I'm disconnected from the freaking globe. That's alot of help, thanks Microsoft for including this visual aid that doesn't do s**t! And what's up with the crappy diagnostic feature in vista? It takes 5 minutes to tell me I have to restart my modem, what the hell?

Now firefox screwed up and they changed so much stuff around its retarded. The settings are all dumbed down, they renamed clear private data to just clear recent history.

To all the software devs: QUIT CHANGING S**T ITS FINE THE WAY IT IS!!!!!! There is no sane reason to change the terminology of specific functions, it just screws with existing users. Let newbies figure it out, I'm sure they know how to use google.

$100 newegg gift card = new ocing rig :D

sP00N — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:49:37 GMT

As a graduation presnt someone gave me a $100 gift card to newegg :D All my other graduation money is going to car insurance so i wasnt about to get a crazy gaming rig. :P I was origianlly going to buy a terabyte hard drive to replace my 500gb that is almost full, but I decided to challenge myself into trying to rebuild a gaming rig for under $100.

I got a tiny biostar am2 board (with a pcie slot of course) an amd athlon x2 brisbane 4050e processor, stock heatsink and 1gb of pc 5400 ocz memory.

I woke up at 9:45 today when the ups driver rang my doorbell. :D The last part to be shipped was of course the motherboard :P I still had my ocz 600watt psu, ati 3870 and blood ocean case left over from my old rig so this thing wasnt completely terrible :P I also have no extra lcd's laying around, so right now im using my projector and my 113" screen :P I threw everything in the case and installed XP sucessfully. Then I qued up a bunch of games on steam and enjoyed a few levels from cod:waw :D

Once I grew bored of playing call of duty, I wanted to see if my brisbane would oc a bit with the stock cooler. I creeped up, increasing my fsb by 5mhz each test, making sure that it wouldn't go unstable. (I'm used to my 939 rig needing constant fine tuning and voltage increases :P) Now it's been about 5 hours and I still haven't increased the cpu voltage. I'm currently ocing around 2.8ghz (65c with stock cooling :P) and hopefully i can squeeze 3ghz out of it tonight. I'm gonna get my lapping kit tomorrow and hopefully i can oc it even further without buying a fancy cooler. :D

So now I have learned 2 things today: AMD chips CAN clock higher than 3ghz easily, and cats really love to chase cursors on projector screens:

YouTube - Cat pounces on cursor

Edit: got it to 2.7ghz before it started getting unstable. And that's without any voltage changes!

Transitioning from desktop to a laptop

sP00N — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:16:35 GMT

I now use my laptop for everything. I even have it rigged up to my 22" lcd, which was easier to hook up in linux that I thought. One thing I do miss from having a desktop is all the yateloons and the ambient noise they put out (40-45dba) So I rigged one to a test psu and taped it to my desk so I could sleep better. I wake up this morning and it is super cold in my room :P So if you want to cool yourself down this up comming summer, buy a bunch of yate loons or delta fans and your room temp will prob drop 10-20 Degrees :P

Fully moved over to linux (well except for itunes :P)

sP00N — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 03:30:29 GMT

I've fully switched to linux recently, and I pretty much an linux elitist now. Prepare to be flamed by me if you start a linux sucks / windows is better than windows thread. LOL just kidding about that, but I do hate ms more than ever.

I started with my linux adventure during xmas break when I got my laptop. I statred out with ubuntu 8.10 but now I'm one week into using Arch. It was a tricky road to go down, but now I got the general hang of how everything works. Since I've always been a memory whore, I use fluxbox as my window manager. I run photoshop CS2 with 750mb of ram while I have 20 tabs open in firefox and music playing without a problem.

I'm also moving away from the newer gaming titles and going back to dimpler less system intensive ones like quake3, wc3, and armagetron :P

I'm even selling my desktop parts because I don't even need them :P

Moar Pics i drew

sP00N — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:01:00 GMT

They really need to up the image limit on blogs >.<

More to come if I can get to a working scanner :P

P.s. I'm hosting these on a home server so dont hotlink them or ill kill you.

Moar Pics I drew! :D

sP00N — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:59:27 GMT

Here's some more pics I drew. School can get pretty boring at times. :P

This will continue in another blog...

P.s. I'm hosting these on a home server so dont hotlink them or ill kill you.

Server 2008 FTW!

sP00N — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:52:16 GMT

So I'm one of those people who hated vista as soon as I got it. Well now that XP SP3 has been crapping itself with frequent blue screens, I thought it was time to finally upgrade. This year I downloaded server 2008 standard x64 from MSDN and I installed it a few weeks ago. Unfortunately not all my hardware was compatible. Since creative fails at supporting its older sound cards I was forced to use my on board sound card. :(

Surprisingly my on board sound card preforms better in server 08 than my sound blaster in XP. I can hear all of the background noises in GRID now and the graphics are a lot more smoother now that I can use direct X 10 :D

Besides the sound card incompatibility (Creatives fault) I have had no problems with the OS. I already had a lot of alternatives to my applications when I installed vista in the past, so no problems with compatibility for me. :D

So if you're one of the people that still thinks that Vista sucks hard, consider trying out Server 2008 standard edition.

Stuff I've drawn during classes. Part 2

sP00N — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:15:58 GMT

Ahhhhh! I had to separate this into 2 blogs because of image limit. Honestly 10 Image limit would be awesome.

Sometimes I just can't seem to care about the crap my teach hers tech me so I doodle random crap. Sometimes I will have an awesome idea for weeks and finally find a way to draw it but mostly this is a bunch of randomness. Enough text, lets see some pics, eh?

Ran out of room, so it goes left to right, down to up :P Also an AK-47 i drew. (My friend added the holy hand grenade launcher :P)

My friend bought a purple Saturn. This is my rice concept of hilarity :P

There kinda crude drawings, but keep in mind that they are mostly random scribbles. :P

Stuff I've drawn during classes. Part 1

sP00N — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:14:56 GMT

Ahhhhh! I had to separate this into 2 blogs because of image limit. Honestly 10 Image limit would be awesome.

Sometimes I just can't seem to care about the crap my teach hers tech me so I doodle random crap. Sometimes I will have an awesome idea for weeks and finally find a way to draw it but mostly this is a bunch of randomness. Enough text, lets see some pics, eh?

Here's a pic of a Nissan 240sx I drew recently. Took me 3 class periods.

I just crapped this one out of head in 5 minutes. :P

Honestly why do people think this looks cool?

I've been wanting to make this into a vid with a couple of friends but I'm too lazy :P

There kinda crude drawings, but keep in mind that they are mostly random scribbles. :P

Arg dreading High School + life sucks when you loose your credentials

sP00N — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:17:49 GMT

So your probably are going to say "sP00N, It's not as bad as college." Well I'm not talking about the school work thats pretty easy, I'm talking about the time that high school occupies. Including Transit I am in school for a horrendously long 9 hours! I usually don't nod off during class since the classes I can sleep through are actually interesting or I have some friends to talk with. Once I get home from school, I'm completely Drained. I have no will to do anything, and all I want to do is sleep. When weekends and holidays roll around, I usually have nothing to do, since I have no permit and nothing interesting is within walking distance.

That brings me to my next point. I don't have a permit! I've been 17 for a while and I cant get it since I'e been missing most of my credentials. (ie. Birth Certificate and SSN Card) The reason behind this is my dumb parents placed our important documents and credentials in a bible. Suposedly my dad got pissed and threw a bunch of crap away and now I'm left with no SSN Card. The only way to get an SSN card is some for ma of ID, which i have none. >.<

So yeah, with my life going at the speed of a glacier right now it definitely sucks. Honestly I don't want to live in mediocrity when I grow up, and the way things are turning out, it looks like that might just come true :(

I guess I just need something to turn my life around, I'm thinking of joining the Marines. Hell I'd rather die in combat then live the rest of my life in mediocrity :P

Cade Moding 101: #1 - How to select a case.

sP00N — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:43:24 GMT

I'm going to be posting some how-to's concerning case modding. I have been modding cases for a good 3-5 years. From ghetto mods to fancy mods, I've done it all :P

Today's Case Modding 101 will concentrate on selecting a case for your PC. There are alot of aspects that are overlooked when people buy cases, such as: Space, Organization, and Size. Today I'm going to go over those aspects and many more.

The first thing you should do before buying a case is decide what your going to put in it. Maybe you want 6 hard drives, or dual video cards. Anything that could take up alot of space need to be put into account. Some cases can have too much space ,and end up weighing too much. If you a LAN goer you probably don't want to be lugging around a 50lb case, right?

Any case with added space behind the motherboard is a great case. Why? Because you can use that extra space for excess wires, and cable organization. Cable organization will increase airflow throughout your case and lower your temps. Unless if your trying to reduce space, go for a case with added space between components, to allow for optimal cable organization.

Another thing to look at is Capacity. If you planning to go with 10 hard drives and a dual GPU setup, get a big full tower case. Also if your wanting to get into water cooling, buy a case that can accommodate the extra water cooling components.

Some cases configure the organization of components very oddly. For instance the Antec 900 has it's psu on the bottom, which can be bad if your cables aren't long enough. Some cases put the PSU directly over the cpu area, so you would have to put the power supply somewhere else to use an aftermarket heatsink.
Some cases put the hard drives to where the ports are facing the side of the case. This makes it easier to organize cables, and gives space to bigger components.

When ever some one buys a case, they always look for the features. Remember that you can always add features by modding. No firewire ports? Add a 3.5" expansion bay with extra ports. Not enough places for fans? Just cut out some holes with a Dremel. You can do anything to the case, so if It lacks a feature, simply add it.

Well thats about it. Remember to spend alot of time researching about the case you want, and make sure it will accommodate your needs. The next article will concentrate on tool of the trade and some cool case mod suppliers.

Lan Party

sP00N — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:18:37 GMT

Last night I went to a another Lan Party. It was fun, except for the fact that only 5 people played CSS >.< I also watched my friend attempt to play crysis with his dual 8800gt's to find that stuff rendered before him, and it lagged frequently. So yeah my single 3870>His 2x8800gt's :D He was also running Vista Ultimate which explains some lag, and it's SLI :P

Really that was the highlight of the LAN, and the fact that I beat prostreet :D Now I have nothing to play tho :( I tried getting into crysis, but dang its just not that great of a game game play wise >.< I wish there were more game dev companies like Valve so we can actually have more great games to play :P

Water cooling on hold.

sP00N — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:56:18 GMT

So yeah one of the barbs corroded on my rad and broke off while my system was on. I unplugged it 10 secs after the incident and nothing happened to my hardware :D

Now my water cooling loop is on hold since my rad has a crack from dropping it >.< It was only like $10 so not much of a loss.

The good news is that I dodged a bullet and my system works fine. The bad news is that it may be a month before i can afford a new radiator >.<

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention some stiff hasn't payed me for a $350 web design job i did for him. My friend was dumb enough to give him the data. >.< Suposedly he cant write a check because hes taking lithium for depression, wth!

Overall Crappy Day

sP00N — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:58:03 GMT

so yeah Heres what happened that was good:
-Reconfiged my WC loop and got it working after a reservoir failure.
-I got to eat some good ol' BBQ

Heres what hapend that sucked totoally:
-My laptop is now Bricked (Prob bad proc or failing fan)
-My crazy English teacher assigned yet another project after I just completed a poetry project of rapture-like proportions.
-I scratched my 22" lcd due to my brothers constant need for attention.

My lappy isn't too bad it's the fact that my brother is 14, and he can play games on his own. I really doubt Mario Party is more important then me misplacing a tool or my loop leaking. He poked me while a screw driver was in my hand. Suposedly he says that I didn't respond when he inquired about it before (a couple of seconds before he kept poking me) and I didn't respond since I've grown a habit to ignore him. So when I went to yell at him i nicked my lcd >.<

So yeah my 22" lcd has an inch sized scratch on it now :( Why can I never have a lcd without something happening to it >.<

Dear Netgear, Linksys, and any other Router companies...

sP00N — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:00:12 GMT

Please stop making crap stain routers that don't know port forwarding from your own arses. When I forward ports I want them to be open, not completely closed as they were before :mad: Honestly 99% of all Brand name box routers suck. Heres the only router thats lasted me 3 years and doesn't require constant unplugging:

Yep it's the Netgear MR 814 802.11b. If you need faster speeds do this: DON'T USE WIRELESS!!! Get the mr814 , a smoothwall or ****! :P

Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta buy a stock pile of these routers so I don't have to be forced to buy what ever gimpy routers they have in the future >.<

Noobs Don't know about Price to Performance Ratios

sP00N — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 02:05:23 GMT

Theres this kid at my school and hes probably one of the biggest pricks ive ever met. Hes always boasting that his amd 5600+ and his 8800gt is better than my 4400+ 3870 RIG. Well duh it's better, but the fact of the matter is is that I payed less for my rig. He spent around $2000 for his rig while I payed around $1300 for mine.

Well supposedly He thinks that price to performance doesn't matter and that 60% of all gamers don't give a crap if the 9800x2 will cost $100's more than the 3870x2 as long as it preforms better.

On a side note, this noob continued to compare phenom to core2duos instead of core2quads. Not even that he says that only single core performance matters. XD What a noob.

Don't be a noob and don't buy things in a rush. You waste $100's and end up having crap performance in the long run.

UPS Sucks when you live 5 miles from their main airport hub >.<

sP00N — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 05:21:24 GMT

OK So i live 5 miles away from the UPS main airport shipping hum In Louisville KY. Yet most of my packages from newegg do this:

Memphis>Louisville>Lexington>Louisville>House

Lexington is about an hour long drive for me and a when my package follows the route above, another day for UPS. Now I have received packages straight from the Louisville hub but usually it loops back to Lexington >.<

This isn't because we aren't there, because we have our packages just dropped off with no need for social contact with the driver. (I guess the driver is scared of our two chihuahuas XD)

I usually just pay the 3 day shipping fee, but I have ordered 2 day a few times and its no different since they ship it out to Lexington for a day like the above example and it ends up taking 3 days. >.<

So yeah if you live in Louisville, don't order 2nd day UPS. >.<

Just got $525, what to do with it?

sP00N — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:35:28 GMT

Well i just got payed for a big legal flash presentation I did for a lawyer and now I'm waiting for the check to clear.

I'm prob gonna buy a 22" LCD and the Orange Box and eventually buy a 3870 or what ever comes out after Christmas.

I also got 10 yate loons and a Thermalright Ultra 120 :D

Heres some pics of my yate loons and the ultra 120 :D
http://www.powerplayground.net/casem...128_203316.JPG
http://www.powerplayground.net/casem...128_203344.JPG

Went to a lan last week, got to OC a Quad core :D

sP00N — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 05:50:29 GMT

Well I went to a LAN party my school was hosting. My Helpdesk teacher bought a new liquid cooled $1500 quad core rig. The only problem was that no one knew how to oc past 2.5ghz :P (stock 2.4)

So to make a long story short I changed some volt and ram settings and got the sucker to 3.0ghz when we hit a wall due to the ddr2 ram :/ He only bought ddr2, but his board can also take ddr3. But hey, its not like ddr3 is affordable or anything :P

Here is a pic I snapped before the lan ended:

Oh and heres the case he had:
http://www.xoxide.com/thermaltake-ta...vb5001sna.html

There were also alot of noobs that were ticked because we put all of the powerful computers on one side and that cause the power to go out at the start. So they obviously blamed overclocking like a bunch of ignorant tards and then I had to break out this little gem:

Overall It was fun fragging my friends and watching some movies on a huge 22" lcd :D

Man now I really want a 22" LCD >:( Curse you Staples and your crappy online job applications!

Attached Thumbnails

Got my new Board, man can it oc :D

sP00N — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 02:16:34 GMT

I got my board yesterday, and it rocks. It has a post led, and some other cool features. I got it to 245fsb on stock voltages I cant really oc it higher since my zalman isn't up to the snuff :(

Right Now I'm trying to sell my behemoth to buy a smaller case since i hate having to lug that sob around :\

Well Thats enough talkin now on to the pics:

Heres my oc results, there to big for this page :/
http://www.overclock.net/gallery/data/500/cpuoc.JPG

Awesome Birthday!!!!!

sP00N — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 01:58:17 GMT

First off I went to Shoguns, which is one of those restaurants where they cook the food in front of you, and that was a blast as well as tasty.

Then My bid went through for my new mobo the Abit AT8 32X :D Theres some info on it:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/355/1/

I bagged the board for $66 + $12 shipping.

Then My Grandfather From Arizona called and hes giving me his old Pentium 4 lappy with 256 ram. Ill be getting this within 2 weeks :D

I'm also going to get that 5.1 headset soon that I won off of another site. :D

So overall it was an awesome day. I cant wait until I get stuff :D

Mah Birthday is tomorrow, gonna buy a new mobo :D

sP00N — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 03:37:09 GMT

well September hasn't been the best month for me. Ive had my LCD crap out on me, and I just recently found out my bios on my asus doesn't do crap when I ask it to oc.

But things will change. Once I get my new mobo im going to sell my brother some parts and my asus board for some cash so I can buy a 22" lcd that I've been waiting for :D . Then all I need is a new gfx card and pro street and I'm set :D

Also I won a 5.1 Headset last Friday at another forum I go to :D