Category: Desktop
March 26th, 2008
55W PC power supply powering the dual-core computer
Most computer builders in the world think I’m nuts for endorsing the use of 330 watt power supplies for a high-end performance computer. Conventional “wisdom” says that anything under 500 watts is inadequate for an enthusiast PC. “My power supply is bigger than your power supply” seems to be a typical mindset for many people but I’ve always had just the opposite desire to say that “my supply is smaller than yours and it works great”. So when I started building mainstream dual-core computers with 220 watt 80 Plus power supplies, people were shocked that I would even consider such a small power supply. But since I was able to build a 50W peak power dual-core computer, why not use an even smaller power supply in the sub-100 watt range?
Pictured above is the open frame fanless AC input open frame 55 watt FSP055-50LM power supply from Sparkle Power Inc with an MSRP of $39. Typically when power supplies are this small, people often use DC input power supplies with an external AC brick. Not so with this model as it’s an all in one with the standard AC power connector you get on a normal ATX PC power supply. It’s so small that it doesn’t even bother with a fan or metal casing; you have to a system-level fan yourself and provide the bracing and shielding in your computer chassis. The really nice thing about this solution is that the entire power supply including the AC conversion part is not much bigger than a DC power supply but you don’t need an external brick.
Using this 55W power supply, I took a dual-core Intel E2140 along with the bundled ECS945-GM motherboard I bought for $90 and built a computer with it using default clock speed and voltages. Unfortunately since it was missing a 4-pin power connector for the motherboard, I had to hot-wire a 4-pin CPU power connector from an older power supply to this unit to make it work. That means 2 12-volt yellow cables and 2 black ground cables had to be soldered in to place and taped up. Since these cables are safe for 10 amps each which translates to 120 watts per cable, I’m not even close to overloading the cables.
Once the computer came up, the power consumption at the plug peak out at 70W which means the output power is around 52W at 75% efficiency which is 3W under the peak output of the power supply. That is cutting it a bit close but it shows the extreme worst-case of what this PSU can handle.
In reality, the 55W PSU isn’t practical for a mainstream dual-core computer although it would be more than powerful enough for an Intel D201GLY with Celeron 115, D201GLY2 motherboard with Celeron 120, or the Via low-power ITX platforms. The upcoming Intel Centrino Atom platform with the Atom-Diamondville CPU peaks at around 4W TDP so they’re even easier to power.
The bottom line is that this is a nice little power supply for small embedded solutions but you’ll want to stick with the bigger 80 Plus closed-frame models like the Sparkle SPI220LE 220W or the SPI270LE 270W if you’re building a mainstream PC. Note that the SPI models are 1U power supplies so you’ll either need a very custom case or one that uses 1.75″ thin power supplies.
March 20th, 2008
HDMI survival guide for home theater
There’s a lot of money to be made in the HDMI cabling and switch aftermarket and unfortunately that means a lot of consumers are getting tricked in to paying outrageous prices. I’ve spent quite a bit of time helping my friends set up their home theaters recently and I thought I’d share that knowledge with my readers. If you’re tired of paying high hundreds of dollars for HDMI switches and HDMI cables, read on.
What is HDMI?
HDMI is a high speed digital interface for the transmission of high quality digital audio and digital video. So if you plug your DVD player, your PlayStation 3, your satellite or cable TV box, or even your computer up to a modern HDTV with a single HDMI cable, then the sound and picture will all work. The HDMI plug only has a single small connector so it’s nice and simple. Before HDMI, you had to hook up three separate connectors for just the video and two additional RCA plugs for stereo sound. Instead of the two RCA plugs, you could also use an S/PDIF optical cable for the sound but it still adds a lot of cable complexity and clutter compared to a single HDMI cable.
Why are there different HDMI types?
There are 4 basic versions of HDMI. You have 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 and you can get a quick summary of the capability of each version here. The easy answer is the higher the number, the better. If you’re shopping now, try to stick with the HDMI 1.3 devices if you can.
Do I need monster HDMI cables?
No, HDMI monster cables are simply a monster rip-off. If a cable is HDMI certified, it will by definition offer you a perfect digital signal. Despite the fact that the electrical signals traversing an HDMI cable degrade as a cable gets longer, it will still offer perfect digital transmission so long as the signal loss or distortion is within a certain tolerance. Analog cables might benefit from extra thickness and insulation because there’s not much you can do to fix analog signal loss or distortion other than to amplify and maybe filter the signal a little to mitigate the bad side effects. But when it comes to digital technology, the signal is either all there or it isn’t. There is zero measurable difference in the digital signal quality between the $6 HDMI cable and the $60 monster HDMI cable.
Where do I buy cheap HDMI cables?
There are lots of online vendors that can be found via a quick Google search of “HDMI 1.3 cable”. These cables suppliers have always been reliable in my experience and they’re many times cheaper than the local retailer. Here’s a few examples I compiled.
- 3 foot HDMI 1.3a cable $5
- 15 foot HDMI 1.3a CL2 rated cable $24
- 25 foot HDMI 1.3a CL2 rated cable $42
- 30 foot HDMI 1.3a cable $64 (bought for friend’s project)
- 60 meter (197 feet) HDMI 1.3a CAT5e extender kit $199
<Next page - Can I split or switch multiple input/output HDMI sources?>
March 2nd, 2008
Intel christens Silverthorne as "Atom"
Intel has officially announced its new branding for the “Silverthorne” processor and the “Menlow” platform. The Silverthorne processor will be called the “Intel Atom”. The Menlow platform will be called “Intel Centrino Atom”. The Intel Atom processor will be used in the Intel Centrino Atom platform. The new Atom logos are shown below.
Intel released technical details of the new Silverthorne processor last month at ISSCC 2008. This latest announcement gives Silverthorne and Menlow their official branding and their official logos. Intel also released high resolution die shots at the right hand side of their press release. A cut down rotated version of the die shot is shown below.
Here’s a summary of the new “Atom” processor:
- Equivalent on single-threaded performance to original Pentium M “Banias” processor. Faster if SSE3 instructions are used in the application or if multiple threads are involved.
- 0.6W TDP (Thermal Design Power) to 2.5W TDP
- Up to 1.8 GHz and DailyTech says sources inside Intel are saying that the 500 MHz version goes down to 0.6W TDP.
- Idle power consumption can drop as low as 0.01W to 0.1W
- Deep power down C6 state
- Optimized register-file and cache 6T bits cells
- CMOS mode on quad-pumped FSB IO
- Split IO power supply
- Single CPU core 2-issue in-order pipeline
- SMT (Symmetric Multithread) architecture
- 25mm^2 die size (2500 CPUs per 300mm diameter wafer)
- Can achieve 2GHz core frequencies at 1.0V
- Intel VT (Virtualization Technology)
- Intel 64 architecture (formerly EM64T and compatible with AMD64)
Intel’s press release also mentions the processor codenamed “Diamondville”. DailyTech reported some leaked information that Diamondville would be released in a single and dual-core version at 4W and 8W TDP. Diamondville will be soldered on to an Intel 945GSE chipset motherboard and judging from the photo, it looks to be a replacement for the D201GLY and D201GLY2 developing market platforms. The Intel D201GLY2 uses a lower power Celeron 220 (Core Solo architecture) with a TDP of 17W so Diamondville is a huge boost in energy efficiency. The current D201GLY and D201GLY2 also utilizes a third party SIS chipset which doesn’t support S3 sleep/suspend states while the Diamondville 945GSE platform will.
Given the fact that it’s highly unlikely (too expensive) that Intel would design a whole separate CPU for this type of a solution, it is very possible that Diamondville is simply a soldered-on-motherboard derivative of Silverthorne and the dual-core version is simply an MCM (Multi Chip Module) version of Silverthorne. AnandTech’s Anand Lal Shimpi seems to agree with this theory and goes on to explain that the slightly higher TDP with slightly lower 1.6 GHz clock is simply due to a higher voltage allowing for much higher yields. Since this is for the low-cost value market segment, that theory makes a lot of sense.
At present time Intel seems to be hinting that Diamondville will also carry the “Atom” branding but they’re vague on the specifics. What is certain is that the emerging market will enter in to a whole new level of energy efficiency and the appliance/embedded do-it-yourselfers like me are drooling over Diamondville’s power specifications.
February 28th, 2008
Microsoft's free enterprise search is a must try
At the Heroes Happens {here} event in LA yesterday which saw the launch* of Windows Server 2008, one of the relatively hidden gems of the event in my opinion was Microsoft’s free** Search Server 2008 Express. It’s is a streamline install of Office SharePoint Server 2007 with almost all the enterprise search features that most users would want and is a must download for any Windows Server shop.
Even if you didn’t own Windows Server 2003, 2003 R2, or 2008, it would seem like a great way to build a very cheap enterprise search engine appliance with a minimal Windows Server 2003 or above license and a simple 1U server for less than $2000 which is a LOT less than a $30K starting price Google Search Engine appliance with a 500K document cap. Update 7:28PM - Wiredguy in the talkback pointed out that Google’s Mini search appliance starts at $3K, but that only indexes 50K documents and it doesn’t tie in to Active Directory as seamlessly and lacks Exchange support. If you’re a Windows shop with an IIS server sitting around with low CPU utilization which is quote common, adding Microsoft’s Search Server 2008 Express costs nothing.
So why would you want an enterprise search engine for your company or organization? Windows Vista (and XP users who add Windows Desktop Search or Google Desktop Search) know how useful it is to have relatively instant indexed search results for any document or email in their computer. But those benefits stop at the local computer because you don’t want every user crawling the network data resources redundantly since it would bring the whole network and server infrastructure to a halt.
An enterprise search engine gives you a centralized intranet website where users could go to a URL like search.mycompany.com and find any document in their entire corporate LAN (and to a lesser extent the WAN and some Internet sites due to bandwidth considerations). Google’s online search engine is great but it’s stopped dead in its tracks at the corporate firewall and there’s no way it can search your Exchange or Lotus Notes mail server or your file server documents. The enterprise search engine bridges an essential gap between desktop search and google.com. Documents or emails that would have been glossed over and forgotten about instantly pop up on the enterprise search server.
The search results are security-trimmed and active directory integrated so that the user will only see the documents that they have permissions to access. With an Intranet IIS web server set for seamless Active Directory authentication, the user merely goes to the search portal and they’re logged in automatically. The server can also be tuned to crawl the network at off-peak hours with full or incremental searches.
Microsoft’s Search Server Express comes preloaded with the following search connectors.
- File servers
- Web sites
- SharePoint websites
- Exchange Server public folders
- Lotus Notes
To make Search Server 2008 Express work, you’ll either need a free SQL Server 2005 Express database backend or Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and above. Using the free SQL Express will limit the server to 1 GB and 4 GB database size. Under most document sizes, a 4 GB index should allow you to index more files than the 500K document cap imposed by the $30K edition of the Google Search Engine appliance. Buying a SQL server license will still end up being far cheaper than buying the Google appliance. No matter what your opinion of Microsoft, I think this is one of those things that’s definitely worth a try. Enterprise search is finally affordable and it should become a fixture in any company’s server room or datacenter.
* This was also a 3-month post launch party for Visual Studio 2008 and 6-month pre-launch party for SQL Server 2008.
** People who already own a copy of Windows Server 2003, 2003 R2, or 2008.
February 7th, 2008
First experiences with Vista SP1 RTM
[UPDATE 1/12/2008 2:55PM - Looks like my fellow blogger Ed Bott may have pulled through and found the answer in the quotation below. The lesson in this is to always update the motherboard BIOS when upgrading to a new OS. This shouldn't be too much of a surprise since this same rule applies to upgrading memory and CPUs as well.
Ed Bott: 2.07 (BIOS for IBM Thinkpad T60) is ancient, and according to the changelog Vista support was added in 2.09, so your BIOS is not Vista-compatible. The most up-to-date BIOS is 2.20:]
[UPDATE 1/12/2008 2:55PM - It looks like the IBM ThinkPad T60 lockups may have something to do with Vista SP1 after all. It locks up within 30 seconds when I boot the Vista SP1 fresh install DVD or when I boot Windows Vista that was upgraded to SP1 from a different DVD. My IT person loaded Windows XP on the laptop and it runs smoothly. He will load Windows Vista without SP1 and see if it is stable as well. More updates to come. Update 3:15PM - Looks like Vista without SP1 crashes too. This reminds me of the lone desktop machine I had last year that ran fine for a year on XP but was never able to load a fresh install of Vista without it crashing. This could be one of those hardware problems that only manifest itself when being taxed more by something like Windows Vista. Either way, we're trying to get to the bottom of this and this laptop is going back to where we bought it from.]
[Update 3:55PM - Seems like a hardware issue with this specific IBM ThinkPad T60 since Microsoft tells me they have plenty of T60s that are running fine with SP1. I was trying to recover some log files for Microsoft by booting the Windows Vista SP1 fresh-install DVD and it hung there and locked up the mouse too. That would seem to at least rule out DivX and it was a mere coincidence on the exact timing of the lockup. Heck the battery on it is dead too and the screen came with some scratches so it's time this dog of a laptop goes back to the IT department.]
I completed the first two installations of Vista SP1 RTM upgrade last night on to my primary desktop computer and my first Vista laptop meant to be my new work computer. The result is a near death experience with my desktop computer, and then a real death experience with the laptop (caused by hardware and not Vista SP1). I guess I should count myself lucky that it wasn’t my main computer that died since I haven’t migrated to the laptop for work yet. I will try to get some help from Microsoft to see if we can resolve this issue.
Near death with desktop computer:
The desktop computer almost didn’t make the upgrade but finally managed to pull itself out of the gates of hell. The SP1 upgrade on both computers took more than an hour to install along with multiple reboots. When the desktop system finally allowed me to log in, it went in to non-aero mode and it refused to let me flip in to aero. The sound was temporarily messed up but I managed to get it working after I enabled the sound. 5 minutes after I logged in the Windows SP1 upgrade finally told me it was finished which seems strange since you would think the user should be locked out until everything was done. Since I couldn’t get aero running I figured I’d try rebooting but the next reboot just seemed to hang on a black screen with a working mouse pointer for 5 minutes so I tried rebooting again. On that last reboot everything finally came up and I breathed a sigh of relief. [UPDATE 3:55PM - Microsoft says they are working with the driver developers on this to smooth out the install process]
Death of a laptop:
The laptop computer on the other hand went a little smoother on the SP1 upgrade and worked fine for about two hours until I installed the latest DivX codec and the whole machine just locked up after Vista popped up the Windows experience feedback prompt. Now this laptop locks up the entire computer within 15 seconds of logging in and there’s no way I even have time to run system restore to see if I can get it to the state right after I installed SP1. All I see is a locked up Vista screen and the laptop is as useful as a bookend. It is possible that this could be a hardware issue but the laptop was working fine up until this point. [UPDATE 3:55PM - It appears to be most likely a hardware issue with this specific IBM ThinkPad T60 laptop]
I don’t know if Vista SP1 just doesn’t like DivX or if it was just a coincidence and something else is causing this problem. I have the same DivX codec installed on my desktop computer this week but it was installed before last night when I installed Vista SP1. It’s quite possible that installing this version of DivX after SP1 will kill the computer but if this is the true, Microsoft needs to issue a warning and block this codec from installing after SP1 has already installed. If you’re planning on installing SP1 on your computer, DO NOT install DivX codec after you’ve installed SP1 until after I verify what’s going on and update this blog. If you have DivX codec installed already, then it doesn’t seem to be a problem.
Minute long login times for domain connected computers
The other problem I was told that Windows Vista SP1 would fix was the minute long login times for a Vista computer joined to an Active Directory. This turned out to be false at least in my case since it still takes 55 seconds of looking at the “Welcome” message after I type in my password. This doesn’t seem to be a problem coming out of suspend mode if you’re already logged in so it would only affect you if you reboot or log off the computer, but it’s annoying as hell and it really makes me think twice before using Vista in a business environment until these issues are solved.
[UPDATE 4:05PM - Microsoft explained to me that until a laptop at least logs in once on the corporate LAN and cache the domain controllers correctly, it will exhibit a 20 second delay per each domain controller the laptop knows of. That's a neat solution and all, but I know quite a few mobile workers who never go in to the corporate LAN and they need a solution where they can simply VPN in and get all this nonsense sorted out automatically and painlessly without flying in to an office with a permanent LAN or WAN connection to the Domain Controller]
Some improvements after SP1
My desktop computer seems to be a lot healthier now after I installed Vista SP1. The Vista install seemed to have gotten corrupted to the point that IE7 was locking up left and right while I kept getting these error messages from Windows Media Center Store Upgrade Manager shown in the figure below. [UPDATE 4:15AM - Looks like I may have spoken a bit too soon and the talkback tool here still locks up IE7 pretty hard on this computer. I'm not sure if it's related to the talkback or something else on that page that's causing it. All I know is that IE7 has been locking up hard on my Windows XP laptop and Vista machine for the last month or more.]
So far that error message hasn’t popped up yet [UPDATE 3:55PM - The message popped up again and it appears I need to rebuild the database score in Windows Media Center] and IE7 seems to have stabilized now and it’s no longer locking up the CPU to 100% utilization on a single CPU core[UPDATE 3:55PM - I'm working with Microsoft to figure this issue out and will update since it's still locking up in the talkback section]
The Windows networking indicator icon shown in the screenshot below seems to be a lot more responsive in discovering your network location. It completes in a few seconds after you log in rather than sometimes wait up to a minute pre-SP1. The laptop (before it died) also exhibited the same responsive network indicator icon. [UPDATE 3:55PM - Microsoft says quite a bit of work went in to the TCP/IP stack. This seems to be a good thing.]
Windows Movie Maker for Vista still a stinker:
If you’re wondering why I even bother with the DivX codec and Dr. DivX video encoder, it’s because Microsoft’s Windows Media Encoder 9.0 is old and doesn’t support high definition HDV formats yet and Windows Movie Maker for Vista is still garbage. If you attempt to use Windows Movie Maker to encode HDV videos, it will only encode one corner of the video at standard resolution and leave out most of the rest of the video frame. [UPDATE 3:55PM - Microsoft says they can encode HDV footage without problems so the problem may be caused by some codec conflicts. They also say that Microsoft Expression Encoder ($300) will work much better, though that's quite a bit more money than I want to spend since Dr. Divx is free.] The latest version of Dr. DivX (which requires the DivX codec) will handle High Definition .dvr-ms files and let you encode in to the desired video format for DVD set-top box playback or for YouTube optimized format. I’d love to be able to encode in to the 1080p Windows Media Advanced Profile format that Windows Media Encoder 9 promises but the software simply doesn’t work.
Making things worse, I was hoping Windows Movie Maker which only comes with the Premium or Ultimate Edition would actually be a complete application by now but I would be disappointed again. The old Windows Movie Maker in Windows XP was a free download and it allowed you to select the part of the tape you want to record off your DV camcorder but HDV format wasn’t supported at all. The new Windows Movie Maker for Vista does support HDV format but it teases you by asking you if you want to “Import entire videotape or just parts?”. Then it only gives you the option to “Import the entire videotape to my computer” as shown in the screenshot below. If anyone knows of a cheap or free non-bloated HDV capture program for Windows, please tell me in the talkback.
Fortunately DivX codec and Dr. DivX works on my desktop computer since they were installed before SP1 so I will need to get verification of the problems on my new work laptop.
Now at this point it’s still to early to draw any conclusions about Vista SP1 and the problems I faced may be unique to my particular setup or hardware. It certainly doesn’t make a good first impression for me and you need to be careful anytime you install a major upgrade like this. Please check back here for updates and status reports on these problems.
February 6th, 2008
A dozen free & essential apps for Windows
Every time I build a new Windows computer, there are a dozen free and essential applications that I always install for other people. These applications all seem to fill essential functions and they all seem to be well-behaved installers and uninstallers, in other words it won’t crash your computer or drag it down with gunk. Since they’ve served me so well, I thought I’d compile the list here and share them with you. Without spending a dime of your hard earned money on software, you can now make the most of your computer.
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uTorrent - This is the BitTorrent client that is a must have for anyone who wants an effective file sharing application that allows you to download large files. It was developed by a lone old-school programmer Ludvig Strigeus who wrote a BitTorrent client in a few hundred kilobytes (yes, that’s not a typo) which is a real pleasant surprise in this age of bloated Java applications with 100 MB memory footprints. It was bought out by BitTorrent Corporation which raised some concerns among the user base but the client has retained all of its functionality and the new owners have done a good job of maintaining it.
Skype - This is another killer-app for the modern personal computer. If you haven’t already heard of it and installed it, go get it. It’s the first and one of the few VoIP applications on the market that “just works”. Couple it with a good analog microphone or something like the Polycom Communicator and you will be able to send superb wideband audio which is amazing compared to the normal narrow band audio you get on a telephone. If you add Whiteboard Meeting which has a free limited version, you now have a mission critical business collaboration application.
Add a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000, Quickcam Pro for Notebooks, or Quickcam Orbit AF for as little at $80 for the first two models and you have yourself a very high-quality 640×480 video conferencing solution. Skype’s HQ (High Quality) video conferencing is something you just have to see to believe. The only downside to the HQ mode is that Skype does not support IEEE 1394 camcorders so you have to buy those Logitech webcams if you want the HQ mode. The camcorder supporter would have allowed much longer zoom for use in the living room but unfortunately they don’t have that feature yet. Also note that you need a minimal of 384 kbps uploads to maintain HQ mode.
February 4th, 2008
Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1 RTM today
Microsoft has reached a major milestone today for its Windows Server and Client products. Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista Service pack 1 have been released to manufacturing today which means they will soon be available to IT customers and consumers. Windows Server 2008 replaces the venerable Windows Server 2003 while Vista SP1 upgrades the somewhat controversial Windows Vista. If this looks like a coincidence that Vista SP1 and Server 2008 launched at the same time, it’s not. These two products share the same kernel and they were finished together and launched together by design.
Windows Server 2008 will have key enhancements in Virtualization both on the OS kernel side and the hosting side, but the hosting side of the equation won’t appear for another six months in the form of Windows Hypervisor. The OS kernel side optimizations come in the form of “enlightened” (AKA paravirtualized) IO optimizations for video, storage, networking, and memory. The Hypervisor will take advantage of these kernel enhancements to reduce the overhead associated with virtualization. Other virtualization vendors will most likely license or negotiate rights to these kernel enhancements in virtualization if they wish to host Windows Server 2008 efficiently. Older server operating systems like Windows 2000 and 2003 server will later be retrofitted with just the I/O optimizations but not the full kernel modifications that optimize Memory and CPU operations.
Windows Server 2008 will also have a stripped down headless operation mode called “Core installation” that increases reliability and security because it reduces the code foot print. This in turn also reduces the need for reboots because components that would normally need to be updated simply won’t be installed in the first place. Server 2008 will also have a fast kernel mode IIS web server as well as enhancements to Routing and Remote Access such as SSTP (Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol). SSTP puts a NAT- and proxy-friendly wrapper around the PPTP and L2TP protocol for trouble free VPN access.
Windows Vista will get some sorely needed enhancements on stability. The size and scope of enhancements and changes to Windows Vista over previous generation Windows XP has resulted in some major growing pains both in OS and driver stability. While many of these issues have already been hammered out, annoying problems like a minute long wait to login a Vista machine in to an Active Directory domain and slow network file copies are now fixed in Vista SP1. Other controversial features like a Windows Vista kill switch have been removed. On the usability front, the aforementioned SSTP feature in Windows Server 2008 can now be leveraged using the new SSTP client in Windows Vista SP1. In the coming weeks, I will be eager to test both of these products.
January 22nd, 2008
The polycarbonate all-in-one 22" LCD PC
The last time I built a wooden all-in-one 19″ LCD PC, my family wanted it in the kitchen and my mother wanted it in hers. To keep everyone happy, I built my mother another one (pictured above and below) out of 3/16th inch jet-black polycarbonate which makes the chassis look like the material from a grand piano. The result was something that was so glossy that I can probably shave in it, but I’m almost afraid to touch it and get finger prints all over it. Needless to say, she is very pleased with her new space saving computer. [See photo gallery.]
Cutting this material was fairly simple with wood-cutting and drilling tools. Just be careful to slow down on the table saw so you don’t chip the polycarbonate. I had initially avoided putting in vent holes in the back but the CPU fan and the PSU fan dynamically ramped up in RPM because of the increasing temperature and caused some noise. Once the 4 holes were put in the back, the CPU fan stayed at lower RPM and remained fairly silent even if I stress loaded the CPUs.
This time I mounted the on/off switch up top along with two USB ports which makes it easy to access and comes in handy for the webcam. I just wished I had a webcam that did away with the cable and just had a down-facing USB port so I can just plug it in right on top of the case. The other USB port is convenient for plugging other devices such as USB memory sticks or other devices I want sitting on top of the chassis.
As usual with these slim custom chassis, I used a slim 1.75″ 1U Sparkle SPI220LE 80 Plus 220 watt power supply. The idle power consumption on this computer is 43 watts and 63 watt under peak CPU loads generated by WPrime. The motherboard is an ECS 945GCT-M which came bundled with an Intel Celeron 430 CPU (Conroe-L 1.8 GHz single-core) I got at Fry’s for $70. I put in an Intel Core 2 Duo E2140 dual-core 1.6 instead and kept the lower-profile CPU fan which came with the Celeron 430. That lower profile fan came in real handy since it fit inside my 3″ thick chassis which is even less space inside because of the thickness of the walls. This chassis has plenty of room for additional devices such as a slim optical slot-loaded drive.
December 19th, 2007
Hitting 50W peak on a dual-core desktop computer
The 50W no-compromise dual-core commodity desktop PC is now a reality!I have some great news for the green computing world. The 50W no-compromise dual-core commodity desktop PC is now a reality! It all started a few months back when I looked in to the possibility of building a main stream dual-core desktop computer that can drop under 50 watts idle but now I’ve answered that question beyond all expectations. Using a 220W Sparkle SPI220LE “80 Plus” efficient power supply, an Intel E2140 1.6 GHz dual-core CPU running at lower-than-spec 0.95 volts, and a Gigabyte G33M-DS2R motherboard, the system comes in just under 50 watts at *PEAK* CPU load generated by WPrime running 2 threads. If I could only find a smaller 100 watt 80 Plus power supply and hit the optimum 50% loading at peak power consumption, then it might be possible to get peak system loads down to around 45 watts.
At idle the system uses 41 watts which is actually one watt higher than my sub-$400 All-in-One LCD PC with an ECS 945GCT-M motherboard and an Intel E2180 2.0 GHz dual-core running at stock speeds and voltage. It turns out that this G33M-DS2R board with E2140 CPU running at stock speeds and voltage has an idle system power of 46 watts which is 6 watts higher than the ECS board with E2180. This was surprising to me since the new G33 chipset has a more energy efficient memory controller than the 945 chipset.
Possible explanations are the fact that the G33-based motherboard was running the memory at 400 MHz base clock (DDR2-800 memory) whereas the 945-based motherboard was running the memory at 200 MHz. One other factor is the fact that the Gigabyte G33M-DS2R Intel G33-based motherboard has a 6-port SATA ICH9R RAID controller along with a few more memory and PCI ports. This leads me to think that the combination 2x the memory clock and more components translates to an additional 6 watts of power consumption.
The following idle/peak power consumption charts are from data I collected.
* SPI SPI220LE 220W 80+ PSU
** No system fan which saves 1W power
Gigabyte with Intel CPU = G33M-DS2R motherboard
Gigabyte AMD CPU = MA69GM-S2H motherboard
MSI with AMD CPU = K9AGM2-FIH motherboard
December 17th, 2007
How LCD makers lie to you about viewing angles
I was in a large computer store looking at computer LCD monitors and a lady was asking about which one was the better one to buy. A man (presumably her family) told her that the ones which indicated TFT (Thin Film Transistor) were the ones to buy. I then interjected that everything was TFT and it’s been that way since the extinction of those ugly STN passive matrix LCDs 8 years ago they use to sell with the cheaper laptops. Of course this invariably invited more questions as to which LCD was the better buy and better quality so I spent a few minutes showing them some of the shortcomings to many of these displays.
The first thing I noted was the poor viewing angle of every LCD on the display with the exception of a single model. To see this in effect, simply lower your head a few inches in front of the monitor and you will see the brightness of the entire display dim dramatically. Looking at the display from the bottom makes the image almost darken to the point of being black with some weird hues showing. Many of these displays don’t even look right when viewed at a slightly down angle since the color will change drastically. Case in point, look at the photos below of a typical LCD monitor which uses the most common TN (twisted nematic) technology.
Photo credit: Vincent Alzieu of BeHardware.com (quality review)
What’s extremely frustrating is that the manufacturer claims that this display has a vertical viewing angle of 160 degrees. Yet the image above came from a photograph shot at 50 degrees above and below which indicates a 100 degrees spread. If we wanted to be extremely generous, we could say that the top-down view pictured bottom left is barely acceptable (it isn’t as far as I’m concerned), but the bottom-up view is flat out atrocious and there is no way in hell you can tell me that’s an acceptable image at this viewing angle.
In reality, the usable viewing angle of this display vertically is about positive 35 degrees to negative 10 degrees at best and that’s being generous. But looking at the vendor specifications, there is no way that you as the consumer would know this when you’re making the purchase. Now I don’t have a problem with the actual specs at the price they’re selling it at, but I do have a big problem with the deceptive advertising.
Only one of the LCD monitors out of about 30 models being shown on the show floor was viewable from all angles and it was most likely using PVA (Patterned Vertical Alignment) technology but it was about 30% more expensive than other displays of comparable size. It looked like something like the image below which is actually quite viewable at any angle. Furthermore, these displays typically offer true 8 bit per color or even 10 bits per color whereas the TN type displays are limited to 6 bits per color.
Photo credit: Vincent Alzieu of BeHardware.com (quality review)
So the old adage that you get what you pay for holds true when it comes to LCD monitors, but manufacturers need to be honest with their customers. I purposely avoided singling out any single manufacturer because they all do the same thing, but this kind of deceptive advertising needs to stop.
Loading ...December 13th, 2007
All SPEC CPU results for AMD Barcelona invalidated
As of today, all of AMD’s Barcelona SPEC CPU results so far have just been invalidated and labeled “Not-Available” by SPEC due to violation of the 3-month availability clause. AMD is struggling with availability of its new quad-core “Barcelona” chips because of yield problems in manufacturing and the newly disclosed TLB (Translation Lookaside Buffer) bug. The TLB bug which causes a performance penalty when patched has forced AMD to stop shipping the Opteron chips to all but a few customers and it is impacting AMD financials.
The TLB bug also affects all AMD “Phenom” branded desktop-variant Barcelona processors though AMD is continuing to launch that part because of the rare nature of the problem. Customers will have the option to download the BIOS patch at a later time from their motherboard manufacturer. AMD has confirmed that the fix will come with the next revision called stepping B3 due out in Q1-2008.
November 29th, 2007
Updated sub-$400 all-in-one dual-core LCD PC images
I’ve put the top and bottom lid on my new sub-$400 all-in-one dual-core LCD PC and mounted an 802.11 b/g USB adapter to it so I can use the computer anywhere in the house. To keep the chassis cool, I drilled 5 large holes on the top board. I am still waiting for my female USB socket connectors that hook up to the USB leads on the motherboard so I’ve temporarily used one the venting holes to mount the USB Wi-Fi adapter. I also need to paint the thing black to match the color of the LCD and sand some things down. [See gallery, A computer's place is in the kitchen, for larger photos.]
The AIO computer is sitting on the corner of my kitchen dining table and there are no bulky ATX towers sitting on the floor or table.
This particular power strip is a bit bulky so I’m looking forward to finding something thinner that I can bolt to the bottom of the PC chassis. Having the extra power sockets right there on the computer is really nice to have.
When the computer isn’t being used or if it’s being used as a movie playback device, I can tuck the mouse and keyboard away taking up less room than a laptop sitting on the table.
To put this in to proper perspective, here’s the entire kitchen table with the AIO computer sitting at the edge of the table. It hardly takes any room and the table is wide open for eating. I finally had the kids eating at the kitchen table for once since I had a movie playing. Once I get an HDTV ATSC USB tuner dongle, this will also act as an HDTV with PVR capability along with wireless connectivity to a DVD library.
This is what the back looks like. It will be a lot less noticeable once it’s sanded and painted all black.
If you want to see what the insides look like, see the original image gallery.
Update 11/30/2007 - I’ve bolted a slimmer power strip to the bottom of the wood box and it’s a lot cleaner since I no longer have a loose power strip to worry about. It gives me extra AC ports for things like speakers or anything else that needs power.
November 26th, 2007
The $363 19-inch dual-core all-in-one LCD PC
Update 11/29/2007 - See updated AIO computer images
This is the new all-in-one Intel dual-core 2.0 GHz E2180 19″ LCD PC computer I built for the family. The shocker is that I did it for less than $363 in parts (not including keyboard and mouse). The 19″ LCD (1440×900 resolution) was on sale for $140 and the dual-core Intel CPU/Motherboard/graphics was on sale at Fry’s for an eye-popping $88 and I just couldn’t resist the temptation to build a nice all-in-one for the kitchen/dining area. I got a 300 GB hard drive for $50 and 1 GB of RAM for $30 (with an additional $20 rebate) and I used a $50 energy efficient “80 plus” 220 watt 1U power supply. For the chassis I used some scrap wood I had left over and spent 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon building this computer. [See image gallery.]
I haven’t made the top lid or bottom lid for this computer yet but this picture shows the full thickness of the computer bolted on to the back of the 19″ LCD display. The entire computer excluding the 19″ display consumes 40 watts in idle and 65 watts peak (WPrime with 2 threads). The 19″ LCD consumes 22 watts when it’s operating at full resolution regardless of the image being displayed. If the system is overclocked to 2.66 GHz, then the peak wattage goes up to 100 watts which is still well within safety margins. Note that this particular motherboard that came free with the CPU isn’t a stable overclocker so I don’t recommend overclocking on this system with this motherboard. For testing purposes, I loaded Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit edition and it booted up in less than 35 seconds (10 seconds due to BIOS post).
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With the top and bottom are sealed off (with some holes for venting heat), I wanted to make sure the CPU fan had a fresh supply of cool air so I cut out a hole in the back. I didn’t have one of those circular cutters handy so I had to freehand the hole with a jigsaw so I still need to sand it in to something smoother. I also didn’t want to make the chassis an extra inch thicker to accommodate the retail box fan that came with the CPU. To minimize cable clutter, I used 1 foot long power cords plugged in to a power strip. That strip also comes in handy for plugging in lots of other things.
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Unlike the VESA stand PC I built a few months ago, this computer uses the monitor’s factory stand which allows me the full range in tilt motion. Here in the photo you see that it’s tilted all the way back and it’s in no danger or tipping over.
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For the photo gallery, I used the Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop keyboard and mouse. Not shown is a tiny USB Bluetooth dongle in the back that connects the keyboard and mouse.
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This photo shows the inside of the system with the back, top, bottom covers off. The hard drive is bolted on to the side but I will need to put some rubber washers on to minimize hard drive noise. Wood has a nasty habit of amplifying sound which is great for musical instruments but not so good for computers so I’ll need to spray the inner walls with insulation foam to minimize noise. I’ll probably look in to plastic materials in the future.
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This is the back of the computer with the components exposed. As you can see, the box is not much bigger than the Micro ATX motherboard. The hard drive had to overlap the motherboard a little so that the entire box can be narrower than the 17″ wide 19″ diagonal LCD display. The LCD has a DVI input but the motherboard only had VGA out so a VGA cable was used. Wired Ethernet was used but I have enough room to plug in a PCI wireless LAN adapter using a 90 degrees PCI adapter. [Update 11:55PM - I'm probably going to go for a cheap 802.11g USB adapter since that saves me the trouble of using a PCI angle adapter. The fact that I can mount it on top means it will probably get better radio reception.]
This is the full profile view of my new all-in-one computer. Note that I made a mistake of not turning the bad side of the wood in so you can see some flaws in the wood. It’s not too late for me to unscrew it and turn it around though.
So the bottom line is that while it isn’t pretty from the side or the back, you won’t ever notice it from the front and it doesn’t take any more space than the LCD display would occupy by itself. The price tag is $1000 cheaper than commercial all-in-one computers from Apple, Gateway, and now Dell. Sure you can get a laptop but laptops don’t have 19″ displays and they can’t safely clock to 2.66 GHz like this one. Having a full size keyboard and a real mouse makes this computer as powerful as a desktop yet it’s portable.
[Update 11:59PM] - Instructions for making your own box
If you want to make your own box, you just need to cut 6 pieces of board. The dimensions for front and back plate are 17″ by 8.75″. Side plates are 8.75″ by 2.5″. Top and bottom are 17″ by 3″ (thickness of front and back added 0.5″). The top 2 VESA holes are 2.75″ from the top (not including thickness of top plate). The four VESA mounting holes are centered on the box and measure 100mm apart.
The box needs to be mounted to the LCD before the motherboard is installed. To figure out where to mount the motherboard, place the motherboard and power supply on the wood and mark where the mounting holes will be with a pencil.
My colleague Justin James suggested that I go to the auto supply store and buy some rubber underbody coating (spray or roll on) for spraying on the internal walls to dampen the noise. That should also pad the contact between the hard drive and the side wall so that the hard drive noise isn’t amplified by the wooden box.
[Update 11/27/2007] - A number of people in the talkback want to know about the RF interference characteristics and whether I will paint the box black or not. On the RF interference issue, all motherboards and electronic components are already FCC certified to be within limits of how much RF noise can be leaked and I haven’t had any RF interference issues running my over-the-air HDTV tuner in my home or radio close by to this computer. As for painting the box black, yes that is what I intend to do so that it will blend in with the LCD.
Update 11/29/2007 - See updated AIO computer images
November 9th, 2007
24" LCD 1920x1200 displays now mainstream at below $300
I can still remember 1991 when I bought my first computer display for my first computer. It was $315 for a 14″ CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) non-Interlaced monitor that had an actual viewing size of around 13″ and the display was about as flat as a beach ball. Back in those days a 17″ CRT display cost nearly $1,000 or more and they were as deep as they were wide. It’s been about 3 years since LCD (Liquid Cristal Display) began taking over the computer industry and they’ve been dropping in price every year as they became more mainstream.
Now for the first time I’m seeing 24″ LCD displays like the Soyo 24″ LCD below the $300 mark and even below $250 on Black Friday. While this is a lesser known brand, it does signal the wide-spread production of 24″ LCD panels so they can be produced and sold at these prices. This will eventually lead to more companies hitting the $300 price point. This means we can build some fairly cheap computers with massive 24″ high-resolution displays and I’ll probably make it a project to build a 24″ all-in-one media center PC if I can get one of these Black Friday deals.
October 29th, 2007
Intel's new 3.0 GHz quad 45nm QX9650 uses less than 65 watts
TechReport has an early review on the new Intel QX9650 45nm 3.0 GHz quad-core extreme desktop CPU (due for launch next month) and the power consumption results are shocking. The new QX9650 quad-core based on the latest 45nm HKMG (High K Metal Gate) manufacturing process consumes less power on average than an Intel E6750 2.66GHz dual-core. At idle the QX9650 system draws 160W versus an E6750 at 175W idle. At peak consumption the QX9650 draws 215W versus the E6750 at 214W which is nearly identical. That’s shocking when you consider the fact that we’re comparing four 3 GHz cores versus two 2.66 GHz cores.
The E6750 is based on “stepping G” which is already the latest and most mature 65nm manufacturing process from Intel and it was already an extremely efficient CPU. The idea that one of the first 45nm CPUs on the planet on one of the earliest production silicon can get these kinds of results is astounding. What’s just as astounding is the fact that Intel calls the QX9650 quad-core CPU a 130W TDP part when the Intel E6750 is already a very conservative 65W TDP part. It is noteworthy that the server version of the 3 GHz 45nm quad-core Intel processor is rated at a less conservative 80W TDP which makes perfectly good sense considering it’s in the same power envelope of a conservative 65W TDP chip.
This kind of conservative rating ensures extremely high yields because there is so much leeway on chip-to-chip variation but this degree of conservatism seems a bit unusual. Since this is a multiplier-unlocked “extreme” part geared for the overclocking market, I suppose people will jack up the clock enough to crank it up to 130 watts. Speaking of overclocking, TechReport managed to get a stable 3.6 GHz clock speed without any “crazy-insane core voltages” which is very respectable for a quad-core process this early in the process stage.
The chart at the bottom of the power consumption results page which represents a form of performance per watt metric indicates a 49% improvement over the latest 65nm Intel QX6850 quad-core processor and a 2.2 to 1 efficiency advantage over Intel’s E6750 dual-core in Cinebench. AMD Athlon X2 dual-core numbers as well as other applications and benchmarks are also compared so I would recommend checking out the entire article.
October 24th, 2007
Sun launches Intel Workstation on X38 platform
Following last month’s launch of dual-socket and quad-socket Intel-based servers, Sun Microsystems launched its first Intel based workstations in two decades. The Sun Ultra 24 Workstation is based on the latest Intel X38 chipset (which replaced Intel’s 975 chipset).
Equipped with Intel quad-core processors, up to 8 GBs of ECC (Error Correcting Code) DDR2-667 memory, and NVIDIA’s Quadro FX graphics cards, the Ultra 24 is targeted at the CAD (Computer Aided Design) market. When I asked Sun what this meant for Sun’s SPARC based workstations, Sun replied that they will continue to sell SPARC as long as there are customers buying them and they still have customers buying SPARC today.
Sun sent me the following standard configurations:
- B21-TAZ1-AA-512DT $995.00
*Sun Ultra 24 Workstation ROHS-6; 1 * Intel Core2 Duo E4400 2.0Ghz, 512MB Memory, 1 *250GB SATA HDD, NVIDIA NVS290, 1 * DVD-ROM, 1 * 10/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet port, 2 * 1394 Firewire, Audio, 6 * USB2.0 ports, 2 * full-length PCI slots, 4 * PCI-Express slots, Solaris license. Solaris 10 and Sun Development tools pre-installed. - B21-TNZ1-AA-1GDU $1,445.00
Sun Ultra 24 Workstation ROHS-6; 1 * Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz, 1GB Memory, 1 *250GB SATA HDD, NVS290 Graphics, 1 * DVD-ROM, 1 * 10/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet port, 2 * 1394 Firewire, Audio, 6 * USB2.0 ports, 2 * full-length PCI slots, 4 * PCI-Express slots, Solaris license. Solaris 10 and Sun Development tools pre-installed. - B21-TGZ1-AC-1GDU $1,835.00
Sun Ultra 24 Workstation ROHS-6; 1 * Intel Core2 Duo E6850 3.0Ghz, 1GB Memory, 1 *250GB SATA HDD, NVIDIA FX 1700, 1 * DVD-Dual, 1 * 10/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet port, 2 * 1394 Firewire, Audio, 6 * USB2.0 ports, 2 * full-length PCI slots, 4 * PCI-Express slots, Solaris license. Solaris 10 and Sun Development tools pre-installed. - B21-TSZ1-AA-2GDU $2,335.00
Sun Ultra 24 Workstation ROHS-6; 1 * Intel Core2 Quad Extreme QX6850 3.0Ghz, 2GB Memory, 1 *250GB SATA HDD, NVS290 Graphics, 1 * DVD-Dual, 1
* 10/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet port, 2 * 1394 Firewire, Audio, 6 * USB2.0 ports, 2 * full-length PCI slots, 4 * PCI-Express slots, Solaris license. Solaris 10 and Sun Development tools pre-installed.
Despite the fact that each system is shipped with a Solaris license, Sun also supports a wide range of operating systems such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Red Hat Linux.
The Ultra 24 comes with a hot-swap SATA or SAS 4-drive cage that is accessible when the side panel is removed. Since this is based on the Intel X38 chipset, it is fair to assume that it is using Intel’s ICH9R RAID storage controller which is the same one used in the other 3-series motherboards like the G33 and P35. If you want to use SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) which is typically used in servers, you will need to use an add-on PCI-Express storage controller.
At this point in time, only Intel’s 65nm dual- and quad-core desktop processors are available but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some Penryn-based desktop processors being added to the Ultra 24 product line as early as November when Intel launches their 45nm Penryn-based products. With the Intel 45nm launch coming in a month, I would highly recommend holding off until you can order 45nm CPUs with 50% more cache and SSE4.1 instruction set. I’m sure Sun and Intel would prefer that you buy now but I’m sure even they understand that there will inevitably be some Osborn effect in effect here with the 45nm launch so close.
While I haven’t reviewed this workstation first hand yet, I have to admit the prices look decent for a brand-name workstation and the hardware specifications look good. With Sun’s recent moves in to the Intel Server/Workstation business and selling Microsoft Operating Systems, Sun seems to have shed some of its SPARC and Solaris only religion and I think this can only bring good things to the company. IBM certainly has no love for Microsoft or Intel but it doesn’t stop IBM from being huge partners of Microsoft and Intel while making a bundle of money at it.
October 10th, 2007
The all-in-one dual-core VESA Stand PC mod
Can you spot the PC in this picture? It’s behind the 22″ LCD display and it’s actually holding up the LCD. [See my image gallery for more and larger photos.] There’s plenty of room under the display for all your important stuff. Now you can actually put your CENTER speakers in the center rather than off to the side because the LCD monitor stand is taking up center. The Polycom Communicator also found a home underneath the LCD taking center stage. There’s also a convenient power strip right under the display so you don’t need to crawl under the desk. There’s even flat space above the LCD for things like speakers and video cameras.
Last week I had The poor man’s all-in-one PC for $380 and The 22″ dual-core all-in-one game PC for $765. Last weekend I bit the bullet and labored 2 full days to build the all-in-one dual-core VESA Stand PC. This piece of oak board in the photo was sacrificed in the making of this PC because your’s truly is an absolute noob when it comes to wood working and thought he could do this project with a jig saw. I ended up buying a table saw and spent 6 hours assembling it (3 hours wasted because I got a defective unit). I had to exchange the table saw because the lifting/lowering mechanism was jammed. Once the saw was up and running, it didn’t take long to cut the wood.
After 6 hours of hard labor (most of the time figuring out what to do), I cranked out this box. I learned the hard way that this type of real birch wood is hard to work with and I used the wrong saw blade for it.
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I should have gotten a nail gun but those things aren’t cheap. I also didn’t counter sink the screws which made them stick out a little. I didn’t have enough clamps and I didn’t use them properly. Oh well, I did the best I could since I’ve never really done any wood work and next time I know better.
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This was a $20 VESA LCD mount that supports tilting and quick release. I had to get something that didn’t make the LCD stick out too much and tip the entire box over.
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Just finished mounting the motherboard and power supply. I screwed up the screw location for the PSU so I need to fix that. I haven’t decided where to permanently mount the hard drive yet so that’s just held there by tape and a single screw.
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The back plate was made of thin wood since it’s not load bearing. The fact that “1/4 inch” wood isn’t actually 1/4″ thick also threw me for a loop when this board was 1/16th inch shy of 1/4″.
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I used two one-foot long power cords to power both the VESA Stand PC and the LCD display. It certainly helps reduce cable clutter.
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Looking at the entire PC from the side, it really doesn’t take all that much room. While it’s certainly no work of art like the Apple iMac, I can load this thing up with inexpensive standard components with higher performance and I have more usable desk space.
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I’ve got a small Wi-Fi antenna hiding behind that LCD stub on the bottom (visible in first photo) that I’d like to get rid of but can’t thanks to Acer’s poor design.
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I probably could have made it cleaner if I used a Blue Tooth keyboard and mouse since that only requires a small USB dongle like this Microsoft Wireless Entertainment 7000. Those are a bit more expensive and they use 2.4 GHz which may degrade Wi-Fi because of signal leakage.
Well there you have it ladies and gentlemen, the all-in-one PC using industry standard components. The PC mod spirit is alive and well.
October 3rd, 2007
The 22" dual-core all-in-one game PC for $765
What started out as a roughly improvised poor-man’s all-in-one PC (See gallery here) hanging off the back of an LCD display has turned in to two detailed schematics painstakingly drafted with the proper measurements ready for the cutting table. Download the schematics below by clicking on the images.
The first one is a modification and refinement of the of the first VESA mount PC using the miniature Intel D201GLY motherboard/CPU. The second one is an all new version that features full size MicroATX support, dual-core processor support, and full-sized PCI-Express support using a 90 degrees angle adapter for a full blown gaming or professional workstation.
Note: This entry is also available as a TechRepublic PDF download.
Mini-PC box: D201GLY with 1 half-height slot and 3 hard drive slots
This box when loaded with 3 hard drives when the D201GLY2 arrives with two SATA and one PATA port and a $15 gigabit PCI adapter would make a killer NAS (Network Attached Storage) and general purpose server. The box with only one hard drive is ~$200 and it will run faster than most NAS devices on the market at less than half the price. Using a one drive version for a poor-man’s PC might be a little under powered and you may want to look at the much more powerful version below that only costs $200 more.
Professional or gaming workstation: Dual-core with discrete graphics
If you ever wanted a cheap powerful workstation that you can take with you without having to carry it separately from the LCD monitor, this is the box for you. This larger box will fit and hide behind a 20″ or greater LCD display without being visible from the front and will only add 3.75″ of thickness to the entire LCD. It will take any MicroATX motherboard with enough cooling for a dual-core processor and dedicated PCI-Express graphics card.
With the 220W SPI220LE power supply, you’re limited to using 65W (Thermal Design Power) processors and graphics cards that pulls no more than 100W. Not to worry because you can get very powerful processors within the 65W power TDP such as the Intel E6750 2.66 GHz dual-core processor and the NVIDIA 8600GTS graphics adapter. We can load 3 hard drives, 4 half-height PCI cards, and use the on-board video card or we can load 1 hard drive and 1 full-height PCI-Express adapter. On the motherboard front, I look forward to reviewing NVIDIA’s 7150 integrated graphics chipset with an impressive features list and price.
| Part | Price* |
| Gigabyte G33 MicroATX with HDMI/DVI HDCP | $126 |
| Intel E2160 dual-core 1.8 GHz (very safe clocking at 2.4 GHz) | $85 |
| SPI220LE 220W 1U compact 80 Plus power supply | $60 |
| 1 GB DDR2-667 (two 512MB DIMMs) | $41 |
| 250 GB Maxtor SATA hard drive | $63 |
| Sub total (before monitor and tax if applicable) | $375 |
| 22″ Acer DVI-D w/HDCP and D-SUB (*exposed* flat VESA) | $234 |
| Integrated graphics total (before tax if applicable) | $609 |
| NVIDIA 8600GTS | $156 |
| Dedicated graphics total (before tax if applicable) | $765 |
* Includes shipping cost
Well there you have it, you have a powerful all-in-one workstation or LAN party machine. Get out your drill and saw and get ready for some fun!
October 1st, 2007
The poor man's all-in-one PC for $380
UPDATE 10/3/2007 - The 22″ dual-core all-in-one game PC for $765
Apple has their iMac and Gateway has their One, but both of them are in the $1300 to $2300 range depending on the various options. What about the person on a budget? Can you get something for less than $400? You can but you’re going to have to build it yourself and I really do mean BUILD.
It’s time to pull out the handy jigsaw and drill and do some wood working. See gallery here with full screen downloadable schematics I created.
Now this might look ugly at first glance… ok it is ugly and it’s no iMac by any stretch of the imagination but this is a very crude mock-up cranked out on a Sunday afternoon. But that’s not a problem since the actual schematic has the sides and top covered so you won’t see the internal guts and it will muffle the sound of the hard drives. When I get around to it, I’ll do the full build and repost the finished pictures.
It’s currently one of those things that only a mother or builder could love but what’s important is that it successfully booted Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. I managed to move the device from room to room without having to connect the monitor and PC individually. I surfed the web and watch DVDs pulled off the network since this unit doesn’t have a DVD drive though we can certainly add a slim model to it.
Pictured below is the full schematic but you can click on it for a full screen download.
The poor man’s all-in-one PC costs $380 including a 20″ wide-screen LCD. Image shows an older 19″ LCD with a crude mock-up attached to the back. The entire computer including the LCD takes 58W in idle and 64W at peak CPU operation. The PC itself consumes 30W idle and 36W CPU peak so I’m sure the folks at Climate Savers will approve. The CPU is a 1.33 GHz Celeron 215 processor based on the “Yonah” Core Microarchitecture with the equivalent performance if a Pentium 4 2.2 GHz.
The motherboard and CPU is a D201GLY which costs $70 at Fry’s Electronics. The one annoying thing about this particular motherboard is that it doesn’t support S3 sleep so it can’t really save any power when you suspend the PC although it doesn’t use much to begin with and it would be good for something you intend to keep on 24×7 such as a file server or firewall device. I also got a $3 on/off switch at Fry’s that connects to a 2-pin prong on the motherboard. The power supply is an “80 Plus” 1U PSU from Sparkle Power Inc that costs $50. You could try this 20″ Acer or 20″ Sceptre LCD display with VGA and DVI ports for $180 each and you really won’t save that much money if you tried looking for 17″ or 19″ LCDs. What’s important is that the VESA mount is completely exposed so that we can hang our PC off the back. Two screws 100mm apart are used to bolt the computer to the VESA mount on the back of the LCD. You can buy a pair of 512MB DDR2-667 DIMMs for $36 and get 512 MB for two computers so the cost per unit is only $20 including shipping. Here you can get a 250GB 3.5″ hard drive for $50.
The entire thing measures 87.7 mm thick (3.45″) so it will not stick out too far from the back of the LCD when completed. That’s actually the perfect thickness for mounting a silent 80mm fan if we load it up with two Hard Drives and cover up all the sides. All the cables are self contained though I had to twist the two power cords together and they both connect near the same location for the PC and the LCD. The VGA or DVI cord can be tidied up for a very short run from the PC to the back of the LCD and the same for the USB. The sides are half-inch thick MDF wood. The top and bottom are quarter-inch thick hardboard. The cost for the wood material is almost negligible since it was around $7 for a 2×4 foot panel and I picked it up at Home Depot though most hardware stores will have it.
Hardboard is relatively light and strong and you can drill some smaller holes and screw the four motherboard mounts directly in to it. Just be careful you don’t screw it in so tight that you strip the wood and fiber and it’s probably a good idea to use wood glue to hold it in permanently. The same goes for the two power supply holes used to hold down the PSU. The two holes for the VESA mount were larger and loose because the screws go in to the back of the LCD and the same goes for the four hard drive holes.
This design leaves enough room for two hard drives mounted on the top and bottom but you’re going to have to wait for the D201GLY2 which has two SATA ports in addition to a PATA IDE port before you can actually use two hard drives. There is also enough room for a half-height PCI card so we can plug in a TV tuner card or Gigabit network adapter if we want to use this thing as a high-speed NAS (Network Attached Storage). The rest is up to your imagination.
September 28th, 2007
More facts and less hysteria on Vista, please!
In the latest round of hysteria to be written about Windows Vista, Don Reisinger regurgitates the usual hysteria about Windows Vista mixed in with a pinch of facts here and there. Don spouts off the usual nonsense about sales, UAC, and even DRM. Despite the fact that bashing Vista is quite the popular sport these days, I’m going to see if I can set him straight with an honest and factual assessment of Windows Vista.
Are Vista sales really poor?
Everyone knows that Windows Vista retail box sales are poor, but does that matter when Microsoft relies overwhelmingly on sales to OEM PC makers? If you focus only on the retail box sales, you’re missing the real picture because Vista has sold more than 60 million licenses and ~78% of those sales are Vista Premium edition. Don complains about Windows Vista Ultimate edition and I actually agree with him that it’s overpriced and under delivers but Microsoft doesn’t need to “save itself” if Vista Ultimate fails, more like an “oh well”.
Does it matter if a few people revert to XP?
Even if a whopping 20% of computer buyers downgrade and revert to Windows XP for whatever reason, that still leaves 80% who stay with Windows Vista. That means hardware makers and ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) have to deal with Windows Vista now or later whether they like it or not if they want to stay in business. The fact that 60 million copies were sold in the first 6 months since launch pretty much confirms Vista will become the dominant OS by default.
How about Vista drivers?
There are no questions about it, a fair number of Vista drivers during the first 2 months stunk badly. Vista implements a brand new driver model which offers a little more separation between the driver and the kernel so that a bad driver is less likely to crash the entire system. The price for this is that there is a brand new learning curve and it took a few months for the hardware companies to get it right. For the most part, everything is working well but there are still some older devices that don’t have drivers and will never get drivers for Windows Vista and much of that is because the hardware vendors want you to buy new hardware.
Is it fair to expect a hardware company to write drivers for a 3+ year old device? Probably not. Is it fair to expect users to buy new hardware because they can’t get Vista drivers for a one year old device? Definitely no! Reputable hardware companies that want to keep customer loyalty will go back as far as they can to create drivers for older hardware. Was it Microsoft’s fault that the drivers didn’t work well at first? Technically no but that isn’t going to matter to consumers and they’ll take their anger out on Microsoft and the hardware maker. Fortunately, the driver situation has stabilized but it’s always good to check for drivers before you upgrade a computer to Vista and before you buy a piece of hardware.
How about application compatibility in Windows Vista?
There’s no question about it, applications will break in Vista and it’s probably the #1 reason some people are reverting back to Windows XP. This is primarily due to the fact that many applications never followed Windows development guidelines set since 2000. One of the worst offenders is Intuit which refused to properly write QuickBooks right up to the 2006 version. Intuit never followed Windows development guidelines that have existed since Windows 2000 and XP for Windows logo certification and they - like many other software makers - used Vista as an opportunity to sell a new version of QuickBooks 2007. If you bought QuickBooks 2006 or earlier, you were out of luck and it wouldn’t run on your new computer and you had to buy QuickBooks 2007.
Microsoft asked developers for 7 years to clean up their act but drew the line in the sand with Windows Vista which comes with UAC (User Access Control) on by default. That finally forced vendors like Intuit to properly code their application and not violate security best practices. If UAC does nothing else and even if people turn it off, it has had the desired effect of cleaning up the Windows development community.
Vista and Internet Explorer 7 also breaks a lot of applications in the name of drawing a line in the sand for security. Microsoft will get criticized for not getting rid of things like Active X but they’ll also get criticized for breaking dangerous coding techniques and the vast majority of Active X controls have been disabled in Windows Vista by default. There are still plenty of web applications that don’t work inside Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7 and vendors like Kodak will try to drag their feet but they will have to deal with it sooner or later unless they want to alienate the 60 million (since summer) and growing Vista user base. My colleague David Berlind questions why Microsoft needs to break so many legacy applications and the answer is security. It’s a known fact that until something is hard broken, no one will change anything. Is this going to be painful? Certainly. But it has to be done if we want a more secure computing environment.
George Ou is Technical Director of ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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