October 21st, 2009

A word of warning on hard disk recovery by swapping logic boards

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 9:52 am

Categories: On the test bench

Tags: Hard Drive, Recovery, Board, Logic Board, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

I’ve noticed that over in the TalkBack section of Zack Whittaker’s post on his hard drive going belly up that a few readers have suggested a possible fix involving swapping the logic board of the dead drive with one from a working drive.

I feel that a word of warning is in order here.

A logic board swap can work. I’ve done it before on numerous disks. You need to have an identical drive to act as a donor drive though, because a logic board that just looks right won’t work. It has to be exact, down to the model and usually revision.

BUT …

It doesn’t always work, and increasingly it’s getting harder and harder to pull the trick off because drive makers are storing specific drive parameters relating to the specific drive on the firmware of the logic board. This makes it hard, if not impossible to find a compatible logic board. To make matters worse, because the firmware contains drive disk parameters, you can damage the dead disk worse, making recover even more difficult (and expensive).

So, bottom line is that it might work, but there’s a good chance that it might not too … as a last ditch, final throw of the dice, no looking back, I might try it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Thing’s I’d try before swapping the logic board:

• Fitting the drive into a USB caddy.
• gently tap the drive at spin up (as long as it’s not making, or has made, a grinding noise …)
• Popping it into a sealed plastic bag and freezing it for a few hours. Alternatively, blast the logic board with canned air.

October 2nd, 2009

First Look: Ubuntu 9.10 beta "Karmic Koala"

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 8:22 am

Categories: Linux, My Linux Experience, On the test bench

Tags: Ubuntu, Beta, Linux, Open Source, Operating Systems, Software, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Canonical have just released the beta of the next installment of the popular Linux distro - Ubuntu 9.10 beta “Karmic Koala.”

Check out the Ubuntu 9.10 beta gallery here

This new release, silly codename aside, brings with it a whole raft of new features, some visible, others under the hood. Some of the new features include:

• A move to Upstart to handle start-up and shut downs.
• Improved boot experience.
• Jazzed up installer.
• GNOME 2.28 and Linux kernel 2.6.31-11.36.
• ext4 file system used by default.
• GRUB 2 boot loader is default.
• Introduction of the Ubuntu Software Center to replace the Add/Remove app.

Next –>

September 24th, 2009

Google Chrome Frame boosts IE speed up to Chrome levels

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 11:37 am

Categories: On the test bench

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Web Browsers, Internet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

So, just how much of a performance boost do you get in Internet Explorer when you install and make use of Chrome Frame?

Quite a lot, as it turns out!

Note: All tests carried out on Windows Vista 64-bit.

I decided to take Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 and see what different Chrome Frame made when running the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test. For comparison I also ran the test in Google Chrome 3 browser.

The results are staggering:

Bottom line:

• IE7 using Chrome Frame is about 40 times faster at running through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test than IE7 alone.
• IE8 using Chrome Frame is about 10 times faster at running through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test than IE8 alone.
• Using Chrome Frame, IE7 and IE8 are almost as fast as Google Chrome itself at processing JavaScript.

Very impressive stuff indeed.

As to resource usage while running Chrome Frame, I didn’t see any noticeable increase in CPU or RAM usage. In fact, right now I can’t see any downside to Chrome Frame.

Very interesting …

September 16th, 2009

Is browser speed now an irrelevant metric? No!

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 3:18 am

Categories: On the test bench, Performance, Software

Tags: Web Browser, IE8, Web Browsers, Internet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Now that Chrome 3 is out, and Google claims that the JavaScript engine is some 25% faster than Chrome 2, it’s time to consider whether speed has got to the point where more speed is irrelevant.

So, rather than crack out the synthetic benchmarks, I took the latest versions of Internet Explorer 8, Opera 10, Safari 4, Firefox 3.5 and Chrome 3 for a quick spin around the internet to see if I could feel a difference in performance between them. The results were quite an eye-opener.

Note: All browsers are clean installs with no favorites of add-ins installed.

• Firefox 3.5 had a noticeably slower load time. IE8, Opera 10, Chrome 3 and Safari 4 all felt pretty much the same to me.
• For general browsing of sites which are largely text and images (not JavaScript intensive) all five browsers felt about the same. On really large pages IE8 seemed to be the slowest at rendering the page but I think that this is more of a visual thing than anything else because it doesn’t look as smooth.
• On sites that are both large and have use JavaScript (and example is loading all the comments to a popular post on Slashdot), then IE8 quickly begins to feel slow and sluggish and the browser seem to find the page hard work. Chrome 3 on the other hand is fast and super-snappy. Firefox 3.5, Opera 10 and Safari 4 all feel about the same, being much faster and smoother than IE8, but noticeably slower than Chrome 3.
• Flash heavy websites feel best in Chrome. Not only that, but the browser also feels the most responsive when under heavy Flash load. IE8 once again seems to be under the greatest strain, and the rest of the pack all feel the same.
• When it comes to the actual performance of the browser itself, in terms of flipping through tabs and so on, Chrome 3 is way ahead of the pack, IE8 is trailing way behind, and nothing separates the rest.

To be honest, despite having all five browsers installed side-by-side on several test machines, I’ve never actually taken all of them on a test like this before. Given my experience of the browsers under synthetic benchmark tests, I’d expected Chrome 3 to be the fastest and IE8 to be the slowest, but I honestly didn’t think that those milliseconds difference in synthetic benchmarks results would translate into anything noticeable in the real-world. The fact that there is a noticeable difference means that we have all benefited from this latest round of browser wars because we’re all enjoying faster browsers.

This side-by-side comparison also puts it into perspective how shockingly bad some older browsers (such and IE7 and IE6) must have been given that we’ve seen huge performance gains from all fronts over the past year or so (largely thanks to Google Chrome). If you’re still using an old, outdated browser, whichever one it is, update it and enjoy the performance boost.

Bottom line is that a few milliseconds do make a big difference!

[UPDATE: Here are a few links to previous synthetic benchmarks:

• Benchmarking Firefox 3.5
• Safari 4 - "The world's fastest browser" ... NOT!
• Google Chrome 2.0 Beta - Fast. Fast! FAST!!!
• First look - Internet Explorer 8 RC1
• Is Firefox faster than Chrome?

Enjoy!]

August 5th, 2009

7 RTM vs. Vista SP1 vs. XP SP3 - Shootout, Part 1

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 11:26 am

Categories: On the test bench, Windows 7

Tags: Microsoft Windows XP, SP3, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Vista SP1, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Over the past few months I’ve talked a lot about the performance side of things with regard to Windows 7. However, I’ve not been able to give you any actual numbers because the EULA for the beta and release candidate versions of Windows 7 prohibited me from doing so. However, now that Windows 7 has hit the RTM I can carry out benchmark tests and provide you with real numbers.

The tests

Rather than dump a whole series of benchmark results on you, I’m going to release them over a few posts. Here I’m going to look at four specific metrics:

• Boot up speed
• Shutdown speed
• Compressing and then extracting a folder contains numerous files and folders (3500 files / 30 folders) totaling 5.15GB

Tests are carried out on 32-bit versions of Windows.

Test systems

I’ve used two desktop systems as the test machines:

• An AMD Phenom 9700 2.4GHz system fitted with an ATI Radeon 3850 and 4GB of RAM
• An Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 2.2GHz fitted with an NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS and 1GB of RAM

Results/Conclusion –>

June 30th, 2009

Benchmarking Firefox 3.5

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 12:37 pm

Categories: On the test bench, Windows 7

Tags: Mozilla Firefox, Benchmarking, Web Browser, Web Browsers, Internet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

I’ve just loaded The release version of Firefox 3.5 onto my browser test bed in order to do some benchmarking. How does Mozilla’s latest browser compare to the rest?.

As usual I’m running two two tests:

• SunSpider JavaScript benchmark
• V8 Benchmark Suite

I expected Firefox 3.5 to be fast, but I didn’t expect it to beat Google Chrome, and I was right. It’s odd to think that it’s been nearly a year since the last major Firefox upgrade, but in that time the browser faces stiff competition from both Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari.

So, Firefox 3.5 now lags behind Chrome and Safari 4. That said, the browser is fast enough that you won’t really notice that it’s not the fastest!

Here, for completeness, are the ACID 3 results:

Close, but no cigar …

After I get a few more hours under my belt I’ll post a review of Firefox 3.5.

June 9th, 2009

Safari 4 - "The world's fastest browser" ... NOT!

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 3:40 am

Categories: On the test bench, Software

Tags: Apple Safari, Web Browser, Google Chrome, Web Browsers, Internet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

At yesterday’s WWDC 09 keynote speech Apple announced the release of Safari 4 web browser for Windows and Mac. Apple claims this browser is “the world’s fastest browser” … let’s find out.

I’m always suspicious of all claims that are along the lines of “world’s blankiest blank,” especially when those claims come from Apple.

So, is Safari 4 the fastest browser? Let’s test out Apple’s claim by pitting it against Google Chrome.

I’m using my standard test bed - QX9770 Core 2 Extreme running at 3.2GHz, with 2GB or RAM on a fully up-to-date Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit platform.

I’m putting Safari 4 against Google Chrome because that’s currently the fastest browser on the block. If Safari 4 can beat that, it earns the title of “world’s fastest browser.” If it can’t beat Chrome, then the claim is puff.

As usual, two tests - SunSpider JavaScript, and V8 benchmarks.

The results –>

April 25th, 2009

Windows 7 RC 32-bit vs. Vista SP1 32-bit - Gaming shootout

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 5:22 am

Categories: Gaming, On the test bench, Performance, Windows 7

Tags: 32-bit, Microsoft Windows 7, Performance, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Vista SP1, Games, Performance Management, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Microsoft Windows, Personal Technology

Is it worth upgrading your Vista gaming rig to Windows 7? Will you see any performance benefits? Let’s find out!

Let’s look at what kind of frames per second (FPS) performance we get from the two operating systems using four different graphics cards.

Note: The Windows 7 RC EULA prohibits me from disclosing actual numbers, but I’ll give you enough information to get a good idea as to which OS is best for gaming.

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Next –>

March 19th, 2009

Google Chrome 2.0 Beta - Fast. Fast! FAST!!!

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 5:51 am

Categories: On the test bench

Tags: Google Inc., Beta, Google Chrome, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

I’ve just loaded Google’s latest Chrome beta (2.0.169.1) onto my browser test bed in order to do some benchmarking and it turns out to be the fastest browser I’ve tested so far.

I ran two tests; SunSpider JavaScript benchmark and the V8 Benchmark Suite. The performance of this latest Chrome beta is truly staggering in both.

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I’m getting to the point where I’m starting to think that speed improvements will soon be moot (well, they will be once everyone has caught up). My guess is that the focus will then shift to security. It needs to.

March 16th, 2009

Windows 7 build 7057 - Performance that blasts past XP, Vista and previous builds

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 6:14 am

Categories: Microsoft, On the test bench, Windows 7

Tags: 32-bit, Microsoft Windows 7, Performance, Microsoft Windows XP, Operating System, built-In, Microsoft Windows Vista, ISO, Release Candidate, Microsoft Windows

Over the weekend I’ve been spending time with the latest leaked build of Windows 7 - build 7057. While this isn’t the release candidate (RC) build that some people claim it is, this build is certainly pretty close to being RC.

How can I tell that we’re close to seeing an RC build? Well, mostly it’s a gut feeling based on the fact that features-wise Windows 7 has been finished for a long time and that now Microsoft seems to be at the stage of adding new wallpapers, tweaking default account pictures, and generally polishing a few aspects of the UI. However, I don’t want to underestimate the importance of getting a look at this build, because it’s the first 32-bit build I’ve seen since the beta 1 release (which was released back in January, but had a build date going back to December 08). Only the 64-bit flavor of build 7048 emerged earlier this month. Build 7057 also the freshest build - the build date stamp, 090305-2000 translates into 5th Mar 2009, 8:00pm - so this is literally just over a week old.

Check out the Windows 7 build 7057 gallery!

Rather than give you a blow-by-blow account of everything that’s different about this build compared to every previous build that we’ve seen (I’ll leave that to others), I’m going to concentrate on the one area that interests me (and many of my readers) the most - performance.

Note: Before I go any further, I feel the need to emphasize that build 7057 is still a beta build and nothing can be taken as being final at this stage.

Important note: I have on several occasions contacted Microsoft for feedback on benchmarking Windows 7 and at this point the company is not ready to discuss performance testing.

Rather than publish a series of synthetic benchmark results for the different operating systems and builds (Microsoft frowns upon benchmarking beta builds, not to mention the fact that the final numbers only really matter for the release candidate and RTM builds), I’ve decided to put Windows 7, Vista and XP head-to-head in a series of real-world tests to find out which OS comes out top.

Let’s look at the test systems and the tests …

The tests –>