Hardware Revolution

A server that’s 5 times faster & What has changed on Hardware Revolution

Mathieu — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:03:43 +0000

After being hosted by 1&1 in 2008 and by Media Temple from Jan. to June 2009, I’m now proud to announce that the server transfer over to Linode.com was successfully completed and that Hardware Revolution is now hosted there.

There was a few posts missing at first but that issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, some votes for the latest poll were lost in the process, I apologize for that.

Hardware Revolution is now faster than ever

With over 90% of all your page requests server under 0.3 second, this new server is blazing fast, up to five times faster compared to the previous host! I hope that you’ll enjoy the speed bump and that it will make Hardware Revolution more pleasurable to browse for you.

What has changed on Hardware Revolution?

As you probably noticed, I made a few change to the look of the blog. The background is now black, which is less distracting from the content I believe, the title picture is smaller, the pages menu is over a single line instead of two.

I also changed the bottom of the page, although I still have a few things that I want to modify. Not in a rush though, writing for you and delivering updates and more content is a bigger priority. What’s the point of a good looking blog if there’s no content to read?

Advertising:

Yes, there’s now advertising on Hardware Revolution. There’s some on the right side bar, along with one that will added shortly after the one of every post. I think that I did find a good balance between putting them in revelant places without annoying you. What’s your take on this?
If you’re interested in learning more about advertising on Hardware Revolution, getting exposure for your product or company and supporting a growing community, I invite you to visit the Advertise page.

Your opinion:

To conclude this, I invite you to let me know what you think of the new design and the faster server. Love it? Hate it? Find it okay? What’s your take?

Poll: What kind of Computer Systems do you want to see featured on Hardware Revolution?

Mathieu — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:00:33 +0000

On Hardware Revolution, I present to you various designs of Computer Systems and I know that you always want more!

Now, I’m asking you to vote on this poll to let me know what kind of Computer Systems do you want more of?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

If you vote ‘Other’, please leave a comment to describe what you want more of.

I also invite you to comment and tell me what would be your ideal system.

Latest poll results and news: Special editions of Vista include a free upgrade to Windows 7

Mathieu — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:00:47 +0000

For the last two weeks, I’ve been asking you the following question in a poll:

How much will Microsoft charge for a Vista to Windows 7 upgrade?

Note that due to the server transfer, some votes were unfortunately lost. I apologize for that.

Results and News:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Nearly half of you wrongly guessed that Microsoft would charge $79 for a Vista to Windows 7 upgrade.

As a matter of a fact, last weekend, Microsoft started to offer Windows 7 upgrades on pre-order:

$49 for Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade

$99 for Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade

Special editions of Vista include a free upgrade to Windows 7:

If you don’t have Windows Vista, or need a new copy for a PC, yet want Windows 7, but can’t wait for its release on October 22nd 2009, you can now buy special copies of Windows Vista which come with a coupon to upgrade to Windows 7 when it will be released.

Here are the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows Vista that come with the said coupon. Enjoy.

32 bit:

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-bit
Microsoft Windows Vista Business SP1 32-bit
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 32-bit

64 bit:

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit
Microsoft Windows Vista Business SP1 64-bit
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit

Important: Server transfer

Mathieu — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:00:55 +0000

Hi,

This is to inform you that I will initiate the server transfer today, June 26th, at 7PM EST.

For the majority of you, you should be able to access the new server starting Saturday. If not, please be patient and come back on Sunday.

You’ll know that you’re accessing the new server by the new layout and welcoming posts.

Also note that while I’ve done all the testing that I could, the new server may still experiment some bugs during the first few days. If that’s the case, please contact me to inform me of the problem so I can fix it as soon as I can.

Thank you for your patience.

Regards,
Mathieu

Pre-order Windows 7 before July 11th and save over 50%

Mathieu — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:16:03 +0000

Starting today, NewEgg offers Windows 7 on pre-order, with savings up to 50%. This is until July 11th or while supplies last.

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade, for $49

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for $99

Grab your copies before they run out of stock, or before they hike up the prices!

Better and faster Hardware Revolution: Coming this weekend!

Mathieu — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:58:03 +0000

As some of you already know, from reading my Facebook and or Twitter updates, or if you’ve read ‘My experience with my host: Media Temple‘, last friday I got a new server for Hardware Revolution, a 720MB Linux Virtual Private Server from Linode.com.

From Friday to Monday, I configured the server, working on the CentOS 5.2 Linux distribution, installed Apache, PHP, MySQL and of course, my blogging platform, Wordpress.

Since Monday, I have been working on some designs change, along with introducing new features on it. I’ve done some preliminary speed tests, which are telling that this new server is way faster than the one Hardware Revolution is hosted on right. I hear you say: ‘Duh! I hope so!”
How faster is it? Latency wise, which is the time from which you send a request to the server to the time to which it answers you, here’s a quick comparison:

Current server (Media Temple Grid-Service): Average of 1.2 to 2.0 seconds.
New server (Linode 720MB Linux Virtual Private Server): Average of 0.4 to 0.5 seconds.

When are these new features and the faster server coming to us?

I’m proud to announce that I’m nearly done working on it and that it will officially launch this weekend. I will iniate the server transfer Friday in the evening. It will take several hours for the transfer to complete and while you should see it on Saturday, you may have to wait until Sunday if it’s slower to transfer than I expect.

How to overclock Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad Processors

Mathieu — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:38:50 +0000

Written by Ben Rogers, a freelance IT technician from North Devon, England. He has been into computers in a big way for quite a number of years now and loves overclocking, He enjoys tweaking PCs and seeing how fast they can go and benchmarking them too! You can see more of his work at his website, Noshins.

Getting the best performance

To get the best performance out of an Intel LGA775, either dual or quad core you will require to have the memory in sync with the FSB, which allows for maximum memory bandwidth.

Modern computers run a lot faster and smoother when they are both ran in sync. This often means running the FSB way above what it is rated for which can often require the chipset voltage to be upped a notch or two to achieve absolute stability. You will require RAM that can meet the desired FSB speed, for example PC6400 runs at 800MHz so it can cope with a 400MHz FSB.

Overclocking Principles:

The basic principle of overclocking starts with focusing on the FSB and raising it in small amounts until the system gets unstable, then upping the CPU voltage (Vcore) a notch or two before trying again,

The best way to start overclocking is by raising the FSB by 5MHz increments and testing for stability using Orthos every time that you do so.Orthos stress test the CPU, finding any errors in calculation. If the system is wildly unstable the machine will lock up when Orthos is ran. Orthos is freeware, will test 4 core CPUs and is very useful for stress testing and finding instability within cpus when overclocking

You can also use CPU-Z to monitor the processor frequency (MHz), the bus speed(FSB), memory timings and speed at which they are set.

Stress Testing:

If the PC locks up when running Orthos go back into the BIOS and up the Vcore a knotch or two and test again. If it still locks up determine whether it took the same amount of time to lock up since you upped the Vcore, if it did try losening the memory timings a bit or lowering the RAM divider to take the RAM out of the equation. If it takes longer to lock up once you have upped the Vcore you may be on to a winner, the CPU voltage may not be enough for the clock speed you are trying to run.

Up it another notch or two but be careful:

Not to exceed 1.40v for a 45nm CPU or 1.5v for a 65nm CPU, else you seriously risk damaging it.
Watch the temperatures using Speedfan, making sure the CPU cores don’t go above 60ºC.

If it is nearly at 60ºC then it is time to invest in a better heatsink/fan combo. Aim for the CPU temperature to be in the mid 30s when the CPU is idle and 50ºC full load, with good air cooling this can be achieved even with a hefty overclock providing you dont go mad on the voltage.

If you are overclocking and you up the FSB too much you may find yourself in a very awkward position, or at least that may be how it seems if the screen does not come on when you save settings from the BIOS and exit!

No POST (Power on Self Test):

This can dealt with easily by referring to the user manual for the motherboard and locating the clear CMOS jumper which is usually near the CMOS battery and moving the jumper to the clear CMOS position (the opposite two pins to where it is normally) and leaving it on clear for 30 seconds to a minute with the power plug removed from the back of the PSU.

Put it back to its original position, plug back the power cord into the power supply and trying booting again.

If your memory requires higher than default voltage, you may have to remove a stick in order to boot when you get no POST.

The Sweet Spot

A sweet spot for a lot of Core 2 Duo/Quad is to use a 400MHz FSB with PC6400, keeping the RAM in sync to achieve a nice and easy overclock if all goes to plan.

Take note though that some lower-end motherboards will simply not be able to achieve 400MHz FSB, so a lower overal overclock is to be expected with such setups, however a suitable overclock will be acheiveable with a bit of tweaking.

Memory Timings:

Memory timings can be an important part of overclocking but thesedays with the latest hardware they do not make as much difference as they used to in the AMD Athlon XP Socket A days, however, it is still worth bearing in mind that they can effect performance somewhat and tweaking them can bring out more speed from your system. They can be changed in the BIOS or in Windows by using a program called MemSet providing you have a supported chipset.

You can find MemSet here:

http://www.tweakers.fr/download/MemSet40.zip

When tweaking the memory first try changing the CAS latency down a knotch from say CL6 to CL5 and see if it works, then try the same for the other timings.

Conclusion:

I invite you to share any experience that you had overclocking, including tips and recommendations that you have for someone who’s tempted to try, yet scared of the risks involved. To everyone, good luck with any overclocking you may be carrying out!

My experience with my host: MediaTemple

Mathieu — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:19:29 +0000

Since the beginning of 2009, Hardware Revolution has been hosted with Media Temple’s Grid-Service hosting.

What were they offering and why I chose them:

For $20 per month, they offer 100GB of storage, 1000GB of bandwidth (transfer) and more.

What attracted me to them was their reputation and the professional look of their website. $20 seemed reasonable for what I considered a step up from shared hosting. I particularly liked the idea of the burst ability, for when you get hit by a traffic surge, from Digg, Stumble Upon, etc.

Overall, it seemed like a good service that could last me for at least a year. Boy, was I wrong!

What went wrong:

Shortly after transferring to them, I noticed that the blog was very slow to start loading, as in several seconds. So I submitted a ticket to Media Temple support. After waiting close to a day, which is slow by my standards, I was simply told that it had to be what I was running, that it was poorly optimized. Right…Not the best way to start with them.

About two weeks later, one of my articles reached the front page of Digg, so I obviously watched how the server reacted. Very poorly wasn’t start to describe how it did.

First of all, I received an e-mail from Media Temple stating that my blog was under major traffic and that the server would scale to handle the traffic. Alright, cool! Or so I thought.

The blog was offline:

The blog was offline! There was a message about the server scaling and that it would be back within a five minutes. WHAT!? 5 minutes offline just as I’m receiving a surge of traffic? How stupid is that?! Then again, I couldn’t do much, so I waited for it to come back online.

Some of you may remember actually, but once the blog was back online, it started to load without the theme. You’d see the text, but no header, no colors, just a very basic black and white layout shaped according to the theme. I was not happy to say the least.

No alternatives, at that point:

However, not knowing any alternative and having little knowledge with hosting, as it was The Friendly Webmaster who helped me out and showed me how to work with FTP and Wordpress back in April 2008 when I started the blog, I had no option but to stick with Media Temple until I found a good alternative and learned how to transfer my server and take care of the hosting myself.

Optimizing the blog:

Recently, I took some time to optimize the theme and the blog in general, so that it would load faster. With that done, I got the average latency time down to 1-2 seconds. It’s currently sitting at 1.4 seconds. While it’s not bad, it’s not exactly good either.

From my experience, the longer that a site takes to load, the more I’m likely to leave before even starting to read. My goal is to have it load under a second, at all times. However, 1.4 seconds is about the best that I’ll ever get out of Media Temple’s Grid Server in my opinion.

Overall, the hosting with Media Temple has been pretty reliable, except for a few slow days and the outage under the traffic surge. And the bad latency. Needless to say, I wanted something better.

Looking for alternatives:

About two months ago, I started to look for alternatives. I asked around for advice, what kind of server to get, where should I get hosted, etc.

In the end, I decided to get a VPS, a Virtual Private Server.

Pros: A VPS is hosted on a dedicated server, with a few other VPS and your resources are dedicated, meaning that no one else will slow down your website, unlike on a shared server, where hundreds, if not thousands of server compete for the server resources. It’s much more powerful than a shared server, it’s more affordable than a dedicated server and you scale it to higher levels of performance if needed.

Cons: Most VPS are unmanaged and come with no control panel. Meaning that you do all the work for setting up whatever you need. For me, the biggest con was that I had to learn from scratch how to use Linux in a server environnement. I loved the idea, being a computer geek, however I knew that I had a lot to learn before I could host Hardware Revolution.

So, I had a solution for a new hosting for Hardware Revolution. However, due to all the learning I had to do, I figured that I would read a bit here and there to learn about Linux so I could ready to configure a VPS in the future.

The straw that broke the camel’s back:

This month, the server scaled not once, twice but three times. Most likely has to do with the growing traffic on Hardware Revolution, so it’s not a bad thing in itself.

The problem is that Media Temple will charge you for a separated MySQL container if you need a server scale more than twice a month. An extra $20 a month that is. Making it $40/month.

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I will not pay $40 a month for a service that is not worth that much in my opinion.

Look forward to a better and faster Hardware Revolution on a powerful server:

Last Friday, I got a powerful 720MB VPS from Linode, who was praised and recommended by many, and I’ve started to work on it to have it ready as soon as I can manage it. As a matter of a fact, it’s pretty much ready, I only need to set a few last things before it’s 100% ready to host Hardware Revolution.

I will use this occasion to introduce a few new features to Hardware Revolution, things that I wanted to do for a long time and that are easier to introduce while I’m setting up the new server.

Look forward to the server upgrade and a faster Hardware Revolution. I don’t have an official date for you, but I’m definately working hard on this!

Updated Gaming PCs

Mathieu — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:03:16 +0000

This is to announce that all the Gaming PCs were updated, from the $400 design all the way up to the $1000 one. All of them received significant performance upgrades, so if are planning on building a PC based on my designs, I urge you to check out the Gaming PC page and update your choices.

This is also to announce that I’ll be introducing higher end models as per your demand, in the next two weeks. Gaming laptops and other types of Computer Systems are also on their way.

If you’d like to stay updated on all new designs and other articles on Hardware Revolution, check out the Free updates page to learn how you can receive all the latest articles, including new Computer Systems and updates for free, via RSS, e-mail, Twitter and soon, Facebook!

Performance upgrades to the $400 and $500 Gaming PC

Mathieu — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:08:21 +0000

The recent introduction of new Cpus from AMD and hard competition on the video cards market helped me introduce new performance upgrades to the $400 and $500 Gaming PC.

The $400 Gaming PC now features:
AMD X2 7850 Kuma BE 2.8Ghz, ASRock N68PV-GS AM2+, Radeon 4850, 4GB DDR2 800, 320GB HD, 22X DVD±R Burner, Antec 300, Cooler Master 460W, Stock Cooling, 6 Channels Sound and 1000 Mbps LAN.
It is mainly designed for gaming at a resolution of 1680×1050 and lower resolutions with medium/high settings

The $500 Gaming PC now features:
AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE Callisto 3.1GHz, ASRock N68PV-GS AM2+, Radeon 4870, 4GB RAM DDR2 800, 320GB HD, Samsung IDE 22X DVD±R Burner, Antec Three Hundred Case, Cooler Master 460W, Stock Cooling, 6 Channels Sound and 1000 Mbps LAN.
It is mainly designed for gaming at a resolution of 1920×1200 with medium settings,1680×1050 and lower resolutions high/max.