Daily Computers & Technology Thoughts

[l0k1]

I need to buy another 1TB (filled up 750gb atm) haven't decided whether or not to get an external yet though.

Although an SSD for the OS is tempting and I could afford one easily enough, I think I'll wait for the price to become more reasonable on some of the larger models.

I also need to buy a new headset, I've accidentally stepped on mine a few too many times, the right ear hasn't worked for a few weeks and now I've cracked the support on the left ear that worked so I've wrapped it all in selotape to keep it together .

This is what /g/ recommends, annoyingly prices are more expensive in the UK, but import costs make the difference negligible.

[333jeffery]

Beyerdynamics' are awesome cans, but overkill for a pc. Try the Sennheisers....

[dothacker5]

Yeah you can't go wrong with Sennheiser headphones I payed $150 for the HD280's and they destroy EVERYTHING. And they're damn near bulletproof I've fallen headfirst onto concrete and not a single scratch I was amazed to say the least. Also I was walking down the street one day and there was a drive by down the street and I couldn't hear a thing, I only noticed when I saw people running, I was listening to pretty heavy music turned up fairly high. If you want an actual microphone you could buy the add on and install them but I prefer having another mic. The head phones alone are worth it.

Just got done cleaning out an old PowerMac G3 and it was super dusty the ventilation was completely clogged. I am completely surprised how quiet and the fact it can even run OS X. I've been having problems installing Linux on it but it's not a big surprise, I mean it was built in 1998 after all and PPC isn't the most easily available architecture. I'm just going to mod it to install an intel motherboard and install OS X on it anyways. I miss Apple's old case designs they were pretty awesome and easy to upgrade. I love how the case door pulls down with the motherboard attached to it so you don't have to reach in at weird angles. The only problem is finding a board that fits and doesn't get stuck on the cd drive when you close it. I have the blue and white but would absolutely KILL for a Quicksilver G4.

[Hajime Saitou]

I also had the 280s and I can attest to the "can't hear anything at all" noise-blocking power that is has. The actual sound quality was also fantastic.

Are those Koss things the ones with the earclips? If that's the case, they're also great, but they are very fragile. The ear clips pop off easily, and while you can put them back on just as easily, they're not attached as tightly as before so they can dangle off your ear if you tilt your head. Other than that, for the price, I'd suggest buying a few of them.

Edit - Yeah, the KSC75s are the earphones I'm using right now. I bought a few spares in case I break mine again so I just went to check the packaging.

[Jon]

Those looks pretty nice, actually. Hard to believe it's from 1998

Daily thought: So my parent's aging Pentium 4 machine is starting to run really slow...I don't know why either. I know Pentium 4 chips really suck in this day and age, but this thing is LAGGING like no other. It seems to jump from 1% CPU usage to 100% CPU usage every other second. It has 2 GB of RAM, but only uses about 450 MB on start up, so I know it's not that.

Could dust be an issue? I opened it up awhile back, and seeing how it hasn't been cleaned in over 7 years, the amount of dust inside that case was amazing. The old Geforce 4200 insisde the machine had at LEAST a 2cm layer of dust on top of it

Should I just take this think out in the garage and use some compressed air?

[l0k1]

I was leaning towards buying the HD280's I spent a few hours the other day researching into the top half of that list and came to the conclusion that they offer the right quality to price ratio.

As many of you just said.

And I still have a working microphone on an old pair of USB headphones, I imagine I'll jury rig that up.

@Jon.

It's always amusing to open up the side of someones oldish computer to find it caked in dust.

It can't hurt to properly clean out the fans etc, I think you'll find the main problem is it's a p4.

AND THEREFORE OUTDATED.

[Hajime Saitou]

I have a P4 from Dell that I didn't open up until I changed the GPU several years later, and I had about the same amount of dust in there. It was a horrific sight.

At the time I didn't have any compressed air so I just blew the giant chunks away and then worked on it down until I couldn't see any physical layers of dust.

I doubt that could be the problem though. My P4(3.2GHz with Hyper Temperature) was never what I would call "snappy" but it never lagged badly or had the CPU usage go up to 100% for no good reason. I'd check for malware more than anything else.

[Jon]

Originally Posted by l0k1

@Jon.

It's always amusing to open up the side of someones oldish computer to find it caked in dust.

It can't hurt to properly clean out the fans etc, I think you'll find the main problem is it's a p4.

AND THEREFORE OUTDATED.

I know this machine is not that slow, as I used to use it a lot in the past.
Maybe because it's been on the same XP installation since we got it in like, 2001...

I think I'm just gonna build them a budget PC. I could spend about 200-300 dollars on some cheap parts that would work great for what they use it for.

Originally Posted by Hajime Saitou

I have a P4 from Dell that I didn't open up until I changed the GPU several years later, and I had about the same amount of dust in there. It was a horrific sight.

Yeah, when I opened up mine, I was surprised the thing still worked...

At the time I didn't have any compressed air so I just blew the giant chunks away and then worked on it down until I couldn't see any physical layers of dust.

See I would have done that...but I'm allergic to dust, and the second I opened up that case I started sneezing so violently that I just put the case back on and said **** THIS

I doubt that could be the problem though. My P4(3.2GHz with Hyper Temperature) was never what I would call "snappy" but it never lagged badly or had the CPU usage go up to 100% for no good reason. I'd check for malware more than anything else.

I've ran antivirus/spyware programs and nothing significant shows up. Also run CCcleaner frequently to clear up space/fix registry errors. Could this be a HDD issue? Browsing through folders is a chore on that machine...

[Hajime Saitou]

If you've been using the same XP installation since 2001 then you need to degrag that hard drive.

That still wouldn't account for the 100% CPU thing though.

[dothacker5]

Originally Posted by Jon

Those looks pretty nice, actually. Hard to believe it's from 1998

Daily thought: So my parent's aging Pentium 4 machine is starting to run really slow...I don't know why either. I know Pentium 4 chips really suck in this day and age, but this thing is LAGGING like no other. It seems to jump from 1% CPU usage to 100% CPU usage every other second. It has 2 GB of RAM, but only uses about 450 MB on start up, so I know it's not that.

Could dust be an issue? I opened it up awhile back, and seeing how it hasn't been cleaned in over 7 years, the amount of dust inside that case was amazing. The old Geforce 4200 insisde the machine had at LEAST a 2cm layer of dust on top of it

Should I just take this think out in the garage and use some compressed air?

Yeah I know the second one is from 2001 they switched to the new case after they ended the clone partnerships and good riddance. I hate beige boxes and the clone vendors were killing Apple, it was a good thing Steve Jobs started NEXT and brought a ton of it's core to OS X. Next and Apple made a lot of stuff ahead of it's time. Nextstep had a lot of crazy **** like awesome multitasking, graphics layer that could render a lot of high quality images and video at once, and networking and file sharing like you see today. When I saw the video I was amazed and it was showing the OS done in 1990 meanwhile being completely faster and easier than windows, it was also started in 1989. A lot of the same UI elements and features are in OS X if you know how to use it with all the keyboard shortcuts the mac os ruins everything else. Sure Steve Jobs is a dick but if you know what's what Apple is not some stupid closed hipster platform. I laugh everytime I hear that when I can run tons of open source UNIX apps that are already built in. They had the right idea by being able run on multiple chip types and tons of workstation features. So in essence people shouldn't talk about what they don't know especially when Apple's system is far more open than windows it's only limited to their hardware by Intel's EFI instead of BIOS which isn't really a big deal to begin with and you can run OS X on pc's by installing an EFI emulation layer.

Gah I wandered I do that sometimes. But yeah Apple had some great cases in the early 2000's I miss their retro plastic look but I'm happy they switched to Aluminum for heat dissipation and style. The only thing I really miss is the old white plastic keyboard which I own instead of that stupid laptop-like keyboard they have now and a midtower but their all in one machines are awesome. I'm actually surprised how their systems are simple but if I want to I can get far more technical with a ton of power features.

Yeah actually on that machine I would defrag, use CCleaner, and clean up it's startup programs. I've cleaned a similiar P4 and 200 mb at startup does wonders for a p4. That number is the sweet spot for giving it breathing room and it won't lag so much. Dusting it out would be nice too as it would keep it nice and cool and less prone of hardware failure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP
I'd skip to around 25 minutes, doing that much on a 25mhz cpu with 16 mb of ram in 1990 is pretty amazing within itself. This guy didn't buy the color display but it would still render the same.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXHFf...eature=channel

[l0k1]

Although these g35's are quite tempting, 7.1 in a pair of headphones sounds so plausible...

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160479

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/15...nd-headphones/

[dothacker5]

Originally Posted by l0k1

Although these g35's are quite tempting, 7.1 in a pair of headphones sounds so plausible...

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160479

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/15...nd-headphones/

Yeah those look nice but it's nice to have a pair that aren't USB. Although now that I think about it they would be nice to own for gaming and multiple OS support but 7.1 with 2 speakers sounds like a gimmick. I don't doubt their quality though but I would prefer getting some 280's and a standalone mic, I've played some Insurgency with them and let's say you combine those with a razer copperhead you will get kicked for "hacking" a lot.

Oh dear god I am so doing this when I install a new motherboard. A black G3 case? The inner geek in me just jizzed rainbows and cyborg unicorns. Now I need some spray paint and friend who's good at it.

[l0k1]

I went ahead and ordered the g35's and a spare 1TB external for the lolz.

EEEEEEEE

@dot

Black cases are clearly the superior case, mine is a metal monstrosity bought before everything went plastic.

[dothacker5]

Totally I think a Black G3 would be nice on the other side of my desk to my current PC. Weep at the epic black metal.

[Tonyx35]

A short animation for all you Windows 7-tan (Nanami Madobe) fans out there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luVODZZ6pk4

Enjoy.