Computer Rules of Thumb

[Uraniun235]

In reality there are only a few PSU manufacturers and most of the brand name PSUs are either straightforward re-branded OEM units from those big manufacturers, or in some cases built to ordered specs.

"Ordered specs" can be pretty significant, for example a brand that touts its PSUs as high quality may specify that only high quality components be used.

[Lagmonster]

I like this thread. I like it so much that I'm going to ask people to keep it up to date and current, and I'm going to sticky it.

[Mr Bean]

Is Asus one of the rebranders?

I did not even know they sold PSU's. I know their Video cards and motherboards are Asus made but I know they've sold rebranded in the past.

It's not coming to me but there was a company awhile back that was selling strait up Rebranded Plextor CD/DVD burners that the only change they made was to the front bezel and their sticker of Plextor's on the top.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Is Asus one of the rebranders?

I did not even know they sold PSU's. I know their Video cards and motherboards are Asus made but I know they've sold rebranded in the past.

Neither did I, although they obviously sell them as part of barebone systems. I would guess that they are not made by Asus, although they of course do have the necessary engineering knowledge to make PSUs as well. Asus is the largest motherboard manufacturer in the world and among the largest video card manufacturers. They also make a lot of complete systems for American personal computer brands, especially laptops but increasingly desktops as well. Over the years many Macs for example have been made by Asus. Foxconn is another similar big Chinese1 PC hardware manufacturer, although they have a lot less retail presence than Asus.

1 Most of these companies originated in Taiwan (RoC) and still have their headquarters and R&D departments there, but nearly all of their factories are now located in mainland China (PRC).

[MKSheppard]

Also, when ordering a PSU; take a close look at it's outputs. You want to have only the cables you need with a little overhead. Otherwise, the inside of your box will look like a spaghetti mass of wiring.

While it not only looks bad through your transparent window (which a lot of cases have now); it also cuts into airflow.

[Starglider]

Also, when ordering a PSU; take a close look at it's outputs. You want to have only the cables you need with a little overhead. Otherwise, the inside of your box will look like a spaghetti mass of wiring.

A lot of mid-range and virtually all high-end PSUs are now 'modular', in that there are sockets on the PSU for the various rails, and you only plug in the cables that you need.

[MKSheppard]

When burning Optical Discs, I've found that if you burn at a step or two below your drive's maximum write speed, it results in a more reliable burn, especially if you're doing something crazy like burning a huge 12,000 file directory to the disc.

I've also found that keeping optical discs in a cool dark place, like for example, inside a file cabinet in the basement; keeps them good for a long period of time; even if you didn't splurge for a premium archival brand of disc.

[phongn]

When burning Optical Discs, I've found that if you burn at a step or two below your drive's maximum write speed, it results in a more reliable burn, especially if you're doing something crazy like burning a huge 12,000 file directory to the disc.

Yes. There's something of an optimal burn speed for a given disc and burner; the maximum speed is usually out of specification.

I've also found that keeping optical discs in a cool dark place, like for example, inside a file cabinet in the basement; keeps them good for a long period of time; even if you didn't splurge for a premium archival brand of disc.

Cool, dark and dry does wonders.

[Stark]

I haven't seen a burn fail since 2003. Then again, I barely see the utility of burning disks at all these days, and the burning apps I use these days generally default to x16 (as opposed to 50x or whatever the max is for my drive). Some of them even complain if I change it myself, since they know what the hardware and media are.

Is it really 'advice' to recommend storing a disk as describe on the label? Then again I've never had a disk die due to medium failure (as opposed to 'scratched to shit' or 'warped by heat') either; a pile of crappy TEAC 4x disks I burned in 2002 still work fine (for all the good the worthless shit on it is). Relying on them to back up stuff sounds dubious, but I guess people are hoarders.

Perhaps it'd be more useful to talk about relative reliability over time of different media. Many people have moved to flash and maybe some people still use tape drives, and they're all different with regard to lifetime, how use affects it, and the results of failure. I generally backup to offline HDD these days, but of course if it fails it's totally fucked and I'll probably lose everything.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Perhaps it'd be more useful to talk about relative reliability over time of different media. Many people have moved to flash and maybe some people still use tape drives, and they're all different with regard to lifetime, how use affects it, and the results of failure. I generally backup to offline HDD these days, but of course if it fails it's totally fucked and I'll probably lose everything.

All really important data should have double backups and preferably on different media if you use consumer grade media. For example if you back up regularly on offline HDDs, you should also backup on optical disks or flash at least occasionally.

If all your data hard disks are at least RAID 1, you can usually get away with single backups. Yes; RAID is primarily intended to decrease downtimes rather than substitute backups, but a fact is that both a complete RAID system failure and damaged backups are an extremely unlikely event, especially if you store your backups in a different building or fire-safe cabinet.

Of course not all data is really important. For such data a single backup is usually sufficient and an external HDD is by far the easiest way to do it.

[phongn]

I haven't seen a burn fail since 2003. Then again, I barely see the utility of burning disks at all these days, and the burning apps I use these days generally default to x16 (as opposed to 50x or whatever the max is for my drive). Some of them even complain if I change it myself, since they know what the hardware and media are.

It's not so much that a burn has a positive-failure, it's the risk that it fails silently (corrupted data or blurry writes, etc.).

Is it really 'advice' to recommend storing a disk as describe on the label? Then again I've never had a disk die due to medium failure (as opposed to 'scratched to shit' or 'warped by heat') either; a pile of crappy TEAC 4x disks I burned in 2002 still work fine (for all the good the worthless shit on it is). Relying on them to back up stuff sounds dubious, but I guess people are hoarders.

People often don't read the labels telling you how to store a disk?

[MKSheppard]

Get Microsoft Security Essentials. Link to MS Site

You can download it and use it as long as you're using a genuine copy of Windows. Why pay $50 to $80 each year for an anti virus program, when you can get the definitions and a decent program free from Microsoft?

Sure, it may not be as good in catching viruses as NOD32, or what; but fuck, you don't need professional grade antivirus programs unless you're deliberately going to the bad corner of the internet.

Windows Firewall combined with whatever you have for router hardware firewall (you DO have a router? Most people do nowadays), should be enough to stop 99% of all intrusion attempts.

[Guardsman Bass]

Sure, it may not be as good in catching viruses as NOD32, or what; but fuck, you don't need professional grade antivirus programs unless you're deliberately going to the bad corner of the internet.

Does the "bad corner" include porn websites?

[phongn]

Does the "bad corner" include porn websites?

Yes.

Sure, it may not be as good in catching viruses as NOD32, or what; but fuck, you don't need professional grade antivirus programs unless you're deliberately going to the bad corner of the internet.

Even now there can be problems with adservers - sometimes people use them to server malware on otherwise legitimate websites.

Windows Firewall combined with whatever you have for router hardware firewall (you DO have a router? Most people do nowadays), should be enough to stop 99% of all intrusion attempts.

Quite so; outbound firewalls are not needed for desktops (and Vista/7 have a fine-grained one anyways).

[MKSheppard]

Even now there can be problems with adservers - sometimes people use them to server malware on otherwise legitimate websites.

The only time I got hit by a virus/malware program, it was from HPCA from when it was on Yukupoo. It was one of those "fake virus scanners" which mapped all the buttons to install it, even if you hit the windows "x" close button.

[Glocksman]

Shep, when you say 'avoid Outlook', do you mean the full featured PIM that comes with Office or the horseshit 'Outlook Express' email program that comes with windows?

IIRC other than the names, the two have little in common and it's 'Outhouse Express' AKA 'Microsoft Virus & Trojan Magnet' that's the one to avoid.

As far as AV programs go, MSE is the one that I install on the machines I work on for others as a sideline.
Though if the customer is repeat business because their 12 year old downloads more malware than music via torrents, I highly recommend either buying the kid his own machine to infest or purchasing ESET's NOD32 antivirus.

Frankly I'm still somewhat amazed that people are willing to pay me $40* to simply reinstall windows and run win update.
Especially after I explain to them how to either run the recovery partition (non-Dells) or use the discs that came with their Dell to reinstall it themselves.


*That's the 'carry in' rate, as I can do other things at home while I wait for the installs and updates to finish out.
The hourly rate for housecalls is $35/hr with a 3 hour minimum for a full OS and app reinstall.

[Zixinus]

Just want to ask: what's the word on SSDs? My favourite shop offers a 128GB model for as much as a new netbook.

Should a SSD-drive laptop/netbook be brought or a HDD one? Is there a possibility of a future upgrade?

[Mr Bean]

Just want to ask: what's the word on SSDs? My favourite shop offers a 128GB model for as much as a new netbook.

Should a SSD-drive laptop/netbook be brought or a HDD one? Is there a possibility of a future upgrade?

128 Gigs is just not enough for a desktop but fine for a netbook. But a 128 Gig SSD normally doubles the cost of any Netbook by itself so price issues remain.

[Stark]

If they keep coming down in price as they have been since a 4Gb was hugely expensive, it should be less than 2 years until a serviceable SSD is economical.

[phongn]

Just want to ask: what's the word on SSDs? My favourite shop offers a 128GB model for as much as a new netbook.

Indilinx-based and Intel SSDs are very fast. JMicron-based ones are not so fast (especially at random writes). All use less power than conventional hard drives and should be more resistant to physical shock. There are some teething issues with firmware right now.

Should a SSD-drive laptop/netbook be brought or a HDD one? Is there a possibility of a future upgrade?

Depends on your needs; HDs remain less expensive. You should be able to upgrade (most SSDs use the standard 2.5" SATA form factor)

[MKSheppard]

There are some teething issues with firmware right now.

"Teething issues" is an understatement, particularly when drive bricking is concerned; especially at the price premiums being paid now for SSDs.

[Xon]

Indilinx-based and Intel SSDs have utterly insane performance profiles, you get almost no degradation when multipule IO requests are hitting the disk at the same time. Where as a spinning disk will perform much worse if two things attempt todo operations at once rather than wait and do things sequentially.

Vista on a cold boot tends to slam the OS drive with a lot of Input/Output operations, with a reasonable SSD this is completely unnoticable.

[Zixinus]

So, as of writing this post, I should put SSD's on hold until the prices of high-performance versions come down?

[Napoleon the Clown]

Basically, yes. Unless you have a pressing need for something that performs like the high end SSDs do, it's probably not going to be worth the money for the amount of storage you get. The cheap ones can often be slower than a standard HDD.


Now, would there be a noticeable difference in performance with a 10,000 or 15,000 rpm HDD? Or not worth the money once again?

[phongn]

Now, would there be a noticeable difference in performance with a 10,000 or 15,000 rpm HDD

Yes. Flash access time is much, much faster than any hard drive's seek time, even 15K SAS drives.