Intel Sandy Bridge

I read many of the reviews of Intel's latest second generation Core processor code-named 'Sandy Bridge'. It appears to be a real winner though the recent minor problem with the accompanying 6-series chipset have not given it a good start. But up to 40% performance improvement for the same price with reduced energy consumption is hard to argue against.

I could have been tempted given these ecstatic reviews to get a new gaming system based on one of these new CPUs, but it was difficult to justify the cost of either a new £100 motherboard and £180 for the 2500K model which supports overclocking. Obviously faster memory and a new graphics card would also be needed to support the revived heart of the gaming system. DELL were also offering the new Vostro 460 with a 2400 CPU and monitor for just £450 including VAT and delivery. A good deal!

So in the end it was probably better that Intel withdrew the 6-series chipset and I decided to rebuild my existing gaming system from an Intel Pentium E6300 3.2GHz dual-core to an AMD Phenom II X4 quad-core at 3.4GHz. A noticeable performance increase with minimum cash outlay. I'll wait for my Sandy Bridge!

Microsoft Outlook 2010 disappointment

I purchased the full version of Microsoft Outlook 2010 separately for someone who wanted to upgrade her existing computer and Outlook email. It doesn't have the spelling, grammar and smilies that the previous version has, which was a great disappointment. Even though the Microsoft Office 2010 Starter with Word and Excel was already installed and has those features. This is very poor from Microsoft as she paid for a complete Outlook retail version and some essential features are missing.

You can verify this for yourself by installing the Microsoft Office 2010 trial and just select Outlook and other support tools. No spelling, grammar and smilies when you create an email. If you install the complete set of products then normal operation is available.

Another Microsoft gotcha!

I'm playing World of Warcraft

Finally after many years, I'm playing World of Warcraft. My son gave me the game and strategy guide for Christmas and also helped me get started. He and his wife have gone back to Holland now, so my progress has slowed up quite a bit.

I'm presently a Level 16 Hunter Troll in the Barren Northlands fighting my way through the many quests. In WoWspeak I'm grinding. I'm also a leather worker who can skin many of the enemies that I shoot with my bow. However, I don't know what to do with the scraps of leather I'm collecting yet.

The game is quite pleasant graphically and not too arduous, though it is very lonely with nobody to talk to. Nobody helps me as the few that I meet seem to be busy with their own quests. I see that there is a big dungeon on the map so maybe I'll be able to group with a few people there.

WHS hard disk drive fails

I've got a Windows Home Server Version 1 that is based on a DELL PowerEdge SC430 hardware. It has the original 160Gb system disc, a 250Gb data drive and a 500Gb data expansion drive. The latter 500Gb Samsung drive has been 'lost' by the WHS storage manager. I've got replicated, Shared data folders which appear to be alright but the Backup database is not available or repairable. The 500Gb disk is discoverable and the SMART data indicates it is OK.

I have a spare, new 1Tb Samsung drive I could add. I'm not too bothered about losing the backups as all the client PCs are OK and I can re-backup when the server is fixed.

The problem is fixed! I added the 1Tb drive to the data pool and then used the 'Remove' disk option from the Data storage menu to remove all traces of the faulty 500Gb drive. As I expected, all my backups had disappeared but I was able to recreate them from the clients.

I tested the faulty 500Gb which just threw up continous bad blocks so it is being RMAed back to Samsung. Server running smoothly again.

Three cores become four

I managed to unlock the fourth core of my AMD Athlon II X3 445 and still overclock it to 3.42GHz. It is now reported as an AMD Phenom II X4 B45 processor but without the 6Mb of L3 cache.

This makes it an even better processor as it easily breaks the 10,000 PCmark05 barrier and it appears to be even more responsive. Not bad for just £57! I did add an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro v2 cooling fan and a pair of Corsair 2Gb DDR3 1333MHz memory modules. It is still worth it.

AVG Free Fails with Office 2010 Starter

I've stopped installing AVG Free 2011 with new DELL PCs that come with Microsoft's Office 2010 Starter Edition. This is because AVG gives a false positive on OFFSPON.EXE in the Q: drive which is generated by Microsoft Office 2010 SE. It then puts it in the virus vault which causes Word and Excel to stop working.

A work around is to exclude the Q: drive from the AVG scanning and ID processing but even this is fraught is errors and inconistences. It gives and 'Acccess is denied' message when you select the Q: drive even though it obviously is accessing it and it still does add the drive to the excluded paths anyway. Go figure!

Until they get this fixed and it has been a couple of months already, I will continue to load Microsoft's Security Essentials. Thereby cutting off AVG from any potential revenue from those people who are happy to upgrade to their Internet Security version.

Three is better than two and cheaper than four

I recently bought an AMD Athlon II X3 445 tri-core processor for just £57. An equivalent 3.1GHz Athlon II X2 255 dual core processor was just £11 less at £46 and a quad-core Athlon II X4 6.45 was £37 extra at £94. So the extra core to give an effective 50% performance boost for multi-tasking and multi-processing is just £11. This seems very good value.

I was able to easily over clock it to 3.5Ghz with the stock air cooler and some rather generic DDR3 PC8500 memory. This makes it even better value and the good basis for a gaming system where a quad-core CPU is not necessarily a benefit. It is obviously worth upgrading to an Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro fan and some branded performance memory.