Category Archives: Technology

M350 and HTPC build round 2

Posted on by
Reply

If you checked out the last post about my HTPC adventure, I was using a Raidmax tower that uses a 300W PSU. It’s a nice little tower but the fan on the PSU was just too loud for my taste. So I kept looking and finally found a case that may have what I’m looking for. It’s the M350. I don’t even know who makes it but from the videos I’ve seen on Youtube and articles I’ve read online, it looks great. This case seems to be the smallest I’ve seen for an mini-ITX motherboard. I also had to get a picopsu. I chose to get a 90W picopsu and AC adapter. So far it’s been running great. The first test I did was with an Asus USB-N13 wireless adapter. It didn’t turn out too well setting up Windows Media Center with media from a NAS box. Connecting through the ethernet gigabit network improved the performance. Overall, I’m happy with the outcome. Here is a video I posted on Youtube and some pics I took.

M350 with MSI E350IS-E45

IMG_5062

IMG_5063

IMG_5064

IMG_5065

IMG_5066

IMG_5067

I wanted to show the size difference between the M350 case and an iPad2.

IMG_5068

I wanted to show the size difference between the M350 case and an iPad2.

IMG_5069

IMG_5070

IMG_5071

IMG_5072

IMG_5073

Picopsu 90W

IMG_5076

I wanted to show the area where the USB front panel cable could get in the way of the picopsu cables. This is the case for my motherboard but it could be different in other motherboards where the PSU pins are located elsewhere (like above the CPU).

IMG_5077

The picopsu isn’t sitting in there properly in this picture but I figured it out. On the video above I explained what I found.

Refurbished Amazon Kindle Fire (BOA–broke on arrival)

Posted on by
Reply

Amazon recently had a gold box deal of a refurbished Kindle Fire for $139. I’ve been curious about this device even though I already have an iPad 1 and 2 and Asus Transformer. I felt the price was great for me to try it so I bought one. The Kindle came in a simple package. It was in a brown box with the AC adapter for charging and the Kindle itself, and that was it.

IMG_5058

IMG_5059

IMG_5060

The device looked new so they did a great job with the refurbished. I turned it on and I had to set it up with my Amazon account, similar to setting up other Android devices like tablets and phones. Of course, it isn’t mandatory but without it, you can’t make any purchases. The only problem with it is it had 2 lines (red and blue) that ran across the screen. So I went into my Amazon account and was able to process a return. It was very easy and no hassle. This is one of the big reasons why I prefer to shop online versus the store. Amazon has been great with returns and customer service.

Anyway, even with the 2 lines I was still able to play with it for a few hours. I really like the interface that Amazon has created on to of the Android OS. It’s easy to navigate and find things.  After logging into my Amazon account, it was able to see all of my past purchases that the Kindle is compatible with such as ebooks and Android apps. Even being used to an iPad and my Transformer tablet, the Kindle Fire felt great as well. I thought it may be small for me.

Overall, after using the tablet I really had fun with it. I only have 2 complaints. The first is the device did feel sluggish at times when browsing around the interface. The second was the screen while watching Netflix. I was in a well lit room so it was bright. I could barely watch movies during dark scenes. The reflection off the screen made it difficult to watch. Other than that, it’s a great starter tablet and a good price. I was a little bummed about receiving broken but it’s a chance with refurbished items. Actually, of the many refurbished items I purchased in the past, this may have been the first bad one. Would I buy another if the sale comes back, probably not for myself. I already have an iPad and Transformer and from what I hear, rumor has it that Apple may be selling a smaller iPad in fall 2012.

My first attempt at an HTPC

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been messing around with the AMD E350 platform for a few months now and have been trying out VMWare and Freenas on it. The results were impressive. Don’t underestimate the E350, it can do some lifting. I then got curious with HTPC. I was able to use my existing hardware. I also had spare parts if needed. The only thing I bought was a small tower. So here’s the build.

So for less than $200 (before taxes), you can build yourself a nice HTPC. I didn’t include an optical drive in the price since I won’t be using it to play media. All of my media is streamed from my NAS server.  It has a VGA, DVI, and HDMI port already built in. It also has a gigabit ethernet port. The SSD is somewhat of an overkill but currently the prices for SSD drives are a lot more appealing than traditional platter HDD. I have been able to play 1080i videos at 24FPS.

The PC runs well and responsive. It can handle the default and AEON skins just fine. There have been some lag on the interface when video is playing in the background, but understandable with the CPU capabilities. The only thing I don’t like with this setup is the tower. The PSU fan is a bit loud for an HTPC. I may look for another one that’s quieter. For a $40 tower with 300W PSU, I can’t complain and should’ve expected that.  You just have to wait for deals. The idle temps float around 45-50° C. While playing a movie file located on the local hard drive, the temps go up 5° C. CPU usage aren’t bad either. Idle is at around 30-40%. During video playback it can get around 60%. There were times that it hit 100% but only a few seconds.

I may be getting rid of the MSI E350 and looking to upgrade it with an Intel i3 2100. We’ll see how prices change once the Ivy Bridge CPUs are in the market. Here are some pics I took.

IMG_5046

IMG_5048

IMG_5050

More upgrades to my i5 2500K

Posted on by
Reply

A few more upgrades to my i5 2500K build AKA transcoding server. First is an additional fan for my Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus. It temps only improved by 2-4° C on idle. I have the heatsink placed vertically. The air is pushing to the top onto the case fan. I would place it horizontally with the air flow pushing out to the back but it’s against the wall. I figured I have more room for the air to exhaust out on top. When I get some time, I may reposition it and compare the temperature. It isn’t an issue at the moment.

IMG_4807

The next upgrade is the eVGA nVidia GTX550TI. It’s a nice card for the price. I prefer nVidia video cards over ATI. Just a personally preference and have been happy with the performance. There were some driver instability on my GTX470TI in my other PC with Windows 7 Pro 64bit, but those have been resolved. Being a transcoding machine, I didn’t want to go too crazy on the video card but wanted the CUDA capabilities.

IMG_4808IMG_4809IMG_4810IMG_4811IMG_4812

Yes, I know, cable management. This could also be causing my weird temperatures as well haha. Again, I’ll look into it when I get some time, but not an issue at the moment.

Finally, another SSD hard drive. This time it’s the Sandisk Extreme 120GB. SSD prices have been dropping like crazy. My goal is to replace all hard drives running the operating system on all my computers to SSD… almost there.

IMG_4852IMG_4853

The computer has been running very well. Using Handbrake to transcode, CPU at mostly 100% for hours, it’s stable and temperatures don’t go over 54° C. What’s great is everything is powered with a 500W power supply.

Samsung 830 Series 256GB SSD drive

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been a month since installing the Samsung 830 Series 256GB SSD drive in my Macbook Pro 15” MC721LL/A (early 2011).

IMG_4786IMG_4787

It doesn’t come with a 3.5” adapter. It’s a simple package with a CD. Upgrading is simple with the new Macbook Pros. I never use the CDs it comes with since I just format my computer and start from scratch. Most, if not all my important files are in the cloud and can easily be restored when needed.

Overall I’m very pleased with the performance. It’s a huge improvement from the traditional hard drive but… it replaced my old Kingston SSD drive. I don’t see much improvement between the SSD drives. I guess there isn’t much difference between SATAII and SATAIII. My MBP uses SATAIII which is one reason why I upgraded. Another reason is that the Kingston only had 96GB to begin with and it was filling up fast. Here is the benchmark I ran with the the Samsung 830 drive. Unfortunately, I can’t find the benchmark I ran with the Kingston SSD.

Geekbenchbenchmark_after_ssd_samsung830