Tag Archives: Hardware

Intel Ivy i3 3225

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I recently bought an Intel Ivy i3 3225 processor, along with a few other items. Will expand on the other items towards the end of the post.

The reason for the purchase is I wished to build another machine for some lighter duties, as I had been using my nearly 2 year old Intel Sandy i5 2400 for such work, however since it’s primary role is for gaming, it tends to generate a bit of heat. It does after all have a GTX670 video card in it.

I did want to get one of the new low power processors, but the i3 3225 came up for a good price. Glad I purchased it as the machine when built is operating nicely, the processor with the on-board Intel HD 4000 video does everything I need.

Purchased items;

  • Asus P8H77-I Mini-ITX mainboard
  • Corsair CMPSU-430CXv3 (430W power supply)
  • Liteon IHAS124 DVD burner (cause optical drives are still handy to have)
  • BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX case (in Fire Red)
  • Microsoft Windows 7 64bit Home Premium

 

Storage Changes

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As you will remember, a few posts back I mentioned getting a HP N40L Microserver.

These are certainly good servers, but I must admit it was a little on the loud side. Although could of been lived with, however I still loved just how easy the old Synology NAS unit was that I had prior to it.

So decided to sell off the Microserver, good thing too, as the demand for them is still high so I sold it quite easy without much loss.

Had intended to get 2 x Synology DS212j’s, however it appears the supplier was wanting to get rid of some legacy stock, so I picked up Synology DS109 and a DS109+. Plan on running both with a single 2Tb drive and test out the replication between them. At the moment I only have one 2Tb drive, will get another soon.

Will get a DS212j in a few months time and populate with 2 x 3Tb drives (as they drop in price).

SSD acquired

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I’ve been tempted to purchase an SSD for my home desktop system for sometime. This is the same system I use to run a number of virtual machines and for playing battlefield3.

Got the SSD on Monday. Purchased a Corsair 120Gb Series 3 and reinstalled Windows. The time it takes for Windows to boot to logon screen is only about 12 or so seconds.

Below is how my Windows Index scores changed, and I knew this change for my boot drive would bring the score up quite a lot. So knew it was worth a purchase.

Game play via BF3 seems better too, although only early days. I need more time to play some more. I installed BF3 onto the SSD too, and have installed VMware Workstation to a 7200rpm traditional internal drive.

Desk mount monitor arm installed

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Thought about getting a desk mount monitor arm for a while, so decided to ask for it as a gift. Below is a photo of it installed and the Kogan TV I use as a monitor/tv attached. Think it’s great, allows me to have the work space available once again below it.

All I need to do now is to clean up since installing it and store stuff. Excuse my messy workstations :)

Darwyn is testing it out for me by watching some Octanauts.

HP Proliant N40L

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I know am a little behind, but I too am considering the purchase of a HP Prolian Microserver. Considering a N40L, which is the replacement to the N36L. With 4 x 2Tb drives, I figure it would make a good storage unit.

Will see how things pan out for a new year purchase, will wait for drives to drop in price again before these get purchased I think.

New mouse purchased

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I bought myself a Razer DeathAdder gaming mouse a while back and was waiting on it arriving. It arrived while I was on holidays.

Just plugged it in today and must say I am quite impressed. The tracking is so fast and the settings that can be changed using the Razer software is awesome.

Be interesting to see how I cope with it’s use in Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 (when it comes out in the next few days).

The packaging it came in was quite nice for a mouse, in fact the best packaging I have seen for a mouse ever. Highly recommend it at this stage.

Excellent Service

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You have to give thanks where it is deserved.

I’d like to give a thanks to Arc Computers in Liverpool, who assisted me today with the swapping of a front case (and all associated cables/PCB’s) of a Fractal Design R3 Define case. My one had faulty USB ports, which I believe was due to the cable + PCB having issues. So they advised to bring it back in and they would swap it out. Sure enough they did today. And I am pleased to announce with it all installed back into my system, it’s working as expected.

Thanks, and will be happy to deal with them again in the future. Good prices and excellent service.