Home of Aod and Thanh ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Computer site.........                

on this site i (Thanh) want to introduce that thing with which i made this website, and many many other things... it's called computer, or, simple, pc.....

My own "computerization" startet quite late, when i was about 17 years old, with my boyfriend's 80-286 nixdorf machine on which only ms dos was running and a few programmes and a game. Later, when we started making music, this lame thing was replaced by one of these powerfull sanchec machines, that one with the double-386 core and about 24 meg of ram... that was fast! Here i got the first experience with the sanchec system, (later, much later i found out that it's a kind of unix)..... My boyfriend then brought faster and faster sanchec's from thailand, and when we finally ended up in 1995, we got the latest sanchec product, a liquid cooled (!) 4x486-dtx 330!!

That Thing was so overclocked (486 cpu type intel dx-4, 4 pieces of them on a slotcard, sealed, with water circuit, electric pump, radiator at the case's backside and a fan!) that it ran physically on 330 mhz clocking, but virtually 660 MHz at double-486 performance! Man, i never saw a machine running that stable.... on the operating system s-4 by sanchec, or ms-dos 6.22 .

I ended up here... and about one year later i went back to the beginning and bought myself a 386! Just because (i was alone at that time!) to have something to do.... it was quickly replaced with a 486-dx 50, but that one had only 40 meg of HDD and, as it was a compaq, no chance to tell the bios to accept another hdd...

Basicly i gave up all that stuff, till i met sascha in 1998. He had a computer, precisely a 486-25 sx. And i started again, updated that thing to become a 486-dx4 100, 16 meg and win 95! Ok... as we then started to go online, it became to sloooooow... and sascha bought one of these 500 mhz pentium iii machines, a rocket! with 64 meg, 10 gig and a 48x cd drive. i took over that 486 and kept it till it died a undefinitable dead, something just sucked up and it didn't work anymore. I then bought, for myself, a pentium 200, used, with small hdd and 16 meg ram.

That one was slower than the 486!! so i quickly upgraded, 50x cd, 48 meg, 2 x 15 gig. And a 4 meg vga! now it was usable for internet under win 98 and with aol.

After i broke up with sascha in 2000 and short before i went to thailand, i upgraded that machine again. but this time radically, kept only the case and the drives. new mainboard (Asus), cpu (AMD k6-II 350), ram (128 meg sd), vga (8 mb), and power supply with now 250 watts. In that configuration i brought it with me when i came to thailand..... see the picture, that's me after buying the used monitor and preparing for the first run after "export" from germany.....

ok the pic is blur, but you can see that i used the old case... i brought the machine here along with scanner, mouse, keyboard and a load of cd's. the spare space in the case (Hdd's were in my small cabin luggage) was filled with socks and underwear! My suitcase was just so big enough for the pc..... Finally, the first testrun ended with the first crash and a reformat. Win 98!!!

Here in thailand it is warm. very warm. can say, fucking damn hot. so this computer had a real problem: the fan was too small and the desktop case too full! i modified that case to build in a hdd cooler, but... after only three months the 15 gig hdd died at overheating, and in the try to rescue data, i accidently formatted the other one, and could kiss goodbye about 10 gig of mp3 (my complete cd collection which i left in germany), about 1 gig of programs which i downloaded, etc etc... total loss!

Now, i bought another hdd, fittted the computer with several fans (it sounded a bit jet-like) and win me, but nothing at all could help... the brand new hdd sucked up after only four weeks, same thing, oiverheated... (It was a seagate, anyway shit)..... I think it was win me, not sooo innocent, i never had any  operating system that crashed so often like that damn me... what's the fav colour of billy the gate? blue!! some tries with linux failed, it did not like the graphics adapter and crashed just like windows. (everybody who says linux can't crash, is a liar, it can, and if it does, you can only format and re-install it!)

I gave up that one after the second hdd, and started building up a brand new system. here is it!

Only the mouse ios still the old one, a very good one, highscreen with double wheel and three button... a cheap midi case (looks nice!) with a 350 watts energy styation, two big fans, and lots and lots of space. Here now inside a gigabyte mainboard (socket seven), 500 mhz k6-II with special cooler, a nvidia 32 meg graphic accelerator, (use always latest driver, type "detonator") internal 56 kbps modem (win2k compatible!), yamaha xwave gold soundboard, still that one 15 gig hdd from germany (these are bloody good ones, even one sucked up...), 512 meg of fast SD ram (Infineon!), extra fans on graphic chip, chipset main chip, ram and graphic ram (this machine sounds not so jet-like but really like a rocket engine!), it's got two floppy drives (believe it or not, i still handle diskettes!), a 52x cd, a 8x4x32 cd r/writer, tray for a removable hdd (but no hdd there, do you want to send me one?), and another triple-fan thing for the first and main HDD.

Impressed? here's the software side. Operating system still microsoft, it's windows 2000 which is really crashproof (you canm basicly crash it, you just need to crash about 4 or 5 applications at the same time, then it maybe shows a blue screen but still first saves the content of the ram onto the disk, then u can push reset and reboot...), i run the office 2000 package in thai, frontpage 2000, severe picture viewers, photoshop, some mp3 and mpeg players (i watch a lot of vcd's, but prefer that mediaplayer 7.1 for that because it is very stable), outlook express for mails, ie 5.5 and netscape 4.71, aol 5.0, icq, msn messenger, aim, pirch, norton stuff (the complete security package, firewall, av etc), some other antivirus stuff, a million of drivers, napster and audiogalaxy etc etc etc... not enough webspace to describe them all :)

External i have that highscreen mouse, a cheap crash-and-throw keyboard in thai latyout, Epson stylus color inkjet printer and that old fellow mustek scanner. Somebody told me that one will brake after a few months, is not compatible to nothing and scans shit, but i seem to have catched a good one... works with every program, with win2k and is about two years old, still works.....

Oh, ya, i also have a monitor!! it is a hp ergo ultra 15 inch! top modern one what?

Do you know what? This site is finish here! Hmm hope it wasn't too boring.... please give the other sites a try, i hope you like them....

UPGRADE !!! Happened may 09th, 2002...

After i got a free copy of windows XP back in March, i installed that one... Windows xp is a really high reliable operating system, but, compared with win 98, quite slow in startup. Just a little faster than w2k... and when it's used together with norton antivirus and personal firewall, both in 2002 version, it's the slowest windows i know. but soooo crashproof!

So i decided to give my good fellow computer a major upgrade.

First the storage. i am al;ways running low in diskspace, so i walked down to Panthip and got myself one of these 40 gig Maxtor harddrives. Maxtor is simply the best... and kept going. Now, a week ago, one of my colleagues feered me a mainboard with CPU, just one month old, for the price of  only 2000 baht. I couldn't decline that offer, since it was a Duron 1000!

So here are the new pecifications... mainboard Asus A7A 133, CPU AMD  (what else??) Duron 1000, DT heatsink with one of the loudest fans i know (nicknamed "pocket jet engine"), 512 MB SD RAM (2X 256 dimm, the old ones), TNT 2 graphic now on AGP 4X, U-DMA 100 enabled, HDD 40 gig Maxtor (fixed) and 15 gig Maxtor (removable frame type RH 30), 52X CD-drive no-name, 8X4X32X CD re-writer Samsung, 2X floppy 3 1/2. basically same as before... the look didn't change. Oh, the power supply is now a Enermax VE 365, with double fan exhaust, to keep these temperatures in a limit (remember, Thailand is hot, and the Duron is hot by given nature!). Running at full blow, it reaches CPU 54 degrees, and mainboard 42 degrees (measured  by Asus PC-{robe and CPU-Cool). Even the mouse... The good old one is been replaced by a Logitech optical. Without Ball is just better.....

If another upgrade happens, I keep this site updated... this launched on

 05-12-2002

 

It happened!

Last week i got a new Harddisk (Seagate 40 gig) for free, and i decided to use that instead of the Maxtor 15 gig in the removable frame for backups, since it's the same capacity... then what to do with the good old Maxtor? I had a shit load of Computer partys flying around, even one more 4 gig HDD from Seagate, and recently "cought" a mini tower case... so i just put together a second machine! It's specs: Mini tower, AT 200 watts, Gigabyte mainboard socket 7, AMD (of course my dear) K6-2/500 and 96 MB of RAM. Savage Graphic (uses TV as monitor, holy hell) and Phillips PCA 722 AF sound (it's an ISA, yes sir, and it connects to ordinary, unamplified speakers because it's got own amplifier onboard). The 4 gig is the fixed drive, the 15 gig Maxtor sits in another RH 30 frame, a floppy and a quad speed (!!) CD-Drive. The LAN card was the only part i had to buy new, as they are sooo cheap here i got two of them and now my two computers network happy together. Oh, That Quad speed is due to be replaced by a DVD drive... which can send data over the LAN to the other, fast machine to actually watch the movie.

Software is a masterpiece... triple boot! Here win98 ('coz it's got drivers for that soundcard and also for the graphic!), win XP ('coz it can network, and ONLY network, plain win XP with NO features!) and, listen guys, LINUX. Here SuSE 6.4, which i like to experiment a bit with. It's crashy and most times doesn't detect the mouse (which runs on USB since the mainboard's every com port is screwed... power surge longer time ago and initial reason to replace that mainboard)

Updated dec. 24th, 2002

Hello again :) The latest updates..... oh, why that took so long? Simple... because nothing happened all the time! The main computer still works flawlessly.... and the only upgrade to it was a paint job on both of them, and also i extended the RAM to now 768 MB, by adding a third 256 MB Infineon module.

 

But now, since yesterday to be specific, i have him also overclocked, meaning i put the clock frequency of the CPU from 1.000 MHz up to 1.210 MHz, simply by setting it faster in the BIOS. So now, my faithful Duron 1000 runs at 21% faster and has a significantly increased performance. The stability is unchanged! Like a rock.....

Here are some pics from the paint job, which i did myself right here on the balcony:

Now, as you can see, those pictures are yet again outdated.... in fact, i have already sold the small computer and replaced it with a bigger one, running a 900 MHz Duron (i just LOVE those stable CPU's!) However, the other one (main computer) still looks exactly the same. Oh, what that box on the left side is for? That's a "flasher" for Nokia mobile phones, which i built myself. More information on THAT thingy are in the "Gadgets" section :)

This was uploaded on may 21st, 2004.... let's see what comes next, STILL don't have a DVD drive! aaaargh.....

And THIS is how it looks now.... couldn't keep  you guys without the current look :) 24th may 2004!

NOW i finally GOT a DVD-drive! May 31st, 2004. It's a Asus DVD-E616P, and the front panel was immediately sprayed "silver" to match with the previously painted drives. Now i finally can watch my lone DVD which is sitting here since over a year :) I got the funds for this one by selling the other computer, after there have been problems with it since quite a while.....

Hello again :)

Finally, dated September 23rd, 2005, i can report some further updates to my computer which by now is pretty outdated but still doing it's job perfectly.

Since several months i had the machine equipped with some extra external devices, such as a Bluetooth adaptor "Billionton" and a multi-media card reader that can handle MMC, SD, Memory Stick, XD and compact-flash type of cards.

Then i had the idea of souping him up a bit. So i went online and checked for compatibility, finding that there was not much possible without a BIOS upgrade. So i downloaded the latest BIOS and went ahead, with some success. Then i called the ASUS customer service in Taiwan to have some guy explain me exactly what CPU i may use - the AMD Athlon XP/2600+ being the highest supported in my mainboard. BUT it had to be a certain type of these, namely the "Thoroughbred, Model 8" with a FSB of 266 MHz.

So off to Panthip i went.

And, of course, that type of CPU is unknown to anyone there. Athlon XP 2600+ they have everywhere, but it's a "Barton". Since that was the only one available, i bought it, thinking "it's socket A and should run". I also bought a new VGA card "Nvidia GeForce 4" with 64 MB of RAM and a TV-out, because i finally wanted to watch my DVD's on the big screen. Also a bigger harddisk was needed, my main reason for this upgrade - my 40 GB Maxtor was simply full to the last byte. So i got a 120 GB one, of course a Maxtor again. And home i went.

Well, at home i did the work, put in that CPU and the card and the harddisk in the removable frame first, planning to use Partition Magic to copy all contents over first and then use the new one as first harddisk. Powered up the machine, and it looked promising - it booted.

Since it booted very fast, i could not see the POST screen and what CPU it found, but since everything worked and a lot faster than before i was satisfied, and started installing the new driver for the VGA. And here i ran into a serious problem.

It turned out that the new card was too good for my old monitor! Upon reboot after installing the new driver the only thing i got was a "out of scan range" on the monitor. I then uninstalled that driver and tried the Windows one - with the very same result. it seems that the minimum resolution for the GeForce 4 is already higher than the maximum my monitor can handle. So i took it out again and the old one back, so that at least i could continue.

Next, the CPU. It was detected only as a "Athlon XP 1800+" and ran at 1.533 MHz. I went into the BIOS and set it higher, with the result that the computer crashed. Damn. Then, calculating, i found that the "Barton" type of my CPU expected a FSB of 333 MHz which my mainboard of course did not have available. So now i set it to the highest stable settings and have it run at 1.620 MHz, which makes the machine go like a fury - the Duron 1000 was already a rocket, but this one... oh my, what comes after a rocket? Fast like hell, i never worked on anything faster. And the best.... that CPU is meant to run at 2.000 MHz with the correct FSB, so mine runs actually SLOWER than permitted - with the result that it merely gets warm when using it, not hot like the Duron. I think that in the current UNDERclocked setup, this CPU will last for ever :)

Then i continued with the harddisk job, which went without any glitch - after roughly one hour i was able to swap the two harddisks and now i am running on the 120 GB one, which is faster too at 7.200 Rpm as opposed to the 5.400 of the old drive.

Next day i went back to Panthip to exchange the VGA - chosing an ATI this time, a Radeon 9200 with a whopping 128 MB of RAM. And this one, to my slight surprise, worked from the very beginning flawlessly. It took me a little while to find my way thru the settings, but now i have perfect picture on both monitor and TV and on the TV it even goes automatically to full screen when playing a video, such as a DVD. I also finally hooked up the audio of the TV with the computer, so that it no longer takes two remotes to handle one movie. A lot of wires involved tough.......

And last upgrade in this string was just a couple of days ago when i went to Panthip again. During my last shopping spree i noticed that the price of DVD burners had come down significantly, to below 2.000 Baht for certain older models. Old or not i don't care as long as they come with full warranty, so i went two days ago and got myself a Lite-On DVD burner, which replaced my four-year old CD burner unit, which still works perfectly. Now finally i can not only watch DVD'd but also can copy them :)

That's all for now.... now let's see what comes next. Maybe i can get a "Thoroughbred" from somewhere? I don't see much more to upgrade on this old machine, the mainboard won't take more RAM nor faster CPU's, i got the latest and greatest in drives and also external peripherals are pretty well up to modern standard, apart from that old monitor. But you'll never know.... stay tuned :)