Tech News
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PNY Optima 240GB SSD Review @ Tweaktown
Slow booting PC got you in the dumps? Well, good news is on the way. PNY has a few new rebates offered on their value branded Optima 256GB SSD drives to give that computer a swift kick in the pants, without putting a large dent in that tax return.
PNY has the two lowest priced 256GB class SSDs on Newegg. One we've seen before and the other is new. Chris tells us about the new SMI controlled Optima.
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Buy EVGA GeForce GTX - Get Watch_Dogs!
Do you remember video cards used to come bundled with video games? EVGA remembers and is offering a copy of "Watch Dogs!" when you buy select EVGA branded video cards GTX 660 and above.
April 29th, 2014 - In a world of smart technology, you need smarter weaponry—GeForce GTX graphics cards. Now for a limited time, you can get Watch_Dogs free with purchase of an EVGA GeForce GTX graphics card (GTX 660 and above).
Take your fight to the streets with a whole new level of performance, ingenuity, and technology including exclusive NVIDIA® TXAA™ antialiasing for stunning graphics, HBAO+, and 4K Surround™ for the most immersive experience. Also, share your greatest Watch_Dogs moments with GeForce Shadowplay™ and get one-click settings optimization and driver support with GeForce Experience™ technology.
Watch_Dogs™ on GeForce GTX. The Way It’s Meant to be Played..
About EVGA
EVGA is the #1 NVIDIA authorized partner in channel sales throughout North America and UK. Based on the philosophy of intelligent innovation, market knowledge, and the real time operation, EVGA continues to identify the need in the market place and providing the solution to that need. By offering product differentiation, 24/7 tech support, a 90 day Step-Up program, and other customer focused programs, EVGA is a clear leader in all categories: etail, retail, distribution, and system integration. With headquarters in Brea, CA, EVGA’s global coverage includes EVGA GmbH in Munich, EVGA LATAM in Miami, and EVGA Hong Kong. For further information online about EVGA, visit: http://www.evga.com
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Vantec NexStar 6G 2.5" Hard Drive Enclosure Review @HiTech Legion
With SATA hot-swap drives gaining ground in the US, manufacturers are getting creative in offering portable solutions to fit between the current large external drives and the smaller flash drives.
The Vantec NexStar 6G 2.5” SSD hard drive enclosure is the perfect middle ground. The NexStar (M/N: NST-266S3) by Vantec allows users to put in whichever size SSD fits their own needs best, and supports USB 3.0 speeds of 6GB/s using the latest UASP protocols for Windows 8. The NexStar is made of aluminum and has a plastic tray which slides out to attach the SSD, and measures 120 x 77 x 15.5mm (LxWxH).
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Feenix Nascita Mouse and Dimora Mousepad - BCCHardware
So a discussion came up recently as to the moniker of "gaming gear", and what traits or features set those items apart and above from just normal every-person gear. When the dust settled, we might have had better luck settling on what the best kind of cookie is, (chocolate chip) or something less controversial.
Does a mouse need more buttons than your keyboard, a software suite to rival Microsoft Office, the body design of an Italian supercar, enough processing power and memory that we could conceivably overclock it, or is the essence something simpler then that? This also appears to be the question that Feenix, a new peripheral manufacturer, poses with their inaugural launch of the Nascita gaming mouse.
When it comes to performance, both the Dimora pad and the Nascita mouse score 10/10. Both performed great. I didn’t have any issues with tracking with this pair or any combination of anything else. There was no mouse lag and the buttons are very responsive. DPI adjustment works instantly and I like the fact that you can change the sensitivity on the fly.
The points that were readily agreed on were, that it was responsive enough both in tracking and clicking that we didn't feel that the hardware was a factor in our performance. As for any other features, personal preferences and what game/class/mode/character/role was being played were factors. -
Gigabyte BRIX Pro Mini-PC Review @ Madshrimps
Just like the Mini Cooper, and more recent Fiat 500 invasion, compact is apprently the new cool. The small form factor PC emergence over the last year as we reported couldn't have been more pronounced than at the most recent CES event in Las Vegas. Since seeing the BRIX for the first time there, apparently a new hot-rodded version has been released - the BRIX Pro.
Does size really matter? On some human levels it might, though a different trend has been observed in the PC market over the last year. Compact is the key word, featuring mITX sized motherboards and idem ditto enclosures. These compact PCs are playing a more and more important role in every manufacturers' lineup: Mini PCs, NUCs, they are all amongst us now. For most users the bundled power is more than plenty as the size maters the most. Nevertheless combining the raw power of a desktop setup inside a mini sized housing is a step in another direction. Gigabyte is having big success with their BRIX boxes, time to step up one level. Today we are going to test one of these Gigabyte supercharged versions: the BRIX Pro.
I do feel that there is a growing niche for these, especially as device interconnectivity continues to flourish and the PC starts to find itself in new spots like the family room, where the bulk of a full or half-tower chassis footprint may not fit in modern entertainment centers. -
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 8GB and R9 290X 4GB Video Cards in CrossFireX
This honestly sounds like the premise to every Buddy Cop movie made in the last 20 years. "Two video cards, one a professional who likes to work solo, the other a dedicated by-the-book kind of card. They're going to be partnered together for the case of their careers!"
We throw a HIS Radeon R9 290X 4GB in with the new R9 295X2 8GB and see what kind of magic we can make happen. Let's take a look at the gaming numbers now!
Cinema silliness aside, it's a good read, and worth a look to see how well two powerhouse cards handle everything that can be thrown at them. -
Mionix Avior 7000 Gaming Mouse Review @ Madshrimps
With optical sensors now reaching sensitivities and polling rates once only accessible by laser, I wonder how long before the two sensor technologies are virtually indistinguishable from one another? Or are they nearly there now? Food for discussion.
Along with the Naos 7000, Mionix has also launched an ambidextrous model baptized Avior 7000. This product shares all the good features from the Naos, including the Avago ADNS-3310 IR-LED Optical Sensor which tracks with a maximum DPI of 7000, 128Kb of on-board memory for storing profiles, 4 rubber coating layers or illumination control via software.
It's also a pleasant sight to see more ambidextrous designs released into the wild, and it doesn't look half bad either. Very sleek design traits shared with other competitive mid-range gaming mice we've seen and reviewed. -
KingFast Encrypted USB Key Review @ ModSynergy.com
I can't tell you how many times I misplaced, left behind, or forgot my USB drive at the labs on campus, or at a buddies house, and I know I'm not alone. I'm sure everyone has a horror story about losing their own drive at one point or another. Those experiences taught me two valuable lessons in life. Never keep anything on it I wasn't willing to lose, and always keep a backup of those files somewhere if I did.
The KingFast Encrypted USB Key aims to secure and protect any information you save onto it with its hardware based AES256 data encryption, self destroy function, among other features in its arsenal. Read on to see how you can best protect your data with an Encrypted drive such as the one from KingFast.
With the storage amounts for these drives climbing into multiple gigs of space. Having a way to secure the data on these highly mobile, and very compact (read: small, tiny, easily misplaced) drives is a great step in the right direction. -
Asylum: Review Block - Headset Showdown!
It appears that there has been a steady stream of gaming headsets and audio devices coming into the market lately by familiar faces, joined recently with a few new companies looking to carve a name for themselves. So let's find out how these titans of treble and behemoths of bass stack up with their new offerings for our eardrums.
Headsets
Tt eSPORTS Level 10 M Gaming Headset (Iron White) Review @ Madshrimps
Ozone Onda PRO Review @ Vortez
Cooler Master CM Storm Pitch Gaming Earphones Review @ Madshrimps
BitFenix FLO Headset Review @HiTech Legion
Sennheiser G4ME ONE PC Headset Review - BCCHardware -
Running Slackware Linux on Hyper-V: Pro Tip
Over the past few weeks I've been working on a Linux project. My project isn’t complex just a new application server that will be running within a Hyper-V VM. Slackware is my distro of choice and I was happy to see that the latest versions supported Hyper-V.
As part of my testing I installed Slackware 14.0 on my server and installed and ran like a champ. Of course when Heartbleed got fixed I figured it was time to upgrade my project to Slackware-current (14.1) and that is when things got interesting.
I spent the better part of 8 hours trying to figure out why Slackware 14.1 would install on my Hyper-V machine but would not run after the initial install (eg first reboot) . The log showed a kernel panic and basically froze. As it would turn out the Hyper-V modules were not loading in the correct order and when the Kernel tried mounting /dev/sda2 (my root partition) saying it couldn't find it.
Turns out the fix is pretty simple and I'm here to pass along some information.
Some background on my setup:
Windows Server 2008 R2 running Hyper-V
Slackware 14.1
VM using two cores and 24GB virtual drive
I'm using XFS as my filesystem and have swap space at /dev/sda1The error I was getting was somewhat cryptic"kernel panic - not syncing : VFS: unable to mount root FS on unknown-block"
Basically the error is saying that the system cannot mount the root filesystem as indicated in Lilo. You could have a similar situation had this been a RAID or a new disk using a different filesystem. To resolve this issue I needed to create and load an Init Ramdisk (initrd.gz) that contained the driver modules needed to load the root FS.
Here is the process to follow:
- Boot the system using the install disk and login as root.
- Mount the target partition "mount -t xfs /dev/sda2 /mnt"
- Set /mnt to root "chroot /mnt"
- Change directory to "/boot"
- Make the initrd, There is a helper script to get you started but for Hyper-V it doesn't apply since you need to load the Hyper-V system bus and storage service (hv_vmbus hv_storvsc) to load the drive, use the following command "mkinitrd -c -f xfs -r /dev/sda2 -m hv_vmbus:hv_storvsc:mbcache:xfs -u -o /boot/initrd.gz"
- If your kernel version is different from your boot media add -k [kernel version] (ex '-k 5.4.38') to the build string.
- Add this to lilo.conf by adding "initrd = /boot/initrd.gz" right after the boot image line
- Run "lilo" to set the configuration
- Reboot
- Update (5/3/20): I was testing out Slackware64-Current (Slackware 15) and kept getting an memory allocation error when mounting the drives on boot. The fix was to change vmlinuz (symlink to -huge) to vmlinuz-generic in lilo.conf.
They say you can recompile the Kernel to include Hyper-V support however, considering that both vmlinuz-generic and vmlinuz-huge kernels include support as modules you shouldn't need to. The difference is that "huge" loads all of the drivers and is why I could install the OS on my VM. When the system rebooted it switched over to "generic" and just didn't load the modules in time.
Overall I'm just happy that I got it working and am still confused as to why Slackware 14.0 worked out of the box and why Slackware 14.1 failed.
