Raffing Part 2

This post comes from a zoomwidth exercise (actually, it's in Godin's "Small Is The New Big", p.27) where I bought a magazine that I hadn't read before. The title of the mag is "Fine Woodworking Furniture" and showcases some beautiful pieces. Here are the links to a few of my favorites:

www.sethrolland.com -- I want the Tsubo Coffee Table
www.bigtreeturnings.com
www.gregbsmith.com
duncangowdy.com -- the extra depth he gives to his work with his carving astounds me.
www.customfurniture-doub.com -- check out the Mystic Bed


Most of us, especially if we have pets or kids, will probably only dream of such art in our homes, and as for myself, I'm planning on keeping my Rooms To Go and Ready for Goodwill furnishings for a few more years. But oh, when I'm ready to redecorate my living room...

I'm a Ho...With a Cooler PC

It all started with a problem. My PC kept shutting off without warning during the middle of my favorite game, Call of Duty 4. It would sometimes last an hour or two, sometimes not, but my frustration grew with every aborted match.

At first, I assumed it was the power supply – after all, the PC was a bare-bones with a no-name power supply, so I replaced the power supply with a better one and the upgrade seemed to help.

Then the shutdowns happened again. And again. And so on. But only when playing COD4 – my web surfing, emailing, and youtubeing didn't cause any trouble.

So I gave up playing COD4 on my PC and instead spent more game time on my 360.

One day I was jonesing for a new game and picked up a copy of Unreal Tournament for my PC. And guess what happened? The shutdowns began anew, and the pattern was a lot easier to figure out – they were occurring 100% of the time while playing UT3. Coincidentally, my CPU utilization while playing UT3 was also 100%.

So I began looking at the CPU temps in BIOS after a shutdown – and in one case, the temperature – after memory cycle and waiting to enter BIOS – was 80 C! For you one-world resisters and haters of all things metric, that is 176 F.

Gulp.

Luckily, the P4 chip has a built-in thermal overload (http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/7275012/description.html), which caused the shutdowns.

Now that I knew the problem, I could research possible solutions. Thanks to Tom's Hardware, I discovered the Zalman 9700, because I preferred an air-cooler to a radiator. Thanks to Yahoo! Shopper, I found Xoxide.com, whose prices were close to the best, but who also carried Artic Silver thermal paste and whose website was easiest to use.

No hassles arose from Xoxide – it shipped quickly and arrived cleanly.

I wasn't sure if the copper tube / big fin design would work better than the aluminum block / fan of my old heatsink but at 80 C, what did I have to lose? I had seen a similar design in the 360 – yes, I took one apart – and was not impressed.

But damn if it doesn't work. For comparison, with the old heatsink, my CPU temp in BIOS after a cold start was 65C, and my ATI Tray was showing mid-50s when CPU was at rest. With the Zalman, it's 40C in BIOS and mid-30s in ATI Tray under same conditions. The more astounding fact is what you see below – after a long game of UT3. Notice the CPU temp never goes above 50C with 80-100% utilization.