BF2S Forums Tech: Open thread

Dilbert_X wrote:

For the same price:

Dell Ultrasharp 2412M http://accessories.ap.dell.com/sna/prod … redirect=1
30% off today!

Samsung 2443BW http://www.samsung.com/au/consumer/pc-p … cification(New but just discontinued)

Which should I pick??

Edit: Cut and paste incompetence.

Dell is IPS, Samsung TN, I've seen the Samsung, not seen the Dell.

i have HP ZR22w, IPS - it's great.

It's going to be fantastic

because if it's not, AMD will really have nothing to compete against Intel

then Intel will become dominant market share, and prices will skyrocket

until nVidia starts making CPUs.

There are a few things that bug me about the HAF X chassis:

1) The right side plate (from the front) is designed with an extruded "bubble" to make more room for cable routing behind the motherboard. This would be nicer if most of the cables didn't just end up more towards the front of the case where the access holes are, but the real problem is that the thing is difficult to lay on its side unless you use a soft surface like your lap or prop it off your desk/workbench with some shims. A better design would have been to bump the entire side out to give the area behind the motherboard tray more room and the outside a uniformly flat surface.

2) The clearance between the base of the computer and the surface it's sitting on is pathetic, and pretty counter-productive for cooling, especially if your power supply's fan is on the underside of the installation. This can be solved by attaching your own rubber feet or the packaged swivel caster wheels. Which brings me to:

3) The swivel casters are pretty cheap. The hard plastic surface will scratch/gouge your desk or floor, and the sharp inner edges catch on even office carpet. More to the point, they don't have brakes, precluding my willingness to stand it up on the desk.

4) The screw-less push-button installation for the 5.25 drives is a bit of a gimmick, since it only affects the one side that you see in the advertisements. You still have to screw in the other. The 3.5 brackets are terrible. Unthreaded metal pins are affixed to each bracket via soft-rubber grommet. This, combined with the fact that the pins don't quite fit into the 3.5 drives I've tested with it, cause them to pucker out, which forces you to apply force to reinsert the bracket. And the entire package includes only one 3.5->2.5 bracket kit (which forces you to secure the drive itself with screws, thank goodness), so you're going to have to use the hot swappable bays or buy some 5.25->2.5 kits if you use SSD's.

5) Though with the quality of the tooless installation provided, I'm kind of glad they didn't apply it to the expansion bays, but it would have been nice. Thumb-screws are sufficient, though.

6) The internal air duct (the one by the 3.5 brackets) is a bit of a pain to manage. The best way I can figure to attach the thing would be to have it hanging around while you pull the wires you need through whatever holes it presents, connect them then screw it back down. The most I can say for it is that you can install a fan in the thing for extra VGA cooling, but I've seen it discarded in most builds, likely due to the hassle it represents.

7) If you don't want the short "duct" on the inside of the left side plate or your CPU cooler gets in its way, you have the option of installing the VGA bracket. This thing is a floppy mess. After awhile of dicking around with it, I threw it back in the box and left the stubby duct installed. Which brings me to:

8) Documentation. Is. Horrible. It has a lot of pictures, but it skips steps and has no written description of procedures.

============================================================

In all, I'm still satisfied with the thing. A few discarded or ignored gimmicks later and it was, on average, a pleasure to work with.

bugz wrote:

bugz wrote:

Chrome been crashing a lot for anyone lately?

Pretty sure it's Flash player. Any page with a youtube/video embed or flash ad seems to cause me grief Tried re-installing flash player but no success.

there was an update for firefox. after the browser restarted, it said there was an update for Flash. after running the Flash update, google chrome tried to install that's what i get for not paying attention . . .

chrome > all

i used to prefer firefox on my desktop/laptop, then i switched to chrome and havent even thought about looking back

Props for putting the video cards on a staticky cushion.

unnamednewbie13 1 day ago

@unnamednewbie13 Props for being an idiot.

vaguedustin 1 day ago

And to make sure I couldn't give him props for being a shaggy Youtube douchebag with shaky videos, he blocked me.

I hope he fries something.

Does anyone know when the ASUS Eee Transform 2 is coming out?

Dilbert_X wrote:

For the same price:

Dell Ultrasharp 2412M http://accessories.ap.dell.com/sna/prod … redirect=1
30% off today!

Samsung 2443BW http://www.samsung.com/au/consumer/pc-p … cification(New but just discontinued)

Which should I pick??

Edit: Cut and paste incompetence.

Dell is IPS, Samsung TN, I've seen the Samsung, not seen the Dell.

As stated earlier, I've got a Samsung and a Dell side by side on my desk at work. I'd recommend the Samsung, hands down.

If you can live with slight input lag and bleeding in games, the IPS monitor will always win. You can't really choose by brand when you compare two totally different panel technologies.

Dilbert_X wrote:

I bought the Dell, the Samsung we have at work is very good, but its just been discontinued so I'd be picking up one of the last ones around so warranty replacememts would be a problem. 3 yr onsite replacement warranty from Dell seemed OK.
And I didn't like anything thats currently available from Samsung, on paper at least.

I figured the latest Dell, in the 19:10 format I want, should be as good as a just discontinued Samsung.

No doubt I'm wrong, thanks for the input guys.

Samsung gives you new for old warranty, couriered, for 3 years.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/General-Te … erior-Just
I kinda like this kb, but the gloss is a real turnoff for me.