How to Spot a Good Motherboard

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I was recently browsing the web to check the price of my motherboard, when I found something surprising. I purchased my Intel DG965WHMKR motherboard for Php 6,500.00 back in May 2005, and as I was checking the prices I found out that the average price for this motherboard is currently and possibly for the year 2009 would be at Php 6,100.00 and that price is for outside the Philippines. How much more would that be if the board is to be purchased here it probably would cost at least Php 8,000.00. Anyway, here are some tips to picking a good board.

 

intel dG965wh motherboard

Here’s the first tip: Good motherboards will always be hard to find. No matter how much publicity you see for a motherboard it is always best to check the net for forums that have user opinions on the boards. Be careful though some companies use SEO tactics and do shameless self promotion with their products. A good tip would be to check the forum poster’s number of posts, the higher the posts the better.

 

Second Tip: If you are a computer enthusiast, a good motherboard for you would be one that is fully customizable. I can’t give out any suggestions on what motherboard brands to purchase but look for one that has good warranty coverage. This is so that you can relax easy while overclocking or concocting a new super computer that can rival Google’s servers.

 

Third Tip: If you are not a computer enthusiast and want a motherboard that is budget wise and will last for a long time, go for Intel motherboards, not motherboards with Intel chip sets but motherboards that are manufactured by Intel. I can assure you Intel boards, with regular maintenance (anti-virus, defragmenter) can last to more than 6 years based on personal experience. This is backed up by the fact that Intel has been producing server motherboards for IBM mainframes for a long, long, long time already.

 

Lastly: Picking the motherboard should be the task that will take you the most time when building a system. Keep in mind that the motherboard is the glue that will bind every component of the PC and so it is very important to choose carefully. I have always noticed since computers were sold as packages at stores here in Davao, store owners will not put the motherboard brand on the package list. They usually think that the system is good to sell as long as the CPU is fast, the hard drive is spacious, the monitor has a large and clear screen, the memory is high and the video card. I always end up asking “What’s the motherboard of this package?”

 

pc 005

* I have owned this computer since May 2005, even though I have been quite abusive to the computer such as turning off the CPU by holding the power button and even pulling the plug immediately, I still have the original installation of Windows XP running on the machine from the day I purchased the system. (“Original Install Date: 5/7/2005, 11:24:05 PM” – You can check for your installation date by executing the “systeminfo” program in the command line of Windows XP.)

 

PS: Lastly, the motherboard that I would not recommend you purchasing would be ASUS motherboards. Even though ASUS has good marketing, IMHO, I don’t think they produce high quality motherboards. I am saying this because I have a lot of friends who own ASUS motherboards and they always keep asking me for help on something such as unexpected restarts and BSOD which I will not be able to fix because I have traced the problem as part of the hardware. As a systems administrator, web developer and programmer I have used and fixed a lot of comptuers that run on ASUS motherboards one such example that would be easy enough is when I am updating the BIOS, I distinctly remember two units with ASUS motherboards failing the update and rebooting to the old BIOS. Another problem I have with ASUS motherboards is that when you try to check their website for drivers, most of the drivers are dated back when the motherboard was released. I would not even bother installing the auto updater that comes with the CD for the motherboard in the office because it would only be a waste of memory.

 

And if any ASUS motherboard fans are reading this here are two things to think about. ASUS produces about 15 to 30 new motherboards per year (this is due to the fact that they also produce motherboards for AMD) while on the other end, Intel produces about 5 to 9 new motherboards per year. Another thing, with that much marketing and publicity how much do you think they will have left for funding research and development?

Religion, Belief, Jesus Christ and God

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I just read this discussion in Blog Catalog: Do You Believe In Him, jamesparmis asks “Do you believe in him?”, I have not posted in a while and this was an interesting topic about and for that all I can say is…

 

 
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Yes, I do believe but regarding religion:

 
“I have nothing against any form of religion, all I see in this world are two types of people, the good and the bad.”M o u s h i g o
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It’s a cruel fact that religion can cause drastic changes to a person’s view in life. It is also too common to see people looking and finding religion in good and sometimes weird ways. I say pick one and be good! ^_^

The Differences of the Xbox 360 and PS3 (or Playstation 3) to a Gamer

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image_00004.jpg
the setup i have at home, playstation 2 in the middle and xbox 360 to the right on a 32″ samsung lcd monitor, the 360 is directly connected to the router using a lan cable to enable tversity sharing with my pc

xbox360.pngI’m posting a funny video from YouTube uploaded by machinima.com. It is all about the topic. It is been quite a while since I won my Xbox 360 in a Microsoft event. I have not been playing many games on it but rather using it as a Media Center playing DivX movies, FLAC format Audio Files and Photos directly streamed from my PC using Tversity and has proven to be quite too useful almost as if it were a personal computer. I have always been an avid fan of Sony’s Playstation console but somehow I just think they overdid it with the (PS3) Playstation 3. c(”,)

ps3.pngOne thing bothers me with the PS3, the Blue Ray Disc. If you ask me, 40 gigabytes of disc space, especially in games, will always amount to lag. Unlike hard disk drives, removable discs are not mounted well enough to achieve high speeds and as it turns out I was right. The video posted below shows why this is so. It would have been better if they separated the Blue Ray Drive just like the Xbox 360 to reduce the cost of the console. A blank Blue Ray Disc would cost 1,000 Php ($25.00) here, how much more the games? They should have just placed the games in the DVD9 format. It looks as though they were trying to market it as a media console and not as a gaming console. Hopefully the price will go down throughout the year. You could save up to buy the console and you will save again for the games. In my humble opinion, if you would really really want to buy one, it would be better to get one that is second hand.

Summarizing this, To Sony, the Playstation consoles should always purely be for gaming! Put funds into the games you offer not into the console! This is the basic reason why the Playstation 2 and Playstation 1 were such great consoles. Have fun watching the video! c(”,)

this is a video from youtube created by machinima.com, although it is quite harsh to playstation 3 owners, it does prove to have some points on the downsides of having a playstation 3 console

Intel Extreme Motherboard D5400XS (Skulltrail), the Overclocked Server!

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Intel SkulltrailIntel’s latest top of the line motherboard, the Intel D5400XS, is the only desktop motherboard that I can say can perform as a gaming rig as well as performing the duties of a 24/7 server. It might be a pointless,stupid and unnecessary idea to do so because this would boost the price tremendously so no one will be able buy this board but that is just what Intel is all about.., to be able to balance extreme reliability and extreme performance. I dubbed it as the first ever retail "Overclocked Server" even though it is not a common thing to overclock servers. c(”,).

I am an avid fan of ATI and AMD as gaming platforms but since I work as a Systems Administrator, Software Developer, Web Developer and a hardcore Gaming enthusiast, I will always prefer a motherboard and a processor that can handle such tasks that pertain in each category, power, reliability, speed, efficiency and have good support. Based on my experience maintaining AMD class workstations (use, udpating bios, installing, formatting, bios/OS optimizations etc..), AMD is just not cut out to do this, AMD will always be for extreme graphics games and light computer processing. This is due to some motherboards that support the AMD platform, I will probably write a future article on why this is so. This motherboard however is a supports of all of the above. I was so amazed seeing this board when it first came out in February of 2008. Back then I was expecting if there was ever going to be a Pentium 5. Intel also does not support overclocking in their boards but this board is in the Extreme Series so it can do overclocking as well.

Intel® Desktop Board D5400XS (Retail Edition)
Intel Desktop Board D5400XS

As a Server and Workstation

dbextreme_74.gifThe Intel D5400XS can support 8 cores and is based on a Xeon supporting motherboard, Intel’s Xeon supporting motherboards are the best there is when it comes to reliability, as an example, Xeon class motherboards are used by IBM in its servers. I as a Systems Administrator have dealt with IBM Servers, they are very reliable and can be left on for months without slowing down and in my experience as an Intel user I too know how Intel boards are well built. My previous computer has Pentium 3 motherboard D815EEA2, it lasted me 5 years formatting only twice in that span. Dual booting with Windows 98 and Windows XP, it ran for at least 5-8 hours a days because my sister also uses it in the evening for her school assignments and other online activities, plus I leave it running to do downloads and uploads. I do not even hesitate or get scared in updating Intel’s motherboard BIOS, it’s just that reliable. It was the opposite back then when I still had a motherboard with a VIA chipset running S3… >_<

As a Gaming Platform

Let me just say one thing. Triple-crossfire support I do not know about Quadfire, looking at the board I do not think it will fit. Too bad for NVIDIA though it can only support 2 SLI and not triple. c(”,)

/hmm: It is a bit weird thought though, ATI is owned by AMD but Intel supports ATI over NVIDIA…

All in All

It’s an extremely good board! A bit expensive though but if you need a well balanced computer that will last you a long time, let us say 5 years or more, This motherboard or perhaps any Intel motherboard would be the best way to go.

The Phenomenology of Love

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Searching through a vast wasteland of MS Word documents in my computer I was able to find a worth while read. I wrote this article for our Philosophy 104 class in college and it at landed a perfect score at 100%! I really don’t know why because I don’t really have good grammatical skills in writing even now. I remember I was still in third year college back then, It took a lot of time to think about this article and most of it discusses on how Filipinos differ from other countries when it comes to love. c(”,)

Wow, it really has been quite a while since I’ve read this. Hope you’ll enjoy it as I did writing it without giving any thought to it. I just kept writing and writing and writing……..

****************** Here it goes….. copy if you want to just leave some comments or credits ******************

 

 

 

 

 

The Phenomenology of Love

 

By Kenneth Carlo Santos

 

 

 

 

 

B.S.-Computer Science 3A
Philosophy 104

 

2:30 – 3:30 MW

 

 

 

March 20, 2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Respectfully Submitted to:

 

Mr. Ryan Maboloc



Ateneo de Davao University College

Philosophy Division

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love 101

 

As a Filipino I myself have a different viewpoint on love and so do most of us. A Filipino’s love for a woman or a man is something far more complex than the other forms of love that we look up to in television in movies that view love in its highest form as sex, which is false. The Filipino’s love is more romantic and true in form because it evolves and is nurturing. My phenomenology deals more about the male Filipino psyche because female Filipinos are more difficult to understand for now.

So what is love then? Love in its basic form is conscious care. Just like when a man loves his car, he will always think about what might happen to his vehicle and thinks positively of it. This is also the case when a Filipino man loves a woman. He thinks too much of the other which can cause him to forget that he himself exists too. This is not loyalty but indeed, it is stupidity. Loyalty in love therefore only exists when the couple se each almost all the time which greatly supports the statement “actions speak louder than words”. The women call this stupidity “sweet”. What is so sweet about that? You never get to get together with your friends, be in solitude yet unknowingly men like these too I really do not know why but the fact is that is what Filipino love is.

 

The Course of True
Love

 

True Love may seem impossible but can exist. The path to true love is a long and arduous one. What is long here is the realization part of a Filipino man if he really thinks that the one he loves is truly the one for him and would complement for his incompleteness. I will elaborate on the paths I have taken and might be the right one.

Number 1, the contact, for men, this is the time when our necks really ache for an awful long time due to staring. Contact is extremely important in the process because without it interest never blooms. The contact I describe here is not contact by the eyes but by thoughts, no one can fall in love with just looking at the person if this is so it feels like falling in love with an object. Anyone who is able to get a girlfriend or boyfriend at this time is just puppy love. Filipinos express love differently at this time, they do what they feel and they do not say what they think about the other, definitely not straight to the point well at least its nice and unique. The initial contact can lead to more and more meetings, meetings of the mind. Usually during the first time, Filipino men try to hide their feelings to preserve the macho instinct. This is funny because the time will come when the one they love will move out and then the men regret their choice. Then when the next one comes along, they do the same mistake again. This only proves that both sides need to do something in order for them to be one. One side cannot exist without the other just as the message must come from one side and must deliver to the other. Rejection is such a big deal for the Filipino man and the best thing to counter this is to accept it.

After acceptance of both sides, they announce their love to the world I do not see any reason why they should do this but it can serve as proof that they both love each other. This helps in creating true love because a couple who is not afraid of showing love in the world knows they have accepted each other and know each other as well. In a way they show selflessness in a form where in both are not shy to admit there love. So that this bond may persevere, they create a vow upon each other wherein they follow it so they may consider themselves loyal and faithful. The vow here can reach as long as a whole book but even so this does not mean anything at all for true faithfulness and loyalty lies in the fidelity of the person or the heart of the person. To this extent if a person does not respond to fidelity he only has auxiliary love. This makes the other person as a necessity to the other person that creates two “I need you” statements. The first “I need you.” wherein the “I” is the mind and is only one part of the body and does not supplement for true love. The second “I need you!” stresses the fact that the Self needs the other person to supplement what we know as something missing from our life’s basic equation. Still, this equation will always be unanswerable for a long time. To be able to grasp the situation the Filipino man will have to undergo the process of knowing his partner a little more. Frequent dating is the answer to this ongoing question. Day after day after day the couple will go out and decreases through time as more and more information pass through both minds and after all, we all know “Knowledge is Power”.

In addition, love cannot be complete without its constant fights and LQ that can become QL. Fights do have their purpose in love. It is the methodology used to settle differences between the couple. It can also be a tool used for mass destruction. Fights do have a devastating effect on the body typically the brain or the psychological and neural functions that a person has but most importantly the heart. A fight can cause the break-up between two couples. Why do they break-up? The only thing present here would be the tangible vows that both have created. The cause would probably come from the Article 1, Section 1 of their vows that would mean the most important one of all the vows. Acceptance plays the big role in fights, if one cannot accept then he must leave because love without full acceptance is only love that goes one way, to the Self.

After a few more years of this one begins to wonder and ask “What is this?” and “What am I doing?” this is the starting point of knowing one’s true intentions or doubt of the existence of true love.

 

Nurturance and Love Expectancy

 

How can one Filipino hold on long enough to be able to know the truth about love? He begins asking questions such as “How long does it really take to know? Is this really it? Am I at the peak?” These questions can help him know himself. One who does not know himself does not know to love at all and we all know that not knowing to love can mean spontaneity disappearing in an instant and infatuation sets in. Love is like a friendship; one has to keep spontaneous to his partner and does not keep any secrets to him or her that would keep hanging on to his fidelity. How can one keep spontaneous to his partner? This is never a problem to the Filipino male because he is a hopeless romantic that may evolve in to a better structure. He knows what to do in any situation because there will always be a “lusot” somewhere. Spontaneity and uniqueness are two factors that contribute to the ongoing relationship of a couple. If one side gets to be tired of the other, that side becomes bored and incomplete because a man who is not spontaneous is thinking and a man who is thinking cannot be at the same time loving. Interest arouses spontaneity within one person therefore how the other presents himself or herself would greatly affect the outcome of the others spontaneity. Love therefore is dynamic and versatile to be able to survive rough winds.

 

What then is True Love?

In the eyes of man, true love can never ever exist this is so because what protects our thoughts is our mind and no one can pierce and read our mind. This is bogus and will never ever be true. The eyes do not know what the heart can see and if the fact above is true about the mind, I am willing to risk it. I would rather commit a mistake and be human than turn and run away from the one I love just because I am not sure. In science, one can never ever be sure without experimenting first, repeating, and repeating the experiment
repeatedly. This war against my ego I am willing to take. These are most words that a Filipino man can say to himself and proves the fact that love really is blind after all…