Tag Archives: computer hardware

Q&A: How Fast are 2X Floppy Drives in Reality?

Posted on January 24, 2016 by lui_gough

This post comes about because of a question from Matson on a very early post of mine about USB Floppy Drives. He wants to know how fast 2x drives are in reality, as there are no hard numbers floating about. … Continue reading →

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Q&A: Why Reformatting a USB Key can Change its Size & Performance

Posted on January 24, 2016 by lui_gough

Just recently after I had posted my review of the Sandisk Cruzer Facet USB key, a regular reader sent me an e-mail which noted in a concerning tone that reformatting the device causes it to lose about 12-13Mb of storage, … Continue reading →

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Teardown: Sienoc Active Mini-DisplayPort to DVI Adapter

Posted on January 24, 2016 by lui_gough

For those who don’t upgrade their displays very often, slowly, they can find that their displays fall behind in terms of connectivity options. More modern graphic cards offer an array of multi-monitor output options, but mostly using DisplayPort (DP) or … Continue reading →

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Teardown: Digi International Edgeport/8 RS-232 to USB Converter

Posted on January 17, 2016 by lui_gough

In the things that have happened to me last week, getting a Digi International Edgeport/8 donated to me was one of the more exciting events. A Little Bit of History It wasn’t that long ago that if you wanted to … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: My Collection of SDRAM – 256Mb & 512Mb Modules

Posted on January 17, 2016 by lui_gough

This posting continues an earlier posting which explores my collection of SDRAM modules. In this post, we look at the larger 256 and 512 megabyte modules. 256 Megabyte Modules Mitsubishi MH32S64APHB-6 Mitsubushi is a name you would normally associate with … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: My Collection of SDRAM – 128Mb & ECC Modules

Posted on January 17, 2016 by lui_gough

Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory, or SDRAM for short, was the JEDEC standardized successor to the asynchronous DRAM used in SIMMs. Demonstrated in 1993, and the de-facto type of memory by 2000, it was employed by later Pentium I systems … Continue reading →

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Review, Teardown: Seatay SBOX02503 2.5″ SATA III to USB 3.0 External Enclosure

Posted on January 15, 2016 by lui_gough

What happens when you have a few 2.5″ SSDs lying around after an upgrade? One option is to convert them into external SSDs for fast work usage. Not having any enclosures to use, I decided to consult online for some … Continue reading →

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Experiment: ZIP Defect Lists & Software-Enabled Write Protection

Posted on December 23, 2015 by lui_gough

With my last post testing the write-protection with just one cartridge, we didn’t demonstrate any PLIST changes. While I took the GLIST changes as indicating the lists being both “fluid”, more concrete proof was desired in case one of the … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: More ZIP Defect Tests & Trouble In Paradise Utility

Posted on December 22, 2015 by lui_gough

Once you get started on something, often times, you realize there are things still left to be done. Indeed, this post comes about because of my previous experiments inspired by Matson’s comments, and this time, he came up with another … Continue reading →

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Experiments: ZIP Disk Defect Lists, Mode Page Changes, Protected Cartridges

Posted on December 21, 2015 by lui_gough

This post is going to get quite long, filled with walls of text, and ultimately not of any great interest to the majority of modern tech-people unless somehow you’re interested in ZIP drive behaviour, so feel free to skip this … Continue reading →

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Quick Review: Samsung 850 EVO 1Tb (MZ-75E1T0B) Solid State Drive

Posted on December 19, 2015 by lui_gough

Solid-state drives are something that I can rarely get enough of, as high performance storage has a big impact on the time spent waiting on a computer to get data-heavy tasks done. As someone who has enjoyed this, I had … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing, Flash Memory | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Teardown: Alcatel 3AU 04805 ABAA & LSE LSF2070 ADSL Microfilters

Posted on December 2, 2015 by lui_gough

While rummaging around my old equipment box, I came across some in-line microfilters which I have collected as spares from discarded modem boxes or from places where they suspect having filter problems and have had their filters interchanged with a … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: Rambus DRDRAM RIMM and CRIMM Modules

Posted on November 30, 2015 by lui_gough

Rambus DRDRAM (or RDRAM as it was sometimes known) was a proprietary memory technology championed by Rambus and Intel as a (potential) successor to SDRAM. As memory bandwidth requirements rose in the early Pentium 4 era, there was a need … Continue reading →

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Random Compu-Maintenance: Dusty PC & Stuck Power Button

Posted on November 15, 2015 by lui_gough

Computers and their peripherals around my place are generally reliable, but occasionally some things do happen. As a result, I’ve grouped these two recent happenings into one posting. PC: “… help me!” Just last weekend, my brother barged into my … Continue reading →

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Review: Orico USB 3.0 5-bay RAID HDD Enclosure (9558RU3) – Part 2

Posted on November 1, 2015 by lui_gough

Welcome to the second part of the review on the Orico USB 3.0 5-bay RAID HDD Enclosure where we continue with actual performance tests and usage experiences. Performance Testing The drive itself presented as a single drive as I was … Continue reading →

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Review: Orico USB 3.0 5-bay RAID HDD Enclosure (9558RU3) – Part 1

Posted on November 1, 2015 by lui_gough

If you ever do anything that involves high-rate data acquisition, a copious amount of relatively high speed storage is often a costly requirement. Having just recently upgraded my 4x4Tb array to 4x6Tb, this displaced four drives for use elsewhere. Two … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: Ethernet (10Mbit/s) Network Interface Card Collection

Posted on November 1, 2015 by lui_gough

Seeing as I had just posted a Fast Ethernet flashback, I suppose it would be a good time to go further and look back another decade to the “original” Ethernet. Prior to the development of an over-arching networking standard, networks … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: Fast Ethernet Network Interface Card Collection (Part 2)

Posted on October 31, 2015 by lui_gough

This post is part of a two post series looking at the Fast Ethernet NICs in my collection, with some reminiscence of the legacy Fast Ethernet has left behind. Here are some more interesting and varied NICs in my collection. … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: Fast Ethernet Network Interface Card Collection (Part 1)

Posted on October 31, 2015 by lui_gough

The era of Fast Ethernet was a highly important and memorable (at least, to me) period in computing history. Introduced in 1995 (i.e. 20 years ago), after most competing networking technologies were starting to fall by the wayside, it added … Continue reading →

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Review: Western Digital WD60EZRX 6Tb Green Hard Drive

Posted on October 27, 2015 by lui_gough

One thing I can’t do without is oodles of storage. Some of my experiments have very peculiar storage demands – from high volume storage, to high speed streaming storage, I have to carefully consider my needs and how to best … Continue reading →

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Review: Western Digital My Book 6Tb USB 3.0 External Hard Drive

Posted on October 25, 2015 by lui_gough

One thing power users know is that their appetite for storage is pretty much insatiable. In order to try satisfying this craving, I’ve decided to go on an all-out spending spree and grab myself some more storage. Instead of buying … Continue reading →

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Quick Review: Samsung 850 Pro 1TB (MZ-7KE1T0) Solid State Drive

Posted on October 2, 2015 by lui_gough

One night, staying up late after doing some work, I caught the fact that eBay was having a 15% off “everything” sale. A few minutes later, a bright idea popped in my head, and almost equally as quickly, over AU$500 … Continue reading →

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Review, Teardown: Lexar Professional Workflow DD512 (512Gb) USB 3.0 Storage Drive

Posted on September 25, 2015 by lui_gough

One thing I really dislike is slow portable storage. While many manufacturers continue to pump out smaller and smaller USB flash drives at ever diminishing price points, one thing that never seems to satisfy is their performance. Even with advertised … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: Fellowes Neato 2000 CD Labeler Kit

Posted on August 16, 2015 by lui_gough

It’s the year 2000 and CD recording at home is a new development. Discs are expensive, and individually wrapped in retail packaging. These discs will have branding all over their faces and inserts. Printable discs didn’t really exist yet in … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: iomega ZIP 100 Parallel Port Drive (Mint in Package!)

Posted on August 16, 2015 by lui_gough

My fellow readers who have been following for a while would know that I’m literally swimming in Zip disk gear. Amongst the things I’ve done include taking one apart, looking at the performance of the drive compared to its contemporary … Continue reading →

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Teardown: Vonets VAP11G Ethernet to 802.11g Wireless Bridge

Posted on August 16, 2015 by lui_gough

What do you do when you have some device that only supports wired-Ethernet, but it’s going to be deployed in a place where it isn’t practical to install cabling? Well, the easy solution is to use Wi-Fi, through a device … Continue reading →

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Project: Physically Damaged USB Drive Repair & Data Recovery

Posted on July 31, 2015 by lui_gough

A while back, on 16th July, I was contacted by a fellow Sydneysider, and a fan of my blog with a request for help. While, ordinarily, I don’t respond to these, there was a rather long story behind this particular … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing, DIY, Electronics | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Teardown: element14 Wi-Pi USB Wireless 802.11n 150Mbit/s 2.4Ghz Dongle

Posted on July 19, 2015 by lui_gough

The end of financial year almost always means discounts and sales, and this year was no different. My favourite shop, element14, had run some promotions in their Connect magazine, which included a further discount of 10% on the already-discounted prices … Continue reading →

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Review, Teardown: Astone ISO DOC-130 2.5″ & 3.5″ SATA II to USB 3.0 Dock

Posted on July 5, 2015 by lui_gough

When you have a pile of small bare hard drives to use, giving them all a SATA port to use or an individual enclosure is prohibitively expensive. Maybe you have a hard drive to quickly test, or an occasional back-up … Continue reading →

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Salvage: HTS541680J9SA00 80Gb HDD, Duracell AAA, Optus Cable Card & Alcatel-Lucent Home Cell

Posted on July 4, 2015 by lui_gough

I’ve been occasionally accused of being a hoarder, which I suppose is true. The result of this is that I do end up collecting interesting tidbits, mostly broken things, which I can take apart and explore … or just admire … Continue reading →

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