Pete Brown's Blog (POKE 53280,0)
Pete Brown writes on a variety of topics from XAML with the Windows Runtime (WinRT), .NET programming using C#, WPF, Microcontroller programming with .NET Microframework, .NET Gadgeteer, Windows on Devices, and even plain old C, to raising two children in the suburbs of Maryland, woodworking, CNC and generally "making physical stuff". Oh, and Pete loves retro technology, especially Commodore (C64 and C128). If the content interests you, please subscribe using the subscription link to the right of every page.
Archive for tag:
Ultimate-PC
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I've been running the Ultimate PC as my main PC for about 5 months
now. I thought I'd post a few things
The Good
The SSD is amazing. While it seems slower now,
I realize that is just my perception and not an actual slow-down.
How? Just go use a machine with a regular hard drive and endure the
wait. I'm very happy with this purchase and would not hesitate to
do it again.
The 980x...
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So, while messing around in the case, I did what is easily the
worst thing I've done to a PC: I overstressed and pulled-out one of
the wires in the power supply. Unfortunately, that's one of the
three cables that is hard-wired to the power supply, so I couldn't
simply order/fine a new cable. I spent about 2 hours trying to
repair it in a way that would make me comfortable using the PC, b...
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While I was away at DevLink 2010 (an awesome event. You really
need to go next year) my water cooling equipment for the Ultimate
Developer PC
2.0 arrived. Here's a virtual unboxing.
CPU Block
I picked up the Swiftech Apogee-XT Extreme Performance CPU
Waterblock. This is considered to be one of the best i7
waterblocks out there. There is one complaint about it, though: if
you t...
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I'm trying out various BIOS and clocking tweaks on my bench
install of the Ultimate Developer PC 2.0. To keep things
clean, I've reinstalled Windows 7 a number of times.
Normally, this would be a deal killer. I mean, who wants to sit
around and wait for a complete reinstall of Windows 7 Ultimate x64?
Well, turns out it's really fast. I reinstalled 4
or 5 times yesterday and twice toda...
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Last night, I (with help from you all) did a prototype bench
build of the Ultimate Dev Machine 2.0. I made some dumb mistakes
(like forgetting to remove the plastic from the bottom of the heat
sink; glad I remembered before I powered it up), but it went
reasonably well.
Highlights
Bunch of interested folks on ustream, all watching progress and
helping out. That was awesome. T...
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Scott Hanselman and I have been doing parallel
builds of the ultimate developer machine.
Here's the summary of the new bits I bought for this build. I
already own the locally bought stuff. The NewEgg items will be here
this week.
Category
Purchased
Price
OS
Windows 7 x64
Prices vary
Video Card
Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD 5850 (NewEgg)
$345
Processo...
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Ok, so hitting a 7.9 WEI (Windows Experience Index) is a bit of
an arbitrary rating. It's like the summer between my junior and
senior year in high school when I (Mom, you're not reading this are
you?) took my Mom's new '89 Hyundai Excel down Dresser Hill in MA
and maxed out the speedometer just to see if we could do it. Trust
me, it was a scary ride, and I couldn't make the turn at the ...
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Primary PC
Over the next month or three, I'll be building a new ultimate developer PC, with some
pretty hefty specs. One thing I managed to do before that, however,
was snag a great used Dell 30" display on eBay.
I was pretty nervous about buying used, but lucked out in the
end. Not a dead pixel as far as I can tell, and the display is in
great shape. Considering the 3007 WFP-HC goe...
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I need a new PC.
My current PC is based around an Intel E8400 45nm dual core
chip. I had really good luck overclocking that guy, but performance
is still lacking. The drives are dog slow, and the 4gb of memory
(it's still running 32 bit so I see only 3.25) doesn't support well
having a video encoder running, multiple instances of Visual
Studio, and the other things I do as part of my ...