workstation upgrade

My previous config was becoming old, so i upgraded parts with new components:

• Asus P6X58D Premium
• Intel Core i7 920 2,66Ghz
• Noctua NH-D14
• 12Gb Corsair dominator (6 x 2Gb tri-channel)
• 2 Western Digital Black 1To / 7200tr/ Sata 3 (6Gb/s)
• Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5870 1Go PCIE

Motherboard

Being happy with the current one, i sticked with Asus. I chose the P6X58D premium:

• 2 ports Sata 3 (6Gb/s) via Marvell
• 4 ports Sata 2 via Intel ICH10R
• 2 ports Sata 2 standard

I thought i could do a raid 1 with these 2 new hard drive in sata 3. No luck, the 2 sata 3 ports are not managed by the intel Raid chipset.

CPU

Much different from my current one (quad core extreme), since it's the low cost. That said, once overclocked to 4Ghz, it's not anymore a low CPU

But the heat generated is impressive, so i chose the machine gun:

So it's a double radiator/fan, with another noctua nearby to get the heat outside the box. They are not completly inline because the ram's radiator is too high. I had to set the first fan higher:

74°c with all core at 100%:

I set this config for overclocking:

Radeon HD 5870

It didn't start well, with setup ATI crash (even version 10.3):

Removing all C++ redistribuable didn't help. I ended by a command line installation which worked:

ATISetup.exe -Install -output screen

Now i have a new issue: one of my 2 iiyama monitors with a good black inch all around in borders!!!

I finally found the workaround on internet, i had to change the scaling option. Access to this menu is not obvious:

Performance

it's much higher,with Bad Company 2 and VMware

Wireshark traces for PopCorn Hour A200

Now that i have a PopCorn on the network, I wanted to measure it's impact on my local network:

• 160 packets at boot within 1mn30

It mainly generates multicast DNS (mDNS) and SSDP. Stopping their own myihome protocol reduce a lot these broadcasts.

Surprise, my pc start to send request to PopCorn using UDP, every 30 seconds on port 427 (srvloc), but the PopCorn refuses through icmp unreachable:

TCPView shows up the process who listen on this port on my PC, but we only get the hosting process, svchost:

Process Explorer ends up the mystery:

So it's my HP driver that sends these requests every 30 seconds, even if this one answer with an icmp unreachable....HP never quit....Argh!

Here is a Wireshark filter to quickly find a PopCorn on the network:

http.server contains "Syabas myiBox"

3Com switch: backspace with Putty

If you have 3Com switch, backspace doesn't work with Putty. You need to change the backspace key to Control-H instead of Control-?: