Athlon LE-1620... Review?

I've had my Athlon LE-1620 processor for over a month now, and I kept saying I was going to post a review of it with a bunch of benchmarks, etc. But I've been busy with school and work (I got a job after debating whether or not I should work this semester; boo)

The Athlon LE-1620 (I paid $46 for it, retail) is a fine single core processor. It comes with a whopping 1mb of L2 cache, which is quite impressive considering it's a) a single core chip, and b) it's an entry level chip.

I don't do a lot of hard core computing, but this chip really impressed me. It's a 90nm chip, and only uses 45 watts, and even though I'm using some generic heatsink compound (I mean, simple white silicon paste I bought a huge tube of for three dollars at Radio Shack) this thing runs at 32 degrees centigrade in a 22 degree room. In other words; it runs pretty darn cool (I'm sure if I used Artic Silver, and a better heatsink, this thing would run near room temperature).

With Cool 'n Quiet on, this thing seems to run constantly @ 1.0 ghz. Not really a problem, since 95% of the time I am just using FireFox, and Notepad. I easily overclocked this thing from 2.4ghz to 2.97 ghz by adjusting the voltage to 1.3v (I couldn't hit 3.0 ghz, mostly because of my use of an improper heatsink compound [although the temperature remained in the mid to high 30s]. I don't currently have the thing overclocked (2.4 ghz is fine for me, and besides I lose the Cool & Quiet function (although my motherboard doesn't turn the fan down at all, anyways).

At stock, it takes the processor 39 seconds to do SuperPI to 1 million digits. When overclocked, it takes the process down to 30 seconds. I haven't screwed around with GeekBench much, so the only score I have for you is one from Linux (scoring an impressive 2578).

You can now find dual core Athlons for $40. The big thing to consider the LE-1640 is the fact that it has 1mb of L2 cache for one core; the dual core chips do have two cores, but only 512k of L2 cache for each. Since I do not use a lot of applications simultaneously, I prefer having the larger L2 cache for the one core, than having dual cores.

If you are building a system and want the best bang for your buck, I would recommend skipping this single core Athlon, and purchasing a cheap Athlon X2. If you are still interested in purchasing an Athlon LE, make sure you purchase one with the 1mb L2 cache; apparently AMD is now selling single core Athlons under the LE title based on the 65nm design, and only having 512K of L2 cache.

Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 = Bad

I purchased a new mouse a week or so ago; a Kensington wireless mouse (the exact model eludes my mind right now). It is one of the best mice I have ever used. After purchasing the mouse, I decided maybe it was time to look into purchasing a new keyboard, after all I have been using the same Compaq keyboard since 2003.

I didn't want to spend much money (the mouse was $35), and after browsing buy.com, I found that I could get $50 off a $51 purchase by signing up for the new Revolution credit card (which to me, there is nothing really revolutionary about it, besides the free $50 credit).

I ended up purchasing (or rather getting for free) the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. Buy.com wanted $47 for it, so I added a Sandisk MP3 player that was $13 to meet the minimum purchase requirement (to get the free $50 credit).

I was really surprised that the order shipped the same day, and I actually received it the very next day. It was the fastest order I had ever received from buy.com (typically I have to wait 10 days, but the keyboard was shipped from a warehouse about 100 miles away).

Installing the Microsoft software was a huge pain. I only had a Microsoft keyboard, not a Microsoft mouse, yet the software insisted on installing the Intellipoint software. At the same time, M$ decided to uninstall my other mouse software (from Logitech, for my older mouse).

After I finally had the software installed, the next task was reprogramming some of the keys, specifically the zoom wheel into a scroll wheel. A couple of searches on Google, and my keys were reprogrammed. I used the keyboard for a couple of hours, and was finally getting used to the ergonomic design, and all the extra buttons.

Then, today, out of nowhere my "C" key does not work. I used the diagnostics program that came with the keyboard, and the key does not register when pressed. I reinstalled the drivers, etc, but the darn "C" key just wouldn't work.

I contacted Microsoft's support, and was told that I should 'set the keyboard upside down to let the liquid come out'. I wasn't sure of what liquid they were talking about, but apparently they assumed I spilled something on the keyboard in the 48 hours I have owned it.

I have a question for Microsoft. Why do all of your new products suck? I mean Vista is horrible, and this new keyboard shouldn't break after being used (very briefly) for only two days. It's not like the (what are now) old days of Windows XP and those Microsoft Optical Mouse I could throw against the wall and have them still function perfectly. You guys really need to get your act together. I don't plan on buying any more Microsoft keyboard / mouse / operating systems in the near future.

I didn't want to spend much for a new keyboard (I'm perfectly content with the five year old Compaq keyboard), and I don't want to waste money shipping the keyboard to Microsoft / Buydotcom. The keyboard was free, but I'm still pretty angry. I guess I would really be mad if I actually paid $50 for it.

I don't know what to do with it. I remapped the Windows key to function as the "C" key, but that's a worthless fix. It was a really nice keyboard for the whole three hours I used it. Who knows, maybe it will work tomorrow. If it does regain "C" key function, I will probably unload the thing on eBay and use the money towards a new LCD monitor.

Running Haiku-OS Within Windows

Someone asked me about trying out the Haiku operating system a couple days ago. They were interested in trying it out, but didn't know how to go about doing it, so I decided I would make a video. This video shows you how you can run Haiku-OS (an open source version of the wonderful BeOS) on your Windows machine using the free software Vmware Player.

In case you are too lazy to watch the video, these are the steps to achieve success.

1. Obtain and install VMware Player for free from www.vmware.com/downloads (Installation requires reboot).

2. Obtain Haiku-OS vmware image (NOT RAW HDD IMAGE!) from www.haiku-os.org/downloads

3. Uncompress the Haiku-OS files, double click on the configuration file.

4. If prompted, select the virtual drive image.

5. Success! Haiku OS will boot in the virtual machine. Press Ctrl-Alt to change between controlling your computer and the virtual machine.

Haiku-OS is a really nice alternative operating system. I was a big fan of the original BeOS back in 1999-2001. It's really cool that there's still a community supporting BeOS (which by every account was a much better OS compared to Windows in its day).

Touchscreen For eeePC

I was originally planning on purchasing a 7" touch screen kit off of eBay to install in my eeePC, but after careful analysis I have decided against it. While a touchscreen would be a nifty feature to have on the small eeePC, it's a novelty idea at best. Because the eeePC has a trackpad and a keyboard I doubt I would even bother using the touchscreen.

Another reason why I didn't attempt the project was because I didn't want to risk bricking (breaking) my $350 device. While it's true, a lot of people have successfully completed this 'hack', a quick search on eeepcuser.com reveals that a lot of people have also rendered their eeePC's useless.

The eeePC is a fragile device. People need to remember this. If you aren't an experienced solderer, then frankly you should stay away from attempting this mod. Also, keep in mind a lot of people have successfully installed a touchscreen in their eeePC, but ended up shorting out their eeePCs because the touchscreen wires came out of their soldering points and shorted the motherboard.

I'm not attempting this project because, 1. I don't really need a touchscreen, and 2. I don't want to risk damaging my eeePC.

I Love My eeePC.

I am typing this from Windows XP.. on my new eeePC I received a couple days ago from Amazon. I really must say that this thing is the most innovative computer I have used in the past ten years. I love everything about it; the same size, the SSD, the trackpad (it's very small, yet it's very accurate compared to the ones I have used in the recent past).

The only problem I have is not the small 4gb of storage space (I installed Windows XP gutted with nLite, and have plenty of space for MS Office, Firefox, Python, Java, etc.), but the small keyboard. The keyboard itself feels excellent; I am just so used to using normal keyboards that I have been hitting the wrong keys. It's been driving me nuts, because instead of typing a's, I have been typing s's, and instead of pressing Shift, I press the up arrow. I guess it will just take some time for me to get used to the keyboard. But other than that small issue, I absolutely love my new eeePC.