• Tag Archives Athlon

  • Maximum PC (December 2001)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Maximum PC – December 2001

    Maximum PC was by far my favorite computer magazine. It also survived longer than most with publication only ceasing a couple of years ago. When it was first introduced (in 1998 I believe) it was called boot. It was a magazine for enthusiasts and it reminded me a bit of MacAddict which was a similar sort of thing for Mac users. The December 2001 issue includes:

    Regulars

    • In/Out – Letters from readers about Hot Tamales (the candy), teen stereotypes, overclocking videocards, the G550, Windows XP, online privacy, gaming as a driver of the PC industry, and more.
    • Quick Start – How September 11th changed PC gaming; IBM’s CPU of the Future, the dual core POWER4; Windows XP optimization tips; Intel’s plans for a 20 GHz chip; new Treo phones; wireless print server device that turns HP printers into wireless printers; mobile Pentium 4 to be introduced at 1.5 GHz and use DDR RAM; and more.
    • Head2Head – A detailed comparison of the Pentium 4 2GHz and Athlon XP 1800+.
    • Watchdog – IBM 75GXP hard drives seem to experience a high rate of failure; MaxGate stops responding to customers; some vendors refuse to support existing hardware with Windows XP drivers; Compaq recalls notebook power adapters; and more.
    • Ask the Doctor – Troubleshooting a supposed Thunderbird Athlon identified as a Palomino; compatibility questions with the Asus A7V motherboard, Elsa Gladian 920 and Sound Blaster Live 5.1; troubleshooting vertical green lines on the screen; intermittent DSL disconnections; overclocking a Pentium III; and more.
    • How To… – A guide to hosting a LAN party. Includes steps for insuring you have enough power, preparing ethernet cables and other networking gear, setting up a server, and more.
    • Rig of the Month – A custom built machine featuring a Chinese “air” theme built around an ASUS CUV4X motherboard, Pentium III 733 (overclocked to 854 MHz), and AOpen GTS Pro PA256 Deluxe II 32MB video card (also overclocked).

    Reviews

    • Dell Dimension 8200 desktop system – A highly rated $3000 system from Dell that includes a 2GHz Pentium 4, 256 MB RDRAM, nVidia GeForce3 Ti 500, and more.
    • Falcon Northwest Mach V system – A nearly $4000 gaming machine featuring an Athlon XP 1800+, 512 MB DDR RAM, nVidia GeForce3 Ti 500 64MB DDR, and more.
    • TDK veloCD 16/10/40 external CD-RW drive – If you needed an external CD writer then this one was a good one to have.
    • VisionTek Xtacy 6964 videocard – A highly rated video card using the GeForce3 Ti 500 chipset.
    • OCZ Titan 3 videocard – Also highly rated but using the original GeForce 3 chipset.
    • ATI Radeon 7500 videocard – A great card if you were looking for something on a budget.
    • Sony DSC-S85 4.1 megapixel digi-cam – Digital snapshot cameras aren’t as popular as they once were but at the time they were far superior to phone cameras which barely existed.
    • Olympus C-4040 4.1 megapixel digi-cam – Both this camera and the Sony model above were pretty average examples of what was available.
    • Cambridge Soundworks Megaworks 210D 2.1 speakers – A decent set of 2.1 PC speakers.
    • Philips MMS305 4.1 speakers – Another decent set of speakers but this one has a rear channel too.
    • 3Com Bluetooth Wireless PC Card – A way to add bluetooth capability to your laptop which was not yet a common built-in feature.
    • APC Back-UPS CS 500VA UPS – A highly rated UPS battery backup. APC is probably still the biggest name in UPSes today.
    • Allen KEYKatcher device – A PS/2 passthrough device that captures keystrokes.
    • Pocket Pyro PyroPro MP3 player – An MP3 expansion device for Palm devices that apparently was not well implemented.
    • Red Faction – A pretty average first person shooter.

    Features

    • Gear of the Year – Some winners include the AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (CPU), Cooler Master ATC-101 (case), nVidia GeForce 3 (3D accelerator), Tyan Tiger MP S2460 (motherboard), Plextor PlexWriter 24/10/40 (CD-RW Drive), Pioneer DVR-A03 Recordable DVD/CD Combo (DVD Recorder), Creative Labs Nomad II MG (MP3 Player), Sony Clie PEG-N760C (PDA), Falcon Northwest Mach V (desktop system), Dell Inspiron i8000 (desktop replacement notebook), Sony F520 (monitor), May Payne (game of the year), and lots more.
    • Rigs of the Year – A look at 15 machines custom built by readers with case mods.
    • PC Gadget Guide – A look at some of the latest gadgets including the Microsoft Sidewinder Strategic Commander, DM2 Digital Music Mixer, Homer Simpson Dot-Pal Desktop Sidekick, Pentax Optio 430 Digital Camera, AfterBurner CD Labeling System, and more.

    …and more!


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  • PC World (May 2001)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: PC World – May 2001

    PC World was one of the main PC magazines throughout much of the 1980s, all of the 1990s, and into the 2000s. Like most magazines, especially computer related ones, this one died off as the Internet matured. The May 2001 issue includes:

    Top of the News

    • Notebooks Reach 1 Gigahertz – A look at some of the first laptops on the market to feature a 1 GHz processor. Thse include the Toshiba Tecra 8200, Dell Inspiron 8000, Gateway Solo 9500, and Hewlett Packard OmniBook 6000. They all feature 128MB of RAM and hard drives in the 32GB range. Prices range from around $3000 to around $4500. I wouldn’t buy a laptop until prices came down significantly in the Pentium M era, however, I was a fan of Gateway so the Solo may have been my choice here. However, the Dell would have tempted me as it offers a little more bang for the buck.
    • Record More, Pay Less – Less is relative here. Recordable DVD drives were still relatively new. The newly released and “cheap” Pioneer DVR-A03 would only set you back $1000 and discs were $10 each.
    • Great Xpectations: Next Windows – A preview of Windows XP. The version examined here is Beta version 2. While Windows 2000 and Windows ME were being put on new computers, most people were using Windows 98SE at this time.
    • A Lovelier Linux – A look at Linux kernel 2.4 and new distributions using it including SuSE Linux 7.1.
    • Palms Gain Expansion Options – Palm releases the new Palm M500 which includes an expansion slot for SD/MMC cards.
    • Rambus Lawsuits – Rambus sues SDRAM and DDR makers for patent infringement. This was the beginning of a very litigious time period for RAMBUS lasting more than a decade.
    • Quickbooks Opens Up – New QuickBooks add-ons for specific industries.

    New Products

    • New Products – New products previewed here include the Dell OptiPlex GX1505SD which is a small form factor business oriented PC with a Pentium III-933, Easy CD cReator 5, the Digital Relay CRX10U-A2 portable CD burner, GoToMyPC, PCAnywhere 10, Photoshop Elements, Kodak MC3 digital camera and mp3 player, the Apple PowerBook G4 featuring a 500 MHz G4 processor and 256MB of SDRAM for $3499, DriveWorks (hard drive utility), and more.

    Here’s How

    • Windows Tips – Customizing system properties plus viewing your desktop files in a folder.
    • Answer Line – Transferring old drivers to a new computer, removing uninstalled app information from the registry, networking two PCs without a hub, getting a list of file associations and more.
    • Internet Tips – Finding the source of attacks reported by Zone Alarm, synchronizing bookmarks, disabling Encompass, branding Internet Explorer, and more.
    • Hardware Tips – Creating your own emergency boot disk (sounds like a software tip to me).
    • Upgrade Guide – A guide to upgrading your PC’s sound system.

    Top 100

    • Top 10 Power PCs – Coming in at the top spot this month is the Gateway Professional S 1500 featuring a 1.5 GHz Pentium 4, 128MB of RDRAM, a 40GB hard drive, and an ATI Radeon SDR graphics card. I still want a Gateway machine with this case to add to my collection. It was the last one by them I liked.
    • Top 10 Value PCs – At the top of this list is the Dell Dimension 4100 featuring a Pentium III-1000, 128MB of SDRAM and a 20GB hard drive, and an ATI Radeon card with 32MB. Second placye features a Gateway E-3400XL Deluxe with a Pentium III-933, 128MB of SDRAM, a 40 GB hard drive, and an ATI Rage Fury Pro graphics card with 16MB. There are also machines with Athlon and Duron processors in this list. This was probably not long after I built my first PC which was Duron based.
    • Top 15 Notebook PCs – In this list, the IBM Thinkpad A21p gets the top spot for power notebook, the Gateway Solo 5300 gets the top spot for midrange notebook, and the Dell Inspiron 3800 gets the top spot for budget notebook.
    • Top 15 Home PCs – Top Power System = Dell Dimension 8100, Top Midrange System = Dell Dimension 4100/1GHz, Top Budget System = Dell Dimension L866r. Gateway gets the second and third spots in the Power System category with the Gateway Select 1200 and Gateway Performance 1500.
    • Top 10 Color Laser Printers – Coming in at the top spot is the Minolta-QMS Magicolor 2200 GN for a mere $1895.
    • Top 10 19-inch Monitors – Back in the day, if you had a budget system you were probably rocking a 15-inch monitor (or maybe even 14-inch a little earlier on). The average decent system had a 17-inch monitor. If you could afford the latest and greatest then you had a 19-inch monitor…maybe even a 21-inch if you could afford it and you could somehow transport it without killing yourself. The Samsung SyncMaster 950p comes in at the top of this list for $309.
    • Top 10 Graphics Boards – The best you could get was the ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon for $299. If you wanted nVidia then the CardExpert GeForce2 MX comes in at second place.
    • Top 10 Scanners – At the top of the SOHO list is the Epson Perfection 1240U Photo for $299. The best corporate scanner was the Microtek ScanMaker 8700 for $1000.
    • Top 10 Digital Cameras – Digital cameras were really still in their infancy at this time. At the top of the list is the Epson PhotoPC 3000Z featuring a 3.3 megapixel resolution and including a 16MB compact flash card.

    Departments

    • Up Front – An editorial on the dangers of the Internet.
    • Letters – Letters from readers about wireless services for PDAs, video downloads, tax software, price matching, and more.
    • Consumer Watch – Some ISPs are getting too aggressive with their spam filtering.
    • Web Savvy – Tips for searching the web and when using search engines other than Google is useful.
    • Home Office – Using Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum and Diamond Cut Audio Restoration Tool 32 to transfer music from records to CD.
    • Bugs and Fixes – Tons of bugs in Windows ME, Netscape 6.01 is released, and more.
    • Full Disclosure – How searching for the best deals online might lead you to grey market items.

    …and more!


    📂This entry was posted in Computer Arcana DOS 📎and tagged

  • Digital Archaeology: Sony Vaio PCG-FXA49

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    It seems that all laptop makers like to use confusing model numbers. Sony seems to have been no different. This particular model is the Vaio PCG-FXA49. If there is anything to be derived from those seemingly random numbers and letters then I don’t know what it is. Except that I’m pretty sure every Vaio notebook ever made started with ‘PCG’.

    Over the years Vaio notebooks ranged from bulky and thick to thin like most others. This one is somewhere in the middle but tends more towards the bulkier side. But somehow even the bulky models seem futuristic. Sony was always pretty good at that aesthetic. However, the hardware inside was always pretty middle of the road at best and I also think their notebooks and computers in general tended to be overpriced.

    The PCG-FXA49 features:

    • CPU: 1200 MHz Mobile Athlon 4
    • Memory: 512MB PC100 SDRAM
    • Video: ATI Rage Mobility P/M with 8MB (AGP 2X)
    • Hard Drive: Hitachi DK23CA-30 (ATA-100, 30GB, 4200RPM, 2MB Cache)
    • Optical Drive: Matsushita UJDA720 DVD/CDRW

    While it has ethernet, one important thing it is missing is Wi-Fi. Fortunately, there are two cardbus slots so it is easy to add a wi-fi card.

    Go here for more complete specs as reported by HWiNFO.

    Screen shot

    The CPU is somewhat interesting and I have never used a computer with this particular model. The Mobile Athlon 4 turns out to have been in reality the first Athlon XP. It has the same Palomino core as the first desktop Athlon XPs. I think they went with the “Mobile Athlon 4” name to make it obvious that it was competing with the Pentium 4M (the mobile Pentium 4 variant). When AMD went to the next iteration with the Thoroughbred core, they renamed their mobile processor to the Mobile Athlon XP-M.


    Mobile Athlon 4 1200 CPU

    Being one of the first Athlon XP processors, this one is slower than any desktop variant at only 1200 MHz. It also has a slower bus speed than any desktop variant at 200 MHz whereas the desktop versions started at 266 MHz. This particular laptop also uses SDRAM and most desktop Athlon XPs would have used DDR (though there were some motherboards that could take regular SDRAM as well). However, these compromises helped lower the power requirements which is useful for laptops.


    Block diagram from service manual

    In terms of speed, the Mobile Athlon 4 probably fell somewhere between the Pentium III-M and the Pentium 4M. However, because the Mobile Athlon 4 was a cheaper chip, it was usually packaged with other cheaper components so as a whole, Mobile Athlon 4 based laptops were often slower and lower end.


    Exploded parts diagram from service manual

    The ATI Rage Mobility in this laptop is a pretty good demonstration of this. It was a common video solution on lower end laptops. It was at least a discreet graphics chip so it could certainly be worse but as far as mobile 3D cards of the time are concerned it was near the lower end. Also, the 4200 RPM drive is pretty slow. This speed was not uncommon in laptops but higher end laptops would have something faster. Then the screen itself is another example. This laptop has a fairly large and nice looking screen but the resolution is only 1024×768. Another compromise already mentioned above is the SDRAM. Many (though not all) Pentium 4M based laptops used DDR memory.


    Specs

    Still, the Mobile Athlon 4 was certainly competitive and the desktop Athlon XP would beat out the desktop Pentium 4 for a while. It was really the slightly later Pentium M and its lower power use that was difficult for AMD to compete with. Even when AMD has been competitive or even beat out Intel on the Desktop, Intel has always dominated the mobile market. That seems to be true even today.

    The 32-bit single core CPU and a maximum memory capacity of 512MB really kill this laptop for any modern usage, at least if you want to use a modern OS or web browser. However, it can still crunch tasks for both Einstein@home and MilkyWay@home and probably other BOINC projects as well, even with only 512 MB of RAM, though it certainly won’t break any speed records. Click the links above to see how this laptop is doing or check out FreeDC.


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