Silent Performance

I was sitting in front of the telly the other day watching... erm... legally bought DVD on my Xbox360 when I suddenly decided I've had enough. My original poor box suffered a fatal RRoD attack (kind of like a massive coronary failure in a human) and the replacement came with a strange feature. My guess is that the Xbox360 assembly plant rents space at the Lockheed facility which would explain why they (the Xbox team) sometimes use jet engines instead of the usual 60mm 12V dual fan for cooling. This means somewhere there are L-1011 Tristars flying around with Xbox360 stock coolers for engines. What a world.

Left: The Xbox 360 stock cooler. Right: The L-1011 Tristar engine

I've become somewhat obsessed with noiseless electronic equipment ever since my much beloved computer suffered a similar fate as my Xbox (don't ask) what with its motherboard suddenly dying and returned from the shop sounding more like an industrial washing machine than a high-end gaming rig. I'll tell the full story of love, hate, intrigue and abysmal incompetence some other time, right now it suffices to say that when I handed the computer in for repair the noise level was acceptable and when I got it back it gave me a headache after only an hour or so of operation. Even sitting in an adjacent room the fan noise was disturbing.

Long before this disaster, indeed before I even bought the current rig, I had been contemplating reducing noise to a minimum but never really got around doing it since my calculations basically involved buying a whole new unit with only custom parts such as the Antec P-180 case, a Phantom 500 power supply and a Zalman Reserator XT liquid cooling system with additional GPU and northbridge cooling blocks for the maximum win, a setup which would cost around seven thousand bucks not counting the actual components. At least it was food for thought.

As we all know, fortune is fickle and some three years ago I came into position to buy a brand new computer in the Antec P-180 case so I thought “Why not? It's miles better than my current rig” and thus I did. It was significantly less noisy than my old rig which I had gone to some lengths to noise reduce so I was content for the time being until the accident some two years later. For reasons I shan't divulge here the repairs took some ten weeks and left me without electronic stimulation over the holidays which turned out quite nice actually. A lot nicer than getting it back anyway.

At first I thought it was the new graphics card (yeah, I got a new one thanks to the inadequacy if the repair staff) since it was the only new component sporting a fan (I added a WD740GD Raptor 2 HDD for super fast system access, favouring it over a solid state disc only due to costs) and the rig had been running nice and, well, not very loud up until then. This time however there was nothing else to do, I had to reduce the noise or never be able to use that piece of hardware ever again. I regret not taking pictures of this very long process because it would've been very nice to show.

The first task was to locate the source of the noise. Although I was pretty certain it was the graphics card stock cooler it pays to make certain so I got the side panel off and rammed a pencil into various fans and to my great surprise it was not the aforementioned cooler fan that made the worst ruckus but actually one of the case fans! This was very surprising since it was the same fans as before the repairs so why the deuce would they be so much louder now?

Let me digress a tiny bit on the Antec P-180 case structure:

This line of cases was built with two qualities in mind: Low noise and superior ventilation. Thus the interior is constructed to form separate compartments through which the air flows in a determined flow-pattern preventing hot air from circulating but is rather ventilated. This is realized by installing the power supply unit at the bottom of the case and putting a 120mm fan in front, sucking air into the case. This air is then either ventilated through the filtered air ducts on the front panel or sucked upwards and into the main compartments by two more case fans situated on the upper backside and on the top of the case. Even the HHD-drive bay is ventilated by filtered air ducts on the front panel. What a marvel that case is.

Anyway, this is why I'm so surprised about the noisy fans; they were selected to operate in noise reduced environment yet they are even louder than the stock cooler on a graphics card. Even more surprising was the fact that they grew significantly in noise level upon returning from the shop. Oh well, time to do something about it. I scoured the net for information and decided that the Noctua line of fans was the best choice and for case fans I settled on the Noctua S-12 800 fan. At first I was only hosing the fire which is why I only replaced the noisiest of the case fans, the upper one, and the stock cooler on the graphics card but before I even set out I had some idea as to what I wanted. For case fans I'd go for the aforementioned Noctua fans, for CPU cooling I'd be replacing the cumbersome and loud Intel stock cooler with an Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro (yeah, how about that for a name!) but my biggest gamble was the replacement cooler on the graphics card: The Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev2 – the first fanless cooler for high-end graphics cards.
I was toying with the idea of replacing the PSU for a fanless model but the low power output and the rather cumbersome procedure was discouraging. Was I going to have to live with a noisy PSU? Find out in Silent Performance pt. II

Jeff Doltham

While pestering other parts of the Big Sleep, a User failed to come up with a wit and instead apologized by saying "I can't really come up with anything except for some reference to Jose the jalopeno on a stick."

Which is just as well as Dunham is as funny as a dead clown at a six-year-olds birthday party but with only a fraction of the jester's charisma and with the further downside that while the aforementioned quipster can be disposed of at the local morgue or - failing that - harbour and the child can be put into therapy or - if funds are insufficient - institutionalized, Dunham the Dolt will live on forever on YouTube and late-night re-runs or at least until stupidity and bad taste is deemed criminal and penalized with capital punishment at which point human society will end and Titan Quest Society will rule supreme.

Also, I hate Jeff Dunham. Not to mention his retared choice of puppet line-up. I mean, seriously, Achmed the Dead Terrorist? Even in the US-of-A it's not only grossly below even the average level of entertainment, a standard set by shows such as Grey's Anatomy and Gilmore Girls, it plummets to the bottom of the scale of taste! Yeah, sure, the months following the attack against the World Trade Center and so on an act of that kind would rather surprise with its absence but that was then and this is now. Wake up and smell the burnt coffee for crying out loud.
Again, I can at some level understand why the average (North) American lower-middle class man with his mortgages, two cars and spoiled brat guffaws at the sight of the sorry skeleton puppy and his fervent scream of "I kill you!" even now, eight years later, but I will never understand how, even with the humongous PR-machinery that only Hollywood can muster, this at best mildly annoying excuse for ventriloquist and puppeteer can attract the eyes of the Old World. The man is number five on YouTube's quick-find list when entering "j"!

OK, the act. Here it is:

Achemd appears from the chest and is placed by Doltham on the box, hailed by applause, cheers and, for some inexplicable reason, laughter. I suspect it's canned laughter though and I further expect that rooters have been placed in the audience. Anyway.

Achemd is now sitting on the box, looking around. Not even one syllable is uttered and the crowd is already laughing. Such is the power of placebo.

- Good evening Achmed, Doltham sais to which Achemd responds
- Good evening... and the crowd laughs, expectantly
- ...infidel! Achemd finishes and the crowd laughs somewhat more. What can be so funny about greeting phrases I can't imagine but then again, AFHV is a sealed off realm to me.

- So you're a terrorist?
- Yes, I'm a terrorist. I expected laughs here but got none, making me suspect canned laughs even more. Laugh on queue seems to be the ticket here.
- What kind of terrorist?
- A terrifying... Terrorist! Here the crowd finally laughs, marking the butt of the joke. Yeah, that's some good 'ol comedy for ya'. How does he come up with this stuff? Monty Python, go live in a lake!

- Are you scared, Achmed asks Doltham and I answer silently that yes, I'm sacred. If this is supposed to be one of the most renowned contemporary comdey acts then yes, I'm scared.
- Not really, no. Doltham answers.
- Ahh, Achmed replies disappointed and the crowd titters.
- And now? Acmed asks
- Not really, no. Doltham answers again. He's actually repeating himself. What a brilliant act.
- Ahaa! Achmed moans and I sense a hidden persona within Dunham, possibly a bifurcated mind which is trying to kill itself out of unbearable shame. The crowd laughs and a single clap can be heard.

- How about now? Achmed asks and Doltham just stares at the floor, shakes his head and relies that no, not now either.
- God damn it, Achemd curses and the crowd roars with laughter and a few of them are actually screaming out of joy. I can't take this any more, my poor belly is bursting.
Achmed's correction "Oh, I mean Allah damn it" reaps some more laughs and then he does the "Silence! I kill you!" -routine and I kill the tab out of despair and loathing, not wanting to soil my temporary internet archive with this bottom feeder any more than necessary.

Hmm, this turned out to quiet the rant and fairly OT as well. Nah, I'm gonna go watch some Family Guy instead, at least they do fart jokes.

See you guys around!

PS When Achmed sais "Silence! I kill you!" it's actually Dunham's subconscious taking over and talking to Jeff himself.

IKEA with a vengeance

There comes a time when we all have to simply cave in and knuckle under. Get simply get down on all four and really lick boot. No, I'm not talking about proposing to a future spouse, I'm talking about the Sunday Afternoon IKEA Meltdown. For the past few months the need has been ever increasing (or rather the sense of "let's get it over with") and today it reached critical mass. Now, IKEA on a Sunday afternoon is Battle of the Bulge Re-enacted at best but this Sunday afternoon was very fittingly preceded by a Sunday forenoon hangover of epic proportions which itself was preceded by a long night of hard drinking, hard farting sack of ugly muscle as a very good friend of min (yes, I do have them) turned her third decade which in turn was preceded by a fairly long, though both early and pleasant, Saturday of deconstructing Christmas. Now, normally I’d continued that sentence a bit just for the fun of it (it’s how I get my kicks), letting the early Saturday morning be preceded by an unusually late Friday night (early Saturday morning, really) of drinking, blogging and bitterness and in between mentioning how I cured this with a large amount of double espressos and chicken wraps, but since I’m only now sobering up (or rather, having pulled through the worst and am now gently easing the pain with half a bottle of Florio), I won’t.
Oh dear, I just did.

So there I am, hung over as a wolverine, battling not only the oversized, under-financed and sub-educated mothers from the inland outback as they get their monthly fix of the Big City while herding an almost obscene amount of snot-nosed, howling and kicking entities which I reluctantly call “kids” but only because they are (most of the time) bipeds, but also the pressing need to vent my stomach into the nearest shopping trolley, almost certainly belonging to one of the previously mentioned mothers. I’ve had two really bad “hung-overs” before, one when I was working as a paper boy and got the insanely bright idea to knock back an entire crate of brews and some whiskey to top it off just hours before my shift (thus earning me the questionable pleasure of drinking water through a garden hose as the job of a paperboy can sometimes be a thirsty one) and the other was when I was on a three-day visit to CERN and I and my fellow students of not only quantum physics but also the bottom of a bottle went on the hardest bender of my life. The present one might very well qualify for a bronze medal.

Improbable as it might seem, I’ll end this post on a bright note: After the visit I managed to, if not cure then at least nurse, the worst of it using plenty of double espressos and the possibly best grilled chicken sandwich I’ve ever had.

Computers, Motherboards and beyond

In the beginning of december my trustworthy computer broke down (hence my absence) and I had to have it serviced as it is on lease. Having previously owned nothing but self-assembled computers without any kind of service deals I thought it nice not having to worry when the screen eventually would turn up blank as the computer undoubtedly would crash as I would only have to call the leasing company and they'd have to fix it. I now see how badly I was mistaken.

Twofold is my misfortune: December 6 was a saturday and a day in december at that, meaning that the chance of anyone actually working on fixing the broken maching was all but zero. Little did I suspect the coming worries. It suffices to say that I currently have had to return the machine twice after it was supposed to be fixed, both times being preceded with promises of how great it would be working now.

At the first return I was told no hardware fault had been detected. The first thing I detected when I fired the poor machine up upon returning home was a catastrophic video card failure. Returning it the very same day I was promised that the issue would be fixed with hast and lo! and behold, they called me up two days later claiming to have fixed it. Having brought it home it took mere hours before I detected the next hardware failure: The motherboard had given up. Currently I'm waiting for the service company to recieve a new batch of mobos so that I may have my computer back. The only slight glimmer in this pit of darkness is that the original 7950 GX2 has been replaced with an 8800 GT. Something at least.

The Troll Song

I've written the Troll Song describing my mission statement as a Big Mean Troll. The music can be found here.

I can’t believe it! The way you loot sometimes
Like you’re cracking heads on goblin kids, aaargh!
And I don’t want it, the trinkets you’re offering me
Cheap glass pearls, fake jewellery, oh noes!

‘Cause I’m a 21st century digital troll
I don’t know how to live but I’ve got a lot of gold
My goblins are lazy middle class intellectuals
They’re all watching Oprah, so ineffectual
Aint’ life a mystery?

I can’t explain it, the things they’re yelling at me
It’s going argharghargharghargh, oh yeah

‘Cause I’m a 21st century digital troll
I don’t know how to read but I’ve got a lot of gold
My goblins are lazy middle class intellectuals
They’re all hooked on Springer, so ineffectual
Aint’ life a mystery?

I tried tell you about owning no gold
But now I really don’t know,
And then you told me how bad you had to suffer
What do you think my goblins had to offer?

See I’m a 21st century digital troll
I do know how to steal and I’ve got a lot of gold
My goblins are lazy middle class intellectuals
They’re all like Homer Simpson, so ineffectual

That’s what I yearn for
Big, mean trolls scream for more
Goblin-onna’-stick roast over fire
Everything I want I really do need
21st century schizoid troll
21st century video troll
21st century digital troll
21st century sofa troll

Se hit alla ockultister, troende och övriga vidskepliga:
au.youtube.com/watch?v=RFO6ZhUW38w

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Roligaste inlägget på länge:
"jag känner att vi också har rätt att få bo i villa."

(Postat av en FL-morsa som tillsammans med sin sambo tjänade 28.000 / månad och ville köpa villa för 3 mille. Joråsåatte...)

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Måååna Sahlin, vår nästa statsminister (?):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=elHpk6fScgE
Kom ihåg den 2010!

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Jag borde posta här oftare. Nej, verkligen, det borde jag. Och så borde jag fixa med bilderna lite. Men mest av allt borde jag...

Telephone Sales

So I get this call from a telemarketing goblin who’s trying to bully me into signing a subscription for some or another of these so-called “Men’s Magazines” i.e. gadgets, girls and mancare. Yeah, ‘mancare’ as in “why hello there, I’m just so metrosexual!”, I mean jeeze, it’s ok to be gay just don’t try to pitch me the idea that I have to use ‘mancare’ and be ‘metrosexual’ or else I’m just not that hip or cool. I’m perfectly happy being un-hip, un-cool and extremely un-mancared.

Anyway

For the super-low price of a mere 150 bucks I would be the proud subscriber of Café, the envy of my friends and the pride of the family. Right. And moreover the generous goblin would throw in the free DVD’s of my choice! How could I lose? I’ll tell you how: I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in reading about the copycat lifestyle of the rich and the famous, I don’t need Armani suits, Breitling watches or hot silicone babes to feel good about myself (if anything, a silicone babe would make me uncomfortable) and puh-lease, if I want to watch a movie I’ll dl it and stream it. After all, we live in the Internet Age (a.k.a. The Stupid Age).

I don’t care that you spend your miserable days fantasising about scantly clad women or trying to catch up about the latest pointless gadgets, as is it indifferent to me which cologne to wear at the Grammy’s. And if I ever want to know anything about reality-TV and the moronic language thereof I’ll brows Aftonblaskan, it’s free.