Updates

Well its been some time since ive updated... A number of things it seems.
This blog, my computer, my laptop, and a few chunks of my life too, have all gone in for major overhauls.

My desktop with its glorious new graphics card has left 2 smouldering relics of power supplies in its wake, and is at present running in a drasticaly reduced capacity, even with a second power supply modded in, Ive got issues to deal with. Ill make it blindingly obvious. Generic PSUs are becoming almost impossible to use for a gaming computer of any caliber and its most unfortunate that a few dollars of electrical parts difference seems to define a price gap between generic and name brand PSUs that is anywhere from dozens to more than a hundred dollars difference between a name brand psu and a generic one of equivalent wattage. The reason is that the total output of a machine is not climbing as it used to. the same 550W design that seemed ample years ago when it started manufacturing in some place in China, is today not suitable for the majority of people that need 550W or higher PSUs.

I Come Seeking Amperage! At the moment my Full tower is equiped with 2 power supplies, a sturdy 300W is powering all my drives at present leaving my CPU and GFX card alone on the far insufficent 250W psu i had spare after the 550W i payed for after the GFX card shot my 400W one, in turn died from unknown causes. The reason... Amps. The 550W is ample for the card to run. But it needs more current! modern cards can demand over 20A on the 12V and it seems only a handful of manufacturers are providing it.

Following my graphics card tribulations, ive mostly switched over to using linux on my laptop. I had a 2gb drive spare and decided to hell with it and i started installing gentoo. It has been an interesting experience. Ive noticed a number of things i didnt know previously and now have for the first time found a number of things where i know linux to be insufficent and inferior to windows. Alpha Channel Transparency and suspend to disk hibernation are both very far behind in linux.

I have fresh Xorg and a nice new kernel and yet i cannot have the same simple TRUE transparency i have on my laptop under win2k. I find it highly frustrating to have such a limitation on my laptop but have begun dealing with it as best i can with apps like Tilda and good WM setup helping offset the lack of transparency well enough im happy to continue using linux on it.

Leaving my life in the not enough room to talk about here category, i move on to some general updates. With various ideas stirring and a number of things ready to roll, just held up by some annoyingly troublesome required phases. Speaking of these, should an Electrical Engineer or someone very well versed with DC electronics read this, feel free to leave a comment and try and get in touch, ive got a pressing need for one i can discuss some issues with regarding a number of plans i have.