Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Scythe Ninja 2 and Intel E8400

This week I made upgrade to my desktop PC - replaced CPU to get performance in graphics, games, whatever.

If CPU choice I made a lot before, the cooler was my headache.
I read about Scythe Ninja 2 half year ago and thought it would be nice to have something alike. How I was happy to know that I can bye exactly this (even revision B) model in Israel for 188 NIS (~$50).

It looks like some fucking japan ninja house and it's weight about 700g fanless (+120g with fan )! Be careful when installing it, i had to put out all case and motherboard to install this ton of copper and aluminum.


(from left to right) Old Intel E5200 Box cooler, new Intel E8400, Scythe Ninja 2 (Rev.B)

The cooler is 100% kickass and do it's job perfectly! Repects goes to Japan guys from Scythe.
Some reviews:
Scythe Ninja 2 Review (Overclockers Club)
Scythe NINJA 2 CPU Cooler Video Review

P.S. Don't forget to reset CMOS settings (or even better upgrade BIOS if there is new). I was wondering, why it's keeping 65-70C. This was because of my prev E5200 was using ~1.3V core and E8400 need only ~1.0V and somehow motherboard can't change it by itself. Now it's around 30C and I even can take away fan for more silence... but hard disk will break it, damn! need another upgrade...

Monday, September 14, 2009

GPS sku.23569

My new game is cheap ($100) GPS device from dealextreme.
Looks like this is YF International 58C-2 DX redesigned.



Quick specs
5" TFT screen, 480x272 pixels
Microsoft Windows CE 5.0 English
CPU Atlas-III 327 MHz
RAM 64 MB
900 mAh lithium polymer battery
SiRF-3 GPS chipset
Comes with 2 GM SD flash card with iGO 8.0.0.54000
FM transmitter
BlueTooth

Useful information
Video on YouTube

SystemInfo
Rom version: 7DB82C.YF.F.3.25
Software version: V3.0.9.26
Platform ID: 5946504E44383243
Device ID: 2D2DCE7601002790

Windows says (Active Sync)
Model name: YFPND82C
Firmware version: YFPND82C 5.0

GPS software
GPS Underground (eng)

UPDATE (2010/08/19)
Sold after a year of usage, here are my thoughts:
- good for start as first device (others from DealExtreme should be ok too)
- last used with iGO 8.3.4.117940 (Nov 3 2009) and iGO Primo 8.5.9.153031 (Jul 22 2010) - like a charm
- never used BlueTooth and FM transmitter once (before I got leased car finally with MP3 CD support)
- car windshield required upgrade - bad silicon quality and overall holder - doable at home
- car cigar lighter power charger burned 3 fuses untill I solved why - bad quality, fixable in a car
- AC adapter required soldering to start work - bad quality, doable at home
- never saw movies on it
- battery is bad, 10 mins max at min backlight - took 4 AA GP rechargeable batteries and made small travel set with USB connector (4x2700 mAh 1.2V batteriess hold iGO for 4-5 hours on min backlight).
- gets very hot on direct sun in a car - probably, nothing to worry
- this device is a good toy for it's price, when you fix all above
- replaced with sku.37914 cause of better CPU, bigger RAM for next level games ;-)

My iGO configuration files (sys.txt) for this device.