Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by victor_hoh

[WTR] Single Room in Seksyen 19, PJ

victor_hoh — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:15:00 +0800

Hi

I have a single room to rent, available on 1 April. Location is Seksyen 19, PJ, just behind Jasmine Tower. Rental is less than RM200, excluding water+electricity (on average RM20 per person per month).

- Single room, ground floor
- The house is double-storey terrace
- House facing field, so parking is not a problem, can park by the side of field
- Only 5 person (including you) staying in a big house
- Environment is good, quiet
- Location is excellent, between SS2 and Seksyen 17, where u can get everything (including good/cheap food) easily.
- Close to major highway (LDP, Sprint, NKVE).

BTW, I have been staying in the house for more than 4 years. A housemate is moving out, so helping him to get new tenant. The only requirement here is he/she should be non-smoking, or at least dun smoke inside the house.

Interested? Call me at 016-5353304 (Victor).

EA Games coming to Steam

victor_hoh — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 11:22:32 +0800

So Steam has just announced that some of the hit PC games from EA will be available in Steam, although only for North America. With this announcement, does it mean that Steam has finally dominate the electronic distribution of PC games? What about the EA online service from EA itself?

Hot Cars on Theft List

victor_hoh — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:59:44 +0800

Hi, please list down any car theft that you have heard of, or you have experienced. I will include one that happened this morning.

Model : Honda CRV latest model
Date/time : 17 July 2007 early morning
Location : PJ Section 19, behind Jasmine Tower
Extra Information : The car was parked inside the car porch. The thief managed to run away with the car without waking up the owner, and they actually lifted the metal front gate without damaging it, in order to drive away the car. My little Kenari was park less than 20 meters away by the road side!

[addedon]July 17, 2008, 9:03 am[/addedon]There was another case happened couple years back. A relative lost his Toyota Hilux, less than one year old, inside the parking of a condo in Bandar Sri Damansara. He bought the same one after claiming the insurance. And less than a yearlater, the new Hilux got burnt in Johor. It was suspected that the thief burnt the car after failed stealing it. Now the relative is driving an Isuzu D-Max.

New HU giving me problem

victor_hoh — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:59:12 +0800

Hi

I am having problem with my new Pioneer DEH-1050e, installed about a week ago.

Long story short, I bought this Pioneer HU to replace my stolen stock Clarion HU. The stock Clarion HU was stolen 4 years back. YES, you read it right, I was without any ICE for the past 4 years.

So last week I finally go and buy the Pioneer HU. Just the HU, speaker all use back the stock speaker. But then it has a problem where every once a day, it will either power up with no sound, or suddenly lost sound during usage. All the speakers will suddenly be silent together. After some time, like a few minutes, then the speaker will make sound like "bluck bluck bluck", like the connection is loosen, and then all the speaker will come alive again. There was also one time when I failed to power up the HU altogether, but after few minutes, it worked ok again.

The guy at the shop has tested the HU in his shop, and has no problem. He suggested that it might be the wiring problem, or the speaker problem. So he said better to cut the connection to either fron or rear speaker to test which one is causing problem.

My question, can the wiring/speaker problem of one speaker cause all the speakers to be silent?

Let's kick some ass

victor_hoh — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:06:07 +0800

Stumble upon this when browsing some blog

http://www.pictogame.com/en/play/game/UbYqL5wMVX4H

my highscore is 6488m, 19 kicks.

Let's kick ass hard!

TF2 vs CoD4, which one RULES?

victor_hoh — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:43:15 +0800

Hi guys,

since now BolehVPN has provided servers for both Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4, which one do you think is a better game. I know, that both games are GREAT game, but if you gonna choose one, which will it be? Put it this way, if you can only play one of the games in the next 1 month, which would it be?

For me, it is CoD4. I have played TF2 since the day it was released for about 3 months. But once I started CoD4 early this year, I just cannot turn back. The ranking system and the fast paced action totally get me hooked up. I am addicted to the feeling of unloading rounds of bullets and killing some guy within split second.

Cast your vote guys...

P/S: If you have played any of the game, and think that it is not good, please cast null vote.

Xbox360 Team Knowingly Launched Faulty Hardware

victor_hoh — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:55:40 +0800

QUOTE

Xbox 360 team skipped quality testing of console to beat Sony to market

Last summer, amidst a flurry of reports from Xbox 360 gamers, DailyTech exposed retailers' estimates that up to one-third of Xbox 360 consoles experience hardware failures within the first year of ownership. Just days after the report, Microsoft extended its warranty to cover the specific hardware failure for three years from purchase.

Now, six months later, a supposed Microsoft insider confirms that around 30% of Xbox 360 consoles, most based on the original 'Xenon' design, fail. "It's around 30 percent, and all will probably fail early," the source told 8Bit Joystick. "This quarter they are expecting 1M failures, most of those Xenons. Some of those are repeat failures."

Although Microsoft now covers all Xbox 360 consoles for three years against the Red Ring of Death (RROD) - the sign of a hardware failure - there is no specific time frame for the defect to appear. "Life expectancy is all over the map because the design has very little margin for most of the important parameters," continued the insider. "That means it's not a fault tolerant design. So a good unit may last a couple of years, while a bad unit can fail in hours."

Prior to the warranty extensions enacted by Microsoft, the Xbox 360 shipped with only a 90-day warranty. Some of those with failed hardware outside of the warranty period took matters in their own hands and almost unanimously discovered that the failure was due to inadequate cooling of entire system (particularly the GPU), leading to overstressed components.

"RROD is caused by anything that fails in the "digital backbone" on the mother board," said the source, confirming user findings. "The main design flaw was the excessive heat on the GPU warping the mother board around it. This would stress the solder joints on the GPU and any bad joints would then fail in early life."

Microsoft quickly attempted to rectify the hardware flaw by incorporating a redesigned heatsink to better cool the GPU. A die-shrink to 65nm would also help solve heat issues, though the much anticipated 'Falcon' design only featured a 65nm CPU, while the GPU remained at 90nm. The GPU shrink to 65nm is planned later this year in the 'Jasper' redesign.

While the above topic points are generally known by the Xbox 360 user community, what comes more alarmingly from the supposed member of the Xbox 360 project is that Microsoft allegedly launched its console fully aware of a potential issue in quality.

"First, MS has under resourced that product unit in all engineering areas since the very beginning. Especially in engineering support functions like test, quality, manufacturing, and supplier management," the source wrote in an email. "There just weren't enough people to do the job that needed to be done. The leadership in many of those areas was also lopsided in essential skills and experience. But I hear they are really trying to staff up now based on what has happened, and how cheap staff is compared to a couple of billion in cost of quality."

Microsoft had to take an over $1 billion USD charge to cover the Red Ring of Death defect warranty, which last year cost the company's Entertainment and Devices Division a $1.89 billion USD loss. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer termed the warranty coverage charge as "painful" to announce.

During the previous generation, Microsoft attributed much of PlayStation 2's lead over the Xbox to its earlier arrival on the market. Microsoft was determined to beat Sony to the punch for the next generation, as the source explained, "MS was so focused on beating Sony this cycle that the 360 was rushed to market when all indications were that it had serious flaws. The design [quality] testing was insufficient and incomplete when the product was released to production. The manufacturing test equipment had major gaps in test coverage and wasn't reliable or repeatable. Manufacturing processes at [all] levels of suppliers were immature and not in control. Initial end to end yields were in the mid 30%. Low yields always indicate serious design and manufacturing defects.

"Management chose to continue to ship anyways, and keep the lines running while trying to solve problems and bring the yields up. Whenever something failed and there was a question about whether the test result was false, they would remove that test, retest and ship, or see if the unit would boot a game and run briefly and then ship. [The] 360 is too complex of a machine to get away with that."

In hindsight, the Xbox 360 project team likely wishes that it had paid closer attention to its processes - though the fierce competition of the industry fueled their desire to take shortcuts. "In the end I think it was fear of failure, ambition to beat Sony, and the arrogance that they could figure anything out, that led to the decision to keep shipping," the insider revealed. "Plus, they tend to make big decisions like that in terms of dollars. They would rationalize that if the first few million boxes had a high failure rate, a few 10's of millions of dollars would cover it. And contrasting that cost with a big lead on Sony, would pay it in a heartbeat."

According to the Microsoft insider, the new 'Falcon' Xbox 360 hardware is far more reliable than the original 'Xenon.' "I've heard that the failure rates for the current design is sub 10%. Much much better, but still too high ... And those designs haven't seen much life yet, so no one knows if that failure rate will hold," explained the source, adding that future revisions are in the cards. "They will come out with new hardware at least once a year until they retire this design. That's the console financial model. Keep the features and functionality the same, reduce cost and price, and improve quality if needed."

With the Xbox 360 being the leading console in North America and the choice for gamers looking for a complete online service, Microsoft's next focus should clearly be on getting consumers to trust the hardware.

Bill Gates said recently that it is now Microsoft's goal to make the Xbox 360 the "most reliable" console on the market. "We've got incredible reliability on the new work we've done," said the Microsoft chairman. "Our commitment is that it will be the most reliable video game box out there. People really love the Xbox because of the content, but we've got to make sure that the hardware never stands in the way of that."

source : DailyTech

What is your view on this?

Pondok Trafik Polis at Eneos 1Utama

victor_hoh — Mon, 21 May 2007 14:04:14 +0800

Hi

I have a summon I wan to pay at the pondok trafik at Eneos 1Utama. Anyone here knows what time they open? both on weekdays and weekends.

Unit Trust Fund or Savings plan?

victor_hoh — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 11:38:01 +0800

Do you prefer to invest your money into unit trust funds (e.g. Public Mutual) or savings plab (e.g. ING great savings)? Give your reason.

For me, I believe that unit trust will perform better than savings plan, provided that you know how to properly invest into different funds.

2007 Body Fitness New Year Resolution

victor_hoh — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 15:59:53 +0800

Hi

Tell us what you want to do and achieve in the year of 2007, in terms of getting fit/healthy/etc... It can be anything, from shedding fat, gaining muscle, stop smoking, learn yoga etc. We shall see in the end of 2007 whether we really achieve the target that we have set now.

For me, I would like to reach a body weight of 80kg, with around 16% bodyfat in 2007. I am 173cm, currently around 71kg with 22% bodyfat.

What's yours?

PCMark05 memory test lockup!

victor_hoh — Wed, 31 May 2006 23:42:42 +0800

Hi

Below are my spec

Athlon 64 Venice 3000+, at 244 X 9 Mhz = 2196Mhz, VCore 1.44
Abit KN8 Ultra
Kingston HyperX DDR400 (512MB X 2)at 2-3-2-6-1, running DDR333(CPU/11) at 199.7Mhz, 2.6v

So in fact I only overclock the FSB from 200 to 244, and I keep the RAM frequency down by using higher divider. Memory timing is run at the factory default setting, although SPD shows looser timing.

I have tested Prime95 for about 7 hours no problem. also looping 3dMarks06 for an hour. But no matter how I tried, I never pass the memory test of PCMark05. It either lockup, or BSOD then restart. I tried 2.5-3-3-8-1, tried bumping up DDRV to 2.7, but same problem. All stuck at Test 4, 16MB.

FYI, My CPU temp read from ABIT EQ never exceed 45 celcius, using stock cooler.

There is another person reporting similar problem in other forum too, and he is suspecting this is due to the dual channel setting.

Any opinion?