Tag Archives: intel

Skulls and intel motherboards

Computer Aid Posted on by

I recently sold an i5 system, based on an intel DP55WB motherboard.

As part of the setup & configuration, I went into the bios, and found some really unusual settings:

  • Internal bling LED.
  • Skull backlighting.
  • Skull eye hard drive activity (give the skull life!).

Since I had the computer built for me, I had to look at the motherboard carefully, to find out what it all means.

The bling LED is just a bright white LED, near the CPU, that can be made to flash.

The small skull was a lot harder to find… Its on an inner corner of the motherboard… on the underside of the motherboard.

I suspect the skull can glow (maybe its made from special fluorescent tracks), but I was looking during daylight, so I couldn’t see the glow effect.

The skull eyes are 2 LEDs, which can be made to flash with hard drive activity. It works, but is highly unlikely to be seen.

If this is an attempt by intel, to look “cool” to the PC performance crowd, then they only managed to look like they are trying too hard.

If it was up to me: either keep the mobo uncluttered… and maybe coat it with a fluorescent dye (then the builder can decide on UV lights to add some extra “bling”), or go all-out and have fluorescent tracks everywhere… And make it as gaudy as possible.

All this reminds me of IBM many years ago, where they tried to make their version of Unix (AIX) more popular by packaging the CDs in a “cool looking” case with the words “AIX Rocks!” splashed across the front cover… it was good for a laugh.

E6300 confusion (is it a pentium, or a core2 duo?)

Computer Aid Posted on by

It seems like all big companies are prone to shooting themselves in the foot.shootfoot

Most recently, it’s been Intel.

They seem to be phasing out the E5XXX series Pentium CPUs (very easily overclocked to over 3 Ghz, even if you don’t know much about overclocking) and replacing them with the E6300 Pentium

Now this is where the fun starts: do a google search for E6300, and what you will find, is mostly websites that talk about a Core2 Duo 1.86Ghz CPU…

Hmmm, now thats a bit slow, and most of this information seem to be dated around 2007… It just doesn’t sound right.

I then realise what Intel have done: within the space of 3 years, they have released 2 CPUs with exactly the same identifier: E6300.

The difference is that the newer E6300 runs at 2.8Ghz, is regarded as a “Pentium”, and is a lot faster than the older E6300

Take a look at the following intel specs for the two CPUs:

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=27248&processor=E6300&spec-codes=SL9TA

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=41493&processor=E6300&spec-codes=SLGU9

You’d think that with 4 digits available for describing CPUs (ie thousands of numbers), that the chances of Intel accidentally “re-using” a number is unlikely.

It looks like no matter how powerful the processors get, some marketing departments just can’t count. 🙂