I finally got my new CD-ROM today. I haven't installed it yet, but I'll do that later tonight. I'm finally happy I have a CD-ROM that is of the current generation.

I also downloaded the beta copy of Netscape Navigator 6. It looks really cool and is very fast at loading web pages; unfortunatley there are still a few bugs in the rest of the Navigator Applications, especially the HTML editor called Composer. Nonetheless it's still worth a download, but don't throw out your old browser yet until the final version is released. 

In school-related news I've been pretty busy. Next week I have to do a Computer Science program, take a mid-term for my Anthropology class, take a quiz for my Accounting class, another one for my Corporate Information Technologies class and also conduct reseach for a presentation I have for my Speech class two weeks from this comming Monday. You can be sure that next week will keep me on my toes...

Where did winter go? It was here two weeks ago. In three days it went from 40-50F temperatures to the mid-high 70s in three days! This Friday it's supposed to be in the 80s... I'm going to have to turn on the air-conditioner soon.

Anyways, my computer is finally back on it's feet. After poking at it for a few hours I managed to squeeze it into my new MC-1500SE  from Swiftech. So far I've managed to load Windows 98 SE and some LiveWare! utilities for my SBLive!, but I haven't managed to load any games yet. I'll have to do that later this week. Unfortunately the 5.08 Detonator drivers from nVIDIA don't like my video card. I guess I'm gonna have to wait until they release a retail set of drivers which support FSAA before I'll have it on my system. 

So far I haven't really done much this past weekend other than play games. I've been spending a lot of time making my own mods for Homeworld. E-mail me if you are interested in getting some of the ships that I've poked at. By the way, FSAA on the GeForce-256 looks absolutely amazing in Homeworld.

But another thing that I did do is help my brother get his 800MHz Athlon system back on it's feet. Installing Windows 98SE wasn't too hard, but getting the rest of his programs and games reinstalled is the tricky part. It's never easy. I'll be doing the same come next week...

In other news I finally ordered a replacement CD-Rom for my computer--the Plextor 40XMax Ultra-Wide SCSI CD-Rom. My 8X was getting old, so I think it was time for refitting...

This next week I don't have much planned, but I'll be helping my brother reload Windows 98 on his machine. He also got his CPU back from OCPower. SDTom reported that his chip is now set to run at 800MHz at 1.8V with a cache divider of 2/5. He has a week 47 Athlon 500. It has a .25µ 650 core and 3.3NS cache. 

Unfortunately my VOS32 didn't get shipped where it's supposed to and it got sent back to the OEM. I may just blow it off and stick with my MC-1500SE.

School has been keeping me pretty busy--today I have a mid-term for my Corporate Information Technology class. Wish me luck! Tomorrow I have to complete a computer science program as well as an MS Access database for another class. I'll be pretty busy...

I also got my Census today--is this thing a multiple choice test or is it fill-in-the-blank? Man I've had one too many tests as of late... I can't wait until this Thursday--Spring Break at last!

3DHardware.net has a review up of TiGeR's copper spacers. They appear to like them. 

Man has school been tough. For the past five weeks I've had nothing but tests, mid-terms, quizzes, projects and programs to do for all of my classes. But finally after next week it will stop (or at least I'm hoping) for a few nice weeks. Starting next Friday I'll be on my Spring Break. And this is a week-long vacation that I'm looking forward to. Unfortunately I won't be able to bring my computer with me, lest I risk getting it broken in transit during my flight down to Irvine California. Oh well, I'll do fine without it. I will have my brother's machine to play with...

Swiftech seems to be on a roll lately--they've revamped their entire cooler lineup and have released yet a third new cooling unit in the past two months. The MC-370-3 and 4 are the new editions to the MC family of coolers. These two editions both use the 'SE' ducted fan that will allow better airflow and ease space constraints. The MC-370-4 model however replaces the Aluminum body used in the MC-370-0 through 3 series with an entire Copper heatsink. You can look at the benchmarks here too look at the performance gains. 

In other news nVIDIA has released a new beta driver set for the TNT through the GeForce-256 chipsets. These new Detonator 5.08 drivers incorperate S3TC support as well as Full-screen Anti-Aliasing with the GeForce-256. It gets better: these new drivers are about 20% faster and they fix the slowdown problems with some of the Quake III levels. I can't wait to see how the final public version of these look... Click here to get them from Reactor Critical. Note: To enable FSAA on the GeForce-256, you'll need this registry tweak from 3DGPU. But beware of the fact that FSAA eats a lot of speed--close to 50% to be exact, so don't be surprised that games might get choppy when you try to run over 800X600 with FSAA enabled. For S3TC support in Quake III Arena, you'll need to get the S3 customized EXE from Diamond Underground. 
 

I've also joined up with the new web team for 5Techs.com You'll see me posting news and reviews there now too. 

Fans on the top (picture used from Heatsink Guide)	Regular fan positions (picture used from Anandtech)

Swiftech has also replaced their top-of-the-line MC-2000 with the MC-2001. This new cooler has the body of an MC-1500SE. It uses two 33CFM fans, two 72-Watt peltiers and has a solid copper backplate. It also sports what is very likely to be the best heatsink in the world: an all-Aluminum block with copper heatsink fins. Like the Alpha P7-125, it has a groove cut in the heatsink to allow passage for the ATX power connector on Athlon motherboards.

It costs $199.

The good news is that the Thermal Epoxy I bought from 2Cooltek worked like a charm, although it took three days to finally get a good solid bond between the heatsinks and the video chips. My Leadtek SDR GeForce-256 should work quite well when I get my machine back on it's feet.

Those copper spacer are finally growing by leaps and bounds. 3dfxCool and Plycon are now selling them.

My computer still isn't running in it's full fashion yet, but I'll be reloading Win98 sometime later this week. I finally got my Thermal Epoxy yesterday and I gooped up my Leadtek SDR GeForce-256. That should keep the fans and heatsinks stuck pretty good to the video card. 

I've also updated my "about me" page to reflect some of the stuff that I need for my Corporate Information Technology class.