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This is the original Dell WLAN 1500 card to go with the i945M chipet based Notebooks.
A full length MniPCIe card, do modern machines will need to check if these will fit.
2 Antenna’s (2Tx2R) 270Mbps max connection
This card when tested with Vista was the fastest card out there.
Will it do just as well with Windows 7

Performance:
Connection to router at 2.4Ghz – 135Mbps
Upload speed 8.76MB/s = 70.1Mbps
Download speed 9.61MB/s = 76.9Mbps

Connection to router ar 5Ghz – 135Mbps
Upload speed 8.51MB/s = 68.1Mbps
Download speed 6.08MB/s = 48.7Mbps

No matter what I did this card would not stay connected 270/300Mbps.
Once transfer starts the device would fall back to 20Mhz bandwidth and then a max of 135Mbps connection.
This in turn gave mediocre (comparative) speed scores.
I even installed the new Dell Windows 7 Client Utility to no avail, it detect 300Mbps routers but no luck connecting at staying connected at any where near that speed.
Very disappointed in this former king of speed, lets hope newer drivers will sort this issue.

ATI Tray Tools 1.6.9.1449 Beta

Great little testing tool for those overclocking their rigs to the max.

CPU-Z 1.53

CPU
Name and number.
Core stepping and process.
Package.
Core voltage.
Internal and external clocks, clock multiplier.
Supported instructions sets.
Cache information.

Mainboard
Vendor, model and revision.
BIOS model and date.
Chipset (northbridge and southbridge) and sensor.
Graphic interface.

Memory
Frequency and timings.
Module(s) specification using SPD (Serial Presence Detect) : vendor, serial number, timings table.

Dell WLAN 1510

Here goes the 2nd Dell WLAN card the 1510
This card is Broadcom 94322 Chipset which is the 94321 and Radio chipset combined into one package.
Like the WLAN 1515 this is a 1/2 length card with 2 antenna connectors.
These can be found in a heap of Dell Notebooks with other 1/2 card options like the Dell WLAN 1510 and the Intel 51×0

These are cheap as chips on Ebay, and there are a heap of them to boot.
On Ebay be wary for duds, non working parts, buy from a seller with a good rating.
The Dell WLAN 1500 performed very well, how will it do with this time round ?

Performance:
Connection to router at 2.4Ghz – 300Mbps
Upload speed 19.87MB/s = 158.9Mbps
Download speed 10MB/s = 80Mbps

Connection to router ar 5Ghz – 150Mbps
Upload speed 11.46MB/s = 91.7Mbps
Download speed 10.28MB/s = 82.2Mbps

Lets start with the AMAZING 2.4Ghz upload speed, I’m pretty sure my previous WLAN tests didn’t do this well.
Download speed is nearly 1/2 this, quite disappointing.
The 5Ghz speeds are quite average nothing spectacular or disappointing.
Quite odd this this WLAN card connects to the router at 300Mbps but after a second or two drops to 150Mbps when the tests were started.
It would not go back to 300Mbps when finished, this is probably also means the average speeds in all but the 2.4Ghz upload.

Broadcom 94322 chipset based, 1/2 length card, Broadcom have started to make drivers again after a year+ of nothing.
This is basically the ancient 94321 chipset with radio also added on the chip.
The 94321 was a rather good chipset and Broadcom have not changed or updated anything.
So the above connection speed drop may get fixed with new driver releases.

Tested with Win 7 x64
Driver version 5.60.18.41

Final thoughts, choose this over the Dell 1515 any day, I haven’t got a Intel 5100 yet so can’t comment on this card.
Not a bad card, it may have a lot of potential with newer drivers.

Getting back into my other passion WLAN.
Got hold of some cards of EBAY to test.
This is the first of the Mini PCIe cards, this is a 1/2 length card and will only fit in late model Machines that have the ability to take these short cards.
The 1/2 length cards were made to lessen the real estate of the WLAN card to save money.
The cards feature all in one Chipset and radio on the same Chip, saving more money.
Even more cost cutting meant that they only come with 2 antenna’s.

Dell WLAN 1515

Now how does all this cost cutting fare in the real world ?
I’ve done a very simple real life test of measuring how long it takes for a 300MB file to transfer from Notebook to router and then back again.
This tests both receive and Transmit features of the WLAN card.

The Dell WLAN 1515 comes with the Atheros AR5009 chipset, which looks to be the all in one AR5008 and Radio Chipsets.

Upload (Transmit) is from Computer to Router, Download (Receive) is from router to computer.

Performance:
Connection to router at 2.4Ghz – 300Mbps
Upload speed 14.9MB/s = 119.2Mbps
Download speed 6.8MB/s = 54.2Mbps

Connection to router ar 5Ghz – 300Mbps
Upload speed 4.5MB/s = 36.1Mbps
Download speed 2.11MB/s = 16.9Mbps

Very good Upload speed at 2.4Ghz, download speed is less then 1/2 though.
5Ghz performance is rather disappointing, especially te downoad speed.

Overall not a bad card for 2.4Ghz use.

[UPDATE]
Just to clarify, here is what I used to test this device and also the upcoming devices:

Dell Inspiron 9400 , WLAN card was placed in here.
Latest Atheros driver (8.0.0.239)
Router, Buffalo WHR-G300N (2.4 and 5Ghz), 1Gbit/s
IBM XServer 236, with 6x73GB in RAID 5 1Gbit/s

This I got to go with the camera Joshua is getting for Xmas.

ADATA 16GB SDHC Class 6

This I paid NZ$64 (incl delivery) ~US$46
Bought a Class 6 card as it should perform reasonably well, I see class 10 out too now, way more expensive though.
Besides it was cheap and just for Joshua (6 years old) to do some snapping and leave Mums identical camera alone.

Comes preformatted to FAT32
Also the card comes with the Device properties set to ‘Performance’ which is a bonus for noobs who have no idea how to change this.

Below are the speeds I got for my standard speed test I use for all sorts of devices.

298MB – 89secs = 3.35MB/s Write
298MB – 20secs = 14.9MB/s Read

Not quite the claimed 20MB/s read and 10MB/s write.
But this will do for camera work (point and shoot)
Quite happy with this purchase.

Mozilla Firefox 3 3.5.6

Mozilla Firefox project (formerly Firebird, which was formerly Phoenix) is a redesign of Mozilla’s browser component, written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform.

Mozilla Firefox is a small, fast and very easy to use browser that offers many advantages over other web browsers, such as the ability to block pop-up windows and the tabbed browsing.

FireTune for Mozilla Firefox was developed for an easy and fast optimization of your browsing experience with Firefox.

My Wife lost her ancient 4GB USB stick she uses for work.

Kingston DT200 64GB USB

I think the kids have played with it and will be somewhere in their toy barrels.
So we’ll never find it now

But in the mean time, she needed a new one to take work home etc.
Had a quick look at New Zealand’s biggest online Auction site and saw a 64GB Kingston DT200 one for NZ$76 (~US$55)

Kinston DT200 formatted size

It arrived a few days later in the post.
Plugged it in saw it came default formatted with FAT32
Then decided to see how this baby performed, Kingston says up to 20MB/sec read and up to 10MB/sec write.
Here is what I achieved copying the extracted ISO of Office 2010 Beta II, which came to 709MB

709MB – 228secs = 3.11MB/s Write
709MB – 141secs = 5.03MB/s Read

Kingston DT200 64GB USB

The results are no where near Kingston’s specs, not sure if this is my Hardware or just the USB stick.
The performance slowly creeps down as time goes on in a large transfer
The transfer does start with a hiss and roar but is very short lived, probably cache filling up.
Performance is considerably better than the old 4GB stick, which peaked on a good day with a tail wind at 0.5MB/sec
HDTach performance probably proves something is limiting the speed of the transfer (not the USB stick)

Pros
The stick is little for it’s massive storage.
Fits with other USB devices in dual USB port, although thick devices will struggle.
Has a slider to cover the USB plug.
All 64GB DT200 come in yellow and black, makes it easy to tell size in the Data Traveler range.

Cons
Does lack a hole for a key chain to go through, small inconvenience and easier to loose.
LED which light up the yellow plastic is very dim, only noticed it when it was dark in the room
Case feels flimsy, back came off while trying to slide open.
Performance (for me) is no where near specified.

Overall a good device and my Wife should be happy she can keep a heap of data on it.
Speed is not a major issue as she has many small files, and it’s quite a bit faster than previous USB stick.
For the price it’s an excellent buy.

[UPDATE]
I ended up trying to format this drive to do some more tests.
This opened a huge can of worms, and many hours wasted in trying to do so.
So to save you guys time if you should buy one or have one (even a simillar one)

DON’T format to:
exFAT this will seem to format just fine but gives errors when reading back files
NTFS this won’t format at all, takes hours to attempt a full format but right at the end it fails.

Don’t try and format with Windows Apps at all.

Us a little app called HP USB disk format tool 2.1.8 you can find this tool here
Use this version not an older one or it won’t work.
This app is very fast and does as it should
Format USB stick with FAT32 and it will happily do so.

UPDATE II
It failed all formats and test I through at it.
Seller has told me he has refunded the money I paid, I believe he didn’t know about the fake Flash Drives, or I just caught him.

Any who for those that are interested, I took the device apart which was way to easy and took some pictures.
I then put it back together again properly and now is sturdy as a house.

Top Side with USB controller

This side faces up when you open the Flash Drive, the LED is in the middle and I doubt it’s any where near it would on a real Kingston DT200

Bottom with Memory controller

This is the back of the Flash Drive, it has the memory controller and also seen it called a USB/SATA Bridge, this chip is designed to go over the Memory chip which is hidden and I can’t get the part number.
But I’m pretty sure it’s a 2GB Flash.

Close up of USB contoller

Close up of the USB controller this can be flashed to fix the reduce the memory to actual size, little point as the parts used are so poor, I doubt it will be safe to keep data on.

Close up of Memory Controller

This is the memory controller and looks to take 2GB of RAM (chip not visible as it’s below chip to save space)

Hopefully the above is useful for others to avoid the same mistake as me and many others.

Samsung P2370HD Front view

We are building a house at Lake Ohau and would like to move there permanently.
The house is mostly finished, just a few rooms to work on internally, and carpet would be nice one day.
We decided at an early stage to run the house on alternative energy sources.
Hence we have 6x40w Amorphous Solar Panels currently charging 4x 200AH 12v Batteries, charging via a MPPT Solar controller (24v system)
To power the house currently we have installed a 2500w Pure Sinewave inverter.

Now what has this to do with this monitor you say.
Well as the house is used only on weekends and holidays we use our old 14″ CRT TV to watch Satellite TV.
This has been annoying me for sometime as the 14″ I struggle to see anything on.
The CRT is very thirsty on power use, where this monitor has great power saving features.
So with XMAS looming the search began to look for a replacement, something bigger and higher quality picture where I don’t have to squint to see writing.
At first I looked at a replacement TV, this proved expensive for a 24″ and you only get 1366×768 display, some even more expensive TV’s went to 1440×900.
I then had a brain wave and looked at monitors, didn’t need a tuner as such, just analogue input for the satellite receiver which has SCART and Composite outs.
This proved almost impossible to find a monitor that had all the different inputs (Digital and Analogue) I finally came accross the Samsung P2370HD and it had it all, everything I wanted and much cheaper than a similar sized TV.
A quick search via Pricespy and I discovered one at Playtech for NZ$569 (~US$410) delivered. Promptly bought one.
A few days later a card box box arrived in the post with our new toy. Was going to intercept this parcel before my Wife saw it, but alas she got to it first, and hence no surprise for the family at Xmas. So here is what came in the box:

Samsung P2370HD Monitor
Screen Size: 23” Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Brightness: 300 cd/m²
Contrast Ratio: DC 50,000:1 (1000:1) (typ.)
Response time: 5ms
Viewing Angle (Horizontal / Vertical): 170º / 160º (CR > 10)

Samsung P2370HD Inputs

Signal input Connector
Connector D-Sub, D-sub, DVI-D, HDMI, component, composite (not on Aust/NZ models), DTV tuner, optical out, audio in, headphone out
Sync. Signal separate H / V, composite
Video Signal analog RGB, DVI, HDMI, component , TV (digital TV / analog TV)

Looks like there are a few different versions of this monitor and inputs.
US market get Composite input, UK market has a SCART socket, AUS/New Zealand get nothing here

Power
Power Consumption 51 W (typ.)
Stand By Power (DPMS) < 2 W (typ.)

Samsung P2370HD Remote Control

Features
Plug & Play DDC 2B Multimedia
Speakers 3 W x 2 ch (Dolby Digital Plus, SRS trusurround HD)
Optional Accessories remote controller (actually included !), HDMI cable
Special Features built-in DTV (ATSC) tuner
sound: Dolby Digital Plus, SRS Trusurround HD optical digital sound (SPDIF), video (CVBS) (not on Aus/NZ models), component, HDMI (v1.3), supporting 1080P input
TCO No

Dimension
Product Dimension(With stand, WxHxD) 22.5″ x 17.0″ x 7.5″
Shipment Dimension 25.3″ x 17.2″ x 5.3″

Weight
Product Weight 12.8 lbs.
Shipment Weight 16.5 lbs.

Stand Function
tilt (0 ~ 20)

My Thoughts
Included with the Monitor:
Driver CD (not really needed)
DVI-D cable
DSUB Cable
3.5mm Audio cable
A couple of small brochures/guides not even looked at these.
It does come with a remote for those not sure due to it saying on the Samsung website it being an optional extra.
Base and stand.
Cleaning Cloth, which will come in handy.

The Base and stand are pretty simple to put together and then attach to the Monitor.
I plugged in the DVI-D cable (included) and the 3.5mm Audio cable (included).
Cranked up the monitor, quite uncanny with the little tune it played when turning on (this I immediately turned off)
The Monitor at the bottom right of screen has LEDs which also acts as buttons (ToC), the LEDs I also turned off immediately, they still work when you run finger over them.
Quite annoying all those LED’s on all the time, now all I see is the Power LED, another good feature in the setup is the ability to turn these things on/off or adjust level.

The latest NVIDIA drivers are great with dual screens, it made with no input from me the Samsung default monitor, cloned from my Notebooks LCD. Automatically Switched the Samsung to native 1920×1080 and also the LCD on the notebook. Very impressed how all this was just done with no input at all from me.

I then hooked up my Topfield HD7710PVR into the monitor via HDMI cable.
Also a breeze, the Satellite receiver can output video at 1080i.
At Lake Ohau my other Satellite receiver will be plugged in via Composite, I know worst connection but I’m future proofed.

Last to go in was my Media Player via Component, the media player can play up to 1080i but not in H264 so really a waste.

The Tests, did 2 tests one with Satellite receiver watching TV upscaled to 1080i (from 576p)
The huge winds of the last week has loosened the Satellite bracket and I cannot receive SBS Tasmania which has a 720p broadcast. I’ll try and fix this as soon as it stops blowing and raining, but in the mean time it’s SD broadcasts.
Satellite picture upscaled from 576p to 1080i to Samsung, a very good picture, nothing spectacular, it will make a day/night difference over the CRT

Now, 1080p Starwars Episode III Revenge of the Sith was amazing, Episode VI probably made en even more impressive improvement, as saw things not seen before and I’ve seen it many times.
Played a 1080i episode of Top Gear recorded from BBC HD, this was also spectacular, our main TV is a 1366×768 32″ LCD (getting old noe) and the Samsung was so much sharper. Even over the Dell i9400′s WUXGA screen the Samsung was so much sharper and better colours.

Samsung P2370HD Side view

Pro’s
1920×1080 Native resolution
Many levels of power saving modes.
Inputs, it has plenty Digital and Analogue
Remote with Batteries (not many monitors come with remotes)
Many adjustable features
Great Picture Quality
Looks great, nice piano finish, but hard to keep clean, but then again a cloth is included.

Con’s:
Power cord very sensitive touching it while on will switch it off
Speakers a little pokey (2x3w), but it is a monitor and only 23″
Tilt is not easy to do, need to hang onto the monitor top and bottom to do so.
Grrrr, the Australia/New Zealand version doesn’t have Composite inputs like other markets as can be seen here

Monitor use
23″ ideal size for a desktop or for a Notebook in an office, allows many windows open at once.
Would be ideal for video editing with it high resolution.

Gaming use
Gaming another thing this monitor would do well with.
Not the fastest response time @5ms but plenty fast for all but possibly the fastest of action games.
Included Audio input from DVI-D is a bonus for those with no HDMI outputs.

TV Use
The Monitor has a build in HDTV tuner, I’ve not tested this as I’m too remote to this.
But I assume there is a build in UHF tuner with HD capabilty.
I have no use for this but others looking for an all round monitor may find this useful.

Final thoughts
Over all a great monitor, that is also a HDTV.
It will do us very nicely, and in the future I can use it for other things, or get a HD Satellite receiver to replace SD one.
The lack of Composite input as other markets is a let down, will now need to get a SCART to Component converter, wonder why Samsung removed this ?
Hopefully the power cord will not become an issue.
This would make a great Monitor with it’s high resolution or a great multipurpose Monitor/TV.
I think I did pretty well with this purchase and now wonder why lower resolutioned TV’s are so comparatively expensive and you get less.