Tip Of The Day

I'm going to be trying something a little different to try to bring the site up. Every Day I will be posting a tip about a video game system or computer.I Just thought it would be neat to try out.

The PS3 uses a 2.5" sata laptop hard drive, if anyone is interested in switching it out. Keep the old one tho in case you have to send it in!

Thats sweet cause i only have a 20 gig and am in dire need of a bigger drive!

Sweetness. That's a good tidbit of information.

I wonder if a guy could take an image of the drive and apply it to a larger one, thereby keeping all your 'stuff' and gaining more storage space at the same time. I have an external laptop hard drive kit that turns an internal laptop hard drive into an external drive, but it's IDE

That's something a guy should mess with... I have a nifty imaging program for 'backing up hard drives' if anybody else is interested.

I dont know what all that means.....imaging and what not..... but i do know i need a bigger drive!

This program I have copies all the information on your drive into a proprietary file -- an image. You can then take that 'image' and with this program, copy all that data onto another physical drive, making a duplicate. In theory, you can do this with any type or size of drive, and ideally your PS3 would pick it back up without knowing the difference. (Except noting available hard drive space)

It would be easy for me to try on my own if it weren't for the fact that the PS3's drive is SATA, while my external kit is IDE. This refers to the connection type between the hard drive and the system

I don't know how you can exist with only 20GB on your system. I blazed through that almost instantly...

yes my measly 20 gig is basically full, the only reason its not is because i copied my drive to an sd card when i reformatted and when i then put everything back on the drive, well i didn't put everything back on the drive... so we need a program like u said so as to keep the sony o.s. is that what i am understanding?

sounds good guys keep it up!

Exactly. It's takes an image of the drive. Sorry, but there's really no better way for me to explain it.

It's as if it takes a 'picture' of everything thats on the hard drive, then you can apply that 'picture' to another drive, thereby creating an exact copy. You can apply this 'picture' to any other drive. It doesn't matter what kind or how big it is.

Yah I know what your are saying about the image. But PS3S software has to be in Fat 32 Format, which with windows you cannot do to to a drive larger than 4gb I believe. I found this out because i went to backup my 20gb so i could put it on my 120Gb i put in and it wouldn't recognize it. Then i figured out that it needed to be in FAT32 format which sucks.

so what did you do? do you have the playstation O.S. on your new hard drive?

It seems to me that all you have to do is install the larger hard drive. The PS3 can format it and install what it needs to by itself. It's just up to you to move what you need from the old drive onto some kind of intermediate drive, such as a USB flash drive or flash memory card. That suck hueg about not being able to image like I was hoping...

Alot of people still don't understand the difference between the 4 PS3 models. The 20 GB has full backwards compatibility (hardware and software) , no wifi, and no media card reader. The 60 GB also has full backwards compatibility, wifi, and media card reader. The 40 GB ps3 model has no backwards compatibility (only will play PS one games),and only 2 usb ports, and it does have wifi.The 80 GB has only software backwards compatibility. It does have wifi, and a media card reader.

So if you plan on buying a PS3 and selling your PS2 don't buy the 40GB, Your best bet would be to get of either the 20GB or 60GB, even tho the 20GB does not have the extra features it is still fully compatible with PS2.

Ok today's topic is intercoolers, and what harm the really do. I have been studying computers and everything about them for about 8 years now. I built from first computer when I was 10 years old with a bunch of old parts lying around. And let me tell you cooling is the most important component to electrical systems that there is. When strapping and intercooler on you think wow a big fan is going to cool this sucker down (maybe I could even extend the life of my system). Well thats not the case, Think of an intercooler as a big piece of plastic that does nothing but build pressure in you system. Its kind of like a turbo for your car without exhaust to let the air out. When the developers of systems plan out the system they take a very very long time designing the air flow so systems do not get bricked. They use a simulator designing special banks directing air to important components. Well when you take this and blow more air into the system that it can blow out u have a lot of hot air sitting in place of cold air. When hot is supposed to cool something it only gets hotter, and the components do too. I have drawn a quick picture of what really happens to the air inside your system.

In the case of the XBox, one would not want to put an intercooler on it not only because of an air flow issue, but also power. The power supply was was not intended to carry this extra load of fans, so using an intercooler means subjecting the other internal components to a dangerous power drain. Just as dangerous as an over-heated system.

Yes that is true, Thats why I don't support them (Microsoft) at all. They make everything cheap and don't care about the consumers. But really 2 fans of that size does not put that big of a demand on the power supply. 2 high performance fans of that size need around an extra 25 watts or so of electricity. Bluntly Microsoft should have stayed with the software aspect because their hardware is not reliable. They should have put into effect that there should be a bit of power fluctuation due to the add ons and they increased performance of games. It makes me wonder, when the newer games come out that demand more from the processor, will it handle it? I don't think so.

Well today sitting in second hour I found out the school had blocked our forum page. So everyday there might not be a tip of the day. I am currently looking for some more proxy sites to use, so if anyone knows some pm them to me.

ok... no more draggin on the 360..... yes it has been a highly recalled system yes the red rings suck... but lets also give microsoft props on extending an additional year warranty and openly excepting all the faulty systems... in all honesty I remember lots of people who had ps2 problems. especially people who watched alot of dvds in them, for some reason the original ps2's when you watched alot of dvd's in them they would stop reading game discs, i think sony addressed the issue and within a few shipments they were no longer having that problem, but i did not ever hear of anyone sending their ps2's in no questions asked for a new one! anyhow i have both ps3 and the 360, i love them both for different reasons, in my opinion the 360 has been the superior system thus far for many reasons, but sony says this is their year, so we will see if they can pull ahead..... oh and there is a rumor of a new system made by apple ... lol

hanner74 wrote:ok... no more draggin on the 360..... yes it has been a highly recalled system yes the red rings suck... but lets also give microsoft props on extending an additional year warranty and openly excepting all the faulty systems... in all honesty I remember lots of people who had ps2 problems. especially people who watched alot of dvds in them, for some reason the original ps2's when you watched alot of dvd's in them they would stop reading game discs, i think sony addressed the issue and within a few shipments they were no longer having that problem, but i did not ever hear of anyone sending their ps2's in no questions asked for a new one! anyhow i have both ps3 and the 360, i love them both for different reasons, in my opinion the 360 has been the superior system thus far for many reasons, but sony says this is their year, so we will see if they can pull ahead..... oh and there is a rumor of a new system made by apple ... lol

I'm not dragging on the 360, just the developers. Of course the 360 is a good system, but it was released to fast, and problems were just more apparent because of it. Yes there is never going to be a "perfect" system that is never going to have its problem. Just like the PS3 with the disc ejecting problems, it had that and now it is fixed.But PS3 did take a big lead this year, HD DVDs are gone for the most part, and thats what one of the make it or break it functions of the two systems.As I said before what makes Microsoft known for is software, and software they are good at. Thats why XBOX has always been better looking, because of the software. The PS3 has hardware on the XBOX by a large margin thats what the battle is about. Sony needs time to get the software to start pushing the hardware more. I was reading an article when resistance came out that resistance at the peak was only using 10% of the hardware.Now I know resistance was not a great game it was ok. XBOX has had time to get there stuff done, its had about a year over sony, i think they can become equal. We will just have to wait and see, and trust me its going to be a fun ride. I also heard sega coming back into the business, but I don't think that will ever happen.

Today are discussion is ethernet cables and internet. I'm sure all of you know that having a wired connection is always the best thing to have. But if you are not able to run cables or you just don't want the mess you can run wireless. Wireless does not have the speed of ethernet but ethernet does not have the mobility of wireless. I'm going to give you some tips on getting the most out of your internet. First, Don't use more cable than you need, always try to use the least amount of cable you can. When you have a large amount of cable there tends to be little resistance in the cable. Throughout that cable it will just get worse and worse dragging down your speed. Second, is the cable you use. There are two main types of cable, cat5, and cat6.Cat 5 is the cheaper of the two and it has more "lag" in the line. Cat 6 is expensive, and does not have near the lag as cat5. The setup I use is I have a 12" peice of cat6 cable going from my modem to my router.Doing that you know you have the power at your router and you just have to get that power from your router to everything else. Then from that I have 2 5 foot cat5 cables going to my systems. I would run cat6 but thats 10 feet of cable that would just be more. Well thats how that goes

Gamerkid wrote:

hanner74 wrote:

/me looks at the clock. New tip for the day? ...It's still today though!

I'll dog on the XBox all day.

I won't hide the fact that I have an undying hatred for Microsoft. I don't mind Windows, despite the fact that it's always been a flawed operating system...and don't even get me started on Vista. But, I use Windows only because I have to, and because it's our environment at work. But, everything else I do in life has nothing to do with that God-forsaken company. Even as I type this now, it's on a Mac (which is a far superior operating system than Windows). The only time I have Windows running in my house are a) when I'm gaming, and b) on my domain controller, which is rendered moot because I never run Windows on my machines...so it's basically just a server that happens to be running that particular OS. I just hate the company and the way they do business / think they control the world. I would love to tell them other wise (with a ****), and I guess I manage that in my own little way by my choice in operating systems and programs. You (Microsoft) think that just because I buy / build a new computer think that I owe [them] money? Fuck that! You think you're going to take over the gaming market too? Fuck that even more!!! That company is going to fall hard under its own weight. Watch. They're already on a good pace for it.

Edit:

I got all worked up. You want a tip for the day? A new version of Ubuntu gets released in 2 days. Go here to check it out. Linux for human beings. Far superior to Windows, and it's (ZOMG) FREE!!!!

I'll have it downloaded. If you decide you can't wait and want to try it now, I have a beta of the newest version to be released or you can try an older version that I can copy to disk. You know how to get a hold of me.

Edit #15:

Cable's cable. Just don't go over 100 meters in length. Dave's right, though, being wired is way better than wireless. Wireless is only for convenience and should never be used for gaming. And remember: Orange-white, orange, green-white, blue, blue-white, green, brown-white, brown.

Ok I'm tired and have to work all day tomorrow some I'm going to post a short tip. I am going to inform you a bit about PC cooling today. With gaming PC's today cooling is a must (found this out the hard way). I have done alot of research with cooling my personal gaming computer. I found that if you have more exhaust fans (fans that blow the air out) than you do intake fans (bring air in) that you have a better cooled computer. The draw back to this is that your fans act as a vacuum sucking air through your system so you will have to be spending a lot more time cleaning the dust, hair, and grime out of your computer. The other way having more intake fans than exhaust does not cool as well but you have to clean out your computer alot less. So it's up to you which way you want to have it setup, if you want to clean more or have a hotter system.

This may sound kind of stupid, but it happens alot. Never switch any of your devices with disc trays from horizontal to verticle while in use. Doing this can cause a scratched disk or worse yet a broken drive.