AMD Shuttle users up in arms

Dear Mike

I'm writing to you in attempt to raise awareness about the following issue:

On June 21st, Shuttle publicly announced support for AMD's X2 dual core series of CPUs. You can find the official press release at the following address: http://global.shuttle.com/ADVNews/NewsDetail.asp?CTID=A69AC49F-B90C-445E-A412-560BA5F2A03D

I subsequently bought such a machine (the top of the line model SN25P) , only to find out that Shuttle's statement is less than true. My box would freeze/BSOD without good reason at random intervals. Together with the shop where I bought the box pre-built, we exchanged any single component, only to find that they were all working properly in another non Shuttle machine, and that the machine would also run stable if my dual core X2 4600+ was replaced with a single core chip.

I have found that the problem can easily be verified by running the Memory Test in PC Mark 05. I finally discovered that I'm by far not the only one having seemingly inexplicable problems. The SFFTech forum, which Shuttle suggests as a help resource, contains a large number of posts by people that are similarly affected. Here is a short list of threads on the issue:

http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.aspx?catid=43&threadid=80305&STARTPAGE=1&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear
http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.aspx?catid=43&threadid=80029&enterthread=y
http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.aspx?catid=43&threadid=77828&enterthread=y
http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.aspx?catid=43&threadid=80780&enterthread=y
http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.aspx?catid=43&threadid=80828&enterthread=y
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=69416&highlight=Shuttle+SN25P
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=51&threadid=1556194&enterthread=y

To break it down: Running an SN25P and X2 CPU using standard setting is bound to lead to problems. They can either be fond by transferring large amounts of files over USB2, or run the memory test in PC Mark 05 (just running the memory test will do, the rest of the tests will run without a glitch). Except for switching out the CPU to a single core model, disabling one core or setting the USB bus back to USB 1.1 seems to work as a temporary workaround.

Until this date, despite numerous people reporting the issue, Shuttle has failed to publicly acknowledge that there is a problem, and inform their channel partners to inform potential customers about the problems. Having spent good money on the top of the line product by the market leader, I expect that Shuttle at least acknowledge there is a problem and gives us a deadline when the problem will be fixed.

I hope you can verify that information and write something about this issue in your news. If Shuttle won't inform their paying customers, somebody else should warn them.

Regards
Stephan Steiner

P.S. The SN25P is not the only Shuttle model exhibiting an unusual amount of problems. The SN25P's predecessor, the nForce 3 based SN95G5 does only support the AMD Venice / San Diego and dual core chips with the 3rd revision of the barebone. Owners of previous revisions have to get their entire barebone replaced to be able to use AMD's latest chips. What makes this worse is that the SN95G5V2 is still widely available, whereas pre revision E socket 939 AMD chips are already in short supply. I cannot find any information on this issue on the Shuttle website, but at least the sales channel seems to be aware of the problems and barebones are exchanged where necessary. Still, customers may not be aware what they're looking for, buy an incompatible product and then having to return it to get exchanged for a compatible model.

[So Shuttle? What do you have to say? Ed.]

INQ staff,

I'm trying to find out how this "Vole" usage started. I email Nick to get some input and did not get enough to satisfy my appetite. Could anyone explain further how this whole “Vole” term came about? All input is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

The AMD Fanboy song
To the tune of a NIN song - terrible lie… to those who don't know what this sounds like… read it anyway

HEY AMD, why are you doing this to me?
AMD, I wanted Intel qual-i-ty
AMD Why am I seething with this animosity?
AMD, I think you owe me Xeon server quality

AMD
I WANT QUALITY
AMD
I WANT QUALITY

AMD, why do your cores run so hot?
AMD, when P4 Prescotts clearly do not?
AMD, I feel my hatred go ALL the MORE EXTREME Oh bugger, can this network really be as slow as it seems?

AMD
I WANT QUALITY
AMD
I WANT QUALITY

Don't take Intel away from me
I need you to hold on to
Don't take Intel away from m
e I need something to hold on to

This promotional song is brought to you by ******** In conjunction with *********** and ********** For more information, check out our website at *****.co.uk Thank you for your attention, now get back to work!

AMD, I don't need 64-bit compatibility
AMD, that's really Intel's responsibility [You heard]
AMD I lost my server, security and pride
AMD, I BELIEVED your lawsuits, your promises and lies!

AMD
I WANT QUALITY
AMD
I WANT QUALITY

You made me throw it all away
my server left TO DECAY
AMD

See how many you betray
You've taken everything
AMD
You leave me very displeased
Prescotts are 65 degrees
AMD
I'm in Redbus Data centre
I want so much to believe
(And to have a second seeeerveeeeeeeer Ooh I've just got a new Dell server! - it's intel !)

Lewis S

Google retaliates by suing Microsoft

I can't help get the feeling that Microsoft's anti-compete clause is completely illegal.

Technically this guy works on a lot of technologies. There's not one he probably doesn't have contact with. As a VP he sees all sorts of technologies. The main reason is that he works in a field where a bit of every technology is necessary to do the job. You can't create a global search facility without touching on almost every technology that Microsoft works on.

Since it would be incredible to expect this guy to honor a non-compete clause due to this I can't see Microsoft winning in court.

Google engineering a CA resisdent status on this guy? I highly doubt that.

I live in WA. I feel sorry for all those WA residents that aren't protected under the same laws as CA. CA's law should be a precedent for all states showing that it is indeed illegal to create non-compete clauses. If WA has a law that permits monolopy companies such as Microsoft to virtually enslave its employees then those laws need to be changed and the lawmakers need to be replaced.

Either way, due to this guy's larger than life role in Microsoft and the fact that he more than likely works with virtually every technology (in some way) that Microsoft develops, it would mean that Microsoft is enslaving him. If he wants to live and pursue happiness then he can't because he can't take any job that would entail any part of it which competes with Microsoft. That effectively would end this guys career. It would probably end a lot of people's careers from Microsoft.

Microsoft is a convicted monopoly after all. Laws pertaining to employment should also be considered part of any federal restriction on any company ruled a Monopoly. They have the power to restrict innovation by restricting employment of those that have been instrumental in creating and maintaining that monopoly. The point is that if you can't free yourself of the criminal organization then you are essentially enslaved.

Every State in the US should have laws that override any restrictive covenant for convicted companies. Why is Microsoft, a criminally convicted monopoly allowed, to enact restrictive covenents that permits it to force employees to remain employed employeed in fields where there is some form of competition in any area? See what I mean? Why can they be a criminally convicted monopoly which is convicted of illegal restraint of competition and still allowed to restrict it's employees, especially someone who's job would touch on virtually every technology Microsoft uses? It would make it impossible for him to leave because he would not be able to work in his field?

Why would Microsoft need to sue for a restrictive covenent when we already know they could/would be able compete adequately without him or even with him as a competitor?

These are important issues even if most people don't fully understand them. My assessment is that Microsoft is illegally holding their employees to these covenents even though they are a criminal monopoly and those restrictive covenents probably played role in establishing that criminal status.

Jim Blaich
Shelton, WA

Microsoft Windows Vista

So, it's Windows Vista, eh? At first, I thought they may have chosen that name because it is a lot harder to make fun of than Longhorn . .but it's much more subtle than that. After reading some other posts, refering to it as Windows Hasta La Vista, well, we all know Good ole Arny said that, as The Terminator. So, it's not so much of a stretch to call this one Windows Terminator. And Terminate is just another word for crash, isn't it?

Martin

DC

Dual core processors seem to be at a bit of a crossroads in terms of their usage. Dual core offers the benefit of being able to do multiple things at once - typical example, encode a movie and possibly play a game. But recently I am seeing an emergence of people wanting multi threaded software. Wont this put people back in the old situation of only being able to do one thing at a time? Sure, that one thing will be don't in half the time, but what do people want - many things at once or one thing in less time? Don't get me wrong, there are benefits to doing one thing in less time, but following that logic, you don't really need two cores, simply one far faster one?

Personally I feel as though things should remain single threaded, allowing us to do many things at once.

Kam

Windows for lawnmowers
re:Microsoft claims Longhorn will be, er, faster

Same old, same old.

Windows version X+1 is always faster then version X because Microsoft tests X+1 on the latest hardware, and X on hardware that was current when it X+was released.

So windows lawnmower running on a AMD X2 with a gig of ram and the latest video card beats XP running on a P4 1.8 Ghz with 128 Mb of ram.

Oh big surprise. Now put them both on the same box and tell me it's faster...

Tom Smith

Subject: Windows XP/Longhorn Prefetch

Hello,

The information provided by "snakeye" in the July 20 letter segment is incorrect.

Setting the Windows XP Prefetcher to 1 insetad of 3 will disable part of this feature. The Longhorn SuperPrefetcher appears to be a completely new beast.

Information regarding this can be found here:

http://www.iamnotageek.com/a/94-p1.php

Regards,

Dom

[That's right. We tried it - it made no difference at all- Ed]

Subject: FBI internal documents

Unfortunately, the SF Chronicle has no idea what these 'internal documents' are. And there's no evidence that it's necessarily spying on anyone. Since the ACLU has filed numerous lawsuits against the FBI, one would expect a rather large number of internal memos, documents, (and one can easily imagine these mounting to > 3500 pages, considering the paperwasting red tape tendencies of the fed).

As for Greenpeace, although it officially eschews violence, it (or at least some of its members) have been associated with violent acts of protest and certainly it's no stranger to nonviolent but illegal tactics, such as trespassing.

While we'll have to wait for the lawsuits to reveal what the contents of these memos are, another question that no one is asking is just how many documents does the FBI have on right-wing groups (is the FBI being more or less fair?), or actually violent groups like ELF -- so that we would know what appropriate 'benchmarks' would be.

Yonemoto

Subject: Re: Bill Gates is short of good techies

OK, so is ol' Slick Willy Gates just plain stupid, or does he think that everyone else is stupid?

I recall not so long ago that he and/or Steve "Forest Gump" Ballmer were calling for lower salaries for their software developers. Does anyone really expect kids choosing a career to think, "Gee, that used to be a decent way to make a living, but not so much anymore. That's OK, I don't need the money, so I'll go into that field anyhow."

Stupid is as stupid does.

Jim Bormann

Subject: IT words ....

You can have the Vole word ....

But you cant have the Wibbly Wobbly Web (and obvious derivatives), my web site was wibbly wobbly in 1994.

Wibble has meant chat or words without content for as long as I can remember. Hence the World Wide Wibble probably predates widespread IP networks, maybe it's an old Bulletin Board thing (both being early mechanisms for students to have their opinions heard worldwide).

I failed miserably in my attempt to get people to say "wibbly dot .." when reading out url's (instead of "wubbleyou wubbleyou wubbleyou dot ...", though I did give the world the first football web site and a rude verse to "oh you'll never go to heaven".

many regards ... Phil

[ wibble n. act of noodling about on the interweb, [I'm having a wibble ]
- vt. wibbled, wibbling] INQ Dictionary of Webspeak (unpublished).

Subject: Pakistani News

Interestingly, when I load that page today, at the end it says "Courtesy: theinquirer.com". Which, of course, is not y'all's website.

Bob Drzyzgula

"But, as far as we know, we're the only news site in the world to call Microsoft the Vole" [/Quote]

Hi,

You're obviosly not the only one to use word "Vole" to refer to Microsoft anymore... It's becoming kind of "official". :) Check out the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vole, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vole

Best regards,

S.

Subject: Bill Gates is short of good techies

One simple answer for this.

IT does not equal digital janitor.

If you don't know what I mean well simply put many people especially in high positions don't really understand just how important having a network admin/IT/Software developers really means.

What if the system goes down, no work will happen all business will stop. I always get the comment that we will do it the old way, well that's good and all but the old way was done by the baby boomers and aren't they almost all retired???

What about the generation after they didn't ever do it the "old way" so technically they won't know how...

So how important is IT... Crucial

example, I was a Network admin supporting about 10 NT/2K server, 8 Novell servers (groupwise, and file servers), 10 Solaris boxes and supporting about 150 users and I was paid 20.00/hrs after being there for 4.5 years well now 1 year later I'm making 24/hrs doing helpdesk (now working for someone else. when your told "if you don't like it there's the door", well I took the door... c'ya).

How does that make sense, as a network admin I had an exponentially larger amount of responsibility and without me the system would not be able to sustain its self for more than five days after that it would crash all over its self.... don't ask, I know a server should be able to run for much longer than that but sometimes you have superiors who think that clicking, next, next, next, finish on a server app means that he knows how to setup a server... To all wanabe network admins server software must always be customized since every environment is different and a server should only need to be setup once, so do it right the first time.

Anyway all this to say to all techs out there do not undersell the value of the position. Every IT out there should be making more than a delivery truck driver hands down. It takes lots of time for the experience and lots of money for the education to be IT (and to those whom graduate from Highschool and go directly to IT with no formal education, thats great but if you ever want a new job there is something called resume filtering which looks for keywords like "MCSE" and if you don't gots one of them you don't gots an interview... MCSE certifications cost and since MS likes to move buttons around from version to version of any app this means eventually you will need to get re-certified again... an other way MS make a pile of money each year. so it may not cost you right away but will eventually.

What does a delivery truck driver need spend, his special class license so that he can drive a truck, wow, wooohooo takes a lot of brains for that one.... and before I get spammed to death I don't think truck drivers are stupid at all but the point I'm saying is that it takes much more to be IT than it does to be a truck driver and the pay should show that.

People don't want to have stress related illnesses by their mid thirties because there are so many problems in the computer world and being that you can make often more money as a truck driver why not stick with the KISS principal, Keep It Simple Stupid.

Dan B.

Subject: XP speed boost

In regard to the XP tweak that longhorn has... Nice find ! In XP is doesnt say "enablesuperfetch".. just "enableprefetcher".. do you change the name to enablesuperfetch and change the number to 1.. or just leave it as enableprefetcher and change the number to 1..

Hope that makes sense

thanks for your time

Justin

Subject: Igor + poor quality capacitors

Hello!

the so called white noise Igor is complaining about isn't just one device, but lots of devices connected together, especially if like many you use power distribution strips with surge protectors, have a shoddy eletrical system in your home and what not.

easily solved though, the lead coming from power distribution strips place a clip-on ferrite/toroid near the strip/board part.

simple, although I can't help with the ringing noise in your head. ;o)

L. Edgeworth

Subject: Everywhere Girl again

Not sure if you have this one. It's very creepy that she is all over the Net.

http://www.homeeducator.com/FamilyTimes/articles/11-6article2.htm

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