Forca Blog

Thermal grease,  thermal gel,  thermal compound,  thermal paste,  heat paste,  heat sink paste, heat transfer compound or heat sink compound. These are all names used to describe the fluid substance used to increase thermal conductivity between two components.  Often used in electronics to improve thermal dissipation by compensating  for the irregular surfaces of two components(such as a processor and a heat sink).

Despite how flat the top of a processor or base of a heat sink look there are sure to be imperfections that will prevent the two surfaces from fully sitting against each other. The thermal compound acts as a filler to ensure that 100% of the CPU will be touching the heat sink.

Another purpose of the compound is to fill in all the tiny crevices on the heat sink and metal plate that covers the CPU. To improve conductivity some extreme overclockers will sand down–also called lapping–the metal plate that covers their CPU as well as the heat sink in order to create two completely flat surfaces. This will allow you to use less thermal compound and the less thermal compound you are able to use the better the heat transfer from your processor to your heat sink. There are plenty of guides on how to do this–Google is your friend. If you have done it correctly you should have a shiny bronze surface on your processor that you can use as a mirror. From my experience I have only noticed a 2-4c degree improvement in temps on CPUs I have lapped which in my opinion doesn’t make the hours of time spent worth it. Not to mention you will void your warranty if you do this.

There are many different kinds of thermal compound ranging from silicon based to metal based. For the most part, metal based compounds have much better conductivity.

Is it worth it to remove my heat sink, remove the silicon compound and apply artic silver 5–or some other type of metal based compound–in its place? My answer–it depends on the individual. I have noticed a significant improvement moving from silicon paste to artic silver 5 with multiple processors. Currently I am using a Phenom II X4 Quad-Core clocked at the stock operating speed–3.0Ghz. With the stock silicon compound my idle temps were hovering around 42c which I felt was a bit high considering my ambient room temperature was 21c. I removed the heat sink, cleaned it and the CPU plate with alcohol and a cotton swab and applied a small dot of Artic Silver 5 to the center of the CPU plate–for instructions on your specific CPU view a complete list of guides here.

After going through about 5 heat cycles–allowing your CPU to reach max operating temps then completely cool helps the compound to settle–I was pleased to find that my idle temps had dropped a full 10c. This was a much better result than I was expecting. Usually I see a 4c-6c improvement but in this case I am assuming that the factory just did a poor job of applying the silicon compound.

So is it worth it? Ultimately it is up to you however in my opinion the 10-20 minutes you spend reapplying thermal compound is worth it. Especially in this case where for $5 and 10 minutes I gained a 10c degree temperature drop which allows for longer processor life or greater overclocking ability.  With the silicon compound that came on my processor I was only able to overclock from 3.0Ghz to 3.6Ghz. With the artic silver 5 I was able to stably reach 3.9Ghz and had no issues after running stability tests for 10 hours.

So once again reapplying new compound is worth it in my eyes but that doesn’t mean I am encouraging you to do it! If you don’t know what you are doing you could really mess something up and I am not going to be responsible when you do. If you do decide to reapply compound go find a good guide on the internet since I have barely touched on what needs to happen to successfully reapply compound.

A cheetah can run faster than any other animal. A gecko’s feet can stick to almost any surface without using liquids or surface tension. And some roaches scurry at nearly 50 times their body length in one second, which, scaled up to human levels, can be around 200 miles per hour.

MIT professor and robotic designer Sangbae Kim has looked at members of the animal kingdom in the past and successfully replicated their impressive abilities–two of which being the Stickybot,which can climb walls similar to a gecko and the iSprawl, a robot which mimics a cockroaches movement.

Kim’s next animal that he and his students are going to attempt to imitate is the cheetah. Current robots can be very efficient on flat terrain but in rough areas speed and mobility is very limited. The PackBot, for instance, which is used by the U.S. Military is barely able to go 5MPH.

Kim hopes that over the next 18 months he and his students are able to create a prototype that will have enough power to reach 70 MPH quickly.

The first step will be to create a computer model to calculate the optimal limb length, weight, gait and torque of the hip and knee joints.

The biggest challenge in this project won’t be the structure, but getting enough power from a motor to get to the desired speed quickly, says Kim.

If successful this could be a huge break through in the fight to bring functional sci-fi-esque robots to the world we live in. We will still be leagues away from an I,Robot or Star Wars world but imagine the uses of a robot capable of covering terrain quickly and efficiently! As long as it can handle stairs better than the Honda Asimo and can take control of our hands forcing us to learn an instrument by endless repetition then we will be impressed.

Then again, this could also be a huge break through in a robot uprising leading to the eventual destruction of the human race. One way or another, this is cool. [wired]

These videos show the VASIMR VX-200–the worlds hotest, most powerful space ship engine–being tested in a vacuum chamber. One of the best achievements of the VASIMR is that the plasma engine will make a huge cut in fuel consumption required for space travel. Currently 7.5 tons of propellant are used each year in the shuttle and other spaceships. With the VASIMR that will be cut down to 0.3 tons.

The engine is also much faster. So fast that instead of the current 6 months it would take us to get to Mars it would only take roughly 39 days.

The VASIMR will be tested at the International Space Station in 2013.

You thought I was kidding!? Well, I was–kinda. Activelink’s ‘Power Loader’ is constructed of 500lbs of aluminum alloy and 18 electromagnetic motors. The Power Loader also has force feedback so you can in a sense feel what the arms feel as far as if you have something in your hand or not.

The suit right now is limited to being able to pick up 220lbs but that is still pretty cool since it requires  literally no work on your side.

They hope to have a version that is more fluid and capable of lifting more commercially available by 2015–not official but we believe they will have jet packs as well.

Tired of that lousy Quad-Core PC with 8GB of RAM? You are in luck my friend. SGI now has a personal option for those of you in need of a super computer. As their tag line says they are “making supercomputing personal”.

The Octane 3 is now available starting at the low low price of $7999 (USD). If that isn’t enough machine for you the Octane III can handle up to 80 CPU Cores–EIGHTY!–1TB of RAM! and enough room for ten 2.5″ SATA 2 hard drives.

Hiroo Iwata–developer of the robot tiles seen above–has created what will one day be a virtual floor at a VR lab at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. The Robot Tiles are covered with a conductive fabric that is able to detect the direction you are walking and bring the blocks in place in front of your feet.

As they are this is not very functional but with some work these could potentially be a seamless, infinite floor. In a virtual reality environment this could allow you to realistically feel like you were walking from California to New York while remaining in a relatively small room.

Once these became more efficient and usable they could even create different textured blocks or blocks with varying densities so that if in your virtual environment you walked from a street to the grass you would feel the difference below your feet.

AMD’s next-gen DirectX 11 graphics cards will feature Eyefinity which will allow you to connect multiple monitors that can be used as a single display.

Multiple monitor workstations is nothing new but this technology actually simulates one large monitor across the displays. The above is an example of six 30″ dell monitors pieced together as one to play a video game. In the past you could have these 6 monitors hooked up to your computer with a few graphics cards but you would only be able to play your game on one of them.

AMD says that they are working with manufactures to create monitors that have very thin bezels(borders) so that there is not as big of a gap between displays. Unfortunately, we do not have an ETA for these in sight.

AT&T has announced that they will be rolling out their 7.2Mbps HSPA 3G this year to a few markets. T-Mobile is now claiming that they will do the same–maybe they will start by rolling standard 3G out to more markets, we are still without 3G for T-Mobile where I live.

So, where do we go from here? Most carriers will soon be talking about their 4G networks however, T-Mobile is boasting their super-boosted 3G rocking out at 21Mbps.

While most carriers are doing the smart thing and dropping 3G at the 7.2Mbps barrier and moving up to 4G, T-Mobile is going to use and abuse the 3G network for as long as they can. They claim that they will be able to reach near 4G speeds in 2010. [mocoNews]

After 7 years of drafts and buggy hardware the IEEE alliance has finally settled on a standard. They hope to begin pushing out hardware with the official Wireless N logo on it in the second half of October. The previous standard was Wireless G rated at 54Mbps while the new Wireless N standard is rated at 300Mbps.

When we first mentioned the Sept 9th conference and the rumors circling it the new Nano is not one that we brought up. Why? Mostly, I have no idea but alot of it had to do with the fact that I mostly just don’t care. For those of you who do here is what was announced:

• Video camera (640×480)
• NO STILL CAMERA
• Integrated mic
• Integrated speaker
• FM Radio!!!!! That you can pause!! And iTunes tag!
• One-click YouTube uploads (through your computer)
• Voice Over like Shuffle
• Pedometer with Nike+ syncing online
• Voice Recorder
• 2.2-inch screen(whoo hoo .2in bigger than the last)

The 8GB Nano is available today for $150 and the 16GB is available for $180. So if you are looking to get a Nano I don’t know why you would go with the 8GB as opposed to the 16GB. Some pretty cool upgrades for the Nano but seriously, no still camera?

The 3rd generation iPod touches were announced as well. The iPod Touch now comes in 8GB, 32GB and 64GB for $199, $299 and $399. The bigger storage is nice but our hopes and dreams were shattered when we heard that there was no camera and no mic in the new iTouch. The 32GB and 64Gb flavors do have a “50% faster processor” just like the iPhone 3GS. The graphics processor has also been updated to be OpenGL ES 2.0 capable–hence their push on the gaming market.

So why didn’t we see a camera and mic in the 3rd gen? We can’t be sure but here are some possible reasons:

• Not enough room – Anyone who has held a 2nd gen iTouch and compared it to the iPhone they know there is a big size difference. One part of that is the iPhone having the phone hardware in it but the camera also plays a big role in that. Us being camera/mic-less could simply be due to the fact that there wasn’t enough room

• Feature flow- The small iPod Nano now has a camera so why not put it in the iTouch? The iPhone has a relatively impressive camera for being a cell phone. If I were to get a 3rd gen iTouch I would expect the same quality–quality that the video camera in the Nano doesn’t have. The Nano camera is very cheap and wouldn’t flow in the larger iTouch.

• Manufacturing issues- This one is less likely. Some people have said they believe that Apple was planning on releasing the iTouch but during manufacturing they ran into some problems and decided last minute to leave it out. I could buy this if the iTouch wasn’t available TODAY but it is! If they had run into manufacturing issues they more than likely wouldn’t have made their deadline–which they did.

• Pricing- Apple wants a $199 iPod touch. Which they have–even if it is because the 8GB iTouch being offered is really the 2nd gen. If they were to add a camera to it the price most likely would have to be more than $199 in order to keep Apple’s margin at a reasonable level.

• Market control- Apple has had its eyes on the Flip which is available for less than $150. Apple wants to compete with the Flip and it will be impossible for Apple to make the iPod Touch that price and still make a reasonable profit margin.

• Consuming the iPhone market- One reason I was so excited for the Touch to have a camera and mic was so that I could use it like an iPhone when I was in Wi-Fi areas. Which is probably a big reason why Apple didn’t add these features to the Touch. If they did they could potentially take some of the market away from the iPhone–like me. For me, I would still eventually get an iPhone but it may keep me from making the plunge for longer than I would have otherwise.

• Evolution of a giant- In almost every market that Apple has products in they are the number one player–all other companies are clamoring to compete. As of now no other company has released a product that can compete. If you have the best products on the market why do your best when “good enough” is keeping you ahead of the pack? They may just be keeping a few “secret weapons”–Apple Tablet?–in case another company releases something that may steal some of their market.

The new shuffles are pretty cool. The tiny MP3 player is now more tiny and comes in 2GB and 4GB models. The shuffle is now just big enough to have a clip on it that will attach it to your shirt, etc. One of my gripes with the shuffle in the past has been the lack of any kind of screen so you have no idea who the artist is or what song is playing. Now, the shuffle has a VoiceOver option that will–in a wonderfully robotic voice–at the press of a button say the artist and track name. For an extra $20 you can get a polished stainless steel version as well to go with the polyester pants you wear to the gym.

The iPod classic hasn’t died yet. The 160GB is now available for $250.

iTunes 9 is now available as well. New features include:

• Home Sharing — This allows you to share your songs, movies and TV shows with up to 5 other computers on your local network. You can copy the files to the other computers or stream them over the network.
• iTunes LPs — Basically bonus CDs for digital albums. If you buy an entire album on iTunes you will now get the LP complete with extra songs that only you get, lyrics, photo albums as well as some video content and generally some live concerts.
• iTunes Extra — aka iTunes LPs. With iTunes Extra you get the equivalent to the “Bonus Features” disc when you buy a DVD.
• New Storefront — The store is now more intuitive and feels more like a piece of software you download rather than a bloated web page feel that it has had in the past.
• Updated Interface — For the most part no real improvements here. I think Apple just felt the need to put their hand in the code and wave it around a bit. The artists list and albums list now have their own columns to the left of the music as well as the artwork column. The silver header on iTunes is now a lighter gradient that kind of looks strange at first glance.
• App Manager — iPhone/Touch fans are now in luck. iTunes 9 has a new feature which allows you to rearrange the way apps are displayed on your device and can be dragged and dropped as well as synced.
• Palm Pre Blocked — With those of you who have been keeping up with the gauntlet to the death between Apple and Palm, iTunes 9–once again–has blocked the Pre from syncing with iTunes. Palms WebOS 1.2 will fix that though. And then Apple will come out with another update that will block the Pre again. And so on and so on, forever, until the end of the world–then, Palm will come out with another update.

Steve Jobs made an appearance which was exciting but still not enough to bring life to this disappointing conference.

As for the Apple Tablet, no hope for us in sight. Apple isn’t giving us any information or even acknowledging the rumors but we know in our hearts that there is something brewing at the Apple HQ.

So lets wrap it up.

iPod nano – Now has a video camera and FM radio, no still camera.

iPod Touch — No camera in sight, bigger storage options, no Mic.

Apple Tablet — Still just a figment of our imagination.

iPod Shuffle — Now smaller, new colors, VoiceOver

Steve Jobs – Still alive, or Apple has developed a very realistic cyborg–which not likely but possible.

iTunes 9 — Updated interface, media sharing, App manger, 1 point for Apple in the Pre vs. iTunes battle royale.

The long awaited Touch Pro2 is going to be making its appearance tomorrow. The phone boasts a 3.6 tilting screen, QWERTTY keyboard, intuitive TouchFLOW 3D user interface, and is available in any color you want it–as long as that is black. The TouchFLOW 3D user interface sits on top of Windows Mobile 6.1 OS and is designed to make it more finger friendly.

I have seen rumors around the interwebs that it will be upgradeable to WinMo 6.5 and have no doubt that this is true. With Windows Mobile 6.5 less than a month away it would be a mistake by all parties involved if the phone wasn’t upgradeable.

Key specifications and features:

• High-speed connectivity over Verizon Wireless’ Mobile Broadband network (1x/EV-DO Revision A 800/1900 MHz)
• Global connectivity to allow customers to access e-mail and data in more than 180 destinations and to use the phone for voice calling in more than 220 destinations (GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz WCDMA/HSPA 2100 MHz)
• Wi-Fi capabilities (802.11 b/g)
• 3.6 inch WVGA resolution (480 x 800) tilting touch screen
• Advanced speakerphone with noise-cancelling technology
• 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera with video capture
• Touch-sensitive zoom bar
• Seamless connectivity with Microsoft(R) Exchange, Outlook and Office applications with Windows Mobile(R) 6.1 Professional
• Bluetooth(R) 2.1 with EDR and A2DP stereo
• Processor: Qualcomm MSM 7600A, 528 MHz
• Memory: 512 MB ROM, 288 MB RAM
• Dimensions: 4.57″ x 2.33″ x .68″ (length x width x height)
• Weight: 6.3 ounces (with standard battery)
• Extended 1500 mAh battery for longer operation times
• Up to 5.3 hours of talk time (CDMA) or up to 13.5 days of standby time (CDMA)

Other Features:

• Linked contact view delivers e-mail, text message, call history, and even Flickr images and Facebook(R) updates to a single location
• Push Internet technology ensures that favorite Web sites are always ready for viewing at a moment’s notice
• 3.5 mm audio jack and stereo Bluetooth support to enjoy multimedia content through a variety of audio equipment
• Optional expandable microSD(TM) memory with up to 16 GB to store music, video, images, applications and other content
• Built-in GPS for VZ Navigator(SM), VZ Navigator(SM) Global and other location-based services and applications

The Touch Pro2 will be available tomorrow, September 11th, for $199.99 after the $100 mail-in rebate with a two year contract. The rebate is provided in the form of a debit card which is frustrating. Hopefully online you will be able to get it for $199 and not have to deal with the MIR, or maybe if you haggle them in the store enough–threatening to go to the iPhone–they may be able to waive it for you.

Hopefully Verizon will decide to be nice and unlock the GPS so you can use it with your non-Verizon programs like they did recently with the first generation Omnia.

Meet the Toshiba Camileo S20. Capable of full 1080p video recording and only 17mm thick this has got to be the slimmest of its kind.

Only 17 mm thick, the Camileo S20 is one of the slimmest full HD camcorders available. Featuring a 5MP CMOS sensor, the S20 is capable of shooting 1920x1080p high definition images and features 4x digital zoom. With its ultra slim form factor, stylish design and a rotating 3” display, the Camileo S20 is the ultimate camcorder for style conscious consumers and first time users looking for high quality HD images at an affordable price.[Toshiba UK]

How affordable? This is listed on the site for £119.99–just under $200 USD! The bad news? If you stocked up on that good deal you found for VHS cassettes in bulk you are going to be out of luck. This camera is only SDHC memory compatible.

Features:

• Full HD resolution (1920x1080p)
• Super Slim (17mm)
• 4x digital zoom
• 5MP CMOS sensor
• 3″ rotating LCD screen
• HDMI
• YouTube upload function & hot-key
• SDHC compatible

The standard that we have been hearing about for the last 2 years may actually be on its way to the market later this year.

As of yesterday manufacturers can have their products tested and if they receive SuperSpeed USB certification from the USB Implementers Forum they will get the new logo slapped on.

I previously talked about USB 3.0 when I got word of the new Asus P6X58 motherboard that was utilizing USB 3.0 ports. In case you are totally clueless the current standard is USB 2.0 which is rated at 480Mbps while USB 3.0 is rated at 4.8Gbps.

With all the rumors swirling around about Apple products they are we are lucky we only have 7 days left to wait.

What will we be seeing this year? Apple tablets? Apple iPods with cameras? Death to the classic iPod?(notice the headphones in the image above are plugged into the bottom of the iPod like a Touch not on top like a Classic) Will we see MMS for the iPhone in the US?

All of these questions and more answered Sept 9.

I wasn’t able to find any information to back this image up but if it is accurate powering the whole world with solar panels will be quite the job.

This image shows that we would need 308,762 square miles littered across the world in deserts with almost 24/7 sun all year round. The little boxes on the map don’t seem like much, but to put this into perspective Texas is 268,601 square miles. We would need to have monstrous solar panel parks providing power to our world. Alternatively commercial and residential structures could have solar panels arranged on top of them to generate energy. Start-up costs of such a project would probably be so great that none of us will ever see it in our life times, but it is still cool to think about.

Repeat after me:  No unlimited data plan with Verizon is a good thing. This is what Verizon is going to be  trying to convince all of their mind controlled zombies customers come September 8th–maybe.

Verizon will have a new classification of phone beginning in a week as well–”Enhanced Multimedia Phones”. Those phones will be required to pay for either the $9.99 or $19.99 per month data plans–much like how the red giant requires Blackberry devices to have a data plan.

What constitutes a phone being described as an Enhanced Multimedia Phone you ask? It has to have an HTML Web browser, EV-DO Rev. A, a QWERTY keypad, and it must launch on or after September 8th. If it doesn’t meet ALL of those requirements then it doesn’t qualify and won’t have the data plan forced upon it.

While the Omnia 2 doesn’t classify as a EMP we probably still won’t be seeing it until after this data plan switch. And what about the unlimited data plans? Will they be available for other phones? We sure hope so but it sounds like it has been thrown out the window. This will be a good change for people who occasionally check their email or browse every now and then but for power users who are constantly on the internet or who tether their phone to their laptop for internet this could be really expensive if the unlimited plan is completely done away with. [BGR]

Alright, fine, “right around the corner” may have been a small exaggeration but there is no question about it, these concept designs from the Electrolux design lab 09 are pretty awesome. While none of these really seem possible or cost effective right now we could begin seeing them over the next 5-10 years.

Of course if the ‘Teleport Fridge’ technology existed we would never have need to leave the house–via car anyway.[EDL]

Yep, its here. But most users have said the reason they never went with the PS3 in the past is because of the cost. Will it being $100 less sway you away from your Netflix friendly Xbox 360?

The Blu-ray player alone is worth $100 to $200 so if you are in the market for one of those it may be worth the extra cash for the 120GB hard drive and PS3 games. On the negative side the Slim can’t play PS2 games which seems like a really poor decision by Sony.

Well the day after BGR claimed the Omnia 2 would be hitting Best Buy stores we are all once again greatly disappointed by a false rumor. After stopping by a Best Buy first thing this morning and having everything I ever wanted vanish my hopes and dreams crushed we do have some hope for Verizon customers on the horizon.

Granting that this time the BGR leaked info is legit Verizon will have a whole slew of phones hitting the market in Q4 of this year.

Here’s the list(phone – release – est cost):

• LG Chocolate Touch                    -    October    -                  $230
• Samsung Rogue                             –    August    -                    $370
• Blackberry Storm 2                     –    October    -                   $TBD
• Nokia Twist 7705                        -    Late September    -    $230
• Moto Sholes(Google Phone)    -    Late October    -         $TBD
• HTC Razzle/Blitz 2                       –    Late October    -         $TBD
• BlackBerry Curve 2                     –    Late November    -    $TBD
• Samsung Intensity                      -     September     –            $160

The much discussed Storm 2 jumps out at me first with an October release. There isn’t a price listed here for it but I would guess it we could see it for $199 if Verizon and BlackBerry was smart. With the results of their first horrible attempt it would be smart to price the phone competitively to coax those still bitter about their purchase of the first storm into giving them a second chance. As a spokesman from BlackBerry said the Storm was their first touchscreen attempt and it is “never perfect on the first try” however Apple never had a problem with their first touch screen.

The Motorola Sholes will be the first Android phone–”Google phone”–to be released on the Verizon network which we are excited to see. [BGR]

TomTom software for the iPhone 3G and 3GS is now available in the App store. The down side to this is you will be spending $100USD for the US and Canada version which is just about $20 less than what you can find a dedicated GPS unit for.

It will make it convenient. You almost always have your phone with you so you won’t have to worry about forgetting the GPS or about it getting stolen out of your car.

The iPhone is even able to receive calls while being a GPS and simply cuts out your GPS audio while you are on the phone.

The downside of course is that if for any reason you need to use your iPhone you will lose your navigation momentarily, it will suck your battery and you are going to have to spend more money to get the windshield mount and other accessories that you may want which will put the cost of using your iPhone as a GPS solution at around $200.

I think I would wait for some more usage reviews before dropping the money personally but here is one review to get you started.