Ok, I was looking at what I had said in the past, and noticed I'd talked about my graphics card. Oh the wows I have had.

My pc was really unstable, it got to the point that even a little bit of stress and it crashed, so I eventualy gave up with adding fans, and trying to solve the problem, but by that point the problem was no longer limmited to games, so I was starting to think it wasn't the graphics card after all.

So, I bit the bullet as they say and splashed out some doe to solve the problem. One new mother board, a very lush evga NF680i SLI, and water cooling kit, now the water cooling might be 90% for its geek value, but it sure as hell works when it comes to keeping my processor cool, and its a lot quiter then some massive fan (the alternative). I also got my self a nice anteck p182 case. I'll add a picture of it all in a moment, cause it looks cool.

Any way, once I fitted every and reinstalled the OS its all up, and its rocking. Its been good for a couple of months.

The odd thing, is that I recently installed the gainward software, and given it was a hot day, but after a couple of good races in NFS carbon I started being switched out by the software telling me my gpu had hit 111 degrees C.

It dosn't crash though, I wait for it to cool down and alt tab back to the game and keep on racing. So I think the graphics card does tend to over heat, but weather because I now have fantastic motherboard cooling, or because the old mother board was faulty, it no longer crashes, so its not all bad.

I'll have to fiddle with it, maybe get a gpu water block, and see if that helps. Might be worth it, part of me wants a gpu block and a second radiator mounted under the top case fan. That would be the nuts, cpu, radiator, gpu radiator back to the resoviour. Sorted. Not to mention exstreamly geeky :-)

Oh, and I nearly forgot to add the picture :-)

Well, as I am sure every one know there have been some new developments in browsers in the last week or so, with the launch of IE7 and Firefox 2.

I've seen people commenting on how they both have nice new features, but no one seems to have noticed that both look almost like Opera. Every one seems to have forgotten about Opera for the moment.

But, I wont go on about that for long, other then to say that Opera has had the closer on the tab for a while now, and with IE now supporting tabs, and firefox moving the closer from the end to actualy being on the tab. They all look fairly much the same.

On the BBC, some one wrote "With IE7 a blank tab is always available but with Firefox the new tab only appears, and takes up some screen space, when you open one up.", and I say wow, you idiot.... its not a blank tab, its a button... just like the one in firefox, only it looks like a small tab. We can tell this by floating the mouse over it and the familiar "new" icon appears...

And this guy, Mark Ward, is a "Technology correspondent". Shamefull.

So, do I really have any thing interesting to say here? No, probably not. I still like IE more then Firefox, the tabs just make IE cool, though at the same time moving that stupid closer in Firefox has improved it a lot, its suprising how the little things effect how you use some thing.

Generaly though, a browser is fairly much a browser. I think IE7 has a bit more customisation of its look and feel, hiding the menu untill you hit alt is sweet, in firefox I have to move it up out the way. The more space taken up with tool bars, the less there is, and at least to me thats import. Again, thats a feature some not so tech people don't like. I'd imagin this is because they don't realise alt generaly sends focus to the menu. Or they don't use many keyboard shortcuts like ctrl-f, in stead they think "oh, where has the edit menu gone...."

I think finally I will say what I think of "Security researchers Secunia". That is, your just trying to gain some advertising by coming up with "vunrebilities" in IE7 Quickly, sure, the first one was ture, ok....but did you tell them when it was in the RC? I bet you knew, but it looks good to be the first to fine an issue, with in days of release.

As for that second one, wow, how much of a stretch is that? If you pad the url out, IE scrolls it left. Well, shockingly I have my IE set to open new tabs, not pop ups. So I just didn't even have the problem. How can some thing thats just "padding" be a security issue. I know people are stupid, but come now.... even thats probably just taking the piss.

Well, I've been having a few issues with my computer, some times its fine, but other times it just locks up and needs a hard reboot.

What the problem is I don't know but there where some old "parts" in there so I though it would be best to swop them out and see what happend.

Any way, now I have a swanky new PSU, and oh my god, a lush as all f**k hard disk. I've finally joined the SATA revolution.

Problem is, and you'll like this one. XP installs to the new drive, then when it reboots the first time all it will say is "Error loading Operating System". Fairly sure I know what that issue is, but by the time I got that far I'm a bit stuck, no OS.

So what I thought to my self was "ah, well, I wanted to check out vista" so I installed it. I wont go in to much detail, because frankly I am still checking it out and I think a fair trial is a good idea before I slag it off. What I will say is: How bloody big are the title bars now? Jesus christ....

That aside it actualy works quite well, so I engaged some testing. I have installed nothing, just the drivers for the video card. I then installed Company of Heros. I had a quick go and strangly it all seemed fine. I managed to finally complete the training with out a reboot. So, I am thinking thats a might bit odd. Maybe it was the old OS install? But no, when I try a mission, it died....took about 10 mins.

So I disconect the old hard drives, you never know they could be in some way the problem, though it seems unlikely.

When I tried again, much the same thing.

I'm starting to get a bit pissed off with it and so I leave it for a couple days. In the mean time it occures to me that maybe its a driver issue. So I uninstalled the drivers, went back to the default windows ones.

When I tried Company of Heros, it worked fine. I completed the training, and then started a single player game. It worked fine. I actualy completed the campain....and moved on to the second. After playing for about an hour (I wasn't trying to play "well") I'm starting to think I've found the problem, but then moments after completing the second mission, boom, screen goes black and the PC stops....

What the hell?

The cards not getting all that hot, and the problem is getting harder and hard to reproduce. I'm starting to get worried. The newest development I guess is a slight tendancy to blue screen, but lets face it...that could be Vista. I'll have to go back to XP, figure out how to get it to boot off the sata drive. 

But over all, every thing I do to find this problem seems to just cloud the water more. I'm confused. I don't see any common pattern any more. It could be the graphics card, but equaly it could be the ram, the processor or the motherboard.....

Its the question of the moment that one, is it really my gfx card getting hot, or is some thing else the problem? I really am not to sure right now.

But I'll get back to that, for now there is a problem. Its been going on for some time, and my efforts to solve it have had some sucess but, not tatal sucess thus far. First, when I got the machine it was a tad unstable, but your basic burn in period solved most of that, but still, it used to crash if I did any heavy 3d. I found if I clocked the gpu below its factory settings it was fine, but whats the point in that?

So, in a quest to find the solution I fitted a Slot fan, a big one. But for wat ever reason that didn't last long and with in a couple of days it gave up spinning. So I got another one, smaller, but functional. This seemed to help but it didn't solve the problem. I was still crashing out of fear, my monitor going blank etc, after about half an hour of play.

Next I fitted the biggest fan I could find, 120mm, above the card. This, in fairness seemed to do the trick. I've been playing fear a lot, some times for hours and its fine... but then, I got some thing new.

Company of Heros looks really nice, but so far I can't play it for more then about 10 or 15 mins. What ever is coursing it, shortly after starting the training every thing dies. The screen looses signel, and as far as I can tell the PC crashes.

Now, whats interesting is I actualy logged the tempreture of the GPU, ok, ir rapidly went up from 60 to 99 degrees, but that alone shouldn't crash the PC. 99 degrees really isn't that hot, and if it was, well, why do the monitors all want to kick an alarm at 125. Thats not much good, my pc crashed 26 degrees ago.

Any way, so I have gotten to thinking about this. There are a couple of things I want to check out now. Firstly, maybe I mounted the 120mm fan around the wrong way, so its blowing in to the case, not out.. I want it to suck the hot air out. So reversing that might help. 

Second on my list of things to check out is the PSU. Maybe as the fans pull more power, and the gpu pulls more power the psu just can't handle it. I know for SLI I'd need some thing new, but I didn't think it would be a problem for a fairly standard set up. But one never knows and the PSU isn't all that new, a good couple years old. So no one had invented PCIe back then.

Failing that, I really can't think of to many other courses. Well, there is faulty components but thats not normaly time related, and it only seems to happen in games. So, if none of these easy fixes work then I am giving some serious thought to just water cooling the whole thing. CPU, GPU and Chipset.

Oh, that reminds me, on my motherboard the chip set dosn't have a fan, so another cheap fix might be to fit one to the top of its heat sink. That would be the thrid choice before the whole water cooling idea.

Time will tell, once I fix it, I will post back here. Its pissing me right off that some things wrong and I don't know what, but I will find out. 

Any one that actualy knows me will agree that I don't watch much TV, in fact odd as it maybe, and some what hard to believe I once ended up being really really paranoid of TVs, even being in the room with one turned off made me uncomfortable, never mind if it was turned on.

I got over it in the end, it was silly, but I didn't have a TV for many years and I still don't watch much. STNG rules (I'ma geek) but other then that I don't go out of my way to watch, most of the time there is some thing better to do.

That is, apart from a small number of excelent BBC programs. Life on Marse, Top gear, and at the moment Spooks.

I'm a huge spooks fan, so I have to make this quick because episode 3 of season 5 is on in a moment. But I just wanted to take a moment to tell every one to watch. Season 1 is still the best, unusal for a TV thing, normaly they get better over time. I think. But Spooks is always good, its a shame so many good charactors have died but they are replaced with fairly good ones. Its just no one can replace the people you like? Well, I don't know but Tom was just so cool, totaly bonkers, but in a really cool way :-)

Well, thats that then, I am going to watch this, it would be harsh to miss the first couple of mins sitting at my computer talking shit.....I can talk shit (and do) any time of day :-)

Ok, so I finally got home after a long day at work, and obviously the first thing I did was brake out the new Keyboard and give it a bash.

First impression, well, christ thats a huge keyboard about covers it. They main "keyboard" element is maybe a little smaller then general keyboards, but as a whole with all the Gkeys and what have you, its huge. Even bigger then the old MS Natural I had.

I do have one complaint, well two really but only one of them is the keyboard, and both possibly have the same reson. Firstly, the enter key is way to small, its just like a double width key, but not the double height like on most UK keyboard. The other issue, and this really isn't its fault is that its a US keyboard layout. Thats a little anoying because I don't have a pound sign, and a couple of the other keys are in the wrong place.

Right, thats the dull shit. Lets get down to the nitty gritty. Whats it like in games?

Well, before I installed it I found lots of people claiming to have issues with F.E.A.R going slow when you have a G15 keyboard and a G7 Mouse. At least in F.E.A.R combat this wasn't a problem. It seemed to be running just as well as it did before.

The keyboard is really nice to use, it feels good under hands and responds instantly. I need to do some more testing to find out if there is marked improvement to my skills, but it seemed to have made at least some differance last night.

As every one probably knows the G15 isn't your every day keyboard. Its got that ever so funky LCD and back light keys, so hows that working for me? AMAZING!!!!!

The LCD comes with a few basic applets, they work well but they don't do any thing amazing. You can find more at www.g15mods.com and www.g15forums.com. Both have some interesting stuff. I've tried SirReal, its handy and tells you some usfull stuff. But lets face it, system stats are no interest to any one really. The weather applet I got, not thats the nuts. I have the current weather forcast for where I live along side the date, time and the wind speed.All nicely displayed there on the top of my keyboard.

So, what about the back light? Can you read every thing in the dark? Simple answer is yes, very clearly and with out any problems. Of course because the letters on the keys are clear, there is one issue with the back light. Turn it off and you can't see any thing :-)

The G-Keys are a good idea as well. Now I have them set up to launch all the stuff I use day to day at the press of a button, best of all they have jacked in the stupid "function lock". The F Keys are just F Keys now, no stupid mode switch that always means your in the wrong "mode" for the function you wanted. Instead we have the G Keys.

Other then the default profile used in windows you can define profiles for the game or other software your using. It auto detects the game starting once its configured and changes the mode for you. Setting up couldn't be easier, you can browse to the executable or just run it and press a button on the keyboard and the software will automaticly detect the current application.

Its childs play to add keyboard macros, short cuts or one of a number of standard functions such as "web" or "email". In 5 mines I had quick keys for launching apps, as well as macros to aid comunication with in fear.

Over all I am very happy with the keyboard. I'm even willing to use it in US format, I don't offten need the £ key, and I guess I will just get used to it. I can always use £ :-) 

So, lets see. Last time I posted any thing was quite some time ago. I am not so good at this "regular" posting thing, but what the hell, its not like any one actualy bothers to read this shit on a regular basis, and if you do....you know who you are.... your a sad lonly old git.

But, I digress, before I even started. 

Recently my PS2 died, it still works but it wont read a disk. I could probably fix it given some basic parts but with the PS3 (delayed) just around the corner, I can't be bothered. Not to mention that this new PC plays PC games and oh my god....lush.

Couple of things though, my 6800GS Bliss cooks, and I don't mean its the hot shit.... this baby cooks it self, and every thing around it. I've had to add a case blower just under the card so I can try and remove most of the heat. But even then I can't over clock it because if I do, half an hour in to a couple of rounds of F.E.A.R Combat and my PC is rebooting.

That brings me to the point of this post really, F.E.A.R. Combat. What a totaly cool game. Best of all its free, so ok, thats a marketing ploy. What with it coming out on the PS3, it would be a good idea to get lots of people playing it. If your a total F.E.A.R addict, and you get a PS3, what game are you going to buy first?

Still, the game is the nuts, I have not been so in to a game in years. I've been playing a fair amount of CTF, and getting in trouble from the little women for it. But soon she to will have a sweet gfx card and be playing as well.

If you havn't tried it out yet, check out http://www.joinfear.com/main

Recently I thought "what the hell, new PC, lets give this IE7 thing a go" and so far, suprisingly, I have been quite impressed. Now for a Tech geek, I am some what differant in that I don't like Mozilla. Why? Well, its slow, it uses huge amounts of ram and just looks a bit ugly. Not to mention I don't really use tabs.

Well, that is untill they where in IE7. Now I don't use them all the time, mostly I still use multiple windows, but say I am surfing around scan, looking at new kit and I want to check out one thing, but also keep looking? Well there is a new tab.

I also have 3 home pages, the 3 pages I most offten open a browser to use. Handy.

I guess one of the most suprising things is the built in search bar, ok, so it came set to msn but it was no problem to add google.com. Problem there is that I don't use google.com most of the time, I use .co.uk.

So I looked in to how this thing works, and the suprising part is its based off an open standard. Wow.... some one at Microsoft must have been on drugs that day.

It turns out its quite easy to add providers, so I made some usefull ones:

click here to add newzbin search
click here to add google.co.uk search
click here to add google.co.uk (UK Pages)search
click here to add IMDB search
click here to add BBC News search

I guess the only thing I don't like, or rather that I think is missing is that with the google toolbar you get clickable buttons for your search terms, handy when your researching though masses of text.

Any way, all that aside I like IE7, its better and a lot of the features like "page zoom" are really easy to use. I've had quite a few CSS issues on differant sites though, this one included. I am not quite sure what it dosn't like, but its no more of a problem then Mozilla.

I can see a lot of people have some work to do though, latest version of plesk is seriously pear shapped. If any thing I think its probably IE6 work arounds that course the problems, I will have to write some thing more on that once I figure it out.

Well, I haven't been very good at posting to here of late, I've been a bit bussy working away. I've done loads of JS and AJax in the last 4 months, and generaly spent the vast majority of my day working away.

Now, as is always the case my contract has ended and I find my self with at least a couple of days, a week or two, of spare time, so now that I have had a nice long weekend, sleeping late, doing my own thing and just generaly kicking back I have to ask my self what now?

Well, obviously there is looking for a new job, but whats that? 10 mins a day sending out ye old CV? About that, but as to the rest of the day? Well, I have a number of things really that I could do. I could work on eveblogs, and thats the most likely I guess, or I could work on the little womens new site, but she dosn't seem to be using the one she has now. Or, I could start some thing new and exciting, I have this totaly cool idea for an ajax based project management site.... but ye, ok, that would basicly just end up being another site I have started, got the interesting stuff done and then just moved on to some thing else.

I guess really I will do some more work on eveblogs, its nearly done I just need to add funkiness.

Really, I think thats the differance between work and play. I play because I want to, but I work because I am paid to. I guess that helps keep you on track. You have the job, and you know what the end is, so you can focus on that and get it done...

So I guess, I should now nuckel down and get on with some thing, or maybe I will paint my flat. Thats always a good distraction :-)

Well, though I am officialy a huge geek, I've been negelecting some my PC, well, actualy most parts. You know how it is, there always seems to be a bill to pay, or some thing more important any how.... and I long since gave up trying to keep upto date.

Any way, all that aside, I recently upgraded my PC, ye, ye, I mentioned that weeks ago, by if you shut up and read for a moment then I will get to the point. Right, well, yes, I upgraded and for the fist time in a couple of years, lets say 5. I can play moden games.

Its not that I didn't have processing power. Obviously, I needed that to run ANY THING java based, but, well, just about every thing else was a little piss poor.

Right, now, less bitching and more dishing.... this new PC is, well LUSH, I've been playing a lot of games, from doom 3, to F.E.A.R. Man, I have been missing out. Games have come such a long way.

Lets take F.E.A.R, I'm playing it at the moment (well, obviously not right not)... It's an exceptionaly good game, I like the slow motion feature, very matrix, and it allowed me to pull of the gratest kill ever. Poping round a corner, going slow mo... still moving fireing 3 shots from the double pistals. 2 dead bodies. Nice clean head shots....

Aside from that, the game has some nice touches. You can shoot all kinds of stuff, nock things over on shelfs, and a some thing I really like, you can shoot through cardbord boxes and such.

Some thing I have noticed in most of the games is the sound effects, bullet casings hitting the floor things like that. Its the little things that make all the differance I think.

I've been running most things in 1024x768 with all the graphics turned right up, no sign of frame dropping, or any cugging. But to be honest at 1280x1024 things some times flicker, now I am not sure if its the monitor or the graphics, but I am happy in 1024x768 for most stuff.

I just remembered some thing else, rag doll physics. I fist noticed it really in Rise Of Legands, but its there in Fear as well. When bullets slam in to the target, they stager back, when they die they fall as limp bodies, laying how they land. Not like the olds days when a body could easly be cut in half by a wall....

I'm not sure what the best game I've played recently is, but I am sadly not a huge fan of Doom 3, it looks nice, its not a bad game, but way to offten its just DARK, and why can you not hold a touch, and a gun? I like Quake 4 a lot more.

I did complete Call Of Duty 2, now thats a game, good solid snipping action. So many gerries took a cap to the head, but it was good. Quite hard, some parts took me days to finally beat (I don't play all day). But when it was all done I did find I missed it. I tried to play again, but its not the same once its done.

Other then the whole game thing, I'm quite impressed with the machine as a whole. I need some SATA drives, but I can wait... at least till I get paid :-) You can't really sniff at 50 quid for a 250 gig drive... But, god I get side tracked a lot. I like the dual core, it flys, all the time. So far I aint found any thing that can really slow it down. Its the good shit :-)

Oh, and lastly, any one that wants to know, but dosn't... this is what I got

A while back I posted about the G7 Gaming mouse, then last week I posted my upgrade, and I got my self a G7.

So whats it really like? Well, as a mouse its comfortable, its moves on the desk really well and its not to heavy like most cordelss mice.

The 200dpi wireless not only responds well, but has excelent range, works perfectly from the other side of the room. I've been playing a lot of Quake 4, and Doom 3 since I got it... as a test you understand.

Over all I think I am well impressed, and it is as good as I thought it would be, there is only one slight downer, and that the battery life sucks. You get maybe 2 days running the full 200dpi, but nock it down a notch and its usable in windows with some mouse exceloration, but the batteries last longer.

I guess this would be more of an issue, but it has 2 battery packs, hitting the button fires it out of the mouse, reall easy. Pop the other one in, and your up an running.

In boost mode you obviously don't get so much charge, but 2 hours charging will get you 4 or 5 hours of gameing.

So, whats the last word on living with a G7 Gaming Mouse? Humm, I think, excelent mouse, really suggest you get one.... I can't go back now.

Now, who has a G15 keyboard instock? ha? :-)