My new system specs are:

• Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz @ 4.0GHz
  • 444 x 9.0, 1.32 VCore
• EVGA nForce 780i SLi
• 4GB Crucial Ballistix PC6400 @ 889MHz
• EVGA nVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX *2 SLi
• Zalman 9700 Quiet CPU Fan
• WD Raptor 74GB 10k *2 in RAID0

This system scores around 17k in 3DMark 06, and 9k in 3DMark Vantage. Not the absolute best, but good enough to play Crysis @ Very High @ 1680×1050. Here is a screenie:

Here is a picture of the system itself:

And a naked GeForce 9800GTX core

Brennan

Here is a quick guide on Jailbreaking an iPod touch. I personally recommend just capping it at 1.1.3 until 2.0 comes out with full SDK support. You get all the vibrating icons, and movable icons, and still get to install the ‘unofficial’ official iPod touch applications (eg. Mail, Weather, Stock, and RSS).
Jailbroken Touch

1. Firstly, if you already upgraded to the official 1.1.3, downgrade to 1.1.1 and navigate to jailbreakme.com to jailbreak your iPod using the TIFF exploit.
2. Then, add http://ijailbreak.com/repo.plist to your Installer.app Sources.
3. Now, a crucial step before you run the Jailbreak. Go to Settings->General, and disable Auto-Lock. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL
4. Launch Installer and you should find a new version of Installer is available (refresh your Sources otherwise.) Install the Update. Be sure to follow its instructions.
5. You will also update the “Community Sources” package. If not, go and install the it; it’s under the “Sources” category.
6. Now you want to install the “BSD Subsystem” package. You can find it under the “System” category. After installing it, you must reboot your iPod touch by holding down the Power button until the Red Slider appear, otherwise iJailbreak.app will not work.
7. Go to the “iJailBreakMobile” category and select either the “iJailBreakMobile 1.1.1″ or the “iJailBreakMobile 1.1.2″ (depending on your current iPod touch’s firmware version) package to install. After installation, you will find a new app by the name iJailbreak
8. Tap on iJailbreak on your mail screen. If you see that it’s stuck with just a spinning wheel on the screen, it’s safe to manually reboot the device. But you want to do so after at least 45 minutes since you started.
9. Launch Installer and install the “Remove 1.1.3 Upgrade Data” package. It’s in the “iJailBreakMobile”. You can Uninstall it after it’s done.
10. You are done! Install your third party apps without having to pay!

Brennan

A few nights ago, I needed to get a couple Promise FastTRAK SATA RAID cards because my onboard ones just weren’t cutting it. I connect them to my PCI32 3.3V slots, boot up my system, and it goes through the whole detection process for my JBOD disks. Then it tells me that there is not enough Optional ROM space to continue…. WHAT?! I mean this is a $500+ board we are talking about here! Not enough space?! Give me a break.

I was running BIOS version 1.03, and there didn’t seem to be any fixes related to the BIOS looking at the updates, but I decided to upgrade to 1.05 just for the hell of it.

No Luck.

I tried disabling all the on-board features (SATA, SCSI, MAC PXE OptROM), and it still errored out on me. Why should I even have to try that on a high-end, server-class board.

No Luck.

I ended up taking one card out, configuring the RAID, and switching the cards and configuring the other one. Then I put both cards in, disabled the OptROM Boot Error Check, and just living with the issue. But why should a board of this class have issues like this? I’m seriously tempted to phone Tyan to get a replacement board or some kind of solution for their crappy-ass quality control.

Brennan