BeOS Ramblings

Last post, all of a few hours ago, I forgot to mention that I was ordering from a retailer who happens to have the HQ and domestic distribution warehouse a five minute drive away. So I have the Noctua. But when the rattling returned, it became clear that it was the PSU fan. So I have a new PSU also The old PSU was not ATX form factor. The new one is, and shares one single screw position in common - top left corner. Lets hope that holds it in... It's also fixed cable (which I should be used to), and baffling when you haven't built your own PC in a decade or more; and mostly serviced HP SFFs in a previous job for most of that decade. Why are there so many cables? What do most of them do? Why is the CPU power cable twice the size (turns out it slides apart, so can be used)? Why does a modern system need 3 Molex connectors?  Its working, and the PC is vastly quieter. I'll replace it with a modular if I ever feel like burning even more money - the insane cable loom tucks above t

My €99 second hand (well, €50+€49 shipping) Matrox G550 arrived last week finally. The original purchase receipt in the box was from 2008 - who was buying those in 2008, other than BeOS users? And it was from Germany, where there were a lot of those around; so I wouldn't be madly surprised to know that its already lived a life without its 3D kit ever being used. It works, and well - as I'd expect with a Rudolf Cornelissen driver. Haven't dug up a second VGA monitor to try dual-heading, but I imagine that'll work too. BeRometer now has close to, or top level results in every category - from just about in terms of graphics performance (the RIVA TNT2 that had R5 drivers is probably just as fast or faster, for instance) to absolutely ridiculous (disk speed, pure compute speed) where it's often 5x the fastest recorded. We're comparing to 1999s top end hardware here, so mid-range late 2005 should be expected to be about that much faster; and of course an SSD and a dif