Posted 7:07 PM by jrel

Thermaltake G4-VGA Copper Cooler

This is a repost of an earlier review. It has been edited to include final tests.

I've been wanting to overclock my Visiontek TI4600 Xtasy video card for quite some time but hadn't decided on how to do it properly. Then I saw this cooler at CompUSA. Since Thermaltake sells many quality cooling products, I thought I'd try it.

The package includes a copper heatsink with fan, 4 memory heatsinks (2 large and 2 thin), and T-340 thermal grease.

I began by first removing the stock HSF. Well, this wasn't easy at all. The stock HSF was already tightly mounted on the card. Pushing down on the pushpins did not work, and squeezing the bottoms of the push-pins with pliers wasn't releasing the HSF. How in the world was I going to get this off? So then I took the pliers and pinched the push-pin bottoms until they were completely mashed. Since the push-pins were plastic, this wasn't hard to do. I tried prying the HSF off again but the push-pins were still not releasing themselves. Then I found a bit for my screwdriver that could fit into the push-pin hole, so I pushed both push-pins back out of their holes from the bottom of the video card. Finally, success!

The stock HSF left an adhesive residue on the GPU chip so I carefully removed it using a razorblade and kleenex. With it finally clean, I applied thermal grease to the GPU and then inserted the G4-VGA cooler onto the card, and pushed the push-pins into place. Perfect!

Then I applied the heatsinks using the package's two-way adhesive tape to the video card's ram chips. That was easily done.

So, after reinstalling the card, I then realized the cooler's fan connector was not going to fit into the connector on the video card! What the hell!?! Luckily, Thermaltake had thought of this problem by supplying an all-in-one 3-pin fan connector with male and female power connectors with the package. I connected the fan connector to the video card, and then the power connectors to fan-power connectors from my power supply.

So how is the overclocking going? After performing a Prime95 Torture Test and CPU Stability Test for 30 minutes each, the system is still stable! The Core Clock is at 330 MHz from 300 and the Memory Clock is at 715 MHz from 650.

Posted 8:17 PM by jrel

Yes. It's True. I AM AN ALIEN FROM SPACE!

And if you can't believe that. Maybe you'll believe this.

Posted 10:20 AM by jrel

LUCID DREAMS

For those that don't know, lucid dreaming means dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming. Here is a good FAQ about Lucid Dreaming. I can now absolutely affirm that I can self-impose a lucid dreaming state. "And how do I do this?" you might ask. For me, it's very simple. When I wake up in the morning, I lay there and go back to sleep. After awhile, you'll start to get hungry, but you must remain in bed, and keep trying to go back to sleep. Soon, you'll start dreaming and perhaps wake up at times, but you can remain in this state for hours if you wish. When I dream during these times and wake up, the dream is still quite fresh in my mind. In fact, over a few hours, I'll have multiple dreams. Some are continuations of the same dream, and other times, they are wholly different dreams. Now, this method works for me, but I wouldn't suggest it for everyone, for you are actually fasting, or starving yourself, in order to do this. If you are unhealthy or sick, don't do this. I don't recommend starving yourself if you are not in good health. However, if you're willing to try, then try it this way. I believe this explains how people get visions from days of fasting.