thanks to Alex Kruppa for suggesting a better modification to the beginning of a "GIMPS theme song": "GCD, FFT, PRIME!" (say each letter separately, singing to mickey mouse theme song tune.)
Mary, thanks for pointing out that prime95 counts cycles rather than wall time, so that it will not be obvious when cpu throttles back. Brian, please no more two or three colo[u]r LEDs to indicate status of cpu throttle or anything else. almost 10% of humans has trouble distinguishing colo[u]rs, not to mention the large percentage who don't even know how to spell the word "colour" properly! for some of us it is practically impossible to distinguish red/yellow/green on an LED, especially when they are flashing. this is often a "showstopper" problem for me when working with computer/networking/lab devices - i have to find another way to determine the device status, or go find someone who can see colors properly. also, it is good to know that you had a toshiba satellite laptop running for 3 years with no fan failure... but i doubt i will restart prime95 on my wife's toshiba laptop any year soon! and your point is very well taken that a "low end" cpu chip can handle overclocking better than a "high end" one. for example, the 1.5Ghz P4 could probably handle it better than the 2Ghz. yes, this was an expensive lesson for me to learn empirically! i thought i was on safe ground due to the supposed thermal protection in the P4, even though i did not have intel motherboard. live and learn. further, as for the stated limits, the Asus utility program does some sort of CPU-probe, and it detected the 2Ghz P4 and said that it could be clocked anywhere from 2Ghz to 2.4Ghz! so what is that about?!? either way, i don't expect intel to replace the cpu and today am planning to pay $280 for a 1.8 Ghz P4 as a replacement. btw, the motherboard was never at 90C, it was the motherboard-cpu-temp-threshold that was set to 90C that was triggering. i don't know if i did anything bad to the voltage regulator with my 5% overclocking... if you or anyone did not see the facetiousness in my "blaming" prime95 for slaying computers, i'll be more clear: prime95 is not at fault for any of these things. i did all these things with full knowledge of possible risks. thus i am the moron, not prime95! prime95 is clearly imbued with genius (seriously). btw, i have driven over nails before and did not blame my gasoline supplier. once i drove over a harvard students keychain and destroyed a tire. but unfortunately i missed the harvard student. i agree with everyone about on/off cycles being damaging to much computer equipment - especially hard drives. i've always set the power management so the drives always spin when AC power is available. Alan, thanks for the idea about pcmcia fan. i had not known those were available. very cool idea. it is great emailing with all of you folks and participating in the GIMPS project too. a happy & safe 2002 to you all, /eli _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
