• DVD-ROM Buyers Check This Site Out
  http://www.visualdomain.net/
• Panasonic SR-8583 regionfree firmware
  if any one can read Japanese, have a look at here and let us know what they are discus about:
  http://www1.ingnet.or.jp/visepur/board/messages/3974.html
  http://www1.ingnet.or.jp/visepur/board/messages/3980.htmlOverClocking Utility for Creative Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT and 3D Blaster
  RIVA TNT2 Ultra cards, Version 1.09beta ( from Bill Ball - Senior Technical Marketing Specialist - Graphics and Video Products - Creative Labs, Inc. )
  This is a beta release of our graphics core and memory clock setting utility for Creative Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT and 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra cards. After installation the utility is resident on the Windows® taskbar. The utility features adjustable limits, a 15-second reversible test countdown after changes are applied, as well as a Safe Mode Safety Recovery and other features. Please review the readme text file included in the installation. As with all beta test releases, we cannot provide tech support. However, we are very interested in receiving your feedback. We invite you to share your observations on the Creative Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT and 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra newsgroups. Available for download at our Owner Resources pages:
  http://www.soundblaster.com/hotgraphics/resources.html
  http://www.soundblaster.com/graphics/tnt2-ultra/resources.htmlMore Info About Creative's TNT 2 Ulrta Video Card
  http://www.cppl.com.au/press/AUS/tnt2_oz2.html

• USB FAQ-- Universal Serial Bus Frequently Asked Questions
• About Slotket
  What's Slotket, what it looks like, what's it can do, have a look at unofficial "Slotket" homepage , we will have AOpen made slotket comes in stock shortly. also Giga byte, Abit and other brands later.
• Fujitsu 4.3GB MPC3043 AT hard disk drive Review
• Secret of Our Current Shipment of OEM Celeron 300A
  We tell you every thing you would like to know about our OEM CPU, why some other place doesn't have them? where those CPU comes from? how good they are for over clocking? visit our Over closkers Discus Forum
• INTEL P-2-333 CPU Over Clock runs at 500MHz Speed
  Completed details see our " Over Clocking Discus Forum "
• Celerons faster and cheaper (ARN News )
  INTEL has continued the Celeron rollout with the recent announcement of the 366 and 400 MHz version of its "value processor" offering, and cuts in pricing of current models. But as with the Pentium IIs, as the faster models are released, resellers can anticipate shortages of the earlier models.
  Click on the link below for the full story http://www2.idg.com.au/arndb.NSF/Current/NT0000A666
• How To Build A Computer?
  this site tells you how to build a computer step by step, following is one article from this site:
  "Should I Buy Cheap Memory or Quality Memory?
  I recently was browsing the web for prices of memory, and had an interesting thought. How can one dealer sell a 32 MB SIMM for $100 when it costs $130 from a Micron dealer? The answer is, as I later found out, that many cheaper SIMMs uses substandard memory chips. This is a major problem when buying memory. It is difficult to determine which dealers sell quality memory. The fact is that the majority of memory dealers buy memory chips from the gray market, where the chips can be of uncertain qual.ity. Sometimes chips sold on the gray market are nothing but old chips that have been remarked so as to look new. To make sure that you get quality memory, buy only from a reseller who attains chips directly from the manufacturer. Do not buy from a memory reseller that fails to guarantee the source of the chip. If you keep this in mind, you will get quality memory, albeit you might spend around 20% more."
• The Celery Report: Overclocking the Celeron ( from Anandtech.com )
  Tells you the some thing about Celeron 300A over clocking.
• How To Make Windows 98 Work for You ( ZDNet )
  Struggling with Windows 98? Get all the answers you need with the Help Channel's ultimate Win98 resource guide.
• Win 98 First Aid Kit ( ZDNet )
  Got a Win98 beef? Get in line. I've pinpointed the problems that are really bugging users. Installation woes, interface gripes, system crashes and more. I've also found Windows experts who know exactly how to fix them. Come to the site and help yourself to my Win98 First Aid Kit.
• New Version of Bios To support Celeron A ( mendocino ) CPU
  We found some of main board's Bios not been up dated, here is the list below in our products range, if any one having problems to boot up, ( symptoms are: 1. power up but no display, 2. power up but display as mmx cpu at -xx MHz ) you need to refresh the bios to latest version, because different brands / models are refresh in different ways and utility software / program, so you MUST go to the main board maker's web site to down load the CORRECT fresh utility and Bios, also those main board makers site will tell you how to do it step by steps. following is the main board bios you need to runs Celeron A cpus.
  AOpen AX6B Bios Ver.R.1.20
  Aopen AX6BC Bios Ver. R1.10
  Jetway J-7XB Bios Ver. B02
• Bug Fix of Aopen PA70 Video Card ( Thanks to Stephen Brennan ):
  Just a bit of news regarding the AOpen PA-70 that I purchased last week. It installed without any troubles whatsoever and the drivers where amazing, however there where a few problem with the Videoout and the occasional random line flashed on the screen. This can be all rectified however if you use the BIOS update listed below:
  ftp://ftp.aopen.com.tw/pub/driver/vga/pa70/bios/pa70_b13.exe
  And the updated drvers:
  ftp://ftp.aopen.com.tw/pub/driver/vga/pa70/9xr0106.exe
• NVIDIA vs. 3Dfx – TNT vs. the Voodoos, a review from Tom's Hardware.
• Free Y2k diagnostic software tests your PC's BIOS and Real Time Clock (RTC) for Year 2000 compatibility -- Ontrack® Y2K Advisor™.
• USWeb Creates Y2K Site For General Public.
• APC Magazine has a CD-R Drive review, full details here.
• Try a Utility Suite For Free, bookmark the ZDNet Software Library's latest collection of utility suites.
• Need Help for Computers ? check out the ZDNet Computer Help guide
• See What Tom's Hardware Said About New Celeron-A CPUs " a Celeron 333 running at 450 MHz was even beating no less than the brand new and also just announced Pentium II 450." do you want one !!
• Over Clocking Super 7 mainboards found to be unstable. Users start to complains to the Manufactures.
• Want to see how a 56k Flex modem can be upgraded to V.90? See Here.
• HP, IBM and Compaq are developing a new PCI standard which differs from INTEL's standard. The new standard has bus speeds of 133 MHz and transfer rates at 1GB / Sec.
• Cirrus Logic released 2 new Re-Writable CD chipsets (CR3470/75). They can provide up to 40x read and 10x write, making CD-RW performance on par with CD-ROM speeds. Also CR3475 has a built in DVD port, and can be directly connected to a DVD decoder. Creating a combined CD-RW/ DVD drive. The new CD-RW chipset not only increases speed beyond ZIP and current CD-RWs, it can run on the Ultra ATA interface at 33 MB / Sec. Data transfer rate from the decoder to the PC cus. This can be reduced for ATA/IDE usage and CPU loading. With new drag & drop software, This CD-RW can be used as easily as a floppy drive. The prices of CD-RWs will be dropped when CD-RW becomes a more common PC device. It will also become a major back up devices for the bussiness user.
• Windows 98 sold 250000 copies in the first 2 days in Japan, but afterwards Microsoft's helpline became flooded. More news from CNET.
• INTEL CPUs have 90% market share, but non-INTEL CPUs are gaining. News from Yahoo.
• Which Voodoo-2 is for you? GameSpot's Vince Broady helps you choose.
• 40x CD-ROM have lots of problems. Most of them cannot reach 40x speed, because consumers cannot easily detect the real speed, some manufacturers will still marke as CD-ROMs as 40x and sell them on the market. Buyers beware of buying a fake 40x CD-ROM.(news from Taiwan).
• WINTEL (Microsoft + INTEL) Form the PC99 standard--300 MHz CPU (128k Cache), 32 MB RAM (Home User), 64 MB RAM(Commercial User), DVD-ROM, No ISA bus. Details Here

INTEL Push Slot 1 CPU
AMD K6-2 CPU
News This Week ( 03/06/98 )
News This Week ( 29/04 )
Universal CMOS Unlock Code
News This Week ( 24/06)
COMDEX 98' Japan Review
Microsoft Release Dynamic HTML Editor, Download it for free.
Intro of 3Dfx Voodoo2 Chipset From Tom's Hardware
CeBIT News & Report
SiS 6326 Chipset have TV out / DVD Decoder ( Hardware+Software )
Over Clocking Tool Kit Hot In Asia
Monitor Market Analyses
Win NT 5.0 News
Power VR Has Second Generation
RICOH CD Recordable Hand Book
INTEL Want To Bring The Market To Pentium-II
56 K Modems Lies On Speed
56 K Modem New Industrial Standard V.pcm ( V.90 )
Abit LX6 -- Tom's Hardware 's Number One Choice

INTEL Pushing Slot 1 CPU

PC Expo 98 New York News. Due to reduction of production of the Pentium CPU and the cost of production increasing, INTEL has already stopped making the Pentium CPU. INTEL will only produce the Pentium-II CPU. For the low end market, INTEL is pushing the celeron CPU with the 440 EX chipset. For lower the system prices, INTEL developed micro ATX standard. Its case is only 2/3 size of a standard ATX case. It can use a 90W power supply, because the Celeron CPU uses 0.25 micron technology, and it does not have any level 2 Cache RAM, so it consumes less power than the Pentium-II CPU. The micro ATX case only has 2 x 5.25" bays and 1 x 3.5" bay. If you are going to use a Pentium CPU, you should use the standard ATX or AT case.

AMD K6-2 CPU

One year after AMD released its K6 CPU, they have released their K6-2 CPU (originally called K6-3D) using AMD's 3D Now! technology. 3D Now! not only increases the floating point calculation speed, it also has 12 new instructions for 3D applications added to the instruction set inside the chip. It will be 4 times faster than the same speed Pentium-II CPU if the software can support 3D Now!. Microsoft's Direct X 6.0's Direct 3D, (released by July) will fully support 3D Now!. Aalso other video card makers have announced driver support for 3D Now! later. 3D Now! also supports OpenGL 1.2 and 3Dfx Glide. According to mainboard manufacturer's test reports, K6-2-300 (3 X 100 MHz) has equal or better performance in Winstone 98 and Winbench 98 CPUMark32 as the Pentium-II-300, under standard commercial software packages like Microsoft Office 97.

Not all K-2 CPUs will run at 100 MHz bus speed. The K6-2-333 will running on 3.5 x 95 MHz. AMD explains that this is because under the CPU manufacturing process, not all of them can run at 100 MHz bus speed, some of them cannot meet the specs. So they will not waste Those CPUs. They can run at 95 MHz speed, much the same as when INTEL had 60 and 66 MHz sbs speeds. AMD will release the K6-2-350 in 3rd quarter, and they will run at 100 MHz bus speed. by the end of this year, AMD will release a 400 MHz K6-2 CPU. They are expecting the prices to be kept at at least 25% lower then same speed Pentium-II CPUs.

Tech News This Week

• After AMD Released K6-2 CPU, Cyrix / IBM announced the release of the new CPU-300 and 333. Q4 will see a 100MHz bus clock CPU released. Next year they will have a Slot-1 CPU release!

Tech News This Week

• Microsoft will have an 805 smaller size Natural Keyboard coming soon. Its called "Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite" and it supports USB. Price is UK$33.
• Microsoft have a "Wheel Mouse" released by June, it supports Win95/NT and you can scroll and enlarge the pages you are viewing.

Unlock Your CMOS Code

A) Unlock Code For Award up To V.4.5

1. Syxz
2. eBBB
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Tech News This Week

• IBM become USA's first V.90 ISP. IBM Global Network announce that they will complete their 400,000 user base upgrade to V.90 by the end of next week.
• INTEL will Release 500 MHz CPU Next Year.
• IE 5.0 will be more slimmer, flexible, more customizable to suit different users.
• Fix portable PC software problems using Email? Yes, Mobile Automation's RightState can do it! You can download a 5 user version for free from http://www.mobileautomation.com

COMDEX 98' Japan Review

• HITACHI shows It's DVD-RAM Drive, read & write at 5.2GB size. 25" PDP -- Plasma Display Panel -- Large size LCD Screen. This PDP can auto detect XGA, SVGA, VGA. It also has a 160 degree viewing angle and is anti - magna.
• Matrox 3DE-D MX2 -- Video card using 3DLab's 3Dfx chipset.

CeBIT News & Report:

• INTEL unveils Pentium-II-700 MHz CPU & IA-64. Also entry level Celeron CPU 300MHz/Level 2 Cache. Notebook users can expect a 300 MHz version by the end of this year.
• An un-named Pentium-II Slot 2 CPU will replace Pentium Pro by the end of the year. It will have 2 versions, a low cost Slot 1 and the high end Slot 2. Slot 1 version can run on 2.000MB/sec 400MHz.

• Pentium-II-700 MHz CPU will be released by mid next year. Most PC makers like Compaq, Dell, AST, HP, Fujitsu ... etc. are interested in IA-64 's 0.18 micron technology.

• INTEL shows first Pentium-II Notebook, Fitted by Compaq Armada 7800 , Fujitsu Lifebook & Dell Inspiron 3200 , IBM ThinkPad And Toshiba Tecra. This CPU will start shipping From 2nd, April.

• AMD 's K6-3D delayed from April to June. 300MHz K6-3D Runs on the 100MHz bus Microstar mainboard , with the demo version of Dreamworks 's "Trespasser"

• Someone has reported a bBugin Word 97, more details see here .

• INTEL Pentium-II-350 and 400 Mhz CPU already shipped, details See CNET .

• DVD-RAM will be released in Japan 15th, April. More details See CNET .

• Loptics released fiber optical technology, An OROM the size of a credit card can store 128MB, and can be used with Windows CE or PDA. It's reliable, compact and comsumes little power.

• Aztech will release a USB Modem, supporting V.90 and 56K. It's also hot pluggable and is power supplied from the USB port, for around $500.

• Ericsson is expecting you to buy a watch when you buy a computer devices. This device can receive Email, SMS info, Stock Market info, news, weather, etc. Also it can transmit PIM information from a PC to a Mobile network.

• Fujitsu will cancel the ICL logo next month. The new logo will be used on 13.8" screen's LCD-PC first.

• EPSON has a new range products, the Stylus Photo 700 (1440 dpi, 6 color inks), Stylus Photo EX (A3 Size Photo Quality) and the Stylus Color 850 ( Hi-Speed, Compatable with PC & Mac ).

• Microsoft's PC99 config will be : Pentium-II-300, 32MB RAM (64MB preferred), with DVD-ROM replacing CD-ROM. OnNow PC Power Managemant.

• Diamond released a Stealth-II G640 Video Card (USD$200.) , using INTEL i740 3D Chipset.

• Toshiba will release Libretto 100CT, MMX-166 CPU, 32MB RAM, 2GB HDD, 7.1" Screen, Type-II & Type-III PC Card Slot weighing 2.35 pounds.

SiS 6326 chipset has TV out / DVD Decoder ( Hardware+Software )

SiS 6326 video chipset can do AGP 3D texture, MPEG-2 DVD decode. Requires a MMX-200+ system to run it. It's better than other chipsets that require a Pentium-II-300 system for software decode. Now USA has an MPACT-2 chipset coming out. It is a DSP chipset and through software programming, it can display video, accelerate 3D, hardware DVD decode, AC-3 decode and act as a sound card. So far no manufacter have put it into a mainboard yet, but it makes a VGA card able decode DVD using hardware, so you only need a DVD Drive with this VGA card to watch DVD now.

Over Clocking Tool Kit Hot In Asia

HK & Taiwan Market have an "Over Clocking Tool Kit" and sales are hot. It is only a very powerful CPU cooling fan, a few heatsinks & jumpers. Now "Over Clocking Tool Kit Ver.2" will be out soon, maybe another hot sale coming?

Monitor Market Analyses

This Year Monitor Mainly Market are 15" & 17", 17" Monitors Been Dropped Prices Up to 40% since last year. Same 17" Monitor Prices Can be 100% More Then the Other Brands, Even They say They are used Same Picture tube. ( e.g. Trinitron & Diamondtron ). Actually, A monitor contents over thousands components, if each of components cost few cents cheaper, the whole monitor price can be big deference. User choice monitors not only look at the price, you also need to adjudge what type of monitor most suit you. Buying Monitor is a long term investments, a good quality monitor at lease last 3 to 5 years time, within 3 to 5 years you may already change or up graded few times .

3 Type of Picture Tube ( CRT )

Flat Square Screen, This is RGB 3 Colour Dot Mix To generate tube Colour. suitable for normal TEXT type display, low production cost, most of manufactures are making this type of monitors.

Aperture grille CRT, This is a most popular Trinitron & Diamondtron ( SONY & Mitsubishi )CRT, RGB 3 Colour single line align mode, this is a patented high resolution photo display mode, 70% monitors in japan are use this Trinitron & Diamondtron CRT. because of the aperture grille easy shocked by movement, they need a small copper wire to hold it firmly , so you will see a slim black line across of the screen on top & bottom side. but this become Trinitron & Diamondtron 's special marking. Trinitron is single gun scanning & Diamondtron is use RGB 3 guns to scan.

CromaClear ( NEC ) Technology, this is a first type & second type mixed version, high resolution TEXT display & reduced movements.

when user choice CRT, not only consider of which type CRT , also other specification need to consider too, like Max. resolution, reflash rate, etc. because deferent type of CRT measure dot pixs 's way is deferent, so it's not comparable by dot pix rate, if it's same type CRT, smaller dot pix means higher display resolution, also you can typing a text in the center of screen , then move it to 4 corner to check the CRT performance.

LCD Display

this year manufactures start making 14" & 15" LCD display, but the prices of them still too high to acceptable by most of user, LCD Display can be reduced the monitor size to 1/3, low power consumption & no radiation. suitable for long hours computer user, so far LCD Resolution can only go up to 1024x768, 17" have not match the specification yet.

Why a notebook's TFT LCD Display are much cheaper then a desk top LCD Display ?

LCD display use digital signals to control the display, this digital signal are generated by a display chip build in side the note book, a desk top LCD display need a extra Analog/Digital convertor to convert the analog signal to digital signals, this is why the desk top LCD will cost more then a note book display, some cheaper version of desk top LCD display are bundled with a special video card, those LCD display does not have a build in A/D convertor. 14" LCD display size same as 15" CRT size, 15" LCD size are same as 17" CRT size, if you want bigger size of LCD, Mitsubishi will have a new generation Plasma super high resolution screen ( 40 " ) later this year.

Win NT 5.0

Microsoft will release WinNT5.0 SDK Beta2 Soon, WinNT 5.0 New Beta Version will release By April. the complete native 64 bit WinNT will release by end of this year.

Power VR Have Second Generation

NEC 's Power VR will have New Technology Power VR Second Generation, This PCX1 & PCX2 3D New Edition Main Target User are PC Player, Even Most User Will Selecte 3D fx Instead of Power VR, Power VR 's Quality Not Weaker Then 3D fx, Power VR 's New Technology will be supported by Compaq , Gateway 2000 , Cyrix , Matrox.

Mitsumi 1.44 FDD Quality Problem

INTEL Release i740 Graphic Chipset

This Use For AGP & PCI 's Graphic Chipset Designed By Real3D, Also Will Have A " StarFighter " AGP 3D/2D/Video Card, Have $MB To 8MB RAM, Supports TV I/O, Hardware DVD, Price Around USD $189. Later Will Have StarFighter PCI, But Price Will Be Much Higher, USD $229.

Quantum 's New " Cyclical Redundancy Check ( CRC ) " Technology

Quantum Release Hard Disk ATA/66 New Standard, Double the Bandwidth As ATA/33 Standard. INTEL Said Will Support This Standard & Up Grade To IEEE-1394 Later.

Study Games At University !?

Games Playing Getting More Series & Professional, USA DigiPen Institute of Technology Have 40 Students Starting a 4 Years Games Entertainments Course Started Last Month, The Course Called " Real Time Interactive Simulation in the World ". All Students Use Pentium 200 system, Study Fee is USD$11,000.

Pentium-II Replace Pentium CPU This April

INTEL Want To Bringing The Market To Pentium-II

Mid of this April, INTEL Will Release Low End Level Pentium-II CPU -- 266 MHz Covington ( With Less build in Cache RAM ), Price Mark At USD$155. Compare To Current Price of Pentium-233 / 512 k 's USD$268. This Is A Big Drop, News From Overseas Said INTEL Will Drop Down Pentium-II 233 Price To USD$195. Compare To Pentium MMX 233 CPU USD$193. ( News Said Will Drop To USD$134. By April ), Which CPU You Will Buy ?

For Pentium-II 233 / 266 Note Book CPU, Between Pentium-II 233 / 266 & Pentium MMX 233 / 266 CPU, They will Only Have USD$40.-60. Difference.

56 K Modems Lies On Speed

56k Modem Lies On Speed, Some Taiwanese Modem Manufacture Changed ROM Setting Inside The Modem & software Driver, Makes The Modem Speed Shows On Windows Higher Then It Actual Speed, Some Of Them Event Use 33.6 K modify The Software Change to 56k. So When You Want To Buy A Modem Now, Be Careful Not Buying A FAKE Speed Modem!

56 K Modem New Industrial Standard V.pcm ( V.90 )

56k Modem Had 2 Standards : 56k X2 ( USRobortics / 3Com ) & 56k Flex ( Rockwell ) , Since 6th, Feb, 1998, ITU ( International Telecommunications Union ) Released The New 56k Modem Standard : V.90. 56k Modem Buyers Should Check Your Modems Can Be Flash Upgrade To New Standard V.90 Or Not Flashable. e.g. USR 56k Sportstor Flash Is One Of The Flashable. 56k X2 Modem, When New Standard V.90 Flash Bios Available On USR's Web Site, You Just Down Load The Driver & Flash The EPROM By yourself, If You Have A 56k Modem Which Is Not Flashable, You Need To Sent your Modem To Manufacture ( Most Of Them Located At Taiwan Or Asia, Some of Them In Side Australia ) To upgrade The ROM Chip.

IOMega Will Release 2 GB JAZ Drive, 40% Faster

Next month, IOMega Will Release 2 GB JAZ Drive, 40% Faster then ! GB Version, also 1 GB Drive will drop Prices, External 1 Gb JAZ drop from From USD$399. To USD$299. Internal From USD$299. To USD$279.

Philips Monitor Offers 3 Years Australia Wide On Site Warranty

From 01/01/1998, all Philips Monitors Been offered 3 Years On Site Warranty, with The Super Low Prices We Are Selling Now, Plus Philips Super highly Reliable Monitors, Philips Monitors Are A Better Value Choice For You Daily Use Computer ( Home Or Work ), All Philips Monitor We Are Selling now Coming with digital control, MPR-II Radiation Protection.

Abit LX6 -- Tom's Hardware 's Number One Choice

See What Tom Said About This Main Board

The LX6 was a pleasure to do testing with and it performed excellent in every test. It holds the lead in most of the benchmarks and is worth a big recommendation. The board is not a cheap and tiny little thing, it's only using high quality components, comes with the well known SoftMenu^TM feature, which leaves you the bus speed options of 50 to 100 (!!) MHz. However, before you are jumping out of your seat, let me tell you that the 100 MHz setting produced 66 MHz bus speed. This can change with a BIOS update though. Anyway this LX board is my number one choice, don't go for less ! Features: 1 AGP, 4 PCI, 3 ISA slots, 4 DIMM sockets,SoftMenuTM , ATX form factor.

Tom's Hardware Web site : http://www.tomshardware.com/

Voodoo-II Start Put On Market At 20/2/98 ( USA ), 8 MB USD$229, 12 MB $299.

Voodoo-II 10 Times Faster Then N64

3Dfx will be release Voodoo II chip set, Voodoo II will supports PCI/AGP, Shipment will be after mid this year. Price will be USD$250-$300. Voodoo II is using Advanced Arcade Technology, Including Parallel Rendering & Dual Texture units, Speed will be 10 Times Faster Then Mintendo's N64, Also 8 Times Faster Then Sony Playstation. When Running Quake, It Can Play 100 fps. But Voodoo II Need To Run On Pentium II & Pentium Pro Systems.

64 MB DRAM Coming To Market

Toshiba, NEC & Hitachi Will Be Change Their 16 MB DRAM Production Line To 64 MB DRAM, 16 MB DRAM Exported From Japan Will Be Less & Less. Other Major DRAM Maker Was Plan To Change To 64 MB DRAM Production By Mid of next Year, Now They Already Changed Mind. Price Of 64 MB DRAM Going Lower & Lower. Nearly Close To 16 MB DRAM's Price.