Sony DRU-530A and DRX-530UL – to meet the New Year with new DVD±R/RW recorders

On the problems with Catalyst 3.8 drivers, ATI´s official answer

Renesas introduces 1Gb CompactFlash Type I cards

Artic Silver 5: new thermal compound from Artic Silver

NEC-LCD samples three 21.3 panels for professional use

Tyan unveils new dual-way Tiger i7501R (S2735) motherboard for servers

Sony Ericsson P900 smartphone officially announced

FLX3A and FLX3AW Pocket LOOX PDAs from Fujitsu will hit the market in November

Sony DRU-530A and DRX-530UL – to meet the New Year with new DVD±R/RW recorders

Sony announced two DVD±R/RW drives with 8x DVD+R recording support. As usual, the company introduced the external DRX-530UL and internal DRU-530A models. The former, supports USB2.0/IEEE1394. As for the sales dates, the model USB/FireWire will arrive to market in this December with MSRP of $350, while the ATAPI will be selling from January 2004 with MSRP of $270. Both models will work under Windows 2000/XP.

Besides, both will have 2Mb buffers and will support the following recording speeds: 8x DVD+R, 4x DVD-R/DVD+RW, 2x DVD-RW, 40x CD-R, 24x CD-RW. The bundle will include Sonic RecordNow, Sonic DLA, Sonic MyDVD, CyberLink PowerDVD, MUSICMATCH Jukebox.

DRU-530A will be sized 14.6x4.1x18.2 cm, DRX-530UL – 16.4x5.3x24.6.

On the problems with Catalyst 3.8 drivers, ATI´s official answer

Below are the official comments from Terry Makedon and Chris Hook that work in ATI on Catalyst drivers. This complete official post was taken from DriverHeaven.

RESPONSE TO ALLEGED MONITOR FAILURE ISSUE

We have spent a great deal of time trying to reproduce this problem and analyzing our driver code. There is nothing in our driver code that has changed since CAT 3.7 to CAT 3.8 that could possibly cause this behaviour.

We believe that our drivers are not causing these alleged problems. We do not currently believe these stories are valid. We have already confirmed that of the nearly 100 OEM customer programs have asked for and received this driver, we have received no reports on any such problem from the OEMs. We have also run comprehensive QA tests on the driver before releasing it and have had no cases of failed monitors.

Since we announced CATALYST 3.8 on October 8th, we have recorded hundreds of thousands of downloads, and thus far there have been absolutely no reports whatsoever to ATI’s Customer Support department to report monitors failing.

TECHNICAL REBUTTAL OF MONITOR FAILURE ALLEGATIONS

There have been many posts in the forums discussing this issue, it seems it is a common theory, picked up from one place and keep being circulated. One such theory suggests the following:

“Instead of reading the refresh rates from the PRIMARY display INF files, it is reading the SECONDARY display INF refresh rates.”

In XP and 2K, we don’t have access to monitor INF information in our driver component that manages display capability. We have never used this monitor information for any purpose. We rely on EDID data or user override information to determine monitor capability. Even though the OS may use the monitor information to expose high refresh rate based on monitor INF content, the driver always restricts the actual refresh rate going to the monitor based on EDID or the user override. In essence, the user may be able to select from OS controlled monitor page (in advanced property pages) a high refresh rate but internally driver will restrict the refresh rate going to the monitor based on EDID information or user override information. If user set the override information incorrectly then incompatible signals would be sent to the monitor.

In 9x, we can access monitor INF information but due to issues with how OS maps the INF to a monitor, we had disabled reading the monitor INF via registry. Unless someone deliberately changes the registry setting for this in 9x, they would not run into any monitor INF related issues.

RESPONSE TO ALLEGED HARDWARE OVERHEATING ISSUE

We have spent a great deal of time analyzing the temperatures due to the CATALYST 3.8 drivers. We do not under any circumstance see anything near a 10 degree Celsius increase in temperature (but we don’t overclock our test cards either). We do see a slight increase in temperature in certain cases (3Dmark2003 Nature Scene for example). However any temperature increase is well within our safety range. Investigation continues and we are trying to determine why this change in temperature exits. At this point we are reproducing individual driver packages with code being checked in and measuring the temperature. However nothing shows the alleged increase in temperature. One independent website (DriverHeaven.net) even tried to reproduce this issue, and found no measurable difference in temperature between CATALYST 3.7 and 3.8.

We´ll continue examining this situation and will tell you if anything important comes to light.

Renesas introduces 1Gb CompactFlash Type I cards

Late in October Renesas Technology is to start selling its new 1Gb CompactFlash Type I cards (HB28J1000CCC). They are based on eight 1Gbit AG-AND chips made by Renesas using multilayer cells technology.

HB28J1000CCC provide up to 10Mb/s thoughput and support the new CFA Standard Version 2.0 (approved in July) that defines up to 16.6Mb/s transfers (PIO Transfer Mode 4).

Besides, Renesas announced the development of 5mm thick 4Gb PC-ATA Type II cards (HB28J4000ACH) that are based on 32 x 1Gbit chips and provide the same 10Mb/s throughput. Their volume production is scheduled to Spring 2004.

Artic Silver 5: new thermal compound from Artic Silver

Artic Silver announced its new Artic Silver 5 thermal compound. The number 4 was omitted – I guess just like some streets have 13th building numbers left out. And, as you know, number 4 is considered unlucky in some Asian regions.

Anyway, the new Arctic Silver 5 contains microparticles of silver as well as micronized zinc oxide, aluminum oxide and boron nitride. The filling is made of polysynthetic oils. According to the company, during the CPU´s initial use, the compound thins out to enhance the filling of the microscopic valleys and ensure the best physical contact between the heatsink and the CPU core. Then the compound thickens slightly over the next 50 to 200 hours of use to its final consistency designed for long-term stability.

Here are some Arctic Silver 5 specs:

• Thermal conductivity: >300,000W/m2 °C (0.001 inch layer)
• Thermal resistance: <0.005°C-in2/Watt (0.001 inch layer)
• Average particle size: <0.49 microns <0.000020 inch
• Temperature limits: Peak: –50°C to >180°C Long-Term: –50°C to 130°C

Arctic Silver 5 is shipped in 3.5 g and 12 g tubes for $7.95 and $19.95, respectively.

NEC-LCD samples three 21.3 panels for professional use

NEC-LCD started shipments of samples of 21.3 TFT LCD-panels, that are exhibited at FPD International 2003.

The panels are intended for use in computer design and medicine.

Tyan unveils new dual-way Tiger i7501R (S2735) motherboard for servers

Tyan unveiled its new dual-way Tiger i7501R (S2735) ATX motherboard for Intel Xeon processors. It´s designed for entry- and mid-level rackmount and standalone servers.

Tiger i7501R extends the Intel Å7501 family and features Gigabit/Fast Ethernet, Serial ATA/RAID 0 & 1, ATA 100/ATAPI, optional SCSI. It has 6 x DIMM sockets, 2 x PCI-X and 2 x PCI slots and supports up to 12Gb RAM.

This indicates that Tiger i7501R (S2735) differs from the previous Tiger i7501S (S2725; on the photo) by larger memory capacity. I guess i7501R will also have ATI Rage XL graphics integrated.

Currently sampling, this novelty will be produced in volumes since November.

Sony Ericsson P900 smartphone officially announced

Sony Ericsson officially announced its new Sony Ericsson P900 smartphone that is to become available in European retail in November. P900 bases on the previous P800 and has some "extras" like movie recording.

P900 key specs:

• 5-way Jog Dial
• 65K color LCD
• 48Mb of built-in flash
• "Office Handsfree"
• Voice dialling and autoanswering, "magic words"
• Digital still and video camera
• Video and audio player (MP3 supported)
• MMS, SMS, EMS, e-mail client
• Combined Web & WAP browser
• GPRS
• Up to 128Mb Memory Stick Duo media
• Organizer (contacts, calendar, tasks, notes, voice recorder)
• Calculator
• Mail attachment browsing
• Games
• Stylus for LCD touchscreen
• Bluetooth, USB, IrDA
• SyncML for Outlook and Lotus v2
• Personalization themes
• M-Services & MeT (Mobile electronic Transactions)
• Tri-band GSM operation
• Symbian OS 7.0: C++ and Java SDKs

FLX3A and FLX3AW Pocket LOOX PDAs from Fujitsu will hit the market in November

Fujitsu announced that two new Pocket LOOX PDAs with Windows Mobile 2003 software for Pocket PC will hit the market in late September, the models are FLX3A and IEEE 802.11b/Bluetooth-supporting FLX3AW.

CPUs used in the PDAs are 400 MHz Intel PXA255; WLAN-supporting model will have 128 MB RAM, 64 MB of flash, FLX3AW – 64 MB RAM. Accumulators used in the solutions are Li-ion, moreover, another model, that provides work time of up to 20 hours is developed.

PDAs´ TFT LCD is 3,5", with 240 x 320 resolution (65536 colors). The models will have CF Type II and SD (non-SDIO) slots, IrDA, etc. The solutions are equipped with built-in mono microphone and speaker, as well as stereo headset out.

The dimensions of the PDAs are 78 x 17.6 x 135 mm, the basic models´ weight is 189 g, WLAN supporting device — 199 g.

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