A Pentium III Autopsy Using an Electron Microscope...

"The Microprocessor" one of the marvelous inventions, that propelled humanity towards the technological revolution that is happening today..
Have you ever wondered....what's it is like inside of a processor..well this one guy, a science teacher has taken an old Pentium III chip and cut it open, to get a better look inside.

He managed to removed the core from the package using a power saw and used a scalpel to open the actual CPU cover. 

The interesting part begins with images that were taken using an optical microscope, enabling him to peek through the holes of the cover to see the connecting points between the CPU and the circuit board. The optical microscope took him close enough to see the different layers of the chip.

Since optical microscopy doesn't show very much detail, to take a more closer look he cut the chip in to pieces and loaded the chip into a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

He managed to get a resolution that allowed him to spot structures as small as 2000 nm, which is not
close enough to actually see the transistors, but provides stunning detail of the CPU, even at a 10,000 nm level.

Go to sciencystuff.com for more pictures and Details.



source - http://www.sciencystuff.com/ 
http://www.tomshardware.com/

Crucial M4 SSD New Firmware and how to Flash using a USB thumb drive !!Update!!

well i think the Title pretty much speak for it self..but any how...Crucial released a new Firmware for the M4 SSD's and apparently its suppose to make the drive 20% faster...i updated mine no issues. and i didn't brick it so its all good here hehee..

I looked up some Benches from reviews from the time of release and compared them with the benchmarks i did after the FW update, i do get around 20% more increase just like they SAY !!!
.
Crucial's Official Release Notes:

“Release Date: 08/25/2011

Change Log:

    Changes made in version 0002 (m4 can be updated to revision 0009 directly from either revision 0001 or 0002)
    Improved throughput performance.
    Increase in PCMark Vantage benchmark score, resulting in improved user experience in most operating systems.
    Improved write latency for better performance under heavy write workloads.
    Faster boot up times.
    Improved compatibility with latest chipsets.
    Compensation for SATA speed negotiation issues between some SATA-II chipsets and the SATA-III device.
    Improvement for intermittent failures in cold boot up related to some specific host systems.”

Firmware Download:http://www.crucial.com/eu/support/firmware.aspx?AID=10273954&PID=4176827&SID=1iv16ri5z4e7x

to install this via a pen drive with out wasting a blank cd..I know they are like really really cheap but think!!!! how many of you have blank cds or DVDs with you now a days ???

to do this we are gonna use a niffty lil program called UNetbootin
ofcourse you can use this to boot any linux distro from a pen drive.its very easy actually, if you need help go check out the guides on the UNetbootin website

so here we go then...

* First off Download - http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/





* Run the program
* Select DiskImage Radio button (as shown on the image)
* browse and select the iso file you downloaded from crucial
* Type - USB Drive
* select the Drive letter of your Pendrive
* Click OK!!!

reboot

*Go to bios and put your SSD in to IDE (compatibility) mode ** this is important
*Boot from your Pen drive
*Follow the instructions on screen to update

and Voila

****remember to set your SATA controller to AHCI again in Bios / EFI ****

Update***

SATA 3 Benchmark.

SATA 2 Benchmark 

Well i messed around with some Benchmark programs here are the results