Memory Activity LEDs 403
Azert writes "Since a few months almost every popular memory maker includes heatspreaders with their fastest memory modules. Probably Corsair is setting a new fashion with their new line of memory with memory activity LEDs
XMS ProSeries modules feature a row of LED's on the top edge that display real-time memory activity level. Each memory bank has a row of nine dedicated activity LED's that alight as the level of memory activity increases. 512 Mbyte XMS ProSeries modules, with two banks, have a total of 18 activity LED's in green, yellow and red."
Actual Link (Score:5, Informative)
Mirror Below
I have just received some more information about Corsair his new line of memory. The XMS ProSeries memory is basically the same as their XMS series memory, with a better heatsink and an integrated memory activity meter.
Corsair Memory, today announced the ProSeries, a new series of ultra-performance modules in their highly awarded XMS module family. XMS ProSeries modules offer the same extreme performance XMS modules are known for, but also incorporate two essential new features: an all-new heatsink designed for optimum thermal efficiency, and memory activity LED's.
Corsair's new high-efficiency heatsink was custom designed especially for the XMS ProSeries. It is crafted from cast aluminum to offer excellent thermal qualities. Its mini fins maximize air surface contact area to draw heat away from the memory chips and dissipate it more quickly. The heatsink, which is bonded to the memory chips with a unique thermal adhesive, is embossed with bold "XMS" lettering on both sides of the module. On the top edge of the heatsink are windows to the activity LED's.
XMS ProSeries modules feature a row of LED's on the top edge that display real-time memory activity level. Corsair is the first company to ever offer an activity meter on the module itself. Corsair invented this feature for the growing legions of enthusiasts and gamers who use windowed chassis, so they can tell at a glance the current level of memory activity. Each memory bank has a row of nine dedicated activity LED's that alight as the level of memory activity increases. 512 Mbyte XMS ProSeries modules, with two banks, have a total of 18 activity LED's in green, yellow and red.
According to Corsair President Andy Paul, "The XMS ProSeries further extends Corsair's leadership in high performance module design. We combined the most efficient and stylish heatsink in the industry with never-before-seen activity monitoring features and XMS's legendary performance to deliver what will soon become the de facto standard memory module for gamers and enthusiasts."
The following XMS Pro Series modules and module pairs are available immediately from resellers worldwide: - TwinX1024-4000PRO - matched pair of 512MB, DDR500 modules - TwinX1024-3200C2PRO - matched pair of 512MB, DDR400 modules - CMX512-4000PRO - 512MB, DDR500 module - CMX512-3200C2PRO - 512MB, DDR400 module
Looks pretty cool I think, but on the other side I do not really think that many users will really have any benefit from memory acitivity LEDs on their memory modules. But it sure looks cool..
Re:forget green yellow red (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"heatspreader"? (Score:5, Informative)
eg: http://www.gibtek.co.uk/hardware/nexus.php [gibtek.co.uk]
Re:CM-5? (Score:2, Informative)
Most machines monitored so many lines that a bank of lights could be switched to display different things to keep the panel from growing really large - although there were some exceptions, like the 360/75, which I'm told had so many lamps that pressing the "lamp test" button would pop a circuit breaker -- for a while a standard feature of every
There were options to display all sorts of obscure control lines and flip-flops within the machine; they were mostly used by CEs when diagnosing the hardware. They could step a program one clock cycle at a time and look at data going through the machine as it decoded and executed a single instruction. Or they could monitor the internal workings of, say, the multiplexer channel to see whether a flip-flop was sticking or data wasn't showing up.
One cute display I discovered on the 90/30 was the length of the current seek being made by a disk drive attached to the Integrated Disk Adapter (as most of them were). This wasn't an absolute cylinder number but the actual difference between the current cylinder number and the one to which it was going. Consistently high readings on this display meant that the system was thrashing badly; moving the file in question to a different drive could dramatically improve performance. (This is still true nowadays, although few people realize it because few personal computers have more than one drive.) This was a timely display, because the newer disk drives on the 90/30 had an opaque cover and you couldn't see whether the heads were moving excessively anymore.
The Univac 9300 on which I cut my teeth would by default display the first 16 bits of the currently-executing instruction while it was running. If this display suddenly froze in some random pattern, it was a pretty good indication that your program had gone into a loop. The simplest example, a branch to itself, would display 0100 0111 1111 0000 (47f0), the opcode and mask bits of an unconditional branch. Generally, though, if your program went into a loop, it was executing enough instructions each time around that all the lights would come on.
With the processor halted, you could step through your program one machine instruction at a time, and display and alter memory locations (both data and instructions) as well, and even jump to a different spot in your program. Early but effective interactive debugging! Modifying instructions or data on the fly was possible and scary.
On a card-based 9300, I could tell whether my program was CPU- or I/O-bound from the lights. Although it used DMA for all I/O, there would come a time when a program would have to wait for a device, and it would block by busy-waiting in a two-instruction loop:
TIO something,device-addr
BC 8,*-4
The TIO instruction had an opcode of a5, followed by an 8-bit device address, while the branch instruction was 4780. So if the machine was spending most of its time waiting for the card reader (device address 01), the two instructions a501 and 4780 would blur together to produce an apparent display of e781. If it was waiting for the printer (device address 03), the display would be e783.
If a program was CPU bound, it would be executing a random assortment of instructions so all of the lights would come on. If the program was only slightly I/O-bound, the patterns I described above would be discernible as brightly-lit bulbs, while the others would be dimly lit, and probably flickering in time with the device on which the program was waiting.
Some machines had "sense lights" or similar indicators which programs could turn on and off at will.
Re:Actual Link (Score:4, Informative)
top down picture (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Encouraging emi/rfi? (Score:5, Informative)
While I can't say anything useful on your origonal question, I can say that its been around as a potential problem for many many more years than case modding has been main stream.
BTW, i've never heard any complaints about the plastic cases being made in the past few years, so I'd guess not much interfearance happens, or not enough to report to anyone.
I would also guess a modded case that is mostly metal is still better at blocking signals than a normal plastic case, and of course more than a modded plastic case, even if not as well as an unmodded metal case.
I personally have only modded one metal case, and I did not cut the metal in any way to do it.
I've also run systems with no case what so ever for long periods of time (My 3rd BBS was a motherboard hung on my wall) and never noticed any problems that could be from RF interfearance.
Re:The beginning of the end? (Score:4, Informative)
if you buy one 'tricked out' and say, mod it into a 1:42 scale 747, then you've done some nice modding.
not real time stupid (Score:1, Informative)
Re:(ot) blinkenlights (Score:3, Informative)
The PDP8/e had a rotary switch on the front panel that allowed you to use das blinkenlights for various purposes.
From The PDP8/e & PDP8/m Small Computer Handbook (Digital Equipment Corporation, 1972), Table 2-1, pp 2-3 to 2-4:
(Well, you did ask :-)
Re:Watch out for that trick on laptops (Score:3, Informative)
Dictionary.com explains the different version... (Score:4, Informative)
~Berj
Nothing new here, move on.... (Score:4, Informative)
Computer teaching boxen had LED's which were wired into memory locations (you could choose which location via DIP switches). You could tell what each memory location held by looking at the banks of blinking lights.
Re:The beginning of the end? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Encouraging emi/rfi? (Score:1, Informative)
There are laws governing this sort of thing.