You may have heard about the flaw announced today with Intel’s Sandy Bridge platform. Here is a quote from Intel’s press release:

“As part of ongoing quality assurance, Intel Corporation has discovered a design issue in a recently released support chip, the Intel® 6 Series, code-named Cougar Point, and has implemented a silicon fix. In some cases, the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives. The chipset is utilized in PCs with Intel’s latest Second Generation Intel Core processors, code-named Sandy Bridge. Intel has stopped shipment of the affected support chip from its factories. Intel has corrected the design issue, and has begun manufacturing a new version of the support chip which will resolve the issue. The Sandy Bridge microprocessor is unaffected and no other products are affected by this issue.

The company expects to begin delivering the updated version of the chipset to customers in late February and expects full volume recovery in April. Intel stands behind its products and is committed to product quality. For computer makers and other Intel customers that have bought potentially affected chipsets or systems, Intel will work with its OEM partners to accept the return of the affected chipsets, and plans to support modifications or replacements needed on motherboards or systems. …”

What does this mean for Puget Systems customers?

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This is the third in a series of blog posts about Home Theater Computers (aka HTPCs), where several Puget employees get a chance to explain their approach to home theater computing.  My approach is distinctly different than the previous entries, which can be found here:  Richard’s, William’s.

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This is the second in a series of blog posts about Home Theater Computers (aka HTPCs), where several Puget employees get a chance to explain their approach to home theater computing.  You can read William’s entry here.

If I had to sum up the goals of my home theater with a single word, it would be “Convenience”.  I actually don’t spent that much time in my living room, but when I do, I really want to minimize hassle.  I don’t mind a lot of work setting things up the first time, but I just don’t want to waste my precious R&R time juggling five remotes, three pointing devices, and a keyboard.

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In the Romero home we have three systems that heavily use the internet in one way or another, two of which are connected wirelessly. Our trusty Linksys WRT54G has been our gateway to the world wide web, but recently the router has been suffering as heavier loads have been put on it. With a subscription to Netflix and a Steam account playing those highly addictive online FPS’ games, the demand for internet among the three systems has become overwhelming, especially on the computers operating on wireless.

Since my every-day system is hard wired, I didn’t pay much of any attention to the wireless portion of my network. As time went on, arising issues took their natural annoying course. So I had to make some changes, and wanted a faster and more reliable network. This also gave me the opportunity to move some things around in our home and delegate new or different tasks to our three systems.
 

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This evening, I came across a forum thread online, in which users of electronic trading workstations were comparing Puget Systems to other PC builders (mainly bargain basement PC builders). An owner of one of our PC’s posted the following:

“I paid a $600 premium for my last computer from Puget. Since I typically keep a computer for about three years, I’m paying about 55 cents a day extra to have super reliable trading machines backed up by great customer service. For me, it’s worth it because computer problems mean time away from trading and/or time away from my wife and kids. Everybody has to make his own price/value decision.”

I love the thought process!

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Along with a few other guys here at Puget, I’ve been really enjoying Blizzard’s new game – Starcraft 2.  While the basic gameplay remains the same, Blizzard has definitely brought Starcraft into the 21st century, with updated graphics, better game control mechanics, better online matchmaking, great cinematics, and overall a much smoother and more intuitive experience.

I’ve been seeing some reports of menu screens on Starcraft 2 causing poorly ventilated, or poorly designed graphics cards to fail.  Does this sound familiar?  It definitely sounds familiar to me.

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Hello fellow Puget enthusiasts! My name is Kyle, welcome to my first ever entry on this blog. My job here at Puget is to take your newly built system and prepare it for the real world. Mainly, I’m in charge of installations and testing. This includes OS and application installations, all software updates, installation of any additional hardware we may have been waiting for and any specific customizations you the customer may have requested. From there I do a full range of testing, both the physical and logical. This is done to ensure that your computer meets our high standards. One thing I quickly came to discover is how much of a headache the installation department can be if you don’t have the right tools. Yes, a trusty screw driver is important, but a trusty USB key is irreplaceable (until you make a new one).

So let’s jump right into it. I’m here today to show you how to create a bootable USB key which, when placed in the right hands, can do almost anything. From my key I can boot into DOS and run any DOS based application/utility I may need. I can also load grub4dos which allows me to boot .iso files among other things. This article simply shows you how to make your key bootable. I’ll put together some more blog posts in the future, and highlight some of the useful things these can do.

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