How to Add or Remove an IDE ROM drive
CD ROMS - If you're adding or removing an internal cd-rom, dvd-rom, or just about any internal ROM that has an opening CD door, read on. Almost all IDE devices such as CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, etc. including burners and dvd burners are all installed or removed in the same fashion. If you're removing your rom, first remove the scrues from both sides of the rom. Make sure both sides are removed or you won't be able to get the device out. Once the scrues are off, unplug the drive; both the IDE ribbon cable that goes to your mainboard and your power cable. You may also have another wire running from your cd-rom to your sound card. This wire enables sound to play from your rom drive to your sound card, so when you play a cd on your drive you can hear it. Yank all cables running to the drive, then remove it. Simple. To add a drive, first you must mount the drive in the correct position and remove the IDE bracket on the front of the case. An IDE bracket is just a simple piece of plastic on the front of your case. When removed, your drive can then be accesible from your case's front. Remove one such plastic bracket by simply pulling at it and it will come loose, then mount your drive inside the case with the door facing frontwards. Now, your drive will not stay in that position unless you mount it with some scrues, so do so to both sides of the drive. Then, connect an IDE ribbon cable to one side of the ROM. The other side of the cable should run to the secondary IDE slot on your motherboard. If you're not sure which is which, the primary is the one that runs to your master (primary) hard drive, and the secondary runs to your rom drives. You can connect up to two rom drives on one cable, as it will have one end that connects to your board, one end that connects to a drive, and a middle connector for another drive. Run a power cable to the drive as well. As for connecting a sound cable - it can be done, but it really is not required. Should you need to listen to music from your cd player, you're better off just copying the music to your hard drive, then listening to it. This will cut down on your used system resources, and for slower PCs skipping will be eliminated. I am a young, aspiring computer engineer into Internet Marketing, hardware, software, web design, SEO and just about anything related to computers. Please come check out my growing PC forum at http://www.markspcforum.com
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Technically speaking, they are not wrong. Most web definitions describe an SSD as a high-performance plug-and-play storage device that contains no moving parts. Therefore, given that most of the aforementioned mobile disk storage devices contain no movable parts, they can certainly be categorized as SSDs.
But then again, there's more to SSDs than being a non-volatile device. The purpose of this article is to give readers a clearer picture of what an SSD is, its usage as well as its difference when pitted against the predominant data storage device at present - the hard disk drive (HDD). More than its non-volatility, this article will reveal how much potential SSDs have in optimizing the performance of the computing system.
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"A solid state disk (SSD) is electrically, mechanically and software compatible with a conventional (magnetic) hard disk or winchester. The difference is that the storage medium is not magnetic (like a hard disk) or optical (like a CD) but solid state semiconductor such as battery backed RAM, EPROM or other electrically erasable RAM-like chip. This provides faster access time than a disk, because the data can be randomly accessed and does not rely on a read/write interface head synchronising with a rotating disk. The SSD also provides greater physical resilience to physical vibration, shock and extreme temperature fluctuations. The only downside is a higher cost per megabyte of storage."(2)
"Abbreviated SSD, a solid state disk is a high-performance plug-and-play storage device that contains no moving parts. SSD components include either DRAM or flash memory boards, a memory bus board, a CPU, and a battery card. Because they contain their own CPUs to manage data storage, they are a lot faster (18MBps for SCSI-II and 44 MBps for UltraWide SCSI interfaces) than conventional rotating hard disks ; therefore, they produce highest possible I/O rates. SSDs are most effective for server applications and server systems, where I/O response time is crucial. Data stored on SSDs should include anything that creates bottlenecks, such as databases, swap files, library and index files, and authorization and login information."(3)
For the rest of the article, we will compare the HDDs and Flash-based SSDs. The latter are the most popular type of SSDs employed by the military, aerospace, industrial and embedded systems industries.
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A Flash-based SSD is different. Although the most common Flash chips have around 300,000 write cycles, the best Flash chips are rated at 1,000,000 write cycles per block. On top of that, Flash SSD manufacturers employ different ways to increase the longevity of the drives. In some cases, they use a "balancing" algorithm to monitor the number of times each disk block has been written, which greatly extends the operational lifespan of the drive. Furthermore, these manufacturers also designed special "wear-leveling" algorithms where once a certain percentage threshold for a given block is reached, the SSD will swap the data in that block with the data in another block that has exhibited a "read-only-like" characteristic in the background. This reduces performance lag and avoids further wearing off of the blocks and thrashing of the disk. Even with usage patterns of writing/reading gigabytes per day, a Flash-based SSD should last several years, depending on its capacity. Add to that the inclusion of a DRAM cache in the disk architecture that further enhances its operational capabilities as well as lifespan.
Speeding Up
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This however raises another point - what's the benefit of a high-speed SSD when the entire system cannot support it? The evolution of CPUs in terms of performance has far surpassed the development of the data storage system. The HDD is actually limiting the potential of a computer system when they are not able to keep up with the performance of the other components, particularly the CPU. If an HDD is replaced by a high-speed SSD, the performance would significantly improve. The resulting system would be a high-powered set-up that can go beyond the demands of high-speed business or military environments.
Size Matters
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Along with the lower power consumption, there is also much lesser heat dissipation for systems using Flash-based SSDs as their data storage solution. This is due to the absence of heat generated from the rotating/movable media. This certainly proves to be the one of the main advantages of Flash-based SSDs relative to that of a traditional HDD. With less heat dissipation, it serves as the ideal data storage solution for mobile systems such as PDAs, notebooks, etc. Users can do away with large cooling fans, internal power supply and batteries for large storage arrays in storage area networks.
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While the use of SSDs today have mostly been limited to industrial and military implications, enterprise are now looking closely at SSDs for implementing tiered storage and optimizing their storage architectures.
To quote from the Solid State Disks Buyers Guide published by storagesearch.com, "In fact the SSD is replacing servers and software licenses. SSDs can be used either to speed up the response time of existing applications as an alternative to buying more servers, or to reduce the number of servers and software licenses deployed. The economics can be compellingly in favor of an SSD deployment". The industry is also expecting more breakthroughs as higher memory capacities and faster performance are now being produced for a wider array of choices fit for any mission-critical application.
Analysts foresee a rapidly closing gap between HDD and flash SSD pricing (see related article "Are Flash Solid-State Disks Ready for the Enterprise"(5) ). This vision is also bolstered by a recent announcement(6) of electronic giant Samsung that they will invest heavily in improving their flash and DRAM production lines and flash SSD equipped laptops. Only time will tell if we will witness widespread commercial adoption of SSDs.(end)
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Flyback Transformer-How to Locate the ABL Line
Whenever there is a complaint about monitor
contrast problem I will check on the flyback
transformer ABL (automatic blanking limiter)
circuit.
Sometimes a weak picture tube might caused
contrast problem. If the picture tube is
good, I will go straight to the contrast
circuit. The question is how do we find
where the contrast circuit located? Simple,
if you have a datasheet for the video pre-
amplifier ic, definitely you can find the
contrast pin. For LM1203N video pre-amp
ic the contrast pin is located at pin 12.
Replace this ic or trace from this circuit
to find the cause of the contrast problem.
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