Author: John Large

My name is John Large. I am a Web Developer, E-commerce site owner & all round geek. My areas of interest include hardware hacking, digital privacy & security, social media & computer hardware. I’m also a minimalist in the making, interested in the Tiny House movement & the experience economy along with a strong interest in sustainability & renewable energy. When I’m not tapping on a keyboard or swiping a smart phone I can be found sampling great coffee, travelling the world with my wife Vicki (who writes over at Let’s Talk Beauty) & generally trying to live my life as unconventionally as possible.

New PC Build Complete – Core 2 Duo e6600 with serious overclock

John Large

Well the new PC build is finally complete, and what can I say, I’m very happy with the outcome. My old Athlon XP based machine was getting slightly haggard so I decided to go all out and build the ultimate machine. The specs breifly are as follows

  • Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4ghz OC to 3.2Ghz Stable
  • 2gb Dual Channel DDR 800 with Copper heatsinks
  • 500gb Sata2 HDD
  • Gigabyte 965p-s3 Motherboard
  • Evga Nvidia 8800 GTX Directx 10 card
  • Zalman CNPS9700 Heatsink
  • Aria Darkstar case

What can I say about that spec. I just had to overclock the processor and I have great stability at 3.2ghz with very cool core temps. I managed to hit 3.5ghz but I need a stable machine for work so scaled it back. The build all went well, aside from the PSU which was a cheap and nasty OEM 600 watt job. Surprisingly had no sata power cables so I had to go with adapters. No big deal until I change it. Also the 8800 needed 4 molex just to power it. Also bought a couple of 80mm fans just to keep the airflow nice and flowy 😛 Read More....

xbox macro

Xbox Hacking – Xbox Crystal & Xbox Media Centre XBMC

John Large

Latest Picture of my Xbox setup.

And a Macro of the xbox & Chip controller.

I started Xbox hacking back in October 2004. I bought a Crystal Xbox for £100. I wanted to get an older model due to the more complex chipping procedure of the 1.6 motherboards in new machines but after aloof thought I decided to go with the new crystal machine. I then purchased a Xecuter 2.6 Mod chip from Kaneaction who offered a great service. The mod chip fitting itself was a nightmare. Took me almost 4 hours to make all the solder points and rebuild the LPC . Also, I lost one of the copper tracks (the heat from the soldering iron destroyed the track) so I had to rebuild the track using wire. After the chip was installed i ripped out the original 8GB Western Digital HD and fitted a 250gb Samsung drive . I then booted the Xbox from Slayers Evox Boot disk and installed Evox, avalaunch & XBMC. Read More....