Typhoon Krosa in Taiwan

Since last night, we experienced very strong winds with the arrival of a pawerful typhoon on the east coast of Taiwan. Today the wind continued blowing very fast over the island causing flooding, earth sliding and other related catastrophies. We also had a power cut of 8h and mini flooding of the flat as the wind pushed the rain through the frames of our windows.

Below, some pictures and a video showing the strength of the wind / rain:

Official news:

Typhoon Krosa slammed into Taiwan on Saturday, with strong winds and heavy rains cutting power and cancelling flights while mainland China braced for what it called a serious impact.

Authorities in China ordered the provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian to call more than 27,000 fishing boats back to safe harbours, Xinhua said.

In Taiwan, disaster authorities said the storm shut down schools and businesses in the north of the country.

"The wind is tremendous here, and we've lost power," said Chuang Min-hsiang, of Taitung. "We're all at home doing work to protect ourselves from the typhoon."

Three people were hurt, the National Fire Agency said.

The officials also mention that four persons lost their life during this typhoon, all my sincere sympathy goes to their relatives.

Rumbles... yes it's an earthquake !!!

Last night, I finally managed to sleep around 1.30am when in my dreams I felt like someone was moving my bed to wake my up. Then, I heard a rumble and I finally woke up: It was a large earthquake hitting us ! It lasted longer than a minute and its amplitude was high. This is a copy of the official report:

Taipei (dpa) - Three earthquakes measuring 6.6, 5.7 and 3.9 on the Richter scale respectively rocked Taiwan early Friday, causing small damages but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The first quake, measuring 6.6, struck at 1:51 am Friday (1751 GMT Thursday) with its epicentre 74.6 kilometres from Ilan on Taiwan's northeastern coast and 27 kilometres under the sea, the Seismological Observation Centre said.

It was followed four minutes later by an 5.7-magnitude aftershock, in the same region.

At 3:32 am (1932 GMT Thursday), a tremor measuring 3.9 jolted Taitung in southeast Taiwan.

The quakes were felt all over the island, causing bottles and cups to tumble off shelves and window frames to rattle. Many residents living in high rises in Taipei ran onto the street, fearing their buildings might collapse.


Many earthquakes occur in Taiwan, as much as 200 earthquakes a year. A magnitude 7.1 quake struck Taiwan on Dec. 26, killing two people, cutting power and disrupting phone and Internet services throughout Asia. In 1999, a particularly large earthquake killed 2400 people and injured 10000.

Downloading Warhawk

I just switch on my PS3 to install the Firmware version 1.92 when I discovered that Warhawk was available for purchase on the Playstation Network Store. I decided to buy this game for 1320NT$ (30€). This was the first time I purchase anything on the PN Store. The process is very simple, just click on 'Purchase', confirm the product and add money to your account using a credit card, as simple as buying anything on the internet.



Now, I am waiting to download the 798Mb to enjoy this game !!! The speed is very slow at night, so I might wait for tomorrow morning to download it at once...

Assembling my new rig

Installation of the Zalman 9700 NT on a Gigabyte P35-DQ6

This blog will summarise the assembling of my new PC. First, I had to work on installing the Zalman 9700 NT on the Gigabyte P35-DQ6 motherboard, keeping the Crazy Cool installed (back plate situated behind the CPU). To do so, I used a different braket, the Zalman ZM-CS1 clip support. Check the pictures for the installation:






































Time to install the video card: The Sparkle Calibre P880+ OC / 8800 GTX

This card really catched my attention because it looks great because of it's unique Perlier cooler, it's overclocked and it was supposed to run cooler than traditional 8800 GTX. Well, do not believe what is written on the sticker ! This card is very loud and running at 70 degres idle ! So what was the point to spend an extra 90€ on this card ? None !!! Therefore, I am not keeping it, I am returning it and will purchase the Leadtek Winfast 8800 GTX instead. Here for the picture of the final layout (before getting the new 8800 GTX):

Lian Li PC-A10

On wednesday, I received the Lian Li PC-A10 for my new computer. The package was well made and the case was very secured inside the box to garanty that the product won't be deteriorated during transportation.










The quality of the case is simply excellent, the aluminum feels really good and the colour make this case very classic. I particularly like the top openable area where sit 1 Firewire, 2 USB and the headphone and microphone jacks.










There is plenty of space in this case, particularly for a 8800 GTX !!! I like the fact that the case has been divided into sections, the bottom one for the hard drives (up to 5 in 2 hard drive enclosure (3xHD horizontally and 2 HD vertically) mounted on rubber ring to avoi any vibrations, and the PSU compartment. It is even possible to add a 12 cm fan from the HD section to the PSU to increase the airflow.

I like the fact that all fans are mounted using rubber rings to stop vibrations. Unfortunatelly, the fans manufactured by Lian Li are noisy and need to me changed if you want to have a quiet computer.










When I opened the door of this case, I was amazed by the quality of the design and the finition of the manufacturer. It looks great and feels great ! The 5.25 to 3.5 enclosure will be very handy when I'll get a card reader (there is no way I put a floppy disk drive in my computer). I really like the door system, very quiet when opening / closing and stay in place because of the ball system on the top and bottom of the door. The front panel has a 12cm in-take fan, a power and a reset button. The door has holes on the side to let the air in for the in-take fan. Well designed !

I was very surprised that the case did not correspond to the case advertised on Lian Li website. Indeed, the 2 watercooling holes on the top of the case are not mounted via a set of screws, but simply cut and put in place via welding. Another surprise, the backplate of the PSU area should present 2 holes with a removable plat in case you wanted to install a second PSU. On my version, the removable plate is not removable and welded to the case.

As I need to get the rig installed to test all components, I will keep this case and probably contact Lian Li in a couple of weeks to ask why this case is like this. The funniest part is that the Quality Control was done on the 27/07/2007, less than 3 weeks ago...

It feels like xmas morning !!! More components..

Today I received the Xclio 650W power supply, 4x 1Gb of G.Skills 1066HK and the Sparkle Calibre 8800 GTX (P880+ Edition OC). I would like to thank Sparkle supplier in Taiwan that check with me by phone the model I ordered and for the gift set containing 2 Calibre pens, a crystal block with the Caliber logo and a rotation light socle to mount the crystal (cf last 2 pictures). Here are some nice pictures for you:

First components in detail

I promise many friends to share pictures of my new rig, so, here they are for especially for you: