Why Pentium?

On 4 Jul 2006 19:30:34 -0700, "
wrote:


Some uses are fine with them. Car MP3 player, light duty
file or webserver are all good uses, and basic office, email
and websurfing (except elaborate scripts or animations) will
do fine too, but it is just so easy for a typical desktop PC
to be used for something more demanding too if it is a
primary use system instead of special-purpose.

Funny thing is, I've thinking about using a C3 platform
w/CompactFlash for a very quiet, low heat and power
fileserver. It will be a shame that I'm going to put hard
drives in it, more than doubling the power and making system
slightly audible, requiring a fan. ;-)


You could use laptop drives.


Sure, but that kills the capacity per $ and the performance.
I don't really care so much about the noise as it isn't
going to be sitting within earshot but having the fans means
that someday I'll have to pop off the filter panel and clean
or replace it. It's not much of a concern though, I already
have a couple other filesevers with large filters over the
entire 5-1/2" bay area and from the slow dust accumulation
it looks like they could go several years inbetween filter
replacement intervals.

On Wed, 5 Jul 2006 09:07:33 +1000, "Rod Speed"
wrote:


Irrelevant to whether its bad design for the cpu to
end up dead due to something as trivial as a cpu
fan failure or bad installation of the heatsink etc.

You are overlooking that a gradual overheating situation
with either AMD or Intel CPUs, has an overheat shutdown
mechanism in place. Since Intels' was CPU-integral earlier,
those CPUs have a marginally better protection but in
practice you would have to have a rather unlikely overheat
scenario- not as slow as if the fan failed, but not as fast
as if the heatsink came off.

If the heatsink installation was bad such that it didn't
make contact, the clamp came off or whatever, the system can
still fry a P4. It has been done, a P4's shutdown mechanism
cannot respond fast enough to counter the rapid rise in temp
from cold-off to on-without-heatsink-contact.

Citing one example of an old platform with an ineffective
means to power off a system with an Athlon in it is a
similar situation to any other past era issues- unless you
are buying that particular old tech, it is non-applicable to
parts selections today.

Tony Hill wrote
Rod Speed wrote
kony wrote

That is a reason to more carefully scrutinize the failure
point, which was not an AMD processor but another
factor like fan or grease failure, chassis cooling problems.
One should never buy a system with the idea that one
of the basic fundamental needs will fail and thus Intel's
last-resort shutdown would matter.

Wrong. It makes a lot of sense to buy a system which wont
end up with a dead cpu if the cpu fan fails for whatever reason.
Just replace the cpu fan and carry on regardless if that happens.

If the CPU fan fails it is HIGHLY unlikely that either an Intel or
AMD CPU will need to be replaced. However, that being said,
it CAN happen with either one. I have definitely seen both AMD
Athlon and Intel P4 chips fried from being run with a dead CPU
fan. Usually this requires the user to continue using the system
for some time though after the CPU fan stopped work, despite
the fact that the computer would lock up every few minutes.

And that isnt that uncommon with the average user.

Makes absolutely no sense to have to replace the cpu too
if something happens to the cpu fan or say the heatsink
clips give way or someone didnt install it properly.

If the heatsink clips give way you usually end up with
one of two situations, either your system won't boot at all
because it will detect that there is no CPU fan connected

Not if it fails in a way that sees the heatsink just
loose so it doesnt cool the cpu properly anymore.

or your CPU will remain stuck to the bottom of the heatsink
when it gives way and the pins will be damaged.

That assumes it actually ends up reefing the cpu
out of the socket. That doesnt normally happen.

Either way it doesn't make much difference if this is an AMD or Intel CPU.

Wrong.

The real key is the second point you mentioned, what
happens when someone screws up while installing their
heatsink. This is the one situation where Intel's method
of thermal protection tended to have an edge over AMD's.

It isnt the only one.

The vast majority of cases I've encountered where
someone fried their AMD chip can be directly traced
back to an improperly installed heatsink.

Yep, which is the reason that I avoided amd
cpus while they had no thermal protection.

Certainly that shutdown feature is better than NOT having
one, but it is not something that should be among primary
considerations in any remotely normal system, selection.

Its just another thing worth considering when deciding which
particular cpu to use, like that chipset question is too.

A fairly minor one in my experience, unless you are
not comfortable with installing your own heatsink.

It isnt the only one.

Intel had a better heatsink retention mechanism
anyway which was more important in my experience.

Yeah, and avoided that bodgy approach the early
athlons had with a small easily damaged cpu top etc.

Fortunately though, all of these issues are in the semi-distant
past now. With the Athlon64 AMD has a new and better
heatsink retention mechanism, they have the same sort
of thermal throttling and shutdown as a P4

That was already covered earlier in the thread.

and the nVidia and ATI chipsets for
these processors seem very up to par.

Time will tell, particularly with the latest amd cpus.

If it overheats the problem was the cooling system or maintenance
(lack of) towards cleaning out dust, replacing poor thermal
compound, or relubing junk fans (if for some reason it isn't
viable to replace them with good quality fans instead).

I still want a cpu that wont die if that stuff is neglected,
because its never possible to guarantee that that stuff
wont be neglected by someone who doesnt know any better.

Better not buy either AMD or Intel in that case, if you screw around
with the cooling mechanism enough either one will die on you.

Its a lot harder to **** that up with an intel cpu up till now.

Cooling systems are not something to just ignore when
they fail hoping that some short-term solution will save you.

Yes, but its also very undesirable to have the most expensive
component in your system get killed by something going wrong
when it should have been designed to handle that gracefully.

Which is why even amd does that now.

The real key idea behind thermal throttling in Intel's P4 chips was
that a system administrator with an always-on server could get a
warning about a failed fan and go replaced within the next few
minutes BEFORE the system crashed instead of afterwards.

Doesnt explain why celerons had it too.

This was definitely designed as a SHORT-term stop-gap
until the problem can be fixed, not a long-term solution.

Wrong, most obviously with the mobile intel cpus.

and the price differences between the
two processor vendors are small.

There are reasons to choose either alternative, it would be
most valid to choose based on the specific, most common
or most demanding use the system will encounter...

In practice few personal desktop systems have
the performance determined by the cpu anyway.

As is usually the case, the CPU is just one of many pieces in the
puzzle. It's performance CAN have an impact though, even for personal
desktop systems. Mind you, the exact measure of "performance" is not
always something that a benchmark will show you. These days I'm
recommend dual-core chips to pretty much everyone looking for a
desktop system, not because they'll finish a benchmark faster,
but because they'll make the system much more responsive.

Thats arguable given what most do on their personal desktop systems.

It can make a lot more sense to spend that money on ram instead.

as it is with a comparison of any two CPUs having different
architectures. Nothing wrong with a P4 or Pentium D where
it excells but the very specific use, not even a newer
version of the same application, must be considered.

Or realise that hardly any users would ever be able to pick
any difference any benchmark claims to see, with the main
exception being with games. And bugger all personal desktop
systems are used for demanding games anyway.

The general rule of thumb is that most people will
start to notice a difference in performance once
the benchmark shows at least a 20% advantage.

Thats overstating it with systems that arent used for gaming
or say crunching video files from one format to another.

They're about the only things where the benchmark performance
is even visible with most personal desktop systems now.

Before that one system may be faster, but
most users will have a tough time noticing it.

And after that with most personal desktop systems too.

Obviously this is not a particularly scientific number or
anything, just what many people have observed in practice.

But not with the way most personal desktop systems are actually used.

Andrew Smallshaw wrote:

On 2006-07-04, David Maynard wrote:

Unfortunately, no one outside the manufacturer knows what the numbers are
so while one can say a processor will last longer at a lower operating temp
it's anyone's guess how much longer or, conversely, how much operating at
high temp degrades it. You can use the halving per 10C guesstimate but we
don't know where the MTBF is starting at either. I mean, if running it at
50C instead of 70C cut MTBF down from 400 to 'only' a hundred years would
you really care? (Not that I'm saying this is the case but that we don't know).


I'd expect silicon chips to last long enough that their MTBF is to all
intents and purposes irrelevant - most solid state electronics has a
pretty good lifespan - the only thing that tend to let the side down
are electrolytics.

Well, silicon chips do seem to be stunningly reliable but they can and do
fail or else there'd be little use for the entire semiconductor failure
analysis business.


Whilst obviously we can't discuss modern machines in this context, as
a case in point I have an old Apricot LS Pro (something of a
collectors item now) powered by a a Cyrix 486SLC. This is a tiny,
_plastic_ chip with no heatsink and no fan. It was in daily use until
I picked it up maybe 18 months ago. I've no idea how hot the chip
gets - far too early for a motherboard sensor - but it's too hot to
touch in operation so that's probably at least 60C. It still works a
charm, maybe 14 years after it was built. Most people won't be using
the machine they have today in that amount of time, unless of course
like me they have a interest in old kit.


Yes, and I've got numerous oldies but goodies as well. How that translates
into modern processor with much higher current densities is another
question, and one I don't have the answer to since the data isn't public.

The issue of 'what temp?' should be, to some extent, almost automatic as
the system should be designed to operate properly over the entire
'operating temperature range' with 'normal' operation usually significantly
less.

I don't think that necessarily holds, however, for systems employing
aggressive thermal management/throttling techniques because the processor
can be operated closer to the maximum limit under 'normal' ambient
conditions and throttled back in the higher temperature environment.

kony wrote:
On 4 Jul 2006 19:30:34 -0700, "
wrote:


Some uses are fine with them. Car MP3 player, light duty
file or webserver are all good uses, and basic office, email
and websurfing (except elaborate scripts or animations) will
do fine too, but it is just so easy for a typical desktop PC
to be used for something more demanding too if it is a
primary use system instead of special-purpose.

Funny thing is, I've thinking about using a C3 platform
w/CompactFlash for a very quiet, low heat and power
fileserver. It will be a shame that I'm going to put hard
drives in it, more than doubling the power and making system
slightly audible, requiring a fan. ;-)


You could use laptop drives.


Sure, but that kills the capacity per $ and the performance.
I don't really care so much about the noise as it isn't
going to be sitting within earshot but having the fans means
that someday I'll have to pop off the filter panel and clean
or replace it. It's not much of a concern though, I already
have a couple other filesevers with large filters over the
entire 5-1/2" bay area and from the slow dust accumulation
it looks like they could go several years inbetween filter
replacement intervals.

I didn't think you were THAT concerned with performance, what with all
that about underclocking a low performance chip, software RAID, and so
on. I understand the cost aspect, tho'.

kony wrote
Rod Speed wrote
kony wrote
Mxsmanic wrote
Rod Speed writes

It was more complicated than that. The other real advantage
with Intel cpus is that you could choose to use intel chipsets too.

Well, times change, but all I can say is that I lost to machines to
AMD processor burnouts (they overheated and just continued to run
until they destroyed themselves and surrounding components),

That is a reason to more carefully scrutinize the failure
point, which was not an AMD processor but another
factor like fan or grease failure, chassis cooling problems.
One should never buy a system with the idea that one
of the basic fundamental needs will fail and thus Intel's
last-resort shutdown would matter.

Wrong. It makes a lot of sense to buy a system which wont
end up with a dead cpu if the cpu fan fails for whatever reason.
Just replace the cpu fan and carry on regardless if that happens.

Actually it is a sign that the person buying the system
is incompetent, and the one deploying it as well.

Nope, its just a basic recognition of how many users operate.

If even one moment is spent on considering the CPU's ability
to shut down while there were not good fans installed (which
make the risk of fan failure so remote as to be overshadowed
by any other reasonable risk), the effort was made in vain.

Thats a completely silly claim.

If there are good design decisions made towards cooling,
the CPU shutdown mechanism is of very little usefulness,
far far less than most other parameters in CPU selection.

Wrong with most personal desktop systems which dont need any
careful choice of cpu at all. What happens in reality with the absolute
vast bulk of those is a choice based on value for money instead.

Makes absolutely no sense to have to replace the cpu too
if something happens to the cpu fan or say the heatsink
clips give way or someone didnt install it properly.

"Something happens"?
If you can't keep "something" from happening,
hire someone who can. This isn't rocket science.

It makes a hell of a lot more sense to have the cpu
behave gracefully when the **** hits the fan instead.

Same goes for heatsink clips and installation. Focusing on
the PROBLEM prevents downtime. Ignoring the problem is
what causes a perceived need for CPU shutdown features.

Have fun explaining how come even amd
now have a decent shutdown mechanism.

Its nothing like as black and white as you are claiming.

Certainly that shutdown feature is better than NOT having
one, but it is not something that should be among primary
considerations in any remotely normal system, selection.

Its just another thing worth considering when deciding which
particular cpu to use, like that chipset question is too.

.. about the last thing worth considering.

Nope, not if its a value for money personal desktop
system where there are no considerations in the
choice of the cpu except whats currently decent value
for money with minimal hassles with chipset quirks etc.

Better than not having it, but if you need it,
the person who selected the system and the
builder/seller should be relieved of their duties.

You clearly dont have a clue about what value
for money personal desktop systems are about.

... and that pretty much soured me
on AMD for a very long time to come.

I suggest that you drew the wrong conclusion. A system
built with an Intel CPU but same problem the AMD one
had, is not trouble-free either. You saw the result of
the problem as a focal point instead of the cause.

Presumably he was ****ed off about having to replace the cpu.

He should have been more ****ed off about why it happened.
As already written, if same thing happened in an Intel/P4 system
we'd have to assume he'd be a little upset about that too.

It wouldnt have happened if it was just an awkwardly
designed heatsink which could be installed improperly.
He would have had the chance to see that the cpu temp
was way out of line and check the heatsink to see why.

Its completely mad that an awkwardly designed heatsink
should see the cpu dead, particularly with the amd cpus
that didnt at that stage come with boxed HS and fan.

I would be too, particularly when that was one of
the most expensive components in the system and it
should have been designed better so that didnt happen.

Actually no. It is ridiculous thinking about
the effect of a problem rather than the source.

Mindlessly silly.

I could complain that a pad of paper burst into flames because
someone lit it on fire, but does it mean I should buy flameproof
paper or avoid tools that go around lighting things on fire?

Mindlessly silly.

Nothing like the same thing as an awkwardly
designed HS which can be improperly installed.

Whatever that AMD CPU was, that it was a past generation
CPU is a sign that many alternatives from either manufacturer
produce more heat today, we can't just write-off the AMDs
as hot-running, and contrary to urban myth, many Intel
alternatives actually had a higher TDP but merely idled cooler.

Irrelevant to whether its bad design for the cpu to
end up dead due to something as trivial as a cpu
fan failure or bad installation of the heatsink etc.

yes, it's "trivial" to do it right, so if the system weren't
in proper working order for long term use, the problem
has already occured, is not the future result.

Gets sillier by the minute.

I'll take a slightly slower processor at a slightly higher
price, if necessary in exchange for the benefit of a
processor that's smart enough to shut down if it overheats.

Me too.

Put the $ towards the problem instead.

No thanks, I chose to buy the cpus that were designed better instead.

Then you choose to promote system downtime, failures.

Gets sillier by the minute.

If the system is designed properly the odds of the shutdown feature
being needed are too remote to be realistically considered.

Gets sillier by the minute.

If you disagree, you have never bothered to learn
proper system component selection for long term use.

Not a clue, as always.

If it overheats the problem was the cooling system or maintenance
(lack of) towards cleaning out dust, replacing poor thermal
compound, or relubing junk fans (if for some reason it isn't
viable to replace them with good quality fans instead).

I still want a cpu that wont die if that stuff is neglected,
because its never possible to guarantee that that stuff
wont be neglected by someone who doesnt know any better.

Ok, if you presuppose a problem then that would help.

There are ALWAYS problems.

I'd rather presuppose the time should be spent on eliminating
the problem, or at the very least, checking for this.

Have fun explaining why even amd now has thermal shutdown.

As you say, chipsets are an advantage, too.
I've had trouble with VIA chipsets for AMD in
the past, but no trouble with Intel chipsets for Intel.

Some have had trouble, for example Intel southbridge
USB issues/burnout. Pointing to one past chipset
used on AMD is no evidence against AMD itself.

No one ever said it was. I JUST said that one advantage
with an intel cpu is that you can have an intel chipset and
that on the whole there have been less problems with
those than there have been with VIA etc. Which is why
I choose to avoid VIA chipsets when thats feasible,
even when using an intel cpu.

Ok, and again, it is pointless to name an entire company's
products rather than the specific one with the issue.

No its not, its evidence of how that company does things.

Someone could similarly claim "I had a p3 1.13GHz that
wasn't stable, this is proof we should never buy an Intel
CPU". It would be an equally invalid argument in the
context of system component selection today.

Gets sillier by the minute.

Even in the past some chipsets for Intel posed
problems, like Sis 620 (or was it 630) refusing to
use UMDA for HDD on NT/2K/XP in many cases.

Which is another reason why I choose to use
Intel chipsets unless there is a good reason not to.

Ok, it's your $$.

Doesnt cost me a cent.

However, using them means you are necessarily
less informed through actual use of any alternatives.

What I choose to buy for myself is an entirely separate
matter to what I have seen problems with.

IOW, you may then know a fair bit about them, but not be
able to reasonably contrast them to anything else, _today_.

Gets sillier by the minute.

There are reasons to choose either alternative, it would be
most valid to choose based on the specific, most common
or most demanding use the system will encounter...

In practice few personal desktop systems have
the performance determined by the cpu anyway.

Possibly true, but we are talking about CPUs... which
come in different speed grades and corresponding prices.
Quite commonly people will spend more for a higher CPU #
than other system parameters so it is only reasonable to
consider what they get for the $.

Or it makes much more sense to buy on the basis of value
for money instead with systems known to be reliable.

as it is with a comparison of any two CPUs having different
architectures. Nothing wrong with a P4 or Pentium D where
it excells but the very specific use, not even a newer
version of the same application, must be considered.

Or realise that hardly any users would ever be able to pick
any difference any benchmark claims to see, with the main
exception being with games. And bugger all personal
desktop systems are used for demanding games anyway.

That's just it, the main difference is not just games.

Never said it was.

As already written, you have to consider the app actually
used, not just the newest benchmarks of the newest apps.

In practice with what is done on most personal desktop systems,
benchmarks are completely irrelevant. The user wont even notice
any difference between any of the sensible alternatives in practice.

Likely anything else, software evolves too, particularly
for newer CPUs the performance changes.

And most users of personal desktop systems wont even notice if they
arent running demanding games or stuff like transcoding video files.

If one presumes a performance difference from a particular
CPU but without having the exact app and version they have
made an error, and likewise trying to draw conclusions
about similar tasks but still non-identical software.

In practice with what is done on most personal desktop systems,
benchmarks are completely irrelevant. The user wont even notice
any difference between any of the sensible alternatives in practice.

Games are NOT the only place where AMD CPUs
outperform "some" of Intel's, it's merely one place
where their raw performance is shown, as it is in
most apps not optimized for either architecture.

In practice games and transcoding video files are about
the only things that are done much on most personal desktop
systems where you will notice any effect of the cpu at all.

So pick your CPU then add onto it's cost the cost for all
the software you need to realize the benchmark score.

Or just pick what's best value for money instead.

That sort of benchmarking is a complete wank in the real world.

kony wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Irrelevant to whether its bad design for the cpu to
end up dead due to something as trivial as a cpu
fan failure or bad installation of the heatsink etc.

You are overlooking that a gradual overheating
situation with either AMD or Intel CPUs, has an
overheat shutdown mechanism in place.

No I'm not, thats just one area where there
isnt anything in it between intels and amds.

Since Intels' was CPU-integral earlier, those
CPUs have a marginally better protection

Nothing marginal about it when the cpu fan
fails or the heatsink isnt installed properly.

but in practice you would have to
have a rather unlikely overheat scenario-

Wrong again. Its quite common with fur buildup on the cpu fan.

not as slow as if the fan failed, but not
as fast as if the heatsink came off.

If the heatsink installation was bad such that it didn't make contact, the
clamp came off or whatever, the system can still fry a P4. It has been
done, a P4's shutdown mechanism cannot respond fast enough to
counter the rapid rise in temp from cold-off to on-without-heatsink-contact.

And if the thermal pad has just got damaged, it may well handle it fine.

Citing one example of an old platform with an ineffective
means to power off a system with an Athlon in it is a
similar situation to any other past era issues- unless you
are buying that particular old tech, it is non-applicable to
parts selections today.

Duh, obviously since the current amds do now have a decent thermal shutdown mechanism.

He was clearly commenting on the downsides of not having a decent
thermal shutdown mechanism, and amd clearly NOW agrees with him.

krw wrote:
In article . com,
says...

krw wrote:

In article .com,
says...

What makes you think business people evaluate their
computer purchases carefully? They're not careful
with their pension plan selections, and pensions are
far less technical and more financial in nature, meaning
business people should understand them.

Nonsense. Executives are *very* careful with their pension plans.
ESRA and all that.

You're right, they're very careful with THEIR pensions, but the
pensions of their lower level employees are another matter.


Bull****! They are responsible for the funds in the EMPLOYEES'
pension plan too. Look up ERISA. This is *very* serious business,
given the dollars in there.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/...DAyMzgwWj.html

From a pretty reliable source, the Wall St. Journal:


PAGE ONE


Hidden Burden

As Workers' Pensions Wither,
Those for Executives Flourish
Companies Run Up Big IOUs,
Mostly Obscured, to Grant
Bosses a Lucrative Benefit

The Billion-Dollar Liability

By ELLEN E. SCHULTZ and THEO FRANCIS
June 23, 2006; Page A1

To help explain its deep slump, General Motors Corp. often cites "legacy
costs," including pensions for its giant U.S. work force. In its latest
annual report, GM wrote: "Our extensive pension and [post-employment]
obligations to retirees are a competitive disadvantage for us." Early
this year, GM announced it was ending pensions for 42,000 workers.

But there's a twist to the auto maker's pension situation: The pension
plans for its rank-and-file U.S. workers are overstuffed with cash,
containing about $9 billion more than is needed to meet their
obligations for years to come.
[pension]

Another of GM's pension programs, however, saddles the company with a
liability of $1.4 billion. These pensions are for its executives....


krw, you might want to consider how companies are using bankruptcy to
bail on their pension obligations: several airlines have done this:

Pension Guaranty Corp.'s Financial Troubles Deepen

by Frank Langfitt

Morning Edition, May 18, 2005 · The government corporation that insures
pensions for 35 million Americans is facing a serious financial
shortfall of $23 billion. The deficit increased when United Airlines was
allowed to transfer its pension obligations to the government. Now
there's concern that taxpayers could face a costly bailout if other
companies follow United's lead.

Pretty current: from today's news:

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/45880.html

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/b...s/14947803.htm

Currently, pension plans are underfunded by an estimated total of $450
billion. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. - the federal agency that
insures private pension plans, much like the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corp. insures bank accounts - estimates that $100 billion of that is
with firms with serious funding problems.

The pension insurer, which is self-funded from premiums, is itself
burdened by a $22.8 billion deficit because it has had to take over the
benefits obligations of companies that have gone bankrupt and ended
their plans.

Without a fix, many fear the whole defined-benefit pension system could
implode in a repeat of the late 1980s savings-and-loan crisis that
required a $130 billion taxpayer bailout.


Lack of political guts could ruin retirement
Sunday, July 02, 2006

We've known for decades that the financial day of reckoning was approaching.

And still we haven't done a thing about it.

As any demographer can tell you, when the Baby Boom generation retires,
a sizable chunk of it will live in a world of hurt. And subsequent
generations aren't likely to be any better off.

http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/...330.xml&coll=7

Pension Tension
Some big local employers are short on funding retirement nest eggs
By Becky Pallack
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 06.25.2006

At least 16 of Southern Arizona's large employers have underfunded
pension and benefit programs, leading some workers to worry they won't
get what they were promised in retirement.

http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/135005

A recent Standard & Poor's study examined the status of pension plans
and other retirement benefits, including medical benefits, of companies
listed on the S&P 500. Together, the 500 companies have more than $461
billion in obligations that are not funded, the study found.
Of those 500 companies, there are 20 that employ more than 500 area
residents. Sixteen of those 20 — representing 29,000 current workers in
Southern Arizona — have a combined $28.8 billion deficit, the study says.

Raytheon Co. — the parent company of Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson's
biggest private employer — has a $4.6 billion deficit in its pension and
retirement benefits funds, the study says, though the company says it is
making large payments to its plans.

Many corporations are making the minimum contributions to their pension
funds, resulting in underfunded programs as obligations to employees
outperform growth of assets, the study says.

"The reality for many potential retirees is that the light at the end of
their working career is not the sunshine of retirement, but the
realization that they need to be more frugal and do with less," said
Howard Silverblatt, a senior index analyst at S&P and the author of the
study.

I live in San Diego: the city's pension plan is underfunded to the tune
of about $2 billion dollars: or, about one Enron.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...9bankrupt.html

Also, medical benefits for government retirees hasn't been funded, and,
with medical costs up and people living longer, this unfunded liability
is looking huge:

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006...1_197_1_06.txt

By the way, the Social Secuirty system and Medicare are not looking too
healthy, either:

http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/01/reti...port/index.htm

Medicare, meanwhile, is expected to pay out more in benefits than it
receives in tax revenue starting this year.

Nonsense. Executives are *very* careful with their pension plans.
ESRA and all that.

No, KRW, they are not. Even the US military is having some issues:
retirement is funded out of current accounts.

http://www.cdi.org/program/document....page=index.cfm

And, as for private health insurance: this fine man is an inspiration:

http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2005/0...-ceo-make.html

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

How Can a $124.8 Million a Year CEO Make Health Care More Affordable?

An op-ed piece in the Providence Journal about huge pay packages for
corporate CEOs mentioned the breath-taking $124.8 million total
compensation of United Health Group (parent of United Healthcare) CEO
William McGuire. This figure can also be found in the Forbes Special
Report on CEO compensation. Here one can find that other managed care
CEOs got less fabulous, but still formidable compensation, e.g., Howard
Phanstiel, PacifiCare, 3.38 million; Edward Hanway, Cigna, $13.3
million; John Rowe, Aetna, $22.2 million; and Larry Glassrock,
Wellpoint, $25.0 million.

McGuire's compensation was so large as to take a measurable part of this
large company's net income (5%). Or to look at it from a stock-holder's
(and hence, an company owner's) viewpoint, had McGuire, who is an
employee, been only paid a cool million, and this money had been
distributed as a dividend, it would amount to about a $0.20 per share
dividend. (The current dividend is $0.03 per share.) (See company data
available from Forbes as well.)

To look at it from a United employee's viewpoint, had McGuire, who is an
employee, been only paid a cool million, and this money had been
distributed to employees, each of the 40,000 employees could have
received a bonus larger than $3000.

To look at it from the viewpoint of the health care system, the $124.8
million total compensation of a single United employee could pay the
salaries of 833 general internists at current typical salaries. Or the
$124.8 million could run one reasonable size community hospital for a year.

United Health Group's mission statement is "the company directs its
resources into designing products, providing services and applying
technologies that improve access to health and well-being services;
simply the health care experience; promote quality; and make health care
more affordable." (See this fact sheet.) Rather, it seems to be
directing a good chunk of its resources into salaries of top management
employees. How a $124.8 million CEO salary can be reconciled with a
mission to "make health care more affordable" is completely beyond me.

And, as for other post-retirement perks:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:W...ient=firefox-a

Titanic was a nice ship, KRW--was a very nice ride, luxurious, but, some
hazards were ignored, and it didn't go well.

Glad you are enjoying the ride now.

On 4 Jul 2006 21:20:09 -0700, "
wrote:



You could use laptop drives.


Sure, but that kills the capacity per $ and the performance.
I don't really care so much about the noise as it isn't
going to be sitting within earshot but having the fans means
that someday I'll have to pop off the filter panel and clean
or replace it. It's not much of a concern though, I already
have a couple other filesevers with large filters over the
entire 5-1/2" bay area and from the slow dust accumulation
it looks like they could go several years inbetween filter
replacement intervals.

I didn't think you were THAT concerned with performance, what with all
that about underclocking a low performance chip, software RAID, and so
on. I understand the cost aspect, tho'.


Cost is one major factor, considering notebook drives tend
to be around $1 per GB still and the proposed fileserver
will have at least a TB mirrored. Then there's the 40/44
pin adapters dangling in air behind the drives, something
I'd like to avoid for reliability's sake.

I'd expect the notebook drives to be the most significant
bottleneck, that I can underclock/undervolt the CPU and
mainboard and still have over 30MB/s with desktop drives.
It won't be necessary to underclock it but can't hurt in
achieving long lifespan either, the system can remain viable
for at least 10 years on GbE and a PCI based PATA & SATA
card(s). Whatever I come up with for AC power conditioning
will probably cost more than the entire system (sans drive
costs). Plus, if I keep power consumption below a certain
threshold, I have plenty of parts for building a redundant
power board. Beyond that threshold, it becomes yet another
expense, and same situation with some UPS I already have.
I could justify the expenses if necessary, if I didn't have
any fileservers yet but I do, so... It becomes more a matter
of a creative exercise during a routine pre-planned
obsolescence of one of my older fileservers. They run fine
but I'd rather replace while they work rather than after one
had failed, especially when it can be done at my leasure
instead of an immediate necessity. That just allows playing
around a bit before it's done.

Essentially I'll be leveraging the most cost effective
modern technologies and ignoring those with a high
cost:benefit ratio. I can underclock to lengthen service
intervals (except the inevitable drive failures over several
years use) and promote longest motherboard lifespan. A
light duty filesever just doesn't need much in the way of
CPU performance and the software raid may be an issue but on
a similar existing box with a Celeron 500, it never reaches
100% CPU utilization more than momentarily, fractions of a
second with averages (during transfers) well below 75% (I
forget the exact percentage at the moment).

If higher CPU performance had significant gain I could just
put a higher performance platform to use but I expect the
biggest bottleneck to be the 32bit/33MHz PCI bus as it was
the case with post-1GHz Tualatin fileservers and it would
raise costs by an order of magnitude to overcome that PCI
limitation with a newer PCI Express or ported GbE platform &
complimentary CPU. I'll have to benchmark it, maybe it
won't perform well enough underclocked but it's hard to
speculate as too few people have benchmarked C3 in these
kinds of uses. I'd seen some filesystem benchmarks that
make C3 look fine but not with software raid. So I'll
underclock then compare and see...

On Wed, 5 Jul 2006 14:37:28 +1000, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

kony wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Irrelevant to whether its bad design for the cpu to
end up dead due to something as trivial as a cpu
fan failure or bad installation of the heatsink etc.

You are overlooking that a gradual overheating
situation with either AMD or Intel CPUs, has an
overheat shutdown mechanism in place.

No I'm not, thats just one area where there
isnt anything in it between intels and amds.


Isn't anything in what?

Either platform has had overheat shutdown for years now.
Early socket A didn't but were you buying an early socket A
based system new today?



Since Intels' was CPU-integral earlier, those
CPUs have a marginally better protection

Nothing marginal about it when the cpu fan
fails or the heatsink isnt installed properly.


Marginally better means that with the thermal sensor in the
CPU, it will react faster, but it need not react that fast
if the fan failed or 'sink was clogged with dust, because
the temp doesn't rise so fast in these conditions.



but in practice you would have to
have a rather unlikely overheat scenario-

Wrong again. Its quite common with fur buildup on the cpu fan.

Yes and that scenario you post IS handled by AMD's solution.
Did you think there was NO thermal shutdown at all? Perhaps
this is where you are mislead.



not as slow as if the fan failed, but not
as fast as if the heatsink came off.

If the heatsink installation was bad such that it didn't make contact, the
clamp came off or whatever, the system can still fry a P4. It has been
done, a P4's shutdown mechanism cannot respond fast enough to
counter the rapid rise in temp from cold-off to on-without-heatsink-contact.

And if the thermal pad has just got damaged, it may well handle it fine.

So how do you propose to damage it?

Again this is a very narrow change in thermal rise, "IF" it
were too fast for one thermal sensor to handle shutdown but
still slow enough for another to do so safely.




Citing one example of an old platform with an ineffective
means to power off a system with an Athlon in it is a
similar situation to any other past era issues- unless you
are buying that particular old tech, it is non-applicable to
parts selections today.

Duh, obviously since the current amds do now have a decent thermal shutdown mechanism.

.... and the XPs did too on the motherboard. Fan fails?
Motherboard shuts it down. Dust? Again, motherboard shuts
it down. Heatsink falls off? CPU may fry but so have P4s.

You have to reach to find a realistic scenario where it'll
make a real-world difference.


He was clearly commenting on the downsides of not having a decent
thermal shutdown mechanism, and amd clearly NOW agrees with him.

He was commenting about it as if it's a reason not to choose
AMD, now. Instead, it is a reason not to choose that one
old platform, which is same thing I've commented on all
along, that a particular issue with some old platform is not
an indictment against an entire company's line of products,
particularly later generation products. Again, same thing
applies to any earlier generation Intel bugs, it in now way
reflects on what you'd buy today as a current gen. part.