Dead XBox 360 Falcon Set ..

Ever heard of the Famous 3RROD (3 Red Ring Of Death?). Well, I don't own an Xbox 360 but my housemate does. The console has been working well for 21 months and finally RROD strike it.
The 3 RROD!

Cover removed ..

The DVD-ROM looks identical to those used in a PC.

The Rom drives with the first Generation XBOX behind.

The naked XBOX 360. You can see the addition heatsink for the GPU attached on the side of the CPU. This Heatsink can only be found on the 2nd gen of XBox 360 @ Falcon, not sure about jasper though.

Thermal Paste leaking out from the CPU & GPU, thanks to the low quality thermal paste.

Well, my housemate has made some inquiries, seems that there is no permenant solution for these. It is either to use X-clamp method (Non guarantee) or Reball for the CPU & GPU but then it would cost him RM400 so end up he is getting a new Jasper Console at RM950.

Ripping of my PS3 ..

Bored with my non functional PS3 blu-ray lens ? Its time to rip it off apart. This unit have been with me since Oct 2007 and the lens died on May 2009. This is the very few 2nd batch which consist of PS2 GS (Graphic Synthesizer) Chip inside the PS3 itself. It also comes with a card reader and blue tooth and Wifi function, with its classic chrome finishing.

After ripping apart the outer cover of the PS3, here is the inner part of it. As you can see, on the right hand side is the bluray ROM. On the front left side, is the rare Card reader available on older PS3 systems.

The Wifi and Blue tooth board that comes with the PS3.

The Card reader.

The power supply unit.

The huge cooling fan within the PS3.

Heat seperator without the fan.

Finally the naked PS3 mother board. The 2 chips covered by the thermal paste are the Core Cell and the RSX engine, while the black colored chip on the left is the PS2 GS to support PS2 gaming. But it is useless without the Rom Lens laser working.

I'm not planning to fix the ROM as my previous experince fixing it only keep it alive for 5 weeks. I rather go for another new PS3 slim, with official 15 months warranty, at least its more worth my investment.

Redang Trip

It has been a frustrating 2 months work in my project site rushing for a short time line project and a huge amount of data with limited workspace. Gosh. What a life. Finally, after heavy work rushing for the project, I got a break for out company trip to Redang, a beautiful island that I wish to go for quite sometimes already.

We left KL at 10.30pm Thursday on the resort bus. On board were 13 person from our gang and another 2 foreigner whom hitch a ride with us. Its a long journey, it takes us roughly 8 hours to reach Terengganu, Merang Jetty. The bus driver is kind enough to stop us by a Chinese streets to have our quick breakfast. The Scenes during dawn.

Breakfast in the chinese restaurant (looks like mafia meeting)

The chinese street

Our Resort transfer boat which will ferry us to Redang from the Merang Jetty which will takes another 1 hours.

My Dear and I.

Our Boss giving some speech

Lonely turtle waiting for someone to bring him home.

Colleagues enjoying the welcome drinks offer by the resort.

My dear enjoying the clear white sands at the resort.

Enjoying my relax moment in Redang.

Playing volley balls with my colleagues. (noobs)

Our gang.

Work Work Work

How long have I been busy? I can't even remember since when I start to work OT. How long will this last? Days? Weeks? or perhaps months? I love challange in work, but dragging like this makes life tiring. I've been working till almost 11pm everynight. I wish this could be over very soon. I've been very tired already. I wish after this project I can spend more time with my dear and hope next project won't be that rush.

Ever Being Chased By a Police ?

It was a normal day, I was on the way to look for my dear. The fuel tank pointed at "E", so i stop by a petrol station and fill it up. During the fill up, a police car stopped at the same petrol station. Without suspecting anything, I just fill up my car as usual. Once I'm done, I leave the petrol station as usual. Seconds later the same police car came rushing through and tailgate me. Then they switch on the Siren Lights , so I pull to the left to let them pass. Instead of overtaking me, they waved me to stop.

This is the conversation when I pull over my car.

Me : Encik, apa pasal ?
Police 1 : Ini kereta siapa ?
Me : Saya punya tuan, tapi register under kakak punya nama.
Police 1 : IC lesen. Turun kereta buka engine.

As i open the bonnet hood I step away from my car. I help him to open up the hood. These are the following conversation.

Police 1 : Ini original kah sudah tukar engine ?
Me : Original , cuma sudah tukar rim aje.
Police 1 : Ini Putra kah wira ?
Me : Putra la tuan.
Police 1 : Saya punya system tulis ini WIRA!
Me : Apa system itu ? JPJ ?
Police 1 : Ya, JPJ system.
Me : ohh, Geran memang WIRA. Semua Geran putra 97 wira.
Police 1 : Ya kah ?

Police 2 coming from the police car with a piece of paper note. He then compare the engine number and the chassis number with the one from the system.

Police 2 : Eh! Sama!
Me : ....
Police 1 : Ohh itu macam kah. (Then he try to make some casual chat while hand me back my IC and License).
Police 1 : Sorry ah.

While keeping my IC and license, they rush off quickily. LoLz.
What an experience..

DEAD PS3.....

My current PS3 is a gift from my brother. Dated back at Oct 2007, its 20 months since I first turn it on.

April 30 2009, After playing game for 30 minutes, I turn it off for a break and head for my dinner. Soon after I'm home, I power it back on and found out the disc reading sign wont goes off. Darn! must have been something wrong with the lens. Spend whole night trying various ways to revive it but no luck. So i spend the night surfing the net for a cure. Some forum member intro me to a guy call Bernard whom able to change PS3 lens within an hour. I guess it might have been a normal issue for a broken lens since the PS3 is aging a bit already. Paid RM330 for a month warranty lens. All the while it was working fine. Last night, I powered it on and was playing Metal Gear Solid 4, I got shot and died in the game. That was the last time my PS3 loads anything from the disc. Damn, its not reading the media again. And I've just got it change for 5 damn weeks. Heart broken I immediately bring it to Bernard to have a look. He says confirm Dead. I affirm him that I seldom play as I was always busy with my work and life, he offered me to change another lens for a cheaper price but i rejected. As I don't want to change lens for every month. If so buying a new unit would have been a better choice. Bernard then call up the supplier and nego on it. He says he will try to send back to claim for me, I have already prepared for the worse. Just let it be. Anyhow, its still playable on PSN games. But not anymore blu-ray for now. I don't think I would want to change another lens for it as I've google through the net and found out that the single lens kit is actually already out of production for 2 years nearly. Thats why the price is shooting up yet most of them refurbish unit so I wouldn't want to take another risk perhaps a new white unit is my next aim :)


What I could not let go of this unit is the memory card reader which is quite useful for me to transfer picture taken from camera direct into the PS3 rather then through another PC before I could transfer it over. So as the Backward compatible with PS2 title which I would sometimes still play especially the Final Fantasy X. **NOTE its only playable for ORIGINAL DISC.

War of Game Console

Game console has been around for some time already. The current game console available in the market are the 7th generation console. And it has been a war amount the 3 giant console manufacture for sometimes. I had my first console when Im 7 years old, a Micro Genius (Nintendo Clone). Father award me with it after I scored 3rd in my kinder garden class. I remember when I'm 12 years old, I wanted a SNES @ Super Nintendo Entertainment System badly but my parents didn't buy for me as my family income was quite average @ Not rich!

My 2nd console was the famous Playstation. I bought it 2nd hand from my friend for a price of RM400. That time it was something to talk about if you have a Playstation at home. Those were the days where console games are way more advance compare to computer games. I remember another friend giving me his unmodded Playstation which I kept it as a collection only.

Later on at year 2002, I have the first New console bought with my own money that is the Playstation. Which i work hard with my part time job to purchase this console. Too bad I bought from a bad reputated shop because that time Playstation 2 was a hit and it was quite hard to get one. But i wanted it badly. This console had problem after just 3 months of usage. Then I spend another 1000 to buy a 2nd set of it which works for 6 years ++ and still working fine, but I sold it to one of my friend as I had the lastest Playstation 3 as a gift from my brother.

The Playstation 3, Its the famous trend nowadays. It is power by the famous Broadband engine build by IBM, Sony, and Toshiba. It has a master core and 8 additional subcore made up a total of 9 cores, and it is clocked at 3.2GHz. Do we actually need such a huge amount of power for a gaming console ? It is also equipped with a Nvidia RSX graphic engine within this big baby. Controller are wireless and able to pair up to 7 controllers. Its also has both build in Lan and Wifi (except the first 20GB generation CHECBXX). There is already a few revision of the Hardware available in the market, some are backward compatible with Playstation 2 games others are only capable of Playstation 3 Games or Playstation Game.

Unlike the first genration of microsoft console , the XBOX, this newer generation named Xbox 360 is not base on a PC hardware like his elder brother. But instead it has a custom made Processor build by IBM also. This console does not comes with the newer generation media disc. Instead it still uses the DVD as its media. This will be a major fallback when game developer develop games that contain lots of CGs. It comes with either Wired or Wireless controllers. It is also capable to connect to the internet through the LAN port. If you want a wireless LAN, you have to purchase it seperately. This console has a number of issues with their hardware which is very commonly known as RROD (Red Ring of Death).
The Wii. Nintendo created this game console very differently. Instead of the old fashioned game controller, they decided to make the game more interactive, which you would have to use your body movement to play the game instead of just your fingers. This game console are more focus on its unique game play style instead of the hardware power itself. Comparing the Wii with the Playstation 3 or the XBOX 360, the hardware specification for the Wii is way weaker then the 2 competitors, but it was a success due to its unique game play.

For now, both the Wii and XBOX 360 has been hacked and was able to play backup games, but not the Playstation 3 yet. It must have been a hard task for those hacker as it has a state of art CPU inside and a very new media which is the bluray. It has been about 2 1/2 years and still no news regarding its capabality to play backups.

Hand phone is one of those Must have gadgets for everyone nowadays. Some use it for communication and others use it for music, video, GPS and so on. But for me the days of having he latest handphone is much over already. Nowadays phones for me are just for Calls and SMS. Refreshing back my memories, I have already use almost a dozen of phones since 10 years ago. Some even cost me over thousands of ringgits.

Well, Here is my first phone, unable to find a bigger picture of it from the internet. I doubt you can see any more of this phone functionable anymore. It was a free gift from RHB bank when my Dad sign up for a Current Account. It is a Nokia 5130, not the latest Xpress music one but the old one. I guess Nokia made too much of phones that they finished all the numbers and have to reuse it. Its a single band GSM phone only capable of GSM 1800 at that time. Nokia name it so call "Human Technology" which makes it easier to use. I think the maintain such an OS till their Symbian 4.0 release. The phone is bulky and unstable. I lost the phone because i dropped it :P, anyway I don't really like it :P. Haha.After I lost the Nokia 5130, I was dreaming to have a Motorola startac V at that time but it was too expensive to have one. So i end up having a Motorola v2088. The front bezel is exchangable and I actually have 2 or 3 of them as it comes complimentary with the package. Its a Dual Band phone cabable of GSM 900/1800 which is quite good enough during that time. The uniqueness of the phone also includes the 3 color back light display which can be switch from Orange to Red and to Green. I got it for RM800 if not mistaken.

The comes my dream phone after a while. My fren got it cheaper for me around RM1100. Trade in my v2088 i paid roughly RM700. I love this phone a lot. But then have to give way as it is getting old.

During my days serving for Nokia as an Event organizer, sometimes I have the advantage to get cheap 2nd hand phones when customer buy new ones and trade in the old one. I got this Nokia 8210 at RM200 around year 2002 i think. It was a good swap during working hours (NOKIA :P).

Here comes the famous Nokia 8850. It is a trend to have a white backlight during that time. And Nokia 8850 comes with some sort of metal chassing which makes it look more class. Everyone likes the phone. I bought it for RM350 :P. Then I took it back to my hometown and sold it for RM500!! Not really a Nokia fans because I know its quite problematic even the latest phone as from what their own technician head told me.

Ever since I've use my Motorola v3688, I fell in love with flip phones. Since my V3688 is dieing, I found this replacement of his, Motorola v60 which suits me. My fren took it back from Australia for me with the price of RM500 only.

No long after owning the V60, There comes a v60i with smaller size and interchangable chassing, I sold mine to my cousin and top up RM200 to purchase the v60i.
Sony Ericson latest candy bar phone capture my interest that time, which is the T610. Its IN to have a colour phone during that time but it cost me a boom! A student having a RM1400 phone. Can you imagine that? back at year 2003.

Eventhough the T610 have lots of features, Lousy Camera, Lousy colour screen :P. Bluetooth and so and so. I still demand more from a phone. My next solution is a 2nd hand PDA phone. the hottest trend that time was the Sony Ericsson P900, my fren bought it for me from UK. RM900. But i lost it as it was stolen just 3 months after usage.

2 days later I got myself a newer version of the P900, The P910i. Bulky but a lot of functions.

By this time, I've realise I'm very wasteful that I keep changing phones to suit myself. I've decided to quit my interested in phone gadgets and it gets me no where but wasting my own money only, because you might be interested in the phone for like 1 or 2 months only. Then the phone will end up to be use as a phone and SMS only. Not worth at all.

After travelling to Jakarta for work, We found out that their phone service provider provides internet through 3G services, So i purchase the cheapest available 3G phone in the market. The V3xx which i bought for only RM600, and has been using since then.

I wasted so much only to know that it is not worth at all. Haha. Anyway at least I've been through it :)