Quick noisiness test for PC

How to test the noisiness of a notebook / PC?

Everybody wants to have a notebook which is as silent as possible but how to test that quickly while you are in the store? Mostly the CPU fan makes most noise in a computer. There is a very simple solution to set a CPU under full load with Windows XP.

Just open a calculator (win key + r; enter ‘calc’; [calculator opens] switch to scientific view; calculate the factorial for a big number > 10000;) Repeat that for every existing core and check with taskmanager the load.

–> The PC will be under full load for several minutes and the fan is going to speed up to maximum.

This trick doesn’t work with Win7 because the calculator has been improved. For Win7 and Linux I developed an small application to set the CPU under full load.

CPU Stressing Tool

MD5: 85eb640b41b0f13cbc33f43f37167179

Just choose the number of cores and click at “Stress!”

Greetz Mavi

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, how to move the window buttons to the right

Why are the window buttons (minimize, maximize, close) at the left side and how to change?

Today I installed finally the lastest version of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx. Over all I have to say that the design is nice and the transparent window effect reaches the quality of Win7.

The designers moved the window button set to the left side. The issue is that most people are used to have it at the right side, they are moving the mouse to the wrong corner now. Probably the designers wanted to create a unique feature, but nevertheless it destroies the usability.

HOWTO change that:

• Lunch the Configuration Editor (Alt+F2, enter “gconf-editor”)
• Navigate to apps>metacity>general
• Change the entry button_layout from:

maximize,minimize,close:

to:

menu:minimize,maximize,close

You’ll find the buttons at familar position now again.

Greetz Mavi