Well, I thought I'd give Ready Boost a try to see if it really made a difference. Wether it does or not is up for debate, but I perceive an improvement. The problem I had with it was it required the use of an external USB port. Once I plug in the printers, scanner, keyboard, mouse, and requisite iPod I'm low on external port. So I had this flash of inspiration "Why not install it on an empty USB header on the motherboard!" So I did. Here's a quick rundown of what I went through for this. I first scavenged the components I would need for this project. A female USB-A port. Harvested from a 6" cable while I was bored @ work one day. (Does anyone know what good those 6" cables are? Other than projects like this ) 4 pin header. This I scavenged from a spare power LED and HDD Activity LED. I used the nice little pin block provided by Asus with my motherboard to make installing usb ports less difficult. I thought about buying all of these pieces, but in such small quantities it really is not worth the cost. Now to assembling this bugger. I soldered the leads from the LED headers to the USB port. Uh-oh, bare connectors. Can't have that in a PC so I coated it with this stuff. It's made for tool handles but is electrically non-conductive. And I happened to have some in my supply closet. Here is how it looked after 4 coats. Hey, how am I going to plug the flash drive in? Simple, cut off the end. I had wrapped the USB socket with electrical tap to prevent it from filling with the dip. And this is how it looks with the flash drive installed. And finally, installed in the PC. Total cost? About $12 US for the 4GB flash drive. Ideally I would like to have mounted the socket directly to the header. But, like I said before, I didn't want to spend any money on this. I guess you can credit cheaps for that inspiration. Thanks for reading and feel free to leave you thoughts, opinions, and any other feedback. (Like anyone could stop this community )
I always understood it was like RAM, but choked by the USB bus' relatively slow speed!? Still - love the hands-on-testing
I know I saw a review a while ago, from what I remember it wasn't quite up to expectations... Definite props for the execution, looking forward to hearing how it works out
Thanks for the feedback, the ego appreciates it. =D I can say there is one part I'm not happy with. the PlastiDip remains flexible after it cures, so the drive needs support under it. otherwise it will sag. I was hoping to plug it into the impossible to access USB header by the Northbridge on my MB. As far as performance boost is actually concerned, I'm not 100% sure. I "feel" like there is, but don't have any benchmarks to prove it. Maybe that will be the next project. I'm running Windows 7 RC on a QX9650 w 4GB of DDR2 RAM and a 1TB WD Black drive. So the system is pretty snapper to begin with. I will say this, the boot times for Windows 7 are impressive. About half that of XP. Then again, my XP system is loaded with years worth of crap. the 7 disk is nice and clean.
