EXABYTES provides web hosting solutions in many packages; shared web hosting, semi-dedicated, full dedicated (or you can just name it, and I can bet you, they have it!). Our alumni member was not that big i.e. about 140 members, so we were thinking of giving the Linux shared web hosting a try and would upgrade if the server couldn’t handle it. We were given three subpackages, as listed below:

Our previous web hosting gave us 10GB of space, and although it looks like it was not enough, truth is we barely used the space. Therefore, we quickly decided and signed up for the EBIZ PLUS package. The registration went smooth and the account details were sent in less than an hour. And the rest I would say became the history and to date, we agree the decision we took years ago, couldn’t be better!  The big compliment is meaningless without any proof and to do that,  I have to first, give highest regards to the quality that they have in their products! And, for the benefits of everyone, let me share the main reason why Exabytes Linux Web Hosting is my all-time favorite!

Leading the looooooooong list is their GREAT & EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE. I have been with Exabytes for close to 6 years (pergh, that is something!), and I have only experience downtime in total of less than 24 hours! Their claim of 99.99% uptime seems bold, but I believe they have delivered it! EXABYTES is armed with many IT Professional who not only know the in-and-out, but also very warm at heart. I would like to share an experience when I just setup a new shopping blog. Apparently, on 4th August 2010, there was some technical issues which resulted in the Apache default page appeared, instead of the blog main page. I was really shocked but at the same time, I had this thinking going on in my mind “hey, let`s see how quick the Support Team can resolve my issue”. I submitted my ticket at 9.42 a.m. and received the acknowledgement from them about 20 minutes later. And, about 40 minutes later, they came back to me saying that he problem is already RESOLVED! I was like “Whoooaaa, so fast! ”

Next, I would like to give big thumbs up for the HARDWARE AND NETWORK PERFORMANCE. As mentioned earlier, initially we had some doubt on whether the shared webhosting can perform and serve the forum. To our surprise, the forum has been operating with almost no downtime. As the content is hosted at local datacentre, one should expect the download and access speed to be ligthning fast and I am glad to let you know, it is performing LIGHTHING FAST, as advertised. For the sake of comparison, I uploaded one big file to the server and ask many of my relatives and friends to download and screencapture the download window. I understand that pictures tell thousand words

Other than the above two main reasons, I also love the fact that they are giving cPanel as the server control panel. With cPanel, you have great and easier control on your webhosting package thanks to the user-friendly graphical user interface. You can quckly create your FTP accounts, create additional subdomains, browse through the File Manager and also monitor your server and bandwidth usage. Everything at your finger click! Mind you, most of the cheapo webhosting provider does not give cPanel, or even if they do, it will come with a price. With Exabytes Linux Web Hosting, this is part of the package. And best of all the packages are priced at an affordable rate.

As a bonus, I believe their PR skills should not be ignored and in fact shoud be given due credit. If you are yet to LIKE their FB page, I highly suggest you to do so. You will be smiling almost everyday with all their status messages. Some of them are very informative, and some are also very casual & #funny. You can take a look at some of the snapshots below.

It’s time for some informative discussion, and observe the feedbacks that they have received from the curious clients.

Not to forget, the announcements on the scheduled maintenance.

What I can conclude from the observations and experience with Exabytes, the LINUX WEB HOSTING (EBIZ PLUS package) is the best web hosting package you can get as, not only you will be getting their excellent performance, but also the customer service, and many other things mentioned above. No worry! Although this post was made as an entry to the iPad2 competition, but rest assured I was not making up stories to please them so that I can get the iPad2. The writings came from the bottom of my heart.

I really hope that at this point you already understand why EBIZ PLUS (Linux Web Hosting) is my Exabytes Favorite Product! I recommend to all my readers to select their EBIZ PLUS as a start, and you may upgrade it to UNLIMITED for a mere RM50 per year. A good deal I must say! FYI, I have been subcribing to EBIZ PLUS package for the past six years on bi-annually basis, which translated into FURTHER SAVINGS! See! Told ya, this may sound too good to be true, but yes it is true!

Worth every ringgit, guys!

and also you have the options to upgrade anytime!

Adios guys!

Im having some small garage sales to clear my room, so please have a look.

Let me know ASAP if you are interested in any of these items.

Drop me a comment, or you could also email me: sir.akmal (at) yahoo.com

Thank you for viewing this page

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Item 1: Asus 8800GT TOP 512 MB
Package includes: only the card
Price: RM200
Warranty: Personal warranty (1 week)
Dealing method: COD is preferred, it`s good for both parties anyway during working days/hours, we could meet up at Ampang Park LRT station/Ampang Park itself. On other days/hours, Taman Melati/Wangsa Maju LRT station are OK.
Location of seller: Setapak, KL
Contact method/details: as stated above, drop me an email/comment
Age of item: Bought in Oct ’08, but used until last year as PhysX card for Mafia 2, coupled with my 460GTX
Item conditions: Working great!
Pictures:

Reason for sale: Just wanna let go this card to other ppl since Im using another GPU. To those who are having other nVidia GPU, you can take this card and use it as your PhysX card. It helped to improve my framerate significantly when you are playing any PhysX-enabled games. I shared my findings at LYN under Hardware section.

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Item 2: Albatron 6600GT AGP
Package includes: only the card
Price: RM50
Warranty: Personal warranty (1 week)
Dealing method: COD is preferred, it`s good for both parties anyway during working days/hours, we could meet up at Ampang Park LRT station/Ampang Park itself. On other days/hours, Taman Melati/Wangsa Maju LRT station are OK.
Location of seller: Setapak, KL
Contact method/details: as stated above, drop me an email/comment
Age of item: Can’t really recall the age, but I believe I bought it about 4 years ago.
Item conditions: Working great!
Pictures:

Reason for sale: Just wanna let go this card to other ppl since Im using another GPU.

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Item 3: 2 X 512MB DDR2 GEIL RAM (DDR400 2.5-6-6-3)
Package includes: the RAM bars
Price: RM40 for the PAIR, and Im not planning to sell separately.
Warranty: Personal warranty (1 week)
Dealing method: COD is preferred, it`s good for both parties anyway during working days/hours, we could meet up at Ampang Park LRT station/Ampang Park itself. On other days/hours, Taman Melati/Wangsa Maju LRT station are OK.
Location of seller: Setapak, KL
Contact method/details: as stated above, drop me an email/comment
Age of item: I bought them in 2005
Item conditions: Working great!
Pictures:

Reason for sale: Stock clearance!

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Item 4: 2 X 1GB Kingston HyperX (KHX6400D2LLK2/2GN)
Package includes: the RAM bars
Price: RM60 for the PAIR, and Im not planning to sell separately.
Warranty: Personal warranty (1 week)
Dealing method: COD is preferred, it`s good for both parties anyway during working days/hours, we could meet up at Ampang Park LRT station/Ampang Park itself. On other days/hours, Taman Melati/Wangsa Maju LRT station are OK.
Location of seller: Setapak, KL
Contact method/details: as stated above, drop me an email/comment
Age of item: I bought them in Oct’ 2008
Item conditions: Working great!
Pictures:

Reason for sale: Stock clearance!

That’s it guys! Hopefully some of you will BUY
Have a great day!

Many peoples contributed with ideas and suggestions; looked into harddisk, reset BIOS, etc.. And I am glad to let all of you know that the problem has been SOLVED! I would like thank those peoples who dropped by and chipped in their suggestion; LOKI and AZHAR.

It seemed that the problem was coming from the overclock profile that I have been using for the past two years. After reseting them to default setting (with very minimal changes on the BIOS), I managed to boot into Win7 with single card setting. I was so glad when I spotted Win7 desktop.

I quickly re-installed latest nVidia drivers, along with its Physx drivers. Also, re-installed my MSI Afterburner

Next, 3D Mark 11. And, the result? The score was within the MOSTLIKELY score of GTX460, which is about 3000. In comparison, previously, the score was about 2200. That translated into 900 of increase in benchmark score. And also, NFS Hot Pursuit ran smoothly and perfectly without those jerky framerates. I am delighted!

Hooorayy!

Again, thank you guys! You guys rockk!

Now, it’s time to look for that ‘sweet spot‘ again.. huhu!

On the next working day, UNIFI Support Team gave me a call and both of us agreed on an appointment. On the said date, they did come sharp on time; 1.30 p.m. and they spent the next 3 hours trying to pin down the problems. They started their investigative works from the UNIFI box, outside my apartment. Later, they moved up to the SERVER room inside my apartment, and also next, to the CABLE room at my apartment’s level. Unfortunately for them and me, none of those troubleshooting has worked. Finally, they came into my house with the old VDSL modem (white and bulky). He quickly completed the cabling and voila, the internet was back online! He then quickly swapped my black HUAWEI modem with new unit to verify the finding, guess what…. It really worked! It was clear that the culprit was the HUAWEI modem. Hampeh! He was also shocked to discover this. According to him, most UNIFI users would only have problem with their orange DLINK router.

So my prior concern was valid. Unfortunately, I neglected my concern and assumed it would be OK. Serve me right, kan? Hehe
Learning this lesson the hard way, I have thought of some ‘cool’ idea. In fact, it is cool, literally. Thanks to the USB port in front of the DLINK router. The next day, during lunch hour @ Ampang Park, I stopped by computer shop to get the USB-powered notebook cooling pad! The price was a bargain, only RM6. Trust me, it is THAT cheap!
Check out my previous UNIFI setup:

And now, it is cooled by the CHEAP, yet COOL cooling pad! Haha!

Please take note of this, the brilliant USB PORT (red-circled below). I likeee~~ Without this useful port, I would find problem to get the juice for the cooling pad. Hehe

So guys, I am advising and recommending those UNIFI users, to install this simple, yet effect cooling solution. Both devices are now running cool, yet quiet. You may need to bear with the blue LEDs, or perhaps you could scout around for the LEDless pad. Hint: PC Fair is coming soon in April ’11.

In my opinion, although the VDSL modem unit has lifetime warranty, I would prefer proactive solution than active solution i.e. waiting for them to come and fix it. No downtime please.. That’s all!

Cheers!

Image credit (1): USB Port

What has happened?

About 3 months ago, it was quite late in the night. I was playing NFS:Hot Pursuits on my PC when suddenly I received a phone call, which somehow required me to go somewhere. Thinking that I would be returning back on the same night, I left the PC on PAUSE mode (pressed escape button which brought up the in-game menu). Unfortunately, there was an emergency and it has resulted in me returning home after about 2 days. When I reached home, I notice that the PC was still running. Unfortunately the monitor was out of display (completely dark with the LED power blinking) i.e. as if the cable was not connected to the VGA card. I was quite shocked and quickly give it a hard shutdown.

After leaving it for about 30 minutes, I turned back the PC on and guess what, the similar thing was still there i.e. the display went dark. Quickly, I shut it off and pulled out the BIOS battery to reset the CMOS. Fortunately, the PC went back to normal after the basic configuration at CMOS. I also managed to get back into Windows. Phew!

The next day, as usual as I was trying to get my NFS daily dose, I had a big surprise. The frame rates were not as smooth as before. Since NFS is a racing game where everything moves fast, these jerky gameplay was really an annoying thing to look at. I simply gave up and went straight to bed. The next day, I came back early from office with only one purpose, to troubleshoot the issue and fix it ASAP. Now, before I shared the things that I have done, let me share with you the basic info of my system.

CPU: Q6600 2.4Ghz running @ 3.4 GHz
Mobo: Asus P5K
RAM: 2 x 2GB Team Xtreem
Graphic card: Asus GeForce GTX 460 1GB TOP in PCIe 16X & Gigabit 8800GT 512 MB in PCIe 4X (both are running in nvidia multi-card setup, as shown below. The left is 8800GT and the right is 460GTX)

For your info, the multi-card setup allows you to dedicate one of the lower spec card to run as your Psyhx card. In my case, I used 8800GT as my Physx card to get better framerate in Mafia 2, and it really helped as advertised by nVidia. No complaint! Big thumbs up to Nvidia

In addition to information above, please also take note that Im using original Windows 7 Home Premium, and the NFS:Hot Pursuit copy is legit. Therefore the problems here, were not originating from some pirated softwares/OS.

What I have done so far?

a. Reinstalled NFS:Hot Pursuit
Problem not solved, jerky gameplay was still there

b. Redownloaded the nVidia driver, and re-installed.
Problem not solved, jerky gameplay was still there

c. Reset the BIOS and reboot
Problem not solved, jerky gameplay was still there

d. Reset the BIOS and take out 8800GT card, leaving only 460GTX as primary card (as shown below)

This one turned out to be a bit different from what I have experience at above. I can’t even load into my Win7. It simply stuck at the boot screen (shown below). Very annoying. I repeated step a and b (as above) without 8800GT and still, I didn’t manage to get into Win7. Tried also other boot options: Last Know Good Configuration and even the Safe Mode has also failed.

e. Reformat my Win7
I then decided for the extreme and ultimate solution (I thought lah..) by formatting my Win7 through clean install. And guess what, even with that my Win7 couldnt load. What I found funny and confusing was, right after I re-plugged in 8800GT next to 460GTX, the windows loaded properly like there was nothing wrong with the OS. I was so puzzled and confused. It seemed that 8800GT is required and a must to get the PC and Windows running.

f. Ran benchmark on 3DMark11
This completely puzzled me again. I found out that with SIMILAR setup, I was at the 2nd last group; the typical score was about 2700, but I’m getting around 2100 only. That’s quite a gap, considering SIMILAR setup.

Now what??
I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been trying to get it fixed but the same thing/result happened. I was quite frustated. Not only I didnt manage finish the game, I also couldn’t run other game properly. My Team Fortress 2 ran fine only for 15 minutes when suddenly Windows reported driver error. It is really frustrating, seriously. I can’t also offload my HD playback processing to my GPU, as it would report driver error after few minutes of playback.

What really puzzles me is why I couldn’t return back to original single card setup? If my 460GTX is problematic, there is no artifact found during gaming. Is my mobo already kaput? >.<

Thanks for dropping by and Im looking forward for some good advices. Thanks!

 
Update:
I just carried out benchmark test on my primary hard disk using Harddist Tune. Please find the results as follow:

7