Today I tested the AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management) function in the IBM Feature Tool.
What AAM can do for you? When you activate the AAM, the noise of your harddisk will reduce to a minimum. On my test computer I could not hear the noise anymore when the harddrive reads or writes. I think it is a very cool feature when you would like to have an absolutely quiet PC. And so I asked myself: Is performance affected? I checked it with SiSoft Sandra 2002. Read on for the results.

Just saw this @ Nvmax.com

Many of us have dual processor systems. They are great for work, but sometimes there is a snag when gaming. I have been having one of those snags when trying to play Jedi Knight 2 MultiPlayer on my dual AMD system, but thanks to a user named Raiden in the Lucusforum, I am no longer. Raiden has created a new loader that corrects this problem.

The tool helps with the TV ouput of Nvidia graphic cards. The main problem is the black borders around the picture on the TV screen. They are very annoying for most applications like e.G. DVD-playback. This tool helps getting rid of those bars...

Freeware EasyEncode is a very easy but still high-quality and powerful full automatic DVD to DivX rip-pack but unlike the new commercial encoders, i did never make any compromises about the quality. about 2 years ago, converting DVD movies into DivX (in high quality) was nearly impossible and you had to do everything by hand. because every single process needs a few hours, this can be very annoying. why not let a simple bat-file do all this for you? this is what easyencode is all about.

W32.Klez Removal Tool will remove the Klez worm from your system. W32.Klez.gen@mm is a generic detection that detects variants of W32.Klez. Computers that are infected with W32.Klez.gen@mm have most likely been exposed to either W32.Klez.E@mm or W32.Klez.H@mm. If your computer is detected as infected with W32.Klez.gen@mm, download and run the tool. In most case, the tool will be able to remove the infection.

Fresh UI - your FREE Windows tweaking tool - just got better with the release of version 2.6. What's new in this version: more Windows hidden settings and reported bugs fixed.

Fresh UI is a fresh solution for configuring and optimizing Windows. Loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings in Windows XP/2000/ NT/98/95/Me, this software covers the customizing and optimizing techniques that you'll be glad to know. Unlike any other similar utilities, this software is 100% free!

Asus have updated their tools. Hit Read More for the list and download links.

Smart Projects have released a new version of IsoBuster.

IsoBuster is a cool application that will allow you to view and extract CD images without the need for burning them. The list of changes is currently not clear yet.

Ad-aware is an award winning, free multi adware removal utility, that scans your memory, registry and hard drives for known adware components and lets you remove them safely. This version was previously posted at MajorGeeks.

A new build of Diskeeper XP/2K 7.0 is available. You must eliminate fragmentation to eliminate the most basic performance bottleneck on your system. Built-in defragmenters are manual-only and require full administrator privileges to operate. They are slow, labor intensive and use too much system resources to keep up with the performance demands of today's computing needs. Ultimately they don?t get used. Running Diskeeper is like hiring an expert to constantly monitor and maintain your system?s maximum performance.

Customizer XP is an integrated suite of programs that can help you to tweak your Windows 2000/XP to its fullest potential performance or just keep it running like new. It offers a wide range possibility to customize and optimize your Windows program. Whether you want to tweak your Windows registry, cleanup your harddisk, or increase your multimedia and 3D games performance!

This handy utility let's you set custom refresh rates for D3D and OpenGL. Very useful if you don't want to play your games @ 60Hz. Currently only works with Windows XP or 2000.

The POWERMAX.EXE utility is designed to perform diagnostic read/write verifications on Maxtor/Quantum hard drives. These tests will determine hard drive integrity. The POWERMAX.EXE utility is effective on all ATA (IDE) hard drives with a capacity greater than or equal to 500 MB. Maxtor recommends the use of this utility for troubleshooting potential hard drive problems. These problems include, but are not limited to the following:

Potential hard drive surface problems (e.g., bad clusters, bad sectors, partitioning/formatting problems, etc.).

Drive recognition problems (e.g. hard drive that is not recognized by the operating system).

Software removal.

A new version of GeForce Tweak Utility has just been released: 3.2 t32.

This utility allows you make a lot of modifications to the registry settings of any GeForce videocard. GeForce256 DDR, GeForce2/MX/Pro/Ultra, GeForce3, Quadro, Quadro2/Pro/MXR, Quadro DCC.

Rage3D have updated their tweak tool again. Here's what they're saying.

Well, this version is primarily all of the fixes released yesterday wrapped up with a new help file and some other minor additions.

SpeedFan is a freeware program that monitors fan speeds and temperatures in computers with a known monitoring chip. Its main feature is that it can control the speed of the fans according to the temperatures inside your pc, thus reducing noise and power consumption. Currently the only recognized (and useful) chips are WINBOND W83782D, which is found in ABIT BP6, and WINBOND W83627HF. If you've got any other motherboard with the same chip, this program is for you.

IrfanView is a very fast freeware (for non-commercial use) 32-Bit graphic viewer for Windows 9x, Windows NT and Windows 2000. It is the first graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple (animated) GIF support, Multipage TIFF support, and Multiple ICO support.

The tool helps with the TV ouput of Nvidia graphic cards. The main problem is the black borders around the picture on the TV screen. They are very annoying for most applications like e.G. DVD-playback. This tool helps getting rid of those bars...

There was a minor bug regarding OCing that has been fixed in the archives. Install the updated version to resolve the Clock sliders jumping back to default after apply or OC not being re-applied at boot.

BlindWrite suite is a tool designed to perfectly reproduce most CD. RAW mode is needed to produce perfect backups of some protected CDs! DAO mode is even better. Almost all protected CD can be perfectly backed up using with DAO. Blindread / Blindwrite are perfect tools to produce backups in RAW and DAO mode.