Crucial releases fix for m4 SSD woes

Crucial m4 solid state disk users can breathe again as the company has finally released a firmware fix for a fatal flaw that caused the disks to become very unstable after using the drive for around 5,000 hours. The new firmware can be downloaded at Crucial's support page.

Changes made in version 0002 (m4 can be updated to revision 0309 directly from either revision 0001, 0002, or 0009)

Correct a condition where an incorrect response to a SMART counter will cause the m4 drive to become unresponsive after 5184 hours of Power-on time. The drive will recover after a power cycle, however, this failure will repeat once per hour after reaching this point. The condition will allow the end user to successfully update firmware, and poses no risk to user or system data stored on the drive.

This firmware update is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED for drives in the field. Although the failure mode due to the SMART Power On Hours counter poses no risk to saved user data, the failure mode can become repetitive, and pose a nuisance to the end user. If the end user has not yet observed this failure mode, this update is required to prevent it from happening.

If you are using a SAS Expander please do not download this Firmware. As soon as we have a Firmware Update that will work in these applications we will release it.

Crucial releases fix for m4 SSD woes - More news at DV Hardware

AMD releases Catalyst driver for Rage

AMD has compiled a performance driver for Rage, you can download it over here. The company claims significant performance gains, but it's only for Radeon HD 5000/6000 cards and only for Windows 7.

AMD Catalyst Rage Performance Driver Features:

Significant performance gains for single GPU configurations

Compatible with AMD Radeon� 6000 and AMD Radeon 5000 series of graphics products

AMD releases Catalyst driver for Rage - More news at DV Hardware

Lnx2Mac Releases New RTL81xx Beta Realtek Network Driver

type="html">At long last! Lnx2Mac has released a new public beta version of his Realtek RTL81xx ethernet driver. It now supports every single Gigabyte 1156/1155/1366 motherboard that uses a Realtek ethernet controller!Read all of the details and download the official installer on Lnx2Mac's Blog.For discussions on this and other topics, register today at tonymacx86.com!

NVIDIA releases fiscal Q1 2012 results

NVIDIA published its fiscal Q1 2012 financial results:

NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today reported revenue of $962.0 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2012 ended May 1, 2011, up 8.5 percent from the prior quarter, and down 4.0 percent from $1.0 billion from the same period a year earlier.

On a GAAP basis, the company recorded net income of $135.2 million, or $0.22 per diluted share, for the first quarter of fiscal 2012. That compares with net income of $171.7 million, or $0.29 per diluted share, in the previous quarter, which included a $57.0 million credit to operating expenses related to the legal settlement in connection with a new Intel licensing agreement. In the same period a year earlier, the company had net income of $137.6 million, or $0.23 per diluted share.

On a non-GAAP basis, net income was $165.7 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, for the first quarter of fiscal 2012. That compares with non-GAAP net income of $142.4 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, in the prior quarter, and $169.0 million, $0.29 per diluted share, in the same period a year earlier.

GAAP gross margin was 50.4 percent, a third consecutive record, compared with 48.1 percent in the previous quarter and 45.6 percent in the same period a year earlier. Non-GAAP gross margin was 50.6 percent, compared with 48.3 percent in the prior quarter and 45.7 percent in the same period a year earlier.

"Our core GPU businesses are solid, with expanding revenues and margins. And this quarter, our Tegra mobile business took off," said Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA president and chief executive officer. "With the Tegra super chip and the Icera wireless communication processor, we will offer our customers the two most important processors of the mobile computing revolution. We look forward to completing the Icera acquisition shortly."

Excluding the Icera acquisition, the outlook for the second quarter of fiscal 2012 is as follows:

- Revenue is expected to be up 4 to 6 percent from the first quarter.
- GAAP gross margin is expected to be 50.5 to 51.5 percent.
- GAAP operating expenses are expected to be between $332 and $336 million.
- GAAP tax rate is expected to be 14 to 16 percent.

NVIDIA releases fiscal Q1 2012 results - More news at DV Hardware