The Motorola Milestone / Droid is the product of a direct collaboration between Google and Motorola. Both companies have clearly taken a lot of product feedback from the previous HTC Devices, and come up with a device that will meet almost everyones needs. This is one of two devices that Motorola are releasing with a hardware keyboard, a feature not seen on an Android device since the HTC T-Mobile G1. Motorola have improved on this design no end, but created something that is both beautiful, and remarkably practical and robust.

The Milestone will be releasing in the UK with a few small but significant changes from the US Droid. The first, is full Mulitouch capability built into the OS. The US model currently doesn’t currently support this on the inbuilt software, however future updates as well as third party software are already able to take advantage of the feature. The next most significant change is that the European versions will not (yet) get Google’s free Turn-by-Turn navigation. Instead, the device will ship with (a trial of?) Motorola Motonav. I would expect Google Navigation to make an appearance eventually, however the theory is that it has been held up by the owners of the Euro mapping data – Tele Atlas (TomTom). The last difference, is the US model shipping with a 16GB MicroSD, while in Europe we will only enjoy a complementary 8GB MicroSD. With the current prices of Flash Memory, I don’t believe that this will upset anyone.

The Droid has already been attracting a lot of attention after its US preview and release, with it being toted as a direct Apple iPhone 3GS rival. This could be down to the iPhone exclusivity to AT&T, with the Droid being offered exclusively on Verison. Indeed, early reviews of the product praise the Verison network when the device is being compared to the iPhone.

The Milestone / Droid boasts the first phone running Google Android 2.0, a mobile operating system that has come along in leaps and bounds (with 2.1 already due before the onset of 2010). Its hard to believe that an operating system that was released a year ago, and announced only 2 years ago is already aiming for the top-spot among the current heavyweights of Symbian and iPhone OS. Android seems to be giving people just what they want from devices, especially if people don’t want to be locked in with an Apple device. With more enhancements for the already feature-packed operating system on the horizon, and the possibility of free turn-by-turn Navigation, the current phone giants have got their work cut out for them.

My Milestone is already on pre-order from Expansys, and I will try to post a review of the product as soon as I receive it, and have had a play. Keep checking back.

Useful links

Motorola Milestone product page (UK)

Motorola Droid product page (US)

Google Analytics results for the outage periods

November 26th, 2009

The site became inaccessible when the IP address was unknowingly duplicated.

Access from most external machines was still possible, however machines on the 134.219 IP Range experienced a loss of connectivity. This was due to the IP Address being reissued to another machine. Connectivity was affected for less than 24hours, and has now been resolved.

November 28th, 2009

During the weekend of November 28th, 2009, all connectivity was lost with the webserver.
The outage was discovered late on Saturday night when I attempted to access the server to carry out some website development. When the server did not respond, I assumed that another IP problem might have occurred. On Monday morning, I accessed the rack, and rebooted the firewall (which at this point had no evidence of damage, except that it had locked up), which restored services. About an hour later, connectivity was once again lost. Upon further inspection of the firewall, it was discovered that water had leaked into the rack from a fresh hole in the ceiling. The firewall, being on top of other servers, had unfortunately received the worst of the water, was destroyed. The hard disk was recoverable, however the motherboard was not.

A replacement firewall has since been installed, and steps taken toward protecting the rack from future leaks.  No damage to the webserver was identified, and all data has been recovered.

Server rebuild

In light of this recent firewall outage, I took the time to rebuild the server. The OS was reinstalled, and reconfigured, and all web-content restored. Services have now resumed, and full site migration should be complete by midnight tonight.

The rebuild has given me the opportunity to improve on certain aspects of the configuration, and to tighten up security on the server. As part of this, certain obsolete services has been removed.

• Teamspeak – Removed
• IceCast – Reinstalled but currently Offline
• Ventrillo – Removed

In addition to the webserver being rebuilt, the firewall has also been replaced with a newer solution. This should provide faster throughput, and an improved stability of the IDS / IPS service.

VOME Site Migration

As part of my contracting work with the VOME Group, I will be migrating the VOME webservices onto my server. Currently, all VOME web services are hosted inside of the ISG at Royal Holloway University. Unfortunately in recent months, the Virtual Infrastructure has been in increasing demand. The migration of the web services to my server will free up these resources for use in research.

Before I begin, I must stress that; while this worked for me, it may not work for you. It could damage your hardware or software, so make sure you can get your components replaced under warranty should something go wrong. That said, I see no reason these settings shouldn’t work.

Components

• Asus Maximus III Formula (BIOS 0902)
• Intel Core i5 750 2.66GHz
• Corsair 8GB (4×2GB) XMS3 Dominator DDR3 PC3-12800 CAS 8 (8-8-8-24) (Rev 2.1)

Backstory

In my recent system builds of Lakhota (version 2), and Dakhota, I used Asus Maximus III Formula motherboards. Those of you who have used Asus motherboards before will know that Asus have a ‘Qualified Vendor List’ for RAM, in which they list all the RAM that is check and supported by each motherboard. For both systems, I initially purchased two sets of Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) Dominator PC3-12800 9-9-9-24 (TW3X4G1600C9D) RAM. One of these sets turned out to be faulty, and was returned to the supplier. As they did not have any more of that product in stock at the time, I opted to purchase a lower latency set of 8GB (4x2GB) for just over double the price, for Lakhota (my system). The RAM was not listed on the Asus Qualified Vendors List at the time, which I was fully aware of, however upon looking at the QVL I figured out that it should work without any hitch. Unfortunately, this was not so…

Installation & Brief Review

Installation of the Corsair CMD8GX3M4A1600C8 went smoothly. The only two things I will note is that the power connector for the Fan pack could get caught in an unwary users CPU Fan if not channelled correctly, and that the Fan Pack does not fit ‘too’ well to the Asus Maximus III Formula as the DIMM slots only have the retention clips only on the tops of the DIMM slots, instead of on the top and bottom of the slots, which is the general standard for Motherboards. Don’t get me wrong, the single-clip system is much better in my opinion (as you can not remove the RAM without having to remove the graphics card too), but it does cause problems for accessories which count on those clips being there.

Initial Findings

Upon powering up the system, the motherboard auto-detected it as 9-9-9-24 @ 1333MHz, instead of the 8-8-8-24 @ 1600MHz that is should be. Naturally I manually overrode this to the correct settings using the onboard X.M.P. (eXtreme Memory Profile), then set the RAM timings & voltages manually, giving me 8-8-8-24 @ 1600MHz @ 1.65V (as per Corsair stock settings). Upon booting back into Windows 7 (having previously installed it using the previous set of RAM), and running the Experience Index, I was greeted by a BSoD and a system reboot. I realized that something had gone wrong, so I grabbed my Memtest x86 and ran a full test. No errors reported on the RAM at the stock settings… After trying a SiSoft Sandra Memory Benchmark and yielding another BSoD, I concluded that something was wrong. I pulled half the RAM, leaving bank 1 (slots 2 & 4) free. After running another test with the same stock settings, I ran another Experience Index and Memory Benchmark. To my shock, these both passed. I then tested the second pair of DIMMS, only to find that these passed too.

A quick google later turned up that one or two other users have this problem, and they had found that running a fully populated DDR3 setup of 1600MHz RAM @ 1333MHz was perfectly stable. I replicated this setup on my system, but was disappointed to find that I could not achieve XMP at the desired 1600. Not wanting to overclock or underclock, I persevered with my experimentation.

Solving the issue

I won’t go into all the different settings I tried, but I ended up modifying more or less everything in the BIOS to try and get the RAM to function. In the process, I learned a lot about the architecture of the Core i5′s (and i7′s), as well as what a lot of the advanced BIOS settings do (previously I had never had any need to touch these as I’ve never attempted overclocking before).

After a couple of days of research and tentative tinkering, I finally managed it…

8GB RAM at 8-8-8-24, running at 1600MHz in X.M.P.

BIOS Settings

Ai Overclock Tuner: X.M.P.
eXtreme Memory Profile: Profile #1
CPU Ratio Setting: 17.0
Intel SpeedStep Tech: Enabled
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DRAM Frequency: DDR3-1600MHz
DRAM Timing Control: 8-8-8-24 (all others to auto, including DRAM Timing Mode)
IMC Voltage: 1.35150
PCH Voltage: Auto
DRAM Voltage: 1.55025
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All others set to auto

CPU Configuration
C1E Support: Enabled
Intel SpeedStep Tech: Enabled
C State package limit setting: Auto

Long-term results

RAM burn-in and performance tests confirm that the system is stable and running as expected in its current configuration. At the time of posting, I have been running the new RAM for nearly a week, pushing various games through it, including Crysis with all settings at ‘Very High’. No crashes, or stability problems to report.

Feedback

If any of the settings here do or do not work from you, or if you have any suggestions and comments, please use the Comments section and post. I’d be interested to find out what works for others. Plus those comments may help others with similar problems. There is also the ‘Contact’ page if you wish to ask me something directly.

Mini-Review

<< Mini Review coming soon >>

Discuss the problem

Corsair Support Forum discussion – The support discussion I started regarding this problem on the Corsair Support Forum

Asus Support Forum discussion- The support discussion I started regarding this problem on the Asus Support Forum

For Reference

BitTech – Overclocking with Intel Core i5 – Useful information on the motherboard settings for the P55-based i5 boards

AnandTech – Intel Core i5 & i7 Architecture overview – Very interesting overview of the shortfalls and achievements of the i5 & i7

Corsair System Build Report for Lynnfield CPU’s and P55 Chipsets - What I used initially to get the optimal settings

MSI Support Forum – Similar problem report – Another report of a similar problem that I found