(02/12/2010 09:41 PM)trademark91 Wrote:  and @assassinator, yes, i think he found a gold plug, swapped it for the steel one, and bragged about it being faster to sound cool.

In that case, it'll just be gold colored (ie, gold painted), not actually real gold, since it's the outside and all.

(02/12/2010 09:38 PM)Barcelona Wrote:  so, if your so smart, answer the question, why is gold used instead of silver, and from what i learned today, the drive will last longer, even if theres no performance boost

Direct rip from Wikipedia...

Wikipedia Wrote:Electronics

The concentration of free electrons in gold metal is 5.90×1022 cm−3. Gold is highly conductive to electricity, and has been used for electrical wiring in some high-energy applications (only silver and copper are more conductive per volume, but gold has the advantage of corrosion resistance). For example, gold electrical wires were used during some of the Manhattan Project's atomic experiments, but large high current silver wires were used in the calutron isotope separator magnets in the project.

Though gold is attacked by free chlorine, its good conductivity and general resistance to oxidation and corrosion in other environments (including resistance to non-chlorinated acids) has led to its widespread industrial use in the electronic era as a thin layer coating electrical connectors of all kinds, thereby ensuring good connection. For example, gold is used in the connectors of the more expensive electronics cables, such as audio, video and USB cables. The benefit of using gold over other connector metals such as tin in these applications is highly debated. Gold connectors are often criticized by audio-visual experts as unnecessary for most consumers and seen as simply a marketing ploy. However, the use of gold in other applications in electronic sliding contacts in highly humid or corrosive atmospheres, and in use for contacts with a very high failure cost (certain computers, communications equipment, spacecraft, jet aircraft engines) remains very common.[30]

Besides sliding electrical contacts, gold is also used in electrical contacts because of its resistance to corrosion, electrical conductivity, ductility and lack of toxicity.[31] Switch contacts are generally subjected to more intense corrosion stress than are sliding contacts. Fine gold wires are used to connect semiconductor devices to their packages through a process known as wire bonding.

Probably resistance to corrosion.

Also, you realize the gold used in motherboards are probably only a very very thin gold coatings right?  They're not going to make whole connectors or wires out of solid gold, that would cost too much.

(This post was last modified: 02/12/2010 09:51 PM by Assassinator.)

(02/12/2010 10:00 PM)Barcelona Wrote:  yes, its only like a gram in the whole motherboard

Way way less than that.

A gram of gold costs you like $40-50.

(02/12/2010 09:56 PM)Mickey Wrote:  All of my USB flash drives transfer at around 5MB/s... :(

Mostly likely slow read/write speeds from your flash memory.

USB2 connections cap out at real one way speeds of like around 25MB/s if I remember correctly.  So it's not your connection but the flash drive itself.

(02/12/2010 09:55 PM)Barcelona Wrote:  i made no internal changes to the drive, the only thing changed is the actual plug, but the internal stuff is all untouched. i don't think i get what's so hard to believe about this whole thing

Well, you wrote

"i added was a golden connection to it (and the data + and - wires are ENORMOUS)"

and the fact that you spent the whole thread arguing about the merits and whatnot of using real gold in motherboards, wee thought you meant you went and got real gold and replaced the pins/wires with it, or something like that.



And if you just found a USB head somewhere and replaced yours with it, that's probably not real gold, simply gold colored (most likely painted for the outside, and copper for the pins).

(This post was last modified: 02/12/2010 10:16 PM by Assassinator.)