Update list of PC Configurations for Pulsar?

Frontline Studio · Post by **Frontline Studio** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 4:49 am

Hi all,

Since my old IBM Aptiva Pentium II - 400 MHz (!) is behaving rather strangly lately, I'm on the outlook for a new PC. Can somebody help me on which PC configurations are best? What to choose and what NOT to choose?

I'd be glad if you experts can help me out!

Cheers!

John.

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 5:45 am

I guess if you make a summary of last years posts you'll find that it's safe to go with Intel (chipset/cpu and even mobo). Also, get enough dual channel RAM (1G or more).

Put your OS and your audio on different disks (and, if possible, on different controllers).

Stay away from (promise-)RAID. Intel RAID built in their chipset is ok, but third part RAID like promise can hog the PCI bus.

Regarding BIOS-setup, disable everything you don't need (extra USB's COM-ports, FW, onboard AUDIO/joystick/midi etc.)

And get a decent case, with efficient cooling. Don't forget cooling your disks, them 7200rpm disks get more than warm.

Personally I'm very happy with my Asus P4C800E-dlx board. 2.8 GHz P4 (oc'ed to 3.3), 1Gb Corsair RAM, Pulsar2,ScopeSRB.

I used nLite to make a slim WindowsXP/SP2 setup. All runs stable as a rock. I did try hyperthreading, but not every application liked it, so I disabled it again. No noticable performance-degrade though.

Oh, and I disabled the Pagefile completeley... makes windows fly!

Hope this helps you a bit.

Cheers,
Rob

[ This Message was edited by: Rob van Berkel on 2005-01-13 03:46 ]

MikeRaphone · Post by **MikeRaphone** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 7:53 am

Sorry to barge in, but could you tell me what Pagefile is?

Thx

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 8:33 am

It's a file on a system's HDD which is used to hold pages of memory when they are 'swapped out' by the system.

Another term for it is 'virtual memory'.

If a system requires more RAM than is physically available to it to hold the code and data of all running processes, then it will 'swap out' pages of memory into the swap file (these pages can be swapped back in when needed), hence freeing up RAM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory

Royston

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 8:41 am

Pagefile is the file that is used by windows to extend its physical memory with what is sometimes called virtual memory. Also known as swap-file.
When e.g. you try to load more programs or data in memory than its size permit, windows decides to temporarily 'swap' some least accessed (but used) memoryblocks to its pagefile. Drawback of this swapping is that it slows down your pc, as the pagefile is much slower than RAM. Normally this is no problem - better a slow PC than a PC that tells us "out of memory" on one of those blue screens.
A nasty habit of windows is that it swaps memoryblocks even when the physical RAM memory is not used completely. Now you can of course tweak swapfile usage (see various 'tips and tricks' posts), but when you find that you have enough physical memory best thing to do is completely disable the swap-mechanism (virtual memory, pagefile).
This might not work for all applications - some of them need the existence of a pagefile. I use Logic which, until now, has not complained

Cheers,
Rob

[ This Message was edited by: Rob van Berkel on 2005-01-12 08:44 ]

Post by **garyb** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 3:39 pm

currently, i still usually build a machine with a 3.2ghz northwood and an intel d865perl. i use corsair ram(i can dig up the exact model if you like). 100% stable.

Post by **garyb** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 6:15 pm

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 3:45 am

Yes, the heat aspect of CPU's is an important one indeed. I forgot to mention that I also choose Northwood CPU's for the PC's that I build. Less noise to keep them cool

Intel Perl boards are famous for their stability, but that doesn't imply the other boards (like ASUS) are bad. Very often it's a tradeoff between stability or features and overclocking capabilities. When you end up disabling all the features on the board you might as well choose a more 'sober' board (like the pearl). Im my case I didn't because the feature rich ASUS was cheaper than the Intel pearl, and readily available. Turned out to be the right choice for me. I managed to overclock CPU and RAM and still have 100% stability.
Make sure you use A-class quality components. (good CPU, cooler, RAM and mobo)
Wanna go safe? go Intel!

About interrupt-sharing and all that stuff a lot of people have problems with: in general it's possible to add 2 CW boards in your (intel chipset) mobo without having them to share a single interrupt with the rest of the system or with each other. Check the manuals of the mobo before you buy to see how interrupts are distributed across the PCI-slots and the onboard devices. I know ASUS always have this info in their (PDF)manuals. Dunno bout Intel.

Cheers,
Rob

Frontline Studio · Post by **Frontline Studio** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 7:18 am

Hi all,

Thanks for your advice and expertise. For my new PC I've got another question: the today's motherboard have a built-in video chip, but I've got two monitors and I prefer a dual head video card, because the usage of two video cards is causing performance and interupt trouble (experience with current PC).
Does a motherboard exsist without a video connector/chip? Which board? And if not: how can one disable that built in video?

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 8:32 am

Can't you just deactivate the video chip in BIOS?

next to nothing · Post by **next to nothing** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 9:03 am

yup, you can disable it in bios. it will probarly auto-disable once you stick something up its agp port as well

Post by **garyb** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 1:16 pm

many(d865perl,for example

) can be had without video. you'll probably have to order it. better to get as basic a model as possible. only get the features you need and setup will be much easier. unfortunately, most consumers want more, more, more and so that's what the stores stock. most good online dealers will get it to you in a couple of days, so no reason to not order it.

p.s. i always get a dual head video card as 128mb dual head gforce cards can be had for under $60 u.s. if you look around.

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2005-01-13 13:19 ]

next to nothing · Post by **next to nothing** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:23 pm

... and i know sense that someone is going to say "nah, not the deluxe version!"

And i probably would agree with them. less is more in some cases.

Post by **hubird** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:50 pm

are you sure you want the Deluxe version?

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 9:11 am

More is Less! I chose to go for the Deluxe version because it was cheaper

So I got more for less. And yes, I ended up disabling most of the extra stuff

Cheers,
Rob

patricka6 · Post by **patricka6** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 2:05 pm

Hey 'Stardust'. So I take it that you use a PCI controller card for your hard drives. which manufacturer's and model's would you recomend.

[ This Message was edited by: patricka6 on 2005-01-15 14:06 ]

Post by **garyb** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 10:18 pm

yeah, almost anything with an intel or nvidia chipset should work if the rest of the computer is set up properly.

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:33 am

'bout the promise RAID chipset: I recently enabled it and connected a 200G Sata disk. This disk is used from my SFP environment (I have dual boot XP - one for SFP, one for Office/Photoshop etc), solely as a backup device. So I never use it when recording/processing (not hogging the PCI bus), I only use it to dump complete directories as a way of backing up data. It works, SFP doesn't have any problems with the enabled controller, and there's still no interrupt sharing on my two cards (P2, ScopeSRB). Just an idea

Cheers,
Rob

patricka6 · Post by **patricka6** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 12:39 am

Thanks for the advice 'spirit'. I went aheqad and down loaded the p4p800-e full manual and I just didn't get it that the promise was like another card on the pci slot and with it disabled you still have all of the primary/secondary-master/slave IDE connections as well as the SATA connectors which I just found out tonight are not the usual 20 pin connedtors. Like I said I've beeen out of the sceen for a couple of years. My bad. But what about what 'ron van berkle' wrote, the promise might be a good backup system for storing data only. maybe even only enbabling it in the bios when I get large files that I want to backup, like I probably will with my video/audio edditing, and then disabling it after I backed them up.

What do ya think?

It might be an alternative to External USB harddrives for data backup. and could also be raided-0 for a true full copy of my raided SATA. Then I could just physically swap the internal connectors between the drives to use the backed up versions or even like a secondary raid setup. just not using the promise controllers when working.

[ This Message was edited by: patricka6 on 2005-01-18 00:41 ]

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 3:19 am

@patricka6: I don't think there is a need to enable/disable the promise-raid everytime you use it, but on the other hand I wouldn't exactly advice you to let the promise-attached disks act as a (soft)mirror of your Intel-chipset-attached disks, because then the promise-disks get continuous data-transfers, thereby reducing the PCI-bandwith.
The backup scenario works without interfering, because data-transfers only take place when I'm not recording/editing/mixing tracks.
Anyway, go for the p4p800e-dlx (or the p4c800e-dlx) and use common sense in enabling onboard devices. As Garyb says: anything with a decent chipset works when setup properly.

Cheers,
Rob