Computer help

Sam · May 14, 2008

I am in the process of looking for a new computer.

My questions relate to Window machines only. A Mac would be nice, but way over my budget.

I am looking at building a 64 bit machine with 8 gigs of RAM. In order to access more than the (3, or 4 gigs a 32 bit OS can access, seems to some controversy about weather it's 3, or 4?)

I am trying to wrap my head around the hard drive storage issue, and what size, configuration to use. I will do some more do diligence on this.

I have read about some issues with 32 bit drivers not playing well with 64 OS.

My budget is about $2,000. I have a Lacie 22" monitor, so I'm good there.

So what does one do? What are your suggestions?

Sam

Scott_Quier · May 14, 2008

HDD storage is a problem that only you (or a consultant with information on your intended usage) can solve for you.

As for 32-bit drivers on a 64-bit O/S .... I'm pretty sure that NO 32-bit driver will work (or even install, if packaged correctly) on a 64-bit O/S.

So, before you jump on the 64-bit bandwagon, be sure there are adequate drivers for all the hardware that you will move to (or buy for) the new machine. With the advent of Win Vista, the 64-bit drivers are getting easier to find, but I'm not sure that these are compatible with WinXP-64. Some further research is, I would think, in order here.

CatOne · May 14, 2008

Hard drive is easy. Look at how much space you use now, and get at least 4x the hard drive space

Seriously, though... you don't want to let a HD get > 80% full. Performance degrades markedly after that, and with storage being so cheap now (1 TB drives for < $200) it's easy.

Re: 3 GB/4GB... the limit on 32 bit windows is 3 GB. No way can you get 4 GB of user accessible space so 8 GB of RAM is a waste on a machine where you install a 32-bit version of the OS. The problem with 64 bit is application and driver support and compatibility... you can't use an iPhone on 64 bit Windows because iTunes won't run there, for example I think most of the driver issues have been worked out now, but not all of them.

It shouldn't be too hard to BYO a pretty good machine for $2000... it just depends on your tolerance for building it. In general, it's pretty easy... except the annoyance of wiring jumper. Oh, and if you have an issue... when I built up a machine the heat sync attachment plate shorted the motherboard and so it wouldn't POST... took me 2 hours at Fry's with a multimeter to figure that out, and then a 2" piece of electrical tape cured it up. But that was fun :-/

steveL · May 14, 2008

My thoughts...

Sam wrote:

I am in the process of looking for a new computer.

...

So what does one do? What are your suggestions?

Sam

If I may, what I would do is:

figure out what kind and price level of cpu you want. I wouldn't get an expensive one- just one at the sweet point in price vs. power.
find a motherboard to go with that processor that has slots for 8gb of ddr2 ram. (Plenty of USB connections, built in gb lan, maybe firewire.)
figure out what video card you want- doesn't need to be expensive but just needs to be compatible with the mb slot.
figure out what case you want. I would get a mid tower with a fairly hefty power supply and a 120mm case fan for quieter cooling.
Get a SATA hdd with 250 to 500 gb of capacity. You can store things on something besides your main hdd- like an extra drive, cds or smugmug.
I have used Vista 64 and liked it very much and I wouldn't be afraid to purchase it for a new computer. Just be sure that your scanners etc will work with it.

Just my thoughts on it.

Richard · May 14, 2008

I would make sure the motherboard has an eSATA port.

I wouldn't go 64-bit unless I had a specific application that could take advantage of it and knew for certain that 64-bit drivers were available and solid for all my peripherals.

claudermilk · May 15, 2008

Hard drives are fairly easy. Make sure your mobo supports SATA II (or 3.0Gb/s) drives. Then get one smaller, fast drive to use as your OS drive; nothing but OS and applications will go here. Then load up the case with as much space it can hold & you can afford for your data--remember there is no such thing as too much storage space, you will use it eventually. RAID is optional, an I wouldn't bother unless you're running level 5 at best or 10 (or 0+1) if the controller won't do 5.

If you really feel like getting extra fancy a separate small, fast drive to be dedicated to PS scratch would be nice as well.

The logic here is if your OS takes a dump, you just need to wipe & reload that drive. Your precious data is safe on the other volumes and unaffected. For the RAID, I only mess with 5 or 10 as those give some safety net with the redundancy. Just striping doesn't buy enough performance for image editing to make the added fialure risk worth it. And, of course, the normal caveat that RAID is not a substitute for proper backups.

Personally, IMHO 64-bit/Vista has too many driver holes and other PITA aspects to make it worthwhile for so little gain. I'd stick with 32-bit XP for now, it's solid & everything works on it. Even my now-piddling 2.2GHz dual-core with 2GB RAM runs plenty quick enough on XP.

Hamm · May 15, 2008

Richard wrote:

I wouldn't go 64-bit unless I had a specific application that could take advantage of it and knew for certain that 64-bit drivers were available and solid for all my peripherals.

If we're talking 4GB and up (and we are), it has to be XP-64, Vista-64 or Linux. I've lost my fear of Vista-64 (at least the 64-bit part; Vista itself is still evil) and, absent a specific piece of hardware that lacks appropriate drivers, I would dive right in. I can find very little recent negative blogging/posting on Vista 64. I just helped my nephew build a machine running Vista 64, and it went very well and runs all his finicky games without a problem.

64-bit is about to go mainstream, finally, with Microsoft bloatware driving us all over the 4GB address space limit.

ChatKat · May 15, 2008

Build one
Dell still has Win XP builds. I bought a new one just for photography.
4mgs, win xp pro, good graphics card, 750gig HDD, wireless, MS Office 2007 Small Bus. - they had a sale no shipping and a monitor which I upgraded to a 24inch.
Came within your budget. I use multiple HDD that aren't part of the computer for storage for backup.

Sam · May 15, 2008

Thanks everyone for the input. I am still researching, and scratching my head.

If I go to 64 bit I will lose 2 printers, and a scanner. Plus when I talked to Canon they said they didn't have any of the home / small business inkjets that could run on 64 bit OS.

What do you all do for generic, INTERNET, text printing?

I am currently using a Canon i850.

Sam

Newsy · May 16, 2008

Sam wrote:

Plus when I talked to Canon they said they didn't have any of the home / small business inkjets that could run on 64 bit OS.

I'm using a Canon i960 on my newish Windows Ultimate 64bit, E6750, 4GB RAM, SATA2 320GB harddrive, SATA DVD burner. Works great!

However, I'm not very happy with my ASUS P5KE-WiFi motherboard. It has been one issue after another with this board.

.

Sam · May 16, 2008

Newsy wrote:

I'm using a Canon i960 on my newish Windows Ultimate 64bit, E6750, 4GB RAM, SATA2 320GB harddrive, SATA DVD burner. Works great!

However, I'm not very happy with my ASUS P5KE-WiFi motherboard. It has been one issue after another with this board.

.

The place I am talking to about building the computer listed the P5KE, as a component. What is the issue, and what other board would you recommend?

Also the fact that your running a i960 printer with a 64 bit OS, and Canan says it doesn't have any 64 bit drivers is something that drives me crazy!!! In order to plan you need good realiable data. The manufacturer should know more that we do about their products.

Sam

Newsy · May 16, 2008

Sam wrote:

The place I am talking to about building the computer listed the P5KE, as a component. What is the issue, and what other board would you recommend?

Note that it is specifically the P5KE-WiFi that I have. There are other variations such as the P5KE-Deluxe with which some users are reporting success in correcting fundamental flaws by RMA'ing the WiFi version and then installing the Deluxe boards.

I strongly encourage you to read the forums of the various motherboard manufacturers as well as the Newegg user reviews before purchasing. All the same, I did, and I bought this board.

I am currently dealing with what is known as a cold boot issue. When the PC is turned off overnight and started up in the morning it does not detect the wired network. I have to reboot it to detect the wired network. What is worse is that I have disabled the onboard WiFi card in BIOS and somehow it gets enabled during the cold boot and it detects various wireless networks in my neighborhood... and I don't even have an antenna mounted on it. :bash

I'm still using the original 0906 BIOS, which is said to be an OK one, but am looking at updating to the latest 1013 version pending a couple more weeks of good comments.

There have been other issues with the BIOS on this board including temperature detection issues. I've had issues with the sound card driver as supplied by ASUS that have been corrected. There have also been issues with an external hard drive which I suspect is a Vista64 fault - still sorting that one out.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?board_id=1&model=P5K-E/WiFi-AP&SLanguage=en-us

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131196

Sam wrote:

Also the fact that your running a i960 printer with a 64 bit OS, and Canan says it doesn't have any 64 bit drivers is something that drives me crazy!!! In order to plan you need good realiable data. The manufacturer should know more that we do about their products.

Sam

It is straight liability CYA. Canaan?

Btw.... the i960 drivers were installed by Vista64. I never went looking for any extra files or used the original XP discs.

.

steveL · May 16, 2008

HP Laserjet...

Sam wrote:

Thanks everyone for the input. I am still researching, and scratching my head.

If I go to 64 bit I will lose 2 printers, and a scanner. Plus when I talked to Canon they said they didn't have any of the home / small business inkjets that could run on 64 bit OS.

What do you all do for generic, INTERNET, text printing?

I am currently using a Canon i850.

Sam

I bought an HP Laserjet (monochrome, no built-in networking) for 80 USD with free shipping. I am not using that printer with 64 bit OS but it doesn't matter what OS you use-- it will work.

For most things, I don't use the proprietary drivers that come with them and let Windows install the driver it wants to and that works fine. If you are using a photo printer then I don't really know because I am not using my photo printers (Canon and Epson) at this time (I am mostly going to order prints from Smugmug because I think it is a better deal than buying ink cartridges). My wife wants the Canon plugged back into her XP computer so that she can print some photos but, if not for her request, I probably wouldn't use it anymore.

Pupator · May 16, 2008

I use Vista 32-bit (Ultimate) at home (desktop that I built) and Vista 64-bit (Ultimate) at work (HP notebook).

My Samsung ML-2510 (Monochrome laser) and my Epson R200 work on both machines/OSs.

Also, I'd point out that *I THINK* 32 bit Vista has been upgraded to address more RAM. I'm on the 32-bit machine at home right now and it recognizes/addresses all 4GB of installed RAM. I don't know if it would go higher because I don't have any more RAM around.

Hamm · May 16, 2008

Pupator wrote:

Also, I'd point out that *I THINK* 32 bit Vista has been upgraded to address more RAM. I'm on the 32-bit machine at home right now and it recognizes/addresses all 4GB of installed RAM. I don't know if it would go higher because I don't have any more RAM around.

32-bit Vista can use 3GB -- I'm not sure, but I think Microsoft reserves the last gigabyte of 32-bit address space for the operating system.

2^32 == 4GB. You can load as much more memory as you want, but a 32-bit operating system can only address 4GB. The motherboard will be fine with more, but the operating system is handcuffed.

Sam · May 16, 2008

Hamm wrote:

32-bit Vista can use 3GB -- I'm not sure, but I think Microsoft reserves the last gigabyte of 32-bit address space for the operating system.

2^32 == 4GB. You can load as much more memory as you want, but a 32-bit operating system can only address 4GB. The motherboard will be fine with more, but the operating system is handcuffed.

I talked to Microsoft, and they said that Vista 32 bit can only use 3GB. They said the only way to use more RAM was to use a 64 bit OS.

That's why I am jumping through the flaming hoops.

Sam

joshhuntnm · May 17, 2008

why I don't build computers
i have replaced and/or upgraded just about everything there is to replace on a computer. But, I am hesitant to build one. here is why.

I upgraded some RAM once and noticed afterwards that the machine was crashing a little more often--not real often, but like once an hour, where it wasn't before. Turns out, I had installed ECC instead of NON-ECC RAM. Swapped it out; worked fine.

this is my fear in building a machine: you get it all together and it crashes once an hour. or, it is a litle suggish. What do you replace? Is it the ram? the motherboard? a driver?

at the price you can buy new ones, I'd think about it pretty carefully. I bought a brand new Gatway for my wife recently for like $300. Admitedly not a state of the art machine, but it is hard to imagine you could buy parts for that. And, if it doesn't work, just hall the box back to the store

Pupator · May 17, 2008

Sam wrote:

I talked to Microsoft, and they said that Vista 32 bit can only use 3GB. They said the only way to use more RAM was to use a 64 bit OS.

That's why I am jumping through the flaming hoops.

Sam

at the price you can buy new ones, I'd think about it pretty carefully.

I've built several and I still agree with Josh. I recently bought my boss a Dell (scratch and dent) Quad Core, 4GB RAM, all the bells and whistles for around $600.

Sam · May 17, 2008

Josh, Pupator,

I am not going to actually build it hands on. I am going to have a local company build it, but I want to know what components, pieces, etc are the best for my application, and I want to know about any software, driver issues going in.

I am trying to make a plan. :-)

So far the research is paying off, I have chosen a fast processor, with a higher buss speed, received some advice to get a small fast hard drive and use this as a dedicated scratch drive for Photoshop. Making sure all the components will run with a 64 bit OS.

While you can get a darn good out of the box computer, I am looking for a computer that will last for a few years and be VERY good for my specific needs.

I think I am getting there, and because of your, and others help, this will be a better, faster, computer.

While this isn't normal The biggest PS file I currently have is 1GB, but others with layers are getting pretty big, and I don't think they are going to get any smaller in the future.

Sam

joshhuntnm · May 17, 2008

Sam wrote:

Josh, Pupator,

I am not going to actually build it hands on. I am going to have a local company build it, but I want to know what components, pieces, etc are the best for my application, and I want to know about any software, driver issues going in.

the guy who introduced me to computers. (I am old enough to remember the days before the PC) used to say, "you need to have someone to yell at". If one company puts it together and it doesnt work just so, you haul it back down and say "fix it".

ziggy53 · May 17, 2008

I prefer that "I" am ultimately responsible for the success or failure of my computer hardware projects. While I might gain from the partnership of others in the construction of the machine, I will be the one to ultimately understand and mediate any problems.

I applaud Sam for taking the time to research potential pitfalls in advance and explore solutions to his known issues (large file sizes, etc.). I suspect that his research beforehand will lead to a greater understanding of the machine and a greater ability to diagnose and correct future issues.

Being responsible and knowledgeable about one's own equipment is remarkably freeing and ultimately satisfying.

Go Sam!

Newsy · May 17, 2008

An update: it appears the issue with the cold boot on my MB has been resolved with an update to the driver for the onboard LAN chipset.

Will try to get it installed this weekend and advise.

What is strange is that the cold boot issue popped up out of nowhere - I had not modified any drivers or hardware or BIOS for a few weeks... except... for Windoze updates!!

.

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