Anything wrong with this setup?

[garyb]

acpi should work just fine.the main xp tweek is in control panel/system/advanced/performance settings/adjust for best performance. 99% of improvements happen there. as to disabling usb, yes, you will likely have to disable a usb CONTROLLER or two(not all of usb, there will still be 3 or 4 controllers running, which can handle a number of devices so don't worry) in the device manager. i'll be happy to help when the time comes.

[dawman]

I would advise enabling 1 port only and using a Hub w/ it's own little PSU.
Intel thought a board w/o PS/2 would be another leap forward, but even though the USB specs seemed sufficient, it just doesn't seem that way in the real world.
You'll notice all the boards since that seem to have PS/2 again.
It depends how many devices you will run into the USB ports. Dongle's, DVD, USB keyboards, USB Memory sticks, etc. just killed me. The extra zip from a little PSU powered Hub was exactly what was needed.

[Liquid Len]

Drat! I just looked twice at that A5Q motherboard and realized it only holds two pci cards.

I'm going to send it back and get this motherboard instead :

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=3355

That is, if it will work with all the other components?

[garyb]

it will if the memory sticks are 1.8vlt. otherwise, i recommend keeping that motherboard and exchanging the ram.

[Liquid Len]

Well, the motherboard has to change, it has to hold 3 pci cards. It looks like this motherboard will handle 3 plain PCI cards and the graphics card which is PCI-E. (And those memory chips are verified 1.8v)

From what I can tell, I will be disabling any USB ports that I can, and Jimmy recommends using a USB hub :

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... =D700-4000

Would this hub be usable? Is the idea, hook the keyboard, mouse, cubase dongle, (lexicon mx200) through that hub? What is the reason behind this anyways? Each USB 2.0 hub takes up too much processing space, while keyboard, mouse, dongle, typically do not have as much data throughput to really require wasting that much processing?

[dawman]

Wassup Brotha' Man Lenny.
Everything should work fine, but in my case I think using 2 x KS88 keyboard controllers caused me to have to have a hub.
The idea Intel had of an all USB mobo on paper probably seemed wise, but they underestimated the use that people get out of the USB ports.

Here's a BIOS tweak for the RAM where you can change the latency to a faster CL setting.

http://xtreview.com/review215.htm

There are 2 DAW's using the DP35DP where I have seen first hand how well they run 2/ XP64 bit & 8GB's. of DDR2-800
Download the newest BIOS upfate from Intel too.

It's the perfect 3 x card mobo.
Just the meat & potatoes, no frills, and zero downtime and I beat the piss out of the mobo, HDD's everyday. Usually 60 to 80 hours a week since installation.

JV

[Liquid Len]

Another question - do those hard drives work with that motherboard?

I USED to be able to build a PC.

[dawman]

They should be fine.
I have been using Raptors because I bought so many of them as each new model caused the lower capacity models to become hot spares and O.S/. + Apps. drives.
A few years ago when most HDD's had 2/4 & 8MB cache, the extra 10k rpm gave Giga extra polyphony. Nowdays most HDD's have 8 & 16 MB cache, so the newer densities and higher cache are plenty fast.
I prefer WD for their excessive warranty of 5 years, and I have never had one problem w/ their drives. I still have an overpacked 40GB IDE drive on my Internet PC.
The only time I thought I had a failure of one of the WD360G HDD's it turned out to be a power problrm in my RAID cage.
So yes I have learned to trust any company that provides a 5 years 1,000,000 hours warranty.
You like what you have above.

BTW the 2.0 volt RAM can be used also after the the latest update.
But I would stick to the stock voltage unless you go w/ 4 x 2GB sticks and 64bit.
That is where the higher 2.0v RAM seems to be needed,

I am waiting to see what free goodies I get w/ XITE-1 BTW.
I pray that there are some nice DSP reverbs, if not, I will get everything needed, and run it alongside of my hardware.

Be Festive.

[Liquid Len]

Have you EVER tried the P100/A100 reverbs Jimmy? Just wondering how they stack up against a hardware reverb.

[dawman]

Not yet.
I trust Warp69 and GaryB with just about everything they say.
Warp69 is too modest to brag as he should, be he comes damn close when speaking of the A100/P100 and that's enough for me.
I can't say enough about how a quality hardware reverb w/ ADAT or AES/EBU will sound in Scope, it's all about the percieved dimensional sound I guess.
I have used Lexicon MPX series, Alesis Q20 w/ADAT and while they sound fine, a good DSP reverb sounds the same to me. I believe Warp69's verbs were modelled after a PCM91 so their quality is a little higher than stock verbs.
But the PCM91 in Scope just takes things a couple of levels higher.
I can hardly listen to GigaPulse anymore and many of my fellow Giga buddy's think I am a jerk.

I use a 9.00 USB Hub w/ external power. They are so cheap you buy a spare.
First rule of audio budgeting...........Why buy one, when you can have 2 at twice the price.

Can't help it.
I am an umpire, I only call 'em like I see 'em.

[garyb]

you won't need to willy-nilly disable usb. first get your system up and install the boards and their drivers. then find out which usb controllers EXACTLY are sharing irqs with the Scope cards(they will have names) and then disable those controllers in the device manager. i can help when the time comes.

i would install the SATA HDs as ide.

that motherboard is very stable and easy to setup.

[Liquid Len]

OK, I have the computer together, installed XP & service packs, installed Cubase & updates, installed the Pulsar board. When I put the UAD card in, the computer won't boot up (freezes up on the intro screen). Where to now?

Update : UAD1 cards do not work in any systems with more than 2G memory. So I just took out half my RAM, down to 2G, and it works fine. Now I have a 2G memory stick to go with the extra A5Q motherboard .. was gonna send it back, but now I think I'll just build another system out of it.

Now - do I need to do anything about the USB ports? Things seem to be running OK - it'll be a few days before I can 'weight the system down' to see where it starts to shake & shimmy.

[iSiStOy]

Hi Liquid Len,

Glad the new setup operates smoothly quite straight!

As a hint and in order to scan and perf your configuration, I recommend you use Everest: it'll give you more than just the details about IRQ sharings: your mb bios version, cpu and gpu infos and temperatures, fan and bus speeds, ram effective latencies, performance tests...

If you can't get it from the web, you can still use msinfo32 to check IRQs (start-execute-msinfo32):
Have a look to <Hardware resources> - <IRQ>.
There you should be able to spot any potential conflict between devices. There you also will get the real name of your USB Host Controllers, in case you should deactivate some because of a conflict.

Hope this helps definitively stabilize the thing...

Tschuss

[garyb]

Len, go to system information/hardware resources/conflicts-sharing and see if the Scope card(s) is listed. if it is, tell me what it's sharing with.

[Liquid Len]

Scope card is on IRQ 18, sharing with 3 other devices (I guess)

Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2937
Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 3 - 2944
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2936


Btw what is this Windows Search service? There seems to be a new searching function for windows, which always bumps me into "search companion" which is the old search window (due to not specially adding drives to their new search index, I am guessing). Do I need to have the windows search service running at all?

[garyb]

i answered the pm about this....

[FrancisHarmany]

Be sure to put your bios drives in "Legacy" mode.

[Liquid Len]

Which of these is a better choice for USB hub?

Not a brand name, has more flexibility for future use :
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... u=ULT31808

Or the tried and true :
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... =D700-4000

[FrancisHarmany]

I wouldnt go with a usb device sharing hub. So D-link.

Sales person advised me Belkin over Sweetx last week. I told him it was for
sending midi control data and he claimed belkin was much better for this.