Hi Nestor
This comes from a person, who never intended to learn about computers, then had loads of trouble with getting his CW card to work (VIA Apollo 133
So much for introduction. Here comes my
believes about the "common truths" about making a (music) PC work ... and a lot of other babble. Some of it is obvious, but I will mention it anyway, as reading it will hurt you far less, than maybe not knowing about it:
It is not realy a matter of, how many applications you have on the same OS. But people with loads of applications usually have some bad ones among them - and therefor their PCs does not work well.
There are mainly 3 things, that can make a PC unstable:
1) Bad software*
2) Bad hardware (underpowered PSUs included).
3) Bad configuration/tweaking
*Some othervice good software can have a problem not "owning" the file extensions, wich they are ment to manipulate.
Warez are usually cheap, but they often come at a price anyway. Most of the people, whoom I know, that use warez by greater extend also have more trouble with their PCs, than other people. I believe a hack can serve your PC as well as an original, if it is done right - but that does not not guarantie, that the warez you get (I don't say you use warez. I have had ONE in my PC-time, and I do not use it anymore) are healthy.
Having your important PC not connected to the internet is IMHO a good choise. I have done so for a long time. Let the
thrall (your older PC) do the internet acces and virus scanning. It also makes it less likely, that you will be tempted to put a lot of unneeded applications on you important PC.
Learn your tweaks by people who you know, and who uses them for the same stuff as you (like you boddies here at PlanetZ
). You will get loads of tips all over the net, but a lot of it is not good to your specific use.
I recommend Seagate Baracuda V (I would take the 120GB model). You can see a review here ->
http://www.storagereview.com In my world a silent drive is top priority. I can not remember, if win98se (and below) have a 127GB (or something like that) limitation? There is an old win98 patch, that makes win98 shut down properly with "newer harddrives" (this is 3years old or so). Therefor I think that with 98se it
may be a risk to get on of those 8MB cache drives. I ones read, that cache does not matter too much on your music drive. That was also a couple of years ago though, and I do not know the details about how music applications ask for info from the harddrive.
Do you do use many samples? If you use win98se and your working style is not in that direction, you might as well save the money and only get 512MB (using more in 98(se) needs a special tweak). If you use winXP you WILL need loads of RAM, and then 1024 is a very fine choise.
I ones tested how much power my first PC used. It was around 65Watt + the monitor. Never CPUs can consume up to about 60Watts more than my old CPU. Also I only had 1 harddrive. Fans use next to no power. I would say, that if you get a good 350Watt PSU, you should be covered in plenty.
Transfering files from one PC to the other ... I would rather use a USB-pen than putting a having a netcard in my working PC. I
think, that most of the USB/Pulsar trouble came from older bx440 motherboards. I do not have any trouble with having USB enabled and using 19DSPs in the same machine. USB-devices can be disconnected you know
.
Asus has a pretty good name in the mother board bussyness. I have in internet fora seen a lot of trouble with sertain Asus-boards. They came up with a very early board with S-ATA. That was one of the boards, that a lot of people struggled with. I use an Asus board myself - I just do not say, they are the only good. If I should buy today, I would probably go for an Abit B7. This motherboard also support FSBs at 800MHz. Abit has a long standing good reputation among overclockers. I would take that as a good hint in direction of stability. Also when I have read about Abit boards, it seams, that they often go a step further beyond the average to get absolute stability. The mainboard is one of the most important parts in a stable PC.
Some Radeon 9000 cards come with passive cooling. I would take one of those rather than one with a cheap little screamer.
Like Spirit I must say, that having 2 monitors - even if they are 15" and run 1024/768 are far more convinient than using one 19" at 1280/1024 - especially, when you run more than one program - wich you do. For this Matrox is still the old champ. They are not gaming cards, but they are targeted at bussiness people, and that shows of in their custommer service. They have a message board (closed in the weekends), and at that board, they have people employed to answer your questions. The one who helped me had 6000+ replies.
If you want a lot of hard drive space for the money, then do not get a 20 or 40GB drive for you OS/programs. Get a bigger one and make partition for extra storage of your old music files, wich you rarely use. You can always copy them over to your music drive, if you prefer to work on them from there.
A DVD-burner is expensive. If you realy want to spend money on security, then buy an extra harddrive and store it in a bank box. That way even seeing your home burn will not cost you all your music work thru years.
Both of the PC towers you have linked to are chieftech style, so I expect them to have the same features. These are nice to work with, but your drives will make more noise, because of the detatchable drive bays (I have a Chieftech myself). And they do not fit very well with no-vibe harddrive "denoisers/hangers" (don't know an English word). No-vibe makes realy good reduction kits for vibration - without heating up your harddrive (wich is a danger to stability).
With a price diff of 55$, I would say, that for music applications (most of wich takes pretty much CPU-power), the 2.4GB is a better investment. If you go for the Abit B7 ,maybe check out the price of a 1800mHz P4 with 400mHz FSB. You should be able to OC this one to 2.4GB with no problem. I can not tell you however, if a 1800@2400 will be much warmer than a 2400@2400 CPU, but it is possible.
S-ATA: I wouldn't spend my money on it yet. If you buy stuff for it now, it will only be S-ATA1 (I think, that is the word), with a maximum bandwith of 150mb/s. The next generation will have 300mb/s. They will be compatibe with each other, but the speed will be that of the slowest part (controller/drive). Also it is still very new technology, and I tend to like the old and tested (my apollo 133 board was with the newest technology at the time, but bx440 based cards with slower specs where faster).
I hope, I did not forget anything :/ ?
I’m gong to star by three of them only, right?
