Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
Patrick Proniewski wrote: > On 18 nov. 2003, at 03:01, Bryan Cassidy wrote: > > > Next is to choose a mother board. I am > > wanting a ASUS just because I hear alot of people talking about it on > > the forums, irc etc and think I would be happy with it. > > you will, as long as you do not choose a cheap ASUS (SiS chipset and > controllers) > For max performance and better FreeBSD support, choose a motherboard > with Intel chipset (if you choose to go with a pentium of course, I've > no experience with AMD) This is fairly incomplete information. What performance and what Intel chipset implied here? Providing helpful information should be positive. Unclear information with bias does not help. Intel 875 chipset (P4) may provide 2-time memory bandwidth than Nvidia (AMD). However, spending the same amount $ on both motherboards and CPUs, this AMD system may produce twice computation power than this Intel system. This is an important fact if $ is an issue. Intel has tried to release new BIOS every other week or a month to fix 875 chipset booting problem (rev 005 to 015) because different I/O peripheral combination can cause its BIOS hang (not funny, I never see such serious problem on system design). For example, swap CDrom and IDE drive, or add some I/O controller, or use different video card, etc., all can cause system be unable to start from BIOS. We bought a 875 system, but could not use it for almost 6 months till its BIOS rev 015 was out. What a horrible story. We did benchmark for some good motherboards. The table it no pretty, but it may be helpful: http://dsd.lbl.gov/~jin/performance.pen.ps -Jin ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 23:33:08 -0800 (PST) Mark Terribile <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > [This reply is tardy, I know; please accept my apologies] > > >>> Next is ... a mother board. I am wanting a ASUS just because I hear > >>> alot of people talking about it on the forums, ... > >> ... > >> Take a look a ABIT's motherboard, some of them are really good. > > I had a very bad experience with an ABIT motherboard. When FreeBSD > started, it saw three NICs instead of one; when it tried to initialize > one, it wiped the field-upgradeable BIOS. The machine wouldn't even POST. > I destroyed two boards this way; fortunately the vendor (who doesn't have > a FreeBSD support person) gave me a break on the Gigabit that I replaced > it with. There's a FreeBSD trouble ticket on this; I can hunt the number > down if you like. But I would recommend avoiding putting ABIT and FreeBSD > together unless you have support for the combo, or a report that that exact > motherboard works with FreeBSD. The Gigabit, BTW, has run like a champ. Never tried ABIT befor, but I have had two machines with Gigabit mobos and they ran quite nicely. > > Finnally if you can afford it scsi is diffenetly better than ide, but > > I'm sure most people will think that is over kill. > > IDE drives can be flakey on their DMA support. I'm using an IBM Deskstar > as a rotating backup and it hung the FreeBSD device probe on discovery. > I have it set to use PIO, which sucks the CPU up through a firehose. I'm > running on a set of three 10,000 RPM IBM SCSI Ultrastars that I bought right > after Hitachi bought IBM's drive business and before the disk price rose > again. They run hot; I have them in a mounting cage salvaged from an old > machine, with space between them and between them and the side of the cage, > set right in front of the 120 mm inlet-side case fan. In this configuration, > they have run like champs, lightning fast and no noisier than the fans. I have had very good luck with Seagate EIDE hard drives. I personally advoid any hdd made by IBM or Western Digital. I am not sure about Samsung. I have also had good luck with my Maxtor drives. For most purposes ATA100 works perfectly. They are cheap and work decently. ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
>Here's the current setup that I have came up with. I think I would >be pretty happy with it as long as I don't have any problems in >FreeBSD. If I have problems I want them to beable to be fixed ya know? Looks good to me, quick look in google didn't find any major problems. S ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Here's the current setup that I have came up with. I think I would be pretty happy with it as long as I don't have any problems in FreeBSD. If I have problems I want them to beable to be fixed ya know? Antec PLUSVIEW1000AMG Chassis AMD Tyan S2466 (Supports 2 AMD Athlon MP Processesors) http://www.microdirect.co.uk/companypages/products/motherboards/tyan/mottyas2466/mottyas2466.htm 2 AMD Athlon MP 2400+ processors TURBO-COOL 510 ATX/ATX12V Power Supply from PC Power and Cooling 2 - 4 1GB Crucial DDR PC2100 Registered ECC Memory sticks Promise FastTrak TX2000 RAID Controller 2 Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 120GB (EIDE,Ultra ATA/100, 7200RPM) Can't find a a 10,000 RPM one from Western Digital that is IDE, has that much GBs. GeForce4 Ti-4600 Vid Card GENERIC Floppy drive - don't really care who this comes from. Lite On LTC-48161H Black 48x24x48x16 Combo Drive Write Speed: 48X CD-R,24X CD-RW Read Speed: 48X CD-ROM,16X DVD-ROM Interface: ATAPI/E-IDE Buffer: 2MB Diamond DT-688 3D PCI 5.1 Sound Card Live Theater(6 Channel version) Found this sound card on pricewatch for $8.00.. On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 09:45:06 - "Simon Gray" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> Take a look a ABIT's motherboard, some of them are really good. > > > > I had a very bad experience with an ABIT motherboard. When FreeBSD > > started, it saw three NICs instead of one; when it tried to initialize > > one, it wiped the field-upgradeable BIOS. The machine wouldn't even POST. > > I destroyed two boards this way; fortunately the vendor (who doesn't have > > a FreeBSD support person) gave me a break on the Gigabit that I replaced > > it with. There's a FreeBSD trouble ticket on this; I can hunt the number > > down if you like. But I would recommend avoiding putting ABIT and FreeBSD > > together unless you have support for the combo, or a report that that > exact > > motherboard works with FreeBSD. The Gigabit, BTW, has run like a champ. > > > I've got an abit be6-II with p3-866 512meg, running 5.0 never crashed on me > once, not had a single problem with it under fbsd - Rock solid. > > >> Finnally(sic) if you can afford it scsi is diffenetly(sic) better than > ide, > >> but > >> I'm sure most people will think that is over kill. > > >IDE drives can be flakey(sic) on their DMA support. I'm using an IBM > Deskstar > >as a rotating backup and it hung the FreeBSD device probe on discovery. > >I have it set to use PIO, which sucks the CPU up through a firehose. I'm > >running on a set of three 10,000 RPM IBM SCSI Ultrastars that I bought > right > >after Hitachi bought IBM's drive business and before the disk price rose > >again. They run hot; I have them in a mounting cage salvaged from an old > >machine, with space between them and between them and the side of the cage, > >set right in front of the 120 mm inlet-side case fan. In this > configuration, > >they have run like champs, lightning fast and no noisier than the fans. > > > Subsequently in that same machine I've got 2x IBM deskstar's (20gig 60gxp's) > running on a promise tx pro2 as raid-0 (at udma100) again without any > problems > > I think it depends on your mother board chipset, but both my intel (bx) and > via (kt266) have run in dma without any problems under 4.x and 5.x. > > Scsi is definatly the way forward (if you can justify the cost) it handles > more concurrent connections better, plus the lower seek time makes quite > a bit of difference. > > I only fit deskstars in my machines - they've been good to me over the > years. > They do run hot, ensure the 'air hole' isn't covered up and that they've got > decent air flow around them. > > ___ > [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE/vOX/jnOL7dYm/EQRArnMAJ4mSm7Q4V4gD8nty+lxH1D8hjdI1gCg4UMV 0c4ElK85aLlNRICcpUEE8j0= =xLrU -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
> >> Take a look a ABIT's motherboard, some of them are really good. > > I had a very bad experience with an ABIT motherboard. When FreeBSD > started, it saw three NICs instead of one; when it tried to initialize > one, it wiped the field-upgradeable BIOS. The machine wouldn't even POST. > I destroyed two boards this way; fortunately the vendor (who doesn't have > a FreeBSD support person) gave me a break on the Gigabit that I replaced > it with. There's a FreeBSD trouble ticket on this; I can hunt the number > down if you like. But I would recommend avoiding putting ABIT and FreeBSD > together unless you have support for the combo, or a report that that exact > motherboard works with FreeBSD. The Gigabit, BTW, has run like a champ. I've got an abit be6-II with p3-866 512meg, running 5.0 never crashed on me once, not had a single problem with it under fbsd - Rock solid. >> Finnally(sic) if you can afford it scsi is diffenetly(sic) better than ide, >> but >> I'm sure most people will think that is over kill. >IDE drives can be flakey(sic) on their DMA support. I'm using an IBM Deskstar >as a rotating backup and it hung the FreeBSD device probe on discovery. >I have it set to use PIO, which sucks the CPU up through a firehose. I'm >running on a set of three 10,000 RPM IBM SCSI Ultrastars that I bought right >after Hitachi bought IBM's drive business and before the disk price rose >again. They run hot; I have them in a mounting cage salvaged from an old >machine, with space between them and between them and the side of the cage, >set right in front of the 120 mm inlet-side case fan. In this configuration, >they have run like champs, lightning fast and no noisier than the fans. Subsequently in that same machine I've got 2x IBM deskstar's (20gig 60gxp's) running on a promise tx pro2 as raid-0 (at udma100) again without any problems I think it depends on your mother board chipset, but both my intel (bx) and via (kt266) have run in dma without any problems under 4.x and 5.x. Scsi is definatly the way forward (if you can justify the cost) it handles more concurrent connections better, plus the lower seek time makes quite a bit of difference. I only fit deskstars in my machines - they've been good to me over the years. They do run hot, ensure the 'air hole' isn't covered up and that they've got decent air flow around them. ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
[This reply is tardy, I know; please accept my apologies] >>> Next is ... a mother board. I am wanting a ASUS just because I hear >>> alot of people talking about it on the forums, ... >> ... >> Take a look a ABIT's motherboard, some of them are really good. I had a very bad experience with an ABIT motherboard. When FreeBSD started, it saw three NICs instead of one; when it tried to initialize one, it wiped the field-upgradeable BIOS. The machine wouldn't even POST. I destroyed two boards this way; fortunately the vendor (who doesn't have a FreeBSD support person) gave me a break on the Gigabit that I replaced it with. There's a FreeBSD trouble ticket on this; I can hunt the number down if you like. But I would recommend avoiding putting ABIT and FreeBSD together unless you have support for the combo, or a report that that exact motherboard works with FreeBSD. The Gigabit, BTW, has run like a champ. > Finnally if you can afford it scsi is diffenetly better than ide, but > I'm sure most people will think that is over kill. IDE drives can be flakey on their DMA support. I'm using an IBM Deskstar as a rotating backup and it hung the FreeBSD device probe on discovery. I have it set to use PIO, which sucks the CPU up through a firehose. I'm running on a set of three 10,000 RPM IBM SCSI Ultrastars that I bought right after Hitachi bought IBM's drive business and before the disk price rose again. They run hot; I have them in a mounting cage salvaged from an old machine, with space between them and between them and the side of the cage, set right in front of the 120 mm inlet-side case fan. In this configuration, they have run like champs, lightning fast and no noisier than the fans. Which brings me to the last point: decide how much fan noise you can stand without fatigue and put as much cooling circulation in as you can within your noise ceiling. Make sure your cables don't block circulation, get power supplies with good fans, put in the extra case fans, make sure your CPU has plenty of cooling, and keep the inlets and outlets clear. Some suumers ago I went in to the office one summer weekend to find both the A/C and the ventilating fans off. I was able to get the building people to turn the fans on, but not the A/C. Our HP servers had gone into thermal safety shutdown; our Sun servers were still up. I got a sysadmin on the phone. He told me where to find the key to the machine room; when I got in there the thermometer in the back read 120F. I shut everything down. Five months later we had NICs and SCSI interfaces failing weekly on the Sun boxes; it was almost certainly due to the cooking they suffered. My cubi was near the system room and I cringed when I heard a blameless sysadmin endure a boot-camp dressing down from a manager three levels up. Cooling matters; it will happen to you. I have a room circulating fan on the same UPS as my machine. Mark Terribile __ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/ ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 03:58:05AM -0600, Bryan Cassidy wrote: > -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- > Hash: SHA1 > > I've put some parts together. This is what I've come up with. Please > tell me any recommendations on changes or anything with this system. It > will run on FreeBSD. Any comments what so ever is appreciated. Please > try to explain in detail when you go to tell me about changing something > or whatever so I can understand it and then I can learn it and remember. > > SEAGATE SCSI 36.0GB 1RPM, MODEL# ST336607LW -X10 It's SCSI. It should work. > > DVD-Rom/CD-Rom > PIONEER DVR-106BK DVD-Recordable (Black Bezel) DVD-R DVD-RW DVD+R > DVD+RW As I mentioned in another e-mail in the last few days I am using this drive for doing backup's both to CD-RW and DVD-RW. I am doing this over Firewire with no problems. I would imagine it would just fine with IDE (although I have no experience with using the drive that way) Marc -- Marc Wiz [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes, that really is my last name. ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 03:58:05 -0600, Bryan Cassidy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 I've put some parts together. This is what I've come up with. Please tell me any recommendations on changes or anything with this system. It will run on FreeBSD. Any comments what so ever is appreciated. Please try to explain in detail when you go to tell me about changing something or whatever so I can understand it and then I can learn it and remember. [snip] Most of this stuff is out of my league price-wise so I can't answer whether it'll work with FreeBSD or not, nor whether the motherboard supports non-ECC memory (it certainly ought to, but you need better information than a gut feeling on my part). I'll just respond about the two areas where I feel semi-competent. System Memory: 2 Crucial PC2100 512MB Good solid choice. There's faster stuff available, but I don't know what your mobo supports nor what the price/performance tradeoff is on faster memory. [snip] Power Supply - From PC Power and Cooling (pcpowercooling.com) Turbo-Cool 510 ATX I notice the Deluxe model is on sale for $9 more than the "standard" 510ATX (this is like calling a Porsche "standard"). If you haven't already, you may want to find out what the difference is and see if you want to pay the additional 9 bucks for it. (An easy way to find out is to call them.) You didn't mention cooling. If the Antec doesn't have a couple of case fans (intake low in front, exhaust high in back), get a couple of the Silencer fans from PC Power and Cooling for that purpose. Try the CPU cooling that comes with the AMDs. If that isn't satisfactory, you may want to have a look at the low noise stuff from "Dr. Thermal" (yeah I know, not the best name), whose CPU heatsinks and fans have provided me by far the quietest, most reliable operation for good cooling levels. See http://www.thermal-integration.com/> for information. Also important is the fact that their stuff is very easily installed. There are few feelings so sickening as jamming a screwdriver into a motherboard while trying to lock down a heat sink (I've done it), and too many heat sinks are set up specifically for this sort of locking. Jud Jud ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 I've put some parts together. This is what I've come up with. Please tell me any recommendations on changes or anything with this system. It will run on FreeBSD. Any comments what so ever is appreciated. Please try to explain in detail when you go to tell me about changing something or whatever so I can understand it and then I can learn it and remember. Motherboard: Tyan Thunder K7X-S2468 Processors: 2 AMD Athlon MP 2400 2.0GHz Processor CPU System Memory: 2 Crucial PC2100 512MB Question about memory: From the Specs on the Tyan Thunder K7X-S2468 It says Supports ECC (72-bit) memory modules The Specs on the Memory from newegg.com says Error Checking: Non-ECC Can I use this memory with this motherbaord? XFX Geforce FX 5200 128MB DDR Model PVT34KNA With TV-out&DVI Will this vid card work with my motherboard? Is it supported under FreeBSD? FreeBSD 4.8,4.9,5.1? I get real confused when checking to see if something is supported under the hardware section. I find out the chipset and I go looking through every single line for that chipset. Still confused on how to really use the Hardware section successfully. Hard drive: SEAGATE SCSI 36.0GB 1RPM, MODEL# ST336607LW -X10 Once again. Will this harddrive work under FreeBSD and with my motherboard? Sound Card CREATIVE LABS AUDIGY 2 ZS SOUND BLASTER 7.1, 6.1, 5.1, PCI SOUND CARD Power Supply - From PC Power and Cooling (pcpowercooling.com) Turbo-Cool 510 ATX DVD-Rom/CD-Rom PIONEER DVR-106BK DVD-Recordable (Black Bezel) DVD-R DVD-RW DVD+R DVD+RW Put all this in a Antec PLUS1080AMG Chassis On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 17:58:23 -0800 (PST) Dan Strick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, 17 Nov 2003, Bryan Cassidy wrote: > >> > > I suck when it comes to hardware. I know so little about hardware. My > > dad said he is gonna get me about $400.00 worth of computer parts for > > Christmas/Birthday sence they are so close so I can start building a new > > custom PC. I have already picked out the case I want. I found a Antec > > ... > > sure I can get a case that's $80.00, a mother board around $100 or so, a > > power supply, *maybe* a video card and a hard drive for around $400. > > What else can you tell me to help out? I appreciate any responses I get. > > He wants me to hurry up and tell him what I want so he can go on and > > order it for me. > >> > > On Mon, 17 Nov 2003, [EMAIL PROTECTED] responded: > >> > > You can probably give yourself a bit of a crash course by looking at > http://www.anandtech.com; and http://www.tomshardware.com, then > > take a look through http://www.newegg.com; to see what you can get > > for your money. Don't forget memory, for which you may want to look at > > http://www.crucial.com; as well as NewEgg. PC Power and Cooling has > > high quality stuff, but they may be a bit over your budget. > > > Regarding motherboards and CPUs, AMDs are cheaper than Pentiums for > > equivalent performance, but AMDs run hotter, meaning the CPU fan must move > > more air, meaning more noise. > >> > > AMD Athlon cpus seem to be more cost effective at the low end, but just > below the high end the new Intel P4s may offer a bigger bang per buck. > Tom's Hardware did a bunch of articles on this and on recent motherboards > earlier this year. There is also a Tom's Hardware article on rolling your > own PC from component parts. > > Tom's Hardware and Anand Tech are excellent sources of reviews of new > hardware components. I used them extensively when recently building my > new custom PC. Some of the components I chose were: > approximate > component price ($) > --- > Lian-Li PC-60 aluminum case 105 > ProSilence-420 (~420 watt) PS from Silent Maxx 100 > Pentium-4 2.8 GHz cpu 275 > Gigabyte GA-8KNXP motherboard 220 > two Kingston 512MB DDR400 dimms (with parity/ECC) 230 > ATi Radeon 9500 PRO video card 205 > two Seagate 120GB serial ATA disk drives250 > Samsung combo 52x CD-writer / DVD-reader 70 > Zalman CNPS700 AlCu cpu cooler 40 > Enermax fan controller / temperature monitor / i/o panel 40 > Microsoft Windows XP Professional 135 > > I am generally pleased with the result, but I did have (and still have) > some serious problems, mainly with the motherboard. > > The Lian-Li case is solid and has lots of room inside without being too > tall for the space in which it is installed. It has a motherboard > mounting tray that slides out the back. This can be really convenient > but given the complexity of cabling that connects the motherboard to the > p
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 17:58:23 -0800 (PST), Dan Strick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [snip] My video card choice was a compromise. I wanted something new enough to have hardware support for recent DirectX features, old enough to be well supported by XFree86 and cheap enough to be justifiable. The Radeon 9500/9700 families of cards are the newest for which XFree86 claims substantial support and yet are long out of production and the ATi web site even categorizes the 9500 as "discontinued". The 9000/9500/9700 seem to have been replaced with the 9200/9600/9800. The need for reliable XFree86 support trumped other considerations because I spend virtually all of my time running XFree86 on FreeBSD and very little time running feature hungry whizbang graphics applications. AFAIK XFree86 doesn't have 3D hardware acceleration support for the ATI Radeon 9K cards. I have a 9500 (modded to 9700 specs with Riva Tuner) myself and don't miss the 3D support, but that's because I play games only occasionally and use Windows for them. Jud ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
On Mon, 17 Nov 2003, Bryan Cassidy wrote: >> > I suck when it comes to hardware. I know so little about hardware. My > dad said he is gonna get me about $400.00 worth of computer parts for > Christmas/Birthday sence they are so close so I can start building a new > custom PC. I have already picked out the case I want. I found a Antec > ... > sure I can get a case that's $80.00, a mother board around $100 or so, a > power supply, *maybe* a video card and a hard drive for around $400. > What else can you tell me to help out? I appreciate any responses I get. > He wants me to hurry up and tell him what I want so he can go on and > order it for me. >> On Mon, 17 Nov 2003, [EMAIL PROTECTED] responded: >> > You can probably give yourself a bit of a crash course by looking at http://www.anandtech.com; and http://www.tomshardware.com, then > take a look through http://www.newegg.com; to see what you can get > for your money. Don't forget memory, for which you may want to look at > http://www.crucial.com; as well as NewEgg. PC Power and Cooling has > high quality stuff, but they may be a bit over your budget. > Regarding motherboards and CPUs, AMDs are cheaper than Pentiums for > equivalent performance, but AMDs run hotter, meaning the CPU fan must move > more air, meaning more noise. >> AMD Athlon cpus seem to be more cost effective at the low end, but just below the high end the new Intel P4s may offer a bigger bang per buck. Tom's Hardware did a bunch of articles on this and on recent motherboards earlier this year. There is also a Tom's Hardware article on rolling your own PC from component parts. Tom's Hardware and Anand Tech are excellent sources of reviews of new hardware components. I used them extensively when recently building my new custom PC. Some of the components I chose were: approximate component price ($) --- Lian-Li PC-60 aluminum case 105 ProSilence-420 (~420 watt) PS from Silent Maxx 100 Pentium-4 2.8 GHz cpu 275 Gigabyte GA-8KNXP motherboard 220 two Kingston 512MB DDR400 dimms (with parity/ECC) 230 ATi Radeon 9500 PRO video card 205 two Seagate 120GB serial ATA disk drives250 Samsung combo 52x CD-writer / DVD-reader 70 Zalman CNPS700 AlCu cpu cooler 40 Enermax fan controller / temperature monitor / i/o panel 40 Microsoft Windows XP Professional 135 I am generally pleased with the result, but I did have (and still have) some serious problems, mainly with the motherboard. The Lian-Li case is solid and has lots of room inside without being too tall for the space in which it is installed. It has a motherboard mounting tray that slides out the back. This can be really convenient but given the complexity of cabling that connects the motherboard to the power supply, fans, peripheral devices and case connectors, you won't slide the mother board out very often. The power supply seems to be rather quiet and more than adequate for its load. I still have a lot of capacity for expansion: 5 empty 3.5" bays and 2 empty 5.25" bays. The 2.8 GHz cpu with dual channel DDR400 memory on the so called "800 MHz" front side bus) is rather fast, about 10 times as fast as my old machine. I have already become addicted to it and feel considerable impatience when I use my old machine. A 2.6 GHz or even 2.4 GHz cpu would probably run only imperceptibly slower and would have saved a little pocket change, but what the heck: "you only live once." I didn't really need a whole GB of main memory, but the 512 MB dimms were not terribly expensive and dual channel memory systems need dimms installed in pairs and there are memory configuration restrictions that would discourage buying small capacity dimms now and larger dimms later. So I splurged. My video card choice was a compromise. I wanted something new enough to have hardware support for recent DirectX features, old enough to be well supported by XFree86 and cheap enough to be justifiable. The Radeon 9500/9700 families of cards are the newest for which XFree86 claims substantial support and yet are long out of production and the ATi web site even categorizes the 9500 as "discontinued". The 9000/9500/9700 seem to have been replaced with the 9200/9600/9800. The need for reliable XFree86 support trumped other considerations because I spend virtually all of my time running XFree86 on FreeBSD and very little time running feature hungry whizbang graphics applications. Microsoft OS is almost an unavoidable occupational hazard. I pretty much have to have one because I have periphe
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
Bryan Cassidy wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Oh no. I must have explained myself wrong. $400.00 is just for starters. I know for a fact I'm gonna buy that case so that leaves me with say $300.00 to be on the safe side. Besides the case I would like the motherboard to be the first actual piece of hardware I buy. Meaning the motherboard could be $300.00 is it is well worth putting into a new system. I just want to get the best performance in all ways when using FreeBSD on a daily bases, as a server, maybe do some video/image editing, playing dvds, don't really care about games on the pc but would like some crips clean graphics when using X and it's applications, and ANYTHING that I might want to get into later on FreeBSD I want to be able to do it fast and use the features the hardware offers that FreeBSD supports. I like doing anything and everything pretty much on FreeBSD. I just love it. It's just that I want a new machine, I will most likely pick up new things to do under FreeBSD and want to do it with the full capabilities the OS offers. Like i said, $400.00 is just for starters. I am getting the case from Antec for sure, the motherboard I'm sure I want to go with ASUS could cost $300.00 and break even with $400.00 for the first FEW parts I am getting. The reason I am building the PC is to learn about hardware mainly and to have more fun with FreeBSD of course. So, the things that I will be doing on FreeBSD are not limited to just using Sylpheed, Opera etc. I might pick up something new tomorrow, see a feature that FreeBSD offers to make more out of my machine but my hardware just doesn't have it. I hope I made myself more clear this time. On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 19:23:16 -0700 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: If thats the case I highly recommend a computer based on the amd 64bit platform. With this setup you can do everything as normal, but when 5.2 is released you get to have a 64bit machine and os. That is unless you run current. The 64bits can give you over a 100% increase in encryption and compresion software at the same clock as a 32bit athlon, tar.gz files are a comman example of compression you would use. Software video compresion is improved, but not as much. You should check out amdzone.com, as well as any other good hardware site for some goodbench marks. I would not recommend tomshardware.com. There are some dual opteron server boards for over $500 that let you have 16 gigs of ram(great for dvd and hdtv video editing), as well as a built in ultra wide scsi 320 controller. I read an article of scsi vs ide somewhere recently, basic it came down to this. A ~500mhz p2 daul sever with a 160 scsi controller and 320 disk vs a p4 at 3 or 2.8 ghz with ide raid. The test was to open an email client that stores old emails as seperate files, the aurther had 50,000 on both machines. The verdict: the p4 took about 7.5 mins, the scsi machine took 28 seconds. So if you want to edit video and do it fast go with scsi. It must be pretty obvious by now I have scsi envy because I'm stuck with a 40gig mator at 133mb/s(Advertised!). I would go with an all in wonder ati video card. They now can capture hd with componet in the 9800 is the fastest consumer card on the market now. If you add up all the free video editing software you get for windows(worth maybe something to a windows user) and half life 2 they are giving away with some card models, it is a great deal. If your motherboard is an nforce with soundstorm, you don't need a sound card. If it is not I would recomend some soundblaster just because they are well supported. But you could pick any sound card that is listed as supported in the handbook and erratta. Lcds are great for graphics, if you don't need the high resolution or refresh rates. I'm sure today there are some good lcds out, but to do everything a crt does you will need to spend a lot of money, and I think that would be better used on a faster video card or a second cpu. ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Oh no. I must have explained myself wrong. $400.00 is just for starters. I know for a fact I'm gonna buy that case so that leaves me with say $300.00 to be on the safe side. Besides the case I would like the motherboard to be the first actual piece of hardware I buy. Meaning the motherboard could be $300.00 is it is well worth putting into a new system. I just want to get the best performance in all ways when using FreeBSD on a daily bases, as a server, maybe do some video/image editing, playing dvds, don't really care about games on the pc but would like some crips clean graphics when using X and it's applications, and ANYTHING that I might want to get into later on FreeBSD I want to be able to do it fast and use the features the hardware offers that FreeBSD supports. I like doing anything and everything pretty much on FreeBSD. I just love it. It's just that I want a new machine, I will most likely pick up new things to do under FreeBSD and want to do it with the full capabilities the OS offers. Like i said, $400.00 is just for starters. I am getting the case from Antec for sure, the motherboard I'm sure I want to go with ASUS could cost $300.00 and break even with $400.00 for the first FEW parts I am getting. The reason I am building the PC is to learn about hardware mainly and to have more fun with FreeBSD of course. So, the things that I will be doing on FreeBSD are not limited to just using Sylpheed, Opera etc. I might pick up something new tomorrow, see a feature that FreeBSD offers to make more out of my machine but my hardware just doesn't have it. I hope I made myself more clear this time. On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 19:23:16 -0700 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > things I am confused about it the onboard sound. I don't want > > onboard sound. Or do I? > > probably not > > > If the motherboard from > > asus has onboard sound can I use a PCI sound card? > > yes, you can always use both if you want (if the onboard one will work > in FreeBSD, of course) > > > Is it best to use a PCI sound card or onboard? > > PCI sound cards are generally better (they have higher sound quality > and amplification) > > > Remember, I know pretty much nothing about hardware, > > Sooner or later, you'll have to learn; now it's good time to start... > > > cooling? I was thinking about buying the TrueBlue 480 Watt PSU > > 480 Watt ATX12V Illuminated from antec. Good idea? > > I think that 480 Watts is really too much for U$400 machine > > As for the system configuration, it's better for you to decide what > you want by your self. Maybe all you want is some Via Epia C3? I would > personally recommend Athlon XP or Pentium III [Tualatin] based system. > > When selecting a mainboard, check (by chipset names) that the on-board > ethernet, sound and ATA controllers will work with FreeBSD. > > 17.11.2003; 19:07:05 > [SorAlx] http://cydem.org.ua/ -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE/uat9jnOL7dYm/EQRAmjnAJ0ZmMjFeTfkdZe2sXq8rUcRMyHwZQCcDIPq fb+YLpzeYyD6LIxtSHIgW3Y= =ohfh -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 20:01:08 -0600, Bryan Cassidy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 I suck when it comes to hardware. I know so little about hardware. My dad said he is gonna get me about $400.00 worth of computer parts for Christmas/Birthday sence they are so close so I can start building a new custom PC. I have already picked out the case I want. I found a Antec PlusView1000AMG chassis I like for $80.00 on e-bay so that is the first thing I have chosen to get. Next is to choose a mother board. I am wanting a ASUS just because I hear alot of people talking about it on the forums, irc etc and think I would be happy with it. One of the things I am confused about it the onboard sound. I don't want onboard sound. Or do I? I am using a Sound Blaster Live!/PCI card now and I think I want to stick with a PCI sound card. If the motherboard from asus has onboard sound can I use a PCI sound card? Is it best to use a PCI sound card or onboard? I get confused when it comes with PCI sound cards and onboard sound. What is really over all best when it comes to performance and features that is supported in FreeBSD? So, I have a Chassis picked out and *just* a brand name motherboard I want to buy. Any sertain models you people would recommend on a Asus motherboard? Remember, I know pretty much nothing about hardware, I have $400 to spend, if the amount of the chassis ($80.00) plus the price of the motherboard yall *may* recommend doesn't equal up to $400 could you give some more recommendations on parts? Maybe video cards, power supply and cooling? I was thinking about buying the TrueBlue 480 Watt PSU 480 Watt ATX12V Illuminated from antec. Good idea? Recommend something else that I can get the same things from this power supply in another one but cheaper? Sorry about the crazy questions but I know nothing about hardware and I would like to get some *real* opinions on hardware on FreeBSD. This system will most deffinately have FreeBSD installed. I think I will always use FreeBSD as long as I own a computer. I'm pretty sure I can get a case that's $80.00, a mother board around $100 or so, a power supply, *maybe* a video card and a hard drive for around $400. What else can you tell me to help out? I appreciate any responses I get. He wants me to hurry up and tell him what I want so he can go on and order it for me. You can probably give yourself a bit of a crash course by looking at http://www.anandtech.com> and http://www.tomshardware.com>, then take a look through http://www.newegg.com> to see what you can get for your money. Don't forget memory, for which you may want to look at http://www.crucial.com> as well as NewEgg. PC Power and Cooling has high quality stuff, but they may be a bit over your budget. Regarding motherboards and CPUs, AMDs are cheaper than Pentiums for equivalent performance, but AMDs run hotter, meaning the CPU fan must move more air, meaning more noise. Though not the absolute best on price, in terms of quality service and excellent advice on putting together a system you could do a lot worse than talking to Todd at Envision Computer Solutions (http://www.envisioncs.net>). Jud ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
Patrick Proniewski wrote: On 18 nov. 2003, at 03:01, Bryan Cassidy wrote: Next is to choose a mother board. I am wanting a ASUS just because I hear alot of people talking about it on the forums, irc etc and think I would be happy with it. you will, as long as you do not choose a cheap ASUS (SiS chipset and controllers) For max performance and better FreeBSD support, choose a motherboard with Intel chipset (if you choose to go with a pentium of course, I've no experience with AMD) If you go amd choose an nforce board. The newer chipset revisions are great for overclocking. The nforce also has(depending on manufacture and chipset version) great integrated audio(the same dobly digital thx(?) certified hardware on the xbox) and video(a geforce 2 or 4 mx). Last time I heard the onboard land support sucks for any open source os, or in other words may require a lot of your time to get working. Asus is very good, but I am an avid epox user, so I must recommend an epox also. If the motherboard from asus has onboard sound can I use a PCI sound card? you can, of course. Is it best to use a PCI sound card or onboard? PCI is better, in general, as for Video or LAN, but some high end motherboard have very good (in quality) onboard feature. my order of priority here is : lan > video > sound : if you can buy only one PCI card, take a NIC card, then a video card, then finally a sound card. Of course, a gamer would choose to get video "offboard" as a priority. depends on your use. I was thinking about buying the TrueBlue 480 Watt PSU 480 Watt ATX12V Illuminated from antec. Good idea? first you list your needs : - computational power - disk space - video power - RAM use Pcpowercooling.com has excellent equipment and has info to help you choose the right size psu. Also I have always used linksys network equipment and am very happy with there products. Finnally if you can afford it scsi is diffenetly better than ide, but I'm sure most people will think that is over kill. Though if you are shopping on ebay you can find some great deals, older used scsi is still leaps and bounds better than ide, though the sizes of the drives may be low by comparison. I would suggest you do most of your shopping for new stuff on newwgg.com, I have always had great experinces with them. then you choose your processor, your disks, and so on. You should end with 1 or 2 motherboards that will suit your needs and price. In general you'll want to avoid very cheap chipset, ultra-low end video card are just good enough for console, low end NIC with crash your freeBSD box (worst case) or drop paquets and deliver poor I/O. Remember that PIV and latest AMD need huge PSU, 480 W will be fine anyway. SATA disk are not yet good enough to justify their tag. IDE will be great but I would recommand a good controler (*not* SiS) Try and choose a good motherboard that will sport 4 or more RAM slots, and that support more than 1GB RAM, so you'll be able to add some RAM later. Don't go with IDE RAID. Even if it works great, it's extra money and hassle. NIC : intel etherexpress Pro 10/100 is really good, most 3Com are good too, avoid low end Dlink/Realtek Take a look a ABIT's motherboard, some of them are really good. hth patpro ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
On 18 nov. 2003, at 03:01, Bryan Cassidy wrote: Next is to choose a mother board. I am wanting a ASUS just because I hear alot of people talking about it on the forums, irc etc and think I would be happy with it. you will, as long as you do not choose a cheap ASUS (SiS chipset and controllers) For max performance and better FreeBSD support, choose a motherboard with Intel chipset (if you choose to go with a pentium of course, I've no experience with AMD) If the motherboard from asus has onboard sound can I use a PCI sound card? you can, of course. Is it best to use a PCI sound card or onboard? PCI is better, in general, as for Video or LAN, but some high end motherboard have very good (in quality) onboard feature. my order of priority here is : lan > video > sound : if you can buy only one PCI card, take a NIC card, then a video card, then finally a sound card. Of course, a gamer would choose to get video "offboard" as a priority. depends on your use. I was thinking about buying the TrueBlue 480 Watt PSU 480 Watt ATX12V Illuminated from antec. Good idea? first you list your needs : - computational power - disk space - video power - RAM use then you choose your processor, your disks, and so on. You should end with 1 or 2 motherboards that will suit your needs and price. In general you'll want to avoid very cheap chipset, ultra-low end video card are just good enough for console, low end NIC with crash your freeBSD box (worst case) or drop paquets and deliver poor I/O. Remember that PIV and latest AMD need huge PSU, 480 W will be fine anyway. SATA disk are not yet good enough to justify their tag. IDE will be great but I would recommand a good controler (*not* SiS) Try and choose a good motherboard that will sport 4 or more RAM slots, and that support more than 1GB RAM, so you'll be able to add some RAM later. Don't go with IDE RAID. Even if it works great, it's extra money and hassle. NIC : intel etherexpress Pro 10/100 is really good, most 3Com are good too, avoid low end Dlink/Realtek Take a look a ABIT's motherboard, some of them are really good. hth patpro -- je cherche un poste d'admin-sys Mac/UNIX (ou une jeune et jolie femme riche) http://patpro.net/cv.php ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
New parts for new PC (need help - little knowledge of hardware)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 I suck when it comes to hardware. I know so little about hardware. My dad said he is gonna get me about $400.00 worth of computer parts for Christmas/Birthday sence they are so close so I can start building a new custom PC. I have already picked out the case I want. I found a Antec PlusView1000AMG chassis I like for $80.00 on e-bay so that is the first thing I have chosen to get. Next is to choose a mother board. I am wanting a ASUS just because I hear alot of people talking about it on the forums, irc etc and think I would be happy with it. One of the things I am confused about it the onboard sound. I don't want onboard sound. Or do I? I am using a Sound Blaster Live!/PCI card now and I think I want to stick with a PCI sound card. If the motherboard from asus has onboard sound can I use a PCI sound card? Is it best to use a PCI sound card or onboard? I get confused when it comes with PCI sound cards and onboard sound. What is really over all best when it comes to performance and features that is supported in FreeBSD? So, I have a Chassis picked out and *just* a brand name motherboard I want to buy. Any sertain models you people would recommend on a Asus motherboard? Remember, I know pretty much nothing about hardware, I have $400 to spend, if the amount of the chassis ($80.00) plus the price of the motherboard yall *may* recommend doesn't equal up to $400 could you give some more recommendations on parts? Maybe video cards, power supply and cooling? I was thinking about buying the TrueBlue 480 Watt PSU 480 Watt ATX12V Illuminated from antec. Good idea? Recommend something else that I can get the same things from this power supply in another one but cheaper? Sorry about the crazy questions but I know nothing about hardware and I would like to get some *real* opinions on hardware on FreeBSD. This system will most deffinately have FreeBSD installed. I think I will always use FreeBSD as long as I own a computer. I'm pretty sure I can get a case that's $80.00, a mother board around $100 or so, a power supply, *maybe* a video card and a hard drive for around $400. What else can you tell me to help out? I appreciate any responses I get. He wants me to hurry up and tell him what I want so he can go on and order it for me. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE/uX1kjnOL7dYm/EQRAt5hAJ46bDemQCVApHoRfz1zT7CRlfrf5gCfbGbb pPVHtBnW1PlLxi2ZvoXc3WY= =nfYx -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
