October 08, 2005
Raid Woes...... stas? warez? 31die?
My PC has regular failures of the nVidia nvRaid onboard raid system.
Several months ago I had the problem intermittently. Perhaps once in six weeks. Recently the time between raid failures (nvRaid saying, "raid degraded") has fallen to as little as one day between failure.
I'm not sure what the problem is. Stupid nVidia/MSI provide zero troubleshooting support, and in fact as someone points out, the documentation for their windows based raid support software doesn't even mention the "array degraded" state.
I upgraded the BIOS to the latest version. This didn't help.
A few weeks ago I noticed that the pc seemed fairly hot. I wondered if the whole thing was overheating? The MSI temperature utility doesn't work. It regularly says the system temperature is 0 degrees C. The CPU ranges as high as 56c, but I don't think that is unusual. As I felt around, though, I could feel that the hardrive enclosure felt damn hot -- hot enough that it was quite uncomfortable to hold my fingers against the hard drive. Ooops....did my harddrives critically overheat?
My investigations showed that the Nexus Breeze case has pretty poor airflow. The intake port is nearly choked off. So I raised the case off the ground a few inches so that it can inhale air a bit easier. I also removed the plates and the noise-blocking foam inserts covering the harddrives on the front of the computer. I bought a cheap indoor/outdoor thermometer and began monitoring the temperature of the harddrive enclosure. I also didn't let the sytem run 24/7 like I have for the past many months. It runs little more than twelve hours daily now.
The highest recorded temperature has been 43.8c or 110F. I don't know what the error range of this cheap thermometer is, perhaps 10%, giving me temperatures as high as 120F. Is that too hot for a harddrive? I'm not sure. I checked the Seagate documentation and it says the operating temperature range is 0-60c and that actual drive case temperature should not exceed 69C (156F).
So current temperatures appear to be ok. But possibly the drives were suffocated and overheated in the past, and now they are unstable? Did they fail for other reasons and in the RAID trying to repair them they are used so heavily that they overheated? Or this is all absolutely unrelated to temperature?
I would like to run one of the low-level diagnostic programs provided by Seagate to analyze these Seagate 300gb SATA 7200+8mb NCQ drives, however they won't function because the drives are hidden behind the nVidia raid controller. To test them I will need to remove the drive, stick it in an external drive enclosure on another computer, and then run the diagnostic from there. It's looking like this is becoming unavoidable. Maybe one/both of them truly is failing. ugh.
If I do find that the drives are unstable and dying, then I need to replace them. I keep hearing about "ghosting" programs. Is there some way I can duplicate these drives (remembering that they hold my OS, etc) as I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate reinstalling a PC.
It almost makes me not want to use the RAID system at all, since it prevents me from running harddrive diagnostic software to see how the drives are performing anyway. Ugh. Bite me.
Even the fucking external harddrive is not working... http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=88355.0
February 09, 2005
Taiwan Rubbish
I recently discovered why Unimog died.
Once I finished Kamaz, I started sniffing around Unimog's carcass. My intention was to see what speed processor I had added, but in picking around, I noticed a funny looking capacitor -- it had dried brown foam on its head. I found other capacitors that were approximately the same size and make which didn't have any foam. Then I found a few other instances of foamed, leaking capacitors. This sounds like a strong candidate for the cause of my strange cascading file system failure (three drives in two days). When I checked the harddrives on another system, aside from some bad sectors, the Western Digital Diagnostics gave several of them a clean bill of health.
It took almost no research on Google to discover that many makes of motherboards manufactured around 2002 were made with cheap Taiwanese capacitors whose electrolyte was made on a faulty, stolen recipe. Consequently it was only a matter of time before they burst, ruining my board.
Abit apparently had the most problems, however they recently settled some sort of class action lawsuit. Gigabayte (the shameful maker of my ga-8pe667 Ultra 2 mobo) has kept totally quiet about the problem and offered no compensation. Shame on Gigabyte. Glad I didn't buy another one of your stinky boards.
February 08, 2005
Pictures of My Beagle for Shannon
The whole reason I built a new PC was that my old system, The Unimog, suffered a cascade of drive failures.
The whole reason I built a new PC was that my old system, The Unimog, suffered a cascade of drive failures.
I started out with:
- A) 2x80GB Western Digital WD800 JB Caviar drives in a Promise Raid Mirror configuration
- B) 1 80gb Maxtor D740X-6L
- C) 1x 80 gb Western Digital WD800 Caviar.
A directory on the #C singleton started acting seriously flaky. As I was trying to salvage its data to my #A RAID one of the elements of the mirror was announced to have failed. Good grief. So I bought a Western Digital 80GB drive (WD800JB SE), swapped out the apparently-broken element, and told the RAID to rebuild itself. 10% into the rebuild cycle, the remaining element died. I managed to suck off most of the user data onto a 300GB maxtor firewire drive and then I threw away the computer.
Now that I have Unimog's successor, Kamaz, working, I started sifting through the data I had rescued from Unimog. I was horrified to discover that I had somehow overlooked my 30GB music/ directory! Then I remembered a suggestion Stas made -- load the drives on an external USB enclosure and see what data can be recovered.
These USB enclosures turn out to be really simplistic -- a cheap case, a power cable, a usb cable, and a small IDE -> USB circuit . I can't even find a brand name on the box! But who cares, the things work. (*) I went through each drive to see what data I could recover.
I loaded up one element of the #A raid. There were a few directories in My Photos/ that took a long time to copy data from. I could hear the drive making a lot of strange high-pitched straining noises. I had to abandon one large photoshop file in one directory, but I think I eventually got everything else.
The #B Maxtor drive was fine. It never failed while it was on Unimog. I was shocked how incredibly loud it was compared to the Western Digitals. It had a piercing, shrill, high-pitched whine that sounded as if I was runnign a turbine under my desk. Although it's apparently sound, I can't imagine using this drive anywhere near me -- the noise is terrible. In contrast, the Western Digitals are essentially silent.
The #C Maxtor is apparently totally dead. I plug it in. I hear it spin up. I hear the PC give the "USB appliance plugged in" noise, I see nothing, and then I hear the "USB appliance unplugged" noise. So I guess this drive is seriously smoked.
Ok so what to do?
I think it's pretty clear #C is a total write off.
The replacement WD800JB drive I bought for the #A RAID never had a chance to get tainted (*well..... unless the motherboard was frying drives with power?), so I just reformatted it, and I guess it can be a #2 external backup drive. The Western Digital Diagnostics utilities gave it a clean bill of health.
The #B Maxtor, although usable, is too loud to be bearable. If I was honest with myself, I'd just throw it in the garbage right now, but probably it will end up in a forgotten drawer somewhere, to be thrown away in a couple years
Now what to do with the original two elements of the #A raid. The one that failed first I didn't test in the USB enclosure, maybe it's cooked, I don't know. But what about the other one, which I was able to get almost all the data off of, but there were some patches that were very slow to read? I guess the question is "is there fundamental physical/electronic damage to the drive?" or "is the problem with the drive some corruption of the filesystem that a reformatting would solve?" The concern being, "yeah, reformat the thing, but there is still secret damage and this drive is going to recorrupt itself later." Again, I guess if I was being smart, I'd just say, "this drive has been tainted. It's a tiny and comparatively old drive anyway. It should be immediately tossed in the trash." I guess I'll run the diagnostics on it anyway, just for the hell of it.
Ok, I just finished the diagnostics. During the first run it said it detected bad sectors "that might be fixable." So I told it to fix them. It seemed happy. Then to double-check, I re-ran the 45 minute test suite. It ran fine and said the drive passed. It's not really clear to me what a 'bad sector' is anyway, so I am not sure what my comfort level should be with this drive. Second-string back up? Scratch disk?
I might as well run this on the other Western Digital element of the raid, the element that originally 'failed' and see if this drive can be salvaged too.
I should run the Maxtor Diagnostics on the #B Drive.
* well, works to a point. This morning as I was trying to remove a hard drive from the enclosure I managed to shear the pin-head from the ribbon cable, ruining it. Fortunately it looks like I replace the entire (2" long) eide cable. I'll make sure the replacement has a small ribbon handle on one end.
December 23, 2003
My first round with the iPod
A kind soul gave me a 20gb iPod for Windows today. It comes in a tidy little cube, and when I opened it up, the refinement of the packaging had me drooling in moments. An elegant folding box, revealed all the parts nicely tucked away in static bags that are more fashion statement than necessity. Lift enough flaps and you reveal the iPod itself which was slimmer, smoother, and more sexy than I thought they were.
The Apple packaging and presentation folks' game is tight.
So I figured the same would hold true when I installed the device, which doesn't amount to much more than plugging a dock into a firewire card and launching aan install CD.
Well.... the beauty and elegance seems to have stopped there.
The thing just simply didn't work. The iPod manager couldn't work the device. I could see the iPod was listed as an installed device, but that was it.
After frustrating time spent searching for technical help on the Apple website (truly the windows support site has much better navigation) I figured I had found the problem. It seems that the iPod is extremely finicky about what FireWire card you use. Even if your card works with everything else (as mine does -- a nikon scanner, an epson 2100 printer, sony digital video camera), it doesn't mean your iPod will.
So it seems like my card (Via 1394 OHCI compliant host controller ), which came with my Gigabyte 8PE667 Ultra 2 motherboard is not certified as compliant with XP (although it is for Win 2000).
I dug around my boxes of random computer junk and found another firewire card that came w/ my Nikon Coolscan ED 4000 scanner. This one was a Ratoc PSIFW2 firewire card. Installed, it tells XP that it is a "NEC 1394 OHCI compliant host controller," which also is not certified for XP, only Win 2000.
Anyway, I figured it worth a shot and plugged it in too. Well, it worked for some reason. iPod manager could see the device.
So I resumed the installation. Goodness gracious, I felt like I was installing RealAudio player. The CD installed at least three different softwares (the drivers and managers, MusicMatch [with whom I've had a run-in before], and something called Audible.
I think for sure I could have skipped Audible (software for digital books).
MusicMatch is the XP alternative to whatever software Apple uses on their Mac's to manage the playlists on iPods. First things first, I forbade it from associating with any file types whatsoever. It is strictly for managing my playlists. It took a bit of tussling before it would recognize my iPod, but after a turn-on/turn-off it seems to be behaving nicely and regularly.
I'm a bit concerned, though. It seems to be obsessed with metadata tags (titles, artists, genres, and so on).
Well, here's my setup:
I've got 16GB of mp3's in a single directory. I've pulled these things from everywhere from Napster to Gnutella to USENET. Many are rips of BBC Radio One broadcasts. Basically the "metadata" is a total farrago. I sure hope that MusicMatch isn't so fixated on good metadata that it makes using my poorly-notated music (which is 99% of the library) too much a chore.
Does anyone have any advice one what I should do to organize my music? I really have no interest or time to be screwing with it an awful lot.
One other embarassing note... So as I mentioned above, the install didn't go that smoothly. At some point it looked like it was finally working and setting itself up. One of the steps is formatting. I started at the iPod "formatting" for twenty minutes, groaning to myself that something was bad, but trying to be patient. Finally I realized that the blinking "Do not disconnect" is just it saying that it is docked in with the PC and operating normally! So much for a meaningful UI!
October 29, 2003
Singapore Monoculture
Misspent lunch going from aggravation to aggravation, each aggravation being different from the next, but also the same. The fundamental problem is that Singapore has a tiny little retail monoculture.
Go to Sim Lim Square, the giant six-story mall of computer and peripheral shops. Spend thirty minutes trying to find a VIA EPIA mini-itx motherboard (cheap, tiny motherboards) going from one monkey-nut shop to the next. No one knows anything about it, and point like deaf mutes to the same Gigabyte and Asus motherboards the last sixteen stores also sold. Finally find an obscure store that looks more like a wholesaler. Guy does know what I'm talking about, says people have been looking for these boards, but they can't get them from VIA, because VIA demands a huge order. It just could never be absorbed in Singapore.
Disgusted with what was just a hobby project, I give up and decide to go to Funan IT mall and check out these Sharp LCD monitors. (Fine point: I actually tried to check them out at Sim Lim, but the Sharp shop doesn't even display their flagship 10-bit gamma corrected monitors there...) Show up, don't see the LL-1820, don't see the LL-T2020. Just see a lot of chaff. Guy comes over, I ask him, he says they don't import the 1820, only the 2020, and it's $3000SGD! (it's a 1500$USD monitor... ie. fucking rip-off) Come to find, they really only sell Sharp monitors manufactured in Thailand (except for the T2020). So I can't get anything good.
Very irritated, I abandoned the monitor browsing to go find a strong cup of coffee at Spinelli's.
"Short black coffee."
See the barrista reach for the espresso machine.
"No. Brewed, not americano [the most hated of all preperations]"
"No stock."
"What do you mean, 'no stock'" [as I look to the semi-dismantled coffee brewer]
"We're not making it today"
"Why?"
"Doesn't sell well."
"Then forget it."
Leave.
Sick and tired of this fucking place.
It's too small to make it easy to sell anything but the absolute middle-road product lines. The store owners are too lazy, stupid, and uncreative to try to find any specialty niches. Instead they're astonishingly content to try their hand hosting a store identical to sixty other stores in the exact same building. Consequently you find nothing here but the absolutely mediocre: Asus motherboards, Thai LCDs, and foul americano coffees.
Help me choose a monitor
I've been wanting to replace my huge old Dell 21" CRT with an LCD. I had in mind to get a nice big one with ten bit gamma correction so that I could do decent color work on photoshop.
My sister-in-law has a business associate who liquidates merchandise (overstocks, etc) and had a few models of LCD available. My thought is that maybe the savings are good enough to justify buying one of these monitors instead.
Tradeoffts? Neither are 10-bit gamma-corrected monitors and they're 19", not 21" or 23". The second issue is easily corrected by just buying two. Afterall, I bought a dual-head graphics card for that express reason. The first, I guess I'll just live with?
I'm not sure what to pick...
(@1.746SGD:USD)
Option 1: Sony SDM/HS93 /L /W /B 1000-1200$SGD (572USD - 687USD)
Apparently the expensive version has speakers. Yuk. No need, go with the cheaper version. Apparently the /W /B is for white or black. I saw a reference that /L is "limited 'Dark Blue' edition" Big deal.
Option 2: HP L1925 $750SGD ($430USD)
Conclusion?
I don't know. I notice the Sony has a contrast ratio of 700:1 instead of the HP's 500:1. I suspect ceterus paribus that's better for working on photos (mean more detail in the shadows and highlights).
Most everything is roughly the same (dot pitch, resolution, etc).
One possible difference is in the pixel response rate. Sony doesn't specify it. Instead they specify their refresh rates (which must be a misnomer anyway, since it is not a CRT)
Sony
• Horizontal Scan (kHz): 28k - 80 kHz
• Vertical Refresh (Hz): 48 - 75 Hz
HP
<20 ms pixel response rate
What should I buy?
==========
UPDATE:
The Sharp LL 1820 (the ten-bit gamma 19" monitor) is unavailable in Singapore. Only can buy a grotesquely overpriced 20" LL-T2020. They only sell Sharp monitors manufactured in Thailand here (read: mediocre)
Also never saw any monitors that were larger than 1820x1024.
The HP (I believe) takes DVI input, but has a lower contrast ratio than the Sony. Wonder which is more important factor? Of course I couldn't find any examples of teh monitors to compare in Singapore. Just lots of crapy BENQ, Sharp, and Phillips monitors.
As a side note, I loved how I could walk into a "LCD Monitor Showroom" and they were "showing off" their monitors by allowing nothing but the stupid Windows Flag Logo to swim across the monitor in screensaver mode.... You can really get a great appreciation for sharpness, color range, and ghosting with something like that...
April 22, 2003
DJ 31-Die on the Decks Tonight
So I (31die) spent a "fun" hour or two trying to figure this out:
I was downloading as usual, and of a sudden I got a pop-up message indicating a delayed write to one my my 200GB drives failed. Uh-oh.
Poke at it for a while and realize that I had put enough data on it that I was cresting the 128GB point, which is the most current limit on HD size. Western Digital addresses this by including a controller card that understand big drives, and pretends to your system that the drives are SCSI -- I guess the addressing limitation is only from IDE drives.
So I had installed both the 200GB drives on said controller card, while two 80GB drives are on the motherboard, as well as the DVD and CD-RW. The whole point of this confuration was to allow me to use the monster drives.
Poke and dig at it for a while, and it turns out there is a WinXP/SP1 registry variable that lets you enable "48-bit LBA", which I guess is the fix that extends IDE capacity yet again. I have a MB bios which supports it, so I enabled. Of course, I shouldn't have to do this, because the controller card is supposed to hide all this unpleasantness. Sure enough, it didn't fix anything.
WD tells you to install their driver for the card, but when I installed the card in the system WinXP happily recognized it. I tried to update the driver to the one WD provided, but WinXP informed me that the driver it was using was already the most current or most suitable for my hardware or whatever.
As an experiment I decided to bully the OS into using the latest WD (actually a rebraded Promise Technology) drive for the IDE controller card. I told it to install the specific driver I was pointing it at, whether it thinks it knows better than me or not.
Lo and behold, everything works now. Verrrrrry tedious. I have a feeling it comes down to something stupid, like the current WD driver for the card isn't signed by Microsoft, so Microsoft will always prefer the outdated signed driver or something.
Anyway, it works, and it is a fix for a problem other people are having I think. I'm tossing it at you as a somewhat incoherent story with the thought that maybe you can jam it up as a "31die relates this rambling story in the hopes it may help others" post to black-coffee or something.
I'd put it on the eldie-blog, but apparently that isn't even indexed by search engines...
March 01, 2003
WinAmp3 Seems to Suck
So I built a powerful computer that should be able to handle, ably, the the huge Mp3 library I amassed while wasting time. When I downloaded WinAmp, I got their new version, WinAmp3. Well, my computer rarely hangs. However, it has begun to recently, and 100% of those incidents have been from "Studio.exe" -- the winamp application. The CPU utilization goes back to 'trivial' after I kill Studio.exe.
So I figure that NullSoft has made the same mistake so many others have made: start out with a lean, tight utility that does something well, and then keep bolting on more and more features until it becomes bloated and poisoned with bugs.
So I guess I will give this thing a chance -- figure out if there is an upgrade available. Otherwise, I'll just de-grade back to version 2.
One interesting thing I read in the troubleshooting guide at NullSoft was the following:
- If you own a SoundBlaster Live or SoundBlaster Audigy then you definitely need to update your drivers. In fact since the drivers from Creative are coded by morons it is highly recommended that you instead use the kX Project Drivers. These should clear up most problems with Creative sound cards.
Now I have a Soundblaster Extigy, not Audigy, and I wasn't experiencing any problems with my card (as far as I know). However lately it seems like the audio level between songs varies dramatically (I blamed this on WinMediaPlayer ripping CDs with stupid audio levels that are different than the other MP3s I have.) Perhaps I should see what kX says about my Extigy drivers, but changing them is definitely not the Occam's answer to the terrible performance of WinAmp3.
An aside: Creative's equivalent of WinAmp, 'Creative Player', is an absolute piece of shit, and I didn't even bother to install it on my new computer. Furthermore, there were no updates, and very little support, on their crappy site.
December 21, 2002
Second Monitor
I currently have a large 21" Dell Trinitron crt monitor. It's a huge, heavy beast with a big screen.
Ideally, I'd use this monitor for color-accurate Photoshop work and have a second monitor to the side to show things like email and my Bloomberg terminal.
It seems/seemed to me that this could easily be a smaller, inexpensive flat-screen monitor.
All day today my eyes have been sore and tired. I've been working long hours and haven't caught up with enough rest I guess. Staring at the Eizo LCDs all day long, and then using my own computer all night long is tiring I guess. I started to wonder if maybe an LCD screen would be easier on my eyes, or perhaps there were setting adjustments I could make to my CRT monitor to make it easier on my eyes. Any ideas?
If using an LCD would make a material difference, maybe I should getting something more substantial?
Mono-raj suggested (I think) Samsung monitors as being quite nice and a good value overall. The guy at Superpet tried to sell me on a Sharp 1620.
By-the-way: Does anyone have any decent guides to choosing an lcd, or making a crt less punishing to the eyes? I found this guide to LCD specs and this set-up primer.
This guide to reducing eye strain has an interesting excerpt that I think may explain why my eyes were so tired last night and today:
- Visual stress will be induced if - while you are watching your screen - your peripheral vision is exposed to light intensity brighter than the brightest regions of your display. A color scientist or video engineer uses the term surround to refer to the area that is perceived by your peripheral vision. In addition to disturbing your peripheral vision, a bright surround will necessarily increase your ambient illumination. Try to establish a visual surround that is quite a bit darker than the brightest white of your screen.
Coincidentally, we added a bright flourescent desk lamp off to the side of my computer recently. It is very bright. Maybe I underestimated its effect.
Bits and Pieces
These other components round out the design
Hard Drive
Superpet has no Western Digital hard drives in stock. Not sure how long that problem will last. However, Alredo said that the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 hard drives are good too.
Performance sounds ok. 8MB buffer and 7200RPM should be adequately fast. The spec sheet says it's good for digital video.
I couldn't find a review of it on storagereview.com so I am not sure about its reliability or how it compares against the well-regarded Western Digital 'special edition caviar'drives. I could only find a comparison of the DM9+ versus a Seagate Barracuda. It points out that they only offer one-year warranties on their drives, while Western Digital boasts three-year warranties. ewww.
Feeling like maybe I should look harder for Western Digital supplier...
===
followup...
I started a thread on StorageReview asking about the reliability differences between the Maxtor DM +9 and the WD. The respones have been that now there are no significant differences, that Maxtor has got past their thorny patch.
Video
I'm really only doing web work, photo/video art, and text on my PC, so I don't need a state-of-the-art game-graphics system. However, I do want dual-head monitor capability.
Alfredo recommended the GeForce4 MX440 Dual from Visiontek. Visiontek has perhaps the worst corporate website I've ever encountered. It's nothing but a flash window with a long, tedious ad, followed by a static link to some drivers. Nothing else. ewww.
Reviews suggest that it is a competent card for a reasonable price, although doesn't compare well to 'enthusiast' gamer cards. That's fine. Not sure why I'd ever need an 'enthusiast gamer' card anyway.
This article compares the different options in this market niche. Here's an excerpt that nicely summarizes the article:
- It’s truly amazing that acceptable gaming performance can now be purchased for under $100. All of the manufacturers have done a commendable job at keeping prices low, while simultaneously delivering value. Even still, a couple of the cards really stand out above the rest. If you’re into bundled software, MSI’s G4MX440-T does an exceptional job of combining quality hardware with a diverse software collection and all of the accessories needed for television output. By including an extra VGA output on their card, VisionTek has given the Xstasy GeForce4 MX 440 significant appeal. Finally, Chaintech has obviously taken strides to physically set the A-G441 apart from competing products and at a remarkable price. All three of these cards excel – it just depends if your focus is on software, functionality or physical allure. And you thought you’d never see hardware evaluated based on its sex appeal…
Since dual headed monitor is my key need, it makes the Visiontek sound like the correct option.
Motherboard and CPU
Roger recommended the nVidia nForce2 chipset for AMD XPs because it only has one driver and should be quite stable. For P4 motherboards, he recommended ASUS as a good name. The Monoraj bought a Gigabyte motherboard for his P4 and was also quite happy with it.
Superpet had a slightly smaller selection of ASUS motherboards, the ASUS P4PE-L and the ASUS P4PE LS1394. The LS1394 has a bunch of onboard features I don't need. (Gigabit LAN, Serial ATA, Soundcard). Since I want to get a P4 (no need to scrimp and get an AMD), that leaves me to choose from Gigabyte.
The Granite Bay motherboard is unavailable currently. It's the latest-greatest, but I can live without it. Plus, it's 160 marginal dollars more than the Ultra.
The GA-8SR533 is old technology. Forget it.
The GA-8GE667 Pro is ok, but the onboard Audio and Video are wasted -- I already have a Creative Labs Extigy sound system, and the Audio doesn't support a dual-head monitor scheme. Mismatch of features.
That leaves me to decide between the Gigabyte GA-8PE667 and GA-8PE667 Ultra. The Ultra's extra features are onboard LAN and a Raid system. I don't need the LAN especially, so consider it no marginal value. But the Raid is interesting. Spending marginal 70$ for Raid functionality sounds good to me. I am worried about data integrity, and since harddrives are so cheap, this might be a cheap, robust way to get it.
Tom's Hardware Review says the ultra has a firewire port, although I cannot find any specifications to confirm that. I think it's mistaken.
Toms Review of the ASUS P4PE says the the P4PE does have raid...
Tom votes the ASUS P4PE as the best board of the 2002.
I still think to go with the Ultra because it has more IDE plugs and it sounded like the RAID functionality of the Ultra was better. Futhermore the P4PEs sold at Superpet said nothing about having raid functionality. Maybe that's a different variation of that board.
Some other reviews of the board were all complimentary.
- Stable motherboard
- Legion Hardware had a very thorough review of this board, and liked it.
Introduction: DIY Computer Project
My current computer, although it is working ok, seems to strain a bit. It can't play CDs, DVDs that well. The two USB connectors drive me nuts, because I have many more devices than that. I've let the file system moulder for a while. It's not that frisky.
In all truth, I could continue using this PC fine, but I would like some modern amenities and some horsepower so that I can easily run my projects (photoshop, some light movie editing, gps mapping stuff) simultaneously with my work related stuff (Bloomberg terminal) as well as keeping my data safe and backed-up.
I talked to RogerDoubleYou, Monoraj, and 31die for their recommendations. Everyone admits that Dell is a reasonable solution. Hower RogerW and Monoraj said that some home-built systems could perform better for cheaper. Their recommended systems both featured basically the same components.
Monoraj said he'd had good experience with the unfortunately-named 'Superpet' computers in Singapore. He'd assembled an Alienware-quality pc for far less from parts he'd purchased from Superpet.
So I went over at lunchtime Friday and talked to Alredo for about thirty minutes and worked out the first draft specifications for a pc.
The first look seems ok. Now I need to study the components some more and do some price research.