On Tuesday 17 August 2004 07:26 pm, Eben King wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Bob Stia wrote:
> > At risk of starting a hardware holy war, I turn to the Sluggers for
> > their advice and expertise. Finally convinced my wife that the old
> > computer is "old". Want to keep it under $1000 if possible.
> >
> > First I am going to get a big usb hardrive to start with and store
> > all of my data from my present system. Looking at the Maxtor.
> > Comments?
>
> Unless you need mobility, I'd skip USB and go for regular old IDE.
> It's less trouble, more motherboards (read: all) boot from IDE than
> from USB, ATAPI drives are usually cheaper than their USB
> equivalents. USB drives take up desktop space, make noise, have a
> power brick, and I think that USB data transfers cause significantly
> more CPU load than IDE transfers do.
Welll....main reason I am thinking the USB hard drive is that I already
have a dual boot with dual hardrives and have never had an acceptable
back up plan. Figured I could store my system to transfer my stuff and
then use the USB for backups on both computers and store a lot of data
on it that is not accessed continually. That way each computer would
have only one hardrive and access to the USB. Don't know - Still
thinking about it.The new computer would be strictly Linux ( SuSE 9.2?
10.0?)
>
> > Most important. Should I go 64 bit? , remembering that this will be
> > my last board for many years, and, this is where I want strong
> > opinions.
>
> Sorry, don't have a strong opinion. But unless the price
> differential is great (say > 1.5:1), go for 64 bit. Software may be
> scarce now, but it won't always be.
That is what I am thinking about. Will have to scope that out a little
bit.
>
> > Have seen lots of criticism of ASUS lately.
>
> Anecdotally, I have a couple Asus boards. I've RMA'd one. In the
> process, I dealt via email with a guy in Shanghai who obviously
> hadn't read my initial statement. OTOH, once I called up some US
> phone number he gave me, service was fast and courteous.
>
> > Is heat a big problem?
>
> Not if you have a good heat sink (despite the lousy case), or a good
> case (despite the lousy heat sink). :-)
>
> > Would prefer a board without all kinds of built in stuff like sound
> > and video.
>
> Yes. My main system's motherboard (A7V333) has built-in sound, but I
> found that my previous sound card was better. I fully expect
> motherboards' built-in components to be of low quality.
>
......<snip some>...........
>
> > Would need plenty of USB and at least one serial port for my modem.
.............<snip more>
> This motherboard came with a mini card that plugs into a header on
> the motherboard (doesn't use a slot, just a case opening) that
> supplies several more USB connectors, in case the onboard 4 aren't
> enough. :-)
Seeing as how almost everything is going USB it is probably better to be
prepared for it.
>
> > Want a pretty decent video card, but not one of those
> > super(expensive) ones. 3D of course. (Maybe someday Linux will
> > have games) Kind of afraid of the nvidia cards. Hear all of the
> > horror stories with changing drivers everytime you do something to
> > your system. (comments?)
>
> Bah. I purposely didn't get ATI for the VCR/computer as I might one
> day run Linux on it, and ATI and Linux don't get along. Especially
> the bit about "display the TV tuner's output on an attached TV". ATI
> and nvidia are the two biggies, AFAIK. Who is actually decent?
Have seen both pro & con on both ATI & Nvidia on the lists. Some guys
say the ATI is a piece of cake on SuSE, supported or not and swear by
their cards. Who knows. Seems you are biased towards the Nvidia. Which
card would you reccomend? Decent meaning performance at a reasonable
price.
>
> > Already have a 40 gig IBM hardrive that I could switch over. But it
> > is almost two years old. Should I abandon that and go sata?
> > Remember I will have the USB external.
>
> Remember, what you don't spend on hard drives can be spent on CPU, or
> RAM, or motherboard. I would say you have plenty of space. But I'm
> not you, and we all know how junk expands to fill available space.
> :-)
You are right. Would much rather spend the money on a high performance
board, cpu and ram. Spent several hours tonite looking at motherboards
and cpu's.
>
....<snip monitor>............
> > Last but not least, where would you BUY all of this stuff.
>
> Online. Don't hesitate to spread the order across several vendors,
> if by doing so you can save at least the cost of shipping. I've had
> good luck at http://www.newegg.com/ http://directron.com/ and
> http://computergeeks.com/ . Both my URLs for hard drive companies
> are broken, so you're on your own there.
That's OK the hardrives are low on the totem pole. That URL you gave me
for directron is very informative. That is where I spent most of my
time tonight.
Hope you don't mind. I will be back with more questions as I do my
research.
Bob S.
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