Mollox Posted September 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 £500-550 Need: CPU Mobo 1.5 g RAM Bare minimum graphics card (will never be used for video or gaming - this is a dedicated sound recording/editing platform) 80 or 120gigs storage Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Case Windows XP OEM (there's no value in getting 64bit XP is there?) Processing performance and silence are the key here Have: sound card and all the associated sound gear, external firewire drive etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omi Posted September 23, 2005 Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Tall order, leave it with me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Good good ta - need to order tonight though - only have one build slot: tuesday! Merci Beaucoup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted September 23, 2005 Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Don't bother with Windows XP 64. There aren't enough apps in 64 bit to warrant getting it, and some 32 bit apps refuse to run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omi Posted September 23, 2005 Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 And don't buy XP either... There are plenty of shady copies around with full SP2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Hmm, and how about going slightly retro and getting a 3700 Clawhammer for roughly the same price as the 3500 Venice. OK so you can’t upgrade without changing the mobo (apparently) but is there a performance advantage going this way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheechy Posted September 23, 2005 Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Is that not 120nm = more noise and heat? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 what dp nm's stand for?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted September 23, 2005 Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Nanometres. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 And why is 90 of them better than 120? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daz Posted September 23, 2005 Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Cause we say so Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Seriously please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omi Posted September 23, 2005 Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Transistor circuits which make up the 'core' of the processor are smaller, meaning that less voltage is required and because it's not so crowded, the same surface area can dissipate heat more effectively. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Lovely, good man Now how's that spec coming along? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omi Posted September 23, 2005 Report Share Posted September 23, 2005 Ok mate... Just a very quick look, and all from eBuyer, so while I might not be able to find better prices, I might be able to find better produce. Case: £50 should get something half-decent... Or you can get a cheaper one for now and put it all in a properly silent setup later. PSU: £65 for a 480W Modular decent brand unit, modular meaning that you don't have to have cables everywhere, plug the ones you need in and leave the rest in the box. Comes with ATX2, SATA and PCIx power attachments. RAM: £70 gets you a high quality branded matched pair of 400mhz RAM sticks, totalling 1GB. Mobo: Asus A8N SLi Deluxe with onboard Firewire, Gigabit LAN, SATA Raid etc etc etc... £100 CPU: £98 gets you a 90nm Athlon 64 3000+ which your motherboard can automatically overclock for you. Comes with a standard cooler and thermal pad. Storage: £77 gets a 120GB Western Digital SATA-II, 160GB is only a few quid more, but I was working to a budget! Keyboard/Mouse: Logitech MX700 with charging cradle for the mouse etc. £50... Graphics: Entry level PCI-x card GeForce 6200, will still make your current setup look silly. £40. TOTAL: £550. I would consider the following though. - Get up to a San Diego core on the chip, it's another £100, but will run almost room temperature, so your CPU cooler can just waft silently to cool it. - Re-use your existing case for the time being, with the new PSU and a bloody great case-fan so it's nice and cool. - Later on, buy a silent case and transplant your new kit into it. 1.5GB of RAM is really awkward because your new setup will run dual channel memory, so it's best to have matched pairs. - I'd go with 1GB now and another GB later. You know where I'm at if you want to discuss further, and if you're stuck, I'll build and install it for you, then we'll meet at Jon's for a few beers. I've got to build him a system at some point, he took one look at mine and started drooling! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 25, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 25, 2005 Cheers Omi - just got back so will look through that in a min... Quick Q though - he has XP on his current system - once the new platform is built he won't use the old one - can he just reinstall his old XP onto his new PC (removing the old copy of course....)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hopsta Posted September 26, 2005 Report Share Posted September 26, 2005 Sorry chap was out all of Sat then forgot to call You can reinstall it onto a new platform, however you might have to call M$ to get a new key as his it's different hardware G Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 HELP!!! So we spent bloody hours putting it together..and then taking it apart like when we suddenly realised the Zalman fan (which isn't quiet btw) needed a backplate fitting and that was a mobo out job! Anyway, big problems. Screwed it all together very carefully and finally went to power up....except that there's nothing legible on screen...just a load of garbled nonsense. Holding down delete seems to refresh the screen as if it was going into BIOS mode but you simply can't make out anything it says We get a single beep and then if you leave it 7 (i think) consecutive beeps and the screen is still garbled...someone help!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 Ok, need to check first thing in the morning but it might have been 8 beeps which I know is a lot different (video card/memory) vs 7 which is total doom (CPU/mobo)I imagine the garbled image on screen suggests it might well be a video card issue?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted September 28, 2005 Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 What Motherboard did you end up with? We can then work out what POST beeps are telling us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 Asus A8N SLi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted September 28, 2005 Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 Right, so that means it's running an AWARD BIOS? Award BIOS's on the latest Asus boards display the error on screen. It only resorts to beeps when it cannot access the display adpater. 1-2 beeps, Indicates a video error - any other beeps after that is RAM. Have you ensured you've placed the RAM in the right slot? Do you have more than one stick, or is it Paired memory? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 Ahh well it was just displaying a garbled mess so that might explain the beeps. It beeps once as you'd expect it to but then fires off its series of short beeps... RAM is 2 x 512MB DDR400 and they're seated in slots A1 & B1 leaving A2 and B2 free....that's right isn't it? What's "paired" RAM exactly? Is multiple beeps definitely memory?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 wouldn't the bios still show even if the memory was fecked? Its the fact that the screen is all jumbled up that's making me think its a problem with the graphics adapter...?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted September 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 Oh yeah, here's the final spec... AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-131-AM) 1 £79.95 GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL) 1 £59.95 Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-SA) 1 £35.95 Zalman CNPS7700-ALCU Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler - Retail (HS-011-ZA) 1 £22.95 1 x Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Midi Tower 93403 £64.99 1 x Asus A8N SLI S939 Nvnf4sli Atx - Snd Gln 1394 U2 Fsb2000 Satar 82819 £68.98 1 x Connect3d Radeon X300SE 128mb DDR PCI-Express DVI-I TV-Out 65688 £29.78 1 x Microsoft OEM Windows XP Home Edition SP2 - 1Pk 66489 £49.40 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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