[TriLUG] seeking hardware advice...

[Mike Johnson]

Lisa Lorenzin [lorenzin at 1000plus.com] wrote:
> 
> so i'm finally going to upgrade my main home machine (currently a p233
> with 128Mb RAM and 10Gb of disk space - which was given to me by a friend
> when HE upgraded).  i could really use a little hardware advice, because
> the only thing i know about hardware is to go check ars technica and tom's
> hardware. :)

Well, I'm sure you'll get a great many replies and a great number of
different opinions.  Here's my thoughs...
   
> a little background: i don't game.  i use my pc for image and sound
> editing (now you see why i want to upgrade!), web surfing, and various
> home-office stuff like word processing, balancing my checkbook, etc.

The image and sound editing is the key, here.  The rest is easy.
 
> here's what i'm considering - everything except the monitor is from the
> DIY guides on ars technica.
> 
> mobo		asus a7v333                     $110.99

This looks to have good ratings.

> RAM		512Mb pc2100 ddr-sdram		$98.98

Check Mushkin.com for a slightly better price on some quality stuff.

> cpu     	athlon xp 2000+                 $149

I'd suggest you step back one further to the XP1900+ or maybe even the
1800+.  Take a look at this link:
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.html?i=1638&p=2

They point out that the XP2000+ can be had for $135, while the 1900 is
$112 and the 1800 is $86.  That's a significant savings.
 
> heatsink	alpha pal8045 w/sunon 50cfm fan $42
>   or 		svc gc68 w/sunon 50cfm fan	$13

Split the difference.  Go with the Thermalright SK6 for about $28:
http://2cooltek.safeshopper.com/34/259.htm?454

> video   	gainward geforce 4 ti4200 64mb	$151
>   or    	nvidia geforce ii gts pro 32mb	$55   

Neither.  Given what you're doing, go with a Matrox card.  Definiately
better quality 2D.  The G450 is around $80 and the G550 is around $90.
They both offer dual monitor support built in.
 
> sound   	turtle beach santa cruz         $64.50 

You know that Asus board has on-board sound, right?  Might not be the
best in terms of quality.  I dunno.  I prefer the Creative Labs stuff,
but that's just me.  You'll want to verify Linux support for the Turtle
Beach cards.

> hd      	western dig. wd800jb 80Gb SE    $116.99

WD's leave a bad taste in my mouth, but I'm sure you'll find that
everyone has had problems with at least one brand of drive.  I currently
lean towards Maxtor or Seagate.

> case    	antec performanceplus 1080      $115.78

Sure you want one that large?  I recently purchased an Antec 660 that
I'm pretty happy with, except for the power supply which just died.  I
like that it's not a full tower.  Fits better in my shelves.

> monitor 	samsung 770 tft (17" LCD)       $629

Can't help ya there.  I'm pretty happy with Samsung CRTs, though.
 
> questions:
> 
> since i don't game, do i need a high-end video card?  all i really
> want is something that will do an good job of driving the lcd panel for
> image editing.  would these cards be overkill for that?  if so, can anyone 
> recommend a better alternative?  if not, is there an obvious choice from 
> the two above, for what i want to do?

I'd really lean towards the Matrox cards given your needs.
 
> is it worth paying 4x as much for the alpha heatsink?  i'm happy to pay
> the extra $30 - especially considering how much i'm dropping on this
> overall - if it really buys me better cooling, but don't want to waste the
> money if there's really not much difference.  i just have no idea how to
> judge that kind of thing.

See above about the Thermalright.  The Alpha would serve you well if you
plan on overclocking, but if not, go with the Thermalright.  It'll save
you some cash and still keep your CPU nice and comfy.
 
> is there anything physical that could happen to my system that could take
> out both hard drives, other than a power spike?  (i do plan to get an
> industrial-strength surge suppressor.)  is there any big problem with
> backing up onto a second hd, rather than external media?

Oh, there's always things that can happen.  I'm pretty sure the Western
Digital drive that I recently lost was due to heat (my computer room
hangs at around 90 degrees).  That could definately take out more than
one drive.  As for power, splurge on a UPS.  Brown-outs (under-power,
but not enough to go completely out) can also harm a system.  A decent
UPS will also include good surge protection.

As for backing up to a second hard drive, you might want to take some
time to figure out exactly what you need to back up.  The problem with
hard drives is that they're fragile little things, especially with all
those moving parts in there.  If you only have a small amount of data,
you can probably save that onto CD.
 
> my backup system currently consists of dumping important things to cd when
> i think about it (ie, not often).  i'd really like to get something i can
> set up to run more easily and regularly.  my first thought is just to buy
> a second 80Gb drive and use it as a backup repository (via cron jobs &
> afio); i don't want a raid system because i want to be able to recover
> from user error as well as disk failure.  (raid doesn't help me out if i
> type rm -rf * in the wrong directory.  hm, maybe mounting that second
> drive read-only when i'm not actively backing up to it is a good idea,
> too.)

You could automate dumps to CD just as well as dumps to a hard drive,
just do multi-session CDs and you can write multiple times.  Tape would
be better, if you can afford a decent drive.
 
> another option, if it's important to backup onto separate media, is to get
> a dvd-rw and do it manually on a regular basis.  (which i WOULD do, if i
> had a good system in place.)  that's less convenient, and i expect it to
> be more expensive.  (a friend of mine is sending me a recommendation for a
> dvd-rw drive that he really likes - no idea yet what it costs, tho.)

They're about $500 right now.  Spend that on a tape drive and save money
on media (tapes are cheaper than DVD media).

Mike
-- 
"Let the power of Ponch compel you!  Let the power of Ponch compel you!"
   -- Zorak on Space Ghost

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