Need a New Computer

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Originally Posted by jyardgirl

I know alot of people who have dealt with tigerdirect and they were not satisifed. When I built mine 2 years ago i went with newegg. They have great prices with excellent service. I have not had any problems at all. even with 2 teens surfing. I agree with everyone else about the vista problems. I like the new vista look and sounds so i put that in while still running xp media. I use my pc for general and also play streaming movies bounced to my tv with no lags. as for the asus I must have gotten a bad one. went out on me in a week. I use a gigabyte board with dual ram and surround sound. I installed a ATI radeon card for hdtv. Now my old 32" tv does not need a hdtv box as it comes through my pc.

DON there is a company near you in richmond called velocity micro that can build to your specs. They are a little pricy but they stand behind their work.

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I'v never had a problem W/ Tiger Direct except the rebate program, it's so confusing because the rebates are done thru a 3rd party company. I tried to get 1 rebate, but gave up. however, I have only bought hard drives and video
cards and a DVD RW thru Tiger direct and cooling fans. I bought my computer as a barebones through www.cpusolutions.com which in my book, there a great company but they have gotten expensive... I only do phone orders, maby that's why I get good service from Tiger direct IDK. In a week or so I will buy the barebones I put a link to as I cannot buy the parts individual for that. I'll let everybody kno how it goes.

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Originally Posted by Don Shillady

Denny, there is no limit to the need for speed in Quantum Chemistry computing. Before I retired I participated in some highly competitive internal politics (policy wars) always to try to get the fastest computers while an administration of non-scientists did not understand how much research depends on state-of-the-art computers. When we finally got a 32 CPU parallel system I was told I would never be able to use all the CPU-cycles of the new wonder machine but a month later they were complaining that I was hogging the computer! Actually my present laptop is faster than some mainframes I worked on back in the 80s so the answer to your question is that my next PC should exceed the 3.01GHz benchmarks in floating point arithmetic. The old LINPAK benchmarks still seem a good way to measure computational performance but for PCs there are Whetstones and Drystones and a lot of other benchmarks that depend on graphics speed but not raw number crunching. I am hoping that a game PC may be good since the graphics has to use a lot of sin(theta) and cos(theta) evaluations somewhere in calculating perspective views. Since game PCs often need to use such complicated trigonometry functions there is a good chance they will be optimized for other intensive computations. In my programs the key bottleneck is exp(x) which is used a billion billion times. Another problem is that there is a nasty problem in electronic calculations called the "two-electron-interaction" file in which one must calculate the Coulombic two-body repulsion of every electron with every other elecron and the list quickly requires huge memory resources. In my program I just dimension an array as the largest size the memory will allow and let the automatic overlay swap pieces of this large file to and from disk so I need a large cache memory and a fast disk seek time. The modern approach is to use racks of 256 or more Xeon PCs in parallel but then you need parallel software. For my use I have been pleased that my laptop can do stuff I had to use a mainframe for in the 80's so I am just looking for a fast PC with a large cache memory. I suppose a quad processor has some aspects of parallelism but the bottom line is to run benchmarks. Floating-point benchmarks are like dyno runs for an engine. You can theorize about what computer speed or engine H.P. there should be but the real test is to run a test program or a dyno run. The folks here are very knowledgable so I am listening but I would spec a PC on floating-point benchmarks and cache memory size. Maybe 64 bit PCs are the next wave? Unfortunately my programs use the WATCOM fortran-77 compiler which only treats 32 bit code. I think the 64 bit machines will run 32 bit code but eventually I would need a 64 bit compiler. I may visit Victory Micro and take my programs on a CD for an actual test on my special code. Maybe we could switch this thread a bit to a discussion of engine simulation software? What is the best LOW PRICE engine software?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

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64 bit machines will run on 32 bit, that's no problem..

here is what I would suggest. get a AMD athalon X2 5300 or better, I don't know the exact speed but I know it's over 3.0 GHZ per core.. if you built a computer or had 1 built you could find a dual prosessor board and run dual of that prosessor, and link each prosessor togther as 1 prosessor ( dual core is primaraly used for multi tasking ) and use 1 prosessor per task. I think 6GHZ would do what you need but if you needed more, you could link the second prosessor on the same task w/ extra programs for 12ghz.. that should do. :)

Maby even look into buying a quad prosessor HP Compaq Proliant server, a desktop version, not a rack mount or anything hotswapable that just adds cost.

Matt, you and Denny have aluded to a question I put to the tech guy at Velocity Micro who gave an unsatisfactory reply. That is, does the Duo or Quad hardware actually do parallel processing? My understanding of parallel processing usually requires special software to break up tasks into separate parts for each CPU and then needs a high speed cable to connect the CPUs. However a Duo or Quad chip has the CPU on the same chip so communication between them should be as fast as is possible with that close connection. If there is actual parallel computing then a Quad-CPU is obviously what I want. Thanks for the suggestion to look at other vendors. For all the hype surrounding Velocity Micro, the guy I talked to did not seem on top of the total picture. I used to get PC Week and reveled in the info when I was a consultant for a PC startup company, but they cancelled my subscription for some reason and I am now at least 7 years out of date in the PC world; such a time lag corresponds to hundreds of years in human history so I need to read more on the multi-CPU capabilities. Maybe you can answer a question? My Toshiba Satellite says it is a "ACPI Multiprocessor" under the System Hardware, but when I do Cntrl-Alt-Del I only get one task report as if there is only one CPU. I believe the CPU is a Pentium but do not know further specs on the CPU, maybe I need to "lift the hood" and see what is on there? Maybe there is some actual hardware parallel processing in the Quad-CPU? If so, I want one!

By the way, what is the best low priced engine software?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Denny,
I just did a quick skim and it looks real interesting and an easy read - and have bookmarked for when I have some more time

(I'm doing some touch up painting now - "burned" thru a door jamb with 1500 - guess I got a bit too aggressive trying to get the peel out :mad: )

I am considering a MAC. When they first came out the University was all over them and we adopted them. Then 'nobody' was writing engineering software for them and we dropped them and went 'PC'.

Now the MACs are running the same processors as the PC's and have the operating system with 'Boot Camp' that allows you to boot the machine in either MAC or Windows. It runs Windows at native speeds also. I have played with one and it looks really good to me; you can have the best of both worlds. But they are fairly expensive .................

Kitz

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Originally Posted by kitz

I am considering a MAC. But they are fairly expensive .................

Kitz

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Expensive! That is the story in a nutshell. A few of our GE engineering folks had MAC's and had to move to the PC world to survive. But with the ability now of going both ways could be an option but too much more money for too little gain and for me, photo work. So......

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Originally Posted by Don Shillady

Matt, you and Denny have aluded to a question I put to the tech guy at Velocity Micro who gave an unsatisfactory reply. That is, does the Duo or Quad hardware actually do parallel processing? My understanding of parallel processing usually requires special software to break up tasks into separate parts for each CPU and then needs a high speed cable to connect the CPUs. However a Duo or Quad chip has the CPU on the same chip so communication between them should be as fast as is possible with that close connection. If there is actual parallel computing then a Quad-CPU is obviously what I want. Thanks for the suggestion to look at other vendors. For all the hype surrounding Velocity Micro, the guy I talked to did not seem on top of the total picture. I used to get PC Week and reveled in the info when I was a consultant for a PC startup company, but they cancelled my subscription for some reason and I am now at least 7 years out of date in the PC world; such a time lag corresponds to hundreds of years in human history so I need to read more on the multi-CPU capabilities. Maybe you can answer a question? My Toshiba Satellite says it is a "ACPI Multiprocessor" under the System Hardware, but when I do Cntrl-Alt-Del I only get one task report as if there is only one CPU. I believe the CPU is a Pentium but do not know further specs on the CPU, maybe I need to "lift the hood" and see what is on there? Maybe there is some actual hardware parallel processing in the Quad-CPU? If so, I want one!

By the way, what is the best low priced engine software?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

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Because of the design and intended use of the dual and quad core prosessors, being used for multi tasking, alone they will only do 1 prosess per core, but you can get software that will put them togther. older quad prosessor servers did use all prosessing power for all tasks, but some still do.

Thanks Matt and Denny. Matt points out the problem from the recent past in that Duo and Quad systems do great on a mix of various tasks but when the clock speed in the individual CPU is slower than that of a fast single CPU then a single processor will run faster due to clock speed if only a single number-crunching job is running. Thus a Duo or Quad setup with a slower clock speed will indeed run slower than a single processor when running a single job. The articles Denny sent (thanks for the research) shows that increasing amounts of true parallelism is being built into the Itanium Intel chips but the dates look like these chips won't be available for 18-24 months. Matt I would be interested to know what software you mention that might parallelize a Quad mother board. While we are chatting I can note that when I retired I went through a mental Cold Turkey process going from using UNIX-type systems for many years to WINDOWS and I must admit I had a lot of learning to do before I could use WINDOWS creatively; thank goodness for the WATCOM f77 compiler for PCs! About 15 months ago I had the "Restart Virus" but learned how the local "Geek Squad" fixes WINDOWS viruses. You can buy a "LINSPIRE" disk for $50 and install an alternate PC-UNIX system that can be booted up instead of WINDOWS. Since LINSPIRE is only on a few PCs nobody writes viruses for LINSPIRE. To my amazement all my files were there under LINSPIRE along with a lot of familiar UNIX commands so I just copied all the important files to a backup device using LINSPIRE and then scratched my C-drive. It still took me about ten days to reinstall all the WINDOWS software on the cleaned C-drive but I did get it back working again. As far as I know the LINSPIRE system would be an alternate system to WINDOWS that might be better than going to a more expensive MAC system and one can mentally migrate from a UNIX system in a research environment to a home PC system. I note that one of the key points of our/my recent book is that one can do a lot of research type chemistry calculations on a WINDOWS-PC system and that is why we spent a lot of time porting our UNIX software to a PC.

Matt, give me a hint on whatever parallel software you can recall for a Quad system.

Hey, once again what is the recommended best engine software to estimate dyno results for an engine?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I have never owned a dual or quad core so I don't know exactly what software there is because I have never needed it.. I have seen some searching for the dual core Athalon I'm getting but I just kinda glanced over it. however somthing like this might help you http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/p/soft...ssl/index.html

Matt, thanks for your diligence/research on this topic. This may be a situation where we are getting too far from the main function of this FORUM so let me know of comments on what engine dyno simulation software seems best at a reasonable price (under $100?). For those interested in the "other world" of computation using many PCs in parallel just look up the words "Beowulf LINUX RedHat" and you will find a wealth of information on linking many PCs in parallel using high speed switches, but to my knowledge there are no direct applications to Quad-core CPUs at present. I am aware of the ESSL and parallel-ESSL routines but that requires using their routines. Many years ago I decided that I did not have time to recode large programs every three years or so when a new computer system came in so I decided to avoid canned routines and just write/find my own routines as part of my own code rather than depend on linking external routines. Thus I achieved independence of a sort, but now would find it a big chore to use the external ESSL routines instead of my own code. For those interested, RedHat LINUX is another operating system for PCS that is favored by the Beowulf/parallel folks.

If it warms up today I may mess around with installing my steering column?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I use desktop dyno 2000 which is $39-$50 depending on the version but it is not the most accurate.. Engine Analyzer is expensive but is by far the most accurate. it is $100 for the basic version..

Matt, Thanks for the lead on the Dnyo simulation. Maybe I can put the PC-computation discussion to rest for Denny and IC2 with the following address

http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/beowulf/.../building.html

That is a site which explains the basic setup for a 16-node Beowulf "Supercomputer" first pioneered at NASA. I am wondering if the extra nodes could be the other three CPU on a Quad chip for a 4-CPU Beowulf system? It is interesting that the Hot Rod phenomena has a large psychological component of a "need for speed" and that is very similar to the idea of building a supercomputer out of many PCs. Another similarity is that the Beowulf architecture wants to use many cheaper units from previous generations of technology; does that look like rebuilding an SBC from the '70s?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Heres on from 1956 ,when everyone was first amazed with the display scope...:LOL:
http://video.i-am-that-i-am.com/nsv/...e=filename.pls
Keep in mind ,the gamers have pushed computing faster than any other group,theres millions of em and they buy the latest greatest stuff for speed ,just like a hotrodder.:LOL:
A computer like Denny is talking about is much more powerful than the multi story building full of computer.

Denny, for the individual user we both might be right. I chatted today with some hot shots on the West Coast who have a company based on Don Beckers's original Beowulf design and they gave me a rough estimate for a dual-Quad Xeon box (8 total cores) running the Beowulf RedHat LINUX software for about $2000. The two quad Xeons (total of 8 CPU cores) would be on the same mother board in the same case.

http://www.penguincomputing.com/inde...2&vid=scyldcom

The Xeon cores would only be clocked at 1.8 GHz but using one as the controller and the 7 others as computers they can use the same g77 fortran that is common in scientific computation. Maybe my request will stimulate further development of parallel computing on a single motherboard and we will see what their response is. I assume that price is without a monitor but I can use an existing monitor. The Red Hat LINUX will allow Internet interaction from the controller core so I will be very interested to see what they spec for $2000. Compared to my present 3.0 GHz laptop the performance theoretically could be (8x1.8)/3.0=4.8 times faster but of course you never really achieve that, although a factor of 4 might be possible. Comparing game images to MFLOPS (million floating point operations) in computation is like comparing apples to oranges. One famous calculation of a few years ago was a controversial evaluation of the dipole moment of the CO (carbon monoxide) molecule. The experimental value is about 0.13 Debyes but "common sense" expects the Oxygen end to be negative and the C end to be positive. After a humongous mult-day calculation it was found that the C end is really negative and the O end positive so that calculation represented many days of CPU time just to get a single number whereas in games the trick is to update images as you say. Interestingly one of the popular (free from US. Gov.) programs is called GAMESS (General Atomic and Molecular Electronic Structure System) so those guys do have a sense of humor at Ames Nat. Lab. in Iowa!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Hi Denny, you are becoming a Quantum Chemist too! I have used GAMESS (free from US Gov, your tax dollars paid for it!) for many years in various forms and we reviewed a lot of their examples in our recent book. There is another (expensive) competitor called GAUSSIAN which is also available for PCs and I have that too. In order to charge high prices GAUSSIAN has to stay ahead and is regarded as the "Best" in the field but the guys at GAMESS try to keep up with the free version and there is the usual competition at work there. In fact the main example of my part of the book is my own code for similar calculations (and some for "twisted light" that nobody else has) called PCLOBE but it only runs under WINDOWS on a single processor. I am trying to figure out how to get it to run under an inexpensive form of parallel setup for more speed. There is software to make "molecular movies" and as you say the graphics capability is there to do "slow motion" movies of atoms that move in about 10**-14 seconds (0.00000000000001 seconds) to a slow movie at about the same number of frames in a computer game. This technique is called "Molecular Dynamics" but the current problem is that the calculations behind the positions of the many atoms are too complicated for most computers and that is where the speed is needed for accuracy. Before Brent throws me off this Forum for discussing non Hot Rod stuff let me say that a hot area of research at a nearby lab in the heart of Richmond is "tribology". I call it "Engine Heaven". They run Diesel V8s, Buick V6s and OHC-four cyls with a lot of instrumentation and strip them down to look for wear. Then they rebuild them and run them again. However the basic science questions have to do with lubrication and the effects of squeezing oil additives between metal parts at the molecular level. There is big money and big science involved in the study of lubrication. Another test they run is for rear gear additives and I know without those additives, the rear gears in big trucks hauling heavy loads would simply burn up in less than an hour of use! Sometimes when I talk about this stuff I wish I was 40 again and doing calculations but then again there was too much pressure in that business for me to go back to it except to talk over the good old days. Still if the Hot Rod Forum could visit that Ethyl lubrication lab in Richmond, the folks here would probably slobber like a baby with a candy cane!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

don where is this ethyl lab in richmond and can we visit?

jyardgirl, I have been in there three times on tours and for contacts but I cannot provide entry. I was not employed there but once had a small research contract with them. Maybe Google can show the buildings as located one block north of where US Route 1 crosses the James River in Richmond. On the map the bridge should be the "Lee Bridge". When I was there last I think the test beds were the Cummins Diesel V8s, Buick V6s and the Pinto 2300. They also have a large storeroom with many 50 gallon drums of various grades and type of base oils in which the additives are blended. I previously worked for a summer at a Socony-Mobil Lab working on what are now ancient formulations (1962) of some very smelly gear oil additives which are still used. That summer experience gave me some credibility with the science staff at Ethyl as well as the fact that my university office was only about six blocks away. The additives are thio-phosphono-esters and basically break down under pressure and react with an iron surface. Those compounds are responsible for the characteristic odor of rear gear oil and believe me they really extend the life of the ring and pinion gears thousands of times over what just plain heavy oil would. Of course I spilled some when I cleaned up my 8" Maverick rear for my roadster and forever the wooden floor in the garage will have that gear oil smell which I am sure is familiar to everyone here on this Forum! The Ethyl lab is working on more advanced lubricants and the old thio-phosphono-esters are now considered "classic gear additives". Maybe if someone at next year's NSRA National event at the RIR raceway could contact the Ethyl Corp. there is a long shot that a tour could be arranged. They do give tours to professional groups and the Virginia Section of the American Chemical Society has met there in the past so they are eager to put on a good PR presentation and what better folks than folks from NSRA. Unfortunately what I have just said is just an idea and you would need some highly placed representative from the NSRA to approach Ethyl Corp. regarding the NSRA event next August. Richmond is pretty lively with blown street cars that time of year and many neat rods!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Dave,

I too have always built my own machines with the exception of my very first one. The reasons for it were, as others like Denny have already mentioned, the fact that the cheaper computers that you can buy for the most part have mother boards that are not expandable. Also in some cases, they'll have built-in components (like video chipsets) that are hardwired to the mother board, (Dell used to do this, I don't know if they still do). One of the Dells that I worked on, the owner wanted to put different video card in, and went out and bought an AGP card, well, because the motherboard already had an AGP chipset hard-wired in, the manufacturer saw no reason to include a separate AGP port. The user had to get a PCI card instead with lower performance. Like all things, you get what you pay for, or more correctly, I guess, you don't get what you don't pay for. I've always preferred the ASUS motherboards becuase I have had good luck with them and the older ones had an Award Bios on the rom that allowed a few more tweaks and clocking options than AMI bios versions that I have seen. I was not aware of the problems Matt mentioned as mine is about 6 1/2 years old.

One of the other main reasons that I've always stayed away from these "complete systems" is that, in the early days, at least, the manufacturers didn't provide you with an actual copy of the OS that was loaded on your machine only a recovery disk that had an image of the data stored on a disk (Toshiba for example) or on a separate partition of the hard drive (Compaq for example). Along with the provided recovery method, came all of the what I refer to as Junk Software, so that anytime that you re-imaged the machine, you got the same adware junk software that was originally on the machine when you first bought it. In my mind, that software, eats up space and a lot of it seemed to always want to run in the background which just slowed the machine down.

Sure you can remove the junk software, but it gets old having to uninstall that stuff after the third or fourth time you have re-imaged the machine and it only adds to the time spent configuring it how I wanted it.

So short story long, I have, as I said earlier, always built my own. I also early on got my own imaging software so that I could configure the software installation the way I wanted it and then save the image for my recovery.

I did this because even if you defrag the drives every day, over time little file corruptions occur and slow the machine down. Before I got the software, I used to have to reformat the drive (I'd end up doing this about once every 8-10 months) because the machine would just stop performing like it used to. I would then spend the next 10-12 hours re-installing all of the software defragging it, downloading updates, configuring etc. At the end of the process though my machine would be blazing away again and I'd be happy for a few months. Now with the imaging process, I have it back up and running like new in about 45 minutes.

Anyway, best of luck to you in your search.

Cheers,
Dutch

http://www.calvin.edu/~adams/research/microwulf/

Denny here is somethong worth building for $1500! In case you don't appreciate 26 Gigaflops recall that the first recognized "Supercomputer" was the CRAY-1S which pumped out about 12 Megaflops back in the '80s. Since a Gigaflop is roughly 1000 Megaflops this little beauty is roughly 2000 times faster than the first supercomputer. Of course you have to run some sort of LINUX instead of WINDOWS but you can get away from VISTA and the writeup says the "0" node master core can access the Internet. Of great interest to me is the availability of GAMESS along with the free support from the Ames National Lab and the acquaintences I have there for the GAMESS program. This computer compared to my 3.0GHz laptop is like comparing a 239 flathead to a blown Chrysler Hemi!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

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Originally Posted by Don Shillady

http://www.calvin.edu/~adams/research/microwulf/

Denny here is somethong worth building for $1500! In case you don't appreciate 26 Gigaflops recall that the first recognized "Supercomputer" was the CRAY-1S which pumped out about 12 Megaflops back in the '80s. Since a Gigaflop is roughly 1000 Megaflops this little beauty is roughly 2000 times faster than the first supercomputer. Of course you have to run some sort of LINUX instead of WINDOWS but you can get away from VISTA and the writeup says the "0" node master core can access the Internet. Of great interest to me is the availability of GAMESS along with the free support from the Ames National Lab and the acquaintences I have there for the GAMESS program. This computer compared to my 3.0GHz laptop is like comparing a 239 flathead to a blown Chrysler Hemi!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

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Thanks for the link Don.

That's not too many steps above Torrodial Core Memory...

I've done my research for my new homebuilt computer at Newegg and have had Denny review the list (Thanks Denny) and have made the CD/DVD writer change suggested and will further review the other(motherboard) by tomorrow or Sunday when I plan on ordering to get the offered pricing and/or rebates.

During my research I also found another materials supplier but have no experience with them and want to ask if others have and how the dealings were. Their prices in some cases are cheaper then Newegg. It is called ClubIT. Anyone ever bought from them? Experience - good or otherwise?

As a note, yes, I have purchased from Tiger in the past and have been satisfied and will also check pricing there as well

(Denny - there are more then a few bucks difference on some items so have had to broaden my sourcing sites)

Thanks

IC2, Would you mind posting what you and Denny hatched out? It would be of interest to me as to what you chose and why. I am flirting with the idea of building one of those microWulfs with the idea that I could get it done in about two months of the coldest weather and still not lose time on the car when the weather warms up. I got some time on the car yesterday in the warmer afternoon, but I came close to a head cold out there. My small garage heater just takes too long to make a difference and I am determined to not get a "dust cold" from working on the floor under the car where I need to mess with the final D-bar of the steering link so that will have to wait until a warm day whenever. In the colder days maybe I can build the microWulf. It looks like it could be upgraded to the faster AMD 64 X2 2400+ which has a 512Kb cache and runs at 2.2 GHz but maybe I am flirting with more power requirement than those little power supplies can provide? Still that dual chip is speced at only 65 watts compared to the original 45 watt AMD 3800+ units. The other components in the microWulf parts list still seem to be available and at lower prices. For a single board it would seem that the AMD X2 5000 chips are reasonably priced, but when buying four of them the price goes up and the power/heat problems go up. To me it looks like the AMD 64 X2 4200+ runs the coolest, has the lowest price and the largest cache for a multiple CPU setup. Maybe if I actually get a microWulf running I can put some flame decals on the top plate! I did have some correspondance with Prof. Adams who built the microWulf and he said it could take faster frequencies and more memory, but I worry about running four power supplies off of one 115VAC outlet. Still if the powere supplies are at 450 watts each that is about like running a 2000 watt spotlight which is marginal for one socket but if the chips only take 65 watts each (8x65=520 watts) the rest of the stuff may add up to less than a total of about 1000 watts? My circuit breaker will tell me!
Matt, tell me more why you don't like the SATA hard drive? The microWulf configuration used a 250Gb SATA, probably for speed? Are they hard to set up, more than just plugging the cables in the right sockets? You guys know as much or more than a lot of the Beowulf types from some of the answers I get from them. Busted-knuckle experience counts for a lot here too!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

SATA drives are good and fast w/ high speed buffers, but there a lot more expensive and any hard drive has a life span of about 5 years, less if there high
RPM drives . SATA is practicle in a RAID configuration, so you wouldn't loose data if 1 drive failed... BUT SATA is new, IDE/ ATA 133 is going out and in a few years will be totally outdated. SATA just like IDE/ ATA 133 is pretty much plug it in right following instructions and it'll work.. you may have to set the jumpers but master boots first, that's all you need to know.. 99% of the time even with IDE/ ATA 133 jumpering to cable select will work, as long as the HD is the first in the chain.

Don Shillady,
Yep, Denny and I "agreed" on much of what I had defined as my homebuilt computer. He made two suggestions, one of which I have taken, and the other wasn't.

The one that I did take was a no brainer - a better CD/DVD burner. The one he suggested was reviewed as running hot, so I went up one more notch and $5.00 in level

The second was that I should consider a mother board with more expansion capabilities. Since I see little chance of my computer needs being much more then what I'm doing now, have chosen not to change my mind. The MB that I did order has built in video, sound and lan capabilities so I have not ordered additional cards

I ordered everything from Newegg - they have the best selection, rated about as high as any internet supplier and the pricing was competitive. Another, ClubIT had some better prices, about as good a rating, but no product to sell!!

There was one screw up by me - I ordered XP Home rather then the Pro and will need to exchange. Dumb. Clicked the wrong box and during the PO review didn't pick it up. The PC will be Vista capable - I'm not and may never be.

This is my list of bits and pieces:

MB MSI K9NBPM2-FID NVS 210S AM2 - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$74.99)
(Mother board w/sound, video and lan)

MULTI-SLOT PRO-GEAR Xm-4U BLK/SIL R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$19.99)
(Internal camera type card reader)

CASE CM|RC-534-KKN2-GP BK RT - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$49.99)
(Cooler Master case)

PSU CM|RP-500-PCAR 500W RT - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$39.99)
(Cooler Master power supply - $30 rebate)

CPU AMD|A64 X2 3800+ AM2 2x512K R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$62.99)
(Includes a heat sink and fan)

MEM 1Gx2|G.SK F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$49.99)
(Memory - 2 gig)

FDD 1.44MB NEC|FD1231H-302 BK % - OEM (Qty=1, Price=$6.99)
(Floppy writer/reader)

HD 320G|WD 7K 16M SATA2 WD3200KSRTL - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$84.99)
(Hard drive by Western Digital)

DVD BURN LITE-ON|LH-20A1S SATA R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$34.99)
(Good reviews on this one)

MS WIN XP HOME w/SP2B SINGLE PACK % - OEM (Qty=1, Price=$89.99)
(DUMB MISTAKE - S/B XP Pro)

CPU THERMPASTE|ARCTIC SILVER5 3.5G% - OEM (Qty=1, Price=$5.99)

I also have a 19" Samsung DVI 941BW 4ms monitor on its' way. New keyboard and mouse will be sourced locally - Wally World/Best Buy/Comp USA or similar

The total, less shipping was $520, but I need to add $40 for the XP Pro exchange but subtract $30/40 for rebates - so ~$520 it is.

I could have spent some few dollars less but for sure, a lot more. This may not do a good enough job for your needs but it will be more then enough for mine - I'm an ME with little EE capabilities but basics:eek:

My case is scheduled to arrive today with the rest on Thursday

This search for the "right" computer has gotten to be fun plus very educational for me. All I need now are some person size Post-its to stick on me so at least part of it's retained so I can at least sound like I know whats going on:D :D

Later

An FDD?? :eek: :confused: Ooooo, how quaint. :D Now I know who to come to when I need one read or copied.:LOL: :LOL:

I just got a new Dell 22" wide screen for both work and home. Really like the sharpness at 1680 x 1050. At home, I connected with the DVI cable that came with it and what a difference. Might have to get a new video card with DVI output for work too. No more analog for this old fool.

Dave, Good luck with your build, sounds like you made some excellent choices. Should be a sweet system when assembled.

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Originally Posted by mopar34

An FDD?? :eek: :confused: Ooooo, how quaint. :D Now I know who to come to when I need one read or copied.:LOL: :LOL:

I just got a new Dell 22" wide screen for both work and home. Really like the sharpness at 1680 x 1050. At home, I connected with the DVI cable that came with it and what a difference. Might have to get a new video card with DVI output for work too. No more analog for this old fool.

Dave, Good luck with your build, sounds like you made some excellent choices. Should be a sweet system when assembled.

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Hey Bob, don't pick on me with an FDD for $6.99. I have hundreds of floppys and do use 'em for odds and ends.

I toyed with the idea of a 20 or 22 inch version but not sure that I could stand the visual shock going from the 15" that I have been squinting at for the last 3-4 years(plus $100 more:( ).

AHA - the UPS guy (person?) just delivered the new case while I was writing this - and of course, MADE IN CHINA!!!! But it does look substantial. Now I have to wait 'til Thursday for the rest of the goodies.

IR2, Thanks for the list, there are a lot of good bargains there. One thing you did not mention that I only caught while reading up on the Beowulf stuff is that you may want to use an anti-static wrist-strap and anti-static table pad when you assemble stuff on the mother board? Thanks for the list. I was just looking over my attic junk pile of past PCs and I think I can use an old monitor too.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

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Originally Posted by Don Shillady

IR2, Thanks for the list, there are a lot of good bargains there. One thing you did not mention that I only caught while reading up on the Beowulf stuff is that you may want to use an anti-static wrist-strap and anti-static table pad when you assemble stuff on the mother board? Thanks for the list. I was just looking over my attic junk pile of past PCs and I think I can use an old monitor too.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

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Don,
Static discharge is one of the main componenet safety items listed in the book I bought. While I'm not building one like they assembled, there are a lot of good tips/information there. As usual, any book like that is obsolete the day it's printed:whacked:

And to add to Denny's note - the output of the PS - it's only about 12V - it's the input side that kicks.

IMHO - I'd save my pennies and return all those deposit bottles and buy a new 19-22 inch LCD monitor. That old VGA CRT monitor that you have in the attic just wont do the job any longer.

IC2, Have you forgotten the guy who scuffed his sneakers in Gym class and then touched your earlobe? This brings up the curious fact that the whole Earth is net negative since electrons from the Sun are trapped by the Earth's magnetic field (Northern Lights) while positive protons are heavier and go whizzing by the Earth (mostly). Thus what we call "ground" is actually a local negative charge of the environment, hence problems in equipment with a "floating ground". Cars like the '49 Cadillac and the '60s MGs had the circuits with grounds to the positive post of the battery and had a lot of electrical problems so that it is far better for the ground of a car to be attached to the negative post of the battery. The problem is not so much safety from shock as it is from a static discharge to a solid state chip. I think the minimum care for working around chips is to first MAKE SURE THE POWER IS OFF and then keep one hand on the case of the power supply. If the plug is still grounded in the wall as Denny says then you and the chassis are still grounded and at the same potential as the chip socket. For my own consideration I am most worried about a static charge zapping the main CPU when inserting it in the socket. I will probably assemble my mother boards before hooking up the power supplies so I think I will need the static hand ground strap and maybe a grounding cloth too. I am going to check with the PC repair guys at my university shop for their recommendation. I knew about this years ago and forgot about it so this discussion is helpful to me. I was interested in your choice of the AMD 64 X2 3800+ as to how you got the free fan? I am considering the AMD 64 X2 4000+ or 4200+ in 65w form just to get a slight bit more speed while keeping the wattage low. Thanks again for your list, I can learn from it.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Maybe I've just been lucky but I have never had a static problem on any of the dozen or so pc's that I have built over the last 20 years. Now mind you, I do tend to grasp the case sides when working on internals and I also make sure that I am on a tile or concrete floor or at least a plastic desk pad, but static has not been a problem. However, if you work in an environment that precludes you from doing any of those thngs than by all means use a anti static wrist strap or similar device. You can sometimes get them free or if not they only cost a couple of bucks. Cheap insurance.

Dave, I have used a 19" LCD monitor at work for several years (& a 19" CRT prior to that) and loved the 19. I've had a Sony 17" lcd at home for serveral years, and only recently upgraded to the 22 because I had the opportunity to get the Dell for under $200. Last weekend I got several ads offering 22" widescreens (Acer and Samsung) for about $169.

My wife actually didn't like the 22 at first, said she didn't like having to move her head back and forth to read the screen.:confused: :LOL: I told her to learn to move her eyes instead. :3dSMILE: She must be okay with it, since she has spoken to me since.:LOL: :LOL:

when I'm working inside mine, I always make sure my arm is touching the unpainted case metal at all times, never had a problem


Also.. put the RAM in last, it completes a major circuit in the board, so with the memory in, it is much more susceptible to static discharge and getting fried:)

the memory itself is more sensative to static than the motherboard, but you only need to know how to touch it ( sides only, never pins ) and you will never have a problem

Matt, that is a very good suggestion. I joined another site for Beowulf folks and one of their current flurry of messages is regarding how to find bad memory locations using software tests. I guess this gets to be a problem when a lot of units are involved. Off hand I do not know how WINDOWS of any release detects or handles a bad memory location but apparently it does happen, especially when heat is a factor.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

CLEAR THE AIR TIME

OK guys - first of all - I did NOT say to NOT ground yourself to discharge the static and in fact said in general words that you should and that the book that I bought specifically said it was a PC safety item

Secondly, I also said, in general terms, that the output of the PS was 12V max, not input voltage and that the PC operating voltage was never more then 12V.

Don,
I need a middle of the road PC for Internet, spread sheets and general 'dog' work not one for scientific requirements for speed plus the price helped me keep the unit near the $500 mark that I was trying to not exceed (by too much, anyhow). These are the specs and listed near the bottom are the fan and heat sink:
Model
Brand AMD
Processors Type Desktop
Series Athlon 64 X2
Model ADA3800CUBOX
CPU Socket Type
CPU Socket Type Socket AM2
Tech Spec
Core Windsor
Multi-Core Dual-Core
Name Athlon 64 X2 3800+
Operating Frequency 2.0GHz
HT 2000MHz
L1 Cache 128KB+128KB
L2 Cache 2 x 512KB
Manufacturing Tech 90 nm
64 bit Support Yes
Hyper-Transport Support Yes
Virtualization Technology Support Yes
Multimedia Instruction MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW! Professional
Voltage 1.30 V/1.35 V
Thermal Power 89W
Cooling Device Heatsink and Fan included
Manufacturer Warranty
Parts 3 years limited
Labor 3 years limited


The 4200 2.2 you are interested in has a fan and heatsink as well(I believe this is the correct CPU):

Processors Type Desktop
Series Athlon 64 X2
Model ADA4200CUBOX
Cooling Device Heatsink and Fan included

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Originally Posted by DennyW

Well, anyway, just don't rub your foot on the floor before you pick your parts up. :LOL: :LOL: :whacked:

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In my youth(:CRY:) I had a cat that used to wake from a dead sleep and run when it heard me shuffling across the floor.....its' nose was a great ground ( never could figure out why that cat used to scratch me every chance it got:LOL: **) )

i read the first few threads on here and you guys are scaring the crap out of me. I went from the ME to Vista thinking it had to be better. Sounds to me that i'm always a little to far ahead. With the ME, people were putting 98 back in and now people are dumping Vista for XP. I never had 98 or XP, they must be great :(

i don't use a computer much except for the net and e-mail. when a computer has all these problems like Vista has, what are they. My old ME would lock up just for spite. sytem cleanup and recovery disks would fix it only for a short time.

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Originally Posted by DennyW

The xp pro, I really like, because you can set it to do daily or weekly backups, plus, if it screws up, you can just go to a date earlier when everything was working like it was. It's that simple now with xp pro. :)

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I clicked the wrong button when I ordered my goodies, which, by the way arrived yesterday **) :D :LOL: , and ended up with XP Home Edition. It's going back for Pro. There are just too many problems and changes just for the sake of change with Vista. Someday it might be the show in town to go to - but for sure, not today. Between home and work, I've suffered thru DOS, Windows 1 thru 2000 plus ME now have XP. XP is has been so far the best!!

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I've suffered thru DOS, Windows 1 thru 2000 plus ME now have XP. XP is has been so far the best!!

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Well you have a couple more years to enjoy it. Microsoft has already announced the date for their discontinuance of XP support. Good news is that by that time Vista will be history and a new, better O//S will be available.:eek: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

Hopefully by then I will have wised up and bought a Mac.:LOL: :LOL:

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Originally Posted by mopar34

Well you have a couple more years to enjoy it. Microsoft has already announced the date for their discontinuance of XP support. Good news is that by that time Vista will be history and a new, better O//S will be available.:eek: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

Hopefully by then I will have wised up and bought a Mac.:LOL: :LOL:

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If I can get a couple of years out of XP I guess I can count myself lucky - and maybe the next "great" MS iteration after Vista will be better(it couldn't be much worse).

A MAC is always a possibility but there are still too many things that don't run right - regardless of the fact that they are now have Intel based innards.

I have my new 19" monitor hooked up on my oldie PC as well as a new Logitech mouse and keyboard. The jury is still out on the keyboard and the elongated screen will take some getting used to. I did not go with wireless as my experiences with them in the past have been less then stellar

Dave,

In the past I had used a number of wireless microsoft mice and all were hopeless failures. However, last year I purchased a new one that has the antenna built into a usb device. It is a Microsolt Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 3000. Uses a single AA battery inside, and it has been great. Still using the same one I bought over a year ago. Nice thing is that I can move it from desktop to laptop or to any other pc just by pulling the usb device. Great little mouse for about $25 or less.

Liked it so much I bought 8 for the office (me and 7 of my mgmt staff). You should give one a try. As for a wireless keyboard, I have not gone that route yet. I prefer the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic keyboard which is raised in the center and split between the T and Y keys. Easier on the old wrists for typing long documents, which I still freguently do in my job. MS only makes a few of this style, and a lot of people don't like them. The learning curve is a little steep for some I guess.