New PC is up and running!

[Grant]

Thanks to Sckott, Rudy, and others I can't remember for helping me get this thing together. It runs nice and looks good. I am proud of myself! I built something very useful. Now I wanna build more!:)

One thing I do regret is not buying a 512 MB memory stick. I tried to go cheap and got 256 MB. Well, all runs well, like I said, but I ran low on some virtual memory the other day. I increased it, and all is well now, but I could have more power for not much more money. What was I thinking? Cheap. That's what. Now, if I buy another 256 stick, i'll be fine. But that same money could have gone to another 512 stick had I did that the first time. I could have had 1034MB RAM. Also, I bought PNY memory, since it seemed like a good alternative to Crucial. But, no one had the type of Crucial memory I needed at the time, and I didn't want to wait for it to come in the mail if I had ordered it from the website.

So, I will most likely order a 512 stick from Crucial, since it is actually cheaper than buying it in a store. Besides, my mobo takes DDR RAM at 3200. It will take other types, but I won't get the performance that this puppy is capable of.

But, i'm glad I bought this processor with Hyper-threading for the price I could get it at. It even shows up as two seperate processors in the system properties. All I need is more memory to take full advantage of it's capabilities.

Once again, I really like WinXP!

[Sckott]

Crucial's the nads. If you wanna take the guesswork out of RAM, Crucial rocks. Especially for difficult mobos, PLEASE wait the extra 2 days to get it from Crucial. It's that fresh, tasty Micron chips that make the sitch so plesant.

I'm going from a 1.13 gig Athelon to a 3.2 P4 soon, Intel Mobo. Gonna git some 400mhz RAM, turn my older pup into a Mandrake box. I was fooling around with SUSE last night. :)

Hyperthreading makes life so damn much easier. Going for a case that lights up with LEDs and redundant cooling. It sucks being me.

[mcow1]

I agree, I almost always get my memory through Crucial. Well, I bought my kids a new 120GB HDD and a new geforce 5600 ultra video card this afternoon. Tomorrow a fresh install of XP corporate edition and a reinstall of everything else. Note to self, remember to find the stored mail files and export first.

[Grant]

My processor is just a 2.4GB 800MHz, but the hyper-threading sure is nice. Opens programs instantly.

Yup. I'm gonna get some Crucial RAM before the prices shoot up this Christmas, as i've been hearing. Then, i'm going for a DVD burner.

Both a friend and I are wondering if LiteOn makes a decent DVD drive. Any opinions?

[Sckott]

LiteOn- CDRW drive. Cheap, fast, powerful and VERY reliable. I'm hooked.

Ya know how many CDRW drive's I've been through for sick money and then a Lite on for $45 has really outperformed em all?!?

Pioneer 106 S slot drive for DVD. I'm sure they improved on it.

If you see a Philips-anything drive come towards you, act like it doesn't exist.

[Clay]

totally cool.
Congratulations.
I used to buy DRAM and there are a lot of DRAM web sites that will help you predict the price of memory and the daily changes. dramexchange or something like that in Taiwan
The Crucial web site will change the price at least 2x a month.
It goes up and it goes down. Long term average is 30% a year as I remember. Depending on capacity it could go up through December.
I picked up my 512MB PC133 Micron brand at Frys for $35 - glad I did now with prices going up. Crucial is owned by Micron.
Glad you go the Hyperthreading. Did you get the 875P chipset too?
Serial ATA drives are already coming down in price too...

[-=Rudy=-]

Grant: :thumbsup: :goodie: :cheers: :winkgrin: !!!

I am running 1G of memory right now, but will bump it up even more when I scrape some extra $$$ together. With this board, I've been having great luck with Samsung memory. Right now I'm working on a large photo (an 8x10 at 1200dpi) in Photoshop, and not having any problems. Photoshop's using over 500MB of memory right now.

It's really difficult to go back to my old Pentium Pro 200 (think Pentium II but with no MMX instructions) now. I use it with my older scanner. That thing sure feels slow now! Even with its whopping 192MB of memory. ;)

[Clay]

Hi Rudy,

When I run photoshop and close it my system still runs slow.
It is like I have a memory leak. Any ideas on how to fix this problem?
PIII 933, 512MB DRAM WinXP.
Thanks,
Clay

[-=Rudy=-]

Which Photoshop version? I'm running 7.01 and haven't run into that problem myself. I did notice that if I'm editing a huge file (like the aforementioned image), close it, and work on something smaller, it still uses up the same amount of memory. BUT...closing it and reopening it only takes a couple of seconds.

The only problems I really had were back when I was using Win98.

[Metralla]

Originally posted by Clay
It is like I have a memory leak. Any ideas on how to fix this problem?
Open up Task Manager and look at the Processes tab. Now go to the menu and change the "Always On Top" option so you can use it effectively with other programs. From View -> Select Columns, turn on the columns that relate to memory usage - particularly VM Size.

Now do some testing. Click on the VM Size column to sort the programs based on the amount of virtual memory they are using. Write down some numbers. Open PhotoShop and fiddle about for a while, then close it. Now look at the VM Size again.

Anything noteworthy?

Regards,
Geoff

[Grant]

Originally posted by Clay

Glad you go the Hyperthreading. Did you get the 875P chipset too?
Serial ATA drives are already coming down in price too...

I went with the 865P Northwood chipset. I have read many good reviews on it, and it appears to be very stable with the firmware update.

There are more mobos supporting Hyper-threading these days. I think there are five now, with two from Asus, and another one from Intel.

I'm not dipping into SATA until I learn more about how they function and how reliable they are. I'm all set for it when the time comes.

[Grant]

Originally posted by Rudy@A&MCorner
I use it with my older scanner. That thing sure feels slow now! Even with its whopping 192MB of memory. ;)

That is the *only* thing. I have to either download a 50MB file or order updated drivers/software for my scanner. The disc I have is only for Win98/ME.

My mext two major PC projects is to upgrade my wife's PC, if she wants, and to network the two machines.

[Grant]

Originally posted by Sckott
LiteOn- CDRW drive. Cheap, fast, powerful and VERY reliable. I'm hooked.

Ya know how many CDRW drive's I've been through for sick money and then a Lite on for $45 has really outperformed em all?!?

Pioneer 106 S slot drive for DVD. I'm sure they improved on it.

If you see a Philips-anything drive come towards you, act like it doesn't exist.

Looks like a lot of us are gonna buy those LiteOn DVD +/- burners!

Don't worry! I already know about anything with Phillips name on it!:hurl:

[-=Rudy=-]

Originally posted by Grant

I'm not dipping into SATA until I learn more about how they function and how reliable they are. I'm all set for it when the time comes.

Awhile ago I heard claims of "SCSI-like performance" with SATA, but from looking at the specs, there isn't much to be gained at all. Western Digital is the only one that offers faster drive speed (10,000 RPM)...all the rest are stuck in the 7,200 RPM rut. If the bus itself is more efficient than regular IDE, it may be worthwhile. My dream system would still have a pair of fast 15,000 RPM SCSI drives in it. :D

I tried to install the SCSI card that came with my scanner, as well as my Adaptec...something just wouldn't work. But that was also on my old Abit motherboard, which turned out to be compatible with not much of anything. If I could find a cheap enough SCSI card, I'd try that. I have no desire to get rid of an expensive, high quality scanner.

[JonUrban]

Congrats Grant! WinXP is actually pretty nice, eh? It's easy to trash it, but there is a lot to like.

Good luck with your "custom" box, you will never buy another pre-made PC again!

[Grant]

Originally posted by oblio98
Congrats Grant! WinXP is actually pretty nice, eh? It's easy to trash it, but there is a lot to like.

And, if a user wants to feel like they are using Windows 98/ME/2000 again, all they have to do is click a button. You will also experience a bit of a performance boost by doing so because the default XP interface is a recource hog.



Good luck with your "custom" box, you will never buy another pre-made PC again!

That's what i'm thinking. But, you can easily spend the same amount building your own as you could if you judt bought the same configuration from a PC manufacturer. You don't get any tech support or warranty by making your own box, but you can be your own tech support. After all YOU built it and know what went into it and how. And, the best thing is that you don't have to deal with all thre crap Compaq, Dell, Gateway, and HP put into their customized Windows.

I went the safe route and bought an Intel mobo and chip, but it WORKS! That's what I want. No surprises.

[-=Rudy=-]

I've actually noticed no difference in the response of my system using either the outdated Win98-style interface over the XP interface. That' what is nice about these modern computers. In fact, I run a little add-in program, StyleXP, that adds all different types of skins to XP. I like change. I hated being stuck with the same old boring Win95 look for all of these years.

[Grant]

Same here, Rudy. That's why I like the versatility of being able to make different cosmetic changes, using your own choice of pictures for the desktop, ect. I don't like patterns or simple colors. I use themes to match the seasons. I never understood people who prefer the default plain green backgrounds for Windows 98. Ugggh! I don't want to feel like i'm using a computer. I don't want to feel like someone just threw the OS together. WinXP let's you break away from that.

Since I need more memory, I do notice an improvement in speed and responsiveness in the Win98/2000 mode. But, I use the XP style. I just like it. Cluttersome? Maybe, but I like it.

[-=Rudy=-]

Grant: how many computers have you seen among co-workers, friends and family that still have the default silver/blue Windows colors after five years?? :D I've always thought that funny...and somewhat sad. I'm very much a color/mood person. I'm into a "cinnamon" red theme right now. Warm autumnal color. :)

[Grant]

I'm a color/mood person too.

Actually, I thought the old Win 95/98 default color was grey and puke green!:d Yup, many stilluse it, probably becuase many don't know how th change anything.

Businesses are the worst! At my workplace, they don't want you to have any fun at all. The administrators lock the desktop to that awful Windows wallpaper. They won't even use a screensaver. They won't stretch out the picture to the width of the screen. They center it with all that gawd-awful wallpaper.

I say, have some fun! Right now i'm using the default WinXP scheme, with the autumn desktop. But, when I get tired of it, i'm gonna customize it.

It's cool that Cool Edit Pro 2.1 and Adobe Audition lets you create your own color scheme. But, I noticed that the old CEP 2.0 had a "Barbie" color scheme. They got rid of it, possibly because of trademark infringement. But the colors were so wicked that I used them!

[Metralla]

Originally posted by Rudy@A&MCorner
how many computers have you seen among co-workers, friends and family that still have the default silver/blue Windows colors after five years??
Thousands.

Here's an even worse situation. Only those who have changed the appearance of their desktop from the default colour scheme will know.

How often in commercial software have you seen the Windows grey appear in a GUI inappropriately? Microsoft provides a way of using the colour scheme selected by the user (as does Motif and probably the Linux front-end), but some bozos have hard coded the "grey".

The reason the testing staff never noticed is - they have the test machines set to grey!

People have access to beautiful colour screens and thousands, if not millions, of colours - and they want to live with grey - drab, drab, drab.

On the last product I architected I insisted that all GUI test machines had non-default appearance to catch sloppy programmers.

Regards,
Geoff

[Grant]

Earlier this morn, I tried to change the default blue in the title bar, but it wouldn't let me, for some reason. Hmmmm...

[reidc]

Originally posted by Sckott
I'm going from a 1.13 gig Athelon to a 3.2 P4 soon, Intel Mobo. Gonna git some 400mhz RAM, turn my older pup into a Mandrake box. I was fooling around with SUSE last night. :)



Hey Sckott-
I've been dual booting SUSE 8.2 on an empty 20 gig for a while now. Seems to run well, and have most everything with it(as far as Linux goes). I have Crossover Office running, and have Office running as well, but have not had time to play getting any other Win Apps running- such as Wavlab and Monkeys Audio, and WinRar.

I have found a CD-R proggie that does cue files- but am not sure it does wav/cue, but only bin/cue.

It also had problems seeing my 80 gig drive on my GigaByte 8IHXP board with onboard Promise. I still can't get SUSE to see it as non-raid.

I booted the latest Knoppix CD last night again, and it sees everything, but I really need to figure out how to setup accounts and save them somewhere(Knoppix boots from CD only and doesn't touch any of your drives).


I'd like to try Libranet or the latest ELXLinux!


Chris

[-=Rudy=-]

Originally posted by Grant
Earlier this morn, I tried to change the default blue in the title bar, but it wouldn't let me, for some reason. Hmmmm...

That's one unfortunate thing about XP: the only three colors you can use in the title bar are the ones that come with the themes....blue, olive green or silver. That's one reason I started using styleXP, an add-in program. It comes with some nice styles, or you can download one from hundreds at a site like http://www.themexp.org . There is another program I tried out (styleBuilder) that lets you modify existing XP themes or create new ones...it's tedious work because there are many icons that are cued into the colors of the theme. (As one exercise, I tried to create a gold theme out of the standard XP silver...styleBuilder definitely has a learning curve. ;) ) Both of these are at the TGTSoft (http://www.tgtsoft.com) website and are $19.95 each. styleXP also lets you change the logon and boot screens as well, although I never had much luck with those. (I think there is a way to change the color of the logon screen from its default blue, but I haven't found it yet.)

[-=Rudy=-]

Interesting follow-up here. The problem with themes is that WinXP does not let you use "unsigned" themes. StyleXP is what enables this. There is also a free patch you can use to enable this, and then download themes of your choice for WinXP. Here's an article explaining it--all it does is replace one .dll file with a patched version that allows you to use any XP theme you'd like. This article links to detailed instructions to make it all work properly.

http://www.belchfire.net/article205.html