RE: OT: Motherboards

["Brian G. Reynolds" <brian.g.reynolds@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Mark,

 

Can't help much on this but today I fitted a "Creative soundcard, with SP/DIF and _front-panel_ connection plate" to a Dell PC for a customer, or should I say I did not fit a Crea.....

 

This Dell mini Tower P700 PC had the type of 5 1/4" drive bay's that click into place after the drive (CD-ROM) has been fitted to an adaptor plate, the problem being the Creative panel does not have fixing holes on the underside only on the edges as per a normal attachment, I did actually fit it but had to bodge some old drive rails we had lying around. neither Dell or Creative could help me with a solution.

 

I've had an ABit M/B with a 333MHz Socket 370 Celleron CPU for a couple of years now and that has served me well and still does.

 

I've now had dealings with eBuyer.com, I ordered some RAM on Thursday PM and it arrived on my doorstep Friday AM! (although as I was not in the couriers took it back with them and it was the following Tuesday till I eventually got hold of it, top marks eBuyer. I have also had a colleague buy a complete system from them, he is also chuffed.

 

I recently built my latest PC that has an AMD 1.2GHz CPU running W2K Server and I am well pleased with it, slow starting but nice when it gets there.

 

A question,  will they ever be fast enough?

 

B.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Harrison [mailto:Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 07 June 2001 18:34
To: 'ukha_d@xxxxxxx'
Subject: [ukha_d] OT: Motherboards

Hi all,

 

I'm vaguely thinking about my "Next PC". This will be primarily to run Games. The current PC moves into "node zero" and acts as an MP3/deCSS server.

 

Trying to think about specifications, and I'd appreciate comments on the following spec. This is _not_ someone's offered product, but what I think I need:

 

- AMD Athlon 1.3Gz (or 1.5Gz???)

- 256Mb RAM (or should I go for more???)

- Abit motherboard with ATA-100 (NON RAID) on board (or should I wait for the dual-Athlon boards to come out???)

- 20Gb (ish) IBM 7200rpm HDD for the Operating System ONLY

- 40Gb (ish) IBM 7200rpm HDD for applications (Bear in mind I'll be running a separate server for MP3/DeCSS stuff)

- 10/100 WOL "el cheapo" NIC

- Region-free(!) DVD player (Any manufacturers I should go for or avoid???)

- nVidia MX2-based 32Mb RAM video-card, with some kind of TV-out for DVD replay (help????)

- Creative soundcard, with SP/DIF and _front-panel_ connection plate!

- 300W PSU

- Tower case

- Some kind of TV capture card for "Tivo-like" things???

 

 

And for the convergence requirements....

 

- For local replay, ie games soundtracks, I'll be running the sound out through my "study system" which is a Quad 406/44 pair driving Rogers LS4a speakers

 

- I'd probably want to run the set of DVD's that are ripped to the _server_ hard disk (all of which I own on DVD!!!!) to play through in the bedroom as follows.

 

- Files ripped, de-CSSed, and stored on the server. Replayed on the "new PC", using 10switched -BaseT for the data stream. IS THIS VIABLE???

 

- From the new PC, initially, it would be analogue and TV-out, passed through a KAT5 transmitter-receiver pair, into the telly/amp.

 

- The main amplification for that system is a Shearne Phase 2 Integrated, bi-wired with a Shearne Phase 3 power amp, drivign Linn Keilidhs. The telly is a Loewe Xelos.

 

- MP3-wise, I'm on the "Graham list" for a DDAR, which would sit in the bedroom, directly accessing the files off the server, over the ethernet, so the new PC wouldn't get involved except to play MP3's IN the study.

 

- In the longer term, I'm after a Meridian 56x and a Chord DAC1500. However, I've still not made up my mind about the order of purchase ;-) At that point, I'd loop the SP/DIF from the new PC over a _long_ cable into the bedroom, and route the audio through the digital inputs on the Meridian. (By the way, those two would co-exist by all digital sources going into the Meridian, and the front pair feed going from the Meridian as a PCM stream into the Chord DAC.) Can I run a PCM stream over SP/DIF over 5 meters or so???

 

Regards,

 

Mark

 

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