Help me build/upgrade a pc to meet my needs

kingaaa

Hi

I have a dell dimension 5000, pentium 4 - 3.00ghz - 1gb ram. It has a basic ATI graphics card, an Audigy sound card, and not enough usb ports! (I've got a hub but dont like it) I'm running XP SP3, with 2 x 320gb drives. I'm running a network through a Netgear ATA VOIP router to a D-link DIR-655 gigabit router.

Now here is a list of my networking,programming and connection requirements:


USB
3 external hard drives (freecom 1tb, seagate 500gb, buffalo nas 500gb)
1 x digital camera
1 x printer
1 x Native Instruments Rig Control 3
1 X mouse
1 X keyboard
would need a couple of spare usb ports for portable devices


Networking
1 x D-link DSM-330 media player (wired ethernet)
1 x D-link DSM-320 media Player (wired ethernet)
1 x Pinnacle showcenter media player (wired ethernet)
2 x wireless laptops

Programmes
I always have Utorrent running, I use Guitar rig 3, more often than not divx convertor is running, and I'm always transferring files between one drive to another.

As I use the pc for a lot of media viewing, I'm guessing I'd want a powerful video card and cpu as these media players are only as good as the pc running them. I'm getting sick of continuous hang-ups and slow running programmes. I'm not great on the technical side of things but I have installed audio cards, drives and I'm willing to get stuck in if its not too daunting.

Now I dont actually use the pc for gaming or viewing video, the nearest thing would be playing guitar through the rig kontrol while playing mp3's on media player.But more than likely there will be other programmes running in the background.screen is not important, the one I have will do and I have a set of studio monitors fo.r the sound.

What am I better off doing? Building from scratch or upgrading cpu, motherboard, ram etc..etc... , I would also like to keep XP, I have vista on the laptop and it can be an ache.Feel free to give any advice on parts, builders, on-line retailers.

Cheers

Slutmonkey57b

There are quite a few cheap p43 mobos that support 12 USB ports, BUT half of these will be internal connectors, which means you'll need a case with 6 usb ports (unlikely) or check if the mobo comes with an expansion bracket for the extra USB ports (they usually do, but not always.) Questions that spring to mind however are:
3 external hard drives? Why? I hope you're not doing your media storage on these because that USB connection is what's causing your choppy playback.
Frankly, you've got a hell of a lot of stuff plugged into this thing.

Programs slowing down etc etc is cured more often than not by good Windows maintenance. Defragging your hard drives, deleteing cache files, uninstalling junk you never use will all do more to help your day to day use than anything else.

The stuff you're running isn't CPU intensive apart from DivX converter - this will be alleviated once someone get up and running with a decent GPU encoder, which hasn't happened yet. In the meantime you want a Quad core if you're encoding stuff all day. Most of your bottleneck is disk intensive, but if you're streaming stuff from the USB drives, then you're wasting your time.

You haven't given us a budget dude. Build-it-yourself is exactly what your sort of requirments are for, but you need to tell us how much you're willing to spend.

As a guideline, I'd be looking at a Q9550 (recent price drop to ~€250), a Radeon 4870 or Nvidia GTX 260 (for the future upgrade to GPU encoders), 4 gigs of ram (you don't say if you're using 64-bit windows), and buy yourself some big fat 1tb *internal* or eSATA/Network (if you insist on portability) hard drives.

kingaaa

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

There are quite a few cheap p43 mobos that support 12 USB ports, BUT half of these will be internal connectors, which means you'll need a case with 6 usb ports (unlikely) or check if the mobo comes with an expansion bracket for the extra USB ports (they usually do, but not always.) Questions that spring to mind however are:
3 external hard drives? Why? I hope you're not doing your media storage on these because that USB connection is what's causing your choppy playback.
Frankly, you've got a hell of a lot of stuff plugged into this thing.

Programs slowing down etc etc is cured more often than not by good Windows maintenance. Defragging your hard drives, deleteing cache files, uninstalling junk you never use will all do more to help your day to day use than anything else.

The stuff you're running isn't CPU intensive apart from DivX converter - this will be alleviated once someone get up and running with a decent GPU encoder, which hasn't happened yet. In the meantime you want a Quad core if you're encoding stuff all day. Most of your bottleneck is disk intensive, but if you're streaming stuff from the USB drives, then you're wasting your time.

You haven't given us a budget dude. Build-it-yourself is exactly what your sort of requirments are for, but you need to tell us how much you're willing to spend.

As a guideline, I'd be looking at a Q9550 (recent price drop to ~€250), a Radeon 4870 or Nvidia GTX 260 (for the future upgrade to GPU encoders), 4 gigs of ram (you don't say if you're using 64-bit windows), and buy yourself some big fat 1tb *internal* or eSATA/Network (if you insist on portability) hard drives.

I think your right about the external drives, seems to be where most my problems lie.As for budget,I have'nt got a specific amount in mind-but I obviously dont want to break the bank.Sorry for sounding dumb, but are the processor and motherboard all the one unit? As this is a dell pc would any aftermarket ram suit? I know they have a habit of slightly modifying components so you can only buy from them.

uberpixie

kingaaa wrote: »

Sorry for sounding dumb, but are the processor and motherboard all the one unit?

2 seperate units with a heatsink/cooler on top of the processor.

kingaaa wrote: »

As this is a dell pc would any aftermarket ram suit? I know they have a habit of slightly modifying components so you can only buy from them.

The only issues you normally come across with Dell parts are the power supplies and motherboards: they use non standard power connectors on their power supplies and motherboards for SOME of their PCs not all. It varies from model to model.

Ram upgrades will not be problem, ram is dirt cheap atm.

You could add a little ram to your PC and get a 1 terabyte drive or two (they are around €90 a pop these days) and move and sort all your media on to the drives and use your externals for backups.

See how you get on, and if you still need more cpu: build a new rig from scratch and transfer over the internal harddrives. Then use the old as a spare media server or fro storing backups or what ever.

kingaaa

uberpixie wrote: »

2 seperate units with a heatsink/cooler on top of the processor.



The only issues you normally come across with Dell parts are the power supplies and motherboards: they use non standard power connectors on their power supplies and motherboards for SOME of their PCs not all. It varies from model to model.

Ram upgrades will not be problem, ram is dirt cheap atm.

You could add a little ram to your PC and get a 1 terabyte drive or two (they are around €90 a pop these days) and move and sort all your media on to the drives and use your externals for backups.

See how you get on, and if you still need more cpu: build a new rig from scratch and transfer over the internal harddrives. Then use the old as a spare media server or fro storing backups or what ever.

OK, I'll up the ram to 3-4gb,and I'll switch to internal drives.Seeing as I only have 2 drive-bays, what would the process be on transferring th operating system if I got 2 1tb internal drives?

B.T.W It's a windows 32bit system.

uberpixie

kingaaa wrote: »

OK, I'll up the ram to 3-4gb,and I'll switch to internal drives.Seeing as I only have 2 drive-bays, what would the process be on transferring th operating system if I got 2 1tb internal drives?

B.T.W It's a windows 32bit system.

Windows 32bit can only "see" up to 3.5mb of ram max. I would not bother upgrading from 3 to 4gig on windows 32bit. You will see no benefit.

With the OS: I would advise a clean install of windows. I would use the windows disk to partition a small 20 gig partition on you "main" harddrive for windows (you can do this very easily during the installation process). This is good as if you have to reinstall windows at a later date you only touch your "windows" partition, any other data on the 2nd partition will be untouched and accessable when windows is up and running again.

You will also need drivers for all your hardware which you install after windows is up and running. you can get these from the dell website and of course reinstall alll your applications.

Option B would be to buy imaging software such as Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image (use this myself) which you could use to clone your current windows install with all apps and transfer this image to the new harddrive. Downside is that you also clone any issues that windows may have been having as is.

Slutmonkey57b

If you're streaming video wirelessly from the hub, that could also be a cause of stuttering.

kingaaa

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

If you're streaming video wirelessly from the hub, that could also be a cause of stuttering.

All my video streaming is done via ethernet wired connections to the router.Would a better graphics card with more memmory imrove perfermance? would it matter? seeing as there could be three media players viewing video from the same drive at the same time I would have thought it would, but I'm not sure if the media streamers utalise the cpu more than the graphics card? Anyway, I'm just about to order a 1tb internal hard-drive and 2 gb of ram from Komplett.ie, but I'm not sure if I should order IDE or SATA? are they both compatible with my pc?

Slutmonkey57b

Your potential bottlenecks are as follows:

Media Storage - Getting the stuff off the storage
|
Decode - Getting it ready to be displayed
|
Export - Sending it out of the PC
|
Distribute - Sending it to your media player
|
Display - Sending it off the media player

M: You're using USB into the PC here. Big Bottleneck.
If you're doing HD content, you can get a GPU that does it. If you're running a lot of stuff off the same server (encoding for example), you're increasing disk usage and causing stuttering. Getting a GPU which takes over decoding will help, and you can get one for ~ 70 quod (radeon 4650/4670.) ** You must also be using a media player on your pc that passes the decode to the graphics card, windows won't necessarily do it automatically.
E: You're sending things out of the PC via ethernet. Check it's gigabit ethernet IN the pc, as there's no point having a gigabit ethernet router if you've got a 100Mbit port on the back of the Dell. Windows Network Connections will tell you. From the look of the Dell spec sheets, it seems you've only got 100Mbit but *don't* quote me on that without telling me a full model number. Better yet, use your service tag on the Dell site and it'll tell you for sure.
You've got a gigabit router. If the media players are all wired into it, you're ok here. If they're connected wirelessly to the router, which is then wired to the PC, you've got a potential problem.
D2: Are you sending formats the media players understand? If not, they could be doing conversion at the last minute, which will lead to stutter.

IDE and SATA are both compatible with those Dells. Buy SATA as IDE is going out the window. Better yet, open up the PC and see which ports are empty!

kingaaa

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Your potential bottlenecks are as follows:

Media Storage - Getting the stuff off the storage
|
Decode - Getting it ready to be displayed
|
Export - Sending it out of the PC
|
Distribute - Sending it to your media player
|
Display - Sending it off the media player

M: You're using USB into the PC here. Big Bottleneck.
If you're doing HD content, you can get a GPU that does it. If you're running a lot of stuff off the same server (encoding for example), you're increasing disk usage and causing stuttering. Getting a GPU which takes over decoding will help, and you can get one for ~ 70 quod (radeon 4650/4670.) ** You must also be using a media player on your pc that passes the decode to the graphics card, windows won't necessarily do it automatically.
E: You're sending things out of the PC via ethernet. Check it's gigabit ethernet IN the pc, as there's no point having a gigabit ethernet router if you've got a 100Mbit port on the back of the Dell. Windows Network Connections will tell you. From the look of the Dell spec sheets, it seems you've only got 100Mbit but *don't* quote me on that without telling me a full model number. Better yet, use your service tag on the Dell site and it'll tell you for sure.
You've got a gigabit router. If the media players are all wired into it, you're ok here. If they're connected wirelessly to the router, which is then wired to the PC, you've got a potential problem.
D2: Are you sending formats the media players understand? If not, they could be doing conversion at the last minute, which will lead to stutter.

IDE and SATA are both compatible with those Dells. Buy SATA as IDE is going out the window. Better yet, open up the PC and see which ports are empty!

I dont have any spare ports left in the pc, I put the drive out of my last pc into this one with some programmes I saved,so It would mean replacing a 320gb with a 1tb rendering the 320 redundant, but I dont mind if performance will be improved.

It is indeed only a 100mb output on the pc, the reason I got the gigabit router was for futreproofing more than anything else, is there any way of upgrading the pc to 1gb or would it make a difference?

I dont really mess about with HD stuff, I find the whole codec thing a bit frustrating and my plasmas are only HD ready although since I got the D-Link DSM-330 media streamer I've been converting a lot of AVI files to Divx as its a Divx-connected machine.All the converting is done pre-viewing, so whatever is getting streamed to the media players is the finished product, I think the problem is trying to watch a video file while the pc is working on something else. I definitley think an internal drive will improve this but there still might be a need for a more powerful processor.Having said that, I really am not very savvy about processors, to me when my processor says 3.00ghz and some of the ones reccomended say 2.8ghz it sounds like I have a powerful enough unit, but like I said - I'm not qualified enough to give such an opinion!

Slutmonkey57b

You've got 3 external drives to get rid of, so get as much storage as you can get. If you want to cheat, and you don't mind voiding warranties, you could crack open your external 1tb drive and take the hard drive out of that, stick it in the PC. Usually external drives are a normal SATA or IDE 3.5" disk stuck onto a USB converter. If you've no dedicated 3.5" bays left inside the pc, then just cheat and leave the hard drive sitting on a piece of paper in a 5.25" bay.

Upgrading the network port on the PC - you can get cheap gigabit ethernet cards which will plug into the motherboard for about €15.

Chip speeds are somewhat confusing - they've been basically static between 2.5-3.5 Ghz for a few years now. The difference is in the architecture - each new chip launch is faster than the previous one at the same speed, and the cache.

Frankly, you only really have 2 major problems:
1: USB storage.
2: You're making that Dell do a hell of a lot of work.

Most people that have a streaming media PC don't have a hugely powerful machine, but they have a dedicated machine doing it. You've got one small Dell home desktop machine streaming video to three locations and you're using it for everything else too. Frankly, it's doing a good job keeping up! Do the simple steps first - get your hard drives either in the PC or in an external box that has a network port instead of USB. Then do some good windows maintenance - Delete, Defrag, Declutter. If you don't use it, uninstall it. If you've got 300 pieces of crap in the taskbar, get rid of em. Defrag that machine, and defrag your storage drives. Then come back to us about building a new box.

kingaaa

I ordered a 1tb internal drive and an extra 2gb ram, I'll get rid of the usb 1tb and 500gb drives, and I'll keep the 500gb nas drive.I'll update the post of any improvements.

Cheers

kingaaa

Slutmonkey, any tips on cleaning up some of the crap thats accumilated on the pc over the years? I've de-fragged the drives, removed lots of programmes and done disk clean-ups but there still seems to be a lot on it.

PaddyTheNth

kingaaa wrote: »

Slutmonkey, any tips on cleaning up some of the crap thats accumilated on the pc over the years? I've de-fragged the drives, removed lots of programmes and done disk clean-ups but there still seems to be a lot on it.

As he says, if you don't use it, remove it.

I'm of the opinion that registry/cache cleaning etc is bugger all use unless you're having conflicts trying to install/update. Take a good look at any services/programs which are starting automatically when you log on. Autoruns (free from microsoft/sysinternals) will give you full visibility to everything which runs at startup, and you can disable them there unless they're related to programs which you use regularly.

Your new internal harddrive will make a huge difference imo, and the ram will help nicely too. I reckon you'd also see a big improvement from a dual core processor if you're multitasking...a cheap core2duo would really increase your capacity compared to that P4 which would be struggling a bit under serious multitasking.

Slutmonkey57b

kingaaa wrote: »

Slutmonkey, any tips on cleaning up some of the crap thats accumilated on the pc over the years? I've de-fragged the drives, removed lots of programmes and done disk clean-ups but there still seems to be a lot on it.

Just keep at it. Your friends in this endeavour are the Add/Remove programs control panel, typing "msconfig" in the "run" part of the start menu, and good old Windows explorer. msconfig is a great tool - the two tabs you're interested in are "services" and "startup". Services shows you a list of all the crap that runs 24/7 in the background on your machine - you can hide all the standard Microsoft services, so it'll only show you things that other applications have installed - if you're not sure what's what on this list, you can always google it and find out. Startup shows you what starts up every time you boot your machine - you might be surprised how much stuff you never use shows up here. Autoruns is a great tool but a little bit complicated for the novice. In msconfig, you're checking stuff on and off, so if you're not sure, you can switch stuff back on again with no problems.

CrapCleaner is a good tool to have - cleans out a lot of junk from all over the place and fixes your registry too. Paddy is right, cleaning out the registry and old cache/temp files won't make a massive difference, but every little improvement adds up.

kingaaa

I've used msconfig before, and I've already deleted all the un-used programmes in add/remove programmes.I would say the planned improvements will make a difference, when I'm in town next monday I'm also going to shoot into maplins and get a gigabit ethernet card, and also a 4 port usb card so I can do away with the hub all together.

Slutmonkey57b

Badly behaved applications may not show up in the Add/Remove apps list - which is where you take a troll through your Program Files directory and start eyeballing stuff. Improving your hardware is all about going for a big fat "all in one go" upgrade - fixing a windows install is a "little bit here, little bit there" experience.

kingaaa

I've installed the extra 2gb ram and the new 1tb hard drive, I also installed a gigabit network card and a 5-port usb card.Ithere is a very noticable change in performance, everything seems to work a lot quicker without any hang-ups so far, and video performance seems a lot smoother on the network media players.Now I have a gigabit network card, a gigabit nas drive and a gigabit router should I think about up-grading my ethernet cables? Another predicament I found myself in was having to remove my soundblaster card to free up the pci slot.Not a major hassle but I cant seem to remember how to re-activate the on-board sound on the pc, anybody any idea how to do that?

PaddyTheNth

kingaaa wrote: »

Not a major hassle but I cant seem to remember how to re-activate the on-board sound on the pc, anybody any idea how to do that?

Check that its enabled in the bios - go into Setup when the computer is starting up and you'll see it in there somewhere.

Glad to hear things are running more smoothly.

What category of ethernet cable do you have, and how long has it been in place?

It'll generally have its category printed on the side.

IIRC Cat. 5 (don't think you can buy it any more) or 5e is generally ok for everyday use, but for your sort of bandwidth-intensive streaming I guess you could consider looking at Cat 6 or 6e. As long as you don't have cables crossing over each other you shouldn't need to worry about shielding.

kingaaa

not quite sure about the cables, the long ones that are routed through the walls and downstairs do have some print on them, but they dont say wether they are cat5 or 5e.I think I might have to replace the one that goes to the D-link DSM-330 streamer just to get the full potential as this machine has a gigabit port.The other 2 are standard 100mbps so there probably is'nt much point in changing them (actually 1 of them is streaming wireless now). Thanks for the reminder about the bios set-up, I think I can remember disabling it when I put the soundcard in.