Time to build a new audio PC recs please

sts9fan · « **on:** 25 Mar 2008, 01:05 pm »

It is time for me to upgrade my clunker to a lean mean machine. What quite cases are people using? I am not going to spend over $150 for a case and I want lots of bays. I am thinking about this guy and maybe upgrading the case.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3645858&CatId=333

What do people think?

Kris

bpape · « **Reply #1 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 01:32 pm »

Motherboard has 4 drive SATA RAID which is good. The case I'm not familiar with. I and a lot of other people I know use the Antec Sonata III case. Very easy to work on, variable speed fan, very quiet but beefy power supply, etc.

Bryan

WGH · « **Reply #2 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 02:33 pm »

I'll second the Sonata case suggestion. I use an original Sonata for my main machine, it is compact with a lot of room inside.

Are you a gamer? The power supply is very important when a computer has a couple of SLI graphic cards, 4 hard drives, and 2 GB memory. I would find out more about the Ultra 500-Watt XVS PSU. I have always used power supplies from PC Power and Cooling.

Philistine · « **Reply #3 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 02:40 pm »

FWIW
I used Tiger Direct in the past, along with Newegg. Had a problem with Tiger 4 years ago and have switched all my online purchasing to Fry's and Newegg - who are both infinitely superior in terms of customer support/delivery. Tiger entice you with what appears to be good deals, but then don't back this up with service/quality. When I Googled Tiger problems I discovered that my issue was not unique and they have a lousy reputation, Googling this morning seems to indicate that they haven't improved. You may be lucky with them.

Newegg and Fry's have been excellent vendors.

sts9fan · « **Reply #4 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 02:42 pm »

cool that case seems perfect.

Thanks

Kris

WGH · « **Reply #5 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 02:54 pm »

I would add MWave to the list of great suppliers.
http://www.mwave.com

bpape · « **Reply #6 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 03:02 pm »

I'll 2nd mwave.com That's about the only place I buy from any more. Good prices, good customer service, good selection, etc.

I've only ever had 1 piece come from them with a problem. Called them up, they sent out a replacement the same day with expedited shipping and included the RA/shipping tags in the package for the damaged piece. No hassles at all.

Bryan

Folsom · « **Reply #7 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 05:06 pm »

Tiger Direct is not that great of a place.

Mwave or Newegg are the best. Their customer service alone is worth a few extra dollars.

Do not buy ANY motherboard, video card, ram (unless it has lifetime warranty), power supply, or case, without reading a review on it, especially the motherboard.

sts9fan · « **Reply #8 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 05:38 pm »

Ok case ordered. So do any of you add sound damping material to your case? What brands do you like? I am hoping to get this guy quite enough to be in my listening room. If that does not happen no biggie but it would be cool.
I have ordered for Tiger Direct five times with no issue. I have a burn me once policy. They have been good to me so I am not about to forsake them.

Kris

WGH · « **Reply #9 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 06:22 pm »

I don't use any sound insulation anymore, it actually makes the pc run a little hotter so the fans may kick up a notch in speed defeating the reason for using the insulation.

The Antec power supplies, processor and motherboard chipset fans are very quiet. The biggest noise producer is the graphics card, so if you don't want a loud pc don't buy an overclocked card. It all depends on how you plan to use the computer. For a HTPC you can probably still get fanless graphic cards, just make sure they will work for high definition. For gaming you will need a card with a fan.

When shopping for a motherboard I always start with ASUS. If they don't make what you need then start looking around at what other manufacturers offer. Whatever you decide, don't buy by price, the cheapest will always give you problems.

bpape · « **Reply #10 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 06:40 pm »

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3571894&SRCCODE=WEBINKPLP&CMP=OTC-INKTOMI

I just put this motherboard in the new house server(AMD Chips) - RAID 0, 1, and 0+1 only though.

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA24462

If you want Asus and Intel

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA24213 - will do RAID, 0, 1, 10, 5 on the southbridge and 0, 1, or JBOD on the secondary controller. If you are going to game with it, there are dual slot SLI variants of this board too.

Bryan

Folsom · « **Reply #11 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 06:49 pm »

Actually the loudest potentials outside of ridiculous fans , are hard drives and CD-roms. Look around for a hard drive that is not loud. Western Digital has been making some nice ones these days where as no one else in my opinion has made anything worth touching for awhile. Plextor drives are the best, and very quiet compared to any generic drives. If the price really is too high the NEC drives are pretty good too.

Regardless the fact is that you probably will not want a CD-rom drive running while you do anything though.

You can make a case silent with a silent kit too, reducing certain noises, but once a drive turns on that is not a good quiet one well it does not matter.

This place has all the silencing fans and whatever you could ever want.

http://www.frozencpu.com/

sts9fan · « **Reply #12 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 07:03 pm »

That Asus board look sweet. Wish I understood half the stuff.

I think I may try it out. What is the deal with the secondary controller etc?

darrenyeats · « **Reply #13 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 07:07 pm »

Personally I decided to avoid the RAID route. Instead I have two SATA disks, one is the main disk and the other one is a backup which is synced to occasionally.

Reason #1 simplicity.

Reason #2 failure scenario. Using RAID you are more open to issues in event of failure. In short, RAID writes can get corrupted despite battery powered write caches etc. You are always vulnerable when there is one entity you are writing to. There may be many disks in a RAID array but it is one logical entity, and it can get screwed by a power failure, or any number of other types of failure, at the wrong time. There are safety mechanisms but it isn't fool proof. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID for more info.

Using two disks:
When there is a failure whilst writing to the main disk, the other disk is guaranteed to be in a good state (it wasn't been written to, cache empty etc). Conversely when there is a failure whilst syncing to the backup disk I know that the main disk is in a good state (it wasn't being written to, cache empty etc). If the disk controller itself, the power supply, the motherboard, the disks, the wall electricity supply or any other component fails, I can remove at least one of the disks and place it into a normal computer without any recovery procedure necessary and access my files without breaking into sweat. The key is that I am guaranteed that one of the disks is being used read-only at any one time. (Clearly...I don't do stuff except syncing when I'm syncing!

)

BTW in industry no kind of RAID (not even RAID mirroring) is sufficient for DR, that is disaster recovery, purposes. Backups are written to tape. What I do is the best I can think of without buying a tape backup machine or burning optical discs.
Darren

bpape · « **Reply #14 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 07:11 pm »

If you can get everything you need on 1 drive, that's a perfectly logical scenario. Now with 1TB drives, that is more of a reality for a music server.

As for the hard disk noise, as long as you get a GOOD case with good moutings with rubber bushings and avoid 10k RPM drives, they're really not much of a noise issue - not nearly as much as video card fans, loud power supply fans, etc.

Bryan

ricmon · « **Reply #15 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 07:45 pm »

One small suggestion.
If this is a music only server try to get a mobo with on board video it will go a long way to reduce noise. Also a fan less power supply and only one internal hard and optical drive (less clutter inside the case will promote better air flow) and a fan speed regulator to keep down fan noise. Also pretty cases are always desirable but a large case with few internal components will allow you to run fans at lower rpm (120mm in size) to keep temps down. This will also allow for the use of passive cooling for the cpu as well.

sts9fan · « **Reply #16 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 08:00 pm »

Quote

Personally I decided to avoid the RAID route. Instead I have two SATA disks, one is the main disk and the other one is a backup which is synced to occasionally.

Thats exactly what I do now. I actually have three drives and one I keep at my parents house. It is really very simple. Once a month I back up.

Kris

JEaton · « **Reply #17 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 08:26 pm »

Quote from: sts9fan on 25 Mar 2008, 01:05 pm

It is time for me to upgrade my clunker to a lean mean machine.

What kind of system are you building?

How will it function as an "audio" PC?

sts9fan · « **Reply #18 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 08:52 pm »

It will be a audio pc because its only function currently will be audio. It MAY be used for video such as movies but not straight away. It will not be used for gaming, web browsing, audio circle posting or anything else. Strictly multimedia.

kris

JEaton · « **Reply #19 on:** 25 Mar 2008, 09:36 pm »

Quote from: sts9fan on 25 Mar 2008, 08:52 pm

It will be a audio pc because its only function currently will be audio. It MAY be used for video such as movies but not straight away. It will not be used for gaming, web browsing, audio circle posting or anything else. Strictly multimedia.

Is it to be used only to store multimedia files, or will it be used for playback, or both?