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General Hardware General hardware related questions. |
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Thanks. Like said, budget is less relevant than hardware that just works. That means, I don't plan to buy a EUR 1000 system, but it's also not the case that I care about 10 or 20 EUR more or less. I need to have a system of quality components, that is guaranteed to work (from the hardware perspective): I want to learn FBSD, not have to worry about hardware that conflicts/doesn't work under FBSD. |
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That helps. A reasonably powerful mainstream computer still costs between $800 and $1000 (I'll count EUR and $ that same for the moment). Below $800, you have to cut corners somewhere (usually the case or power supply), and above $1000 you pick up more specialized features, like dual processors, ECC/Reg memory, multiple network adapters, or even more mundane things like BlueRay burners, TV tuners or really powerful video cards. Note that this price range does not include the monitor or any fancy keyboards or mice.
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Thanks again DrJ: i am in your dept
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IMO I seriously doubt the validity of the first link you posted, all I see there is some idiot whining about his motherboard not working, without any background info whatsoever, he doesn't even seem to be trying to get it working.
He's probably just the kind of guy that boots Ubuntu, sees something doesn't work, blames the hardware, and goes off making useless posts on the internet. If you read further in the thread, you see that there are also people who run Ubuntu on the P5Q mainboard just fine. Also see this thread: http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=2546 In short, the P5Q should work just fine. Quote:
The reason there is no nVidia 64 bit driver is because some kernel features are either missing or incomplete, the nVidia people feel that implementing these features is not their job (Rightly so) and are waiting for the FreeBSD people to implement these features. For more information see: http://wiki.freebsd.org/NvidiaFeatureRequests
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UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. |
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With some other shops like Computerland or MyCom ... It can sometimes be a different story ...
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UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. |
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So on 32 bits, you can use either "nv" or "nvidia." On 64 bits, you can only use "nv" if you want an nVidia card. I'm not trying to endorse nVidia, BTW. It is just what I have used and what I know. Quote:
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To the OP -- if all of this has you confused and frustrated, by all means let CS make one for you. There is more to putting together a computer than buying good parts and assembling it. You also have to test it, and parts do fail. Most are OK, but finding subtle problems can be difficult. Let a custom builder do it for you. There is also the issue of cable routing. I'm fanatical about it, but many people simply stuff them in. That has consequences for case air flow, cooling and reliability. A well-chosen case helps, but it takes a while to get the hang of it. I looked briefly at the computers CS's company offers, and they seem at first glance to be quite reasonable. None of the standard builds include discrete video cards, but that is trivial to change. You would also get one that he would guarantee (right?) would work for FreeBSD. |
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Ok, for the video I will stick with Nvidia then, since I have had good experiences with it in the past. The Asus P5Q-mainboard has been advised by Carpetsmoker as a solid choice too, and only for me to find out is the ethernet chip compatibility, as you wrote. That's homework for tomorrow (it's 19.08/7.08 PM here now, and her majesty my wife has just made a formal announcement that dinner will be served to the dogs if I don't report below in 10 minutes ). In the meantime I've googled a lot on SATA-II (sata300, as advised in this thread), but I think that would be overkill for my intentions, so I will just stick with the Seagate 7200.11 disk(s). Pfoei, it seems I'm finally approaching the end of this (horrible) search for a new PC. That's really, really, a relief. I understand quite a lot of FBSD (for a noob, keep that in mind, please ), also because of the excellent FBSD-book I have, but when it comes to hardware specs and do's and don'ts my brain suffers horribly. So I would like to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for so generously helping me out: thank you (!) In return, I will soon gladly answer any FBSD-questions you have: please note january 1, 2035 as the date to contact me with any questions you might have on FBSD () Thank you |
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That all looks fine. One comment, which I hope does not muddy the waters too much. You could still get a motherboard with a Q35, and add a video card for the XP box. You then would have the Intel video and its associated driver for FreeBSD, and the horsepower for gaming on the other computer. Everything else would be the same, and that might be good enough. It would save you $120 or so.
On cases and power supplies, I like the Antec Solo and Seasonic and Corsair models. The Solo enables you to build a quiet computer, with well-routed cables, quite easily. It is a bit snug, and conservative in style (which I like, actually) but it is overall a good choice. In the US you can often find them on sale or as refurbished units (which are perfectly OK). I don't know if you have that option. Seasonic and Corsair supplies in the 400-500W range should be fine. Seasonic makes the supplies for Corsair, so it is mainly a difference in features. Detachable cables are very nice, since the only cables you have to manage are those you need. Neither of your computers should consume that much power unless you use a second high-performance video card or a huge disk array, which it does not sound like you will do. |
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That's true -- I have old HP and IBM workstations (dual CPU Presontias) that I love. HP in particular makes great products in this space. They do tend to be costly, but the parts quality is outstanding, and they will outlive us all.
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For power supplies check 80plus.com site and get a high efficent one.
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religions, worst damnation of mankind "If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened." Linus Torvalds Linux is not UNIX! Face it! It is not an insult. It is fact: GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not UNIX”. vermaden's: links resources deviantart spreadbsd |
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It's me again
So, I'm this far away from jumping from a bridge: my my, what a horror it is to pick hardware So, it's almost wrapped up, except for the PSU. Earlier, I already decided to follow your recommendations to buy Seasonic, so that's not the question. The question is: how much watt? The config so far is: - Intel CD E8400 - Asus P5Q-E - 4 GB Kingston Ram (2x2) - Arctic Freezer cooler - Creative Audigy sound card - Geforce 9600GT - Seagate 7200.11 750 GB (SATA) - 1 DVD-rom - 1 DVD-writer - 8 zillion all in one card-reader incl. floppydrive - LPT-card - Extra USB-adaptor (to get most of the 12 USB-ports on the mobo to be accessible from the outside) So, I am in doubt whether or not the Seasonic S12II 430W will do? The problem is, the guys over at the computer store remain that it is sufficient (they say this will use 300W), but I tend to (strongly) disagree. I've input as much as possible in one of those online 'wattage-calculators', and that one says that if I later extend the system with 3HDD's (RAID), put in 'some slack' for future extra PCI-cards(2, for example, an extra NIC and an extra whatever), and take into account the aging factor of the PSU (seems to be less efficient over time) of 25% (recommended according to the site), I arrive at 616W Now, two things are important here: 1. I have no clue what I am doing when it comes to hardware, and: 2. I have absolutely no clue what I am doing when it comes to hardware. And, maybe, as nr 3, I shouldn't be trusting these 'website watt-calculators', but, then again, see points 1 & 2. So, with the above components and taking into account 'your average future additions to the system', do you all think 430W will do? Will it be the 616W the site said? Or can I suffice with 500W I'm almost there, could anybody perhaps tell me what it the wisdom to do here? Thank you - again (!) - very much in advance PS1: I'm not really somebody who says 'if I need a bigger PSU later, I'll buy it then'; I'd rather make sure the system is ok right now, as to avoid double costs. PS2: I need a holiday break now because of all the endless hours that have gone into this PS3: the site that calculates the watts I used is: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp |
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The 430W unit should be OK, but I'd go with about 500W to be safe. It probably will be coasting, but that's fine (as long as you stay in the power range where the supply is efficient).
A couple of other comments: overall the hardware looks good. I'd personally use the on-board audio, but check to see that it is supported. The Creative cards have a bad reputation for drivers, but I've not used them in years, so can offer no specific advice. There is one other detail you should check: the nVidia driver ("nvidia", not "nv") had issues with using 4GB memory, though this is reputedly fixed in the 177.70 driver. The old work-around was to enable memory remapping in the BIOS, but the BIOS has to support this feature, and not all motherboards do. I *think* ASUS has it, but you should download the manual to check. Again, the new driver reputedly fixes the problem, but I would want to be safe if I were buying a new motherboard with 4GB memory. |
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Integrated Intel HDA does not do the job?
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Get WDC Black series drive (640GB for example) or Seagete 7200.12 with 1 platter 500GB series. Quote:
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~45W max for CPU (TDP says 65W but people reported that it uses about 35-45W at most) ~8W max for RAM ~10W max for DVD ~10-15W max for HDD ~100W max for 9600GT To sum up it will be about 200-250W max usage, so you need 350-450W PSU. PCU gets maxumim efifcency at half of their power, for example if you get 430W, you will get highest PSU efficency at abou 215W usage. Quote:
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religions, worst damnation of mankind "If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened." Linus Torvalds Linux is not UNIX! Face it! It is not an insult. It is fact: GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not UNIX”. vermaden's: links resources deviantart spreadbsd |
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Ok, so actually you are saying that website with its 616 Watt is rubbish. I suspected that already, and I was also more or less 'drifting' towards the 500W, even 'though its twice the cost of a 430W (). As to the sound: the main reason is that my experience with onboard sound is that as far as quality of the output is concerned it doesn't go far beyond the 'bleep' of my first 286 (). DSP doesn't sound anywhere near a separate Creative sound card, in my experience. I checked the memory remapping: the Asus-board supports that. Thanks again: appreciated |
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Listen to Vermaden, too. I've seen rumblings about the Seagate drives, but I've not been in the market recently. The last two builds I did I used mirrored 500GB WD drives. They have been fine so far. What case do you intend to use? |
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So just when I thought it was almost finally done, this nightmare of picking hardware, this message about the HDD arrives BUT: I appreciate your warning very much (!) - Thank you Carpetsmoker has also suggested a HDD, the Western digital Caviar 500GB 16MB Raid Edition, which seems to be completely different from the 'normal' WD retail HDDs (of which I am not too fond). Too bad, because I have sworn by Seagate for many, many, years (in fact, there's one thing I have always said: all things are discussable, but the HDDs need to be Seagate). I will dive in which other HDD to choose then, tomorrow. As to your other points: 1. Integrated HDA: as I just wrote in reply to DrJ's post: its my experience that integrated audio doesn't do Digital Sound Processing very well, so I thought, lets just take a separate audio card (I'm a bit of an audio freak ). 2. DVD-rom + DVD-RW: I've been told DVD-RW will die faster when you also use it for ROM only. 3. PSU: thank you, but taking into account then 'to be on the safe side' as DrJ wrote, 500W seems the smart thing to do? Thanks again Vermaden |
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I will listen to Vermaden, yes I will As to the case, I've picked an 'Antec New Solution NSK4000 EC'. Its not a well thought out choice, its actually a 'I don't care what the case looks like, so have it be cheap choice' Actually, my wife wants a desktop case (I need two PCs), but desktop cases don't seem to be around anymore |
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