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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 4:40 pm 
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john-r wrote:
I misled you in not pointing out that I routinely backup to an external WD Passport drive.


You had mentioned that somewhere else... :D

john-r wrote:
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Does having the "storaged" files on a slower storage drive affect the speed with which programs ,which run those files & which are on the RAID 0 drives, run these files? If not, then agreed, I do not need the WD Velociraptor.


The simple answer is yes, of course. But then, it also depends on the data. A video won't play any faster because you have it stored on a SSD RAID 0 array. The difference in time between loading a single picture from a regular hard drive and a SSD is too small to be perceived by the human eye.

The idea is that you use the larger hard drive (but slower, although slower here is very relative when talking about modern hard drives) to store large files (like videos and pictures) that don't really need ultra-fast access speeds. There is no use in having the fastest computer in the world if you then have no space to store your data.

john-r wrote:
Furthermore, given that I routinely backup, is there any great advantage to having a separate "storage" drive?


One thing has nothing to do with the other. The idea is to use the large capacity 'storage' drive to store large volumes of data that isn't frequently accessed. You then backup *both* that drive and the SSD array to the external hard drive.

john-r wrote:
Also, is there any advantage of partitioning the RAID 0, for example by putting all Game programs on one partition? That is what I have done with my current config. I currently store data + programs + OS on my WD Raptor RAID 0 with a separate partition for Games.


Personally I don't think you gain anything by doing this, and can, in fact, lose, if you get to the point where you need more space for either your OS partition or Games partition. The space available is there, but on the 'wrong' partition.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 4:51 pm 
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Thanks a lot Jorge. I think that answers (& confirms in some instances) all my doubts.

Quote:
The idea is to use the large capacity 'storage' drive to store large volumes of data that isn't frequently accessed.


I presume the goal here is to not "overtax" the main drive.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:12 pm 
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Kind of. Windows has a nasty habit of growing uncontrollably these days, with all the updates, side-by-side assemblies, restore points and what not. If you keep your larger data files on a separate high capacity drive you vastly decrease your chances of eventually running out of space on your main OS drive.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:21 pm 
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I am due a major system build/upgrade just about now, but I'll be putting off as long as I can. Like you Jorge I rely on my system for my livelihood and I cannot face the disruption at the moment. (however we are in one hell of a recession over here and theres not much doing at all, so maybe it is a good time)

Bulding the hardware is easy, migrating all my applications and settings is a nightmare I can do without. Nearly all of my work releted apps require activation, I am totally against software piracy but activation is a pain in the arse. Whenever I change hardware everything needs re-activating and most Vendors take days to respond.

Again like Jorge I tend to go for the High End stuff, I need at least two identical video cards to drive Four Monitors. This time however I am looking for a board that will support three , I have two spare LCD panels and I want to attach at least another one.

My current system has six hard drives installed in the system case, Most of these are purely backup images of the main drives in case of a hard drive failure. I agree with Jorge there is no substitute for regular backups, to both internal and external storage.

I have just bought two Netgear 1tb ReadyNas devices and have attached a LaCie 1tb USB drive directly to each of these for backup. I intend to have all my data files stored centrally on the NAS devices, so that they can be accessed from either my main system or my laptop, or indeed any other PC anywhere in the world if I wish. I don't envisage problem with the speed of the NAs devices as I will only be accessing data files from them. OS and applications remaining on fast internal drives.

This will allow me to remove the redundant drives from my system case although I have never had any problem with cooling, in saying that its always bloody cold where I live, we have just been snowed in for three weeks.

Just the other week, I replaced two hard drives in my system case, simply disconnected them and swapped them over.
About a day later I experienced the dreaded Gigabyte Cold Boot problem, when switched on from cold the system constanly cycles power on and off only finally booting and running fine after 10-20 attempts.Warm boots no problem at all. After much swapping and testing of components. I finally traced it to the system PSU going bad, This was the first component I tested and it checked out OK,it was putting out all the correct voltages but just would not boot from cold after I changed the two hard drives.

I previously wished you well with your new system Jorge, I also had an idea there would be much stress setting it all up, while trying to carry on with your day to day work.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 6:04 pm 
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gjbth wrote:
Bulding the hardware is easy, migrating all my applications and settings is a nightmare I can do without. Nearly all of my work releted apps require activation, I am totally against software piracy but activation is a pain in the arse. Whenever I change hardware everything needs re-activating and most Vendors take days to respond.


This is why I am so dead-against forced activation stuff. Windows activation has bitten me more than once before, and it really is a major annoyance! Like with you, it is the rebuilding of the previous work environment in the new system that is the most time consuming process. That is also the reason why I waited until I could both change the hardware and upgrade to Windows 7.

gjbth wrote:
Again like Jorge I tend to go for the High End stuff, I need at least two identical video cards to drive Four Monitors. This time however I am looking for a board that will support three , I have two spare LCD panels and I want to attach at least another one.


Have you heard about ATI's Eyefinity'salready? A single card can power up to six 30" displays.

gjbth wrote:
I previously wished you well with your new system Jorge, I also had an idea there would be much stress setting it all up, while trying to carry on with your day to day work.


Tell me about stress! After struggling with the eSata My Book disconnecting itself regardless of being connected to the Marvell or JMicron controllers, I'm currently struggling with the new system either randomly freezing or rebooting, and trying to identify the culprit.

At first I thought it was a driver problem (either drive controller drivers or the Acronis SnapIn drivers, which are now the latest versions) but currently I am not so sure. In the begining the system was running fine overclocked to 4.2 Ghz and passing all the stress tests. Then it started hanging or spontaneously rebooting, which led me to reduce the overclock to 4 Ghz (again the system run Prime95 all night without any errors).

I am now down to 3.2 Ghz (same BCLK as for 4 Ghz, so the RAM is running at the same speed and is therefore not a factor) to figure out once and for all if it is an overclock or a driver problem. So far the system hasn't crashed again, which is mixed news: being an overclock problem, at least I now *know* the reason and how to fix it, on the other hand it puzzles me that the i7 920 could do 4.2 Ghz just a week ago and now can't even do 4 Ghz reliably without increasing the CPU core voltage (and load temperatures) to unacceptable high levels.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 6:11 pm 
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I had a spontaneous reboot problem quite a while ago & it turned out to be the power supply which was crapping out. Go figure.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 6:47 pm 
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Location: Durham, England
Quote:
Have you heard about ATI's Eyefinity's already? A single card can power up to six 30" displays.


Thanks for the Link Jorge, never heard of these before. I cannot find a price for them here in the UK though. They seem to be targeting gamers with these cards.

Would save a lot of problems running multilple cards. I can run two PCie 16 cards no problem, then I try to add in a third PCI card of the same Chipset and model number then I generally run into driver problems.

I'll keep up on the Eyefinity for reviews and a release date. Six 30" monitors sounds nice though. :)

Oh, I've found out why I've made a few typo's lately. I bought a replacement Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse, looked good in the box, crap when you unpack it. Anway I've just found out every now and again it just ignores you. I can type a sentence and half the letters are missing.

Have you checked your power supply re your rebooting problem, I have a 1000w unit in my system. You seem to have a lot of high power drain components there. Even with a possible 1000w I found my Gigabyte motherboard and OCZ memory very picky when it comes to PSU's.

Thanks again for the link

Best Regards

gjbth


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 6:56 pm 
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John-r

The ATX power supply maintains a low voltage to the mainboard even when the Pc is powered down, as long as it is still connected to the wall outlet.
I had no problems unless I switched the power off at the wall outlet, thereby cutting off this voltage. When I switched it back on I had to wait for it cycling power on/off 10 - 20 times before the mainboard would accept the power good signal. Is this the problem you had?.

Searching the web for a solution, sent me on a wild goose chase, as most people claimed it was a known problem with the type of Gigabyte motherboard I have.

Best Regards

gjbth


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 7:05 pm 
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gjbth:

I think I ran into this problem after power outages (which we experience a lot here). It's been a while. So that might make sense. Also, after enough tries, the system would boot OK. Sounds similar to your experience.

My power supply finally gave out.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 7:13 pm 
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Yep, sounds similar. The power outage would be the same as switching off at the wall outlet.

I swapped my PSU out before it finally died and took some other components with it. We live and learn, at least we know what it is if it happens again.

Best Regards

gjbth


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 7:29 pm 
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gjbth wrote:
Thanks for the Link Jorge, never heard of these before. I cannot find a price for them here in the UK though. They seem to be targeting gamers with these cards.


Try HERE, they have a Shop Now link on the right side.

gjbth wrote:
Oh, I've found out why I've made a few typo's lately. I bought a replacement Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse, looked good in the box, crap when you unpack it. Anway I've just found out every now and again it just ignores you. I can type a sentence and half the letters are missing.


Funny you mention this. My Logitech wireless keyboard (MX 5500) has been doing the same recently (missing key strokes). Not to mention that it has no Num Lock key (!!). The mouse that came with this combo (the Logitech Revolution Mx) is a GREAT mouse... the only problem being that Logitech mice these days seem to last roughly one year before their micro-switches go bad and start interpreting single clicks as double clicks.

And I think you all know what I think about Logitech's Setpoint software (and all Logitech software in general)...!

gjbth wrote:
Have you checked your power supply re your rebooting problem, I have a 1000w unit in my system. You seem to have a lot of high power drain components there. Even with a possible 1000w I found my Gigabyte motherboard and OCZ memory very picky when it comes to PSU's.


The PSU is a brand new modular LC Power 850W (Metatron series). The old system has a LC Power Hyperion (700 W) PSU, which was already more than capable of handling all the stuff I have in the new PC.

This said, I did have a look and had a ah-ah! moment when I noticed the two PCI-E modular connectors were both empty - that is, until I realized the nVidia 8800 GT was actually connected to a fixed PCI-E connector.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 7:33 pm 
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gjbth wrote:
I swapped my PSU out before it finally died and took some other components with it.


Oh, that actually happened to me once with an el-cheapo PSU. I turn the system on and a huge spark flies out from the PSU, together with a loud bang. That faulty PSU took the motherboard and all PCI cards with it to motherboard heaven.

No more el-cheapo PSUs for me after that.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 8:51 pm 
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Checked out the shop link Jorge, I must be missing something as i cannot find the Eyefinity listed anywhere.

I have just seen that its displayport connectors as well, would mean replacing all my LCD panels unless there is some kind of convertor available.

recentley I found a local HI-Fi shop which had a stock of brand new ultra thin Hitachi 32" monitors on offer for £249.00
http://www.richersounds.com/product/lcd ... a-ut32mh70

They actually had them on for £230.00 just before christmas. a couple of them together would be nice eh. :) They are meant to connect to a HD Video source , but they have PC connection as well.


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 3:15 am 
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Sorry, only realized now that the Shop Now link takes you to a site in the US, not the UK.

The ATI HD 5870 has two dual link DVI outputs plus a single Display Port output, making it capable of driving three monitors at once.

As for the 32" monitors, hmm... 'real' 30" monitors, like the LG W3000H or the HP LP3065, have a native resolution of 2560x1600 - unfortunately they are also rather expensive (but worth every penny, IMO).

In the mean time it appears I solved my random lockup/reboot problem: seems it was being caused by the Load Line Calibration setting in my BIOS being set to 'Auto'. LLC was meant to improve vDroop (voltage to the core of the CPU drops when under load, and LLC was supposed to keep it constant) but in the end it just overloaded the CPU when going from load to idle. According to AnandTech's own words, the symptoms were something like this: " Imagine our confusion as we desperately struggle to understand why our system is Prime95 stable for days yet continues to crash under absolutely no load". Exactly what was happening to me.

As a bonus, because of the voltage drop under load, temperatures with Prime95 running at full steam are now much lower than before - and the system is 100% stable (knock on wood). Overclock is back to 4 Ghz. :D

Before figuring out that the culprit was the LLC setting, I also suspected the Marvell controller (or its Windows driver) responsible for the two PATA drives in this system. As a result, I stripped the 1 TB WD drive from the external My Book USB enclosure (the drive was sitting on a shelf because its power supply had gone bad when switching systems), removed the two PATA drives (a 80 GB Barracuda and a 120 GB WD) and the 150 GB Raptor from the new PC, and replaced them all with the 1 TB drive. I then disabled the Marvell controller in the BIOS because I didn't need it anymore.

Even though the Marvell controller turned out not to be responsible for the system crashes, I now have more storage space, better case airflow, and less power consumption. :D

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 7:57 am 
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Pleased you sorted that Reboot problem :D , hopefully thats the end of it.

Quote:
As for the 32" monitors, hmm... 'real' 30" monitors, like the LG W3000H or the HP LP3065, have a native resolution of 2560x1600 - unfortunately they are also rather expensive (but worth every penny, IMO).


I know they are not real PC monitors, but the build quality is outstanding.
They had one rigged up playing some war game and the image quality and colour was excellent. It was deceiving,I did not realise the resolution was so low until I checked the specs. No good for CAD work but they seemed fine to hook up for video.

I have Dell 22" widescreens at the moment, and I'm impressed with these, I hate to think how much their 30" models are.

I have my eye on a couple of Dell 24" at the moment, a shop down the road has had them on the shelf for a while now and has reduced the price quite a bit.


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