John Stumbles wrote:
On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 11:23:05 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
1/. ALL my data of any importance live on a separate server. This
changes every 5 years or so.. Currently its a linux engine on a cheap
low power ATOM bard with no video, no screen, no CD-ROM bugger all RAM
and tow of the biggest disks I could get in. Half of one is my data, and
my wife's, the other half is full of videos we record off air. The other
is a backup of our data mirrored every night plus backups of any other
desktop machines or other machines I add to the list. I think it cost me
£200 or so.

That's what I'd like to do. I did have my raid, mail, webserver and usb-
attached external drives on an old PC in a cupboard but that died (while
I was away on holiday, trying to access it remotely, natch :-() and I
haven't got round to replacing it (got the pre-loved box sitting here for
it, just lacking the Tuits). A low-power box would be nice but £200 is a
chunk to spend on another box.

Have you considered a Qnap NAS? They are interesting beasts with 1,2 or 4
drive bays in the SoHo versions. They have gigabit LAN, up to four external
USB ports and eSATA. They provide most of the functions that you are after
not news or web, but third party add-ons may cover that - since they are a
Linux server with a plug-in architecture. They are also low power and can,
depending on model, have up to 12GB of storage. More if you make use of the
eSATA and USB.

http://www.qnap.com/Products.asp

Have a look at the TS112, 212 or 412. Prices range from £150 to £365 if you
shop around. The 212 is probably the price "sweet spot".

Huge wrote:
On 2011-03-13, Steve Firth wrote:

depending on model, have up to 12GB of storage. More if you make use of the

Did you omit a couple of zeroes? Or perhaps you mean TB?

Dang yes TB. It's been a long day.

On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:16:58 +0000, John Stumbles wrote:

On that basis I'm thinking this one from Novatech might be OK
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...BB-6404GA.html I note
that it can do 8G RAM but only comes with 2, as 2*2G modules using up
both slots, so if I wanted more I'd have to see if they'd do it at time
of sale otherwise I'd be throwing away the existing 2G modules to
install 4G ones.

Just phoned Novatech. Useless fsckers won't sell me their box with 8G,
I'd have to shell out c. £80 on 8G and throw away the 4G supplied.

Just spoke to http://www.woc.co.uk who seem to start around the £400 mark
for anything like what I want :-(

Somebody mentioned Chillblast. Their "£799 or lower" category wasn't
encouraging.

Still looking....

--
John Stumbles

Never believe anyone who claims to be a liar

In uk.comp.os.linux John Stumbles wrote:
On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:16:58 +0000, John Stumbles wrote:

On that basis I'm thinking this one from Novatech might be OK
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...BB-6404GA.html I note
that it can do 8G RAM but only comes with 2, as 2*2G modules using up
both slots, so if I wanted more I'd have to see if they'd do it at time
of sale otherwise I'd be throwing away the existing 2G modules to
install 4G ones.

Just phoned Novatech. Useless fsckers won't sell me their box with 8G,
I'd have to shell out c. £80 on 8G and throw away the 4G supplied.

Just spoke to http://www.woc.co.uk who seem to start around the £400 mark
for anything like what I want :-(

Somebody mentioned Chillblast. Their "£799 or lower" category wasn't
encouraging.

Take a look at Lambdatek, their 'PC Designer' is how I have bought my
last two or three systems and has worked well for me:-

http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/pcdesigner.htm

--
Chris Green

In article , scribeth
thus
In uk.comp.os.linux John Stumbles wrote:
On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:16:58 +0000, John Stumbles wrote:

On that basis I'm thinking this one from Novatech might be OK
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...BB-6404GA.html I note
that it can do 8G RAM but only comes with 2, as 2*2G modules using up
both slots, so if I wanted more I'd have to see if they'd do it at time
of sale otherwise I'd be throwing away the existing 2G modules to
install 4G ones.

Just phoned Novatech. Useless fsckers won't sell me their box with 8G,
I'd have to shell out c. £80 on 8G and throw away the 4G supplied.

Just spoke to http://www.woc.co.uk who seem to start around the £400 mark
for anything like what I want :-(

Somebody mentioned Chillblast. Their "£799 or lower" category wasn't
encouraging.

Take a look at Lambdatek, their 'PC Designer' is how I have bought my
last two or three systems and has worked well for me:-

http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/pcdesigner.htm

Odd lot them .. they just lost a sale here as they don't advertise a
phone number. Yep could have spent time writing it all in a mail but a 3
minute phone call would have resulted in a £1500 odd sale..
--
Tony Sayer

In uk.comp.os.linux Daniel James wrote:
It's true that the i3 CPUs have more L2 cache than the Athlon IIs, and
that their clock speeds are higher than the EE version of the Athlon IIs
.. but the Athlons are cheaper and are true quad-core rather than dual
core with hyperthreading. I think my money's still on the AMD parts
where power consumption is important.

This test pits the i5 661 against the Athlon II X2 240e (energy efficient).
Notice how it beats the Athlon by 40% at idle power, and 7% at peak:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...1,2516-13.html

OK, so it's an i5 not an i3, but I think the difference is that in the
i3/i5 series the GPU is on the processor module and so inside the TDP,
while Athlon boards need a separate (potentially onboard) GPU.

The i5 also happens to trounce the AMD chips at pretty much every test, in
addition. Though it's a rather unfair comparision for performance as
there's about 100 quid price difference (and Intel mobos are a fair bit more
expensive too). i3 has a similar power consumption to i5, but at about 30
quid more than the X2 245e (+mobo tax).

Theo

On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:26:42 +0000
tony sayer wrote:

In article , scribeth
thus
In uk.comp.os.linux John Stumbles wrote:
On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:16:58 +0000, John Stumbles wrote:

On that basis I'm thinking this one from Novatech might be OK
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...BB-6404GA.html
I note that it can do 8G RAM but only comes with 2, as 2*2G
modules using up both slots, so if I wanted more I'd have to see
if they'd do it at time of sale otherwise I'd be throwing away
the existing 2G modules to install 4G ones.

Just phoned Novatech. Useless fsckers won't sell me their box with
8G, I'd have to shell out c. £80 on 8G and throw away the 4G
supplied.

Just spoke to http://www.woc.co.uk who seem to start around the
£400 mark for anything like what I want :-(

Somebody mentioned Chillblast. Their "£799 or lower" category
wasn't encouraging.

Take a look at Lambdatek, their 'PC Designer' is how I have bought my
last two or three systems and has worked well for me:-

http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/pcdesigner.htm

Odd lot them .. they just lost a sale here as they don't advertise a
phone number. Yep could have spent time writing it all in a mail but
a 3 minute phone call would have resulted in a £1500 odd sale..

It seems that you just assemble it online. Simple, I would think,
especially if you know what components you want.
--
Davey.

On 14 Mar 2011 10:45:18 GMT
John Stumbles wrote:

On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:16:58 +0000, John Stumbles wrote:

On that basis I'm thinking this one from Novatech might be OK
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...BB-6404GA.html I note
that it can do 8G RAM but only comes with 2, as 2*2G modules using up
both slots, so if I wanted more I'd have to see if they'd do it at time
of sale otherwise I'd be throwing away the existing 2G modules to
install 4G ones.

Just phoned Novatech. Useless fsckers won't sell me their box with 8G,
I'd have to shell out c. £80 on 8G and throw away the 4G supplied.

Novatech were really good at one time but over the last couple of years have
gone seriously downhill - grew too big and forgot who the customers were.

--
Will J G

On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:25:08 +0000, tinnews wrote:

http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/pcdesigner.htm

My problem is I don't know a Sempron from a Celeron from a stick of
Celery, and I don't have a spare lifetime to read up on it all.

--
John Stumbles

How odd of God But not so odd as those who choose
To choose the Jews A Jewish god, yet spurn the Jews

John Stumbles wrote:
On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:25:08 +0000, tinnews wrote:

http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/pcdesigner.htm

My problem is I don't know a Sempron from a Celeron from a stick of
Celery, and I don't have a spare lifetime to read up on it all.

Neither do I these days.

That's why I usually ask here..

In uk.comp.os.linux John Stumbles wrote:
On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:25:08 +0000, tinnews wrote:

http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/pcdesigner.htm

My problem is I don't know a Sempron from a Celeron from a stick of
Celery, and I don't have a spare lifetime to read up on it all.

Try starting he
http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/index.htm

Either leave all the boxes to get the cheapest system they'll offer, or
select what you want and leave the rest at 'cheapest'. It'll give you the
cheapest system that fits the criteria. They you can tweak components
further if necessary.

For a midrange spec, I don't think you can go much wrong with an Athlon 64
X2/X4 or a Core-something. I wouldn't bother with a Pentium, Celeron or
Sempron unless extra-cheap is the order of the day or you really don't care
about performance (eg it's a wordprocessing machine, when a nettop might be
more sensible).

Rough performance range of Co
i7 (fastest/most expensive) i5 Core2Quad i3 Core2Duo (slowest)
For Athlon, larger numbers are faster. Take all this with a Very Large
pinch of salt!

Theo

Theo Markettos wrote:
In uk.comp.os.linux John Stumbles wrote:
On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:25:08 +0000, tinnews wrote:

http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/pcdesigner.htm
My problem is I don't know a Sempron from a Celeron from a stick of
Celery, and I don't have a spare lifetime to read up on it all.

Try starting he
http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/index.htm


Barfs if you don't want windows.

John Stumbles ) wibbled on Monday 14 March 2011
23:55:

On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:25:08 +0000, tinnews wrote:

http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/pcdesigner.htm

My problem is I don't know a Sempron from a Celeron from a stick of
Celery, and I don't have a spare lifetime to read up on it all.


Know the feeling. 3 jobs ago, we tested random mobos and designed our own
spec of PC for the student labs - that was the last time I really knew my
processors - even down to P4s were nice except for "Prescott" cores, because
they were fat, hot and inefficient (did Intel know something???).

And knew the chipsets and the graphics cards. And the hard disks.

When I bought my laptop this year, I had to redo the research a bit - got it
down to i3/5/7 (mobile) on general popularity basically, then a few
benchmarks and Wikipedia showed there was bugger all difference between i3
and i5 (not enough to pay money for IMO) and i7 was stupidly priced. So that
was that. As it was a laptop most other bits were very contrained anyway
onced I'd picked a maker.

I shoved loads of RAM in (6GB - I need occasionally lots of virtual
machines) and I've been very pleased. It is not "an ultimate machine" but I
think it is near the top of the sensible curve.

But yes, it's bloody hard work to pick all the components by hand unless
your day job involved being surrounded by people who do that and you trust
them enough to copy whatever they say is decent at the time.

Then your knowledge is useless in a year or less.

My basics, for what it's worth:

Mobo - anything made by Asus is reliable IME over 7 years experience of
them. I prefer to avoid NVidia chipsets though for historical reasons.


Intel i3 - decent enough. I also like AMD historically but out of touch with
current offerings.

Get good RAM and lots of it (Crucial/Kingston/Corsair)

Disks - Western Digital, Seagate in that order. There are always subchoices
though.

Video - anything NVidia based generally works decently. Choose by level and
get a decent make of card - again, Asus are decent as are Sapphire and
Gigabyte - maybe XFX too.

Audio - on board unless you need super dooper.

Network - whatever is onboard (Marvell, Broadcom often) unless you need kick
arse gig, then Intel Pro 1000 range.

Power supplies - better to get something decent that won't catch fire(!) - I
prefer to spend a little more on something overpowered, quiet and of a named
brand with decent reviews. I've had a good run with Enermax.

DVD - LiteOn, Plextor

Case - actually a serious issue. Crap cases make for noisy PCs and a good
quiet case with considered cooling[1] is worth a lot.

You can have a "russian army radio" case that sounds like Igor the Skeleton
masturbating in a metal locker while waiting for its MIG engines to warm up
- or you can have something you can hardly hear in a dead quiet room - and
many choices in between.

[1] Most cases have no designed cooling - they whack a few fans in odd
convenient holes and hope. You need to see inside a well made 1U server to
see "designed cooling" with actual air paths. This is less of a problem if
your components are all low power - you are winning by default. If you are
hard core and want hot components, it becomes much more of a challenge. IME
quiet cases for cooler setups invariably have lots of foam inside (a
masturbating russian skeleton will have no foam). Really good quite cases
have rubber mountings for the disks, non rattly cover fixings and various
other tweaks. And nice fans, not cheap ****e.

Cheers

Tim

--
Tim Watts

In article , lid says...
Try starting he
http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/index.htm


Barfs if you don't want windows.


Not here it doesn't - just don't select an operating system at the
outset and it doesn't blink.

--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:19:16 +0000, Theo Markettos wrote:

Either leave all the boxes to get the cheapest system they'll offer, or
select what you want and leave the rest at 'cheapest'. It'll give you
the cheapest system that fits the criteria. They you can tweak
components further if necessary.

Their system builder/pc designer seems broken: if I specify 8G RAM
(either as 8000 or 8192 MB) and leave everything else set at cheapest it
says "ERROR! unable to find a suitable Memory with Size = 8000 (or
whatever) for this spec". :-(

--
John Stumbles

This message has been rot13 encrypted twice for added security

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 09:08:05 +0000, John Stumbles wrote:

[...]

Their system builder/pc designer seems broken: if I specify 8G RAM
(either as 8000 or 8192 MB) and leave everything else set at cheapest it
says "ERROR! unable to find a suitable Memory with Size = 8000 (or
whatever) for this spec". :-(

Presumably because the cheapest MB's won't work with 8GB?

Chris

--
Remove prejudice to reply.

In uk.comp.os.linux The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Theo Markettos wrote:
In uk.comp.os.linux John Stumbles wrote:
On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:25:08 +0000, tinnews wrote:

http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/pcdesigner.htm
My problem is I don't know a Sempron from a Celeron from a stick of
Celery, and I don't have a spare lifetime to read up on it all.

Try starting he
http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/index.htm


Barfs if you don't want windows.

No it doesn't, you just don't buy an OS with the system, I've done
that two or three times now.

--
Chris Green

On 14 Mar 2011 10:45:18 GMT, John Stumbles
wrote:

Still looking....

If you care to build your own there is an excellent set of reviews of
all the current cpu's (Intel & AMD), a decent selection motherboards to
take them, as well as all the peripherals you need, and a decent bit on
a solid state disk drive to use as a fast boot device - now reasonably
affordable, in the current Computer Shopper mag, well worth a read for
its decent explanation of the options. They trade off options for both
budget and super-duper machines.

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/computershopper

I'm planning on building a budget one for my wife - which will easily
out-perform my current machine - like this...

Budget (all inc. vat)
CPU Athlon II X2 250 £45
Mobo MSI MicroATX 890GXM-G65 £97
RAM 4GB Kingston KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G £43
Case Antec Mini P180 £89
PSU 650W Antec TruePower £70
HDD 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 £41
Graphics On board mobo £0
Wireless TBD, say £15
Total £400

And my new one could be this
CPU Intel Core i5-250K (sandybridge) £180
Mobo Asrock H67-GE/HT Micro ATX £89
RAM 8GB Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 £90
Case FractalDesigns R3 £92
PSU TBD, say £70
HDD 2TB 2 x Samsung Spinpoint F3 £82
SSD 64GB Kingston V+100 £116
CPU cooler TBD
Graphics On board mobo £0
Total £719

Phil

On 13 Mar 2011 17:40:14 GMT, Steve Firth wrote:

John Stumbles wrote:
On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 11:23:05 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
1/. ALL my data of any importance live on a separate server. This
changes every 5 years or so.. Currently its a linux engine on a cheap
low power ATOM bard with no video, no screen, no CD-ROM bugger all RAM
and tow of the biggest disks I could get in. Half of one is my data, and
my wife's, the other half is full of videos we record off air. The other
is a backup of our data mirrored every night plus backups of any other
desktop machines or other machines I add to the list. I think it cost me
£200 or so.

That's what I'd like to do. I did have my raid, mail, webserver and usb-
attached external drives on an old PC in a cupboard but that died (while
I was away on holiday, trying to access it remotely, natch :-() and I
haven't got round to replacing it (got the pre-loved box sitting here for
it, just lacking the Tuits). A low-power box would be nice but £200 is a
chunk to spend on another box.

Have you considered a Qnap NAS? They are interesting beasts with 1,2 or 4
drive bays in the SoHo versions. They have gigabit LAN, up to four external
USB ports and eSATA. They provide most of the functions that you are after
not news or web, but third party add-ons may cover that - since they are a
Linux server with a plug-in architecture. They are also low power and can,
depending on model, have up to 12GB of storage. More if you make use of the
eSATA and USB.

http://www.qnap.com/Products.asp

Have a look at the TS112, 212 or 412. Prices range from £150 to £365 if you

Looks pretty damn good, and previous model got a 5* best buy review 18
months ago
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/netwo...4/qnap-ts-219p

Phil

In uk.comp.os.linux The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Theo Markettos wrote:
Try starting he
http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/index.htm

Barfs if you don't want windows.

Just leave OS as 'None selected'. It Works For Me (TM).

(I think also that they don't assemble PCs you design there, you just get a
bag of bits.)

Theo

In uk.comp.os.linux John Stumbles wrote:
Their system builder/pc designer seems broken: if I specify 8G RAM
(either as 8000 or 8192 MB) and leave everything else set at cheapest it
says "ERROR! unable to find a suitable Memory with Size = 8000 (or
whatever) for this spec". :-(

Hmm... so it does. I think the issue is that they only allow one memory
'product' per selection, where a product is either a single or pair of
DIMMs. But they don't sell DDR2 in more than 2GB DIMMs, so the max DDR2 RAM
is 2x2GB. And the designer gets itself in knots as it doesn't seem to work
out that 8GB requires DDR3, and thus to make appropriate choices based on
that.

If I manually go into the designer and choose 8GB DDR3 to start with (you
can choose components in any order), then the second cheapest mobo (Intel,
the cheapest AM3 board doesn't give any processors for some reason), then
there's a range of processors to pick from.

On Mar 12, 6:47*pm, John Stumbles wrote:

I did have my raid, mail, webserver and usb-
attached external drives on an old PC in a cupboard but that died (while
I was away on holiday, trying to access it remotely, natch :-()

That reminds me of a similar situation. Sat on a beach in Greece when
my home server sent me an SMS alert that a drive had failed. SSH'd in
from my phone and was able to fix it with fsck, remount and we're back
up-and-running before my girlfriend even got back with the ice creams.
I was so impressed with what modern technology can do. She wasn't
though... ;-)

Mathew

In article , Theo Markettos
wrote:
This test pits the i5 661 against the Athlon II X2 240e (energy
efficient). Notice how it beats the Athlon by 40% at idle power,
and 7% at peak: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-clarkdale-
core-i5-661,2516-13.html

Interesting article ... but have you read the comments? It would appear
that there's some pro-intel bias, here ...

Note especially the first comment, which starts:
| couldn't have picked a worse AMD pick than the x2 550 to use as
| a comparison. Its essentially a X4 cpu that didn't pass the tests
| and sold as an x2, efficient it is not ...

The i5 also happens to trounce the AMD chips at pretty much every
test, in addition. Though it's a rather unfair comparision for
performance as there's about 100 quid price difference (and Intel
mobos are a fair bit more expensive too).

Indeed. Also -- a point that I consider important but you may not --
many AMD CPUs and most support chipsets allow the use of ECC memory,
which you can't use with intel unless you go for a Xeon.

Cheers,
Daniel.

In article , Phil Addison
wrote:
Budget (all inc. vat)
CPU Athlon II X2 250 £45
Mobo MSI MicroATX 890GXM-G65 £97
RAM 4GB Kingston KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G £43
Case Antec Mini P180 £89
PSU 650W Antec TruePower £70
HDD 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 £41
Graphics On board mobo £0
Wireless TBD, say £15
Total £400

You absolutely do not need a 650W PSU in that system. The components
will draw so little power (less than 200W) that the PSU will not even
be operating in its designed power range, and the efficiency will be
awful.

The i5 system you're spec'ing probably also only needs 250-300W.

Cheers,
Daniel.

On 13/03/11 13:40, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sat, 12 Mar 2011, Bruce Stephens wrote:

Tom Anderson writes:

On the flip side, the 64-bitness of the registers only gives a speed
boost to code that specifically needs to manipulate wide operands -
cryptography, scientific computing, perhaps some SIMD-based graphics
operations. For most use today, 32-bit+PAE should be faster than
64-bit. And yet, the market has moved almost entirely over to 64-bit.
Grr.

IIUC the 64 bit instruction set has lots more registers (not just
bigger ones), and that's a significant benefit for lots of applications.

It has more *architectural* registers - ones that a program can refer to
explicitly. But CPUs since the 90s have had more actual registers than
that, and have used register renaming to supply them to the program.
That has never been perfect, and it hasn't made compiler writers' lives
any easier, but it means the impact of adding more registers to an
architecture is not as great as you might think.

Someone must have done a properly-controlled benchmark of 32-bit vs
64-bit on the x86 at some point (same hardware, same source code, same
compiler). It doesn't seem like it would be hard to do. Does anyone know
of one?

Off the top of my head, I remember reading ones by Phoronix at the time.

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 09:35:27 +0000, Chris Whelan wrote:

Presumably because the cheapest MB's won't work with 8GB?

Then it should return the cheapest kit that *does* work with 8G!

--
John Stumbles

Bad artists borrow
Great artists steal
Igor Stravinsky

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own

I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work, then
what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to isolate one
duff component, or know enough to sort out a configuration/compatability
problem.

--
John Stumbles

Who's *really* behind all these conspiracy theories?

On 15 Mar 2011 14:26:09 GMT
John Stumbles wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own

I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work, then
what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to isolate
one duff component, or know enough to sort out a
configuration/compatability problem.


My feeling exactly. Years ago, I bought a Heathkit computer, but they
gave the guarantee that they would fix it if it didn't work. They knew
what was in it; build-your-own sounds great, but if you're not a
full-blown computer geek, and it doesn't boot, then what?
--
Davey.

On 15/03/2011 15:05, Davey wrote:
On 15 Mar 2011 14:26:09 GMT
John wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own

I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work, then
what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to isolate
one duff component, or know enough to sort out a
configuration/compatability problem.


My feeling exactly. Years ago, I bought a Heathkit computer, but they
gave the guarantee that they would fix it if it didn't work. They knew
what was in it; build-your-own sounds great, but if you're not a
full-blown computer geek, and it doesn't boot, then what?

I'm reading this in uk.d-i-y, not uk.get-somebody-else-to-build-it :-)

(I can build computers, but haven't bothered for a long time, and that's
not solely due to using laptops for a while)

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:10:34 +0000
Clive George wrote:

On 15/03/2011 15:05, Davey wrote:
On 15 Mar 2011 14:26:09 GMT
John wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own

I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work,
then what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to
isolate one duff component, or know enough to sort out a
configuration/compatability problem.


My feeling exactly. Years ago, I bought a Heathkit computer, but
they gave the guarantee that they would fix it if it didn't work.
They knew what was in it; build-your-own sounds great, but if
you're not a full-blown computer geek, and it doesn't boot, then
what?

I'm reading this in uk.d-i-y, not uk.get-somebody-else-to-build-it :-)

(I can build computers, but haven't bothered for a long time, and
that's not solely due to using laptops for a while)

Well pardon me for trying to add something to the conversation.
--
Davey.

On 15/03/2011 16:04, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:10:34 +0000
Clive wrote:

On 15/03/2011 15:05, Davey wrote:
On 15 Mar 2011 14:26:09 GMT
John wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own

I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work,
then what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to
isolate one duff component, or know enough to sort out a
configuration/compatability problem.


My feeling exactly. Years ago, I bought a Heathkit computer, but
they gave the guarantee that they would fix it if it didn't work.
They knew what was in it; build-your-own sounds great, but if
you're not a full-blown computer geek, and it doesn't boot, then
what?

I'm reading this in uk.d-i-y, not uk.get-somebody-else-to-build-it :-)

(I can build computers, but haven't bothered for a long time, and
that's not solely due to using laptops for a while)

Well pardon me for trying to add something to the conversation.

You're obviously reading something into my post which isn't there.

Davey wrote:
On 15 Mar 2011 14:26:09 GMT
John Stumbles wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own
I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work, then
what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to isolate
one duff component, or know enough to sort out a
configuration/compatability problem.


My feeling exactly. Years ago, I bought a Heathkit computer, but they
gave the guarantee that they would fix it if it didn't work. They knew
what was in it; build-your-own sounds great, but if you're not a
full-blown computer geek, and it doesn't boot, then what?

That's why the 'get someone to build t for you' sites are so good.

At least it comes screwed together and demonstrably able to boot, if not
the OS of choice, at least something.

That's why I love my supplier. I pick what he stocks, ask advice, tell
him what IO want, listen while he goes through the possible options and
when its built, I go in and install Linux on their network in the
workshop. And last time I was glad I did, as it turned out that the
onboard Ethernet didn't work at all, even with Windows..

So I got a new motherboard FOC as well.
Not the cheapest, but my base computers are generally sub £250. Because
they only contain what I need, not what someone else has decided I want,
including Windoesn't.

In article , Daniel James
scribeth thus
In article , Phil Addison
wrote:
Budget (all inc. vat)
CPU Athlon II X2 250 £45
Mobo MSI MicroATX 890GXM-G65 £97
RAM 4GB Kingston KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G £43
Case Antec Mini P180 £89
PSU 650W Antec TruePower £70
HDD 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 £41
Graphics On board mobo £0
Wireless TBD, say £15
Total £400

You absolutely do not need a 650W PSU in that system. The components
will draw so little power (less than 200W) that the PSU will not even
be operating in its designed power range,


and the efficiency will be
awful.

Why should that be then?..

--
Tony Sayer

In article , Clive
George scribeth thus
On 15/03/2011 15:05, Davey wrote:
On 15 Mar 2011 14:26:09 GMT
John wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own

I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work, then
what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to isolate
one duff component, or know enough to sort out a
configuration/compatability problem.


My feeling exactly. Years ago, I bought a Heathkit computer, but they
gave the guarantee that they would fix it if it didn't work. They knew
what was in it; build-your-own sounds great, but if you're not a
full-blown computer geek, and it doesn't boot, then what?


Find out were U went wrong its not rocket science..

I'm reading this in uk.d-i-y, not uk.get-somebody-else-to-build-it :-)


LOL!.. couldn't make it up...

(I can build computers, but haven't bothered for a long time, and that's
not solely due to using laptops for a while)

--
Tony Sayer

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:29:27 +0000
Clive George wrote:

On 15/03/2011 16:04, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:10:34 +0000
Clive wrote:

On 15/03/2011 15:05, Davey wrote:
On 15 Mar 2011 14:26:09 GMT
John wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own

I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work,
then what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to
isolate one duff component, or know enough to sort out a
configuration/compatability problem.


My feeling exactly. Years ago, I bought a Heathkit computer, but
they gave the guarantee that they would fix it if it didn't work.
They knew what was in it; build-your-own sounds great, but if
you're not a full-blown computer geek, and it doesn't boot, then
what?

I'm reading this in uk.d-i-y, not
uk.get-somebody-else-to-build-it :-)

(I can build computers, but haven't bothered for a long time, and
that's not solely due to using laptops for a while)

Well pardon me for trying to add something to the conversation.

You're obviously reading something into my post which isn't there.

It sounded to me like a rebuke for going off-topic.
--
Davey.

On 15/03/2011 18:00, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:29:27 +0000
Clive wrote:

On 15/03/2011 16:04, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:10:34 +0000
Clive wrote:

On 15/03/2011 15:05, Davey wrote:
On 15 Mar 2011 14:26:09 GMT
John wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own

I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work,
then what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to
isolate one duff component, or know enough to sort out a
configuration/compatability problem.


My feeling exactly. Years ago, I bought a Heathkit computer, but
they gave the guarantee that they would fix it if it didn't work.
They knew what was in it; build-your-own sounds great, but if
you're not a full-blown computer geek, and it doesn't boot, then
what?

I'm reading this in uk.d-i-y, not
uk.get-somebody-else-to-build-it :-)

(I can build computers, but haven't bothered for a long time, and
that's not solely due to using laptops for a while)

Well pardon me for trying to add something to the conversation.

You're obviously reading something into my post which isn't there.

It sounded to me like a rebuke for going off-topic.

Did you see the :-) ?

It wasn't a rebuke for going off topic, it was a remark on the humour of
people posting about how they wouldn't diy on a diy group. Now I sort of
wish I hadn't bothered.

On 2011-03-15, tony sayer wrote:
In article , Daniel James
scribeth thus
In article , Phil Addison
wrote:
Budget (all inc. vat)
CPU Athlon II X2 250 ?45
Mobo MSI MicroATX 890GXM-G65 ?97
RAM 4GB Kingston KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G ?43
Case Antec Mini P180 ?89
PSU 650W Antec TruePower ?70
HDD 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 ?41
Graphics On board mobo ?0
Wireless TBD, say ?15
Total ?400

You absolutely do not need a 650W PSU in that system. The components
will draw so little power (less than 200W) that the PSU will not even
be operating in its designed power range,


and the efficiency will be
awful.

Well, awful may be a bit strong. But a switching power supply has
internal losses, some of which occur even if the power supply put out 0
watts. Clearly if it puts out 0 watts, and used up say 20 w, the
efficiency is truely awful. The lower the output the greater this fixed
loss is as a fraction of that.


Why should that be then?..

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:10:34 +0000, Clive George wrote:

I'm reading this in uk.d-i-y, not uk.get-somebody-else-to-build-it :-)

Yeah I know, *real* DIY computer hackers etch their own PCBs, roll their
own capacitors, build their own chip fab facilities ...


;-)

--
John Stumbles

On 12/03/2011 00:16, John Stumbles wrote:
Looks like my current PC has some weird hardware problem that's behind
the problems I've been moaning about with my graphics resolution. (I
tried a brand new ATI card and the PC wouldn't even POST-beep; took it
back to Novatech who said it worked fine on their rig. Coupled with other
strangeness I think it's new PC time.)

Novatech have a variety of 'bare bones' units (just add HDD and DVD) from
about £120 up, and ebuyer, dabs and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all are in
the market too; and there's a bewildering variety of kit to choose from.

One thing I'm wondering is if it's worth going for a machine with a lot
of RAM - which AIUI requires a 64 bit CPU to access if it's over
2^mumble bytes - and running some sort of virtualisation s/w so I can
run different OSes or versions of an OS simultaneously rather than multi-
booting. That way I can try out a new distro or version of my current
distro without sawing off the branch I'm currently sitting on. Am I right
in thinking xen is the virtualisation code du jour for Linux distros? (I
can live without running windoze on this machine.) So would an AMD64 be
the CPU to go for?

In terms of tin and copper, I'd like a machine that can house at least 3
HDDs (as well as a DVD drive, natch), and that runs quietly and uses as
little power as possible (since the machine will run 24*7). I gather the
ones with variable-speed fans in the PSUs are quieter (when not running
at full load, presumably).

My typical use of the machine is
* web browsing (currently I have several dozen pages open in different
windows and tabs in firefox/iceweasel and usually have a dozen or so more
in chrome)
* office (OOo) apps - about half a dozen docs open
* maybe a few PDFs
* some images in a viewer (gwenview)
* file browsing - say a dozen konqueror/dolphin windows/tabs
* text file editing - few dozen files open in kate, some in kwrite
* jpilot, xsane, gimp, maybe a music player and other odds& sods

So altogether a lot of apps eating up memory. Maybe another reason for
loadsa RAM and 64bits?

And occasionally I'll do some video or audio file conversion e.g. editing
and then converting a DV video to H264 or FLV; or suchlike.

Graphics-wise I've a 19" CRT which I like to cram as much onto as
possible and within the life of the machine I expect to replace it with a
similar-sized or larger LCD. So I want some high-resolution modes. And I
watch and edit videos, but I don't do gaming, so I guess I don't need
fancy 3-D acceleration or whatever.

On that basis I'm thinking this one from Novatech might be OK
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...BB-6404GA.html
I note that it can do 8G RAM but only comes with 2, as 2*2G modules using
up both slots, so if I wanted more I'd have to see if they'd do it at
time of sale otherwise I'd be throwing away the existing 2G modules to
install 4G ones.

Comments? Especially from a Linux perspective?


If I were building a new machine today, with any intention of processing
HD video, I would probably build another i7 system like I'm using here.
It absolutely beasts its way through Blu-Ray re-encodes.

Memory wise: If you want to have dozens of apps running concurrently ( I
find that just too messy if taken to the extent you describe ) then yes,
pile on the RAM.

That kind of leads to 64-bit OS. I think that 64-bit has finally come
of age, and since win7, I'm 64 bit all the way. Never looked back.

Not really able to comment on the Linux side of things.
My only Linux bos is my Asterisk machine, and it's a fairly low-spec box.

Again, with video in mind, I'd suggest a monitor that has native
1920x1080 for proper HD support. I'm using an iiyama one that was
reasonably priced. It does thae a bit of getting used to a wide-screen
( or 'reduced height', depending on how you look at it! ).

On the graphics card front, it looks like nVidia have lost their way,
and AMD now rule the roost. I usually buy 1 generation old: it's still
good, but doesn't command premium price.

--
Ron

unruh wrote:
On 2011-03-15, tony sayer wrote:
In article , Daniel James
scribeth thus
In article , Phil Addison
wrote:
Budget (all inc. vat)
CPU Athlon II X2 250 ?45
Mobo MSI MicroATX 890GXM-G65 ?97
RAM 4GB Kingston KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G ?43
Case Antec Mini P180 ?89
PSU 650W Antec TruePower ?70
HDD 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 ?41
Graphics On board mobo ?0
Wireless TBD, say ?15
Total ?400
You absolutely do not need a 650W PSU in that system. The components
will draw so little power (less than 200W) that the PSU will not even
be operating in its designed power range,

and the efficiency will be
awful.

Well, awful may be a bit strong. But a switching power supply has
internal losses, some of which occur even if the power supply put out 0
watts. Clearly if it puts out 0 watts, and used up say 20 w, the
efficiency is truely awful. The lower the output the greater this fixed
loss is as a fraction of that.


same goes for any power supply really. They are all best around a fairly
narrow range.

Why should that be then?..