bag of parts... WOOT!

CaboWaboAddict · 20th November 2006, 21:34

Just bought:

Athlon 64 X2 5000+
2-1Gb DDR2 800Mhz Memory sticks
MSI K9N SLI Mobo (DDR2 800 up to 8Gb, Dual PCI express X16 with bridge, Dual Gb LAN, 4 SATA2 ports, 7.1 Audio w/optical & coax, 10 USB2.0, 1394 port)
Geforce 7300GS video
Pioneer 16x Dual layer DVD / 40x CDRW multiformat drive
2-250Gb SATA2 Drives
1.4Mb Floppy
Powerspec C5 chassis(can hold 11 drives!)
600Watt PS

Got it all at MicroCenter for $1346 and I'm getting $95 back in rebates!

(I know its a slower video card... I don't need anything faster for work. I got it for the dual screen capability.)

Downloading Vista as I write this...

DVD ISO image containing all versions of Vista. Its 2554.5Mb, I'm at 1535Mb remaining with about 8 hours to go.

After Vista is done, I've got Office 2007 queued up.

Tomorrow... Woot!

swingdjted · 20th November 2006, 22:15

I just got me one of those ultra cool 1.4 floppy drives too. They kik ass! Actually I still find them quite useful for work documents, so I'm glad you remembered to get one. Sounds like a damn fine box.

How much does Office '07 cost? Which version are you getting?

What was the price on the sound card with optical out? Or does it have an optical in too? My stereo receiver doesn't have a digital RCA in, but it does have optical in, so I really wish my computer had an optical out, and maybe even an in so that I could hook the dvd player to it.

gaekwad2 · 20th November 2006, 23:03

Sound seems to be OnBoard (which isn't a problem if you use digital out and don't need game effects).

swingdjted · 21st November 2006, 00:13

I was thinking that too since he didn't mention it separately, but any idea what that sort of card would cost if it were actually a card or where I could get one?

S-uper_T-oast · 21st November 2006, 00:27

Very sexy. Nice price too.

squakMix · 21st November 2006, 00:30

Sweet setup cabo!

I agree with ST; you got it at a great price.

sgtfuzzbubble011 · 21st November 2006, 02:32

@ted:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Subcategory=57

@Cabo:
Very nice setup.

swingdjted · 21st November 2006, 06:21

@ Sarge:

Thanks, I'm in the beginning stages of researching what I should put together for my next home computer. Next school year might be a big increase in income due to Renee's graduation of grad school, and we'd both like to spend some of the money make sense of our basement, where we spend most of our free time.

It will need on a strong computer with most of the attention paid to media - including recording, remastering, and playback of mostly audio, but also (less often) video and pictures.

I already integrate the stereo and tv with the current computer, but the receiver accepts either RCA seperate cable per channel, or optical. The current sound card has a digital out (but not optical) and 1/8" 2-channel outs for front and rear speakers. This means I can only have stereo or 4-channel surround, despite the fact that both units can do 5.1 surround - quite a waste... (I can't find anything that can convert a digital out to optical). I figured having a more versatile sound card would be a good fix so that computer played stuff could finally be in real dts or dolby digital surround, meeting THX standards.

I'd also like to do multichannel recording if possible with the computer. My buds and I like to jam down there and for now we use an aging 8-channel DAT recorder we bought from the YSU music dept. used (plus a mixer for channels beyond 8 which can't be edited seperately). We have to record like that and then transfer each track to the computer seperately before mastering with software (AcidPro and others), which is quite a waste of time.

My knowledge of new computer audio hardware is very limited, so I'd like to figure out how to go about putting something together that would be useful. If there were a way to use a computer to record 16 simultaneous channels that would be perfect, or even just 8 would be good.

If I could get all this stuff working, I could also bring it in to work and help our high school bands record their stuff at a semi-professional level, which would be really fun.

@ Cabo - keep us posted on how well everything else works for you - I'll be in the market for it all soon, so your comments on what you have will be very helpful.

After re-reading your post, I saw the 11 drives thing - that would be great How tall is the box? Toss up a few pics if you can sometime.

sgtfuzzbubble011 · 26th November 2006, 23:01

I've got a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS in my current machine. Like your system, it's got a digital output, but it's not optical. It uses a single 1/8" jack. I just recently (last weekend) bought a cable and adapter to hook my Audigy to my surround receiver 100% digitally. My receiver has both coaxial (RCA) and optical digital inputs, but since my sound card only has a 1/8" jack, I had to buy one of these and one of these to connect them together. It doesn't do much good, though, because my subwoofer doesn't work when I'm using the digital connection (unless I'm listening to something encoded in DTS or other X.1 sound mode, but I haven't tried any movies yet). The digital connection is great for when I'm using my headphones, but other than that, I'll just stick with the normal analog connection. At least my subwoofer works with that one...

swingdjted · 27th November 2006, 03:20

The adaptor you posted is kinda fat and the inupts and outputs are so damn close together that it's hard to fit things like that in there without taking a pocket knife to the rubber and thinnng it down. I wish I could do what you did, but my receivers don't have digital RCA inputs, just optical. My music editing programs allow the use of X.1 format, yet currently the only way to hear it correctly is through a shitty 5.1 surround set of computer speakers (5 tiny satellites that sound like they're speakers in tin cans and a 5 and a half inch sub...).

Getting a good sound card with optical in and out is probably my best solution. Otherwise I'd have to get yet another receiver (with digital RCA connections), and I already have a ton of them. Thanks for linking to them.

cooky560 · 27th November 2006, 14:37

Quote:

Originally posted by CaboWaboAddict
Just bought:

Athlon 64 X2 5000+
2-1Gb DDR2 800Mhz Memory sticks
MSI K9N SLI Mobo (DDR2 800 up to 8Gb, Dual PCI express X16 with bridge, Dual Gb LAN, 4 SATA2 ports, 7.1 Audio w/optical & coax, 10 USB2.0, 1394 port)
Geforce 7300GS video
Pioneer 16x Dual layer DVD / 40x CDRW multiformat drive
2-250Gb SATA2 Drives
1.4Mb Floppy
Powerspec C5 chassis(can hold 11 drives!)
600Watt PS

Got it all at MicroCenter for $1346 and I'm getting $95 back in rebates!

(I know its a slower video card... I don't need anything faster for work. I got it for the dual screen capability.)

Downloading Vista as I write this...

DVD ISO image containing all versions of Vista. Its 2554.5Mb, I'm at 1535Mb remaining with about 8 hours to go.

After Vista is done, I've got Office 2007 queued up.

Tomorrow... Woot!

I wouldn't recommended getting vista quite yet, since most of the market is still making software for xp, even XP x64 has difficulty with support atm

CaboWaboAddict · 5th December 2006, 20:10

Hey folks, sorry 'bout the delay getting back. I had to make an unscheduled business trip... just got back.

Anyway, I haven't yet installed Vista. It took 29+ hours to download and then I got a corrupted ISO image. I'm going to wait a while to download it again... until the MSDN site traffic eases up.

I don't know how much Office 2007 costs... AFAIK its not for sale yet in the stores.

I installed XP SP2 temporarily to test the machine and it is unbelievably fast! I may just go ahead and activate it and run Vista in a Virtual PC. I'm going to setup an XP Virtual PC to do all of my development work in anyway so upgrading the OS later shouldn't be much of a hassle.

swingdjted · 5th December 2006, 20:57

sounds good

Thanks for replying

I'm afraid to get a new motherboard/tower since all the Microsoft stuff isn't released yet. The motherboard seems to be what the license is associated with, and I'd hate to buy all that for an old system or buy a new system that hasn't proven to be incredibly stable with the final releases of the OS and Office.

For now I'm definately going to get the a good optical in/out sound card for my current media box.

Keep us posted on how yours is working - I'd like to know how it does with the more resource-intense stuff (e.g. can you run a virus scan, windows update and avs at a good resolution together and still do well?).

rockouthippie · 5th December 2006, 21:29

You're gonna love the Athlon X2.

Quote:

Originally posted by CaboWaboAddict
1.4Mb Floppy

Why?. I don't think I have one floppy disk left anywhere. My oldest running computer is about 5 years old and it doesn't have one.

I get these Mitsumi card readers to stick in the floppy hole. They cost about $10. These are super handy.

I see they're selling a combo one. Card reader plus floppy drive for $23 at the local computer shop here.

What do you use a floppy for?. The last time I had a use for one was when I used to install windows 2000 server. Then I hacked it and made a boot cdrom.

I was just curious.

Quote:

I'm afraid to get a new motherboard/tower since all the Microsoft stuff isn't released yet. The motherboard seems to be what the license is associated with, and I'd hate to buy all that for an old system or buy a new system that hasn't proven to be incredibly stable with the final releases of the OS and Office.

I'm sure that if you used a major motherboard manufacturer that this won't be an issue.

swingdjted · 5th December 2006, 21:45

I use it for easy computer to computer transfer of documents (PDF, Word, Excel, etc.) or small pics. No online access needed. This comes in handy more often tham most people could believe.

CaboWaboAddict · 5th December 2006, 22:17

We still have to support some Windows 3.11 machines... hence the 1.44 floppy.

rockouthippie · 8th December 2006, 12:00

Quote:

Originally posted by swingdjted
I use it for easy computer to computer transfer of documents (PDF, Word, Excel, etc.) or small pics. No online access needed. This comes in handy more often tham most people could believe.

If the computer is less than 10 years old, I'd just use a USB stick. $10 tonite got me a 256 meg one. It's kinda cool with a keychain loop.

If you have camera flash cards for anything, an external USB reader is about $10.

This should work with anything that has a USB, which is probably windows 98 and later.

swingdjted · 8th December 2006, 22:11

Gotta give the computer a reach-around for that on some of the school's computers. (I don't like reach-arounds.)

20th November 2006, 21:34	#1
CaboWaboAddict Forum Sot (Major Dude) Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Marietta, Ga. U.S.A. Posts: 3,915	bag of parts... WOOT! Just bought: Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2-1Gb DDR2 800Mhz Memory sticks MSI K9N SLI Mobo (DDR2 800 up to 8Gb, Dual PCI express X16 with bridge, Dual Gb LAN, 4 SATA2 ports, 7.1 Audio w/optical & coax, 10 USB2.0, 1394 port) Geforce 7300GS video Pioneer 16x Dual layer DVD / 40x CDRW multiformat drive 2-250Gb SATA2 Drives 1.4Mb Floppy Powerspec C5 chassis(can hold 11 drives!) 600Watt PS Got it all at MicroCenter for $1346 and I'm getting $95 back in rebates! (I know its a slower video card... I don't need anything faster for work. I got it for the dual screen capability.) Downloading Vista as I write this... DVD ISO image containing all versions of Vista. Its 2554.5Mb, I'm at 1535Mb remaining with about 8 hours to go. After Vista is done, I've got Office 2007 queued up. Tomorrow... Woot! Idiot's Advocate My site (under construction)

20th November 2006, 22:15	#2
swingdjted DRINK BEER NOW (Forum King) Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Northern West Virginia Posts: 9,991	I just got me one of those ultra cool 1.4 floppy drives too. They kik ass! Actually I still find them quite useful for work documents, so I'm glad you remembered to get one. Sounds like a damn fine box. How much does Office '07 cost? Which version are you getting? What was the price on the sound card with optical out? Or does it have an optical in too? My stereo receiver doesn't have a digital RCA in, but it does have optical in, so I really wish my computer had an optical out, and maybe even an in so that I could hook the dvd player to it. Don't forget to live before you die.

21st November 2006, 00:13	#4
swingdjted DRINK BEER NOW (Forum King) Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Northern West Virginia Posts: 9,991	I was thinking that too since he didn't mention it separately, but any idea what that sort of card would cost if it were actually a card or where I could get one? Don't forget to live before you die.

21st November 2006, 00:30	#6
squakMix wwwyzzerdd (Forum King) Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 3,458	Sweet setup cabo! I agree with ST; you got it at a great price. Check out my music

21st November 2006, 06:21	#8
swingdjted DRINK BEER NOW (Forum King) Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Northern West Virginia Posts: 9,991	@ Sarge: Thanks, I'm in the beginning stages of researching what I should put together for my next home computer. Next school year might be a big increase in income due to Renee's graduation of grad school, and we'd both like to spend some of the money make sense of our basement, where we spend most of our free time. It will need on a strong computer with most of the attention paid to media - including recording, remastering, and playback of mostly audio, but also (less often) video and pictures. I already integrate the stereo and tv with the current computer, but the receiver accepts either RCA seperate cable per channel, or optical. The current sound card has a digital out (but not optical) and 1/8" 2-channel outs for front and rear speakers. This means I can only have stereo or 4-channel surround, despite the fact that both units can do 5.1 surround - quite a waste... (I can't find anything that can convert a digital out to optical). I figured having a more versatile sound card would be a good fix so that computer played stuff could finally be in real dts or dolby digital surround, meeting THX standards. I'd also like to do multichannel recording if possible with the computer. My buds and I like to jam down there and for now we use an aging 8-channel DAT recorder we bought from the YSU music dept. used (plus a mixer for channels beyond 8 which can't be edited seperately). We have to record like that and then transfer each track to the computer seperately before mastering with software (AcidPro and others), which is quite a waste of time. My knowledge of new computer audio hardware is very limited, so I'd like to figure out how to go about putting something together that would be useful. If there were a way to use a computer to record 16 simultaneous channels that would be perfect, or even just 8 would be good. If I could get all this stuff working, I could also bring it in to work and help our high school bands record their stuff at a semi-professional level, which would be really fun. @ Cabo - keep us posted on how well everything else works for you - I'll be in the market for it all soon, so your comments on what you have will be very helpful. After re-reading your post, I saw the 11 drives thing - that would be great How tall is the box? Toss up a few pics if you can sometime. Don't forget to live before you die.

20th November 2006, 23:03	#3
gaekwad2 Foorum King Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: bar2000 Posts: 11,424	Sound seems to be OnBoard (which isn't a problem if you use digital out and don't need game effects).

21st November 2006, 00:27	#5
S-uper_T-oast Forum King Join Date: May 2003 Location: Fnord?! Posts: 2,657	Very sexy. Nice price too.

21st November 2006, 02:32	#7
sgtfuzzbubble011 Join Date: Jun 2000 Posts: 60,837	@ted: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Subcategory=57 @Cabo: Very nice setup.

26th November 2006, 23:01	#9
sgtfuzzbubble011 Join Date: Jun 2000 Posts: 60,837	I've got a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS in my current machine. Like your system, it's got a digital output, but it's not optical. It uses a single 1/8" jack. I just recently (last weekend) bought a cable and adapter to hook my Audigy to my surround receiver 100% digitally. My receiver has both coaxial (RCA) and optical digital inputs, but since my sound card only has a 1/8" jack, I had to buy one of these and one of these to connect them together. It doesn't do much good, though, because my subwoofer doesn't work when I'm using the digital connection (unless I'm listening to something encoded in DTS or other X.1 sound mode, but I haven't tried any movies yet). The digital connection is great for when I'm using my headphones, but other than that, I'll just stick with the normal analog connection. At least my subwoofer works with that one...

27th November 2006, 03:20	#10
swingdjted DRINK BEER NOW (Forum King) Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Northern West Virginia Posts: 9,991	The adaptor you posted is kinda fat and the inupts and outputs are so damn close together that it's hard to fit things like that in there without taking a pocket knife to the rubber and thinnng it down. I wish I could do what you did, but my receivers don't have digital RCA inputs, just optical. My music editing programs allow the use of X.1 format, yet currently the only way to hear it correctly is through a shitty 5.1 surround set of computer speakers (5 tiny satellites that sound like they're speakers in tin cans and a 5 and a half inch sub...). Getting a good sound card with optical in and out is probably my best solution. Otherwise I'd have to get yet another receiver (with digital RCA connections), and I already have a ton of them. Thanks for linking to them. Don't forget to live before you die.

5th December 2006, 20:10	#12
CaboWaboAddict Forum Sot (Major Dude) Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Marietta, Ga. U.S.A. Posts: 3,915	Hey folks, sorry 'bout the delay getting back. I had to make an unscheduled business trip... just got back. Anyway, I haven't yet installed Vista. It took 29+ hours to download and then I got a corrupted ISO image. I'm going to wait a while to download it again... until the MSDN site traffic eases up. I don't know how much Office 2007 costs... AFAIK its not for sale yet in the stores. I installed XP SP2 temporarily to test the machine and it is unbelievably fast! I may just go ahead and activate it and run Vista in a Virtual PC. I'm going to setup an XP Virtual PC to do all of my development work in anyway so upgrading the OS later shouldn't be much of a hassle. Idiot's Advocate My site (under construction)

5th December 2006, 20:57	#13
swingdjted DRINK BEER NOW (Forum King) Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Northern West Virginia Posts: 9,991	sounds good Thanks for replying I'm afraid to get a new motherboard/tower since all the Microsoft stuff isn't released yet. The motherboard seems to be what the license is associated with, and I'd hate to buy all that for an old system or buy a new system that hasn't proven to be incredibly stable with the final releases of the OS and Office. For now I'm definately going to get the a good optical in/out sound card for my current media box. Keep us posted on how yours is working - I'd like to know how it does with the more resource-intense stuff (e.g. can you run a virus scan, windows update and avs at a good resolution together and still do well?). Don't forget to live before you die.

5th December 2006, 21:45	#15
swingdjted DRINK BEER NOW (Forum King) Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Northern West Virginia Posts: 9,991	I use it for easy computer to computer transfer of documents (PDF, Word, Excel, etc.) or small pics. No online access needed. This comes in handy more often tham most people could believe. Don't forget to live before you die.

5th December 2006, 22:17	#16
CaboWaboAddict Forum Sot (Major Dude) Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Marietta, Ga. U.S.A. Posts: 3,915	We still have to support some Windows 3.11 machines... hence the 1.44 floppy. Idiot's Advocate My site (under construction)

8th December 2006, 22:11	#18
swingdjted DRINK BEER NOW (Forum King) Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Northern West Virginia Posts: 9,991	Gotta give the computer a reach-around for that on some of the school's computers. (I don't like reach-arounds.) Don't forget to live before you die.

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