System for work and leisure - edited, maybe I get a reply

lm · Post by lm » Sun Jan 27, 2008 3:36 pm

EDITS:
- changed mobo from GA-X38-DS4 to GA-EX38-DS4 (it just became available locally and it's what I originally wanted anyway)
- changed hdd from Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB to Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB (I need high reliability and high availability, this system brings my income and seagate never gave me downtimes/crashes)

STATUS:
- only waiting for the mobo to be stocked by my local store. can still change order if I find better parts

USE CASES:
- full time work from home (programming). Home's my office...
- HDTV playback
- some gaming
- will run 24/7

I need this thing to be ROCK stable, and I mean the Finnish granite, not some softer rock :p
Also DEAD quiet, and preferably energy efficient too.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz FSB1333 12MB cache 315 â‚¬
cpu cooler: Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 62.40 â‚¬
mobo: Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS4 157 â‚¬
ram: 8GB 800MHz ECC CL5 DDR2 (2 of Kingston Valueram 2x2GB kits) 2*130 â‚¬
GPU: Nvidia 8800GT 512MB (Gigabyte GV-NX88T512HP) 217 â‚¬
gpu cooler: Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 20 â‚¬
hdd: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB 93 â‚¬
hdd box: Scythe Quiet Drive (SQD-1000) 44.00 â‚¬
case: Antec P182 Gun Metal Black (CA-SLK-P182-B) 132 â‚¬
PSU: Corsair VX450W (CMPSU-450VXEU) 79.90
mouse: Razer Lachesis (white) 57.90
optical: Samsung SH-S203P/BEBN SATA 20X DVD+/-RW (black) 27
monitor: HP LP3065 30" LCD
keyboard: already have a good one
fans: Scythe S-FLEX

lm · Post by lm » Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:04 pm

Ugh, I've totally forgot this: Which fans should I put in this system? I hope I haven't forgotten anything else.

EDIT: fans solved, they will be S-FLEX

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 7:47 pm

Hello,

Looks pretty darn good -- I wish I could do a similar system! I would use some Scythe Slipstreams in there; and I would use a Scythe Ninja with a Thermalright backplate.

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:18 pm

i'll second the slipstreams from scythe, but ECC memory? it has advantages, but i'm not sure if it will be any better than non-ECC...unless a higher cost is better. i could be wrong though, but i've never seen many gaming rigs with ECC, or basically anything past a server.

i'm also assuming you'll be running a 64 bit OS? otherwise you'll have 4GB of physical RAM, but ~3.2GB recognized by the OS, with only a limited number of 'sketchy' ways around the barrier.

it looks pretty good, and its also nice to see someone not aiming for 500+W in a rig. the only advice i have is that no matter how good the new noctua fans look on paper, testing by bluefront shows otherwise, so you shouldn't really aim to get those.

HeD · Post by **HeD** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 2:13 am

lm wrote:Ugh, I've totally forgot this: Which fans should I put in this system? I hope I haven't forgotten anything else.

The best is to use PWM fans, the only one I know is Artic Cooling 12025PWM

lm · Post by lm » Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:27 am

bonestonne wrote:i'll second the slipstreams from scythe, but ECC memory? it has advantages, but i'm not sure if it will be any better than non-ECC...unless a higher cost is better. i could be wrong though, but i've never seen many gaming rigs with ECC, or basically anything past a server.

Well, I will use this system for work 8h a day, and my free time use comes next. I read that cosmic rays and natural radioactivity causes about 1 bit flip per gigabyte per month, so because I will run my system 24/7, I would get a bit flip about every 4 days. Of course some of those will never be read, and just written over, but I'd like to stay on the safe side, and using this for work justifies a bit higher cost for extra stability.

ECC can fix one bit errors and detect but not fix 2 bit errors, and detect some >2 bit errors. So I would instantly know, if I have faulty ram.

That being said, knowing my system is more stable, makes me happy.

bonestonne wrote: i'm also assuming you'll be running a 64 bit OS? otherwise you'll have 4GB of physical RAM, but ~3.2GB recognized by the OS, with only a limited number of 'sketchy' ways around the barrier.

Yes, I will use 64bit linux, maybe something else occasionally.

Linux kernel documentation wrote: Linux can use up to 64 Gigabytes of physical memory on x86 systems. However, the address space of 32-bit x86 processors is only 4 Gigabytes large. That means that, if you have a large amount of physical memory, not all of it can be "permanently mapped" by the kernel. The physical memory that's not permanently mapped is called "high memory".

This means that 32bit linux can still use 64GB of memory, but most of it would effectively work as superfast swap.

bonestonne wrote: it looks pretty good, and its also nice to see someone not aiming for 500+W in a rig. the only advice i have is that no matter how good the new noctua fans look on paper, testing by bluefront shows otherwise, so you shouldn't really aim to get those.

Thanks for the suggestion!

sjoukew · Post by **sjoukew** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:18 am

antec p182 has a nice hdd mounting system already, wo why the "hdd box: Scythe Quiet Drive (SQD-1000) 44.00 â‚¬ " ????

seraphyn · Post by **seraphyn** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:42 am

To silence and cool it i assume. I have Scuthe Quiet Drives in my p180, only then the notebook version.

lm · Post by lm » Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:18 pm

sjoukew wrote:antec p182 has a nice hdd mounting system already, wo why the "hdd box: Scythe Quiet Drive (SQD-1000) 44.00 â‚¬ " ????

Well I was thinking that I only have a couple fans and the drive that make noise, so I tried to select a quiet drive and with that box make it even quieter.

The cost I can justify because that box probably will last many times longer than the drive.

lm · Post by lm » Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:20 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote:Hello,

Looks pretty darn good -- I wish I could do a similar system! I would use some Scythe Slipstreams in there; and I would use a Scythe Ninja with a Thermalright backplate.

Thanks for the heads up, I hope you get to build such a system too! I do have to use it to earn my living, so it's more top of the line than I would ever buy for leisure only.

I don't really understand your recommendation though? Doesn't the ninja lose to U120E?

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:31 pm

-I'd get the HX520W, a modular psu is easier to work with in the P182.
(Not to say that the VX450 wouldnt work in the P182, but you'd pretty much fill up the area behind the mobo with unused cables...)

-I'd go for the TRUE, especially for a quad core...

I just recently got hold of some Scythe S-FLEX fans, and I'm really impressed, so I'll just go ahead and recommend those. You could get Nexus fans or Slipstream fans too, if you can get hold of them, they're all good fans so its more preference than anything else...

lm · Post by lm » Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:14 pm

I think I'll go with the S-FLEX. Quoting another thread:

S-Flex MTBF 150,000 hrs
Slipstream MTBF 30,000 hrs

Now I know that MTBF is not expected lifetime. However in years those numbers are 3.4 years vs over 17 years. Any way I can put it, those S-Flexes are less likely to fail on me, and I want this system to last for a long time, I can get those fans around here, so that solves it. S-Flex it is.

casebuyer · Post by **casebuyer** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 1:29 am

for graphics which mouses can you recommend

there are gaming mouses like razer logitech cybersnipa revoltec

lm · Post by lm » Sun Jul 13, 2008 12:42 pm

casebuyer wrote:for graphics which mouses can you recommend

there are gaming mouses like razer logitech cybersnipa revoltec

Umm, I can't figure out why you ask that in this thread, in fact you should probably ask that in some kind of computer graphics forum instead.

I can't really recommend any Razer mice for any purpose. I've had a razer lachesis for like half a year now as my only mouse. Used to use Logitech MX500 before.

First, the mouse had 2 bugs: either vertical or horizontal axis might jam totally, so that your mouse cursor only moved on the other axis. How weird is that, on a laser mouse? And the second bug was that it might jump and stutter around.

Well, as I browsed the internet for solutions, I found out that those were actually fixed in a firmware upgrade for my mouse. I installed that firmware and it did indeed fix both problems.

But honestly, mouse should never have any bugs. I never had a single bug with my trusty old logitech, it was always a "just works" product.

And one bug still remains in this mouse: Sometimes it fails to initialize at boot, happens both on windows and linux so the problem really should be in the mouse itself. The leds on the mouse might go crazy blinking when this happens or just stay unlit. The fix is to disconnect the usb plug and replug it. This happens maybe 1 out of 10 startups.

When I asked around, I heard that my friends had this initialization problem with other razer mice aswell, like the copperhead and diamondback.

When I heard this, it really made me lose any confidence I had with the company.

It's sad, because otherwise I like this mouse. But it has these weird bugs that no mouse should ever have.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 12:52 pm

i have alchesis too, I've attaced lachesis to separate USB 2.0 expansion card and it boots everytime. It also boots everytime in my P35 motherboard. I have not yet experienced a jamming you mentioned. I am very happy with my mouse. When I accidently leand palm against it, i might lift mice bit from the behind, which can cause cursor to shoot up but I haven't had yet any jamming issues with lachesis.

But Personally I would have expected tad better finishing from Lachesis and its drivers. It supposedly be best what Razer has and it seems it barely beats Krait in my use and might even lose cheaper Death Adder.

But I just love the speed of Lachesis...

Mona21 · Post by **Mona21** » Mon May 18, 2009 9:15 pm

Ok, thanks for your experience. Anyway that's possible.

lm · Post by lm » Tue May 19, 2009 6:31 am

Mona21: are you a bot?

Thejamppa: I looked at your post again, and then went to Razer webpage, and noticed they have a new firmware that should fix the boot issue I had. The previous firmware upgrade already fixed the stuttering and stuck issue.

I guess we both can agree that they were real problems, if even a firmware upgrade was released that directly says that is fixes exactly those problems.

Haven't yet installed it though, let's see what happens.

Can you elaborate on how it barely wins or loses to the other mouse? In which way exactly?