PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Hi all,

Thanks for your advice and expertise. For my new PC I've got another question: the today's motherboard have a built-in video chip, but I've got two monitors and I prefer a dual head video card, because the usage of two video cards is causing performance and interupt trouble (experience with current PC).
Does a motherboard exsist without a video connector/chip? Which board? And if not: how can one disable that built in video?

Can't you just deactivate the video chip in BIOS?

yup, you can disable it in bios. it will probarly auto-disable once you stick something up its agp port as well

many(d865perl,for example ) can be had without video. you'll probably have to order it. better to get as basic a model as possible. only get the features you need and setup will be much easier. unfortunately, most consumers want more, more, more and so that's what the stores stock. most good online dealers will get it to you in a couple of days, so no reason to not order it.

p.s. i always get a dual head video card as 128mb dual head gforce cards can be had for under $60 u.s. if you look around.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2005-01-13 13:19 ]</font>

... and i know sense that someone is going to say "nah, not the deluxe version!"

And i probably would agree with them. less is more in some cases.

are you sure you want the Deluxe version?

More is Less! I chose to go for the Deluxe version because it was cheaper
So I got more for less. And yes, I ended up disabling most of the extra stuff

Cheers,
Rob

Hey 'Stardust'. So I take it that you use a PCI controller card for your hard drives. which manufacturer's and model's would you recomend.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: patricka6 on 2005-01-15 14:06 ]</font>

yeah, almost anything with an intel or nvidia chipset should work if the rest of the computer is set up properly.

'bout the promise RAID chipset: I recently enabled it and connected a 200G Sata disk. This disk is used from my SFP environment (I have dual boot XP - one for SFP, one for Office/Photoshop etc), solely as a backup device. So I never use it when recording/processing (not hogging the PCI bus), I only use it to dump complete directories as a way of backing up data. It works, SFP doesn't have any problems with the enabled controller, and there's still no interrupt sharing on my two cards (P2, ScopeSRB). Just an idea

Cheers,
Rob

Thanks for the advice 'spirit'. I went aheqad and down loaded the p4p800-e full manual and I just didn't get it that the promise was like another card on the pci slot and with it disabled you still have all of the primary/secondary-master/slave IDE connections as well as the SATA connectors which I just found out tonight are not the usual 20 pin connedtors. Like I said I've beeen out of the sceen for a couple of years. My bad. But what about what 'ron van berkle' wrote, the promise might be a good backup system for storing data only. maybe even only enbabling it in the bios when I get large files that I want to backup, like I probably will with my video/audio edditing, and then disabling it after I backed them up.

What do ya think?

It might be an alternative to External USB harddrives for data backup. and could also be raided-0 for a true full copy of my raided SATA. Then I could just physically swap the internal connectors between the drives to use the backed up versions or even like a secondary raid setup. just not using the promise controllers when working.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: patricka6 on 2005-01-18 00:41 ]</font>

@patricka6: I don't think there is a need to enable/disable the promise-raid everytime you use it, but on the other hand I wouldn't exactly advice you to let the promise-attached disks act as a (soft)mirror of your Intel-chipset-attached disks, because then the promise-disks get continuous data-transfers, thereby reducing the PCI-bandwith.
The backup scenario works without interfering, because data-transfers only take place when I'm not recording/editing/mixing tracks.
Anyway, go for the p4p800e-dlx (or the p4c800e-dlx) and use common sense in enabling onboard devices. As Garyb says: anything with a decent chipset works when setup properly.

Cheers,
Rob

Hey thanks for the advice

When I talked to the tech at pinnacle we discussed setting up 2-200 gig sata drives raided "0" (for my media drives) and then perhaps An IDE drive(possibly 400 gigs) for my boot drive. I could probably partition my boot drive, like you said, 1st for OS and programs and 2nd for other files and some backup. Then use the slave channel for DVD/CD writer. I guess I could enable the secondary IDE channel for another 400 gig hard drive -for backup. Who knows. 'Stardust', it seems like you only use 1n IDE channel- is that to save on IRQ's. On my SCSI system You have 1 controller using 1 IRQ and 15 possible drives. When I turn all of them on, I Go to Drive letter "L". I guess that includes my USB DVD writer as well.

I have pretty much decided on the p4p800-E, DLX seems is what they list it as. The main reason is because Pinnacle lists it as one of their supported motherboards and it seems that creamware works well on it as well. or I might just go with the I-P865PERL. but for some reason pinnacle doesn't list it as a supported board- not becauase it won't work mind you- but they have not tested it, Although they do recomend the I865PE chipsets for motherboards which both do have . On there motherboard compatibility list they do recomend the I-875?(can't fing that page).

The tech at pinnacle told me with 2-200 gig drives raided 0 I could hold 2000 minutes of video or 33hours. If we do this documentary film I could easily see my budy giving me 20-30 hours of video/audio to arrange and edit. And I certianly wouldn't want to fill up the drives totally. I guess I just don't know how much space I am going to realy need for the project. I will still have my PIII with my TDAT-16 board -I could use for just music- for which I could just swap out the pulsar boards. i'm sure I'll try out my new cubase update to sx3.0 on my new P4 sys. and use cubase as my audio recorder. But especiaslly for my old music I haven't finished yet(which is in TDAT files) I'll still need my old PIII with the TDAT-16 card. I sure hope creamware gets there shit together someday and finally puts out a good stable unlimited virtural track tripple-dat program to run on the pulsar card. It workd flawlessly in my PIII sys with the TDAT-16 installed(in the program itself you disable the TDAT-16 card and use the pulsar card for I/O). when it is done that way trippledat doesn't even look at the TDAT-16 card but instead uses the pulsar card. Its beyond me why they can't just make it work in XP without the TDAT card installed. Their Tripple V3.11 almost works, if they would just debug it properly.

Any input on my proposed hard drive config?
And do ya'll think using external USB hard drives for backup would be the best way to go about it.( not using another IRQ as opposed to a secondary IDE channel.

Later


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: patricka6 on 2005-01-19 00:00 ]</font>

SPEED and performance. I'm use to using 10,000 RPM SCSI drives, good performance but Expensive, and they don't hold the amount of data that IDE drives now do.
Say, what if i'm streaming 4 lines of video and 24 tracks of audio and recording them back into a master video track with St. Audio. on the same drive. Seems like the more performance the better.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: patricka6 on 2005-01-20 20:37 ]</font>

On this note

I am just building my new intel/intel/intel/corsair/matrox superbeast pc and now all the stores here [NZ]have NO ...repeat NO northwoods above 2.26....i have just spent $2500 in great parts and IM STUFFED.
i dont want that hot prescott crapp.

Out of date "in stock" both verbally and on websites led me astray.
I may be able to find a 3.4EE norhtwood here...but thats another $2000.
I've ordered a 3.4 from big store in US as the said they could get them but its been 2 weeks so i think they cant get them either..
ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN GET A 3.2-3.4 NORTHWOOD???????? even second hand????

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: maakbow on 2005-01-22 22:45 ]</font>

i thought i did, but i see only prescotts. well, i'm sure it's not the end of the world....

Sorry I cant read German...they list the product [as do most component sites] but the green and red bars to the left of the products...what do they mean?

I coulnt even find their contact page to email them to ask about stock.