new computer?

[Ken Jarstad]

If it's just the CPU you could replace it for less than $80 usd. Just a (cheap) thought. Try Pricewatch.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

I also built my own PC when the Q6600 was the processor to have - how quickly they get superceded!.

I'll definately be building my own again for the following reasons:

- as already commented, one tends to get more bang for one's buck,
- it is fun,
- you get the fullest possible choice of components limited (almost) only by one's budget.

But I'm not ready to build yet. Maybe in another year...? (Mrs Twosheds is watching! )

[Bob]

Re: Ken's post. If you are absolutely sure it's the cpu that went bad and not the motherboard, you can still get a replacement cpu. Here's one from newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116027&Tpk=Socket%20478. All the ones I saw when I searched were oem cpus meaning they don't come with a fan or heatsink. You'll need to reuse the old ones or buy new. You'll need thermal compound.

[Bobby]

Bobby,

What kind of RAID configuration are you running? I'm interested in keeping performance high but more importantly I want to protect our family pictures. Loksk like RAID 10 would be what I'm looking at for that.

Sorry Jamal - I was away for a week.

I am simple RAID 0 (striping).

RAID offers 3 attributes, in varying combinations: Performance, Capacity, Mirroring (backup). But I don't recommend RAID as a backup mechanism because of the simple fact that any change you make is immediately and instantaneously mirrored. Thus if you accidentally erase a file, or have an error in a .DOC file that gets saved, the error is propagated to the other drive(s). RAID 1 (and similar mirroring modes) are effective only if you have a drive crash on one of them PRIOR to the time that the bad data is mirrored - a very, very small window of time.

I used RAID 0 on my older PC just to get higher capacity and performance, and that worked just fine. The downside of course is that if one of the drives crashes, you lose both in effect. But that is why you take backups. I intended to go with RAID 0 on my new video PC, but haven't been able to justify a second VelociRaptor drive yet

For backup, I recommend mirroring SOFTWARE, such as Second Copy. You can control WHEN you want the mirror images of your files made, and also keep multiple images if you want.

[Wheat King]

Turns out the cpu was fine. I was getting an error at post "cpu test failed" and assumed it was the cpu. We replaced the mother board with a cheap $85 Solar Energy that was in the shop. I had to take my TV tuner out and use the expansion slot for a firewire card, but I have a functional PC again (until I get my new editing machine built.) Only problem is that I only had three 1/2 Gig sticks of RAM on the old board and only two slots on the new board. So I'm shopping around for 2 x 1 GB DDR RAM. mobo doc says my board supports up to 400 MHZ. If I'm reading things right that means I can get PC3200?

I am simple RAID 0 (striping).

RAID offers 3 attributes, in varying combinations: Performance, Capacity, Mirroring (backup). But I don't recommend RAID as a backup mechanism because of the simple fact that any change you make is immediately and instantaneously mirrored. Thus if you accidentally erase a file, or have an error in a .DOC file that gets saved, the error is propagated to the other drive(s). RAID 1 (and similar mirroring modes) are effective only if you have a drive crash on one of them PRIOR to the time that the bad data is mirrored - a very, very small window of time.

I used RAID 0 on my older PC just to get higher capacity and performance, and that worked just fine. The downside of course is that if one of the drives crashes, you lose both in effect. But that is why you take backups. I intended to go with RAID 0 on my new video PC, but haven't been able to justify a second VelociRaptor drive yet

For backup, I recommend mirroring SOFTWARE, such as Second Copy. You can control WHEN you want the mirror images of your files made, and also keep multiple images if you want.

Thanks for the clarification Bobby invaluable advice. starting to lean against implementing raid since my biggest concern is redundancy. I use Synctoy to echo my important files to an external. Will be doing some more research before I make up my mind and going to look into the VelociRaptor. Have also been looking at the Solid state drives but I think that's gonna blow my budget... can always upgrade when prices come down and they become more mainstream.

[Bob]

So I'm shopping around for 2 x 1 GB DDR RAM. mobo doc says my board supports up to 400 MHZ. If I'm reading things right that means I can get PC3200?

Yes.

[Bobby]

Jamal, I am comfortable with the VelociRaptor performance on my video PC without RAID. I have the newest 300GB model, and setup PRE to ping-pong data between that drive and the 1GB storage drive. The performance is so much better than my old PC that I really am not seeing the pressure to put the RAID in. Not to mention the fact that it would take a bit of work as I would have to take an image of the current drive, install the RAID, and then restore the image to the RAID array. So, for now it stays the way it is.

The current price at Newegg is about $230 - $70 less than I paid last summer, so things are getting better.