is this PC worth a bag of beans?

Even

Even

New member
It gets me online that much I know. but can I record with it? I have a celeron 433 in it. seemingly the board will take a P II up to 500MHz. 3 dimms (pc 100) but just 64 megs in there for now. 4 PCI slots (that I know nothing about) and 2 IDE ports (what are they?). Hey look I have an onboard 64-bit 3D AGP graphics accelerator (is that good)and onboard 3D sound pro. I added a Yamaha wav192. and a bloomin 56K modem. Thanks to Slackster I am back to 10 gigs of HD. all this in a mid tower case. What does a cute little dude like me need to make it a track burnin' killer machine? Oh ya. I know I need a cd burner, I only have a 40x normal deal. Man I can sure kill diablo on this, but can I really use it for what we are here for?
 
Onboard sound is not really good since you need a quality soundcard anyway. But it can probably be disabled.
A 433 is cool... 64 meg can work.. Depending on how many tracks you want to record at one time (limited also by your soundcard-in's) you may need a souped up hard drive. Scsi is supposed to be the best but people are saying ide works pretty good too.
Go to Echo website. They make the Layla,gina,darla... You can download a program called the Echo REporter. It will tell you how badly your machine sucks.
Your machine, My guess, will probably record 8 tracks at a time while playing back 10 or so at the same time. Probably more than you need. Since most of us record 1 or 2 aqt a time. This is just a wild guess though.
I went around asking the EXACT same question but I had all the data including software/soundcard I would be using and still, everyone who was 'in the know' told me "that should work fine".... SHOULD???? I realized that Every little difference in a system, makes a difference in audio recording/effects processing/editing/etc.
This aint diablo.
Good luck and welcome to the club.
P.s. Dont even ask... I have never played that game..
 
I'd bet that program tells him 3X what you said...you have a killer machine, go make some killer music!
 
is the echo reporter accurate on testing how many tracks one can record? because on my new *fast* machine, Athlon 600 MHZ WestDig 18gig 7200 128 ram, I just bought it says I can record 65 tracks at one time,...then on my *old machine* K6-2 450mhz 64MB ram slower 3.2 gig HD, it sayd I can record 70 ttracks at one..makes me think..

ametth
 
Yay! thanks for that program tip... seems Dragon was close to the mark.. I can record 32 as it stands
 
speaking on the "onboard sound card", how do I disable it? I put in a fairly decent Yamaha as I mentioned, and will no doubt be scooping up something more along the lines of an interface/breakout box. This card is so wired to the mainboard. Not to mention that I am going to need the IRQ's. Echo noticed I have none free. also, how can I verify my HD specs (UDMA and such)I know it is a maxtor, but thats the end of that. Guys, it goes without saying (or more applicably...very said) you have been a great help one and all.
 
Even,

To disable the onboard sound....

First know that it might be impossible. I know that's a crappy thought but that's a chance you take with integrated peripherals.

1) Check the BIOS setup. It might be a soft setting meaning that you won't have to rip the case off the machine.
2) Look in the motherboard manual for appropriate jumper(s)...
3) Can't find your mobo manual? Try going to the website of the manufacturer of your computer. Or better yet, the manufacturer of your motherboard.
4) If you have any trouble or fears about setting jumpers, just ask. Easy as 1, 2, "oh crap where's that smoke coming from!" :)

Finding your HD specs:

1) If your hard drive is automatically detected each time you start your computer, you will see the model number of you hard drive right after POST and the memory test. Write it down.
2) I'm sure there are several benchmarking/configuration utilites out there that'll tell you the model number of your HD. Search the net. Search Maxtor!
3) No luck? Rip the case off your computer and yank the HD out. Don't wrap yourself in tinfoil or anything, just make sure that PART of your body is touching the case while your working in it (your arm, pinky, whatever...except for THAT, you sicko!). And always unplug the machine too...don't worry about grounding via the cord, it DOESN'T matter. You'll find the model number stamped on the HD somewhere or other. You might get lucky and all the information you need will be right on the hard drive, but I doubt it.
4) Once you have the model number, find Maxtor's website and look the drive up.

Write down everything you did because there's always a "next time."

Slackmaster 2000

[This message has been edited by Slackmaster2K (edited 10-15-1999).]
 
Even: What you can do to speed things up also is right click my computer select propeties, select device manager tab, double click disk drives, right click the drive in question, select properties, select settings tab and look and see if the DMA checkbox is checked. whew!.... If it is not checked click it to put a check mark in it. A message box will pop up saying "due to the unstable nature of this operating system, your hardware might act funny, click ok to continue". If you have an udma drive you don't have anything to worry about. I think it asks you to reboot. DMA is Direct memory access, what it does is allows your hard drive to write directly to memory, freeing up your cpu of this task therefore allowing it to perform other tasks. With UDMA I don't know if it will have any bearing or not. I think it does though. To be sure run benchmarks before and after, and post back, I would be interested in the results.

Hope this helps,

Bob
 
Whoa, don't ever do that! I'm serious, it can cause SEVERE headaches and complete windows reinstalls.

It might not cause problems for other folks 90% of the time, but for me it's caused problems 100% of the time...course I only tried it once :) I learned my lesson.

Always check your hardware specifications prior to experimenting. Get the model number of your hard drive and look up the specs on Maxtor's website.

Slackmaster 2000
 
as said in my earlier post, I tried the echo reporter and it said my 'puter can record 65 tracks at a time, welll. I cheked so see wether my HD was UDMA and it is, so then I looked to see if the DMA box was checked in my setting's it wasent!! so I checked it, restarted my machine, ran the echo reporter again..WOAH!!! it said I can record 162 tracks at a time! so I'll probably be able to record 8 tracks..anyway thanks.
 
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