prebuilt puters?

  • Thread starter Thread starter willow
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willow

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hi,

i recently bought a presario amd 64 (200, 512) and it had some random clicking in the audio. after trying to fix and then calling service and spending over two hours. i finally got them to take it back.

then someone told me that the suggested requirements for sonar are based on one track. when you start doing several tracks, then you should use a more powerful cpu. so, i started thing about the "dual-cores", then someone tells me that people have been having problems with these with compatibility problems with certain softwares.

so, i don't know what route to go? should i try another compaq 64
(can i get by with this machine?) or should i try to save a bit more money and get a duel-core?

i know, i should get one built, but that is not possible for me right now. i need to buy one of these pre-built models right now. any suggestions, tips, or warnings about the 64 bit thing?

i will be getting a firewire non-powered mixing console also, so i won't have to worry about the generic stock sound card that comes on these, right?

any help on which of these prebuilts to get would be appreciated.

anyone had any problems with the prebuilt dual-cores?

thanks
 
That someone was kind of an idiot. I know plently of people on this board who run just fine with Celeron processors. The major factor with recording is lots of fast RAM and fast hard drives.

Sometimes not even that... My claim to fame for recording is recording 7 tracks live to my 350mhz G4 with 128MB ram in OS 10.3 in Cubase. No dropouts. Lacked once I added processing, but there is no reason you should have any trouble with the setup you mentioned.

I don't know much about Compaq's current lines, but any 64 bit processor sounds more than sufficient. While you shouldn't have had clicking anyways, a sound card for recording (PCI, Firewire, and to a lesser extent USB) will be the best quality option.
 
Alexbt said:
That someone was kind of an idiot. I know plently of people on this board who run just fine with Celeron processors. The major factor with recording is lots of fast RAM and fast hard drives.

Sometimes not even that... My claim to fame for recording is recording 7 tracks live to my 350mhz G4 with 128MB ram in OS 10.3 in Cubase. No dropouts. Lacked once I added processing, but there is no reason you should have any trouble with the setup you mentioned.

I don't know much about Compaq's current lines, but any 64 bit processor sounds more than sufficient. While you shouldn't have had clicking anyways, a sound card for recording (PCI, Firewire, and to a lesser extent USB) will be the best quality option.
Click to expand...

i second what he said about the processors. although it DOES technically make a difference, with enough ram and hard drive speed/space, u should be JUST fine with a amd sempron 64 bit processor (i think thats what the compaqs have in them unless u go with one of the higher end compaqs). ive done a 12 track recording on a pentium 3 700mhz w/ 384mb of ram before. its all doable, just better processors and more ram will make for an easier time.
 
it was probably a latency or background process scheduling issue... you might have had an antivirus running or whatever they throw on those compaqs... I actually use a Compaq presario SR1000 series or something (heavily modded by now :) ) It's a Semptron 3000+ with 768MB RAM...

What was most likely happening IMO was that the compaq came with a sample virus scanner that you never turned off... it only had 1 hard drive, the windows page file was big and not a fixed size... and or moved around a lot... and/or the soundcard latency was set to 1ms... and/or you werre using a nonprofessional sound card/interface... example on my system my SoundBlaster PCI512 with dropout when the Edirol FA-66 will not under the same load....
 
I use a dual core Gateway machine and run both Sonar 5 and Adobe Audition. The problem is not the processor as much as the amount of RAM, but the clicking is probably coming from the on board or stock sound card. Get yourself a good PCI card with a breakout box or even go firewire and you'll be fine with what you have. I know a lot of people don't like them, but I use a Phonic Helix Firewire 18 board and have no problem recording multi tracks at one time.
The biggest trick to recording good audio is don't clutter up the machine with lots of needless stuff. Get a free copy of AVG anti-virus instead of Norton or McAfee as they take up lots of memory and slow your machine to a crawl. AVG finds any problems that slip in without being a memory hog. J
 
I didn't read all the responses, but I have to say 93% of all prebuilt is shit.
 
Yep,

You gotta remember that prebuilt is built as cheap as possible...and it often includes onboard graphics/sound that can be diff to work around...And that they seldom offer room for expansion.

Best to do your homework and assemble a task specific machine that does exactly what you want, the way you want.

With prebuilt, you pay for a generic machine that include lots of software you will never use and hardware that you can't upgrade.

If you wanna play games and surf the net and download mp3's and chat, and do your homework, and photo shop pics of yer kids, then buy prebuilt...Consider that prebuilt's are kinda like a mini van for soccer mom's with fold down seats and all that silly stuff that allow you to use one car for many things cause you can't afford a single car/truck best for each thing.
 
zekthedeadcow said:
it was probably a latency or background process scheduling issue... you might have had an antivirus running or whatever they throw on those compaqs... I actually use a Compaq presario SR1000 series or something (heavily modded by now :) ) It's a Semptron 3000+ with 768MB RAM...

What was most likely happening IMO was that the compaq came with a sample virus scanner that you never turned off... it only had 1 hard drive, the windows page file was big and not a fixed size... and or moved around a lot... and/or the soundcard latency was set to 1ms... and/or you werre using a nonprofessional sound card/interface... example on my system my SoundBlaster PCI512 with dropout when the Edirol FA-66 will not under the same load....
Click to expand...


well, before i even loaded sonar, i got rid of all the crap.. including the anti-virus. i uninstalled what i thought to be everything that would disrupt, but apparently not good enough.

so, if i'm using a firewire mixer, do i really need to worry about the crappy sound card? i would just be using the sound card for playback, right?
 
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