Torpedo

This too.

OK, thanks Dan. I'll keep using this PC until it crashes, which hopefully will happen after the new iMac is released. However I'll check some LCD monitors prices and PC hardware, still not completely decided to follow the iMac route

Computer still works, but the problem wasn't the SCSI stuff. It shut down itself even with the Adaptec card removed. Looks like I'll have to speed this up a bit. Almost decided to get an iMac and retiring the CRT, however: - What do you think would offer better overall performance: i3 + SSD, or quad i5 with no SSD. Considering 27" screen resolution and image quality, is it worth investing in the better GPU? Price wise the i3 + SSD + HDD + lower model GPU would be about the same as the Quad i5 + HDD + higher model GPU. - Does the iMac benefit that much of 8Gb RAM instead of 4? - Should I wait for the soon to happen iMac upgrade? If that's highly advisable, I'd try to use the MBP alone until the new iMac is launched. I really like much better working on a desktop, but if the update is going to happen soon I could wait a few weeks.

Oh thanks for the Dell tip, I always forget about them

Wow mate, horrible news, I'm sorry Keep calm, I'm sure you'll find a way to survive this issue as anything else. One doesn't grow a family and gets in the sixties by chance.

Yay mate thanks, however I couldn't make much of that list, all links lead to Amazon purchasing pages, but no real reviews, pics or technical explanations.

Thanks knuckles. I've been watching the 27" one in the iMac and it's among the best LCDs I've seen so far. I don't know if the cinema displays are even better. They're expensive, that's all I know about them, and that some years ago, they were made by Samsung and you could get them way cheaper directly, but not all Samsungs were the same as Apple used. Let's suppose I bite the iMac. Would you get an i3 dual core, lower video card, 8Gb RAM but SSD + HDD, better than the i5 quad core with higher video card, 8Gb of RAM, but no SSD? Both options would set me back about the same.

You're evil. But you are damn right too. Contrast hasn't improved over the years. Nor will my vision.

Mmm I'd need a lot of energy savings to justify the change, but thanks for the hint

I know, but considering my own back up strategies and lack of consistency it's a safe way to have better coverage than I'm having now. I'd keep copying from time to time the relevant files to an external. Yes, I know, I'm resisting myself to accept that a nicely working device isn't practical and is obsolete. However that doesn't change it has an image quality that I can't find yet on LCD displays. This thing set up at 100Hz is fatigue free, and offers a level of detail and color quality which I think is very good. I may get bigger displays in a way thinner presentation, but not really "better". More convenient probably yes, but that's all. If I were to accept the monitor change as a necessity, I'd be more prone to get the iMac. In the worst case, if it's not up to the performance I expect, and I keep missing Windows applications, I may sell it for a loss and building the standard PC anytime. I've just checked macrumours to see if it's a good time to buy an iMac, and looks like it'a not, an update is expected. I wonder if more performance for about the same price. This doesn't help much. I'll try to get the current machine working a few days/weeks more, so I can see if the iMac has more bonus points than the form factor. Is it safe buying a new Mac model as soon as it comes out? Knuckles, what mac do you use with Windows? Bootcamp or parallels?

Yep, stabbing creates deep bonds.

The VGA thing is because I'd like to keep my CRT. I like its image better than any LCD I've seen. It's also a working device which I feel is shaming to just throw away. Nobody would like a big CRT monitor nowadays However I could live with the iMac display The RAID 1 is just to have an automatic real time backup of everything I rip, download or produce. I hate having to make backups frequently. I'll look at those SSD options. Some of the parts I chose is just for availability, the online store has them on stock or with a 3 day delay max. Fancier stuff might delay the whole thing a couple of weeks.

Yep, that's my guess. Just replying manaox who suggested an Ati 6000 series. I'm not a hardcore gamer. Far from it. I feel like a silly newbie asking about HD600 or 701 It kind of pisses me that a 2500 euros iMac, which is about what I need but for HDD capacity and some software applications missing, compared to a 2000 euros PC seems a turtle vs a rabbit. Slower CPU, way less RAM, just 2TB without RAID, no SSD... It doesn't seem a clever, practical decision under a strict performance POW Now I'm on-call so I not even know if the PC is still working. We'll see tomorrow.

HDD is Western Digital WD2001FASS 2 TB (Caviar Black, MAESTRO) it's a 7200rpm drive, not of the green line, so it doesn't idle that easily which should produce no issues on a RAID configuration. SSD is a Corsair Force F120 2,5" SSD 120 GB SATA 300, CSSD-F120GB2-BRKT. Speeds are 285 MB/s (read) and 270 MB/s (write). I know next to nothing about SSD, so other suggestions are very welcome. the i7 960 is 289 euros. The i7930 is 239. So the price difference isn't huge compared to the savings from getting this machine instead of an iMac. I could get a better GPU, but those don't come with a direct VGA output so to increased price, I'd need to add some adapter to plug the CRT. I'm a bit scared of top of the line GPUs. In my gamer days I toasted about 3 higher end Nvidias and 1 ATI in a couple of years with 0 overclocking involved I must say.

LOLz nope, but I may need to calculate flow and mean fundamental frequency fluctuations after inverse filtering on supracricoid laryngectomized patients Not really, toughest work I'll do with this machine is watching HD videos in damn Adobe flash, which seems to consume a lot of resources. Now that I've got the internet connection largely upgraded, the limiting factor seems to be the computer Also some audio and video transcoding. Eventually a little gaming if the thing is fast enough. I quit PC gaming a few years ago.

4x 4Gb modules, it is 16Gb isn't enough? Well, it's not very expensive and the mobo has 6 slots so I could add other 8Gb for 24Gb total. How much does W7 require? Wife's laptop is using W7 32 bits with 3Gb RAM and I wouldn't say it's a slow machine. Oh, after posting I've seen you edited hahahaha. Jacob, what CPU then? I'm kind of an Intel guy, I've been using their CPU's for almost 20 years now Nothing against AMD, other than urban legends of more heating and less reliability. Nowadays I'm not as knowledgeable about computers as I used to. For the price I thought the 960 i7 is now in the midrange.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I think the element causing the trouble is either the SCSI card or the SCSI HDD, a 15000rpm Cheetah where I placed the virtual memory. It could even be the wire. Once the disk is disabled the system runs smoothly. I think I'll have to move away from SCSI, despite I love my Plextor CD-ROM drive, and loved that damn fast disk. Thanks for the kind offer dsavitsk. There's an online retailer that has a configuration engine. I've configured this machine: - Asus P6X58D-E motherboard. It has a couple of PCI slots, so I could use my current soundcard. The mobo has RAID, USB3.0, FW, sound and fast LAN. - Intel i7 960 processor. - Corsair 120Gb SSD 285/275 MB/s - 16Gb of Kingston ValueRAM DIMM 4 GB DDR3-1066 (looks like I must get 1066 instead of 1330 or 1600 for the CPU speed). - 4x 2TB HDD WD 7200rpm for a Raid 1 configuration. - Asus ATI Radeon HD 5670, 1024 MB, 128 bits, PCIe 2.0 x16 It has VGA output so I can plug my CRT - Plextor serial ATA DVD-R/RW drive. - Coolermaster PSU 850w Ultra silent. Thermaltake box (if you don't get a box and PSU they won't mount and configure the machine). All this plus a fancy PCU cooler, W7 Professional 64bits, configured and sent to my place, costs me about 500 euros less than a i5 2Tb 4Gb RAM iMac By getting this I could keep the CRT, using the soundcard, and would be pretty ready for future upgrades in memory, SSD or eventually a graphics card if the CRT dies at some point, which I don't think will happen any time soon. The beast is 13 years old and works well. I also could make a decently usable PC from the "old" one, for someone in the family, charity... whatever. Any changes, improvements or downgrades to that PC configuration?

I considered that point too, I'm not sure if it's 2 or 3 years old. I changed it for the previous one dying the usual death of a computer PSU and it's about 800w, but I'm not sure it has any extra connections. I'm not sure Dual and Quad core mobos have different electrical connections from the ones required for the P4 865PE based ones.

CueTools has a nicer interface when it comes to choose the tags which best fit the disc. I use it a lot to split flac/ape + cue sets then converting into ALAC for iPod/MBP use. Other than that, it runs about 3x faster in the MBP than cue tools in the about-to-die PC. Not sure there's Audition for Mac... it's been many many years using MS-DOS and Windows computers and its software to just move away from that into OSX full time. When uninstalling software on Mac I'm still not sure I've done it right hahaha I had considered the Mac mini option too, but I'd need the mini-display to VGA adapter and an external DAC to get decent sound quality from it, about the same requirements and performance as the MBP. There's not much advantage from getting the mini other than the extra USB ports and a tad bigger HDD compared to the MBP.

My regular PC, which I built and have re-built along the last 10 years, is ageing and giving signs of a soon-to-happen crash. Not sure if it's the SCSI Adaptec board, one of the SCSI discs, one of the USB ports in the mobo, even the AGP card... whatever, it freezes, refuses to reboot and I'm afraid that while I've managed to get it booting, it won't in a few days. With this computer I have a 21" CRT Philips monitor which besides being a behemoth filling most of my desk, works great and offers excellent image quality. I'd feel kind of guilty getting rid of it, so any solution which allows to keep it has some bonus points. Options I'm considering keeping budget under 2500 euros: - Jumping into 21st century, getting rid of the CRT and getting an iMac: i5, 8Gb 2Tb (I know about SSD but that forces a budget override) This has the bad part of having to stop using nice programs like CueTools, or using them in virtual mode. Problem with external HDD which are NTFS and OSX isn't fully compatible, or if it is, you may pay a reliability price. I'd need to get used to OSX, which is something I more or less can do for the MBP experience, but kind of hate not being able to "fine tune" as in Windows. I'd probably need a new DAC or anything to get decent sound from it. - Buying a new mobo, processor, memory chips, graphics card, couple of HDD... I'd just keep the Soundcard and optical drives to build a new computer into the old Coolermaster box. It's possible I can use the PSU too. This would allow installing W7 which finally is a decent OS probably offering better performance than XP. Also would allow keeping the CRT. With the money I'd save compared to the iMac cost, I could set up a RAID thing or even getting a Drobo. - Not buying a damn new thing, just a USB duplicator bay so I can plug the external devices into the MBP, and a mini-display port to VGA adapter, so I might use the MBP with the CRT. Perhaps a side step until making a final decision. Fact is that I don'r really need much more than the MBP performance nowadays. Even a Mac-mini would do. What would you do? Lateral thought suggestions? I'm afraid I don't have much time before this thing crashes forever.

Happy B-Day sir!!

The Bill Holman Band - Brilliant Corners: The Music of Thelonious Monk

I'll send you a PM in a few days. Now with the Easter holidays coming on I'm not sure everyone who could be interested is aware and has replied. Two interested guys so far

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Glad to know there are good news on all fronts. Best wishes Al, Shelly and Beefy.