New member in need of Forum Computer Advice

[cmangeot]

I am a New User with M Powered 7.4 and Black Box considering a Dell with 6 GB Ram/500 GB HD(i have a 640 GB external)/ Duo Core 7400 processor and an XP downgrade.

Are there any pitfalls I need to be aware of?

I'm looking to spend 1000 max

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Chris Mangeot

[TOM@METRO]

Need a little more info on the computer you are looking at. Firewire...chipset...etc. Be sure the XP you get is 32 bit.

[cmangeot]

This computer does have the 1394 port.

Chipset is :Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor E7400 (3MB L2 Cache,2.80GHz,1066 FSB),

The computer comes with XP Professional installed. They do not specify whether the XP is 32-bit, but I could just reinstall my older 32-bit version, couldn't I??

I have a Maxtor One Touch 640GB external which is USB....Does this needs to be connected via FireWire????

I am so clueless as to how to properly hook this up.!!

I am currently running instruments and my guitar synth into Pro Tools via the Black Box and into my PC via USB. Is this correct???

Sorry for being a newbie!

Chris

[DigiTechSupt]

You may want to visit the General Troubleshooting thread and use Sandra to generate a system report, then post it here...

[TOM@METRO]

You need a separate audio drive, and it needs to be Firewire. There have been issues with some Dell Firewire controllers. Be sure you will have compatibility.

[cmangeot]

I am using a dell now with a pentium 4 and 1GB of RAM along with the Maxtor USB 2.0 external, and when I add a third track, I get this :

"DAE can't get audio from the drive(s) fast enough. Your drive may be too slow or fragmented, or a firewire drive could be having trouble due to the extra firewire bandwidth or CPU load. (-9073)"

I am guessing that this is due to the USB connection from the PC to the External Maxtor??

Anyway, I can get two tracks down with no issue, with multiple add-ins. Once I attempt to record the third guitar track, I get the error above.

Will the firewire, along with the new, 6 GM of RAM in this PC solve this issue?

[TOM@METRO]

First, Firewire drives as opposed to USB are mandatory for use in Pro Tools.
Second, to even guess whether or not this will be you entire solution we will need a Sandra report on your system as suggested by the forum administrator.

[cmangeot]

I have downloaded SANDRA but I am not sure how analyzing my current machine will help me pick a new one.

Here is the machine I have built with Dell:


XPS 630 Intel® Core™2 E8400 (6MB,3.0 GHz, 1333FSB)
Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate Bonus 32 bit
Memory 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 DIMMs Keyboard Dell
Video Card ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB AT4850 [320-7551]
Hard Drive 500GB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
Optical Drive Dual Drives: 48x Combo + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable
Sound Cards Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
2nd Hard Drive 750GB-7200RPM, SATA 2 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
1394a port

I am unsure whether the second drive will work correctly.....can anyone lend any assistance? Does this drive need to be firewire if it is internal?

Any other thoughts. It seems to meet all of the criteria for M-Powered.

The comments of the forum are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Chris

[mcgirr]

If it is internal it will not be firewire. Im pretty sure ONLY external drives are firewire.

I would definitely use 2 internal drives, 1 for system, one for sessions.

If you must use an external drive use a firewire drive.
Do not use a USB drive, you will never get the results you want.
Or the performance you are capable of.

Internal sata drives are super cheap at this point. They dont even have to be very large.
(Sessions files can ALWAYS be moved for storage, to free up space.)

I use Raptor 74gb sata drives but, they are not nessasary for recording.

What drive you use will depend on MB specs. Most new computers will use serial ata (sata). IDE drives are still in use but... probably on the way out.

Best wishes.

[eggshellstudios]

Originally Posted by cmangeot

...considering a Dell with 6 GB Ram

32-bit windows operating systems can't recognize more than 3gb of ram, although vista may be able to register a little over that. Getting anything over 4gb on a 32-bit system will be a waste of money. Just thought I'd let you know.