Looking for Dell 690 tips

[s0nguy]

Man... I'm bummed. Why is this SO D**M hard?

I want a stable and fast machine that can run the HD3 like a MacPro PCIe system. I think i might still go ahead and get one, try it out on HD3. I just read the manual for my motherboard (Asus P4c800-e) and could find no mention of the 5PCI slots being PCI-X or anything like that. SO, in theory, a Dell 690 would give me the same TDM performance as I'm seeing now (which is fine) but a TON more horsepower when it came to RTAS and virtual instruments, Etc... If it slows me down or gets low track counts, Ill sell my process cards and get one Accel.

Bob, to answer your original question! As long as your RAID controller is seen by windows as a standard SATA controller you shouldnt have any problems. However, if the word RAID is anywhere in the BIOS or device manager get ready for problems. I have the Asus P4C-800e and you can get standard SATA drivers for the RAID controller and tell the BIOS to operate in SATA mode... I never got it to work 100% so I just went out and bought a PCI SATA controller.

As far as the RAM, it will work.

-s0nguy

[dfusion]

The Dell Precision 690 has two dual-core Xeon (Woodcrest) processors (four total), the same as the current line of Mac Pro machines. Lots of RTAS power!


Here is a picture of the Dell Precision 690 motherboard showing three PCIe x4 slots, one PCIe x16, one PCI 33mhz, and two PCI-X slots. Again, I don't see the problem with having ETIHER an HD2 PCI-X *OR* an HD3 PCIe [ie. no mix and match] but I'm being told by someone at Digi this motherboard isn't support for HD PCIe and only the Foxcon is support with HD using PCIe on Windows XP.


http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...g/paris_u6.jpg

[Brandonx1]

Hi dfusion,
Pro Tools cards are connected to one anther with a flex cable that is only as long as the gap between adjacent cards. So, the dell would not even fit more then a HD 1 PCI-e. Just to fit the card in a computer you need 3 adjacent PCI-e slots and that is the reason it is not tested. No computer maker makes a PC like this yet except the mac pro. Hope this helps.
Peace,
Brandon

[Bob Olhsson]

...As long as your RAID controller is seen by windows as a standard SATA controller you shouldn't have any problems. However, if the word RAID is anywhere in the BIOS or device manager get ready for problems...

The SATA drives show up simply as SCSI in device manager as does the RAID/SCSI adapter. Since it's one of a tiny number of computers mentioned as "supported" and the page about it doesn't mention this issue, it would be nice to know how it was tested. The instructions for the computer make it clear that all 690s come this way unless they are set up as RAID or have the optional PCIE RAID card.

[s0nguy]

The SATA drives show up simply as SCSI in device manager as does the RAID/SCSI adapter. Since it's one of a tiny number of computers mentioned as "supported" and the page about it doesn't mention this issue, it would be nice to know how it was tested. The instructions for the computer make it clear that all 690s come this way unless they are set up as RAID or have the optional PCIE RAID card.

My gut reaction is that you are fine as is. Are you having problems with them being reported as SCSI?

-S0nguy

[Bob Olhsson]

I'm not having problems because I'm not using the machine for work yet!

[s0nguy]

I hooked up my 690 today. All I can say is WHAT A MACHINE!!

This thing is so sweet on the inside... well thought out. It is even quieter than my water-cooled system! I installed HD3 PCI in it and it ran right off the bat. I decided to stay HD3 instead of using teh PCI-X 64 bit slots... it works great. Im in the process of installing all of my software again.... You forget how long it takes to install Stylus, BFD, XFL, EWQL, XPand.... eeesh..

BTW, Bob, I have 4 SATA hard drives hooked up to the controller on the motherboard and have had no problems. As far as a tip, I partitioned my system drive into 72GB and *gb. I keep my swap file on the 8gb partition... have done that for years.

Anyway.... kudos to Dell... so far..

-s0nguy

[Bob Olhsson]

Glad to hear about the controller. My floppy drive is DOA but other than that so far, so good.

I'm waiting for two more gigs of RAM and the proper SATA cable to show up. Then I'll open it up, swap a Plextor for the cheapo CD-R drive, add another 300 gig hard drive and all of the audio stuff. After the price comes down in a few months, I plan to add the second CPU.

A friend of mine tells me that 32 bit Vista could very easily be lots more friendly for audio than XP is. He says the i/o and memory management are both way less of a kludge. If that's the case, it could well be the reason why digi isn't bothering to support PCIE for XP.

[nikki-k]

Digi may not support PCIe XP/Windows, but it works just fine

[Bob Olhsson]

It wouldn't be the first time!

Thinking about it, I've probably only used an "officially supported" system for around 25% of the time since I bought my first system in 1989. The new Dell is only the 4th computer that I've ever owned if you don't count the Msc powerbook that fell apart after a year.

I still suspect digi has something bigger up their sleeve for PCIe than just Vista.