Newbie about to build a workstation for 002R

[ricalv]

Hi Everybody, this forum is a great resource thanks to you guys!

I'm a newbie too and am about to purchase a 002R and build a workstation for it. I have some doubts:

- If I buy dual core processor what would be the procedure: Disable the dual processing and install PT LE as it comes (6.9.x),
then upgrade to PT7 and enable the dual processing?

- Any thoughts on the Asus A8N-SLI mobos? That one vs A8N-E?

- I believe the A8N-E doesn't have Firewire interface (at least I can't find that spec on Asus website). Are A8N-E users installing
a PCI FW interface to connect the oo2R and any FW External drive?

- Out of curiosity, how is PT able to recognize a hardware based RAID?

- Which AMD ATHLON 64 X2 do you recommend, Toledo or Manchester?

- Does PT take full advantage of having 2GB RAM instead of 1GB?

Thanks,
Ricardo

[filosofem]

bump

[Haggis]

- If I buy dual core processor what would be the procedure: Disable the dual processing and install PT LE as it comes (6.9.x), then upgrade to PT7 and enable the dual processing?

ans: if you use 6.9 with a dual core you need to set processor affinity to a single core for the protools.exe task, with PT7 the dual core issue is irrelevant.


- Any thoughts on the Asus A8N-SLI mobos? That one vs A8N-E?

ans: I'm sure Allen Hallada, and Rail will have a better opinion on this shortly.
All I can say is that my SLI board works (Asus A8N-SLI Premium) but I am of the understanding that the SLI boards are unproven at this time.


- I believe the A8N-E doesn't have Firewire interface (at least I can't find that spec on Asus website). Are A8N-E users installing a PCI FW interface to connect the oo2R and any FW External drive?

ans: not applicable to me


- Out of curiosity, how is PT able to recognize a hardware based RAID?

ans: I use a raid 0 strip on two drives but I only stream samples from the drives and do not use them for recording to. But heck, a 200GB SATA costs very little anyway, why go raid if you can get 32 tracks to a SATA?


- Which AMD ATHLON 64 X2 do you recommend, Toledo or Manchester?

ans: I can only comment on the socket 939 1 MB L2 X2 cache 4400 I purchased, which to the best of my knowledge is dual 3700...go the cache...small price to pay really.


- Does PT take full advantage of having 2GB RAM instead of 1GB?

ans: I have 4GB installed mostly because I use heavy 24bit orchestral samples and it works fine. Well, with DFD I can get a LOT out of a single DAW.

[ricalv]

Hi Haggis!
Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate them.
So you have had no issues at all with your A8N-SLI Premium mobo? Do you like the Cool Pipe?

Regarding RAID, I was thinking on a RAID 1 in case one disk dies...

Thanks again,
Ricardo

[Haggis]

Hi,

I actually had quite a few problems getting this board to work, don't use the drivers that come with the MB. You will need to download the updated drivers prior to installing and use those or you are in for a lot of head scratching. I would also seriously recomend that you do a clean install of XP as well. The cool pipe is why I wanted this board, the quieter the better IMO and also the northbridge fans on the socket 939 MB are just rubbish. I've built six or so machines recently on the asus 939 boards and all but one had a noisy northbridge fan. It's easy enough to replace with a zalman heatsink but honestly they should be puting in a better quality cooler to begin with, which I guess leads us back to the cool pipe tech.

RAID 1, I take it you mean you want to stripe your system partition for redundancy? I've never tried doing this with a system used for protools, you might want to try it and see. As long as its not a partition used for audio it might work.

A lot of peeps just ghost the working system partition so they have a fallback point.

cheers