Ultimate DAW PC. Cheap, quiet, stable, robust.

[Mr. Dipity]

I was recently mixing an album that had many track and tons of plugins running. My PC DAW was being crushed with all of that running. I had to disable a few processor intensive plugins while making edits just so it would play back without crapping out on me. I read this entire thread and took your advice. You are right on with this setup! I bought a 400sc and a pair of 512Mb ECC DDR SDRAM sticks. I already had a Matrox G450 that I popped in. My Raptor is on it's way, but in the meantime I set up my OS and settings on the 40GB WD drive that came with the Dell. I plugged in my Seagate 120GB drive with all of my recorded tracks. Damn, this thing smokes! And quiet!

I've made the mistake of recording with one of these still on, sitting in my vocal booth (it's also the machine room, most of the time). I only realized it was on after the session, not that it made much of a difference to the track.

[linus]

My 400sc is in the mail, I ordered a pair of WD raptor 73gig HDs, and am ordering the Matrox g450 AGP video card.

I can't find the memory near the price that I've heard mention $150 for 1 gig of Kingston DDR SDRAM. I find prices that are closer to $240. Am I searching for the right stuff?

Can anyone point me towards the right stuff for ~$150?

[parlormusic]

The only thing left to get for my 400sc DAW is the UAD-1 card. Once that's in, LOOK OUT!

I've decided to abort my Sony Vegas software for Nuendo. I hope the learning curve isn't too bad.

[b3groover]

Seriously, folks, think twice... no, think five times before buying Western Digital. As mentioned in my previous post, I had two die on me for no reason.

Now make that three. The latest was a 10gig that I took out of my old Akai harddisk (replaced it with a 30gig Maxtor). It was fine and I recorded some live gigs with in my new Fostex harddisk recorder. I brought it home and it's dead.

All audio lost. Tried to reformat and it won't even format.


Western Digital sucks. Go Seagate or at the very least Maxtor.

[parlormusic]

Seriously, folks, think twice... no, think five times before buying Western Digital. As mentioned in my previous post, I had two die on me for no reason.

Now make that three. The latest was a 10gig that I took out of my old Akai harddisk (replaced it with a 30gig Maxtor). It was fine and I recorded some live gigs with in my new Fostex harddisk recorder. I brought it home and it's dead.

All audio lost. Tried to reformat and it won't even format.


Western Digital sucks. Go Seagate or at the very least Maxtor.

Were any of those WD drives from the Raptor series?

I've had Seagate and Maxtor drives die just as often as WD. I like Seagate for how silent they are. I feel that heat is the leading cause of HDD failure, so I now make sure that my drives are well ventilated. I haven't had a problem in a few years now.

[b3groover]

No, I don't think they were Raptors. Maybe that's the difference.

I have not had any Maxtor or Seagate drives fail on me. I also have a WD in my office machine as the main system drive. That computer is 5 years old and I haven't had any problems. However, those three dead WD drives did enough for me to make me not want to buy anymore WD drives.

Just my experience.

[parlormusic]

No, I don't think they were Raptors. Maybe that's the difference.

I have not had any Maxtor or Seagate drives fail on me. I also have a WD in my office machine as the main system drive. That computer is 5 years old and I haven't had any problems. However, those three dead WD drives did enough for me to make me not want to buy anymore WD drives.

Just my experience.

Understandable. It's like my bad luck with Ford vehicles.

[linus]

Will this memory work for this Dell 400sc?

Kingston ValueRAM Dual Channel Kit 184 Pin 1G(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 - Retail

- Specifications -

Manufacturer: Kingston
Speed: DDR400(PC3200)
Type: 184 Pin DDR SDRAM
Error Checking: Non-ECC
Registered/Unbuffered: Unbuffered
Cas Latency: 3
Support Voltage: 2.6V
Bandwidth: 3.2GB/s
Organization: two 64M x 64 -Bit
Warranty: Lifetime

Any reason I should get something other than this? This is $143 for 1 gig.

[spankenstein]

All drives fail. We return just as many W-D as we do Maxtor. They all suck and are all the weak link in a computer.

[parlormusic]

Will this memory work for this Dell 400sc?

Kingston ValueRAM Dual Channel Kit 184 Pin 1G(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 - Retail

- Specifications -

Manufacturer: Kingston
Speed: DDR400(PC3200)
Type: 184 Pin DDR SDRAM
Error Checking: Non-ECC
Registered/Unbuffered: Unbuffered
Cas Latency: 3
Support Voltage: 2.6V
Bandwidth: 3.2GB/s
Organization: two 64M x 64 -Bit
Warranty: Lifetime

Any reason I should get something other than this? This is $143 for 1 gig.

Yep, that should work. Either ECC or non-ECC works with the MB.

[idylldon]

Just wanted to add that I got a 400 SC and it's a *killer* machine for the money. I added a gig of ram, a WD SATA Raptor HD, and ATI AGP8 9600 video card w/128mb ram, and a Plextor CD/DVD burner. I highly recommend this machine.

Oh, yeah, it's quieter than any computer I've ever owned.

Cheers,
--
Don

[linus]

OK...

I have the 400SC, and two Raptor 73gig drives installed but the dell doesn't recognise them. I am planning on installing the XP Home Edition OS that I have available (and just turning all the extra stuff off) but I want to make sure that I have all the drivers available before I start.

Do I need to download a separate driver for the SATA drives? (Someone told me that XP will need a driver update to use SATA).

Is this true? If so, which driver? I looked at Dell's driver download page and there are drivers for the 400SC and SATA but for Win 2003 not XP.

Help!

[parlormusic]

OK...

I have the 400SC, and two Raptor 73gig drives installed but the dell doesn't recognise them. I am planning on installing the XP Home Edition OS that I have available (and just turning all the extra stuff off) but I want to make sure that I have all the drivers available before I start.

Do I need to download a separate driver for the SATA drives? (Someone told me that XP will need a driver update to use SATA).

Is this true? If so, which driver? I looked at Dell's driver download page and there are drivers for the 400SC and SATA but for Win 2003 not XP.

Help!

You need to download & install WD utility "Data Lifeguard Tools 11 for Windows" in order to set up the Raptor so that Windows will see it.

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

[linus]

OK...

I have the 400SC, and two Raptor 73gig drives installed but the dell doesn't recognise them. I am planning on installing the XP Home Edition OS that I have available (and just turning all the extra stuff off) but I want to make sure that I have all the drivers available before I start.

Do I need to download a separate driver for the SATA drives? (Someone told me that XP will need a driver update to use SATA).

Is this true? If so, which driver? I looked at Dell's driver download page and there are drivers for the 400SC and SATA but for Win 2003 not XP.

Help!

You need to download & install WD utility "Data Lifeguard Tools 11 for Windows" in order to set up the Raptor so that Windows will see it.

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

I will be doing a fresh installation of XP Pro on the Dell with 2 Raptors and no other HDs. My understanding is that I need the SATA driver on a floppy when I start the XP installation so the Dell can recognise the Raptors. The link you gave me seems to be a "Dataguard" software program. Doesn't seem like it's the right thing. Could you clarify at all? I'm a newbie to DAWs (this is my first one I'm setting up from scratch).

Another issue is that the drivers Dell provides on their website are for "Promise" SATA drivers. Users on the Nuendo forum state that Promise SATA controllers route through the PCI (even though they are dedicated connections on the mother board) Does this make sense? I thought I wanted to avoid routing through the PCI to leave that open for my audio card (Lynx AES16)? They suggested using Intel SATA drivers instead but I don't understand how that would make a difference. Isn't the routing on the motherboard a hardwired circuit and not changed by this driver or that?

The more I learn the more confused I become...

[mrc]

Hi,
Run your OS and Applications on the drive that came with it. Use the WD utility, and format each drive independently. To make things simple, you can disconnect the Sata drives during the install. That way you can only select the ATA drive. When you install XP hit the F6 key when it asks if you need to install drivers, and insert a floppie with the drivers for your raid controller on it. You should be able to get these on the net, but they may be on a cd that came with your box? Just copy them to floppy wherever you get them from. XP will probably ask for them again during the install. When the install and all the updates are done, and you have any cards you wish to install, in and settled in their own IRQ (Especially your audio card)....most boards have slots that are shared and non shared IRQs, check your manual. Now you should have the OS and applications on the ATA drive, and the machine setup. If you are going to be using a streaming sampler, Like Kontact, you may want to devote one of the Raptors to samples for it. If you have another ATA drive, that will work fine for samples. Shut down and re-connect the sata drives. To raid up the drives, boot and open the utility for your raid controller during the boot sequence. Select the type you want, "0" for speed, "1" for safety (mirrors the first drive). I've never used "1" so you are on your own there. With the "0" option follow your directions in the utility, and save or whatever it wants. It will probably reboot. When windows comes up, you will need to partition & format the raid pair before you can use them. I use Partition Magic, because I use multiple boots and several large drives with partitions. 160 gig drives are currently cheaper than 12 gig drives were just a few years ago. You can also go to: control panel>Administrative tools>computer management>Disk Management>click on the raid pair in the lower right window>actions>alltasks and then partition and format it. Bingo, on reboot, it should show up in my computer as 1 drive, roughly 140 gigs or a bit less. These are very fast drives, and you may never need to use them in a "0" raid config. I would guess 1 of them should handle around 100 audio tracks, perhaps more.
Good luck,
mrc