New computer setup

bikerboy

Hi,
I have been working on a computer to play music and record music from lps. I use Mediamonkey to rip cds to flak files. I find MM does most everything I want without being too techy. I upgraded to windows 7 awhile back and that made the old terratec sound card history. So I found that the ESI juli@ fit the bill. It is W7 compatable and had good reviews. It sounds much better than the built-in sound card. Coaxial out into the Twisted Pear Audio dac for the best connection. The terratec used an optical.
Yesterday I recorded from David Bowie-The rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars. Its a Music Fidelity half speed master recording. I want to hear what this setup could sound like using 24/192 which is the highest level this card is capable of doing. I use Goldwave for software to record from vinyl. One side of the lp is 720 MB and the other is 780 MB! It takes 6 minutes to save the file after recording! When saving the files the cpu in the computer got hot! 70c hot. A buzzer would sound for about half of the time while saving. I think I will have to look at increasing the fanspeed or other cooling improvements. But after all that the wait is worth it. The 24/192 digital recording played back through the mancave system sounds great. I havent done an a/b comparison yet but it will nice to listen to "vinyl" on my mp3 player and in the car. More later.

MANSKITO

bikerboy wrote: »

Hi,
I have been working on a computer to play music and record music from lps. I use Mediamonkey to rip cds to flak files. I find MM does most everything I want without being too techy. I upgraded to windows 7 awhile back and that made the old terratec sound card history. So I found that the ESI juli@ fit the bill. It is W7 compatable and had good reviews. It sounds much better than the built-in sound card. Coaxial out into the Twisted Pear Audio dac for the best connection. The terratec used an optical.
Yesterday I recorded from David Bowie-The rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars. Its a Music Fidelity half speed master recording. I want to hear what this setup could sound like using 24/192 which is the highest level this card is capable of doing. I use Goldwave for software to record from vinyl. One side of the lp is 720 MB and the other is 780 MB! It takes 6 minutes to save the file after recording! When saving the files the cpu in the computer got hot! 70c hot. A buzzer would sound for about half of the time while saving. I think I will have to look at increasing the fanspeed or other cooling improvements. But after all that the wait is worth it. The 24/192 digital recording played back through the mancave system sounds great. I havent done an a/b comparison yet but it will nice to listen to "vinyl" on my mp3 player and in the car. More later.

It sounds likes it time for both a CPU upgrade AND a cooling upgrade, for air best there is

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16835109140

that and a 500 rpm fan for no noise operation (2x 1500+ for max performance) will keep that CPU colder then vanilla ice.

The 120 extreme is pretty much the standard when it comes to High end air cooling

How ever there are many air cooled CPU heat sinks that will come close to the True 120s performance for a lot less cash.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835207004

That is one example and the one I am currently running.

It is keeping an overvolted and overclocked 130 watt quad core CPU 50"c
And that is no small task. (3.0 stock all the way up too 3.8 prime stable @1.45 volts)

If you want to go all out of course there is watter cooling however don't be fooled into thinking that an all in one intagrated unit will out preform Top end air cooling

For example something like this will NOT out preform the air Coolers i listed above.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181010

If you want to make the jump to water cooling you have to do it right this is a good place to start. That means buying at min. a duel 120 radiator, a nice $40+ water block, water pump, and of course tubing.

http://www.petrastechshop.com/pecoba.html that will get you where you want to go if you want to do water cooling.


Also please consider a CPU upgrade that is slow as hell 6mins lol.

To answer your question a CPU can be operated at 70c but of course this is not good for the life span of the CPU, cooler is always better for over all system stability and life span of the electronics.

Also when upgrading the heat sink another thing to consider is the thermal paste ( thermal paste is used to remove any air in between the CPU and heat sink) if you cheap out or use stock thermal paste you not get the same results. This is an industry standard thermal paste that is known for its ability to conduct heat away, of course there are better ones but this is a good place to start.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007&cm_re=artic_silver_5-_-35-100-007-_-Product

AsSiMiLaTeD

The Noctura cooling solution yielded better results for me than the Thermaltake linked above, but they're both very good coolers.

Perhape before we go suggesting CPU upgrades we should see what you have currently, which CPU do you have in your setup?

MANSKITO

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

The Noctura cooling solution yielded better results for me than the Thermaltake linked above, but they're both very good coolers.

Perhape before we go suggesting CPU upgrades we should see what you have currently, which CPU do you have in your setup?

not better than the revision c

Newegg didn't have that on sale i don't believe.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/10/18/thermalright_ultra_extreme_120_revision_b_c_review/

or even better yet the True copper i was just saying thermalright not because it was the best there ever was but because its a widely available, kind of cheap and preformed with in a few degrees of the best there ever was. And looks cool IMO.

and thats a good point but he said after recorded, just to save it. 6mins for a file that size sounds way too slow.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I didn't say it was the best, I said it worked better for me, and the Thermaltake that I bought, and still have sitting in the corner, is the revision C. In my Antec Twelve Hundred, with my setup, the Noctura worked better.

MANSKITO

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

I didn't say it was the best, I said it worked better for me, and the Thermaltake that I bought, and still have sitting in the corner, is the revision C. In my Antec Twelve Hundred, with my setup, the Noctura worked better.

ah well ok m8. maybe you had a poor mounting or somit. How much better we talking? Just wondering is all.

But not to confuse the man i m not sure how much he knows could be an expert for all we know, at this level faster Fan size and RPMS make larger drops in temps, then say a better air cooler, at this level the only way to get better cooling is upgrade the tech itself, aka water cooling or even more exotic cooling solutions.

Other wise your the delta is like 1-3 degrees at most.

bikerboy

I appreciate the comments and dont know that much about computers. I used silver paste on the cpu and when I removed the cooler it had good coverage. I have a HT type case so there is almost no room to use a tall cooler. I had to use the stock fan and heatsink it make it fit. A coworker said there are smaller cd drives so maybe that will give me some more room to use a larger fan and hs. I use Speed Fan to see temps but it doesnt change fan speeds with W7. The computer never had an issue with heat before so this was a surprise. But I never recorded 24/192 files before! I have been working with the asus m3a78-cm bios to make the fans quieter so I will have to change things there. Last night I was able to fit a different hs and quiet 1200 rpm fan. I havent tried recording a lp yet. Maybe I can record another lp night and see what happens. I wont cry if I fry the cpu. I think I bought it off of CL for $25. If a water cooler will be smaller it might be a solution. But I need to play with the bios and see if I can get it to work better first. But the ESI Juli@ sounds great! It will be well worth it.

MANSKITO

bikerboy wrote: »

I appreciate the comments and dont know that much about computers. I used silver paste on the cpu and when I removed the cooler it had good coverage. I have a HT type case so there is almost no room to use a tall cooler. I had to use the stock fan and heatsink it make it fit. A coworker said there are smaller cd drives so maybe that will give me some more room to use a larger fan and hs. I use Speed Fan to see temps but it doesnt change fan speeds with W7. The computer never had an issue with heat before so this was a surprise. But I never recorded 24/192 files before! I have been working with the asus m3a78-cm bios to make the fans quieter so I will have to change things there. Last night I was able to fit a different hs and quiet 1200 rpm fan. I havent tried recording a lp yet. Maybe I can record another lp night and see what happens. I wont cry if I fry the cpu. I think I bought it off of CL for $25. If a water cooler will be smaller it might be a solution. But I need to play with the bios and see if I can get it to work better first. But the ESI Juli@ sounds great! It will be well worth it.

If you have a 120mm fan mounting in your HTPC case then this is your best bet and will do a rather good job if not a great job.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181010

Also please note that an even cover with thermal paste is not all your looking for, it has to be THIN. Aka if you used more then the size of a dry rice grain you used way too much.

To properly do it, just put a dot the size of a dry rice grain(NO BIGGER) in the middle of the CPU, the pressure of the CPU heat sink will evenly spread the thermal paste out.

If you use too much this will seriously detract from your heat sinks ability to cool your CPU, because metal on metal contact is much better then thermals paste ability to conduct heat, the only point of thermal paste is to remove air because your CPU/heat sink is not perfectly flat. But there is not going to be that much air in between them in the first place.

Another thing you can do that is free that will shave off a few degrees is lap your cpu down.

http://metku.net/index.html?path=mods/lapping/index_eng

If you don't fear DIY projects that takes like maybe 30mins and can lower your temps by like 3-10 degrees. ( for me it did 7C)

what you want really is sub 65c-60c for 24/7 operation however at 70c you should be fine just don't try any overclocking lol.

Fans produce noise because they are moving air, if they produce less noise they will move less air and will not help your thermal issues.

So if you are having thermal issues i would not recommend lowering the fan RPMS (which is the only way you will lower the sound produced).

bikerboy

Hi,
So I was able to record another lp this am. Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band-Lick My Decals Off Baby. Its no longer available on cd but the lp is for $13 in 180 gm pressing. Sounds good but a few clicks that I hope to clean up later. The temp was about 43c this time. So I guess the different heatsink and fan did the trick. I also connected another case fan so that there are 2 running now. I want the computer to be quiet but it also needs to be reliable. I think the next time I take it apart I will lap the cpu and heatsink to help lower the temp. I looked at the cpu and its a 2.1 mhz. Any idea if a faster(2.4) would speed up the file saving process? Thanks for the help and links.

nguyendot

It will be a marginal increase at best. What CPU model is that?

AsSiMiLaTeD

What's the actual model of the CPU? A faster CPU might help, but an overclock may be possible and could yield the same results - either of those would likely increase temps at least a little. You can usually get away with at least a slight overclock with no increase in heat, it's when you start increasing voltage that you'll see the biggest increase in temps.

I have my CPUs lapped, but be careful because if you're not on a level surface you can actually do more harm than good when lapping if you don't create a level surface.

MANSKITO

bikerboy wrote: »

Hi,
So I was able to record another lp this am. Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band-Lick My Decals Off Baby. Its no longer available on cd but the lp is for $13 in 180 gm pressing. Sounds good but a few clicks that I hope to clean up later. The temp was about 43c this time. So I guess the different heatsink and fan did the trick. I also connected another case fan so that there are 2 running now. I want the computer to be quiet but it also needs to be reliable. I think the next time I take it apart I will lap the cpu and heatsink to help lower the temp. I looked at the cpu and its a 2.1 mhz. Any idea if a faster(2.4) would speed up the file saving process? Thanks for the help and links.

nah m8 a jump from 2.1 to 2.4 is rather meaningless.

You can try your hand at over clocking. But if it was me i would want no noise operation and in that case your better off at the same clock speed but trying to under volt the cpu. Then it would draw less power (produce less heat and less noise) and be just as fast.

If your rocken a P4 or AMD equivalent its time to change some stuff out how ever if your on a Core 2, phenom II, or Core I7/5 machine leave it alone unless you can get a Clock speed jump of 20% or more other wise your just maken your machine louder needlessly.

If you list your specs i can tell you what you need to upgrade if any thing.

Just saying the clock speed doesn't give me much of an idea of what you are working with. For example they made P4s that ran at 3.8Gs but there slow as hell compared to modern CPUs that run at less then half of that clock speed.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Well, given the asus m3a78-cm motherboard he mentioned, we know it's an AM2 processor, so definitely newer than a P4 class chip, the questions is which model it is. That's DDR2 RAM I believe, so unless you're low on memory there's not a reason to upgrade that either.

MANSKITO

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Well, given the asus m3a78-cm motherboard he mentioned, we know it's an AM2 processor, so definitely newer than a P4 class chip, the questions is which model it is. That's DDR2 RAM I believe, so unless you're low on memory there's not a reason to upgrade that either.

I didn't see the board must of read the post to fast. good point.

Still though AM2 gos a ways back right lol. could still be on a single core Athlon or sumit.

bikerboy

Hi,
I forgot that I have swapped MB in this computer. It is a ECS GeForce 6100SM-M with a AMD athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ 2.1 ghz processor. The upstairs computer uses the Asus with the 2.41 ghz proc. I have 4 gb of ram in each. I see up to 3.0 ghz cpu are available. I'm not going to spend $200 on a new mb, cpu and ram if the file saving times are reduced 25%. That money that can go to audio gear (acoustic panels). Thats more important to me.

doctorcilantro

Hmmm...192 is probably overkill. Most of the archiving going on right now is happening at 96kHz

That said if you have an AM2 socket you could swap in another cpu; something with a ton of onboard cache might help.

I saved a vinyl rip yesterday, 15 seconds save time on SATA at 32bit (fixed) @ 96kHz.

I know it is a real pain to deal with time lags when doing simple operations like saving, that's the only reason I mention my time. Processing like applying dither or RIAA, I need to crunch numbers; I think my AMD is 45watt 2.6mHz. Analyzing audio for ReplayGain....helps to have some serious mips there too.

When I used to have a quad core at 3gHz...things flew, but this is pretty nice now with less heat and noise.

Keep spinning that vinyl! check out ClickRepair for a cost-effective app for noise reduction. iZotope RX is nice too but pricey. People say that Adobe Audtion has a good manual click removal btw.

DC

doctorcilantro

Maybe I will get one of these, not sure if they are out yet:

45 watt AMD quad-core

doctorcilantro

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/processors/athlon-ii-x2/Pages/AMD-athlon-ii-x2-processor-model-numbers-feature-comparison.aspx

Looks like there is a 65watt quad core w/ 6MB cache, and also a 2MB cache 45w AM3 core which should work on AM2+ if your board has a BIOS update/compatibility.

MANSKITO

Meh 45watt cpus lol 130watt+ can be operated at 0 noise (20db large diameter low rpm fans on high end air or low-med water) with right cooling, no point limiting your self just cause the TDP is a little high.

Also power draw is not really an issue cause most of the time it's at idle drawing fractions of the TDP.

If you are in the market for a new CPU only look at price/performance ratios and what you want to do, TDP is pretty much a none issue in instances like HTPC or Gaming PCs etc..

On AMD the best bang for the buck is the Phenom II x3 720 or if quad core performance is needed 790x(or better) chipset and AMD 940 or better. Or if your a on a more limited budget AMD Athlon II X4 620

On intell Core I5 750 or the I7 920

No point really considering any other chips IMO.

doctorcilantro

Good points, but I don't want to spend the time and money on water cooling and if I stick a 90cpu where my 45w is, in a cabinet, I'll bet it will run much hotter at full throttle when crunching. There are only so many fans I can stick in the cabinet and only so many exhaust holes I can drill. And it's the family room, not a college dorm...alas the PC can't be seen.;)

I don't have the space for an ATX mother board. Is AMD 940 out in mini-ITX yet?

I'm kind of interested in the 65w 6mb cache quad core.

cheers
DC

MANSKITO

doctorcilantro wrote: »

Good points, but I don't want to spend the time and money on water cooling and if I stick a 90cpu where my 45w is, in a cabinet, I'll bet it will run much hotter at full throttle when crunching. There are only so many fans I can stick in the cabinet and only so many exhaust holes I can drill. And it's the family room, not a college dorm...alas the PC can't be seen.;)

I don't have the space for an ATX mother board. Is AMD 940 out in mini-ITX yet?

I'm kind of interested in the 65w 6mb cache quad core.

cheers
DC

Yes of course it is you can get CORE I7s on mini ITX

and here you are http://us.shuttle.com/

This an Mini ITX full blown X58 mobo (have used it NO temp and NO noise issues) http://us.shuttle.com/barebone/Models/SX58H7.html

And for AMD http://us.shuttle.com/barebone/Models/SN78SH7.html

They even have a PCI express 2.0 x16 slot so you can throw in KICK **** graphics card if you wish all in the Mini ITX form factor.

Like I said a well designed air cooler with ONE fan will keep even the 130watt TDP quad cores cool as ICE.

There is no reason to be considering a CPU because of its TDP if your installing it in a well designed case and with a good cooling solution sorry but stock fans and heat sinks do not count as well designed.
THe shuttle PCs i listed come with a power supply, heat sink and fan, case, and Mobo pre installed. There actually rather nice HTPC boxes.