Computer Hardware Pros: Need your help picking out a new system...

[jriera]

Wayne, go to newegg.com or tigerdirect.com and buy the fatest/fanciest motherboard, CPU, case and power supply that matches your budget. Personally I only go to Fry's if I don;t have any other choice, don't like the way they do business.

You have a very good chance that you are going to need a new boot drive (IDE usually). For the existing storage I will recommend you to go with a NAS (I just did) so all your computers and devices at home will see the disks.

[nota]

CPU conroe dual core or quad core
M/B intel chip set [765 or 775] with SLI dual PCIE slots for 2 video cards to get 4 video outputs
''Also, PCI and AGP are becoming obsolete.... its tougher to find a MB that still has these protocals together. ''
PCIE is not the same as PCI but replaced AGP for better video

you need new ram DDR2 at least 2gig

HD and CD/DVD will work fine as will scsi card and modum
SATA should be on board new M/B along with firewire and many USB2 slots

I would find a local ''KID'' to build, over clock, and fine tune the system

[stomachmonkey]

Your box probably has an Intel P4 1.8 processor w/256 L2 cache. For ~$125 you can get a P4 2.8 w/512 L2 and swap it out. Just make sure the FSB is 400.

Takes 5 minutes to swap a processor.

Stick in another GIG of RAM.

Based on your criteria it's the easiest path and should cost you around $200 total.

[SlowToady]

You don't have to stick with Intel, per say, if you're already on Intel. You could switch to AMD, to say, an Opteron. What might cause you problems is your existing Windows install knows the current hardware and motherboard chipset it's on, and when it changes, sometimes it doesn't like it. I, personally, haven't had much trouble with it. If you go to www.2cpu.com and look under the forums, and do a little search, you can find tons of thread about it.

The hot new fad in CPU design right now is dual core. I admittedly don't know much about it, but you might want to read up on it as it relates to Windows 2000. I don't think 2000 was Hyper-Threading compatable (or was it?) so you might want to check if it will work with the dual cores right. It should, since it is SMP aware and dual core is basically dual CPU...

I agree about NAS. It's a PITA having all your crap located on different disks, on different machines...like mine is.

Wayne, I take it that 80gig drive is an IDE, drive, correct? If so, that's a way larger bottleneck than either your current CPU power or amount of RAM. Switch it to a fast (like, 15K or 10K) SCSI disk. I run only SCSI in everything but my laptop. It works, works well, is FAST and LASTS. The new SATA disks should be pretty fast, too.

[SlowToady]

Originally posted by stomachmonkey
Your box probably has an Intel P4 1.8 processor w/256 L2 cache. For ~$125 you can get a P4 2.8 w/512 L2 and swap it out. Just make sure the FSB is 400.

Takes 5 minutes to swap a processor.

Stick in another GIG of RAM.

Based on your criteria it's the easiest path and should cost you around $200 total.

Dell BIOS might not like that? I recall the few Dells I had to be very adverse to tinkering. Almost all BIOS setting were locked (and config mode was useless).

[layzee]

Since no one has said it yet, I'll break it to you.

Wayne, it will be very hard (very) to use your existing boot drive (I assume you mean the same copy of Windows 2000) if you drastically update the hardware.

Be warned that most new Dells also do not have any IDE connectors.

I have just bought a new Core2Duo chip, the new base model E4300 and it is sweet. For your needs you need a modern board that will take IDE drives, PCI cards and AGP cards. These are rare now but I've got just the ticket.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157092

ASROCK Dual VSTA motherboard supports all this legacy stuff you want to keep plus all the new things, and is very cheap.

Combine this with a Core2Duo chip:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115005

And 2 Gigs of DDR2 ram:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145098

And you should be good to go. I really don't think you can get away without reinstalling Windows though. If you do go this route don't count on your Dell case and power supply to be good. You can just get whatever case and PSU you want for this application though.

[Scott R]

Wayne - you need to get of Windows 2000 ASAP. Microsoft has stopped supplying corrections to the OS, in fact they only do critical patches on a limited level. This started in June of 2005 and continues to get worse, we just paid MS 40K to help us patch an issue that we had at work. I would also add that their due-diligence to security patches has also started to slack off. This "extended" support ends 2010, but it may as well be done with now for all the effort they are putting forward.

In short, you and other Windows 2000 users are a hackers wet dream. It's time to move on, you should not have anything loaded that can't be logically migrated to a new platform at this point.

I also agree with the above poster in that your going to have issues with new hardware. At this point we are full into PCI Express graphics and Nvidia and ATI have announced sunset support for 2K and PCI Express graphics cards. Building a new systems with legacy support products on it really cuts the legs off it. Every time you add a legacy option you take away from the newer hardware in the same effort. Older devices operate at slower clock speeds and reductions are made to get that to work/

[stomachmonkey]

Wayne says he is using thsi box for testing which leads me to belive the "live" servers are also running 2000? That compounds things a wee bit.

[Scott R]

Originally posted by stomachmonkey
Wayne says he is using thsi box for testing which leads me to belive the "live" servers are also running 2000? That compounds things a wee bit.

it sure does, but it's all easily upgraded if you follow the paths. We eliminated all Windows 2K in my division at IBM last year, it was 4000 some odd systems, there was some pain, but not much. The good thing is that at this point most all of scenarios have been gone through.

[Jim727]

Wayne -

SlowToady and layzee have good points. You can build a new box and pop in your drives. but you probably won't get a boot unless you accommodate the different hardware. I've always had good results with Acronis, though haven't tried it with server. Check: http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/

Also, have to agree with Scott R - if he's suggesting moving to a *nix server. After the listening to the microsoft rep's presentation at the latest developer confrerence I'm accelerating my move out of microsoft products. All of them.

Jim

[Scott R]

Originally posted by Jim727
Wayne -

SlowToady and layzee have good points. You can build a new box and pop in your drives. but you probably won't get a boot unless you accommodate the different hardware. I've always had good results with Acronis, though haven't tried it with server. Check: http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/

Also, have to agree with Scott R - if he's suggesting moving to a *nix server. After the listening to the microsoft rep's presentation at the latest developer confrerence I'm accelerating my move out of microsoft products. All of them.

Jim

+1 to Acronis, Acronis is so powerful that we can use it to take a physical server and move it virtual platform on VMware. I don't think I have ever used a more powerful tool. Acronis is so advanced that it can take a image of a live, running machine and transfer it to new drives. Just amazing.

Jim727, did you get the new "Vista" presentation that I sat though last week? After they came here to present their new wares, we are looking at what we can rationalize to Linux/Unix now instead of Vista.

[Jim727]

Scott -

Don't know if it was the same presentation - the one I went to was on Jan 25th - but probably similar content.

Thought they had some really great stuff in vista until the presenter started "dropping shoes". I've been saying for years that windows development now is all about controlling DRM. The frog has been in the water and the heat is rising, so to speak. Vista exercises way too much control about which software you will be "permitted" to run and who you will be "permitted" to connect to.

I think microsoft (via vista) is headed toward:
1) Annual subscription fees to keep each workstation running;
2) Actively locking out non-ms apps and workstations;
3) Removing your personal control from the workstation and data;
4) Remote operation of the workstation as an internet "appliance", not a personal computer;
5) More, but I'm short of time....

The thing that finally locked down my attitude, which has been building for some time, was the microsoft reps acknowledgment that microsoft believes it's *their* workstation, not yours. 'Nuff said.

What issues are you looking at?

Oops - this is Wayne's thread. Maybe we need a new one? Mea culpa.

Jim

[stomachmonkey]

Originally posted by Scott R
+1 to Acronis, Acronis is so powerful that we can use it to take a physical server and move it virtual platform on VMware. I don't think I have ever used a more powerful tool. Acronis is so advanced that it can take a image of a live, running machine and transfer it to new drives. Just amazing.

Jim727, did you get the new "Vista" presentation that I sat though last week? After they came here to present their new wares, we are looking at what we can rationalize to Linux/Unix now instead of Vista.

Xserve, power of .nix with the simplicity of the OS X gui and hardware that's as rock solid as it gets.

[SlowToady]

Wayne, in case you were wanting to move the new mobo and hardware into the Dell case, you won't be able to.

The power supply pin out is proprietary and the form factor of the motherboard is different. Dell doesn't use industry standard. You can rewire the PSU but you'd be better off getting a new one.

And, like other posters have mentioned, you might want to migrate off Win2K, to maybe 2003. I've used it as both a server and a desktop, and it worked pretty well. Again, you can find a LOT of information about it on 2cpu.com

[JasonDTM]

I'm more of a PC overclocking enthusiast, if you have the knowledge build from scratch. Anandtech is a great place to check on hardware reviews. pricewatch is a decent place to find the best online deals for said parts.

Never skimp on power, you want the best power-supply you can find at your price range. Many new motherboards, Socket 775 mostly hate unstable power.

Zippy Emacs GSM-6600P (130$ from NCIX USA) is a very great unit. Check out jonnyguru.com for very great and accurate reviews.

Any Core2 Duo or Core 2 Quad will work. The E4300 is a very good cpu for the price.

[Jim727]

Originally posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts
I'm using Win2K server here at home, basically so that I can test and use SQL Server. The main Pelican servers are all new as of a few months ago and run 2003.

Sounds like I need to just bite the bullet and buy a performance workstation with all the latest hardware and run WindowsXP.

-Wayne

I don't see how you have to do that at all. You can build the system as you described, just make sure you migrate your disks/os in a way that allows them to use the new stuff. Acronis looks like it can do that - it's also one of those rare programs that is just plain excellent and you'll never want to be without it. Besides making the o/s migration possible it will allow you to take a disk image before you test or experiment and, if necessary, roll back to a known stable configuration. Don't give up yet....

Jim