DescentBB

Hello, I just bought a new computer for £312 and i think i got quite a good deal.

Intel Q6600 Quad Core, 2.4Ghz x4cores
Asus Performance P5KC Motherboard
3GB DDR2 RAM
700W EzCool Power supply
9600GT 512MB PCI-E Nvidia Graphics Card
2x 11GB SATA HardDrives



The seller also threw in a 17\" TFT monitor as well, which i thought very generous!

The system comes without an OS which is okay, as i'm deciding which linux distro would be best for it. Can anyone offer any advice?
thanks

2x 11 GB SATA hard drives?

Sounds like you found yourself a couple nice paperweights.

In other words, small hard drives like that are bound to be abysmally slow. Throw them out and replace them with a vastly superior Seagate 7200.11 drive of your choosing.

nice rig!

Krom: that rather looks like a double typo. considering the rest i'd assume 2x 1TB. i dare to doubt that there is such a thing as a SATA 11GB

Woah whoops, sorry that is a typo its 2x 111GB = total of 220GB roughly!

Ahh, dual 120 GB drives. Still that's a pretty old drive, it would definitely be worth upgrading it anyway. You could get a single 750 GB drive for as little as $120 shipped these days, and I can tell you from personal experience they are a lot faster than older smaller drives when properly configured.

I recently swapped my OS drive from a 320 GB Seagate 7200.10 to a 750 GB Seagate 7200.11 and switched it from SATA-II/IDE compatibility mode to SATA-II/AHCI mode. Even though I regularly defrag my system, the OS still boots faster and programs also load noticeably faster. The amount of time the system spends disk thrashing when launching some large application is way down from before, and I only changed the hard drive and controller modes. Also my system is not too dissimilar to your new one, I have a Core 2 Duo @ 2.4 GHz so half the CPU cores, 2 GB of DDR2 RAM and a Nvidia video card (8800 GT 512).

The reason you should keep this in mind is because the hard drive is without exception the slowest component in modern computers, and that computer is no different. While getting a new drive won't make your games play any higher FPS or your CPU compress video faster... it will make them and everything else load faster. And compared to even the fastest 120 GB drive on the market, a current generation 500-1000 GB drive will make a noticeable improvement in load times I guarantee it. You spend a lot less time just waiting for the computer to finish loading something which can save a lot of aggravation over time.

Thanks for the great advice Krom, and i'm glad were thinking on the same page. I was thinking of upgrading the hard drives anyway. I just can't right now, i'm being completely tied down with work. but i'll save it as a weekend project. Also i'll do some bargain hunting and see if i can find some nice fast drives.

Any idea which linux distro would be best?

First distro I ever tried was Mepis. It has a KDE desktop which I prefer over Ubuntu's Gnome. My preference over those 2 is straight Debian etch, but you may want to start with one of the other 2 first.

First Linux experience? Ubuntu is best for this, since it has the whole tends-to-just-work thing going on, plus they have a strong community. Once you feel more comfortable, you can try other distros, or just stick with Ubuntu.

After using ubuntu before (on a friends machine) I have to say, it was simple and elegant, and i had fun with it. I just didnt want to have a biased opinion before i went onto installing it on my own machine. With all the support it has though, it looks like it should be a good move for me. Thanks guys

Hi Krom, Just going back to hard drives, seeing as i'm from UK microdirect.co.uk has some good hard drive deals going (i think) what about this one... £40 I thought, and 500GB is PLENTY of space, i can't imagine needing much more than that.
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(15155)Sea ... 00rpm.aspx
or should i go for the drive with the 32mb cache, for a few £ more, does the cache size make a big difference?

Cache size makes a bit of difference, but the real reason you should go for the 32 MB 7200.11 drive is because it only uses two 250 GB platters instead of three 167 GB platters like the 7200.10 series you linked. Fewer platters means less noise, less heat and more performance. Also hard drives being mechanical devices, the fewer parts the better when it comes to odds of failure.

You can easily tell by going to the Seagate technical specs page for the 500 GB 7200.10 drive and the 500 GB 7200.11 drives, the 7200.10 weighs 635 grams, while the 7200.11 weighs in at only 543 grams. The extra weight in the 7200.10 is from the additional platter and heads.

Ahhh i see,
Thanks for clearing that up

Can Anyone recommend a good PCI wireless card, that is supported by linux and windows? is there much difference between current wireless cards, or are the all pretty much the same now.

Wheeze87 wrote:Can Anyone recommend a good PCI wireless card, that is supported by linux and windows? is there much difference between current wireless cards, or are the all pretty much the same now.

yeah T568B

BUBBALOU wrote:

Wheeze87 wrote:Can Anyone recommend a good PCI wireless card, that is supported by linux and windows? is there much difference between current wireless cards, or are the all pretty much the same now.

yeah T568B

???
that link pointed to a "making cable" tutorial?

that's bubba's point. at the end of the day wired is faster and more stable than wireless.

Yup, if you can fish a wire to get the job done, do it. Wireless is really more suitable for laptops and other portable devices, using it long term on a desktop computer can lead to a number of annoyances that aren't worth the trouble.

Okay, thats fair enough. But my situation is this. I am currently using a wire through a router. But when the next semester starts at university, i'm moving into a house with 8 other people, and were looking at setting up a wireless network, rather then spend more money wireing the whole darn house up.
Any recommendations?

Put the router in your room and let everyone else be wireless@@@@@!@

Wheeze87 wrote:Okay, thats fair enough. But my situation is this. I am currently using a wire through a router. But when the next semester starts at university, i'm moving into a house with 8 other people, and were looking at setting up a wireless network, rather then spend more money wireing the whole darn house up.
Any recommendations?

Wiring a house is the cheaper option. Its unlikely you'll need cable lengths of anywhere near 300ft. 50 ft should do it,about 10 bucks per person? You'd need another switch, but with 8 people their has to be some extras...

Also if you are going to have to use a switch anyway... it isn't like you can't put the switch in a different room than the router to minimize cable clutter. Drive the nearest 3 computers from the router, and use the switch to handle the furthest away computers.