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Author Topic: New computer. Sucker is FAST!  (Read 1619 times)

Brad Johnson

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New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« on: March 04, 2010, 01:57:26 PM »
Some of the mp3's I made from my CDs didn't play on the new stereo in the truck.  I tracked it down to settings I used when ripping the files.  I was able to remedy the problem with the dbPowerAmp converter suggested in another thread.

I did the test conversion last night on my home machine, an older P4.  Converting one album (11 songs) took an hour and fifteen minutes.  I decided to try it on my work machine, the new P-quad I bought last fall, to see if it was any faster.  So was it faster?  Oh heck yeah!  I just did 10 albums (140 songs) in a batch conversion.  I checked the same set of files last night at the house and the estimated conversion time was 16 hours.  Total time on this machine?  4 minutes 23 seconds.  Whoa!  It even brought up this nifty little status indicator showing loading on each of the processors.  It had all four humming merrily away.

Yay!

Brad
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sanglant

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2010, 04:11:44 PM »
[tinfoil] hey anybody know of a freeware(free as in speech not beer :angel:) mp3 or ogg re-encoder that's multi-threaded? [tinfoil] my quad core is stuck at one core for that. =(


mandatory link to some hard core ripping software. [popcorn]
and a link to a better codec,(if your player supports it[oh and mp3's converted to ogg, or ogg's converted to mp3 stink{HARD}]) it's ogg vorbis. =D mp3s make my ears ring after a while. [tinfoil]
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geronimotwo

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2010, 09:56:33 PM »
i am soooo jealous.   i'm in the middle of deciding if it is worth trying to strip the excess programs off my 6 yo pentium 2.6, or just break down and buy something newer, like a dual core.  the only thing i want more speed for is the web use.  any good (free) optimizing programs out there for xp home?  i think it might be the built in video on the motherboard slowing things down.  can i run a seperate video card if i have one built in?  is there a tuneup prog that will tell me what is bogging me down?
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PTK

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2010, 10:37:36 PM »
Every time I read things like this, I am reminded that my 1.8ghz AMD is running happily. Since I don't play videogames anymore, I just don't see the need to really upgrade. When something breaks on a machine this old, it is cheaper to just build a new one vs. repairing it though!  :lol:
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Brad Johnson

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2010, 10:42:46 PM »
Quote from: geronimotwo on March 04, 2010, 09:56:33 PM
i am soooo jealous.   i'm in the middle of deciding if it is worth trying to strip the excess programs off my 6 yo pentium 2.6, or just break down and buy something newer, like a dual core.  the only thing i want more speed for is the web use.  any good (free) optimizing programs out there for xp home?  i think it might be the built in video on the motherboard slowing things down.  can i run a seperate video card if i have one built in?  is there a tuneup prog that will tell me what is bogging me down?

How much RAM are you running, and how hard are you hammering the video?  XP will work, kinda, on half a gig, but you need at least a gig for things to really work well.  If you have only half a gig of RAM and the machine is on-board video, that's pretty much a guarantee of painfully slow operation.

Depending on your setup, a RAM upgrade plus a dedicated video card might be just the ticket (not to mention decently affordable).  I did that to a friends machine about a month ago.  IIRC his was a P4 2.8 so it would be a 'close-enough' analogy of yours.  Went from half a gig to two gig of RAM and added a cheapo video card in place of the marginal on-board video.  I also blew away the drive and did a clean install of XP, including a full spate of updates.  Ran like a completely different machine - fast and stable.  Certainly plenty for surfing and listening to music.  Total was about a hundred bucks.

Brad
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geronimotwo

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2010, 12:16:19 PM »
originally mine came with 512mb, but i have installed another 512.  according to hp my mother board will only support 1gb total so that's that.  my kids do play games on the internet, but i try to keep the crap cleaned out if their not using it. btw i'm running internet explorer vs7.something. any specs for a budget video upgrade without overstepping my computers capabilities? how long until 1 gb will be so totally underpowered that i'll be ditching it anyway?
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PTK

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2010, 12:22:04 PM »
Just priced out parts at NewEgg... new motherboard, new CPU (2.4ghz dual-core), new RAM (2x1gb), new PSU(500W), new DVD burner, and a new HDD (750gb), less than $400.


What. The. HECK.

When did prices drop this far? I priced out a rig like that less than six months ago, and it was nearly $800.
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mtnbkr

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2010, 01:24:02 PM »
New stuff keeps coming out, pushing prices down.  I just built a Shuttle XPS system (lots of USB and eSATA for expandability) with a 2.5ghz Core 2 Quad, 4gig DDR2 Dual Channel memory (can expand to 16gig), a 500gig 7200rpm SATA drive (room for one more), DVD-/+RW, 23" WS HD LCD, and a copy of Win 7 Pro x64 for right around $800.  If I had gone with a standard MOBO and case, I could have knocked nearly $100 off that price.  Going with Linux would have saved $149.

BTW, this was the fastest and easiest Windows install I've ever done.  The Win7 disc had every driver I needed and the system went from bare drive to me online in 20 minutes.  Really.  I timed it.  I had to switch the Firewire driver to a legacy one, but everything else worked out of the gate.

Chris
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Bigjake

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #8 on: March 05, 2010, 06:32:28 PM »
Quote from: mtnbkr on March 05, 2010, 01:24:02 PM

BTW, this was the fastest and easiest Windows install I've ever done.  The Win7 disc had every driver I needed and the system went from bare drive to me online in 20 minutes.  Really.  I timed it.  I had to switch the Firewire driver to a legacy one, but everything else worked out of the gate.

Chris

QFT. 

Widows 7 did it's thing, and that was that.  No running windows update and restarting 80 times..
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Cromlech

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #9 on: March 05, 2010, 06:37:48 PM »
Ditto. My Windows 7 install was so much more simple than XP.
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Brad Johnson

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #10 on: March 06, 2010, 12:26:12 AM »
Have Win 7 64-bit on the new machine.  Haven't had a single driver issue or problem with... anything.  Beats the crap out of the ME-powered machine I nursed along for so many years (though I understand it's currently chugging along nicely in it's new home  ;) )

Brad
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RocketMan

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #11 on: March 06, 2010, 12:59:33 PM »
When you installed Windows 7, was it a retail version or OEM version?  I have heard installing an OEM version requires access to a Vista machine, which sounds...weird.
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mtnbkr

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #12 on: March 06, 2010, 01:03:24 PM »
I installed an OEM version and no copy of Vista was required.

Chris
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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #13 on: March 06, 2010, 01:10:16 PM »
That's good to hear.  I read on a tech blog someplace that access to a machine running Vista was necessary to generate a software anti-piracy key or some such.  The claim was that it was a new Microsoft thing, and it seemed like nonsense when I read it.  I guess it was.
I have a laptop that 7 will be going on in the next few months, along with a strong desire to build a HTPC.
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If there really was intelligent life on other planets, we'd be sending them foreign aid.

Conservatives see George Orwell's "1984" as a cautionary tale.  Progressives view it as a "how to" manual.

My wife often says to me, "You are evil and must be destroyed." She may be right.

Liberals believe one should never let reason, logic and facts get in the way of a good emotional argument.

mtnbkr

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #14 on: March 06, 2010, 01:43:01 PM »
That's probably the case for an upgrade version.  If you're doing a fresh install, it doesn't make sense to need an older license.

Chris
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Phyphor

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #15 on: March 06, 2010, 01:46:05 PM »
Yea, back in the day you generally had to have an older OS CD/install media for an upgrade version of Windows to work, but that's been a pretty fair long time ago.
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RocketMan

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #16 on: March 06, 2010, 01:48:49 PM »
I've done a number of upgrade installs in the past to Win98 or XP where original media was required, but this was different.  It was a really odd article because the reference was for access to a Vista machine separate from the one Windows 7 was being installed on.  It was supposedly necessary to generate some sort of key.  I remember there being much heated discussion in the comments section about how Microsoft had gone overboard with the whole anti-piracy thing.
I'm glad it was bogus.  But I'm not so happy I was taken in by the stupid thing.
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If there really was intelligent life on other planets, we'd be sending them foreign aid.

Conservatives see George Orwell's "1984" as a cautionary tale.  Progressives view it as a "how to" manual.

My wife often says to me, "You are evil and must be destroyed." She may be right.

Liberals believe one should never let reason, logic and facts get in the way of a good emotional argument.

Brad Johnson

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #17 on: March 06, 2010, 03:39:11 PM »
Quote from: mtnbkr on March 06, 2010, 01:43:01 PM
That's probably the case for an upgrade version.  If you're doing a fresh install, it doesn't make sense to need an older license.

Chris

I dunno.  The disk I installed from was technically and upgrade (it was the freebie upgrade you got if you bought an XP machine during a certain period).  It tried and tried to upgrade, but I finally dug around in the disk and found the executable for the full install.

Brad

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It's all about the pancakes, people.
"And he thought cops wouldn't chase... a STOLEN DONUT TRUCK???? That would be like Willie Nelson ignoring a pickup full of weed."
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mtnbkr

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #18 on: March 06, 2010, 03:48:51 PM »
Quote from: Brad Johnson on March 06, 2010, 03:39:11 PM
I dunno.  The disk I installed from was technically and upgrade (it was the freebie upgrade you got if you bought an XP machine during a certain period).  It tried and tried to upgrade, but I finally dug around in the disk and found the executable for the full install.

Brad

I haven't "upgraded" a copy of Windows since the Win9x days, but back then, if you tried to install onto a fresh system with an "upgrade" version, you had to present the 1st floppy from the previous version (or the CD when floppies went away).  Ever since NT4, I've done nothing but full installs.  Fewer headaches...

Chris
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Brad Johnson

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Re: New computer. Sucker is FAST!
« Reply #19 on: March 06, 2010, 03:53:07 PM »
I guess I should have worded that differently.  It was the disk trying to force the upgrade.  I wanted the full install.

Brad
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It's all about the pancakes, people.
"And he thought cops wouldn't chase... a STOLEN DONUT TRUCK???? That would be like Willie Nelson ignoring a pickup full of weed."
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