Help me configure new desktop for CS4

[larry n.]

Do you think this puppy will have the horsepower to run CS4 and LR2:

 

Intel Q9400

8GB DDR2 (maxed out)

750GB SATA drive

integrated video card

One x16 slot and two x1 slots for future expansion

two free SATA connections for future hard drives

[larry n.]

Now with line breaks:

 

Intel Q9400

 

8GB DDR2 (maxed out)

 

750GB SATA drive

 

integrated video card

 

One x16 slot and two x1 slots for future expansion

 

two free SATA connections for future hard drives

[robert_marshall5]

The only problem I see may be the integrated video card, not saying you will not be able to run it, it just may slow down the processing.

 

Also, I had to update to the newest version of directX to get Premiere to work. other than that I have had no problems running CS4 and LR2 on my laptop.

 

 

my laptop specs are:

Toshiba P205

Windows Vista home premium(32 bit)

Intel T5300 - 1.73GHz Dual Core

2 GB ram

Nvidea GForce GO 7600

200GB hard drive, and a couple external drives.

[bgelfand]

I suggest you install a second hard drive so you can separate the Windows Page Data Set and the Photoshop scratch file.

 

Intel has released its latest CPU Nehalem, the Core i7. First reports suggest the least expensive of the newly released chips, the i7 920, will equal or exceed the the fastest current quad the QX9770. Here is a link: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2333764,00.asp .

Note they run a benchmark using Photoshop CS4.

 

The i7 920 is now selling at just under $300 as are some of the motherboards.

[tomwatt]

Just finished an intense week of starting the setup deployment of CS4 for the company. We are using integrated video, and not experiencing any problems (I argued against it, but there's a production reason for the integrated video). Single hard drive also. Granted, PS CS4 can access Open GL in a video card, and it will help out with large files... but large file handling is already improved in PS CS4, and the overall improvements make it really worthwhile (can you tell I went from "meh" to "sold on CS4" once I started playing with it?). Adobe claims enhanced interfacing between PS CS4 and Lightroom as well, but I cannot speak for that. You should do fine. I'm installing CS4 on my older dual-Xeon workstation this weekend, and anticipate that it will perform better, not worse, than the older version. Now, if you have dreams of running Adobe Premier Pro, that's another matter: get a honking powerful nVidia graphics card.

[sheldonnalos]

I just did a brand new PC build for CS4 and Lightroom 2.1. I did a lot of research and consulted with quite a few

friends who either work in IT or have extensive computer experience. Here's what I built...<p>

 

Case: Antec 900 (lots of fans/cooling and lots of space)<br>

Power Supply: Antec Neopower 650W<br>

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UDP3 (very good MB for price/performance)<br>

RAM: 8GB (4x2GB) GSkill 1066<br>

CPU: Intel Q9550 2.83GHz Quad Core w/ Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler<br>

Graphics Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon 4850 HD 512MB<br>

Hard Drives (3):<br>

Western Digital Velociraptor 150GB (10K RPM) for O/S and Programs<br>

Western Digital Caviar SE 250GB for scratch disk and Lightroom catalog (oversize, but I already owned it)<br>

Western Digital Caviar SE 640GB for image storage (cheaper per GB than 750GB, newer technology)<br>

Samsung DVD-R/CD-R drive<br>

Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit<br>

Dell 2408WFP 24" LCD monitor (already had this)<p>

 

The total build cost from NewEgg (w/o monitor cost) was around $1400. I'm not a gamer or into editing video, so

the video card is a little overkill. I figured that if Photoshop was going to use the GPU though, I'd want to be

ready for whatever they throw at it in future versions. I disabled the virtual memory/paging file in Windows to

speed things up, since 8GB is plenty of RAM for what I need to do, and I allocate roughly 60% of RAM to

Photoshop. CS4 64bit is great, since it can use all the RAM you throw at it. <p>

 

Hard drive management is important, both for CS4 and Lightroom. You want your CS4 scratch disk to be on a

different drive than your O/S and windows paging file for best performance. If you can get your images onto a

third hard drive, that's even better. With Lightroom, the same holds true. It's best with the program/O/S on one

drive, the catalog on a second drive, and the images on a third drive. <p>

 

I got the pieces for this machine on Monday, and assembled it in about 4 hours (my first ever ground up computer

build). I spent a couple days installing programs and have everything pretty much dialed in and running. This

machine just flies!<p>

 

With a little bit of reading, I learned that it is relatively easy and safe to slightly overclock your CPU for

even better performance. I have taken my 2.83GHz CPU up to 3.6GHz with no problems, operating safely withing all

the Intel recommended voltage and temperature ranges. I read a lot of people commenting that they are reaching

4.0-4.3GHz, but I don't want to push things that hard.<p>

 

For a benchmark of what the performance on this machine is like, check out the test put together by this group of

photoshop users. It represents a fairly "real world" set of things that you would do daily in photoshop, all

strung together in an action that you can run and time. The test can be downloaded here:<p>

 

http://retouchartists.com/pages/speedtest.html<p>

 

Make sure you follow the instructions closely (set RAM usage to 100%, History States to 1, Cache level to 4, use

their test image, restart prior to running test, no other open programs, etc).<p>

 

At the stock settings, my machine does the test in 21 seconds. After some slight overclocking to 3.4GHz, it does

the test in 17-18 seconds. I haven't tested it at 3.6GHz yet, but I'm guessing it will be close to 15 seconds. To

put this in context, times on this test are very commonly in excess of 1 minute.<p>

 

All in all, I am very happy with my choices, especially with the CPU/Motherboard combo. Photoshop is very fast,

Bridge CS4 just flies, and I have high hopes for Lightroom 2.1 once I get dialed in and set up on that (haven't

started yet). <p>

 

Hope this is of some help to you!

[larry n.]

Thanks. Here are my thoughts/questions:

 

(1) on RAM, my main concern is the 8GB limit. Will that be sufficient 4 years from now? Given how ridiculously cheap DDR2 is, it's too bad motherboards that support more than 8GB have not become mainstream.

 

(2) on Nehalem, I'm sure it'll be fantastic, but the motherboards are expensive and it will be a while before it makes into the mainstream (longer than I can wait).

 

(3) I will upgrade the video card once I do more research. Right now I'm looking at the Radeon HD 4550. It's inexpensive, available in fanless low-power versions, and great at playing video. (The power supply is 350 watt, so no crazy video cards are possible.) The 3D capabilities are not great on the Radeon 4550 for gaming. Will that be a hindrance for Premiere Elements and Premiere Pro? It does support Direct X 10 and OpenGL 2.

 

(4) I will eventually add hard drives as my photo and video archive grows. I always buy them in pairs: one internal and one same-size external for backups. Should I be concerned about the ability of the built-in SATA controller to handle 1 blu-ray drive and 3 hard drives?

 

(5) Maybe I am wrong, but I always assumed overclocking is for the adventurous. In any event this system is a Dell so I assume it is not overclockable (you need to have a lot of control over the motherboards).

[garrison_k.]

I wont really go into depth without knowing what your budget is, how long you want your box to last, and if you can

will build it yourself (or have a tech do it) vs a Dell/HP. But I have to say that you are putting way too much money

into old architecture. For what you are about to spend at Dell for this slow computer, you could buy parts from

newegg for a scraming fast i7 920. And the i7 is only a week on the market. In Feb, after the holidays, it will be

slightly cheaper.

 

$300 buys a x58 gigabyte board

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128362

 

 

$300 buys the i7 920

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202

 

$250 buys 6 gigs of ram

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227366

 

If you can use a screw driver and have a bit of paitence with a google conection, building your own from parts is

rewarding and you'll end up with a superior box for 1/2 the money. In this thread, I go into detail on how to spend

$1200 on the now older quads that would walk on anything Dell sells for $3000.

 

http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00RBRN

 

 

 

(1) on RAM, my main concern is the 8GB limit. Will that be sufficient 4 years from now? Given how ridiculously cheap

DDR2 is, it's too bad motherboards that support more than 8GB have not become mainstream.

 

most 45nm motherboards take 16gig now. i'm running the asus p5q-deluxe. excellent 45nm board for $150.

 

 

(2) on Nehalem, I'm sure it'll be fantastic, but the motherboards are expensive and it will be a while before it makes

into the mainstream (longer than I can wait).

 

i definatley would wait. there's no way i'd drop $1200 to $1400 into a computer and not have the i7. the i7 920, the

slowest, is incredibly cheap considering the speed and that it is only a week old. benchmarks are

showing that is faster than any of the quads out there. $1500 in march

at newegg with the i7 is worth the wait. this with Vista64 and CS4-64, will be one smokin fast box.

 

(3) I will upgrade the video card once I do more research. Right now I'm looking at the Radeon HD 4550. It's

inexpensive, available in fanless low-power versions, and great at playing video. (The power supply is 350 watt, so no

crazy video cards are possible.) The 3D capabilities are not great on the Radeon 4550 for gaming. Will that be a

hindrance for Premiere Elements and Premiere Pro? It does support Direct X 10 and OpenGL 2.

 

do not get anything that doesn't support directX and/or open gl. it used to be that we only needed three things to work

equally well with PS to prevent bottlenecks, cpu, hard drive

speed, and ram. there was no point having a fast cpu if you didn't have the ram and so forth. now we have a forth

element, graphics cards. i would put in a 1 gig card.

 

 

(4) I will eventually add hard drives as my photo and video archive grows. I always buy them in pairs: one internal and

one same-size external for backups. Should I be concerned about the ability of the built-in SATA controller to handle

1 blu-ray drive and 3 hard drives?

 

no, not at all. I'm running 7 sata's off of the above mentioned mobo, the p5q-deluxe.

 

(5) Maybe I am wrong, but I always assumed overclocking is for the adventurous. In any event this system is a Dell

so I assume it is not overclockable (you need to have a lot of control over the motherboards).

 

Dell's can be tricky as they usually write their own bios and that's were you need to adjust your voltage. Also, Dell is

notorious for under-clocking their gear for reliabilty reasons. They're known for cases that don't breath, not providing

the best fans, and having weak power supplies. The first thing they do is back off the cpu voltage to comprimise.

 

I wouldn't buy a Dell. If you do, put aside $150 for a decent tech to re-install windows to get rid of the spyware and

bloatware and also set a few things up that aren't done right by Dell.

[larry n.]

Garrison--how much money are we talking about here for a complete system (including power supply, case, operating system, a modicum of support)? The above-mentioned Dell is 750 + 50 for the extra RAM from Crucial. Could have saved 150 by going with the older Q6600. I can't afford to wait for Nehalem because I have work to be done now. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to research and put together a system from scratch, and I'm sure there's something I won't be happy with. For example, some of the machines my friends put together crash all of the time and sound like airport runways. I hate the fact that the Dell maxes out at 8GB, but will that be a real hindrance in the next four years? I don't know, but I'd rather save $600 (or more) now and worry about that later.

[garrison_k.]

Well, you see we've all been walking up the teater-totter towards the fulcrum (i7 release) for a number of

months. This week, we've passed the fulcrum and are now walking down the other side. This means that

prices are the highest they will ever be for both the older lga 775 stuff you are considering and the newer

lga 1366 that i think you should make the strech for. If budget is a probelm, no matter which way you go,

it's absolutely the

wrong time to be

buying or building a computer, imo. These Dells will be on blow out prices very shortly and probally half

of what you are paying in Feb. I've never known Intel to introduce new archetcure at such low prices.

Everyone is kind of baffled actually. These i7's, like the bottom of the range 920, are blowing their old top

end

quads and duals out of the water yet the older stuff is more expensive. For instance, the 9400 at newegg is

$270 yet

the i7 920 is $300 and the speed increase with the i7 is incredible. In 6 or 8 months, I'll be able buy todays $1200

quad cpu for a couple hundred bucks and replace my q6600 with just simple bios flash. That's why I went with the

older gear.

 

The thing with Dell, among many other things, is that you are stuck with their case and it's tricky to just

upgrade. I don't like that. I started years ago with Antec cases and

because everything has remained ATX, it is so easy and economical to just keep changing parts. With one

of my Antec cases, I'm on my forth computer. My other Antec is on it's second. If you live in a large

city, a decent tech can be found easily.

 

I really like The Overclockers Forum @ www.ocforums.com for hard ware compatibility questions.

They're adults there and welcome newbies and our questions that are otherwise basic to them. It's like the

PN for gamers forum. And a few beta for Intel. You can learn a lot just by lurking.

 

This is a copy paste from another thread I donated to, but the prices for my parts list will be cheaper as

they are a

few months old in this thread. But they will all go together with no issues for Vista 64. Some if it will be

repeated.

 

http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00QukA

 

Sep 21, 2008; 02:57 p.m.

 

 

I as well love building my own box. Although I have trouble with some of the deeper bois stuff and raid

settings, I find it gratefully rewarding. It’s in-expensive too, if you start with a great case and power

supply

and just keep up-grading.

 

I’m two weeks into a new box and would love to share my parts list as I’m really pleased with the

performance for the cost.

 

First though, I wouldn’t go for the higher-end and newer CPU’s like the Q9550. There is new architecture

on the horizon (Nahalem) and these CPU’s will drop in price very soon. If you’re comfortable with over-

clocking, the Q6600 can be taken to 3.2 ghz very comfortably with a $40 cpu cooler. More importantly,

three things are dependant on a fast Photoshop box; cpu, ram, and hard drives. With your parts list, you

have other bottle-necks and will not be using your Q9550 to full potential as your ammount of ram and

hard drive speed can’t keep up with what the Q9550 is capable of. If this was a car you were building,

you

are about to drop a very powerful motor into a car with a weak transmission and tires that can’t take the

speed. So I say save yourself a couple hundred bucks and go with the Q6600 for the time being. In a

year

from now, this same Q9550 will be cheap and swapping it out will only require a bois flash. Ten minutes

work. In the meantime, build your car up with great tires and a strong drive train. Meaning, the back

bone

of a system is hard drive speeds and lots of ram.

 

The fastest 7200 rpm drives on the market at the moment are the new Western Digital 640’s. They are

$85.00 each! Two of these 640 drives in Raid O are faster than the new $300.00 Velociraptor. If not

aware,

the Velociraptor is the fastest drive going, a 10,000 rpm speed demon. There likely won’t be much more

improvement in mechanical hard drive speeds as everything is going solid state.

 

Ram is cheap and the simplest upgrade one can do. 8 gigs of DDR-2 1066 ram can be had for $250.

The

only way, at the moment, to use 8 gigs of ram is with Vista 64. Vista 64 uses ram differently than other

Windows OS. Vista 64 data, that normally goes to scratch disk on 32 bit systems and apps, is now

stored in the remaining ram one has over 3.2 gig. Meaning, when CS3 runs out of ram at 3.2 gig (when

you are running Vista 64 or Leopard with 8 gigs of ram) the OS will use the remaining 4.8 gigs of ram for

what is normally sent to scratch disk. Speed improvements with Photoshop on 8 gigs of ram with a 64

bit

OS, while emulating 32 bit applications, is greatly noticed. It’s great, finally, to see via a Vista gadget,

that

7 gigs of ram is being used when the system is under load.

 

Vista 64 SP1 is a great OS as long as it is installed on new hardware. The SP1 actually has a different

kernel than the original Vista 64. One can forget everything they’ve heard about Vista over the last

couple

years as SP1 has only been out since March and are, in essence, different OS’s. The upcoming CS4,

like

Lightroom 2, will be 64 bit native on Windows. This will allow windows users to run wild with ram. If this

is

just a Photoshop box, I definitely wouldn’t consider anything other than Vista 64.

 

Onto the goodies…

 

Motherboard: Asus P5Q-Deluxe. But the P5Q-Pro will do great. $200.00

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131297

 

CPU: Intel Q6600. $185.00

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115018

 

CPU Cooler: Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer 4. (CR-CCTF) $40.00

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835207004&Tpk=CR-CCTF

 

RAM: 8 gig of Patriot, 2 X 4GB PC2-8500 DDR2-1066. (PVS24G8500ELKR2) $250.00

 

(link)

 

Hard Drives: 3 X WD SE 16 640GB (WD6400AAKS) $255.00

 

(link)

 

Video Card: EVGA 512-P3-N944-LR GeForce 9400 GT 512MB. $60.00

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130389

 

Optical Drive: Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20X (DVR-216DBK) $30.00

 

(link)

 

OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit. $180.00

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116493

 

Case: I like the Antec P182. $130.00 (no PS)

 

(link)

 

Case: Sonata III. $130.00 (with PS)

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024

 

This is an extremely fast box for $1330.00. Other than the OS (I’m running the new 64-bit Server 2008

with

Vista 64 packs) it is what I’ve just built up to make do for the next year until Nahalem is mainstream. If

this is a little too much (you didn’t mention budget), I’d downgrade from Vista Ultimate to Vista Home.

Trim more off by dropping from 8 gigs to 4 gigs of ram and wait until you can get the extra 4. If however

it

is well within budget, then I’d consider a total of four 640 hard drives for Raid O. If you still have room to

play, go for 16 gigs of ram.

 

I’ve listed 3 quantity WD 640 drives. Two are meant to be Raid O for your OS and applications and the

third for your scratch disk. If you can afford a fourth 640 drive, it would be worthwhile to Raid O two of

them

as well just for your scratch drive. The Intel Matrix Raid software is great. The price on these drives is

incredible.

 

With that said, I wouldn’t get too carried away with mechanical hard drives. The SSD (solid state) is the

next drive we will be using and the performance of these are expected to be incredible. Some are

already

on the market (OCZ) but aren’t doing as well as hoped.

 

If you go with the 640’s, you must google “AAM Western Digital 640”. AAM stands for Automatic

Acoustic

Management and needs to be disabled for proper performance. You also need to do it before you setting

up your raid.

 

I mentioned that I like the P182 case. This is a great case. It is well thought out, attractive, and takes 7

hard drives. And mine is stuffed full. The air movement is fantastic and can take a few extra fans as well.

Cooling means stability and longevity. Even if you aren’t over-clocking, I still go with great third party

CPU

coolers and case fans.

 

The video card I listed wont play games. But it is a dual dvi output card with 512mb and is in the 9000

series. Works great. And for $60.

 

Additional forums to check out are the Adobe User to User forum for Vista 64 users/advice, and The

Overclockers Forum @ www.ocforums.com for hard ware compatibility. The OC Forum is filled with

knowledgeable adults, is greatly moderated, and the participants are very helpful with noob questions.

 

"Can the 64-bit folks suggest a way to maximize forward compatibility without compromising current

performance and with no (or only incremental) additional spending?"

 

I've had good luck running my older 32 bit applications on 64 bit. Vista took most of it as it emmulates it

just fine. The other alterntaive is to make a partition and load XP32 on one, and Vista64 on the other.

Dual-

boot, in other words.

 

The mobo you listed is for DDR-3 ram and x38 chipset. It's very expensive getting a decent amount of

ram

when going DDR-3 and x38 isn't getting the same rave reviews as the P45 chipset. I'd stick with DDR-2

boards with the P45 chipset. The Asus P5Q-Deluxe (or pro) is a great board.

 

Good luck.

[larry n.]

Thank you Garrison. You've provided a wealth of information and resources. As it turns, I'd already ordered the Dell. I'm not really a speed a demon; my old 5-year Pentium 4 machine with 1.25 GB was only a tad slow, surprisingly, so I would think the Q9400 should be at least a little faster :) With the money saved vs. higher end stuff, I can buy more Nikon gear and Adobe software.

 

I would like to add a video card and more hard drives, so the information you provided above will be a great help. I am still leaning towards the Radeon 4550 for its IQ vs. nVidia (from what I've read), its fanless design (from some board makers), and its ability to work with small power supply (350 watt). It does have OpenGL 2 and DirectX 10, I believe. But it's not a rush at this point. If I find out it's not adequate for Premiere (Pro or Elements), I will look elsewhere.

[garrison_k.]

no worries, Norman. Enjoy your new box. Faster computers are a great joy. And perhaps dedicate your

older P4 to the internet and leave your new workstation unplugged from the 'net. I use a KVM switch so

that both boxes only require one keyboard, mouse, and monitor. A double tap on a key switches

between the two boxes.

[garrison_k.]

To confuse things further, I just noticed Dell sells a $1000 i7 system.

 

http://www.desktopreview.com/default.asp?newsID=537

 

Perhaps you can return your new quad? They're pretty good at doing that when one spends more money.

[larry n.]

Thanks Garrison. That's an interesting development. I'll look into it.

[larry n.]

I wonder how they manage to cram the optional ATI Radeon 4850 in there, given that ATI says that card requires a 450 Watt power supply. The Dell Studio XP only has 360 watt.

 

Btw, you mentioned that The fastest 7200 rpm drives on the market at the moment are the new Western Digital 640’s. What makes them faster than the other WD (say the 500 or the 750)?

[garrison_k.]

Dell is notorious for putting in the smallest possible power supply and that they are not the most robust.

At least it is a cheap fix. But the i7 uses less power, so I guess that is their reasoning.

 

The 640 was birthed from their new 320 drive. They bumped the cache etc on the 320 and then made a

dual platter drive, two 320 platers, that gave them 640. Most of the larger drives are dual platter now, the

1T's have dual 500 platters, the 1.5T drives have dual 750 platters and so forth. Some drives, i think the Samsung

1.5T, have triple platters like 500's. Other than that, I can't

explain it further as it's beyond my depth. The net is filled with confirmation of the 640 being the fastest

drive at the moment. This WD 640 beats it's own older 150 gig 10,000 rpm raptor drive in terms of sustained

read/writing times, something that is important to us when opening or saving large photoshop files. With

two of these 640's in Raid O, the configuration beats the latest WD Velociraptor, a $300 300 gig speed

demon, in both seek times and read/write. And you end up with 1.2T's of space. For $140 for two of

these 640's in Raid O, the performance and size can't be beat. Unless you raid O four of them :)

Software raid set up is a breeze with Intel's matrix software.

 

With the 640's, to gain better performance, you have to download a hitachi resource tool and then hack

the firmware on the 640 to turn off the AAM, the audio acoustic management that WD uses to make the

drives quieter. I'm not sure why they did this as they can't be heard over the fans anyway. Google and the

over clockers forum is filled with info on it and walk-throughs.

 

http://www.google.ca/search?

hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMG_enCA291&q=wd+640+aam+disable+with+hitachi+tool&btnG=Search&meta=

 

I'm so confused over how little this new chipset from Intel costs. Usually they introduce architecture and it is very

expensive. Yet this time around, we have $1000 i7 Dell's blowing $3500 Alienware quads out of the water. And this

food for thought, Norman. If this $1000 i7 Dell is walking all over a top end Alienware, you should be asking what the

performance difference is between this new $1000 i7 Dell and the $800 quad you just ordered. For the sake of a

couple

hundred bucks, I'd be on the phone and sending it back.

[larry n.]

Garrison,

 

Garrison,

 

Your idea about using a KVM switch in order to prolong the life of the old XP machine is a great one! But being "thrifty" I used a home-grown approach. My LCD monitor has multiple inputs, including DVI and VGA. So I hooked up one computer to the DVI input and the other computer to the VGA input. Now all I have to do is press a button on the screen to move from one to the other (too bad PIP doesn't work for this). As for the mouse and keyboard, said monitor also has 4 USB ports. So I hooked up the keyboard and monitor (as well as a printer and scanner) to the monitor. So switching those devices only involves unplugging one cable. Works for me!

[garrison_k.]

I wish I thought of that! Thanks, Norman.

 

But the idea of using the switch is to prolong the life of your new box and keep it off of the net. Like literally, don't even plug it in.

[larry n.]

I am not sure I understand. Why keep the machine off the net? Fear of viruses and spyware?

[garrison_k.]

For sure. Just being plugged in can/will degrade the performance and life of your computer. A physical

router is the best firewall along with your windows firewall. Surfing and doing email is what kills

computers. Everyone that uses a PC for the net will attest to having a PC that isn't as fast and snappy

as when they first got it. Xp is the most vulnerable, Vista64 the least.

 

I always recommend people buy Ghost or Acronis and immediately do a clone image of their C Drive

when they get a new computer. After a few days, or however long it takes, to dial in ones preferences,

do another clone image. Although there are many nasties that can still get into the boot sector and

render the Ghost image useless, being able to restore to your fresh clone image at any time is the best

prevention against 99% of everything else out there.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Norman; The "all in one computer" thats a photoshop box; scanner box; email box; one to run uTorrent and Azureus to download bootleg movies and software; one to vist porn sites; one to download and click on everything known to man is what many folks do. With time the computer tyically a PC gathers dog manure; crud. One gets crud also from lame software too; a new DVD might have one automatically installing a new player and the other one know doesnt work; or is disabled; or certain features do not work. One also might get some crap just from emails; folks click thru links and crap gets on ones computer; often hidden from normal spyware virus programs. The machine might then have crud running in the background that doesnt even show up in the processe tab in task manager; its some person tracking your habits; what sites you vist; what passwords you use. Your computer might be just harvested as a zombie and you do not know it; or its just a decent node to spam others and you do not know it. All you now is the computer is slower than when it was brand new; and sometimes abit pokey for no known reason. One expert friend had one of his taken over and their was a FTP site running in the recycle bin; that one could not see at all. It was just a place to store videos and games. Thus they might check how big/fast your upload downlaod pipe is and then settup a FTP place and have hideen/masked from view to the user. <BR><BR>For those who must have all all in one box and love to click on everything and vist the darker sites a dumb Mac is often a better choice; its more goober proof. Many Mac users I know that once used PC's were often the ones who have all in one boxes; and once the box got hosed they went Mac for its cocoon of less roads to drive on; less manure to pickup; less open holes to be breached by hackers.<BR><BR>Thus some of us PC users that do not have all these issues as much *tend* to either not blindy roam; click; download, assume run nude on the internet; ie we do not get as sick because we run a moat, we do not place unknown stuff in our mouths. <BR><BR>With an in house FTP box thats brand new I can plug it on the net and in a few seconds somebody in China, Russia, Latvia, Germany, USA, Iceland, Canada, Korea, Japan, Brazil etc is testing out what ports are open; testing out passwords. One can kick their IP addrress off the FTP and a few seconds later one gets another probing with an almost the same IP address; the bot just has another hat. As an experiment one can build up a wide open unpassworded FTP and quickly you available pipe (upload and download speed) will be tested; and how much room thats available. Thus a bootleg copy of software and keygens for games might be stored then 1/2 hour after the experimental FTP was placed on the net.<BR><BR>The ghost technique is what a friend has done for years maintaining several customers computers. One has either a ghost disc or the ghost stuff hidden in a hidden logical drive away from the typical goober. When the box gets ill or hosed one reghosts the box and all is new. The downside is it requires folks to have a few brain cells to separate data from programs.

[larry n.]

Sounds like not a lot of fun. There must be a free program that can clone a drive.

[garrison_k.]

What it is, is a lot of piece of mind. Believe me, if your box goes south and you're

packing it off to a shop for a virus issue and they tell you it's time to rebuild, you'll wish you had a Ghost

image instead.

 

There might be a free one, but I wouldn't trust it. You can hardly trust some of the others that you buy.

For instance, I bought Acronis, did a clone, said it was fine, went to double check its integrity, and it

stumbled over my raid configuration, making it useless. I have Ghost v14 and it's the only one that

worked with Vista64 and raid configurations.

 

Ghost used to put a great version called Ghost 8. It didn't care what you cloned. But all the software

companies clamped down on Norton as people (big companies) where buying 50 computers, one set of

software, making up one computer, doing a clone, and then installing the clone on the other 49

computers.

[larry n.]

What do you think of ShadowProtect Desktop? It got a good review from PCMag.com. It seems to have all the features you'd want, but is pricey.

 

I admit, my stragety thus far has been simply to reinstall Windows XP on a fresh hard disk every year or so.