🚀 go-pugleaf

Adam Carheden wrote:
> 
> I'm looking into what it would cost to put together a new Linux system
> (I'm currently running a Dell that I compationatly spared from Win95),
> but not being much of a hardware buff, I have a few question.
> 
> - Motherboard/SCSI
>   Bus speed is the bottelneck, right?  Any new technologies better than
> PCI that I should look at? I'll be going with SCSI hard drives, and one
> FAQ recommended onboard SCSI.  How much faster will this be than an PCI
> SCSI adapter?  What about upgradeability, is this a concern with onboard?
> Any idea where I can get one with onboard SCSI?

If the motherboard is built well, I don't think that there will be any 
difference in performance between onboard scsi and a scsi adapter. The
more recent motherboards that I heard were good and had onboard scsi 
were made by ASUS and SOYO. Motherboards with onboard scsi are more 
expensive, but they are cheaper than a Motherboard/scsi adapther combo.
However, if you frequently upgrade your motherboard, like I do, then a
scsi card will be cheaper in the long run. 

>   Any other good MB buying advice would be appreciated.
 
I don't have my bookmarks on this computer, but the sites I can 
remember that have good hardware reviews are www.anandtech.com,
www.tomshardware.com, and www.sharkyextreme.com. 

So, are you building a new linux system from scratch or will you be 
using parts from your previous computer in your new one? If you are
going to use parts from your old computer, make sure the new 
motherboard has enough slots to hold them. Especially, if you have
more that 2 ISA devices. Also, make sure your longer devices (sound
and video cards) can fit. I had a motherboard with the cpu right
next to my ISA slots and my AWE32 sound card no longer fit anywhere
on the motherboard. 

Do you want/have a desktop, mid-tower, or full tower case?  Personally,
I'd go with a full tower case. Most motherboards fit in full tower
cases and you have more room to work with. Additionally, I think
tower cases are built so extra fans for cooling can be added.
I believe InWin is the company that makes some to the better cases.

If you don't like to play around with jumpers, go with a jumperless
motherboard that allows you to change all settings via the bios. I
overclock and tweek my system constantly, so I don't like opening
my case to change the motherboard settings if I don't have to.

Also, make sure you can use screws to attach you motherboard to the
case and not those plastic snap things. The plastic snap things are
a pain to remove from the motherboard, and in my experience only fit
loosely to the case. My first computer had the plastic snap things
and my motherboard would move and shift whenever I would work on my
computer. It seemed like the only thing holding my motherboard to 
the case was the ground screw.

> - Hard Disks
>   WDE9100 (Western Digital) $820
>   9.1 GB
>   7200 RMP
>   7.9 ms Average Seek time
>   4.17 ms Average Latency
>   Ultra Fast/Ultra Fast Wide/SCA-2 interface
> 
>   ST19171 (Seagate) $230
>   9.1 GB
>   7200 RMP
>   8.0/9.5 ms Average Seek Time
>   4.17 ms Average Latency
>   Ultra SCSI (8- and 16-bit, SCA) interface
> 
>   Why does a .1 to 1.6 ms difference in seek time justify a $590 price
>   difference.  What did I forget to look at?  And what about the
>   differnce in interfaces; is this two ways of saying the same thing?

The difference is that the Seagate is utlra scsi and the Western
Digital is probably ultra wide and scsi-2. Don't quote me on this,
but I think that ultra is 20 MB/s, ultra wide is 40 MB/s, and ultra
wide scsi-2 is 80 MB/s transfer rate. The ultra has a 50-pin scsi
connector and the ultra wide has a 68-pin scsi connector. I'm not
sure what type of pin connector the scsi-2 has. If you buy a new
scsi hard drive, make sure it will fit on the scsi adapter you have.
I know Adaptec make scsi cards with both 50 and 68 pin connections.

Anyway, hope this helps.

Later,
	Chris