The new rig is completed.

[Harabec]

New PC was finished today, got it home and now the boring process of updating my virus scanners etc begins again. I changed the spec a little to future proof it and save a little extra cash.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900XT-X 512MB Crossfire ready
Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire motherboard
Samsung spinpoint 80G S-ATA II hard drive
Asus 16XDVD-ROM
Hitachi DVD-RAM
Coolermaster Stacker 830 (complete with 2 factory fans)
2x Akasa 120mm blue LED fans
WinXP Home
Enermax Liberty 500W ATX2.2 Modular PSU

Shouldn't have to upgrade for a while now all being well. I haven't put it through its paces yet but the X1900 idles at 38-42C temp wise (which is a big saving on the X800 58-65C idle temp).

I have to say I'm not overly impressed with the new ATI control center as it causes the PC to take longer to boot up, sometimes to the point were you think the PC has hung, which it has actually done twice now. So I took the icon out of the system tray and that seems to have smoothed it out a bit, but booting still isn't as fast as it was on the old system. It loads up to the desktop in under 30 seconds, but then it seems to average roughly a minute, sometims more, before it settles down.

 

[Harabec]

Great system there. Should be good for a very long time!

The hard disk does seem rather small though. Not a big downloader?

Not really - I use a 300GB external maxtor drive anyway so I don't need a large C: drive.

All the junk and rubbish gets stuffed on the external to keep the C: as clean as possible.

The hang problem continues - it'll hang at the desktop and not do anything and it appears to be completely random. I got up and running this time so once McAfee is finished updating, I'm going to check something out. I have a hunch the onboard audio chip hasn't been disabled and it's causing the hangs when XP can't get the soundblaster going.

 

[Harabec]

Traced the problem. It's McAfee that's causing the hangs and also knocking out my internet when it's installed. Remove it, it's all fine and I don't know why it's suddnely causing problems. I'm going to assume corrupted file and re-download the software from their site.