Please help me Im at my wits end!!

[dullbird]

Guys

I have pretty much had it with this computer, its starting to play up with me again

Not starting up properly, then starting up sounding like its running fine and no signal to the monitors etc etc its been going good for a while, then it started with a part start up cycle which it gets stuck in last week (only did it the once but I should have heed the warning and well today its taken me over an hour to get it started.

I had to have it rebuilt last year. Had to have a new motherboard and I also put new ram in it.

I have had it I'm not plowing anymore money into this machine, its drained enough and considering its doesn't get used that hard im thinking i just need to cut my loses [emoji30].

The question I'm faced with now is what should I do?

Do I buy and off the shelf unit as my last two computers were built it order

Or do I have one built again?

To be honest Im not that confident with having another one built. Im thinking if i get an off the shelf one at least it will work!!!

I was thinking maybe a Dell? What are your thoughts

I don't have a lot of money and I'm going to have to save to buy this computer but unfortunately I just cant enjoy my photography without one.

Any thoughts on what i should look at?

Im currently 16g Ram and dual monitors. Speakers, wireless keyboard and mouse and a calibrator for the monitor and a printer but obviously that is not turned on unless i want it

The machine needs to be able to run Lightroom and photoshop and be able to hack playing iTunes at the same time.

The other question i guess i may also be faced with is should I stay away from windows 10 or embrace it. Does it work ok with the above programs.

Now I know this is an IT question, but I don't want a generalised IT answer. Im looking for answers in relation to using the machine for photography, hence why I have posted here.

Im devastated i just don't have the money to sort this **** right now.

[Blknight.aus]

sucks when it happens, but I;ve just recently helped a couple of guys setup dual monitors via USB-hdmi out of those its all in the monitor computers from office works, they use them for doing some photo work but thats not my forte.

I advise staying away from Dell and look at asus.

It almost sounds to me like the power supply is on the way out/failed or has gotten noisey. it might still be a cheap fix if you know someone nearby thats a jet with computers.

I'm only really passing comment as thats how my server computer went down. all the symptoms of a dead motherboard that got replaced and then died and then got a new powersuply and the dead motherboard came back to life.... swapped in the original motherboard and it was fine as well. the tech offered me a keep what I paid for or get a refund -30 mins labour and power supply cost.

[dullbird]

I cant remember now either the power supply was checked as working perfect or it was changed completely by the guys that fixed the computer 12mths ago.
So why stay away from Dell? Because i have read a lot of reviews and there appears to be some very happy customers using the xps 8900

And some have commented how their model before were years old like 8yrs etc and they still have it just wanting to upgrade etc.

[Blknight.aus]

I cant remember now either the power supply was checked as working perfect or it was changed completely by the guys that fixed the computer 12mths ago.
So why stay away from Dell? Because i have read a lot of reviews and there appears to be some very happy customers using the xps 8900

And some have commented how their model before were years old like 8yrs etc and they still have it just wanting to upgrade etc.

as for the powersupply, checked with a multimeter, the power coming out was good, run up on a multi channel oscillisope and plugged into the board... yeah, no, nice try fail on the 5v+

Dell (at the ad hoc low end level I deal with them) do a lot of proprietry stuff that can make life interesting if your trying to do stuff with drivers and odd bod software, getting things (like an image) if the drive fails completely has been known to be entertaining, I havent had the same hassles with ASUS.

[Rok_Dr]

Some random thoughts of a photography tinkerer and novice lightroom user.

Any half decent desktop these days should cope with your requirements, provided it has enough RAM (16gb is fine) and a good graphics card. I'm running Lightroom 6 on a 2007 vintage 2.4ghz quad core with 8gb RAM and an ATI 5850 graphics card that drives dual monitors (27" main and 17" sub). Its getting a bit slow but will do me another year or so.

Historically I've gone the self build route, using brand name components, as it offers the ability to upgrade individual parts as needed. Dell are good quality but as Dave comments they do have some unique components (power supplies from memory) which makes upgrading tricky. We use Lenovo at work, but I'm not impressed with their quality and have had 2 laptops die on me in the last 6 months. Asus, HP and Acer are other reasonable manufacturers and if you wanted to go to the dark side there is also Apple and set up a dual OS boot.

If you are upgrading then I'd make the jump to Windows 10. We are all going to be pushed that way soon whether we like it or not so get it out of the way. Lightroom etc will have no problems with it.

Cheers

Steve

[dullbird]

No dark side for me

[Bytemrk]

G'day Lou,

Rok_Dr has good random thoughts ;). Any half decent current desktop with a bit of ram and reasonable video card should run what you need. I'm not sure how large your lightroom catalogue is, but unless its enormous, the specs he suggested should do fine.

I've got a high end Macbook pro that I use at work with a myriad of HP desktops, laptops and servers, yet I still keep a self built desktop for my photo stuff and general web surfing at home. ( yeh , Yeh I'm stuck in my ways a little....:p )

Buying a proprietary desktop as others have pointed out can make future upgrades changes a bit more tricky - for some that's an issue - for others it doesn't matter a stuff.

If you go the self build route, I'd strongly suggest buy a good quality power supply and main board. I've seen too many reasonable PC builds compromised by cost cutting on these two really key components.

Flick me a PM if you think I might be able to help Lou, is it worth trying again to salvage what you have?

There's is a certain queensland computer guy that I hear you can trust that might give you some great advice too. (If you can get him away from his new D7000) :p

[dullbird]

Im not willing to salvage this computer its cursed.

Starting from scratch to save my sanity is whats needed.

I have just got a quote from a local computer repair shop that build a tirade of comps from home office to serious gamers.

Its $200 cheaper than the dell and these are the specs

Custom-built Intel Performance PC
? Intel Core i7 3.4Ghz Skylake Processor
? ASUS Motherboard
? 16GB Kingston DDR4 RAM
? 250GB Samsung 850 SATA III Solid State Drive
? 3TB Western Digital SATA III Hard Drive
? DVD-RW Drive
? Integrated HD Audio
? Integrated Intel HD Video
? Gigabit On-board LAN
? Corsair 650w Power Supply Unit
? nVidia Geforce GTX 950 2GB Graphics Card
o Dual-Link DVI, HDMI, and 3x Display Port
? Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64bit
? Corsair ATX Tower
? Front mounted card reader
? In-Store Setup ? Testing of hardware, installation and configuration of
Windows, drivers and relevant software.

This is what he came up with when i told him what i was doing with it.

He said that they source parts that have good warranty.

This machine including labor will be about 2g

[Rok_Dr]

That looks a pretty tasty spec with quality brand name parts.

I like it.

Cheers

Steve

[WhiteD3]

Dullbird,

I'd stay away from Dell as they are over priced for what you get. W10 is fine once you get used to it. If you are going for a new machine add a scratch disk (a smallish SSD) for PS.

FYI I built a new PC in Oct similarly spec'd to what you've posted (+ scratch disk) and the parts alone were just under 2k.

[dullbird]

I have heard the term scratch disc what do you guys mean by this. There is a SSD in this machine but that is to run the operating system etc to make it snappy the 3TB is for file storage only

[WhiteD3]

A scratch disk is a small HDD (preferably SSD) that is dedicated to PS (you set this in PS) for use in processing pictures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_space


I have heard the term scratch disc what do you guys mean by this. There is a SSD in this machine but that is to run the operating system etc to make it snappy the 3TB is for file storage only

[Tusker]

Lou, have a read here

Build a powerful PC for Photoshop and other imaging applications (http://www.imagescience.com.au/kb/questions/141/Build+a+powerful+PC+for+Photoshop+and+other+imagin g+applications)

The mob they recommend to build it is in Auburn. I went down this route, totally happy so far.

For photography you really need a high end monitor, plus something like a Spyder 4 to calibrate it periodically. Make sure your sitting down when you look at the price though.

Regards
Max P

[dullbird]

Max I have spyder 4 elite calibrator and I have a Dell ultrasharp monitor that are not far behind Ezio in performance a lot of professional photographers are using them.

I cant afford more than 2 and in fact I cant afford 2 really but I'm pushed in to a corner a bit.

So I'm happy with what they have quoted me.

As for the scartch disc as i will only be using the computer for LR and PS is that not effectively what I'm doing having operating system and those two programs on the SSD?

[WhiteD3]

As for the scartch disc as i will only be using the computer for LR and PS is that not effectively what I'm doing having operating system and those two programs on the SSD?

No. PS will be installed on your main SSD along with W10. The scratch disk can be a portioned part of the SSD (which does work) but the idea of it being a separate SSD is speed. The scratch SSD can being doing one thing while the main SSD is busy elsewhere.

Where I notice the difference the most is processing panoramas. No degradation in PC speed while PS is busy stitching a dozen 60MB RAW or TIF files on the scratch disk.

The scratch SSD only needs to be small, 64GB is way more than you'll use.

[dullbird]

I can talk to them about it. I personally dont need 3TB of space i was actually considering asking for two 1TB drives so I could make two copies but then i thought its probably more expensive to do that and I could just buy a second external drive.

I already have a western digital cloud. Which i copied the 50gig worth of photos and catalogs too the other day before switching the computer off for good.

I don't actually us PS currently i only edit with LR it pretty much does everything I want. However with the new comp I'm considering the adobe photographer package.

So if I had a scratch disc put in would i only use it for PS or would I use it for LR too? As most people rarely use both programs at the same time.

Is the scratch only used to run the program? Are your catalogs and output files all kept on normal hardrive?

Otherwise i would imagine 64g would be taken up in no time with saving catalogs.

[WhiteD3]

Dullbird,

Re the 3TB drive, I run two 2TB. One as a data drive and one as a local backup.

I don't use LR but I assume it would have the option for a scratch disk too, being an Adobe product.

The scratch disk is just a working drive the PS uses and which it regularly clears. The program does not run on it nor are catalogues stored on it.

Can't comment on the catalogues other than to say I would not think they'd get too big. I have a 150mb PSE7 catalogue for ~2000 family pics. Not sure if LR is different.

You can always add a scratch disk later. Takes 10 minutes.

[Tusker]

In Lightroom catalogue settings, you can set where to keep the catalogue e.g. on another drive you've partitioned off as the scratch disk. PS, On1, Capture One all have something similar, to set the location of the scratch disk.

so let LR or PS install itself to Program files, set the scratch disk & output locations manually.

Regards
Max P

[33chinacars]

Im not willing to salvage this computer its cursed.

Starting from scratch to save my sanity is whats needed.

I have just got a quote from a local computer repair shop that build a tirade of comps from home office to serious gamers.

Its $200 cheaper than the dell and these are the specs

Custom-built Intel Performance PC
? Intel Core i7 3.4Ghz Skylake Processor
? ASUS Motherboard
? 16GB Kingston DDR4 RAM
? 250GB Samsung 850 SATA III Solid State Drive
? 3TB Western Digital SATA III Hard Drive
? DVD-RW Drive
? Integrated HD Audio
? Integrated Intel HD Video
? Gigabit On-board LAN
? Corsair 650w Power Supply Unit
? nVidia Geforce GTX 950 2GB Graphics Card
o Dual-Link DVI, HDMI, and 3x Display Port
? Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64bit
? Corsair ATX Tower
? Front mounted card reader
? In-Store Setup ? Testing of hardware, installation and configuration of
Windows, drivers and relevant software.

This is what he came up with when i told him what i was doing with it.

He said that they source parts that have good warranty.

This machine including labor will be about 2g

Looks bloody good to me . Good price too. I'd be happy with that

[dullbird]

Actually i have spoken to them today, I have dropped the 3TB drive to 1TB and added a 120g SSD scratch disc (smallest one they can get they hands on)

Final price $2189. Still comes in $10 under the dell hahahah

Now to save and sell my first born child which I don't have, so may need to steal someone elses. [emoji848]

[dmdigital]

Lou, ditch the hdd and scratch drive, put a 512gb or bigger ssd in and invest in a dual drive (mirrored) small nas as low cost archive. The scratch disk in ps isn't as important as having high speed ram, hyper threading processor and ssd's. I only have one ssd drive and it's fine. Using hdd's it is still a good option though.

I've been editing images up to almost 10gb when done with no issues. Graphic design is a lot different and needs this much more than photography only use.

[dullbird]

I cant really afford to put in a 512g ssd derek.

I would assume that if the scratch disc isnt really necessary then I could aways use that 120gb for storage instead and then move over the the TB hdd when beginning to get full. Everything else will still be on the 250gb ssd.

[stuee]

I'm coming late in the game here but thought I would add thoughts.

Firstly, if you've had serious issues with the current PC which is custom built is going another custom built the answer? While pre-built PC's like Dell, HP, Asus etc are generally more expensive, they are built to be stable and easily offer support (I can hear the laughing already...). If you want to go custom, make sure you are very happy with the PC shop doing the work and believe they will offer the support needed if you have issues otherwise you're potentially back to square one.

On the custom build specs I think the following:

- i7 processor is overkill. If you do or are planning to do video then OK but for primarily photos and general office apps you'll never go near using it to its full potential. Going back to an i5 could save you a couple hundred $$. I've never got close to maxing out the i5 on my 2011 build machine using light room, and even struggled with some mega panoramas in PS elements.

- I see no need for a scratch SSD. Spend the money on a good 250GB+ ssd (i.e not the cheapest you can get) and keep W10 and the adobe packages on that. My setup is a Samsung SSD 840 Pro Series (5 year warranty vs 3) around 256GB which has all my non-game software. I use a separate WD 2TB Black series HDD for the games which dont really need an SSD.

- If you're turfing your old PC salvage some hard drives from that for additional backups/copies.

- While the graphics card should be fine for photos, if ever you want to do some gaming look at going up to a 960 or 970 series card. Some Nvidia cards help with the performance of Adobe software, but not sure if its only their top end ones.

- I splurged a bit on the tower and got a Fractal Design R3. The tower sits on the desk next to me and it is very quiet. Worth the money for my arrangement.

- Consider at the very least a blue ray reader combo DVD burner.

- Once your PC is built, take a backup of teh OS drive and put it away for safe keeping. SSD's are known for failing instantly rather than degrading over time. If that happens it means re-installing everything (which actually doesnt take that long with an SSD but is still a pain). This is also the reason I went a higher spec SSD, its supposed to last longer and so far so good.

Overall I think $2k is a bit steep considering your not getting monitors and only doing photos, but the shop is building and testing the PC for you.Really depends if they are testing it properly or simply install windows and check it doesn't blue screen before they hand it over. Again it comes back to how comfortable you are with the shop.

For reference, my build in 2011 has the following specs and is still going strong:
- Asrock Pro 4 Motherboard
- i5-3570k processor
- 16GB RAM
- eVGA Nvidia GTX 960 Ti graphics card
- 256GB Samsung SSD Pro Series
- 2TB Western Digital Black drive
- Hard drives from my old PC for backups and datastorage (also copied centrally to a NAS)
- Fractal Design R3 tower
- Random Wireless N card (since been replaced when I upgraded my Router to wireless AC)

At the time it cost me around $1300 in parts and I built myself. Although I haven't looked at part prices recently so may have gone up drastically with the dollar.

[dullbird]

Its funny because I thought the cost was on the high side of reasonable. :D
For $2000 I would not expect to have monitors included well not a monitor i would bother working on anyway.
To be honest though with you spending $1300 parts and building it yourself 5 years ago I reckon the $2000 wouldn't be far from the money would it? Considering the cost in parts have more than likely gone up you didn't have to pay labour also is the machine I have slightly higher spec'd or not?

My last built PC was $1800 i think from memory and that had no SSDs in it. The one before that was $1500.

This shop I think will be good I have dealt with them a couple of times fairly recently trying to sort this one out and even for a new customer they were very good.
But I'm really not going to know truly how good they are until I have them build something I guess thats the risk.

This PC is cheaper than dells top xps model and more powerful so I have considered going the off the shelf but when you start wanting 16gs in ram and higher the prices really start to rocket I have noticed.

I also need to think about the machines ability to be upgraded.

We did discuss how he usually recommends the i5 but in the instance of adding more things to the machine be it software/hardware etc later on he recommended the i7 just for that bit more power and flexibility. And to be honest its a saving of $160?! So really which one would you have.

The scratch disc I don't know now whether I should or I shouldn't. Never had one before and got along just fine however I have never needed more than 500gb in a hard drive either so I certainly don't need more than a TB.

Blue ray? I don't think I would ever use it, I only put the drive in for the probably now rare event you might actually have to put a disc in to load software. :p

Not interested in using my hard drives really. Considering how problematic this machine has been we both agreed its probably best not to use anything from it in the event we transfer a gremlin over and feed it after dark. :D


Does anyone else think I'm paying too high a price?
Im using a shop in a small town with a proper shop front. So I guess i would be paying a small premium because of that.

[Bytemrk]

Lou,

Unless you have a really good reason to go i7, I'd stay with the i5 and use the money saved, as Derek suggested to go with a 512 SSD.

For machines in our Graphics studio at work I'd never hesitate to put a scratch drive in.... for my machine at home photo editing I never bothered and don't regret it.

My specs. are not far off those of Stuees. (Just newer)

- Asrock Z97 Extreme4 Motherboard
- i5-4690k processor
- 16GB DDR3 RAM
- Asus Strix Nvidia GTX 960 graphics card
- 250GB Samsung 840 SSD Pro Series
- 1TB Western Digital Black drive
- 4TB Hitachi HGST drive
- DVD burner, front card reder etc
- ThermalTake Matrix tower

I back up to external raid 5 storage on an HP microserver

Runs lightroom and photoshop smooth as can be.

[stuee]

I agree with Bytemrk on the i7. Just not needed. There's not many consumer programs that need 8 cores, anmd the ones you want to use will run fine on the i5. I also agree it would be best to put the dollars saved to a bigger SSD. I sometimes think that if I had a 512GB SSD I never would have needed the 2TB WD Black drive.

On reflection, perhaps $2k isnt that bad with what you say - particularly being limited to a small town vs city were high competition and easy availability keeps prices low.

[dullbird]

Yeah I have contacted the shop and asked they drop the i7 to an i5 i have also asked they drop the scratch disc as I haven't needed it yet so I'm sure i can live without it.

And I have asked them to quote me on the 512gb drive instead of the 250gb but also keep the 1 TB drive.

:)

Thanks for the input guys[emoji106]

[dullbird]

Yep so all good comps now going to be built. $2000 all up, I put the bigger ssd in.

[dmdigital]

The hyper threading in the i7 is the big plus. Also 8 cores is good with VMs. For basic photoshop use and LR getting the SSD is more important.
Enjoy the new toy when it arrives :D

[stuee]

Hows the new computer going? Had a chance to have a play with it yet?

[dullbird]

No picked it up yesterday as I have been away for a conference.. However

I have decided to move my computer room from out originally designated study which has no windows and one powere socket to one of the spare bedrooms so I can have aome natural light and also a few more sockets.

So i won't be setting it up until I can get my hands on a decent desk.

However in the meantime i did accidentally fall over and hit buy on a new monitor!!! [emoji52]

I have noticed that the dell ultrasharp I have is no longer offered by Dell.au. You can still get it in the states but i think they have bought out a newer model here and renamed. You can i think still get it through the shop but you actually have to search the part number as its not listed in their products. That bit wasn't very clear.

I currently run dual monitors but I want my dual monitors to be identical, so i found it for $105 cheaper through umart so bought it.

I could have bought the newer dell derivative at $185 more but I though why its an inch bigger.

I have to admit when I picked up the computer i couldnt believe how small it is in comparison to my old one (which was in a server case but still)

[dullbird]

Its alive....

Just setting it up now

Calibration is on.
Internet security is loading as we speak
Then next will be the adobe cloud
And then itunes.

Fingers crossed its all ok :)

New computer (new operating system windows 10), in a new room on a new (old) desk starting a fresh :)

Desktop is super quite can barely hear it running


106575

[Bytemrk]

:no2::no2:

Far far too neat and tidy Lou.... all creative spaces are supposed to have that comfy lived in look.:D

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2016/03/764.jpg

:D :p :angel:


Glad it's all coming together for you..

[dullbird]

The other study has the comfy lived in look.

Give it time...give it time[emoji6]

[dmdigital]

The other study has the comfy lived in look.

Give it time...give it time[emoji6]
Just let megamind loose in the study Lou :wasntme:

[dullbird]

hahahahahah

He would probably process photos better than me so I better not