Best hardware for online business?

[processor]

Hi all,

I run a one man on-line business and I want to know the options for upgrading my hardware.

The essence of my query is this..

I HATE to lose valuable precious time.

The amount of time spent waiting for the computer to load applications, to boot up, to hang, etc is unecessarily lost time.

I'm currently running a 1.8ghz AMD Athlon, 256mb, 120gb HD, 17" TFT, I'm not sure what graphics but its onboard, all packaged in a beautiful Shuttle PC case.

So my challenge is this..

What hardware would suit the following:

• Absolute minimal hanging and load times for a very busy and furious internet marketer who runs multiple applications at once
  Tries starting up 3 software programs at once often including Dreamweaver and Photoshop
  Does not play any of the latest 3d games so does not need whatever funky hardware is good for that.

Strictly supreme business efficiency.

Thank you.

Nathan Shaw

http://mind-matrix.com
Free life assessment 'Am I Organized' quiz.

[KeithO]

to be honest, I would just take that machine and upgrade to about a gig of ram, assuming that mobo supports it.

[ADAM Web Design]

Before you do anything as far as a hardware upgrade goes, check to see how much resource you're using on boot. With a machine of your specs, if you're using up more than I'd say 20-25%, you've got too much stuff open when it first starts up.

Check your tray (the bottom right corner.) Familiarize yourself with the icons there, and remove the ones that don't need to be there.

Make sure there's nothing in your Startup group. I don't think there's ever a case where something HAS to be running on startup. This is especially true of MS Office...you can kill the icon in there and notice no difference in your ability to operate.

If you can clean up your machine to that point and find you're still having problems, then do what KeithO said and possibly upgrade to a 64 MB or better graphics card (I prefer the nVidia cards myself, since my best friend used to work for ATI and I know what kind of crap goes on there.)

[mktplace]

memory is key to running fast with lots of applications open

[keithd]

The first thing I would do is lose the onboard graphics.

It uses the CPU and your system ram.

Newegg.com has great prices on vid cards.

Look in the $130 range... Nvidia is what I like.

128 mb card should be plenty fast.

I like to work with two monitors. So a dual head card my be what you want.

With two monitors you can have multiple aps running... and just slide your mouse
to the edge of the screen and start working with the other program.

You have plenty of ram... I would not bother upgrading that... unless you are running
something like Photoshop... it will take everything you have and ask for more.

If your just running Dreamweaver and have multiple browser windows open then go
for a better vid card...you will love the speed increase.

I have seen a lot of systems using big slow hard drives.... If you really want a fast loading
hard drive then I would suggest setting up a drive RAID array.

Check out Escalade from 3ware..... they have the fastest IDE drive array's on the market.
Set it up with two 80gig hard drives (the ones with 8 mb cache) set to up in a 0 RAID array...

Check out these bench marks scores... http://www.3ware.com/products/benchmarks_sata.asp
I have an older setup and I get a sustained 86 mb per second on two 40 gig drives striped as one.
The system views the two drives as one large 80 gig drive. This is where I put my programs and
data files. I have a separate system drive.

[mktplace]

Maybe we should ask what OS you are running - 256M RAM is plenty for W98 (its about all it knows how to use), but is the minimum to get XP going.

Make sure your motherboard supports an external video card before you buy one, and make sure it is at least AGP-4, preferable AGP-8.

Since you mention hangs, I am guessing maybe you are running Windows 98. If that is the case, consider upgrading to XP - my machine never hangs and I run apps including Visual Studio .NET, Photoshop, Word, Excel, Firefox, FrontPage, Dreamweaver, an FTP client (I like LeechFTP), Outlook, IE, Netscape, Robo Demo and Media Player all day long, all at the same time. Oh yeah, I also have a TV card and watch TV or listen to radio in another window as well.

And I don't remember the last time I had to reboot - I generally use Standby when I go to bed (in the wee hours), and the machine is back and functional within about 10 seconds when I touch the keyboard in the morning.

I totally agree on the dual monitors too, but it's like a good drug - once you start, it is hard to stop -- makes it all but impossible to work on someone elses PC very productively.

IF you have the money, I just paid about $1200 for my Dell, and it has 2G RAM, 160G 7200 RPM SATA drive, Rage Pro dual monitor video card, and 800 MHz front side bus. Buying anything less than a 120G hard drive is a waste of money, as they cost about the same as an 80G these days.

Remember what you said:

I run a one man on-line business and I want to know the options for upgrading my hardware.
The essence of my query is this..
I HATE to lose valuable precious time.
The amount of time spent waiting for the computer to load applications, to boot up, to hang, etc is unecessarily lost time.

If this is truly the case, $1200 for your main "tool of the trade" is a small price to pay. Get the one with the free 17" TFT upgrade, and then use that and your old monitor to rock and roll.

[andyj]

WIN98 only works efficiently with up to 128mb RAM any more than that it slows the machine down.

From what I remember reading, with over 128mb of RAM W98 can't page efficiently. This technical explanation may be incorrect but I do know from personal experience it does slow down.

I have a customer who has an Athlon 2600 running W98SE with 256mb of RAM it runs horrendously slow.

[KeithO]

Originally Posted by andyj

WIN98 only works efficiently with up to 128mb RAM any more than that it slows the machine down.

From what I remember reading, with over 128mb of RAM W98 can't page efficiently. This technical explanation may be incorrect but I do know from personal experience it does slow down.

I have a customer who has an Athlon 2600 running W98SE with 256mb of RAM it runs horrendously slow.

Probably since 98 was in the pre HT era so its not efficiently using the processor.

With more RAM, the small amount that the onboard video would use would be moot. Upgrading the hd to raid would be expensive for the controller and 2 or 3 hard drives. Bump up the RAM, keep the system clean with regularly running Disk Cleanup and Defrag, minimize the amount of start up programs and you'll be ok.

[mktplace]

hey processor,

Let's hear from you again. What OS are you running? Is it Win98? Is that why you are crashing all the time?

Are you thinking of just upgrading your old box or buying a new one?

Plus, it looks like you have edited your original post (don't remember seeing Photoshop and gaming in there to begin with). . . if you made changes, please post as a reply, so we can follow them as part of the thread.

Maybe you can post a reply with your latest thinkg so far?

[KeithO]

I seriously doubt he'd be running anything outside Windows XP since he has the 120gig hd, new processor and is in a shuttle pc. Besides, Win98 runs FAT32 which has issues with hard drives over 64gigs.

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63

[davebarnes]

processor,

My previous computer (still connected to the home office network) was: Athlon 1.8 GHz, 1GB memory).

My current computer is an Apple iMac. 20-inch LCD + 2 GHz CPU.

Mac OS X is so much better than Windows (of any flavor.

The iMac is perfect for what you describe as your needs.

,dave

[TrafficProducer]

New hardware becomes old, ( but usable hardware), after about 18 months.

Rememeber that Windows Vista (Microsoft has formally renamed Longhorn, the long-awaited operating system to Windows Vista. Windows Vista is being developed to replace Windows XP, (Arriving 2006). (No more Longhorn.) and you may wish to allow for this in any hardware choice. (Total new O/S and MS Office systems may be needed and the Hardware to power it)

More links about Microsoft Windows Operating Systems

[processor]

You guys have been superb. Shame I wasn't getting the automated replies for some reason.

I finally get back round to thinking of hard ware upgrade and wondered why I didn't get replies to this post, but coming here has shown otherwise.

I am using XP. To clarify, I don't play games but I do run photoshop, although not that frequently.

I'm confused by the hd fiddling, the ram sounds sensible, I got a program to help with start up clutter, and it looks as though a new graphics card is the way to go for now.

Also, love the idea of two flat screen 17"ers, but I am actually thinking of travelling soon so will be looking at laptops.

Hmm, and you guys might just be where to ask about that too...

Any ideas for a powerful but not money wasteful travelling laptop?

Thanks so much
Nathan

[brian.mark]

Laptops are going to be slow no matter what. Standard hard drive speed on a laptop is 4200 RPM, 5400 being an upgrade, and very few use 7200 (standard on a PC any more). They also normally use a Celeron M, which has a smaller on-die cache. This results in the machine really feeling sluggish. AMD's Athlon 64 is a nice mobile CPU, although it seems like those laptops don't get as good of battery life when I play around with them.

I personally went with a less expensive laptop, knowing that even a fancy one is going to be slow compared to what I'm used to. My main PC is a higher end box, though. Dual CPU, 2 GB of RAM, 128 MB Cache SCSI card and 4 1000RPM 8MB cache SCSI drives in RAID 5. Most people don't want to put out the cash for something like that, but I really like it and wouldn't do without it. I also have a $800 sound card though, so I can record a whole band in one shot. The drives were necessary for that, and applying effects needed that second CPU.

Some laptops support using the VGA port as either the same as your normal screen or as a spot to hook a second monitor. Mind will do either, and that makes it nice when I hook up an LCD panel to it. I have the dual monitor functionality without having to hook 2 LCD's up.

My system at work now has 3 screen attached, so 2 is now seeming like it limits productivity for me. I have the database full screen on one monitor, my SSH session viewing source code on one, and a web browser open on the other. Very, very cool. If my desk were larger, I'd consider more.

Anyway, if you're looking for performance you'll be disappointed in pretty much any laptop unless you spend $3k, and that will be about what a $1k PC runs like. If you just want it for portability, you can go with a lower end laptop and upgrade the RAM. Bumping mine from 256 to 768 was $50 at the time, and it made a big difference.

Brian.

[KeithO]

Originally Posted by brian.mark

My main PC is a higher end box, though. Dual CPU, 2 GB of RAM, 128 MB Cache SCSI card and 4 1000RPM 8MB cache SCSI drives in RAID 5

Oh that sounds so beautiful.