Few question regarding Music PC

[venkatcr]

The 'primeabgb.com' link in your post number 50. I use 'Adaware' and avast! On Access Scanner and avast! Anti Virus. avast! On Access scanner seems to sniff out potential threats from websites, and it aborted my visit to 'primebgb'. When I get a potential threat, I just keep away from that site.

Cheers

 

[mahiruha]

Hi Venkat,
thanks for pointing that. It seems to be a problem then since I need to use that site to procure things for my game pc. I will try to find an alternative way to browse that site.
Thanks.
P.S : Is there anybody else who is facing similar issue using Computers, Peripherals, Cameras, Laptops, Gaming Equipment Tech Heaven

 

[spirovious]

I found virus problems with many websites last month.I am using Bitdefender pro & is almost best.

@Venkat- I have used so many AV in past & found most of them are not worthy.I had to format PC every 2 months & with this(BD) no prob.
I had problem with avat too & it used to hang while updates.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Guys, whilst I'm not in the least interested in gaming and gaming setups, but I've still been following your thread with interest. I had planned to replace my motherboard, salvaging the medium-speed intel core duo and the DDR2 memory, but I am now thinking of a whole new setup with AMD and the onboard-video chipset you were discussing a couple of pages ago. Thanks.

Any wisdom to contribute on fans? This is the noisiest component in the whole assembly (unless a hard disk is terminally sick ) and I am confused by the various types with different numbers of pins, and potential automatic speed control. Even in a room which is always around 30C ambient, I doubt that the case fan needs to be going full strength all the time when surfing, browsing, music listening. Thoughts? What do you people use?

 

[spirovious]

ambient, I doubt that the case fan needs to be going full strength all the time when surfing, browsing, music listening. Thoughts? What do you people use?

Speed fan is a free programe which controls fan speed according to PC temperature.

 

[mahiruha]

Hi,
I don't know much about fans. I have never really used any assembled pc this is my first step towards it. One thing I am failing to understand how the noise of fan or from hard disc can overpower the music coming out from a speaker.I placed my ears close to my HP unit and can hear some mild noise but that's not much.Just wondering??
Thanks.

 

[thevortex]

Not an RPG fan - never played NWN, the only RPG/FPS crossover I ever played was Oblivion because I got the game free with something. Same for Deus Ex. The only games I actually spend money on are the racing stuff.

I also second the Gigabyte brand. I'm an all-AMD guy, and the Gigabyte 790X board I have overclocks and unlocks my 550BE Phenom to a quad core and clocks it to 3.7GHz, it demolishes pretty much anything you throw at it. It's my first stab at the Gigabyte boards, their top end stuff overclocks really well. Watch the prices though. I got my board for ~7.2K shipped + customs paid from KMD (bought in US) whereas the lowest price in India for the same board was 10.5K. There is a bit of warranty risk, but only you can decide how much risk appetite you have.

Asus make good boards, but the Rashi support is absolutely horrendous, so one is advised to stay away.

Curiously the two racing games - in relatively recent memory - that I enjoyed completing are Project Gotham Racing (for XBOX) and Need for Speed Underground (PC). Both absolutely lovely games. Not too realistic - especially the NFS one. But nevertheless fun. PGR was really nice. And driving a Jaguar was way different from driving a Pontiac. I have great respect for that game.

The Cone Challenge race mode in that game is my all time favourite as far as racing complexity and delicacy is concerned. If you are a racing aficionado, do give that a try. It is a real challenge.

The 550BE is a monster. Is it not amazing that you can get a processor for around Rs. 4500 and pretty much beat all comers under Rs.10,000 with it? I have no idea how it compares with the new Core i5, but still I have not seen another processor beat it in terms of value for money.

 

[mahiruha]

Wait till you assemble one using components from the market.

Prebuilts are usually built quiet as they are meant to be used in productivity areas anyway, and assume the user will be using airconditioning.

Generally, they are not as powerful or as versatile, so they can get away with lesser cooling. Both DEll and HP also use custom cooling solutions. If you order a PC from Dell with custom parts, it ends up at the same level of noise as an assembled PC.

And even then, I find them noisy. It is not necessary for background noise to overpower music, it just needs to be there to raise the noise floor, this affects reproduction quality. Try keeping your volume turned low so you can hear the music, without straining - a comfortable level. Now, turn on the ceiling fan. The clarity of the sound takes a nosedive. The same thing is experienced (albeit at much lower levels) during late-night listening when the PC is humming along.

Hi Cranky,
I see your point. Actually when I opened the cabinet of my Dell and
HP desktops I found it has duct like structure attached on top of the processor. Maybe it is used for cooling and keeping the noise level down. Lets see when I get my Gaming PC assembled with the basic components then I will start about the noise reduction and colloing. BTW is there any special cabinet which caters for both cooling and noise reduction.
Regarding FAN and music I don't know much since I personally don't like fans. I always have lot of books open on my desk and they are not very fan friendly. My library room has an AC but it is a old window a/c with lot of noise. May be other type of a/c ( forgot the name ) is better since it has the main unit outside.Will think about it when it is too hot and if my interest in music listening is still there with same level of intensity. I normally listen to music at moderate volume be it day or night. Since the ancients are not complaining I don't think its too high.
Thanks.

 

[mahiruha]

Hi guys,
the good news is my music pc now fully up and running. To my utter surprize the Asus xonar card arrived today. I called a technician who put the Corsair CMPSU-400CX 400W PSU and the asus card and computer is good to go. The pc is absolutely quiet and the intial impression of the sound is very good. I played hotel California from Hell Freezes over and Peel me a Grape by Diana Krall excellent sound at least at par with my CA 540 D dvd player. I will try and give more impression in time to come.

Well that's the good part now the bad part is I am unable to play my normal computer speaker. How can I tell windows to play normal sound thorugh onboard sound card.windows is bit hesitant to play sound from the onboard card although I select it as sound device from the speaker ikon which appears in the taskbar.

Thanks a lot for all your valuable inputs.
Thanks.

 

[mahiruha]

Hi Cranky,
tried the method suggested by you didn't work. When I change the onboard sound card from control panel to default the desktop speaker plays but foobar doesn't play although it is mapped to be played through asus xonar. not sure what is the problem but for the time I have settled with everytime I want to play music through amplifier I just change the sound setting to asus xonar from the control pnael.
I would also like to know if possible what is the driver version which works optimally for xonar sound card when used with XP 32 bit operating system. Also when the music is played is it advisable to keep all the dsp setting turned off in the xonar control for optimum music performence. Today purchased some music from Linn website specially the ones suggested by audio_engg the Mozart Serenades although they sounded ok but not spectacular given they are 24bit 88Khz. Is there any special setting in xonar and foobar to play them properly. I mean to say regarding upmixing downmixing thing.
Thanks.

 

[thevortex]

Mahiruha - it would be best to disable the onboard sound card as you can route all audio through the ASUS. Which Xonar is this card?

About the sound card driver, if this is a Xonar D2X, then there is a hacked Xonar Essence driver which works beautifully. Better than the one shipped on the CD at any rate. If it is an Essence, you can download the latest from the ASUS site.

You would need ASIO4ALL as well. Use this in combination with Foobar and let us know how it goes. There are also other choices when it comes to ASIO drivers. Such as the Otachan ASIO plugin. I know Cranky does not place too much faith in software resamplers but I have had great experiences with the Sox resampler for foobar. Worth trying to see if you like the sound.

Once all of this is done, you could consider trying out the cPlay player.

 

[marsilians]

Why do you want to play using onboard card if you have the ASUS? SOunds like you are taking a step back

Hi guys,
the good news is my music pc now fully up and running. To my utter surprize the Asus xonar card arrived today. I called a technician who put the Corsair CMPSU-400CX 400W PSU and the asus card and computer is good to go. The pc is absolutely quiet and the intial impression of the sound is very good. I played hotel California from Hell Freezes over and Peel me a Grape by Diana Krall excellent sound at least at par with my CA 540 D dvd player. I will try and give more impression in time to come.

Well that's the good part now the bad part is I am unable to play my normal computer speaker. How can I tell windows to play normal sound thorugh onboard sound card.windows is bit hesitant to play sound from the onboard card although I select it as sound device from the speaker ikon which appears in the taskbar.

Thanks a lot for all your valuable inputs.
Thanks.

 

[mahiruha]

Thanks Vortex and Cranky for your useful suggestions.

@ Cranky: I think it will be solved now. Actually I was doing it in the wrong menu of Foobar. Last night I was played some music using VLC and to my ear they sounded better specially when activate hifi in the xonar control. not sure what it does. Also the problem is I was using a very authentic version of windows xp ( euphemism intended) and it crashed. I am looking for a new operating system now. I found windows vista home basic and and Windows 7 basic both are around 5K. which one should I go for. I am very happy with the vista home basic which is in my HP desktop. Don't have much idea about windows 7.

@ Vortex: the card I am using is Asus xonar essence STX.I will try your sox resampling theory and post impression.

@marsilians: The only other function of this music pc is my father plays bridge in it. So I want this desktop speaker option enabled otherwise listening to those bidding process of 5 spades , 6 no trump from the Lyrita speakers won't be a good idea.
Thanks.

 

[mahiruha]

Well Just went through the thread on windows 7. Didn't get much encouragement. Hence windws Vista home basic is the obvious choice. It plays everything I need and it never crashed in last two years inspite of several attempts with microsoft flight simulator.

 

[spirovious]

About the sound card driver, if this is a Xonar D2X, then there is a hacked Xonar Essence driver which works beautifully. Better than the one shipped on the CD at any rate.

I agree here as I tried lattest 2010 drivers for D2X & they sounded dull.I reinstalled modded driver ,with asio4all,which sounds much better.

@thevortex- What is size of modded driver?Mine 29.8mb.Is any better mods?

 

[thevortex]

I am not aware of any better drivers, Sprio. In the first place I am not quite sure why these drivers are better.

 

[mahiruha]

Well today I spent most of the time to bring back my music pc to life after the crash of its operating system. I just installed the original version of windows xp home edition that came with my Dell desktop. Things are working pretty well now and looks ok. I also looked in the market for windows vista home basic but it seems since microsoft is trying to push its windows 7 very hard so vista home basic is not readily available. may be I will get it in couple of days time. Now the question is I have in my hand 30 dyas time to activate this windows XP operating system. I have the key and the serial number from my old machine is it enough to activate it or the microsoft people will not allow me to use it. I don't see any problem since my old dell computer is no longer used and I am just installing that operating system in a new machine. In this case is it better to do the activation over phone or through internet. Any suggestions??
Thanks.

 

[mahiruha]

Hi Guys,
just able to set up this asio thing for foobar. Actually there is very good guide for it in the net.

Foobar Setup for XP

It basically tells us how to set up ASIO4ALL in foobar and ASIO4ALL can be downloaded from online.de/asio4all/downloads_1/ASIO4ALL_2_9_English.exe
Here I couldn't configure the 2.10 beta verison but 2.9 just worked fined as mentioned in the article. I guess the main advantage of using Asio is it enables the bit perfect transfer of the sound although I am not too sure if that is the case because it is mentioned in the stereophile review

"The other issue that raised its head during setup was not a problem as such, but the fact that the STX and ST can't play files with 88.2 or 176.4kHz sample rates in a bit-transparent manner, which they will do with 96 and 192kHz data. The cards will indeed play 88.2 and 176.4 files, but will convert their sample rate on the fly to whatever rate has been set with the Xonar Audio Center. ASUS claims that the Essence cards' built-in sample-rate converter is of very high quality, but there will still be a loss of ultimate sound quality with 88.2 and 176.4kHz files."

I really don't know how to test if the above is happening or not.
Thanks.

 

[thevortex]

Mahiruha - do you really have too many 88.2 and 176.4 khz files? If not, why worry? Even if you do, the sound card with up sample them to whatever you set in the software. And I dont know that it is too easy to hear any resulting deterioration, although it is definitely possible.

 

[spirovious]

Resampler can be handy here.