Terry, from what I've seen in this and other forums, the e-sata with these boards are not consistently great.

If you need an alternative for esata, the adaptec 1220SA cost $50 at Newegg, is PCIe, has two esata connections, and has built-in hardware raid. It's a very nice little card, and since you'll now have two esata drives you'd be in business, as long as you had an extra PCIe slot. Just a thought.

Dell replaced my MOBO twice in my last Dell, and as it turned out the SATA controller on that board was just not very good, the raid didn't work well on any of them. So for RAID I just turned to the adaptec card and it was amazingly effective.

Jeff,
Just got home with my 'new' eSATA HD connected it to the computer and of course the computer did not recognize so that rules out the drives as the problem. Now waiting around for Dell to call tonight as they said they would.

Even if they don't call, if you have to call, they will take good care of you. Hopefully the new MB will take care of it...but if not I would consider just getting a card. For the price you paid for the Dell, if your esata doesn't work you're still ahead of the game.

I'll give them this, with my last system with them they really went the extra mile, it just turned out the PC I had wasn't built for video. If I could've upgraded the PSU, it might have resolved the issues I had, but they didn't have a PSU upgrade that would fit in the case, so I gave up and just built my own.

I wish you luck! Hopefully a MB swap will help!

Jeff,
You are right. Escept for the fact that I had to continually run the same tests over and over because I got different techs each call and they couldn't seem to accept the information on my case record as being accurate I really can't complain about the tech support. I reached a person very quickly each time and they called me back when they said they would. It now does appear that I am going to need a new MB and they are having a tech contact me to set up an appointment to do it. Now if I can get Best Buy to take back the spare eSATA drive....
I'll let you know how it turns out.

Somewhat disappointed...
 

I built an i7 machine from scratch this last weekend (i7-920, MSI X58 Pro MB, 6GB GSkill 1333, SATA II RAID0 - 640GB, nVidia 9800GT, dual monitor setup, clean install of Vista 64 and Vegas 8.1). Machine works great - ran Prime95 abuse testing for several hours with no problems or errors.

I am working on 3 projects at the moment, and brought these over from my tired old Athlon 64 3500+ machine (XP SP3, Vegas 8.0b), all 16:9 SD widescreen. Two projects seemed to open up just fine (after Vegas found the files), while the one that I need first (of course) causes Vegas 8.1 to get an exception error. I had not made any changes to preferences or options, but I had changed the directory structure of the source files (but Vegas found them). Then I realized I had not done a reboot after several driver updates in Vista. I rebooted, and then I was able to open the veg file, and I rendered out 14 video segments (chapters for a DVD), and I thought all was right with the world again.....

Fast forward to last night when I wanted to go back into the veg file to tweek several things, and now when I open it there is nothing showing in the video & audio timelines (just blank), and I get tiles instead of thumbnails for the media. When I hit play, the video plays on the preview as if it were in the timeline, but the slider and cursors don't work, and then it just crashes. In years of work with several versions of Vegas I cannot recall ever having it crash other than with the Pro Titler in earliest version of 8.

I then when back to "dumbed down" Vegas 8.0c (had to install), opened the file, and all just worked fine. No go with 8.1.

I am not overclocking. My northbridge temperature is pretty high (processor very cool), which seems typical of this MB.

Any one have any ideas? If the 64 bit stuff would just work, I would be very happy. I've seen some impressive render times. rendertest HDV.veg = 71sec for me (typical of 920 machines w/o overclock). With 8.0c it added about 50 seconds.

Thanks!

This won't help you Ray, but I have not had success with 8.1 on three different machines. Admittedly the issues were with previous 8.0c projects, but I use MB regularly, as well as Ultimate S, so with all of these factors combined I just found it not useful for my purposes.

I may try it out on a new project for fun at some point, one that doesn't require Ultimate S multi-cam, etc, but other than a straightforward single cam project, I just can't use it.

Thanks Jeff. I did forget to mention the project at issue was multicam (only 2). I'm wondering if a starting project from scratch in 8.1 helps or not? I would guess not.

I'm not using any plugins at the moment, but I do regularly use a multitude of formats, including jpegs, quicktime (Digital Juice). Typically 5 to 6 video tracks and 3 audio.

Anyhow it appears that I have to stick with the "crippleware". I may try doing my next project from scratch in 8.1 to see what happens. Frustrating to have this much horsepower and not take full advantage of it.... :-(

I just brought in a HD project, very simple, one camera, created in 8.0c, and opened it with 8.1, and the audio couldn't be "found" by Vegas. I agree, it is disappointing.

I did a 2-cam AVCHD project in Vegas Pro 8.1 using Excalibur for the multi-cam (among other things) and all worked as expected. I've used 8.1 for several things so far. While MB isn't 64-bit compatible, there are plugins that are. I used the NewBlueFX Color Fixer Plus to color correct both cameras.

Jeff,

Curiously, did you open the media folder or did you go to import?

I found that when I went to imprt I could get things in that otherwise would not.

Dale, the project was already previously assembled in 8.0c. I haven't created a project from scratch in 8.1 yet, but I'll keep in mind what you suggest, thank you Dale.

I added additional PSU and found I can now hit 4.0 and appears stable, but i can't confirm with Prime because temps are too high to run it safely: 78C in idle! But I have confirmed my psu was holding me back.

Boot times have lessened, and machine seems more responsive.

Backed off on the CPU speed, but when I find suitable cooling solution at least I can run at the increased speed as I had wanted.

Not sure how a larger power supply alone can increase boot times and responsiveness.

John

By responsiveness I am referring to accessing HDs, not OS, BTW, so my post was misleading. I was having issues accessing HDs running off of PCIe raid card. Those issues have gone since adding second PSU.

DVDA was really dragging when opening projects from those two drives. Now it is lightning quick. The only thing I can guess is that possibly there was less than optimum power that did not allow for correct operation of the drives running from the PCIe card. John, I don't know why this is either. This is the second incident in which I was underpowered and changed PSUs to find improvement, particularly relating to accessing HDs or transferring files from one drive to another, especiially for drives running off of a PCIe card.

The first time it occured I had a host of issues that vanished with a new PSU. In that case I was seriously underpowered (350 watts) where I should have been running at least 600 watts.

And when I say boot times have improved I actually meant the pre-windows portion of the boot process, the time spent in POST has shortened. Actual boot times of windows is the same. I do not have an answer for why that is either, but I have seen similar claims made by others in oveclocking forums.

Many of these "issues" which I have are self-inflicted. Who really needs 8 internal hard drives + externals? While there are those that do, the vast majority of us here do not. On top if that, a case with 5 fans, 4 add-in cards, and 12GB of memory and oveclocked are overkill. I certainly don't need 12GB of memory for example or an audio card. Onboard sound and 6GB of memory would be more than sufficient.

Disregard message

OK, I'm rendering a 1:45 (that's one minute and forty five seconds) clip for Blu Ray (8mbps) with MB effect and it is scheduled to take 52 minutes.

Unblievable. And I mean that in a bad way.

I am in the process of putting a proposal together for a new NLE computer and could use some advice as I am pretty much a novice. I work for a non-profit so the budget isn’t bottomless but I have been asked what I need, so strike while the iron is hot. I was looking at the system Gary put together (post #203 March 4th) but think I will have a lot of trouble justifying a $400 video card especially as I am using Vegas Pro 8 which doesn’t utilize GPU. I am only editing SD video and not doing anything too complex/tricky. Most of the videos are about an hour to two hours. I do need to render to PAL occasionally so rendering speed is important. With my current system 25min of SD video took 4 hrs to render from NTSC source to PAL.

I was thinking:
* Intel i7 920 processor
* Asus P6T Deluxe X58 based motherboard
* 6GB RAM triple channel
* 64 bit OS (XP Pro or Vista????)
* ASUS EN9600GT video card
* 850w power supply??
* 2x1TB drives – 1xSystem/Media, 1xRender Drive
or
* 3x500GB drives – 1xSystem, 1xMedia, 1xRender Drive

I read on another site about using three drives in the system, as described above. Is there any real benefit to that or is two larger drives adequate? I run a very lean system so space on the system drive really isn’t an issue.

Is anything above overkill, future proofing taken into consideration? I am working with donated money after all.

Now to potentially open a can of worms… XP Pro 64 bit or Vista 64 bit?

Gary didn’t mention what speed RAM he used in their system. If I am looking at overclocking the system do I need 1600MHz or will the 1333MHz be sufficient. With the fact that they are the same price on TigerDirect does it really matter?

Will an 850w power supply be ok or should I go smaller/larger?

Thanks in advance.

If I may recommend:

OS drive (media never should be on same drive)
Get a Western Digital Velociraptor (they are runing about $150 or so). Its only 150GB but I challenge anyone to fill an OS drive more than 30 -40GB. It doesn't make sense any way shape or form to think you need more than 150GB for a OS drive. Newegg.com - Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (bare drive) - Internal Hard Drives

Media drive: Western Digital Black (no you do not need a separate drive for rendering, though there are those who disagree) I run 10GB of hard drives and would never waste a drive for rendering only. Render to your project file, wherever you put it.

Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

Backup Drive 1TB same as above

Ram could be G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 $95 . This RAM has among the highest ratings on Newegg, for good reason, its great and its cheap. Not the fastest timings, but I love it. I'm overclocking a 920 at 3.8 with it. At $95 there is no need to get slow ram.

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

Thanks Jeff. I have separate OS and Media drives at the moment. After reading that it might improve rendering speed having separate media/render drives I wondered if putting the source media on the OS drive would have the same effect. The more I think about it now I don't know why I let my brain wonder off down that track.

Well, good luck with your new build! It will be great.

I am also thinking of building a i7 system. I recently put a new harddrive and memerory into my wifes laptop and reinstalled everything including the OS. I had no problems so I was wondering if I should attempt to build a system myself?

As the other more experienced people around here will tell you, building your own has advantages, and pitfalls even if you're experienced.

Before building your own look at this page: Intel i7

I cannot recommend the company because I don't know them, but their prices appear to be excellent, and their $995 system appears to be a lot for the money. I would look at them very hard it I were going i7.

This message is for those of us having problems with (a) Dell XPS Studio 435MT eSATA ports or (b) Vegas Pro 8.1 running on 64-bit Vista, or worse, BOTH ... which is me.

Dell has now replaced my computer, but the new one still does not recognize an HD connected with eSATA. I have returned both my external HD and eSATA cable for replacement, to rule out the possibility that it's the other components - but I fear it's an inherent Dell design problem.

For those having freeze/crash problems with 8.1, I've also experienced this and it's really frustrating. I built a 4 minute SD video from scratch on my i7 using 8.1. Of course, I was using my external HD connected via USB 2.0 instead of eSATA. The file began locking up (not responding) after I'd placed about 30 of the project media clips in the timeline. After that, all efforts to launch the .veg file failed - it would freeze while loading the project media.

Fortunately, I was able to move the source media and .veg file to my other PC (32-bit Vista with Vegas Pro 8.0c) and open it. I re-linked the project media files, and finished the video without problem.

The luster of i7 and Vegas Pro potential is wearing off quickly for me.

Sam, sorry to hear about your issues, very frustrating.

Vegas 8.1 is not working well for lots of folks (me included). Your problem there is easily solved by abandoning it for now. It works fine for many, but for some it doesn't work at all.

As for your PC it is unfortunate Dell has put out so many of these systems with poor estata controlers or MBs or whatever the issue is.

As I have suggested in the past to others, you can ditch the onboard esata if necessary and use a $50 card that even has built in raid, it is the 1430SA by adaptec. The only catch is it is PCIe so you would need a slot for it.

While you may have been burned on the esata aspect of your PC, unless you find another solution, the only way you might be able to move on would be to go this route. In other words accept that the built in esata on the Dell is worthless and buy a card.

If you have a slot, the good news is this card has built in RAID and TWO connectors. I paid $100 for my card over a year ago, so these cards are really are inexpensive and are a better esata solution anyway since you have raid and dual connectors.

Frankly, from all of the complaints about the estata with the Dells I am sure I would take the bullet and move on.

Alastair has got his going, I believe, so there may be hope. Good luck.

Videoguys DIY 7 - Intel Core i7 w/ Vista64

New Intel Core i7 processor makes 64 bit computing a reality!

Videoguys Blog - Videoguys' DIY7: Intel Core i7

Gary

Thanks Jeff and I'm sorry to hear you've had the same issues with 8.1.

Can I install 8.0c on my 64-bit machine?

I can live without eSATA for a while, I've got 2 internal drives going. And I'll definitely look at a PCI-E solution.

8.0c run fine on 64 bit. Its what I run. My rendering speeds are excellent. You are not losing much by using 32 bit version, don't be bummed about it.

Some get much better speed with 8.1, some get slower, or so I've read.

8.1 is so hit and miss I don't consider it a loss to run 8.0c instead.

Hopefully next release will be more reliable for us.

In response to Jeff's comment about buying from the referenced company. I ordered mine from them yesterday. I researched a lot and since I have never built my own computer, decided to order from them. Will let you know how it goes.

Nick, a LOT of people will be waiting to hear how it goes! Their prices are insanely low for a pre-built pc with the ASUS MB. They look to be of great quality.

Let us know!

An update on my i7 435MT eSATA fiasco.

After all the hours with tech support and failing to correct the problem (eSATA does not recognize external HD) Dell sent me a new mother board and sent a tech to install it. After a couple of hours of work ended up with the same problem. It looks like Dell is putting out a DEFECTIVE product that will not work, of course they will never say that! I will be looking into Jeffs PCIe board work around but my belief in Dell, which had been fairly solid, has been shattered. This is now two blatently defective products that I have purchased from Dell, the other being an LCD TV - a huge mistake.

Jeff, checked this card out. It looks like it only has internal SATA connections. What am I missing?

They can't all be bad as mine is also a Studio XPS 435MT and the eSATA does work. First one did fry but...so far.....so good.

Jeff, I had started looking at companies that would put together a customised system, wanting to avoid the pitfalls of DIY. The site you listed is one that I have been looking at. I also have been looking at this company Custom i7. They have many brands from which you can select components. Knowing the exact brand of what I am ordering is putting this one just in front of others at the moment. It seems they have a delivery time of about four weeks though. Reseller Ratings give them a 9.4/10 lifetime rating which is a plus.

Look at avadirect.com. Higher customer rating and choice of top-of-the line components.

Google any company first. Reseller ratings are HIGHLY questionable. Google "company name" + problems and you might be surprised what you find. Be careful, I NEVER trust reseller ratings, but that is just me, they can be manipulated by companies too easily.

I just googled the ones above, ava, cyberpc direct, etc and you should too. I'm almost sorry I brought them up now.

If you have a microcenter around you you can go there, pick out the parts, and they'll assemble it for you. Good luck. I'm going to stop bringing up names for companies I haven't dealt with!

Thanks Jeff. I always take negative review with a grain of salt because people are always more likely to write when they are upset than when they are happy. Having said that what I read about said companies made me a little concerned.

We have a Micro Center just up the interstate in Denver. Do you know roughly what they might charge to assemble a system?

Has anyone had any dealing with Puget Systems. I did what you suggested this time Jeff and went a little further than Reseller Ratings. I didn't find anything negative like I did with the other companies but wondered if there may be something hidden away somewhere.

I know what you mean about the negative reviews, and I take the same view. Dummies who don't know how to turn on a PC can make a company look bad. It's a shame. On the other hand, it really is a jungle on the net, and can be disheartening.

I do not know what Microcenter charges, but they'll tell you...call'em up.

If you are not sure what parts to buy, ask for some of us to post our specs, and more than a few (including me) will be happy to share.

I for one went with the PT6 Asus Motherboard Version 2 (new one) which microsoft doesn't carry, but they do carry they the P6T, which is a fine board according to many around here.

You probably must buy your parts at Microcenter for them to assemble, by the way.

Good afternoon,


I was putting a pci e firewire card in my xps studio. In the past I never needed to use a power plug in the old pci cards. The cord that came with it resembles no free plugs at all. Was wondering if it need an adapter to a smaller plug or such. Now I know why I opted to not build!!! I thought it would be easy, can't even figure out a simple card!!!

Thanks

Terry, my apologies, you want the 1225SA. Newegg.com - 1225sa adaptec

They list two versions and I have no idea of the differences.

Good afternoon,


The card said it needed poser and it works fine with out the extra power, go figure.


In the next year I am going to build my own one of these, and if the dell fails again it will be a lot sooner than later!!