Anderton

brianobedia
For those that might question what we do here at PCAL to make a pro audio computer -- you can feel free to call me sometime to talk about what we do.  I have 20 years tech experience, my team has a combined over 100 years experience.  We do more, and go further, than anyone else in the business, and that's why we're really, really good at it ;) 
 
Feel free to call sometime.  818-986-2673, thanks! 

 
What Brian didn't mention (so I will) is that he's a musician, so he better know how to make computers work well or his act is hosed.
 

 :) You're just always very kind to me, Craig, and I hope that you know that that really means a lot to me. 
 
 

FCCfirstclass
+1 for a home built box.  I have been building boxes since 1986 using a new 386 chip and 2 Mb of RAM.  Plus DOS 3. I have never had major problems for music or video outside of equipment development.

+1  And it just feels better. (Knowing every detail of what's under the hood, per say)

When we have a computer problem,and it gets resolved fairly quickly, we have a tendency to forget about it or at least marginalize the whatever frustration we experience. I suspect when Craig has a problem, all the best people fall all over themselves to help him resolve it. That is not what most of us experience. I think his advice is very good, but I suspect his good luck with computers has at least as much to do with who he is as to what he buys.

Windows  Experience is still there...Just has to be run on the Command Line:
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/find-your-windows-experience-index-scores-in-windows-8-1/

Don't know about Windows 8.1, but Windows 10 Experience is under Settings...
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/what-is-windows-experience-index#What-is-windows-experience-index=windows-7
 
 

Huh, I live in Albuquerque and had no idea there was an office here... have to go check it out and introduce myself.

This thread is fun to run thru....does everyone know it's 2 years old?
 

Teds_Studio

Anderton
 
I solemnly swear I will never buy a $399 computer from Office Depot for doing music

Yep, I would never try to use a store bought machine for audio or video editing.  That's why I build my own machines.  They have none of the excess garbage that comes on a store bought machine...and I can pick and choose the components that I want to use.
 
One thing that I would advise anyone to do is add a cooling fan to EACH hard drive in your system.  Even the cheap ones made in China on Ebay for $3 each work OK (although you sometimes have to replace them more frequently).  A hard drive without a cooler will be so hot within 3 minutes of turning it on that it will burn your finger if you touch it.  But a hard drive with a cheap cooler will be cool to the touch even after an hour.  I know this for a fact because I have tried it.

As an Electronics Design Engineer I spent 15 years designing the power electronics for disk drives and spent countless hours working in the design labs at Seagate, WD, Quantum and DEC. Something must be wrong if you’re hard drive gets too hot to touch. Is the HD the source of the heat or is the heat coming from other parts of the computer. The hard drive by itself should be relatively cool. The power electronics for the spindle motor and the Voice Coil Driver are hard switched and run fairly cool with no heat sinks. Just my 2 cents.
 
Walt

Anderton
 
 
I solemnly swear I will never buy a $399 computer from Office Depot for doing music

I know people that have and they too run trouble free!

All of this stuff is way overblown and way over hyped imo. It is the same old argument that floats about over Protools -v- just about any other DAW - "well the experts and pros all use it so it should be the best, right?"  well, no wrong...as many users of Sonar (including the OP ) would attest to. The same with the hyperbole surrounding all these "tweaks" I mean really, fans for each HDD, you are kidding right? How ridiculous. A solid well spec'd off the shelf unit with later versions of Windows (7, 8.1 or 10) and you are pretty good to go.
Really, I think a lot of this stuff is possibly put out there and maintained so companies like these can stay in business, if the truth were known they would be far less profitable. An analogy could be drawn to Anti Virus programs in the late eighties and into the nineties - putting out less than accurate information to a gullible public to sell more product.
 
And I guess now we will get all  the "anecdotal" evidence, and test-bench contrived evidence (that actually means diddly-squat in the REAL world) to "prove" that you need a PC specifically tweaked to do the job....well one piece of anecdotal "evidence" I can provide is I have been using high street boxes for years, and running everything (games, internet, movie watching etc etc) as well as intense audio work (with Sonar btw ) with NO issues that were not user error.
 
My advice? Take all of this with a grain ( a BIG grain) of salt! Rely on your own experiences and as always JMO!