Hello and Happy New Year
my main machine for internet use died this week
from motherboard failure.
my other 2 machines are set up for Sonar and 
video editors,mainly.
is it important to have a separate machine
primarily for the internet(dumb question maybe...)?
thanks    m. ritti

No. Running a DAW on the internet is fine- also makes it easy to updates plugins and the DAW itself.

Lots of people will pipe in telling you not to use your DAW for the internet, but I use mine all the time.
 
I also have Norton running all the time and have not had any issues with it.
 
I am not alone in this.

No real reason to have a dedicated internet PC. Just make sure to take the normal AV and firewall precautions when on the internet.

jb101


but I use mine all the time.

Ditto, but I can understand some of the pros not being to happy about that. I just make sure I'm sensible with my browsing. I use Microsoft Security Essentials and Mawarebytes, as recommended by my eldest, and up to now I've not had any problems. And I find it easier to help others while sat at my laptop with this forum open at the same time as Sonar :)

I think you'll find a few schools of thought on this question.  IMHO, I believe it comes down to how critical your DAW is and how much you want to deal with potential resource issues or software conflicts, etc.

If you make your living on your DAW and need to minimize downtime and maximize performance, then you'll likely want to separate your DAW from your general PC.

Conversely, if you're a hobbyist who's income isn't affected if you had an issue once in a while and aren't stretching your system's performance limits by DAW projects with lots of soft synths & effects, then you can likely combine your DAW and home PC together if you have a very powerful PC and don't mind doing some troubleshooting once in a while.

FWIW, I have my DAW separate from my home PC, even though I"m just a hobbyist.  My home PC has so many background services running from installed apps and receives frequent application / OS updates  that I don't want to deal with the hassle of potential resource issues on large DAW projects. 

Nothing's definite though - you may combine the two and never have a single issue - but the more pieces of software you have on a single machine increases the liklihood of an issue at some point. But you may feel differently.  YMMV.

Hope that helps
Russ
  

Nope and no.

One thing I forgot to mention, when my DAW was on my desktop, I set it up to dual boot. One boot was for my "office" based stuff and the t'other one was for my DAW.

I still connected both boot sessions to the interweb, but my DAW boot had music only software on it, and I cut down the number of process down quite considerably.

I think the OP's question outlines the answers best: Need vs. Want.

Need: NO. 

But Russ is probably correct in his opinion that it's nice to have separation of concerns. I too like to load the forum on my Mac laptop and keep it beside my desk in the studio where I run a dedicated DAW. I don't need it this way, but it is nice for a controlled environment. It's very similar to the question about needing a dedicated space with 14 foot ceilings, etc. Do you need it? No. Would it be nice for recording? Yes.

My $.02.

I earn my living with music.  This includes using my DAW.
 
If I have clients in I will not go on internet whilst tracking, and will disable my AV.  I've not had problems with either, but better safe than sorry.