New computer

Analoguesat

Analoguesat

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Just vgot a rather nice Dell Dimension5150 computer

P4 3400MHz / 1GB ram :)

Quite a bit better than the life expired no name 800MHz Athlon Ive just retired.
O-Ha

Only put it together yesterday, and Im already making plan to take the top off and add extras to it.

Some questions
1) does this make me a geek ;)
2) Whats the best tv card these days. I need at the minimum a tv card for screen grabs for my websites but a combined tv card / satellite card would be nice. I had a Pinnacle tv card in the Athlon, but things have moved on, whats the best these days.
3) Im now missing a serial port for the infinity programmer. Although I can keep it running on the old computer easily enough, a pci serial card for the new toy would be preferable. Any recommendations?
 
Nice box m8.

1) Of course
2) Tricky
3) Any

PCI sat cards are hard to advise on. Personally, if you don't need TV out and your CPU and graphics cards are up to it I'd get the SS2. You just can't beat the support for it. Don 't know about Digi-Terri cards, but avoid anything based on the Airstar2 if you also go for the above due to driver conflicts. I think I'd go for a USB telly card if you're going for a PCI sat card. The heat they generate just isn't funny.

The Nova PCI is a popular VFM DT card. I nearly bought one until the wife discovered my plan :(
 
I've got an SS2 and Nova-T running in my PC sweetly enough (NVidia chipset). No conflicts.

Llew
 
Excellent. There you go then :D

Another job jobbed.

I didn't know you had an SS2 Llew? Use it much? Suffer with overheating?

I've got one large intake and two extra exhaust fans in my box on top of the CPU and graphics fans. And that's in a full tower case, round cables etc.

It's full of other stuff, and it's warm enough to heat the large room it's in, even during the winter :D
 
Its going to be an expensive few weeks - new bits n pieces required to "improve" the computer. Also got to have a new printer as the Dell doesnt have a parallel port. Ive seen a nice networkable colour colour laser ;)
 
Could be worse AS - you guys know what I do, fully loaded and specced- this is one of the host machines for the system. And they run a pair for each one.
And I want one :D
 
BGonaSTICK said:
Excellent. There you go then :D

Another job jobbed.

I didn't know you had an SS2 Llew? Use it much? Suffer with overheating?

I've got one large intake and two extra exhaust fans in my box on top of the CPU and graphics fans. And that's in a full tower case, round cables etc.

It's full of other stuff, and it's warm enough to heat the large room it's in, even during the winter :D
Click to expand...

TBH Stick there's no heat problems, as there's only three PCI cards in the PC I use for sat working, all in a large ali tower case with one intake fan only. I suppose it helps that it is in a normally unheated room.

The terrestial card is actually a WinTV HVR1100 hybrid (DVB-T, Analogue TV and FM Radio, a later incarnation of the Nova-T card). The analogue tuner sensitivity is nothing special though.

An interesting program to use with these cards is the TSreader, which analyses the received signal multiplexes, together with loads of information on the signal parameters (HDTV too).

A lite version is available from _www.coolstf.com/tsreader

Llew
 
Analoguesat said:
Its going to be an expensive few weeks - new bits n pieces required to "improve" the computer. Also got to have a new printer as the Dell doesnt have a parallel port. Ive seen a nice networkable colour colour laser ;)
Click to expand...

You could use a PCi card with serial & parallel ports! (one of each).... if you can still get them!!!

You can, some on sleazebay for 13.99, item No:6842737051
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Serial-Parall...ryZ90717QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
 
BGonaSTICK said:
Excellent. There you go then :D

Another job jobbed.

I didn't know you had an SS2 Llew? Use it much? Suffer with overheating?

I've got one large intake and two extra exhaust fans in my box on top of the CPU and graphics fans. And that's in a full tower case, round cables etc.

It's full of other stuff, and it's warm enough to heat the large room it's in, even during the winter :D
Click to expand...

Bet you save on elecy bill soStick, Have you got those lovely neon lights in it too.
 
john_graydon said:
Bet you save on elecy bill soStick, Have you got those lovely neon lights in it too.
Click to expand...
No m8, I'm not the poseur type. I find it quite hard to find a heatsink and fan without an LED in it!!!

Llew said:
The terrestial card is actually a WinTV HVR1100 hybrid (DVB-T, Analogue TV and FM Radio, a later incarnation of the Nova-T card). The analogue tuner sensitivity is nothing special though.
Click to expand...
Sounds good m8. My tower is jammed to the max and gets very hot. If I don't clean the dust out of the graphics card fan every month, it starts acting up... :rolleyes:

It's all a little overclocked aswell... :-bash
 
Analoguesat said:
Its going to be an expensive few weeks - new bits n pieces required to "improve" the computer. Also got to have a new printer as the Dell doesnt have a parallel port. Ive seen a nice networkable colour colour laser ;)
Click to expand...
If the printer is still a goodun get a USB to Centronics cable.

Mind you if you're looking for an excuse to change...
 
have a look at the TVdongle (a usb2 tv card, looks like the usb pen) i am not sure if they have a freeview and sat receiver in one yet but they do have dvb-t and analogue combined ones
 
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