Rebuilding a PC

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I've heard/read a few people talking about rebuilding their PC every now and again to keep it fast (pre windows 7 anyway). Are they just talking about formatting and re-installing windows or is there any physical rebuilding involved? I guess cleaning the internal fans might be worthwhile but is this what they're referring to?
 
neil_g said:
id think they mean format and reinstall. but shouldnt be needed if you dont keep installing and uninstalling rubbish.
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If you've got Windows XP then you could try a different way and gut the internals using Nlite which allows you to set it up without all the crap you usually get.

I did this 9 months ago and now I have a computer with 6 partitions on a 500Gb Barracuda.

4 partitions are used as 4 separate virtual computers all running my XP.

I use a menu at startup to choose between Internet, Photos, Film and Web Design.

The Film partition is 15Gb and the other 3 XPs are all 10Gb.

One of the other partitions is for downloads and the other I call Workbench for interfacing between the 4 virtual computers.

I can re-install XP Pro totally automatically in 13 minutes on any partition including setting up the desktop to Windows Classic, installing most of my drivers, and also slipstreaming SP3.

Result: a totally fast XP with no backups and a host of rubbish uninstalled (including that thoroughly annoying Tour).

Startup is about 45 secs and shutdown less than 15 secs.


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Thanks for the info guys. I personally always assuming that 'building' involves something physical, but it seems in this case it's used more for a software type building.

Peter, that's a crazy sounding setup you've got there - never heard of anyone doing that before! So if you are photo editing and then want to use the internet you have to log off the 'photos' profile and log in to the 'internet' one?
 
TopBanana said:
So if you are photo editing and then want to use the internet you have to log off the 'photos' profile and log in to the 'internet' one?
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Sounds like it's as reboot.

(Real..!) Virtual machines might have been a better way to achieve the same thing though...
 
I have a dual boot system one 128 ssd runs windows 7 the other lion mac osx. I have a microserver with 6 2 tb drives. Each one formatted to the mac journalled file system labelled accordingly (windows can write/ read using mac drive).

I have One of the 2tb drives housing clones of perfect installs of both and can have all my core program's (adobe creative suite ect) drivers up in 10mins.

The mac partition handles all editing audio and design functions and I do the rest on the windows.

Upon boot I have a choice to boot to either (using chameleon) and from selection it takes 10-15 seconds.

I'd recccomend this system to anyone it's fast, stable and most of all reliable.
 
TopBanana said:
Thanks for the info guys. I personally always assuming that 'building' involves something physical, but it seems in this case it's used more for a software type building.

Peter, that's a crazy sounding setup you've got there - never heard of anyone doing that before! So if you are photo editing and then want to use the internet you have to log off the 'photos' profile and log in to the 'internet' one?
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Not quite I don't "logoff" simply restart the PC then choose the "computer" I want from the menu.

The upside is that since every "computer" is totally separate nothing is cluttered up with anything else so only uses a fraction of the resources it would normally.

For example Task Manager in Performance shows me that while I am in "Surfing" I am using 654Mb of paged memory out of 3.5GB (due to running firewalls etc) while in Photos I am only using about 155MB so no danger of running out of memory and it runs at maximum speed.

And the same with the other 2 "computers" - both only using a fraction of the resources they would if I was using it as a conventional single partition computer.

And in each "computer" I also disable all the other HDDs not needed for that application - I have a total of 5 HDDs (over 7TB altogether).

So in "Photos" the only HDD not disabled in System Manager - apart from the system drive - is a single 2TB drive used to store my photos on.

Once I have finished editing them on the "Workbench" they get transferred to that drive along with all the other photos.

And in "Films" I have 2x2TB drives to store all my DVDs on and also the conversions to X-Vid.

And since I am using minimal resources in "Films" I am able to convert at least 20 full length feature films to X-Vid ALL AT ONCE with no problems (apart from the time it takes lol).

Since doing it this way I would never go back to a conventional computer.

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neil_g said:
personally that sounds far faffy and inflexible. but each to their own.
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That's what I thought :shrug:

It would probably make me more productive though if I wasn't able to access the internet when I was supposed to be working (like now for instance ;)), but then I often need to search online for how to do certain tasks, and a lot when trying to use Lightroom, so would also hamper my work.
 
TopBanana said:
That's what I thought :shrug:

It would probably make me more productive though if I wasn't able to access the internet when I was supposed to be working (like now for instance ;)), but then I often need to search online for how to do certain tasks, and a lot when trying to use Lightroom, so would also hamper my work.
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I CAN access the internet from ALL "computers" if I need to so no problem there.

Remember this is a single PC running 4 separate partitions as separate "computers" but all the resources of that single PC are available if i need or want them.

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neil_g said:
personally that sounds far faffy and inflexible. but each to their own.
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In fact I find it just as flexible as having a single computer and once set up even more so and certainly faster.

But everyone to his own :lol:

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The only thing you are saving by doing that is any memory used by the loaded programs. A 64bit OS and an additional 4G would sort that out if there were any issues. Machines should only slow down (once booted) when they are out of memory - unless they have a virus.
 
petersmart said:
In fact I find it just as flexible as having a single computer and once set up even more so and certainly faster.

But everyone to his own :lol:

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While I admire your setup on a technical basis, I doubt it's any faster than mine or any other power users setup. Not sure why you would run so many instances of the os, why just not have profiles (logins) with different mapped drives and program's? As stated above I have a dual boot system but 2 completely diff operating systems for different things.

Or you could run a mac setup and use the alternate desktop options for each program.

Just a thought :)
 
arad85 said:
The only thing you are saving by doing that is any memory used by the loaded programs. A 64bit OS and an additional 4G would sort that out if there were any issues. Machines should only slow down (once booted) when they are out of memory - unless they have a virus.
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Well that would mean buying a 64 bit version of XP Pro and a machine to run it.
And even now I am now buying a faster MB, processor and DDR3 memory I will stick to my present way of working since I find it very easy and if I upgraded to W7 - and then of course don't let's forget W8! - I have to go through a whole new learning curve.

I have found a way of working which, to me at least, offers a lot of advantages with no disadvantages whatever.

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disadvantage, cant have a film playing while processing photos or on the internet or combinations of. having to boot out of one and into another to switch tasks would drive me mad. also a waste of disk space. also if the drive dies thats 4 systems to rebuild.

memory is cheap.. having 8+ should not see you have any issues with combining roles.
 
Vettahead said:
While I admire your setup on a technical basis, I doubt it's any faster than mine or any other power users setup. Not sure why you would run so many instances of the os, why just not have profiles (logins) with different mapped drives and program's? As stated above I have a dual boot system but 2 completely diff operating systems for different things.

Or you could run a mac setup and use the alternate desktop options for each program.

Just a thought :)
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Well I couldn't afford a Mac and I'm used to PCs.

And I don't have a clue about mapped drives etc :shrug: so this way of using it is simplicity itself for me.

And I can also re-install any "computer" in 13 mins and only need about another hour to re-install all the appropriate programs for that "computer".

And I use 4 separate OS for the reasons already stated and to keep the "My Computer" area looking clean and simple otherwise it would be extremely cluttered with all the HDDs.

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neil_g said:
disadvantage, cant have a film playing while processing photos or on the internet or combinations of. having to boot out of one and into another to switch tasks would drive me mad. also a waste of disk space. also if the drive dies thats 4 systems to rebuild.

memory is cheap.. having 8+ should not see you have any issues with combining roles.
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Well XP can only utilise 3.5GB of memory and I only do one task at a time - editing pics etc.

And even with a fast PC if I was rendering a number of films it would then slow down all my editing tasks.

And disk space isn't wasted since I have a barracuda 500GB 7200RPM as the system disk so even if I ran it as a single PC I would still use all the 500GB.

And each OS uses minimal disk space 45GB in all for all 4 "computers".

But as I said I am more than happy with the way I work and this method suits me perfectly.

Oh and I have a second, much older PC just for surfing the 'net while my main PC is working.

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You seem to have found a way which works for you which is good. There are a number of other ways of working which would give you just as much speed but with more flexibility.

I'm also not sure why you'd want to reinstall windows. I've done that a handful of times in the last 12 years (other than reinstalls when building the system to get it "right").

Don't forget that if you have more than 3.5G of memory (you mention you're buying a new mobo/memory) you need a 64 bit OS. I'd really recommend upgrading to Win 7 BTW...
 
petersmart said:
And even with a fast PC if I was rendering a number of films it would then slow down all my editing tasks.
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You need to set the priority of your rendering tasks to be lower than anything else. This would mean they only get CPU cycles when nothing else is able to run. With enough memory in the system, you wouldn't even notice that you were rendering video. I can be recoding 2x HD streams here using all 8 cores and not even notice I'm doing it for everything else I'm doing (well, apart from the fact the fan spins faster when the machine is working)....
 
arad85 said:
You need to set the priority of your rendering tasks to be lower than anything else. This would mean they only get CPU cycles when nothing else is able to run. With enough memory in the system, you wouldn't even notice that you were rendering video. I can be recoding 2x HD streams here using all 8 cores and not even notice I'm doing it for everything else I'm doing (well, apart from the fact the fan spins faster when the machine is working)....
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They are set lower - in fact I set them all at idle, but as I've said the PC is a duo core system running XP PRO 32 bits and even with the renderer set at idle they do eventually use near to my memory limit (3.5 GB on XP PRO).

But I usually run them at night so they are all finished by the next time I need to edit pics etc.

If you have 8 cores then your machines are vastly superior to my set up and you are probably running W7 or a special Windows for servers etc.

Slightly different to my machine.

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arad85 said:
You seem to have found a way which works for you which is good. There are a number of other ways of working which would give you just as much speed but with more flexibility.

I'm also not sure why you'd want to reinstall windows. I've done that a handful of times in the last 12 years (other than reinstalls when building the system to get it "right").
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Well I've found that it has excellent flexibility for the way I work and like many others I found that XP did slow down over a while as more and more programs were loaded onto it.

But since using Nlite and doing it this way the need to re-install it seems to have vanished as all "computers" stay as fast as they can.

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petersmart said:
Fortunately I have no need to circumvent them.

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That's a whole different discussion. If I buy software I should be able to install in on whatever I see fit, I fail to see how that practice can be deemed naughty. Sadly apple don't agree..
 
Vettahead said:
That's a whole different discussion. If I buy software I should be able to install in on whatever I see fit, I fail to see how that practice can be deemed naughty. Sadly apple don't agree..
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Well I totally agree with that but I can understand why they do it - after all they don't know if it's you using the software or 2 friends you copied it for.

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Vettahead said:
That's a whole different discussion. If I buy software I should be able to install in on whatever I see fit, I fail to see how that practice can be deemed naughty. Sadly apple don't agree..
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you licence software, you dont "own" it. so they can dictate their terms and apples licence agreements state you cant run OSX on non-apple kit..
 
neil_g said:
you licence software, you dont "own" it. so they can dictate their terms and apples licence agreements state you cant run OSX on non-apple kit..
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Im well aware of there Terms mate, however I'm not up for a debate on licensing issues, but I will air my views. while I agree with some eula (like multiple users ect). Being a user that has 24 macs in my office and all running fully licensed versions of multiple apple and non apple softwares and adhering to multiple eula,s i feel I am not only loyal and considerate to the vendors but extremely honest too. In fact I have told apple (as I have a business account) that I have a non mac system running mac they either tell me it can't be done or it will not fully function. Both of these are utter rubbish btw.

To stipulate and enforce what hardware I have to run my fully paid up software on in my opinion is nothing more than monopolisation. Most eula licences on games and apps are (if you read one) ridiculously overblown and once you read through the garbage, amount to nothing more than, you own nothing besides the right to use this software once, and we can even revoke them.

Again that is my own view and if you agree or not is not really why I posted this, just to sate my stance on big bully companies making us spend thousands of pounds for a piece of outdated hardware that runs a hacked version of Linux.

Let's not forget apple started by hacking other people's code and hardware..

Rant over :D
 
As ridiculous as it is, you're breaking their usage rules, no two ways about it. Potentially that could land you in a civil court case (it wouldn't in the real world, same as ms aren't chasing the user with the odd unlicensed copy of their software).

Ive got 150 or so machines at work that are all licensed, doesn't mean i can pirate window 7.. Like saying I don't break 99% of laws so I should be able to break the rest.

;)
 
Vettahead said:
I understand the sentiment, but it's not piracy, I have bought a copy to use. I haven't duplicated it or used it twice. It's an infringement of there eula... IMHO they can swivel :)
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Okay a better analogy, I've bought one of your photos and I reuse it for my own gain without your permission. But you can swivel.. ;)

Anyway there's nothing to moan about in the eula, you've agreed to those usage terms during the install..
 
Vettahead said:
Again that is my own view and if you agree or not is not really why I posted this, just to sate my stance on big bully companies making us spend thousands of pounds for a piece of outdated hardware that runs a hacked version of Linux.
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Tsk... if you're going to rant, at least credit the right people. OS-X is based on FreeBSD.

I have to say it was quite funny at the weekend debugging a friends networking issues to drop into an OS-X terminal and type ifconfig to see what was going on. Shame they dropped all the useful stuff out of it though.......
 
Bad analogy, because I haven't used it at all at any time, I've used it for one purpose. If apple say, said you can have it in other devices but it costs 50 more I'd buy it. Just the same as if i bought an image I'd buy the right one for use, ie one licences for magazine or one for a net campaign. If they didn't have a net option I'd request one, and any normal photographer would sell me it based in my requirements. Apple tell me their requirements... They don't give me an option because they use it to push there overpriced machines and if it could be run on anything else it would (in their eyes) cheapen their product. I say ut would expose the overpriced nature of their machines

Look at the base level mac pro.. My macho r is specced above ut quite comfortably and cost me 1200 quid less... The maths are easy to do, that's why apple monopolise the market.
 
arad85 said:
Tsk... if you're going to rant, at least credit the right people. OS-X is based on FreeBSD.

I have to say it was quite funny at the weekend debugging a friends networking issues to drop into an OS-X terminal and type ifconfig to see what was going on. Shame they dropped all the useful stuff out of it though.......
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Oopsy my bad, your Indeed correct :)
 
Vettahead said:
Bad analogy, because I haven't used it at all at any time, I've used it for one purpose. If apple say, said you can have it in other devices but it costs 50 more I'd buy it. Just the same as if i bought an image I'd buy the right one for use, ie one licences for magazine or one for a net campaign. If they didn't have a net option I'd request one, and any normal photographer would sell me it based in my requirements. Apple tell me their requirements... They don't give me an option because they use it to push there overpriced machines and if it could be run on anything else it would (in their eyes) cheapen their product. I say ut would expose the overpriced nature of their machines

Look at the base level mac pro.. My macho r is specced above ut quite comfortably and cost me 1200 quid less... The maths are easy to do, that's why apple monopolise the market.
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Rightly or wrongly that's apples choice not to give you a choice. Doesn't put you above the licence agreement and eula.

But anyway best get back on topic as we're going around in circles now (sorry op).
 
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