Multi Tasking Hardware

[paulhen]

I work on my computer a lot, typically having a half dozen or more programs open at a time with mutliple documents in each. It is time to upgrade the hardware in my box. No games are played - but 3D drafting etc., Word, Excel, Outlook  . . .  are all open. I would ask for any input as to recommended motherboard/processor/memory/grapics card combo. I tend towrds Intel and Asus. Would a dual core processor be of significant advantage for the price? I would like to do this for under $700.00 or so. Maybe use my old card for a while if compatible with the new board?

Currently use  a P4 266 with 2 gig RAM, Asus P4G8X and a 9500 Graphics card. If there is not a substantial improvement in performance (most all upgrades in the past have delivered marginal improvement only) it is not worth the huge amount of work of relaoding everything and I know my ghost image will be useless with the hardware changes.

[Computer_Commando]

What you have seems as if it should perform quite well.  What is the 3D drafting program?  AutoCAD, ProE, or?  I assume your hard drive is 7200rpm.  Games and parametric modeling take the most processing power.

[paulhen]

Solidworks and Acad. The biggest problem is what I would have called in the old days a "memory leak" where things get sluggish and I run our of resources until I reboot. Refreshing the RAM with a prog does not resolve - only a reboot. And when I have to reboot, I have to close everything and lose track of my work (ie by way of the many open files).

[paulhen]

Oops! Yes, 7200 RPM Raid Drives. Fixed size page file min/max 2 gig/2 gig

[Computer_Commando]

Memory leaks still exist today.  I am not familiar with SolidWorks, maybe that is the culprit.  Is this Windows XP-Pro?

[paulhen]

Yes, XP Pro

By the way, should I be nervous?

[Computer_Commando]

Yes, XP Pro

By the way, should I be nervous?

About what?

[paulhen]

On the bottom of each of your messages is a gremlin with a window with my IP, provider etc.

[Computer_Commando]

What leads you to believe the Internet is private?  That is your Public IP address, which I cannot see.  What I see on the sig is my Public IP.  See on the lower right:  IP logged.  That is ComputerHope.  Without a Public IP, there would be no Internet and the information you see on the browser would not be able to get to your computer.  It's like having a number on your home mailbox, a street sign for the street and the Postal Service is your ISP.  Without them, your mail could not be delivered.

[paulhen]

I understand all of that. The "gremlin" is like an emoticon and is from Danasoft.com and appears on each of your posts and changes its image on all your posts on each refresh I do. I assume you do not see these when you view our chain of posts?

[Computer_Commando]

Sorry, I didn't know.  From your questions, it didn't appear you did.  Didn't mean to appear to "talk down" to you.  We get all kinds here.

I see the same thing as you do, except it shows my IP.  It's just an image tag on my signature.  It's handy, lets me know if my ISP has changed my IP which happens from time to time, being it's DHCP, not static.

If you register, you can use tags, like this.

[paulhen]

No problem. But back to my original question - any suggestions as to what level of hardware to upgrade to or should I plod through till 64 bit Longhorn is out? An if a memory leak, what can be done in XP besides reboot?

[Computer_Commando]

Longhorn is now called Windows Vista.  I suspect the "leak" is software related, not hardware.  Asus stuff is pretty good, I currently have an Asus P3B-F, PIII-700 overclocked to 931 and it is rock stable with no overheating issues.  I run a triple boot:  Win2k-Pro, Win98SE, WinXP-Pro.

Have you checked with Solidworks for any issues?  Also check Asus website for any issues with P4G8X and a 9500 Graphics card.  Look for any BIOS updates, latest appears to be 1006.