[fjr122]

I've almost got my first cnc machine built.

I need a computer to run the machine (through the parallel port), I will be using EMC2 installed from a live cd.

Recently I've had a string of computer failures and though I thought I had a system to run the cnc it's looking otherwise.

So I am thinking of buying a cheapish computer (<$500), or I could build one from components).

I was wondering if anyone out there has some suggestions on a super solid reliable computer to run my cnc machine.

When I think of reliable computers IBM and Apple come to mind as being particularly long-lived (my sister has a 700mhz iBook from 2001 that she still uses everyday, not well suited for cnc though).

Just wanna see what you guys have had great luck with in reliability.

When I build a pc I favor Asus, MSI, Amd, Nvidia, Kingston, Maxtor and LiteOn usually.

Any suggestions are welcome (except suggesting I spend $2000).

Thanks

[dertsap]

if your going to run ubuntu with emc ,i would suggest nothing less that 1.8 ghz processor , the more power you've got for a pc then the more room you have to tweak and optimize emc for top performance , in emc configs is the base period ,the lower you can make the base period the more speed you can get from emc , but if you set the base period too low the computer will freeze , the base period setting depends upon how powerfull your pc is , guys claim to run on 1 ghz or less but ive tryed it and never got near the performance ive got from the 1.8 ghz p4 i'm currently using

in my opinion ubuntu is a hog compared to windows xp

[fjr122]

I really love Ubuntu, but in my experience your right. I'm sure you could apply some Linux-Fu and get it to run really smooth on mediocre hardware, but I've never gone through the trouble or learning (not to mention all the work you lose if you have failures like I've been having)

Also Emc will run under other distributions right? (not that I intend to)

Having said all that, three options I looked at today...

--Geeks.com has an eMac for around $200 1.25 ghz G4

--Geeks.com has several refurbished IBM desktops for about $200 3ghz P4's

--Newegg.com MSI barebones system and Athlon 3400+ and 2gb of memory would be about $200 then use one of my hard drives and an optical drive

Most of my failed hardware was given to me and dates from before 2004, the system I am writing this on is ironically the most reliable I have, its a 1500mhz gateway. It used to be totally unreliable but I replaced the power supply now its solid.

[dertsap]

not to sure about ibm but the Athlon sounds pretty good for the price

[fjr122]

It's certainly good for the price, but the most reliable box I ever built lasted about 2 1/2 years then mysteriously died without warning.

On the other hand I have some old computers given to me, that are over ten years old and still work perfectly.

My brother thinks I should spend $50 more and get an Intel setup, he thinks those are more reliable (maybe?).

I havent decided yet, it's still at least a month before I am gonna buy anything.

[Toysrme]

I've almost got my first cnc machine built.

I need a computer to run the machine (through the parallel port), I will be using EMC2 installed from a live cd.

Recently I've had a string of computer failures and though I thought I had a system to run the cnc it's looking otherwise.

So I am thinking of buying a cheapish computer (<$500), or I could build one from components).

I was wondering if anyone out there has some suggestions on a super solid reliable computer to run my cnc machine.

When I think of reliable computers IBM and Apple come to mind as being particularly long-lived (my sister has a 700mhz iBook from 2001 that she still uses everyday, not well suited for cnc though).

Just wanna see what you guys have had great luck with in reliability.

When I build a pc I favor Asus, MSI, Amd, Nvidia, Kingston, Maxtor and LiteOn usually.

Any suggestions are welcome (except suggesting I spend $2000).

Thanks

having almost put myself throuh college selling computers to other students bakc in the day... Ya I've got some input. Avoid Maxtor like the plauge that they are. Their drives are horribly unreliable. Lifetime (1992) I'm 0-14 maxtor drives, where-as I have 1-2g Seagate and WD drives dating from 1992-94 that still work in the basement on backup duty.

For hard drives either use WD or Seagate. Seagate's are slightly more expencive and MUCH quieter (WD have always had the loudest head seeking movements...) while WD is cheaper and faster.


Asus IS NOT the Asus of 10 years ago. Their mid to high end boards have *bearly* been passing as mid-quality for the last 5 years. Both their RMA policy and support have gone to the bottom of the barrel ever since just before the great 2001 capacitor blowout. (where *almost* every taiwan board maker used leaking capacitors that lead to instability and finally failure. fyi taiwan makes the best boards regardless lol!) And they have STAYED at the bottom!
If you want longterm reliability, performance and price / performance. You have to go with DFI. When overclocking and long lived boards first became big on the P2's, Abit ran away with their innovations. Guess what? To become competative in the aftermarket boards, DFI hired ALL of abit's top engineer's. The Infinities are equal to almost every other OEM's high end boards while the lan-party's have not had an equal in overclocking, nor stability since their introduction. Why? They have no concession towards the marketing people. The boards are engineered with what the engineers want on them. Take a look at one... They've typically got 50-100% more voltage regulators and capacitors simply supplying CPU power sitting right around the socket.


Forget Kingston. It's low quality ram, yet not the lowest price. Do yourself a favor and buy whatever is on sale at newegg that has a lifetime warranty, or by cruicial (they're still running the free 2 day air shipping 11 years later LoL!)








AMD VS Intel reliability has nothing to do with the CPU. Infact, historically Intel has always been the maker to release the msot dud, and overheated chips. Intel also historically has much better motherboard support since it controls the majority of the chipsets sold. (not so much a concern in aftermarket.)

At the moment,
AMD = price / performance, Intel = video games.
Since you're not spending $2000, just grab a dual core chip of whatever you want.





And for god's sake don't buy a used / old / refrb PC.
You can not buy a mass produced computer where the OEM does not use the most low tier horse **** components in the making. I don't care if you spend $5,000 on an Alienware/Dell computer with the best specs. It still has the worst components built to those specs. Note I said computer and not PC... Same goes for all mac's and unix boxes. mac's have always had the worst components thrown in them. (btw I also use my '01 ibook on a daily basis. moreso becuase I rebuilt the long failed battery pack with modern 2900mah nimh batteries. I love having an 8-10 hour per charge laptop! haha) .











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So $600 out the door, every physical part on it will still work and be useful for CNC duty 15 years from now. You could easily cut $100 from that, but there is ABSOLUTELY no reason to. The extra $100 is paying for alot of very, very cheap upgrades. (classic example: what idiot wouldn't pay $12 to slightly more than triple a hard drive size regardless of you ever using it or not? It's $12, get over it! LoL!)

[fjr122]

Thank you so much for looking at my problem and giving me some suggestions born from experience.

Your list looks pretty good.

But I dont need the flash drive (although I wouldnt mind having another). A $50 2GB memory kit would be more than enough and the video card is overkill (but again something that would be great to have).

I've read good things about DFI but never tried any of thier boards.

The experience I've had with maxtor is not the same as yours, but they are loud, and the one WD I had that failed in under 2 yrs was as you said the loudest hard drive I ever had (my brother had several fail as well). I will give seagate a try.

I would probably get a separate case and a good power supply (maybe 500W thermaltake)(been having alotta power supply problems lately).

I really like the idea of the lower wattage Athlon, that should make things significantly more efficient and less power hungry.

Unfortunately building this may now be pushed back several months. :/

[wwendorf]

I just went out on Craigslist and bought a cheapo Compaq Evo 2.5 gHz 1 mb ram computer. Picked 1 up for $100. I run Mach3 on it and tweaked windoze according to instructions on Mach3 website. Haven't had any issues. All is well for $100.

Wade

[dertsap]

i agree with the 100 buck computer idea , i couldn t bring myself to abuse a high end gaming computer , i'm sure the dust and other elements in a typical workshop will shorten the life of any computer
i've got an evo as well 1.8 ghz with 256mb ram , which was donated to me from my wifes company ,ubuntu runs great on it , i'll be loading a bit more ram in this weekend

[Toysrme]

The mem stick and 4g was for Vista. You can definately drop them both if you don't want that. video card, ya man. if you get lucky you can ebay a card with just a good enough ramdac to not fry your eyes for like $20 shipped. and maybe enough 3d performance to fire up autocad, maya, solidworks, etc.

[ToolM8ker]

Newbie Question :

Reading the below it seems as though it does not make any difference in which processor one would use. So for CNC use an AMD is just as good as an Intel chip?

Thanks,
ToolM8ker