SmartCar, or Cadillac SUV (PC)?

[VirtualLarry]

(Sorry about the car analogy.)

I'm having a difficult time deciding what kind of PC I really want. I've got a couple of Q9300 rigs with 8GB, a couple of Thuban X6 1045T rigs, a couple of E-350 ITX rigs, and a slimline G630 Sandy Bridge dual-core rig. (I've got a few other misc PCs as well, and a LLano quad-core HTPC, and a storage server.)

I've had the Q9300 rigs the longest, and they hold a dear part in my tech heart.
The Thuban rig is really nice, but temps got too high with 2x GTX460 GB OC cards, and some advanced GUI apps started crashing.

I was concerned about power consumption, and I couldn't resist a sale, so I picked up a Gateway slimline rig, with a G630 dual-core.

For a while, I liked the dual-core, power-consumption was much reduced, but I found my internet radio skipping. So I hooked up a Q9300 again. Well, after a week or two,
i found my internet radio skipping again, when I simply scrolled my web browser.
There was very little CPU or GPU load, as I had disabled DC a few days prior, when it started getting really hot outside. Plus the Q9300 had an ATI HD4850, whereas the G630 had an NV GT430.

I've basically decided that the problem lies with Waterfox and Flash Player (both 64-bit). What I can't quite figure out is whether the SSD in each rig is contributing to the issue as well. Nearly half of the Q9300's 8GB of RAM was free too.

So, it's a little hard to fathom how a quad-core x64 rig @ 3.0 with a discrete video card, barely under any load, with an SSD, can cause skips in internet radio when scrolling web pages.

I would like a powerful, power-efficient rig to use.

I managed to snag an MSI A85X FM2 ATX board for $40. Would an FM2 rig with IGP do me good?

 

[grimpr]

I would move to an A10 6700 rig,great multitasking,great graphics, low power, low temps and fully equipped modern system.

 

[laputan machine]

I've had some issues with flash on firefox in the past even on solid machines. Have you tried it with chrome or another non-mozilla based browser? It could perhaps solve it, did for me.
As for the fm2, how happy are you with the llano? To be honeset you sound like you've already got the performance level of the highest end fm2 apus covered, why not go for an ivy bridge or haswell i5 (or maybe even i3)? It's efficient and would even be a great upgrade for your q2d.

 

[SolMiester]

the skipping of the internet radio could be the memory, I would check timing and do a test...either that or your ISP sucks!

 

[Hitman928]

I've had some issues with flash on firefox in the past even on solid machines. Have you tried it with chrome or another non-mozilla based browser? It could perhaps solve it, did for me.
As for the fm2, how happy are you with the llano? To be honeset you sound like you've already got the performance level of the highest end fm2 apus covered, why not go for an ivy bridge or haswell i5 (or maybe even i3)? It's efficient and would even be a great upgrade for your q2d.

+1 on the make sure to try a new browser front. It seems like lately I have had nothing but problems with mozilla based browsers and flash. Chromium (linux) and *gasp* internet explorer 9/10 on windows seem to give me the least amount of problems in regards to flash.

 

[grimpr]

Yes, Firefox is pretty crappy with Flash, you must think the possibility jumping to Chrome. Another usefull tool for having a better experience with online web streaming,flash, pages etc is having an Intel pciex nic with a traffic shaper such as Cfosspeed.

 

[VirtualLarry]

the skipping of the internet radio could be the memory, I would check timing and do a test...either that or your ISP sucks!

It's most def. a local machine issue, not an ISP one. I'm on FIOS.

Edit: Even if I unplug the ethernet cable, it keeps playing for 5-10 seconds. So def. not network-related.

 

[Plimogz]

This must be a software problem. (or, as an above poster has mentioned, ISP or network)

Though, knowing the good work you do with your hardware, I'd be quite curious to know what kind of PPD a Richland box could pull running off both the quad-core and the graphics silicon.

I'd be particularly interested in finding out how painful (or pain-free, hopefully) setting up DC to take advantage of the whole chip would be. Given how much of these dies are given up to GPU area and how profitable GPU-enabled programs can be, PPD-wise, these parts could be amazing performers for DC.

 

[VirtualLarry]

This must be a software problem. (or, as an above poster has mentioned, ISP or network)

I've unfortunately come to that conclusion

Though, knowing the good work you do with your hardware, I'd be quite curious to know what kind of PPD a Richland box could pull running off both the quad-core and the graphics silicon.

I'd be particularly interested in finding out how painful (or pain-free, hopefully) setting up DC to take advantage of the whole chip would be. Given how much of these dies are given up to GPU area and how profitable GPU-enabled programs can be, PPD-wise, these parts could be amazing performers for DC.

I'm looking forward to what an FM2 APU can do in DC. The LLano is a real trooper, it was cranking out WCG HCC GPU WUs left and right, and that didn't make the internet radio skip.
It barely slowed down the GUI at all. (But there was some slowdown.)

I guess I'm wondering though, whether I need a "big" PC, both physically and in terms of compute power. I'm intrigued by the possibilities of a NUC or BRIX, although I should wait for the Haswell i3 NUC and the Kabini BRIX before I decide on that route.

 

[Cerb]

So, it's a little hard to fathom how a quad-core x64 rig @ 3.0 with a discrete video card, barely under any load, with an SSD, can cause skips in internet radio when scrolling web pages.

Windows can't use BFS . I use Windows due to video games and easy Netflix (but you can do it through WINE, apparently, now, so I'll be trying that, soon), but going to a Linux box with a BFS-patched kernel is :awe:, after using Windows all day.

Try disabling GPU acceleration in your browser, though. That caused skipping sound when I used my onboard audio for SPDIF, and FF w/ GPU accel enabled.

 

[Zap]

I'm having a difficult time deciding what kind of PC I really want.

Uh huh.

I also have Flash skipping problems in Firefox. Closing some tabs helps.

 

[sm625]

If all you get is 5 to 10 seconds of buffering I would call that crappy service or a fatally flawed product. That's just plain idiotic. It is why I refuse to subscribe to satellite radio... they wont buffer anything so as soon as you pass an obstruction your radio cuts out. It is far beyond stupid.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I noticed that just now, it's skipping every time BOINC starts a Milkyway@Home GPU WU on my HD4850. Regardless of whether I'm scrolling the web browser or not. (This with four CPU WCG WUs running.)

However, the last time I was having problems with it skipping when I was scrolling, BOINC wasn't processing any CPU or GPU WUs.

Edit: I would try using a different web browser, but the ActiveX control for Flash Player refused to install now, saying it's too out of date. I have to use an older version, as newer builds of Flash Player simply stop working with the internet radio, and I have to restart it.