upgrading: adding 2 gb ram, internal hd for dual boot, firewire card

[cubis]

Hello everyone,

I bought an ibuypower computer last year that I feel I should upgrade.

< System Summary >
Motherboard : Asus PQ5 Pro
Chipset : Intel 4 series P43/P45 Express Chipset
Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.8 GHz each
Physical Memory : 2 GB [1 GB X2] DDR2-800 PC6400 Memory Module Corsair XMS2 Xtreme w/Heat Spreader
Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 3650
Video Memory : 512 MB
Hard Disk : 300 GB, NTFS file system, 7200 RPM
DVD-Rom Drive : Sony Lightscribe DVD-RW
Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
DirectX : Version 9.0c
Fantom Drive 1TB external usb2/firewire/eSata, NTFS file system (for mass storage)
Emu 0404 PCI sound card (dead)

I originally only needed to install a new SIIG 3-port PCI firewire card because I purchased an M-Audio Profire 610 firewire audio interface for recording and it doesn’t work well with the integrated firewire port - I needed dedicated one with a TI chipset.

However, I figured since I was going to order something from newegg, might as well add a few more things to the cart! I decided to upgrade my RAM as well… so I’m going to add a G.Skill 2 gig kit.

Also, since I’m a CS major, I needed to eventually get Linux installed on a machine, so I figured I’d do it now… I’d rather not do partitions or use a virtual machine because I feel like it would be a cleaner setup if I dual-boot. I’ll be buying a Western Digital caviar blue 160 gb sata drive for installing the Linux OS (most likely Ubuntu)

I may have done a little research, but even though I’m a CS student I’m quite the noob when it comes to this kind of stuff (my parents never wanted me to tinker with our family computer when I lived there, so this is my first real project other than a sound card installation - which I will have to remove from this setup because it no longer works)

I’ve never done a dual-boot of course, and never installed an internal drive. I hear that SATA is a lot easier to install than the old IDE drives, but I just want to be sure of everything. Do I need to purchase a SATA cable and power adapter?

For the memory, will this work if my other 2 gig kit comes from corsair and this new one is g.skill?

Is all this stuff compatible with my setup?

For the most part, I believe I can just plug this stuff in and restart my computer. Is this true? Should I do each upgrade separately (undesirable, but will do if necessary), booting up my computer each time I add something, or can I do it all at once? In what order would be best?

If someone could give me a basic to-do list I could fill in the rest with research… like for example, 1. connect the cables to the drive
2. mount it
3. boot windows
4. install grub
5. boot ubuntu from cd
6. install ubuntu
7. restart

etc

I don’t really know if thats true but clarification would be helpful.

Sorry if I come off as noobish, I just want to be sure. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this!

[donkey42]

@cubis

Fantom Drive 1TB external usb2/firewire/eSata, NTFS file system (for mass storage)

which interface do you use / want to use

@cubis

Emu 0404 PCI sound card (dead)

in what way is it dead

@cubis

However, I figured since I was going to order something from newegg, might as well add a few more things to the cart! I decided to upgrade my RAM as well… so I’m going to add a G.Skill 2 gig kit.

please dont buy a 2GB kit as a 2GB kit probably won’t operate at the timings as your original memory & the actual brand of the memory is irrelevent it’s much easier to buy 4GB kit & remove the existing memory

@cubis

Also, since I’m a CS major, I needed to eventually get Linux installed on a machine, so I figured I’d do it now… I’d rather not do partitions or use a virtual machine because I feel like it would be a cleaner setup if I dual-boot. I’ll be buying a Western Digital caviar blue 160 gb sata drive for installing the Linux OS (most likely Ubuntu)

well you can get a WD HDD if you want but i only allow myself to buy Seagate drives due to the flluid bearings on their drive spindles, as you say you are a CS major, personnally i’m not qualified at all & i’m actually quite proud of that as for your OS choice, Ubuntu is concidered to be the easiest linux to use and i think it isn’t very chalenging to the user, but having said that i started my linux journey with Kubuntu (Kubuntu is identical to Ubuntu, except it uses KDE as a desktop environment whereas Ubuntu uses GNOME, if i’m honest i chose Kubuntu because of KDE, now i use Debian & KDE (i like KDE, but i use KDE 3.5.4 im not a fan of KDE 4.x)

@cubis

my parents never wanted me to tinker with our family computer when I lived there, so this is my first real project other than a sound card installation - which I will have to remove from this setup because it no longer works

parent, tell me about it removing a sound card isn’t exacly rocket science

@cubis

I’ve never done a dual-boot of course, and never installed an internal drive. I hear that SATA is a lot easier to install than the old IDE drives, but I just want to be sure of everything.

either SATA or PATA (IDE) will work fine, however, to use an internal drive you need to varify there are enough free ports of the correct type, download install & use SIW to gather all the info needed (for the mem too)

@cubis

Is all this stuff compatible with my setup?

it should be but probably not the 2GB kit

@cubis

For the most part, I believe I can just plug this stuff in and restart my computer. Is this true? Should I do each upgrade separately (undesirable, but will do if necessary), booting up my computer each time I add something, or can I do it all at once? In what order would be best?

if it was linux i would say “whack it all in” but Windows is (for want of a better term) crap so install stuff 1 by 1

@cubis

for example, 1. connect the cables to the drive
2. mount it
3. boot windows
4. install grub
5. boot ubuntu from cd
6. install ubuntu
7. restart

etc

the ubuntu family of OS and Debian (and many dirivitives) automatically setup dual boot upon intstaltion, if there anything else just ask

[cubis]

for the fantom drive I am currently using using usb because my firewire interface has trouble as it is with this onboard firewire port, but eventually I want to use the eSATA connection

the Emu is about 5 years old, I recycled it from my old computer because it was my means of recording audio… but it stopped working months ago. PC couldn’t detect it. I reinstalled it and tried to reinstall the drivers to no avail. I’m just going to pop it out when I upgrade.

the reason why i wanted to just buy another 2 gb kit is that its a lot cheaper, about 30-40 bucks cheaper… is there a way to solve the timing problem otherwise? if not I suppose I could look into it further.

well, as a CS major, we haven’t really focused on the hardware side of things, thats more for computer engineering, mostly its been software - programming, data structures, algorithms and discrete math etc… its kinda shameful that I don’t know more, yeah… but I just wasn’t able to mess with computers growing up like I wanted to.

What are the differences between Gnome and KDE? why choose one over the other? I’ve heard of kubuntu, but I figured it was for more experienced users.