--- In mach1mach2cnc@..., "sciciora" <ciciora@C...> wrote:
That's it; I don't think I'm going to post from Yahoo anymore...
How
were the previous two for my first post... :-(
I need to buy a new computer so I can run Mach1/2, and am looking
for
recomendations. I'm sure it's been discussed, but after an hour of
searching the archives, I've come up dry.
It seems that a 2.2 gig celeron is a good price breakpoint. Anyone
have experience with this processor running Machx? Is it good
enough
to run win XP home/pro/Win2k? I'm a win98 user, so I don't know how
much ghz is required to run these operating systems and cad
programs.
Is it worth $100 to make the jump to a 2.4GHz p4?
What about operating systems? What's the difference (to a cad/cam
operator) running XP Home, XP Pro, or Win2K? Is it worth $70 to
upgrade?
Thanks for putting up with my goof posts, and my newbe questions.
I've seen Mach2 running a Taig, and am now willing to spend as much
as
my Taig for new computer/software to make mine run that nice.
(CNCPro
on a P1 around 233 MHz current configuration).
- Steve
I'm sure others will weigh in here. You don't need a 2.2G machine to
run MACH1 or 2. The thing that you do need is to have a machine
dedicated to the controller task and not running a bunch of other
known (or unknown) programs. I have a 700Mhz little AMD board I
picked up for virtually nothing and it runs MACH1 or 2 just fine. I
prefer WIN2000 (no flames here guy's) and find it to be extremely
stable. My shop machine is a 900MHZ clone and has never had a
problem with any of the MACH2 releases. I made sure NOTHING else is
running but the bare essentials to keep WIN2000 happy. I do have it
networked with my other machines and was careful to set the network
card up NOT to auto negotiate the link speed. Since I don't need the
45Khz pulse rate to drive my table to full rapids I run in 25KHZ
mode. Like my father once observed when I showed him my hot new
muscle car (1960's) with 130 on the speedometer: "Son, why would
anybody need to go that fast?"
For my money I would rather have the 2.2 G machine as my CAD/CAM
design station and keep my old slow 900 as a dedicated controller.
While the subject of the best OS borders on a religious descussion, I
was still using WIN98 on several of my machine up until this year.
It wasn't broke, so I didn't fix it! I finally upgraded so that I
would have a consistant interface and not have to remember the
different places to go for common Windows functions.
In your choice of machines, opt for one that has a separate video
card rather than video on the mother board. Most of those designs
share system memory and cause problem with MACH2.
