With the inclusion of XTweaks in v0.9z-8, it has been suggested to use a hardware monitor to keep an eye on CPU temps etc. While most manufacturers provide a tool to do this, I have generally found them quite bloated in nature and resource hungry.

CPUID's Hardware Monitor is a viable alternative, and will provide all you need. It is very tiny in size, and runs as a process. The standard free version should be all you need, but if you desire graphs and other features there is a Pro version for a small fee.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

HWMonitor should see most modern motherboard chipsets. It works fine with my Asus P5Q, and even monitors the harddrive and graphics card temps.

You can simply drop the executable on your desktop and run as needed. You will need to include an entry under the "Keep this Process" box in the system settings.

In my case, as I run the 64bit version, i specified (HWMonitor_x64)

Cheers,

Russ

Thanks Saint Peter Nicholas

I grabbed it about 3am local time before nodding off to sleep but didn't open it up. A quick check now revealed the elves forgot a magic widget and it had to be re-wrapped, but I've got it now and will have a play shortly, and report findings over next few days, in between cricket watching !

Seasons greetings to all, and go easy on the chrissie pudding

Cheers,

Russ

Thanks for the link, however .....

It's hard to take a supposedly "hi-fi" article seriously when it references an iPod five times during the read ... haha

Still, I do agree that the vast majority of current day engineers, by and large, curtail to the producers demands to stay in the "compression wars".

Perhaps he is better suited to photographic articles

Cheers,

Russ

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=2279.msg23181#msg23181

I'm assuming your issue is the same as above.

Cheers,

Russ

I'm "as happy as a pig in poo" at the moment Dave, even without PA being workable for me currently, due, I expect, to my all digital path to the pre-processor.

I never got around to trying SP1 when it was released, and I generally go along with the "if it aint broke ... don't fix it" philosophy. Having said that, I should set some time aside one of these days to try it. I will use Acronis True Image to take a system wide snapshot beforehand though so I can easily restore if all goes pear shaped. I've never been 100% comfortable with Windows "restore point" feature, hence my desire for something like True Image.

Cheers,

Russ

I'll defer to Peter for the total size needed, but I would think 10GB should be plenty for the playback drive, unless you want to queue up a weeks worth of listening

It's probably advisable to use 64K sector sizes also. And omit the /q from the command. For a drive this small, and the fact that's its an older drive, forcing the system to verify that each physical block in intact is worth the few minutes extra needed. When using the /q you only recreate the file allocation table, which is why it is much quicker.

format G: /A:64K /fs:exFat

Peter ??

Cheers,

Russ

I would. 50GB should be ample for XXHE use only.

I have always advocated that the system drive only needs to be as big as required to accommodate the operating system files and intended program files used, with a little margin for normal growth due to system logs etc. User data should be directed to another partition or drive. This philosophy also allows independant backing up of system and data.

Having a small partition created for the O/S will maximise performance, as that partition will utilise the outside of the platter(s), presuming that is the first partition you created. You can create a second partition on the drive using the remaining space and use it for incidental files, such as install files or as a work space when organising your latest rips before copying to your final music folders.

Cheers,

Russ

Nice choice

Cheers,

Russ

I believe your interpretation of the bullet points is correct and that is how I read it also. You SHOULD be able to initiate the connection from your laptop.

Networking can be frustrating at times, and it's one of the less enjoyable aspects of PC's that I enjoy! My recent exploits getting my laptop with Vista on it to work with RDC is a prime example. I lost more grey hairs getting that working as desired, but perseverence paid off in the end. I'm sure you'll get there also soon.

Cheers,

Russ

Well I didn't want to get into symantics, but as a general observation, the faster the rotational speed, the better the transfer rate, and I've noticed the random access speed is generally lower. Obviously there are other factors at play such as cache size, and physical structure of the disk, which is why a benchmark test can be very helpful. So, I'm in general agreement with you. Perhaps it didn't come across as such though.

It is generally recognised that the Raptor range have been the fastest on a per generation aspect, although I have no doubt the older models would not compete favourably against the latest high density disks from other manufacturers.

Cheers,

Russ

On gut feelings and vague memories of drive comparisons from the past, I'd be going with the Raptor. Even though it is an older model now and has half the cache of the Seagate, its rotational speed should more than make up for that. It will be slightly noisier (audibly) though if that is a concern.

If you were to choose the Seagate, I would first create a small partition of about 50GB just for the OS. That first partition will occupy the outermost sectors of the drive which are the quickest. If you have your galleries on that drive currently, you may need to adjust the size accordingly. You could than create a partition using the remainder of the disk space and use it for incidental files that you don't use very often.

I would also suggest you grab the free version of HDTune ( http://www.hdtune.com/download.html ) and run a benchmark on each drive to compare, preferably using the same controller port. HDTune allows you to take an image snapshot of the results after completion for later comparison.

Let us know how they compare.

Cheers,

Russ

G'day Juan,

perhaps the following FAQ from microsoft's site might help ...

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Remote-Desktop-Connection-frequently-asked-questions

There is also a short video tutorial link on that page that may help.

Good Luck!

Cheers,

Russ

Happy to oblige.

From the START button, right click on Computer (right hand section) and select "Properties". Then click on "Remote Settings" ( top left area ).

G'day Barry,

XXHE will successfully pass DTS encoded WAV's (or FLAC's) at up to 24/96 via a digital connection, provided no resampling is set. As per my signature, I use a SPDIF coax connection to my theatre pre-processor, and playing back DTS encoded surround is very enjoyable for the times I want to experience multichannel sound.

Currently XXHE only supports multichannel sound via these DTS encodes, and I produce them using DTS's Pro Packer/Encrypter/Encoder suite, from the individual discrete channels of the source. The source can be any multichannel file type, provided you can extract the individual channels in wav format.

The encoding process is a little tedious, so lately I have only been processing albums of significant quality and uniqueness.

If you have the pre-requisites, ie. SPDIF connection to a DTS decoder, you can download a number of sample files from here ...

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2446&artikel=740607

Cheers,

Russ

That fixed it

Cheers,

Russ