I have an extra hard drive and I want to use it to store all my recordings, would that help out with anything as far as latency, I just don’t know?
tone
Well I had my hard disc partitioned with ubuntu on it and that’s what I use to run ardour, I’m about to wipe the drive clean and do a fresh install and I’m pretty sure that could help out allot as far as speed, at the same time I want to install a new mother board, are their any mother boards out their that anyone would recommend Thanks again.
Tone
Thanks for your input I’m going to start looking into arch Linux to to see if I can handle it I’m sure it can’t be that complicated, wish me luck lol thanks again.
Tone
You may get faster response using arch linux or gentoo, although it’s a bit more work to setup.
2nd HD is good, it may actually reduce xruns due to system procs not interfering with recording.
I can’t see what chipset you have on that thing, but if it is a g31 or g35 (I suspect that’s about as new as it could be)… you should be okay… If this is the case, spend the money on a core2duo… no real need for a quad core yet, not until Jack(mp) and ardour get programmed to work with parallel threads
You may reduce latency by getting a dedicated video card. Nothing fancy, but something with dedicated RAM so you are not sharing your RAM with your integrated graphics card… any basic model will be good enough, 128M of Ram on the video card is probably more than adequate for audio needs…
Hi,
probably not with latency. But it’s still a good thing to do (if it’s at least at fast as your other drive) - if the one drive hosts your audio data only, no other reading/writing will interfere with your work.
Regards
Benjamin
lotone, from your specs it seems like you’re running Windows primarily.
Ardour is only supported in linux and OSX, so I guess you’re kinda’ on you’re own here…
Other than that your hw specs seems OK.
Awesome because I’ve been noticing that when I play back my recordings the levels seem a little sluggish, or when I move the main volume it takes a second to apply the new level to the mix, would the 2nd hard drive help out with these problems? thanks for your time.
Tone
Nope.
I don’t remember if you’ve told us what hw specs you’re having but I think your CPU’s too slow or something else is running, eating cycles.
a multicore proc will help, GUI stuff and audio dsp will be separated. And OS HD + data HD is also a good thing. You may crash your data HD, but the OS will still be alive or vice-versa 
This is what I have
Processor Type: Pentium 4
Hard Drive Size: 160 GB
System RAM: 512 MB ( installed 2 gigs of ram)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic
Processor
Type: Intel Pentium 4 631 / 3 GHz
Cache Memory
Type: L2 cache
Installed Size: 2 MB
RAM
Installed Size: 2 G
Technology: DDR2 SDRAM
Storage
Hard Drive: 1 x 160 GB - standard - Serial ATA-150 - 7200 rpm
Operating System / Software
OS Provided: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic
Graphics Controller
Type: Integrated
Graphics Processor / Vendor: ATI Radeon Xpress 1100
Optical Storage
Type: DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM - IDE
Read Speed: 40x (CD) / 16x (DVD)
Write Speed: 40x (CD) / 16x (DVD±R) / 4x (DVD-R DL) / 8x (DVD+R DL)
Expansion / Connectivity
Expansion Bays Total (Free): 2 ( 1 ) x front accessible - 5.25" x 1/2H ¦ 1 ( 0 ) x internal - 3.5" x 1/3H ¦ 1 ( 1 ) x front accessible - 3.5" x 1/3H
Expansion Slots Total (Free): 1 ( 0 ) x processor - LGA775 Socket ¦ 2 ( 1 ) x memory - DIMM 240-pin ¦ 3 ( 2 ) x PCI ¦ 1 ( 1 ) x PCI Express x16
Networking
Networking: Network adapter - integrated
Modem
Modem: Fax / modem
kinda sucks because I cant put a better processor that would really help out, I was contemplating getting a new mother board with a quad core processor but didn’t know if that was the problem or not, and on top of that 75% of my disc is used up by my dame windows os which I’m about to get rid of finally, would getting a better mother board help out? thanks for all your help.
Tone