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help with a small office system (audio-related)

B

brock

Senior member
i recently started a job at a small company that uses its computer mostly for storing large audio files. the problem is that the primary system is old and doesn't run very well:

P2-450
256 RAM
11.5 GB HDD (Primary)
20.0 GB HDD (Secondary, hosts audio files)

i mentioned to my boss (who is not very technologically-inclined) that she would benefit from some upgrades. she mostly uses the computer for the following functions:

-Rip audio from CDs into WAV files
-Play back these audio files (the audio sometimes "skips" on the current system)
-Burn these files back on to CDs
-Word Processing/Spreadsheet/Internet/etc

does anyone have any suggestions about the best kind of system to put together? i was considering purchasing a basic system from Dell, but i think it would be much cheaper to build a new one from parts. i'm also looking at adding an external HDD (80GB+) to handle all the audio files, as we're already juggling them back and forth with the tiny 20GB. any thoughts on firewire/usb 2?

i appreciate any help.
 
that system shouldn't have any trouble with audio files.
check your current configuration and drivers, direct x
before you spend any money.
sure it's behind the times but it should handel the jobs you describe without any trouble
 
already did all that. all drivers/directx are updated and current.

other thing is that she may need to give this computer back to the original owner, which is what's keeping me from formatting and starting fresh.
 
well then your right on with build it yourself, or buy a bare bones and add the drives you want,
i have had good luck with z-buy.com in this area
 
a better CD-Rom for ripping might help, along with using Exact Audio Copy. A couple of good drive choices are the Asus CD (not DVD) and the TDK VeloCD burners.

A large internal drive would be much cheaper than having both internal + external (check prices at newegg, 60 GB is dirt cheap, 80-120 are reasonable).

Newegg's "barebones" listing has some nice MSI models, just pop in the CPU, RAM, CD (probably the TDK if you want burning) and the big hard drive.

Note that audio extraction is limited by the CD drive NOT the CPU, it's encoding as MP3 / WMA that takes CPU power. A $59 Celeron 1.1A is actually about 3 times as fast as you really need.
 
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