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Advice on system purchase



I'm really getting annoyed by my random system lockups, so I have been looking at new motherboards, new systems, etc.

A whole new system would be simplest since my current box has an old 32 bit single core Athlon 2800+ and anything that I buy is going to be 64 bit. Simpler to install from scratch than try to replace the motherboard with a new one and then upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit kernel and software.

I saw a Fry's add for a motherboard, an AMD 8 Core CPU and memory for $250 which was pretty tempting. I did a search on the Processor and found that Tiger Direct has a bundle with the same CPU, a similar motherboard, 8 GB of RAM, a DVD burner and a 1 TB Seagate HD ( http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2826919&csid=_22 ). Has anyone used this system, or any of these components? Comments?

My main worry is the hard drive. I currently have what I think is its older cousin, a 1 TB SATA II drive. It works perfectly and I have always liked Seagate drives. I know that there are people out there who have had trouble with Seagate, but there are also many who have not. Any individual drive can be a lemon. That's not my problem. The question that I have is that this drive seams to have Advanced Format 4K sectors. The ad says that there are no utilities to run and no extra integration steps. I have read enough posts here about problems with Advanced Format to be wary of their claim, though. Does anyone have experience with this drive, or with other Seagate drives with 4K sectors and Seagate SmartAlign?

Marc


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