Comments on: Episode 66 - Gateway vs Dell

by: Bill

Fri, 18 May 2007 19:52:02 +0000

Below is a link to the Management Studio for Express that Steven is refering to.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C243A5AE-4BD1-4E3D-94B8-5A0F62BF7796&displaylang=en
For a smaller databases such as the one Surf Control can use you would be better off setting the database to “Simple” recovery method. Then the transaction logs are commited (automatically) without backups and they stay much smaller.

by: Steven Murawski

Fri, 18 May 2007 18:25:27 +0000

There is a graphical management tool for SQL Express. If you Google for SQL Server 2005 Express Management Studio, you will find a download on Microsoft’s site for the free version of Management Studio, which can manage your SQL Express installation. When you do a full backup, that will clear the transaction log. Good luck

by: Jared Cochran

Wed, 16 May 2007 15:01:23 +0000

My experience with Dell has been excellent. I think a lot of it depends on who you end up with as account manager. Our company’s account manager has been excellent. Probably 98% of the time when we call, she answers almost immediately. Always replies to e-mails within an hour or two usually, and gets quotes to us in most cases the same day.

by: Brad LaCross

Tue, 15 May 2007 22:33:49 +0000

Responding to Jeff,

I should have been more clear in specifing CAS latency in the podcast. It’s essentially the delay in clock cycles between the read request and the first bit. If you want to look into it further you can search under that or memory timing.

If you look under topics like overclocking on Tom’s Hardware forums there’s some good info there as well.

You’re right, you probably would never notice the difference unless you benchmarked it, even then it may be minor. My main point I guess is, why run faster than what’s supported unless you plan to overclock and utilize it?

by: Jeff Lutes

Tue, 15 May 2007 13:23:05 +0000

Two things:

“faster memory increases latency”?!?
My digital theory might be a bit rusty, but that statement makes absolutely no sense. Using faster memory than what the FSB can use has never decreased system performance for me.

Also, Dell vs. Gateway. We have also had some problems with our Dell rep (lack of response) so we decided to give Gateway a try. We had a special request for a tablet laptop so we threw it at Gateway. A month later when we finally got the machine, we discovered it came with Vista installed and not the WinXP we had ordered. Gateway’s solution was to pack the laptop and all the attachments back into the shipping boxes and send the whole thing back. We only had to wait 3 weeks to get the replacement machine.