Questions about memory requirements for dedicated studio recording PC(solved)

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Spanner
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Questions about memory requirements for dedicated studio recording PC(solved)

Post by Spanner »

Questions about memory requirements for dedicated studio recording PC

A little more than a year ago, my backup studio recording PC failed and so I built a dedicated recording computer, using an AMD motherboard, AMD Phenom2 X4 965 processor running at 3.4GHz, and with 4GB relatively fast and reliable ddr2 800 RAM. Though this had been my backup PC, I decided to make my then-existing main PC the new backup PC and move forward with the newly built PC as the main recording PC.

I ended up cutting some corners.

The stock cpu cooler (which has always been very loud, in fact too loud) is failing, and I have a replacement cooler (much quieter) on hand to upgrade the system.

When I built this machine, I could only afford 4GB RAM so I went with that, as well as with the stock cooler. I chose the components in order to be compatible with my earlier (formerly main) machine. The price was right, too.

For this upgrade to the new main machine, I planned to increase the RAM; however, new high quality RAM (2X4GB = 8GB which is max for this motherboard) is now prohibitively expensive, and would actually cost more than a new motherboard with much more DDR-3 memory would cost. I guess I was living in the past, was looking backward instead of forward. Anyway, I am now kind of stuck.

I am running KXStudio package on 14.04lts Ubuntu platform and I have spent a lot of time tweaking this machine but if I have to spend the money for new high-quality RAM, I would go for a new motherboard and more DDR3 RAM. And I simply cannot afford either of those options at this time.


I have located (on ebay) some aftermarket RAM that looks like it might work. It is a little slower in the timings but this RAM is less than 1/10th the cost of new high quality RAM. The ebay seller has a very high satisfaction rating etc., and the RAM modules I am looking at have sold over 1,000 units with high user satisfaction feedback. If this aftermarket RAM does work, it would increase my RAM from 4GB to 8GB.

I routinely record more than 16 stereo tracks simultaneously with sometimes lots of effects and plugins, and have run into resource limitations in the past, but this has so far been on the other machine with 8GB RAM which is also fast and high quality RAM. I do no overclocking. Now, I am afraid to trust the failing CPU cooler in order to run more tests on this machine. It's kind of a dilemma.


My questions are:

What kind of issues should I expect to run into with only 4GB RAM?

Would it be worth it to try to increase the RAM to 8GB with the relatively inexpensive aftermarket RAM, or would the 4GB high quality RAM I now have suffice?


Any help or suggestions will be sincerely appreciated.


Thank you.
Last edited by Spanner on Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
Spanner
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Re: Questions about memory requirements for dedicated studio recording PC

Post by Spanner »

Thank you for your response, beck. I appreciate it.
It's running already on 4Gb i understand?


Yes, it is running already on 4GB.
Can't you look with Systemmonitor (type in Bash) what your system is using now?


I can and do use System Monitor and also other similarly informative programs. However, due to the failing state of the CPU cooler (fan), I feel that it is prudent to avoid trying to explore the upper limits of the existing setup until I change the CPU cooler. Additionally, I'd like to have to only lay hands on innards of the unit once. Note: in order to install the new CPU cooler, I must make a modification to the motherboard which necessitates removing the motherboard entirely from the unit. I am also unsure if I will be able to remove and install memory without taking the new CPU cooler back off after I install it (it's a big cooler).
The other question. With the 4Gb, is it a problem for you now?


It is not a problem for me now as far as I know. However, I have not yet fully utilized this machine, so I do not know what to expect as far as the memory requirements.
Falters your system while recording and editing/mastering?


It does not falter. But again, I have not yet used this system heavily. I was planning on replacing the CPU cooler anyway because it was very much too loud from the day I ordered the parts and put them together and I knew this would be the case when I opted to cut those corners and only get the minimum at first. I also planned on upgrading the memory after saving enough to be able to afford to do so. Sadly, I may have missed my window of opportunity. I have been using the new machine as a general purpose computer on a daily basis for the last six months or so as I also tweak it for audio. I am pleased with it, except for the issue of the failing cooler and the cost of the RAM. Thus, my question in this post. Again, thank you for your response.
If system monitor shows that your system is not heavily loaded and you don't experience trouble why should you upgrade the RAM? That can be done later too.

If you feel better with upgrade, why shouldn't you? It can't harm.


Good questions. I use the old machine for music still. I use the new machine with an eye to replacing the old machine. I finally thought I had saved enough to afford the planned upgrades. Unfortunately, it has been like a highwire balancing act. lol
For me even 8Gb would be a huge step forward, let alone 16Gb.

I myself record (48khz/24 bits) on an old pentium 4 with 1Gb and it works quite good. No 16 tracks until now although. Max about 10 (full wave) tracks up till now. (started as an experiment, system should be replaced but it still works so no hurry)

And got me another pc with 2Gb with the same music-software on it but not for recording (for experimenting with music, editing and mastering), and that does the job too.

Linux only. :mrgreen:
Yep. Linux only: I tossed microsoft and their minions many years ago. To my (and our) great advantage. And as far as musical experimentation? YES! Try out puredata (pd)!

lol

Thanks.
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Re: Questions about memory requirements for dedicated studio recording PC

Post by Spanner »

I decided to take the risk and try the cheaper RAM.

I still have the old higher quality RAM on hand, so if I run into issues with the new cheaper RAM and somehow not manage to set fire to my machine during testing/use of it, I can re-place the higher quality RAM back into the machine.


As I mentioned above, about this cheaper RAM:
I have located (on ebay) some aftermarket RAM that looks like it might work. It is a little slower in the timings but this RAM is less than 1/10th the cost of new high quality RAM. The ebay seller has a very high satisfaction rating etc., and the RAM modules I am looking at have sold over 1,000 units with high user satisfaction feedback.
To be clear: this cheaper RAM is claimed to be new product, not used product.


...I have been running this machine with the new cheaper RAM for ten days. It seems to work perfectly.


Over this time, I have used this machine for all of the things I usually do with a computer. Additionally, I have tried running memory intensive programs such as golly (a john conway's game of life based program), as well as memtester, a program which is in some ways similar to memtest86, and is available from the ubuntu repositories. I have yet to have a memtester test fail, or any memory issues whatsoever.


So, it looks like the risk has payed off.


I may try memtest86 for a while.


Additionally, I am planning an intensive recording project over the next several days and hope to report back the results thereof.


Wish me luck.


lol
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Re: Questions about memory requirements for dedicated studio recording PC

Post by bluebell »

memtest86 didn't find a faulty RAM bar in my son's machine, stress crashed the machine within one minute:

stress -c 10 -m 5 -i 5 -d 10 -t 600

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Re: Questions about memory requirements for dedicated studio recording PC

Post by CrocoDuck »

Cheaper RAMs are usually more prone to failure. They just have a higher probability to break. I don't think you can find much with tests. stress is a good tool ad will show how the RAM reacts when used intensively, but it cannot show the likelihood of failure. You can only run on the hardware and hope they will not fry. It happened once to me and the computer as a whole survived. I just had to change the broken RAM. I don't know what the risks are for the rest of the computer when a RAM fault happens. Of course, if RAM faults put the whole computer in danger it is not worth it at all. For sure, I would probably backup more often if I had to run on cheap RAM.
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Re: Questions about memory requirements for dedicated studio recording PC(solved)

Post by Spanner »

I started this thread a while back. I planned to continue this thread in a timely fashion. I had very detailed documentation in progress... however, I experienced a power failure due to a landslide and lost most of the original information. Yep. I should have made backups/saved but I was on a roll. lol Let this be a lesson to me.

The gist of my experience is that the new cheap ram is performing flawlessly (I may just be lucky) but I probably didn't need it. In all of the tests I ran after changing to the new cheaper RAM and new CPU cooler (and new powersupply, but that's another story), I never had any issues with running out of RAM memory for any of the recording projects I undertook and did not see any use of RAM above 4GB other than when using memory testing programs. Additionally, I have never seen swap used other than when a runaway process tries to consume all available memory which I am ususally able to catch before crash.

Thanks to beck, CrocoDuck, and bluebell for some very helpful information.


As far as the very useful "stress" program is concerned, early on, I tried this:
******************
Note:

-c 10 = spawn N workers spinning on sqrt()
-m 5 = spawn N workers spinning on malloc()/free()
-i 5 = spawn N workers spinning on sync()
-d 10 = spawn N workers spinning on write()/unlink()
-t 600 = timeout after N seconds
-v = be verbose
-n = dry run- show what would have been done rather than actually run the test
******************

stress -c 10 -m 5 -i 5 -t 60 -v -n

This looks to me to be a good start.


OK tried this in actual running:

stress -c 10 -m 5 -i 5 -t 60 -v

No problem.


Next, tried this:

stress -c 10 -m 5 -i 5 -t 120 -v

No problem.


Granted, the tests I have run so far only test a limited area/amount of memory and for a short time, but the modules themselves appear to be working properly.

I try an extended test after the ambient temperature drops a bit.


(Thanks for the tip, bluebell.)


stress -c 10 -m 10 -i 5 -t 120 -v

No problem.


stress -c 10 -m 20 -i 5 -t 120 -v

No problem.


stress -c 10 -m 40 -i 5 -t 120 -v

AND HERE is where I lost my original document and data. I hope the test didn't trigger the landslide that caused the blackout/loss of power. lol

*******************
*******************
Additionally, I salvaged this fragment:


User@machine:~$ sudo memtester 6G 1

memtester version 4.3.0 (64-bit)
Copyright (C) 2001-2012 Charles Cazabon.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 (only).

pagesize is 4096
pagesizemask is 0xfffffffffffff000
want 6144MB (6442450944 bytes)
got 6144MB (6442450944 bytes), trying mlock ...locked.
Loop 1/1:
Stuck Address : ok
Random Value : ok
Compare XOR : ok
Compare SUB : ok
Compare MUL : ok
Compare DIV : ok
Compare OR : ok
Compare AND : ok
Sequential Increment: ok
Solid Bits : ok
Block Sequential : ok
Checkerboard : ok
Bit Spread : ok
Bit Flip : ok
Walking Ones : ok
Walking Zeroes : ok
8-bit Writes : ok
16-bit Writes : ok

Done.
***********************
***********************
I just ran that above test again half a year+ or so later (during which time this machine has been running 24/7 continuously except for power outages):

user@machine:~$ sudo memtester 6G 1
[sudo] password for user:
memtester version 4.3.0 (64-bit)
Copyright (C) 2001-2012 Charles Cazabon.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 (only).

pagesize is 4096
pagesizemask is 0xfffffffffffff000
want 6144MB (6442450944 bytes)
got 6144MB (6442450944 bytes), trying mlock ...locked.
Loop 1/1:
Stuck Address : ok
Random Value : ok
Compare XOR : ok
Compare SUB : ok
Compare MUL : ok
Compare DIV : ok
Compare OR : ok
Compare AND : ok
Sequential Increment: ok
Solid Bits : ok
Block Sequential : ok
Checkerboard : ok
Bit Spread : ok
Bit Flip : ok
Walking Ones : ok
Walking Zeroes : ok
8-bit Writes : ok
16-bit Writes : ok

Done.
user@machine:~$
***********************
***********************
Again, thanks to beck, CrocoDuck, and bluebell for very helpful information.

To sum this all up: the new cheap RAM appears to be performing flawlessly (I may just be lucky) but I probably didn't need it.

Thanks.
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