Good trading setup?

As far as your setup goes it sounds similar to mine. I would get as much RAM as you can afford. It's likely you will add to your system not take from it, more and more apps require lots of your horsepower. L2 boxes take a huge chunk of your resouces.... Tradestation Pro runs 13 exe's in the background, this is in addition to what ever else you may be asking of your system. If I had it to do over again I would go with another video card and skip matrox al together or purchase it outright from them so I could have knowledgable ts... phone calls to Canada are not cheap....
hoyler
 
I recently assembled a very nice system after conducting extensive research through sites like SharkyExtreme, Tomshardware, PCMechanic & CUSL2. Even on sites where you can custom configure, either they don't offer a component you want or you have to pay too much for certain items. I would suggest you research some known issues of using Windows 2K with AMD processors. The issue is the chipset from VIA. Microsoft and VIA have patches available, but since stability is crucial to a trading workstation I decided to go with Intel. Also I decided against SCSI for several reasons. Too expensive, too noisy and the new 7200 RPM, ATA 100 drives are almost as fast. See StorageReview.com for guidance on this topic. The specs on my system are as follows:
CUSL2-C
PIII, 1 GH cpu
Alpha 6035 Heatsink
CoolerMaster 210 Case (Expensive, but really nice)
Enermax 451 Power Supply
512 MB Cricial 7.5 ns, 2,2,2 RAM (Don't skimp here)
Plextor 16X/10X/40X
Sound Blaster Live Value
Teac Floppy
250 Zip
3COM 3C905C NIC
Matrox G450 32 MB
(2) Sony G400 Monitors
Windows 2000 Pro, OEM (Ebay)
Total cost approx. $3300
Assembly time w/ SW installation was one full day.
The benefit of this approach is that you know everything about the machine you are driving, and this allows you to tweak the BIOS for the right balance of performance/stability. Any support you might need is available on a few key websites. This eliminates the need to endure long hold times and receive less than ideal advice. There is also the satisfaction and pride of your accomplishment. Good luck and good trading!
 
On my previous post regarding my pc config I neglected to include the hard disks. I selected (2) IBM Deskstar 45 GB 7200 ATA100 drives. They are quiet and really fast.
 
I second Arky's suggestion of going with ATA-100 hard drives rather than SCSI. The only SCSI format that outperforms ATA-100 on paper is Ultra-160, and considering the negligible real world difference you would find, but the difference in price, ATA-100 is the way to go.

One side note, I'm also a musician, and I have a computer built for running Pro Tools and doing full audio productions, which next to video editing is the most demanding application for a computer and its hard drives. I use ATA-100 hard drives, and never get so much as a hiccup, even when doing full 24 track, 24 bit, 48K audio productions. If the hard drives can run smoothly doing that, running on a trading computer will be a breeze.
 
Reporting no problems with AMD CPUs and Win2000 here. No stability issues; running same on multiple PCs, multiple data feeds, heavy loads. Motherboards all using AMD chipsets, not VIA.
 
Lancer, can you provide more details on your computer specs? I am extremely intrigued with the possibility of building my next PC around AMD, for obvious reasons, but I have been reluctant due to the reported issues on running Windows 2K. Intel and Microsoft have been in bed together for so long it does provide a certain comfort level. The price/performance of AMD's 1.33 GH 266 MHz FSB and 2100 DDR RAM are quite compelling and difficult to ignore.
 
I run a Dell laptop 500 mhz motherboard with 256RAM, upgraded from 128RAM
; 12.5 hardrive
Currently runs with Win98 operating system. Win2k on the way.

A year ago, and ($3,500), when inquiring about a new computer to trade from, Dell told me that this laptop would run 8 programs with no problem. Dell told me that the system resources should be running at no less than 70% for optimum efficiency.

I use dual screen technology that comes with this Inspiron 7500 laptop.

My system resources start out with 94% free
I log onto DSL 78%free
I open QuoteTracker 75%free
I open Direct Access Broker 65%free
I open yahoo pager 57%free
I open Qcharts 51%free
EOD software 43%free
IE Browser and a chat room/Express 28%free

Leaving me with 28% free system resources, and things will build up to where I need to reboot.

I called Dell back within 30 days, and they said I need more RAM. So I got 256.

Not a notable difference, but I have been able to manage.

Today this system runs on about 40% system resources Free, but gets down lower at times forcing me to reboot. Next week I will be replacing Qcharts with a software that requires 256RAM which I am afraid will be taxing my system.

I called Dell who says it is the software programs that are taking too much. They say to call each software vendors technical support to configure the software to refresh the amount of RAM that their software uses. They also advice me to get an 8100 desktop with at least 512 RAM.

I need to get a three monitor desktop in the near future, and this laptop will be my backup computer.

Does anyone have an idea of what the problem is? Dell has always said that it should not be using so much system resources.


I want to understand how to keep system resources on this current laptop computer at an acceptable level to guage the size of my next computer needs.

I would appreciate any advice.

Jeffrey
 
Win 2000 will fix your problem. The Win 95/98 platform is not designed to run a lot of different applictions all at once. I had a similar problem, where I kept upgrading my RAM, and my system resources were still being maxed out. Switching to Win 2000 fixed the problem. You can't afford to trade with Win 98. It isn't stable enough, and it doesn't manage memory well enough.
 
Hi, presently I had a matrox card with 16mb and a AMD 900 mhz with 256mb Ram running on win 98. I find that the system hang after running for about 2 to 3 hrs. Application I used include Esignal, Excel and IB tradestation. I wonder if anyone here faced a similar problem. I suspect it could be the processor running too hot (Nature of AMD processor). Also does anyone here know how to link a pc to four monitors instead of two only.
Please advise.
 
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