Desktop PC of Imaging - Advice & specification

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Hi,

I have been trying to image now for around 10 months and whilst pretty happy with my mount, scope, guidescope etc I have been plagued with issues on and off with my computer setups since the start.

Due to having a slow old laptop and Desktop I originally bought replacements for both and were refurbished items from Ebay. The Laptop I am pretty happy with and is a fairly high spec, the desktop is a pretty powerful workstation but seems to have issues with USB speed and occasionally shuts down with the dreaded blue screen of death, BSOD, (although on mine it is a green screen of death).

My preferred method of working is to hook all things to my desktop and use a USB over Ethernet to keep the number of long USB cables down. Mount is on my patio some 20 foot away. But if I do this then the USB speed is very slow and although generally my DSLR transfers data oka (although can lose connection occasionally)  my guidecam is so slow in framerate it is useless and again can dropout altogether. The mount runs just fine.

So currently I still use my laptop with a long USB cable to my DSLR and this has never failed and all it does is communicate with DSLR. Everything else goes into my desktop but so far never used guidecam due to slow speed. Although better I still get issues with everything into my laptop but it is much better but guidecam still very slow frame rate. One reason for not using Laptop at home is I really like to use the bigger dual screens, it is a real pain with my 14" single laptop screen, but I guess I could try plugging a 2nd one into my laptop.

I want to use APT to control everything and plan to replace the desktop with a better model but wondering how good it needs to be.

• What processor?
• What OS, it will be Windows but I often get an issue with EQAscom and the USB drivers with windows 10 and often have to roll back the driver. Would using windows 7 bw any better?
• What RAM, I guess the more the merrier in this case?
• USB3 or USB2 or a mix?
• Anything else I have missed?

Steve

[AbsolutelyN]

For running the mount/scope you don't need much but for image processing I'd go with as good as you can get to speed up stacking and image processing. I'm running Windows 10 and so far had no driver issues (yet) with eqmod or zwo devices. 

Personally I'd go with these guidelines:
Processor - i5 or ideally i7.
Ram - min 8gb, ideally 16gb or even more 
Hard drives ... get lots of space, at least 4tb for storage but depends what you are doing. I always recommend OS on a smaller SSD and store files/data on a larger standard drive(s). 
I'm currently using USB2 but I think you get more amp glow on transferring files? USB2 seems very stable, and perfect for mount. USB3 for high data transfer such as video. Curious to hear other opinions on this. I had trouble with a 25 meter USB3 cable dropping connections but with shorter cables never had any issues. 

 

[CedricTheBrave]

I use Windows 10 and never have driver issues as far as my experience its bomb proof.

spec above looks ok to me USB3 has a better data throughput so should always be preferred.

I do use a powered USB port on my mount and found that if I don't have it powered the Costar guider fails to communicate with PHD and will crash out. This is through a 5m USB3 cable to the PC.

[LightBucket]

Well all I can say is dump windows and go Linux with Kstars / Ekos, and get rid of all Ascom issues aswell as many other issues that plaque windows PC’s..

 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

The key issue to watch out for in Windows 10 is its tendency to do updates without user consent, preferably at the worst possible moment (in the middle of an imaging run, during a presentation). You can to some degree prevent this by blocking network access, but that is not always desirable. There is a tool called ShutUp10 that can prevent unwanted updates and things like "telemetry" from happening even when you have a network connection.

 

 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Is a graphics card an advantage or is onboard graphics ok ?

Steve

[Alien 13]

35 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Is a graphics card an advantage or is onboard graphics ok ?

Steve

I would say its an advantage, some software is able to use a graphics card insane number crunching ability (one reason that bitcoin mining machines are all about the GPU) I would not go overboard though as there is a optimal price vs performance trade-off.

Alan

[dannybgoode]

Note the new AMD Ryzen 2 chips are excellent. I have a Ryzen 5 2600 and it’s awesome. I’ve also chucked 32gb of ram in so image processing is very quick. 

I’ve always been happy with Windows as well. Never encountered issues. Have dabbled with Linux too but find it too much of a faff. 

May try a dual boot though and see what it’s like for a dedicated Astro machine. 

[LightBucket]

51 minutes ago, dannybgoode said:

Note the new AMD Ryzen 2 chips are excellent. I have a Ryzen 5 2600 and it’s awesome. I’ve also chucked 32gb of ram in so image processing is very quick. 

I’ve always been happy with Windows as well. Never encountered issues. Have dabbled with Linux too but find it too much of a faff. 

May try a dual boot though and see what it’s like for a dedicated Astro machine. 

That’s how I started with a dual boot Astro machine, and now I have deleted windows altogether...Linux is superb and with the new KDE desktop envoiroment it has similar look to windows, like start menu and such like, which is fine by me as it is what I know, but runs sssooo much better with zero issues, but does all and more than windows....it really is a great replacement, but you need the Kubuntu edition, which is Ubuntu with KDE desktop....

[dannybgoode]

6 minutes ago, LightBucket said:

That’s how I started with a dual boot Astro machine, and now I have deleted windows altogether...Linux is superb and with the new KDE desktop envoiroment it has similar look to windows, like start menu and such like, which is fine by me as it is what I know, but runs sssooo much better with zero issues, but does all and more than windows....it really is a great replacement, but you need the Kubuntu edition, which is Ubuntu with KDE desktop....

Thing is I’ve had zero issues with windows - ever. And that includes Vista! In fact I’d go as far to say I really like windows  

I also run various ham radio programs and interfaces with my transceivers and again - they have always worked all the time. 

Horses for courses - but yes, I will try Linux purely for Astro work. I have no compelling reason to move to it for day to day computing. 

[Alien 13]

5 minutes ago, dannybgoode said:

Thing is I’ve had zero issues with windows - ever. And that includes Vista! In fact I’d go as far to say I really like windows  

I also run various ham radio programs and interfaces with my transceivers and again - they have always worked all the time. 

Horses for courses - but yes, I will try Linux purely for Astro work. I have no compelling reason to move to it for day to day computing. 

One of my laptops is a dual boot device but like you I have never had an issue with windows ever, I can see Linux being useful in some circumstances but there is so much general software thats not compatible and other limits too.

Alan

[Uranium235]

The way I set mine up is I have a little acer aspire netbook (win xp) running the imaging and guiding. Then use powerline networking to control it from the living room using a gaming spec pc (ryzen 5, m2 ssd, gtx1060) that makes short work of any processing or stacking jobs.

The data transfer rates over powerline networking are excellent, way better than WiFi.

[LightBucket]

17 minutes ago, dannybgoode said:

Thing is I’ve had zero issues with windows - ever. And that includes Vista! In fact I’d go as far to say I really like windows  

I also run various ham radio programs and interfaces with my transceivers and again - they have always worked all the time. 

Horses for courses - but yes, I will try Linux purely for Astro work. I have no compelling reason to move to it for day to day computing. 

Yes, stick with what works, if it ain’t broke.........you know the rest..

I was just having nothing but issues with win 10 and USB issues and Ascom issues, I hate win 10 with a passion, so want back to win 7 and solved many issues but not all, so moved to Linux and never looked back

Also just got  Astro Pixel Processor software for Linux so can do all processing on there too..

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Thanks to all for the advice. Had to be careful as when ordering a new PC it is very easy to go crazy and £1000 gone before you realise it. In the end settles for a mid range spec but should cope I think. I might add a graphics card at a later date if needed. I already have dual 24" monitors so should be fine for my needs I hope.
Game Max Silent Black Midi-Tower with Card Reader 
500W Aerocool Integrator 80+ Certified Power Supply 
ASUS Prime B450M-A uATX Motherboard (AMD) 
AMD Ryzen™ 5-2400G Quad Core Processor (3.9GHz) with Vega Graphics
16GB 2400MHz DDR4 (2x8GB) - Major Brand 
Integrated AMD RADEON™ RX VEGA 11 Graphics
250GB 2.5" SATA III SSD
1TB SATA III 6GB/s 7200rpm 64MB Cache 8ms
Integrated 7.1 High Definition 8-Channel Audio
ASUS PCE-AC55BT 802.11ac 867Mbps AC1200 Wifi/Bluetooth PCIe Adapter 
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit

Steve

[dannybgoode]

Yeah that’ll work   The Ryzen chips are excellent and 16gb RAM will keep it chuntering along. 

At some point you could add a discrete graphics card but I don’t think any Astro software takes advantage of graphics card processing yet.