What we all know can happen but actually never think or worry about happened this morning, my main editing pc refused to start up, I only got the startup screen with the option to press f2 to go to the bios but it would hang there, I also was not able to go into the bios so my first thought was my motherboard died.

The pc was just half a year old and the motherboard was a z97-k from asus, I drove quickly to the store where I got it from and got the same confirmation; motherboard fried, they had the same motherboard in stock, replaced it on the spot free of charge and 2 hours after I found my pc dead I was up and running again.

This is the first time I have a issue like this in all my years of pc use and while I was lucky to get a so quick service, if the mother board would not have been in stock it could easily be a week without pc. I did have a decent backup pc but I gave that one to my wife when her 9 year old pc started to act up and thought I would be ok with my new pc but now this happened it got me thinking again if I should not get a other backup machine.

How are others handling such problems, does everyone always secure you have a second pc running all your needed software just in case?

Sorry to hear this.

I'm in the same situation, I don't have a backup PC. I back up my data to hard drives and discs but that's it.

If I lost my PC then my current workflow would be affected. I have everything set up in a way that I can work easily and simply get on with what I need to do. I would hate to lose my settings / setup. The data i'm working on is backed up.

With your motherboard changed, did you have to do a fresh install or anything like that ? I assume you didn't because the hard drive was unaffected ?

Hi Noa

Scary stuff especially if you have to do something in a hurry. We have two machines (actually 3 if I count my XP machine which still has edit software installed but it would be very slow. All my wedding footage is on duplicate USB drives so it's just a matter of unplugging a cable and I can continue using the drive in the second machine. However that's just wedding and real estate footage so if my machine dies I can continue editing in minutes BUT all my bookings, emails, conversations with upcoming brides would be a huge issue as they are on the internal drive and I don't really have any answer for that situation. What would you do about your bookings/emails etc etc???

Chris, all my bookings / email info is regularly backed up to a thumb drive plus it's on cloud (Gmail).

My biggest concern is my Sony Vegas settings, the layout of my desktop, where I keep folders, files. The organisation of my PC ...

Getting that back together will be time consuming.

I guess I need to tidy everything up.

The only thing the pc technician had to do after he replaced the motherboard was to reactivate my windows 7 pro and that was it, since the harddrive and all the settings on the drive where unaffected nothing has changed. If my harddrive had died that could be solved with a image I have of that drive.

I do have a 6 year old I7 950 but that one would seriously struggle with the 4K codecs I"m using and render times would be so long it would become an issue, Edius uses the onboard gpu to accelerate renders and a one hour film is rendered in a mp4 in about 20 minutes, the old machine doesn't have a onboard gpu so the same render would probably take around 4 hours.

My bookings are mainly on google agenda and all paperwork is either excel or access so that I can easily continue to use by switching a internal the drive to the older pc or just use a external drive backup if needed.

It was only scary to find a pc that did not respond at all. :)

Several years ago I moved my local storage (documents, contracts, etc) to a dropbox folder. All my video storage is obviously on external drives. Occasionally there is some clutter on the desktop (which I would lose if a machine or hard drive died), but that's about it.

I run Adobe CC, so it's installed on both the desktop and the laptop.

If either one dies, I can flip on the other one and be in business in minutes. If they both died, I could buy a new one, install CC, and be in business in hours.

E-mail, calendar, contacts, etc is all via google apps.

I'm not religious about it, but I try to back up current projects to a 4TB external Seagate drive.

If my system went down due to something other than a hard drive failure, I have my 15' Dell laptop. It's going on 3 years old now though. It will handle most things and basic edits.

My main computer is going on 5 years old this year, so it's time to start looking at upgrades and I already have.

If they both died, I could buy a new one, install CC, and be in business in hours.

The problem I have with that is that my pc system is build around Edius meaning I need specific components to get the best out of the NLE, from the moment I would place an order until it reaches my doorstep could be 1 to 2 weeks because it's custombuild at the pcstore.

If I would buy a second system as backup it probably would be non operational all of the time, until something bad might happen, if that would be the case then it's great to have that peace of mind just to switch and be up and running within an hour but it does seem a somewhat wasted purchase if it's not used at all as long if there is no problem. I could get myself a fast laptop but not sure if I would use that one either.

Noa, you were lucky. No, really you were lucky:-) You were lucky that the motherboard died at just 6 months old so that the exact same model is still available for purchase. If it had been 2 or 3 years old you would have needed to replace it with a different model motherboard which could have been a real pain with a different configuration requiring different Windows drivers etc new memory etc

When we were in business my wife & I each had a similar configuration Mac Pro both setup with our editing software of choice (FCP6->FCP7->Premier Pro 6->PP CC).

I wonder how that is with a 2 year warranty, if you order all parts separately and build the pc yourself then the store will only replace the motherboard if that would be broken and if the original one would not be available anymore and you get a newer version any compatibility issues is for you to solve but what if you buy a custombuild system that is assembled at the store? My guess is that suppliers keep spareparts long enough to cover any warranty issues.

Hi Noa, sorry to hear about your problems. Glad everything worked out for you.

I tend to make myself a new PC about every two years. Also use EDIUS and I keep the older PC as my email/WEB browser etc. I still have EDIUS 6.08 on this PC as I like to use TMPro for titles sometimes. Also have a Dell laptop. So EDIUS 8.2WG on the main editor and laptop and EDIUS 6.08 on email PC. Projects ( Not source files ) are all backed up to NAS so any of them can work. Source is backed up on a Vantec USB3 HX4R RAID5 so can also be used by any of them. All are i7 CPU with Quicksync too. A little crazy for a retirement hobby but I like making PC's as much as doing video !!!

Ron Evans

I have a main editing machine, but also a touch screen PC on the same desk which I use for internet use mainly and same day edits at Weddings. Its slower obviously but I can edit on it in a pinch. It has everything installed. I only occasionally connect my main PC to the internet to grab upgrades.
Email is all stored online, which I access by phone and tablet, my accounts are on a USB stick backed up to a PC only. If my PC died, it would be a case of connecting the USB drives to the new one. I would be slightly inconvenienced, but not devastated.

Three PC, two external hard drives each computer, laptop, all software on them when project finished then all shared to each computer each hard drive. Three months then delete the lot if client all good.

2 Sager laptops configured with Sony Vegas Pro 13 and my other major software. A third Fujitsu laptop that runs Vegas Pro 8 and 9 as well as numerous other odd ball programs that I don't want cluttering up my main edit machine. If one goes down I can switch over with a performance hit when doing 4k. Got the SATA drive copy device, "toaster" and have been making duplicates of my internal drives just in case.

I would like to have a powerful desktop, running 3 displays but my apartment service is only 40 amps and it gets tripped too often as is. Also, I can't use my uninterruptible power supply due to the way the outlets are grounded here in Japan (no third prong). The UPS won't work without it.

I had a motherboard fry once on my Sager and it was under a 3-year warranty. They replaced the mobo and the 1TB SSD free of charge.

Mark

If I was working with a deadline, I'd use my mac, which I have a back up, but like you, my PC is my main video editor. I think for the most of us, the expense of a good editor makes it tricky to have a twin. I'm not a TV station with a million dollar budget, so if my main pc goes down, which hit has, I just rebuild it from parts from Newegg in a week. I've built and replaced my PC about every three years since I've been in business.

Noa, I've been there, I use ASUS stuff too, I'm glad you have it up and running again. I did have a PC laptop 17 inch that I was using every once in a while, but it's been re purposed. like I said, it's hard to have so many machines, keep them current, that gets expensive.

The problem I have with that is that my pc system is build around Edius meaning I need specific components to get the best out of the NLE, from the moment I would place an order until it reaches my doorstep could be 1 to 2 weeks because it's custombuild at the pcstore.
I get that people are anti Creative Cloud because of the subscription thing, and I don't necessarily disagree (even though I subscribe), but in 2016 having to order particular components that would take weeks to arrive would be a deal-breaker for me.

That pc store where I always buy from has pc's you can order today and get tomorrow, or you just drive to them and take it home with you, if you buy custombuild pc's there is a waiting list as they build as orders come in and usually your pc arrives within a week, in my last case however the processor was not in stock, I ordered a i7 4790k which apparently was so popular they couldn"t keep up so I had to wait almost 2 weeks.

Not sure what the subscription model has to do with ordering a pc, Edius needs a specific cpu with build in gpu in order to make use of accelerated rendering, also the motherboard is important for me so it has the right connectivity and I check if the BIOS is fully unlocked so I won't get any issues like you can get when ordering a DELL pc where they often lock parts of the bios from accidental changes, there are few changes I always need to make that are minor but very important. Usually I also check on the Edius forum for recommendations as well.