We've had great performance from a Soyo P41845PE ISA motherboard with a Pentium 4 processor and the mass spec's original GPIB (ISA) card running Isodat 2.0.
On another machine, we've had not so great performance from a Supermicro motherboard also with an ISA slot, Pentium 4 processor and the mass spec's original GPIB card.
If buying used were an option, I'd go with a Tyan Trinity S1854 board with 1Ghz or so Pentium III processor. There are lots of these still around from ebay, pc liquidators, and Computing Services Departments' basements.
We have turned the anti-virus software off, as the machines have no internet access. This also means that there are no updates to the XP installs (this is also a good thing). 
The only issue that you might have is setting the IRQ in the BIOS to match the GPIB card as it's not Plug-n-Play. It's not difficult, but easy to overlook.

-tom millican

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
University of Arkansas Stable Isotope Laboratory
http://www.uark.edu/ua/isotope/



----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Kubo <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, January 12, 2007 8:03 pm
Subject: [ISOGEOCHEM] Upgrading to Isodat 2.0
To: [log in to unmask]

> Hello everyone,
> 
> 
> 
> Seeing as how I just threw away my 8-track, got rid of my polyester 
> leisuresuit and finally retired my Ford Pinto, I figured it's time 
> to upgrade from
> Isodat NT to Isodat 2.0.  Are there any current pitfalls in terms 
> of system
> requirements, GPIB communications board (ISA vs. PCI), anti-virus 
> software,windows XP service packs, etc?  Are there any brands or 
> builds of
> motherboards that have drivers that don't seem to play well with 
> isodat or
> the National Instruments drivers for the communications card?  The 
> lastcomprehensive discussion I found on this in the archives is an 
> email by
> Gilles St-Jean back in February of 2005.  We're running a Delta 
> Plus (1998),
> with an HP 6890 and a Carlo Erba 1108 EA and we have the ISA card 
> from NI.
> 
> 
> 
> This is low priority, so please, there's no rush in responding.  
> I'm just
> trying to collect as much information as possible before I jump 
> headfirstinto the waters.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> 
> Mike Kubo
> 
> NASA Ames Research Center
> 
> M/S 239-4
> 
> Moffett Field, CA 94035
> 
> (650) 604-6110
> 
> 
> 
>