Afternoon all
I've been playing around over the last few days building myself a desktop PC out of various cast-offs of my own or neighbours. I've ended up with a 2.8Ghz P4 system with 1GB of DDR333 RAM, D865GLC Intel mobo from 2003 ish.
Well it works, running XP home SP3, but it's really slow compared with the system I built for my son based around a Dell 3000 with a 3.0GHz P4 and 1GB of DDR333 RAM; they're running very similar SW builds.
I downloaded a PC performance tool from here to try and quantify the problem:-
www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm
My son's system came in with an overall score of 344, which judging by the benchmarks from the site is about right, my laptop with its Pentium M 1.6GHz managed 310; the system I've just built managed 145 - about the same as a ZX spectrum :-/
Basically all CPU tests seem to be way below the norm, I can post a screen dump if helpful.
I know the real answer is to bin it and buy a decent system, but I've got more time than cash at the moment so I'd rather try and find out what's going on.
So, any suggestions as to where to start investigating gratefully received.
Cheers.
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Have you had a delve in the BIOS settings?
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yup check your cpu settings and your memory timings in BIOS.
cant remember if the P4 cranks itself down if it gets hot, is it cooling ok?
(some of them do, some just combust)
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I've just tried that and got 622.9
Pat
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Thanks folks, I'll have a poke around in the BIOS, CPU was running at around 45C during the performance test, which seems reasonable to me. I have got a 3.0HT P4 processor in a box somewhere as well, same socket 475 but the heatsink is different so I don't think a processor swap will be that quick.
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...I've just tried that and got 622.9...
Don't think it works on my MacBook Pro.
But I do have the Rolls-Royce of computers, so I guess power would be described as 'adequate'.
We Apple owners leave worrying about performance figures to those with lesser machinery. :)
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Zero is right when he mentions P4's throttling performance if they overheat. It was one reason the P4 just about got to 3.8GHz and then they brought out the Core branded processors. A P4 3.8Ghz didn't run at that speed all the time.
There is a temperature sensor in the CPU so it will slow it right down if cooling is a problem. In theory if you pull the heatsink off a P4 when it's running it will survive. Do the same to an Athlon64 of that era and it would fry instantly.
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Thanks chaps,
I can't see anything obvious in the BIOS setup in the thermal management stakes, but then this is stretching my semi-geek knowledge a bit far...
I do have an AMD Athlon XP2600+ (and suitable mobo) in my small collection of PC bits, having downloaded the documentation for it, it's full of dire warnings about not running it without a heatsink, even for a few seconds.
I'm thinking this is too fundamental to be an OS issue? I could always stick Ubuntu on it and try some performance tests with that.
I did try the performance tests on Spamette Minor's Dell 1545 (T4200 3GB RAM), that notched up 500, should be adequate for Facebook!
Last edited by: spamcan61 on Sat 8 Jan 11 at 20:05
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Those P4s are a nightmare. It could be anything really:-
1) The hard drive needs defragging
2) Too much crap loading up, how much RAM is free when at idle once everything has loaded?
3) Overheating, they run very slow when hot
4) Faulty RAM - though this can cause other issues most likely
5) Dying HD - again would show other symptons
Do NOT run an Athlon XP without a heatsink, it will cook itself very very quickly! I did with an old Duron as an experiment, it was cooked within two minutes.
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Thanks Rattle,
1)Funnily enough I defragged it last week, maybe that wasn't a good idea.
2) 730 MB free physical RAM with crap loaded
3) Idle CPU temp is 32C rising to 45C under load
4) Didn't cause problems in another machine, maybe I'll swap it out anyway
5) Actually looking at the performance test reports the HDD access times are also way below par, maybe I'll stick a different HDD in tomorrow for a laugh.
Last edited by: spamcan61 on Sat 8 Jan 11 at 20:28
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If there is no viruses/rootkits/spyware on there then the HD may well be the fault.
There is a chance there is a nasty rootkit which is giving you false reports regarding free RAM but I have never seen any that bad so far.
Certainly isn't any problem with overheating they are good figures for that processor.
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"I'll stick a different HDD in tomorrow" - also try a different cable and/or try plugging into the other port.
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>>..I do have an AMD Athlon XP2600+ (and suitable mobo) ..>>
I still have the very last one in that range, the Athlon XP 3200+, in my standby system which can reach 85 degrees C before (presumably) expiring; I set the Bios to shut down the system if the temperature of the CPU ever reached 70 degrees C.
Must admit that during some of the very hot summer days of recent years (yes, it's true!) it often came within a degree or two of the shutdown being activated.
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You'll find a lot of useful info about the running system by installing and running CPU-Z from here:
www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
If the processor were running at a lower clock speed than it should it would show up. It will also tell you about memory speed etc.
An AthlonXP would momentarily be a lot hotter than 85 deg C before expiring. There is a thermal sensor under the CPU but by the time that recognises there is a problem it's too late. On the P4 the sensor was on the chip.
As I say above, try CPU-Z to see what speed it's really running at.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 8 Jan 11 at 22:29
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Even CPU-Z can report wrong though. I find Core Temp to be the most acurate program but it won't work on P4s and I don't think it even works on Althon XPS.
But either way I would run Prime95 and run the torture test, if there is a problem with the CPU or RAM it will soon crash. I tend to run that for a few hours on any new build I make. If the system can for two hours and 100% CPU usage without the CPU or RAM overheating then its likely any slowness is the caused by an HD problem.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Sun 9 Jan 11 at 04:00
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If the computer is running slow in terms of clock speed then cpu-z is useful.
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I'm confused.
on the one hand we have
1/ 've been playing around over the last few days building myself a desktop PC out of various cast-offs of my own or neighbours. I've ended up with a 2.8Ghz P4 system with 1GB of DDR333 RAM, D865GLC Intel mobo from 2003 ish.
and the other we have
2/ Funnily enough I defragged it last week, maybe that wasn't a good idea
If its recently built, and therefore recently loaded os, why did you defrag it? You have loaded the OS fresh with the correct drivers after the build I assume?
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I originally did a clean install, but then deleted/moved a load of files around, I ran defraggler and it recommended defragging so I did. I think the disk is on the way out, as the read/write times are way below normal. I'm currently mirroring the C: drive to a less crappy drive using Acrois, if that doesn't spped it up than it's CPU-Z time.
Thanks for your ideas folks.
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you have the disk set to the right UDMA mode in BIOS?
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If you have the CD and Disk on the same ATA cable/channel the CD can sometimes set the PIO or UDMA mode. Which being an optical RW drive is much slower.
You have
a: the disk plugged on the right socket on the cable
b: the disk jumper set correctly
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Well I decided to slash and burn, removed the boot drive and replaced it with a slightly less crappy one, changed the ribbon cables while I was at it.
So, a fresh XP install, found the peripheral drivers etc. etc.
4 hours later .... PC scores 245 on performance test.
Well at least it's better than it was, still slower than my mighty laptop with its Pentium M 1.6 though!
I've configured it so the two HDDs are on the primary IDE bus, the optical drives on the secondary.
I'll look up this UDMA stuff Zero as it's beyond my semi-geek status.
Thanks for your input folks.
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Just tried this on my Mac. Running XP within a VMWARE virtual machine and only 768Mb RAM allocated to XP.... I got 685. I am sure the same hardware running XP natively and this app would do a lot better - it had to emulate DirectX for a start.
Whilst it was running I was obviously also still using the Mac. This Mac has a dual Core2 Intel CPU at 2.66GHz for reference. And 8Gb RAM - anyone need 4Gb of Apple laptop/iMac RAM for a fair price? :-)
So how are you getting on with the investigation? The speed you are seeing does seem low. I wonder if the CPU and memory are running at a slower speed than they should. I'm not convinced it's disk alone.
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>>
>> So how are you getting on with the investigation? The speed you are seeing does
>> seem low. I wonder if the CPU and memory are running at a slower speed
>> than they should. I'm not convinced it's disk alone.
>>
I've just run CPU-Z on both systems, executive summary:-
Dell 3000 system:- P4 3.0HT
Core speed - 2993 MHz
Bus seed - 199.6 MHz
Rated FSB - 798.2 MHz
Andy's scrapyard challenge PC: P4 2.8 (non HT)
Core speed - 2793 MHz
Bus seed - 133 MHz
Rated FSB - 532 MHz
So it seems to me that it was the dodgy disk that was making the machine unusably slow, but it seems that the 2.8 processor is slower than the 3.0 in just about all respects.
FWIW I've stuck a copy of the results here:-
img403.imageshack.us/img403/3248/processorcomparison.jpg
I suspect that if I want to speed this 'beast' up further I need to get my heatsink compound out and swap the 2.8 for the 3.0HT I've got spare.
Thanks for your input.
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>> I've just tried that and got 622.9
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>> Pat
>>
Forgot to ask, Pat, what kind of mighty go faster PC is this?
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Well I know it's an HP but all I can do is run Belarc and copy the results here.
I hope this works!
Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 2 (build 6002)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United Kingdom) HP-Pavilion FL230AA-ABU a6525.uk
System Serial Number: 3CR82304TT
Chassis Serial Number: DM0001
Enclosure Type: Desktop
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
2.40 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded Board: OEM_MB NARRA3 3.02
Serial Number: MS1C86R41403711
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 5.13 05/02/2008
Drives Memory Modules c,d
500.11 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
390.71 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
ATAPI DVD A DH16A6L SCSI CdRom Device [Optical drive]
WDC WD50 00AAKS-65YGA SCSI Disk Device (500.11 GB) -- drive 0, SMART Status: Healthy 3070 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Slot 'A0' has 1024 MB
Slot 'A1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'A2' has 1024 MB
Slot 'A3' is Empty
Local Drive Volumes
c: (NTFS on drive 0) 488.88 GB 389.25 GB free
d: (NTFS on drive 0) 11.23 GB 1.46 GB free
Network Drives
None discovered
Users (mouse over user name for details) Printers
local user accounts last logon
Administrator
24/12/2010 11:02:14 (admin)
comet
10/01/2011 04:30:51 (admin)
local system accounts
Guest
never
Marks a disabled account; Marks a locked account Canon MP490 series Printer on USB002
Controllers Display
IDE Channel [Controller] (2x)
NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller (2x)
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller ATI Radeon HD 3450 [Display adapter]
PKB Viseo 200Ws [Monitor] (19.9"vis, s/n D140C0054000, September 2009)
Bus Adapters Multimedia
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller Realtek High Definition Audio
Virus Protection [Back to Top]
new Group Policies
Microsoft Security Essentials Version 2.1.6805.0
Scan Engine Version 1.1.6402.0
Virus Definitions Version 1.95.3548.0
Realtime File Scanning On
None discovered
Communications Other Devices
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
NVIDIA nForce 10/100 Mbps Ethernet
primary Auto IP Address: 192.168.0.2 / 24
Gateway: 192.168.0.1
Dhcp Server: 192.168.0.1
Physical Address: 00:22:15:07:28:15
Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
Networking Dns Servers: 208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
AGERE OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
HID-compliant consumer control device
HID-compliant device (2x)
USB Human Interface Device (3x)
HID Keyboard Device
HID-compliant mouse
Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader
USB Composite Device
USB Root Hub (2x)
Generic volume shadow copy
new Network Map (mouse over IP address for physical address) [Back to Top]
IP Device Type Device Details Device Roles
192.168.0.1 Router Netgear / ADSL Firewall Router DG834GT DHCP Server, Gateway, Web Server
192.168.0.2 Windows Vista Workstation Pats (in WORKGROUP), Asustek Browse Master, SQL Server
If anyomne can understand that I would appreciate an opinion as I don't really know whether it's good or bad.
I've had it dor about three years and bought it from a firm in Bedford where you ring them and tell them what you use a PC for and they build one to suit you within a given price range.
Pat
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Edit: No, I bought this one from Comet, the Bedford one was the one before this and didn't perform as well.
Pat
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That spec. looks pretty similar to my daughters' laptops, which scored 500 so yours seems to do pretty well, OK I realise it's a desktop.
Last edited by: spamcan61 on Mon 10 Jan 11 at 09:37
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Just checked both PCs using a real world benchmark (ripping a DVD to the HDD) , both systems took 26 minutes. Call it a draw.
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I have just run the benchmark and here are the details for my home-built PC that uses an Intel Core2 6400@2.13GH (Duo) with 4GB of memory and a SATA disk. The passmark rating seems to be faster than anything listed here so far. I built it about 3 - 4 years ago.
It does not have a separate graphics board. And I use System Mechanic (SM) and CCleaner to clean the registry and files to keep it up to speed.
SM recently got an excellent rating in one of the leading PC journals. Neither have given me grief.
Here are details from the test results:
System
Intel Motherboard DG965WH, Bios 16/07/2006
CPU Intel Core2 6400@2.13GH (Duo)
Bus speed 266MHz
Front Side Bus 1066MHz
Cache: L1 Instruction Cache 2x32KB
L1 Data Cache 2x32KB
L2 Cache size 2MB
Total Physical memory 3317MB RAM
Slot 1 & Slot 3 DDR2, 2048MB, 667MHz, each slot.
Virtual Memory C:pagefile.sys (1512 MB)
ST3320620AS (SATA) Disk.
Passmark Rating 636 ----- Windows XP (32-bit)
Thanks for the reference to the bench mark test program.
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I've just run the passmark test and was quite pleased to see the result of 698 compares well with others here... but on the passmark website my CPU (Intel Core2 Duo E4500 @ 2.20GHz) has an average score of 1275... what's going on there?
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>> I've just run the passmark test and was quite pleased to see the result of
>> 698 compares well with others here... but on the passmark website my CPU (Intel Core2
>> Duo E4500 @ 2.20GHz) has an average score of 1275... what's going on there?
>>
Are you sure guv? I've just done a search on the program's baseline database (using 'compare results' then selecting 'download additional baseline files' and then doing a search for 'e4500'), that brings back results for vaguely similar systems between 450 and 900, so your result sounds about right.
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This was the page I was looking at...
www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+E4500+%40+2.20GHz
That's where I noticed the 1275 rating.... or am I looking at it incorrectly??
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I suspect I'm being a muppet, I was was looking at overall scores for E4500 systems, not CPU scores. Overall scores for E4500 seem to vary 450-900 and CPU scores 1000-1300. If your CPU is scoring much below this then as Focus suggests there's maybe a setting wrong somewhere.
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>> I've just run the passmark test and was quite pleased to see the result of
>> 698 compares well with others here... but on the passmark website my CPU (Intel Core2
>> Duo E4500 @ 2.20GHz) has an average score of 1275... what's going on there?
If it's the same benchmark software I used a few years ago, you have to tell it how many cores your CPU has got (I think effectively it only measures the performance of one core). Have a look in the settings.
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www.passmark.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1057
Problem:
The full capacity of my CPUs / Cores are not being used
Solution:
If you are running PerformanceTest then check the number of processes in the Edit / Preferences window matches the number of CPU's and cores that you have in the machine. So as an example, having two Dual core CPUs mean you want 4 processes to max out the CPUs. In some cases it might be possible to disable CPUs or Cores from BIOS. So check BIOS settings as well if you seem to be missing a CPU.
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>> I have just run the benchmark and here are the details for my home-built PC
>> that uses an Intel Core2 6400@2.13GH (Duo) with 4GB of memory and a SATA disk.
>>
>> Passmark Rating 636 ----- Windows XP (32-bit)
>>
Interesting to see you can get quite a big number just using onboard graphics.
I've just run the benchmark on my netbook, an Acer Aspire One with a mighty V12 supercharged Intel Atom single core 1.6 GHz processor. - result 250. Best I don't use it for transcoding video files.
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Ahh I love a bit of willy waving - 1484 here, but won't be the fastest one Z comes along.
Seems pretty high up compared to other machines with same CPU and Graphics. Unsurprisingly the SSD disk is much much quicker on random R/W which probably helps it outrank other similar systems.
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Spam-- 61
I don't use games so I am unsure what graphics to expect.
Here are a few of the 2D results, in case they may be of interest:
2D Graphics Mark Result -- 522.9(N/A) -- composite average apparently
Graphics 2D -- Complex vectors 103.9(N/A)
Graphics 2D -- Windows interface 159.8(N/A)
Graphics 2D -- image filters 303.6(N/A)
Graphics 2D -- image rendering 213.2(N/A)
(N/A) ???? Something average?
The PC is running XP Pro --- 64 bit. I think the previous 32 bit reference
was probably to the test software as it is available either as 32 or 64 bit.
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Sigh
I was trying to avoid this willy waving exercise.
Ok I'll bite,
Intel pentium I5 270 (thats 4 core 2.67ghz) on Ausus P7P55 board, NvIdea GTS 8800
(Home built for 350 quid)
1220.
The bottle neck here is the Video card, its getting past its best.
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>> Intel pentium I5 270 (thats 4 core 2.67ghz) on Ausus P7P55 board, NvIdea GTS 8800
>> (Home built for 350 quid)
>>
>> 1220.
>>
I can probably match that if I add the scores for all the household PCs together...
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>> I was trying to avoid this willy waving exercise.
>>
>> Intel pentium I5 270
720?
>> (thats 4 core 2.67ghz) on Ausus P7P55 board, NvIdea GTS 8800
>> (Home built for 350 quid)
I don't doubt your willy is bigger than mine, but I would hope that at least mine was cheaper. Does that £350 just apply to the parts listed above? Otherwise I can't work out why your system, with a CPU costing approx £100 more than the one in my budget build, was only £30 dearer.
Currently waiting for teenage son to go to bed so I can get on the PC and wave my own willy. Unless it's very small.
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Be careful on those sites Focus... LOL
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Yeah, Sorry I meant 720
As for cost, buying PC bits is like buying commodities or shares. You buy them at the bottom of any price market.
Helps to have trade contacts as well.
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>> As for cost, buying PC bits is like buying commodities or shares. You buy them
>> at the bottom of any price market.
>>
>> Helps to have trade contacts as well.
Fair enough - don't have any of those, or the option of buying whenever the price is low, and of course as soon as I bought my bits just after Christmas a few of them did get cheaper. Still, just to clarify my £320 includes everything eg. keyboard/mouse, DVD, but not speakers/monitor. And you may remember I replaced the original new graphics card that was faulty with a slightly better used one from ebay for about the same price.
And my willy size is: 1185. Worth a moderate wave :)
EDIT: that's based on an Athlon X3 445 (3 core) + ATi 5770 graphics
Last edited by: Focus on Wed 19 Jan 11 at 22:33
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>> I've just run the benchmark on my netbook, an Acer Aspire One with a mighty
>> V12 supercharged Intel Atom single core 1.6 GHz processor. - result 250. Best I don't
>> use it for transcoding video files.
>>
For reference spamcan my packard bell (Acer) netbook did 277 with Intel Atom N550 1.5GHz.
I reckon Rattle could make a fortune fixing some of the PC's on here. My 2.5 year old HP PC managed 1290 hobbling along with Vista SP2.
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>> I reckon Rattle could make a fortune fixing some of the PC's on here
Maybe he should be giving a chance to help those near him to check out the PCs. My immediate neighbour is living with a problem that might be deeply hidden virus/trojan related - okay I will have to say it... rootkit :-) I've done a scan with an independent AV type scanner, checked registry and their existing AV is up to date and doing scans.
I don't want to get too involved because it could take a long time to fix/scan with the right programs. I'm not after money and I'll help for free (sorry Rattle) but I'll not spend too much time.
I'll check with them and maybe suggest someone like Rattle.
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PC running slow, any ideas please? - Focusless
