Bottleneck in system ?

SPeedY_B

I may actually be insane.
Joined
31 Mar 2002
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I recently built a cheap and cheerful Windows machine, it is used mainly for internet/e-mail/word proc, etc, and isn't going to be used for heavy/new games. The spec is as follows:

AMD Sempron 3100+ (64bit Palmero core)
1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz 184pin Ram
Asus Vintage-AE1 Socket 754 (VGA/Sound/LAN)
Microsoft Wireless keyboard/mouse combo.
Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 80GB 7200RPM SATA/150 8MB Cache
Hightech ATI Radeon 9250 128MB 64bit AGP TVO DVI
Dell 2405FPW


Running XPSP2 with all the latest updates/patches and general gubbins applied.

Thing that I've found to be a little less sharp than I'd expect are...

The system seems to be awfully slow to boot-up.

The mouse stutters when the CPU spikes, for example when loading a part of Office (2007 beta) or opening Firefox for the first time. It's as if the machine can't keep up, and just hangs then catches up very quickly.

Applications aren't quite as snappy as they should be, I've used slower machines that have felt faster. I'm not using any themes (Classic ftw!) or background apps, etc that would slow things down.

Sound also skips and jumps when hitting the CPU, but I suspect that falls on the on-board sound being of poor quality, and Windows' obsession with bad IRQ assignment.



Any ideas on how to step things up?
 
you may find getting a cheap vga card will solve your problems as right now the cpu is running the calculations for the onboard v/card, correct me if i'm wrong but i think that is the case.

if you have a spare one or one in another machine you can use to test with just put it in and see if it makes a difference
 
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He has the ATI card , not sure what the lag is about , Maybe look into chipset drivers I see its a SIS chipset , maybe something with the chipset drivers , could also be the ATI drivers , I have found some drivers really cause some setups grief
 
shamus where did he say he has an ati card, per his message he is using an onboard v/card
 
Hightech ATI Radeon 9250 128MB 64bit AGP TVO DVI
;)

I wouldn't want to run the Dell 2405FPW off an on-board graphics chip. :)

To my knowledge, all drivers are up to date at their latest releases, however I will give everything a check over tomorrow sometime.
 
oh yeah totally missed that duh!!! :)
 
I have a feeling that the WGA program is affecting the boot time of Windows XP. Users are forced to install the newer version of Windows Installer 3.1 to get access to Windows Updates, but in doing so, MS installs WGA at the same time and this WGA program cannot be uninstalled.

I've reinstalled Windows 3 times in the last 2 weeks, and on the previous two occassions, I've noticed the boot time taking more than 3 minutes ONLY after getting all the latest updates from MS (which includes the WGA prog.)
 
What are your RAM timings? Are you opposed to overclocking?
Not entirely sure, I seem to remember them being reported at 200mhz (though the sticks are 400mhz) ... will have to look into that more though.

I'm not against overclocking, however I'm not going to overclock the system, it doesn't/shouldn't need it.

I have a feeling that the WGA program is affecting the boot time of Windows XP. Users are forced to install the newer version of Windows Installer 3.1 to get access to Windows Updates, but in doing so, MS installs WGA at the same time and this WGA program cannot be uninstalled.

I've reinstalled Windows 3 times in the last 2 weeks, and on the previous two occassions, I've noticed the boot time taking more than 3 minutes ONLY after getting all the latest updates from MS (which includes the WGA prog.)
Interesting. I don't suppose there is any way around this either, except lesser legitimate methods? (Which shall not be discussed here).
 
Not entirely sure, I seem to remember them being reported at 200mhz (though the sticks are 400mhz) ... will have to look into that more though.

I'm not against overclocking, however I'm not going to overclock the system, it doesn't/shouldn't need it.


Interesting. I don't suppose there is any way around this either, except lesser legitimate methods? (Which shall not be discussed here).

You should download CPU-Z and it should tell you about your RAM.
 
Interesting. I don't suppose there is any way around this either, except lesser legitimate methods? (Which shall not be discussed here).

um, well even illegitimate methods will have the same result I'm guessing. The only alternative is NOT to use Windows Update, and not to get any Automatic Updates.
 
uhm. Turn it off and just download the updates though custom? I've done this, Stupid update warning kept screaming at me for a fix in office, I've just turned it off and manuyally updated.


Speedy apply the tweak to manually unload unsused dll.s. What does your paging file look like?
 
looks like u built a pretty good system, not sure why you have problems. i doubt its the windows updates. i love them. kb892130 just checks to see if your windows is genuine when you goto the update site. i always set my system to notify but dont d/l updates. i know when the updates are coming and always try to be the in the first group to get them...lol. my system is pretty fast. could it be a 64bit compatibility issue? ive got themes everywhere w/ several startup programs and even windows defender running in the background.

my system:
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
1.5GB DDR PC3200 RAM
i d/l wdm sound driver from net because the sound driver that came w/ motherbd sux. when i installed on anything w/ "digital" in front...the sound would make crazy noises at random times.
WD 80GB SATA HDD
ATI Radeon x700 pro 256mb AGP DVI
2007FP Dell(coming tommorrow)
 
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Just for grins try using a wired mouse and keyboard, preferably PS2 connections, not USB. That might clear up the mouse.

You have a 754 CPU which means your ram speed is half of a 939 or P4 system. That is hurting you badly. You are FSB at 333 or 400 limited with that CPU so don't expect too much. Slow P4's are 533 and fast P4's and 939 are 800 mhz equivalent FSB.

After installing SP2 you need to thoroughly defrag your system. Mine took a couple of defrags to clean up the mess SP2 install left.

Turn off all the crap special effects windows defaults to ON (shadows, show while drag etc.). They will slow down even a low end AGP card.

The slow boot time can be because windows preloads everything you ever used. There is a thread around here somewhere about how to disable and clean out the pre-load qeue.

Get regcleaner or an equivalent and check what is getting loaded (really loaded not just pre-loaded) at startup and shed unnecessary stuff.

Run CPUz to make sure your memory clock and timings are reasonable (400mhz, 2.5 3 3 7) and that all your memory is being recognized.

The mouse should not stutter during a load and music playback should not break up. They are not issues with CPU speed. The music indicates you may have a memory usage problem. Too much crap in memory and spooling to the pagefile too much.

I get mouse hang up all the time when loading BF2. HD and memory capacity are max'd out and the applicaiton is too stupid to share resources. That should not happen when loading office applications. I have no advice here (other than wired PS2 kybd and mouse), more ram might help but 1 gig should be plenty.

Something has definitely been slowing down my system too. The windows sludgeware theory above sounds good to me. I did all of the above and even went for a SATA 150 drive recently trying to speed things up and it did not help as much as I expected. And I'm on a 939 XP2800 w/ x800xl. Toying with an upgrade to 2 gig.
 
The 754s are not limited to 400mhz FSB. They still have the onboard memory controller which allows them 800mhz x2 which is 1600mhz because of hyper transport. Have you tried running XPAntispy? It deactivates a lot of the extra stuff of windows that you don't need.
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Also, have you installed the mouse drivers? So you aren't relying on the Windows default drivers?

Remember, you are running a Semron. It's not the fastest in the world.

Oh, and is it a clean install of windows? Or was this an upgrade of parts to an existing windows on the HD? Check to see what's using up your CPU cycles normally.
 
this is the first amd cpu i bought and i was definetely scared by that 256L2 cache size on some of them. i got a 512L2 cache. in 5 or so yrs, ill get like a 6MB cache and 64bit cpu which is when they should be more common.
 
Ok...
  1. Windows update is enabled because it's not my computer, it's going to be a lot easier to leave the automatic updates on to ensure they get installed.
  2. Paging isn't getting hit too hard, as I said, there's a gig of ram sat in here and it's not being used for heavy tasks.
  3. I've since installed a seperate PCI sound card, and sound via that still hops, skips and jumps when hitting the CPU (or ram?)
  4. I don't have a spare PS2 mouse/keyb floating about, however I can try and obtain one.
  5. The ram is running at 200mhz, even though it should be at 400?
  6. All special crap is turned off, as I stated, I don't use themes, or anything animated, shadowed, etc. The only nicety I have enabled is cleartype.
  7. Everything has it's own drivers installed, nothing is relying on Microsoft/Windows default.
  8. It's a clean install from a Genuine XPSP2 (home ed.) CD.
some screen grabs containing relevant information...

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1793627422543829293_rs.jpg
 
That 200mhz in BIOS = 400MHZ no problems with the speed of RAM here ...
 
Tell me, what is the temperature of your processor? Idle and Load situations. Your voltage looks high. I honestly don't know what sort of voltage the Semprons run at because I've never seen on. I run an Opteron (Toledo core) and it's around 1.344 - 1.360v
 

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