P4 1.7GHz seems sluggish

[GL]

A guy I work for bought a Dell 1.7GHz with 256MB RAM (2 sticks of RDRAM). He wanted a Dell, and I ensured the parts were as good as he could get. But it seems more sluggish than my P3 960 on a Via board. Another family friend bought a Dell P4 and says he thinks it's slow. I'm not trying to start a flame war but what could cause this sluggishness? All computers mentioned use win2k.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

20 stage pipeline, rdram latency. It's probably just a weird feeling youare geting with the diferent architecutre.

 

[ragiepew]

did he opt for a good vid card also? What kind of sluggishness are you talking about, in windows (thats real hard to detect once you get that kind of performance) or in games/applications?

 

[ragiepew]

<< 20 stage pipeline, rdram latency. It's probably just a weird feeling youare geting with the diferent architecutre. >>

dont think that'd cause a &quot;noticable&quot; difference in a system of that caliber... a 1.7 should most definetly (sp?) be faster than a p3 @ 960...

 

[Wingznut]

Yeah, you'll have to describe the sluggishness a bit more. I've had people describe &quot;low performance&quot; to me before and it turns out to be the dial-up connection.

 

[ragiepew]

wingz, i know the pain... did a form of tech support in the past and we always get those types of people...

 

[Dually]

Did he get a good hard drive. Run a benchmark like sissoft sandra on them. Dell usually sends slow hard drives and that would explain it.

 

[GL]

I got him a Radeon 32MB DDR (I have an AIW Radeon) and he has a SBLive like myself. It just generally doesn't feel as snappy as my own system. I've got a 5Mbps cable connection, he has a 1.2Mbps DSL connection with better latency. I was wondering if the RDRAM being in two sticks and having higher latency might be contributing to this.

 

[GL]

I got him a 7200rpm hard drive and I know that it is slower than my Quantum LM in seeks for sure. But I'm talking about just general Windows useage when the hard disk isn't even being accessed heavily (i.e. clicking around menus, opening up recently opened programs, etc).

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Most people I know describe low fps as lag

 

[Helznicht]

Have you tweaked windows to zero delay in opening menus (on your PC). My old pc (celery 450) felt snappier than my PC at work (p3 450) because of it.

 

[ragiepew]

GL, make sure he's up to date on drivers, especially for the Radeon. Now, since you stated the net connection speeds, you'd expect a lower time w/ a 5mbit connection v. a 1.2mbit. But since you stated the general windows performance is a bit &quot;slower&quot; that shouldnt have anything to do w/ it. Not sure about rdram too much (as I've never used it) but run through the bios (if dell even lets you get in ) and look for some interleaving options since you do have 2 sticks (again not sure if this is even an option on 850 based boards, especially one that Dell uses).

While in the bios, check other settings as well... just look for stuff that you think may be hindering performance. Run &quot;Windows Update&quot; and get the newest software patches and like said above, get newest drivers for hardware. Run some benches and compare it to your system to get a better idea on where the performance hit is comming from... may help you better evaluate the situation.

 

[Wingznut]

As anyone who owns a P4 can attest to, the RDRAM does not &quot;feel&quot; any different than SDRAM... UNLESS....

Do you know if he has PC600 or PC800 RDRAM?

 

[ragiepew]

god i hope its pc800....

 

[Animefreak]

Did u reinstall windows to get rid of all the Dell bloatware?

 

[Wingznut]

That's another thing to look at... Whatever programs are running in the background can affect performance. Especially crappy anti-virus programs like McAffee.

 

[Electric Amish]

It's because it's a Dell.

Dell's just seem slow for some reason. I would rather use my old AMD700 at home rather than my 1ghz Dell at work because my home system felt faster.

I don't know what it is, but I get that all the time from people here at work that are actually familiar with computers.

amish

 

[bjc112]

yea, dell does seem to have some type of &quot;slug&quot; affect on comps, too bad he didnt get a custom !!!

well hope it works out,...

get the Msconfig for him for 2k... that way you can easily get rid of start up proggys...

 

[dullard]

<< I got him a Radeon 32MB DDR (I have an AIW Radeon) and he has a SBLive like myself. It just generally doesn't feel as snappy as my own system. I've got a 5Mbps cable connection, he has a 1.2Mbps DSL connection with better latency. I was wondering if the RDRAM being in two sticks and having higher latency might be contributing to this. I got him a 7200rpm hard drive and I know that it is slower than my Quantum LM in seeks for sure. But I'm talking about just general Windows useage when the hard disk isn't even being accessed heavily (i.e. clicking around menus, opening up recently opened programs, etc). >>



That sounds very much like a Windows issue, and not a hardware issue.

As you said, it lagged even without much HD use, so that rules out the HD.

For the RAM latency: No one can tell the difference of a millisecond or two when clicking on a menu or something like that. That is like saying, &quot;my drive to work was so slow today - It took an extra 10 milliseconds.&quot; Don't get me wrong, memory latency could be the bottleneck in some applications, just not for clicking around menus or opening programs.

I have a P3 600 MHz that was really sluggish for a while. I'd click on a menu and it would wait 2 seconds to do anything (sound familiar?). It was a Windows issue, and a reinstall ended that problem.

 

[Maverick]

too bad its a dell and reinstalling windows involves using their restore disk which is full of system slowing bloated software.

 

[erub]

heh, a Dell 1 GHz I bought for somebody that I helped set up felt noticeablely slower than my P3 750@930 on a VIA Apollo 133A board. It was just taking longer to open word and other applications, etc. The person who was using it probably wouldn't notice it, but it was definitely slower (both running win2k).

 

[ragiepew]

<< get the Msconfig for him for 2k... that way you can easily get rid of start up proggys... >>

where exactly can you get this? Its not on ResKit for 2k, at least I didnt see it...

 

[Sugadaddy]

the msconfig is from XP, do a search there's a thread with a link to download it...

 

[NOX]

As anyone who owns a P4 can attest to, the RDRAM does not &quot;feel&quot; any different than SDRAM...

Speaking as a P4 owner, I can attest to that. In fact I do tell my friends that my P4 system does opens up programs quicker then my Athlon system does (more so if it?s the second time opening that particular program).

It really sounds like your (their) issue is Dell, and nothing to do with hardware/software. It could in fact be the way Dell configures their P4 systems. We had a bunch of them where I used to work, and from what I could tell (which was pretty obvious sometimes) was that they weren?t as perky as my custom P4 system at the home/office.

Man, don?t you just love building your own custom PC?

Just be glad you are not in their shoes.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Companies today (except Compaq) pack as much crap as possible into the startup menus and run so many programs in the background that you wouldn't even know about. The only way to fairly test it is to do a complete format and do a fresh install. Then i guarantee you that his 1.7ghz will smoke yours.