NegatiZE

Damn, I really need to get a new computer. Here's what I have:

Compaq POS Presario
PII450, swapped out for a PIII550
256MB PC100 SDRAM
7200RPM 60GB Maxtor HD
5400RPM 12GB Seagate HD
Diamond Viper V770 Ultra Graphics Card (in other words... nVidia TNT2 Ultra)
17" monitor
TDK 12/10/32 CD-RW
Compaq POS DVD-ROM drive

JasonH

I tend to think something's wrong with your setup. Here's my score. Even though my CPU is faster, I should not be beating you like I am with an 8500 and less RAM. You might have to look at tweaking tips on the Madonion boards or something. If you had Windows 2000 I might be able to help you, but I'm not as familiar with XP.

pr5owner

WTF yeah i think somethign is wrong LOL yours is like double my score

Bruce95fmla

I recently built a new computer for approx. 400 or so bux ,,,
includes
atx case with power supply
50x acer cd drive(already had)
phillips cdrw burner(already had)
floppy drive
asus mother board , with all components on board ,, sound card and lan
amd athlon xp 1.8 ghz chip , with fan
western digital hard drive 40 gig @7400 rpm
western digital hd 40 gig @7400 rpm (already had)
256 mb of memory DDR(going to update to 1 gig )
CA speakers ( already had)
15" monitor (already had )

I like the set up , she moves pretty quick and is very usefull ,, the hd's operate great and I love em ........
Bruce

Makaveli

Nerds!!!!

LOL, I need help, my computer's so freakin slow

I have a Celeron 900 or something, but anyways, the performance of my computer has been going down the drain. Is it because my hard disk is pretty full? What's wrong with my computer? Is it the stupid Windows XP?

fourty03

^^^^^^^^^^^ it can be a number of things.. depending on how many start up items you have in the background... harddrive could need some defragmented..... system recources remaing .. try getting rid of all your junk stuff (ie ... if u downloaded kazaa , it will install DW, SAVE, sometimes GATOR ..... and that stuff loads when the computer starts up.... )


Ever think putting a bodykit on that baby!??? hehe ..... j/k



Im running a old A$$ AMD k6 300 mhz desktop
with a 40 gig harddrive, CDRW at 20x 32 megs ram and a 2 meg vid card (bought the whole thingat a computer show for $125)

Then there is my laptop - p2 400 mhz w/64 meg ram w/ 9 gig drve and 40 x cd...... for $300 ... good deal?


Earl

Makaveli

okay, so how would I get rid of this stuff? I always have popups out of nowhere, and stupid Gator thing starts acting up as well. I'm using iMesh (great program btw)....


thanks for your time

Bojan

Sir Nuke

when was the last time you defragged your hard drive? THAT could do it too.

cjb200

How much memory does your system have? Windows XP tends to run really slow down with anything less than 128MB.

Also, a nearly full hard drive will slow things down. Go through and get rid of anything you don't need, if you can.

You should also download this program and run it. It will get rid of any spyware on your computer that can slow things down (this will also reduce your pop-ups).

To see what programs are running in the background, go to your Start menu, Programs, and Startup. This will show you all the programs that are started when you turn your program on. Anything you don't want running, right click and select delete.

Hope some of this helps.

pr5owner

you can also kill some of those useless services like.. "read audio player serial number when connected" audio player as in mp3 player..

EDIT: did a little tweaking and found 500 marks!

http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5006766

Makaveli

fourty, CJB, Nuke and pr5, thanks a lot

I did some defragmenting, deleted some stuff and downloaded that program and now my computer's almost Tip-Top

kc5zom

Stay away from Durons, get something that can handle an Athlon T-Bird or XP. That way you have a full 266 FSB and memory bus which will speed up things a LOT.

Defragging generally will improve performance but not by a whole lot. If you really want a GOOD defrag you need to download "Diskkeeper". It will defrag the entire drive, including system files (which Windows will skip). You will get a bigger kick from that.

Increase the size of your paging file to 1GB minimum and maximum. I recommend putting this on a drive other than your OS drive (and preferably on another IDE channel).

Reinstall Windows. Microsoft software tends to gunk itself up over time. A good repartitioning and reinstall does wonders. You might even keep a cleaner copy of a Windows O/S on your computer and dual boot so you can use that one for games.

The Orbs are pretty good heatsinks. If you installed it with the putty crap they come with (or at least the last one I saw came with) you kind of already nipped yourself in the ***. You might want to take it off and place some Arctic Silver 3 on it. That will drop the temperature significantly.

And again, check your BIOS settings. Some BIOS's default to weird unoptimized settings. Correcting those settings will give you a good performance boost.

And, as always, drivers drivers drivers!

Good choice with the Abit. They really make good motherboards. I have brought in samples from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, Tyan, etc and had problems with all of them. I have yet to have an ABIT motherboard actually fail on me (and I work with hundreds a year).

pr5owner

stay away from durons? what are you talking about man! my CPU was only 65 bux NEW in CAD!. i don't think my mobo will take an athlon XP anyways

my page is on another HD but i have 768mb ram and windows doesn't use the page much

and yes i have thermal grease, not arctic silver but another type. same temp i tested it with my friends computer (he has ACS)

the thing about the drivers and bios settings is true!! i gained 700 points with it!

http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5007886

kc5zom

Any Windows O/S past 95 is a terribly inefficient page file/memory user. Setting the page file to a high level prevents Windows from going back and trying to reorg it every few seconds.

Also, I looked up your motherboard on Abit's website and you have the old KT133 chipset. That and the SDRAM you are using are going to KILL your performance compared to someone with a Duron and DDR. Basically you have neutered a perfectly good processor by forcing it to fetch data from memory at one grab per clock cycle. AGP interfaces directly with your memory so the faster the memory is the better you will be doing.

So unless you just bought this you may want to consider upgrading your motherboard. You could probably find a KG7 motherboard pretty cheap although your best performance bet will be with a VIA chipset running either 266, 333, or 400. Make sure if you get a KT266 chipset you get the A revision, it handles memory exceptionally well. Then buy 256MB or more of DDR. You can get quite a bit for less than $100.