# Computer question, machining forum related



## precisionworks (Dec 17, 2009)

I've had a pretty fast (3 MB download) DSL for years, but it still took forever to load the threads with lots of photos. My computer friend, Mr. Geek (not his real name but you get the idea) said that the ancient Pentium processor was causing the slow page loads, and suggested that he build up a new box using an AMD Phenom 9750 Quad Core processor with 4 gigs of DDR2 RAM. Got it today. Pages load in a heartbeat :twothumbs

Not really understanding all this techno stuff, was the Pentium (with 2 gigs of RAM) that bad?


----------



## Th232 (Dec 17, 2009)

I wouldn't call it bad, but definitely dated compared to today's technology.


----------



## richardh (Dec 17, 2009)

All that information that comes through your DSL, screen refresh, etc. has to be processed by the computer. So a faster computer will "show" you the information faster.


----------



## gadget_lover (Dec 17, 2009)

You did not say which Pentium processor that was, but it was rather current if you could run 2G of ram. Of course, there are slow processors in every version, and some systems are set up better than others. Memory and expansion cards can really degrade a system if not configured correctly and with the right drivers.

In so many cases, surfing the web means that you are downloading a lot of pictures (large files) from sites that may be heavily loaded. That makes it almost impossible to say that the new processor (by itself) was the cure. It's equally possible that the fresh OS install and configuration is optimized properly. 

But a nice fast quad core sure would not hurt. 

A modern computer with anti-virus, email and several other things running at the same time can run into contention for processor time. A dual (or quad, in your case) processor can better handle the demands of multiple programs and drivers.

PS: The 1.8 Ghz machine at work running Win XP is just as usable as my 8 year old 1 Ghz Athlon system running Linux. It's amazing how good hardware can make up for the software.


----------



## Torque1st (Dec 17, 2009)

gadget_lover said:


> PS: The 1.8 Ghz machine at work running Win XP is just as usable as my 8 year old 1 Ghz Athlon system running Linux. It's amazing how good hardware can make up for the software.


-Yup, Windoze is bloated and it takes serious hardware thrown at it to make it work acceptably. Some people are complaining about Linux bloat nowadays. It does look like code bloat is being addressed at MS now that Gates is gone.

I use a dual core 64bit AMD 5050e running at 2.6GHz with 2GB of RAM with W-XP-Pro sp3 on a 5Mbps/5Mbps synchronous broadband connection. For the most part it just loafs along tho. 

Anyone remember the old days of Compuserve and 300Baud modems being fast??? We thought we were in heaven with a 1200Baud modem and an 8286!


----------



## gadget_lover (Dec 18, 2009)

Linux has a lot of bloat, but mostly in the application area. You can still run nicely on a 200 Mhz pentium 1


My desktop is also a 64 bit dual core Athlon X2 (the 6400 + BE) running linux. I have it throttled down to 1Ghz per core until it's needed. When doing intensive computing (generally graphics) It goes to 3.2 ghz on both cores. Like he said... It just loafs most of the time. After all, it runs around 6,000 MIPS. A mini-mainframe of the 1980s' ( DEC 11/780) was 1 MIP and was used to manage entire businesses. 

Daniel


----------



## wquiles (Dec 18, 2009)

precisionworks said:


> ...but it still took forever to load the threads with lots of photos...


Makes you wonder who in this forum would be so inconsiderate to have post with lots of photos that would force folks to update their computers


----------



## balou (Dec 18, 2009)

I'd guess it was mostly the Windows installation that slowed everything down. Viruses, Spyware, or just to many programs running in the background.

What kind of Pentium was it, and what speed? Couldn't possibly be a Pentium 1 if you had 2GB of RAM.


----------



## jtr1962 (Dec 18, 2009)

It takes quite a bit of processing power to render web pages. I noticed a big difference when I went from a 1.3 GHz PIII to a 3.0 GHz XP3200 three years ago ( still a dated processor by today's standards but plenty fast for web surfing ). Today's web pages have more and more "bloat". This includes all sorts of scripts, .jpg's which need to be decompressed, embedded video, banner ads, you name it. Back in the days when the web was mostly text, a 56K connection and even a fast 486 could handle things just fine.

The funny thing about computers is processors get ever more powerful, the amount of RAM machines have increases by a factor of ~100 every decade, and yet doing everyday tasks like web surfing never seems to get any faster. I'm looking around as I type this, and I see a rendering of the entire thread underneath, as well as a bunch of animated icons. That's where all the processing power is going. Well, at least we're keeping up with web and software bloat so far. I guess that's good news. I long for the day though when things will happen as fast as I give inputs.


----------



## Th232 (Dec 18, 2009)

Lol JTR, was just looking at this the other day:


----------



## Tekno_Cowboy (Dec 18, 2009)

gadget_lover said:


> Linux has a lot of bloat, but mostly in the application area. You can still run nicely on a 200 Mhz pentium 1
> 
> 
> My desktop is also a 64 bit dual core Athlon X2 (the 6400 + BE) running linux. I have it throttled down to 1Ghz per core until it's needed. When doing intensive computing (generally graphics) It goes to 3.2 ghz on both cores. Like he said... It just loafs most of the time. After all, it runs around 6,000 MIPS. A mini-mainframe of the 1980s' ( DEC 11/780) was 1 MIP and was used to manage entire businesses.
> ...



Yep, some of the newer Linux apps are a bit bloated, but that also seems to be part of what's helping to bring it into the mainstream. The main distros have gotten user-friendly and flashy enough that I would recommend them for anyone who's not using their computer for gaming.

If you're a real performance junkie, you can change a few settings, and run lighter-weight programs, and you're still sitting pretty. :thumbsup:

I run Fedora 11 and 12 with KDE 4.3, and I have yet to have a slowdown with my dual-core pentium chip. It usually runs at 800MHz, and my ram usage rarely goes above 650MB.

Out of curiosity, which distro do you use?



wquiles said:


> Makes you wonder who in this forum would be so inconsiderate to have post with lots of photos that would force folks to update their computers


Hmmm.... I wonder who it could be 

In response to the OT, I doubt that the main problem was your processor, and even if it was, you wouldn't have needed a Phenom to get better performance. 

That said, you're probably set for 3-10 years before you need another upgrade. :thumbsup:


----------



## StrikerDown (Dec 18, 2009)

precisionworks said:


> Not really understanding all this techno stuff, was the Pentium (with 2 gigs of RAM) that bad?



When you get that many miles on it, it starts getting blow by, needs a valve job, the clutch slips and the tranny won't go into 2nd or reverse! 
A complete frame off restoration with sanding the hard drive down to clean bare metal and repaint it with the original software and it will be as fast as new! (still slow by today's standard)

It seams like every update that gets put in adds to the overhead and after 4-5 years they start to crawl.

On the other hand, right now I am using a 8-9 year old Mac that has all the updates that that can stuff into OS 10.4.11 and it screams compared to my 4 year old pc laptop! It does slow a little when I get to one of WillQ's posts though!:nana:

Edit: 

I guess the bright side is that back in the 80's the software was out runnig the hardware much faster and after a year the computer was a dog!


----------



## precisionworks (Dec 18, 2009)

Wow, way more responses than I expected from a bunch of metal munchers 



> Makes you wonder who in this forum would be so inconsiderate to have post with lots of photos


I refer to my new box as WILL, because you were one of the prime motivators to purchase the new hardware. All those images, even though none were bigger than 50k, took forever on the 2004 vintage equipment.



> What kind of Pentium was it, and what speed?


I believe it was a P4, with 3.0 GHz clock speed. Came with 512k or RAM, which I bumped to 2 gigs of RAM before Photoshop Elements 7 came out. PSE7 would use about 1GB of memory, the system needed about 500k, leaving only 500k in reserve. Redraws in PSE7 were glacial :naughty:

While on this subject, any place to buy inexpensive RAM for the new board, an ASUSTek M4N78 PRO? I'd pick up another 4 or 8 if some could be found at a decent price.


----------



## precisionworks (Dec 18, 2009)

The RAM specs are DDR2-800 (PC2-6400), but I imagine you already knew that :laughing:


----------



## KowShak (Dec 18, 2009)

precisionworks said:


> While on this subject, any place to buy inexpensive RAM for the new board, an ASUSTek M4N78 PRO? I'd pick up another 4 or 8 if some could be found at a decent price.


 
Something to bear in mind is that if you're running a 32 bit version of Windows, (i.e. not a 64bit version) it will only be able to use the first 4Gb of RAM you put in the computer.


----------



## PEU (Dec 18, 2009)

perfetly happy with the same download speed and my AMD Athlon II X2 240 w/2gb RAM and win7, so I guess you are happy too with 2 extra cores 

Will should call one of his pricey tool holders Barry to call it even :nana:

Pablo


----------



## Tekno_Cowboy (Dec 18, 2009)

StrikerDown said:


> ...
> A complete frame off restoration with sanding the hard drive down to clean bare metal and repaint it with the original software and it will be as fast as new! (still slow by today's standard)
> 
> It seams like every update that gets put in adds to the overhead and after 4-5 years they start to crawl.



Very true with Windows, but with Linux/Mac/BSD, it's not so much the case, as updates are handled a bit better IMHO.



precisionworks said:


> Wow, way more responses than I expected from a bunch of metal munchers
> 
> I refer to my new box as WILL, because you were one of the prime motivators to purchase the new hardware. All those images, even though none were bigger than 50k, took forever on the 2004 vintage equipment.
> 
> ...





precisionworks said:


> The RAM specs are DDR2-800 (PC2-6400), but I imagine you already knew that :laughing:



The best prices and service I have found have been from Newegg.com. I highly recommend G.Skill and Corsair RAM. I've been running the same 2 sticks of G.Skill in my server for 5 years, without so much as a hiccup. I've done several builds and upgrades with both brands, and have yet to have a problem with either. Newegg service is some of the best I've seen, and I will recommend them to anyone looking for computer parts.



KowShak said:


> Something to bear in mind is that if you're running a 32 bit version of Windows, (i.e. not a 64bit version) it will only be able to use the first 4Gb of RAM you put in the computer.



Yep, it's even worse than that. You can only actually use about 3.5GB of that. Unless you're doing serious graphics/video or lots of gaming, more that 3-4GB isn't really needed though.


----------



## balou (Dec 18, 2009)

jtr1962 said:


> The funny thing about computers is processors get ever more powerful, the amount of RAM machines have increases by a factor of ~100 every decade, and yet doing everyday tasks like web surfing never seems to get any faster. I'm looking around as I type this, and I see a rendering of the entire thread underneath, as well as a bunch of animated icons. That's where all the processing power is going. Well, at least we're keeping up with web and software bloat so far. I guess that's good news. I long for the day though when things will happen as fast as I give inputs.


The slow loading times are most likely due to your connection speed, not your PC speed. And yes, most components in the Computer have increased their speed/size by a factor of 100-10'000, but, staying on the topic of RAM: the sad thing is, _RAM has only been sped up by a factor of roughly 10 the last 20 years_. Contrast that with a 33mhz 486 and a 3.2Ghz Quadcore (the actual speed up is probably by 1'000-2'000 and not by 100 as the clock cycles would suggest, due to better architecture, SIMD instructions and of course 4 cores)
But I think I'm steering off topic...
I think computers do get faster, the problem is, you get used to them being faster...
The loading times of my 100mhz Pentium 1 were quite high, and multitasking was more of a theoretical possibility....
And the speed of web surfing, 1995 vs. 2009... a world of difference.



Tekno_Cowboy said:


> Yep, some of the newer Linux apps are a bit bloated, but that also seems to be part of what's helping to bring it into the mainstream. The main distros have gotten user-friendly and flashy enough that I would recommend them for anyone who's not using their computer for gaming.
> 
> If you're a real performance junkie, you can change a few settings, and run lighter-weight programs, and you're still sitting pretty. :thumbsup:


I'm running a stripped-down Debian distro with wmii, urxvtdc, zsh, and Vimperator as browser. Runs really fast 


> In response to the OT, I doubt that the main problem was your processor, and even if it was, you wouldn't have needed a Phenom to get better performance.
> 
> That said, you're probably set for 3-10 years before you need another upgrade. :thumbsup:


Yeah... try a complete reinstall on your 'old' box.



precisionworks said:


> I refer to my new box as WILL, because you were one of the prime motivators to purchase the new hardware. All those images, even though none were bigger than 50k, took forever on the 2004 vintage equipment.
> 
> I believe it was a P4, with 3.0 GHz clock speed. Came with 512k or RAM, which I bumped to 2 gigs of RAM before Photoshop Elements 7 came out. PSE7 would use about 1GB of memory, the system needed about 500k, leaving only 500k in reserve. Redraws in PSE7 were glacial :naughty:
> 
> While on this subject, any place to buy inexpensive RAM for the new board, an ASUSTek M4N78 PRO? I'd pick up another 4 or 8 if some could be found at a decent price.





precisionworks said:


> The RAM specs are DDR2-800 (PC2-6400), but I imagine you already knew that :laughing:


 One question is: do you even _need_ 4GB of RAM? If you're not sure you absolutely need it, then usually you don't. Photoshop would be one good reason if you work with big pictures, many layers and need a big undo buffer.
And if you need it: as I'm in europe, I don't know any US retailers. Just a general tip: It might be best if you took those existing two GB out, and buy two matched 2GB DIMMs (you can probably get faster than DDR2-800 ones for a decent price today). And don't buy noname brands, I'd stick with Kingston ValueRAM or Corsair RAM.



KowShak said:


> Something to bear in mind is that if you're running a 32 bit version of Windows, (i.e. not a 64bit version) it will only be able to use the first 4Gb of RAM you put in the computer.


And a P4 does not support 64 bit. Actually, it's even less than 4GB - e.g. the RAM of your graphics card lies in the same 32-bit address space, so you have to subtract the RAM of your graphics card from the 4GB/32bit address space. It's not uncommon to end up with only 3.2GB usable maximum RAM. And I have to admit, I don't know Windows all to well, but wasn't there also a 2GB limit per application (or was it 3GB)? The operating system itself needs space too - under Linux at least you can switch between a 2/2GB or 3/1GB user/kernelspace separation in the virtual memory (yes, now it gets quite complicated. For sake of staying on topic, I won't delve further into this issue. Search Wikipedia for 'virtual memory' for more info)


----------



## precisionworks (Dec 18, 2009)

> if you're running a 32 bit version of Windows


Windows 7, 64 bit 



> do you even _need_ 4GB of RAM? If you're not sure you absolutely need it, then usually you don't. Photoshop would be one good reason if you work with big pictures, many layers and need a big undo buffer.


+1

Add to that any 3D CAD program, like AutoCAD or SolidWorks, and the same thing happens - multiple layers in either Photoshop or 3D CAD are memory eaters. When I was running 2GB, the message would often pop up in Photoshop "insufficient memory" ... haven't had that happen yet with 4GB 



> The best prices and service I have found have been from Newegg.com


+1

I just bought a 16GB, Class 6, micro SDHC card for my phone. Over $100 many places, but $45 & free shipping at Newegg.


----------



## Torque1st (Dec 18, 2009)

+2 on NewEgg.com. I have purchased all my parts there for many years. Sometimes I could do a little better on some component elsewhere but then I had to juggle multiple orders and vendors that took extra time and ended up costing just as much or even more. As stated before NewEgg service is the best so I standardized on them a long time ago. I still check prices just to keep them honest but I have had no reason to change.


----------



## Tekno_Cowboy (Dec 19, 2009)

balou said:


> I'd stick with Kingston ValueRAM or Corsair RAM.




Ewww... Kingston RAM?

While it might be generally stable, I've never had good luck with Kingston products.


----------



## darkzero (Dec 19, 2009)

Tekno_Cowboy said:


> Ewww... Kingston RAM?
> 
> While it might be generally stable, I've never had good luck with Kingston products.


 
Agreed. While Kingston may be ok for low budget desktop RAM (I still would not recommend them), I highly recommend staying away from them for notebook ram, _especially_ the ones with BGA modules which pretty much all are these days. We have better luck with "no name" brands than Kingston.


----------



## gadget_lover (Dec 19, 2009)

Tekno_Cowboy said:


> [ snip of a comment about my comment ]
> 
> Out of curiosity, which distro do you use?



I'm a long time Unix admin, so the various Linux flavors have never meant much to me. I generally don't need (nor want) GUIs for every aspect of the system. 

I've used Slakware since 1993, but I switched over to running Fedora because so many employers wanted Redhat experience. 

Daniel


----------

