Strange Problem when PC upgraded

B

Bad Bubba

I built a new PC with the following specs:

Gigabyte Motherboard w/Intel Chipset
Intel P4 2.4GHz HT
2 gigabytes of RAM
120 GB IDE Boot Drive
200 GB IDE Data Drive
Windows XP Pro SP2

My old specs:

Gigabyte Motherboard w/VIA Chipset
Athlon XP 2700+
1 gigabyte of RAM
120 GB IDE Boot Drive
120 GB Data Drive
Windows 2000 Pro SP4

Here's the problem...

With the exception of video and audio encoding, my overall system
performance is down from my old system. A video that used to take 30
minutes to encode on my old system encodes in 20 minutes on my new
system. Other than that, the system is slower. It takes longer to
switch tasks. Programs take longer to load into memory. Even surfing
the net is slower.

Could Windows XP possibly be the culprit? I've turned off frills like
animated menus/windows and such.
 
G

Gareth Tuckwell

Looks like you are using the same boot drive, so hard disk performance
should be the same. You have way over 512MB RAM in both machines, so that
won't make any difference, so that leaves the chipset and CPU - you have
gone from a Athlon 2700 rated machine to a Intel 2400 rated machine - that
is probably why things are slower!!

You have also moved from Win2000 to XP, which may make things slightly
slower, but it shouldn't really be too noticable. If surfing the net is
slow, then there is something wrong with the PC - it takes very little power
to browse the web, so you should look into drivers etc - make sure you have
the latest everything. Maybe run a few benchmark programmes?
 
A

Apollo

Bad Bubba said:
(e-mail address removed)
says...

From what I read on Toms Hardware the two should be almost exactly the
same speed. An Athlon XP 2700+ is equivelant to an Intel 2.4GHz CPU.

They may average out at the same speed, but for everyday use your old
Athlon should be quite a bit faster than the Intel.

Video encoding will be quite a bit faster due to the SSE2 support in the
Intel chip, this is probably what brings the averages close. If you do
a LOT of video encoding / re-coding then stick with a P4 or go for 64
bit AMD. If you only do occasional video work then you've just
down-graded your system ;-)
 
D

Dave C.

Bad Bubba said:
I built a new PC with the following specs:

Gigabyte Motherboard w/Intel Chipset
Intel P4 2.4GHz HT
2 gigabytes of RAM
120 GB IDE Boot Drive
200 GB IDE Data Drive
Windows XP Pro SP2

My old specs:

Gigabyte Motherboard w/VIA Chipset
Athlon XP 2700+
1 gigabyte of RAM
120 GB IDE Boot Drive
120 GB Data Drive
Windows 2000 Pro SP4

Here's the problem...

With the exception of video and audio encoding, my overall system
performance is down from my old system. A video that used to take 30
minutes to encode on my old system encodes in 20 minutes on my new
system. Other than that, the system is slower. It takes longer to
switch tasks. Programs take longer to load into memory. Even surfing
the net is slower.

Could Windows XP possibly be the culprit? I've turned off frills like
animated menus/windows and such.

Not enough information. If that Intel chipset is not 865 or 875, then
you've probably done everything right, and you've actually BUILT a slower
system, which is acting exactly as it was designed to.

If that Intel chipset IS 865 or 875, then did you format the boot drive
after swapping the motherboard and before installing Windows XP???? (in
that exact chronological order)

If you've got an 865 or 875 Intel chipset board and Windows XP installed on
a freshly formatted drive, you've got a driver problem somewhere. Get the
latest drivers for your motherboard chipset. -Dave
 
D

Dave C.

Bad Bubba said:
From what I read on Toms Hardware the two should be almost exactly the
same speed. An Athlon XP 2700+ is equivelant to an Intel 2.4GHz CPU.

--Dave

That is dependent on the chipset, though. As I wrote before, WHICH intel
chipset? -Dave
 
G

Gareth Tuckwell

Bad Bubba said:
From what I read on Toms Hardware the two should be almost exactly the
same speed. An Athlon XP 2700+ is equivelant to an Intel 2.4GHz CPU.

Rather depends on what you are doing. Pure floating point work such as
multimedia processing will be better on the Intel, otherwise the athlon will
be much faster. You should give us more info about what the PC is for. I
would say normally that 2GB is overkill for a PC, unless you are doing
something that warrants it. Personally I have 2GB, but I load and manipulate
large photographs and the RAM is extremely useful. Otherwise, I hate to say
it, but you have not really upgraded anything (power wise)!
 
M

McQualude

gone from a Athlon 2700 rated machine to a Intel 2400 rated machine
From what I read on Toms Hardware the two should be almost exactly
the same speed. An Athlon XP 2700+ is equivelant to an Intel 2.4GHz
CPU.

If you knew that why build a new machine and why call it an upgrade?
Unless your old machine failed, you wasted your money. You don't have a
problem, you have a result.
 
B

Bad Bubba

ian_dunbar6@hot[un-munge- said:
Video encoding will be quite a bit faster due to the SSE2 support in the
Intel chip, this is probably what brings the averages close. If you do
a LOT of video encoding / re-coding then stick with a P4 or go for 64
bit AMD. If you only do occasional video work then you've just
down-graded your system ;-)

Half of what I do on my computer is video editing, so the boost in that
area is VERY MUCH appreciated.

My motherboard will support a faster chip, so I'll just start saving up
for a chip upgrade to a 3.0 or 3.2 GHz
 
B

Bad Bubba

That is dependent on the chipset, though. As I wrote before, WHICH intel
chipset? -Dave

I don't have the manual for the motherboard on me. It's a brand new
Gigabyte board, I'll have to look it up.

--Dave
 
B

Bad Bubba

If you knew that why build a new machine and why call it an upgrade?
Unless your old machine failed, you wasted your money. You don't have a
problem, you have a result.

I call it an upgrade for three primary reasons...

First, I mostly do video editing/encoding and the speed advantage for
that has nearly doubled my productivity.

Second, this motherboard is upgradeable to a faster chip once I can
afford it. My old motherboard could not take a faster Athlon.

Third, my old Athlon motherboard maxed out at 3 GB of RAM (3 slots) and
this one supports 4 GB (4 slots). I have two now, but I'm upgrading to
4 as soon as possible. Doing video encoding from a gigabyte or larger
RAM drive is fantastic.

--Dave
 
B

Bad Bubba

Not enough information. If that Intel chipset is not 865 or 875, then
you've probably done everything right, and you've actually BUILT a slower
system, which is acting exactly as it was designed to.

If that Intel chipset IS 865 or 875, then did you format the boot drive
after swapping the motherboard and before installing Windows XP???? (in
that exact chronological order)

If you've got an 865 or 875 Intel chipset board and Windows XP installed on
a freshly formatted drive, you've got a driver problem somewhere. Get the
latest drivers for your motherboard chipset. -Dave

875 chipset and I formatted the drive with XP in the machine when I
built it. I have all of the latest motherboard and device drivers for
all of my devices.

I'm saving up for a faster CPU and hopefully will be able to get it next
month. At least this Intel board supports a faster CPU. My Athlon
board was maxed out with the 2700+ chip.

--Dave
 
R

Ruel Smith

Bad said:
Gigabyte Motherboard w/Intel Chipset
Intel P4 2.4GHz HT
2 gigabytes of RAM
120 GB IDE Boot Drive
200 GB IDE Data Drive
Windows XP Pro SP2

My old specs:

Gigabyte Motherboard w/VIA Chipset
Athlon XP 2700+
1 gigabyte of RAM
120 GB IDE Boot Drive
120 GB Data Drive
Windows 2000 Pro SP4
With the exception of video and audio encoding, my overall system
performance is down from my old system. A video that used to take 30
minutes to encode on my old system encodes in 20 minutes on my new
system. Other than that, the system is slower. It takes longer to
switch tasks. Programs take longer to load into memory. Even surfing
the net is slower.

That Athlon XP processor is faster than the P4 processor. Intel is known for
being faster at video encoding and the extra memory helps that process.
However, for other tasks, that Athlon XP setup was superior.
Could Windows XP possibly be the culprit? I've turned off frills like
animated menus/windows and such.

If it suddenly became really doggishly slow, try uninstalling SP2 and
reinstalling it. If that doesn't work, uninstall SP2 and see if it runs
faster without SP2.

Honestly, I don't know why you changed motherboards and procesors, as that
Athlon XP was faster. You should have just upgraded your memory and the
bigger data drive.
 
R

Ruel Smith

Bad said:
I'm saving up for a faster CPU and hopefully will be able to get it next
month. At least this Intel board supports a faster CPU. My Athlon
board was maxed out with the 2700+ chip.

Rule of thumb when upgrading processors: If you aren't getting twice the
performance, it isn't worth upgrading.

Even though that Athlon XP 2700+ was the max you could use with your board,
you should have waited until you could purchase a board and CPU within your
means that would give you a significant performance increase. You, however,
built a slower system based upon future upgrade potential.
 
B

Bad Bubba

Even though that Athlon XP 2700+ was the max you could use with your board,
you should have waited until you could purchase a board and CPU within your
means that would give you a significant performance increase. You, however,
built a slower system based upon future upgrade potential.

I've been running benchmarks and on most items, I have been running
faster than the old system. The only places where it appears to run
slower is with VGA performance (went from ATI RADEON AIW w/64MB RAM to a
RADEON 9600 w/128MB RAM).

I am using the defauly drivers installed by Windows XP, so I'm
installing the drivers that came with the card instead to see if that
fixes the problem.

--Dave
 
B

Bad Bubba

Honestly, I don't know why you changed motherboards and procesors, as that
Athlon XP was faster. You should have just upgraded your memory and the
bigger data drive.

Mostly I do video processing/encoding and for that my new system is VERY
MUCH faster than my old system. On that front, I am extremely happy
with the "upgrade".

I also wanted a motherboard that supported a faster CPU and SATA (my old
one was maxed on CPU and didn't have SATA).

Overall, I'm happy with my choice.

--Dave
 

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