Two computers, two different vista experiances

[Ashton Crusher]

I put Vista Ultimate on a computer that started with a very barebones
XP installation. It worked but never seemed right and never had the
speed it should have had for the hardware. It got a 5 on the Vista
Performance test in all categories. Yet the interface still seemed
slow. That computer used an Intel E6300 runing a little under 2 GHz
and had a 256K ATI PCIe Video with 1900GT chipset.

I bought an HP Pavilion (too good a price to pass up with the included
24" monitor, which is fabulous) that runs an Intel Core Duo of 2.33
GHz. It has a nVida PCIe with 256 but not as powerful as the other
computers ATI board. This computer gets a 5 rating on all but the
video which is about 3.5 on the "windows vista experience" scale.

Yet the new computer interface run rings around the old one and the
whole system seems much better.

Point being, Vista CAN work quite well as it's doing on my second
machine.

One thing I did notice is that on both machines, the sleep function
worked flawlessly UNTIL the first batch of "updates" was installed and
after that the sleep never worked right on either of them. Something
in one of the windows updates is breaking the sleep function.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

For the first computer...
If windows Vista was an upgrade, try a Clean installation.
Also make sure all your hardware and software is compatible with
Windows Vista.
Get the latest Windows Vista drivers for the hardware.

If anything is not Windows Vista compatible, remove it before
installing Windows Vista.

 

[philo]

For the first computer...
If windows Vista was an upgrade, try a Clean installation.
Also make sure all your hardware and software is compatible with
Windows Vista.
Get the latest Windows Vista drivers for the hardware.

If anything is not Windows Vista compatible, remove it before
installing Windows Vista.

Good advice...

I am also curious if the reason the 2nd machine runs better is due to the
dual core CPU.

 

[Ian D]

Good advice...

I am also curious if the reason the 2nd machine runs better is due to the
dual core CPU.

The E6300 CPU on the first machine is a 1.86 GHz Core 2 Duo. I
think that CPU has only 2 MB of L2 cache, and although the OP
didn't identify the second CPU by part number, it probably has
4 MB of L2. The OP could overclock the E6300 to around 2.3 GHz
for a better comparison. Incremental speed increases in Core 2
Duos produce larger performance gains than identical increments
in P4 or D CPU speeds.