P4 performance

[mrog71]

I have a Dell Dimension 4300 with a P4 1.5 GHz, 384 Mb of PC133 RAM. It normally doesn't do too bad, but I do a lot of processor intensive operations (long data runs where processor often is at 100% usage for several minutes.) After these data runs, my computer runs extraordinarily slow for minutes after that. It takes 20 seconds just to switch to another screen view! It seems frozen for a few seconds, then is just really really slow for a while afterwards. I was wondering if maybe this is a cooling problem. I didn't notice very much airflow fromt the case fan, and wondered if Dell sacrificed cooling for the sake of having a quiet fan. Is there something I can do about this? My PIII 800 Mhz machine is performing better (actually, I gave to to another office co-worker when I got this one, and I feel I got screwed!)
Thanks,
Matt

 

[FatBurger]

Yeup, a Dell P4 1.5 and SDRAM is not the most high-powered machine you can get.

I doubt cooling is a problem, Dell usually does a good job of getting decent cooling with absolutely no noise. This could be an isolated incident of crappy cooling, though.

Do you know if your CPU is socket 423 or socket 478? That would make a difference in upgrade options.

Otherwise, sorry you got Delled. But at least you didn't buy a computer from Best Buy or Circuit City.

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[mrog71]

It's a socket 423. What are my options?

 

[FatBurger]

Not good, unfortunately. How much money are you willing to spend, do you do any graphics-intensive work (games, 3D rendering, etc)? If yes to the second one, do you know what video card you have?

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[Guest]

what OS do you use?

 

[SidVicious]

I'm not very knowledgeable about P4s since i'm still running an Intel P55 200MMX on a i430HX, but it sound like a cooling issue IMHO. That P4 must be overheating and throttling itself down.

Fok Speling Misstake

 

[FatBurger]

I agree, it sounds like a cooling issue. Throttling is very rare, however.

BTW, in THG's video of the P4 throttling down while running Q3, the P4 regained full speed almost instantly on the heatsink being put back on. That always seemed strange to me, but if that's the way it always works, then the 20 second delay mentioned in the first post could point to something else being the problem.

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[SidVicious]

The HSF may not be correctly seated on the core... Could have been bumped off during manutention. Even if it's a Dell, it should be performing much better then my obselete comp. I do get a few slowdowns when running multiple apps but I never experienced such a critical slowdown.

Fok Speling Misstake

 

[mrog71]

I am running Windows XP. I was having the same problem when I was running ME. I don't run video intensive stuff, but very processor intensive data processing runs. After these runs, some of which run the processor utilization to 100% for several minutes, is the main time I'm having problems.

 

[mrog71]

Also, my 384 Mb of PC133 RAM is in 2 sticks, and they both have a different latency. The 128 mb stick came stock from dell with a latency of 3 and the 256 stick I got from Crucial.com with a latency of 2. Does this make a difference? Should I replace the 128 Mb stick with a 256 that matches the other?

 

[FatBurger]

I'm not arguing the fact that there could be something wrong with his cooling. I'm simply stating that with the given indications, throttling is most likely not the cause.

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[SidVicious]

BuMp !

Fok Speling Misstake