Re: Upgrade Help, Please

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 19:36:14 GMT, "Tippunmon"
<tippunmon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jaimie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:d331k31bv0e01a3d2icc1lr27f87ir0lp7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

If you're just a bit grumbly with how fast the computer runs, have you
tried doing a complete Windows blitz and reinstall? That usually nets
a 2-4 times faster feel on a crufty system, or one that's been updated
from XP to Vista and didn't like the process.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"People don't buy Microsoft for quality, they buy it for compatibility
with what Bob in accounting bought last year. Trace it back - they buy
Microsoft because the IBM Selectric didn't suck much" - P Seebach, afc

That's a remarkably apropos sig... clever random picker!

Thanks for your comments. I generally use the pc for 'typical' use i.e. the
odd spreadsheet, letters on Word, some dvd and cd burning on Nero, e-mails,
newsgroups and the internet. Subjectively, the pc seems slow in normal use
and I found this difficult to understand

Quite so. Kit that speed should be quick, not sluggish. So unless
there's a major system problem (check your actual effective CPU speed
with eg Prime95 benchmarks, and measure how quick your RAID system
really is eg by copying a multigig file), then it's down to software.

The mainboard seems okay for speed, but whenever
I am using the menus to click on programs I wish to use there always seems
to be an unacceptable lag whilst the system gathers itself together, then
executes the task. Noticeably, the spinning disk at the edge of the cursor
in the Vista scheme always starts up and spins a good few times before the
splash box for the desired program appears.

Which is utterly ludicrous. Did XP do the same?

I do vape the installation pretty
regularly, (four or five times a year at least),

! That's a bit excessive, but since your kit does sound like it's
misbehaving I can see why. Reasonably you shouldn't need to reinstall
at all after a year or two, unless you habitually trial new software
and the like.

Is the machine slow right from installation time, or does it grow
slower over time? The latter is more like a sign of a nasty bit of
malware, which goes off and downloads its friends...

Any signs in Task Manager, or using Ad-Aware / Spybot / HijackThis?

Another experiment would be to install a Linux distro temporarily
(Ubuntu is easy to work with) and see if that has similar troubles.

All I am looking for is a reasonably quick response when I
click on a program and reasonably quick performance when I am asking the pc
to do anything, but I did not want to spend £40 on a processor upgrade
(hoping to extend the useful life of the pc for a few more months) and then
find the performance increase was not significant. Basically - is it worth
upgrading to dual core, or is it better to wait and have a "major" upgrade.

It's always worth moving from single-core to multi-core. You may even
find that this solves your responsiveness problems directly, if it's
caused by something like Windows Update going retarded and running at
100%.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional.
.

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