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Any idea why my PIII-933 is only getting 2.4 Mkeys?

AndrewR

Lifer
I saw on a CPU comparison page that a 933 should be getting about 2.6 -- why is mine slower? Are there some settings that might be out of whack? I know with Prime95 that you can allocate memory to increase the speed, but I'm not sure if there is a similar setting for RC5.

My total rate between two systems is about 4.6, but higher is better. 🙂
 
Do you have any programs running in the background like WinAmp, Gamespy, Anti-virus, etc.

These take out some processing time - funnily enough an MP3 takes out about 200 kkeys/sec.

As for tweaking the Dnet client, there isn't much you can do to make it go faster, although some people have found that certain sized blocks can be completed faster than others in RC5.
 
Do you have other programs running in the background that use cpu power? Is your wallpaper stretched? etc...
 
Expanding on what I said earlier - I heard a rumour somewhere that the active desktop sucks a little CPU time.
 
You can go to this thread and look at one of my posts to download Wintop or AnotherTaskManager, two utilities that tell you what processes are running and their % cpu utilization. Be aware though that ATM uses a lot of cpu cycles by itself if its cpu cooler function is enabled. Great for noticing viruses though. 😉
 
No wallpaper (just a color), but I'll check on the background processes. I think I can probably stop one or two, but I usually don't have an antivirus program loaded (living on the edge...) and hate any and all TSR's. I think there might be a Creative Labs program running for my SB Live and for my Nomad. Thanks -- I'll look when I get home!
 
My Norton Antivirus running in realtime takes less than 0.2% cpu and just saved me from the kakworm virus yesterday. I would recommand against turning off your antivirus. A nuked system means a lot of lost blocks. 😉 Is your Creative Launcher enabled (mine isn't)? For me, it's the two components of ZoneAlarm that take 1.5% cpu cycles together but I won't turn off my firewall.
 
If you're on Win98, I'd recommend setting DnetC's priority to 6 instead of 0. If I didn't on this Win98 system, it would leave about 5% of the CPU idle, and I'd get about the same speed difference.
 
I pretty much scan everything manually for virii when I'm running something new. I just have this overwhelming disdain for TSR programs like a virus scanner since I always remember them sucking up CPU power from years ago, and I've never forgiven them. To date, after running gigabytes of warez, I've been infected twice (second time was my own fault, no scanner would have caught it -- I love you!) so I'm not terribly worried.

Creative Launcher is disabled, though I think there's something else there from the Live.
 
Do you have Task Monitor on? Disk Detector? Winamp Agent? Are you using your scroll wheel all the time (It's amazing watching in Wintop the effect of scrolling)? 😉
 
Well, I checked the rate again, and it's hovering at about 2.52-2.55, which isn't far off the prediction. I did have the Live's AudioHQ loading, which I'll disable, and there's some other mystery program running which I need to track down. Since it is showing over 2.5 though, I'm not as worried.

Thanks for the help!
 
When I installed a popular program, Real Player I think, it dropped some wierd program in there that doesnt do anything, but eat cycles. My keyrate dropped enough for me to notice something was wrong, so I went into msconfig, and found this program set to start at boot. It wasnt doing anything for me, and I didnt ask it to be there. I disabled it and my keyrate went back up.

While I am on this topic, I think this needs further investigation. I dont appreciate companies trying to put crap on my system I dont need without them asking, or even telling me. Its not right! :|
 
If I see network activity on my broadband router when nothing should be moving across it, I get nervous. If I see a LOT of activity, I pull the cable and figure out what crap is communicating without my knowledge. The other day it was TSAdbot, a program installed when I put the latest version of WinZip on my wife's system. Guess what was uninstalled that very minute? I just use the command version of pkunzip when I need to -- much easier.
 
The free version.

I'm only a home user on dialup. I also paid for my Black Ice Defender and it kept giving me BSODs. So I'm weary about paying for a pro version of ZoneAlarm when the free version suits my needs. 🙂
 
Actually, I'm on a hardware firewall (router) -- the ShieldsUp test revealed that only the IDENT port is responding to port probes, but everything else is stealthed. I wonder why that is? Seems good to me though.
 
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