Dell Dimension 4550 Tips & Tricks

[RalfHutter]

Originally posted by: talkincat
Does anybody have a working link for the Maxtor amset utility?

My links are dead and I can't find my copy of it. You could try calling Maxtor at 1-800-262-9867 and see if they'll give it to you. That's how I got it in the first place. Same for Seagates' "seaaam" acoustic management app.

Also try using the "IBM Feature Tool". It let's you set AM and I think I've used it on Maxtor Drives before.

 

[bbrontosaurus]

Originally posted by: velferdskiller
I tested out my friends dimension 4550 (P4 2.4, G4 4200 w dell 30.82 drivers, 512 mb RAM) in 3dmark, and with default 1024x768 settings, i got around 10500 3dmarks.
With my oc system (P4 2.4@2.61 Abit IT7, 512 mb Crucial 6ns @390 (3:4) G4 4600 320/725 41.03 drivers), i get 13962.

I just ran the latest 3dmark last night....I'm getting around 4800 3dmarks with my Dimension 4550: P4, 2.4 ghz, G4 Ti4200 with the latest nvidia reference drivers, 128 mb PC2700 RAM (RAM that came with the system). My resolution was set to 1024x768 and my monitor refresh rate is at 60. Is it because I only have 128 MB of RAM, that my scores are pretty crappy?? Anyone else run 3dmark with 128 Megs?

Also, I'm able to overclock my ti4200 to 286/560 (higher than a stock Ti4400 !) I get around 5300 marks when overclocked. I'm unable to overclock to stock Ti4600 levels (300/650).....could my lack of RAM be a limiting factor?

 

[bbrontosaurus]

Anyone got some PC3200 laying around that they can try in their Dell Dimension 4550? I'm interested to see if it would work..thanks!

 

[hirschma]

The more I find out about the Dimension 4550, the less I feel that I got a bargain

I've found that the chipset, the Intel i845g, is just not well behaved under Linux, and as a result, IDE channels can't be set to do DMA.

I've also found that I cannot set AGP to run at 4x, period, using either Linux's or Nvidia's AGPGART. This is really weird.

Edit: checked status under Win2k with WCPUID for AGP, no probs at all. Hope it gets fixed soon...


jonathan

 

[Toro 45]

Originally posted by: bbrontosaurus


I just ran the latest 3dmark last night....I'm getting around 4800 3dmarks with my Dimension 4550: P4, 2.4 ghz, G4 Ti4200 with the latest nvidia reference drivers, 128 mb PC2700 RAM (RAM that came with the system). My resolution was set to 1024x768 and my monitor refresh rate is at 60. Is it because I only have 128 MB of RAM, that my scores are pretty crappy?? Anyone else run 3dmark with 128 Megs?

Also, I'm able to overclock my ti4200 to 286/560 (higher than a stock Ti4400 !) I get around 5300 marks when overclocked. I'm unable to overclock to stock Ti4600 levels (300/650).....could my lack of RAM be a limiting factor?

Something is definately wrong there. I got 4000(4900 when OC'd) points on 3Dmark with my Dell 4500 P2.4 & the Geforce4 mx420.I know my system was mighty doggy with 128mb ram but I don't recall it getting crappy 3Dmark scores.

If I get some time in the next few days I'll pull my 512 stick & run it with 128.

You should try some more benchies like UT 2003 I can give you a base line for comparrison on the major benches.

Toro

 

[hirschma]

Originally posted by: bbrontosaurus<
Also, I'm able to overclock my ti4200 to 286/560 (higher than a stock Ti4400 !) I get around 5300 marks when overclocked. I'm unable to overclock to stock Ti4600 levels (300/650).....could my lack of RAM be a limiting factor?

I'm also getting a very crappy score - in the 5000 range - with a gainward ti4600, and with 256megs RAM. Can anyone suggest what is killing our scores?

 

[aircasper]

Originally posted by: Toro 45

Originally posted by: bbrontosaurus


I just ran the latest 3dmark last night....I'm getting around 4800 3dmarks with my Dimension 4550: P4, 2.4 ghz, G4 Ti4200 with the latest nvidia reference drivers, 128 mb PC2700 RAM (RAM that came with the system). My resolution was set to 1024x768 and my monitor refresh rate is at 60. Is it because I only have 128 MB of RAM, that my scores are pretty crappy?? Anyone else run 3dmark with 128 Megs?

Also, I'm able to overclock my ti4200 to 286/560 (higher than a stock Ti4400 !) I get around 5300 marks when overclocked. I'm unable to overclock to stock Ti4600 levels (300/650).....could my lack of RAM be a limiting factor?

Something is definately wrong there. I got 4000(4900 when OC'd) points on 3Dmark with my Dell 4500 P2.4 & the Geforce4 mx420.I know my system was mighty doggy with 128mb ram but I don't recall it getting crappy 3Dmark scores.

If I get some time in the next few days I'll pull my 512 stick & run it with 128.

You should try some more benchies like UT 2003 I can give you a base line for comparrison on the major benches.

Toro

i agree, there is definitely something wrong. on my P2.4 128MB RAM with gf4 mx420, i get 4031 at stock speeds, and get 5035 when overclocked using coolbits.

 

[aircasper]

Originally posted by: RalfHutter

Originally posted by: talkincat
Does anybody have a working link for the Maxtor amset utility?

My links are dead and I can't find my copy of it. You could try calling Maxtor at 1-800-262-9867 and see if they'll give it to you. That's how I got it in the first place. Same for Seagates' "seaaam" acoustic management app.

Also try using the "IBM Feature Tool". It let's you set AM and I think I've used it on Maxtor Drives before.

here you go:

amset utility

wvset utility

 

[Crimzon]

Well, I ran this last night, at the default 3dmark2001se settings, and got 4700. p4 533, 128 333 pc2700, geforce4 mx 420.

Haven't done anything to the system at all yet. I figure buying a 512 stick will help that some, but how much? I know if I want better performance I'll just have to upgrade the video card. Prices will drop soon.

 

[ericon]

Originally posted by: talkincat
Does anybody have a working link for the Maxtor amset utility?

Maxtor

 

[bbrontosaurus]

Originally posted by: aircasper

Originally posted by: Toro 45

Originally posted by: bbrontosaurus


I just ran the latest 3dmark last night....I'm getting around 4800 3dmarks with my Dimension 4550: P4, 2.4 ghz, G4 Ti4200 with the latest nvidia reference drivers, 128 mb PC2700 RAM (RAM that came with the system). My resolution was set to 1024x768 and my monitor refresh rate is at 60. Is it because I only have 128 MB of RAM, that my scores are pretty crappy?? Anyone else run 3dmark with 128 Megs?

Also, I'm able to overclock my ti4200 to 286/560 (higher than a stock Ti4400 !) I get around 5300 marks when overclocked. I'm unable to overclock to stock Ti4600 levels (300/650).....could my lack of RAM be a limiting factor?

Something is definately wrong there. I got 4000(4900 when OC'd) points on 3Dmark with my Dell 4500 P2.4 & the Geforce4 mx420.I know my system was mighty doggy with 128mb ram but I don't recall it getting crappy 3Dmark scores.

If I get some time in the next few days I'll pull my 512 stick & run it with 128.

You should try some more benchies like UT 2003 I can give you a base line for comparrison on the major benches.

Toro

i agree, there is definitely something wrong. on my P2.4 128MB RAM with gf4 mx420, i get 4031 at stock speeds, and get 5035 when overclocked using coolbits.

Can anyone post some suggestions on what I need to tune/check on my system?? Why are my stock 3D mark scores so low?

Here are my details (This is the Dell Dimension 4550):

P4 2.4 Ghz
128 MB of RAM
Ti4200
40 Gig HD
Crappy Compaq monitor running 1024X768, 32 bit, and 60 hertz refresh

I reinstalled the OS with Win XP proffessional, and installed the latest reference Nvidia drivers

Any suggestions all??

 

[hirschma]

I tried benchmarking again, this time with a few changes:

* Upgraded to nVidia drivers v. 40.41,
* Turned off Dual Head/Nview

My 3dmarks at 1024x768 just jumped to about 13,000 with no overlocking This is with a Gainward ti4600 golden sample, so time to tweak it up.

jonathan

 

[bbrontosaurus]

Originally posted by: hirschma
I tried benchmarking again, this time with a few changes:

* Upgraded to nVidia drivers v. 40.41,
* Turned off Dual Head/Nview

My 3dmarks at 1024x768 just jumped to about 13,000 with no overlocking This is with a Gainward ti4600 golden sample, so time to tweak it up.

jonathan

Hrmm.....I'm using the 30.82 drivers. I'll have to try the 40.41 drivers, and see if that makes a difference.

 

[Crimzon]

Hmm. I just upgraded to the 40.41 drivers, and my results went down to 4080. How do you turn off nview? I'm going to try uninstalling these drivers, and uninstalling the older ones too. Maybe installing over the old ones caused some problems?

 

[hirschma]

If you've never turned nView on, you don't need to do anything to turn it off. I have two monitors, and initially configured with nView to use both of them.

If you have two monitors, however, an easy way to have nView be available on demand is to go to
Display Properties-->GeForce XXXX-->Desktop Utilities and then check "Treat multiple outputs on an nView-capable board as seperate display devices." Then just enable/disable two monitors as you would if you had two display cards (and it doesn't require a reboot).

Clear as mud

jonathan

 

[Crimzon]

Alright, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks.

Back to my other post, I uninstalled all the nvidia drivers, and then did a reinstall of the 40.41 drivers, and same results, 4097 this time. I know the Geforce4 MX 420 is the bottom of the Geforce4 series, but I hoped it would do a little better than this. I was planning on getting a new video card, maybe one with DVI or Component to hook up to my HDTV, in a year or so. But if this won't be able to play the current generation of games, I might need to move that up. Grr. Between this, speakers, ram, and dvd's and xbox games, I'll have a fun time deciding how to spend my tech money.

 

[bbrontosaurus]

Originally posted by: bbrontosaurus

Originally posted by: velferdskiller
I tested out my friends dimension 4550 (P4 2.4, G4 4200 w dell 30.82 drivers, 512 mb RAM) in 3dmark, and with default 1024x768 settings, i got around 10500 3dmarks.
With my oc system (P4 2.4@2.61 Abit IT7, 512 mb Crucial 6ns @390 (3:4) G4 4600 320/725 41.03 drivers), i get 13962.

I just ran the latest 3dmark last night....I'm getting around 4800 3dmarks with my Dimension 4550: P4, 2.4 ghz, G4 Ti4200 with the latest nvidia reference drivers, 128 mb PC2700 RAM (RAM that came with the system). My resolution was set to 1024x768 and my monitor refresh rate is at 60. Is it because I only have 128 MB of RAM, that my scores are pretty crappy?? Anyone else run 3dmark with 128 Megs?

Also, I'm able to overclock my ti4200 to 286/560 (higher than a stock Ti4400 !) I get around 5300 marks when overclocked. I'm unable to overclock to stock Ti4600 levels (300/650).....could my lack of RAM be a limiting factor?

Well, I installed the 40.41 drivers from nvidia for my Ti4200, and ran 3Dmark with my stock video card settings....I got 5300 this time!

However, here is where it gets interested. I noticed that I have anti-aliasing set at 4X. I switched it back to default, and made sure that all my other driver settings were at default. Then I overclocked to 286/560 and got almost 13,000 (12,9xx) marks!!!! On 128 megs of RAM (Does more RAM actually made that much of a difference?)! Now, my question is, does the anti-aliasing play a big role? Or was it the 40.41 drivers? I just I'm not too sure that the same overclock would produce such a big difference. I didn't have time to test default driver settings with my stock speeds...I guess that would provide more insight.

 

[Crimzon]

It was the AA. When I had it at the Nvidia's Quint or something (basically 3), it went to 2000. I didn't know that the mx420's was *this* much slower than the ti4200, or I might've just spent the 70 and upgraded then. Here's to hoping to price drops soon, so I can upgrade!

 

[talkincat]

I've had a couple of odd issues with this machine. I had it set up initially with 128MB of RAM, the built-in audio, the 32MB ATI card and the 40GB hard drive. I have since installed a SB Audigy Gamer (disabled the built-in in the BIOS), replaced the RAM with a 512MB stick of Corsair XMS, replaced the ATI card with a 64MB Geforce 3 TI 200 and added a Western Digital 120GB Special Edition 8MB cache hard drive as the primary hard drive.

First, when I reformatted and installed XP Pro, I kept getting "SM Bus Controller" in the device manager, and couldn't find a driver for it. Worse, when I tried to install the "Intel Chipset Driver," it crashed the system and gave me an error at boot-up and wouldn't boot into windows. I reinstalled, same thing. I reinstalled again and called Dell support. She had me install the same thing with the same result. Dell is supposed to send me.... something, not sure what, which will fix this, supposedly. So, I installed one more time and installed the "Intel Chipset Driver" first, before any other drivers or updates, and it finally worked. Not sure why it wouldn't let me install it after I had installed other things already (I suspect it might have been XP SP1) or why it created boot problems when it failed, but assuming that doesn't crop back up after initial install, I guess it doesn't matter.

Second, and more vexing, I can't get both hard drives into UDMA 5 mode. Initially, the primary drive (the Western Digital) was showing UDMA 2 mode, and the secondary (the Maxtor that came with the dell) was running in PIO mode. I rebooted, and the Western Digital showed up as UDMA 5, but the Maxtor was still showing up in PIO. I installed the "Intel Application Accelerator" and it reports that the Western Digital is running in UDMA 5 and the Maxtor is running in UDMA 2. I changed out the IDE cable, and checked all the jumpers, and it gives me the same result. Running the SiSoft Sandra "File System Benchmark" gives 27500 plus or minus a bit, fairly consistently on the Western Digital. It was giving me 30000+ on my old AMD system, but I can cope with that. The Maxter is giving 17000 or so, and that's pretty poor, so, if I can get this into UDMA 5 mode, that would be very helpful.

Has anybody else seen either of these issues, or otherwise have any ideas or input?

Thanks

 

[Toro 45]

`

Originally posted by: talkincat
I've had a couple of odd issues with this machine. I had it set up initially with 128MB of RAM, the built-in audio, the 32MB ATI card and the 40GB hard drive. I have since installed a SB Audigy Gamer (disabled the built-in in the BIOS), replaced the RAM with a 512MB stick of Corsair XMS, replaced the ATI card with a 64MB Geforce 3 TI 200 and added a Western Digital 120GB Special Edition 8MB cache hard drive as the primary hard drive.

First, when I reformatted and installed XP Pro, I kept getting "SM Bus Controller" in the device manager, and couldn't find a driver for it. Worse, when I tried to install the "Intel Chipset Driver," it crashed the system and gave me an error at boot-up and wouldn't boot into windows. I reinstalled, same thing. I reinstalled again and called Dell support. She had me install the same thing with the same result. Dell is supposed to send me.... something, not sure what, which will fix this, supposedly. So, I installed one more time and installed the "Intel Chipset Driver" first, before any other drivers or updates, and it finally worked. Not sure why it wouldn't let me install it after I had installed other things already (I suspect it might have been XP SP1) or why it created boot problems when it failed, but assuming that doesn't crop back up after initial install, I guess it doesn't matter.

Second, and more vexing, I can't get both hard drives into UDMA 5 mode. Initially, the primary drive (the Western Digital) was showing UDMA 2 mode, and the secondary (the Maxtor that came with the dell) was running in PIO mode. I rebooted, and the Western Digital showed up as UDMA 5, but the Maxtor was still showing up in PIO. I installed the "Intel Application Accelerator" and it reports that the Western Digital is running in UDMA 5 and the Maxtor is running in UDMA 2. I changed out the IDE cable, and checked all the jumpers, and it gives me the same result. Running the SiSoft Sandra "File System Benchmark" gives 27500 plus or minus a bit, fairly consistently on the Western Digital. It was giving me 30000+ on my old AMD system, but I can cope with that. The Maxter is giving 17000 or so, and that's pretty poor, so, if I can get this into UDMA 5 mode, that would be very helpful.

Has anybody else seen either of these issues, or otherwise have any ideas or input?

Thanks

You really need to instal your chipset driver first before any other drivers,but then you know that now

Not sure on the hard drive issue but I have read that these Dells like to have the drives set on CS instead of M/S,might be worth a try.


bbrontosaurus,your 128 mb ram may not make much difference on bechmarks but for overall system performance 256mb-512mb is the sweet spot.Mine came with 128 & it was noticible while multitasking & when gaming(excessive hard drive activity)Don't hesitate to add more.

Toro

 

[talkincat]

One last (hopefully) bit of weirdness. The Dell website advertises that this system was built on the Intel 845PE chipset, but the Intel Chipset ID Utility (available here ) shows me as having the Intel 845G/845GL chipset.

Obviously, that doesn't please me. I don't know as I've ever gotten a motherboard with the wrong chipset.

I've been in AMD world for quite some time and haven't been following the Intel chipsets, so I'm wondering if there's enough difference in terms of features and performance between these two to make a fuss about it. Or are these two more or less the same?

 

[LukFilm]

That utility might not have been updated. That would mean that you have integrated video which NONE Dimension 4550 systems have. So I'm 99.99% sure that you have i845PE

 

[bbrontosaurus]

Originally posted by: Toro 45
`

Originally posted by: talkincat
I've had a couple of odd issues with this machine. I had it set up initially with 128MB of RAM, the built-in audio, the 32MB ATI card and the 40GB hard drive. I have since installed a SB Audigy Gamer (disabled the built-in in the BIOS), replaced the RAM with a 512MB stick of Corsair XMS, replaced the ATI card with a 64MB Geforce 3 TI 200 and added a Western Digital 120GB Special Edition 8MB cache hard drive as the primary hard drive.

First, when I reformatted and installed XP Pro, I kept getting "SM Bus Controller" in the device manager, and couldn't find a driver for it. Worse, when I tried to install the "Intel Chipset Driver," it crashed the system and gave me an error at boot-up and wouldn't boot into windows. I reinstalled, same thing. I reinstalled again and called Dell support. She had me install the same thing with the same result. Dell is supposed to send me.... something, not sure what, which will fix this, supposedly. So, I installed one more time and installed the "Intel Chipset Driver" first, before any other drivers or updates, and it finally worked. Not sure why it wouldn't let me install it after I had installed other things already (I suspect it might have been XP SP1) or why it created boot problems when it failed, but assuming that doesn't crop back up after initial install, I guess it doesn't matter.

Second, and more vexing, I can't get both hard drives into UDMA 5 mode. Initially, the primary drive (the Western Digital) was showing UDMA 2 mode, and the secondary (the Maxtor that came with the dell) was running in PIO mode. I rebooted, and the Western Digital showed up as UDMA 5, but the Maxtor was still showing up in PIO. I installed the "Intel Application Accelerator" and it reports that the Western Digital is running in UDMA 5 and the Maxtor is running in UDMA 2. I changed out the IDE cable, and checked all the jumpers, and it gives me the same result. Running the SiSoft Sandra "File System Benchmark" gives 27500 plus or minus a bit, fairly consistently on the Western Digital. It was giving me 30000+ on my old AMD system, but I can cope with that. The Maxter is giving 17000 or so, and that's pretty poor, so, if I can get this into UDMA 5 mode, that would be very helpful.

Has anybody else seen either of these issues, or otherwise have any ideas or input?

Thanks

You really need to instal your chipset driver first before any other drivers,but then you know that now

Not sure on the hard drive issue but I have read that these Dells like to have the drives set on CS instead of M/S,might be worth a try.


bbrontosaurus,your 128 mb ram may not make much difference on bechmarks but for overall system performance 256mb-512mb is the sweet spot.Mine came with 128 & it was noticible while multitasking & when gaming(excessive hard drive activity)Don't hesitate to add more.

Toro

Strange, as I installed the chipset driver LAST...I was able to install my video card, sound card drivers first, no problems! And I did this twice! (Reinstalled XP Pro twice...always installed the video card drivers first)

 

[hirschma]

Originally posted by: LukFilm
That utility might not have been updated. That would mean that you have integrated video which NONE Dimension 4550 systems have. So I'm 99.99% sure that you have i845PE

Linux also sees it as an i845G. Perhaps something interesting is afoot here?

 

[talkincat]

Originally posted by: hirschma

Originally posted by: LukFilm
That utility might not have been updated. That would mean that you have integrated video which NONE Dimension 4550 systems have. So I'm 99.99% sure that you have i845PE

Linux also sees it as an i845G. Perhaps something interesting is afoot here?

I decided to look around a bit more for this, the same info is seen if you go here:
http://www.powerleap.com/consumer/upgradefinder.htm
and let it install the applet. It gives lots of useful system information.

So, that's now three different utilities that see the same thing.

The question then becomes, what does that mean in terms of features/performance? Like I said, I know very little about the specifics of the P4 chipsets, so, hopefully, somebody in here will.