How slow should this P4 computer be?

[jhu]

None of P4 processors are 64bit.

Incorrect. Some of the Prescott processors were 64-bit, including the 5x6 series of Pentium 4 processors.

 

[mrjoltcola]

I think you need certain chipsets, not just any LGA775 chipset will support Core 2 Duo.

 

[sm625]

Any ASUS P5 mobo will support a c2d, according to their site. As long as you can get the necessary bios in there without bricking it...

 

[ThatsABigOne]

Incorrect. Some of the Prescott processors were 64-bit, including the 5x6 series of Pentium 4 processors.

Then why do you propose the Windows XP 64bit? It is old and a bugfest.

 

[Haserath]

I have a P4 system working right now with specs:

P4 3.4ghz HT enabled
3GB DDR2@533mhz
X800-128MB
Seagate 160GB HDD(from 2004)

It's running Windows 8 smooth as butter except for stutter in the metro interface.
It plays 480p youtube videos with just a little jitter, and I can do light tasks on it just fine. It's a great backup system.

I would recommend you have them clean the system with a blower of some kind, and maybe do a clean install of the OS. This P4 system just felt slow until I blew it out and put the newer ram in.

If they can get a decently cheap HDD, they should get a newer and higher capacity one. I would also recommend 2GB+ of DDR2 if the board supports it, because P4's love faster ram and more of it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

None of P4 processors are 64bit.

I thought that some of the S775 Pentium CPUs supported 64-bit? None of the S478 ones did.

 

[CU]

I have a P4 1.8ghz w/ 768meg of ram. It runs mythbuntu 10.04. The gpu allows it to play 1080p video files, but flash 480p from youtube is very jerky. It is fine for web browsing though.

I would think the OS or something installed is to blame for the slowness you see. Setting idle my system uses basically 0% cpu.

 

[jhu]

Then why do you propose the Windows XP 64bit? It is old and a bugfest.

It should theoretically be faster. At least the 64-bit Debian/Ubuntu distributions are faster than their 32-bit counterparts.

 

[sm625]

Sorry OP I guess we may have distracted you with all this talk of upgrades. Tell them to try this:

Open internet explorer and set home page to google. com. Not (google.com/mywhatever, just www.google.com)

Close internet explorer.

Wait 30 seconds.

Open IE again.
Immediately Close IE as soon as the x appears.
Do this open+close 3-5 times.

Now immediately after closing it the last time, click on the start menu rapidly a bunch of times. There should be NO lag. The start menu should appear and disappear with a quickness.

If this doesnt happen then there is something wrong with the computer. You cant use teamviewer because it will lag.

 

[Maximilian]

I have a P4 1.8ghz w/ 768meg of ram. It runs mythbuntu 10.04. The gpu allows it to play 1080p video files, but flash 480p from youtube is very jerky. It is fine for web browsing though.

I would think the OS or something installed is to blame for the slowness you see. Setting idle my system uses basically 0% cpu.

This, none of the "upgrade to c2d/64 bit" BS is necessary.

 

[Hubb1e]

That computer should be fine. We still use a lot of P4s at 2.8ghz. The main issue we ran into wasn't the processor but the amount of memory. We dropped in 2GB and all was fine. Even plays youtube videos just fine as long as you avoid HD.

 

[AdamK47]

I'm going to go with throttling. I've used a Pentium 4 that had it's fan die. It was still up and running, but was immensely slow.

 

[CU]

You should be able to run some kind of program to check the real clock speed and cpu temp and tell if it is throttling. Check that first, maybe just the cpu fan is dieing. If that is not it then find what program is using all your cpu.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I believe that RMclock has a feature to tell you if you're throttling.

 

[blckgrffn]

Just fired up a similar but unused P4 at work. Seems to run fine, but Intel is screwing me by not supporting the 915 chipset and all of its stuff (video, audio and LAN) past XP. So I have to add a network card, a sound card and a video card (see my sig!) to get it working.

That said, seems like it is running well enough, and that's with the pooch Server 2008 32-bit on there.

 

[DominionSeraph]

A P4 should be fine for basic tasks. I used my grandmother's Northwood Celeron (2.4GHz) for several months and it was fine.

So something's wrong.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

A mild OC

and you might get a decent 5 to 10fps in Crysis