My HTPC C2D is starting to slow...what to upgrade?

[50]

Hello,

So I have a C2D E4400 (one of the first C2D), Win 7 x86, ATI 5450. Yesterday I was trying to record one HD show, one SD show and watch a BD bitstreamed. The BD starting dropping out audio and almost made it unwatchable. CPU was at 100% and there was no physical memory left. Do I need to go x64 and more RAM and a new CPU or will a new CPU suffice? If so, which one do you guys reccomend? I plan to be recording a lot of HD and watching BD's, but not much more than that. Is MCE optimized to use quad core effectively?

I'd prefer not to have to switch my Mobo (see sig) or RAM.

 

[OCGuy]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-207-_-Product

 

[Malfeas]

Have you tried overclocking your E4400 any? If I remember correctly, your chip is the 65NM version and should be able to reach 2.66ghz fairly easily, and possibly higher. If you were to upgrade the CPU I would just choose the slowest 4 core you could find, or just a faster dual core. If you did choose to upgrade to a four core you could probably get a combo AMD 3 or 4-core cpu/motherboard deal on newegg cheaper than the cheapest Intel C2D quad CPU, and still re-use your ram.

Also is your signature correct in that it shows you have 6GB of ram? If you are using win7 32-bit you will only be able to use 4GB minus whatever size of ram your videocard has. Which should leave you with around 3 GB or more of useable ram, and I think that would be enough memory for performing all three tasks at the same time. I have a suspicion that you do not have more that 2GB of useable ram however. Can you check win7 and see how much memory it recognizes? If it shows 3+ GB I would just upgrade to x64, you shouldn't have to buy a new OS, just re-use the code.

Also, were you recording both shows and watching the movie all from the same harddrive or was the BD played from a disc?

Win7 and 7MC should be able to utilize 2+ cores effectively.

 

[richierich1212]

Try installing Win 7 64-bit (you can use your 32-bit serial), you have essentially 2.5GB RAM not being used which will help.

 

[50]

Thanks for the replies. I do realize I am not utilizing all of my RAM. The reason I am using 32 bit is because I got my serial's from MSDNAA and they were explicitly stated to be 32 bit and 64 bit. Since I plan on building a Core i5/i7 system later (and want to use the 64 bit for that) I decided to put the 32 bit one for my HTPC. I really don't want to reformat if I don't have to, mainly because I can't restore MCE7 recordings (it will re-record repeat shows that I've already seen which turns out to be a huge pain). Can anyone confirm I can use x64 with an MSDNAA 32 bit serial? If its true the benefits may outweigh the costs.

Also, I was recording to a HDD and watching the BD from my drive. Another reason I want to upgrade my CPU is because ripping a BD takes forever. If I went to a Q8400 would I see a major speed increase? My other option was to network my BD-ROM and rip it to my future i5 machine then save it to my HTPC network drive.

One other thing, I am playing my BD's at 720p right now. I am buying a 1080p TV in the future, is that going to tax my CPU more or only the GPU?

 

[perdomot]

Thanks for the replies. I do realize I am not utilizing all of my RAM. The reason I am using 32 bit is because I got my serial's from MSDNAA and they were explicitly stated to be 32 bit and 64 bit. Since I plan on building a Core i5/i7 system later (and want to use the 64 bit for that) I decided to put the 32 bit one for my HTPC. I really don't want to reformat if I don't have to, mainly because I can't restore MCE7 recordings (it will re-record repeat shows that I've already seen which turns out to be a huge pain). Can anyone confirm I can use x64 with an MSDNAA 32 bit serial? If its true the benefits may outweigh the costs.

Also, I was recording to a HDD and watching the BD from my drive. Another reason I want to upgrade my CPU is because ripping a BD takes forever. If I went to a Q8400 would I see a major speed increase? My other option was to network my BD-ROM and rip it to my future i5 machine then save it to my HTPC network drive.

One other thing, I am playing my BD's at 720p right now. I am buying a 1080p TV in the future, is that going to tax my CPU more or only the GPU?

I would probably switch to an AMD solution since their mobo onboard media capacities are excellent and you can get a quad for under $100. Just resuse your ram and other components. This is like the combo I just replaced with an i5-760 but for an HTPC its hard to beat: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.564863

 

[GundamF91]

I used to have E4500, those were the days. You should be able to overclock C2D to 3.0Ghz or more, I was able to hit 3.2Ghz with slight increase of vCore in E4500.

As for memory, since you're limited by Windows, not much you can do there unless you willing to run 64bit. I'd imagine the serial# is different between 32/64bit since MS considers those different versions.

 

[richierich1212]

I ordered a 32-bit Win 7 serial through MS ultimate steal promo and it validated fine for 64-bit installation

 

[dbcooper1]

Since your CPU usage is at 100%, I doubt your bottleneck is lack of RAM. Monitor it as well as disk activity.

 

[Arkaign]

I ordered a 32-bit Win 7 serial through MS ultimate steal promo and it validated fine for 64-bit installation

Yeah the installs are version specific (Pro, Home Premium, Ultimate, etc). Any of them work for either 32-bit or 64-bit. I don't know of any that let you install once for 32 and once for 64 (other than MLK/MAK, but that is a per-seat license, not specific to 32/64 bit either).

 

[Vette73]

Yea overclock the CPU first. I got 3Ghz easy on my old e4400.

Try to make it last till SB/Bulldozer comes out.

 

[dougri]

Even 4GB, what is using all that RAM doing what you are doing? Could you replicate what was giving you problems and bring up the perf mon and sort the processes by RAM used, then by CPU use? Diagnose the problem first, then decide what to do about it

 

[aigomorla]

Blue Ray downscaling.. as well as H.264 all require at least a 2ghz intel C2D.

I have been hashing this notion out with many many members for a while now, and even i wasnt too sure about it anymore until Gillbot double confirmed my original statements.

You need something GREATER then a 2ghz processor for perfect downscaling, and full 1080p playback, unless you can get your gpu to render the codec.

That being said.. get a new air sink, learn to overclock that puppy and see if u can get at least 2.4ghz on it.

With that much processing head, you should be fine on your current hardware.

 

[Childs]

You might just need a little OC as others have said. My HTPC is a Athlon 64 x2 @ 2.4Ghz, W7 32 bit, 4GB RAM, and 8400GS. I record 2 HD shows and watch 10Mbps blu ray rips at the same time and I dont drop a frame. Of course, I'm sure how you do things are different than what I do, as I grab my rips from a network share, recording method, etc, but the blu ray decoding should mostly be done by your GPU, and recording HD shows should really just be I/O on any modern tv tuner. I dont think my HTPC has crossed over 50% CPU usage once I got the 8400GS and set up the decoders.

 

[fuzzymath10]

I have MSDNAA licenses and even though there are x86 and x64 keys, you can mix and match 64-bit vs 32-bit (at least I do and activation wasn't a problem). I'd upgrade to 64-bit. You'll have to reformat but it seems like you'd benefit by starting from scratch to make sure your programs are using h/w acceleration properly. I'm pretty sure tv tuners encode in hardware (depending on brand/price) and your CPU should do almost nothing when playing blu-rays.

You don't need to overclock. It's an HTPC which means you want something cool and quiet. If anything, undervolt.

 

[50]

Thanks for the replies, sorry for late response. Since this is a HTPC, I don't want to overclock and deal with lots of fan noise. So as of right now I am debating between a C2D Q8300 for $100 or AMD x2 250 for $65 w/MSI 785GM-P45 Mobo but then I'll need to buy DDR3 and a new cooler. Which one do you think is a better option?

 

[Vette73]

^

You can get 7xx AMD chipset boards with DDR2. But you can also get 4 gig of DDR3 for less than $40 after rebate.
If you can get a Q8300 to work in your system then that seems to be the easy cheap way to do it as you can also sell your e4400 to make up the diff. I have a 775 system but can;t use 45nm chips, so make sure your board can. The best I could run was a q6600, e8300 and other chips would not work.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-207-_-Product

i think you mean http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0328258

 

[IntelUser2000]

Thanks for the replies, sorry for late response. Since this is a HTPC, I don't want to overclock and deal with lots of fan noise. So as of right now I am debating between a C2D Q8300 for $100 or AMD x2 250 for $65 w/MSI 785GM-P45 Mobo but then I'll need to buy DDR3 and a new cooler. Which one do you think is a better option?

The HD5450 probably has far better video playback and media functionalities than any IGP, so at that price point you should go with whatever is the better CPU you can afford, since the problem seems to be the CPU. If you could get the Core 2 Quad Q8300, that'll be much better than the X2.

 

[50]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131187

Can anyone tell me if a q8300 will work with my mobo it is a G33 chipset. Is the extra $10 worth it for a q9300 (if it is even compatible)?

 

[LoneNinja]

^ We need your specific motherboard model so we can check BIOS compatibility. If you don't know the specific model, there are a number of free diagnostic programs available like cpuz.

 

[Patmage]

The 5450 has UVD 2.2 if I'm not mistaken. I'm only familiar with NVIDIA hardware acceleration (specifically vdpau on linux), but doesn't that take most of the load off the cpu during blu-ray playback? What kind of cpu usage do you get when just watching a blu-ray? Also what program are you using for playback? (Although most support DXVA now i believe)

 

[jihe]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131187

Can anyone tell me if a q8300 will work with my mobo it is a G33 chipset. Is the extra $10 worth it for a q9300 (if it is even compatible)?

Seriously that q9300 is going to use more power than overclocked e4400. That e4400 has a lot of overclock headroom, you can probably get 3G without raising vcore.

 

[50]

Digging up an old thread, but I finally made the upgrade to a Q8400 via a sweet trade. I also reformatted to x64 to utilize the 6GB of RAM and I must say the results are fantastic. No more UI lag, BD stuttering, or any of the problems I had with the E4400. I finally think my HTPC build is complete and am very satisfied with the results. Thanks for the advice!

 

[podspi]

Yea, I went with an Athlon II X4 620 for my HTPC build (with some quiet fans) and I really don't regret it. HTPCs do a lot of things with video, and video is just one of those things that love GPU and CPU power