my observations

[oldman420]

we recently upgraded to ibm think centers at work
they have
2.8 ghz p4
ddr ram im not sure how fast 256 meg each
intel integrated agp
these machines i thaught would be smoking fast but i realy find them to lag esp when trying to do any system changes or settings.
i have had em take as long a 20 seconds to bring up the icons in the start menu and at boot "right out of the box mind you" they took much longer than my home machine

it seems to me that with ht and 2.8 ghz these pups should be just as fast as my amd at 2.2 but NOT!

any thaughts here?

 

[lobadobadingdong]

I work on dell warranty calls, They have just recently come out with desktops that feel as fast as my 2500+ OC'd to (2.075Ghz) 2800+.(the 3.2Ghz HT systems with dual channel pc2700 are just now becoming popular) I built my rig for ~1000 20months ago. the current dells that have the same feel to them are ~2000 today.

The larger manufacturers tend to use cheaper parts, which means slower memory, slower motherboards, slower hard drives, and slower optical drives, all of which combined comes out to a slower computers.

 

[RussianSensation]

Do they only have 256mb each?
-Windows xp doesnt really fly until at least 512 and up.

Also are they set up in dual-channel?
-Because that increases p4's speed by up to 10% alone.

They could have 5400 rpm drives, or even if they do have 7200rpm drives, these could lack 8mb cache.

Memory latency timings are probably 3-3-3...and no Turbo mode enabled *like on Abit or Asus boards

They might not have PC3200 ram installed and like lobadobadingdong mentioned, could be chugging along at PC2700 (like those dells)

Also work computers are often loaded with autostart programs and stuff you dont normally have at home, which helps to take up system memory even more.

Of course since your computer is not a slouch either, it could really be faster, and considering possible bottlenecks above, this speed difference is only made more evident.

 

[oldman420]

thanks for the complement on the systemi administrate the comps at work so startup progs are minimized to only basic xp pro boot with nav 2004 and bosanove our primary shell gets loaded after that i think its true that they use cheap parts cause when the first box arived it was doa. the service guy took out the cpu broke it in half with pliers and then snapped the mb in two depositing them in the trash "really no kidding"
he then replaced them and what do ya know it was the psu!!! he didnt have one of those so i did not get to see ibms preferred method of dealing with that. i was floored i could not see the logic.
anyway they rmad the whole machine and that fixed it
they couldnt do that unless they had cheap parts.
but to break a brand new p4 2.8 with plyers was just a shame

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: oldman420
thanks for the complement on the systemi administrate the comps at work so startup progs are minimized to only basic xp pro boot with nav 2004 and bosanove our primary shell gets loaded after that i think its true that they use cheap parts cause when the first box arived it was doa. the service guy took out the cpu broke it in half with pliers and then snapped the mb in two depositing them in the trash "really no kidding"
he then replaced them and what do ya know it was the psu!!! he didnt have one of those so i did not get to see ibms preferred method of dealing with that. i was floored i could not see the logic.
anyway they rmad the whole machine and that fixed it
they couldnt do that unless they had cheap parts.
but to break a brand new p4 2.8 with plyers was just a shame

Tech removes, then destroys, two components of the computer system that are later proven to not be the problem. Smart tech!



PS. I'm surprised that the CPU wasn't RMA'ed to Intel. I think that they would be interested in seeing CPUs that are DOA, but aren't killed for obvious reasons.

 

[KenSr]

I would imagine that your 3 STICKS OF CORSAIR XMS DDR400 2-3-3-6 @ 200 MHZ, has alot to do with the speed difference.

Ken

 

[mechBgon]

I'm not trying to ride to Intel's rescue, but let's be fair... 256MB of RAM isn't enough to run WinXP + corporate antivirus software optimally, especially not when probably 32MB of that is going to the onboard video. Could you go into the BIOS on these rigs and drop their onboard video to 8MB of system memory, perhaps? That's still enough to drive a 1280 x 1024 x 32 LCD at 60Hz. Or if they're equipped with a single 256MB module, how about slate them for another one as an upgrade sometime

 

[mechBgon]

Oh, and 15000rpm SCSI drives too :evil: