Why my PC is slower now ?

[Franklogus]

Hi all !
I have built a new PC at last July, and my ?old? PC is as a ?back-up? machine now... I want that my ?old? PC, after some changes, have around 80% of the performance of my ?new? one. So, I have done a partial up-grade of my ?old? PC (as I had a big expense with my ?new? PC, I had not enough money to complete the up-grade of my ?old? one), and I am thinking that it (the ?old? one) is a bit SLOWER now (despite of I have changed some parts of it). I can feel the decrease of performance when doing some tasks as: video encoding, installing / loading games, joining / splitting big files (1GB or more), etc ?
The basic spec of my ?old? PC, from which I am perceiving this strange behavior, WAS / IS:

BEFORE (WAS) :

- P4 1.6 Ghz (Willamette ? BUS = 400Mhz (4x100)
- Asus P4B MoBo (supports until P4 2.0 )
- 756 MB of SDRAM Memory (3 x 256MB PC 133 Samsung)
- 01 HDD Seagate 40 GB, Ultra-ATA 100, 7200 rpm, 2 MB cachê.
- Inno3D Tornado GeForce4 MX 440 Video Card (128 MB; AGP 8x)


NOW (IS) :

- P4 1.6 Ghz (Willamette ? BUS = 400Mhz (4x100))--> NOT ?UP-GRADED? YET
- Asus P4SDX MoBo (supports until P4 3.06 ? 533 MHz) (UP-GRADE)
- 512 MB of DDR 333 PC 2700 Memory (2 x 256MB Kingston) (UP-GRADE)
- 02 HDD?s :
01 HDD Maxtor 120 GB, ATA 133, 7200 rpm, 8 MB Cachê. (UP-GRADE) +
01 HDD Seagate 40 GB, Ultra-ATA 100, 7200 rpm, 2 MB Cachê (as slave/the ?old? HDD).
- Gigabyte Radeon 9600 XT Video Card (128 MB; AGP 8x) (UP-GRADE)

I am intending to buy a new processor to this PC around December (probably a P4 2.8 533MHz). So, for the time being, I have some doubts, and I would like some help:
1) Why is my ?old? PC slower after my partial up-grade? My current memory is faster/better, my new ?system? HDD is bigger and has a better cache (8 MB x 2 MB).
I don?t know about these matters, but I was thinking that this decrease of speed could be because my ?old? processor (P4 1.6Ghz ? 400 Mhz FSB) works in a different FSB than my current MoBo and the memory (533 Mhz FSB). Is it possible or my suspicion do not make sense? Or it could be, perhaps, because my new HDD is very bigger than the old one, and my old processor spend more time to? find the data? inside it ? I really don?t know how to explain this reduction of performance, which is reasonable?
2) What could I do to increase a bit its performance, until I have money to buy a new processor in the end of the year?
3) Can someone say me if the cooler of the P4 2.8 Ghz (533 Mhz) is as ?noisy? as the P4 3.0C (HT) cooler ?? I hate the noise of the stock cooler of my ?new? PC, and I would like that the stock cooler of the processor that I am intending to buy to my ?old? one was quieter?
Well, that?s it ? Any information / help would be very appreciated!!
Thanks in advance!

 

[Gurck]

Did you reinstall windows after changing the motherboard, and install the motherboard's chipset drivers?

 

[chilled]

Please stop "quoting" your words, it's really hard to read your message quickly! Sorry for having a dig at you if English is not your native language.

1. Your new mobo should indeed be faster. You have ditched the SDRAM in favour of DDR and the 8MB cache should help a bit, but don't expect miracles! Are you basing this on benchmarks that show your system is now slower or is it how you perceive your system to be? You may feel your system is slower due to use of your newer system. Take some benchmarks. If this is still the case, ensure that you have reinstalled windows onto the newer disk and make sure you have installed all your drivers.

2. That CPU is *really* holding back your system. You'll have to ditch it for a P4 'B' CPU if you want to increase the performance anymore. Games will probably only feel marginally better as the CPU will not be able to push the graphics card as much as it would like.

3. It is hard to ascertain what cooler you would receive and the cooler others may have got. IIRC, the 2.8B cooler has a different design, but if you find it too noisy remember that you can always swap it out for a better aftermarket HSF.

Hope this helps.

 

[Mareg]

You must reinstall windows.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Have you tried rebooting?

 

[Vee]

Maybe you did the old classic cardinal mistake of somehow succeeding in copying over your OS, instead of reinstalling it from scratch?

Maybe you forgot to install mainboard drivers?

Maybe clocks and multipliers are configured wrongly on your new MB?

Maybe you somehow use up too much memory with your config or software setup, and really hurts from backing off from 768MB to 512MB?

Maybe UDMA is disabled?

In short, if you haven't already, you should check your bios config carefully.


But also, you don't have terribly many reasons to expect a massive improvement, until you get the new CPU.

For instance, I'm not sure at all, that ddr333 will improve things vs sdram133 on a Willamette, for instance. PC2700 is geared towards bandwidth, but old sdram133 have quite good latency, so until you get a larger cache and more vigorous FSB...

Same with videocard. MX440 is not too shabby on 2D, Windows GDI and DX7. Unless you feed your video fancy DX8, DX9 and OpenGL, you might not notice much...

I don't use stock coolers. For much the same reasons...

As for your CPU choice: The Northwood offers a fairly decent improvement on the Willamette, thanks to the larger cache (even if it's not as big as is sometimes assumed). The 'B', 533FSB again offers a fairly real improvement. I think the 'B's seem ok (even if I've become an AMD-fanperson lately).
I don't know how the 2.8B and 3.06@533 compares, but I don't see "any" difference between 2.8GHzP4C and 3.2GHzP4C, (though I'm sure it must be possible to measure). I do think however, that Intel have one 3.06, 533FSB, with hyperthreading. It's a nice feature, so do consider it.
-Oh and another thing, I don't know for how long those CPUs will be available. Intel seem set on forcing the Prescott and CeleronD on everybody. If the new P4A - Prescott@533 - works in your MB, it should be decent too, though hot.

 

[Matthias99]

video encoding, installing / loading games, joining / splitting big files (1GB or more), etc ?

All things where dropping your RAM from 768MB to 512MB is going to hurt you. Get yourself another 512MB of DDR333 and you should be a bit better off. You also desperately need a processor upgrade -- if you're stuck at a 100Mhz FSB, your RAM is essentially DDR200! I third or fourth a P4B 2.4 or so w/ 533Mhz bus.

You also need to do a Repair Installation (or, I guess, a full reinstall if you don't have WinXP/Win2K), if you didn't reinstall Windows when you swapped all that hardware out.

 

[Franklogus]

Thanks all (Gurck, chilled, Mareg, deathkoba, Vee, Matthias99) for your replies !! I think I had never so many answers for a single question...
Well, first of all, I have installed the OS (Win XP PRO) in my new HDD; so, I didnt a single copy of it...
My PC have all the latest drivers for my hardware, too...
I observed the decrease of performance in REAL jobs; until now, I really didnt measure this matter by running any benchmark...
I think that the majority of the opinions here converge to the fact that my current processor and its limited FSB is the bottleneck of my "partial" up-grade, what is around what I was guessing (despite of I am not an expert in these questions, far from this ...). So, it seems that I cant do many things to improve (in a significant way) my PC's performance, until I will can to buy a new processor...
About to buy a P4 3.06 - 533 MHz (with Hyper-trend enabled), I have already searched for it, but, here in Brazil, its price is around 45% over the P4 2.8 - 533 Mhz... As I have read in some reviews, the P4 3.06 has a AVERAGE gain of performance of around 8% to 15% in comparison to P4 2.8; so, it doesnt worth the overprice (at least in my country...).
Well, I am really happy and glad with all the opinions that I had here... Really thanks for all!!

 

[techwanabe]

Hmm...

I wouldn't think dropping from 768 to 512 mb would reduce performance unless you are running many apps at the same time or running apps which are seriously memory hungry - like maybe photoshop or video editing etc, or a few of the latest 3D FPS games. Certain circumstances would show a slowdown with less memory, but every day MS office, internet surfing etc shouldn't suffer from that drop to 512 - which is still allot of memory - even by todays standards.

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: techwanabe
Hmm...

I wouldn't think dropping from 768 to 512 mb would reduce performance unless you are running many apps at the same time or running apps which are seriously memory hungry - like maybe photoshop or video editing etc, or a few of the latest 3D FPS games. Certain circumstances would show a slowdown with less memory, but every day MS office, internet surfing etc shouldn't suffer from that drop to 512 - which is still allot of memory - even by todays standards.

if i remember correctly, isnt ddr double the performance of sd? so that 512ddr is equal to a gb of sdram?

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
if i remember correctly, isnt ddr double the performance of sd? so that 512ddr is equal to a gb of sdram?

Ah yes! I failed to notice the S and D in the original description.

Ok, however, while technically DDR passes data on the up and down cycle of the clock sine wave, and SDR only passes data once per cycle, that is only one factor that affects speed. There are other bottle necks and latencies etc. But in general, I'd think that going from 768 SDR to 512 DDR would not drop performance - if anything it should increase it for average applications which don't need a boat load of memory.

 

[sbuckler]

DDR runs faster then SDR because it has twice the data transfer rate (for equivelent clocks), in this case the front side bus is running DDR is running at 166 (*2 = 333), so it's even faster. However Mik3y is wrong in saying 512ddr == 1024sdram, it's still just 512mb. Most likely explanation is you have less memory and windows is swapping (using the hard disk as memory more) causing a slow down. Buy another half a gig if you wish and that should make your system seem slightly quicker, although for not much more money you could buy a faster processor which would make an even bigger difference.

 

[Franklogus]

Thanks all for your technical explanations !!
But I will really wait a bit and live with this slow machine, until I have money to buy another processor. There is not another efficient alternative....