PC performance with XP

fernando · Mon 13 Mar, 2006 18.57

just catching up ... thanks again.

I'll start SP2 loading up now then.

I'll also shortly muster the courage / effort to look at the DIMM RAM in my other pc and see if I can insert it in this one.

(The reason why I'm using this pc, is that my other one seems to have a failing hard drive. I think however the memory / disc space in that one is a little better than this one.)

fernando · Mon 13 Mar, 2006 21.51

DJGM wrote:SP2 plugs quite a lot of holes in
the operating system, and also shuts off ....
... little grey popup dialogs that randomly appear containing spam about how to turn stop them appearing!

yes, I've seen those this time and before; are they spyware? If so, I've always been mystified at that stage where they would have come from.

Another thing about SP2 ... when you install it, take a note of where it says it going to back up your existing system
files ...
you can delete the folders containing the backups of your pre-SP2 files ...
you should be able to claw back at least a few hundred megabytes of HDD real estate!

I missed or wasn't shown where the backup(s) were made; is there a typical default location I can find them in ?

DJGM · Tue 14 Mar, 2006 02.28

The folder is usually within the root of your C:\ drive, and is labelled as somthing like $$NTuninstal$$ or similar. Right click
on the folder and selct properties after installing SP2. If the folder contains hundreds of MB of data, take a look inside.

If the contents (filenames ... etc ... ) resemble the contents of the your C:\WINDOWS ad you're absolutely sure you
no longer require the backups of the previous Windows system files, then you can delete the $$NTuninstall$$ folder.

Bear in mind, doing this will mean you'll no longer be able to uninstall SP2 should such an action become necessary.

fernando · Tue 14 Mar, 2006 06.34

ok thanks.

By the way, I tried my other pc's RAM card in this pc, because it turns out it did fit in physically. However, either by itself or with this pc's original card, windows didn't seem to work properly at all. It wouldn't boot without error or even let me into the recovery console on the xp cd.

I tried various things by changing setup options (F2 during boot) and even re-loading the latest bios for my pc from floppy, but no success.
I don't understand what was going wrong, because various boot up screen displays did show the new RAM total acknowledged. It seemed to go to a total of about 380 !

Presumably that RAM card is just not compatible with this pc's architecture for reasons I don't understand.

Nick Harvey · Tue 14 Mar, 2006 11.13

I've found over sixty of those uninstall blighters, all folders within the C:\WINDOWS directory.

It appeared to be one for every time I've used Windows Update on the web; with dates going back to 1999.

I've just deleted all but the 2006 ones and got a tad under 2Gb back.

Damn fine advice; thank you.

marksi · Tue 14 Mar, 2006 13.34

Having installed that diagnostic program, I am a little worried that it reports my CPU temperature to be about 65 degrees C - even at startup it reports it is about 55 degrees straight away. The motherboard temperature is reported as 22 degrees. There is a CPU cooling fan and a case cooling fan. System is Pentium 4 3.0 Asus P4S800D motherboard.

Is it just reporting an incorrect temperature, or should I be concerned? I don't believe it can be instantly running at 55 degrees at at startup - that's be heating faster than my kettle.

Chris · Tue 14 Mar, 2006 14.18

marksi wrote:Having installed that diagnostic program, I am a little worried that it reports my CPU temperature to be about 65 degrees C - even at startup it reports it is about 55 degrees straight away. The motherboard temperature is reported as 22 degrees. There is a CPU cooling fan and a case cooling fan. System is Pentium 4 3.0 Asus P4S800D motherboard.

Is it just reporting an incorrect temperature, or should I be concerned? I don't believe it can be instantly running at 55 degrees at at startup - that's be heating faster than my kettle.

What kind of Intel P4 processor do you have?

There's the older ones which don't have so much of a heating 'problem' and there's the newer 'Prescott' ones which generate a fair amount of heat.

There's also an amount of environmental conditions that could cause the processor temperature to increase, such the environment in which the computer is placed - I've been fixing my computer recently in the kitchen on the worksurface is that if you place the computer in a reasonably cool, well vented room, the processor temperature will be in the mid to late thirties, whilst if it's placed under a desk in an enclosed space with little ventilation, the temperature can increase to the mid fourties and upwards.

Also, dust can cause the temperature to rise by qutie a bit. So if you haven't already done so already, don your dust mask, whack out some newspaper you don't want and a brush and de dust your processor's fan/heatsink. It'll help to reduce the processor's temperature and I do this every few months when the temperature starts rising.

fernando · Tue 14 Mar, 2006 16.54

Yes, my limited pc knowledge has taught me the perils of dust.
A pc seems more effective in sucking it in than a vacuum cleaner.

Neil Jones · Tue 14 Mar, 2006 22.29

fernando wrote:By the way, I tried my other pc's RAM card in this pc, because it turns out it did fit in physically. However, either by itself or with this pc's original card, windows didn't seem to work properly at all. It wouldn't boot without error or even let me into the recovery console on the xp cd.

Often a sign of either the memory's faulty (unlikely if it's working fine in the other system), the board doesn't like it OR the memory is too fast for that board to keep up.

Presumably that RAM card is just not compatible with this pc's architecture for reasons I don't understand.

This is just one of the issues you get when working with older systems that use SDRAM - because it comes in at least half a dozen different variations, it doesn't take much to upset the board and when the board's upset Windows is upset as well. Compared to the newer boards which are usually happy to work with any stick you throw at them.

fernando · Wed 15 Mar, 2006 01.20

thanks Neil,

By the way, Crutial.com shows my RAM is as shown HERE on its search results.
However I'm concerned about trying to buy (more cheaply?) from my local pc shop(s) instead. ie the details they seem to have for such things are quite generic and it would be just my luck to buy the wrong thing ...

any tips ?
Should I take my current RAM from this pc with me to show them, and just hope the assistant knows what it is or offers a correctly compatible alternative ?

(I'll probably just add 128MB ... don't want to push my luck too much !)

By the way, are 'Memory Sticks' something quite different? Presumably I shouldn't be thinking about those ? from what I've looked up they look different and seem to be 'flash memory' whatever that is ...

marksi · Wed 15 Mar, 2006 12.15

Chris wrote:
marksi wrote:Having installed that diagnostic program, I am a little worried that it reports my CPU temperature to be about 65 degrees C - even at startup it reports it is about 55 degrees straight away. The motherboard temperature is reported as 22 degrees. There is a CPU cooling fan and a case cooling fan. System is Pentium 4 3.0 Asus P4S800D motherboard.

Is it just reporting an incorrect temperature, or should I be concerned? I don't believe it can be instantly running at 55 degrees at at startup - that's be heating faster than my kettle.
What kind of Intel P4 processor do you have?

There's the older ones which don't have so much of a heating 'problem' and there's the newer 'Prescott' ones which generate a fair amount of heat.

There's also an amount of environmental conditions that could cause the processor temperature to increase, such the environment in which the computer is placed - I've been fixing my computer recently in the kitchen on the worksurface is that if you place the computer in a reasonably cool, well vented room, the processor temperature will be in the mid to late thirties, whilst if it's placed under a desk in an enclosed space with little ventilation, the temperature can increase to the mid fourties and upwards.

Also, dust can cause the temperature to rise by qutie a bit. So if you haven't already done so already, don your dust mask, whack out some newspaper you don't want and a brush and de dust your processor's fan/heatsink. It'll help to reduce the processor's temperature and I do this every few months when the temperature starts rising.

There is hardly any dust in the heatsink fan, but I've removed it, cleaned it and will re-seat it later when I've bought some thermal compound.

I don't know if it's a "Prescott" Pentium 4 processor - it doesn't say on it. What it does say is Pentium4 3.00GHz/1M/800.

Edit:

Right, with the large amount of old thermal compound removed, both surfaces cleaned properly and the correct amount of thermal compound re-applied in the right places the temperature is now a much more acceptable 39-40 degrees.

Thanks again for pointing out that program - without which my cpu may have had a much shorter lifespan!!!