[vinny_the_hack]

Are you kidding me!? Doesn't this mean that something is very wrong? How can a much faster cpu (than your laptop) be driven so much higher to do the same thing? Even your desktop cpu is less than 1.5 faster, yet requires almost 100 times less processing than mine. It appears that something other than simple processing power is at work here.

Edited by vinny_the_hack, 16 August 2009 - 03:00 PM.

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How can a much faster cpu (than your laptop) be driven so much higher to do the same thing?

Not understanding this... did you write it correctly??

My desktop is not being driven higher. It barely has to work to view these websites. In my sig are the specs of my machines. You can see my Desktop is much more powerful than my X31.

My desktop CPU "speed" is 1.5 times faster than your PC, but it's not just that. My CPU is a Core2Duo running at 3 times the FSB speed of your PC. My desktop also has 10 times the Ram you have. CPU speed is not the only factor here.

[makai]

How can a much faster cpu (than your laptop) be driven so much higher to do the same thing?

Not understanding this... did you write it correctly??

My desktop is not being driven higher. It barely has to work to view these websites. In my sig are the specs of my machines. You can see my Desktop is much more powerful than my X31.

My desktop CPU "speed" is 1.5 times faster than your PC, but it's not just that. My CPU is a Core2Duo running at 3 times the FSB speed of your PC. My desktop also has 10 times the Ram you have. CPU speed is not the only factor here.

[stettybet0]

Flash video, such as the video on Youtube, is rendered through software means. That means that your CPU is doing the rendering. (This is opposed to hardware rendering like, say, playing a DVD on your computer, as the video card does the rendering.) I know my 2.0Ghz AMD Sempron has trouble rendering Youtube videos smoothly, and I wouldn't be surprised that a Celeron has similar issues. (Both the Sempron and the Celeron are low-end CPUs.) So, I don't think there's anything wrong, other than the fact that you have a slow CPU.

[vinny_the_hack]

How can a much faster cpu (than your laptop) be driven so much higher to do the same thing?

Not understanding this... did you write it correctly??

I was referring to the fact that my cpu is much faster than that of your laptop, yet my cpu is driven much harder when viewing video.

My desktop CPU "speed" is 1.5 times faster than your PC, but it's not just that. My CPU is a Core2Duo running at 3 times the FSB speed of your PC. My desktop also has 10 times the Ram you have. CPU speed is not the only factor here.

I'll buy the Core2 factor, but RAM is not an issue--mine is almost never fully utilized.

I agree that CPU speed is not the only factor. That's precisely why I posted about this issue. The question is, what other factor(s) is/are at play here and what, if anything, can be done to alleviate the problem--short of a completely new system.

The thing of note is the comparison of your laptop to my desktop being so incongruous. I'm also fairly certain that other people with machines in the ballpark of mine are not having the video problems I am. I'll try to get the configuration of a friend of mine I've talked to about this.

Thanks for staying with this for me.

[vinny_the_hack]

Flash video, such as the video on Youtube, is rendered through software means. That means that your CPU is doing the rendering. (This is opposed to hardware rendering like, say, playing a DVD on your computer, as the video card does the rendering.) I know my 2.0Ghz AMD Sempron has trouble rendering Youtube videos smoothly, and I wouldn't be surprised that a Celeron has similar issues. (Both the Sempron and the Celeron are low-end CPUs.) So, I don't think there's anything wrong, other than the fact that you have a slow CPU.

I was composing my previous post while you posted the above. It doesn't explain the difference between Makai's laptop and my desktop. Unless, of course, Celeron processors are so much worse at specific operations such as those used for rendering video.

[stettybet0]

Makai's laptop, if my research is correct, has a 1.6Ghz Pentium M CPU. The Pentium M uses an improved P6 microarchitecture (which was used in later Pentium III CPUs). The P6 microarchitecture, clock-for-clock, is actually faster than the Netburst microarchitecture (which is what Pentium 4s and P4-based Celerons, such as yours, use). It's very possible that his CPU may actually be faster than yours, despite what the clock speeds might suggest.

[makai]

Unless, of course, Celeron processors are so much worse at specific operations such as those used for rendering video.

Celerons have been around for ages, and truth be told, they are a "weaker" processor, and yes, video processing is not their forte. However, if you can remember how quick your machine was when you first got it compared to how it's working now, I'm sure you must realize it's not the processor alone. These processors though "weaker" should be able to handle youtube without coughing. In fact your machine as configured should be able to handle youtube... however... there are many more contributing factors, and you're only now feeling the effects.

Most people that buy PCs (rather than build them) don't realize that with extended use, the PC will become slower and slower over time. This is caused not necessarily by "only" the hardware installed, but by the usage, junk, programs, files, etc that each user eventually installs on the computer. Manufactures of "budget" PCs know this... and they don't care. They know that initially the user will think the machine is great, but by the time the warranty wears out, the machine will be acting just as yours is. They don't care as long as they make the bucks up front!

If you were to reload your machine today... installed all the drivers, then visited youtube, or played a video, you would experience no problems whatsoever. Once you start adding programs, BHOs, AVs, Antispyware software, Messaging programs, pictures, videos, documents, etc, etc, etc, your machine will become slower and slower as you progress. Not suprising at all.

If you want to experience performance like 0% FF usage, you will have to upgrade. If you can't upgrade, then you should probably reformat and reinstall. Back up your data, maintain your computer, and keep junk off of it. You mentioned that your machine is a "clean machine", however, its running double the processes of my desktop. Everything that runs eats CPU cycles, ram and affects perfomance.

[vinny_the_hack]

I'm aware of the slowing down effect of an ageing PC. It still does not seem to fully explain why my situation is much different from other configurations.

I just chatted with my friend. She's running a 2.66 GHZ Celeron machine with about twice as much "junk" on her C drive as I have. She ran the two tests I did with the result that she's using an estimated 20-25% less cpu in each case. She also informs me that she has never noticed jerky video on YouTube or anywhere else.

I guess whatever it is, it's causing my machine to drop just below the threshold of consistently smooth video wherever it's not the most efficiently packaged.

Thank-you all for your time and effort, for indulging me and for helping me to explore this problem.

[vinny_the_hack]

Oh, I also regularly look through my processes to see if there's anything there that shouldn't be. And I don't see anything out of place now. Are you sure you're not running WIND, a scaled down version of WINDOWS?

[makai]

Are you sure you're not running WIND, a scaled down version of WINDOWS?

I don't believe in all those "other" windows... Black XP, etc. I also don't bother with programs like Nlite. I run valid, full blown, XP Pro SP2 on all my machines. I tediously, manually kill services and startups and don't allow any program to leave startup junk after I install it. No program gets installed "automatically", they are all installed using "customized install". Also, no program is allowed to schedule, monitor, or update on its own... not even my AV or Antispyware apps. I also run a few utilities to break a few XP Security holes. Nothing fancy and nothing anyone can't get on the net. I also use personal registry hacks I've used for years and defrag my C drive at least once a week, if not more. My hard drives are all partitioned on every machine, and all personal data is stored on other partitions... nothing is stored on C drive. Right now, I have two 320gb hard drives on my desktop partitioned for various reasons. My C drive is only 24gb (actually too large!), and only ~6gb is used. This 6gb includes Windows, and all my photo, video and music editing programs, along with every other application I run. My desktop, once fully booted after Startup runs only 20 processes. Laptops require more processes due to all the additional drivers they require and this causes 36 processes on my X31 and basically the same on my T41 and X61. All in all, my desktop, and all my laptops are basically identical with reference to C drive and its contents.

There are real reasons why I do what I do with my computers, but the number one reason is for recovery. I do a lot of work on my desktop... mostly video editing... and if I were to need to upgrade my hard drive or recover from an unrecoverable crash, or like you, have some reason that Windows was not running exactly right, it would take me less than 1 hour to have my desktop fully up an running just as it is now while I'm typing this. The reason I can do this is because I partition my drives, store data on other partitions, and use Acronis True Image to image my C drive. The image is only approx 5 gb and the difference between the aforementioned ~6gbs and the image is because there have been other stuff added after I created the image. But just so you know, the added stuff is mostely due to windows and not stuff I added myself. For Acronis to reimage my C drive takes less than 30 minutes. Quite an amazing application that I've come to appreciate over the years!

This could take ages to explain, so I'll end here.

[makai]

Makai's laptop, if my research is correct, has a 1.6Ghz Pentium M CPU. The Pentium M uses an improved P6 microarchitecture (which was used in later Pentium III CPUs). The P6 microarchitecture, clock-for-clock, is actually faster than the Netburst microarchitecture (which is what Pentium 4s and P4-based Celerons, such as yours, use). It's very possible that his CPU may actually be faster than yours, despite what the clock speeds might suggest.

The specs for the X31 are not very impressive. The ram clock is also limited to 233Mhz even though it uses PC2700 333Mhz ram. When I ran the test, the X31 CPU was locked at 600Mhz. I believe the difference in performance is only due to usage/setup of the computers. As for online performance... it could also be his DSL connection vs my cable.