Jump to content

Welcome to Geeks to Go - Register now for FREE

Need help with your computer or device? Want to learn new tech skills? You're in the right place!
Geeks to Go is a friendly community of tech experts who can solve any problem you have. Just create a free account and post your question. Our volunteers will reply quickly and guide you through the steps. Don't let tech troubles stop you. Join Geeks to Go now and get the support you need!

How it Works Create Account
Photo

overclock, or upgrade?


  • Please log in to reply

#16
crouth

crouth

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 24 posts
Thanks for all your help. I'll let you know how things turn out in about 2-3 weeks or so. Hope you have a blessed holiday season.
Chris
  • 0

Advertisements


#17
crouth

crouth

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 24 posts
warriorscott, I couldn't wait, I got the 2gb Corsair XMS Platinum 3200c2pt. It is faster, but not significantly. I used clockgen, and going through all the steps above, I did get it to 2.21ghz. I think an cpu upgrade is in store after the first of the year. Right now, however, we have improved enough, that I can do quite a bit of what I want to do.
Chris
  • 0

#18
warriorscot

warriorscot

    Member 5k

  • Retired Staff
  • 8,889 posts
Yeah it would make more difference if there was more data to handle, Without 3500 or 4000 ram you arent going to be able to push it above 2.4Ghz i think (if you tweak ram timings you might get a bit more out of it).
  • 0

#19
crouth

crouth

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 24 posts
I have been continuing do some more research. I've been
noticing that my boot up time is getting slower and slower, even after using the Tune Up Utilities program that helped a littled, but not enough to buy it.
Most of the all in one maintenance programs I've tried are like that.
People say that Windows defragmenter isn't really that good, and disk
cleanup doesn't really do that much, the registry gets fragmented, and there
is also wasted space there as well, and lots of other stuff, etc, etc, etc.
I believe they are right, just a matter of opinion on what works best. I
found a website: http://mywebpages.co...OptimizeXP.html,
that discusses not only techniques, and tweaks, but also mostly all free
programs that clean clutter, fix registry problems, and such, and actually
work. I'm not completely through it yet, but everything I've tried has made
the computer faster. My boot up time has gone from approx 3min 36 sec, to
48 seconds. It was never that slow on my old Dell(866mhz cpu). I guess
with all the data I have coming in to this thing, things can get cluttered,
and fragmented. It seems the program on that website, Diskeeper has done
the most so far. It is just a defragging program, but one that runs all the
time, and in the background, and not using resources unless they are
available. Anyway, one of the programs is a system info program, that is in
depth, especially for drivers to make sure they are up to date(PC Wizard).
It tells me that the timing on this Corsair XMS 3200c2pt is actually 3, 3,
3, 8. It breaks down like this:
Cas lat=3, ras to cas=3, ras prechard=3, cycle time=8. When I installed
this memory, on my MSI board, I didn't change anything, just left the
chipset area on auto. It said the cas latency was 2.5. While trying to use
clockgen to overclock, I changed it to 2 and 3. I now have it set to 2, but
on auto. Also I see below where it is set to 2t, and I've heard it should
be set to 1t. Should I go in and set all these features manually?
  • 0

#20
admin

admin

    Founder Geek

  • Community Leader
  • 24,639 posts
It sounds to me like your disk I/O may be the bottleneck, and not the CPU. If you open task manager, what percentage of the CPU is being used? You may need to consider a RAID array, or RAM drive.
  • 0

#21
crouth

crouth

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 24 posts
When I'm running my trading program as discussed earlier, my cpu is maxed out at 100% quite freqently. Well, I put the settings in manually, and I had to leave everything on manual, instead of auto, and one part of this PC Wizard program said it was 2.5-3-3-6, and another still said 3-3-3-8. Either way, it didn't work at all. The computer froze up a couple of times. Prime 95 didnt' even make past about 30 seconds, but it didn't give me any errors. I put everything back to auto, and ran Prime 95 all night, and everything was still fine this morning. I'm definitely upgrading the cpu, but from what you guys, and my friend are telling me, this memory should make a difference in everything. Warriorscot since you have an MSI board, what do you think?
  • 0

#22
warriorscot

warriorscot

    Member 5k

  • Retired Staff
  • 8,889 posts
Well when you tighten up the timings the board usually tends to gain a positive increase in performance, however it can be iffy(have you updated the bios before my first update it was kinda funny with ram not on auto) The motherboard is pretty smart i would leave it on auto it will set the best timings it can, i use cpuz to check my ram i know it works on this motherboard system diagnostics will read one board but not another occasionally.

Admins got a good idea there, a RAID 0 array may help you a little, RAID is for business apps like yours, you will just need to be careful to back up data onto a HD not in the array or onto a DVD/s as a RAID 0 if it collapses its gone.

3 minutes is a long boot time, my boot times when i first put it together where as low as 24 seconds, now its into the 30s range but its never gone to a minute. Diskeeper looks a good program, windows defragmenter is notoriously inefficient.

So the ram is good it will be giving you some better performance, but your biggest improvement will be from a faster CPU and maybe giving a raid array a try, Does the software you use work in linux? It might be something work ascking the techs that made the software, linux is smaller and can sometimes give an improvement, it might be worth a bot of research.
  • 0

#23
crouth

crouth

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 24 posts
yes, updating or at least checking for updated bios is part of my weekly maintenance. After using Bootvis from this site: http://mywebpages.co...OptimizeXP.html
my boot time is now back under a minute, as well as using Diskeeper boot defragmenter a couple times in this past week. I know the system can get cluttered, but I've never had a boot time that bad, even on my old Dell(866mhz). My friend knows about Raid arrays, and I've done some reading as well. We'll try the cpu ugrade probably next week, and go from there.
  • 0

#24
warriorscot

warriorscot

    Member 5k

  • Retired Staff
  • 8,889 posts
Well good luck with that, let us know how it goes, i still think your boot time is a bit long, maybe a full reinstall of windows(you should do one with a major hardware change) would speed up your boot time.
  • 0

#25
crouth

crouth

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 24 posts
You know I'm learning all the time from reading articles, and the different forums. My friend helped me build this because he's built quite a few, however, when we went to set up the bios, he made one comment that should have sent a red flag up, but is just now hitting me. He said, "I've never used an MSI board, so I'd have to read to see exactly what that means, but here is what we should set in bios." I'm not sure that I'm optimized. I think it's close. What about the "Load Optimized Defaults option" in the bios. Is it worth it, or just keep going the way I am?
  • 0

Advertisements


#26
warriorscot

warriorscot

    Member 5k

  • Retired Staff
  • 8,889 posts
load optimised option in BIOS i dont have that, i have optimised but not load optimised, and ive the same board with the latest bios.

The optimised defaults are the same as the normal defaults except that it turns on dynamic overclocking to seargent and it turns RAM timing to aggresive mode(which will tighten them up further when it can but dont overclock and do that at the same time).
  • 0

#27
crouth

crouth

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 24 posts
One last question. I see some Athlon 64 cpu's listed at 2000mhz fsb, and others listed at 1000mhz fsb. My msi board says 1000mhz fsb. What is the difference between the cpu's, and how does that relate to my msi board? I don't mean to waste your time, but I have looked, and my friend who was here today, had some thoughts, but didn't know exactly.
Thanks again for your help.
ps do these difference in numbers matter?
  • 0

#28
admin

admin

    Founder Geek

  • Community Leader
  • 24,639 posts
2,000 mhz FSB? I need to get out more. :tazz:

It's not going to make any difference. First, your motherboard only supports 1,000. Second, the A64 has a very efficient memory controller, and I didn't know FSB was ever a bottleneck for them. Finally, you're memory has to be up to the task. I think this is more about marketing fluff than actual performance.
  • 0

#29
warriorscot

warriorscot

    Member 5k

  • Retired Staff
  • 8,889 posts
AMD cpus dont really have a FSB they have an equivalent but its on the chip itself. You dont mess with it.
  • 0

#30
crouth

crouth

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 24 posts
Well, I upgraded the cpu to the 4000. It is significantly faster on some application loading and such. I can now do about 85-90% of what my highest hope was for my trading software, which really doesn't matter too much. If I get that rich, I'll buy the latest greatest, and most expensive probably too get too much of a computer. I have been assured, that the software will never require more than it does now. So I'm good to go for now. Thanks for all your help warriorscot and admin. You guys are great and so is this site.
Chris
  • 0






Similar Topics

0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users

As Featured On:

Microsoft Yahoo BBC MSN PC Magazine Washington Post HP