Ways to speed up your computer....

[Nick]

Look forward to the report Nick. Very tempting and I have an old PC that it could go on ...

Well, its like this...

It turned up on Friday and I installed it on Saturday in one of my slower machines.

Unfortunately, it was already pretty fast - 4GB, Windows 7, modern processor & motherboard, fast-ish 2.5" 500GB disk... the disk was a 5.9 (out of 7) on the Windows Performance Test (WPT).

The system was trivial to install - the new SSD was simply installed and left alone - the software pack was downloaded and registered (its locked to the hardware of the PC its licensed to), and the system rebooted. Done.

As expected, the WPT value did not change with the addition of the cache - systems like this work best when commonly used files are accessed multiple times.

To salt the cache I rebooted a couple of times. Before I installed the cache, the system too 44 seconds between displaying the message "Starting Windows" and getting to the login prompt.

After installing the cache, the boot time dropped to 25 seconds.

Logging in used to be pretty slow - between 2 and 2:30 minutes - now that takes 45 seconds. Logging out is also over very quickly - about 10 seconds or less) and shutting down is typically over in about 20 seconds.

So, the system is certainly faster in certain scenarios, and, indeed, it "feels" a lot faster.

It would have been far far better for me to have installed this on a old & knackered system where I believe the effect would have been far more pronounced, but (luckily) I have no systems over 18 months old...

Overall, this was a painless system to install - it has some limitations, but very few, and it would be well worth trying in an older environment....

[Retired]

Hi,

Santa didn't deliver the new HP computer after all.

I thought it was taking Amazon some time to notify me that the computer was in stock and when to expect delivery.

Initially this computer was out of stock at Amazon but Amazon were still accepting orders. Not wishing to commit £500 rashly I contacted Amazon and obtained in writing via email that this computer would be available and the price would be fixed should I place my order.

With Amazon's reassurance I placed my order and waited; and waited; and waited. On Monday out of curiosity I logged onto my Amazon account to find the account showed no outstanding orders?

I immediately emailed Amazon for an explanation. I received a prompt and polite reply apologizing saying yes the order had been deleted and Amazon also admitted I had been treated badly going on to say they would like further business from me?

As I have already stated that I had ordered this HP computer I thought I would follow with an update.

I'm not calling Amazon names as it would be grossly unfair of me to do so but I am closing my Amazon account.

I'm now back where I started still with my old trusty computer and money in my pocket.

My friend Steve Skoczylas has just had a computer built to his spec by a trusted friend of his and Steve is delighted with it. I'm now considering having Steve's friend build my new computer and I can incorporate the excellent information supplied on this thread. I'm considering going the SSD route but only require 128GB as I already have 1TB external drive for back up. An i5 chip-set and a decent graphics card.

I'm not very demanding and I don't game but I would like to improve my newly gained CAD skills.

Traipsing around computer stores doesn't appeal to me and I've just had a quick look at PC World website as the New Year sales are on but I'm not tempted as nothing stands out. eBay is full of high spec gaming computers at low prices but I'm not going to commit around £500 on a gamble even if these computers are such a bargain?

One thing I disliked 14 years ago when I bought my first computer at PC World was the high pressure selling of extended warranties. The salesman even brought the manager out to me because at that time I was expected to pay something like an extra £240. In the end I became fed up and said either sell me the computer for cash or I'm out of here; the computer cost £1000 with £100 discount so it certainly wasn't cheap. I avoid such pressure selling.

Santa did bring me the lovely Clarke Lathe Bron kindly bought me for Christmas so I'm not moaning. Roll on some warm dry weather.

Kind regards, Col.

[Geaney]

Anyone know if more than one of the cache devices can be installed? I've already got SSD installed for the main system disk but I have a number of regular HDD's and my bottleneck seems to be SATA throughput. If I could add one of those cache gadgets to both my data disks it might make a big difference. Mind you I don't know if I have enough SATA ports left so I'll have a look...
Cheers, John

[Retired]

Hi,

Good luck with your inquiry John; I'm unable to help because I still struggle with TV remotes.

Having built myself up to receiving the HP Pavilion computer and then being let down by non delivery it burst my computer bubble for a few days and I lost interest.

However I started to think about my options once again. A friend of a friend could build me a computer to my spec and this now seemed the way to go. I emailed my friend sending along my wish list which included ssd; i5 chipset and a decent graphics card.

I received a reply giving me a link to a website where the friend buys his computer components and asking if I wanted to buy my own components or let the friend buy them for me?

I appreciated the choice but really I wanted to obtain a new computer without hassle to simply plug and play. I immediately thanked my friend and said I would consider options open to me.

I had been exchanging emails with another friend and I had said I wasn't interested in buying a new computer through eBay committing this amount of money on an unknown item. My friend replied saying why not consider eBay after all eBay is heavily biased towards the buyer.

This simple statement struck home with me and giving eBay some thought I concluded that although there were many companies selling brand new computers every one of these companies had feed-back; what better way could there be of obtaining reviews from customers who had already bought and tried the computer.

I surfed eBay and must confess I found looking at computer after computer to be highly boring. Eventually I noticed the following;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221127252096?item=221127252096&_trkparms=clkid%3D4455677945887268649&_qi=RTM1272550

This company appeared to be well established with an excellent feed-back score and given that this particular model of computer had already sold in large numbers; surely any problems would have resulted in hostile feed-back; I've just checked and the sales so far of this model alone total 685.

At the price I doubted very much I could buy all the components and have such a computer built and save any money? The spec of this computer will hopefully allow it to exceed my simple demands upon it. It's not i5 nor does it have ssd. I'm no computer geek in fact I'm not really interested in all things computer; all I want is to plug a computer in and as long as it does the tasks asked of it quickly then I'm happy.

This computer is sold without OS so taking into consideration the information you guys have kindly given me I asked how much extra it would cost to supply with Win7 64bit? £85 was quoted and although I know I could buy cheaper I have paid in full for the computer and Win7.

Delivery is quoted as this Friday and it is free delivery. The company being based not too far away in Stockport I could have driven over to collect but decided to take the hassle free route and let it be delivered. I couldn't face another soaking; risk a speeding fine; a parking fine or arrive back home like a nodding dog after driving over pot holes and speed humps.

Buying my new computer this way I'm confident it will be delivered on time and that it is a tried and tested computer with many happy owners; it saves me a lot of hassle over having one built; I didn't even have to leave home; the seller replied promptly to my emails and confirmed my separate orders for the computer and Win7 had been updated; so far I'm happy once again and look forward to receiving it.

I expected to pay around £500 so with the saving I could even add ssd but hopefully I'll be pleased with it's performance compared to my old computer.

Kind regards, Col.

[Radio Fixer]

PC seems like excellent value and you are just using a small local company who obviously put a lot of these together. Should be fine. AMD chips are good and I have used them in the last two machines (i series are Intel). Maybe they will stick the W7 on for you?. You can transfer the data files via the removable HDD as you know.

If its not too late I would give them a ring and ask them what fans they use for the CPU and case? Tell them you are after a quite machine. Its important as not so easy to change after the rebuild and almost silent ‘coolers’ are around for not a lot. Maybe also ask for an SSD rather than the HDD?

Gary

[Radio Fixer]

Thinking about this you seem to be a little out of character from the "careful with his money" Yorkshireman you are supposed to be Colin. In a big rush to get your wallet out and make the purchase of a major item that you will have to live with for years to come.

Its far easier to get a PC how you want it at the build stage than later so bear in mind my comments in the last para above. Now days, for possibly anything but the 'light speed' games mchs (I dont know about them) its easy to make a virtually silent PC. Good pulse width controlled fans and an SSD will see to that.

You seem to be comparing it to what you have. Yes! it will be better, much better but the old is no yardstick. Go for whats possible within what you want to spend.

I'm supposed to be a spendthrift southener but I would have driven to Stockport, and if possible, seen what I was buying first and talked spec with them. If they OK they wouldnt have minded that.

Anyway just my thoughts Gary

PS: Coolers supplied with CPUs are often built down to a price and are noisy and case fans the same. You have already found what an improvement a good screen is and a quite PC can be another joy. Much less tiring for long term use when 'sweating' over a CAD prog. Apart from being silent SSds are so much better when loading software and drivers and doing the inevitable constant reboots.

Note that this is being sold as a games machine and gamers are not interested in QUITE ... they will have stereo speakers blaring out !!

[Geaney]

Looks like a nice machine. Check if Windows 7 is still available since that is infinitely preferable to Windows 8 (in my humble opinion). I'm hearing that W7 is no longer available for sale hence worth checking if you can get a copy or if this company will load it for you.

I'll confess to being a bit of a nerd when it comes to PC's - always build my own. It usually costs more to DIY these days but I enjoy the build and knowing exactly how I can upgrade over time. I see that Apple now include the SSD cache device as an option on some models, e.g. iMAC, so the performance gains must be well established by now.

Good luck with the new toy!

Cheers, John

[Retired]

Hi,

Many thanks Gary for your interesting and useful information which I much appreciate.

I know you are keen regarding fan noise Gary and that you would find a noisy fan annoying. Fan noise is something I had not even considered until you mentioned it; I can hear the fan buzzing away on this computer but never really noticed it before; it's more of a background noise and isn't what I would call intrusive into my world; I am though used to working with very noisy machinery such as chainsaw; SDS drills and compressors etc.

Regarding me being out of character as a Yorkshireman and spending so much brass Gary with what would appear to be little thought; yes in this instance it is true. I could have spent a long time looking at my options in greater detail; I could also have had a computer built to my specs but really Gary I'm not into electronics as you know and certainly don't posses your superior knowledge of such things so I'm very much a novice and however long I dithered around I would have had to eventually make a decision as what to buy. I don't get any pleasure out of searching for a computer and if I went to places such as PC World would I have in fact done any better? Perhaps Gary in my case ignorance is indeed bliss.

Unfortunately Gary; given my little knowledge of computers I only really have my current computer to go on as a yardstick; I could of course have spent a lot more time trying to gain extra knowledge and this is freely available from you members up to speed on computers but all I want is a fast computer that will do my tasks to my satisfaction.

I wasn't even aware that an alternative HDD was available until members mentioned ssd's; of course I know what the traditional HDD's are but these have been in use for so long and accepted; the new computer I'm buying has a 1TB HDD drive installed and I'm sure this together with my existing 1TB external drive will be difficult for me to fill. (The 1TB by the way if you recall Gary was bought upon your previous excellent advice and I'm pleased I have it otherwise I would still be backing up to CD; thanks Gary).

I did have a look on eBay at ssd's and noticed a lot of price differences for a given size; a 128GB ssd would be more than enough for my needs after all this computer has only an 80GB HDD installed and I doubt I've ever exceeded 50% capacity; I download lots of free movies and music videos but once converted to CD or DVD I delete them from my computer as I constantly do with lots of unused files. Out of interest and regarding noise; my external drive is quite noisy and makes a clicking sound; I've simply become used to it and ignore it.

You make a good point about noise though Gary and I'm sure many members will appreciate you mentioning fan noise.

Good pulse width controlled fans; this is also something new to me Gary but this is the beauty of these forums; full of useful information.

I've never installed Win7 OS but I'm used to installing Win98 and also XP so if I have to install Win7 on the new computer it will prove interesting and should I ever wipe the HDD I'll be able to re-install without difficulty. I'm not totally ignorant regarding computers but I only learn on a need to know basis.

Years ago I used to be a biker running big bikes and one of my last bikes was a BMW 75/5 750cc. I used to blast down to Walthamstow (Markhouse BMW Motorcycles) and back home in a morning with the speedo needle off the clock; since those days I've lost interest in travelling and find car driving now to be a chore; with 17 speed cameras in a three mile stretch of road nearby and a police officer with a hand held radar gun 200 yards inside the 30 limit after the last camera just waiting to catch speeders; road humps springing up like mole hills; millions of red traffic lights and now 20MPH limits being enforced; pot holes I can drop the car in so much roadside "furniture" making driving like reading a book I think free delivery to my door a good option for me. Still I admit I'm totally biased regarding driving into towns and cities; I don't do it; Huddersfield I believe has one in five shops closed; if the local council want to spend money on an army of traffic wardens just waiting to pounce rather than to spend money encouraging motorists to visit the town center by making available decent and safe parking the rest of the shops can close. Sorry if this sounds like a rant but's it's a fact of life for me and I have a choice.

Am I alone in boycotting town and city centers?

I'll be in touch Gary shortly.

Kind regards, Col.

[Nick]

FWIW, I'm so pleased with the Crucial cache I installed before Christmas on a test PC, I've now installed another on my main server...

...it was always reasonably quick but now absolutely flies along. Right chuffed...

HTH

[Joe]

I've never thought about fan noise either but I now realise that when I switch the PC on I have to turn the radio up. I can't hear it at present as I've got the fan heater on having run out of heating oil.

- Joe