How can I make my WinXP Pro PC run faster? (Second HD? SCSI? Dual-Core?) - Budget: aprox. GBP300

SCSI drives have very good performance. When I bought two 160 GB 7200 RPM IDE drives for my home PC I had planned to retire my old SCSI drives but decided to keep my 10,000 RPM 9 GB drive for page file and temp files when I found that the random access read rate (reading 64 KB data blocks) is 20% faster than the IDE drives.
The fastest drives available are 15,000 RPM SCSI drives in RAID 1, but higher density IDE drives have excellent sequential read rates (good for reading very large files). You can get good performance without RAID if you use separate drives for OS, data, page file, and depending on the application, temp files.

ship wrote:

Hi

I need some advice - how can I make my PC go faster!

e.g. How much faster is a SCSI hard disk compared to a SATA?

MAIN APPLICATIONS I USE:
DreamWeaver 8 (huge websites),
Outlook2003 (1+GB .PST files etc)
O/S: WindowsXP Pro (SP2),

MY EXISTING COMPUTER:

Processor: 3.2Hz Intel Pentium 4 -
RAM: 2GB
Disk: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA

PROCESSOR: Intel Pentium 4 based system
MOTHERBOARD: Intel Pentium 4 D945GNTLR system board
Integrated Intel GMA950 graphics
*Intel High definition audio
*Intel 10/100 LAN*8USB 2.0
*4 conventional PCI *2 PCI Express x1 *1 PCI
Express x16 *1 Serial*1 Parallel
*4 Serial ATA interfaces
*1 Parallel ATA IDE interface with UDMA33,
ATA-66/100
*PS/2 Keyboard port *Mouse port
*Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz Processor 775 chipset 800FSB
2Mb cache
RAM: 2Gb 533 DDR2 memory
GRAPHICS CARD: Matrox Millenium P650 PCle 128 - 128Mb Dual DVI/VGA PCI
Express X16 - s/n: KEW37452
CASE: ATX Midi tower with 300W 12V PSU
DISK: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA hard drive
OPTICAL: DVD RW dual layer +&- drive
FLOPPY: 1.44mb 3.5" Floppy disk drive
O/S: Microsoft Windows XP Pro Oem

Main applications: WindowsXP Pro (SP2), DreamWeaver 8, Outlook2003

I WAS thinking of replacing the processor with a DUAL-CORE chip.
But I have been largely talked out of it.
Looking the WindowsXP "Task Manager" Performance monitor
it seems that for most of the time the processor is barely being
used - it's mainly DISK ACCESS that is so slow.

The WORST applications for slowing up my PC seem to be
Outlook2003 and Dreamweaver. (I have already done what
I can to shrink the files that they are using...)

SCSI?
Should I change or add another hard disk?
If so how much faster would a SCSI hard disk be?
My hardware supplier says that a "decent" SCSI controller
would set me back about GBP 250 - just for the controller!
But how much faster is a SCSI hard disk compared to a SATA?

Or maybe I should simply buy another SATA hard disk and put
all my data (e.g. .PST file[s] and large websites etc) on it..
Maybe I could get a SATA disk with a huge amount of CACHE??

I have a budget of about GBP250 to 350.

- Any suggestions? And any idea how much FASTER each of
the options would be likely to make things run in practice overall...?

- Any thoughts?

Ship
Shiperton Henethe

--
Mike Walsh
West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

I agree that SCSI drives can be quite a bit 'faster', but they do cost more
than your typical ATA or SATA drives, plus you have to factor in the cost of
a good SCSI controller.

At work, we do physical testing of automobiles and automobile parts, and we
take extensive digital photos of the parts as they are being tested.

for some time now, the main PC we use for Digital photo procesing was a
custome PC built using dual P3 550Mhz CPU's 1gig of ram, and several SCSI
HD's running mainly Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and processing 16meg TIF files.

We decided it was time to build a newer PC, and to that end we built a PC
using a single 3.2Ghz P4, 2gig of ram, a 36gig raptor to boot to and a
320gig WD drive for storage.

Outr photographer tried the new system for a couple of weeks, then proceeded
to revert back to the older system with dual 550Mhz CPU's and the SCSI
drives.


"Mike Walsh" wrote in message
...

SCSI drives have very good performance. When I bought two 160 GB 7200 RPM
IDE drives for my home PC I had planned to retire my old SCSI drives but
decided to keep my 10,000 RPM 9 GB drive for page file and temp files when
I found that the random access read rate (reading 64 KB data blocks) is
20% faster than the IDE drives.
The fastest drives available are 15,000 RPM SCSI drives in RAID 1, but
higher density IDE drives have excellent sequential read rates (good for
reading very large files). You can get good performance without RAID if
you use separate drives for OS, data, page file, and depending on the
application, temp files.

ship wrote:

Hi

I need some advice - how can I make my PC go faster!

e.g. How much faster is a SCSI hard disk compared to a SATA?

MAIN APPLICATIONS I USE:
DreamWeaver 8 (huge websites),
Outlook2003 (1+GB .PST files etc)
O/S: WindowsXP Pro (SP2),

MY EXISTING COMPUTER:

Processor: 3.2Hz Intel Pentium 4 -
RAM: 2GB
Disk: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA

PROCESSOR: Intel Pentium 4 based system
MOTHERBOARD: Intel Pentium 4 D945GNTLR system board
Integrated Intel GMA950 graphics
*Intel High definition audio
*Intel 10/100 LAN*8USB 2.0
*4 conventional PCI *2 PCI Express x1 *1 PCI
Express x16 *1 Serial*1 Parallel
*4 Serial ATA interfaces
*1 Parallel ATA IDE interface with UDMA33,
ATA-66/100
*PS/2 Keyboard port *Mouse port
*Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz Processor 775 chipset 800FSB
2Mb cache
RAM: 2Gb 533 DDR2 memory
GRAPHICS CARD: Matrox Millenium P650 PCle 128 - 128Mb Dual DVI/VGA PCI
Express X16 - s/n: KEW37452
CASE: ATX Midi tower with 300W 12V PSU
DISK: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA hard drive
OPTICAL: DVD RW dual layer +&- drive
FLOPPY: 1.44mb 3.5" Floppy disk drive
O/S: Microsoft Windows XP Pro Oem

Main applications: WindowsXP Pro (SP2), DreamWeaver 8, Outlook2003

I WAS thinking of replacing the processor with a DUAL-CORE chip.
But I have been largely talked out of it.
Looking the WindowsXP "Task Manager" Performance monitor
it seems that for most of the time the processor is barely being
used - it's mainly DISK ACCESS that is so slow.

The WORST applications for slowing up my PC seem to be
Outlook2003 and Dreamweaver. (I have already done what
I can to shrink the files that they are using...)

SCSI?
Should I change or add another hard disk?
If so how much faster would a SCSI hard disk be?
My hardware supplier says that a "decent" SCSI controller
would set me back about GBP 250 - just for the controller!
But how much faster is a SCSI hard disk compared to a SATA?

Or maybe I should simply buy another SATA hard disk and put
all my data (e.g. .PST file[s] and large websites etc) on it..
Maybe I could get a SATA disk with a huge amount of CACHE??

I have a budget of about GBP250 to 350.

- Any suggestions? And any idea how much FASTER each of
the options would be likely to make things run in practice overall...?

- Any thoughts?

Ship
Shiperton Henethe

--
Mike Walsh
West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

The best improvement you could probably make for that money is to get a
Western Digital "Raptor" harddrive that runs at 10,000 rpm and, in the case
of the 150 GB Raptor, it has a 16 MB cache. They sell in the U.S. for $299.

--
DaveW

----------------
"ship" wrote in message
ups.com...


Hi

I need some advice - how can I make my PC go faster!

e.g. How much faster is a SCSI hard disk compared to a SATA?

MAIN APPLICATIONS I USE:
DreamWeaver 8 (huge websites),
Outlook2003 (1+GB .PST files etc)
O/S: WindowsXP Pro (SP2),


MY EXISTING COMPUTER:

Processor: 3.2Hz Intel Pentium 4 -
RAM: 2GB
Disk: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA

PROCESSOR: Intel Pentium 4 based system
MOTHERBOARD: Intel Pentium 4 D945GNTLR system board
Integrated Intel GMA950 graphics
*Intel High definition audio
*Intel 10/100 LAN*8USB 2.0
*4 conventional PCI *2 PCI Express x1 *1 PCI
Express x16 *1 Serial*1 Parallel
*4 Serial ATA interfaces
*1 Parallel ATA IDE interface with UDMA33,
ATA-66/100
*PS/2 Keyboard port *Mouse port
*Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz Processor 775 chipset 800FSB
2Mb cache
RAM: 2Gb 533 DDR2 memory
GRAPHICS CARD: Matrox Millenium P650 PCle 128 - 128Mb Dual DVI/VGA PCI
Express X16 - s/n: KEW37452
CASE: ATX Midi tower with 300W 12V PSU
DISK: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA hard drive
OPTICAL: DVD RW dual layer +&- drive
FLOPPY: 1.44mb 3.5" Floppy disk drive
O/S: Microsoft Windows XP Pro Oem

Main applications: WindowsXP Pro (SP2), DreamWeaver 8, Outlook2003


I WAS thinking of replacing the processor with a DUAL-CORE chip.
But I have been largely talked out of it.
Looking the WindowsXP "Task Manager" Performance monitor
it seems that for most of the time the processor is barely being
used - it's mainly DISK ACCESS that is so slow.

The WORST applications for slowing up my PC seem to be
Outlook2003 and Dreamweaver. (I have already done what
I can to shrink the files that they are using...)

SCSI?
Should I change or add another hard disk?
If so how much faster would a SCSI hard disk be?
My hardware supplier says that a "decent" SCSI controller
would set me back about GBP 250 - just for the controller!
But how much faster is a SCSI hard disk compared to a SATA?

Or maybe I should simply buy another SATA hard disk and put
all my data (e.g. .PST file[s] and large websites etc) on it..
Maybe I could get a SATA disk with a huge amount of CACHE??

I have a budget of about GBP250 to 350.

- Any suggestions? And any idea how much FASTER each of
the options would be likely to make things run in practice overall...?

- Any thoughts?


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

ship rattled this off his keyboard on 9/22/2006 :

Hi

I need some advice - how can I make my PC go faster!

e.g. How much faster is a SCSI hard disk compared to a SATA?

MAIN APPLICATIONS I USE:
DreamWeaver 8 (huge websites),
Outlook2003 (1+GB .PST files etc)
O/S: WindowsXP Pro (SP2),


MY EXISTING COMPUTER:

Processor: 3.2Hz Intel Pentium 4 -
RAM: 2GB
Disk: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA

PROCESSOR: Intel Pentium 4 based system
MOTHERBOARD: Intel Pentium 4 D945GNTLR system board
Integrated Intel GMA950 graphics
*Intel High definition audio
*Intel 10/100 LAN*8USB 2.0
*4 conventional PCI *2 PCI Express x1 *1 PCI
Express x16 *1 Serial*1 Parallel
*4 Serial ATA interfaces
*1 Parallel ATA IDE interface with UDMA33,
ATA-66/100
*PS/2 Keyboard port *Mouse port
*Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz Processor 775 chipset 800FSB
2Mb cache
RAM: 2Gb 533 DDR2 memory
GRAPHICS CARD: Matrox Millenium P650 PCle 128 - 128Mb Dual DVI/VGA PCI
Express X16 - s/n: KEW37452
CASE: ATX Midi tower with 300W 12V PSU
DISK: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA hard drive
OPTICAL: DVD RW dual layer +&- drive
FLOPPY: 1.44mb 3.5" Floppy disk drive
O/S: Microsoft Windows XP Pro Oem

Main applications: WindowsXP Pro (SP2), DreamWeaver 8, Outlook2003


I WAS thinking of replacing the processor with a DUAL-CORE chip.
But I have been largely talked out of it.
Looking the WindowsXP "Task Manager" Performance monitor
it seems that for most of the time the processor is barely being
used - it's mainly DISK ACCESS that is so slow.

The WORST applications for slowing up my PC seem to be
Outlook2003 and Dreamweaver. (I have already done what
I can to shrink the files that they are using...)

SCSI?
Should I change or add another hard disk?
If so how much faster would a SCSI hard disk be?
My hardware supplier says that a "decent" SCSI controller
would set me back about GBP 250 - just for the controller!
But how much faster is a SCSI hard disk compared to a SATA?

Or maybe I should simply buy another SATA hard disk and put
all my data (e.g. .PST file[s] and large websites etc) on it..
Maybe I could get a SATA disk with a huge amount of CACHE??

I have a budget of about GBP250 to 350.

- Any suggestions? And any idea how much FASTER each of
the options would be likely to make things run in practice overall...?

- Any thoughts?


Ship
Shiperton Henethe


4 Goodyears and a V8 B-)

DOH!!!

That should be RAID 0 (stripe) for high performance.


Mike Walsh wrote:

The fastest drives available are 15,000 RPM SCSI drives in RAID 1

--
Mike Walsh
West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

ship wrote:
I need some advice - how can I make my PC go faster!

MAIN APPLICATIONS I USE:
DreamWeaver 8 (huge websites),
Outlook2003 (1+GB .PST files etc)
O/S: WindowsXP Pro (SP2),

I WAS thinking of replacing the processor with a DUAL-CORE chip.

Easy, get a mac. You're wasting your time with windows.

ship wrote:

Hi

I need some advice - how can I make my PC go faster!

snip

Load Linux.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.

==================

Toby Inkster wrote:
ship wrote:

Looking the WindowsXP "Task Manager" Performance monitor
it seems that for most of the time the processor is barely being
used - it's mainly DISK ACCESS that is so slow.

Double your physical memory and disable virtual memory completely. That
tends to give you a pretty good speed boost -- will probably only cost you
about £100.

This sounds pretty radical!
Anyone else agree...?

I'll have to see how my memory is configured to see how hard that will
be
to do...

Ship

The memory in your machine is very slow (533). Maybe replace that with
800mhz or 1066mhz if your machine can take it.

It looks to me like the fastest RAM it can handle is 667

See:
http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d945gnt/

Four 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM DIMM sockets
Support for DDR2 667, DDR2 533, or DDR2 400 MHz DIMMs
Support for up to 4 GB of system memory


DW is slow whatever machine you have. I find it best to break up large
sites in it into smaller sub sites; makes DW run a lot faster when it
has to scan smaller numbers of files.
The trouble is that synchronising becomes hard that way.
e.g. with Beyond Compare if we try and synch the root directory
all the 50 or so dead directories get listed as well!
And I cant find any way to get either Beyond Compare 2
(nor DW8 come to that matter) to completely ignore a
specified list of directories.


Move the Windows Swap file to a dedicated high speed disk. That makes a
lot of difference.
Good idea (I suppose).
But... where does this stop a separate disk for each of
-Windows
-My applications
-My data
-the Windows Swap file

Remember my budget is only GBP 200 - GBP300 or so...

Plus last time I tried this (about 3 years ago) although the theory was
good
in practice it made almost no difference!!



Make sure your Windows/Application disk is seperate from your file
store disk, and make sure all disks are fully defragmented.
I defrag regularly


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

I WAS thinking of replacing the processor with a DUAL-CORE chip.
But I have been largely talked out of it.
Looking the WindowsXP "Task Manager" Performance monitor
it seems that for most of the time the processor is barely being
used - it's mainly DISK ACCESS that is so slow.

If you are sure that its the disk you are waiting on (and a simple way of
telling this is how long are you waiting when the disk light is on), then a
faster disk will help. The disk spindle speed is a good indication of the
overall disk speed (although other factors do come in, such as number of
platters). Your disk is 7200rpm. Almost every disk in a pc these days is
7200rpm, but if you hunt around you might be able to find a faster one - but
remember that a 10,000rpm disk will only give (on paper) just short of 40%
speed increase, the reality is probably that unless you are waiting for a
LONG time then you are not likely to notice much of an improvement.

Yes I'm pretty sure it's the *disk* that's hold things up simply
because
the little red light on the hardware box showing disk I/O is almost
permanently on, on these occassions. Whereas the processor is
barely a few % of usage...


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

P.S. What seems to have helped quite a lot is to massively archive
off stuff from my main PST file. So that I only have a few days of
email
on it. And I keep my (1st level of) archive file open all the time.

It seems that Outlook spends a lot of time trying to work out where to
put new emails if/when the PST file that it is arriving at is too
large!

HOWEVER this doesnt stop the ultra-small PST file from throwing errors
according to SCANPST.EXE after new emails arrive.(sigh!)

I would just start with a new PST file - but I have about 60 rules set
up
and if I have to rebuilt all those rules for a new PST file - so that
they know
which directory to land new emails in, then this will take bl**dy hours
of
my time!

[EOM]