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pc upgrade problem

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by lucyellis, Mar 3, 2009.

  1. lucyellis

    lucyellis Member

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    Hi
    I was hoping someone could give me some advice on a pc problem i have.

    I've just upgraded my cpu from a

    AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1800MHz single core cpu

    to a

    AMD Athlon 64 x2 4600+ 2400MHZ dual core cpu

    and my pc still seems the same speed

    heres my hardware info

    EQS M56K9-MLF Socket 939 Motherboard it has Phoenix Bios v6.00PG

    4 x 1GB dual channel PC3200 400MHZ 184PIN ram

    ATi Radeon HD4650 1GB PCI Express Graphics Card

    Western Digital WD800JD 80GB 7200RPM SATAII hard drive

    Maxtor 40GB standard IDE harddrive

    800 Watt ATX PC POWER SUPPLY UNIT

    16MB sky Boardband

    I'm running Windows Vista Ultimate +SP1 64-bit

    Any advice or info anyone could offer me would be really appreciated
     
  2. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    What do you mean by 'my PC still seems the same speed'?
    Your loading times and general performance in windows will be held back by your slow hard disk drives.
     
  3. lucyellis

    lucyellis Member

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    there seems to be no change in speed or performance, you think it's the harddrive then? so i'll need a 10,000rpm or 15,000rpm harddrive? i was thinking of get a new harddrive with more space like a 500gb or maybe a 1tb.
     
  4. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    does your motherboard have sata1 or sata2 as most likely is sata1 for that age of a board? sata2 drives are faster on boards with sata2 connectors but run at sata1 speeds on sata1 boards.
     
  5. lucyellis

    lucyellis Member

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    I looked in the booket that came with my motherboard i think it's a serial ata 1.0 motherboard which means 150mb/s data rates as it says nothing about sata2 in there.
     
  6. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    It's not so much the interface or spindle speed, but newer hard drives are simply much more high-tech than older ones, and even running on the same S-ATA version with the same 7200rpm, you can see big gains in performance. Buy something like a WD Caviar Black edition and you'll be surprised.
     
  7. lucyellis

    lucyellis Member

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    I have a spare PCI Express 1.0a port, maybe a could get a Raid Card with sata2 Controller on it?
     
  8. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    It wouldn't need to be a RAID card, but yes, that could potentially improve performance.
     
  9. lucyellis

    lucyellis Member

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    does anyone know were I can get a bios update for an EQS M56K9-MLF Socket 939 Motherboard it has Phoenix Bios v6.00PG

     
  10. dailun

    dailun Active member

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    "and my pc still seems the same speed " is subjective and not at all quantifiable.

    "there seems to be no change in speed or performance" is no more descriptive.

    What are you expecting to see as an increase in performance?

    As Sammorris has said, changing the CPU speed will not necessarily increase your program load times, if that's what you're using as a measurement.

    For the next upgrade you may want to take a benchmark such as Sisoft Sandra and then you can make an objective measurement.

    Socket 939 technology is dead. If the manufacturer doesn't have a BIOS, then there''s none to be had.

    Not to kick you while you're down, but we discussed this exact subject about a month ago on AD and there was agreement that socket 939 could be forklifted for an AM2+ platform at the same price as the CPU upgrade (unless you got the 4600+ for free).

    The company also appears to be out of business (http://www.eqscomputers.com is http 404) so I would also suggest that you start planning an exit strategy NOW.
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2009
  11. KillerBug

    KillerBug Active member

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    That will only give you 250MBPS total speed...even with just two ports, that will be less bandwith than you have with your onboard 1.5 ports.
     
  12. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    true, but 125MB/s per drive is admirable. You'd need more than four drives for that to be a major bottleneck.
     

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