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Crank It Up!!!

Flame

Flame

New Member
Alright, I seriously need to crank up the speed of my design PC. I'm dealing with larger and larger files, and I just feel like it should be going quicker.

What I'm running is a Systemax Venture with Intel Pentium D, 400GB worth of hard drive distributed between 3 HDs, and 4GB of RAM (well... ya know it only says 3.36), Windows XP Pro.

I'm not the most PC literate, but I need some raw speed, but just bought this 6 months ago so don't want an all new PC. What kind of performance upgrades can I make to it???
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
If your computer supports RAID for the hard drives you have installed, and you have two or more identical drives, you may be able to set them up in a striped array. This means they are somewhat seen as a single drive. Think of it this way, when you save a file, that file is actually split up into several small pieces. Half of those pieces are written to the first drive while the other half are written to the second drive at the same time, meaning faster drive speed. This is a RAID 0 array. However, a RAID 0 array also offers no fault tolerance, so if one drive fails, you risk loosing all your data from both drives - it can't operate with only half the data there.

For a design workstation doing 2D design, the biggest requirement is processing power from what I've heard. To get a real noticeable increase in your computer's speed and power would require having a newer, faster, better quality processor than a Pentium D. However, this would mean replacing the actual CPU in your computer, a more costly and difficult task than just adding in some more memory.
 
hammered

hammered

New Member
Not in a system that came with a Pen D. Wrong socket for the CPU. Id go with the RAID config and do a little over clocking. Its much easier than it used to be. Go to majorgeek.com and look through their programs for system performance enhancers. Something in a system manager for clearing cache, freeing memory, dumping rep and cleaning the reg. Look for FreeRAM XP PRO for freeing up ram, Advanced Windows Cleaning for the easy fix on cleaning up the system. Also Find out if you what software firewall, if any, you may have. Many are infamous for leaking memory and slowing a system. Id also go in my sysconfig and turn off any unnecessary background crap off at start up. That will free the system up a bit as well.


EDIT: after looking at the specs on that system, I dont think the MB supports RAID. You may be bound to software tweaks. It does state that its dual channel memory so make sure the memory you have rates the same, lag times and such. It would help to know the model Venture it is.
 
weaselboogie

weaselboogie

New Member
hammered said:
Id also go in my sysconfig and turn off any unnecessary background crap off at start up. That will free the system up a bit as well.
Click to expand...

It's amazing how much just doing this will do. There's all kinds of crap running that you don't even know about. Make sure you don't have 2000 fonts installed and do a disk defrag once in a while.

Run>msconfig>startup tab
 
Flame

Flame

New Member
No internet on this computer.... so no spyware or malware concerns.

Dang it... I can't upgrade my CPU then? What would I need to do to upgrade it? All new motherboard and friggin internals?

It's a custom built computer by TigerDirect. You, pick this and pick that... they assemble it and ship it to you.

:(... looks like I need to do some research.
 
Shovelhead

Shovelhead

New Member
Put it together yourself! It's fun and easy and will give you
a great sense of accomplishment. It also demistifies what's inside
the case.
 
Last edited:
Flame

Flame

New Member
Shovelhead said:
Put it together yourself! It's fun and easy and will give you
a great sense of accomplishment. It allows demistifies what's inside
the case.
Click to expand...


No funds right now. I just spent a couple grand upgrading and fixing the other computers here.... don't want to 100% start from scratch right now. :(
 
hammered

hammered

New Member
Youd be surprised where you pick up adware and malware. And yes you can upgrade, just need to know the model. The Ventures arent custom builds per say. They have a set of componets you can pick from that they have for these. There should be a sticker stating just what model it is. You can also find out the processor by looking in the Device Manager. Start. Control Panel. Performance and Maintenance. System. The main panel of that will give the exact processor you have which will tell me the socket your mother board has. From there, I can tell you what, and IF, you need to up it. You can also PM with the specs.
 
SignBurst PCs

SignBurst PCs

New Member
Flame, depending on the motherboard and BIOS, you may be able to upgrade to the newest Core2Quad processor out there. I think you are getting some bad info here. Striping a few drives is great, but more RAM (8GB and a 64bit OS) will help a lot too. Pentium D are sockett 775 (same as the Core2Quads). It all depends on your motherboard and BIOS as to what you can upgrade.
 
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