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Vista or the PC?

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ChiknNutz

New Member
So I needed to get another PC for us. I found a refurbed Gateway with really good specs and for a nice price. It has the Quad Core Q6600, 3GB of ram, SATA hard drive, 256MB nVidia video card, etc.....pretty decent specs overall. In fact, pretty similar to a machine I custom-built a while back that is a screamer using WinXP Pro. Of course, this new has Vista Premium Home (32-bit) on it. Although it's a 'pretty' interface, I'm not sure what's going on or if I'll keep it.

Seeing as how the specs of the two machines are pretty similar, I'd expect similar performance...WRONG! This new Vista machine seems to sit and think a LOT before actually doing anything sometimes. Is this Vista or is it a hardware issue? Example, open Corel...pretty quick. Start designing, move a picture around..............S L O W. Open up Illustrator, pretty good. Open of a file from Illy...........S L O W. What the heck? What can I do to speed this thing up as it's killing us on how it is now. Yes, I can go back to XP, but if I can get Vista to work properly, I'd just as soon keep it since it was already on the machine. Any pointers? Thanks!
 
Replicator

Replicator

New Member
I am about to give my brand new vista loaded laptop to my kid !

I hate it with a passion . . . DON'T do it . . . !
 
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hydo1

New Member
I would wipe it and start with a fresh XP Pro install. I think XP is a really great OS, and with the hardware you are using you should see some great performance.
 
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ChiknNutz

New Member
Putting XP on a machine ain't no big deal, but that's not the answer I'm looking for unless it REALLY is Vista. Research goes both ways on this, but looking for feedback from others that may have come across this.
 
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ProWraps™

Guest
too little info. you need to see what is running on start up behind the scenes. vista isnt my favorite operating system, but it requires some fine tuning out of the box to "dumb it down" so to speak. aka, get all the crap that is running on start up and taxing the processor to stop. something is eating your cpu clicks.
 
Techman

Techman

New Member
but that's not the answer I'm looking for unless it REALLY is Vista
Click to expand...

Its VISTA.
The hidden agenda behind the scenes CPU overhead is causing the slowness. There is simply too much going on to allow your software to run at a proper speed. For example. There are several utilities running that monitor your media experiences. One such piece keeps your machine from running HD media at full capability.

The Aero interface in particular, looks pretty requires too much resources. It's worthwhile turning it off to see if performance improves.. Third party firewalls use more CPU power because of rules written by VISTA. NOt the fault of those third party softwares.

Upgrading system memory is recommended, but anything higher than 4GB with the 32 bit version of Windows Vista is pointless. It will recognize around 3.5GB only.

Vista is considerably slower in copying files around. Vista suck generally more overall.

The common factor seems.. If your machine is optimized for VISTA. That means double the CPU power and buss speeds and other enhancements.. then you will see about the same speed as compared with XP. If not you will see a defiantly slower machine while running VISTA.
 
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ProWraps™

Guest
switch your scheme to classic view. that will free up some memory. ditch all the stupid desktop apps like the clock, news, etc.
 
Jon Aston

Jon Aston

New Member
Yep.

And that's bad because...(?)

Pardon the expression(s), but Microsoft Office 2007 is an abortion. All of the Microsoft Live stuff that came with Vista is shite, too, as far as I'm concerned.

I have no interest in computers and their operating systems. They're just a tool. When I buy them, I expect them to work. I don't care how. I don't want to have to "tweak" anything.

After all these years, you would think Microsoft could get their shite together. But they can't, and I suspect never will. They've cost me countless hours of time that I will never get back...and I've had enough. I am tired of being abused by Microsoft.

Sorry. Didn't start out meaning to rant.

Software that works makes (or at the very least saves) me money. I have no trouble paying more for that.
 
Techman

Techman

New Member
yer right jon
Office 2007 is a bad set..
But, to be fair,,, Much of the blame for the latest bad releases is on the media industry dictating certain terms to the corporate world. Their demands are making our lives different because of the legal attacks the media industry is producing. They are trying to take away certain laws by reinterpreting fair usage laws. Fortunately, they are losing many of these legal challenges.
Maybe someday they will stop and let innovation come back.
All of their demands make many developers want to take a bath after leaving the meetings trying to hammer out reasonable agreements.
 
Rooster

Rooster

New Member
You won't regret it your decision Jon.

GX, if you want to load XP onto your system try and find a newer install disc that has the SATA drivers built into it. Otherwise you'll need to create a custom install disc that has it available. Chances are your newer system will not have a floppy drive to load the driver during the install process. It might not be a bad idea to ensure you can get XP drivers for the rest of your hardware before you start the process. I went through hell switching my RIP over from Vista to XP because of the missing SATA driver. All the others I could make do with the generic versions, but without the SATA driver the install disc won't even recognize the hard drive.

When it was all over I yanked my mac pro out from under the desk and gave it a hug. I'm not sure but I could have sworn I heard it purr. Maybe it was just the hard drive. ;)
 
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ChiknNutz

New Member
Thanks for the XP advice. Incidentally, on the other system I built, it has SATA drives and I installed it using the XP Pro w/SP2 disc I have. Maybe SP2 has the SATA drivers on it, never thought about that at the time as it just worked and I had no issues. So, maybe I can at least get by with what I have and then download the remaining drivers after installation. Dunno, might be worth a shot if I can't find the bulk of them first.
 
Jon Aston

Jon Aston

New Member
Sorry to be a thread pirate, GX.

Tech, I have no idea what you're talking about...but trust you to be up on that sort of thing.:notworthy:

Pro...I'm a business consultant...in the business of helping clients in the sign industry develop and implement successful, sustainable marketing and business development strategy. Trust me. You wouldn't want me to come within 50 ft of your digital printer...and if you ever saw me apply vinyl, you would pee yourself laughing.:doh:

Thanks Rooster. What's that saying? "Once you go Mac, you'll never go back"? Something like that. :Big Laugh
 
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