djlane Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 Not sure if this is the correct forum... I have two laptops 1. Toshiba / 1.8ghz / 1 gb RAM / 256mb Nvidia Video Card. 2. Acer / 1.5 ghz / 500 mb RAM / 64mb Intel Video Card. Both running Windows XP SP2. Both with Antivirus and Spy Sweeper turned off. I have the same database running on both PCs. On the lower spec PC it takes 1.25 seconds to refresh a screen (a list with calculations). It takes 3.5 seconds to refresh the same screen on the higher spec Toshiba. The Toshiba also has a brand new Seagate Hard disk, just installed 2 days ago, so its nice and clean. Any ideas why the higher spec PC would be slower ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genx Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 Well could be one of two things 1) Check all your drivers are up to date 2) What's displayed doesn't necessarily mean anything -- 1.5ghz CPU could out perform a 1.8ghz, the 1.5ghz might have larger cache , despite the size of the RAM, you haven't mentioned the speed which is really more important in this case and likewise the HD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djlane Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 you haven't mentioned the speed which is really more important in this case and likewise the HD. Genx.. excuse my ignorance... which speed are you referring to that is most important ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genx Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 You know -- speed of the ram, MHz -- how quickly the ram is read and written to. Also your 512mb ram, could be two sticks of 256 -- which is essentially twice the ram to write to, so what's being written can be apportioned and you effectively write at twice the speed of one stick. Size is great but that just specifies how large it is, speed has nothing to do with size. Likewise with the HD (though I'm fairly sure it doesn't have as large an impact) RPM (rotations per minute) is what specifies part of the HD speed, while the connection type to your mother board really what specifies the rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djlane Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 According to http://www.computerlaptopmemory.com both laptops are using the same RAM chips @ 333mz. The Acer has 2 x 256, and the Toshiba has 2 x 512. According to diskbench.exe the Diskrives are also pretty much the same speed, averaging around 22-23 MB/s for writing and 8-10 MB/s for Reading.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genx Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 cool, i have 2x512, 533MHz, lol never knew how to check the ram w/o opening up the cover... Okay, what about the Front Side Bus on your CPU's? This is the speed that your cpu can actually communicate with your ram -- see if you can find a utility for that. Hmmmm... also check your video card drivers on your toshiba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djlane Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 I never even knew that RAM actually had a speed ! I'll try to dig out the other info.. I just did another test. From my Toshiba, I opened the database on the Acer over a wireless network, and the speed I get is the same as running directly from the Acers C: drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djlane Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 I never even knew that RAM actually had a speed ! I'll try to dig out the other info.. the speed I get is the same as running directly from the Acers C: drive. That should read from the Toshiba's C: Drive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Taylor Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 I wouldn't be too confident of that data Heres my iBook results! http://www.computerlaptopmemory.com/result.asp?msmnfid=index.asp%3Fmsclsid%3D101%26msclsname%3D%26msmnfid%3D6%26MsMnfName%3DApple&modelid=54417&MsClsID=101&MsClsName=laptop&Mnfid=6&MsMnfName=apple&mn=apple&formbutton1=GO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Søren Dyhr Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 Another issue that Genx doesn't touch is, the various degrees of riddance of Avarage Joe shenanigans each of the XP incarnations possesses. There are indeed serious benefits from dedicating the OS to a specific purpose, by following the recipes found here: http://www.blackviper.com/ --sd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genx Posted April 13, 2007 Share Posted April 13, 2007 (edited) I wouldn't be too confident of that data Heres my iBook results! Yeah, their database is a bit stuffed but you're just looking at default config for a model rather than the RAM scanner... Edited April 13, 2007 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djlane Posted April 13, 2007 Author Share Posted April 13, 2007 the various degrees of riddance of Avarage Joe shenanigans each of the XP incarnations possesses. --sd Agreed.. but I have not had the time yet to add install those shenanigans... this Hard Drive (the one on the "Higher Spec-but slower PC" is only a few days old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Søren Dyhr Posted April 13, 2007 Share Posted April 13, 2007 But most of it is actually to turn off ridiculous services! --sd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djlane Posted April 13, 2007 Author Share Posted April 13, 2007 I went through the entire list and every item was set up exactly as the site suggested. I then went through the "strange services" and the only spurious service I found only the Nvidia Helper service, which I disabled. Made no difference to the speed of FM though.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Søren Dyhr Posted April 13, 2007 Share Posted April 13, 2007 You're quite fast I must say! It would have taken me much more time... Have you noticed what he writes: The service uses about 945k and zero CPU Now you can have different agendas here 1) to have identical systems on both 2) to have both tuned to their optimal utilization... Which of the 4 of his taylored profile did you choose, the point is not to select the defaults??? --sd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djlane Posted April 16, 2007 Author Share Posted April 16, 2007 Which of the 4 of his taylored profile did you choose, the point is not to select the defaults??? I chose PRO. I have now set to disabled all the services he says is safe to do so. Still no change in the performance. I have installed "PASSMARK" (www.passmark.com) performance benchmarking software. The oversall score on the the Toshiba was higher (264 vs 228), but the Toshiba scored lower on memory tests: (Toshiba results shown first) Memory - Allocate Small Block 482 / 1100 Memory - Read Cached 1151 / 1088 Memory - Read Uncached 397 / 854 Memory - Write 617 / 529 Memory - Large RAM 86 / 43 Memory - Overall 202 / 267 I don't know what those tests mean, but they probably mean something to you ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djlane Posted April 18, 2007 Author Share Posted April 18, 2007 Well I have not figured out why the lower Spec PC runs FM faster, but I have speeded up the the refresh rate of the layout dramatically by removing one of the unstored calculations from the layout. Its a big calculation which is dependendent on many others, including some in related tables. This does not explain why the lower spec runs FM faster, but it does fix the crawling screen refresh. It does seem to indicate that the issue is more to do with processing calculations than with the video drivers etc. In order to still show the unstored calculation on the list layout, I have now added a new field and use a script to SET the data from the unstored calculation. That script is run if the user uses the back and forward buttons, or leaves the detail layout to go to the list layout. This field is shown on the layout instead of the unstored calculation. Is there a smarter way to do this? So that the SET field is always the same as the CALCULATED field? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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