CPU Question

[Brolyfanatic777]

Hello I just had a question about my laptops cpu, its an Intel centrino T5250 core 2 duo @ 1.5ghz a pop. Is my computers cpu generally defined as a slow one by today's latest standards? Or is it like a medium, low medium, or medium high? thanks 

[DaBees-Knees]

Let's say it's medium speed as you will always find something faster, but if it does what you want it to do it's perfect.

[Brolyfanatic777]

it does do what I want it to do, and at nice speeds. But it doesn't do as much at once as I want it to do. I'm running Windows XP pro I've got 1gb of ram.  Would my next move be to upgrade the ram and upgrade to a 64 bit os if I want to improve the multi-tasking? It doesn't have a really powerful video chip-set, I think its an Intel 965 express chip-set. And when you say that you can always find something faster are you referring to the fact that they pump out a new faster cpu every couple of months?

I appreciate the fact that someone is answering my questions, no one does on pc worlds forum. please bare with me as I am a newb!!!!

 

[Max™]

Hi Brolyfantastic,
as i dont know how much of an expert you are with editing your registry,
if you dont exactly know how, then DONT touch it, because it is dangerous
but if you do know how, there's a registry key if set to 0 will only allow your cpu to do 1 task at a time, if set to 4 then it will do 4 things at same time,
i would not recommend any higher than 4 or 6.

the path to the key, obviously start > run > regedit (enter)
HKey_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Executive
the key is AdditionalCriticalWorkerThreads
look for the DWORD value and set the decimal to 4, it will show as x00000004 (4)

then reboot the pc, it should be faster on opening files and folders.

Note: Only Touch The Registry If You KNOW What You Are Doing,  If In Doubt, DO NOT tamper with it

[Brolyfanatic777]

 I need to learn a lot more on computers before I can even think about altering my computers functionality by tweaking its registry. would it be possible to walk someone through something like that? Would It boost my computers performance to an extent where it would be worth the risks? I can run more than one app in the background while I do other stuff I just want it to be faster. As it stands right now, I can run 3 maybe 4 apps at once with semi-decent speed. Ex. I can run  psp Video 9 on normal priority minimized, watch a movie on vlc player, and browse the web on firefox all at the same time with semi-decent speed. And depending on what I'm doing I might  have a couple of windows explorer pages minimized, but those don't take much cpu bandwidth from the get go. I also have Rocketdock, I have that set to run at startup so that's my 4th.

[]-[êll.Ôñ.ËÀR'][']-[.]

Up the ram to 2 gig and you will be able to do a lot more at the same time no point with your spec to use a 64 bit o/s as it wont help you at all in fact it will slow it down & in all honesty there is not that much that runs in 64 bit anyway atm.
bear in mind the more you have on start-up the slower your PC will run overall

There is a great forum for xp tweaks ... url below just copy and paste into your browser of choice

Code: [Select]

http://www.tweakxp.com/performance_tweaks.aspx
If you ever decide to go for windows 7 (love it myself) you will need a min of 2 gig ram anyway for it to function fully....it will run on less but not to full potential.

Btw you are wasting your time talking to pc world as they don't have a clue most the time and all they are bothered with is selling with little aftercare unless you pay a premium for it.

Any other problems dont hesitate to post 

[Brolyfanatic777]

How would a 64 bit os slow me down? My computer has a 64 bit chip If anything I would have thought that a 32 bit os would be holding me back

The ram is upgradeable to 4gb, i want to go up to that in the future.

again please keep in mind that Im a newb.

also, I have a question about my gpu, I is an Intel 965 Express chip-set any Idea of what Games that can play at a relatively high setting if any?
Maybe the first halo, some of the older quake games, or world of warcraft?

[Max™]

Hiya,
well seeing your answer to my post, i would say running all that at same time is excellent,
you run more than me by the sound of it, i dont play movies much on pc and while using firefox too?
firefox is a hog on its own.

as for being a newbie, dont touch your registry yet, dont try to run & do loops before yopu can walk, if you get my drift.

[Brolyfanatic777]

Drift gotten!

[]-[êll.Ôñ.ËÀR'][']-[.]

How would a 64 bit os slow me down? My computer has a 64 bit chip If anything I would have thought that a 32 bit os would be holding me back

I thought you was talking about upgrading 32 bit xp to 64 bit xp the main disadvantage of 64-bit architectures is that relative to 32-bit architectures the same data occupies more space in memory this increases the memory requirements of a given process and can have implications for efficient processor cache utilization .... so unless you also upgraded the ram then you are not going to gain ( in fact a lot of people have noticed slower rather than faster performance by upgrading to 64 bit xp especially due to driver incompatibility's something that has been made far better with the newer 64 bit o/s out today)
 

[Pri]

Hi Brolyfantastic,
as i dont know how much of an expert you are with editing your registry,
if you dont exactly know how, then DONT touch it, because it is dangerous
but if you do know how, there's a registry key if set to 0 will only allow your cpu to do 1 task at a time, if set to 4 then it will do 4 things at same time,
i would not recommend any higher than 4 or 6.

the path to the key, obviously start > run > regedit (enter)
HKey_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Executive
the key is AdditionalCriticalWorkerThreads
look for the DWORD value and set the decimal to 4, it will show as x00000004 (4)

then reboot the pc, it should be faster on opening files and folders.

Note: Only Touch The Registry If You KNOW What You Are Doing,  If In Doubt, DO NOT tamper with it

This tweak assigns more threads to the NT kernel for critical processing. Stuff that always resides in memory and usually has a very low CPU priority. Background operating system processes basically. By increasing the threads you take resources away from software that the user is running and give it to services that don't even need it. The only time you will find this tweak provides you with a faster exsperience is when your CPU is idle and you are using parts of the operating system which are themselves intensive. If you are however running intensive 3rd party programs you will lose performance. I don't know many people who would be willing to trade application performance for explorer window opening times which are more affected by hard disk seek times than anything else.

On to the original post, the T5250 is considered 'Slow' by today standards. It is no less than 2 generations of Intel CPU behind. Eclipsed by the Core 2 Quad and the Core i7/i5/i3 (Which are kind of one architecture when it comes to the Mobile versions). Even within the generation that your CPU was released (Core 2 Duo) it is considered low-end. 2.16, 2.66 and 3.06GHz versions of the Core 2 series have been released with twice as much Level 2 Cache. Your CPU is also a 65nm version of the series (Late 2006-2007 incarnation of the processor) while many Core 2 Duos are fabricated with a 45nm process which results in lower power leakage.

But listen, just because its considered slow now doesn't mean it still can't do everything you need. It just does it a little slower. You ask if moving to 64-bit would provide you with a performance boost in Multitasking. I'm afraid it wouldn't. In-fact moving to 64-bit will do nothing but lose you memory as the 64-bit addressing is larger than 32-bit and because your notebook is not hitting the 4GB memory barrier you would just lose memory by moving to 64-bit from 32-bit. The only people considering a move from 32-bit to 64-bit are people with Applications that are 64-bit and people who have 4GB of memory or more and want to have all of it accessible and usable.

If you're looking for a way to speed up your laptop, buy a Solid State Disk, you will definitely 'feel' the difference. Moving from your processor to another processor even a latest generation one you are unlikely to notice a difference until you start running intensive applications like video editing or 1080p video playback (as your chipset doesn't have hardware acceleration of h.264 or Flash video). And of course moving to another processor means buying another laptop entirely at great expense.

[Brolyfanatic777]

When you say great expense, how much are we talkin?

[Bluey_412]

total price of a new Laptop

and a higher-end laptop at that

why a Laptop in the first place??    Except for (expensive) RAM and (expensive) HDD, they have zero upgradeability...