Computer problems - Going really slow :(

[Jerrick]

Originally Posted by maestro8

CPUs don't slow down. They're clocked by a crystal oscillator whose frequency is, for all estimates, fixed.

If you're referring to CPUs being damaged by overheating, then we're in a different ball game. This has nothing to do with the OP. His CPU shouldn't be "worn out" as you like to say... he's experiencing software issues, which was my original point.


I'm still waiting to hear from you about how I might measure my CPU's wear... you're insisting it's an observable phenomenon, no?

Really, silicon doesn't wear out (on a time scale we can observe). It doesn't need maintenance.

PSes need maintenance, lest they cause an over/undervoltage condition on the board, damaging components. Fans need maintenance, lest they allow a component to overheat.

Get my drift? We might be arguing semantics here, but you're just not making a lot of sense.

I have seen a cpu slow down. Definitely one of the weirder things ive seen happen with a computer. But the clock was at 1.7ghz, and started to go down ever few days to 1.6ghz, 1.5ghz. Im guessing it went to 1.4 or lower, but it wouldnt boot anymore. Was still able to go into the bios, where everything was set to default settings, so I treated it like when a chip doesnt boot from not having enough voltage and other OC solutions. Ended up underclocking it to 1ghz, and it booted right up. EDIT: No understepping program was running either. I get a lot of people coming to me "My processor says its 2.44ghz, but when i look at it its only at 1.6ghz, and sometimes it jumps around."

A month later though, it started again, but that time it wouldnt boot back up at all. It eventually just wore down and died.

Just to be clear, im not talking about the chip physically wearing down (I have seen chips crack in half though, but thats different from this. lol). Im also not concerned at all anymore with Edds problem, unless he posts back needing more help.

A way to measure your cpu? Well, you can easily read the clock speed and temps of your chip, how much load is on what core, also programs like Prime95, Orthos, burnin, latest version of 3dmark, can be used to benchmark your system your chip, and from there you can compare results over time to if there is a slight degrade. I doubt there will be, and the average of your scores should stay very close. Other than that, it mainly comes down to just paying attention to your system, and when something is up, find what it is, fix it, pay attention to it.

I think we are both making perfect sense. I think mainly, you are doubtful against things you havent experienced here, and are trying to disprove someone with around 10 years of computer experience, and something that I have personally witnessed.

You can continue to disagree with me, and hopefully weird things like that dont happen to you much, and your parts last you a long time before you feel the need to upgrade them.

Ive been lucky with my hardrives. Ive never had one die on me yet, even from the very first IDE drive that is stashed in my closet with all the other parts. Havent been so lucky with audio ports and ps/2 ports. lol.

[evil-nick]

Originally Posted by maestro8

CPUs don't slow down. They're clocked by a crystal oscillator whose frequency is, for all estimates, fixed.

If you're referring to CPUs being damaged by overheating, then we're in a different ball game. This has nothing to do with the OP. His CPU shouldn't be "worn out" as you like to say... he's experiencing software issues, which was my original point.

Technically speaking, processors (and other electronics) can die from the expansion & contraction that occurs during the boot and shutdown. The metal expands as it heats up, and when turned off it cools and shrinks. Over time, this can lead to a failure.

Having said that, I've never had a CPU die. I've had plenty of other things die, power supplies, 3 motherboards (in a row), modems, etc, but not the CPU.

As computers get faster and more powerful, expectations of what they can do increases. I'm using a P4 2.4ghz with 512M of RAM, booting off a 8G hard drive, and it's slow. Why? Because the software I'm running on it (Ubuntu 8.04) expects more from it, specifically more RAM. When this machine had 768M of RAM (motherboard is dying, and won't handle both my sticks of RAM) it was slower than my dual core Macbook and gaming machines (which both have 2G of RAM), but it was noticeably faster. Even surfing the web is slower now.

Having said that, it's still my work machine, and it does the job (until the mobo inally quits on me...)

[Jerrick]

3 in a row. Dang. That must of been very annoying.

[maestro8]

Originally Posted by Jerrick

I think mainly, you are doubtful against things you havent experienced here, and are trying to disprove someone with around 10 years of computer experience

Son, don't test my geek-fu. I work on computers for a living. Not desktops, but high-performance multi-core embedded systems used for telco and ISPs.

You're talking like a snake oil salesman, and we've seen lots of people make a living selling snake oil, so I don't want to ruin your gig. I'm just not going to buy what you're sellin'.

and something that I have personally witnessed.

People have witnessed UFOs, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster. That doesn't mean they exist.

[Jerrick]

Originally Posted by maestro8

Son, don't test my geek-fu. I work on computers for a living. Not desktops, but high-performance multi-core embedded systems used for telco and ISPs.

You're talking like a snake oil salesman, and we've seen lots of people make a living selling snake oil, so I don't want to ruin your gig. I'm just not going to buy what you're sellin'.


People have witnessed UFOs, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster. That doesn't mean they exist.

Skulltrail mobos and the like? Im interested in the specs. Do tell.

Hey, im not trying to be shady or give off false info at all. I said it was the weirdest thing ive seen, and right now, trying to think of something that takes it, well, nothing is coming up. One thing kinda does but that is just funny. Bottom intake fan, besides sucking in tons of hair and dust, he had a few bugs crawling around in his case. Besides, chips dying isnt as farfetched as ufos and stuff. At least to me.

[SHAY_CAM]

My hardrive failed while back due to partition coruption. It was 10 years old and was 40 gigs. Talk about a good harddrive for the age yeah?

[Jerrick]

Originally Posted by SHAY_CAM

My hardrive failed while back due to partition coruption. It was 10 years old and was 40 gigs. Talk about a good harddrive for the age yeah?

10 years is good. =p

[SHAY_CAM]

eeh, 9. im stilling using the computer, and it still runs better then alot of the computers today. Its window ME, and contrary to popular beleif, its actually a very good OS.

[johnfoss]

Originally Posted by Jerrick

Goodness Foss, please re-read what I typed and point out where I said thing just dying out never occurred? Could you please do that for me? Pweaty pweese?!

Okay. You said "Anyways, though some parts will just stop, a lot of parts do wear out."

Then I said "Yes. keyboard blah blah blah." What's your point? Why are people always asking each other to read what they already read around here? I won't ask that of you.

Originally Posted by evil-nick

The metal expands as it heats up, and when turned off it cools and shrinks. Over time, this can lead to a failure.

That sounds pretty reasonable. And when chips or boards fail, usually it's at the microscopic level so there's no easy way to find the broken circuit, or no way to repair it without highly specialized, expensive tools anyway.

Windows ME was a "very good OS"? I suppose that must be true compared to no OS, or anything that won't run your software. I can't imagine it compared to previous or subsequent versions of Windows though. But it's good to know it has its fans, and that it's still useful for you.

[maestro8]

Originally Posted by Jerrick

Skulltrail mobos and the like? Im interested in the specs.

Nope. Nothing Intel. Completely custom.

Current project has twelve PowerPCs embedded within six FPGAs on a single card. The PPCs are only clocked at a few hundred MHz, but the board can easily handle gigabits of traffic.

We've got but a few megs of flash memory and a few dozen MB of RAM for each processor... you want a challenge? Try whittling down your OS to less than 2MB, then implementing a multi-threaded, multi-core networking application on top of that.

Oh, and the whole shebang needs to burn less than 10 watts of power.

[SHAY_CAM]

I like it because it doesnt have to be mucked up with "user firendly" interfaces and update junk.

[Jerrick]

Originally Posted by maestro8

Nope. Nothing Intel. Completely custom.

Current project has twelve PowerPCs embedded within six FPGAs on a single card. The PPCs are only clocked at a few hundred MHz, but the board can easily handle gigabits of traffic.

We've got but a few megs of flash memory and a few dozen MB of RAM for each processor... you want a challenge? Try whittling down your OS to less than 2MB, then implementing a multi-threaded, multi-core networking application on top of that.

Oh, and the whole shebang needs to burn less than 10 watts of power.

Sounds pretty sweet. Can you game with that though?!

Any pictures or even more detailed things about it would be lovely. We should probably take that into PM though. Also, is this just hobby work or more professional?

Ill throw up my system just for fun.

Case: Centurion 534
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R
CPU: Q6600 G0 stepping. OCed to 3.2ghz
RAM: 4gigs Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800. PC2 6400
GPU: ATI HD4870.
PSU: Corsair Hx520.

It isnt bad. Nothing top-of-the-line, but does everything I want it to do perfectly.

[feel the light]

1. Right click on the bottom bar and select "Task Manager". Select processes.
What is your cpu utilization rate ? Click on the cpu column to find the most demanding processes.

2. From the hardware side, hopefully you have a set of tiny screw drivers. If the box has been running for years, you must clean your cpu heatsink. I do this yearly. Take off the cpu fan with your tiny screw drivers. Look at the fins of the heat sink. If they are all dirty, take the heat sink off and soak it in soapy water, and blast it clean. You will need a tiny drop of "thermal grease", to put between the cooler and cpu before you reinstall it.

If the heat sink looks clean (extremely doubtful on an older box), you may try running it for an hour to get it hot, then reboot, press delete when it beeps and go in "set up bios". There should be a choice for something like "pc health", select that, and it will tell you your cpu temperature. What is it ? On your model cpu, it should be less then 65 degrees C. That is way hot, low 50's C is much better.

What does cpu temp have to do with speed ? If your cpu fan should fail, or your heat sink is to full of crud, the mother board will severely under clock your cpu to prevent it from overheating. This could slow you to a crawl.

3 Another easy check. Click "start", then right click on "my computer", then properties. This will tell you how much memory your box has. What does it say ? Bad connection between the mem stick and the slot may cause the computer to boot and run with much less memory then it appears to have installed. This means the mem slot is dirty, or a slot or mem stick has gone bad.

If memory or vid card slots are dirty, blast them out with the red straw stuck in a can of this type of electronics cleaner. Dirt is the cause of bad connections, but, much less often the mem stick itself will fail. Swap them out to isolate the bad part.

Every box wrench needs a can of electronics cleaner. If your box won't post (beep), a dirty vid card slot is the most likely cause in my experience. A dirty vid card slot will cause crashes, or a failure to start, it will not slow down your box.

[Eddbmxdude]

Originally Posted by feel the light

2. From the hardware side, hopefully you have a set of tiny screw drivers. If the box has been running for years, you must clean your cpu heatsink. I do this yearly. Take off the cpu fan with your tiny screw drivers. Look at the fins of the heat sink. If they are all dirty, take the heat sink off and soak it in soapy water, and blast it clean. You will need a tiny drop of "thermal grease", to put between the cooler and cpu before you reinstall it.

If the heat sink looks clean (extremely doubtful on an older box), you may try running it for an hour to get it hot, then reboot, press delete when it beeps and go in "set up bios". There should be a choice for something like "pc health", select that, and it will tell you your cpu temperature. What is it ? On your model cpu, it should be less then 65 degrees C. That is way hot, low 50's C is much better.

What does cpu temp have to do with speed ? If your cpu fan should fail, or your heat sink is to full of crud, the mother board will severely under clock your cpu to prevent it from overheating. This could slow you to a crawl.

That makes a lot of sense. I have had a cpu die on me before due to fan failure. It was bluescreeneing every few minutes then just refused to turn on, cpu was completely cooked.
I will try your suggestions, cheers man.

Edd

[evil-nick]

Originally Posted by feel the light

If your cpu fan should fail, or your heat sink is to full of crud, the mother board will severely under clock your cpu to prevent it from overheating.

Back in '97/'98, I was taking a C programming class, and playing with Linux a bit... I started having a weird problem where Windows '98 would lock up on me unless it was doing nothing but playing music in Winamp. Word crashed it, Borland C++ crashed it, the screensaver crashed it, and the Windows installer crashed when I tried reinstalling.

Linux though was working fine, and since my crappy C programming skills tended to blue screen Windows computers that didn't have random crashes but under Linux ust popped out an error message, I started using Linux *much* more often.

3 weeks later I realized my CPU fan had stopped and Windows was overheating the CPU

Current System (Just my workstation, not my NAS, laptops, or gaming PC):
Case: ? About 9 years old, was generic then, it's still generic
Mobo: MSI... something... I forget
CPU: Intel P4 2.4Ghz
RAM: 512M, DDR1 (down from 768M mem controller dying, doesn't like 2 sticks at once)
GPU: Nvidia 4600
PSU: Sparkle 300W (I think)
Drives:
Memorex DVD-ROM
Western Digital PATA 8G (Boot drive)
Maxtor SATA 250G (Data)
OS: Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron (Prolly will update to Intrepid Ibex this weekend)