Need for speed

March 2, 2008 12:02 PM

I want my computer to work exactly the same, but faster. I can't add any more RAM. Motherboard/CPU upgrade?

Four years ago, my coworker built me a wonderful PC that has brought me little but happiness and joy in the time since. (I can now never again imagine purchasing one of those factory-built monstrosities, with their pre-installed applications and mysterious innards.)

I've maxed out the RAM on the 4-y/o motherboard (1.5 GB), but it's grown too slow and jerky for my tastes. The prospect of reinstalling all my applications and recreating all my settings causes me palpable distress, which is why I don't want to replace the computer altogether.

Previous threads seem to indicate that a motherboard/CPU upgrade is not that complicated. And RAM is cheap enough that I don't care about having to purchase all-new RAM, if that's the case. But I'm uncertain whether I'll have to consider changing any other parts. (E.g. Power supply?) And I'm assuming a mobo/CPU upgrade will get me the performance jolt I'm seeking, but is that assumption correct? Are my visions of making this upgrade and then continuing life with my exact current setup intact Pollyannaish?

posted by grrarrgh00 to technology (16 comments total)

The prospect of reinstalling all my applications and recreating all my settings causes me palpable distress,

Your biggest performance ding is probably coming from your old software installation.

Consider also that you'll likely have to reinstall windows* (or do a repair using the system disc at the very least) if you swap your motherboard and cpu (particularly if you goto an entirely new motherboard form factor and socket.)

So, regardless of if you decide to upgrade your motherboard/cpu or not, it's best to just go head and prepare for a new installation of Windows. That means backing up all of your documents, photos, music, and any other files you'll need.

You may find that half the applications you have installed on your machine aren't even used very much.

Regarding hardware, a good way to insure that your motherboard, ram, cpu, power supply, etc will all play nicely together is to buy a "bare bones" system (essentially a system sans hard drive and often video card.)

Good luck.

* Assuming here that you're running Windows.
posted by wfrgms at 12:13 PM on March 2

You're going to need to offer some details on the kind of hardware that's inside this thing, I would imagine. The form factor of the case will play a major role, for example.

The bad news is that the cheapest thing about a computer is generally the case, so replacing the motherboard will not be significantly cheaper than getting a new computer. If you buy a new motherboard with the same power requirements, you can keep the power supply. I think that'll save you $20-30.

Also, I'm guessing you can keep the RAM. Not a huge savings there, but still every little bit helps.

The only thing is depending on the motherboard/CPU you end up getting, the version of the OS you're running may or may not happily run on it. So be prepared to either have to reinstall the OS or even get a new version, depending. So make sure to do a backup of all of your data (you will probably have to reinstall your applications too).
posted by Deathalicious at 12:13 PM on March 2

Before any hardware updates, do a proper software clean-up.

Things like defragging the hard drive can do wonders to speed things up.

Uninstall all the programs you don't need as well or at least make sure they don't add icons to the system tray on start up.

Replacing/upgrading a processor is a relatively easy process (pardon the pun) but, depending on the circumstances and hardware setup, might not help out that much. Replacing the motherboard however, is quite a major step and can be tricky.

Without knowing the specifics of you machine, I'd start with the software side of things and see if that helps first.
posted by slimepuppy at 12:21 PM on March 2

grrarrgh00:
"Are my visions of making this upgrade and then continuing life with my exact current setup intact Pollyannaish?"

Short answer: YES.

Long answer:
If your computer is that old (yes, 4 years in computer-years is "old") and you are considering upgrading the CPU/Motherboard - you might as well buy/build a new computer. Here are the reasons why:

1.) Upgrading core components like motherboard or CPU, is going to force you to upgrade other components. It would be stupid to buy a brand new motherboard (that supports faster CPU/Memory) but then stick your old (slow) CPU and Memory in it. Additionally, a new motherboard will often necessitate a newer/stronger power supply and possibly SATA hard drives instead of PATA.

2.) If you do try to swap out all of this hardware without reinstalling Windows, the first time you plug in your hard drive, Windows is going to freak out trying to detect completely different chipsets and hardware detection. It might detect it all successfully, but it probably wont. Even if it does, do you really want an old install of Windows running on new hardware? (all of the crud in your Program Files directory and old stuff in the Windows Registry is STILL going to slow down Windows even on new hardware)

So the long and short of it is----you really need to bite the bullet and wipe clean/start over. As painful as it sounds - its not that hard if you plan it ahead of time.

1.) Buy an external backup drive. Methodically go through your system and copy everything you need to the backup drive (My Documents, old emails, data (music,etc)). One of the tricks I use is to take a screenshot of my start menu, to remind myself what programs I had installed.

2.) Upgrade your components or install new computer - BUT - dont do anything to your old hard drive. Keep it around for a week or month just to make sure you didnt forget anything.

Hell, if your computer is that old, why not just set the entire thing aside and build a new one ( I realize this cost $$$)... that way if anything goes wrong, you can boot the old one up and fiddle with it (or research the problem on the internet) in order to get the new one up and running. )

Never put yourself in a position where you only have 1 computer. It really limits your troubleshooting options.
posted by jmnugent at 12:37 PM on March 2

1.5GB of RAM should be plenty. Try a memory manager like FreeRAM XP Pro that clears up the memory periodically. Another quick and dirty way to boost your speed if your motherboard supports SATA is installing a 10,000RPM hard drive like the Western Digital Raptor. You can use WD's utility to copy your old drive to the new one, then swap the drives. A bonus is you'll still have the old drive as a backup, which at 4 years old, the drive may be getting a little flaky anyway.
posted by Yorrick at 12:42 PM on March 2

I dont recommend using memory managers (of any kind) like FreeRAM XP Pro.

Any legitimate modern Operating System should be able to handle memory management on its own. Adding a 3rd party memory management program (like Norton System Works or FreeRAM XP Pro) is only going to add problems and possibly "fight" with the operating system over memory management control. (Yes, I know, there are some people who swear by them and have no problems, but generally speaking, its not a good common sense idea.)

If you are having memory management problems (for example certain: specific programs are eating alot of memory or not releasing memory when you close them), installing a memory manager is only a band-aid over the problem, it doesnt fix the root cause.

The long term fix is to track down and isolate the programs that are memory leaks - and either find updates to those programs, or alternatives that are better coded. A small utility I highly recommend is Sysinternals "Process Explorer" Its like Task Manager on steroids and will show you all of the running processes on your computer, along with resource usage and memory allocation. Sure, its daunting to a first time user, but the information it shows you will make it very easy to track down misbehaving programs.
posted by jmnugent at 1:14 PM on March 2

The explanation of how FreeRAM works is very handwavy. If it really does something that improves performance, I would expect this could easily be proved through benchmarks. The fact that no benchmarks are forthcoming says something.
posted by grouse at 1:18 PM on March 2 [1 favorite]

jmnugent is right. It's not worth the hassle.

When you get your new system, do your self a favor and ckeep your operating system and data on seperate hard drive partitions. That way, next time you have to go through this, in a few years, all you'll have to do is plug your data hard drive into the new computer, and reinstall a couple of programs. Hell, even if you switch to mac, all you'd need to do is plug the data hard drive in. It's a one time thing to get everything set up, and trust me, it makes your life much simpler.
posted by chrisamiller at 1:21 PM on March 2

The things that you intend to upgrade, the CPU and motherboard. Those are the computer. If you're buying those things, you are already buying a new computer--may as well not bog it down with five year old junk components from your last box.

That said, computer components don't get slower with time. They aren't mechanical gears, slowly wearing down and degrading efficiency. Computer hardware either work precisely how it did yesterday, or it is broken. Unless you're running industrial software, I doubt the requirements for your tasks have gotten any higher. So, I would say that your slowness comes (like all slowness, if you think about it) from software.

The thing you're trying to avoid is the very thing that will fix your problems.

(Also, please note that the one mechanical primary system in your computer, the hard drive, is probably rapidly approaching the end of its lifetime. It will simply fail one day. You need to transfer to a new disk soon regardless.)
posted by Netzapper at 1:30 PM on March 2

I agree with others. Trying to replace your motherboard/CPU in this case is going to lead to more trouble than its worth and may not solve your problem -- which is most likely to be your software. 4 yrs of Windows is enough to rack up viruses, useless memory hogs, hard drive frag, and perhaps worst of all, registry slog to really make a system unusable. And as you've probably figured out, the clean sweep approach to this is much more effective than trying to manually fix things or use a registry cleaner.

After years of Windows computing I was quite accustomed to this sort of thing but it remained a pain in the ass every time. Then one day I opened up my soul and accept a higher entity into my life -- Linux/Os X. Never looked back. It's amazing that now day-after-day, year-after-year, with regular use my computer actually maintains its speed.
posted by drpynchon at 1:35 PM on March 2

As others have said, a physical upgrade is going to be a bit painful one way or another - it's not as simple as just changing 1 thing; you'll have to carefully consider which bits to upgrade, which other bits that'll force you to upgrade, etc, etc. jmnugent is right.

But there are a few simple things to "de-cruftify" an old computer and boost the apparent speed:

• Free up HDD space & defrag. Sort through and delete / offload old files until there's at least 20% free space. Defrag regularly (doesn't have to be often, just every 2 or 3 months)
• If you've got anything Nortons installed, get rid of it - it's evil. Uninstall it, then run one of the many 3rd-party aprés-Nortons cleanup apps / scripts, then scarify and salt the earth on which it rested. You may even have to take off and nuke the entire site from orbit - it's the only way to be sure. AVG or Avast! are much better / lighter / faster replacements for Norton's AV
• Clean out your system startup apps. Go through the Start -> Programs -> Startup menu and remove anything you don't absolutely need (and no, you don't need the MS Office Assistant there). As well as the SysInternals Process Explorer mentioned above, grab Autoruns and disable / clean out anything unnecessary. Even if you clean out only half the things which are unnecessary, it'll make a hell of a difference.
• While you're there, grab PageDefrag. Not so much for defragging the page file, but for defragging the registry files. It's not a registry cleaner as such, but it makes the registry much faster to access - which Windows does all the time. Set it up to run every startup (after the first time it's run it'll only take a few seconds). In my experience, this is the single best thing you can do to minimise the inevitable slowdown that occurs as Windows accumulates registry cruft.

I'd be very surprised if following those 4 steps doesn't restore a large part of your original performance.
posted by Pinback at 1:59 PM on March 2 [2 favorites]

If you are running WIndows, 98-XP, you should make sure your swapfile is preallocated, and 1-2x the size of your RAM, and that your OS hasn't pushed your boot drive into PIO mode due to too many errors.

(On the swap file thing, turn swapping off entirely before turning it back on to a fixed size, and on the latter one, there are lots of different approaches to it, but that's the one that works for me.)
posted by baylink at 2:11 PM on March 2

Thanks for the input, folks. The consensus (performance in this case is a software problem; throwing hardware at it won't fix it) makes sense. I still plan on creating a more powerful machine, but it'll probably be a new one.

File transer isn't really the problem for me; I've got a new, sizeable internal hard drive where I keep most of my data. The hardest part of a computer switch is the loss of that slow familiarity you and the machine build up with each other over the years. The accumulated weight of your context menu tweaks, your system path edits, your folder settings, your keyboard shortcuts, your plug-in preferences, your stored passwords. You train your computer day by day, and then when you replace it, all of that training is lost. I could probably document a lot of the changes I've made, but there's a ton I've just forgotten how I did or that I did. If someone ever made a piece of software that could capture all of this, and allow me to transport it to any hardware setup with a snap of the fingers, I'd pay good money for that.
posted by grrarrgh00 at 2:30 PM on March 2

You train your computer day by day, and then when you replace it, all of that training is lost.

You know, I used to customize my systems up the wazoo. I especially loved using 4DOS to have a passel of command-line wizardry at my fingertips, stuff you just can't do with the Windows GUI. But I worked in IT, and spent 90% of my time at other people's computers. (For the same reason, I couldn't use the Dvorak keyboard, even though I know I'm faster with it.) I had to keep adjusting to NOT having my tweaks available. Eventually it wasn't worth the hassle of installing most of them on new computers.

As for the day-to-day training you do, it's really surprising how little of that you actually use day-to-day. The 80/20 rule really applies -- 80% of your tweaks you hardly ever need, and 20% of your tweaks handle 80% of your work. The more times you go through with this the more clear it becomes.

In fact, a lot of people really enjoy the process of starting fresh with a new system -- a tabula rasa. It's interesting how much of your brain is involved in accommodating the complexity of your former system, and how "squeaky clean" you feel once you've gone through and started with a new one.
posted by dhartung at 2:56 PM on March 2

dhartung:
"In fact, a lot of people really enjoy the process of starting fresh with a new system -- a tabula rasa."

I can attest to that actually.. from recent experience. This week my C:\ went corrupt on me and I had to replace it and reinstall everything. (it started acting flaky last week, and I ran all my backup scripts... so I didnt lose anything)

Boy... what a difference a nice clean fresh install makes. (this computer hasnt been wiped/reinstalled in probably almost 3 to 4 years).

Its faster and more solid than I ever remember it being. I was careful to only reinstall the stuff I really truely need, and am holding off adding any extra "tweaks" until I'm sure the hardware problems are assuredly gone.
posted by jmnugent at 3:42 PM on March 2

I had to do that recently. After saving up a little money I wanted to upgrade my PC. I had to change almost everything: motherboard, cpu, ram (from DDR to DDR2) and power supply.

I had to reinstall everything, Windows (and Xubuntu) failed to boot because of the change.
posted by Memo at 6:01 PM on March 2