Tech question

[littleheaven]

Dudes - hypothetical (ish) question.

Compare an iMac with a 2.88Ghz dual core processor and 2GB of ram to a Dell XPS 710 2.8Ghz quad core processor with 4GB of ram.  Would the Mac be noticeably slower, or because it runs more efficiently would it be about the same?

*This question brought to you by she of limited budget, whose big f**k-off Dell freezes and crashes opening Yahoo Messenger, despite having enough power to run a small nation.*

Comments

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

For graphics, I would expect the Quadcore processor to be WAY faster. Not only tat, but it has double the RAM. Go with the dell. Also, If these are laptops, make sure that it has a real graphics card, and not some laptop type of graphics card, otherwise it might not have vertex shading ability, and be limited in other ways. If these are not laptops, I would always go with the PC, becausr I like to be able to open it up and upgrade it myself.

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your thoughts! I already have the Dell. And it is actually not that fast. I haven't noticed a significant improvement in vidding speed over my old single-core Dimension 8100, which only had 1 3.2Ghz processor and 2GB of ram, and it freezes on start-up about once in every 4 attempts. And sometimes it'll just freeze on something stupid like opening Firefox. I don't think it uses its 4 processors intelligently. At least with a Mac, when one programme goes down, the others still work.

I'm just concerned that if I replace it with an iMac (desktop) I'll feel like I've taken a step backwards power-wise. Hubby assures me that because of the way Macs use their system resources, and because all the software is made to run together, it'll actually be just as efficient, or more, than what I'm using. I love PCs but I am getting so tired of the constant instability of them.

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

See, I have a PC that I built myself, and it's never unstable. I'm guessing that you are having problems with drivers that are too old for the software that you are using, or too old a graphics card, or maybe too old of programs to use on your computer. How old is this computer-Do you update your drivers regularly-do you have the latest version of Directx?

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

My old PC ran pretty well, I have to say, but this one has always been a bit temperamental. It's less than 2 years old. I recently got it from my hubby (who got a Pro Mac) and I completely rebuilt it. Re-loaded all the drivers, all the Windows updates, etc. The graphics card is a pretty good gaming one (and it may possibly have two).

How do I make sure I have all my drivers and Directx up to date? I'm willing to give it a try before I part with my money (well, my credit, actually).

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

Instability is usully the result of an undiagnosed problem... Does it usually crash with certain programs? That hints at a conflict, or driver problem, or both. Or maybe those programs are simply too old to run well on this relatively new computer.
Also check your hard drive for bad sectors-that can lead to random crashes. running a registry cleaner,like registry first aid might help, as well...
Worst case scenario would be a motherboard problem, but if it's only 2 years old, I doubt it's that.

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

It usually crashes during or right after start-up. Hubby had similar issues - except it would refuse to start up. I found that one of his sticks of ram was faulty, pulled it, and Dell sent me a new one. That sorted it out for a while. I did recently also check the hard drives (I have 3) to make sure they were fine and couldn't find an issue. I'm puzzled.

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

I'm looking on the internet-I found this:
as these crashes are happening during start up then the culprit has to be something to do with a program that loads during start up
this could be a anti-virus program or a internet explorer add-on but my bet is its your graphic cards driver thats causing this,its a common problem and quite easy to fix
first you need to check the actual graphic card and make sure all the connections(were applicable) and the card itself are securely fitted and clean of dirt/dust
now you need to remove the current display driver by going into control panel>add/remove programs and remove the appropriate graphics driver,if its a nvidia card the it will come under "nvidia driver" and if you are using a a.t.i card then it will be a entry called" ati software removal utility"
when you have uninstalled the driver you will need to restart your p.c,this is when you need to do the first check,when the p.c starts again take careful attention to see if it crashes
i bet it dosent,and if it dosent crash then its your display driver thats the culprit
you should then go to the appropriate website and download the latest(up to date) driver for your card,note:do not download any beta drivers,use the most up to date display driver for your specific card
another reason for many p.c crashes is not so much defective hardware but dirty hardware,especially fans such as the c.p.u fan
using soem compressed air in a aerosol(better known as "air duster")blast the cpu fan and heatsink and clean all the dust and dirt away from the ridges on the heatsink
also clean the rear and front 80mm fans and the graphic cards fan,check all hardware for correct fitting and make sure all the cables and leads are neat and tidy and not blocking any airways ,use some plastic cable ties and neatly arrange them in the case,a good air flow in the p.c will give your p.c much better performance.

I'll keep looking, but I'm betting this guy is right, and it's your display driver. His other advice is all good, too.

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

Another (can't understand why they didn't just buy a new hard drive...)
We had exactly the same problem on our previous computer.
Our dealer (a private shop where they build, sell and repair PCs) said the most likely problem was the hard drive - the most expensive piece to replace! They ran a few tests which confirmed that it was the hard drive, so we decided to replace the whole PC with a more up to date one.
Good luck - start saving!

I'm thinking that if the driver thing doesn't work, you should try removing all the hard drives except 'C'. If it still crashes, pick up a new hard drive, load windows onto it, and try restarting with that one. If the crash issue is solved, you're good to go, and it not, you have a hard drive ready to go in the event of surprise hard drive death (which has happened to me several times).

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Oh, eee! I hate taking the guts out of the computer, so I hope it's not necessary. I'm really trying hard not to have to format the drive again after such a short time.

If hubby was here, he'd say, "if you had a Mac, you wouldn't need to try any of this, because Macs never crash." Which I guess is why I'm looking seriously at getting one. They run Windows, so I'd get the best of both worlds (as long as the speed didn't piss me off).

But first, off to fiddle with the drivers...

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

With a Mac, when something does go wrong, you can't fix it, that's the downside. Don't be afraid of the inside of your computer-you should be opening it up to clean the dust out anyway, and taking hard drives out is a piece of cake. You also need to make sure that graphics card is seated properly-it might be not in quite right. Try the other stuff first, but eventually, you're going to have to go inside, if only to blow the dust out. They get pretty dirty in there.

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

This is true. I can't imagine busting open an iMac. I'm not really afraid of the inside of my computer. I've already installed an additional hard drive and fixed the broken ram. I'm just a bit lazy to do it!

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

True. Er, not the lazy part... I mean, if you can replace ram, you can do anything you need to do in there.

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Dude, thank you! I will give that a try. I just downloaded a trial version of Registry First Aid and that found over 1000 problems, so that could have something to do with it. Especially the 9 invalid start menu items. Once I've sorted those out I might give the above a bash.

I really appreciate your help!

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

With registry first aid, remove the 'green' items, but don't remove the 'yellow' or 'red' ones at this time. ; )

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

It would only let me do 9 at a time, so I got rid of the invalid start menu items :o) I just found that the graphics card drivers are in serious need of upgrade, so I'm downloading the latest ones now. Can't hurt, even if that's not the issue. Even if I do end up selling the thing, when I format the drive I can reinstall the new drivers for the next owner.

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

You aren't going to have to sell it. We can fix this. Registry first aid is worth buying, in my opinion. bloated registries can really slow down your computer.

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I admire your enthusiasm! I still might go ahead and get the Mac, even if I do get this fixed. But even if I do, it won't be for a wee while and in the meantime it would be so wonderful to not have to restart the jolly thing several times a day!

Oh, and replacing the ram was easy. It just snapped into place, and then the computer did the rest.

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I find replacing the ram more intimidating that replacing other hardware. Except for the motherboard, of course. That's pretty darn scary.

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Nah, the ram was easier than the hard drive - because I didn't need to fiddle around in the BIOS to get it going.

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

I've never had to touch the bios to get a hard drive running. What was the problem?

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was when I was rescuing a friend's PC and I installed their old hard drive (with operating system still on it) into one of my old machines so I could crack their admin code and get their files off it. It took a bit of fiddling with the drive order to get it to show up when the computer booted.

I remember the other BIOS fiddling I had to do was when I replaced my internal DVD drive. The details are a bit fuzzy, as it was a while ago...

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

I don't think you have to worry about that happening again-sounds like an 'extraordinary circumstances' situation-but I am impressed!

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

It's amazing what tutorials you can find online, that's all I'll say ;o)

[inkbabies.livejournal.com]

As a Mac mama, I'd say mac...they crash less and are more dependable and efficient....