New to custom pc's

[kpbradley]

I just built my first computer and I dont know a whole lot but I know enough. I dont know anything about overclocking or how to get the full potential out of what I have. I have a AMD Athlon 64 x2 4600 and 2GB of Corseair dual channel 6400 ddr2. I think this thing is slow as mollasses. Anyone interested in helping me out?

 

[Blakhart]

1. Why do you feel it's slow? That system should be fairly fast if you don't have a million things trying to run in the background.

2. Overclocking is overrated. All you will get out of it is maybe a few percent faster and usualy a lot more heat and instability. I forgo it, and I am a hardcore gamer who can always use more performance. Performance at the cost of reliability is stupid.

 

[kpbradley]

I guess I feal that is so because it takes almost 40 seconds to boot after my screen comes up. I thought it would be quicker is all when I click something i is not up instantly. As I mentioned before I am only above average and all I hear about is overclocking so I thought maybe this is my problem, but maybe I am just being picky. Do you or anyone know of a software to scan my system to ensure it is running as it should?

 

[KaitenV]

Problem 1: Windows is always gonna take awhile to load up.

Problem 2: It's not just the processor. How fast is your RAM and BUS?

 

[Blakhart]

Now that i think of it, I have seen mobo drivers cause this kind of behaviour. I would try a different motherboard driver.

 

[CMH]

Performance at the cost of reliability is stupid.

THAT MUST BE THE GREATEST QUOTE EVER!!!

I might even use it for my sig (If I've got space).

However, you have to realise that overclocks are not considered successfull unless they prove to be 100% stable. As far as I know, there are many definitions to this word "stable", and nothing can prove that a computer is 100% stable imo. Even non-overclocked systems are not 100% stable, so claiming that overclocking reduces stability is just a common public perception, or what people call "common knowledge", which may very well be true, but I will not hold it as gospel.


To prove the point that overclocking does not cause your computer to be unstable, I have been running my new computer, where just about everything overclockable has been overclocked, running continuously for about a week now. This includes gaming sessions on a regular basis for at least 4 hours long, up to 12 hours (where I just leave the game running). I have also run stress tests on CPU and GPU for over 24 hours (not concurrently, which I just realised, and I will do ASAP).

From the above, I have reached the conclusion that my overclock is just as stable as an un-overclocked computer. I wouldn't claim that it is 100% stable, even though nothing has stuffed up yet, or has signs of stuffing up.

People who believe that their computers are 100% stable, are generally those that are ripping their hair off because their comps have crashed, and they lost some really important files they didn't backup. Why backup if your computer is 100% stable?

Which is why overclocking might be a good thing, you realise your computer might not be immortal

 

[Blakhart]

I understand that they can be stable, but to me the risk and increased heat production for a few percentage points is wasted effort. By the way, the quote you like is from my automotive godfather, Smokey Yunick. He knew his stuff.

RIP Smokey.

 

[Exonimus]

you could also see this the other way around: performance increase for a small increase in temperature... anyway: I usually overclock my pc at lanparties because I want the performance boost. At home, I'm fine with my pc. However, when on a lan, I just want everything to run as fast as possible(besides bragging about a nice overclock)

about the slow boot: it's probably windows. My XP system is blazingly fast once it has been freshly installed, however, when I install some software, it gets slower..

 

[captaincranky]

Does This Thing Have....

Norton Anti Virus or Macafee security anything? Either one of those make a system pretty much "boot proof". What's loading at start-up?
This is worth taking a look at: https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic58483.html Heck, I have a Celeron D 3.33 in a machine that will go from switch on to the hard drive light out in less than a minute and a half. Although I'm fairly sure that if I install net framework, Java, and a couple of other things that number won't improve. I have another Celeron machine you can go get a coffee and still get back too soon. (Macafee, cheapo MSI mobo, and PATA HDDs).

I like the quote in that link, "what slows Windows down?", "using it".

Intel pretty much settles the overclocking argument in an authoritative way. Their BIOS simply doesn't permit it. Elegant solution, is it not?

 

[MetalX]

You probably have too many processes running. If you have a lot of processes in the background and a lot of things that run at startup, it can make your boot speed go down a lot. I have a lowly Athlon 64 3200+ @ 3800+ and it still boots from cold to windows in about 30 seconds, mostly because I don't have many processes/services/startup apps.

 

[LinkedKube]

yeah I use to have all kinda of stuff loading up, when I had my e6300, even overclocked to 2.4Ghz I didnt see a big enough different. Just installed my Q6700 and it helped a lot, but having so many processes at start up did still make a difference in boot time. check you processes, stop the ones you dont need through msconfig.