New System But Poor Performance

[cherry_hifi]

I have bought an NEW computer Last week.
its config is

AMD ATHLON 64 3500+,
ASUS A8N-VM Motherborad.
1 GB DDR UMAX RAM(400).
120 GB SATA II Hard Disk.
Zebronics Cabinet and 400 watt SMPS.
SONY DVD WRITER.
17" Viewsonic CRT.
LOGITECH keybord and mouse(Gamer Edition).
Pinncale TV Capture Card.
600 VA UPS.

It all costed me about 40,000 Rs.
But still I think I am not getting the performance this hardware ought to give.Even though I have 1 GB Ram and a nice proccer it take about 40 to 1 minute for the computer to Boot.And some times I don't see it faster then my old Pentium 4 1.7 ghz,384 MB rams system.And is it necceary that I should have a 64 bit OS inorder to get the performace from the system.And I also think that the system gets heated much.I have noticed that the Idel temprature is about 40-45 and in workload it comes up to 50-53.Is this normals.
And I would also be thankfull if anyone could help in regard of increasing the perfromace of my system.And how to tweak my ram and proccer,GPU(onboad).
And I want some help regarding the case airflow for my system.I have two fans at the side of my cabinet that takes the air from the cabinet outside.Should I fit more fans?

Thanks for taking your time to read this And I would be thankfull a lot for your replies.

[ashfame]

can't help you right now but does your ups works, with all that hardware 600va is not enough.

And all that in 40k, too bad on your pocket.
you could hav get that in not more than 35k.

[abhijit_reddevil]

Also, I think you should check out www.tweakguides.com. They have a nice section on how to optimize everything on the machine, be it the hardware, or the programs installed. It also tells you about the optimization of the drivers, the unnecessary services you need to switch off, etc. As of now, I am assuming that you have installed windows XP professional with SP2. No need to upgrade to x64 edition at the moment.

I could provide you with the exact link in tweakguides.com, but that site is blocked from office network. I am sure you will get it if you search the site.

All the best.

[hellomotto]

whats the price of ur processor AMD ATHLON 64 3500+,?

I don't exactly know, what software components U have installed on your computer, but here are a few things u can do

1) Disable DEP, although it should not affect cos Athlon64 supports Hardware DEP, but still try for once. Open your boot ini file there U will see a string by the name "noexecute=optin" change this to "execute"

2) Increase your virtual memory size, 1 GB should be enough, however 512 MB should also do since u got 1 GB system RAM

3) Scan for any virus or adwares

4) 400 Watts SMPS is not enough, try to get a Powersafe/VIP/Colorsit SMPS with at least 500W, check the total power output by looking at the power ampere rating on the side sticker

5) Check what u got on your system startup, I think there are too many applications starting with windows startup. Can u post your hijackthis log file, along with Everest/SANDRA system report

6) The correct way of windows installation is

Updates & Service Packs
DirectX (if any)
Motherboard drivers
Graphics card driver
Audio Driver
Rest of the drivers (Modem etc) & software like WMP etc

at least this is the method I chose & it gives me optimal performance

Download the latest drivers from manufacturer site, since it's SATA2 check if N.C.Q is enabled in BIOS or not, & also install any QFE update etc, remember NVIDIA IDE drivers are known to be slow, so try uninstalling the motherboard drivers & then reinstall again, but this time opting out the NVIDIA IDE drivers & chose Microsoft inbuilt instead

[digiFriend]

also try "best performance option" in bios. see that bios show correct processor speed and has other cache are enabled .

[nitesh2212167@yahoo.com]

Me too have 939 pin amd athlon 3200+, msi k8ngm2 , 80 gb seagate sata , sony dvd writer , 512 mb hynix 400 mhz and suffers the same problem

[144]

You seem to have based your system performance on your boot up speed? Why don't you base it on some objective criteria - I think 400W SMPS is more than enough for your rig.
Try installing something like 3D Mark 06 or PC Mark 06 -- This will give some objective and standardized benchmarking info for you. Then you can judge its performance.

Also note this fact: AMDs do slow up when they heat up? What is the avg. temp. of your locality?

[Mayur]

It could be due to incompitable softwares once i installed norton+antivir 7
system was too slow norton + antivir 6 work fine.

[deathvirus_me]

What kind of bad performance are u actually talking about ???? theoritically u should have got a huge performance boost .. but hey reality bites ... and for general usage .. u should barely notice any significance increase ... only under 3D apps i guess ...

[144]

deathvirus_me is right. Your expectations in general use of the PC are too high.
You can see the difference only in 3D apps and Games.

[kaustav_geek]

cherry_hifi,
I guess your on board GPU is bottlenecking your procy in GAming and multimedia apps.Moreover your 17" monitor stresses your onboard GPU a lot.I suggest you go for a standalone GPU(7600 GT) so that your procy doen't have to handle the GFx of your system.

Try reducing you ram latency to (2.5-3-3-7).
As for startup delay,I guess you have lots of apps in the startup.TRy going to msconfig and disabling those to get a minor performance boost.Install a Windows Powertoy 'Bootvis'.It analyses your PC and optimizes its startup times.You should get it from any new AutoPatcher update.

I agree with others regarding your SMPS rating. Go for a 500 W SMPS instead.

[cherry_hifi]

Hey Guys,
Thanks for your replys.I have done some tweaking as you guys have said and there is little change.And can any one help me regarding the disabling of DEP.And how to open the boot ini file.And I would also be happy if anyone could help me in tweaking my ram.
AND Regarding my Proccers I noticed that its temp in idle is 40 to 43 and in load its 50-53.Is this normal.My local temp is about 35-38.What should I do in my system to make it cool.ANd how can I overclock it. And regarding the graphics card I would only buying one after 5 months.So I am stuck here with my onboard 6100.Its clock speed is 425 MHz and I have shared about 12 8 MB Memory to it.IS there any way i could overclock it.And is it really neccary that i should upgrade my SMPS.

[john_the_ultimate]

Processor temp. is fine. To lower the temperature u could use third party CPU cooler like Zalman CNPS 9500 etc. I must say that temperature depend on lots of factors, such as, room temperature, cabinet ventilation, proper installation of components etc.

For overclocking there are many tutorials like these http://www.planetamd64.com/index.php?showtopic=12066 or
See this one posted in this forum A newbie's guide to Overclocking a Athlon XP CPU

Regarding SMPS, if its a good 400W (ZEBRONICS is good) then its fine for normal usage but for overclocking and also u said that u would be buying gfx card in future, then I would suggest to u get good brand (ANTEC, POWERSAFE, VIP, etc) 450-500W SMPS.