Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:40:53 +0100, PeterC
wrote:

On Fri, 27 Apr 2012 03:53:15 -0400, Paul wrote:

Control-Alt-Delete brings up Task Manager on my PC.
Control-Shift-Esc does it on XP (at least) and, I feel, is a little less
fraught than the usual 3-fingered salute.


Control-Shift-Esc works on Windows 7, too. But I usually prefer to
right-click on a blank part of the Task Bar and choose "Start Task
Manager."

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP

The original complaint, quoted from the OP was:

"Ctrl+Alt+Del" doesn't work at all on my system

As far as I know, it should work, and the system should respond.
It can be disabled, and it's possible malware could disable it.

On my WinXP machine, Ctrl+Alt+Del causes Task Manager to appear.
The fourth tab over in Task Manager, has options such as "Restart".

Ctrl+Alt+Del might even work in the BIOS - if you needed to test it,
you could give it a try there and see what happens (as a "keyboard test").
I think if I'm in the popup boot menu of my BIOS, it works there to
cause the BIOS to POST again.

Paul

In message , David H.
Lipman writes:
From: "Searcher7"

Can someone give me an idea of what the minimum hardware requirements
are for a PC that will be used mostly for internet, as well as playing
DVDs? (I have a 900Mhz, 512mb XP system).
[]
Any advice would be appreciated.


.9GHz w/512MB means an older system. Maybe a Celeron.

You want a 2~4GHz P4 or multicore CPU with at least 1GB of RAM with WinXP.

Hrubesh! The 1.6G CPU on this netbook manages most things: stutters on
_some_ videos. I'd agree about the RAM - well, for most of the time, 3/4
of a G (768M), provided that's actually accessible (not partially
pinched by an on-board video system), will do. This came with 1G, and I
eventually got round to upgrading to 2G - and I'm not aware of anything
that has improved! (Certainly not Skype which was what I'd hoped for.)


The more the better, these days, of both processor power and RAM;
however, I'd say it would be worth, as a first step (provided you can
find suitable RAM for very little money, which may or may not be
difficult depending on what sort of outlets/dealers are available where
you are), upping your present system's RAM to 1G: this should give you
some _idea_ what is achievable, and what sort of things still aren't.

(Have you tried playing DVDs on the present system?)

The other symptoms you describe do to some extent suggest something else
may be amiss - though I suspect 1G of RAM will ease them considerably;
if it doesn't, then there _is_ something amiss. I'd check the HD (using
the HD manufacturer's free software), and the internet link
(http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/ works well from here, but there are
oodles of such sites).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Call it incest - but I want my mummy

"Searcher7" wrote in message
...
Can someone give me an idea of what the minimum hardware requirements
are for a PC that will be used mostly for internet, as well as playing
DVDs? (I have a 900Mhz, 512mb XP system).

I ask because the system I've been using gets progressively more
sluggish after a reformat and re-install. There seems to be a lot of
background operations going on that I cannot find.

I alternate between installing Avast! and AVG after routine XP re-
installs and I usually disable as much I can in "Start Up" for all the
good it does because after a while the boxes tend to get checked again
anyway.

The sluggishness now occurs immediately after a new XP install, so it
is not malware. It seems that that problem may be that the increasing
complexity of software that I've been using for years may be the
culprit. (Not that I install much software).

I do have issues with jerky video at Youtube, and even worse issues
with loading pages at Photobucket, but that may be my connection.
(Even though I'm told by Verizon that there isn't a problem). But the
biggest problem involves random freezing of my cursor, freezing with
switching between tabs, freezing when typing, etc. Every operation I
perform with the mouse or keyboard can randomly get hung up,
necessitating a waiting period. At worse I have to reboot. Sometimes
going as far as having to pull the plug out the back of the PC case
because the pc case on/off button will not work. ("Ctrl+Alt+Del"
doesn't work at all on my system).

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Perhaps I missed it in one of the replies, but I did not see anyone
suggest running a hard drive diagnostic to test the hard drive. On a
machine of that age, especially if the hard drive is the original, that
should be the FIRST thing you do, after backing up any important data to
other media.

If you don't know the brand of your hard drive, you can use Hitachi
Drive Fitness Test (DFT) on almost any brand drive.
http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/#DFT

--
Glen Ventura
MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
CompTIA A+

In ,
Paul wrote:
Control-Alt-Delete brings up Task Manager on my PC.

If that isn't working, that in itself could indicate malware.

Keep Task Manager up on your screen while you are working, and watch
the display during a random freeze. Yes, the Task Manager may also be
frozen, but watch the display for the first update after it unfreezes,
and see if some process happened to be running 100% at the time.

It could be something as simple as a bad hard drive.

I wish DPCs would show up in the Task Manager list. As when you have
high DPC usage you can see the CPU is busy, but you can't find out why
with the Task Manager. Although Process Explorer will show them.

*******

900MHz is not enough for any arbitrary video playback. 1.5GHz
is on the border of offering acceptable video playback, but some
formats or resolutions may still be left wanting (frame drop).
(This is based on some VIA mini-ITX designs, where the users
are on the edge of enjoyable video playback.)

The video card helps with some of these things. For example, I
had a couple older video cards, one of which did not support
a scaler for video playback. With a hardware scaler, you can
make full-screen video, with virtually no additional CPU cycles.
Without the hardware scaler, it took 40% of a 3GHz P4 processor
to do the scaling operation (fill the screen). So getting a
decent video card, can also make a difference to the user
experience.

A video card doesn't have to be expensive, to add these things.
But some of the features, are "gated" by the hardware interface
type used to plug in the video card. For example, the video card
driver may decide to disable 3:2 pulldown, if it detects the
card isn't in a PCI Express x16 slot, as opposed to a PCI Express x1
slot or a PCI slot. So when you pick up an "improved" video card,
even then, the manufacturer may rob you of some of the joy, based
on the interface type available for the card, on the motherboard.

With a new motherboard, with at least one PCI Express x16 video slot,
you can fit a $50 video card, and gain access to some of those
features. It will still take newer software (player software),
to use the features. The features don't tend to make ancient software
work faster. Adobe Flash, has had hardware acceleration for a number
of releases, but even that, occasionally you have to turn off
the hardware acceleration in the flash control panel, due to issues.
Some day, when Adobe Flash dies and all we've got is HTML5, there
will again be opportunities for hardware acceleration (via that video
card).

I disagree that 900MHz isn't enough for any arbitrary video playback. As
my two uses a 400MHz Celeron with a very wimpy Trident Cyber 9525 video
with only 2.5 MB of video RAM. And under Windows 98, it has enough power
to keep up with full screen DVD playback and can handle youtube video
streams up to 700k. Under Windows 2000, it is terrible. As now it can
only handle streams up to 100k.

Also most of my laptops support SpeedStep. And most of that time, they
operate at the slowest clock speed. And that means for this one the CPU
is running at 991MHz. And even at this slow clock speed, it too can
handle arbitrary video playback without a problem.

My Asus EeePC 701/2 netbooks are underclocked to 633MHz. And they too
can keep up with arbitrary video playback without missing a beat under
Windows XP, even on an external monitor running 1440x900. Oddly enough,
Linux on the same machine can't even come close.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

In ,
DK wrote:
In article
,
Searcher7 wrote:
Can someone give me an idea of what the minimum hardware requirements
are for a PC that will be used mostly for internet, as well as
playing DVDs? (I have a 900Mhz, 512mb XP system).

Internet today is stuffed to the max with all kind of crap, requiring
pretty fast computer to run smoothly. Don't settle for minimum
hardware requrements because software developers will surely
find a way to make even more complex software that will require
better hardware. It's an arms race. For an end user, the speed
of everyday computing remained more or less constant over
the past decade (or even two).

Five years ago your machine ran Youtube videos just fine.
Today's Youtube is "improved" and so your computer no longer
keeps up with it. In 95% of the cases, end users ask for none of
these improvements. But it's the stuff that makes people buy
new computer hardware and ensures profits for hardware amd
software industries.

This used to be true. As back in the 80's and 90's if your machine was 5
years old, it was now way too slow for newer software.

Although something happened really special somewhere at the end of '06
and just before Vista was released. As memory was very cheap and
multicore machines was plentiful. And XP was enjoying a long run and it
still continues somewhat.

I now have 16 laptops from this era alone. I love them. As they can run
older software and all of the newer software as well. You can run older
Windows and even the latest Windows 8 on them. I consider them the best
of the best. And so far, I have no interest in running any machine newer
than this. Nor do the newer machines offer me anything I am interest in
and won't run any of my stuff any faster than what I am doing right now.

I don't recall anything like this in PC history. Okay the Commodore 64
did sell for over 10 years without much in the way of changes. But that
is the closest thing I can think of to compare it with.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

In ,
PeterC wrote:
On Fri, 27 Apr 2012 03:53:15 -0400, Paul wrote:

Control-Alt-Delete brings up Task Manager on my PC.

Control-Shift-Esc does it on XP (at least) and, I feel, is a little
less fraught than the usual 3-fingered salute.

Earlier Windows versions, double clicking on the desktop popped up
something. I don't recall what it was now. Was it the Task Manager?

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

In ,
BillW50 wrote:
I disagree that 900MHz isn't enough for any arbitrary video playback.
As my two uses a 400MHz Celeron with a very wimpy Trident Cyber 9525
video with only 2.5 MB of video RAM. And under Windows 98, it has
enough power to keep up with full screen DVD playback and can handle
youtube video streams up to 700k. Under Windows 2000, it is terrible.
As now it can only handle streams up to 100k.

Sorry as my two... Toshiba 2595XDVD from '99 era.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

Per BillW50:
I wish DPCs would show up in the Task Manager list. As when you have
high DPC usage you can see the CPU is busy, but you can't find out why
with the Task Manager. Although Process Explorer will show them.

My version of PE has an option to tell the system to pretend it's
TaskMan and it seems to work.

Is there a reason to even use TaskManager once Process Explorer
is installed.

--
Pete Cresswell

"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
DK wrote:
In article
,
Searcher7 wrote:
Can someone give me an idea of what the minimum hardware
requirements
are for a PC that will be used mostly for internet, as well as
playing DVDs? (I have a 900Mhz, 512mb XP system).

Internet today is stuffed to the max with all kind of crap, requiring
pretty fast computer to run smoothly. Don't settle for minimum
hardware requrements because software developers will surely
find a way to make even more complex software that will require
better hardware. It's an arms race. For an end user, the speed
of everyday computing remained more or less constant over
the past decade (or even two).

Five years ago your machine ran Youtube videos just fine.
Today's Youtube is "improved" and so your computer no longer
keeps up with it. In 95% of the cases, end users ask for none of
these improvements. But it's the stuff that makes people buy
new computer hardware and ensures profits for hardware amd
software industries.

This used to be true. As back in the 80's and 90's if your machine was
5 years old, it was now way too slow for newer software.

Although something happened really special somewhere at the end of '06
and just before Vista was released. As memory was very cheap and
multicore machines was plentiful. And XP was enjoying a long run and
it still continues somewhat.

I now have 16 laptops from this era alone. I love them. As they can
run older software and all of the newer software as well. You can run
older Windows and even the latest Windows 8 on them. I consider them
the best of the best. And so far, I have no interest in running any
machine newer than this. Nor do the newer machines offer me anything I
am interest in and won't run any of my stuff any faster than what I am
doing right now.

I don't recall anything like this in PC history. Okay the Commodore 64
did sell for over 10 years without much in the way of changes. But
that is the closest thing I can think of to compare it with.

You're talking dual and quad core systems. The first dual-core
processors for home computers weren't available till mid-2005. In 2006,
there were still a LOT of single-core systems being produced,
particularly lower end desktops, and many laptops. Those single-core
systems today will have many problems running newer software,
particularly but not limited to anti-virus apps, and will often bog down
with online sites like YouTube, which now require much greater processor
usage.

You apparently did not shop at the low to mid range during that
period.... most users did, however.

--
Glen Ventura
MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
CompTIA A+
http://dts-l.net/

In ,
glee typed:
"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
DK wrote:
In article
,
Searcher7 wrote:
Can someone give me an idea of what the minimum hardware
requirements
are for a PC that will be used mostly for internet, as well as
playing DVDs? (I have a 900Mhz, 512mb XP system).

Internet today is stuffed to the max with all kind of crap,
requiring pretty fast computer to run smoothly. Don't settle for
minimum hardware requrements because software developers will surely
find a way to make even more complex software that will require
better hardware. It's an arms race. For an end user, the speed
of everyday computing remained more or less constant over
the past decade (or even two).

Five years ago your machine ran Youtube videos just fine.
Today's Youtube is "improved" and so your computer no longer
keeps up with it. In 95% of the cases, end users ask for none of
these improvements. But it's the stuff that makes people buy
new computer hardware and ensures profits for hardware amd
software industries.

This used to be true. As back in the 80's and 90's if your machine
was 5 years old, it was now way too slow for newer software.

Although something happened really special somewhere at the end of
'06 and just before Vista was released. As memory was very cheap and
multicore machines was plentiful. And XP was enjoying a long run and
it still continues somewhat.

I now have 16 laptops from this era alone. I love them. As they can
run older software and all of the newer software as well. You can run
older Windows and even the latest Windows 8 on them. I consider them
the best of the best. And so far, I have no interest in running any
machine newer than this. Nor do the newer machines offer me anything
I am interest in and won't run any of my stuff any faster than what
I am doing right now.

I don't recall anything like this in PC history. Okay the Commodore
64 did sell for over 10 years without much in the way of changes. But
that is the closest thing I can think of to compare it with.

You're talking dual and quad core systems. The first dual-core
processors for home computers weren't available till mid-2005. In
2006, there were still a LOT of single-core systems being produced,
particularly lower end desktops, and many laptops. Those single-core
systems today will have many problems running newer software,
particularly but not limited to anti-virus apps, and will often bog
down with online sites like YouTube, which now require much greater
processor usage.

You apparently did not shop at the low to mid range during that
period.... most users did, however.

There is a lot of truth in what you say. But only 5 out of the 16
machines from '06 I have actually have are multicore CPUs. The other 11
does not. Some of them that are not, you could drop a multicore CPU in
them though.

And yes, multicore machines do have lots of advantages. Although if two
machines everything is the same except one has a single core and one has
a multicore and you are running XP or earlier. you will get a 10 to 30%
performance boost from my experiences. But a faster single core can make
most of this up too.

And it is true, one misbehaving thread can hog the CPU under a single
core and make it appear that your machine has frozen up. This could
happen under multicore machines too, but it takes more misbehaving
threads to cause this same effect.

I don't see this problem very often, so it isn't usually a big deal.
Although if it ever does, there are process managers that can tame such
things anyway. Process Lasso is one of the better ones. And many of
these utilities will give you some of the advantages of having a
multicore machine anyway.

Now in my experience where a single core just doesn't cut it is when you
are running Windows Vista/7/8. I just can't satisfactory performance out
of them without a multicore processor. There are probably some
applications that don't work well or not at all with single cores too.
But I haven't run into any of those yet. ;-)

--
Bill
Asus EeePC 701 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows 2000 SP5 - OE6 - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2

In ,
(PeteCresswell) typed:
Per BillW50:
I wish DPCs would show up in the Task Manager list. As when you have
high DPC usage you can see the CPU is busy, but you can't find out
why with the Task Manager. Although Process Explorer will show them.

My version of PE has an option to tell the system to pretend it's
TaskMan and it seems to work.

Is there a reason to even use TaskManager once Process Explorer
is installed.

Actually with AnVir Task Manager, I don't use Process Explorer anymore.
I also had problems with Process Explorer with some copy-protected
games. I guess the copy protection thinks you are running something to
crack the copy protection or something.

--
Bill
Asus EeePC 701 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows 2000 SP5 - OE6 - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2

On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 08:12:41 -0500, BillW50 wrote:

[Big snip]

I disagree that 900MHz isn't enough for any arbitrary video playback. As

[snip]

My Asus EeePC 701/2 netbooks are underclocked to 633MHz. And they too
can keep up with arbitrary video playback without missing a beat under
Windows XP, even on an external monitor running 1440x900. Oddly enough,
Linux on the same machine can't even come close.

Which Linux distro? The one originally installed? Xandros, I think it
was. Awful.

I've got a EeePC 900 (900mHz Celeron, 1GB RAM, 4GB+16GB SSDs) on which I
installed Eeebuntu 3.x (an optimize version of Ubuntu for the EeePC)
wiping out the original Xandros, and it now plays any video, etc. without
problems. What a difference overall compared to Xandros.

Stef

"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
glee typed:
"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
DK wrote:
In article
,
Searcher7 wrote:
Can someone give me an idea of what the minimum hardware
requirements
are for a PC that will be used mostly for internet, as well as
playing DVDs? (I have a 900Mhz, 512mb XP system).

Internet today is stuffed to the max with all kind of crap,
requiring pretty fast computer to run smoothly. Don't settle for
minimum hardware requrements because software developers will
surely
find a way to make even more complex software that will require
better hardware. It's an arms race. For an end user, the speed
of everyday computing remained more or less constant over
the past decade (or even two).

Five years ago your machine ran Youtube videos just fine.
Today's Youtube is "improved" and so your computer no longer
keeps up with it. In 95% of the cases, end users ask for none of
these improvements. But it's the stuff that makes people buy
new computer hardware and ensures profits for hardware amd
software industries.

This used to be true. As back in the 80's and 90's if your machine
was 5 years old, it was now way too slow for newer software.

Although something happened really special somewhere at the end of
'06 and just before Vista was released. As memory was very cheap and
multicore machines was plentiful. And XP was enjoying a long run and
it still continues somewhat.

I now have 16 laptops from this era alone. I love them. As they can
run older software and all of the newer software as well. You can
run
older Windows and even the latest Windows 8 on them. I consider them
the best of the best. And so far, I have no interest in running any
machine newer than this. Nor do the newer machines offer me anything
I am interest in and won't run any of my stuff any faster than what
I am doing right now.

I don't recall anything like this in PC history. Okay the Commodore
64 did sell for over 10 years without much in the way of changes.
But
that is the closest thing I can think of to compare it with.

You're talking dual and quad core systems. The first dual-core
processors for home computers weren't available till mid-2005. In
2006, there were still a LOT of single-core systems being produced,
particularly lower end desktops, and many laptops. Those single-core
systems today will have many problems running newer software,
particularly but not limited to anti-virus apps, and will often bog
down with online sites like YouTube, which now require much greater
processor usage.

You apparently did not shop at the low to mid range during that
period.... most users did, however.

There is a lot of truth in what you say. But only 5 out of the 16
machines from '06 I have actually have are multicore CPUs. The other
11
does not. Some of them that are not, you could drop a multicore CPU in
them though.

And yes, multicore machines do have lots of advantages. Although if
two
machines everything is the same except one has a single core and one
has
a multicore and you are running XP or earlier. you will get a 10 to
30%
performance boost from my experiences. But a faster single core can
make
most of this up too.

And it is true, one misbehaving thread can hog the CPU under a single
core and make it appear that your machine has frozen up. This could
happen under multicore machines too, but it takes more misbehaving
threads to cause this same effect.

I don't see this problem very often, so it isn't usually a big deal.
Although if it ever does, there are process managers that can tame
such
things anyway. Process Lasso is one of the better ones. And many of
these utilities will give you some of the advantages of having a
multicore machine anyway.

Now in my experience where a single core just doesn't cut it is when
you
are running Windows Vista/7/8. I just can't satisfactory performance
out
of them without a multicore processor. There are probably some
applications that don't work well or not at all with single cores too.
But I haven't run into any of those yet. ;-)

My experience has been quite different. I'm talking about XP with a
single core processor and a GB of RAM. There will be near 100%
processor usage on some web pages containing flash video ads, even
without a main video running on the page. Some scripting will also
cause the same issues. It will also occur on the same hardware with
Win98. It's pretty common to see quite high processor usage when online
at some sites, opening some newer apps, even the newer Java Control
Panel applets, with single cores under 2GHz.

There's a bit of difference among the single core processors too.
Sempron and Duron and Celeron (the low-end single cores) have more
issues than Athlon and Pentium, from the systems I have worked on and
worked with.

On the other hand, Windows 7 performs much better with a single core
processor on the same sites. I have a laptop with a Sempron processor
that performs flawlessly with Windows 7 and 2GB RAM..... much better
than XP with a Sempron processor, using the same software and going to
the same web sites. Some newer software, such as anti-virus apps,
assume at least a dual-core processor and as a result, there are issues
with too many threads doing too much for the single core.

YMMV. :-)
--
Glen Ventura
MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
CompTIA A+

In ,
Stefan Patric typed:
On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 08:12:41 -0500, BillW50 wrote:

[Big snip]

I disagree that 900MHz isn't enough for any arbitrary video
playback. As

[snip]

My Asus EeePC 701/2 netbooks are underclocked to 633MHz. And they too
can keep up with arbitrary video playback without missing a beat
under Windows XP, even on an external monitor running 1440x900.
Oddly enough, Linux on the same machine can't even come close.

Which Linux distro? The one originally installed? Xandros, I think
it was. Awful.

I've got a EeePC 900 (900mHz Celeron, 1GB RAM, 4GB+16GB SSDs) on
which I installed Eeebuntu 3.x (an optimize version of Ubuntu for the
EeePC) wiping out the original Xandros, and it now plays any video,
etc. without problems. What a difference overall compared to Xandros.

Stef

Xandros, Ubuntu 8.10 netbook edition, Ubuntu 9.10 netbook edition, and
Puppy Linux. And I really liked Xandros, especially in easy mode which
boots in 20 seconds. Although the wireless to connect had taken an extra
minute. You could only use Firefox 2.0 tops with Xandros without
updating the kernel, and that makes Xandros unusable to me as is. As
Firefox 2.0 displays webpages worse than IE6 does.

--
Bill
Asus EeePC 701 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows 2000 SP5 - OE6 - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2

In ,
glee typed:
"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
glee typed:
"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
DK wrote:
In article

,
Searcher7 wrote:
Can someone give me an idea of what the minimum hardware
requirements
are for a PC that will be used mostly for internet, as well as
playing DVDs? (I have a 900Mhz, 512mb XP system).

Internet today is stuffed to the max with all kind of crap,
requiring pretty fast computer to run smoothly. Don't settle for
minimum hardware requrements because software developers will
surely
find a way to make even more complex software that will require
better hardware. It's an arms race. For an end user, the speed
of everyday computing remained more or less constant over
the past decade (or even two).

Five years ago your machine ran Youtube videos just fine.
Today's Youtube is "improved" and so your computer no longer
keeps up with it. In 95% of the cases, end users ask for none of
these improvements. But it's the stuff that makes people buy
new computer hardware and ensures profits for hardware amd
software industries.

This used to be true. As back in the 80's and 90's if your machine
was 5 years old, it was now way too slow for newer software.

Although something happened really special somewhere at the end of
'06 and just before Vista was released. As memory was very cheap
and multicore machines was plentiful. And XP was enjoying a long
run and it still continues somewhat.

I now have 16 laptops from this era alone. I love them. As they can
run older software and all of the newer software as well. You can
run
older Windows and even the latest Windows 8 on them. I consider
them the best of the best. And so far, I have no interest in
running any machine newer than this. Nor do the newer machines
offer me anything I am interest in and won't run any of my stuff
any faster than what I am doing right now.

I don't recall anything like this in PC history. Okay the Commodore
64 did sell for over 10 years without much in the way of changes.
But
that is the closest thing I can think of to compare it with.

You're talking dual and quad core systems. The first dual-core
processors for home computers weren't available till mid-2005. In
2006, there were still a LOT of single-core systems being produced,
particularly lower end desktops, and many laptops. Those
single-core systems today will have many problems running newer
software, particularly but not limited to anti-virus apps, and will
often bog down with online sites like YouTube, which now require
much greater processor usage.

You apparently did not shop at the low to mid range during that
period.... most users did, however.

There is a lot of truth in what you say. But only 5 out of the 16
machines from '06 I have actually have are multicore CPUs. The other
11 does not. Some of them that are not, you could drop a multicore
CPU in them though.

And yes, multicore machines do have lots of advantages. Although if
two machines everything is the same except one has a single core
and one has a multicore and you are running XP or earlier. you will
get a 10 to 30% performance boost from my experiences. But a faster
single core can make most of this up too.

And it is true, one misbehaving thread can hog the CPU under a single
core and make it appear that your machine has frozen up. This could
happen under multicore machines too, but it takes more misbehaving
threads to cause this same effect.

I don't see this problem very often, so it isn't usually a big deal.
Although if it ever does, there are process managers that can tame
such things anyway. Process Lasso is one of the better ones. And
many of these utilities will give you some of the advantages of
having
a multicore machine anyway.

Now in my experience where a single core just doesn't cut it is when
you are running Windows Vista/7/8. I just can't satisfactory
performance out of them without a multicore processor. There are
probably some applications that don't work well or not at all with
single
cores too. But I haven't run into any of those yet. ;-)

My experience has been quite different. I'm talking about XP with a
single core processor and a GB of RAM. There will be near 100%
processor usage on some web pages containing flash video ads, even
without a main video running on the page. Some scripting will also
cause the same issues. It will also occur on the same hardware with
Win98. It's pretty common to see quite high processor usage when
online at some sites, opening some newer apps, even the newer Java
Control Panel applets, with single cores under 2GHz.

Wow I haven't seen this per se. Which browser are you talking about?
Both Trident and Webkit rendering engines work well for me.

There's a bit of difference among the single core processors too.
Sempron and Duron and Celeron (the low-end single cores) have more
issues than Athlon and Pentium, from the systems I have worked on and
worked with.

Almost all of my recent experiences with single core CPUs are with
Celerons and Athlons.

On the other hand, Windows 7 performs much better with a single core
processor on the same sites. I have a laptop with a Sempron processor
that performs flawlessly with Windows 7 and 2GB RAM..... much better
than XP with a Sempron processor, using the same software and going to
the same web sites. Some newer software, such as anti-virus apps,
assume at least a dual-core processor and as a result, there are
issues with too many threads doing too much for the single core.

YMMV. :-)

Wow I haven't found any single core CPU where Windows 7 performs well.
Which one have you found to work pretty well?

--
Bill
Asus EeePC 701 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows 2000 SP5 - OE6 - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2