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Hardware Requirements for Internet PC



 
 
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  #31  
Old April 28th 12, 09:12 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
J. P. Gilliver (John)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,291
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

In message , BillW50
writes:
In ,
glee typed:

[]
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


With the Firefox extension flashblock, that is eased considerably. (I
don't know if IE has something similar - I'd be surprised if it
doesn't.)
[]
Almost all of my recent experiences with single core CPUs are with
Celerons and Athlons.


A lot of netbooks - most, originally, not sure now - had the Atom. (The
NC20 and a few others had the Via Nano.)

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.


(Can't they be "told" it's a single-core processor they're running on?)
[Avira seems OK here.]

YMMV. :-)


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

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Santa's elves are just a bunch of subordinate Clauses.
Ads
  #32  
Old April 28th 12, 10:16 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
BillW50
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,556
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

In ,
BillW50 wrote:
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?


I haven't fired this one up (Celeron M430 @ 1.73GHz) in a couple of
years. But you had me curious and the only Celerons I usually use lately
are netbooks. So this was a good review. I turned off all throttling
processing utilities. And I visited a number of websites, played some
youtube videos. I used Maxthon 3 browser using the Webkit engine and
everything looks great here. And the CPU never hit past 70%.

--
Bill
Gateway M465 ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Celeron M430 @ 1.73GHz - 1GB - Windows XP SP3


  #33  
Old April 29th 12, 12:13 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
BillW50
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,556
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

In ,
BillW50 wrote:
In ,
BillW50 wrote:
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?


I haven't fired this one up (Celeron M430 @ 1.73GHz) in a couple of
years. But you had me curious and the only Celerons I usually use
lately are netbooks. So this was a good review. I turned off all
throttling processing utilities. And I visited a number of websites,
played some youtube videos. I used Maxthon 3 browser using the Webkit
engine and everything looks great here. And the CPU never hit past
70%.


I have been playing with this machine a number of hours now and it even
operates better than I remember. Besides a fraction of a second lag here
or there opening an application, I find it totally acceptable. And about
99% of the time it is really snappy (just as good as my multicore
machines).

What this Celeron isn't doing well at all is with my Avermedia TV while
converting to WMV format during real time. My Avermedia TV cheats when
it comes to watching or time shifting, as the MPEG decoder is in the
hardware (so the CPU really doesn't have to do much of anything). That
part is just perfect. Although I have noticed throughout the years that
converting one video format to another in real time with a single core
is just a lot of work for the poor thing to handle.

--
Bill
Gateway M465 ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Celeron M430 @ 1.73GHz - 1GB - Windows XP SP3


  #34  
Old April 29th 12, 12:47 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
(PeteCresswell)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,933
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

Per BillW50:
Actually with AnVir Task Manager, I don't use Process Explorer anymore.


Should I be looking for an AnVir option to make AnVir take the
place of TaskMan? i.e. with the option set, Ctl/Alt/Delete |
Task Manager results in AnVir's window popping up instead of
TaskMan's?
--
Pete Cresswell
  #35  
Old April 29th 12, 01:22 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
BillW50
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,556
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

In news (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per BillW50:
Actually with AnVir Task Manager, I don't use Process Explorer
anymore.


Should I be looking for an AnVir option to make AnVir take the
place of TaskMan? i.e. with the option set, Ctl/Alt/Delete |
Task Manager results in AnVir's window popping up instead of
TaskMan's?


I don't, but I don't think it would be a problem. There is a saying that
goes something like this that I think applies... whatever floats your
boat. ;-)

--
Bill
Gateway M465 ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Celeron M430 @ 1.73GHz - 1GB - Windows XP SP3


  #36  
Old April 29th 12, 05:26 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
glee
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,794
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

"BillW50" wrote:
glee wrote:
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.


Opera 10.x, Opera 11.x., Firefox 6.6x, Firefox 11, IE7, IE8, IE9...
YouTube generally works fine, though slow loading on systems with less
than a GB RAM and an older single core.... it will use a lot of the
processor but not 100%. Vimeo on the other hand often has a lot more
scripting load and will not always show a clean video without stops and
jerkiness on the same older systems. Other web pages with lots of
scripting in ads including video ads can lock up any of these browsers
on a slow system.

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.


Newer Celerons are much less troublesome than the older generation.

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?


As I mentioned, I have a laptop with Win7 and 2GB RAM using a Sempron
single core and no problems at all. It helps to keep the background
programs and processes under control. I've seen machines with a
ridiculous number of background processes running for no good reason.

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

  #37  
Old April 29th 12, 05:29 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
glee
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,794
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
snip
(Can't they be "told" it's a single-core processor they're running
on?) [Avira seems OK here.]
snip


Avira is the only AV that I can get to run on really old XP systems with
512MB RAM or less and an older processor, without it bogging down the
entire system.

How do you mean, "tell" the program it's on a single core?

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

  #38  
Old April 29th 12, 07:05 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
BillW50
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,556
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

In ,
glee wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
snip
(Can't they be "told" it's a single-core processor they're running
on?) [Avira seems OK here.]
snip


Avira is the only AV that I can get to run on really old XP systems
with 512MB RAM or less and an older processor, without it bogging
down the entire system.

How do you mean, "tell" the program it's on a single core?


I monitor all of my processes all of the time for CPU usage. And Avast 7
will run on anything from Windows 2000 and up. And AnVir Task Manager
says in the last hour, Avast hit 17% for a second and the rest of the
hour it was under 1%. As far as the average user is concern, they
couldn't even tell it was actually running.

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


  #39  
Old April 29th 12, 07:58 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
J. P. Gilliver (John)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,291
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

In message , glee
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
snip
(Can't they be "told" it's a single-core processor they're running
on?) [Avira seems OK here.]
snip


Avira is the only AV that I can get to run on really old XP systems
with 512MB RAM or less and an older processor, without it bogging down
the entire system.


(Good to know - I think - that I'm using a light one.)

How do you mean, "tell" the program it's on a single core?

I was referring to the suggestion someone made that most AV 'wares these
days assume they're on a multicore system, and cause heavy load if run
on a single-core system. I was wondering if they might have a setting to
prevent them trying to multiprocess. (Probably not, as presumably it
should be possible to do it - the detection of whether multicore or not
- automatically, so if they don't, they're not going to bother.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"He marches to the beat of a different tuba" - Tom Galloway
  #40  
Old April 29th 12, 08:07 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
BillW50
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,556
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

In ,
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , glee
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
snip
(Can't they be "told" it's a single-core processor they're running
on?) [Avira seems OK here.]
snip


Avira is the only AV that I can get to run on really old XP systems
with 512MB RAM or less and an older processor, without it bogging
down the entire system.


(Good to know - I think - that I'm using a light one.)

How do you mean, "tell" the program it's on a single core?

I was referring to the suggestion someone made that most AV 'wares
these days assume they're on a multicore system, and cause heavy load
if run on a single-core system. I was wondering if they might have a
setting to prevent them trying to multiprocess. (Probably not, as
presumably it should be possible to do it - the detection of whether
multicore or not - automatically, so if they don't, they're not going
to bother.)


I run Avast 7 on slow single core CPUs all of the time. And you don't
even know it is running, as it only uses just such an insignificant
amount of CPU power.

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


  #41  
Old April 29th 12, 08:45 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
glee
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,794
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
glee wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
snip
(Can't they be "told" it's a single-core processor they're running
on?) [Avira seems OK here.]
snip


Avira is the only AV that I can get to run on really old XP systems
with 512MB RAM or less and an older processor, without it bogging
down the entire system.

How do you mean, "tell" the program it's on a single core?


I monitor all of my processes all of the time for CPU usage. And Avast
7 will run on anything from Windows 2000 and up. And AnVir Task
Manager says in the last hour, Avast hit 17% for a second and the rest
of the hour it was under 1%. As far as the average user is concern,
they couldn't even tell it was actually running.


Yes, but is that with 256 to 512 MB RAM as in my example? It's not
*only* CPU usage involved. As in the case of many apps, it's a combo of
both RAM amount and CPU. Avira seems to be the best one for very low
RAM systems, from my experience, anyway.... on a number of clients'
machines.

I know with Avast 4.x on older single core processors I've tried it, no
matter the RAM amount, definition updating would nearly max out the CPU
at the end of the updating. I can't say if there is an improvement in
that area with Avast 6 and 7, because I don't use it on any machines.
From what you've posted in your other replies, it's been improved.

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

  #42  
Old April 29th 12, 09:17 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , glee
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
snip
(Can't they be "told" it's a single-core processor they're running
on?) [Avira seems OK here.]
snip


Avira is the only AV that I can get to run on really old XP systems
with 512MB RAM or less and an older processor, without it bogging down
the entire system.


(Good to know - I think - that I'm using a light one.)

How do you mean, "tell" the program it's on a single core?

I was referring to the suggestion someone made that most AV 'wares these
days assume they're on a multicore system, and cause heavy load if run
on a single-core system. I was wondering if they might have a setting to
prevent them trying to multiprocess. (Probably not, as presumably it
should be possible to do it - the detection of whether multicore or not
- automatically, so if they don't, they're not going to bother.)


In Windows, you can use Task Manager and the "Affinity" setting,
to force an executable to stay on a particular core. On a multicore
system, that would effectively reduce the loading on the system.
On a single core system, Affinity is not going to help you as
you only have one core to begin with.

Task Manager also has "priority" settings, and you can experiment
with cranking down the priority setting. If two processes want to
run 100% on the same core, they split 50:50. If you drop the priority
of one process by one notch, then one process might get 75% while
the other gets 25%. So priority doesn't prevent one from running
entirely, it just changes the balance between the two. If you use
too extreme a setting, sometimes a potential side effect is a
deadlock in the system. So don't get carried away.

But an AV program, isn't going to tolerate being manipulated like
that. AV programs are pretty sensitive, and they have to be able
to defend themselves against any potential malware attack. Undoing
Task Manager changes, would be childs play for them. They're
armor plated.

Paul
  #43  
Old April 29th 12, 09:30 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
BillW50
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,556
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

In ,
glee wrote:
"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
glee wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
snip
(Can't they be "told" it's a single-core processor they're running
on?) [Avira seems OK here.]
snip

Avira is the only AV that I can get to run on really old XP systems
with 512MB RAM or less and an older processor, without it bogging
down the entire system.

How do you mean, "tell" the program it's on a single core?


I monitor all of my processes all of the time for CPU usage. And
Avast 7 will run on anything from Windows 2000 and up. And AnVir Task
Manager says in the last hour, Avast hit 17% for a second and the
rest of the hour it was under 1%. As far as the average user is
concern, they couldn't even tell it was actually running.


Yes, but is that with 256 to 512 MB RAM as in my example? It's not
*only* CPU usage involved. As in the case of many apps, it's a combo
of both RAM amount and CPU. Avira seems to be the best one for very
low RAM systems, from my experience, anyway.... on a number of
clients' machines.

I know with Avast 4.x on older single core processors I've tried it,
no matter the RAM amount, definition updating would nearly max out
the CPU at the end of the updating. I can't say if there is an
improvement in that area with Avast 6 and 7, because I don't use it
on any machines. From what you've posted in your other replies, it's
been improved.


Well you got me there. I do have two Toshiba 2595XDVD laptops with only
192MB of RAM installed. But I don't use them for anything really. And I
don't update the AV or anything since I don't even use them connected to
anything anyway. But they should have Avast 4.8 still on them and I
never uninstalled.

Everything else of mine has 1GB or better of RAM. And I just checked
with AnVir Task Manager and Avast only taken a 1.4MB hit on the drive
for 3 seconds in the past hour. It did hit the drive again a few times
10 minutes later, but only about 200MB this time. It didn't do an
automatic update in this time so I'll keep an eye on it and see what
happens when it does.

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


  #44  
Old April 29th 12, 09:36 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
J. P. Gilliver (John)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,291
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

[]
I was referring to the suggestion someone made that most AV 'wares these
days assume they're on a multicore system, and cause heavy load if run
on a single-core system. I was wondering if they might have a setting to
prevent them trying to multiprocess. (Probably not, as presumably it
should be possible to do it - the detection of whether multicore or not
- automatically, so if they don't, they're not going to bother.)


In Windows, you can use Task Manager and the "Affinity" setting,
to force an executable to stay on a particular core. On a multicore
system, that would effectively reduce the loading on the system.
On a single core system, Affinity is not going to help you as
you only have one core to begin with.

[]
I was saying that if software is written to multiprocess, i. e. assume
that it has multiple cores to run on, then running it on a single core
will make it run inefficiently - and I was saying that ideally the
software ought to run in a different _way_ - one thing at a time - if it
is told (or, ideally, detects) that it is running on a single-core
system.

Obviously, if it _doesn't_ have a single-processor mode, then as you say
"Affinity" won't help (it won't help on a single core no matter what! IF
anything it'll slightly reduce efficiency just because it'll waste time
trying to move one counter around).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I am what I am - I am my own special creation;
I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses.
  #45  
Old April 29th 12, 09:46 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
BillW50
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,556
Default Hardware Requirements for Internet PC

In ,
Paul wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , glee
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
snip
(Can't they be "told" it's a single-core processor they're running
on?) [Avira seems OK here.]
snip

Avira is the only AV that I can get to run on really old XP systems
with 512MB RAM or less and an older processor, without it bogging
down the entire system.


(Good to know - I think - that I'm using a light one.)

How do you mean, "tell" the program it's on a single core?

I was referring to the suggestion someone made that most AV 'wares
these days assume they're on a multicore system, and cause heavy
load if run on a single-core system. I was wondering if they might
have a setting to prevent them trying to multiprocess. (Probably
not, as presumably it should be possible to do it - the detection of
whether multicore or not - automatically, so if they don't, they're
not going to bother.)


In Windows, you can use Task Manager and the "Affinity" setting,
to force an executable to stay on a particular core. On a multicore
system, that would effectively reduce the loading on the system.
On a single core system, Affinity is not going to help you as
you only have one core to begin with.

Task Manager also has "priority" settings, and you can experiment
with cranking down the priority setting. If two processes want to
run 100% on the same core, they split 50:50. If you drop the priority
of one process by one notch, then one process might get 75% while
the other gets 25%. So priority doesn't prevent one from running
entirely, it just changes the balance between the two. If you use
too extreme a setting, sometimes a potential side effect is a
deadlock in the system. So don't get carried away.

But an AV program, isn't going to tolerate being manipulated like
that. AV programs are pretty sensitive, and they have to be able
to defend themselves against any potential malware attack. Undoing
Task Manager changes, would be childs play for them. They're
armor plated.


Oh man! Manually adjusting the priority almost never works well. What
works better is software designed to automatically adjust the priorities
on the fly. As they automatically lower them if they are using too much
and bring them back up when they are using too little. Why Windows
doesn't have something like this built in, who knows.

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


 




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