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View Full Version : OT - a simple and affordable way to increase your computer's spee



Cowboy1968
May 5th, 2012, 05:27
I have recently taken some steps to upgrade certain pars ot the computer that most people don't think of. (unless you are a gamer)

First off, I don't use a store bought system. I build my own. That sames money and makes upgrades easier.

I will simply say these updates are built around an ATX motherboard, made by ASUS. I carried these modifications out on two computers in my home and they worked like WOW factor.

Basicly both systems started off with a Core 2 quad processor running at 2.8 ghz. yes sounds slow but remember there are four processor cores here sharing the work. RAM is still the old DDR2 type. but each stick of RAM are 2 gig sticks.

We are running high end graphics cards and fairly reasonable sound card. My advice is if you have a computer that has built in audio and video chips on the motherboard, go to the store or online and order a good sound card and a good graphics card. These aren't that expensive. Once you get them to your home, shut down and crack open the case and install them. Once that is done reboot your computer and go into BIOS and disable the on board stuff. Right there for les then $200 dollars you have doubled your machines capacity. On board processors like a ac97 sound chip and on board GPU slows down work load to memory and the processor and it takes up system RAM. The expansion cards have their own memory and they use it first before shifting onto system RAM. Though this is outside of what I was getting at here.

Now back to the point of this post. I had a budget and two computers that were needing to be upgraded to run faster. Instead of buying new motherboards and processors, I did some real thinking here. I ran my diagnostic programs and found out that my real problem was heat in the system. Heat will slow a computer down.

1. The cases the hardware was in weren't that efficient at moving heat from the computer. So the first thing to look at is the case that the computer components are in. My wife and I did this the wrong way. Learn from our mistake. Buy a case that will work with your motherboard. You want to get a case that has a butt load of big fans or one that can swap fans out for bigger fans. Most budget cases only come with 80mm fans. You want to invest in a case that takes 120mm, 140mm 200mm or even 240mm fan units. The idea is here to get a lot of air moving. You want that case to have a lot of open vents. you want your front and rear fans to be intake fans and you want a case that can exhaust heat from the top. My specific set up, I use two 120mm fans in the front for intake, and another 120mm fan in back for intake for a piece of equipment I will talk about in a minute. I use a side panel fan in both computers as well. I use them as intake. Then we exhaust the heat from the top by pulling it out with 120mm fans. As I said you want to get airflow moving. Also get a case with a bottom mount Power Supply Unit. We use overkill in the power supply, each is a 850 watt unit. Both of the cases we selected meet this requirement and didn't break the bank. Each case was around $70.00.

here are the cases we selected.......there were others I would love to had but I was doing this on a $300 budget.

mine: http://www.buyxg.com/store/item.aspx?id=4077&catid=5
Wife's: http://www.buyxg.com/store/item.aspx?id=4427&catid=5 (she likes all the blue lights...lol)

After you get your case, now lets look at something you can do on the inside to help the heat issue that can arise.

2: You can get a water cooled system on a budget. First you have a decision to make. You can go with large heatsinks and cooling fans on the processor or you can do what we did, we went with a water cooler that was in our budget. We bought units that mount inside the case. Personally I would go with a water cooler over a big fan. It dropped my cpu temps dramatically even under load. The heat on the processor seldom breaks 30 degrees Celsius. While under a regular heatsink and fan that came OEM with the processor heats were around 40 degrees, and with that big fan with heat pipes it was 36 degrees. I think the coolers we went with was the best choice for a budget and performance compromise. And as i said, ours all mount internally.

This is what we mounted: http://3btech.net/cohyseh60hip.html

As I said this is a good choice for a budget at $65.00 a piece

3: we did a thing that isn't necessary but any saving in heat and moving of more air is a plus we bought memory heatsinks with fans. they were around $10.00 each.

http://3btech.net/evstwimecowi.html

These modifications have actually increased the computers' performance by about 20 percent on both machines when running benchmark tests. Eliminate heat, as much of it as you can and you gain performance. I should point out a good measure of the airflow I am talking about can be measured by the fact that my hard drives are also not breaking 30 degrees Celsius in temp. They are both under that when they use to run close to 50 degrees in a standard case using 80mm fans.

That is how I increased performance on a budget.And these systems are not overclocked.

Naismith
May 5th, 2012, 11:05
I'll vouch for the Corsair water cooling attachment. I opted for the 100 model from NCIX.ca at just about $120CDN

http://www.corsair.com/cpu-cooling-kits/hydro-series-water-cooling-cpu-cooler/hydro-series-h100-extreme-performance-liquid-cpu-cooler.html

Probably overkill, but it runs silently and so far trouble free. Easy install.

Cowboy1968
May 5th, 2012, 12:23
yes it was actually easier installing the water cooling system then it was some of the higher end air cooling fans for a CPU. It was a fairly simple install on an intil based board. Just a few extra mounting steps for AMD

But it works great and these computers are running smoother

kelticheart
May 7th, 2012, 10:49
Hi Cowboy1968,

a very interesting thread, thank you for sharing your experience. I was using the built-in ac97 sound chip without a second thought, after reading this I proceeded immediately to dig out my old Sound Blaster PCI 128 and installed it.

Being a plug-n-play it worked immediately, but I am going beserk over finding an old XP driver for it, since I only have the last driver for Win98SE. My machine is rather old but it's still serving me faithfully and I can run CFS2 with all the graphic features maxed out never getting less than 30fps in any given situation, providing I am using multi-LOD aircraft models. And, yes, I am still running XP-Pro sp3 which I simply adore.

I am sure with an XP-dedicated driver my grandpa Sound Blaster would work even better but, everywhere I go on the net, I keep finding automatic net installers and I don't want it, since I keep my primary pc not connected and I use a second home-built for all of my Internet activity.

Do you happen to know a link where I could find a fully downloadable, integral, XP-compatible driver for a 1999 Sound Blaster 128 Vibra soundcard?

Thank you!
KH :ernae:

sc7500
May 7th, 2012, 12:26
...Do you happen to know a link where I could find a fully downloadable, integral, XP-compatible driver for a 1999 Sound Blaster 128 Vibra soundcard?


You Have But To Ask !

http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=1&subCatID=207&prodID=1864&prodName=Sound%20Blaster%20PCI%20128&subCatName=Others&CatName=Sound+Blaster

SC
:kilroy:

kelticheart
May 8th, 2012, 02:49
You Have But To Ask !

http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=1&subCatID=207&prodID=1864&prodName=Sound%20Blaster%20PCI%20128&subCatName=Others&CatName=Sound+Blaster

SC
:kilroy:

Thank you very much for your help SC!

Unfortunately, the above is the first site I obviously visited and the download link reported on the page keeps looping me back to their current line of products.

When I did a search in their database, and they DO list under "other" archived drivers what I am looking for, well, that link takes me right to the page you sent me.

I am ready to :tgun2: Creative Support!!!

This is why I asked for help, whether anyone knew one of those websites dedicated to preserving old drivers like, for example, Driver Heaven where, a while ago, I could download ATI drivers from Jurassic times.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

Cowboy1968
May 8th, 2012, 05:48
Thank you very much for your help SC!

Unfortunately, the above is the first site I obviously visited and the download link reported on the page keeps looping me back to their current line of products.

When I did a search in their database, and they DO list under "other" archived drivers what I am looking for, well, that link takes me right to the page you sent me.

I am ready to :tgun2: Creative Support!!!

This is why I asked for help, whether anyone knew one of those websites dedicated to preserving old drivers like, for example, Driver Heaven where, a while ago, I could download ATI drivers from Jurassic times.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

Unfortunately, back in the day, when I installed Windows Vista, the old Sound Blaster Live card i had for years just wasn't compatible, so I gave it and its drivers to a friend. I now use a Turtle Beach sound cards that are half the price of Creative Lab cards, and have an equal or better sound to them.

Another way to increase performance of your machine is to use a large PSU. Most store bought computers are now coming with a 600 to 650 watt power supply. I have installed 850 watt units in my computers. This provides a lot of power in a home computer. Yes 850 watts is overkill for a standard home computer, but once you start gaming and so on, then you realize why you want that 850 watts. Once fans start to ramp up as heat starts to build, you have that extra energy from the transformer to keep the CPU and the GPU running smoothly. You will notice you machine not bulging down.

Also the reason I suggest a bottom mount PSU is that it isolates the airflow and exhaust from the PSU from the rest of the case airflow. Just another means of taking more heat from the system. The PSU intakes from the bottom of the case and exhausts through the back. in theory none of its airflow enters the rest fo the case.

As I said above, in the end it is all about moving heat from the computer...

sc7500
May 8th, 2012, 06:45
...Thank you very much for your help SC!
Unfortunately, the above is the first site I obviously visited and the download link reported on the page keeps looping me back to their current line of products....


Oh Crap.

Well, I'm with you - BLAST Creative Systems !!!!!! :pop4:

SC
:kilroy:

[BTW-I figured you were just having a bad day and missed the obvious direct Creative link.... lol]

Butcherbird17
May 8th, 2012, 08:13
kelticheart,
You might want to check with Winders update to get the drivers for your sound card.
I'm not sure if it will show for XP, but they do for vista/wins7. My sound card was originally
installed in a winsMe rig i have that's ten years old and I got the drivers for it through
winders update. Its in my wins7 rig now, and still works like it did when i first bought it.

Joe

Cowboy1968
May 8th, 2012, 08:43
kelticheart,
You might want to check with Winders update to get the drivers for your sound card.
I'm not sure if it will show for XP, but they do for vista/wins7. My sound card was originally
installed in a winsMe rig i have that's ten years old and I got the drivers for it through
winders update. Its in my wins7 rig now, and still works like it did when i first bought it.

Joe

Oh yes the days of Microsoft's big clusterf##k, AKA, Windows Me. it really made me appreciate Windows 98SE...

Naismith
May 8th, 2012, 09:15
Which is better, I have 2 SB cards which I aquired over the years. I don't remember which order I bought them in.
I have an 1. Audigy and 2. Live

The Live looks newer (shiny) than the Audigy (dusty) but the Live has a Game port which must be old school methinks.

Any clues or opinions gladly received.

Cowboy1968
May 8th, 2012, 18:15
Which is better, I have 2 SB cards which I aquired over the years. I don't remember which order I bought them in.
I have an 1. Audigy and 2. Live

The Live looks newer (shiny) than the Audigy (dusty) but the Live has a Game port which must be old school methinks.

Any clues or opinions gladly received.

If i remember correctly Audigy is the later of the sound chips. The first SB Live cards started to make there appearance in the Mid 90's. i got my first one 1997 something like that.

kelticheart
May 10th, 2012, 01:58
....[BTW-I figured you were just having a bad day and missed the obvious direct Creative link.... lol]

Not so man, while I am thanking you again for your help, I have the habit of always trying out whatever suggestion is being given to me. If anything else, out of respect for the person who's offering free help.

The direct link you gave me above took me right to the beginning point of the loop........:crybaby:

Cowboy1968:

You are absolutely right about the PSU. A while ago I bought one of the first bottom-intake, automatic variable-speed fan, 420W PSU that came out, which is plenty for a 2.0 Ghz, single-core, AMD Athlon. On top of being extra-efficient, it's amazing how quietly it operates its fan. The first times I had it running, when the pc was going on temp inactivity standby turning off the monitor, I had to check the power led in the front of the case to be absolutely sure it was still running!!

Butcherbird17:

Hi there! Unfortunately my Google search doesn't find anything under "Winders update". If it was a typo and you meant "Windows Update", I cannot use it since support for XP is long gone at Microsoft and I am not aware whether they have an archive section for old stuff. Thank you anyway.


Cheers!
KH :ernae:

sc7500
May 10th, 2012, 04:31
Stefano;

I did a Google search for Sound Blaster Driver Archives and found this:

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=20786

and that led me to THIS:

http://www.mediafire.com/?xnfb45xjxqada

Someone has uploaded every Soundblaster driver to this page - I haven't confirmed that the links work, but it's a start !

Good Hunting :wavey:
SC
:kilroy:

Butcherbird17
May 10th, 2012, 07:31
kelticheart,
The way i typed (winders update) was not a typo, its a southern US thing or a joke about windows.:icon_lol:
I found this:
http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=1&subCatID=207&prodID=1864&prodName=Sound%20Blaster%20PCI%20128&subCatName=Others&CatName=Sound+Blaster

And the download link works. Although this is for the English version, you can change the language and get what you need. Hope this helps.

Joe

sc7500
May 10th, 2012, 08:01
Butcher, that's the exact same link *I* sent him higher up...... :blind:

SC
:kilroy:

Butcherbird17
May 10th, 2012, 08:34
sc7500,

Me so blind, i did not see that.:icon_lol: I just went back and reread it, the weird thing is i can download the file.:isadizzy:

Joe

aeronca1
May 10th, 2012, 09:48
I cannot use it since support for XP is long gone at Microsoft

M$ has extended XP support until 2014. I just got an update from my wireless card yesterday.

Naismith
May 10th, 2012, 09:48
Thank-eee all. - Now to work out the wiring so as the front panel on the PC works through the card and I can use headphones in the wee small hours.

kelticheart
May 10th, 2012, 11:00
Stefano;

I did a Google search for Sound Blaster Driver Archives and found this:

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=20786

and that led me to THIS:

http://www.mediafire.com/?xnfb45xjxqada

Someone has uploaded every Soundblaster driver to this page - I haven't confirmed that the links work, but it's a start !

Good Hunting :wavey:
SC
:kilroy:

A thousand thanks buddy, but the first link takes me to a forum page dealing with Win 3.11 Sound Blaster drivers, perhaps a tad too old for my needs, while the second link has a ....loading logo that goes on forever without going anywhere.


.....the weird thing is i can download the file.

You can probably download a net installer which is exactly what I do not want, because this driver isn't destined to this pc but to another. The weird thing is that when I hit the VERY SAME link I get redirected to the Italian Creative Support page. I don't even see the English page, which probably DOES work.
Knowing how Italians can f... up things royally on purpose, this could be a valid explanation about why I get into a loop and cannot download a damn' thing!

There was a time when one would just get the direct download, unzip it, run the enclosed setup, choose the custom installation option to carefully monitor it and then use the pc happyly thereafter.

Now it seems like all webmasters got into an agreement where noone can get a simple driver and install it on his/her own, but the driver must absolutely be downloaded and installed directly from the net. I am encountering this bullfeather more and more, lately!
How can I explain to those folks that I do not want anybody's dirty fingers inside of my computers? :a1451:

There are times when I come to hate Internet, not for what it represents, but for all its promises that, more often than not, it doesn't deliver.

Like, for example, last week, when my hon and I went beserk to no avail trying to get a perfectly good Mastercard accepted by a Spanish website in Barcelona. This just to order a simple reservation ticket for a visit to a house built a century ago by master architect Antoni Gaudì without enduring a two to three hours waiting line, or now, :banghead: where I have already wasted three days to get a simple, stupid XP driver for an old soundcard! :sniper:

It seems like it only works fine for flight simulators addons.......:icon_lol:


M$ has extended XP support until 2014. I just got an update from my wireless card yesterday.

Oh,....I didn't know that. I haven't been visiting MS official update website since they announced the end of their XP technical support last year.
Thanks for the H.U!

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

sc7500
May 10th, 2012, 12:13
Stefano - I downloaded the file for you, test-installed it on my XP system, and it installs fine.

I'll send it to your libero email account - look for it in your grey mail box.

It's about 4.5Mb large

Best
SC
:kilroy:

kelticheart
May 14th, 2012, 02:42
Stefano - I downloaded the file for you, test-installed it on my XP system, and it installs fine.

I'll send it to your libero email account - look for it in your grey mail box.

It's about 4.5Mb large

Best
SC
:kilroy:

A great deal of thanks from the depth of me heart, Sir!

I just downloaded the executable and I will install it a.s.a.p., although I am still a little worried that, having the word "Webdrv" in the filename, it might try to connect to the web to download something during the setup.

I'll let you know how it went.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

sc7500
May 14th, 2012, 07:23
...A great deal of thanks from the depth of me heart, Sir!... I just downloaded the executable and I will install it a.s.a.p., although I am still a little worried that, having the word "Webdrv" in the filename, it might try to connect to the web to download something during the setup... I'll let you know how it went...

Aw shucks - Not a problem, Stef ! :jump:

Easiest thing to do is disconnect from the internet during the installation [I do that even after a triple file scan !].

Takes the worry out of installing stuff ! :isadizzy:

Hope it works for you !
SC
:kilroy: