Railworks America

So I gave my old gaming pc (4 months old) to my wife to replace her 02, Dell Pentium 4 3.20GHz. and she is not happy, she is complainig that it's slow.
(New pc specs)
ECS MCP61-M3 NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE AM3 mtx Motherboard + nForce 430chipset
AMD Athlon X2 5200+ 2.3GHz 2x512KB Dual Core CPU
MSI Radeon HD5450 1 GB DDR3 graphics card
4gb DDR3 1066MHz memory
500GB SATA Hard Drive 7200 RPM
DVD RW Drive
550 Watt PSU

I did the Windows easy transfer, Installed a second Seagate 500 GB hard drive, installed Quickbooks, MS Publisher, Word, Power Point, Excel, etc........
Converted from Outlook Express to Windows Live Mail, got everything working right finally.

Now, I was planning on purchasing a new cpu for this, but the mobo only supports up to a 95w cpu, which I found this one:
AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX640WFGMBOX

Or, do I install a new Gigabyte GA-880GM-D2H That supports a 125w cpu that I have new in the box and a better quad cpu and ram?
Now if I do switch the motherbord, please tell me I don't have to reinstall everything........do I?

If this unit was fast enough for gaming, simple office apps should not be slower. When Windows is initially installed on a new pc, to some extent it configures itself for the hardware that it finds. Did you leave the original Windows installation in place or did you transfer Windows to her new hardware box? The latter can cause some (small) issues. Re-installing Windows overtop of itself can sometimes correct or improve things but would not be my first course of action.

First, if you made ANY hardware changes, undo them. Next, check the Programs and Software panel for traces of old stuff from your gaming time that she doesn't need. Get rid of IE toolbars; turn off background processes (the little icons beside your clock) including Anti-Virus or third-party system "fixit" tools/applets. Check the Device Manager for any misconfigured components or perhaps components that need driver software installed. Disconnect it from your network; does it run better?

Be sure you've cleaned out ALL temp files (use the Drive Cleanup option located in the Properties panel of each drive letter) and trash. While there, run a Diskcheck on the drives (Windows will "schedule" it and ask you to reboot then will run the diags upon bootup). Compress/Reorg the mail database files (see Tools menu in your email app). Finally, run a Defrag on the drives (best started before bedtime and let run overnight). Go to Microsoft.com support and search on Slow Computer; they have special diags that can be run right from the site.
If none of that helps, backup your data files (do you still have that Easy Transfer file saved?) and reinstall Windows on the machine (make sure it installs to the default C:/Windows and does not create a 2nd Windows installation). Last resort, format and reinstall everything; that is almost guaranteed to improve/fix the problem and is something I find necessary every year or two because Windows tends to get "constipated" over time from junk that was fed to it without the user's knowledge.

Changing the M/B will not affect your installed software; it will still be there. However, Windows will need to detect and load drivers for new/different components it finds on the new board. Sometimes it seems the only way to get it to install some of the drivers is to reinstall Windows overtop of itself.

Her old pc was using XP, I used easy tranfer to the new pc (Windows 7) it was already installed. Before I did this though, I went in and deleted all of my game files and folders and anything that was mine. I ran disc cleanup, I defraged and updated.
It's not super slow, but my wife has zero patience. She is a brain tumor survivor that had to have her petuitory removed. She goes from zero to sixty in a split second. So I'm trying to avoid that. Right now it's running on dual core, will replacing with a quad core make that much more of a difference in speed?
Now if I do go with the new mobo route, the pc was pre loaded with Windows 7 and I did not get a disc, just the product key.
My new build, I used a new ( disc ) to install. Can I use that disc to reinstall on the old pc and put in the product key that it came with?

OK, first. ECS has never been known to be even close to a high performance board. Then, you went from a 3.2Ghz CPU to a 2.3Ghz? Ummmm, see the problem here? A quad core is not gonna be the solution. Get the fastest dual core you can for that board. You'll have to go to the ECS website to see what the board can handle.

Next, use your Win 7 CD and do a repair. Boot from the CD, don't try and use the F8 repair console. It never works.

What do you have to power options in Win 7 set at? If it's set at Balanced (default) it can slow things down. Control Panel> Performance Information and Tools> Adjust Power Settings> View Additional plans> High Performance. See if that helps.

Chris, I know that I downgraded in performance, maybe you misunderstood my question. (or I'm misunderstanding your answer).
What I would like to know is if I just replace the cpu with a dual or a quad that the ECS board can handle (95w) will it run faster?
Or, should I replace the board with the Gigabyte GA-880GM-D2H that I have, get the best quad core cpu for that one along with new DDR3 1333 memory for better results. Which of the two would you recommend?

I'm gonna toss my 2 cents in and make this a bit messier:

what's the buffer on the HDD and does the mainboard support SATA 3.0 gB/sec?

also - is that the fastest RAM that can go in that board, and is it 1 stick or 2?

My thoughts are that for windows & productivity software any slow-downs are with HDD reads & RAM slow-downs - the transfer across the northbridge between the various components rather than with the processor itself.

I don't believe that a lot of productivity software of the types you list is optimized for multi-core setups so I think the only performance you would see by going to a quad-core is if she is running multiple threads at the same time.

-barnez

For now, multi-cores are basically for multi-tasking. Very few apps use more than one core. Win7 will allocate apps where it sees fit.

I agree with the other posters about checking the Performance settings and running Win7 repair. What is the score on the Performance test? (is typically in the 4-8 range).

Toripony wrote:Next, check the Programs and Software panel for traces of old stuff from your gaming time that she doesn't need. Get rid of IE toolbars; turn off background processes (the little icons beside your clock) including Anti-Virus or third-party system "fixit" tools/applets. Check the Device Manager for any misconfigured components or perhaps components that need driver software installed. Disconnect it from your network; does it run better?

Be sure you've cleaned out ALL temp files (use the Drive Cleanup option located in the Properties panel of each drive letter) and trash. While there, run a Diskcheck on the drives (Windows will "schedule" it and ask you to reboot then will run the diags upon bootup). Compress/Reorg the mail database files (see Tools menu in your email app). Finally, run a Defrag on the drives (best started before bedtime and let run overnight). Go to Microsoft.com support and search on Slow Computer; they have special diags that can be run right from the site.

I thought I had deleted everything, but when I checked the programs running in the background, Steam and Origin were both running.
Got rid of them, ran disc cleanup and defraged and it's running much faster. I should have cought that, but thank you for refreshing my memory.

Toripony wrote:For now, multi-cores are basically for multi-tasking. Very few apps use more than one core. Win7 will allocate apps where it sees fit.

I agree with the other posters about checking the Performance settings and running Win7 repair. What is the score on the Performance test? (is typically in the 4-8 range).

Scored a 5

arizonachris wrote:What do you have to power options in Win 7 set at? If it's set at Balanced (default) it can slow things down. Control Panel> Performance Information and Tools> Adjust Power Settings> View Additional plans> High Performance. See if that helps.

It was on balanced, moved it to high performance and did the things that I posted above. It's running much faster now.

Thank you guy's for all the help. It is truly appreciated. You guy's have already saved me a bunch of money that I would have had to pay a computer guy instead of doing it myself. Thanks to all of you.