Serious Sam

Hi i'm new to the forum but it was reccommended by a friend who said you may be able to help with my problem.
I was previously running an athlon 64 3500 but have now upgraded to an Opeteron, but it seems no faster than my old system, also it is a bit quirky and some things like Asus update no longer work.
Help!
Cheers

batty_professor

Hi, and welcome to TSF. The processor alone is only a small part of the speed picture. And to give good answers your question, we need to know what things that your processor has to work with. Motherboard specs, and type of ram would be good places to start. As well as the specs on the old processor vs. new.

Serious Sam

My opteron is a 175, my old proc was a 3500
I have 2g of ram
a good psu
a nvida 7800
nothing much else of importance.

jimscreechy

Hi, Wel come to the forum.

OK 2 things. Even though the 939 boards support opterons (and other AMD dual core processors) off the shelf, you will need to make sure you have a bios level that supports this feature. Check the Asus web site to see you have a version that of the bios that does. Even then, if there is a later version of the bios available for your board you should upgrade to it. Some of the earlier releases for these boards 'claimed' to support dual core, but did so quite badly, if at all.

If you open task manager and select the performance tab you should see two seperate windows for CPU Usage history. If you see only one, they you will definately have to do a bios update because dual core is not supported by your Bios version.

If you have the latest Bios installed and everything I have detailed checks out then it is the second option you will have to execute. Unfortunately you will probably (and I say this with certain degree of understatement, because what I really mean is you will almost definately) have to reinstall your operating system. Don't worry you are not the first to experience this problem. This is in fact the solution reccomended by Asus as it is a fairly common problem with this type of upgrade. Not a walk in the park I know but the good news is you will probably experience a fairly worthwhile increase in performance for your troubles.

As always Let us know

Serious Sam

I installed the latest bios when I first discovered this issue so yes, I have the latest. I did check the Task manager and yes there are two displays for the CPU. Looks like it will be a XP reinstall.. Damn!
thanks for the advice, suppose it could be worse, at least there is a fix.

linderman

I would strongly advise you abandon asus live update !! that utility is pure pain in the butt IMO

its a all or nothing approach >>>>> and I have seen tons of users who have received the nothing half of that equation

you are far better served to use the DOS utility for your motherboard >>>> read your mobo manual for afudos or aflash whichever your mobo uses????

I have never seen anyone bonker a bios with these !!

by the way >>>> I hope your not looking for a noticable performance improvement between your old processor and the Optron ... because unless you are running the optron in a server environment or multi tasking programs you will see no performance gain :( I recently custom built a gaming machine for a friend that was "sold" on the benefits of the daul core processors (not by me) >>>>> it actually turned out to be slower or a tad sluggish while playing WOR compared to a AMD 64 3800 San deigo core processor

now he is kind of sore at me :) becasue he is gonna lose money to return to his old processor !! but he is gonna have to shell out to cover my loss on stocking the opty :(

end result >>>> $$$$$$$ hurts friendships

jimscreechy

I'm surprised at this Lind. Certainly it's true that you may not notice the improvements under certain conditions but definately when one of the cores is running a game and the other can be used for the os processes this should definately improve performance. Also, the games market has cottoned on to the Dual core technology and some are already producing games designed to run with these processors which is definately going to improve performance. As with all technology it will take a while for all to follow suit but things are already heading down this track.
Of course if your using windowed apps and you are using particularly hungry procesor tasks you should definately notice the lack of laggy performance between apps and improved functioning.

The Denmark cores the Opty's use also run cooler than the older Sandiego cores so well be more sutiable for overclockers.

Serious Sam

Oh joy! After almost 3 hours of installs the box is up and running. no probs during the install and boy the box is fast and chirping away without any more errors. It is way quicker that my old box just like you say when mutitasking. I ran a dual layer cd copy and msn video while playing music match and runnning limewire, it didn't even blink. Soo cooooool. Thanks guys it was definately worth the effor phew!

linderman

Sam:

We are happy you are up and running!! job well done !! that CPU is a kick a$$ unit for multi tasking for sure.


JIM:

you are 100% >>>> I too have read that games are being designed as we speak to make full use of the dual core CPU's !! which is awesome news. And yes you are also correct that when I demonstrated to my buddy that he could game and play music files at the same time without the game performance suffering and he does out perform a single core in that respect >>> unfortunately he was looking for a big performance boost just running WOR which didnt happen >>>> the 3800 was actually a shade smoother

ohhhh well >>>>> I think we are all looking for performance that will have to wait until the software catches up to the hardware; which is a normal evolution !! hardware must come first then software can be written to take advantage of the abilities of the new hardware !!

same ole same ole >>>> been down this road many times :)

regards

joe