P3 Coppermine - slow because of chipset?

[Lifthanger]

Hi.
I usually help to repair, maintain the rigs at my moms works.
There is this P3 Coppermine with 533MHz, which is running exceptionally slow within Windows 2000 pro.
I owned a P3 550MHz myself (don't know which core though, but 100MHz FSB) and its performance was decent in win2000 pro.
I know that the motherboard is crap, it wouldn't even recognize 256MB memory sticks.. just uses them as 128MB sticks. You can see details on CPU and Board in the pics below. Memory is 256MB at the moment (2x256MB but - explained above). Starting new programs ore switching between tasks, takes years, but there's around 90MB of free memory and cpu utilization is low all the time.
My question is: Is the chipset the only problem and would it help to get e.g. a 440BX board?
Just want to increase performance.
Thanks for your time.
Lifthanger

Pics:
http://lifthanger.bei.t-online.de/cpuz.jpg
http://lifthanger.bei.t-online.de/cpuz2.jpg
http://lifthanger.bei.t-online.de/cpuz3.jpg

edit: this won't help much, but I'll drop the AGP aperture size for sure :).

[Lifthanger]

come on Intel guys, don't tell me you've never owned a P3 :)

[JCLW]

Hmmm... I don't know... It should be a lot faster then that... I'm not that fond of VIA myself but it shouldn't make that much of a difference. Are all the VIA drivers instsalled? SP4?

[Lifthanger]

I've used the most recent drivers and SP 6 (? also the most recent).

I'll keep on searching for some benchmarks.

[lbbo2002]

What is your memory interleave(sp)? It should be set to 4-way interleave or you pay a penalty in memory performace (like up to 25%). If you can set the cas and ras settings to 2 and run memory tests. If they pass and your app tests pass, then leave it. You get 3-5% more with cas/ras of 2.

These are based on my Abit dual P3 boards with VIA chipsets so they should translate you the sa-6

Also turn off all the cache bios stuff since its controled better via the OS (win98 or better).

Best I got mate, thats one old board.

[Lifthanger]

thank you very much. :beer:
I'll try what you said, the next time I get the chance to.
And of course I'll post back.

[larva]

New windows time (unless it's a spankin'-new install already).

[Lifthanger]

well unfortunately it is a spankin new install.
I told them, that I was very sure this would solve the speed issues.
And then after Office and stuff was installed, it was just as slow as before.
The rig was complete system bought at some discounter.. its not very surprising, that the motherboard is crap.
I'll post back, after I did some bios tweaking. (this may take some days)

thanks again for all this input

[larva]

I would try a different hard drive if you can (ghost the existing install over to it). Occasionally you get an IDE hard drive that appears to work normally, other than the fact that it is painfully slow. I just had to RMA my mother's WD200BB for this problem a few months back, and I've seen it 3 or 4 other times in the last 15 years.

[Lifthanger]

hm that's a nice idea, which could really work. didn't think about ghosting, that's why I didn't try it myself.
I'll take one of my drives and check if there is any performance gain.

thanks :)

[Airbornederekc]

there has to be something that is draining it cuz i got win2k pro on a p1 133mhz and it runs great. defrag the hdd maby also might want to check the dma settings in bios

[freeagent]

ive had a 450 katmai, 800EB and a 933EB, they were all pretty quick for what they were, ever since i left the katmai, ive missed the 512k l2 cache, even in my tbred, i wish i had it. but you have to come to grips, its still a 550, my guess is sp6 slowed it down.

[Evilsizer]

check and see what services and stuff are running .... there are some you can turn off since they will never need them.... also A-C-D and see whats running when it boots up...

[Lifthanger]

I wrote down every single idea you told me. I'll try them as soon as I get the chance to, which will take about 2 weeks. Thanks once again, you were very helpful and I'm sure one (or more) of these ideas will solve the problems. :)

[__Game_Start__]

that doesnt check out, i had a 500mhz 100fsb p3 that ran like a trackstar with XP pro, it might be the board messing you up, for me it really comes down to ram available rather than CPU speed for OS performance. i had a 233mhz gateway with 384 mb of ram that ran 2003 rathernicely

[Evilsizer]

sorry about my post before but one error i made was when its booting up.... should have been when its booted check to see what is running in the task manager. sorry if i confused you. after rereading your post it is kinda confusing on whats causing the slow performance. as the other guy metioned about the harddrive is true since my 1.2 celey in sig was slow do to using a old 4.3gig drive with win2k pro. that sys.

[Lifthanger]

I tried almost every idea you told me.. thank you very much. It didn't work with this chipset, but it was a great help while configuring the asus 440bx I've just installed. Now it's running like a champ with windows2000, I've also changed the hd, which was very slow indeed.

thanks for your help, I've learnt much about P3s with your assistance.

Case closed.

[JCLW]

Glad you got it working :)

[Lifthanger]

Thank you :)

Now I understand, why the 440BX is THAT famous: the whole system "feels" more than twice as fast. Unfortunately I didn't try any synthetic benchmarks.

[Evilsizer]

glad to hear it. :D