Computer Speed

[Butts]

I was wondering if someone could help me.

Is the speed your computer operates at down to your Broadband Speed or the Computers memory ??? (probably the wrong term)

In other words could you have Virgins 100MB top whack package or whatever it is and with a crap computer still have a problem.

Also I understand "how busy" the lines are has something to do with it ?

Please can someone explain in "plain english" the relationship between the different factors and how much of an impact each has on the speed.

I'm not talking about downloading loads of games but just normal e-mails and BBC I player programmes.

Thanks,

Butts the computer tard or should that be turd

 

[Eagle]

Step one is to measure what your actual broadband speed is (knowing VM it'll be way below the advertised maximum).

Should point out that when you run the test make sure you close anything on your computer that connects to the internet (other browser tabs, email program, etc), and try and do it when no one else in your house is online.

 

[SS4]

Both affect it.

For online activities (browsing the forum, iplayer, email etc) internet speed is dominant whilst your computer's memory (a decent enough term fyi) plays a small part. Computer (and graphics) memory is probably most important for iPlayer as it takes some work to render video, especially HD and/or full screen.
If email is slow then it's likely to be your internet speed.

A good way to check is to only have your browser open whilst doing what you do and if it runs fine then chances are you're trying to do too much at once which is a hardware problem. If it doesn't then it's a internet speed problem. speedtest is a good site to check your typical internet speed but do it a few times to get an average

Traffic on the network is a lot like traffic on the road - if everyone wants to do the same thing at once then it'll slow down.

 

[SteveP29]

Not an expert on the subject, but I think your speed is dependent on the size of your computer processor. A broadband line may offer 100Mb, but AFAIK the computer will only be able to go as fast as the processor will allow.

What I will say is though, don't be mislead by claimed speed by your provider. The closer you are to the exchange, the faster your service will be, if you're furthest away, your service will be slowest, even though your provider will still tell you that you'll have the claimed speed, even though it would be unachievable.

I stand to be corrected though, not being a computer expert.

 

[Geezertronic]

It is also dependent on how you connect from your laptop/workstation to your internet connection - for example wireless or wired into your hub

 

[bb21]

I'm not talking about downloading loads of games but just normal e-mails and BBC I player programmes.

If you experience problems with the iplayer, like SS4 mentioned, you might not have a decent amount of RAM installed. If so, you could always put more in, although you might want to pay a visit to a computer shop if not happy to do it yourself.

What is the spec of your computer anyway, out of curiosity?

What I will say is though, don't be mislead by claimed speed by your provider. The closer you are to the exchange, the faster your service will be, if you're furthest away, your service will be slowest, even though your provider will still tell you that you'll have the claimed speed, even though it would be unachievable.

That is generally speaking correct.

 

[GB]

iPlayer takes very little of the computer resources. I have a crappy work netbook that has the minimum amount of memory and onboard graphics and it runs standard definition content fine.

To get a clearer answer you should post you pc specs and what you are trying to do.

 

[Butts]

Step one is to measure what your actual broadband speed is (knowing VM it'll be way below the advertised maximum).

Should point out that when you run the test make sure you close anything on your computer that connects to the internet (other browser tabs, email program, etc), and try and do it when no one else in your house is online.

Thanks to all of you for answers....

Test result:

Ping 43ms Download 20.40 Mbps Upload 1.13 Mbps

Computer is a Toshiba Satellite L40-18Z

Processor 1.60 GHZ ....?? Intel Pentium
Memory 1GB
Windows Vista
Over 4 years old
Wireless (Virgin) Internet Connection - cabled to the house.

So basically am I fuc**ed

 

[NLC1072]

New computer needed there me thinks

 

[SS4]

New computer needed there me thinks

Nah, that's a pretty good computer. He needs a better Operating System

 

[Butts]

New computer needed there me thinks

If I got a Computer with treble the memory would it be three times as fast?

 

[GB]

Thanks to all of you for answers....

Test result:

Ping 43ms Download 20.40 Mbps Upload 1.13 Mbps

Computer is a Toshiba Satellite L40-18Z

Processor 1.60 GHZ ....?? Intel Pentium
Memory 1GB
Windows Vista
Over 4 years old
Wireless (Virgin) Internet Connection - cabled to the house.

So basically am I fuc**ed

If all your doing is basic stuff like internet, emails and video streaming then I don't think there is much wrong with your specs. If your whole pc is running slow, before spending any money, I'd back up your files and reformat the disk then reinstall windows. It will get rid of all the unwanted crap that may have accumulated.

I'd also get rid of vista as that was never very good. Try going back to XP if you have it.

 

[Butts]

Nah, that's a pretty good computer. He needs a better Operating System

Would that make a big difference?

 

[snail]

Memory 1GB
Windows Vista

That's probably the cause of your problem. Vista, apart from being useless, is something of a memory hog. 1GB of memory doesn't go very far. Try not to use too many applications at the same time. If you can get more memory that is definitely a good investment.

Your connection speed looks good - even if only 1/5 of the advertised speed - that's the same as I get through my phone-based broadband and is perfectly adequate for email & iPlayer etc. (I use a 4 year old Mac upgraded from 2GB to 8GB memory, 4GB is allocated to running Windows 7).

It would be worth asking Virgin to check your line, with cable there is no reason for them not to deliver exactly what they claim.

 

[Eagle]

I'd also get rid of vista as that was never very good. Try going back to XP if you have it.

Or forward to Windows 7 or 8 (your laptop should be able to cope with those), which will be cheaper at the moment and won't have its support withdrawn in 16 months' time (April 8, 2014). :P

 

[Butts]

That's probably the cause of your problem. Vista, apart from being useless, is something of a memory hog. 1GB of memory doesn't go very far. Try not to use too many applications at the same time. If you can get more memory that is definitely a good investment.

Your connection speed looks good - even if only 1/5 of the advertised speed - that's the same as I get through my phone-based broadband and is perfectly adequate for email & iPlayer etc. (I use a 4 year old Mac upgraded from 2GB to 8GB memory, 4GB is allocated to running Windows 7).

It would be worth asking Virgin to check your line, with cable there is no reason for them not to deliver exactly what they claim.

Would it be quicker if I used the cable rather than wireless.

It often downloads from IP at 17-18 and my speed is supposed to be 20 tops.

 

[snail]

Ah, I thought you said speed should be 100MB. You will lose some speed using wireless but the difference between 17MB and 20MB is hardly noticeable in practice. Speed tests are notoriously unreliable, you won't get the same result twice!

 

[Butts]

Ah, I thought you said speed should be 100MB. You will lose some speed using wireless but the difference between 17MB and 20MB is hardly noticeable in practice. Speed tests are notoriously unreliable, you won't get the same result twice!

Thanks,
So as I asked earlier if I tripled the memory what affect would that have on the speed ?

 

[swj99]

Vista, apart from being useless, is something of a memory hog. 1GB of memory doesn't go very far.

True. A mate of mine has it on his computer, which is a higher spec than mine. But his is slower because Vista is more resource hungry than XP. It was so slow I almost grew a beard once when I was round there waiting for it to open some picture files.

Another thing that can slow down the browsing experience is the presence of security software (anti virus etc). Some are more guilty than others for this. I use AVG Free and it's not too intrusive.

There are various services that run in the background on a computer which will slow it down. Automatic Updates is one example. I always disable this on the basis that if the operating system worked when it was installed, there is no need to update it. Some updates are for security, however many of these apply to Internet Explorer and I don't use it anyway. Someone asked me for some RAM so he could upgrade his son's computer. When I took it round there, he said he'd had to leave the computer on all of the previous night because it was downloading updates.

If you press CTRL - ALT & Delete this should start Task Manager and will show you what processes are running, so you can decide if you want to cancel them. One thing I've noticed about Firefox is that over the space of a few hours, with several browser windows or tabs open, the memory usage seems to increase and this slows the computer down.

Talking of operating systems, it might be interesting to install Windows 98 on a relatively new PC to see how quick it would run on that compared to the current OS. (assuming the motherboard drivers were compatible with W98). I've got a couple of old Windows 98 install discs around somewhere

Thanks,
So as I asked earlier if I tripled the memory what affect would that have on the speed ?

It would theoretically reduce the time it takes the computer to process data. Apart from the size of the memory you add, there's also the question of the frequency of that memory. For example on the old SD RAM, some of it is PC 100, whilst some is PC 133. The 133 is 'quicker' but this only applies if all the RAM in the computer is rated at 133. If some is only PC 100, the memory will run at the lowest frequency.

Another thing that slows computers down is excessive heat. I was given an old Dell Dimension last week and it was really slow. I used a blowgun on a garage airline to blow all the dust out of the air intake at the front of it. There was a hell of a lot of dust in there, caused quite a dust cloud when I used the airline on it. I had to hold my breath while it cleared. It runs much quicker now.

 

[GB]

Your connection speed looks good...

Good!? I'd say thats more than good.

Im only on about 3Mbps

 

[SS4]

If I got a Computer with treble the memory would it be three times as fast?

Not necessarily. Like in chemical reactions there is a limiting reagent for want of a better phrase - something which is used up first and then stops the reaction (or slows your PC).
Improving the RAM will make it faster but it's not necessarily linear and you may end up shifting the bottleneck to your CPU (processor) or GPU (graphics card). I've got 8GB ram and, were it not for my tmpfs, only about 1.5GB would be used.

If all your doing is basic stuff like internet, emails and video streaming then I don't think there is much wrong with your specs. If your whole pc is running slow, before spending any money, I'd back up your files and reformat the disk then reinstall windows. It will get rid of all the unwanted crap that may have accumulated.

I'd also get rid of vista as that was never very good. Try going back to XP if you have it.

Good advice

Would that make a big difference?

Yeah, for reasons mentioned in the thread but it's probably easier to reinstall first. I don't know if you can get Windows 7 or 8 through MSDN or not (I was able to get XP and Vista in my student days).

 

[starrymarkb]

Also these days most systems are multicore....

For example my PC has Six 3.2GHz cores (each core is a processor) - so in theory the PC can do six tasks at 3.2GHz simultaneously - but 3.2 is the maximum per task.

If you are running vista go to Start -> Games and run a Windows Experience Index test. that will tell you what is the bottleneck. When I upgraded to the 6 Core I couldn't afford the Graphics card at the same time (bought one the following month) and while using the MoBo graphics my PC was ranked 2.0 with the bottle neck being the crap on board graphics - add a proper dedicated graphics card and the boost was massive!

 

[michael769]

Thanks,
So as I asked earlier if I tripled the memory what affect would that have on the speed ?

Huge quite frankly. Boot up times might increase a little, but one up and running it will feel like a new PC!

 

[Butts]

Also these days most systems are multicore....

For example my PC has Six 3.2GHz cores (each core is a processor) - so in theory the PC can do six tasks at 3.2GHz simultaneously - but 3.2 is the maximum per task.

If you are running vista go to Start -> Games and run a Windows Experience Index test. that will tell you what is the bottleneck. When I upgraded to the 6 Core I couldn't afford the Graphics card at the same time (bought one the following month) and while using the MoBo graphics my PC was ranked 2.0 with the bottle neck being the crap on board graphics - add a proper dedicated graphics card and the boost was massive!

I have checked "my score"

Processor 4.7(Intel(r)Pentium(r)CPU [email protected]
Memory 4.2 (1.0GB)
Graphics 2.3 (Mobile Intel (r) 965 Express Chipset Family
Gaming Graphics 3.0 (251mb Total available graphics memory)
Primary Hard Disk 5.1 30 GB Free (73GB Total)

Overall score 2.3

Whatever all this means I am not in the slightest bit interested in Computer Games or intend to play them...

Help

 

[tony_mac]

Vista, and lack of memory, is probably the problem, the CPU looks fine.

One thing to do, without spending any money, would be to try Linux.
If you have a spare 1gb (or more) USB stick, then you can use unetbootin to make a boot disk. Then you can use that to see how Linux runs on your computer.
If that is ok, then you can either switch to Linux, upgrade to Windows 7 or 8, and/or buy more memory for your computer.

 

[ainsworth74]

I'd suggest buying more RAM (1GB extra should suffice, but more is better I have 4GB which seems to be something of a median point), carrying out a reformat and then installing Win 7. I'm not sold on Win 8 and XP is getting long in the tooth. Win 7 on the other hand is a very good operating system (it's what Vista should have been). You'll probably be able to find a local computer shop that would be able to do all that for a reasonable price (not PC World!) if you don't fancy doing it yourself.

 

[Butts]

Vista, and lack of memory, is probably the problem, the CPU looks fine.

One thing to do, without spending any money, would be to try Linux.
If you have a spare 1gb (or more) USB stick, then you can use unetbootin to make a boot disk. Then you can use that to see how Linux runs on your computer.
If that is ok, then you can either switch to Linux, upgrade to Windows 7 or 8, and/or buy more memory for your computer.

Thanks I would be bit nervous installing a new operating system as I am not a "computer expert" as you may have already guessed

I mainly use my computer for

1. E-Mail
2. Booking Rail and Air Fares
3. Going on Forums like this (It's always slow RailUK Forums 1st thing.)
4. Downloading Artistic Images

 

[starrymarkb]

4. Downloading Artistic Images

If that is the euphemism I think it is could you have picked up some malware?

 

[ainsworth74]

I mainly use my computer for...

I wouldn't suggest, in that case, going for Linux. Whilst it's go a lot better in terms of usability it's still a bit niche really.

 

[tony_mac]

Thanks I would be bit nervous installing a new operating system as I am not a "computer expert" as you may have already guessed

The idea is that you try it out, using a USB stick, without making any permanent changes to your computer.

That will give you a better idea what the problem is - and then you can decide what to do next.