** Reply to message from Felix Miata <mrmazda@ij.net> on Sun, 24 Jul 2005 23:32:31 -0400 Hi, Felix. We meet again!!
Stan Goodman wrote:
It took me only seconds after I installed SUSE Linux to see that my desktop machine is too slow to support it properly with KDE. This is a Supermicro P6SBA
Make sure you're not wasting CPU cycles on unneeded services. How much RAM you have?
512MB.
motherboard with a 350MHz CPU. It was, of course, blazingly fast when I bought it, but that was then, while this is now.
That mobo has the amazing old 440BX chipset. I have several of those here. :-)
A review of suitable MB/CPU combinations operating at speeds that I hear people talk about shows me that they would make an unsupportble dent in my finances. But I might be able to swing a faster CPU for the existing MB. The fastest CPU available for this motherboard runs at 800MHz.
Actually a lot of 440BX boards will run up to something like 1100, but typically the BIOS doesn't "support it" and so will lie to you on POST, then proceed to work just fine. Finding faster than 800MHz at a sane price is close to hopeless anyway. Note when budgeting an upgrade that the PIII uses a different cooler arrangement than a PII.
I don't think I have a problem with the speed at which applications run. What is on my mind is the responsiveness of the desktop: it takes forever for windows to even show up on the screen.
If you think you have it slow, try a K6/2-400 running only a 430TX chipset 66MHz FSB and only 64M of RAM cached. :-( A PII-350 w/ 100MHz FSB is way faster.
I would like to hear comments from a few others (if there are any) who are using SUSE v9.x on systems with speeds in the neighborhood that is available to me with the faster CPU on this MB.
I just paid about $30 for a 700 P3 to replace a 350 P2 in a Mandrake Cooker SCSI 440BX box & ATI Rage Pro. It hasn't arrived yet, but I expect no significant difference from my SuSE 9.0 system also running 700 P3 SCSI 440BX, but with Matrox G400. 9.0 uses a 2.4 kernel, which seems to be noticably faster than a 2.6 on slower systems.
The 440BX supports only ATA33, so if you aren't running SCSI, consider moving your HD to a cheap PCI ATA 100 or 133 card for a significant speed boost.
If you have at least 256M RAM now, I think you'll be pleased with little more than $20-$40 spent for a used 600-800 MHz PIII CPU upgrade. If you
THAT is what I wanted to hear. I don't think I can get away with that low a price, however. I discovered very rapidly that there are no suitable 800MHz CPUs in this country, so I shopped Pricegrabber to see what I could import. The prices available there start at just over $100. Where do you find them for $20 - 40?
don't have that much RAM, try to get more before worrying about anything else. RAM compatible with 440BX isn't so easy to find as it used to be. Most PC100 RAM now is very expensive, and otherwise compatible PC133 now usually comes only with too high chip density for 440BX. I got lucky and found a used IBM brand 256M PC133 stick for about $35 a couple weeks ago. Now that SuSE 9.0 system is at 384M. :-)
If you need to buy RAM, and CPU, and ATA card, you're enroaching on the price of a cheap motherboard, CPU and RAM that would be a much better value for the money spent. Dilemma indeed. :-p
The HD on which SUSE is installed is IDE. Thanks again... -- Stan Goodman Qiryat Tiv'on Israel "When your enemy falls, do not rejoice." -- Proverbs 24:17 The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armor to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he, who by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place. -- Douglas Adams (author of "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe")