AMD to Intel????

**oldblue** · February 25th, 2007 04:22 AM

been experiencing that 100% CPU spike with dell centrino laptop since last May-Aug '06 pa. re-installed it more than a couple of times, pero bumalik din . parati yan freezing eh d ko malaman kung ano dahilan. the OS that came with the laptop is orig.

my suspect was limewire. basta na-install na, kahit i-uninstall mo, pababalik-balik na 100% cpu spike kahit nag-word or nag-inet ka lang

i stopped using Windows since.

**Jun aka Pekto** · February 25th, 2007 05:17 AM

Originally Posted by number001

Spec of my current setup

Amd64 3200+ venice rev DH-E6 - 2 Ghz (10-multiplier x 200 bus speed) single core.
ASrock 939Dual-SATA2
2 x 1 GB Corsair TwinX DDR 400 - 2 gb
GeCube Ati Radeon 9550 Extreme edition 128mb AGP8x
Coolermaster Centurion 5 w/ Coolermaster 350 Watts PSU
120GB Seagate 7200 PATA
80 GB Seagate 7200 SATA
300 GB Seagate 7200 SATA
NEC 2510A 8x Dvd-/+ r/rw/dvd9

===========================

All things equal with my old Intel cpu/mobo set-up, then and now. Not the latest drivers, but only four months old or less.

I really think its the MOBO/chipset, that's abit pokey. I would stay away from the N-force chipsets bec. it never seem to run out of problems plaquing it.

I haven't had any problems with mine either in XP Home or Vista RC1. But my setup's substantially different from yours.....
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4200+
MBOARD: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (S939, pci-e, non-SLI, nForce 4 Ultra)
PSU: Antec Truepower II 480
VIDEO: 256mb pci-e ASUS AEX800XL ViVo
RAM: Corsair 2 x 1gb DDR-400
SOUND: SB Audigy 2 Value and built-in Realtek AC97 7.1 audio
HARD DRIVES: WD Caviar 200gb IDE (XP Home) - IDE 1 Master
WD Caviar 250gb IDE (Storage and Page File) IDE 1 Slave
Maxtor 40gb IDE (Vista RC1) IDE 2 Slave

OPTICAL DRIVE: Pioneer DV-109 IDE 2 Master
OTHER DRIVES: External Firewire 120GB 3.5" hard drive (Storage)
External USB2 60GB 2.5: hard drive (Storage)

It's the same exact setup I had when I first assembled it in Jul 2005 It's been rock-solid since day 1.

I'll have to assume you're correct in determining it's your hardware at fault. But, yours have ULi as the chipset listed while mine has the nForce 4 Ultra plus, I'm using a dualcore cpu.

Since your freezes happen during multi-tasking, have you taken a look to see which programs hog the most cpu resources at that point? Traditionally, it's been during the antivirus scan and scanning huge images that took up the most cpu resources in my older pc's. It's not much of an issue with the dualcore X2 4200+. The pc just keeps going. Also, have you tried a Linux Live CD and see if the same problems persist? If it still does, then it's definitely mobo/cpu/hardware related.

The software setup of this pc:
WinXP Home
AVG
Windows Defender
ASUS latet video drivers for X800XL
Built-in XP Firewall - I had the nVidia Active Armor firewall. But I uninstalled it after I mistakenly thought it was at fault for slow internet. The actual culprit was a cable splitter. Cox Cable did an upgrade and forgot to tell me about taking the splitter off.

As for multitasking........no issues. In fact, I've been on a Divx---->iPod mp4 binge, converting all my Divx recordings (with Ulead Video Studio 10) for use on an iPod. I've been surfing here and watching You Tube caps all at once...

**Lucius** · February 25th, 2007 05:22 AM

Yup lakas kumain memory Limeware. Kaya u******* nalng hahaha un nga lang pahirapan if MP3s. Per album kasi usually.

**Horsepower** · February 25th, 2007 11:00 AM

Get an Intel Core2 Duo E6600 (4Mb L2 Cache) and you can forget any CPU that AMD will ever release. hehehehehehehe

**metatron** · February 25th, 2007 12:39 PM

Originally Posted by Horsepower

Get an Intel Core2 Duo E6600 (4Mb L2 Cache) and you can forget any CPU that AMD will ever release. hehehehehehehe

Not to spark an amd vs intel flame war pero huwag naman. Even the x2 5600+ and 6000+ cpus based on a 3 year old architecture can trounce the conroe e6600 on some apps - and its not even based on the next gen microarchitecture (slated for 2nd half '07 release) amd's been developing to counter conroe and penryn.

by virtue of monopoly, if amd goes down, we'll end up paying so much more for intel cpus (remember early 90's intel cpu pricing?).

peace

**number001** · February 25th, 2007 01:37 PM

Originally Posted by boybi

i also have this annoying freeze right now. i'm also using AMD Athlon 64 3200+. i only experienced this 'freeze' the past 2 weeks. and last night, i reinstalled my WinXP OS to WinXP MCE, and the 'freeze' is still there and i haven't installed everything yet. is this a problem with the hardware?

I just read your post closely just now. So you are saying you only noticed the "freeze" just two weeks ago?

As for me, I have noticed this "freeze" the very second I first booted winxp with the amd cpu/asrock mb.

**Horsepower** · February 25th, 2007 02:04 PM

*metatron: please don't say "peace" at the end of your statement because it's so gay. Just a friendly suggestion.

Anyway, all i know is, the E6600 ($200) can annihilate the AMD FX-62 ($800-1000) in most apps and benchmarks. Of course, i assume you're not one of those clowns who spend all their time and sorry asses benchmarking their computers. We use these in the real world for real apps that produce real work because we have lives. hehehehhe

But you are right, AMD should be thanked for what it did (copying Intel when the former had some of its procs manufactured by AMD) then later developing its own. Intel practically copied the AMD64 architecture but did it too late. Talk about twist of fate. Too many people got the AMD because of the 64-bit hype (not many even know that you need at least 4GB of ram to fully utilize 64-bit LOL!!!).

It sparked the processor war, prices plunged, I remember a classmate of mine was sooooo proud of his 486DX which he bought for 100K, right now, it can't be even sold for 1K hahahaha!). I thank God we can't afford a new computer back then. For a hundred grand, i was able to have THX 5.1 digital speaker for my setup (Logitech z5500).

Now, almost everyone has a computer. I thank AMD for that and all those poor fellas at IBM, Cyrix and Texas Instruments who did their best to stick their heads out of the water but eventually had to pull out or minimize production.

Unfortunately, Monopoly is still a big part of the IT business. Software developers favor Intel (probably because of monetary benefits which Intel is infamous for). Example: Adobe. You'll instantly notice the performance reduction on a similar platform AMD and Intel that's because Adobe "looks" for the intel processor. A few years ago, some nice guys from Sourceforge developed a registry hack to counter this and the Adobe indeed worked faster (i dont have a link, sorry).

Currently, it puzzles me why AMD with their revolutionary* on-die memory controller is reducing cache. In contrast, the E6600 and above are very fast because of these 4MB. It is predicted they will double to 8MB or 16MB after the 4x4 (Kentsfield Quadcore).

*Actually intel had an on-die prototype pre-P4 days but decided to bin it. Not sure why. AMD is first to market it and it indeed proved to be revolutionary.

**Jun aka Pekto** · February 25th, 2007 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by metatron

remember early 90's intel cpu pricing?

Yeah. They're $1000 (that's early 1990's dollar prices) apiece retail. How many here would be able to pay those prices if AMD wasn't around to provide competition? I still remember paying $700 for a P2-266 in 1997 and it wasn't even top of the line.

Add: I've been assembling my own DIY pc's since 1992. One thing I've learned is that one brand of cpu will often hold a lead for a time and then another will counter it later.

I started out with AMD because of the better bang for the back (386DX40) through the DX2's. Then, I switched to Intel with the Pentiums up to Pentium 3's. I switched back to AMD when the Athlon XP's came out and stuck through this AMD X2 4200+ back in 2005. Looks like I'll be going Intel once more with the next pc I assemble.

Based on newegg.com prices which is the most reliable US online parts store, the most expensive dualcore FX is $525 while the least expensive is $325. The X2 6000+ is $529 while my own X2 4200+ is down to $155.

The E6600 retail is $314 while the E6700 is $512. The E6300 is $184 while the E4300 is $169. So yes, I'd say bang for the buck is now with Intel once more.

**mbt** · February 25th, 2007 02:34 PM

the cpu should not be causing a 100% spike in cpu usage in light WinXP multitasking... there's something in windows or some app running in the background or foreground that's causing the spike. a Venice-core Athlon is more than enough for Windows XP

**Jun aka Pekto** · February 25th, 2007 02:53 PM

Personally, I'd still try loading a Linux Live CD and find out if it is indeed the hardware.

Sometimes, drivers are at fault which makes it a software problem. Also, the page file may also be taking up too much resources if control is left to Windows XP. I always keep my page file permanent and located in a different hard drive from where XP is installed. There has not been any sign of similar cpu spikes whatsoever.

With Vista, the page file is contained in the same 40gb hard drive where Vista RC1 is. I do keep it permanent as well.

Add: I'd also keep an eye on hard drive activity the next time the spikes occur.