What is my bottleneck?

[Vern_in_IL]

2002 build.

Athlon 2500 XP at 2.03 Ghz

GeForce 6200A 512MB 8X AGP video card

1 Gigabyte of memory (two 512 sticks)

Running Windows XP SP2.

I am suffering glitchy video playback on YouTube. Processor runs at 80%.

Flash is outdated, can't find a reliable source for newer version of Flash that supports XP.

This is a archival machine mainly, however I may surf the web now and then.

 

[Leo99]

Is it only when you stream video?

 

[slomo]

This is normal, you have the old flash version. You need a newer OS and flash to get your CPU usage down.

slomo

 

[raytseng]

i'd agree. software issue. A 2002 computer could easily play full screen dvds or dvd quality encoded videos with only moderate cpu usage.

So even if you were able to double your hardware resources; the software issue will eat up all of that and still be glitchy.

 

[TxHeat]

Your bottleneck is your computer..... well, it's age and inability to render like something a little newer.

Your cpu cranking at 80% leads me to believe that it's doing all the rendering rather than your graphics card.

You might take a look at "Hardware Acceleration". Do a search on that term along with the name of the browser you use. You can try either turning it on or off and see if that helps.

 

[OVERKILL]

Chrome has integrated flash, have you tried that?

 

[Vern_in_IL]

What upgrades do you suggest? I don't think I can upgrade the OS, since it has many programs I use, such as Partition Magic 6(by PowerQuest before Synmantec bought them) Also Drive Image, and WinImage, among other dated programs and image files.


I will try some suggestions above.

 

[horse123]

Originally Posted By: bornconfuzd
Your bottleneck is your computer..... well, it's age and inability to render like something a little newer.

Your cpu cranking at 80% leads me to believe that it's doing all the rendering rather than your graphics card.

You might take a look at "Hardware Acceleration". Do a search on that term along with the name of the browser you use. You can try either turning it on or off and see if that helps.


Yeah... you can pick up a much faster computer for pretty much nothing if you look around.

 

[Koz1]

1 gig wont do it 2 gig will.
Upgrade everything.
Upgrade to 8 gig min with a new build.

 

[901Memphis]

Video card is the bottle neck. See if you can find a used 6600GT, 6800GT, or 7600GT agp. There's also 7800 options but they hold more value. Also ati Radeon x1900 series.

You may need a psu upgrade and quickly we arrive are approaching getting a new entry level system that will play youtube just fine. Any of the economy boxes at Walmart for $300 do this job with modern processing and on board video chips.


Here's a sweet deal.



http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=83-229-362

 

[Vern_in_IL]

the CPU runs at 95% with window open, and youtube playing(in Chrome) with some studders, but if I minimize, then the processor is going down to 40% and the audio is great.

I tried to change my aperture AGP settings in BIOS. Changed the card settings in program for "performance" nothing.

I should not need a power supply upgrade, it has a 500w Antec in it.

I agree that the problem is my CPU is doing all the GPU calculations.

 

[TxHeat]

Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
the CPU runs at 95% with window open, and youtube playing(in Chrome) with some studders, but if I minimize, then the processor is going down to 40% and the audio is great.

I tried to change my aperture AGP settings in BIOS. Changed the card settings in program for "performance" nothing.

I should not need a power supply upgrade, it has a 500w Antec in it.

I agree that the problem is my CPU is doing all the GPU calculations.


Enable Hardware Acceleration In Chrome / Chromium Browser [Quick Tip]

May not be the fix, but has worked for me in the past.

 

[901Memphis]

Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
the CPU runs at 95% with window open, and youtube playing(in Chrome) with some studders, but if I minimize, then the processor is going down to 40% and the audio is great.

I tried to change my aperture AGP settings in BIOS. Changed the card settings in program for "performance" nothing.

I should not need a power supply upgrade, it has a 500w Antec in it.

I agree that the problem is my CPU is doing all the GPU calculations.


Try looking on eBay for a used video card and you should be fine after updating to the newest drivers. You have many choices if you have a budget I can help you locate one.

 

[TxHeat]

Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
the CPU runs at 95% with window open, and youtube playing(in Chrome) with some studders, but if I minimize, then the processor is going down to 40% and the audio is great.

I tried to change my aperture AGP settings in BIOS. Changed the card settings in program for "performance" nothing.

I should not need a power supply upgrade, it has a 500w Antec in it.

I agree that the problem is my CPU is doing all the GPU calculations.


Try looking on eBay for a used video card and you should be fine after updating to the newest drivers. You have many choices if you have a budget I can help you locate one.



On the contrary, I expect his choices are quite limited. He's using an AGP card, so unless he has a PCI slot, AGP is his choice because for sure he doesn't have a PCIe slot.

In addition, unless he can shift rendering from the cpu to the card, it won't matter what card he has.

Beyond that, I don't think I would put any money into upgrading anything in a machine that's not capable of even running a modern OS.

(Put Linux on it in 3.......2........),

Which really isn't that bad of an idea come to think of it, it would certainly be safer than XP and with more current software and drivers.

But then he'd lose the ability to run his favorite Windows XP software.

 

[901Memphis]

EBay item number 371360079154 is a Radeon 3850 for $65

EBay item number 221808150554 is a 6800 Gt for $35

EBay item number 371323500882 is a 6600 GT for $25, which will be a huge upgrade over a 6200

 

[901Memphis]

Originally Posted By: bornconfuzd
Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
the CPU runs at 95% with window open, and youtube playing(in Chrome) with some studders, but if I minimize, then the processor is going down to 40% and the audio is great.

I tried to change my aperture AGP settings in BIOS. Changed the card settings in program for "performance" nothing.

I should not need a power supply upgrade, it has a 500w Antec in it.

I agree that the problem is my CPU is doing all the GPU calculations.


Try looking on eBay for a used video card and you should be fine after updating to the newest drivers. You have many choices if you have a budget I can help you locate one.



On the contrary, I expect his choices are quite limited. He's using an AGP card, so unless he has a PCI slot, AGP is his choice because for sure he doesn't have a PCIe slot.

In addition, unless he can shift rendering from the cpu to the card, it won't matter what card he has.

Beyond that, I don't think I would put any money into upgrading anything in a machine that's not capable of even running a modern OS.

(Put Linux on it in 3.......2........),

Which really isn't that bad of an idea come to think of it, it would certainly be safer than XP and with more current software and drivers.

But then he'd lose the ability to run his favorite Windows XP software.


I'm well aware he has AGP as you can see in my previous post i was preparing while you posted this i referred the OP 3 very good AGP cards that should solve his current problem.

The new AGP card will automatically take over processing if he has the right drivers installed and flash software, the problem he currently he has is the 6200A is onboard graphics which are limited by the CPU power and as we all know socket A is long in the tooth, i used to have a nice XP 3200 rig on an Asus A7 board with a 6600GT and it was plenty fine for playing any DX9 game of the day, although i had 2x1 gb DDR-400 RAM in my rig.

Even if it's the dedicated PCI/AGP 6200 card its very lacking in pixel pipelines and core clock compared to the 6600GT and up, which a 6600GT should have 4 times the processing power of a single 6200A.

 

[Lubener]

You would be amazed on how well that old machine would work with a wipe and reload of the OS. I can play you tube videos fairly well with an old P3, 1 GHZ, 512k of memory, WINXP PRO SP3. I do turn off all the fluff and back ground apps. CPU usage is not near 100 percent. I do a reload every year.

 

[Vern_in_IL]

After measuring inside the case, there is no room for a 6800, got a hard drive in the way. Looks like the 6600 is cheap enough and it does fit. I'll give it a shot!

 

[punisher]

I wonder how long it has been for some of you since you ran a single core CPU with Windows XP and whatever version of IE or Chrome. Anyway you slice it, it gets tough for the CPU to keep up. I shelved an otherwise healthy Turion powered lappy a few years ago just for this problem. Of all the systems I have(4) the lowest spec one that can playback web video without problems/stuttering is a Core2 6650, 4 gigs DDR2, R7 260, and WIN7. Even then, it chokes trying to playback anything over 1080 using H265 codec. CPU can't cut that.

Another factor is websites hosting videos have been/are moving to different codecs, like VP9, and that is hammering CPUs.

Honestly you get to the point where any money you put into this is money flushed down the drain. Bens Bargains this morning had an HP i5 laptop (refurb) for under $200. I have about 4 AMX XP CPUs gathering dust, I think even a Barton mobile that you can overclock on the fly via software. They were decent CPUs in their day. Find a nice for it, let it rest in peace.

Just an opinion, I could be wrong.

 

[berniedd]

For a rig that old, I would suggest an install of Lubuntu. The L stands for Light, as this OS is for older systems with mediocre hardware by today's standards. I'd recommend at least 1 GB RAM.