Windows 10 extremely slow HP Z230 i5-4590 16gb ram 500gb hd

[Rmay635703]

I have an old HP Z230 tower and a fresh install of windows 10, it’s unbelievably slow at just loading the OS and basic operations, which is strange considering it has 16gb of ram.

Graphics were an nv310 which was removed now it’s the onboard Intel graphics .

I’ve encountered other machines similar to this one that run Windows 10 fine.

The machine isn’t worth much but I’m curious what I could tweak to get it to run reasonably for videos and web browsing. It’s doubtful an i7 would do much for the price and expanding ram further is likely pointless.

I’m guessing SSD and a more modern GPU
I hate dumping money in a machine like this but I guess SSD are getting cheaper recently.

Appropriate graphics cards are all overpriced for what they are.

I was tempted to dump a $175 A770 in the machine but considering Intels track record it probably would hurt more than help and any hope of backwards compatibility is gone.

The used market is still jacked up if I try to find an old TI1060 and the PSU might become an issue.

Ah well, it’s like an old car that is stuck in 1st gear

 

[dubber09]

Fragmentation of the HDD may be playing its role, HDDs are basically last century thing now, go with SSD first, see how things improve before spending more money.

 

[TheOilWizard]

Definitely go SSD and you'll get a year or two more out of it. Maybe more if you have modest requirements.

If you're browsing and watching videos, the GPU will not provide any benefit. Skip that.

 

[Pew]

A simple 1TB Crucial MX500 for $50 would be all you need.

 

[dogememe]

You need an SSD. Mechanical hard drives are basically worthless as primary/boot drives these days. You can pick up a 250GB SSD for $25 now. Best $25 you'll ever spend.

Don't use an Intel Arc GPU in such an old system. They don't work right in anything but modern systems due to the need for Resizable BAR support which older systems do not support. Without that performance will be awful.

 

[Rmay635703]

A simple 1TB Crucial MX500 for $50 would be all you need.

Thanks for the tip
I’m not certain it’s that simple, I think the Intel igpu on the i5-4590 isn’t compliant with Windows 10,

I will try an ssd and getting the system as up to date as I can.

I think I can turn down some of the effects in Windows it will help slightly

You need an SSD. Mechanical hard drives are basically worthless as primary/boot drives these days. You can pick up a 250GB SSD for $25 now. Best $25 you'll ever spend.

Don't use an Intel Arc GPU in such an old system. They don't work right in anything but modern systems due to the need for Resizable BAR support which older systems do not support. Without that performance will be awful.

I know folks that have used arc gpus on antiques, they will still perform better than the nv310 or onboard , just lots of jitters, cuts performance by 25% without bar but still 10x faster than nv310.

If I did it it would be a transitional card until I build a modern system for myself.

My main problem would be if I get back into vintage software

 

[blufeb95]

Pickup an SSD. For GPUs don't put ARC in anything older than a 10th gen platform the lack of resizable BAR will severely hurt your performance if you intend to play games, although something like an A380 might be nice just for the hardware VP9 and AV1 decoding if you don't play a lot of games, although if you can find a cheap used 1030 or something that would give you hardware VP9 decoding to make YouTube playback less CPU intensive.

 

[Pew]

Thanks for the tip
I’m not certain it’s that simple, I think the Intel igpu on the i5-4590 isn’t compliant with Windows 10,

I will try an ssd and getting the system as up to date as I can.

I think I can turn down some of the effects in Windows it will help slightly

You'll be fine, there's no issue with the iGPU and windows 10.

 

[wwillson]

The problem is the spinning platters in the HDD. Watch this scene from Zootopia. Your HDD is the sloth and a SSD is the rabbit.

 

[dogememe]

Thanks for the tip
I’m not certain it’s that simple, I think the Intel igpu on the i5-4590 isn’t compliant with Windows 10,

I will try an ssd and getting the system as up to date as I can.

I think I can turn down some of the effects in Windows it will help slightly



I know folks that have used arc gpus on antiques, they will still perform better than the nv310 or onboard , just lots of jitters, cuts performance by 25% without bar but still 10x faster than nv310.

If I did it it would be a transitional card until I build a modern system for myself.

My main problem would be if I get back into vintage software

OK but there are plenty of great used GPUs out there for under $50 vs spending all that money on an a modern video card. If it's just temporary and you plan to use the new GPU in your new PC in 6 months that's one thing but by then there will be new options on the market anyway or the same option might be cheaper so it's not like you're wasting money buying a used GPU for now. For such an old, low-end system, a GT 730 GDDR5 version (important, the DDR3 versions are trash) is a fine option and costs like $20 on eBay.

 

[Rmay635703]

Pickup an SSD. For GPUs don't put ARC in anything older than a 10th gen platform the lack of resizable BAR will severely hurt your performance if you intend to play games, although something like an A380 might be nice just for the hardware VP9 and AV1 decoding if you don't play a lot of games, although if you can find a cheap used 1030 or something that would give you hardware VP9 decoding to make YouTube playback less CPU intensive.

I’ve seen a380’s for
I’m back to dvi because I don’t have anything other than mini DisplayPort crap.

OK but there are plenty of great used GPUs out there for under $50 vs spending all that money on an a modern video card. If it's just temporary and you plan to use the new GPU in your new PC in 6 months that's one thing but by then there will be new options on the market anyway or the same option might be cheaper so it's not like you're wasting money buying a used GPU for now. For such an old, low-end system, a GT 730 GDDR5 version (important, the DDR3 versions are trash) is a fine option and costs like $20 on eBay.

That’s actually sort of a sleeper, most of the used gpus I’ve found under $50 are total garbage unstable/damaged.

Despite being extremely slow /outdated that one is just enough for a lot of games.

 

[fozzdesy2001]

Thanks for the tip
I’m not certain it’s that simple, I think the Intel igpu on the i5-4590 isn’t compliant with Windows 10,

I will try an ssd and getting the system as up to date as I can.

I think I can turn down some of the effects in Windows it will help slightly



I know folks that have used arc gpus on antiques, they will still perform better than the nv310 or onboard , just lots of jitters, cuts performance by 25% without bar but still 10x faster than nv310.

If I did it it would be a transitional card until I build a modern system for myself.

My main problem would be if I get back into vintage software

Get an SSD! I have an ancient laptop {2015 eara} with an AMD A6 that is running Win10pro just fine. Just get an SSD and at least 8 gigs of memory and it will be a LOT faster

 

[02SE]

I have it on good authority that you need a new monitor...

 

[Lubener]

I think your first few words pretty much sums it up. " I have an old HP Z230", I would replace the PC while taking advantage of the holiday deals instead of dumping any money into your old computer.

 

[Wheel]

We run the Z230 workstations at one of my job sites with Win 10. With the spinning drive, slow boot, slow disk I/O. Drop an SSD in it, and it's a different animal. Nice quick boot, reasonable performance.

 

[jws555]

Run Task Manager and disable any unneeded startup apps. If your disk is getting full, things slow down. My rule of thumb is install a bigger disk or clean it up (uninstall programs and defrag) when existing disk is 75% full. Plus another vote for going to an SSD,

Regards,
John

 

[Rmay635703]

I have it on good authority that you need a new monitor...

Because I don’t have full sized display port?

I have HDMI, VGA, DVI and mini DisplayPort available. I got rid of my last regular DisplayPort screen after a thunderstorm .

My 2048x1536 CRT screen and 19” LCD is good enough for now.

Found it very strange that a pc even in 2014 had DVI as a primary option with a DisplayPort

 

[Pew]

Found it very strange that a pc even in 2014 had DVI as a primary option with a DisplayPort

It's a HP thing; they're weird. Their business laptops used to come with DP for at least 8 years, now they switched to all HDMI a couple generations ago.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

I have an old HP Z230 tower and a fresh install of windows 10, it’s unbelievably slow at just loading the OS and basic operations, which is strange considering it has 16gb of ram.

Before you start spending any money on it, can you verify if it's always been slow, or is it only now noticeably slower once Windows 10 was reinstalled?

 

[Rmay635703]

Before you start spending any money on it, can you verify if it's always been slow, or is it only now noticeably slower once Windows 10 was reinstalled?

I never used it when it had windows 7, shall I get a cpucool app and see if anything is overheating?

I too find it strange that with a formatted drive and a vanilla Win10 installation that things are as glacial as they are, my core2duo ran 10 faster with 4gb of ram, not 16 that is in here.

Hoping it’s just spinning rust causing issues and not a tweaked board/ram/cpu