Anyway to increase performance?

benjo

benjo

benjo

Soldato
Joined
4 Sep 2005
Posts
12,830
Location
London
Hi all

I'm just a bit frustrated with my P3 500 at the moment. It's running 24/7 and is usually taking 5 days to complete nearly every work unit.

The PC is a modified Dell. But it still has its original bios so i'm not sure if it can be overclocked.

Is there any programs or tweaks i can use? Or is it at the best it can do?

Thanks :(
 
If it’s a Dell board then I doubt there will be any scope for overclocking. To be honest I would consider a P3 500 as getting towards the point that its not really worth the cost of the electricity to keep it going as a cruncher, unless you have other uses for it as well of cause.
 
Mmm Ive got a P3 500 here, it only has 3 wu's on it but they are saying they will take just under and just over 24 hours.

Heres the results for it http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=1227800 if you want to compare.

I did stick Crunch3r's optimised apps on it the other day but dont think it made a huge differance.

Not sure what you can do with a Dell, my first computer was a Dell and no one had any ideas other than to replace it. I did use a program called SoftFSB to get a bit more from it. I think I upped the FSB from 66 to 72 or 73 but it didnt make too much differance.

From memory I think the 500 was about the biggest of the 100mhz P3's so dont think a bigger CPU is possible.

TDF.
 
Well since it supports SSE, it should be able to run optimized cores like Gromacs at full speed (as opposed to Tinker which is not optimised). Speeding it up could be done through overclocking as TDG mentioned. Beyond that you can just try to free up resources so that fewer cycles are needed for non-FAH tasks. THis includes stopping unnecessary programs, disabling unnecessary services, logging out, etc.

Remember, it's a P3 500, it's been a long time since that was fast. I have three of them crunching away in my bedroom closet (also Dells). They chug along quietly doing their thing. Thankfully, they don't hardly use any electricity at all. Though I don't have a very scientific way of guaging such things I do have a series of LEDs that indicate the load on my UPS. My overclocked Xeon workstation and TFT monitor register 4/5 lights at 100% use. The three P3s will together register one LED.

Leave it on, it's ceartainly not hurting anything. :)
 
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