Does having a slower cpu effect download speeds?

Duouk2000

Duouk2000

Duouk2000

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It's an 800mhz p3 and I'm just wondering if it does, I've never managed to max out my connection on it no matter where I download from. It usually downloads at a slower rate than my main pc as well so I'm wondering, does it?
 
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Duouk2000 said:
It's an 800mhz p3 and I'm just wondering if it does, I've never managed to max out my connection on it no matter where i download from. It usually downloads at a slower rate than my main pc as well so I'm wondering, does it?
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What OS?
 
Might be a woefully slow hard drive in that PC that is slowing things. You can't download at a mega speed if the hard drive can't write the data. Could also be a slow network card. Or maybe a Windows98 PC or earlier with a low MTU.
 
It's an 80GB Seagate (5200rpm I think) on win98se. The network card is a cheap Belkin job so I guess it could be that.
 
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makes no differece as long as you're not running a whole load of crap on there.

i used to use a pii400, 256mb as a download box, it'd get torrents at around 1100kb/s tops.. (10mb ntl)


belkin is one of the best network card makers


-i'd just install windows2000 or xp on it

my pii was running an nlited xp
 
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It shouldn't be slower. . . Maybe if you have a usb modem but no, that sounds unlikely.

Perhaps if you are on say 10mb and you have a 10mb NIC in your old PC it can't reach the full throughput?
 
I'm on a 10mb NTL line with 256 ram and nothing running in the background bar some logitech mouse software. I'll check the network card later though, the pc is in use right now.
 
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I would go with Nlited XP on the p3 as i was using a p3 650 with 512mb of ram for years as my download box as it was passive and had a silent 90w psu :cool: one thing i did notice was the more ram the p3 had the happier it was.
 
I'll give XP a try when I get hold of the retail version in that case :) Though to be honest I find that win98 runs great on this set up (apart from not getting the best speeds possible of course). Also, a 90w psu :eek: I've got a 230w psu in mine right now and it's a right noisy bugger, something to look into me thinks.
 
The 90w psu was from an old Packard bell system but is perfect for the job and silent (after i installed an 80mm SilentX fanand 7volted it).

My install of XP was stripped to the last penny in fact it only takes up 215mb on the cd and that's with some added extras. It also only runs with 16 services including Taskman, VNC server, Sysgate firewall and Avast Anti-virus. Avast in installed but none of the services are running as each download is scanned as they complete. I have it setup so i only download outside of the time restricted by the FPU my ISP has and it also runs a weekly Chkdsk, Defrag, Spybot and virus scan of the whole hard drive.

But as i said before the more ram you have the happier it will be. I would also recommend getting a PCI IDE adapter so you can add larger and faster hard drives.
 
I do have two more sticks of 128 ram doing nothing somewhere around here but they don't seem to like each other that much ;) I'll keep everything you said in mind at any rate, including that pci ide adapter, I never knew such a thing existed tbh.
 
a pci ide adaptor wont be needed for a 10meg connection, no way, the max throughput of 10mbit is 1250kb/s (1.25mb per second)

run hdtach on its probably hitting 15-30 at least

definatly make an nlited disc, you could make a 115mb one for that
 
bledd. said:
a pci ide adaptor wont be needed for a 10meg connection, no way, the max throughput of 10mbit is 1250kb/s (1.25mb per second)

run hdtach on its probably hitting 15-30 at least

defiantly make an nlited disc, you could make a 115mb one for that
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Reason i said about the PCI IDE adaptor is so he can ad larger drives more than anything as most older P3 motherboards are limited to 128gb hard drives (unless there are more bios patches out there) Also having your windows install on a different hard disk to your downloads can make a small improvement as will moving your pagefile to a different drive. (3 disks in total)
 
Check if the hard drive is running in PIO mode, if it is then you'll need to set it to DMA mode. Also check what the MTU is set at for your network card in Windows 98.
 
bledd. said:
belkin is one of the best network card makers
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Just choked on my breakfast then. Personally I wouldn't touch a Belkin card. My personal experiance has shown how unrealiable they can be.

Burnsy
 
Duouk2000 said:
I'll give XP a try when I get hold of the retail version in that case :) Though to be honest I find that win98 runs great on this set up (apart from not getting the best speeds possible of course). Also, a 90w psu :eek: I've got a 230w psu in mine right now and it's a right noisy bugger, something to look into me thinks.
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I didn't realise anyone was still using Windows 98. It's nearly 2007 - it's time to upgrade :eek:
 
burnsy2023 said:
Just choked on my breakfast then. Personally I wouldn't touch a Belkin card. My personal experiance has shown how unrealiable they can be.

Burnsy
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Agreed :D. Wouldn't touch belkin with a barge pole after owning a few of their network cards.
 
Windows 98 had a pretty dire networking stack that I doubt was ever tested on today's typical home broadband speeds.

A 800MHz CPU can easily run XP, so bung it on.

I have a dual 500MHz box running NT 5.2 and that can easily max out my 8Mb broadband. Although it does have a SATA PCI adapter and SATA HD :p
 
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