Core 2 Duo 7200 Chip Sucks...!

Here are the specs on my D820:

Core 2 Duo 7200
2 GB Ram
80 GB Hard Drive (5400 rpm)
256 NIVIDIA

I uninstalled Google Desktop and the only things I've installed are Visual Thesaurus, Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition and Classic AIM 5.9.

The underwhelming performance sucks. Where is this blazing speed that the Core 2 Duo is supposed to be packing? It takes 5 seconds for a Word document to load... 3 seconds for Windows Media Player. I can't keep multiple Windows open without it lagging or the graphics go missing. And Norton takes forever to do a complete scan.

My Lenovo 3000 N100 has a Core 2 Duo 1.66 chip and EVERYTHING opens up almost instantly. It zips through a Norton complete scan. And that has 1GB of ram.

In fact, my little sister's Celeron powered Compaq seems to run faster!

Both of my D820s with the same config are this slow.

What gives?

 

Could be the hard drive.

5400RPM is considered 'medium to slow' these days.

 

I'm not sure about the Latitude, but "out of the box" my Inspiron E1505 had over 70 processes running, some sort of SQL Server trial or something, and was using around 400MB of ram.

Basically, I power up the computer, and make sure everything seems to be working and then I reformat the hard drive and clean install the OS.

My process drop to under 40 and my ram usage drops to 188MB.

I have a T7200, a 5400rpm hard drive and 2GB of ram, and this laptop is FAST and multitasks like a champ.

 

hmmm... must be on battery saving mode.

try to plug in on AC or try setting your computer to maximum performance. then try again.

i only have T2500-1GB-100GB 5400rpm lappy... can open all you said in half the time...and norton sucks, i use mcafee (enterprise) and scan my lappy for about 45mins scanning 32GB of hudred thousand files defragment your harddrive all the time. maybe after a while you have deleted GB's of files. look for unusual programs running on the background. but hey... 2GB of ram?! hmmm must be some problem...

maybe the 64-bit action has not yet taken in effect... like a router giving out a maximum throughput of 100mbps but only 10mbps are useful... my guess

 

As count said, it might be the processes going on when you boot up. Bloatware is a nasty thing. To check you processes hit ctrl+alt+del and go to the processes tab. It will tell you at the bottom. There are alot of things you can probably clean up. To do so click start>run>type in msconfig>click ok>click the startup tab>click disable all>then go back and manually enable the processes you want to have start when windows boots>restart Programs you will want to start when windows does will be Antivirus programs, NHC, and the like. After you restart it should be much faster.

 

plug in the ac power............that might help

 

Make sure your CPU isn't automatically underclocking itself to save power. The t7200 is a fast chip with its 2ghz speed and 4MB's of cache.

 

CPU underclocks itself if it is not under load. When load achieves some threshold, it goes back to full speed. Thus, that is not an issue.

Perhaps what others recommended about running processes, and spyware removal would do the trick.

 

Yes, but when off A/C power most chips limit themselves to the lowest speedstep (1GHz/.95v) in this case. When the laptop is plugged in it uses dynamic switching.

 

I must agree. Most notebooks from Dell ship in the Portable/Laptop power scheme, which sucks, performance-wise. I always change it to Home/Office Desk power scheme. Full throttle while on AC and 1/2 clock speed when on battery.

Just as a test, set the power scheme to "Always On", then you are running at full throttle on AC and on Battery.

It sure sounds like, though, that the OP is not running his Dell at full speed.

 

It sounds like something isn't running the way it is supposed to...do a few scans of the system.

I really would not think a 5400RPM drive is the problem either.

Try running PCMark05 (free version) in "Always ON" mode and see what score you get. That might prove (or disprove) that something is wrong.

 

Okay, you guys were right... it was on laptop mode. But I switched it to desktop, restarted it, checked it to make sure it's still on desktop mode, plugged in the AC and it's STILL slow. Norton is obnoxiously slow!

I'll try the other suggestions later tonight.

Thanks for the responses guys! I'm not a computer guy, but I want to learn. So glad I found this forum!

 

Some of the programs you listed have a slow initial load time.
On second start, MUCH faster, ie WORD.

1st start after reboot ; 5 seconds or so, then quit app.

2nd start; 1 second.

This may have something to do with the prefech folder in the system folder but guessing here.

 

Reinstall windows. No matter what you do to it'll be slow out of the box unless you reformat. Dell likes to give you nice stuff then turn it into a lemon with all of the bloatware.

 

That is weird. I have a D620 with a Core Duo (not 2) with 1 gig and 120 5400 rpm and it is really fast.
The power settings are set for laptop mode also.
It takes about 1-2 seconds for Word to load up when it is first loaded and then it is instant after that.

I believe latitudes come without bloatware. Mine came with basically nothing installed.

 

So you go around saying it's the CHIP'S fault when you actually have absolutely no idea what's going on. HILARIOUS!!!

 

I have a new D820 with the same chip, yet I have the 7200 RPM, 100G drive, and it's a very snappy machine, on or off battery.

There are many things of course that could be slowing this machine down. Windows does require some tweaking for maximum performance.

Norton Internet Security, by default, scans Microsoft Office docs such as Word, so whenever you open Word NAV runs a scan. It slows things WAY down. To stop this you have to configure NAV NOT to scan Office docs and apps.

 

Norton. lol

 

way to go mcafee

that's why i hate norton... and the fuzz it can create if you want them to uninstall...

 

My brand new Dell 6400/1505 with a Core Duo T2050 seemed like a dog at first until I uninstalled a whole pile of preloaded crap. Check this post out here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=48490 if you only want to try and get rid of the worst of it.

Also setting the proper power scheme helps too.

I agree that a clean install is the way to go. Haven’t had the time to do mine yet.

Download CPU-Z here and check to see what speed your “chip” is reporting and let us know.

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

 

The OP has a Latitude D820. The Latitudes aren't pre-loaded with junk as are the Inspirons. A clean Windows install isn't necessary unless there are other problems that can't be tracked down. All I've had to do with my D820 is tweak the Windows settings and install my software. I didn't have to uninstall any pre-loaded, unwanted junk.

 

Nice that bloatware is not a Dell universal.

Maybe the OP has a stuck process? When I run 3sMark, it gets messed up and pegs one of the cores at 100%. Raising temp and dogging performance.

Look in the task manager and see if any one process is dogging your wheel.

 

You were right...Latitudes don't come with (much) bloatware at all. But some poor souls aren't lucky enough to get no bloatware!

 

Waaaaaaaaait a minute...

I've never reformatted anything on my other two laptops... and they are consumer ones with tons of bloatware, and way less powerful specs... and they have Norton too... and were running on laptop battery sever mode... but they run MUCH FASTER than my business class, bloatware free D820... WTF is going on????

 

Give us a PCMark05 score, that'll give us a little extra info. Search the forums for the "dual core fix" for these notebooks and that might help. That'll unlock some potential.

These chips are definitely faster than the older ones (why else would they sell?), and I know that for a fact. If yours is not, either something is configured wrong or there is a broken part in the notebook.

What is your idle CPU usage? Right click on the taskbar and task manager.

 

Well...

I have two other CONSUMER notebooks, complete with bloatware with lesser processors/specs, and they leave my D820 in the dust...

Keep in mind, I have TWO D820s on hand and they both perform underwhelmingly.

So yeah, I'm not a "computer guy," but until I experience this so called blazing performance, I'm gonna go with the chip sucking!

 

I have a dell d820

2.33ghz duo core 2
2 gigs ram
100gb hd 7200rpm

it is blazing fast. it is ridiculously fast. i am planning on running mac osx 86 on a partition

 

As a computer guy, I can tell you that there are a billion other things that could be causing your problem... odds are it's not the chip.

 

That is certainly your prerogative You'd be wrong, but that is your choice.

Keep in mind though that one specification doesn't make or break a system... its like a sports team. You can have the best player in one critical position, but if the rest of the team is sub-par, your still going to do poorly.

In this case, the problem is likely software.

 

I pray you are not using the dell preinstall of windows, cause if you are, you deserve the performance you are getting.
Reinstall windows, install all latest drivers (not all from dell either ) and .... problem solved.

Under your own install though, try going to intel and downloading the newest chipset drivers (8.0.0.100 or something), and there is a dual core registry tweak that you can google that helped me a bit too. A 5.4k hard drive is pretty slow today and may be the case if you have power saving activated on the drive. Try disabling SMART and turn your hard drives acoustic settings to performance. That should help too.

 

Truly brilliant.

 

My word took more tan 5 secs to load nearly 10 secs. May be i'm using 2007 version, it's not as fast as word 2000.

Btw, just read the Optimize performance for laptops on the Dummy Guide section on this forum and read how to install windows of Southerngirl.

That 'll solve the problem. Otherwise, your computer have a defective CPU hehee just my guess but this rarely happen.

 

Well, I thought my M90 didn't come with any bloatware either. And I'll be the first to admit that it didn't come with much; Google Desktop and Dell's Embassy Security Suite are the only things that I could find. However, after uninstalling Google Desktop, my processes still sat around 50+. I reinstalled Windows, and it went down to about 30 after everything was installed. Now, it's at 45 (I've installed a lot more stuff since then, including VMware Server which takes up like 6 or 7 processes even when not running). I don't know what Dell does, but something is taking a lot of processes. Reinstall Windows is the best bet. Either that, or download CCleaner. That'll speed it up noticeably. Oh yeah, and get rid of Norton's. It's running processes will kill performance.

I honestly don't know why your other computers run faster. But there is nothing wrong with the Core 2 Duo.

 

Intel wireless is my big evil right now. Maybe 5-10 process alone!

How can I get a driver only install for intel wireless and let windows manage the connection?

I rarely use wireless anyhow.

 

When I got my D820 it was also dead slow. I had to uninstall the security suite that's preinstalled with the machine.

 

Just uninstall the wireless Intel ProSet tools.

Windows will pick up the right driver afterwards and will use Windows to configure the wireless settings. Works great.

 

" Core 2 Duo 7200 Chip Sucks...! "

Well Hitler Hairdo, That's a pretty bold statement and dissing one of the best cpus currently on the market for sluggish performance doesn't really add to your integrity....in my mind at least.

I find the core 2 duo T7200 to be extremely fast in every way shape and form. Installs, data transfers, games, office docs, etc.

You may be getting poor performance but don't blame the cpu!

(I'd like to think I know something about computers as I work as an adminstrator (Unix) and have been building/repairing/troubleshooting unix and windows computers for nearly a decade.