Vista SP1 upgrade experience

[nickao]

Those numbers are whacked!

My computer runs better than the specs on the apples in that article. You can not compare a crappy gateway or a ASUS to an imac! That is a bad comparison, period. The gateway and Asus are notoriously slow because the way they are proprietary configured from their companies. The Dells are just as bad. The systems come off the line and the memory timing is all craped out and not tweaked correctly, for one. The same hardware as in the Asus in a system you make yourself from parts will score near double on those tests. I suggest they compare the imac to a little nicer computer, albeit with the same hardware.

When you factor in a simple to do overclocck that anyone now days can do, you will get a LOT for your money out of the intel/Vista products.

Nickao

 

[TomCrawford]

Timmy C  -- be prepared to upgrade photoshop when you go to Vista.  I bought my wife a new laptop with Vista and Photoshop CS2 just did not run well.  CS3 seems to work fine.  Adobe changed the way CS3 handles custom ICC printer profiles but once we figured that out my wife is really happy with CS3.

 

[The Dude]

Sounds like a lot of research to do with the Mac deal.  Does one go to a Mac store to test drive?  What is the learning curve like when converting to a Mac? 

t

 

[Scott W.]

Sounds like a lot of research to do with the Mac deal.  Does one go to a Mac store to test drive?  What is the learning curve like when converting to a Mac? 

t

Timmy,

Give me a call on this

Scott

 

[Michael Kellough]

Those numbers are whacked!

My computer runs better than the specs on the apples in that article. You can not compare a crappy gateway or a ASUS to an imac! That is a bad comparison, period. The gateway and Asus are notoriously slow because the way they are proprietary configured from their companies. The Dells are just as bad. The systems come off the line and the memory timing is all craped out and not tweaked correctly, for one. The same hardware as in the Asus in a system you make yourself from parts will score near double on those tests. I suggest they compare the imac to a little nicer computer, albeit with the same hardware.

When you factor in a simple to do overclocck that anyone now days can do, you will get a LOT for your money out of the intel/Vista products.

Nickao

Nick, thanks for adding some perspective to that piece. If I ever need a PC maybe you'll give me some advice on assembling a good one.

 

[Ned]

mhch commented that Vista had known bugs in the power management area.

Yesterday I disabled Advanced Power Management in the BIOS, and I have not seen a crash since, even overnight.

I don't think it's proven yet, but it is encouraging.

Ned

 

[nickao]

Those numbers are whacked!

My computer runs better than the specs on the apples in that article. You can not compare a crappy gateway or a ASUS to an imac! That is a bad comparison, period. The gateway and Asus are notoriously slow because the way they are proprietary configured from their companies. The Dells are just as bad. The systems come off the line and the memory timing is all craped out and not tweaked correctly, for one. The same hardware as in the Asus in a system you make yourself from parts will score near double on those tests. I suggest they compare the imac to a little nicer computer, albeit with the same hardware.

When you factor in a simple to do overclocck that anyone now days can do, you will get a LOT for your money out of the intel/Vista products.

Nickao

Nick, thanks for adding some perspective to that piece. If I ever need a PC maybe you'll give me some advice on assembling a good one.

Anytime Michael. Its a second hobby as addicting as Festools! I use this little stand while testing my new systems before I case them up. Its simple for me to swap parts and test this way. Over Clocking is a breeze with this setup because I can switch different heat sink and fans with no space constrictions, even swapping the motherboard is  very simple with this setup.

I made a gaming machine with my 11 year old and he helped build it all. Its a nice project to do with kids. I will post a pic of his computer, it came out pretty sweet. Much more high end then this test bed shown.

Nickao

 

[mhch]

mhch commented that Vista had known bugs in the power management area.

If I remember correctly, problems were located in between USB control,
power management, and the power saving features of the CPU chip,
but Microsoft and Intel together reported it would be hard to fix it properly.

 

[mhch]

This may (?) help a bit:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927393

 

[nickao]

Thanks guys the problem is resolved I think I just lost power that night. I checked my Bios, its the most current.

I will post any problems I run into with Vista on my next build starting this week.

Nickao

 

[The Dude]

Those numbers are whacked!

My computer runs better than the specs on the apples in that article. You can not compare a crappy gateway or a ASUS to an imac! That is a bad comparison, period. The gateway and Asus are notoriously slow because the way they are proprietary configured from their companies. The Dells are just as bad. The systems come off the line and the memory timing is all craped out and not tweaked correctly, for one. The same hardware as in the Asus in a system you make yourself from parts will score near double on those tests. I suggest they compare the imac to a little nicer computer, albeit with the same hardware.

When you factor in a simple to do overclocck that anyone now days can do, you will get a LOT for your money out of the intel/Vista products.

Nickao

Nick, thanks for adding some perspective to that piece. If I ever need a PC maybe you'll give me some advice on assembling a good one.

Anytime Michael. Its a second hobby as addicting as Festools! I use this little stand while testing my new systems before I case them up. Its simple for me to swap parts and test this way. Over Clocking is a breeze with this setup because I can switch different heat sink and fans with no space constrictions, even swapping the motherboard is  very simple with this setup.

I made a gaming machine with my 11 year old and he helped build it all. Its a nice project to do with kids. I will post a pic of his computer, it came out pretty sweet. Much more high end then this test bed shown.

Nickao

Dude, I don't quite know what those pictures are showing....but it looks kewl...I think I need "That!"

Timmy

 

[nickao]

Purchasing computer components and putting together a system is really simple these days. Even if you know nothing. I love purchasing a 175.00 Intel CPU and overclocking it to a speed of their 1000.00 CPU. Thats how you get killer performance for much less.

The system in the picture cost less than 450.00(no monitor) and either meets or beats the i mac benchmark specs in the article in this thread. If you do not want to make your own system you can get shafted buying a PC if you do not do your homework. The i macs are configured better and they are faster off the shelf than most PC's. But if you purchase smart you can still get comparable i mac performance off the shelf.

Just because a computer says E6750 Intel etc that does not mean anything,. The EXACT same cpu in another susytem can run twice as fast depending on many things, mac's on a whole are simpler to buy.

I am not a mac person, I love to build my own computers and nothing beats the new intel chips for that.

Nickao

 

[Ned]

The spontaneous crashing continues when running Vista SP1.

Ubuntu Linux in the same box will stay up forever without a problem. 

I'm still working on a solution.

Based on my experience, if you have an older PC*, don't apply the SP1 upgrade.  In fact, you may want XP instead.  Or buy a Mac.

*My system was built in July 2003.

Ned

 

[NVFlyAngler]

Based on my experience, if you have an older PC*, don't apply the SP1 upgrade.

I've got a Dell E1705 with Vista HP that I purchased last summer. While I've noticed no significant improvements, I've had no problems whatsoever with SP1.

 

[mhch]

The spontaneous crashing continues when running Vista SP1.
I'm still working on a solution.
Based on my experience, if you have an older PC*, don't apply the SP1 upgrade.  In fact, you may want XP instead.  Or buy a Mac.
Ned

This is also my own recommendation, Mac buying not included  ;D,
and what I do for my own home computer network.

For those of you having time and interest into knowing more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface.
is a good start point.  Somewhere in it, it is made clear that power management is very complex and
very dependent on the underlying hardware (CPU, chipset, graphics, not even mentionning
mutli-core power management....).

No doubt that Microsoft and Intel will favor fixing problems  for the newer chips.
Hence better use XP with older chips.

Linux and XP are not immune from this, and the ACPI and suspend/resume support varies widely
depending on what computer is used to run the OS. At least,  there is a large enough Linux developer
community interested in making whatever hardware they have to work,  without any other
business priorities, even if that means that ACPI features are limited or even disabled.

 

[nickao]

The spontaneous crashing continues when running Vista SP1.

Ubuntu Linux in the same box will stay up forever without a problem. 

I'm still working on a solution.

Based on my experience, if you have an older PC*, don't apply the SP1 upgrade.  In fact, you may want XP instead.  Or buy a Mac.

*My system was built in July 2003.

Ned

Ned, Microsoft is crazy to even suggest Vista go on a 5 year old system, SP1 just makes it worse. Most problems with Vista is from upgrading. The three computers I have that had Vista installed when purchased or I built for Vista have had no problems at all.

Nickao

 

[graphex]

So, I've got both a high-end PC and a high-end (though a couple years older) mac, and I use them both every day. There is no question in my mind that the mac operating system is much better than either Vista or XP ever was or will be. Unfortunately I've got this addition to Visual Studio/C# for server programming so I use my Vista Ultimate 64 machine pretty frequently, but outside of that, my Mac with OSX 10.5 (Leopard) is my main machine. This is despite the fact that my mac's hardware is slower than my PC's hardware. My mac is about 4 years old and my PC is 2 years old.

Even though the PC's hardware is pretty significantly faster in benchmarks, in terms of actually using the thing, the Mac reacts faster and, well doesn't crash. Sure, I have an app unexpectedly quit every once in a while, but it goes months on a single boot. I can't remember the last time I rebooted my mac for anything other than a software install. I can have basically every CS3 app open, plus Eclipse/Flex, and about a half dozen other apps and still switch quickly amongst each of them. I can easily save something on my mac and access it from my PC, and vice versa. I've got Apple's Mail running as my main email app all the time, but I can open up Thunderbird on my PC and get another copy of all my messages.

My mac is still a PPC processor, and my plan was to have had an 8-core intel mac by now, but between my run down the slippery green slope, my attempt to get my pilot's license, and my first kid being on the way, I'm postponing things for one more Intel upgrade cycle (probably when the Nehalem chips are out). Once I'm able to get that machine, I'm going to probably be able to get most everything done with Leopard running Vista concurrently in parallels, while running games in a separate vista boot. My dad has one of the octo-core MacPros and it runs Crysis really fast...

 

[mhch]

There is no question in my mind that the mac operating system is much better than either Vista or XP ever was or will be.

Unix based 

Unfortunately I've got this addition to Visual Studio/C# for server programming so I use my Vista Ultimate 64 machine pretty frequently,

There is always a Windows app that keeps people sticked 

I'm postponing things for one more Intel upgrade cycle (probably when the Nehalem chips are out).

Then a dual 6-core nehalem for 12 cores 

 

[Ned]

Ned, Microsoft is crazy to even suggest Vista go on a 5 year old system...

Not entirely crazy.  They got my money.    :'(

 

[nickao]

I should have said Microsoft is being sneaky and underhanded to even suggest Vista go on a 5 year old system.