New Dell PC is pretty darn slow.

I didn't say it originated with the VAX and didn't mean to imply it did.
That was when I started working at that system level.

Just about everything seems to get recycled and rewritten with computers.
Must have to do with the "thriftiness" of engineers, ie. never throw
anything away.

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...
You're not old enough to understand swapping and paging if you think the
technique originated on a VAX VMS system.

Nothing on the Vax was original thought.

Tom
"PC Gladiator" wrote in message
...
I can assure you that I was under the impression, based on your posts,
that you have no technical knowledge at all - swap or paging relates
to
the same type of action - moving segments of ram to the hard-drive in
order to free ram segments to allow for other applications to utilize
that freed space. Not all applications will permit swapping or paging.
Had I thought, in even the slightest way that you understand
technology,
I would have posted as such.

Just can't resist that backhanded swipe can you? Actually swapping was
an
old VAX VMS memory management technique that swapped the entire process
context out of memory to a swap file. Paging is the movement of
individual
page segments to a page file. People use them interchangably but they
were
not originally the same thing. I've programmed memory management
routines
in Macro when you were likely in soiled diapers.

Dell makes it quite clear that this is the lowest end system they
provide - did you fail to see ANY of the other systems?

Of course, I have viewed them all. The 2400/128MB is the *only one*
that
is
a substandard configuration. Is Dell afraid that by configuring the
correct
amount of memory that too many people will flock to these "low end"
systems
and Dell won't make enough money? Because the 2400 with 256MB of memory
(even with the onboard video controller, slow drive and Celeron) would
satisfy the needs of the average home user and provide appropriate
performance in the process.

So how are things in Round Rock Texas these days?

Can't come up with a counter to real numbers huh? Now THAT sounds like a
baseless position to me! Adios STEWY!

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"PC Gladiator" wrote in message
...

This isn't helpful, nor even necessary. It's one thing to attempt to
(successfully) stretch a thread to unimaginable lengths when
advocating
a
baseless position.

Baseless??? Can you perform a simple math calculation?
128 - 32 = 96
96 not equal to 128
The numbers don't lie. So Dell knows better than Microsoft what it
needs?


snip

plonk


Stew

I wouldn't know what MacDonalds sells these days. Haven't eaten that ****
since high school. But it appears you are eating it and are indeed, full of
it.

Can't defend Dell's sustandard systems with facts and figures so you try and
throw the proverbial red herring into the discussion. Pretty lame as well
as obvious...


"Christopher Muto" wrote in message
...
i just can't help but wonder what the staff at mcdonalds makes of this guy
when he criticizes the items on the "dollar menu"....

"PC Gladiator" wrote in message
...
It drops to single channel mode and gives lower memory performance
right?
So it's not that Dell *has* to configure 256MB but that they *choose* to
configure it for performance reasons. So I'm asking for the same
consideration for the lowly unsuspecting 2400 buyers, ie. configure
256MB.

Yeah, we could make a suit out of this thread! 8-)

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"PC Gladiator" wrote in message
...
You can still use a single module in them and get single channel
can't
you?



Not without disabling a primary function of the mb, that being dual
channel.
A loose equivalent of sending only one speaker for audio....

Of course, you know all this. Amazingly long thread, though.


Stew

Buying into the defense lawyers argument that "the game made him do it" huh?
What a convenient transfer of responsibility for ones actions. Yes, just
another poor victim (the trigger puller NOT the person he shot!)...


"Christopher Muto" wrote in message
...
i saw an interesting debate about gaming and law... just because the
digital
world does not require that we conform to things in the real world like
the
law of gravity, should we not apply the rules of our legal system to our
conduct in gamming? theft, murder, assault, etc.... your mention of halo
made me wonder if you think that your halo avatar should go to jail for
murder? or perhaps it was self defense... do you feel badly about killing
the other avatar or did you enjoy it? is it just a game and you think i
am
silly for even asking? or is it the beginning of teaching and developing
complete disrespect for one another? joan, i don't mean to attack you for
mentioning what was probably an innocent encounter, i just wonder about
this
stuff as it becomes more and more real (and more impersonal, violent, and
sometimes incredibly racist).

"Joan" wrote in message
news:CpVub.7655$zx.1775@lakeread03...
John, I'm with you on helping friends including getting them out of
trouble too. I have friends who have owned PC's for years and really
don't know a darn thing about them. As for Halo on the internet, I did
kill one guy, but that was just plain luck :-) My sister-in-law just
got her second Dell a 4550. A nice system and she is happy with it.
When I need help there are about 5 great guys on this newsgroup who are
really knowledgeable and helped me when I needed it.

You should have daughters. :-) I'm lucky I have a great one who is very
self sufficient and hardworking.

Joan

John and Pat wrote:
A Great read Joan! I am 55 (though my sons think I am ready for the
pasture)
and get a kick out of dusting some of the behinds of the young guys
during a
rapid game of Halo. If they only knew it was an "old" guy handing them
their
lunch. And as for shelling out money to grown children...you have met
my
sons then have you? (grin). I am a power user like yourself and have
been
repairing and troubleshooting systems for friends and their friends
and...stop me if you have heard this one. I have helped a number of
friends
choose and order their Dells and have yet to see an unhappy owner.

Regards,
John O.

"Joan" wrote in message
news:McCub.6867$zx.2249@lakeread03...

Oh you come on kid, least you totally embarrass yourself. This old
lady
(me) will be 71 in January. I have the need for speed, still work full
time and can afford top of the line. The other poor old lady although
she is still working full time, can't afford what I can because she is
still shelling out money to her grown children. So much for some of
the
younger generation. I hope you are not like her children :-)

Granny Joan

I agree that somebody buying this system can't expect the same performance
as the purchaser of a top of the line system. BUT, IMO the lowest level of
performance that a system builder must provide is a level that meets the
recommended requirement of the OS. Dell with the 2400/96MB system simply is
not doing that.

You know very well that the OS will not fail to run an app due to a lack of
memory on XP. It will instead use a lot of CPU and disk I/O trying to
compensate for the lack of memory. So the user is now taxing the CPU and
disk drive with excessive paging which *may* result in earlier component
failure.

I think the consumers Dell is targeting with these prices and systems are
NOT the people that know a lot about computers. They are not going to know
how to find XP tweaks for performance. They are not going to know how to
find newsgroups for support and help. The first timer buyers are the
consumers that will trust Dell. In the 2400/96MB case, I think their trust
in Dell is being abused.


"Leythos" wrote in message
...
In article , PC-Gladiator@Mail-
Dump.com says...
Well I would disagree that people buying these systems *know* they're
slow.
Dell certainly doesn't say that. And as I have said, these systems
aren't
inherently slow but they are slowed down by inadequate memory per MS
recommendations.

And I would say that people are not stupid - they may be uncaring in
their purchase selection, but they are not stupid as a group. People, by
nature, want to purchase cheap and then complain when it doesn't perform
like the more expensive options. Considering the system was the cheapest
retail (not used) system that Dell sells it's reasonable to assume that
the person was expecting a lower performance system. The system does
perform all tasks as specified - can you point to one thing that the
system shipped with that does not work?

It is interesting that the first thing you did was add memory and tweak
settings. You didn't mention adding memory earlier. Your increase in
performance was more attributable to the memory than the tweaks I would
suspect.

As I said: (included quote from my post)
Before increasing the RAM, I
installed MS Office XP Professional on a couple of them and my kids were
able to do homework (MS Word documents) without any problems (slow,
slower when doing an auto-save, but it never failed) while also using IE
to research their subject.

I had the machines up and running for more than a week with 128MB of RAM
- the local BestBuy was out of what I wanted As I noted, my kids had
no problems using IE and MS Word XP on that system.

The adding RAM part was only for the few machines "I" had that came with
128MB - I have several neighbors and friends that still run with 128MB
of RAM because they've never experienced a fast system and don't know
the difference.

Dell didn't scam anyone - the assumed that a person of normal
intelligence would know that they were getting a bare-bones system with
minimal performance margins. This same approach to bare-bones systems is
used by ALL vendors.

--
--

(Remove 999 to reply to me)

you, sir, could most definitely benefit from a happy meal.

"PC Gladiator" wrote in message
...
I wouldn't know what MacDonalds sells these days. Haven't eaten that ****
since high school. But it appears you are eating it and are indeed, full
of
it.

Can't defend Dell's sustandard systems with facts and figures so you try
and
throw the proverbial red herring into the discussion. Pretty lame as well
as obvious...


"Christopher Muto" wrote in message
...
i just can't help but wonder what the staff at mcdonalds makes of this
guy
when he criticizes the items on the "dollar menu"....

"PC Gladiator" wrote in message
...
It drops to single channel mode and gives lower memory performance
right?
So it's not that Dell *has* to configure 256MB but that they *choose*
to
configure it for performance reasons. So I'm asking for the same
consideration for the lowly unsuspecting 2400 buyers, ie. configure
256MB.

Yeah, we could make a suit out of this thread! 8-)

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"PC Gladiator" wrote in message
...
You can still use a single module in them and get single channel
can't
you?



Not without disabling a primary function of the mb, that being dual
channel.
A loose equivalent of sending only one speaker for audio....

Of course, you know all this. Amazingly long thread, though.


Stew