Dual Core Speed 50%?

Cpu speed and Age have less to do with performance than memory, installed pests and spyware and other leeches that bleed the system dry for attention.

Software versions also can have an effect. Hypterthread is not dual core.
Dual core is not 50 percent faster than single core.

There are many factors and you are grossly oversimplifying the issue.

Nobody can answer this question without tons more information and Im not inclined to
ask you bit by bit what is going on.


32 bit vs 64 bit software is also another issue.


You didnt say you were running the 64 bit versions of all software.

This statement worries me:

(I was thrown a little by the 50% level of the processor in the Task Manager on the Optiplex, so I disabled the Multiple CPU Core Technology in the BIOS. That got the Task Manager to 100%, but the speed in Excel was the same.)

So, you are looking at the task manager and it says that you have 50% cpu usage so you disable Dual Core and it goes to 100%. That CPU usage % is the % of TOTAL CPU usage on the machine, you do not want this at 100%. This means that every bit of the processor is wrapped up in some task. I'm using 10-20% right now with Visio, Firebird (mail), Televantage (phone), our in house Ticket System, AIM, Norton and spysweeper. If your cpu usage is 100% I would guess that something is hung up or you have spyware/virii that are dragging down your speed. Run some scans and double-check that this isn't the case, otherwise checkout high % processes that are running then if you don't recognize the name, google the process name and see what it is that is costing so much processing power.

If I have misinterpreted this let me know.

That is the the way that i understood his post also. You don't want your cpu % to be at 100%. I would look at the task that is taking up %100 and start troubleshooting there.

If we ignore my earlier statements about the percentage processor usage that I see in Task Manager, can anyone shed some light on my basic question:

Why does Excel run about 4 times slower on a new Optiplex as compared to a year-old Thinkpad, when the software and the hardware is basically the same?

Thanks,

Charlie Rowe

 

If you look at the percentage that is most likely your answer as to why it's running so much slower. Otherwise there is no conceivable reason that Excel is running exponentially slower than the laptop. You have probably been infected with something that would cause that amount of slowdown

The virus and spyware has transferred from the keyboard into his hands and then to his brain and causes him to ignore any suggestions to check for pests and spyware because he keeps forgetting things.

Ignoring percentage of cpu utilization and ignoring people who say check for spyware and virus/trojan/malware is the first symptom of this disease.

:P

Thanks for the suggestions.

Can you give me some specfic guidance about how to check for spyware and viruses?  This machine is new, set up by outside computer guys, and it has the latest counter measures running.

Also, would viruses and spyware that are eating up CPU time necessarily show up in the Task Manager?  The Task Manager is showing that Excel is using almost all of the CPU time.

If a malacious program can prevent Task Manager from showing that program's use of CPU time, can that program also cause Task Manager to, in essence, "miscalculate" the CPU utilization?  For example, suppose in one second of CPU time, the malacious program uses 80% and Excel uses 20%.  I could easily be convinced that the malacious program could prevent the Task Manager from showing an item for that 0.8 seconds of CPU time.  But I am not so sure that the malacious program could trick the Task Manager into changing Excel's CPU time from 0.2 seconds to 1.0 seconds.

Thanks,

Charlie Rowe

SpySweeper is only free for 30 days then you have to buy it but it is our Spyware solution. Possibly the best spyware protection/scanning program out there, I haven't heard of virii or spyware causing a problem where they miscalculate CPU time but, they can mask themselves...at this point i'd recommend you download HiJack This! and Post the log on here so we can take a look at your process list and help you out :)

This is not the remote spyware free software consultation forum.

Your issues have nothing to do with dell.

http://www.trendmicro.com/spyware-scan/

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx