Insp. 6000 Celeron 1.4Ghz Runs Slower after heavy workload/calculations

Question

sometimes i have to do heavy calculations, e.g. i have en Excel spreadsheet maxed out to 60,000+ rows x 10-20 columns of data; i then run some iterative calculations on this whole dataset - this calculation process may take a few minutes to complete while using 100% cpu - if i run a couple of these, then exit Excel, it appears that even though Excel is no longer running, my other applications tend to run slower, i.e. I notice for example that Internet Explorer takes longer to load, or Windows explorer takes longer to display all files - when i check resources via Task Manager, i see that Memory Usage/VM Size is normal, not high; CPU usage shows low, normally it is only 5-20%; i confirm that Excel is no longer running    i have no idea what may be causing this, i use my machine a lot on a daily basis and i can clearly tell there is a difference in performance after these calculations - it is an issue because i can't work as efficiently since the system performs slower (it goes back to normal when i reboot).   i am running WinXp Home; 512 megs RAM; 1.4 Ghz Celeron; i have checked disk defrag and it says i don't need to defragment; i have 7 gb free out of 30 on hard drive.   can someone help and advise what  may be causing this issue and how to address it? do i need a machine with a faster processor and/or more RAM? i'd appreciate any feedback, thanks.

ejn63 · Answer

More RAM may help, but the biggest improvement would be to dump the Celeron for a Pentium M.

bacillus · Answer

it may also be worthwhile doublechecking that your hdd current transfer mode hasn't slipped from udma5 to pio mode.

turquoiseboxfis · Answer

ejn63 - thanks for your advice, when i was buying this machine, i was not anticipating the kind of processing that i am doing now... - i will have to consider an upgrade.

bacillus - i have checked in my System-Device Manager-Primary IDE Channel - says Ultra DMA 5 - is this the right place? i think though you may be on to something here, because i first started noticing this performance issue when i launch Windows Explorer and it is taking a lot longer to display all the folders/subdirectories - recently, i have written a lot of smaller files/folders to my hard drive.. - i have had to store data in lots of small files.. - i am wondering if you think this may be an issue, in which case i can transfer most of the data to a backup hard drive... - however, the Defrag utility says no need to defrag so i thought that in the end perhaps hard drive is not the issue.. - also, i have used RegCleaner and CCCleaner to cleanup the registry but it hasn't made much difference. thanks for your help.

bacillus · Answer

yes, your hdd is using the best transfer mode. I think enj63 is probably correct but it won't hurt to run the dell diagnostics to make sure all is well with your hdd.

turquoiseboxfis · Answer

thanks, i have downloaded the diagnostics CD image and burnt it, and will run it as soon as i get a chance.. - i understand that a better processor may help with this issue - but still, i am puzzled as to why i am having this issue - it seems that after doing a lot of processing, the processor doesn't  'release' its full capacity back? even though i show low cpu usage and low ram usage, i can't logically understand what happens to the processor to continue to slow it down - does it continue to allocate some of its resources 'thinking' that i may need to do a lot of processing again? i have no in-depth understanding of how processors / ram work.. so i am a bit at a loss here - last time i did  this kind of heavy processing workload was a couple of years ago, i had an older Inspiron then, i think it was 7000 but not sure, also i had a compaq small form factor desktop, but i do not remember having any of these issues, don't know if this also has something to do with WinXp.

Mr_bleu · Answer

Have you checked to see what processes are running before and afterwards? Sometimes processes remain after a program is closed.  You can try using a memory booster also.

turquoiseboxfis · Answer

Mr_blue, thx for your feedback - i have checked the running processes, nothing unusual, i check them all the time, so i know them by heart by now, nothing indicates that any process is taking up memory or cpu usage... - i have tried using FreeRAM XP, it didn't make any difference, i can not have it running because when i tried it, it tried to either connect to the internet to check for updates, or it tried to do something else (i can't remember), during the same time, i was running code which was sending Keyboard Input to the screen, so when FreeRAM all of a sudden momentarily gained focus of the screen display, the execution of my code got messed up badly, i had to rerun it which was a very time consuming task... so i didn't want to continue using it.   i am still waiting to clear up some time to run Diagnostics, it says it takes a couple of hours to do a complete run.

shute · Answer

hmmm have you checked the temperature? maybe it gets really hot after the heavy load and clocks itself down. You can check the temp using FANGUI.

turquoiseboxfis · Answer

hi shute - sorry i haven't checked in for a while - the fangui utility is great - it's showing 50 cpu, i am not sure what measure unit it is but it seems average / below average - i will monitor this to see if it goes up much. thanks for your help.

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