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I'm running a fresh install of Mint 13 MATE on a stock Dell Dimension E310 Desktop Dual processor 2.8Ghz with 1 Gig of ram.

Graphics are integrated Intel 915G card, and they are working for standard desktop stuff just fine. No problems out of the box with the install, and so far it's running significantly better than the Ubuntu 12.04 install that it replaced.

The system slows down significantly however when it has to display any semi-complex graphics. It'll run ok with multiple Chrome tabs open (still not using 3/4 of available system memory etc.) but if the open tab has any active banners (flames or other moving stuff) or especially multiple moving banners the CPU utilization goes way up for both processors the the system slows to a crawl. This is also true when viewing youtube videos, both in Chrome and Firefox. I'm completely unable to watch 720p HD videos as they become skippy as the CPU usage again maxes out on both processors.

On one hand, my needs for the desktop aren't great, and for the majority of stuff I can't complain...but it just seems like a graphics card update may just improve general desktop performance, so I'm pondering the idea. I have two PCI slots available and one of those tiny PCI-e x1 slots (the incredibly short ones) available, but I'm hesitant to upgrade to a card that may or may not screw up my functional system...on the hope for better performance. I also tend to think that with a better card, the rest of the system might be able to run Cinnamon, which would be nice.

So to my question. What would you guys do? Is it worth taking the gamble. If so, what available video cards would be the most likely to work on my Dell E310? I'm thinking of nothing better than 256 MB or 512 card at most. I can't invest much in this machine now, but there are nvidia geforce fx6200's all over ebay for cheap that might be within my budget if they'd work.

Thanks for your help.

-Jeremy

Buy a PCI slot graphics card because the PCIx1 cards cost wayy too damn much for what their performance offers.
NVidia is the best for Linux imo. Easier to install, lesser hassles...
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-S-Vi ... phics+card

I'm looking at the specifications of your computer (https://support.dell.com/support/edocs/ ... #wp1052310), and the first block would be the 230 Watt PSU. That will not be enough for most graphics cards, though some of the older models may work. I'd sooner expect upgrading RAM or CPU might help, as I'm not sure how much (if at all) actually of an improvement you would see for animations and youtube when installing a "heavier" graphics card.

As the specifications above show some options, how about showing us the specifics of your machine. Please open a terminal and run the following command. Post the output here (you can copy & paste text from the terminal, see its Edit menu). Edit: Please don't cross-post the same topic to multiple sections of the forums. I've removed your other topic.

xenopeek wrote:I'm looking at the specifications of your computer (https://support.dell.com/support/edocs/ ... #wp1052310), and the first block would be the 230 Watt PSU. That will not be enough for most graphics cards, though some of the older models may work. I'd sooner expect upgrading RAM or CPU might help, as I'm not sure how much (if at all) actually of an improvement you would see for animations and youtube when installing a "heavier" graphics card.

As the specifications above show some options, how about showing us the specifics of your machine. Please open a terminal and run the following command. Post the output here (you can copy & paste text from the terminal, see its Edit menu).

Code: Select all

inxi -Fx

Edit: Please don't cross-post the same topic to multiple sections of the forums. I've removed your other topic.

I'll post that tonight once I'm at home and in front of the computer.

I'll also check the PSU, as I have an antec True330 PSU that's in great shape that I might be able to use if it will fit the case.

Thanks so much for your quick replies. I hadn't even thought about the PSU...an indication of my experience with this stuff.

-Jeremy

xenopeek wrote:
As the specifications above show some options, how about showing us the specifics of your machine. Please open a terminal and run the following command. Post the output here (you can copy & paste text from the terminal, see its Edit menu).

Code: Select all

inxi -Fx

-Jeremy

Well, with some reading I found the videocardbenchmark.com site where it rates the Intel 82915G/GV/910GL graphics controller higher than the Geforce 6200 card I was looking at...so unless I'm missing something, I think I'm out of luck on the gpu front. Any other suggestions for improving performance of this machine would be appreciated, but it appears that the video card probably isn't one of them, as Vincent already suggested.

Thanks again for the replies, and taking the time to click the thread. It's much appreciated.

-Jeremy

Well at least you already have the Pentium 4 CPU, and not the Celeron that was also an option for this Dell model. It is a single core, but at least has hyper threading which the Celeron wouldn't have had. Upgrading the CPU will be quite the operation, so depends on how comfortable you are with that (see steps ehre https://support.dell.com/support/edocs/ ... #wp1352318). The question is how much would you actually gain from a faster CPU?

While you have 1 GiB RAM, I'd consider looking to upgrade to 2 GiB (the maximum supported on this board). I'd also suggest reducing swappiness (http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/998) so swap is used less often, as any use of swap will use the hard disk and that is the slowest thing in your computer. While the figures in above show just over 25% RAM used, I guess this will jump up when using Firefox and especially with Youtube.

If it's not a dual core processor, maybe it's (2) single core processors? Why would I be getting two CPU readouts in the System Monitor if it's only a single core?

Also, under "CPU: Single core Intel Pentium 4 CPU (-HT-) cache: 1024 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3) bmips:
5585.75"
it says.. Clock Speeds: 1: 2792.877 MHz
2: 2792.877 MHz



Anyway, it seems that memory is the only thing worth upgrading on this afterall...and since it's not running poorly under most circumstances, I'm going to simply run it as-is, and worry about performance improvement only when the time comes to replace it entirely.

I'll also look into reducing the 'swappiness' per your advice.

Thanks so much for your help and advice on this.

-Jeremy

I've wondered why a Hyper-thread CPU shows as two CPU's even in Windows. Even using a zramswap in the script I use to configure it, bases the swap file on the number of CPU's I have gives me two 900mb zramswap files. I had it explained to me as a single core is like a two lane road, Hyper-threading makes it a four lane road. Dual core gives you eight lanes with a median. I think my little Atom CPU is more like a traffic circle than a road though.

Also if you are using Intel 915 integrated video, if it's like mine up to 250mb, one quarter of you 1GB ram is used for video. But more ram would probably be less expensive than a disabling the on board video and adding a larger video card.

Well that makes more sense then. So HT causes the OS to indicate separate cpu's when in fact it's just one. Boo. And all this time...

*post edited out after further research*

-Jeremy

What has me wondering is why are you clocking so high? I ran this with FireFox and an audiobook running in the background on a 1.66ghz Atom.

Yes I have a problem with y720p video on this netbook, but usually on a stream I haven't had too many problems. If it's a video someone else made, I use Handbrake to recode it down to y576p.