Tuning and Benchmarking a Dell GX270 SFF P4 - Part 3

I upgraded memory from 1 GB to the system max of 2 GB expecting a nice performance jump as the easiest upgrade to a PC is to add memory. Nope. The overall performance actually went DOWN.

 So, let's look at the individual benchmarks to see what happened.

Overall rating went from 92.6 to 88.3 - a decrease of 4.6%.  Hmm.  Let's compare individual tests; Prior to memory upgrade CPU Mark of 329.8, after upgrade 328.8 not too much difference there. Prior to upgrade 2D Graphics Mark of 296.1, after upgrade 296.3 again, not to much difference. Prior to upgrade 3D Graphics Mark of 9.3, after 8.8. For some reason adding system memory slowed down the 3D graphics test by 5.4%. Continuing, prior to upgrade Memory Mark of 486.1, after upgrade to 2 GB, 577, an 18.7% increase. Close to what one would expect but not enough to compensate for the slower graphics hit. Finally looking at Disk Mark before 346.4 and after 341.9. Again a slowdown but only about 1.3%.
So I think I will go back, remove the GeForce card and compare the results with a 2 GB system memory upgrade.

Tuning and Benchmarking a Dell GX270 SFF P4 - part 2

I was going to add additional memory as the first upgrade to the base unit, but the integrated graphics chip bombed the 3D benchmarking test a couple of times so I decided to do a quick video upgrade. I added back the NVIDIA GeForce4 MX440 AGP card and when I rebooted the BIOS automatically recognized the card and overrode the integrated chip. I ran 4 tests and the 3D test showed a 7.5% improvement while the memory test  got 4.7% faster probably because the video card has its own memory and doesn't have to share system memory like the integrated chip.

Overall the system performance achieved a 7% speed increase with the video card upgrade.

Next step will be a memory upgrade.

Tuning and Benchmarking a Dell GX270 Pentium 4

This is my first project. Take a classic Pentium 4, in this instance an (in)famous Dell Optiplex GX270 SFF, and see how much better I can make the basic model by installing various upgrades. The GX270 model is infamous for being part of a large production run that had bad capacitors installed and which proceeded to literally blow up. Later, Dell ended up swapping out thousands of motherboards over this issue.

Here is the unit on the workbench. A Dell Optiplex GX270 with CD-DVD drive and a 3 1/2" floppy drive with a couple of front side USB 2.0 ports. These are readily available all over eBay for less than $100.

Here is the unit with the clamshell opened. A pretty nice piece of engineering fitting a lot of stuff in a small space. At this time there is an upgraded video card installed, but I am going to remove it for the base line tests.

Power it up and go to the Bios setup page to check things out. This is equipped with a Pentium 4 running at 3.2 GHz and 1 MB of DDR SDRAM.

 The BIOS leaves no options for any kind of overclocking.

The on board graphics is an Intel 82865G chip. It has almost no 3D power and in fact during testing failed the 3D test at least once.

For benchmarking I am using the 32 bit version of the Passmark V8.0 performance test suite. This is the best complete testing suite for PCs and is available for around $20 from Passmark.com. They also publish a huge variety of test results that users post. Very useful and interesting for testing. I ran the full test suite twice successfully and got overall scores of 85.5 and 86.1. Not too impressive but good enough for a baseline.

This is the detail page. Notice the very poor 3D results. Normally the first upgrade would be memory, but I'm going to put the video card back in.

Bare Metal PC League

I am going to start a FB page for people who are interested in "tuning up" older and legacy PCs. The page will give them a virtual place to ask questions, show off their projects and compare system specs and benchmarks. Eventually I'd like to even have some competition ladders and/or events. Here's the logo.

Accessing an old IDE HD with a USB Adapter

This is a continuation of my last post from 2014 in which I wanted to check for pics on an old IDE HD in a USB enclosure but couldn't get it to power up. I wanted an adapter so I could take a bare IDE drive and convert it to USB. I ended up buying this:

Inside are four pieces, a power cable, a power adapter, a power cord and the IDE/USB adapter pictured on the box cover.

I connected the power cable/transformer to the power connector and the IDE adapter to the IDE pin connector on the drive.

So it looks like this:

Then plugged the power cord into the adapter and the wall outlet and then the USB at the end of the IDE adapter into a port on the PC.

Waited. Got the Windows ping announcing it had noticed a new USB device installed and then went to My Computer and found it as Drive I:

Notice it is seen as a "DiskGo", the original name of the unit. Clicked on OK and saw the directory of files.

Started drilling down into the folders looking for pics. Success!

Removing the drive from a DiskGo.

I had some pictures stored on an old 120 GB DiskGo. I wanted to look at them and move the good ones to somewhere in the cloud.

It was old school so besides the USB connection to the computer, it needed a wall connection and a transformer.

I set it all up and switched it on and... it's dead, Jim. So, I decided to see if I could take it apart and get the drive out so I could hook it up to another computer to test it. You can see the itsy bitsy screws holding the cover on so I need some special tools.

You do have a set like this, right? I removed the top cover.

You can see the drive and the custom board it is attached to. It is just a standard drive so I will attempt to remove it from the case. I flipped it over and removed the other two screws.

The drive is held in the case with 4 more screws. I removed them, turned the case over, disconnected the yellow custom cable and, with a small set of vice grips, removed the power connector.

I then put the case back together and added it to my electronics recycling box.

I will test the bare drive later in one of my PCs on the bench.

Project: eMachines T-3256 restoration (5)

This eMachines model came with an onboard video chip - the NVIDIA nForce2, but the previous owner had upgraded to a nvidia GeForce 4 card. Here's a pic of the onboard chip and nearby the AGP slot for the add on card.

I removed the card to clean the fan (an artist's brush is perfect for the task).

After cleaning I reinstalled the card. This card is only slightly better than the onboard chip. Since the AGP slot is long since obsolete it is widely know the best cards for it are the HD 4670, the 9600 or the GeForce 4Ti. If I had to buy one the 4670 is still expensive but there are quite a few 9600 units around for good prices. Next step was on to the hard drive. Here's is a pic of the cage. It is held in place by a single thumbscrew.

Remove the thumbscrew and pull the cage up and out of the case.

 I picked up a used Western Digital 160 GB drive (2009) on eBay for $15.74 with shipping.

The cage is built to hold two hard drives (the Primary and the Slave). There is a jumper to set the drive(s) but since I am only using one I just verified that it was set as the default master. I installed the drive in the cage with the connections up so when it is in place I can easily attach the cables. Note how the holes on the drive line up to the hole in the cage.

I placed the cage back into its position and prepared to attach the thumbscrew.

And then I attached the data ribbon cable and then the power cable.