Need help with my hardware

[al1uk]

I've had my hardware for quite a while, but I need help gettin to grips with 2 things I don't understand:

1) hard drive: I bought a 120gb seagate hard drive . after formatting, installing,etc,etc, I realized only 110gb shows up in My Computer. I read about differences about manufatures calulatin the size of the drive, but is there any way I can recover the 10gb. http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/...81,580,00.html
my friend with a 120gb hd managed to get all the space, his pc technition uncle did it for him :roll:

2) Hyperthreading: i've got a p4 3.0ghz processor with ht. is it any good? also, in task manager, with ht enabled, u can set "Affinity", meaning access to the cpu. is it a good idea to let programs that use lots of procesin power ,e.g. norton av, to use both, and those that don't to stick to 1 cpu.

http://www.geocities.com/bst_666/screen1.JPG

http://www.geocities.com/bst_666/screen2.JPG

cheers in advance

[Copytrooper]

You can not "recover" that 10gb, 'cause they're not there.
120GigaBytes = 120.000.000.000bytes but
120GB = 128.849.018.880bytes -> around 9GB difference.

[NetSoerfer]

In computers, kilo-, mega-, giga- are steps of 2^10, i.e.
1 kilobyte is 2^10 = 1,024 bytes
1 megabyte is 2^20 = 1,048,576 bytes
1 gigabyte is 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes etc.

However, everywhere else, kilo-, mega- etc are defined as 10^3, i.e.
1 kilometer is 10^3 = 1,000 meters
1 megaton is 10^6 = 1,000,000 tons etc.

At some point, the harddrive manufacturers had the great idea that when they measured their harddrives with the usual definition of kilo-, mega- etc, they could announce bigger numbers with smaller harddrives, because 10^3 is slightly less than 2^10. So, as Copytrooper said, a harddrive with 120GB has
120 x 10^9 = 120,000,000,000 bytes instead of
120 x 2^30 = 128,849,018,880 bytes.

Windows however still measures in the former way, so if you buy a harddisc with "120GB", you really get one with 111.75GB.


Hyperthreading means that the CPU can process two threads at the same time, theoretically allowing you to use twice the computing power. However, you do need two threads for that, because you cannot assign one thread to two logical CPUs.

I don't have an HT processor, but I assume that in Windows, you set the affinity per process (which is a superset thread). So even if you tell a process (e.g. msmsgs.exe in your screenshot) to use both logical CPUs, as long as this process has only one thread, it will run on only one logical CPU.

Windows probably manages which thread is run on which logical CPU so usually you shouldn't have to manipulate affinity. But there are scenarios where this can be usual: Imagine you want to play a game and at the same time encode a movie. In this case you'd set the game's affinity to CPU 1 and the encoder's affinity to CPU 2. That way, they wouldn't interfere with each other, resulting in a very smooth gameplay and fast encoding at the same time.


Hope this answered your questions, if not, feel free to ask more!

[al1uk]

one other thing, would it be a good idea to upgrade my bios. this is the weblink to my motherboard:

http://www.soltek.de/soltek/product/products_all.php?isbn_st=SL-86SPE%2FSL-86SPE-L

[NetSoerfer]

That's up to you to decide ultimately. If your bios runs stably and there are no new features added you need, there's no real need to upgrade your bios. Remember that it's always a risk - if for some reason the upgrade is interrupted during flashing, your mainboard is toast (not really, but it's a hell of a hassle to get it working again).

However, I'm always living on the bleeding edge (as I'm sure many here are), and if I read about a new bios version, it'll be the first thing I do to download it and flash it into the ROM. As I said, you gotta decide yourself

[al1uk]

just one other question, in the downloads section for that motherboard, the bios version "AM1.4L", is described as "Support Prescott CPU up to 3.0GHz," which is the cpu I have. To get full potential for my cpu, do I need to upgrade to at least that version.
You guys are being really helpful. Thanks

[al1uk]

I couldnt edit my last post or I wouldve written this there.:roll:

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I also wanna upgrade to SP2, but the last time I did this, my pc took a good 15mins to boot. I think this may have been cos of my 5400rpm hd, and 750mhz cpu, but since then, I changed my pc. I need a bit of advice whether I should or not. I read a lot about slow pcs, crashes, formats,etc.
My specs are:

Win XP SP1+ all updates
P4 3.0Ghz Processer
120Gb hd + 40 gb slave
512ram
geforce 5200fx agp graphics card

[robbo]

normally your Computer should have no problems with SP2.

[NetSoerfer]

Considering that Service Pack 2 is mostly a collection of Security Updates (all post-SP1, pre-SP2 updates) and very few actual additions in functionality, you should expect it to work almost the same as XP SP1, albeit more secure. If you had a problem with extremely slow booting, it's most likely due to some problem on that computer. So I strongly recommend to go ahead and install SP2.

About support for the 3GHz Prescott: It's very much possible that the former version did "Support Prescott CPU up to 3.0GHz" as well, so if you want to check whether your CPU is supported by your motherboard, you've got to check the release notes for your current BIOS.

Usually it should be safe to assume though that if the CPU runs at full speed, it is supported by the motherboard. So I'd venture to say "no, you don't need to upgrade your BIOS to get support for your CPU".

[al1uk]

This might sound like a stupid question and a bit of a pointless one, but is it normal for programs like "Throttle Watch" to report the cpu clock speed slightly lower then the stated level. When I used this prog, the clock speed was "2992Mhz." Also in system properties, the cpu clock is 3.00Ghz in one place, and right underneath it it says 2.99Ghz. is this normal?
check out this screenshot

[,jACkdA\W]

Yes, it is - these values are just based on calculations of CPU speed which can't just be 'read' directly, small deviation there is normal.

[al1uk]

cheers

[yacbos]

well i think you should go to the bios settings and Disable cpu limit max 3 (or something similar) well on my old mb i did that and the processor then would be read 3002 or 3001 anyway its just a thaught but its no harm to try it

[al1uk]

i checked, its already disabled.

[NetSoerfer]

A motherboard's clock generator doesn't always work at exactly the specified speed, some manufacturers even overclock it (slightly) to get better results in benchmarks. Even if they don't, some small deviations are not unusual. As your motherboard's (and thus your CPU's) speed deviated less than 3‰, I wouldn't worry about it at all. It wouldn't make any difference anyway