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1
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pat362 (0)
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It's probably 5 years old but it still works amazingly well.
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05-11-15 05:27pm
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2
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LPee23 (0)
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REPLY TO #1 - pat362 :
2 weeks old. Just upgraded to an HP X360 with an SSD and an Intel core i7 processor. The SSD makes all the difference in response time.
My past PC was an HP Pavillion dv7 that lasted me for almost 7 years. Awesome PC, it actually used the same Intel core i7 processor that is still in the high end PC's like the X360 today. The focus has shifted very much from power to efficiency.
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05-11-15 05:38pm
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3
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rearadmiral (0)
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REPLY TO #2 - LPee23 :
My HP experience is a bit different. I had always had a Dell custom built and was careful to get as much performance as possible for my money. A few years ago I realized that my computer was getting a bit old and that I just didn't need the horsepower that I once did so I just went to Costco and bought an HP off the shelf. It's probably fine for what I really, really need, but I still find it slow. Part of that was a glitch that appeared early on. It had 10GB of RAM but then the whole computer stopped working. A tech couldn't explain why, but it worked fine if one of the sticks of RAM was removed. It made no difference which one was removed. There were two 4GB sticks and one 2GB stick so the 2GB was removed. But I find now that it doesn't like multi-tasking. If I'm downloading something using IDM then the computer is pretty much useless for anything else. Maybe IDM is a huge resource hog. And given the age of the computer I'd expect the USB slots to be at least 2.0 but the way they transfer data I'm guessing that they're 0.05! Sloooow!
Next time I'm likely going to have one built by a local shop. I've developed a relationship with this place because to send my HP for warranty work requires shipping it to some place faaaaar away and waiting for a month. I can pay and get it fixed in a day. But that means that warranty I paid for is money pissed away.
But I'm sure a lot of this is because I should have done more homework before buying...
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05-12-15 02:09pm
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4
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LPee23 (0)
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REPLY TO #3 - rearadmiral :
IDM was slowing down my dv7 a lot when I first started using it. Then I moved the download folder off of the system drive, and the issue resolved. It makes extensive use of the hard drive when it downloads files in chunks and reassembles them, so if you run it on your system drive, it can really slow down your OS.
Now that I upgraded to an SSD, I deliberately put the download folder on the SSD, which of course also hosts the OS. IDM doesn't slow down the response time in the slightest now, but IDM downloads are actually a lot faster since the chunks are reassembled very fast.
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05-12-15 04:18pm
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5
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rearadmiral (0)
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REPLY TO #4 - LPee23 :
Interesting point. By system drive I take it you mean my internal hard drive where the OS is? So if I point the download to an external drive (not SSD) that might speed things up?
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05-13-15 04:14pm
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6
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LPee23 (0)
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REPLY TO #5 - rearadmiral :
That's right. IDM makes extensive use of the hard drive, which is the bottleneck for the speed of most operations on most systems.
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05-13-15 06:23pm
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7
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LPee23 (0)
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REPLY TO #5 - rearadmiral :
In order to spare the system drive the burden of IDM, you not only have to point your downloads to an external, but you also have to change the location of the temporary folder for IDM downloads. Under the Options menu go to the 'Save To' tab, and change the location of the temporary folder.
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05-13-15 06:43pm
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8
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rearadmiral (0)
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REPLY TO #6 - LPee23 :
Thanks for answering these questions. I'll definitely be doing this to speed things up.
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05-16-15 11:18am
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9
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skippy (0)
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I have several home-built computers and keep them for 5+ years but do incremental upgrades between major overhauls. I bought the fastest AMD CPU made about 2 years ago and it is still up there, so I recently upgraded the motherboard (new chipset), memory and installed 2 SSD drives...one for the OS and one for cache. The thing boots up in 7 seconds and pegs the top of the Microsoft Experience index (for what that is worth) at 7.9 in every category. The biggest bang for the buck speed-wise these days is in Solid State drives. Just upgrade your drive. Seriously. Do it.
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05-21-15 08:07pm
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