Dell Dimension 4550 Tips & Tricks

[bbrontosaurus]

I looked everywhere for a 512 MB of Samsung RAM (geniune stuff, no third-party PCB crap) as I have read reviews that geniune SAMSUNG is terrific stuff, and great for overclocking (can't do that right now with the Dimension 4550, but later . Other places I've seen has this PC3200 for more $$....also, the prices for PC2700 RAM (same brand, geniune SAMSUNG 512 MB) for about the same price. It seemed like the best solution to just get the PC3200. Prices for memory have gone up......can you recommend a cheaper place? Thanks!

 

[aircasper]

Originally posted by: brian_riendeau
My Seagate 20GB drive was set to the quietest AAM setting possible on the drive and Bypass in the BIOS when I received it. The quietest settings limits the read/write heads the most (and hence slows performance). I still have the BIOS on Bypass and used the IBM tool to set the drive into a higer performance mode since it is not clear what the BIOS setting changes. I reccomend that you try to manually change the drive's AAM setting with a tool and leave the BIOS on Bypass. I get just over 24,000kB/s with my drive in Sandra.

Thanks! I didn't realize that there was a utility to adjust the acoustic management settings of the harddrive. for those people with the maxtor drives, you may want to check out the AMSET utility to adjust the accousting management properties, and the WVSET utility to manually adjust the write-verify settings. both are available at the maxtor website. i'm at work right now so i can't test whether the AMSET utility will improve performance, but i'll post my results later tonight. turning off write-verify didn't affect performance when i tested it last night, but then again, write-verify may have been set to "off" in the first place. if anyone else has the same slow harddrive problem and tries out the AMSET adjustments, please post your results here. thanks!

 

[hirschma]

Not sure if anyone is going to put Linux on this box, but... there are some complications if you do.

It seems that most recent distros are using the GRUB boot utility. Well, it is incompatible with the Dell BIOS Good old lilo does work, however.

I've also noticed that drives are not always seen unless you use the CS settings, which I hate.

Other than that, nice system.

jonathan

 

[Viper32]

Is there a program (utility) to adjust FSB and memory timings in wondows that will work with the 4550?

Viper

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Viper32
Is there a program (utility) to adjust FSB and memory timings in wondows that will work with the 4550?

Viper

softfsb can adjust the fsb on my dimension t700, might try that first

 

[bbrontosaurus]

All,

I used the tool that Brian suggested (the IBM Feature Tool from http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/download.htm) on my Dell Dimension 4550 that I just got today. It worked great!! I used the tool to disable the AAM. My noticed that my BIOS setting was already set to Bypass.

Quick question though, is there a test or way to check to see if my drive speeds have actually increased?

Thanks!

 

[hirschma]

Seems that Dell kind of ripped off those of us who elected to get a Soundblaster Live upgrade.

I formatted the disk, and installed Win 2000. Windows doesn't have drivers for this card; Creative's drivers can't recognize the card, and Dell's website has nothing. Interestingly, they have *patches* to drivers, but not the drivers themselves.

Does anyone know anything about this card, and how to get drivers for it? This is really frustrating.

jonathan

 

[aircasper]

Originally posted by: bbrontosaurus
All,

I used the tool that Brian suggested (the IBM Feature Tool from http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/download.htm) on my Dell Dimension 4550 that I just got today. It worked great!! I used the tool to disable the AAM. My noticed that my BIOS setting was already set to Bypass.

Quick question though, is there a test or way to check to see if my drive speeds have actually increased?

Thanks!

download sisoftware sandra 2002 and run the file system benchmark.

the strange thing is, i used wvset to turn off write-verify, and i used amset to turn off accoustic management, but i don't think it's made a difference. even more strange, i get different results from sandra each time i run the benchmark. here are my scores, where the tests are run one right after the other:

1st try: 19601kB/s
2nd try: 23162 kB/s
3rd try: 25141 kB/s (i'd like to see this score consistently)
4th try: 19911 kB/s
5th try: 23447 kB/s
6th try: 19859 kB/s
7th try: 22867 kB/s

the average is 21998kB/s, which is still a little on the slower side. my guess at this point is that the 128MB of RAM that i have currently installed may have an effect on how this benchmark is run. hopefully increasing the RAM will permit consistently higher scores. but then again, the limited amount of RAM may not be it at all. still waiting for a good deal on quality RAM so i'll have to wait to find out.

 

[brian_riendeau]

aircasper, without knowing too much about how the sandra test works, your problem could very well be the limited ram. it is quite possible that sandra overflows the availible memory while running the benchmark and ends up using the swap file. since the swap file is on the very same drive being benchmarked, the results would be very skewed as the program tries to benchmark the drive while doing extra read/writes at the same time.

then again, it could be something else, but i would not worry about it too much for now.

 

[jrichrds]

Since the 4550 is very quiet, can you tell a difference in hard drive noise when you switch AAM from the quietest setting (slowest) to the highest performance (loudest)?

 

[brian_riendeau]

Since the 4550 is very quiet, can you tell a difference in hard drive noise when you switch AAM from the quietest setting (slowest) to the highest performance (loudest)?

I could tell a difference in the noise output when going up to the fastest setting, though the computer is still very quiet overall (even with the HD going). If there is almost any background noise in my house, I can not hear the drives. The hard drive rails have rubber mounts to lessen noise output and the plastic chassis really helps to keep everything quiet. Dell uses many vendors for hard drives, so results are going vary between systems.

In the IBM tool, you can actually adjust the AAM setting on the fly while the drive is doing random access patterns to see if you can tell a noise difference. You just use the arrows keys to move the cursor around while the test is running in the utility.

 

[aircasper]

Originally posted by: brian_riendeau
aircasper, without knowing too much about how the sandra test works, your problem could very well be the limited ram. it is quite possible that sandra overflows the availible memory while running the benchmark and ends up using the swap file. since the swap file is on the very same drive being benchmarked, the results would be very skewed as the program tries to benchmark the drive while doing extra read/writes at the same time.

then again, it could be something else, but i would not worry about it too much for now.

yeah, i think you're right. thanks for your help!

 

[bbrontosaurus]

A couple of questions:

1) Anyone tried softfsb yet to overclock this puppy?
2) I'm planning to wipe out my current OS (XP HOME) and reinstall with XP Pro. As I have never done this before, can some tell me if these are the correct procedures in a nutshell?:

a) Switch the primary boot device to the CD rom and boot up with the XP Pro disk
b) Choose the partition (Better to have two partitions?)
c) Format the drive (Quick or normal?)
d) Configure XP options
e) After OS installation, install video, sound card, and cdrom drivers

Thanks!

 

[brian_riendeau]

1) Anyone tried softfsb yet to overclock this puppy?

-softfsb has not been udated in a lloonngg time as far as i know so i am not going to try it myself until someone else does first

2) I'm planning to wipe out my current OS (XP HOME) and reinstall with XP Pro. As I have never done this before, can some tell me if these are the correct procedures in a nutshell?:

a) Switch the primary boot device to the CD rom and boot up with the XP Pro disk

-actually you can just hit f12 at the boot screen and then select boot from cd.

b) Choose the partition (Better to have two partitions?)

-two partitions are usually good because you can use one for windows and another one for media/files/applications. then if you ever need to format again, you just format the windows partition and keep all of your files.

c) Format the drive (Quick or normal?)

-i always do a full format just for completeness, thought you should not have any issues with the quick format.

d) Configure XP options

-for the performance minded, disable system restore, turn off automatic updates, and set the gui to best performance mode.

e) After OS installation, install video, sound card, and cdrom drivers

-yep.

 

[RalfHutter]

Originally posted by: brian_riendeau
1) Anyone tried softfsb yet to overclock this puppy?

-softfsb has not been udated in a lloonngg time as far as i know so i am not going to try it myself until someone else does first

I've tried SoftFSB on several Retail Intel boards and haven't been able to get it to work. As brian_riendeau stated, SoftFSB hasn't been updated in a while and I don't think it will work with these Intel chipsets.

 

[bbrontosaurus]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Hulk
What memory timing settings are available in the bios? I'm still waiting for my system to arrive.

use pcredit, should allow you to manipulate that

Where can I download pcredit, and has anyone tried it yet on the Dimension 4550?

Thanks!

Also, this may seem like a newbie question, but if you change some settings (FSB, memory settings) that cause your system to hang, would just resetting the BIOS fix everything?

 

[bbrontosaurus]

What programs are out there to tweak the Geforce 4 Ti4200 that came with my Dimension 4550? Thanks!

 

[hirschma]

Audio Hint:

If you ordered the 4550 with the Soundblaster option, CHECK THE MODEL NUMBER.

There are two versions: bad, SB0200, good, CT4780. If you got the SB0200, complain, whine, tell them that the card fails its diagnostics, whatever, but make them replace it with a CT4780. I had to threaten returning the entire system.

The SB0200 is XP only, and will not work with Creative's "generic" drivers. It also has less connectors (missing an internal SPDIF port). It is total crap. It is unsupported by Creative on their American site, which I find worrying.

The CT4780, I'm happy to report, works fine in all versions of Windows. It has the extra SPDIF connector, as well as the proprietary Dell connector (so you can still use your front panel port). It even gets seen by Linux drivers, which the SB0200 didn't.

Do this now, before your 30 days expire.

jonathan

 

[Adul]

this needs a bump

 

[Adul]

good info in hear.

 

[velferdskiller]

I tested out my friends dimension 4550 (P4 2.4, G4 4200 w dell 30.82 drivers, 512 mb RAM) in 3dmark, and with default 1024x768 settings, i got around 10500 3dmarks.
With my oc system (P4 2.4@2.61 Abit IT7, 512 mb Crucial 6ns @390 (3:4) G4 4600 320/725 41.03 drivers), i get 13962.

 

[talkincat]

Not to beat a dead horse, but does anyone know where pcredit can be downloaded? I'd love to be able to tweak my RAM a bit.

 

[bbrontosaurus]

The program is actually wpcredit....you can grab it from here Linky

However, I tried this program on my Dimension 4550 and no luck...apparently you need WPCREDIT PCR File that matches your chipset, but I couldn't find one for our Intel 845PE.

 

[new2pc]

I prefer to buy Granite Bay, but if it is only available for the server, then I am planning to buy 2.53 Ghz DELL 4550.
I just read that
Intel will decrease the core voltage for some of their Pentium 4.
This conversion begins with 2.8 and 2.66 Ghz by December 6, and anything below (that is 2.6 to 2.0) will be converted by January 24th or sooner depending on the depletion of their inventory.
I have a couple of questions:
1) On DELL site I have not seen the core voltage information of the P4 nor the S-spec value.
This core vaoltage info can be determined from the S-spec.
How can we know when the DELL will have the P4 2.53 Ghz with S-spec SL6S2?
2) Wouldn't it be better to wait for this design change? Cooler CPU?

:frown:

 

[talkincat]

Does anybody have a working link for the Maxtor amset utility?