[svlug] Core2Duo poor performance...

[Mark S Bilk]

The manufacturer of the motherboard [mobo] will specify 
which CPUs it can work with.  Look for the mobo spec 
on the mfr's website.  

Also do an advanced google search that includes the 
model number of the mobo and of the CPU you want to use.
Including the word linux too may find people who have 
used the mobo and CPU with Linux.

Also ask in IRC in ##linux on irc.freenode.net

Personally I prefer mplayer to vlc.  I like the mplayer 
keyboard interface and can call it from tricky bash scripts, 
for doing things like positioning a blur rectangle to wipe 
out station logos in TV videos.  

http://mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html

The latest version of mplayer plays super-compressed 
x265/HEVC videos on my old dual-core AMD CPU running 
at 2.7 GHz.  I have to specify 

 -mc .1 -framedrop  

and both cores are pretty much saturated, but the 
videos play just fine.

I obtained the latest mplayer with this command:

svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/trunk mplayer

and had to get some additional modules before it would 
compile completely:

ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/packman.iu-bremen.de/suse/openSUSE_11.4/Essentials/i586/yasm-1.3.0-2.2.i586.rpm

ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/ftp.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/suse/i586/libdvdnav-devel-4.1.3-11.1.i586.rpm

I compiled and installed it in my account and run from there, 
so I can still use the old one from the repo if I want.

My display card is a GeForce 8600 GT that I paid $120 for 
many years ago, running at 1920x1080.

I run KDE3, but with KDE4 System Monitor (ver. 4.6.0), which
is set to indicate temperature graphs for each of the two 
CPU cores, the CPU in general and the mobo.  So I can tell 
that the CPU is not overheating.

Be sure to blow the dust out of the CPU heatsink fins when 
it accumulates.  I bought a third-party heatsink that's larger
than the one that came with the CPU, and has fins with wider 
spacing which facilitates blowing the dust out.  Cost about $22.

Hope some of this helps.  Tweaking old hardware is fun!  But 
never overclock (overcook) your CPU or anything else -- the 
chips are not specified to withstand that, and may suffer 
permanent fatal damage.  (Unless you install a liquid-helium 
cooling system. 8^)

Good Luck, and Happy New Year!

On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 03:11:33AM -0800, Michael Robinson wrote:
>I'm running Fedora 21.  The video card is an NVIDIA GeFORCE GT 220 PCI
>Express x16 card.  The LGA 775 processor runs at 1.80 Ghz.  Compared to
>the 3.06 Ghz Pentium 4 it is replacing, I can't play mpeg4 files in VLC
>full screen.  I'll get audio but no video, or maybe choppy video in full
>screen mode.  I'm wondering if the Intel board I'm using will take a 3.0
>Ghz Core2Duo?  That's jumping ahead a bit though by assuming that more
>processing power will improve the performance.  I have four gigabytes of
>ram, computer came with two gigabytes.  I want to avoid replacing the
>processor, there's a risk that I'll wreck the socket.  Another risk,
>the heat sink and fan combo may not cool a 3.0 Ghz processor well
>enough.
>
>Oddly enough, the latest firefox that Fedora 21 provides with flash
>enabled will play full screen from hulu just fine.  Has to be a similar
>amount of data compared to an mpeg4 file on a local 2 terabyte hard
>drive.  I'm suspecting that low processor speed is the problem, but I'm
>not able to rule out a software or configuration problem.  I'm running
>gnome 3.  I'm also using the latest proprietary NVIDIA driver so that I
>can display on an HDTV.
>
>Should I try a 3.0 Ghz processor or is the risk of wrecking the board
>not worth taking?  Maybe there is an optimization for VLC, memory, or
>gnome even that I'm not taking advantage of.
>