i3 4170 for office use

[titanazzz]

Hello,

System spec:
i3-4170, 8GB RAM, GT 710, Windows 7 ("upgraded" to 10 but had to revert to W7), 2x monitors

A colegue (wife) has this computer which has the following problem: in daily office use it's pretty bad.
With 1-2 Excels open, 1-2 Words open, 1-2 PDFs and a few chrome tabs its not crisp at all, it gets very sluggish, it hangs for a few seconds, etc.
Initially I thought it's the RAM, I upgraded from 4 to 8, I changed the graphic card, from an old GTX650 to a new 710, but none of these made a real difference.

Personally, I have a i3 7100 (which isnt that much better than the i3 4170 acording to the benchmarks) and I find it smoother, but I do different tasks at my computer than her.

Would getting more cores help more ? Like an i5 or a Ryzen or something ?

 

[cookiemania66]

Why did you change the 650 for 710? the 650 is WAY better then the 710...

How full is the hard drive / SSD and how old is it.

 

[Petrossa]

You don't mention what drive you are using, but a SSD will do wonders for that system. Use the HDD as storage and run all the software from the SSD.
I use a similar spec system with a SSD drive (with Intel HD graphics) and it works just fine.

 

[Eximo]

Go back to the GTX650 if you want graphics performance for any reason. GT710 is weaker than the Intel HD graphics onboard the CPU.

The memory upgrade is a good idea. I run an even weaker i3-4130T and I've run up dozens of browser tabs with multiple browsers and it doesn't have trouble with Windows 10 either.

I suspect your upgrade/downgrade might have effected the system. Step 1) I suggest doing a disk cleanup to get rid of any excess Windows installation files. You probably also have the upgrade manager running somewhere. Also look at any extraneous programs that aren't in use.

Make sure you have some free space on the system, at least 20% of the drive size. Check swap file size settings. Should be equal to 1.5-2 times the size of the system memory.

Consider an SSD to improve general desktop performance.

 

[nobspls]

I use a i3-4170 for running my file server, and running a VM. It is plenty capable of handling many things. The sluggishness you are encountering is because of slow hard drive. First of all even if it is the HDD, if the disk is full, or if the disk is getting corrupted, you need to clear that up first to eliminate that as problem, those kind of issue will dramatically slow thing down even more. Assuming HDD and filesystem (NTFS) is consistent and sound, it is likely still to run slow, and it will be obviously slow compared to SSD performance. The single biggest bang for the buck you can do is replacing the HDD with a SSD.

BTW the GTX650 is a far better GPU compared to the GT710 see:
http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-650-vs-Nvidia-GeForce-GT-710/3154vsm77649

 

[titanazzz]

Why did you change the 650 for 710? the 650 is WAY better then the 710...

How full is the hard drive / SSD and how old is it.

Im pretty sure the graphics card does not matter in this instance.
It wasnt a 650, it was an old GTX560, sorry, and I changed it because she wanted something with no fans.
Before I gave her the gtx560, it had an old AMD gpu I found in a box. It worked just like it worked with my gtx 1070, no difference. Just need a dedicated graphic card for dual monitor, otherwise could run that pc without one anyway I think.

The SSD is a nice idea will try that

 

[titanazzz]

I use a i3-4170 for running my file server, and running a VM. It is plenty capable of handling many things. The sluggishness you are encountering is because of slow hard drive. First of all even if it is the HDD, if the disk is full, or if the disk is getting corrupted, you need to clear that up first to eliminate that as problem, those kind of issue will dramatically slow thing down even more. Assuming HDD and filesystem (NTFS) is consistent and sound, it is likely still to run slow, and it will be obviously slow compared to SSD performance. The single biggest bang for the buck you can do is replacing the HDD with a SSD.

BTW the GTX650 is a far better GPU compared to the GT710 see:
http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-650-vs-Nvidia-GeForce-GT-710/3154vsm77649

If I get an SSD, what should I put on it ?Windows and all the office related programs ? And keep the HDD for storage (like all the tons of work material ?)

 

[titanazzz]

OK guys, I fixed it, I went out and bought a Kingston A400 with 240gb SSD, reinstalled windows 7 and all the programs on it, now its like a rocket. Thanks. I also got one for myself.

 

[nobspls]

Good to hear you got the SSD in there and it working good. If you want you could still use the old HDD for data backup, or storage for media (video/photos/etc.) But given its age, you probably want to back up of anything on that HDD.

I usually but old HDD into a cheap USB enclosure like this (depending on if it i2.5" vs 3.5" ):
http://www.microcenter.com/product/467904/nexstar-tx-25-sata-to-usb-30-external-hard-drive-enclosure
or
http://www.microcenter.com/product/398073/35-sata-to-superspeed-usb-30-external-hard-drive-enclosure

So I get an external USB HDD for back storage. And usually they are powered off, so they make good offline backups.