Sukumar Madhab :
I have an old set up (XP-SP3, assembled on early 2006) with Pentium D series 630 processor, Intel D101GGC board, Corsair 1GB Ram. I am maintaining the internals very clean (out from dust) with medium airflow (two front intake, one side intake, two rear exhaust) 80 mm fans. My PSU +12V rail is of 19 Amps. Initially the system was very good and responsive with number of applications loaded but now a days the system is very slow, I have uninstalled a lot of programs though. Speed fan (v 4.4) showing temperature of CPU is within 50 deg in moderate load. Paying music also increasing CPU load to 60-70%, music getting slow and loosing notes & beats, similar for movies, videos etc. (like losing frame rates). Could anybody please suggest anything if it is due to any hardware issue.
Sukumar Madhab
As others have mentioned, the 50C is not an extremely high temperature, but the processing power of the Pentium D 630 would not be brilliant by current standards- but it was modern- I think the first multiple core processor. The Pentium D is actually a pair of Pentium 4's on one chip.
However, it can be a bit better as the Intel D101GGC motherboard can use a Pentium D 950 which is 2 cores at 3.4GHz. There was no Pentium D 630 so it's possible this is either a Pentium 4 630 3GHz which is the first 64-bit, and hyperthreading Pentium or a Pentium D 830- 2 cores at 3GHz.
If it's P4 630, these are still useful. I have still a Pentium 4 630 system, a 2004 Dell Dimension 8400 and I find it still quite useful, using 4GB RAM and a Quadro FX580 (512MB) running Window 7 Professional 64-bit with AutoCad 2007, Adobe CS3, and Office 2003, and certainly streaming movies and YouTube properly.
If it's a Pentium D 830, there is one system on Passmark with that CPU and the Intel D101GGC motherboard:
Rating = 274 / CPU=650 / 2D = 229 (Radeon X1550) / 3D = 41 / Mem = 322 (1GB) / Disk = 360 (Seagate ST340014A)
Graphics perormance in this example is very poor.
You might update the BIOS (important), reload the OS and the minimum programmes, add the maximum RAM, and set the power options to "performance" to see if it improves enough for your uses. You didn't mention a graphics card and it essential to have something of a reasonable performance.
Or, you might spend $10 and try the Pentium D 950. On Passmark the top CPU score on the Intel D101GGC board is 827 (2GB RAM / Radeon HD 5450 / WDC800JD). On that CPU / M/B combination the top 2D score = 298 (GeForce 8400GS and the top 3D = 703 (Radeon HD 3870), top Memory = 377 (2GB), and top Disk = 766 (OCZ Vertex 3).
So, the situation can be improved and I think with the Pentium D 950, updated BIOS, the full 2Gb of RAM, a better graphics card, and a faster disk may make a noticeable difference. I've been given older systems and I find they can be quite responsive to upgrades. It would have been fortunate if the the motherboard could accommodate the Core 2 as those are dramatically better.
After a point, it is better- more cost effective- to change the system and there are thousands of Dell Optiplexes- Optiplexi? such as the 780 and 960- with E8400's and very good Core2 Duos and Quads at a modest cost.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 six-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz > 32GB DDR3 ECC 1866 RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> Logitech z2300 > Linksys AE3000 USB WiFi > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440) > Windows 7 Professional 64 >
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15