Slow Celeron Processor? - PC Hardware Questions & Answers

Anonymous writes in with a hardware question:

Question: Why does my Intel Celeron 1.7Ghz Processor work as if it were a bogus one? The performance is totally ridiculous; can you tell me the reason please?

Answer: Older Celerons like yours have to get by with a smaller L2 cache (128 kB) compared to 256kB and 512kB on Pentium 4s, but their FSB clock speed was also slower (400MHz) while the Pentium 4s now have up to 1066 MHz bus speed. The newer Celerons have switched over to the Pentium 4 architecture and have better performance.

There may be other factors making your computer run slow. If you don't have enough RAM that will definitely make a difference. Even though Microsoft says Windows XP will run with 64 MB and recommends 128, you really need 512 MB to make it acceptable, especially with a slower processor. Having an older slower hard drive will slow you down as well. Plus if your computer is cluttered up with extra software and processes running in the background you will notice a difference. One of the biggest slowdowns these days is having spyware on your computer. Check out these links for tips to help speed up your computer.

Spyware
Using msconfig
Troubleshooting startup problems
Disk Cleanup
Using Scandisk and Defrag

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