🚀 go-pugleaf

We have two identical Dell Precision 410 Workstations each with one Intel
PIII 600MHz processor on a dual-processor capable board, 256MB RAM and one
IDE 28GB hard drive and each with a CD-R and a CD-RW drive. Twin machines
delivered together about a year ago and wired-up identically in the box and
with identical BIOS settings. Both use DiskKeeper to defrag the drives every
early morning. Both have large page files on the data partition (~800MB) and
the drives are only about 30% full..

Except we upgraded one of them to Win2000 (and first flashed its BIOS to the
next level A13 as required in the upgrade pack provided by Dell).

We run image analysis software that often loads large files (50-100MB),
number crunches them then spits out large results files to disk. My staff
kept saying the Win2000 machine was slower than the other one
[NT4/patch6/BIOS A12] but I did not really believe them until we ran a
test:. All other programs unloaded, network disconnected, a batch file of 10
jobs was created using the same input files on both machines. The batch job
took 15 minutes on the NT4 machine and 50 minutes on the Win 2000 machine.

THREE TIMES LONGER.

I have run benchmark software and both machines run all normal memory and
disk benchmark test perfectly well and return numbers consistent with the
specifications. (Except that the random disk access RW test comes out very
low, but that is the same on both machines).

I am at a loss as to where to look for the problem slowing down the Win 2000
machine unless it is the obvious  - Win 2000 itself. Any suggestion before
we re-install NT4?

Thanks for any help.

PG

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