Is the Pentium D 925cv avast Compatible? [RESOLVED]

[Chim]

Last week my brother gave me this old (2005) HP Pavilion a1620n desktop computer.  It has Windows XP Media Center Edition, of which I had never heard.  For a processor it has this Intel Viiv Technology Pentium D 925cv, which supposedly features 2 cores, although some opinions on the Net call it a "Fake" or "Pseudo" 2 cores.  Yikes!  It came in with only 1 Gig of RAM (Two 512 Meg RAM Sticks), but I managed to scrunge up four 1 Gig RAM Sticks to bring it up to 4 Gig.

I doubted it would dethrone my Core 2 Duo Dell Optiplex 780 as my MAIN computer, but I figured it stood a good chance of at least dethroning my old Frankenstein Dinosaur Dell GX280 Small Form Factor as my backup computer.  I mean, how could it not ... considering that one only has a Pentium 4 (with Hyper Threading) and only 2 Gig of RAM?

Anyway, hold on to that thought.  NOW ... Is this Pentium D 925cv avast compatible?  Or is it one of those processors that is below the threshold of what will work with avast or won't work well?

I ask because after 5 days of working on that HP Pavilion, 2 full-fledged System Recoveries from the Recovery Partition, removing all the unnecessary junk programs, all sorts of tweaking, adjusting and cleaning ... I'd have to say that that HP Pavilion, which on paper SHOULD dethrone the seemingly lesser-powered Dell GX280 ... at this point really has NOT been able to unseat that Dell GX280 for the title of backup computer.

At best, at this point that HP Pavilion is only AS fast as the Dell GX280 ... and definitely NOT as stable as the Dell GX280.  So yeah, for starters I'm trying to ascertain whether possibly avast not working well with that Pentium D 925cv is a culprit in the equation.

[Eddy]

https://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB44

[DavidR]

I think that one of the main considerations is that the CPU supports the SSE2 instruction set and it would appear that this does, http://cpuboss.com/cpu/Intel-Pentium-D-925.

[mchain]

Hi Chim,

You wouldn't know, but I run a HP dx2300 mini-tower which has a Pentium D 915 dual core and 3 GB RAM.  Circa 2008.

A much despised machine by some back in the day when Vista was king.  And we know what happened to Vista.  Since your machine is earlier, might be why dx2300 was looked on unfavourably as well.

But I've got it running Windows 10 64-bit with a SSD drive and it boots to desktop in around 45 seconds.  It also runs the latest version (before today) of AIS. 

What I give up in cpu features compared to modern cpu's I also give up in avast protection, as some cpu instructions are required to run more advanced protections avast provides. 

I can confirm it runs SSE2 instructions.

If you really want to talk about an obsolete processor, try Intel M's.  Some of them lack PAE instructions so if you want to run something on them, you'll need linux and run force pae installs on them to get it to run an operating system.  Otherwise, they're junk.  One I just worked on was from 2003.

You're not at that point with this system, IMO.  I'd also check the condition of the PSU and whether the cpu temps are normal or not.

[EDIT:]  Also check condition of HDD esp for time of use.  Could be close to failing.
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Pentium-D-925-vs-Intel-Pentium-D-915

[Chim]

Thanks, Eddy, David, mchain.

Ohhh, I see now ... Pentium 4 and above is avast compatible.  Good to know.  Cuz here and there I have seen this, I believe an Acer something or other desktop computer for sale at Walmart.  Very cheap, but it has a Celeron something processor.  So I'm guessing IF I would have bought that computer, avast wouldn't have worked on it.

Interesting that you mention checking the condition of the HD, mchain.  At the beginning of the 1st System Recovery on that HP Pavilion, it prompted me if I wanted to run a Hardware Diagnostics.  So I clicked to go ahead and run the basic test of everything.  The RAM passed with flying colors.  However, the 2nd step was to check the HD.  As soon as it got to that category, I got the indication that the HD failed the Self Test or something along those lines.  Since the computer was working and my brother had not informed me of any history of it being flaky, I just exited out of the diags and proceeded with the System Recovery.  So who knows?  Maybe there COULD be some intermittent issue with the HD.

I'm probably gonna give the HP Pavilion another shot sometime this weekend.  It has PC Doctor in it, so I'll run those diags, especially the HD Test.  I'll almost assuredly perform yet another System Recovery.  However, this time, aside of immediately removing Norton ... I'll leave everything else (myriad of junk apps) intact temporarily.  And I won't immediately install my various apps temporarily.  I'll just get avast in there and my NetZero to connect to the Net.  I'll then check to see how stable it is with minimum changes from factory default.

Little by little, step by step I'll remove and add apps and see if hopefully I can zero in on at what point and possibly with exactly what app the system becomes unstable.

[DavidR]

You're welcome.

It isn't just the CPU name that would indicate SSE2 compatibility as new Celerons are likely to be no problem.  I have a win7 SP1 32bit Acer Netbook and that only has an Intel Atom chip and that has the SSE2 (and higher) Instruction set.

I use a little program CPU-Z which checks your CPU details, very handy - http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html.

[Chim]

Annnd it looks like I have to amend my understanding.    It's that when I see "Celeron," I relate it to my ole Windows 98SE Gateway desktop that I had bought back in 2001.  Granted that that one was I believe just plain ole "Celeron."  And the one that I've seen those Acer desktops have is Celeron dash something something number and / or letters.  When I would see them there on the shelf, my thinking would be, "Well, it MUST be some more powerful Celeron.  They can't possibly be selling computers nowadays that wouldn't work with avast ... can they?"  But, I just wasn't sure.

Thanks again for the updated info, David.

[DavidR]

No problem, glad I could help.

Those new Celerons are a totally different ball game, much more powerful than the 'old' celeron CPUs

[mchain]

Always wise to look a gift horse in the mouth as far as computers are concerned.  You have to have a good PSU, good motherboard and capacitors, good RAM, and finally, a good HDD.  Must point out that if the HDD is going, it will take the Recovery Drive with it.  Kinda the reason for even working with such an old system in the first place.

If I play a bit with DavidR's website, you can get this for comparative purposes:  http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Pentium-D-925-vs-Intel-Core-i5-6200U  Both are dual-core.

Note the differences in cpu instruction sets.  So making a choice on what you see will involve a bit of comparisons such as these.

[Chim]

While that Pavilion is 12 years old, it actually hadn't been used in ages.  My brother only gave it to me now, but he has actually had a laptop as his pride and joy for years now.  So while the Pavilion's components have 12 years of existence, they don't actually have 12 years of usage accumulated.  But, that said, you could be right, mchain.  The Power Supply, HD or whatever COULD be susceptible to failure just on pure age alone by now.

If the HD went out and took the Recovery Partition with it, I'm prepared.  At least I think I am.    This past Saturday night I created the System Recovery DVDs just in case a new HD would have to enter the equation.  WOULD those System Recovery DVDs be able to be used to prepare a new HD?  Or do System Recovery DVDs not work in that situation?

[mchain]

System Recovery CDs would be able to be used on a new HDD as long as the system COA matches both the CD set and the machine.  You may have to contact Microsoft in a case of the new installation not being certified as valid because of a hardware change (HDD) but that should not happen unless (3) hardware(s) were changed or a new but identical motherboard was installed.

You can also clone the entire original HDD (including the recovery partition) using Macrium Reflect (Free) software to a newer HDD.  The larger the HDD the longer the cloning will take.  A 500 GB drive will take most of the day.

[Chim]

Heyyy, coincidentally I had already been reading about Macrium Reflect the last couple of days.  It's that aside of my brother having given me that HP Pavilion, he also gave me this 500 Gig Seagate FreeAgent Go External Drive ... solid state I believe as it is about the size of a calculator.  Annnd he also gave me this WD MyBook External Drive.  That one I believe is mechanical as it is the size of a little book as its name says.  That one I believe is only around 200 or 250 Gig.

Nevertheless, with those 2 External Drive options at my disposal, I can now easily image the HD of not only that Pavilion, but also my Dell Optiplex 780 main computer.  I've now been getting myself familiarized with the instructions of how to perform the imaging process.  Then I'll have to wait until I can download Macrium Reflect with my sister's High Speed Internet.  I'll more likely then use the regular imaging option, not the clone option.  This way I save time and external HD space.

Thanks for the info, mchain.

[mchain]

No problem.