CPU Benchtests with the best Firefox experience
My Windows XP computer with AMD Athlon 2 core chip and 1 meg of Ram was previously able to open 250 tabs while running Word and Xcel without a problem. Now I have trouble opening 7 tabs and Firefox alone, and encountering lockout, and that's after installing 3 additional megs of Ram. Yesterday I spoke with a fairly knowledgeable computer expert who told me how the internet language has changed, causing older chips to bog down regardless of how quickly it may process other programs.
The moment I hit 900,000 to 1,2Million in memory usage, I come to a screetching halt, even after attempting to eliminate all other programs, including some internal processing programs. What a pain, I can tell you.
What do you guys think about a new Firefox team testing and generating a hit list of the minimum best CPU's and configurations that provide the best user experience even with a variety of other running programs like Word, Xcel, adobe acrobat, anti-virus, graphics, music players, communication streams like Skype, and a printer que like Brother's.
Minimally, perhaps you can eliminate the millions in purchases of used computers that will undoubtedly provide the worst possible Firefox experience as I am now wishing I had a window to throw mine out of. Perhaps you can get together with the people at Passmark and come up with a benchtest software program to evaluate these configurations. Can you imagine how many troubleshooting questions you could avoid and the manpower that could be diverted to this quest? Good Luck massaging this concept with your fellow team members.
All Replies (5)
What version of FF are you using? And todays computing power having at least 16GB RAM is minimum for power user. And what version of O/S are you using? And is it 32bit or 64bit because this matters in terms of memory usage and stack overflow also the more RAM on a x64 system the better it runs. Also if you did a clean FF install I doubt you have this problem. And if it was a upgrade what you should've first done was backup your bookmarks if you had any and then uninstall all FF and delete the Mozilla folder and then install the latest FF x64 then run it and import the bookmark. I know from experience doing this way insure no problem from any previous FF will affect the newer FF. But if you didn't do this last part that could also be the reason for HIGH RAM usage causing system instability.
I will try your upgrade strategy, however, my question about whether the difference in internet language impacts the effectiveness of older systems to process FF still needs an answer, and then I'd still like to know whether the FF team will consider benchtesting various computer configurations in determining the best FF experience or at least which shouldn't be used to avoid having the worst of experiences. Please see my question for more specifics.
Hi, I am sure various systems have been used to test before release all Firefox versions. It can not account for Motherboards that have never had their BIOS updated nor for Motherboard Drivers that have never been updated from the makers site before support is removed (4yrs maybe). Impossible to test everything for every circumstance.
So you say the issue is with a XP system as you are on a Win10 system when posted. You must have missed Westend's question of what version of Firefox you are running. This needs to be answered please.
You should be running 52.6.0 ESR on XP https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/
It is a must on older systems with low amount of ram and processor to reduce or stop all needed programs from loading at boot. It is also a must to keep it optimized. https://www.wikihow.com/Dramatically-Speed-up-Windows-XP
So could you please redefine your question in your reply as to a list of needed support problems you need help with. We can then go over the list and help you.
Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.
Hello again, and thank you for responding. I have a 64 bit , AMD Athlon, 2 core processor with 2.0 megs of bus speed and 4 gigs of ram, running on a Dell c521 desktop. The reason I made my inquiry from a different computer with Windows 10 is,I'm using a friends computer since mine conked out on me yesterday. And if I'm going to invest into another new or used computer or fix the one I have, I want to be sure I don't make the same mistake and purchase something or keep something that fatally produces the same horrific bottleneck. I was running FF 52.6.0 ESR, and had the same problems as running on version 26. I have been using FF since the very first version, so I've seen and worked through a few problems in the past, with nothing helping to increase the number of open tabs. I'll definitely remove the older folder as suggested by your colleague. Thanks again. Carl
Ok well not sure why issue with Firefox unless there was something corrupted and you had a memory leak which caused the high usage.
Can do this for any and all Windows versions is to increase the System Cache. https://slowpctexpert.blogspot.ca/2011/03/speed-up-windows-xp-how-to-change-cache.html
From where the pic shows hit Advanced and will see 2 columns and the numbers are greyed out. Click to set yourself custom and enter the recommended size that is shown below that or above that into both columns and save and reboot.
Suggest since is old use something that will bring in drivers for the motherboard like DriverMax and or https://www.iobit.com/en/driver-booster.php with out installing any of the other software it will try to make you accept. All the new drivers may help, can always format again if they do not so make it the 1st job to do.
G'luck on the fix.
Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.