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HP Vectra XU

Guide to Optimizing
Performance

Summary of Contents for Vectra XU

Page 1: ...HP Vectra XU Guide to Optimizing Performance ...

Page 2: ...art of this document may be photocopied reproduced or translated to another language without the prior written consent of Hewlett Packard Company MGA and Millenium are trademarks of Matrox Graphics Inc Microsoft and MS DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Windows Windows 95 and Windows NT are products of Microsoft Corporation OS 2 is a trademark of International Busines...

Page 3: ...Guide to Optimizing Performance A guide to the performance benefits of your HP Vectra XU PC ...

Page 4: ...ckard offers a number of performance enhancing accessories Some of these are upgrades that allow you to increase the performance of your PC in one particular area Other accessories add to your PC s existing capabilities This guide describes the high performance features of your PC and how you can obtain maximum benefit from them This will help you to optimize the performance of your HP Vectra PC f...

Page 5: ...mory Capacity to Your Requirements 15 Benefits of 32 bit Applications 21 Installing Fast Peripherals on the PCI Bus 25 Increasing the Speed Limit With Ultra SCSI 27 Disk Striping 31 Making the Most of Your PC s IDE Channels 33 More Video Performance 37 Your PC s Audio Resources 43 HP PCI Integrated 10 100BT LAN Interface 44 HP PCI Integrated 10 100VG LAN Interface 45 Performance Topic Configuratio...

Page 6: ...iew 48 The Intel Pentium Pro Processor 50 Characteristics 50 Superpipeline Architecture 51 Integrated Cache Memory 53 Higher Clock Speeds 57 The Pentium Pro Local Bus 57 Main Memory 58 Data Integrity 60 Memory Upgrade Path 61 Technical Characteristics 63 ...

Page 7: ...1 Your PC s Performance Features This chapter describes the new features of your HP Vectra XU PC and how these features can bring optimized performance to your desktop application ...

Page 8: ...features so that you can better understand the performance benefits they offer Where a feature is configurable or can be upgraded detailed descriptions are given to help you understand the options available to you The following features of your PC are described in this chapter Intel Pentium Pro processor Dual processing capability Flexible memory configuration Advanced operating system support PCI...

Page 9: ...ftware to make the best use of your PC s features NOTE The advanced Pentium Pro processor installed in your PC provides the best performance when used with 32 bit operating systems and applications Performance Topics The following topics are covered in this chapter Improving the performance of your PC s processor Advantages of dual processor configurations Matching memory capacity to your requirem...

Page 10: ...lock defines the speed at which your processor performs its work Your PC s Pentium Pro processor uses a system board clock source of either 60 or 66 MHz All operations on the local bus such as data transfers with memory are synchronized to this clock Other devices in the PC also use this clock to generate their own clock signals for example the Peripheral Component Interconnect PCI bus controller ...

Page 11: ...ternal components in previous generations of PCs level two cache memory is an example of one of these functions This means that the Pentium Pro processor can perform a significant proportion of its work internally without needing to access other PC components through the local bus By using a faster clock for internal operations than for external local bus operations the Pentium Pro processor accel...

Page 12: ...clock source causes the processor to use a faster internal clock and so to operate more quickly The processor s clock multiplication factor is determined by switches on your PC s system board These switches set both the internal and external clock speeds for the processor and must be set correctly for the speed of processor installed in your PC Switch 4 Switch 6 Switch 7 ProcessorSpeed Internal Cl...

Page 13: ...ems Two Processors Can Be Better Than One The Pentium Pro processor in your PC is installed in a socket for easy upgrading Your PC s System board also provides another socket for installation of a second Pentium Pro processor Your HP Vectra XU PC is fully compliant with the Intel Multiprocessor Specification MPS for dual processing in PCs This standard defines how multiple processors work with a s...

Page 14: ...and applications When is a Second Processor Used To be able to make use of a second processor your PC must be running an MPS ready operating system such as Windows NT or SCO UNIX If your PC is not running an MPS ready operating system you will not be able to gain any benefit from installation of a second processor The table below shows which of the more commonly used PC operating systems are MPS r...

Page 15: ...ng system no individual function is independent All operating system work including any work performed by an application consists of a single inseparable thread of functions and so must be performed by the same processor A multithreaded operating system uses functions that are effectively independent This allows the operating system to break its work into separate threads of functions Since the th...

Page 16: ...ntage from multiple processors Windows NT is an example of a multiprocessor efficient operating system Multiprocessor efficient operating systems reduce the length of the individual functions contained within their different threads In an MPS compliant multiprocessing computer all processors share the same local bus and must load the functions they perform over this bus By reducing the length of t...

Page 17: ...application Both processors are able to share the operating system s work but all the work for the application must still be carried out by a single processor The performance of your PC may be faster than if you had only one processor installed but not by a significant factor Two or more single threaded applications simultaneously Each processor will perform the work for different applications The...

Page 18: ...tions installing a second Pentium Pro processor will significantly improve the performance of your PC If however you run just one single threaded application then installing a second processor will offer little or no performance advantage One single threaded application Multiple single threaded applications or one multithreaded application O S 1 and O S 2 are multithreaded operating system functio...

Page 19: ...To handle an interrupt your processor must first suspend its current activity This means that your PC s operation will be slowed temporarily while the interrupt is being handled With two Pentium Pro processors installed the responsibility of handling interrupts is shared between them When an interrupt request is received the two processors arbitrate between themselves to see which processor is per...

Page 20: ...his meant that accesses to this memory were performed over the local bus In dual processing configurations this memory was shared between the two processors The Pentium Pro integrates level two cache memory into the same package as the processor and is able to access this memory without using the local bus This feature leads to these additional performance advantages when the Pentium Pro processor...

Page 21: ...erformance of your PC Your HP Vectra PC has four banks for installing main memory Memory can be upgraded through installation of additional memory modules Memory modules must be installed in pairs and can be ordered from HP in the following capacities 32 MB two 16 MB modules 64 MB two 32 MB modules 128 MB two 64 MB modules The maximum memory capacity of your PC is 512 MB Refer to your PC s User s ...

Page 22: ...n the general requirement of the operating system running a typical application If you use memory hungry applications for instance a computer aided design program or frequently run multiple applications your PC will require more memory than indicated below There is no general formula for deciding how much memory you should install in your PC Your need for memory is determined by the operating syst...

Page 23: ...ve effect on performance is significant Windows NT If you are using Windows NT you can use the Performance Monitor utility to monitor your use of memory and other system resources Among other indications the Performance Monitor will report any use you are making of the Windows NT swap file The swap file is the virtual memory on your hard disk used by the processor when insufficient memory is avail...

Page 24: ...ations The amount of memory dedicated to the disk cache is determined by the operating system you are using Some operating systems such as Windows for Workgroups allocate a fixed disk cache which you can configure directly Others such as Windows NT and Windows 95 use a dynamic allocation mechanism that configures the disk cache according to the amount of memory available The memory used by the dis...

Page 25: ...g Memory Capacity to Your Requirements InstallingMoreMemory If your PC has less memory installed than your operating system and applications require then installing more memory will significantly improve your PC s performance Performance Memory Capacity ...

Page 26: ... to Your Requirements 20 English Does Installing More Memory Always Improve Performance Once you have sufficient memory any extra memory you install will have no effect on performance Indeed surplus memory will probably not be used Performance Memory Capacity ...

Page 27: ... of which controls some small part of the overall function of the application Each instruction is applied to source data from memory to produce new result data When executing an instruction the processor loads the source data and its associated memory address location into a temporary storage area called a register The new data produced and its corresponding address are also stored in registers 32...

Page 28: ...sor s performance enhancing features Using Pipelines to Accelerate Instruction Execution The processor executes instructions in a number of steps through a sequential process called a pipeline The Pentium Pro processor has three pipelines each of which may contain a queue of instructions With 32 bit instructions the processor will keep the pipeline s queue full as an instruction progresses down th...

Page 29: ...ions are 16 bits and so each instruction is executed singly without use of the pipeline s queuing facility In effect the pipeline is not used Since the pipeline is the processor s most important means of accelerating instruction execution the negative impact on performance is significant NOTE For the reasons explained above HP does not recommend using your PC to run 16 bit applications Best perfor...

Page 30: ...Windows 95 Windows NT or OS 2 may also be 16 bit Refer to the manual supplied with your application software for more details Which Applications are 32 bit All applications written specifically for Windows NT Windows 95 or OS 2 are 32 bit Some examples are listed below Windows NT Windows 95 applications MS Office for Windows 95 MS Access for Windows 95 Adobe Photoshop 3 0 OS 2 Applications Lotus N...

Page 31: ...PC These slots are of two different types The PCI Bus Your PC uses the Peripheral Component Interconnect PCI bus as the main channel for connecting peripheral devices Your PC also provides an Industry Standard Architecture ISA bus for backwards compatibility with any ISA accessory boards you may need to use The difference in performance between the PCI bus and the ISA bus is significant the PCI bu...

Page 32: ... accessory board in your PC HP recommends that the PCI bus is your first choice for expansion PCI Plug and Play The PCI standard supports Plug and Play which means easy configuration for installed peripherals If you install an extra PCI accessory board the board will be configured for use automatically Low Power Migration The PCI bus in your PC supports PCI accessory boards that use two different ...

Page 33: ...ll Computer System Interface SCSI standard offers the highest level of peripheral connectivity available to a PC The SCSI channel in your PC can connect up to seven mass storage devices both internal and external Up to five of these devices can be installed inside your PC The SCSI standard is highly flexible enabling devices of different types and capabilities to be connected on the same channel C...

Page 34: ... performance improvement over previous generation SCSI devices Investment Protection Use of the high speed Ultra SCSI transfer rates does not exclude the connection of slower SCSI devices on your PC s SCSI channel Mixing SCSI devices of different generations will not cause any conflicts in your PC s operation Three types of 8 bit SCSI devices are supported SCSI 1 devices These are first generation...

Page 35: ...omatically by your PC s SCSI BIOS You can confirm that new SCSI devices have been correctly configured with the SCSISelect Utility Refer to the User s Guide supplied with your PC for information on this Utility Flexibility The SCSI controller in your PC provides a number of new features to make your mass storage configuration more flexible Among these features is the ability to select any SCSI har...

Page 36: ...o 10 MB s transfer rate whenever an external SCSI device is connected You can change the default setting so that Ultra SCSI is always enabled even when an external SCSI device is connected To do this go to the Integrated SCSI Interface section of the setup program and change the Ultra SCSI field to Enabled Use this setting with caution and only when you are familiar with the Ultra SCSI restriction...

Page 37: ...gether so that they seem to the user as a single logical disk Data is stored across these multiple disk drives in stripes of equal size the first stripe is stored on the first drive in the group the second stripe on the second drive and so forth The advantage of disk striping is that it significantly reduces the impact of your disk drives main performance limitation which is the interface between ...

Page 38: ...ng group Before transferring more data to the first drive the controller will transfer data to each of the other drives in the striping group Because successive data transfers are to different drives the time between data transfers to any individual drive is increased and so the delaying effect of the buffer to disk transfer is removed Can You Use Disk Striping Disk striping is only available with...

Page 39: ...cting IDE mass storage devices Each channel can be used for connecting up to two IDE devices Both IDE channels support the highest data transfer rates currently available and offer optimized performance with any combination of IDE devices PIO and DMA Modes The PCI IDE controller uses two different techniques to transfer data with IDE devices Programmed Input Output PIO modes and Direct Memory Acce...

Page 40: ...es When transferring data with an IDE device the integrated IDE controller will select the highest numbered mode supported by the IDE device Data transfer rates for all of these modes are given in the table below PCI Master Capability The integrated IDE controller transfers data with your PC s processor and memory through the PCI bus PCI devices fall into two categories slaves and masters A PCI sl...

Page 41: ...ers can begin and interrupt their PCI data transfers according to the demands of other PCI data traffic As a PCI master your PC s IDE controller works with other PCI devices to give maximum PCI bandwidth As a PCI master the IDE controller can transfer data to and from memory without intervention from your PC s processor This means that the processor is free to continue with other work You can conf...

Page 42: ...s IDE controller supports split mode timing on both IDE channels This means that it is able to transfer data at different rates with different devices on the same IDE channel Split mode timing enables you to gain all the performance advantage from the latest generation IDE devices without compromising your ability to connect slower devices Lower data transfer rates are used for slower IDE devices ...

Page 43: ...s Integrated hardware graphic acceleration is used at all supported resolutions and color depths while integrated color space conversion enables accelerated video playback Your Video Controller Your Millennium Video Adapter consists of three main components A graphics controller which decodes data received from your PC s processor and converts it into pixel data for your display Video memory frame...

Page 44: ...le colors each pixel needs eight bits to define its color eight bits gives 256 possible combinations while in true color modes each pixel can require up to four bytes 32 bits The screen resolution determines how many pixels make up a screen for the display The number of pixels required is typically very large Even a standard VGA screen at 640 480 resolution consists of over 300 000 pixels Conseque...

Page 45: ...ntroller will locate the pixel data representing the area to be copied in the video memory and duplicate it in another part of the video memory To speed up the manipulation of pixel data the graphics controller on your Millennium Video Adapter provides a number of graphic acceleration features These features allow the graphics controller to map areas of video memory to other areas of video memory ...

Page 46: ...isting data to the display This makes WRAM up to 50 faster than previous types of video memory Increasing Video Memory The Millennium Video Adaptor is supplied with 2 MB of WRAM video memory This can be increased to 4 MB or 8 MB by fitting an additional 2 MB WRAM or 6 MB WRAM memory module The 2 MB WRAM module can be ordered from HP Contact your dealer for information about the 6 MB WRAM module Th...

Page 47: ...nsmission of video data A video MPEG module is available for your Millennium Video Adapter that will enable you to decode MPEG 1 data for output to your display By using this feature you will be able to playback full screen full motion video on your PC s display The video MPEG module cannot be ordered from HP Contact your dealer for more information about this accessory Resolution Video memory req...

Page 48: ...resh rate supported by the MGA Video Adaptor is nearly twice the rate used by typical Ultra VGA controllers making it one of the most ergonomic video controllers currently available The video refresh rate used will be determined by the video resolution selected and the capabilities of your display The following table shows the maximum video refresh rates that can be used Refer to your PC s User s ...

Page 49: ...o resources offer you 16 bit CD quality stereo recording and playback Record and playback capability at frequencies between 5 KHz and 44 1 KHz MIDI and MPC2 compatibility Software controlled stereo mixer capable of selecting multiple recording sources providing variable input and output gain levels on each channel Built in stereo amplification FM synthesizer with 20 polyphonic voices FM Synthesis ...

Page 50: ...stem s integrated 10 100BT LAN interface is obtained when using the 100 Mbit s transmission rate This transmission rate is over 10 times the transmission rates used by standard 10BaseT networks Your Network Adapter Your PCI integrated 10 100BT LAN interface requires no hardware configuration Drivers are supplied with your system that will enable you to use the network adapter with any type of netw...

Page 51: ... called Demand Priority Access to avoid network collisions Under this protocol data packets transmitted over the network are directed only to their destination port The data is not visible to other ports on the network By using Demand Priority Access you will be able to prioritize the data traffic on your network and avoid collisions between different data packets Demand Priority Access allows you...

Page 52: ...ls refer to the performance topic Performance Topic Adjusting Your PC s Setup Parameters Installing Accessories Changing Software Configuration Parameters Improving the performance of your PC s processor page 4 Advantages of dual processor configurations page 7 Matching memory capacity to your requirements page 15 Benefits of 32 bit applications page 21 Installing fast peripherals on the PCI bus p...

Page 53: ...l Reference This chapter describes the hardware architecture of your HP Vectra PC and explains how the latest advances in component technology have been harnessed to bring extra power to your desktop application ...

Page 54: ...onnected to this bus as are your video adapter and LAN interface board The PCI bus operates at either 30 or 33 MHz depending on your processor and is 32 bits wide The ISA bus which connects slower I O peripherals such as your keyboard mouse controller flexible disk controller and BIOS ROM The ISA bus operates at 7 5 or 8 3 MHz depending on your processor and provides backwards compatibility with p...

Page 55: ...ler Main Memory Local to PCI Bridge Integrated SCSI Controller Integrated IDE Controller Millennium Video Adapter PCI to ISA Bridge Keyboard Mouse Controller Flexible Disk Controller Parallel Serial Port Controller BIOS ROM Audio PCI Slots 3 or 4 ISA Slots 2 or 3 Processor s Local Bus PCI Bus ISA Bus 10 100 LAN Interface ...

Page 56: ...ou can improve your PC s processing performance by installing a second processor Characteristics The Pentium Pro processor uses a 64 bit external data path and a 36 bit address bus It integrates two 8 KB level one cache memories one for instructions one for data and a 256 KB level two cache Internally it uses three pipelines and five execution units for instruction execution The table below summar...

Page 57: ...ocessor takes the pipeline approach one stage further by breaking the x86 instructions down into simpler operations called micro ops These micro ops are then executed through the Pentium Pro s pipelines The micro ops are much simpler to handle than x86 instructions and allow the Pentium Pro processor more flexibility in the way it executes them The Pentium Pro can reorder the micro ops within its ...

Page 58: ... instruction is stored in registers while the new instruction is executed ensuring that no conflicts arise This facility is called out of order execution and ensures that the Pentium Pro s three pipelines are used to their greatest effect Speculative Execution All programs contain branches These are produced by conditional instructions which can change the thread of instruction execution Depending...

Page 59: ... cache at significantly reduced access time Cache memory has a much smaller capacity than main memory and stores not only data but also the memory addresses that correspond to the data When the processor reads or writes data in memory the address for that data is compared with the addresses stored in the cache If a match is found the cache registers a cache hit and the data will be read or written...

Page 60: ...ny data or instructions stored in level one cache memories will also be stored in the level two cache memory Level One Caches The Pentium Pro s two 8 KB level one caches are similar to the level one caches integrated in the Pentium processor Both level one caches use a two way set associative organization meaning that they consist of two separate logical banks of equal size 4 KB each Level Two Cac...

Page 61: ...different parts of your PC With duplicate copies of the same data a mechanism must be used to ensure coherency between the copies This is particularly true for dual processor configurations where duplications can exist not only between a processor cache and memory but also between the caches in the two processors The Pentium Pro s level two data cache is a copy back cache meaning that if the proce...

Page 62: ...valid and copies are stored in the caches of different processors Invalid the data is not valid Data is stored in cache memories as cache lines of 32 bytes Associated with each cache line are two status bits which define the MESI state of the cache line Bus Snooping The Pentium Pro processor monitors accesses to memory by other PC devices including a second processor if installed through bus snoop...

Page 63: ...generation processors in the x86 family used a simple protocol for memory accesses on the local bus once a bus cycle had been initiated it had to be completed before another access could be begun As memory accesses require a number of clock cycles to complete this meant that the local bus would be stalled until the access was complete Transactional Bus The Pentium Pro supports a transactional loca...

Page 64: ...4 MB DIMM modules NOTE The DIMM modules used by your HP Vectra XU PC use a 5 volt power source DIMM modules that use a 3 3 volt power source are not supported and must not be installed 128 bit Memory Each DIMM module stores 64 bits of data plus 8 bits of Error Correcting Code ECC code Access to the memory modules is controlled by a memory controller on the processor s local bus This controller man...

Page 65: ...a rectangular array so that each data item corresponds to an address location which is formed of two parts These two parts must be sent to the DRAM in separate clock cycles which means that the data cannot be read from or written to the DRAM in the same clock cycle as the memory controller begins to access it With interleaved accesses the memory controller begins to access the both modules in the ...

Page 66: ...rror because the precise bit is not identified Furthermore if two bits of data are changed within the same byte of data no error would be detected ECC Code Your PC uses a different system to guarantee the integrity of your memory data This system called Error Correcting Code ECC enables the memory controller to detect and automatically correct any single bit data error that occurs ECC Code is gene...

Page 67: ... capacities available are indicated in the following tables duplicate configurations are ignored Base memory configuration bank 1 Memory added to bank 2 Memory added to bank 3 Memory added to bank 4 Total Memory Capacity 32 MB 32 MB 32 MB 64 MB 32 MB 96 MB 32 MB 128 MB 64 MB 160 MB 128 MB 224 MB 64 MB 128 MB 64 MB 192 MB 128 MB 256 MB 128 MB 192 MB 128 MB 320 MB 64 MB 96 MB 64 MB 160 MB 64 MB 224 ...

Page 68: ...the capacity of other memory banks 64 MB 64 MB 64 MB 128 MB 64 MB 192 MB 64 MB 256 MB 128 MB 320 MB 128 MB 256 MB 128 MB 384 MB 128 MB 160 MB 128 MB 288 MB 128 MB 448 MB 128 MB 128 MB 128 MB 256 MB 128 MB 384 MB 128 MB 512 MB Base memory configuration bank 1 Memory added to bank 2 Memory added to bank 3 Memory added to bank 4 Total Memory Capacity ...

Page 69: ...ion two way set associative Level two cache memory 256 KB unified data and instruction four way set associative Local Bus Transactional 60 MHz or 66 MHz clock Dual processor support MPS compliant MESI cache coherency and bus snooping Embedded Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller APIC Memory Type 64 bit DIMMs Double Interline Memory Modules 5 V only Data integrity Error Correcting Code 8 bit ...

Page 70: ...nding on processor clock speed Bandwidth Up to 8 MB s Accessory board slots Three full length 16 bit slots one slot is combination ISA PCI Connected devices Integrated keyboard mouse controller Integrated flexible disk drive controller Integrated parallel serial port controller Integrated audio subsystem BIOS ROM SCSI Channel Description Single 8 bit with internal and external connections Connecti...

Page 71: ...on Integrated SoundBlaster 16 compliant Stereo sampling 16 bit and 8 bit at frequencies from 5 KHz to 44 1 KHz Music Synthesizer FM OPL3 synthesis using four operators on 20 polyphonic voices Mixer Multiple source recording Left right channel swapping or mixing 8 level volume control 4 level for PC speaker Inputs FM music synthesizer microphone line in CD audio and PC speaker Stereo amplifier outp...

Page 72: ...adapter installed on PCI bus Protocol 100BASE TX Fast Ethernet standard Data transfer rates 10 Mbit s IEEE 802 3 100 Mbit s IEEE 802 3u HP 10 100VG LAN Interface Description 10Base T 100VG AnyLAN interface installed on PCI bus Protocol Demand Priority Access Data transfer rates 10 Mbit s IEEE 802 3 100 Mbit s IEEE 802 12 ...

Page 73: ...Fh 800 KB to 896 KB Available for accessory board BIOS E0000h EFFFFh 896 KB to 960 KB Available Used by PC operating systems for device drivers F0000h FFFFFh 960 KB to 1024 KB BIOS Area 100000h F00000h 1024 KB to top of memory Extended Memory Used by software applications DMA Channels DMA 0 DMA 1 DMA 2 DMA 3 DMA 4 DMA 5 DMA 6 DMA 7 Available Available if not used by parallel port or audio subsyste...

Page 74: ...er Integrated IDE controller primary channel Integrated flexible disk controller Serial port 1 Interrupt Request Levels IRQs IRQ 0 IRQ 1 IRQ 2 IRQ 3 IRQ 4 IRQ 5 IRQ 6 IRQ 7 IRQ 8 IRQ 9 IRQ 10 IRQ 11 IRQ 12 IRQ 13 IRQ 14 IRQ 15 System timer Keyboard controller Used to cascade IRQs 8 15 Available if not used by serial port Available if not used by serial port Available if not used by parallel port o...

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