Memory and processing power in the 721

[Hopper27]

Ok, I can see only one answer here...

The 721 is an amazing box, I'm very happy with it...

BUT

They simply skimped on the memory and processing power of this box. There are times when it just skips a bit, lags a bit, pauses for a split second, etc.

The menus usually come up instant fast, but sometimes they are much slower. Usually while the box is doing something.

It was a lot faster when it was new.

It would be nice to see them put in a clean up option, a way to defrag and optimise the box. Let it sit for a few hours and clean itself up.

In addition, I still feel this box needs two hard drives. The disk thrashing that goes on while two timers are recording and something else is playing is intense.

Thoughts?

Jason

[Ken_F]

Hopper,

The 721 uses the same basic PVR hardware and display processing as the Tivo Series2 and DirecTivo (Series2-based). Any differences between the 721 and Tivo in responsiveness should be attributable to the OS and software.

Pauses may or may not have anything to do with the hard drive used in the box, or the way in which the software maintains and stores the data on the disk; I don't know.

[EvanS]

I thought the latest word is that the skipping, pausing and lagging would be corrected in the next sowtware release.

[Jacob S]

I also thought these problems with the PVR functionality was fixed in the last software update, or perhaps thats whats coming in the new 1.10 software.

[Hopper27]

Ok, good to know they are working on that...

In any case, I think it is just slower when the drive is nearly full and fragmented. When I first got it, the PVR menu was instant fast. Now it can take 2 full seconds to pull up. Then again, the drive has 50 things recorded on it and two dozen timers. :)

That is my point, it should have enough CPU power to handle all that. Me thinks they skimped.

I'm interested in knowing how much power it does have, anyone know the CPU type and speed, as well as how much RAM is in there?

Jason

[mgavin]

300 Mhz Nation Semi Geode processor (pentium clone)
32 megs of ram

I think the 300 Mhz is enough, but I think they should have installed 64 megs of ram - would have kept things from always swapping out. That appears to be where the delay comes from, processes get swapped out because there isn't enough ram.

[Hopper27]

Wow!!!

That isn't much! :(

I guess they need to save as much money as possible, but that is just getting cheap. 256MB of memory costs, what, $25 these days? For a $500 box, there is no excuse to put just 32MB of RAM in there.

As for the CPU, maybe that is enough, but I can't see it costing much more to make it a 600 MHz CPU. Heck, you can buy 1Ghz CPUs for $25.

Jason

[mgavin]

Well thats current day pricing, in the engineering realm you have to select based on whats avaliable at the time the hardware is designed. Of course you could allow for upgrades - but that again would increase the cost.(CPU sockets and other goodies all add up eventually) Being that the hardware for the 721 was built back in 2001 they went with that was affordable at the time I guess. The advantage to using the Geode processor is that its cheap and doesn't require a fan. All of that said they still coulda blown the budget and stuck 64 megs of ram in...

[Ken Seeber]

I don't suppose it's possible to crack the 721 open and upgrade the RAM, is it?

[Bob Haller]

My concern is the reebot time, 4 minutes is way too long. They should look to improve this. ME? I p[ut it on a UPS.

[Bill D]

I agree it was faster when I first got it, it's still lighting fast when compared to my 4900..

[Kagato]

You can upgrade the memory in the 721 about as easility and upgrading the memory on the Tivo. That is to say you need to have skills with a soldering iron, surface mount technology, and be willing to bet you won't fry a $500 STB.

People actually have upgraded their STB Tivo's in this fashion. And the Tivo gets a lot faster because of it as well.

[mgavin]

kagato,

Have you performed the memory upgrade? I'd really like to know what memory chips would work in place of the stock ones.