Is AMD incompatible with Windows Explorer?

The question: Are AMD computers incompatible with Windows Explorer?

The reason for the question: Last year I bought a Compaq Presario with an AMD TL or TK-5x (don't remember) and it had serious issues accessing folders in Vista. Any folder with more than a few files in it would nearly freeze and the green progress bar would often get almost to the end but not quite. If you clicked on the screen, Vista would white it out and stick (Not Responding) in the window name.

So I thought it was a defective PC. Brought it back to the store, exchanged it for a Toshiba Satellite A305 (I think that was the model number) with a slightly faster AMD Turion chip of the same series as the Compaq. This one was even worse. It kept crashing roughly 30% of the time whenever I was just browsing through Windows Explorer.

So I brought it back and exchanged it for an Intel-based Fujitsu which was snappy, fast and responsive. Sadly, the Fujitsu recently suffered through a travel-related accident, and I had to replace it, so I got another AMD-based Toshiba (Turion RM-70).

This one's as lame as the previous two despite being newer and running twice the RAM (4GB). While it hasn't so far crashed or frozen permanently while browsing folders, access times when browsing through Windows Explorer are significantly longer than when working through an Intel-based system. On the Intel-based Fujitsu for example, I would right-click and create a folder in a couple of seconds. On the AMD-based Toshiba and Compaq (all three), right-clicking produces a visible lag, then the folder takes 1-3 seconds to get created. If renaming folders, there's a delay before the new folder name appears.
Copying files is the same. Copying one file into a different folder was fast and painless on the Fujitsu, but all three of the AMD PCs choke (anywhere from 3 to 20 seconds to copy a file from a root folder to a subfolder).

Then there was the SyncToy 2.0 crapout. I hooked up two external hard drives to the (newer) Toshiba, and ran SyncToy. After three hours, the progress bar was at roughly 5% of the total when generating a preview. I unplugged everything and ran the same SyncToy sync through a friend's Acer PC (it's an Intel T4200), and that one completed the whole sync in under half an hour!

I don't know if they're related, but the way I see this, Synctoy and Windows Explorer both have to access files and folders on the hard drive. And in both instances, the AMD PC has serious issues.

Do I somehow end up buying a defective PC everytime, or is this something more deeply rooted in AMD?

 

No, but what type of files do you have in the folders. Both my Intel and AMD notebooks by and large have similar explorer loading times and I only notice slow downs especially when accessing folders with large number of pictures or .exe's. This is true of both systems. So, I dont think it has do with any incompatibilities but rather the types/size of files and whether the OS is able to generate previews. If it gets stuck on one type of file then generating those previews stops and hence you see the green loading bar.

 

You've just had bad luck... it's definitely not related to the brand of CPU you have.

 

I think you're a very unlucky man.

AMD processor are definetly compatible with explorer. On my computer with AMD processor, the computer hasn't crashed once and creating/renaming folder is instant without any slight lag.

 

i bet it has to something to do with type and/or size of files you are accessing.

 

I wonder if the bloatware that toshiba and hp put on their computers is not partly related to what you experienced....

 

OK, I'm going to ask the obvious question: have you removed the possibility of this being related to the hard drive?
If we're talking about loading times in Windows Explorer, that would have been the first thing I looked into.

 

This would be the first possible cause that I would look at. I've worked with a lot of notebooks in the past. I've always been impressed by how much crap HP can install for us on their computers. Don't have enough experience with Toshiba to know for sure, but it is standard practice to load up as much bloatware as possible for the new consumer to 'enjoy.'

This would be the 2nd thing to look into. Try downloading and running HD Tune and check to see if the drive is okay.

 

AMD is not the problem. There is probably a lot of bloatware on the HP.