Grayish ATI® Mobility Radeon™ HD 4250 Chip on Laptop Motherboard

There is very little extra software on this system: Only Chrome & Spotify. And there's no malware. I ran Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper, Malwarebytes & Superantispyware on it.

In the resources monitor: The RAM is barely being touched. I have never seen it hit over 64%. The CPU, on the other hand jumps to 100% when opening Chrome, IE, Word, or really doing anything.

It's definitely not overheating anymore. Speedfan will pick up spikes in the temp of a couple degrees Celsius, but it goes away pretty quick. I used Arctic 5 heatsink compound on this machine. I'm not sure what else I could have done to take care of the heat issues.

It's definitely not a network issue. When I launch anything but the simplest programs, it takes several minutes to fully launch the program. For example, after double clicking the Spotify icon, it takes a good three minutes before I'm able to play a song.

The Windows 7 resource monitor shows the RAM, network, hard drive & CPU usage. The RAM is barely being used, rarely goes over 30%, almost never above 65%. The HDD appears to be functioning normally, usually at a low disk I/O, and when I launch a program, it jumps up, but not for a long time. The CPU, however, will jump to 100% and stay there when launching a program. That's what's leading me to think there might be a problem with the CPU. The apparent discoloration of the GPU is what's making me think there might be a problem with it as well.

I've run the diagnostic software that comes with Toshiba, which tests all the different components. Everything came out ok. Windows Disk Check showed no errors. Memtest 86+ showed no errors.

On the other hand, I ran DPC latency checker to see if any drivers were misbehaving. The wireless card was , but disabling it didn't fix the performance issues. (It did however stop the latency issues that were being picked up by DPC). I also tried running a USB Wireless stick, to see if the latency would persist with it. It did not.

Honestly, it's pretty confusing.

Here's the results from Dacris benchmarks:

Comparison Report
1. Configuration
Current
Modified 2012-01-26
Processor AMD Phenom II N640 Dual-Core Processor (2x) @ 2900 MHz
Memory 3.75 GB
Hard Drive TOSHIBA MK5055GSXN SATA Disk Device 470 GB
Video Card ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

2. Test Results
Overview
System Name CPU (MIPS) Memory (MB/s) Hard Drive (MB/s) 2D Video (MP/s) 3D Video (TTP/s)
Current 11519 9509 27.0 9.79 10.2

CPU
CPU speed is measured in MIPS: millions of instructions per second. Higher scores are better.

System Name Result (MIPS)
Current 11519

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (11519) for the CPU test.
The Current system has the lowest score (11519) for the CPU test.

Memory
Memory speed is measured in MB/s: megabytes per second. Higher scores are better.

System Name Result (MB/s)
Current 9509

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (9509) for the Memory test.
The Current system has the lowest score (9509) for the Memory test.

Hard Drive
Hard drive speed is measured in MB/s: megabytes per second. Higher scores are better.

System Name Result (MB/s)
Current 27.0

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (27.0) for the Hard Drive test.
The Current system has the lowest score (27.0) for the Hard Drive test.

2D Video
Video (2D) speed is measured in MP/s: millions of pixels per second. Higher scores are better.

System Name Result (MP/s)
Current 9.79

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (9.79) for the 2D Video test.
The Current system has the lowest score (9.79) for the 2D Video test.

3D Video
Video (3D) speed is measured in TTP/s: trillions of triangle-pixels per second. Higher scores are better.

System Name Result (TTP/s)
Current 10.2

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (10.2) for the 3D Video test.
The Current system has the lowest score (10.2) for the 3D Video test.

3. System Grade
A System Grade is a prediction of how a system would perform in a particular usage scenario.

The highest possible system grade is 10. Higher grades are better.

Overview
System Name Overall Software Development Gaming Web Hosting Database Hosting Multimedia Graphic Design
Current 7.74 7.55 5.89 6.91 7.48 7.20 7.73

Overall
Web browsing, watching videos, playing music, file sharing.

System Name System Grade
Current 7.74

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (7.74) for the Overall system grade.
The Current system has the lowest score (7.74) for the Overall system grade.

Software Development
Using Visual Studio to develop software.

System Name System Grade
Current 7.55

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (7.55) for the Software Development system grade.
The Current system has the lowest score (7.55) for the Software Development system grade.

Gaming
Playing the latest 3D games such as Crysis.

System Name System Grade
Current 5.89

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (5.89) for the Gaming system grade.
The Current system has the lowest score (5.89) for the Gaming system grade.

Web Hosting
Running IIS or Apache, hosting web applications.

System Name System Grade
Current 6.91

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (6.91) for the Web Hosting system grade.
The Current system has the lowest score (6.91) for the Web Hosting system grade.

Database Hosting
Running SQL Server, hosting a large SQL database.

System Name System Grade
Current 7.48

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (7.48) for the Database Hosting system grade.
The Current system has the lowest score (7.48) for the Database Hosting system grade.

Multimedia
Producing professional, studio-quality music or video.

System Name System Grade
Current 7.20

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (7.20) for the Multimedia system grade.
The Current system has the lowest score (7.20) for the Multimedia system grade.

Graphic Design
Creating complex artwork with Photoshop.

System Name System Grade
Current 7.73

Conclusions:

The Current system has the highest score (7.73) for the Graphic Design system grade.
The Current system has the lowest score (7.73) for the Graphic Design system grade.

4. Conclusions
Test Results
Benchmark Test Best System
CPU Current (11519 MIPS)
Memory Current (9509 MB/s)
Hard Drive Current (27.0 MB/s)
2D Video Current (9.79 MP/s)
3D Video Current (10.2 TTP/s)

System Grade
System Grade Best System
Overall Current (7.74)
Software Development Current (7.55)
Gaming Current (5.89)
Web Hosting Current (6.91)
Database Hosting Current (7.48)
Multimedia Current (7.20)
Graphic Design Current (7.73)

Here's the results of the Windows Experience Index:
Component Details Subscore Base score
Processor AMD Phenom(tm) II N640 Dual-Core Processor 6.4 4.2
Determined by lowest subscore

Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB 5.9
Graphics ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series 4.2
Gaming graphics 1917 MB Total available graphics memory 5.3
Primary hard disk 240GB Free (453GB Total) 5.8
Windows 7 Home Premium

System
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Manufacturer TOSHIBA
Model Satellite L675D
Total amount of system memory 4.00 GB RAM
System type 64-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 2

Storage
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Total size of hard disk(s) 453 GB
Disk partition (C 240 GB Free (453 GB Total)
Media drive (D CD/DVD

Graphics
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Display adapter type ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series
Total available graphics memory 1917 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 256 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 1661 MB
Display adapter driver version 8.712.2.1000
Primary monitor resolution 1600x900
DirectX version DirectX 10

Network
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Network Adapter Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller
Network Adapter Realtek RTL8188CE Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC

Notes
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The gaming graphics score is based on the primary graphics adapter. If this system has linked or multiple graphics adapters, some software applications may see additional performance benefits.

That's the results from a fresh run. The old results looked the same, though.



Also, here's the results from passmarks:
PassMark(TM) PerformanceTest 7.0 Evaluation Version (http://www.passmark.com)
Results generated on: Thursday, January 26, 2012


Benchmark Results

Test Name: This Computer
CPU - Integer Math: 286.5
CPU - Floating Point Math: 1450.1
CPU - Find Prime Numbers: 527.3
CPU - SSE: 7.4
CPU - Compression: 1982.6
CPU - Encryption: 8.9
CPU - Physics: 109.4
CPU - String Sorting: 1383.1
Graphics 2D - Solid Vectors: 0.7
Graphics 2D - Transparent Vectors: 0.7
Graphics 2D - Complex Vectors: 108.5
Graphics 2D - Fonts and Text: 119.0
Graphics 2D - Windows Interface: 78.4
Graphics 2D - Image Filters: 152.6
Graphics 2D - Image Rendering: 279.3
Graphics 3D - Simple: 115.6
Graphics 3D - Medium: 49.6
Graphics 3D - Complex: 16.2
Graphics 3D - DirectX 10: 1.1
Memory - Allocate Small Block: 2986.2
Memory - Read Cached: 1253.9
Memory - Read Uncached: 1128.1
Memory - Write: 1238.6
Memory - Large RAM: 1201.4
Disk - Sequential Read: 66.4
Disk - Sequential Write: 70.2
Disk - Random Seek + RW: 3.2
CD - Read: 2.0
CPU Mark: 1928.6
2D Graphics Mark: 211.5
Memory Mark: 698.3
Disk Mark: 505.7
CD Mark: 246.4
3D Graphics Mark: 120.1
PassMark Rating: 698.3

System information: This Computer
CPU Manufacturer: AuthenticAMD
Number of CPU: 1
Cores per CPU: 2
CPU Type: AMD Phenom II N640 Dual-Core
CPU Speed: 2893.4 MHz
Cache size: 1024KB
O/S: Windows 7 (64-bit)
Total RAM: 3835.7 MB.
Available RAM: 1991.6 MB.
Video settings: 1600x900x32
Video driver:
DESCRIPTION: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series
MANUFACTURER: ATI Technologies Inc.
BIOS: BK-ATI VER010.094.001.047.037124
DATE: 3-15-2010
Drive Letter: C
Total Disk Space: 453.4 GBytes
Cluster Size: 4.0 KBytes
File system: NTFS

I'm roughly equal to what Passmark has for my components.

Yeah. I'm backing up my system now. I'll be reinstalling the OS to see if that helps.