OS Completely Bogged Down

[Guest]

I recently put together a new box and I've just not been able to get any of the expected performance out of it. Hardware: Abit KG7-Raid
AMD 1.33
512 PC2100
2 Maxtor 40 7200rpm in Raid 0 array
Visiontek G3
Soundblaster Live
D-Link Network Adapter
I did a clean install of ME when I built the system, I went to the manufacturers' web sites and got the latest drivers and installed them, and the system just didn't seem to have the performance that I expected. I went through and reinstalled the drivers(several times actually) and today I installed the latest NVIDIA 12.81 drivers that just came out. Still no performance. In trying to diagnose my problem I ran across something that I have no idea how to deal with. I end all tasks running in the background except for systray and explorer, I start up the System Monitor tool and turn on Kernel Usage and watch it. After It settles down, it stays steady at 82%. I turn on Kernel Threads and it stays at a steady 50. I go back to the Close Dialog to make sure again what tasks are running and it's systray, explorer, System Monitor, and winmgmt. I think winmgmnt is required for System Monitor to function. I am writing this post on another box and I'm looking at the System Monitor of my trouble machine. I haven't moved the mouse in several minutes and I have a solid usage of 82% with 50 threads. No wonder I have no performance. Anybody got any ideas? Thanks for your help.

 

[Guest]

Holly macaroni! 82% at "idle" that ain't right. Sysmon does not require the winmgmt that you have running so I'd get rid of that to start with. Have you run a virus scanner lately? Also you might want to get wintop to see which process is eating that 82%. You can find it on Microsofts website, but it would be easier to look on download.com

I can tell you that I usually have between 5 -10 programs running at any given time and I rarely see 82% usage with anything but gaming let alone just sitting there, and I'm only using a P3450.

The number of threads really doesn't mean a whole lot for system performance so I wouldn't worry about there being 50, I think the kernel itself has about 25-30 so there is a large chunk of that.

If getting rid of winmgmt doesn't help you'll need to get wintop to see which program is hogging the cpu, in fact, I'd recommend doing that first. I'd like to know what was eating up that much cpu time at idle.

Hope this helps
Brent

To deny who I was is to deny who I am.

 

[Guest]

OK, I just installed wintop and shut the system down, restarted, started wintop, closed all tasks except for systray, explorer, and wintop and let it settle down. I am showing 100% cpu usage on the idle program, the cpu time is counting like a clock, there are 10 threads on this process, the path is "idle" instead of an actual path I could use to further troubleshoot. This is one sick puppy. I failed to mention in my earlier post that I've re-installed windows from a new format, I've ran Norton with an up to date definition, showing no problems.

 

[Guest]

100% idle is good! If you can believe that. It means that your computer is just sitting there waiting to be used. The reason why there is a "program" called idle is that multitasking OS's like windows and linux run schedulers that decide which program is going to get cpu time, if there are no programs waiting for cpu time then the scheduler either has to handle a special case, or the kernel can make it easy and create a dummy process that does nothing but wait which is what idle process is in windows do. Why it has 10 threads, I couldn't tell you, mine shows seven so it is system dependent.
You ought to be able to play games now with no slowdowns now. I am curious though, have you run wintop with the winmgrt(or whatever that was called) program? I would like to know if that was the cpu hog, but it is purely academic.
The reason why I asked about the virus scan is that some viruses can sit in memory and take up cpu time while doing nothing(like idle), or worse womp stuff on your machine. I am glad that I was able to help with this. Game On!
If you have any more questions please ask, but give me some time to answer as I'll be out of town this weekend.

Brent


To deny who I was is to deny who I am.

 

[Guest]

After many trials and tribulations I decided to do away with the RAID 0 for C: and configure the HDs as a standard C: and D:. This completely fixed the problem. Either I got a lemon Highpoint controller, or the Highpoint is not ready for prime time. My elation at finally getting this board running is stronger than my disapointment at not getting the extra performance promised by RAID 0. In the future, I will wait for a board to be out on the market longer before I buy it, I snapped this one up as soon as I could get it through Pricewatch, and even changed vendors once to get it a couple of days earlier. Thanks to all who gave their advice.