New Core I7 sluggish performance

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merc476

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Hey all,

I hope i'm posting in the right place. Sorry for the long post. First i'd like to say that i'm not a big techy guy. However, I did purchase all the parts for my pc based on recommendations from people who have built pc's for pro audio which is what I use my pc for. I already had Windows Vista biz 32bit so I installed that and on another partition, I installed Windows Vista Ultimate 64 but I don't use that partition yet because most of the programs I use dont support it yet. I had a local computer shop build it for me. My issue is that for some reason my new system doesn't quit move as fast/smooth as I expected. My previous system was a 4 yr old dual core system with 3 gigs of ram on xp pro and it seems like folders opened faster, the system loaded up faster, and also, on my new system, if I grab a window and move it around the screen there's like a little stutter. Nothing crazy slow but not smooth at all. I don't know if this is anything that will help you guys figure this issue out but when I went to pick up my new system from the shop, it was only seeing less than 4 gigs of ram. I can't remember the exact amount but they told me it's because windows vista 32 only reads that amount. I get home and connect it to the internet and intel says that it needs to run an update for system compatibility or something like that. I did the update and all of a sudden, my pc was recognizing 4 gigs of ram. Well, after i noticed it it was still acting sluggish with the studdering I thought it may be my vid card. I contacted PNY/Nvidia, and they had me download the latest drivers. still no upgrade in performance. I contacted Gigabyte and they had me download the latest bios and all of a sudden, my vista 32 was recognizing all 9 gigs of ram that my system has. However, still no update in performance. Below are the specs to my system. I'm pretty much cutting and pasting my order from newegg. Only difference is I ended up returning one of the packs of 3 gig ram and bought a pack of 6 gigs leaving a total of 9gigs. Please let me know if there is anything you can think of that may help. Thanks!

*
o 1 x COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000 RC-1000-KSN1-GP Black/ Silver Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
o 1 x GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
o 1 x PNY VCG94512GXEB GeForce 9400 GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card - Retail
o 1 x COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro RS-650-ACAA-A1 650W ATX Form Factor 12V V2.3 / SSI Standard EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Retail
o 1 x Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail
o 2 x CORSAIR XMS3 3GB (3 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X3G1600C9 - Retail
o 3 x Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
o 1 x LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH22NS30 - OEM
o 1 x Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit for System Builders - OEM


 
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Your issue with only seeing 3 gigs of RAM is due to the 32 bit version of Vista you're running. 32 bit OS's are only capable of recognizing and addressing 3 gigs of RAM. They tried to fix this in Service Pack 1, but the only thing that changed is the fact that vista now recognizes 4 gigs, though because of afore mentioned limitations can still only address 3 GB. Your 64 bit version of Vista will be able to recognize and address all 4 GB and in fact (although no one has this much RAM) can recognize up to i think 128 GB of RAM.
 
Jack64

Jack64

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This may seem silly, but try taking your 3-2gig sticks of ram out and putting your 3 1 gig sticks in the slots that are for triple channel ddr3 and see if that lines it out for the 32 bit OS your running. A friend of mine built a system a couple of weeks ago and bought 6 gigs of ram (didn't ask me) in 1 gig sticks (LOL) anyway loaded them all up in his asus p6t and fired windows install and got it installed. after the install he called me for advice (after the fact) it wasn't running as fast as he thought it should. I took out 3 gigs of his ram and made sure the others were in the ddr3 triple channel slots and fired it up, it sped it up ALOT!!! but that was his, yours maybe different!
 
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Outlander_04

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What I said was that when you click on even simple programs in Vista you often wind up waiting for 4 or 5 seconds for the program to appear . In XP the same program would appear near instantly .


But since you raise the issue of which is faster heres a link to a set of results for application benchmarking suite used by an Australian Computer magazine to rate computers . They ran various combination's of OS and RAM
http://backoffice.ajb.com.au/images/features/RAM-benchmarks-Dec-08.jpg

Vista 64 with 4 gig of RAM couldnt complete the benchmark as fast as XP 32 with only 512Mb.
These are not gaming benchmarks . Theyre photoshop , powerpoint, video encoding etc .

We all know that vista cant match XP fps in games .

Vista 64 is not faster than XP except in the imaginations of Microsofts marketing executives , and the simple little people they have managed to persuade theyre right .

Vista is a dog .
A resource hungry , flea ridden dog .






 
grieve

grieve

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I’m not contesting that XP is faster than Vista.

That graph you linked to is rubbish …. “total benchmark execution” which means what? There are numbers for each OS, it doesn’t say Vista 32 or 64 or XP 32 or 64…

I would think to fully optimize Vista 64 you would want more then 4GB or ram, 6 or 8 or 9 depending dual or triple channel memory. Everyone knows to justify the 64bit OS you would want more than 4 GB of memory.

Look at the memory comparisons…. Ok single channel is slower then dual channel and CL6 is faster than CL9. We don’t need a chart to tell us this.

I might add, it is not hard to find many graphs/charts showing Vistas inferior speed to XP… But Vista is not this user’s issue; unfortunately I don’t know what is.



That chart sucks SOOO bad. I will create one..... LOL

cl4 memory - - - - - - - - - - - - -
cl9 memory - - - - - -


 
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Outlander_04

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Heres a link to the article .

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Feature/128551,does-faster-ram-really-make-a-difference.aspx

Details of the benchmark are given . The remainder of the hardware stayed the same .

Argue with them
"Our results show Vista is distinctly slower than XP. With its plethora of extra bells and whistles, the newer OS makes heavier demands on the system than its predecessor, particularly the RAM. On a 512MB system, our benchmark tasks were bogged down by constant paging, and even a 4GB system couldn’t keep up with XP on an eighth as much RAM. "


And the OP describes exactly this problem . Things are sluggish . Programs dont open quickly .
 
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merc476

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Thanks to everyone for all the information. I may not have explained my specs right. Currently I have all 6 slots of ram full (3 sticks of 2 gig ram and 3 sticks of 1 gig ram) total of 9 gigs. My Vista 32 DOES recognize all 9 gigs of ram after I updated the bios of my Gigabyte motherboard. If switching the ram around or removing ram will help the performance, I will be more than williing to try anything.

Jack64,

You mentioned slots for tripple channel ddr3. I didn't even know there was a difference which slot the ram is installed in. All the ram I have is ddr3. Are you telling me that there are specific slots on the mobo for ddr3 only? Please excuse my ignorance with all this.

Someone also mentioned to me that my video card is crap for my system and that I should go with something better. Though i'm not using the pc for gaming. I'm using it for Pro Audio so I don't need anything crazy. Any suggestions on what card will suite my system better?

Since i'm currently not using my Windows Vista Ultimate 64 boot up due to the fact that most of my software do not support 64 bit yet, would you recommend that I install my good old Windows XP Pro in its place for now until my software catch up to 64? Thanks again guys

 
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Outlander_04

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The 32 bit os might be able to report that there is 9 gig installed but it just cannot use all of it . No bios update can fix that issue .


Vista is inherently slower than XP because of the copy protection built in .


Beacuse your machine is new Vista is also indexing the hard drive . Check your processor usage when idle and you often see 30-40% activity . A comparable XP machine will be at 0-2 % .

I would switch OS's to XP and reduce the RAM to 3 Gb if you are not using a 64 bit OS at this time .


Vistas replacement is coming soon and it will run much better than Vista . Like XP its capable of performing on netbooks . MS have ditched all the copy protection and the UAC that ruins vista.


I have a simple test for how responsive a computer is .

Just click on solitaire . Ive never seen a vista machine open this in under about 4 seconds
XP is instant

 
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nickhoff

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Vista 32 won't recognize all 9 gigs of ram, however you bios might. If you have tri channel ram with the P6T Deluxe you need to install them in A1, B1, C1 (orange slots).
 
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Outlander_04

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With XP on a e7300 and 2 gig of RAM and a single WD 640 black I click on solitaire and its there instantly . There is no chance to start counting .


Your 1.8 seconds is very good .
 
geofelt

geofelt

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Vista is not the cause of your sluggish performance. I sense some bad fanboy advice here.

No 32 bit os, either XP or vista can use more than about 3.5gb of whatever ram you have installed. There have been some updates to properly display that you have 4gb, 6gb or whatever installed.

To utilize the 9gb of ram that you have installed, you need vista 64 bit.
When you run vista 64 bit, do not be alarmed if you see very little physical memory free in the task manager.
Vista is not a hog, it just tries to use the resources that it has.
XP was built when ram was expensive, so it is constantly writing things out to the mage file, and clearing out ram for something else.
Vista will let things stay in ram in anticipation of re-use(this is the cached figure). It will also learn your usage pattern, and load things into ram in anticipation, so that it is there when you need it. The more ram you have, the better. 9gb is great.
On a new install, it will build an index for lots of things you may search for. It does this with low priority I/o operations so that it will not interfere with anything else you might want to do. When it comes time to do a search, the results come back instantly. The feature can be turned off, but why?

The only programs that will not run on vista 64 bit are old dos based 16 bit programs and utilities that try to access the internal structure of XP.

One thing to check is the minimum and maximum processor state. You want the maximum to be 100%.
This is found in control panel/power options/advanced settings/processor power management.
Run cpu-z to verify that your cpu goes up to it's maximum ghz under load.

Your ram is probably fine. to verify this, run memtest86+ for a pass or two. You should get zero errors.

Vista-64 is a more secure OS. It succumbs to 10% if the virus/malware attacks that XP experiences.

I think there are benchmarks out there that show that vista-64 outperforms XP in games. At the very least, the ability to use more than 4gb will insulate your game from other tasks.

Oh, yes, solitare opens instantly for me too with vista-64.

For an amusing insight to vista haters, google "mojave experiment"

 
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Outlander_04

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I dont know what your smoking, but when I click a program, it opens instantly, much much faster than XP pro ever did. Theres no 4-5 second wait LOL apparently your configuration must have sucked if you experienced this problem.
Click to expand...


I think you have been sprinkled with dumbdust.

Is anyone going to believe your dated C2d system opens programs faster than nickhoff's Ci7 system with more than double the processing power , more RAM and 10K hard drives?

Im not surprised that you couldnt get XP to run well though since that appears to be your level of technical expertise.
 
shortstuff_mt

shortstuff_mt

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Geofelt hit the nail on the head. No 32-bit OS can USE more than about 3GB - 3.5GB. Vista SP1 was changed to show the amount of RAM installed in the system, not how much the system can actually use. What programs are you trying to run on 64-bit Vista that don't work? A program doesn't have to be 64-bit to work with a 64-bit OS. The majority of my software that I use on 64-bit Vista is 32-bit and it works just fine.

Feel free to ignore Outlander_04's rants about Vista. My system with 4GB of RAM and 64-bit Vista is far from sluggish. Everything I click on opens instantly. You have to give it a day or two to sort out your usage patterns and index your HD, but then it flies. The latest gaming benchmarks with Vista SP1 show that the FPS in games between XP and Vista SP1 are essentially the same. It looks like Outlander_04 is still in pre SP1 rant mode. It's 2009, time to put Windows XP behind us and move on.
 
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belial2k

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is both your 1gb and 2gb ram the same brand and speed? If you are having a ram conflict it would cause exactly what you are describing due to i7s internal memory controller. If it is the same brand and speed with the same timings make sure all the 1gb are in the same color dimms, and all the 2gb are in the same color dimms. Please ignore the Vista haters, they won't let facts get in the way of their opinion.
 
Jack64

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Yes, if you are just using 3, however you are using all 6 slots, but since you are using an OS that only can see 4 gig MAX, then my suggestion was to pull the 2 gig ddr3 ram stick and only use the 3 1gig sticks, and to make sure you put them into the correct slots, refer to your MB manual and it will tell you which ones to put them in, Like mine says for using 3 stick, use A1 B1 and C1 that is the 2nd slot the 4th slot and the 6th slot.
 
Jack64

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:hello: :hello: :sol: Man this poor guy needs help and this thread has turned into a brawl.. I hope we can help him, coz seems the others are on a different plain that the rest of us. :bounce: :eek: :sarcastic:
 
geofelt

geofelt

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Vista has some performance options that you should look at.
under control-panel/system/properties/you will find performance options.
You might want to adjust for best performance or appearance, or a combination.

For instance, I don't like the fading options, they make things seem slow, even tyough it is only a visual effect.
 
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Outlander_04

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Im sorry but I guess the conversation escaped you. I never said anything about or compared anything of mine to his system. I was commenting on your stupid remark that XP32 is faster at opening aps than Vista64, that was just stupid and a total lie.

I ran XP pro for a long time, on many systems, including my outdated C2D system and Vista64 is easily 5 times faster. Your childish, grow up. Your statements make no sense and now your trying to say I said my system is faster? Learn reading comp kid.
Click to expand...

Back in 1982 I was doing what used to be called "Computer Science" papers at University . If Im a kid you must be very old .... which would explain the dementia and senile ravings I guess .

If you have any benchmarks that show performance is improved when you use Vista on the same hardware as XP I think you would have published a link . You havent , so you are a vista fanboy trying to justify the money you spent .


I guess geofelt would have given us a link to the site where he saw vista was out performing XP in gaming too if it existed .

Maybe you two should get married or something? You do have a lot in common .



 
geofelt

geofelt

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The reality is that your configuration is much more important to gaming than which os you have.
However, here is a benchmark that compares XP, and vista-64 running far cry 2:
http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=30224

Note the advantage of being able to run DX10.

Vista-64 can also make use of more ram. Here is a study of the benefit in gaming of 6gb vs. 3gb:
http://www.corsair.com/_appnotes/AN811_Gaming_Performance%20Analysis_6GB_vs_3GB.PDF

 
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Outlander_04

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geofelt that first link is not a benchmark .

is a post on a web forum , and the tests were NOT on the same hardware so its meaningless .

The corsair one I have read b4 . Its an example of adding ram improving performance . No one is disputing that , and certainly Corsair would rather you buy 6ig than 3 gig of their fine product .



None of this changes the fact that vista is inherently slower than XP . The web is full of real verifiable benchmarks . A simple google search turns up those results .


My guess is still that the OP's issue is Vista indexing the hard drive, and the data caching in RAM means there is insufficient RAM immediately available to start new tasks . This wouldnt be the first time Vista has given trouble in this way

Something is using CPU cycles or the screen would be smoothly scrolling . This is not likely to be a driver issue or hardware issue since the system is stable .

Removing RAM might help, and since the machine cant use it anyway its worth trying . And so is installing XP
 
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mindless728

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Outlander_04, what the hell are you talking about, yes, it is a forum, the first post in the link is the SAME EXACT HARDWARE, just different OS in same DX then different OS and DX

and btw, when i switched my machine to Vista, i didn't notice any difference in speed, whether up or down, even in benchmarks

so, to all of you who started this flame war, try and give a good answer other than install XP and hope that it works, so on and so forth

honestly, i don't know what the problem is off hand, what software do you have running at the time, and, can we get a screen shot of task manager in the Performance tab to see how much of our spu and/or RAM is used, and, what software is installed, maybe grab a list from Control Panel->Programs and Features
 
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Outlander_04

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You should read the link again , because it is NOT the same hardware . XP and VISTA are booting off different hard drives . One is booting off a RAID array , the other off a single hard drive .

We have no way of checking how fresh the installations are and what other programs are running . Does one drive have an AV and the other doesnt? . How is the RAID controller set up?

Its not a benchmark thats useful in any way, and your fanboy ranting wont change that


Its not useful for you to even mention V64 whatever you think its advantages . The OP is NOT using V64 . His problem has nothing to do with V64
 
geofelt

geofelt

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