Low WEI score for my CPU - Somethings wrong

Guitar1969

Distinguished
Aug 6, 2010
16
0
18,510
I have just finished building an HTPC with an AMD X4 635 Quad (2.9ghz). I have been having some problems with playing internet streaming video and have been ruling out all possibilities, manly focused on GPU and Internet bandwidth up till now

One thing I noticed is my WEI index for my CPU portion seems low - 3.7, considering what it is. What should I be looking at to try and resolve. All other indexes for other component seem reasonable, so the CPU score is the focus.

I should state that a few weeks back I had a problem where Win7 was only reporting 2 of my 4 CPU cores active, so with the help of Tom's forum, was able to get Windows to recognize all 4 cores. Appears when I installed Win7, not all 4 of my cores were active on my Asus mobo, so Win7 took that info as default. I have since unlocked the other 3 cores in the Bios, and subsequently was able to change the number of cores in msconfig - so system shows all 4 now.

Could this problem still be related to that. I am concerned something maybe wrong with this CPU, causing it to choke on video streaming tasks.

What specificazlly should I be looking at for that CPU WEI score
 
Solution
Most people (and even i) ignore WEI scores.

Namely because that when it does it's test,most of the time it wont bring a cpu out of speed step (intel)/cool 'n' quite (AMD) feature. So i will report less than what it should.

Just turn cool 'n' quite off and redo the test. If it raises up, you'll know why it was low.

Darkerson

Distinguished
Oct 28, 2009
706
0
18,990
My Athlon II-630 at stock (2.8Ghz) gets a 7.2 WEI and when overclocked to 3.5Ghz gets a 7.5 WEI. So something is definitely wrong with your motherboard or at the very least its settings. Have you tried reinstalling Windows since you got it all set up in the bios? You might be able to get better help if you make a more descriptive list of your components in question, such as make and model of your motherboard and whatnot.
 
First, your shouldnt be looking to WEI as an accurate representation of performance of your system. It rates many things improperly, use a real benchmark that is actually consistent.

Second, get CPU-Z and make sure that it is showing your CPU as having 4 cores and 4 threads. Your CPU might still not be entirely unlocked, or might not be coming out of cool'n'quiet mode.
 
Most people (and even i) ignore WEI scores.

Namely because that when it does it's test,most of the time it wont bring a cpu out of speed step (intel)/cool 'n' quite (AMD) feature. So i will report less than what it should.

Just turn cool 'n' quite off and redo the test. If it raises up, you'll know why it was low.
 
Solution

Guitar1969

Distinguished
Aug 6, 2010
16
0
18,510
CPU-Z shows 4 cores and 4 threads running.
I understand WEI can be misleading, but I have run out of possible solutions to why I am not getting good playback performance for this HTPC Build(I've tried everything else - working with AVSforum, and thegreenbutton.com on the HTPC side of things) so this particular issue is my focus now.


The index is low, and coincidentially 1/2 of your index - I am also running an AMD X4 620 on my work computer, and its index is like 7.1 so something is screwy with this HTPC

The CPU is AMD X4 635 (2.9ghz)
Mobo is ASUS M4A785T-M-CSM
4 gb Gskill 1600 DDR3 (running at 1333mhz - default of mobo- can be overclocked but I haven't attempted)

I am wondering too if the mobo is not set up rightl. I have not done anything OC-wise(No desire to for HTPC), but I think its odd that the ASUS mobo required me to manually unlock 2 of my cores at intialization - I would think it would automatically run all 4 cores at initialization, unless I told it otherwise. At bootup, the ASUS splash screen says "4 cores activated" after having to tell it to the first time around.

As I have really customized the HTPC setup I would like to try and avoid reinstalling Win7 unless absolutely necessary- Is there a way to just reinitialze the mobo and bois to reconfigure - Such as if I load up default bios settings. What else should I be looking at.

I bought this CPU and mobo bundle at fry's about a month ago- the CPU was open box(You know how they reshelf stuff)- was all they had, which concerned me a bit - Now I am really concerned about the CPU and want to make sure its not a dud - I would have to RMA it back to AMD now if it is , which I hope not.
 

Guitar1969

Distinguished
Aug 6, 2010
16
0
18,510


I was wondering about Cool N Quiet, because I am relying heavily on it for power management on this HTPC - I would think the WEI would be smart enough to override it since both AMD and Intel use some form of it,

If CnQ is not factored in then I bet you are right - I will check it out tonight and report back. For CPU-z everything looks good statswise.

If it is true, then I am back to square one why this HTPC can't stream internet shows very good - Jittery playback in local, Flash and Silverlight content - Silverlight/Netflix is known to have issues that are unresolved, but the others have me and the HTPC guys stumped at this point (I have tweaked the HD4200 so much now that I can't remember what it should be at now, and my Internet connection is good on DL and latency.

Update - That was it - disabled Cool n quiet, and was the able to get an index of 7.3 on the CPU - now my desktop effects are the low score-4.3. thanks for the help

Thanks,