M15X is slower then death! (Not Stelth Mode)

Hey guys,

Ok let me set the stage. My prior main system to this M15X was actually a Dell Inspiron 1520. Which was in my opinion a pretty competitive system at the time of purchase (four years ago: Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz/4Mb Cache, 8600GT GPU and 2GB DDR2). The system was snappy and very prompt, and still is honestly if a bit lacking for gaming now but it was perfect for my work (video editing, website and graphics design and 3d rendering) to simple common use.

Got this Alienware M15x on an impulse purchase figuring I'd future proof myself as my i1520 was getting old, but never skipped a beat. So far this system has been a total let down in performance.

In fact, it's SO terrible in performance, the other day when I went to show a friend a few photos that were not bigger then 800x600 in resolution in jpeg format in the typical Windows picture viewer, it LAGGED. It took minutes for the window and then the photo to appear, and upon clicking the next/previous arrows, it again lagged and took minutes for the image to load. This was on battery, so I then plugged in the power adapter. No difference, Stealth mode is off, on it's no difference.

Am I crazy to expect the latest and greatest technology to somehow equal or surpass the performance of a four year old system?

M15x: Core i7 740, 4GB DDR3, Ati 5850 - Windows 7 HP 64Bit
i1520: Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz, 2GB DDR2, 8600GT - Windows 7 HP 32Bit

My systems are highly maintained and cleaned, no unnecessary software installs, or running background software. Both systems use Nod32 Antivirus, so security software is no issue. All drivers are kept up to date. Everything tweaked to perform.

I'm clueless to the reasoning of this result, I'm at the point of selling the damn thing... lol

ANY ideas?

 

Nod32 is heavy (imo) software wise, you say you "tweaked to perform" what did you change? Maybe you inadvertently jacked something up. What power plan were you running?

Run and Post crystaldiskmark results

Check event viewer filter for critical/warning/error and see if you can see something that isn't working

 

I have to admit, you'd be one of the first to have the opinion Nod32 is heavy. But I believe it's irrelevant, as it wasn't an issue on any prior system so it shouldn't be in this case unless hardware compatibility was an issue, but I've eliminated that as a possibility. At least until I can find something to say otherwise.

Good tips!

Event viewer yields quiet a few errors related to the Bonjour service. But the date is quiet far back, I've reset the logs, will keep an eye on them in the meantime.

As for the tweaks, I suspected the very same. So during my recent reinstall, I kept settings as defaults, no result, so tweaked, no change other then lower memory consumption of course.

Power plan is always are high performance.

Here are the results of CDM:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 55.392 MB/s
Sequential Write : 56.466 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 21.634 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 25.225 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.235 MB/s [ 57.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.834 MB/s [ 203.6 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.490 MB/s [ 119.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.830 MB/s [ 202.7 IOPS]

Test : 100 MB [C: 45.2% (45.3/100.1 GB)] (x1)
Date : 2011/05/18 4:53:01
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

 

I would suggest back up your data....and do a complete, fresh clean Windows install. That way, you can actually find out whether it was a hardware failure or just some software conflict...my money is on software conflict. If I were you, I would do a full system factory restore and build everything from scratch. I refuse to believe a M15x is slower than a four year old inspiron. Not happening except if something is wrong with the system.

 

That won't help this situation at all, and I am talking from experience.

I do a fresh scratch build roughly every three months due to the taxing my Windows install get's from the Software suites I use. One was done immediately upon system arrival, another in November, another a few weeks later after an impulse HDD upgrade and another just two months ago. The scratch build includes a secure deletion of of the HDD, new format/paritions and a new retail install of Windows.

The retarded performance of the system was not present the initial month otherwise it'd not be in my possession. But there on after it's just become more and more decrepit. Even during simple tasks like navigating explorer. As I said this system should run equal in these situations to any older system if not better. Right now I think my P4 2.8Ghz tower sitting in the closet can beat this thing. Hence why I've quit using it as a work system, more or less a paper weight.

Calling Dell with "my computers performance is slow" won't get me anywhere, otherwise I'd call them and yell in their ears.

Apologies if I seem hostile, but I'm quiet frustrated and at ends with this. Having this be the second system purchased from Dell to have them "phase out" shortly after purchase, it doesn't help means to deal with the miserable issues.

 

No solution other than "call dell" can help you.

You may switch off the indexing service, and see if there's a performance benefit.

 

I'm keen if you got a sell-able pitch to the buggers.

Indexing service was disabled immediately upon completion of the OS install. It's a huge resource hog and I never search as I'm organized,

 

Hmmm..interesting..

 

Being organized or the fact I've reformatted this thing more than used it and it runs like crap?

lol

 

Have you checked to be sure that all 4 cores are running, and that turbo is enabled? Occasionally, a Windows install will only recognize one core - that can take a big bite out of performance. Although you can't use it to overclock, Throttlestop might help you understand what's going on. The TS bench within the program will demonstrate if the cores are accelerating appropriately when stressed.

Good luck,

Joe

 

Be sure that . . .

a) PowerPlay is enabled in CCC and set to max performance when plugged in,

b) SpeedStep (EIST) is enabled in BIOS,

c) Turboboost is enabled in BIOS,

d) Stealth Mode is disabled. Can be tricky sometimes. Use Stealth Mode Indicator to keep automatically disabled. View attachment StealthModeIndicator2.zip . After installation, create shortcut, run utility, right click on Alienhead icon in Task Tray, set to AutoFix and drag shortcut into Startup folder. No more Stealth Mode issues.

e) You have a clean installation of current Catalyst driver set (now 11.5) ( ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver),

f) After boot/reboot, check Task Manager/Processes tab and sort by CPU use to see what process/app, if any, is hogging the processor. Kill and/or remove, as applicable, and

g) CPU/GPU temps are within safe operating range. HWiNFO32 is a good for the purpose. http://www.hwinfo.com/download32.html.

Good luck. You have a very capable M15x and should be enjoying the benefits.

 

What bios version are you using?

Your description sounds like a clock modulation throttling problem. Run ThrottleStop in monitoring mode and on the right hand side make sure the Cmod and Chip columns are showing 100.0. Check the Log File option and then go play a game or do whatever and have a look at the log file to make sure that these values are not dropping down below 100.0. If you're not sure how to read the log file, post it here or upload it to MediaFire if it is big and post a link. It's probably something simple like this.

 

You also might want to consider an ssd, those CDM numbers were awfully low.

 

It's hard to argue that an SSD would't increase apparent speed, but I think the slow disk performance is part of a bigger problem. My guess is that some of his cores are not being recognized, or that they are not increasing their clock speed appropriately. It will be interesting to see what OP finds with HWInfo and/or Throttlestop.

Joe

 

Great stuff guys, appreciate the assistance.

I currently have a 320GB 5200RPM, I may just stick the 250GB 7200RPM back in though. Depends how much of an impact it is having on on everything as a whole. But given these issues have existed prior to the bigger and marginally slower drive, it's not a priority concern or to blame at this point.

I'll break down everything into some bullet points so it's easier to digest.

- PowePlay is active and set correctly, currently running 11.2 of the ATI drivers. Will update now to 11.5 (I tend to wait on Drivers, some versions work better then others).

- Have not checked BIOS yet, but these settings were enabled prior, I'll double check momentarily to ensure nothing has somehow mysteriously reverted them.

- Been using Stealthmode indicator, great app.

- Checking Task Manager is one of my first step when I'm having obscure performance issues. Nothing is consuming anything more then 0-9 percent. Overall usage is 0-12% while idling with Firefox running. Memory about 1.56GB at the same moment. Rather disappointed by the amount used for a system at idle.

- Attached are screenshots of ThrottleStop running, and HWiNFO32. Someone more experienced with ThrottleStop can make more sense of it then I can without really digging at it.


Made an interesting discovery though in the system event log, enough nine entries roughly all moments apart with the following warnings:

"The speed of processor 5 in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for 5570 seconds since the last report."

Screenshot attached below.

I'm at the point once I resolve this, I'm formatting this thing and making sure it's tied up in a new install.

Thoughts?

 

I've got tons of those errors, i've pretty much seen them on anything that has HT running.
Wait, actually mine are different. They don't say anything about performance.

 

TS seems reasonable for a processor at idle. I'd check chipset modulation, clock modulation, and set multiplier - set the first two to 100% and set multiiplier to 100%. Then go into TS bench. Slide the window aside so you can see what happens to the FID. Run the 32M version, and see what happens to FID - you should see the processors go into turbo mode. The other thing you coulddo would be to check log file and then try to play a game. Afterwards, there will be a log.txt file in the Throttlestop directory - you will be able to see if the processor cores accelerate appropriately.

One other thing - I'm assuming that you have checked advanced settings under Windows Power Management to be sure minimum processor state is 100%.

Hope this helps.

Joe

 

Those Event Log entries (Event 37) regarding Kernel Processing Power limited by system firmware for extended period(s) typically occur when SpeedStep (EIST) is disabled in the BIOS. I have the same entries from time to time, but usually for 6-8 seconds (perhaps due to toggling EIST in Throttlestop), but had one series about a month ago for 5800 seconds. May have reflected disabling for testing purposes, but not sure. Be sure both your BIOS (A09) and chipset drivers are current.

 

I don't think the top Clock Modulation box needs to be checked for these laptops but when testing you might as well check it and set it to 100%. The Set Multiplier box should be checked. Set it as high as it can go and it should say Turbo.

Check the Log File option and then go play a game and if there are any CPU throttling problems then the log should have a record of that. Stop ThrottleStop when you are done testing and go have a look at the log file. Post it here if you are not sure what it is telling you.

 

can u provide a screen of hwinfo32 system summary?

 

Try unparking the CPU and also the HDD benches are really low...

 

I use NOD32 on a very similar system... and the computer works perfect!

I must admit that NOD32 holds the system when I download a file from the Internet (a large file). Actually, NOD32 hold the Google Chrome or just the downloaded file.

 

Yeah I get a slight pause every time a file enters the system such as downloading. But I suspect that is a good ting as Nod32 is doing its job scanning all files.

 

The pause means it's working. So no complaint from me! Not that an Anti-virus of any sort saves a system, it just let's you know your screwed. Any true security experts knows, once a system is compromised there is no way to ensure it's secure ever again.

Anyways, I'll try some of the tips tonight, and post back results and fetch some requested information.

Any specific way to unpark the CPU(s)? I tried the registry tweak, no results so reverted it.

 

unparked cores.... sure this is some info that i believe i got from rev so rep goes to him:
Instructions
Click the "Start" button, type "regedit" (without quotes) and press "Enter".
If necessary, scroll to the very top (or press the Home key) to highlight the "Computer" branch.
Press Ctrl+F.
In the "Find what" field type "unparked cores" (without quotes) and press "Enter".

Find will now start searching the Registry for your query and will eventually stop on the key:
"0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583"
This is the minimum value. Pressing the F3 key again continues the search and it will next stop on the key:
"ea062031-0e34-4ff1-9b6d-eb1059334028"
This is the maximum value. Both of these keys are located in ControlSet001.

Here, a search from the top to the bottom of the Registry will find these exact two Registry keys in ControlSet001, ControlSet002 and CurrentControlSet, for a total of 6 locations. We are only interested in the CurrentControlSet. The other ControlSets will get modified automatically.

Press the Tab key and then the Home key to go back to the top of the Registry.
Press the F3 key until you arrive at the first CurrentControlSet (minimum) key.
Click once on "Attributes" entry, press the F2 key and rename to "Attributes.off" (without quotes).
Press the F3 key until you arrive at the second CurrentControlSet (maximum) key.
Click once on "Attributes" entry, press the F2 key and rename to "Attributes.off" (without quotes).
Close RegEdit, save any unfinished work and reboot.
Once back up and running, go to:
Control Panel -> Power Options -> Change plan setting -> Change advanced power settings
Scroll down and open the "Processor power management" branch and you should find that you have two new entries:
Processor performance core parking min cores
Processor performance core parking max cores
You should now be able to independently make adjustments for AC and battery. Adjust as needed.

Enjoy.

 

Disabling Core Parking was one of Mr. Pras' pet projects and can provide benefits for some systems, but the effects are relatively minor in the greater scheme. Check this thread for more detail and discussion. http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...win7-i7-sluggish-performance.html#post6283672.