Weird CPU drops when playing multiple H264 1080p video

Hi,

On my Asus UX32VD win8 64 bits SSD 256go Samsung 830 and 10g RAM @1600 MHZ

I have the weirdest thing ever seen. I'm playing 1080p videos. I'm using the latest LAV Filters setted to use cuda hardware acceleration on WIN8 64 bits. When i play 1 video it's fine. The CPU and GPU are fine. But when i go to playing 3 videos at the same time i have a weird behaviour :

 

Alright I have looked twice. Cut to the chase! What the is the problem? First you have way too many monitoring apps going.

 

My problem is that even if my laptop is set to max performance with cpu minimum fixed to 100% in that mode, The more i give it application, the more the cpu speed decreases ! Instead of giving its full potential @2.4Ghz when it is stressed, it does the contrary and lower the CPU to 1.24Ghz as you see in the picture and even less (it went to 0.8 Ghz) :s

I don't understand why it doesn't go around 100% usage instead. This prevents me to use my video mix soft

 

Check your temps, you may be experiencing thermal throttling on the CPU. If it goes over 105 Celsius it will throttle, if that is your problem, a good cleaning of the vents should solve it.

 

Bingo.

Hwinfo is a solid bet for accurate temperature monitoring. If you can post a screenshot of your temps during this load, that may help in assessing the problem as well.

 

I don't think there's any trottling involved here.

I bet the answer is simple: the GPU cannot handle accelerated decoding for 3 video streams in that configuration. Your CPU is actually sitting around with nothing much to do and probably enters one of the low power C states.

I reproduced your test on a Core 2 Duo @ 2.4Ghz, Nvidia 8600M GT, Windows 8. I ran 3x 720p H264 videos via Media Player Classic:

1. LAV decoder set to Nvidia Cuda, processor was set to 100% minimum in Power Management. VIdeo Driver crashed in about 5-10 seconds after starting the 3rd video. Oops.
2. LAV decoder set to DXVA native, processor was set to 100% minimum in Power Management. Video playback was choppy but the processor was at around 30% load while Task Manager was reporting frequencies between 2Ghz and 2.4Ghz. Task manager is not reporting actual processor frequency when CPU enters a low power C state. Leaving only 2 videos at the same time resulted in smooth playback.
3. LAV decoder was set to DXVA native, processor was set to 5% minimum in Power Management. Processor load was betwwen 30%-60% while Task Manager was reporting frequencies between 1.4Ghz and 2.2Ghz.
4. LAV decoder was set to No Hardware Acceleration, processor set to 100%. Processor load was around 75% and playback was smooth. Task manager reported frequencies close to the nominal 2.4Ghz.

You should be able to easily check if i'm right:
1. Disable HW acceleration for video playback and run 3x 720p videos. You should have higher than 50% processor utilization and smooth playback.
2. Use another software to accurately check your CPU operating frequency: CPU-Z for example.

PS: boy, i sure hope i'm right and didn't just go haywire.

 

Hi,

First thanks for you help.

Firstly i used didn't capture CPU-Z cause it doesn't show me a nice graph of CPU speed like the win8 native one

I think you tests are good. The weird stuff that i don't understand is that i had a UX32VD i5 4Gb of RAM with the HDD. I was using the same soft, same version, same drivers etc.......with lav cuvid and 2 1080p videos running at the same time i had around 50 fps (smooth). No CPU drops i think (i never checked as it was working flawlessly).

Then my zenbook was unfortynatly stolen. I had to buy another one (dj). I took UX32VD i7, 10gb of RAM with SSD. With the same test i had something like (8 fps). I then realized my ram was running at 1333mhz because the 8gb one wasn't the right voltage to match the intagrated one. I bought a good transcend one. The fps went to something like 15 fps. Yes it is weird it had so much effect. I'm thinking of trying to put the hdd and 2gb ram back and test to see what's happening cause it is so weird. I should get better performance but i don't.

Yesterday i tested and had a good framerate around 50 fps with the 2 1080p videos playing at the same time then drops started. The CPU graph was opened i could saw that the drops were matching the CPU drops. Using only the CPU to play the videos doesn't work well as it cannot handle if alone cause the software use real time audio and video. Most of the soft that need videos treatment or big pictures treatments, use GPU acceleration to get better results. I don't understand why the GPU couldn't manage 2 1080p videos as with 2 vidz the GPU load is less than 50% and memory around 500 mo out of 1go

I couldn't manage to block the GPU @2.4Ghz with CPU throttle. I also tried fan control to set the fan to full speed. It was never going more than 90°C (actually i had 85°C max and cpu 75°C max)

 

And that is why i had put a post wondering if the gefore 620 was the same in the i5 and i7 ux32 models as there are two models on in 64 bits and the other one in 128 bits
Perhaps the RAM dual channel would make the difference as well for that kind of actions

 

Do you have your LAV filters and other codecs up to date? K-Lite codec pack has updated filters - their most recent being from last month (according to the changelog).

 

i'm on latest lav and nvidia

 

I manage to catch good cpu drops

 

Is there a way to force the cpu to run at turbo when i'm on my djing software ? or whenever i want ?

 

i think my GPU isn't working well

 

Still don't get what's the problem, but throttlestop will override w.e software throttle.

 

Problem is that the vidz are playing well sometimes but there are cpu drops that cut down the fps. Imagine you watching a movie then sometimes (often like each 2 seconds) it suddenly suffers from slow downs.......i don't understand what you don't understand. I think you didn't read the posts well. Put on google (fps drops gpu drops) you 'll see are many gamers for example are facing those kind of problems....

I don't know how to set thottlestop 5.00 correctly for my ux32VD

 

I'm going for a format then win7. Win8 sucks i can't activate it....see u in one hour

 

If hw acceleration is causing trouble then get rid of it, simple as that?

 

Lol i think you think i'm perhaps stupid with no knowledges !

If it was that simple do you think i wouldn't have done it ?!

To ensure a good video mix you must have a nice 30 fps with 2 videos loaded at the same time. Without the help of GPU the system can't do that. Perhaps wih 5Ghz i7 it could work but not on the UX32VD. The most weird remain that with the ux43vd-3001 i had better performance with the same drivers and software. I definitely think my 620m has troubles since the beginning

 

If it is high bit-rate material than that CPU can struggle, I guess try potplayer as well since it have some straight-forward DXVA implementation, and use throttlestop to make sure the cpu stay at least @ 1.9/1.7(depending i7 or i5 you have).

I just try on a i5 and using throttlestop locked @ 1.9Ghz, could do 2-3 youtube 1080p(downloaded), but struggle with 2 uncompressed BD rips.

 

Perhaps you didn't see where i said that i didn't manage to use throttle stop well to block the cpu at a certain frequency

i have i7 3517u
I also precised that i use a video mix software. The goal is to have the computer working fine with it. Going one video has no problem.

 

I read that, but TS "should" work.

 

From what i can see there your processor reached up to 87°C. I'm not familiar with usual temps for Asus UX32VD, but this seems too high.

 

I don't think it is that much. Could we have someone advice ?

 

87C is not that bad, intel lists 105 as the damage point. You might be hitting tdp limits however.

 

what is tdp ? what can i do ?

 

Who said anything about hitting damage point?

On the other hand, reaching TDP limit seems unlikely. Take a look at his screenshot: his IA Cores power reached a maximum of 11W and total package power went up to 16W. Take a look at this screenshot for a Sandy Bridge Core i7 2677M 17W ULV part: his IA cores went up to 16W and total package power reached 20W. It seems to me the CPU inside the Asus had room for even higher power usage, yet it managed to reach 87°C. The heat from the dGPU probably helped alot towards that result though.

Someone else mentioned a possible Bidirectional Prochot throttling. Could that be the case with the GPU working at around 76°C?

 

Ivy bridge can be much pickier with its tdp limits and you are over it.

Intel xtu would tell you.

 

I have a 2920xm which has way more higher tdp (i adjusted it to 75) and mine throttles at 91-93c.

ULV cpu's like the one op use have extremely low tdp (I think it was 17)

I suspect he is reaching the maximum mobo tdp available so the cpu is throttled when both the cpu and gpu are loaded maxed.


Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

If i understand well tdp is linked with power so might be du to a lack of power when the system is overloaded ?

I'll now will take 720p vids. Perhaps my i7 3517u + geforce 620m 1g + 10gb RAM are just not enough to mix 2 1080p videos in real-time

 

My 3940XM throttles at around 100%, but like I said XTU will tell you if this is going on.

 

Your problem keeps bugging me since it is a bit of a mistery, so i came back and took one more look at it.

One thing caught my eye: in the last screenshots you provided - this and this - did you disable hardware acceleration while using Serato?

In your screenshots i can see a >50% GPU memory load but 0% activity on the GPU core, on the memory controller and video decode engine itself. If that data is correct, then the 620m gpu was not used to decode the video you were just playing in Serato. If you disabled HW acceleration on purpose to test the CPU then that's fine, but if you were not aware of that then you might want to take a second look at it.

 

I assure you i didn't :s. So weird :s. I think my GPU has something going wrong

 

How is games performance, does the GPU act normally then?

 

I did a stress test FunMark to see and it was like running 3D rendering @1080p with FSAA 8X during 15 mins. GPU constantly @100%. It went well without any artefact or trouble........Yes weird.............perhaps the CUDA part of the GPU has a trouble or i don't know.......I've spent days on that problem and still don't understand

 

Seems the throttling is part of this computer. It's to bad. I wish i had a better cooling even if it was making more noise :

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/671587-asus-zenbook-prime-ux32vd-defects.html

 

What kind of charger it comes with? If hardware throttle, it come down either heat or that.

 

I'm going to buy a laptop cooling pad