New 5760! Need a little help

Hey guys,

This is my first post here, although I've been reading here quite a lot for the past month. I'm proud to say I just recieved my 5760 from powernotebooks! Its a monster, and is tearing through fear, command and conquer 3 and everything else I throw at it.

However, my only problem with it is that the processors dont seem to be as fast as they are supposed to be...I downloaded and followed all those steps in the sticky, but my boot up times and game install times still seem to be a bit slow.

I read somewhere a while ago there is a way to toggle your processors to always be running at full speed, because these machines come with them pre set to be running at much slower speeds to save battery. If this is true, please let me know how to change it.

Also anything else that would help get my processors up and running faster would be greatly appreciated.

Here are my specs:

2.16 Processors
7950 GTX 512 ddr3
2 gigs of RAM
160 gig HDD 7,200 rpm

 

Welcome to the NBR forums.

Congrats on the new machine.

Your CPU is plenty fast, I just think you are getting a bit confused on its purpose. The main bottleneck for game installs and loading is from the Hard Drive [seek time, RPM, etc..].
The CPU can really be noticed [for performance differences] in heavy number-crunching... like in 3D modeling/rendering, audio/video editing and converting, etc...

As for the boot up time, the current mobile Intel CPUs are usually throttled down (to around 1000mhz) when in the booting process [for default power saving], it does not get to its max performance until it gets into the OS environment.... which the hotfixes, tweaks, and services will then kick in to push/throttle the clock speed up when it is called for. (so if you run NHC, you should notice this when you are idling and then starting up new programs/games)

Kinda sad that these new mobile CPUs are getting slower bootup times than old desktop/mobile CPUs [which only ran at full clock speeds at all times], but the throttling of CPU speed and power saving didnt come into the picture until the mobile Pentium 3's. So is this a problem?... NO. Its just what comes along with having a new CPU, especially if its in a mobile environment.

Side-Notes:
(pre-requisites for owning a high-end notebook)
- always remember to use the notebook on hard surfaces
- always use the Clevo Fan Toggle (Fn+F2) when you are gaming to switch the fans to MAX SPEED [from Auto]... this will definitely help out any heating issues and the longevity of your system.
- always monitor those temps [GPU, CPU, etc..]
- (optional) use a notebook cooler or stand when possible.

 

Wow. Congratulations on that machine. What a beast.

What exactly makes you think that the processors aren't running as fast as they should?

You followed the steps in this guide for the multi core configuration?

You should also get Notebook Hardware Control (NHC) to monitor your temperatures. Have a look at this guide. You can use NHC to set the CPU on max performance at all times (that way it will run at your full clock speed all the time).

Besides that there's not much else you can do. Make sure your notebook is configued for the multi core processor. And if you want to run at full power all the time set it that way in NHC (you can also do it in Windows I think). But I have my CPU set on dynamic switching (so it changes depending on what I'm doing).

You should also have a look at the Guide to Cooling Down Your Notebook Computer and the How to Optimize a Notebook Computer guide.
Good luck with your new machine.

 

Frankly, I'm a little let down with my 5760's boot performance. I haven't measured it in detail, but just by rough estimate, it seems to take longer to boot than my old Compaq laptop, which runs a P3 mobile. Both laptops sport 7200rpm drives, 60GB Hitachi in the Compaq and 80GB Seagate in the Clevo. I'll boot them up side-by-side and get an accurate comparison.

Gophn's revelation about CPU throttling during boot does seem to fit with my observations, but if that's the case, I can't imagine why in the world a CPU would be built that way. Seems to me that the startup sequence would be the one time you'd always want full power supplied to the chip, because boot time is often a key metric for users. How much can you gain from conserving battery life or reducing heat dissipation during boot-up anyway, it usually lasts no more than a minute or two? Microsoft used to cite faster boot time as a primary selling point for upgrading to the latest/greatest OS. Maybe I'm just impatient, but I don't like waiting for my lappy to boot up!

 

Hey I'd thouhght I'd chip in .

I was also quite disapointed with the boot/shut down/sleep time on my 5760. Why the heck my AMD desktop was going in standby mode instantly and not my super duper 5760??

Well the answer is quite simple. What makes those laptops their force is what causes them these slowdown.

1st, download a tool called Microsoft Bootvis (search Google, don't remember where I got it). In a nutshell it analyses you're bootup / shut down / sleep / resume from sleep performances and can optimize them.

The main bottleneck I found on my lappy (you'll be surprised) is the Lifeview TV tuner. Windows took grosso modo 4-5 seconds to shut it off and wake it up. I did find a couple other slow off/on devices, but the lifeview was my main problem.

So after my testing/optimizing phase here's what I can recommend:

1. In the device manager, disable all unused devices; The more you have, the more time it takes to manage them. So far I disabled: The PCI xpress slot, the TV tuner, the firewire controller (who use it anyway?), the IR port and the serial (COM1) port.
2. Disable all unused services (be careful what you stop)
3. Run the bootvis optimizer
4. Run some sort of registry cleaner. Might help.
5. Empty the prefetch directory once a month - it might help.

The biggest thing is to stop unused devices. Believe me. Ok my startup are still longer than what I want, but I have some apps I want to be available at startup; I can't change that. But my sleep/wakeup time are almost instantaneous. I'd day 1-2 seconds instead of the 7-8 like before.

But, I think you'll also have to remember this is a laptop. They don't have the fancy super optimized motherboards a la ASUS or DFI. I think there are standards mobo. Nothing more. It's like comparing a reference intel board to an ASUS super performer. I'd say all the components are fast enough; the pathways between them could be better.

The hard disk will be slower than what you'll find in most recent desktops also. Yeah they spin @ 7200RPM, but they have less cache.

So good luck with your optimizing!

 

The processor shouldn't be throttled until a higher level OS loads. That shouldn't be a problem. P-Boucher gave you some good idea's about turning off unused stuff.

The other side is... it's a computer... Turning them on and off isn't the main purpose and tends to lower your productivity.