Disappointing performance. What gives?

X

xxplosive

New Member
After running XP for awhile I decided to give Vista a chance and installed it on my machine last week. nVidia only allows you to run SLI w/ dual monitors simultaneously in Vista, so I suppose that was a motivating factor. I did a clean install and made sure to load the latest drivers for all my hardware. I usually like to have a clean interface so I disabled all visual effects and superfluous features (sidebar, aero, ect).

Its been about a week now, and so far I've found the overall performance of Vista to be considerably worse compared to XP. I've seen my CPU peak out at 100% on apps that never utilized more than 50-60% in XP. In Team Fortress 2 not only does CPU utilization max out but my frame rate (with SLI enabled) is half of what I was getting in XP with similar settings (even with SLI disabled). Doing multiple tasks simultaneously (copying files, browsing the web, watching a movie, ect) usually results in intermittent lags or a program locking up.

Now you'll probably want to know my system specs:
OS: Vista Business x64
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Mobo: Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe
Memory: 2GB Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400 (will be adding 4GB extra next week)
Video: 2x Geforce 8600GTS (In SLI)
Sound Card: Creative SB Audigy2 Platinum ZS
Disk: 2x 300GB Western Digital 7200rpm in RAID0

I've tried troubleshooting this to the best of my ability, but I'm at my wits end trying to figure out what the problem is. I'd like to keep using Vista, but these performace issues may force me to revert back to XP. Anyway, If anyone can give me some advice on how to remedy this I'm all ears!
 
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My Computer

System One

What power supply do you have? More RAM might help. Do you have the latest drivers for SLI?
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    pair of Intel E5430 quad core 2.66 GHz Xeons
    Motherboard
    Supermicro X7DWA-N server board
    Memory
    16GB DDR667
    Graphics card(s)
    eVGA 8800 GTS 640 MB video card
    Hard Drives
    SAS RAID
SCSIraidGURU said:
What power supply do you have?
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% on this (bought it a long time ago), but I'm pretty sure its an Antec TruePower Trio 650.

SCSIraidGURU said:
More RAM might help.
Click to expand...

I ordered 4gb of additional memory from newegg last week. Hopefully that will help but the memory I have now should be sufficient for the apps/games I use.

SCSIraidGURU said:
Do you have the latest drivers for SLI?
Click to expand...

I'm running the most recent Geforce drivers (version 182, released 04/02/2009).
 

My Computer

System One

Are the slots true x16 slots? Have you check your voltages during a game demo?
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    pair of Intel E5430 quad core 2.66 GHz Xeons
    Motherboard
    Supermicro X7DWA-N server board
    Memory
    16GB DDR667
    Graphics card(s)
    eVGA 8800 GTS 640 MB video card
    Hard Drives
    SAS RAID

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
    Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2, 4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2, 8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system, Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam, HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn, APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI, Galaxy S23 Plus phone
  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy Y0F94AV
    CPU
    i7-7500U @ 2.70 GHz
    Memory
    16 GB DDR4-2133
    Sound Card
    Conexant ISST Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    17.3" UHD IPS touch
    Screen Resolution
    3480 x 2160
    Hard Drives
    512 GB M.2 SSD

My Computer

System One

Switching to 32-bit Vista should not make any difference. :(

You might give Windows 7 build 7068 a try to see if you like it better. I have seen a nice increase in performance with it. You should be able to find it using Google.
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
    Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2, 4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2, 8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system, Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam, HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn, APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI, Galaxy S23 Plus phone
  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy Y0F94AV
    CPU
    i7-7500U @ 2.70 GHz
    Memory
    16 GB DDR4-2133
    Sound Card
    Conexant ISST Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    17.3" UHD IPS touch
    Screen Resolution
    3480 x 2160
    Hard Drives
    512 GB M.2 SSD
Brink said:
Switching to 32-bit Vista should not make any difference. :(

You might give Windows 7 build 7068 a try to see if you like it better. I have seen a nice increase in performance with it. You should be able to find it using Google.
Click to expand...

I'm going to hold off installing Windows 7 until its officially released. Even then, I doubt there are any Windows 7 drivers available for my current motherboard.
 

My Computer

System One

A multimeter is best to check voltages. Yellow+ and black- 12V. Red+ and black- 5V

I usually wait on an OS till SP1 is fully released.
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    pair of Intel E5430 quad core 2.66 GHz Xeons
    Motherboard
    Supermicro X7DWA-N server board
    Memory
    16GB DDR667
    Graphics card(s)
    eVGA 8800 GTS 640 MB video card
    Hard Drives
    SAS RAID
If you know how to use bios settings you can set your ram and cpu ratio to 1:1.

You can do this by setting your fsb to 400 and the multiplier to your cpu at 6. This will give you 400 x 6=2400ghz for your cpu and 400 x 2= 800mhz for your ram. This allows your ram and cpu to processes info at the same rate. If you then require more speed you can just up the voltage you give the cpu and raise the multiplier for example setting the multiplier to 9 which is the highest it will go gives you 400 x 9=3600ghz.

While in your bios disable C1E and EIST http://www.vistax64.com/overclocking-cooling/177111-speedstep-guide.html and disable anything you dont use and set your hard drive to first boot device.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

My Computer

System One

Theres also a ton of other stuff you can do like:

1- disable UAC, vista sidebar and welcome center
2- set your virtual memory min and max size to 4096mb
3- Disable the error reporting, memory dumps and disable remote assistance.
4-Turn off uneeded services by using Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Service Configurations by Black Viper as a guide
5- Adjust power settings to max performance
6- enable advanced performance of the hard drives
7- Open Task Schedular and delete what you dont need to reduce hard drive activity
8- Ensure you have less than 5 startup programmes etc, etc, etc

For services i have 38 set to Automatic and 20 disabled, all the rest are set to manual. Hope this helps you.
 

My Computer

System One

Most of that will not improve performance, but it may actually lead to a damaged Windows installation that requires repair.

The number of processes and services is almost completely irrelevant by itself. A single looping thread in a single process can bring a machine to its knees, while a hundred processes with all their threads parked and waiting wouldn't exert any significant load.
 

My Computer

System One

Disabling UAC will open you to trojan horses.
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    pair of Intel E5430 quad core 2.66 GHz Xeons
    Motherboard
    Supermicro X7DWA-N server board
    Memory
    16GB DDR667
    Graphics card(s)
    eVGA 8800 GTS 640 MB video card
    Hard Drives
    SAS RAID
I did say "If you know how to use bios settings". Also it definetly improves performance check my system specs and heres my reboot time:

View attachment 11552

Also disabling some services like remote registry is simply a good idea for security reasons. Setting as many services to manual is a good idea because not only are they still available when needed they arent loaded at boot up which means his pc will boot up faster and he will have more ram available for things like playing games etc. Remember hes only got 2 gigs of ram and paging files are slow.

But hay its up to him :D
 
Last edited by a moderator:

My Computer

System One

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