NEW Core I7 system kinda slugish in performance

[merc476]

Hey all,

Sorry for the long post. First i'd like to say that i'm not a big techy guy. However, I did purchase all the parts for my pc based on recommendations from people who have built pc's for pro audio which is what I use my pc for. I already had Windows Vista biz 32bit so I installed that and on another partition, I installed Windows Vista Ultimate 64 but I don't use that partition yet because most of the programs I use dont support it yet. I had a local computer shop build it for me. My issue is that for some reason my new system doesn't quit move as fast/smooth as I expected. My previous system was a 4 yr old dual core system with 3 gigs of ram on xp pro and it seems like folders opened faster, the system loaded up faster, and also, on my new system, if I grab a window and move it around the screen there's like a little stutter. Nothing crazy slow but not smooth at all. I don't know if this is anything that will help you guys figure this issue out but when I went to pick up my new system from the shop, it was only seeing less than 4 gigs of ram. I can't remember the exact amount but they told me it's because windows vista 32 only reads that amount. I get home and connect it to the internet and intel says that it needs to run an update for system compatibility or something like that. I did the update and all of a sudden, my pc was recognizing 4 gigs of ram. Well, after i noticed it it was still acting sluggish with the studdering I thought it may be my vid card. I contacted PNY/Nvidia, and they had me download the latest drivers. still no upgrade in performance. I contacted Gigabyte and they had me download the latest bios and all of a sudden, my vista 32 was recognizing all 9 gigs of ram that my system has. However, still no update in performance. Below are the specs to my system. I'm pretty much cutting and pasting my order from newegg. Only difference is I ended up returning one of the packs of 3 gig ram and bought a pack of 6 gigs leaving a total of 9gigs. Please let me know if there is anything you can think of that may help. Thanks!

• • 1 x COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000 RC-1000-KSN1-GP Black/ Silver Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
  • 1 x GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
  • 1 x PNY VCG94512GXEB GeForce 9400 GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card - Retail
  • 1 x COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro RS-650-ACAA-A1 650W ATX Form Factor 12V V2.3 / SSI Standard EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Retail
  • 1 x Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail
  • 2 x CORSAIR XMS3 3GB (3 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X3G1600C9 - Retail
  • 3 x Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
  • 1 x LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH22NS30 - OEM
  • 1 x Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit for System Builders - OEM

[Ultima]

There is a very good explenation for why you are slow in games and that is your videocard. The 9400GT is a card I would put in a HTPC, not a gaming rig.

When looking at the rest of your specs, it's like this; imagine your pc is a car.
The videocard is the engine and the rest is the rest of the car.
What you did is put a 1.2L 4 cilinder block in an army Hummer.

But since you don't game, but use it for professional audio, there's no need for a gaming card, just a half decent one, but the 9400GT is a really really budget card.
I don't think there actually is a slower card in the Geforce 9 series.

About the ram, what you can do is slap in another 3 x 1GB, or exchange the 3 x1 you have now for 3 x 2 for a total of 6GB. There is no need to get 9GB of ram, waste of money in your case, even audio programs should have plenty with 6GB.

What you could also do, is get another one of those Caviar Black drives and put both of them on raid 0, that will double performance, it did for me, and the drives are blazing fast. Not as fast as SSD drives ofcourse, but still, I get close.

What did you do when installing the rig?? Did the tech shop do the installing as well?? When you do a fresh install, 1st install windows, then the latest servicepack, then all drivers and you should be good to go.

You might want to try and turn off indexing service in Vista 1st and also turn off the aero interface. the card officially supports it, but it's to slow to do it with a good steady course.

[merc476]

Ultima,

Thanks for the reply. Please excuse my ignorance when it comes to this. I appreciate your patience. Currently I have the 3 drives installed. 1 of the drives has two partitions for both operating systems. Another I use to store my projects and the other I use to store my sound libraries. When you mention "putting them on raid 0"...I have no clue what you're talking about so I have no clue where to begin.

In regards to the video card. What card would you recommend for my system keeping in mind that i'm only using the card for pro audio and not gaming. As far as the installation of the os's, it was the shop that installed them both. This is kinda frustrating considering how much I expected the system to fly in comparison to my old system and it really has kinda slowed my workflow. Thanks again.

[Ultima]

Hi Merc476,

no problem at all, we're here to help

Putting drives in a raid 0 configuration means that your motherboard must have this capability onboard, and since it is an i7 based rig, I would be heavily dissappointed if it didn't.
What it does is make the system think that the 2 or 3 drives combined, are 1 disc, but through that setup, the interface is a lot faster.
Looky here in this thread,
1st ever Harddisk benchmark thread

you can clearly see in the single drive test, the Caviar Black 640GB in 5th place with 107.5MB/s max throughput, but if you look in the list below that, the raid setups, you see me in 1st place, with 2 of those drives and the max throughput goes almost double, to 215.8MB/s , so your professional audio setup could process data on disc a lot quicker.

But, there is a downside to raid 0, if 1 of the discs fails, the raid array fails and you loose everything, so with this setup it is always wise to have an extra disc, for backup.

Considering you don't play games, try the suggestions I made about disabling a few things, like indexing service in Vista, that tends to hog system resources, and the Aero interface is possibly why the rest seems slower, as the videocard is trying to handle Aero.

When that is disabled, you should already notice a bit, but if you don't it could be something else too.
Seeing as you have 3GB of ram, and you do deside to go for 6GB total, you'd have to go for 64bit version, as the 32bit version only supports upto 3.2GB
And in that case, you could always try windowsXP 64 bit, is a lot less of a systemhog compared to Vista.

Do you have friends that can do this for you?? Help you with installing XP or Vista 64bit??

[merc476]

OK...the raid sounds a bit scary for me since im the worst ever at backing things up on a consistent basis. But if it'll help, i'll have to find a better/easier way for me to back up my files. I think i may have confused you regarding my ram and os. I currently have 9 gigs of ram installed. I have both Windows Vista business 32 and Windows Vista Ultimate 64 on my pc but I only use the 32 bit os due to the fact that alot of my pro audio programs do not support 64 bit yet.

[Ultima]

it might sound scary, but if you have a 3rd drive, you can work on the audio on the raid array, and when your done with it, copy it over to the backup disc, no sweat at all.

That is strange that software won't run on 64bit, usually it'll run just fine under 64bit, but then would be installed as 32bit, so you'd still have the advantage of being able to use more then 3.2GB and a few other things ofcourse.

[merc476]

Well, besides some of the software, the main issue is my audio hardware drivers. My audio interface does not have 64 bit drivers yet. So without that, i wont even get sounds from any of my programs. 32 or 64.

[KarmaKiller]

So you do you like all the eye candy that vista has? You can disable that and that might help some. But your system should have no problems with speed at all. You pretty much have a cutting edge system. (minus the GPU but you know that)

Might look through this:
Speed Up Windows Vista - Wired How-To Wiki

Maybe see if some of those tweaks help.