Multitasking sucks with E6700

[nanaki333]

What am I missing here? I can't multitask anything on my E6700. I have a P5B-E motherboard, 2GB pc1066 memory & the E6700. I can't do more than 1 thing at the same time. If i'm downloading from the internet at my connections max speed, I can't even listen to an mp3 without the system bogging down and skipping etc etc etc. What am I missing here? I JUST reinstalled windows about 2 weeks ago when I got my new gear.

 

[Duvie]

Have all the motherboard chipset drivers installed?

Do you have the SATA ports configured properly in the bios?

could be quite a few things...

Could even be apps running in the background....hit ctrl-alt-del and see what is running under processes...

 

[nanaki333]

the background apps are fine. almost nothing running. no cpu usage. i have my SATA ports setup properly. i have 2 250GB seagates running in raid0. all motherboard chipsets are installed.

 

[Technonut]

I can't even listen to an mp3 without the system bogging down

Botched audio driver installation?

EDIT: Play an MP3 while watching Processes in Task Manager to see any unusually high usage.....

 

[nanaki333]

nah. i was just using that as an example. like, i can't do anything that requires even a little cpu power with something else that requires some. i was just downloading a file in the background and started up gametap (say what you want, i love gametap! great way to kill time) and gametap was going so slow, it was almost freezing.

i can't unrar and browse the web at the same time either. something just isn't right. i know it has to be OE somewhere, cause my x2 4200 ran things beautifully.

 

[BitByBit]

You're not the first to make such comments about multitasking on Conroe systems.
Here's another user's experiences.
I've read other accounts in addition to the one mentioned above of poor multitasking, and I can only assume it's a chipset problem or maybe a driver issue.

Edit:
I found another two examples:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/06/04/intel_conroe_performance_preview/7
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware...itasking-Benchmarks-ftopict187305.html

 

[nanaki333]

looks like not many people believe that poor guy that his thing is running slow. some saying it's an ati thing. hrmmm... i have a 7950GX2 (8800GTX should be here tuesday ). i don't know. this thing is irritating the hell out of me. it runs games great though when that's the only thing going on.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: BitByBit
You're not the first to make such comments about multitasking on Conroe systems.
Here's another user's experiences.
I've read other accounts in addition to the one mentioned above of poor multitasking, and I can only assume it's a chipset problem or maybe a driver issue.

Edit:
I found another two examples:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/06/04/intel_conroe_performance_preview/7
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware...itasking-Benchmarks-ftopict187305.html

the last 2 were in June when a lot of these boards were not even out....so clearly drivers

The other lnk to HardOCP was full of moronic comments....

I have done the test on 2 different boards now and DVDshrink shows a huge gain over my dual core X2 chips...

Also run bitcomet, multiple web surfiing, 2 instances of folding at home, and everything starts up just as fine with NO lag...Also video and music plays fine with anything I use...

So this has to be isolated, because as many ppl as have C2Ds here at AT this would have been huge debacle if there was more to it then user or hardware drivers

 

[tallman45]

1st problem may be your Raid. Especially if your OS is on it. You may have created a single threaded bottlenck to your data that feeds the dual processors.

Raids shine with giant files, but are a no no for small files such as an OS

Utilize the 2x 250gb drives over 2 distict and independant channels so that data can be accessed from each drive simultaniously by the processes. Properly tuning a system for optimum performance requires knowing what needes to accessed when and making sure it can be retrieved in a speedy fashion without contending with other resourses.

 

[imported_Crusader]

Install this and let us know if it fixes your issue.

 

[myocardia]

Nanaki, do you have SP2 installed? It's a necessity, with dual-core processors.

 

[nanaki333]

of course i have SP2 installed *checks really quick*. yep!

i DID find a driver update under windows updates for my raid driver. hopefully that fixes the issue. i'm going to try the link crusader sent me too.

thanks for the help

 

[nanaki333]

OK. I don't know what else to do. I have the latest drivers for everything, latest BIOS, and I still can't multi task. My entire computer is bogged down right now because of something downloading in the background. It's not even going that fast either (30Mbps fios and I'm getting MAYBE 5Mbps from MS.com). The entire machine is acting like it has 0% resources free with 100% CPU going. Task manager of course shows me almost nothing is taking the CPU and memory though. Any other ideas?

 

[pwnedbypie]

try setting the affinity of the cores to each app

like when you run gametap (go gametap!) press alt.ctrl.delete

then go to the process and right click it

click set affinity

set the affinity to one of your cores.

this wont solve the problem, but when you do, this is a good way to multitask

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: tallman45
1st problem may be your Raid. Especially if your OS is on it. You may have created a single threaded bottlenck to your data that feeds the dual processors.

Raids shine with giant files, but are a no no for small files such as an OS

Utilize the 2x 250gb drives over 2 distict and independant channels so that data can be accessed from each drive simultaniously by the processes. Properly tuning a system for optimum performance requires knowing what needes to accessed when and making sure it can be retrieved in a speedy fashion without contending with other resourses.

This may very well be your problem, nanaki. RAID isn't as easy to setup as some people would lead you to believe.

 

[nanaki333]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: tallman45
1st problem may be your Raid. Especially if your OS is on it. You may have created a single threaded bottlenck to your data that feeds the dual processors.

Raids shine with giant files, but are a no no for small files such as an OS

Utilize the 2x 250gb drives over 2 distict and independant channels so that data can be accessed from each drive simultaniously by the processes. Properly tuning a system for optimum performance requires knowing what needes to accessed when and making sure it can be retrieved in a speedy fashion without contending with other resourses.

This may very well be your problem, nanaki. RAID isn't as easy to setup as some people would lead you to believe.

apparently not on an intel based board. i didn't have a problem with my x2 or my xp2800 system.

 

[zanejohnson]

i have a Presler D and raid:0, with the OS on the raid array... no problems multitasking whatsoever....

it's IDE raid though, and they are on seperate channels.

 

[programmer]

Have you tried the latest Intel chipset drivers? I'd defintely check that out.

 

[Gary Key]

What are your memory settings in the BIOS?

 

[Thor86]

Maybe you should run some stability testing like Orthos or Memtest to see if any errors show up.

 

[wantedSpidy]

i had the exact same problem. I tried various patches, fixes from numerous places - non worked.

I re-installed windows, and all my problems went away ...
I pretty much kept re-installing windows till the problem went away (I did it like 3-4 times, tried different HD's too)
I've got mine working fine in raid 1, so it shouldn't be raid related..

 

[sandorski]

scan for spyware

 

[programmer]

any luck?

 

[OcHungry]

Just sell it and buy an AM2 x2 65 watts and run smooth and cool.
It isn?t worth the headache trying to fix something that is cache related. Intel did a good job on 32bit single thread applications but when it comes to vista/64bit and multitasking, you are definitely better off w/ good old AMD. I don?t care how much these anantech marketers are trying to push these lame conroes, but the truth is finally prevailing and more people are turning a way from Intel (and anantech for pushing Conroe reviews 24/7)

 

[5uperGlu3]

i would think that the best way to rule your RAID configuration out would be to reinstall your OS on a single HD. then try multitasking with the same apps that you were having trouble with and see if your getting the same issues. i know its a lot of work, but at this point you tired everything else and if your still getting the same issues without the RAID you know what the problem has nothing to do with the RAID.
also, gary brings up a good point, your mem settings could be screwing you up as well. work with gary first and then try reinstalling the OS on a single drive.