Slow EVERYTHING on stock clock

Solouko · 17 Dec 2007 at 23:22

I've just built a system for a friend and it's PAINFULLY slow at everything!

Spec:

Intel Core 2 Quat Q6600 2.4GHz
MSI P6N SLI-F v2 650i motherboard
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX
2X: XFX GeForce 8500 GT Silent 256MB DDR2 (SLIed)
Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
4X: Maxtor Diamondmax 21 250GB SATA-II 8MB (RAID 5)
Thermalright SI-128 CPU Cooler (with AcoustiFan DustProof Quiet 120mm Fan)

now, problems are:

USB 2.0 transfer rate is slower then USB 1

DVD transfer rate incredibly slow

windows seems very sluggish

3D mark 06 score of 4216

Prime 95 when running 4 instances with an affinity set to each core will fail within 20 minutes on every core.

tried installing an additional 2 sticks of Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 memory but it would not boot with it until i increased the DRAM voltage THEN it only detected 3GB and would not run 3D mark 06 without crashing

also, loading files and applications takes a very long time, it should be faster then this with a RAID 5 array! *kicks it* :mad:

any ideas?

semi-pro waster · 17 Dec 2007 at 23:32

Have you got the motherboard drivers installed? It shouldn't make that much difference perhaps but it is worth checking.

I know this isn't going to help but I am curious, why have you SLi'd two low end graphics cards?

MeatLoaf · 18 Dec 2007 at 07:29

Well your 3Dmark score looks spot on for a pair of 8500GT cards.

Have you checked all 4 cores ar erecognised by windows?

Have you given your ram the correct voltage and timings in the bios?

And if you have a 32bit OS it will only detect between 3 and 3.5gb of RAM

blue4ice · 18 Dec 2007 at 11:42

First port of call is to check all the bios settings are setup correctly - voltages, timings etc.

Also what OS are you running?

melbourne720 · 18 Dec 2007 at 13:14

Why SLI the 8500 GT? The only reason I can think of would be if they were free tbh, and even then...

Are you booting off the RAID 5 array? I be it's something up with that, maybe take one of the drives out of that and use it as a seperate boot drive, that way if the array collapses you can still get into windows.

citizen__erased · 18 Dec 2007 at 13:48

Why on earth buy 2x8500Gt's when for the same price you could have bought a 3850Pro? Very strange decision.

fobose · 18 Dec 2007 at 15:04

Perhaps he likes the option of being able to use 4 monitors when required

Solouko · 18 Dec 2007 at 18:50

Q. why have you SLi'd two low end graphics cards?
A. I did it because they are the most powerfull passivly cooled boards available to me at the time and within my budget because the spec required a near silent setup.

Q. Have you checked all 4 cores are recognised by windows?
A. All 4 cores appear in device manager, other than that i dont know how to ckeck if windows can recognise them correctly.

Q. Have you given your ram the correct voltage and timings in the bios?
A. yes, set timings to 5-5-5-15 and the DRAM voltage to 1.9 after looking up the info on the corsair website.

Q. what OS are you running?
A. OS is windows XP pro 32-bit SP2 with most of the hotfixes I could find

Q. Are you booting off the RAID 5 array?
A. yes all 4 drives are in the one arry and booting from it, I thought it'd be better for the sustained transfer rates the PC is designed to undergo, I may look at slipping another drive in the for windows though. :confused:

Well your 3Dmark score looks spot on for a pair of 8500GT cards
That's reasuring, thank you

And if you have a 32bit OS it will only detect between 3 and 3.5gb of RAM
Thank you, i didnt know that.

Perhaps he likes the option of being able to use 4 monitors when required
I dont persoanly, but the guy I built it for does

gt_junkie · 18 Dec 2007 at 19:12

Something sounds odd to me. The nforce raid is not the best TBH. I'd try reinstalling on a single drive and see if performance increases... i'd be very surprised if it didn't.

How long ago did you do the build as i'd be tempted to return the 8500's - are they these?: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-094-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1010

That's £100 you could spend far better.

If you want silence i'd get one of any of these:

- Save £25: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-027-GI&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=912

- Save £5: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-072-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=404

Or...

- Break even and get way more performance (Plus 'Call of Juarez' game!!! :eek:

): http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-083-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=416 (Don't worry about the fan - it's inaudible in 2D and barely noticeable in 3D.)

gt

Solouko · 18 Dec 2007 at 19:37

it's been over 2 weeks since i bought them, overclockers was out of stock of some parts so i had to wait untill i could even turn the system on, and like i said, those cards were the best available at the time... also i dont trust anything from gigabyte, i'm a bit of a nazi when it comes to them after having a string of gigabyte hardware go consistantly wrong on me.

in addition the guy i'm building it for is anti ATI for the same reasons... =/ so what can you do.

i like your thinking though and it would have been nice to have had the advice when i asked for it on the forums two weeks ago XD

better late than never though =3

I'm going to try instaling windows on a seperate drive because after thinking it over the only thing that seems wrong or different from nayhting i've tried before is a 0.7 terabyte raid 5 array booting windows.

i'll post an update shortly (thanks again to all of you who have helped so far!)

gt_junkie · 18 Dec 2007 at 19:54

Solouko said:
I'm going to try instaling windows on a seperate drive because after thinking it over the only thing that seems wrong or different from nayhting i've tried before is a 0.7 terabyte raid 5 array booting windows.

Yeah, if i'd have spotted your spec advice page i'd have mentioned something... sorry matey!

Let us know how you get on with the single drive. As i say, simplifying that end will hopefully increase responsiveness and general performance!

Good luck!

gt

Solouko · 18 Dec 2007 at 23:57

thanks gt_junkie, i passed on your advice to my m8 and he said he was happyier with the SLI, maybe i'll give you guys more advanced warning next time i build a rig.

to get back on topic now the computer for the most part is sorted.. it was the RAID 5 array that was slowing everything down, i've now switched to a RAID 0+1 array and it's lightning fast!!!

it puts my AMD X2 to shame =/

i've put in it an IDE drive for now and installed windows on it and hamfistedly moved the program files folder and my documents folder to the RAID array... but the way i've done it using nlite has messed stuff up a bit and the raid array has decided to turn itself into 2 broken arrays for some reason.

What i'm planing to do now though is to go back to using the RAID 0+1 array to install windows on and have the IDE drive as a swap file... i know the burst speed of SATA is 300Gb/s but isn't the sustained average read and write closer to 40MB/s? and isn't that sustained average speed the same on IDE drives?

i really need the windows install on the raid array to speed up boot times, with the IDE drive it's painfully slow, but i'm worried that putting the swap file on the seperate IDE drive might slow things down as badly as putting it on the RAID array with the windows instal.

oh the desisions x_X in an ideal world i need 3 RAID arrays, one for windows (RAID 0) one for my documents (RAID 0+1) and one for the SWAP file (RAID 0).... i will one day get that bored and build a rig just like that!

but in the mean time, what would you recomend i do with the 5 drives i have:
4X SATAII 250GB
1x ATA 40GB

gt_junkie · 19 Dec 2007 at 00:17

Glad it's up to speed now matey!

Regarding your drives - what is the PC gonna be used for and why are boot times specifically important.

I'd be tempted just to run 2x 250 drives in a raid 1 set up for the operating system and the same again for the document storage.

However (if there was any spare cash) i'd consider something along the lines of 2x 74gb raptors in raid 1 and then the remaining 250's covering the documents and swap file storage - those can be either raid 1 or 0 depending on whether you want data backup or raw speed.

gt

collisster · 19 Dec 2007 at 00:22

I would invest in better HDD for raid array, my maxtor is pants

willhub · 19 Dec 2007 at 00:40

I notice you have a 7900GTX in your old rig, would be best to put that in your new.

Solouko · 19 Dec 2007 at 18:33

willhub said:
I notice you have a 7900GTX in your old rig, would be best to put that in your new.

this isn't my rig, i'm sticking with my AMD X2 for now, this new rig is for my best mate, hence the tight budget.

but then again, i've got 2 cars, one of which is very fast and italian so my budget for upgrades is even worse!

schumi84 · 19 Dec 2007 at 18:43

Solouko said:
but then again, i've got 2 cars, one of which is very fast and italian so my budget for upgrades is even worse!

Now i hope to god this isnt a Fiat Seicento with a jet engine on the back

willhub · 19 Dec 2007 at 19:05

Solouko said:
this isn't my rig, i'm sticking with my AMD X2 for now, this new rig is for my best mate, hence the tight budget.

but then again, i've got 2 cars, one of which is very fast and italian so my budget for upgrades is even worse!

Is it a supercar? I dont know any normal italian cars that are fast apart from the seat leon or w/e it was.

semi-pro waster · 19 Dec 2007 at 19:47

willhub said:
Is it a supercar? I dont know any normal italian cars that are fast apart from the seat leon or w/e it was.

I'm afraid that Seat are Spanish. A Lancia Delta would fit the bill for fast, Italian and sucks up money like nobodies business, particularly if it was an HF Integrale model. There are doubtless a few more quick Italian cars that would fit the bill - Alfa Romeo make some amongst others but I've always quite fancied a Delta.

melbourne720 · 19 Dec 2007 at 19:56

Glad you got it sorted - who was it who guessed the raid 5 array was at fault...?