Questions tagged [performance]

For questions concerning computer, or computer-related, performance. Please include metrics in your questions.

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33 votes
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Do disabled Firefox extensions make Firefox slower?

Do disabled Firefox extensions make Firefox slower? I know that extensions make browsing slower, but what about extensions that are disabled and not in use?
inothemo's user avatar
  • 2,179
28 votes
2 answers
40k views

RamMap "Empty standby list" drastically speeds up PC. Is there a better way to do this?

Many people are educated on how Windows Memory manager caching works by reading Microsoft white papers, etc. However, there are relatively few documents that describe real-world performance issues (...
user22667's user avatar
  • 289
26 votes
5 answers
108k views

my windows 10 pc got really slow although CPU and memory usage is fine. what else can I do?

since two weeks my windows 10 pc got really slow, and I have no idea why. I can still do everything, but everything takes much longer to a degree that I'm struggling to get my school work done. ...
Manuel's user avatar
  • 397
25 votes
7 answers
140k views

Windows 7 running slowly with low CPU usage and memory

I have a relatively new (under 2 yrs old) Windows 7 machine. It has 9GB of RAM, and an i7 core CPU (930 @ 2.8GHz w/ 8 CPUs). After about 8 months since a clean install, I noticed my computer was ...
arcologies's user avatar
23 votes
2 answers
103k views

How to find out what's accessing a particular hard drive on Windows? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How can I view what percentage of my hard drive bandwidth is currently being used? My HDD on a dock just started making noises like it's being accessed but I don't see any ...
Joan Venge's user avatar
  • 1,494
23 votes
3 answers
11k views

Bad NTFS performance

Why is it that NTFS performance is so lousy compared to, for example, Linux/ext3? Most often I see this when checking out (large) source trees from Subversion. Checkout takes around 10-15 minutes on ...
JesperE's user avatar
  • 1,575
23 votes
6 answers
7k views

Is it possible to format a hard-drive too often?

Every couple of months I find my computer becomes sluggish, so I format the hard drive then reinstall Windows to keep it running fast. I've been doing this for about a year without any adverse effects;...
aligray's user avatar
  • 592
22 votes
7 answers
58k views

Is there an optimal setting for the number of CPU cores exposed to a VM?

VirtualBox, and possibly other VM software, allows the user to specify the number of CPUs exposed to the VM. In my particular case, I have a dual core CPU, with Windows 7 64-bit running natively, and ...
sblair's user avatar
  • 12.7k
20 votes
5 answers
25k views

Super slow opening my downloads folder

I have an exe file in my download folder that I half downloaded through utorrent (it's not piracy, a legit file from people who use bittorrent to distribute large files). I think I tried to open it ...
Mark's user avatar
  • 443
20 votes
6 answers
6k views

How do I conduct a performance test of my internet connection?

Right now I'm in the process of possibly switching from a Cable provider to a DSL provider. I have both connections live, and before I cancel one or the other, I'm wanting to do some exhaustive ...
James Mertz's user avatar
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20 votes
3 answers
60k views

Should I split VMware virtual disk into multiple files or not?

I'm using VMware Workstation 12 to create Win7 virtual machine that I can use it on Linux for programs like Photoshop and After Effects. VMware is asking for this option to split virtual machine ...
emrecnl's user avatar
  • 434
18 votes
4 answers
220k views

Should I install my operating system on my SSD or HDD?

I'm currently deciding whether to install my Operating System on my SSD (solid state drive) or HDD (hard disk drive). Should I install programs on the HDD and the OS on the SSD or vice versa? Which ...
Tom Squires's user avatar
18 votes
5 answers
64k views

Windows is very slow with my new SSD

I have a laptop HP probook 4520s with Core i5 M480 @ 2.67Ghz, 4Gb RAM, 640 GB HDD Radeon HD 6370m 1GB video card. It would seem like a good stack for work, right? But My HDD has ...
Mak's user avatar
  • 183
17 votes
7 answers
14k views

Which PC components make the biggest impact on your compile times for Visual Studio?

Which PC specifications have the biggest impact on your compile times? Disk? Clock speed? Number of CPU cores?
Rob Allen's user avatar
  • 1,879
17 votes
3 answers
107k views

How can I find out which parts of an Excel workbook are the biggest in size?

I have an Excel .xlsx that weights 47MB. I'd like to know which parts of the workbook are the heaviest and work them, since I haven't made much progress manually trying to identify and reduce the ...
s_a's user avatar
  • 2,099
16 votes
4 answers
9k views

Why does HDD activity slow the whole System down (on Windows 7)?

If I copy a large amount of data from on drive to another (physical) drive my whole system is running slow. I am using Windows 7 64bit version on an Intel Core 2 Duo 3 GHz. This is the situation: ...
user4514's user avatar
  • 1,342
16 votes
2 answers
24k views

In the Resource Monitor of Windows 7, what does the "disk queue length" really mean?

In the Resource Monitor of Windows 7, what does the "disk queue length" really mean? (View larger size) In addition, what does the green area and blue lines stand for, as well as the response time ...
InquilineKea's user avatar
  • 1,266
14 votes
4 answers
46k views

AFP, SMB, NFS which is the best data transfer protocol?

I have a computer with large hard disks running Gentoo. I have to serve med/big files via a wired network to Apple devices (all of them running OS X). Which protocol is the best for the following ...
Kami's user avatar
  • 3,248
13 votes
4 answers
5k views

To what extent is size a factor in SSD performance?

To what extent is the size of an SSD a factor in its performance? In my mind, correct me if I'm wrong, a bigger SSD should be, everything else being equal, faster than a smaller one. A bigger SSD ...
artif's user avatar
  • 281
13 votes
4 answers
42k views

Does overheating cause a computer to slow down?

I've heard that heat issues can cause problems with PCs, but is this realistic? Is leaving the desktop in a cabinet area, or above-average-room-temp, a realistic potential cause of slowdowns? (I'm ...
anonymous coward's user avatar
12 votes
5 answers
10k views

Is ext4 more expensive than ntfs?

I have just converted an NTFS partition to ext4, however the total space seems reduced from 421G to 415G. Where did the 6G go? And, the reserved space is grown to 199M in ext4, much larger compared to ...
Lenik's user avatar
  • 18.3k
12 votes
8 answers
10k views

Disk operations freeze Debian

I have just installed Debian testing on my new desktop and I am not very happy with performance - when I perform a disk intensive operation, e.g. upgrade packages in the system, everything seems to ...
Grzenio's user avatar
  • 2,967
12 votes
2 answers
21k views

SSD 4k random read/write QD1...32 and IOPS values

I'm a video designer and have a lot of rendering programs. I decided to buy a 120GB SSD in my PC, and I'm searching for the best performance. The important thing for best performance in SSD must be ...
ATES's user avatar
  • 225
12 votes
5 answers
21k views

Samba vs. NFS: Performance [closed]

I've got a choice of setting up Samba or NFS on my Linux based NAS ( nslu2 running OpenDebian ). Does anyone have performance related stories comparing the two options ? Are there tuneup tricks that ...
user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
4k views

Why does Chrome group my tabs in processes and how can I stop it?

I noticed that in Chrome, it groups all the tabs into one renderer process, at least for me. This is a problem because that makes Chrome really slow from having 150k of RAM to sort through. Is there ...
digitxp's user avatar
  • 14.6k
9 votes
4 answers
12k views

In Windows 7, is there a way to know how much memory a service is using?

In windows 7, is there a way (by using common interface or a custom utility) to know how much memory a specific windows service is using ? It seems most services are hosted by svchost.exe processes (...
tigrou's user avatar
  • 921
9 votes
4 answers
9k views

Is there a way to know what program slows down startup?

Is there a program that can be installed to be able to know what program takes time to load at startup of Windows?
Patrick Desjardins's user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
9k views

Dual-Virtualization vs. Dual-Boot vs. Single-Virtualization

A friend of mine recently suggested something that intrigued me: in the case of needing multiple Operating Systems simultaneously, instead of dual-booting or using multiple computers, one could use a ...
Thomas Shields's user avatar
8 votes
5 answers
5k views

MacBook Pro for Windows development via virtualization. Performance?

I am a Windows/Web developer by profession and I have been considering a MacBook Pro as a replacement for my current development machine. I am impressed by the build quality, the uni-body construction ...
webworm's user avatar
  • 601
8 votes
1 answer
32k views

What does "I/O Reads or Writes" and "I/O Read Bytes or Write Bytes" mean?

In Task Manager (and Sysinternals' Process Explorer) there are columns called "I/O Reads", "I/O Writes", "I/O Read Bytes" and "I/O Write Bytes". So what do these counters mean exactly? What else, ...
skr3am's user avatar
  • 91
8 votes
2 answers
22k views

ExpressCache vs. Intel's Rapid Storage and Smart Response Technologies

What is the difference between Samsung's ExpressCache Technology and Intel's Rapid Storage Technology? From the very little I understand about computer hardware, it seems that they both use a small ...
Avi Steiner's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
5k views

How can I find out what's the bottleneck slowing down a particular process / the entire system?

Given a specific running process, is there a way to find out what hardware element is currently the bottleneck for its operation? In other words, is its current computation CPU-bound, GPU-bound, ...
Oak's user avatar
  • 1,377
6 votes
1 answer
5k views

Troubleshooting slow SSD

I have a Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120GB SSD (http://www.mushkin.com/Digital-Storage/SSDs/MKNSSDCR120GB.aspx). Its performance is rated as: Capacity: 120GB Read Speed: up to 550MB/sec ...
Simon Verbeke's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
3k views

How to quickly view huge PNG images in OS X?

I need to view and zoom into selected parts of PNG images around 10,000x10,000px, ~10MB. When I open these images with Preview, it takes over a minute to load and then is very slow to show the image ...
GJ.'s user avatar
  • 9,853
6 votes
1 answer
19k views

Why do we need multiple levels of cache memory?

In general a cache memory is useful because the speed of the processor is higher than the speed of the ram (they are both increasing in speed but the difference still remains). So reducing the number ...
Kami's user avatar
  • 165
6 votes
9 answers
4k views

SSD for Visual Studio: Intel X25-m G2 or OCZ Vertex

I'm looking for laptop upgrade, and thinking about getting an SSD drive for with T9400. I was thinking about replacing the built-in 500 GB HDD on my Dell Studio XPS with some kind of SSD. I have two ...
user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
7k views

How much of a performance hit using asymmetrical dual channel RAM?

As a follow-up to my question Can a P55 chipset support 6GB as 2GBx3?; I understand there might be a performance hit using an odd-number of sticks. My question therefore is - How much of a ...
Everyone's user avatar
  • 1,824
5 votes
7 answers
22k views

Windows 8 disk usage is 100%

Windows 8.1 Preview has disk usage of 100%, and the fan is very noisy. It started one week ago, before that it wasn't so noisy and the laptop worked very well. I don't know the cause. I hope you can ...
Denis Balan's user avatar
5 votes
5 answers
5k views

How to diagnose a slow booting laptop [duplicate]

I'm running Windows 7 Pro 64bit on a Dell Precision M4400 laptop and whenever I boot it it takes ages ( >5mins average). This doesn't seem right as it's a fairly beasty piece of kit, It get's a 5.9 ...
Greg B's user avatar
  • 1,048
5 votes
2 answers
3k views

Tools to find bottlenecks in hardware configuration

I'm thinking of upgrading my notebook and I want to find the tightest bottlenecks in its hardware configuration to target my money in the most efficient way. So what software tool can you recommend to ...
wheleph's user avatar
  • 360
5 votes
2 answers
9k views

rsync slow copy from one disk to another

I got two drives of the same model which are connected using SATA. When benchmarking read speeds using hdparm -t /dev/sdX, speeds of about 160MB/s are returned. When benchmarking write-speed using dd ...
Zulakis's user avatar
  • 1,714
4 votes
2 answers
25k views

Brand new Seagate HDD has high raw read error rate

I've just purchased a brand new Seagate ST31000524AS 1TB HDD. Manufacture date shows as January 2012 (yes that's as new as new can get), so must be one of the new batches from the post-flood Thailand. ...
kpax's user avatar
  • 355
4 votes
2 answers
9k views

Does partitioning a hard drive give a performance gain?

Back in the day you could gain some performance by partitioning your hard drive to several partitions: Pagefile OS and Apps data There was some debate regarding the order of the drives as the first ...
Jonathan's user avatar
  • 3,789
4 votes
3 answers
1k views

How do I measure computer performance before and after optimizations?

I want to either programmatically or manually measure how much PC performance increase I get after using a Windows optimization program. There are several programs on the market that do this and I ...
Brian T Hannan's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
9k views

SVCHost using 100% CPU in Windows 7

I am having a problem with Windows 7. When I boot up, the CPU jumps to 100% execution for about 10-15 minutes. During this time, it is really slow, and if I play any music, the songs play slowly and ...
Synthoras's user avatar
3 votes
6 answers
2k views

hibernate takes 4 minutes 38 seconds

I have a 4GB RAM 500GB 7200 rpm HDD laptop and when I hibernate the laptop it takes in the region of 3 or 4 minutes(*) to hibernate. not the 24 seconds it used to take. It takes this long whether or ...
cometbill's user avatar
  • 651
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

Why do operating systems use more RAM for the same processes after you increase the RAM capacity?

Recently, I increased my RAM capacity from 8 GB to 16 GB and I noticed how both Linux and Windows use more RAM for the same processes. As an example: Before the RAM upgrade I would have Firefox and ...
Runsis's user avatar
  • 157
3 votes
3 answers
33k views

How to open ports on router for better torrent performance

I've been using utorrent to download and upload torrents for a long time. Recently someone told me that I need to open port(s) for utorrent from my router settings for better downloading and uploading ...
Mehper C. Palavuzlar's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
17k views

Dual Monitors with Integrated and Dedicated Graphics Card - Performance Impacts?

are there any downsides in using two Monitors? One over the integrated graphics card (Intel(R) HD Graphics 530 in my case) and the other over the dedicated graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB)?...
Morymo's user avatar
  • 39
3 votes
3 answers
3k views

Lenovo laptop with Intel CPU remains at lowest clock

I have an Lenovo T440p with an Intel Core i5 4300M CPU. 8GB RAM, SSD running with Windows 7 (preinstalled). The only thing I did not like about this laptop was the screen, which I replaced (the whole ...
Jasper's user avatar
  • 181

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