Questions tagged [performance]

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

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449 votes
8 answers
77k views

Why don't websites immediately display their text these days?

I've noticed that recently many websites are slow to display their text. Usually, the background, images and so on are going to be loaded, but no text. After some time the text starts appearing here ...
laurent's user avatar
  • 6,079
273 votes
17 answers
451k views

How can I produce high CPU load on a Linux server?

I’m currently in the process of debugging a Cacti installation and want to create CPU load to debug my CPU utilization graphs. I tried to simply run cat /dev/zero > /dev/null, which works great ...
Oliver Salzburg's user avatar
226 votes
6 answers
671k views

Troubleshoot High CPU usage by the "System" process

I have noticed that from some time my system is freezing and its probably caused by the high CPU usage which is caused by the system process. All applications I'm running is the Skype, TeamSpeak and ...
Scott's user avatar
  • 2,373
225 votes
9 answers
125k views

Is there still a reason to choose a 10,000 RPM hard drive over an SSD?

For anyone who's serious about storage performance, SSDs are always the fastest solution. However, WD still makes their 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor hard drives, and a few enthusiasts even use enterprise-...
bwDraco's user avatar
  • 46.1k
194 votes
9 answers
32k views

Why does emptying disk space speed up computers?

I have been looking at a bunch of videos and now understand a bit better how computers work. I better understand what RAM is, volatile and non-volatile memory, and the process of swapping. I also ...
Remi.b's user avatar
  • 2,641
178 votes
10 answers
275k views

How to measure disk-performance under Windows?

I'm trying to find out why my application is very slow on a certain machine (runs fine everywhere else). I think i have traced the performance-problems to hard-disk reads and writes and i think it's ...
user avatar
156 votes
9 answers
428k views

Linux: find out what process is using all the RAM?

Before actually asking, just to be clear: yes, I know about disk cache, and no, it is not my case :) Sorry, for this preamble :) I'm using CentOS 5. Every application in the system is swapping ...
Tim's user avatar
  • 1,707
140 votes
24 answers
242k views

Why is my SSH login slow?

I'm seeing delays in SSH Logins. Specifically, there are 2 spots where I see a range from instantaneous to multi-second delays. Between issuing the ssh command and getting a login prompt and between ...
Peter Lyons's user avatar
  • 1,862
130 votes
9 answers
123k views

How much space to leave free on HDD or SSD?

In the informal (i.e. journalistic) technology press, and in online technology blogs and discussion forums, one commonly encounters anecdotal advice to leave some amount of space free on hard disk ...
user avatar
117 votes
1 answer
64k views

Why are there many processes listed under the same title in htop?

Can anyone explain to me why there are sometimes 10 or 15 processes with the same title and "stats" listed in htop? I'm guessing there are multiple threads running - but that many of them obviously ...
javanix's user avatar
  • 1,179
116 votes
4 answers
419k views

Windows 10 high memory usage (unknown reason)

A few days ago I updated my PC to Windows 10. However, after some use my PC started to slow down until it was impossible to use – it was due to high memory usage. After a restart, everything came back ...
Lukas's user avatar
  • 1,263
112 votes
14 answers
134k views

Should I disable swap file if I have lots of RAM or should I move it to a virtual RAM drive?

Imagine I have tons of RAM. Let's say 64GB. That's a lot for even gaming PCs. Now the default location of a pagefile in Windows is on the main OS drive, be it HDD or SSD, which are faster in general, ...
user1306322's user avatar
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100 votes
5 answers
100k views

Why are my games slower on battery power, even with the power plan set to High Performance?

My laptop is capable of running most games on high settings at decent frame rates. However, if the power cable gets unplugged while I'm playing, the game immediately starts slowing down, even if I'm ...
Egghead99's user avatar
  • 1,755
96 votes
7 answers
18k views

Does a computer use fewer resources when programs are minimized?

When programs are minimized in Windows 7, do they use less memory and CPU than leaving them maximized?
jao's user avatar
  • 1,930
93 votes
2 answers
46k views

Is there a way to identify the busy (CPU-consuming) tab in Firefox? [duplicate]

Sometimes there's a nasty, guilty, CPU-hogging tab in Firefox that's maxing one of my CPU cores and making the whole browser sluggish. I'd like to find it and close it. Sometimes I get lucky, but ...
gojomo's user avatar
  • 1,116
91 votes
13 answers
257k views

How can I produce high CPU load on Windows?

For testing purposes I need to generate high CPU load on a Windows Server 2003. I cannot install any software but have to make do with what Windows provides. What would be the best way to achieve ...
Morgon's user avatar
  • 911
86 votes
10 answers
34k views

Are computers with more RAM potentially faster if not all memory is usually in use?

Let's say I have a computer with 16 GB of memory. If my computer is usually only using about 4 GB and never reaches 8 GB, is it any faster than a computer with only 8 GB of (the same type of) memory? ...
Keavon's user avatar
  • 1,151
85 votes
4 answers
74k views

Why is piping 'dd' through gzip so much faster than a direct copy?

I wanted to backup a path from a computer in my network to another computer in the same network over a 100 Mbit/s line. For this I did dd if=/local/path of=/remote/path/in/local/network/backup....
Foo Bar's user avatar
  • 1,460
79 votes
17 answers
211k views

How do I troubleshoot a Windows freeze or slowness?

A machine is described as being "really slow" or "freezing". How can I troubleshoot/resolve this issue? What should be the first steps to take?
78 votes
7 answers
71k views

How does NTFS compression affect performance?

I've heard that NTFS compression can reduce performance due to extra CPU usage, but I've read reports that it may actually increase performance because of reduced disk reads. How exactly does NTFS ...
bwDraco's user avatar
  • 46.1k
76 votes
23 answers
11k views

Why does Microsoft Windows' performance appear to degrade over time?

Windows XP/2003 and earlier (can't attest to Windows Vista, but I suspect it's the same) all appear to become more sluggish over time as applications are installed and uninstalled. This is not a ...
52d6c6af's user avatar
  • 4,160
75 votes
3 answers
10k views

Why are smaller capacity SSDs slower?

I was reading this Tom's Hardware article on testing SSDs and came across the following claim: With SSDs, performance varies by capacity point. Smaller drives tend to be slower than larger ones, ...
PGmath's user avatar
  • 1,640
74 votes
14 answers
38k views

Is there a reason to keep Windows' primary partition / drive C: small?

In my jobs almost two decades ago, IT experts would keep the size of Windows' main partition (C drive) extremely small compared to the other partitions. They would argued this runs PC at optimum speed ...
TheTechGuy's user avatar
  • 2,034
70 votes
6 answers
32k views

Why are USB flash drives so much slower than SSDs?

From what I understand, USB flash drives and solid-state drives (SSDs) are based on similar technologies, NAND flash memory. But, USB flash drives are usually quite slow, with a read and write speed ...
Jonas's user avatar
  • 27.5k
68 votes
3 answers
45k views

Why did adding memory significantly increase gaming performance on an AMD APU?

To be clear from the beginning, this is not a problem. This is just something that I really want to know the secret behind. System specifications CPU: AMD A10-6790K 4.0 GHz GPU: AMD ...
TranXestor's user avatar
66 votes
9 answers
22k views

Why have CPU manufacturers stopped increasing the clock speeds of their processors? [closed]

I have read that manufacturers stopped concentrating on higher clock speeds and are now working on other things to improve performance. With an old Desktop machine with Intel® Xeon® Processor E3110 ...
learner's user avatar
  • 551
63 votes
2 answers
44k views

Why is the Alpine Docker image over 50% slower than the Ubuntu image?

I noticed that my Python application is much slower when running it on python:2-alpine3.6 than running it without Docker on Ubuntu. I came up with two small benchmark commands and there's a huge ...
Underyx's user avatar
  • 951
59 votes
5 answers
67k views

Quickest way to merge all snapshots in VirtualBox?

I have vdi with quite a number of snapshots taken from it - say, 50 or 70 snapshots. I want to have one plain vdi with a current state. These snapshots take way too much disk space and are not needed ...
Andrey Regentov's user avatar
59 votes
5 answers
27k views

What is the proper way of debugging a slow Windows installation?

You know the drill - you've been asked to check why your cousin's computer is running slow. I was right there yesterday. Being a Mac user since 2007 I haven't really dug deep in Windows internals in ...
Niklas's user avatar
  • 693
57 votes
4 answers
28k views

NVMe ssd: Why is 4k writing faster than reading?

I have a Samsung 960 Pro 512 GB SSD on NVMe with PCIe Gen.3x4 running. I use the Samsung NVMe Driver 2.0.0.1607. The SSD is running fine. However, I don't understand why the writing of 4k is faster ...
musbach's user avatar
  • 802
57 votes
6 answers
12k views

Why can't old PCs view modern sites? [closed]

The reason for this question is that many times clients, friends and parents ask me why their perfectly working old PC cannot be used online anymore. I am looking for a good answer to those people ...
Armand P's user avatar
  • 749
52 votes
1 answer
254k views

What happens if I use RAM of a faster speed than the CPU supports?

Looking at the Intel E3-1230v2 CPU, under Memory types it says "DDR3-1333/1600". My question is, in what way does the CPU limit the RAM speed? What would happen if I put in a DDR3-2133 RAM chip ...
Claudiu's user avatar
  • 1,756
51 votes
3 answers
124k views

Is it faster to have four times 2 GB or two times 4 GB of RAM with a dual-channel mainboard?

I'm building a Core i7-860 system which supports dual-channel memory (up to 16 GB in four DIMMs), my target is 8 GB. From the performance perspective, is it better to have two times 4 ...
Borek Bernard's user avatar
51 votes
1 answer
98k views

How to increase VLC RAM buffer for offline files?

I would like to configure VLC player to preload a significant portion (like a hundred megabytes or so) of a video file from the hard disk to RAM before playing it. Is this possible?
Ivan's user avatar
  • 7,503
50 votes
10 answers
11k views

Which malfunctions cause old computers to slow down and crash?

I've had a few computers of my own break after a few years of use, and I've seen computers owned by friends and family do the same thing. They either slow down (even running the original software ...
Mr. Jefferson's user avatar
49 votes
11 answers
51k views

Speed of TrueCrypt whole disk encryption

I'm getting a new development laptop soon, and I'm thinking of using TrueCrypt to encrypt the whole disk. What kind of performance drop can I expect? 10%? 30%? More? Also, assuming the workload has ...
Gareth's user avatar
  • 631
47 votes
11 answers
104k views

Bitlocker Performance Impact on SSD

I've put a brand new SSD into my work computer and my IT department wants me to use BitLocker. I read one of the other threads on BitLocker performance on standard harddrives, but I was wondering - ...
Aaronontheweb's user avatar
47 votes
9 answers
141k views

TiWorker.exe - Very High CPU Usage

I have a laptop running Windows 8. Although it originally ran well, it started having very bad performance issues. I decided to perform some research into the topic. Opening up Task Manager, I ...
dillmo's user avatar
  • 3,031
45 votes
6 answers
183k views

Does a USB hub affect performance?

I have two devices I want maximum throughput and latency with (MIDI drums and MIDI keyboard for example.) Would connecting both to the same USB port via a hub effectively limit the maximum data ...
SwimBikeRun's user avatar
45 votes
4 answers
42k views

How badly do SSDs degrade without TRIM?

SSDs have been out for a few years, and have seen all kinds of usage patterns. Windows and Linux support the TRIM command, with Mac OS still trailing behind here. Update (2011): It appears OSX Snow ...
joev's user avatar
  • 573
44 votes
5 answers
18k views

Why are newer generations of processors faster at the same clock speed?

Why, for example, would a 2.66 GHz dual-core Core i5 be faster than a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo, which is also dual-core? Is this because of newer instructions that can process information in fewer clock ...
agz's user avatar
  • 8,278
44 votes
8 answers
173k views

Why is VNC on Windows so slow?

In a test, I could stream a full HD movie across our network from my friend's computer, no problem. It's as fast as I could want. But VNC is painfully slow. We've tried Real VNC and Tight VNC, I've ...
Josh Comley's user avatar
  • 4,102
43 votes
6 answers
64k views

Why do file copy operations in Linux get slower over time?

I have 12 ~200 MB files. Copying one of them to another drive takes 20 seconds. When I try to copy all of them at once, it first says it's going to take 5 minutes, then it keeps slowing down into the ...
User not found's user avatar
42 votes
9 answers
82k views

Is there a way to transfer thousand of small files faster on Windows 7?

I noticed that if I transfer a few large files between two hard drives, it's pretty speedy, at around at least 30 MB per second, but if I transfer thousands of files less than 5 KB, it is ...
netrox's user avatar
  • 571
42 votes
3 answers
97k views

How to diagnose slow booting or logon in Windows? [duplicate]

When I start my PC, it boots into Windows (Windows 7 32-bit) quite happily, I login and the main Windows screen appears. At that point, however, the system is extremely unresponsive for up to 5 ...
Paul Moore's user avatar
41 votes
7 answers
26k views

How important is having 64-bit programs on 64-bit OS?

I recently upgraded to 64-bit OS(Windows 7) from my old 32-bit version. I noticed that while several applications are available in 64-bit(e.g. DC client, Tortoise SVN, Graphics driver), many are still ...
apoorv020's user avatar
  • 2,474
41 votes
16 answers
31k views

Any reason not to disable the Windows pagefile given enough physical RAM?

The question of disabling the Windows pagefile has already been discussed quite a bit, for example here and here and here. People continue to upvote answers that say "you should not disable your ...
EMP's user avatar
  • 4,998
40 votes
11 answers
14k views

Why does hardware get slower with time?

Why does hardware get slower with time? I have been a PC owner since 1990 and every computer I have had in my life became really, really slow after 3-4 years (even with a full system-reinstall). It is ...
Alexey Kulikov's user avatar
40 votes
8 answers
44k views

Does Windows ReadyBoost have a meaningful impact on performance?

Does Windows ReadyBoost technology, available in Windows since Vista, have a meaningful impact on performance? Are there well-known benchmarks that compare systems with, and without? Does the speed ...
Chris W. Rea's user avatar
  • 10.8k
40 votes
4 answers
69k views

What is the cause of a high CPU usage of 'system and compressed memory' in Windows 10?

There is an observation to be made for Windows 10 on my laptop running with 24G memory available, and 2.5G used. There is no 'memory pressure'. Other questions have looked at memory consumption (...
Raymond Burkholder's user avatar

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