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quad core like a one core

ashagplz

ashagplz

ashagplz

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14 Sep 2003
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773
running an i7 quad core....might as well be a single core....when running multiple applications most of the processing is being done on the first core....so i get like a 90% spike on core 1 while the others will be between 1-10%..this means i still get slow down when trying to do things like typing (lag between letters) as the workload isnt being spread evenly..is this normal on a quad core?
 
ashagplz said:
running an i7 quad core....might as well be a single core....when running multiple applications most of the processing is being done on the first core....so i get like a 90% spike on core 1 while the others will be between 1-10%..this means i still get slow down when trying to do things like typing (lag between letters) as the workload isnt being spread evenly..is this normal on a quad core?
Click to expand...

It shouldn't do that, but it seems that Windows(assuming this is what you're using) doesn't handle multithreading very well yet, seeing as this is the same behavior i have noticed. A short-term fix is to set affinity for your most CPU hungry applications.
 
Talrinys said:
It shouldn't do that, but it seems that Windows(assuming this is what you're using) doesn't handle multithreading very well yet, seeing as this is the same behavior i have noticed. A short-term fix is to set affinity for your most CPU hungry applications.
Click to expand...

do you mean assign one core to each application and not assigning core 0 to any?..and do this through the task manager?
 
lag between letters isn't something like cpu spiking to 90%, unless the cpu is hitting 100% its not in trouble anyway. i7's by standard when theres enough load for only one core will power down the others, or underclock them and overclock one or two cores, can't remember if its only one it overclocks or not. Its better to have one running slightly faster and turn the others off in terms of power, because a full speed full voltage core using 2% power is much more wasteful in terms of efficiency.

Anyway, essentially, there isn't a cpu made in the past 15 years that will be slow and show lag between inputting text and it appearing on screen, so my bet, something else is the issue. Wrong drivers, no drivers, something process thats gone bad and is using a full core for no reason, background defrag, etc, etc, etc.
 
ok..some more detail....cpu 940 [email protected] (20 x 175), turbo mode enabled, eist on, hyperthreading enabled.....fresh windows xp install using updated drivers all round....

i had 3 intensive tasks going at the same time plus a bunch of small ones like firefox, email etc...i noticed lag on everything i did....i chcked each cpu status and saw 100% spikes on core 0 and 90% average load with other cores at 1-13%, i then opened one instance of super pi which normnally runs 10 seconds for 1m..this time it tan for 5 minutes!!! windows was running it on the already maxed core instead of suing spare cycles on the other low usage ones....so this meant everything i did had severe lag becasue it was running on the aready maxed core...

also it was running at 23x175 for 4025ghz while this was happening so i guess that means as was said, core 0 was being overclocked instead of sharing the load across all mcores which would have been better...does that mean turbo mode is best turned off for multi tasking and turned on for single applications?
 
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ok, im narrowing it down. I have turned on hyperthreading to make things easier to troubleshoot. The problems start when i try to copy and paste files. Im doing this onto the same drive which is 4 of 4 and not the os system. I thought this process used explorer but when i set affninity to core 4 its still core 1 that stays at 90%. I have real time scanning A/V enabled. I then set supr pi to run from core 4 which it does but it cant make sue the of the whole core. It runs at around 25% on core 3 for some very slow times. I run it without copying the files then it runs at 100% on that core for very fast times. All is fune multi tasking with little slow down except when copying files. This seems to stop the system being able to make sue of the other cores fully. I dont understand whats happening here. BTW even though taskmanager and other monitors show core 1 90% when copying files when u go to processo tab it wont show any process using anything like that, sometimes no more than 5%.
 
As others have said, as good as xp is, it is not the best operating system at automaticly handling cpu cores. A very useful program to use is ForceCore which you can use to automaticly set the cpu affinity when you open multiple programs. If you don't do this then either use the Windows 7 beta or Windows Vista (make sure its the 64 bit version of either to get added memory and a faster and more stable system).

The file copying process is more of a limit in both xp and your hard disk drive. Copying to the same drive takes up quite a lot of bandwidth.
 
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