Performance link between HDD and System?!

[m-v-b]

Hi Bitsum, first of all thx for the great piece of software. I am satisfied with my Lifelong License since  2 years!!

There is a performance issue with my PC i want to adress here because it seems a good place where people know about performance.

System:

Mainboard: Asus P5Q Deluxe
CPU: Intel Q9950 @ 3.8 GHz
RAM: 8 GB OCZ Reaper 1066
GRAFIC: 5830 Radeon
HDD:  1x 128 GB SSD; 2x 1 TB WD
OS: Win7 Pro 64bit

Ok here is my problem.

I play this game, namely CS 1.6 since many years, and in Process Lasso i set everything
on maximum to bost the process for best performance.
But after long time of watching and testing i came to the conclusion that my HDD´s have a
strange effect on the performance of the game.
My SSD is running the Win7 and games and the 2x 1 TB WD hold just data such musik, pictures and movies.

Now i realised that when i do a large file transfer, or unpacking some rar files on the HDD,
the performance of the game increases dramaticly. Some times it helped to turn the HDD`s all off,
but not always.

I researched on google but could not find anything usefull
about this effect, so i hope somebody can point me in the right direction.

Cheers!

(sorry for my english)

[Jeremy Collake]

Thank you for being a user and providing feedback . I can not make out all you are saying, but one thing I caution is that if by 'set everything to maximum' you mean you raised the priority of the game, I think this is likely undesirable and you don't need to do this. Process Lasso's ProBalance will take care of any disruptive processes. Please rephrase if you have any questions or other that I didn't get to.

[m-v-b]

Thank your for the quick response!

Yes i set the priority to "realtime" also "clasified as game"

Sorry that I was not specific before. I am not the expert but from the way it feels
its like that the game process is not on the very top of the priority list.
Don´t get me wrong i dont think its a Process Lasso problem, (in fact i got PL
as counter measure , as i had the problem before.

[BenYeeHua]

Now i realised that when i do a large file transfer, or unpacking some rar files on the HDD,
the performance of the game increases dramaticly. Some times it helped to turn the HDD`s all off,
but not always.

Another example about the harm of core-parking?

But after long time of watching and testing i came to the conclusion that my HDD´s have a
strange effect on the performance of the game.

For example?
With running cs 1.6 with 100 fps all the time?

[edkiefer]

Thank your for the quick response!

Yes i set the priority to "realtime" also "clasified as game"

Sorry that I was not specific before. I am not the expert but from the way it feels
its like that the game process is not on the very top of the priority list.
Don´t get me wrong i dont think its a Process Lasso problem, (in fact i got PL
as counter measure , as i had the problem before.

I recommend you don't raise priority (I could see realtime causing more harm then good, performance wise) , PL will adjust the processes in background and MS already gives priority to your gave as your in full-screen and foreground mode .

Question, you say you turn off HDD and it seems better . I wonder were is your swap/page-file located ?
Could it be with the SSD only it forced on C: but when you use HD its on one of those ?
I say this cause even with a lot of memory quiet a few app and game still need and want a swap-file .

[BenYeeHua]

I forgot the swap file 
But he/she say

but not always.

----
ASUS EPU-6 Engine...
Maybe is this causing problem, I found some user having the problem that cs 1.6 cannot 100 fps always, and he/she is with Asus motherboard also.
When I checking it, I found that the FSB is jumping, maybe it is cause by the ticker not stable and causing this problem.
But that person is having a AMD CPU, not Intel CPU.

Can you try checking the FSB is jumping or not by running cpu-z and running some software that using CPU more than 50%?

[Jeremy Collake]

Yes i set the priority to "realtime" also "clasified as game"

I will respond more later, but I recommend undoing this. Setting the process priority class to realtime can cause negative side-effects. Leave it at normal. The game itself has already increase the priority of important threads.  It may work fine for you, but it is not safe in general. That said, if you haven't had problems, then that's fine. If you have had, or do have, any problems, that is likely it .

[m-v-b]

- Concerning Swap File:
Only activated for C: (SSD (limited to 256mb)) others are unchecked and not active

- CS runs always at 100 FPS straight

good point with the FSB.

I havnt been in BIOS a long time but i think there is this "energey saving"
activated. i lowers the multiplikator from 8.5 to 6.0 to save energy when there is no load.
meaning that multi, fsb, and ofcourse Mhz will drop.
I just checked in with CPUz and even now i am just idle browsing
the jumping from x6 to x8.5 is constantly going on back and forth...

I will deactivate and check again.
But still most the times the game ran perfect was when i had big file movment on the data Drives.

I was running the game on "realtime" for maybe 1.5 years, never caused any trouble

thx for all your input!

[BenYeeHua]

Except you had changing the way that the system changing the priority .
For example, adjust for Best performance of: from "Program" to "Background services" 
------

I havnt been in BIOS a long time but i think there is this "energey saving"
activated. i lowers the multiplikator from 8.5 to 6.0 to save energy when there is no load.
meaning that multi, fsb, and ofcourse Mhz will drop.
I just checked in with CPUz and even now i am just idle browsing
the jumping from x6 to x8.5 is constantly going on back and forth...

Just try to disable it for testing, but remember saving the BIOS setting first(if Asus still giving this function) 
And try running some heavy software, when FBS(not multiply one) jumping, your tick will not stable.
You can check the tick with this software
WinTimerTester 1.1
http://www.mediafire.com/?xzo9n84d8lze9nb
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/568525-setfsb-game-timing-problem-g60jx-2.html#post7364805

What it does is it runs two different clocks in your CPU at the same time and compares them to make sure they are both running at the same speed. It compares the Windows GetTickCount function to the QueryPerformanceCounter function and within approximately 60 to 100 seconds, these two timers should be running at a perfect 1.0000 : 1 ratio.

If you overclock your CPU with SetFSB and WinTimerTester reports that these timers are not running at a 1.0000 : 1 ratio, that shows that you have this bug and you have also overclocked this important timer within your computer which can screw up a variety of programs in a variety of ways.

I was running the game on "realtime" for maybe 1.5 years, never caused any trouble

Because that game is not eating 100% CPU usage, if it is eating, you will unable to moving your mouse 

[edkiefer]

I forgot the swap file 
But he/she say----
ASUS EPU-6 Engine...
Maybe is this causing problem, I found some user having the problem that cs 1.6 cannot 100 fps always, and he/she is with Asus motherboard also.
When I checking it, I found that the FSB is jumping, maybe it is cause by the ticker not stable and causing this problem.
But that person is having a AMD CPU, not Intel CPU.

Can you try checking the FSB is jumping or not by running cpu-z and running some software that using CPU more than 50%?

So your saying some users have bad results with EPU turned on . I just got a P8Z77 V pro and it has a EPU switch on MB (I think you can also activate it within windows with Asus utilities . I haven't got the MB yet but this EPU if I remember is a power saving mode . maybe the constant switching is causing a small delay's .

Not sure his MB supports EPU . Edit it does support this as BenYeeHua posted "EPU-6" .

[m-v-b]

Well, well..

I disabled the C1E support in BIOS and now all clocks
are 100% stable!
Also the ratio from "WinTimerTester 1.1" came back perfect!
Just tested the game, with HDD´s on and no beforehand activity
and so far it works like heaven!

Still need to test some more....

I will report back!

thank you all for your patiente and very quick responses!

cheers

[BenYeeHua]

So your saying some users have bad results with EPU turned on . I just got a P8Z77 V pro and it has a EPU switch on MB (I think you can also activate it within windows with Asus utilities . I haven't got the MB yet but this EPU if I remember is a power saving mode . maybe the constant switching is causing a small delay's .

Not sure his MB supports EPU . Edit it does support this as BenYeeHua posted "EPU-6" .

From what I get, if you don't install Asus EPU software, EPU is disable for default.
From this website
http://hi.baidu.com/liuxudong926/item/7c10b5d226cbd6ba33db908a
EPU just drop FSB a little, but it also drop the CPU voltage a lot.
And it cause some BSOD also.

So just using it without CPU saving one and that is fine, but why do you need to save 5-10 watt to get unstable computer? 

I disabled the C1E support in BIOS and now all clocks
are 100% stable!
Also the ratio from "WinTimerTester 1.1" came back perfect!
Just tested the game, with HDD´s on and no beforehand activity
and so far it works like heaven!

Great, C1E have cause some problem to me in past 

cheers

I need to find a wine without alcohol first 

[edkiefer]

From what I get, if you don't install Asus EPU software, EPU is disable for default.
From this website
http://hi.baidu.com/liuxudong926/item/7c10b5d226cbd6ba33db908a
EPU just drop FSB a little, but it also drop the CPU voltage a lot.
And it cause some BSOD also.

So just using it without CPU saving one and that is fine, but why do you need to save 5-10 watt to get unstable computer? 
Great, C1E have cause some problem to me in past  ;)I need to find a wine without alcohol first 

I was reading manual and EPU is set disabled by default . I don't know if you need asus software to get EPU, I think there bios settings but could be wrong. Will know when get hardware , MB CPU etc .

Wouldn't going into power settings in windows an setting to full or all and not balanced do same thing . I remember reading somewhere setting the power setting to highest disables speedstep and clocking down at low demand .

[BenYeeHua]

I was reading manual and EPU is set disabled by default . I don't know if you need asus software to get EPU, I think there bios settings but could be wrong. Will know when get hardware , MB CPU etc .

Wouldn't going into power settings in windows an setting to full or all and not balanced do same thing . I remember reading somewhere setting the power setting to highest disables speedstep and clocking down at low demand .

So it is just a replacement of speedstep, set the multiple and volt ifself.

[m-v-b]

Thing is I have the Mainboard since 2008 i think (still very good )
And back then i might have installed the asus tools to try everything out.
So that might have caused the switch to flip...

Tested now for another 3 hrs, still very well working...

thank you!

[Jeremy Collake]

Some posts were lost (yes, again). There have been some server configuration issues. In this case I plain screwed up and lost a few hours of the database that I should have preserved, had I thought before clicking. I am being much more cautious now, with hourly backups while I continue to try to get the server configuration in order. Very sorry for this guys. Some posts may be restored in time, as I do have a newer backup not yet merged in.