My computer is slower than before. What to do?

F

firehawk

Veteran
My computer just isn't as fast as it once was running Premiere Pro CS6. My computer does a frequent "cycling" / "throttling" I'm not sure what to call it but the fans clearly kick up and down in speed frequently and they didn't use to do that. I did recently replace the rear fan with a new one in push/pull config on my 120mm cooler. It's not running hot according to coretemp (around 52 C with all cores at 100% during 3ds Max renders). But Premiere is sluggish and there is delay clicking and selecting and moving things quite a bit, especially when using TGA sequences and DJI 4K UHD footage. I've been editing using TGA sequences since I bought it and DJI footage since 2016 and I'm sure it handles it worse than before. I'm not sure where to even start so I'm asking here since you guys do video. All my drives are SSD and configured according to this thread.
My CPU runs at 3501.57 MHz.
i7 3930K 6 core
I am running WIN 7 Pro 64.
MB is ASUS P9X79 Pro
64GB RAM
3GB GTX 780
Matrox MX02 mini w/max
My case is a HAF-X with some massive fans that moves a ton of air. Even when my original rear cooler fan failed a while back the other fans still moved so much air it ran

The system was new in 2013 and not long afterward I used Acronis Disk director on my main C: to adjust the main partition after I hardware cloned my C: SSD to a larger C: SSD. I have always wondered if that adversely affected performance.
One of my SSD is running Samsung Magician. All 5 my SSD are Samsung EVO.
Do I have too many SSD? Is that bottlenecking?


C: Samsung 850 EVO 1TB Boot
L: Samsung 860 EVO 4TB Media
M: Samsung 860 EVO 4TB Export
N: Samsung 860 EVO 4TB Media
O: Samsung EVO 1TB Media
S: drive - scratch (is a mandatory partition of C after cloning original drive to larger drive so ignore it)
D DVD drive
E Blu-ray drive


Not long ago I added this Add in card because my old MB was limited on SSD speed for some of the SSD connections and this add in card gave me the ability to run all SSD at full bandwidth plus even add another ( O:/ drive) .
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-LS...073375?hash=item215f9d6d1f:g:-10AAOSw8PpdOUrs

Any suggestions are appreciated as I can't take this computer to a shop, they won't know what to do, so I'll have to try things step by step to hopefully get it running better.
 
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firehawk said:
Any suggestions are appreciated as I can't take this computer to a shop, they won't know what to do, so I'll have to try things step by step to hopefully get it running better.
Click to expand...

I hope you receive some good suggestions, but your final thought there is really all that you can do as it's really difficult to troubleshoot remotely with so much going on with your system.

It could be a number of things from the new fan to a plugin to a software FW update not playing well with older hardware, etc.

___

Although I will mention this...

Something happened to my FCP X and MBP where it's now impossible to get anything done with SSDs via USB (how I always used them).

I haven't looked into it too much as I usually edit very small projects on the internal drive, but when I want to grab an extra clip or element from a SSD while FCP X is open and import it into the NLE, the pinwheel is constantly spinning. But if I drop whatever I need onto the desktop while FCP X is closed and then try to import it it's blazing fast as usual.

Maybe something happened with your SSD configurations like with mine (even though we're using different software and different computer companies), but I don't know what that would be.
 
I'm no computer guru by any means, and it doesn't sound like it was a variable, but looking at your list of hardware, the 3GB GTX 780 certainly looks like a weak spot in the list.

Good luck!
 
100% of my computer problems are caused by software. What else you got running on that thing? What did you install recently?

Did you install antivirus or security software? That stuff is the worst! (Yes, I'm serious.)

Did you upgrade Windows? You never know what Microsoft will do, even in a "minor" update.

When your computer is running slow, and the fans are kicking in, open the Task Manager, and sort by CPU usage.
 
Have you ever pulled the CPU heatsink and cleaned/replaced the thermal compound? It is old enough that you may have a very poor "connection" between heatsink and CPU now. If you are now having increased fan problems, and you didn't have these recently, then check this first. If you RAM has heatsinks clamped to the chips, that could be another problem. Check the power supply as well, itmight be getting to the point where everything is drawing more power and causing an issue.

There are several things on the mainboard that could also be causing issues, electrolytic capacitors go bad, normally the tops get a dome on them. This draws more power, and can reduce voltage to devices. Both of these can cause issues with performance.

Also SSD go bad, especially the TLC and QLC drives. I'm not familiar with that LSI card, but I've used several older cards in the past, Avid uses LSI cards in their servers which should tell you something.

Just another FYI, ditch the Matrox MX02 and retest, we had nothing but problems when I was trying to get my MX02 working, and nothing but run around from Matrox during all of that. Even after that, stupid me bought their stream encoder, and as I should have predicted, it was nothing but lies from support. I found my original complaint detailed in a firmware readme about two years later as a "known issue", even though they couldn't admit to it as a problem back when still had warranty.

If you have the "update" that allowed you to upgrade to Win10, I'd do it. Then you could put in a fresh SSD for the system drive, and put a fresh install of win10 on the machine using the product key from your old win7. Even using something like Clonezilla to copy your boot drive, and put the copy back onto the drive might help.
 
Thank everyone. I realized I left out info that might be useful.

Still running Win7 Pro since new (2013) with no updates.

The Matrox MX02 mini/max has been in it since the first week.

The SSDs have all been recently changed and the oldest one (C: ) is only maybe 3 years old.

No anti-virus being used.

I don't think I've ever updated my GPU driver. If I did, it has been a long time.

I have been thinking of changing the GTX 780 to something better for around a year but since I am running old software the newer cards don't support some of the functions of the old ones. I have thought of getting the old 6GB Titan from the same era but changing GPU will likely break my 3ds Max license which is not a problem yet on my 2020 version but is a problem re-installing my older versions since I do not have installers anymore.

My thermal paste has not been touched since I bought the PC. I actually want to swap CPU with an overclocked XEON that is compatible but due to my design I have to remove the entire MB to do it, plus it will almost certainly break my 3ds Max license and seems not worth the effort/risk for a small gain.

My PSU is a Corsair 850 (also 2013). I wonder if when I added the extra push-pull fan I plugged it into the closest fan socket I could find. Maybe something controlling it on the board is making it frequently change speeds?

Yeah software could be the culprit. I am going to have to look close to see what the latest software I installed was. I think it's CrystalDiskinfo and coretemp which I have been using to monitor things. And V-ray 4 for 3ds Max. Don't think I've installed anything else in a long while but I'll check
 
Greg_E said:
Have you ever pulled the CPU heatsink and cleaned/replaced the thermal compound? It is old enough that you may have a very poor "connection" between heatsink and CPU now. If you are now having increased fan problems, and you didn't have these recently, then check this first. If you RAM has heatsinks clamped to the chips, that could be another problem. Check the power supply as well, itmight be getting to the point where everything is drawing more power and causing an issue.
Click to expand...

There was a brief point where the fan on my cooler failed and my CPU got up to 90C under a heavy test load before I realized the fan quit. Soon afterward I replaced the fan with 2 in a push-pull. Is it possible the thermal compound got "cooked"? Or my CPU got "cooked"? Ever since then my CPU never runs hot even under 100% load during long renders.
 
I would still pull the processor and ram, look for dark spots on the ram connections and clean with an eraser and then alcohol. Replace thermal too.

I'd say replace the CPU since it would be cheap, but if it breaks a license activation then you'd be in trouble, so need to stay with what you have.
 
firehawk said:
Here is process list when Premiere CS6 is running.
Click to expand...

You need to click the CPU heading, to sort it by CPU usage. You may need to click it twice, to sort it from highest to lowest. Wait until your fans kick in or your computer is getting slow.

If that screenshot you posted was the complete list, and it was during a period of computer wonkiness, then there is no apparent software culprit. Almost all of the processes are at 0%. One process is at 2%, and then there is the "System Idle Process" at 95%, which is normal.

If that is the case, then the next suspect is your frankenrig --- 7 years old, once overheated, a variety of third-party hardware and software:

The system was new in 2013
I used Acronis Disk director on my main C: to adjust the main partition
One of my SSD is running Samsung Magician
I added this Add in card [from eBay]
CrystalDiskinfo and coretemp which I have been using to monitor things
And V-ray 4 for 3ds Max
There was a brief point where the fan on my cooler failed and my CPU got up to 90C
I did recently replace the rear fan
Click to expand...

Have you considered a Macbook Air :)
 
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If it's software related I had an idea: I still have my original SSD system drive (stored) with CS6 activated which I later cloned to a larger SSD using a hardware clone device and then adjusted the partition using Acronis Disk director to give me more space. Could I unplug from internet, disonnect most of my other SSD drives and swap in the original SSD system drive to boot it and see if it runs faster? And if not then I could take it back out and put it back like it was?

The original SSD has a lot of software installed but not as much as I currently have on my current System drive so it would be the leanest way to run and if it handles video better then I'll know something has bogged down my system since then. If it's the same then I look into hardware solutions like changing paste etc...?
Wouldn't that work?
Should I remove the Add in card before booting up the old system drive?
 
Playing a long 4K Phantom 4 clip in CS6 my CPU usage varied from about 50% to 81% with the clip playing smoothly sometimes and sometimes playing very jerky.

Playing a complex timeline in CS6 where it totally played very very jerky nearly the entire time it varied from about 6% to high 90s all the way through which doesn't seem to make sense to me because it was struggling bad the entire time trying to play the timeline.
 
I do an entire system backup that way, copy a drive and run the system on the new one. So you should be able to fire up the system using the old drive and test. I occasionally go into the startup configuration and turn off anything I don't want loaded automatically - as software is installed there are often services turned on by default that do nothing more than look for updates and the like.

I didn't see any mention of codec which may be a factor for the variable cpu rates you're seeing.


firehawk said:
If it's software related I had an idea: I still have my original SSD system drive (stored) with CS6 activated which I later cloned to a larger SSD using a hardware clone device and then adjusted the partition using Acronis Disk director to give me more space. Could I unplug from internet, disonnect most of my other SSD drives and swap in the original SSD system drive to boot it and see if it runs faster? And if not then I could take it back out and put it back like it was?

The original SSD has a lot of software installed but not as much as I currently have on my current System drive so it would be the leanest way to run and if it handles video better then I'll know something has bogged down my system since then. If it's the same then I look into hardware solutions like changing paste etc...?
Wouldn't that work?
Should I remove the Add in card before booting up the old system drive?
Click to expand...
 
J Michael said:
I didn't see any mention of codec which may be a factor for the variable cpu rates you're seeing.
Click to expand...
The Codec of the long clips I've been testing is h.264 100Mb DCI 4k 60p from Phantom 4 Pro. My system struggles with this. And during playback CPU load varied between 50-81%.

But what really brings it down to it's knees is playing complex timelines mixed with video and TGA sequences. CPU load then ranges from 6% to 90s. But that doesn't make sense because it plays so jerky it seems it should just be at like 100% the entire time.

So I tested some TGA sequenes on my Threadripper 3970X (128GB RAM, RTX 2080ti) also running Premiere Pro CS6 and it struggles a bit with them too, though not as bad as the old i7 3930k system does. So maybe it's a limitation of the software?
 
Based on the OP first post, the system is old. The speed of timeline playback has more to do with the GPU and ram speed. Upgrading to the latest mobo and gpu will do the trick so basically you need a new computer. There's a company that builds custom computers for video editing in premier. https://www.pugetsystems.com/recomm...obe-Premiere-Pro-143/Hardware-Recommendations I had a colleague get one and its fantastic. Of course great performance doesn't come cheap.
 
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