Causes and Solutions for a slow PC

[David (PassMark)]

AMD Fusion CPU bug

Problem:
Integer maths test and Prime number test give very low results. About 80% lower than expected. All other tests are give the expected benchmark results and you have an AMD Fusion Llano CPU.

Solution:
We believe this is related to a CPU bug.

At the time of writing this seems to effect about half of the AMD Fusion Llano CPUs when run in our CPU benchmark.

The bug itself can cause the CPU to hang or behave unpredictably while doing division operations. The workaround AMD suggested is to patch the CPU, which reduces the CPU performance to avoid the hang. The patch should be applied in BIOS. But only half the motherboard manufacturers have applied it from what we can see (as of April 2012).

AMD Fusion Llano CPUs include the A4-3300, A6-3500, A6-3600, A6-3650, A8-3800, A8-3850, Athlon II X4 641, AMD Athlon II X4 651 and a few others.

This problem will be reduced (slightly more hidden) in PerformanceTest version 8 where we will do less division.

For more details, see this post,
http://www.passmark.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3656

[sheepherder]

Spyware, Adware, Antivirus and Msconfig comments

I am a PC Technician and since we charge alot todo work, I'd figure I'd give you guys some instructions on exactly how I fix common problems.

Problem: Adware/Spyware/Virus

Solution:

4) Then, install Adaware (www.lavasoft.de) and Spybot Search and Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/)

6) Update and run your AV software. If you don't have any, or care to install any, use an online scanner. HINT: If you disable your AV, and use an online scanner, they sometimes find different problems.

Remove as much as you can from msconfig. You can REMOVE EVERYTHING and the computer will still boot, so don't be afraid to remove something if you don't know what it is. Keep the stuff you recognize like your AV. You don't need 7 different IM applications starting when the computer boots.

Regarding 4 and 6:
After 30 years of dealing with spyware, adware, and anti-viruses on Apples, Macs, and PCs, I have decided to stick with Microsoft's Security Essentials. Personally, I have been dissatisfied with both products suggested in 4.

Regarding 8:
Be really careful in disabling items using msconfig. As an example, you could end up with no sound. While it is true a lot of items can be disabled, you really need to know what you are disabling. In reality, if you have a newer machine with lots of memory, startup is minimally affected.

[David (PassMark)]

2D results with remote desktops

Problem:
2D results are low compared to other some other baselines. (Or put another way, some machine's have 2D results that are too high).

Solution:
We have seen a small number of baselines with very high 2D results in V7 of PerformanceTest. Roughly 10x faster than normal. e.g. Solid vector scores of 22.0 instead of 2.1

It turns out that running PerformanceTest across some remote desktop solutions gives higher than expected 2D performance. This isn't a real performance increase, the video driver is instead throwing away some requests to update the screen, making it seem to the application that updates are running faster than they actually are.

[David (PassMark)]

DirectX 9 3D test gives low results

Problem:
The DirectX 9 complex test gives low 3D frame rate results (~30% down) compared to similar machines.

Solution:
The Morphological filtering (also know as MLAA) setting might be turned on the video card's device driver control panel. This issue was seen with HD 6850 video card, but probably effects most cards.

Morphological filtering is a technique that applies full screen anti-aliasing, which can improve the smoothness and quality of rendered images.

[crracer]

I know this is really old, but I wanted to add my experience and reason for a slow system/CPU score. I'm not sure why, but I installed passmark 8 from my server to my client over a wireless network. After installation my PC was much slower than another near identical machine which had tested real close to one another back with passmark 7. I uninstalled passmark 8, copied the downloaded file to my desktop of the PC that was having the slow performance issue and reinstalled. After this, this machine now rates up with the other, or actually, just above.

[David (PassMark)]

crracer, The source drive used to install the software makes no difference to the benchmark result. Something else will have changed in your system. e.g. the CPU temperature was lower when you re-ran the test.

[David (PassMark)]

Problem:
CPU and video card performance are low. In particular the 2D video performance is very low.

Solution:
You are running some 3rd party software save power and lower CO2 emissions. The one we know about that causes a problem is the ASUS 'EPU-4 Engine' software. But there might be others as well. The EPU-4 software seems to under clock the CPU, making your PC run slower so that it takes longer to complete any task you give it. Considering all new CPUs automatically throttle themselves depending on load, it isn't clear to us why you would want this software installed. The ASUS EPU software is also part of what is grandiosely named 'ASUS AI Suite 3'

[David (PassMark)]

Problem:
CPU, 2D & RAM results are low, as is the CPU's clock speed (in GHz)

Solution:
Your motherboard's BIOS might not have correctly detected the CPU you are using. This can happen if the CPU is not on the list of supported CPUs for the motherboard. Which is often a result of a new model CPU being used on an older model motherboard.

An example of this is the Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P motherboard not correctly detecting the clock speeds for the newer AMD FX-6200 CPU in the latest F3 BIOS version. PerformanceTest reports the clock speed as 2.81 GHz [Turbo: 2.81 GHz] when it should be 3.8Ghz [4.1Ghz turbo]. So you are effectively loosing about 30% of the machines performance because the BIOS isn't up to date (thanks Gigabyte).

The solution, if newer BIOS isn't available for your motherboard, it to manually correct the clocks in speeds in BIOS, in the same manner as if you are overclocking the CPU.

[David (PassMark)]

Problem:
CPU results are low after a CPU upgrade

Solution:
If you upgrade from a CPU without hyperthreading to a CPU with hyperthreading, then your motherboard's BIOS might not have detected the change of CPU and updated the BIOS setting to the optimal values.

Make sure hyperthreading is enabled in BIOS, if your CPU supports it. (Only Intel CPUs have the hyperthreading feature).

[David (PassMark)]

Intel VT settings reducing CPU clock speed

Problem:
CPU clock speed is stuck low (1.15Ghz or 1.18Ghz)

Solution:
It is normal that the CPU throttles itself down when under low load. All new CPUs do this to save power and reduce cooling requirements. When when you run the CPU test in PerformanceTest, you should see it lift back up to the nominal level for the CPU that you have however.

If you can't get it to move from 1.15GHz, even when under high sustained CPU load, there is something wrong (like thermal throttling or the issue described below).

One customer reported that disabling processor virtualization in the BIOS on Intel platforms was able to resolve the issue. The virtualization setting may also be known as 'Intel VT', 'VT-x' or 'Vanderpool'.

The setting turns on features which accelerate virtual machines (VMWare, Hyper-V, etc..). So it is safe to disable it if you aren't using VMs.

The virtualization feature should have no impact on the CPUs clock speed. So it seems likely this is a BIOS bug on some systems.

[David (PassMark)]

Slow 3D performance in Directx 11 test

Problem:
Frame rates are low on nVidia video cards in DirectX 11.

Solution:
nVidia (in 2016) is shipping various different software for screen recording (Shadowplay) and screen sharing.
These software was observed to approximately half the frame rate of the 3D benchmark. DirectX9 and 10 are also effected as well, but not as badly as DirectX11. Strangely this is happening even when you aren't recording. So it might be a bug in nVidia's software. Turning off "sharing" and Shadow play fixes the problem. Shadow play was also observed to cause crashes and hangups on some machines.

Update: Some people have had to unistall the entire "GeForce Experience" software to restore the performance of DirectX 11.

Additional information can be found in this post.

[David (PassMark)]

Problem:
3D graphics results don't get above 90 frames / sec for the DirectX12 test
Solution:
If the frame rate for the 3D test always sits at approximately 90 frames / sec then your frame rate might be limited to your monitors refresh rate. There are a few possibilities for this.
1) Some monitors have "FreeSync" or "G-Sync" technology. Which limits the frame rate to 90fps (or some other fixed value). You can try turning it off for higher fps.
2) Some monitor are limited to 60hz, 90hz or 120hz and have the video card device driver settings for "vertical synchronisation" or "Refresh rate" settings turned on. You can try turning them off.
3) We have had one example of a monitor limiting FPS to 90, even when in theory FreeSync and vertical synchronisation were not enabled. We think this is a bug in the monitor / device driver.

[Farmfield]

Problem:
PC is slow
Solution:
Upgrade your hardware. If you PC is more than 5 years old, it is never going to run Vista or XP very well. Consider a hardware upgrade.

I would propose this statement from the first post is no longer accurate in regard to the OS's mentioned.

[GTX 1050 Ti]

Problem:
3D graphics results are lower than expected. Especially the "Medium 3D" test (in V7 of PerformanceTest).
Solution:
If the settings in the video card's device driver are manually set to maximum quality and maximum anti-aliasing, then this can significantly decrease the frame rate compared the leaving the setting on the default values.

How do i check this?

[David (PassMark)]

How do i check this?

Most video card device drivers come with a control panel to adjust these settings.