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What is my bottleneck?

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jamesgig

Disabled
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Location
Harrisburg, PA
Why, when cpu usage is at 10% and memory usuage is at 25% does it still take over an hour to produce a video I just made. What is bottlenecking it? the hdd? the mobo? the software (this happens in every video editing program I have tried)? The same thing occurs when I am multitasking on the order of 25-50 internet tabs and 2 or 3 windows of Word. CPU is below 10% and ram is in the same range, but whenever I change windows it takes about 10sec to make the switch.

This is on the computer in my sig running xppro.

Any suggestions or at least an explanation?
 
as the cpu and ram utilization are so low (possible poor reading?) I am guessing that the bottleneck is somewhere else. Would the hdd be the next point of weakness?
 
what priority is the encoding set to? if its low then the other things your doing will slow it down. for sure though even with that stuff running its the CPU. The HD is a nice 7200.10, its not that slow to hold up your encoding.
 
He said it was less than 100% processor utilization. That means nothing else is taking the processor. Processor is not the issue.

I would say the hard drive. Are you reading and writing to the same drive? If so, that is probably the issue.

You should have a hdd light, is it solid all of the time when encoding?
 
well it might be but as you pointed out T, his cpu is at 10%. ram speed wouldnt effect the % of cpu being used. if we assume on the good side his bandwidth should be in the are of 5.8Gb/s. since he is running ddr2-750 such tight timings. which leads me back to what i hinted at the program having a low priority set for the cpu. if thats the the case then thats the whole issue then, not the rest of the PC. i would be poking around the programs "cpu" options or any for that matter that control such options.
 
I changed the cpu priority from "normal" to "realtime" and I am now bouncing between 40 and 60% utilization.

Is there anyway to test if the memory speed is a problem?
Unfortunately I cannot raise the memory speed without taking a large hit to the cpu.

I am reading and writing to the same hdd. The light is mainly on with a few off blinks per second.

Thanks
 
Yours is a dual core, it won't do any more than that since it sounds like the program isn't multithreaded.
 
I am mainly using Power Director (because it was free) and it says that it is optimized for Intel Core 2 Duo, so I would assume that it is multi threaded. Also, in task manager, both cores have about the same usage.
 
I am mainly using Power Director (because it was free) and it says that it is optimized for Intel Core 2 Duo, so I would assume that it is multi threaded. Also, in task manager, both cores have about the same usage.

Even if its multi threaded, the load will balance between the cores.
 
I am mainly using Power Director (because it was free) and it says that it is optimized for Intel Core 2 Duo, so I would assume that it is multi threaded. Also, in task manager, both cores have about the same usage.
Never assume. Unless they specifically state it is multithreaded, it probably isn't.

Just saying it is "optimized for Core2" could mean many thing. It could be multithreaded, it could take advantage of SSE better, etc etc.
 
well it sounds like you change the priorty thru windows. what about inside the program, i still think something about it is still holding back encoding times/cpu used. at least you now see that your comp is not bottlenecking anywhere other then the program not using the all of the cpu.

*edI*
also what T said....i would be looking for ones that stated "multithreaded" then it doesnt depend on the naming they use, like "core 2". as the your cpu might be missing the instruction set they are tring to convey with using "core 2".
 
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