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Topic: «Extreme System Lag , My system runs VERY elowly when AMM is running » on forum: Technical Support   Views: 18737
 
Dave Morton
 
 Posts: 14
Joined: 12/22/2014
Posted: 12/22/2014 15:37:45
 
 
 This is a very odd problem, for me. I'll list my system stats after I describe the problem.

When Actual Multiple Monitors is running, I get random bouts where the computer slows to a horrible crawl, yet the task manager shows no reason for it (e.g. 85%+ CPU cycles available and 90%+ RAM available). On the performance tab, 7 of my 8 cores are idling, while the remaining (core #0) is maxed out. I've spent more than 3 dozen hours over the past couple of weeks trying to narrow down the cause for the machine lag, and the only time I don't see it at all is when AMM is not running.  I've checked and triple checked that I'm not infected with malware, and nothing is coming up in that area, so I'm pretty sure I'm ok in that regard. I've been working in the computer repair field since before MSDOS 2.0, and I'm rather anal about being thorough, so I'm pretty confident with my findings (I know that sounds arrogant, sorry). Anyway, here are my system specs:

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
CPU: Intel Core I7- 3820 4 core (8 /w hyper-threading) @3.6GHz
RAM: 64GB DDR3-2133 quad channel
SSD: 4x256GB, 1x120GB, 1x480GB, 1x60GB (1.75TB total)
HDD: 1x2TB, 2x1TB USB3 external, 2x1TB internal (5TB total)
Graphics: 2x XFX HD7800 series
Monitors: 4x Asus 24" HDMI

As you can see, I have what one might consider to be a rather beefy computer. :) I'm a web developer and graphics artist (not to mention a rather avid gamer), so I need a bit of power to run most of the software I use (I run several other operating systems on this box, using virtualbox, so that I can test my software on a variety of platforms without the need to have several other computers sucking up electricity).

One thing that I noticed while tracking down my machine lag is that AMM has at least 3 processes going while it's running. While I'm experiencing the bursts of lag, none of these three processes are showing anything but 0% CPU usage (in fact, nothing is showing increased CPU usage), but as I said, exiting the program causes the lag to immediately stop. I haven't done anything with the settings in AMM yet. In fact, all I've done to further troubleshoot the problem was to set the core affinity for each process to a different pair of cores, in order to try to isolate which process might be at fault. Short answer is that there was no difference. Core 0 is still the only thing getting overloaded. This leads me to believe that AMM is NOT at fault, but it's conflicting with some part of the system. I would suspect another app or program, but my diagnostics has pretty much ruled all of them out. As I mentioned, I've got several hours worth of "disable this program and test... disable the next program and test" - I have a LOT of programs, and there are a large number of services installed, and that makes for literally thousands of combinations to test.

So now we're at the meat of the question: Are there any particular settings that I could investigate within AMM, that may have an effect on my issue? I don't want to give up AMM, as I find many of it's features to be indispensable, especially the multiple taskbars. :)
 
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Vasiliy Ivachev
Administrator
-retired-
 
 Posts: 2073
Joined: 11/09/2010
Posted: 12/24/2014 17:56:13
 
 
 Hello Dave,

Thanks for the post.

Could you specify your antivirus and firewall systems (names, versions)?
Does the problem appear immediately after running Actual Multiple Monitors?
Could you also install Process Monitor (Windows Sysinternals) and check whether main indicators of AMM's processes are normal or not?

Best regards.
 
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Dave Morton
 
 Posts: 14
Joined: 12/22/2014
Posted: 12/25/2014 07:57:24
 
 
 Thanks for the reply.

Here's a list of the items you've requested:

A/V Software: Microsoft Security Essentials (updated daily), Trend Micro House call (only used for "backup scanning", and updated prior to use)
Firewall: Windows Firewall, plus the built-in firewall in my Netgear WNDR4500 router

I already have ProcMon installed, and looking at the processes for AMM, nothing seems out of order.

One of the things on my list of troubleshooting steps for Windows systems is to run the System File Checker, and it occurred to me yesterday that I had not done that while troubleshooting this issue, so I ran it last night, just before heading to bed. It indicated that it found some corrupted files (but then again, it always reports corrupted files :P ), but nothing that would indicate a connection to AMM. That said, however, I haven't seen the system bog down once, so perhaps the problem may be in remission? I don't want to use the "S" word quite yet, but I'm hopeful. :)
 
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Vasiliy Ivachev
Administrator
-retired-
 
 Posts: 2073
Joined: 11/09/2010
Posted: 12/25/2014 14:39:34
 
 
 Dave,

Could you specify your mouse model, mouse software (drivers, additional software), system tweaks and 3rd party software (names, versions)?
Could you also list 3rd party software that is launched at startup?

Best regards.
 
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Dave Morton
 
 Posts: 14
Joined: 12/22/2014
Posted: 12/25/2014 20:06:09
 
 
 Merry Christmas! :)

The mouse is a simple HP optical mouse that uses the generic Windows mouse driver. As for tweaks to the system, here's the list:

1.) Most installed software has been installed to E:\ instead of C:\ (there is some software that doesn't give people a choice, so...)
2.) Most Windows "libraries" (Documents, Pictures, etc.) have similarly been moved to an alternate drive
3.) Same for the page file

(Please note that all "alternate drives" are solid state drives that are connected to the same SATA controller, so as not to incur extra resource overhead)

As for 3rd party software that loads on startup, the list is rather long, but here we go:

Programs loaded @ startup:
1.) Actual Multiple Monitors 8.2.2
2.) Apache HTTP server
3.) Apache Service Monitor 2.4.9
4.) Canon IJ Network Scanner Selector EX for Microsoft Windows 1.2.0.7
5.) Dashlane 3.2.0
6.) Dropbox 3.0.3
7.) No-IP DUC 2.2.1.0
8.) Stardock Fences 2.11
9.) Mozilla Firefox 34.0 (yes, this starts with Windows, as does Google Chrome. Speaking if which...)
10.) Google Chrome 39.0.2171.95 m
11.) MySQL Server 5.6.17
12.) MySQL Notifier 1.1.5
13.) Netgear Genie 2.3.1.46
14.) Speedfan 4.49
15.) Stardock ObjectDock 2.10.0.811
16.) Steam (no real "version" info, but it's constantly updated, so it's current)
17.) Poptray 3.2
18.) Skype 6.21.0.104
19.) Sound Blaster Recon3Di Control Panel 1.02.26
20.) Workspace Desktop Tools 2.0.22.48

The list of installed 3rd party software is HUGE, so I've modified the output page from Belarc Advisor to remove potentially sensitive information and put it up at http://dmorton.no-ip.info/Belarc/ for you to look through. I'm sure that will be both more comprehensive and easier to read than anything I could post here. :)
 
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Vasiliy Ivachev
Administrator
-retired-
 
 Posts: 2073
Joined: 11/09/2010
Posted: 12/26/2014 14:10:20
 
 
 Dave,

Marry Christmas!

There were some conflicts with Stardock software. Could you remove Stardock Fences and Stardock ObjectDock from startup and check whether the problem persists or not?

Best regards.
 
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Dave Morton
 
 Posts: 14
Joined: 12/22/2014
Posted: 12/26/2014 15:39:20
 
 
 I'll give that a try over the weekend and post my findings once I have them. Thanks. :)
 
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Kelly Major
 
 Posts: 19
Joined: 06/08/2012
Posted: 01/08/2015 21:27:55
 
 
 i use Fences and i just saw this thread.  I'm not experiencing any issues that I'm aware of but I am wondering if these issues have been resolved in the current release?  I'm running the current beta 8.3b1.  Are there any specific AWM features that are more likely to have compatibility issues with Fences or ObjectDock?

Thanks! - Kelly
 
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Dave Morton
 
 Posts: 14
Joined: 12/22/2014
Posted: 01/09/2015 00:09:02
 
 
 Hello and Happy new year to all! :)

@Kelly: I hope that you're just asking your question for future reference, and are not having performance issues as well.

Regarding my particular brand of performance issues, I've monitored my system over the past week and a half, using different startup options each day, and have only noticed a reduction in the number of occurrences of system lag when Fences and ObjectDock are not running. It's a good thing that software doesn't "wear out" fr om use, because the Process Monitor would have had to be replaced a couple of times by now if it did. :D

With the system becoming so unresponsive when these lag spikes occur, it's very difficult to get any real data out of procmon while the lag spike is in effect. IT also doesn't help that procmon seems to "amplify" the effects of these lag spikes, and the sheer volume of data logged is staggering (over one million unfiltered events logged per minute!). While I'm somewhat familiar with what procmon does, I'm certainly no expert, and I really don't have a good idea of which events I can "safely" filter out. I've read the help file, as well as some documentation on the web regarding procmon's use (specifically regarding filtering and highlighting), but it wasn't all that useful. Still, I'm trying my best to figure out what's causing these lag spikes, and while I'm not making a whole lot of progress, I am making some. So far, the only common denominator is AMM. If AMM isn't running, I see no lag spikes at all. If AMM is running, but Fences and ObjectDock are not (or even uninstalled, for that matter), I still see lag spikes, though they are less frequent, and less severe. I'm not really sure wh ere to go from here, TBH. :(
 
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Kelly Major
 
 Posts: 19
Joined: 06/08/2012
Posted: 01/09/2015 03:38:06
 
 
 @Dave,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.  Indeed those kinds of performance issues can be very tedious and time consuming to track down.  I haven't monitored them but I suspect most of the StarDock software offerings are hardware hogs.  I'm hooked on Fences but don't even have ObjectDock installed right now.  It's handy and "cool" but IIRC I ran across an incompatibility with it about a year ago and haven't tried reinstalling it since.  Unfortunately I don't recall the details but I'm pretty sure it wasn't with AWM.  IMHO most of their stuff is just is the kind of software that just screams trouble.  Having said that, most if it can be pretty handy and usually looks amazing at first glance.  I couldn't live without AWM and instead of ObjectDock I went another route and use a product called TrueLaunchBar on my primary workstation.

Happy New Year to you as well, good luck tracking down your performance issues.

Regards,
Kelly E Major
 
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