DVD Shrink, 100% CPU Usage, Fresh WinXP Install & New HD

[DJ5A]

Hello Everybody:

(Not quite sure where to ask this)

It's my understanding that that when running DVD Shrink that it's supposed to run at 100% CPU Usage?

OK, it did run at 100% when I had my IDE Hard Drive & No Problem. Since then...

I decided to get me a WD Raptor & did a Fresh WinXP Pro OS Install.

Now when I run DVD Shrink it only runs at around 50%, I'm thinking if it was running at 100% it would complete the process faster.

I'm monitoring this with Speed Fan 4.21, when I had the IDE HD both CPU Usage bars would be maxed out at 100%, now with Raptor it's the left Bar maxed out & just one or 2 green progress squares on the right bar.

LOL, sorry for the mile longer but when I did my Fresh WinXP install, is there a chance I need to make some changes with my Processor Settings & or My Raptor HD Settings or something else to get this back to a 100%?

Or am I stupid & the HD is doing more work & less CPU Usage is needed? I read somewhere that DVD Shrink is supposed to run at 100% when needed?

[guns1inger]

Do you have a hyper-threaded CPU that wasn't running in HT mode previously ?

[DJ5A]

Do you have a hyper-threaded CPU that wasn't running in HT mode previously ?

Yes it was enabled in both IDE & Sata HD Before & After. That was one of the first things I thought of & I went to my BIOS to check it...

Also I went to my HD Properties & made sure...

That Transfer Mode was set to: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: ULTRA DMA Mode

I'm stumped so far, I think we're close to finding it. The prices we pay for the need of speed!

[waheed]

Did you have the following option unchecked:

[DJ5A]

Did you have the following option unchecked:

Yes, it was unchecked...

I'm just thinking that somewhere I've missed something & it's related to the Fresh WinXP Install and or HD.

[guns1inger]

Hyper-threading has nothing to do with your disk drives. It is a feature of some intel P4 CPUs that allows a type of parrelell processing. XP sees it as two CPUs. If you bring up Task Manager and check the Performance tab you will know if it's on. DVD Shrink will only use one CPU, so it will look like it is running at 50%, even if it is using 100% of 1 CPU (or virtual CPU in this case)

[DJ5A]

What I'm basing this on is...

When I had my IDE it would show a 100% CPU Usage

Now

With my Raptor it's only showing 50%

Now it did get up to the same Temp as if it was running at 100%

OK, I know I only did one compression that was only 98%, so that wasn't that much but it was set to smooth. I'm going to go back & just do a test run on another one with a lot of compression & see if it changes?

I appreciate everyones efforts here to help me!

[DJ5A]

OK, I just tried DVD Shrink on a file with 48% compression. Set at Extra Smooth.

Both Analyzing & Encoding for 5 minutes each, on both instances were around 50% to 54% Max...

I also viewed the CPU Usage using Speed Fan & Windows Task Manager both were within 2% of the same usage.

What is keeping it from going to a 100%, LOL this is why I got the Raptor HD so it would speed things up?

[budz]

What is keeping it from going to a 100%, LOL this is why I got the Raptor HD so it would speed things up?

Getting a Raptor hard drive wouldn't necessarily speed things up in using DVDSHRINK. If you got a faster CPU then it would definitely speed up the process.

[DJ5A]

Getting a Raptor hard drive wouldn't necessarily speed things up in using DVDSHRINK. If you got a faster CPU then it would definitely speed up the process. [/quote]

That's understandable after all the reading I've been doing trying to find out why my CPU Usage dropped 50% after installing the new HD.

I went into Task Manager & DVD Shrink is set on normal, I did change it to Affinity & only CPU1 was checked, so I checked CPU2 also & it went to 100% but it didn't look like it speeded up the processing rate any. So maybe newer & faster Sata Raptor will not speed it up?

I also checked other HD demanding programs & it was using both CPU's?

I know this probably will not help, but when I get back home I'm going to remove & reinstall the program.

Does anybody else have any suggestions?

[normcar]

The best way to fix problems with Windows XP is to install Windows 2000.

[waheed]

Rather than basing your decision on CPU Usage, look at the encoding times between the two hard drives to see if there is any difference.