How to test that my laptop is giving out maximum what it can?

[Srivas]

Hi.

I recently bought a new laptop specifically for audio video works, but it seems not really faster than my previous dual core one... Actually some things seem even slower. For example opening audio files in Adobe Audition is not much faster than before and same with opening and rendering projects with Vegas. If I use Neat Video plugin in Vegas, I can't do full screen preview because it just lags too much.

I'm also suspecting that something is wrong with the graphics card because a one pixel yellow line appeared on my screen and I cannot get rid of it even when doing everything suggested on the forums. They say that it might have appeared because of overheated video card, but this laptop is brand new and has good reviews on the internet... It came with preloaded Windows 7 and drivers, but yesterday I went to update my nvidia card and it came out that the driver was kinda not installed or something, because until now Vegas didn't recognize CUDA capabilities of the card, but after installing new driver it does. I have to take to warranty service, but even if they fix it, I want to make sure that the computer is working as it suppose to.

To make it short, how can I benchmark my computer?

And another point, is there a way to give more memory and cpu to certain programs (like audition and Vegas)? What's the use of 8 cores if they're not actually used, really disappointing...

And here's computer specs if that is required.

i7-2820qm, 8 gb ram, Nvidia Geforce GT 540M.

Any ideas please?

[neomaine]

Wrong tool for the job, unless you really need something portable...

I'd be will to guess you're i/o bound with the single drive. At a minimum I'd attach two external drives leaving your internal drive for only the OS, programs and the pagefile. Use one as the 'source' drive and the other as the 'destination' drive. Though, the particulars of how/where you have your software's temp files need to be taken into account.

[jman98]

Wrong tool for the job, unless you really need something portable...

I thought about saying that in a much more unkind and mean spirited way and then I decided that I didn't feel like being a jerk, so I didn't.

I will say that it has been my experience that people put on blinders and become brainless zombies once they get in that glassy eyed "must ... use ... only ... laptop ... for ... all ... computing ... needs" mode and telling them "you shouldn't have bought a laptop for this job" just doesn't sink in. Or to put it another way, buying a tower PC gives you the opportunity to expand it and make it better whereas with a laptop "you got what you bought and it's not going to get any better, ever". Towers can have faster CPUs because they have the space for better cooling devices and they have a case and motherboards that allow for expansion.

[neomaine]

Wrong tool for the job, unless you really need something portable...

I thought about saying that in a much more unkind and mean spirited way and then I decided that I didn't feel like being a jerk, so I didn't.

I will say that it has been my experience that people put on blinders and become brainless zombies once they get in that glassy eyed "must ... use ... only ... laptop ... for ... all ... computing ... needs" mode and telling them "you shouldn't have bought a laptop for this job" just doesn't sink in. Or to put it another way, buying a tower PC gives you the opportunity to expand it and make it better whereas with a laptop "you got what you bought and it's not going to get any better, ever". Towers can have faster CPUs because they have the space for better cooling devices and they have a case and motherboards that allow for expansion.

Glad you held back.

Though laptop prices have come down, so have components (except for hard drives due to the flood...). However, the ratio is still true that you can get twice (or better) the desktop for the same price as a laptop.

[redwudz]

You left out the brand and model of the laptop. That may be very useful, much more than the rough specs.

For benchmarking, there are quite a few options, though you would need a similar PC to have any useful comparison.

SiSandra Lite: http://www.sisoftware.net//?d=dload&f=sware_dl_3264&l=en&a=

If you just want a lot of info about your PC, try SIW: http://www.gtopala.com/

Or for just CPU and RAM information, CPU-Z: http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Those are all freeware programs.

[TBoneit]

Two problems. Only one hard drive, some laptops come with a bay for a second drive however.
2nd problem, Bad Screen.

Since the laptop sounds I/O bound the best thing to do to speed it up would be to pull out the hard drive and install a SSD drive.

The OP could most likely have gotten the performance he wanted out of his old laptop by replacing the Hard Drive with a SSD too.

I did that with my 2.5 + year old Toshiba Dual Core laptop and what a difference.

The New I7 CPU will make a difference in encoding over the old dual core but being a laptop where everything happens on the same drive is the Problem.

Simple Cure, Throw money at the problem and go SSD.

It used to be that the hard drive was waiting for the CPU, now that the CPUs are so fast they end up waiting for the Hard Drive which becomes the Bottleneck.

Over on another forum that does a lot of Virus removal and hardware problems the posters that have gone SSD in the same computer are shocked by the difference in speed over their old drives.

Anyway good luck getting the warranty on the display. A single pixel colored line is almost always a defective screen.

Cheers

[TBoneit]

Wrong tool for the job, unless you really need something portable...

I thought about saying that in a much more unkind and mean spirited way and then I decided that I didn't feel like being a jerk, so I didn't.

I will say that it has been my experience that people put on blinders and become brainless zombies once they get in that glassy eyed "must ... use ... only ... laptop ... for ... all ... computing ... needs" mode and telling them "you shouldn't have bought a laptop for this job" just doesn't sink in. Or to put it another way, buying a tower PC gives you the opportunity to expand it and make it better whereas with a laptop "you got what you bought and it's not going to get any better, ever". Towers can have faster CPUs because they have the space for better cooling devices and they have a case and motherboards that allow for expansion.

Wow, so true, I get the must have laptop types in here at work all the time. Also Must have LCD not tube type monitor despite some advantages of tube types.
And you left out "Gaming laptops" that run hotter than .................... as well as slower.

1. They'll last longer, I've already replaced bad capacitors in two LCDs here.
2. Tube monitor, sharp at every resolution.
3. Harder to knock over, Don't ask.

I wonder how many LCD TV sets get ruined by kids running into them?

Cheers

[edDV]

Check the laptop specs for an eSATA connection. An eSATA external drive will get similar performance to an internal tower drive. That plus SSD internal will eliminate the i/o blocks. Encoding at 100% CPU will be limited by cooling.

[Srivas]

Ok, thank you, finally some decent feedback.

Come on guys, why assume that I don't know that tower is better and I'm a "must have a laptop" person and therefore I'm a fool and criticize me? That's not nice. It really makes me want to associate with you further...

Forums should be user friendly places where people have decent social etiquette and they are sharing their experiences to help others and gain more experience themselves. Now that's something, that makes the internet something special, a place for study and learning, friendship etc. Then you feel encouraged and that you really got something out of it.

One person said, you cannot learn anything if you think that you know. And it's really true. We are victimized by modern way of thought, being brainwashed from the birth, you have to be progressive, educated, survival of the strongest and all that stuff. And on top of it we think we are advanced, but in reality it’s the other way around. And for what to be proud of? For your capabilities, intelligence or physical power? That will last for a few years, then you're an old pensioner (if you're still around), probably rejected and put into the old people's house by your kids who won't even visit you. And most the sportsmen will end up as invalids due to wrecking their bodies, for what? Some fame which lasts a few moments only. Then what? We should have some higher ends and motivations in life, not just living like an animal, who is in the cue to be slaughtered and he is eating some grass on the sideway and thinks that he is happy.

Anyway, I'm getting off the topic here, just some thoughts came to the mind. No offence to anyone, really.

So, to the point. I am very portable, tower is not an option, I have to use a laptop.

I'd be will to guess you're i/o bound with the single drive. At a minimum I'd attach two external drives leaving your internal drive for only the OS, programs and the pagefile. Use one as the 'source' drive and the other as the 'destination' drive. Though, the particulars of how/where you have your software's temp files need to be taken into account.

Thanks, project files to a second drive makes a difference, I'll do that.

You left out the brand and model of the laptop. That may be very useful, much more than the rough specs.

It's Samsung RF711. I went for that mainly because the screen, 17.3'' inch, 1600x900 and good user reviews. I also wanted to try out two usb 3.0s and it's pretty good when copying from an 3.0 hard drive to another one of the same or to internal one, around 80 mbps to 100 and best case with bigger files.

Well, I should have posted before buying one, to prepare myself for that matter, live and learn... Actually laptop is pretty good after some upgrade. I have i7 2820, 7200 rpm hard drive, 8gb ram instead of factory i72630qm, 5400 and 4 respectively. There's one nice shop on ebay who does all the upgrading before you buy and give 3 year warranty for the parts replaced and very decent price.

Anyway good luck getting the warranty on the display. A single pixel colored line is almost always a defective screen.

I'm pretty sure that graphics card has failed, when I swich to internal card, it actually works better, I could test that with Vegas 11 where you can choose what card to use. Luckily there's international warranty and although I'm in India now, I can get it fixed.

Two problems. Only one hard drive, some laptops come with a bay for a second drive however.
2nd problem, Bad Screen.

Since the laptop sounds I/O bound the best thing to do to speed it up would be to pull out the hard drive and install a SSD drive.

That's an interesting matter. Actually a bay for the second drive is there (this laptop is huge). I'm starting to think that SSD just for system and the one I have now as a second drive for input or even maybe even better, output, keeping the input materials on an external drive over usb 3.0 (eSata not there, I thought usb 3 would pull away with similar speed, need to test this though). SSD for rendering seems not the best option, continue reading.

There's an interesting thread for that matter about the bottlenecks and also SSD's. I'm just going through it a second time (some things are way over my head), but it actually answers my question and adds to this thread also. Check it out: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/24/918270#923042

After all that, what is left is to test out my system, I'll get back when I'm done with that, I definitely have a bottleneck somewhere, rendering is far from 100%

If I get it close to 100% rendering without the SSD, that would be great, although fast booting etc. is nice. Extra bucks though, well, let's see.

Thanks guys!

[jagabo]

Your problem with Neat Video has nothing to do with the hard drive -- that's a very CPU intensive filter. With standard definition video on my quad core i5 2500K I get about 10 frames per second out of Neat Video using the CPU (with the VirtualDub version of the filter, I doubt the Vegas filter is any faster). Even if you're getting twice the throughput with CUDA that's not fast enough to preview in real time.

But just to be sure, go to the power options and make sure it's not set to power saving mode.

[edDV]

It's Samsung RF711.

No eSATA port listed in the specs.

[Srivas]

Your problem with Neat Video has nothing to do with the hard drive -- that's a very CPU intensive filter. With standard definition video on my quad core i5 2500K I get about 10 frames per second out of Neat Video using the CPU (with the VirtualDub version of the filter, I doubt the Vegas filter is any faster).

Yeah, hard drive is not an issue with that. This filter is definitely one of the bottle necks. Now there's a new version out, they claim it's much faster, have to check it out.

I don't have so much CUDA cores and I didn't pay much attention to it while getting the graphics. By reading some opinions, it shouldn't make such a difference, at least for now, so I just wanted to have something enough for previewing and that's all since they take a lot of power and it's a consideration when you're on a battery.

No eSATA port listed in the specs.

Yep, no eSata there.

[TBoneit]

USB 3 is Ok, Much better than USB2 speed.

Before buying the USB 3 drive(s) read user reviews of course and see if you can find a tech site review where they test speed. All external drives do not run at the same speed.

MY opinion is that since USB 3 is much less established than USB2 there may be some USB3 devices that do not perform as good as others.

Just as you can still get flash drives where are slower than others.

[turk690]

It's Samsung RF711.

No eSATA port listed in the specs.

IMHO one of the most important (if not THE most important) mandatory feature any laptop SHOULD have before even considering editing audio and video on it, is the eSATA port. USB3 is well and good but it's basically just putting more speed over a connection that can't guarantee it's controlling ONLY that external HDD connected to it. After determining a laptop has eSATA, then that's where I see other specs. If I got this Samsung for some reason and was at this point, I'll sell it on eBay and get another with eSATA.

[Moontrash]

You can use a Rosewill 358 with a decent size hdd in it. It has USB 3 connectivity just like your laptop. The speeds compared to eSata are comparable. I know because i have one and USB 3 speeds are easily the same, and in some cases better so no worries there. I've been suing eSata for a long time now but if I had to go USB 3 all the way I woudn't be too concerned. It's fine.

[edDV]

You can use a Rosewill 358 with a decent size hdd in it. It has USB 3 connectivity just like your laptop. The speeds compared to eSata are comparable. I know because i have one and USB 3 speeds are easily the same, and in some cases better so no worries there. I've been suing eSata for a long time now but if I had to go USB 3 all the way I woudn't be too concerned. It's fine.

The main difference between USB3 and eSATA is eSATA is a hardware disk controller that can operate independent of the CPU activity (via bus mastering). USB2/3 use a software disk controller thus are subject to interrupts and CPU queuing. That isn't to say USB3 can't be made to work for high bit rate sustained transfer. The problem is it is not optimized yet for pro video as can be seen with the parade of worries with the BlackMagic Shuttle.