Wedge

Not so much ironic, more using things the way they were designed to work. If it's running on startup and needs more-than-normal permissions, it should be hooked into the system designed for that express purpose.

I have something of a problem that is having a definite impact on Wedge...

As a reminder: I have Windows 7 Ultimate on a brand new PC, Core i7 (4 cores + hyper-threading so that's 8), 8GB Ram, SSD HD, and so on.

When a core is running 100% CPU time, that's 100/8 = 12.66% = 13% in my task manager. So when a program is running a thread at 100%, there's a 13% for it in the task manager. Meaning there are still 7 cores available and under-used. All right?

Enter a recent issue. Well, about a few weeks ago I think...
When I boot my PC and use it, for the first day it'll be okay.
Then after some time, it'll develop a problem. On SOME actions, not ALL of them, the current program will suddenly jump to 13%, for a few seconds. It's not that important, but what matters to me is that it *effectively* slows down the entire computer, most notably the mouse cursor gets jerky, sometimes VERY jerky (i.e. it's only updated a few times every second.)

This happens systematically in these cases for instance:
- clicking the Start button (well, what replaced it...) -- not severe, though. But I see it's jerky for half a second.
- launching a program (whether it's stored on my SSD or regular HD...)
- launching my diff tool from within TortoiseSVN (which is pretty much needed for writing my changelog...) will take about 2 to 4 seconds with a jerky mouse, while when I first launch my PC, it takes much less than a second.
- sometimes -- just opening a *window* from inside a program (like the Settings window) will be jerky (like in my diff tool) or not (like in Opera). It's not related to Aero (I tried disabling it). The jerkiness appears during the time between my menu mouse click and the moment the window animation starts (i.e. the animation itself is very smooth and the mouse is only jerky before that).

All in all, with these, it feels a bit like my computer is slower than my old PC (XP + 2GB ram)...
Last time I rebooted, my problems were fixed but they started again the following day. I tried hibernating (= saving memory state and rebooting), and the problems were still there, so I'd like to suspect it's not a hardware problem, but...? What could it be! Everytime I search about this online, I find people saying to "upgrade video card drivers" (first thing I did of course...), or similar. Like, "upgrade your mouse drivers", lol. That one's funny.

I figured maybe someone around here already had a similar problem and they managed to fix it...? It's really making my changelogging life a hell right now!

I haven't experienced that, but I don't have that many cores, or hyperthreading, and I turn my PC off at the end of the day.

I'm guessing it's related to having a lot of uptime and something leaking memory causing Windows to thrash and have to swap.

How do you keep track of your code search history for later investigations? Oh no you're not using my search tool :P
How do you keep track of your logo history, do you save every single version of the logo after you made a change? Oh no you're not dealing with the logo :P (And I'm not done with it... :lol:)
How do you keep track of your Notepad2 windows? Oh now you're using Notepad++ for that :P

Well I have too many tools I like that don't really appreciate being turned off... So basically I'm a bit stuck, unless I change my tools to things that are less... volatile. Not going to happen for now.24 hours...?!
I regularly had 1-month uptimes for my XP, one time I think I even spent 2 or 3 months without rebooting... And that was even before I had my UPS :P
I should think that Win7 improves on uptime, instead of the opposite...But it's only doing that when launching programs... (I think it does it on EVERY single program. It just doesn't last that long for most, like Notepad2... So it's only a visible problem on larger programs.)

For instance, Opera uses its file cache a lot. Never have a problem...

Notepad++ keeps a history of searches you've made ;)I save such things when I get to milestones that I'm happy(ish) with. Failing that, GIMP, image in layers, saved in GIMP's own format for preservation.


I don't know that it is W7 doing what I think it is. I don't know that it isn't. What I know for certain is that the same behaviour has been exhibited before on earlier Windows versions for that reason.

Also, be sure to sweep for nasties, just in case.

Well generally apps tend to use the first core for their work, as well as windows which uses the first core to handle its basic tasks(Including mouse movement). If you have some specific apps that use the first core entire time, you can set its affinity to use the last 2 cores so that it leaves the first cores free for other tasks. Or you can try disabling hyper threading and maintaining 4 cores.

@Pete> I don't have any viruses. I have the MS antivirus running in active mode, so it basically checks all of my files for viruses when I launch them (I enabled it because, well, it's the first time this doesn't slow down my PC at all...), but even if I disable it, it stays the same.

@Shitiz> I don't think it'd change anything to disable HT. I'd just see a usage peak of 25% (it's really the case, even with HT on...), and that's all. As for core affinity, it's reset once I quit the program so it's not going to be helpful when launching it... :(
As an ex-Win32 developer, I remember that it wasn't possible to choose a core to work with -- you just created your thread and Windows would pick the core for you. I don't know if this has changed, though.

PS: why did I say 12.66% in my previous post when it was 12.5%? :^^;:

I have an uptime of a week and things go fine.[1]

1.	This is on an AMD Phenom II x6 with 8GB RAM