Why is my windows7 exp index so low for my i5 750 ?

[merkurmaniac]

It used to be higher, like around 7 or so, I thought. I added an SSD and a clean install of windows. I am unaware of any changes that I have made to windows during the config that could explain it, but now my processor portion of the windows experience is 4.1 !! Awfully low for an i5. If I look in device manager, I don't see any conflicts, and the processor shows up as 4 cores.

Any tips on where I should look for issues ? The mobro and the control panel both seem to know exactly what kind of chip it is. Its an i5 750.

Windows7 automatically found out my video card and network card drivers. I downloaded .inf drivers from the ASROCK site, but windows7 told me that they were older than the ones already installed ?? That seemed odd.

Please give me ideas on how to proceed.

 

[Maguscreed]

You should manually download the latest drivers for your graphics card from nvidia. Microsoft is significantly behind on those drivers (mainly because new ones are released pretty much monthly if not more often)

It shouldn't be difficult to get a breakdown of your score.
Your entire score is going to only be as high as the lowest scoring item in your system.

To do this go to the control panel, open system and just click on the link beside your experience score.
Which item is it that is getting the low score?

In my case the weak links are my hdd and cpu because I'm still using mechanical drives and this particular machine still has a first gen dual core on it.

 

[p5200]

Which piece of hardware does it rate the lowest number? mine is only 5.9 and my hard drive is what gives me the lowest rating.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

If I understand the OP correctly, the processor score is the lowest and is 4.1.

I'd guess that is lower than to be expected for an i5-750?

Merkurmaniac: are you noticing any decline in performance??

 

[Maguscreed]

his quad core 2.0ghz should still rate at least on par with my dual core 3.0ghz for raw calculations though.

...unless, and this would make the most sense, windows is not testing all 4 cores.
That score makes sense for a dual core of that speed.

 

[Schroff87]

Ensure hyperthreading is on and your power profile set to maximum performance. That should ensure maximum speed available for the Windows Experience Index testing. It really doesn't matter to be honest, if your day to day use is fine, don't bother. It's not a good way of gauging performance.

 

[merkurmaniac]

Here is my info. You can see the cause for my concern.

I think it was a lot higher before this last install. I'll check the power profile in BIOS. Thanks for the heads up.

Richard

 

[p5200]

Does that model have HyperThreading?

 

[Maguscreed]

This isn't a strong area of mine specifically, but I remember reading something about a setting within the bootmgr that dealt with the number of cores on a system.

 

[Sardonicus]

It used to be higher, like around 7 or so, I thought. I added an SSD and a clean install of windows. I am unaware of any changes that I have made to windows during the config that could explain it, but now my processor portion of the windows experience is 4.1 !! Awfully low for an i5. If I look in device manager, I don't see any conflicts, and the processor shows up as 4 cores.

Any tips on where I should look for issues ? The mobro and the control panel both seem to know exactly what kind of chip it is. Its an i5 750.

Windows7 automatically found out my video card and network card drivers. I downloaded .inf drivers from the ASROCK site, but windows7 told me that they were older than the ones already installed ?? That seemed odd.

Please give me ideas on how to proceed.

Do you have the latest BIOS version installed?
Asrock released quite a few updates addressing the CPU code.
ASRock > Products > Motherboard > P55 Pro > Download

Also, can you update your specs, it shows ASUS as the motherboard.

 

[bobkn]

Does that model have HyperThreading?

Nope.

 

[Schroff87]

Here is my info. You can see the cause for my concern.

I think it was a lot higher before this last install. I'll check the power profile in BIOS. Thanks for the heads up.

Richard

Not the bios, the option in the control panel. Just set it to high performance. In the bios you can disable power saving *temporarily* only if you know what you are doing and how to reverse the changes.

I gather from the other posters that your CPU does not have HT. There's little you can do afaik, just ensure your cpu is ready to work at maximum speed when it is tested in WEI.

Try playing 1080p videos on the cpu (no DXVA) if you can do that while running a web browser and another app or two in the background there's nothing to worry about. WEI was meant to be an easy point of reference for those who do not know anything about PCs ... as you can see it's not really working properly.

 

[merkurmaniac]

Here is more of the background info. I am a 42 y.o. engineer who cant wait for the new Oblivion to come out, so I was going to dude up my computer in preparation. I went from 4 gig ram to 16 and bought an SSD. The ASROCK mobro didn't recognize more than 3.81 gig even though I had 4 in it previously. I found and updated the BIOS to this one: ASRock Beta BIOS Now I see again that its a beta bios, but I didn't find any other bios updates on ASROCK's website. After installing the newest, my ram was recognized as 16 gb. So far so good.

Then, I installed the SSD, beforehand editing the registry to permit the installation of ACHI. This is when it really started to get flaky. It wouldn't boot and had lots of surprise shutdowns. I had to load the bios default config, because if I chose the performance ACHI, it wont boot. In fact, it powers off within seconds of saving the settings.

I tried the performance ACHI setting, and it will barely stay powered up long enough to even change the bios. I suspected that the power supply couldn't keep up, so I took out 3 sticks of ram, unplugged the dvd drive, and even the video card ! It will not boot to windows, or if it does, it wont last 1 minute before shutting down.

This CPU is a quad core model and should run rings around my other pc with an athlon 64x2.

It sounds like I need to revert to some older, more stable bios. I am just sure that in the past my CPU has shown much better performance, and I wanted to avoid what happened about 10 years ago. I ran some amd chip at half its rated speed for two years. embarassing underclocking.. doh..!

I really appreciate everyone's time and enthusiasm.

 

[cyclic]

Regardless of any numbers\benchmarks, is it not doing something you want it to ?
Like slower than you expect or stalling during program loading.

 

[merkurmaniac]

Well, thanks to P5BDKW, its now apparent that my Beta BIOS was not cutting edge, but rather far behind. It also apparent that I was too stupid to find the current BIOS on the ASROCK website. I'll certainly flash it with the newest BIOS when I get home tonight. That beats this morning's plan which was to go shopping for a new motherboard. Looks like I have a path forward. Thanks guys.

Richard

 

[merkurmaniac]

I downloaded and then flashed the newest BIOS. I loaded up all 16gb of ram again and then tried it out. I got some intermittant power off crashes again. I started pulling ram and was down to a single 4 gb stick in the 3rd slot again. Its stable then. I re-ran the windows experience and the processor is now 3.7, down from the 4.1 posted above.

I did some reading of reviews for different ASROCK motherboards on newegg and it seems that they have a propensity for ram issues. Some guys were talking about having the board crash when certain ram slots are used. Not cool. It appears that my system may be stable IF I only use slots 3 and 4. ?? The manual says slots 1 and 3 are preferred. Oh well, looks to be a mobro issue, not anything with Windows 7 configuration, I guess.

 

[Maguscreed]

Yeah, I didn't want to seem rude, but I've always consider ASROCK a get by brand more than a performance or a premium brand.