AMD A Series APU Poor Performance

Ok even if there is 4 slots that would still be dual channel. Something is reporting , and or configured worng, with the memory.
 
Axman said:
I have a backup laptop with an i5-5200, 8 gig of RAM and a 512 gig SSD and it runs Win 10 just fine. In most use cases it's not much different from a current laptop with an NVME in it, apart from boot times. It's not the hardware unless the hardware is configured incorrectly, bad drivers, that sort of thing. i5-5200 is 2 cores, 4 threads, 2.2 GHz/2.7GHz boost.

If anything, OP's rig should run it as well if not better, with more true cores, more ram, and triple-channel memory, than a lot of cheaper hardware from the same era.

404, have you tried stress-testing it? Maybe you've got some bad RAM or something.
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Not yet. I've sort of given up on it at this point.
Nobu said:
Ah, my bad, thought for sure it was an fm2 chip. Forgot they had some am4 bulldozer apus.
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Nobu said:
looking back at his cpuz, he is running in duel channel mode (unless its reporting wrong), so he has a dimm hanging of the side somehow. looks like it's got a 3x (3:28) divisor on the fsb, too? dunno, not really familiar with old school OC terms.
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crashtech said:
It's likely slow generic memory. You could spend more on a couple of good sticks than the machine was worth, and then the OE BIOS might not even let you change the settings properly.

OP claimed the perf was the same regardless of the extra stick, btw, but I would leave it out unless a mate could be found for it.
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Zedicus said:
Ok even if there is 4 slots that would still be dual channel. Something is reporting , and or configured worng, with the memory.
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Yes, its an AM4 with 4 slots for ram, 3 currently filled. The 3rd stick came from a parts PC they had sitting in a corner. All of the memory tests fine but i still can't seem to get good performance from this thing. Removing the third stick makes no difference whatsoever. The only thing I haven't done yet is update the BIOS but i do know the BIOS does not have any advanced memory options.
 
404 said:
Not yet. I've sort of given up on it at this point.








Yes, its an AM4 with 4 slots for ram, 3 currently filled. The 3rd stick came from a parts PC they had sitting in a corner. All of the memory tests fine but i still can't seem to get good performance from this thing. Removing the third stick makes no difference whatsoever. The only thing I haven't done yet is update the BIOS but i do know the BIOS does not have any advanced memory options.
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three sticks is fine, it will just run in asymmetrical mode.
update it. also try setting the the windows power profile to high, see if that make any diff. another thing you could try is create a cloudready usb, boot off that and see how it acts or another live usb/cd(think i suggested that already, maybe).
https://www.neverware.com/freedownload#intro-text
 
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Zedicus said:
Ok even if there is 4 slots that would still be dual channel. Something is reporting , and or configured worng, with the memory.
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Yeah, honestly I think that's a flub on AMD's product page. afaik, they have no triple-channel desktop processors. As pendragon said, it should be in asymmetric mode, where it is interleved on the first 4GB of channels A and B, and the rest is treated as if it were single channel.

@OP: Honestly, I would still try to get it running at 2400 if you could. ~1800 (what it's currently running at) is a bit slow, even with the timings as they are. If that's not an option, then I would try a linux livecd/liveusb and see if Youtube is still choppy. A lower clocked A10 supposedly can handle 1080p on youtube, so yours should be able to breeze through it.
 
pendragon1 said:
three sticks is fine, it will just run in asymmetrical mode.
update it. also try setting the the windows power profile to high, see if that make any diff. another thing you could try is create a cloudready usb, boot off that and see how it acts or another live usb/cd(think i suggested that already, maybe).
https://www.neverware.com/freedownload#intro-text
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Updated the bios. process went off without a hitch. Still same performance issues. Removed the third stick of ram after the bios update process, still no gains.
 
look in the bios under advanced settings for any type of video config. make sure its sharing an appropriate amount of ram.
 
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pendragon1 said:
look in the bios under advanced settings for any type of video config. make sure its sharing an appropriate amount of ram.
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It's set to the max, 512mb ram. Options in this bios are as piss poor as they come.
 

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404 said:
It's set to the max, 512mb ram. Options in this bios are as piss poor as they come.
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thats more than some i3 systems that work just fine...
what happens if you try to play a 1080p vid file in vlc/etc? those work.
since some say yt is using some new encoding, would it need codecs, like klite?

edit: also, i think you might have, but make sure the newest driver is installed and maybe try quick stream
https://www.amd.com/en/support/prev...series-apu-for-desktops/7th-gen-a10-9700e-apu
https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/gpu-166

edit2: it should work according to this guys charts
https://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=120569
 
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When you did the clean install, did you start by formatting the drive, or did you do a "factory reset"?

In CPUZ, are all three sticks of RAM running at the same settings?
 
Axman said:
When you did the clean install, did you start by formatting the drive, or did you do a "factory reset"?

In CPUZ, are all three sticks of RAM running at the same settings?
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The drive is literally brand new, removed it from the packaging, installed it in this rig and did a fresh install of win 10 using the supplied iso from microsoft's website. All ram is running the same.

I just pulled out the third stick of ram, reformatted and reinstalled windows. Same issue.

I think i officially tap out on this one. It just runs like garbage. I appreciate all the tips and advice.
 
pendragon1 said:
tried a live cd or usb yet?! or cant be bothered?!
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I left all of my spare USB sticks at work and only took home my windows boot stick.

Even so, while Linux may be great for comparison's sake in this situation, I can't leave Linux on this PC and just hand it to my mom.
 
404 said:
I left all of my spare USB sticks at work and only took home my windows boot stick.

Even so, while Linux may be great for comparison's sake in this situation, I can't leave Linux on this PC and just hand it to my mom.
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it will rule out os or hardware and is only for one boot. if your done your done, im done.
 
I'm not sure why this thing is so bad. I have a Win7 laptop with an A10-7300 "Kaveri," which I believe is even slower than this chip. In benchmarks, it trades blows with a 2.3GHz Sandy Bridge i3-2350M, and it gets its ass kicked halfway down the street by a 3.3GHz i7-2640M. Even so, it has no problems whatsoever with 1080P video playback, and it makes short work of GTA San Andreas and vanilla Minecraft at 720P.
 
JSHamlet234 said:
Even so, it has no problems whatsoever with 1080P video playback, and it makes short work of GTA San Andreas and vanilla Minecraft at 720P.
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I'm halfway inclined to install Windows 10 on an A6-5400K with 4 gigs of RAM just to see how it does with half the cores and memory. I'm sure it would be fine.
 
Axman said:
I'm halfway inclined to install Windows 10 on an A6-5400K with 4 gigs of RAM just to see how it does with half the cores and memory. I'm sure it would be fine.
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ive used them in laptops, played vids fine as that was part of the testing process. thats why i dont buy that this aio cant do it.
 
JSHamlet234 said:
I'm not sure why this thing is so bad. I have a Win7 laptop with an A10-7300 "Kaveri," which I believe is even slower than this chip. In benchmarks, it trades blows with a 2.3GHz Sandy Bridge i3-2350M, and it gets its ass kicked halfway down the street by a 3.3GHz i7-2640M. Even so, it has no problems whatsoever with 1080P video playback, and it makes short work of GTA San Andreas and vanilla Minecraft at 720P.
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I down-clocked and undervolted the shit out of a kaveri chip, and it still had "okay" performance. Didn't try watching videos so dunno how that'd go. I know my laptop struggled a bit with some stuff, but it was an early chip and pretty hamstrung by TDP.
 
pendragon1 said:
it will rule out os or hardware and is only for one boot. if your done your done, im done.
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I'm just basically out of options here with it. I have a gut feeling that the latest win 10 ISO has a hot fix baked in that probably shouldn't be applied to these APUs. Killing its performance.

Just before I left from work I was handed an A6 am4 CPU by one of the guys from the IT department. He told me something very interesting. Most of these units came with A6 processors and not the A8 that it currently has installed. He said only a handful of these units we're upgraded with A8 processors.

Going to give this processor a shot in just a bit and post my findings...
 
404 said:
I'm just basically out of options here with it. I have a gut feeling that the latest win 10 ISO has a hot fix baked in that probably shouldn't be applied to these APUs. Killing its performance.

Just before I left from work I was handed an A6 am4 CPU by one of the guys from the IT department. He told me something very interesting. Most of these units came with A6 processors and not the A8 that it currently has installed. He said only a handful of these units we're upgraded with A8 processors.

Going to give this processor a shot in just a bit and post my findings...
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Same thing using the A6 processor. no improvement. :ROFLMAO:
 
so youll swap chips but cant be bothered to try a boot cd/usb?! just give her something else.
 
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pendragon1 said:
so youll swap chips but cant be bothered to try a boot cd/usb?! just give her something else.
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I brought a spare usb stick to try a live nix distro but i've already concluded in my mind that this pc isn't suited for her. Will test a distro after dinner and report back.
 
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Just a quick update on this.

Tested the most recent Ubuntu LTS ( 20.04 i think) and it ran fine. Everything felt snappy. HD videos ran fine. Confirming this is basically a winblowz issue. A classic case of them ruining an entire PC platform just before abandoning windows 10.
 
pendragon1 said:
ok good. did you ever try recreating your windows usb installer? 21h2 should be the newest or try older from here:
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Also, as a matter of routine, after a clean install, before connecting to a network, I disable automatic updates immediately. Then I run my own chipset and graphics installers, or use an auto-detecting installer from the manufacturer, then enable automatic updates. Windows driver detection can be crummy, even with super-mainstream hardware like Intel.
 
Axman said:
Also, as a matter of routine, after a clean install, before connecting to a network, I disable automatic updates immediately. Then I run my own chipset and graphics installers, or use an auto-detecting installer from the manufacturer, then enable automatic updates. Windows driver detection can be crummy, even with super-mainstream hardware like Intel.
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yeah i always forget to mention that but i usually have all the new ones on usb ready to go.
 
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