Solved AMD A8-5545m new laptop horrible performance?

corbintech · Dec 13, 2014

Hello,

I bought this laptop 3 days ago (hp 15-p030nr). It came with a 1TB platter drive and it was slow, so I replaced it with 512GB SSD.

I read many reviews before purchasing it, they were pretty good. The reviews said the laptop was good for gaming and fast, well, I got the short end of the stick or something.

I put a clean copy of Windows 8.1 on it when I swapped drives. All drivers downloaded from the hp site. Boot time is 51 seconds, that to me is insane. Playing minecraft I get a whooping 11-17 fps when moving and 55-60 if I stand still and stare at a tree.

I have another laptop I have Linux on. It has a i7-4810 and an ssd as well. I knew this amd would not be as fast as that beast, I would however have to say I never expected 80-85% slower.

Is something wrong or am I expecting to much? My Chromebook with the celeron cpu smokes this thing.

Any help?

Cliff S · Dec 13, 2014

How many "unneeded programs" start after boot? Go to task manager and shut a couple off or delay them. Have you uninstalled the crapware that came with your new PC(make a recovery usb/dvd with the oem partition first and later one without if allowed( ALL CONTROL PANEL ITEMS>RECOVERY>CREATE A RECOVERY DRIVE)) ? Both of my PCs boot to a desktop in less than 15 seconds, one is a Lenovo desktop with windows 8.1 only(fast boot on), the other an ASUS laptop has windows 7/Ubuntu where it boots strait into Ubuntu(must hold shift for GRUB to get to win7).

corbintech · Dec 13, 2014

Cliff S said:
How many "unneeded programs" start after boot? Go to task manager and shut a couple off or delay them. Have you uninstalled the crapware that came with your new PC(make a recovery usb/dvd with the oem partition first and later one without if allowed( ALL CONTROL PANEL ITEMS>RECOVERY>CREATE A RECOVERY DRIVE)) ? Both of my PCs boot to a desktop in less than 15 seconds, one is a Lenovo desktop with windows 8.1 only(fast boot on), the other an ASUS laptop has windows 7/Ubuntu where it boots strait into Ubuntu(must hold shift for GRUB to get to win7).

Only needed programs starting (anal about that). No crapware as this is new install from retail 8.1 cd.

Recovery cds were made before I switched drives.

Any more ideas?

corbintech · Dec 13, 2014

This thing is just horrible.

79 second boot time on an SSD, horrible.
Got rid of all startup items, no changes.
Go into google+ in chrome, laggy as crap.
But, if I do a selective startup, I get it to boot in 18 seconds.
It just performs really bad for a computer with an SSD.
Are AMD APEW (they stink?) all like this? Or am I indeed missing something?

whs · Dec 13, 2014

I just bought a similar HP laptop (HP Pavilion 17-e040us ) with the AMD A8, 6GB RAM and the 1GB HDD. I did not yet install the SSD because I am still trying to find a caddy that fits the CD ROM bay.

I do not play games but overall I am quite satisfied with the performance. Did you identify any culprit with the selective startup ?

Identify the startup item that is causing the problem

Click the General tab, and then select the Load startup items check box.

Click the Startup tab, click Disable all, select the check box for the first startup item that is listed, and then restart the computer. If the problem doesn't reoccur, then you can eliminate the first startup item as the cause of the problem.

With the first startup item selected, select the second startup item check box, and then restart the computer. Repeat this process until you reproduce the problem.

Source: Run Selective Startup using System Configuration - Windows Help

BTW - I always disable all startups except those that I started myself like gadgets, Rocket Dock, etc.

corbintech · Dec 13, 2014

whs said:
I just bought a similar HP laptop (HP Pavilion 17-e040us ) with the AMD A8, 6GB RAM and the 1GB HDD. I did not yet install the SSD because I am still trying to find a caddy that fits the CD ROM bay.

I do not play games but overall I am quite satisfied with the performance. Did you identify any culprit with the selective startup ?

Identify the startup item that is causing the problem

Click the General tab, and then select the Load startup items check box.

Click the Startup tab, click Disable all, select the check box for the first startup item that is listed, and then restart the computer. If the problem doesn't reoccur, then you can eliminate the first startup item as the cause of the problem.

With the first startup item selected, select the second startup item check box, and then restart the computer. Repeat this process until you reproduce the problem.

Click to expand...

Source: Run Selective Startup using System Configuration - Windows Help

BTW - I always disable all startups except those that I started myself like gadgets, Rocket Dock, etc.

I got my startup times really improved.

Starting in 18.225 seconds, happy with that. Here is what I did:

run
msconfig
services
checked hide all microsoft services
disabled all except my malware bytes

Rebooted to greatness. I am blaming chrome. I am going to try firefox and see how that fares, if it runs better it will become my browser.

Minecraft FPS has also improved. I don't see how other then some program hogging resources. I rose to a minimum of 20 fps to spikes of 60, seems to work much better.

Thanks for the replies. I am not going to mark as solved yet. Going to use for a bit and make sure everything is fine. Also going to post my results of the browser test.

whs · Dec 13, 2014

Glad you are making progress. That AND A8 should actually perform pretty well. It runs 4 cores at 2.4GHZ which compares to a desktop Q6600. I have one of those in an older Dell laptop. It is faster than a laptop i5 which runs at 1.7GHz. So there should be hope.

Another story are the graphics. Those I cannot really compare because I do no games.

corbintech · Dec 13, 2014

Figured out what slowed the boot. AMD catalyst.

Now, I tried minecraft more and the game really runs horrible. Why does AMD tout the APUs as gaming capable chips when in my experience, they are pretty much everything but. I swear, if my toaster had an OS (or the ability), it would run minecraft, it doesn't take much.

I have a Lonovo Thinkpad edge that is older with an old Radeon 4250 and it plays minecraft slightly better, not much as it shouldn't.

This is not my first time down this road either. Walmart a little while ago had a machine on sale, it was a model that was going to be discontinued. It had an AMD e-350 (I think). The sales guy was going on and on about how great this machine was and so I bought it. Please understand, I am a tech guy whom used to live in the AMD camp years ago. I am always hoping that AMD comes out with something great. I just don't keep up with the AMD camp much, so a bit ignorant in that regard (been living in the Intel camp for awhile now).

How can they even tout this as a gaming chip? I mean really? When four year old machines are hanging with this thing in the graphics department. I mean, the Intel 4600 in my other laptop just eats this thing for lunch, all day, every day. And the 4600 never even claims to be a gaming chip, it just does it pretty well.

I have been in the Linux camp for a couple years (used it since 99). I keep going back because of these things. Slow boot (my Linux machine boots in 9 seconds).

Ranting here, I apologize. You would just think a modern machine of any type would, well, act modern.

MCPlayer18 · Dec 13, 2014

corbintech said:
Figured out what slowed the boot. AMD catalyst.

Now, I tried minecraft more and the game really runs horrible. Why does AMD tout the APUs as gaming capable chips when in my experience, they are pretty much everything but. I swear, if my toaster had an OS (or the ability), it would run minecraft, it doesn't take much.

I have a Lonovo Thinkpad edge that is older with an old Radeon 4250 and it plays minecraft slightly better, not much as it shouldn't.

This is not my first time down this road either. Walmart a little while ago had a machine on sale, it was a model that was going to be discontinued. It had an AMD e-350 (I think). The sales guy was going on and on about how great this machine was and so I bought it. Please understand, I am a tech guy whom used to live in the AMD camp years ago. I am always hoping that AMD comes out with something great. I just don't keep up with the AMD camp much, so a bit ignorant in that regard (been living in the Intel camp for awhile now).

How can they even tout this as a gaming chip? I mean really? When four year old machines are hanging with this thing in the graphics department. I mean, the Intel 4600 in my other laptop just eats this thing for lunch, all day, every day. And the 4600 never even claims to be a gaming chip, it just does it pretty well.

I have been in the Linux camp for a couple years (used it since 99). I keep going back because of these things. Slow boot (my Linux machine boots in 9 seconds).

Ranting here, I apologize. You would just think a modern machine of any type would, well, act modern.

This is what's happening for me! Except it has never happened to me.

corbintech · Dec 13, 2014

MCPlayer18 said:
This is what's happening for me! Except it has never happened to me.

I just went into the game and tried playing and noticed a pattern.

The game runs really well in areas where the world is loaded. There can tend to be some lag in areas where the game is not (single core performance lacking).

I tell you what though, the more I played the better it got. I ended up averaging about 27 fps (which is playable) and occasionally it would drop and spring right back up. It will play Minecraft okay (at best), but it does not give the impression that AMD attaches to these chips.

I have come to my own conclusion that this CPU is not a gaming CPU, even if AMD would try and have us believe it is.

The SSD (for you) is a very worthy upgrade. It makes this machine pretty fast in other areas. But a gaming pc? This machine will never shine in that area. And Monday I AM calling AMD about their marketing.

More tinkering to come I am sure. Just plum wore out tonight after 3 days of tweaking this thing.

theveterans · Dec 14, 2014

Well, that's the reason dedicated GPU exists. Ssd are great but it'll never give you a single fps in gaming.

HD4600m is as fast as my overclocked NVIDIA GT 520M (880 MHz default is 740 MHz) on my 2011 windows 7 Laptop when I compared mine and my friend's newer laptop

corbintech · Dec 14, 2014

theveterans said:
Well, that's the reason dedicated GPU exists. Ssd are great but it'll never give you a single fps in gaming.

HD4600m is as fast as my overclocked NVIDIA GT 520M (880 MHz default is 740 MHz) on my 2011 windows 7 Laptop when I compared mine and my friend's newer laptop

Your right. Was getting ready to post some results here.

Did some testing over night. This is not a gaming APU. The limited design power was wasted on this 384 shader APU.

This APU cannot stay within the thermal envelope while maxing a single core and the GPU at the same time. What you see is what you get with this setup. I tried lowering the max of the CPU side to open some headroom for the graphics, did not work as there was not enough power from the CPU to keep the game smooth. So, I lowered the max of the GPU and there was not enough power for the fps to stay steady.

In a threaded game that could use more then one core, this APU may shine, I however doubt it as the 19 watts will be the stopper there. So, it is not a gamer APU or even close. I will be getting my gaming fix on my other laptop.

I am however pretty happy with the performance of this laptop. It may be alright for the occasional game, but a gamer it is not.

Firefox is my new browser, it fixed an issue. I also rolled back the ATI driver if anyone wants to know, it helped with the boot hang. 18 second steady boot now and I can live with that.

Thanks for the replies. Solved I reckon

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Solved AMD A8-5545m new laptop horrible performance?

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