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unknownsailor
Inspiring
August 8, 2017
Answered

Terrible performance of Dell XPS 15 4K - corrupted download?

  • August 8, 2017
  • 7 replies
  • 17577 views

I'm having some severe performance issues with Premiere Pro CC on my new Dell XPS 9560 (7th gen i7, 32Gb ram, GTX 1050). I've been using it for just two days and PP lags so badly after a few minutes use that it grinds the computer to a halt and I have to reboot. It does this consistently. My questions are:

1) Are there known issues between the XPS 15 4K 9560 and PP?

2) Is there a chance my install of PP is corrupt?

The second question has only just occurred to me. I'm on a phone connection (no wired connections on the island) and I seem to remember the PP download taking a while and then jumping very quickly from around 50% download to 100%. If this is the case, then how come PP works ok for the first few minutes ok? If the file were corrupt then wouldn't it just not work?

FTR, I have been on the phone to Dell support. We've run diagnostic tests and the hardware appears to be ok and drivers up to date. They want me to reinstall Windows 10, which means reinstalling PP. I am right in the middle of a project that was supposed to be completed an hour ago.

Any insight appreciated.

Thanks.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer unknownsailor

    Can you go to your power options and make sure your laptop isn't running in some "battery efficiancy" mode (even if you plug it)

    Someone had an issue like that on a brand new laptop, and turned out to be an agressive setting in power management that cut CPU to 25% of it's full power.


    No, it's not that, it's the computer itself. It took me a while to work it out but the Dell is not designed to get hot. When it does, it slows down and performs like a dog. Unfortunately I am based in the tropics and the laptop gets hot frequently so this is something I've just had to live with. I would not recommend the Dell XPS to anyone unless they're using it in a cold room.

    7 replies

    STEALTH_EDI
    STEALTH_EDI
    Participant
    June 20, 2019

    In my case, before I start to work, I'm disabling INTEL INTEGRATED GRAPHIC CARD. Then, because it resets screen resolution, I set screen resolution that I'm ok with. Now your Adobe Premiere will run even the user interface on nVidia Card. So your workflow must be more smoothly. Hope, it will help.

    Kevin J. Monahan Jr.
    Community Manager
    Kevin J. Monahan Jr.Community Manager
    Community Manager
    January 9, 2018

    Still having this trouble unknown sailor?

    Thanks,
    Kevin

    Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio
    U
    unknownsailorAuthor
    Inspiring
    January 9, 2018

    Hi Kevin,

    Sorry, I let this one hang.

    Performance seems to have improved but a couple of things have changed. I bought an external SSD (Samsung T5) to run my projects from; and I am currently in the northern hemisphere so my fan isn't running so frequently. I normally work in the tropics so the laptop gets hot and that seems to correlate with laptop performance. As a back-up I've started running proxies again, something I used to do but stopped doing recently. A combination of these factors has made some improvement to the perfomane of Pr.

    All that said, I will be returning to the tropics next week so we'll see if this performance is sustained in my normal working environment.

    P
    phillips60100031
    Participant
    January 2, 2018

    I have the Dell xps 15 4k model too, i7-7700HQ, 32gb, Windows 10.

    It's a fast little computer, as in wicked fast. I use Adobe CS6, which I had to stop using as I can't see the interface thanks to Adobes lack of support for 4k screens. Capture One runs with no problems and it's lightning fast. I use a Nikon D850 and the images are big, sure, however I open them faster on my 7 year old Asus G75 in Adobe. It seems the problem is Adobe, not the laptop. I can open the films and raws in windows explorer and they run as if they weighed a few kbs, put that same film into Photoshop CC, Premiere CS6, Lightroom and it runs as if it were to have a seizure, it's Adobe, 100%. The same material runs on my other laptop with no problem, and my friends XPS 15 on a 1080p screen with no problem. Adobe does no support the 4k screens, which is just ridiculous, it's the leader in graphic software.

    I am totally frustrated with this problem and I have no idea what to do, Adobe is no help at all. I started using Photoshop in the early 90's and this just drives me mad.

    P
    PrashantMac
    Participating Frequently
    August 9, 2017

    It's not the hardware but the software. I have a beast  system. (Tech mentioned in the end) but PP sucks in terms of realtime playback. I have tried every possible way to solve realtime play in 4k but frames do drop! The best version was 2015.3 so far.

    i7 6900k

    64 gigs Corsair Ram

    1 tb SSD 850 pro (450-550 Mbps)

    7 tb Raid 0 (400 Mbps)

    Quadro p4000

    R Neil Haugen
    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    August 9, 2017

    Curious what that rig would score on the PPBM8 tests by Bill Gehrke ... it's a short PrPro project file/assets along with a couple sys-monitor apps you download as a zip file. Extract, install the couple sys-mon's, open the project and "export" it. The project is designed to get hard numbers on how everything is working ... from CPU, RAM, disc-in/out, GPU, the whole shebang. Upload the log file, and get good hard stats back on the performance ... where it's good, bad, or indifferent.

    Neil

    http://ppbm8.com/index.html

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
      A
      Ashley7
      Legend
      August 10, 2017

      OK, so here's something I'm doing that I'd like some feedback on because my machine is grinding to a halt once more and I'd be interested to know if you get the same:

      I recorded a 12:45 min  clip in 8 bit 60fps 4K in v-log. The file size is 13GB. I've imported it to PP and it could just about handle it without doing anything other than setting the playback to 1/2 (I'm in a 1080 timeline with the clip reduced to 50%). It lagged a bit, enough to be annoying, but was just about workable.

      I then sent a proxy job on that clip using the QuickTime GoPro Cineform built-in preset to 720p.

      AME opens and estimates over an hour to do the proxy job. It's using 7.5% of CPU and 5GB of RAM.

      Meanwhile PP becomes completely unusable with all the lagging I described in my OP. So I close PP, but there is no difference in the performance of AME and other operations become laggy (like typing this text in a form on a browser).

      If I try and open PP whilst that job is running it comes with with an error and cannot open. One of the errors is telling me to update my display drivers but I don't remember what the other one was.

      My question is: is it unreasonable to expect to be able to continue to edit in PP whilst AME runs that proxy job? Does the hour estimate sound about right for my laptop's configuration and the job in hand? And why is the machine not throwing more CPU at it? Surely that would speed up the job.


      unknownsailor  wrote

      OK, so here's something I'm doing that I'd like some feedback on because my machine is grinding to a halt once more ... is it unreasonable to expect to be able to continue to edit in PP whilst AME runs that proxy job?

      Technically PP should be somewhat usable while AME is working... in actual practice I try to avoid using both at the same time. There are times I do, but it's usually when I'm doing lightweight editing/tweaks and don't care about impeded workflow due to brief lags here/there. Another reason is that there are cases where working in Premiere to edit a project causes AME to enter a paused state. I saw this happen once and I personally didn't want the AME render to be held back so I stopped editing. It's doable, to use AME and PP at the same time,  but I tend to avoid it if possible.

      unknownsailor  wrote

      ...Does the hour estimate sound about right for my laptop's configuration and the job in hand? And why is the machine not throwing more CPU at it? Surely that would speed up the job.

      Re these other questions on expected times... I don't process 4k footage at alll... let me try to find a ~12:45 1080p 60fps clip or perhaps try to create a test one to see what general timing I get for the same. I don't believe (but am not 100% certain as I don't use the proxy system) there should be any difference when using AME for proxies versus anything else. So I think what you're essentially reporting is not something about the proxy capabilities but rather the performance of transcoding your 4k log to the 720p Cineform... my hunch is that you directly queue up such an AME transcode you'll see the same perf results. (but that's a guess on my part... I don't create proxies as you're doing.)

      A
      Ashley7
      Legend
      August 8, 2017

      unknownsailor  wrote

      I'm having some severe performance issues with Premiere Pro CC on my new Dell XPS 9560 (7th gen i7, 32Gb ram, GTX 1050).

      ...

      I have the same laptop and Premiere Pro generally sails quite well on it. I've worked on projects with >10 hours of mixed source footage. I say "generally" because there is a slow down I experience when jumping between After Effects and Premiere which doesn't seem so much hardware related as much as something relating to IPC between the apps and perhaps using Cineform footage... I haven't looked further but it happens but passes.

      What is your internal SSD size and available space? I have a 1TB SSD averaging anywhere from 400GB to 100GB free... when it hits 100GB or lower I know it's time to get back some space.

      When I first got my XPS 15, there were a number of quirky things all fixed by updating my BIOS, drivers, etc. I also manually checked updates on the support site using the service tag... do not rely on the updater app to pull down everything... check version numbers and download/install anything that seems dated. I also used NVIDIA's driver directly first... if that's problematic, I'll get the NVIDIA driver graced by Dell (via the XPS 15 9560 download site).

      This probably doesn't apply to you, but when I got the system, I had to update the Intel Graphics driver using an update from Intel directly... and I had to get the ZIP and extract and update it via device manager. The Dell Reddit group for XPS 15 had this info as well as the Dell forums and their FAQs I believe mentioned this too at some point. I'm assuming that issue is long taken care of with newly shipped units but FYI. The direct EXE Intel installer display some error message which is why you use the ZIP download with Update in device manager.

      I've been hugely satisfied with the laptop... it has quirks but all systems do ... and I haven't experienced what you mention so I surmise you have a config issue or driver/system update issue or some such.

      Recommendations...

      If your project is huge with lots of footage/sequences (skip this if it is not), you might try a reduced project to work on your sequence of current focus. For example (general steps)...

      1. Create new project c:\MyProjectFolder\IslandSequence.prproj
      2. Import desired sequence, such as IslandSequence, into the new project.
      3. Work away.
      4. When finished... backup your project files to some other disk or medium (I always do regular backups in case I mess something up).
      5. Re-open main project, and save Copy of current main project to c:\MyProjectFolder\MyProject-YYYYMMDD-HHMM-checkpoint.prproj (in addition to regular backs I also do Save Copy a lot.)
      6. In the main project, delete or rename the old IslandSequence.
      7. Using File/Import to import IslandSequence from IslandSequence.prproj

      The above helped me work more easily with AE/Pr for an image-heavy section of my larger project... for whatever reason, the very large main project was slowing down my work... and saving large projects takes longer... so when auto-save hits me with the reduced project, it's lightening fast.

      U
      unknownsailorAuthor
      Inspiring
      August 8, 2017

      Hi guys and thanks for the replies. I spent quite a while talking to Dell and, although it took some convincing, they persuaded me to reinstall Windows and PP. Despite resisting for a bit and not thinking this would help, I got desperate and did it. I'm happy to report that, so far, PP is now performing (almost) as expected. My CPU previously was topping out at just 25%. Now it's hitting 60% when I'm editing, which is more like it. Who knows?

      Not entirely convinced I've made the right purchase with the Dell TBH. It's ok but it's not steaming through the warp stabilising or the quick render tests I've done. It's faster than my old machine of course so it's an improvement but I'm not sure it's worth the £2100 I spent on it. Maybe I'm just coming down from the adrenaline rush and frustration and need to settle in a bit.

      Anyway, thanks for the help. I have another question about displaying 10 bit files which I'll post now...

      U
      unknownsailorAuthor
      Inspiring
      August 8, 2017

      Well it seems like I spoke too soon. The problems have started again.

      I'm currently editing 10 bit clips from the GH5 (1080 30fps). I was editing in 1/4 res. The problem with this is that it crops the clip when playing so the only way to see what's going on is to play it at full res. That's when the problems start. Suddenly the computer slows down and starts displaying all the issues described above.

      The memory is somewhere near 46% with PP hogging 8GB (I have a 32GB RAM). Once it does this I have to exit and reboot the machine.

      Any pointers?

      S
      sBirch
      Known Participant
      August 8, 2017

      A corrupted download would not even install, so that cannot be the cause. Rather your system is unable to cope with the demand on it. If it is software or hardware issues who can tell. Could it be heat?

      When editing PP takes a fair chunk of CPU and disk IO only when you scrub. If your program runs extremely slow even while you're just moving the mouse and clicking menus, then it is something rather than this. Do you run with any third party virus scanners?

      Have you tried to reencode video files as proxies? They take up more space but demands less of CPU than editing MP4 files like compressed .MOVs or .MTS files from AVCHD cameras.

      Switched to "normal" res? Like 1080p instead of 4K

      Did you try to export a project to Media Encoder right after you startup and see if it encodes at the predicted time? If it slows down drastically during export, then you might have a cooling issue. That is, unless you have some kind of software problem.

      U
      unknownsailorAuthor
      Inspiring
      August 8, 2017

      OK, tried reinstalling PP and it makes no difference.

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