Hey Steve. Thanks for your thoughts on this. I appreciate it. The utility can be found, if you're curious, at: http://www.resplendence.com/downloads
The temperature thing is quite strange, because I also thought the spike in temperature rather drastic. Thing is, my fans were also filthy. Today my girlfriend and I took the PC (yes, it's a desktop) apart and cleaned the fans and area around them. Temperatures have now dropped significantly, to the level I was seeing before, around the low 20s. Much better! I also set the power plan back to normal, because now that I switched to Eloquence again, the computer is performing much more smoothly. I did not anticipate a software synth to put such a load on the machine, but as someone else pointed out, I don't have a soundcard to run JAWS or anything else on, just the internal Realtech audio, which is pretty good, but y'know. I am trying to read up now on power plans and CPU loads. It's quite interesting. -- -----Original Message----- From: JAWS-Users-List <jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com> On Behalf Of Steve Sent: June 25, 2018 1:08 PM To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] interesting thoughts/finding about CPU speeds, temperature and JAWS J.M., I hadn't heard of that utility before; and I'm slightly surprised that your temps went up that much. I suppose how good your cooling is depends on the type of technology you have; case design, type of cooler and number of fans. I assume you are using a desktop, I would be more concerned about the higher temperatures if you are using a laptop, because of their limited cooling capacity. As for power consumption, a typical desktop uses about 200 Watts per hour, but I'd guess the differential amount of power used on the high-performance versus balanced setting is quite nominal. I don't have a talking watt-hour meter, so I can't measure that precisely, but I'd guess you would see maybe a 50-Watt-hour difference. With the average price of a kilowatt-hour of electricity for residential customers around 13ยข then, I would expect your power bill would be affected by about $4 per month. Steve Lansing, MI ----- Original Message ----- From: "JM Casey" <crystallo...@ca.inter.net> To: <jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com> Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2018 7:32 PM Subject: [JAWS-Users] interesting thoughts/finding about CPU speeds, temperature and JAWS > Hey everyone. > > > > So, I am running an AMD with six processors rated at, apparently, > around > 3500 MHZ. My system has 8 GB of Ram and is running Windows 10, 1803, > and JAWS 18. My preferred voice is the premium Daniel Vocalizer voice. > Yes, these specs are all relevant to the topic. > > > > For some time now, I have noticed a certain tendency of my system to > lag, or lock up, for several seconds at a time. This only seems to > happen when JAWS is running. I'm aware that my choice to use this > synth does negatively affect JAWS response time, even on this > reasonably fast system. Anyway, the "freezes" seem to affect some > programmes more than others, but perhaps particularly Firefox and MS > Office products. Sometimes, alt-tabbing between open windows seems > rather sluggish. > > > > Well, today I ran a utility from a company called Resplendent Software > called WhySoSlow. It's basically one of dozens of diagnostic software > tools available, that measures your computer's performance by > calculating various factors. It measures your CPU speed, memory load, > and the temperature of your CPUs using the sensors that modern PCs > have. The system was running at a cool 20-something celsius. It was > also running at less than half its advertised clockspeed, the > programme informed me, and suggested that my CPUs were being > "throttled" to conserve power. > > > > Now, I'm aware that some of these third party utilities measure specs in > weird ways, or make strange and not always advisable recommendations. I've > completely gone off using registry cleaners or any such tools for this > reason. I'm also aware that modern CPUs can "clock up" when the load on > them > becomes particularly intensive, but I don't know how well Windows for > instance actually manages this feature. However, I decided to try a little > experiment. I remembered fiddling a bit with the power settings in Windows > 10 previously, but not to any great extent - mostly just to prevent my > computer from "going to sleep" when left unattended. In the "power plan" > settings within power options, I adjusted the power plan from "balanced", > to > "optimise for performance", to see if it would make a difference. > > > > I then ran WhySoSlow again. My computer is now operating at peak processor > speed, all of the time. I suppose it's also using a hell of a lot more > power, which might not be a good thing. It's also not "running cool" > anymore. In fact, the CPU temperature has doubled all across the board, > reaching as high as 65 C, according to this programme (even higher > according > to the coretemp utility). > > > > However - JAWS is now behaving much more responsively. I haven't had any > freezes. Alt-tab cycles between programmes nearly instantaneously, and > Firefox seems much faster. > > > > I don't really have a question for the list. I just thought this was kind > of > an interesting thing to share, and wondered if anyone else had observed > anything similar. It is a fact that with my current setup I am normally at > a > speed disadvantage when placed against sighted users. This is, I believe, > in > part because JAWS is somewhat resource-intensive, especially using this > type > of synthesiser (yes, I have considered switching back to Eloquence). I'm > not > sure if I ought to keep my setup this way. I don't particularly want a > really high power bill and I don't want my computer to overheat, though in > theory the automatic cutoffs should engage before anything really bad > happens. I actually think it's nice that Windows includes power saving > features, but not necessarily at the expense of system performance. > > > > > > For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: > http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
