Lincs Motherboard Compatibility

[mdklassen]

> I installed and ran PassMark PerformanceTest.

> The first time I ran it, just after I brought the computer up, it was essentially nominal with a (CPU) rating of 14840.

> Their median is 15290.

> Three weeks later I tried it again - now I'm getting always in the 11 thousand range with 2 values BELOW it - one at 10,700.

> That is a 30% DROP in performance.

I have read that the BIOS update for "Meltdown" and "Spectre" can have a significant effect on performance.

So, my speculation is that your computer got a BIOS update in the last 3 weeks.  Is this possible?

Check the HP Support web-site, for your specific model, to see if a BIOS update was released, either one to address the vulnerabilities, or if there is an available, but not-yet-applied, update that may improve the performance.

I see that you reinstalled Windows.  Did you allow Windows Update to apply all the updates, before running Passmark?

Microsoft did issue updates last Tuesday (August 14, 2018).

I hope this helps.

[ngc2359]

these are good numbers! I had read both replies to this thread on another computer (before coming to this one to reply) ... the next I believe says that there might be or even 'is' a problem with a BIOS upgrade. I DID upgrade the bios in between the 2 tests I ran. The first where I got a 14480 CPU rating and the rest of the time with very slow ratings... I had considered this as I knew that was one of the things that I did but I couldn't find any info on this nor any way to downgrade the BIOS to what it came with.

As for Dell vs. HP ... agreed - I've had both. My accounting computer is an HP and its been going strong for 7 years now (a HDD failure is all). I've had 3 Dell's and all of them failed at about the 5 year point which, after this last one, I decided to go back to HP. However my comment was more so on how support is almost non-existent on the HP. NO ONE wanted to tell me if the m.2 socket supported NVMe even though there it is on the MB! Nothing in the docs - support just kept telling me to go to HP SHOP! I did finally get someone only after posting here and apparently this is monitored - someone here passed it on and through that I got a response: it does NOT support NVMe was what I was told!

so ... you can see there are, as is most always the case, grays and not black and white.

thanks for all the help. I returned the computer today for an exchange (Staples was kind enough to do this even though it was 24 days and they only allow 14 for an exchange). So I will NOT be updating the BIOS in the new one. Hopefully and expectedly that was it.

[ngc2359]

Dean,  Thanks for the reply and indeed you ARE right. I need top performance with lowest latency to use this as a software defined radio ... and thus needed all drivers and the like to be the latest. I also changed all settings re performance vs. power setting everything to performance. That latter bit of course was "reversed" back to factory default when I did the OS recovery.

So Indeed I did upgrade some drivers, ones that were new since I got it - and I did upgrade the BIOS! BOTH of those happened between the "normal" value and the abnormal values ... I thought it might be the BIOS but there's no way to downgrade ... note there is no "warning" on HP's website for this computer/drivers/software page that say there will be a performance issues if you do this. IS there a way to downgrade? I ask that because if they fix this issue and come out with another one, since nothing is mentioned on the page, I've no clue whether or not it is safe and/or an improvment!

[mtmtmt]

I'm glad you were able to swap the computer for another. Thank you for keeping me updated as to all the issues you faced and what you did. It's ashame you had to spend so much time though.

Please post your Passmark times on the new computer when you get a chance. I'd be real interested to see if they are similar to mine.

[mdklassen]

>  I couldn't find any info on this nor any way to downgrade the BIOS to what it came with.

I did a Google-search, entering:   site:hp.com BIOS recovery

which gave the result: HP Notebook PCs - Recovering the BIOS (Basic Input Output System)

It does say "notebook", but the article might be applicable to your "non-notebook" computer.

When doing an HP BIOS update, the current BIOS is saved, on your disk-drive, to facilitate the "recovery" process.

For your model-number, the HP Support web-page

shows a 'F.11' BIOS update on July 20, 2018, and an 'F.13' BIOS update one week ago (August 13, 2018).

I too see nothing in either "details" about being blocked from loading an older BIOS, nor any mention of any performance "hit" from either BIOS update.

[ngc2359]

My suspicion would be that it was indeed the BIOS - especially when you see the one article, don't remember who by, Intel I believe, that said the hit to performance might be as high as 30%. The numbers i got were in the (-) 22 - 30% range (best case -22%). Also having done a recovery - assuming the bios was not moved back (I think I did confirm it was the latest still after the recovery process) then it would have been the only thing left that had been changed AND taking that with the knowledge that it had performed normally at one point and then at another sub-normal - with the BIOS upgrade sandwiched in there - suggests that makes sense. 

I will have a replacement on Wednesday. We'll find out. I spent a good 60+ minutes with HP support on this - they had no clue. I believe what that suggests is the average buyers lack of understanding of performance, and more than likely they'd not have upgraded the BIIOS. They'd just complain it was slow (and it WAS slow in many things ) if they had any issues, support did the normal "driver updates"  when there is any issues (including the BIOS), and they continued to use it. 

[ngc2359]

Gentleman: Hopefully this will be the last report to this thread. 

So - I got the replacement i7-8700 in, this is a Pavillion 590-p0070. The first one had reasonable PassMark PerformanceTest marks for the CPU coming in at 14840 (the "nominal" over what appears to be hundreds of submissions for this processor is about 15200). But then after doing some stuff to the computer it dropped by as much as 30% and never again showed any closer than -21%. The suspicion was, as submitted by someone here (thank you!) that it was caused by my upgrading the BIOS to the latest version. There is a bug in Intel Processors that make them 'hackable' referred to as Spectre and/or Meltdown (2 different attach methods I believe). The "fix" requires the BIOS to be upgraded as part of the fix - and the result of this has been reported as performance hits to the tune of, as much as, 30%!

This is where I say BINGO! 

So I exchanged that unit for a new one. That unit on first test just after the very first power up showed not much better at 12600 ... a huge disappointment as its closer but still NOT the performance you pay for. 

HOWEVER after both cycling power several times and running it i noticed that the HDD was running constantly at 100% ... so I can only assume that Windows was doing HUGE updates while the computer was running (the NETWORK was also going up and down as if things were being downloaded). So I let this run waiting for the HDD to go to 0. This took a good HOUR. Finally I checked it again after all this and BINGO - 14941! 

so the caveat here is - on new computers do NOT run this test right away. Let the computer come up, run for 5 minutes, restart it and repeat several times, then let it sit connected to the web for at least an hour or two... then try the test. 

I'm going to now start loading in the needed programs and changing the Windows performance settings - I'll check the CPU results often along the way just in case it gets hit again so I know the before and after and cause. 

The final Passmark results, this is with the onboard video (which apparently needs a driver update as it failed part of the test due to this) gave me 14941 for the CPU and 17700 for the disk! The disk being now the Samsung 970 EVO NVMe PCIe 4-ch.... it ROCKS big time and is at the 99% of all systems. Memory came in at 3043 which was I believe 95%. 

Gary 

[Paladin1980]

Have you checked to see if this takes 9th gen 65w cpus?