Dell Latitude 5400 performance

[copacetic]

Howdy,

I have a nagging suspicion that my laptop is running a little slower than it ought to (with the obvious caveat that this is a gut feeling and it may just be what it is), specs (pulled from Geekbench which I was messing around with):

System Information
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (64-bit)
Model	Dell Inc. Latitude 5400
Motherboard	Dell Inc. 0PD9KD
Memory	16.00 GB -1MHz
Northbridge	Intel ID3E34 0C
Southbridge	Intel Coffee Lake-U/Y PCH 30
BIOS	Dell Inc. 1.11.1

Processor Information
Name	Intel Core i5-8365U
Topology	1 Processor, 4 Cores, 8 Threads
Identifier	GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 142 Stepping 12
Base Frequency	1.90 GHz
Maximum Frequency	4.09 GHz
Package	Socket 1356 FCBGA
Codename	Kaby Lake-U/Y
L1 Instruction Cache	32.0 KB x 4
L1 Data Cache	32.0 KB x 4
L2 Cache	256 KB x 4
L3 Cache	6.00 MB x 1

Drive - SK hynix SC401 512GB

Used for normal office-type applications / browsing, etc - It just seems to struggle sometimes, with workloads that seem they should not kick its ass as much as they do (couple of PDFs / Excel docs, music playing, browser running and the like).

Anyway, I am looking for any advice on how to A) diagnose if there is in fact any issues, and if so, what to do about it.

I am vaguely tech savvy, so have tried most of the obvious things I can think of, but nothing seems to make much of a difference, really.

Pardon, I know this is rather vague...

 

[backstreetboy]

Well it's running beta software. Windows 11 is only coming out in October so all drivers is probably not even updated for it.

 

[WAslayer]

The first thing you do when troubleshooting performance related issues, is to monitor resource usage, particularly when you notice that things are running slowly, when you believe they shouldn't..

This will be:
CPU usage
Memory/RAM usage
Disk usage
Network usage(rarity)

Open up task manager, there is a button toward the bottom called performance monitor.. open that..

Here you can get detailed usage for each of the above..

If CPU usage is pinned really high, 80 - 100% for minutes at a time, that's not great and you should look at processes using the most CPU..

If memory usage is pinned at 15 - 16 GB, that's not great either and again, look at processes using the most memory..

Lastly, look at disk performance.. here you don't want to see a high queue length or the read/write speeds of your disk being saturated.. again, if you see this happening, check which processes are responsible..

From there you can determine if those processes need to be running if they have known issues with high resource usage, fixed with an update etc..

 

[copacetic]

Well it's running beta software. Windows 11 is only coming out in October so all drivers is probably not even updated for it.

Same issues on 10 (only started messing around with 11 recently).

 

[copacetic]

The first thing you do when troubleshooting performance related issues, is to monitor resource usage, particularly when you notice that things are running slowly, when you believe they shouldn't..

This will be:
CPU usage
Memory/RAM usage
Disk usage
Network usage(rarity)

Open up task manager, there is a button toward the bottom called performance monitor.. open that..

Here you can get detailed usage for each of the above..

If CPU usage is pinned really high, 80 - 100% for minutes at a time, that's not great and you should look at processes using the most CPU..

If memory usage is pinned at 15 - 16 GB, that's not great either and again, look at processes using the most memory..

Lastly, look at disk performance.. here you don't want to see a high queue length or the read/write speeds of your disk being saturated.. again, if you see this happening, check which processes are responsible..

From there you can determine if those processes need to be running if they have known issues with high resource usage, fixed with an update etc..

Absolutely - I've tried this (and similar type things), and cannot really pick up anything specific. But, thank you for the advice, appreciated. Will do some further poking.

 

[waynehooper]

Same issues on 10 (only started messing around with 11 recently).

Is it slow when running off the battery, as well as when plugged in?

I had a issue with my Dell Latitude when running on battery power. Was sluggish as hell, when connected to power was fine.

I had to disable Intel Speed Step, and Intel Speed shift in BIOS

 

[copacetic]

Try running this:

Basemark Web 3.0 | Main page

web.basemark.com

I'll do the same later (on a similar Dell machine:

View attachment 1127846

Also check system information for conflicts.

Not sure what it means, but here's the result:

No conflicts.

 

[copacetic]

Have you checked your SSD's SMART status? Open a command prompt as admin and run:

wmic /namespace:\\root\wmi path MSStorageDriver_FailurePredictStatus

Predict Failure should be false

False.

 

[copacetic]

Is it slow when running off the battery, as well as when plugged in?

I had a issue with my Dell Latitude when running on battery power. Was sluggish as hell, when connected to power was fine.

I had to disable Intel Speed Step, and Intel Speed shift in BIOS

It is always plugged in, both disabled.

 

[Budza]

How full is your SSD?

I've got a 7470 and that's not enough for Win11

Does what I need it to though.

 

[copacetic]

I am coming to the conclusion that it may simply be the jarring change from my desktop (moderately powerful), to the laptop (not slow, but in comparison to that).

 

[copacetic]

How full is your HDD?

I've got a 7470 and that's not enough for Win11

Does what I need it to though.

200 / 500.

 

[copacetic]

 

[Brawler]

Is the CPU boosting at all / max freq? I had similar symptoms.
My first XPS 13 would not boost. Dell replaced it.

 

[Budza]

My web 3.0 score was 745. Do you have a discreet GPU in the machine?

I think his is comparable to mine. No GPU, only built in Intel HD 520 for me at least...

My results:


@copacetic - you mentioned moving from a Desktop: what are the specs/results of that?

 

[SauRoNZA]

You mention a whole lot of geekbench stuff but not the actual score.

Isn’t it as simple as taking the geekbench score for the CPU and then running it on your own and comparing?

No gut feelings required. Literally the point of benchmarks.

 

[Ferog]

Try run the built in Dell ePSA test if you've got some hours to kill, ensure to do the thorough one to test the memory and disk.

 

[RedViking]

Sorry for not being able to help with the performance issues which is most likely just Dell throttling to keep it run cool and give good power consumption.....


But...


What is the battery life like when doing a bit more performance loaded tasks?

 

[copacetic]

Wow... OK, so mine's an NVMe, but that speed difference...
Let me test the SATA one...
*EDIT* SATA SSD:

That's quite a difference!

A difference indeed!

I had thought I had an NVMe, truth be told, but thanks for helping out here - Helped me at least figure that aspect out. Should I find a reasonable NVMe at some time, I'll try that and see if it makes any significant real-world difference.

 

[Brawler]

Did you check the CPU?


On my XPS it was not going above 800Mhz whereas it should be boosting based on demand.