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What hardware to best speed up processing large Word file?



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 20th 20, 11:51 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Charlie Hoffpauir
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 347
Default What hardware to best speed up processing large Word file?

My genealogy program will create a very large file for Word that I
have been saving as a PDF for distribution at the family reunion each
year. The file is currently over 3000 pages. If I try to do any
editing in Word, it takes forever. Is there any way to change hardware
or add something to make this work reasonalby fast? I currently have
Word in my C Drive which is a Samsung 500 GB SSD. I plan on replacing
it with a Samsung 1 TB nvme. The genealogy program runs on the C drive
also, but the data is on a HDD. When I add the nvme, should I put the
data on the nvme, or would it be better to put it on the repurposed
500 GB SSD, or does it make any difference?
TIA for any suggestions.
  #2  
Old December 21st 20, 03:05 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,453
Default What hardware to best speed up processing large Word file?

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:

My genealogy program will create a very large file for Word that I
have been saving as a PDF for distribution at the family reunion each
year. The file is currently over 3000 pages. If I try to do any
editing in Word, it takes forever. Is there any way to change hardware
or add something to make this work reasonalby fast? I currently have
Word in my C Drive which is a Samsung 500 GB SSD. I plan on replacing
it with a Samsung 1 TB nvme. The genealogy program runs on the C drive
also, but the data is on a HDD. When I add the nvme, should I put the
data on the nvme, or would it be better to put it on the repurposed
500 GB SSD, or does it make any difference?
TIA for any suggestions.


Not sure why you need to export the data from your genealolgy program to
Word (.doc, .docx) format to edit it. Seems you need better geneaology
software with more robust editing options for commenting on each node
(person).

When documents get huge, yep, Word will get slow. The premise is that
if you are going to use a word processor for a huge project, you break
it up into smaller sections, and use a master document to link them
together. When I first starting working in a QA group in a mid-size
company, their Testing Plan was all of 28 pages. It was up to the
expertise of the tester to know how to test the software, and very
little got documented about what feature(s) to test, prerequisites,
setup, dependencies on other test, the test procedure (that noobs could
understand, and without any gotcha conditions after a test was performed
but with such conditions setup or explained beforehand), and the
expected results, comments, and linkage to a matrix showing which
components of the software got tested by which tests. When
documentation got passed to me (because I was already expounding on the
test docs), it inflated into a 4000-page document. Some components were
huge, so they got broken into smaller components to be manageable by
whomever was the supervisor for that section. Master document mode was
the only way to handle the compendium of all the test docs that
aggregated into a huge overall test plan.

https://www.dummies.com/software/mic...ument-feature/
https://www.officetooltips.com/word_...ment_view.html

However, if your current genealogy software just dumps everything into
one huge .doc[x] file then that's what you are stuck with. Why not use
genealogy software that builds a tree diagram along with notes about
each node (person)? Use software that exports in GEDCOM format which is
usable in many other genealogy software, so you don't restrict what
software that others may choose.

You can see several listed and compared at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...alogy_software

Adding or substituting faster hardware does not obviate the underlying
cause for the slowdown in document handling. Faster now just means the
document(s) will become slow later as you keep enlarging one huge
document file. NVMe SSDs are faster than SATA SSDs, but they can only
help some regarding slow processes. The genealogy program will load
faster on the C: drive that becomes an NVMe drive, but your huge doc
file is still back on the slow HDD. Since you don't mention upping the
CPU, a program that loads faster (but runs the same in system RAM),
editing the huge doc file on the HDD will not get sped up by going with
a faster SSD drive.

Presumably you'll keep the SATA SSD drive to where you can store some
data files, like the huge doc file. If you start putting lots of doc
files on the NVMe drive that get edited a lot or incur huge write
volume, make sure to up the overprovisioning of the NVMe SSD to prolong
its lifespan. SSDs are self-destructive drives hence the need for
overprovisioning (remapping space) and wear-leveling to move the writes
around to reduce oxide stress on the same junction which eventually
kills the junction. Even if you use the old SATA SSD for some doc
files, if you edit them a lot or generate a lot of write traffic on the
drive, you should up its overprovisioning. Lots of info on the Internet
about how and why to overprovision SSDs, and the software that came with
the SSD should have an overprovisioning option.

You don't mention what OS you are using. Are you sure the SATA SSD, and
later the NVMe SSD, are aligned? Not important for HDDs, but boosts
performance for SSDs.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ssd%20alignment

The CPU can be a limiting factor, but mobos have a max speed they'll
support. Without knowing the motherboard brand and model, and knowing
if you're willing to spend a lot more to get incremental performance
boost from the CPU, no one can tell if your setup can make use of a
faster CPU.

Memory constraints may be another limiting factor; i.e., not enough
memory to load the complete document into system memory, so paging
(swapping to the much slower drive, even for SSD or NVMe compared to
system RAM) is needed to create a sliding view of the document. More
memory means less or no paging. Also, you might be using 32-bit Windows
with 32-bit MS Office instead of 64-bit Windows with 64-bit MS Office.
  #3  
Old December 21st 20, 08:21 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default What hardware to best speed up processing large Word file?

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
My genealogy program will create a very large file for Word that I
have been saving as a PDF for distribution at the family reunion each
year. The file is currently over 3000 pages. If I try to do any
editing in Word, it takes forever. Is there any way to change hardware
or add something to make this work reasonalby fast? I currently have
Word in my C Drive which is a Samsung 500 GB SSD. I plan on replacing
it with a Samsung 1 TB nvme. The genealogy program runs on the C drive
also, but the data is on a HDD. When I add the nvme, should I put the
data on the nvme, or would it be better to put it on the repurposed
500 GB SSD, or does it make any difference?
TIA for any suggestions.


Decades ago, we noticed Word was compute-bound.

A faster processor might speed it up. (Speed = CLK * IPC, and
each generation of processor adds about 10% to 20% IPC or so.
The clock CLK being a bit stagnant.) IPC is Instructions Per Clock,
the number of instructions that can be "retired" in a single
clock cycle, about 4 instructions per clock or so at the moment.
That's a measure of the "burst rate" inside the CPU.

The 5950X is 4.9GHz, but the 5800X at 4.7GHz is a better
deal from a price perspective. The Zen3 processors were
more or less a paper launch, and they're hard to find.
Just as two batches of video cards (AMD had a batch,
NVidia had a batch) are also unobtanium. The CPU World site
puts a table at the bottom, with devices for the same socket
listed, so you can compare them.

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Zen/A...9%205950X.html

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Zen/A...7%205800X.html

Numerically on clock rate, you could select an Intel one,
but the IPC might be slightly less.

(Cheaper, still good for Word)

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_...i7-10700K.html

(Playing the same game as AMD and bumping the clock a hair...)

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_...i9-10900K.html

But this is Word we're talking about, and 3000 pages *is*
a lot of pages. Even my preferred editor would be slow
and unruly at that size. Part of the delay can be working
out pagination.

It would be worse, if it was 3000 pages and every page had
a picture of a family member in it :-)

Back in the day, when some of the enthusiast sites wanted
to bench a processor, they would use a Word scrolling test
as their benchmark :-) That's how you know how pathetic Word
is, when they're using it as a benchmark like that. Back then,
a good video card did help, because there were some really
bad video cards back then (unaccelerated).

*******

With modern large machines, once the file is read from end
to end (at the very first thing), now the file is cached
in RAM and there is no reason to touch the disk again
until it is time to do a save. Scrolling the document,
should consult the System Read Cache in memory.

As you scroll, the program will stop every once in a
while and update the screen. If the program was clever,
it could give a good deal of the rendering work to the
video card. Modern OSes do some of their font rendering
on the video card, rather than the CPU drawing each letter.
But I don't follow Word enough, to be able to tell you
how the latest version does things.

The thing is, video cards have 2D acceleration (BitBLT)
and 3D acceleration (as used in gaming). Nobody really
benchmarks BitBLT any more, and it's quite possible there
is no advancement at all in 2D. And it's just possible that
a few things Word does, would be 2D functions. As a result
of that, it would be disingenuous to promise that a
new video card would do a damn thing. It might not.
This might suggest no difference between a monster video
card and a cheaper one (they could have the same 2D speed).

The Intel processors above have a graphics chip inside them,
so initially you don't even need to plug in a video card.
(AMD has chips like that too, with a GPU inside, but they
probably don't clock at 4.9GHz. AMD CPUs that have a GPU
inside are called "APU", not that this is a big deal.)

But a processor is going to help a bit.

Just don't expect hardware to wring 10X the speed out
of anything. Those kinds of improvements stopped years
ago.

But if your machine is frightfully bad, well, a new
CPU is not going to hurt. And with a new CPU comes
new motherboard and new RAM. The RAM speed now is up
to 3200 or 3600.

Currently the market is a bit skewed by availability
issues. And so we can't just arbitrarily select the
thing we really want, and expect to be able to buy it.
And some of the problem is old-fashioned scalping.
On the video card front, the rumor is, some
"Bitcoin people" bought $175,000,000 worth of video
cards, and it is preventing game players from buying
the newest video cards. Since CPUs aren't nearly as
attractive, I don't think anyone did that to the CPU
products.

Now, let's compare our CPUs. This site would list your
existing CPU, so you can compare to the new ones, and
get some idea of the level of improvement. I picked
the single threaded bench, because for ordinary applications
it is the best indicator of relative performance.

The Intel runs a higher clock, but the IPC is lower,
and so the bench value is a bit lower. It wasn't that long
ago, that previous generations of AMD had lower IPC. That's
why AMD is on my chart this year :-) And for a laugh, when
I don't know an OPs processor, I put my own pathetic one
for comparison. That's the E8400 I'm typing on. Part of
the speed decline on mine, is slow RAM.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Bench
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3400/4900 MHz 16C/32T 3,518 $799.99 NotAvail
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3800/4700 MHz 8C/16T 3,515 $449.99 NotAvail ===
Intel i9-10900K 3700/5200 MHz 10C/20T 3,173 $529.89 Maybe
Intel i7-10700K 3800/5100 MHz 8C/16T 3,086 $319.99 Maybe

E8400 3000 MHz 2C/2T 1,242 cheep (Used)

So that shows, if I wanted a straight line improvement in performance,
a 5800X would be pretty close to 3X improvement on what I've got.

If you browse computers at the computer store, you won't get the
fastest ones there. You'll probably have to do some Internet browsing
if you want something decent.

The core count on the processors is mostly irrelevant for Word.
For Excel, Excel has some parallelism in execution, and might use
two cores (2C worth) when recalculating a spreadsheet. And it's
applications like 7ZIP file compression that really like cores.
If we were spending all day compressing files, then the eight hundred
dollar processor would be a bit better. If you play games, the
multiple cores (C) helps. THe (T) part measures Hyperthreading,
which helps 7ZIP a bit. But it's the C number that bears most
of the weight when doing 7ZIP (or RAR) compression. For your Word
purposes, the following table is almost completely irrelevant. But
is included to explain where the stupid pricing comes from. You
can see my little processor is dwarfed by these monsters, on 7ZIP.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html (Multi-thread bench)
(where cores count)

Bench
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3400/4900 MHz 16C/32T 46,243 $799.99 NotAvail
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3800/4700 MHz 8C/16T 28,761 $449.99 NotAvail ===
Intel i9-10900K 3700/5200 MHz 10C/20T 24,110 $529.89 Maybe
Intel i7-10700K 3800/5100 MHz 8C/16T 19,630 $319.99 Maybe

E8400 3000 MHz 2C/2T 1,155 cheep (Used) Poor at 7ZIP

Paul
  #4  
Old December 21st 20, 05:07 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Charlie Hoffpauir
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 347
Default What hardware to best speed up processing large Word file?

On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 02:21:07 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
My genealogy program will create a very large file for Word that I
have been saving as a PDF for distribution at the family reunion each
year. The file is currently over 3000 pages. If I try to do any
editing in Word, it takes forever. Is there any way to change hardware
or add something to make this work reasonalby fast? I currently have
Word in my C Drive which is a Samsung 500 GB SSD. I plan on replacing
it with a Samsung 1 TB nvme. The genealogy program runs on the C drive
also, but the data is on a HDD. When I add the nvme, should I put the
data on the nvme, or would it be better to put it on the repurposed
500 GB SSD, or does it make any difference?
TIA for any suggestions.


Thanks for the suggestions from both Paul and Vangard.... but I've hit
on a bit of a problem since I posted. I got the Samsung 1TB drive, but
failed to get it working. Installed, my computer recognizes it. Sees
it on ports 4 & 5. After cloning it shows up in both Win 10 Computer
Management and in Hard disk Sentinel. but if I remove the 500 GB SSD I
cloned from, I can't get the BIOS to find the 1 TB as a boot device.

BTW the computer is a homebuilt Gigabyte MB (GS-Z97X-UD3H-BK),
processor is an Intel I-5, don't remember exact model, and there's 16
GB of RAM.OS is Win 10, latest updates.

I tried cloning from the 500 GB to the 1 TB drive, and once cloned,
the computer fails to recoginize it as a boot device. I've had no
problem at all cloning the 500 GB drive.... done it several times
without problem using HDClone.
  #5  
Old December 21st 20, 05:28 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Charlie Hoffpauir
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 347
Default What hardware to best speed up processing large Word file?

On Sun, 20 Dec 2020 20:05:57 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:

My genealogy program will create a very large file for Word that I
have been saving as a PDF for distribution at the family reunion each
year. The file is currently over 3000 pages. If I try to do any
editing in Word, it takes forever. Is there any way to change hardware
or add something to make this work reasonalby fast? I currently have
Word in my C Drive which is a Samsung 500 GB SSD. I plan on replacing
it with a Samsung 1 TB nvme. The genealogy program runs on the C drive
also, but the data is on a HDD. When I add the nvme, should I put the
data on the nvme, or would it be better to put it on the repurposed
500 GB SSD, or does it make any difference?
TIA for any suggestions.


Not sure why you need to export the data from your genealolgy program to
Word (.doc, .docx) format to edit it. Seems you need better geneaology
software with more robust editing options for commenting on each node
(person).

Actually, I don't export to a word file because it goes so slow,
however, I'd "like" to be able to do that because I'd like to tweak
the file to include things that the genealogy program doesn't have.
The genealogy program is RM 7, and the file is a "Book" consisting of
primarily an output from the program of a narative descendant report,
with an index, TOC, etc. I'd like to add a Word document of a timeline
that I have, but the program doesn't allow that. I've successfully
used the export to a Word file for a smaller "Book" consisting of only
the first 4 generations of the same descendant report. Then edited the
file in Word by adding the timeline as another chapter of the book,
and re-indexing in Word to amke everything work together. Makes for a
nice book only 200 or so pages.

When documents get huge, yep, Word will get slow. The premise is that
if you are going to use a word processor for a huge project, you break
it up into smaller sections, and use a master document to link them
together. When I first starting working in a QA group in a mid-size
company, their Testing Plan was all of 28 pages. It was up to the
expertise of the tester to know how to test the software, and very
little got documented about what feature(s) to test, prerequisites,
setup, dependencies on other test, the test procedure (that noobs could
understand, and without any gotcha conditions after a test was performed
but with such conditions setup or explained beforehand), and the
expected results, comments, and linkage to a matrix showing which
components of the software got tested by which tests. When
documentation got passed to me (because I was already expounding on the
test docs), it inflated into a 4000-page document. Some components were
huge, so they got broken into smaller components to be manageable by
whomever was the supervisor for that section. Master document mode was
the only way to handle the compendium of all the test docs that
aggregated into a huge overall test plan.

https://www.dummies.com/software/mic...ument-feature/
https://www.officetooltips.com/word_...ment_view.html

I'll look into that, but since I need for the index to be an index of
hte entire book, I don't think breaking it into separate components
would work, especially since most of the book is the very large
descendant report.
However, if your current genealogy software just dumps everything into
one huge .doc[x] file then that's what you are stuck with. Why not use
genealogy software that builds a tree diagram along with notes about
each node (person)? Use software that exports in GEDCOM format which is
usable in many other genealogy software, so you don't restrict what
software that others may choose.

You can see several listed and compared at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...alogy_software

Well I've tried all the present genealogy programs, and now defunct
onles like Roots and TMG, and none seem to offer anything better than
what I have.

cause for the slowdown in document handling. Faster now just means the
document(s) will become slow later as you keep enlarging one huge
document file. NVMe SSDs are faster than SATA SSDs, but they can only
help some regarding slow processes. The genealogy program will load
faster on the C: drive that becomes an NVMe drive, but your huge doc
file is still back on the slow HDD. Since you don't mention upping the
CPU, a program that loads faster (but runs the same in system RAM),
editing the huge doc file on the HDD will not get sped up by going with
a faster SSD drive.

Presumably you'll keep the SATA SSD drive to where you can store some
data files, like the huge doc file. If you start putting lots of doc
files on the NVMe drive that get edited a lot or incur huge write
volume, make sure to up the overprovisioning of the NVMe SSD to prolong
its lifespan. SSDs are self-destructive drives hence the need for
overprovisioning (remapping space) and wear-leveling to move the writes
around to reduce oxide stress on the same junction which eventually
kills the junction. Even if you use the old SATA SSD for some doc
files, if you edit them a lot or generate a lot of write traffic on the
drive, you should up its overprovisioning. Lots of info on the Internet
about how and why to overprovision SSDs, and the software that came with
the SSD should have an overprovisioning option.

You don't mention what OS you are using. Are you sure the SATA SSD, and
later the NVMe SSD, are aligned? Not important for HDDs, but boosts
performance for SSDs.

Yes, it's Win 10 latest update, and SSDs are aligned.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ssd%20alignment

The CPU can be a limiting factor, but mobos have a max speed they'll
support. Without knowing the motherboard brand and model, and knowing
if you're willing to spend a lot more to get incremental performance
boost from the CPU, no one can tell if your setup can make use of a
faster CPU.

I though maybe going to a faster CPU. I have an Intel I5. As I
mentioned in another post, I don't recall exactly what model. My MB
will go up to an I7 I think.
Memory constraints may be another limiting factor; i.e., not enough
memory to load the complete document into system memory, so paging
(swapping to the much slower drive, even for SSD or NVMe compared to
system RAM) is needed to create a sliding view of the document. More
memory means less or no paging. Also, you might be using 32-bit Windows
with 32-bit MS Office instead of 64-bit Windows with 64-bit MS Office.

I could easily add another 2 sticks of RAM to go to 32 GB if that
would help. I think Word is the 64-bit version. I have Office 365, is
there a way to check to make sure?
  #6  
Old December 21st 20, 06:08 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default What hardware to best speed up processing large Word file?

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 02:21:07 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
My genealogy program will create a very large file for Word that I
have been saving as a PDF for distribution at the family reunion each
year. The file is currently over 3000 pages. If I try to do any
editing in Word, it takes forever. Is there any way to change hardware
or add something to make this work reasonalby fast? I currently have
Word in my C Drive which is a Samsung 500 GB SSD. I plan on replacing
it with a Samsung 1 TB nvme. The genealogy program runs on the C drive
also, but the data is on a HDD. When I add the nvme, should I put the
data on the nvme, or would it be better to put it on the repurposed
500 GB SSD, or does it make any difference?
TIA for any suggestions.

Thanks for the suggestions from both Paul and Vangard.... but I've hit
on a bit of a problem since I posted. I got the Samsung 1TB drive, but
failed to get it working. Installed, my computer recognizes it. Sees
it on ports 4 & 5. After cloning it shows up in both Win 10 Computer
Management and in Hard disk Sentinel. but if I remove the 500 GB SSD I
cloned from, I can't get the BIOS to find the 1 TB as a boot device.

BTW the computer is a homebuilt Gigabyte MB (GS-Z97X-UD3H-BK),
processor is an Intel I-5, don't remember exact model, and there's 16
GB of RAM.OS is Win 10, latest updates.

I tried cloning from the 500 GB to the 1 TB drive, and once cloned,
the computer fails to recoginize it as a boot device. I've had no
problem at all cloning the 500 GB drive.... done it several times
without problem using HDClone.


What is the model number of the Samsung drive ?

What is the model number of the original drive ?

I assume these are SATA. But maybe you've got your
NVMe already ?

What you can do, is with the Samsung connected, boot
a Macrium Rescue CD and use the "Boot Repair" option
in the optional menu. You want *only* the drive
that won't boot, connected during this exercise.
That assures that when Macrium scans the SATA drive,
it only "glues together" the boot materials from
inside that drive, and does not glue every blasted
drive in the computer into some BCD file.

--- DVD drive --- Macrium Rescue CD

--- SATA HDD ---- Samsung 1TB

-----------------/ Other ports empty

Sometimes what happens during cloning, is the
boot materials aren't completely copied. The
Rescue CD can fix that.

But of course, it's not a SATA drive, this new thing,
so now we move on.

*******

I have the PDF manual on disk here. It says:

"Use of licensed AMI UEFI BIOS"

Since the original drive booted, the BIOS should already
have the correct settings for doing a good job.

CSM Support

Enables or disables UEFI CSM (Compatibility Support Module)
to support a legacy PC boot process.

Always Enables UEFI CSM. (Default) === boots MSDOS era media
Never Disables UEFI CSM and supports UEFI BIOS boot process only.

Boot Mode Selection

Allows you to select which type of operating system to boot.

UEFI and Legacy Allows booting from operating systems that
support legacy option ROM or UEFI option ROM. (Default) ===

Legacy Only Allows booting from operating systems that
only support legacy Option ROM.

UEFI Only Allows booting from operating systems that
only support UEFI Option ROM.

Storage Boot Option Control

(May need adjustment, not sure...)
(M.2 PCIe may need UEFI first)

M.2 PCIE SSD RAID Mode
Enables or disables Intel Rapid Storage Technology

Sometimes, if you're booting from NVMe materials, there's
some storage ROM of some sort that has to be enabled.

Other PCI Device ROM Priority

Allows you to select whether to enable the UEFI or
Legacy option ROM for the PCI device controller other
than the LAN, storage device, and graphics controllers.

Legacy OpROM Enables legacy option ROM only.
UEFI OpROM Enables UEFI option ROM only. (Default) ===

This item is configurable only when CSM Support is set to Always.

You can see someone had your problem here, and this failure
pattern is a familiar one.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thre...3h-bk.3416549/

My board is Asus, and some of the terminology is slightly
different. And that's why searching the PDF manual isn't
digging up any hits.

"check in the bios the SATA Controller is set to AHCI Mode "

Which should have been the case anyway. There's some
detail like that, that NVMe only work with certain
modes, and only then when the BIOS is mature enough
to not have bugs.

"The BIOS update was indeed the issue. I had read through
the update descriptions but didn't see where they mentioned
fixing a boot from an M.2 drive. Could have missed it.
I have to give them credit - the update process is SO much
easier than the last time I did that a decade or two ago. Wow...

The SATA controller was already set to AHCI."

Another breadcrumb. This is most likely to be the problem.

"Z97X Gaming5 Rev 1.0 bios F7 here. Issues like described
with hc310 6TB disk. The solution for me was to enable
Intel Rapid Start Technology and then it gave option under
it to choose the controller to be used. I choose the other
one that was available - "PCIE AHCI/NVME Controller" and
system boots just fine. My disk with system is plextor ssd
and HGST is the main storage."

RAID and AHCI typically share the same driver file package.
The RAID (RST) seems to recognize the PCIe interface to the
NVMe device. And perhaps it needs to be turned on so the
NVMe can be seen at boot, via the RAID ROM. And the option
ROMs have to be turned on, for this to work. You can't get
to the RAID window, unless the RAID ROM is turned on first,
save, then enter the BIOS and press the magic key combo
to get the RAID screen up.

Now you know why most NVMe owners are bald from the hair loss.

HTH,
Paul
  #7  
Old December 21st 20, 06:33 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Charlie Hoffpauir
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 347
Default What hardware to best speed up processing large Word file?

On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 12:08:40 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 02:21:07 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:
My genealogy program will create a very large file for Word that I
have been saving as a PDF for distribution at the family reunion each
year. The file is currently over 3000 pages. If I try to do any
editing in Word, it takes forever. Is there any way to change hardware
or add something to make this work reasonalby fast? I currently have
Word in my C Drive which is a Samsung 500 GB SSD. I plan on replacing
it with a Samsung 1 TB nvme. The genealogy program runs on the C drive
also, but the data is on a HDD. When I add the nvme, should I put the
data on the nvme, or would it be better to put it on the repurposed
500 GB SSD, or does it make any difference?
TIA for any suggestions.

Thanks for the suggestions from both Paul and Vangard.... but I've hit
on a bit of a problem since I posted. I got the Samsung 1TB drive, but
failed to get it working. Installed, my computer recognizes it. Sees
it on ports 4 & 5. After cloning it shows up in both Win 10 Computer
Management and in Hard disk Sentinel. but if I remove the 500 GB SSD I
cloned from, I can't get the BIOS to find the 1 TB as a boot device.

BTW the computer is a homebuilt Gigabyte MB (GS-Z97X-UD3H-BK),
processor is an Intel I-5, don't remember exact model, and there's 16
GB of RAM.OS is Win 10, latest updates.

I tried cloning from the 500 GB to the 1 TB drive, and once cloned,
the computer fails to recoginize it as a boot device. I've had no
problem at all cloning the 500 GB drive.... done it several times
without problem using HDClone.


What is the model number of the Samsung drive ?

970 EVO Model M2-V7E1T0

What is the model number of the original drive ?

860 EVo Model MZ-76E500

I assume these are SATA. But maybe you've got your
NVMe already ?

Yes, I cloned to 500GB to the 1TB, then found it wouldn't boot, and
couldn't locate it in BIOS to set it as boot drive.

What you can do, is with the Samsung connected, boot
a Macrium Rescue CD and use the "Boot Repair" option
in the optional menu. You want *only* the drive
that won't boot, connected during this exercise.
That assures that when Macrium scans the SATA drive,
it only "glues together" the boot materials from
inside that drive, and does not glue every blasted
drive in the computer into some BCD file.

--- DVD drive --- Macrium Rescue CD

--- SATA HDD ---- Samsung 1TB

-----------------/ Other ports empty

Sometimes what happens during cloning, is the
boot materials aren't completely copied. The
Rescue CD can fix that.

I'll ry that , but first I have a "new" system image created by
Windows Backup, and System Repair disk. (Both cerated using the Win 7
installed on the 500 GB Samsung SSD). I'll try doing a Repair to the
1T Samsung NVMe drive using these.
But of course, it's not a SATA drive, this new thing,
so now we move on.

*******

I have the PDF manual on disk here. It says:

"Use of licensed AMI UEFI BIOS"

Since the original drive booted, the BIOS should already
have the correct settings for doing a good job.

CSM Support

Enables or disables UEFI CSM (Compatibility Support Module)
to support a legacy PC boot process.

Always Enables UEFI CSM. (Default) === boots MSDOS era media
Never Disables UEFI CSM and supports UEFI BIOS boot process only.

Boot Mode Selection

Allows you to select which type of operating system to boot.

UEFI and Legacy Allows booting from operating systems that
support legacy option ROM or UEFI option ROM. (Default) ===

Legacy Only Allows booting from operating systems that
only support legacy Option ROM.

UEFI Only Allows booting from operating systems that
only support UEFI Option ROM.

Storage Boot Option Control

(May need adjustment, not sure...)
(M.2 PCIe may need UEFI first)

M.2 PCIE SSD RAID Mode
Enables or disables Intel Rapid Storage Technology

Sometimes, if you're booting from NVMe materials, there's
some storage ROM of some sort that has to be enabled.

Other PCI Device ROM Priority

Allows you to select whether to enable the UEFI or
Legacy option ROM for the PCI device controller other
than the LAN, storage device, and graphics controllers.

Legacy OpROM Enables legacy option ROM only.
UEFI OpROM Enables UEFI option ROM only. (Default) ===

This item is configurable only when CSM Support is set to Always.

You can see someone had your problem here, and this failure
pattern is a familiar one.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thre...3h-bk.3416549/

My board is Asus, and some of the terminology is slightly
different. And that's why searching the PDF manual isn't
digging up any hits.

"check in the bios the SATA Controller is set to AHCI Mode "

Which should have been the case anyway. There's some
detail like that, that NVMe only work with certain
modes, and only then when the BIOS is mature enough
to not have bugs.

"The BIOS update was indeed the issue. I had read through
the update descriptions but didn't see where they mentioned
fixing a boot from an M.2 drive. Could have missed it.
I have to give them credit - the update process is SO much
easier than the last time I did that a decade or two ago. Wow...

The SATA controller was already set to AHCI."

Another breadcrumb. This is most likely to be the problem.

"Z97X Gaming5 Rev 1.0 bios F7 here. Issues like described
with hc310 6TB disk. The solution for me was to enable
Intel Rapid Start Technology and then it gave option under
it to choose the controller to be used. I choose the other
one that was available - "PCIE AHCI/NVME Controller" and
system boots just fine. My disk with system is plextor ssd
and HGST is the main storage."

RAID and AHCI typically share the same driver file package.
The RAID (RST) seems to recognize the PCIe interface to the
NVMe device. And perhaps it needs to be turned on so the
NVMe can be seen at boot, via the RAID ROM. And the option
ROMs have to be turned on, for this to work. You can't get
to the RAID window, unless the RAID ROM is turned on first,
save, then enter the BIOS and press the magic key combo
to get the RAID screen up.

Now you know why most NVMe owners are bald from the hair loss.

HTH,
Paul


Well, if I'd known there we so many issues I probably wouldn't have
tried to go with the NVMe drive. I noticed someone mentioned Intel
Rapid Start and then PCIE AHCI/NVME controller. I think I've seen an
option to use Intel Rapid start, so I'll check my BIOS and see if I
can find an option for ACHI/NVME.

Thanks for all the suggestions.
  #8  
Old December 21st 20, 07:26 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Bill[_41_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 24
Default What hardware to best speed up processing large Word file?

Paul wrote:
THe (T) part measures Hyperthreading,
which helps 7ZIP a bit. But it's the C number that bears most
of the weight when doing 7ZIP (or RAR) compression.

Do all of the newer CPUs offer Hyperthreading (or something equivalent)?
I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I presume it enables multiple
threads to run faster on a single core. For example, do the new AMD
CPUs have hyperthreading (or something equivalent)?

Cheers,
Bill
  #9  
Old December 21st 20, 08:43 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default What hardware to best speed up processing large Word file?

Bill wrote:
Paul wrote:
THe (T) part measures Hyperthreading,
which helps 7ZIP a bit. But it's the C number that bears most
of the weight when doing 7ZIP (or RAR) compression.

Do all of the newer CPUs offer Hyperthreading (or something equivalent)?
I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I presume it enables multiple
threads to run faster on a single core. For example, do the new AMD
CPUs have hyperthreading (or something equivalent)?

Cheers,
Bill


Register Bank Register Bank
| |
select between them
|
out of order
execution engine

What HyperThreading does, is if the CPU core is
"stalled" on a memory access (a wait of 100 cycles
say), the core can switch to the other bank, where
the other bank is not stalled, and execution of
a thread there can take place. Now, if that
register bank happens to need a memory access, it
stalls, and the engine flips back to the other
side (where the required memory access if finished).

For the price of a suitably large register bank,
you can extract anywhere from -5% to +30% more
performance. On a multi-threaded application.

AMD calls this SMT. You'd have to look somewhere,
to see whether this is exactly the same mechanism
as Intel uses.

A Russian site added some color on the topic. They
found that the Pentium with this feature, had a
"recirculator loop", and some information sits in
a queue while this sort of switching is going on.
And apparently the first HT had a bug, where the
recirculator could sorta hang for a millisecond.
And nobody noticed. Later HT implementations
were better than the first one. But then the later
ones never got any color commentary like that.

*******

There are certain usage patterns, that cause thrashing
or competition between the two sides and rob the CPU
of performance (-5%). In some cases, users elect on their
16C 32T processor, to turn off the 32T and just run
with the 16C. If you have a 64C 128T processor (they exist),
if you switch on the 128T, Windows treats this as
"two processor groups" and weird stuff happens. Again,
the better part of valor might be to turn off the
128T portion so the scheduler in Windows behaves itself.
Windows 10 Workstation does better scheduling than
Windows 10 Pro (you might find that mentioned on
the enthusiast sites I saw that in). So not all the
Windows SKUs are equal.

Paul
  #10  
Old December 22nd 20, 12:53 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Bill[_41_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 24
Default What hardware to best speed up processing large Word file?

Paul wrote:
Bill wrote:
Paul wrote:
Â*THe (T) part measures Hyperthreading,
which helps 7ZIP a bit. But it's the C number that bears most
of the weight when doing 7ZIP (or RAR) compression.

Do all of the newer CPUs offer Hyperthreading (or something equivalent)?
I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I presume it enables multiple
threads to run faster on a single core.Â* For example, do the new AMD
CPUs have hyperthreading (or something equivalent)?

Cheers,
Bill


Â*Â* Register BankÂ*Â*Â*Â*Â* Register Bank
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* |Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* |
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* select between them
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* |
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* out of order
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* execution engine

snip

Thank you! It occurred to me that I could look at some benchmarks to
see which CPUs are doing a good job with this. IIRC, last time I bought
a CPU, hyperthreading may have been a feature on the Intel "I-7"s which
wasn't on "I-5"s or "I-3"s.
 




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