PerformanceTest V5 FAQ
Last updated: 12/December/2005
Q. My License key doesn’t seem to work
Both the User Name and Registration Key must be correctly
entered before the software turns itself into the registered version.
See this step by step guide for help.
Q. I've lost my license key and I need to re-install
the software
Email us at
, giving us all the details you can about when & how you purchased
the software. We'll then search our records and resend you your key once
we have found it.
Q. My system doesn't meet the minimum requirements
for version 5.0 of PerformanceTest. Can I still use the software?
From Version 4.0 onwards, PerformanceTest no longer supports
Windows 95 and Windows NT4. You will also require DirectX 8.0 or above.
If you are using Windows 95 and Windows NT4 you can download
an older version of the software, version 3.5. This old version does
support 95 and NT4 but we no longer provide updates for this version.
If you have purchased version 5.0 and need a license key for a previous
version please email
. If you are using Windows 2000 or Windows 98 but don't have Direct X
8.0. It can be downloaded from the Microsoft web site.
Q. I don't understand the results. What do all
these numbers mean?
If you don't have a lot of computer knowledge interpreting
the results can be confusing. There are however a few simple concepts
that can help you.
- The bigger the number the faster the computer.
- The results are not a percentage figure. They are relative figures.
- A computer with a result of 40 can process roughly twice as much data as a computer with a result of 20.
Q. The amount of level 2 cache is not reported correctly
for my new CPU.
On a few of the new Intel CPUs, like the Celeron 2.2Ghz
CPU, the amount of level (L2) cache is reported incorrectly in PerformanceTest
V5.0. In this case it should report 128KB of L2 cache but PerformanceTest
is reporting 0KB. This problem occurred because Intel just recently created
a few new codes in their CPUs to represent new cache configurations. The
problem has been corrected and will be available in the next public release
of PerformanceTest.
Q. PerformanceTest fails to start and displays an error
message "Not responding" OR takes several minutes
to start in Windows 2000 or XP.
See this page for details on
our to help us trace this problem.
Q. PerformanceTest locks up during the 2D video tests
and I have a ATI Radeon video card, with Catalyst video drivers and I
am running Windows XP with a theme active.
These conditions expose a bug in the ATI video drivers.
This problem was seen in driver version 7.74 (6118), but was corrected
in later versions. A work around was to disable Windows themes.
Q. I have dual monitors and my 2D tests are performing
slower than expected.
Using extended desktops with dual monitors affect the
2D test performances significantly. Try disabling extended desktops and
running the 2D tests again.
Q. I am running Windows98 and my 2D "Fonts and
Text" test returns very low results
You may have an old version of RichEdit (2.0 or earlier)
installed on your computer. RichEdit (riched20.dll) is a Windows component
required by PerformanceTest for the "Fonts and Text" test. To
update your computer to RichEdit 3.0 or later, download and install the
following package from Microsoft: Windows
Installer Redistributable for Windows 95, 98 and ME.
Q. I am running Windows98 and the CPU load % seems
to be too high in the advanced disk, CD and network tests.
PerforrmanceTest gets the CPU utilization percentage from
the Windows operating system. On some systems Windows 98 and Windows 98
second edition have a known bug that causes incorrect information to be
returned by the operating system. This problem also affects the built
in Windows system monitor. See the Microsoft web site, knowledge base
question Q227131, "System monitor displays incorrect CPU usage",
for more details. Microsoft's workaround for this problem is, "you
can safely ignore it." !
Q. I am getting strange results for the floating point
division test.
This test may produce inconsistent values from one run
to the next depending on the current state of the floating point control
register. For details refer to this
forum article. We have a solution for this problem which will be available
in the next release of PerformanceTest.
Q. The results I obtained in version 5 are not exactly
the same as in previous releases
There were many changes made to the PerformanceTest software
in Version 5. So results created with previous versions of the software
are not directly comparable with version results. However old baseline
files will have their values scaled up and down when loaded into PerformanceTest
version 5 to approximate the results that might have been obtained with
version 5.
Q. The results for my hard disk aren't what I
expected.
There are many factors that affect the disk test results
in a Windows environment. Here are the main ones
- Cluster size. Larger clusters in general means better performance for large files. See Appendix 1 for typical default values. Reformatting your drive with larger clusters will give better results in our benchmark, but will also waste disk space. See Appendix 2 for an easy way to check your current cluster size.
- If the disk is fragmented and almost full, this can badly affect performance. Windows includes a utility for defragmenting the disk. Look up “defrag” in the Windows online help for more details.
- The position of the test file on the disk (inner cylinder or outer cylinder) can also affect the performance. The only way to avoid this problem is to only test newly formatted disks.
- The file system being used, FAT, FAT32 or NTFS.
- The operating system, Window9x, NT, 2000, XP.
- The disk controller (IDE or SCSI) and what mode it is running in, ATA-33,66,100, RAID0, 1,etc.
- The amount of memory that Windows are currently allocated to the disk cache. This can (and will) vary from one run to the next. The more you use the disk the more free memory Windows will allocate to the cache (see Appendix 3). Thus on systems with lots of free RAM, results can increase slightly on successive runs.
Q. OK, So there are a lot of factors that effect disk
performance but my Seek R/W results still seem too low
This test creates a large test file on the disk under
test. The size of this test file is proportional to the amount of RAM
available, this stops the entire file being cached in RAM. The file is
then read randomly; a seek is performed to move the file pointer to a
random position in the file, a 16KB block is read or written then another
seek is performed. The amount of data actually transferred is highly dependent
on the disk seek time.
Here are some Seek R/W results for the same machine with
various amounts of RAM:
Pentium II 266 FAT32, 16KB Clusters, W98
32MB = 2.6
64MB = 2.9
256MB = 3.9.
Q. When running Windows 2000 Server the disk results
are very different from Windows 2000 Professional, but the hardware is
the same. Why?
The Server edition of Windows 2000 has a different caching
policy compared to the standard edition of Windows 2000. Windows 2000
Server allocates a lot more free RAM to the disk cache, thus making the
results look artificially better. This change in behavior can also be
forced by altering the value of the LargeSystemCache registry key.
Q. How can I set-up PerformanceTest to run from a CD or USB memory stick under Windows?
PerformanceTest setup
- Install PerformanceTest on any PC using the normal setup program.
- Make a 'key.dat' file (see below) in the same directory as the PerformanceTest executable file (pt.exe).
- Copy all the files from the installation directory to a CD or USB memory stick.
- That's it, you're finished. PerformanceTest should now run from a CD or USB memory stick and pick up the license information automatically. Using the Windows Start / Run menu option you can for example enter the following 'd:\pt.exe' (specifying the appropriate drive letter) to start PerformanceTest from the CD or USB memory stick.
Making a key.dat file
- Create an ASCII text file.
- The first line must contain the username.
- The second line must contain the licence key
- Save the file in the same directory as pt.exe with a file name of key.dat. Click here to see an example key.dat
You can now uninstall PerformanceTest from the PC hard disk and use the CD or USB memory stick in the future on other machines. We recommend using a USB memory stick, rather than a CD, so that log files may be saved. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are using the unlicensed valuation version you need to be careful that the date and time is set correctly on all the PCs.
Q. How often are the Baseline
results updated?
Every few weeks or when we have a significant number to
upload.
Q. Why aren't the MMX / SSE tests available on my computer?
MMX instructions only became available in later model
Pentium Processors. If you don't have one of these CPUs then the test
can not be run.
Q. Why is the network test so slow on my laptop?
Laptop network speeds are usually limited by the PCMCIA
bus speed. You may have a 100 MBps network card, but the PCMCIA bus will
not allow transmission rates much above 10 MBps.
Q. How can I get the network test to run through a
firewall?
You may have to set up a rule allowing access on the port
used by the network test. If you don't have direct control over the firewall,
you'll have to contact your network administrator. The port number used
by the test can be found in the network test dialog.
Q. When trying to run the advanced network test between two PC's, I set one machine to server and the other to client, but the client says "Connect Failed". What could be wrong?
The most likely causes are:
- In the PerformanceTest Advanced network test window (on the client/sending PC), the IP address entered is incorrect or the port numbers on the client and server PC's do not match. The same port number must be used on both PC's. The IP address of the server PC, must be entered on the client PC.
- A firewall (eg. Microsoft XP firewall or Norton Internet Security Firewall) is turned on for one or both of the PC's LAN connections and this is blocking a connection. Solution: modify the firewall rules to allow this address, port and protocol through the firewall or switch the firewall off (if appropriate).
- The network cards are not working. You should check in device manager that your Network cards are shown as "This device is working properly".
Note: To test connectivity between the Client PC and the Server PC try the following: Open a "Command" window on the Client side PC by selecting "Start", "Run", type in "Command". Once you have the "Command" window open, type "ping <IP-Destination>", substituting <IP-Destination> for the IP address of the Server side PC.
Q. The advanced network UDP test seems to start OK,
but after a few seconds the receiving PC stops receiving data. What could
be wrong?
When the Client computer graph shows that nearly the entire
bandwidth is utilised for the full test duration of the send session and
the reciever shows that after a number of seconds into the test a drop
from nearly 100% utilisation to 0, the most likely cause is that a router
between the PC's is dropping UDP packets.
UDP is not rate adaptive (basically packets are pushed out as quickly the PC can push them out with no consideration whether the packet was received), unlike TCP. A Router between the PC's could become congested and hence start dropping the UDP packets, and remain congested until the end of the test (This is of course more likely if the router is a lower end router or there are other users on the network).
Depending on your router, you may be able to get UDP statistics on the 'in' and the 'out' ports to confirm this.
You could also try connecting the 2 PC's directly (depending on what you are trying to test).
Q. The calculated CPU clock speed is not correct. Why?
- CPU's made for portable computers can decrease their clock speed to lower power usage. For example, a Pentium III 1000 Mobile CPU may be measured as having a clock speed of 730Mhz at the time the measurement is done.
- The speed rating values that AMD assign to their Athlon CPU's do not correspond to their clock speed. For example a Athlon 2000+ runs at a clock speed of 1660Mhz. This is also the case for the older Cyrix 150+ & 200+ CPU's
Q. I don't need to do any more tests, how do I uninstall PerformanceTest?
Use the "add / remove programs" icon in the Windows control panel.
Symantec Users
Customers
who have purchased PerformanceTest as a part of Symantec SystemWorks 2003,
should refer to the Symantec website www.symantec.com for support.
Appendix 1 - Default hard disk cluster sizes
Default Cluster Sizes for Volumes with Windows 2000 File Systems
Volume size |
FAT cluster size |
FAT32 cluster size |
NTFS cluster size |
| 7 MB–16 MB | 2 KB | Not supported | 512 bytes |
| 17 MB–32 MB | 512 bytes | Not supported | 512 bytes |
| 33 MB–64 MB | 1 KB | 512 bytes | 512 bytes |
| 65 MB–128 MB | 2 KB | 1 KB | 512 bytes |
| 129 MB–256 MB | 4 KB | 2 KB | 512 bytes |
| 257 MB–512 MB | 8 KB | 4 KB | 512 bytes |
| 513 MB–1,024 MB | 16 KB | 4 KB | 1 KB |
| 1,025 MB–2 GB | 32 KB | 4 KB | 2 KB |
| 2 GB–4 GB | 64 KB | 4 KB | 4 KB |
| 4 GB–8 GB | Not supported | 4 KB | 4 KB |
| 8 GB–16 GB | Not supported | 8 KB | 4 KB |
| 16 GB–32 GB | Not supported | 16 KB | 4 KB |
| 32 GB–2 TB | Not supported | Not supported | 4 KB |
Appendix 2 - Checking your cluster size
Versions
of PerformanceTest later than 3.2 display the cluster size of the disk.
In earlier versions of the software you'll need to check it yourself.
Find or make a file on your hard disk with just a few bytes in it. Then
while in Explorer right click on the file and select properties. Compare
the values for 'Size' and 'Size on disk'. You can see that in the smallfile.txt
example (left) that the disk is used extremely inefficiently (0.015%
efficiency in fact). This is because this disk has been formatted with
32KB clusters. If the disk was formatted with 4KB clusters (top right)
the results would have been very different. (0.12% efficiency, a 8 fold
improvement).
Now compare the PerformanceTest 3.1 and 3.2 disk results for these two partitions on the same ATA-66 7200 RPM 16GB hard drive.
Drive E: NTFS (4KB clusters: 512 byte sectors, 8 sectors
per cluster)
Drive C: FAT (32KB clusters: 512 byte sectors, 64 sectors per cluster).
Note that PerformanceTest 3.2 provides more balanced results regardless
of the cluster size.
| Tests | PT3.1 | PT3.2 | ||
| MB/Sec | Drive E | Drive C | Drive E | Drive C |
| Read | 17.8 | 19.0 | 18.4 | 19.8 |
| Write | 17.0 | 22.2 | 16.2 | 17.4 |
| Seek | 0.66 | 5.6 | 2.5 | 2.7 |
Appendix 3 - Windows Caching
The graphs (left) show the response of Windows 98 to the PerformanceTest disk tests. The heavy use of the disk has resulted in Windows allocating more RAM to the disk cache. (18Mbytes to 36Mbytes in this case). There are several ways to avoid this type of effect.
- Reboot the machine between each test run
- Limit the amount of free RAM available for the cache (not as easy as it sounds)
- Run the disk tests until the cache has reached it maximum size.