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Topic: «Extremely slow response after monitor detect / disconnect , AWM 8.14.3 slow for 30s after monitor detect / disconnect - affects window redraw, mouse / keyboard input, taskbar visibility » on forum: Technical Support   Views: 24039
 
Andrew Peterson
Registered user
 
 Posts: 8
Joined: 12/22/2019
Posted: 08/14/2020 13:58:15
 
 
 Hi, I need technical help on this problem.

I have read this thread in full and believe I am experiencing the same issue https://www.actualtools.com/forum/read.php?PAGEN_1=1&FID=10&TID=4485

System:
- Win 10 Pro 10.0.19041
- Intel i9-10900X CPU @ 3.7GHz-4.5GHz / 10 core
- Gigabyte X299X Designare 10G motherboard
- 32GB Kingston DDR4 2666MHz RAM
- 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 PCIe SSD
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER quad 4K video card
- Dual Samsung U32J59x 4K UHD displays connected via DisplayPort @ 3840x2160 @ 60Hz
- One LG OLED65B6T TV display connected via DisplayPort @ 3840x2160 @ 60Hz

Symptoms:
- Extremely slow system performance for approx 30s after a monitor is detected / disconnected. E.g. LG TV is turned on and detected, or a Samsung display is turned off / on.
- AWM taskbar immediately disappears
- Mouse input is slow and jerky and will pause completely for up to 10s during this time
- Keyboard input is similarly slow and jerky or will pause completely for 5s to 10s during this time
- Paint of all screen elements (client and non-client) is extremely slow during this time. Individual elements such as window backgrounds, combo boxes or buttons may take 2-3s to paint completely. Affects ALL windows including Task Manager, user applications, remote desktop sessions, video windows etc.
- AWM taskbar disappears completely during this time; desktop background is visible underneath.
- AWM taskbar appears to always be the last element to finish painting.
- After 30s, system responsiveness turns to normal.

Happens when any of the following conditions occur:
- An external monitor connected via DisplayPort is powered on / off, or plugged in / unplugged.
- Waking fr om a sleep state e.g. wh ere monitors have been powered down by the OS after 20 mins of inactivity.
- The resolution, colour depth or refresh rate of a display is changed using Control Panel or Settings.

Additional notes:
- There are no Wireless displays, USB-based displays, docking stations or other devices connected to the system.
- All displays are connected directly to the quad-output NVIDIA GeForce card.
- Mouse and keyboard are Logitech brand, operating wirelessly through a Unifying receiver connected to a USB 2.0 port on the system.
- There is no FDD or optical drive.
- If AWM is uninstalled and the system rebooted, the 30s extremely slow performance symptom disappears. That is, the problem only exists while AWM is installed and operating.
- The issue remains the same after reboot. It does not get worse with time, and instead appears to remain a fairly constant 30s of extremely slow performance when desktop geometry is changed.
- It does not matter if AWM is installed with the extension to subclass system windows or not. The problem still occurs.
- The problem does get slightly worse if more user applications are running i.e. more windows are visible on the desktop. That is, the 30s of extremely slow performance might increase to 40s or 50s.

Is there a fix for this problem? The 30s of extremely slow performance makes the system completely unusable when waking up or when a monitor is powered on / off.

Many thanks,
Andrew
 
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Bogdan Polishchuk
Administrator
 
 Posts: 4080
Joined: 04/04/2012
Posted: 08/18/2020 18:47:37
 
 
 Hello, Andrew

Thank you for contacting us.

This is a known problem and it persists only on some computers/systems and it's most likely due to the interactions of our software and graphics drivers. We have plans to improve this behavior. Hopefully, we'll be able to do this soon. We'll post in this topic, when it's fixed.

One of our users Jaiden Watling also has similar problems but for Jaiden deleting one regisrty subkey improved the situation a little. You can learn about the used solution in this message. The solutions described in the subsequent messages didn't change the situation significantly.

Could you open the Regisrty editor (press Win+R, then type "regedit" without quotes and press Enter), go to the registry subkey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Graphics­Â­Drivers\Configuration and see whether there are many configurations in it? Let us know the result.

Also, could you provide the information about your graphics driver?


Best regards.
 
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Andrew Peterson
Registered user
 
 Posts: 8
Joined: 12/22/2019
Posted: 08/20/2020 11:03:35
 
 
 Thanks Bogdan, I'll reply in several parts today:

First, I'm glad it's a known issue, for me it's a very high priority to receive a fix as it makes AWM unusable on the system I've reported here.

Graphics card and driver I'm using:
- Card is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER dual slot quad 4K UHD output (3x DP, 1x HDMI) display adapter https://www.nvidia.com/en-au/geforce/graphics-cards/rtx-2070-super/
- Driver is the NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready driver:
Driver version 451.67
Driver type DCH
DirectX runtime version 12.0
Direct3D API version: 12
Direct3D feature level: 12_1
- I have also tested with the latest Game Ready release of the driver today, with similar poor performance results:
Driver version 452.06
Driver type DCH
DirectX runtime version 12.0
Direct3D API version: 12
Direct3D feature level: 12_1

Contents of HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Config­uration
Attached as "Capture 1.PNG"

I have exported the contents of the Configuration key (and all sub keys and values) and then deleted the key.
I will reboot now and report back on any performance differences soon.

Additional information:
- The system I am reporting about here is brand new, and was constructed and configured last month to custom specs by a PC builder.
- The installation of Win 10 Pro x64 is new, so it does not have any legacy configuration from upgrades (e.g. from Win 8). It has only ever had one video card installed, and only ever used the NVIDIA graphics drivers.
- The system is up-to-date with Windows Updates

AWM performance on VMs:
- For interest, I can share that I own multiple licenses of AWM, and I use one on a Win 10 Pro x64 VM running on a VMware ESXi server host build on an Intel i9-9900K CPU.
- The VM has been dedicated multiple cores of the CPU and uses PCIe pass-through to dedicate an on-board GPU to it, which then enables use of RemoteFX with Remote Desktop Protocol
- I often log onto the VM using RDP in multi-monitor full-screen mode from the system I'm reporting in this ticket, running at triple 4K UHD resolution. That is, the RDP session to the VM spans 3x 4K monitors each of which is at 3840x2160 px resolution. The desktop area on the VM RDP session is therefore 11,520 x 2160px
- There are NO PERFORMANCE ISSUES using AWM on the VM via RDP, so obviously it's not a CPU, network or display resolution issue. That is, I am able to use AWM with far better performance on the VM than I can on the new and higher-spec'ed system I'm reporting in this ticket.
- Obviously this confirms the poor performance only affects specific systems, just as you've indicated.
 
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Andrew Peterson
Registered user
 
 Posts: 8
Joined: 12/22/2019
Posted: 08/21/2020 11:05:10
 
 
 Hi Bogdan, I've been able to conduct some further tests and unfortunately I'm not seeing any improvement in performance.

Specifically:
- I changed video card drivers to the latest - no effect or improvement in AWM performance
- I deleted the Configuration registry key per my previous post and rebooted - no effect or improvement in AWM performance

I can share a correlation though that the more AWM Tabbed Explorer windows (tabs) I have open, the worse AWM performance is. That is, the degradation in AWM performance is somewhat linear with the count of AWM Tabbed Explorer windows that have been launched. The best AWM performance comes when all Tabbed Explorer windows are closed. I would recommend that at the point 4 or 5 AWM Tabbed Explorer windows are open, system performance becomes completely unusable for me, with delays for most simple mouse actions such as right-click context menu of up to 15s.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Andrew
 
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Andrew Peterson
Registered user
 
 Posts: 8
Joined: 12/22/2019
Posted: 08/22/2020 15:03:50
 
 
 Upd ate from 22 Aug 2020:

I'm still not able to find a fix for the problem, however a possible workaround has been to do the following:

- Disable use of AWM Tabbed Explorer by unticking Files and Folders > Tabbed Explorer | "[ ] Group Explorer windows within tabbed containers" in AWM configuration app
    *  I'm now using Stardock Groupy to provide tabbed Explorer windows instead
- Disable AWM replacement of taskbar by unticking Multiple Monitors > Taskbar | Multi-monitor Taskbar and Task Switcher > Options | "[ ] Replace the system taskbar" in AWM configuration app
    * I'm now back to using the original MS Windows taskbar
- Ensure that Desktop Divider activates only while holding a hotkey combination, else windows that have been tabbed by Stardock Groupy cannot be docked to dividers. This is because AWM Desktop Divider feature is not able to subclass the Stardock Groupy container window, so does not recognise drag of a Groupy container as able to be docked. The hotkey combination is se t under Layout and Snap > Desktop Divider | "[X] Enable Desktop Divider" > Activate When Dragging a Window: [While pressed] > [ ] Win + [X] Ctrl + [X] Shift + [ ] Alt
- Ensure that AWM virtual desktops are disabled, by unticking the option under Virtual Desktops > Options | "[ ] Enable Virtual Desktops"

I have also removed all menu items introduced by AWM into the Window menu and title bar of subclassed windows, except for "Stay always-on-top", "Priority", "Copy" and "Options" to reduce the number of windowed / windowless controls being managed by AWM.

The result is that performance of the original system described in this thread has increased significantly.
- Lag and wait time when waking up or on monitor detect / disconnect is reduced to around 10-15s
- Responsiveness of Windows generally is medium to high, whereas before the changes I would have rated it as very low.

Hope this information helps.
 
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Bogdan Polishchuk
Administrator
 
 Posts: 4080
Joined: 04/04/2012
Posted: 08/25/2020 18:11:19
 
 
 Andrew,

Does your motherboard have integrated graphics card? If yes, then could you connect the monitors to the integrated graphics card and see whether the problem persists if you don't use the GeForce RTX 2070 at all.


Best regards.
 
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Andrew Peterson
Registered user
 
 Posts: 8
Joined: 12/22/2019
Posted: 08/26/2020 13:06:25
 
 
 Hi Bogdan, thanks for the update.

The X299X motherboard does not have on-board graphics, and instead is specifically designed to operate only with high end PCIe graphics cards installed separately by the user. The MB does have 2x DisplayPort In connectors on the rear panel but the purpose of those connectors is only to route video from whatever separate graphics card is installed to the 2x USB-C connectors also on the rear panel, so that the user can attach USB-C monitors. Indeed the Gigabyte documentation specifically shows the usage scenario as requiring two short cables to connect graphics card DisplayPort output/s to MB DisplayPort Input/s, and then USB-C to USB-C cables to connect from MB to monitor/s. Thus a separate graphics card is always required.

For now I have completely disabled AWM (though not uninstalled it) and can further report that as soon as AWM is re-enabled, regardless of which AWM features are enabled along with it, system performance drops enormously as I've reported. That would imply it's more to do with the message subclassing/hooking and routing topology than a problem induced by specific graphics drivers?

Anyway I have completely abandoned AWM on this system until the problem with AWM can be fixed. In the meantime FYI other products such as all the StarDock apps are working fine (Groupy, Curtains, Fences, DeskScapes etc.)

Cheers, Andrew
 
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Bogdan Polishchuk
Administrator
 
 Posts: 4080
Joined: 04/04/2012
Posted: 10/13/2020 03:17:27
 
 
 Hello, Andrew

I'm glad to notify you that we've made some changes in our software that should improve the performance in this situation and eliminate the described lags. The fix is available in the latest version of Actual Window Manager 8.14.4 and our other products as well.

You can update your program to the latest version (program's tray icon context menu > Info > Check for Updates) or download the latest version manually. Could you please try this version and let us know whether it improves the performance.


Best regards.
 
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