RAM showing "9149 MHz" in Windows, stuttering issues.

Justanotherguyonthisearth · May 22, 2023

I am fairly decent at troubleshooting issues but I am baffled by this issue and the usual googling is not giving me any results.

I wanted to refresh this old PC I have so I bought a new SSD and did a fresh install of Windows. Once I got it up and running it was sluggish and slower than it was before my upgrade. I checked task manager and noticed the RAM stats in the performance tab were all over the place. I did the usual and checked the BIOS settings to make sure something wasn't off.

I will attach screenshots below but I have checked everything I could possible think of, the frequency in Bios is set to auto and shows the MHz correctly. The sticks are OEM and show matching in CPU-Z but yet everything is stuttery and slow.

Before I give up and just get new RAM sticks, does anyone have an idea of what could cause a behavior like this. I would think if the RAM was crapping out the PC would have booting issues?

Beerzerker · May 22, 2023

Click onto the memory tab instead of the SPD tab in CPU-Z to see what speed your RAM is running at.

Newer versions of CPU-Z are buggy with older hardware and don't be suprised if you see some weird values in the tab, I'd have to believe in your case things are being misread by the OS because there is no way you're running at those speeds.

Those sticks are a lower bin anyway, I woudn't be suprised if they were a cause of at least some of it.

Depending on the OS you're running that could be it too.

Win 10 doesn't really "Like" much anything older than AM3/AM3+ anyway because it's setup to run newer hardware. You have enough RAM to run it but I believe the system is struggling to keep up with the demands a newer OS would have IF it's Win 10 on your machine.
It should run Win 7 or older no problem at least.

RONOTHAN## · May 22, 2023

4 minutes ago, Justanotherguyonthisearth said:

I checked task manager and noticed the RAM stats in the performance tab were all over the place.

Task Manager is broken with older hardware. Even with newer hardware it's pretty borked, but not as much compared to new stuff. I've got a screen shot somewhere of it reporting a 5930K at 40GHz (not 4.0GHz) while it was at 4.2GHz. You want to use something more along the lines of CPU-Z or HWInfo for getting the frequency as they're no where near as broken as Task Manager.

10 minutes ago, Justanotherguyonthisearth said:

I would think if the RAM was crapping out the PC would have booting issues?

Not necessarily, but you'd have random BSODs more than weird stutters, at least on FM2 (AM4 can have some weird performance regressions if memory speed is set too high).

Main thing I'd be thinking of for why this feels slower is you were probably on a different version of Windows with the older drive. Older Windows versions (even older builds of Windows 10) were significantly easier to run than modern versions, so if you were using a not up to date Windows 10 version on your old download and an up to date version now, that could be causing it.

BetteBalterZen · May 22, 2023

Rookie numbers...

This was a bug in a VM hehe and I believe what you see also is nothing more than a bug too.

Justanotherguyonthisearth · May 22, 2023

13 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

Click onto the memory tab instead of the SPD tab in CPU-Z to see what speed your RAM is running at.

Newer versions of CPU-Z are buggy with older hardware and don't be suprised if you see some weird values in the tab, I'd have to believe in your case things are being misread by the OS because there is no way you're running at those speeds.

Those sticks are a lower bin anyway, I woudn't be suprised if they were a cause of at least some of it.

Depending on the OS you're running that could be it too.

Win 10 doesn't really "Like" much anything older than AM3/AM3+ anyway because it's setup to run newer hardware. You have enough RAM to run it but I believe the system is struggling to keep up with the demands a newer OS would have IF it's Win 10 on your machine.
It should run Win 7 or older no problem at least.

This makes the most sense to me. It's reporting correctly everywhere else, I just equated the sluggishness to the RAM when really it's just the updated and bloated Windows 10 now running.

It makes me wonder if trying the AtlasOS version of Windows 10 Linus mentioned in a recent LTT video could save this PC from going in the dumpster. I might give it a shot.

Beerzerker · May 24, 2023

On 5/22/2023 at 11:32 AM, Justanotherguyonthisearth said:

This makes the most sense to me. It's reporting correctly everywhere else, I just equated the sluggishness to the RAM when really it's just the updated and bloated Windows 10 now running.

It makes me wonder if trying the AtlasOS version of Windows 10 Linus mentioned in a recent LTT video could save this PC from going in the dumpster. I might give it a shot.

That system, setup to run Linux would thrive and not have to be recycle-bait.
Currently using Peppermint 10 here and it's mostly like using Windows itself, about the same comparison to Linux Mint in how easy to use and similar it is to Windows.

Either Mint or Peppermint will do and I can promise you that will give it new life and usefulness.
You may want to give it a shot and see how it does before tossing it.