Not sure if this has been touched upon already, sorry if it is…
Running KiCad 9, windows 11 x64 (25H2), old HP EliteDesk G1 hardware i7-4770 3.4GHz CU, 32GB RAM, integrated Intel 4600 graphics, dual monitor setup (1080p), all drivers up to date.
The phenomenon conists of the Windows user interface becoming slow/lagging as soon as KiCad is open. For instance, if I switch from one window to e.g. FireFox and start typing in the address bar, it takes several seconds before FireFox starts auto-completing user input. Also, when switching windows it can take a long time (up to a few seconds) with the window being stuck in a grey, featureless state (no content) before the contents are shown.
Responsiveness of the system improves dramatically as soon as KiCad is closed. No other app on the system seems to affect this Windows install in the same way.
It seems like all display activity is somehow channeled through KiCad, which slows things down? I upgraded this system from Win10 recently; I didn’t notice this behavior on 10, but cannot say with certainty it didn’t exist.
Does anyone recognize this? It’s not a major problem as I can just close KiCad when I’m working on other stuff. Then again, it’s slightly inconvenient.
Do you have the drivers from the manufacturer’s - either from the laptop manufacturer or Intel -web site, and not just the default Windows drivers? They are two different things, and “up to date” doesn’t mean you have the optimal drivers.
I didn’t see this behavior in Windows 11 when KiCad was running or shut down. However, there was some lag in KiCad schematic editor and PCB editor due to somewhat older hardware: i5 3570, 8GB RAM,no dedicated GPU but that lag was reduced by choosing fallback graphics instead of accelerated graphics in preferences of KiCad. Windows 11 appeared fast enough for most tasks.
Your configuration with i7 4770 should perhaps offer better performance. KiCad probably doesn’t seem to take advantage of hyperthreading. Your issues seem to be with device drivers or CPU thermal behavior. Check if your CPU is overheating and if the air cooler is attached improperly and if there is adequate thermal paste on the CPU. Its possible that the CPU is malfunctioning because it has higher TDP (84W) and there isn’t sufficient cooling.
It’s not a thermal problem; we can rule that out. Other apps that are far more CPU intensive run fine. Thermal design of these machines is actually pretty decent.
Also kindly note that this is not an in-app performance problem; it’s a problem with overall system responsiveness when KiCad windows are open in the background. It affects other apps and the overall user interface. The problem goes away when KiCad is closed. The problem does not seem to be associated with high CPU loads.
I popped your post into ChatGPT (which I’ve found is more than capable of producing absolutely brilliant or completely non-sensical answers - in fairly equal proportions) and it came back with:
“Summary of the most likely cause
[MODERATOR EDIT: AI stuff removed. We have nothing against the poster or the attempt to help or even using an AI when trying to help, but lengthy quotes from an AI are very problematic, especially when we know the answers may include hallucinations.]
Full disclosure: My day job is supporting computer users & diagnosing/resolving computer related issues. My suggestion is to use DriverEasy to assess the state of your drivers; Windows Update generally does a fairly poor job of keeping device drivers up-to-date. Task Manager (performance tab) may give some insight into what the bottleneck is. I can PM you a legit/legal 3 day Tech license code for DriverEasy if it helps (I use it every day as part of my business).
I suspect that the crux of the matter will be the fact that you’re just using a 12 year old unsupported CPU though; I’m a pretty pragmatic guy (who’s “daily driver” has an even older CPU than yours - that runs just fine (but isn’t running KiCad - or Win 11)) - so I’m not “into” “must be supported” | “best practice” kinda nonsense, but the reality is that processors that old WILL be missing some more modern functionality even though they’re running Win 11. There’s a difference between “running Win 11” and “running Win 11 optimally”.
Many moons ago a computer was good for “about 5 years”. Solid state drives single-handedly increased that to about 8 years - and since then it’s not uncommon to find them reaching 10 years and beyond (as yours has) - but there usually comes a time when the laws of physics/computing catch up and an old system starts to show it’s age. I have this conversation with a lot of people and - from someone who’s emotionally (and financially) detached from the situation - often the best advice is to “declare a time of death” and upgrade to something new. I’m happy to write a permission slip for spouses if required!
In many cases people can keep the same case - same PSU - same mouse / keyboard / monitor. They just need a new CPU / Motherboard / RAM / (and preferably) an NVME M.2 SSD. and they really don’t cost that much. FWIW, my first full size PC (after my Sinclair ZX80 and Osborne 1) was an IBM PC (series 2 with 256K RAM on the motherboard). With a few other bells and whistles - including interest over 5 years - it cost me NZD $28,000 (in actual 1980’s dollars - not today’s equivalent). In later years I recall an invoice for 8MB (not GB) RAM for $800 + tax. Folks today have got it good.
Personally, I run KiCad on an i7 10700K based system with 64GB RAM and a 3080 GPU and it runs great - ALL my apps run great. I think some folks just need to “give themselves permission” to upgrade; I’ve seen many staggering along with really old hardware but I’ve not come across a single one in all of my career that now spans 1/2 a century who’s said “this is too fast - put me back on my old/slower hardware”.
Could well be. In my experience, AI is good at identifying avenues for further exploration but is often more “miss” than “hit” when it comes to “hitting the nail directly on the head”. Having just said that though I do often find that “between the two of us” we “get enough to solve the problem”. It reminds me of a quote from a surgeon, about surgeons": “often wrong, but never in doubt”.
I could be wrong too, but I suspect that for the OP, a lot of time could be “invested” in using investigative tools (after investing even more time in learning to use them first) to gain an understanding as to why the issue is occuring - only to discover that, in essence, there’s little that can be done to mitigate it other than just moving to hardware that’s not more than a few years old.
Thanks for the suggestions; in part the analysis seems plausible, in part I think it’s not necessarily correct. I rely on manufacturer-released drivers and Intel’s latest official driver predates the one I currently use by 5 years.
The cause is undoubtedly an incompatibility issue between KiCad and my present graphics driver and sure enough the geriatric hardware plays a role in that. Whether or not to upgrade it…well, in due course, some day. But not now. Everything runs fine. It’s only KiCad that involves this minor annoyance. I think I’ll accept it; I was just curious whether someone else had noticed it, that’s all.
PS: my first job was PC hardware assembly, troubleshooting, network maintenance etc. in the late 1990s to early 2000s.
If you have the physical device there, you should be able to switch between having the multi-display affecting or not in just a few seconds by simply disabling the secondary display in Windows settings.
I agree – although I don’t like assuming to know any poster’s motives or intentions – and exceptionally I removed the long AI quote. We want to avoid editing other posters’ messages, but the AI stuff wasn’t written by CJSouthern anyway, and he also knew beforehand it may not give the correct answer.
Thanks; I gave it a go with only one monitor and the problem appears to persist. It pops up as soon as the PCB editor is opened. The severity fluctuates considerably, so it’s kind of tricky to spot solid patterns, but what’s clear is that as soon as I open a project in PCB editor, switching between windows results in lags in the newly activated window becoming responsive. FireFox is affected in particular, but that may just be because it’s the app I switch to/from the most.
As soon as I quit KiCad, everything goes back to normal again.
I’m going to put this down for time being to an unfortunate combination of this particular graphics card driver and KiCad’s way of handling display output.
I do have an NVidia card for this machine somewhere, so I may give that a go at some point. However, I’d rather not since there’s otherwise not really any need to boost the power consumption of this machine.
I disagree. Fundamentally, forums work on the basis of people posting problems they are experiencing - users posting potential solutions (which MAY turn out to be the solution to the OP’s problem, but often aren’t) - and then the OP get’s to consider them all and make a decision as to how they want to proceed (ie which ones they want to give credibility to - which ones they want to try etc). Whether those suggestions came from someone who knows with near certainty what the issue is - or comes from people who have a lifetime of experience in the area who can “have a darn good guess as to what’s going on” - or whether it comes from an AI that may, or may not, be suggesting anything, is irrelivant. FWIW, AI has assisted me in resolving approximately 90% of my KiCad issues; issues that I’ve not had to ask for help for.
In my original post it would have been harmful to the quality of the forum had I posted the information as my own, and stated it to be authoritive - but that’s not what I did; I clearly labeled it as being from AI and (additionally) even posted a warning about it potenitally being “hit or miss”; as such it was intended to be nothing more than “food for thought”.
My motivation was to try to help the OP and in the process “pay back” the help that I’ve received. Your inference that I’m “doing it for brownie points” is offensive to me; at 65 years old I can assure you that I have zero such things.
I appreciated the help @anon30968066. At the same time I also sympathize with those who have concerns about the use of AI content on forums. It’s a tricky subject. Let’s not get this in the way of an amicable exchange. Thanks for taking the time to have a look at this issue.
Your forum, your rules - I get that - but I do think that there’s potential for a “miscarriage of justice” when a judge reaches a verdict without giving the defence an opportunity to present their case.
Additionally, I see that you not only removed the copy/paste from Chat GPT, but also removed several paragraphs of writing from my own experiences coming from around 1/2 a century in the IT business - that took me around 1/2 hour to compose.
I’m quickly starting to feel that this isn’t the forum I thought it was - at this point I think I’ll just leave you good folks to it. All the best.
There is a difference between an honest difference of opinion when there are multiple ways of doing things and posting something that simply isn’t correct.
Anyone that posts is assumed to have verified what they wrote. AI hallucinations are self reinforcing so the next AI to steal borrow material may prefer ‘its’ own kind. According to my son who uses AI for programming says it basically steals code and then removes references. So, please verify what you post, not just add a disclaimer and a shrug of the shoulders.