Should a i5-6500 3.2GHz 8GB Still Be Enough?

[ndstate]

Hi,

I bought a Dell OptiPlex 3040 SFF Intel 6th Gen i5-6500 3.2GHz 8GB about 2.5 years ago to run Blue Iris on. I have 11 cameras (mostly 2 megapixel) and I am constantly hitting 85%+ on the CPU with constant crashes. I have followed the CPU optimization wiki, using direct to disk, etc.. Should that processor be able to handle this setup, is it time to upgrade, or could there be some other issue? Thanks.

 

[fenderman]

Hi,

I bought a Dell OptiPlex 3040 SFF Intel 6th Gen i5-6500 3.2GHz 8GB about 2.5 years ago to run Blue Iris on. I have 11 cameras (mostly 2 megapixel) and I am constantly hitting 85%+ on the CPU with constant crashes. I have followed the CPU optimization wiki, using direct to disk, etc.. Should that processor be able to handle this setup, is it time to upgrade, or could there be some other issue? Thanks.

easily at much lower cpu. What are your frame rates? What exact version are you using?

 

[ndstate]

Frame rates are 15 or less. Version 5.2.9.7 x64

 

[fenderman]

Frame rates are 15 or less. Version 5.2.9.7 x64

Post your blue iris status page >cameras tab
Are your outputting to a 4k monitor?

 

[bp2008]

And also using direct-to-disc on all the cameras?

 

[pmcross]

Do you have Intel QuickSync enabled?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ndstate]

Attached is the cameras tab. I am outputting to a 1920x1200 monitor. Direct to disk is on. I think Quick Sync is enabled. I think I will need to reboot and check the bios to check.

 

[wittaj]

You have some high bitrates going.

This version also allows substreams to be used for the cascade viewing - use those and your CPU should drop significantly.

 

[fenderman]

Attached is the cameras tab. I am outputting to a 1920x1200 monitor. Direct to disk is on. I think Quick Sync is enabled. I think I will need to reboot and check the bios to check.
View attachment 63101

You should be at 50 percent max. Are you also remoting into the system with something like teamviewer or viewing directly on the monitor?

 

[ndstate]

I can look into substreams/lower bitrates.

I am not remoting in, this is directly connected via HDMI.

Thanks for the troubleshooting.

 

[fenderman]

I can look into substreams/lower bitrates.

This will lower the usage but wont get to the root of the problem.
Is this a clean windows install? Have you excluded antivirus scans of the BI program, database and storage folders

 

[ndstate]

It was originally a clean install when I first installed Blue Iris 2 years ago. I excluded antivirus scans previously for BI, database, storage. According to the system monitor BI is taking 65+% of cpu much of the time, the rest is other CPU processes

 

[Arthur Barksdale]

So I am a rank amateur myself when it comes to BI, but I have your very same processor and until tonight was running a single channel 8gb DIMM. I had been having trouble using BI to view stored clips since I recently added a 4mp and 8mp camera, and after reading on here found that my single dimm was a big problem and 8gb was likely too little, so tonight I put in 2 16gb sticks. My typical BI CPU usage hasn't gone down from the 25% it usually runs, but it has made a huge difference in the usability of the computer which I also use for minor web surfing and remoting into my work machine. Previously, even opening Chrome would cause CPU and memory to spike to 100%, but with just the memory upgrade the overall CPU load from browsing has dropped significantly. I had honestly been looking into upgrading to a newer i7, but wanted to give the ram upgrade a try, which I am glad I did.

 

[CCTVCam]

Arthur sounds like you were hitting the page file which rather makes me suspect you were using a version with the memory leak. If you hve a memory issue, always worth downloading "Memtest 86". It's free and diagnoses your memory integrity.

Nd,could be a windows issue especially if you updates enabled. Have you tried checking your version of BI against the database on here of known good versions / diagnosing windows for errors?

If you suspect Windows, try the following, from within the Command Prompt as Administrator (if you don't know how to get this type run in the windows search area bottom left of your screen and in the results that come up right click over command prompt and select run as administrator).

Type the following exactly including the spaces:

sfc /SCANNOW

This is the most basic of windows error scans and should find and should fix any errors. If it returns "windows found errors but was unable to fix them all", the next level is to go to disk image checks / replacement. These are far more powerful that system restore and enables you to download and replace Windows in situ with the very latest version from MS complete with all the latest updates pre-installed. It also doesn't break programs or your pc unklike system restore can and it's far quicker than trying to re-install Windows from disk even without the updates. It's the pro choice!

To check for errors using DISM type in the command prompt (including all spacing):

dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth

This should run another integrity test that will try to fix errors. If this works, exit command prompt and see how it goes. IF this is unsuccessful and returns unfixable errors, then it's time to replace Windows in situ. To do this you need to run 2 more commands in sequence letting each one complete separately 1st:

dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

followed by:

dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup

These latter 2 will install a brand new copy of the very latest updated Windows to your pc. It's fast and generally in my experience 100% works without breaking anything.

 

[IAmATeaf]

I’ve personally found that increasing the RAM from 8Gb to 12Gb helped on my system immensely. As stated above it won’t alleviate CPU usage but will make the system more stable when logging on.

I’ve only got 6 2Mp cams, 15fps, 6k bit rate and record when triggered and just checked the CPU usage via the app and it sits between 15-18%. My system has the same i5-6500 CPU as the OP.

 

[SouthernYankee]

Go to 16GB memory.
Turn off motion detection in BI, there is no way you need 600+ triggered events in 5 minutes. There add it back in for one camera and get it tuned so the events and alerts are useful, then the next......

Please provide a screen shots. full frame (use windows 10 snip & sketch tool)
1) windows task manager process tab sorted by memory (most at the top), Must contain, memory, disk, network, GPU, GPU engine columns
2) windows task manager performance, GPU
3) Blue Iris Setting about tab
4) Blue iris status (lighting bolt graph) clip storage tab

 

[Arthur Barksdale]

I also want to add that when I only had 8GB of Ram, BI was using 1700MB with a total usage of around 60% with nothing else running, but once i upped it, BI started using 2500MB. I presume my system was limiting the amount of Ram that BI could use in order to keep some available for other processes.

 

[ndstate]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Lots of stuff to try. Does anyone know off the top of their head if there are two ram slots?

SouthernYankee, see attachments. For some odd reason the clip storage shot up to over allocated, when it was literally fine for months and at -50gb. I think there is something wrong with my clips as I am constantly having to adjust the settings to keep space free.

 

[wittaj]

Are you running maintenance or repair/compact clips at any frequency?

How long is your combine and cut time under each camera? I think default might be 8 hours and if you are trying to squeeze every bit of storage out of the drive, that will cause a problem. Bump it down to an hour or two. And try to leave at least 10% of the drive memory.

 

[looney2ns]

Get rid of Zonealarm and Avast, un-install.
its never good to have more than one antivirus on a machine.
You didnt provide all screen shots requested.