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**claydoh** · Sep 15, 2021, 05:15 AM

Look at the top of the page, the ranking of 50 vs 52. Not all that different.

32% could be a very small difference in actual numbers. Look at the actual clock speed difference, not a huge diff.
Some differences in the motherboards, different controllers. Maybe one is getting hot and is being throttled.
Check for bios updates.
Look at other things, such as swap usage - that slows things, and some systems do seem to like to use swap too soon.

But there is something going on with your slower system.
In either case, imo even 6 seconds seems like a long time to load a web page, but that of course is dependent on the connection speed.

**jlittle** · Sep 15, 2021, 02:05 PM

SSDs are not created equal; some are much slower than others, especially when they fill past a threshold. You might share some details about them, and how full they are.

**bradleypariah** · Sep 22, 2021, 08:13 AM

Originally posted by claydoh View Post

Some differences in the motherboards, different controllers. Maybe one is getting hot and is being throttled.

I use that one "Simple" widget that shows core usage and temperature, and I never see the laptop getting hotter than 40-something Celsius. That wouldn't cause problems, right?

Originally posted by claydoh View Post

Check for bios updates.

There is one BIOS/UEFI available, but Lenovo's site only has the update as an EXE file. I'm hesitant to run it via Wine. I suppose I could wipe Kubuntu, install Windows, install the BIOS update, wipe Windows, and install Kubuntu again. As annoying as that might be, at least I'd know I was on the latest version.

Originally posted by claydoh View Post

Look at other things, such as swap usage - that slows things, and some systems do seem to like to use swap too soon.

I have a second widget in my top panel that shows CPU, RAM, disk, and swap usage as little circles. I rarely see the swap circle ever used.

Originally posted by claydoh View Post

But there is something going on with your slower system.
In either case, imo even 6 seconds seems like a long time to load a web page, but that of course is dependent on the connection speed.

Yeah, I was watching a video on YouTube yesterday where a guy installed Manjaro on a 2012 MacBook Pro, and the moment he pressed Super + 1, Firefox was open and loaded.

Originally posted by jlittle View Post

SSDs are not created equal; some are much slower than others, especially when they fill past a threshold. You might share some details about them, and how full they are.

The one in the HP is one of those tiny 1.5" 128GB SSDs. A first-gen SATA SSD, if I'm not mistaken.
The one in the slow Lenovo is a 2.5" Samsung SSD. It's a 256GB drive. Neither machine has more than 50GB of stuff on them.

**bradleypariah** · Sep 25, 2021, 10:21 AM

I hope you guys haven't given up on this thread. Please watch this video and tell me what you think is going on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAy0bOF5H1o

I installed Windows 10 temporarily to install the latest BIOS/UEFI update for this model. While Windows was on it, I recorded a video of Firefox launching.
In Windows, the Firefox windows loads in about one second. Loading the Firefox New Tab page takes an additional eight seconds.
In Kubuntu, the Firefox window takes about eleven seconds to appear, and the new tab page takes an additional four second beyond that.

Is this an unfair comparison? I'm telling you, when Kubuntu is on this machine, everything takes perceptibly longer, from booting up, to logging in, to opening applications.

One thing I noticed, which seems important:
Windows was slow too, but only at first. I went to Lenovo's website, and downloaded every driver they had. Card reader, chipset, Bluetooth, etc., until nothing in Device Manager had an exclamation point next to it. It was only then that the laptop felt like it "came loose." Like it became unchained or something. I'm wondering if there is hardware in this laptop that a default Linux install just doesn't know how to efficiently handle. How would I look into something like that? Should I bother? Am I on to something, or should I just sell this thing with Win 10/11 on it, and buy something made specifically for Linux? I really like this thing (when it works).

**claydoh** · Sep 25, 2021, 11:18 AM

No clues.

On my systems, when I (rarely) boot to Windows, everything is exactly the opposite, Firefox is slow to load on both my laptop (windows on SSD, i5-1035G1) and PC (if 8400), along with the rest of the OS.

**GreyGeek** · Sep 25, 2021, 12:59 PM

There is a lot to say about this comparison, the first being that it is a cherry pick of 172 test, shown at
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...-tr3970x&num=8
which also shows that Ubuntu 20.04 led in 61.63%+ of the tests.

If taking the geometric mean of all 172 tests on this AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X workstation, using WSL2 yielded about 87% of the performance of running bare metal Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on the same hardware. WSL2 overall is in much better shape than WSL due to addressing the I/O bottleneck but as shown with these tests there are some cases where the former is faster than WSL2. WSL2 overall though was about 24% faster than WSL1.

One developer's experience is here. Connection problems. Random crashes.
WSL hides security risks.
Microsoft is making it difficult to choose non Microsoft apps.

What we are seeing IMO, in slow motion, is the old "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" tactic in operation.

Image that WSLn for most apps becomes as fast, or fast enough, than in Ubuntu on bare metal, and can run everthing that Ubuntu can run equally well or better, to say nothing of having access to all the top tier games. Over several years people leave the distros they are running and return to Win1X to get both worlds. With fewer users, distro builders lose heart and quit making them, one by one. Die-hard builders hang on, but they cannot add the number and quality of Linux apps to their system that Microsoft can add to Win1X. They also run into legal problems as Microsoft only releases the binary and copyrights the source, just the way Apple did with Darwin when it "created" the Mac. All the FOSS Darwin developers hopes went up in smoke when Mac connected to their open source apps with proprietary binary hooks. Microsoft already is serving their major apps through cloud services for monthly charges. When they succeed in persuading most Linux users to use WSLx, they have extinguished native Linux. What follows next is monthly subscription fees to use WSLx and Linux. Eventually, WinXX will become a cloud machine that is installed in BIOS in most computers and requires an Internet connection to run anything, with MS having full access to everything you do. Download something? Not allowed. Upload to Azure servers? Everything you do with your "MS Terminal".

I'm 80 and probably won't live long enough to see this fully take place, but I feel sorry for the next generation, who will never experience the freedom in the use of computers or the enjoyment of the Bill of Rights that I have enjoyed.

**bradleypariah** · Sep 26, 2021, 08:52 AM

Originally posted by GreyGeek View Post

There is a lot to say about this comparison, the first being that it is a cherry pick of 172 test

I don't know if I made this obvious, but I'm the one who made that video. It's not some Windows propaganda. I wasn't cherry-picking. That's how big of a difference I am personally experiencing with different operating systems. The video is unlisted because I don't want anyone outside this forum to see it and/or use it in a flame war.
I'm certainly not switching back to Windows for the six-second performance gain. I just really just thought it was important to point out that this laptop isn't a heap of junk, and that good performance is definitely possible.

I think I have a couple more revelations.

I created a thread on the Lenovo forums, really just asking if I could BIOS/UEFI update without Windows, and one person suggested I install Pop!_OS after removing Windows.
I dismissed the suggestion at first, as I've always perceived Pop!_OS just being Ubuntu with an Nvidia driver pre-installed.
Since I'm at my wits' end, I gave it a shot. I don't super love Pop!_OS, but it actually outpaces Windows! So, first off, that's huge.

It's got me thinking that System 76 must include more optimized drivers, since they're a hardware manufacturer. But which ones??

If I knew which Pop!_OS driver is essentially solving my problem, I could just install that driver in Kubuntu.
-or perhaps if the device is non-essential, I could add it to my blacklist so that my laptop isn't wasting precious cycles on it.

Any suggestions? Thank you both for offering up all this time to talk to me. I greatly appreciate it.

{EDIT} - To clarify, if I reinstall Kubuntu, what application or command would show me which hardware devices don't yet have drivers, or are unknown to the system?

**claydoh** · Sep 26, 2021, 10:42 AM

- To clarify, if I reinstall Kubuntu, what application or command would show me which hardware devices don't yet have drivers, or are unknown to the system?

The first thing is the Driver Manager, located in Discover's settings in the Software Sources tool.

This is primarily for those things that have proprietary drivers available as opposed to 'missing' drivers.
Most all drivers available for most hardware is built in to the kernel, or as an included module.

To find devices thnat are not loading, you can use KSystemLog and search for things like 'failed to load', or use the command

Code:

dmesg | grep "failed to load"

As to POp os, and it working well, their hardware comes with some optimizations, but for normal hardware, it is very likely using the stock Ubnuntu stuff (same as Kubuntu)

However,: https://support.system76.com/articles/system76-driver

Check the kernel version used in Kubuntu and compare it to Pop, and see if they match exactly

Code:

uname -r

How fresh is your Kubuntu install? Upgrade/clean install? Maybe it is 'borked' somehow?
If you can test a fresh install of Kubuntu, maybe even the upcoming 21.10, and see if things act the same as in your existing Kbuntu install?

Looking at the contents of the Sysrtem76 PPA repo, they are including a much more current kernel (from 21.10), so that could be a clue as well. That is why I suggested trying out kubuntu's 21.10
https://launchpad.net/~system76-dev/.../ubuntu/stable

**bradleypariah** · Sep 29, 2021, 07:28 AM

You guys? You guys. GUYS. I cannot express how idiotic I feel right now, but I have undoubtedly found the source of my slowness, and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with distro choice.

It's whether or not my laptop is charging.

If my laptop is plugged in, it slows to a crawl. On battery power, it's a speed demon. That's it.
I can consistently, repeatedly get identical results, back to back.
While charging, apps take 11-25 seconds to launch.
On battery power, all apps launch between 0 and 2 seconds.
I cannot believe I never pinned it down. It's been nearly two years.

I don't know what to say. I feel like a total moron. I've been convinced it was my CPU, my RAM, my distro.... all because the speed varied based on whether or not I was charging the laptop when I performed each test.

I was so sad, because after I came back to tell you guys about my findings with Pop!_OS, the results changed in a few hours, and I sunk into my chair. Turns out Pop!_OS was fast because I took it for a test drive when the machine was unplugged. It slowed down as soon as I plugged my laptop back in. I'm back on Kubuntu (thank the lord, stars, and the universe).

SO! WHY ON EARTH IS THIS A THING? I've been tearing my hair out FOR YEARS. I'm BALD NOW!!!

You guys... Have you heard of such a thing before? Off the top of your head, is there anything I can do to tell my laptop it's okay to be fast when it's charging, or is there a reason for this behavior?
I'm of course going to go start another thread on Lenovo, now that I have found this.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your patience. It really helps to have someone to talk to. I don't know any Linux users that live near me, and sometimes troubleshooting alone can feel really isolating.

[Edit] - this isn't just a one-off thing with Firefox. Check this out:

Launching Firefox:

It takes 11 seconds to load when the laptop is charging.
It takes 2 seconds to load while on battery.

I installed sysbench, and ran [sysbench --test=cpu run].

While charging, the score is 1678 events with an average of 5.96ms latency.
When on battery, the score is 9,992 events with an average of 1ms latency.

Booting up:

It takes 42 seconds to get to the login screen while charging.
It takes 16 seconds to get to the login screen on battery power.

Loading the Plasma desktop

After pressing Enter, it takes 42 seconds for Plasma to fully load while charging.
After pressing Enter, it takes 6 seconds for Plasma to fully load while on battery.

**claydoh** · Sep 29, 2021, 08:50 AM

Hmm... hardware isues are often overlooked, we tend to first blame the OS, out of habit as well as past experience.

When I was in Australia for three months, my laptop battery stopped charging. I thought it was a bad charge port, or a bad power brick. The battery tested fine.
I don't recall what it was that made me think something was 'off', and that it might NOT be related to the port, charger, or battery, but the fix was actually in re-flashing the bios, or installing the latest Bios.
This happened to be a Lenovo from about 2018.

Worth looking at, at least trying to reset bios back to original settings after recording any settings changes you have made, removing the cmos battery if it has one. Upgrading the firmware if it has a newer release.
But the Lenovo form can be pretty good, so they might have useful suggestions

**bradleypariah** · Sep 29, 2021, 09:59 AM

There are a couple people talking about getting slower speeds while charging on the Lenovo forums, but none of the threads ever got solved. I did however just find this little gem over on Quora:

This might explain a lot. My power supply is a 65-watt. I can't find a 95-watt online anywhere, but I did find a 90-watt (20VDC @ 4.5A) on eBay for only $12USD. I bought it. I'm really hopeful this will be the end of a long road of troubleshooting.

**bradleypariah** · Oct 05, 2021, 02:36 PM

Welp, I received my larger power brick in the mail yesterday, and I'm sad to say that it makes no difference.
The laptop is still zippy when unplugged, and it's still slow as molasses when charging.

I'm so confused what to do now.

None of the Lenovo mods or employees responded to my posts, just community members, and they don't have a solution.
There are a couple other threads where people complain that their laptop is slow when charging, and those people are instructed to:

Turn off "Rapid charging" in Lenovo Vantage, which is a Windows-only app
Go to Control Panel > Power settings > Change plan settings, which I don't have

I haven't seen anything in BIOS that would indicate I can control how the laptop charges. I'm starting to think I'm hosed.

**GreyGeek** · Oct 06, 2021, 09:56 AM

I read your excellently written post on the Lenovo forum yesterday.
Your Flex 5 supposedly runs on battery for 8.5 hours (probably more like six) and charges in 2.5 hours.
Setting aside installing Windows in dual boot to adjust the BIOS setting, that leaves charging it at night or over breaks and/or lunch and/or dinner periods, which you are probably already doing. And a Windows setting in the BIOS may not survive a reboot into Linux. Judging from one of the posts I saw I'd think twice about updating the BIOS. A classic rock and a hard place.

**claydoh** · Oct 06, 2021, 10:32 AM

I haven't seen anything in BIOS that would indicate I can control how the laptop charges. I'm starting to think I'm hosed.

Things *can* be adjusted from Linux, via ACPI commands. But what they specifically are depends on the device. As well as some command line action.

acpi-call-dkms needs to be installed, but after that is an unknown.
Here is an example for a different Ideapad laptop:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Len...5#Rapid_Charge

People have scripts for managing those Lenovo Vantage settings on their specific devices using acpi_call, but I can't figure out how to determine the specific calls.
These are also available on my Lenovo Ideapad Flex 15, but the calls above do not seem to work on it (the device in the link is an AMD laptop, anyway).
I do have the OEM Windows install on a second hard drive lol so I can cheat if I want to.

Hmmm..... do you have TLP installed by any chance, or any other power saving thing uninstalled?

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