HP Omen laptop soooo slow with core

Installing Zorin OS
1

Here's the specs of the laptop

Device Name OMEN-LAPTOP
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
Storage 119 GB SSD SAMSUNG MZNLF128HCHP-000H1, 1.82 TB HDD ST2000LM003 HN-M201RAD
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M (4 GB), Intel(R) HD Graphics 530 (128 MB)
Device ID 8B455F2E-D7D5-4122-AF4A-5C67FED8679D
Product ID 00331-20316-57497-AA049
System Type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

problem is that after a dual boot install the performance is intolerable.

I have recently installed Zorin core on my desktop, which is i7 2600 3.4ghz quad core, 16gb, and it fair zips along, windows10 is fine but Z core is excellent.

So why not on this 'faster' so called "Gaming Laptop"?
NOTE: It is not used for gaming, mainly video editing and streaming.
Ideas anyone!
cheers CD

EDIT - yes I know you'll say what do you call poor performance, so for example, opening brave will take about a minute, that's without any pages loading. OBS Studio will not open at all. that sort of 'poor'. Booting takes about 30secs after selecting from the grub menu.

Is there a distro that you like with every light resource needs or is there something that this windows machine doesn't like about linux.

2

Are you using Wayland or XOrg (X11)? Take a look at settings>about
When there is shown Wayland, logout and at login click on your profile then a cog wheal at the bottom right appears. There select "Zorin Desktop on Xorg".
For the most nvidia card users this is the prefered setting.

Which graphics driver is shown in use when you go to Software&Updates >Additional drivers?

Is secure boot and fast boot in your BIOS disabled and also fast startup in Windows while using Linux?

1 Like
3

Beneath @Forpli's Questions:

  • Is You BIOS in UEFI or Legacy Mode?
  • What Tool did you used to create the bootable USB Stick with Zorin on it?
4

You can try Zorin OS Lite, as well:

5

Hi there, again.
It is uefi, secure boot is disabled, and I used the same USB installer as the desktop, that was successful.
Selecting either the default or xorg doesn't seem to make any difference.

cheers CD

6

here's some more info

from bios boot select to grub > 68 secs
grub to logon screen >20 secs
login to desktop > 16 secs

click open brave to brave window appears (just Zorin Forums only) > 32 secs

Same prob with wayland default and Xorg > no diff

cheers CD

EDIT - fastboot and secure boot are both disabled in the bios. bios brand is insyde

7

CPU is rather fast. I'd say, download the 17.2 ISO and re-install.

Luakit is a very small browser, 5MB or so, I'd say, if this is sluggish, the system has weird settings somewhere.

sudo apt install luakit

Or try another distro, instead, maybe it's not the Zorin version, but Zorin itself.

8

Hi thete
Yikes this is out of my league.
[https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Solved-installing-Linux-on-HP-Omen-Laptops/td-p/9025622]

I think I might try Xubuntu, any comments from you guys/girls, whether it will make any diff.

The problem feels to me like a bios or hardware incompatibility or something like that. Cos it is slow right from booting. Even before it gets to the desktop stage. But what do I know!!

cheers CD

9

Or...

Zorin OS Lite.

1 Like
10

Oki dokie I didn't know that 'Z lite' used xfce.. that's the go. Thanks for pointing that out.

Anyone have advice after seeing the hoops the user went through in the link I attached, to get any linux to install? Is it related to my situation?

Thanks for your reply.
cheers CD

11

Did you check if fast startup in Windows (in Windows directly at energy settings, not in BIOS) is also disabled?

12

Hi there, found that and disabled it. No better, Bummer

cheers CD

13

Update - I tried out Xubuntu, same prob.

14

I wonder if you might be experiencing something like described in this thread, but unfortunately I'm not familiar with it. Maybe someone can help you find out if the cpu is running on minimum:

15

hahaha I'm reading the same post at the moment..

and it's interesting that I have noticed that the "High Prformance and Ultimate performance" power plans, option are absent in the win10 options too"
cheers CD

16

You could try a program for setting up cpu frequency, e.g. this gnome extension, to see if that makes a difference.

or the app cpu frequency settings

17

I think the link was pointing to issues installing GNU/Linux not running GNU/Linux. You could also take a look at Q4OS 64-bit Trinity DE.

1 Like
18

It is abnormal that your device is so slow with these specs. I have an even older i3 and it doesn't run slower than Windows in Zorin or Mint. You shouldn't need such lightweight DEs. There must be an issue somewhere.

Do you use drive encryption or fractional scaling? Do you have low storage place on your Zorin partition?

19

What is the output of

nvidia-smi

entered in terminal? Please post it here.

20

Hi there I agree, I was execting better than win10.
I don't have any of those things, just plain old installation on half of a 2Tb SSD. efi=500mb, root=100Gb, home= the rest of 980Gb.
cheers CD

P.S. I can find lots of posts concerning unecessary throttling of HP Omen laptops, perhaps linux doesn't communicate with the thermal sensing properly or something like that,