Scientists and ther PCs
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I write software for scientists. They sit in front of fat (but not necessarily high spec, although of decent spec) PCs connected to heavy duty analytical instruments that spit out tonnes of data every day. And they all seem to have a knack for wrecking PCs. I don't know how they manage it, but many a scientists that I have to visit to get opinions from or dig them out of a sticky situation have PCs that are practically grinding to a halt at every command that is issued. From what I can tell, they tend to have weird software launching at them from all corners, like Adobe Photoshop and MSN messenger. (Those kind of rogue software seem to creep in when they blindly accept update offers from various sources.) They also have a tendency to stick everything on their desktop (OK, I know enough developers that do that too...) How they manage to find anything is beyond me. They also have no regards for the naming of their files so the names are either very long or contain spaces and hyphens. True, most programs can cope with that these days, but I still get the urge to hide under the table when I see horrible file namings. OK, I'm digressing, but the point is, apart from having more rogue software knocking about than I would like to, I can't see anything obviously wrong with their PCs but they are still going at snail pace. I use my work PC quite heavily and I'm not all that kind to it (stick it in endless loops and shut it down with brute force, etc... :doh: ) but I've never had that much trouble with my PC slowing down beyond my level of patience. Any guesses as to what's going wrong!? PS In my experience, these scientists end up in similar situations with their home PCs as well, only worse.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
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I write software for scientists. They sit in front of fat (but not necessarily high spec, although of decent spec) PCs connected to heavy duty analytical instruments that spit out tonnes of data every day. And they all seem to have a knack for wrecking PCs. I don't know how they manage it, but many a scientists that I have to visit to get opinions from or dig them out of a sticky situation have PCs that are practically grinding to a halt at every command that is issued. From what I can tell, they tend to have weird software launching at them from all corners, like Adobe Photoshop and MSN messenger. (Those kind of rogue software seem to creep in when they blindly accept update offers from various sources.) They also have a tendency to stick everything on their desktop (OK, I know enough developers that do that too...) How they manage to find anything is beyond me. They also have no regards for the naming of their files so the names are either very long or contain spaces and hyphens. True, most programs can cope with that these days, but I still get the urge to hide under the table when I see horrible file namings. OK, I'm digressing, but the point is, apart from having more rogue software knocking about than I would like to, I can't see anything obviously wrong with their PCs but they are still going at snail pace. I use my work PC quite heavily and I'm not all that kind to it (stick it in endless loops and shut it down with brute force, etc... :doh: ) but I've never had that much trouble with my PC slowing down beyond my level of patience. Any guesses as to what's going wrong!? PS In my experience, these scientists end up in similar situations with their home PCs as well, only worse.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
It's a matter of funding. More beaten up the PC, the better the chance that some budget would come their side. :-D
SG Aham Brahmasmi!
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I write software for scientists. They sit in front of fat (but not necessarily high spec, although of decent spec) PCs connected to heavy duty analytical instruments that spit out tonnes of data every day. And they all seem to have a knack for wrecking PCs. I don't know how they manage it, but many a scientists that I have to visit to get opinions from or dig them out of a sticky situation have PCs that are practically grinding to a halt at every command that is issued. From what I can tell, they tend to have weird software launching at them from all corners, like Adobe Photoshop and MSN messenger. (Those kind of rogue software seem to creep in when they blindly accept update offers from various sources.) They also have a tendency to stick everything on their desktop (OK, I know enough developers that do that too...) How they manage to find anything is beyond me. They also have no regards for the naming of their files so the names are either very long or contain spaces and hyphens. True, most programs can cope with that these days, but I still get the urge to hide under the table when I see horrible file namings. OK, I'm digressing, but the point is, apart from having more rogue software knocking about than I would like to, I can't see anything obviously wrong with their PCs but they are still going at snail pace. I use my work PC quite heavily and I'm not all that kind to it (stick it in endless loops and shut it down with brute force, etc... :doh: ) but I've never had that much trouble with my PC slowing down beyond my level of patience. Any guesses as to what's going wrong!? PS In my experience, these scientists end up in similar situations with their home PCs as well, only worse.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
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I write software for scientists. They sit in front of fat (but not necessarily high spec, although of decent spec) PCs connected to heavy duty analytical instruments that spit out tonnes of data every day. And they all seem to have a knack for wrecking PCs. I don't know how they manage it, but many a scientists that I have to visit to get opinions from or dig them out of a sticky situation have PCs that are practically grinding to a halt at every command that is issued. From what I can tell, they tend to have weird software launching at them from all corners, like Adobe Photoshop and MSN messenger. (Those kind of rogue software seem to creep in when they blindly accept update offers from various sources.) They also have a tendency to stick everything on their desktop (OK, I know enough developers that do that too...) How they manage to find anything is beyond me. They also have no regards for the naming of their files so the names are either very long or contain spaces and hyphens. True, most programs can cope with that these days, but I still get the urge to hide under the table when I see horrible file namings. OK, I'm digressing, but the point is, apart from having more rogue software knocking about than I would like to, I can't see anything obviously wrong with their PCs but they are still going at snail pace. I use my work PC quite heavily and I'm not all that kind to it (stick it in endless loops and shut it down with brute force, etc... :doh: ) but I've never had that much trouble with my PC slowing down beyond my level of patience. Any guesses as to what's going wrong!? PS In my experience, these scientists end up in similar situations with their home PCs as well, only worse.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
The laundry list for this kind of problem is a mile long. I used to go to PCPitstop.com and just run the check. I haven't gone in a long time and I don't know if their free check is still there. Probably there are other sites that do so too. When you have a group of people you can often go over one pc with a fine-tooth comb and a lot of the problems you find will be on the other pcs as well. My checklist: -what runs in startup? -while the pc is sitting there, run task manager to see what processes are out of control -run updates on Windows -check the hardware to make sure there are no items running without a driver (and I think there is a compatibility mode driver or some such). -Defrag. Remove the swap space. Defrag. Replace the swap space, or put it on another drive if possible. (I try to give my machines their own drive letter just for swap). -Check for viruses, spyware, etc. -Clean out all temp files. -Check IE to see what the cache size is set to. If it is set to anything other than 50 to 100 meg you might be chasing an old windows bug. You should delete the cache contents, then check to make sure that the entries are really deleted by going to the location on the disk where Temporary Internet Files are stored. The above is from memory so I'm sure you can get more tips. I seem to recall that garbage on the desktop costs, anything other than shortcuts in the start menu costs (like an executable or a document), and an excess of fonts can cost. Also, if the hard drive that the OS is on is full then you will get all kinds of problems with speed. Anyway, you can google from there. All of the above tips work on some machines.
_____________________________ Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...
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I write software for scientists. They sit in front of fat (but not necessarily high spec, although of decent spec) PCs connected to heavy duty analytical instruments that spit out tonnes of data every day. And they all seem to have a knack for wrecking PCs. I don't know how they manage it, but many a scientists that I have to visit to get opinions from or dig them out of a sticky situation have PCs that are practically grinding to a halt at every command that is issued. From what I can tell, they tend to have weird software launching at them from all corners, like Adobe Photoshop and MSN messenger. (Those kind of rogue software seem to creep in when they blindly accept update offers from various sources.) They also have a tendency to stick everything on their desktop (OK, I know enough developers that do that too...) How they manage to find anything is beyond me. They also have no regards for the naming of their files so the names are either very long or contain spaces and hyphens. True, most programs can cope with that these days, but I still get the urge to hide under the table when I see horrible file namings. OK, I'm digressing, but the point is, apart from having more rogue software knocking about than I would like to, I can't see anything obviously wrong with their PCs but they are still going at snail pace. I use my work PC quite heavily and I'm not all that kind to it (stick it in endless loops and shut it down with brute force, etc... :doh: ) but I've never had that much trouble with my PC slowing down beyond my level of patience. Any guesses as to what's going wrong!? PS In my experience, these scientists end up in similar situations with their home PCs as well, only worse.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
Offcourse, it is all IE's fault. Or in other words, Spyware and Malware. I have windows XP on one of my laptops for last 3 years and I do occasional development on that machine too and guess what, it still runs fine. Only that I never ever use IE on that machine and I am very selective about the things that I install on it.
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God
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I write software for scientists. They sit in front of fat (but not necessarily high spec, although of decent spec) PCs connected to heavy duty analytical instruments that spit out tonnes of data every day. And they all seem to have a knack for wrecking PCs. I don't know how they manage it, but many a scientists that I have to visit to get opinions from or dig them out of a sticky situation have PCs that are practically grinding to a halt at every command that is issued. From what I can tell, they tend to have weird software launching at them from all corners, like Adobe Photoshop and MSN messenger. (Those kind of rogue software seem to creep in when they blindly accept update offers from various sources.) They also have a tendency to stick everything on their desktop (OK, I know enough developers that do that too...) How they manage to find anything is beyond me. They also have no regards for the naming of their files so the names are either very long or contain spaces and hyphens. True, most programs can cope with that these days, but I still get the urge to hide under the table when I see horrible file namings. OK, I'm digressing, but the point is, apart from having more rogue software knocking about than I would like to, I can't see anything obviously wrong with their PCs but they are still going at snail pace. I use my work PC quite heavily and I'm not all that kind to it (stick it in endless loops and shut it down with brute force, etc... :doh: ) but I've never had that much trouble with my PC slowing down beyond my level of patience. Any guesses as to what's going wrong!? PS In my experience, these scientists end up in similar situations with their home PCs as well, only worse.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
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I write software for scientists. They sit in front of fat (but not necessarily high spec, although of decent spec) PCs connected to heavy duty analytical instruments that spit out tonnes of data every day. And they all seem to have a knack for wrecking PCs. I don't know how they manage it, but many a scientists that I have to visit to get opinions from or dig them out of a sticky situation have PCs that are practically grinding to a halt at every command that is issued. From what I can tell, they tend to have weird software launching at them from all corners, like Adobe Photoshop and MSN messenger. (Those kind of rogue software seem to creep in when they blindly accept update offers from various sources.) They also have a tendency to stick everything on their desktop (OK, I know enough developers that do that too...) How they manage to find anything is beyond me. They also have no regards for the naming of their files so the names are either very long or contain spaces and hyphens. True, most programs can cope with that these days, but I still get the urge to hide under the table when I see horrible file namings. OK, I'm digressing, but the point is, apart from having more rogue software knocking about than I would like to, I can't see anything obviously wrong with their PCs but they are still going at snail pace. I use my work PC quite heavily and I'm not all that kind to it (stick it in endless loops and shut it down with brute force, etc... :doh: ) but I've never had that much trouble with my PC slowing down beyond my level of patience. Any guesses as to what's going wrong!? PS In my experience, these scientists end up in similar situations with their home PCs as well, only worse.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
Do a complete reinstall of the operating systems and software the 'scientists' need. Before allowing them to get anywhere near the computer take an image. Every three months restore from the image, install all the patches and updates then take a new image before allowing the 'scientists' to get anywhere near their computer. Insist they store all files on network drives and show them how to create desktop shortcuts to those files. It's one of the only way to keep systems going where there are no strict firewall policies or downloading policies in place... It will take time but probably less time than is wasted sorting out their slow machines... And yes I live in cloud cuckoo land(I realise politics will come into the above...) ;)
Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.(Winston Churchill)
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I write software for scientists. They sit in front of fat (but not necessarily high spec, although of decent spec) PCs connected to heavy duty analytical instruments that spit out tonnes of data every day. And they all seem to have a knack for wrecking PCs. I don't know how they manage it, but many a scientists that I have to visit to get opinions from or dig them out of a sticky situation have PCs that are practically grinding to a halt at every command that is issued. From what I can tell, they tend to have weird software launching at them from all corners, like Adobe Photoshop and MSN messenger. (Those kind of rogue software seem to creep in when they blindly accept update offers from various sources.) They also have a tendency to stick everything on their desktop (OK, I know enough developers that do that too...) How they manage to find anything is beyond me. They also have no regards for the naming of their files so the names are either very long or contain spaces and hyphens. True, most programs can cope with that these days, but I still get the urge to hide under the table when I see horrible file namings. OK, I'm digressing, but the point is, apart from having more rogue software knocking about than I would like to, I can't see anything obviously wrong with their PCs but they are still going at snail pace. I use my work PC quite heavily and I'm not all that kind to it (stick it in endless loops and shut it down with brute force, etc... :doh: ) but I've never had that much trouble with my PC slowing down beyond my level of patience. Any guesses as to what's going wrong!? PS In my experience, these scientists end up in similar situations with their home PCs as well, only worse.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
Are you seriously describing PhotoShop and MSN Messenger as 'rogue software'?
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus! When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.
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PaulowniaK wrote:
rogue software knocking about
Matlab? :-D
Too much of heaven can bring you underground Heaven can always turn around Too much of heaven, our life is all hell bound Heaven, the kill that makes no sound
Abhinav S wrote:
Matlab?
:-DNah, Matlab is my best friend. I'm making do with Octave as I have no budget to buy Matlab. :((
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
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Do a complete reinstall of the operating systems and software the 'scientists' need. Before allowing them to get anywhere near the computer take an image. Every three months restore from the image, install all the patches and updates then take a new image before allowing the 'scientists' to get anywhere near their computer. Insist they store all files on network drives and show them how to create desktop shortcuts to those files. It's one of the only way to keep systems going where there are no strict firewall policies or downloading policies in place... It will take time but probably less time than is wasted sorting out their slow machines... And yes I live in cloud cuckoo land(I realise politics will come into the above...) ;)
Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.(Winston Churchill)
If I had that much control over them, I'd definitely will try your suggestion! :laugh:
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
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Are you seriously describing PhotoShop and MSN Messenger as 'rogue software'?
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus! When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.
Henry Minute wrote:
Are you seriously describing PhotoShop and MSN Messenger as 'rogue software'?
Yes. They are unnecessary for the tasks that are required to be carried out on the said PC.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
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Are you seriously describing PhotoShop and MSN Messenger as 'rogue software'?
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus! When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.
Crap software maybe but I'm betting Abhinav is rith, Matlab installed.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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PaulowniaK wrote:
rogue software knocking about
Matlab? :-D
Too much of heaven can bring you underground Heaven can always turn around Too much of heaven, our life is all hell bound Heaven, the kill that makes no sound
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Abhinav S wrote:
Matlab?
:-DNah, Matlab is my best friend. I'm making do with Octave as I have no budget to buy Matlab. :((
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
You need a better class of friends :~. Part of one of our current products actually runs a MATLAB 'thing' in the background to do some calculations. I hate the damned thing, as it's a PITA to get installed correctly.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I write software for scientists. They sit in front of fat (but not necessarily high spec, although of decent spec) PCs connected to heavy duty analytical instruments that spit out tonnes of data every day. And they all seem to have a knack for wrecking PCs. I don't know how they manage it, but many a scientists that I have to visit to get opinions from or dig them out of a sticky situation have PCs that are practically grinding to a halt at every command that is issued. From what I can tell, they tend to have weird software launching at them from all corners, like Adobe Photoshop and MSN messenger. (Those kind of rogue software seem to creep in when they blindly accept update offers from various sources.) They also have a tendency to stick everything on their desktop (OK, I know enough developers that do that too...) How they manage to find anything is beyond me. They also have no regards for the naming of their files so the names are either very long or contain spaces and hyphens. True, most programs can cope with that these days, but I still get the urge to hide under the table when I see horrible file namings. OK, I'm digressing, but the point is, apart from having more rogue software knocking about than I would like to, I can't see anything obviously wrong with their PCs but they are still going at snail pace. I use my work PC quite heavily and I'm not all that kind to it (stick it in endless loops and shut it down with brute force, etc... :doh: ) but I've never had that much trouble with my PC slowing down beyond my level of patience. Any guesses as to what's going wrong!? PS In my experience, these scientists end up in similar situations with their home PCs as well, only worse.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
Blame Adobe. Always. Adobe does that to PCs... RootkitDobe. ShitDobe. bAnDOBE!
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I write software for scientists. They sit in front of fat (but not necessarily high spec, although of decent spec) PCs connected to heavy duty analytical instruments that spit out tonnes of data every day. And they all seem to have a knack for wrecking PCs. I don't know how they manage it, but many a scientists that I have to visit to get opinions from or dig them out of a sticky situation have PCs that are practically grinding to a halt at every command that is issued. From what I can tell, they tend to have weird software launching at them from all corners, like Adobe Photoshop and MSN messenger. (Those kind of rogue software seem to creep in when they blindly accept update offers from various sources.) They also have a tendency to stick everything on their desktop (OK, I know enough developers that do that too...) How they manage to find anything is beyond me. They also have no regards for the naming of their files so the names are either very long or contain spaces and hyphens. True, most programs can cope with that these days, but I still get the urge to hide under the table when I see horrible file namings. OK, I'm digressing, but the point is, apart from having more rogue software knocking about than I would like to, I can't see anything obviously wrong with their PCs but they are still going at snail pace. I use my work PC quite heavily and I'm not all that kind to it (stick it in endless loops and shut it down with brute force, etc... :doh: ) but I've never had that much trouble with my PC slowing down beyond my level of patience. Any guesses as to what's going wrong!? PS In my experience, these scientists end up in similar situations with their home PCs as well, only worse.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
I just went through something similar. My system (laptop) was extremely slow, it literally took minutes to launch a new window of any kind. Turned out that the CPU was overheating due to poor ventilation and dust bunnies. It took it upon itself to throttle down to 25%. Once the system was cleaned out and the bios was reset it was running like new.
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I write software for scientists. They sit in front of fat (but not necessarily high spec, although of decent spec) PCs connected to heavy duty analytical instruments that spit out tonnes of data every day. And they all seem to have a knack for wrecking PCs. I don't know how they manage it, but many a scientists that I have to visit to get opinions from or dig them out of a sticky situation have PCs that are practically grinding to a halt at every command that is issued. From what I can tell, they tend to have weird software launching at them from all corners, like Adobe Photoshop and MSN messenger. (Those kind of rogue software seem to creep in when they blindly accept update offers from various sources.) They also have a tendency to stick everything on their desktop (OK, I know enough developers that do that too...) How they manage to find anything is beyond me. They also have no regards for the naming of their files so the names are either very long or contain spaces and hyphens. True, most programs can cope with that these days, but I still get the urge to hide under the table when I see horrible file namings. OK, I'm digressing, but the point is, apart from having more rogue software knocking about than I would like to, I can't see anything obviously wrong with their PCs but they are still going at snail pace. I use my work PC quite heavily and I'm not all that kind to it (stick it in endless loops and shut it down with brute force, etc... :doh: ) but I've never had that much trouble with my PC slowing down beyond my level of patience. Any guesses as to what's going wrong!? PS In my experience, these scientists end up in similar situations with their home PCs as well, only worse.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
What about older Norton/Symantec packages? I know for a while they had a version that was known to slow down the system to a crawl and because of that I don't trust any of their packages anymore, they're just too intrusive and so I uninstall them and actually use MS Security Essentials which is less intrusive and works pretty well. Also a friend of mine had a problem caused by "dueling toolbar" (she had MSN, Google, Yahoo and Ask installed). I uninstalled all four and her system became snappy as if it were brand new. I told her pick one, and only one, and don't install any others. I did take the time to set her IE cache to be small (50mb), set IE to auto clear the temp cache on browser close, cleared both TEMP folders (%windir%\TEMP, and %TEMP%), defrag her drive, etc, but it was the toolbars that caused her the most grief. Just a thought.
Mike Poz
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What about older Norton/Symantec packages? I know for a while they had a version that was known to slow down the system to a crawl and because of that I don't trust any of their packages anymore, they're just too intrusive and so I uninstall them and actually use MS Security Essentials which is less intrusive and works pretty well. Also a friend of mine had a problem caused by "dueling toolbar" (she had MSN, Google, Yahoo and Ask installed). I uninstalled all four and her system became snappy as if it were brand new. I told her pick one, and only one, and don't install any others. I did take the time to set her IE cache to be small (50mb), set IE to auto clear the temp cache on browser close, cleared both TEMP folders (%windir%\TEMP, and %TEMP%), defrag her drive, etc, but it was the toolbars that caused her the most grief. Just a thought.
Mike Poz
Mike Poz wrote:
What about older Norton/Symantec packages?
You guessed right! They did have Norton 360 running. It insisted on updating itself although there was no network connection and complained that it couldn't connect to the internet :doh: There was a Google tool bar thingie running, and I did get tempted to shut it down... only the Task Manager froze...
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
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I just went through something similar. My system (laptop) was extremely slow, it literally took minutes to launch a new window of any kind. Turned out that the CPU was overheating due to poor ventilation and dust bunnies. It took it upon itself to throttle down to 25%. Once the system was cleaned out and the bios was reset it was running like new.
jharano wrote:
Turned out that the CPU was overheating due to poor ventilation and dust bunnies.
Wow, that's a new one! :omg: Well, not that overheating can happen but that it has such a profound effect on the CPU. Better get that thing cleaned up! Cheers!
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
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The laundry list for this kind of problem is a mile long. I used to go to PCPitstop.com and just run the check. I haven't gone in a long time and I don't know if their free check is still there. Probably there are other sites that do so too. When you have a group of people you can often go over one pc with a fine-tooth comb and a lot of the problems you find will be on the other pcs as well. My checklist: -what runs in startup? -while the pc is sitting there, run task manager to see what processes are out of control -run updates on Windows -check the hardware to make sure there are no items running without a driver (and I think there is a compatibility mode driver or some such). -Defrag. Remove the swap space. Defrag. Replace the swap space, or put it on another drive if possible. (I try to give my machines their own drive letter just for swap). -Check for viruses, spyware, etc. -Clean out all temp files. -Check IE to see what the cache size is set to. If it is set to anything other than 50 to 100 meg you might be chasing an old windows bug. You should delete the cache contents, then check to make sure that the entries are really deleted by going to the location on the disk where Temporary Internet Files are stored. The above is from memory so I'm sure you can get more tips. I seem to recall that garbage on the desktop costs, anything other than shortcuts in the start menu costs (like an executable or a document), and an excess of fonts can cost. Also, if the hard drive that the OS is on is full then you will get all kinds of problems with speed. Anyway, you can google from there. All of the above tips work on some machines.
_____________________________ Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...
Add to the list: check the anti-virus software. Where I work, the IT dept has the Macaffe virus software set to such a high priority, that when even when I edit a file, it starts running. This slows the computer to a crawl. I had to call IT several times to disable it. (Yes, we users cannot disable the anti-virus software on our own computers. It does stifle productivity.) Try lowering its priority to the lowest possible.