Operation progressively slows, to a crawl?

[Berson]

Every time I execute Retrospect, the longer I am in it the slower my machine runs. This happens even though I am only reading help files, or browsing in the various windows (and thus not even accessing my backup data; see later). The first symptom I notice is that the mouse does not respond smoothly, and as time passes there are increasing delays before it responds or any computing progresses. And sometimes I can't close Retrospect except by turning the computer off - the response even to CTL-ALT-DEL is too slow.

 

When I ran a recycle backup, the Retrospect log showed a duration of about 6 hr 30 min, and the Windows clock advanced the same 6:30. But in real time, about 41 hours elapsed!

 

I am running Retrospect Express on Windows 98 Second Edition.

 

What is the problem?

[natew]

Hi

 

How much memory is installed on your machine? How much memory is used when you run Retrospect? what other programs are active in the background?

 

Nate

[Berson]

Nate,

 

I have 384 MB on my machine; Norton SystemWorks tells me about 65% utilized (see below). I don't know what's used when Retrospect is running -- since the mouse is responding erratically or not at all, I haven't tried to see.

 

I find Retrospect slowing down even when there is nothing running that I have selected. What is on the task bar is: Task Scheduler; AT&T DSL Service (but not connected); Safely Remove Storage Device; 3 Norton programs: AntiVirus Auto-Protect Enabled, CleanSweep Internet Sweep, and CleanSweepSmartSweep; and Netscape 7.1 (but not running or minimized, just for fast loading).

 

I also have Retrospect on my other computer, 1GB memory. I have not run any backups on that machine yet, so the only thing I can report for it so far is that using Retrospect help files has *not* slowed response so far. The task bar has Norton AntiVirus Auto-Protect Enabled and AT&T DSL Service (not connected), and the usual Windows XP items.

 

On the ThinkPad, Norton tells me memory is about 16% utilized. Much lower than my "slowed" machine! Do you have any guidance on whether or how I can reduce the 65%?

[natew]

Hi

 

Try disabling all of the Norton utilities and seeing if that helps with performance. What backup devices do you have installed on this machine? Retrospect may be "fighting" with some other burning utilites. Can you try temporarily disabling startup items using the MSCONFIG utility?

 

Thanks

Nate

[Berson]

Nate,

 

Thanks for the suggestions about disabling Norton, as well as other tasks via MSCONFIG. I had wondered whether either Norton Protected Recycle Bin (unlikely? nothing being deleted) or Norton AnitVirus Auto-Protect (checking files being read or written during backup?) might be adding time, and will disable them during the recycle backup.

 

A colleague suggested that perhaps memory was getting overloaded so that paging was excessive. (Perhaps with interrupts from the clock? That might explain the large difference between real time and Windows clock time.) For this I will try to get memory utilization via Norton SystemWorks while the recycle backup is running slowly.

 

Joel

[kaikow]

Quote:

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Nate,

 

Thanks for the suggestions about disabling Norton, as well as other tasks via MSCONFIG. I had wondered whether either Norton Protected Recycle Bin (unlikely? nothing being deleted) or Norton AnitVirus Auto-Protect (checking files being read or written during backup?) might be adding time, and will disable them during the recycle backup.

 

A colleague suggested that perhaps memory was getting overloaded so that paging was excessive. (Perhaps with interrupts from the clock? That might explain the large difference between real time and Windows clock time.) For this I will try to get memory utilization via Norton SystemWorks while the recycle backup is running slowly.

 

Joel

 

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If you have 384MB, I'm guessing that you have a Pentium II with an SE400BX, or similar, motherboard.

 

If so, you will find that the maximum allowed memory is actually 768MB.

I added the 384MB a bit over a year ago and it does make a difference.

 

The only thing I disable when running Retrospect is NAV, i.e., I disable AutoProtect.

 

To learn whether you have paging file issues run the Paging Filer Monitor .