Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
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  • June 16, 2006 at 2:29 am #11558
    DVanes
    Participant

    hi all. having some real huge speed issues over here. i’m the sort of part time it guy at our company, and here’s the thing…

    we’d installed nv2 on a dedicated desktop pc to serve as a temporary conversion and setup platform. without warning or consulting me, the consultant performing the install took the system live. it runs so incredibly slow that our accounting people can’t really work at all. did i mention we’ve already gone live? <g/>” title=”<g>” class=”bbcode_smiley” /></p> <p>it’s really slow. the specs on the desktops that are accessing the ‘server’ are the same as the ‘server’ itself: ibm thinkcenter pc’s – P4 3.0GHz, 1GB RAM, 7200RPM IDE HDD(unknown size, i’m at home right now), Win XP Pro SP2, NV2 2.08SP0(upgrading to SP4 first thing in the morning).</p> <p>the q.w.page tech support guy i spoke with on the phone tells me these machines are adequate, and should run the books much more quickly.</p> <p>since the books run considerably better in single-user mode on the ‘server’ machine, i figure the bottleneck might be at the ‘server’.</p> <p>i’m wondering how much the speed might improve if we were to install a proper application server, as was my original intention. something like a dual proc P4 3.0, 15000RPM scsi drives in a raid array, plenty of RAM(say 2 GHz) Windows Server 2003, and so on.</p> <p>i need to know that this is VERY LIKELY to solve my unbearable speed problems before i can go ahead however.</p> <p>what do you folks here think?</p> <p>oh, one last thing for now, is it not possible to run the nv2 software as a service? it seems, uh, not terribly right to have to log into a server, start a critical application, and remained logged in forever so that the accounting software will run. during a power outage, our current server boxes (ibm e-servers, one fileserver, one application server) detect the fact that they’re running on the ups, automatically shut down, then reboot when power is restored. our other critical client/server applications automatically restart at boot time, as is proper. no need to log in, and manually run an application.</p> <p>thanks in advance for any help,</p> <p>douglas van es</g></p> </div><!-- .bbp-reply-content --> </div><!-- .reply --> <div id=

    June 20, 2006 at 2:13 pm #13357
    DVanes
    Participant

    anyone?

    anyone?

    bueller?

    bueller?

    June 20, 2006 at 5:19 pm #13359
    DParfett
    Participant

    There are lots of things that you can do to speed up a machine. One of the bigest bottle necks is the interface between the hard disk and the cpu. Typically, the drivers that are installed are the microsoft ones. These are junk. There should be a CD that came with the server that has Intel drivers for the IDE connection. Next thing to do is to turn off the system restore. When this is on, microsoft keep backing files up before you can access them. Nice idea but a huge performance hit. Lastly, set the performance (Right click on “My Computer, select properties – advanced) to “adjust for best performance”.

    June 20, 2006 at 6:29 pm #13360
    DVanes
    Participant

    thanks for the reply DParfett.

    i read through the forums and investigated the ide driver issue the other day. all of our desktops are running clean installs of xp sp2 with intel ide controller card drivers.

    so, i’ve tested nv2 on our current application server. the deets:

    server:
    dual intel xeon 3GHZ processors
    4 GB RAM
    dual 10K RPM 72GB SCSI HDD’s in raid1 array
    windoze server 2003

    client desktops:
    intel p4 3GHZ proc
    1GB RAM
    unknown size/speed IDE HDD’s
    win XP SP2

    so…still incredibly, unusably, unbearably slow. when opening a 3 pane view of our accounts payable, the line item(?) amounts need to refresh. this can take between 30-45 seconds. each time you scroll to another account, you wait again. very often scrolling causes the application to hang for literally a minute, two at most. no good man.

    all of our other server side applications (SQL, dispatch software, etc) were shutdown or were idling with no clients connected. my next set of troubleshooting will include killing all but the most essential processes before testing. also i’ll run nv2 in single user mode on the server for analysis. am doing this tomorrow afternoon. anyhow, running perfmon on the server shows that it is bogging down under pagefile usage and disk queue times. this would seem to indicate that perhaps nv2 is sucking up all 4GB of ram and causing winderz to rely heavily on the virtual memory available in the form of the swap or pagefile, causing the heavy disk queue times.

    is the software really that huge a ram hog? or is it punishing those 10K RPM SCSI hdds so hard that the pagefile is responding slower than it would? if there is sufficent ram, win doesn’t access the pagefile, was what i thought…

    also, what about running a server-based application as a service, the way MOSt are run?

    thanks again for the reply. the sense of urgency or anger that may be conveyed in this post (or maybe in the somewhat ignorant ferris bueller post <g/>” title=”<g>” class=”bbcode_smiley” />) is a result of us already having gone live with this software, without warning being made to me or any testing done in advance. we need to sort it out fast.</p> <p>tia</p> <p>doug</g></p> </div><!-- .bbp-reply-content --> </div><!-- .reply --> <div id=

    October 4, 2006 at 2:04 pm #13419
    DRiitano
    Participant

    Hello

    I am the IT person at our orginization. We too see NV2 run slow to the point of unacceptable. I have NV2 Server on a 2003 server. However, NV2 is NOT a background application, but a foreground. It is my thinking that NV2 would run better on an XP PRo box rather then attempt to set the affinity of NV2 on a server at a higher priority (I tryed setting the NV2 to above normal and it took 100% of the processor). Since I have other Databases running in the background this is totally unacceptable.

    When I find a faster way I will post it (xp pro box hopefully), if there is a faster way

    Dave Riitano
    MCSE NT4, MCSE2k, MCSA03, A+

    October 5, 2006 at 11:21 am #13424
    MSchappler
    Moderator

    Dave,

    Click on Help > Manual from the NV2 books or the workstation table and click on the link How to Make NewViews run faster for more information.

    Regards,

    Martin

    November 1, 2006 at 5:14 pm #13466
    DVigliatore
    Participant

    Does the external drive need to be used only for the data on the server? Not the workstations?

    November 3, 2006 at 5:02 pm #13467
    JLeotta
    Participant

    The problem with external drives is that a lot of organizations do not want to have all their financial data simply hanging outside a machine on a portable drive. This is especially true for commercial entities. With all the fine work done on auditing and security in NV2 it seems counterproductive to recommend a huge security breach for confidential data.

    For NV2 to be widely accepted QW will have to provide a better solution and a better explanation of hardware requirements for both client and server. Without the source code everyone is left to their own peace meal way of trying to solve this problem. In my humble opinion this has all the signs of threading problems and not USB vs. SATA vs. SCSI. vs. ATM.

    One NV2 consultant I spoke with, who was very helpful, said they have solved the problem but he would not disclose how because they spent so much time and money finding the solution. He recommended buying one of his servers for approx. $7000 US. Unfortunately my client does not want to buy a machine except from a local source where they can receive prompt service. Another consultant said to run NV2 Server on a completely separate workstation and not use Windows Server software but rather Windows 2000. What does QW suggest?

    A few days ago I called QW support because NVEXPORT was hanging and I was told to set the properties of the NV1 shortcut to full screen, set the idle sensitivity to lowest, and place some object on the key during the export. This was a great solution since it cut my export time by 1/3 and removed the hanging problem. This needs to be included in the documentation for NVEXPORT so that others don’t have to waste so much time finding it for themselves and reduce the calls to QW support.

    Sharing solutions is in everyones interest. The more NV2 is adopted the more NV2 consultants will have opportunities to gain new clients and of course the more QW will make through sales. I would imagine that many consultants are quite gun shy about recommending NV2 to new multi-user clients until they have solved the performance problems.

    November 14, 2006 at 11:53 am #13471
    BHalpin
    Participant

    2 Items:

    – You can make the NV2 Server start automatically at boot by copying the NV2 Server icon from the Start menu to C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorStart MenuProgramsStartup.

    – Norton AV (and, perhaps ofther AV software) can hamper the server considerably. With Norton you must mess with the settings (I forget which ones, firewall I think) to consider NV2 a trusted application and the speed difference is immediately noticable.

    One last thing. JLeotta wrote:

    >A few days ago I called QW support because NVEXPORT was hanging and I was told
    > to set the properties of the NV1 shortcut to full screen, set the idle
    > sensitivity to lowest, and place some object on the key during the export.
    > This was a great solution since it cut my export time by 1/3 and removed the
    >hanging problem. This needs to be included in the documentation for NVEXPORT so
    >that others don’t have to waste so much time finding it for themselves and reduce
    >the calls to QW support.

    This is in the on-line manual. At: NewViews 2.08 Manual > Appendix C – NV1 Users > Converting NV2 to NV2 > Exporting NV1 Data > Exporting the NV1 Books you will see:

    To complete the export from NV1 in the shortest possible time, NewViews should be running in full screen mode. This is because Windows will give more CPU time to a DOS application running in full screen mode than if it was running in a window.

    The command to set a DOS window to full screen is (i.e. while holding down the key press the key.) The same command will restore the window back to its original size.

    Once the NVEXPORT procedure is running, and you have switched to full screen, place a small light object (like a stapler) on the key of the keyboard. By keeping the key pressed, Windows will give nearly 100% of the CPU resources to NewViews.

    Without the key depressed, the NVEXPORT procedure could run for days or even weeks.


    Bob

    November 14, 2006 at 9:52 pm #13472
    MSchappler
    Moderator

    The USB external drive concept introduced in the NewViews 2.08 Manual under How How to make NewViews run faster explains the difference between accessing the disk randomly vs. sequentially.

    If a machine comes installed with the Microsoft default hard disk drivers, accessing the disk will be adequate for opening word documents, spreadsheets, sound files and etc but the performanace will be very slow for a disk intensive application like NV2.

    Install the correct hard disk drivers from the manufacters web site and you should see better performanace without moving to a USB drive.

    Regards,

    Martin

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