A *particular* app running slowly?

[Guest Peter]

The new WinXP SP3 PC is running fast, except (it turns out after a lot

of tests) basically just one app: the Agent news/email program, which

suffers massive disk activity anytime I do anything which accesses its

database.

 

AV software (Kaspersky) is disabled, and anyway the Agent database is

excluded.

 

Agent (Forte) don't know what this could be.

 

Could Windows somehow managed to set itself to a low process priority

for Agent?

 

The PC is a 3HGz dual-core P4, 2GHz, 300HB HD (2x SATA mirror raid).

[Guest Bob I]

Re: A *particular* app running slowly?

 

The key phrase here is "massive disk activity". When was the last time

file maintenance was done on the folder structure? Trash emptied and

folders Compacted? It may also be a disk problem where the database file

is residing, so perhaps run chkdsk. You may want to consider defrag if

it's been a while and Agent is a high use application.

 

Peter wrote:

> The new WinXP SP3 PC is running fast, except (it turns out after a lot

> of tests) basically just one app: the Agent news/email program, which

> suffers massive disk activity anytime I do anything which accesses its

> database.

>

> AV software (Kaspersky) is disabled, and anyway the Agent database is

> excluded.

>

> Agent (Forte) don't know what this could be.

>

> Could Windows somehow managed to set itself to a low process priority

> for Agent?

>

> The PC is a 3HGz dual-core P4, 2GHz, 300HB HD (2x SATA mirror raid).

[Guest Peter]

Re: A *particular* app running slowly?

 

 

Bob I <birelan@yahoo.com> wrote:

>The key phrase here is "massive disk activity". When was the last time

>file maintenance was done on the folder structure? Trash emptied and

>folders Compacted? It may also be a disk problem where the database file

>is residing, so perhaps run chkdsk. You may want to consider defrag if

>it's been a while and Agent is a high use application.

 

It's nothing as simple as this.

 

This is a newly built PC.

 

The email program uses a simple single directory database structure,

containing about 100 files.

 

On any other PC it runs at lightning speed. On this one only, it is as

if it had to apply to windows for some kind of permission to

delete/rewrite (no delays on reading only) each file.

 

Is there some investigation I could do to narrow this down?

 

I have Agent running on another XP machine and on that it seems OK.

x----------x

[Guest Bob I]

Re: A *particular* app running slowly?

 

 

 

Peter wrote:

> Bob I <birelan@yahoo.com> wrote:

>

>

>>The key phrase here is "massive disk activity". When was the last time

>>file maintenance was done on the folder structure? Trash emptied and

>>folders Compacted? It may also be a disk problem where the database file

>>is residing, so perhaps run chkdsk. You may want to consider defrag if

>>it's been a while and Agent is a high use application.

>

>

> It's nothing as simple as this.

>

> This is a newly built PC.

>

> The email program uses a simple single directory database structure,

> containing about 100 files.

>

> On any other PC it runs at lightning speed. On this one only, it is as

> if it had to apply to windows for some kind of permission to

> delete/rewrite (no delays on reading only) each file.

>

> Is there some investigation I could do to narrow this down?

>

> I have Agent running on another XP machine and on that it seems OK.

> x----------x

 

Don't use "Agent" so no idea what settings you could look at inside it.

I was referring to the contents of the database when I said folder

cleanup. Newly built PC, but how did the Agent database get there?

[Guest Tim Slattery]

Re: A *particular* app running slowly?

 

Bob I <birelan@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Don't use "Agent" so no idea what settings you could look at inside it.

>I was referring to the contents of the database when I said folder

>cleanup. Newly built PC, but how did the Agent database get there?

 

Agent is a newsreader/email client (http://www.forteinc.com/agent). As OP

says, it creates a number of files in a single directory to store

messages it's retrieved from newsgroups, as well as a master list of

groups, kill file, etc. etc. I've run Agent on XP for a long time now,

with no problems whatever.

 

OP says that something is slowing down write (not read) access to

these files. I don't know what would do that, either in Agent or in

XP.

 

--

Tim Slattery

MS MVP(Shell/User)

Slattery_T@bls.gov

http://members.cox.net/slatteryt

[Guest Bob I]

Re: A *particular* app running slowly?

 

 

 

Tim Slattery wrote:

> Bob I <birelan@yahoo.com> wrote:

>

>

>>Don't use "Agent" so no idea what settings you could look at inside it.

>>I was referring to the contents of the database when I said folder

>>cleanup. Newly built PC, but how did the Agent database get there?

>

>

> Agent is a newsreader/email client (http://www.forteinc.com/agent). As OP

> says, it creates a number of files in a single directory to store

> messages it's retrieved from newsgroups, as well as a master list of

> groups, kill file, etc. etc. I've run Agent on XP for a long time now,

> with no problems whatever.

>

> OP says that something is slowing down write (not read) access to

> these files. I don't know what would do that, either in Agent or in

> XP.

>

 

FWIW Writing would cause the database file to get larger. As to the

thrashing, perhaps PIO mode is being used as opposed to DMA.

[Guest Peter]

Re: A *particular* app running slowly?

 

 

Bob I <birelan@yahoo.com> wrote

>FWIW Writing would cause the database file to get larger. As to the

>thrashing, perhaps PIO mode is being used as opposed to DMA.

 

The Properties for the SATA controller say that DMA modes are enabled,

and other applications are not showing a slowdown. For example I can

copy over a 600MB file from C: to D: (both on the same SATA-300

7200rpm drive; actually a mirror raid system comprising of 2 physical

300GB drives) in 50 secs, which is completely reasonable.

 

The 'database' is also not really a database; it is just a load of

files, each one containing the messages for each folder in Agent. And

I am not a big Usenet user so don't have millions of messages. This

data was moved to this PC from a previous Win2000 PC, using simple

copy. Agent itself was of course reinstalled fresh.

 

I did move the database to another partition but it runs the same way:

very slow write operations.

 

I will next try creating a tiny FAT32 partition (I think there is an

unused 1GB at the end of the hard drive) and see if that helps.

[Guest Bob I]

Re: A *particular* app running slowly?

 

 

 

Peter wrote:

> Bob I <birelan@yahoo.com> wrote

>

>

>>FWIW Writing would cause the database file to get larger. As to the

>>thrashing, perhaps PIO mode is being used as opposed to DMA.

>

>

> The Properties for the SATA controller say that DMA modes are enabled,

> and other applications are not showing a slowdown. For example I can

> copy over a 600MB file from C: to D: (both on the same SATA-300

> 7200rpm drive; actually a mirror raid system comprising of 2 physical

> 300GB drives) in 50 secs, which is completely reasonable.

>

> The 'database' is also not really a database; it is just a load of

> files, each one containing the messages for each folder in Agent. And

> I am not a big Usenet user so don't have millions of messages. This

> data was moved to this PC from a previous Win2000 PC, using simple

> copy. Agent itself was of course reinstalled fresh.

>

> I did move the database to another partition but it runs the same way:

> very slow write operations.

>

> I will next try creating a tiny FAT32 partition (I think there is an

> unused 1GB at the end of the hard drive) and see if that helps.

 

Certainly sounds like the hardware and file system are not the cause of

the issue. Any kind of ongoing virus scan or indexing set to check or

scan the database files?

[Guest Peter]

Re: A *particular* app running slowly?

 

 

Bob I <birelan@yahoo.com> wrote

>Certainly sounds like the hardware and file system are not the cause of

>the issue. Any kind of ongoing virus scan or indexing set to check or

>scan the database files?

 

None I can see. I have disabled AV (Kaspersky) and anyway it is

excluded from checking this directory. Indexing... I have turned off

the windows indexing service for the entire drive c: too.

 

I am wondering if the Agent application is running with a very low

time slice. Is that possible? I have done tons of embedded programming

and even wrote a real time O/S (on a Z80). Win2000 used to have a

priority setting for each task but a) it never seemed to work and b)

XP doesn't seem to have it (in PerfMon).

[Guest Bob I]

Re: A *particular* app running slowly?

 

 

 

Peter wrote:

> Bob I <birelan@yahoo.com> wrote

>

>

>>Certainly sounds like the hardware and file system are not the cause of

>>the issue. Any kind of ongoing virus scan or indexing set to check or

>>scan the database files?

>

>

> None I can see. I have disabled AV (Kaspersky) and anyway it is

> excluded from checking this directory. Indexing... I have turned off

> the windows indexing service for the entire drive c: too.

>

> I am wondering if the Agent application is running with a very low

> time slice. Is that possible? I have done tons of embedded programming

> and even wrote a real time O/S (on a Z80). Win2000 used to have a

> priority setting for each task but a) it never seemed to work and b)

> XP doesn't seem to have it (in PerfMon).

 

open Task manager, then the processes tab, r-click on the "Agent" entry,

"Set Priority" is there.