Home Forums Need more speed?

I need some help. I am new to this forum and have been using amazing charts for about 9 months. I am a solo practice neurologist with 2 staff members. My only issue has been speed of the system. My staff and I continually have to navigate freezing, slow window opening, retstarting our computers and the main computer. I am not the most tech savvy person, but have an IT support gentleman that helps me with that stuff. My office is wireless for 2 of the workstations (laptops) that my medical assistant and I use. Below is my office configuration:

"Main computer": HP pentium dual core 1.60 GHz 6GB RAM Win XP (not used as a workstation)

Workstation 1: Desktop Pentium dual core 1.6GHz 4 GB RAM Win XP

Workstations 2 and 3: Laptop Core i3 2.27GHz 2 GB RAM Win7 Pro

Any advice to help with speed is appreciated. We have been looking into getting a server, but I want to make sure the expense will solve the problem. I want to upgrade to V6 soon, but am concerned it will be so slow we would not be able to function. Thanks in advance!

On your main computer. That 6 GB is going to waste unless you have Windows XP 64 bit which most people avoid because it had so many problems. You are likely only using 2-3GB on that computer.

The #1 thing I can suggest to you is to avoid wireless. Use wired, I know it's advertised as 54 mbps or 300 mbps, but it doesn't even get close to that. Just test that out, plug your laptop into the router and see if it speeds up.

Sandeep is completely correct. This is why you want to go to 64-bit.

I also agree with Sandeep, but I would be a little concerned about those Pentium's when you go to V6.

Wireless is probably your bottleneck. We have heard lots of problems here from people trying to use it, but maybe we are getting a biased sample. Let me ask this: is anyone out there happily using a wireless set-up without any speed issues?

Um...happily...Seems like an oxymoron. Well, our setup is handling our traffic very adequately, at least with regards to this issue. We're still running V5.029 on a Xenon raid server, I put a wireless 802.11n access port on the existing 10/100 Ethernet, and at any given time we'll have 4 (3 are n, 1 is g) wireless devices logged on to AC, 3 actively working, 5 hardwired units and an all-in-one printer. While our system works for us today, I plan to upgrade our networking equipment to 10/100/1000 and replace much of the old cat 5 cabling for higher capacity in the upcoming months. Our throughput on the wireless affirms what Sluthra said above, it's not running at 300 but is fluctuating between 104 and 130 mbps through a few walls built in the 1950's. I'd say this network is much like public elementary education here on the left coast, teaching to the lowest common denominator brings down education for all; when the 802.11g is online the whole wireless network seems to suffer.

I agree with sluthra,
Temporarily plug in your laptop into the wired router and see if things improve.

If you must use wireless, consider running this free program on the wireless laptop
http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/
In you work in a busy complex, there may be competing routers on same channel. You might could have your IT guy change the channel settings on your router.

Also, from the wireless laptop, run "Amazing Utilities", choose advanced options and click "test speed to from database" Ideally that should be 1 second or less.

Many times wired connection not practical. Wirless has its limitation when you compare to wire but it is mobile.
Our clinic has a mixed of both wire and wireless. At the time, we did not anticipate number of jacks needed, like one room we put in only 2 jacks but then 4 computers. Our doc uses tablets, jacks in the exam rooms but we don't want to put computers there.
I think your client configs are even better than your main computer. Even for version 6, we've been using 6 for more than 2 mos now, both desktop and tablets, wireless are still ok except ePrescribing.

You might want to try wire with your laptop to see any improvement per Sandeep advice, but look at wireless signal strength indicator on your laptop. If they are all excellent, all bars, then you should be ok, if they are not try to get a wireless extender or booster with high gain antenna.
Next thing to do is buy a new main computer i5, or i7 , your main of dual 1.6 gig is obsolete. Even all my clients has been upgraded to a minimum core 2 duo, or AMD phenom II x 2/3/4.

I just remembered one more thing, try to deactivate your virus protection to see if speed improves, some virus protection software are better than others but all of them do slow down data input.

Hi all,

I'll vote "No major problems with wireless" BUT "Whatever problems are there are worse on wireless".

Per many posts over last few weeks, Rxing with v6 has been a major problem, solved by Win7Pro or Video cards or turning hardware acceleration off.

Now using 1 new i5 laptop, and several old Dell Latitude D510 P4 1.6 gig Win XPPro laptops, all is relatively well. Wireless (Linksys WRT300N router) not as fast as hard wired, but certainly acceptable.

BUT when there is a network slowdown, it is worse on laptops. And the v6 rx problems were MUCH worse on laptops, nor sure if this was more related to processor speed (or lack thereof).

WVUDOC, in anticipation of v6, we upgraded main computer from P4 single core XPPro to an i7 Win7Pro PC (not a server yet, sorry Bert) and noticed a significant increase in speed, and reduction in freezes and crashes. My guess is that your best improvement would be to upgrade your main computer. PC or server? Per many other threads, server is better but PC will work. Many past threads address this, may want to search for these.

Good luck! Gene

Thanks for all the great input. I am going to connect my laptop into the router and see how it goes. Obviously I do need some hardware upgrades, which I am planning....just want to know what everybody uses so that the expense will be worth it. Will post what I learn

Don't forget the program runs on the clients.

If your motherboard can handle it, and if older at all, they probably can't, but 120GB to 240GB SSD III with SATA III connections is the way to go. Once in RAM doesn't matter, but it loads extremely fast not to mention reboots in about 10 seconds.

If you are using WIN 7 Pro anyway (for everyone) and you run an i5 or i7, use as SSD and get a good video card (not for Rx writer) but for WEI score, your computer will smoke. You have to have a decent. Even some of the onboard graphics such as the Intel HD graphics are extremely good. Add 8GB of RAM for $79.00, and you're all set. Of course, it can get a little pricey.

I upgraded to 1.6 dual core pros to get V6 working well, they are adequate (not great but adequate.) If there are problems I would think wireless or wireless settings. I agree that g computers will slow down an n network and that may make a difference.

I disagree with Bert from above, I would not put an SSD to anything but the laptops, but agree it likely would not work. Cost benefit ratio is not there. Absolutely more ram would be good

I can't imagine ever using a regular platter type hard drive again. Maybe in a server, but even that is changing soon.

$200 may be a little pricey for 120GB but the MTTF is almost infinite. The chance of its crashing is far less. They make NO noise. And, they are far faster.

The problem with SSDs is the write degradation with time. Sure it won't fail, but it'll definitely get slower in the next 3-5 years. Longevity tests haven't really been conducted on SSDs as much as HDDs. Then again, they are just super fast. 120GB would be perfect for SBS. Then use a RAID 1 for the data. That way your server boots fast and there's not many writes going on since it's just the OS. RAID 1 some 1TB drives or something. I currently have RAID 10 with 4 partitions because I wasn't comfortable with the whole SSD thing.

I wouldn't put it on a server yet, but you can't beat them on a client. Not sure I am a believe of the write degradation thing. Rather that than a HDD crash.