Home Forums Discussions Problems AC slows to crawl as amazingcharts.service.winservice.e xe grows

The other thought would be to Google memory leaks and see if there are ways to troubleshoot that. Likely focusing too much on AC and not elsewhere. It just seems like your memory is being used much too fast and is affecting the entire computer, but you are recognizing it due to the use of AC. SQL won't take more than a GB.

7.2k RPM SATA drives in RAID 5E. Usually, it's better to just go with a RAID 10 especially since you're hosting multiple operating systems and a database. RAID 5 doesn't make much sense anymore especially with larger data arrays.

I have to imagine your IOPS are saturated with that layout. Why do you have 3 VM's by the way?

windows 7 professional. I do not use a server. AC database is on a separate " Main" computer (with the same amount of RAM) that uses Windows 7 ultimate. Its resource monitor looks similar to the above.

Is it reasonable to assume that installing extra RAM could possibly remedy AC's freezing? I know others on recent threads have noted that their woes persist even with adequate RAM stores, but if this resource monitor is correct, both this computer as well as the "Main" computer are running on fumes..

I ran an HP server with SBS 2003 with multiple databases with 4GB of RAM, which as you know, means it can only use 2.7GB. I ran AC at perfect speed for weeks. Adding RAM will not help. I have forgotten who has what, but 8GB of RAM would be all you would need.

Looking at your task manager, it appears that you are using up RAM way too quickly. I think everyone here is focusing on AC because that is the program that points right back at WIN 7. Here is what I would do. In fact, I just did it since I had the inability to make email accounts.

I would assume that this is a Windows system problem. There are multiple reasons you could be having memory leaks which neither are due to SQL or AC. I would call Microsoft Support, pay them $258 and let them fix it. They don't charge you if they don't fix it. And, if there is a problem with the computer or OS, they WILL find it. You need to see patients and not troubleshoot AC. Besides, there is nothing more fun than watching them do their thing on your computer screen.

SATA is fine as long as you use one of those enterprise SATA drives like the WD RE4. Do not use something like a WD Black Drive as it doesn't have things like TLER which is a necessity for RAID controllers. The difference between SAS and SATA is diminishing. I use enterprise SATA drives all the time.

I still use SAS. Shouldn't say never, though.

@LuisP I looked through the thread. How much RAM do you have? And, also, how you put the RAM in is important, and do you have the correct RAM.

The computer has 4GB. I just purchased a Kingston HyperX Blu Desktop RAM, 4GB DDR3, 1333MHz. It would bring me up to a total of 8GB. Any suggestions as to whether this is a good type of RAM, or whether I should return it for something else, is appreciated. I was going to open up my PC at the end of the day and stick it in a slot (or at least they make it sound that simple on the package)

Adding RAM is rather simple. I would check your documents as with four slots, you may need to do 1 and 3 and 2 and 4 or 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. All of them have calculators which allow you to enter the data to get the right RAM. For me, in a regular computer, RAM is RAM. This is probably overkill, but you can download Memtest + or Memtest 86+, burn it to CD and test the RAM. You just have to have it seated all the way down.

If you were only using 4GB, that is likely your problem. My guess is you are using a 32-bit computer meaning you were getting 2.7GB of RAM. SQL will then take 1GB (as it should), and you are down to 1.7GB of RAM. The computer takes the rest. Once you get down to below 500MB or so, the ENTIRE computer becomes slow. Again, you focus on AC and it's the computer. Add the extra 4GB and you will likely be fixed.

Thanks Bert (et al.)... I appreciate everyone's help; I will certainly try it. I probably would have been better off majoring in computer science rather than biochemistry

This discussion is way above my pay grade. However, I will say this: for some time we have noticed regular gradual slowing over the course of several days. The solution had been to do a routine restart of the server every Monday morning. I cannot speak to the technical details, but will say this seems to resolve the issue.

Sandeep, I've been running WD Blacks in a RAID 10 on my server for almost 3 years, what's wrong with them? Other than I have had one fail per year (which I just RMA and replace) they seem to be fine. What do you recommend I move up to?

The WD Black drives don't have TLER. TLER basically tells the RAID controller that the drive has an error in <7 seconds usually and then that error is corrected. Now the WD Blacks which don't have TLER can take up to two minutes to respond after finding an error. This long response time makes the controller think the drive has failed even though it's a recoverable error. It's probably why you see one fail per year. Drives don't (normally) fail that often. It's also dangerous since you could lose the whole array.

The Western Digital RE4 line is better. They are SATA drives with the enterprise features like TLER. They have SAS versions as well.

David is correct generally if you are using 4GB or less. Now I may be wrong, and he may have 8GB (I would like to know). If one is running 4GB, then rebooting the server and releasing all RAM from SQL, etc., it will fix the problem.

We have 16 GB of memory on Windows server 2008.
Now, also, before anyone goes off the deep end on this post, let me assure you that there is no science or engineering behind this. I just have staff come in saying "everything is slowing to a crawl", I notice the same, restart the server a la Dilbert, and things seem to pick up again. If I do it preemptively, I have fewer episodes when i am trying to deal with it in the middle of the day when getting everyone to stop using it is more of a problem. It may all be voodoo, and humans often see patterns where none exists. Still, I think it helps.

Perception is everything.

Unless you're in one of those miserable places with too many people where self-perception is everything.

I agree with David. The greatest and last power we have over computers is to turn them off and restart them, and that's the first and best troubleshooting task. I always ask my staff if they already rebooted their computer, so that it has already been done before they involve me. Now, I'm trying to teach them to do a hard reboot first.

Sounds like a good idea. I am just wondering how doing a hard reboot would be more effective than a restart? And, if your staff is going to do a restart any way, why not shut it down with the computer, then turn it on in the morning, saving electricity and getting the effect of the reboot as well?

Not being critical. Just curious.

Hi Bert,

We turn off all clients after work, except for a few for remote access or receiving communications. We have 25 clients and mornings are usually hectic here as it is, but that's when I get the occasional "my ******* isn't working". I used to impress the staff with the magic of rebooting their client or logging out and back into the network, but they are fortunately smart enough to learn that trick.

My problem now is that I don't have other tricks.

I have the other problem of making it easier by letting them do it or not teaching them so I can remain in control.

OK, so I went ahead and bit the bullet and installed 8G ram additional, so my specs are as follows:
Windows 7 Professional, 32-bit
12 G total RAM installed 4 original + 8 new (all 4 slots now filled)

The computer is recognizing the RAM and tells me 12 G installed, but unfortunately it says 9g being used as "Hardware Reserved" on the resource monitor. I googled this, and I updated my bios, I made sure that the maximum memory box was unchecked on msconfig, as several online threads suggested, but does not seem to change..... I'm afraid that I will not get any added performance, since I'm still stuck using only about 3G of "usable memory"....

Any thoughts on this? Is it possible that my computer might simply re-allocate this memory if it needs it for applications and processes??

Thanks

I believe your issue is that you are running a 32 bit OS and it can only recognize 4gb. Here is an explanation I found:

32-bit Windows has an address space of 4GB. Part of that is used by system BIOSes and graphics memory.
With a 256MB graphics card about 3.3-3.5GB of RAM can be addressed and used, assuming you have 4GB fitted.
If you fit a graphics card with 1GB of memory only about 2.6-2.8GB of the RAM would be addressable and usable.

So is it safe to assume that I wasted my money... i.e., the memory I installed is of no use for AC, dragon, and the other apps that I am (ever so slowly) running?

Yes, anything over 4GB of RAM is wasted except you may be able to use it in a 64-bit OS. Not all computers can handle 64-bit OS.

Again: 4GB lose at least a GB, down to 3GB, use 1GB of RAM in SQL and you are down below 2GB. That has to run all the services, programs, etc. It isn't long before you are running less than a GB of RAM, which really isn't enough to run a computer adequately. Hence, people reboot, spilling all the RAM back to the computer, and they are back up to 1.8GBs or so. But, that comes as a huge price as you lose all your pages (queries)which were stored in SQL). Not good.

Now with a 64-bit OS, you can handle 16.8 million terabytes of RAM, but that is like driving a Ferrari on a 35 mile back road.

Check your page file and see if it is set to 6GBs. That may be of some benefit.

http://www.designertechsoftware.com/products/microsoft-windows-7-professional-64bit-download

Purchase a 64-bit version of WIN 7 Pro (this is non-OEM so it is legal). This one runs around $90.00, but the $70.00 versions tend to be OEM. You could get away with it, but it wouldn't be legal. If your computer is compatible with a 64-bit OS, you could then use the RAM you purchased and a ton more. I would say 12GB or more.

This is an .iso download. It is very simple. You download the OS and burn it to a DVD. There are like 100 or more free .iso burners. Your Microsoft Activation Code comes with it. I didn't look but some of the ones that come as an .iso download, also ship with an actual DVD for a few dollars extra.

If you need help making the DVD, I would be more than happy to remote in and help you with it.

Would I need to do a full backup and reinstall of all my programs and documents (Word, AC, Dragon, etc.)? Or would there be a way that these could be kept as is....?

You would completely redo the computer with a clean install. You would then add all of your programs again. This is something that many of us have done many, many times. I suppose (I don't know) you could update by installing over the other OS, but I would have to look at that to see if you could do that.

Either way, you are MUCH better off starting clean. You would not do a backup of the computer as you will be installing WIN 7 Pro fresh. Many people reformat and install the same OS over just to have a clean running computer as after a while you get registry errors and corrupt files, etc.

It is always a good idea to write down a plan of how you want to reinstall. Again, not using this computer to work on makes it easier. You just install WIN 7 Pro 64-bit and install AC and you are good to go.

I'm just now starting to play around w/ AC and learn things. I was shocked when I went to log in the other day and it told me my memory was used up. We had an IT tech look at things and he found that nightly back up was being saved to the computer and it was taking up the entire memory. Is your computer maybe doing this? Ours will fill up from the nightly back up with in a few weeks. We took it off and now do manual back up and will have to deal with the memory issue once I start the practice in AC on a full time basis. The IT Tech deleted all the previous back ups that were saved on the hard drive and it freed everything up and things move more quickly now as well. Is this maybe what your system is doing?

I don't think you can go from 32 bit to 64 bit with an inplace upgrade. The upgrade usually involves a reformat anyways.

It sure does take forever to get all the Windows Updates, Programs, Drivers, etc. It would be a good idea to pre-download or keep the necessary devices and programs on standby.

Are you talking about RAM or disk space? There are scripts on here for deleting backups and you can easily download Auto-Delete. Then you never have to worry about it again.

OK, so I downloaded the Windows 7 iso file, went through the hassle of burning disk, etc, and it didn't work; so I ended up upgrading to windows 8.1 64 bit this morning, got everything reinstalled and up and running; it recognized my memory fine, and now I have a least 6 GB of unused RAM. However, once again to my horror, I was just writing a script, and it gave me the dreaded "Unhandled Exception has occurred.... System.OutofMemory"... From that point forward, interaction checking doesn't work, and then if I try to view an imported item, it gives me the "There is a Problem with Adobe Reader" error, and I can no longer view imported items, print items, and eventually it will freeze. Basically $300 down the toilet and a whole day wasted. There is clearly some sort of CUMULATIVE problem with AC (outlined by others here on the userboard) that invokes a freezing up of the critical processes involved with the program, presumably on the basis of some sort of real or perceived memory consumption.....

It leads me to believe that the only solution for me is to constantly open and close AC and reboot computer on a twice a day basis forever, or switch to AC in the cloud, or change to a better EMR

Time to get support back on the horn

My condolences.
It is only a small part of the problem, but download Foxit and use that instead of Adobe. As Sandeep and others point out, it usually solves problems with ported items.

Luis, please don't get angry with me. First, Jon is probably right. Second, I have downloaded at least 25 to 30 OS and burned them, and they have all worked except one. In that instance, I called the vendor, and of course, they let me download it again. There are tons of free .iso burners. But, if you like 8.1. $300 didn't go down the tube. You updated your computer tremendously, and it will handle anything better even a bad AC. But, I wouldn't jump to AC just yet

Not to continue with my story, but I am trying to give you a reference. I have never had an issue with AC that wasn't a known bug.

So, hang in there and make sure you buy Start8 or Start on 8 or whetever it is called.

Good luck. OK, you can yell at me.

By no means am I angry with you, Bert.... Just frustrated with AC
In retrospect, I ran into issues installing the OS (hard disk partitions not MBR vs GBT, necessitating cleaning of the disk and creating new partitions), which I may not have done correctly.... After I got the ISO -OS to install, when it rebooted, it gave me a "No bootable partition" message. However I had a flash drive plugged in at that time, so maybe the darn thing would've worked if I knew what I was doing.....
I will continue to seek the holy grail of why AC thinks it's out of memory after a certain amount of use, when there is more than enough free memory available.
BTW, what's "Starter 8"??

I think he means Classic Shell. Maybe there are others, but it makes Windows 8 look like XP Pro by adding a start button and other nostalgic features.

http://www.classicshell.net/

or Start8
http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

www.amazingcharts.com/ub/ubbthreads.php/topics/59960#Post59925


Once again, Jon repeats what I say. Must be it was shorter again.

Start8 essentially turns the non-desktop into a real desktop with a log more features than even the old Start menu. When Windows 8, first came out, the biggest outcry about it was the lack of a start button. To have to drag your mouse to a corner of the window to get buttons allowing you to get to the charms is nuts. There is a rudimentary start button, but it is very difficult to even get your mouse pointer on. There are several substitutes for the Start button. Once you install it, you won't be able to live without it.

If you are using SSDs, the new BIOS replacement UEFI is basically the best to use. There is a place during install where you can choose UEFI rather than MBR of GPT.

Back to the RAID SAS vs SATA debate, what controller card do you guys like for the SAS b/c most Motherboards don't have SAS ports built in correct?

I like Areca cards.

But SATA Drives are fine. WD RE4 SAS drives are only slightly more if you want those. But they are basically the same design with the exception of the interface. I'll be adding a blog post that tells you which RAID levels need SAS drives.