PRoblem
Running extremely slowly
not enough memory for MacNail construction management software
disk thrashing
takes forever to do anything-- Mac or Windows
Diagnosis
Takes many seconds or even minutes to do things
if it only happens after running lengthy operations-- MEMORY FRAGMENTED
if all the time-- probably SHORT OF RAM and therefore disk thrashing (see comments)
Solution
MEMORY FRAGMENTED-- quit from Excel and restart computer. That will clear up any fragmentation
and speed things up enormously
SHORT OF RAM, MAC-- give XL more memory (see item 134)
SHORT OF RAM, WINDOWS-- Add more RAM. 4 megabytes is too small with Win 3.1/XL 4 or 5. 8
megs of RAM is plenty, 16 is generous. May be able to free up RAM by removing TSR's, reduce size of swap
file, etc.
Comments
Disk thrashing is when the program runs low on RAM memory and starts using the hard
disk as if it were RAM. Because hard disk access is 100's times slower than RAM access, it slows things
down drastically.
Hint: A sure sign of disk thrashing-- hard disk makes a constant quiet 'chugchugchugchug'
sound.
Entered 2/14/95 by Dennis.
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