Is it always this SLOOOOW?

[LeoL]

Just loaded EMC 9 on to an Athlon XP 3000+, 0.5gb ram, 2X70GB SATA drive computer. Whenever I start any EMC 9 component, it goes off and does nothing for quite some time and then eventually starts. I am talking 8 to 10 MINUTES. CPU is not being hit, available ram is generally > 150 MB. No significant I/O is taking place. I have reinstalled to see if it made any difference. It didn't. Have turned off virus protection but not the firewall (will only go so far with security). Still didn't make a difference. REmoved the services as described in the pinned posting. Still no improvement. No other programs act this way. What's up?

 

Leo

[LeoL]

OK, So I tried it again this AM before I go to work. Started p the system and let it settle down so no CPU time being used. Start up Roxio Creator 9 Home. The CPU sits idle for about 3 .5 minutes then, with Task Manager running and sorted by total CPU time, I see Roxio_Central33.exe bounce up the list a bit. Sit for 30 seconds and then take over the CPU for 2 minutes. After a total time of 2:10, I get the menu. Click on Create a DVD. Not much happens. Roxio_Central33.exe had grabbed a couple of seconds. VideoWave9.exe had come up but still shows 0 seconds used - Oh yea - it keeps telling me my video card drivers may be out of date - they are still Direct X 9 compatable - I just don't want ones that they posted last week. VideoWave9 just grabed 2 seconds of time and now is shoing the outline of its skin but can't do anything because it puts the hour glass up. Had to go away for a while. Came back MyDVD 9 is up. Close the slideshow screen. Hit add a new movie (Don't know if this is the right thing to do but who cares at this point.) MyDVD puts up the hour glass and goes away. CPU is idle right now. Its been 45 minutes since I started the computer and I still can't do useful work. Just after the last typing, the menu came up and I am now buring something on my "Learn what I am doing disk". Any relevant comments?

 

Thanks,

 

Leo

[LeoL]

One last thing (?). Took a shower. No burn done. Hit browse to save the iso file just to see what happened. It took a minute to bring up the save screen!

 

Thanks,

 

Leo

[sknis]

One last thing (?). Took a shower. No burn done. Hit browse to save the iso file just to see what happened. It took a minute to bring up the save screen!

Thanks,

Leo

 

Oh yea - it keeps telling me my video card drivers may be out of date - they are still Direct X 9 compatable - I just don't want ones that they posted last week

 

Why? You can alway update to the previous ones if you don't want the latest. Go to the web site of the manufacturer of your video card and download/install their latest "approved drivers". The program relies heavily on the video card for most every display; not only for just rendering.

 

Check your computer for malware with at least two different malware programs.

 

When you installed the program, did you do so on a defragged hard drive with your anti-virus turned off? It could be that the drive was defraggmented so part of the program are scattered around. Defrag frequently. If your anti-virus was on, it could have prevented some of the entries into the registry from being installed properly. Do a Windows Add remove programs repair.

 

Since you have used the pinned post about the computer running slow, I can only make guesses about what can help. Post back with your results.

[ggrussell]

512MB of RAM isn't much just for Windows XP. Also 140GB of hard drive space isn't much for video editing. How much FREE SPACE on your boot drive is very important. I just cleaned up my nephew's AMD 3000+. He only had 512MB RAM and there was only 2GB free space on his hard drive. Samething happened. Took forever to get anything to boot and he still has EMC 7.5! I had him buy another 512MB of memory and I went through an deleted about 60GB of trash he had on the hard drive. Everything runs much better.

[LeoL]

OK guys (and gals),

 

Any other suggestions. I have bumped memory up to 1.5 gigs. Done everything else and EMC9 still sits there for about 3.5 minutes doing nothing (I am watching the Windows task manager) while the CPU sits idle. Then it starts up and consumes between 1:00 and 1:10 of cpu time (reminder: AMD Athlon 3400+) at which time the menu shows up. During this time, it is consuming 90-100% cpu time. Page faults are very low so the memory is working. I contacted online support and got back the standard get rid of spyware, etc. Responded back two days ago and haven't heard from them.

 

Leo

[ggrussell]

Sounds like the watched folders feature which most people don't use. This feature goes through your ENTIRE system creating a database of ALL your media like video and music. 'Supposedly' to make it easier to access. Once it does this the first time, it shouldn't take so much CPU, but users still seem to complain about it.

 

To turn it off:

Launch Media Manager. Under one of the menus, you can turn off 'Watched Folders'. Personally, I don't use any of the Media Manager features and have it uninstalled.

 

You can also turn off watched folder by editing the boot up services lists.

[LeoL]

Gary,

 

Thanks for the suggestions but as I said in my first post, I have the services turned off. Actually, I have reinstalled it a couple of times and left it off of the install. I couldn't be the services anyway since the CPU is sitting there idle. EMC 9 is waiting for some trigger. Does it go out to Roxio.com for some license stuff? Does it look at all of the disks to see if they are there since I am on a home network and the other CPU is usually off (it didn't make a difference when it was one anyway)? You said before that yours is up and running in 10 seconds or so. Mine takes 1:00 of CPU time after it sits for 3 minutes. So I am on a different planet.

 

Another question: How does one get the online support group to answer. Sent them this problem. Got back the boilerplate stuff that I had already done. I responded back and three days later, no answer, no acknowledgement, nothing. I am not going to pay $35 a pop to talk to someone about an $80 program.

 

Thanks again,

 

Leo

[LeoL]

Gary and Steve,

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I have 50+gb of free space on the primary boot partition and, being a efficiency freak, I defrag at least once a week. The disk is also not being hit hard while I wait. Watching the Task Manager, I have free ram available through the whole process (at least 150 mb) and I see no paging going on. I check for malware routinely and don't have kids that use the computer to screw it up. So unless the malware came along with the software, I should be clean. I will check it again when I get home tonight for malware though (2AM was just too late last night). As I implied, I keep this computer pretty clean of stuff - I do software development on it - so 512MB of ram should be enough - the box says so - and not other program even approaches this slowness. In fact, I wish my other computers were as fast as this one.

 

Any other ideas?

 

Thanks,

 

Leo

 

PS. how long does EMC 9 take to start up on your computer?

[ggrussell]

MyDVD 9 is running and usable within 10 seconds on my machine. I also have 2GB of RAM which allows most of the OS to be in memory without any paging.

[LeoL]

sknis,

 

Thanks for your help (getting more from you than Roxio). I shut everything down - DSL connection, firewall, virus - and started up the indivdidual programs - videowave, mydvd, mediacapture - and they all took several minutes to start up - videowave never did seem to start up. I was watching the task manager and didn't see much of any activity going on including any type of I/O - read, write and other. CPU was idle and the specific program wasn't page faulting, I/O ing or anything else.

 

Thanks again,

 

Leo

[sknis]

Gary,

 

Thanks for the suggestions but as I said in my first post, I have the services turned off. Actually, I have reinstalled it a couple of times and left it off of the install. I couldn't be the services anyway since the CPU is sitting there idle. EMC 9 is waiting for some trigger. Does it go out to Roxio.com for some license stuff? Does it look at all of the disks to see if they are there since I am on a home network and the other CPU is usually off (it didn't make a difference when it was one anyway)? You said before that yours is up and running in 10 seconds or so. Mine takes 1:00 of CPU time after it sits for 3 minutes. So I am on a different planet.

 

Another question: How does one get the online support group to answer. Sent them this problem. Got back the boilerplate stuff that I had already done. I responded back and three days later, no answer, no acknowledgement, nothing. I am not going to pay $35 a pop to talk to someone about an $80 program.

 

Thanks again,

 

Leo

Even though I have those services turned off, and nothing shows in CPU usage I still hear one of my USB connected hard drives being accessed. Any case that is happening?

Try opening the desired program using the Windows Start Programs path. Some people have trouble with the Roxio Home page. Opening that way will also make sure that only the required application are opening and not a lot of extras.