Linked table speed

[Guest]

I have a front end/back end database built for a client in Access 2000. I've
done FE/BE apps many times before and it's usually fast & reliable. But this
time, one particular user's machine is really not liking the linked tables.

When she hits on data from the linked tables, it bogs things down to the
point that she kills Access through task manager. When we do the same
operations on other machines, it all goes nicely.. No hangups or anything..
Even with her same login account..

I'm not sure of her machine's particular specs, but she's not running on a
486 or anything, it's a recent box.

Any reccomendations? Is there something that I can tweak on one particular
machine to make linked tables work better? Also.. I'll be putting up another
post related to this job that I'm working on.. I'm pretty experienced in
Access, but I wouldn't mind some suggestions on one thing in particular that
I'm doing..

 

[Nikos Yannacopoulos]

Anything that is newer than a 486 is not necessarily recent, the first
generation of Pentium is well over ten years old (or maybe even
fifteen?). I would say that anything less than a 1.6 GHz P4 or recent
Celeron is most likely insufficient for a medium weight Access app, so
I'd start by checking this before I did anything else.

Next, have you ruled out network connection / network adaptor issues? If
not, try connecting the particular machine to another network socket
(where another machine works fine), preferably with a different cable,
If the problem is solved it's the network, if not it's the box. I the
latter case, check the network connection's settings, then try replacing
the network adapter before you reinstall Windows and Office.

I won't ask if you have taken any measures toward increasing split app
performance, if you're an experienced developer and it works fine on
other workstations then you must have already done that.

HTH,
Nikos

 

[Guest]

Anything that is newer than a 486 is not necessarily recent, the first
generation of Pentium is well over ten years old (or maybe even
fifteen?). I would say that anything less than a 1.6 GHz P4 or recent
Celeron is most likely insufficient for a medium weight Access app, so
I'd start by checking this before I did anything else.

Next, have you ruled out network connection / network adaptor issues? If
not, try connecting the particular machine to another network socket
(where another machine works fine), preferably with a different cable,
If the problem is solved it's the network, if not it's the box. I the
latter case, check the network connection's settings, then try replacing
the network adapter before you reinstall Windows and Office.

I won't ask if you have taken any measures toward increasing split app
performance, if you're an experienced developer and it works fine on
other workstations then you must have already done that.

HTH,
Nikos

Well, the 486 comment was sort of in jest. She has a pretty recent Dell
machine. I'll check the specs next time I'm there, but I'm sure it's got
enough muscle. As far as network adaptor issues, I tend to doubt it because
she has no complaints about other apps that run over the network for her. I
will try using a different socket & different cable if I can. It's a
corporate environment though, so I'm a little limited in what I can do
hardware-wise..

As far as steps to improve split-app performance - I've tried a few things,
but go ahead and name some more. You might give me an idea in addition to
what I've done..

 

[Nikos Yannacopoulos]

As far as network adaptor issues, I tend to doubt it because
she has no complaints about other apps that run over the network for her.

Not all apps require the same amount of network traffic! Access is not a
true client / server app, it's a plain file share, and as such quite
demanding of network bandwidth. What's more, if you don't have a
persistent recordset to keep the connection to the BE open at all times
(one of Tony's tricks, see below), the effect of a slow connection would
become quite noticeable.
If, for example, this particular machine has a 10MB network connection
for some reason (most likely a bad setting), it may be not so apparent
in other apps as it becomes with Access. Just leave the cursor hovering
over the network icon in the system tray, and see what the speed is.

I will try using a different socket & different cable if I can. It's a
corporate environment though, so I'm a little limited in what I can do
hardware-wise..

If the above check shows lower speed than the rest of the machines, then
you'll have to call for IS help anyway!

As far as steps to improve split-app performance - I've tried a few things,
but go ahead and name some more. You might give me an idea in addition to
what I've done..

MVP Tony Toews is the guru on the subject. Have a look at:

http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/performancefaq.htm

I had performance issues with my first split app and implemented some of
the tricks in there, which made a world of difference. This must be the
hundredth time I'm recommending this.

HTH,
Nikos

 

[Guest]

Not all apps require the same amount of network traffic! Access is not a
true client / server app, it's a plain file share, and as such quite
demanding of network bandwidth. What's more, if you don't have a
persistent recordset to keep the connection to the BE open at all times
(one of Tony's tricks, see below), the effect of a slow connection would
become quite noticeable.
If, for example, this particular machine has a 10MB network connection
for some reason (most likely a bad setting), it may be not so apparent
in other apps as it becomes with Access. Just leave the cursor hovering
over the network icon in the system tray, and see what the speed is.

Good advice. I will check all of that..

MVP Tony Toews is the guru on the subject. Have a look at:

http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/performancefaq.htm

I had performance issues with my first split app and implemented some of
the tricks in there, which made a world of difference. This must be the
hundredth time I'm recommending this.

Excellent suggestions, Nikos. I really appreciate your help. Like I said,
just about every Access app I've done is FE/BE and I've never run into
performance issues. I knew that this one would be throwing more data around,
but I didn't think it would be quite this much of a difference..

 

[Nikos Yannacopoulos]

Do let us know how it goes, I'm curious!