Access networking slowness

[Brossyg]

I have a 250meg Access db running on Access 2003 on WinXPPro. The db is
hosted on one very fast PC and two other very fast PCs also use the db
through a gigabit network. As the database has grown (frequently compacted),
certain db functions like forms and reports have crawled to a halt on the PCs
that are not the host. The user of the host PC still gets pretty fast
performance. Splitting the database made no difference. The only protocol
installed in TCP/IP. Is there any way to speed up the network performance of
the db?

 

[Steve Schapel]

Brossyg,

Where you say "splitting the database made no difference", can you
confirm that each of the PCs now has its own copy of the frontend
application installed locally, and linking through the network to the
backend data tables? Or do you mean to imply that the frontend is still
on the host machine, being used through the network by the non-host users?

 

[Brossyg]

The database is not currently split. I split it awhile ago and put a front
end on the user's computer. It did not increase performance noticably. I
have also tested turning anti-virus and firewall off on each computer...no
noticable improvement.

I checked network speeds and they are close to gigabit (700+meg), so the
network is fine. All computers have fast CPUs and lots of RAM...this has
been getting worse as the db has gotten bigger. I compact regularly.

I don't want to go to a server, because then the host-computer user will be
slower, not to mention netwrok cost, admin, etc.

It took 3 minutes for a report to populate on a user's computer vs. 10
seconds on the host computer.

 

[Steve Schapel]

Brossyg,

There is some good information here:
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/performancefaq.htm