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Computer Performance – Home vs Work
Does having a computer on a network interfere with a computer’s performance? Here’s why I ask:
Lately I noticed that whenever I work with a facility’s computer, it never runs quite as smoothly as my Mac Pro at home, despite the fact that I bought it in Sept 2007. When I first started my current job, the computer they set me up with was set up all funny – everything being loaded to the system drive and then Time Machine was used to back that drive up to another internal 1TB drive. Not Cool. So I disabled Time Machine and moved everything off the System Drive to the second internal drive. The computer still doesn’t seem to be performing as well as it should (2 X 2.26 GHz Quad Core, 12GB of RAM, 10.6.2)
FCP doesn’t respond very quickly. I have to hit the space bar multiple times to being playback
I keep getting the Dropped Frames warning for playback of DVCPro50 media, although that could be due to the fact that the second 1TB internal drive, which now holds all the media, only has 41GB available. My RT settings are on Dynamic.
5 minute videos are taking 3 hours to convert to MPEG for DVD. (Send To Compressor from FCP. My Boss insists I do it that way rather than setting up a large batch of FCP reference files)
My jobs in Compressor alway fail when trying to use the QuickCluster I set up.
Even the scroll wheel on my mouse stopped working for some reason. It’s surprisingly annoying when you don’t have it. (but I’m sure being on a networks has nothing to do with that)
I really don’t know why I’m having issues with my computer. It’s new. I’m the only one to ever use it. I keep things organized and off the System Drive. My guess is that being on a Network interferes somehow. I mean, it’s really the only difference between what I have at home and what I have here at work.
Any ideas are GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks.
Robert J. Grauert, Jr.
http://www.robgrauert.com -
7 Replies
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Check your Energy Settings. Make sure your Put Hard Disk(s) to sleep is not checked.
If other people on the network are accessing your computer, that will slow it down.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Nah, I don’t have my hard disks going to sleep either. I’ve been told before it’s not good having them go to sleep.
I don’t think anyone is accessing my computer either. I know nothing about networks, so I dunno why or how the network it set up. Maybe just for internet access? My computer has an ethernet cord going into it, so I’m assuming everyone else’s does too. I can see everyone’s computers on the sidebar in a Finder window.
Robert J. Grauert, Jr.
http://www.robgrauert.com -
Here’s an idea….do you know the update history of this machine?
If leopard was installed on top of tiger, or if FCS2 was installed on top of FCS1, as opposed to doing a clean install from scratch, that may be the cause of many of your issues.Block out a day, back everything up, and reinstall everything again from scratch. Remember, if your current version of Final Cut (or even the OS) is an upgrade, you can use THAT version to install; you just need the serial # from the previous version.
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I believe Snow Leopard is what came with this Mac because it is brand new. Also, I personally installed FCS2.
I used Disc Utility to repair permissions thinking that maybe a software update was causing problems. Doesn’t really seem to make a difference though.
Robert J. Grauert, Jr.
http://www.robgrauert.com -
Why don’t you do a test and reboot the machine with the ethernet cable unplugged and see if FCP performs better? That way you know for sure if the problem is related to network issues.
Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto -
Could Qmaster be enabled? If so, other machines on the network could be accessing your machine during compressions and the like.
Download iStat Menus. Adds system information to your menu bar so you can see which processors/cores are being used and by what, as well as network activity and a bunch of other information. It is a really great tool, I feel strange on a machine without it. Totally free by the way.
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cool. I’ll try a test when i get a chance. good idea.
I’ll look into downloading that program as well.
thanks.
Robert J. Grauert, Jr.
http://www.robgrauert.com
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