Best way to _SPEED UP_ Outlook2003 ? (e.g. More RAM, Dual processors...?)

  • Thread starter Thread starter ship
  • Start date Start date
Roady [MVP] wrote:
1) In a way it is answered; it is not processor intensive so you are fine on
this level.
Click to expand...

Is there any (low-cost) utility out there to help me work out where
the heck the utility is?

Ship
 
Based on the specs you published, I doubt going dial core would speed
things up much. It would however, allow you to multitask more
effectively.
Click to expand...

Ah-ha - so would it allow me to run other applications
(e.g. Dreamweaver 8, Xara Xtreme etc) faster at the same time as
Outlook?

Ship
 
What are you talking about? What do you want to do with what?

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
Roady [MVP] wrote:
1) In a way it is answered; it is not processor intensive so you are fine
on
this level.
Click to expand...

Is there any (low-cost) utility out there to help me work out where
the heck the utility is?

Ship
 
ship said:
Please explain
Click to expand...

When you examine a message, if you don't recognize the sender, delete the
message. When you examine a message, if the subject contains a clear
adverisement or multiple misspelled words, delete the message. When you
examine a message, if it contains an attachment you weren't expecting,
delete the message.
 
It's not processor or RAM intensive. The sound of your hard disk isn't an
accurate way to measure bottlenecks. Performance Monitor is the tool for
that.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
Not permanently. Just as an experiment, to see what impact it has on
performance. If Norton turns out to be the biggest culprit, you could
seek another anti virus solution.
Click to expand...

Unlikely because I am already using 3 different anti-virus programs
on 3 differnet machines, and they are ALL dog slow when Outlook
downloads!

Strangely Outlook almost never seems to take up much PROCESSOR
time - even when it's compacting! (which can take a while after you
delete fat attachments...). RAM doesnt seem very full.
And the hard disk doesnt SOUND like it's being thrashed...
So I'm at a loss to know where the bottleneck actually is.
But my PC has been compacting for the last 10 minutes and
yes CPU usage hasnt risen about 7-10%!


Ship
Shiperton Henethe
 
In general; yes. There are also processors which are optimized for gaming,
while others are for more targeted towards editing graphics other type of
multimedia or business applications.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
Based on the specs you published, I doubt going dial core would speed
things up much. It would however, allow you to multitask more
effectively.
Click to expand...

Ah-ha - so would it allow me to run other applications
(e.g. Dreamweaver 8, Xara Xtreme etc) faster at the same time as
Outlook?

Ship
 
I want to be able to see where the bottle neck actually is.
Like I say Outlook currently cripples my PC's speed whilst
it's downloading emails and more or less stops me doing
anything else at the same time - BUT it doesnt appear to be
using much processor time, nor much RAM, nor writing to
the hard disk much! There *IS* a bottleneck, but I'm damned
if I can see where it's happening.

Ship
 
When you examine a message, if you don't recognize the sender, delete the
message. When you examine a message, if the subject contains a clear
adverisement or multiple misspelled words, delete the message. When you
examine a message, if it contains an attachment you weren't expecting,
delete the message.
Click to expand...

Sounds great. Now all I need is a single outlook rule that does all the
above...!

Ship
Shiperton Henethe
 
Roady said:
It's not processor or RAM intensive. The sound of your hard disk isn't an
accurate way to measure bottlenecks. Performance Monitor is the tool for
that.
Click to expand...

What the heck is "Performance Monitor"?
Do you mean Control/Alt/Del > Windows Task Manager > Performance tab
If so, that only shows CPU Usage, Page File usage; Physical Memeory
available;
Commit Charge (K) [whatever that is], Total Handles, Thread and
processes
and Kernel Memory.

It doesnt seem to tell me where the bottle necks are.
e.g. It does not show writing to hard disk!

The "Processes" tab can show CPU %ages and Memory usage...
But that doesntseem tohelp much either!
My Outlook is only using a few % CPU and 137MB of "Memory" (RAM,
presumably[?])


Ship
 
Hmm - forget in general - what about in practice for standard web dev
and
business applications like Dreamweaver / Xara / Photoshop / Word /
Excel /msAccess
etc

Have any of you guys actually TRIED sticking in a second processor?
Does it free up the rest of you machine from the tyrannical grip of
Outlook?

Ship
Shiperton Henethe


In general; yes. There are also processors which are optimized for gaming,
while others are for more targeted towards editing graphics other type of
multimedia or business applications.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
Based on the specs you published, I doubt going dial core would speed
things up much. It would however, allow you to multitask more
effectively.
Click to expand...

Ah-ha - so would it allow me to run other applications
(e.g. Dreamweaver 8, Xara Xtreme etc) faster at the same time as
Outlook?

Ship
Click to expand...
 
Control Panel-> Administrative Tools-> Performance

To read up on the counters;
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/winntas/maintain/perform.mspx?mfr=true
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=248345

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
It's not processor or RAM intensive. The sound of your hard disk isn't an
accurate way to measure bottlenecks. Performance Monitor is the tool for
that.
Click to expand...

What the heck is "Performance Monitor"?
Do you mean Control/Alt/Del > Windows Task Manager > Performance tab
If so, that only shows CPU Usage, Page File usage; Physical Memeory
available;
Commit Charge (K) [whatever that is], Total Handles, Thread and
processes
and Kernel Memory.

It doesnt seem to tell me where the bottle necks are.
e.g. It does not show writing to hard disk!

The "Processes" tab can show CPU %ages and Memory usage...
But that doesntseem tohelp much either!
My Outlook is only using a few % CPU and 137MB of "Memory" (RAM,
presumably[?])


Ship
 
Have any of you guys actually TRIED sticking in a second processor?
Click to expand...

What do you mean by that? You can't just 'stick in' an additional
processor. You have to have a motherboard specifically engineered,
with 2 processor sockets. Frightfully few available today, as the dual
core CPU's are becoming the norm.

A_C
 
Are you kidding me? How often do you want us to tell you that Outlook is not
processor intensive?
--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----

Hmm - forget in general - what about in practice for standard web dev
and
business applications like Dreamweaver / Xara / Photoshop / Word /
Excel /msAccess
etc

Have any of you guys actually TRIED sticking in a second processor?
Does it free up the rest of you machine from the tyrannical grip of
Outlook?

Ship
Shiperton Henethe


In general; yes. There are also processors which are optimized for gaming,
while others are for more targeted towards editing graphics other type of
multimedia or business applications.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
Based on the specs you published, I doubt going dial core would speed
things up much. It would however, allow you to multitask more
effectively.
Click to expand...

Ah-ha - so would it allow me to run other applications
(e.g. Dreamweaver 8, Xara Xtreme etc) faster at the same time as
Outlook?

Ship
Click to expand...
 
ship said:
...
Click to expand...

Too many variables for any one of us to say "Yes, it is x and if you do
y, everything will be better". I had suggested shutting down various
services just as a diagnostic, You probably don't want to hear that a
clean OS build under excellent circustances "might" help. For reasons
I don't understand, I could build 2 systems identical in every way and
one might glitch and the other won't. An extra processor and more ram
will help, but XPPro won't take full advantage of the extra processor
(Server2000 better, but a hog in other ways) and after 1 gig of memory
xppro doesn't seem to improve (at least XPPro now handles over 512
without problems).

My biggest/bestest suggestion would be to back up your files, do a
repair/rebuild on Outlook, update windows and office, then create a new
pst with all the rules and address. I have had outlook glitch where it
couldn't be fixed without removing the email accounts and re-entering
them. I know it will take a while, but it has worked for me in the
past. I have 30+ folders for email and over 15 rules. I managed to
get my pst under 600 megs and my specs aren't any better than yours,
although I have a gig of ram and over a TB of disk space. Sometime
Outlook thinks for a minute or hangs but usually it works like a champ,
(this build anyway).

Also might just want to wait for Vista and Office 2007 before you spend
time worrying about it.
 
Once again, we can agree to disagree.

Cached mode will choke Outlook performance as the local cache is
synchronized. If you rarely receive any mail, or rarely make any changes to
your folder structure, I guess it won't be an issue, but if you have a
complex file structure with lots of incoming messages and rule processing,
you will see a performance hit.

For anyone wondering which opinion is correct, just try turning cached mode
on and off for yourself to see the difference.
 
I can guarantee you that one bottleneck you have is have 1Gb of data in your
personal folders. I would recommend you archive your email more frequently.

Another alternative is to invest in a web-based email system - such that you
dont download your emails at all...

CJM
 
Here's a thought, if it hasn't been suggested yet.

To my knowledge Outlook is basically a database file, similar to Access
in some respects. After a while, databases need to be "compacted" to
free up wasted space and to improve speed.
First delete all spam and old garbage messages - basically a cleanup.
Then, in Outlook 2003, select:

File-->Data File Management-->Settings-->Compat Now

This will basically compact/compress the Outlook.pst file.
Don't know if this helps, but worth a try.

Software:
- Outlook2003
- WinXP Pro (SP2)
- Google Desktop
- Norton (on one PC) /McAfee Virus Scan (on another PC)


Hi

I am looking for ways to SPEED UP Outlook!

Should I:
a) Increase RAM OR
b) put in a dual processor ??

As webmaster, I am using Outlook to handle huge amounts of mail.
Quite a lot of it is unavoidable legit stuff (receipts, feedback forms
etc)
though I confess quite a lot of spam/viruses etc.

I am using about 30 "rules" to filter the emails into the correct
folders.
The big problem is that downloading my mail seems to KILL my PC's
speed!
i.e. Whilst it is downloading ANYTHING (form an external POP3 server)
the PC
immediately becomes almost unusable (to do anything else at the same
time).

I am forced to have my email housed in a POP3 server because I work
from 3 different physical offices. (What I do is simply copy the entire
PST file
to/from my iPod - it copies quite fast about 1 GB in say 2 minutes...)

My .PST file varies between c. 750MB to 1.75GB depending on how much
I have archived off how recently. But even when it's down to
750MB, it's still DAMNED SLOW whilst Outlook is downloading.
Btw, I regularly use SCANPST.exe to clean up the PST file.

So... what's the best way to improve speed:
- More RAM
- A second processor
- Or is there some Windows setting that can stop Outlook from grabbing
so many "resources"

(Incidentally the REALLY strange thing is that if I fire up
Contol/Alt/Del and get
the task manager the processor almost NEVER seems very busy and the
Page File useage seems quite low... and the physical memory only ever
seems
about half used too... so why is it SO SLOW!!)

Any thoughts?


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

P.S. Here is the spec of my hardware:

PROCESSOR: Intel Pentium 4 based system
MOTHERBOARD: Intel Pentium 4 D945GNTLR system board
Integrated Intel GMA950 graphics
*Intel High definition audio
*Intel 10/100 LAN*8USB 2.0
*4 conventional PCI *2 PCI Express x1 *1 PCI
Express x16 *1 Serial*1 Parallel
*4 Serial ATA interfaces
*1 Parallel ATA IDE interface with UDMA33,
ATA-66/100
*PS/2 Keyboard port *Mouse port
*Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz Processor 775 chipset 800FSB
2Mb cache
RAM: 1Gb (2x 512Mb) 533 DDR2 memory
GRAPHICS CARD: Matrox Millenium P650 PCle 128 - 128Mb Dual DVI/VGA PCI
Express X16 - s/n: KEW37452
CASE: ATX Midi tower with 300W 12V PSU
DISK: Seagate 120Gb 7200rpm SATA hard drive
OPTICAL: DVD RW dual layer +&- drive
FLOPPY: 1.44mb 3.5" Floppy disk drive

[END]
Click to expand...
 
No virus, No problems - It Just Works

Until it doesn't. And it doesn't, plenty of times. Mac users are so
deluded.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, SEOwebMarket.com asked:

| ship wrote:
|| - Outlook2003
|| - WinXP Pro (SP2)
|
| Get a Mac.
|
| No virus, No problems - It Just Works.
 
"which opinion is correct"
LOL

I can assure you you've got some facts wrong. For instance rules processing
occurs at server level even in Cached Mode so there can't be a performance
hit from there. The only real performance hit is when you set up the initial
cache while you have a large mailbox. And even then the true performance hit
is at server level.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
Once again, we can agree to disagree.

Cached mode will choke Outlook performance as the local cache is
synchronized. If you rarely receive any mail, or rarely make any changes to
your folder structure, I guess it won't be an issue, but if you have a
complex file structure with lots of incoming messages and rule processing,
you will see a performance hit.

For anyone wondering which opinion is correct, just try turning cached mode
on and off for yourself to see the difference.
 
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