Compiler slowdown

[minex]

HI!

We are working on a software program that mixes various languages: Fortran, C++ and java. For the C++ we have been using Visual Studio 2003 compiler and Compaq Intel Fortran until now which have been working fine until now. Recently I have noticed a serious slowdown at compile time especially C++ files which can take up to 10s (instead of 2) to compile. This happens after I have opened a few apps like VS, Live Messenger.
I am working on an HP 8710w laptop 3GB with Windows XP Pro SP3. I have done some investigations and killed all unnecessary processes, checked for viruses and malware. Tried a few RAM optmization tools (still got plenty of RAM when compiling about 1G free), disk defrag.

I am running out of ideas..

 

[TonHu]

Turn off or uninstall any virusscanners. It can be enough to disable the scanning of the directories that contain your projects, if your AV allows it, but if not, just ditch it, or get another AV package. Disabling the entire AV does not nessecarily disable it... sometimes only uninstalling is possible.

HTH
TonHu

 

[Diancecht]

Which processes are consuming CPU? Just the compiler? Does that happens in one machine or in all? Shared drives? Fragmented drives?

Cheers,
Dian

 

[minex]

-I have used Process Explorer already to check if there were some processes taking all the CPU but I could not find anything..
Typically when compiling I have:
1) cl.exe taking on average 15% CPU

then
2) System
3) DPC
4) Services all taking < 1%


-It happens on several laptop (some have different specs).

-Taking network cable does not solve the problem

-I have symantec antivirus running but I have unloaded it no difference. Another person has uninstalled it completely same result.


This is really weird, it seems that as soon as I open an extra app like VS Studio or Netbeans or windows Live messenger or outlook (which are the main ones I use) then I experience the problem. Even killing all the apps does not solve the problem. Is there some kind of magic limit (number of processes started or something like that) in Windows somewhere? If I dont open anything else compiling will be fast always but I cant work like that..

 

[Diancecht]

What about memory usage? And hard disk activity?

Cheers,
Dian

 

[minex]

When I compile I only use 30% max RAM (got 3Gb). I've got 4.6Gb as virtual memory. Hard disk activity is going really high which could explain the slowdown but since I've got plenty of free RAM it should not swap as much!

I've tried using several RAM optimizers without any effect because I've got plenty of free RAM so that's not the problem.

 

[Diancecht]

So maybe the HD is the problem. Is the disk fragmented?

Cheers,
Dian

 

[JockMullin]

It really sounds like a paging issue, even though you have a lot of memory. Is your paging file contiguous? Defrag won't fix that.

Have you tried changing the performance options settings/advanced tab to maybe give memory preference to the system cache? Since you are not cpu bound, maybe give processor preference to background services. It might be informative to disable paging and see what happens. Although a high-end system, it's still a laptop hard drive.

Other thoughts (even more far-fetched):

Do you by any chance have any invalid/inactive drive mappings or disconnected USB devices, especially drives?

Are your libraries and resources explicitly defined or is a search down the path happening? Are they local or being retrieved on the network? Can you move them to the local drive to see if that helps. If so, the problem may be network related.

Check any environment variables being used to define libs and resource paths. Put the ones you need at the front.

Jock

 

[minex]

As I mentioned before my disk was defragged a few times..

Re Jock's suggestions I've tried changing both the memory options to system cache and background services, also set to no paging (rebooted of course). No improvement.

All libraries and source code are on the local hard drive, nothing is retrieved from network. Unplugging my network cable makes no difference too.

 

[TonHu]

Have you checked your IDE controller settings in Device Manager? Possible the IDE controller is confined to some slow PIO-mode, while the Windows-default setting would have DMA transfer enabled. Read about this issue on another thread somewhere, and it solved a totally slow system.
Also, under Disk drives, you could enable write-caching (per harddrive installed) to improve performance, but that would increase the risk of data-loss in case of a power-failure.

HTH
TonHu

 

[minex]

Thanks Tonhu, I thought you were onto something with disk cache. Unfortunately my hard-drive is already in dma mode. Also enable write-caching and rebooted but did not get significant performance increase

 

[jesh411]

Hi Minex,

Did you find a solution to your problem. I also have the same laptop and notice the EXACT same problem when compiling my C projects. I think I have pretty much gone through everything listed here and then some. I have even switched out the hard drive. I just dont get what could be wrong.. When i boot up for the first time everything is fine but after awhile it gets very very slow.

 

[minex]

Hi!

Sorry I should have posted an update earlier. I managed to resolve my problem. The source was Symantec AV! I had only tried "unloading" it thinking that it would not launch any processes for scanning etc. Looks like it still does because when I completely uninstalled compiling time improved 10x.

I replaced it for now with AVAST but a colleague of mine said McAfee seems OK too..

Hope this helps,