I have a Celeron 533 MHz .....why does it take 21 seconds to start up Outlook Express?? (more inside)

[DWF]

My System:
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Celeron 533MHz
128MB SDRAM
Voodoo3 3000
Wester Digital 13.6 7200RPM
Hewlitt Packard 7550i CDRW (2x2x24)
32x CDROM
56k V90 modem
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Why does it take so long (21 sec) to start up Outlook Express?? I used to have a PII 233 and it was MUCH quicker in starting up that program. I understand that the Celeron is not strong in business apps but I mean come on....Outlook Express?? My system runs games just fine. I haven't installed any MS OFFICE apps yet (recently reformatted) so I haven't been able to see if such slow performance is seen in starting Word, Excel, etc.

And btw, the hard drive is not even working hard at all when I try to start up Outlook Express. It's as if the system was thinking:

"oh wait, you wanted me to start up Outlook Express 21 seconds ago...sorry I forgot, but at least I'll remember next time...only after 21 seconds has passed though."



Why? Why does it take so long? Any suggestions on what to do or what the problem may be? The Celeron can't be THAT bad.

 

[Edimere]

It definitely ain't your Cel 533. I had a similar problem, and due to excessive frustration I just did a clean install of win98 again, and everything was fine. I'm sure it's just a program you installed that's causing this. Since my reinstall I've put almost all my old apps back, cept the Mcafee range of stuff I had, so maybe it could be that, not gonna test it though.

 

[DWF]

hehe....well, like I said....I actually reformatted already like a month ago. I'll reformat again just before the summer is over. Oh well...I guess I'm stuck with a slow Outlook Express. It's ok though....I primarily use telnet to check email anyway.



thx anyway

 

[Tom]

Celerons aren't slow for business apps, where did you get that information ?

When you say start up Outlook Express, what do you mean ? Do you mean the time for Outlook Express to go online and check for messages? If that's slow it could be a problem Outlook Express is having establishing a connection.

If thats not what your talking about maybe Outlook Express is trying to load a corrupted file, or your mail and newsgroup files are very large.

I'd recommend running Scandisk and checking to see what tasks your Outlook Express is set to do on startup, ie. get new mail, refresh newsgroup lists, get newsgroup headers. Maybe some setting has changed that is changing Outlook Express's behavior.

I would be seriously surprised if your Celeron processor has anything at all to do with it. My old Celeron 300 loads up Outlook Express in an instant, as does my newer 566.

In fact I can start Outlook Express, it goes online and downloads several e-mail messages, all faster than 1 or 2 seconds total.(cable connection)

 

[ObiDon]

It's probably just Outlook checking to see if there's any e-mail viruses that it still needs to run

 

[Spiff]

Because Celeron's have the smaller cache, any calls that rely heavily on cache will be affected. Most games are primarly FPU dependent, which makes the Celerons ideal for gaming systems. From a business app standpoint, these usually suffer from the smaller cache, even though the cache runs at the clock as opposed to a regular PII, where the cache is larger but runs at a fraction of the clock speed. Many business will still show better benchmark test results on a regular PII over the equivalent Celeron.

As to the Outlook issue, try compacting the Outlook database. This will probably help speed up the startup. At work, my pst is nearly 200MB... because I have a ton of mail to which I often have to refer back. It takes several seconds for Outlook to open up, even with regular compacting

 

[Eug]

Mine screams on a Celeron 533A. For most (including Outlook/Outlook Express, but not all) business software, it's irrelevant whether you have a Celeron 400 or a PIII 800E. The speed difference isn't that noticeable.

Actually for games, there is a much more noticeable difference.

 

[Tom]

Spiff,

Could you be a little more specific about business apps and Celeron 2 processors being slow ? Some examples would be nice.

 

[DWF]

Sorry for my delay in answering, folks....

Ok, first of all, I had recently formatted my computer about a month ago. I primarily use Telnet to check my email (college email address). As for Outlook Express, I only use it for checking my email for my Hotmail account, but I STILL haven't even set up Outlook Express yet ever since the reformat. So that means none of the settings and options in Outlook have been set yet---not even the mail server. That also means that I have nothing in my databases. And the funny thing is....it still takes 21 seconds to open up an EMPTY Outlook Express program.

hehehe....I tried to open up Outlook Express again today and got a new record (one that I didn't want)....it took 43 seconds to start up. Twice as long as before. I don't get it.

When I say it takes X seconds to START UP Outlook Express, I am talking about the screen that shows up AFTER the Outlook Express splash screen.

OUCH It's pathetic.

The very odd thing is: The hard drive light is not blinking or going off like crazy when I double-click on Outlook Express to start it up. The system is just quiet for 21-43 seconds until the program comes up to it's main screen. Very strange problem

 

[DWF]

ObiDon, hehehe....I like that reply

though it can't be possible since I delete anything that has potential to hold viruses....

 

[DWF]

Well...I solved the problem. All I did was install IE 5.01 SP1 and my OE now loads in about a second

whew! Glad that's over