SPSS 14/15 slow response

[Julius Sim]

I am running SPSS 14 and, just recently, SPSS 15 on a Windows machine.

The interface is extremely slow. If you switch from data view to variable
view or vice versa, the new window is very slow to compose itself. When
you are in data view, when you perform virtually any action, the data
refresh themselves from the top of the datasheet to the bottom several
times, almost as if an attempt was being made to recalculate all values.
It takes a long time for the data view window to fully replace the
variable view window.

If you start a new variable and enter data, after you enter data in each
cell the same process occurs, and you cannot reliably enter data in the
next cell until it has finished making these top-to-bottom sweeps.

This occurs even in very small datasets, though the sweeps are faster.

Execution of analyses also seems somewhat slow.

My initial thought was that the problem lay with the machine, not the
program. However, SPSS 13 and SPSS 11.5 display none of these problems
when run on the same machine, and respond very quickly.

The machine has a good processor (3GHz) and plenty of RAM. I have tried
increasing the SPSS workspace from 6148 to 12296, but it makes no
difference.

I'd be very grateful to hear from any other users who have encountered a
similar problem, and discovered how to resolve it.

Regards,

Julius Sim

[Frank H. Millard]

I have never experienced slow SPSS, and I analyze files with a million +
records with 200 + columns on a laptop.  You might want to defragment your
hard disk.  And SPSS seems to be heavily dependent on JAVA to drive user
interface, so you might want to be sure you have an up to date JAVA runtime.
And you might want to uninstall SPSS 14/15, remove all registry entries for
SPSS 14/15 and reinstall.

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Julius Sim
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 11:05
To: [hidden email]
Subject: SPSS 14/15 slow response

I am running SPSS 14 and, just recently, SPSS 15 on a Windows machine.

The interface is extremely slow. If you switch from data view to variable
view or vice versa, the new window is very slow to compose itself. When
you are in data view, when you perform virtually any action, the data
refresh themselves from the top of the datasheet to the bottom several
times, almost as if an attempt was being made to recalculate all values.
It takes a long time for the data view window to fully replace the
variable view window.

If you start a new variable and enter data, after you enter data in each
cell the same process occurs, and you cannot reliably enter data in the
next cell until it has finished making these top-to-bottom sweeps.

This occurs even in very small datasets, though the sweeps are faster.

Execution of analyses also seems somewhat slow.

My initial thought was that the problem lay with the machine, not the
program. However, SPSS 13 and SPSS 11.5 display none of these problems
when run on the same machine, and respond very quickly.

The machine has a good processor (3GHz) and plenty of RAM. I have tried
increasing the SPSS workspace from 6148 to 12296, but it makes no
difference.

I'd be very grateful to hear from any other users who have encountered a
similar problem, and discovered how to resolve it.

Regards,

Julius Sim

[Peck, Jon]

First, SPSS 15 does not use Java for the user interface.  Java is used for graphics, however.

As for performance tuning, besides defragging your disk(s), watch SPSS in the Task Manager and look at the page fault rates.  This will give you an idea of whether you need for physical memory.  Check the location of your temp directory if you have more than one drive (Edit/Options).

If your whole system seems to running slow, check for spyware, and look at your virus protection settings.

I recently had an interesting slowdown of my whole system that took a while to diagonose.  After doing all the obvious checks, we ran a deep scandisk on the entire disk, which took about ten hours!  It revealed some bad sectors on the disk, but even after these were marked out, the system continued to run very slowly.  We replaced the disk, imaging the old contents over to the new disk,and  now it is running 4-5 times faster!

-Jon Peck


-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion on behalf of Frank H. Millard
Sent: Sun 6/17/2007 5:17 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject:      Re: [SPSSX-L] SPSS 14/15 slow response
 
I have never experienced slow SPSS, and I analyze files with a million +
records with 200 + columns on a laptop.  You might want to defragment your
hard disk.  And SPSS seems to be heavily dependent on JAVA to drive user
interface, so you might want to be sure you have an up to date JAVA runtime.
And you might want to uninstall SPSS 14/15, remove all registry entries for
SPSS 14/15 and reinstall.

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Julius Sim
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 11:05
To: [hidden email]
Subject: SPSS 14/15 slow response

I am running SPSS 14 and, just recently, SPSS 15 on a Windows machine.

The interface is extremely slow. If you switch from data view to variable
view or vice versa, the new window is very slow to compose itself. When
you are in data view, when you perform virtually any action, the data
refresh themselves from the top of the datasheet to the bottom several
times, almost as if an attempt was being made to recalculate all values.
It takes a long time for the data view window to fully replace the
variable view window.

If you start a new variable and enter data, after you enter data in each
cell the same process occurs, and you cannot reliably enter data in the
next cell until it has finished making these top-to-bottom sweeps.

This occurs even in very small datasets, though the sweeps are faster.

Execution of analyses also seems somewhat slow.

My initial thought was that the problem lay with the machine, not the
program. However, SPSS 13 and SPSS 11.5 display none of these problems
when run on the same machine, and respond very quickly.

The machine has a good processor (3GHz) and plenty of RAM. I have tried
increasing the SPSS workspace from 6148 to 12296, but it makes no
difference.

I'd be very grateful to hear from any other users who have encountered a
similar problem, and discovered how to resolve it.

Regards,

Julius Sim

[Christian Deindl]

I have the same problem.
And I have it also on a completly new machine.
SPSS 14 and 15 are so annoyingly slow, that I am still using SPSS 13.
Any solution would be great.

Regards,

christian

Peck, Jon schrieb:

> First, SPSS 15 does not use Java for the user interface.  Java is used for graphics, however.
>
> As for performance tuning, besides defragging your disk(s), watch SPSS in the Task Manager and look at the page fault rates.  This will give you an idea of whether you need for physical memory.  Check the location of your temp directory if you have more than one drive (Edit/Options).
>
> If your whole system seems to running slow, check for spyware, and look at your virus protection settings.
>
> I recently had an interesting slowdown of my whole system that took a while to diagonose.  After doing all the obvious checks, we ran a deep scandisk on the entire disk, which took about ten hours!  It revealed some bad sectors on the disk, but even after these were marked out, the system continued to run very slowly.  We replaced the disk, imaging the old contents over to the new disk,and  now it is running 4-5 times faster!
>
> -Jon Peck
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SPSSX(r) Discussion on behalf of Frank H. Millard
> Sent: Sun 6/17/2007 5:17 PM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject:      Re: [SPSSX-L] SPSS 14/15 slow response
>
> I have never experienced slow SPSS, and I analyze files with a million +
> records with 200 + columns on a laptop.  You might want to defragment your
> hard disk.  And SPSS seems to be heavily dependent on JAVA to drive user
> interface, so you might want to be sure you have an up to date JAVA runtime.
> And you might want to uninstall SPSS 14/15, remove all registry entries for
> SPSS 14/15 and reinstall.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
> Julius Sim
> Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 11:05
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: SPSS 14/15 slow response
>
> I am running SPSS 14 and, just recently, SPSS 15 on a Windows machine.
>
> The interface is extremely slow. If you switch from data view to variable
> view or vice versa, the new window is very slow to compose itself. When
> you are in data view, when you perform virtually any action, the data
> refresh themselves from the top of the datasheet to the bottom several
> times, almost as if an attempt was being made to recalculate all values.
> It takes a long time for the data view window to fully replace the
> variable view window.
>
> If you start a new variable and enter data, after you enter data in each
> cell the same process occurs, and you cannot reliably enter data in the
> next cell until it has finished making these top-to-bottom sweeps.
>
> This occurs even in very small datasets, though the sweeps are faster.
>
> Execution of analyses also seems somewhat slow.
>
> My initial thought was that the problem lay with the machine, not the
> program. However, SPSS 13 and SPSS 11.5 display none of these problems
> when run on the same machine, and respond very quickly.
>
> The machine has a good processor (3GHz) and plenty of RAM. I have tried
> increasing the SPSS workspace from 6148 to 12296, but it makes no
> difference.
>
> I'd be very grateful to hear from any other users who have encountered a
> similar problem, and discovered how to resolve it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Julius Sim
>

--
__________________
Christian Deindl
Universität Zürich
Soziologisches Institut
Andreasstr. 15
CH - 8050 Zürich
Tel: [phone]

http://www.suz.unizh.ch/ages