Running FM Pro 5.5 on brand new Dell w/ Win 2000 Pro/7200 rpm HD/256MB/P4 1.7GHz/32MB ATI Rage video card on a TCP/IP network. Have system w/ FM server and 8 other users. On ONLY this new machine, image files (pics in related field linked to separate pics database, and small logo image in bottom corner of layout) take a very long time to load on each record. On all other machines, images load up instantly.

Already tested the network switch, cabling, connections. Brought in other machines to test at this location and worked fine. Brought new machine to other location and still did not work. Other applications on this machine work fine through the network.

Also, copied dbase file to hard drive of this machine and it worked FINE. Only through networking does it not work optimally.

The problem is specific to this machine and Filemaker only.

Been on phone hours w/ Dell and Filemaker tech support. No solution so far.

And no, we can not switch to a Mac system!

Would very very very very much appreciate any solution(s).

THANK YOU.

Well you obviously have a hardware problem of some sort or a software conflict. What is different about this machine than your other machines?

Spec wise, the machine is "better" (ie - 7200 rpm, 32MB video card). What I am suspecting is that this Dell has a different network card as our older Dells. This has a 3Com. Older ones have either Intel Pro/100 or "CNet Pro 200WL PCI".

May just return the entire machine, depending on how our "friends" at Dell respond.

Other than that, there are no differences in software.

Thanks,

Gene

Nothing is different in terms of antivirus software or patches?

These may be longshots but try running your video card in VGA mode and check the Dell site for a different network card driver.

I put my money on the network card!

On the other hand, P4 1.7GHz equals in real world to PIII 800-900 MHz, if that is full P4 and not the P4 Celeron like with lousy 128k cache. If you have SDRAM memory, it will be much slower (approximately by 40-50%), than current PIII 1.4 MHz 512k cache and Celeron with 256k cache.

P4 has advantage in video applications only, not in databases. And it will be possible to achieve higher frequencies up to 4-5 GHz. Right now full P4 1.7 GHz equals in performance to old (pre Tualatin) PIII 866 MHz.

Same Norton Antivirus and as far as I know, no different patches.

I will try the video card in VGA mode. Not sure how it is now. And I know we did update both the network and video drivers yesterday.

Thanks.

Dell will send out an IBM CS3 PCI WakeUp on LAN Card.

We'll see if this works.

As far as processor, I was not aware (and I did not fully understand) the diferences in P4 processors. I am not sure what I have. System Properties says "Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 1.70 GHZ" if that tells you anything.

Even so, our older Dells are running faster than this new piec of @#%$.

Thanks,

Gene

Probably that is the crippled P4. If you can analyze how big is the cache it will be:

128K = crippled version (Celeron)

256K = old P4

512K = new P4 should work like PIII 800-900MHz.

Memory:

SDRAM = slowest

DDRAM = faster

RIMM = the fastest, but not much than DDRAM.

Use http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/sandra for analysis -- the free version.

Newer Dell computers and some DTK Computers, pre-installed with Windows 2000 may not be able to run FileMaker Pro. There is a conflict with the Yamaha-XG Synth drivers. A work-around is to uninstall the Yamaha-XG Synth Program Group. FileMaker should then work correctly. This problem does not seem to affect computers that have been upgraded from Windows 98 or Windows NT. For more information go to the FileMaker Inc. web site and look up technote number 107071.

Supposedly, this has been fixed with the 5.5v2 update, but I have not been able to test this yet. I also suspect this is also true for New Dell PCs running XP.

The update fixed that problem on one of our systems with ALI chipset.

But the problem is different, it is not slow performance; FM is not starting at all.

Simple, stupid question, but i've done it. You sure you have TCP/IP selected instead of IPX/SPX on the client computer?