Day 13, Speed

As some of you may remember, I took a little break a few days back. During that time my computer was Folding@Home, although it lasted the full course (no unexpected hiccups) it did go extremely slowly. It was folding a work unit that my computer was at 93% through completing on Linux, before the uninstall. That took just over 3 days. When I came back after 4 days on Windows it had only managed 72%. Both were running with non-graphical clients, but on Linux it was doing it simultaneously with my normal use, and still managed to beat Windows. This may be down to optimised code on Linux. But as there is no GUI to code, I doubt the code is much different.

Also, I’ve been beginning to notice a serious amount of sluggishness. Apps seem to grind to a halt, and the pulsating blue ring takes over. More than often in Firefox. When I turn on the computer it sits there for a good 10 seconds before anything is accessible. And a further 20 for it to connect to the network. All this gets very annoying, very quickly. And is the precise reason I left OS X on my 4 year old hardware. I spent a fortune on this computer, and in Vista the difference is negligible.