posted
Computer is getting slow! I regularly defrag, and scan hard drive for virus' but have noted that system is getting slower!
I believe this to be due to the following: Fonts - Fonts and more Fonts!
I have a PII 400Mhz system with 128 meg Ram, and use Corel Draw 8 for graphics sending artwork to Roland PNC960 plotter for vinyl stencils in by glass etching business.
I did a full installation of Corel Draw quite awhile ago, and have all Fonts available! It is my belief that the Fonts are causing my system to be sluggish at times!
Question: It there a way to still have all fonts available, but in seperate folder? Or possible to partition hard drive for useage when doing graphic? Any suggestions would be welcome!
Also - thinking of changing servers and what to know of easy method of moving my FAVORITES from AOL to new server! I tried once and gave up on the project since I have several years of various links saved in Favorites under various folders. Any suggestions here also appreciated!
S. Carter - a Touch of Glass Cntrl Delaware atog254@aol.com
------------------ Steve Carter {:{) a Touch of Glass 254 Lexington Mill Rd. Magnolia, DE, 19962
Posts: 181 | From: Magnolia, De, USA - Center of the Universe | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
How big is your hard drive? At times when the hard drive gets more than half full, it can cause the computer to act sluggish. Go through and delete programs, games,screen savers, etc. you no longer use, in order to free up some space. I try and store most pics, art, and other stuff on zip disks to keep my hard drive a little leaner. I have had your problem before, and that's what was causing it. Hope I have been of help.
------------------ John Deaton III Deaton Signs&Grafix 109 N. Cumberland Ave.,Harlan, Ky. 40831 606-573-9101
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I think it's more likely that your windows program is slowing you down. If you have more than 4-500 fonts installed, win98 gets cranky. I've seen some font manager programs that work similar to apple's system, but I couldn't reccommend one.
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Posts: 285 | From: Port Chester | Registered: Mar 2001
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Steve..How many fonts do you mean by "fonts and more fonts"?
In general, there should be no more than 300 or so fonts in the Windows fonts folder. Any more than that and your computer WILL start acting very sluggish AND could start not working right at all.
I use Corel and NEVER install any but the minimum it requires to be installed.
I have currntly got 64 fonts in my Windows fonts folder. BUT I have about 600 that are installed and available for me to use in Corel or any other program.
Hpow can that be? I use Adobe Type Manager to install fonts and I install them into folders that I set up. I DON'T use the windows font installation program because it will stick them into it's own folder and soon the computer will become overburdened with fonts.
My advice..use a font management program to install fonts. Adobe Type Manager is the best, in my humble opinion, but many folks use the Bitstream Font Manager that comes with CorelDraw.
------------------ Dave Grundy AKA "applicator" on mIRC "stickin' sticky stuff to valuable vessels and vehicles!" in Granton, Ontario, Canada 1-519-225-2634 dave.grundy@quadro.net www.quadro.net/~shirley
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OK Steve, here's the poop. Your problem can be in a lot of different areas. As John points out, it could be in hard drive space. If your problem indeed stems from too many fonts, which it can, the solution would be to use Adobe type manager. Last time I checked it runs around $65. Windows will only hold so many fonts before it starts acting squirrelly. The threshold can be anywhere from 250 - 1000 fonts depending on the type of font(type 1, TTF)and , believe it or not the length of the file name. This info has to be stored in the registry. If the registry gets too big, things can get weird. If you installed all the fonts that come with Corel, it could be what's causing the slow down. It comes with a boatload of fonts. You might want to uninstall a large chunk of them to see if that is the problem. You can always put them back later. If it speeds back up you will know. The only thing about ATM is that it takes some time to set up. You have to set up your fonts into groups. You turn the groups on or off as you need them. The program comes with literature that explains how to do this. Hope that helps.
posted
Me an Dave must have been typing at the same time. LOL! He's right though. Try knocking your fonts down to under 100 and see if that works. If not, let me know. It could be something else. But I bet a font manager does the trick.
posted
Hi, Steve. Your sytem specs sound similar to mine, except you didn't say how big your hard drive is. I think most of the responses here are right, but also consider whether you may be getting bogged down with "temp" files if you do a lot of web surfing. This is where Maintenance Wizard works well to get rid of the clutter. (See post elsewhere on "scandisk".) As far as too many fonts, I don't know-- when I go into Control Panel and select Fonts, it says ther are 824 in there, and so far my computer seems to trot right along. Most of the time I use Signlab5, but Corel 4,5, and 8 are also on board. One other thought- if you have a fast internet connection,it probably wouldn't hurt to visit Microsofts website and download tweaks and updates for whichever Windows version you are running. Hope this helps.
------------------ Bill Preston Fly Creek, N.Y. USA wpreston2@stny.rr.com
Posts: 943 | From: Fly Creek, N.Y. USA | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
My aprentice has a simililar computer to you with the same problem and it turned out to be his RAM memory failing faulty chips replace alls well
------------------ Ian Wilson Signmaker Toowoomba City Council Cnr Anzac Ave & Stephen st Toowoomba Queensland Australia may all your toubles be little ones The man that never make a mistake never makes anything
Posts: 656 | From: Toowoomba Queensland Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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a mate bought his puter in to me sum time back cause he thought he had a virus... puter at first was just going real slow at times, then after a while the display started to play up, eventually tools were dissapearing out of programs and one day the screen started to disolve.... like those early pac-man games, eating every pixel
i checked his system for a virus and came up with nufin i looked into his os and found that it all looked ok, the registry seemed a bit bulky but this fella does a lot of designing so all the programs were nessisary he figured then i took a peek in his font directory... 1500 fonts installed!!! i killed most of em and just like magic the puter beathed a sigh of releif he wasnt happy to lose em and didnt really beleive me that a font manager was the answer.... but ya get that
last month i had a strange one... a cpu died on me well thats not altogether strange, puter bits die all the time, but this one died slowly... real slowly first the internal modem went then the graphics started to playup then the sound weeks of headache problem solving only to find that the cpu was at fault... it was only 6mths old i had never heard of it happening before, not like that anyway there is a good resaon for the 3 yr warrentee with cpu's... they very rearly have problems
just goes to show ya i guess, puters can be like that
hope you get to the bottom of your problem
regards gail
------------------ on chat T2
Gail & Dave NSW Australia
taurus_signs@one.net.au
sumtimes ya just gota
Posts: 794 | From: 552 O'Regans Creek Rd Toogoom Qld 4655 Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Son just showed me Pricewatch.com and 256 meg ram is only $48, and 20.3 gig HDD is $83 !
At these prices, should upgrade to clear up sluggish computer, but at same time get rid of un-used fonts! Keep old 8 gig HDD to keep fonts & graphic programs!
Thanks again to all!
------------------ Steve Carter {:{) a Touch of Glass 254 Lexington Mill Rd. Magnolia, DE, 19962
Posts: 181 | From: Magnolia, De, USA - Center of the Universe | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
I just went through this crap. It took me days. I had nearly 700 and my computer wouldn't run at all. Here is what I need to warn you about. Watch out which ones that you delete. It is easy to eliminate windows chosen fonts and if you eliminate them you will not be able to read a damn thing on the internet. It defaulted me to Old English if you can believe that. Also, and very important; any font that you have used in any of your designs in Corel or other drawing progs. will not be available the next time you try to use the file. Try very hard to remember the fonts that you would have used and do not eliminate them from the font folder. If you do you will regret it in a big way. 300 fonts max. Good luck, Bronzeo
------------------ Jack Davis 1410 Main St Joplin, MO 64801
Posts: 1549 | From: Joplin, MO | Registered: Mar 2000
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Before deleting fonts, try typing "msconfig" (no quotes) in your "Run" dialog box and see what's opening up behind the scenes. Lots of useless stuff cranks up on the boot and robs your system resources, slowing down your computer. Go to the "Startup" tab that opens and uncheck stuff you don't need.
------------------ Sonny Franks Atlanta
"Well done beats well said every time"
Posts: 4117 | From: Lilburn, GA USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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go to www.mytools.com and d/l their font manager proggy...use it .....it will show you all of your fonts and delete them that all look alike.....yes bronzos right about the systems fonts....delete those and you wont see anything...most of them nowadays are marked as a sys.ft.....i had an old font proggy..was made by O-SO-SOFT, and had a cute little bear logo...it was a great "font comparision" program..you could look at one font in one window, and then in the other window view all your fonts till you would see ones that looked like it...sorta like arial, swiss, helvetica, avant gaurd..are all the same...how many do you need on the computer that look alike....
------------------ joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-944-5060 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND
Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
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If you are using Corel what ver. if it is 7 or 8 or 9 you have a font manager in the program it is hard to find but it is there. It is by Bitstream and it is excellent.
Or you can download a program from www.downloads.com it is called fontlister and it is a good one also.
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