BlouBul

Hi all, you're welcome thanks for the feedback. Thanks, I don't mind you fixing my tables (saves me the effort ) Sorry about putting you back on the "museum OS" I just looked at your profile OS and assumed it stayed the same over all the years, I didn't read the fine print in your previous post . Looking at the times I can understand why you stayed with Office'97!! What is even stranger is that both the average and mean of your test with settings "ON" is better than your tests with settings "off" Did you test it from outside Word. Name: BlouBul Dencorso JorgeA puntoMX BlouBul2 OS: Win7 x86 WinXP Vista x64 Win7 X64 Win XP Processor Core2Duo 1.8 AthlonXP2 2.33 P-dual 2.2 AMDX4 3.8 Celeron 2.4 Memory 3 GB 3 GB 4 GB 8GB 256MB AntiVirus Nod32 AV4 AVG 2011 Norton 360 MSE Kaspersky IS 2010 Office Version: 2010 97 2007 2010 2007 All 3 off (s) 20 (20*) 14(13*) 187 ? 45 Only 2 on (s) 40 13 261(28*) ? 100(90*) All 3 on (s) 100 (90*) X 173 67(67*) 186(192*)

@ murisr / lewisspearing Do not believe anything Seagate says about which drives are affected (or not)

Hi Lewisspearing, Welcome to MSFN First things first, have you read the READ_ME_FIRST ? You can find a lot of useful info there (also read the tutorial by CarterinCanada). Yes, you have the right drive for the fix, just check the symptoms carefully (not detected in Bios or size is shown as 0) to ensure it is the same and NO a PCB swap won't work.

Hi all, See if you agree with the times we have so far. I took 3 different Spel check settings, first with all 3 settings disabled, then with the one disabled and lastly with all three enabled. * denotes opening outside Word Name: BlouBul Dencorso JorgeA puntoMX BlouBul2 OS: Win7 x86 Win XP Vista x64 Win7 x64 Win XP Office Version: 2010 97 2007 2010 2007 All 3 off (s) 20 (20*) 14 (13*) 151 ? 45 Only 2 on (s) 40 13 253(29*) ? 100(90*) All 3 on (s) 100 (90*) - 137? 67(67*) 186(192*) @puntoMX Thanks for the tip about the use of a Code Box (<> thingy) Although it only works nice with the visual editor turned off!

Thanks I missed those, at least he doesn't give up! (although I'm not so sure that it is a good thing in this case)

Hmmm, that's odd I should have sworn this thread is called "The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs" and was about possibly solving issues with SD15 firmware. But I could have missed something Why don't you read this thread first? Greetz, Peter. See above Edit: And below

Can you please check it with those settings enabled (not sure if they had it in those days ), that will help to make sense of this fruit basket we currently have. OK, try it with all three off and then all three on. Then we can start to compare apples with apples, oranges with oranges, bananas with bananas and strawberries with strawberries B) I meant Anyone, except you! The whole purpose of this exercise was to see of other Vista X64 machines exhibits this same phenomenon. OK, but since we are currently stuck with only your Vista x64 macine, please help (and thanks for the offer) Ja, asseblief, dan sal ek minder onnosele vrae vra. http://translate.goo...le%20vrae%20vra Yes I have, actually, I believe that Word comes like that as I don't recall turning anything on or off. Ok, now we have at least two apples to compare. It seems like Win7 X64 does not have a problem (at least with Office 2010). Now we are just waiting for a couple more apples, oranges, bananas and strawberries to do a better comparison. (otherwise I will go bananas). It still worries me that JorgeA got those fast times from outside Word (but we will see now when he has all those settings enabled - he might have to wait a while)

Ok, finally found the (in?)famous writing pen. you have to not only check the "check spelling while you type" and "check grammar while you type", but also "Mark grammar errors while you type". My times went to a horrible 1 min 50 sec (1:55, 1:50, 1:42, 1:45) Myth busted!!! Punto's Win7 x64 is much faster than my win7 x86. Still need more evidence to bust the myth for Vista x64 though. Anyone with a Vista x64 machine that can help us with a test? Dencorso, what do you get with those settings enabled? Edit: just to confirm: PuntoMX, do I understand correctly that you had all three those settings enabled? Edit 2: 1min 30 sec from outside Word (why is it faster?) I did it 3 times and all the same. Edit 3: On the XP computer with 256 MB Ram, using above settings, I got 3:10 and 2:56 and from outside Word 3:12 - not a great difference there, but still faster than the Vista x64

Yes, no animation either way, but I do not think the animation as such makes too much of a difference in the loading time (although the actual checking does)

I got the same settings, but no animation in Word 2010.

With spelling and grammer check enabled, my times went up to 40 sec (40,40,41,40,40) fairly consistent. What is interesting now. The trend still remains. The 32 bit windows machines open the files much faster than the 64 bit machines. with Win7 x64 being again faster than Vista X86 (less than half the time for opening), but still beaten by x86 win7 and XP (also about half the time). What totally confuses this hypothesis now is that when JorgeA open the file from outside Word he got the *same* as X86 systems. I tried it now with grammer and spell enabled to open from outside Word and the times also went down to about 30 sec (30, 31,33, 32). (Office 2010). That cheap vacation in Mexico/Brazil starting to sound better and better (although South Africa is not too expensive either (and I will save on airfares)) B) Just to ensure we compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges, I do not see the writing pen in the left hand corner of my Office 2010 while opening a file. It sort of freezes a couple of seconds and then start counting the pages. I start with the click and wait till the pages finished counting.

Also Windows7 x64 operating system, hence the slower speed. Was that from inside Word or outside. Does it make a significant difference if you do it the other way around?

That is interesting. That tells us something (not sure what yet, but it definitely tells us something) The opening from within Word is similar than before (with the memory effect you mentioned), but it is about "normal" from outside word. We have to think what is different between this file and your file. I thought you gave us your laptop speeds in post #55? Just to summarize what we know before we did this test, based on the original file: all the slow computers (3-5 min opening times) have Vista x64, Office 2007 and Norton 360 The intermediate computer (1-2 min) has Win7 x64, office 2007 and Norton IS The fast computer (lowest spec, but < 1min) has win98 x86, office 2000 and no Norton Oops, I measured it as soon as I saw it on the screen. I just redid it your way, and the times went up to 16-23 secs. There is not a huge difference between opening within and outside Word. Those times are not far off from your times outside Word. So we can probably say those times are "normal"(waiting for more data)

Well, currently, the "museum OS" is the fastest of the lot

Thanks, not sure if we needed a file with graphics, but thought that would be a good start. I hope your times is in seconds and not minutes (we do not want JorgA's computer to open files faster than yours!) I just used the second hand on my watch and also get *about* 2 secs with Word already open.

Yes, I know, it is just that patience is not always my strongest virtue (Mumble, Grumble) but I'm working on it Anyway, now with that of my chest, I still think we are on the right track. Who needs help anyway? @JorgeA Still a few more questions to confirm or deny our suspicions: Is your laptop Vista 32 bit or 64 bit? Does your wife also have Norton on her laptop? See how fast your computer opens this file (2.3 mb) http://download.micr...ecification.doc (first download, then open) My computer (Core2Duo 1.8 GHz with 3GB ram under Win 7 x86 and Office 2010 x86 +NOD32) takes under 5 sec from outside Word. Another computer (2.4 GHZ Celeron with only 256 MB Ram under WinXP SP3 and Office 2007 + Kaspersky 2010) takes just under 10 sec to open same file from inside Word.

Yes the 2nd link was more to confirm that Norton still causes trouble, even if disabled Yes about a 1:10 ratio with replies:views. Over 1400 people viewed this (ok, *maybe* some viewed it more than once ) with only about six people replying over the lifetime of this thread. Either people really don't know or they don't want to help us, or they don't read this. For the record: We do welcome outside input!!! We got more people to reply in the hardware section. No new people replied since we moved.

Read again in the first link it is actually to open the files I am not sure that the word 6 will actually give useful info, apart from the "that's interesting" factor.

Yes, x86 actually refers to 32 bit and x64 to 64 bit (long story, you can get more info here). I dont think Office 2007 came out in 64 bit. Apparantly the Office 2010 x64 version has some issues (I heard that through the grapevine, maybe dencorso can confirm that). I do not know if there is an issue with the combination, just a guess, as all the computers where it was slow to open were Vista x64 with Office 2007 x86 with Norton. I still won't totally discount Norton though. http://www.techtalkz...-2007-slow.html http://forums.pcworl...-windows-vista/ Can you upload any other non-classified doc which is also slow to open for a comparison?

Hi JorgeA, I do not know if the documents are confidential, otherwise you can maybe edit the confidential parts out and upload it somewhere, then we can test it on different systems. Well, try saving it as Word 6 file and see what happens http://www.java2s.com/Tutorial/Microsoft-Office-Word-2007/0040__Editing/Word2007SaveFileFormats.htm The second last one on the list.

Hi Jorge, You didn't answer all my questions. 1. Is your laptop also x64? 2. Is your wife's laptop x64 or x86? 3. What happens if you take the .doc file and save as .docx, does it make a difference? I was thinking the same as dencorso regarding the x64 - x86 combination (but if your laptop is x86, that confuses the theory)

Hi Rocketdog, See answers below B: Do I put the ISO cd in the cd drive and boot, hoping the firmware update works and does not brick the drive again?yes, after A1 If I do this, do I run the risk of having a 1: bricked HD I will need to fix again,yes, but improbable or 2: bricked HD that is really bricked for good?yes, but improbable No don't laugh but I have a series of Win operating systems that are all upgrades: Dos 6.22 not an upgrade but needs to be installed for Win 3.11 to install Win 3.11 upgraded to Win 95 upgraded to Win98 upgraded to Win98 2nd Edition upgraded to Win XP I just don't want to go though this process, although it will clean out a lot of junk. yes, I'm sure!!! (or you can upgrade to Vista and then to Win7)

No issues with either (that's why I recommended them ) Well you got 4 options now (I also do not think you will have issues with the other two (since it was suggested by jaclaz)). Why don't you see which looks the best (based on specs and/or price/availability) and download the trial and see if it works. I personally think Nitro is good for editing and converting (but haven't tried the other two yet)

That certainly points to Vista x64 so far (but although the Win 7 takes half the time, win 98 again takes 40% of that time with a much slower processor) Does your friend also have Norton? Is the file a doc or docx? Does it help if you convert it to the other format? Is your laptop also vista x64? Is it win 7 x64 or x86? It would help to have more tests on different systems to see if we can see a trend. Since the results are fairly consistent, I think you can just do one or two test on each system to get a feel for what is fast/slow (eg 3-5 min(Vista x64+Office 2007), 1-2 min(Win7+Office 2007 & Vista X64+Works), 30sec-1 min(Win 98 +Office 2000 on old computer), less than 10 sec(hopefully final answer). Do you have more pc's (maybe @ your work) where you can test it? (Maybe on Xp?)

Hi JorgeA, Nitro PDF is quite a good option for editing files and converting to Word http://www.nitropdf....ional/trial.asp Just for viewing and small changes, I like PDF Xchange http://www.tracker-s...-xchange-viewer Both are a lot lighter on resources than Acrobat (and I'm sure you do not want any big add-ins to slow down your Word)