Outlook2003 annoying lag every ten seconds

[Ian21a]

I've a brand new Laptop running XP Pro, 2GHz Centrino Duo with 2Gig of Ram.
Everything works lovely EXCEPT Outlook2003. Every 8 to 10 seconds it seems to
hang for about 2 seconds and then carry on. I happens when moving around the
softare, or typing data in - for example writing a task or appointment
details.
All other Office sotware is fine. It's so frustrating as it means I can't
leave Outlook open as the lag slows down using other software.
Dell are at a loss as to what the problem is so any ideas as to how to solve
it are greatly appreciated.

 

[neo [mvp outlook]]

Sounds like you have another applications that uses/protects Outlook data
and it is dragging the app down. Some examples might be...

* Real-time antivirus scanning of the PST file
* Desktop search software
* Business contact managers
* Fax software
* PDA software

 

[Ian21a]

Thanks Neo
I agree that this sounds like what might be happening and I had already
disabled all anti-virus software but to no avail. As for the other
applications you mention, I don't believe I have any of those. Any ideas as
to how I go about finding out what Outlook is doing during this time lag?
Thanks for any help
Ian

 

[Ian21a]

Please see my other reply to your post.
FYI - I tried running Outlook with the Process Manager open. I noticed that
the "lag" coincides with the CPU usage for Outlook shooting up from 0 or 1 up
to 50 or 60. It seems like Outlook is trying to do something. But I can't
work out what!

 

[neo [mvp outlook]]

No, there is no switch or performance counter you can use to see what the
heck Outlook is doing under that hang. Basically you just have to look thru
your add/remove programs list and play Sherlock Holmes to find the ties.
(For example, if you have the MSN Search Toolbar installed, one would know
that it comes with Windows Desktop Search. It been known that Windows
Desktop Search indexes Outlook data. This indexing is what makes Outlook
doggy and utilize more RAM.)

By the way, disabling antivirus may not be enough. You should uninstall it
because some vendors hook so low into the read/write to the file system that
this portion is not disabled when you tell the app to stop scanning.

 

[Ian21a]

Neo
No luck so far. I've unistalled all Anti-virus. I've also gone through the
Add-remove programs list and removed everything I can. There weren't really
any of the sort of things you mentioned though.
I've had the Process Manager open while using Outlook and noticed that every
10 seconds or so the CPU usage for Outlook shoots up from 0 or 1 to about 60
for a couple of seconds and this coincides with the program locking up, so it
certainly seems like Outlook is trying to to do something.
FYI my PST file is about 17MB, so not that big, and has been compacted. But
it was imported from another computer. Could that have anything to do with it?

 

[Dale Networkguy]

If you suspect a corrupted .pst file there are two things you can do. One is
to run the scanpst.exe utility against that .pst file (do a search of your
drive and you'll find scanpst.exe). Secondly log in as a different person,
create a completely different Outlook profile and see what happens. Of
course you won't have any emails there so I don't know how helpful this
advice will be.

Best of luck - Dale

 

[Ian21a]

Dale
Thanks alot for that. I didn't know about scanpst.exe. Annoyingly it
reported no errors with the pst file.
I did however try logging into the Guest account and interestingly Outlook
was behaving perfectly. So what I'm going to try is exporting the varaious
elements of my Outlook file (ie Calendar, Contacts, Tasks and Email folders)
seperately, create a clean pst file and then import the elements one by one
and try and work out which element is causing the lag. I find it hard to
believe that a 17Mb pst file is too big for Outlook to handle properly.
I'll post the results here if you're interested. But if you have any other
thoughts please share them!
Cheers
Ian

 

[Rainer]

I had exactly the same problem!!

Beleve it or not, I found that uninstalling the MediaDirect software (that
came preinstalled on my new Dell notebook) solved the problem.

Try it!

 

[Ian21a]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!
Finally the problem is solved. I'll send an email to Dell about it.
Great work. How the heck did you think to try that????
Ian

 

[Brianw]

thanks Rainer - I had the same problem with outlook 2007 on my new Dell 6400
running vista. seems that dell decided not to fix the problem. Again thanks.

 

[Rider]

Thanks ian and Rainer - I had same problem on Outlook 2003 on my Dell XPS
M1210. I can't believe Dell and/or MS have not responded to this problem. I
saw a lot of people describing same symptons. I am glad I found your thread
before I wasted too many hours. Thanks again.