Computers in IADT - you'd see more activity watching a snail do a lap of the campus.

hatrickpatrick

Seriously, does anyone else share my rage with regard to this?
The computers here behave as if they were built in the 70s, have <1mb ram and cpu speed smaller than the planck length.

Here's a brief summery of my day today:
16:30~: Arrive in the library, prepared for maybe 2-2 and a half hours of working on a 3dsmax project and a bit of After Effects.
16:32: Find a free computer with a decent wheelie chair (essential, imo) and sit down, enter student number and password, and prepare for what should be an interesting dive into the world of 3D modelling.
16:37: "Applying personal settings". Meh. Leaf through phone reminders to see if there's anything interesting on later, sure it'll only be a minute.
16:39: "Loading Security Settings". Ok, fair enough. Big enough college, probably important to protect everyone's data. Can live with that. Into phone drafts, quick glance at that song I'm writing, lyrics coming along well I guess...
16:42: Ah, the box has disappeared at last. Desktop background appears. Great, now I can... Oh hang on, no start menu yet. Hmmm... Ah sure just give it a second.
16:46: "personalizing settings for Microsoft Office". Alright I suppose this one is important, although my home computer only did this the first time I used it and I never had to sit through it again...
16:50: Ah, the start menu. Great, here we go then. Click.
*nothing happens*
16:52: Clicked the start menu 2 minutes ago, still no acknowledgement from the computer.
16:53: The start button is now in the 'pressed' graphic but no menu yet...
16:55: C'mon, this is... Oh wait, there's the menu. Ok then, "all programs".
16:57: .....Still waiting on "all programs". Massive white box on the screen where, in due course, the menu will surely appear.
16:58: Right, here we go: Autodesk > 3dsMax.
17:08: Opened 3dsmax 10 minutes ago. Computer is now totally unresponsive, task manager says 100% CPU usage, but absolutely no acknowledgement whatsoever that 3dsMax is, in fact, going to open any time soon.
17:13: Still no acknowledgement. Might as well check google news while I'm waiting, see if the government's still clinging on. Eh... Better not go the start menu route again, actually... *clicks IE icon on desk, as firefox never works here*
17:17: Ok. May have made a mistake clicking on IE. Icon still isn't even highlighted and the entire computer has become completely unresponsive once more.
17:20: White rectangle has appeared in the middle of the screen. Presumably, this is where 3dsMax' loading screen will emerge. IE has finally gone dark.
17:21: *double clicks IE*
17:25: Ok. Double clicking IE may have been a massive mistake. No sign of it, explorer.exe now not responding, 3dsMax loading screen still AWOL, white rectangle still there...
17:30: Ah c'mon, this is fetting f*cking old. 3dsMax loading screen has appeared. Loaded 2% in 3 minutes. Giagantic white box where, I assume, IE is going to appear.
17:45: Max loaded at last. IE never really worked, got as far as my home page, then it crashed again when trying to type "google" into the url bar. Got as far as "goo" and stopped responding.
17:47: File > Open > Chess board.
17:52: Chess board still not loaded. Again, nothing now responding. CPU 100%.
17:55: Chess board open. Pawn, Bishop, Rook already there for me. Time for the knight I guess. Need to draw a spline, so click "spline".
18:00: Spline icon still not highlighted or anything. Unresponsive once more.
18:05: Ok, spline icon just went grey... 10 minutes later of course. Now, to start drawing.
18:06: Clicks the top of the pawn.
18:10: No acknowledgement yet that I've begun to draw. Nothing appearing. Task managed says 3dsMax "not responding".
18:15: Ah for F*CK'S SAKE!!!!! This is getting OLD.
18:17: Can finally start drawing the spline. Oh wait, wait a minute... Mouse now frozen too. Entire computer grinding to a halt.
18:19: Right, this time it'll surely wor... Oops sorry, didn't mean to upset you there Mr computer, didn't realize that trying to scroll down a bit to draw the bottom of the thing would be such a huge effort. Not responding again.
18:25: Still not responding.
18:27: F*ck this, may as well just go and rant about this $#!tty day on Boards. *forces 3dsMax to quit after waiting several minutes for it to close normally to no avail*

Right. That's today. Every single day I've attempted to work on anything involving either 3ds Max or ANY of the adobe CS4 programs I've had the exact same sh!te experience. What the HELL is going on? I didn't get to submit one of my projects coming up to Christmas simply because I spent almost three full days in here trying to do something in 3ds max, no luck, same with after effects. For a college with so many animation and multimedia courses, why the hell are they expecting us to work with machines which take longer to add two and two than Deep Thought took to contemplate the meaning of life?
Is anyone else mind numbingly frustrated with this? It was crappy when I started here 2 years ago but it's only got worse, and worse, and worse, and this year it's got to the point where I find it ridiculously stressful and anger-inducing to even attempt to start anything in the library or in any of the labs. The network is a disgrace. The state of the system has ruined my mood on so many otherwise great days I can't even count them.

What exactly is the problem, anyway? What's wrong with them? They look modern enough,m they allegedly have a good amount of RAM, they have tons of disk space, some of them seem to have dual core CPUs...
What explanation is there for the crappiness? It's not just my account, everyone in my class has complained about this since the dawn of time. It's any computer in any room in the entire college. It's like trying to write a page of text with a pen which only produces droplets of ink every 5 to 10 seconds, or trying to watch TV with a box which takes 15 minutes to switch from RTE 1 to RTE 2. God forbid you'd even attempt to go to something like Film Four, the whole thing seems like it could actually have a meltdown if you put it under that amount of duress.

Anyone else? Please??? I need someone to confirm that my rage is justified

Pigeon Reaper

It was that way when I studied there. The head of IT was never up to much and the computers aren't looked after correctly.

Rhyme

The computers in the library are crap because, for the most part, they are the cast-offs from the dedicated computer rooms such as A024, A026, Animation and film/sound computer rooms.

If you're looking to do a large 3dsMax project then I suggest you find what other computer rooms you can use and use them instead of the library.

hatrickpatrick

^^^ As I said,I've tried pretty much everywhere. Best ones I've found are in A012 (literally the room next to the front door) but they're close to as bad...

Cunning Alias

It was the same when I was there. Grab yourself a 3rd or 4th year multimedia student. We always knew where the best pcs were for specific programs.

We had a module in 3dmax at one stage in one of the A rooms under the stairs. The machines there and been upgraded for it. The AVMT students were always in there too when they were working on video projects.

awesom_o

I lost my password for the computers, does anyone know who I should go to?

Rhyme

awesom_o wrote: »

I lost my password for the computers, does anyone know who I should go to?

There's a machine in the library (turn right when you go in the door) that you swipe your card in and enter your date of birth and it sends you a new password via text.

The body in the library

There is an help desk for computers and printing in the Library. Did you report the problems there?

awesom_o

Thanks for the help
Turns out my password expired though, and I just had to update it on one of the windows PC's in the library.

Twee.

awesom_o wrote: »

Thanks for the help
Turns out my password expired though, and I just had to update it on one of the windows PC's in the library.

I'm out on work placement and my password ran out :rolleyes: Had to make a three hour round journey to change the damn thing. I've asked around and no one in other colleges has to change their passwords regularly.


I agree that the computer services are ridiculous. We had a proper discussion at the last course council meeting where instead of saying "the computers are crap" we listed all our grievances and even supplied easy solutions to them. Here's hoping they're taken into consideration.


Don't get me started on the printers.

MadPilot45

Yea I would suggest using the Carriglea rooms, they are free mainly in the mornings and late afternoons / evenings and have high spec machines... film students seem to use them a lot to do course work etc.

Rhyme

Serves me right for not checking my hotmail account more frequently because this turned up on the 27th of January;

Good afternoon,
I am are aware of this issue raised on Boards. I am investigating it as it does not seem to have been brought to my attention as Librarian previously. Can this reply be posted on Boards?
Thank you
Deirdre Judge
Librarian

Twee.

Got an email today from Joe (SU president) stating that you can now print from Windows laptops to college printers (no use for us Mac users!!!!). It does say though that it has nothing to with the IT Dept, so don't ask them for help I don't know if it's been announced campus wide as I'm out on work placement at the moment, but got the email as I'm class rep.

There's a long attachment with a download link so if anyone wants it just PM me here with your email address.

melissavm

This might sound a bit ridiculous but I find the squeaking mouses the most annoying thing, even more annoying than the slow cpu! I can't help but feel like i'm annoying everyone around me when I go on the computers in the library to do a bit of photoshop or even just a few print jobs. Not to mention I've had more failures than successes in this college with those printers!