SMARTBoard delay and Notebook loading times

[dunc]

Hi all,

 

We're having a bit of a nightmare with some of our SMARTBoards around school.

 

Two issues at hand.

 

Firstly, seemingly at random, there is huge lag on writing in SMART Notebook (latest version as of writing). When the user writes, the ink appears ~5 seconds later.

 

When we first encountered this problem we removed every bit of SMART software on the machine, ensured all machine drivers were up to date etc. then reinstalled the latest version of SMART Notebook and drivers. We also tried going back to an earlier set of drivers (but using the latest version of Notebook). That seemed to relieve the problem but it's still occasionally there.

 

Secondly, the loading time for SMART Notebook when it's first used after logging on is massive. We're talking a minimum of 90 seconds on Core 2 Duo machines with 2Gb RAM.

 

I can see posts like this but there appears to be no solutions.

 

We've got three boards/machines doing it around school at the moment. Has anyone had similar problems? More importantly, has anyone come up with a solution!?

 

Cheers!

Edited April 29, 2014 by dunc

[Tob]

In the past I had similar problems with Smart Notebook 10. Back then Notebook tried to connect secretly to a server from Smart in order check if the software is used with a valid activation. This failed because we used some child protection software which blocked this connection.

 

Someone from Smart told me back then, this validation check will be gone as soon as Notebook will use watermaks on computers not connected with a Smart Board. Our school stopped using Smart Notebook a year ago (we switched to Easiteach NG). Because of this I am not sure, if this problem still exists with current versions. But you might want to try out to disable your firewall/child protection software/external dns service and check if this "solves" your problem.

[dunc]

Hmmm, interesting. We do use Policy Central Enterprise. I wonder if that's causing the problems?

 

It appears to only occur in the actual SMART Notebook software. I'm aiming to do some more diagnosis after school today.

 

Does anyone have any other suggestions for me to try while I'm there?

[jallsop]

We don't install SMART notebook on machines with less than 4Gb RAM, and at least a Quad core as the load times are dreadful.