If chips and discs use electrons to transmit, store and read information, and electrons can move at near light speed, why does a computer function so slowly sometimes? Can’t it process all the information within an indiscernible time duration without causing any visible lag? What causes the clog?
This is not the same scenario as Internet lag, because I searched in this subreddit and found answers that on the Internet, numerous small time intervals across the globe can accumulate and make a great mess, even at light speed. This question is relevant with local computing.
In: Engineering
Computers are made of microprocessors. They can do a limited number of calculations per second. While the speed of light is a factor, chips are built to be throttled at a set speed with a clock. This is why you see chips rated something like 2.1 GHz (two billion operations per second.)
The first thing to understand is those calculations are small. Like adding two numbers together. If you want to add four numbers together, that’s three operations.
These clock cycles have to be spent on many things. Loading a file, that’s one thing in human terms, but may take millions of operations.
In short, they start to add up. One problem you also have with Windows computers is Windows will try to do a security scan, virus scan, and download operating system updates when you boot up, which is a monstrous amount of tasks that might take 30 minutes to complete. Then your computer is “bogged down” by too many operations. The hard drive is the slowest part of the computer. Many file operations (like a scan) take lots of real time. If that process is not throttled, and tries to work as fast as possible, then everything else the computer wants to do (which also uses files), gets bogged down. This is where load balancing can make a big difference.
Getting bogged down. It’s not fun.
Sometimes that’s a flaw in the operating system. Sometimes it’s the users fault. Sometimes it’s bad timing.
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