Most of us run optimizations overnight if they look like they’re going to take several hours (and as we mentioned in another tip, the optimizations that use the “Trading strategy:..” indicators definitely take some time.) But many of you may be surprised to find out that your computer can actually stop or slow your optimization without your knowledge, leaving you wondering in the morning why things didn’t go farther!

The culprits are scheduled maintenance tasks, and sometimes power management.

Your computer probably schedules things like disk defragmentation during the night. That can conflict with optimization so much that almost no optimization can take place. We aren’t even sure that optimization isn’t shut off entirely.

Power management schemes vary from computer to computer, and we don’t claim to know exactly how any particular hardware works. However, we know that various power schemes shut down monitors, hard disks, and even the processor in ways we don’t begin to understand. Obviously, shutting down the monitor isn’t an issue, but any messing with the processor can be.

Our advice? If you are at all serious about optimizing, turn off the scheduled maintenance activities that are likely to happen when you are optimizing. Turn off the power saving mechanisms that could affect the processor, and disks (you may need virtual memory). On Windows 98, look in “My Computer” for the Scheduled Tasks and in the Control Panel for Power Management. On Windows ME, 2000, and XP, we found Power Options and Scheduled Tasks both in the Control Panel.