Response / Response Time

Response time usually refers to a user's subjective assessment of a computers 'response' to their request. Such requests could be to logon to the network, or could be to receive the confirmation code following entry of a transaction. The response time of a system results from the interaction of multiple components and not simple the 'power' of the computer itself (although this helps!) There could be massive contention across the network, or there could be heavy processing taking place on resulting in little available 'CPU' time to deal with your request. One way of improving response time, is to increase the priority of the process which you are running. However, such techniques are not adviseable, unless you are the System Administrator and have a good understanding of the impact such re-prioritisation may have.