Posted by Greg Lessard on June 19, 2011 at 2:55 PM
I have been re reading many of the old threads about computers and the best options for being able to use them for editing photos without getting bogged down. I went to Best Buy today and peppered them with questions and they had some interesting answers that left me with even more questions.
My computer is a HP G60 laptop (I know desktops are better) with 3 gigs of ram, 300 gb hard drive, pentium dual core processor, t4200 at 2.oo ghz. It is getting slower and slower, particularly with 16mb RAW files. Downloading photos takes forever. Even with a Sandisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-1 card 45mb per sec. 300x write speed memory card. Processing photos with CS3 is tedious to say the least. I try to keep at least 70 Gigs of hard drive space free and as far as I know, my computer is virus and spyware free.
After reading the threads and talking with the guys at Best Buy, this is what I think I know:
1. My computer is supposedly only able to handle 3GB of RAM. So adding more RAM is not supposed to help. This leads me to think that I would want to replace the laptop.
2. One of the Best Buy staff members told me that with USB 3.O which will be fully unleashed next winter, combined with new SD cards that can hold hundreds of GB (also coming out next winter), that computers will no longer have hard drives. Instead, they will use SD cards as their hard drives.
If the guy at Best Buy is correct about this new upgrade in technology, it leaves me wondering if I should just hang on to my slow laptop for 6 more months and switch then. This unfortuntaley does not solve my slow computer problem.
Does anyone understand what I am writing about? Do you have any advice? If you recommend buying a new laptop, what do you recommend? I can't afford the Puget systems. I'd like to keep it well under $1000, which I know severely limits my choices.
Thank you for reading through this and thank you for your thoughts!
Posted by Greg Lessard on June 19, 2011 at 3:35 PM
Ok. So I misunderstood the part about the amount of RAM my computer can use. It can use up to 3.3 gigs of RAM, when it has 4 Gigs of RAM in it. My computer currently has 3 Gigs of RAM. So, a cheap option is to add a 4th Gig of RAM. Does anyone have any better ideas?
Greg, how is your laptop working with other things like Internet use? Has it slowed down there as well?
Have you added any programs that might be running in the background? What virus protection and firewall software do you use? Have you tried any of the online sites like http://www.pcpitstop.com/ to check why your computer might be running slow?
1. USB 3.0 and a SD card will not be fast enough. Don't waste your money. (more on this in a minute)
2. If your computer will accept more RAM--buy it.
3. Have you run deep scans for viruses, and other malware?
4. Have you defragmented the hard drive lately?
5. Free up space on your HD by uninstalling programs you don't use. Windows and PhotoShop use hard disk space for the page file and scratch disk, respectively. If you are low on disk space, this will slow things down.
6. Disable, or set to run manually, Windows services you don't need. This excellent site should be your stop before doing this: Black Viper
If you decide to get a new laptop, take a serious look at Solid State Drives (SSD) they are very fast because there are no moving parts like a regular HD. SSD are much more expensive that regular HD's, but the prices are coming down.
Notes on USB 3 and SD cards: Honestly, I don't think such a setup will be fast enough for imaging work. Sure, it would be fine for word processing, web browser, etc., but imo, a fast eSata HD or SSD drive on a machine with lots of RAM, and a quad core CPU running Windows 7 64-bit, will be more efficient.
Number 1 should be clean out the registry! Download and run "ccleaner"... it's free and does a good job.
And as for what the guys at Best Buy said about high capacity SD cards replacing hard drives, that's probably going to be true eventually (and sort of is going on already with the Solid State Drives, SSDs, that Preston mentioned). But they're likely to be really expensive for the next few years. A couple of years ago, people thought SSDs meant the death of the regular hard drive - and that still hasn't happened yet. (A 500 GB SSD will still cost you over $700, where the same sized laptop hard drive is about $70.)
Davids' comment about cleaning the registry brought up another point I'd like to make.
Prior to uninstalling programs, tweaking Windows services, or cleaning the registry, be sure to create system restore points. That way, if something goes south, you can revert back to the earlier (good) state of your system.
I've heard good things about ccleaner. I've used PC Tools Registry Mechanic and found it to work well. Registry Mech is not free, though.
Also, be sure to clean up your disk. Delete temporary files, temporaray Internet files, delete or store elsewhere unused old files, empty the recycle bin and then defrag your HD.
The advice offered to thresh out your Windows files and components is good. I'll only say that the suggestion you received from a retail salesperson about SD cards and USB3 being the future is not astute. As noted, SD cards are relatively slow, especially for system and application software. Also, SD cards get lost, left in the washing machine, and just fall apart. Some brands are cheaply manufactured. That ain't a functional future.
As shown by the MacBook Air, internal SSD drives are already viable, especially for apps and some key data. My guess is that cloud storage for your images will be more popular as the interfaces coninue to be easy to use and the infrastructure gets more reliable.
Something that hasn't been noted yet is that you need to use what's called a scratch disk for when you don't have enough RAM to work with your images. Ideally, this would involve using a second hard drive without Windows on it.
One thing that may help is cleaning out the temp. files that PS may have left on your hard drive when it uses it as a scratch disk. These temporary files will be named "~PST####.tmp" where "####" represents four numbers. If you're unsure whether there are temp. files left on your system, try running a file search by clicking on the Start Menu, and selecting 'Search->For Files or Folders...'. You can then search for files with names containing "~PST" and then delete them when PS isn't running.
Honestly, if you're serious about image editing, you should buy a desktop with a good quality monitor that can be calibrated, have at least two fast hard drives and 8+GB of RAM.
Honestly, if you're serious about image editing, you should buy a desktop with a good quality monitor that can be calibrated, have at least two fast hard drives and 8+GB of RAM.
I will second John's recommendation. Laptops were not really designed for serious image editing unless you spend a geat deal of money. Sure, you could buy external eSata drives and a wide gamut monitor for a cheaper laptop, but this would not be cost effective. There is also the issue of heat. A laptop with a powerful CPU. lots of RAM, big hard drive and dedicated video card will run pretty hot, and heat is the enemy of electronics. A desktop machine can be built that accommodates powerful components, can be adequately cooled, and while expensive, won't break the bank.
You mentioned that a Puget Systems machine is not affordable. Perhaps not, but I suggest that you go their website, create an account and work with them to develop a quote for a solid desktop. They are very responsive to a user's needs, and from my personal experience, they will do all they can to help you. (Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Puget Systems. I am just a very happy customer). If you would like, you can read my review and check the specs for my new computer in the Gear Reviews Forum here at NPN.
--P
Posted by Steve Kennedy on June 20, 2011 at 12:39 PM
All the advise above is very good, but one often over looked potential cause for slow speed is a fragmented hard drive. If you have not been running your defrag utility, I suggest giving it a try. It comes free with Windows and can make a significant difference. There are several ways to get to the Disk Defragmentor tool - one is go to the Start menu, select All Programs/Accessories/System Tools.
I'm not a PC user, but to the extent my experience on the dark side can apply to you, the key for me is that performance has been degrading over time. That spells software issues or as Steve suggests, hard drive fragmentation.
With all else kept the same I seriously doubt that adding RAM will meaningfully restore your laptop to the good old days. Even if you replaced the computer entirely, I think you would sooner or later get into the same bind with the new machine. Exploring the solutions suggested here will not only improve your existing machine, it will help you develop precautions against the same thing happening once again whenever you are able to replace your laptop.
FWIW, I've been down the same path on Macs, and it always turned out to be software pollution rather than hardware failure.
Honestly, if you're serious about image editing, you should buy a desktop with a good quality monitor that can be calibrated, have at least two fast hard drives and 8+GB of RAM.
I'll dissent here I guess. It really depends on what you consider "serious" and what kind of speed requirements you have. I've never run Photoshop on anything but a laptop, since that's what I want for my home computer. I do stick to high end PC laptops with very good screens. And I think I'm fairly serious about image editing, although I don't sell anything and don't shoot nearly as much as a lot of folks on here (and am therefore probably not as picky either).
That being said, you can still do good work on a good laptop. Mine is a couple of year old dual core machine with 4 GB of RAM (probably soon to be 8 GB), and a full RGB LED backlit 1080p LCD (calibrated, of course). I've done 20+ shot panos on it, edited thousands of RAW files, and definitely pushed it around some. Large pano stitiching does take minutes, to tens of minutes for the really big ones. Many layered PSDs can be a bit slow as well.
Since you're used to a laptop, Greg, following the advice here will give you the best performance you can. Since I've started regular maintanance on my laptops as far as the registry, services, bloat-ware, regular spy-ware checks, etc. I haven't seen the slow down over time that most people complain about.
If that's still not enough, desktops are the best way to go in bang for the buck (and the highest quality editing environment).
Greg, while a go I had a similar problem with my laptop. I did more ram on it and it did help slightly for a short time, but started to slow down and freeze most of the time. I didn't want to spend lots of money, then I bought a second had MacBook from a photographer in a club with lots of photo editing programs installed for a price of a mid range laptop, I have never had a virus problem and it is always in good working condition. Very happy about it.
Maybe this is another option for you to look for a used decent apple pro!!
I use two Mac laptops, one with 4GB, the other with 8GB RAM. While SSD and processing speed will help, once you use up all your RAM (frequently in the case of 4GB RAM), the effect is like running into a wall. For Photoshop I believe that RAM is king.
One thing I forgot to mention is programs that run at start up. These eat up RAM. To see these on a Windows box: Start>Run. In the Run dialog type the following (without quotes) "msconfig". Next, select the 'Startup' tab. You will see a list of all the programs that run when Windows starts. Note that you need 'Administrator' privileges, here.
(Note also that most of the programs that run at start up do not appear in Start>All Programs>Startup. That's why you'll need to use msconfig to see them)
There will likely be programs listed that you do not need, some of which may be malware (hopefully not). Now, got to SysInfo.org and look up each startup program in the msconfig list.
If any on your list are malware, you'll have to get rid of it. Other programs may be required, others may not. You'll have to decide whether or not to disable them, which you can do easily in the msconfig dialog box. If you do disable a program, do so one at at a time. Reboot each time and then look to see if disabling a program causes problems. If you run into an issue, run msconfig again, re-enable the program and then reboot.
I know this is kind of a pain, but disabling programs that run at startup that are not needed will save precious RAM for other uses.
That's why I recommended it. There's lots of other good info there, as well. I found it very helpful
In fact, some time ago, on an XP machine, my WMI (Windows Managemnt Instrumentation) service got corrupted. Using a command line procedure I found on Black Viper, I was able to fix it. It was pretty obscure, to say the least.
I wonder if Greg has followed up on any of the suggestions, and what the results are?
Discussion
16 repliesMy computer is a HP G60 laptop (I know desktops are better) with 3 gigs of ram, 300 gb hard drive, pentium dual core processor, t4200 at 2.oo ghz. It is getting slower and slower, particularly with 16mb RAW files. Downloading photos takes forever. Even with a Sandisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-1 card 45mb per sec. 300x write speed memory card. Processing photos with CS3 is tedious to say the least. I try to keep at least 70 Gigs of hard drive space free and as far as I know, my computer is virus and spyware free.
After reading the threads and talking with the guys at Best Buy, this is what I think I know:
1. My computer is supposedly only able to handle 3GB of RAM. So adding more RAM is not supposed to help. This leads me to think that I would want to replace the laptop.
2. One of the Best Buy staff members told me that with USB 3.O which will be fully unleashed next winter, combined with new SD cards that can hold hundreds of GB (also coming out next winter), that computers will no longer have hard drives. Instead, they will use SD cards as their hard drives.
If the guy at Best Buy is correct about this new upgrade in technology, it leaves me wondering if I should just hang on to my slow laptop for 6 more months and switch then. This unfortuntaley does not solve my slow computer problem.
Does anyone understand what I am writing about? Do you have any advice? If you recommend buying a new laptop, what do you recommend? I can't afford the Puget systems. I'd like to keep it well under $1000, which I know severely limits my choices.
Thank you for reading through this and thank you for your thoughts!
Thanks,
Greg
Have you added any programs that might be running in the background? What virus protection and firewall software do you use? Have you tried any of the online sites like http://www.pcpitstop.com/ to check why your computer might be running slow?
1. USB 3.0 and a SD card will not be fast enough. Don't waste your money. (more on this in a minute)
2. If your computer will accept more RAM--buy it.
3. Have you run deep scans for viruses, and other malware?
4. Have you defragmented the hard drive lately?
5. Free up space on your HD by uninstalling programs you don't use. Windows and PhotoShop use hard disk space for the page file and scratch disk, respectively. If you are low on disk space, this will slow things down.
6. Disable, or set to run manually, Windows services you don't need. This excellent site should be your stop before doing this: Black Viper
If you decide to get a new laptop, take a serious look at Solid State Drives (SSD) they are very fast because there are no moving parts like a regular HD. SSD are much more expensive that regular HD's, but the prices are coming down.
Notes on USB 3 and SD cards: Honestly, I don't think such a setup will be fast enough for imaging work. Sure, it would be fine for word processing, web browser, etc., but imo, a fast eSata HD or SSD drive on a machine with lots of RAM, and a quad core CPU running Windows 7 64-bit, will be more efficient.
--P
And as for what the guys at Best Buy said about high capacity SD cards replacing hard drives, that's probably going to be true eventually (and sort of is going on already with the Solid State Drives, SSDs, that Preston mentioned). But they're likely to be really expensive for the next few years. A couple of years ago, people thought SSDs meant the death of the regular hard drive - and that still hasn't happened yet. (A 500 GB SSD will still cost you over $700, where the same sized laptop hard drive is about $70.)
Prior to uninstalling programs, tweaking Windows services, or cleaning the registry, be sure to create system restore points. That way, if something goes south, you can revert back to the earlier (good) state of your system.
I've heard good things about ccleaner. I've used PC Tools Registry Mechanic and found it to work well. Registry Mech is not free, though.
Also, be sure to clean up your disk. Delete temporary files, temporaray Internet files, delete or store elsewhere unused old files, empty the recycle bin and then defrag your HD.
-P
As shown by the MacBook Air, internal SSD drives are already viable, especially for apps and some key data. My guess is that cloud storage for your images will be more popular as the interfaces coninue to be easy to use and the infrastructure gets more reliable.
ME
One thing that may help is cleaning out the temp. files that PS may have left on your hard drive when it uses it as a scratch disk. These temporary files will be named "~PST####.tmp" where "####" represents four numbers. If you're unsure whether there are temp. files left on your system, try running a file search by clicking on the Start Menu, and selecting 'Search->For Files or Folders...'. You can then search for files with names containing "~PST" and then delete them when PS isn't running.
Honestly, if you're serious about image editing, you should buy a desktop with a good quality monitor that can be calibrated, have at least two fast hard drives and 8+GB of RAM.
I will second John's recommendation. Laptops were not really designed for serious image editing unless you spend a geat deal of money. Sure, you could buy external eSata drives and a wide gamut monitor for a cheaper laptop, but this would not be cost effective. There is also the issue of heat. A laptop with a powerful CPU. lots of RAM, big hard drive and dedicated video card will run pretty hot, and heat is the enemy of electronics. A desktop machine can be built that accommodates powerful components, can be adequately cooled, and while expensive, won't break the bank.
You mentioned that a Puget Systems machine is not affordable. Perhaps not, but I suggest that you go their website, create an account and work with them to develop a quote for a solid desktop. They are very responsive to a user's needs, and from my personal experience, they will do all they can to help you. (Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Puget Systems. I am just a very happy customer). If you would like, you can read my review and check the specs for my new computer in the Gear Reviews Forum here at NPN.
--P
With all else kept the same I seriously doubt that adding RAM will meaningfully restore your laptop to the good old days. Even if you replaced the computer entirely, I think you would sooner or later get into the same bind with the new machine. Exploring the solutions suggested here will not only improve your existing machine, it will help you develop precautions against the same thing happening once again whenever you are able to replace your laptop.
FWIW, I've been down the same path on Macs, and it always turned out to be software pollution rather than hardware failure.
I'll dissent here I guess. It really depends on what you consider "serious" and what kind of speed requirements you have. I've never run Photoshop on anything but a laptop, since that's what I want for my home computer. I do stick to high end PC laptops with very good screens. And I think I'm fairly serious about image editing, although I don't sell anything and don't shoot nearly as much as a lot of folks on here (and am therefore probably not as picky either).
That being said, you can still do good work on a good laptop. Mine is a couple of year old dual core machine with 4 GB of RAM (probably soon to be 8 GB), and a full RGB LED backlit 1080p LCD (calibrated, of course). I've done 20+ shot panos on it, edited thousands of RAW files, and definitely pushed it around some. Large pano stitiching does take minutes, to tens of minutes for the really big ones. Many layered PSDs can be a bit slow as well.
Since you're used to a laptop, Greg, following the advice here will give you the best performance you can. Since I've started regular maintanance on my laptops as far as the registry, services, bloat-ware, regular spy-ware checks, etc. I haven't seen the slow down over time that most people complain about.
If that's still not enough, desktops are the best way to go in bang for the buck (and the highest quality editing environment).
Maybe this is another option for you to look for a used decent apple pro!!
(Note also that most of the programs that run at start up do not appear in Start>All Programs>Startup. That's why you'll need to use msconfig to see them)
There will likely be programs listed that you do not need, some of which may be malware (hopefully not). Now, got to SysInfo.org and look up each startup program in the msconfig list.
If any on your list are malware, you'll have to get rid of it. Other programs may be required, others may not. You'll have to decide whether or not to disable them, which you can do easily in the msconfig dialog box. If you do disable a program, do so one at at a time. Reboot each time and then look to see if disabling a program causes problems. If you run into an issue, run msconfig again, re-enable the program and then reboot.
I know this is kind of a pain, but disabling programs that run at startup that are not needed will save precious RAM for other uses.
--P
That's why I recommended it. There's lots of other good info there, as well. I found it very helpful
In fact, some time ago, on an XP machine, my WMI (Windows Managemnt Instrumentation) service got corrupted. Using a command line procedure I found on Black Viper, I was able to fix it. It was pretty obscure, to say the least.
I wonder if Greg has followed up on any of the suggestions, and what the results are?
--P