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Laggy & crashy computer/photoshop


N

Noz03

Well-Known Member
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I really am not sure what is going on, but it seems to be related to files. The first time it happened was when I was working on an especially large file around 1gb and suddenly the whole computer started to lag to the point I was barely able to save it, mouse would barely move (refreshing every 2 seconds) and when I finally managed to click save it took more than 10 minutes.

Since then it seems to happen more and more, almost always when I'm using photoshop, but also seems to have some similar issue when I am viewing thumbnails of many/large files in explorer too, not sure if that is related or not. And once it starts to lag, only restarting will fix it.

Anyone have any idea what is going on?

My computer is a bit close to the minimums, although was totally fine until about a month ago.
Specs:
Code: 
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
       System Model: OptiPlex 755                 
               BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A20
          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E7300  @ 2.66GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
             Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 3956MB RAM
          Page File: 2144MB used, 7954MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\Windows
    DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
   User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
 System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
    DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
     DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 32bit Unicode
 
Hi, the problem you have is normal, when the file is big, more than 1gb ps consume a lot of ram and you only have 4gb.
I recently was working on a file of 4gb with the photoshop set on 90% ram use and used 11gb of my 16gb memory ram.

Cheers!
 
Last edited:
Argos said:
Hi, the problem you have is normal, when the file is big, more than 1gb ps consume a lot of ram and you only have 4gb.
I recently was working on a file of 4gb with the photoshop set on 90% ram use and used 11gb of my 16gb memory ram.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Well that is what I thought at first too, but it doesn't really explain why even after closing down the file/photoshop the computer is still lagging. Also, since the problem started I am having problems even with 500mb files which were always fine in the past. It also sometimes has problems outside of photoshop. I plan to upgrade my RAM very soon anyway, but I feel like there is another deeper reason behind it.
 
I assume that you are on Windows 7 32 Bit, if that is correct upgrading the memory will not make any difference, a 32 bit OS will only see a max of 4 GB of Ram, you will need to upgrade to the OS to 64 bit to benefit from more Ram
You say that you are having issues outside of Photoshop.
This can be caused by many things, issues with the Operating System, Viruses, Drivers out of date, Faulty Hardware, Corruption in the File System etc.
Do you have system restore points set? if so you could try going back to a restore point before these issues started happening, failing that a re-install of the OS may be required. If you decide to go down this route make sure you deactivate Photoshop first and have your serial number to hand to reactivate, unless you're using the Creative Cloud of course!
 
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In addition to the excellent list of possible, non-photoshop problems given by Gedstar in the previous post, have you performed basic diagnostics on your system such as checking your hard drive and file system (eg, using "chkdsk"), and once it has been established the hardware and file system are OK, checking and fixing the inevitable errors that accumulate in your registry (eg, using "CCleaner")?

Either of these problems, as well as those mentioned by Ged would explain a sudden degradation in the performance of your computer.

Tom M
 
Well it is very rare, or maybe just something else when the problem happens out of photoshop. Seems to definitely be related to photoshop, or maybe some part of my computer the photoshop is using.

I just downloaded CCleaner but not sure what to do with it...? I don't want to lose all my history and logins from websites, which seems what it is mostly designed for.

Oh and I do have 64bit windows 7. Will upgrade to 6gb ram and add a better gfx card soon, maybe that will help.
 
Although upgrading the Ram and GFX Card will help I don't think it will resolve the current issues you are experiencing.
You could try one thing, logging onto the PC with a different user account and see if you are experiencing the same issues, at least that way you can rule out a user profile issue and narrow it down a bit!
You could also trying running "sfc /scannow" with out the quotes, just type cmd on the Run Command and right click and choose Run As Administrator, type sfc /scannow and it return, let it run

And you could trying running this
http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/windows_repair_all_in_one.html

There's a free version to download on that page
 
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Ok it just happened again so I have a fresh experience to describe. And more importantly I wasn't using photoshop at the time. I was using photomatix while browsing photo folders in windows, specifically I was in a folder with about 100 raws and 1 or 2 500mb tif files. And everything started to lag, my music in firefox froze, I got unresponsive script errors, couldn't move the mouse etc. I closed down the window I was browsing in, and everything started to get better slowly, after 10 minutes it seems the computer is back to normal again.

So I am guessing this is something about image thumbnails in windows. Does anyone know a way I could globally disable thumbnails for certain file types to find out if that is really the problem. Or does anyone know what the problem could be?
 
I don't think there's a way to disable Thumbnails for certain file types, but you could try disabling for all and see if that helps
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11738-thumbnail-previews-enable-disable.html

Have you tried the above suggestions I mentioned, also take a look in Event Viewer, type enentvwr in the command prompt and take a look at the application and system events to see if anything is showing up.
Sounds to me like you may be having an issue with explorer.exe

You could also take a look at resource monitor to see what's processes are using what
http://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-use-resource-monitor-windows-7

Another thing is to run a hard drive diagnostic from the BIOS. Press F2 when PC is booting to enter the BIOS, you should be able to find the HD Diag tool there

To be honest with all the issues you're experiencing if it was me I would perform a clean install of Windows, it's a pain but worth it in the end!!!
 
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