Processor lag with 2 Gs of RAM? What am I doing wrong?

[Michele]

Hi guys,

I recently switched from Mac to PC and I'm hoping this is due to some inexperience on my part.

Bottom line, I simply cannot get my Dell 8300 3.2 Ghz with 2 GIGs of RAM (Radeon 9800 Vid Card) to perform as well with graphics as my Dual 1 Ghz Mac w/ 1.5 GIGs RAM and 64M vid card did. And the difference is significant.

The processor lags as a general rule. Slow to open folders, windows, hyperlinks, etc. It's particularly hurting me in professional-level graphics apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, Painter, etc. The processor cannot keep up with the cursor - there's a 2 or
3 sec lag. What's really strange is that it can barely even run Photoshop...with nothing else running. It takes forever to open a file and forever to save it. Nuts. I need to be able to toggle between several apps with heavy files to stay productive. I hav
e latest updates on everything.

I assumed I didn't have enough RAM, so I upped it to 2 GIGs with little change. The first GIG of Ram I'd used was Kingston HyperX. I swapped out for 4, 512 sticks of Kingston Value RAM, PC3200.

The Mac system could run PS, Illustrator, Internet and email together seamlessly and without processor delay. Opening files on my backup firewire is tough as well. The Mac opened these heavy files in under 10 seconds - it takes the PC 3 minutes, and it str
ains to paint the screen.

I KNOW this is a good machine. What am I doing wrong? Do I need yet more RAM?

Prayers for any form of rescue,

Michele

[michael]

u might have to check the bios as to what the maximum ram it can handle because ram can be bad if u over do it, also check how much u have starting up, the processor might be getting wieghed down by hundreds of tasks

[Michele]

Michael,

I'm a new user and haven't a clue what a bio is or how to check it. Everything's still pretty alien. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Michele

[Sharon F]

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 22:01:06 -0800, Michele wrote:

> Bottom line, I simply cannot get my Dell 8300 3.2 Ghz with 2 GIGs of RAM
> (Radeon 9800 Vid Card) to perform as well with graphics as my Dual 1 Ghz
> Mac w/ 1.5 GIGs RAM and 64M vid card did. And the difference is
> significant.

> The processor lags as a general rule. Slow to open folders, windows,
> hyperlinks, etc. It's particularly hurting me in professional-level
> graphics apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, Painter, etc. The processor
> cannot keep up with the cursor - there's a 2 or 3 sec lag. What's really
> strange is that it can barely even run Photoshop...with nothing else
> running. It takes forever to open a file and forever to save it. Nuts. I
> need to be able to toggle between several apps with heavy files to stay
> productive. I have latest updates on everything.

It pains me to say this: PCs have been closing the gap in graphics
performance but Macs are still in the lead. Still, you should be seeing
better performance with the setup that you have. I have an older 1.1
processor and only 768MB of RAM and Photoshop, Illustrator and Painter all
behave quite well on this setup.

> I KNOW this is a good machine. What am I doing wrong? Do I need yet more RAM?

I think I would start by looking at what's allowed to run when Windows is
first started. Many, many programs like to add themselves to this portion
of your Windows configuration. You can check on what's currently being
allowed to load by clicking Start> Run and typing in MSCONFIG.

In the window that appears, click on the Startup tab and review the items
listed. Some of the things in this list you will want running all of the
time: items that give added support to your hardware (scanners, tablet
input devices, etc), virus protection, firewall, etc. Many others items are
not necessary and can be disabled. Run these extras manually as you need
them instead of all of the time. Examples: help apps supplied by the PC
manufacturer, reminder programs.

Photoshop: Suggest checking with them for tips on tweaking PS performance
under XP. Have read quite a few posts that mention that the thumbnail
browser that integrates into the Windows shell can cause slowness when
accessing folders and files. Solution has been to disable this feature.

Since you often work with large files, you may want to run the disk
defragmenter more frequently. You may also want to consider a second drive
with at least a partition dedicated as the scratch file for PS.

--
Sharon F
MS MVP - Windows XP Shell/User

[walt]

You may want to post to the XP Photos
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups/reader.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsxp.photos&lang=en&cr=US
And see if John Inzer
Picture It! MVP
Can help you out.

[Sharon F]

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 12:36:08 -0800, Michele wrote:

> Sharon,
>
> Thank you for your comprehensive (and comprehensible) answer. I do have a firewire hard drive that I use as a PS scratch disk, but it was installed after-market and I've come to think it's sub-par. Three minutes to open a file? Do you think this may be
contributing to PS problems as well?
>
> Michele

Three minutes is way too long to open a single file. Don't know if the
firewire drive is a problem or not. You could try moving the PS scratch
disk to test. You can put it on the same drive as XP's pagefile. PS will
complain but it will go ahead and work with it.

Also, check your antivirus program's settings. Is it set to scan all file
types on open? If yes, you may want to use the a/v program options to
exclude the extensions for the image formats that you normally work with.

--
Sharon F
MS MVP - Windows XP Shell/User